advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 68 original paper analysis on the development of one-stop service for spice industry xinyan gao1 1 xi’an fanyi university, information engineering institute, xi’an, china fund project 2023 shaanxi university students innovation and entrepreneurship project (project no. x202312714076x) received: january 22, 2024 accepted: march 03, 2024 online published: march 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p68 abstract at present, china’s spice industry is in a fierce competition stage, and people’s demand for spices is also increasing, residents’ consumption is also improving, and more and more attention is paid to services. with the continuous development of information technology in china, this article with the development situation of the spice industry, proposed the measure of one-stop service, has an economic positive effect on the development of the spice industry, to help it improve its competitiveness in the market. keywords spices, one-stop service, analyze 1. introduction with the continuous improvement of material living standards, the improvement of residents’ quality of life, people’s need for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development of the problem has been improved, more and more people begin to pay attention to the improvement of quality of life, the pursuit of green and healthy food. the demand for high quality spices has increased. all the time, the spice industry has been developing and growing, the annual market sales have gradually increased, and the consumer behavior is extremely active. the market potential of the spice industry is huge, and its market size and consumer demand will continue to grow with the growth of the global population and the rise of income. according to a series of policy documents issued by the state council, the national development and reform commission and the ministry of industry and information technology successively, including www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. the “guiding opinions on accelerating the development of the spice industry” and the “14th five-year development plan” of the spice industry, it is proposed to give the powerful enterprises in the spice industry through policy support to strengthen infrastructure construction, so that they can enhance their independent innovation ability. in order to cultivate and form their own brand. spice industry in a variety of favorable policy support, china’s spice industry will usher in a good time for transformation and development, laying a solid foundation for further development. 2. overview of the spice industry the spice market is a huge market, and spices are indispensable seasonings in cooking, which can not only enhance the taste and nutritional value of food, but also extend the freshness life of food and save costs. including many different products, such as chili, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cloves and so on these products are widely used in a variety of different foods and beverages, from the market point of view, the spices market has a very broad prospect. as consumers have higher and higher requirements for the taste and quality of food and beverages, the demand for spices as condiments is also increasing. with the improvement of people’s health awareness and the increase of food safety requirements, the quality and safety of spices are also put forward higher requirements. therefore, one-stop purchasing of spices is of great significance. according to the current social development situation, consumers are paying more and more attention to healthy lifestyle. this trend has prompted the spice market to shift to a more natural and organic direction, and consumers’ demand for natural and organic foods is also increasing. the diversity and versatility of spices make them have broad application prospects in the development of new food and health care products. 3. the concept and characteristics of one-stop service one-stop service means that under the same platform or the same enterprise, through the integration of multiple related services or products, to provide consumers with a comprehensive, one-stop solution. a one-stop service integrates multiple related services or products to provide a variety of choices. it provides consumers with a convenient shopping experience. all services or products are managed and coordinated in a unified manner to ensure the consistency and quality of services. provide personalized solutions to consumers through data analysis and personalized recommendations. to provide efficient services by integrating supply chains, optimizing processes and improving distribution efficiency. create more value for consumers through integration and optimization. while integrating multiple services or products, it also integrates multiple vendors or service providers. consumers can transact under one trusted platform, increasing consumer trust. with the continuous strengthening of the government’s supervision of food safety, coupled with the acceleration of information technology in the catering industry, the demand for supply chain has become more and more, and the preservation of high-quality spices is inseparable from a complete industrial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 70 published by scholink inc. chain and one-stop service. a complete industrial chain helps the spice industry reduce costs, improve efficiency and ensure product quality and stability. spice products have a long shelf life, but processing is particularly important. in order to meet sales standards, spice products need to be processed quickly. as a bridge connecting upstream agricultural products and downstream catering enterprises, the core of product supply chain is the matching of supply and demand, with the main purpose of serving downstream catering enterprises to provide products required for operation. it procured initial raw materials from producers and completed the processing of standardized spices and semi-finished products through unified processing, cleaning, testing and standardized packaging. the integrity of the supply chain determines the core competitiveness of the future development of the enterprise. generally, for enterprises with a certain scale, the biggest advantage of establishing their own supply chain system is that they can improve their bargaining power through centralized large-scale procurement and intensive production, achieve high quality and low price of spice products, and reduce the cost of procurement, transportation, warehousing and other aspects. the self-established supply chain can minimize the safety risks of spices and form an intensive and standardized operation mode. with a complete industrial chain, from the origin of direct transport of spices to the factory, grinding, according to the ratio, small packaging processing, various industry information systems will have more links, can be linked to a relatively independent system and market segmentation, can rely on in-depth research and the advantages of some segments to win the market. 4. strategies and measures for the development of one-stop spice services with the continuous deepening of applications in various industries and departments, the personalization and diversification of user categories are becoming more and more abundant. the unified model of “big and complete” or “small and complete”, including the industry management system of the spice management module, will eventually be broken, and the specialized subdivision will become the general trend of the construction of projects related to spices. with a complete industrial chain, from the origin of direct transport of spices to the factory, grinding, according to the ratio, small packaging processing, various industry information systems will have more links, can be linked to a relatively independent system and market segmentation, can rely on in-depth research and the advantages of certain segments to win the market. the development of one-stop spice service is through the use of big data, cloud computing to establish an online system to form an online intelligent ingredient data chain, link the supply chain and small packaging, with low distribution costs of online intelligent supply chain, improve the transaction data of small and medium-sized enterprises, make the spice market more standardized. through digital management, strengthen the quality control of the catering industry. aiming at the supply chain of the national spice market, we will develop to the industry giant. at the same time, it uses intelligence and digitalization to establish a data system and collect user data. optimize supply chain management to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 71 published by scholink inc. achieve digital upgrade. use information technology to innovate production and sales models to meet the diversified, multi-level and personalized needs of chinese and foreign consumers for spice products. control product pricing, provide quality services for retail customers with small needs, have their own unique goods have market access advantages, and actively innovate in the entire industry to bring higher quality development for china’s spice industry. the supply of spices to small and medium-sized enterprises is a growing trend. smes play an important role in the food processing and catering industry, and they need high quality and diverse spices to make gourmet food. therefore, taking the role of supplier can take smes as an important customer group and provide them with high-quality and diversified spice products and services. it can also help smes improve their product quality and market competitiveness by establishing long-term cooperative relationships with them and providing a series of value-added services, including technical support, marketing and training. 5. research conclusions and prospects through one-stop service, it is possible to integrate the supply chain of the spice industry and optimize the process, improve procurement and production efficiency, and reduce costs and risks. consumers can enjoy faster and more accurate delivery services and improve their satisfaction. the one-stop service can integrate multiple spice suppliers and manufacturers to provide more variety selection and customization services. consumers can choose the right products and services according to their needs and preferences. the one-stop service can provide services such as quality inspection and product certification to ensure the quality and safety of products. consumers can buy, use and eat flavor products with confidence. the use of big data technology and artificial intelligence algorithms can provide consumers with personalized product recommendations and improve consumer satisfaction and loyalty. value-added services such as packaging customization, logistics distribution and after-sales service can be integrated to create more value for consumers. continue to improve the quality and packaging of products, constantly update with the times, keep different ratios of spices packages close to the public taste, expand the scale of material acquisition and business scale, expand overseas markets, have a fixed overseas purchase and resale market, sell chinese spices abroad, combine our unique flavor packages with foreign tastes, or improve them. with the development of society and economy, one-stop service has gone deeper and deeper into people’s life and entered the market. it has great benefits to drive the development of the whole spice market. the application prospect of one-stop service in the spice industry is very broad. by integrating the supply chain, improving efficiency, providing diversified choices, ensuring quality and providing personalized services, consumers can be provided with a higher quality, more convenient and more satisfying shopping experience, bringing more business opportunities and market share. of course, we should also fully consider the actual situation of the market, from different aspects of the research, the most total to achieve the rapid development of the spices industry, for the development of the market economy to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 72 published by scholink inc. provide protection and power. references cao, l. j., & liu, x. (2021). au large group enterprise purchase one-stop service platform. dongguan daily, 2021-09-08(a04). liu, g. q. (2021). create one-stop management platform to achieve fine management of scientific research process. china medical equipment, 36(06), 139-141. the new concept of “one-stop procurement” -shengquan’s participation in 2012 china international foundry expo. (2012). special casting and non-ferrous alloys. wang, h. (2023). exploration of centralized procurement management platform for scientific research reagents and consumables based on one-stop service. chinese journal of medical devices, 47(03), 351-354. yin, s. m., & wan, m. (2023). convenient one-stop purchasing a dragon worry-free service. nanchang journal, 2023-06-17(001). zhang, l., & yin, x. (2022). tongyu: building wind power industry chain “one-stop shopping” city. jilin journal, 2022-08-24(002). zhou, y. s., chen, y., & zhou, x. y. (2022). research on the construction of one-stop purchasing intelligent service system for community new retail platform. market forum, (04), 53-58. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 103 original paper the art of "implication beyond words" in chinese language hanshu zou1 1 renmin university of china, beijing, 100872, china received: november 11, 2024 accepted: december 17, 2024 online published: january 01, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p103 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p103 1. the implication beyond words in chinese it is widely acknowledged that throughout their independent development, various ethnic groups around the world have created languages and scripts that serve all members of their societies, as well as political rituals and customs distinct from other ethnicities. compared to other ethnic groups, particularly western ones, the han chinese ethnic group has a psychological structure that is distinctly reserved, the reason behind it is uncertain. however, one thing is certain: confucianism has played a significant role in shaping this trait. the renowned thinker li zehou, living in the united states, has pointed out that chinese people, especially the han ethnic group, "due to the practical rationality that often restrains, guides, and self-regulates emotional expression, so-called 'regulating emotions with reason,' 'arising from emotions and stopping at propriety,' this also makes chinese people’s emotions in life and art often in a state of self-suppression." because of this, the psychological structure of the han chinese, when compared to the frank, straightforward, and humorous characteristics of other ethnic groups, especially westerners, "is distinctly characterized by implicitness and depth." this trait is most vividly displayed in language expression. implications is commonly used in chinese art creation, referring to the intentional omission in calligraphy and painting to enhance the harmony and beauty of the entire work, leaving room for imagination. rooted in the reserved and implicit chinese culture, the chinese language, influenced by this reserved cultural psychology, also possesses the artistic charm of "words exhausted but meaning infinite," which manifests as the "implication beyond words" we often speak of. "implication beyond words" is a ubiquitous linguistic phenomenon in chinese expression and reception and has always been a widely concerned rhetorical phenomenon. this art of implication beyond words is not only present in literary and artistic works but also permeates every aspect of our lives. for example, romantic love is a common human sentiment. western men and women, if mutually delighted, not only behave openly but also express their feelings directly. they say "i love you," which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 104 is roughly equivalent to how chinese casually greet each other with "have you eaten?" however, even if han chinese spend a lifetime together, with children and grandchildren filling the house, it is still difficult for us to utter the words "i love you." thus, there is a chinese saying, "love is in the heart but hard to speak." because reserve and introversion are common national characteristics of chinese people, especially the han ethnic group, china has always valued the literary tradition of "not writing a single word, yet capturing the charm." this tradition is present not only in literary works but also in daily life. in real life, whether speaking or writing, people consciously or unconsciously pursue the effect of "implying more than what is said." if this literary tradition is met and this effect is achieved, it is considered good, appreciated, and even becomes a fine tale. on the contrary, straightforward expression without any reserve is often not recognized. if it involves sensitive topics and the expression is too direct and lacks subtlety, it will not only be rejected by the direct recipient but also criticized by indirect recipients as "inappropriate speech." for example, if both parties violate the cooperative principle in daily communication, and one party expresses an unwillingness to cooperate, they may deliberately tell lies or baseless statements to indirectly express their resistance. 2. the motivation behind implication beyond words when humans cognize things, it is often a process from concrete to abstract, from simple to complex, and from appearance to essence. implication beyond words is a linguistic phenomenon formed by using language in communication and combining context to express one thing but mean another. as a linguistic phenomenon, while analyzing the construction and understanding of implication beyond words, we also attempt to reveal the motivations behind its formation. what factors prompt people to use certain linguistic forms to express implications in verbal communication? there are many motivations for the emergence of implication beyond words, mainly including politeness and face-saving, self-protection, the psychology of wisdom, aesthetic needs, and the inherent nature of language itself. from the perspective of politeness and face-saving, as social beings, people have face issue in verbal communication. sometimes, to preserve one's own face or to maintain the face of others, one has to speak indirectly. if spoken directly, it would hurt the face, or others’ dignity. politeness is essentially a linguistic strategy, and saving face is the true goal. speakers may not be clear for various reasons, such as using a more euphemistic method of speaking out of politeness and self-protection in specific situations (van dijk, 1987). when people say something they know lacks factual basis, to avoid taking responsibility for their words, they often adopt a more veiled expression, allowing the listener to experience, understand, and even guess. if it is later proven that they were wrong, because they were very euphemistic at the time and did not directly state their attitude, they can also find excuses to deny it, thus avoiding responsibility for their words. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 105 from the psychology of wisdom, words containing implications are not directly expressing intentions but using a circuitous way to mean something else. sometimes communication is a state of struggle, where both parties use wisdom to mobilize their words and engage in a battle of wits. words with implications can express more meaning with certain linguistic forms, which require more intelligence and verbal skills to achieve. people's admiration for wisdom makes them actively use intelligence in communication to seek expressions with greater communicative effects. from the perspective of aesthetic needs, discourse information can be divided into rational information, potential information, aesthetic information, and stylistic information. potential information is the actual information conveyed by the speaker, implicitly contained within rational information. the expression of potential information can make the meaning of discourse implicit and not overtly revealed. from the perspective of information rhetoric, implication beyond words belongs to potential information, which is the meaning obtained by discourse in connection with context. implication beyond words has a high rhetorical value in verbal communication. it conveys communicative intentions indirectly, making the meaning of discourse implicit, leaving face and room for the other party, and is more acceptable in verbal communication. some forms of implication beyond words are witty and humorous, which can serve as a lubricant in interpersonal relationships in certain situations. it gives people a sense of irony and humor without causing offense. implication beyond words often conveys richer discourse information with less language, thus achieving greater discourse efficiency. in terms of the inherent qualities of language, the symbols of language are limited, the structure is limited, and the rules are limited. using limited forms and structures to express rich content is a requirement of the nature of language symbols themselves. with limited words but infinite meaning, the nature of language symbols creates good conditions for speakers to convey communicative intentions with implications and is also demanded by the nature of language symbols themselves. if we cannot fully utilize limited forms and structures, it will lead to cumbersome use of language symbols, affecting the function of language. the expression of implication beyond words conforms to the principle of linguistic economy, using fewer language symbols to express richer content. ultimately, the strong vitality of the rhetorical phenomenon of "implication beyond words" is rooted in the profound influence of cultural psychology. specifically, it is closely related to the psychology of euphemism and imagery thinking. firstly, the phenomenon of "implication beyond words" is related to the advocacy of euphemistic psychology. euphemistic psychology is a psychological characteristic that people do not like to state things directly and is a universally existing cultural psychology. its emergence is related to social aesthetic psychology and related social customs, especially taboos. taboos are "a universally existing cultural psychological phenomenon in human society," related to people's superstitions and fears. this induces people's euphemistic psychology when using language, especially noticeable when speaking of "unmentionable" phenomena such as birth, aging, sickness, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 106 death, and physiological phenomena. in addition, the emergence of euphemistic psychology is also related to human aesthetic pursuits—"the beauty of distance." regarding the theory of "distance," german philosopher arthur schopenhauer (1788-1860) and british modern famous psychologist edward bullough (1880-1934) have both made relevant discussions. schopenhauer once pointed out in the fable of "a group of porcupines huddled together for winter" that there should be an appropriate distance between people. following schopenhauer, bullough proposed the famous "psychological distance theory," believing that "psychological distance" is "a fundamental principle for creating and appreciating beauty." the pursuit of "the beauty of distance" leads people to form euphemistic psychology when facing some "inconvenient to state directly" phenomena. 3. how to understand implications beyond words in verbal communication, implications beyond words are ubiquitous. to correctly understand implications beyond words, it is necessary not only to start from words and sentences but also to grasp the social background and common sense experience of the speaker and the receiver, and a series of contexts, and to choose the best context effect suitable for the speaker's information from these words, thereby deducing the meaning of the words. firstly, understand implications beyond words from the words and sentences themselves. in our language habits, some words and sentences themselves have another layer of meaning. for example, "please close the door" implies that "the door is open." most rhetorical questions and interrogative sentences also have implications beyond their surface meaning, such as "can't you do it?" the implication is that "you" cannot do this job, "do you have a cigarette?" although the sentence is a question, the speaker's main purpose is not to ask a question but to imply "please give me a cigarette." secondly, understand implications beyond words in context. words and sentences themselves have implications beyond their surface meaning, which can be understood directly from the words themselves. however, some words do not have this characteristic and require us to rely on a certain context to truly understand the implications within the words. this context mainly includes social context, communicator context, and experience and habit context. 3.1 social context it mainly refers to the social and historical background. every era will have some things that cannot be said directly, should not be said directly, should not be said, or dare not be said. when it is necessary to convey such words, and it is unavoidable, words with implications beyond their surface meaning appear. for example: a: are we inviting master zhang to dinner tonight? b (with a hint of embarrassment): master zhang just returned from beijing. a: that's a perfect opportunity to give him a welcome feast! it is common to give a welcome feast for friends returning from afar. the reason why b emphasizes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 107 "just returned from beijing" with embarrassment is due to a specific social context. at that time, it was the period of sars, and beijing was the epicenter of the epidemic. thus, b's implication is reasonable — fearing that master zhang might have contracted sars and inviting him to dinner could lead to infection. a did not closely connect with the social background at the time to understand b's words, leading to a biased understanding of b's speech. another example from articles in the 1970s and 1980s: "when i was in the farm, a young instructor wrote to me, expressing that meaning," "after much consideration, this thing came too early for me, and it is useless." the implications of "that meaning" and "this thing" refer to marriage and love affairs. people in the 1970s and 1980s were more conservative about love and reluctant to speak openly, usually using such implications to express themselves. if such words were placed in the present, they would certainly be confusing. but at that time, people could easily understand when they heard these words. these implications, if not lived in the era and background, and without understanding the society in which the language is situated, are difficult to appreciate. therefore, to correctly understand the meaning in the other party's words, we must have a full understanding of the social context of the words. 3.2 communicator context "verbal communication is a process of manifestation and inference". manifestation is for the speaker, referring to the act of the speaker explicitly expressing their intentions to the listener; inference is for the listener, referring to the act of the listener processing the speaker's message, selecting cognitive context, and deducing the speaker's intentions. in this process of manifestation and inference, after the speaker sends a message, the listener must use their thinking patterns, personal experiences, professional cultivation, and cultural background to process the speaker's words and select the best context effect suitable for the speaker's information from the words, thereby deducing the meaning of the words. starting from the speaker, because the expression of implications beyond words is primarily the speaker's intention to hide their true intentions in verbal communication for a certain purpose, that is, not explicitly expressing their intentions to the listener, which requires us to look for and supplement the "unexpected" content in the speaker's "words" from the speaker's psychological situation and background. an example from "dream of the red chamber": when zi juan ordered the little maid xue yan to bring her a small hand stove, dai yu asked with a smile, "who asked you to bring it? it's hard for him to care so much; i'm not cold enough to die!" xue yan replied, "sister zi juan is afraid that the young lady is cold and asked me to bring it." dai yu said such a sentence. on the surface, it was said to xue yan, but xue yan did not understand the context of dai yu's words and did not hear her implication. bao yu, who grew up playing with dai yu, understood dai yu's meaning well: "you (xue yan) only follow her (zi juan) words" actually means "you (bao yu) only follow her (baochai) words." dai yu cleverly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 108 used the implication to express her jealousy and subtly conveyed her dissatisfaction to bao yu. others may not understand, but bao yu, who is familiar with dai yu's character, knew she was mocking him and laughed twice. therefore, in the process of verbal communication, the speaker focuses on their own context and rarely considers the listener's context. the listener, when interpreting the speaker's words, often unconsciously relies on their own context to interpret others' words, attributing things that are not there and overinterpreting the speaker's original intentions, which is sensitive and leads to "the speaker has no intention, but the listener is intentional." 4. context of experience and common sense understanding implications beyond words requires not only social context and the context of both communicators but also the context of experience and common sense. for example: a: "let's go to the tavern for a drink!" b: "my stomach has been hurting lately." b indirectly refuses a's invitation, not directly saying no to drinking, but using the context of "stomach pain" to decline the invitation: alcohol is irritating, and drinking can exacerbate stomach pain. because both a and b have this kind of experience and common sense, they can communicate smoothly. if a does not have this kind of knowledge and experience, it is difficult to infer b's implicit refusal to the invitation. therefore, to understand the implications in daily language and accurately comprehend the implications in language, a certain amount of life common sense and background knowledge are indispensable. 5. conclusion as the saying goes, "books cannot exhaust words, and words cannot exhaust meaning." implication beyond words is an interesting linguistic phenomenon and "empty space" art in chinese. this linguistic technique holds an important position in both literary creation and daily life. a thought-provoking sentence, a good novel, a good poem often conveys endless meanings within limited words, which requires us to combine context to slowly experience and savor. references chen, l. (2015). an inquiry into the rationale of "implication beyond words". journal of chuxiong normal university, 30(5), 50-53. chen, l. (2016). a study on the rhetorical phenomenon of "implication beyond words". china social sciences publishing house: beijing. li, n. (2015). a brief analysis of implication beyond words in daily verbal communication. journal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 109 of hubei university of science and technology, 35(3), 165-166. lv, s. (2013). a brief analysis of implication beyond words and its derivation. wenli navigation, 8, 32-33. sun, h. (2018). a pragmatic analysis of implication beyond words. friend of humanities, 9, 22-23. tang, q. (2014). the theory of "implication beyond words" in pragmatics and the "mood" theory in literature. guizhou social sciences, 12, 74-79. wang, r. (2019). discussing "implication beyond words" from the perspective of rhetorical acceptance. northern literature, 9, 218-219. wang, w. (2015). on the implication beyond words in the lines of "the legend of zhen huan". journal of kaifeng educational college, 35(5), 48-49. yang, t. (2017). interpreting the implication beyond words in the lines of "the legend of zhen huan". folklore, 34, 1005-3948. microsoft word assc-v3n1-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper risk perceptions during covid-19 pandemic: applying knowledge on public compliance to protective measures during sars to understand risk communication xingrui chen1* 1 the pennington school, nj, us * xingrui chen, the pennington school, nj, us received: november 1, 2020 accepted: november 28, 2020 online published: december 3, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n1p1 abstract the outbreak of covid-19 in 2020 has caused significant environmental and economic loss across the globe. the government’s promotion of non-pharmaceutical treatment such as social distancing, hand washing, and mask-wearing can be equally important in disease control compared to the conventional use of pharmaceutical treatment. risk perception is often used as an important mechanism to understand an individual's compliance with these protective measures. the present article examines the application of previous knowledge about public risk perception, decision making, and behavioral change to the current global pandemic and evaluates the most effective way of governmental messaging. the article analyzes empirical research conducted during covid-19 across the globe where risk perception is found to be a strong determinant of people’s adoption of public health behavior. demographic factors can significantly alter people’s understanding of risk due to the variation of individualistic view and prosociality of each nation. cognitive biases can also affect people’s efficacy beliefs and confidence levels in government which can shape their risk perception to a great extent as well. combining studies on both sars and covid-19, we are able to employ past knowledge to draw conclusions on risk communication and governmental promotion of protective measures during the current global pandemic. keywords risk perception, public health behavior, covid-19, sars, cognitive biases 1. introduction as of today, covid-19 has been officially declared a global pandemic for almost five months with over 18 million confirmed cases around the globe. since shortage in medical resources and equipment are observed and vaccination is not yet a solution under this special circumstance, governmental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. messaging on non-pharmaceutical preventive methods such as the promotion of social distancing and mask-wearing has become especially important. however, the compliance and adoption of these protective measures on the general public varied greatly from nations to nations based on the public’s perceived risk of the pandemic (leppin, 2009; dohle, 2020). risk perception refers to people’s intuitive evaluations of hazards that they are or might be exposed to, including a multitude of undesirable effects that people associate with a specific cause (slovic, 2006). conventional medical studies relating to disease control have revealed strong correlations between an individual risk perception and the public’s willingness to adopt preventive health behaviors (van der pligt, 1996; renner, 2008; brug, 2009). thus, governmental involvement and messaging in risk communication can be crucial in terms of disease control. in the past, topics relating to how risk perception can affect people’s adoption of altruistic behavior has been thoroughly studied (smith, 2006). studies have shown that people’s risk perception toward the pandemic can be determined through examining factors such as the individualistic view, the impact caused by cognitive biases, and his/hers level of trust toward the government, etc. (zwart, 2009; smith 2006). however, less research has been conducted specifically targeting risk perception and public health behavior during the spread of covid-19. therefore, this paper will focus on comparing how different factors influence people’s risk perception, decision making, and behavioral changes using past models and theories. through examining diverse communities’ compliance of restrictions to reduce the spread of covid-19, the government can promote more effective messages and policies targeting diverse groups of individuals to prevent further outbreaks. 2. method as it has only been six months since the first case of covid-19 in wuhan, there still is not sufficient research that fully addresses the connection between risk perception and the effect on governmental involvement during covid-19. however, research from the past has presented valuable information for the understanding of these topics. in this paper, we mostly collected journal articles conducted during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) in 2002 which is also a recent global air-borne infectious respiratory disease. from the past models and surveys, we can draw some conclusions on how risk perception can affect people’s adoption of preventive measures during covid-19. according to most studies relating to public health risk perception, scientists usually divide risk perception into two major categories: cognitive and emotional (leppin, 2009). risk as cognition demonstrates how personal views can affect his/her understanding of risk. risk as emotion mainly discusses how emotions such as fear and anxiety can turn into determinants in risk perception. furthermore, the protection motivation theory (pmt) and the health belief model (hbm) are also frequently used in understanding these two types of risk perceptions. pmt indicates that people are likely to deflect threats to their identities and roles they occupy and hbm suggests that a personal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. threat of an illness or disease together with a person’s belief in the effectiveness of the recommended health behavior or action will predict the likelihood the person will adopt the behavior (champion, 2008, leppin, 2009). in this paper, we adopt a new approach of subjective expected utility (seu) (leppin, 2009). the theory itself states that people’s choices are a product of assessments of probability and utility of options from both health-related approaches: pmt and hbm. this model best captures risk as cognition, and the empirical evidence for whether risk as emotion is a major determinant in covid-19 is still not conclusive. in experiments, risk measures are determined by multiple different factors. usually, the studies use the combined evaluation of the perceived risk, perceived fatality of disease, and the rating of fear/worry with regard to the disease (brug, 2009). in a review conducted after sars by dyhurst (2020), the link between risk perception and the public’s adoption of protective behavior was examined across over 30 journal articles. the results gave insights into whether risk perception during sars was a purely cognitive or a combination of both cognitive and emotional phenomenon. furthermore, the researchers also explored the importance of demographic factors in understanding how people from different regions cooperate with each policy differently (dohle, 2020). the present article also employs data from more recent studies. in one particular study, researchers, after surveying people in 10 different countries around the world (united kingdom, united states, australia, germany, spain, italy, sweden, mexico, japan, and south korea), presented data relating to how an individual’s cultural and geographic diversity can affect their compliance to different government policies. subjects of the survey answer questions on a 7 point scale to understand the major factors or motivations that drive their behavioral change during the pandemic (dryhurst, 2020). in the next section, we will discuss how the results from this study and other previous research will help the government to gain knowledge about the role of different predictors and public health risk perception. 3. result the review conducted soon after sars has demonstrated that risk perception can be both cognitive and cognitive-emotional based on different times during the outbreak (leppin, 2009). this shows that it is necessary to consider both the risk as cognition which are mostly demonstrated through values and risk as emotions where feelings, fears and anxiety can influence risk perception. furthermore, studies also revealed strong correlation between demographic factors and the variation in people’s understanding of risk in the spread of infectious disease. after collecting data on people’s aspects of concern for sars, the researchers found differences in terms of demographic pattern and people’s risk perception. the survey revealed that chinese people, in comparison with europeans and north americans are more likely to be concerned about national stability and economic development and less concerned about disease risk. this finding suggests that chinese people might adopt these protective www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. measures due to their worries about the nation’s well-being and financial status while europeans and north americans tend to focus more on individual’s potential risk of the infection (leppin, 2009). not only were the predictors different from conventional studies, diclement (2008) also found that biases can also be inevitable in understanding health risk. the influence of biases can vary greatly due to demographic reasons based on individual, cultural and contextual factors. biases are helpful in predicting the general’s individual and collective behavior (weinstein, 2010). after examining researches from the previous infectious disease, some of the conclusions in fact, can be used to understand the present ongoing pandemic. after using a linear regression model across all ten countries and calculating the average risk perception, we found a strong positive relationship between risk perception and people’s adoption of protective behaviors (dryhurst, 2020). this indicates that the theories and models drawn from previous research relating to public risk perception can be applied in help understanding the current situation of covid-19. additionally, in examining different nations across the globe, the survey revealed that among all the possible predictors of explaining why people adopt the protective policies, individualistic view and pro-sociality are the two most significant factors in all countries except south korea. the difference in individualistic view and value can be determined by their personal backgrounds and socioeconomic status such as education, age, job/occupation, etc. thus, demographic factors should be taken into account when considering the formation of individualistic views. therefore, combined with each nations’ different governmental structure and individual’s political ideology, we can understand how the two factors can affect people’s awareness of the risk. table 1. predictors in people’s adoption of protective measures and the impact in each country weight (%) uk us australia germany spain italy sweden mexico japan south korea individualistic view 4.78 **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** // prosociality 3.19 **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** // direct experience 2.34 **** **** // **** **** **** // **** **** **** personal efficacy 1.62 // // // **** // // **** // // // collective efficacy 1.54 **** // // // // // // **** **** // social 1.21 **** // **** **** **** // **** // **** // www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. amplification gender 0.70 **** // // **** **** // // // // // personal knowledge 0.60 // // **** // **** // // // // // // represents little or no association, **** means the predictions are significant. the ranking of predictors is based on the level of importance in explaining people’s motivation for behavioral change 4. discussion according to conventional studies, we concluded that risk perception can be both cognitive and cognitive-emotional at different times during an outbreak. this suggests that we should take both socio-cultural and psychological factors into account when evaluating people’s decision making process. the adoption of the conventional model, hbm and pmt, reinforced the importance of value and the person’s socio-economic status in understanding their behavioral change. this can be strongly related to some of the other findings we discovered in past research. the research data supported that people from different parts of the world reported risks that threaten different aspects of their life. demographic factors play a crucial role in explaining an individual's world value due to the impact of their cultural background and traditions. earlier research indicates that chinese people tend to worry more about the nation’s overall security and stability during pandemic and westerners tend to focus more on individual risk. these distinctions in thoughts and views due to demographic factors led to variations in values and caused different levels of behavioral change. according to more recent studies conducted after the outbreak of covid-19, risk perception is tested positively related to people’s compliance to protective behavior. this allows us to apply previous studies relating to risk perception to the current ongoing global pandemic. the comparison across the globe in terms of understanding people’s willingness to accept behavioral change reveal vital information on how governmental structure and prosociality can affect the results. countries with higher prosociality where the idea of community and group is stressed more than individuals tend to have higher risk perception and are more likely to adopt altruistic behaviors. in comparison, countries with lower prosociality tend to have lower risk perception due to their focus on individual risk of being infected which, in turn, led to a lower adoption of protective measures. this finding also corresponds to earlier research where china can be considered to be a more prosocial country compared to some european and north american countries, and chinese people adopt these non-pharmaceutical treatments at a relatively earlier time during this outbreak. therefore, recent studies reinforced the previous conclusions on geographic diversity causing differences in procialiating, leading to variations in compliance (caprara, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. nevertheless, biases should be thoroughly examined as well because risk perception can predict protective behavior only when people believe that protective actions are available and they have confidence that they have the abilities to engage. biases tie closely to people’s confidence/trust level to the government’s ability of controlling the disease; it can directly affect people’s acceptance to protective measures. efficacy belief is used to describe one’s perceived capability of executing a certain behavior and effectively reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one's own motivation, behavior, and social environment. therefore, understanding individual efficacy and collective efficacy will contribute to evaluating the probability of the adoption of non-pharmaceutical treatment (zwart, 2009). individuals with higher belief efficacy tend to have higher confidence levels in government, which can cause optimistic bias and lower overall risk perception. on the other hand, people with lower confidence levels in government tend to hold pessimistic views on government’s capability in disease control and generally result in higher risk perception and a higher adoption of protective behavior (weinstein, 2010). efficacy belief is also found to have a positive correlation to people’s risk perception during covid-19. additionally, this finding can be closely related to conclusions about prosociality because governmental structure and trust can affect collective behavior in the community to a great extent (leppin, 2009). therefore, biases can be useful indicators on the acceptance of public health behavior within the background context of each nation’s governmental system. however, there are a few limitations to this research. firstly, there is still room for improvements on understanding the connection between risk perception and people’s motivation for behavioral change. even though scientists have perceived cognitive biases and heuristics and social/cultural paradigm as two main factors in determining people’s cooperation in adopting protective measures, there might still be other factors that might influence people’s intention for behavioral changes. furthermore, since most of the conclusions drawn in this paper are yielded from sars and other infectious diseases, we are still not exactly sure if these conclusions can be generalized to covid-19. most of the research used are conducted from 2003 to 2007 and technological advancement, cultural changes, and improved understanding of different subject areas might lead to different results today. another limitation of this paper falls in the research that was used to understand how individuals’ personal background and socioeconomic status can affect their risk perception. the data collected in the survey took place in mid-march and mid-april 2020, which was still in the early phase of the pandemic (dryhurst, 2020). since situations in each nation can change drastically in the course of four months and different regions reached their peaks at different points in time, there might be some possible twists in terms of understanding the effects now compared to when the research was conducted. to sum up, demographic factors not only lead to variations in individualistic views and prosociality, but also serve as an explanation for people’s different levels of risk perception. therefore, based on all the research and studies, governments can draw their conclusions on evaluating the most efficient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. promotion of protective measures based on the prosociality of the nation. in order to practice effective disease control, governments should use different risk communication messages targeting various communities and groups to improve willingness to adopt altruistic behavior. in less prosocial countries, these messages should intend to increase people’s risk perception by highlighting the effectiveness of protective measures at a societal level. for instance, by reinforcing collaborations and communications within communities, people will tend to pay more attention and gain more information about the virus itself. with higher perceived risk, it will be relatively easier for government nudges for altruistic behaviors and reduce the infection rate. future research can focus more on providing information about how collective and individual risk perception can affect the promotion of altruistic behavior during a global pandemic differently. it can also be beneficial to examine if models and theories of risk perception in other fields or subject areas can be applied to health risk perception, which can also significantly improve understanding of cognitive behavior and disease control as a whole. references brug, j. (2009, january 6). risk perceptions and behavior: towards pandemic control of emerging infectious diseases. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-008-9000-x caprara, g. v., alessandri, g., & eisenberg, n. (2012). prosociality: the contribution of traits, values, and self-efficacy beliefs. journal of personality and social psychology, 102(6), 1289-1303. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025626 champion, v. l., & skinner, c. s. (n.d.). the health belief model. in k. glanz, b. k. rimer, & k. viswanath (eds.), health behavior and health education. diclement, r. j., crosby, r. a., & kegler, m. c. (eds.). (2008). emerging theories in health promotion practice and research. dohle, s. (2020, may 29). acceptance and adoption of protective measures during the covid-19 pandemic: the role of trust in politics and trust in science. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/w52nv dryhurst, s., schneider, c. r., kerr, j., freeman, a. l. j., recchia, g., van der bles, a. m., spiegelhalter, d., & van der linden, s. (2020). risk perceptions of covid-19 around the world. journal of risk research, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1758193 leppin, a., & aro, a. r. (2009). risk perceptions related to sars and avian influenza: theoretical foundations of current empirical research. international journal of behavioral medicine, 16(1), 7-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-008-9002-8 renner, b. (2008, august 26). risk perception, risk communication and health behavior change (research report no. 150-153). https://doi.org/10.1026/0943-8149.16.3.150 slovic, p., & peters, e. (2006). risk perception and affect. current directions in psychological science, 15(6), 322-325. https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8721.2006.00461.x www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. smith, r. d. (2006, august). responding to global infectious disease outbreaks: lessons from sars on the role of risk perception, communication and management (research report no. 63(12), 3113-3123). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.004 van der pligt, j. (1996). risk perception and self-protective behavior. european psychologist, 1(1), 34-43. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.1.1.34 weinstein, n. d., & lyon, j. e. (2010). mindset, optimistic bias about personal risk and health‐protective behaviour. british journal of health psychology. https://doi.org/10.1348/135910799168641 zwart, o. de. (2009, january 6). perceived threat, risk perception, and efficacy beliefs related to sars and other (emerging) infectious diseases: results of an international survey. international journal of behavioral medicine, 16(1), 30-40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-008-9008-2 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 78 original paper design and application of exclusive service app for rural elderly xiaotong bai1, jie dong1, jingtao yu1, yingying wu2, yina shao3, xuan he1 & lu han1 1 xi’an fanyi university, college of art and design,shaanxi, xi’an, china 2 xi’an fanyi university, college of information engineering, shaanxi, xi’an, china 3 xi’an fanyi university, faculty of letters and media, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: august 19, 2023 accepted: october 09, 2023 online published: october 10, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p78 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p78 fund project 2023 shaanxi university students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program project: “nong’e tong community rural service apps” (project no. s202312714024) abstract with the further advancement of rural development and the rapid development of mobile internet, rural service apps have gradually become an important means of promoting rural economic development and improving farmers’ production and living standards. at present, a number of service-type apps with wide applications in the field of rural services have emerged, such as “planting master”, “farming network”, “rural taobao”, etc. however, these apps do not pay special attention to special groups, but only target the majority of young people and office workers. however, these apps do not pay special attention to special groups, but only target the majority of young people and office workers. in order to fill this gap, we have designed a software called nong’e tong, which is specially designed for the elderly and other special groups. the software has a simple and beautiful interface, and is easy to use. it not only provides a lot of special functions, but also can link the elderly’s cell phone with their children’s cell phones to check the health and safety of the elderly at any time. compared to other software, the application has special features for seniors to ensure that they can use the application easily and quickly. keywords interface design, ps design, rural revitalization, design of agricultural service app www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 79 1. introduction 1.1 background of the topic with the acceleration of globalization and the rapid evolution of science and technology, mobile internet has penetrated into all aspects of people’s lives, bringing unprecedented changes and opportunities to all walks of life. under this wave of change, rural areas are also no longer a blank area for information and services, but have ushered in new opportunities for development. the integration of rural development and mobile internet provides new paths and possibilities for the growth of rural economy and the improvement of farmers’ living standards. as an important support for rural development, the rural service sector has received increasing attention in recent years. in particular, rural service-oriented mobile applications (apps), with their convenience and wide coverage, have gradually become an important means to promote rural economic development and improve farmers’ production and living standards. these rural service apps not only provide convenient life services for rural residents, but also promote the sharing of information and the optimal allocation of social resources in rural areas. for example, service-type apps such as “planting master”, “farmnet” and “rural taobao” meet farmers’ needs for agricultural technology consultation and agricultural products trading through online and offline methods, greatly promoting the development of rural areas and improving the standard of production and life of farmers. through the combination of online and offline methods, these apps have met farmers’ needs for agricultural technology advice and agricultural products trading, greatly contributing to the prosperity of the rural economy. however, although many mobile apps have emerged that are widely used in the rural service sector, most of these apps focus more on specific groups such as young people and office workers, and less on the needs of the rural elderly and other special groups. as an important part of the rural community, the rural elderly face inconvenience in accessing information and services in the digital era, which limits their opportunities to enjoy modern conveniences. therefore, it is of great practical significance and social value to design a rural service app focusing on the elderly and other special groups to meet their needs for daily life and health concerns. 1.2 brief description of the project this study aims to design a rural service app for the elderly and other special groups to make up for the shortcomings of the existing rural service apps in terms of the needs of special groups. the app will focus on a friendly and simple interface to make it easy to use, while integrating a variety of special features, such as health and safety monitoring and cell phone linkage with their children, to ensure that the elderly can access the services they need easily and quickly. through the app, older people will be able to enjoy the same convenient services as young people and office workers, improving their quality of life and sense of well-being. this will not only help to meet the needs of the elderly in their daily lives and health concerns, but will also contribute to the optimization and enhancement of overall services in rural areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 80 2. investigation and research work in this section, we will review prior research and development work related to the aspects of rural service apps and mobile applications of interest to older adults. we will first present the current state of development of rural service apps and then focus on the design and practice of mobile apps exclusive to older adults. 2.1 development of rural service apps with the continuous progress of mobile internet technology, digital services in rural areas have gradually been emphasized. various rural service apps have emerged, providing farmers with diversified services, including agricultural technology consulting, agricultural product sales, rural tourism and so on. for example, the “planting master” app provides farmers with guidance on planting techniques to help them optimize crop yields. similarly, rural taobao serves as a bridge between farmers and urban consumers, promoting the sale and distribution of agricultural products. these rural service apps have played a positive role in improving the rural economy and reducing information asymmetry. however, most of the existing rural service apps focus more on young people and groups familiar with digital technology. this has to some extent neglected the needs of the rural elderly, an important segment of the population. older people are usually less familiar with the use of mobile apps than younger people, and therefore require more user-friendly and intuitive interfaces as well as features that are specifically tailored to their needs. 2.2 design of mobile applications specific to the eneneglderly in recent years, a growing body of research and practice has focused on the needs of older adults in the mobile application domain. these studies have explored how to integrate features of interest to older adults in mobile applications to enhance their quality of life and social engagement. some studies focus on health management for older adults, providing features such as health monitoring and medication reminders to help them better manage their health. other studies look at the social needs of older people and design social platforms for older people to enable them to keep in touch with family and friends. in addition, there are a number of special group service apps that have been developed for older adults. these apps often have a cleaner interface design and features that target the specific needs of older adults. for example, some apps can help seniors make doctor’s appointments, purchase medications, find nearby community events, and so on. all of these features contribute to the convenience and well-being of older adults. however, despite all this research and practice, there are still many opportunities to further improve the design of senior-specific mobile apps. for example, how to balance feature richness and interface simplicity, how to better integrate the daily needs and concerns of older adults, and how to provide easy-to-understand operational instructions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 81 2.3 research objectives and contributions the main objective of this study is to design a mobile application for rural elderly and other special groups to fulfill their daily life and health concerns. we will innovate on the basis of existing rural service apps, focusing on the special characteristics of elderly people using mobile apps, while integrating functions related to their needs. through the app, we hope to address the elderly’s distress in information access, social interaction and health management, and enhance their quality of life and well-being. in addition, our research will also explore how to link older people’s cell phones with their children’s cell phones so that children can stay informed about their parents’ health and safety status. this type of linkage helps communication between older adults and their families and is a more reassuring way for children who care about their parents. in this study, we will first conduct a user needs study to gain insight into the lives and health concerns of older adults in rural areas. then, we will design a mobile application with a simple and beautiful interface, practical functions and easy to use, and verify its effectiveness in actual use. through this study, we hope to provide valuable experiences and lessons for mobile application design for rural elderly and other special groups. overall, this study aims to fill the gaps in existing rural service apps for the elderly population and to provide rural elderly with mobile apps that suit their needs in order to improve their quality of life and well-being. 3. interface design requirements analysis and determination of function points this service app is a multifunctional application for any place, whether in the city or in the countryside, you will be able to use this app easily. the difference between this app and other apps lies in the fact that it offers a number of special services for different groups of users. therefore through this app, the following basic points need to be achieved: (1) provide a convenient and easy-to-use interface for the elderly so that they can easily get started using the app. (2) provide doctor’s appointment service to facilitate the care of health needs of the elderly and children. (3) to have multiple service modes to meet the needs of different audience groups. (4) design a special mode for special groups, under which the page fonts and illustrations of the app will be adjusted accordingly and special functions such as voice broadcasting will be included. in short, the app needs to be able to meet the various needs of special users and bring users a convenient and efficient experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 82 4. overall design 4.1 general design principles we used photoshop and adobe experience design to complete the page layout. 4.2 user research according to the users’ habits, they usually browse the main interface after registering and logging in to understand the general functions of the software, and then click on the functions they want to enter for further operation. users focus on the layout and appearance of the main interface, whether the buttons to access submenus in the main interface are highlighted and obvious, and whether the interaction effect between each page and users is smooth and easy to use. 4.3 interface design program when designing the interface of the mobile application for the rural elderly and other special groups, we adhere to the following three major principles to ensure that the user gets a friendly interface experience, thus providing a convenient and enjoyable process of use. 4.3.1 user control in order to meet the needs of the elderly and other special groups, the design of the interface must focus on user control. we will use large buttons and icons designed to overcome possible barriers to operation. this will make it easier for the user to click and perform actions, thus increasing accessibility and comfort of use. our interface layout will follow the principle of simplicity and clarity in order to avoid overcrowding of page elements, which can cause user annoyance. by reducing the density of elements, we will ensure that users are able to quickly and accurately find the functions they need. our navigation design will be intuitive to ensure that users can easily navigate through the different functions. we will use clear and easy to understand icons and labels to ensure that users do not get lost in the various pages of the application. 4.3.2 interface consistency in order to provide a consistent user experience, we will keep interface elements and interactions consistent from page to page. we choose mild and non-harsh colors to guarantee the visual comfort of the interface. by using a uniform font and color scheme, we will enhance the overall consistency and professionalism of the interface. in order to minimize the learning cost for users, we will use similar interaction patterns in different functions. for example, the operation buttons on different pages will maintain a consistent layout and style to help users better adapt to the operation flow of the application. 4.3.3 personalization and customization personalization and customization options will be provided to meet the diverse needs of the elderly and other special groups. users can customize the content displayed on the homepage according to their interests and needs. this feature will enable users to independently choose to see information related to, for example, health management or recommendations for social activities. in order to accommodate users’ eyesight and preferences, we will allow users to adjust display settings such as font size, background brightness, etc. to ensure that the interface is more user-friendly for them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 83 with the above three principles of interface design solutions, we aim to create a simple, friendly and easy-to-use mobile application that meets the needs of the elderly and other special groups. this will help enable them to better enjoy the convenience of the digital age and enhance their quality of life. 5. detailed system design and implementation in this section, we will describe in detail the system design and implementation scheme of the mobile application for the rural elderly and other special groups. we will focus on the core functional modules of the application and the technical support it relies on. 5.1 technical framework selection in order to ensure the stability and performance of the application, we choose to adopt a modern technical framework for mobile application development. we will use cross-platform development frameworks such as flutter or react native to achieve the goal of covering both android and ios platforms. 5.2 user authentication and personalization we will design user registration and login functionality based on cell phone number or email address so that older adults can easily access the app. after user login, we will collect basic information about the user, such as age, gender and interests, in order to make personalized content recommendations. 5.3 home page and function portal the home page of the application will display personalized content recommendations and provide entrances for functions such as health monitoring and social interaction. we will use the bottom navigation bar to realize quick switching between different functions. 5.4 health monitoring module the health monitoring module will synchronize data with the user’s health devices (e.g., bracelet, smartwatch). we will use bluetooth technology to realize the data transfer between the device and the app. the user’s health data will be stored in the cloud server so that it can be accessed and tracked at any time. 5.5 social interaction module in the social interaction module, users can view their friends’ updates, make comments and likes. a real-time database will be used to manage the updating and synchronization of the dynamic information to ensure that users can instantly interact with their friends. 5.6 personalization and feedback users can adjust personalized settings such as font size, color theme, etc. according to their needs. we will also provide a feedback channel for users to report problems with the application or provide comments. with the above system design and implementation plan, we will provide a stable, friendly and feature-rich platform for mobile applications for rural elderly and other special groups. this will help to fulfill their health management and social interaction needs and enhance their quality of life and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 84 well-being. 6. setting the tone of the interface 6.1 page layout design in the interface layout design of the rural service app “nong’etong”, we focus on the principle of simplicity and clarity to ensure that the elderly and other special groups can easily understand and use the application. the home page layout will focus on the most commonly used functions, such as health monitoring, community communication and life convenience. through a reasonable ordering of page elements, they will be sorted according to the frequency and importance of use in order to reduce the complexity of user operation and improve user experience. 6.2 introduction of page color scheme in terms of the interface color scheme, we use warm tones, such as light green, light blue and soft pink. these colors not only help to convey a warm and friendly atmosphere, but also contribute to the visual recognition of the elderly. to ensure the readability and usability of the interface, we avoided using colors that are too harsh or have too much contrast. 6.3 page jump relationships the page jump relationship is designed to maintain a smooth feeling for the user during the process. the main functions will be connected by clear navigation buttons or tabs, and users can easily switch from one functional module to another. intuitive icons and labels will be used in order to make it easy for older people to understand the purpose and function of each page as well. 6.4 interaction form design to address the usage needs of the elderly and other special groups, the interaction form will focus on being easy to understand, intuitive and friendly. for example, large buttons and icons will be added to the interface for easy clicking. for input operations, such as text input or selection, we will provide clear guidance and feedback to avoid confusion and errors. 6.5 interface realization in terms of interface realization, we fully consider the visual needs and usage habits of the elderly. after many rounds of user testing and optimization, the interface of nong’etong has achieved promising results. the results of user tests show that the elderly are very satisfied with the comprehensibility and usability of the interface. at the same time, we have been collecting feedback from users and making continuous improvements to the interface to ensure that the user experience is continuously optimized. in conclusion, the interface design of nong’etong takes into full consideration the needs of the elderly and other special groups, featuring a simple, user-friendly interface and form of interaction, and providing convenient services and functions, aiming to make it easier for them to enjoy the conveniences brought by modern technology. we will continue to work on improvements to provide a better user experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 85 conclusion the purpose of this paper is to design a rural service app focusing on the elderly and other special groups, in order to fill the gap of existing rural service apps in terms of the needs of special groups. by fully understanding the needs and habits of the elderly, we have successfully designed “nong e tong”, a mobile application interface for the elderly, and optimized its functional features and user experience to achieve satisfactory results. in the design of “nong’etong”, we focused on the friendliness and simplicity of the interface to ensure that the elderly can easily get used to it. through reasonable page layout, warm color scheme and intuitive interactive forms, we created an application environment suitable for the elderly. in particular, we combined special functions such as health monitoring and linking with children’s cell phones to further enhance the practicality and convenience of the application. “nong’etong” provides a convenient and practical mobile application platform for the rural elderly, which is of positive significance in promoting rural revitalization and improving the quality of life of the elderly. by meeting the needs of special groups, our design enables the elderly to better enjoy the convenience brought by modern technology and improve their quality of life and sense of well-being. in conclusion, the design of “nong’etong” has been thoroughly researched and user-tested, taking into full consideration the needs of the elderly and other special groups, and providing convenient services and functions through simple and friendly interfaces and interactive forms. we will continue to improve and optimize it to ensure that the user experience continues to improve, bringing more convenience and joy to the rural elderly. 8. design result chart www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 86 figure 1. display of the interface references gu, d. y. (2000). visual principles of color and graphics. beijing: science press. hu, y. h. (2006). on the importance of color composition in art teaching. journal of liaoning teachers’college (social science edition), 2006(1), 91-92. lv, w. w. (2006). general principles and methods of color harmonization. journal of lishui college, 2006(1), 70-71+83. xu, d. (2006). introduction to color science. journal of liaoning university (natural science edition), 33(1), 93-96. zhang, f., luo, q., & gong, x. d. (2002). web interface design art tutorial. beijing: people’s posts and telecommunications publishing house. zhang, h. (2013). introduction to web interface design ideas and realization. software, 34(1), 102-103. zhong, s. y. (1994). color composition. hangzhou: china academy of art press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 28 original paper define and explain the concept of rationality in the context of voting and political behavior selin cinar1* 1 political science and international relation, istanbul, türkiye e-mail: selincinarresmi@gmail.com received: june 29, 2023 accepted: september 11, 2023 online published: september 28, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p28 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p28 abstract voter behavior is the study of how people vote at the time of voting and what factors influence their voting behavior through political participation. according to harrop and miller, voting behavior is influenced by the sociological aspects of individuals or societies, such as occupational groups, origins, gender, and age, while for politicians; voting is influenced by political programs and campaigns implemented by politicians. the aim of this research paper is to investigate the rationality of voting and voter behavior in both sociological and political ways and to present the characteristics that should be present in order to vote rationally. keywords voting behavior, politics, rationality, approaches to rational choices, strategic voting 1. introduction the relations between society and the state are seen in the 17th century. here, the bourgeoisie constitutes the segment that affects the state. separatist ideas among the people and the bourgeoisie are seen in the 17th century. then, the relations between the state and society are seen sharply in the process extending from the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution to the present day. in this context, the first scientific studies took place in the americas. in 1944, research was conducted at columbia university on sustained voters. in general, voter behavior has brought a new perspective to politics. it makes inquiries into people’s behavior and investigates what is happening (eyidiker, 2018). by revealing the factors in the voting process, the results of individuals are investigated. some factors that constitute the behavior of voters at the decision-making stage of the voting process have been examined. then, in 1957, political economist anthony downs’s “rational choice behavior” studies appeared. “rational choice behavior”, which is an economic theory, constitutes a form of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. decision-making in rational and economic terms. the behavior of societies in their decision-making processes is in the direction of maximizing whatever is more beneficial to their interests. in this context, individuals tend to choose and support whichever political party will provide more services in terms of economics while voting (hartwig, 1987). on the other hand, among the factors affecting the behavior of voters are the geographical region in which they live, their ethnic origin, age, and gender, as well as the sociological factors identified by the columbia school. from a psychological point of view, the michigan school defines it as the historical development of political parties. on the other hand, how rational individuals can be due to the sociological and psychological factors that make up their personalities has been a matter of debate (aldrich, 1993). various criteria have been set for being rational. the more consistent individuals’ attitudes are with their goals, the more rational they are when voting in general. the first of the factors affecting rational preferences is the voters’ mindset and whether the party they will vote for is the same as their mindset (downsion approach), while the other factor is related to the function of political parties in solving emerging problems. 2. research methodology with the background of rational voting behavior in political situations and the availability of information on the review articles and book of anthony downs, “an economic theory of democracy,” voting behavior databases are hugely included on necessary information in anthony down’s work. for information, it is selected and organized by the book. so, qualitative approaches and secondary sources are analyzed in this research paper. 3. approaches to rational choices among the factors that make a rational voter rational, the voter must ensure continuity in the choices made by the voter. in other words, the voter should ensure continuity in the decisions he or she has made and will make in the future, so that this will show him or her as a rational voter. for this, some mathematical methods are used. like logistic regression. this is one of the first characteristics of a rational voter. the second feature is that this consistency in the voter should not stop him or her from being rational and that he or she should be open to different ideas. another factor is that he or she chooses the best logical outcome in decision-making (ünal, 2016). that is the principle of instrumentality. according to anthony downs, there is a relationship between rational voters and consumers. this relationship means that consumers and voters choose what maximizes their utility. in other words, the principle of instrumentality is a systematic analysis that tries to understand why individuals choose a certain option among the available options and to find out the reasons for it. it is an idea that is also used in research methods and was first put forward by the german sociologist max weber in the 19th century. interpretive social sciences argue that in order to understand people’s choices, we need to examine the personal and environmental factors that lead them to make those choices (anthony, 2016). it is oriented toward interpreting the social world. in interpretive social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. science, individuals use common sense when they make decisions in order to understand whether those decisions are right or wrong. people always try to find plausible explanations and make decisions accordingly (antunes, 2010). 4. consistency according to baker and walter (e.g., fishbein & coombs, 1974; baker & walter, 1975), there are two important characteristics of goods to buy for principled voting. the first is goal-directed rationality (candidates’ abilities). that is, if voters exhibit subjective rationality (voting intention), that is, if voters exhibit subjective privilege within themselves, and if this passion can be objectively evaluated by voting for political candidates, voters here make evaluations among the options based on their own values (branton, 2003). the fact that the political parties themselves are not present here is an outward expression of the voters. the policies pursued throughout history and the services provided are important for voters to consider when making decisions. it would be wrong to look at the regular voting control of rational voters, who are characterized as rational voters, from a single point of view. we need to look at their decision-making. because when voters cast their ballots, they are able to vote because a leader is charismatic. without consulting the success or failure of that leader. these voters are educated, but the logic is wrong. another factor that cannot be close to four is the voting experience of the voters, such as having the same origin or beliefs as the political party leader (lee et al., 2016). suppose two political parties compete in elections. one political party has the same origin as the country, and the other has a different, foreign origin. voters may be expected to vote for a political party of the same nationality due to their voting preferences. at the same time, this voter may still vote even if he or she does not share a common goal or purpose with the party. these are behaviors towards these behaviors. however, in order to be in line with expectations of voter behavior, decision-making mechanisms need to be maintained. motivations to exploit voters’ voting psychology can lead them to vote irrationally. if the voter has no hope for the party, is undecided about its political content, and lacks political knowledge, they may think that the decision cannot be targeted and that their target decision is better made by consulting other consumers or other politically irrelevant sources. disinformation often prevails due to misinformation. 5. instrumentalism in democratic societies, there are often many social groups and political parties. within these groups of political groups, there are usually a few different political parties that have the broad support of everyone (weingast, 1996). these different political parties, in turn, have many other smaller political parties that share the same ideological boundaries and sometimes even fall between them. at this point, the voters vote for the political party that is likely to win instead of the party with the same ideology, which they already foresee will not win. voters who vote in instrumental terms may make strategic voting decisions. so the voting transitions of instrumental voters are in the following ways: suppose www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. there is a political party that, in general, has always had low approval ratings throughout history. instrumental voters also share the same ideas with this party. but even though instrumental voters support this party, they vote for a party that is already successful and has more to offer both to society and to their own use, which they vote for because they anticipate that the outgoing party will again come out of the elections with a low vote share. among the voters, corporate voters are the ones who make the most accurate decisions. they are the ones who determine the choices, make predictions, and act accordingly. these voters are examples of voters who also blossom into different opinions. they do not make one-sided assessments. 6. increasing the actions’ utility the aim of every political party is to win the elections and get the most votes. in order to get the highest number of votes, it is logically necessary to make election promises and provide services. here, both the political party and the voter will speak as politicians. utilitarianism is important to voters’ behavior and voting patterns. when voters evaluate political parties as their targets, they turn to the economic promises of those parties and whether there is a common goal between them and the parties—that is, their thoughts. voting ideology is also important in social elections. in general, people vote for the political party with which they share the same opinion. on the other hand, if individuals have little political knowledge, they still tend to vote for ideological explanations. although this ideology may vary geographically and culturally, it is still one that benefits individuals (downs, 1957). for example, a person does not have information about the ratio of the minimum wage to national income, but he or she will vote for whichever party increases the minimum wage that he or she desires. the issues of national income and the minimum wage are, of course, a matter of course for economically developed countries. the minimum wage rate in a country with a high economic level is certainly higher than in a country with a low economic level, but if we assume that the public policy in this area is formed by political parties in both countries, the voters in both regions will vote for whichever party raises the minimum wage. social choice theory is evident. there is collective welfare and individual welfare. people make decisions based on their expectations from the parties they vote for, their interpretation of the problem-solving dimensions of those parties, and the passage of the political party. in general, voters’ expectations of political parties are fixed. for example, members of the production, raising the level of education, products of the economy, and demonstrations in public policies. in order to compare such expectations, voters use the party’s track record to make predictions about whether it will be able to solve possible challenges. they vote according to which political party is better able to solve these potential challenges. 7. evaluating different options for rational voters, it is not the ideas of political parties that matter, but their actions. if a political party is new to politics and is contesting elections for the first time, voters will first look at the actions of that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. party. politics already creates dynamism within itself and is open to innovation. it is possible to allow for different options in the rational voter’s decision-making. they should evaluate the pre-election proposals of the political party. 8. strategic voting rational voters generally vote in elections. the factor that influences their voting organizations is that the government they support may try to stay in power, and the opposing government may be victorious in the race to stay in power. according to the benefits of the party they support by voting, they vote in that way by ranking in capacity. they even want to account for the fact that their votes do not affect the winning parts of the party they support (başarır, 2016). if the voters have no or low political knowledge, it is the love and trust they show towards the problem-solving methods of politicians or the people or organizations that fulfill the protection of the problem while making decisions while voting. for voters who make decisions based on well-known individuals or organizations, it is their leadership positions that are important, not their knowledge or problem-solving groups. this makes the voters’ behavior in voting more salient. at the same time, the emotional attachment and broadening cohesion to the goals of political parties and the time period to which the parties are committed is a method used by political parties to attract the middle rather than people with rightor left-wing views. this method is used by most parties and successfully attracts most voters. if the parties have created a harmonious emotional bond against the tendency to which they are affiliated, this attracts the attention of the voter and uses the vote in this direction. according to anthony downs, the main purpose of voting is to compare the government in power with the opposition party on the basis of utility, if the voter wants to see the government in power again. if the voter’s opinion of the ruling party is higher than that of the opposition party, he or she decides to support the ruling party again. however, if the ruling party no longer meets the expectations of the voters and cannot produce proposals as before, and if the opposition party has improved itself and raised expectations, the voters’ expectations will be in favor of supporting the opposition party this time. on the other hand, if both the ruling party and the opposition party do not provide the same benefit for the electorate and the expectation of the electorate is the same for both parties, then the electorate think about what kind of policy the electorate will follow if the party of the voting party does not exist. if he thinks that he can best direct redistribution, he will vote for the opposition party (summary of downs: an economic theory of democracy, adam brown, byu political science, n.d.). to do this, he looks at the past political life of the party and draws conclusions as to whether it can realize the expected goal. if it wants to continue in the same way rather than change, and if the voter’s expectation is that support for iteration gives him or her more confidence, then the voter’s vote for iteration becomes economic. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. 9. conclusion it provides explanations with statistical and experimental analyses of the target voter model that voter proposals have brought to political science. the first study on this was conducted in 1944 and has continued until today. anthony downs, in his book “an economic theory of democracy,” describes the rational voter model in a broader and more explanatory way. in general, the qualities that should be present in preferred voters are characteristics such as conservation, instrumentalism, utilitarianism, and evaluation of different options, and these characteristics should have a certain criterion specific to them. references akgül, f. i̇. (2013). türkiyede seçmen davranışları: politik sosyo-ekonomik boyutlarıyla etkileyen faktörler (master’s thesis, sosyal bilimler enstitüsü). aldrich, j. h. (1993). rational choice and turnout. american journal of political science, 246-278. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111531 altıntaş, c. (2010). seçmen tipolojisi. antunes, r. (2010). theoretical models of voting behaviour. exedra, 4(1), 145-70. başarir, m. (2016). poli̇ti̇k konuşmalardaki̇ i̇kna ve üslup faktörleri̇ni̇n seçmenleri̇n sosyo demografi̇k özelli̇kleri̇ i̇le si̇yasi̇ terci̇hleri̇ne göre karşilaştirilmasi. uluslararası sosyal ve eğitim bilimleri dergisi, 3(6), 87-105. https://doi.org/10.20860/ijoses.279878 branton, r. p. (2003). examining individual-level voting behavior on state ballot propositions. political research quarterly, 56(3), 367-377. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290305600311 doğan, a., & göker, g. (2010). yerel seçimlerde seçmen tercihi (29 mart yerel seçimleri elazığ seçmeni örneği). eskişehir osmangazi üniversitesi i̇i̇bf dergisi, 5(2), 159-187. downs, a. (1957). an economic theory of political action in a democracy. journal of political economy, 65(2), 135-150. https://doi.org/10.1086/257897 evans, g. (2000). the continued significance of class voting. annual review of political science, 3(1), 401-417. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.401 eyidiker, u. (2019). siyasal davranış: siyasal katılıma giden yol. international journal of social, humanities and administrative sciences (joshas) dergisi: http://dx.doi.org/10.31589/joshas.154 feddersen, t. j. (2004). rational choice theory and the paradox of not voting. journal of economicperspectives, 18(1), 99-112. 10.1257/089533004773563458 fishbein, m., & coombs, f. s. (1974). basis for decision: an attitudinal analysis of voting behavior journal of applied social psychology, 4(2), 95-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1974.tb00662.x glasgow, g., & weber, r. a. (2005). is there a relationship between election outcomes and perceptions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. of personal economic well-being? a test using post-election economic expectations. electoral studies, 24(4), 581-601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2005.02.001 hartwig, r. (1981). rationality and voting. journal of political science, 9(1), 1. jones, b. d. (1999). bounded rationality. annual review of political science, 2(1), 297-321. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.297 ladner, m., & wlezien, c. (2007). partisan preferences, electoral prospects, and economic expectations. comparative political studies, 40(5), 571-596. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414005285758 lee, i. c., chen, e. e., tsai, c. h., yen, n. s., chen, a. l., & lin, w. c. (2016). voting intention and choices: are voters always rational and deliberative?. plos one, 11(2), e0148643. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148643 lepper, s. j. (1974). voting behavior and aggregate policy targets. public choice, 18(1), 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01718497 mcgann, a. (2016). voting choice and rational choice. in oxford research encyclopedia of politics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.79 pennock, j. r. (1958). an economic theory of democracy. by anthony downs (new york: harper and brothers. 1957. pp. ix, 310. $4.50.). american political science review, 52(2), 539-541. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952336 sartori, g. (1976). parties and party systems-a framework for analysis cambridge university press. summary of downs: an economic theory of democracy -adam brown, byu political science. (n.d.). summary of downs: an economic theory of democracy -adam brown, byu political science. https://adambrown.info/p/notes/downs_an_economic_theory_of_democracy ünal, b. a. (2016). oy verme davranişi modelleri̇. ordu üniversitesi sosyal bilimler enstitüsü sosyal bilimler araştırmaları dergisi, 6(15), 95-119. weingast, b. r. (1996). political institutions: rational choice perspectives. a new handbook of political science, 167, 168. https://doi.org/10.1093/0198294719.003.0005 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148643 abstract keywords 1. introduction references akgül, f. i̇. (2013). türkiyede seçmen davranışları: politik sosyo-ekonomik boyutlarıyla etkileyen faktörler (master’s thesis, sosyal bilimler enstitüsü). aldrich, j. h. (1993). rational choice and turnout. american journal of political science, 246-278. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111531 altıntaş, c. (2010). seçmen tipolojisi. antunes, r. (2010). theoretical models of voting behaviour. exedra, 4(1), 145-70. branton, r. p. (2003). examining individual-level voting behavior on state ballot propositions. political research quarterly, 56(3), 367-377. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290305600311 doğan, a., & göker, g. (2010). yerel seçimlerde seçmen tercihi (29 mart yerel seçimleri elazığ seçmeni örneği). eskişehir osmangazi üniversitesi i̇i̇bf dergisi, 5(2), 159-187. downs, a. (1957). an economic theory of political action in a democracy. journal of political economy, 65(2), 135-150. https://doi.org/10.1086/257897 evans, g. (2000). the continued significance of class voting. annual review of political science, 3(1), 401-417. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.401 eyidiker, u. (2019). siyasal davranış: siyasal katılıma giden yol. international journal of social, humanities and administrative sciences (joshas) dergisi: http://dx.doi.org/10.31589/joshas.154 feddersen, t. j. (2004). rational choice theory and the paradox of not voting. journal of economicperspectives, 18(1), 99-112. 10.1257/089533004773563458 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 99 original paper research on the significance and path of integrating red cultural resources into the ideological and political courses of colleges and universities liang ren1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china funded projects xi’an fanyi university 2025 school-level research program on ideological and political education special project: the significance and path of integrating red cultural resources into the civics and politics courses in colleges and universities (project no. 2025b80). received: february 19, 2025 accepted: march 29, 2025 online published: april 15, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p99 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p99 abstract red resources are valuable spiritual wealth and material carriers formed in the process of revolution, construction and reform. in the context of the new era, the effective integration of red resources into the ideological and political theory courses of colleges and universities (hereinafter referred to as “ideological and political courses”) is of great significance to the cultivation of college students of the new era with firm ideals and beliefs, profound patriotic sentiments and a high sense of social responsibility. the purpose of this paper is to discuss the significance of integrating red resources into the civic and political science classes in colleges and universities, and to put forward specific implementation paths, in order to provide reference for improving the quality and effect of teaching civic and political science classes. keywords civic and political science classes in colleges and universities, significance, path 1. introduction red resources, as a treasure in the treasure house of socialist culture with chinese characteristics, not only carries our party's glorious course, fine tradition and revolutionary spirit, but also is an important embodiment of our national spirit. in colleges and universities, which is an important position for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 training socialist builders and successors, the skillful integration of red resources into the civics and political science courses can not only greatly enrich the teaching content, improve the attractiveness and infectious force of the courses, but also significantly enhance the relevance and effectiveness of teaching. through such a teaching method, it can effectively stimulate the patriotic passion of the students in their hearts, guide them to establish a correct worldview, outlook on life and values, so as to cultivate more ideal, moral, cultured and disciplined young people for the future of the country. 2. status and problems of red culture integration into the teaching of civics classes in colleges and universities 2.1 status quo of red cultural resources integrated into the civics and political science course higher education institutions have begun to integrate rich red cultural resources into the teaching of ideological and political courses, through telling red stories of historical significance, constructing vivid red scenes and organizing red study and practice activities and other forms, making the teaching content more colorful, thus effectively enhancing the effectiveness and infectious force of education. with the continuous development and application of digital technology, such as the introduction of virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) technology, it has brought brand-new means and methods for the dissemination and teaching of red cultural resources. the application of these technologies greatly enhances the immersive experience of students in the learning process, enabling students to more intuitively and profoundly feel the charm of red culture, so as to emotionally resonate and further deepen their understanding and memory of red history. 2.2 problems of integrating red cultural resources into the civics class 2.2.1 insufficient excavation of resources in the current educational practice, we notice a remarkable problem, that is, some colleges and universities do not do enough in-depth excavation and integration of red cultural resources, which results in the potential of red cultural resources not being fully utilized. red cultural resources, as the valuable spiritual wealth of our country, contain rich historical information and educational value, and play an irreplaceable role in cultivating students' patriotic sentiment and sense of historical responsibility. however, due to various reasons, including insufficient knowledge of red culture, lack of professional talents, and limitations of financial investment, these universities have failed to effectively transform these resources into educational resources, and have failed to make full use of the unique advantages of the red cultural resources in the curriculum, campus culture construction, etc., thus affecting the full play of the educational function of red culture. 2.2.2 insufficient innovative forms although we have seen the application of mathematical and intellectual technologies in the field of education, and these technologies have brought new possibilities for teaching and learning, on the whole, these changes have not been deep and extensive enough. in order to better adapt to the reality of students' learning situation, we need to further explore and develop new teaching modes and methods. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 this includes the use of advanced technological tools, such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality, to create a more interactive and personalized learning experience. at the same time, we should also encourage teachers to exercise their creativity and design more creative and attractive teaching and learning activities, taking into account the characteristics of their subjects and the needs of their students. only in this way can we ensure the continuous progress of education and meet the future demand for talents in society. 2.2.3 weak synergy mechanism at present, the mechanism for the common construction and sharing of red cultural resources has not yet reached a perfect level, which leads to the fact that the synergistic cooperation between colleges and universities and red education bases as well as social resources has yet to be further strengthened. in order to better inherit and promote red culture, it is necessary to build a more efficient and systematic cooperation framework, so that all parties can jointly participate in the development, utilization and dissemination of red cultural resources. this can not only promote the in-depth development of red cultural education, but also enhance the understanding and recognition of the public, especially young people, of red history, so as to form a favorable atmosphere of respecting and protecting the red cultural heritage in the whole society. 3. the significance of integrating red resources into the ideological and political courses of colleges and universities 3.1 strengthening ideal and conviction education red resources, which is not only a symbol of color, but also contains a rich revolutionary history and revolutionary spirit, is a vivid teaching material for the education of ideals and beliefs. by digging deep into the heroic deeds and revolutionary stories in red resources, we can let students feel more intuitively the bravery and firm conviction of the revolutionary martyrs, so as to guide them to deeply understand the party's original heart and mission, firmly believe in communism, and set up the ideal conviction of striving all their lives for the cause of communism. the educational significance of red resources lies not only in passing on history, but also in stimulating the patriotic enthusiasm and striving spirit of contemporary youth, so that they can continue to carry forward the glorious traditions and fine style of the revolutionary forefathers in the journey of the new era. the educational function of red resources is multifaceted, which can not only help us look back on the past and remember those heroes who sacrificed their lives for the interests of the country and the people, but also inspire us to cherish the hard-won achievements of peace and development, and at the same time, it is also an important way to cultivate and practice socialist core values. the use of red resources can take various forms, such as organizing students to visit revolutionary history museums and red education bases, carrying out red-themed cultural performances and speech contests, as well as writing books and teaching materials on red stories, etc. all these activities can enable students to learn from participation and experience, so as to plant red seeds in their hearts and let the revolutionary spirit be passed on from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 generation to generation. 3.2 cultivate patriotic sentiment red resources, as a valuable asset in patriotic education, not only carries rich historical and cultural values, but also connects the bridge between the past and the present. by visiting those revolutionary sites and memorial halls full of historical significance, students can intuitively feel the heaviness of history and the heroism of the revolutionary martyrs. these revolutionary sites and memorial halls are like containers of time, preserving countless touching historical moments, telling heroic stories of the past, and filling every stone and wall with stories and emotions. at the same time, students will be deeply touched in their hearts by watching those red movie and television works that vividly show the revolutionary history and listening to those touching and heroic deeds of the revolutionary forefathers. these activities can not only stimulate students' patriotic fervor, but also further enhance their national pride and self-confidence. in addition, red resource education can also cultivate students' sense of family and country and social responsibility, making them cherish the present happy life even more, and at the same time motivating them to contribute to the future of the country. through such education, students will learn to draw strength from history and understand the close connection between their personal destiny and the destiny of the country, thus building up in their hearts a firm belief in striving for the realization of the chinese dream of the great revival of the chinese nation. 3.3 enhance the effectiveness of the teaching of civic and political courses red resources, because of their intuitive, vivid and infectious characteristics, can significantly enhance the attractiveness and infectious force of the civic and political science course. these resources, containing a wealth of historical significance and educational value, when they are skillfully integrated into the civic and political science course, not only can change the traditional single teaching mode, but also make the teaching content become more colorful and teaching methods more flexible and diverse. in this way, it can effectively increase students' interest and participation in learning, and then enhance the effectiveness of the teaching of the civic and political science course, so that students can better understand and absorb the content of the course in the learning process. the use of red resources not only injects new vitality into the civics and political science education, but also helps to cultivate students' patriotic feelings and sense of historical responsibility, so that while they feel history, they can also deeply realize the lessons and valuable experiences of history, so that they can be enlightened in their thoughts and guided in their actions. in addition, the introduction of red resources can help students establish a correct view of history and values, inspire students' national pride and sense of collective honor through vivid historical stories and the deeds of heroes and heroines, further promote students' all-round development, and lay a solid ideological foundation for training socialist builders and successors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 4. the path of red resources into the ideological and political courses in colleges and universities 4.1 integrate red resources and build teaching system higher education institutions should deeply excavate and fully utilize local red resources, and closely integrate these valuable historical and cultural heritages with the content of ideological and political education courses, so as to build an education system centered on red resources. in this way, the red resources can be classified and integrated according to the historical development, the unique characteristics of the region and different themes, thus forming a systematic and modular teaching resource base. such a resource base can not only provide teachers of civics and political science with richer and more diversified teaching materials, but also help students better understand and absorb the spiritual connotation of red culture, so that they can be inspired and educated in their thinking. at the same time, through this mode of education, it can further stimulate students' love for national history and respect for revolutionary traditions, and enhance their national pride and sense of historical mission. in addition, this educational mode can also promote the cultivation of students' critical thinking, so that they can analyze and understand the complex factors behind historical events in a more in-depth manner, and thus be able to make wiser and more rational judgments in the face of real problems. 4.2 innovative teaching methods to enhance teaching effectiveness teachers of civics and political science in colleges and universities should actively seek innovation in the teaching process, constantly explore and practice new teaching methods, and integrate red resources into teaching activities in a diversified way. for example, teachers can use case-based teaching methods to guide students to analyze and discuss in-depth through specific historical events or character cases, so as to stimulate students' interest in learning and active participation. at the same time, the discussion teaching method can encourage students to collide with each other, and through the exchange of collective wisdom, promote students to actively think and form their own opinions. the experiential teaching method allows students to experience history and culture more intuitively through simulation or personal experience, so as to deepen their understanding and memory of knowledge. in addition, teachers can also use modern information technology means, such as virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) and other technologies, to create a realistic historical situation, so that students seem to travel through time and space, immersed in the revolutionary history of the ups and downs of the history, so as to emotionally resonate and enhance the teaching effect. these innovative teaching methods can not only enrich the teaching content and improve students' learning enthusiasm, but also help students better understand and inherit the red culture, and cultivate their patriotic sentiment and sense of historical responsibility. 4.3 strengthen practical teaching and deepen emotional experience higher education institutions should pay enough attention to the practical teaching link in ideological and political courses, and actively plan and organize students to visit revolutionary sites, memorial halls, museums and other bases with red educational significance. through such field trips and personal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 experience, students can more deeply understand and feel the heroic and fearless deeds of the revolutionary martyrs and the noble revolutionary spirit they have shown. in addition, colleges and universities should also encourage students to participate in social practice activities and volunteer work centered on the red theme, which can not only further deepen students' emotional experience, but also effectively stimulate their patriotic feelings and enhance their sense of social responsibility. in order to realize this goal, colleges and universities can establish long-term cooperative relationships with local red education bases and regularly arrange for students to go to these places for learning and exchanges. in the process of visiting, teachers can guide students to carry out in-depth thinking and discussion, help them combine what they see and hear with classroom knowledge, so as to achieve the teaching effect of combining theory and practice. at the same time, colleges and universities can also invite people who have experienced revolutionary history or experts to give special lectures for students, sharing their personal experiences and profound insights, so that students can understand and learn revolutionary history from multiple angles and levels. 4.4 strengthen the construction of faculty and enhance the teaching level in today's society, institutions of higher education shoulder the important responsibility of cultivating future social builders and successors who are both virtuous and talented. therefore, it is particularly important to strengthen the construction of the faculty of ideological and political courses. this not only requires teachers to have solid professional knowledge, but also requires them to have noble political qualities and firm ideal beliefs. in order to achieve this goal, colleges and universities should take a series of practical measures. first of all, universities can organize teachers to participate in red education training programs, through which teachers can learn and understand red history in depth, so as to better inherit the red gene and carry forward the revolutionary tradition. secondly, colleges and universities should also encourage teachers to actively participate in various academic exchange activities, through exchanges and discussions with peers, teachers can broaden their horizons, absorb new educational concepts and teaching methods, and further improve their professional skills. in addition to the above measures, colleges and universities should also encourage teachers to actively explore how to integrate red resources into the teaching of ideological and political courses. red resources are the valuable spiritual wealth of the chinese nation, which contains rich revolutionary history and revolutionary spirit. teachers can transform these red resources into vivid teaching content by carrying out relevant teaching research and practical exploration, so that students can deeply understand and feel the red spirit while learning knowledge. through such a teaching method, it can not only stimulate students' interest in learning, but also help them establish a correct worldview, outlook on life and values. colleges and universities should continue to summarize and promote those effective teaching methods and experiences, as a way to continuously improve the teaching quality of ideological and political courses, and to contribute to the cultivation of more ideal, moral, cultured and disciplined socialist builders and successors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 5. conclusion integrating red resources into the ideological and political courses of colleges and universities is extremely important for cultivating college students in the new era. these red resources, including revolutionary history, heroes and revolutionary spirit, are valuable spiritual wealth of the chinese nation. colleges and universities should deeply explore and fully utilize these red resources to build a comprehensive teaching system. through innovative teaching methods, such as case teaching, situational simulation, role-playing, etc., strengthening practical teaching links, such as organizing students to visit revolutionary sites and carrying out volunteer service activities, and strengthening the construction of teaching staff, such as regular training and seminars on red education for teachers, the teaching quality and teaching effect of the civic and political science courses can be significantly improved. in addition, colleges and universities should also pay attention to cultivating students' independent learning ability and innovative spirit, guiding students to deeply understand and absorb the revolutionary spirit and fine traditions contained in red resources, so that they can be internalized in the heart and externalized in action. in this way, students will be able to contribute their youthful strength in the journey to realize the chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. references du, s. h. (2025). research on the effectiveness of civic and political education in colleges and universities empowered by red archives. shanxi archives, (01), 47-50. li, h. (2025). exploration on the innovation of practical teaching mode of civic and political science classes in colleges and universities empowered by network short video. research on ideological and political class, (01), 140-150. liu, x. z., & gong, x. y. (2025). research on the integration of red culture and marxist theory in civics classes of colleges and universities in the new media era. journalism research guide, 16(02), 149-153. lu, j., li, d., & huo, d. x. (2025). the value, dilemma and optimization of digital red cultural resources empowering civics classes in colleges and universities. journal of heilongjiang teachers' development institute, 44(04), 67-71. pei, m. h. (2025). research on the path of red culture integrating into civics classes in colleges and universities. huazhang, (03), 108-110. song, n. (2025). research on the logic and path of the unification of politics and rationality in the civics and political science classes of colleges and universities. times report, (02), 155-157. sun, j. m. (2025). the three-dimensionality of the integration of chinese excellent traditional culture into the ideological and political courses in colleges and universities. journal of suzhou university of science and technology (social science edition), 42(01), 13-18. tian, m. (2025). research on the path of red culture integrating into civics classes of colleges and universities under the background of “great civics class”. administrative science forum, 12(02), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 71-74. wang, y. y., & tian, c. k. (2025). research on the optimization path of red culture into the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. finance theory and teaching, 43(01), 113-118. wu, y. (2025). red cultural resources into the path of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities. heilongjiang daily, 2025-01-24(008). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 145 original paper the value, dilemmas and optimization path of the village affairs public disclosure system in rural grassroots governance lu liu1 1wuxi taihu university, wuxi, china received: march 24, 2025 accepted: june 11, 2025 online published: june 28, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p145 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p145 abstract the field of rural grassroots governance is a key area for realizing social fairness and justice. as an autonomous right endowed by law to farmers, the village affairs public disclosure system serves as an institutional guarantee for rural grassroots governance. as an important component of grassroots self-governance, the village affairs public disclosure system has undergone a development process of more than 40 years, and it is of great value and significance to the construction of grassroots democratic politics, grassroots people's livelihood, and grassroots social and cultural environment. the village affairs public disclosure system still faces many dilemmas in rural grassroots governance, such as insufficient motivation, inconsistent systems, and inadequate supervision. taking the construction of the village affairs public disclosure system as an innovation point and breakthrough can help promote the institutionalization and legalization of rural grassroots governance. keywords village affairs public disclosure, institutional construction, rural grassroots governance 1. introduction rural grassroots governance, as the last mile of national governance, is an effective way to safeguard the interests of grassroots masses and an important guarantee for realizing the modernization of national governance capacity and governance system. as an important part of the grassroots democratic political system, the village affairs public disclosure system plays a key role in rural grassroots governance. the reform of rural grassroots governance is a long-term process. as an old-member of the grassroots self-governance system, how the village affairs public disclosure system can exert new-energy in the construction of a new era countryside and continuously stimulate the vitality of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 146 rural grassroots self-governance system is a key issue that should be paid attention to in the comprehensive promotion of the rural revitalization strategy and the realization of the rule of law in rural governance. 2. the value orientation of the village affairs public disclosure system in rural grassroots governance since the 1980s, the village affairs public disclosure system has experienced a process from the brewing of system construction, exploratory innovation to continuous improvement. it is not only an important part of the rural grassroots villagers' self-governance but also an important reliance for the modernization of rural grassroots governance. 2.1 the village affairs disclosure system as a guarantee for implementing democratic politics from the perspective of democratic politics, the openness, supervisability, and public participation of the village affairs public disclosure system are the touchstone of the grassroots democratic political system, the display platform for the work achievements of grassroots cadres, and an important means to restrict the power in the hands of grassroots cadres. the principle of openness of the village affairs public disclosure system ensures that grassroots people have access to the promulgation of national policies, the arrangement of government work, the content of village-level affairs, etc., and is the basis for publicizing the operation of power under the sun. by disclosing the contents of democratic elections, village-level affairs decisions, etc., the work of rural grassroots organizations is in a fair, just, and open transparent state. this not only allows farmers to clearly understand the actual operation and implementation of rural grassroots work but also to a certain extent stimulates farmers' enthusiasm for managing their own affairs, ensuring that farmers solve relevant disputes in a more fair, objective, and reliable way. the principle of supervisability of the village affairs public disclosure system guarantees that farmers can effectively exercise their right to supervise, which is conducive to improving the top-down supervision system and promoting the construction of an integrated supervision system of superior supervision, peer supervision, and villagers' supervision. the principle of citizen participation in the village affairs public disclosure system is conducive to stimulating the enthusiasm and initiative of farmers as the main body of self-governance, and is the key to effectively realizing the linkage of mass supervision and promoting the effective implementation of the village affairs public disclosure system. 2.2 the village affairs disclosure system as an important way to safeguard grassroots livelihoods from the perspective of social people's livelihood, the village affairs public disclosure system is a legal system for disclosing the implementation of national policies, displaying the implementation of rural government affairs, and benefiting the people's policies, and it is also the institutional support for ensuring the substantive construction of people's livelihood projects. the disclosure of funds such as agricultural subsidies, dilapidated house reconstruction subsidies, and land use subsidies issued by the state, as well as the use of rural three-capitals by grassroots organizations, which are related to the core www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 147 interests of farmers, restricts the use of national funds by grassroots organizations to a certain extent, so that grassroots organizations and grassroots cadres can effectively apply national policies to farmers, benefit all farmers with policy interests, meet the development needs of the economic life in grassroots areas, and contribute to the cause of building a new look of the countryside in the new era. 2.3 the village affairs disclosure system as an important tool for shaping social culture from the perspective of the social and cultural environment, the village affairs public disclosure system is not only an important channel for shaping social culture and atmosphere but also an important system for implementing social fairness and justice. the village affairs public disclosure system is not only the simple implementation of policies and legal texts but also a necessary means to eliminate the atmosphere of corruption and establish a clean culture. as the main channel for farmers to understand the arrangement of village-level affairs and supervise village affairs, the village affairs public disclosure system can fully protect the right to know, the right to participate, and the right to supervise of grassroots people on the one hand, and can effectively restrict the operation and implementation of power on the other hand. at the same time, the village affairs public disclosure system is an important way to promote the construction of a clean government culture and strengthen the self-discipline of staff, which is conducive to deepening the comprehensive promotion of the construction of the rule of law and realizing good governance in the countryside. 3. the realistic dilemmas of the village affairs public disclosure system in rural grassroots governance the village affairs public disclosure system is progressing from initial exploration to continuous improvement, but there are still many non-standard places in actual operation. 3.1 insufficient cognitive understanding and weak motivation for village affairs disclosure the village affairs public disclosure system is an important part and work form of the grassroots democratic political system. the effective implementation of any system is inseparable from social recognition and actual implementation. in rural grassroots governance, rural grassroots areas do not pay enough attention to the village affairs public disclosure system, and the internal motivation for carrying out village affairs public disclosure work is not strong. rural grassroots self-governing organizations are the key nodes in the rural grassroots governance system. as the backbone force undertaking rural grassroots governance, they are not only the connectors and intermediaries between government administrative management and rural self-governance but also the specific organizers for farmers to realize self-management and development, undertaking various grassroots governance functions such as organization, guidance, coordination, management, and service. although the village affairs public disclosure system is an important part of the rural grassroots self-governance system, which requires and reflects the requirements and mastery of farmers' right to know and right to participate, under the continuation of traditional ideas, farmers are willing to hand over their rights to grassroots cadres for management, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 148 transfer the right to disclose to grassroots organizations and grassroots cadres. in actual life, it is not uncommon for village committees to excessively interfere with the rights of villagers. farmers have a weak awareness of controlling their own rights, do not have a strong willingness to implement village affairs public disclosure, and even do not think of the need for disclosure. at the same time, rural grassroots cadres still have problems such as weak legal awareness, lack of legal concepts, and unclear understanding of institutional concepts. there are even individual extreme situations where grassroots cadres regard themselves as the "local emperors" in the local area, take a one-size-fits-all attitude towards matters related to village affairs public disclosure, have a weak awareness of disclosure, and even use non-implementation of village affairs public disclosure as a way to avoid supervision and cover up corruption. "selective" disclosure or even non-disclosure seriously affects the authenticity and effectiveness of village affairs public disclosure, and is also a major pain point in the practice of village affairs public disclosure. 3.2 low timeliness and insufficient detail in village affairs disclosure content from the perspective of the specific implementation of the village affairs public disclosure system, the most serious and prominent problem is that the content of village affairs public disclosure does not comply with regulations, and the problems of low timeliness of public disclosure content, false disclosure, hidden disclosure, and non-disclosure occur from time to time, which not only hinders the normal progress of village affairs work but also buries actual hidden dangers for grassroots governance. firstly, from the perspective of the content of village affairs disclosure, the incompleteness, selectivity, and one-sidedness of the disclosed content are major challenges faced in practice. most of the content disclosed involves public affairs, finances, and party affairs at the village level, while matters and policies related to township, county, or higher levels are not disclosed to rural villagers. the content to be disclosed undergoes review by the village committee, villagers' representative assembly, and village-linking cadres. content related to their own interests is often concealed. within their own power range, grassroots cadres expand their power and abuse public authority, which not only leads to the alienation of villagers' autonomy but also serves as an important trigger for grassroots corruption. secondly, from the perspective of the procedures for village affairs disclosure, the system has corresponding and clear execution procedures. a complete execution process helps improve the efficiency of rural grassroots governance. however, in actual work, rural grassroots cadres may simplify or even omit procedural steps such as reporting village affairs disclosure to the villagers' representative assembly and seeking review from village-linking cadres due to various reasons such as rushing time, fulfilling tasks, or going through formalities. in practice, to reduce workload, grassroots cadres only conduct a formal review of the content of village affairs disclosure without meticulously examining its substantive content. neglecting or glossing over the content of village affairs disclosure, along with insufficient disclosure, vague content, and irregular procedures, significantly increases the difficulty of standardizing and legalizing rural grassroots governance. thirdly, from the perspective of the timing of village affairs disclosure, laws and regulations specify www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 149 disclosure times such as annual, quarterly, and monthly disclosures, with different disclosure times stipulated according to different matters. given the particularity of rural grassroots governance, the state grants rural grassroots areas more freedom and decision-making power. many regions maintain an attitude of disclosing when they want to, disclosing at any time, not disclosing on time, or not disclosing at all towards village affairs disclosure, directly leading to the bypassing of the time regulations in the village affairs disclosure system and preventing grassroots people from obtaining effective information and policies according to legal times. in addition, laws and regulations do not impose uniform mandatory regulations on the methods of village affairs disclosure. in many villages, disclosure is carried out through bulletin boards, but the lagging information on bulletin boards and their inconspicuous positions affect the role played by village affairs disclosure to some extent. 3.3 weakened village affairs disclosure supervision system and lack of effective remedy channels the effective operation of any system relies on a strong supervision and feedback mechanism, but the actual operation of village affairs supervision is not ideal, mainly manifesting in the following aspects. firstly, the internal structure of the village affairs disclosure supervision system is incomplete. according to legal provisions, the village affairs supervision system still belongs to macro-level content, with limited targeted guidance for implementation in grassroots governance. in actual work, formality reviews outweigh substantive reviews in village affairs supervision.to reduce work pressure, some rural areas directly cancel the establishment of village affairs supervision committees, resulting in the inability to fulfill their duties. meanwhile, based on the special status of rural grassroots organizations in china's governance system, village affairs supervision relations belong to internal rights and obligations arising from the grassroots democratic autonomy system. the non-statutory nature of endogenous institutions actually leads to a lack of effective remedies when village affairs supervision conflicts with villagers' rights. secondly, township government supervision intensity is weak, and the coordination between village affairs supervision and government supervision is not high. an important source of autonomous rights for rural grassroots autonomous organizations is villagers, and the other is higher-level governments. the alienation of supervision rights in village affairs disclosure leads to the rupture of relations between township governments and grassroots autonomous organizations. the lack of attention paid by township governments to village affairs disclosure system supervision results in the loss of a strong guarantee for the autonomous rights of grassroots organizations, to some extent contributing to the problem of village affairs supervision. thirdly, villagers' supervision content is absent, and there is a lack of synergy between village affairs supervision and villagers' supervision. members of the village affairs supervision committee come from the villagers' assembly or villagers' representative assembly. in actual life, members of the village affairs supervision committee often cross-appoint with personnel from grassroots autonomous organizations. villagers' lack of attention to democratic rights not only leads to confusion in the appointment of village affairs supervision committee members but also plants hidden dangers for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 150 corruption in grassroots governance. meanwhile, the quality of village affairs supervision committee members largely falls short of that of the village party branch committee and the villagers' committee. in village affairs, the "village two committees" hold absolute power, leading to peculiarities such as village affairs supervision committee members not supervising, daring not to supervise, not knowing how to supervise, or even supervising in a chaotic manner, seriously weakening the original functions of village affairs supervision. 4. the optimization path of the village affairs public disclosure system in rural grassroots governance at present, rural grassroots governance is facing a critical moment of transitioning from institutionalization to legalization, with institutional reform being urgent. to improve the village affairs disclosure system, it is necessary to adhere to a combination of rigidity and flexibility, institutional improvement, and cultural change, promoting the transformation and perfection of rural grassroots governance. 4.1 taking cultural innovation as a gripper to deepen the legalization of village affairs disclosure the rule of law is an important foundation for the national governance system and governance capacity, as well as the ultimate guarantee for rural grassroots governance. in rural areas where disputes are often settled through personal connections and customs, with the development of the economy, changes in social governance models, and updates in ideological culture, the original self-mediation model is insufficient to cope with new social situations. the autonomous entity needs to use the rule of law to restrict and regulate the abuse of power. the rule of law provides institutional support and guarantees for building a clean government, while a clean governance culture creates a favorable social environment for legalization. the two complement each other in national governance. to deepen the legalization of village affairs disclosure, on one hand, it is necessary to further improve existing legal norms regarding village affairs disclosure in the legislative system, further standardizing and perfecting the grassroots governance legalization system through the linkage between the regulatory system and anti-corruption laws, utilizing the leading role of legislation, and driving legal innovation in grassroots governance through legislation. on the other hand, in law enforcement, it is necessary to strictly regulate illegal and irregular phenomena in village affairs disclosure, utilizing judicial means and the credibility of the judiciary to continuously push the village affairs disclosure system towards legalization, strengthening the implementation of a clean governance culture and governance concepts in grassroots governance through judicial regulation. 4.2 taking institutional innovation as a driving force to improve the operating mechanism of village affairs disclosure to realize the effective operation of the village affairs disclosure system, it is necessary to innovate in all aspects such as disclosure methods, timing, and procedures, coordinating disclosure time, content, and methods to promote the authenticity and effectiveness of the village affairs disclosure system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 151 firstly, with the continuous development of the intelligent and refined era, "digital and intelligent rural construction" has become a new direction and model for grassroots social development. exploring the use of new media technologies in the big-data era, further modularizing and refining the management of natural villages through a grid-based management system, establishing rural management groups through wechat clients, pushing village affairs information through wechat clients, ensuring the maintenance of villagers' rights through weibo feedback mechanisms, strengthening the combination of villagers' disclosure awareness and village affairs disclosure content, taking villagers' demands as the primary standard for disclosure content, requiring that disclosed content aligns with villagers' expectations, being focused and targeted, and particularly disclosing in detail issues such as national policies for assisting farmers, the implementation and planning of grassroots economic development, hot information topics of concern to villagers, and the implementation of village finances and party affairs to avoid the occurrence of information vacuum phenomena. on the basis of the original simple disclosure methods, expanding approaches such as villagers' group meetings, villagers' broadcasts, villagers' handbooks, wechat public account pushes, and official weibo to further make disclosed information real-time, convenient, accurate, informational, and open, allowing villagers to access first-hand information on village affairs more conveniently and effectively. secondly, strengthening the coordination and linkage between government affairs disclosure and village affairs disclosure. only by establishing a linkage mechanism between the dual disclosure of government affairs and village affairs can a long-term mechanism be formed.driving the orderly operation of village affairs disclosure through township government affairs disclosure, effectively implementing the timing regulations for village affairs disclosure, disclosing village affairs at specific times, and disclosing them when villagers deem it necessary to ensure the transparency, openness, comprehensiveness, and integrity of grassroots information, avoiding the omission and blind spots of information, fully-mobilizing villagers' enthusiasm, and more effectively promoting rural grassroots governance towards good governance by integrating multiple subjects into the governance system. finally, actively promoting the construction of village-level "sunshine engineering" and establishing a clear list mechanism for village affairs disclosure. institutions serve as a framework for safeguarding and restricting power. constructing a clear list of responsibilities for rural grassroots cadres, disclosing power under the sunlight, promoting transparent and constrained mechanisms for the power of grassroots sunshine government work, clarifying and stipulating the powers they possess, delineating their power boundaries, making the functions and powers of village cadres transparent, clear, and concise, keeping power within the cage of institutions, and allowing power to operate under the sunlight.utilizing big-data platforms to fully disclose and record village affairs and government affairs, further expanding villagers' channels for filing petitions, avoiding the neglect of villagers' reasonable demands, giving full play to network information supervision, utilizing big-data supervision platforms, combining the network with rural areas, and transforming rural governance towards a new modern rural governance model. combining the actual situations of township work and village affairs work, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 152 summarizing, sorting out, and auditing the distribution and operation of grassroots cadres' work, establishing a dynamic power operation management mechanism for village affairs, fully displaying the actual operation of micro-powers at the grassroots level under the sunlight, and establishing an information feedback mechanism for grassroots people, fully utilizing existing forms such as information feedback mailboxes, leadership mailboxes, grassroots visits, and petition systems to expand channels for grassroots people to provide feedback on their situation, mobilizing villagers' initiative in autonomy rights and enthusiasm in supervision rights. 4.3 taking supervision reform as a guarantee to perfect the supervision and disclosure linkage mechanism at all levels utilizing the deterrent effect of higher-level supervision, applying the management effect of peer government supervision, and stimulating the autonomous effect of villagers' self-supervision to form an all-round, diversified, and broad-based supervision pattern. firstly, making good use of the self-supervision mechanism of grassroots people's autonomy, enhancing the transparency of power operation mechanisms, reducing the randomness of power utilization, strengthening the enthusiasm for self-supervision, and effectively implementing and operating village affairs under the supervision of grassroots people.villagers are the main bodies of rural grassroots governance and the main bodies for effectively promoting the rural revitalization strategy. rural grassroots governance must always adhere to the development concept of taking the people as the center, fully safeguarding and implementing villagers' rights to know, supervise, participate, and express as autonomous subjects, taking villagers' autonomous supervision as the pillar of the village affairs disclosure supervision system, and continuously injecting strength from villagers themselves into the perfection of the supervision system. secondly, improving the construction of village affairs supervision committees and strengthening the self-supervision mechanism of grassroots organizations. attaching importance to the selection of members of village affairs supervision committees, implementing the recusal system for relevant personnel, adhering to the principles of fairness, justice, and openness in electing personnel with professional knowledge in finance, auditing, etc., further refining personnel appointment regulations, comprehensively considering factors such as age, quality, education level, and ideology.meanwhile, strengthening the education of members of village affairs supervision committees, utilizing various channels such as external learning, township inspections, and party and government learning to provide professional training on party regulations, laws and regulations, villagers' autonomy, and various institutional regulations for village affairs to committee members, continuously improving their supervision abilities and levels, making the village affairs supervision committee no longer an "accessory" of the village two committees, and enabling the village affairs supervision committee to not only supervise but also dare to supervise and be good at supervising. thirdly, strengthening the linkage between township supervision and village affairs supervision, and enhancing the overall control of anti-corruption efforts nationwide through inspection systems. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 153 through the supervision and accountability of township disciplinary inspection committee, the current situation of insufficient punishment by village affairs supervision committees will be improved. the timely intervention and strong legal guarantees provided by the disciplinary inspection committee will further enhance the deterrent force of supervision effects and mechanisms. in the process of comprehensively deepening reforms, strengthening the perfection and development of supervision systems and inspection systems, allowing higher-level supervision to truly be implemented at the local level, enabling peer supervision to play its role, further strengthening the intensity of central supervision and inspection tours at local levels, and giving full play to the bright-sword purification function of inspection tours. references cheng, t. s., & zhao, x. q. (2013). the path obstacles and system improvement of village affairs public disclosure and the amendment of the new organic law of the villagers' committees, published in study and practice 2013 (no. 4). yuan, f. c., & guo, y. n. (2019). "double affairs" public disclosure linkage and rural "micro-corruption" governance (no. 3) published in party and government studies 2019. zhang, g. q. (2016). the dialectics and mutual growth of rule of law construction and clean government culture (no. 9). published in people's tribune 2016. original paper the value, dilemmas and optimization path of the v lu liu1 abstract keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 114 original paper analysing the language of environmental ceramic art hui wang1 1 jingdezhen ceramic university, jingdezhen, jiangxi, china fund project this paper is one of the interim findings of the 2022 jiangxi provincial social sciences fourteenth five-year general project “a multimodal analysis of ceramic artworks from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics” (grant no. 22yy14) and the 2023 jingdezhen municipal social sciences general project “a multimodal analysis of ceramic sculpture from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics” (grant no. 2023028). received: june 17, 2025 accepted: august 09, 2025 online published: august 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p114 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p114 abstract drawing upon systemic-functional semiotics and michael o'toole's analytical framework for sculpture, this study conducts a multifactorial, systemically oriented investigation of environmental ceramic works. through detailed multimodal description and comparative case analyses of both chinese and international pieces, it demonstrates how the ideational, interpersonal and compositional meta-functions of visual grammar can be operationalized to decode spatial scale, material texture, chromatic rhythm, visitor pathways and environmental integration. the empirical results not only confirm the feasibility of applying visual grammar to three-dimensional ceramic installations, but also provide a replicable protocol—comprising phase-by-phase annotation, meta-functional coding and inter-rater reliability checks—that bridges aesthetic interpretation, curatorial practice and pedagogical design. keywords systemic-functional semiotic model, environmental ceramic art, visual grammar analysis 1. introduction introduced to chinese academia at the turn of the twenty-first century, visual grammar analysis quickly became a favored tool across journalism, educational technology, and applied linguistics. yet the resulting research landscape reveals a pronounced imbalance: “low-threshold” texts—children’s drawings, picture books, textbook illustrations, and commercial advertisements—are densely studied, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 while high-order artworks, especially three-dimensional forms such as sculpture, installation, and environmental ceramics, remain conspicuously absent. this path dependence stems from an early, oversimplified transplantation of kress and van leeuwen’s (1996) representational–interactive–compositional model in reading images and from a lack of critical reflection on halliday’s (1985) three meta-functions when transposed across modes. researchers typically treat images as linear sign systems, overlooking the semiotic weight of material texture, embodied perception, and exhibition context, thereby narrowing the theory’s explanatory scope. running parallel yet long marginalized, the language of displayed art (michael o’toole, 1994) took sculpture and exhibition space as its prototype, first importing hallidayan stratification into the analysis of three-dimensional works and proposing a semiotic continuum of “work–site–viewer”. o’toole’s 2011 revision integrates insights from phenomenologies of embodiment, museum narratology, and digital-media studies, embedding haptic, kinaesthetic, and temporal dimensions into the meta-functional matrix and transforming static “visual grammar” into a dynamic multimodal “sensory grammar.” this shift widens the analytical remit—from traditional sculpture to sound-light installations and ar-mediated immersive ceramics—while offering quantifiable tools for describing the interplay of image, space, and viewer, such as a 3-d annotation system mapping spatial vectors, sightlines, and dwell-times. owing to delayed translation and disciplinary silos, however, chinese art scholarship has scarcely registered o’toole’s paradigm update, further entrenching visual grammar’s absence from three-dimensional art research. taking environmental ceramics as its point of entry, the present study juxtaposes kress & van leeuwen’s “visual grammar” with o’toole’s “grammar of displayed art” to construct an analytical framework that simultaneously accommodates the logics of two-dimensional imagery and three-dimensional space. it retains the representational, interactive, and compositional meta-functions to parse glaze coloration, surface texture, and symbolic motifs, while incorporating o’toole’s concepts of modal weighting and perceptual pathways to examine how works couple with terrain, lighting, and visitor flows. through comparative cases drawn from taoxichuan (jingdezhen, china), the mino international ceramics festival (japan), and the ekwc residency (the netherlands), the paper seeks to bridge the long-standing rift between “flat text studies” and “spatial art studies,” offering a replicable operational paradigm for professionalizing and dimensionalizing visual grammar. rudolf arnheim’s visual-perception theory, presented in his writings, regards perceptual concepts in visual art as the fundamental source of both creation and appreciation. visual-grammar analysis, deeply influenced by systemic-functional linguistics and semiotics, is therefore designated systemic-functional semiotics; systemic-functional linguistics itself can be seen as one branch of systemic-functional semiotics. over the past four decades, public buildings and leisure squares in cities worldwide have seen a growing number of contemporary environmental artworks that use ceramics as their primary medium, including ceramic sculptures and architectural murals. countries such as japan have produced a large www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 cohort of ceramic artists renowned for creating environmental ceramic works. with china’s rapid economic growth and its cities’ increasing emphasis on image and environment, environmental ceramic works have mushroomed in public areas—parks, plazas, stations, streets, alleys, and campuses—across cities large and small. but so far, analyses of environmental ceramic works at home and abroad have varied widely and reached no consensus. this paper argues that the multimodal research of systemic functional linguistics—particularly its visual grammar analysis—offers new perspectives and methods for analyzing and evaluating environmental ceramic works. 2. the three functions of visual grammar visual grammar analysis inherits the metafunction hypothesis from systemic functional linguistics, asserting that visual discourse—like discourse composed solely of linguistic signs—is a source of meaning and is inherently multifunctional. social semiotics encompasses both the subject matter of a culture and the modes and types of expression that culture employs. susanne langer’s semiotic aesthetics holds that art is “the creation of symbolic forms of human feeling” and that “artistic symbols are non-linguistic presentational symbols,” and thus emphasizes the importance of appearance and the system of meaning within symbols. according to halliday’s (1985) three meta-functions of language—ideational, interpersonal, and textual—michael o’toole divides the meaning system of visual art into three corresponding types: representational meaning, modal meaning, and compositional meaning. he labels the semiotic codes of various art forms—painting, sculpture, architecture, and so on—so that these codes still denote similar functions or types of meaning relations, though the labels differ across art forms. this paper adopts o’toole’s methodology for analyzing sculpture to examine environmental ceramic art (see table 1). table 1. functions and systems in sculpture function unit representational modal compositional work process(action/event/existen ce/relation) theme(religious/magic/civi c/political) peripeteia(narrative turning-point) scale(to human) mass equilibrium palpability ‘address’ modality message volume(relation to space) proportion(relation to setting) independence openness/closure fixed/mobile cohesion material www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 117 figure participants (agents/patients/existents) body (anthropmorphic/zoomorphi c/biomorphic/inorganic) act movement/stasis position scale mass equilibrium address line solidity relation to light characterization expressiveness vitality relative position to gestalt parallelism static/dynamic fixed/mobile rhythm material member basic physical forms(parts of the body/objects/natural forms/machine parts/geometric forms) drapery fullness of realization(detailed/sty lized/attenuated/abstrac t) raw/polished stress factors texture rhythmic relations material qualities “a picture is worth a thousand words” bluntly encapsulates the relationship between image and language. people are accustomed to, or even unthinkingly, look at images and grasp their meaning, which is why images are so vital and compelling. systemic-functional semiotics holds that its three meta-functions—representational, modal, and compositional—are all meaningful provided they are activated or realized within a text, even in non-linear, simultaneously occurring structures such as pictures. although the systemic or paradigmatic choices of an image can be realized in manifold forms, their purpose is always to actualize the image’s own meanings, including representational, modal, and compositional meanings. representational meaning denotes the way a picture or sculpture stands for real figures, objects, places, or events; whether historical or contemporary, they share the enigmatic aura of classical or renaissance works. michael o’toole regards the representational function as the most salient. modal meaning refers to how an image or sculpture adjusts the viewer’s gaze or posture through angle and, by highlighting and framing specific compositional devices, draws the eye into its world. o’toole argues that many features distinguishing sculpture from other art forms stem from the modal system—scale, mass, balance, tactility, and address. compositional meaning concerns how an image or sculpture achieves equilibrium within its structure or on its plinth by employing geometric principles of verticals, horizontals, and diagonals, as well as internal balances and intersecting oppositions. the compositional function of sculpture encompasses not only textual, cohesive, and contextual features—paralleling halliday’s textual metafunction—but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 118 also compositional proportions, correspondences, and oppositions found in painting. notably, the deliberate dissonance of sculptural form and the foregrounding of material properties—hardness, weight, color, reflectivity, and tactility—are emphasized. 3. visual grammar and environmental ceramics environmental ceramic works were selected for analysis chiefly because they possess three characteristics. first, vitality: like classical and renaissance sculpture, many environmental ceramics evoke living matter such as the human body. second, three-dimensionality: viewers can approach them from any angle and relate them to familiar figures or settings, aligning with systemic and systemic-functional perspectives on the world. third, affective appeal: standing before them, viewers are drawn in and moved by the radiance and beauty they emit. the most context-dependent examples—ceramic installations created to ornament a building façade or to dominate a public square—radiate their presence anew for different passers-by every day. as a visual-language art form, environmental ceramics possess a distinctive aesthetic value and set of features, continually gaining cultural attention under the influence of today’s visual culture, and their aesthetic qualities display the semantic traits of the image era. these works are the purposeful creations of designers who respond to the demands of specific environments and the aesthetic needs of their users. they differ both from studio ceramics produced in free creation and from museum objects. the design of environmental ceramics is intimately tied to the site and to the psychology of the people within it, a relationship that fully embodies the modal function of visual grammar. all of this is closely connected to the representational, modal, and compositional meanings of systemic-functional semiotics. the formal language comprises form, color, texture, and modes of presentation; by combining these with the unique semiotic resources of clay, glaze, and fire, one can analyze the aesthetic qualities and advantages that distinguish ceramics from other environmental art materials and forms. as formal language, ceramics situated in a given environment first deliver a sensory experience. the medium’s professional expertise, technical demands, material specificity, and long historical lineage all elicit distinctive aesthetic responses in the viewer. every feature of this formal language begins with perception triggered by vision. 4. case studies this paper undertakes a semiotic reading of contemporary environmental ceramics by drawing on the three functions and row-and-column sub-headings set out in table 1. the very process of building clay models establishes the compositional function of the work’s surface; it also fixes, within the compositional tags, how dynamic balance and relational intensifications or attenuations are inscribed. these tags address the viewer directly, soliciting bodily recognition, and the same building process thereby shapes the modal function of environmental ceramics. the viewer’s act www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 119 of deciphering the work—visually and spiritually—ultimately realizes its representational function. 4.1 the language of material texture the most distinctive feature of the compositional function is its reflection through material, evident in the roles of diagrams, graphics, and member units. the visual, tactile, and perceptual sensations arising from a material’s properties express its texture. within the member units of the compositional function are items such as material variety. the beauty of clay material is an immediate manifestation of the earth’s own texture. in terms of ceramic bodies, porcelain clays are categorized as coarse or fine; pottery clays include coarse, fine, and refined earthenware, as well as stoneware—an intermediate body whose recipe lies between porcelain and pottery. porcelain clay is fine and gentle, its color often white and warm, whereas earthenware clay is more granular and loosely textured, better suited to conveying rugged, primitive, or rustic natural beauty. because of the rich diversity of clay materials, even without glaze decoration, environmental ceramic works can still present the beauty of tactile texture (see figure 1). figure 1. ceramic mural in the corridor of the korean maekli music hall, by zhu legeng zhu legeng’s large ceramic mural for the korean maekli music hall offers an exemplary case for exploring the central notion in systemic functional linguistics (sfl) that language is a social semiotic system. sfl posits that any semiotic practice—whether linguistic, imagistic, or spatial—engages in meaning-making. through the material practice of “rolling thin clay strips into trumpet-like forms and densely embedding them at varying heights,” the mural re-classifies and integrates the experiential domain of ceramic art with that of concert-hall architecture. instead of merely depicting music, it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 120 metaphorically reconstructs the experience of music through the physical properties of ceramic: the trumpet shapes evoke sound production and transmission, the undulating texture suggests rhythm and tempo, and the white porcelain embodies a pure musical passage. this reconstruction transcends visual representation to become a multisensory integration of experience. within the work, the logical relations manifest as a part–whole hierarchy (innumerable trumpets forming an overall texture) and a causal chain (the hollow trumpets and gentle undulations → echo and absorption effects). in sfl terms, this causal chain parallels the logico-semantic relation of enhancement within clause complexes: acoustic principles (circumstantial elements) expand the meaning of visual beauty (the dominant clause). the ceramic’s physical characteristics—porosity, surface curvature—function as logical connectors that bind the semantic domains of art and function into an indivisible whole. through functional intervention (echo and absorption), the mural directly participates in the hall’s acoustic practice, acting as a “collaborator” in listeners’ musical perception. in sfl, this intervention can be viewed as an exchange structure: the work is not a static giver of information but dynamically negotiates with the listener’s auditory experience via physical effects such as echo delay and frequency absorption. listeners need no understanding of ceramic craft; their bodies immediately sense how “the space gently handles sound,” constituting a non-verbal interaction between artwork and audience. the evaluative metaphor “the white porcelain is translucent and clean like a pure musical passage” conveys the creator’s stance toward the aesthetic value of purity through the system of appreciation. within sfl, appreciation is subdivided into reaction, composition, and valuation. here, “translucent and clean” is a reaction to the compositional quality of the ceramic, while “pure musical passage” elevates its value into an isomorph of musical aesthetics. this evaluation is not imposed; rather, it is naturalized through the environmental cohesion of the music hall—the seamless coordination of white ceramic and spatial ambience—allowing viewers to readily align with the creator’s aesthetic position. under the expanded visual aesthetics of modern ceramic art, contemporary ceramists harness the inherent beauty of clay, generating varied textures through pressing, incising, tearing, and pinching while manipulating moisture and force. these textures encompass both the clay’s natural grain and the procedural marks born of human making; their rhythms, continuities, overlaps, thicknesses, densities, crossings, and entanglements—together with the resulting tactile and spatial associations of weight, tempo, and softness or hardness—constitute the artist’s creative orchestration of the material’s language in response to the work and its environment. imprints left by natural gestures reveal a primal sensuous beauty, whereas mechanically ground or pressed hard edges express a rational, ordered beauty; all stem from the physical plasticity of the material and the visual experiences it affords (see figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 121 figure 2. tasao company communication center lobby ceramic art wall the quality of texture expression directly determines the manifestation of formal beauty in environmental ceramics. within a certain scope, texture acts immediately on visual perception; rather than an outer garment of form, it is an expressive component of the composition, its emotive character evoking imagination and association during aesthetic engagement and embodying part of the work’s spiritual quality. when employed with precision, texture endows environmental ceramics with rich visual tactility and an enhanced aesthetic experience.within o’toole’s framework, tide sound (see figure 3) deploys the “swirling crack” as the dominant representational vector, guiding the viewer’s gaze along a spiral trajectory. the vortex’s “end point” is deliberately dissolved, the fissures extending to the edges of the wall to suggest the endless cycle of tides. micro-textures—algae, pebbles, bubbles—function as “environmental participants,” sharing the same clay substrate as the cracks to forge an integrated “undersea world.” rendering high natural modality situates the spectator in the subject position of a “coastal dweller,” while the compositional strategy of frameless overflow and spiral rhythm transforms the public hall into an “internalized shore,” completing a multi-dimensional narrative of vision, touch, and emotion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 122 figure 3. tide sound-work by kato togoro 4.2 the language of glaze within the compositional function of visual grammar, color operates as a decisive unit of work. it is the most dynamic element of visual language, capable of delivering the strongest perceptual impact while fully conveying human psychology and emotion—thereby embodying the modal function of visual grammar. glazes offer an extensive palette and serve as the ceramic artist’s primary chromatic language beyond the clay’s inherent hues. unlike other pigments, glaze must be fired at high temperatures to fuse with the ceramic surface; it is impermeable, easy to clean, and durable. crackle glazes, matte glazes, and other textures, combined with overand under-glaze colorants, allow environmental ceramics to radiate with brilliance. more importantly, variables such as firing temperature, kiln placement, and uneven glaze thickness subtly shift the final visual outcome. these delicate chromatic variations—symbolic, affective, and perceptual—evoke imaginings ranging from opulent to reserved, from minimalist to complex, and trigger emotions as varied as tension, ease, excitement, and calm. cool and warm tones, for instance, create sensations of expansion or contraction, advance or retreat. variations in lightness and saturation evoke associations ranging from exuberant splendor to reserved depth or unadorned naturalness. the messages conveyed by these colors are vital to visual design, instantly capturing viewers’ attention and resonating with their aesthetic emotions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 123 figure 4. “ten thousand galloping horses,” 18.4 × 3.2 m, 2018, located at muxi yuan qiao nan station, beijing beyond its monumental scale, the work (see figure 4) unleashes the full chromatic range of glaze. bold, contrasting colour blocks and graphic motifs alternate in sweeping gestures, while the vivid hues and the subtle sheen of the glaze invest the piece with warmth and vitality, yielding striking visual impact. the work also intimates that, in large-scale environmental ceramics, the artist’s meticulous handling of glaze detail and the overall orchestration of colour are decisive for achieving aesthetic coherence. as society evolves and new consumer desires continually emerge, contemporary artists keenly detect and seize nascent needs and popular elements, integrating them through innovation to transform traditional art into fashionable applied art, thereby rekindling its vigorous life-force. in his analysis of the modal function of sculpture, michael o’toole lists “mass” under both work and graphic units and proposes his own system (see table 2). table 2. mass as a system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 124 the modality of mass in environmental ceramics manifests in three ways: first, the work’s central gravity and its relationship to the horizontal plane; second, its hardness and impenetrability (a scalar quality); third, the manner in which it interacts with the surrounding environment—broad, sweeping arcs imply greater mass than sharp or angular ones. like traditional sculpture, many environmental ceramic pieces stage human actions or memorable individual traits, such as lovers kissing or a figure howling at the sky. across art history, sculpture has favoured abstract, allegorical themes more than painting—love, health, war, victory in greco-roman antiquity, for example. contemporary environmental ceramics increasingly stress symbolic significance, evident in the selection of the work’s subject within the graphic unit of the representational function. in analysing this graphic unit, michael o’toole proposes a system for the sculptural subject (see table 3). table 3. body as a system as shown in the table, michael o’toole divides subjects into organic and inorganic; organic subjects are further categorized as human-related, animal-related, or biological. for instance, ancient china employed the dragon—an animal-related emblem—as a totemic symbol, with nine dragons signifying the “supremacy of the ninth-five” (see figure 5). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 125 figure 5. nine-dragon wall 5. conclusion as a branch of multimodal research, the visual-grammar analysis of systemic-functional semiotics has evolved for more than thirty years, yielding new concepts, perspectives, and methods. michael o’toole’s system of visual meaning—encompassing representational meaning, modal meaning, and compositional meaning—together with other modalities such as touch and sound, allows artworks to be deconstructed and analysed through functional and semiotic lenses (form, colour, texture, image, etc.). this offers entirely fresh vistas and tools for interpreting specialized works such as environmental ceramics. although the multimodal reading of these works ultimately takes a subjective form, it is grounded in a wealth of objective factors and systematic choices; consequently, its analytical insights possess a significant degree of universality. references halliday, m. a. k., & matthiessen, c. m. i. m. (2004). introduction to functional grammar. london, edward arnold. halliday, m. a. k. (1978). language as a social semiotic. london, edward arnold. kress, g., &van leeuwen, t. (1996). reading images:the grammar of visual design. london, routledge. o’toole, m. (1994). the language of displayed art. london, leicester university press. huang, h. y., & feng, w. n. (2015). on the aesthetic characteristics of environmental ceramics. beijing, beijing arts and crafts press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 126 li, z. z. (2003). a social-semiotic analysis of multimodal discourse. foreign language research, (5), 1-8. li, d. z. (2013).visual-grammar analysis of hypertext multimodal advertisements. foreign language journal, (2), 7-11. wu, a. p., & zhong, s. m. (2014). visual grammar and multimodal discourse research on metaphorical mechanisms. foreign languages and their teaching, (3), 23-28. yuan, l. h., & qi, x. (2008). on the application of constituent elements in modern ceramic mural design. china ceramics, (9), 76-78. zhu, y. s. (2007). theoretical foundations and research methods of multimodal discourse analysis. foreign language journal, (5), 82-86. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper research on the enhancement strategies of ideological and political education in colleges and universities under the background of cultural philosophy ximing wang1 1anyang university, anyang city, henan province, china received: april 19, 2025 accepted: july 01, 2025 online published: july 11, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p1 abstract as a long-term and necessary topic, the significance of ideological and political education in colleges and universities is continuously deepening. the high-quality development of the cause of socialism with chinese characteristics, the steady progress of higher education, and the realization of the goal of individual comprehensive modernization all highly depend on innovative and efficient ideological and political education practices in colleges and universities. this education not only provides practical solutions to the core proposition of "what kind of people to cultivate" and "how to cultivate people", but also offers clear guidance on the ultimate direction of "for whom to cultivate people". as a new philosophical school, cultural philosophy, based on the dialectical relationship between human beings and culture, deeply explores the laws of cultural construction in the process of individual modernization, and comprehensively examines the survival status, growth trajectory and creative practice of human beings, thus bringing a brand-new theoretical perspective and in-depth analysis to ideological and political education in colleges and universities, and endowing it with distinct contemporary features and philosophical wisdom. the subjects, processes and results of the two are highly unified, so it is of great significance to explore ideological and political education in colleges and universities from the perspective of cultural philosophy. this research approach can not only optimize the "humanization" effect of ideological and political education, reveal its "philosophical" connotation and theoretical depth, but also extend its "human studies" scope, endowing it with stronger inclusiveness and contemporaneity. at the same time, it can strengthen its unique educational characteristics and far-reaching value. keywords cultural philosophy, ideological and political education, educational strategies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 1. introduction higher education's ideological and political education is essentially a profound cultural dissemination mechanism. its effectiveness is highly dependent on the degree to which the audience accepts the cultural connotations and the scope of their cognition. thus, it exhibits prominent cultural attributes. as a well-structured and complete system, ideological and political education can truly exert its efficacy only when all its constituent elements, execution process, and expected results reach an optimized level. in essence, higher education's ideological and political education always prioritizes the individual as the core, covering aspects such as interactive elements, object transformation, goal setting, and result evaluation. the ultimate goal is to promote the all-round development of individuals. the compatibility of needs between individuals directly determines the actual effectiveness of the configuration of educational elements, the implementation process, and the evaluation of results. in the backdrop of the contemporary diversified cultural environment, higher education's ideological and political education inevitably undergoes the interactive influence of various cultural trends. these trends significantly alter individuals' ideological paradigms, practical orientations, and value orientations, presenting unprecedented challenges for the effective implementation of education. higher education's ideological and political education, as a social practice system under the guidance of the mainstream ideology, fully demonstrates its chinese characteristics. its role extends beyond theoretical dissemination and focuses on behavior shaping, aiming to cultivate the forces for the construction of socialism with chinese characteristics and the successor generation. therefore, how to optimize the configuration of elements, implementation paths, and effectiveness transformation of university ideological and political education has become a core issue that the academic community urgently needs to solve. cultural philosophy, based on the dimension of people's real life, returns to the origin of cultural research, with the interaction between people and culture as the basis, deeply analyzes the survival state, development trajectory, and creative vitality of people, and pays special attention to the modernization process of people. this theoretical orientation forms an intrinsic collaborative relationship between cultural philosophy and higher education's ideological and political education. the key components, evolution laws, and overall system of higher education's ideological and political education all take "people" as the core element. their internal logic and external goals always point to the all-round development of people. based on this, using the in-depth analytical perspective of cultural philosophy to systematically explore this unique attribute of higher education's ideological and political education has significant theoretical and practical significance. 2. the intrinsic connection between ideological and political education in universities and cultural philosophy higher education's ideological and political education not only contains rich cultural content, but also shoulders the mission of inheriting excellent cultural traditions and presenting unique cultural styles. its core objective lies in cultivating individuals' values and enhancing their spiritual satisfaction. cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 philosophy, based on the interaction between humans and culture, constructs human cultural identities, deeply analyzes the internal mechanisms of cultural formation, and pays attention to people's spiritual needs and the realization of life values, essentially being the meticulous cultivation of an individual's cultural spirit and the in-depth exploration of the meaning of life. therefore, there is a significant correlation between higher education's ideological and political education and cultural philosophy. they exhibit profound homogeneity in terms of subject positioning, implementation paths and value orientations, jointly striving for the all-round development and spiritual elevation of individuals. 2.1 the main body alignment the foundation of ideological and political education in universities lies in the individual as the living carrier. this carrier possesses both biological attributes, social attributes, and the function of cultural dissemination. the cultural practical activities of individuals inject profound connotations and eternal values into ideological and political education in universities. conversely, ideological and political education in universities is also an internal demand of individual cultural practices, influencing the growth process of individuals through subtle and imperceptible influences. thus, it can be seen that both cultural philosophy and ideological and political education in universities take real individuals as the research object. firstly, both are discussed based on the natural attributes of human beings. marx once pointed out: "any beginning of human history must be the existence of living individuals, therefore the first thing that needs to be clarified is the structure of these individuals' bodies and the relationship between them and nature defined by this structure." this phenomenon significantly highlights the essence of human natural existence, that is, in the real society, the survival and development of individuals are always closely linked to nature and subject to its constraints. culture, as a unique survival paradigm of human beings, not only originates from nature but also transcends nature. its interpretation of human essence is achieved through transcending instincts and nature; culture clearly distinguishes the essential differences between humans and animals and endows humans with the ability to surpass reality and continuously innovate. as a dynamic mechanism for the balance of interpersonal needs, ideological and political education in universities aims to focus on and promote the realization of individual needs, and its outstanding effectiveness depends on whether it can effectively coordinate the diverse needs of individuals. given that human needs exhibit complex and diverse characteristics, any individual who cannot combine the satisfaction of their own needs with the cultivation of the means to achieve those needs will find it difficult to achieve substantive progress. this viewpoint is particularly prominent in ideological and political education in universities. in the process of promoting ideological and political education in universities, it is necessary to deeply understand the natural attributes of individuals and conduct scientific analysis using materialist viewpoints. this requires education to respect the reasonable material needs of human beings and actively cultivate and enhance their spiritual pursuits. at the same time, ideological and political education and cultural philosophy share significant commonalities in exploring human social existence. the multiple interaction relationships of individuals in social production practices form specific social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 networks, highlighting the complexity and diversity of individuals. these interactions not only shape the behavioral patterns of individuals but also profoundly influence their values and cultural choices. in production activities, the behavioral norms of individuals are inseparable from cultural paradigms, and the internal mechanism of culture plays a decisive role in individuals' goal selection and behavioral norms. it can be said that culture is an important carrier of human practical activities, it is both a reflection of social relations and a guide for individuals' spiritual world and social behavior. ideological and political education in universities, by combining the perspective of cultural philosophy, can more effectively promote the improvement of individuals' inner cultivation, while regulating and guiding their social behaviors, thus achieving more comprehensive and in-depth educational goals. ideological and political activities in universities essentially belong to a deep interactive cultural practice, and their development is constrained by the unique cultural demands and contextual conditions formed by the construction of social relations. the diverse cultural factors not only affect the degree of coordination of both parties' needs in the process of ideological and political education but also fundamentally determine the effectiveness and scope of this educational practice. the core issues of ideological and political education in universities and cultural philosophy both revolve around the essence of human cultural existence. in real life, individuals are always under the influence and shaping of culture, and cultural factors have a profound impact on their growth. from the perspective of human nature, the free and all-round development of individuals is the core pursuit of cultural existence; from the perspective of the group of people, spiritual beliefs and value consensus constitute the key elements of cultural existence; and from the perspective of individuals, meeting the needs for survival and spirit becomes the fundamental value orientation of cultural existence. this process is not only reflected in ideological and political education in universities but also has universal significance in the free and all-round development of individuals. the cultural existence of individuals constitutes the key theoretical foundation for the generation and evolution of ideological and political education in universities. it not only determines the effectiveness of the implementation of this education, but also profoundly influences the stimulation of cultural creativity potential, affects the dynamic development of culture in modern society, and stipulates the individual's conscious attitude and belief foundation towards a specific cultural paradigm and cultural system. 2.2 the process couple the formation of the outcomes of ideological and political education in universities is fundamentally dependent on the comprehensive integration and coordination of cognition, emotion, and behavior by individuals. this process is always deeply influenced by the interaction of cultural environments. whether it is the guidance implemented by educators based on established policies or the interactive experiences actively engaged in by learners, they are essentially a systematic process of cultural transmission, acceptance, and internalization. it is also a continuous dynamic process of carefully screening, absorbing, and telling cultural elements. thus, ideological and political education in universities constitutes a unique "subculture" ecosystem. this system not only profoundly affects the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 construction of an individual's cultural identity but also provides crucial cultural support and cognitive inspiration for their real existence and personal development. as a research field at the intersection of cultural philosophy and ideological and political education, the core purpose of this educational practice is to cultivate individuals with comprehensive qualities. their development requires both profound cultural accumulation and systematic ideological and political education guidance. human cognitive processes are deeply shaped by cultural connotations, and individuals carefully adopt and actively promote cultural values. this dynamic cycle not only reshapes the subjective cognitive structure of the subject but also provides rich materials for the formation of objective understanding. its ultimate goal is to perfect human nature and help individuals gradually transform into mature individuals with high cultural literacy. however, in cognitive practice, individuals inevitably face conflicts between ideal cultural visions and real cultural scenarios, resulting in a certain degree of diffuseness in cultural demands. therefore, ideological and political education in higher education focuses on cultivating explicit cognition of political consciousness and moral concepts, and strengthening the cultural function, firmly advocating mainstream cultural values, and actively promoting forward-looking cultural products, in order to seek a balance point between ideal and reality and effectively guide individuals' cultural pursuits, and comprehensively enhance their ideological literacy and spiritual height. moreover, culture is like a silent mentor, whose influence penetrates the emotional domain of individuals deeply and secretly, prompting people to gradually understand and internalize the essence of culture amid emotional ups and downs. marx and engels deeply understood human nature and once pointed out: "the subjects who act in the field of social history are all individuals with consciousness, who deliberate or are driven by passion, and are guided by specific goals." furthermore, they further explained: "if you wish to influence others, then you yourself must first be able to inspire and lead people forward." this statement clarifies the core position of emotion in interactive practice it not only serves as an artistic carrier for expressing emotions and cherishing sentiments, but also transforms into a powerful driving force to stimulate and motivate people to move forward; at the same time, it is also an experience process of deep cultural integration, always in close correspondence with the inner cultural foundation. the complex network constructed by the emotional world of individuals is extremely delicate and profound, and its intertwined and entangled state makes even rigorous logical analysis difficult to fully clarify its internal connections. this complexity inevitably leads to intense conflicts between cultural intuitive cognition and cultural rational thinking, thereby making the cultural situation of individuals particularly ambiguous. ideological and political education in higher education combines simple and understandable theories with sincere emotions, focusing on cultivating individuals' cultural responsibility awareness, guiding them to form healthy aesthetic concepts, and ultimately enhancing their rational discrimination ability in a multicultural environment. this includes profound understanding and absorption of advanced socialist culture and the conscious rejection of negative factors in non-mainstream culture. in the long run, culture is like www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 gentle rain, subtly shaping people's behavioral practices, and individuals continuously perceive and absorb cultural connotations in the continuous practice, gradually forming their own value system. 3. strategies for enhancing ideological and political education in higher education from the perspective of cultural philosophy 3.1 observing human cultural aspirations the issues of cultural selection and value orientation have long troubled human society. different cultural forms emerged in various historical periods, and cultural differences profoundly influenced the formation of individual personalities. an individual's cultural inclination determines the behavioral patterns they follow in a specific environment, and there is an inherent unity between the two. some researchers have pointed out profoundly that the evolution of culture is accomplished in the dynamic process of constructing and deconstructing existing norms. as a social-level cultural communication mechanism, ideological and political education in universities aims to establish an effective normative system and resist the negative influence of informal rules. the fundamental driving force for all this comes from the cultural psychological needs of individuals. in a specific historical period, an individual's cultural pursuit and choice constitute their cultural demands, and this concept has significant guiding significance in ideological and political theory education in universities. how to precisely position the cultural content and its hierarchical selection in university ideological and political education directly determines the level of its cultural normative system construction. therefore, constructing the cultural norms of university ideological and political education requires a high degree of attention and respect for individual cultural demands. first, at the level of cultural selection, the cultural norms of ideological and political education in universities must deeply understand the basic existence mode of people. the actual existence form of people is diverse and complex, as marx pointed out, people have three core existence forms: the specific existence of individuals, the particular existence among groups, and the overall existence of humanity as a species. this theory is also applicable to the audience group of university ideological and political education, who also present diverse forms of existence, requiring detailed analysis and flexible response. to enhance the cultural efficacy of university ideological and political education, it is urgently necessary to adjust the imbalance in resource investment and cultural benefit distribution currently existing in it. in response to the differentiated characteristics of various student groups within universities, a cultural normative system with "seeking common ground while reserving differences" as the core should be systematically designed. according to the discipline attributes, universities can mainly be divided into five systems: "engineering, agriculture, medicine, science, and literature". each system of student groups has relative independence. given that students with different disciplinary backgrounds have significant differences in their understanding of the cultural norms of university ideological and political education, the soft cultural constraints are particularly evident: some students tend to identify with the core values and cultural inheritance of the university, while others may pay more attention to the physical environment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 and spatial layout of the campus. therefore, it is necessary to deeply explore the uniqueness of each disciplinary group, flexibly integrate their multi-dimensional concerns, and form a cultural rule framework that meets the needs of different groups, so as to ensure that the cultural norms of university ideological and political education can be fully permeated into the value cognition of each student. from another perspective, the construction of cultural norms of university ideological and political education should be based on the fundamental adherence to the diverse life existence of individuals. marx once profoundly stated: "each individual is the creator of their own starting point, although they are inevitably shaped by the given historical conditions and interpersonal relationships", this statement profoundly reflects the subjective characteristics of human beings. based on this, the cultural norms of university ideological and political education must be based on vivid cultural scenarios, accurately capture the unity of the contradiction between the subject consciousness and the external environment, thereby stimulate individuals to deeply reflect on their own values, continuously optimize their self-awareness, and constantly strengthen their ability for lifelong learning and practical innovation. in the macro process of cultural continuation and dissemination, the cultural norms of university ideological and political education need to highlight the internal coordination between ideal pursuit and practical action. the formation of one's value belief stems from the transcendence of the real world, and the aspiration for a brilliant ideal necessarily rests on a thorough study of the existing social conditions. at present, there are both strict institutional constraints within universities and informal behavioral norms accepted by college students. the emergence of these "implicit rules" was not accidental. they not only reflect a practical response to the deficiencies of the existing cultural norms for marxist ideological and political education in universities, but also deeply reflect people's unconditional pursuit of improving the institutional framework. they vividly depict the unique trajectory of the evolution of value concepts. marx always focused on the essential issues of individual existence in his theoretical system and explored how people could break through the constraints of reality to achieve an ideal state. based on marx's theoretical perspective, when constructing cultural norms in the field of ideological and political education in universities, it is necessary to precisely grasp the dynamic balance between ideal pursuit and practical foundation, and establish normative standards that conform to the individual growth laws. this process of norm construction requires taking interpersonal interdependence as the logical starting point, while fully considering the cognitive development laws of people, the process of thinking mode construction, and the internal mechanism of value formation, so as to provide support for the norm system at the rational level. 3.2 developing human cultural rationality human rationality, as a high-level cognitive ability, is an outstanding endowment bestowed by nature. its development path can be summarized as "formed through the evolutionary mechanism of social culture that transcends biological instincts". this trait not only stems from an individual's nature but also continuously deepens and improves in the process of social civilization. this cultural rationality presents rich constituent elements in the real world: from a micro perspective, it is manifested as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 extraordinary cognitive ability demonstrated by independent individuals in practical activities; from a macro perspective, it is the systematic spiritual achievement crystallized from long-term human social practice and thinking, including ideological theories, value systems, and academic concepts. cultural rationality, as a subtle force, profoundly influences an individual's way of thinking, behavioral norms, and life choices. universities, as important sites for cultural inheritance and innovation, possess a unique educational attribute that endows them with a distinct spiritual temperament. currently, with the continuous advancement of university ideological and political education, the university ideological and political education cultural paradigm is facing profound changes in the era. however, the phenomenon of scholars conducting systematic research on the theoretical framework and practical issues of university ideological and political education from a cultural perspective is still insufficient. mainly manifested as the academic independence concept being squeezed in the collision with "officialism" thinking, "administrative thinking" and "bureaucratic working habits" have formed a fixed pattern in the university organizational structure, severely restricting the effective cultivation of cultural rationality. therefore, the university ideological and political education cultural paradigm needs to take enhancing cultural rationality as the primary goal, inject profound academic connotations into university ideological and political work, and through scientifically grasping objective laws and internal logic, carry out creative transformation of the university ideological and political education cultural paradigm, thereby achieving its development path of keeping pace with the times. in this process, it is necessary to fully respect the unique laws of university ideological and political education, avoid simply equating administrative instructions with academic norms, and only in this way can university ideological and political education continuously innovate and develop while inheriting the essence of culture. building a stable and diversified university ideological and political education cultural ecosystem lies in deeply integrating scientific rationality and humanistic spirit. these two elements are not only the core pillars of the university ideological and political education cultural paradigm but also indispensable foundations. as sociologists have pointed out, "opinions, values, and desires are deeply shaped by the cultural environment", this statement precisely confirms the important promoting role of the cultural paradigm in the cultivation of scientific rationality and humanistic spirit in university ideological and political education. in this cultural paradigm, the bottom line of personality cultivation must be adhered to ensuring that individuals maintain moral integrity in the face of economic benefits, while also clarifying political direction to prevent the erosion of power alienation. to integrate scientific rationality and humanistic spirit into all aspects of university ideological and political education, systematic integration of experimental verification, investigation research, and subject exploration is necessary. during this process, the administrative tendency must be completely eliminated, balancing the internal relationship between political nature and academic nature, economic benefits and academic value. university ideological and political education workers should be granted full professional honor and influence, and enjoy reasonable material rewards. through the dialectical unity of "political nature" and "subjectivity", a unique theoretical system should be formed at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 9 practical level of university ideological and political education. when social value and individual value achieve a positive interaction, individuals can more deeply understand the cultural background of university ideological and political education, thereby enhancing cultural identity, and leading the innovative development of university ideological and political education. this multi-dimensional cultural construction will help university ideological and political education achieve a qualitative leap and fundamental transformation. 4. conclusion in the context of the continuous deepening of ideological and political education in universities, its cultural significance has gradually become prominent. cultural rules, cultural activities, and cultural paradigms are established based on the generation mechanism of cultural philosophy. this not only lays a solid foundation and provides theoretical support for ideological and political education, but also offers an important perspective for analyzing cultural problems in university ideological and political education. currently, how to address the cultural confusion that people may encounter during this educational process has become a core issue for optimizing the educational effectiveness of this education. therefore, it is urgent to focus on the two dimensions of meeting people's cultural demands and enhancing their cultural rationality, and systematically construct a cultural philosophy plan. this will promote the continuous progress of university ideological and political education and provide strong support for promoting the modernization process of people. references cui, m. (2021). exploring the paths for integrating chinese excellent traditional culture with college ideological and political education. writers' world, 2021(30), 175-176. fan changlong, wang qiang. the philosophical logic and practical strategies for integrating chinese excellent traditional culture into college ideological and political education. education exploration, 2022(02), 50-54. he, g. y. (2021). the value and integration paths of chinese excellent traditional culture in college ideological and political education. journal of sichuan police college, 2021(03), 107-113. lu, l., & liu, y. (2023). multi-dimensional exploration of modern ideological and political education. tianjin people's publishing house: 202301. 317. marx and engels. (1995). selected works of marx and engels (vol. 2, p. 32). beijing: people's publishing house. su, j. x. (2023). philosophical analysis of integrating chinese excellent traditional culture into college students' ideological and political education. journal of jianghan petroleum workers' university, 36(03), 69-71. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 10 zhu, z. y. (2021). the value, dilemmas and breakthrough research on integrating chinese excellent traditional culture into college ideological and political education. reform and opening up, 2021(18), 67-72. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 60 original paper study on the targeting and practical path of cultivating young cadres in the party in the new era zhiwei niu1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi'an, china received: may 27, 2024 accepted: july 11, 2024 online published: july 31, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p60 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p60 abstract the general secretary has gradually formed a complete theoretical system for cultivating young cadres in the course of long-term observation and reflection, the most important of which is the goal-oriented theory that puts forward clear requirements for young cadres and the specific path and methodology formed through the efforts of party organisations and young cadres, which is a rich and comprehensive theory.the goal of cultivation is a guide for the cultivation of young cadres in the new era, pointing out the direction for the marxist party to cultivate young cadres. the general secretary has repeatedly mentioned the standards of good cadres, which include core standards, selection standards, competence standards and service standards. as to how to achieve the cultivation goals, the general secretary has put forward a number of practical paths encompassing both organizational cultivation and personal struggle. these contents both reflect a lineage and realize breakthrough innovations, making great contributions to the promotion of young cadres' cultivation within the party in the new era. keywords young cadres, goal-oriented, practical paths 1. introduction in the face of this new round of historical convergence, the key to the ability to successfully lead the people in seizing opportunities and meeting challenges is to vigorously cultivate reliable successors for the development of the party and the country. as the saying goes, “after the political line is determined, the cadres are the deciding factor”. (liu, 2020) and young cadres as the party's reserve force, their training, not only can promote the party’s organisational construction, and always keep the party's vitality; but also to ensure that the country’s cause of steady progress, and maintain the country's long-term peace and security. how can the party cultivate a high-quality youth cadre so as to make it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 61 full of vigour, cohesion, innovation and combativeness? first of all, it is important to clarify the goal of its training. 2. targeting the training of young cadres in the party 2.1 adhere to the core standard of always keeping the bottom line the general secretary has repeatedly stressed that “efforts to create a loyal, clean and responsible high-quality cadre force”. (wang, 2016) this puts forward the core requirements for the cadre force, and even more young cadres have sounded the alarm.loyalty, refers to the party and the people loyal, to have political strength, have firm ideals and beliefs, is the primary standard of young cadres, this is the young people gallant to cadre position of the political undertone. clean, is the bottom line of young cadres. clean young cadres, must be bright and open, clean power, clean cadres. a young cadres can not do their own clean cadres, must be politically wavering, become a political “two-faced”, will inevitably lead to the use of power for personal gain, the pursuit of fame and fortune, and inevitably cross the political bottom line. take charge, is the attitude of young cadres. in the face of difficulties, in the face of crisis, in the face of mistakes, dare to take responsibility, in the face of corruption, dare to fight. loyalty is the guarantee of clean and play, clean is the premise of loyalty and play, play is the purpose of loyalty and clean, the three are a whole, but also has its inherent dialectical unity. 2.2 adhere to the objective and fair selection criteria democratic recommendation is a key part of the selection and appointment of young cadres is indispensable. however, one-sided emphasis on public opinion, purely by vote to determine the winner, will promote the phenomenon of young cadres canvassing, vote-buying, and promote “only votes” of the undesirable trend. in order to achieve not only votes, first of all, young cadres should be strictly recommended entrance gate, marked young cadres recommended academic, professional, experience and other standards, to raise the threshold of recommendation.secondly, on the basis of democratic recommendation, combined with the organisational departments, leading cadres of the recommended candidates to study, comprehensive assessment, selected both moral and excellent cadres, will get a high vote but no talent and virtue out of the people.examination is an important form of selection and appointment of today’s young cadres, the high points of the recruitment has become a simple only points are used. to optimism the content of the examination, the examination questions and specific jobs combined, highlighting the full-time capacity of the post, and increase the proportion of the usual results, the examination of the selection of the norm. third, not only age, optimise the cadre force is an important principle of cadre rejuvenation, which especially highlights the important role of young cadres.but cadre rejuvenation is not the same as underage, can not simply to young as the standard.to optimise the cadre age ladder, the formation of the old, middle-aged and young cadres in an orderly alternation, breaking the age of hard indicators. and dare to promote can do, do a good job, "older" young cadres, break the stability of the steps, improve the enthusiasm of cadres to do things.fourth, not only gdp, require to improve the accuracy of the assessment of young cadres. young cadres should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 62 always practice the development concept of “green mountains are golden mountains”, not only gdp on heroes. in the process of assessment and evaluation, the obvious merits of economic development are captured, and the hidden merits of ecological progress are also captured. it also establishes a dynamic cadre assessment mechanism to enhance the comprehensiveness of the assessment. 2.3 adhere to the service standards of front-line work young cadres must always adhere to the five standards of firm conviction, service to the people, diligence and pragmatism, boldness, integrity and honesty. ideal belief is the fundamental standard that young cadres need to adhere to, is the first to solve the problem. “whether party members, especially party leaders and cadres, have firm marxist and communist ideals and beliefs is related to the success or failure of the cause of socialism with chinese characteristics.” (wang, 2019) if young cadres do not have firm ideal beliefs, they are prone to mental “calcium deficiency” and will get cartilage disease. therefore, young cadres must bear in mind the negative materials, not to be confused by the interference of the evil winds, and always remain politically sober. the party’s purpose is to serve the people wholeheartedly, the party’s governing philosophy is people-oriented. whether it is the revolutionary war era or the current era of construction and transition, young cadres should be the people need or not, satisfied or not, happy or not as the standard of doing things. always think about their own relationship with the people is closer, always reflect on whether to meet the people's most direct and urgent needs. diligence and pragmatism is the basic quality of young cadres. young cadres should plunge down, have the courage to go down to the grassroots to examine the people's situation and public opinion, exercise their own ability, and do real work, only in this way, “only then know the hardship of the poor people's lives, only then know the work of the township cadres is not easy, and only then understand that the burden of poverty alleviation and attacking the heavy burden, and only then be able to cultivate deep feelings and flesh and blood ties with the masses”. (zhang, 2019) but not simply like the “old bull” as hard-working, have ambitious goals, have the courage and knowledge. dare to bear is the attitude of young cadres. young cadres should dare to take responsibility, dare to be tough, dare to struggle. unify thoughts and actions, do things without conditions, regardless of personal gains and losses, the principle of wanting to be an officer, can be an officer, will be an officer, do things to the end.integrity is the political bottom line of young cadres. “clean politics can win the trust of the people, and uphold public power can win the hearts of the people”. (zhu, 2019) young cadres should strictly implement the rules and regulations to maintain their own image while also purifying the party’s political ecology. in the party politics and corruption interact with the complex situation to maintain political stamina, sober understanding of the situation, set up a good image, to some of the incipient, tendency problems in a timely manner to knock on the door, dare to fight. 2.4 adherence to the standard of competence for important tasks the general secretary's expectations for young cadres have progressed with the development of society. as early as 2009, the general secretary proposed to improve the ability of young cadres to maintain stability, cope with risks and deal with the media, which was put forward under the new social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 63 characteristics at that time. in 2015, the general secretary emphasised the need for leading cadres to improve the four abilities of leading, planning, promoting and implementing reforms. in 2017, the general secretary made it clear that for the party's senior cadres, it was necessary to improve their political abilities. in 2020, the general secretary delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony of the training course for young and middle-aged cadres at the central party school (national school of administration) in the autumn semester, stressing that cadres, especially young cadres, should improve their political ability, investigation and research ability, scientific decision-making ability, reform and attacking ability, emergency response ability, mass work ability, and the ability to grasp the implementation, which shows that, with the continuous advancement of the decision to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, the general secretary's requirements for the party's cadres are also is constantly improving. the main body of improving political ability is no longer the senior cadres of the party, but also the grass-roots cadres such as young cadres. the new era is an era of great achievements, young cadres should consciously abide by strict requirements and high standards, adhere to the problem-oriented, want to be an officer, be able to be an officer, and be able to do things, and continuously improve their abilities in solving problems. 3. the path and method of training young cadres in the party general secretary attaches great importance to the cultivation of young cadres and has made important speeches on many occasions.young cadres' party spirit cultivation, ideal beliefs, knowledge and skills, and ability to do things will not increase naturally with the passage of time, and they need successive training. “growing up to be a good cadre depends on one's own efforts and the other on organisational training.” (sun, 2020) high-quality young cadres must be the result of two-way cultivation of themselves and organisations. 3.1 strengthen young cadres' own construction 3.1.1 young cadres should be firm ideals, cultivate party spirit for young cadres, strengthening the cultivation of party spirit through educational means and persevering in firm ideals and beliefs is an important means of party cultivation.however, just as there are good and bad grades within the class, young cadres in the same environment due to their life experience, personality characteristics of the different party organisations to cultivate the effect is not the same.but in the final analysis, the fundamental factor in the cultivation of young cadres' party spirit and ideals is themselves. only through their own struggle, in order to achieve the party nature, ideals can be both into the brain and into the heart, in order to achieve the transformation from the temporary moving to eternal faith, in order to the party and the people's cause of the emotional identity into a lifelong habits of behaviour. young cadres should take the initiative to transform their subjective world, enrich their knowledge reserves, improve their professional skills, and seriously study the classic works of marxism, not to mention the theoretical system of socialism with chinese characteristics. they should strengthen the study of the "four histories", grasp the objective laws through history, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 64 learn from the wisdom of predecessors, and purify the red gene through the study of classic characters and events, so as to continuously enhance the national identity and strengthen the cultivation of party spirit.the study of the “four histories” should become an important tool for promoting the normalisation and institutionalisation of education in ideals and beliefs, as the basis for the establishment of the system of “not forgetting the original intention and keeping the mission in mind”, as an eternal subject for strengthening the construction of the party, and as a lifelong subject for all party members and cadres, to form a “permanent mechanism” (liu, 2020). permanent mechanism (chen, 2019) 3.1.2 young cadres should strengthen their professionalism and enhance their abilities the fact that young cadres are selected and appointed is a manifestation of their ability to be proved. but history is always in the continuous problem solving in the forward, young cadres only continue to strengthen professional skills, improve all kinds of ability, in order to ensure that always competent work, in the risk of challenges as, in the crisis in the emergence of a bear. young cadres should constantly enrich their professional knowledge, strengthen their professional skills and become skilled in professional work. actively participate in all kinds of thematic training organised by the party, targeted to make up for the knowledge gap of young cadres, make up for the short board of knowledge, optimise the knowledge structure.and take the initiative to ask the old cadres for advice, according to the characteristics of the post to improve professional skills, to clear the blind spot of experience. young cadres should have superior leadership ability, which refers to the ability to achieve a certain goal through the allocation of resources and mutual cooperation with colleagues within their own terms of reference, so as to get the maximum return with the least effort. this kind of leadership is a comprehensive ability, fundamentally an ability to analyse and solve problems and deal with complex conflicts. in today's complex domestic and international situation, young cadres should have high requirements for themselves, endeavour to pursue all-round development, focus on improving their political ability, investigation and research ability, scientific decision-making ability, reform and attacking ability, emergency response ability, mass work ability and the ability to grasp the implementation, so as to effectively shoulder the responsibilities and missions entrusted by the party and the people. 3.1.3 young cadres should practise and strengthen their skills because young cadres have not experienced the baptism of the revolutionary war era, compared with the older generation, most of the work experience is single, lack of grass-roots experience and the shortcomings of a difficult and complex environment.however, there is no shortcut in the stage of their growth and development, and they can only enhance their skills by enduring the wind and waves. young cadres should take the initiative to exercise at the grassroots level, and take the hot practice as the most vivid classroom of their career. the party leads the people in revolution, reform and construction, young cadres should stand in the front line of the wind and waves.to the hard conditions, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 65 complex environment, do the heavy task, challenging work. in the hard work of the post to undergo training, in the climbing and rolling in the metamorphosis.practice produces true knowledge, only to go to the grassroots practice, young cadres can understand what the people really need, in order to find the direction of their own work, set goals; practice produces talent, only to go to the grassroots practice, in order to have the ability to meet the needs of the people, to achieve the goal. it is necessary to continuously improve a series of systems for young cadres to work at the grassroots level, and to scale up, organise, periodise and order the system. on the one hand, it is necessary to promote young cadres to go to the grassroots, and effectively guarantee that they really go to the front line of the work, and really undergo hardship and danger, so as to really enhance their skills, and not to go to the grassroots as a formality and a show. the grassroots should be targeted, the more potential for excellent young cadres, the more they have to undergo grass-roots refinement, the more capable young cadres, the more they have to experience major emergencies.on the other hand, we should pay attention to the selection of outstanding young cadres at the grassroots level, and take the grassroots as an important position for selecting outstanding cadres, so as to encourage young cadres to go to the grassroots. form a virtuous circle of cadres training at the grassroots level and selecting cadres at the grassroots level. 3.2 strengthening the organisational training of young cadres 3.2.1 improve the mechanism of selecting and appointing young cadres the selection and appointment of young cadres is related to the development of the party and the country. if the selection and appointment are not reasonable, there will be many problems in the young cadres. at present, most of the young cadres have higher education, knowledge, but insufficient political ability, loyalty to the party is not hard problem; there is a broad vision, active thinking, but dealing with the problem, the implementation of the problem of insufficient capacity; there is also a quick success is not practical, the actual work away from the masses of the problem; there is a structural shortage, the lack of reserve problems. turning selection and appointment into an organised and planned systematic project is crucial to improving the quality of young cadres. firstly, the selection of young cadres should broaden the sources, enlarge the vision to all regions of the country, and deal with the appointment and introduction of young cadres. do a good job of cross-industry selection, breaking the boundaries of the industry, focusing on both virtue and talent, moral first employment standards.it also focuses on the selection and appointment of young cadres at the grass-roots level, improves the election system of grass-roots party organisations, and truly absorbs outstanding young cadres who have undergone grass-roots training.it also solves the problem of cadre reserve to ensure that the cadre force has sufficient reserve. secondly, optimise the structure of the existing young cadres, abandon the previous erroneous idea that only age is the only consideration, and boldly appoint older cadres with excellent abilities.focusing on the organic composition of the cadres’ age and experience, forming a virtuous cycle of orderly connection between the old, the middle-aged and the young, and "bringing up the young with the old" www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 66 in terms of work, so as to quickly help the young cadres to grow up.finally, improve the selection method." the communist party's cadre policy should be based on whether they can resolutely carry out the party's line, obey the party's discipline, have close contact with the masses, have the ability to work independently, be active and willing to work, and do not seek self-interest as the criterion, which is the line of 'appointing people on the basis of merit.'" (chen &lin, 2019) once again, when selecting and appointing young cadres, the score and the number of votes are no longer used as the only criteria for selection, and virtue, ideals and beliefs, party spirit and sense of purpose are also used as selection criteria.to improve competitive selection, candidates are recommended by the party group and democratically elected, and differential selection is carried out throughout the whole process of competition, so as to purify the order of competition and form healthy competition. efforts are being made to improve the quality of young cadres. 3.2.2 insisting on the mechanism of eliminating the inferior and superior young cadres the phenomenon of young cadres' training "only up but not down" is the root cause of the wrong thinking that leads to the formation of more or less of the same, more or less wrong, less wrong, not good.smooth young cadres can go up and down the channel, enhance the mobility of cadres, the formation of a healthy mechanism of survival of the fittest, not only can give young cadres to sound the alarm, and at all times to discipline themselves. it can also improve the young cadres to really do the work, motivate their enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. strictly handle the entrance of young cadres “on”, accurately set the assessment indicators, improve the accuracy of young cadres assessment, scientific, adhere to the principle of fair and impartial assessment. the implementation of reward and punishment mechanism, to ensure that the performance, punishment and full transparency, so that the “on” cadres “bring their own” persuasive, to ensure that the youth cadres unity and not infighting. ease the exit of “down”. entering the new era, the party's construction to form a new overall layout. that is: “comprehensively promote the party's political construction, ideological construction, organisational construction, style construction, discipline construction, the system construction throughout, in-depth promotion of the fight against corruption”, both on the construction, but also on the fight. adept at the use of the “four forms”, so that young cadres red face sweat become the norm, and timely transformation of young cadres misconceptions, awareness-raising.the disciplinary treatment of precision, to ensure that young cadres in violation of discipline organisational positions downward, major job adjustments to do a detailed and practical. neglect of the party's purpose, stand in opposition to the people, political determination is not strong, not loyal to the party, corruption, endangering the cause of the party and the people, should be removed from the party in a timely manner. only by strictly controlling the entrance of “up” and unimpeded exit of “down”, and enhancing the mobility of young cadres, can we guarantee the advancement and purity of the cadre force. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 67 3.2.3 improve the management and supervision system of young cadres “strict organisational discipline is the basic condition for victory over the bourgeoisie, and is the manifestation of the fighting power of the proletarian party.” (lang, 2020) excellent young cadres are elected, but also managed. study the spirit of the general secretary's important speech, improve the various systems for the management and supervision of young cadres, and insist on tightening the cage of the system, so as to provide a powerful weapon for the strict management and supervision of young cadres. first of all, strengthen the daily management and supervision of young cadres, improve the preventive mechanism. strengthen the departmental policies and rules of the propaganda, through the surrounding cases to comply with the discipline into the mind and heart.implementation of management and supervision rules, strengthen the daily inspection patrol, strengthen the young cadres talk to talk to the young cadres, to which the incipient, tendency problems in a timely manner pulling the sleeve and biting the ear, the appropriate use of disciplinary organs, for the incipient, tendency problems supervision and rectification, where timely rectification of the non-accountability of any rectification is ineffective in the serious handling of the rectification. do early discovery, early reminder, early correction. secondly, open the door of management and supervision, so that the joint supervision of various departments, the formation of young cadres management and supervision network, smooth internal departmental coordination, and strengthen the organisation, discipline inspection and supervision and other departments of the information channels between the timely grasp of young cadres in the work and even life in the economy, honesty and other aspects of information.it also expands supervision channels and enlarges the scope of supervision, allowing the people to participate in management and supervision.through the establishment of special management and supervision window, the use of new media, the internet and other measures to ensure that the people have a reasonable letter and report channels, so that the people dare to supervise, can supervise, supervise effectively, so that the power to really run under the sun. finally, the management and supervision of young cadres should be long-term planning. the cause of socialism with chinese characteristics in the new era requires the successive struggles of one generation after another, and requires one generation after another of young cadres to make extraordinary achievements in ordinary positions. from the perspective of its growth pattern, the management and supervision of young cadres need long-term planning, throughout their careers, management and supervision as a “long-term”, so that the supervision gradually become the habits of young cadres, the real party discipline and the state law into the mind, to do so in the heart of the precepts. 3.2.4 innovative mechanism for promotion of young cadres there are many “invisible” steps in the promotion process of young cadres, and such “invisible” steps are “conventions” in the unreasonable selection process, which in summary include. the seniority type www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 68 of steps and in accordance with the practice type of fixed thinking steps.in the promotion process, the seniority-based thinking that young cadres do not have seniority, inexperience, can not be given a heavy responsibility. the customary fixed thinking including academic threshold, gender discrimination, etc., in the promotion process, the diploma is an important basis for promotion, but the lack of a diploma will lose the opportunity to promote the phenomenon of “only education” is not uncommon.in the process of promoting cadres, although there are no explicit regulations, there is also the phenomenon of “favouring men over women”, believing that female cadres do not have an advantage in terms of ability. in order to break the “invisible” steps, a general idea is to innovate the system mechanism of promotion, “promotion is to broaden the channels for outstanding young cadres to stand out, to break the seniority, balance of care to provide institutional safeguards, to optimism the structure of the leadership team, to achieve the cadres of the old and new replacement reserve talents.” (lang, 2020) a general idea is to make the promotion process and results transparent and open, making them visible.one should break the traditional concept of age and experience, although the older the more experience, but in terms of job duties, rich experience is not always useful. especially for the new era of grassroots work in an innovative way, young people are often more competent. secondly, we should be open and transparent promotion of the reasons, rules, improve the system of promotion, through the system, the “invisible” steps to show. change “only seniority”, “only education” into “only ability”, for the ability to strong, skillful young cadres dare to break the stability of the steps, to solve the “ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”, “the ceiling”. the “ceiling” problem and promotion.but not the same as out of character, promotion should be based on the rules, in accordance with the system, the promotion of cadres themselves need to convince the public, otherwise the promotion of cadres will become a source of water, not only unfavourable to themselves, but also harmful to the collective. references chen, j. x., & lin, x. x. (2019). new changes in the election system of cadres of the ruling party in the new era. theory exploration, 2019(02), 140-144. chen, p. (2019). cultivating and selecting outstanding “key minority”. people's forum, 2019(30), 52-55. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/msf.944.52 lang, y. x. (2020). the new changes in cadre selection system. people's forum, 2020(09), 42-44. liu, j. j. (2020). the test of firmness of ideal belief. frontline, 2020(07), 37-39. sun, l. m. (2020). the problem of young cadres at the grassroots level and countermeasures to crack the problem. leadership science, 2020(15), 74-77. wang, b. l. (2019). in great country chasing dreams (p. 6). beijing: people's publishing house,. wang, l. x. (2016). implementation of young cadres "seedling programme" "spike election plan" practice and thinking. leadership science, 2016(36), 37-38. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 69 zhang, y. g. (2019). cadres can be promoted, but not out of the ordinary. leadership science, 2019(09), 1. zhu, j. d. (2019). how leading cadres can maintain the spirit of struggle and enhance their struggle skills. people's forum, 2019(16), 43-45. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/msf.943.43 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 19 original paper research on important discourses on socialist consultative democracy in the new era yamei li1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi'an, china received: april 19, 2024 accepted: may 26, 2024 online published: july 08, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p19 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p19 abstract general secretary clearly pointed out that consultative democracy is an important way to realize the party's leadership style. the formation and development and maturity of socialist consultative democracy in the new era has a deep theoretical origin, which was gradually developed on the basis of criticizing the western consultative democracy theory; it is a consultative democracy in conformity with marxism; it has deep roots in traditional chinese culture; and it is the collective essence of successive generations of leaders. in the century-long journey from the founding to 2021, chinese-style consultative democracy has its own unique advantages and characteristics, and in exploring the path of consultative democracy, it is also different from the western path of consultative democracy, with chinese characteristics in nature. keywords consultative democracy, marxism, new age consultative democracy is an indispensable magic weapon in the journey to modernize national governance. general secretary has made a number of important discussions on socialist consultative democracy, and the party central committee has also issued a series of documents to guide the development of consultative democracy in china, while academics have also conducted in-depth research on socialist consultative democracy. under the guidance of a series of new spirit of the party central committee, consultative democracy in the new era has flourished in china with unprecedented scale and speed in multi-channel and multi-level, not only injecting new vitality into china's socialist democratic politics, but also contributing chinese wisdom/providing chinese solutions to the democratic problems of mankind. in this paper, we will use textual analysis to sort out the theoretical basis of socialist consultative democracy in china, as well as the advantages of socialist consultative democracy compared with those in the west, and to find out the development path of socialist www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 20 consultative democracy in the new era from the practical point of view. 1. theoretical origins of socialist consultative democracy in the new era 1.1 basic theoretical sources-important foreign discussions on the theory of consultative democracy the study of western consultative democracy is much earlier than the domestic one, and the study of consultative democracy in china started with the study of western consultative democracy, and the critical inheritance of western consultative democracy theories is of great significance for the development of consultative democracy in china. consultative democracy abroad is a modern democratic system based on the principles of popular sovereignty and majority. the west focuses on the consultation of public administration and public policy, involving different parties, interest groups, classes and strata, and emphasizes the participation in the process of consultative democracy through different forms. at the end of the 20th century, the west began to critically reflect on its own democratic theories, and some political scientists questioned the competitiveness and universality of democracy, and began to turn to the study of the theory of "consultative democracy". some political scientists questioned competitive and universal democracy and began to turn to the theory of "consultative democracy". joseph bissett proposed "consultative democracy" earlier, and rawls also put forward his own views from the academic point of view, he thinks: "the procedure of the principle of majority decision as a procedural means obviously has only a subordinate position." (note 1) their study of consultative democracy is still presented in terms of the legitimacy of western regimes. habermas, while being critical of the traditional western democratic theory, puts forward a third model of democracy, different from the liberal and republican, which advocates that the formation and reality of democratic will be prompted by means and procedures of institutionalization. the consultative democracy proposed by the representatives of these western political scientists has become an important basis for the supplementation of modern competitive democracy in the west, and western democracy has gradually developed from representative democracy to consultative democracy, and has gradually expanded the channels of citizens' political participation, and to a certain extent, has promoted the expression of the interests of interest groups, the communication of interests, and the achievement of consensus. this kind of consultative democracy in foreign countries plays an increasingly important role in meeting the needs of citizens' participation to a certain extent, improving the scientific level of decision-making, and solving social problems, which provides an important direction for china to improve and develop socialist consultative democracy in the new era. 1.2 basic theoretical sources-marxist theories on consultative democracy the ultimate goal of the theories put forward by the classic marxist writers is to realize communism, and the basis of this lofty ideal also includes democratic and equal consultation among people. the marxist theories of united front, multi-party cooperation and democratic politics constitute the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 21 basic theoretical sources of consultative democracy with chinese characteristics. marx and engels believed that the proletariat is the most revolutionary and thorough class in modern society, and that only the proletariat can win the proletarian revolution by closely uniting with the peasantry and forming a united front, thus promoting the spirit of unity and cooperation of the proletarian political parties and giving full play to their superiority; at the same time, they put forward the idea of cooperation of the proletarian political parties with other political parties in their writings such as the communist manifesto, and the idea of cooperation of the proletarian political parties with other political parties. the proletariat, in its struggle for emancipation, should unite as far as possible all the parties that can be united, engage in democratic consultation on important issues at stake, and strive to reach the broadest possible consensus, so as to promote the development of the proletarian political parties; the most crucial aspect of the marxist theory of democratic politics is the unity of democracy and dictatorship, which, as marx emphasized, are two aspects of the same process. after the establishment of the proletarian state, what is needed is the further construction of the legitimacy of the regime, on the one hand, in order to get the approval of the people, must guide the people to actively participate in the consultation, to make scientific decisions to satisfy the people, on the other hand, to jeopardize the interests of the proletarian political party party parties and reactionary groups need to be mercilessly suppressed. the development of marxist consultative democracy is an evolving theory, and this advancement is precisely the characteristic of the development of the theory of consultative democracy with chinese characteristics. the two have commonality and are the basic theoretical source of the development of consultative democracy in china. 1.3 important theoretical source china's excellent "harmony" culture the political development of a country is intrinsically and closely related to its own political and cultural traditions, and this is also true of china's socialist consultative democracy. china's outstanding traditional culture is rich in consultative genes, which provides an intrinsic ideological foundation for the construction of consultative democracy in the new era. history proves that china is a peace-loving nation, and since ancient times it has always emphasized the principles of "harmony and difference," "people-oriented," and "the world for the common good" in governing the country and the world. the idea of "harmony" occupies an important place in traditional chinese culture: "harmony is a living thing, and sameness is not a continuation." this means consultation between two parties and reaching a consensus through communication. the idea of "harmony and difference" is to adhere to principles and respect differences, to collide with each other and form consensus, to accept and incorporate, to emphasize the integration or balance of different things, and to require people to compromise and tolerate each other; the people-oriented idea of "people-oriented" has played an important role in the history of china. only when a dynasty implements the people-oriented idea can the society develop and the feudal rule be relatively stable. successive chinese rulers were clear that "the people are the most important thing, the gods of earth www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 22 and grain come second, and the ruler is the least important thing." the people are the foundation of the state, and only when the people live and work in peace and contentment can the state be stabilized; traditional chinese culture also contains the excellent ideology of "the world is for the common good". in the book of rites, it is written, "the way of the world is public, the world is public, the people are chosen for their virtue and ability, and the people speak of faith and cultivate goodwill." although there is no such thing as a commonwealth society in traditional society, in reality, many literati and scholars have looked forward to a commonwealth society in which all people are equal through their poems, and this concept of "commonwealth" is of great significance to the integration of society. the concept of "harmony" in the excellent traditional chinese culture, reflected in the modern democratic process, is based on the common interests of the people and the public interest, respecting the existence of differences, and finding the greatest common denominator through communication, negotiation, and mutual understanding, so as to reach a consensus in the end. the chinese culture of "harmony" provides the basis for the development of chinese special consultative democracy. 1.4 direct theoretical source-the leader of the people's thought of consultative democracy the cpc insists on combining the basic principles of marxism with the realities of china's revolution, construction and reform. in the course of the development of china's consultative democracy, the leader of the people inherited the marxist-leninist theory of consultative democracy and put forward the theory of consultative democracy in chinese style, which provides a direct theoretical source for the development of socialist consultative democracy and consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era. in exploring china's development path, the leader of the people attached great importance to the issue of consultative democracy. as early as during the anti-japanese war, comrade the leader of the people repeatedly emphasized that "national affairs are the major affairs of the state, not the private affairs of a single party or faction. (note 2) the leader of the people recognized early on the importance of cooperation between the ccp and people outside the party. the leader of the people also emphasized consultation with the general public, and always adhered to the principle of "people's democracy" in dealing with issues concerning the interests of the people. his idea of people's democracy was reflected in his writings such as on the dictatorship of people's democracy, in which he argued that people's democracy was not only an important method of solving problems within the people, but also a fundamental means of preventing the deterioration of the party and the people's regime. fundamental way. at the same time, the leader of the peopleput forward the idea of the "mass line" in his "some questions on methods of leadership...". at the same time, the leader of the people, in "some questions on methods of leadership," put forward the important thesis of the "line of the masses," which is a popular expression for the "public participation" of today's people: "the people, and only the people, are the people. "the people, and the people alone, are the driving force behind the creation of world history." it is emphasized that it is the people who determine the end of history, and that only through the participation of the masses in the implementation of public decision-making, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 23 communication and consultation, and joint decision-making in the interests of the general public, can the harmonious development of society be realized. the mass line put forward by the leader of the people can be fully utilized to serve the new era of consultative democracy with chinese characteristics. 2. advantages of socialist consultative democracy in china in the new era socialist consultative democracy has gradually been perfected in china and has become a driving force in the development of socialism with chinese characteristics. socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era originated from the people's political consultative conference and is inextricably linked to the theory of the united front. at the beginning of the founding of new china, the theory of socialist consultative democracy was in its embryonic stage, while the report of the 18th cpc national congress in 2012 clearly stated the connotation of the term "socialist consultative democracy", and the third plenary session of the 18th cpc central committee pointed out that the leadership of the communist party of china (cpc) is the essential difference between socialist consultative democracy and western consultative democracy, and that socialist consultative democracy has its own unique advantages. advantages. 2.1 adherence to the people-centered guiding ideology serving the people wholeheartedly has been the fundamental tenet of the cpc since its birth, and making people-centeredness the guiding ideology of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics indicates that people-centeredness is the most distinctive underpinning of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era. it is under such guiding ideology that china's consultative democracy in the new era is carried out in an orderly manner, with the people as participants, contributors and enjoyers. however, the core of western consultative democracy is to safeguard the fundamental interests of the bourgeoisie, which are essentially the interests of the minority. for example, viruses do not "discriminate against people", but society in the united states does, and during the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the number of infections among the general public in the united states rose "methodically", and the lack of treatment ultimately led to loss of life, so that the united states continued to march and riot, and the chinese health insurance, health care, and health care services are all part of this. in contrast, china's health insurance, health codes, free and nucleic acid tests and universal free vaccines all reflect a people-centered approach. if we follow the western theory of consultative democracy, this matter should theoretically be resolved through consultative democracy. however, it is difficult to hide the nature of capitalist countries to defend the bourgeoisie. racial discrimination in the united states has been deeply rooted, and the unequal social status of blacks and whites is difficult to be resolved through consultative democracy, which ultimately resulted in protests by the american people. the guiding ideology of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics is different from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 24 that of western consultative democracy, highlighting the superiority of socialist consultative democracy. 2.2 adhere to the leadership of the communist party of china as the fundamental principle the cpc is the fundamental leading force in realizing the orderly development of socialist consultative democracy. according to western scholars of consultative democracy theory, equality is a prerequisite and necessary condition for consultation. the negotiators must be "free and equal citizens and their representatives" (note 3), the opportunity for consultation will not be affected by differences in the existing possession of power and resources between them. everyone is equal in the process of consultation, and there is no leadership power that transcends each consultant. however, the theoretical explanations of western consultative democracy will encounter problems in the course of practice when various interest groups are unable to obtain actual democracy due to huge differences, resulting in deliberation but not decision. the cpc, as the fundamental leading force of consultative democracy, guides the equal consultants to rationally make their voices heard on social issues and find the optimal solutions based on the synthesis of opinions from all sides. for this reason, the cpc has issued documents at all of its meetings stating the important role it plays in the process of socialist consultative democracy and accurately positioning the fundamental direction of socialist consultative democracy. first, the third plenary session of the 18th cpc central committee pointed out that the precondition for consultative democracy is "party leadership", while the precondition for western consultative democracy is to safeguard the interests of the bourgeois minority, which determines that the essence of consultative democracy in china and the west is different; second, general secretary emphasized that "to do a good job of the cppcc, we must adhere to the principle of the chinese people's political consultative conference (cppcc). work of the cppcc, we must adhere to the leadership of the cpc" (note 4), indicating that the cpc has a directional leadership role in the development of the cppcc cause. party leadership is the fundamental leading force for the healthy development of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era, which can overcome the drawbacks of western consultative democracy of discussing but not deciding, effectively integrating the interests and demands of all classes, and realizing the unity of discussion and action. 2.3 adherence to democratic centralism as an organizing principle the principle of democratic centralism is the organizing principle of the cpc, and at the same time a principle that has been tested in practice and is consistent with internal party democracy. for the socialist consultative process in the new era to be carried out in an orderly manner, it must adhere to democratic centralism as the organizing principle. western theorists of consultative democracy believe that the process of consultative democracy must be one in which consultative subjects or representatives are able to equally and rationally voice their opinions and express their interests, and use discussion and debate to find common interests among groups with a view to reaching consensus and making public decisions. if it is difficult to reach a consensus, a voting system will be implemented, adhering to the principle of the minority submitting to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 25 the majority and realizing public policies. the operation process of socialist consultation democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era adheres to the organizational principle of democratic centralism and realizes the democratization of public decision-making. general secretary then pointed out that the principle of democratic centralism is mainly embodied in the process of socialist consultative democracy in that it "adheres to the leadership of the communist party of china while giving full play to the positive roles of all parties, (note 5) it fully demonstrates that socialist consultative democracy adheres to the principle of centralization on the basis of democracy. the documents issued by the party central committee point out that the links of socialist consultative democracy must achieve the following in terms of democracy: adhere to the party's leadership, create a strong democratic atmosphere so that the different groups participating in the consultations can speak out fully, and support the negotiators in their courage to speak the truth and put forward practicable proposals. in the consultation process, it is necessary to adhere to the policy of "'not hitting the stick, not withholding the hat, not grasping the pigtail,' and to create a good atmosphere of consultation in which one can speak freely" (note 6). lay a solid foundation for the introduction and implementation of public policies. in terms of centralization, it must be achieved: the party must integrate the opinions expressed by various interest groups in the process of consultative democracy, so that public policies can ultimately achieve the effect of cohesion and consensus, effectively preventing the problem of deliberation but not decision that has arisen in western consultative democracy, and demonstrating the characteristics of socialist consultative democracy in terms of fairness and efficiency. the organizational principles of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics are different from those of western consultative democracy. western democracy requires equality as a prerequisite for consultation, and in the event that consensus is difficult to be reached, it can only go back to the system of voting, where public decisions are made through voting, but this is bound to jeopardize the interests of the minority. the consultative process in socialism with chinese characteristics adheres to the principle of democratic centralism, and party leadership is a prerequisite; on the basis of the opinions and suggestions of various interest groups, the party plays the role of integrating opinions and forging consensus, which ultimately enables public decisions to be made in a way that takes into account the interests of the various interest groups, and better facilitates the implementation of the public decisions. 3. innovating the path of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era since entering the new era, the central committee of the communist party of china (cpc) has clearly defined consultative democracy and successively issued a series of mechanisms for the implementation of socialist consultative democracy, regulating all aspects of consultative democracy in detail, promoting the improvement of the country's ability to govern, and providing guidance for the further www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 26 implementation of socialist consultative democracy in the new era, so as to enable socialist consultative democracy to keep abreast of the times. 3.1 utilizing the integrative power of the communist party of china in consultative democracy the communist party of china (cpc) is the leading core of the cause of socialism with chinese characteristics, and possesses a strong political integrating power that enables it to call upon the people to participate in consultations on socio-economic and political affairs. the cpc possesses a strong integrating power, capable of absorbing talents, absorbing social resources and integrating the distribution of social resources. throughout the course of the founding of new china, the cpc has been embraced and loved by the people step by step, and has strong authority among the people. in china's political power system, the cpc is at the center, which is the source of legitimacy for the cpc's political integration power. first, the cpc is able to play an integrating role in determining the subjects of consultation, and the party organization is not only able to call on people within the party, but also able to unite non-party members and social groups, and to organize the subjects of consultation to participate in social affairs according to their own responsibilities. secondly, in the process of consultation, the cpc organization should listen carefully to the opinions of all parties, identify the common points of interests and demands, and provide reasonable solutions to the problems of all parties, so that all parties can discuss the solutions rationally and calmly, and balance the interests of all parties. finally, in accordance with the division of responsibilities, the cpc shall guide the functional departments in fixing the solution to the problem in the form of policies or documents, so that all parties involved in the interests of the parties can act in accordance with the rules and regulations and achieve the effect of good governance. 3.2 strengthening the people's efficiency in social affairs as the old saying goes, "the rise and fall of the world is the responsibility of everyone", and every chinese person living on this piece of land has a responsibility for china's development. since the 18th national congress, the cpc central committee has proposed socialist consultation and democracy, and has pointed out the areas covered by consultation and democracy, and has carried out more comprehensive consultations up and down society. the cpc has brought into play the political advantages of the party organization, awakening the people's political consciousness and mobilizing them to actively participate in political life and care about social affairs. under the cpc's inspiration, the people participate in the management of social affairs through online platforms set up by the government, offline hearings and symposiums. as soon as the trial draft on permanent residence of foreigners in china was published on weibo, many netizens participated in the discussion on the topic, and some opponents expressed their views on the trial regulations and listed the reasons to refute them, which provided a direction for the revision of the decision, reflecting general secretary's saying that "things should be discussed, and the affairs of the people should be discussed by the people". ". the permanent residence of foreigners in china has an impact on every member of the chinese public. the favorable aspect is that they can bring in advanced scientific and technological talents to help china's www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 27 scientific and technological cause take off, but they will also squeeze the living space of nationals to a certain extent. therefore, it is necessary to raise the threshold of entry, keep the gate of permanent residence firmly, and introduce a better policy that responds to the people's wishes after many discussions. socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics in the new era has proved to be a more effective and functional form of democracy than western consultative democracy in both theory and practice, and it is indispensable to the happy life of the chinese people and the forward development of chinese society. to realize the modernization of national governance, consultative democracy needs to be implemented, and the way of implementation is still being explored. we hope that more scholars will join the team of researching the practical path of consultative democracy in the future, so that more people can enjoy the sense of well-being, acquisition and security brought by the fruits of development. 3.3 broadening the platform for people's participation in consultative democracy with the development of information network technology in china, the gradual expansion of its popularization, and the arrival of the 5g era, china will gradually become a country where everyone is informed in a timely manner, participates in and freely expresses their opinions on public decision-making. the party proposes to establish a platform for socialist consultation and democracy, and to provide an important platform for people to participate in consultation through the continuous use of big data, cloud computing, and "internet plus". first of all, "internet plus" has been utilized to enhance the efficiency of consultative democracy by combining online and offline methods. consultations are held on national or regional socio-economic, political and cultural issues of immediate interest to the people. when a community builds a public green space that involves the interests of every resident, it is difficult to satisfy the interests of every resident in offline consultations due to the lack of uniformity in residents' time; however, through online modes such as community service apps, wechat groups, and online voting public numbers, residents can conveniently express their opinions online, thus enabling every resident to express his or her own views; second, with the help of big data, it is possible to collect the people's concerns. questioning the people is a key step in modernizing national governance. problems call for reform, and the people are the discoverers of problems. as the country's governance capacity continues to grow, especially in the area of reaching out to the masses, from the central to local levels, from ministries and commissions to communities, there are specialized government websites to build online platforms for the people to offer advice and suggestions. community volunteer service is with the development of society to serve the people's way, but some volunteer services exist supply and demand information asymmetry problem, resulting in the phenomenon of poor volunteerism, for this negative phenomenon, you can set up a network monitoring platform to monitor the network of community volunteering asymmetry of supply and demand of the evil deeds. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 28 references gao, j., & tong, d. z. (2010). consultative democracy. tianjin, tianjin people's publishing house. general secretary speech at the congress celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the chinese people's political consultative conference. (2014). people's daily. introduction to political science writing group:introduction to political science. (2011). higher education press and people's publishing house, 2011 edition. li, l. (2015). electoral democracy and consultative democracy under the perspective of china's constitution. national people's congress research. lin, h. y., & yang, d. (2020). political consultation:the "institutional code" of "china's governance"-chinese characteristics of the cppcc and international comparison. southeast academic. lin, l. s., & zhao, y. f. (2016). the logic of consultative democracy in china. shanghai, shanghai people's publishing house. liu, n. (2015). research on the dilemma and path of social consultation under the concept of consultative democracy. journal of chongqing university of posts and telecommunications (social science edition). lu, y. (2010). research on the theory and practice of people's democracy. beijing, people's publishing house. sun, c. l. (2020). the history, experience and prospect of consultative democracy in new china in the past 70 years. journal of xinjiang normal university (philosophy and social science edition). xing, l. (2020). theoretical posture of socialist consultative democracy. journal of nanjing normal university (social science edition). zhang, z. m. (2021). the status, concept and elements of consultative democracy with chinese characteristics. journal of soochow university (philosophy and social science edition). zhong, y. (2020). the vivid practice of socialist consultative democracy with chinese characteristics. red flag manuscripts. notes note 1. (u.s.) john rawls: a theory of justice, translated by he huaihong, he baogang and liao shenbai, china social science press, 1988, p. 356. note 2. selected works of the leader of the people, vol. 3, people's publishing house, 1991, p. 767. note 3. u.s. emmy gutman and dennis thompson, "what deliberative democracy means", translated by tan huosheng, in tan huosheng, ed. , p. 7. note 4. general secretary, "speech at the conference to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the chinese people's political consultative conference," people's daily, september 22, 2014. note 5. general secretary, "speech at the conference to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 29 founding of the chinese people's political consultative conference," people's daily, 09/22/2014. note 6. "the central office issues 'implementing opinions on strengthening the construction of consultative democracy in the people's political consultative conference,'" people's daily. june 26, 2015. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper child marriage practices: a “cultural siege” against girls in the indigenous communities in northern uganda ogbonna, chidiebere c.1, margaret, lokawua2 & roseann, mwaniki1 1 department of development studies, kampala international university, kampala, uganda 2 women coordinator for moroto district, northern uganda * ogbonna,chidiebere c., department of development studies, kampala international university, kampala, uganda received: march 11, 2021 accepted: may 6, 2021 online published: june 21, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p1 abstract the study examined the impact of child marriage on the education attainment and welfare of girls in northern uganda. two indigenous communities, tepeth and matheniko were used as case study. the study employed case study design, while qualitative approach (face-to-face interview) was used in data collection. 25 key informants participated in the study that includes 15 females and 10 males. the study was guided by the radical feminist theory. the theory, argues that patriarchy is the primary cause of women oppression because patriarchy gives men advantage over women in the society and puts men in an advantage position to determine the future of women. the study findings reveal that two main factors: poverty and cultural practice of cementing alliances are responsible for child marriage in northern uganda. in addition, the study found that child marriage breaches different aspects of human/ children’s rights, such as the right to education, healthcare, and protection from physical and sexual abuse among others. the study concluded that child marriage is a practice that has long lasting negative impact on the welfare of the affected individuals and by extension the development of the communities where it is practiced. consequently, the study made recommendations on possible solutions and strategies to eradicate the practice. keywords child marriage, cultural practice, education, poverty, welfare 1. introduction according to demographic and health surveys (dhs), child marriage is most common in the world’s poorest countries. the highest rates are in sub-saharan africa and south asia, as well as parts of latin www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. america and the caribbean (icrw, 2006). the practice of child marriage transcends religion, ethnicity and nationality, as the practice is evident in every region of the world. according to unicef (2018), the rate of child marriage has dropped over the past 40 years. an earlier report by unicef in 2011 indicates that 20% of young women in 39 countries had married by the time they were 18 and in an additional 20 countries at least 10% married before age 15. in 2015, unicef reported that uganda is among the countries with the highest rate of early and forced marriage in africa, despite the fact that the country’s constitution stipulates 18 years as the minimum age for conjugal relationship. the statistics from the uganda demographic and health survey (udhs) in 2015 revealed that 46 per cent of girls in uganda marry before they reach 18 years. this implies that one out of every four girls in uganda is most likely to be married off before attaining the age of 18 years. the same report revealed that over 15 per cent of married women between the ages of 20-49 were married by the age of 15, and 49 per cent were married at the age of 18 years. a separate report by the population secretariat of uganda in 2015, shows that out of 1.2 million pregnancies recorded annually in uganda, 25 per cent of them are teenage pregnancies. this means more-than 300,000 teenage pregnancies, which account for the bulk of unwanted pregnancies that often end up in abortion or unintended births. in 2015, ugandan demographic and health surveys (udhs) report found that, for women ages 20-49, the median age at first intercourse was 16.6; the median age at first marriage was 17.8; and the median age at first birth was 18.7. similarly, a 2015 report by unicef titled “the national strategy to end child marriage and teenage pregnancy (nscm&tp)” stated that there is high rate of child marriage and teenage pregnancy in uganda; however, the prevalence is higher in northern uganda with about 59%. the above statistics presents a gloomy picture of childhood in uganda, particularly for girls. in view of the above, the study investigated child marriage practices in northern uganda, using two indigenous communities; tipeth and matheniko as case study. the study sort to address the following questions: what are the key drivers of child marriage in northern uganda? and what are the impacts of child marriage on education attainment and welfare of girls in northern uganda? 2. theoretical framework the study was guided by the radical feminist theory, which emerged in the 18th century as a pivotal confrontation to patriarchy. the theory appraises patriarchy as the fundamental instrument of women subjugation in the society (pilcher & imelda, 2008, p. 50). it contends that patriarchy facilitates the subordination of women, and encourage women being exploited by men (brownmiller, 2013). the theory claims that the society is consciously structured in a manner whereby men are rewarded with the entitlement to rule and dominate over women, and thus diminish the position and value of women in the society (walby, 1990, p. 7). consequently, men are placed at advantage position as the ruling class both in private and public spheres, while women are relegated to a disadvantaged position as the subject class (bryson, 1999, p. 15). according to sikweyiya et al. (2020) patriarchy is a form of “wheel band” that withholds women from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. attaining self-actualization. in the views of (pilcher & imelda, 2008, p. 51), the solution to this anomaly will be an overhaul of the patriarchal structures that are evident in our societies. walby (1990) argues that patriarchy is preeminence in any analysis regarding gender inequality. she identified certain patriarchal structures that undermine women and facilitate male dominance over them, which include: paid work relations within the household, patriarchal culture, sexuality, male violence towards women and the state. walby argues that each of these structures affects one another, but also they are relatively autonomous. according to haralambos and holborn (2008, p. 110), the interrelationship of the patriarchal structures in a particular society explains their detrimental impact on women empowerment and development in the society. the african society and culture are patriarchal in nature. apparently, more value is placed on men, and the society is usually tailored to favor men, mostly because of the perception that men are the custodians of culture and the gatekeepers of the family linage. the above assumption has been the premise for relegating women in africa over centuries. for example, in northern uganda child marriage is a cultural practice that have been in existence as far back as the origin of the region and has continued to exist till date. the practice affects both boys and girls but, it has a disproportionate effect on girls. the reason being that wealth is partly measured by household size, which includes the number of wives and children that a man has. consequently, young girls are given out in marriage to elderly suitors as part of the cultural practices of the region. the greater implication of child marriage in northern uganda can be seem from the grievous impact it has on education attainment, particularly girl’s education. from the available government statistics, education attainment is generally low in northern uganda when compared to other regions in the country, however there is a huge disparity in the ratio of male to female child education in the region. the family and society at large places more value on the male-child getting an education than the female-child. in homes where there is poverty with limited financial resources, the female child is usually compelled to withdraw from school prematurely in favor of the male child. such unjust decision is usually premised on prejudice, that the male child is economically more beneficial to the family at the long term, in that they are heir to the family. in addition, girls are stereotyped in terms of academic strength, thereby given the male child undue advantage over the female child (odaga & heneveld, 1995, p. 22). apart from being shortchanged in educational opportunities, the female child does not have equal opportunity with the male child in other issues such as inheritance. as the prime beneficiaries of family assets, the male child is favored in human capital investment decisions. the primary training given to a female child in northern uganda is largely hinged on how to be a mother and housewife, taking care of domestic chaos, while the male child is trained to be family head and breadwinner of their respective homes. as a result, boys are educated to acquire wealth and to manage their homes, while girls are trained to be submissive mothers and housekeepers (were, 1991, p. 2). therefore, gender roles assigned to the female child by the family and society, are geared more towards marriage and motherhood than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. attainment of self-development and success in life. figure 1: conceptual framework independent variables dependent variables 3. review of related literature child marriage is an issue that has attracted much attention in recent years because of the far-reaching negative impacts it can have on individuals, families, and communities. the practice is widely acknowledged to be a harmful socio-cultural practice that is both a cause and an outcome of human rights violations (davis, postles, & rosa, 2013). it undermines the victims’ rights to autonomy, to live a life free from violence and coercion, and to attain an education. besides, it permits sexual exploitation and places the victim’s (mostly girls) at various degrees of health risk. above all, children of adolescent mothers’ start life at a disadvantage, thus perpetuating a cycle of poverty and relative deprivation (maswikwa, 2015). over the course of the 20th century, the social and legal status of the child evolved considerably. consequently, there have been evolution of specific international treaties on the rights of the child. the idea to grant special protection to children in form of rights started in the 19th century in france child marriage  forced marriage  child betrothal impact on the rights to education  school enrolment  school dropout  school completion impact on welfare  poverty  marginalization  discrimination  government policies and legislations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. and spread to the united states, where the progressive movement challenged courts’ reluctance to interfere in family matters (the law library of congress, 2007). the agitations led to child welfare reforms with laws passed to regulate child labor and later came the adoption of the convention on the rights of the child (crc) in 1989, which provided statutory rights for children all over the world, though the implementation of the crc has remained questionable in most countries of the world. in addition to the crc, in the years 2014 and 2015 the international community took a number of steps to address child marriage. these include the united nations general assembly (unga) resolutions on child, early and forced marriage (cefm), as well as panel discussions at the human rights council (hrc) on child marriage. more so, capturing “the elimination of child marriage” as part of gender empowerment goals of the sustainable development goals (sdgs) was an effort towards putting an end to the practice of child marriage. at the national and regional levels, there have been important gains. many national legislations have outlawed child marriage, while the african union through the adoption of the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) provided for the protection of the african child, including protection from abuse and forced marriage. despite numerous policies and legislations against child marriage, the practice continues to exist in different parts of the world. one of the major challenges of addressing child marriage practice has been the dilemma of having a unified benchmark to determine who is a child, as there are various conceptualizations of a child by different national legislations. the word ‘child’ has been linguistically, sociologically, constitutionally and religiously defined and conceptualized by various experts and statutory institutions (bhattacharya, 2004). a child is defined as an infant or a young person between his birth and maturity (puberty) or somebody within the statutory age specification as not responsible for his/ her actions (calves, 1999). the english children act of 1958 defined a child as a person who has not reached the age of 18 or who has not satisfied the educational age requirement of 16 years according to 1944 education act. the convention on the rights of children (crc) defined a child as a person below the age of 18 years. in line with the crc, the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (acrwc) considers a child as a person below the age of 18 years. however, conceptualization of the term “child” is somewhat influenced by situations and circumstances. for instance, under labor act, a person under the age of 16 years is a child, whereas under law of armed conflict, a child is a person below the age of 15 years. the variations in determining the actual age of a child presents a dilemma to the overall understanding, conceptualization and efforts against child marriage. national legislations defining a child are often guided by religious and cultural beliefs and thus making the concept of a child an issue that is relative. the 2005 constitution of the republic of uganda defined a child as a person below the age of 18 years and outlawed child marriage practices within its borders. however, a unicef report in 2017 indicates that 10% of girls in uganda marry before they attain the age of 15 years, while 40% marry at the age of 18years. overall, the country is ranked 16th among the countries with the highest rate of child marriage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. cases in the world (garsbo, 2018). 4. methodology the study was conducted in the indigenous communities of tepeth and matheniko in northern uganda. a case study design was adopted since the study focus was to describe in details, individual, family, group, and community experiences on child marriage. the study utilized qualitative approach, whereby interview was used to elicit data from the respondents. the study population was 59,161, which is the population of tepeth and matheniko according to uganda bureau of statistics, 2017. the sample size was 25 key informants that comprises of: community leaders and elders, local council (lc) members, community women leaders and youths. purposive sampling method was used to determine the study participants, mainly for two reasons. first, due to the nature of the study, which requires the respondents to be well knowledgeable of the subject under investigation. second, most of the respondents are illiterate and unable to reasonably fill out a questionnaire. 5. findings and discussions the key findings of the study were that child marriage practice is still in existence in tepeth and matheniko and the practice is sustained mainly by poverty and cultural believe. it was deduced from the respondents that most members of the community on a personal level do not subscribe to the practice, but feel obligated to the practice due to cultural legacy and economic benefits. when asked to identify the causes of child marriage in their community, one of the respondents had this to say: when parents cannot take care of their family members, who are usually large, they have to marry off the girls at an early age as a way of transferring the girl’s responsibilities to her husband. when a girl is married off, the parents will save one mouth to feed, clothe and shelter (local chief, tepeth). from the above response, the respondent suggests that poverty is a factor that is contributing to child marriage in the communities of tepeth and matheniko. parents marry off their daughters at an early stage to reduce the financial burden of feeding and providing for their household. similarly, another respondent said that: child marriage is an ancient tradition that fosters peace within our community. we believe that when we intermarry, it brings peace because everybody in the community will be related to each other. based on this reason, parents arrange marriages for their children when they are young, because if they are allowed to grow old before marrying, they may choose to marry from other communities or parts of the country. in order to insure that they marry within our community, we marry them off when they are young. child marriage is an age long tradition here in our community, if you inquire, most people in the community will testify that it is a good thing in terms of maintaining peace among our people (local chief, matheniko). the above response suggests that child marriage is a cultural practice that is used to consolidate family bond and relationship. among the people of tepeth and methaniko, the practice is believed to foster www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. peaceful coexistence among community members. invariably, girls are used to conserve peace in these communities. another respondent stated that: […] when some of these girls see other pregnant girls being given soya-flour, cooking oil and bed sheet from the health center, they are tempted to marry and get pregnant, so as to enjoy similar benefits (local council i member, matheniko). the above response suggests that some girls choose to marry due to the entitlements that is associated with child birth. the gift that is presented to mothers after delivery at the health center is suggested to be an incentive for girls to marry early. in as much as this may be true, it may not be wrong to say that perhaps the girls in this category are driven by poverty. when the respondents were asked to explain the impacts of child marriage on education attainment and welfare of girls in their community, one of the respondents explained thus: there is always a problem going back to school when girls are married off early. from what i have seen in our community, most of the girls don’t continue with their education ones they marry. […] but, there are many benefits of marrying at an early age. one of them is that the girl will have her own family. also, she will gain protection, because marriage offers a woman some sort of social protection, at the same time she will earn respect from community members because she is someone’s wife. then, the girl’s family will also benefit because they will receive gifts in form of pride price, which include cows and other animals. in this case, it brings wealth to the family of the girl and even clan members benefit from bride price. another thing is that child marriage benefits community, because it fosters population growth. when girls marry at a young age, they tend to have more children than when they marry as adult. the community benefits by having a population that will take over from the older generation (community leader, matheniko). the above response confirmed that child marriage affects education of girls, usually when girls marry they discontinue with their education to face family life. however, the respondent added that there are some benefits of child marriage to both the girl’s family and the community at large. whether the said benefits are reasonable enough to justify the practice was not established. besides the above, another respondent had this to say: child marriage disrupts girl’s education and render them handicapped in life. in my opinion child marriage is caused by greed. it is only greedy parents and community elders that marry off their daughters or young girls in exchange for money and animals. when these girls are married off, they only face hardship and suffering. the only thing these girls get from child marriage is constant abuse by their spouse and in-laws (youth leader, tepeth). similar to the above response, the respondent confirmed that child marriage affects the education of girls in his community. however, the respondent disagree with the former on the issue that there some benefits associated with child marriage. the respondent maintained that child marriage offers no benefits to the girls, instead the practice promotes hardship and abuse of the victims (girls). normally when a girl is married off, she will stop going to school and face family life. i was 14 years www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. when my father gave me out in marriage, then i stopped school to go and live with my husband and her mother. the fact that i did not go to school affected me a lot because i wanted to be a teacher, but today i am surviving by farming in my backyard, life is very tough for me and my family. my dreams in life changed immediately i got married and i don’t wish my children to face similar situation (women leader, tepeth). similar to the former responses, the respondent reiterated the fact that child marriage practice is anti-education. the victims are usually faced with numerous difficulties in their marriage and life as the practice perpetuates a circle of poverty. overall, there are two main factors influencing and sustaining child marriage practice in tepeth and matheniko, which are poverty and cultural practice of cementing alliances. poverty: the study revealed that poverty is a major driver of child marriage in tepeth and matheniko. most respondents across the different categories cited poverty as a major cause of child marriage. it was found that parents marry off their daughters to secure financial security, whereby bride price is a motivation for parents to give their daughters away in marriage at a very young age. parents or guardians choose to collect pride price rather than to continue paying their daughter’s school fees—especially given that a younger bride earns the family a higher bride price. poor parents therefore, believe that early marriage holds greater and immediate financial potentials for the family than their daughter pursing education. this finding is in line with malhotra (2010), which highlighted poverty as one of the major causes of child marriage in the developing world. cultural practice of cementing alliances: as the reasons behind child marriage vary from one culture to another, for the people of tepeth and matheniko, one of the most cited reasons for the continued existence of child marriage is culture. many of the respondents pointed out that children are betrothed even before they are born, mainly for purposes of cementing strategic alliances and relationships between families or communities. although, child betrothal may have reduced elsewhere due to social changes in the society, yet the practice is still preeminent in tepeth and matheniko. the main reason for the continued practice of child betrothal is that families and communities perceive intermarriage as an instrument of sustaining peaceful relationship with other families, clan or communities, thereby favoring child betrothal even though it is not in the best interest of the child. thus, the girl child is traded to maintain peaceful coexistence among families and clans in tepeth and matheniko. this finding corresponds with the report by the international centre for research on women (2007, p. 98), which cited’ cementing alliances among the major drivers of child marriage in india and ethiopia. 6. conclusions the study concluded that child marriage is a harmful cultural practice that presents negative consequences girls education and welfare in northern uganda. it violates the fundamental rights to education, healthcare, personal development and best interest of the child. on the other hand, there are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. several benefits from entering marriage later in life. it gives girls the opportunity to earn education and make better choices in life. apparently, higher education attracts a higher income, better health and empowerment for females and invariably combat poverty in the society. given its obvious negative consequences, child marriage should not only be outlawed on paper, necessary mechanisms should be put in place by the government of uganda and other governments to abolish the practice and secure a better future for girls all over the world. 7. recommendations i although child marriage is prohibited in uganda, the practice continues to exist partly due to lack of awareness in some communities that such practice is criminalized by law. therefore, the study recommends that the government of uganda should initiate a public awareness campaign on human rights, children’s rights, women’s rights and access to justice. the program should focus on educating/ informing ugandans particularly the elderly people in the rural communities and religious leaders of the negative impact of child marriage on the human rights of the victims, as well as the criminal consequences of supporting or partaking in child marriage. furthermore, law enforcement agents should be empowered to take necessary legal action in situations where there is a breach. given the magnitude of the practice in uganda and the grave consequences associated with it, the government of uganda can establish a special court that will be responsible to prosecute child marriage cases and whereby strong penalties will be awarded to violators as a deterrence to others. ii given that poverty is a major driver of child marriage, the government should take drastic approach in fighting poverty, particularly in indigenous communities. the study recommends that the government should establish vocational training centers in rural communities, that will offer skills acquisition training, such as tailoring, hair dressing, shoe making and other skills, as a way of addressing unemployment and poverty in the rural communities. in addition, the government should launch a soft loan scheme for peasant farmers in the indigenous communities in uganda and a means to bridge the wealth disparities between the indigenous communities and other communities in uganda. accessing the said loan should not require rigid collateral security from the applicants. iii furthermore, the government should invest in education in the indigenous communities. education should be made attractive to both the pupil and their parents in these communities. making education attractive in this context will entail providing free education and study materials: school uniform, school bag, sandals, books and other writing materials and at-least a meal at school. another way of doing this will be for the government, through the district council to establish a reward package for parents whose child/children are enrolled in school. for example, a goat or cow can be given as a reward to each parent(s) whose child/children did not miss school for an entire school term or year. that alone will be enough encouragement and incentive for parents to ensure that their children attend school regularly. it will also make up for the resources that the children would have provided to the family if they had left school to work in the farm. the overall idea is that if the number of educated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. people are improved in these communities, it will definitely reduce the poverty level in these communities and as well change their orientation about child marriage. iv also, the government of uganda should enact a policy making ‘pre-marriage registration’ a mandatory requirement before any marriage can be conducted both traditional and faith based marriages. in light of the above, the study recommends that the government should establish “marriage registration department” in all the districts in uganda. the marriage registration department should further be decentralized to be an arm of the lci and lcii across the country. in this case, part of the lc’s responsibility will be ‘pre-marriage registration’, while the lc officials will be empowered to monitor and report any marriage conducted within their jurisdiction without due registration and approval. v finally, the study recommends that the government of uganda should establish a ‘complaint and special prosecutor office’ in every district in uganda that will be handling cases of abuse, exploitation and violence against women. references bhattacharya, g. (2004). sociocultural and behavioural contexts of condom use in heterosexual married couples in india: challenges to hiv prevention programmes. health education and behavior, 31(1), 101-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198103259204 brownmiller, s. (2013). femininity. new york: open road media. bryson, v. (1999). “patriarchy”: a concept too useful to lose. contemporary politics, 4(5), 311-324. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569779908450014 calves, a. (1999). marginalization of african single mothers in the marriage market: evidence from cameroon. population studies, 53(3), 291-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324720308090 davis, a., postles, c., & rosa, g. (2013). a girl’s right to say no to marriage: working to end child marriage and keep girls in school. united kingdom: plan international. garsbo, i. s. 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(1991). “female labour contribution in home management and agricultural production in siaya: a case study of siaya district. in g. s. were, c. a suda, & j. m. olenja (eds.). women and development in kenya, (pp. 2-3). institute of african studies, university of nairobi. microsoft word assc-v1n2-p245 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 245 original paper a tool to measure teachers’ soft skills: results of a pilot study orlando de pietro1* & natalia altomari1 1 department of humanities, university of calabria, italy * orlando de pietro, department of humanities, university of calabria, italy received: december 2, 2019 accepted: december 16, 2019 online published: december 19, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p245 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p245 abstract soft skills are a set of skills of fundamental importance in the performance of work activities; they are not technical or specific skills but are strongly related to personal qualities and attitudes and social and management skills. due to their intangibility, some of them are difficult to recognize, quantify, evaluate and develop. the acquisition of such skills for teachers is indispensable to successfully address different contextual situations (schulz, 2008). soft skills are necessary to interpret and understand complex situations, also in order to design training courses that enhance the personal qualities of the students. (ngang, yie, & shahid, 2015). our study aims to develop a tool capable of measuring the soft skills needed to effectively carry out the teaching profession, in order to promote activities aimed at strengthening them in the training courses: initial and in itinere. this paper presents the structure of the instrument, the sample to which it was administered, the descriptive statistics and indices of normality relating to the subdimensions of the questionnaire and, therefore, the analysis of the items and reliability. keywords soft skill, assessment, educational research, teacher training 1. introduction the current society, characterized by a continuous production of information and, at the same time, by the sharing of knowledge, has caused significant changes both in the socio-economic sector and in the cultural sector as well as in the educational and training environments. in recent years, in practice, we are witnessing the development of an open and non-discriminatory knowledge society in which the information resource and communication processes have reached levels of primary importance for the community. in fact, these have become elements of wealth and development not only in economic terms but, above all, in working, social and cultural terms. at the same time, working models and participation in collective life, stimulated by continuous processes of technological innovation, require changes in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 246 published by scholink inc. way roles collaborate, in the use of one’s own relational and communicative abilities and in interpersonal and group life practices. consequently, people, future workers, must be able to learn to learn, possess cognitive intelligence, accept “work mobility” and be able to adapt to any environmental context. it is clear from this that intangible assets such as experience, imagination, relationality, creativity, intelligence, imagination, persistence, curiosity and initiative are factors that characterize and qualify the skills needed to live contemporary society and that people must possess to enter and emerge in the labor market. it is clear, therefore, that there is a need to qualify an education system that enables young people to develop the basic skills needed to guarantee them a genuine right to active global citizenship. teachers are therefore called upon to design and manage learning-teaching processes that are not limited to the exponential acquisition of knowledge but are capable of giving life and continuously feeding a multidimensional training of students (miur, 2017). these competences, which fall within the sphere of soft skills, are a set of skills of fundamental importance in the performance of work activities (pachauri & yadav, 2014); they are not technical or specific skills but are strongly linked to personal qualities and attitudes and to social and management skills. due to their intangibility (dall’amico, 2016) some of them are difficult to recognize, quantify, evaluate and develop. the acquisition of these skills for teachers is essential to successfully deal with different contextual situations (schulz, 2008) and the soft skills are necessary to interpret and understand complex situations, also in order to design training courses that enhance the personal qualities of the students (ngang, yie, & shahid, 2015). these represent, therefore, for the teachers, but also for the other workers, the “new basic alphabets” (vannini, 2009) necessary, as the european commission (ec, 2009, 2018) claims, to live and manage complexity, uncertainty and less predictability. teachers in this complex and ubiquitous society (bauman, 2011) are faced with daily challenges that see them engaged with the problems of the students, with the preparation and implementation of the lesson plan and with the demands of parents (brewster & railsback, 2001). these challenges can be skillfully managed by those teachers who have transversal skills and not just technical skills according to hattie (2003), professionally qualified teachers with the appropriate soft skills have a direct impact in influencing the interest and commitment of students to achieve their educational success more easily. on the basis of the above, our work aims to develop a tool capable of measuring the soft skills necessary to promote activities aimed at strengthening them in the training courses (initial and in itinere) of the teachers. 2. objectives, steps and methods of research considering the fact that the relationship between learning, knowledge and skills, the purpose of basic training, and decision-making processes in educational and didactic planning, allows us to identify research hypotheses that focus attention on the soft skills (de pietro, 2019), it is necessary to explicitly define and delineate which are these soft skills and how to measure them so that teachers can become www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 247 published by scholink inc. aware of their possession and implement them during their teaching. starting from this premise, our study was divided into two research phases (isidori et al., 2015): a) in the first phase, of theoretical nature, starting from the definition of soft skills provided by different researchers, the different types underlying them were identified and classified. specifically, the existing literature on the teaching-soft skills relationship (see par. 3) was analyzed to develop the items of the questionnaire (tool); b) in the second phase, the activities focused on applied research activities, of statistical and descriptive type, aimed at the construction and statistical validation of the questionnaire on the basis of the types of soft skills and items identified in the first phase. 3. soft skills of the professional teacher in literature, the term soft skills (ec, 2011) is used with a multiplicity of denominations that generate ambiguity and, consequently, cause difficulties to determine a clear and univocal definition from which the expression of their peculiarity is evinced. james heckman (note 1) (2012), bernd schulz (note 2) (2008), elena dell’amico (note 3) (2016), highlight the ongoing changes in education systems, called to develop those useful skills in everyday social and working life. in this regard, our attention has been focused on the classification proposed by elena dall’amico (2016, pp. 11-12), and adapted by us, of 21 soft skills, grouped into three macro-areas: a: making your way in the world of work: identifying work goals; learning to learn; adaptability and flexibility; motivation; recognizing the application of rules and values at work; respecting rules and hierarchical levels; managing responsibilities; managing time; managing the digital process b. mastering social skills: communication skills; managing the communication process; self-control and stress management; working in groups; understanding the needs of others; leadership; managing conflicts; intercultural awareness. c. achieve results: making decisions; problem solving; creativity and innovation; critical thinking the taxonomy defined by elena dall’amico, therefore, seems to respond to requests from employers (note 4) because the skills of the three macro areas “help to weave all the possible interconnections that connect cognitive and emotional spheres, ethics and organizational skills, spirit of initiative and communication skills” (cinque, 2014, pp. 135-136). this concerns, therefore, the ability of an individual to operate effectively in the workplace and for teachers it is necessary, above all, to be aware of and understand which of these become strategic in their educational action. as it was observed in the previous paragraphs, the soft skills are becoming increasingly important in the workplace and, in particular, in educational and training contexts teachers are called to grow their own soft skills and to live the profession in a new way for an effective management of the student-teacher relationship in the didactic interaction. analyzing various studies and research carried out on the “teaching-soft skills” connection, 5 softs were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 248 published by scholink inc. identified as most fundamental for teachers: communication; leadership; team group; lifelong learning; problem solving. 3.1 soft skills essential for teachers. according to what was noted in the previous paragraph, we report below the five soft skills declaration which were considered by us for research purposes. 3.1.1 communication beginners teachers should be fluent and able to communicate effectively in both the mother language and the english language. they should be able to communicate their thoughts clearly and confidently in both written and oral form; be active listeners providing at the same time the necessary response; be able to provide and use technology during the presentation with confidence. schutz (1958) has developed a system called firo (fundamental interpersonal relations orientations) which identifies three main interpersonal orientations that are reflected in the way of communicating: a) a tendency towards inclusion: the need to be assisted, to attract the attention of others, to be at the center of interest, to collaborate; b) a tendency to control: need for power, to manipulate decision-making processes; c) a tendency to affectivity: need to be close to others, sharing their emotions and affections. the literature shows that the communicative style of the teacher is a crucial factor in the teaching-learning processes. in particular, style behaviors influence perceptions of teaching effectiveness. this explains the “affective” learning and mediates the “cognitive” one (schutz, 1958). 3.1.2 problem solving with this skill, beginning teachers should be able to think critically, creatively, innovatively and analytically including the ability to apply knowledge. the elements that must possess, in this respect, are the ability to identify and analyze complex situations, as well as to make justifiable assessments. they should also have the ability to expand and improve thinking skills, to provide ideas and alternative solutions. the most used tool for detecting the ability to solve problems is the problem solving inventory developed by heppner and petersen (1982) and subsequently applied to a number of different contexts. 3.1.3 teamwork teamwork skills involve the ability to work and cooperate with people from different social and cultural backgrounds in order to achieve common goals. in order to build a good working relationship with peers, it is essential to be respectful of the attitude, behavior and conviction of others, sometimes assuming the role of leader and sometimes the role of group member. ohland and his colleagues (2012) have developed a tool, called catme (comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness) to measure teamwork ability and have identified the five skills related to teamwork (ohland et al., 2012): 1) contributing to teamwork: includes different behaviors such as individual contributions that improve the quality of the work; for example helping classmates who have difficulties by delivering homework on time; 2) interacting with colleagues: understanding different behaviors such as active listening to other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 249 published by scholink inc. colleagues, asking and showing interest in the ideas of other colleagues, providing encouragement and enthusiasm to the team; 3) keeping the team on track: monitoring team progress, providing constructive feedback, knowing what each team member is doing and noticing the problem; 4) expect quality in the work: motivate the team to do a great job, firmly believing that the team can do an excellent job; 5) having relevant knowledge and skills: this includes different behaviors in which individuals are expected to show that they are doing excellent work, taking care to acquire new skills for the benefit of the team, being able to play any role in the team if necessary. 3.1.4 life-long learning in acquiring skills and knowledge, crick, broadfoot and claxton (2004), have developed the lifelong learning inventory, highlighting, through this tool, that beginner teachers should be able to do self-regulated learning independently; have the skills to search for pertinent information from various sources and be able to manage it efficiently; moreover, be receptive to new ideas and able to develop an investigative mind. 3.1.5 leadership leadership skills imply the ability of novice teachers to conduct different activities. beginner teachers should have knowledge of basic leadership theories that will enable them to conduct a project. it is also essential that they are able to understand the role of a leader and a group member and to be able to play these roles interchangeably. houghton & neck (2002) developed a self-leadership questionnaire in the school context, called the revised self-leadership questionnaire, to which reference should be made for in-depth study. 4. the detection tool from the previous paragraph 3 it is easy to understand that the five soft skills have different characteristics but, above all, are placed on different levels of personality that the professional teacher should have, so that he, says michele pellerey (2017), can “[...] solicit, guide and support the activity of reflective, interpretive, conceptualizing and development of appropriate clothes of government” of the learning-teaching process. reflecting on the items exhibited by researchers in the previously selected soft skills (crick et al., 2004; heppner, 1988; heppner & petersen, 1982; houghton & neck, 2002; ngang et al., 2015; ngang et al., 2015; ohland et al., 2012; tang, 2018), we have re-proposed for each of them 14 items, 7 of which correspond to “direct questions” (table 1) and the other seven to “indirect questions” (table 1), for verifying the coherence of the answer given by the sample. the number in brackets of each item represents the position that the same item occupies in the questionnaire administered. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 250 published by scholink inc. table 1. items of the questionnaire on teachers’ soft skills (direct and indirect questions) communication direct items indirect items 1. i spend a lot of time listening to others (1) 8. at the end of a discussion i do not always wonder if others understood what i said (36) 2. during a training activity i am pleased that questions are being asked about the topic i am explaining (6) 9…sometimes i have difficulty understanding the intentions of the other (46) 3. i am willing to accept criticism and discuss about it (11) 10. i use a highly sought-after language with an uncommon terminology (16) 4. exchange my ideas with others (21) 11 i avoid showing appreciation with gestures (26) 5. i compare myself with the different points of view of my interlocutors (31) 12 i don’t waste time discussing problems that slow down the activities i set myself (51) 6. i use a clear and simple language (41) 13. i interact with the others only during the times provided for in my day program (56) 7. i am willing to help others by going beyond the required commitment (61) 14. i prefer to use verbal language rather than gesture language (66) problem solving direct items indirect items 15. i try to predict what could happen before performing an activity (2) 22. when i think of how to manage a problem, i resort to already known schemes (17) 16. i try to understand the causes of each problem (7) 23. to solve a problem situation it is necessary to intervene directly on the problem (27) 17. carefully compare different solutions to solve problems (12) 24. to solve a problem it is not necessary to go back to the causes that produced it (37) 18. i examine the problematic situation trying to get all the important information (22) 25. when a problem arises, i implement the first thing that comes to mind to solve it (47) 19. i can find new and useful ways to solve a problem (32) 26. in analyzing a problem i do not dwell much on the details (57) 20. when i solve a problem, i make decisions that later prove to be satisfactory (42) 27. faced with a problem it is necessary to act immediately without thinking long (62) 21. when a problem arises, it must be resolved as quickly as possible (52) 28. i never think about what could happen when i solve a problem, i rely on my instincts (67) teamwork direct items indirect items 29. i participate actively in study or work groups (3) 36. i prefer individual work (18) 30. i communicate effectively and constructively when 37. i take the opinions of others into consideration only to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 251 published by scholink inc. working in a group (8) demonstrate the validity of my own (28) 31. in group work i recognize the usefulness of the different perspectives of each individual member (13) 38. i have difficulty managing conflict situations (38) 32. i encourage the establishment of a positive atmosphere among the members of my work or study group (23) 39. i assume a dominant role within my group (48) 33. i appreciate projects that require group work (33) 40. in group work it is not useful to share personal progress with other members (53) 34. in a group work i express to the other members my impressions on the progress of the project (43) 41. in group work i do not consider it essential to integrate my work with that of others (58) 35. in a working group i tend to entrust my part to the other colleagues (63) 42. within a group i do not express judgments on the work of others (68) lifelong learning direct items indirect items 43. it is not necessary to continue to train after having achieved job stability (4) 50. reflecting on the knowledge already possessed goes to the detriment of the speed of acquisition of new ones (19) 44. i can improve the way i do things (9) 51. it is more useful to learn quickly rather than pause to reflect on knowledge already possessed (29) 45. i can establish connections between new things i learn and things i already know (14) 52. i do not waste time in training and i focus on work (39) 46. i interact with others to solve problems and improve my knowledge (24) 53. i focus only on the things that really matter (49) 47. if i get stuck in a learning activity i think about how and what to do to overcome the difficulty (34) 54. when i encounter an obstacle in my study or work i think i am not up to the task (54) 48. i question my previous knowledge (44) 55. there are few things of real interest that deserve constant study (59) 49. my ideas vary according to the new knowledge acquired (64) 56. i am not sure of the correctness of a solution if i did not process it myself (69) leadership direct items indirect items 57. i use imagination to project myself into important tasks (5) 64. i decide the goals of the group (20) 58. i have expectations of success before starting a certain activity (10) 65. in contrasting situations i propose no definitive solution (30) 59. i tend to overcome the challenges i face (15) 66. in most cases the goals are reached randomly and not in relation to the commitment (40) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 252 published by scholink inc. 60. i try to foresee the requests of each member of the group (25) 67. it is more important to focus on achieving short-term goals than on long-term goals (50) 61. when i set goals, i focus on those in the short, medium and long term (35) 68. i feel guilty when i am not doing a good job (55) 62. i use written notes to organize the work phases (45) 69. i will not dwell on the positive aspects of my work (60) 63. i focus on the pleasant aspects, not the unpleasant ones, of my activities (65) 70. when i focus on the goals to be achieved, the things i like to do escape me (70) the instrument consists of 70 items to detect the soft skills defined in the previous step. the questionnaire has been submitted to 5 members of our research group (2 internship tutors, 1 research fellow, 1 phd student, 3 students of the sfp course, 1 speech therapist) in order to report their opinions with regard to the syntactic and semantic clarity of the items and the ease of compilation (instructions, format and time required). 4.1 the evaluation scale in the phase of analysis and definition of the items of the detection tool (see paragraph 4 table 1), it was also decided to use, for the measurement of the items, the likert scale, because it is more suitable for the detection of these and to show the extent to which the respondent is found in the statements (items) contained in the questionnaire. proposing, therefore, to choose in a scale of values from 1 (not at all agreeable) to 5 (completely agreeable) and to assign the other evaluations (2, 3, 4) for all intermediate cases. 5. the sample of the pilot study in order to test and validate the questionnaire, a pilot study was carried out consisting of a sample of 306 students enrolled in the iv and v year of the course of science in primary education, university of calabria (italy), in the academic year 2019/2020. 54.9% of the sample consists of students enrolled in the fourth year of the course, 41.2% are students enrolled in the fifth year of the course, 2.6% in the third year of the course, while 1.3% concerns students out of course as demonstrated on figure 1. 95.5% are female students. the nationality is entirely italian and the average age is 24.89 years with a prevalence of 75.6% of people aged between 21 and 25 years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 253 published by scholink inc. figure 1. course year interviewed students 6. elaboration and descriptive statistical analysis considering that the construction of a survey tool such as the questionnaire we proposed, would have involved the complex problem of validation, we started from the awareness that it should satisfy the fundamental principles of empirical research in education: validity, reliability and comparability of results: the objectives of this work. in proposing to proceed with the validation of the questionnaire through factorial analysis, which is still in the processing stage. the results will be the subject of a forthcoming publication. 6.1 preliminary data screening below is the figure 2 relating to the normal curve represented by the data collected. taking into consideration the criteria of curran, west, and finch (1996) (asymmetry> | 1 | = severe not normality; kurtosis> | 3 | = moderate non-normality) the value of item 58, as regards asymmetry, can be considered at the limit of a severe non-normality. although only one item presents these values, the results of descriptive analyzes can be considered reliable. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 254 published by scholink inc. figure 2. curve distribution of the examined sample 6.2 internal consistency regarding the analysis of items and reliability, we explored, through the statistical program spss 25, if the five scales that measure the soft skills form a set of consistent items. as can be seen in the table 2, the scales examined show correct correlations item-total scales ranging from a minimum of .01 to a maximum of .55. while the values of cronbach’s alpha are between .55 and .70, showing that the items in the questionnaire present a good degree of reliability. it should be noted that the cronbach alpha values, related to the teamwork scale, do not reach satisfactory levels (alpha = 0.40) and, that a further objective of the study in future statistical analyzes, is the improvement of the item exposure as well as the increase of the database. after this the internal consistency will be reformulated and a greater value can be expected with respect to the teamwork variable. table 2. reliability and correlations soft skills item number reliability correct item-scale correlations communication 14 cronbach’s alpha = .57 da .01 a .50 problem solving 14 cronbach’s alpha = .70 da .02 a .53 teamwork 14 cronbach’s alpha = .40 da .01 a .55 lifelong learning 14 cronbach’s alpha = .58 da .01 a .42 leadership 14 cronbach’s alpha = .55 da .01 a .41 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 255 published by scholink inc. 7. conclusion the challenge of teacher training in progress shows that the soft skills are necessary to interpret and understand complex situations to design training courses that enhance the personal qualities of the students; it is therefore necessary to make the teachers aware of which soft skills are necessary to effectively carry out the teaching profession and how to measure them to realize if they are owned by them and to what extent. the pilot study carried out on the tool (as described in paragraph 3 below), highlighted that it was valid and responsive to the validity and reliability paradigms. developments in progress foresee the validation of the questionnaire by means of factorial analysis, still under elaboration, the results of which will be the subject of a forthcoming publication. however, we can consider the preliminary data satisfactory as they represent sufficiently a representative sample of the normal population, so our database results reliable and analysable. the experimented questionnaire is proposed as a tool to make teachers aware of a reflection on the training needs, which are indispensable for personal and professional growth in relation to their educational action. the emphasis is on the real need for collaboration between the group and the individual. working, in fact, on the awareness of the teacher, on his place within the group, on his way of communicating and interacting, it becomes natural to focus on possible educational interventions to improve the teaching-learning process, considering the relationship as a fundamental and essential tool. it is however necessary and essential, in the future development of the pilot project, to measure the soft skills for a sample belonging to different geographical areas in order to evaluate the instrument of cross-cultural validity and, therefore, proceed with the calibration. acknowledgment the present paper was conceived, designed, discussed and approved jointly by the authors. then everyone developed his part according to common indications. paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.1 and 7 by de pietro; 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(2015). quality teaching: relationship to soft skills acquisition. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 191, 1934-1937. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.204 ngang, t. k., yunus, h. m., & hashim, n. h. (2015). soft skills integration in teaching professional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 257 published by scholink inc. training: novice teachers’ perspectives. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 186, 835-840. ohland, m. w., loughry, m. l., woehr, d. j., bullard, l. g., felder, r. m., finelli, c. j., & schmucker, d. g. (2012). the comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness: development of a behaviorally anchored rating scale for self-and peer evaluation. academy of management learning & education, 11(4), 609-630. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2010.0177 pachauri, d., & yadav, a. (2014). importance of soft skills in teacher education programme. in ijert: international journal of educational research and technology, 5(1), 22-25. pellerey, m. (2017). soft skill e orientamento professionale. retrieved from http://www.cnos-fap.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/soft_skill.pdf schulz, b. (2008). the importance of soft skills: education beyond academic knowledge. in nawa: journal of language and communication, (june), 146-154. schutz, w. c. (1958). firo: a three-dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior. tang, k. n. (2018). the importance of soft skills acquisition by teachers in higher education institutions. kasetsart journal of social sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2018.01.002 vannini, i. (2009). la qualità nella didattica. trento: erickson. notes note 1. nobel prize for economics note 2. senior lecturer at the polytechnic of namibia where, since 2000, he teaches information technology note 3. centro estero internazionalizzazione piemonte note 4. adecco group report 01/2017. soft skill: the new imperative. from behaviour to empathy, an analysis of the true strength of soft skills in a now automated world. excerpt from https://adeccogroup.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/soft-skill-il-nuovo-imperativo_the-adecco-group 2017_whitepaper.pdf (30/07/2018) advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 20 original paper contribution of communication to the economic evaluation of the direct use value of lake dem in burkina faso dr compaore jérôme 1* 1 research master cnrst-institute of environment and agricultural research (inera) 03 bp 7192 ouagadougou 03, burkina faso * dr. compaore jrrome, e-mail: jcompaore2003@yahoo.fr received: june 03, 2023 accepted: july 08, 2023 online published: july 13, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p20 abstract in burkina faso, wetlands play an important role in the country’s economy. dem lake, one of the ramsar sites of international importance inscribed in 2009, and is today facing severe degradation under the combined effect of climate change, poverty, population growth, and pressure from anthropogenic activities. also, the goods and services of the dem lake ecosystems have not yet been studied to provide us with information on their costs. this lack of price leads local populations and political and private decision-makers to behave as if the value of the natural heritage is nil. the objective of this study is to assess the economic value of some supply services of lake dem. thus, it is a question of identifying the main services provided by the lake and then estimating their economic value. the tool used is that of the market price technique. this technique measures the quantities of goods consumed or sold and determines the prices at which they are offered on the market. the research made it possible to identify consumer goods by sector of activity such as market gardening, agricultural production, fish production, grazing and the water resource provided by the ecosystem. similarly, we were able to determine on the basis of the communication, the quantity of the various non-timber forest products that enter into household consumption. the results revealed that the total value of the supply services is estimated at more than two billion two hundred million francs (2,200,000,000) cfa. this estimate does not provide knowledge of the total economic value of lake dem, because it is only the direct use value of a few goods and services that have been assessed. similarly, the indirect use, option and bequest values have not been assessed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. keywords lake dem, water, ramsar site, climate, ecosystems, collection communication, economic value, burkina faso 1. introduction burkina faso is a sahelian country whose development is intimately linked to its non-renewable natural resources. among its natural wealth, one can find a diversified fauna and flora as well as ecosystems of particular importance. at the national level, the will to take responsibility for the preservation of the environment is gradually increasing. however, it should be noted that environmental concerns are still relegated to second place in a country marked by great poverty and significant social inequalities. this finding is worrying because economic development in burkina faso relies to a significant extent on the exploitation and development of its natural resources. wetlands are production sites par excellence for the socio-economic development of populations through the implementation of activities such as the exploitation of flora and fauna products; agricultural and vegetable production (tomatoes, onions, cabbage); livestock development; energy production (kompienga and bagré hydroelectric dam); the development of tourism (bagré tourist complex, arly tourist camp). lake dem, the subject of this research, is located in the sahelian zone marked by semi-aridity which gives water points a capital importance. this state of affairs explains the high concentration of populations around lake dem, which offers them goods and services. 2. lake dem in the geographical universe of burkina faso lac dem is a resource shared by the village lands of tonkin, dembila and dem. the lake area belongs to the nakambé watershed. according to the geographical surveys of ouattara and ouédraogo (2009), the lake is centered at point 13°12’n and 01°09’50”w. the total area of the lake area (only) is 1,354 ha. is covered upstream by the classified forest of dem (350 ha).the depth of the lake is estimated at 2.3 m. it extends over more than 6.5 km long and 1.1 km wide in period of high water (ouedraogo, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. category n 1. location of lake dem in the geographical universe of burkina faso sources: field surveys october 2022. the increase in needs and growing pressure on land have led to overuse of the soil. similarly, the extension of agricultural activities and illegal logging have led to significant deforestation. for example, despite the protective measures taken by the environment and sustainable development services, fraudulent and anarchic logging persists both in village areas and in the classified forest of lake dem (management plan for lake dem, 2014). consequently, all these actions carried out by man to meet his needs in a context of climate change and accentuated more and more by the population growth, have led to a degradation of this ecosystem. the undervaluation of certain ecosystem goods and services of lake dem does not allow for effective management. this communication study, based on the ecosystem approach, aims to highlight some of the benefits of this ecosystem in order to allow the implementation of appropriate management measures for the conservation of biodiversity but also the maintenance of ecological services. in a context of sustainable development. this specifically involves identifying the main ecosystem goods and services of lake dem and subsequently estimating the value of direct uses and the role and positive effects of communication for the benefit of the various actors in the process, chain. 2.1 a methodology in three (3) steps the methodological approach adopted in the context of our study is presented in three stages, namely sampling, data collection, discussions and analysis. s. the study focused on households bordering lake dem. the targeted households are those who benefit from ecosystem goods and services such as: fisheries resources, drinking water, market gardening and agricultural products, non-timber and timber forest products. thus, out of the fourteen villages that benefit from the ecosystem goods and services of lake dem, eight villages were selected given their proximity to the lake. as part of the study, the sample retained was made by reasoned choice. the sample is made up of women for questions relating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. to non-timber forest products because they are the main players in this sector. regarding other activities such as market gardening and fishing, questions were addressed to men. table 1 below shows the distribution of respondents according to their relationship with the ecosystem goods and services of lake dem. table 1. distribution of respondents by village and by activity villages actresses in nwfp fishermen market gardeners total dem 10 6 10 26 dembila-mossi 10 9 10 29 dembile-peulh 10 0 10 20 kamsaogo 8 6 10 24 konkin 10 4 10 24 ilyalga 8 4 10 22 zandogo 10 10 10 30 zorkoum 10 8 10 28 total 76 47 80 203 source: 2022 survey data. 2.2 a method for collecting, analyzing and processing data the surveys took into account 203 individuals divided between 76 women for questions relating to ntfps, 47 fishermen and 80 market gardeners. the literary review consisted of collecting secondary data to better understand our subject. these documents were mainly collected from the regional department of environment and sustainable development, the iucn regional office, on the ramsar website and from iucn, the environmental governance consolidation project (cogel) and in libraries. primary data collection was done using questionnaires adapted to the type of target group to be surveyed and interview guides. the individual surveys concerned fishermen, market gardeners and ntfp consumers. this allowed us to identify the main ecosystem goods and services on which the economic valuation focused. concerning the data on pastoral resources, drinking water and cereal crops, these are secondary data that were colle cted directly from the provincial directorate of animal resources, the directorate provincial office of agriculture and the national office of water and sanitation all located in kaya. the research focused on part of the direct use value. the data analysis focused on market consumer goods. the economic value of market goods provided by lake dem was determined by the technique of market prices. the market price technique estimates the economic value of ecosystem products or services that are bought and sold in markets (boyer, 2013, cited by dechezlepretre, 2013). this method uses www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. standard economic techniques to measure the economic benefits of traded goods based on the quantity of those goods that consumers procure at different prices and, on the producer sid e, the quantity supplied at varying prices. it will then be a question of multiplying the average price by the average quantity of each type of product to determine the monetary value. 3. discussions and analysis 3.1 economic evaluation of seasonal agricultural production agriculture is one of the main activities of the locality. the shores of lake dem are occupied by cereal crops in the rainy season and in the dry season by market gardening. maize, sorghum, millet, cowpea and peanuts are the main food and cash crops in the area and are most often produced for self-consumption and marketing. during the dry season, as the water recedes, it leaves surfaces rich in silty deposits that are very favorable for market gardening. this leads to strong pressure from market gardeners on water resources for this activity because it generates income. indeed, according to grad (2007) market gardening takes no less than 4 million m3 of water per year with an estimate of the economic value of the resources and achieved through the various cereal productions in accordance with table 2 below. table 2. cereal production (2013-2014) in the province of sammatenga speculations but mil sorghum peanut cowpea area (ha) 6,285 32,357 78099 10,680 7 ,926 production (t) 10,489 38,090 96,681 8,294 48257 source: general directorate of statistics and sector studies (dgess) / dpa. on the basis of the data in table 4, the production (in tonnes) is deduced from each speculation in the eight villages concerned by the study, knowing that the province of sanmatenga has 386 villages within it. thus the selling price of each cereal product on the markets of dem and kaya made it possible to estimate the economic value of agricultural land in the eight villages at a total amount of nine hundred and thirty million zero eighty thousand francs (930. 080,000) cfa. sorghum and cowpea are the main crops in the area with a production of 2,000 and 1,000 tonnes respectively per year. these crops represent respectively 50% and 28% in the total monetary value of rainfed agricultural production which is 930,080,000 fcfa. indeed, in the hea kaya final report, the main agricultural productions in the study area are sorghum and millet for food crops, cowpeas and groundnuts as cash crops. according to the estimates obtained, groundnuts and maize represent respectively 168 tons and 216 tons, i.e. 6% and 3% of the total monetary value. according to the hea kaya final report, maize is very often grown in hut culture, which explains its low production. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. 3.2 evaluation of the economic value of market gardening market gardening plays a considerable economic role for the populations. it is a source of substantial income that allows local populations to supplement the income from the sale of their cereal and cash crops. this activity contributes to limiting the rural exodus by providing young people with relatively profitable activities. the land is also occupied by producers from other towns such as ziniaré and other villages located in the lake dem watershed. this area supplies the whole of the centre-nord region with products as varied as tomatoes, onions, aubergines, cabbage, peppers, peppers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. these products are intended for local and sub-regional consumption. while the green bean is produced for the european market. ghanaians and togolese are the main buyers of market garden produce, especially tomatoes. vegetable products are sold at prices which fluctuate according to their availability on the markets. the study identified the minimum prices of some market garden products such as the tomato which is sold at 1500 fcfa per box. the onion and the pepper are sold in 50 kg bags respectively at 5000 fcfa and 2000 fcfa. as for the cabbages, they are sold at 4000 fcfa in 100kg bags. thus, the monetary valuation of market gardening is obtained on the basis of the assumption that 100% of households, that is to say 1031 households are market gardeners. this hypothesis also allowed us to determine the total quantity of tomato, onion, cabbage and peppers sold by households for an overall cost of four hundred and forty-eight million nine hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred francs (448,918,500) fcfa. the total monetary value of market garden products sold at the minimum price is 448,918,500 cfa francs. this value represents the quantity of market garden products offered by producers at a minimum price on the markets. indeed, the more the quantity offered on the market is important, the more the good is sold at a low price. the period of abundance is spread over about five months, that is to say from october to february. the price variation at the level of each crop influences the total monetary value of vegetable crops. thus, the monetary value of market garden crops sold at the maximum price amounts to the sum of one billion two ninety-four million five hundred nine thousand five hundred francs (1,294,509,500) cfa. from this table above, it appears that the price of the box of tomatoes is 5500 fcfa at its maximum. the onion and the pepper are sold in bags of 50 kg respectively at 10000 fcfa see 15000 fcfa and 10000 fcfa. the rarer the property becomes on the market, its selling price rises to 10,000 fcfa or even 15,000 fcfa. as for cabbages, they are sold at 10,000 fcfa per 100 kg bag. when the market gardening activity comes to an end, the goods become increasingly rare on the markets, which leads to an increase in the selling price of these products. the estimate of the total monetary value of market garden products sold at the maximum price by the 1031 households of the eight villages selected for the study is 1,294,509,500 cfa francs. the minimum and maximum prices, obtained for each speculation, make it possible to determine their average prices in order to estimate the total monetary value of market gardening in the eight villages of eight hundred and seventy-one million, seven hundred and fourteen thousand francs (871,714,000) fcfa. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. the average prices of tomato, onion, cabbage and peppers are respectively: 3500 fcfa, 7500 fcfa, 7000 fcfa, and 6000 fcfa. the estimate of the value of market gardening for 1,031 households in the eight villages selected for the study amounts to 871,714,000 cfa francs. the marketing of market garden products in the area is subject to several difficulties which lead to the dysfunction of the market. indeed, the development of market gardening in the area has not been accompanied by a market development policy with adequate structures. there is a lack of storage structures (store, cold room). faced with the seasonality and perishability of products, this leads to enormous losses for producers and traders. market gardeners do not have the possibility of storing and processing products during periods of high production. this results in price instability that disrupts the effectiveness of adjustments between supply and demand in the markets. 3.3 evaluation of the economic value of the pastoral resource the dem lake ecosystem offers relatively rich natural rangelands for feeding herds, but fodder production is characterized by strong seasonal variability, both in quantity and quality. the species bred are cattle, sheep and goats. the quantities produced meet less and less the needs of local livestock. the lack of a common grazing area causes herds to move to land not yet occupied by farmers in search of food. indeed, according to ouattara and ouédraogo (2009), access to water and pasture are subject to competition between market gardeners and the very numerous breeders in the area. the former occupy more and more of the banks, destroying the pasture and leaving the animals only a strip of land to access the water. the breeding activity occupies a major social and economic place among the populations bordering the lake. according to the inter-village land charter for the management of lake dem/sian, access to this space is free for all herds of less than a hundred head. to assess the economic value, we used the metabolic weight ratio technique used by somda et al. (2010) to estimate the value of forage consumed by livestock. according to these authors, the quantity of forage consumed daily by an african zebu is estimated at 6.25 kg of dry matter on average with strong seasonal variations and according to the nature and availability of the forage. in the early warning system (sap) of some sahelian countries, dry matter requirements are calculated on the basis of 1.7 t of dm/utb. the data from the field survey indicates an overall estimate of dry matter around lake dem at a net amount of thirty-three million four hundred and ninety thousand eight hundred and fifty francs (33,490,850 cfa) either by cattle to 6,698,170 kg and its total monetary value is estimated at 33,490,850 fcfa. this value is minimal because grazing areas are insufficient all along the watercourse. to overcome this food shortage, breeders use crop residues (the stems and leaves of crops: cereals, oilseeds, legumes). also, the livestock sector generates food by-products such as milk and non-food by-products such as skins and horns which are generally sold in the markets of the commune of kaya. indeed, in this region there is a strong production and transformation of skins into traditional craft products. these products are exported to ghana, nigeria and europe (traore, 2012). the leather sector represents 21.5% of the local gdp. the sector includes tanning, marketing of hides and skins, leather dyeing and leather www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. craftsmanship (leatherwork, pyrography and leather upholstery). it is therefore necessary to develop grazing areas to be able to accommodate a very large number of livestock so that breeders can derive more benefit from them. 3.4 assessing the economic value of fishery resources fishing is one of the activities carried out by the local populations of lake dem. surveys show that the favorable weather for fishing lasts between 4 to 5 months and the rest of the month is considered to be the period when activity is slowing down. the main species of fish sold are catfish, sea snails, sardines, carp and prawns. we found that fishing is not the main activity of fishermen. fishing only comes in third place after agriculture and animal husbandry. inspired by the categorization of fishermen carried out by fao (bado et al., 2007), we can say that dem lake fishermen belong to the category of semi-professional fishermen. alongside the latter evolve occasional fishermen whose practice of the activity remains a hobby. thus the fish caught are mainly sold fresh or smoked. the smoking of fish is an activity reserved for the women generally wives of the fishermen within the family framework. there are no professional smokers as noted around other water points such as the kompienga and bagré dams. in lake dem, a fisherman sells an average of 857kg of fish per year and obtains an average amount of 417,160 fcfa per year and the quantity of fish devoted to consumption figure n°1 below indicates the percentage of fish sold and that reserved for consumption. figure 2. percentage of fish sold and reserved for consumption source: survey data, (2022). based on the estimates made, the quantity of fish taken from dem lake is 46,595 kg/year. the quantity of fish intended for family consumption is 6,293 kg/year, or 14% of the total fish harvest. this is equivalent to 3,146,500 fcfa. the quantity of fish sold is 43,302 kg/year, or 86% of the total. the amount obtained for this sale is 19,606,500 fcfa. in short, the total monetary value of the halieutic resource is 22,753,000 cfa francs. the quantity of fish taken from dem lake is low due to the siltation of the body of water and the development of prohibited fishing practices such as poisoning the water with pesticides used for agriculture. according to the fishermen, the lack of equipment such as canoes and nets does not allow them to take large quantities of fish from the lake. as well as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. caimans can be a means of tourist attraction, it should be noted that they represent a danger for the fishermen. indeed, frequent attacks often take place. fishermen’s nets are regularly destroyed by caimans when they find themselves trapped in them. 3.5 assessment of the economic value of drinking water he local population of lake dem uses the water mainly for irrigating market gardening plots and watering livestock. the city of kaya located 15 km from the lake, to overcome the problem of drinking water supply has since 2006 used lake dem to supply drinking water. indeed, before the exploitation of lake dem, two (2) wells and fourteen (14) boreholes were used as supply systems for the city of kaya (coulibaly, 2011). the water from lake dem is also used to supply drinking water to the town of kaya. the number of people who obtain water from the drinking water network provided by lake dem is approximately 43,520 individuals (coulibaly, 2011). the demand for water is increasing. the national water and sanitation agency (onea/ kaya center agency) is responsible for supplying the city with drinking water. the onea of kaya sold 1,086,880 m3 of water and collected 303,695,274 fcfa for the year 2013. it should be noted that the onea takes water for free like so many other users. indeed considered as a common good, there is a rivalry that takes place on the resource. would it not be necessary to apply the user-pays principle on this resource since the fourth principle of iwrm considers it as an economic good? based on article 7 of the charter, we estimated at 54,344,000 fcfa the tax that onea could pay to the community. this sum is a considerable loss for local authorities who could use it to self-finance activities to protect water resources and promote the goods and services provided by lake dem. large tanks of more than twenty thousand (20,000) liters. we deducted the number of cisterns we could have in 1,086,880 m3 assuming this represents the amount of raw water taken. 3.6 assessing the economic value of non-timber forest products woody and non-woody species play an important socio-economic role: the fruits are sold and consumed by people and animals, the leaves, barks or roots are used in the local pharmacopoeia, consumption, and used as a source of food. ‘energy. parks of acacia albida are abundant there and are subject to intense pruning for fodder purposes. the fruits and leaves from these trees are used as food products by households in the study area. non-timber forest products (ntfps) are defined as any material of animal or plant biological origin other than wood, originating from forests or other wooded land or from trees outside forests (fao, 2001, quoted by ouédraogo et al.). the collection and processing of nwfps is done particularly by women. they are present at all levels of the sector. the survey revealed that the nwfps most consumed by households are: soumbala, baobab leaves, kapok tree petals, shea butter, tamarind leaves, tamarind seeds, balanites and honey. in addition to purchasing, some women process certain ntfps themselves just for family consumption; and for that they have to travel long distances to get it. the overall results are estimated at fifty-two million nine hundred and seventy-five thousand eight hundred and seventy-three francs (52,975,873) cfa. the products with the highest contributions are soumbala and tamarind fruits respectively with 16,101,127 fcfa and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. 8,997,537 fcfa per household. shea butter is the ntfp with the lowest quantity and its value estimated at 3,941,513 fcfa. figure 2 below shows the different shares of each nwfp in the total monetary value. figure 2. distribution of the different shares in the total monetary value of non-timber forest products source: survey data, (2022). the seeds of parkia biglobosa transformed into soumbala have the largest share with 30% of the total, followed by the fruits of tamarindus indica which represent only 17%. the leaves of tamarindus indica and the petals of the kapok tree are 16% followed and the leaves of andasonia digitata which represents 14%. shea butter represents only 7% of the total monetary value of ntfps. this low value is explained by the fact that more and more shea butter is replaced by industrial oils by householders which are accessible on the markets or in village shops. problems related to the quality of processing and the marketing system limit the exploitation of this wealth. in addition to the difficulty of supplying nwfps noted by housewives, most of them have hardly received any training in nwfp processing technique 3.7 total value of dem lake provisioning services the study carried out was based more on the supply services of lake dem in order to highlight the benefit of lake dem. table 3 below summarizes some ecosystem goods and services of lake dem in the eight villages contiguous to the lake. table 3. total economic value of dem lake provisioning services resources total value (direct use) part % agricultural land resources 930,080,000 42 vegetable crops 871,714,000 39 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. halieutics resources 22,753,000 1 water resources 303 695 274 14 pastoral resources 33,490,850 2 non-timber forest products 52,975,873 2 total (fcfa) 2,214,708,997 100 source: 2022 survey data. the estimate of the value of market goods and services from the lake gives a monetary value of more than two billion two hundred million francs (2,214,708,997) cfa. this value is minimal because the study focused on the evaluation of the direct use value of some goods and services associated with lake dem. the value of agricultural production (cereal crop plus market gardening) which is 1,801,794,000 cfa francs is greater than that taken from the ecosystem around lake dem. the value of the goods taken (fish, nwfps, pasture, water) in the lake is 412,914,997 cfa francs. figure 3. estimation of different shares in the total monetary value of non-timber forest products source: survey data, (2022). figure 3 above shows that agricultural land resources and vegetable crops have the largest share in the total monetary value. their share represents respectively 42% and 39% of the total monetary value. this means that agricultural production contributes enormously to the well-being of the people of dem lake. indeed, this explains the strong mobilization during the dry season of the populations bordering the lake for the market gardening activity. compared to the study that was made on the sourou valley, it is the wood resources that contribute more to the well-being of the population with a share of 37% of the total economic value of the sourou valley. at lake den, nwfps represent only 2% of the total. this low value is explained by the effects of human activities, in particular deforestation, and climate change, i.e. the decrease in precipitation which contributes to the reduction of the vegetation cover. as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. for water resources, pastoral resources and halieutic resources, they respectively represent 14%, 2% and 1% of the total monetary value. there are still enormous efforts to be made to enhance lake dem so that it can one day be a real pole of economic growth, worthy of the centre-nord region. 4. conclusion by way of conclusion, we can say that wetlands constitute particular ecosystems for the preservation of biodiversity. they are also sources of various goods and services for local populations. this is the case of lake dem in burkina faso, which contributes to the country’s economy and specifically to that of the kaya region where it is located. until now, the populations are almost in a situation of “laisser-faire” in the exploitation of the ecosystem resources of lake dem. this trend, in the long term, will irreversibly lead to the degradation of resources and will affect the well-being of the populations who depend heavily on them. thus, this present research work, the first of its kind, is part of a set of actions aimed at estimating the values of this natural resource which are not known. indeed, the objective of this study at the start was therefore to highlight the different use values of goods and services, five (05) in total of this wetland classified as a ramsar site in 2009. to do this, a survey was conducted in eight neighboring villages. thus, the agricultural activities with which cereal cultivation and market gardening are associated have a monetary value amounting to more than one billion cfa francs. as for the goods and services directly taken or provided by the lake, they record a value of more than four hundred million francs (400,000,000) cfa. the use value has a total monetary value estimated at more than two billion two hundred million francs (2,200,000,000) cfa. the relationships between natural resources and economic development have thus been highlighted through this assessment of the ecosystem goods and services of lake dem. the use value of lake dem, although interesting, somehow hides many difficulties that the sectors of activity are going through. apart from the availability of grazing, which is increasingly rare on the shores of the lake, some problems exist. use conflicts often oppose farmers and herders for the use of ecosystem goods and services. the fishing activity is not developed for reasons of supply of fishing equipment. nowadays, the lac dem area is infested by terrorists, making our study site inaccessible and infrequent. we therefore contented ourselves with similar previous studies on the same site to carry out this study with old data. water, considered an economic good by the iwrm, is withdrawn free of charge by the farmers for irrigation in the fields and the onea of kaya for thus, the adoption of measures meeting both human needs and those of the ecosystem, to find a balance between development actions for the well-being of populations and actions for the rehabilitation and protection of natural resources in our country burkina faso. references nikieme, e. m. r. (2015 march). analysis of the uses of the water resource of lake dem in burkina faso (master’s thesis). development and management of the environment of senghor university, 68. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. sow. c. e. (2015 april). contribution to the economic evaluation of the direct use value of lake dem in burkina faso (master’s thesis). in environmental development and management from senghor university (p. 66). compaore, j., & bonkoungou, j. (2022 december). in role of communication in the process of a good cultivation technique around open-air works in burkina faso: case of the mogtedo-zam dam in the ganzourgou province in the central plateau region (pp. 91-98). compaore, j. (2022 juin). role of communication in the process of a better awareness of environmental and health risks related to the use of pesticides in off-season vegetable crops in burkina faso: case of the boulmiougou dam in arrondissement n°6. urban commune from ouagadougou / burkina faso, 133-143. compaore, j. (2023 february 27). role of communication in the process of a good cultivation technique around open-air works in burkina faso: case of the mogtédo-zam dam in the province of ganzourgou in the central plateau region. bazié, g. s. (2015, 10 february). making hides and skins a pillar of local development. retrieved from http://www.lefaso.net/spip.php?article 56631 bognounou, o., ouadba, j. m., & poda, j. n. (1994). global aspects of wetlands in burkina faso. in sally, l., kouda, m., & beaumond, n. (eds.), wetlands of burkina faso. proceedings of a seminar on wetlands in burkina faso. iucn (pp. 11-28). bouda, z. (2008). texts and legal texts on the management of natural resources in burkina faso, 33. constitution of the republic of burkina faso of june 2. (1991). 34. coulibaly, b. (2011). securing kaya’s drinking water supply (master’s thesis). in water and environmental engineering: water: 2ie (vol. 42). dechezleprêtre, q. (2013). economic evaluation of ecosystem services, perspectives for the forest of fontainebleau. in research master’s thesis: theoretical and applied economics of sustainable development. university of versailles saint-quentin – in yvelines, 101. dembski, s. (2005). strategies of spatial occupation in a lacustrine environment: responses of the ichthyofauna in a heated, non-stratified reservoir”. doctoral thesis: science life, specialty: hydrology. metz: university of metz, 166. retrieved from https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00145435 depelteau, f. (2000). the approach to research in the human sciences: from the initial question to .... presses université laval, 417. directorate of the office of international standards and legal affairs united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco). (1994, 13 july). convention on wetlands of international importance especially as waterfowl habitat, paris. dupras, j., reveret, j. p., & jie, h. (2013). the economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services in the context of climate change: a methodological guide for increasing the capacity to make adaptation decisions. ournos report, 212. retrieved from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. http://www.ouranos.ca/media/publication/273_rapportreveret2013.pdf faucheux, s., & noel, j. f. (1995). economics of natural resources and the environment. arrmand colin publisher, paris, 357. grad. (2007). study of possibilities for enhancing the agro-silvo-pastoral potential of the village of konkin – sanmatenga. general secretariat of the governorate of kaya, 111. holmgren, k., & appelberg, m. (2000). size structure of benthic freshwater fish communities in relation to environmental gradients. journal of fish biology, 57(7), 1312-1330. holmgren, k. (1999). between-year variation in community structure and biomass-size distributions of benthic lake fish communities. journal of fish biology, 55(3), 535-552. of statistics and demography (insd). (2007). general population and housing census, final report, 52. katossky, a., & marical, f. (eds.). (2011). evaluation of the services provided by wetlands – complementarity of monetization methods: no. 50 “studies and documents” collection of the department of economy, evaluation and integration of sustainable development (seeidd) of the commissariat general to development, 24. lefeuvre, j. c. (2015). millennium ecosystem assessment or millennium ecosystem assessment, encyclopædia universalis. retrieved from http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/evaluation-des-ecosystemes-pour-le-millenairemillenniumecosystem-assessment/ massicotte, e. (2012 january). assessment of the economic value of ecological goods and services: approach, methods and the example of lake brompton. essay presented for obtaining the degree of master in environment. university center for environmental training: university of sherbrooke, quebec, canada, 81. ministry of environment and water/general secretariat/directorate general of hydraulics management/integrated water resources of burkina faso. (n.d.). the assessment of wetland ecosystems and their vulnerability: technical sheets, kingdom of denmark, ministry of foreign affairs danida, 104. ministry of environment and sustainable development. (2013). national policy on wetlands in burkina faso, 32. ministry of ecology, sustainable development, energy (france). (2012). vulnerability of aquatic environments and their ecosystems, study of wetlands, 143. narain, u., gupta, s., & van ‘t veld, k. (2008). poverty and resource dependence in rural india. ecological economic, 66(1), 161-176. ouattara, i., & ouedraogo, f. de c. (2009). descriptive sheet on ramsar wetlands (fdr) version 2006-2008, 18. ouédraogo, m., ouédraogo, d., thiombiano, t. et al. (2013). economic dependence on non-timber forest products: the case of households living near the forests of boulon and koflandé, in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. south-west of burkina faso. journal of agriculture and environment for international development – jaeid, 107(1), 45-72. “the services rendered by the natural heritage: an evaluation based on economic principles. (n.d.). in economics and statistics, 258-259(1), 11-18. groot, r., stuip, m., finlayson, m., & davidson, n. (2007). wetland valuation: guidance on estimating benefits from wetland ecosystem services. ramsar technical report, 3, cbd technical publications series, 27, 50. retrieved from http://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/lib/lib_rtr03_f.pdf halls, j. m. (2010). assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services: why, how and with what results?” natures sciences sociétés, 18, 414-423. retrieved from http://www.cairn.info/revue-natures-sciences-societes-2010-4-page-414.htm jérôme, c. (2016). dialogue of deafs regarding childhood in the commune of boudry in burkina faso: a communicational approach of the processes in a context of gold washing, 47, 11. jérôme, c. et al. (2o18). the growth pole of bagré: an analysis of thecommunication system around a national developmentproject in the municipality of bagré. province of boulgou, central region of burkina faso, 7(10), 776-789. traduit de anglais vers français www.onlinedoctranslator.com https://www.onlinedoctranslator.com/fr/?utm_source=onlinedoctranslator&utm_medium=docx&utm_campaign=attribution microsoft word assc-v4n2-p79 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 79 original paper discussing the prudence application of “essential facilities doctrine” in anti-data monopoly strategies in the digital economy era yijing xia1* 1 southwest minzu university, chengdu, china * yijing xia, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china received: apirl 14, 2022 accepted: may 29, 2022 online published: may 25, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p79 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p79 abstract as one of the most fundamental production elements of the digital economy, data has become a critical factor in determining enterprises’ competitiveness. consequently, it is highly problematic that data monopolies frequently form in the market. recognizing the issue, principle fourteen in “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy (draft for comments)” establishes a methodology for regulating data access restrictions. in addition, it reflects on the viral and debatable data monopoly problem by clearly stating that data can be perceived as an “essential facility”. in the study, it is argued that the “essential facilities doctrine” has a high practical significance for regulating vertical monopoly in the traditional economy; however, it should be applied with caution under certain restrictions when dealing with data monopoly. keywords essential facilities doctrine, data monopoly, anti-monopoly 1. background “cpc central committee and the state council’s opinions on advancing reforms on the market-based allocation of production factors” demonstrate that data can be considered a key production factor. it is recognized that data plays an essential role in the digital economy development. consequently, proprietors competing for access to crucial data in the market have become a common phenomenon. when a proprietor collects enough data to disrupt the competition, its actions can be independent of its competitors’ and consumers’ opinions. thus it gains a dominant power in the market. and data monopoly forms (yang, 2021). “essential facilities doctrine” applies when the monopolizer controls www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 80 published by scholink inc. the “bottleneck” of the necessary materials or resources. in particular, when the monopolizer controls the access to the essential facility for competing in the downstream market. and the facility cannot be duplicated by its competitors. in these situations, the doctrine forces the monopolizer to share the facility with its downstream competitors to resolve the issue. in other words, the “essential facilities doctrine” is a law that imposes additional trading obligations on market monopolizers (lao, 2013). currently, many legal cases outside of china concern the necessity of providing open access to essential data. consequently, researchers participate in multiple discussions about whether the “essential facilities doctrine” should be applied to data monopoly. in china, the guidance for using the doctrine in data monopoly is first proposed in 2020. principle fourteen in “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy (draft for comments)” clearly states that data can be considered an “essential facility” and lists the preconditions for applying the doctrine. to summarize, “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy (draft for comments)” consider the following factors. the data needs to be indispensable for the market competition; enterprises can only obtain the data from a predetermined channel; open access to the data needs to be achievable; the potential influence on the data owner is manageable. overall, it is demonstrated that “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy (draft for comments)” provides a thoughtful response to the viral and debatable data monopoly problem. “essential facilities doctrine” has been a long-existing yet highly controversial anti-monopoly rule. it is a mandatory remedy that ensures the fairness of market competition and the effectiveness of access to the facility. however, it is limited and restricted in its application. forcing the proprietor to share the facility with its competitors causes conflicts. and it may negatively affect the its willingness to invest and innovate. the anti-monopoly agencies in the us and un have similar concerns, so they are prudent in considering data as an essential facility. note that there are also practical dilemmas in defining the market for the data, identifying dominant power, and providing open access (wang & wu, 2021). therefore, it adds to the difficulty of determining whether data should be considered an essential facility or not. the official “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy” published in 2020 removed the principles that directly categorize data as an essential facility. at the same time, it added new clauses considering viewing the integration of data and platform as an essential facility (shi, 2021). the modification implies that it is still possible to apply the “essential facilities doctrine” to data. regarding providing open access to data, the “essential facilities doctrine” is effectively introduced by the guidelines as a possible solution for regulating data monopoly. however, researchers have not yet reached a consensus about whether data should be considered an essential facility or not. in addition, the application of the doctrine is shown to be a key challenge in anti-monopoly theories and practices. it is argued that the “essential facilities doctrine” must be applied with caution due to its controversies, the non-competitiveness nature of data itself, and the rapid growth of dynamic competition in china’s internet industry (qin, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 81 published by scholink inc. 2. the theoretical frameworks supporting the “essential facilities doctrine” “essential facilities doctrine” is a long-existing, yet highly controversial principle in the anti-monopoly history (li, 2009). technically, the doctrine can apply to many situations in practice. however, the appropriate contexts are not articulated definitively for case law regions like the us and un or other statute law countries (chen, 2021). researchers agree that the “essential facilities doctrine” was first applied in the united states v. terminal railroad association of st. louis case in 1912. at the time, terminal railroad association controlled the bridges across the mississippi river in st. louis and their related facilities. and terminal railroad association refused to open the facilities to its competitors. the judge thought the facilities were essential for the competition. and in order to encourage effective market competition in the local transportation industry, terminal railroad association should open the facilities. as a result, terminal railroad association needs to share the ownership of the facilities with its competitors. moreover, if the competitors are not interested in obtaining the ownership, terminal railroad needs to provide open access to the facilities to the competitors under reasonable condition (note 1). the case provided the foundation for forming the theoretical framework of the “essential facilities doctrine”. in the later mci communications corp. v. at&t. co. case, united states seventh circuit court introduced the concept of “essential facilities”. the court believed that the owner of the essential facility could potentially utilize its advantages to restrict the actions of its competitors. the court proposed the precondition for applying the “essential facilities doctrine” as the following. it must be proved that, first, the monopolizer controls the facility. second, the monopolizer refuses to open the facility to its competitors. third, the monopolizer can provide access to the facility to their competitors (note 2). scholars agree that the us sets the precondition for applying the doctrine with this legal case. however, court judges are still prudent in practice. they implement strict procedures when using the “essential facilities doctrine”. and consequently, very few cases are judged solely based on the doctrine. the un is relatively more open about applying the “essential facilities doctrine” in practice. it is demonstrated that the doctrine can be applied to intangible properties, services, and copyrights. it implies that the definition of “essential facility” can extend beyond tangible properties. in addition, the doctrine is included in “treaty on the functioning of the european union” principle 102. and it is used and improved in multiple legal cases. however, applying the “essential facilities doctrine” to big data is still controversial. the legal departments in the us and un have different opinions. anti-trust enforcement department in the us proposes that big data should be considered raw materials or resources in mergers and acquisitions reviews. on the other hand, the un publicly states that it is considering using laws that regulate the abuse of dominance in the market to include principles about big data. germany and france jointly published the “competition law and data” report in 2016. the report clearly states that big data can be seen as an essential facility. therefore refusing to trade big data with its competitors can be seen as an abuse of dominance. overall, the un is still cautious and conservative about applying the “essential www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 82 published by scholink inc. facilities doctrine” to data. in china, as the “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy” propose, the doctrine can start to be used in the digital governance of the platform economy. 3. the legitimacy of applying the “essential facilities doctrine” in anti-data monopoly compared to traditional industries, the market competition in the internet industry is shifting from “price dominance” to “data dominance” (shi, 2021). it implies that the data ownership directly links to the proprietor’s status in the market. enterprises are in need of open access to data, so new laws and regulations are necessary for the current situation. it is demonstrated in the history of the “essential facilities doctrine” that applying it in the digital economy can cause conflicts of interest. forcing the proprietor to provide data can demotivate it to invest in building the essential facility. at the same time, due to economies of scale and network externalities in the digital economy, the data owner can easily create a bottleneck that prevents competitors, especially downstream competitors, from entering the market by refusing to share its data. its action can also negatively affects market innovation. as a fundamental principle in competition law, “essential facilities doctrine” should also be considered in the digital economy as it provides insights into addressing the conflict of interests. because of the competitive nature of data, the conflict results from sharing data is not unresolvable if careful considerations are made (yang, 2021). 3.1 data bottleneck phenomenon the data market exhibits strong network externalities, so it is possible that “the winner wins all” in the data centralized sub-markets. at the same time, data monopolizers can easily cross the market boundary and cause multiple layers of monopoly in the broader industry. in the digital economy era, data has become the engine for innovation and the key barrier to entering a data-intensive market. platform economy drives the reform of competition advantages; giant platforms accumulate data in mundane industries like clothing, food, housing, and traveling and service industries like entertainment, socializing, and payment. furthermore, giant platforms strive to form closed ecological systems to amplify the lock-in effect (zhao, 2022). from the industry perspective, data monopolies form mainly in the social networking, search engine, and e-commerce sub-market of the internet industry. and the oligarchy platforms in the three sub-markets have enormous power. 3.2 “essential facilities doctrine” is a powerful way to break the data monopoly big data has a high fixed price, but it can provide high financial profit. as stated above, forcing the monopolizers to open the facility may induce the risk of restraining innovation. however, without open access, new enterprises entering the market need to invest a lot of capital and spend a long time to catch up. due to economies of scale and network externalities, the users will likely stay with the same platform instead of moving to the new platform. the lock-in effect prevents the new enterprises from collecting additional data although they have invested a lot of money to innovate and develop their products. it is implied that the new enterprises cannot enter the market not because their quality or price of services is poor; but because the monopolizer locks them out (zeng & zhu, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 83 published by scholink inc. the “essential facility” needs to be developed with long-term investment. therefore “essential facilities doctrine” asks the competitors who share the facility with the owner to pay for the facility. to prevent the owner from setting an unreasonable price and stopping the competitors, the “essential facilities doctrine” also potentially regulates the price range. dealing with data monopoly by applying the “essential facilities doctrine” is effective because the doctrine ensures the monopolizers are held responsible for sharing the data with these hidden implications. the “essential facilities doctrine” can provide key support for other enterprises that need the data to enter the market. and it minimizes the negative impact on the data monopolizers. therefore, the doctrine can be applied to protect the liberty and fairness of competing in the market (shi, 2021). 3.3 data sharing is an inevitable trend for digital economy development data sharing can reduce the cost of data processing and analysis, thus improve the quality of data and the effectiveness of utilizing them. note that a monopoly in the digital market is different from a monopoly in the real economy. in the digital market, the data giants profit from innovation. as long as the internet industry can continue to expand, they need to continue implementing new ideas to survive in the market. compared to “essential facilities” in the bridge, railroad, and electric power industries, data itself is not exclusive, which means openly sharing the data does not damage it. due to the nature of data and the nature of digital economy development, data sharing is an inevitable trend. in addition, sharing data can motivate the development of more innovative products or services. it is argued that the boundary value of digital resources is not yet fully explored. and the unknown range of profit motivates the competitors and potential competitors inside and outside the market to invest (zhou & su, 2020). 4. the prudence application of “essential facilities doctrine” in dealing with data monopoly 4.1 articulates the preconditions for considering data as an essential facility to properly apply the “essential facilities doctrine” in the digital economy, the government must set the preconditions and boundaries for considering data as an essential facility. after conducting thorough research about the frameworks that set the conditions for applying the doctrine in “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy” and relevant studies, the paper propose that the following factors need to be considered: (1) the precondition for applying the doctrine is that the data owned by the monopolizer has to be essential and necessary for other enterprises to enter the downstream market. if other enterprises can still freely enter and compete in the downstream market without obtaining the data, the data is not considered an “essential facility” (shi, 2021). “essential facilities doctrine” does not apply in this situation. oppositely, if some products or services cannot be provided without using the data or the industry cannot function properly without using the data, the related data is then an “essential facility”. (2) the “essential “data cannot be fundamentally or functionally replaced by any other data to make products, provide services, or support the industry. in addition, any other competitors cannot develop or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 84 published by scholink inc. duplicate the “essential” data by putting in the work and effort. (3) the “essential” data is owned by one proprietor. in other words, the facility is in the control of the monopolizer. (4) providing open access to the data does not affect the quality of the data owner’s products and services, and it does not impose additional data security or privacy issues. (5) data owner can put forward its reasons for refusing to provide the access. the official version of “anti-trust guidelines on platform economy” do not clearly state that data can be considered an essential facility. however, it does not indicate that the “essential facilities doctrine” cannot be applied to data. this version still leaves the probability open. to ensure the effectiveness of the guidelines in practice, the government should clarify that the “essential facilities doctrine” can only apply to data under certain circumstances. if the preconditions are not met, the government or the legal agencies should not force the proprietor to provide open access to its data unless the data sharing can improve the competitive environment enormously and the profits from sharing can benefit the consumers (wang & wu, 2021). 4.2 setting the boundary for “essential facilities doctrine” direct competition is a form of horizontal competition. it implies that refusing to provide open access will not have an anti-competitive effect. however, in indirect competition, refusation of opening the access may give the monopolizer dominant power in other markets as well. the monopolizer is then able to reduce and eliminate competition in other markets. “essential facilities doctrine” only applies to indirect competition. it is because leverage theory heavily influenced the development of the doctrine. the nature of indirect competition is that the proprietor utilizes the leverage effect to increase its power in another market. as a result, the proprietor takes the dominant position in both markets. the proprietor may not be directly receiving profit from the other market. however, its dominant position leverages the transaction cost in that market, thus damaging its competitors. “essential facilities doctrine” is supposed to prevent the monopolizers from controlling the essential facilities and extending their market influences to eliminate or reduce competition in related markets (yang, 2021). 4.3 the effect of dynamic measurement on competition order protecting and improving the competition order is the precondition and basis of imposing regulations on market activities. the government and enforcement agencies need to strictly follow the essential value principles and obey the standards set by laws to ensure the application of the doctrine is prudent, effective, and lawful. furthermore, the regulator needs to find the balance of achieving short-term competition and long-term investment before determining if the “essential facilities doctrine” applies. to help finding the balance, some researchers propose that the principle of proportionality in administrative law can be used as a reference. the principle of proportionality investigates the types of activities and their influence on the conflict of interest; it can identify the types of action that will achieve a balance and determine the standard for the lawful action (zhang, 2019). according to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 85 published by scholink inc. “undermine market neutrality” principle, competition is the process of dynamically balancing profits for all parties. it is naturally justified to use the principle of proportionality to set the boundary for unfair competition. applying the principle of proportionality in anti-data monopoly can guide law enforcement agencies and judiciaries by ensuring that they cannot categorize irrelevant data as the essential facility without effectively protecting the market competition. and the principle can reduce the possibility that the data owner will be severely harmed without legitimate reasons, thus protecting the data owner’s profit and ability to innovate. to be specific, the following criteria need to be met before applying the doctrine. first, the “essential facilities doctrine” needs to be appropriate for the situation. the government or enforcement agencies must conduct comprehensive investigations to ensure the appropriateness. in addition, they must analyze and evaluate the data owner’s reasons for refusing to provide open access. the demur may be legitimate if the reasons are justified. in addition, it needs to be proved that sharing the data is beneficial for protecting the downstream market competition. second, the doctrine needs to be necessary for the situation. the doctrine should not be applied if the data owner can provide an alternative solution. and the alternative solution can reduce and minimize the damage to competition orders. third, the restricted theory of proportionality needs to be considered. in other words, the request for data sharing can only cover the minimum data for entering the market. mandatory sharing of more unnecessary data needs to be prevented. utilizing the proportionality principle can protect the data owners’ profit to the maximum extent before future research can provide appropriate standards for quantifying the trade-off between short-term competition and long-term investment (shi, 2021). references chen, y. w. (2021). whether the essential facility principle should be applied to data?—analysis based on “two errors”. research on competition policy, (04), 5-17. lao, m. (2013). search, essential facilities, and the antitrust duty to deal. northwestern journal of technology and intellectual property, (11), 276-320; cited in zeng, c. x., & zhu, x. z. (2019). application of the essential facility principle in the regulation of big data monopoly. china soft science (11), 55-63 + 73. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2128613 li, j. (2009). defining criteria for core facilities in the anti-monopoly law-perspective of the relevant market. modern law science, (03), 69-81. qin, y. q. (2021). research on the application of the essential facility principle in the regulation of data monopoly. research on market supervision in china, (07), 59-62. shi, j. x. 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(2020). construction of the principle of “essential data”—discussing from the compatibility of the essential facility principle and the digital market. journal of chongqing university of posts and telecommunications (social science edition), (03), 73-81. zhang, z. j. (2019). evolution of the paradigm for identifying unfair competition: from “protection of competitors” to “protection of competition”. chinese-foreign law science, (01), 203-223. notes note 1. see united states v. terminal railroad ass’n, 224 u.s. 383 (1912). note 2. see mci communications corp. v. american tel. & tel. co., 464 u.s. 891 (1983). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper group-based participatory arts interventions validate personhood for those living with dementia daniel b. kaplan 1* , gary glazner 2 & charles drake 3 1 adelphi university school of social work, garden city, ny, united states of america 2 alzheimer’s poetry project, chicago, il, united states of america 3 new york presbyterian hospitalwestchester division, white plains, ny, united states of america * daniel b. kaplan, adelphi university school of social work, garden city, ny, united states of america received: february 9, 2023 accepted: march 3, 2023 online published: march 9, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p1 abstract participatory arts-based interventions for people living with dementia involve the collaborative creation and performance of poetry, story, song, dance, and visual arts. these programs are designed to support self-expression and productive collaboration among people living with dementia while stimulating positive social interactions and feelings of empowerment and validation. in this commentary, we explore the use and potential benefits of validation in the implementation of person-centered participatory arts interventions in the context of dementia care. we offer a novel framework for understanding validation as a common intervention method during these activities, organized into five themes: collaboration, connection, communication, creation, and confirmation. these validation opportunities are suggested to offer direct benefits for participants as well as indirect benefits when modeled in the presence of formal care providers and family members. clinicians and other transdisciplinary care providers are encouraged to understand, use, and teach these and other validation-focused arts interventions with persons living with dementia. keywords participatory arts, validation, dementia, creativity, poetry, personhood 1. introduction in this practice-informed commentary, we explore the use and potential benefits of validation in the implementation of person-centered participatory arts interventions in the context of dementia care, including the alzheimer’s poetry project, timeslips, songwriting works, and kairos alive! we aim www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. first to articulate the ways in which dementia threatens personhood and creative expression serves to affirm personhood, and second to offer a novel framework for understanding validation as a common intervention method during these interventions, organized into five themes: collaboration, connection, communication, creation, and confirmation. 2. background 2.1 dementia and threats to personhood dementia is a lay term for neurocognitive disorder, an acquired syndrome encompassing a range of clinical symptoms typically caused by neurodegenerative illnesses like alzheimer’s disease, most of which are terminal and progressive with increasing numbers and intensities of symptoms over time. it involves losses in cognition, functional capacity, and communication, as well as distressing behavioral changes. these losses can be gradual or rapid, impacting just a few areas of functioning or more comprehensively destructive across abilities. each contributing illness has its own profile of symptom progression, and even within one particular disorder it is expected that any one person will have a unique experience because of their baseline abilities and health status. the symptoms of the dementia syndrome result in numerous invalidating experiences over the course of years and thereby pose considerable threats to personhood. for example: family members and health professional may exclude the individual with dementia from conversations about prognosis and care; increasing frequency of mistakes in routine tasks may create feelings of embarrassment; friends and extended family members may restrict the frequency and authenticity of conversations with the individual; and personal freedoms may be restricted due to safety concerns. in these examples, the individual with dementia is perceived to be “less than” and is treated by others as incapable, incompetent, and in need of protection. tom kitwood’s work and writing brought significant attention to the problems of invalidation of personhood by those who interact with individuals living with dementia—invalidation on the basis of perceived limits in rationality and autonomy for those with cognitive impairment—and promoted an alternative focus on relationships and the intrinsic worth of each person (kitwood, 1997). higgs and gilleard review the concepts of personhood in kitwoods’s work and much of the scholarship which has since tackled personhood in the context of dementia, and acknowledge that these concepts can be confusing, misdirecting, and distracting from conversations about care practices and policies (2015). in this paper we adopt the stance that each definition of personhood makes a valuable contribution to our broad understanding of this complex construct and that the accumulated experiences of people living with dementia too often challenge or threaten perceptions of personhood for people with dementia and/or those in their lives and surroundings. the psychological impacts of such experiences, while difficult to understand fully because of communication challenges, are believed to be profoundly distressing (luxenberg, 2000). knowledge of this distress should, and usually does, compel close family members, friends, and other caregivers to address the emotional needs as well as the physical and basic needs of people living with dementia. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. many people with dementia withdraw from routine socialization with friends and family for reasons, including depression and apathy, lack of opportunity, impaired communication and functional skills, and feelings of embarrassment and stigma (kane & cook, 2013), particularly those living with frontotemporal dementia (snowden et al., 2001) or vascular dementia (honda, meguro, meguro, & akanuma, 2013). they are also known to reduce engagement in the routine tasks and activities that formerly served as indicators of productive engagement in their personal lives and communities (vikström, josephsson, stigsdotter-neely, & nygård, 2008). a further threat to personhood resulting from care needs associated with the dementia syndrome is the common necessity to spend time during the latter stages of illness as a resident in healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. about 40% of the total number of years lived with alzheimer’s disease are spent in the most severe stage of illness (arrighi, neumann, lieberburg, & townsend, 2010). as such, nursing home admission by the age of 80 is anticipated for 75% of individuals with alzheimer’s disease as compared to just 4% of the general public (arrighi, neumann, lieberburg, & townsend, 2010). nearly half of all nursing home residents have a diagnosis of dementia in their medical record (american health care association, 2011). institutional care settings are mandated with assuring safety and optimal health for residents, and many have developed innovative approaches to succeed in these goals. litwak (1985) advanced the idea that formal organizations are more efficient in achieving technical knowledge and expertise than primary social groups such as families. however, this efficiency model of care is not designed to offer the personal attention and strengths-based approaches that are most effective at helping people with dementia to feel validated as individuals. people with dementia struggle to preserve self-identity as well as functional abilities, and the experience of living in long-term care facilities exacerbates these losses and creates feelings of diminished self-determination, fear of loss of involvement and exclusion from activities, and upset over unrecognized needs and staff attitudes which devalue personhood (clare, rowlands, bruce, surr, & downs, 2008; cohen-mansfield, parpura-gill, & golander, 2005; thompson, 2015). experts and advocates promote helping people with dementia in maintaining a sense of self in order to combat the dehumanizing process of othering that accompanies cognitive decline (petrescu, macfarlane, & ranzijn, 2014). significant positive outcomes such as a meaningful sense of purpose and increased activity engagement are derived from person-centered and strengths-based interventions in dementia care (gitlin et al, 2010; parker, 2001; ronch, 2003). such approaches are known to undergird both clinical mental health work and quality dementia care. a compelling complement to is to offer non-traditional participatory arts-based interventions to promote personhood, productive activity engagement, and other positive benefits for people living with dementia in long-term care settings. 2.2 validation of personhood for those living with dementia in her seminal work on validation techniques, feil (1982) sought to support the emotional needs of people with moderate-to-severe dementia through humanistic communication techniques. by referencing the person’s feelings instead of commenting on the accuracy of statements, feil intended to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. affirm personhood and honor the dignity of the individual living with dementia. feil’s work focused on the confirmation and affirmation of the emotional state of the person with dementia (benjamin, 1995). validation is conceptualized here as defined by marsha linehan, who articulated multiple levels of validation through the acknowledgement, understanding, and acceptance of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of another person (1993). linehan promoted the value of active observation, reflection, and direct validation as means to convey genuine acceptance (1993). when used with people living with dementia, validation techniques have been shown to support improved orientation to communication partners and physical participation (benjamin, 1995; testad et al, 2014). the participatory arts-based interventions for people with dementia that are discussed here utilize basic validation techniques that are easily learned and can be incorporated into a broad diversity of dementia care strategies including activity programs designed to stimulate cognitive, physical, and communicative abilities. ideally, such programs serve to validate participants through the very nature of the activities being facilitated, and thereby supplement the validation techniques used in communications during the program. thus, the use of validation techniques in dementia care is driven by knowledge of the needs, strengths, and challenges of people with dementia. for example, benjamin (1995) suggested that engaging the external environment becomes less desirable for people with dementia as opportunities diminish for meaningful interactions with others. thus, by creating opportunities for successful social interactions from which people with dementia can derive meaning, interventionists and caregivers seek to reinforce connections between the person and their environment. treatment can be conceptualized as having several purposes including the reduction of symptoms, improvement of coping capacity and experiences of comfort, and curing illness. each purpose has value, yet dictates unique combinations of approaches, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological. in addition, de medeiros and basting (2013) have demonstrated that drug therapies yield little positive benefit when compared to psychosocial and arts-based interventions. in dementia care, even the activities of care can be understood to serve as treatments by helping to reduce any number of symptoms and improving quality of life, goals which surely deserve pursuit. as such, the terms “intervention’ and “treatment” used throughout this paper are intended to affirm this therapeutic capacity which is proposed to be inherent in dementia care activities including those which are grounded in the arts. the goals of such activities certainly do not include cure, but instead celebrate the capacity of care providers to positively impact emotional states, functional capabilities, communications, self-awareness and self-esteem, and continuity of personhood. these outcomes and others are proposed here to be counted among a number of important benefits of arts-based activities of care. 2.3 creative expression and the therapeutic value of arts moreno’s seminal book who shall survive?, published in 1953, proposed the theory of spontaneity-creativity which inspired decades worth of subsequent theory development and research in mental health and psychology with the aim of understanding what makes life fulfilling (kipper, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. moreno suggested that spontaneity is a state of mind, a readiness to act creatively. warming up to the spontaneity state involves a process of arousal that can be triggered internally or by receiving external stimulation, as may be the case when participating in activities that provide opportunities and encouragement for creativity. studies by kipper and colleagues (2006) found that spontaneity is positively correlated with well-being, and that a spontaneity deficit is correlated with anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and an orientation to the past—all of which are common challenges for people living with dementia. frequent engagement with arts and cultural activities is known to yield positive impacts on cognition, emotional wellbeing, self-esteem, and social contact, particularly among older adults (arts council england, 2014). in a recent systematic review of arts on people living in care homes, curtis, gibson, o’brien & roe found evidence of positive outcomes including increased verbalization, reduced apathy, increased expressions of positive affect and decreased negative affect, and increased self-awareness (2018). critics of arts-based programs for people with dementia may question if cognitively impaired participants are capable of contributing to the creation of artistic products. yet, organized, linear thought and sustained intellectual focus are not prerequisites of creativity or for making meaning through art. as noted by anne basting (2001) in a discussion of the benefits of timeslips, “…staff and facilitators were no longer looking for symptoms of the disease in the spoken word. language was suddenly free to carry emotional, rather than literal, meaning.” anatole france, the 19 th century poet, journalist, and nobel prize winning novelist, wrote “in art as in love, instinct is enough” (1894). petrescu, macfarlane and ranzijn (2014), reflecting on the results of their exploratory study to understand if poetry writing interventions complement other activities to help people with dementia meaningfully engage with life, report that participants in the study created works of poetry expressing unique emphases ranging from the desire for competence and self-efficacy to overcoming the embarrassment of social blunders; from aspiring to maintain roles of beneficence to accepting engagement efforts of others in order to battle apathy. additionally, they suggest that creativity is a strength that remains in people struggling with numerous cognitive losses and capitalizing on this strength celebrates what people with dementia can do instead of examining only those functions they have lost. weiss, an early pioneer in geriatric art therapy, summarized the therapeutic goals for working with older adults as: 1) rediscovering interpersonal and intrapersonal meaning in life; 2) enhancing interaction and communication with others; 3) developing and enhancing self-worth and self-esteem; 4) reviewing life events, coming to terms with one’s self, and seeing value in one’s life; and 5) experiencing “wholeness in one’s being” through fulfillment of one’s potential and finding meaning in one’s life (1984, p. 27). frequent moments of awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings remain valid and important, even when a person struggles to maintain longer trains of thought. the success of poetry, for example, in allowing people with dementia to feel content and happy, to express their spontaneity, humor and wisdom, reveals how the disorder is not, in fact, uniform and total in its devastation. instead, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. the sense of self persists, and the person remains a person even while particular capacities are diminished. creative arts activities and therapies, such as those which are central to the participatory arts-based interventions described here, can therefore serve an important function in dealing with dementia by mediating losses to personhood. 3. purpose validation is a primary focus in group-based participatory arts interventions for people living with dementia, guiding the selection of techniques and activities. compelling and innovative non-pharmacological interventions include those focused on poetry, storytelling, songwriting, and dance, such as the alzheimer’s poetry project, timeslips, songwriting works, and kairos alive!, respectively. the alzheimer’s poetry project was founded in 2003 by poet gary glazner to facilitate the creativity of people living with dementia as participants are first engaged in a call-and-response performance of classic, familiar poems and the group is then supported to create an original, communal poem that the group performs at the end of the session. timeslips is a well-known program built upon an improvisational storytelling method, developed in 1996 by theater artist and educator anne basting. the focus of storytelling in the timeslips process is on imagination, and people in various stages of dementia are able to collaboratively build stories that aren’t limited to words but can include sounds and gestures as well. judith-kate friedman, award-winning vocalist, producer, and composer, developed songwriting works in the early 1990s. each project brings older adults and families together with trained professional songwriters to collectively compose and perform their own original songs. kairos alive! is an intergenerational dance company that was founded by noted dancer, choreographer, and artistic director maria genné in 1999 to create a sense of community and well-being among participants and to explore the “language of dance” through movement improvisation, the interweaving of dance and story, and the collaborative development of choreography that draws on their memories and life experiences. these participatory arts programs vary in modality, group size, and degrees of improvisation, performance, and physicality. yet each of these programs emphasizes performance, co-creation, and both social and intellectual stimulation. all share a set of core philosophies—respect, authenticity, inclusion, and the assumption of emotional intelligence—which serve as a guiding framework. importantly, the activity facilitators do not have access to the medical charts. so, whereas in the classic intervention paradigm a facilitator would review the chart to determine which interventions are possible considering the roster of known diagnoses, the facilitators of these participatory arts activities enter the space with a lack of assumptions about the participants and must therefore take them each at face-value. the only assumption that these artists bring into their work is that something good is going to happen. it is proposed here that the validation that occurs in these programs can be organized into five domains, including collaboration, connection, communication, creation, and confirmation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. 4. major themes 4.1 validation through collaboration collaboration during participatory arts activities involves partnership among participants and facilitators in the co-creation of music, stories, poems, and dance. simply inviting partnerships in these acts of creation and performance sends messages of respect and expressing respect for another person is an act that is inherently validating of that person’s value. being asked to perform or contribute during these activities—to do something meaningful—acknowledges the active roles that can be assumed by people living with dementia. furthermore, these requests for action are taken seriously by the facilitators, the invitations offered with sincere expectation for participation. in fact, the success of the activity depends on collaboration, and so participation is understood to be of meaningful importance. participants are therefore helped to believe that they matter at least in this particular way on this particular day. the collaboration that is facilitated during these group activities shifts the role of the person with dementia from audience member to co-creator and performer. the kinds of contributions that can be expected from participants include vocalization and verbal content in general, improvisation, affective expression, rhythmic sound, lyrical song, narrative text, bodily movement, social interaction, reminiscence, and active listening, to name a few. we see a common theme in the alzheimer’s poetry project, song writing works and timeslips in the use of asking open-ended questions around a theme to collaborate with the participants to create poems, song lyrics and stories. in specific, timeslips uses for inspiration and theme a photograph about which the facilitator asks a series of open-ended questions and writes down the group’s answers to create the text of the story. for example, one photograph shows a baby in a doctor’s bag. a section of the story created on december 8th, 2011 by rose villa reads, “this is a prize. this boy is a schemer; you can just tell from the expression of his eyes, he’s got something cooking. somebody put him in the bag. maybe the bag was turned over and the baby just walked in” (“story: the baby in the bag” 2019). validation occurs when participants’ contributions change the event or the artistic product. people with dementia may feel empowered by contributing or observing the contributions of others during these activities and honored to be considered capable of making meaningful contributions. the positive, validating affirmation described here flows from facilitator to participant, from participant to participant, and from participant to facilitator, and at times to and from those family members and staff who are observing the programs. in addition, facilitators themselves may experience validation as skillful providers of the intervention as well as co-creators of the artistic product that is joyfully performed at the end of the session. peers and other observers witness this impact and therefore experience the implicit validation of all contributors and potential contributors. validating personhood and capacity in these ways helps to counter the experiences of dementia that are so often associated with role restriction, passive dependence, and the marginalizing assignment into the categories of residents or patients in a healthcare facility. importantly, the mutual validation among all collaborators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. seemingly reinforces a social environment in which all parties are on equal terms in their capacity to contribute both content and affirmations of others, an achievement which likely allows for shared experiences of inter-subjectivity. 4.2 validation through connection participatory arts programs are collective as well as collaborative. interactions during these activities foster key human validations, including learning one another’s names and using social skills to interact with peers. participants may be more likely to talk and interact with peers after the activity. thus, participants validate one another both during and after the activity. connections are fostered through the facilitators’ behavior, engagement, and purposeful use of self. during the activity, facilitators are witnessing interactions, listening to participants, and responding to words, emotions, and gestures. they are clearly, and without question, paying attention to the person with dementia. facilitators also build upon the contributions of participants and purposefully connect to participants’ experiences and preferences. this may include shaping the content to touch on topics that are culturally or even geographically relevant, so that the subject matter resonates somehow with the participants. the facilitator tries to draw out enough information from every participant, especially those who are not extroverts, to achieve this goal. in kairos alive! we see an example of this in their intergenerational dance hall™ programs. the programs bring together people of all ages, family members and the general community to dance with people living with dementia. participants are encouraged to talk about their experience with dance and tell stories of that experience. in one session held in washington dc a person talked about their experience of watching the dance show, “soul train,” when they were growing up. the facilitators then led the group to form the familiar soul train “line,” in which all the dancers form two lines with a space in the middle for dancers to strut down and dance in consecutive order. in this example we saw the participants boogie down the middle, some in wheelchairs, and buoyed by shouts of encouragement and validation. both the facilitators and participants experience the validation of the co-created dance among cheers of the collective group. the validation of personal stories also gives honor to participants, who may want to know that their stories make a difference. families hunger for techniques to build bridges to their loved one. these activities stimulate memory functions involved in recall and recognition and offer glimpses into the inner thoughts of people with neurocognitive disorder who struggle to express themselves. the interventionists use the themes of the artistic project to elicit discussion. the act of engaging people in discussion around the art allows validation through the simple act of caring about participants’ opinions. the facilitator may repeat back the words of participants to let them know they have been heard and to offer praise for interesting ideas and points of view or for the way the person phrased the ideas. over time, some participants learn the routines of the activity, recognize the facilitator, and understand how to respond to cues during the activity. even during single activity sessions, participants seem to improve in their ability to respond with longer and longer phrases during call and response. such observations support the theory that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. these activities stimulate several memory functions, including echoic, sensory, procedural, episodic, and semantic memory functions (glazner & kaplan, 2018). the focus of engagement during participatory arts activities is not on autobiographical reminiscence, but on presence and participation. even if autobiographical reminiscences are inaccurate, it is likely that the experience of sharing personal stories supports feelings of continuity or maintenance of self. when people with dementia offer stories about their past or present lives, the accuracy of the contribution is irrelevant. responding to each contribution offered throughout the activity honors these stories at face value. thus, all contributions are deemed successful, and the response of the facilitator conveys this powerful validation. 4.3 validation through communication several barriers to effective communication may contribute to the disablement of people with dementia. brain disease can lead to impaired expression, understanding, semantic and working memory, attention, and motivation. environmental barriers, such as the institutional culture, task-focused interactions, and co-residence with other aphasic people in residential care facilities, further impede communication. participatory arts activities help to establish intimate interactions between individuals, reciprocity among the participants in the group, and continual connectedness during the activity. intimacy, reciprocity, and connectedness are necessary for feeling valued and loved. communication techniques employed by facilitators during participatory arts activities are purposefully affirming. appropriate methods of interacting with persons with dementia are modeled for participants and observers, including kneeling and leaning in to overcome hearing impairments. additional communication techniques useful in establishing a caring and empathetic environment include using vocal tone to match the emotional state of the person with dementia, maintaining eye contact, mimicking movements to nonverbally demonstrate understanding, allowing for the use of ambiguous or vague pronouns, and avoiding any discussion of the veracity of statements (benjamin, 1995). physical touch during the activity offers another essential form of human socialization, which validates the person’s humanity and helps to counter the “othering” which inevitably occurs in industrial healthcare settings. in the alzheimer’s poetry project, one technique is to ask permission to hold the person’s hand and explain you are going to move their hand to the rhythm of the recited poem. this opens the possibility of using teasing and flirtation to engage the participants. for example, with a male participant the facilitator may comically lower their voice, to mimic hyper masculinity and couple this with giving the person an exaggerated handshake and saying lines of a poem such as form wordsworth’s poem “daffodils,” “…then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.” the facilitator may add humor by rephrasing the line, “…then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the buffalo bills.” the setup of using repetition and call and response for a participatory performance and then the surprise of the humorous word substitution often evokes laughter in the group. another example is when a male facilitator kneels before a female participant and says, “may i ask you a question please?” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. the woman will respond with, “well you can ask, but i’m not going to marry you!” again, this setup evokes group laughter. these anecdotes serve as brief descriptions of how communicative validation may play out in the sessions and reinforce how both the facilitators and participants may benefit from communication through touch and humor. facilitators also utilize verbatim copying of participants’ movements, words, and phrases. this replication of participant contributions is validating because it acknowledges the witnessing of participants’ gestures and articulations. observers are also helped to see the importance of the stories and thoughts of people with dementia. during the call and response portion of the alzheimer’s poetry project, for example, the group leader recites a line of poetry and has the group echo the words. one example of using call and response is with the line, “o romeo, romeo, wherefore art thou romeo?” participants are asked to say the line with different emotions, love, sadness, and anger to name a few. the person then says the line with that emotion and the group listens closely to their voice and tries to say the line back with the same vocal inflections and emotion. often the recitations are quite moving or in the case of saying the line with anger ripe for the use of humor. all the various recitations offer not only the group leader the opportunity to praise the reciter, but for the other participants to offer their encouragement and praise as well. participants are being heard and are hearing their fellow participants. the unique social setting of these activity programs helps to nurture better communication within the larger context. for example, facilitators demonstrate the large amount of time that can be spent eliciting engagement from people with dementia, and peers and observers may learn that such investments are necessary for establishing interactive transactions with people who struggle with aphasia. these activities are models of the enactment of the person-centered philosophy which undergirds appropriate dementia care. yet, these activities are community-centered as well as person-centered. the programs are designed to create a context for community building. observers, including family members of individuals with dementia, begin to form relationships, leading to supportive communities where interactions carry out beyond the boundaries of the facility. thus, community-building occurs within the participant group and the observer group, but across groups as well. 4.4 validation through creation imagination is necessary for creativity. imagination is a major achievement of human intelligence and is not degraded by neurocognitive disorder as we know occurs with other intellectual capacities such as memory and orientation. acts of creativity are essentially human, so these activities are humanizing, which is restorative in the face of dementia. using remaining intellectual abilities likely creates feelings of competence and validates a person’s sense of self-efficacy and is therefore likely to boost self-esteem. the use of imagination draws upon each person’s individuality. imagination is one of the most individualizing aspects of cognition. whereas many people may come to similar conclusions when confronting a challenge of deduction, the act of induction or imagination is achieved through the discrete experiences, thoughts, and feelings of the individual. eliciting imaginative contributions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. celebrates this diverse creativity in a failure-free environment. the production and completion of the artistic product in each activity is another source of validation. in song writing works, the wwii homecoming song tells of the bond between twin brothers who served in and survived the war together. the song ends, “the big day is when the ship comes home/ we wait on the dock to meet the ship/ family together, celebrating/ home on the front porch – big orange soda/ and some moonshine/ aaaah…./home again/ hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah” (“world war ii homecoming song,” 2019). this song was created “during a songwriting workshop with more than 30 elders and their loved ones and care partners at dungeness courte memory care community in sequim, wa. when four veterans of world war ii shared their stories of service in the marines, the group began to compose a stirring anthem both from the perspective of the veterans returning home and the families who greeted them” (“world war ii homecoming song,” 2019). as with this example, the art represents a vehicle for self-expression, but the piece of art is also created. be it a poem, dance, or story, it is finished by the end. to only allow the process, to stop before the product is deemed complete, is to deny the participants the full benefits of the activity. it is common for interventionists to draw attention to the finished product or to lead the group in one final recitation of the newly created poem, song, or story. participants are often able to recognize their own contributions and revisit positive emotions from the recent activity. this closure honors each contribution to the whole, and the recitation of the finished story or dance or poem is a way of thanking and validating each contributor. 4.4.1 alzheimer’s poetry project example poet gary glazner and the poets of the new york memory center created this poem on january 25, 2018 during a workshop of the alzheimer’s poetry project. the inspiration was, “to a mouse,” by roberts burns. we created this poem by collecting participant responses to open-ended questions. for example, “what would the mouse say to the farmer,” gave us our first line. we asked, “what would the house look like?” and the answers generated the powerful poetic image of the house “made of straw, shaped of cupped hands.” shaped of cupped hands you ruined my house. you have to buy me another house. made of straw. shaped of cupped hands. a large cup. with munchies inside. lentil soup. tomato soup. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. you can go inside and have some breakfast. the mouse teaches us survival. i don’t need a house! i would like a tiny suit and baseball cap. i like any kind of cheese, whatever you can find. munster with pinot noir! 4.5 validation through confirmation people with dementia are often doubtful about the appropriateness of their thoughts, behaviors, and belongingness in any given setting or group. disorientation and short-term memory limitations make it nearly impossible for many people with dementia to have confidence that they are in the right place, doing the right thing. one participant said after a poetry session, “to me, and i think to many people, poetry brings out the best in us. for people like us with alzheimer’s, we get nervous, and poetry helps calm us. you ask us to do things.” these participatory arts activity programs foster inclusion, which confirms for participants that their presence and participation are appropriate. these activities are facilitated in ways that are explicitly non-judgmental, where all contributions are witnessed, confirmed, and incorporated into the group dialogue and/or the artistic product. as such, participants are supported in taking risks and overcoming embarrassment. facilitators incorporate participant contributions into the artistic product and then gesture or move toward the contributor when reciting or reenacting the art. making sure that everyone in the group has opportunities to participate assures a level playing field where all voices can be heard. these democratizing experiences confirm the innate rights of the members to be present and to express their thoughts. the universal acceptance of each participant and his or her contributions is validating. 5. discussion the authors propose a framework which situates validation as a common method to be used within arts-based interventions, with validation opportunities built into the design of the interventions and transmitted through collaboration, connection, communication, creation, and confirmation. the resulting experiences seem to offer direct benefits for participants as well as indirect benefits when modeled in the presence of formal care providers and family members, although the relationship between validation approaches and outcomes has not yet been tested. we suspect that improved interactions resulting from validation techniques also allow care partners to believe they have provided a worthwhile contribution to boosting quality of life. the potential outcomes of such validation likely include: empowerment and bolstered self-esteem among participants; the expression of participants’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. memories, thoughts and feelings; positive social interactions; and the artistic product itself. however, it is appropriate to test if validation occurs as intended and if these desirable outcomes are realized. the observations reported here suggest that clinicians and artist-interventionists should be encouraged to consider the potential value in seeking to understand, use, and teach these and other validation-focused interventions with those facing disorders of dementia or engaged in their care. suggested practices to be implemented as drawn from the alzheimer’s poetry project, timeslips, songwriting works, and kairos alive! include the use of “call and response” to engage participants in verbal performance and the use of asking participants open-ended questions around a theme and writing down their answers to create poems, song lyrics and stories. in addition, we suggest including dance and movement as exemplified by kairos alive! equipping family members and care providers with methods for engaging the inner world of the person with dementia provides techniques which may succeed in reducing stress during conversations, potentially leading to more frequent and comfortable interactions and family visits. similarly, formal and informal caregivers may be assumed to gain knowledge and skills by witnessing these activities and these newly acquired or reinforced attitudes and communication skills among caregivers could be of benefit to their care recipients/partners. modelling methods for interaction which communicate beliefs in the emotional intelligence, creative capacity, and inherent personhood of individuals with dementia, as well as effective communication techniques to compensate for the impairments caused by neurocognitive disorder, likely leads to distal validating experiences when family members and formal care providers adopt similar attitudes and behaviors. these assumptions should also be carefully examined and explored through research. during the alzheimer’s poetry program workshop at the new york memory center, described above, participants celebrated the robert burn’s poem “to a mouse,” the final stanza of which praises the mouse for living in the moment without past regrets or future fears. “still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! the present only toucheth thee.” the poets in the memory center responded in verse, writing, “the mouse teaches us survival. i don’t need a house!” while captured during moments of spontaneity and joy, the lines of the new poem offer powerful subtext, as is often the case during these interventions. the facilitator typically becomes aware of such subtext. while it is unlikely that the poets of the memory center would be able to be articulate, if asked about the connections between the themes from burn’s poem and their experiences of living with memory loss, we often find this type of subtext to creating poems, song lyrics and stories with people living with memory loss. this phenomenon warrants further study. in this example of co-creation, we see that the group’s spontaneous responses to open-ended questions include the poetic image highlighting that survival does not depend upon something so physical as shelter, it necessitates something more. we propose that the survival of persons with dementia requires that which allows all persons to thrive—roles with purpose and meaningful experiences. the activities in residential care environments are predominately centered on care tasks. invitations for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. residents’ spontaneity and creativity are an important counterbalance to the institutional and medical demands in such environments. the social and recreational activities programs that can be introduced to supplement formal care services as nonpharmacological interventions are intended to meet the emotional needs of people with dementia. such interventions comprise a compendium of dementia treatments with great potential for positive benefits. as activity programs based in creative arts help to support self-expression among participants and serve as a vehicle for generating feelings of self-efficacy, such activities are well suited to fostering the person-centered goals of dementia care programming. the intervention programs discussed here are designed to inspire, connect, and validate people living with dementia. these participatory arts programs offer tools for connecting to personhood in a population for whom such connections are under constant threat of erosion. references american health care association. 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(n.d.). retrieved from http://songwritingworks.org/world-war-2-homecoming-song/ advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper challenges ahead in 2021 & 2022 dr. marc luyckx1* 1 former member of the “forward studies unit” of the european commission, brussels, belgium * dr. marc luyckx, former member of the “forward studies unit” of the european commission, brussels, belgium received: may 20, 2020 accepted: june 1, 2020 online published: june 4, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p1 1. a successful shock strategy: the crisis will also be economic noami klein wrote in 2008, the shock doctrine (note 1). she explains that this organized political and economic shock manages to astound the population. and it allows politicians to pass authoritarian laws, under the pretext of protecting the frightened population. in a very recent video (note 2) she explains also that this politic and economic shock could also produce a positive world shift to a new world paradigm. this will be the theme of our reflection. our hypothesis is that we are experiencing an admirably well-organized “strategy of shock”. it has indeed succeeded in stopping the economy of 4 billion citizens on earth. a remarkable achievement. and so we are probably experiencing only the first phase presented as a pandemic. this shock strategy has been openly presented in davos in 2020. cool. and the coming phase could be an economic crisis of very great magnitude. 1.1 possible major economic crisis in 2020 (or 2021) there is indeed a 40% chance that a major economic crisis will affect the united states and europe, but also the rest of the world in different ways. and this in the months or years to come. the imf has been warning us since 2018. 1) currency crash (strong but silent devaluation of the $ and €. that is to say a loss of 25% or more of the purchasing power of citizens in a few days). 2) stock market crash, and thus a major crisis in the stock market in us and eu. 3) and bank crash. 30% of the banks in the us and europe are in danger. the whole economic system could collapse. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. 1.2 possible bankruptcy of 30% of eu and us banks and “bail-in” (citizen’s theft) the consulting firm price waterhouse cooper is said to have published a report (note 3) indicating that 30% of european banks could fail if there is too much financial turmoil. the bank which would seem to be the most in danger in europe would be the “deutsche bank” which is weighed down with numerous fraudulent credits, that it cannot get rid of. and a domino effect could bring many european banks to their knees. however, in our countries and at european level, the law authorizes banks to apply the “bail-in”. bailin has already been practised in cyprus. the curtains of the banks closed one day. and the next day the banks reopened, and the citizens who had €500,000 or more in their account realized that the bank had pumped out €400,000, since european and national law only guarantees €100,000 per account in the event of a banking crisis. for smes that have their cash flow and assets in the bank, this would mean bankruptcy and thus massive unemployment. 1.3 bankruptcies of many companies, especially smes it is likely that many companies will disappear after containment. especially smes, which are the main economic fabric of our european economies and the largest provider of jobs. 1.4 potential unemployment for 40% of citizens we could therefore have an exceptionally high level of unemployment of 30 to 40% in europe and the usa. it should also be added that the political world does not dare to tell the truth about post-industrial employment. there will not be jobs for everyone in the intangible economy. this truth radically changes the whole policy of the “employment agencies” which are based on the (industrial) assumption that it is possible for everyone to find a job. this “industrial” world is disappearing. hence the crucial importance of the debate on universal and social income. (see 2nd part) 1.5 death of many pyramidal structures these moments of crisis will look more like a global shift of the west. and there is a risk of collapse for many of the pyramid structures that no longer function properly in today’s world. they do not manage to meet the requirements of transparency, sustainability, efficiency in collective intelligence, and therefore meaning. they die because they no longer make sense. 1.6 catastrophic situation in the third world needless to say, this economic and financial shock would have a very negative impact on poor people in the third world. yet this population, even though it has decreased, is still several billion citizens. 1.7 conclusion the collapsologists are right … in part yes, the collapsologists (note 4) are right, at least in part. a major collapse of the western economy and civilization is one possible scenario. but at the same time, we have to understand that it is at the moment when the industrial plate will collapse that we will suddenly discover a new tectonic plate. a new global economic and social logic that already exists and works, even if it is not highlighted in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. official media. 2. part the new tectonic plate: the sustainable and just civilization 2.1 universal social income a civil war of “yellow vests” fighting for food in front of supermarkets, is one possible scenario. perhaps the only solution for western governments will be to quickly establish a universal social income system, which would be modulated according to income. if you earn more than xxxx € per month you don’t need it. governments can also arrange for the social income of the rich to be recovered by the tax authorities. the modalities are to be perfected gradually. but it should also be noted that the very concept of universal income implies an important redefinition of citizenship, which is no longer defined by employment, as in the industrial era, but by the intrinsic dignity of every citizen. a new societal paradigm will have to be put in place. the basic income must be conceived on the new “post-industrial” tectonic plate. 2.2 monetary innovations for businesses and citizens in switzerland in 1928, a hundred years ago, the big companies winterthur (insurance) migros (food) and others decided to create a new inter-company currency, which they called the “wir” (note 5). this currency enabled them to get through the financial crisis of 1929 without too much damage. it is therefore important that a complementary european currency be created quickly to serve businesses. but it will also be necessary to create citizens’ monetary systems. complementary social currencies will also be very important as a social binder. cities in transition such as totnes have understood this. and there are hundreds of such currencies in the eu and the usa. an important source of information in this monetary field can be found in the report of the club of rome to the european parliament in 2012 written by bernard lietaer (note 6). 2.3 the discovery that the circular economy is already working ... for a long time 2.3.1 some ideas about the circular economy. the center of the new narrative the center of this new narrative is that the dominant values are no longer linked to the axioms of “homo economicus industrialis”. this homo economics was defined as selfish. he does not care about social solidarity, neither the environmental or future issues. for the invisible hand of the market will transform the sum of these egoisms into a balanced market. the new dominant values, the new “homo economicus immaterialis”, behaves in a spirit of solidarity and tries to respect and even regenerate the environment. he promotes wiser and more mature values (a. piet). he creates a new narrative. these are new axioms that are at the heart of the new economy. the new creation of economic value. the new creation of value consists in applying knowledge to knowledge to create knowledge (note 7) (examples are: facebook, airb & b, uber, amazon, apple, etc.). this means that the working tool is no longer the factory, but the human being who creates new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. knowledge with his intelligence, intuition body and soul. this is a new definition of the work tool. management thus becomes humanistic by obligation, even if many people try to cheat. the main assets become mostly immaterial. so it is the set of measuring instruments that must be totally rethought (intangible assets). new concept of technology as steve jobs the founder of apple said, technology is there to be “human friendly and beautiful”. this is exactly the opposite of industrial logic where it is the machine that dominates the human. this is why the “singularity university” created by r. kurzweil (note 8) in palo alto (california) is already obsolete, because it remained stuck in the materialist industrial paradigm. 2.4 the best and only report from a eu government (fr) at european level, after the brilliant analysis by a. gutterres (note 9) then prime minister of portugal, who devised the european lisbon strategy in 2000, i know of only one government report that describes the change of economic paradigm and the new circular and immaterial economic logic. it was the report commissioned by ségolène royal, then french minister for the environment, and written by corinne lepage, in 2015 (note 10). unfortunately, it has disappeared from the french ministry of the environment website. decidedly nobody is a prophet in his own country! here is part of the english summary of the report given on p. 12: “...the new economy is based on a complete paradigm shift, in which the digital makes the market more productive, more competitive, more based on values of exchange and sharing, of reappropriation of the environment and the local economy.” “... social capital is as vital as financial capital, access is as important as ownership, sustainability replaces consumerism, cooperation is as crucial as competition, and shareable value in collaborative communities increasingly complements exchange value in the capitalist market” (rifkin). “we have everything to succeed. our country can point to hundreds of success stories, led by citizens, companies (especially smes) and territories that have perfectly analyzed the new world and how to fit into it...” we can do much better, that is to say change scale and make the transition to this new economy a project for society in its own right, capable of bringing together, well beyond partisan divisions, and in the wake of all the pioneers, a very large number of players who are only too eager to support it. this exceptional report also analyses the institutional obstacles preventing this new economy from developing beyond the regional level. however, it is already working very well in some regions, for example in aquitaine region (f). 2.5 a book that dares to rethink the basic axioms of the world economy: aurélie piet i don’t know many books that dare to rethink the basic axioms of the world economy. a young economist from bordeaux, aurélie piet (note 10) has brilliantly succeeded in this challenge. and she describes the many economists, including some nobel prize winners, who are doing this work of rethinking in depth. but it is ms. piet who has the most global and credible vision, because she www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. intelligently links the rethinking and re-creation of the economy to that of our post-industrial and trans modern civilization. she maps out a path of positive transformation of the global economy, even if we are bombarded with negative scenarios in the media. 2.6 the new liberated enterprises (note 11) while many companies will disappear in the coming years, others are being created or transformed in depth. with the industrial society also disappears the vision of the company as a machine, as mechanical, in which the human being is only a cog. and we suddenly “discover” that the company is made up of humans that we can invite to create in “collective intelligence” (note 12). we change the “narrative” of the company. and the new narrative is based on the new dominant values (of the new world/paradigm). sustainability and environmental restoration social solidarity at local, national, european and global level. the active and creative participation of citizens in collective intelligence. profit is an important consequence that reveals that everything is ok. 2.7 the shock as an exceptional opportunity for positive change we have talked about the exceptional success of the current shock strategy. but this clash on our western and global world is also an exceptional opportunity for in-depth change. perhaps indeed, that it is only at such times that the structures of business and politics can be changed in depth and very positively. 2.8 the new corporate mission this also means that companies have a new mission. they are potentially important players in the construction of this new world economy. this explains the success of training initiatives such as “ticket for change” in paris. companies can be an important element in the positive and constructive evolution of humanity in the 21st century. 2.9 the central role of culture as the indispensable nourishment of human creativity in the new intangible economy our governments are reluctant to invest massively to “save” the cultural world, because they are unfortunately still stuck with the old industrial, materialistic, and mechanistic vision, in which culture is the icing on the cake...if all goes well. but in the immaterial society where human creativity is the main working tool, culture becomes absolutely indispensable because it feeds human creativity. richard florida (note 13) already explained 20 years ago how culture has profoundly changed its role in the new economy of human creativity. it will therefore be crucial for enlightened governments to give top priority to funding and empowering all cultural activity. this is more important than “saving” moribund airlines. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. 3. conclusion: the new civilization is approaching: two scenarios i believe that in the exceptional circumstances we are experiencing, two scenarios are possible. 3.1 first scenario control chinese way the first scenario would be a civilization of increasingly total but soft control of the world citizens. and this scenario was very well announced by huxley (note 14) and orwell (note 15). where would we go in this first scenario? and here, the most exemplary contemporary model is the current chinese model, which controls each citizen electronically (facial control) and by giving him a red, yellow or green rating on his mobile phone. only the green signal makes it possible to travel and make certain purchases of loans and investments. the recent issue (22 april 2020) on “arte” television described it well (note 16). and this control regime does not hesitate to organize the imprisonment of millions of uighur citizens, just because they are muslims. and they are locked up in prison-factories where they work in forced labor for our western multinationals. this is very cheap labor. 3.2 the second scenario is a higher level of consciousness of the world citizens the second scenario is rooted in the progressive discovery by the citizens of the world that this world of orwellian control has, in fact, no vision of a sustainable future for humanity, except perhaps to make a few billion “excess” humans disappear. but any political project without a vision of the future is doomed to die, as it was the case for the powerful roman empire. and it is therefore by standing together, and by promoting and implementing a new vision of the future symbolized by new values of life, sustainability, solidarity, justice and freedom, that humanity will be able to create a new civilization that is more adult, more sustainable, more ethical and more spiritual. and some sociologists like paul ray (note 17) have put forward the hypothesis that “cultural creatives” are already announcing the values of tomorrow’s civilization. there could be 150 millions in europe, 75 millions in usa, and between one and two billion of them on our planet. this is important. and those numbers allow us to envisage a situation of shift to a new paradigm. and the circular economy, with the change of vision it promotes, is one of the factors that encourages positive evolution, and the raising of our level of consciousness. this new civilization of a higher level was announced by jesus (the kingdom of heaven), by teilhard de chardin (the noosphere), and by aurobindo and the mother in india in 1950. it is the second scenario that will irresistibly and smoothly prevail, helped perhaps by powerful spiritual forces. it is allowed to hope. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. naomi klein the shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism 2008. note 2. naomi klein, video coronavirus capitalism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifqnaex1lm4 note 3. i have not found this report. but there is an interesting pwc report on canadian banks in 2020. note 4. pablo servigne & raphaël stevens comment tout peut s’effondrer (how everything could collapse) 2015 note 5. wir means “us” in english. note 6. bernard lietaer money and sustainability: the missing link 2012 note 7. this definition was invented by peter drucker in post capitalist society 1993. note 8. ray kurzweil singularity is near. when humans transcend biology. 2005. note 9. see summary in english p. 12. https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news24737-rapport-economie-verte-corinne-lepage.pdf note 10. aurélie piet quand l’homo economicus saute à l’élastiques sans élastique plon, paris 2019. english edition in preparation. see her site (english in preparation) : http://aurelie-piet.fr/ note 11. frédéric laloux reinventing organizations 2015. note 12. chantal neve-hanquet et agathe crespel facilitating collective intelligence: a handbook for trainers, coaches, consultants and leaders 2019 note 13. richard florida the rise of the cultural class and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community & everyday life. 2002. note 14. aldous huxley brave new world 2006 note 15. georges orwell «1984» note 16. arte “seven billions of suspects”. april 22, 2020. on youtube. note 17. paul h. ray & sherry anderson the cultural creatives: when 50 million people are changing the world 2000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifqnaex1lm4 https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-24737-rapport-economie-verte-corinne-lepage.pdf https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-24737-rapport-economie-verte-corinne-lepage.pdf https://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-24737-rapport-economie-verte-corinne-lepage.pdf http://aurelie-piet.fr/ https://www.amazon.fr/facilitating-collective-intelligence-handbook-consultants/dp/0367209667/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_fr_fr=%c3%85m%c3%85%c5%bd%c3%95%c3%91&dchild=1&keywords=collective+intelligence&qid=1588700433&s=english-books&sr=1-3 https://www.amazon.fr/facilitating-collective-intelligence-handbook-consultants/dp/0367209667/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_fr_fr=%c3%85m%c3%85%c5%bd%c3%95%c3%91&dchild=1&keywords=collective+intelligence&qid=1588700433&s=english-books&sr=1-3 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 50 original paper research on the integration of huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students qiurong qian1, yong chen1* & xiao zhou1 1 hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china * yong chen, hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 05, 2023 online published: december 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p50 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p50 abstract huxiang red culture and college students’ labor education have rich theoretical achievements and practical resources, and both of them have the characteristics of education and advancement. this paper briefly describes the spiritual connotation and educational function of huxiang red culture, discusses the internal correlation between huxiang red culture and labor spirit, analyzes the necessity of the integration of the two, extracts the key variables affecting the integration of the two through theoretical research and practical research, and finally proposes the integration path of huxiang red culture into college students’ labor education from four aspects: curriculum ideology and politics, practical education base, campus culture and new media platform. key words huxiang red culture, college students’ labor education, path fund project project of hunan provincial department of education (21c0420); project of the hunan university ideological and political education research association (22sz23); teaching reform project of hunan university of technology(2022yb12) 1. introduction general secretary xi jinping once said: “we must make good use of red resources, carry forward red traditions, and inherit red genes”. “huxiang red culture has a long history and many advanced deeds, which is a valuable wealth that we must inherit and develop, which contains rich educational resources. labor is the fundamental force of social progress and an important foundation for the healthy growth of young people, and labor education is a supplement to knowledge education, and it is also an important www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. means to cultivate talents with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. as a large number of young people, college students shoulder the heavy responsibility of development and construction, and they must carry out systematic labor education and cultivate college students with correct labor values. both hunan red culture in the new era and college students’ labour education have the characteristics of advancing with the times, and the spiritual connotation of both have important educational significance and certain relevance, however, they also face the problems of low degree of innovation and few practical processes, therefore, exploring the paths and methods of integrating hunan red culture in college students’ labour education in the new era, improving the rationality and practicability of the two are the fundamental needs for carrying forward the educative function of hunan red culture and enhancing the effectiveness of labour education. 2. the educational function of huxiang red culture 2.1 the spiritual connotation of huxiang red culture in the long-term revolutionary struggle, their thoughts, wills, and beliefs have been continuously sublimated, and their spiritual qualities are an important component of huxiang’s red culture. the red culture of huxiang contains a rich cultural spirit and is an important historical and cultural culture in china, which demonstrates the great patriotic spirit and fearless spirit of the huxiang people. huxiang culture has distinct personalities and characteristics, mainly in the following aspects. (1) the spirit of patriotism that cares about the world. the famous revolutionary martyr guo liang was a well-known leader of the labor movement, who organized the general strike of the guangdong-hankou railway in 1922, and made indelible contributions to national independence and people’s liberation with his unwavering faith and indomitable spirit. zhang chao, who was born in yueyang in 1986, served as the captain of a carrier-based aviation unit of the navy, and has carried out combat take-off missions many times, showing the self-confidence of the chinese army in the process of air competition with foreign military aircraft. it is precisely the land of huxiang that countless patriots have emerged, who have made unremitting efforts for the prosperity and strength of the country and national independence, and jointly forged the patriotic spirit of huxiang. (2) the spirit of innovation that dares to be the first in the world. mao zedong was determined to change china’s poverty and weakness when he was young, and began a magnificent historical journey with countless like-minded revolutionary comrades. the victory of the october revolution in russia brought hope to semi-colonial and semi-feudal china, and the leaders of the communist party of china represented by comrade mao zedong changed their thinking on the basis of china’s reality and opened up the revolutionary road of “encircling the cities from the countryside.” history has proved that it was the courage to innovate and seek change that finally marched toward the victory of the revolution. nowadays, in the process of chinese-style modernization, huxiang red culture has played an important role in economy, culture, education and other aspects. (3) practical values that have been applied to the world. comrade mao zedong called on the broad www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. masses to study marxism, explore china’s development path in the light of china’s reality, and pay attention to the combination xi of theory and practice. the perfect combination of practical application and seeking truth from facts has formed an important connotation of huxiang red culture in the new era. 2.2 the educational function of huxiang red culture (1) it is conducive to building the core values of socialism. from history to modern times, there have been many cases related to patriotism, dedication, daring to be the first in the world, seeking truth from facts, etc., which are in line with the core values of socialism, and promoting the red culture of huxiang is more conducive to understanding the deep connotation of the core values of socialism. (2) it is conducive to the patriotism of college students. patriotic education is an important foundation for cultivating contemporary college students, and the red culture of huxiang has brought together countless heroic stories, through feeling and understanding their patriotic deeds, and guiding college students to value patriotic thoughts with the power of example. (3) it is conducive to cultivating down-to-earth talents. integrating huxiang red culture into the daily education of college students can make college students deeply understand the spirit of hard work of their ancestors, only hard work can prosper the country, and only hard work and down-to-earth can cultivate outstanding talents needed by the country and the nation. (4) it is conducive to strengthening the cultural self-confidence of college students. huxiang red culture embodies the long-standing collective memory of generations, which is not only a part of traditional chinese culture, but also an important ideological and educational resource, refining the spirit of huxiang red culture with practical significance, which not only demonstrates the advanced socialist culture that keeps pace with the times, but also is conducive to deepening the understanding of cultural self-confidence. 3. the intrinsic correlation between huxiang red culture and labor spirit (1) unity of values. huxiang’s red culture and labor spirit both belong to the core values of socialism and play an important role in the process of youth training. huxiang red culture has rich educational resources, through the understanding of the spirit of huxiang red culture, can correctly shape the values of college students, in order to cultivate a comprehensive new era of talents; labor spirit emphasizes the process of participation, in the process of labor education to transform knowledge reserves into practical ability, re-recognize the importance of labor education, and actively shape the health values of young people. combining huxiang’s red culture with the spirit of labor is an important means to practice the core values of socialism. (2) consistency in cultivating talents. huxiang red culture can promote the healthy development of ideology, is conducive to strengthening the patriotic spirit of young people, establish a world outlook, outlook on life and values of hard work and seeking truth from facts, and is conducive to cultivating compound development talents in the new era; establish a correct labor spirit is conducive to promoting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. national development and social progress, correct labor values are derived from the practice of socialist core values, and the value of labor education lies in cultivating craftsmen of great countries and model workers in the new era. therefore, cultivating talents in an all-round way is the consistent purpose of huxiang’s red culture and labor spirit. (3) keeping pace with the times. on the basis of adhering to the principle of sinicization of marxism, huxiang red culture has continuously absorbed the achievements of practice, constantly kept pace with the times, and adapted to the needs of national construction and development in different periods; the spirit of labor also has different characteristics of the times in different periods, and the all-round development from “moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor” to “moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor” has also fully embodied the progress of the times in labor education. therefore, both the red culture of huxiang and the spirit of labor have a development process of continuous innovation. 4. the necessity of integrating huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students (1) promote the construction of huxiang red cultural carrier. the cultural carrier is an important platform for tradition and carrying forward the red culture of huxiang, and the types of carriers mainly include memorial halls, ruins, scenic spots, etc., and the methods of communication include traditional media, new media, classroom teaching, etc. at present, the cultivation of huxiang red culture for college students mainly relies on traditional classroom teaching and spontaneous browsing in the media, which has insufficient depth of influence and average communication effect. the labor education resources of college students are relatively abundant, and the practical content is transformed into educational results, and the integration of huxiang red culture into college students’ labor education is conducive to college students’ deep understanding of the value and connotation of huxiang red culture, and at the same time improves the stability and timeliness of the dissemination of huxiang red culture, and further promotes the construction of huxiang red culture carrier. (2) improve the labor education system for college students. at present, the labor education system for college students in the new era mainly includes ideological and political labor education, professional labor education, and practical labor education. according to the survey, professional labor education accounts for the highest proportion of college students’ labor education, followed by practical labor education and ideological and political labor education. in the labor education system of college students in the new era, it has become particularly important to strengthen ideological and political labor education, and integrating the red culture of huxiang into the labor education of college students is conducive to improving the enthusiasm of college students to participate in labor education, deepening the connotation of the labor education system, and promoting the development of the labor education system. (3) promote the all-round and healthy development of college students. huxiang red culture contains www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. rich spiritual and cultural connotations, and its integration into the labor education of college students is conducive to stimulating the patriotic feelings of college students, and then cultivating talents with firm ideals and beliefs; it is conducive to enhancing the labor consciousness of college students, absorbing the labor spirit of hard work and daring to be the first from the deeds of their ancestors, and experiencing the wisdom and hard work of the working people, so as to cultivate down-to-earth, hard-working, hard-working, it is also conducive to stimulating the enthusiasm and initiative of college students to receive labor education, and promoting the all-round development of college students in the spiritual and practical fields. 5. the path of integrating huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students (1) strengthen the ideological and political construction of the curriculum. at present, there are still relatively few courses in colleges and universities to integrate red culture into the labor education of college students, and there is a lot of room for development in the future. the first is to strengthen the construction of the main channel of the classroom, which is the main channel for college students to receive red culture education or labor education, and to increase the proportion of huxiang red culture and labor education content in ideological and political courses and professional courses by strengthening the ideological and political construction of the curriculum; the second is to promote the reform of education and teaching, deepen the theoretical research on the integration of huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students, improve the curriculum evaluation system, and improve the systematization of curriculum teaching. (2) strengthen the construction of practical education bases. through practical research, the theoretical teaching content is combined with practice, making full use of huxiang red cultural resources, integrating vivid images, texts, and objects into practical teaching, forming a practice mechanism that combines classroom and extracurricular, and linking schools and localities, and vigorously cultivates the huxiang red cultural labor education practice base, and strengthens the promotion and construction of the practice base through cooperation with the government and society. immersion labor education is carried out through integrated research and learning, so as to promote the complementarity and synergy between huxiang red culture and college students’ labor education in the field of practical teaching. (3) strengthen the construction of campus culture. campus culture is a cultural form with multi-dimensional educational functions, which is disseminated through a variety of ways, including lectures, competitions, competitions, public welfare, sports, clubs, etc., and has the most far-reaching impact on college students. therefore, cultivating a good campus culture is of vital significance for the all-round development of college students. huxiang red culture and labor education elements are an important part of campus culture, and they together constitute a diverse and complex cultural complex. by refining these elements, we can systematize, tangible, and interesting the red culture and labor education in huxiang, so as to form a unique cultural atmosphere, so that college students can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. imperceptibly edified and infected. different expressions can also be used, which can organically integrate the red culture of huxiang and the elements of labor education to form a multi-complex cultural complex. this kind of complex can enhance the cultural self-confidence and values of college students, improve the pertinence of college students’ ideological and political education through the campus culture that is easy to perceive and internalize, and promote their all-round development. (4) strengthen the construction of new media platforms. strengthening the construction of new media platforms is an effective way to improve the innovation and effectiveness of college students’ ideological and political education. in the era of new media, the internet has become the main channel for college students to obtain information and communicate and interact, so the use of the internet to carry out ideological and political education for college students can better meet their needs. first of all, building a new media platform can provide a more convenient and efficient way to learn and xi. through the new media platform, you can study and xi anytime and anywhere, without being limited by time and place, and at the same time, you can also more easily access various xi resources, such as cases, videos, documentaries, etc. second, new media platforms can better capture the attention of college students. by sharing cases, videos, documentaries and other methods related to huxiang red culture and labor education, we can stimulate the interest of college students in learning xi and promote them to take the initiative to learn xi relevant knowledge. at the same time, the introduction of virtual simulation and other technologies, through vr, ar and other technologies immersive experience, can allow college students to have a deeper understanding of relevant knowledge and cultural background, and enhance the depth and breadth of academic xi. finally, strengthening the construction of new media platforms can also promote the interaction and communication of college students. on the platform, college students can share their own learning xi experiences and experiences, communicate and discuss with other students, and form a good xi atmosphere and interaction mechanism. 6. conclusion the integration of huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students can not only help students better understand the history of the chinese revolution and inherit the red gene, but also cultivate their spiritual qualities of dedication, hard work and innovation. in labor education, students need to participate in labor practice and cultivate labor skills and labor spirit. the revolutionary martyrs in the red culture of huxiang have made tremendous sacrifices for the construction of new china through arduous labor, and their labor spirit and revolutionary spirit are exactly what college students need for their education. at the same time, students can feel the fighting spirit and patriotic feelings of the revolutionary martyrs in labor practice, so as to stimulate their patriotic enthusiasm and labor enthusiasm, cultivate their sense of social responsibility and responsibility, and promote the all-round development of college students. in short, the integration of huxiang red culture into the labor education of college students is the inevitable result of the red culture and labor education in the new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. era advancing with the times, which not only meets the needs of the inheritance and development of red culture, but also meets the practical needs of college students’ labor education, and helps to cultivate professionals with dedication, hard work and innovation. references li, s. h. (2015). red culture communication innovation research (master’s thesis). hunan university. cao, x. (2021). research on the integration of huxiang red culture into the patriotic education of college students in the new era (master’s thesis). xiangtan university. li, j. (2021). the inheritance and development path of labor spirit in the red cultural resources of the new era. journal of hunan industrial vocational and technical college, 21(05), 43-46. ren, s. p. (2021). exploration on the path of integrating red culture into labor education in higher vocational colleges in the new era. journal of china multimedia and network teaching (mid-term), (05), 223-226. qian, y. r. (2021). on the integration of red culture into the labor education of contemporary college students (master’s thesis). wuhan university of technology wei, z. m. (2022). the bias and correction of college students’ labor education—based on the perspective of the leading function of red culture. knowledge and action, (04), 77-82. han, c. m. (2023). research on the path of integrating red culture into labor education in higher vocational colleges in liaoning province. journal of liaoning normal college (social sciences), (02), 92-94. huang, b. (2022). the path of integrating jinggangshan red gene into higher vocational labor education. science consulting (education and research), (11), 150-152. zheng, y. l. (2022). shanxi red culture and higher vocational labor education collaborative integration path. modern vocational education, (20), 1-3. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 17 original paper an investigation on student perspectives on online learning miguel mision 1* 1 university of nagano, nagano, japan * miguel mision, corresponding author received: february 12, 2023 accepted: march 12, 2023 online published: march 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p17 abstract while there was a short reprieve with the corona virus in 2021, the new omicron strain could potentially rewind the clock back to 2019. what important lessons were learnt in these past two years, and are there benefits to online learning beyond virus prevention? the author examined perspectives and experiences on what it was like learning remotely as a university student. surveys and one on one interviews were conducted on a target demographic of students. the research had surprisingly mixed results both positive and negative. when asked which style of learning students preferred, there was a three-way split between online, face-to-face, and a blend of both. although many students and teachers are quick to assume that face-to-face learning allows young people to enjoy a more “normal” university life – the results indicate that there are cases where learning online should have serious consideration. keywords online learning, face-to-face, blended learning, tech literacy 1. introduction even before covid-19, online learning has had an accelerating rate of adoption for some time. research suggests that there are no detrimental impacts on student performance from a mix of online and face-to-face (blended) education compared to exclusive face-to-face learning (olitsky & cosgrove, 2014; bowen et al., 2014). exclusively online education however, shows different results. in one study on “massive online open courses” (moocs), consistently low completion rates and student persistence was reported (reich & ruipérez-valiente, 2019). it should be noted however, that moocs are designed as self-enrolled courses and vary significantly in nature to university or compulsory education. another paper by bettinger et al., also found evidence to suggest taking online courses as a replacement for in-person – reduces student performance and progress (2017). students were less likely to remain enrolled in online courses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. the research on online language learning is still in an infant stage but currently shows more promising results. nurieva and garaeva found students’ attendance in zoom-based language lessons was higher than that of face-to-face lessons (2020). a majority of students surveyed also found breakout rooms difficult at first, but eventually, they became an “essential platform for collaborative learning” (bamidele, 2021). the pandemic also has forced educators to rethink their methods of teaching – research has found positive results from embracing process-oriented pedagogies through integration with online technologies (cheung, 2021). research questions 1) what were student impressions of online english classes compared to face-to-face classes? 2) what parts of online learning (if any) proved to be more effective than face-to-face learning? 3) should remote learning continue, what should be improved or changed? 2. method 2.1 participants the researcher made the decision to focus specifically on only one demographic of students – 2nd-year students all enrolled in the same major taught at a municipal university. this was done to dictate some level of control with student experiences. all second-year students had face-to-face classes in their 1st-year and online classes in their 2nd-year. students of this major share many of the same classes and, in the case with english – are taught using the same curriculum and syllabus but with different instructors. 2.2 design all communication, surveys, and interviews with students were conducted in japanese. the researcher believed that this would be the best method to collect the most responses from students as well as the most “authentic” data. an online survey was created using microsoft forms and distributed to all 2nd-year students during the spring vacation. the survey used 4-point likert scale style questions with the neutral/midpoint option omitted, thus consisting of variations of strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. survey participants tend to choose a midpoint option as a “dumping ground” for answers they are unsure or uncertain about (nadler et al., 2015). by eliminating the midpoint answer, survey respondents are forced to choose either a disagreement or agreement option (chyung et al., 2017). for some questions, respondents were asked to explain or give reasons for their answers. the survey was written in japanese and reviewed by a japanese colleague as well as a university ethics committee beforehand. before answering questions in the survey and interviews, students were given a japanese informed consent form confirming students agreed that their answers would be used for the research purpose of this paper. 44 students answered the survey, and the average completion time was five minutes and 36 seconds. at the end of the survey, students who were willing to further explain and discuss their answers were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. invited to a zoom interview with the author in japanese. willing students were contacted by e-mail and provided a japanese consent form that explained how their answers would be used and their privacy respected. six students agreed to an interview, and the average duration for the interviews was approximately 25 minutes; each interview was recorded and saved. after the interviews were conducted, the author made notes of key points that were discussed. upon completing all six interviews, the author listened to them again and made note of any points that were missed from the first sessions. 3. result for the purposes of this paper, interviewees’ names have been changed with aliases. ¥ 3.1 student impressions of online learning table 1. when you started learning online, what were your impressions of remote learning compared to face-to-face learning? response % of responses much better 9% somewhat better 28% somewhat worse 53% much worse 9% table 2. after one year of learning online, what were your impressions of remote learning compared to face-to-face learning? response % of responses much better 7% somewhat better 35% somewhat worse 56% much worse 2% the results from both questions were fairly consistent. only four students changed their impressions after one full year of remote learning. most students commented that a big reason they felt using zoom for classes was worse was because of issues with communicating with other students and understanding their teachers. some other responses included: “i felt like i was learning passively rather than participating in the class.” “it was difficult for me to feel the atmosphere of an english class, where communication is essential.” “it was physically difficult.” “my concentration level was much lower than in face-to-face classes.” “it was difficult to take the course or talk to other students when the internet condition was poor.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. the students who felt online learning was better brought up expected reasons such as getting more time to sleep, not having to physically go to classes, and having more free time. but there were also some unexpected reasons: “i feel more relaxed and less tense than in a face-to-face class.” “you can communicate with many random people in breakout rooms.” “i really liked that i could immediately look up things i didn’t understand.” it is interesting to consider students who feel “more relaxed” in an online classroom. as young people, there are many types of social pressures they feel being in a room with their peers. this pressure is further exacerbated when studying a second language (burden, 2004). 3.2 communicating online table 3. compared to face-to-face classes, how did you feel about communication in an online class? response % of responses much better 0% somewhat better 5% somewhat worse 79% much worse 9% most students found communicating online difficult and worse than in a face-to-face class. of the 5% that answered “somewhat better”, the only reasons they wrote were that it was “smoother” and “easier.” with regards to communication being worse, three of the interviewees gave very detailed answers on this topic: ayane: discussion was very difficult. for the first few classes, people used their cameras in discussions, but after a few lessons, no one had them on. when you can’t see your partner’s face, it is very difficult to talk to them, especially in a second language. also, sometimes i just wouldn’t get a response from my partner. i didn’t know if they were listening or if i had some connection or microphone problems. so i was always checking (my settings); it was incredibly stressful. author: why do you think people stopped using their cameras? ayane: i guess it was just embarrassing. some of my friends overslept and didn’t put on their makeup, so they didn’t want to turn on their cameras. sometimes in the main session, only a few people had their cameras on, so it felt like everyone was watching just those people. author: do you think if there was a rule to always have your camera on during class, this would help communication? ayane: hmm, i’m not so sure, because i think always having your face on the screen is stressful. i think only for the breakout sessions would be ok. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. another interviewee had a similar experience with zoom and cameras. riku: i learned a lot about how important body language is with studying english. when i was in a breakout room with a partner who didn’t have their camera on, communicating was very difficult. a third interviewee talked about the time lag. honomi: i often didn’t know when to speak. because of the time lag, sometimes we would speak at the same time, so i would wait for my partner to finish often. this really made discussions difficult. author: more difficult than in person? honomi: yes, i think a lot of the time i was waiting for people to finish talking. but then they would move to another topic, and i didn’t get a chance to talk. sometimes other people would be waiting too, so some discussions were really slow, and i couldn’t get “active” in them. in comparison to table 2, the results of table 3 are a cause for concern. despite an overwhelmingly negative outlook on online communication, 42% of students still found remote learning better than face-to-face classes. a few reasons are possible here: students didn’t consider communication an important part of their classes, the other benefits of online learning outweighed the difficulty in communication, or the students were indifferent to english in general and favored the convenience of attending classes from home. the researcher personally feels that communicating online follows very different rules and mannerisms than a face-to-face conversation or discussion. issues with time lag in communication can be alleviated by introducing roles to students – having an assigned group leader, scribe, or even a questioner, so each student has clear responsibilities for communicative tasks. likewise, using reactions or typing in the chat box can still create a “heated” discussion. 3.3 group work table 4. compared to face-to-face classes, how did you feel about group work in an online class? response % of responses much easier 5% somewhat easier 26% somewhat difficult 30% much more difficult 40% all the interviewees cited similar difficulties with communication as being a big factor in group work. one student had more to say on this topic: matsuo: members were very unresponsive with group work. there were big delays in communication; sometimes i would send an e-mail and wait a week for a reply. author: why do you think that is? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. matsuo: i’m not sure. i think meeting face-to-face really helps get organized and let people know what needs to be done. it didn’t feel as serious doing it online. author: you said that it would take a long time to get replies from group members. do you think students were busy with other things? matsuo: yes, i think this was a part of it. sometimes we had to have meetings starting at 12:00 a.m. because no other time could work for everyone. it was really difficult. author: that’s surprising to hear; my impression was that students have more free time with remote learning. matsuo: generally, i think most students had more free time, but the problem was that none of our schedules matched like they did in our 1st-year. some students had more part-time work, and others had other responsibilities since they were living with their families. another student thought that there were benefits to doing online group work: honomi: sharing documents online, editing, and adding comments made things really easy for group work. we could tell each other what needed to be done without needing any meetings. author: do you think this is easier than working together face-to-face? honomi: in some ways, i think it would have been more fun. but it’s really easy to work as a group with shared documents. anecdotally speaking, a “silver lining” of the pandemic has been the rapid adoption of online technology in many different facets of education. had remote learning never been thrust on universities, it is questionable how many teachers would have taught their classes how to use functions such as cloud document sharing and editing mentioned by honomi. 3.4 teacher support table 5. compared to face-to-face classes, how do you feel about teacher support in an online class? response % of responses much better 19% somewhat better 40% somewhat worse 33% much worse 9% given all the previously mentioned difficulties with communication, it was surprising to see a slight majority that felt teacher support was better during online lessons. ayane: our teacher would take questions via zoom chat. i found this very useful because it was much easier than in a face-to-face class. author: could you explain how you would ask questions using the zoom chat? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. ayane: sometimes the teacher would give us time to work by ourselves. if we had a problem, we could send them a private message and sometimes they would reply as a message or talk to the whole class about it. author: why did you think this was easier? ayane: in a face-to-face class, sometimes, there was a bit of pressure if i wanted to ask a question. it also felt like i was stopping the lesson. speaking to colleagues, there were considerable differences in how instructors approached student support. some instructors used the traditional institution e-mail account setup on microsoft outlook at their work office. others channeled most of their information to their class learning management system (lms), which was also useful for quick messages to and from students via smartphone. since the researcher shifted a lot of class material to “on-demand” content, this freed up a lot of class time for student support. 3.5 student wellbeing table 6. compared to face-to-face classes, how did you physically feel after online classes? response % of responses not tired at all 2% not really tired 35% tired 56% much more tired 7% table 7. compared to face-to-face classes, did you feel any stress with online classes? response % of responses none at all 0% i felt a little stress 37% i felt some stress 53% i felt a lot of stress 9% all six students who were interviewed took classes the same way—they used a notebook computer and either a work desk and chair or a low desk with a floor cushion. they all initially felt a lot of discomfort and fatigue from using a computer all day but eventually got used to it. three students used blue light reducing glasses or monitor film and claimed they felt less tired. although students initially were not well prepared for remote learning, they learnt to adapt with many small changes. it could be said that universities should spend time educating students on basic computer ergonomics. one student preferred online because of her physical condition: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. ami: i guess i’m not like other students, but i sometimes get very bad stomach aches and have to leave class. in an online class, i don’t have to worry so much about this. two students felt that their stress levels were about the same as in face-to-face classes. matsuo: i think both styles of learning have different good and bad points. if you add them up, they’re about the same. honomi: with online classes, i can get more sleep and free time, but with face-to-face classes i can see my friends more often. so, i think in terms of stress, they’re about the same. it is important to note that as second year students, all the participants had an opportunity to attend face-to-face classes in 2018. it could be said that they were all able to enjoy a “normal” introduction to university, and since they were adjusted to campus life, remote learning did not have such a stressful impact on their overall experience. the same cannot be said for first year students who have only had a remote experience. 3.6 student preferences table 8. looking back on the year 2020, which style of learning do you think is best suited for you? response % of responses online 28% face-to-face 33% blend of both styles 40% given all the data and responses, it could easily be assumed that a majority of students did not acclimatize or fit well with learning online. despite this, the responses for table 8 were fairly surprising. as mentioned before from tables 2 and 3, it is possible that students simply found the other benefits from remote learning far too advantageous. in addition to all the advantages and disadvantages, all the interviewees had a lot to say about their preferred style of learning. honomi: as a 3rd year student, we will have less classes, and some of us will start doing internships. online classes would be much better. it gives us more flexibility with our schedules, and commuting to university for just one class feels like a waste of time. riku: i would be happy with only our english classes being face-to-face and everything else online. in english classes communication is a big part of our studies, but for lecture classes, they were actually easier online. if i am sitting far from the board, it is very difficult to read the slides or what the teacher is writing. i never had that problem with online classes. i could even take a screenshot of important information. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. yoshihiro: a big problem for me was that the teachers couldn’t read the room. since everyone had their cameras off, the teacher couldn’t tell if students understood the lesson or not, so the teacher would just keep teaching. and since i couldn’t see the other students, i didn’t know if other students didn’t understand the class, so i didn’t want to disturb the class. author: did you ever have this same problem with face-to-face classes? yoshihiro: no, because it was very easy to ask the person sitting next to me if they also didn’t understand something. i couldn’t do that in zoom, sometimes i tried typing something to my friend in chat, but i’m not fast (at typing), so by the time i sent the message, the teacher was already talking about something else. ami: i felt that i could concentrate more in an online class. for example, in a face-to-face class, i have to sit and listen the whole time. with an online class, if i’m feeling tired, i could stand up, stretch my legs and even eat a snack—i could never do that in a classroom. author: so all this freedom made studying easier for you? ami: yes, i felt like i could use my time more effectively. i could do things like cut my nails during class. the interviewees responses indicate that there are very mixed impressions of remote learning. much of which could be contributed to discrepancies in teaching styles and lesson content. even before the pandemic it could be said that efficacy in language learning was subject to immeasurable variables. remote teaching in comparison is still in its’ infancy, and there is still much to learn about the most effective ways to deliver classes online. 3.7 research limitations the university has 174 students enrolled in the global management program. of those, only 44 students (25%) replied to the survey. a larger representation of the student population would have been desirable. the survey was sent to students’ university e-mail addresses during the spring vacation, so it is plausible to assume many students simply did not read the e-mail. the interviews were conducted by the author—a non-native speaker of japanese. although there were no breakdowns in communication, it can be said that perhaps students had to change their answers because they were not speaking to a native speaker. the author was an instructor for one class of 2nd-year students; it is possible some of those students did not want to participate in the research, knowing that their answers and feedback would be read by their instructor. 4. discussion it is true that a majority of students were thrust into online learning in 2019, but the same is also true for teachers and educators. the experience of an online classroom is inherently different, and the same materials and techniques from a face-to-face class don’t necessarily adapt well in an online environment. teachers should be open to shifting to on-demand or “flipped” content for lesson materials with little or no student interaction. students have a much easier time absorbing information www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. at their own pace, and the ability to replay, pause or learn at their own convenience is incredibly valuable—especially when learning a second language. likewise, teachers need to be aware of the technological literacy that compounds with their students’ language literacy. at the start of the pandemic, many students were just starting to learn how to use their computers. giving instructions for homework submission, setting up an lms, or document sharing in english, compounds two literacy hurdles. zoom lessons need to be more open for students to interact with their teachers. rules need to be established for break-out rooms such as having cameras on, giving students discussion roles, and having post-reporting activities such as summarizing points on the class’s online learning management system. finally, the results indicate that there are some students that reciprocate well with online learning. be it a personality, lifestyle, or learning trait – some students simply prefer the online experience. remote classes also provide reprieve for situations where student accessibility would be concerned. neurodiversity, financial issues, time, or living constraints could all be addressed by providing an online option for university students. looking forward, the pandemic unveiled an opportunity for education to suit learners of different spectrums. educators and university administrators should consider the benefits of online learning—even in a post-covid world. references bamidele, a. (2021). student-centered interactions within an esl classroom using online breakout room. available at ssrn 3878774. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3878774 bettinger, e.p., fox, l., loeb, s., & taylor, e.s. (2017). virtual classrooms: how online college courses affect student success. american economic review, 107(9), 2855-2875. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20151193 bowen, w. g., chingos, m. m., lack, k. a., & nygren, t. i. (2014). interactive learning online at public universities: evidence from a six‐campus randomized trial. journal of policy analysis and management, 33(1), 94-111. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21728 burden, p. (2004). the teacher as facilitator: reducing anxiety in the efl university classroom. jalt hokkaido journal, 8(1), 3-18. cheung, a. (2021). language teaching during a pandemic: a case study on zoom use by a secondary esl teacher in hong kong. relc journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688220981784 chyung, s.y., roberts, k., swanson, i., & hankinson, a. (2017). evidence-based survey design: the use of a midpoint on the likert scale. performance improvement, 56(10), 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.21727 nadler, j. t., weston, r., & voyles, e. c. (2015). stuck in the middle: the use and interpretation of mid-points in items on questionnaires. the journal of general psychology, 142(2), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2014.994590 nurieva, g. r., & garaeva, l. m. (2020). zoom-based distance learning of english as a foreign www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. language. journal of research in applied linguistics, 11(7202013142020), 439-448. olitsky, n. h., & cosgrove, s. b. (2014). the effect of blended courses on student learning: evidence from introductory economics courses. international review of economics education, 15(1), 17-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iree.2013.10.009 reich, j., & ruipérez-valiente, j. a. (2019). the mooc pivot. science, 363(6423), 130-131. https://www.doi.org/10.1126/science.aav7958 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 41 original paper the practical path of implementing the spirit of the eight-point decision of the cpc central committee in the new era junshu tao1* 1 master of party history major of shandong provincial party school of the communist party of china (shandong administration institute), jinan, shandong province, china * junshu tao, corresponding author received: july 19, 2025 accepted: september 12, 2025 online published: september 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p41 abstract the eight-point decision on improving party and government conduct, like a refreshing breeze, have swept across china since 2012, cleansing the party and government conduct while ushering in a renewed social ethos. the spirit of the eight-point decision has taken root with the determination to build trust, these provisions have “advanced comprehensive strict governance of the party and improved conduct in political, administrative, and social spheres.” (note 1) this paper examines current party conduct improvement practices. building on an understanding of the eight-point decision, it proposes a five-pronged approach for their implementation in the new era: ideological cultivation, supervisory mechanisms, institutional refinement, integrated governance of corruption and integrity, and cultural development. these coordinated efforts will ensure thorough and sustained enforcement of the provisions, providing robust support for party building. keywords spirit of the central eight-point decision, party conduct construction, practical path he central eight-point decision has promoted a “great change” with a “small incision”, opening a new journey of party conduct construction in the new era. over the past decade, party and government conduct has been revitalized, and the unity between the party and the people has been strengthened. the notion that “the eight-point decision has transformed china” has become an indisputable fact. however, we must soberly recognize that the root causes of formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance persist despite superficial changes, with covert and mutated phenomena occasionally emerging. violations of regulations in dining have shifted to hidden venues like “green curtains” and “one-table meals”, while the exchange of gifts and cash has been disguised under new forms such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 42 “courier-delivered gifts” and “digital red envelopes”. formalism and bureaucracy still exist to varying degrees at the grassroots level. these issues remind us that improving conduct is an ongoing process, requiring exploration of more systematic and effective practical approaches to ensure the long-term effectiveness of the ironclad rules and rigid standards established by the eight provisions. 1. the meaning of the central eight-point decision on december 4, 2012, to implement the spirit of the 18th national congress of the communist party of china and champion its fine traditions while strengthening ties with the people, the political bureau of the cpc central committee reviewed and approved the “eight-point decision of the political bureau of the 18th cpc central communist on improving maintaining close ties with the people.” this decision is the first important inner-party regulation formulated since entering the new era. comprising just over 600 characters (excluding detailed provisions), it establishes clear guidelines across eight key areas: enhancing research capabilities, streamlining meetings, reducing official documents, standardizing official visits, improving security protocols, optimizing media coverage, regulating publication standards, and promoting frugality. it profoundly expounds on how the party’s style of work should be carried out in the new era, and serves as the entry point for strengthening and intensifying party governance and discipline. improving investigative research and practicing frugality are fine traditions of the communist party of china, serving as behavioral guidelines that communists must always follow and overarching requirements in party-building practices. by delving into grassroots communities and staying close to the people, we gain authentic understanding of real-world conditions to provide practical foundations for scientific decision-making. embracing thrift and upholding the spirit of hard struggle among communists ensures rational use of limited resources to better serve the people. streamlining meetings, reducing documents and briefings, standardizing official visits, improving security protocols, and strictly regulating publications—all these measures aim to rectify party conduct, meeting culture, and academic ethos, carrying universal significance for party development. this harmonious blend of tradition and modern innovation allows the eight provisions to maintain the party's political essence while infusing new vitality into style-building efforts for the new era. the institutional innovation of the eight-point decision is not only reflected in the rigid constraints on specific behaviors but also in the macro-value orientation transmitted through specific norms. as president xi jinping emphasized: “while implementing the central committee’s eight provisions may seem like minor tasks, they reflect a profound spirit.” (note 2) this represents a transformation from institutional frameworks to ethical principles, addressing critical issues like food waste, corruption in transportation, and unhealthy practices in private clubs, while tackling formalism and bureaucratic excess. the streamlined meeting protocols have fostered pragmatic work styles, while simplified official travel requirements have driven behavioral reforms. these provisions are subtly reshaping the party’s conduct, transforming comprehensive strict governance into an instinctive action for cadres. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 43 “since we have established regulations, we must strive for stricter standards and take real action. superficial or lukewarm measures are empty slogans that fail to deliver results – it would be better not to implement them at all.” (note 3) when the party central committee with comrade at its core formulated the eight-point decision of the central committee, it demonstrated firm resolve to treat these provisions as enduring ironclad rules and rigid benchmarks, determined to see them through with the perseverance of hammering nails. in the new era, the thorough implementation of the spirit of the central eight-point decision has continuously consolidated achievements in work style improvement, providing powerful momentum for the development of the party and the nation’s cause, while establishing a robust defense line for the party’s conduct in the new era. 2. practical paths for implementing the spirit of the central eight-point decision in the new era in the new era, implementing the spirit of the central eight-point decision requires coordinated efforts from multiple aspects, including ideological construction, supervision system, institutional improvement, simultaneous governance of work styles and corruption, and cultural cultivation, and constructing practical paths from multiple dimensions. 2.1 deepening the ideological construction project and consolidating the foundation of work styles thought is the forerunner of action. implementing the spirit of the eight-point decision must start from the source of thought. general secretary xi jinping pointed out: “we should deeply understand the essence of the central eight-point decision, develop the awareness of being cautious at the beginning, being self-disciplined when alone, and being careful with small matters, be able to resist temptations, control small matters, and take every step of life well.” (note 4) to implement targeted education, we must first conduct comprehensive party-wide learning initiatives. key components include integrating general secretary xi jinping's critical discourse on work style improvement, the central committee's eight provisions and their implementation guidelines into theoretical studies and branch-level “the three meetings and one lecture” sessions. by analyzing historical examples of work style development in party history, we clarify the fundamental logic of “why to address these issues,” “what to focus on,” and “how to implement solutions.” concurrently, through centralized learning sessions, thematic seminars, and individual self-study programs, party members and cadres will clearly recognize disciplinary boundaries while gaining a profound understanding that “work style problems are essentially problems of party spirit.” secondly, leveraging digital platforms like “learning power” and the party building app, we deliver bite-sized content such as micro-videos, case analyses, and knowledge quizzes to enable self-directed learning during fragmented time slots. finally, by dynamically updating educational materials and developing customized plans tailored to the actual conditions of party members across different fields and hierarchical levels, we achieve precision education rather than adopting the one-size-fits-all approach. strengthening warning education. first, avoid the “one-size-fits-all” education mode and carry out precise education according to the job risks and high-incidence points of violations of discipline of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 44 different groups. for example, focus on interpreting typical cases of political discipline violations, organizational discipline breaches, and covert manifestations of the four malfeasances among key leadership figures to achieve effective deterrence. for young cadres, combine with their growth characteristics, through forms such as “old leading new” integrity talks, new employee integrity training, and young cadre violation case analysis meetings, fasten the first button of integrity. second, enhance engagement through visits to integrity education bases, viewing warning documentaries, and analyzing real cases. these immersive methods allow cadres to directly perceive the risks behind “a meal” or “a trip,” deepening their understanding of the central eight -point decision. finally, establish a case disclosure mechanism to expose violations, creating a powerful deterrent that reinforces the principle of “deterrence against corruption.” cultivating conscious awareness. integrating learning and education into daily work is key to internalizing the spirit of the central eight-point decision as voluntary actions. first, conduct criticism and self-criticism through special democratic life meetings and organizational activities to identify shortcomings in work style. second, incorporate the implementation of the spirit of the eight-point decision into the whole process of work planning, promotion, and acceptance, deepen the understanding of the central eight-point decision in daily work, and make the construction of work styles a “touchstone” for work quality. third, optimize practical mechanisms like the “challenge list” system to address young cadres' lack of practical experience. focus on addressing prominent work style bottlenecks raised by the public by creating targeted challenge lists, guiding young cadres to hone their work style through hands-on practice and transform disciplinary awareness into voluntary actions. finally, establish benchmarks for practical action. select exemplary models and promote their achievements through storytelling sessions and experience-sharing platforms, providing cadres with role models to learn from and clear guidance to follow. 2.2 constructing a precise supervision system and solving rectification problems “strictness” is the eternal tone of implementing the spirit of the central eight-point decision. only by maintaining a high-pressure posture of supervision and accountability can we make it normal for people to “dare not violate”. constructing an all-round supervision. first, strengthen the leading role of intra-party oversight. clarify supervisory responsibilities for top party officials and leadership teams at all levels; leverage the specialized oversight function of disciplinary inspection agencies to focus on emerging trends and variants of the four malfeasances. implement targeted measures through special inspections, random checks, and cross-checks to swiftly investigate and expose violations, reinforcing deterrence. activate grassroots party organizations’ supervisory “nerve endings” by mobilizing resources like discipline inspection commissioners to closely monitor public receptions, official vehicle usage, and holiday benefits, achieving full coverage. second, build a multi-dimensional supervision system. integrate forces from disciplinary inspection, internal auditing, public oversight, and big data monitoring. target critical periods like holidays and project approvals using a combination of online screening and offline www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 45 investigations to precisely identify and resolve hidden variants of the four malfeasances. third, expand supervision channels. establish a three-dimensional network combining intra-party, public, and media supervision. optimize reporting platforms including letters, visits, online channels, and telephone services. simplify reporting procedures through tools like the “snap-and-speak” platform and government transparency boards, making public oversight a “thousand-mile eye” for detecting misconduct. simultaneously, strictly protect whistleblower information to boost public participation. finally, guide orderly public opinion supervision. support media in objectively exposing typical violations while enhancing verification and feedback of media-supervised leads. refining supervision quantification metrics. first, establish concrete data measurement standards. for key areas such as official receptions, public vehicle usage, and meeting organization, set clear data benchmarks to transform abstract requirements of work style improvement into actionable, traceable, and objectively verifiable metrics. this completely replaces the previous extensive supervision model that relied on subjective perceptions and past experiences, making oversight results more convincing. second, specific quantitative indicators provide clear benchmarks for supervision practices. precise data metrics allow supervisors to have specific reference points during operations, effectively avoiding the inefficiency of “comprehensive coverage without focus.” this reduces implementation difficulties and significantly enhances operational feasibility. finally, data-driven approaches boost supervision effectiveness. by conducting horizontal and vertical comparisons of quantified data across different periods and departments, we can visually demonstrate the achievements and shortcomings in work style improvement. this not only provides objective evidence for precise evaluation of supervision quality but also offers data references for optimizing strategies and improving institutional systems. meanwhile, it's crucial to adhere to scientific and rational principles when setting quantitative indicators, accurately gauging the scale based on actual work conditions to prevent excessive pursuit of data precision from falling into the trap of formalism. innovate technological supervision methods. utilize big data and artificial intelligence to enhance oversight precision, such as screening suspicious courier activities through big data monitoring to effectively combat “courier gift delivery” practices. simultaneously, promote data sharing to break down information barriers between disciplinary inspection departments, tax authorities, and courier companies, enabling automatic early warnings for covert and evolving issues. we will strengthen accountability. we will adhere to the principle of “investigating both cases and leaders”, not only by severely punishing those who violate discipline despite the wind, but also by reviewing whether leading officials have fulfilled their oversight responsibilities, so that failure to fulfill their responsibilities will be questioned and accountability will be strictly enforced. 2.3 subhead improving the institutional guarantee system and strengthening normalization and long-term effectiveness construction of style must rely on the solidification of institutional achievements, build a “system complete and effective” system, and realize the combination of “immediate reform” and “long-term www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 46 establishment”. first, refine targeted institutional regulations. focus on prominent issues like improper banquets and public-funded tourism, introduce new specialized management guidelines, detail supporting systems, and plug regulatory loopholes. second, improve the supervision mechanism with error tolerance and correction. clarify oversight boundaries and fault-tolerant scenarios to ensure both strict investigation of violations and protection of officials' initiative in undertaking work, achieving a balance between supervision constraints and incentive safeguards. additionally, strengthen enforcement rigidity. establish an assessment mechanism for system implementation, incorporating the implementation of the eight provisions into annual evaluations for leadership teams and officials, directly linking it to commendations, promotions, and appointments. simultaneously, promptly issue rectification proposals for identified institutional loopholes, promoting “rectify one case to standardize an area.” enhance supervision of implementation by strictly holding accountable those who discount or circumvent regulations, using rigorous accountability to drive compliance. third, consolidate existing systems. conduct a comprehensive review of scattered regulations across departments and periods, merge duplicate content, revise conflicting clauses, and abolish outdated provisions to prevent inconsistent standards across multiple departments, eliminating execution deviations caused by fragmented or conflicting rules at the source. fourth, improve operational clarity. replace vague terms with specific standards, making it clear what is permissible, prohibited, and how to implement. fifth, establish an execution ledger. implement list-based management of system implementation, regularly compile unit performance data, and provide “point-to-point” reminders for lagging units. finally, build a long-term mechanism to reduce burdens at the grassroots level. we will continue to combat formalism, introduce a “negative list” for documents and meetings, and formulate task lists for grassroots assistance, so that grassroots officials have more time to do practical things. 2.4 promoting the simultaneous investigation and governance of work styles and corruption and cutting off the transmission chain we will continue to promote work style building and the fight against corruption in a coordinated way, and build a governance system that integrates investigation and correction and addresses both symptoms and root causes. first, establish a mechanism for integrated investigation of conduct and corruption. clarify the requirement that disciplinary inspection and supervision authorities “must thoroughly investigate conduct issues when handling corruption cases, and must thoroughly investigate corruption clues when investigating conduct issues,” deeply integrating the rectification of the four malfeasances with investigative work to achieve dual breakthroughs. focus on issues like “taking from superiors” and “exploiting subordinates,” thoroughly investigating underlying corrupt practices such as political-business collusion and interest exchange to sever the intertwined chains of conduct and corruption. second, strengthen collaborative governance capabilities. establish a coordination mechanism among disciplinary inspection, auditing, and finance departments to form synergy in fund www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 47 supervision and clue transfer. deepen case-driven reforms to address institutional loopholes exposed by cases, prompting relevant departments to strengthen shortcomings and curb interest transfers. finally, reinforce primary responsibility. urge party committees (party groups) at all levels to shoulder the primary responsibility for conduct improvement, incorporating integrated investigation and governance of conduct and corruption into the list of responsibilities for comprehensive strict governance of the party. establish a “dual accountability” mechanism for leadership team members, strictly holding accountable those who fail to manage or overlook conduct issues in their respective fields, thereby forming a cohesive governance force. 2.5 cultivating a clean culture system and nurturing a clean and upright atmosphere in the final analysis, style building depends on cultural infiltration. we should build a clean culture system that “values integrity and thrift, and strives for good”, so as to correct and establish both. first, we must carry forward the party’s fine traditions of hard struggle and thrift. through party history education programs featuring scenario-based courses and field studies, we can explore the experience of style-building from revolutionary predecessors, enabling party members and cadres to draw nourishment and ensuring these traditions are passed down through generations. organizing diverse theme activities will help government agencies embrace disciplined living. second, we should establish a culture of integrity. by creating dedicated columns on wechat official accounts and websites, interactive q&a sessions and online quizzes can enhance communication effectiveness. offline educational bases should be developed to transform typical cases into warning materials, reinforcing deterrent effects. finally, we need to guide social ethos transformation. leveraging the exemplary role of party members and cadres, we should foster a virtuous society embracing frugality and moral integrity. we must address unhealthy practices like competitive gift-giving and extravagant waste, extending these achievements into family education and cultural development. through the exemplary conduct of party members and cadres in family ethics, we can drive improvements in social customs and public morals. the implementation of the spirit of the central eight provisions is a vivid practice of comprehensive and strict party governance in the new era, demonstrating the cpc central committee's firm determination that “to forge iron, one must be hard oneself”. the improvement of work style is an ongoing process. only through in-depth study and education and continuous refinement of practical approaches can the spirit of the eight provisions take root and the party's conduct and government ethics continue to improve. in this new era and journey, we must follow the guidance of the eight provisions, focusing on consistency and longevity, rigor and practicality, depth and meticulousness. we will continuously polish the “golden card” of work style improvement, uphold our original aspirations and missions, courageously shoulder responsibilities, and harness excellent conduct to gather powerful momentum for advancing the cause of the party and the nation. this will provide a robust ethical guarantee for comprehensively building a modern socialist country and advancing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, striving to realize the dream of national rejuvenation! www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 48 note(s) note 1. edited by the institute of party history and literature of the central committee of the communist party of china. a compilation of discourses on improving party conduct by xi jinping, beijing: central literature publishing house, 2025,70. note 2. edited by the institute of party history and literature of the central committee of the communist party of china. a compilation of discourses on improving party conduct by xi jinping, beijing: central literature publishing house, 2025,67. note 3. edited by the institute of party history and literature of the central committee of the communist party of china. a compilation of excerpts of xi jinping’s discourses on ecercising rule-based governance over the party, beijing: central literature publishing house, 2022,111. note 4. edited by the institute of party history and literature of the central committee of the communist party of china. on the party’s work concerning youth, beijing: central literature publishing house, 2022, 39. junshu tao1* 1 master of party history major of shandong provin abstract the eight-point decision on improving party and go keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 106 original paper an exploration of the practice path of party building and business integration in higher vocational colleges—a case study of the teaching branch of the college of tea and food science and technology in jiangsu polytechnic of agriculture and forestry wang chong1, chen fanxue*, cao zheng2, xie chunqin3 & zhang xuesong4 1 jiangsu vocational college of agriculture and forestry, 212400, jurong city, jiangsu province, china 2 jiangsu vocational college of agriculture and forestry, 212400, jurong city, jiangsu province, china 3 jiangsu vocational college of agriculture and forestry, 212400, jurong city, jiangsu province, china 4 jiangsu vocational college of agriculture and forestry, 212400, jurong city, jiangsu province, china * chen fanxue, corresponding author, jiangsu vocational college of agriculture and forestry, 212400, jurong city, jiangsu province, china received: august 19, 2023 accepted: october 11, 2023 online published: october 27, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p106 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p106 project number: 2021nldj-yb14 a study on the deep integration of party construction and business work in the party branch of teachers of school-level party building subject—a case study of the teaching branch of tea and food college abstract the party branch of teachers in higher vocational colleges needs to correctly understand the dialectical relationship between party building and business work. at present, the phenomenon of emphasizing business over party building is still a prominent problem in the integration of the two. this paper sorted out the problems and current situation in the process of party construction and business integration in the party branch of grass-roots teachers, analyzed the specific reasons, and introduced the exploration of the party branch in promoting the integration of party construction and business work in combination with the practice of the school of tea and food science and technology of jiangsu agriculture and forestry vocational and technical college. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 107 published by scholink inc. keywords higher vocational colleges, party building, business, merge 1. background the grass-roots party organization of higher vocational colleges is the cornerstone of implementing the party’s educational policy, shouldering the sacred mission of educating talents and people, and is an important force to promote the “three full education”. under the general requirements of party building in the new period, the integration of party building and education and teaching business in higher vocational colleges has become a general trend, which is not only the requirement of implementing the task of party building, but also the realistic need of higher vocational colleges to deal with new problems and challenges. it is very important to give full play to the mutual promoting effect of grassroots party building and business work. by practicing the hard work attitude of both hands, the separation of party building work and business work can be avoided, the problem of “two skins” and “generalization” can be eliminated, and the improvement and promotion of both sides can be truly realized. 2. the significance of deep integration of grassroots party building and business work in higher vocational colleges 2.1 practical needs for implementing the fundamental task of lide and cultivating people we should closely combine the characteristics of students and their own school-running characteristics, and carry out various work around the education concept of “moral cultivation and cultivation”. in this process, the party building work should play a political leading role, work in the same direction as the business work, integrate development, and achieve overall consideration and integration. higher vocational colleges should carry out a comprehensive reform in the curriculum, teaching methods, practical activities and so on, and pay attention to cultivating students’ moral quality and social responsibility. at the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of teachers, improve teachers’ political consciousness and education and teaching ability, and ensure the effective implementation of moral cultivation. in addition, higher vocational colleges should also strengthen cooperation with enterprises and social organizations, build a platform for school-enterprise cooperation, provide opportunities for students to practice, help them apply what they have learned to practical work, and cultivate their vocational skills and moral qualities. 2.2 the inevitable requirements for promoting the high-quality development of school undertakings the party building work is an important pillar of the development of higher vocational colleges, which can promote the connotation construction and characteristic development of higher vocational colleges through the close combination with business work. the party building work can lead the development direction of higher vocational colleges, promote the reform and innovation of schools, and improve the level and influence of schools. at the same time, through the deep integration with the business work, it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. can promote the close contact between higher vocational colleges and the society, strengthen the cooperation between industry, university and research, promote the cooperation between schools and enterprises, and enhance the service ability and social influence of higher vocational colleges. 2.3 the inevitable choice to improve education quality party building plays an important role in higher vocational colleges. through close combination with business work, we can integrate the party’s fine tradition and advanced concepts into the whole process of education and teaching, so as to cultivate outstanding talents with correct world outlook, outlook on life and values. at the same time, the party building work can also promote the construction of teachers, guide teachers to actively participate in business work, and strive to improve the level of teaching and education and teaching quality. through such efforts, we can train more well-developed socialist builders and successors for the country. 2.4 powerful ways to improve the effectiveness of grassroots party building work in order to comprehensively improve the effectiveness of grass-roots party building work, we must closely focus on the central work of the party, deeply promote the integration of party building work and business work, and constantly improve the cohesion, combat effectiveness and creativity of the party’s grass-roots organizations. for example, we should strengthen the construction of party members, select excellent party members and cadres to take leading positions in primary-level party organizations, improve the political quality and professional ability of party members, and ensure that primary-level party organizations play a core role in all work. in addition, make full use of modern information technology means, such as the internet, big data, etc., to promote the party building work with the times, improve the scientific and standardized level of party building work. through the combination of online and offline, broaden the coverage of party building work and improve the effectiveness of party building work. 3. dialectical relationship between party building work and business work in higher vocational colleges the dialectical relationship between party building work and business work is an important topic. in higher vocational colleges, party building and business work complement each other, and party building is an important part of the school, which aims to strengthen the party’s organizational construction, ideological construction, style construction and system construction, and promote the development and progress of the school. business work is the core task of the school, which involves teaching, scientific research, social services and other aspects, and directly relates to the quality and reputation of the school. first of all, the party building work has an important guiding role for the business work of higher vocational colleges. the party organizations of higher vocational colleges should strengthen the leadership and guidance of the business work, and ensure that the teaching, scientific research and social service work of higher vocational colleges are in line with the party’s principles and policies and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. the national development strategy. secondly, business work is also of great significance to the party building work of higher vocational colleges. the professional work of higher vocational colleges is the concrete embodiment of the important tasks of the party, and an important way to realize the party’s educational policy and train the socialist builders and successors. through business work, students’ comprehensive quality and innovative ability can be cultivated to provide talent support for the development of the country. finally, there should be positive interaction between party building work and business work in higher vocational colleges. the party building work should be closely related to the reality, combined with the business work, and jointly promote the development of higher vocational colleges. party organizations should strengthen the supervision and evaluation of business work to ensure the smooth progress of business work. in short, there is a dialectical relationship between party building work and business work in higher vocational colleges. only by giving full play to the guiding role of party building and the importance of business work, and realizing the positive interaction between the two, can the development and progress of higher vocational colleges be better promoted. 4. problems and current situation 4.1 lack of understanding between teachers and students some leading cadres have insufficient understanding of the necessity of deep integration of grassroots party building and business work in higher vocational colleges. they did not form a “chess” thinking, did not organically combine party building work with business work, and did not think enough in terms of overall planning and integrated development. some workers’ theoretical learning is out of touch with practice, and they fail to give full play to the vanguard role of party members. 4.2 party building work and business work are not well integrated according to the regulations on the work of grass-roots organizations of the communist party of china and state organs, the performance of party affairs personnel should be an important reference factor in the annual assessment and evaluation of cadres. however, at present, the party branch of teachers in domestic higher vocational colleges is composed of teachers engaged in teaching, scientific research, management and other front-line work, but the party secretary and members often bear dual responsibilities, it is difficult to find the combination of party building work and business work, resulting in the phenomenon of “two skins” of party building and business work in some units. 4.3 the assessment content is not easy to quantify in recent years, china’s higher vocational colleges have formulated personnel assessment plans, but in terms of party construction, the main concern is the work and discipline construction of the grass-roots party committee (general party branch). these assessment programs are mainly aimed at the party organization level of departments, organs, and directly affiliated units, and have not yet involved the assessment rules at the party branch level. the party building work involves a large number of personnel, so it is difficult to formulate a unified assessment standard. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. 4.4 not accurate grasp of the binding point the complexity of grass-roots business work makes it easy to appear in the process of integration with the party building work. when carrying out party building work, some party organizations only adopt a simple learning mode, lack overall planning and innovative thinking, and fail to actively seek the integration point with professional construction. in addition, the grass-roots party workers in higher vocational colleges usually assume multiple responsibilities, in addition to the party work there are a lot of daily work, their professionalism is relatively weak, limited energy, the grasp of the combination is not accurate enough. 4.5 the integration working mechanism is not perfect from the perspective of the education and management mechanism of party members, there is a lack of management and supervision of their daily business work, and the study of political theory is not combined with the study of professional knowledge and the improvement of scientific research ability. in organizational life, innovation is not enough, and theoretical learning and themed party day activities integrated with business work are less carried out. from the perspective of assessment incentive mechanism, there are certain barriers, the party building and business assessment authorities are different, the content is not linked to each other, the results are not affected, and the assessment lacks quantitative indicators. 5. establish a practical path for the integration of grassroots party building work and business work in higher vocational colleges 5.1 explore ideas for the deep integration of party building and business work 5.1.1 strengthen organizational leadership and mechanism innovation establish and improve the organizational and leadership mechanism for the integration of party building and business work, and clarify the division of responsibilities and work objectives. set up a special working group for the integration of party building and business work, composed of relevant leaders and key party members, responsible for coordinating and promoting the work. 5.1.2 innovative education and training models formulate and implement the party building training plan for teaching staff to improve the party spirit cultivation and professional level of party members. combined with the actual needs of business work, carry out professional knowledge training and skills upgrading of party members’ teaching staff, and improve the level of business work. 5.1.3 integrate resources, build and share platforms a co-construction and sharing platform for the integration of party building and business work should be established within higher vocational colleges to provide opportunities for exchange and sharing of resources. make use of existing academic seminars, business training and other activities to organize the penetration and publicity of party building content. 5.1.4 strengthen the leading role of party building www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. inject party building elements into the business work, such as organizing and carrying out business exchange meetings and study groups of party members, and strengthen the leading role of party building. establish an evaluation mechanism for party building work and business work, and encourage party members and teachers to actively participate in the integration of party building and business work. 5.1.5 strengthen the publicity and promotion of party building and business work make propaganda materials, introduce the achievements and experience of the integration of party building and business work, and improve the enthusiasm of party members and teachers to participate. the use of vocational college media platforms, campus tv stations and other channels to publicize the good and good people of the integration of party building and business work, and set a typical example. 5.1.6 strengthen the evaluation and improvement of party building and business work establish an evaluation index system for the integration of party building and business work, and regularly evaluate and feedback on the integration of party building and business work. according to the evaluation results, timely adjust and improve the ways and methods of the integration of party building and business work, and improve work efficiency and effectiveness. 5.2 practical exploration of the deep integration of party building and business work the teaching and staff branch of the college of tea and food science and technology closely focuses on the key links and key difficulties of the integration and promotion of grassroots party building and business work, and explores the practical path of promoting high-quality development with high-quality party building. 5.2.1 identify the relationship and positioning between teachers’ party building and business first of all, we need to clarify the positioning of the party building work of the teachers’ party branch, that is, the party building work provides political guarantee, organizational guarantee and ideological guarantee for the teachers’ professional work. on the basis of this position, the party building work of teachers should further strengthen its four functions in the professional work of the party branch of teachers in higher vocational colleges. first, political guidance and guarantee. the teachers’ party branch shall ensure that all business work is in line with the party’s line, principles, and policies, and is consistent with the interests of the party, the state, and the people. second, build the platform. the teachers’ party branch takes party building as the medium to build a platform between the school party committee, the general party branch and the teachers’ branch, providing a matchmaking channel and a platform for teachers’ teaching development, scientific innovation, industry-university-research cooperation and school-enterprise cooperation. third, resource integration. the party branch of teachers should have a deep understanding of the needs of teachers and students, and integrate various equipment resources, human resources, and financial resources for their business development and talent training. fourth, other service support. the teachers’ party branch should also carry out relevant business work in depth for the teachers of higher vocational colleges and provide liaison services, information services and system guarantees for the cooperation between higher vocational colleges and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. other enterprises and institutions. the teachers and students majoring in food nutrition and testing of the school of tea and food actively take advantage of labor education activities and closely combine their professional expertise to conduct rapid food safety testing for the school canteen, and provide physical testing services for the whole school. this initiative fully reflects the close combination of party building and business, and organically integrates professional knowledge and service for the people. by carrying out rapid food safety testing, professional teachers and students give full play to their professional advantages. they use the knowledge of food nutrition and testing to accurately evaluate the safety and hygiene of food in the canteen, providing a reliable guarantee for the whole school. this not only improves the professional ability of students, but also provides strong support for the food safety management of the school canteen, and further enhances the confidence of school teachers and students in the canteen food. at the same time, professional teachers and students also actively participate in physical testing services to provide personalized health assessment and advice for the whole school. this characteristic of the integration of party building and business is reflected in the fact that professional teachers and students combine their knowledge with social needs through practical activities to provide valuable services for school teachers and students. this closely integrated approach not only helps to improve the comprehensive ability and professional quality of professional teachers and students, but also fully demonstrates the guiding role of the college’s party building work. 5.2.2 improve the organizing function of the basic branch of teaching staff in order to improve the organizational function of the basic branch of teaching staff, we need to build a high-quality organizational work system to ensure the party’s overall leadership of the work of higher vocational colleges. under the active promotion of the general party branch of the college, the tea school established a professional order class model through research and cooperation with enterprises. at the same time, the head of the department serves as the secretary of the teaching branch, actively undertakes the reform of education and teaching, and promotes the organic combination of party construction and business work. first of all, give full play to the leading role of party building, guide the party’s theory in teaching practice, help students deeply understand the party’s propositions, improve political consciousness and ideological quality, so that they not only have excellent professional ability in professional learning, but also have good ideological and moral cultivation. secondly, by establishing a professional order class model, we provide students with practical training opportunities, so that they can better apply the knowledge in practical work. at the same time, we also pay attention to the organic combination of party building and professional knowledge, so that students can feel the role of party building in promoting career development while learning professionally, and enhance their belief in the party and responsibility for society. finally, in the formation of the teaching team and the teaching ability competition, we pay attention to the cultivation of teachers’ party spirit and teaching level, and constantly improve the teaching quality through communication and competition with peers. this not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. only has a positive impact on the improvement of students’ grades, but also sets an example for students and inspires them to learn and work hard. 5.2.3 pulse of the integration of quasi-business and party building for the integration of party building and teachers’ work, we can start from the main responsibilities of teachers’ work, find a breakthrough point, and promote the deep integration of party building and business work. first, ideological and political education model: in the teaching of ideological and political courses, innovative teaching methods, with the help of various learning platforms and we-media means, the social practice, innovation and entrepreneurship, management and political services integrating party building and ideological and political elements into the practice of ideological and political courses, to enhance the fun, affinity and cohesion of ideological and political courses. second, scientific research model: the party organization can provide political guidance and political guarantee for the school-enterprise cooperation and the integration of industry, university and research, make a bridge for it, provide a platform and support, and promote the deep integration of party building and scientific research. third, special work mode: combine the party building work with the special work of the college, such as shenshuo project, double creation education project, etc. fourth, social service mode: party organizations can lead teachers to participate in local economic and social service work, such as carrying out social practice activities, providing professional consultation, etc., and enhance teachers’ sense of social responsibility and service awareness through party building work. in addition, we should continue to innovate integration methods, find more suitable entry points according to the characteristics and needs of each department, and promote the organic combination of party building work and teachers’ work to achieve common development. 5.2.4 strengthen coordinated supervision and assessment of grassroots party building and business work in order to achieve the simultaneous assessment of party building work and business work and the effect of promoting development, the following measures can be taken: first, improve the target management assessment index system of party building work, establish clear assessment indicators and standards, and focus on the process assessment of party building work. second, strengthen daily supervision and inspection, conduct regular supervision and evaluation of the party building work of grass-roots party organizations, and further consolidate the foundation of party building. third, strengthen the application of the party building assessment results, and combine the assessment results with the reward and punishment mechanism. according to the actual situation of the party building work, the corresponding assessment plan is formulated, and the assessment results are rewarded and punished, and party organizations and teachers are encouraged to be positive in the party building work. fourth, strengthen the study and transformation work of the backward grass-roots party organizations, and improve the party building level of the backward party organizations through training and exchange learning, so that they can gradually reach the same level. fifth, the results of the party building assessment will be linked to the evaluation of the first, the evaluation of teacher titles, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 114 published by scholink inc. employment of posts, etc., to ensure that the actual effect of the party building work is recognized and valued. sixth, adhere to the principle of classification assessment and competition within the class, and establish a scientific, reasonable, standardized, qualitative and quantitative assessment system. 5.2.5 explore new models for grassroots party building and business work in order to achieve the depth of grassroots party building and business work, first, strengthen organizational construction: establish and improve grassroots party organizations in higher vocational colleges, improve organizational structure, optimize the structure of party members, and enhance the organizational force and cohesion of party organizations. at the same time, strengthen the training and learning of teachers of party members, improve the quality and ability of party members. second, improve the working mechanism: establish a working mechanism for the deep integration of party building work and business work, clarify the division of responsibilities, strengthen cooperation and cooperation, and form a joint force. for example, it is possible to establish a joint meeting system for party building work and business work, carry out regular work exchanges and coordination, and promote the organic combination of the two sides’ work. third, strengthen information construction: the use of modern information technology means to establish an information sharing platform for party building work and business work to achieve timely transmission and exchange of information. for example, artificial intelligence is used to promote the integration of party building and business, including intelligent party building guidance, intelligent business management, data-driven decision-making, and the production of intelligent teaching systems, so as to cultivate talents with more innovative ability and practical ability. 6. conclusion the key to the integration of party building and business work is to focus on the central work of higher vocational colleges and serve the overall situation. first of all, it is necessary to clarify the positioning and role of party building in higher vocational colleges, and combine the party building work with the central task of higher vocational colleges. at the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the coordinated promotion of party building work and business work to ensure that the work of both sides is carried out simultaneously. thirdly, we should pay attention to the innovation and practice of party building work, and constantly improve the quality and effect of party building work [6]. finally, it is necessary to strengthen the publicity and guidance of the integration of party building work and business work, and enhance the sense of identity and belonging of teachers and students. in short, the integration of party building and business work is an important part of the party building work in higher vocational colleges in the new era, and higher vocational colleges should strengthen the deep integration of grassroots party building and business work to provide a strong guarantee for the high-quality development of vocational education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 115 published by scholink inc. references bearing in mind the leader’s exhortation, “fly on both wings.” (n.d.). in promoting economic and social development of a comprehensive green transformation in achieving high quality development. retrieved from http://www.sasac.gov.cn/n2588020/n2877938/n2879671/n2879673/c26631483/content.html guo, j. j. (2018). the challenge for the new time party building work in state-owned enterprises and countermeasures. https://www.fx361.com/page/2018/0928/4305143.shtml state-owned assets supervision and administration commission of the state council. central enterprises high-quality development report. (2022). enterprise sub-report 11: the central committee of the communist party of china issued by the china communist party and state organs grass-roots organizations working regulations [eb/ol]. (2020). http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2020-01/05/content_5466685.htm those things in the vocational college circle. (n.d.). guizhou university for nationalities to hold the first ideological teaching competition final [eb/ol]. http://gz.people.com.cn/n2/2021/0529/c399286-34751534.html trouble. (2016). coagulation heart cohesion arouse the enthusiasm for national high-end think-tank pilot construction. http://www.p5w.net/news/gncj/201606/t20160628_1499203.htm zhang, j. q., & qiu, x. l. (2022). research on the in-depth integration of party construction and business development of the party branch of grassroots teachers in higher vocational colleges: a case study of agricultural economics and management college of liaoning agricultural vocational and technical college. journal of liaoning agricultural vocational and technical college, 24(1), 20-22 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 57 original paper design education under the influence of artificial intelligence new paradigm ye hou1, jiaqi liu2* jingjing zhuang3, & jie zhu4 1234 guangdong university of finance and economics, guangzhou, china * 913298208@qq.com; phone +86 13542582505 received: february 19, 2025 accepted: march 16, 2025 online published: march 26, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p57 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p57 abstracts with the evolution of ai technology from computational intelligence to cognitive intelligence, and the rapid development of generative tools and multimodal models, design education is undergoing profound changes in curriculum systems, teaching methods, and industrial ecology. this study explores the impact of ai technology on design education and discusses the future development direction of design education. the research indicates that ai promotes educational model innovation through technological empowerment, curriculum restructuring, and industrial drive. in the future, design education needs to balance technological application with humanistic values, build an "ai-native" educational ecosystem, and cultivate full-chain creative talents who possess both intelligent literacy and critical thinking, in order to meet the new industrial landscape and social demands of the ai era. keywords artificial intelligence, design industry, design education, paradigm restructuring 1. introduction 1.1 the age of artificial intelligence now, the underlying technology and industrial ecology of aigc have formed a new pattern.the concept of artificial intelligence was proposed in the summer academic seminar held by dartmouth college in 1956. in more than half a century, with the continuous development of digital technology, communication technology and hardware carriers, it has gradually developed from "computational intelligence" and "perceptual intelligence" to "cognitive intelligence". the emergence of a series of aicg models such as chatgpt has brought the masses into a new era of artificial intelligence from passive to generative. aigc is generative artificial intelligence, also known as the new generation of artificial intelligence, is an important sign of artificial intelligence from 1.0 to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 58 2.0 stage, its core pillars are "data", "algorithm" and "computing power".this study aims to analyze how ai technology is driving the evolution of china's design education ecosystem, and based on this, propose strategies for design education when facing challenges in the ai era. 1.2 national strategic position of artificial intelligence the end of the first decade of the 21st century is a period in which ai has gradually gained a national strategic position in the world. 2009, the european union launched the "blue brain program". the u.s. department of defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) has been supporting the development of artificial intelligence since 2010. and japan have respectively formulated corresponding plans as well. in july 2017, the china state council issued the new generation of artificial intelligence development plan. china has transformed from a follower to a leader in the field of ai.at present, china's artificial intelligence development has gradually come to the forefront of the times. the "2024 china ai large model scene exploration and industry application research report" jointly released by shenzhen prospective industry research institute, shougang fund canplus and huawei cloud shows that the scale of china's ai large model industry has reached 14.7 billion yuan in 2023 and has shown high growth.at the sixth world conference on artificial intelligence and high-level conference on global governance of artificial intelligence in july 2024, china's advocacy resolution in the field of artificial intelligence was adopted by the un general assembly. 2. the new form of design in the eraof artificial intelligence observing the progress of human civilization and the evolution of design, the development of design can be divided into five major periods: the period of handicrafts, the period of the first industrial revolution, the period of the second industrial revolution, the arrival of the information age and finally the new era of artificial intelligence design. it can be said that the current artificial intelligence has given birth to art forms, design processes and industrial patterns across generations. 2.1 spawning new art forms digital art, interactive art, and artificial intelligence art have also become new art forms. artificial intelligence art is also known as generative art, in which some or all of them use techniques such as computer vision , natural language processing , digital image processing, convolutional neural networks , and generative adversarial networks to create art (generative ai research on : "course special yu yukizawa: art in this era", 2024). as early as 1973, british artist harold cohen created aaron, a computer program capable of creating art on its own, which does not require manual input of commands and is able to draw abstract closed shapes by virtue of its own learning ability. 2.2 development of virtual reality applications virtual reality (vr) is a simulated three-dimensional space constructed through a computer program that provides a highly interactive environment that allows users to communicate and operate intuitively. according to different technical characteristics and application scenarios, virtual reality systems can be javascript:void(0); www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 59 categorized into augmented reality (ar), mixed reality (mr) and extended reality (xr). virtual reality technology has also driven the development of digital people, meta-universes capable of virtual twins. meta-universe is a virtual world that integrates various technologies such as virtual reality (vr), augmented reality (ar), blockchain, and artificial intelligence. in this world, users can interact with other users through digital identity and perform various activities such as socializing, working, and entertainment. at present, the digital person and meta-universe technologies have generated more application scenarios. such as shanghai university, professor jiang fei tried to use digital people and other students interested in the secondary as a stand-in for classes and improve the experience of virtual reality teaching. 2.3 aigc's multidimensional intervention in design a variety of aigc models continue to disrupt people's traditional perception of design, and have a great impact on design activities.aigc models mainly include two kinds, one is the language generation class such as newbing, chatgpt, claude, etc., which generates text content in the form of questions and answers,. the other is the visual generation category, such as midjourney, stable diffusion, and other image generation tools.2024 the release of sora further shook up the video generation field. from the design of the generation method can be divided into "text-to-diagram", "diagram-to-diagram" and so on. artificial intelligence replaces designers to do the complicated bottom work, so that designers have more energy to devote to creative planning and program optimization. the content provided by aigc can generate creative sparks that break through the inherent stereotypes, effectively expand the design boundary, and quickly generate personalized design solutions according to the characteristics and needs of different users. aigc can greatly improve the design efficiency. first of all, aigc can be a powerful assistant for designers to brainstorm in the idea generation process. secondly, in the design optimization and program iteration process, the designer will input the pre-determined creative solutions into the aigc model with optimization suggestions, and the aigc model will automatically fine-tune the original design according to the feedback, which greatly improves the modification efficiency. 3. a new paradigm for design education under the influence of artificial intelligence design education in china began with a new type of school education that emerged between the late qing dynasty and the early years of the republic of china. 1978, mr. yin dingbang introduced the advanced design education system of japan and hong kong to the mainland, laying the foundation for the reform of modern design education in china's undergraduate colleges and universities (hong, w., & hong, w. d., 2022), based on which the modern design education has gradually developed. after the expansion of design majors in 1999, the scale of modern design education in china has expanded very rapidly (li, 2022), and the increasing tension of educational resources and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 imbalance of teacher-student ratio have led to the reduction of the quality of design education.and design education lags behind the speed of social and economic development and the actual needs of industrial transformation and upgrading. the development of design discipline is also criticized by teaching methods that are not conducive to the cultivation of innovative ability, course content is out of line with market demand, (zhu, 2024) and it has become a weak link in the domestic talent training system. therefore, how to make design education meet the opportunities and challenges brought by the explosion of technology in the context of today's artificial intelligence, and cultivate new design talents to meet the needs of society and the development of the times is an important topic. 3.1 review of research on artificial intelligence and design education artificial intelligence and design education have also become a hot research topic in recent years. cnki (china national knowledge infrastructure) as the source of basic data, as of january 2024, a total of 402 results were searched with "artificial intelligence design education" or "ai" design education as the theme. the 402 results were imported into citespace for keyword visualization analysis (figure 1), and the keywords were clustered for visualization analysis (figure 2). from the citespace analysis results, it is known that ai design education is the first to play a role in the field of pedagogical reform and pedagogical design, and has been used in the field of pedagogical reform, artificial intelligence, robotics, pedagogical design, design education, intelligent education in the past two years, learning, curriculum design, and educational system design, which are the nine keywords clustered to exert a more average influence. fu and zhou (2017) believe that with the development of artificial intelligence, the knowledge and skills in the fields of computational thinking and brain cognitive science are being integrated into the design discipline to form a new methodology, and colleges and universities should provide design students with courses related to computational thinking, and master the way of thinking and realization tools in the age of intelligence. xu (2019) proposed that the penetration of artwork appreciation and design research should be strengthened, and a network platform for teacher-student interaction should be constructed. guo (2020) analyzed the role of "5g+ai" technology in the practice of industrial design education, and proposed that design teaching based on virtual space improves teaching effectiveness. he and chen (2023) proposed updating the teaching content and curriculum, adopting practice-oriented teaching methods, and cultivating innovative thinking and critical thinking to cope with the changes of the times. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/author/detail?v=0ujvuxkiqrtqy4y0ho4se0_wvdui7tmxh07txcattgtz7l_b4bfzzoznpovzbrqm0iajrnr-n_sov5ptt1ku4fwi0hqp3p5hiqmjfxs-pty=&uniplatform=nzkpt https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/author/detail?v=0ujvuxkiqrtqy4y0ho4se0_wvdui7tmxgq4fkckgjmbtfk8avo1wod98cvhwqvn8e42puw3lxc0csyyjuughbcu-_ax66i6stsozbppcobs=&uniplatform=nzkpt www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 61 figure 1. citespace keyword analysis figure 2. citespace keyword clustering timelineanalysis 3.2 reinventing the traditional design education paradigm under artificial intelligence speakers artificial intelligence is promoting the deep integration of the internet, big data, virtual reality and other emerging information technology and design education, and will further reshape and recreate the ecology of design education, the current design disciplines in the field of scope, talent training paradigm, teaching methods and means have significant changes. 3.2.1 ecological reconstruction of traditional design discipline fields design is originally a highly interdisciplinary discipline. in the context of the ministry of education's proposal of new liberal arts and new engineering disciplines to promote the development of cross-disciplinary subjects, the interdisciplinary nature of design has been further strengthened. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 2022 the catalogue of disciplines and specialties of graduate education published in september has made significant structural adjustments to the "design" disciplines. in the new version of the catalog, "design" is not only explicitly mentioned in the first-level discipline of art under the discipline of art, but also the professional degree of "design" has been newly established in the discipline of art; in addition, the first-level discipline of design has been set up under the newly established cross-disciplinary discipline. the discipline of design has also been set up under the newly established cross-disciplinary category. this "division of a field into three" shows that the cross-disciplinary attributes of the design discipline across arts, sciences, engineering and arts have been clearly defined. intelligent technology provides unlimited possibilities for the cross-disciplinary development of design across specialties, disciplines and fields. in recent years colleges and universities at home and abroad have begun to build their own ai interdisciplinary systems, establish ai laboratories and so on, and have opened new majors at the intersection of design and ai.such as the royal college of art and other universities have launched joint training programs such as global innovation design (gid), information experience design (ied), and innovation design engineering (ide). and in 2009, tsinghua university academy of fine arts, in cooperation with the department of computer science and the school of journalism, launched a master's degree program in "information art and design interdisciplinary", than established a cross-disciplinary program in "intelligent engineering and creative design (cdie)". 3.2.2 designing a new paradigm shift in talent development the social needs and industrial evolution in the intelligent era are constantly upgrading and changing on a monthly and yearly cycle, requiring intelligent education and learning methods to match. the traditional way of design education, which is mainly based on knowledge transfer and skill exercise, needs to be updated urgently. design education is also facing a strong need to shift from the old paradigm to the new paradigm. since china's design education was born out of fine arts and arts and crafts education, design education based on skills and results is deeply rooted. if the cultivation of skilled and professional design talents is adapted to the needs of the industrial era, then entering the digital and intelligent era, aigc's rapid entry into the market with its low cost, low threshold, high efficiency, and high quality has pushed the current design education to change. the knowledge system of design in the era of artificial intelligence is a new type of knowledge system that aims to cultivate design talents with the whole chain by shaping them. in the context of the rapidly changing era of artificial intelligence, design tools, design objects, design goals, and the scope of design have experienced significant changes. the single knowledge and skills valued by traditional artifact-making or visual design can hardly solve the complex digital and virtualized survival needs of the modern society nowadays (chen & lu, 2025), and the design is constantly transformed to cross-border big design and intelligent design. the original traditional knowledge map and system of design colleges need to be updated, evolved and redefined in order to cultivate full-chain creative talents in the new liberal arts of design. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 63 in the construction of the knowledge system of design education, not only is the mastery of the whole chain of creative knowledge system of the new liberal arts necessary, but the design tools under the intervention of artificial intelligence have also become the foundation of the emerging necessary knowledge system (table 1). this requires students to learn and master various ai tools and integrate them into the design process. this includes not only using existing ai systems, but also understanding the underlying algorithms and principles. courses and teaching materials related to ai design have become essential elements in the construction of design disciplines in order to cultivate students' intelligent and innovative design capabilities and design modeling abilities. for example, in 2020, the "artificial intelligence and innovative design" course of the university of science and technology beijing was launched on the mucou platform, and in 2024, textbooks such as "essential ai architecture" and "digital architecture" were published. these textbooks focus on the innovative applications and future trends of ai in the field of building design. further, the knowledge base of science and technology has also become a need for future designers to have an interdisciplinary knowledge base, including computer science, material science, robotics, and so on. in order to cultivate a good designer, it is not only necessary to cultivate his understanding of philosophical theories, but also to cultivate his ability to develop tools. table 1. design ai courses offered by universities in recent years design ai courses offered by universities in recent years universities (colleges) course name/program tongji university (school of software, school of design and creativity) intelligent design course, algorithm design, machine learning theory and applications, principles of artificial intelligence, advanced computer graphics donghua university (institute of artificial intelligence, school of textiles, school of fashion and art design) intelligent interaction design, artificial intelligence aided design, fashion technology and functional apparel design, introduction to artificial intelligence technology for textile and clothing majors, introduction to intelligent systems, fundamentals and applications of industrial intelligence beijing institute of technology (school of design and art) artificial intelligence and design course, image visual language and generative analysis jiangnan university (school of design) intelligent design course, intelligent product design fundamentals, intelligent technology fundamentals guangzhou academy of fine arts intelligent design orientation course, introduction to artificial intelligence, fundamentals of artificial intelligence university of science and artificial intelligence and innovation design, virtual simulation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 technology beijing (school of intelligent science and technology) practice teaching of artificial intelligence and innovation design for driverless vehicles shanghai jiao tong university (school of design) artificial intelligence, intelligent design tsinghua university (academy of fine arts) artificial intelligence applications, artificial intelligence: principles and techniques, parametric design and artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence industry guide, intelligent space design central academy of fine arts art of artificial intelligence, metaverse solving experience design, metaverse clutch + ai (artificial intelligence) training ground design, ethics of future technology art of artificial intelligence, art of technology sichuan fine arts institute intelligent interaction art, intelligent product usability and evaluation xi'an academy of fine arts intelligent product design, introduction to artificial intelligence lu xun academy of fine arts intelligent visual design tianjin academy of fine arts intelligent product design hubei academy of fine arts intelligent interactive art nanjing university, nju artificial intelligence general studies, artificial intelligence literacy course huazhong university of science and technology artificial intelligence (ai) shandong academy of arts and crafts artificial intelligence and creative design, introduction to artificial intelligence, aigc intelligent generative art, intelligent generative fundamentals, aigc applications jingdezhen ceramic university smart home product design, artificial intelligence and art, digital design (intelligent media and interaction), ai artistic expression, intelligent product design wuhan institute of technology intelligent design tool development china academy of art ai movie course, ai drawing course soochow university the perfect combination of art and technology creative design of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 65 (school of textile and clothing engineering) smart clothing and smart wear: the fusion of technology and fashion peking university (institute of artificial intelligence) artificial intelligence general studies, artificial intelligence and the arts 3.2.3 design teaching technology and media innovation development through the informatization construction and intelligent transformation of the teaching environment and learning space, it breaks the boundaries of time, space and geography, realizes the in-depth integration of artificial intelligence technology in teaching activities before, during and after class, and creates an intelligent and immersive teaching environment. with the help of artificial intelligence programs, the collection and analysis of information data on students' learning process in the design of the teaching process, customized learning resources push and accurate learning interventions are realized, and student-centered diversified teaching is carried out to reach the unity of scale and personalization. through high-tech devices and systems, the development of artificial intelligence engines and other integrated tools can not only enrich the means of design education, but also expand the scenarios of design education. for example, the "artificial intelligence and art creation and research center" of tongji university, as one of the earliest artificial intelligence and art laboratories in china, is equipped with advanced equipment and platforms such as brain wave sensors, 3d printers and motion capture instruments, which are used for the first year of undergraduate public foundation course "art modeling"course use (shanghai yangpu district people's government, 2024). it ensures the effective distribution and open sharing of high-quality digital teaching resources through the construction of a multifaceted and collaborative, content-rich, widely used and efficiently serviced education and teaching cloud service platform. huazhong university of science and technology 2024 released arti designer xl, the first artificial intelligence supercomputing platform for higher art and design education in china, which is not only applied to teaching, providing teachers and students of art and design majors across the country with ai art and design innovation tools; at the same time, the platform supports professional model training, model trading, through training, gallery, classroom and other functional modules, and q&a exchanges and other online application scenarios, creating an ai art education ecological field with chinese characteristics. 4. conclusion: challenges and responses of design education in the perspective ofartificial intelligence artificial intelligence, as a cross-generational technological advancement, provides solid support for design education to reform, innovate, and optimize its iteration. however, development and challenges www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 66 often go hand in hand, and design education is undergoing greater challenges while reshaping its ecological paradigm by virtue of ai. for one thing, the challenges of science and technology governance issues under the field of artificial intelligence such as intellectual property rights, safety, ethics and the environment are equally, if not more, evident in design education. issues such as the originality of design works, copyright ownership, and the identity of designers brought about by the process and results of ai design have always been important issues that cannot be avoided in the field of ai design. ai design education must also fully consider these ethical and legal issues to ensure the healthy development of ai design. secondly, the need to cope with the challenge of rapid iterative development of ai technology. 2023 gartner emerging technology impact report is full of foresight that in the next three to five years, the utility and automation potential of the application of ai technology will be dramatically increased [11], and efficiently promote the productivity revolution. a variety of ai tools are emerging, and there are often breakthroughs in the mode of thinking, and the speed of updating is constantly increasing, how to continuously adapt to the progress of ai technology is also a greater challenge for the reform of design education. such as the scenario-based application of deepseek in design education in 2025 has become an important direction for new ai intervention in design education [12]. as flaubert said, art and science are separated at the foot of the mountain but converge at the top. the combination of design and science and technology is an important trend in the future development of design. in the face of the future of the deep integration of artificial intelligence and design education, it is necessary to firstly shape the thinking mode of “intelligent teaching”, continuously improve the acceptance and adaptability of teachers to artificial intelligence, cultivate contemporary college students to have basic artificial intelligence literacy, and innovatively construct the “teaching unity” and “knowledge sharing body” under the assistance of artificial intelligence, so as to accelerate the development of design in the context of the new quality productivity. the innovative construction of the “teaching unity” knowledge sharing body under the assistance of artificial intelligence accelerates the innovation of design education under the background of new quality productivity. secondly, it is necessary to give up the blind worship of technology, not only relying on technological innovation, but also turning our attention to deeper value exploration, focusing on the essence of value creation. finally, we should always hold the view that ai assists human beings rather than replacing their creativity and dominance, and emphasize in design education that designers in the age of ai should pay attention to the role of “human beings” in the integration of technology and creativity. fund projects 1. guangdong provincial undergraduate colleges and universities online open course steering committee's key project: “study on promoting the digital transformation of higher education through online open courses--taking the construction of online open course of urban design as an example” (2022zxkc168) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 2. 2024 guangdong general colleges and universities key field special project “research on the paradigm of guangdong historical villages' digital intelligence protection and development to help the implementation of the hundred million project” (2024zdzx4065) 3. guangdong province joint graduate school demonstration base references chen, z. j., & lu, x. b. (2015). the change and development of information and interaction design in the context of big data. packaging engineering, 8. fu, z. y., & zhou, y. y. (2017). design change in the era of artificial intelligence. art in china, 10. generative ai research on "course special yu yukizawa: art in this era". (2024). retrieved from https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ojahja8-iiisguoonpfcvw guo, c. c. (2020). "research on the teaching mode of industrial design education under the technological field of "5g+ai"". proceedings of the 2020 symposium on classroom teaching and educational reform of the curriculum reform research center of the ministry of education. he, j., & chen, q. w. (2023). "exploration of higher vocational art and design education in the age of ai. da guan, 8. hong, w., & hong, w. d. (2022). social transmutation and self-consciousness of art and design education. art observation, 7. li, s. h. (2024). the impact of ai on design practice, research and education. design, 37(02), 103-104. li, y. (2022). transformation and empowerment: the change and innovation of design education in the context of artificial intelligence. journal of neijiang normal college, 5. lu, y. (2024). the contingent changes of design and design education in the age of aigc empowerment. new beauty, (02), 112-114. shanghai yangpu district people's government. (2024). 72 years of historical precipitation tongji a "treasure class" has "new tricks”. retrieved from https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yocczuz3qoq6j2wik2c -iq yue, l. x. (2019). education and research on conservation design of historic buildings in ai environment taking yangshupu power plant as an example. art education, 2(2). zhu, w. t. (2024). analysis of reform countermeasures for innovation and entrepreneurship curriculum for art and design college students in the context of aigc. art education research, 10. javascript:void(0); original paper design education under the influence of artificial abstracts keywords 2.the new form of design in the era of artificial in 2.1 spawning new art forms 2.2 development of virtual reality applications 2.3 aigc's multidimensional intervention in design 3. a new paradigm for design education under the i 3.1 review of research on artificial intelligence 3.2 reinventing the traditional design education p 3.2.1 ecological reconstruction of traditional des 3.2.2 designing a new paradigm shift in talent dev table 1. design ai courses offered by universities 3.2.3 design teaching technology and media innovat 4. conclusion: challenges and responses of design advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 107 original paper exploring collaborative mechanisms and ethical risks of aigc empowering new era civilization practices wang danqing1*, siqi shen1, & yishan pan1 1 geely university, no. 123, section 2, chengjian avenue, eastern new district, chengdu, sichuan province, china * 568780573@qq.com received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 04, 2025 online published: october 21, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p107 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p107 abstract the fast growth of artificial intelligence generated content (aigc) has injected fresh energy into the practices of new-era civilization work. with significant advances in producing multimodal content, matching services with individuals, and optimizing organizational efficiencies, it holds potential for the intelligent transformation of grassroots publicity and cultural work. however, issues of accountability, algorithmic bias, data security and privacy which come with this technological empowerment should not be disregarded. we focus on operationalizing aigc with civil practice, systematically exploring the synergistic mechanisms between the two, acknowledging ethical risks which may be associated with them as well as help construct a three-prong response to risk exploring “technology-ethics-governance,” and hope to facilitate the healthy and sustainable future of civil practice in the new era while in the digital age. keywords aigc, new era civilization practice, collaborative mechanism, ethical risks, algorithm governance 1. introduction in recent years, china’s new era civilization practice centers have played an increasingly vital role in promoting ideological education, public culture, and volunteer services at the grassroots level. with the release of the implementation plan for the construction of new era civilization practice centers by the central propaganda department, local governments have begun exploring digital transformation paths to improve communication efficiency and social participation. however, traditional civilization practice models still face challenges such as low content productivity, limited interactivity, and insufficient resource integration. artificial intelligence generated content (aigc) offers new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 108 possibilities for addressing these limitations. by generating text, images, and videos through multimodal algorithms, aigc can assist cultural workers in designing publicity materials, summarizing feedback, and producing localized cultural narratives. for example, several pilot cities have used ai-assisted tools to automatically create volunteer campaign posters and short educational videos, enhancing the timeliness and emotional appeal of public communication.yet, the empowerment of technology also brings ethical and governance concerns, including algorithmic bias, data privacy, and accountability ambiguity. if not properly guided, overreliance on aigc may weaken the humanistic essence of civilization practice. therefore, establishing a balanced framework that integrates technology, ethics, and governance is essential. this paper aims to explore how aigc can enhance content innovation, improve service precision, and strengthen collaborative mechanisms while addressing the potential ethical risks to ensure sustainable and people-centered cultural development in the digital era. 2. building collaborative mechanisms foraigc empowering new era civilization practices 2.1 content innovation and supply collaboration mechanism the integration of aigc into cultural production has transformed the traditional content creation process of new era civilization practice. cultural institutions, local publicity departments, and technology enterprises should establish joint innovation studios to co-develop creative projects. in this model, professional planners provide cultural and ideological guidance, while ai engineers contribute generative models capable of producing localized visual and textual materials. this form of collaboration enables continuous experimentation between human creativity and machine intelligence (su, 2024). in practical terms, several regional cultural centers have already piloted ai-assisted creative programs. for instance, a practice center in zhejiang used an aigc-powered platform to design a series of digital posters celebrating local heritage. community residents participated by submitting folk stories and photographs, which were then reinterpreted by the ai system to generate culturally resonant artworks. this participatory approach not only improved the authenticity of the content but also strengthened residents’ sense of ownership in cultural expression. to ensure quality and ideological alignment, cultural institutions can implement multi-layer review mechanisms combining automated semantic screening with expert human evaluation. meanwhile, technology providers should develop low-threshold editing tools, allowing volunteers and community staff to create customized promotional materials without technical expertise. regular workshops and feedback meetings can further enhance cooperation between developers and users, ensuring continuous optimization of algorithms based on community feedback. through this closed-loop system of co-creation, review, and iteration, aigc becomes a bridge connecting traditional cultural resources with intelligent production methods, fostering a sustainable mechanism for continuous content innovation in civilization practice (yang, 2025). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 2.2 precise matching of supply and demand with feedback collaboration mechanism the efficiency and inclusiveness of new era civilization practice largely depend on whether cultural services can precisely respond to residents’ diverse needs. traditional top-down cultural supply models often emphasize administrative planning while neglecting the dynamic and personalized characteristics of grassroots cultural demand. to overcome this mismatch, grassroots governance units should establish an intelligent public demand collection system that continuously gathers information about residents’ cultural preferences, participation behavior, and service expectations. by integrating online questionnaires, community wechat groups, and digital kiosks placed in local activity centers, such systems can generate real-time data on public cultural consumption and civic participation patterns. the collected data will then be automatically categorized and stored in a digitized “demand list,” providing an empirical foundation for targeted cultural service delivery.technology providers play a central role in enabling this precision. through deep learning and multidimensional correlation analysis, intelligent algorithmic models can process structured and unstructured data—such as age distribution, participation frequency, cultural topics of interest, and feedback sentiment. these models can then establish correlations between residents’ needs and available cultural resources within the regional database. for example, if residents in a particular neighborhood frequently request traditional music workshops, while another community shows higher demand for ai literacy training, the matching algorithm can recommend corresponding cultural programs and resource allocations. this transforms cultural service delivery from a one-size-fits-all approach into a demand-driven, adaptive system.once the recommended cultural service items are generated, they are pushed to residents through community mobile apps or integrated public service platforms. residents can evaluate the suggested programs using built-in rating functions and leave detailed feedback on timeliness, content relevance, and personal satisfaction. grassroots governance units then analyze these feedback datasets to identify emerging trends or dissatisfaction points. based on quarterly analysis, they update the service catalog and release a dynamic “priority ranking list,” which transparently displays which service items will receive higher funding or organizational priority in the next quarter. this iterative mechanism ensures that public resources flow toward programs that truly reflect community needs, enhancing fairness and responsiveness in cultural governance. moreover, the matching process is not static but continuously refined through human–machine collaboration. technology providers regularly update the semantic understanding capacity of the matching models to capture subtle variations in residents’ language expressions and emotional tones. for example, when residents express interest in “family-friendly” events, the system learns to associate such keywords with community theater performances or parent-child workshops rather than purely recreational activities. community residents are also encouraged to participate in prototype testing of new algorithmic features, helping technical teams assess the model’s practicality, reliability, and fairness in real-world applications.to strengthen communication between technology developers and residents, grassroots governance units should organize regular offline exchange sessions. these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 110 sessions bring together representatives from the community, cultural workers, and algorithm engineers to discuss problems identified during the matching process. typical issues may include insufficient representation of elderly residents’ preferences, data latency, or misunderstanding of cultural semantics. through face-to-face dialogue, residents gain a clearer understanding of how the algorithms function, while developers receive valuable insights into the social and emotional dimensions of cultural participation that data alone cannot reveal. following these discussions, technology providers adjust the algorithmic parameters—such as weightings for demographic variables or semantic clustering thresholds—to enhance matching precision and inclusivity. over time, residents’ participation behavior gradually evolves from passive recipients of cultural services to active contributors in system co-design. the community’s familiarity with the operational process of the smart matching system fosters a culture of digital participation. residents begin to recognize that each piece of feedback directly influences subsequent service planning, reinforcing a sense of civic responsibility and community belonging. in turn, the algorithms improve their predictive accuracy through the accumulation of user interaction data, creating a virtuous cycle in which human input and machine learning continuously optimize each other.from an institutional perspective, this closed-loop operation—comprising demand collection, intelligent matching, feedback evaluation, and algorithmic optimization—represents a new paradigm for participatory governance in the cultural domain. it bridges the traditional gap between administrative supply and social demand, transforming cultural service provision into a co-governance process that integrates technological precision with human-centered values. the model’s success depends not only on data and algorithms but also on maintaining a balanced relationship between efficiency and empathy.in practice, some pilot regions have already demonstrated the viability of this model. for instance, the civilization practice center of suzhou city launched an “ai-assisted cultural demand dashboard,” which visualizes residents’ preferences in real time and recommends corresponding service options to local managers. after implementation, community participation in cultural activities increased by nearly 25%, while satisfaction rates rose steadily according to quarterly surveys. these results highlight the potential of aigc-based precision matching mechanisms to revitalize grassroots civilization work, transforming it into a dynamic, data-informed, and emotionally responsive ecosystem.ultimately, the goal of this collaborative feedback mechanism is not only to enhance operational efficiency but also to ensure that every cultural service delivered reflects genuine public needs and social values. when technology becomes a medium for listening rather than dictating, aigc evolves from a mere productivity tool into a meaningful participant in the co-construction of spiritual civilization. by embedding ethics, transparency, and inclusivity into each stage of algorithmic design and social implementation, the smart matching mechanism can serve as a model for sustainable and people-centered governance in the digital age. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 2.3 multi-stakeholder coordination and resource integration collaboration mechanism the integration of aigc into new era civilization practice is not solely a matter of technological progress but also a process of reshaping institutional collaboration and resource governance. given the complex structure of public cultural services—spanning governmental departments, social organizations, educational institutions, and technology enterprises—establishing an effective coordination and resource integration mechanism becomes a prerequisite for sustainable innovation. a single department or organization alone cannot address the challenges of resource dispersion, overlapping responsibilities, and insufficient interconnectivity that often hinder the efficient operation of grassroots cultural governance. regional cultural management departments should therefore take the lead in creating a multi-stakeholder joint coordination platform that convenes various actors on a regular basis. this platform can include representatives from universities, community organizations, volunteer associations, and local enterprises, forming a cross-sectoral “collaboration circle.” the main objective is to facilitate transparent communication and resource sharing through both online and offline channels. for example, a quarterly coordination meeting can be held to review the progress of aigc-assisted projects, exchange case experiences, and identify gaps in resource allocation. by combining administrative oversight with social participation, the governance structure becomes more inclusive and responsive to changing community needs.technological support serves as the backbone of this system. a unified digital platform should be developed and maintained by professional technical teams, integrating datasets of cultural facilities, digital archives, volunteer databases, and public event schedules from multiple departments. each participating organization can register and update its available resources, such as venue space, technical equipment, or expert personnel. the system automatically categorizes these inputs and recommends optimal resource combinations based on demand data collected from local communities. for instance, when a community requests a digital art exhibition, the system can match available venues from the cultural bureau, visual design experts from local universities, and ai-generated visual content produced by enterprise partners. to ensure fairness and efficiency, an evaluation module can be embedded in the platform. social organizations and volunteer teams are encouraged to record their project outcomes and upload documentation, including photos, reports, and performance indicators. these records not only enhance accountability but also provide valuable references for other communities seeking best practices. the data-driven evaluation allows management departments to identify high-performing organizations and allocate future resources more effectively. over time, this process fosters a transparent ecosystem in which data, reputation, and performance mutually reinforce each other. offline collaboration remains equally important. joint workshops and thematic training programs can be organized to strengthen participants’ digital literacy and ethical awareness in the use of aigc. cultural workers can learn how to use ai tools for content creation and community engagement, while technologists can gain a deeper understanding of cultural symbolism and value orientation. in one notable case, a civilization practice www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 center in chengdu collaborated with a local ai start-up to train volunteers in using generative models for community storytelling. the resulting digital exhibitions combined residents’ oral histories with algorithmically generated imagery, creating a more immersive and emotionally resonant experience. furthermore, regional management departments should establish a feedback mechanism to resolve conflicts or inefficiencies in resource allocation. when overlapping requests or technical disputes arise, the platform can trigger an arbitration process involving representatives from each stakeholder group. this mechanism not only ensures procedural fairness but also promotes a culture of dialogue and collective problem-solving. through these iterative exchanges, the collaboration framework gradually evolves into a dynamic governance network characterized by trust, adaptability, and co-learning.ultimately, this multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism illustrates how aigc can serve as a catalyst for institutional modernization. by connecting isolated resources and bridging communication gaps among government, industry, academia, and the community, it transforms fragmented initiatives into an integrated and synergistic system. the resulting model demonstrates that the future of civilization practice lies not merely in technological advancement but in the co-evolution of institutions, values, and social participation. through sustained collaboration, shared data governance, and ethical alignment, the collective power of diverse actors can drive both digital innovation and cultural revitalization in the new era (xu, 2025). 2.4 efficiency evaluation and iterative optimization collaboration mechanism an effective evaluation and optimization mechanism is essential for ensuring that aigc-empowered civilization practices maintain both operational efficiency and ethical accountability. without systematic assessment, the innovative potential of technology can easily become disconnected from social needs. therefore, a well-structured efficiency evaluation framework must be established to form a closed-loop process that links performance assessment, data feedback, and continuous improvement.the first step is to build a multi-dimensional evaluation indicator system. this system should include both quantitative and qualitative dimensions covering service coverage, resident participation rate, user satisfaction, cultural impact, and ethical compliance. for instance, quantitative data such as the number of activities generated by aigc tools, response time to community feedback, and the diversity of content formats can be collected automatically through digital platforms. meanwhile, qualitative evaluations—such as the degree of residents’ emotional engagement, cultural resonance, and perceived authenticity—can be obtained through interviews, surveys, and participatory observation. this hybrid approach ensures that the evaluation process captures not only efficiency metrics but also humanistic values (su, 2024). a professional evaluation committee, consisting of experts from cultural institutions, data scientists, and community representatives, should be responsible for designing and maintaining this indicator system. their task includes reviewing project implementation reports, identifying recurring problems, and providing targeted recommendations. for example, if a specific community program shows high participation but low satisfaction, evaluators can trace the cause by analyzing interaction data, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 algorithmic performance logs, and resident feedback comments. through such data triangulation, hidden inefficiencies—such as content irrelevance or weak inclusivity—can be systematically identified (wenqi w., qianqi x., ganlin x. et al., 2023). to ensure transparency and fairness, grassroots governance units should publish periodic evaluation reports summarizing performance outcomes and improvement plans. these reports can be shared on public dashboards or government websites, allowing residents to access information about how their feedback contributes to ongoing reforms. in some pilot cities, visualization dashboards powered by aigc have already been adopted to display real-time service performance and trend analysis, turning evaluation data into an accessible civic resource. this transparency helps foster mutual trust between administrators and residents, reinforcing the sense of shared ownership over cultural development.the iterative optimization mechanism forms the second layer of this collaboration (deng, 2022). based on evaluation findings, implementing units should promptly adjust their workflows and management priorities. for instance, if an ai-generated publicity campaign receives low engagement, developers can refine the model’s linguistic tone or imagery to better reflect local cultural aesthetics. similarly, if residents’ feedback indicates a lack of emotional warmth in digital content, cultural experts can reintroduce human editing in key narrative segments. such adaptive optimization ensures that the technological tools remain aligned with the humanistic mission of civilization practice (shen, 2023). training and capacity building are also crucial for sustaining improvement. once new standards or optimized processes are developed, grassroots units should organize workshops for volunteers and staff to learn about updated guidelines, ensuring that every participant understands how to maintain consistency in service quality. at the same time, residents should be encouraged to continue submitting evaluations after each improvement cycle, providing the data necessary for the next round of analysis. over time, this cyclical structure forms a self-reinforcing feedback ecosystem—where data informs action, action generates new feedback, and feedback leads to higher efficiency and satisfaction (zi-yang, 2024). in practice, several local governments have implemented such iterative evaluation models. for example, the civilization practice center in nanjing uses a “digital reflection loop,” where aigc-generated reports summarize residents’ comments, highlight emerging cultural themes, and recommend priority areas for funding allocation. as a result, the timeliness of program adjustments improved by 30%, and overall satisfaction among participants rose significantly within one year.ultimately, this efficiency evaluation and iterative optimization mechanism represents a shift from passive supervision to proactive co-governance. it transforms aigc from a static content generation tool into a dynamic governance instrument that learns from human feedback and adapts to social change. through continuous assessment, transparent reporting, and participatory optimization, the mechanism ensures that aigc contributes not only to operational performance but also to the ethical and emotional dimensions of civilization practice. in this sense, technological intelligence and human wisdom converge to build a responsive, sustainable, and value-driven cultural governance model for the new era (zhu, 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 114 3. potential ethical risks of aigc empowering new era civilization practices 3.1 algorithmic bias and ideological risks as aigc technology becomes increasingly embedded in public cultural services, algorithmic bias has emerged as one of the most significant challenges to ensuring ideological security and social inclusivity (sun, 2024). although aigc systems are designed to simulate human creativity, their outputs are fundamentally constrained by the characteristics of the datasets on which they are trained. when these datasets contain implicit biases—such as gender stereotypes, regional disparities, or unequal representation of minority groups—the generated content may unintentionally reproduce or amplify such biases. this issue is particularly sensitive in the context of civilization practice, where the goal is to disseminate positive social values and promote cultural cohesion.in practical applications, algorithmic models have demonstrated limitations in understanding local cultural expressions. for example, an aigc system trained primarily on urban linguistic data may misinterpret the dialects, customs, or symbolic meanings prevalent in rural or ethnic minority regions (xie & he, 2025). this can lead to the production of cultural materials that appear polished on the surface but lack authenticity or cultural depth. in one pilot project, an ai-assisted campaign inadvertently used generic urban imagery to represent traditional rural festivals, causing dissatisfaction among local residents who felt their heritage was being oversimplified. such cases highlight how algorithmic homogenization can erode cultural diversity and weaken the credibility of civilization practice programs (fan, 2025). moreover, recommendation algorithms—when optimized purely for engagement metrics such as click-through rates—tend to prioritize popular or emotionally stimulating content. over time, this creates an echo-chamber effect in which mainstream narratives dominate while niche cultural voices are marginalized. the consequence is a gradual narrowing of ideological discourse, where algorithmic reinforcement subtly shapes public perception and value orientation. in the context of spiritual civilization construction, this poses a potential risk of distorting the balance between innovation and tradition, efficiency and humanism.another source of concern lies in the interpretability of algorithmic decision-making. the “black-box” nature of deep learning models makes it difficult to determine whether an output reflects factual reasoning or embedded bias. for example, if an aigc system disproportionately features male figures in leadership roles or associates certain occupations with specific genders, such bias may remain undetected without a rigorous audit mechanism. this opacity complicates accountability: when biased content is generated, it is often unclear whether responsibility lies with the algorithm, the dataset, or the human operators (guo et al., 2023). to mitigate these ideological risks, a multi-level governance framework is necessary. at the technical level, developers should incorporate fairness constraints and bias-detection modules into model training. datasets must be diversified to include balanced cultural samples from different regions, genders, and social backgrounds. at the institutional level, an algorithmic review committee should be established to evaluate whether generated content aligns with the principles of socialist core values and cultural inclusivity. finally, from a societal perspective, public education on algorithmic literacy is crucial to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 help users recognize the difference between machine-generated information and authentic human expression.in essence, algorithmic bias is not merely a technical defect but a cultural and ethical issue that reflects how technology mediates social values. if left unchecked, it may gradually shift the ideological foundation of public culture toward efficiency-driven standardization. conversely, if properly governed, aigc can become a powerful instrument for pluralistic expression and cultural renewal. ensuring fairness, transparency, and interpretability in algorithmic systems is therefore fundamental to safeguarding the humanistic spirit at the core of new era civilization practice (tan, 2025). 3.2 data privacy and information security risks while aigc technology has greatly enhanced the efficiency of information processing and public engagement, it also brings significant challenges to data privacy and information security. in new era civilization practice, large volumes of personal and behavioral data—such as participation records, preference tags, and interaction histories—are continuously collected to optimize service delivery. these data are valuable for understanding public demand but, if inadequately protected, may expose individuals to surveillance risks or unintended data exploitation. the boundary between data-driven service improvement and the overcollection of personal information remains blurred.one common risk lies in the insufficient transparency of data collection mechanisms. many digital platforms used in civilization practice automatically record residents’ online behaviors without clear notification or consent. participants may not fully understand what data are being collected, how long they are stored, or how they are shared among different departments and service providers. for instance, during ai-assisted volunteer recruitment campaigns, users’ browsing patterns and communication histories are sometimes analyzed to predict participation likelihood. without explicit consent and anonymization measures, such predictive modeling could infringe on individuals’ right to informational self-determination (cheng & gong, 2024). in addition, data integration across multiple platforms increases the likelihood of information leakage. when public cultural systems exchange data with third-party ai service providers, weak interface management or overlapping authorization channels can lead to excessive data exposure. in one regional project, a data synchronization error between two civic engagement platforms resulted in partial disclosure of residents’ personal information, including contact details and participation records. although no major harm occurred, the incident underscored the need for robust cross-platform access control and encryption mechanisms.moreover, the application of aigc involves large-scale data training, which often requires combining structured demographic information with unstructured text or image data. if proper data desensitization procedures are not in place, sensitive attributes such as political orientation, religion, or health conditions may inadvertently become part of training datasets. this not only violates privacy principles but also risks embedding discriminatory patterns into ai models. vulnerable groups—such as the elderly or individuals with limited digital literacy—are particularly at risk, as they may unknowingly consent to broad data usage terms or fail to adjust privacy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 settings.to address these challenges, several governance measures should be implemented (zhao et al., 2024). first, a data classification and hierarchical protection system should be established to differentiate between public, restricted, and confidential data, with corresponding access permissions. second, algorithmic transparency protocols should be introduced to allow users to view how their data contribute to model outputs, enabling a right to inquiry and correction. third, cross-platform data-sharing agreements must include explicit privacy clauses and independent audits conducted by certified third-party institutions. technical solutions such as federated learning and homomorphic encryption can also minimize direct data exposure while maintaining analytical capability (liu et al., 2023). international experience provides valuable references. the european union’s general data protection regulation (gdpr) and china’s personal information protection law both emphasize the principles of informed consent, data minimization, and purpose limitation. adapting these principles to the context of aigc-enabled civic platforms requires balancing technological innovation with ethical prudence.ultimately, safeguarding data privacy and information security is not only a technical necessity but also an ethical imperative for preserving public trust. in the field of new era civilization practice, where digital participation is closely tied to moral education and cultural identity, any misuse of data can undermine the credibility of the entire system. only by embedding privacy protection into every stage of aigc design, implementation, and supervision can we ensure that technological progress remains aligned with the dignity and autonomy of every citizen (zhou et al., 2025). 3.3 ambiguity of responsible entities and regulatory accountability risks the complexity of aigc’s operational ecosystem introduces a persistent problem of accountability ambiguity. in traditional cultural governance structures, responsibility for content creation, dissemination, and supervision can be clearly assigned to identifiable institutions. however, in aigc-enabled systems, these boundaries become blurred. multiple actors—algorithm developers, platform operators, content reviewers, and government regulators—interact across overlapping jurisdictions, often without clearly defined responsibilities. this fragmented accountability structure poses significant challenges to both ethical governance and legal enforcement.during the development stage, algorithm designers are typically responsible for model architecture, data selection, and system testing. yet, once the model is deployed and begins to generate content autonomously, tracing the origin of an error or ethical violation becomes difficult. for instance, if a generated cultural poster inadvertently misrepresents a historical figure or distorts a traditional custom, the issue may arise from the training data, the algorithmic parameters, or post-processing by human editors. each party can plausibly claim limited liability, leading to a “responsibility vacuum.” platform operators, in particular, often rely on extensive user agreements filled with disclaimers that exempt them from direct accountability for algorithmic outputs. the multi-tier subcontracting model commonly adopted in public service digitalization further complicates this issue. a single aigc project may involve a primary contractor managing several www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 117 third-party service providers for data labeling, content review, and maintenance. when ethical breaches occur—such as biased or harmful content generation—identifying the ultimate responsible party is time-consuming and legally ambiguous. regulators face an uphill task in tracing decision chains that span private enterprises, government units, and community-level implementers. this diffusion of responsibility undermines public trust and weakens the deterrent effect of regulation.another challenge arises from the technical opacity of aigc systems. deep learning models often function as “black boxes,” where the internal decision-making logic is difficult to interpret even for developers. this opacity obstructs forensic analysis when misconduct or algorithmic failure occurs. without transparent logging of model operations, it becomes nearly impossible to determine whether an ethical violation resulted from developer negligence, systemic bias, or unanticipated user interaction. in effect, technological complexity itself becomes a shield against accountability.to address these risks, an integrated accountability framework is necessary. at the institutional level, regulators should require all aigc operators to establish traceable decision-logging mechanisms that record key system activities and human interventions throughout the lifecycle of content generation. these logs must be accessible to authorized oversight bodies for auditing and evidence collection. at the contractual level, standardized clauses should define the respective duties of technology providers, platform administrators, and cultural content supervisors, ensuring that no single party can evade responsibility under the pretext of technological uncertainty. moreover, an independent algorithmic ethics and responsibility committee could be established at the regional level, comprising legal experts, ethicists, and technical specialists. this body would review controversial cases, issue public accountability reports, and provide guidance on disciplinary measures. periodic audits by third-party institutions can further enhance transparency and credibility. in addition, user-oriented complaint channels should be strengthened to allow residents to report inappropriate content or service failures directly, with clear procedures for follow-up and resolution.ultimately, clarifying responsibility within aigc ecosystems is not merely an administrative reform but a fundamental step toward ethical modernization. transparent accountability mechanisms ensure that technological progress does not outpace moral responsibility. only when each actor in the aigc chain—developer, operator, and regulator—assumes its due obligations can the system achieve both innovation and integrity, safeguarding the legitimacy and public trust that underpin the new era civilization practice. 3.4 emotional disconnection and dissolution of humanistic spirit risks while aigc significantly enhances the productivity and reach of cultural dissemination, its increasing role in civilization practice also introduces a subtle yet profound risk—the weakening of emotional connection and the gradual dissolution of the humanistic spirit. cultural communication has always relied on human empathy, storytelling, and shared emotional resonance. when technological efficiency becomes the dominant pursuit, these core attributes of humanistic interaction may be diminished or replaced by mechanized expressions lacking genuine warmth.in many pilot regions, ai-generated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 118 content has proven effective in producing visually appealing posters, digital exhibitions, and community messages. however, residents often report that such materials, though technically impressive, feel “distant” or “impersonal.” unlike traditional cultural activities that involve interpersonal interaction—such as local lectures, performances, or volunteer visits—aigc-generated materials tend to standardize emotions into quantifiable outputs. sentiment analysis and emotion-simulation models can approximate affective tones but cannot fully capture the complexity of human feeling. this substitution risks creating an illusion of emotional engagement while eroding the authenticity of communal empathy that underpins civilization practice. moreover, the interface design of digital platforms often reinforces this emotional detachment. automated response systems and chatbots replace direct human dialogue with scripted interaction flows, leading to reduced opportunities for genuine communication between service providers and residents. over time, this may foster a sense of alienation, particularly among elderly participants who value face-to-face relationships as an integral part of cultural belonging. as community interactions migrate online, the physical and emotional dimensions of shared experience—handshakes, eye contact, spontaneous laughter—gradually disappear, weakening the collective emotional fabric that sustains social cohesion.another concern is the potential homogenization of aesthetic and moral sensibilities. aigc models, trained on large-scale datasets dominated by mainstream cultural patterns, tend to replicate similar visual styles and linguistic expressions. as a result, local dialects, minority traditions, and non-mainstream cultural forms may be marginalized. when algorithmic systems repeatedly promote content that aligns with generalized public taste, community residents may unconsciously internalize these preferences, narrowing the scope of aesthetic diversity. this phenomenon not only threatens cultural pluralism but also undermines the creative vitality essential to the humanistic spirit.to address these risks, a balanced approach to human–machine collaboration must be maintained. human cultural workers should remain central in interpreting, contextualizing, and emotionally refining ai-generated materials. for instance, cultural centers can establish “emotion review groups” composed of artists, educators, and psychologists to evaluate whether aigc-generated content conveys appropriate emotional depth and cultural authenticity. similarly, hybrid service models that combine intelligent digital tools with human guidance—such as ai-assisted storytelling led by community volunteers—can restore the emotional warmth lost in automated systems. furthermore, digital literacy education should emphasize emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity alongside technical proficiency. residents and practitioners need to understand that technology is a medium for enhancing human expression, not a substitute for it. encouraging community members to co-create digital content—by contributing personal stories, photos, or reflections—can transform aigc from a detached producer into a participatory companion in collective memory building.ultimately, civilization practice must reaffirm its human-centered essence. while aigc offers unprecedented efficiency and scalability, its true value lies in amplifying, not replacing, the emotional and moral dimensions of human culture. safeguarding empathy, creativity, and authenticity in the age of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 119 intelligent generation ensures that the pursuit of digital civilization remains grounded in the warmth of human connection and the enduring vitality of the humanistic spirit. 4. risk regulation and collaborative governance pathways 4.1 establishing people-centered principles the core objective of integrating aigc into new era civilization practice is not only to enhance technological capacity but to ensure that digital innovation ultimately serves human well-being. establishing people-centered principles is therefore the ethical cornerstone of aigc governance. this concept emphasizes that technology must align with human values, safeguard personal dignity, and promote social inclusivity rather than efficiency alone. in the context of civilization practice, where the cultivation of moral consciousness and collective empathy is paramount, people-centeredness provides the guiding philosophy for balancing innovation with ethical responsibility.to translate this principle into practice, government departments should work closely with academic institutions, technology enterprises, and civic organizations to develop a comprehensive ethical framework for aigc deployment. this framework should define the fundamental requirements of privacy protection, fairness, interpretability, and accountability. it should also establish mechanisms for continuous revision, ensuring adaptability to the rapid evolution of generative technologies. for instance, the central cyberspace administration of china has already proposed guidelines for “responsible ai development,” emphasizing respect for human autonomy and the prevention of algorithmic discrimination. drawing on such precedents, local civilization practice centers can formulate region-specific ethics codes tailored to their community contexts, integrating them into daily governance routines. enterprises, as the main drivers of aigc innovation, must internalize people-centered design principles throughout the entire product lifecycle. during system development, developers should simulate real-world user scenarios through participatory testing groups composed of residents, cultural workers, and social scientists. this approach allows diverse stakeholders to identify potential ethical pitfalls—such as implicit bias or emotional detachment—before deployment. moreover, enterprises should establish internal ethics review boards that evaluate ongoing projects in light of social impact assessments. these boards would not only monitor data compliance but also assess whether the algorithmic outputs reflect respect for local culture, community identity, and human empathy.public participation is equally indispensable. in a people-centered governance model, citizens should not merely be data providers but active contributors to ethical decision-making. government departments can organize public hearings, online consultations, and digital town halls where residents express their views on algorithmic fairness, data privacy, and content authenticity. for example, several pilot cities have experimented with “ai ethics salons,” where community representatives, developers, and cultural scholars discuss the moral implications of ai-generated civic content. these deliberative forums foster mutual understanding and democratize the governance of emerging technologies.education and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 120 capacity building also play vital roles. government agencies can introduce training programs that enhance the ethical literacy of aigc practitioners, ensuring that engineers and cultural workers alike understand the social consequences of their technical decisions. meanwhile, public awareness campaigns can help residents identify manipulative or biased ai-generated information, reinforcing their ability to engage critically with digital content. in this sense, ethical governance becomes not a one-time regulation but a continuous process of co-learning and reflection between institutions and the public. furthermore, periodic progress reports on aigc ethical governance should be publicly released. these reports could summarize implemented measures, highlight exemplary cases of responsible innovation, and invite feedback from independent experts and citizens. by embedding transparency and accountability into the governance process, authorities can strengthen public trust and maintain legitimacy in the application of generative technologies.ultimately, establishing people-centered principles ensures that aigc remains a tool for cultural empowerment rather than control. it reminds policymakers and developers that technological progress is meaningful only when it enriches the human experience, protects individual rights, and upholds social justice. in the broader vision of new era civilization practice, this principle embodies the moral foundation for building a “digital civilization with human warmth,” where artificial intelligence enhances, rather than erodes, the shared values that bind communities together. 4.2 building robust data security and algorithm review systems ensuring the security and trustworthiness of aigc applications in new era civilization practice requires the establishment of a robust data security and algorithm review system. as aigc technologies rely heavily on large-scale data collection, model training, and automated decision-making, the risks of data leakage, misuse, and algorithmic opacity become increasingly significant. a comprehensive governance system must therefore be designed to manage data responsibly, maintain algorithmic transparency, and uphold public confidence in digital governance.at the institutional level, a data security management committee should be established within regional cultural governance departments. this body would be responsible for defining data classification and tiered protection standards, ensuring that information collected from residents is processed according to its sensitivity and purpose. public, restricted, and confidential data should be clearly differentiated, with corresponding access controls, encryption standards, and retention periods. for instance, anonymized participation data from community activities could be stored in low-risk repositories, while personally identifiable information must be protected through advanced cryptographic techniques such as homomorphic encryption or secure multiparty computation. equally important is the creation of an algorithm review board, tasked with conducting periodic audits of aigc models used in public cultural services. these audits should assess not only technical accuracy but also the ethical orientation and cultural appropriateness of generated content. reviewers must examine whether the model’s training data reflect regional diversity, whether bias-detection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 121 mechanisms are functioning effectively, and whether algorithmic outputs align with socialist core values. for example, if an ai-generated poster subtly reinforces gender stereotypes or portrays local customs inaccurately, the review board must have the authority to request model retraining or content withdrawal.transparency mechanisms are central to public trust. aigc platforms should provide explainable interfaces that allow users to understand, at least in broad terms, how their data are used and how algorithmic recommendations are generated. residents should be able to view their personal data authorization records, request corrections, and even revoke consent through accessible digital portals. this “right to know and control” forms the foundation of algorithmic accountability. to support this, government departments can establish open dashboards that summarize key findings from algorithmic audits and data compliance checks, thereby promoting both transparency and civic oversight.cross-platform data exchange also requires strict regulation. when aigc systems interface with external platforms—such as volunteer management systems or digital libraries—clear data-sharing agreements must specify the scope of information transfer, encryption standards, and liability in the event of breaches. third-party auditing agencies should regularly inspect these interfaces to ensure adherence to privacy-by-design principles. in this regard, china’s personal information protection law (2021) and the cybersecurity law provide a solid legal foundation, but implementation at the local governance level requires continuous refinement and adaptation to the specific context of civilization practice.international experience further reinforces the need for proactive oversight. the european union’s ai act mandates risk classification of ai systems and pre-market conformity assessments, while singapore’s model ai governance framework emphasizes transparency and stakeholder accountability. drawing from these models, local governments in china can develop context-specific frameworks that combine technical regulation with ethical supervision. for example, incorporating real-time monitoring systems that flag abnormal data access or biased content generation can enable timely intervention.finally, the cultivation of professional talent is indispensable. both cultural administrators and technical teams should receive regular training on data ethics, cybersecurity, and algorithmic governance. encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration between legal experts, data scientists, and cultural workers ensures that ethical considerations are integrated into every stage of system design and implementation.by embedding these mechanisms into daily governance, aigc becomes not a source of risk but a model of trustworthy innovation. a layered structure—combining data protection, algorithm review, public transparency, and professional oversight—creates a resilient governance ecosystem. this system not only protects residents’ rights and cultural integrity but also lays the foundation for sustainable, ethical, and people-centered digital civilization in the new era. 4.3 clarifying responsible entities and constructing accountability frameworks as aigc systems become increasingly embedded in public governance and cultural services, defining clear lines of responsibility among multiple stakeholders has become a core challenge. unlike traditional governance structures—where accountability follows a linear chain of command—the aigc www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 122 ecosystem operates through a complex web of developers, platform operators, data providers, and regulators. this distributed architecture increases efficiency but simultaneously blurs the boundaries of responsibility, creating potential “accountability gaps” when ethical or legal issues arise. building a comprehensive accountability framework is therefore critical to ensuring that innovation proceeds in tandem with institutional integrity.at the regulatory level, government authorities should develop a multi-tier accountability model that distinguishes between primary, shared, and supervisory responsibilities. primary responsibility lies with the technology providers who design and deploy aigc systems. they must guarantee that their models meet the required standards of transparency, fairness, and safety before being introduced into public use. shared responsibility is borne by platform operators and cultural institutions that apply these technologies in daily operations. they are responsible for ongoing monitoring, risk reporting, and user rights protection. finally, supervisory responsibility belongs to administrative and judicial bodies, which oversee compliance, enforce penalties, and mediate disputes. this tripartite structure ensures that accountability is both distributed and traceable. to operationalize this framework, algorithmic decision-logging mechanisms should be embedded in all aigc systems used in civilization practice. these mechanisms record key steps in content generation, including data inputs, model versions, and human intervention points. by creating a verifiable “digital audit trail,” regulators can reconstruct the chain of events that led to problematic outputs, making it easier to identify the responsible party. for instance, if an ai-generated poster contains factual errors or value deviations, the decision log can reveal whether the issue stemmed from flawed data, algorithmic bias, or insufficient human review. such traceability not only supports effective investigation but also deters negligence by increasing transparency and reputational risk.legal and contractual instruments further reinforce accountability. standardized service contracts between public institutions and aigc vendors should clearly define liability boundaries, reporting obligations, and compensation procedures. these documents must specify the consequences of ethical violations, such as algorithmic discrimination or unauthorized data use. in parallel, administrative regulations can introduce mandatory disclosure requirements, compelling enterprises to publish summaries of their risk assessments, system audits, and mitigation strategies. this practice, already adopted in sectors like finance and healthcare, can effectively be extended to the cultural governance domain to strengthen public oversight.an independent ai accountability and ethics committee should also be established to evaluate disputes and issue public guidance. composed of experts in law, ethics, sociology, and computer science, this body would serve as a neutral arbitrator when conflicts arise between stakeholders. it could publish annual “ethical compliance reports,” summarize emerging risks, and recommend improvements to existing frameworks. such a committee would complement administrative oversight by introducing professional independence and multidisciplinary judgment, bridging the gap between technical complexity and social expectations. furthermore, a citizen feedback and redress mechanism should be incorporated into the accountability system. residents must have accessible channels to report harmful or misleading ai-generated content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 123 and to seek timely remedies. complaint-handling procedures should follow principles of transparency, responsiveness, and fairness, ensuring that grievances lead to concrete corrective actions. in some pilot provinces, digital governance platforms have experimented with “ai responsibility dashboards” where users can view system updates, report issues, and track how their complaints are resolved. this participatory model transforms accountability from a passive compliance exercise into an interactive process of civic co-governance.ultimately, clarifying responsibility and constructing accountability frameworks is not merely about preventing misconduct—it is about embedding ethical reflexivity into the dna of aigc governance. by ensuring that every stakeholder knows both their rights and duties, this framework balances technological innovation with moral responsibility. when accountability becomes systemic and transparent, aigc can evolve from a source of uncertainty into a trustworthy enabler of cultural modernization, supporting the long-term sustainability and credibility of new era civilization practice. 4.4 promoting human-machine collaboration and value guidance in the era of intelligent content generation, achieving an effective balance between human creativity and machine efficiency has become an essential aspect of ethical aigc governance. while artificial intelligence provides immense capabilities for content production, data analysis, and audience engagement, it lacks the capacity for moral reasoning, emotional sensitivity, and cultural interpretation that define human cognition. therefore, establishing a long-term framework for human-machine collaboration, grounded in value guidance, is fundamental to ensuring that aigc enhances rather than replaces the humanistic essence of new era civilization practice.from a governance perspective, the principle of “human-in-the-loop” should be institutionalized in all major stages of aigc application, including data collection, content generation, and dissemination. human reviewers must be involved not only as quality controllers but as co-creators who interpret and refine machine outputs according to ethical and cultural norms. for instance, when an aigc system generates educational materials or promotional posters for civic campaigns, human experts—such as cultural scholars or communication specialists—should review the content’s alignment with core socialist values, its emotional tone, and its cultural appropriateness. this collaborative editing process transforms aigc from an autonomous producer into a creative assistant, ensuring that technology amplifies, rather than dilutes, the social meaning of cultural expression. at the operational level, local civilization practice centers can establish human-machine co-creation studios, where ai tools are integrated into community-driven cultural production workflows. in these spaces, volunteers, artists, and educators can jointly use generative models to develop customized materials—such as digital exhibitions, storytelling programs, or educational animations—while maintaining human supervision over thematic accuracy and ethical relevance. in one pilot program in shanghai, community organizers used aigc to generate visual materials for a volunteer campaign but invited residents to contribute local stories and emotional narratives to enrich the ai-generated content. the resulting works not only achieved higher engagement rates but also conveyed a stronger sense of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 124 authenticity and social warmth.technological development teams must also embed value guidance modules within their algorithms. these modules can function as internal filters that identify and flag content potentially deviating from socially accepted moral and cultural norms. for example, through sentiment analysis and semantic alignment models, the system can detect whether generated materials carry biased or insensitive connotations. when such deviations are identified, the platform should automatically trigger a human review process before publication. this layered governance mechanism ensures that algorithmic innovation remains compatible with ethical expectations.in parallel, the creation of human-machine hybrid service models can address the risk of emotional alienation in digital interactions. combining ai-driven recommendation systems with human-led engagement—such as live consultations or interactive q&a sessions—allows residents to experience both the efficiency of automation and the empathy of human communication. such hybrid models have been adopted in cultural service platforms in cities like chengdu and hangzhou, where aigc chatbots handle routine inquiries, while trained volunteers provide personalized follow-up, ensuring that technological convenience coexists with emotional care. education and capacity building further reinforce this collaborative relationship. practitioners in the field of civilization practice should be trained not only in ai literacy but also in ethical judgment and value transmission. regular workshops can help participants understand both the creative potential and the moral constraints of aigc, cultivating professionals who are capable of guiding intelligent systems toward socially constructive purposes. similarly, residents should be encouraged to engage with ai tools in participatory ways—by co-authoring content, providing feedback, or sharing personal narratives—to foster a sense of agency and co-ownership.ultimately, promoting human-machine collaboration and value guidance is about reasserting the primacy of human values in an increasingly intelligent world. aigc should not be viewed as a substitute for human creativity but as a technological partner that broadens the possibilities for cultural innovation. when guided by ethical awareness and collective wisdom, the synergy between human intuition and machine intelligence can create a new paradigm of civilization practice—one that is intelligent yet empathetic, efficient yet humane, and technologically advanced yet firmly rooted in the moral foundation of human dignity. 4.5 fostering ethical literacy and sustainable governance culture while institutional frameworks and technical safeguards form the structural foundation of aigc governance, their long-term effectiveness ultimately depends on the ethical literacy and cultural awareness of the people who design, operate, and engage with these systems. a sustainable governance culture cannot be built solely through laws and algorithms; it requires a shared moral consciousness that aligns technological development with public values. therefore, fostering ethical literacy across all levels of society—government agencies, enterprises, professionals, and citizens—is an indispensable dimension of risk regulation and collaborative governance.ethical literacy refers to the capacity to identify, analyze, and respond to moral dilemmas arising from technological innovation. in the context of aigc, it encompasses the ability to understand how algorithmic decisions affect fairness, inclusivity, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 125 and human dignity. for public administrators, ethical literacy means being able to evaluate policy implications beyond efficiency metrics—recognizing, for example, how automated decision-making might marginalize vulnerable groups or distort cultural narratives. for developers and engineers, it involves designing systems with built-in fairness and interpretability rather than pursuing accuracy at any cost. for citizens, it means cultivating awareness of how personal data are used and developing critical thinking when encountering ai-generated information. to institutionalize ethical literacy, education and training must become routine components of the aigc governance ecosystem. government departments can organize interdisciplinary training programs for public servants that integrate technology management, data ethics, and humanistic values. universities and vocational schools should incorporate ai ethics and digital citizenship into their curricula, ensuring that future generations understand both the potentials and perils of intelligent technologies (wang, liu, & li, 2025). at the community level, cultural centers and civilization practice hubs can host interactive workshops or “ai literacy salons,” where residents discuss case studies of ethical dilemmas in everyday digital life. these grassroots initiatives transform abstract ethical principles into relatable social practices, strengthening collective moral resilience. enterprises also play a crucial role in shaping governance culture (chen & zhang, 2024). beyond compliance with regulations, they should embed ethical reflection into corporate strategy and internal management. regular “ethics dialogues” within teams—where employees are encouraged to raise concerns about data usage, content fairness, or algorithmic transparency—can prevent small ethical lapses from evolving into systemic failures. some pioneering technology firms in china have already established “ai responsibility offices,” responsible for evaluating social impacts and issuing public transparency reports. such voluntary accountability initiatives not only enhance corporate credibility but also set positive examples for the industry as a whole (zhao et al., 2024). a sustainable governance culture also requires continuous public participation. ethical governance should not be confined to expert panels or administrative bodies; it must evolve into a social movement that engages citizens in co-monitoring and co-learning. by integrating public feedback mechanisms into aigc platforms—such as open comment sections, algorithm transparency dashboards, or citizen ethics committees—residents can actively shape the moral boundaries of technology. this participatory governance model echoes the democratic spirit of new era civilization practice, transforming citizens from passive users into ethical co-governors.finally, ethical literacy must evolve into a living culture rather than a static doctrine. this means embracing reflexivity: the willingness to question, adjust, and improve governance approaches in light of new technological realities. regular cross-sectoral dialogues among policymakers, academics, and civic organizations can maintain this reflexive momentum, ensuring that aigc development remains responsive to societal change. over time, these practices can nurture a “culture of responsibility,” where ethical awareness becomes embedded in everyday decision-making.in essence, the sustainability of aigc governance depends on cultivating a moral ecosystem as sophisticated as the technological one. only when individuals and institutions alike www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 126 internalize ethical literacy as a shared value can aigc truly serve the advancement of civilization practice. this shift—from rules to culture, from compliance to conscience—marks the deepest form of governance maturity in the intelligent era. 5. conclusion the emergence of aigc represents not only a technological revolution but also an institutional innovation that is reshaping the way civilization practices evolve in the digital era. as a new engine for cultural production and social governance, aigc expands the capacity of civilization practice centers to generate, disseminate, and evaluate cultural content with unprecedented speed and diversity. its intelligent integration into ideological communication, volunteer services, and public education marks a transformative step toward the modernization of spiritual civilization.however, the sustainability of this transformation depends on the establishment of sound ethical and governance mechanisms (zhao et al., 2024). without proper oversight, the same algorithms that empower communication could also amplify bias, compromise privacy, and erode the authenticity of human experience. the collaborative frameworks proposed in this study—including data governance, algorithm review, accountability tracing, and human-machine co-creation—demonstrate that technological progress must always be accompanied by moral reflection and institutional responsibility.future development should therefore transcend purely instrumentalist applications of aigc and embrace a human-centered, value-oriented approach. by embedding ethics, transparency, and inclusivity into every stage of design and implementation, aigc can evolve from a productivity tool into a cultural companion that supports social trust and civic participation. in this process, the synergy between government guidance, enterprise innovation, and citizen engagement will be crucial for maintaining the humanistic spirit within digital modernization. ultimately, the responsible use of aigc will not only promote efficiency but also enrich the moral and emotional dimensions of civilization, ensuring that technology remains a force for enlightenment and positive transformation rather than alienation or control. acknowledgments 2025 annual research project of the sichuan provincial key research base of social sciences: digital culture and communication—sc25dcm20. references chen, x. t., & zhang, s. t. 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(2023). aigc challenges and opportunities related to public safety: a case study of chatgpt. journal of safety science and resilience, 4(4), 329-339. jie, z. et al. (2024). the artistic creation of cultural sustainability and interactive creativity through three-dimensional animation. journal of creative arts, 1(1), 130-144. liu, m. et al. (2023). future of education in the era of generative artificial intelligence: consensus among chinese scholars on applications of chatgpt in schools. future in educational research, 1(1), 72-101. shen, d. (2023). analysis of the philosophical implications and importance of the thought of ecological civilization in the new era. journal of humanities, arts and social science, 7(2), 6. su, x. (2024). research on promoting the practice and construction of civilization in the new era with high quality in minority areas. social science, humanities and sustainability research, 5(1), 12. su, x. (2024). research on promoting the practice and construction of civilization in the new era with high quality in minority areas. social science, humanities and sustainability research, 5(1), 11. sun, j. (2024). aigc fusion exploration: the intersecting path of digital humanities and artificial intelligence. journal of electrical systems, 20(2), 327-335. tan, m. m. (2025). reflection on the value of cultural construction under the background of generative artificial intelligence. journal of theory and practice of management science, 5(4), 42-47. wang, x., liu, b. b., & x. p. li. (2025). will chatgpt reshape society? an analysis of multiple social media platforms-based chatgpt comment themes, sentiment evolution, and development trends. journal of information science, 01655515251362399. wenqi, w., qianqi, x., ganlin, x. et al. (2023). constructing a paradigm of environmental impact assessment under the new era of ecological civilization in china. environmental impact assessment review, 99. xie, x. f., & he, x. l. (2025). innovative paradigm and optimization mechanism for high-quality development of digital cultural industries driven by new quality productive forces. contemporary social sciences, 10(4), 38-58. xu, p. (2025). generative ai empowering industry-education integration in environmental design: logical mechanisms, practical approaches, and development directions. advances in education, 15. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 128 yang, w. h. (2025). research on aigc empowering web design in the context of new quality productivity. journal of hubei open vocational college, 38(10), 7. zhao, x. r. et al. (2024). top read articles. journal of shandong university (health sciences), 62(12), 65-71. zhou, h. et al. (2025). generative artificial intelligence in the metaverse era: a review on models and applications. research, 8, 0804. zhu, s. j. et al. (2024). exploring the impact of chatgpt on art creation and collaboration: benefits, challenges and ethical implications. telematics and informatics reports, 14, 100138. zi-yang, h. u. (2024). “aigc related context: a new communication culture for human.” journal of literature and art studies, 14(10), 921-931. microsoft word assc-v1n2-p234 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 234 original paper european union’s asia policy in the context of normative connectivity vasiliki papatheologou1* 1 china foreign affairs university, city, country * vasiliki papatheologou, china foreign affairs university, city, country received: october 26, 2019 accepted: november 20, 2019 online published: november 23, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p234 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p234 abstract asia is a region of vital interest for the european union (eu) in economic and in security sector. the european union (eu) asia policy focuses on strengthening the economic relations with the asian partners. european union’s asia strategy towards can be interpreted as a balanced pursuit of strengthened political, economic cooperation and rules based connectivity with asia. the european union has to reinforce the mechanism in decision making with regards to the adoption of consistent strategy towards asia. the european union (eu) is a norm entrepreneur and exporter in such a way as the application of the norms with the international community is considered to be necessary for global governance under the spirit of inter-regionalism. the european union is a model of regionalization in asia and a model for promoting “normative multilateralism”. keywords european union, asia strategy, institutional multilateralism, normative connectivity 1. introduction the emergence of asia has global significance in the european external polices. in particular, asia covers countries stretching from afghanistan in the west to japan in the east and from china in the north to new zealand in the south, plus all points between. it covers therefore those countries in south asia, south-east asia and north-east asia, which would meet any common definition of asia. this paper does not however cover certain other regions or countries which might geographically be considered as part of the wider asia and asia-pacific region-pacific russia, central asia, the developing countries of the pacific, nor the countries of the gulf or the near east. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 235 published by scholink inc. figure 1. eu’s asia strategy covered area source: europa.eu. this paper reviews the trend of eu’s strengthened strategic approach towards asia by examining its background factors—positive and negative—underlying eu’s ambitions to move towards asia, and discusses recently observed developments. the main purpose is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the eu strategy towards asia in terms of intensive influence in the area. the analysis focuses on the empirical objectives of the eu strategy in the framework of theories of international relations. the intended outcome of the analysis is to demonstrate ways of improvement of the effectiveness of the eu asia strategy. in security sector, the us remains the key player in the region and the current situation is characterised by a web of bilateral security arrangements between the united states with a number of asian countries. the eu asia strategy is focus more on economic benefits in its approach to asia. moreover, from the main objectives of the eu asia strategy we can observe that eu’s main concern is to promote the “eu social model” which is based on democracy, human rights and in general on normative issues. more theoretically, the eu as a normative power in global arena uses soft power in order to succeed economic in principal benefits through its strategy to asia. 2. european union’s engagement with asia: historical background the post-world war ii bilateral relationship between europe and asia has undergone several structural changes. until the end of the cold war at the end of 1980s the european countries, gathered in the european community first and then in the european union since 1993, had been predominantly preoccupied with their integration agenda, which left little energy and resources to pursue more active external relations. in the beginning of the 1990s several coincidental developments led european countries to develop a common strategy of european countries towards asia. having successfully completed the single market program by the end of 1992, europe was in a position to devote the necessary energy and resources to pursue more active external relations, and there is evidence of a high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 236 published by scholink inc. priority being given to asia. also, the successful completion of the uruguay round trade talks by the beginning of 1990s, in which europe had been clinching with the us on the liberalization of its agricultural sector was an additional motivation for europe to pursue market expansion and strengthened presence of european firms in growing asia. asia, in fact, had been acknowledged as the most dynamic economic region with the potential for becoming the centre of world economic growth, which made asia’s strategic value to increase continuously since the mid-1980s. historically, the record of europe has been mixed, producing imperialism and militarism by creating and spreading values such as liberty, justice, human rights, democracy, the spirit of scientific enquiry and development cooperation with the developing world. the european union (eu) has achieved stable democratic institutions, the rule of law, respect for human rights and respect for minorities and is keen to promote a modern liberal version of democracy in countries beyond its borders—in its own interest and in theirs. the first official asia strategy of the european union was adopted in 1994. during the period 1993-1996 when the european union had presented a number of strategic concepts to strengthen political and economic ties with east asia, before its attention was redirected to other asian countries: beginning with the adoption of the korea strategy in 1993, the european union (eu) successively adopted strategic policies towards asia (1994), china (1995) and japan (1995), as well as southeast asia (1996). this series of strategic concepts coincided with the two diversification needs perceived by east asian countries, which was instrumental in launching the asia-europe meeting (asem) in 1996. (note 1) with their minimal bureaucracy, avoidance of legalist mechanisms and strong commitment to the non-interference principle, asian regional organizations present a contrast to the european union, which is known for its extensive institutionalization and the brussels bureaucracy. so, some asian policymakers and analysts have generally rejected the european union (eu) as a suitable model of asia; instead, they have presented the asean as an alternative form of regionalism, as captured in the phrase “asean way” (acharya, 2008, p. 190) (note 2). 3. european union’s asia strategy objectives the adoption of the new asia strategy (nas) by the european union (eu) was an example of this new development in the 1990s. it is also noteworthy that the european union (eu) in its new asia strategy (nas) strategy paper acknowledges the unique and predominant role of the us in the field of regional security in asia. the 1994 strategy paper covered south, south-east and north-east asia and it emphasized the rapid economic changes that had taken place in the region over the previous decades, and the need to ensure an effective and proactive eu presence in the region. (european commission 2008) (note 3). it set the key objectives of strengthening the european union’s economic presence in the region, contributing to its political stability through a broadening of european union (eu) political and economic relations with the region as a whole, promoting the development of the less prosperous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 237 published by scholink inc. countries, and contributing to the spread of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. it put forward eight key priorities to be addressed, including the continued strengthening of the european union (eu) bilateral relations, a raised profile of the european union (eu) in asia, support for regional cooperation (with a view to enhancing peace and security), encouraging asia to play a greater role in multilateral fora, ensuring open markets and a non-discriminatory business framework, encouraging the integration of state economies into the free market, contributing to sustainable development and poverty alleviation in the least prosperous countries, and the importance of ensuring a coordinated approach. this strategy was subsequently elaborated further for specific countries or sectors in a number of more targeted communications, such as for example on eu’s relations with china, india, asean, indonesia, the asem process, and on the energy and environment sectors. the focus on eu’s new asia strategy (nas) is important in order to examine the changes which are taking place in eu external relations with asia and on eu’s emphasis on asia. so, the eu’s new asia strategy (nas) which was first adopted in 1994 it was revised and updated in 2007, provided a timely and welcomed additional impetus to intensified eu approach towards asia. the original eu’s new asia strategy (nas) strategy identifies the asian region as a group of most dynamic countries that have the potential to lead the 21st century world economic growth and development. categorizing the asian countries into three subgroups—northeast asia, southeast asia and south asia and asian regional organizations—the strategy paper of the european commission (1994) elaborates on ways and modalities to promote the presence, profile and influence of europe in asia (note 4). concerning regional fora, the european union (eu) has a longstanding relationship with south-east asia, through partnership with asean dating back to the late 1970s. the european union (eu) seeking to be a far more comprehensive actor in asia-rather than being limited to pure economic pursuits. the european union (eu) could use existing channels, such as its participation in the asean regional forum (arf) and the asia-europe meeting (asem) to engage in this policy exchange. the arf in particular, with its focus on preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention, is an ideal platform for the eu to be engaged with asean on these issues. (note 5) in south asia, the european union (eu) has a strategic partnership with india and bilateral agreements with five major south asian countries. although the european union (eu) intends to focus on bilateral relationships with south asian countries, it considers saarc to be a factor for internal stability in south asia. the european union (eu) has worked to intensify its relations with saarc since the 1990s. the european union (eu) has observer status since 2006, and greatly values co-operation and regional integration in south asia. (note 6)the european union (eu) is convinced that asean and saarc could play a useful role in regional co-operation and dialogue. in east asia, the asem process has evolved rapidly since its beginnings in 1996. the asem process has offered an excellent example of inter-regional cooperation, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 238 published by scholink inc. it is within eu’s overall asia strategy to ensure that it can make progress in each of its “three pillars” (political, economic and social). therefore, in the region of asia the eu considers major developments in global politics. more specifically, tensions in the transatlantic relationship between europe and the united states arising during the trump administration; the fragmentation caused by internal splits within the european union, especially from brexit; the rise of china not only as the second largest global economy the dynamics in the china-u.s. relationship and pressures to adopt positions in binary contentions over trade and security; the increasing importance of other asian powers, notably japan, india, and to a lesser extent asean; the economic realignments driving europe toward asian markets; and the changes taking place in global connectivity, industry, and digital governance. the european union (eu) tends to extend to the rest of the world the governance though norms that it experiences within its own borders. (note 7) implicitly, the european union (eu) makes the assumption that the global governance through norms is the most suitable political model for an independent world, since it constitutes a factor of equalization of power. (laidi & lamy, 2002). the european union (eu) wants to exert its power through norms. as a normative power is not only a norm-making power but it is also a norm-taking power. in practical terms the european union (eu) supports the normative basis of global governance, which could defined as international law and at the same time european preference to norms is expressed by its commitment to multilateral institutions. the eu asia strategy has an integrated, comprehensive and balanced view of the relations between the european union (eu) and its asian partners. this strategy has helped considerably in re-focusing on european union’s (eu’s) relations with the region, but should to take account of the substantial changes in both regions since then, and of the further changes which are already on the horizon. (note 8) in 2018, the european union (eu) steps up its strategy for connecting europe and asia. the european commission and the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy adopted a joint communication that sets out the eu’s vision for a new and comprehensive strategy to better connect europe and asia. (note 9) as a part of eu’s global strategy, the eu asia policy, with sustainable, comprehensive and rules-based connectivity combines a principled approach to connectivity and recognition that asia encompasses different regions, diversity in terms of economic models and level of development. the actions of the eu asia policy are based on creating transport links, energy and digital networks and human connections; offering connectivity partnerships to countries in asia and organisations; and promoting sustainable finance through utilising diverse financial tools. efficient infrastructure and connections create growth and jobs and enables people and goods to move. from transport links to energy networks, people-to-people contacts to digital webs. the eu’s trans-european transport networks (ten-t) are being extended to countries bordering asia. the eu should now connect the ten-t with networks in asia. the eu’s digital single market provides a blueprint for enhancing trade in digital services, while its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 239 published by scholink inc. digital4development strategy fosters socio-economic development. the eu is willing to share experiences of creating regional, liberalised energy markets with a focus on market-driven transformation towards clean energy. eu promotes human exchanges and mobility, for example in education, research, innovation, culture and tourism. (note 10) with a track record of a rules-based, fair and transparent internal market, the european union is engaging with partners beyond its borders in order to promote similar approaches to sustainable connectivity. the eu pursues bilateral connectivity partnerships such as the eu-china connectivity platform. at a regional level, the eu is able to draw on its experience of contributing to the enhanced connectivity and integration of various regional cooperation structures, for example in the baltic and black seas, as well as with asean and as part of the asem process. fostering increased region-to-region cooperation in connectivity would enable the european union to extend its sustainable and rules-based connectivity model. finally, the eu engages with international organisations in determining the legal frameworks and concrete forms of connectivity, for example to set international standards. the world trade organisation, the international energy agency, the international maritime organisation and united nations bodies are just a few examples where the european union is working and will continue to work for sustainable and fair global practices. (note 11) the eu focus on combining financial sources from international financial institutions, multilateral development banks and the private sector to ensure sustainable domestic and international finance for connectivity, while ensuring transparency and a level playing field for businesses. a comprehensive approach to investment financing, pioneered in europe by the european fund for strategic investments, as well as outside the eu through specific geographical investment facilities, has successfully leveraged investments for infrastructure and connectivity. combined with the eu’s proposals for reinforced external action under the next eu multi-annual financial framework (2021-2027), the potential for additional intelligent, innovative and multi-dimensional investment financing in and towards asia is significant. (note 12) a better connected europe and asia through transport links, energy, human and digital networks will strengthen the resilience of societies and regions, facilitate trade, promote the rules-based international order, and create avenues for a more sustainable, low-carbon future. (note 13) (acharya, 2008). 4. eu asia strategy: theoretical perspective in the region of asia there had been the dominance of the united states which europe was either unwilling or unable to challenge. the european approach can be defined as “institutional multilateralism”. even the history of europe’s presence in asia demonstrates that europe always focuses on economic benefit rather than security issues in asia. however, nowadays, eu’s main focus is on normative issues on asia such as the protection of human rights and the promotion of democracy. inter-regionalism’s assessment in different dimensions provides deeper insights into the external role of eu and the role of inter-regional interaction as a tool for eu foreign policy. it is clear that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 240 published by scholink inc. inter-regionalism has become an increasingly important element in global governance system in response to growing interdependence and the forces of globalization. it is also accepted that inter-regionalism has grown into a “pragmatic strategy” (soderbaum, 2005, p. 373) underpinning the eu’s external policies. the eu’s predilection toward inter-regional cooperation stems from its own positive experience with regional integration, which has created peace and prosperity. inter-regionalism has been seen as the eu’s internal logic and its “natural answer” to managing global interdependence. (note 14) (regelsberger, 1990, p. 13). more specifically, the eu uses soft power under the framework of neo-liberalism by focusing on low politics and normative issues. this strategy is based on eu’s main objectives of foreign policy for a multi-polar and a normative world order. figure 2. eu asia strategy theoretically, the europeans, according to kagan, are kantians who have entered a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity. (note 14) (weisgerber, 2011). the world in which asians live, and the view of it that most asian leaders have, appear to be more hobbesian than kantian. unlike europe, asia is rife with conflicts. it lags far behind europe’s level of regional integration and commitment to liberal democracy. kagan holds that europe’s lack of power has led it increasingly along a path of multilateralism. in the case of asia, it has led to strategic dependence on larger players, in particular in us. (note 15) however, in asia the role of culture matters, while eu’s commitment to regionalism and the rule of law in international affairs emerged from a determination to transcend the sovereignty-bound system of the nation-state, asia’s recent move toward regional multilateralism came primarily from a desire to preserve the existing rules of international relations, especially those related to sovereignty. europeans promote the post-sovereign system, but asia remains beholden to sovereignty. 5. eu asia strategy: the way forward the eu-asia relationship is undergoing change as a product of shifts within the eu itself, with brexit effectively removing the united kingdom as the important gateway to asia, and the rise of populist pressures within europe shaping policy responses. arguably, there are fewer consensuses within the eu on asia policy. the eu’s role in asia has grown in importance with the decline of the united states and kantian approach institutional multilateralism inter-regional interaction normative power www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 241 published by scholink inc. rise of multipolarity. there is the momentum for the eu to move away from a focus on trade and to focus on issues of connectivity and governance. the question is how the eu can improve effectiveness in its asia strategy. so, firstly, eu should raise the profile of europe in asia. secondly, eu should continue supporting efforts by asian countries to cooperate at the regional and sub-regional level such as the asean regional forum with a view to enhancing peace and security in the region and generally to strengthen the union’s relations with regional groups such as asean or saarc. in addition, eu could associate asian countries in the management of international affairs and in particular to encourage them to play a more active role in multilateral actions with a view to maintaining international peace and security and strengthen links with asian countries in multilateral fora, and further encourage asian participation in multilateral organizations. moreover, eu can pursue all actions necessary to ensure open markets and a non-discriminatory business environment conducive to an expansion of euro-asian trade and investments. in this standpoint, the eu should build global partnerships with key asian partners, to address the global opportunities and challenges and to strengthen joint efforts on global environmental and security issues. finally, eu needs to integrate into the open, market-based world trading system those asian countries which are moving from state controls to market-oriented economies and contribute to sustainable development and to poverty alleviation in the least prosperous countries of asia. eu needs to increase its role and its image in asia to focus on strategic issues and to focus on the adoption of an overall and consistent policy to asia. the eu needs a common and dynamic foreign policy in the general framework of inter-regionalism which can be mechanism for developing eu-asia relations and for improving eu’s role in asia. references amitav, a. 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(2007). in p. anderson, & g. wiessala (eds.), the inter-regional dimension of eu-asia relations: eu-asean and the asia-europe meeting (asem). notes note 1. communication from the commission, “europe and asia: a strategic framework for enhanced partnerships” july 2001, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/asia/index.htm note 2. amitav acharya, “eu’s crisis lessons for asia” in (eds) “asia rising, who is leading?” (world scientific 2008), pp. 175-190. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812771346 note 3. european commission, “regional programme for asia strategy document 2007-2013”, (may 2007), pp. 4-7. note 4. communication from the commission, “europe and asia: a strategic framework for enhanced partnerships” july 2001, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/asia/index.htm note 5. changing waters towards a new eu asia strategy http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/assets/documents/reports/lse-ideas-changing-waters-towards-a-neweu-asia-strategy.pdf, april 2016,pp17-21 note 6. kant k. bhargava and ananya mukherjee reed “the european union, south asia and democracy in development: dialogue and partnership”, (sweden international institute for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 244 published by scholink inc. democracy and electoral assistance 2009)pp1-10 note 7. juergen rueland “eu – asean relations – political and strategic dimensions political and strategic developments within asean and eu”, fourth eu-asean think-tank dialogue, eu and asean: integration and solidarity (european parliament, brussels, 25-26th november 2002). note 8. yeo lay hwee, “the inter-regional dimension of eu-asia relations: eu-asean and the asia-europe meeting (asem)”, (peter anderson and georg wiessala editions 2007) pp. 175-190. note 9. eu steps up its strategy for connecting europe and asia, september 2018, https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_ip-18-5803_en.htm note 10. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/infrastructure_en note 11. joint communication to the european parliament, the council, the european economic and social committee, the committee of the regions and the european investment bank, connecting europe and asia building blocks for an eu strategy september 2018, file:///e:/joint_communication_-_connecting_europe_and_asia_-_building_blocks_for_an_eu_strategy _2018-09-19.pdf note 12. eu budget: commission proposes a modern budget for a union that protects, empowers and defends https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_ip-18-3570_en.htm, may 2018 note 13. amitav acharya, “sovereignty: asians are wary of pushy outsiders”, in (eds) “asia rising, who is leading ?” ,(world scientific 2008), pp. 175-190. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812771346_0035 note 14. marcus weisgerber, “engagement, partnerships must guide u.s. asia policy” 29 apr 2011 http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6367823 note 15. amitav acharya and barry buzan “why there is no western international relations theory?” in (eds) “non-western international relations theory: perspectives on and beyond asia”, (routledge 2010) pp.1-27. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203861431 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 154 original paper a study on the change path of public administration mode in the era of big data runjia li1*, sumu he1 & zitong zeng1 1 school of public management, south china agricultural university, guangzhou 510642, china * li runjia, school of public management, south china agricultural university, guangzhou 510642, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 27, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p154 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p154 abstract the advent of the big data era presents social public administration with a host of novel opportunities and challenges. harnessing the capabilities and guiding influence of big data in a scientific manner is essential for enhancing the current standards of social and public administration. this paper delves into the critical issues confronting the existing public administration model within the big data context, including information security concerns, challenges in information integration, and the lack of information awareness among staff. it proposes targeted reform measures aimed at fostering the evolution of the public administration model to better adapt to and thrive in the new era. keywords public administration, big data era, social governance 1. big data 1.1 connotation of the big data era first and foremost, big data transcends a mere quantitative descriptor; it is an encompassing technology that harnesses vast datasets to convey rich information. it stands as a pivotal catalyst in our rapidly evolving era, where the very fabric of social production and daily life has been reshaped by the advent of the big data era. with the strategic application of data-driven technologies and the execution of well-crafted data strategies, big data emerges as a formidable engine for propelling societal progress. the deployment of big data technologies can markedly expedite advancements in the realms of social public administration and public service. mckinsey, a globally esteemed consulting firm, encapsulates the essence of big data's pervasive influence, stating, "data, now woven into the fabric of every industry and business function, has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 155 evolved into a vital production factor." since the seminal concept of big data was introduced by the prestigious journal nature in 2008, it has catalyzed explosive growth in its application across various facets of social life. big data has revolutionized the trajectory and methodology of societal development in science and technology, culture, politics, the economy, and everyday life at an astonishing pace. in this epoch marked by the swift advancement of electronic computer technology, the proliferation of data resources has given rise to expansive databases within the information network, heralding a novel knowledge system that fuels human advancement. the big data age can be summarized into two major categories. it is initially an age of knowledge dissemination, in which traditional structures and routes for transmitting information are completely rebuilt. a modern knowledge system is built by aggregating and concatenating massive data sets. since then, big data informatization tools have evolved into a platform-based driving force for development, necessitating the use of vast amounts of information from technologies and products in the formative stage, as well as the processing of useful knowledge. at the end of the day, the advent and growth of the big data era also symbolizes a demand for us to innovate with our cognitive models and knowledge architectures so that they can be enabled into this new paradigm if we truly want to advance as society. 1.2 characteristics of the big data era the big data era is defined by several characteristics, the first of which is "size". big data is typically very huge, such as petabytes (p), exabytes (e), and zettabytes (z), which reflect the never-before-seen magnitude of information available to be analyzed on a scale that we are not accustomed to working with raw. this relevance naturally lays the groundwork for diversity in the data types themselves. advanced processing capabilities are required to extract useful insights from a variety of data sources, including online logs, audio files, videos, photos, and geo-location data. the third most distinguishing feature of big data is its lack of value density: many items in these huge pools are only seen a few times. with such a vast volume, the challenge is that there are nuggets of gold in those hills somewhere and they must be able to distinguish useful information from massive quantities of less relevant data using sophisticated technological approaches. the fourth attribute is timeliness, which requires quick data processing. this distinguishes it from traditional data mining, in which the rate of analysis may be more manageable. in today's fast-paced digital world, the deluge of growing data is much too much for even the most sophisticated technical infrastructures to handle. that means firms must quickly process and evaluate all of that data in order to transform their significant investment into results, or they risk losing out. the era of big data has thus introduced novel challenges to our capacity to harness data effectively. yet, it also opens up unprecedented opportunities for deeper and more comprehensive understanding. the acceleration of information technology has rendered the internet a critical medium for data, with search engines, social media, and business platforms all playing pivotal roles in data extraction, sharing, and aggregation. this data-driven environment not only fuels public discourse, transforming minor incidents into major news stories but also empowers governments and businesses to make decisions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 156 that are more precise and timely. these capabilities are hallmarks of the transformative potential of the big data era. 2. classification of public administration models over the past decades, digital technologies have become ubiquitous, impacting and changing the ways society operates. immense public and economic value is being created by improving access to information and resources (desai & manoharan, 2024). public administration stands as a pivotal endeavor in the construction of a harmonious society and the stabilization of social development, serving as a robust form of governance (jin, 2024). the models of public administration are primarily categorized into three distinct approaches. the first is the intervention model, characterized by the authoritative management and intervention of societal development by power organizations. here, public entities assume a dominant role, while the market operates in a more peripheral capacity. this model fosters a stable hierarchical structure where public organizations wield considerable influence over social affairs. however, it is not without its drawbacks. the static nature of this relationship can engender a lack of responsibility and crisis awareness among administrative staff, a propensity for rule-following, and a susceptibility to disciplinary infractions. its limitations are stark in the face of contemporary social evolution, potentially hindering market development (cha, 2019). contrastingly, the market model positions the government as a facilitative force, synergizing with the market to foster its ongoing expansion. in this paradigm, the government relinquishes its monopolistic stance, allowing the market to assume a more central role, thus engendering a flexible and dynamic environment. the market model anchors economic activities in market-oriented development, underpinned by contracts, performance-based wages, and other mechanisms that safeguard the rights and interests of all stakeholders, ensuring the full protection of public interests (hu, 2021). lastly, the service-oriented model places the populace at the heart of its operations, adhering to the principle of pursuing the interests of the people. this model considers the rights and interests of the public as its starting point, adopting a public stance to devise social governance strategies that enhance the efficacy of social governance and elevate the quality of public services. 3.1 information security issues in recent decades, public organizations have undergone significant changes related to digitalization. these changes are the result of multiple, varying influences, such as external institutional feedback (karin & jonas, 2024). in the big data era, the accessibility and analysis of information have been greatly facilitated, offering unprecedented convenience for users. however, this convenience comes with an increased risk to information security. the prevalent practice of storing data in cloud-based databases, while enhancing the speed and convenience of data retrieval, exposes it to the complexities and vulnerabilities of network environments. a single security breach in the processing or utilization of information can compromise entire databases, potentially leading to the loss of data integrity and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 157 privacy violations. user information security maintenance and database safety overall defense capabilities are being put to the test in the field of social public administration. this increases the risks since public administration units lack institutional management competence and technical experience. simultaneously, there are a number of large data units that are underutilized and underdeveloped, with little control over administrative operations. databases, on the other hand, are trapped in the internet's essentially open environment and are constantly under attack by hackers/viruses, resulting in an unstable information tech-sharing system in response to emerging safety risks. data protection in the public sector necessitates a smart approach. large volumes of data, compliance, and record keeping rules also raise the need for caution while handling big data, not to mention that additional requirements will result in even greater oversight of these resources as cyber dangers continue to escalate. 3.2 information integration issues because of the variety of data formats and validation criteria, specific datasets are frequently isolated from the rest of an organization's information architecture. this type of isolation occurs when data is incompatible across systems, resulting in islands that resemble informational silos. this not only impedes the proper collection of data in its entirety, but also hinders public sentiment analysis for good because true and substantial evidence is lacking to support any conclusions drawn. the most recent development in big data in china is that the usage rate of massive cache data and information resources is rather low. to address current issues, norms and standards must be refined. due to the lack of standardized information construction standards, information silos are a major problem for data reliability. furthermore, no established and precise standards for evaluating information have arisen. based on these criteria, a significant lack of integration occurs in organizations, resulting in significant obstacles to the flow of information/data required to carry out useful efforts regarding school administration reforms. without basic standards and trustworthy assessment methodologies that can be applied across a wide variety of data granularities, it becomes impossible to creatively synthesize various datasets such that they can contribute significantly to public policy or governance. 3.3 the problem of weak information service awareness among administrative staff in the internet era, the rapid evolution of big data technology has positioned it as a key asset within the field of public administration. despite its widespread application, a significant gap remains in the understanding and utilization of big data among some administrative staff. this shortfall in comprehension often leads to an undervaluation of the technology's potential contributions to the sector. the limited proficiency in big data technology among staff, coupled with an absence of internet-centric thinking and a lack of big data awareness, has perpetuated outdated approaches to public administration. this results in a model that struggles to keep pace with the accelerating demands of societal progress. traditional mindsets prevail, with adherence to established rules and regulations taking precedence over innovative thinking, thereby affecting the overall quality of work. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 158 furthermore, the insufficient application of big data and internet technologies in certain departments perpetuates reliance on conventional methods for information gathering and analysis. this approach is characterized by a deficiency in data application capabilities and an inadequate extraction of valuable insights, hindering the full capture of relevant information. the inability to harness the analytical power of big data effectively is detrimental to the scientific rigor of public administration decision-making and impedes the innovation of the public administration model. 4. appropriate response 4.1 enhancing big data security through advanced technological safeguards the rapid development of computer technology and the internet has propelled mankind into the era of big data. thanks to the internet, human beings have broken time and space limitations, and information exchange has become unprecedentedly flexible. as we all know, the internet is characterized by a certain degree of openness, and it is this openness that leads to network information security threats. due to the existence of hackers and viruses, network information is often leaked. some confidential information, such as national defense and military data, as well as commercial secrets, has also been stolen and destroyed, with extremely harmful consequences. criminals use illegal means to collect information and then sell it for huge profits, thus seriously undermining the network environment and social stability. because of this, the government is a public service and manager, and it is the one who occupies a lot of information in its work. from this level, guaranteeing information security is the key to improving the level of public administration in society in the context of the big data era. therefore, government departments need to actively do a good job of technical protection, improve the information security management mechanism, and make every effort to ensure information security. further, regarding the collected information, public administration departments should make a detailed division to distinguish between private information and public information. not only that, to improve the level of public administration, public administration should set up an open platform for government information so that government departments can be supervised by relevant departments and the public and release information available to the public on the platform, to safeguard the people's right to know and ensure the transparency of the office. at the same time, the confidentiality of private information should be properly maintained, and scientific and effective methods should be adopted to ensure the security of data and information. in addition to this, the sense of responsibility of employees should be enhanced to avoid artificial leakage. finally, legal means must be used to prevent illegal disclosure of information or illegal theft of information. once there is illegal disclosure or theft of information, severe punishment should be imposed. 4.2 integrating heterogeneous communication channels for robust data interconnectivity first, when using big data technology for public administration, staff must improve efficiency from the perspective of meeting public needs to ensure that their work is more precise, detailed, rigorous, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 159 efficient (karin & jonas, 2024). the large volume and dispersion of data and information have led to information isolation, poor communication, and a lack of interconnection between different public administrations and service affairs. under such circumstances, the functions of the government will be weakened, the phenomenon of information silos will become more and more serious, and the integration of information will become more difficult. to solve this problem, staff must use advanced technology to effectively divide different departments so that different departments can keep in touch and communicate at all times. staff should also try to integrate big data information to realize information sharing and interconnection. secondly, in addition to horizontal interoperability among departments, vertical interoperability of information between higher and lower levels of departments is also important. advanced cloud computing technology and network information technology can create central databases and unify various platforms so that information from different departments can be harmonized and aggregated. in the event of problems, they can be communicated and responded to first and play an effective coordinating role. thirdly, to ensure the organic integration of public administration and big data, it is necessary to give full play to the role of big data in terms of connectivity. and to solve the problem of information silos between different departments, in addition to strengthening management and utilizing advanced technology, it is also necessary to ensure that each department has information that can be shared and referred to, which touches on the issue of information division. care must be taken to ensure that information is publicly available so that it can be accessed at any time. fourthly, a comprehensive information management mechanism must be developed so that the relevant personnel can comply with the relevant regulations and operate in strict accordance with procedures for ensuring information security. it is necessary to effectively distinguish between external network information and internal network information and to delineate the work to be emphasized. it is necessary to continuously improve the information application level of management personnel so that they have a good understanding of information security and effectively handle external network information and internal network information to meet the needs of public administration. relevant personnel should handle relevant data and information promptly, and under the guarantee of a strict system, information exchange between different public services will become more practical, so that big data can give full play to its role in public administration and the level of public administration can be improved continuously, thus truly realizing the goal of innovation. 4.3 integrating various teaching methods at first, thought is the precursor of action; the administration should conform to the development of the times, establish internet awareness, arm the mind with internet thinking, strengthen the awareness of internet governance, and promote the change of public administration mode. secondly, the administration should be people-oriented, take the fundamental interests of the people as the root, and safeguard the people's rights and interests as the purpose, to promote the improvement of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 160 the effect of administrative governance (wu, 2023). third, realizing the updating of thoughts and concepts and establishing awareness of internet governance are the prerequisites for promoting the innovation of public administration mode and the basis for promoting the continuous improvement of public administration mode. when applying internet technology, it is necessary to strictly abide by the relevant regulations, to clarify the relevant laws and regulations, and to strengthen digital management. in the process, refined management should be implemented to improve the scientific nature of public administration (yang, 2023). fourth, in the new era, everyone can become a data terminal. the public can all collect data, obtain information, and use data equally on the internet platform, express their demands through internet channels, and realize the release and dissemination of information. therefore, the administration should do a good job of guiding the public. in fact, it should increase publicity and education efforts to publicize internet technology and big data technology and guide the public to correctly understand the internet and correctly use network technology. moreover, it should play a guiding role, establish a resource-sharing mechanism, improve the convenience of information use and collection, and enhance the interaction with the public. lastly, it should apply big data technology to analyze the data and information, realize the collection and integration of information, enhance the relevant affairs' predictability, provide a basis for public administration decision-making, and enhance the level of public administration. 5. conclusion as the big data era reshapes public administration, we underscore the critical need for enhanced data governance and the integration of communication channels to bolster service quality. addressing the challenges of information security and siloed data, we advocate for a proactive approach to harnessing big data's potential while ensuring transparency and security. the path forward lies in the continuous evolution of public administration, embracing technological advancements, and fostering a data-literate workforce. future endeavors should aim to refine data governance frameworks and ethical guidelines, ensuring that the transformative power of big data serves the public interest effectively. in conclusion, the integration of big data into public administration is a strategic imperative for the modernization and improvement of governance. with a commitment to innovation and adaptability, we can navigate the complexities of the digital age and achieve a more efficient and responsive public service. 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(2023). research on the innovation and development of smart community policing under the background of modernization of grass-roots social governance. journal of hebei police vocational college, 23(3), 56-59. zha, s. h. (2019). analysis of public management model from the perspective of the internet. new curriculum, 1(117). original paper a study on the change path of public administratio runjia li1*, sumu he1 & zitong zeng1 abstract keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 160 original paper a preliminary discussion on the diversity of line art in flower and bird painting zihao wang1 1 school of fine arts and design, lingnan normal university, zhanjiang, guangdong, china e-mail: 1465483695@qq.com received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 03, 2025 online published: december 16, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p160 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p160 abstract line art represents the most fundamental and enduring expressive technique in chinese painting, embodying the very soul of eastern art. "regarding lines, the chinese focus on the subtle variations inherent in lines themselves, along with the rich linear forms and applications developed, is unique in the world. the primary characteristic of chinese painting lies precisely in lines and their linear transformations." this paper explores the origins of line artistry in traditional flower-and-bird painting, its diverse innovations and continuities, and exemplary artists and works. using the "eighteen brushstrokes" as a case study, it analyzes various expressive forms and fundamental concepts of line as a modeling technique; the enrichment and development of line artistry through variant techniques like cun (texture rendering) and dian (dotting); the relationship between the initiation, continuation, and transition of lines and the structural form of depicted subjects;the relationship between stylized line expressions, their inherent rhythmic forms, and the volume and texture of depicted subjects; the connection between line organization and pictorial space; the "spirit of calligraphic expression" in line art guided by the principle of "incorporating calligraphy into painting"; and the evolution and innovation of the "meaning" conveyed by lines. furthermore, drawing on the development of traditional line art, the article briefly outlines contemporary trends in line art within modern and contemporary flower-and-bird painting, addressing challenges concerning tradition and innovation. keywords detailed-brush flower-and-bird painting, diversity, eighteen descriptions, tradition, development 1. introduction line, as the most primordial and essential visual language of painting, carries the weight of cultural connotation and artistic spirit across civilizations. in the vast landscape of global art, chinese painting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 161 distinguishes itself by its unparalleled emphasis on line artistry—an emphasis that transcends mere form to become the very soul of eastern aesthetic expression. as a core tenet of chinese painting theory, the proposition that "the primary characteristic of chinese painting lies precisely in lines and their linear transformations" encapsulates the centuries-long pursuit of generations of artists, who have explored the subtle variations, rich forms, and profound implications of lines with tireless dedication. among the diverse genres of traditional chinese painting, flower-and-bird painting stands as a particularly vivid and enduring field for the practice and evolution of line artistry. unlike landscape painting, which often relies on grand spatial narratives, or figure painting, which focuses on human demeanor, flower-and-bird painting centers on the depiction of natural organisms—delicate petals, gnarled branches, fluttering wings, and dewdrops on leaves—demanding that lines not only outline the external form of subjects but also convey their inherent vitality, texture, and spiritual essence. the history of traditional chinese flower-and-bird painting can be seen as a history of the continuous development of line artistry. from the concise and vivid line drawings of flower and bird motifs on silk paintings of the han and wei dynasties, to the elegant and refined "fine-line painting" (gongbi) of the tang and song dynasties, where lines were rendered with meticulous precision to capture the subtle details of feathers and petals, and then to the free and unrestrained "freehand brushwork" (xieyi) of the ming and qing dynasties, which used bold, expressive lines to convey the spirit of subjects beyond their physical form, line art in flower-and-bird painting has undergone a process of inheritance, transformation, and innovation. throughout this process, artists have not only accumulated a wealth of technical methods, such as the renowned "eighteen brushstrokes" that systematize the techniques of line drawing for different subjects, but also integrated calligraphic elements into painting practice, giving rise to the principle of "incorporating calligraphy into painting"—a principle that endows lines with the rhythmic beauty and expressive spirit of calligraphy, elevating line art from a modeling tool to a carrier of artistic temperament and cultural philosophy. 2. overview of lineart in flower-and-bird painting 2.1 line as the soul of chinese painting when tracing their origins, it becomes evident that chinese and western painting arts emerged from the same artistic form. (wen, 2012) however, with historical shifts and the evolution of eastern and western ideologies, they developed distinctly different interpretations of line art: western lines serve solely to depict the light, shadow, and volume of subjects or to establish initial forms in compositions. chinese painting, however, uses lines to shape forms, transforming objects into traces while seeking the artistic interest and spiritual value inherent in lines themselves. lines not only capture form but also convey spirit, existing as an independent aesthetic entity."chinese painting is neither lipps's 'transference theory,' which merely imbues objects with spirit, nor wölfflin's abstract impulse that emphasizes intuition while excluding reason, resulting in artistic will. rather, it is the union of objective subject and subjective spirit." (lin, 2010) thus, the use of line in chinese painting is an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 162 "imaginative form" that unites subject and object. it must be said that line is the soul of chinese painting. "the use of line in chinese painting is neither a subjective act of whim nor an objective process of imitation; it is a shared visual convention crystallized through centuries of historical sedimentation." (li, 2005) within the line lies the accumulated wisdom and philosophy of millennia of chinese civilization, expressing through form an emotional "intention" that embodies a social and humanistic spirit.lines shed the dazzling splendor of color, traveling light and unencumbered to directly grasp the contours of objects, their movement, and their very soul. abstract line patterns are the aesthetic internalization of form, the materialization of the inner world. they exist in objects and in the mind, where subject and object mutually generate each other, ultimately merging into a state of mutual oblivion. the vitality of chinese painting lies in the diversity of its lines. the uniqueness of its material medium determines that ink and brush convey emotion, while the distinctiveness of its aesthetic sensibilities drives the continuous evolution and refinement of lines. the aesthetic principle of "incorporating calligraphy into painting" masterfully expresses the artistic conception of literati painting, establishing the beauty of lines as an independent art form within the artistic pantheon and guiding chinese painting toward timelessness. 2.2 from "outline drawing" to "freehand brushwork": the evolution of line techniques in flower-and-bird painting the origins of line in traditional chinese painting can be traced back to the painted pottery of the yangshao period, the silk paintings of the late zhou dynasty, the lacquer paintings on chu vessels, and the murals of the han and tang dynasties. the painted pottery patterns of the yangshao culture represent china's earliest works employing line, characterized by their distinct, vivid, and vigorous strokes. before the unification of writing systems in the qin and han dynasties, line served as the most fundamental means of representation for ancient peoples. through the technique of outline drawing, they depicted objects and conveyed emotions, naturally embodying the primitive, naive beauty of early art. thus, painting remained painting—devoid of conscious artistic awareness or standardized pictorial conventions. alongside the expression of imagery and symbolic lines, the art of calligraphy emerged during the shang dynasty.the composition and structural principles of lines evolved from the abstraction of images. this purified beauty of lines flowed naturally in that era. thus, images were rendered in stylized, schematic outlines. yet these linear patterns lacked individuality; the lines traced the forms, atmospheres, and traces of objects—a conscious inheritance within established rules. by the tang dynasty, flower-and-bird painting had matured into an independent genre. numerous artists of this era achieved lasting renown for their mastery. xue ji of the early tang excelled in depictions of cranes, while cao ba, han gan, and chen hong dominated equine painting during the kaiyuan and tianbao periods. han huang and dai song gained fame for their portrayals of oxen, capturing the essence of their wild spirit and muscular structure.the lines in these paintings are simple www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 163 and steady, following the contours of the forms. even when rendered in light colors, they do not obscure the beauty of the lines' vigor and elegance. the forms of the lines—their beginnings and endings, lengths and widths, thicknesses and thinnesses, squareness and roundness, curves and straightness—are expressed with perfect precision. they combine the rhythmic beauty of the lines with the spatial perspective, the sense of mass and volume of the objects. the five dynasties period witnessed the emergence of two stylistic schools in flower-and-bird painting: the "opulent elegance of the huang family" and the "wild, untamed spirit of xu xi," marking the art form's maturation. the advent of bone-less painting techniques and the expression of untamed, natural charm propelled the development of freehand brushwork and expanded the freedom of line and ink expression.throughout the song dynasty, bird-and-flower painting predominantly favored realistic, from-life depictions. this tendency stemmed from the aesthetic standards of the hanlin academy, which upheld the huang school as orthodox. though artists like yi yuange and cui bai introduced naturalistic charm and lively, free-spirited expressive tendencies, the dominant approach remained meticulously crafted lines—precise, rigorous, and elegantly poised.emphasis was placed on the depth of "expressing the heart," with greater attention to subtle variations in form and structure, enhancing the expressive power of line drawing to achieve greater accuracy and vitality. the emphasis on thematic focus and highly abstracted expression elevated line drawing during this period into an independent genre of painting with profound aesthetic value. with the emergence of freehand painting and the development of literati painting, yuan dynasty flower-and-bird painting delved into the inner world of viewers with specific cultural sensibilities. the depicted flowers and birds distanced themselves from their real-world counterparts, embodying simplicity, tranquility, and profound contemplation.first, subject selection centered on the "four gentlemen" led by ink bamboo, symbolizing the personification of literati integrity. this shifted from traditional freehand expression of emotions to embodying moral ideals—a transcendent insight and inner release. second, the shift from "poetry, calligraphy, and painting as one" to "incorporating calligraphy into painting" emphasized the spirit and charm of brushwork.after the yuan dynasty, painters recognized that the formation and development of line as an independent language required dialogue between the inner self and nature—a state of self-forgetfulness and object-forgetfulness—ultimately returning to and elevating the language of line itself. during the ming and qing dynasties, flower-and-bird painting increasingly valued the charm and rhythm of lines, pursuing freedom and individual expression. xu wei pioneered the bold, freehand style of flower-and-bird painting with its vigorous, unrestrained brushwork;and yun nantian's unique "boneless" style, where color, ink texture, and bone-method brushwork coalesce to form the subject with a single stroke. he advocated that "the law of no law is the true law," where the lawless represents a fresh understanding of new life and one's own existence. through historical transformations and developments, regardless of how the form of chinese painting has evolved, the application of lines and aesthetic principles remain systematically transmitted. more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 164 importantly, its aesthetic standards have never changed due to shifts in external form. it is a process from unconsciousness to consciousness, from lawlessness to lawfulness, and then back to lawlessness. therefore, the diverse development of lines will continue unabated, keeping pace with the times to explore new forms of line expression and generate new spiritual imagery. 3.manifestations of line diversity and principles of application 3.1manifestations of line diversity 3.1.1 brush techniques: the application of the eighteen brush strokes in flower-and-bird painting during the ming dynasty, zou dezhong systematized the "eighteen brushstrokes" and proposed that "the art of brushwork has remained constant through eighteen generations." (zou, n.d.) as eras evolved, the application of lines developed new connotations, gradually revealing their diverse characteristics.through meticulous observation and mental memorization of diverse subjects, artists achieved profound abstraction of form and spirit, endowing each line with unique and irreplaceable qualities. early flower-and-bird paintings predominantly featured backgrounds. the two silk paintings unearthed from the changsha chu tombs of the warring states period—figure riding a dragon and figure with dragon and phoenix—represent the earliest known depictions of birds on silk.the forms were primarily rendered with lines, featuring mixed techniques, iron-wire strokes, and ancient floating-thread strokes. the brushwork was fluid, the lines simple, and there was a growing awareness of volume, using lines to distinguish inner and outer contours. historical records indicate that gu kaizhi of the eastern jin dynasty created works such as "geese and swans" and "wild ducks and waterfowl.""waterfowl and wild geese," and "waterfowl and wild geese." during the southern dynasties' liu song period, gu jingxiu gained fame for his mastery of painting zen sparrows. records also mention his works "zen sparrows on hemp paper" and "parrot on a painting fan," though unfortunately, no authentic examples of these paintings survive today. gu kaizhi perfected the "ancient flowing-thread brushwork" technique that had developed since the warring states period. his lines flowed seamlessly with a rhythmic quality, described as "silk-spinning silkworms in spring, floating spring clouds, and flowing water traversing the earth."by the tang dynasty, flower-and-bird painting had evolved into an independent genre. within traditional meticulous brushwork, artists employed the interweaving, arrangement, and combination of lines, coupled with the contrast of thick and thin ink strokes, to express the structure of subjects, spatial relationships, and the overall effect of the composition. the eighteen brushstrokes embody the synthesis of various forms of dynamic beauty, the variation and unity of lines, rhythm and cadence, symmetry and cohesion.han huang's five oxen (fig. 1) employs ink lines with subtle color washes, executed with a robust and steady brushwork that renders the subjects powerful and substantial. the lines combine the vigorous clarity of iron-wire strokes with the moist, plump texture of earthworm-like lines. these sinuous variations aptly convey the oxen's musculature and the texture of their hides.song dynasty flower-and-bird painting centered on emperor huizong, whose imperial academy emphasized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 165 meticulous, rigorous lines. his "slim gold style" featured slender, vigorous strokes dominated by iron-wire brushwork, with precise, detailed structures.song miniatures achieved remarkable accuracy and vitality, pushing the flat beauty of eastern line art to its pinnacle with enduring influence. take "bamboo grove with white-headed cranes" as an example: bamboo leaves are outlined with fine, centered brushstrokes using the nail-head-mouse-tail technique, creating rhythmic pauses and accents; bamboo stems employ the double-outline-and-color method with iron-wire strokes, rendering them vigorous and powerful. the brushwork is meticulous and rigorous, with subdued tones.cui bai's double happiness painting follows xu xi's wild and unconventional style, emphasizing the spirit of sketching from life. it breaks free from the decorative patterns of traditional flower-and-bird paintings, pioneering a new direction. it employs freehand brushwork for outlining, blending multiple techniques: the nail-head-and-mouse-tail method, side-brush strokes, and frequent use of the bald-brush technique to conceal the brush tip, all executed in one fluid motion.it also incorporates broken-reed strokes, willow-leaf strokes, and mixed techniques throughout. the brushwork is dry and austere, blending meticulousness with freehand execution. while demonstrating a loose and flexible brush technique, it also vividly and exquisitely conveys the bleak and desolate scenery of autumn. figure 1. five oxen, ink on paper, 20.8 cm × 139.8 cm, palace museum, beijing figure 2. "two sheep" is one of zhao mengfu's most celebrated works. the sheep are rendered with elegant forms and vivid expressions, with distinct techniques employed to reflect different breeds.two distinct brush techniques are employed for the wool: a perfectly balanced dry-wet scattered brushstroke and a luminous layered ink application. both approaches draw inspiration from natural variations. the left sheep, with its rounded, substantial form, is first outlined with a uniform, fine flowing-thread contour. the inner contours are rendered using varied sizes of date-seed strokes, creating a sense of broken lines yet continuous intent.the sheep's head employs a technique of layered dry ink, meticulously dotted with walnut-kernel strokes to achieve both weightiness and vitality. the goat's wool on the right utilizes an ancient floating-thread technique, rendering it ethereal and natural. this approach not only distinguishes the goat's wool in layers but also effectively conveys its texture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 166 figure 2. two goats, by zhao mengfu, yuan dynasty, 25.2 cm × 48.4 cm, currently housed at the freer gallery of art, united states as eras evolve, lines continuously transform and develop. their expressive power endures and advances through expanded techniques, elevating painting brushwork to the realm of calligraphy. as yu jianhua states in compilation of chinese painting theories: "outline lines must constantly pulsate—opposing both detached, abstract manipulation of lines and rigid contour strokes.each stroke must possess exaggeration and emotion, yet each stroke must also originate from reality." (yu, n.d.) it is precisely this vitality of the line that drives artists to continually contemplate the interplay between creation and the painted world, seeking the convergence point between inner resonance and nature, thus propelling the stylization and innovation of line. in the late qing dynasty, ren bonian frequently employed the nail-head-mouse-tail technique, producing lines that were graceful and spirited, executed with effortless control over pressure and release.the technique employed in phoenix descending to the ground (fig. 3) is remarkably diverse: the paulownia trunk is rendered with a freehand brushstroke, while its leaves are outlined with a nail-head-mouse-tail technique that perfectly captures their texture. rocks are depicted using a folded-door stroke, combining both angular and rounded qualities.the phoenix beneath the tree combines bamboo-leaf, orchid-leaf, and nail-head-mouse-tail techniques. its feathers are resplendent, its form graceful, and its posture vividly animated. this demonstrates ren bonian's extraordinary skill in organizing and applying line techniques. despite the variety of methods, the composition remains harmonious and orderly, effectively organizing the subjects and expressing their essential characteristics. modern painter chen zifen employs dry-line drawing for floral subjects, utilizing the zhanbi technique with water-pattern strokes. applying the brush with a centered tip, he alternates between pressing and lifting, skillfully balancing concealed and revealed elements. the vivid forms, harmonious density, and subtle interplay of strength and softness stem primarily from the unique texture and quality of the brushstrokes achieved through the integration of seal engraving techniques into painting.contemporary artist su baijun also employs the war-brush technique in his works, particularly in depicting withered trees. his strokes break yet maintain continuity, with the brush tip shifting fluidly between center and side. this perfect fusion of hesitation and fluidity, roundness and desolation, steadiness and vitality, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 167 solidity and ethereality, simplicity and sincerity vividly expresses the tactile quality and spatial depth of the subject while capturing the spiritual essence of life drawing. figure 3. phoenix descending, ren bonian, chinese people's revolutionary military museum 3.1.1 texturing techniques cunfa emerged as an idealized, stylized line technique in late song landscape painting, driven by the pursuit of spatial depth, volumetric presence, and material weight. it represents the evolution of line diversity. in contemporary chinese painting, this linear form is termed linear cunfa, extending beyond landscape painting to figure and flower-bird genres.the integration of cun techniques with flower-and-bird painting enriches the expressive language of lines and enhances the artistic impact of such works. since the late qing dynasty, the eastward spread of western learning has influenced traditional chinese painting to varying degrees, with the lingnan school experiencing particularly profound effects. against this historical backdrop, cun techniques, as a traditional method, have partially served as a bridge, becoming an entry point for sino-western fusion. the forms and textures of landscapes fall into two primary categories. one features hard, block-like stones, where techniques like axe-chop texturing and folded-belt texturing are employed to convey their rugged, coarse, and even majestic beauty. these techniques can also be applied in flower-and-bird painting to depict the rough textures of branches, trunks, and stones.the other category depicts the lush, rounded landscapes of southern china, characterized by dense vegetation and exposed earth. techniques like the hemp-fiber brushstroke and cloud-head brushstroke are employed. in flower-and-bird painting, these methods can render delicate flowers, soft foliage, and the feathers or fur of birds and beasts. in small-scale freehand painting, the "outline-and-texture" technique evolves from line variations. ren bonian introduced the small outline-and-texture method into flower-and-bird painting, enhancing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 168 expressive power of lines. sometimes, using dry brush and light ink to depict mountains, rocks, trees, and bird feathers, it simultaneously captures the relief structure and the essence of brushwork. this effectively anchors the content within the form, elevating the work to a refined aesthetic. the stylized development of line techniques—outline, linear texture, and stippling—continued to enrich over time. some innovations stemmed from insights into the internal texture and quality of subjects, others from the visual synthesis and abstraction of contrasts between objects, while others were direct expressions of form, taking shape with the brushstroke. yet, despite these innovations, the essence remains a description of form.the inheritance of line and ink techniques is a continuous evolution. in flower-and-bird painting, lines form the backbone, serving as the skeletal framework of the composition. texturing and dotting techniques branch off as stylistic variations or extensions of lines, enriching the pictorial structure. these three elements mutually reinforce each other, perpetuating, developing, and innovating to showcase the diversity of line expression. 3.2 principles for applying line diversity 3.2.1 the structural relationship between line and form the lines in chinese fine-brush painting underwent tremendous development early on: evolving from flat, static lines into dynamic, spirited strokes. it is precisely through this sense of movement that the works express such powerful vitality.lines became the fundamental means by which painters extracted and generalized natural forms for artistic representation. as zong baihua noted in his aesthetic musings: "the chinese character for 'form' (形) is composed of three strokes resembling hairs, symbolizing the lines that define physical form. this illustrates how the organization of imagery in chinese art is fundamentally linear." (zong, 1981) for instance, in 's "pomegranate and oriole" (fig. 4), the eastern artistic technique of flat treatment is taken to its ultimate expression. both the oriole and the pomegranate possess a rounded structural volume, conveying a rich, substantial weight. every line and stroke depicting the feathers on the bird's body is rendered according to its circular structure, tightly following the curves of its form. the long lines, arcs, and curves on the bird's body,short lines, arcs, curves, large color blocks, and small color blocks all interact to subtly suggest the direction of the form's structure. though rendered with flat color, the thickness and volume of the forms are not diminished. the short lines and structural dots within the pomegranate also follow the form: large dots in the center, small dots on the sides. the lines' shape and perspective are tightly integrated with the structural form. the composition is simple yet rich, with content that is sparse yet refined.the sharpness of the bird's beak and claws contrasts with the suppleness of its body, while the dense lines of the pomegranate in the lower right counterbalance the simplicity of the bird's form—opposites that achieve unity. in chinese gongbi painting, lines adapt to the changing planes of the form. to depict objects through lines, one must meticulously observe their internal structure, distinguish the primary and secondary relationships of lines expressing form, and harmonize the whole with its parts. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 169 figure 4. "pomegranate and yellow bird," anonymous, album leaf, colored ink on silk. height: 24.6 cm, width: 25.4 cm, collection of the palace museum, beijing 3.2.2 the relationship between line andobject texture the eighteen descriptions of figure painting and the techniques of cun painting in landscape art are both abstracted systems of line application derived from the artist's understanding of form and texture. similarly, meticulous flower-and-bird painting emphasizes "applying lines according to the subject," employing distinct brushwork concepts and techniques for different subjects. the diverse textures of lines and their orderly progression can also convey a sense of space. through the interweaving, overlapping, concealment, and exposure of lines, along with the arrangement of different textures, rich layers can be expressed.for instance, in beggar in the cloud-shrouded mountains (fig. 5), the hair texture varies: near the roots, short, stiff lines are loosely arranged; in the middle section, medium-length lines are soft and dense; side strands feature curved lines that appear light and flowing. combined with the distinct texture of the woven bamboo hat, the layered spatial progression feels natural and comfortable. figure 5. detail from "beggar in the cloud-shrouded mountains," 1868 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 170 3.2.3 the relationship between line and spatial depth though lines possess strong planarity and decorative qualities, their spatial expression should not be underestimated. chinese painting employs scattered-point perspective rather than the focal perspective of western art. it adapts to the viewer's appreciation by utilizing diverse forms to convey spatial depth through lines. first, flower-and-bird paintings utilize long scrolls or screen-like compositions. though lines are flat, they expand spatial diversity and compositional richness through "shifting views with each step," depicting subjects from multiple perspectives to clearly convey information about their height, depth, and lateral dimensions. moreover, in detailed brushwork paintings—particularly in detailed brushwork flower-and-bird paintings depicting branches—the spatial expression of lines often manifests as a microscopic space. the diversity of lines—their solidity and hollowness, density and sparseness, thickness and thinness, curvature and straightness, fragmentation and wholeness, and varying intensity—is harmoniously presented within a single composition. it is precisely the varied lengths and thicknesses of lines that segment the pictorial space, while the interplay of sparse and dense lines, solid and hollow lines, creates a rhythmic spatial cadence within the painting. for instance, in "lotus emerging from water," the composition centers on the flower's heart, with all lines radiating outward and converging at this focal point. and the interplay of solid and void establish the spatial rhythm of the composition. for instance, in the composition of "lotus emerging from water," the flower's center serves as the focal point, with all lines radiating outward toward it.the petals divide the composition into numerous irregular triangles, overlapping in varying lengths—some inverted, others upright. the contours of these lines form an aesthetically pleasing structure, achieving beauty through asymmetry within symmetry. the internal layers are clearly defined while simultaneously creating a layered, overlapping relationship with the external space.the arrangement of the lotus stems is particularly ingenious. the orderly placement of long, medium, and short stems, along with their varying densities and interplay with the lotus leaves, creates a spatial relationship of foreground, middle ground, and background. 3.2.4 the relationship between line and calligraphic brushwork zong baihua observed: "'dance' epitomizes the artistic realm of all chinese art. chinese calligraphy and painting both aspire toward a sense of flight and movement. even solemn architecture expresses dance through its soaring eaves." throughout chinese painting history, the concept of "painting and calligraphy sharing the same origin" has prevailed. both are different forms of the same essence, utilizing common expressive tools. their techniques in brushwork and ink application, as well as their methods for conveying emotion and meaning, are fundamentally interconnected. zhang yanyuan of the tang dynasty wrote in records of famous paintings through the ages: "the essence of depicting objects lies in capturing their form. to achieve form, one must fully express their bone structure and spirit. both bone structure and form stem from artistic conception and are realized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 171 through brushwork. hence, many painters excel at calligraphy," and "the brush techniques of painting and calligraphy share the same principles." chinese painting theory emphasizes the importance of "bone method brushwork" in painting, a principle equally applicable to calligraphy."bone method" refers to structural composition and formative elements, primarily expressed through lines. lines serve as the artist's electrocardiogram—an externalization of inner thought—while brushwork embodies the distillation and sublimation of subject matter. in calligraphic creation, the understanding of line's "form" is rooted in classical masterpieces yet transcends mere replication. it involves conscious reinterpretation of ancient techniques and nature, achieving spiritual elevation.as a formative tool in chinese painting, line embodies a distinct consciousness of "learning from nature and drawing from the heart"—an abstraction and transformation of imagery. calligraphic lines, however, emphasize the expression of their inherent richness and the brush-spirit continuity between lines.regardless of stylistic evolution across dynasties, chinese painting consistently upholds brushwork and line as its essence. thus, variations in line thickness, length, and curvature; rhythmic dynamics, tempo, and pace; and structural arrangements—parallel, intersecting, or directional—all resonate with calligraphic brush techniques. in chinese line drawing, lines not only serve to shape forms but also possess high aesthetic value in their own right—a defining characteristic of this art form. zhao mengfu's work ancient trees, bamboo, and rocks exemplifies the integration of calligraphy into painting. depicting ancient trees, mountain rocks, and graceful bamboo, the rocks are rendered with the "flying white" brush technique, appearing naturally weathered yet vibrantly dynamic. the ancient trees are painted with seal script brushwork, appearing vigorous, towering, and vividly expressive. bamboo is drawn with continuous strokes,the entire work is permeated with "calligraphic lines." as yuan dynasty artist ke jiusi noted in his treatise on painting bamboo and rocks: "bamboo stems are rendered with seal script, branches with cursive script, leaves with clerical script or lu gong's sweeping strokes, while rocks and trees retain the essence of broken hairpin strokes and dripping-roof traces."xu wei's paintings inherited and developed the characteristics of his predecessors, frequently employing brush techniques from various calligraphic styles. incorporating cursive script into painting, his brushwork was unrestrained and free-spirited. when painting peonies, lotus leaves, or grapes, his strokes were swift and decisive, turning with ease. what appeared chaotic was, in fact, meticulously ordered.his "miscellaneous flowers scroll" (fig. 6) exemplifies this integration, pulsing with the rhythmic vitality of cursive script. here, form and brushwork merge into a unified spirit, executed in one fluid, exhilarating stroke.wu changshuo devoted his life to studying the stone drum inscriptions, innovating upon tradition. he integrated the brushwork, knife techniques, composition, and form of calligraphy and seal carving into his flower-and-bird paintings, creating a style that is vast, unrestrained, and rich in the flavor of bronze and stone. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 172 figure 6. miscellaneous flowers scroll, ming dynasty, xu wei, 30 cm tall, 1053.5 cm wide, collection of the national museum of china, nanjing brushwork emphasizes "spirit, strength, and rhythm," with the process requiring the continuous sequence of "initiation, continuation, transition, and conclusion." it demands three twists within one stroke, revealing the bone-like vitality of the line—such as "penetrating the paper," "like a needle drawing in sand," "bending a hairpin," or "the trace of a leaking roof." painting is not synonymous with calligraphy, nor is the art of painting lines equivalent to the art of calligraphy. yet the emotion, charm, and intent inherent in painting lines often resonate with the brushwork of calligraphy. both express shared cultural concepts of society. the evolution of calligraphic brushwork has propelled the development of freehand spirit and the unity of lines "depicting objects" and "expressing the heart," thus converging painting and calligraphy. 4. continuity and innovation incontemporary line diversity 4.1 the significance and value orientation of "line diversity" in contemporary chinese painting the diverse expressions in modern painting collectively reflect shifts in artists' thinking methods and societal aesthetic consciousness. whether perceiving the world intuitively or observing it from diverse, macro perspectives, art ultimately seeks not objective representation but the manifestation of subjective spiritual expression. line is the lifeblood of chinese painting—the skeletal framework expressing form, the conduit for subjective consciousness, emotional depth,it also serves as a medium for expressing character, virtue, spirit, and aspiration—the most fundamental, concise, and abstract artistic language in chinese painting. line is the root of chinese painting, and the spirit of line diversity lies at its very essence. within the line flows the artist's profound sentiments and delicate artistic sensibility, a creative visual language distilled through understanding and imagination. rooted in chinese artists' unique aesthetic concepts and methods of observing and understanding objects, line has become the most fundamental pillar of chinese painting. the technique of depicting objects entirely through line is called "white-line drawing." the diversity of white-line drawing also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 173 stems from subjective creation based on a profound understanding of natural forms, achieving the purpose of expressing emotion and conveying meaning. it is a product of the fusion of subjectivity and objectivity—a state where spirit and form intertwine, and self and object merge into oneness—which cannot be comprehended through a naturalistic lens.the consolidation of line as the central element, the inheritance of fine traditions, and the development of diversity distinguish eastern art from western painting. this has formed its own unique artistic language, standing tall among the world's artistic traditions. 4.2 the current state of line development in contemporary flower-and-bird painting contemporary chinese painting evolves line work incrementally, preserving traditional schematic forms while developing new variations that imbue lines with fresh meaning and vitality. shang tao's paintings borrow the printmaking technique of "reserving black space," employing special treatments for the forms of objects. through skillful composition, he uses contrasting styles—such as lush density and sparse simplicity—to highlight the thematic style, achieving the distinctive artistic effect of printmaking."as a uniquely individualized visual form, the formal methodology in shang tao's paintings fundamentally employs complete 'block-like' structures as its basic units. he rarely sacrifices visual structural layers in pursuit of the integrity of the 'brushstroke' found in calligraphy. on the contrary, whether using light or heavy ink, he deliberately emphasizes the arrangement and contrast of water stains and ink stains to achieve rhythmic transitions."[7] shang tao's work (fig. 7) employs lines as planes and integrates lines with planes. it emphasizes the rustic brushwork of calligraphy while placing greater emphasis on the modeling constructed by the orderly arrangement of lines and the overall artistic impact reminiscent of printmaking. chen yongqiang's work "pumpkin" (fig. 8) features vigorous, expressive lines. employing dry-brush techniques to depict plants, the line work is steady and vigorous, reminiscent of the dry-brush techniques in landscape painting—rustic and composed. like the three-dimensional structure of rocks in mountain compositions, with their yin-yang orientations and front-back perspectives, the lines exhibit a seamless progression of starting, connecting, turning, and ending strokes, blending solid and void elements.blending eastern and western techniques, this work embodies the lingnan school's innovative and realistic spirit. the composition is richly layered; though the subject matter is singular, the unadorned brushwork and naturalistic forms sufficiently anchor the entire painting. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 174 figure 7. "the birds sing softly" by shang tao, 2015, ink on paper, 197 cm × 97 cm figure 8. pumpkin, by chen yongqiang, 1989, ink on paper, 68 cm × 68 cm artist su baijun inherits and develops traditional techniques by employing the eighteen brush strokes. in his work "autumn gathering of birds" (fig. 9), the line drawing primarily uses the chai brush stroke and zhan brush stroke with water ripple effects. however, the artist adopts the method of layered ink application, repeatedly rendering the lines with varying degrees of density. this technique lends the composition a substantial weight and rich variation. lin ruoxi employs contemporary floral-and-bird line techniques that organize strokes to achieve a decorative, flat aesthetic, merging traditional bird-and-flower painting with flat decorative art. his artistic approach does not seek variation within the line itself, but rather unifies the canvas through the skillful contrast of various contradictions in line length, density, solidity/transparency, and curvature—creating a harmonious, decorative whole.in the work spring flowers everywhere (fig. 10), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 175 while adhering to the principles of bone-method brushwork, he sinicizes the art of flat composition while skillfully integrating it with naturalistic floral and bird art.the organization of lines geometrizes the subjects, creating a rhythm of density and openness with powerful visual impact. in the interplay of partial lines, the composition forms polygons of varying sizes, appearing as permutations of the same motif. this represents an innovative application of eastern floral-bird line art within western graphic art, opening new horizons for the development of line diversity. figure 9. "autumn gathering of birds," su baijun, ink on paper figure 10. spring flowers everywhere, lin ruoxi, 28×28cm, ink on paper, 2014 with the advancement of modern society, the platform for developing the line artistry of flower-and-bird painting has broadened significantly, expanding its dimensions. yet it also faces the dilemma of balancing traditional inheritance with contemporary evolution. overly constrained by formulaic line techniques, works lose artistic vitality and contemporary resonance; conversely, pieces devoid of formal beauty principles become wildly unrestrained yet pale and lifeless."innovation in flower-and-bird painting should not rely on seeking novel subjects, nor on developing isolated techniques in isolation, nor on mere craftsmanship. instead, it should create new thematic content and generate fresh imagery and spirit, unifying these with the brushwork and ink."[8] for an accomplished artist, studying old conventions serves to pioneer new ones. it relies on the painter's emotions and ideas, actively applied to provide an unending source of energy for the development of diverse lines in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 176 flower-and-bird painting. 5. conclusion this study has systematically explored the line artistry in traditional chinese flower-and-bird painting, unraveling its historical origins, technical evolution, aesthetic connotations, and contemporary relevance through a multi-faceted analysis. as the soul of chinese painting, line art in flower-and-bird painting is not merely a modeling tool but a carrier of cultural spirit and artistic philosophy, whose development trajectory reflects the continuous pursuit of "form, spirit, rhyme, andmeaning" in eastern aesthetics. references guo, y. z. (2008). sketching and creation in chinese flower-and-bird painting (p. 58). people's fine arts publishing house. li, a. d. (2005). reflections on modernity in chinese painting. journal of nanjing university of the arts, 139. li, w. m. (2011). chinese artists. creation review, 3, 36. lin, r. x. (2010). the will of line in chinese painting (p. 6). renmin university press. wen, w. s. (2012). form and expression in line drawing (p. 27). southeast university press. yu, j. h. (n.d.). compilation of chinese painting theories (volumes 1 & 2, p. 232), people's fine arts publishing house. zong, b. h. (1981). aesthetic ramblings (p. 81). shanghai people's publishing house. zou, d. z. (n.d.). guide to painting. 1. introduction 2. overview of line art in flower-and-bird paintin 2.1 line as the soul of chinese painting 2.2 from "outline drawing" to "freehand brushwork" 3. manifestations of line diversity and principles 3.1 manifestations of line diversity 3.1.1 brush techniques: the application of the eig 3.1.1 texturing techniques 3.2 principles for applying line diversity 3.2.1 the structural relationship between line and 3.2.2 the relationship between line and object tex 3.2.3 the relationship between line and spatial de 3.2.4 the relationship between line and calligraph 4. continuity and innovation in contemporary line 4.1 the significance and value orientation of "lin 4.2 the current state of line development in conte 5.conclusion this study has systematically explored the line ar references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper exploring cryptocurrency adoption: a study of intention among users raghid el ali1 & dr. soumaya mounir el kaakour1 1 master degree at beirut arab university, lebanon 2assistant professor at beirut arab university, lebanon received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 05, 2023 online published: december 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p1 abstract this study aims to comprehensively investigate the determinants of cryptocurrency adoption. employing a structured questionnaire, the research assesses factors influencing individuals’willingness to embrace cryptocurrencies, utilizing the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) model. the study considers key determinants, namely performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. employing quantitative analysis, the study focuses on a 272 sample of lebanese participants, revealing significant effects of effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value on the intention to use cryptocurrencies. the findings contribute both managerial and theoretical insights, offering guidance to enhance strategies for fostering cryptocurrency adoption. keywords effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, price value, intention to use cryptocurrency 1. research background a cryptocurrency is a computerized money which represents to advanced records of certain values put away in advanced databases. the purpose of creating cryptocurrencies is to eliminate printed currency from the market and create a system free from state and governmental oversight (alaklabi & kang, 2020). cryptocurrencies offer a wide range of possibilities, including quick, effective, traceable, and secure transactions (mario arias-oliva1 et al., 2019; johnson et al., 2023). cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity as a means of exchanging value among customers, as they meet current market demands (yao et al., 2018; zheng et al., 2023). cryptocurrency is the primary one of the numerous applications built by utilizing square chain innovation. this innovation gives the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. essential thorough administrative systems to the recently risen sort of cash, cryptocurrency, by joining imaginative crucial standards such as cryptography, open conveyance of substance through open records, and decentralization (duma & gligor, 2018; khalfaoui et al., 2023). reflections of these advancements can be seen within the way’s individuals associated and the way they trade cash money (poongodi et al., 2020). owing to the steady drift of alter within the final two decades, moving from paper to virtual money, an unused frame of cash, cryptocurrency, has taken birth (kavanagh & ennis, 2020). hence, an in-depth understanding of variables which can fortify the selection of cryptocurrency is urgent. the plenty of businesses contributing in cryptocurrency is a resound of positive projections of request (cong et al., 2019). as the world moves towards a cashless society, cash is as of now being supplanted by computerized exchanges, but customers of numerous creating nations are slower in move towards computerized installments (patil et al., 2020). in later a long time, the development of cryptocurrency has experienced a colossal increment in cryptocurrency markets all around the world. tragically, as it were immaterial notice has been paid to the revealing of determinants of cryptocurrency appropriation all inclusive (abbasi, 2021). the world within the final decade has seen a few innovative progressions such as electronic commerce, advanced installments, and the internet of things (iot). the development advances have driven virtual cash budgetary innovation overseen by the community of clients (carrick, 2016). after seeing the convenience of cryptocurrencies, the world has picked up intrigued and is presently making an exertion to know how this innovation works, its risks, and the included challenges (ng & griffin 2018). in the other hand, crypto have disadvantages, such as their inalienable chance, the mechanical and budgetary trouble of utilizing them, and the questionable social recognition of owning them. the complexity and cryptocurrency transformation lead to analyze its impacts and challenges fazed to the adoption of cryptocurrencies (mario arias-oliva1 et al., 2019). according to ivaschenko, (2016) cryptocurrencies are strong volatility–almost all of the ups and downs of the btc value depend directly on the declared statements of the governments of different countries. this volatility creates the problem in the short term. in the other hand, large risks of investing in cryptocurrency that should be considered in the medium and long term (liu & serletis, 2019). this research delves into cryptocurrency adoption within the unique context of lebanon, a country facing significant economic and political challenges. few studies have specifically examined cryptocurrency use in this context, making it a novel and valuable contribution. additionally, this study explores the behavioral and intentional factors influencing lebanese users’ adoption. this deeper understanding of motivations and barriers can inform targeted interventions and educational initiatives. this research endeavors to comprehensively investigate the determinants shaping individuals’ inclination towards adopting cryptocurrency within the lebanese context. the study undertakes a nuanced exploration of the following factors, effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust; personal innovativeness and price value, evaluating the cryptocurrency adoption. by systematically examining these variables, the research aspires to furnish a nuanced understanding of the intricacies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. influencing the intention to utilize cryptocurrency in lebanon. the findings are anticipated to furnish valuable insights for both academic scholarship and practical applications within the realm of cryptocurrency adoption. 2. theoretical background in this part the theoretical background of the theory used, variable conceptualization and literature review will be discussed to enhance the knowledge of each concept separately and then its relationship with the intention to use cryptocurrency. in this section, the researcher provides an overview of the most commonly used theories in the context of adoption and use of technology in order to build a foundation for the research model. 2.1 the unified theory acceptance and use of technology model: unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model (utaut) was designed by (venkatesh et al., 2018), and it is well known as a legitimate apparatus to decide the utilize and acknowledgment of inventive and progressed advances (lee et al., 2019), a few investigate has tried the pertinence of the utaut demonstrate in anticipating users’ eagerly to acknowledge block chain innovation. the utaut comprises four major variables such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitation conditions (venkatesh et al., 2003). these factors are considered to have a coordinated effect on the appropriation purposeful and the real utilize of innovation. moreover, they are directed by factors such as age, gender, experience, and voluntariness. the discoveries of the existing inquire about have overwhelmingly progressed the extant writing on the data framework, web keeping money and particularly to the cryptocurrency-related writing by upgrading the current body of information concerning such basic circumstance of consideration, as well as giving profitable understanding for both academicians and professionals. utaut was chosen as the suitable theory since it is expressly proposed to explain the method of appropriation novel innovations (rogers, 2010). hence, considerable input was taken by the existing think about as one of the exceptionally few ponders which have upgraded the legitimacy to examine and elucidate the determinants that can affect the purposeful to utilize cryptocurrency on clients as a creating nation. 2.2 variables conceptualization this part of the chapter defines the definition of each variable. it starts by the five independent variables which are: effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value, in addition to the dependent variable intention to use cryptocurrency that will be influenced by these five variables. 2.2.1 effort expectancy according to marr and prendergast (1991) there’s a more noteworthy chance that advances will be received by clients, in case these advances are justifiable and clear to utilize. effort expectancy is characterized as the degree of ease related to the utilize of a particular innovation (venkatesh et al., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. 2003). effort expectancy is the degree of comfort seen for utilizing the framework (ghalandari, 2012). as previously mentioned, effort expectancy is equitant to the concept of simple to utilize i.e., at what extant customers feel around innovation that it is simple to utilize (jambulingam, 2013). lee and shin (2019), affirmed that the more exertion customers spend to utilize (web of things) innovation, the less likely they will utilize and utilize this innovation. both performance expectancy and effort expectancy, which develop from utaut, has been broadly connected by investigating and considered as the foremost well-known predecessor of behavioral deliberate (patil et al., 2020; sang et al., 2023). 2.2.2 financial literacy financial literacy is defined by horn (1988) as with numeracy and common information, more common cognitive capacities, such as those included in liquid and crystallized insights, likely back financial literacy. the president’s admonitory committee on financial literacy (pacfl, 2008), gathered to “improve financial literacy among all americans”, characterizes financial literacy as the capacity to utilize information and skills to manage financial resources viably for a lifetime of financial well-being. appropriately, a composite definition of financial literacy that builds off those given by pacfl (2008), and different analysts is information on essential financial and monetary concepts, as well as the capacity to utilize that information and other budgetary abilities to oversee financial assets viably for a lifetime of financial well-being. in the 2015 financial capability ponder conducted within the joined together states, the rate of respondents able of accurately reply at slightest 4 of 5 essential financial literacy questions on a financial literacy test (fundamental calculations and questions almost intrigued rates, swelling, bond costs, contracts, and chance) was 37% (lin et al., 2016). people’s financial literacy comprises the level of their information about financial concepts and the degree of certainty in their abilities to apply that information in real-world circumstances (stolper et al., 2017). this proposes financial literacy as an informative variable of the behavior of clients toward cryptocurrencies – in line with other works relegating esteem to the financial literacy variable to clarify the willingness to utilize cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce (stolper et al., 2017; koskelainen et al., 2023). 2.2.3 perceived trust trust is described as characterized “a willingness to be powerless to the activities of another party” (mayer et al., 1995). agreeing to the unidimensional approach, trust and doubt can be seen as one component, each speaking to one conclusion of a continuum (mcknight et al., 2002). trust is guaranteed when a sufficient level of capacity, generosity, and keenness is found in a particular framework (gefen et al., 2003). concurring to chen (2006), the definition of trust in writing can be recognized by agreeing to two schools of inquiry. on the one hand, trust is characterized as a conviction, certainty, state of mind, or desire around the reliability of another party. the other side holds that trust is “a behavioral intention or behavior that reflects a dependence on an accomplice and includes helplessness and vulnerability on the portion of the individual who trusts” (chen, 2006). trust plays a pivotal part within the set of data www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. and communication innovation, as the data levels of the different on-screen characters are frequently imbalanced. in online retailing, the transient and spatial separate between the buyer and dealer, which is unavoidable particularly in cryptocurrency exchanging, increments data asymmetries and the related dangers, as well as the esteem of trust (koh et al., 2012). trust could be a subjective mien, and it is alluded as a degree to which a client accepts that the benefits supplier (trustee) is secure, and it is secure to create any exchange with them (koksal et al., 2015). two sorts of trust were recognized, specifically regulation believe and belief within the innovation or the channel (köksal et al., 2015). cryptocurrency came into presence in 2008 taking after the occurrence of financial emergencies causing the trust of open towards financial education to decrease (chiu et al., 2016). the previous covers the trust existing between clients and financial service suppliers which can be due to earlier involvement or great notoriety (chiu et al., 2016). besides, when considering trust, the relationship between trust and doubt and comparing unidimensional and dimensional models ought to be specified (testy et al., 2017). when exchanging cryptocurrency, clients must trust not as if it were the online stage, but moreover the innovation behind it. ofori et al. (2017) distributed think about considering trust in an online managing an account setting and appeared that noteworthy indicators of trust can be data quality, benefit quality, protection, or security concerns. trust is understood as an individual’s positive expectation in which someone has belief and confidence in the words, actions, and decisions of others. trust is the users’ intention towards an expected outcome brought by technology and their faith that the service provider will fulfill their responsibility (tian et al., 2023). 2.2.4 personal innovativeness in common innovation and dissemination investigation, it has long been recognized that profoundly innovative people are dynamic data searchers around unused thoughts. personal innovativeness shows the individual’s inherent inventive personality-related characteristic (agarwal et al., 1998). researchers believe that personal innovation (pi) is one of the identity characteristics that play a part in receiving innovation (agarwal et al., 1998). concurring with past analysts, agarwal et al. (1998), personal innovativeness is characterized as a person’s conviction that he or she is favorably arranged to utilize inventive and novel innovation. moreover, personal innovativeness is defined as the degree to which a person accepts that he/she is emphatically slanted towards the utilization of inventive and novel innovations (my et al., 2006). both person contrasts and identity characteristics impact people’s appropriation of the novel, one-of-a-kind and unique thoughts, as well as objects or hones (re’em et al., 2010; senali et al., 2023). 2.2.5 price value the price value is conceptualized as the cognitive adjustment between the monetary fetched and the advantage of employing an innovation (venkatesh et al., 2012). not at all like in an organizational setting, the cost of any technology usage is borne by the applicant. in this manner, the client will mull over the cost-benefit assessment sometimes recently choosing to utilize an innovation (beh & ganesan, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. 2019). the user’s slant to utilize an innovation certainly increments when the price value outperforms the monetary taken a toll (septiyana et al., 2023). 2.2.6 intention to use cryptocurrencies the intention to use reflects a user’s desire to use technology in the future. intention to use technology was used as the outcome variable in this study because it has been found to be a reliable predictor of actual technology usage (turner et al., 2010). as described by yazdanparast et al. (2013), it is affected by several factors which have a certain influence on it. shahzad et al. (2018) examine the key elements that affect the adoption of cryptocurrencies among the people of china. chow et al. (2019) proposed a model to inspect the determinants of cryptocurrency acceptance and usage intention, by combining cryptocurrency dimension with the constructs of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (utaut2). a cryptocurrency is a virtual coin. in other words, it has no physical form. the only proof of cryptocurrency ownership is the transaction recorded on the blockchain. a blockchain is a public record (or electronic ledger). for example, people who own cryptocurrency want to buy goods from sellers who accept cryptocurrency as a payment method. instead of banks facilitating the movement of currency, this movement is done through a public ledger system (siswantoro et al., 2020; bommer & rana, 2023; alomari & abdullah, 2023). 2.3 literature review and hypotheses development this part will include the analysis of the different relationships between the following variables independents: (effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value), with respect to the dependent variable intention to use cryptocurrency. check whether each of these independent variables will have a positive or negative impact on the cryptocurrency adoption intention. 2.3.1 relationship between effort expectancy and intention to use cryptocurrency various distributed observational inquiries about have set the significance of effort expectancy (alalwan et al., 2017) to illustrate a positive impact on users’ intention to utilize innovation. in addition, effort expectancy altogether impacts the purposeful to utilize versatile microfinance administrations (warsame & ireri, 2018). as for discoveries with respect to cryptocurrency monetary innovation, the effort of expectancy has appeared to have a positive impact on cryptocurrency adoption (schaupp & festa, 2018) and on bitcoin acknowledgment in china (shahzad et al., 2018). for instance, moon & hwang (2018) show that effort expectancy is positively affect the intention to use cryptocurrency. in addition, kim et al. (2018) finds that effort expectancy positively affects the intention to use an installment confirmation framework based on biometrics. makanyeza and mutambayashata (2018) show that while effort expectancy positively influences the behavioral intention to use plastic money such as credit cards. sánchez-torres et al. (2018) established a positive correlation between effort expectancy and the utilization of financial websites in colombia. additionally, li et al. (2023) and ramprakash et al. (2023) have contributed valuable insights in their respective studies. these studies collectively underscore the significance of effort expectancy in influencing user engagement with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. financial platforms, providing a nuanced understanding of user behavior. however, khan et al. (2017) show that effort expectancy has no significant effect on the intention. nadeem et al. (2021) found that individuals’ purposeful to utilize bitcoin in china essentially increments in the event that the innovation is simple to utilize and justifiable by people. based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis has been proposed: h1: effort expectancy is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. 2.3.2 relationship between financial literacy and intention to use cryptocurrency be that as it may, the same was not found by whose experimental investigation of behavioral factors impacting clients appeared that financial literacy did not have a critical impact on the purposeful to utilize cryptocurrencies for electronic commerce (arias-oliva et al., 2019). this last result is in separate from the basic divulgence by lusardi and mitchell (2014), who found a positive result for this relationship through their survey of experimental papers and their resultant discoveries on the impact of financial literacy on financial choice making. in a cryptocurrency setting watches that in japan the purposeful to utilize crypto as an installment strategy is emphatically and essentially affected by financial literacy (mendoza-tello et al., 2018). based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis has been proposed: h2: financial literacy is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. 2.3.3 relationship between trust and intention to use cryptocurrency all commerce concepts depend on trust. too, an imperative thought is understanding the centrality of trust in various circumstances (wu et al., 2011). the earlier investigation has found trust to be a basic marker of behavioral purposeful to utilize an innovation (ko¨ksal et al., 2015). also, earlier trust was found to have a noteworthy positive effect on the selection of portable keeping money (el masri et al., 2017). in this way, it is exceedingly prescribed to utilize a benefit believe strategy to meet the organization’s prerequisites in total comprehension of the advanced showcase connections such as cryptocurrency (batrancea et al., 2019). trust is a basic variable for the purposeful to utilize (soedarto et al., 2019). trust was found to be a pivotal influencer of behavioral intention to utilize an innovation due to its reverse affiliation with hazard (gupta et al., 2020). hence, higher trust in innovation would lower its seen chance and subsequently emphatically influence behavioral purposeful (abbasi et al., 2021). based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis has been proposed: h3: trust is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. 2.3.4 relationship between personal innovativeness and intention to use cryptocurrency a few experimental ponders have set up a noteworthy relationship between personal innovativeness and behavioral intention. personal innovativeness could be a figure influencing the purposeful of people to utilize cryptocurrency (hasan et al., 2022). shoaib et al. (2013) found that innovativeness emphatically impacts the utilization of cryptocurrencies. writing appears in different studies that measure the coordinated effect of innovativeness on utilization deliberate (almarashdeh, 2018). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. generally, people with more innovative identities are able to have a better deliberate to utilize new technology (shaw & sergueeva, 2019). according to abbasi et al. (2021), users who are additional imaginative will attempt and utilize cryptocurrency as unused innovation in their daily lives. it is supposed that those high innovative individuals are generally more aggressive to adopt new idea (lu et al., 2005). then, this individual will be easier to meet uncertainties and are more positive about innovations (rogers, 1983). agarwal and prasad (1998) well-defined personal innovativeness as the readiness of a person to test new technologies. they defined personal innovativeness as a kind of risk-taking tendency that may only happens in specific group of persons and not in others. a research conducted by (boyle & ruppel, 2006) found that personal innovativeness has a significant positive relationship with intention to use online purchasing websites. consistent results have also been demonstrated through research (lu, 2003) which found statistically significant support that personal innovativeness has a positive direct impact on continuance intention toward m-commerce. moreover, personal innovativeness is investigated to ensure the student’s intention to try new innovations and their intention to apply them in the future. (mahat et al., 2012). while the results of research conducted by (lu et al., 2005; arpaci, 2023) showing different results, personal innovativeness have a direct positive impact on intention to use cryptocurrency. based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis has been proposed: h4: personal innovativeness is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. 2.3.5 relationship between price value and intention to use cryptocurrency past literature has effectively illustrated observationally, the significance of price value on user adoption intention (merhi, 2019; bommer & rana, 2023). price value is observationally demonstrated to have a critical impact on mobile banking (baabdullah et al., 2019). additionally, according to liu et al. (2015) researched and found a critical effect of perceived value on the behavioral intention of people to utilize portable coupon applications in china. moreover, pitchayadejanant (2011) too uncovered that there’s a significant positive impact of seen esteem on users’ behavioral intention to utilize smartphones. when a person sees the benefits given by the innovation overweigh the related financial costs, the plausibility of him/her utilizing the innovation is moderately tall (albayati et al., 2020). based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis has been proposed: h5: price value is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. 2.4 conceptual framework the conceptual framework seems to be an analysis method that comes in a variety of variations and situations and may be used to several different categories. in this study, a conceptual model was built to explore the impact of five independent variables (effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, price value) and the dependent variable intention to use cryptocurrency. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. figure 1. research conceptual framework according to abbasi et al. (2021), the four independent variables were extracted which are the effort expectancy, personal innovativeness, price value and trust in relation with the dependent variable the intention to use cryptocurrency. moreover, the financial literacy variable was extracted from cristofaro et al, (2021). the researcher develops and adjust the above model with the correlation of the independent variables used. 2.5 research gap despite the growing popularity of cryptocurrency in developing countries like lebanon, research on user behavior and adoption remains limited. this study aims to fill this gap by providing valuable insights into the specific challenges and opportunities faced by lebanese users. existing studies on cryptocurrency adoption often focus on developed economies with different socio-economic and cultural contexts. this research addresses the need for a nuanced understanding of the specific factors influencing lebanese users’ decisions to adopt or reject cryptocurrencies. most studies on cryptocurrency adoption focus on specific aspects like economic incentives or technological barriers. this research integrates established behavioral theories to provide a more comprehensive framework www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. for understanding user intentions and decision-making processes. 3. variable’s definitions and measurements the conceptualization of the variables, as well as the operating definitions of the variables, are presented in the table below: table 3.2.1 variable’s definitions and measurements variables items operational definition effort expectancy 1. learning how to use cryptocurrencies is easy for me. 2. my interaction with cryptocurrencies is clear and understandable. 3. i find cryptocurrencies easy to use. 4. it is easy for me to become skillful at using cryptocurrencies 4 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (alalwan et al., 2017). financial literacy 1. i have a good level of financial knowledge. 2. i have a high capacity to deal with financial matters. 2 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (hastings et al., 2013). erceived trust 1. i trust cryptocurrencies to be reliable. 2. i trust cryptocurrencies to be secure. 3. i believe cryptocurrencies are trustworthy. 4. i trust cryptocurrencies. 4 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (slade et al., 2015). personal innovativeness 1. if i hear about a new information technology, i would look for ways to experiment with it. 2. among my peers, i am usually the first to try out new information technologies. 3. in general, i am not hesitant to try out new information technologies. 3 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (hossain et al., 2016). price value 1. cryptocurrencies are reasonably priced. 2. cryptocurrencies is good value for the money. 3. at the current price, cryptocurrencies provides a good value. 3 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (beza et al., 2018). intention to use 1. i would use cryptocurrencies. 4 items on 5-point www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. cryptocurrency 2. i intend to use cryptocurrencies for online purchases. 3. i intend to save with cryptocurrencies. 4. i can imagine using cryptocurrencies. likert scale were adopted from (cheng et al., 2006). developed by the researcher. 3.1 target population and sample target population is defined as all adult customers who are regularly select, buy, and use cryptocurrency in lebanon. as a result, the population can be defined as a group of people who have a connection toward the topic of this research. the sample is a set of individuals who were requested to fill out the questionnaires about the intention to use cryptocurrency in lebanon. in this research, convenience sampling is used, it is a sort of non-probability sampling in which the sample is selected from a subset of the population that is nearby. number of sampling unit 272 people who use cryptocurrency. 3.2 data collection this study’s data gathered using a self-administered questionnaire between 3 july, 2022 and 20 august, 2022 in lebanon. the questionnaire was distributed to 399 using sample size formula yamane (1967). 3.3 demographic statistics gender results are shown in the table below: table 2. gender gender frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid female 175 64.3 64.3 64.3 male 97 35.7 35.7 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. in this study, there were a total of 272 respondents, with 175 of them being females, which is comparable to 64.3% of the whole sample, and 97 of them being men, which is equivalent to 35.7% of the sample. age results are shown in the table below: table 3. age www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. age frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 17-22 years 115 42.3 42.3 42.3 23-27 years 84 30.9 30.9 73.2 28-33 years 36 13.2 13.2 86.4 34-40 years 17 6.3 6.3 92.6 41-50 years 10 3.7 3.7 96.3 51-59 years 9 3.3 3.3 99.6 60 + 1 .4 .4 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. the sample addressed in this research consisted of 272 respondents, 115 respondents constituting of 42.3% falls in the age range of 17 years to 22 years old, 84 respondents constituting of 30.9% falls in the age range of 23 years old to 27 years old, and 36 respondents falling in the age range of 28 years to 33 years old constituting 13.2% of the sample addressed. in addition, 17 respondents constituting 6.3% fall in the age range of 34 years to 40 years old, 10 respondents fall in the range of age between 41 and 50 years old, 9 respondents are in the age ranging from 51 to 59 years old and constitutes 3.3% of the sample. educational level results are shown in the table below: table 4. educational level educational level frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid bachelor’s degree 162 59.6 59.6 59.6 master’s degree 78 28.7 28.7 88.2 phd 7 2.6 2.6 90.8 undergraduate 25 9.2 9.2 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. the educational level distribution showed that 162 respondents constituting of 59.6% have bachelor degree, 78 respondents constituting 28.7% have master’s degree, 7 respondents constituting 2.9% have phd, and 25 respondents constituting 9.2% are undergraduates. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. marital status results are shown in the table below: table 5. marital status marital status frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid divorced 10 3.7 3.7 3.7 married 62 22.8 22.8 26.5 single 194 71.3 71.3 97.8 widowed 6 2.2 2.2 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. by referring to the sample which addressed 272 respondents, 10 respondents were divorced, 62 were married whereas 194 respondents were single and 6 respondents were widowed. employment status results are shown in the table below: table 6. employment status employment status frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid employee 109 40.1 40.1 40.1 self-employed 17 6.3 6.3 46.3 student 103 37.9 37.9 84.2 unemployed 15 5.5 5.5 89.7 worker 28 10.3 10.3 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. according to the sample addressed, 109 respondents constituting 40.1% are employees, 17 respondents constituting 6.3% are self-employed, 103 respondents constituting 37.9% are students, 15 respondents constituting 5.5% of the sample are unemployed, and 28 respondents constituting 10.3% are workers. monthly income level results are shown in the table below: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. table 7. monthly income level monthly income level frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 1,000,000 lbp to 3,000,000 lbp 149 54.8 54.8 54.8 4,000,000 lbp to 7,000,000 lbp 72 26.5 26.5 85.3 6,000,000 lbp to 10,000,000 lbp 1 .4 .4 85.7 8,000,000 lbp to 11,000,000 lbp 22 8.1 8.1 93.8 12,000,000 lbp to 20,000,000 lbp 11 4.0 4.0 58.8 more than 20,000,000 lbp 17 6.3 6.3 100.0 total 272 100.0 100.0 source: spss version 20. the sample addressed in this research consisted of 149 respondents whose total monthly income is between 1 million and 3 million lbp, 11 respondents whose total monthly is between 12 million and 20 million lbp, 72 respondents whose total monthly income is between 4 million to 7 million, 1 respondent whose total monthly income is ranged between 6 million and 10 million, 22 respondents whose total monthly income is between 8 million to 11 million and 17 respondents whose total monthly income is more than 20 million lbp. 3.4 reliability the table below shows the reliability: table 8. reliability communalities cronbach alpha effort expectancy .763 financial literacy .748 perceived trust .751 personal innovativeness .714 price value .844 intention to use cryptocurrency .787 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. extraction method: principal component analysis. source: spss version 20. in reference to the table that was shown, the purpose of the validity and reliability study is to verify the accuracy of the data obtained by using an indicator known as cronbach alpha. if the cronbach alpha is less than 0.5, the data are not verified. if the cronbach alpha is between 0.5 and 0.7, the data are validated but include bias. if the cronbach alpha is more than 0.7, then the data are validated. if the cronbach alpha is greater than 0.7, then the data are validated. “effort expectancy” received a cronbach alpha score of 0.763, “financial literacy” received a score of cronbach alpha 0.748, “perceived trust” received a score of cronbach alpha 0.751, “personal innovativeness” received a score of cronbach alpha 0.714, “price value” scored 0.844, and “intention to use crypto-currency” received a score of cronbach alpha given that every variable’s cronbach alpha is higher than 0.7, this indicates that all of the variables have been statistically verified. cronbach’s alpha is a measurement for internal reliability, or how closely a collection of objects is associated. it is regarded as a scale reliability indicator. it’s most widely used where a survey/questionnaire contains multiple likert questions that shape a scale and you want to see if the scale is accurate. 3.5 validity the table below shows the validity: table 9. validity factor kmo p-value effort expectancy .801 .011 financial literacy .893 .035 perceived trust .772 .015 personal innovativeness .785 .026 price value .789 .015 intention to use cryptocurrency .783 .026 source: spss version 20. in this research, we used kaiser–meyer–olkin (kmo) and barlett’s validity tests to check the reliability of study’s data. surveys based on this metric need the use of a correlation matrix or a correspondence method. a characteristic is reliable if its accuracy is more than 0.6 and its kmo variance is between 0.000 and 1.0. all study variables had values greater than or equal to 0.06, as shown in the table. therefore, all the investigated factors may be used in further research. 3.6 correlation and significance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. the table below shows the correlation and significance: table 10. corrolation and significance correlations effort expectancy financial literacy perceived trust personal innovativeness price value intention to use cryptocurrency effort expectancy pearson correlation 1 .770** .487** .471** .097 .361** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .110 .000 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 financial literacy pearson correlation .770** 1 .609** .515** .154* .348** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .011 .000 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 perceived trust pearson correlation .487** .609** 1 .621** .159** .320** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .009 .000 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 personal innovativeness pearson correlation .471** .515** .621** 1 .145* .409** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .017 .000 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 price value pearson correlation .097 .154* .159** .145* 1 -.099 sig. (2-tailed) .110 .011 .009 .017 .104 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 intention to use cryptocurrency pearson correlation .361** .348** .320** .409** -.099 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .104 n 272 272 272 272 272 272 source: spss version 20. correlation is a statistical measure that describes how closely two variables are related in a linear fashion (meaning they change together at a constant rate). it’s a traditional way of explaining basic relationships without stating a cause-and-effect relationship. the following connections have been addressed in table 10: it can be noticed that intention to use cryptocurrency and price value are negatively correlated with pearson coefficient of -0.099. intention to use cryptocurrency and personal innovativeness showed a coefficient of 0.409 indicating a moderate positive correlation. however, the correlation between intention to use cryptocurrency and perceived trust, financial literacy, and effort expectancy showed a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. weak correlation with pearson coefficients of 0.320, 0.348, and 0.361 respectively. 3.7 regression analysis to test the given hypotheses in this paper and to conclude the relationships between the variables, a regression analysis was made as follows: table 11. model summary model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .844a .713 .708 .532 a. predictors: (constant), effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, price value and intention to use cryptocurrency source: spss version 20. referring to the above model, it can be noted that the addressed independent variables which include effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value scored r (0.844) which means that the association between these variables and intention to use crypto-currency is 84.4%. in other words, these independent variables mentioned tends to impact the intention to use crypto-currency by 84.4% and that 15.6% of the variables are not addressed in this model. however, the r2 scored in this model is 71.3% which means that 71.3% of the variation in the intention to use crypto-currency are explained by the variation in the independent variables mentioned. the table below shows the coefficients: table 12. coefficient coefficients model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig.b std. error beta 1 (constant) .112 .141 .794 .428 effort expectancy .145 .043 .128 3.374 .001 financial literacy .030 .028 .237 2.076 .013 perceived trust .169 .057 .153 2.988 .003 personal innovativeness .532 .057 .516 9.280 .000 price value .194 .064 .171 3.047 .003 a. dependent variable: intention to use crypto-currency. source: spss version 20. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. the preceding regression investigates the relationship between the independent variables which are effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value and the dependent variable intention to use crypto-currency. because the significance level for each of the above independent factors displays a level that is less than 0.05, it can be deduced that there is a significant association between each of these independent variables and the intention to use crypto-currency. as a result of the fact that all of the variables achieved a margin of error that was lower than 0.05, the null hypothesis, which states that there is no connection between the independent factors stated and the intention to use crypto-currency, has been not supported. the alternative hypothesis, which states that there is a relationship between the independent variables known as effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value, and the dependent variable known as intention to use crypto-currency, will be accepted. this alternative hypothesis states that there is a connection between these variables and the dependent variable known as intention to use crypto-currency. it is possible to phrase the equation as follows: y = b0 + bx1 + bx2 + bx3+ bx4+ bx5 intention to use crypto-currency = 0.112 + 0.145 effort expectancy +0.030 financial literacy + 0.169 perceived trust + 0.532 personal innovativeness + 0.194 price value this implies that: for every 1% increase in effort expectancy, intention to use crypto-currency will increase by 14.5%. moreover, for every 1% increase in financial literacy, intention to use crypto-currency will increase by 3%. therefore, for every 1% increase in perceived trust, intention to use crypto-currency will increase 16.9%. in addition, for every 1% increase in personal innovativeness, intention to use crypto-currency will increase 53.2%. finally, for every 1% increase in price value, intention to use crypto-currency will increase 19.4%. table 13. results of testing hypothesis number of hypothesis hypothesis statement results h1 effort expectancy is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. supported h2 financial literacy is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. supported h3 trust is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. supported h4 personal innovativeness is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. supported www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. h5 price value is positively related to the intention to use cryptocurrency. supported developed by the researcher 4. discussion first, based on the findings of the study, the relationship between effort expectancy and intention to use cryptocurrency is positively related. thus, h1 is supported. the results are confirmed with the literature review (alalwan et al., 2017; warsame & ireri 2018; schaupp & festa, 2018; shahzad et al., 2018; moon & hwang, 2018; kim et al., 2018; makanyeza & mutambayashata, 2018; sánchez-torres et al., 2018; khan et al., 2017; nadeem et al., 2021; li et al., 2023; ramprakash et al., 2023). the results of this study indicated that a person’s expectation had a favorable effect on their likelihood of using cryptocurrency. the likelihood of using a payment authentication system based on biometrics is also favorably affected by the individual’s effort anticipation and the extent to which their peers would also utilize this method. an individual’s expected effort to embrace using cryptocurrency technology is intuitive. second, based on the findings of the study, the relationship between financial literacy and intention to use cryptocurrency is positively related. thus, h2 is supported. the results are confirmed with the literature review (arias-oliva et al., 2019; lusardi & mitchell 2014; mendoza-tello et al., 2018). there is a correlation between financial literacy and cryptocurrency intention. people with poor financial literacy are far less likely to invest in stocks. financial literacy has a big and favorable effect on people’s attitudes on using cryptocurrencies as a payment method in lebanon. third, based on the findings of the study, the relationship between trust and intention to use cryptocurrency is positively related. thus, h3 is supported. the results are confirmed with the literature review (wu et al., 2011; ko¨ksal et al., 2015; el masri et al., 2017; batrancea et al., 2019; soedarto et al., 2019; abbasi et al., 2021). trust has been demonstrated to be an important predictor of actual behavior when it comes to the adoption of new technologies. trust has a significant role in shaping people’s decisions this means that the more people trust a technology, the less risk they will attribute to it, which will have a beneficial effect on their propensity to use it. fourth, based on the findings of the study, the relationship between personal innovativeness and intention to use cryptocurrency is positively related. thus, h4 is supported. the results are confirmed with the literature review (hasan et al., 2022; shoaib et al., 2013; almarashdeh, 2018; shaw & sergueeva ,2019; abbasi et al.,2021; nazifi et al., 2021). customers who are more curious in the development process than others are more likely to use cryptocurrency. therefore, personal innovativeness is crucial for the widespread adoption of new technology. findings have shown that a person’s perception of their own innovativeness has a constructive effect on their future actions. individuals’ innovativeness to accept cryptocurrencies may be affected by the degree to which they themselves are inventive. the adoption of cryptocurrencies is boosted by the spirit of innovation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. people who naturally lean toward innovation are more likely to embrace technological advancements. innovators will use cryptocurrencies as a new kind of technology in their everyday lives regardless of the perceived worth. finally, based on the findings of the study, the relationship between price value and intention to use cryptocurrency is positively related. thus, h5 is supported. the results are confirmed with the literature review (merhi ,2019; baabdullah et al., 2019; liu et al., 2015; pitchayadejanant, 2011; albayati et al., 2020; youthful, 2021). the market value of a currency has been shown to have a substantial impact on the intention to use cryptocurrency. whenever a person believes the advantages of the technology outweigh the costs, the likelihood of him or her adopting the technology is high. similarly, when a person considers the benefits to outweigh the financial costs associated with bitcoin use, that is when they are most likely to make use of it. 4.1 theoretical implications this study helps researchers to understand the factors affecting the adoption of cryptocurrency. in addition, the results of the study help practitioners to better understand the consumer behavior toward the adoption of cryptocurrency. additionally, the study helps academics to revalidate the theory of utaut. the study helps the researcher to understand the factors that affect the intention to use cryptocurrency. 4.2 practical implications this study offers decision makers valuable insights to inform strategic initiatives in the cryptocurrency space. by understanding the interplay of factors such as effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness, and price value on users’ intention to use cryptocurrency, decision makers can tailor their approaches to foster adoption. implementing educational programs to enhance financial literacy, prioritizing user-friendly interfaces and robust security measures, incentivizing innovation, and collaborating on regulatory frameworks are among the key strategies highlighted. by addressing these practical implications, decision makers can effectively navigate challenges, build trust, and promote the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies, contributing to a more secure, transparent, and inclusive digital financial ecosystem. 4.3 limitations and future research more research is needed to fill the gap of the study related to intention to use cryptocurrency. the size of the study’s geographic area is a limitation. this study was cross-sectional in nature and conducted within a short period. the data was collected from only one country. this might be looked at further by collecting samples from other countries. recent research suggests that digital currency might be simply tailored to meet the requirements of the lebanese market. cryptocurrencies are valuable as a benchmark for globalization because of their malleability. lastly, the research is limited in its scope since it only considers how a few factors impact the propagation of cryptocurrencies. future studies should focus on figuring out how to measure the long-term success of bitcoin mining and other cryptocurrency ventures. finally, this study used a self-reported questionnaire as the research tool. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. 4.4 conclusion the purpose of the research is to examine the factors affecting intention to use cryptocurrency, the following independent variables: effort expectancy, financial literacy, perceived trust, personal innovativeness and price value are positively related to the dependent variable intention to use cryptocurrency based on the study result. moreover, a new market place has taken birth in a digital money form, in other words, cryptocurrency. all variables mentioned in this study showed an increase in the use of cryptocurrency instead of cash and any other traditional money. references abbasi, g. a., tiew, l. y., tang, j., goh, y. n., & thurasamy, r. 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(2023). the transaction behavior of cryptocurrency and electricity consumption. financial innovation, 9(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40854-023-00449-7 microsoft word assc-v2n3-p25 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 25 original paper the uncanny aura of the femme fatale’s icon in byron’s don juan savo karam1* 1 department of english language and literature, lebanese university, tripoli, lebanon * savo karam, department of english language and literature, lebanese university, tripoli, lebanon received: june 20, 2020 accepted: july 11, 2020 online published: july 17, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p25 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p25 “the strange is a temptation: to suffer it is to enjoy it…. awareness of the strange, seduction of the strange, and horror of the strange go together. the strange is thus foreign, but a foreigner, which would also be, paradoxically, ourselves. unheimlich, jokes freud, equals heimlich, to the almost negation that is a product of repression”. (louis vax, 1965). abstract the femme fatale trope, the incarnation of the artistic ideal of the writer’s creative imagination, is one of the most captivating female facades to haunt the western literary tradition. defined by her liminality, the femme fatale embraces an uncanny appearance that is terrifying but concurrently enthralling. such oxymoronic combination defines her threatening and sublime representation which echoes freud’s phenomenon of the uncanny that lord byron incarnates through his portrayal of the fatal woman motif. as a dark romantic poet, byron perceived beauty in the bizarre, unrestrained attitude of the fatal woman’s figure which shakes the rigid moral dimension of victorian literature. what is intriguing about byron’s depiction of his fatal woman is the supernatural, eerie power of her erotic appeal which she adroitly deploys to consume and haunt her victim’s imagination. many researches tackled byron’s contribution to the gothic lore such as the initiation of the male vampire theme; other areas that were of interest to scholars depicted byron’s homme fatal (the byron seducer) trope. however, little critical attention pertaining to byron’s femme fatale motif has been paid, and since his delineation of the femme fatale remains ambivalent and incomplete, this untouched area deserves substantial attention. although byron did not initiate the fatal woman figure, it is feasible to study how he conceives this archetype and the extent to which he incorporates freud’s theory of the uncanny in his gothic portrayal of two fatal females, adeline and catherine, in don juan. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. keywords freud’s the uncanny, heimlich-heimisch, lord byron, don juan, femme fatale, catherine the great, adeline amundeville 1. introduction “the uncanny”, an essay written by freud in 1919, influenced the criticism of gothic. a psychological concept, the freudian phenomenon of the uncanny has an artistic function in the way it designates how the uncomfortably acquainted is rendered comfortably bizarre or how the unfamiliar is brought to light and becomes familiar. somehow equivocal, this concept is rendered more complicated as the uncanny becomes familiar and unfamiliar concurrently. the theme of the uncanny entails a strange combination of two contradictory feelings that are the result of fear and desire. here is a sample of what freud provides pertaining to the uncanny: “that class of the frightening that leads back to what is known of old and long familiar” (p. 220); “whatever reminds us of ... [the] inner ‘compulsion to repeat’” (p. 238); “frightening element [that] can be shown to be something repressed which recurs” (p. 241); “something which is secretly familiar [heimlich-heimisch] ... [which] has undergone repression and then returned” (p. 245); and what “proceeds from something familiar which has been repressed” (p. 247). dark romanticism and the uncanny fall under the scope of 19th century gothic literature. influencing our intellectual thinking, freud’s uncanny phenomenon invades our mental thoughts: whatever enlivens fear gives readers an uncanny apprehension. in this vein, a dark female gothic, the femme fatale, perfectly fits in the dimension of the uncanny, and as freud asserts, “we can collect all those properties of persons, things, sense-impressions, experiences and situations which arouse in us the feeling of uncanniness, and then infer the unknown nature of the uncanny from what all these examples have in common” (p. 220). byron’s portrait of the femme fatale in don juan, a gothic fiction of dark romanticism, bears several features of the uncanny woman. the literary, psychological and social archetype of the femme fatale abounds in highbrow literature. this mysterious character originating in the romantic era possesses deep roots in dark romanticism and has been a dominant literary archetype and prominent image of femininity characterizing late-victorian literature. what is unfamiliar or uncanny has a broad scope and could never be stable and is subsequently engagingly inscrutable. possessing extensive literary variations, the fatal woman, similar to the byronic hero, will always be considered an enigmatic figure since both figures do not have a static or unified personality but differ according to the unique nature of the writer’s imagination. the diversity of social, moral and sexual transgressive behavior of the femme fatale makes her a significant literary character in masculine gothic literature. perhaps the first romantic model of the femme fatale in history is that of cleopatra. in the occident, the fatal woman figure has always been considered a cultural myth. initially introduced in mario praz’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. the romantic agony as a celebrated nineteenth century character, the femme fatale, as praz alleges, has no stable archetype. praz describes her as a vampire and praying mantis, adding that she is compellingly both physically and sexually attractive, designating an incredibly threatening, destructive nature of her irresistible seduction in the sense that: “… sexual cannibalism is her monopoly” (p. 206). a circe-like figure, the femme fatale seduces her lovers simply to exercise her supernatural powers over them for the aim of destruction. since she is associated with the theme of death, devastation becomes innate in her nature. generally speaking, such a literary type is attractive, sensual, mysterious, seductive and treacherous; it is no doubt an incarnation of both beauty and art. since the fallen woman is an aesthetic symbol, it should elude moral scrutiny. because she stands for manifold taboos of the 19th century posing a moral and social threat, she never escapes substantial scrutiny from society and readers. 2. literature review in “la femme est naturelle, c’est-a-dire abominable: gender, liminality and blurring the boundaries in don juan,” shona allan argues “that the vast majority of the women in don juan are to some extent sexual predators… and are not really femmes fatales at all.… yet… there is something intrinsically liminal about these women” (pp. 174-175). peter thorslev, in the byronic hero: types and prototypes, similarly emphasizes that female figures in byron’s oeuvre are not as dangerous as the femme fatale motif demonstrates, asserting that they are “sometimes spaniel-like, but never fatal” (p. 10). in other words, don juan female characters, allan and thorslev reckon, are not femmes fatales. as it will be viewed later, such underestimation of byron’s female characters is not true. according to virginia allen, the femme fatale is: ….beautiful, erotic, seductive, destructive, exotic … self-determined and independent. [she embodies] the theme of an indifferent and chilling remoteness from human feeling…. the femme fatale is less human. she is immortal, queen, goddess…. she is not only amorous and lovely, but indulges her sexuality without concern for her lover…. [she] does not conceive…. she was construed as the woman who controlled her own sexuality, who seduced men and drained them out of their “vital powers,” in an exercise of eroticism. she… is the diametric opposite of the “good” woman. (p. 4) all these traits, as will be demonstrated later, uncannily reverberate in the characters of adeline and catherine that byron artfully confects in don juan. the romance genre, along with the idealization of love, is revolutionized and subverted in don juan, an unfinished satirical and naturalistic epic written in ottava rima between 1818 and 1823 which falls under the scope of gothic romance. this unfinished long poem is about a young, courageous spanish roué who, thirsty for pleasurable experiences, undergoes several adventures in numerous societies inundated with corruption. this paper focuses on the rhetorical depiction of the uncanny portrayal of two literary femme fatales in don juan. the archetypal image of byron’s fatal woman will be analyzed through the lens of freud’s the uncanny in order to demonstrate her versatility, liminality, sexuality, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. longevity and most saliently her uncanniness. 3. catherine the great the romantic british bard, byron himself is a connoisseur of female characterization; his uncanny portrayal of the captivating fatality of a licentious universal femme fatale figure, who is in turn a connoisseur of a colliding erotic love, is worth examining. the overriding femme fatale stereotype, as detected by don juan’s readers, is that they are unpredictable, cruel, voluptuous sexual predators par excellence. such an erotic portrayal is incarnated in catherine the great, “russia’s mighty empress” for whom juan worked as a diplomat. essentially, she is depicted as an intense hedonistic icon of a liberal, anti-sentimental femme fatale whose fiery desire suggests sexual indecency. the attributes of juan, decent and inexperienced, make him unusually and psychologically fit to be her sacrificial victim. no image makes a more profound impression on the inner psyche of byron than the uncanniness of the female organ with its paradoxical nature, standing for both maternal fecundity and death drive. in this vein, the poet chooses provoking erotic imagery through his psychologized apostrophe to “this cunt” as such accomplishing a piercing level of familiar intimacy. his provocative yet veiled inference to the mother’s genitalia is achieved through his intentional, aesthetic euphemistic coining of “this cant” (canto 4) instead of the unspoken word “cunt” and through his inserted diastole, the lengthening of the vowel “u”. beforehand, byron is so insightful to indicate that this “[w]ould have provoked remarks” (canto 4). the gothic rhetoric behind apostrophizing the “cant” when referring to the empress no doubt produces a robust, haunting effect on the poet and his readers and male characters, whose uncanny imagination is exaggeratedly triggered when the repressed familiar is unexpectedly disclosed. strangely, the erotic “unspeakable” resounds in our psyche throughout the entire uncompleted poem. to douglas kinnaird byron admits: “i have written about a hundred stanzas of a third canto—but it is damned modest—the outcry has frightened me—i had such projects for the don—but the cant is so much stronger than cunt—nowadays” (qtd. in marchand, vol 6, no. 23). altering the second vowel intensifies the profundity of the poet’s expressions who admits that by doing so the uncanny effect has taken its toll on him. through this process, byron draws the readers’ attention to the unprinted truth, dormant in the psyche, not to be uttered. if oedipus’ explicit answer to the riddle about the cycle of life was “man”, byron’s undeclared/tacit answer to the riddle about the cause/origin of life with its cynical sexual entendres is ironically even more mannerly, illustrative and intellectual. undeniably, he uncannily condenses women into one familiar organ: the “cant/cunt” becomes byron’s synecdoche of womankind. byron’s cathexis to the uncanny ramifications of the mother genital organ seems more like an obsession until he eventually “obey[s]” its call and succumbs to the mysterious and magical “[p]etticoat influence” since he reminds readers that from under the petticoat “… upon earth we are brought,” for this reason he tends to “venerate a petticoat-/ a garment of mystical sublimity/…/ which holds a treasure…/and more attracts by all it doth conceal-” (canto 14). intentionally, he repeatedly alludes to the female organ to highlight the cultural obsession with the female body or the addiction to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. sexuality and to decry sexual repression at the same time. whatever prompts the urge of repetition is in itself uncanny [unheimlich]. freud observes that repetition is a dynamic feature of the uncanny which demonstrates itself as: “the constant recurrence of the same thing—the repetition of the same features or character-traits or vicissitudes, of the same crimes, or even the same names through several consecutive generations” (p. 234). he further elaborates on the uncanny effect of the mother’s pudendum which stands for the entry of the previous home. when the homely becomes unhomely or when the familiar becomes unappreciated, another uncanny effect is fashioned, with the prefix “un” standing for repression: … there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. this unheimlich place, however, is the entrance to the former heim [home] of all human beings, to the place where each one of us lived once upon a time and in the beginning… and whenever a man dreams of a place or a country and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: “this place is familiar to me, i’ve been here before”, we may interpret the place as being his mother’s genitals or her body. in this case too, then, the unheimlich is what was once heimisch, familiar; the prefix “un” [“un-”] is the token of repression. (p. 245) adopting the freudian concept of suppression, byron blames uncanny thoughts entirely on repression that triggers the uncomfortable familiar [heimisch] to become comfortably unfamiliar [unheimlich]. as such, byron’s repetitive allusion to the female orifice and his usage of the cunt-centered pun provides his poem a gothic, mysterious, uncanny aura expressed in his praise of the lewd empress whose “great (w)hole” promises an infinite array of delight in the hollow passageway to the “gate of life and death” (canto 9). this is the inevitable powerful influence of the femme fatal exercising death and life on her victim-lover. angela carter reflects this tragic sadeian orgasm of the libertine thus: …. during the irreducible timelessness of the moment of orgasm, the hole in the world in which we fall…, this state is as fearful as it is pleasurable and, besides, is lost as soon as it is attained. he has burst into the utopia of desire, in which only the self exists…. the conquering hero comes. and … he has been expelled from it, a fall like lucifer’s, from heaven to hell. the annihilation of the self and the resurrection of the body, to die in pain and to painfully return from death, is the sacred drama of the sadeian orgasm. (p. 150) likewise, gavin sourgen asserts: “as intimacy reaches its peak in the point of contact, it also summons its inevitable death, for desire is effectively killed upon consummation” (p. 104). in the same manner, byron declares that when the gratifying ecstasy is attained, sinful lovers reach a dead-end: “pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure;/ …but whether glory, power, or love, or treasure, the path is through perplexing ways, and when the goal is gain’d, we die, you know” (canto 1). it is desire and solely desire that consumes juan. with a profound craving or desire, juan uncomfortably approaches the desired object, this sterile “hole,” and a galling feeling of anxiety befalls him as the secretly hidden becomes exposed. ironically, juan becomes uncannily whole by embracing the “great (w)hole” (canto 9) which is both the coveted “extimate object” and the origin of his desire. in the process, as he and catherine become a whole body, the “hole” is not a menacing, desired object www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. anymore as its proximity ensures wholeness; hence, “the whole empress” (canto 9) will become the double of her victim. a quotation by joan copjec is relevant here: “…when we are at some remove from…the extimate object…[it] appears as a lost part of ourselves, whose absence prevents us from becoming whole; it is then that it functions as the object-cause of our desire. but when our distance from it is reduced, it no longer appears as a partial object, but … as a complete body, an almost exact double of our own...” (p. 35). in the sadeian woman, carter further explicates that the de-sexed female orifice will stay hallow and meaningless unless the male fills its gap: “woman is negative. between her legs lies nothing but zero, the sign for nothing, that only becomes something when the male principle fills it with meaning” (p. 4). likewise, byron contemplates on how “the sex are always seeking” a perpetual search/venture for “something all-sufficient for the heart” and wonders “but how to fill up that same vacant part?” (canto 14). strangely enough, as this uncanny entrance ensures life and wholesomeness, it also exacts demise due to the impossible reconciliation with the mother and excessive erotic consummation. what was intimate and familiar now becomes alien and menacing. in fact, the return of the repressed is extraordinarily terrifying: “the uncanny [unheimlich] is something which is secretly familiar [heimlich-heimisch], which has undergone repression and then returned from it, and that everything that is uncanny fulfils this condition” (freud, p. 245). thus, the “cant/cunt’s” uncanny perception as a maternal penetrable symbol, standing for the passage back to the comfort zone of the womb, the longed-for repressed home, is the canal of the procreation-death cycle as it marks the commencement and termination of life’s journey. entirely engrossed in the viscous, self-defeating cycle of consummate lust, juan embarks on devious adventures with the russian empress. in her turn, the fatal woman exercises her uncanny power through her unlimited or uncontrolled libido which leads her hapless lover astray by arresting him in a state of reverie, tossing him in a timeless space of death and life, which is fearful and seductive. byron’s involuntary, uncanny repetition of the mother’s genitalia in reference to catherine engenders unexplainable sensations; it is a pivotal point in her development as a femme fatale of double status, the good-terrible mother, portending death and rebirth. it is this particular universal trope of the uncanny and the existentialist irresistible “hole”/“whole,” the alluring light that entices and burns, that males, including byron and juan, want to explore despite the possibility of horrific obliteration. in this respect, byron counsels that juan “risk’d for passion, /and passion’s self must have a spice of frantic” (canto 12). by sadistically teasing her admirer, the fatal woman catherine denies juan’s ultimate sexual gratification which spices up their liaison. the freudian uncanny is reiterated and encapsulated in byron’s predominant mysterious symbol of the “cant/cunt” as is the “cause” of: “our exit and our entrance/…some call thee ‘the worse cause of war’, but i/ maintain thou art the best: for after all,/ from thee we come, to thee we go….” (canto 9). this furtive symbol reflects the duality of catherine’s nature, being the cause of war and peace/love: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. “catherine, who was the grand epitome/ of that great cause of war, or peace…” (canto 9). passionate and cruel, catherine becomes the androgynous fatal, great mother, possessing femininity and masculinity. such a paradox relishes the power of adulation and destruction. in other words, byron implies that female sexuality is fatal or magically poisonous and the reason why males will perpetually “rise and fall” (canto 11). thus, catherine’s “nondescript” hole (canto 9), her swallowing vortex pushes all creation into a vicious cycle of valuational wars…this is what catherine’s naturalistic lewdness and attitudinal inconsistency portend” (lachance, p. 153) and is what entices juan into becoming a faithful servant. from this perceptive, the uncanny wholeness of such a hole produces the uncanny sensation that lures the alienated and lost juan to nostalgically return to his mother’s loins, creating a powerful defamiliarized, nostalgic estrangement of the freudian notion of the “old and long familiar.” the uncanniness instigated by the male perception of the mother genitalia could also act as an effective female self-defense weapon: “what arouses horror in oneself will produce the same effect upon the enemy against whom one is seeking to defend oneself” (freud, p. 274). in this vein, catherine, the phallic mother, utilizes her unrestrained sexuality as a means to attain more prowess, establish her individuality and weaken the essence of masculinity or genuine male heroism allowing “the femme fatale [to] gain her power from her sexuality: this gives her the opportunity to subdue men, this making sexuality a major weapon in her personal relationships” (de klerk, p. 44). similarly, catherine, an epithet of militant feminism, employs her orifices as a scheming instrument. akin to bloodthirsty vampires, the femme fatale uses her metaphorically barren “cant/cunt” as lethal armament to sexually overwhelm juan’s virility causing his eventual downfall. also, by “drink[ing]” the “blood, the sea of slaughter” (canto 8) of the defeated slain army, she symbolically reclaims the virginal blood spot formerly shed by masculinity. the image of a terroristic, dehumanized female entangled in danger is quite obvious here. blood in this sense, no longer signifies conception and the sexual act becomes non-productive; catherine is a phallic mother, whose life-blood produces an increasing number of corpses. due to her cruel inhumanity and unbridled femininity, catherine has been identified with the uncanny and is “related to what is frightening—to what arouses dread and horror…[and] what excites fear…. ‘[u]ncanny’ certain things… lie within the field of what is frightening” (freud, p. 219). as a monstrous entity, she could also be considered an unstable liminal female character who steps on the uncanny line of demarcation hovering on the brim of humanity and monstrosity, becoming a woman-monster. canto eight reflects an uncanny (re)appearance of a similar, horrible image displaying a diabolical prowess and instinctive/bestial nature for dead men (temptation of political power) and men lover (temptation of the flesh) and foregrounds her soullessness and inhumanness as regards politics and sex: “the kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety,/ the millions slain by soldiers for their ration,/ the scenes like catherine’s boudoir at threescore,/ with ismail’s storm to soften it the more.” these lines reveal the femme fatale as displaying the “bestial nature of human female” (praz, p. 268). no doubt, this blurring www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. of the line between her humanity and bestiality is reminiscent of freud’s uncanny. the carnage scene reveals intense sexual perversion that is both transgressive and repulsive portraying catherine as one who is sexually aroused and relishes in death. this is how she maintains her vital presence, prevailing through domination and sapping her victims’ virility. byron’s archetype of the dark seductresses is characterized by an unnatural ravenous sexuality in a feminine vampiric body. this vampire seductress: “fills our imaginations as she embodies contradicting ideals of femininity, such as fragility, strength, beauty, and power. engaging the symbolic connections of blood and female sexuality, this imagining of female hypersexualization occurs via the intersection of women’s political power and sexuality and through renderings of both sexual desire and sexual violence” (hobson & anyiwo, p. 9). by manipulating her sexual appetite and political supremacy, the willful and domineering catherine the great displays her independence and exhibits her disparaging vampiric sexuality. she is in complete control of her male counterpart whom she freely manipulates in return for sexual gratification and predictably will be fatally dominated by her. in brief, she is rendered a vampire temptress par excellence who is surprisingly fragile at other times: “… the lamented lanskoi, who was such/ a lover as had cost her many a tear,” (canto 9), but at the same time made phallic by leading the army, thus establishing dominion through conquest. typical of uncanny imagery that is never stable, another enigmatic depiction of catherine is that of a deep, dangerous disordered whirlwind. as such, she echoes shelley’s contention of “the tempestuous loveliness of terror:” what a strange thing is man! and what a stranger is woman! what a whirlwind is her head, and what a whirlpool full of depth and danger … she can change her mind like the wind: whatever she has said. (canto 9) byron understood that a female, being fickle and whimsical in nature, with contradictory lustful tastes, the “inconstancy of woman” (canto 3), makes her even more mysterious in her role as a fatal woman. for instance, as the unpredictable, self-centered catherine was monitoring the news about her victorious ismail conquest and “thirty thousand slain” (canto 9) which shows her violence as a terrible mother-ruler, she instantly forgets the horrors of the battlefield, becomes impatient and restless, and so dominated by her powerful passion that she focuses her licentious attention on the charming young juan “the most beauteous boy” who dispatched the news and now is at her disposal, lying “at her feet” as he will spark new passionate flames: o catherine! (for of all interjections, to thee both oh! and ah! belong of right in love and war) how odd are the connexions of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight! just now yours were cut out in different sections: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. first ismail’s capture caught your fancy quite; next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch; and thirdly he who brought you the despatch! (canto 9) praz designates the femme fatale’s image as a praying mantis and her consumed male victim as a passive, obscure youth “inferior either in condition or in physical exuberance to the woman” (p. 215). this description fits juan’s tempting prelapsarian innocence and suitably describes his relationship with the rapacious empress whose “majesty… liked to gaze on youth” (canto 9). being a passive and manipulated character, he is no doubt the willing partner, a typical prey of predatory dominant women: “…he said/ little, but to the purpose…” (canto 9). furthermore, byron fashions love-sex images combining her power in battle and bed. as she contemplates on her former battles, catherine “look’d on the match/ between these nations as a main of cocks,/ wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks” (canto 9). here is a veiled insinuation that depicts her as an appalling fatal female figure, a devil female autocrat, combining sexual, martial deviations with perversions, thus dehumanizing herself in the pursuit of unrestrained sexual joy. no doubt, the double nature of catherine makes her an epitome of the good and evil, mother-lover/devil-ruler figure. in russia, ice becomes eden: “made ice seem paradise” (canto 10), and catherine is the russian fallen eve or eve’s descendent in this icy paradisal haven. juan, “[s]educed by… dangerous examples” (canto 10), tastes the prohibited, sexual fruit of this earthly paradise, which triggers his downfall and accelerates his physical degradation and metaphorical death. since he is continuously “swimming in the sentiment of joy” (canto 8), overindulgence in sexual pleasure affects his health, so “don juan grew… a little dissipated;” (canto 10). possessed by such a unique power, the empress attests to her individuality and independence, by not being subsumed by her momentary devotee. since the older catherine is like a mother figure to young juan and as she is the mother of russia, then she is the epitome of eve, the mother of all humanity: “all, praised the empress’s maternal love” (canto 10). when the tempting empress and the tempted young man were entangled in a lustful relationship, juan, drained by the power of temptation, gradually collapses and descends into the abyss of hell, making his way through the main entrance from which all humans were delivered. this sexual contact and the incestuous connection constitute the bulk of the freudian scenario and cause the uncanny effect; the male lover has been there but does not recall when and how he experienced birth through his mother’s organs. reentering the old, long familiar cocoon is uncanny and “unhomely.” going through the mother’s private organ again, juan is revisiting this “unhomely” familiar home. this allusion that byron makes to “a former world,” prefigures the freudian uncanniness of a repressed previous home [heim] that eventually leads juan to the mythical dwelling place of the dead: the underworld: “when this world shall be former, underground/ thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisp’d, and curl’d,” (canto 9). when the previous and “long familiar” that had long been repressed and eliminated from the mind suddenly returns to haunt our inner thoughts, the uncanny effect resurfaces. entering the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. “home” is “unhomely” as these previously repressed sexual desires, buried in one’s psyche, become lewd, frightening, prohibited and repellent, causing anxiety. after the separation from the mother, the repressed past threateningly returns and so does the uncanny forbidden reunion of juan’s return voyage, a fatal, irreversible journey into the womb of hell and “‘hell’ is interpreted as an uncanny reversal of the mother’s womb and vagina” (masschelein, p. 51). therefore, engaging into immoderate, tabooed sexuality and dissipation with the russia female monarch is compared to plunging into hell, resulting in juan’s exhaustion, degeneration and sickness, leaving him spiritually and physically demoralized and enfeebled: “the hue/ of health but flicker’d with a faint reflection/ along his wasted cheek….” (canto 10). in effect, it is catherine’s apparently uncanny ability to feed off her victim’s energy with such an uninhabited, omnivorous appetite that gives byron’s sexually dangerous femme fatale an aura of novelty and individuality. indeed, byron successfully produces the uncanny effects (those of destruction and annihilation) of the entanglement with the sexual drives of the fatal and the fated, and as freud sarcastically notes: “love is home-sickness” (p. 15). a vivid salacious icon of an unpredictable predatory nymphomaniac, a self-centered female with uncontrollable erotic ambition, is the epitome of the consumptive byronic femme fatale icon whose lover suffers from romantic despair to the point that the unfortunate, consumed, masochistic lover turns suicidal over his femme fatale and metaphorically and willingly dies of consumption. taking the uncanny role as a dangerously queer, sexual, consumptive monster, catherine drives juan, a victim of sickness, to his sickbed. as a psychic sado-masochistic agent, she dangerously drains the life from juan who becomes almost suicidal. as he attempts to willingly fuse with the devastating ideal of the femme fatale, he opens his own grave to accentuate his death. however, catherine remains intact, indifferent and powerful. she also ironically incorporates the good mother archetype as: “catherine was generous” (canto 9). the liaison with the russian empress also instigated juan’s rebirth, as she truly loved him: “love had made catherine make each lover’s fortune,” (canto 9). byron reiterates the same perception about the fatality of love and lust leading to sickness in the twelfth canto: “love or lust makes man sick.” immediately catherine prefigures that his ailment is deadly, by cold-bloodedly diminishing him into “a condition/ which augur’d of the dead” (canto 10), reechoing and foreshadowing freud’s notion of the relationship between love and homesickness. this demonstrates that she is self-interested and heartless, unconcerned about her lover whom she has manipulated exceedingly well to satisfy her never ending sexual needs. charged with cruelty and indifference, she reduces him into insignificance and incompetence to the extent that juan, her nemesis, becomes a humiliated, morally degraded sexual object or commodity, hence symbolically and psychologically dead. it could be possible he could not adapt to russia’s cold climate or most probably he was sexually possessed and consumed by catherine, who “used her favourites too well” (canto 9). being very well consumed, “[juan] was sick—no’t was not the word sick i meant—/ but he had seen so much love before” (canto 12). accordingly, deep anxiety and heavy stress from this morally degrading and sexually draining relationship became an ordeal that psychologically and physically www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. enfeebled him. eccentrically, it seems juan’s erotic pilgrimage is nothing but a freudian death wish! could juan be mysteriously suffering from a feeling of guiltiness? flight, then, is his only salvation. it is time that the fallen juan emancipates himself from the snare/dream of catherine’s maddening sexuality and sexual enslavement. indeed, he was the slave to her sexuality and to the whims of her passion. here comes the consummation of juan’s unfulfilled desire and the culmination of his sexual servitude that curiously kept serving an ungraspable, inaccessible, teasing other. gavin sourgen explains that: “desire is a galvanizing yet unreachable distance from the object of curiosity as it keeps circling around us, never attaching itself to a… graspable station… the self-defeatism of this ever forward-reaching enactment means that we are held captive by our very captivation in an impenetrable other which teases toward consummation” (p. 108). however, losing her young paramour was not a great loss since she is self-determined to seek solace in time and in a score of playmates ready to take juan’s place: “but time, the comforter, will come at last;/ and four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number/ of candidates requesting to be placed”, (canto 10). at this point, byron’s femme fatale displays a masculine biological sexual appetite. a man-hunting empress is the best title conferred upon catherine who is a typical sexual predator, recurrently replacing her paramours at all times ready for unlimited erotic adventures that will spark new passions, thus taking an active position in leading love affairs and freely selecting her victims are her genuine intentions. what byron implies here is that not only men but also women act on their desires attempting to attain sexual gratification. unfortunately, it is clear that she is toying with juan’s heart; however, the game is over now. this is indicative of the empress’s variable/insatiable erotic appetite, her maddening desire for unlimited sensual pleasures. furthermore, the repetitive allusion to the “cant/cunt” imagery provides a genuine, sublime portrayal of the promiscuous fornications that a voluptuous femme fatale craves for, but this time with reference to fluids associated with the dampness of the mother’s genital organ. unmanliness is again and again generated by the re-emergence of a repressed and forgotten acquainted image that should have remained concealed. uncanny sensations thus arise when byron poeticizes and sexualizes catherine, comparing her vulva to the “sea of life’s dry land!” (canto 9) or to an empty desert, impatiently awaiting to be replenished with meaning. such an amusingly unorthodox comparison carries numerous contemplative and degenerate connotations, pertaining to aimless erotic passions, uncontrollable female seduction, unavoidable doom and the viciousness of human nature. in praise of the wet “cant” and the erotic magnetism employed by its uncanniness, byron describes how males are fatally distracted by the erotic attraction to such a tempting body of water, so he pauses to contemplate on how “all souls are dipt/ in thy perennial fountain: how man fell i/ know not…” (canto 9). the expansion of the erotic allusion to the “cant” in the form of the gothic fountain metaphor insinuates at hypnotic sexuality and the internal splitting of this word to mean ritual, spiritual purification is in itself uncanny. such an inviting fountain, along with its everlasting moisture, is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. metonymy of the female private organ; it evokes inquisitiveness to the point that dipped souls attain spiritual cleansing during the uncanny experience of baptism. here the fatal woman audaciously savors an exhibited fulfilling sexuality although profane yet purifying, overtly displaying a transgressive thirst for unlimited pleasure and sexual abandon. the philosophical meaning here lies in the male’s perpetual thirst for adventure, love and sex. in this baptismal experience, juan hypnotically undergoes a dauntless pilgrimage to the eternal sexual fountain, attempting to be embraced by the “ocean of eternity” (canto 10) without paying heed to its hazards. drinking from the elixir of erotic love, man falls prey to the femme fatale’s detrimental “cant” intensified, uncanny sensations are aroused by the repetitive allusions to the female vagina, which is a concealed/repressed part of the psyche. the frequent recurrence of the freudian wish, the vagina fantasy, must have stimulated a sense of alarm to don juan readers. byron wittingly portrays a tantalizing femme fatale whose yearning males urgently “beg” to experience “the joys of drinking” as they “[s]uck’d in the moisture, which like nectar stream’d;” every “drop” of such a nectarous drink, propelling unsuppressed sexual appetite, promises the “taste of heaven” (canto 2). byron makes catherine seem like a supernatural, less human figure, transcending into an immortal goddess. the “rosy, ripe, and succulent” (canto 9) femme fatale is a suitable description of such a monstrous sexual predator whose succubus motive is unlimited erotic bliss, starting or ending with “a touch/ of sentiment” (canto 9). except for her imperialistic tactics, catherine is not as intellectual as the other fatal woman adeline. however, both femmes fatales including their double byron “are strongly acted on by what is nearest” (canto 16). in this way they become omnisexual hedonistic beasts, seeking sexual practices ubiquitously as their utmost motivation is pursuing pleasure. acting by who is nearest at this point, “russia’s royal harlot” (canto 10), catherine, is amazed at the beauty of young juan with whom she experienced sensual, sublime love or “the love of sentiment” (canto 9). in this respect, sex becomes the genuine outcome of “love, or lust” (canto 9) [it seems that byron does not differentiate between the two], and this natural process accompanied by the luxurious “rout” of the lovers’ sensations is what gives true “joy” to byron/juan and his femme fatale: which make all bodies anxious to get out of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess, … how beautiful that moment! and how odd is that fever which precedes the languid rout of our sensations! what a curious way. (canto 9) 4. adeline amundeville as expected, juan escapes from the repressed familiar, involuntarily returning only to reenact a novel fatal encounter in which he is lost once again in the unfamiliar. he again becomes a self-alienated, tempting prey to the powerful, unbridled sexuality of the most fatal woman in don juan. it seems that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. juan is doomed and forever haunted by the uncanny as he repetitively appears with the wrong woman in the wrong place to “proceed with pleasure…/ beloved and loving many” in order “[t]o love again, and be again undone” (canto 1). surprisingly, juan still has the incentive to repeat another love escapade, to love and be loved, and eventually redestroyed by another caustic femme fatale. out of thirteen females in don juan, juan is about to have the most perilous relationship with his hostess adeline amundeville, “the fair most fatal juan ever met,” (canto 13), the double of catherine, another erratic woman of natural sentiments, possessing “that vivacious versatility” (canto 16). like catherine, lady adeline is a strongly individuated character and a perfect model of the good and evil mother. in the fourteenth canto, byron explicitly acknowledges that adeline possesses a dual personality: “of double nature, and thus doubly named.” associated with the oxymoronic images of ice and fire (a snow capped volcano), adeline’s dual nature, being fair/foul and hot/cold, maintains a two-fold unpredictable status of the “fair most fatal” femme fatale who looks “not indifferent” by appearing to be cold “beneath the snow,” while her instinctive, overflowing impulses, boiling with passion within, are ready for eruption: “as a volcano holds the lava more” (canto 13). expressed differently, this repressed feminine spirit is the embodiment of hellfire and rebellion since her dormant, intoxicating passion is ignited at the slightest spark: “so let the often-used volcano go/ poor thing! how frequently, by me and others,/ it hath been stirr’d up till its smoke quite smothers” (canto 13). the variability/unattainability of such a fatal woman is repeated to emphasize her hypersexual nature that is typical of fatal females who remain sexually fluid even inside an icy bottle. this salacious metaphor is again reminiscent of catherine’s and adeline’s sexual orifice, prepared to quench a masculine pilgrimage’s thirst since its essence promises “immortal” droplets: what say you to a bottle of champagne? frozen into a very vinous ice, which leaves few drops of that immortal rain, yet in the very centre, past all price, about a liquid glassful will remain; and this is stronger than the strongest grape could e’er express in its expanded shape: (canto 13) the clustering of recurrent sexually laden imagery alluding to adeline produces an uncanny effect. such a flowing, dynamic imagery of lava and wine possesses an erotic flavor of the distracting and drifting outlandish “whole spirit” of a femme fatale whose aromatic “hidden nectar” is the purest drink, as it contains an unmatched sexual essence: “'t is the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;/… a hidden nectar under a cold presence” (canto 13). this is another indication of adeline’s dual/double nature; only through penetrating her cold existence, her warm passion overflows. this is a refined image of the vampiric femme fatale who drains her victim’s sexual energy but remains disguised in the suggestive figure of a voluptuous fatal woman with sexual cravings. driven by a plethora of sexual yearnings which her male victims find irresistible, she tends to feed on her victim just as an insect www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. consumes nectar until the flower withers. adeline’s dual nature, evoking the uncanny romantic impulses of the enthralling and appalling female, indicates that she is both a good and terrible mother. for instance, cunning and shrewd, her flexible character enables her to master the art of acting. after showing an interest in juan, she pretends to have noble intentions: “now when she once had ta’en an interest/ in any thing, however she might flatter/ herself that her intentions were the best,/ intense intentions are a dangerous matter:” (canto 14).however, byron divulges adeline’s uncanny subjective interior, warning that her concentrated intentions and thoughts are hazardous since actions are the best criteria for judging morality. according to diane hoeveler, “the ambiguities and conflicts between female appearance and reality consistently characterize the femme fatale” (p. 196). in freud’s opinion, “we can also speak of a living person as uncanny, and we do so when we ascribe evil intentions to him” (p. 243). accordingly, adeline seems chaste as she does “with an air of innocence…/…ponder how to save [juan’s] soul” (canto 15), but in reality, she is a hypocrite: “but adeline determined juan’s wedding/ in her own mind, and that’s enough for woman:” (canto 15). in another instance, she elicits the sympathy of readers since she attempts futilely to spiritualize her emotions towards juan: “although she was not evil nor meant ill;/ but destiny and passion spread the net” (canto 13), but byron bluntly and bitterly accuses englishwomen in general of immorality: “you are not a moral people, and you know it” (canto 11). byron does the same with adeline whose eyes are described as “malicious” (canto 15) and whom he associates with a “lurking demon” (canto 14) assuming the role of a femme fatale, responsively acting sexual towards juan. performing in a non-platonic, transgressive manner renders her a sexual predator: a femme fatale. an uncanny fact about the byronic fatal women is that they are resourceful to the extent that they “are strongly acted on by what is near” (canto 16). like catherine, adeline’s nearness to evil makes her corruptive and destructive. for this reason, in order to unleash her feelings, she hovers nearby juan who stimulates in her a “whole interest intense” leading to “a fresh sensation” (canto 15). hence, she grows more compassionate towards juan in an uncanny manner. charles donelan describes this flexibility/fluidity as “the paradox of women’s psychic mobility” in which women are seemingly attached to their male partner and simultaneously detached by giving rein to their imagination; these women uncannily reveal “their ability to conform their personalities to the needs and desires of those around them, while at the same time remaining emotionally and imaginatively detached by involving themselves in fantasy” (p. 11). this social and psychic mobility of adeline’s feelings is more evident in the following lines that reveal her manipulation and improvisation: so well she acted all and every part …. which many people take for want of heart. they err—’t is merely what is call’d mobility, a thing of temperament and not of art, though seeming so, from its supposed facility; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. and false—though true; for surely they’re sincerest. (canto 16) her dual nature thus arouses uncanny feelings in readers. on one hand, she is mesmerizingly charming, a good mother archetype described by byron as “glorious as a diamond richly set” (canto 15); her glamour is incorruptible and permanent as she “sparkled through three glowing winters” (canto 14). furthermore, she is a cultured and decent aristocrat: “to all she was polite without parade;” (canto 13) with a noble descent: “was high-born, wealthy by her father’s will,” (canto 13). having a refined taste in literature, this lady is also praised for being a cultivated intellect: “for adeline is half a poetess,” (canto 16) as well as associated with a pure drink: “adeline was of the purest vintage,” (canto 15). on the other hand, her beauty is destructive and intoxicating; she is an immoral/evil mother since her pure drink will presently be “decanted” as juan is about to savor such “unmingled essence of the grape;” (canto 15). it is inferred from this overheated image that adeline possesses powerful erotic yearnings that are more disparaging than that of catherine. byron’s portrayal of such a unique, fatal character embodying corruption and loveliness concurrently provokes a novel appreciation of a sublime form of polluting and exquisite beauty, both contaminated and contaminating. unfortunately, the aftermath of this immoral encounter revealing adeline’s surreptitious lustfulness “may undergo adulteration” (canto 15). this is an ominous sign foreshadowing the downfall of adeline and juan: “o death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily/ knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,” (canto 15). an openly sexual character such as adeline is a direct reference to the femme fatale who appears more libidinous than her lover. the intentional reiterated, uncanny tropes of fluidity continue to carry an air of mystery, indicating a flowing state streaming throughout the verses: “liquid words run on apace,” (canto 14). these repeated fatal signs warn of impending, inevitable destruction, especially when the narrator admits: “and what i write i cast upon the stream,/ to swim or sink…” (canto 14). the most obvious fatal metaphor in don juan is the one that compares lady adeline to a whole “brilliant ocean” (canto 14), associating her with watery, boundless depths employed to allure victims to her arena and exert her destructive power over them. she becomes a sea nymph with super erotic power luring her mislead male victims. associating the ubiquitous image of water to fatal females is uncommon; it seems that byron intentionally did not imitate other romantics who featured blood vampires in their poems, such as coleridge’s “christabel”. similar to the blood motif, the water symbol is reminiscent of unruly desires and excessive female sexuality. as a femme fatale, she is uncannily associated with watery depths and described as an unpossessable “ocean woman” who requires cautious navigation. this alluring fatal female invites males to embrace and enjoy “cruising o’er” (canto 13), progressively enticing them into fruitless erotic encounters since her dreary cant-ridden domain, although a concretized earthly paradise, is a crisis looming. an uncanny, menacing sign of her possessiveness and unattainability seems omnipotent, yet elusive. furthermore, the laws of nature and female sexuality, like the ocean, can neither be dominated nor repressed. once unbridled, the essence of adeline’s unfettered sexual passions, being obscure, can neither be contained by juan nor by any other paramour. byron uses the ocean metaphor to caution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. readers against the horror of women’s unrestrained sexuality. adeline, dazzling but lethal, disguises her perils and hellishness. whoever gets close to “sweet adeline” (canto 13) with the “not exactly ascertain’d,” (canto 13)” wavering spirit” (canto 14) is bound to be doomed, especially that byron delineates her as a “queen-bee” (canto 13). apparently, byron connects the uncanny, scary amorous experience with the woman as symbolic of the ocean: while “cruising o’er the ocean woman,” unfortunately “a voyage or vessel [might be] lost” (canto 13). moreover, the woman as ocean uncannily enchants males who are at the same time fearful of being engulfed by the ocean. this is an exaggerated metaphor of the engulfing mother-lover, submerged in an intense sexual act and erotic escapade, insinuating once again the uncanniness of the female genitals that allure males to revisit the former home or “heimlich.” consequently, the amorous act appears so alarming that lovers are anxious to be swallowed up in the dankness of the femme fatale’s genitalia which is an irresistible somatic grave. instead of experiencing rebirth by instinctively reuniting with the mother, the male lovers are doomed to initiate a carnal bonding with their former home. endowed with special, sadistic powers of a bee queen and an oceanic woman, adeline becomes an uncanny fallen woman, desired but dangerous. the image of adeline’s flawed “vacant” eyes and heart (canto 14) is as dangerous as her “abyss of thought” (canto 9) even “wise men [who] don’t know much of navigation;” will “capsize” (canto 9) right away and head towards hell, being swallowed by the fatal female. according to lachance, byron’s “sublime and cunnicentric language” helps him tailor “adeline into his most menacing and magnetic figure of nihilism.... a siren of such disastrous charm, she might engulf pyrrho himself in a tidal wave of doubt and hardly know the damage she had done” (pp. 160-161). the physical and intellectual charismatic nature of adeline is menacing to the point that even philosophers are snared into this siren’s deep abyss. as their relationship further develops, the intimate, immoral exposure between adeline and juan is blurred and becomes even more thrilling: “it is not clear that adeline and juan/ will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin,” but byron forewarns that a dangerous passion is fatal as it brings “man and woman to the brink/ of ruin” (canto 14). in another analogous destructive, apocalyptic image, byron prefigures that the ruin of unethical passionate love is inevitable: “its inner crash is like an earthquake’s ruin” (canto 14). through this anticipatory image, byron hints at the fact that the spaniard and the english lady will fall in love and that the allure of female love is treacherous. fate plays a role in adeline’s immoral sexual entanglements with juan in the same way venus and mars are involved in infidelity. in order to foster the image of the femme fatale’s enchanting destructiveness, byron associates adeline, the british eve and “siren,” to three renowned fallen femme fatales: venus, helen of troy and eve. apparently, in the fifteenth canto, the attraction between the spaniard and the englishwoman, similar to that of mars and venus, is confirmed; thus, ruination and misadventure are determined. it is love that adeline laments: “and as for love-o love!-we will proceed./ the lady adeline amundeville,” (canto 15) who was once “right honourable;” yet she “ran a risk of growing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. less so;” (canto 15). the sexually promiscuous relationship between juan and adeline becomes defamatory after their infidelity is laid bare, and as byron foreshadowed earlier, if they were to fall, they would be ruined. therefore, the fatal woman stays unswervingly fatal to her lover, leaving him emotionally and psychologically scarred. freud further elucidates what triggers the uncanny effect: “an uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality” (p. 244). blurring the distinctive boundaries between the conscious and unconscious or reality and fantasy produces an uncanny effect since it creates an experience of uncertainty, apprehension, insecurity and eccentricity. juan feels misguided and skeptical about adeline’s cabalistic enigma, especially in the way she performs as a socialite and as a respectable gentlewoman. as juan “cast[s] a glance/ on adeline while playing her grand role,” (canto 16) he has “[s]ome doubt how much of adeline was real” (canto 16) and hallucinates whether she is living or inanimate. furthermore, freud declares that “one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton” (p. 227). this mental confusion is referred by freud as “intellectual uncertainty” (p. 233). in this respect, adeline’s uncanny nature bewilders juan’s intellectual uncertainty; this uncanny transparency scares him. adeline is thus a delusive, wicked archetypal seductress located at the juncture of the uncanny/supernatural and the human. she is both real and unreal in juan’s imagination and no female was able to exercise such power over him as she does. however, what intensifies juan’s uncanny fear is adeline’s liminal, ambiguous nature which adds to the charm of her elusiveness and her ungraspable existence. instinctively, juan highlights her psychic reality slightly more than her physical existence, revealing the haunting effect of her inscrutably enigmatic nature upon his erotic thoughts. operating as a typical femme fatale, adeline persists in deluding and magnetizing her victim’s fantasies thus leading him astray. on the physical level, the aftermath of the intimate act, that enticing fantasy, is a stolen ecstasy which consumes and destroys juan. eventually, juan, the legendary seducer, is ultimately awakened into the reality of his scandal with the seductive and ungratifying adeline. 5. the byronic femme fatale motif the aesthetics of the gothic, related to the mystical, uncanny, exotic and horrific, seem so remarkable to byron that he blended romance with his gothic imagination to refashion his own version of the fatal woman. the association of the femme fatale with the uncanny signifies an influential relationship between the real world and supernatural realm. having a fragmented personality, being a demolisher of the other but preserver of herself, byron’s femme fatale is an incarnation of the clash between reality and unreality, between life and art. throughout his treatment of the femme fatale, byron demarcates a fatal gothic character unable to be concretized through reason alone, unaccompanied by wild imagination. although unromantic and unsentimental, byron’s fatal females are unable to exist without www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. the intrusion of the gothic fancy. the uncanny representations of both femme fatales understudy become the highlight of the freudian uncanny phenomenon and the gothic aesthetics in byron’s dark romantic imagination. as a genuine gothic villainess, the byronic femme fatale is an uncanny fear-provoking entity, creating horror in her acquiescent victim due to her “love’s capricious power” (canto 2). that is why byron exclaims “alas! the love of women! it is known/ to be a lovely and a fearful thing;” (canto 2). this uncanny entity inflicting “pleasure and pain” (canto 4) is what constitutes her extraordinarily uniqueness. in another instance, byron laments the destructive power of love, “o, love! what is it in this world of ours/ which makes it fatal to be loved?” (canto 3). certainly, byron has an unfettered tendency to declare the superiority of the fatal woman image through his delineation of her uncanny ability to shatter the life of don juan. the latter is the quintessential womanizer and patriarchal seducer, who fatefully becomes the seduced and the consumed. ironically, such sadistic and dominating annihilation becomes a feminine privilege, shaking off male dominance and authority. power relations here are paradoxically subverted and reversed. the stereotypical mysterious other, this scary uncanny woman who trespasses normative codes openly and intentionally breaks socio-cultural norms. she willfully becomes transgressive, alluring and dangerous, thus more frightening. through their sexually oriented transgression, catherine and adeline are two appealing and terrifying liminal females: good/evil mothers. in effect, both prove to be foreboding and forbidding due to their liminality, making the reader and lover speculate about what to expect. they combine in their character what is recognized and trusted with what is hazardous; they can even be nurturing but in an erotic sense. such a description fits the type of byron’s uncanny woman. successfully does byron design an immortal archetype of his femme fatale as she will perpetually persist to flourish as a heimlich (canny or homey) and unheimlich (uncanny or unhomely) sexual icon because she is implanted in our imagination and cultural consciousness, frequently haunting our psyche to inflame its sexual imagination. although an infertile great sinner, the byronic fatal woman seems to be extraordinarily enduring. it is possible that the rhetoric of such portrayal denotes a vital surviving image in the imagination of both characters and readers. a female hero’s uniqueness and exoticism is byron’s specialty, and the more divergent the fatal features are, the more likely that they will be imprinted in the minds of readers and victims. with her unpredictable passion, the femme fatale promises ideal sensory/erotic experiences and novel artistic liking(s). as an ultimate embodiment of the sadeian nihilistic hedonism, she excites male-sexual fantasies and as representative of archetypal evil, she is bursting with caprices; her status is characterized by instability and variations. her one stable inclination is her hyper sexuality that inflames her male victims: she lusts for power by obtaining mastery over her lover. byron’s fallen woman is a creature of hardcore, sweeping erotic passion who turns her male’s sensual fancies into loathsome nightmares. the polarizations of temptation and repulsion, of good and evil, and of positive and negative paradigms cohabit in byron’s fatal woman figure. the uncanny effect of the femme fatale www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. who projects “joy… and dread of some mischance” takes its fatal, heavy toll upon juan: “in juan’s look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix’d” (canto 8). this strange synthesis of dismay and captivation is aroused by the sublime nature of the femme fatale whose psychological state is undeniably psychosexual in nature. she is a disruptive force conquering the psychic space of the other/lover and forewarning of destruction. motivated by excessive debauchery, the femme fatale is a woman of sensation and action who is driven by instinct. byron’s “maxim (not quite new)/ “'eat drink, and love…” (canto 2) further illustrates this notion. a predator as well as a huntress marks her dynamic identity and performance; she is prepared to snare her victim and stifle him by her erotic charge, from which she is overwhelmed by her ecstasy. possessing an uncontrollable, libidinous appetite, she emerges as a powerfully dominant hedonist in the way she expresses her sensuality regardless of its consequences. being literally and metaphorically empowered, she is a menace on her paramour to the extent of being unable to endure the sexual rapport with her. her voracious desires along with her vacillating, puissant passions are pernicious enough to consume anguished male lovers. undeniably, byron’s portrayal of the fatal woman that rules the majority of the cantos in don juan comply with virginia allen’s characterization of the femme fatale. through his artful depiction of such a deadly seductress, byron’s philosophical doctrine is exposed: when sexual discourses are repressed, sexual desires, instead of being silenced, will be definitely provoked. to put it differently, released sexual passion proves fatal. such being the case, transgressive erotic encounters and excessive indulgence in sex are the aftermath of repressing natural feelings and sexuality in both sexes. this philosophy is demonstrated in don juan which further exposes cultural fears as pertaining to an obsession with female sexuality. ultimately, byron exhibits his final opinion about female’s active individualism and the masculine fear of the uncanny power of female instinctive dominating sexuality. although stemming from natural feelings, woman’s sexuality is intrinsically destructive for the male, as he proceeds on a circular pilgrimage, repeating don juanism stories in his chase of momentary pleasure. thus, don juan is rendered an erotophobic mock epic, especially for male onlookers. 6. the double motif a psychoanalytical issue, the freudian “double” proclaims its supremacy in don juan, a poem of uncanny doubles. freud treats the phenomenon of the double manifesting itself: … in every shape and in every degree of development. thus we have characters who are to be considered identical because they look alike. this relation is accentuated by mental processes leaping from one of these characters to another—by what we should call telepathy—, so that the one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other. or it is marked by the fact that the subject identifies himself with someone else, so that he is in doubt as to which his self is, or substitutes the extraneous self for his own. in other words, there is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self. and finally there is the constant recurrence of the same thing—the repetition of the same features www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. of character-traits. (p. 234) doubling of characters adds an additional uncanny effect to the ambiance of byron’s poem. in a broader sense, the byronic femme fatale could be considered the double of the repressed victorian woman in the way this desirous sexual predator, along with her sexual libertarianism, makes the image of the fatal woman offensive to the victorian era of reason and scientific progress and to its restrictive moral codes and social laws. this type mirrors a repressed woman’s subconscious, epitomizing what was insular and decent in english culture. in effect, the hidden secrets of female prowess are exposed by byron to threaten the victorian’s domestic sphere, destabilize their conformity and mock their respectability. ironically, the fatal woman’s presence as a literary and social motif empowers females, foreshadowing upcoming female movements calling for political, economic and social equality. in a repressed society, repressed sexuality transforms into violence, transgression and regression. on another level, don juan reveals the technique of doubling in the pairing of adeline and catherine. adeline is most definitely undistinguishable from catherine in action and thought as seen before. in other words, adeline is a renewed repetition of catherine demonstrating similar characterization. could it be that byron, who is the byronic hero in don juan, is proposing that these uncanny female figures are an appalling creation of his consciousness and the glamorous calculations of his own fantasies? a psychological reading of don juan reveals that the femme fatale is not only the offspring of byron’s masculine imagination but also serves as the double of byron’s self, a biological self with unleashed natural sexuality posing a dangerous threat on juan, who is in turn byron’s double. since juan is byron’s double, the narcissistic poet cannot but submit to the ideal, aesthetic power of his femme fatale creation and falls in love with his creative transcendent art, and as duffy remarks “it is the masochistic submission of the artist to his art, knowing that to merge with the ideal would be death but that to live without fully possessing it is unrelenting pain” (p. 158). catherine and adeline are rendered as symbolic projections of byron’s psyche, more specifically a reflection of his inner, dark psychic struggles of his divided self and a projection of his alarm concerning fatal women. the frightening effect of the figure of the double proceeds as the image of the fatal woman unfolds. interestingly, the fatal woman is also byron’s double in that they mirror his fearsome, unbridled sensual nature. in psychoanalysis, the femme fatale archetype becomes the projection of man’s anima to use a jungian term; the fatal woman, who springs from any writer’s unconscious, becomes the female every male bears within his unconscious. to jung, the anima is “bipolar and can therefore appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore” (p. 199). at the very beginning of don juan, byron overtly declares: “my heart is feminine” (canto 1). like that of his whimsical fatal woman, byron’s erotic impulses and sensations immediately emerge to meet those of his double; she is his double image exposing his omnivorous and versatile sexuality. the byronic hero of the comic epic don juan is not juan; it is the narrator or byron himself. although the byronic hero and the byronic dark fatal woman are of no established type, they could be considered www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. double since they are mysterious, noble, cunning, intelligent, ruthless, violent, seductive, emotional and manipulative. this familiar but uncanny doubling of the poet’s immortal spirit and that of his creation is a sublimated manifestation of the repressed innate desires and instinctive erotic drives of the id, to use a freudian concept. arraying the doubling motif, byron preserves the longevity of his created femme fatal archetype. most definitely, adeline who is catherine’s double (or vice versa) develops as byron’s double, his anima, another petrifying, unnerving division or extension of his wild, uncontrolled self. 7. conclusion i have analyzed byron’s femme fatale’s archetype using freud’s concept of the uncanny to unravel byron’s creativity in presenting such an aesthetic and literary motif. byron’s aesthetic genius, his magnus opus don juan, is a creative, thrilling dark romantic portrait of extensive sexuality. what byron paints is a complex, yet versatile portrayal of an inimitable figure of the uncanny female. with such fluidity and mobility, the byronic femme fatale gains intellectual independence, individuality and inaccessibility. the byronic version of the femme fatale possesses divergent qualities of the negative aesthetics of what is frightening such as her hedonism, elusiveness and outlandishly synthesizing adoration with horror and inflicting pleasure/pain upon her lover which are in line with the burkean sublime and the sadeian woman. such features embody the sublimity of female power that males find uncanny and appealing. being attractively horrifying and horrifyingly attractive, the femme fatale is a paragon of the contradictory good and wicked mother and pleasurable and painful lover. such instability foregrounds her liminality which animated byron’s imagination. through the creation of this attractive and intoxicating soul dispatcher, byron’s prowess exhibits his awareness of the macabre aspects of life and sound understanding of the psychological and moral paradigm of modernity. being a common truth and a social secret, the femme fatale, along with her whimsical sexual desires, is uncannily part of a male’s subconscious psychic development. the most overarching perception of such a persona is her extraneous passion with which she attains an immortal individuality that finds resonance in the masculinist nature of the collective unconsciousness. a final subsequent question lingers: is not it uncanny when byron’s don juan, which precedes freud’s essay by around a hundred years, remarkably forestalls upcoming psychoanalytic concepts? a possible gallery of uncanny femme fatales might be further studied in byron’s oeuvres, ranging from julia, haidee, dudu, and the dutchess gulbeyaz (don juan), leila (the giaour), zuleika (the bride of abydos), gulnare (the corsair), khaled (lara), francesca (oriental tales), astarte (manfred), or myrrha (sardanapalus). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. references allan, s. 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(1962). the byronic hero: types and prototypes. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, print. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 46 original paper connotation and value: the images of china through the works of chinese-american writer maxine hong kingston in a cross-cultural context yaqi zhang1 1 school of foreign studies, tongji university, shanghai, china received: october 29, 2024 accepted: november 24, 2024 online published: december 09, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p46 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p46 abstract the woman warrior, china men and tripmaster monkey, three representative works written by contemporary chinese-american writer maxine hong kingston, are compatible with the historical tradition, value and spiritual pursuit of different culture of china and the united states. these masterpieces have established the author’s status in the american literary world. the author looks at traditional chinese culture from the perspective of american culture, and at the same time deeply reflects on the conflict and integration of chinese and american cultures in the chinese community, and runs her perception and imagination of the two culture through her works. the works portray rich images of china, including the patriarchal society, the magical and spectral society, fictional “utopia” society, which show the survival situation of chinese-american people, and then trigger the reflection on the construction of images of china in chinese-american literature. keywords chinese-american literature, chinese culture, image of china, maxine hong kingston 1. introduction chinese-american literature responds to the status quo and experience of chinese-american people, acting as a communication media between chinese-americans and the local mainstream society, enriching the american literary landscape, and promoting american readers’ deeper understanding of chinese culture and sino-american relations, among other things. “american-chinese literature is a product of the collision and hybridization of the two cultures of china and the united states, but it presents individuality and characteristics.” (cheng, shao, & lu, 2010, p. 1) since the 1970s, maxine hong kingston (1940-) has gradually gained a reputation in the international literary arena and has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 47 been elected a member of the american academy of humanities and natural sciences. “american-chinese writers’ creative inspiration often stems from their own bi-cultural identity and cultural vision, and the stimulation of different cultures makes them more culturally sensitive.” (li, wang, & zhang, 2013, pp. 92-96) kingston captures and reflects the life and spirit of the chinese community in a specific social context in the united states, as she writes, “we, the first few generations of chinese immigrants, are burdened with the psychological barriers that our fathers built during our childhood, learning how to integrate and adapt into the real american society.” (maxine, 2018, pp. 5-6) at present, the focus of academic research on american-chinese literature mainly lies in exotic cultures, ethnic relations, and rewriting of immigrant cultures, etc., but the construction and reflection of the images of china in american-chinese literature need to be further expanded in depth. the images of china in american-chinese literature is characterized by transnational, trans-temporal and trans-cultural features, which are compatible with the “image of the other country” of political standpoints and the “image of the homeland” of cultural aspirations for american-chinese writers. based on maxine hong kingston’s works, this paper explores her multiple interpretations of china’s images and assesses the value and influence of chinese-american literature in shaping and promoting contemporary china’s images. 2. impact of the works maxine hong kingston, the chinese-american writer, learned about chinese culture, history, philosophy and other things from her parents who immigrated to the united states and from the chinese written works she read, which provided her with creative ideas. “kingston must sort through often contradictory accounts of her family’s past to create a synthesis that captures the essence of her family’s immigration to and settlement in the united states.” (carol, 1983) with an skillfully writing in english, she also has drawn on chinese classical literary works, such as the marriage of flowers in the mirror(written by li ruzhen in qing dynasty of china). she was honored with the u.s. national medal of arts and the u.s. national book award for outstanding literary in 2003 and 2008 respectively, and has been hailed as a leader in asian american literature, with a growing status in the literary world. she presents the literary classics and historical stories of her native country, showing the diversity of china in the context of globalization, and playing the role of a bridge between mainstream american culture and chinese culture. in 1976, kingston published her debut novel, the woman warrior. the book won the national book awards, was hailed by time magazine as one of the finest works of the 1970s, and was selected for yale university’s special subject in literature program. the work is a first-person narrative of a american-chinese girl and women’s story in her family. “the article focuses on mother–daughter relationship and its impact on identity formation of the daughter.in the novels of female development, female bonding that is presented by biological mothers, grandmothers, aunts and friends influences the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 48 young protagonists in their development towards maturity and their identity formation.” (jagdish, 2022, p. 365) chinese-american women navigate between chinese and american cultures, facing complexity and diversity in their dual identities and needing to find balance. "they have american ideas, thinking, attitudes, and habits, and despite their chinese appearance they do not fully accept chinese behavior. because of their appearance, they also don't have the opportunity to gain better socioeconomic status in american society." (sun, 2020, pp. 77-83) frank chin, also a american-chinese writer, objected to kingston’s categorization of her work as “autobiography” or “non-fiction” in order to accommodate the mainstream u.s. publishing market. “the two factions of writers and scholars, represented by frank chin and kingston, had a heated dispute over how chinese-american literature could authentically reproduce the survival of chinese-americans in the united states.” (xiao, 2015, p. 156) this reflects the controversy over the literary categories, political stance and rewriting of chinese culture in chinese-american literature. in 1980, the book china men won the national book award and the national book critics circle award. the book combines the author's autobiography and chinese myths to re-create a positive image of chinese-americans in american society and in the minds of the public, while also recounting the cross-cultural conflicts encountered by the descendants of chinese-americans as they grew up. “kingston tells this story in six roughly chronological chapters, which span the mid-nineteenth century (the first wave of chinese american immigration and their role in the construction of the transcontinental railroad) to the mid-twentieth century (the conscription of soldiers for the vietnam conflict).” (helena, 2006, p. 44). the work “not only shows the degradation of traditional family cultural values, but also reveals the maintenance of certain fundamental aspects of the original confucian ideal, which advocated family unity, economic independence, and mutual assistance among family members.” (chen, 2012) through the work, the author revisits the critical role of early chinese workers in the development of the united states, “the suffering experienced and the unjust historical situation of deprivation of voice encountered under the discourse of its colonial power, pulling the group of early chinese workers from the margins of history back to the mainstream culture, and presenting readers with a brand-new history of the nation.” (zhang & leng, 2019) set in san francisco and drawing from such multinational literary classics as water margin and hamlet, tripmaster monkey “portrays its protagonist as a 1960s hippie figure who is heavily 'beat generation' poets and novelists.” (guo, 2019) the author presents in storytelling form the wanderings of whitman, a young chinese-american man who abandons traditional ideas in pursuit of radical freedom. scholarly analyses of tripmaster monkey focus on chinese-american writers' construction of ethnic culture and less on chinese image-making. through the protagonist, the author attacks the rejection and prejudice of white american society against chinese and other asians, expresses his dissatisfaction with the name "oriental", and advocates the commonality of different ethnic groups and cultural pluralism, “kingston goes a step further to challenge the possibility of placing exclusive ethnic labels on her work.” (jeanne, 1996) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 49 3. connotation of the images of china portrayed in the works the rise of chinese-american literature is not only a challenge to the power of mainstream narratives, but also an important means of countering cultural marginalization. the emergence and development of chinese american literature challenges the mainstream's single narrative of the chinese by providing a diverse and complex image of china. in chinese-american literature of 20th century, the image of china is portrayed as positive, negative, and complex and multi-faceted, reflecting the combined influence of different cultural factors, historical backgrounds, and social environments. the imagination and reproduction of china in chinese-american writers’ creative works is not only a fond look back to their motherland’s culture, but also an active molding of their own cultural identity, blending the perspectives of “other” and “self”. in their works, chinese-american writers reflect deeply on the traditional chinese concept of family, revealing the complexity and contradictions of patriarchy and paternalism in modern society. through their literary works, chinese-american writers explore the issue of cultural identity, express their respect for their own cultural roots and their adaptation to mainstream american culture, and promote a more comprehensive understanding of chinese culture in american society. 3.1 the patriarchal society “discrimination” and “oppression” of women in china’s patriarchal society, which has lasted for thousands of years, the idea of male power has always been dominant, and the feudal family ethic centered on the male has led to a very unequal status between men and women. in the ancient time, women should obey the principle of “three obediences and four virtues”, which regulates women's morality. this kind of gender discrimination was particularly serious during the neo-confucianism period of cheng zhu in song dynasty. the concept of male hegemony deprived women of their legitimate rights, and oppressed women endured their confinement in silence, carrying the yoke of their destiny. the woman warrior recounts the experiences of her aunt, mother, and others from the point of view of a young chinese-american girl, “although the book’s structure and narrative style may sound difficult, kingston’s skill as an author and the beauty of her prose help guide the reader to an understanding of her work.”[13]62 in the first chapter no name woman of the woman warrior , the writer begins, “what i am going to say to you, you must not tell anyone. your father had a younger sister in china who committed suicide by jumping into the family well. ......let’s pretend she never came into this world.”[3]3at the time of my menarche, my mother recounted what happened to my aunt when she was forced to become a “nameless woman”, and warned me that i needed to pay attention to my reputation and honor. this long-standing family scandal provoked a strong sense of irritation and depression to me. the narrator’s aunt was pregnant, and on the night of her delivery, the villagers attacked her home, “first they threw dirt and stones at our house, ...... and then they started slaughtering animals.” (maxine, 2018, p. 4) the aunt was subjected to cannibalism and family rules, and suffered curses and taunts from the crowd. eventually, the aunt committed suicide by throwing herself into a well with her baby in her arms. the newborn had just croaked to the ground, not yet realizing that his birth would bring disaster www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 50 to his mother and her family, and then rushed to the next cycle of life. what was even more shocking, however, was the fact that her family did not consider her suicide to be enough to atone for their mistake, and punished the aunt by erasing her name from the family genealogy book, erasing any trace of her existence on earth, and making her woman without a name. as a typical female character oppressed by the feudal ideology of male superiority and female inferiority, the narrator’s aunt was humiliated before her death and had no place for her soul to return to after her death. the unnamed and unchaste aunt challenged male authority and violates traditional chinese ethics. maxine hong kingston sympathizes with the aunt and blames her suffering on the patriarchal society in china. she boldly assumes that the aunt was not forced to commit suicide by other people, but was a brave woman who boldly pursued the freedom of love, a fearless person who dared to defy the idea of male superiority and female inferiority, and a warrior who was willing to sacrifice herself for the love of her heart. aunt doe committed suicide to fight against the patriarchal society, reflecting the hardship and sadness of the disadvantaged position of women at that time. the mother secretly told her daughter the family secret, which is also a rebellion against the male domination, because the whole family follows the rituals and wants everyone to forget the aunt, but the narrator in this book still knows her past and remembers her existence. kingston integrates gender and death into the story, deeply exploring women’s loss of freedom and inner despair under the yoke of a patriarchal society. in the chapter the father from china of china men, the author’s father was born at the sametime as his grandfather’s neighbor’s daughter, and his grandfather loved the baby girl, giving her clothes and food, but her parents emphasized: “unfortunately, she’s just a girl, just a girl’. [14]12they believed that their daughter would not be able to carry on the bloodline and would eventually be reduced to a “reproductive tool”. when the grandfather offered to exchange his youngest son for their daughter, they thought he was an idiot and agreed the deal. but when the author’s grandmother found out, she was furious, “you crazy old man ...... you exchange our son for a girl?” [14]14 although the grandfather explained that the family has only male children,but the grandmother was very opposed to the husband's decision and belittle the daughter as a flunkey instead of treasure. when confronted by a neighbor, the grandmother yelled, “how dare you try to make a fool of my husband ...... trying to trade a girl for a boy.” [14]15 the grandmother scolded the girl’s biological parents as thief , because they also believed that the male offspring or descendants was more valuable to continue the family tradition. the grandmother, as a woman, did not support gender equality. this deeply hurt the grandfather’s feeling, and the illusion of raising a daughter in his mind was shattered. whitman, the protagonist of tripmaster monkey, stumbles upon a chinese family of three and “a chinese man walks forward, he comes from china, with his hands behind his back ...... followed by his wretch wife ...... who cracks open a melon seed with her golden teeth and then puts it in her son’s mouth.” (maxine, 1998, p. 5) this is a true and typical picture of most chinese family. the husband puts his hands behind his back, very casually, and his pleasant mood can be seen from his walking posture. the wife has to look after the toddler and feed the son herself. the wife, who takes care of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 51 child, contrasts with the selfish husband. in the twisted and the shouted, whitman speaks with judy lewis, who observes that “chinese men dream too much and float in the air. the chinese women, on the other hand, keeps her feet on the ground and pushes her men to work.” (maxine, 1998, p. 83) she compares chinese and japanese men, who work hard and crave relaxation and comfort from women, to the sky-high chinese men who believe that chinese women need to cater to their preferences and that women are devoted to their families. judy believes that only in china do girls not consider whether their partners love life or not, and that such arranged marriages are extremely unfair to women. 3.2 the magical and spectral society the “cage” of the real society the classic of mountains and seas, one of chinese classical history book, records a large number of legends about ghosts. qu yuan, a famous writer, used ghosts and gods to express his feelings of loneliness and patriotism in the songs of chu. legends in the tang dynasty and strange tales from a chinese studio (written by pu songling) and other novels are filled with stories of ghosts and spirits as well. “as people continued to imagine, the image of ‘ghosts and gods’ continued to be enriched, forming a more complete system.” (li, 2019) the portrayal of ghosts and gods is a traditional and rich element in chinese literature. these elements add mysterious colors and reflect chinese culture and values. chinese american literature often deals with this theme when inheriting and expressing chinese culture. in her works, kingston depicts different images of ghosts to emphasize her connection with chinese culture. subtitled with memoirs of a young girl among ghosts, the woman warrior mentions various kinds of ghosts, such as the ghost of the falling water and the ghost of the photograph. in the chapter of no name woman, the author writes, “the whole family cursed the aunt: 'we're going to die. ...... you're killing us. you dead ghost!’” (maxine, 2018, p. 15) the family believed that they were fixed on the pillar of shame because of her, and regarded her as a "ghost" who had harmed people, and punished her eternally by removing her name from the family tree, so that she would starve after death, and there would be no progeny to worship her, so that she could only fight with the other dead souls for the money, clothes, food, and other sacrificial offerings. the nameless aunt chose the stubborn and unjust practice of throwing herself into a well with hatred, so much so that she became a downed ghost after her suicide. “the soul of my deceased aunt is haunting me......china is always afraid of drowning people, crying and drowned ghosts, with wet hair dripping......these ghosts are waiting to pull someone into the water so they can be his substitute.” (maxine, 2018, p. 18) the author was deeply touched by what happened to aunt doe and felt that her ghost had been haunting her. the nameless aunt must not have thought that after many years, the character was full of sympathy for her and published her story in spite of the traditional chinese patriarchal thinking. in the chapter the witch doctor of the woman warrior , the mother, while studying at the guangzhou tujiang midwifery school, finds a secret study site, a dormitory “where a series of haunting had occurred, and the people who lived in it were scared out of their wits by the ghosts.” (maxine, 2018, p. 71) people were afraid to go near the dormitory for fear of being haunted by the ghosts and doing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 52 something horrific unconsciously. however, my mother thought that the ghosts were nightmares, and that it would be enough to wake up those who saw them, and that the ghosts might not be the soul of human beings who had died, but might be some other kinds of creature. at one night, the girls heard voices, the mother came to the haunted dormitory, saw nothing. in the middle of the night, the mother felt the pressure of a ghost, “that thing from her body bone crawling through, heavy pressure on her chest ...... she reached out to push that thing,but that force was also sucked away.” (maxine, 2018, p. 76) )the mother dared to fight head-to-head with the ghost, and eventually she stopped paying attention to it and concentrated on memorizing her homework. mother and her classmates described their experience of defeating the ghost, “this body-pressing ghost has many big black holes with big mouths. ...... it can gain solidity by its magic power, and it can press solidly on a person's body for a whole night.” (maxine, 2018, pp. 81-82) the mother's decision to burn down the dormitory with her classmates illustrates her resourcefulness and bravery. after graduation, my mother opened a clinic and specialized in using witchcraft to exorcise ghosts and collect spirits. with her tenacity, boldness and self-confidence, mother subverts the stereotypical image of chinese women and reveals a new image of the charismatic oriental woman. in the chapter ghost companion, a young man, coincided with rainfall on his way to the imperial competitive examination, saw a mansion courtyard, “at once the fragrance of the flowers hit me ...... the shape and color of the clouds in the sky were also changing rapidly, and gold, silver, and pink mists shrouded the mansion.” (maxine, 2000, p. 74) the author's detailed description of the environment reveals the mystery of the place, and also lays the groundwork for the plot transformation later. in the courtyard, a beautiful woman opens the door for this man, who can't help but be charmed with her pink cheeks and beautiful lips. the man then accompanies the woman, but does not give up the imperial examinations. the woman seems to be in love with the scholar, so she opens her robe and hugs him nakedly. the man push her away and ran out to the street. however, the passers-by were terrified of the scholar, “his body was like a dead body that could be infected with disease and glowed with phosphorescence”, (maxine, 2000, p. 79) as if they had seen a horrible ghost. with the help of his friend, the scholar realizes that the strange mansion is a tomb, and that the beauty has long since passed away, which turns out to be a real "ghost companion", and if he chooses to stay in the mansion, he will be imprisoned in the dream woven by the ghost. he has been compelled by the beautiful ghost and is mentally depressed. only when he returns to the reality of his hometown can he gain true warmth. some scholars have pointed out that "this story actually insinuates that the affluence and prosperity of the united states is only a fantasy created by the female ghost.” (cheng, 2023) based on the legends, the author created the chapter on death. in this story, du zichun, the main character, swallows three white pills given by a taoist master and begins to hallucinate. he saw his wife, who was tortured by devils, and “the devils poured copper down her throat ...... and pounded her with pestles and mortars.” (maxine, 2000, p. 151) du zichun was unable to save his wife, and had to flee in a rain of swords and knives, and was eventually killed. these demonic "ghosts" symbolize the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 53 injustices suffered by ethnic chinese in the united states, as most first-generation chinese relied on selling their labor, and even had to give up their original chinese habits and ways of thinking in order to gradually integrate into the united states. when du zichun dies and is reincarnated as a woman, she forgets her master's instruction not to make a sound when she witnesses her child being thrown out by her husband, and cries out, and the hallucination disappears. overcoming her fear and pain, du zichun fails to become immortal and love keeps her on earth. this shows that fear and anger should not be the attitudes of the chinese and native americans towards each other, and that only love can solve the difficulties faced by the chinese in the united states and help the whole public to accept the chinese community. 3.3 the fictional “utopia” society an inclusive and open shared-community kingston blends chinese legends, myths and realities in her works, giving full play to her imagination to construct a magical and unreal utopian society. “in any case their imagination is the most important framework for building china, their imagination enters into the flowery chinese culture, and in the western context and the american reality, they build the imaginary community of their own ethnic culture.” (gao, 2005) all the frustrations the authors encounter in real life trigger their profound sense of helplessness and loss. facing the unsatisfactory reality, the authors long to find spiritual solace and peace in the utopian world. the author skillfully combines artistic creation and real life to create an ideal world with artistic beauty and practical significance, and the author shows readers the rich inner world and the desire for an ideal life. utopia becomes a way for the author to express himself and his emotions, so that he can realize his self-worth in his creation. in chapter 2 of the woman warrior , the white tiger, “my mother's voice is the voice of a warrior woman ...... i also saw extraordinary strength in myself ...... she taught me to sing the mulan dictionary. when i grow up, i must become a warrior.” (maxine, 2018, pp. 21-22) this is very similar to the story of “zhuang zhou’s dream of butterfly”. “kingston reinvents and imagines the ancient chinese heroine, hua mulan, through the gendered lens of contemporary western women and a postcolonial critical racial lens.” (cheng, 2003) the image of hua mulan in the work bears the imprint of american individual heroism, which is different from that of the chinese heroine who joined the army on behalf of her father and defeated the invaders in the chinese legend. “it is the author's interpretation of the american dream of chinese women. it is the most direct reflection of the author's ideal image of chinese-american women.” (lu, 2007) the author chased the bird hovering over the roof, “i was in the clouds the clouds were the breath of the dragon ...... the fresh trees bent down to me with the mountains, but when i turned back to look for me, i could not find my way out of the clouds. but when i turn back to look for my village, it has long since disappeared beneath the clouds.” (maxine, 2018, p. 23) the author learnt martial arts from an old couple and became a warrior like mulan. the author also saw african lion dancing, indian and native american dances. the author creates a multiracial and egalitarian society and draws a picture of the integration of the world's peoples, bridging the gap between countries, races, cultures and languages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 54 “my groom was my childhood playmate ...... who was willing to marry a ghost for me.” (maxine, 2018, p. 34) parents married a man to me which symbolized the continuation of the flame. this is contrary to the chinese custom of yin marriage, an illusory utopia that breaks with the tradition that only women reproduce. later, when the narrator joined the army, her father carves the hatred of the family and the country on her back, a move that emphasizes her responsibility for the chinese culture. this act emphasizes the chinese cultural tradition that "i" shoulders. "i" leads the army to fight against the male rulers, subverting the image of women as dependent on men and demonstrating the power of women over men. “by writing the story of hua mulan to discover the past, kingston evokes the memory within chinese immigrants of the outstanding historical figures in their homeland, which in turn allows them to gain a kind of emotional support and spiritual encouragement in times of trouble.” (sun & xu, 2020) in utopia, women take on the mission of avenging the family's death, which is an assumption of equal status for men and women. the difference with the chinese folktale is that hua mulan takes the initiative to join the army on behalf of her father, a depiction that turns passive into active, which further emphasizes the boldness of chinese-american women who wish to perfectly demonstrate their value. based on the marriage of flowers in the mirror, kingston made major changes to about discovery in china men. in the chapter kingdom of women, the main character tang ao is required to wear make-up, develop a womb, and especially to have his feet wrapped. according to records, the tradition of foot-binding began in the northern song dynasty, flourished in the southern song dynasty, and was abolished in the people’s republic of china. this is an ancient chinese outmoded habit that destroys women’s well-being. “they wrenched his toes inward as hard as they could......then they wrapped his toes tightly into a ginger-like mass.” (maxine, 2000, p. 14) the prolonged foot-wrapping caused the blood vessels in the feet to atrophy severely, and whenever the foot-wrapping cloth was unwrapped, the rapid return of blood would irritate the nerves, and tang ao had to beg the maids of honor to wrap the foot-wrapping cloth again. all these encounters were the preparations tang ao had to make in order to meet and serve the queen. at the end of the story, the author writes that some scholars believe that the kingdom of women appeared in the period of empress wu. during the tang dynasty, which was characterized by a strong feudal economy, wu zetian became the first empress in the history of china, and the social status of women was raised to a higher level than ever before. although the author mentions that there are some people who believe that the kingdom of women is in north america, the fictional kingdom of women is entirely conceived according to the chinese concept of social structure, except that the social status and division of labor between men and women are counterbalanced to each other.women represent authority, and women inflict the persecution they suffer in reality on tang ao, realizing women’s struggle and resistance against male sovereignty. this indicates that the chinese community wishes to be like these women, to fight against the misunderstanding and oppression they have suffered, to escape from their relatively helpless and exploitative situation, and to actively strive for recognition as they continue to adapt to american society and internalize mainstream values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 55 4. the contemporary value of chinese-american literature on the construction of china’s images from the cross-cultural perspective the development of chinese-american literature has been full of challenges and transformations, gradually moving from its initial marginalized status to mainstream literary horizons,which is inextricably linked to china's rising international status. with the rise of chinese-american writers, they have gained more creative freedom and are able to express their thoughts and feelings more truthfully and deeply. chinese american literary works express the real life of the chinese community in the united states, the rich inner world and literary concepts of chinese writers, the attachment of chinese culture to american culture, and the portrayal and change of china's image in their works, etc. as kingston wrote in tripmaster monkey, “if a chinese admits that he or she doesn’t belong to any organization or comes from the bottom of the ladder or from a small family, then he or she must be a chinese person. or if a chinese person admits that he or she does not belong to any organization, or comes from the lower class, or comes from a small family, then he or she must be very miserable”, (maxine, 1998, p. 11) or asks her father in her heart “how did we come to this country where we are regarded as strange people”, ((maxine, 2000, p. 8) shows readers her bitterness and helplessness that she can’t forget china's past and can't really become an american. “asian/chinese writers enjoy the space of multiculturalism, emphasize reflection on history and criticism of social reality, expand the discourse space in the field of american literature, and add more artistic expressions.” (sun & xu, 2020) chinese-american writers such as kingston have integrated their unique historical and cultural backgrounds into their creations, giving their works distinctive personalities and depths, and showing the unique perspectives of the chinese-american community in american society. with their cultural fusion elements, these works have become valuable resources for overseas readers to understand the chinese-american community and chinese culture. chinese-american writers also innovate in their works to show the inheritance and development of culture. the interaction between chinese-american literature and mainstream american literature enriches the representation of china's image, energizes mainstream literature, and promotes the recognition of cultural diversity. chinese-american literature uses english as the language of creation, and the target audience is the western world represented by the united states. chinese-american writers with the brand of biculturalism want to break away from the fetters and shackles of the two cultures, so that they can portray the image of their "cultural homeland" in the capacity of "the other", and at the same time, they are eager to integrate the two heterogeneous cultures through their works. at the same time, they are eager to incorporate the two heterogeneous cultures through their own works, because their aesthetic interests, creative styles, narrative methods and writing techniques are influenced by american mainstream culture, readers' reading expectations, psychological demands and other factors. “figurative research intersects with research work conducted by ethnographers, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians of mind and emotion.”[22] www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 56 the construction of china's images in chinese-american literature is related to specific historical backgrounds, contemporary contexts, sino-american diplomatic relations, race, and gender. against the backdrop of prevalent racism in the late 19th century, the image of china portrayed in western culture was often labeled as the yellow scourge and regarded as an alien and out-of-touch being. however, in the 1930s, overseas chinese began to shift from a marginalized alien identity to a minority identity. no longer satisfied with being merely a marginalized group, they aspired to integrate into mainstream american society. under the characteristic social and cultural background, chinese characters seek social identity and self-worth realization in their works, reflecting the process of cross-cultural identity construction. by comparing the real life of the chinese community and their contributions to american society, the work also reveals the tension between ideals and reality. on the one hand, despite the cultural differences, the portrayal of china in the works of white native american writers often tries to seek resonance and understanding with the mainstream american values, which also leads to the formation of stereotypical images of china among the american public. there have been prejudices and misunderstandings in the mainstream white american society about the chinese society as well as the image of ethnic chinese, and the chinese community has been marginalized instead due to difficulties in integrating into the white society because of their own skin color, behavioral habits, and ideological concepts. they are in constant fear and anxiety to establish their own cultural identity, longing for the opportunity to express their true demands and speak out for their own group. on the other hand, the image of china in the works of chinese-american writers is closely related to the writers' cultural identity. most chinese-american writers are second-generation chinese-american immigrants who grew up under the influence of western civilization represented by american culture. the american education process they received is integrated into the mainstream american culture and values, and the works they create are bound to present these contents.there is a deep connection between the chinese writers’ community and chinese culture and history,which not only originates from their family roots, but is also deeply rooted in their cultural genes. chinese-american writers have direct or indirect knowledge and experience of chinese culture and historical traditions through family stories and memories. writers of chinese descent in the u.s. wander on the edge of the two cultures and take chinese society as their main writing object. based on their previous understanding and their own imagination, they draw on chinese culture and literature as their creative nourishment, catering to the curiosity and diversified pursuits of the white american society. at the same time, they add a lot of imagination to their works to form a unique chin" story and build up a rich and diversified image of china, and the number of readers interested in their works is increasing day by day. in the context of “the belt and road” initiative, china has steadily and peacefully risen to power, and its positive role in the world's politics and economy has been recognized and praised by countries all over the world. in november 2023, a meeting between the chinese and u.s. heads of state further activated exchanges and cooperation in the cultural and economic fields. in the continuous integration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 57 into the american mainstream society, chinese-americans are gradually assuming major roles in politics, economy, science and technology. the pursuit of the american dream and the inheritance of chinese culture have always been present in kingston’s growth and works, which reflects the confusion, struggle, and perplexity of this special group of chinese-americans in a heterogeneous culture and society. kingston straddles two cultures and expresses the hope of getting rid of the prominent "chinese" identity label in the heterogeneous culture, showing that she is constantly exploring and seeking the establishment of her own subjective position and the identification of her self with the united states, always searching for her true self, recognizing and discovering her own self, and at the same time building up the cultural self-confidence of her country of origin, criticizing the cultures and societies of both countries as well as the cultural and social heritage from both sides. cultures and societies as well as criticizing and drawing from both cultures. in his works, the author expresses his interpretation of the culture of his native country and his earnest hope that the eastern and western worlds, led by china and the united states, can respect the differences between the two sides in terms of language, culture, and history, reinterpret and express their own cultural traditions in the modern context, and contribute new perspectives to the world's cultural exchanges, thus contributing to the core proposition of building a community of human destiny. 5. conclusion chinese-american writer maxine hong kingston introduces chinese culture through her works, which enhances the american public’s acceptance of the chinese race to a certain extent. in future research, chinese american literature should be further placed in the world literature for observation, in-depth study of cross-cultural translation of chinese-american literature, cultural interactions and influences of the culture of the ancestral homeland and the place of migration, etc., to explore the level of chinese american writers’ cognition of chinese and american cultures and their spirituality, and from this, we can find out their recognition of their own cultural identity construction, which is conducive to our understanding of the dissemination and acceptance of chinese culture in the united states and even in the world in the context of a new era, and to promote the international discourse of chinese culture. this is conducive to understanding the spread and acceptance of chinese culture in the united states and even in the world, enhancing china’s international discourse, and promoting the blossom of chinese culture in countries around the world. references carol, e. n. (1983). developing ties to the past: photography and other sources of information in maxine hong kingston’s china men. melus, 10(4), 7-36. chen, s. d. (2012). china men: a symbolic system in which literature, history, and politics intertwine. foreign literature, (4), 99-106. cheng, a. m. (2003). studies on chinese-american literature (p. 26). beijing: peking university www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 58 press. cheng, a. m. (2023). on "chinese narratives" in chinese-american literature taking the novels of maxine hong kingston and enmeitan as an example. foreign literature research, 45(1), 117-128. cheng, a. m., shao, y., & lu, j. (2010). studies on chinese-american fiction in 20th century. nanjing: nanjing university press, 1. dennis, a. (2009). maxine hong kingstonk (americans of achievement) (p. 62). newyork: chelsea house. gao, h. (2005). intercultural chinese narratives: a discussion centered on sai zhenzhu, lin yutang, and maxine hong kingston (p. 72). shanghai: shanghai sanlian bookstore. guo, x. (2019). reconstruction of ethnic identity in chinese literature--a review of ah xin's image in tripmaster monkey. journal of inner mongolia minzu university(social science edition), (5), 69-75. helena, g. (2006). maxine hong kingstonk (p. 44). manchester: manchester university press. jagdish, g. (2022). the mother–daughter relationshipan quest for identity: a study of maxine hong kingston’s the woman warrior as an ethnic female bildungsroman. social identities, 28(3), 365-382. jeanne, r. s. (1996). rethinking american culture: maxine hong kingston's cross-cultural "tripmaster monkey".modern language studies, (26), 4, 71-81. li, d. p., wang. j., & zhang, z. (2013). a study on the evolution of chinese story writing by chineseamerican writers and the image of new chinese-americans. yangtze river fiction appreciation, (19), 92-96. li, y. n. (2019). interpreting culture conflict and integration in the woman warrior from the perspective of mother-daughter relationship. curriculum education research, (49), 18-19. lu, w. (2007). toward a cultural studies approach to chinese-american literature (p. 17). beijing: zhonghua shuju. maxine, h. k. (1998). tripmaster monkey. zhao f. z., & zhao w.w. (translated). guilin: lijiang publishing house. maxine, h. k. (2000). china men. xiao s.z. (translated). nanjing: translation publishing house. maxine, h. k. (2018). the woman warrior. wang a.y. (translated). beijing: xinxing publishing house. meng, h. (2001). comparative literary imagery (p. 154). beijing: peking university press. sun, m. l. (2020). chinese stories in the western context: on the cultural attributes of the woman warrior. journal of jilin normal university (humanities and social sciences edition), (1), 77-83. sun, y., & xu, q. h. (2020). nostalgia, alienation and reconciliation: the culture of homeland in the woman warrior. journal of hefei university of technology (social science edition), 34(2), 83-87. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 59 xiao, h. (2015). literary canon and cultural dissociation: studies on chinese-american literature in the american literary field (p. 156). beijing: china social science press. zhang, f., & leng, h. l. (2019). multiple narrative perspectives the narrative characteristics of china men. journal of heze college, (6), 110-113. original paper connotation and value: the images of china through abstract the woman warrior, china men and tripmaster monkey 1. introduction 2. impact of the works 3. connotation of the images of china portrayed in 3.1 the patriarchal society “discrimination” and 3.2 the magical and spectral society the “cage” 3.3 the fictional “utopia” society an inclusive 4. the contemporary value of chinese-american lite 5. conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 20 original paper institutional arrangement of land administration and legal frameworks for providing urban land to housing cooperatives: evidence from bahir dar city mitiku alemayehu emiru1* 1 institute of land administration, bahir dar university, ethiopia *author: tel: +251930557035, telegram: +251918745044, e-mail: mtkuale21@gmail.com received: april 19, 2024 accepted: may 11, 2024 online published: may 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p26 abstracts at global level, raising awareness of land management and institutional development plays an important role in building strong institutions for urban, regional, and national development, especially for housing. this can help the urban homeless by providing urban land when they need it. hence, robust and well-structured urban land administration institutions are crucial for meeting planned housing land demand and achieving national, regional, and city-level objectives, contributing significantly to urban development. because an effective urban land delivery system for housing favors low-income groups organized as housing cooperatives. however, substantial gaps in the current literature on land administration institutional structure have not been addressed in depth, notably in performing the land delivery process and utilizing communication as a tool between and within land administration functions and levels. the objective of this article is to investigate how an insufficient land administration institutional structure affects urban land supply to housing cooperatives as a capacity bottleneck. to achieve the study’s objectives, interviews and desk reviews were used as part of the mixed-methods approach to identify institutional structure challenges that limit effective communication and impede institutional performance in land delivery. the study found that inadequate institutional structures, conflicting roles, and poor communication channels were responsible for poor urban land delivery for housing cooperatives. thus, without well-structured institutions in place, managing urban land may become an impossible mission, impeding progress towards sustainable development goals in cities. to this end, it is necessary to reform existing institutional structures to close current performance gaps related to institutional arrangements in urban land administration in general and land delivery for housing in particular. ultimately, this conclusion calls for further www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 21 research on responsible land stewardship and institutional arrangements, emphasizing the importance of understanding urban land institutions for housing developers in urban and analogous cities worldwide. keywords capacity, coordination, institutional arrangement, and urban land 1. introduction strong land administration institutions, effective governance, and comprehensive land policies are essential for addressing land management and information infrastructure challenges. according to enemark (2006a), to build a sustainable strategy, both an efficient land market and an effective mechanism of land use regulation must be implemented as the fundamental instruments for establishing a sustainable approach. however, in many emerging and transitional countries, there is a lack of mature institutions and human resources to manage land rights, restrictions, and responsibilities. more significantly, as douglass c. north points out, institutions are man-made boundaries that influence human contact, or, to put it another way, the boundaries that create human interaction incentives. furthermore, institutional change is crucial to understanding historical development since it dictates how societies evolve through time and hence is critical to our understanding of history (north, 1990). as a result, the formal institutions, rather than the informal and organizational ones, needed to be discussed. robust and well-coordinated institutional frameworks play a significant role in urban land delivery for housing to achieve set objectives. housing is a vital aspect of a country's economy and a need for people to exist since they cannot live without it. people's wants, desires, and social processes are strongly linked to the availability of land, infrastructure, construction materials, technology, labor, and housing financing (un-habitat, 2010). hence, housing has an inescapable physical manifestation through the construction of houses, "dwellings, shelters, accommodation, sites, services, and/or residential units, operating within an overarching governance framework defined by institutional and policy systems that enable society to build homes and neighborhoods". research in various countries around the world demonstrates that the importance of land institutions is heavily influenced by the circumstances of the country. hence, local land governance institutions such as ejidos in mexico, land boards in botswana, and village land councils in tanzania are decentralized land governance systems in which local governments have broad land management and administration functions (bruce, 2013). on the other hand, the histories of these three institutions are vastly different, and the national government retains responsibility over land policy and has veto power over local decisions. moreover, there is a global need for increased awareness of land management and institutional development in order to generate viable national conceptions. this comprises the establishment and implementation of a land development policy as well as a method that integrates the land administration function with topographic mapping (enemark, 2006b). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 22 other researchers have also studied factors that influence housing affordability (badawy, 2019); urban land acquisition, and housing development practices (adgeh & menbere, 2021); housing delivery system, need, and demand (makinde, 2013); and housing challenges and the new urban agenda (watcher et al., 2018). in our local case, land is managed by two independent legal systems and institutions. hence, at the federal level, the ministry of agriculture is in charge of rural land management. on the other hand, the ministry of urban and infrastructure is responsible for urban land (chekole, 2020). furthermore, research undertaken in three ethiopian cities (bahir dar, hawass, and dire dawa) found that all three towns faced a professional deficiency, and as a result, critical land concerns were handled by people from unrelated professions. this issue was most serious at the local level, which included municipalities and kebeles (alemie & zevenbergen, 2011). however, substantial gaps in the current literature on land administration institutional arrangements have not been addressed in depth, notably horizontal and vertical coordination between and within land administration functions and levels in the land delivery process. as a result, the purpose of this study was to analyse the institutional capacity of urban land institutional arrangements to facilitate land delivery for housing cooperatives in bahir dar. therefore, the key question is how inadequate land administration institutional structure affects the urban land supply to housing cooperatives as a capacity bottleneck. the specific questions are:  what is the present level of performance of the institution in preparing and providing land for urban housing cooperatives?  how do municipalities utilize communication as a tool in vertical and horizontal coordination processes to enhance land delivery performance? following this introduction, the paper examines the capacity barriers of urban land institutional arrangements and laws governing housing cooperatives, focusing on the effectiveness and efficiency of these institutions. it also provides study methods, case analysis, and conclusions. 2. conceptualizing institutional structure, its performance, and legal frameworks 2.1 significance of urban land institutional arrangements institutions are human-created limitations that govern political, economic, and social interactions. they are made up of both informal and formal restraints and property rights. humans have built institutions throughout history to promote order and eliminate uncertainty in exchange (north, 1991). moreover, institutions are instruments used to improve governance because they can influence outcomes, whereas, structure is a link that connects two or more subsystems, allowing for the straightforward transit of information and data from one subsystem to the next (wapwera et al., 2015). institutional arrangements define institutional forms of social interactions and social attributes such as expertise, negotiation, knowledge, performance, and information. institutional frameworks within a collaborative partnership provide both desired and undesirable consequences (malik & roosli, 2021). furthermore, the institutional theory of cooperation investigates how and why institutions emerge, as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 23 well as the implications of such collaborations for their stakeholders. building favorable institutional arrangements for social, economic, intellectual, or physical resources in the public and private sectors is one reason stakeholders collaborate. land administration as one of the processes for granting property rights to owners, cannot be realized without well-functioning and coordinated institutions. land policies, initiatives, and plans necessitate the existence of institutional frameworks, which african and developing nations lack. this includes laws and regulations for land access, land use, user rights, and the like for organizational structures such as ministries, commissions, and private entities such as ngos and software institutions (prosper, 2021). the following section highlights the significance of institutional coordination in improving performance by emphasizing the motivation behind its structure and functions. 2.2 motives for communication to perform better in urban land institutions performance is a combination of an institution's effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its goals. the degree to which the institution's aims are met is referred to as its effectiveness. efficiency is a comparison of what is attained versus the resources consumed such as money, time, labor, and others (undp, 2010a). this section delves into efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability in terms of the clarity of procedures for gaining access to land, dispute resolution, and enforcement. inconsistencies in land acquisition methods, as well as disconnected and fragmented information, are key considerations in the land acquisition process (arko-adjei, 2011). hence, the rights of landowners are best maintained by a robust legal and institutional framework, which also implies that rights are used to benefit society as a whole (barreto, 2007). moreover, good governance is essential for ensuring clearly defined property rights contribute to the desired socioeconomic outcomes. this necessitates a clear division of institutional tasks within the land administration system, an audit of legislative requirements, and open management and access (feder & k. deininger, 2009). all of this testifies to the ambiguity of the missions of the land administration institutions and weak communication among them. communication is an essential component of every organization, and it is required for improving workplace coordination, which influences institutional performance and decision-making, as a result, communication is key to the efficiency and effectiveness of land-institution actions (musheke & phiri, 2021). one of the key reasons for uncertainty and poor planning is a lack of appropriate communication. therefore, it is critical to note that the environment inside the formal institutional framework has an impact on the successful transmission of concepts and ideas from the suitable sender to the appropriate receiver. land agencies in ethiopia must understand superior-subordinate coordination, horizontal networks, and the country's legal framework, as reviewed in the next section on urban land and cooperatives' legal frameworks. 2.3 land and cooperative legal frameworks in ethiopia 2.3.1 urban land policy in ethiopia the desire for housing drives the demand for land in cities, which in turn drives the demand for land www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 24 services. as a result, land markets can serve as a simple entry point into the system as well as a means of carrying out land market transactions (takele et al., 2018). however, in per 1975, ethiopia was a feudal state, and proclamation 47/1975 established the government's land ownership monopoly by nationalizing all urban land. as a result, the government took land supply and development control (yusuf et al., 2009). similarly, ethiopia's federal constitution promotes public land ownership, prohibiting private land ownership in urban and rural areas (fdre, 1995 art.40.3). the purpose was to provide low-priced housing while simultaneously lowering the cost of living in the city, but not solve the problem. similarly, urban land policy and strategy for achieving an effective urban land supply will remain critical (fdre, 2016b). therefore, the land administration is facing significant challenges due to unresolved issues and weak institutional capacity, particularly at the local level, resulting in overburdening the system. 2.3.2 cooperatives law and housing cooperative in ethiopia cooperatives have traditionally been shown to play an important role in eliminating poverty through job creation and revenue generation (european union, 2021). cooperatives had a role throughout ethiopian history, but the ideology that emerged was different. housing cooperatives were not mentioned in proclamation 241/1966 but were formed during the derge era and were ineffectual. as a consequence, through cooperative proclamation no. 147/1998, the federal democratic republic of ethiopia's constitution acknowledged the legitimacy of cooperatives (european union, 2021). ethiopia's federal cooperative commission proclamation no. 985/2016 was recently revised to maintain one economic community by our constitution through a consistent cooperative society proclamation (fdre, 2018). according to ethiopia’s urban housing strategy (fdre, 2016a), residential housing cooperatives have played an important role in alleviating the housing shortage, hence, a conducive situation that would enable them to play their irreplaceable role is to be created. the question is why is not all land for housing co-operatives being made accessible through low-cost lease allocation? amhara national regional state issued directive no.1/2020 on how to deliver land for cooperative housing, although article 17(4) of this directive specifies that any housing cooperative may seek land one year after it is formed. as a result, bahir dar has around 783 housing cooperatives, with an average of 16,842 households on the housing waiting list (emiru, 2022). this implies that the directive does not encourage cooperatives to acquire land for housing purposes. the following section explores the research methodology, design, and materials utilized to investigate the institutional structures of urban land in bahir dar, ethiopia. research design and methodology 3.1 description of the study area case sites were selected based on theoretical rather than statistical concerns, as well as the amount of time, effort, and cost required (bhattacherjee, 2012). bahir dar was selected because it has a fast-expanding housing need despite a lack of efficiency in land delivery for housing. in the previous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 25 two decades, the population has more than doubled, resulting in a rise in informality. bahir dar has a population of 325,506 people (koroso et al., 2021). figure 1. location map of the case study area (note 1) 3.2 research design this research design is a descriptive research design using a survey research technique. the purpose is to examine the institutional capacity challenges across land administration functions and coordination at different levels of government in addressing housing cooperatives' land demand. the study used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. it seeks to investigate the challenges of land institutions' horizontal and vertical coordination in the land delivery process. 3.3 data collection, instruments and source this study relied on primary data collection techniques such as interviews and field observations. semi-structured interviews were performed with the heads of urban municipalities and team leaders in land management. the researcher used participant observation to supplement and improve the information gathered during the interview. a desk review was carried out to collect data from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 26 secondary sources like the physical institutional structure, mandates and responsibilities designed by institutions, published documents, annual and mid-term plans, and, most importantly, 5-year land delivery performance reports for cooperative housing. 3.4 data presentation and analysis in this study, interviews, observations, and documents are used to examine the existing status and concerns about the urban land institutional performance in bahir dar. simple statistical techniques were applied, and tabulations were used to display secondary data. notes were taken to document the qualitative data acquired through interviews and observations. 3.5 assessment framework and measurements progress and results are reflected in improvements in institutional performance, which may be quantified in terms of increased efficiency and effectiveness. as a result, context-based measurement components are valued in institutional competency measures (undp, 2010b). institutional performance (efficacy and efficiency) was used as variables to assess quality (improving land delivery based on demand) and quantity (improving land preparation and delivery based on amount required), clarity (roles and responsibilities for cooperative land delivery); alignment (land institutional structure linked with the mission to eliminate overlap), and cycle time acceleration (a reduction in the total time it takes to prepare and deliver the land). in the next section, significant capacity characteristics and challenges in the delivery of urban land for cooperative housing are discussed using primary and secondary information. 3. results and discussions the data was extracted from both primary and secondary sources. while some attention has been given to land issues, questions about land institutions persist. the main topics discussed in this part of the series are major actions and patterns of significant capacity features of coordination barriers that support housing cooperatives’ land needs. 4.1 the institution's track record in developing and providing urban land for housing institutions are the most important factors influencing the effectiveness of land management systems, especially in terms of land delivery and the implementation of legislative acts. the federal mui and regional buis oversee urban land, while municipalities share roles and responsibilities (chekole, 2020), however, as indicated in table 4.1 and demonstrated in figure 4.1 below, the structural organ is not aligned to carry out effective and efficient land delivery. table 4.1 data from the previous studies issues response of participants (%) 1 land institutional structure perspectives yes no total www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 27 a in terms of land supply, is the land institution well-structured and functionally clear? 7 93 100 b have a comprehensive coordination structure in place to deliver service efficiently? 6 94 100 c is the organization's goal broadly understood both within and outside its walls? 13 87 100 source: questionnaire july 2021 (emiru, 2022). according to the emiru's (2022) survey, 93% of experts and officials believe that the availability of land in the research area suggests that urban land administration institutions are not well organized or effective, as demonstrated by table 4.1. as a result, there is no dedicated staff for development and land use. however, the land tenure portion of the current system is repetitious, as are its functions. ethiopia has a substantial mismatch between housing demand and supply (fdre, 2016a). as a result, the fdre's urban housing strategy seeks to alleviate urban housing shortages. the strategy entails implementing major changes by incorporating new housing concepts and practices. furthermore, the regional government has put in place a land leasing policy to stimulate housing development. table 4.2 land delivery performances for housing cooperatives in bahir dar and the region land preparation and delivery performance in hectors activities 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 total remark b ah ir d ar prepared 6.3 1.215 376 383.515 delivered 0 1.215 207.4 208.615 preform% 0 100 55.16 54.11 no. of illegal building 1545 2476 1355 5376 r eg io n prepared 848.516 338.801 328.347 2269.204 93.449 3878.313 delivered 570.735 600.656 625.5481 1313.49 796.16 603961.93 preform% 67.26 >100 >100 54.88 >100 >100 no. of illegal building 12606 20583 20807 41330 17975 113301 source: bui 5-year report (2016-2020). however, land preparation and delivery for cooperative housing in bahir dar is unsatisfactory due to a lack of institutional competency. as a consequence, many urban landholdings in the area are illegally held, having been built or illegally converted into homes (urban infrastructure bureau (bui) report, 2016-2020 (table 4.2). therefore, to investigate institutional capacity and offer remedies, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 28 performance of land delivery for housing cooperatives during the last five years has to be evaluated. over five years, only 383.515 and 208.615 hectares of land were produced and transferred for housing cooperatives, respectively. however, 5376 unregistered holdings own an average of 80.64 hectares, accounting for 39% of lawfully transferred land, and in 2018 and 2020, no land was planned or provided for housing cooperatives in the city. in contrast, around 783 legally recognized housing cooperatives and an average of 16,842 households were on the housing waiting list in 2020. this demonstrates how informal land supply fills gaps in bahir dar left by land institutions' inability to execute land leases. furthermore, there was no economic land-use or compact city development strategy that prioritized vertical development rather than horizontal expansion. 4.2 communication and coordination in land administration institutions ineffective land management can be hindered by a lack of horizontal coordination across land functions and with peer agencies. this is even though prior surveys found that 94% of municipal managers and employees agreed on the significance of a strong coordination framework for efficient land delivery (table 4.1). an interview conducted for this study confirms that the frequency of coordination and communication across land functions does not correspond to the work schedule. this is confirmed by a previous survey conducted by emiru (2022), which revealed that 87% of urban land experts and officials in bahir dar (ethiopia) were aware of the problem. this is because the institution's mission was not generally known, both internally and outside, due to a lack of communication within the sector. coordination across government levels is hampered by a poorly structured work process, vertically unaligned institutions, and inadequate communication routes. interviewees confirm that communication is focused on specific issues and institutions rather than serving as a general system. as a result, there are substantial gaps in communication on time and consistently enough to improve cross-agency and different levels of government coordination. 4.3 existing and new proposed institutional structure of urban land not only are key components of land administration lacking, but their integrity is being questioned. furthermore, as per the literature review, institutions and institutional structures are tools used to improve governance since they have the power to impact results (wapwera et al., 2015). thus, administrative issues in bahir dar are exacerbated by inter-institutional variables such as land tenure overlaps, missing land administration functions, and a lack of coordination in the land institutional structure. this is further confirmed by emiru's (2022) research, which found that 94% of urban land and housing administration officials and experts acknowledge the complexity of the land administration's institutional structure. as a result, the lack of coordination between government levels and land administration functions leads to inadequate urban land delivery and exacerbates urban good governance challenges. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 29 figure 3. existing amhara national regional state urban land institutional arrangement (note 2) therefore, the land institution of the region will be restructured by revised anrs proclamation no. 280/2021 (anrs,2021), to be handled by the same regional bureau that is in charge of both urban and rural land in the region. bahir dar's housing office is now responsible for the city's construction and regulatory deputy manager, who has been separated from the urban land administration department. as a result, coordination between urban land administration and housing departments was absent from the very beginning. figure 4.2 depicts the proposed organizational structure of a land management department to handle this issue www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 30 figure 4.2 the proposed regional land institutional arrangement (note 3) 4. conclusions and recommendations the urban land issue is being managed by institutions such as the ministry of urban infrastructure, the bureau of urban infrastructure, and municipalities. however, the existence of overlapping roles, conflicting structures, and a lack of coordination and communication mechanisms leads to ineffective and inefficient land delivery for urban housing cooperatives. this contradicts the assumption of a global need for increased land management awareness and institutional development to generate viable national conceptions that integrate the land administration function (enemark, 2006b). the current urban land preparation and delivery procedures in bahir dar are deficient, owing mostly to a lack of coordination among land sectors. as a result, many legally registered housing cooperatives are on housing waiting lists since their members are mostly urban poor people who cannot afford to buy or pay for the city's ever-increasing housing rentals. as a result, unless remedial measures are taken to address both land delivery shortcomings and institutional insight for arrangement, the objectives of urban land policy, housing strategy, and housing cooperative legislation may continue to be wishful www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 31 thinking. finally, lack of coordination, poor communication channels, overlapping roles, and contradictory structures within land institutions are not well handled. establishing competent urban land management institutions is essential for delivering planned urban land for housing while also satisfying national, regional, and city development objectives. without such institutions, administering urban land may become impossible, limiting progress toward city-wide sustainable development goals. regardless of the overall process, it is critical to develop results-driven solutions. thus, the government's dogmatic approach to the status quo of land institutional structures, as well as the confusion produced by the inability to perform work efficiently and effectively, should be revised. the institutional structure for urban land should take into account the city's homeless poor's increased demand for land and the existing inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the urban land delivery system. this leads to the recommendation that a well-designed institutional capacity development framework be built and maintained between land institutions to increase efficiency and minimize costs in land preparation, planning, development, and transfer. further study is needed to facilitate the formation of strong institutional coordination across agencies by providing a clear channel of communication. references adgeh1, d. t., & menbere b. taffse2. (2021). urban land acquisition and housing practices in bahir dar city and debre berhan town, ethiopia. journal of urban development studies, 1(2), 61-71. alemie, b., & zevenbergen, j. (2011). assessing urban land governance in ethiopian cities (2002-2011): lessons for the 2011 urban land management policy implementation. anrs. (2021). the revised executive organs re-establishment and determination of its powers and duties proclamation in the anrs. proclamation no. 280/2021. 18(26th year), 1-131. arko-adjei, a. (2011). adapting land administration to the institutional framework of customary tenure the case of peri-urban ghana. badawy, a. (2019). factors affecting housing affordability in kenya a case study of mombasa county, 83. barreto, i. f. (2007). using the land governance assessment framework (lgaf): lessons and next steps. ru, 1-20. bhattacherjee, a. (2012). social science research: principles, methods, and practices. book, 3., 1-147. bruce, j. w. (2013). land tenure, property rights, and local land governance, 14. retrieved from https://www.land-links.org/wp-content chekole, s. d. (2020). evaluation of urban land administration processes and institutional arrangements of ethiopia: based on advocacy coalition theory, 3(1), 2657-2664. retrieved from https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/ajlp-gs/article/ emiru, m. a. (2022). institutional capacity as a barrier to deliver urban land for residential housing development in ethiopia: the case of anrs bahir dar city. journal of land management and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 32 appraisal, 9(1), 1-16. emiru, m. a., adam, a. g., & dadi, t. t. (2023). exploring institutional capacity of urban land delivery and administration for housing development in bahir dar, ethiopia: institutional analysis. cogent social sciences, 9(2), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2023.2278208 enemark, s. (2006a). supporting institutional development in land administration. 17th united nations regional cartographic conference for asia and the pacific, 18-22. enemark, s. (2006b). understanding the land management paradigm: need for establishing sustainable national concepts. gim international, 20(1), 12-15. european union. (2021). legal framework analysis. ethiopia national report. national report, june,. fdre. (2016a). urban housing policy and strategy government of the fdre. 1st edition february 2013, edit march 2016, addis ababa.. fdre. (2016b). urban land development and management policy and strategy. second edition august 2013, edit june 2016, addis ababa. august 2013. fdre. (2018). federal negarit gazette cooperative societies proclamation no. 985/2016. federal negarit gazette, 7, 1-49. fdre. (1995). constitution of the federal democratic republic of ethiopia. proclamation no. 1/1995. federal negarit gazeta, 1(1), 1-40. retreived from http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/et/et007en.pdf feder, g., & k. deininger. (2009). land registration, governance, and development: evidence and implications for policy.world bank research observer, 24(2), 233-266. koroso, n. h., lengoiboni, m., & zevenbergen, j. a. (2021). urbanization and urban land use efficiency: evidence from regional and addis ababa satellite cities, ethiopia. hil, 117(august), 102437. https://doi.org/10.1016/ makinde, o. o. (2013). housing delivery system, need and demand. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-013-9474-9 malik, s., & roosli, r. (2021). institutional stakeholder collaborations (iscs): a conceptual framework for housing research. journal of housing and the built environment, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-021-09834-z musheke, m. m., & phiri, j. (2021). the effects of effective communication on organizational performance based on the systems theory. journal of business and management, 9, 659-671. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojbm.2021.92034 north, d. c. (1990). institutions, institutional change and economic performance.political economy of institutions and decisions (first publ). the press syndicate of the university of cambridge. north, d. c. (1991). institutions. journal of economic perspectives, 5(1), 97-112. prosper, t. (2021). challenging institutional frameworks in land administration. african journal on land policy and geospatial sciences, 4(1), 2657-2664. https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/ajlp-gs/index www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 33 takele, a., human, e., commission, r., street, j. t., & ababa, a. (2018). ethiopian urban land lease policy analysis implementation : case study on a. a. city administration. social since perspectives, 2(2), 96-100. https://doi.org/10.33094/7.2017.2018.22.96.100 un-habitat. (2010). a practical guide for conducting: housing profiles. in un-habitat. undp. (2010a). measuring capacity.united nations development programme. in capacity development programm. https://doi.org/10.1071/ah050493 undp. (2010b). measuring capacity. australian health review, 1-40. retreived from http://www.undp.org/capacity wapwera, s. d., mallo, d. m., & jiriko, g. j. (2015). institutional framework and constraints in the urban and regional planning system in jos metropolis, nigeria. journal of geography and regional planning, 8(10), 244-260. watcher, s., hoek-smit, m., & kim, k.-h. (2018). housing challenges and the new urban agenda. 1-14. yusuf, b., tefera, s., & zerihun, a. (2009). land lease policy in. private sector development hub/addis ababa chamber of commerce and sectoral associations, 1-138. notes note 1. source: emiru et al. (2023). note 2. developed from the text review. note 3. author developed. abstracts 1.introduction 2.conceptualizing institutional structure, its perfo 2.1 significance of urban land institutional arran 2.2 motives for communication to perform better in communication is an essential component of every o 2.3 land and cooperative legal frameworks in ethio the following section explores the research method 3.1 description of the study area 3.2 research design 3.3 data collection, instruments and source 3.4 data presentation and analysis 3.5 assessment framework and measurements 3.results and discussions 4.1 the institution's track record in developing a 4.2 communication and coordination in land adminis 4.3 existing and new proposed institutional struct 4.conclusions and recommendations references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper integration of finnish immigrants research review jinwei zhang1 &yuchang peng2 1 china west normal university, school of history and culture, nanchong, china 2 china west normal university, school of history and culture, nanchong, china received: march 19, 2025 accepted: may 01, 2025 online published: may 12, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p1 abstract finland, as a european welfare state with a long history, has, like many other european welfare states, become a desired destination for many immigrants, including refugees. however, without an in-depth understanding of finland's socio-historical context, we may inappropriately compare its immigration issues with those of other countries, making it difficult to accurately grasp the current state of the finnish nation and the immigration challenges it faces. finland's socio-cultural environment has long been at the crossroads of east and west. finland's long history of foreign domination seems to have shaped the national consciousness of finns and their acceptance of newcomers. as a result, finnish society maintained a relatively homogeneous ethnic composition from independence until the 1980s. it was not until the 1990s that finland began to systematically receive foreign immigrants. since the immigrant population as a percentage of the total finnish population was very low at this time, finland had not yet enacted a formal national immigration and integration policy program. it was only after becoming a member of the european union in 1995 that finland became obliged to harmonize its immigration policy with the other member states. however, finland's immigration policy is significantly more restrictive than that of other european countries. keywords immigration policy, immigration integration, social integration, individual integration plan 1. introduction 1.1 abroad research status foreign research on immigration has already produced a wealth of results, and in recent years many scholars have further deepened the relevant research from some new perspectives. research on the integration of immigrants in finland is also an area of concern for foreign scholars, and some progress has been made. finland has shifted its immigration policy to a multicultural integration policy since the 1990s to promote the integration of immigrants of different cultures at the policy level. ryan savage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 (ryan savage) in the "comparison of the immigrant policies of sweden and finland in light of eu framework on immigrant integration" (comparison of the immigrant policies of sweden and finland in light of eu framework on immigrant in his book "comparison of the immigrant policies of sweden and finland in light of eu framework on immigrant integration", he studied finland's integration policies, arguing that finland is a highly homogenized country due to historical reasons, and that both indigenous and immigrant factors need to be taken into account when formulating relevant integration policies, and that the roles and responsibilities of various departments in the process of implementation of integration should be clarified, and that there is a lack of understanding and understanding of the policy and the implementation process. in addition, it also provides a clear description of the responsibilities and tasks of each sector in the process of integration, as well as suggestions and measures to improve the policy and the shortcomings in the implementation process. pesola, hanna, sarvimäki and matti in intergenerational spillovers of integration policies: evidence from finland's integration programs. evidence from finland's integration plans) examines finnish integration policies from the perspective of intergenerational spillovers, arguing that interventions targeting adult immigrants may have positive intergenerational effects and should be taken into account when assessing the cost-effectiveness of integration policies. the authors use relevant data comparisons to show that integration programs can significantly increase the economic income of immigrant families, which in turn leads to better integration of immigrants into finnish society. more research has also emerged on the development and implementation of immigrant integration policies. mahama tawat, in the arc of nordic multiculturalism policies (1974-2006), a divergent convergence. a divergent convergence) shows that since finland turned to multiculturalism policy in the 1990s, it has taken a series of measures along the same lines as sweden and norway. sweden, as the first of the nordic countries to adopt integration through multiculturalism, has played the role of 'teacher' in finnish policy making, which, together with their historical affinities, has led to strong similarities at the level of immigrant integration. kaisu koskela, in his article "integration policies finland country report", explains the meaning of integration policies at the national policy level finnish integration policy is essentially oriented towards employment in the labor market. in practice, the integration process is mainly undertaken by the employment and economic sector, and training is provided to immigrant groups who have not yet entered the labor market. the guiding idea is that if immigrants are able to enter the labor market, all other aspects of integration (social, cultural) will follow. eve kyntäjä, for her part, in the integration of immigrants in european societies national differences and trends of convergence devotes a chapter to a detailed discussion of the development and implementation of integration policy in finland. the author argues that immigration and integration policy is not only a matter of ideas and concepts, but also of budgets, administrative practices, and border control. there are three levels of policies that can be adopted when implementing immigrant integration:(1) national integration policy (2) municipal immigration policy programs and integration plans (3) individual and family integration plans. in her article becoming integrateable : www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 hidden realities of integration policies and training in finland, ameera masoud looks at integration policies and training in the context of the integration of immigrants. finland) examines the effects of integration policies in practice and illustrates the discrepancy between the vision they portray and the way they are applied in practice. it is pointed out that "the common perception of finnish integration policy is that the nordic welfare states are 'advanced' in terms of both policy and practice", but in practice the effect is that immigrants are caught in a paradoxical process of exclusionary integration and inclusionary exclusion. this means that as long as they participate in integration training and work practices, they are considered to be included even if the integration courses they receive do not correspond to their previous experiences, and even if they have difficulties in finding a job. in their article assessing the level of immigrant integration in finland, jagat and kunwar argue that the finnish immigrant integration program focuses too much on macro-policies aimed at making new immigrants more linguistically, economically, and oriented to integration. this has been done at the expense of the personal psychosocial integration of mature immigrants. in addition to this, scholars have also explored the integration of immigrants by entering the labor market. elli heikkilä and nafisa yeasmin, in their article "labour market integration of immigrants in finland", explore the integration of immigrants into the labour market in finland, emphasizing that as a nordic welfare state with fully employed citizens, finland sees the integration of immigrants into the labor market as the main way of integrating them into finnish society. as the integration of immigrants into the host society is a multidimensional and complex process covering a wide range of economic and political fields, and the finnish labor market is currently in transition, with many industries facing the challenge of labor shortages, this phenomenon predicts that the number of foreigners moving to finland will continue to grow in the future. in her article out of the immigration periphery: a case study of competence-based immigration policy development in finland, marjukka hourunranta argues that finland's immigration policy is a major factor in the growth of the immigrant population. out of the immigration periphery: a case study of competence-based immigration policy development in finland", marjukka hourunranta analyzes the integration of immigrants into the labor market through the analysis of specific case studies, with a focus on distinguishing the difference between "competence-based immigration (cbi)" and "labor immigration". the difference between cbi and labor migration is highlighted. the need to treat all groups of immigrants in the finnish labour market fairly and to minimize the exploitation of foreign labour is also made clear as a prerequisite for a sustainable immigration and multicultural mobility policy. in her article "finland's immigration policy: state objectives, local solutions", saara koikkalainen describes finland's immigration policy in terms of national policies and local solutions. in the article "finland's immigration policy: state objectives, local solutions", the finnish model of integration policy is described as borrowed from the dutch and swedish systems and constructed with the concept of multiculturalism in mind. it also points out the uniqueness of the finnish integration system and through this uniqueness reveals the main principle of the finnish integration system: integration is seen as a labor market issue rather than a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 cultural or social issue. in his article barriers to opportunity for immigrants in finland: a source of inequality, liam brennan-masters emphasizes that immigrants are experiencing employment discrimination, racism and inequality in the labour market. in his article "barriers to opportunity for immigrants in finland: a source of inequality", it is emphasized that immigrants are experiencing employment discrimination, racism and inequality in the labour market and that immigrants are clearly facing unfairness and diminishing opportunities in many fields due to barriers to opportunity. quivine ndomo, in the working underclass: highly educated migrants on the fringes of the finnish labor market, discusses in detail how the integration and integration of immigrants in finland has been a major factor in the development of the finnish economy. discusses in detail how finnish integration and immigration agencies have shaped immigrants into a subordinate workforce in the finnish labor market. the characteristics assigned to immigrants, including ethnicity, nationality and race, play a key role in their subordinate position in the labor market. this implies that the value assigned to individual workers may be more important in terms of labor market integration than labor market competence. in other words, a person's identity, or what is perceived as a person's identity based on ascribed characteristics such as race and nationality, is more important in valuing them as a worker or professional than their labor market capabilities. rolle alho, in finland: integration of asylum seekers and refugees in a tightened policy framework, points out that labor market integration measures for immigrants (including refugees) are more important. in finland: integration of asylum seekers and refugees in a tightened policy framework, it is stated that labor market integration measures for immigrants (including refugees) generally fall within the scope of active labor market policies. the difficulties faced by refugees and asylum seekers in integrating into the labour market and the important role played by civil society organizations in facilitating the integration of immigrants are illustrated. ameera masoud's doctoral dissertation this year, “finland: constructing the integrateable refugee and immigrant through integration within a stricter policy framework”, provides an overview of finnish integration policy and practice to date and makes recommendations for future policy development. policies and practices in finland provides an overview of finnish integration policies and practices to date and makes recommendations for future policy development. the author shows that individual integration programs are one of the unique elements of finnish integration policy, but that in practice these programs are mainly for the unemployed. once employed, all these schemes come to an end, which hides the racist undertones that lie behind them. it also affects the individual as it creates a shift from knowledge to the adoption of new skills through a process of de-skilling, re-skilling and skilling, which mostly leads to wastage of individual capabilities. these deep-rooted problems call for major structural and practical changes in integration policies and practices in order to combat the racism that exists and is experienced at all levels of integration and to transform attitudes towards immigrants, especially non-western immigrants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 1.2 domestic research status discussions on the integration of immigrants in finland are still on the fringe of the domestic academic community, and there is a relative lack of relevant academic results and information. however, in europe, which is a hotspot for immigrants, the study of immigration from the macro perspective of major european countries and even europe as a whole has yielded fruitful results, which can provide an important reference for the study of integration of immigrants in finland. wang yi, “research on immigration policies in the process of european integration” (doctoral dissertation, chinese academy of social sciences, 2002) examines the issue of immigration from the process of european integration as a whole, analyzes the flow of immigrants, the control and integration policies of immigrants, as well as the changes in policies in the process of integration, and argues that with the continuous growth in the number of immigrants and asylum-seekers, the pressure of immigrants from third countries has gradually intensified. it argues that as the number of migrants and asylum seekers continues to grow, the pressure of migration from third countries has gradually intensified, and that member states have come to regard the issue of migration as one of the key issues to be addressed. at the same time, the advancing political, economic and social dimensions of european integration, as well as the establishment of the eu's single market and the progressive implementation of the experimental results of the schengen agreement, have led to the realization that member states are facing similar migration challenges. eu member states are under pressure from the top from the coordination of immigration policy at the eu level and from the bottom from the influx of large numbers of immigrants, and the double pressure makes national governments realize that it is difficult to formulate effective immigration policy in the traditional immigration policy decision-making system of each country, and that they must concede part of their national sovereignty, seek cooperation at the eu level, and develop a unified immigration policy. qiu ling, “research on the integration of european immigration policies” (master's thesis, nanjing normal university, 2011) analyzes the problems of european immigration policies from a deep perspective, such as the existence of institutional defects within the eu and the obstacles of conceptual identity in europe, etc. she argues that the process of the integration of european immigration policies has developed gradually along with the development of european integration, and that it has been a major challenge to the process of european integration, especially the the construction of european citizenship and the construction of cultural identity play an important role. as some scholars have mentioned, in order to create a “fairer, richer, stronger and younger” europe, europe is faced with a double task: conceptual change and institutional innovation. in the process of constructing a european identity, the first task is to bring about a change in attitudes, although this process is fraught with difficulties. rejection of outsiders and deep-rooted nationalist and racist tendencies must be overcome in order to reduce hostility towards immigrant groups, which required a joint effort by immigrants and society. in the process of social integration emphasized by the eu, there are frictions and challenges between immigrants and host societies on several levels, including economic, institutional and cultural. only if european societies adopt a positive attitude to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 assist migrants in adapting to their living environments and their changes, and create more diversified spaces suitable for survival, can such interactions have a positive impact on solving the migration problem. this is precisely why we urgently need to study the obstacles to the integration of immigration policies posed by identity issues. chen peiqiu, "analysis of the impact of changes in immigration policy on immigrants—taking the european union area as an example" (master's thesis, henan university, 2016), believes that immigration is not only a simple social phenomenon, nor does it only involve the contradiction between supply and demand in the labor market, but also involves the complex and comprehensive issues of politics, economy, culture, diplomacy, etc., which makes what seems to be a relatively simple issue appear complex. migration is a global issue that connects history and future, and thus requires coordination and cooperation among countries to cope with the problems brought by various kinds of migrants. from the perspective of muslim migrants in europe, irene luo, "the economic and political impact of international migration" (phd dissertation, institute for world economics, 2013), argues that the deterioration of the economic form of european countries is the root cause of the high anti-muslim migrant sentiment. at the same time, the differences between islamic and christian cultures make it more difficult for european muslims to integrate into mainstream european society than other immigrant groups, thus making them more likely than other immigrant groups to become targets of mainstream european culture and exclusion. at the research level of european countries, liu shuang's "historical evolution and realistic dilemmas of european immigration policies: taking the united kingdom, france, and germany as examples" (master's thesis, foreign affairs college, 2021) takes three major european countries as the object of research, and argues that the united kingdom, france, and germany have shaped a specific mode of immigration and social integration in the process of development. in the course of their development, the united kingdom, france and germany have shaped specific patterns of immigrant integration, such as the "pluralism pattern" of the united kingdom, the "republican assimilation pattern" of france, and the "rejection followed by integration pattern" or "guest worker pattern" of germany. the "guest labor model" in germany. these orientations have the representative significance of "knowing the whole picture from a glimpse" for grasping the whole picture of european countries' immigration policies. yao yao's "comparative analysis of german and dutch immigration policies under the integration of foreign communities" (master's thesis, yunnan university, 2013), on the other hand, is a comparative study between the two countries, which is organized from four aspects: the state of integration of the two countries' ethnic groups, the immigration policies, the policies of integration of immigrants, and the effects they have achieved. at the level of policy formulation and implementation, the immigration policies of germany and the netherlands share numerous differences, but also reflect commonalities. the historical and cultural differences between germany and the netherlands have resulted in contrasting immigration and integration policies prior to the 21st century. in the same european union context, the two immigrant countries have started to move away from the dominant integration ideologies of "assimilationism" and "multiculturalism" and are slowly moving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 closer to the opposing sides, absorbing the advantages of both in order to find a balance in the development of their own integration policies. the main theme of the study is "the integration of immigrants in finland". guo lin, "finland may become a new continent for immigrants" (guangming daily, 2000, b04), points out that finland, like other european union countries, is facing the problems of aging population and labor shortage. firstly, the population groups born at the peak of post-world war ii fertility are gradually entering retirement age, leading to the acceleration of the trend of population aging; the prolongation of per capita life expectancy and the long-term low birth rate make the proportion of the elderly population in the total population of the society continue to rise. secondly, finns do not work effectively for a long time in their lives. at present, the average retirement age of finns is 58.5 years, and before entering the workforce, they have to study at school until a considerable age, and the real working time in their life is just over 20 years. the result of this phenomenon is an increasingly heavy burden on the country's pensions under the current "cradle-to-grave" welfare state model. without further improvements in productivity and rapid economic growth, the national economy will face heavy pressure from increased pension expenditures, which will affect the sustainability of high welfare policies. the solution to these problems requires a large number of highly qualified laborers, which is clearly beyond the capacity of relying solely on the country's labor pool. generally speaking, there have been considerable achievements in the study of migration in major countries and at the level of large perspectives, but there are still shortcomings in the study of some small countries and marginalized areas. 2. conclusion to summarize, research on the integration of immigrants in finland is receiving increasing attention abroad and is slightly lacking at home. a reading of the available research shows that in the nordic countries, where the discourse of the nation-state is based on the premise of homogeneity and national autonomy, anyone perceived as an outsider creates a risk of jeopardizing the welfare state and the so-called homogeneous culture. in finland, as in the nordic and eu countries, outsiders have been perceived as a "threat" on the basis of racial and ethnic differences and beliefs from whiteness, which can become entangled with the ideology of the nation-state. therefore, how to cross the boundaries of racial and ethnic differences, curb the negative impact of racism on integration policies and, in practice, help immigrants to integrate more effectively into their new countries and societies is key to the future development and optimization of finland's integration policies, and is worthy of further study and reflection. references ameera, m. (2024). constructing the integrateable refugee and immigrant through integration policies and practices in finland. to be presented, with the permission of the faculty of educational sciences of the university of helsinki, for public www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 examination in auditorium 107, athena building (siltavuorenpenger 3a), on 9 february 2024, at 1 pm. chen, p. q. (2016). analysis of the impact of changes in immigration policies on immigration: a case study of the european union (master's thesis). henan university. elli, h., & nafisa, y. (2021). labour market integration of immigrants in finland. handbook of cultureand migration, edward elgar publishing limited, 2021. eve, k. (2003). towards the development of an integration policy in finland. the integration of immigrants in european societies national differences and trends of convergence, lucius & lucius verlagsgesellschaft mbh stuttgart 2003. guo, l. (2000). finland may become a 'immigrant new continent'". guangming daily, december 4, 2000, page b04. hourunranta & marjukka. (n.d.). out of the immigration periphery: a case study of competence-based immigration policy development in finland. scandinavian journal of public administration, 27(4), 21-36. kaisu, k. (2014). integration policies—finland country report, interact rr 2014/29, robert schuman centre for advanced studies, san domenico di fiesole (fi): european university institute. taylor and francis, becoming integrateable: hidden realities of integration policies and training in finland. international journal of inclusive education, 25(1), 52-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1678725 liu, s. (2021). the historical evolution and current challenges of european immigration policies: taking the uk, france, and germany as examples (master's thesis). diplomatic academy. luo, a. l. (2013). the economic and political impact of international migration: a case study of muslim immigrants in europe (phd dissertation). world economic institute. pesola, h., & sarvimäki, m. (n.d.). intergenerational spillovers of integration policies:evidence from finland’s integration plans. iza discussion papers, no. 15310, institute of labor economics (iza), bonn. qiu, l. (2011). research on the integration of european immigration policies (master's thesis). nanjing normal university. quivine, n. (2024). the working underclass: highly educated migrants on the fringes of the finnish labour market. university of jyväskylä, 2024. http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:978-951-39-9906-3. ryan, s. (2010). integration policy of finland, comparison of the immigrant policies of sweden and finland in light of eu framework on immigrant integration. political science, may, 2010. saara, k. (n.d.). finland’s immigration policy: state objectives, local solutions. local integration of migrants policy, palgrave studies in sub-national governance, cham: palgravel macmillan (pp. 53-71). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50979-8_4 wang, y. (2002). research on immigration policies in the process of european integration. doctoral dissertation of the chinese academy of social sciences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 9 yao, y. (2013). comparative analysis of immigration policies between germany and the netherlands under the integration of foreign ethnic groups (master's thesis). yunnan university. integration of finnish immigrants research review jinwei zhang1 & yuchang peng2 1 china west normal university, school of history 2 china west normal university, school of history abstract keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 218 original paper exploration of the washback effect of the cet-4 on english teaching linyuan qiu1 1 hainan vocational university of science and technology, hainan, china received: october 29, 2025 accepted: december 08, 2025 online published: december 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p218 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p218 abstract the college english test band 4 (cet-4), as a widely participated standardized english proficiency test in chinese universities, exerts a profound and multidimensional influence on college english teaching. this study systematically explores the washback effect of cet-4 on teaching objectives, content, methods, resources, and students' learning strategies. the research finds that cet-4 produces a significant bidirectional washback effect. this study aims to provide theoretical reference and practical pathways for promoting a positive interaction between college english teaching and cet-4, and for deepening the reform of english teaching. keywords cet-4, washback effect, english teaching, test impact 1. introduction 1.1 research background and significance since its inception in 1987, cet-4 has developed into one of china's largest-scale and most socially recognized standardized foreign language proficiency tests. this examination not only serves as a periodic assessment of college students' english abilities but also deeply permeates the college english teaching system in practice, significantly guiding and constraining the setting of teaching objectives, the selection of teaching content, the application of teaching methods, the arrangement of teaching pace, and even the psychological state of teachers and students. this phenomenon is defined in the field of language testing research as the "washback effect." with the deepening of globalization and the trend towards internationalization in higher education, there are clearer and higher demands for the comprehensive english application abilities of talents, especially in cross-cultural communication and language use within professional contexts. against this backdrop, the longstanding debate surrounding cet-4—whether it has promoted substantive reform in college english teaching or has reinforced the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 219 tendency of "examination-oriented education"—remains unresolved. therefore, systematically and dialectically examining the multidimensional washback influence of cet-4 on college english teaching and analyzing its internal mechanism of action hold important theoretical value and practical urgency for effectively guiding the test to play a positive role, correcting potential deviations in teaching, and ultimately achieving a virtuous cycle of "promoting learning and teaching through testing." 1.2 research objectives this study aims to transcend simplistic value judgments regarding the washback effect of the cet-4. through an integrated approach combining theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, it seeks to systematically explore the multidimensional impact mechanisms of cet-4 within the college english teaching system and propose constructive pathways for optimization. the specific objectives encompass three levels: firstly, to systematically delineate the practical impacts of cet-4 across key aspects of college english teaching. by examining multiple specific dimensions—including the setting of teaching objectives, the organization of teaching content, the implementation of teaching methods, the operation of evaluation systems, and students' learning strategies and behaviors—the study aims to comprehensively present the concrete effects and manifestations of the test on teaching practices. secondly, to dialectically analyze the dual manifestations of cet-4's washback effect and their generative mechanisms. the research will conduct an in-depth analysis of its positive effects—such as clarifying teaching objectives, promoting innovation in teaching methods, motivating students, and driving the development of teaching resources—and its negative effects—such as intensifying the examination-oriented tendency in teaching, narrowing teaching content, fostering utilitarianism in students' learning strategies, and oversimplifying the evaluation system. it will further investigate the underlying logic and driving forces behind these effects. thirdly, to construct a multi-stakeholder collaborative optimization framework based on the research findings. targeting various stakeholders including educational policymakers, university teaching administrators, frontline teachers, and test development institutions, the study proposes practical and feasible strategies and recommendations. these specifically include: promoting the reconstruction of the teaching philosophy towards "integrating learning with application," innovating a diversified and comprehensive evaluation system, enhancing teachers' assessment literacy and reflective capabilities, and guiding the test itself towards a more competency-oriented and contextualized direction. the ultimate goal is to achieve synergistic development and positive interaction between testing and teaching. by accomplishing the aforementioned research objectives, this study aspires to provide a systematic analytical framework for understanding the complex relationship between cet-4 and college english teaching. it aims to offer theoretical foundations and practical references for optimizing the test's washback effect and deepening the reform of english language instruction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 220 1.3 research methods and thesis structure this study primarily employs the methods of literature research and case analysis. by systematically reviewing and commenting on classic theories and empirical research concerning the washback effect of language testing, particularly focusing on literature related to cet-4 and other english competitions and placement tests (fu, 2025; wu, 2025, etc.), the theoretical framework for this thesis is constructed. regarding the thesis structure, it will first review the core concepts and theoretical foundations of the washback effect, then elaborate in detail on the specific impacts of cet-4 on teaching from both positive and negative dimensions, and finally, based on the preceding analysis, propose a set of systematic optimization strategies and future prospects. 2. literature review and theoretical foundation 2.1 definition and classification of washback effect the washback effect, also known as "test consequence," refers to the various influences that language testing exerts on teaching and learning (alderson & wall, 1993). this is a neutral concept, and its direction of influence can be either positive or negative. positive washback effect means that testing can promote teaching reform, guide teaching to focus on important language abilities and skills, and stimulate the enthusiasm of teachers and students. negative washback effect refers to situations where testing causes teaching behaviors to deviate from established educational goals. for example, an excessive focus on test-taking techniques to cope with exams, neglecting the practical application of language, can lead to a separation between "learning" and "using" (wu, 2025). 2.2 theoretical models of washback effect to deeply analyze the mechanism of the washback effect, scholars have proposed various models. hughes' (1993) "participants – processes – products" model has been widely influential. this model posits that the influence of testing acts upon participants (teachers, students, administrators, etc.), alters their teaching or learning processes (e.g., choice of teaching content, adjustment of methods and strategies), and is ultimately reflected in the products (e.g., real changes in language ability). bailey (1996) proposed a dynamic cyclical model, emphasizing that the washback effect is not a unidirectional linear process but rather a continuous cycle of interaction and mutual adjustment among teaching, learning, and testing. these models provide a solid theoretical framework for this study to analyze how cet-4 changes the overall teaching ecology by influencing the behaviors of teachers and students. 2.3 review of relevant domestic and international research domestic research on the washback effect of cet-4 has accumulated rich findings, generally acknowledging the dual nature of its influence. studies point out that cet-4 plays a significant role in standardizing teaching and providing clear objectives, but it can also easily lead to the "examination-oriented" nature of teaching (wu, 2025). in recent years, research perspectives have gradually expanded to other types of english tests. for example, research on the "national english competition for college students" found that competitions can motivate learning but may also foster www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 221 utilitarian preparation strategies (wang, 2024). research on the "tem-4 listening test" reveals the differential washback effects of the test on learners of different proficiency levels (yang, 2025). in the field of writing, the introduction of the etic (english test for international communication) model has been proven to effectively overcome the drawbacks of traditional "template writing," demonstrating the positive guiding effect of test construct innovation on teaching (pan shijie et al., 2025). furthermore, research on "english placement tests" and "culture-loaded terms in the postgraduate english entrance examination" enriches the discussion of washback effect from the dimensions of educational fairness and cultural teaching, respectively (qi yulin, 2025). overall, existing research provides multiple perspectives for this topic. however, there remains space for in-depth exploration regarding how to systematically integrate the relationships among teaching, testing, and learning to construct a long-term benign interaction mechanism. 3. the positive washback effect of cet-4 on teaching 3.1 clarifying teaching objectives and providing standardized guidance the cet-4 syllabus provides clear, tiered requirements for vocabulary, grammar knowledge, and skills in listening, reading, writing, and translation. this offers a relatively unified and clear target reference system for college english teaching nationwide. teachers formulate teaching plans and determine teaching priorities and difficulties based on the syllabus, making teaching activities more targeted and systematic. for instance, the explicit vocabulary requirements in the syllabus prompt teachers to pay more attention to the breadth expansion and in-depth explanation of vocabulary in teaching, and guide students to master effective strategies such as word formation and contextual memorization (fu ronglin, 2025). this standardized guidance, to some extent, ensures basic teaching quality and narrows the teaching gap between different institutions and regions. 3.2 promoting innovation and diversification of teaching methods to help students meet the cet-4 requirements more effectively, teachers are compelled to reflect upon and innovate traditional, teacher-centered teaching methods. mere knowledge transmission is gradually supplemented or replaced by methods that emphasize student participation and language use, such as task-based language teaching, communicative language teaching, and project-based learning. for example, in listening teaching, teachers increasingly incorporate authentic audio-visual materials and design tasks like simulated dialogues and listening note-taking; in reading teaching, they focus on training higher-order skills like skimming, scanning, and critical analysis (wu junxia, 2024). particularly noteworthy is that, to address the pain points in writing instruction, research has attempted to introduce the "integrated construct" of etic, placing writing tasks in specific workplace or problem-solving scenarios, giving students a clear authorial identity and communicative audience, effectively stimulating writing motivation and reducing template reliance. 3.3 motivating students and fostering autonomy the status of the cet-4 certificate as a "hard currency" in academic evaluation, degree conferment, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 222 job hunting constitutes a powerful external incentive. this social recognition drives students to invest more time and effort in learning english. many students develop detailed preparation plans, actively increase extracurricular reading and listening practice, and participate in activities such as english corners, speech contests, and online learning communities (wang, 2024). in this process, students not only improve their language knowledge but, more importantly, develop autonomous learning abilities, time management skills, and perseverance. 3.4 driving the development of teaching resources and teacher competence universities commonly regard the cet-4 pass rate as an important indicator of english teaching quality. schools increase investment in building or upgrading language laboratories and self-study centers, and introduce rich english learning software, databases, and online course platforms. simultaneously, to enhance teaching effectiveness, schools also pay more attention to the professional development of english teachers. by organizing workshops, funding conference attendance, and encouraging teaching reform research, they aim to improve teachers' language proficiency, assessment literacy, and teaching research capabilities (wu, 2024). this examination-driven aggregation of resources and optimization of teaching staff objectively improves the hardware and software environment of college english teaching. 4. the negative washback effect of cet-4 on teaching 4.1 examination-oriented tendency and the alienation of teaching objectives when cet-4 scores are linked to excessive benefits, teaching easily slides into the quagmire of utilitarianism, with "passing the exam" as the ultimate goal. under this orientation, the teaching focus shifts from "cultivating language ability" to "imparting test-taking skills." in the classroom, teachers spend considerable time analyzing past exam patterns, summarizing "high-frequency test points," and teaching "universal templates" and "quick-fix techniques." writing instruction becomes "template filling," listening practice turns into a "keyword catching game," and reading teaching concentrates on "quick problem-solving methods" rather than deep text comprehension. although such teaching may boost exam scores in the short term, it severely deviates from the essence of language learning, which is to achieve effective communication, leading to students who are "high scores but low ability," unable to use english flexibly in real-world scenarios. 4.2 narrowing of teaching content and lack of cultural dimension in pursuit of "efficient" exam preparation, teaching content is often strictly limited to the exam syllabus and past papers. chapters in textbooks rich in cultural connotations and critical thinking value may be skipped, while language knowledge, cultural background, academic writing norms, and other content not directly linked to the exam are marginalized. a prominent example is that although the “college english teaching guide” and postgraduate entrance examinations (e.g., the translation section) increasingly emphasize the english translation of traditional chinese culture-loaded terms to enhance cultural dissemination capability, daily college english classrooms rarely systematically incorporate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 223 such content. students know little about the english expressions for cultural concepts like "dragon boat festival" or "confucianism," forming a "chinese cultural aphasia" (qi, 2025). the narrowing of teaching content confines students' knowledge horizons and weakens the humanistic and educational function of english education. 4.3 utilitarianism in students' learning strategies and psychological anxiety under the pressure of high-stakes testing, students' learning strategies exhibit clear characteristics of utilitarianism and superficiality. vocabulary learning equates to rote memorization of word lists, neglecting understanding and use in context; listening and reading training simplifies to repeated practice with past papers, without focusing on strategy summarization or background knowledge accumulation; writing preparation means memorizing model essays and templates, lacking training in independent thinking and expression (wang, 2024). while such strategies may cope with fixed question types in standardized tests, they do not help build a solid language system or sustainable learning ability. more importantly, high-stakes testing brings immense psychological pressure to some students, especially those with weaker foundations. research shows that low-proficiency learners are more prone to anxiety, decreased self-confidence, and even a sense of "learned helplessness" during preparation, which in turn further hinders their language learning (yang, 2025). 4.4 simplification of the evaluation system and concerns about educational equity the dominant position of cet-4 often makes it the "sole criterion" for evaluating students' english level and even comprehensive ability, forming a single evaluation model of "one exam decides everything." this model overlooks the progress, effort, creativity, and classroom participation demonstrated by students during the learning process, which contradicts the developmental and diversified principles of modern educational evaluation. from an equity perspective, students from areas with weaker educational resources may be at a disadvantage from the starting point of preparation, and the commercialization of test-taking skill training may exacerbate this inequality. furthermore, the excessive pursuit of scores may also trigger academic misconduct, harming educational fairness (lin dunlai et al., 2025). 5. strategies and suggestions for optimizing the washback effect of cet-4 5.1 reconstructing the teaching philosophy: from "exam-oriented teaching" to "competency-based" the fundamental transformation lies in reshaping the value orientation of teaching. the primary goal of college english teaching should be to cultivate students' ability to effectively use english for communication, learning, and problem-solving in real-world scenarios. cet-4 should be regarded as one of the diagnostic tools for assessing the achievement of this core objective, rather than the teaching baton. teachers need to balance "exam requirements" and "ability cultivation" in teaching, boldly integrate authentic materials (such as english news reports, academic lectures, and international organization documents), design project-based learning tasks, and embed language training into specific contexts of major learning and cross-cultural communication to achieve the integration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 224 "learning and using" (fu, 2025; pan et al., 2025). 5.2 innovating the evaluation system: establishing a diverse and comprehensive evaluation ecosystem to counteract the overreliance on high-stakes summative testing, a fundamental shift towards a more holistic and dynamic evaluation paradigm is imperative. the proposed reformed system integrates formative and summative assessments, utilizing both quantitative metrics and qualitative descriptors to paint a fuller picture of student learning and development. central to this reform is the re-calibration of cet-4's role within academic assessment. its scores should be contextualized as one component of ability demonstration, rather than being treated as the definitive or sole indicator. this de-emphasis helps alleviate the excessive pressure associated with a single exam and redirects focus towards sustained learning progress. concurrently, process-oriented evaluation must be strengthened and systematized. this involves the formal incorporation of diverse learning artifacts and performances into the assessment framework. key elements include continuous classroom engagement, collaborative group projects, cumulative learning portfolios, oral presentations, and reflective reading notes. collectively, these components provide a multi-faceted record that captures students' effort, incremental progress, critical thinking, and comprehensive literacy development far beyond what a final exam score can reveal. furthermore, to enhance relevance and diagnostic value, the development and adoption of institution-specific competency assessments should be encouraged. universities, leveraging their unique disciplinary strengths and aligned with their students' specific academic or career trajectories, can design or select diagnostic tools that measure english proficiency in more authentic, context-rich scenarios. these tools not only offer more precise and actionable feedback for personalized learning but also better prepare students for the real-world language demands they will face (wang, 2024). 5.3 enhancing teachers' assessment literacy and reflective teaching ability teachers are the crucial link connecting testing and teaching. enhancing teachers' language assessment literacy is paramount. education departments and universities should provide systematic training to enable teachers not only to scientifically interpret exam syllabi and score reports but also to master modern testing theories, possess the ability to design high-quality classroom tests and assessment tasks, and provide students with effective feedback that promotes learning. simultaneously, encourage teachers to engage in "action research," examining the impact of exams on their own teaching with a researcher's attitude, actively exploring teaching strategies to mitigate negative washback and strengthen positive washback, and becoming proactive agents in teaching reform (lin dunlai et al., 2025). 6. conclusion 6.1 summary of research conclusions through a systematic review and analysis of theoretical and empirical literature, this study reveals the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 225 complex and profound washback influence of cet-4 on college english teaching. this influence exhibits a distinct dual nature. on the one hand, by providing clear standards, motivating teachers and students, and driving resource investment, it has played a significant positive driving role in standardizing the teaching foundation and promoting methodological innovation. on the other hand, its high-stakes nature can easily induce the examination-oriented, narrowing, and utilitarian tendencies in teaching, leading to negative consequences such as the alienation of teaching objectives, the absence of cultural dimensions, the superficiality of student strategies, and the oversimplification of the evaluation system. the relationship between cet-4 and teaching is not simply one of "promotion" or "hindrance," but rather a dynamic interaction that requires careful guidance and management. 6.2 research limitations and future prospects this study is primarily based on a comprehensive analysis of existing literature. while it synthesizes findings from multiple empirical sources, its scope is inherently limited by the lack of original, large-scale primary data. consequently, the research cannot fully capture the nuanced variations in washback effects across different geographical regions, diverse types of higher education institutions, or distinct student demographic groups. to address these limitations and advance scholarly understanding, several promising avenues for future inquiry emerge. longitudinal research would offer particularly valuable insights by tracking the english language development of student cohorts over an extended period, from matriculation through graduation. by systematically correlating students’ cet-4 preparation experiences with their long-term language proficiency outcomes, such studies could more accurately reveal the sustained and evolving impact of the test. additionally, comparative multi-group studies are essential to move beyond generalized conclusions. systematic investigations contrasting washback manifestations between research-intensive and teaching-focused institutions, between english majors and non-language specialists, and across diverse regional educational contexts would provide a stronger empirical foundation for developing context-sensitive pedagogical strategies and institutional policies. a further critical direction lies in the deeper integration of educational technology. future research should engage with advancements in artificial intelligence, learning analytics, adaptive testing, and automated evaluation systems. examining how such technologies can reshape test design, personalize feedback, and foster more interactive and dynamic assessment environments holds significant potential for enhancing positive washback and contributing to the development of a smarter, more responsive educational ecosystem in which teaching, learning, and assessment operate in a constructive, synergistic relationship. as a defining element of china’s foreign language education landscape, cet-4 exerts a complex and far-reaching influence. addressing its multifaceted impact requires sustained, collaborative engagement from all stakeholders—including educational policymakers, test developers, institutional leaders, teachers, and learners. by grounding these efforts in the fundamental goal of fostering substantive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 226 language competence and holistic intellectual development, it becomes possible to adopt a more reflective and proactive stance toward the test’s role. such a shift is essential to moving college english instruction beyond examination-driven paradigms, thereby enabling it to more effectively support both national educational priorities and the comprehensive growth of individual students. references fu, r. l. (2025). the washback effect of “sflep word master cup” on college english teaching. language and education, 12, 63-66. lin, d. l., & zhou, z. l. (2025). research on english placement tests: review and prospect. foreign languages research, 6, 63-68. pan, s. j., li, l., & nie, j. (2025). a study on the washback effect of etic integrated construct on college english writing teaching reform. educational perspective, 11, 112-115. qi, y. l. (2025). a study on the washback effect of the postgraduate english entrance examination on the learning of chinese culture-loaded words. journal of shenyang institute of engineering (social sciences), 1, 123-128. wang, y. (2024). an empirical study of the washback of national english competition for college students on english learners. modern english, 18, 71-74. wu, j. x. (2025). an analysis of the washback effect of cet-4 and cet-6 on english teaching. yang, j. q. (2025). a study on the washback effect of tem-4 listening test from learners’ perspective. scientific consultation, 15, 111-114. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 51 original paper palestinian women’s organisations: their challenging journey towards women’s empowerment reem abuiyada1* 1 social sciences department, dhofar university, salalah, sultanate of oman * dr. reem abuiyada, department of social sciences, dhofar university, salalaha, sultanate of oman, p.o box: 2509, postal code 211. tel: 0096898551426. email: reem@du.edu.om received: december 16, 2024 accepted: january 02, 2025 online published: february 07, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p51 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p51 abstract palestinian women’s organisations have a very important role in the palestine civil society. the development of these organization is well recognized and they reached their peak at the beginning of the intifada. until the creation of the palestinian authority (pa), women’s organisations formed part of the national struggle against the israeli occupation, and their agenda was subordinate to that of the national movement. in the late 1980s, however, a process of transformation was initiated that provided women’s organisations with the opportunity to focus on women’s issues. indeed, since the creation of the pa, women’s organisations have focused almost exclusively on women’s issues. the pa, in contrast, has attempted to marginalize women, as reflected in the process of its consolidation. as a result, women’s organisations have attempted to influence pa policy with the objective of improving the position of women in palestinian society. this paper examines the means and strategies that the palestinian women’s organisations have adopted to influence palestinian authority (pa) policy. keywords women, organisations, palestine authority, civil society, development 1. introduction palestinian women’s organisations have a very significant role in the palestine civil society. the development of these organisations is very distinctive and they reached their peak at the beginning of the intifada. women’s organisations have constituted an important component of palestine civil society. while at the beginning of this century, women’s activism was limited to a small circle of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 women, it expanded substantially during the 1970s and 1980s through the inclusion of groups who had previously been excluded from political activism. participation of women reached its peak at the beginning of the intifada (uprising), but contracted again at the end of it. similar to other civil society institutions, the development of women’s organisations has been shaped by the context of the israeli occupation. until the creation of the palestinian authority (pa), women’s organisations formed part of the national struggle against the israeli occupation, and their agenda was subsidiary to that of the national movement. in the late 1980s, however, a process of transformation was initiated that provided women’s organisations with the opportunity to focus on women’s issues. indeed, since the creation of the pa, women’s organisations have focused almost exclusively on women’s issues. the pa, in contrast, has attempted to marginalize women, as reflected in the process of its consolidation. as a result, women’s organisations have attempted to influence pa policy with the objective of improving the position of women in palestinian society. brunner 2005, 37 discussed on the palestinian women's suffrage from triple oppression through islamic attempts to discipline women, through the israelic occupation and through patriarchial structures of society. another study conducted by al-botmeh (2013) inspects the determinants of labor force participation for women in the west bank and gaza strip (wbgs) with pcbs data. the findings authenticate the significance of education as a determinant of participation. a study of palestinian business woman was focused on procedure aimed to improving their own entrepreneurial skills and those of others (mas, 2011) a recent study examined women's barriers to toil market participation and entrepreneurship in palestine territories. many business women owners like all entrepreneurs in palestine experienced that there is a complete lack of proper business training (al-botmeh, 2013) this study will highlight the difficulties that palestinian women’s organisations faced and the strategies that they have adopted to influence palestinian authority (pa) policy. 2. development of women’s organisations 2.1 the origins of women’s organisations in the occupied territories charitable organisations established by the upper and middle class women in the beginning of the twentieth century marked the first manifestation of women’s activism. the most active one among the women’s activism was the palestinian women’s union, which provided “both the nucleus and a framework for later women’s initiatives in palestine” (sharoni, 1995). as in the case of all charitable organisations, its activities were restricted to urban areas and focused on the organisation of demonstrations against the balfour declaration and on protesting the invasion of jewish immigrants to palestine (jad, 2011). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 the expansion of female organisation at a national level was marked as an important step in the consolidation of charitable organisations, culminating in the establishment of the palestine arab women’s congress on 26 october, 1929 (kawar, 1996; sayigh, 2000; sabbagh, 1998). the creation of israel in 1948 and the mass exodus of palestinians led to the weakening of the male-dominated national movement. subsequently, women’s organisations focused almost exclusively on charitable work and social services, such as health care, care for the elderly and maintaining nursery schools and orphanages (fleischman, 1995; gluck, 1995; sayigh, 2000). in addition to the existing charitable organisation, a number of organisations were established between 1948 and 1967 to deal with the refugees. the majority of these organisations were created by urban and middle class women, who were mostly from notable families (fleischmann, 1995). the most prominent charitable organisations that were established during this period are: dar al-tifle al-arabi, the red crescent society, the society of the wounded militant, the orphan’s home, the family welfare society, girls’ orphanage home, al-maqassed society and inaash al-usra. the latter, which was established in 1965, developed into the largest charitable organisation under its founder samiha khalil who remained an active member in the political scene, serving on the palestinian national council up until her death in 1999 (sayigh, 2000). although women had played an instrumental role in the creation of charitable organisations and their operation, their involvement in charitable organisations declined. the decline in women’s participation is largely due to their transfer to the more politically oriented women’s committees that were created in the late 1970s. a turning point in the development of women’s activism was the creation of the palestinian liberation organisation (plo) in 1994, which not only provided a new channel for women’s participation, especially outside the occupied territories, but more importantly tied women’s activism in the occupied territories, to the national struggle. it was for this purpose that the plo created the general union of palestinian women (gupw). 2.2 the general union of palestinian women (gupw)the palestinian liberation organisation (plo) institution for women the gupw became the main plo institution through which women’s participation was channelled and that was the only vehicle for women’s participation in the plo’s executive committee (kawar, 1996). as the plo was declared illegal by israel, the gupw operated mostly underground in the occupied territories, where it provided the framework for a majority of charitable organisations (sayigh, 2000). like other mass organisations of the plo (note 1), the gupw was characterized by the division along factional lines, limited cooperation among various women’s organisations, whose “related more to leaders of their own factions than to each other” (kawar, 1996; gluck, 1995). the gupw depended on plo funding, and received through the palestinian national fund (pnf). as the disbursement of funds proceeded in line with factional strength, fatah, the largest political faction in the plo, received the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/palestinian_national_council www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 54 bulk of the allocated funds. as a result, it has been able to maintain the largest network of programmes (kawar, 1996; peetet, 2010). dependence on plo funds consolidated the influence of political factions on the women’s organisations. the objective of political factions to mobilize as many women as possible was reflected in the programmes of women’s organisations, which were designed to mobilize women as a social group, rather than to empower them by addressing the social and economic conditions that sustain the disadvantaged status of women (holt, 1996; tsikata, 2014). even the leftist political factions, such as the democratic front for the liberation of palestine (dflp) and the popular front for the liberation of palestine (pflp), although acknowledging the relevance of “women’s issues” failed to challenge the existing social order (holt, 1996). the failure to address such issues influenced the relation of the gupw with women’s organisations. women were approached by the gupw as programme beneficiaries rather than as decision-makers or directors of projects and programmes, such as early childhood development or vocational training (sayigh, 2000). even after the adoption of the strategy of sumud by the plo in 1973, (note 2) which enabled a number of charitable organisations headed by women to expand their programmes, both their agenda and their view on the role of women in palestinian society continued to be in line with dominant view expressed by the national movement in general and the gupw in particular. according to this view the role of women was regarded as subordinate to that of the national struggle (tamari, 1996). this is most explicitly expressed by sameha khalil, who was the head of the largest charitable organisation in’ash al usra, as well as a prominent figure in palestinian politics. explaining the objectives of her organisation in educating girls and the future role she envisioned for them, she argued, “when a girl begins to earn money she may begin to impose conditions on her family. we do not encourage such a spirit in our girls. to open the door too wide would cause a bad reaction”. (note 3) as in the case of other organisations that received sumud funds, women’s charitable organisations focused on urban areas, thus neglecting the needs of the majority of palestinians who live in rural areas. when their efforts did not succeed in improving palestinian living conditions, a new response to the occupation emerged, the sumud muqawimm active resistance. it departed from the assumption of sumud, which attributed underdevelopment in occupied territories to the israeli occupation. instead it sought to address issues of underdevelopment by transforming palestinian society itself, at the proletarian level. to this end, a network of local committees was created to deal with such issues as health, labour and agriculture. the emergence of the women’s committees formed as a part of this development. 3. the emergence of women’s committees several structural changes provided the context for emergence of women’s committees. since the onset of the israeli occupation in 1967, profound changes led to socio-economic and political transformation in the west bank and gaza strip that in turn had an impact to the role of women in palestinian society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/palestinian_territories www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 a major transformation at the economic level resulted in the significant reduction of agricultural land. this was caused by the decline of agriculture in importance, but more importantly by the continued confiscation of palestinian land by the israeli authorities in order to expand land available for jewish settlers. this development forced palestinian farmers to work as cheap wage labour in israel. meanwhile women, who constituted the vast majority of agricultural labour, stayed in the west bank and gaza strip, working typically in the textile industry, manufacturing products subcontracted to them by israeli factories (haj, 1992; dajani, 1994). a more essential factor that transformed the traditional role of women was caused by deportations and imprisonment of men by the israeli authorities. the initiative for the first women’s committees, the women’s work committees (wwc) in march 1978, came from rural areas and had strong ties with a left-leaning faction. although it was not officially affiliated with the democratic front for the liberation of palestine, its establishers maintained strong ties with it (hiltermann, 1991; jad, 2011). similar to other committees and as a result of the political factions’ attempt to increase their constituency, the wwc split along factional lines in the early 1980s. the original committees became now formally affiliated with the democratic front for the liberation of palestine and were renamed the federation of palestinian women’s action committees (jad, 2011). it soon developed into the largest committee with 34 local committees and 1948 members, mostly working women (debus, 1986). over the next few years, a number of other committees, with various political affiliations, were established. the union of palestinian women’s committees (affiliated with the pflp) focused on educated women from urban middle classes and students; the union of palestinian working women’s committees (affiliated with the palestine communist party) focused on working women, and the federation of palestinian women’s action committees (affiliated with the dflp) in addition to housewives, on working women (hiltermann, 1998; sayigh, 2000; kawar, 1996). it also makes every effort to spread cultural awareness of and provide training on the need to oppose violence against women. they have published and distributed a host of pamphlets, publications and reports on the subject and organized campaigns in favour of women’s rights and against violence. it also provides women victims of violence with psychological support, legal and social guidance and rehabilitation, in addition to placing a media spotlight on the issue and its impact on palestinian society (tsikata & darkwah 2014). the federation of palestinian women’s action committees (affiliated to the dfl), for example, involved mothers of rural and refugee background in the education of their children in the fpwac’s kindergartens (najjar, 1992). it was only the fateh-affiliated wcsw that was ideologically close to the charitable organisations. similar to charitable organisations, it provided services to women rather than involving them in the operation of their programme (holt, 1996; jad, 2011). women’s committees got expanded and within two years after their formulation they established branches in all parts of the west bank and gaza strip, especially in rural areas. the number of participating women did not exceed three percent of the local female population in the initial years after their establishment. it was mainly because of the initial reluctance of women to be involved in a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 56 political programme. later, as a result of the creation of popular committees, the number of women organised in the women’s committees increased substantially that gave immense strength and power to the women indeed. moreover, the committees assumed a crucial role in sustaining the intifada, in that they provided the foundation for the mobilization of women (strum, 1998) the development of women’s committees 3.1 women’s committees and the intifada various authors point to the crucial role women’s committees played during the intifada as “the main engines behind the activism of women in popular committees and other frameworks” (hiltermann,1991, p.197; augustin, 1993, p. 30; holt,1996, p. 27). more specifically, the substantial increase in the number of women involved is closely linked to the role of women’s committees as a model for creation of popular committees in the neighbourhoods, villages, and refugee camps (augustin, 1993; gluck,1995; holt, 1996). the popular committees were created in order to meet the needs of population affected by the intifada. five major popular committees existed, each dealing with agriculture, food storage and distribution, medical services, and guarding of neighbourhoods against the israeli occupation (sharoni,1995). when schools were closed by the israeli army in 1988, the popular committees provided education to children in homes, churches and mosques (hiltermann, 1998; robinson, 1997). the number of women in the popular committees reached more than fifty percent of their members, as previously marginalised groups of women from rural areas and refugee camps participated in the intifada (hiltermann, 1998; strum, 1998, tamari, 1996). in addition to popular committees, women were also instrumental in the establishment of population cooperatives, which mainly operated at the household level. besides food processing, some cooperatives also manufactured clothing. home-produced goods were sold through the women’s committees (abdo, 1991). while cooperatives played a key role in overcoming food shortages resulting from any curfew and the boycott of israeli products, their success in improving the situation of women is mixed, due to the lack of a clearly defined strategy to achieve the proclaimed goals (hiltermann, 1998; abdo, 1991; najjar, 1992). while prior to the intifada, women’s committees succeeded in recruiting only a limited number of women; their numbers have increased considerably since then. this increase is a direct result of the creation of the popular committees and the involvement of a high number of women, which is noteworthy. women’s committees also underwent structural changes in the phase. in order to ensure a high level of responsiveness towards the immediate needs resulting from the intifada, the committees, with the exception of the women’s committees affiliated with fateh, underwent de-centralisation, allowing a high level of independent decision-making at the local level (augustin, 1993). decentralisation was further enhanced through the isolation of the west bank from gaza strip during the intifada. as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 57 consequence, women in the gaza strip took decision independently from the west bank branch (jad, 1995). the close links established with popular committees, impacted a shift in the agenda of the women’s committees. more specifically, their activities focused on teaching and rendering services to the affected population (jad, 1995; hiltermann, 1998). women thus retreated to the role they had traditionally occupied. while this shift from a political programme to one that focused on service delivery contributed to the increase in membership, women’s participation was viewed in this case as socially acceptable. the same also led to the weakening of the committees. in addition, several further developments formed an impediment to their implementation of a feminist agenda. of particular importance is the creation of the unified leadership of the uprising (unlu). through the unlu, in which representatives from fateh, the popular front for the liberation of palestine and the democratic front for the liberation of palestine and at a later stage from the palestinian communist party, the intifada became institutionalized and lost its spontaneous character (robinson, 1997). this development had direct implications for women’s committees. while in the early months of the intifada, committees opened their membership to women outside the political factions, the creation of the unlu represented the re-institution of factional divisions, undermining the non-factional character of the early months of the intifada. thus, “the cadres became more ornaments for different political groups and political considerations became more important than feminist concerns” (kamal, 1998, p. 88). besides, as the major function of the unlu was to give the intifada a direction, it gave little attention to women’s concerns. this was exacerbated by the composition of the unlu, which was predominantly male (hiltermann, 1998). communiqués, issued by the unlu and implemented by the popular committees reflected the altered view of women (sharoni, 1995). when addressing the role of women during the intifada, the unlu referred to women as “mothers of martyrs”, while the participants of the intifada were usually referred to “sons” and “brothers” (communiqués no. 29, quoted in massad, 1995; see also hiltermann, 1998). massad adds that the unlu communiqués listed women as a separate category from the occupational groups, such as merchants, peasants, students and workers, implying that the occupational category did not include women (massad, 1995). thus, the “retraditionalisation” of women’s committees as reflected in their agenda was reinforced by the leadership of the intifada. a further development that reflected the weakening of women’s committees was the outlawing of the popular committees by the israeli ministry of defence on 18 august 1988. (note 4) the outlawing of the popular committees led to a substantial decrease in the number of participating women. this decline in turn affected the women’s committees, as many women in the popular committees were also members in the women’s committees (jad, 1995). without a mass base, women’s committees experienced increased interference by the political factions in their programmes to the extent “that the political organisation, through orders coming from above, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 58 was dictating to a great extent the women’s committees’ programmes and the details of their work” (jad, 1995, p. 239). the weakening of the women’s committees as a result of the above-mentioned factors was further exacerbated by the emergence of religious parties that have traditional view of women. in spite of the above, the intifada gave women opportunities of participation in a public space usually reserved for men and made them more visible outside the domestic sphere (giacaman & johnson, 1994). although the substantial participation of women could not be translated into concern gains, the intifada did contribute to the introduction of a gender agenda for women and introduced a change in consciousness (dajani, 1994; holt, 1996; augustin, 1993). 3.2 factional control and attempts of unification the affiliation of women’s committees to political factions had implications for their development. several authors point out that the weakness of the women’s committees lies in their division along factional lines (kawar, 1996; tamari,1996). political factions exerted a high leverage over women’s committees by shaping the agenda of the latter and also through funding. funding was used by the political factions as a mean of influence. as in the case of other committees, women’s committees received their funds through their affiliated factions. despite the high leverage that political factions maintained over the development of women’s organisations, the latter attempted in several instances to unify their efforts in one body. the creation of the higher council for women (hcw) in december 1988 represents such an effort. the hcw was created upon the call of unlu to coordinate activities during the intifada, but also following the demand of international donors to create a single body to coordinate funding (augustin, 1993). for women’s committees, however, the hcw offered an opportunity to increase their independence from political factions. this is reflected in the hcw’s membership, which included, in addition to representatives from the women’s committees, for the first time, women independent of any political faction. this attempt to increase independence was undermined by several factors relating to the issue of leadership within the hcw and the women’s organisations, which ultimately led to the dissolution of the hcw. soon after the creation of the hcw, factional divisions emerged after the fateh-affiliated wcsw’s claim to represent the “female executive of the diaspora national leadership” (augustin, 1993, p. 36; see also abdo, 1994; holt, 1996, pp. 32-33). in this claim, it was backed by the general union of palestinian women (gupw), which operated in tunis. the gupw’s opposition was based on its objection to the inclusion in the hcw independent women activists, whom it suspected of a conspiracy to undermine its perceived role in representing all women’s organisations parallel to the gupw’s resistance, the creation of the hcw also faced opposition from charitable organisations in the occupied territories. as a response to the formation of the hcw, the charitable organisations established the union of voluntary women’s associations, comprising 56 charitable organisations of six regions in 1989. (note 5) one of its first activities was to organise in bethlehem in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 59 december, 1990 a conference entitled “women and the uprising”, timed deliberately to coincide with the conference “the intifada and some women’s social issues”. the latter constituted primarily a forum for women’s committees. in its conference the union underlined its conviction of the primacy of the national struggle and thus represented the view that prevailed among the political factions. as a result of the gupw’s opposition and the conflict between charitable organisations and the women’s committees, the hcw ultimately failed (augustin, 1993). while the political factions had maintained a high leverage on the development of women’s committees, the decline of their financial resources contributed to their increasing inability to do so. as women’s committees had been relying to a large extent on funding from the political factions, a decline of such funds compelled women’s committees to seek other sources. this initiated a process of transformation of the committees. as a result of this transformation a new movement of women’s centers emerged that has, especially after the creation of the pa, assumed a prominent role in promoting women’s agenda. this process of transformation is examined in the following section. 3.3 from committees to ngo’s as examined above, the development of women’s committees has been shaped by the position of political factions. while the factions’ focus on mobilizing as many women as possible led to an increase in women’s participation in the committees, this also prevented the emergence of feminist agenda, which was subordinated to the national struggle (kawa,1998). as a result, women’s attempts of unification were thwarted, and their role confined to the delivery of social services (tadros, 2014). however, the decline of funds and the resulting weakening of political factions reduced the influence of the latter on women’s committees, giving activists from the women’s committees the opportunity to shift from an imposed predominantly national agenda to one concerned with women’s issues. to this end a number of women activists established new institutions, women’s centers, which researched and addressed the conditions of women in the occupied territories. these new centres were non-factional and constituted the core of a new movement that flourished in the 1990s and in particular after the establishment of the pa. the availability of international funding aided this development. attempts to gain increased independence from factional influence became visible in the 1980s when women’s committees created projects outside the framework of the committees. these projects became fully independent following the weakening of the factions. the women’s studies center is a case in point. its predecessor, the women’s research and resource centre, was established in the late 1980s by the fpwas, to study issues related to property rights, labour law and private status law and their implications for women (jad, 1995). in the 1990s it became independent. under its new name, the women’s studies center, it has been conducting research and training women in research skills (gluck, 1995). its aim has been to contribute to the development of a palestinian feminist agenda, to research women’s overall situation, and to develop strategies which address women’s concerns at the popular level. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 on the other hand, the decline of funds provided by factions to women’s committees compelled the latter to seek new sources of funding. this was especially true for women’s committees that were affiliated with the leftist faction; fateh the largest among plo factions, continued to receive funds, through the allocated funds also diminished (kawar, 1996). other committees had to terminate many of their projects as a result of declining funds (jad, 1995). the new funds were typically provided by european donors. in contrast to the funds provided by political factions for the purpose of mobilizing women, european donors attached other conditions to potential beneficiaries. the criteria for eligibility included in particular the representation of various factions. this condition reduced the importance of factional adherence as a characteristic of the committees. a case in point is the union of palestinian women’s work committees (upwwc) which was transformed into the palestinian working women society. in this process of transformation, the upwwc replaced volunteers with full-time staff and changed its agenda from the mobilization of women, to their consciousness raising and the improvement of their skills. its programme consists to a large extent of workshops and training sessions for women. after the establishment of pa, the upwwc focused on influencing pa policy towards women. in addition to the centres that emerged from the women’s committees, independent activists, not previously affiliated with any political faction, established women’s centres that deals with issues pertaining to the social, economic and political situation of women. three noteworthy examples are the women’s affairs centre, the women’s centre for legal aid and counselling (wclac), and the jerusalem centre for women. the women’s affairs centre (previously called women’s resource centre) was established a few months after beginning of the intifada by the palestinian novelist, sahar khalifeh. its goal has been to examine the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions of women under the israeli occupation. in particular, it sought to document the participation of women during the intifada. based on its findings it has aimed at developing a new vision for the role of women in palestinian society (gluck, 1995). the objective of the wclac created in 1991, was to improve the social and in particular the legal situation of women. the new centers have all focused on gender related issues that have included researching the impact of the social, economic, and political conditions on women, on political and legal education, and on lobbying. in addition, they provided a forum for issues such a democratic development, women’s rights and women leadership. in brief, all the above mentioned centres were created to examine the factors that have shaped the conditions of women, and to develop strategies that aim at improving the situation of women (jad, 1995; holt, 1996). despite these advances, in the political arena, the marginalization of women begun during the intifada, continued after the establishment of the pa, in which appointments are based on clan and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 61 tribal affiliation as well as allegiance to the ruling party, fateh. leading positions were filled by men while women were largely excluded from this process (abdo, 1999). since the early 1990s, women activists initiated attempts to counter their marginalization. rather than acting alone, they created a network through which they aimed at forging a common position towards the pa. the most important network is the women’s affairs technical committees (watc). in addition to this network a number of women’s organisations established ties among themselves as well as with other civil society organisations. the watc and other initiatives of horizontal networking are discussed in the following section. 4. the organisations of women 4.1 horizontal networking the creation of a new institution the first network, the watc, emerged in august 1992 during the madrid peace negotiations. its formation aimed at countering the marginalization of palestinian women during the negotiations and their exclusion from the palestinian institutions that were created to manage and distribute international aid to palestinians. during the negotiations, over 30 technical committees were created to serve as an advisory body for the palestinian delegation. while the committees included over three hundred men, only four women were invited to participate (connell, 1995; gluck, 1995). the marginalization of women was similarly evidenced in the creation of palestinian institutions that were to manage and distribute international aid to palestinian. a case in point is the palestinian economic council for development and reconstruction (pecdar), whose 14-member board did not include any women (hijab, 1994; holt, 1996; jad, 1995). fearing that the lack of female representation in the technical committees and the institutions would increase the marginalisation of women, sixteen women activists created the watc. its initial aim was to increase the number of women in the technical committees and to influence their policies by including a gender-perspective (gluck, 1995). after the creation of the pa the watc shifted its focus to raising public awareness of women’s issues and lobbying for legal equality for women. following the creation of the pa, the watc has been the only institutionalised network that has been active in lobbying for change of pa policy, and for a reform of the existing legislation that discriminates against women. nevertheless, several features of the watc have contributed to its weakness. these related to aspects of its organisation, to the nature of its agenda and to its strategy of implementing its objectives. while the watc succeeded in broadening its coalition of women’s organisations, it failed to include an important segment of women’s organisations, the charitable organisations, and so did not succeed in evolving into a comprehensive network representing the interests of all women. as a result of this failure, the watc failed to assume a leadership role among women’s organisations. similarly, its campaigns of raising women’s consciousness for their rights, remain, as long as the structures that sustain their subordination continue to exist, a futile effort. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 limiting its actions to lobbying for legal change, the watc failed to address issues, which are concern for the majority of women. to improve the social, economic and political conditions that shape women’s lives would require the transformation of the existing patriarchal order. in order to create a counter-hegemonic force to this order, the watc would have to build a coalition of a variety of civil society institutions whose aim is to transform patriarchal structures towards a more equitable order. having failed to do so, the watc has contributed considerably to its own weakening. without a broad basis of supporting institutions, the watc could not effect any change of pa policy. following the pa’s refusal to comply with its demands, the watc diverted its efforts to lobbying the palestinian legislative council (plc) for policy change. the plc, however, as a result of its politically marginalized role, has been ineffective as a legislative body. thus, while the atc has remained the only institutionalised network of women’s organisations, its organisational properties, its agenda and strategy have accounted for its weakness. 4.2 horizontal ties among women’s organisations and other civil society institutions in addition to the institutionalised network, represented by the watc, women’s organisations also forged ties with other women’s groups that offered an alternative terrain for cooperation and action. while the watc represents an institutionalised form of cooperation, the additional ties remain loose and largely ad-hoc. similar to the activities of the watc, cooperation among women’s organisations as well as with other civil society organisations focus on awareness campaigns and training in legal literacy. the women’s studies center and the women’s center for legal aid, as well as human rights organisations, have been prominent. this effort is illustrated in the “palestinian model parliament women and legislation”. initiated in 1995 by the women’s center for legal aid and counselling, it involved fifteen women’s organisations and constituted a mock parliament on the status of women and the personal status law (abdo, 1999). in another instance, cooperation among women’s organisations involved the issue of “honour killing”, i.e., killing in which a male family member kills a female relative based on an alleged assault on family honour. “honour killings” continue to occur and represent the prevalence of customary laws over existing written ones. women’s organisations also forged links with other civil society institutions, in particular with human rights groups and those that are working towards attaining a democratic order, such as al -haq, and the palestinian ngo network, pngo . as in the case of cooperation among women’s organisations, these ties have been ad hoc and linked to particular projects. such cooperation was involved in the initiative of the palestinian working women society (pwwas) to examine the labour law and its implication for women. cooperation between women’s organisations and other civil society institutions also included campaigns to raise awareness on issues such as early marriage, the protection of battered women and free education for women younger than 18 years. another case of cooperation that involved human rights organisations is the effort of the jerusalem centre for women to increase coordination on the issue of and lobby for women’s rights in jerusalem. to this end the centre created a steering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 63 committee with included, in addition to the watc, the human rights organisations, the independent commission for residents’ rights, the alternative information center, the palestinian human rights information centre, and non-violence studies center. in addition to the ad hoc forms of cooperation, women’s organisations have been members in pngo. women’s organisations that are members of pngo have been active in lobbying for a change in the pa’s proposed “associational law concerning charitable societies, social bodies and private institutions”. in all those cases, cooperation among women’s organisations and between them and other civil society institutions is ad hoc. this ad hoc nature of cooperation among the above groups suggests the lack of a comprehensive strategy and vision to improve the situation of women. this is the result of the failure of women’s organisations to create a forum that would unite women’s organisations and other civil society institutions operating in fields relevant to women around a common vision and strategy to improve the situation of women. a change of the existing political and social order requires a more comprehensive agenda and the creation of a platform of civil society institutions that are in favour of comprehensive change. watc has been unable to establish a leadership role among women’s organisations sufficient to bring about such change. 4.3 the pa’s response as mentioned above, the eatc has effected some changes in legislation. in the absence of a basic law, these constitute, however, only regulations. given the inability of the watc to forge a broad coalition of society institutions supporting their agenda and the reluctance of the pa to depart from its patriarchal structure, the pa rejected demands for the creation of a pa institution that deals solely with women’s issues. instead, the pa responded by creating several ministerial departments that deal with women’s issues, but that are imbedded in the structure of the respective ministry and thus subject to its scrutiny and control. women’s departments, which aim at developing gender-sensitive policies, exist in five ministries: ministry of planning and international cooperation (mopic), agriculture, health, social affairs, and youth and sports, of which the directorate of gender planning and development (dgpd) at the mopic is the most active. in addition to the ministerial departments, the pa also allowed the establishment of an “inter-ministerial women’s coordinating committee”. this committee was created in march 1996 following the fourth conference on women in beijing (1995) by participating women activists. it comprises eleven ministries and is based on a governmental action plan, the “post beijing world strategies and action plans for the palestinian government until the year 2000”. the action plan developed strategies to integrate women into the political structure of the pa and to promote participation in the fields of social and economic development. it serves as a foundation for the formulation of policies of the respective women’s departments. in september 1996 the committee formulated the “national strategy for the advancement of palestinian women”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 the significance of the plan is its assigning to the general union of palestinian women (gupw) a central role in the development affecting women’s organisations. thus the plan states as one of its “strategic objectives” to develop the role of the gupw in its “capacity as representative of palestinian women in palestine and abroad, to form a frame for all ngos and to extend it and establish branches in every district of the country to reach to women in towns, villages, refugee and bedouin camps” the leading role assumed by the gupw signifies its move to consolidate, with the support of the pa, its position in the west bank and gaza strip. as the gupw has also shown reluctance to challenge the existing political and social orders, its prominent role expressed in the national strategy implies the potential consolidation of a traditional view on gender relations in the palestinian context. however, to what extent these strategic plans become part of the general ministerial plans or the pa strategy remains to be seen” (kawar, 1998, p. 242) 5. conclusion this paper concludes that the situation of women has advanced little for sure because of the characteristics of adopting strategic plans and policies of palestinian authority (pa) to promote women’s participation in the fields of social, political and economic development in spite of a number of structural impediments, including general conservatism in society. nevertheless, to what extent these strategic plans become part of the general ministerial plans or the pa strategy remains to be explored. this paper, in general, assessing the situation of women under the pa in two main areas representation in “state” institutions and law is conclusively noteworthy. also, the in-depth analysis of the instrumental role played by women’s organisations in the given period, despite their struggles and failures faced in various measures is creditable. references abdo, n. 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(2000). armed struggle and the search for state: the palestinian national movement, 1949-1993. oxford university press. sharoni, s. (1995). gender and israeli-palestinian conflict. syracuse university press. strum, p. (1998). west bank women and the intifada: revolution within the revolution. india university press. strum, p. (1998). west bank women and the intifada: revolution within the revolution. india university press. tadros, m. (ed.) (2014).women in politics: gender, power and development. london: zed books. tamari, s. (1996) palestinian refugee negotiation: from madrid to oslo ii. washington, dc: institution for pal dies. tsikata, d., & darkwah, a. (2014). researching empowerment: on methodological innovations, pitfalls and challenges. women’s studies international forum, 45, 81-89. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 notes note 1. the plo’s mass organisations included labour and professional unions, as well as teachers’ and writers’ organisation. note 2. the nation of sumud was adopted by the plo to reduce the impact of the israeli occupation through material assistance and the delivery of social services. note 3. quoted in haj, 1992, p. 776 note 4. membership in the popular committees became punishable by up to 10 years of prison. note 5. namely jerusalem, nablus, ramallah, bethlehem, hebron, and gaza. the union is a number of the advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 90 original paper sanxingdui archaeology and cultural publicity xilin mou1, jiingyan he1, zhaoyang jia1, qingxin deng1 & guohui rao1* 1 college of foreign languages, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, 610025, china * corresponding author, rao guohui received: january 29, 2024 accepted: march 11, 2024 online published: march 22, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p90 abstract this paper deeply discusses the archaeology and culture of sanxingdui, and systematically analyzes the importance of the archaeological site from multiple perspectives. sanxingdui archaeology is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in chinese history, which shows the unique charm of the ancient shu civilization through its rich cultural relics and valuable cultural relics. the purpose of this paper is to discuss the external publicity problems of sanxingdui archaeology and culture, analyze its current situation and challenges, and propose corresponding solutions. promote sanxingdui culture through effective sanxingdui marketing strategies, and attract more tourists to visit sanxingdui site, so that it can better spread the important value and cultural connotation of sanxingdui, and enhance its international visibility and influence. keywords sanxingdui archaeology, cultural publicity, cultural relics protection 1. introduction the sanxingdui archaeological site, located in sanxingdui town, guanghan city, sichuan province, china, is one of the earliest large-scale ancient civilization sites discovered in china. sanxingdui archaeology is an important breakthrough in the field of chinese archaeology, and its rich cultural heritage provides valuable information for our understanding of the ancient shu civilization. however, internationally, sanxingdui’s popularity and influence still need to be improved. therefore, it is very necessary to carry out targeted cultural outreach. 2. significant values and latest archaeological discoveries of sanxingdui archaeology 2.1 significant values of sanxingdui archaeology sanxingdui archaeology provides us with important clues to study the development of ancient human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 91 published by scholink inc. society. in the sanxingdui site, archaeologists have found a large number of artifacts and relics, including bronze, jade, pottery, and human bones. these cultural relics not only show the production technology and artistic level of ancient humans in sanxingdui, but more importantly, reveal the state of social organization, religious beliefs and social hierarchy at that time. through the study of these artifacts and relics, we can gain a deeper understanding of the development trajectory and evolution of ancient human society. sanxingdui archaeology is of great significance for us to understand the origin and exchange of ancient civilizations. archaeologists have found a large number of bronzes at the sanxingdui site, and the production process and pattern style of these bronzes have obvious similarities with other ancient civilizations such as ancient egypt and ancient babylon. this shows that there was an exchange and influence between sanxingdui and other ancient civilizations. through the study of these bronzes, we can explore the connections between ancient civilizations and further expand our understanding of ancient civilizations. sanxingdui archaeology is of great significance for the protection and inheritance of human cultural heritage. the discovery and protection of the sanxingdui site not only provides us with important information to understand the ancient civilization, but more importantly, makes us realize the importance of cultural heritage and the necessity of protection. through the protection and research of the sanxingdui site, we can inherit and carry forward the spirit and wisdom of ancient civilization to future generations, and at the same time, we can also guide people to pay more attention to and protect other cultural heritage. 2.2 latest archaeological discoveries of sanxingdui archaeology the archaeological excavation of sanxingdui’s latest site began in 2019 and its extraction began in 2021. the research on newly unearthed cultural relics has not yet started, but many preserved and restored cultural relics and newly unearthed cultural relics were deformed and broken. experts have collected 3d data, restored the deformed and broken parts by digital simulation technology, and then simulated and showed the original cultural relics by 3d printing technology. there are many fine gold foils, ivory and jade wares in pits 5 and 6 that have not been excavated yet. now these two pits have been taken back to the museum of cultural relics protection and restoration for more detailed excavation. by september, 2022, 15,109 cultural relics and 4,060 nearly complete artifacts had been unearthed from the six sacrificial pits in the new round of archaeological excavation. from 2020 to 2022, sanxingdui started excavation again. this time, 6 archaeological excavations from no.3 to no.8 were excavated with an area of 1,834 square meters. nearly 17,000 pieces were unearthed from 6 pits, and more than 4,800 pieces were relatively complete, including half a piece of golden mask, a turtle-back-shaped gridded device and a statue of an orc riding on the top. at present, the archaeological excavation and cultural relics protection in sanxingdui are still in progress. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 92 published by scholink inc. sichuan institute of cultural relics and archaeology, together with peking university, analyzed 73 samples of carbon chips from six pits by the method of carbon 14 dating, and preliminarily determined the age distribution interval. the age of k4 pit was most likely from 1199 bc to 1017 bc, that is, about 3200 to 3000 years ago, which confirmed that the newly discovered carbon 14 age interval of no.4 pit belonged to the late shang dynasty. the bronze mask unearthed in 2021 is 131cm wide, 71cm high, 66cm deep and weighs 131 jin. it is the largest and well-preserved large bronze mask unearthed at sanxingdui site at present. the bronze mask is a typical artifact of sanxingdui culture, which has been more than 3,000 years since, reflecting the understanding and thinking of ancient shu ancestors on natural things and the world of man and god. construction began in march, 2022, and the new sanxingdui museum covers an area of 54,400 square meters, which is about five times that of the old museum. it is a new cultural relic built after major archaeology. it will display more than 2,000 precious cultural relics such as bronzes, jade tools, goldware, pottery and bones, and comprehensively and systematically displays the archaeological excavations and latest research results of sanxingdui. 3. external publicity of sanxingdui 3.1 media publicity in october 2023, the activity of “china 2023 beautiful sichuan tour for overseas chinese media” held in guanghan. forty-one overseas chinese media from 22 countries and regions including the united states, canada, italy and kazakhstan visited sanxingdui site. the ceo of irish new island media believes that the excavation and research of sanxingdui site provides valuable material for the world to understand the ancient civilization of china. she suggested that sichuan can carry out more cultural exchange activities, better promote sanxingdui interested overseas to ireland, and strengthen exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations. the general manager of canada souro media said, “we will continue to pay attention to the excavation progress of sanxingdui site. i believe that with the joint efforts of overseas chinese media, the story of sanxingdui will spread further and more people will understand the profoundness of china’s ancient civilization”. the number of foreign media reports on sanxingdui peaked in 2021, and the coverage heat will remain unabated until 2022. in this context, china’s media vigorously promote international communication innovation, and through the continuous reporting of sanxingdui archaeological discoveries, it initially constructed a multi-subject, three-dimensional large-scale external publicity pattern, and created a number of media clusters with international influence. through the four overseas social media platforms of facebook, twitter, instagram and youtube, sanxingdui culture has formed a visual-centered interactive communication pattern. three sanxingdui remains were rediscovered, and the number of live broadcasts reached 65 million, and the cumulative number of views exceeded 100 million. the related topic network fermentation continued to reach the top of the hot search list. the whole network published nearly 100,000 graphic and video information, and the reading volume www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 93 published by scholink inc. exceeded 30 billion. 3.2 establishment of sanxingdui cultural research institute on october 27th, 2023, sanxingdui and ancient civilization research institute of sichuan university was formally established to further promote the progress of academic research, cultivate professionals and carry out a series of academic activities. at present, the institute has an interdisciplinary research team, based on the research foundation and good research environment of the institute of history and culture. in addition, the institute also pays attention to the combination of academic research and social services. while devoting itself to exploring the roots of chinese civilization and explaining its outstanding characteristics, it strengthens exchanges and cooperation with local governments and relevant cultural institutions, and contributes to the creative transformation and innovative development of chinese excellent traditional culture. the typical changes of cross-cultural communication in the new globalization era are reflected in the cultural pattern and communication technology: at the cultural pattern level, the traditional pattern is being broken, and mankind is experiencing the global communication pattern of “rise of the rest” described by daya thussu; in terms of communication technology, the monopoly of traditional media in technology and content in western history is being dissolved by the development of the internet, and the empowerment of people from different parts of the world by the internet is changing the production pattern of media culture dominated by the west. the international communication of sanxingdui culture is an important achievement of mainstream media in china on the road of deepening media integration and transformation, and it is also an innovative reshaping of its content production, news voice, audio-visual narrative form and communication mode in the practice field of major theme reports. 3.3 future publicity strategies the director of sanxingdui archaeological research institute of sichuan institute of cultural relics and archaeology said that spread of sanxingdui culture has received good feedback from the domestic audience. “the reason that sanxingdui can become the most popular representative archaeological site in china, is different media have effectively publicized and promoted information extracted by archaeologists in diversified ways. he also mentioned that it is very important to strengthen the publicity of archaeological investigation, excavation and research in the process of building archaeology with chinese characteristics. however, what kind of way to take and what kind of principle to keep are also issues that archaeologists and media people need to think about. he believes that “the spread of archaeology should lower the threshold. most of the public understand archaeology with an amateur interest, so the products provided to them should be relaxed and diverse. in addition, archaeology is a very rigorous discipline, and media reports need to meet academic needs to a certain extent. “ nowadays the goal is to build sanxingdui into a world-class museum and national archaeological site park, a typical example of practicing archaeology with china characteristics, an important symbol of chinese culture and a world-famous tourist destination. in further, promoting the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 94 published by scholink inc. development of global cultural tourism integration with sanxingdui as the core, and build a super ip with china bearing and international image. 4. present challenges as the foundation of sanxingdui culture, ancient shu civilization plays an important role in people’s understanding of sanxingdui culture, but the first challenge sanxingdui faces is the limitation of understanding of ancient shu civilization at home and abroad. 4.1 the limitations of the understanding of the ancient shu civilization at home and abroad 4.1.1 the limitations of the understanding of the ancient shu civilization in china in the process of continuous exploration, we have gradually unveiled the mystery of the ancient shu civilization, but there are still many objective and subjective factors that affect the deep understanding and cognition of this civilization, including the complexity of its culture itself, the different interpretations of the ancient shu civilization by individual differences, and the misleading nature of the media. the ancient shu civilization has a history of 5,000 years, and the lack of written records of the ancient shu history has enhanced the difficulty of future generations to explore it. many questions have smeared a strong mystery on the history and culture of ancient shu, which has caused various speculations for future generations. this series of questions must rely on archaeology to explore, but the large number of bronzes found from the sanxingdui site are all “mysterious”, which requires archaeologists to corroborate according to a large number of historical and ancient books, and the time spent is greatly increased. many tourists who go to the sanxingdui site or the jinsha site do not really understand the ancient shu civilization, and the historical significance and even the use of each bronze. for the uniqueness of the bronze itself, leading to people’s continuous speculation, the bronze longitudinal human face style is too weird, the world has speculated how the ancient shu people conceived this strange shape, some imaginative people even began to speculate, whether the ancient shu people had “alien contact”. the vigorous development of mass media also has a certain impact on the understanding of ancient shu civilization. in order to attract more traffic, some media have exaggerated the titles of sanxingdui and the ancient shu civilization, and even some bad media will distort the facts to achieve their click goals. second, the media and many industries have asked to obtain profits, vigorously promote cultural and creative products, and continue to design and develop diversified cultural and creative products, so as to obtain greater benefits, and people have gradually changed from knowledge-seeking and exploratory tourists to shopping and punch-in tourists, ignoring the value of the ancient shu civilization itself. 4.1.2 the limitations of the understanding of the ancient shu civilization abroad in recent years, with the establishment of sanxingdui culture’s overseas media public account and the development of virtual technology, many foreign audiences have gradually established their cognition of the ancient shu civilization. but now, there are still some factors that affect the spread of the ancient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 95 published by scholink inc. shu civilization. the most important is the cultural differences, followed by the flaws of virtual technology. culture is the foundation for the survival and development of human society, and in a pluralistic and globalized world, people’s cultures from different countries and backgrounds converge, and this cultural diversity not only enriches the diversity of society, but also has a profound impact on social cognition. geographical factors and historical background lay the foundation for cultural differences, and there will be certain prejudices if there are cultural differences, which has a great impact on the international spread of ancient shu civilization, and the limitations of communication thinking lead to rigid and rigid expressions. there are certain differences in the connotation and expression path between propaganda, communication and cross-cultural communication, and cross-cultural communication is not a simple superposition and mechanical integration of propaganda and communication, but a complex system of communication. the symbolization of the content of communication leads to a homogeneous monotony of expressions. the content of cross-cultural communication affects the final effect of communication, and the content of cross-cultural communication in china, on the one hand, mainly shows the content of national strength, which is more serious, and overseas audiences are prone to misunderstanding and resistance, which restricts the communication effect. on the other hand, for the dissemination of traditional cultural content in china, china relies more on classic cultural symbols such as chinese kung fu, confucius, giant panda, and the great wall, which are already well known to overseas audiences. 4.2 lack of external publicity resources at present, china’s international communication is not strong enough to excavate, process, process, utilize, share, and integrate not only domestic but also foreign information and cultural resources, and there are also deficiencies in the coordination and distribution of domestic and foreign news, cultural news, economic news, science and technology news, sports news, and so on. in addition, from the perspective of practical practice, china’s international communication work also has insufficient and in-depth interviews in the reporting of international news, and cannot fully grasp the first-hand materials, which leads to the fact that the reports on major international events and hot issues are often superficial, lacking innovation and vividness, etc., thus further affecting the communication, influence and leading power of china’s mainstream media in the world. as far as the main body of international communication is concerned, the main force of china’s current international communication is the government and the media, while enterprises, think tanks, universities, non-governmental organizations, social groups, individual citizens, etc. have a low degree of participation in international communication, the active awareness of participation is not strong, the overall pattern has not been fully opened, the forces of all aspects have not been fully mobilized, and the degree of mutual coordination and cooperation between various subjects is low. the second is about the limitations of technology. sanxingdui’s international communication mostly adopts international platforms for publicity. the news materials and live broadcast signals of “a new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 96 published by scholink inc. round of archaeological excavations in sanxingdui” released by the international video news agency have been cited and reported by 227 tv stations/channels and online new media platforms in 31 countries and regions, including cnn spanish channel, abc, and tv asahi of japan. at the same time, sanxingdui’s international communication platform “sanxingdui culture” was officially launched. the three-dimensional communication system consisting of facebook pages, twitter accounts, instagram accounts, and youtube accounts has published more than 1,000 articles and tweets since its launch. the display of video and text alone cannot make the international audience understand the ancient shu civilization more vividly, and more mature vr virtual technology is needed to establish the ancient shu civilization vr overseas experience hall. 4.3 lack of professional team building the external promotion of ancient culture is different from that of general festivals, delicacies, and goods. we need more professional teams, from the selection of promotional materials, professional translation, technical support, financial support, media operations, and professional q&a personnel. but the reality is that very few teams have it all, and the biggest reason for that is lack of funding. at present, sanxingdui museum only relies on the financial appropriation of about 1.7 million yuan every year to survive, but the expenditure needs about 2 million yuan, and the daily funds are stretched, and the investment in professional team building is even more limited. assembling a complete team structure requires sufficient funds to complete personnel recruitment, site visits, and especially technology introduction, which can cost a lot of money. secondly, the team also lacked professional docents. sanxingdui museum has a high comprehensive quality of interpreters is very scarce, the existing interpreters are not professional knowledge enough, most of them only have the level of “tour guide”, the explanation is monotonous, old-fashioned, and generally can only be explained for group tourists, rarely can be explained for professional individual visitors, and there is a lack of foreign language commentators, which greatly affects the development of cultural tourism. sanxingdui has a rich cultural connotation, and the level of cultural quality of the interpreter largely determines the level of satisfaction of tourists with sanxingdui tours, and then affects potential tourists, and also plays a vital role in establishing the image of sanxingdui tourist destination. sanxingdui cultural relics have been exhibited abroad more than ten times, which has stimulated the research enthusiasm of hundreds of experts at home and abroad, and the visitors are shocked by the “heavenly people”, which is enough to prove that sanxingdui has a huge market communication value. therefore, we need to carry out all-round cultural dissemination of ancient shu civilization, sanxingdui culture, sanxingdui ruins, and cultural relics. professional commentators are indispensable, not only in china, but also abroad when necessary. 5. solutions the marketing strategy of sanxingdui is a series of promotional activities designed to promote sanxingdui culture and attract more tourists to visit the sanxingdui ruins. the following are the specific www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 97 published by scholink inc. contents of samsung’s marketing strategy: 5.1 brand promotion: promote the transformation of sanxindui from brand building to super cultural symbols highlight the uniqueness of sanxingdui and the historical and cultural significance it represents in the promotion. strengthen the distinctive brand image dissemination, including the unified design and standard production of promotional materials, as well as the unified use of logos. utilize various media channels to release information related to the sanxingdui culture and expand its promotional influence. 5.2 improve the service level of scenic spots: establish a publicity team to enhance the quality of publicity strengthen humanized services, provide high-quality tour guide services, equipped with professional commentary equipment and chinese and english commentators, and provide high-quality tour guide services for tourists. improve facilities and hardware support, improve the environment and facilities of various scenic spots and places, improve toilet hygiene conditions, and enhance tourist comfort. implement ticketing telephone booking and online booking services, making it convenient for tourists to purchase tickets. carry out customer service points within the scenic area to provide convenient consultation and ticket purchasing services for tourists. 5.3 enriching cultural activities: innovating promotional methods and expanding promotional channels rich and diverse cultural activities are an important way to attract tourists, which can enhance the interaction between tourists and scenic spots, allowing tourists to better understand sanxingdui culture. strengthen festival cultural activities, such as holding spring festival temple fairs and dragon boat races during the dragon boat festival, to attract more tourists and enhance the promotion of sanxingdui culture. carry out themed cultural exhibitions, such as the gold and silver artifacts exhibition in sanxingdui and the cultural and economic development achievements exhibition in sichuan province, to help tourists better understand sanxingdui culture. carry out traditional cultural sightseeing activities, such as pottery making, weaving clothes, painting, etc., allowing tourists to participate and experience the charm of sanxingdui culture firsthand. 5.4 joint collaboration: working with relevant departments to strengthen cultural protection and resource utilization the joint cooperation between multiple scenic spots can lead to a win-win and mutually beneficial effect, promote resource sharing among scenic spots, and improve the overall image of sanxingdui. expand cooperation with other scenic spots, jointly promote with surrounding tourist attractions, and carry out joint promotion and tourism promotion activities. establish close cooperation with transportation departments, travel agencies, etc., jointly promote tourism products and services, and achieve mutually beneficial results. give full play to the value of cultural peace and harmony in sanxingdui, actively participate in various cultural, artistic, sports and other activities, and showcase www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 98 published by scholink inc. the cultural connotations and humanistic spirit of sanxingdui. overall, marketing strategies should be developed around brand promotion, improving scenic area service levels, enriching cultural activities, and collaborative efforts, and implement scientific and effective promotion to attract more tourists to visit sanxingdui and enhance its competitiveness in the tourism market. 6. conclusion to sum up, the important value of sanxingdui archaeology is reflected in the study of the development of ancient human society, the exploration of the origin and exchange of ancient civilizations, and the protection and inheritance of human cultural heritage. through in-depth research and protection of the sanxingdui site, we can better understand and inherit the achievements of human civilization, and provide an important reference and reference for the development of human society. acknowledgements this study is supported by the project “research on the international communication of sanxingdui culture in the 5g era” (no. 202210621270) of chengdu university of information technology. references duan, j. l. 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(2021). “external environment” and “link key”: thoughts on the short video communication in the 5g era-taking the intangible cultural heritage of the yi people as an example. journal of north university for nationalities (philosophy and social sciences edition), 2021(3), 57-63. yi, y. b., & zhao, q. q. (2011). a preliminary study of modern museums and tourism—taking sanxingdui museum as an example. journal of sichuan higher institute of cuisine, 0(4), 64-66. yu, j. h., & zhang, y. f. (2017). design of adventure game based on sanxingdui culture elements (pp. 556-560). zhang, x. m. (2019). analysis of the museum’s foreign cultural activities. museology, 2019(10), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 99 published by scholink inc. 132-133. zhong, l., & zhang, j. w. (2022). language of civilization: a semiological study on international communication targeting at the gen-z—with the international communication of sanxingdui culture as an example. journalism and mass communication monthly, 2022(12), 91-96. 123767 76..84 announcement of retraction the editorial board announced this article has been retracted on june 23, 2022. if you have any further question, please contact us at: assc@scholink.org article title: a sociolinguistic study of cultural effects on speech acts in the south and west of saudi arabia community author/s: ibtesam abdulaziz bajri journal title: advances in social science and culture issn e-issn issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-967 (online) volume and number: vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 pages: 01-38 doi: https://doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p1 microsoft word assc-v3n3-p39 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper u.s. general election as a possible covid-19 super spreader event matthew s. mingus1*, emily (li) cheng2 & daria blinova3 1 school of public affairs and administration, western michigan university, kalamazoo, mi, usa 2 institute for educational leadership, washington, dc, usa 3 department of political science, western michigan university, kalamazoo, mi, usa * matthew s. mingus, professor, school of public affairs and administration, western michigan university, kalamazoo, mi 49009 usa received: july 7, 2021 accepted: july 15, 2021 online published: july 17, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p39 abstract many u.s. states changed election policies leading up to the november 3, 2020, general election to reduce the potential spread of covid-19, and policy changes at the state level resulted in uneven access to voting options outside the polling site on the day of the election. this preliminary research examines the extent of in-person voting and other methods for voting as percentages of the overall population, separated by state, to determine if such policy changes helped reduce the spread of covid-19. the data is correlated with the increase in the sars-cov-2 virus the week leading into the election compared to two weeks after the election. political party in control of the state executive, urbanization, and the relative size of state government are also considered. while numerous court cases regarding the fairness of electoral methods were launched during the 2020 election cycle, the focus of this article is whether the percent of the population who voted in person on the day of the election may have differentially increased the spread of covid-19 within the 50 u.s. states as well as the extent that the public service managed the election process in a safe manner by mitigating the risk of covid-19. keywords covid-19, elections, pandemic, federalism, decentralization, public health 1. introduction more than 60% of all covid-19 cases in the u.s. through january 19, 2021 were reported after the general election on november 3, 2020 (maxouris, 2021). this leads to a rather obvious question: while states were focused on thanksgiving, christmas, and new year’s day as possible super spreader events www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. (stone, 2020, december 21), could the general election itself have been a major spreader of covid-19? in seeking to define super spreaders, emma cave notes that an individual can be a super spreader, but there are also super spreader events. she states, “as for events, any large gathering or movement of groups or individuals can constitute super-spreading. so too can policy decisions or indeed any occurrence which in hindsight exacerbated infection rates” (2020, p. 237). nearly 1 in 5 americans voted in person on the day of this election therefore the potential to be a super spreader event certainly existed, yet the nature of an election is distinct from a holiday. specifically, elections are different because state governments have direct control over whether people need to show up for in-person voting and over safety measures taken at polling locations to mitigate viral spread. in contrast, states only have indirect control over what people chose to do regarding holiday gatherings or super bowl parties, dubbed “super spreader sunday” in advance of the football game (leonhardt, 2021, february 3). we sought to determine the extent that voting in person on election day was linked with measurably higher covid-19 cases following the election to determine the extent that states succeeded or failed to protect their residents. this leads to the policy question of whether or not states should change current voting laws to avoid large gatherings in the future, and changes in both directions have already been actively pursued by state legislatures. alabama, for example, limited absentee voting in the 2020 general election and then quickly proposed legislation to make significant changes moving forward (driggers, 2021)—87% of alabama votes were cast in person on the day of the election compared to the national average of 36%. the brennan center for justice noted that as of february 19, 2021, there were 253 active bills in 43 states seeking to restrict voter rights and 704 active bills in a different set of 43 states with provisions to expand voter access (brennen center for justice, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. figure 1. conceptual model of risk mitigation: two paths there are many reasons to allow voting other than “in-person on the day of an election” that are beyond the public health scope of this research. in this regard, we seek to narrowly focus on whether the november 3, 2020, election was a super spreader event by comparing the 50 u.s. states, the percent of their population that voted in person, the ensuing rate of spread of covid-19, and other closely related variables. this is considered preliminary research because data should become available in the future that would allow lower-level governments as the unit of analysis and might also allow for more differentiation in the types of and timing of voting. the conceptual model depicted in figure 1 is that two paths existed for state governments to mitigate the spread of covid-19 while also seeking to maximize voter turnout. from one perspective it supposes that masks, distance, and cleanliness at the polls could reduce the risk of viral spread and from another perspective it supposes that allowing voters to entirely avoid the polls on election day could reduce viral spread. it follows that maximizing both approaches would be a safer path forward, though our design did not allow us to measure safety procedures at the polls. a state that allowed vote-by-mail applications and the actual voting process to happen entirely by mail or online might be considered the optimal model from a public health perspective. 2. federalism, political polarization, and changes in voting methods voter turnout was historically high at 67% for the 2020 general election, the highest in 120 years (grzeszczak, 2020, november 4). the focus herein is on how many of those voters likely went to the polls in person on november 3, 2020, rather than voting by some other means (mail, fax, electronic, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. early in-person voting, etc.), and if this measurably increased the spread of covid-19. the cdc (2020) issued explicit guidelines for polling locations in late june to help election officials effectively mitigate the risk; however, there were nearly 21,000 fewer polling locations in 2020 than in 2016 thus potentially increasing the risk through larger crowds and longer waiting times (joseph & arthur, 2020, october 22). our research shows that 17% of the u.s. population voted in person on the day of the election, which clearly makes it a possible super spreader event, and so local and state governments clearly faced a significant management challenge. the relevance of this topic is explained by the lack of sufficient research regarding election-day safety and pandemics, including in an excellent international symposium regarding covid-19 and street-level bureaucrats (gofen & lotta, 2021). some related research exists. the congressional research service, for example, produced a report on the ability of the election infrastructure to be secured when election modes were swiftly changing (humphreys, 2020, june 10) and one article cogently considers the risk management factors associated with maintaining fair and transparent elections amidst a global pandemic (landman & splendore, 2020). neither of these assessed the empirical health and safety outcomes. leidman et al. come closer when they note that the pandemic led to “notable changes in the methods of voting, the number and types of polling locations, and in-person voting procedures.” they examined public health mitigation factors in the september 2020 delaware primary election in extensive detail (2020). nevertheless, even this empirical report did not consider actual spread of covid-19, but rather sought to determine the application of cdc guidance for healthy election operations by measuring, for example, the number of locations that ran out of hand sanitizer. this served as an important “compliance test” within one part of our complex federal election system, whereas we sought to examine all 50 states. dunlop, ongaro, and baker recently outlined an international covid-19 research agenda for public policy and administration and one of their themes was the functioning of the public sector in multi-level governance: “this area promises to be a vibrant area of applied research” (2020, p. 375). a pandemic might be the worst of all times to rely on federalism rather than national-level leadership. donald kettl pointedly demonstrates that when the federal government left most decisions to the states, states went in “very different directions” in managing the covid-19 pandemic (2020). this was true regarding the pace of issuing shelter-in-place orders in spring 2020, and the ensuing dynamic where every state that did not issue such a statewide order had both a republican governor and a republican-controlled state senate (corder et al., 2020). in terms of the nature of federalism, kettl states that “in no other country was the level of friction between the national and subnational governments as high as in the united states” (2020, p. 595). woodrow wilson stated long ago that, “the question of the relation of the states to the federal government is the cardinal question of our constitutional system. at every turn of our national development we have been brought face to face with it, and no definition either of statesmen or of judges has ever quieted or decided it. it cannot, indeed, be settled by the opinion of one generation, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. because it is a question of growth, and every successive stage of our political and economic development gives it a new aspect, makes it a new question” (1908, p. 684). while this system is extremely elastic, and thus allows significant central-subnational shifting over time, in this instance it allowed for a highly decentralized response to a crisis which was always—from the moment it reached our western shores—going to be national. on the other hand, former aspa president harlan cleveland had a particular take on this dynamic at the turn of the century, “we learned again and again that complex social systems work badly if they are too centralized … the federal system itself was designed to create a continuous tussle between the states and the central government. that tussle was intended to be permanent; no part of the system was supposed to ‘win it all,’ not ever” (2000, p. 294). cleveland examined the need for the concept of “uncentralization” rather than decentralization, yet this “mutual adjustment” assumed a “generally understood environment of moral rules, norms, conventions, and mores, [where] very large numbers of people watch each other, then modify their own behavior just enough to accommodate the differing purposes of others” (cleveland, 2000, p. 296). in contrast, covid-19 arrived at a time of deep political polarization in america rather than commonly accepted principles, and so accommodating different purposes may have been the last thing on the minds of americans or their elected policymakers. one somewhat surprising aspect of the u.s. experience was the rapid politicization of many dimensions of the crisis—how to understand the severity and scope of the disease (crisis or hoax?), whether public health concerns should be prioritized over economic, and whether masks should be required in public. answers to these trade-offs appear to fall along partisan lines, so it is worth determining if republican elected officials and democratic elected officials are responding to the crisis in different ways, as they respond to their very different partisan constituencies. political asymmetry and polarization seem more obvious is recent years; however, hare and poole are convinced that “the modern trend to greater polarization can be dated back to the 1964 civil rights act and the 1965 voting rights act” because of the race-related issues (2014, p. 415). new or old, a growing body of empirical work reveals this ideological polarization playing out in a multitude of policy areas, remarkably ranging from climate change (brewer, 2012; clark et al., 2020; dunlap et al., 2016; merkley, 2018), healthcare reform (heinrich & johnson, 2008), and abortion (carmines et al., 2010), to homosexual rights (frank, 2012), religious values (glaeser et al., 2005), and broader concerns about markets and the economy (ura & ellis, 2012). historically, the balance between public health and civil liberties was also a source of conflict in the enforcement of vaccination mandates. at the turn of the 20th century, u.s. local and state authorities faced resistance to vaccines, which led the supreme court to uphold the public health powers of state and local governments (corder et al., 2020). given this research, the political conflict over wearing facial coverings, social distancing, and voting by mail should not come as a surprise, and people might expect that more individuals in republican-controlled states were more likely to have engaged in riskier behaviors when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. voting in person on election day. we seek to test this concept rather than make such an assumption. it is noteworthy that political party preference and the preference for federalism appear to interact. dinan and heckelman demonstrated two factors in this regard: (1) republicans and conservatives are generally more supportive of decentralization than democrats and liberals, and (2) this view is more strongly held by republicans because they sway less based on who controls the federal government whereas democrats are more supportive of decentralization when republicans control the federal government (2020). additionally, the party in control of the state government does not appear to affect the preference for central or subnational control. this dynamic is relevant to the pandemic response because both the public health response (testing, school closures, mask mandates, and restrictions on public gatherings) and running elections have been largely controlled by state governments. specifically, these two policies interacted as numerous states sought to increase access to absentee or early voting ostensibly to keep their citizens safer from covid-19. for example, michigan changed electoral policies to allow anyone who wanted to vote by mail to do so, and the secretary of state mailed out absentee ballot applications to all registered voters (thompson, 2020, july 29), yet instructions to local poll workers were to allow people without a mask to vote even though this was a violation of the statewide mask mandate for indoor spaces. a report from the brennen center for justice detailed the state of play regarding absentee voting laws and efforts during 2020, and documented that 34 states had “no excuse needed” vote by mail available before this global health crisis began (2021). this strongly suggests that non-legislative efforts in many states to encourage absentee voting had a large impact as opposed to new absentee voting laws. for example, at least 19 states mailed out absentee voter registration forms to most possible voters while 9 states mailed actual ballots out to all active registered voters (brennen center for justice, 2021). in contrast, tennessee, texas, and some other states maintained a skeptical policy on absentee/mail-in voting within both primary and general elections (dominguez et al., 2020, p. 1097). on the legal side, several states that were not willing to expand access to mail-in voting were compelled to do so by courts, and 147 out of 182 voting rights cases in the 2020 cycle involved vote-by-mail issues (brennen center for justice, 2021). thus, the theme of this article while triggered by a global pandemic was clearly a major focus of political parties prior to the 2020 general election. in brief, political polarization within the decentralized election system has led political parties to seek voting methods they believe will help them win and the recent supreme court decision upholding arizona’s election laws is an extension of those efforts (reporter of decisions, 2021). 3. methodology four closely related research questions are explored: rq1: did states with a higher proportion of their population voting in person on november 3, 2020, experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election? it stands to reason that a widespread public gathering such as the election would increase caseloads; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. however, an american national election takes place all day long at tens of thousands of locations and so there may be little to no correlation due to the highly dispersed nature of the election. in addition, it is possible that states that did not make voting in advance possible for all voters still managed public safety concerns well at their polling locations. to compare the increase of covid-19 cases for each state to the voters who cast ballots on election day, we used three key variables: covid-19 case increase, election day voting, and state population. case increase: the 7-day average of new covid-19 cases ending on november 3, 2020, and the 7-day average of new covid-19 cases starting on november 10, 2020, were used to calculate the percentage increase from leading into the election to the impact two weeks after the election. covid-19 cases usually take 4-5 days to show up as a positive test results and 1-2 weeks to be reflected in new “confirmed test” results as people with symptoms usually do not get tested immediately (backer et al., 2020; centers for disease control and prevention (cdc), 2021, february 22; lauer et al., 2020). there is admittedly some variability in this timing, yet there is no reason to suspect this would differ from state to state. while it is possible some election-related spread showed up before november 10 or after november 16, the use of rolling averages reduces the importance of testing on any specific date and avoids any overlap with thanksgiving holiday travel. election day voting: the number of people who voted for a presidential candidate in each state minus the number who voted in advance of election day was used to determine how many people likely voted in person on the day of the election. while results have been certified by all 50 states, the actual number of ballots cast is not available across all 50 states and that reported data would have less consistency as it would come from multiple sources. to increase reliability, we utilized sources where data for all 50 states come from the same source, though we acknowledge that election data is still prepared and managed differently throughout the u.s. in fact, these differences are one reason that so much detailed election data is not yet available. one limitation in this research is that data separating vote-by-mail, early in-person voting, day-of-the-election voting, and possible other means for voting is not yet available for most states. thus, we used a binary “voted in person on the day of the election” or “voted using another method” approach as this data is currently available. the most important missing data now is “voting in person in advance of election day,” which is only available for some jurisdictions. state population: the 2019 u.s. census population estimate for each state was used to determine the number who voted in person on november 3 as a percentage of the total state population. this is a more useful measure of the possibility for spreading covid-19 than the “percent of voters who voted in person” because it adjusts for the voting turnout in each state. the data for this research question is also how we determined that over 17% of the u.s. population voted in person on the day of the election, which for this public health purpose is more important than examining the voter turnout was 67% or the percent of voting age population that voted. correlation coefficient analysis was applied to the weekly average cases and voting data to explore the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 46 published by scholink inc. relationships between covid-19 confirmed cases and voting method. rq2: did states with republican governors experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with democratic governors? this research question emerges because there was extensive news coverage in the months leading up to the election showing that republicans were aggressively challenging absentee voting laws in the courts while many democratic states were seeking to expand access to early voting and absentee voting. in addition, corder, mingus, and blinova (2020) demonstrated the partisan state-level dynamics in choosing not to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order (sipos) in spring 2020. this research question seeks to understand if that same dynamic was still at play for the general election roughly six months later. corder et al. demonstrated that democratic controlled states and divided government all produced sipos whereas every state that did not issue a sipo had republican control of the state executive and state senate. this research question examines only the party in control of the executive and thus does not seek to tease out the role of divided government. the primary reason is that there are 24 states with democratic governors and 26 states with republican governors, making for a nice balance from an analytical perspective. to determine if states with governors from each political party had different outcomes regarding the voting methods, a t-test was applied to test whether the percentage of in-person votes on the day of election was significantly different in states with republican versus democratic governors. the earlier correlation analysis was also performed separately for the group of states with governors from each political party. rq3: did states with larger percentages of population living in urban areas experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with smaller percentages of population living in urban areas? it is well known that much of the red state/blue state divide in the u.s. can be described as an urban/rural divide, or at least a large state/small state divide. a catalyst report on the 2020 general election concluded this urban/rural voting divide continues with suburban areas shifting a bit toward the democrats as they also became more racially diverse (ghitza & robinson, 2021). thus, rq2 and rq3 essentially seek to separate political party as a possible explanation from urbanization as a possible explanation, to determine which, if either, has a meaningful correlation with the rate of increase of covid-19 caseloads. rq4: did states with smaller per capita state governments experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with larger per capita state governments? state capacity may impact the ability to manage public health issues during an election, such as following the extensive cdc guidance to maintain safe polling locations. we use the number of state-government ftes per 100,000 residents as a proxy for state capacity. utilizing this to compare state capacity allows for common data sources across all 50 state governments yet comes with the downside of being extremely general. logically, states with higher capacity should have managed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 47 published by scholink inc. polling sites better than states with lower capacity, but per capita spending on elections is not available. partly this reflects how decentralized american election management is with thousands of jurisdictions being involved. the goal is essentially to ask, “did higher capacity states manage the election process better or worse than lower capacity states?” as with urbanization, the purpose of rq4 is to assume that political party control may not be a key factor as determined in the corder et al. study on sipos, or it may simply have been one factor among many with significant correlation to the observed caseload increases. 4. data analysis and discussion shifting to the analysis phase, we present and discuss the analysis in the order of the four research questions. rq1: did states with a higher proportion of their population voting in person on november 3, 2020, experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election? the change in the 7-day rolling average of new covid-19 confirmed cases for the week leading up to the general election (october 27 through november 2) versus two weeks after the election (november 10-16) is significantly positively correlated (r = .3402) at the .05 level with the percentage of the state population that voted by any means (see table 1). this means that where a greater proportion of the population voted, the rate of increase in covid-19 cases was greater than where a lesser proportion of the population voted. however, this finding does not hold when limiting the analysis to the rate of in-person voting on election day. please note that all 50 states experienced caseload increases during this time frame, ranging from hawai’i with a 1% increase to vermont with a 317.6% increase. table 1. correlations of voting methods with covid-19 caseload increase variable correlation with increased covid-19 cases votes not cast in person on november 3 as % of 2019 population estimate -.0265 in person votes on november 3 as % of 2019 population estimate .2003 total votes cast as % of 2019 population estimate .3402* % of total votes cast in person on november 3 .1402 % of total votes not cast in person on november 3 -.1402 note. asterisk (*) means the correlation coefficient is significant at level of 0.05. while the correlation of .3402 between total votes cast and the increase in covid-19 cases represents a moderate relationship, there is not enough evidence to answer “yes” for rq1. this is a surprising finding, and somewhat counterintuitive. why would the rate of increase in covid-19 cases be significantly linked to overall voting as a percentage of the state population, which includes means where people voted without any physical contact, rather than to people who actually voted in person on election day? one possible answer is that available data does not allow us to establish a third category www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 48 published by scholink inc. such as “in person voting in advance of election day.” another possible explanation is that most voting methods carry some risk as many people opted or were required to pick up absentee ballots in person or many people chose to vote in advance in person. additional data usually becomes available 1-2 years after a general election that might allow analysis of such possibilities, at least for a significant subset of states. beyond the scope of this study would be the question of whether people in “more covid-19 cautious states” or states with more covid-19 restrictions in place before the election were simply less likely to vote regardless of the allowable methods for voting, though such dynamics of political culture would be a possible explanation for these findings. examining this possible explanation would require a different methodology entirely and so additional data on the methods of voting that were utilized, if it should become available, would not help assess this possibility. when looking only at states with democratic governors, the correlation for “in-person voting on election day” was significant at the .05 level and was positive at .4370. this was only true for the “overall percentage of population that voted by any means” in states with republican governors, which was significant at the .05 level and was positive at .4331, which is stronger than the .3402 for all 50 states. this leads into rq2, which seeks to determine if democratic governor vs republican governor was a relevant factor. rq2: did states with republican governors experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with democratic governors? at the onset, it is worth noting that the measured rate of increase of covid-19 caseloads had a mean average of 88.4% across all 50 states, 89.7% across all states with a democratic governor, and 87.1% across all states with a republican governor. the standard deviation at .595 was higher among states with republican governors, versus .435 for states with democratic governors, but this is entirely attributed to vermont as an outlier with a 317.6% increase. that standard deviation drops to .372 if vermont is removed, and the next closest state saw a 170.1% increase. the key point is that, on average, the rate of increase of covid-19 was extremely similar during this brief timeframe in states regardless of the governor’s political party. states with democratic governors saw a greater proportion of their population voting for president than states with republican governors (see table 2), and they saw a higher proportion of votes cast as absentee or early votes (see table 3). however, this does not mean that states with governors from either party experienced a more rapid increase in confirmed covid-19 cases after the general election. on this first issue, the p-value of the two-way t-test is 0.0542, which indicates that the two-way t-test is significant at a level of 0.1. moreover, the p-value of the one-way t-test (average percentage of states with democratic governor minus the average percentage of states with republican governor) is 0.0271, which means that the one-way t-test is significant at a level of 0.05. based on these results, states with democratic governors are more likely to have more votes cast for president than states with republican governors as detailed in table 2. this refers to the votes cast as a percentage of the total www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. state population not as a percent of eligible or registered voters because we are focused on this as a public health issue rather than as a voter energy/apathy comparison across the 50 states. table 2. t-test on the percent of total votes cast over the total population by governor’s political party variable observations mean std. err. std. dev. 95% conf. interval d 24 .5115 .0111 .0545 .4885 .5346 r 26 .4828 .0095 .0483 .4633 .5023 combined 50 .4966 .0075 .0529 .4816 .5116 difference .02871 .0145 (.0005) .0579 difference = mean (d) -mean (r) t = 1.9736 h0: diff = 0 degrees of freedom = 48 ha: diff < 0 ha: diff != 0 ha: diff > 0 pr (t< t) = .9729 pr(|t| > |t|) = .0542 pr(t> t) = .0271 on the second issue, the p-value of the two-way t-test is 0.0212, which indicates that the two-way t-test is significant at a level of 0.05. moreover, the p-value of the one-way t-test (average percentage of states with democratic governors minus the average percentage of states with republican governors) is 0.0106, which means that the one-way t-test is significant at a level of 0.05. based on these results, states with democratic governors were more likely to have a greater proportion of voters casting votes before election day as detailed in table 3. while these t-tests confirm the general view that democratic states experienced more voting in general, and better enabled early/absentee voting in particular, these data do not speak to the impact on covid-19 caseloads. they do confirm that states with democratic governors achieved higher rates of participation in the 2020 general election, and thus better adapted to the pandemic from a democratic rights perspective. however, this may have been a byproduct of democratic party energy/mobilization to remove a republican president and thus not related to citizens feeling more protected than in other states. table 3. t-test on the percent of “not in person on the day of the election” votes over the total population by governor’s political party variable observations mean std. err. std. dev. 95% conf. interval d 24 .3319 .2142 .1049 .2876 .3762 r 26 .2605 .0210 .1069 .2173 .3036 combined 50 .2948 .01568 .1109 .2632 .3263 diff .0714 .0157 .0112 .1317 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. diff = mean (d) -mean (r) t = 2.3525 h0: diff = 0 degrees of freedom = 48 ha: diff < 0 ha: diff != 0 ha: diff > 0 pr (t< t) = 0.9894 pr(|t| > |t|) = 0.0212 pr(t> t) = 0.0106 regarding covid-19 caseloads, table 4 presents correlations and their significance among states with governors of each party. these correlations show differences among the two groups of states, and with regard to rq2 these correlations show that case increases were significantly correlated with in-person voting in states with democratic governors yet only with total voting in states with republican governors. this dynamic is at contrast with expectations and thus is worthy of additional research. in particular this may hinge on how, when, and where voting took place in advance of november 3 yet other possibilities may exist. table 4. key correlations separated by r governor and d governor states nature of the correlation democratic governor republican governor votes not cast in person on november 3 as % of 2019 state population estimate to observed covid-19 caseload change -.2808 .1238 in person votes cast on november 3 as % of 2019 state population estimate to observed covid-19 caseload change .4370* .0717 total votes cast as percentage of state population estimate to observed covid-19 caseload change .2515 .4331* estimated state population to confirmed covid-19 cases (weekly new cases average 10-27-2020 to 11-02-2020) .5441* .9197* estimated state population to confirmed covid-19 cases (weekly new cases average 11-10-2020 to 11-16-2020) .5924* .8611* percentage of state population living in urban areas to confirmed covid-19 cases (weekly new cases average 11-10-2020 to 11-16-2020) .2135 .5257* state government ftes per 100,000 population to confirmed covid-19 cases (weekly new cases average 11-10-2020 to 11-16-2020) -.5322* -.5862* note. asterisk(*) means the correlation coefficient is significant at level of 0.05. rq3 and rq4 asked essentially the same question, only with regard to urbanization and state government capacity, as explained in the methodology section. it is well known throughout the political science literature that much of the red state/blue state divide in the u.s. is also an urban/rural divide, or at least a large state/small state divide. thus, rq2 and rq3 essentially seek to separate political party as a possible explanation from population density as a possible explanation. rq4, on the other hand, used state government ftes per 100,000 residents as a proxy for state government capacity, to determine if higher capacity states were better able to protect their populations during this large-scale event. rq4 was thus a more direct test of the effectiveness of public www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. administrators (i.e., election officials) and their ability to mitigate risk. table 4 does show that states with higher capacity experienced lower covid-19 caseloads during this time frame, regardless of the political party of the governor. we performed linear regressions on weekly average new cases for the week of november 10 and november 17 to determine the impact of numbers of votes not cast in person on the day of the election, in-person votes cast on the day of the election, urbanization (percent of the population living in urban areas and percent of the state area that is urban area), and state government capacity. table 5 displays the regression on the weekly average new cases for the week of november 10, 2020 (dependent variable), which covers the new cases confirmed 7 to 14 days after election day. the model is significant as the p-value is 0 and can predict about 53% of the dependent variable's total variance. however, the impact of either the “number of votes not cast in person on the day of the election” or “in-person votes cast on the day of the election” on the dependent variable is minimal, even though they are significant impacts. the parameter estimates for state government capacity is -1.2988, which suggests the number of confirmed cases might decrease by 1.2988 unit as the state government capacity increase by 1 unit. table 5. regression on weekly new cases average 11-10-2020 to 11-16-2020 (dependent variable) source sumof squares degree of freedom mean squares number of observations 50 model 269885201 5 53977040.2 f (5, 44) 12.21 residual 194440777 44 4419108.57 prob > f 0.0000 total 464325978 49 9476040.37 r-squared 0.5812 adj r-squared 0.5337 root mse 2102.2 parameter estimates independent variables coefficient standard error t p > |t| 95% conf. interval # of absentee/early votes .0004 .0002 2.28 .028 .0000 .0007 # of in-person votes .0007 .0003 2.26 .029 .0001 .0014 % of state population living in urban areas 3206.91 2686.097 1.19 .239 -2206.56 8620.383 % of state urban areas -4905.911 3331.907 -1.47 .148 -11620.93 1809.106 state government size/capacity -1.2988 .6025 -2.16 .037 -2.5130 -.0846 constant 1997.014 2088.731 0.96 .344 -2212.545 6206.574 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. table 6 displays the regression on the weekly average new cases for the week of november 17, 2020 (dependent variable), which covers the new cases confirmed 15 to 21 days after election day. the model is significant as the p-value is 0 and can predict about 72% of the total variance of the dependent variable, which is certainly robust. again, however, the impact of voting type, though statistically significant, is minimal. the parameter estimates of urbanization, urban areas, and state government capacity are also statistically significant in this model, with urbanization having a positive impact on the dependent variable (i.e., more population living in urban areas suggests higher caseloads) while urban area and state government capacity have negative impacts on the dependent variable. for instance, the average confirmed new cases would increase by 3773 units as urbanization increases by 1 unit. table 6. regression on weekly new cases average 11-17-2020 to 11-23-2020 (dependent variable) source sum of squares degree of freedom mean squares number of observations 50 model 396906449 5 79387289.8 f (5, 44) 26.18 residual 133404749 44 3031926.1 prob > f 0.0000 total 530311198 49 10822677.5 r-squared 0.7484 adj r-squared 0.7199 root mse 1741.2 independent variables coefficient standard error t p > |t| 95% conf. interval # of absentee/early votes .0006 .0001 3.86 .000 .0003 .0008 # of in-person votes .0009 .0003 3.48 .001 .0004 .0015 % of state population living in urban areas 3773.293 2224.916 1.70 .097 -710.7316 8257.317 % of state urban areas -5256.606 2759.846 -1.98 .054 -11018.71 105.4972 state government size/capacity -1.0765 .4990 -2.16 .036 -2.0823 -.0708 constant 1059.501 1730.113 0.61 .543 -2427.312 4546.314 5. findings and future research as is often the case with research, this preliminary study of covid-19 risk mitigation and the 2020 general election did not yield decisive conclusions. we expected a strong correlation between the percentage of the state population that voted in person and the increase in caseloads after the election www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. yet discovered a moderate correlation with overall voting by any method. we also discovered a difference depending on the political party of the governor that runs contrary to a common assumption. however, information from this study can push deeper research around the impact of voting methods on the provision of public health in the future once more data are available. table 7. summary of findings by research question research question key findings did states with a higher proportion of their population voting in person on november 3, 2020, experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election? the correlation of .3402 between total votes cast and the increase in covid-19 cases represents a moderate relationship, yet there is not enough evidence to answer “yes” because the correlation is not statistically significant when only considering in-person voting on election day. did states with republican governors experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with democratic governors? there was a significant difference between states based on the governor’s political party. when looking only at states with democratic governors, the correlation between in-person voting on election day and the increase in covid-19 cases was significant at the .05 level and was a moderate relationship at .4370. this did not hold for states with republican governors. did states with larger percentages of population living in urban areas experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with smaller percentages of population living in urban areas? the percentage of people living in urban areas shows a moderate and significant relationship with the increase in covid-19 cases after the election, yet only for states with republican governors. this means the more urban republican-led states saw greater caseload increases following the election than the more rural republican-led states. the second regression model confirms the significance of urbanization on total caseloads as well. did states with smaller per capita state governments experience a higher increase in covid-19 caseloads soon after the election than states with larger per capita state governments? there is a significant negative correlation between state capacity and the increase in covid-19 caseloads after the election, regardless of the political party of the governor, and these correlations establish a moderate relationship. this means states with higher per capita state government employment generally saw lower caseload increases after the general election. one suggestion for future research, based on the unexpected finding that increased absentee/alternative voting methods did not appear to protect states from an equal increase in covid-19 cases is the question of whether citizens in “more covid-19 cautious states” were simply less likely to vote regardless of the allowable methods for voting. this a question of political culture or risk culture and is worthy of future exploration. in addition, as time passes more detailed data should be available across all 50 states so that such analysis may be performed at a lower level of government (township, city/village, county). perhaps the most important finding is simply that in-person voting can be managed well from a public health and safety perspective, and that states with greater capacity appear to have mitigated the risk of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 54 published by scholink inc. viral spread better than states with lower capacity. confirmation of these findings could be achieved by examining these issues at the county level so that far more than 50 units are being compared and/or by applying multiple measures of state capacity in future research rather than using one general measure of state capacity. in addition, as stated earlier, future data will likely allow researchers to tease out absentee or electronic voting from in-person advance voting from in-person voting on election day, and also to include factors such as the average number of voters per election polling site. this additional data would allow a more thorough examination of the issue at hand even though it may never be available for all 50 states, and indeed it might draw into question the findings of this preliminary research. circling back to federalism—in a nation so politically divided, it may essentially be hazardous to allow local control (i.e., township, village, city, and/or county) of elections with inconsistent state oversight and minimal national involvement. article 1, section 4, of the u.s. constitution states, “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations….” the intent of this delegation was to protect americans from a tyrannical national government, yet the current threat may be allowing tens of thousands of partisan local officials a hand in the process and outcomes. this issue has essentially emerged because most state governments heavily delegated the power provided to them by the u.s. constitution; however, congress could assert more control through the legislative process. rather than 51 closely monitored electoral systems, now that the district of columbia votes for the presidency, the u.s. has thousands of jurisdictions each more or less seeking to follow relevant state laws and regulations. this adds to the challenge faced by the current study, which examined data from 50 states, because the consistency within individual states varies significantly. while perhaps moving too far from the public health focus of this research, this inconsistency may allow for partisan political opportunism or interference in the administration of elections and may have reached the tipping point where congress should get involved. on the other hand, as reasonable people would point out, it would be foolhardy to think that congress is somehow less partisan in the current politically polarized american environment. acknowledgement this research was funded in part by a western michigan university meader presidential endowment covid-19 response grant through the office of research and innovation. references backer, j. a., klinkerberg, d., & wallinga, j. 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(1908). the states and the federal government. north american review, clxxxvii, 684-701. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 100 original paper decomposing the cognition-influential aspects of instructional designs a systematic review of induced causal relationships by the constructional components of the direct instruction and productive failure designs bin wu1 1 faculty of education, east china normal university, shanghai, china received: june 17, 2023 accepted: october 05, 2023 online published: october 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p100 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p100 abstract a substantial debate on the effectiveness of two instructional designs, namely “productive failure (pf)” and “direct instruction (di)” has been prolonged for almost two decades. indeed, from many studies we have seen if being deliberately designed and carried out, then both designs can be sophisticated not only in instructional procedures but also in how each function takes effect on learning. the constituting components could each be specified preceding the instruction as a design, but these activities carry its own goal in facilitating learning. in this article, we summarized the reasoning in the specifications of connection, construction and criticization. thus, from our review, we debated how instructional stages, problem-led learning and failure-driven learning can each deliver good outcomes for learners. keywords productive failure, direct instruction, learning stages, self-explanation, conceptual change, failure-driven learning 1. introduction though there is a rich source of investigations about the mechanism and result of the instructional designs “productive failure” and “direct instruction”, we should emphasize more that designs themselves have involved multiple goals and multiple activities. “complex learning tasks and environments—particularly those implementing problem-based learning or inquiry learning approaches—usually require learner participation in various learning activities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 101 with different specific goals that could be different from the immediate acquisition of domain-specific schemas.” (kalyuga & singh, 2016, p. 834) hence, from the perspective of cognitive psychology and cognitive neurobiology, we appeal to disjunctively evaluate the underlying functions, goals, approaches, and effectiveness of the activities. the effectiveness of instructional design lies underneath the summation of every specification within the design. interpret empirical results from a sophisticated instructional design involving multiple activities and goals would lead to the loss of focus on the original discussion upon any ascertained beneficial learning outcome. that infers the comparison between “productive failure” and “direct instruction” should not be limited to comparing the overall learning results, mainly because the dependent measurements were too subjective, global, retrospective, turbulent, and harmonic to be steadily taken as a futural indication for the effectiveness of learning. one can extract four pairs of instructional ideology competition from a comparison between the instructional designs of “productive failure” and “direct instruction”, namely a failure-based instruction versus plain message inculcation; uncertain problem-driven learning versus a reduction of learning procedures; a puzzling exploration versus passive absorption of knowledge (laurillard, 2013; mor & craft, 2012); and it might just be a competition of instructional sequence (loibl et al., 2017; stockard et al., 2018). conventional studies use empirical data in illustrating one or a few results among these competitions to infer the preponderance, however, because of the participation of various learning activities, to prove the superiority of any one of them needs to separately answer for each of these competitions. in negotiating the benefits of instruction, one should take more perspective from a cognitive point of view to express how the expected learning is constructed. roth (1963, as cited in seel et al., 2017) specified eight categories of learning goals, in the debate of instructional fulfillment, shall the goal and learning fulfillment need to be clearly stated and manifested to justify its success. 2. connection both “failure-driven” and example-instruction designs, if to be implemented successfully, demand the ability to trace and attribute back and forth, internally represent and organize knowledge relationships, a termed ability called “structural understanding” (hiebert & carpenter, 1992). to a minimal extent, it needs to induce the formation of subconscious impressions toward subsequent perception (hamilton et al., 1980) and in guidance of the perception (chartrand & bargh, 1996) during the instruction phase. the crosstalk between activities by identifying the involuntary application of the mapped stimulus-response (s-r) rule is in supportive of it. similarly, congruency between tasks would speed up response performance (meiran, 1996). a prerequisite of ‘linkage’ is its correctness (burke & kass, 1996). so just verifying the capability of the brain to produce impact is not sufficient, we also would need to understand how the impact is linked. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 102 a typical illustration of the functionality of linkage is “self-explanation”. “self-explanation” is a critical process for promoting transfer (aleven & koedinger, 2002) or the learning of canonical procedures (pine & messer, 2000). the amount and quality of self-explanation are facilitative for the acquisition of cognitive skills (siegler, 2002). a provision of cognitive or meta-cognitive (facilitation upon self-explanation) scaffolding is beneficial (holmes et al., 2014; loibl & rummel, 2014). here the ‘self-explanation’ could also signify a much implicit and non-verbal process in which the brain automatically fills in any missing concepts or experiences that were previously acquired. it evokes the meta-cognitive construction of knowledge. learning is dependent on individual understanding of problem-related fields and thus builds fresh causal relation logic. the investigation of the “self-explanation effect” has exhibited that the constitution of self-explanation includes awareness of self-knowledge, and analogies to refer to previously learned knowledge (chi & vanlehn, 1991). when learners encounter an impasse, the use of self-explanation enables them to acquire domain knowledge (vanlehn et al., 1992). bielaczyc and colleagues (1995) reasoned the mechanism for self-explanation typically connected the observations or attempts with the concepts and used strategies in interpreting and elaborating the instructional contents into a more integrated and coherent form, or a disposition in perception. they reasoned the facilitative function of self-explanation: “(a) concepts and procedures are more memorable because multiple retrieval cues exist; (b) specific memories are created that match the conditions of use for a problem-solving skill (e.g., goals achieved by the skill, contexts in which the skill applies), and (c) inferences about and applications of a skill in new contexts are more easily accomplished because the self-explanations make explicit the underlying rational for the skill (p. 248)”. the presence of previous knowledge and observations are supportive, meta-cognitively the brain takes the aid by the cue to locate any useful piece of information to fill in the gap between the problem state and the current state, and hence any processing of knowledge utilizes the process of implicit self-explanation to call back many foreshadowing information, and hence they could be integrated into a large knowledge chunk, which essentially has many underlying concepts. 3. construction prior knowledge is an interface for the clashing of the schemas. an activation of schema signifies the access of the prior knowledge and the process of storage or retrieval (sweller, 1988). generating a solution on one’s own is based on the activation of the prior knowledge (loibl et al., 2017). the access process to prior knowledge to modify or utilize is different from its initial encoding (hampshire et al., 2019). schemas need to be integrated, competed, interlinked, and self-generalized when it comes to its activation. the process of brainstorming reveals learners accesses any available knowledge, make use of what has come to be activated, and then actively modifies it via all kinds of accessibility to the schemas (kapur & bielaczyc, 2012). what has been activated would decide the learners’ perspective of the material, in explaining the importance of prior knowledge for expertise, simply lack of prior www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 103 knowledge makes learners lose some perspectives, or the capacity to generate some of those more efficient activation links, which resembles how the experts would see it (chi et al., 1988). letting learners to problematize will provide an opportunity for learners to recognize potential accessibility of previously acquired schemas. being exposed to too much information at too early a time point is believed to hinder the learners’ inquiry (hiebert et al., 1996) since it reduces potential approaches the brain acquires another approach to access schemas. for example, the black and white discrepancy on a chessboard may provide little aid to novices, yet for the experts, it provides extra strategic value by exhibiting which of all the opponent's pieces are within a range of easy approaches. “residue” refers to the remaining form of approaches to the schemas or schemas themselves that failed to be acquired (davis, 1992), it defines the scale of utilization of schemas. a singular problem would only provide a narrowed scope of problem which needs few schemas and a shallow utilization of it. but multi-ends problematizing process would allow learners to inspect the accessibility more thoroughly, for example to establish the understanding of one concept by the analogy of another concept that was never thought of, thus filling up the potential residues. layperson always would have their initial naïve schema to alter from, typically when presented with an abnormality or conflict (mortimer & machado, 2000). so, the knowledge intaking is not a process of information intaking but to reconstruct by using preexisting schemas, to reestablish its logical pathways. skills are merely taught to be re-applied in novel areas, a change of accessibility, instead of the skills themselves being taught (youseff-shalala et al., 2014). instruction is to develop learners’ knowledge in conformity with masters or scientists. however, the process of how a novice learner would change their original concept and construct upon it is even more complicated, for the evidence from the resiliency of the mistaken concept (kozhevnikov & hegarty, 2001). artificially inserting schemas without establishing a good foundation for it to construct interlinkage and integration can lead to a devastating interference, because of its resilience, a factitiously introduced early concept can also restrain the subsequent concept the learner ought to be able to derive from instruction (dunbar et al., 2007). new knowledge assimilation would interfere with earlier knowledge if the prior knowledge were incompatible with the new knowledge, by investing their meta-cognition (prediger, 2008; müller et al., 2008). the comparison of apprentices and experts shows that the deviation is either caused by their possession of prior knowledge (larkin et al., 1980; chi et al., 1982) or caused by some domain-specific cognitive functional differences, such as more advanced inhibition to the competing options than novices (dunbar et al., 2007), easier in recognizing the gap to the canonical solutions (eva & regehr, 2011), more capable in attend to the deep feature of a problem (chi et al., 1982), and more automatic activation of schemas. novices observe and imitate an expert role model (bernieri, 1991). as a result, learners' original schema is rewritten and reconstructed to interact with the new knowledge system and produce a difference and contrast with the original schema structure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 104 some argue the activation and access of schema is through implicit automatic activation of episodic memory causing learners to extract previous observational experience rather than the information itself (schmidt et al., 2016). the resilience of learning does elicit the concern that for instruction, what could have been done to ascertain the activation and access to the schemas, when it comes to use, specific target content and interlinkage can be evoked or at least to be tracked. 4. criticization “problem-based learning (pbl)” design involves the instructor’s guidance, such as clarification, emphasis, elaboration, or hints (puntambekar & hübscher, 2005). it gives just-in-time support in learners’ problem-solving (wood et al., 1976) to foster successful problem-solving. it also induces curiosity (sinha, 2022). enhancing the resemblance of the self-generated solutions with the canonical solution, typically evoked by guided problem-solving, is bonded with the benefits of learning (wiedmann et al., 2012). some argue that the guidance in pbl curtailed any suboptimal solutions learners may develop, so more or less comes at the expense of the depth of the learner’s solution (kapur, 2016; soderstorm & bjork, 2015). another argument is to devote to make the failures that can occur in problem solving revealed as much as possible, and to make allowances among instructional designs for these failures. “ps-i designs are usually aimed at introducing new concepts to novices in a domain. therefore, they typically have high failure rates even without any failure-scaffolding. this naturally leads to the question of whether there is an added efficacy of explicit scaffolding prior to instruction. (sinha & kapur, 2021a, p. 1)” the conjecture of whether difficulties, with a by-product of confusion, are detrimental or beneficial is still ongoing even to this date (arguel et al., 2017). success-driven scaffolding during problem only withstand a short-term privilege (kapur, 2011). the theory of ‘desirable difficulties’ (schmidt & bjork, 1992) states that during the initial learning, increasing the complexity or variability of tasks, issuing problems in an unguided situation, or withdrawing the feedback a learner ought to receive: these approaches seem to hinder learning outcomes at first blush, but could be beneficial for longer-term (kapur, 2016). difficulty in problems can enhance learning outcomes (d’mello et al., 2014). a perception of difficulty or confusion can trigger more active rethinking of strategies or to sort out the obstacles (d’mello & graesser, 2012). a framework called the zone of optimal confusion (zoc) was raised by graesser (2011) for negotiating the essentiality of restraining the difficulty within a range. a difficulty is designated to facilitate the building of sophisticated understanding (kennedy & lodge, 2016). some easy abilities such as adding and subtracting multidigit numbers can be conducted without explicit instruction, this infers a potentiality among learners called “derivational knowledge” (vanlehn et al., 1992). learners can still execute a procedure and perform tasks even if they do not understand (hiebert & wearne, 1997). and such a capability fulfilled the basic need within a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 105 difficulty-provoked problem-solving task, to generate a needed solution even before any engagement with some of its relative concepts (klahr & nigam, 2004). learners have the capability to generate solutions, as shown in lesh and harel (2003), scilicet the capability to initiatively construct knowledge (disessa & sherin, 2000). however, generally thinking of a solution in solving the problem doesn’t necessarily imply they can detect the underlying model (van joolingen et al., 2005), and learners invented solutional procedures have a high potential of being flawed. witnessed benefit from unguided problem-solving may be caused by an active interaction and processing of problem components, rather than caused by failure (loibl & rummel, 2014). hence the use of guidance is to ensure learners not only can come up with a solution but can also make sense of it. even if we can resolve the essentialness of guidance or not, a major “doable” question remains for the failure-drive problem-solving technique. it first needs a settlement in whether a learner who came up with a suboptimal solution can be regarded as failed if they believe it is the optimal one. then, it is noteworthy that having in one’s mind that a solution is already been found, is very controversial with the idea that one is not be able to achieve the requirement of a problem, which is to generate a solution. if told being failure, then it would be another issue to discuss how come the generation process would just stop there and accept a doomed failure, instead of rather to keep on looking. interpretation of the mechanism of failure helps to understand its necessity to be embedded in problem-solving. failure could help learners comprehend things that are not immediately apparent through self-explanation and reflection (sinha & kapur, 2021b). pyc and rawson (2010) proposed the role of earlier-occurred errors as a midway beacon for learners to follow the lead from the correct procedure and save some of the dead-end competitive steps. hence only objective-related failures instead of the irrelevant failures can cause aid to subsequent recall (huelser & metcalfe, 2012; grimaldi & karpicke, 2012). failure would facilitate the retrieval of both the episodic experience of the correct answer and the wrong one (jacoby & wahlheim, 2013). the novelty part of failure-causing rationale would be regarded as a ‘remanent’ factor if mismatched again with the representation (öhman, 1992), then regardless of the portion already being corrected, the remainder would still call for correction. that is to say, if learners get to remember in the first place the notion that ‘there has been a need for correction’ from their previously believed-in concepts, more likely they will encode the information that follows (wahlheim & jacoby, 2013). just like the argument in ‘prediction error’ which noted that a discrepancy between the learner’s expected result of a solution/answer and the actual answer is key to drifting the attention toward the unexpected gap in-between (lodge et al., 2018). rather than a failure situation, facilitating learners towards a suboptimal solution instead of an optimal one caused better conceptual understanding (sinha et al., 2021). because of the help-seeking characteristics of learners, hence, the learner may as well skip any profound failure-driven exploration, and deep thinking as well, but directly skip to the instruction. therefore, it might be as well effective to deliver the suboptimal solution as a compensation. another possible maneuver is to explicitly encourage learners themselves to make mistakes, meta-analysis has revealed the advantage of such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 106 intervention in transfer (keith & frese, 2008). both approaches seemly have opened the scope of failure-driven scaffolding rather than the conventional negative disdain of the process of making the error. 5. conclusion just as we demonstrated, there remains much to debate in the specification of instructional design. by the view from the cognitive psychology, before we implement an ecological experiment, many has to be reasoned and verified. in this article we introduced how is that possible that multiple-stage instructional design would elicit learning effect of its own; how the storage and accessibility of schemas are in accordance with the constructed chain of activation, maybe it is attributed to the expertise of the learners, but it could also be from the instruction: problematization elicits an expansion of the accessibility network of the schema; and how the failure and difficult induced for the purpose of confusion would impact on learners’ experience. the topics we have covered is merely a small portion of the designated specifications among the ‘productive failure’ instructional designs. we argue that if one bears a purpose to convey the benefit of the “productive failure” instructional designs, or in fact any kind of instructional design, then there is must to decompose the specification into smaller cognition-inducing units, to first make clear what could be expected if, not the switch of entire type of instruction, but merely addition of the small change in learning, could bring forth to the learning. nevertheless, in this article, what we actually discussed is still very insightful to persuade the “productive failure” design, the unique view angle permits us to convey a more detailed persuasion: learners extend their self-explanation in a two-stage instruction, what is experienced during free exploration makes foundation for the instruction stage, when the instructional given, any unclearly delivered knowledge can be compensated by learner’s inner tracing back to the observation during problem-solving stage; rather than simply absorbing the knowledge, problematizing it allows learners to expand the use of knowledge, generate more analogies, and thus extend the potential accessibility of the schemas; learners could generate useful thoughts in spite of difficulties, to facilitate the learner during their problem-solving is at a cost. however, failure experience is not an easy specification to implement, a major problem is the contradiction between failure and the perceived successfulness in finding any solutions. it is possible that failure-driven benefit is just superficial, a flawed and scripted sub-optimal solution does not necessarily bring about just the awareness of knowledge gap. therefore, we appeal that more insights are needed from futural studies. references aleven, v., & koedinger, k. r. 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(2014). using a general problem-solving strategy to promote transfer. journal of experimental psychology. applied, 20(3), 215-231. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000021 1 faculty of education, east china normal universi advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 34 original paper the connotation and realization conditions of the all-round development of human freedom：an investigation based on marx’s classic texts renyin li1 1 school of marxism, sichuan normal university, chengdu, sichuan province 610066, china fund project general project of humanities and social sciences research of the ministry of education “a study on the humanistic value of the xi jinping’s thought on socialism with chinese characteristics for the new era” (19yjc710032) received: april 17, 2024 accepted: may 11, 2024 online published: may 31, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p34 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p34 abstract human freedom is the ultimate goal of marxism, marx started from the perspective of social production, social division of labor and private ownership, scientifically revealed the inevitability of the all-round development of human beings, and systematically and scientifically expounded the freedom and liberation of human beings from the “slave-like division of labor”, the formation of the “association of free people”, and the real realization of the leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. an in-depth analysis of the rich connotation of marx's free and all-round development and excavation of its contemporary value are of great guiding significance for comprehensively promoting chinese-style modernization and realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation in the new era. keywords full development of human freedom, basic connotation, implementation conditions from the “1844 economic and philosophical manuscripts” to “capital”, “<critique of political economy > introduction” and the “critique of political economy (1857-1858 manuscripts)”, the focus of marx's research gradually shifted to the field of political economy, especially the establishment of the labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value, which provided political economy arguments for exploring and solving the one-sided development of human beings under the capitalist mode of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 35 production, and made the theory of the comprehensive development of human freedom increasingly mature and perfect. 1. the connotation of the all-round development of human freedom the all-round development of human freedom mainly refers to the process and realm of coordinated development and general improvement in the communist society, in which every individual completely gets rid of internal and external shackles and restrictions, and achieves coordinated development and general improvement in human labor, human personality, and human social relations. man becomes a whole, free man, a harmoniously developed man, that is, the essential power of man as an end in itself, fully developed, that is, marx said: “man takes possession of his own comprehensive essence in a comprehensive way, that is to say, as a complete person”. (note 1) 1.1 the free development of human labor marx considered labor to be “a public demonstration of the essential power of man”. (note 2) it is a free, conscious material practice activity. in capitalist society, due to the old social division of labor and the existence of private ownership, labor has become a means for capitalists to enslave workers, and workers can only endure cruel exploitation in order to maintain their physical survival, so labor has become an unfree and unconscious activity. under what circumstances, then, can man regain the free, conscious nature of labor? in this regard, marx pointed out: “labor of material production acquires this character only if: (1) labor is of a social character; (2) this kind of labor is scientific and at the same time general labor, and this kind of labor is not the nervous activity of man who is rigidly trained by natural forces in a certain way, but the tense activity of man as a subject, which is not purely natural and naturally forms in the process of production, but appears in the process of production as the kind of activity that governs all natural forces.” (note 3) the so-called social nature of labor, that is, people in a free association, jointly use the means of production for labor activities, and the productive capacity is completely under the common control of people. the scientific nature of labor mainly refers to the fact that people, as the main body of labor, completely get rid of the slavery and shackles of nature and freely dispose of their own labor behavior and labor ability in the production activities that transform nature. 1.2 the all-round development of human capacities from the perspective of the relationship between man’s various abilities and man’s all-round development, marx first emphasized man's intelligence and physical strength. because man is a person who engages in the practical activities of material production, any activity of man is an exhaustion of physical and intellectual strength. marx repeatedly emphasized that “the worker's own physical and intellectual strength.” (note 4) “the exertion of labor is labor, which consumes a certain amount of muscles, nerves, brains, and so on.” (note 5) he also pointed out: “we understand the labor power or the ability to work as the sum total of the physical and intellectual abilities that exist in the human body, that is, in the living human body, and which are used whenever a person produces some kind of use www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 36 value.” (note 6) in addition to human intelligence and physical strength, it also includes: human natural force, vitality, etc., in this regard, marx pointed out: human beings are “natural forces, vitality, and active natural beings; these powers exist in man as gifts and talents, as desires”; (note 7) human emotion, willpower, knowledge, and so on. in short, the all-round development of human ability contains many contents, but in marx’s view, the most important thing is human physical strength and intelligence. 1.3 the all-round development of human social relations “social relationships actually determine how far a person can develop.” (note 8) the enrichment of human social relations is a full demonstration of the all-round development of human beings. it was from the perspective of the development of human social relations that marx examined the three stages of human development. in the first stage based on human dependence, man’s productive and active capacity is limited to a narrow range, and in the stage of man’s independence based on material dependence, man’s social interaction expands to various fields. individual activities have broken through the narrow restrictions of countries, regions, and nations, and the exchange of material and spiritual production has been carried out extensively throughout the world; at this stage, the productive forces have developed rapidly, the commodity economy has become increasingly prosperous, and the general exchange of commodities has linked people in various fields and levels, and people’s social relations have also been enriched and developed, but due to the enslavement and bondage of human beings by capitalist production relations, which restricts the free and all-round development of human beings, the vast majority of people in society are increasingly impoverished and deformed. only by eradicating the roots of capitalist private ownership, “on the premise of the universal development of the productive forces and the general development of the related world exchanges”, (note 9) in a communist society, the social relations of man are enriched and developed in an all-round way under the common control of the people, and the free and all-round development of man can be realized. 1.4 the free and all-round development of the human personality the free and all-round development of personality is the concentrated embodiment of the development of man's essential strength in the individual. in a class society, the development of people's personality is limited by class relations, “their personality is conditioned and determined by very specific class relations”. (note 10) as members of class society, the individual's freedom of individuality is enjoyed only within the ruling class, and the broad masses of the working people are excluded. marx once criticized that in bourgeois society, the individuality of the laborer is stifled and he has completely lost himself, he pointed out: “the domination of the individual by the relationship of things and the suppression of individuality by chance have taken the sharpest and most common form” (note 11) and only in the communist society does the class cease to exist, and the social relationship is no longer an alien force that dominates people, but has become a form of realizing the freedom of human individuality under the common control of people. “it is the individual who acquires the means to develop his faculties in full development, that is to say, it is only in the community that individual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 37 freedom is possible. …… under the conditions of a true community, each man acquires his own freedom in and through his own union.” (note 12) 2. conditions for the realization of the full development of human freedom in his works such as “german ideology” and “capital”, marx not only comprehensively expounded the historical process of human development and the connotation of man’s free and all-round development, but also explored the conditions for the realization of man’s free and all-round development. 2.1 the elimination of private ownership and the social division of labor according to marx, capitalist private ownership is the root cause of human alienation. under the conditions of private ownership, the ruling class, which accounts for a very small minority of the population, occupies the vast majority of the material wealth and other social resources in society, and the polarization is serious, and the broad masses of laborers are deprived of the conditions and opportunities for development. “private property makes us stupid and one-sided, so that an object exists only when it is owned by us, that is to say, but it exists as capital to us, or when it is directly appropriated by us, eaten, drank, clothed, housed, etc., in short, is ours when it is used by us, even though private property itself regards all this direct realization of appropriation as mere means of life, and the kind of life for which they serve as means is the life of private property—labor and capitalization.” (note 12) to achieve the free development of man, it is necessary to eradicate capitalist private ownership. at the same time, the elimination of the old social division of labor is a comprehensive social condition for the realization of human freedom. marx believed that the social division of labor is the product of the development of the productive forces to a certain stage, which objectively promotes the development of the productive forces and provides a material basis for the all-round development of man, but under the capitalist system, workers are engaged in heavy labor all their lives, and their bodies and minds are greatly damaged, hindering the all-round development of man. marx pointed out that the big machine industry “turns man into a deformity, it suppresses the various production aspirations and production talents of the workers, artificially cultivates the one-sided skills of the workers”, (note 13) and “in fact produces the skills of some workers”. (note 14) therefore, the elimination of the old social division of labor is a prerequisite for the realization of the free and comprehensive development of human beings. 2.2 the need for alienation is eliminated according to marx, “their needs, that is, their nature, and the way in which they seek satisfaction, bind them.” (note 14) the needs of the working masses include not only the needs of survival, but also the needs of spiritual and development, and the purpose of social production is to satisfy the needs of the people. through the investigation of capitalist relations of production and the mode of production, marx exposed, on the one hand, that the capitalists distorted the needs of the proletariat in order to extract more surplus value, and restricted the multifaceted development of its needs. on the other hand, the fallacy of the national economists defending the bourgeoisie is revealed, marx noted: “(1) he www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 38 reduced the needs of the workers to the maintenance of the most necessary and miserable physical life, and the activities of the workers to the most abstract mechanical movements; thus it is said that man has no other need for activity or enjoyment; for he even proclaimed such a life as the life and existence of man. (2) he takes living (survival) as far as possible as a criterion of calculation, and it is a universal criterion; i say universal standard because it suits most people. he transforms the worker into a being without feeling and need, just as he transforms the worker's activity into a mere abstraction from which all activity is extracted. therefore, any extravagance of the worker is unforgivable in his sight, and everything that goes beyond the most abstract need—whether passive enjoyment or active performance—is a luxury in his opinion.” (note 15) furthermore, marx proposed that the elimination of the alienation of needs and the enrichment of human needs are the primary conditions for the realization of the free and comprehensive development of human beings. 2.3 the realization of a communist society through the investigation and analysis of the basic laws of the historical development of human society and the capitalist relations of production, marx believed that replacing the capitalist society and establishing an association of free people, that is, a communist society, is the only way and the fundamental way to realize the free and all-round development of human beings. he pointed out: “in place of the old bourgeois society, in which there were classes and class antagonisms, there will be a union in which the free development of each is the condition for the development of all”. (note 16) in a communist society, private ownership and class antagonism disappear, the social division of labor no longer exists, and labor becomes a free and conscious activity of man. the development of equality and freedom of each person, the full display of man's free personality, and the great enrichment of social relations. the free and all-round development of human beings has been truly realized. marx pointed out that “in a communist society, no one has a special sphere of activity, but can develop in any sector, and society regulates the whole of production, so that it is possible for me to do this today and that tomorrow as i wish, hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, animal husbandry in the evening, and criticism after dinner, so that i will not always be a hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.” (note 17) notes note 1. “the complete works of marx and engels" (vol. 42) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p.123. note 2. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 42) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p. 128. note 3. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 30) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p. 123. note 4. “selected works of marx and engels” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1995, p. 44. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 39 note 5. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 23) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1972, p. 194. note 6. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 30) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p. 190. note 7. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 42) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p. 167. note 8. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 3) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1960, p. 295. note 9. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 3) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1960, p. 39. note 10. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 3) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1960, p. 515. note 11. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 3) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1960, p. 515. note 12. “selected works of marx and engels” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1995, p. 119. note 13. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 47) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1979, p. 216. note 14. “capital” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1975, p. 339. note 15. “capital” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1975, p. 337. note 16. “the complete works of marx and engels” (vol. 3) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1960, p. 514. note 17. “the collected works of marx and engels” (vol. 2) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 2009, p. 226. note 18. “selected works of marx and engels” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1995, p. 294. note 19. “selected works of marx and engels” (vol. 1) [m]. beijing: people's publishing house, 1995, p. 85. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 188 original paper research on the problems and countermeasures of cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges xuri shen1 1 hainan vocational university of science and technology, haikou, hainan, china received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 03, 2025 online published: december 18, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p188 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p188 abstract in the current era of accelerating globalization, the construction of cultural connotations in english teaching has become a key factor in enhancing the quality of language education. as the main carrier of global business and academic exchanges, english is not only a language tool but also carries a rich cultural value system. it is worth noting that in the vocational education system of our country, there has long been a phenomenon of the lack of cultural dimensions in english teaching. this structural defect directly leads to learners showing obvious "functional barriers" in cross-cultural communication practices: from inaccurate language expression at the basic level, to misjudgments in social etiquette at the deeper level, and even to severe failure in cross-cultural communication. this situation urgently requires educators to re-examine the strategic position of cultural elements in language teaching and through a systematic cultural teaching system reconstruction, fundamentally improve students' cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural communication skills. from the perspective of educational practice, strengthening cultural introduction is not only an important supplement to the traditional teaching model, but also a necessary way to cultivate versatile talents with international competitiveness. its theoretical construction value and practical guiding significance have been widely recognized by the academic community. keywords english teaching, vocational colleges, cultural introduction 1. introduction in the current digital era, the rapid development of information technology has created unprecedented convenient conditions for cross-cultural communication on a global scale. with the widespread and deepening of computer technology, multimedia applications, and internet infrastructure, people from different regions, cultural backgrounds, and social classes can break through time and space limitations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 189 to engage in efficient interaction. this technology-driven globalization trend not only significantly increases the frequency and depth of interpersonal communication, but also places higher demands on language skills, especially on english proficiency as the international lingua franca. in this context, english teaching has shifted from being merely a language learning process to a key bridge for promoting international understanding and cooperation. its strategic value is increasingly prominent in various fields such as academia, business, and diplomacy, and has become an indispensable core component of the contemporary education system. in the context of globalization, cultivating professional talents with cross-cultural communication skills has become the core mission of english education. the vigorous development of cross-cultural research is not only driven by the demands of the times but also by the nature of the discipline itself. language, as the carrier of culture, its teaching should essentially be a deep-level cultural transmission. the modern english education community has reached a consensus: mere language skills training is far from sufficient to cope with multicultural scenarios. only by systematically enhancing learners' cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural adaptability can the ultimate value of language education be achieved. this understanding is continuously promoting the improvement of the cross-cultural communication theory system and the innovation of practical models, making the research in this field demonstrate unprecedented academic vitality and social significance. language, as an important carrier and core manifestation form of culture, its essential attributes determine that language teaching must inevitably incorporate cultural dimensions. in english teaching practice, cultural teaching should not be regarded as an additional component, but should be regarded as the fundamental support for the cultivation of language abilities. from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the formation of language structure is intrinsically consistent with cultural thinking patterns. this requires english teachers to integrate relevant cultural background explanations into the regular teaching processes such as vocabulary explanations and grammar analysis, so that students can truly understand the internal logic of language phenomena from the perspective of cultural cognition. this cultural teaching should not merely focus on the introduction of surface knowledge, but should emphasize revealing the cultural norms and thinking paradigms behind language usage, enabling learners to gradually establish deep cross-cultural communication abilities. compared to simple language skill training, this teaching method that integrates cultural dimensions can better cultivate language users with cultural sensitivity and practical communication skills, which is precisely the core value orientation advocated by modern foreign language education concepts. 2. the current situation of vocational english teaching our vocational colleges are facing multiple structural challenges in the field of english education, which exhibit a distinct systematic characteristic: firstly, the government has a significant lack of support and investment in vocational education policies; secondly, the construction of the teaching staff lags behind the teaching demands, and the professional quality of teachers urgently needs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 190 improvement; thirdly, the student group composition is complex, with significant differences in learning foundation and psychological development imbalance. this special educational ecosystem directly leads to the english cultural teaching in vocational colleges falling into a systemic predicament. currently, not only is there a lack of specialized english cultural teaching theory monographs specifically for vocational colleges, but there are even fewer cultural introduction practice research based on the characteristics of vocational education students. under this background, english cultural teaching is generally in a fragmented state, and students can only rely on the scattered cultural knowledge explanations of teachers to understand the cultural connotations behind the language. particularly seriously, the already weak english foundation of vocational school students severely restricts their cultural comprehension ability, and this situation has been confirmed through multiple english cultural literacy assessment data of vocational colleges. from the perspective of educational ecology, this absence of cultural teaching not only affects the language acquisition effect, but may also restrict the cultivation of students' cross-cultural communication ability, ultimately forming a vicious cycle of educational predicament. in the current vocational education system, the weak status of the english cultural literacy cultivation link has become a key factor restricting the development of comprehensive talent quality. influenced by their school positioning, vocational colleges generally have a tendency to focus on practical skills training rather than humanistic education. this teaching orientation directly leads to the english classroom overly focusing on instrumental language training and neglecting the imparting of cultural connotations. the strong pressure of practical training courses has made language and culture teaching become marginalized. it lacks systematic course settings, professionalized faculty allocation, and special investment in teaching resources. some educational managers still view cultural education at the superficial supplementary level and fail to realize the core value of cross-cultural communication ability in the modern vocational education system. this structural imbalance not only hinders the deep development of language teaching but also fundamentally weakens students' competitiveness in responding to international workplace demands. in-depth research on the reform path of english cultural teaching in the vocational education context is not only an urgent need to break through the current talent cultivation bottleneck but also a forward-looking layout for the future global talent market. 3. cultural introduction 3.1 the concept of cultural introduction in the development process of linguistic theory research, the cultural import theory, as an important teaching concept, has its academic origin traced back to the pioneering research of early scholars. the core proposition of this theory lies in the fundamental assumption that cultural factors have a decisive influence on the effect of second language acquisition, and it constructs a systematic cultural import model framework based on social psychology theory. the interpretation of this concept by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 191 academic community presents diversified understanding dimensions, among which representative academic viewpoints include the theoretical demonstration of the integration of cultural elements in language teaching from the perspective of cross-cultural differences, and the emphasis on achieving the organic integration of language knowledge and cultural background in english teaching practice, through this innovative integration of teaching models, ultimately cultivating learners with comprehensive language application abilities that meet the requirements of cross-cultural communication contexts. contemporary language education research further deepens the understanding of the cultural import mechanism, regarding it as a necessary link and important approach to achieving language teaching goals. in the field of english education, cultural import is a systematic and multi-dimensional teaching practice, which goes beyond merely superficially acknowledging cultural differences, but constructs a comprehensive educational system that includes cognitive understanding, emotional cultivation, and practical action. from the cognitive perspective, this process requires learners to acquire cultural knowledge through diversified channels and deeply understand the commonalities and characteristics between their own culture and other cultures; in the emotional dimension, it is necessary to guide learners to complete the reformation of values, cultivate an open and inclusive cultural mindset, and face cultural diversity with an attitude of equal respect; ultimately, these theoretical cognition and emotional experiences will be transformed into practical language application abilities, enabling learners to demonstrate their cultural literacy with ease in cross-cultural communication. this trinity of cultural teaching paradigm not only enriches the connotation of language teaching, but also cultivates modern citizens with a global perspective. the deep connotation of culture is mainly reflected in the value system, spiritual beliefs, and traditional customs passed down through generations that it contains. among them, value concepts constitute the most essential core of culture, and it is this internal value orientation difference that leads to the differentiation and manifestation of diverse cultures. this spiritual-level value recognition and ideological norms not only shape the behavioral patterns of specific groups, but also fundamentally determine the fundamental distinctions between different civilization systems, making each culture exhibit its unique spiritual temperament and worldview expression. 3.2 the cultural introduction content in the practice of english teaching in vocational schools, the imparting of language skills should be organically integrated with the infiltration of cultural connotations, enabling students to master the english language system while deeply understanding the cultural logic and communication norms behind it. as language is the carrier of culture, its teaching essentially is a process of cultivating cross-cultural communication skills, requiring teachers to abandon the narrow perspective of merely focusing on grammar training and instead establish a collaborative mechanism for the development of language structure and cultural cognition. this teaching concept is characterized by three core features: firstly, the overall nature of teaching content, that is, the imparting of language knowledge and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 192 cultivation of cultural awareness should be coordinated and advanced like the two wheels of a vehicle or the two wings of a bird; secondly, the complementarity of teaching methods, aiming to correct the bias in traditional teaching that overly focuses on language form while neglecting social pragmatic rules, achieving the dialectical unity of language form and communicative function; finally, the integration of teaching goals, breaking through the limitation of simply regarding language as a communication tool, by systematically introducing cultural elements, enabling learners to acquire the ability to appropriately use language in real contexts. this multi-dimensional integrated teaching model can effectively enhance the actual language application skills of vocational school students in international working scenarios. the systematic integration of cultural content should be based on the theoretical framework of cross-cultural communication ability. this integration process should be considered from multiple dimensions such as language expression, practical application, and behavioral performance, and relevant cultural elements should be organically integrated into the training systems of different ability levels. the ultimate goal of cultural content teaching design is to enhance learners' cross-cultural communication ability. this fundamental purpose and the internal logic of the training framework determine that the construction of cultural content must be highly coordinated and unified with the cross-cultural communication ability system. in the specific implementation process, the selection and organization of cultural elements should strictly follow the inherent laws of ability cultivation, ensuring that each teaching link can effectively promote learners' understanding ability of heterogeneous cultures and their actual communication ability. the content of cultural introduction in english teaching mainly includes structural culture, semantic culture, pragmatic culture, stylistic culture, and behavioral culture. these five cultural forms are not mutually isolated and independent existences, but present an organic integrated characteristic. the interpenetrating relationships in their deep structure need to be accurately grasped through systematic language cognition and cultural understanding. to achieve effective cultural teaching integration, scientific planning should be carried out according to the characteristics of the learning stage: in the basic education stage, it should focus on building the cultural cognitive foundation of language structure and meaning system, while in the advanced learning stage, it should shift to the cultivation of cultural ability in application levels such as communication practice, stylistic features, and behavioral patterns. this progressive teaching strategy avoids the drawbacks of seeking too much and too comprehensive and ensures that the acquisition of cultural elements conforms to the cognitive development laws. 3.3 the methods of cultural introduction in the practice of english education, the implementation strategies of cultural introduction refer to the systematic teaching methods adopted by educators to enhance the effectiveness of cultural teaching. the effectiveness of this teaching approach is based on a profound understanding of the differences between chinese and foreign cultures, and it requires teachers to integrate the cultural elements of the target language country into the teaching process while imparting the language knowledge system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 193 through this language and culture-oriented teaching model, not only can students' language skills be improved, but more importantly, their cross-cultural comprehension ability can be cultivated, enabling learners to gradually form communicative proficiency in dealing with diverse cultural situations, and ultimately achieving the coordinated development of language application and cultural cognition. 4. the problem of cultural integration in english teaching in vocational schools 4.1 the survey on cultural introduction in english teaching at a vocational college this study takes a vocational college as the research object, with the investigation period spanning from september 2024 to october 2024. this research adopts a dual-track parallel survey method, designing differentiated questionnaire tools to conduct systematic surveys targeting the teaching staff and the students. to ensure the comprehensiveness and comparability of the research data, a strict synchronous collection strategy was implemented during the investigation process. the teacher questionnaire focused on the teaching concepts and methods dimension, while the student questionnaire mainly examined the learning experience and feedback on effectiveness. the two types of questionnaires maintained logical connections in their question settings but had different emphases in content. this dual perspective survey design not only ensures the completeness of data collection but also lays a solid empirical foundation for subsequent comparative analysis. through cross-validation, the reliability of the research conclusions was significantly enhanced. during the implementation of the survey, a unified standardized process was strictly followed, including quality control measures for key steps such as questionnaire distribution, filling instructions, and verification of returns, to ensure the authenticity and validity of the obtained data. the survey process is shown in table 1. table 1. the survey process content process object & result the first stage prepare the initial questionnaire conduct an open-ended questionnaire, select a small sample and investigate the initial questionnaire was developed based on the survey design the second stage conduct a survey and prepare a formal questionnaire randomly select a small sample, conduct a preliminary survey and make adjustments refine the structure and content and develop a formal questionnaire the third stage formal investigation select samples, distribute questionnaires, conduct on-site responses and collect the questionnaires statistic analysis the statistics of the survey samples and questions are shown in table 2. under the framework of english teaching research in vocational schools, this study adopted a dual perspective research method. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 194 by separately designing teacher versions and student versions of questionnaires, it systematically collected differentiated feedback from the two groups regarding their attitudes towards cultural teaching and the implementation effects. based on the cross-comparison and in-depth analysis of the questionnaire data, it not only revealed the key influencing factors in current cultural teaching practices, but also provided benchmark data with empirical value for subsequent academic research. this move aims to promote the theoretical exploration and practical innovation of educational practitioners regarding the importance of the cultural dimension in language teaching, ultimately forming a positive interactive mechanism of mutual learning in teaching. during the research process, particular attention was paid to the dialectical relationship between inter-subjectivity, enabling the integration of the teacher's dominant role in teaching and the students' autonomous learning in the dimension of cultural inheritance. table 2. the statistics of the survey samples and questions content teacher student gender male 30 75 female 35 65 survey problem teaching implementation situation 2 4 regarding understanding and attitude 5 6 teaching conditions and guarantees 3 3 4.2 the investigation results of cultural integration in english teaching two multiple-choice questions were designed in the teacher questionnaire, and four multiple-choice questions were designed in the student questionnaire. among the 65 surveyed teachers, 64 responded that they had conducted cultural teaching in english classes, while 1 teacher was unclear and indicated that cultural teaching was generally being carried out. however, in terms of effectiveness, 84.6% of the respondents believed that cultural teaching in english classes was unsuccessful, 4.6% answered "it's hard to say", and 10.8% directly answered "it's unsuccessful". the results of the three multiple-choice questions regarding the performance in english classes showed that 69.3% of the students believed that the teachers "occasionally mentioned" and introduced cultural points behind english, while only 10.7% answered "frequently mentioned". two students answered "always mentioned" and "never mentioned", and 17.9% of the students believed it was "rarely mentioned". this also confirmed the view of most teachers that cultural teaching was carried out in english classes. when asked about the multiple-choice question of whether teachers carried out some classroom activities to help understand the cultural differences between china and the west, 1.4% of the respondents answered "always carried out", 14.3% answered "often carried out" and 29.3% answered www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 195 "sometimes carried out", while 8.6% of the students answered "never carried out" and 46.4% answered "rarely carried out". this indicates that such activities exist but are not regular. when asked about the handling methods when encountering english cultural vocabulary that caused comprehension difficulties during the learning process, 38.57% of the students answered "search online", 24.3% answered "ignore and not look at", 28.27% selected "other", and 8.86% answered "consult the teacher". clearly, the separation of teaching and learning did not reflect the leading role of the teacher. these three questions reflect the deficiencies in classroom teaching. correspondingly, 65% of the students had insufficient confidence in the current english education in vocational schools for facilitating smooth communication with foreign colleagues and superiors in future work, 24.29% directly answered "cannot", and 7.86% and 2.85% answered "can" or "other" respectively. this also confirms the above-mentioned english teachers' view that cultural teaching in english classes is unsuccessful, and the lack of cultural teaching has affected students' cross-cultural communication. 4.2.1 the unsatisfactory implementation of english language teaching the current english teaching system in vocational schools is facing multiple challenges. the core problem lies in the failure to establish a specialized teaching framework that matches the characteristics of vocational education. the construction of the teaching staff needs to be strengthened urgently, and the curriculum design and teaching content are seriously lagging behind actual needs. this structural defect directly restricts the effectiveness of cultivating students' cross-cultural communication skills. as the core carrier of knowledge transmission, the current status of textbooks is particularly worrying: the commonly used general english textbooks lack precise focus on vocational scenarios and fail to design differentiated content for various professional fields, resulting in a serious disconnection between teaching content and the goals of professional ability cultivation. this homogenized textbook system not only cannot support the effective improvement of students' professional english proficiency but also cannot meet the diversified and specialized language application needs in the future workplace environment. it has become a key bottleneck restricting the improvement of vocational english teaching quality. teaching practice shows that the training effect produced by the current textbook system is far from meeting the expected goals and requires a systematic reconfiguration. 4.2.2 differences in understanding and attitude towards english language teaching under the contemporary educational system, english cultural teaching is confronted with profound contradictions and challenges. although the education community generally recognizes the significance of cross-cultural communication skills in the era of globalization, in actual teaching practice, this recognition often fails to translate into effective teaching actions. the traditional exam-oriented education model not only squeezes the survival space of cultural teaching but also fundamentally undermines the essential value of language education. the vocational education field particularly highlights this structural contradiction: the excessive emphasis on the utilitarian orientation of skill training has led to a serious deviation of the curriculum system from the goal of cultivating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 196 comprehensive talents. this shortsighted pursuit of employment indicators actually weakens students' sustainable development capabilities, resulting in graduates lacking the depth of cultural cognition and being unable to meet the rigid demands of modern workplaces for cross-cultural literacy. eventually, this leads to a double disconnection between talent cultivation and market demand. 4.2.3 the lack of teaching objectives of english culture and the supporting facilities the english education system in vocational schools suffers from a significant deficiency in the cultural dimension. the teaching practice overly focuses on the basic training of language skills, but seriously neglects the systematic cultivation of cultural cognition and communication abilities. under this teaching paradigm, english becomes a purely language symbol system, and the course content is simplified to a mechanical combination of grammar rules and vocabulary memorization, completely separating from the actual application scenarios of the cultural context. even more seriously, the current teaching system lacks clear cultural teaching goals and fails to establish a scientific framework for cultivating cross-cultural abilities, resulting in teachers being constrained by textbook arrangements and class time pressure. they are forced to focus their teaching on the superficial knowledge of language transmission. this exam-oriented teaching model has led to the long-term marginalization of deep teaching contents such as comparisons of chinese and western cultures and pragmatic cultural analysis, ultimately causing the embarrassing situation where students can master the language form but have difficulty understanding its cultural connotations and communication rules. as pointed out by relevant scholars, this structural defect directly restricts the substantial improvement of students' cross-cultural communication abilities. in the current higher education system, english cultural teaching is facing severe challenges in terms of both teaching staff and practical implementation. the teaching staff generally lack cross-cultural communication skills, and their cultural background is not deeply developed. moreover, the heavy routine teaching tasks have squeezed out the space for research and innovation as well as professional training, resulting in a vicious cycle of poor teaching ability improvement. from the perspective of teaching resource allocation, the english cultural teaching facilities in most vocational colleges are seriously lagging behind. they lack advanced multimedia teaching equipment and dedicated training venues for immersive cultural experiences. this comprehensive shortage of both hardware and software has become a bottleneck restricting the development of the discipline. 5. the strategies for integrating culture into english teaching in vocational schools 5.1 the enhancement of students' cross-cultural communication skills in the contemporary vocational education teaching practice, the traditional one-way indoctrination teaching model has shown obvious limitations. this rigid teaching method often leads to significant individual differences among students in the process of english learning, manifested as polarized academic performance and uneven knowledge acquisition. in fact, different learners have essential differences in cognitive structure, learning motivation, and internal attitudes. these factors jointly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 197 influence the final teaching outcome. with the continuous deepening of vocational education concepts, educators are actively promoting the transformation of teaching paradigms. by implementing differentiated teaching strategies and task-oriented teaching methods, they are returning the classroom dominance to students. this learner-centered educational transformation not only effectively stimulates the autonomous learning awareness of vocational school students but also fundamentally reshapes the relationship between teaching and learning, making teaching activities truly return to the essence of cultivating the learning subjectivity. to enhance students' cross-cultural communication skills, task-oriented teaching should be implemented. the task-oriented teaching model redefines the role positioning of teachers and students, truly returning the learning subjectivity to students. this teaching paradigm focuses on the personalized needs and interest stimulation of learners throughout the entire process from task selection to activity design. by building an immersive language acquisition environment, it effectively solves the practical problems of uneven english foundation and insufficient learning motivation among vocational school students. as an english course with dual attributes of cultural carrier and teaching tool, its classroom interaction section not only strengthens the authenticity cultivation of language communication skills but also promotes the awakening of students' autonomous learning awareness and comprehensive literacy through the two-way dialogue mechanism between teachers and students, transforming the traditional classroom space into a dynamic language practice field. the transformation of the teacher's role in the teaching process 5.2 the enhancement of teaching staff quality and improving the facilities equipment building a high-quality vocational education teaching staff requires a systematic approach from two dimensions: educational philosophy transformation and professional ability improvement. the teaching staff must deeply understand the fundamental differences between vocational education and general education, break free from the constraints of traditional teaching models, and integrate cultural connotations into the language skills teaching process, making cross-cultural communication ability cultivation the core teaching goal. currently, the construction of the teaching staff faces many challenges: some teachers admit that they have professional shortcomings in cultural teaching, which reflects that the teacher team urgently needs to strengthen their depth of bilingual cultural understanding and cross-cultural teaching abilities. the management of educational institutions must face the structural contradiction of the teaching staff, as the imbalance in the teacher-student ratio caused by the expansion of vocational education becomes increasingly prominent. the shortage of "dual-qualified" talents and the uneven professional qualities of new teachers seriously restrict the improvement of teaching quality. the deeper problem lies in the fact that the heavy teaching tasks make it difficult for teachers to balance academic research, enterprise practice, and professional training. this vicious cycle must be broken through systematic measures such as increasing financial investment, improving the training system, and optimizing the talent introduction mechanism. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 198 in the reform process of the english education system, cultural teaching must be elevated to a strategic level and written as the core teaching goal in the instructional program documents. the education authority should formulate a complete implementation framework for cultural teaching, regulate teaching standards at the institutional level, and make the curriculum setting have a clear cultural orientation. the vocational education field particularly needs to re-examine the positioning of english teaching. currently, english teaching as a public basic course is significantly disconnected from vocational skills training, making it difficult to meet the requirements of modern workplaces for cultural cognition abilities. therefore, it is suggested to add professional elective modules to the curriculum system, through systematic cultural knowledge teaching, to cultivate students' cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural adaptability. educational institutions should strengthen the construction of digital teaching facilities, fully utilize modern educational technology means such as multimedia teaching platforms and virtual simulation laboratories, and innovatively carry out cultural practical activities, such as regularly holding cultural-themed months, inviting experts in cross-cultural fields to give lectures, and building campus cultural digital resource libraries. for institutions with the conditions, they can further carry out international cultural exchange projects, through student exchanges, overseas study tours, and other in-depth experience methods, to build a comprehensive cultural teaching system. 5.3 the seeking of government support in order to promote the cultivation of cultural connotations in english teaching, a systematic cultural introduction mechanism and a scientific assessment system must be established. the education authorities should formulate guiding policy frameworks, clearly defining the specific norms and implementation standards for cultural teaching. all levels of educational institutions need to formulate implementation rules based on this, integrating cultural teaching goals into curriculum planning and teaching practice. at the same time, they should establish incentive mechanisms to motivate all parties. at the teaching implementation level, teaching content and methods should be continuously optimized based on actual needs to ensure the organic integration of cultural elements and language skills. through institutional design, teaching effectiveness and assessment and evaluation should be closely linked. in addition, efforts should be made to actively seek policy support. through resource allocation and institutional guarantees at the government level, a favorable development environment for english cultural teaching should be created, thereby comprehensively enhancing the cultural depth and educational value of language education. 6. the conclusion under the dual impetus of the globalization trend and technological changes, international communication has become the core driving force for the development of modern society. this undoubtedly poses more severe challenges and higher expectations for english education. vocational colleges, as an important platform for cultivating applied talents, not only need to impart language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 199 skills but also have the mission of shaping students' cross-cultural communication abilities. however, due to objective factors such as insufficient historical accumulation of the school and uneven student foundations, the cultural teaching in current vocational education is significantly weak. this structural defect directly leads to the gap in cross-cultural talent cultivation, resulting in a significant disparity between teaching goals and social needs. this study conducts an empirical investigation of the practical situation of cultural teaching in the vocational education field, integrates the cutting-edge achievements of linguistic theory, cultural research, and communication theory, deeply analyzes the systematic defects in the cultural introduction mechanism, and thereby constructs cultural teaching strategies with vocational education characteristics. references chen, l. (2022). problems and countermeasures of cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. gansu educational research, (03), 117-119. duan, m. (2022). application strategies of bidirectional cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. journal of hubei open university, 35(11), 174-176. guo, w. (2019). a brief analysis of the application practice of bidirectional cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. comparative studies in cultural innovation, 3(28), 103-104. he, y. (2024). research and practice on integrating chinese excellent traditional culture into college english teaching in higher vocational colleges from the perspective of cultural confidence: a case study of gansu nonferrous metallurgy vocational and technical college. modern vocational education, (02), 29-32. li, r. x. (2025). practice of integrating chinese excellent traditional culture into english teaching in vocational education. overseas english, (15), 185-187. liu, l. (2020). investigation and research on the current situation of english cultural teaching in vocational colleges. qufu normal university. song, x. s., & jiang, y. (2021). research on the introduction of chinese excellent traditional culture in higher vocational english teaching. journal of harbin vocational and technical college, (05), 135-137. xin, j. q. (2021). current situation and improvement strategies of cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. modern communication, (14), 180-182. yu, x. (2017). empirical research on cross-cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. modern vocational education, (34), 78-79. zeng, x. f. (2018). discussion on problems and countermeasures in cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. chinese and foreign entrepreneurs, (36), 194. zhang, y. (2022). investigation and research on the current situation of cultural teaching in english courses in secondary vocational schools. liaocheng university. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 200 zhu, l. (2017). a brief analysis of problems and countermeasures in cultural introduction in english teaching in vocational colleges. china high-tech zone, (16), 91. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 66 original paper the critical role of nidsnips in protecting internet infrastructure ding jiawei 1 & e yunpeng 1 1 school of information science and technology, northwest university, xi’an, shaanxi province, china received: june 13, 2023 accepted: july 29, 2023 online published: august 03, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p66 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p66 abstract with the rapid development and wide application of the internet, network security has become an important issue in modern society. network attacks such as network worms, botnets and computer viruses are constantly emerging, bringing serious threats and economic losses to the internet infrastructure. in this context, network intrusion detection/prevention system (nids/nips) plays a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. by monitoring network traffic in real time, nids/nips is able to detect and identify internal and external security intrusions in a timely manner and take appropriate measures for defense. ensuring the high performance of nids/nips is an important topic in network security research, because the increase of internet traffic and the variety of attacks make it face great challenges. in this paper, we will explore the fundamentals and functions of nids/nips and their key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. we will also discuss key techniques to improve the performance of nids/nips and look at future directions in this area. an in-depth understanding and study of the theory and technology of nids/nips is an important reference for professionals in the field of network security. keywords nids/nips, internet, network security 1. introduction with the rapid development of the internet and information technology, computer networks have penetrated into all aspects of modern society and become an indispensable part of people’s life and work. however, the popularization of the internet is also accompanied by an increasing number of network security threats. network worms, botnets, computer viruses and other network attacks have emerged in an endless stream, and they have not only invaded and hijacked a large number of computer systems, but also abused computer network resources, causing serious threats and damage to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. internet infrastructure, resulting in incalculable economic losses and social impact. in this information age, it has become crucial to protect the security of internet infrastructure. to cope with the growing network security threats, network security devices play a key role. in particular, network intrusion detection/prevention system (nids/nips), through real-time monitoring of network traffic, can detect and identify potential security intrusions in a timely manner and take corresponding defensive measures. nids/nips can not only protect the internet infrastructure from internal and external attacks, but also provides real-time online security detection, providing strong support for network security. however, with the continuous increase of internet traffic and the evolution of network attack methods, nids/nips face severe performance challenges. high-speed packet processing, accurate threat identification, and timely response capability are all key issues that nids/nips needs to overcome. therefore, improving the performance of nids/nips has become an important topic in the field of network security research, which is crucial for protecting the security of internet infrastructure. in this paper, we will delve into the key role of nids/nips in protecting the internet infrastructure. we will first introduce the basic principles and functions of nids/nips to further explore its importance in the field of network security. then, we will focus on the performance challenges faced by nids/nips and explore key techniques and approaches to improve nids/nips performance. finally, we will look forward to the future direction of nids/nips development to provide useful references and guidance for network security research and practice. 2. basic principles and functions of nids/nips nids/nips (network intrusion detection/prevention system) are very important devices in the field of network security, and they play a key role in protecting the security of internet infrastructure. with the rapid development and wide application of the internet, computer networks have become the information infrastructure of modern society, but also face increasingly complex and widespread network security threats. the emergence of attacks such as network worms, botnets and computer viruses has brought serious threats and economic losses to the internet infrastructure. therefore, protecting the security of internet infrastructure has become an important topic in today’s network security research. nids/nips provides strong support for protecting internet infrastructure by detecting and preventing network intrusions through real-time monitoring of network traffic. nids relies heavily on the capture and analysis of network traffic to identify potential security threats. first, nids capture network traffic packets that pass through network interfaces or network switches. they then reorganize and reconstruct the captured packets to restore the original state of network communications. next, nids perform in-depth analysis of the reconstructed traffic, including protocol parsing and traffic feature extraction, to identify security threats in the network. based on predefined rules, signatures, or behavioral patterns, nids matches and detects traffic for potential intrusions. once abnormal or suspicious network activity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. is detected, nids generates alerts or reports to notify administrators or security teams to take appropriate countermeasures. in contrast, nips not only has the capability to detect potential security threats, but can also take proactive steps to stop and defend against them. the fundamentals of nips include threat detection, threat response, real-time updates, and logging and analysis. nips analyzes and detects network traffic to identify potential intrusions through nids-like technology. once a security threat is detected, nips will take appropriate defense measures, such as blocking traffic or blocking the source of the attack, according to pre-set policies and rules. at the same time, nips needs to be kept in sync with the latest threat intelligence and defense policies, by updating them in real time to cope with evolving network attacks. nips records all security events and response operations, and generates detailed logs for subsequent auditing and analysis. as network security devices, nids/nips play a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. they help secure network systems and data by monitoring network traffic in real time, identifying security threats, taking defensive measures, and providing detailed reports. the functions of nids/nips are not limited to detecting intrusions, but also include real-time response and defense, in-depth analysis and reporting, and threat intelligence and updates. continuous research and improvement of nids/nips technologies and methodologies are critical to securing the internet infrastructure. future directions may involve more efficient data processing, intelligent threat identification and more flexible defense mechanisms to address evolving cybersecurity challenges. through continuous innovation and improved performance, nids/nips will play an even more important role in securing internet infrastructure. 3. challenges faced by nids/nips nids/nips (network intrusion detection/prevention system), as a network security device, plays a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. however, with the increase in internet traffic and the continuous evolution of network attack methods, nids/nips is facing serious performance challenges. how to improve the performance of nids/nips has become a hot topic in the field of network security research. first of all, large-scale internet traffic requires nids/nips to be able to handle massive packets and quickly and accurately identify and classify potential security threats. the popularity of the internet makes the scale and complexity of network traffic increase greatly, which puts forward higher requirements on the performance of nids/nips. nids/nips needs to have efficient packet processing capabilities, and be able to process a large number of data streams in real time in a high-speed network environment, and accurately analyze and judge the security threats in them. in addition, with the continuous growth of network traffic, nids/nips also need to have scalability, can flexibly adapt to changing traffic load. secondly, the diversity and complexity of network attack methods also put forward higher requirements www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. for the performance of nids/nips. traditional security rules and signature detection methods have been difficult to meet the detection needs of new types of attacks. network intruders continue to innovate and evolve, using more covert and complex attacks, such as zero-day vulnerability exploitation, behavior-based intrusion and so on. this requires nids/nips to have more intelligent and adaptive detection capabilities that can identify and stop new types of security threats, not just limited to known attack patterns. therefore, researchers need to continuously conduct research on new algorithms and techniques to improve the detection capability of nids/nips for unknown attacks. in addition, nids/nips needs to be highly reliable and stable. due to its critical position in network security, any loss or omission of packet detection may lead to potential security risks. therefore, nids/nips needs to have strong fault tolerance and fault recovery mechanisms to ensure continuous system operation and data integrity. in addition, nids/nips needs to have the self-protection capability of the defense mechanism to avoid being bypassed or damaged by attackers. to address these challenges, researchers and network security experts have proposed a number of key technologies and approaches to improve the performance and effectiveness of nids/nips. these include high-speed packet processing techniques, intelligent classification and identification algorithms, distributed and collaborative defense mechanisms, and real-time response and automated defense. by optimizing packet processing algorithms and hardware acceleration techniques, the packet processing speed and throughput of nids/nips can be improved. using machine learning and artificial intelligence technology, intelligent classification of network traffic and threat identification can be realized to improve detection accuracy and efficiency. establishing a distributed nids/nips system can realize the cooperative work between multiple nodes and improve the overall security defense capability. combined with automated response technology, nids/nips can respond to security threats in real time, automatically take defense measures, and reduce the delay of human intervention. 4. key technologies to improve nids/nips performance improving the performance of nids/nips (network intrusion detection/prevention system) is an important research direction in the field of network security, aiming to cope with the increasingly complex network attacks and the growing internet traffic. in order to improve the performance of nids/nips, researchers and network security experts have proposed a series of key techniques and methods. this section discusses these key techniques and explores how they can enhance the performance of nids/nips. first, high-speed packet processing technology is the key to improving the performance of nids/nips. with the rapid growth of internet traffic, nids/nips need to process a large number of packets and perform traffic analysis and threat detection in real time. to address this challenge, researchers have worked to optimize packet processing algorithms and hardware acceleration techniques. the use of high-performance processors and specialized hardware gas pedals can increase packet processing speed and throughput. in addition, the use of parallel processing and pipelining techniques can effectively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. improve the efficiency of packet processing. there are also some emerging technologies, such as programmable data plane (p. 4) and user-state data plane (ebpf), which can improve the performance of nids/nips through flexible packet processing and programming. second, intelligent classification and identification algorithms are important techniques to improve the performance of nids/nips. traditional ruleand signature-based detection methods have been difficult to cope with the ever-changing means of network attacks. in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of detection, researchers have adopted machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. by training and optimizing models, nids/nips can automatically learn and identify normal behaviors and abnormal patterns in network traffic, thus improving the accuracy of threat detection. at the same time, combined with technologies such as deep learning and behavioral analysis, unknown attacks can be detected and predicted, improving the ability of nids/nips to respond to new types of threats. in addition, distributed and collaborative defense mechanisms are critical to improving nids/nips performance. in the face of increasingly complex and large-scale network threats, a single nids/nips device is often unable to meet the demand for real-time detection and defense. therefore, the establishment of a distributed nids/nips system can effectively improve the overall security defense capability through the collaborative work of multiple nodes. this distributed architecture can share the traffic load and improve the scalability and fault tolerance of the system. at the same time, nodes can strengthen security defense capabilities by sharing threat intelligence and real-time collaboration to detect and respond to security threats faster. in addition, real-time response and automated defense technologies play a key role in improving nids/nips performance. after detecting a security threat, nids/nips needs to be able to quickly take appropriate defensive measures to stop the attack traffic and protect the attacked system. to enable real-time response and automated defense, researchers have developed tools such as automated response techniques and programmable firewalls. these technologies automate the rapid response to detected threats, including blocking the source of the attack, adjusting network policies, etc., which reduces the delay of human intervention and improves defense efficiency. 5. future outlook and challenges nids/nips (network intrusion detection/prevention system) play a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure, but still face many outlooks and challenges in the future. with the rapid growth of the internet and the continuous evolution of cyber threats, the role of nids/nips will become even more important, but it also needs to meet the challenges of technology, scale and complexity. first, as the internet continues to expand, the scale and complexity of network infrastructure continues to grow. the interconnection of a large number of network devices, sensors, and end devices has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the network, posing even greater challenges to nids/nips.nids/nips need to be able to effectively process and analyze massive amounts of network traffic, as well as adapt to and understand complex network topologies and protocols. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. therefore, one of the future perspectives is to build nids/nips systems that are scalable and efficient in processing large-scale data to cope with the growing internet traffic and complex network environments. second, the rise of emerging technologies and applications also brings new challenges to nids/nips. for example, the rapid development of technologies such as iot, cloud computing, and edge computing has led to dramatic changes in network boundaries and topologies. this has also led to the expansion of new types of network security threats and attack surfaces. one of the future perspectives is to integrate nids/nips with these emerging technologies and applications to develop security monitoring and defense solutions adapted to the new network environment. this requires nids/nips to be able to adapt to dynamically changing network topologies and growing device types, and to be able to recognize and protect against specific threats targeting emerging technologies. in addition, with the continuous evolution and improvement of network attacks, nids/nips needs to continuously improve its detection and defense capabilities. traditional rule and signature detection methods are no longer able to cope with increasingly sophisticated and stealthy attack methods. therefore, one of the future perspectives is to improve nids/nips detection capabilities for unknown attacks and zero-day vulnerabilities by introducing smarter and adaptive detection techniques, such as machine learning, behavioral analysis, and artificial intelligence. such technologies can enable automatic learning and identification of anomalous behaviors to more accurately identify and stop new types of cyber threats. [12-13] another important future outlook is to enhance the real-time response and automated defense capabilities of nids/nips. for cyber security, rapid detection and response is critical. nids/nips need to be able to identify and stop security threats in a timely manner to minimize potential losses. one of the future perspectives is to enable real-time defense capabilities of nids/nips by introducing automated response technologies and programmable firewalls. this will enable nids/nips to automatically take defensive measures, such as blocking attack sources and adjusting network policies, based on predefined policies and rules, thus reducing reliance on manual intervention and improving the efficiency and timeliness of defense. despite many future prospects, nids/nips also faces some challenges. one of them is privacy and compliance issues. as data privacy and compliance regulations tighten, nids/nips needs to ensure that it does not violate users’ privacy rights when performing traffic monitoring and analysis. in addition, nids/nips needs to fulfill various industry standards and compliance requirements, such as pci dss, gdpr, etc., to ensure that it meets the regulatory requirements in terms of data processing and security. in summary, nids/nips plays a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure and faces many future prospects and challenges. by building nids/nips systems that are scalable and adaptable to emerging technologies, enhancing detection and defense capabilities, and strengthening real-time response and automated defense capabilities, we can better respond to growing and evolving cyber threats and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. protect the security and stable operation of internet infrastructure. at the same time, there is a need to continue to focus on privacy and compliance issues and to ensure that nids/nips meet regulatory requirements for data processing and security to ensure public trust and data protection. 6. conclusion nids/nips (network intrusion detection/prevention system) plays a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. with the rapid development and wide application of the internet, computer networks have become the information infrastructure of modern society. however, network attacks such as network worms, botnets and computer viruses are emerging, bringing serious threats and economic losses to the internet infrastructure. nids/nips is able to provide real-time online detection of internal and external attacks through real-time monitoring of network traffic, thus protecting the security of the internet infrastructure. the basic principles and functions of nids/nips include network traffic capture and analysis, protocol parsing and feature extraction, threat detection, and alert generation, etc. nids/nips identifies potential security threats through the analysis and processing of network traffic packets and takes corresponding defensive measures. they can help secure network systems and data, stop intrusions and reduce potential losses. the functions of nids/nips are not limited to detecting intrusions, but also include real-time response and defense, in-depth analysis and reporting, and threat intelligence and update. however, nids/nips still faces some challenges in protecting internet infrastructure. first, the increase in internet traffic and the growth in the types of cyber-attacks make nids/nips face severe performance challenges. they need to have efficient packet processing capabilities to be able to process a large number of data streams in real time in a high-speed network environment and accurately analyze and judge the security threats in them. secondly, the diversity and complexity of network attacks require nids/nips to have intelligent and adaptive detection capabilities to identify and block new security threats, not just limited to known attack patterns. in addition, nids/nips needs to have a high degree of reliability and stability. any packet loss or missed detection can lead to potential security risks. therefore, nids/nips needs to have strong fault tolerance and fault recovery mechanisms to ensure continuous system operation and data integrity. at the same time, nids/nips also needs to have the self-protection capability of the defense mechanism to avoid being bypassed or damaged by attackers. in the future outlook, nids/nips requires continuous research and innovation to address the growing and evolving cybersecurity challenges. building nids/nips systems that are scalable and efficient in handling large-scale data, enhancing detection and defense capabilities, and strengthening real-time response and automated defense capabilities will be the future direction of development. at the same time, the integration of emerging technologies and applications, such as iot, cloud computing and edge computing, combined with nids/nips to develop security monitoring and defense solutions adapted www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. to the new network environment is also an important direction. in conclusion, nids/nips plays a key role in protecting the internet infrastructure. by monitoring network traffic in real time, identifying security threats, taking defensive measures, and providing detailed reports, nids/nips help secure network systems and data. however, challenges include performance pressure, new attack methods, and reliability requirements. through continuous research and innovation to improve the performance of nids/nips, adapt to new network environments, and enhance real-time response and automated defense capabilities, we are able to better address the growing and evolving cybersecurity challenges, and protect the secure and stable operation of the internet infrastructure. references cui, m., xiong, j., & zhang, h. 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(2015). a research review on network intrusion detection techniques based on machine learning. computer science and exploration, 9(6), 750-767. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 49 original paper investigating the impact of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality on the sports success of student athletes in tehran gisoo paryar1 1 master's degree in sports management, university of mohagheg ardabili, ardabil, iran e-mail: gisooparyar1377@uma.ac.ir received: january 29, 2025 accepted: march 16, 2025 online published: march 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p49 abstract the purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality on the sports success of tehran students. the research method was applied, which was descriptive-survey in nature, which is considered as a qualitative research according to the research approach. the statistical population was the students of tehran, and 305 people were determined to determine the sample size using cohen's method. the measurement tools were standard questionnaires, which content validity, convergent validity, divergent validity, and content validity were obtained by a survey of professors. cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaires. cronbach's alpha coefficients in all three questionnaires were more than the minimum value (0.7). in order to analyze the statistical data, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used using spearman's correlation coefficient and multivariate regression using spss21 software. the findings of the research showed that the variables of metacognitive beliefs b=0.198 and social vitality b=0.702 have an effect on the sports success of student athletes. therefore, it can be concluded that continuous training and exercises in the fields of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality can be effective and useful for male and female student athletes. keywords metacognitive beliefs, social vitality, sports success 1. introduction students in each community are recognized as the most effective and fundamental foundation for the future of each country. attention to students ' health and psychological, social and academic is very important (grant, 2022). in recent years, education and educational psychology professionals have concluded that the broad expectations and beliefs of learners about their abilities play a vital role in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 their academic success. for this reason, attention to metacognitive beliefs has received special attention from researchers (pajars, 2006). metacognition is a multidimensional concept that refers to higher mastery and awareness of bilateral cognition and knowledge (wells, 2009). flavell (1998) metacognition can be defined as awareness of how a person learns. this concept refers to a person's knowledge of their cognitive processes and ability to monitor and control these processes (bernstein et al., 2019). in fact metacognition refers to any type of knowledge skill or cognitive activity that can include a cognitive subject or regulate cognitive activity (bright et al., 2018). metacognitive skills are important in many different cognitive activities, including: verbal encouragement, exchange of information in a verbal way, writing, reading, perception, attention, language learning, memory, social cognition, and various types of self-study and self-control (ziegler et al., 2018). cognitive and metacognitive strategies are the most fundamental tools for examining students ' efforts to succeed in learning environments (bianca, 2013). the fact is that supporting cognitive and metacognitive processes is considered as an effective predictor of student success in schools (zimmerman, 2015). ghadampour et al. (2017) showed that teaching metacognitive and cognitive strategies is effective in increasing the hope of education. ali akbarzadeh (2014) also stated in the research that there is a meaningful relationship between metacognition and cognition with the hope of studying in secondary school girls. so metacognition is one of the most effective predictive variables of success in performing hard tasks and responsibilities (dignath & buttner, 2008). as the age of people increases, the importance of presence and activity in social communities in order to maintain their health and well-being increases more and more (liu et al., 2024). one of the less noticed aspects in studies is the effect of gender on the motivations and the level of participation in brand communities. by better understanding the specific motivations and interaction patterns of male and female consumers in different age groups within these communities, marketers will be able to adjust their marketing strategies to more effectively respond to the needs and desires of target audiences (haverila et al., 2024). sports activities help to improve people's quality of life and have a positive effect on their physical, psychological and social aspects. however, in the past, the focus of sports activities was mostly on teenagers and young adults, because it was thought that vigorous physical activity might be harmful to the elderly, unless it had therapeutic aspects. these traditional attitudes and perceptions were based on views about aging that saw aging as inevitable with physical decline (canella et al., 2021). in numerous researches conducted in the field of sports activities for the elderly, many benefits of participation in these activities have been recorded. lack of physical activity is known as the fourth risk factor for mortality and non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. to prevent and delay the onset of chronic diseases, it is recommended that adults adopt a healthy lifestyle with adequate physical activity ( huang et al., 2022). elderly people are the least active group among the adult age groups, so that between 30 and 80% of this population have little activity (rohani et al., 2021). metacognitive beliefs and self-regulation play an important role in promoting sports success by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 51 increasing mental processes and behaviors of athletes. research has shown that metacognitive strategies, such as theorizing and reflecting, are associated with improved volitional regulation and cognitive control, leading to better self-regulation in athletes (aleksandra, 2020). coaches who implement metacognitive questioning programs can positively influence their self-regulation skills and ultimately improve cognition, thinking abilities, and behavior. in addition, talented athletes who have strong metacognitive skills. are equipped to manage their health and performance, and high self-monitoring abilities are associated with a reduction in excessive time-loss injuries, especially in girls, which highlights the importance of reflection and self-monitoring in injury prevention and athletic success. he does. finally, the integration of metacognitive beliefs and self-regulatory practices can significantly contribute to enhancing athletic performance and overall success (sabaliauska, 2022). desclouds and durand (2023) in a research, they concluded that self-regulation increases growth, performance and well-being in sports. kelly et al. (2022) in a research, they showed that self-regulation strategies are significantly related to physical activity and are useful in developing skills in sports programs. carl & rebecca (2020) in a research, they came to the conclusion that metacognitive beliefs and strategy training increase self-regulation to improve sports performance. olga (2020) in her research, she stated that self-regulation beliefs lead to achieving goals and improving sports performance. azilawati and hung (2012) in their research, they came to the conclusion that metacognitive beliefs increase self-regulation for sports performance and self-regulation is very important for success in sports efforts. 2. methodology the research method is applied in terms of purpose, descriptive-survey in terms of nature, and in terms of research approach, it is a qualitative research that was conducted by field method. the statistical population of this research was male and female student athletes. various methods have been considered to determine the sample size; finally, the sample size was calculated using cohen's formula based on statistical power analysis. to determine the sample size based on cohen's formula, the power of the test was 0.80, the effect size was 0.25 and the confidence level was 0.95 equal to 318 people for advanced students and 318 people for beginner students. after collecting the questionnaire, 0.04, the questionnaire could not be used and finally the statistical sample of 305 people was determined. the measurement tools include 1wells' metacognitive beliefs questionnaire (2004), which includes 30 questions in 5 components of uncontrollability and risk, positive beliefs about worry, cognitive self-awareness, cognitive certainty, and the need to control thoughts, 2social vitality questionnaire (cleanliness & azizi, 2017) that this questionnaire is made of 12 questions in one dimension. 3sports success questionnaire (mousavi & vaez mousavi, 2014) which used 29 questions in 5 components of smooth performance, attention, technique, error sensitivity, commitment and progress. the scoring method of the questionnaire was based on a 5-point likert scale, including completely agree, agree, have no opinion, disagree, and completely disagree, which respectively have a score of 5 to 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 (completely agree, 5, completely disagree). in order to check the convergent validity, the average output variances (ave) was obtained, which was more than 0.5. divergent validity was also obtained by comparing the square root of ave with the correlation between the real-factor variables of each construct. also, in this research, cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaires. cronbach's alpha coefficients in all three questionnaires were more than the minimum value (0.7). in order to analyze the statistical data, descriptive statistics methods such as calculating the mean, standard deviation, and in the inferential statistics section, smirnov's kolmograph test was used to determine the normality of the statistical population, and in the inferential section, spearman's correlation coefficient and multivariate regression were used using spss21 software. 3. result the demographic findings of the sample showed that 158 people, i.e., 51.8% were male athletes and 147 people, i.e., 48.2% were female athletes. the findings related to the age of the athletes sample showed that 52 people i.e., 17% are 15 years old, 66 people i.e. 21.6% are 16 years old, 87 people i.e., 28.5% are 17 years old and 100 people are 32.8%. table 1 shows the descriptive findings related to the characteristics of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality and sports success of students at two advanced and beginner levels. table 1. descriptive findings of variables of metacognitive beliefs, social vitality and sports success student athlete variable sports successsocial vitalitymetacognitive beliefs 3.413.603.66average 3.513.753.74middle 444fashion 0.3890.4730.381the standard deviation 0.1520.2240.152variance 222variation range 222the least 455the most the table shows the descriptive findings of metacognitive beliefs variables, social vitality and sports success of student athletes. based on the above table, the average of metacognitive beliefs in students is 3.66 percent, the average social vitality in students is 3.60 percent, and the average of sports success in students is athletes are 41.3%. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 table 2. data normality test sigst.dk-snumbervariables 0.0000.3810.085305metacognitive beliefsstudent athlete 0.0000.4730.130305social vitality 0.0000.3890.134305sports success based on the results listed in table 2, in all cases, a significance value smaller than 0.05 has been obtained; therefore, there is a possibility of rejecting the assumption. table 3. simple correlation coefficients between metacognitive beliefs and social vitality with sports success of student athletes metacognitive beliefssocial vitalityvariables rprpsports success 0.6930.0000.8120.000 as can be seen in table 3, the correlation between sports success and metacognitive beliefs for student athletes is r=0.693 with a significance level of p=0.000 and the correlation between sports success and social vitality in student athletes is 812 r=0.000 is significant with a significance level of p=0.000. multivariate regression was used to determine the multiple correlation of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality with sports success of student athletes. which variables of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality as predictor variables and sports success variable as criteria variables. table 4. results of multivariable regression analysis of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality with sports success in student athletes indicator ss df ms f p r r2 regression 34.948 2 11.474 473.614 0.000 0.871 0.758left over 11.142 302 0.037 total 46.090 304 table 5. beta coefficient and standard results of multivariate regression analysis in student athletes ptnon-beta standardized coefficient standard beta coefficient variables 0.0004.0490.2020.198metacognitive beliefs 0.00014.3420.5780.702social vitality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 54 according to the results presented in table 5, the variable coefficients of metacognitive beliefs (b=0.198 and t=4.049) and social vitality (b=0.702 and t=14.342) have an effect on the sports success of student athletes, as well as the variables of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality can significantly predict the sports success of student athletes. according to table 5, the coefficient of determination obtained indicates that 75% of the changes in success are explained by metacognitive beliefs and social vitality; that is, the increase in metacognitive beliefs and social vitality increases sports success in student athletes. 4. discussion and conclusion the purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of metacognitive beliefs and social vitality on the sports success of student athletes in tehran. the results of the research showed that metacognitive beliefs and social vitality have a positive and significant effect on the sports success of student athletes in both girls and boys. also, metacognitive beliefs and social vitality can explain the changes in sports success of student athletes in boys and girls. according to the findings of the current research, the researcher came to the conclusion that having social vitality in male student athletes has a greater impact on achieving sports success than female student athletes. which may be due to the better understanding of male student athletes with their abilities and talents, or more motivations that they give to male student athletes on their own behalf or from outside. and also, this effect may be more due to the abilities of male student athletes in controlling the emotions of the competitions and knowing the opponents better. also, the researcher came to the conclusion that having metacognitive beliefs of male student athletes has a greater effect on achieving sports success than female students. this effect may be more due to psychological factors such as self-knowledge and self-confidence or accepting more risk in competitions than female student athletes. in the dimension of metacognitive beliefs, martins (2010) showed that there is no difference between boys and girls in metacognitive skills, which contradicts the findings of the present study. in this regard, stani et al. (2012) stated that girls show higher levels of applied metacognition in physical activity than boys. the findings of this research are in agreement with the findings of deskeld and durand (2023), kelley et al. 2022), carr and rubka (2020), olga (2020) and azilavati and hong (2012) are aligned. therefore, according to the findings of this realization, it can be said that metacognitive beliefs, as thoughts and attitudes that a person has about her cognitive processes, can have a significant impact on sports success. these beliefs help athletes to perform better in their sports by using more effective strategies. male athletes usually have stronger and more stable metacognitive beliefs that allow them to better face sports challenges and pressures. these athletes are able to achieve higher success by self-monitoring, self-regulation and modifying their strategies. in contrast, female athletes may still need to develop and strengthen these beliefs in order to achieve similar athletic success. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 references aleksandra, l. (2020). metacognitive strategies in the system of mental self-regulation of athletes, 8(2), 77-85. https://doi.org/10.36028/2308-8826-2020-8-2-77-85 azilawati, j., & hung, d. (2012).metacognizing across self and socio dialectics. bernstein, a., hadash, y., & fresco, d. m. (2019). metacognitive processes model of decentering: emerging methods and insights. curr opin psychol, 28, 245-251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.01.019. bianca, c., & rowden, q. (2013). the effects of selfregulated learning strategy instruction and structureddiary use on student's selfregulated learning conduct and academic success in online communitycollege general education courses. the university of san francisco, usf scholarship repository. bright, m., parker, s., french, p., fowler, d., gumley, a., & morrison, a. p. 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(2015). selfregulated learning: theories, measures, and autcomes. city university of new york graduate center, ny, usa. ttps://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.26060-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.04.009 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 146 original paper the rise of “functional sunscreens” in skin of color beauty culture grace herrick1, harleen k. multani2, neena edupuganti3, mary grace hash4, sriya kakarla5, alyssa forsyth6, stuti prajapati7, kelly frasier8, & kathryn dempsey9 1alabama college of osteopathic medicine, dothan, al, usa 2 meharry medical college school of medicine, nashville, tn, usa 3 piedmont medical center, macon, ga, usa 4 edward via college of osteopathic medicine, auburn, al, usa 5 uthealth houston mcgovern medical school, houston, tx, usa 6 texas college of osteopathic medicine, fort worth, tx, usa 7 st. john’s episcopal hospital, far rockaway, ny, usa 8 northwell, new hyde park, ny, usa 9 coastal dermatology & skin care center, mobile, al, usa received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 02, 2025 online published: december 15, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p146 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p146 abstract conventional public health messaging around sunscreen has emphasized skin cancer prevention in lighter-skinned populations. this approach fails to address the specific dermatologic concerns of individuals with skin of color (soc), such as pigmentary disorders and photoaging. as a result, sunscreen use in these populations has remained limited, due to dissatisfaction with available products and the perception that sunscreen is not designed for their needs. this review examines the emergence and influence of functional sunscreens on sunscreen behaviors in soc populations and explores how beauty culture, consumer engagement, and inclusive marketing shape perceptions of spf products. functional sunscreens, including tinted spf formulations, moisturizers with sun protection, and hybrid skincare products, are increasingly popular within soc communities. social media and influencer-driven marketing have amplified their appeal by promoting inclusive beauty narratives and repositioning sunscreen as a beauty-enhancing tool. this shift has improved adherence and engagement in populations previously underserved by traditional sun safety campaigns. functional sunscreens designed for soc have also expanded the role of photoprotection to include management of pigmentary conditions such as melasma and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. tinted mineral www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 147 formulations reduce white cast and improve usability, aligning sunscreen use with the aesthetic and clinical priorities of individuals with skin of color. keywords skin of color, functional sunscreen, sunscreen adherence, pigmentary disorders, inclusive skincare introduction conventional public health messaging around photoprotection has traditionally centered on skin cancer prevention, with campaigns predominately targeting lighter-skinned populations. this narrow framing inadvertently reinforces the belief that sunscreen is irrelevant for individuals with darker skin, a misconception reinforced by melanin’s protective capacity against ultraviolet b (uvb) radiation (mun, lee, & gupta, 2025). however, melanin also acts as a photosensitizer to ultraviolet a (uva), contributing to photoaging and hyperpigmentation (mun, lee, & gupta, 2025). the educational disparity is increased by sun protection advisories which suggest that daily sunscreen application is unnecessary for individuals with darker skin due to the relatively low risk for skin cancers (mun, lee, & gupta, 2025). the consequences of this messaging gap in campaigns is significant. skin of color (soc) communities report lower sunscreen adherence rates partly because conventional campaigns fail to address their primary concern, pigmentary disorders (pd) and visible signs of photoaging rather than malignancy risk. the epidemiological reality reflects this disconnect. pigmentary disorders, such as melasma and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (pih), rank among one of the most common reasons patients with darker skin seek dermatological care (davis & callender). the impact of these conditions extends past physical manifestations. soc patients with pd are more likely to report feelings of self-consciousness in the presence of others, anxiety, and embarrassment (darji, varade, west, armbrecht, & guo, 2017). these psychological factors often affect quality of life significantly more than the perceived risk of skin cancer, a perception exacerbated by low sunscreen use. recognizing these psychosocial and dermatological realities is the first step in creating accurate photoprotection education and products for skin of color communities. the lack of spreadability and invisibility of sunscreen products has partly influenced the low adherence rates in skin of color communities. mineral sunscreen containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide have existed as the photoprotective standard, yet they leave a white residue when applied to darker tones (maldonado , gallagher, curry, sahloff, & da silva souza, 2025). to overcome these obstacles, the cosmetic and dermatologic industries have seen the rise of functional sunscreens which combine photoprotection with cosmetic advantages. varying formulations and concentrations of iron oxide and pigmentary titanium dioxide in sunscreen and foundation provide protection against visible light while simultaneously catering to a diverse range of skin phototypes (lyons, trullas, kohli, hamzavi, & lim, 2021). the absence of white cast in functional sunscreens alongside the moisturizing and antioxidant benefits, encourages consistent use amongst individuals with skin of color. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 148 although marketing and dermatology are increasingly intersecting, a major gap in literature exists, as current academic literature has not kept pace with the rapid innovation of consumer products and marketing methods. literature on the direct impact of social media and influence advertising on photoprotection attitudes in diverse populations is limited, highlighting the need for research to bridge clinic guidelines and consumer behaviors. functional sunscreens are reshaping adherence by aligning photoprotection with aesthetic priorities, driven by three interconnected factors: advances in formulation, inclusive marketing, and the rise of beauty culture influences. photoprotection now addresses cosmetic challenges, such as the presence of white casts on darker skin tones, through tinted mineral and antioxidant-supported sunscreens. this shift, combined with the rebranding of sunscreen as a required daily skincare step rather than solely a preventative health product, encourages adherence among previously underserved groups. historical context and barriers to sunscreen use in skin of color despite increasing awareness of photoprotection needs in skin of color populations, many sunscreen formulations continue to fall short in meeting both cosmetic and functional expectations. for example, 61% of surveyed south asian individuals experienced a white cast from sunscreen (toor, gill, & ahad, 2025). tinted “universal” sunscreens attempt to address this issue, yet many formulas do not blend seamlessly across all fitzpatrick skin types, indicating that shade inclusion requires more than just a single adaptive tint (bardhi, mokhtari, masood et al., 2024). as a result, shade compatibility is identified as the largest barrier to consistent use in individuals with darker skin tones, especially with only 38% of available tinted sunscreens offering multiple shades (he, chen, jin, & zhang, 2025). texture adds another challenge, as heavy or greasy formulas are hard to tolerate, especially in humid climates or among oily skin, making regular application inconvenient (wang, patel, philip et al., 2024). when products do not meet cosmetic expectations, user adherence drops, reducing their protective benefits. new formulas have emerged to solve these problems, offering tone-adaptable, lightweight, and cosmetically elegant options that meet previously unmet needs. figure 1 outlines how these newer formulations, such as functional sunscreens, differ from traditional in their composition, function, and inclusivity for skin of color populations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 149 past to present: the evolution of sunscreens for soc figure 1. comparison of traditional and functional sunscreen formulations and their relevance to skin of color populations cultural and marketing factors significantly restrict sunscreen use among populations with higher melanin levels by reinforcing the belief that their natural skin color provides sufficient uv protection. this perspective lowers the perceived risk of sunburn or skin cancer in soc communities. the lowered risk perception is exacerbated as public health campaigns and advertisements traditionally exclude models with fitzpatrick skin types iv–vi, making products seem less relevant (geisler, masub, toker et al., 2022). these marketing gaps contribute to the impression that sunscreens are not meant for darker skin, reinforcing misconceptions about melanin’s protective function. as a result, motivators in soc communities for sunscreen use include products that visibly improve skin concerns like pigmentation, acne, or hydration, rather than those focused solely on cancer prevention, which can seem abstract or distant (krutmann, piquero-casals, morgado-carrasco et al., 2023). addressing these challenges requires culturally tailored education and marketing that acknowledge the needs of individuals with skin of color and clarify the limits of melanin. beyond these cultural perceptions, sunscreen habits are significantly influenced by accessibility and cost. high-quality sunscreens are often expensive and not widely accessible at community pharmacies, discouraging consistent use among lower socioeconomic or minority groups (ullman, nasir-moin, hoffman et al., 2024). for example, in chicago, sunscreens were reported to be twice as scarce in hispanic neighborhoods compared with non-hispanic white neighborhoods (hernandez, calero, robinson, mermelstein, & robinson, 2012). therefore, effective strategies must integrate sun protection into daily routines by highlighting immediate benefits such as skin appearance or pigmentation correction, while simultaneously addressing affordability and convenience to achieve higher rates of adherence. table 1outlines the multifactorial barriers influencing sunscreen adherence among individuals with skin of color, showing how various barriers interact to shape use patterns. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 150 table 1. common barriers to sunscreen use among individuals with skin of color and their impact on adherence barriers to sunscreen use in skin of color populations barrier type examples impact on use reference formulation white/gray cast from mineral filters, heavy or greasy texture, lack of undertone adaptation cosmetic dissatisfaction reduces daily use (lyons, trullas, kohli, hamzavi, & lim, 2021; wang, patel, philip et al., 2024) cultural belief melanin provides full uv protection, sunscreen seen as for “beach days only” low perceived need leads to infrequent application (wang, patel, philip et al., 2024) marketing few ads featuring deeper skin tones, limited shade ranges products not perceived as relevant or inclusive (bardhi, mokhtari, masood et al., 2024; he, chen, jin, & zhang, 2025; geisler, masub, toker et al., 2022) access higher cost of cosmetically elegant spfs, limited local availability reduced trial and purchase (ullman, nasir-moin, hoffman et al., 2024; hernandez, calero, robinson, & mermelstein, robinson, 2012) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 151 barriers to sunscreen use in skin of color populations behavioral preference for products targeting visible concerns (pigment, acne) over prevention spf use deprioritized unless multifunctional (krutmann, piquero-casal s, morgado-carr asco et al., 2023) the emergence of functional sunscreens functional sunscreens have redefined sunscreen behavior within skin of color communities as their integration of active skincare ingredients extend past photoprotective properties. many new formulations now include niacinamide, a well-known pigment-evening and anti-inflammatory compound, as well as antioxidant complexes containing vitamins c and e, green tea extract, or resveratrol. these additions shift sunscreen from a single-purpose product into a hybrid product capable of addressing multiple skin concerns. for soc populations disproportionately affected by dyschromias, niacinamide reduces hyperpigmentation and increases barrier function (passeron, brown, furmanczyk, foyaca, trullas, & piquero-casals, 2025; morgado-carrasco, & piquero-casals, 2022). meanwhile, antioxidants counter oxidative stress generated by environmental insults such as pollution or uv radiation, which are known to accelerate pigmentary disorders (krutmann, piquero-casals, morgado-carrasco et al., 2023). by packaging these benefits into a single product, functional spfs simplify routines while elevating skin outcomes. this multifunctionality appeals especially to younger consumers who prioritize streamlined regimens and visible results, further reinforcing the shift toward daily use. unlike traditional sunscreens, these formulations target pigment regulation, visual uniformity, and cosmetic elegance alongside uv and visible light protection. the rising popularity of functional sunscreens reflects both technological innovation and a reframing of sunscreen as a beauty-enhancing tool, not just a cancer-preventive measure. among the most impactful innovations are tinted mineral sunscreens, which blend seamlessly into deeper skin tones. tinted mineral sunscreens containing iron oxides were significantly more effective in reducing visible light–induced pigmentation in melasma-prone individuals than their non-tinted counterparts (he, chen, jin, & zhang, 2025). this suggests that tone-adapted sunscreens serve a dual purpose: they shield against pigmentation triggers while also camouflaging existing discoloration. these products are not solely responses to gaps in efficacy, instead they are reflections of changing consumer values, where skincare and identity increasingly intersect. cultural and psychological alignment with beauty goals is another key factor driving the success of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 152 functional sunscreens. marketing narratives have begun positioning sunscreen not merely as a protective barrier but as a complexion enhancer, an essential part of achieving glow, radiance, and even tone. this evolution parallels a broader shift in beauty culture where skincare has become a central mode of self-expression and self-care. for individuals with soc, whose primary concerns are often aesthetic rather than oncologic, this repositioning is not superficial, instead it is essential. by addressing visible concerns such as hyperpigmentation and uneven texture, functional sunscreens become more than dermatologic tools; they become identity-affirming products that support confidence and routine consistency (campbell, sands, mcferran, & mavrommatis, 2023; morquette, waples, & heath, 2022). as a result, consumers are increasingly adopting spf products not seasonally, but as year-round staples. this transformation signals a cultural realignment where sun protection is understood within the context of skin tone, not despite it. the role of inclusive marketing and beauty influencers the rebranding of sunscreen from a health precaution to a beauty essential represents one of the most consequential shifts in consumer adoption patterns. beauty influencers across platforms like instagram and tiktok have placed emphasis on sunscreens' role in anti-aging, skin radiance, and self-care, positioning it alongside moisturizers or serums rather than a separate preventative category (shanbhag, nayak, narayan, & nayak, 2010; surber, & osterwalder, 2021). endorsements from trusted influencers significantly impact both purchasing behavior and brand perception, particularly among demographics historically underrepresented in dermatological research. peer-generated content, such as documentation of the before-and-after hyperpigmentation improvement following consistent tinted sunscreen use, develops trust and reliability that traditional advertisements struggle to achieve. this perspective produced by social media serves to make sun protection personally relevant and aesthetically rewarding rather than distant and obligatory. inclusive marketing that features a diverse range of skin tones builds trust amongst consumers and encourages greater engagement with sun protection products. when individuals see models who resemble themselves, they are more likely to trust that products were designed with their needs in mind, an effect explained by the homophily principle which refers to how perceived similarity increases acceptance (wahyuni, & ayomi, 2024; buller andersen, bettinghaus et al., 2018; buller, bettinghaus, fluharty et al., 2019). fenty beauty is an example of how an extensive shade range and a diversity within models revolutionized consumer expectations across the beauty industry (prayudawardani, hadiati, & muttaqin, 2023). this demonstrates the power of authentic inclusivity to redefine industry standards, providing a model for sunscreen marketing. when visibility is extended to sunscreen products in the same manner, it simultaneously communicates that photoprotection products exist for diverse skin tones and that manufacturers recognize the distinct dermatological needs of soc populations. this shift addresses the gap in advertising where models with fitzpatrick skin types iv-vi were absent, creating the impression that sun protection was irrelevant to individuals with darker skin. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 153 behavioral research highlights the mechanisms through which identity-based framing enhances adoption. when sunscreen use is framed as part of a self-affirming or identity-based practice, individuals are more receptive to the message. by integrating sunscreen into identity-affirming routines, public health campaigns and brands can foster sustainable habits, leading to greater acceptance and long-term adherence across diverse populations. positioning sunscreen as a form of self-care makes the behavior intrinsically rewarding and consistent with one’s self-image. this psychological principle explains why messaging emphasizing even skin tone, radiance, and protection against visible light -induced pigmentary disorders influences soc communities more than abstract cancer prevention narratives. addressing previous barriers through authentic representation, inclusive shade ranges, and targeted campaigns, particularly on social media, can strengthen trust and drive product adoption. clinical implications and counseling opportunities the rise of functional sunscreens offers dermatologists an opportunity to translate beauty culture trends into practical clinical advice. traditional sunscreens offer partial protection against hyperpigmentation by blocking uva and uvb radiation; however, they do not provide adequate protection against visible light (moyal, 20224). this distinction is important, as visible light is recognized as a significant factor in hyperpigmentation, especially in patients with soc (zhou, lee, salas & luke, 2024). tinted mineral sunscreens containing iron oxides extend protection into the visible light spectrum, providing comprehensive coverage (figure 2). this specific product is the most effective option for reducing visible light–induced pigmentation, significantly decreasing melasma relapse, and lowering masi scores compared to uv-only sunscreens (he, chen, jin, & zhang, 2025). clinical evidence from a 12-week trial of a tinted mineral spf 50 demonstrated that more than 80% of participants demonstrated measurable improvement in photoaging features such as tone uniformity and radiance (kern, wood, almukhtar, angra, lipp, & goldman, 2022). these findings establish tinted mineral formulations should be recommended over non-tinted sunscreens in patients prone to disorders of hyperpigmentation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 154 figure 2. comparative schematic illustrating that tinted sunscreens protect against both uv and visible light-induced pigmentation, while traditional sunscreens primarily address uv radiation alone for clinical implementation, tailoring recommendations to individual patient needs ensures consistent use. formulation choice should account for skin type and climate as patients with oily skin or those in humid environments benefit from lightweight, matte options. while those with dry skin or in colder conditions require richer, emollient bases. given that white cast and shade mismatch are key barriers, it is reasonable to assume that tinted sunscreens designed to match undertones more effectively may help improve adherence in individuals with soc. by aligning sunscreen recommendations with cosmetic preferences, lifestyle factors, and environmental context, clinicians can make daily photoprotection both effective and acceptable. patients with skin of color face unique barriers to sunscreen use. many patients prefer providers of similar racial or ethnic backgrounds, who may better understand the cultural and cosmetic considerations relevant to their care (wang, patel, philip et al., 2024). this highlights the importance of workforce diversity in dermatology, as race-concordant providers can foster trust, improve communication, and encourage preventive behaviors. partnerships with dermatologists and estheticians specializing in soc can help address these gaps by recommending sunscreens that protect against both uv and visible light, minimize white cast, and provide shade diversity (krutmann, piquero-casals, morgado-carrasco et al., 2023; zhou, lee, salas, & luke, 2024; kern, wood, almukhtar, angra, lipp, & goldman, 2022). such collaborations ensure that product recommendations are both clinically effective and cosmetically acceptable, reducing barriers that often discourage sunscreen use in melanin-rich skin. these experts also play a critical role in educating patients about the importance of photoprotection for conditions such as pigmentary disorders and in dispelling the misconception that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 155 darker skin does not require sunscreen (wang, patel, philip et al., 2024). by correcting these misconceptions, trusted providers can shift cultural narratives around sun safety and promote adherence in populations that have been underserved. a common misconception is that the use of sunscreen invariably causes vitamin d deficiency; however, population-based evidence shows mixed results, with only modest reductions in serum 25(oh)d levels observed and no clear evidence of clinically significant deficiency (gatta & cappelli, 2025). supplementation and a balanced diet remain the most reliable ways to maintain adequate vitamin d levels (kannan & lim, 2014). finally, patients should be reminded that uva and visible light penetrate clouds and glass, making sunscreen a year-round necessity across all skin tones (marionnet, tricaud, & bernerd, 2014; geisler, austin, nguyen, hamzavi, jagdeo, & lim, 2021). by directly addressing these myths, dermatologists can shift patient perceptions of sunscreen from optional to essential, reinforcing its role in both skin health and aesthetics. dermatologists can further enhance adoption by partnering with the beauty industry to expand shade diversity and improve formulation accessibility for skin of color patients. eltamd’s launch of deep tint variants, tested specifically on fitzpatrick v-vi skin tones, was supported by dermatologist influencers of color who educated communities both online and in their clinics (pile, 2025). this approach shows how clinical expertise can guide inclusive product development. this collaborative approach redefines sunscreen as both a health necessity and a beauty tool, strengthening credibility and cultural relevance. when combined with social media engagement and community-based efforts, such partnerships make photoprotection more inclusive and accessible. future directions skin of color communities have been underrepresented in research, leaving a gap in literature about how various dermatological diseases present and are treated in darker skin. it is predicted that there will be an increase in cutaneous cancers, with the majority occurring in low and middle income areas (gupta, bharadwaj, & mehrotra, 2016). current research provides limited insights on evaluating individuals with darker skin tones, posing diagnostic challenges in the identification of characteristics such as color variation within the lesions (geller, jablonski, pagoto et al., 2018). this research deficit is interconnected with previous product development, resulting in sunscreens that were cosmetically unacceptable for darker skin tones. future trials must abandon the “one-size-fits-all” approach and instead should incorporate diverse populations by refining skin physiology categories, use of nuanced messaging to target at-risk populations, and sun safety interventions that are scalable (geller, jablonski, pagoto et al., 2018). sunscreen application is a behavioral barrier most populations face. improper application is a major cause for the lack of protective benefits of sunscreen, most often not enough is applied to achieve the claimed spf and it is not regularly reapplied (silva, tavares, paulitsch, & zhang, 2018). future research must address the long-term adherence patterns and real-world efficacy of functional sunscreens in preventing and treating common pigmentary disorders, including melasma and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 156 pih. most importantly, this research must move beyond simple spf testing to include patient-centred outcomes such as reduction in white cast and improvement in quality of life measures related to pigmentary disorders. current trends point toward expanded shade range stratification beyond the current “light/medium/dark” categorization. a common misunderstanding is viewing soc as a monolithic category, however, most racial groups include individuals on both sides of the fitzpatrick phototype system (karampinis, toli, georgopoulou et al., 2024). the move for greater inclusiveness in the beauty and dermatological market directly acknowledges the heterogeneity within soc populations. multi-active sunscreen addressing simultaneous concerns, broad-spectrum sun protection alongside acne and pigmentation, have emerged partly from consumer demand for streamlined skincare routines that simplify daily adherence. cost, however, remains as a significant barrier. the expense of clinically effective functional sunscreens frequently deters consistent use, particularly among lower-income individuals and marginalized communities. future research must address the impact of economic factors in achieving equitable access, and dermatological strategies should focus on marketing photoprotection as essential. reframing photoprotection as an essential health intervention rather than a luxury beauty product may create pathways toward insurance coverage or public health subsidies, thereby reducing the financial burden to adherence. to bridge the gaps among clinical research and consumer adoption, interdisciplinary collaborations are required. interactions between the beauty community, public health, and dermatology are essential to the development of effective photoprotection strategies. efforts across multiple disciplines are needed to take the diversity in culture and beliefs across various communities into account to ensure preventative methods for skin cancer reach the intended population (geller, jablonski, pagoto et al., 2018). the combination of scientific rigor, population-level education, product formulation expertise, and cultural influence can create photoprotective strategies that target skin of color communities effectively. conclusion functional sunscreens are reshaping the landscape of photoprotection by aligning clinical efficacy with the aesthetic and cultural priorities of individuals with skin of color. advances in formulation, such as tinted mineral products with iron oxides, directly address barriers of white cast and shade mismatch while offering visible light protection critical for pigmentary disorders. at the same time, inclusive marketing and the influence of beauty culture have reframed sunscreen as a beauty-enhancing tool rather than solely a cancer-preventive measure, fostering broader acceptance and daily use. dermatologists have an opportunity to integrate these cultural and technological shifts into patient counseling, emphasizing sunscreen’s role in preventing dyspigmentation, photoaging, and hyperpigmentation alongside traditional uv protection. ensuring equitable access, expanding shade diversity, and strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations between dermatology, public health, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 157 the beauty industry are essential to improving adherence and outcomes. by bridging clinical priorities with consumer values, functional sunscreens provide a pathway toward inclusive, effective, and sustainable photoprotection. declaration of conflicting interests the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. references bardhi, r., mokhtari, m., masood, m et al. 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(2024). guide to tinted sunscreens in skin of color. int j dermatol, 63(3), 272-276. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijd.16954 https://doi.org/10.1111/jocd.14409 https://doi.org/10.36526/ln.v7i2.3053 https://doi.org/10.15171/apb.2019.042 https://doi.org/10.1159/000517590 https://doi.org/10.31605/ilere.v1i2.4118 historical context and barriers to sunscreen use i barriers to sunscreen use in skin of color populat (bardhi, mokhtari, masood et al., 2024; he, chen, the emergence of functional sunscreens the role of inclusive marketing and beauty influen clinical implications and counseling opportunities future directions conclusion darji, k., varade, r., west, d., armbrecht, e. s., davis, e. c., & callender, v. d. (2010). postinfla lyons, a. b., trullas, c., kohli, i., hamzavi, i. maldonado, l. a. m., gallagher, e. a., curry, a., mun, s. j., lee, v., & gupta, m. (2025). sunscreen advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 169 original paper research on the impact of customer resources and demand on customer value in value co-creation for matchmaking service enterprise li guizi 1* 1 guangzhou college of commerce, huangpu district, guangdong province, guangzhou, china * li guizi, e-mail: gz443526500@gmail.com received: april 16, 2023 accepted: may 5, 2023 online published: may 22, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p169 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p169 abstract this research takes the value co-creation theory as the research background, takes customer resources and customer value as the research objects, and uses the customer demand as the mediating variable to study the relationship between the them. by the data of the emerging matchmaking industry, the research analyzes the role of different levels of customer needs in the impact of customer resources on customer value. this study attempts to reveal the impact of customer resources on customer value from different levels of customer needs, strives to enrich the analytical framework of value co-creation theory. keywords customer value, value co-creation, matchmaking service, customer resources, customer demand 1. introduction the traditional value creation model with enterprises as the core can no longer meet the needs of social development, thus creating a new value creation mode-value co-creation came into being. in the process of value co-creation, enterprises and customers are no longer simple value producers and consumers, but the co-creators of enterprise value. value co-creation has been promoted with its concept of mutual benefit and win-win, which has attracted extensive attention from academia and industry, and has become the focus of marketing academia. the status of the service industry in developing countries and developed countries is rising rapidly. it can be said that the development of the service industry has become an important symbol to measure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 170 published by scholink inc. the economic development level of a country, a region, and a city. with the rapid development of the service industry, its competition is becoming more and more fierce. how service enterprises establish a competitive advantage in their service process depends on whether they can create maximum value for customers. (prahalad & ramaswamy, 2004) customer value is the relative benefit and experience perceived by customers. it is not only the goal pursued by customers in value co-creation but also the key for enterprises to obtain a competitive advantage. resources are the basis of value creation. customers, like enterprises, have rich resources, and they can create value by investing in resources. (vargo et al., 2008) however, due to the differentiated needs of customers, the perceived experience of customer value will be affected to varying degrees. at present, some scholars have studied value co-creation from the perspective of customers and achieved rich theoretical results, but there are few empirical studies on the impact of customer resources on customer value in co-creation. in particular, the exploration of customer differential needs in the process of customer resources promoting the co-creation of customer value is not specific and in-depth, and there is still a theoretical gap in the existing research. in order to improve customer experience, enterprises provide more opportunities for customers to participate in the service process, and fully tap and utilize customer resources through active interaction with customers, so as to achieve value co-creation. (grönroos, 2018) however, due to the diversity of single customer needs, customer participation increases the complexity of services and the difficulty of resource integration in the service process. (xie et al., 2020) therefore, enterprises cannot always effectively realize customer value and improve enterprise performance. (shah et al., 2021; yin et al., 2019) this means that platform-based matchmaking companies must clarify the following in service management: (1) in the competition of matchmaking services, what is the perceived service quality and value required by single customers? (2) how platform-based matchmaking companies can provide support for single customers to create value. (3) how to properly plan and manage enterprise resources for platform-based matchmaking enterprises to support the value generation process based on services. 2. method 2.1 literature research method the purpose of the study is to explore the impact of customer demand on customer resources and customer value in service value co-creation. in order to study this problem, the research takes induction and summary of the relevant literature on customer resources, customer demand, customer value, and satisfaction from domestic and foreign scholars in service value co-creation, so as to have a deep understanding of the current research status and development trend. the study not only induces the main research results in this field through literature but also found the deficiencies in research results. thus, sufficient preparations are made for theoretical derivation and model construction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 171 published by scholink inc. comprehensive and detailed literature research is an important way to analyze the necessity and feasibility of this study. by consulting various literature databases, sort out and analyze the relevant literature at home and abroad and the cutting-edge application research of service value chain in different industries, refine and summarize these literature materials as the main theoretical basis of this study. in addition, we also need to find laws and policies related to the domestic matchmaking industry, published relevant papers and foreign literature (mainly british literature). through reading and studying various literature, we can fully understand and master the advantages of matchmaking service in the application of value chain theory. 2.2 questionnaire method the survey will be conducted in different matchmaking service companies, with more than 200 respondents, including an on-the-spot investigation of customers and semi-structured interviews with enterprise managers and decision-makers, and through in-depth interviews with industry, stakeholders to enrich the research data. the survey will subdivide customer resources and customer demand, and investigate customers’ evaluation of different services. finally, according to the collected data and research problems are discussed. primary data will be collected using a questionnaire survey. data will be obtained from the customers of matchmaking enterprises in china. simple random sampling will be used to select the participants whereby an equal chance for all customers will be given to participate in the study (wilson, 2014). closed-ended questions will be used when designing the questionnaire to provide uniformity and ease in data analysis (creswell, 2014). 3. result this is an overview of the current situation of customer needs and customer value in the practice of matchmaking services: according to the “analysis of china’s online dating industry in 2021” report released by the analysis website “yiguan” in february 2022, we can see that the main problems faced in the practice of matchmaking matching services include: customer needs in the online business of the platform and the mismatch of corporate supply and a large number of complaints from customers in the offline business of the platform. according to figure 1, the main overview of customer demand information feedback is: (1) the efficiency of dating and making friends is low (2) the authenticity of the customer information displayed on the platform needs to be improved (3) the accuracy of the matching objects recommended by the platform is not high, and there is a gap with customer needs. (4) there is personal information leakage on the platform (5) platform fees are too high (6) poor customer experience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 172 published by scholink inc. figure 1. resource: analysis of china’s online dating industry in 2021 for example, platform user quality, the authenticity of user information, high recommendation matching accuracy, good corporate reputation, cost-effective payment, good customer experience, rich service content, and strong professionalism. from the above considerations in choosing a matchmaking platform, customers can see the elements of customer demand for a matchmaking platform. according to the service-dominant logic, value is created when customers use products or services to satisfy their needs or want (vargo & lusch, 2004; 2008). therefore, solving the needs of customers is an important way for matchmaking companies to realize their value. if an enterprise can better meet the needs of customers and continuously provide value to customers, then customers will be satisfied with the performance of the enterprise and will rely on the products or services it provides for a long time. at the same time, customer value will promote customers to spread word of mouth to other customers and recommend the company, which will also bring value to the company. customer loyalty and recommendation behaviors will both promote corporate performance. deng hong and wang yurong (2016). the influence of customer demand acquisition methods on customer value. technology and economics (03). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 173 published by scholink inc. figure 2. resource: analysis of china’s online dating industry in 2021 4. discussion 4.1 customer resourse and customer value resources are an important element in the production and provision of services and the basis for value creation. with the continuous advancement of technology and the advent of the information and network era, the situation of information asymmetry between customers and enterprises in the original value creation model has changed. in an environment with diversified communication and communication channels, customers are becoming more and more aware of the service process, the relationship network is becoming larger and larger, and customers have mastered a large number of operational resources, such as knowledge, experience, relationships, and positive psychology. in the value creation of socialized background, customers can invest more resources. the more abundant the resources, the more obvious the benefits customers perceive in the service process. in the process of matchmaking matching service, the clearer the customer understands about his own mate selection position and emotional needs, the more usual the service communication with the matchmaker, and the easier it is to achieve the expected goal. from this, it is found that customer resources contribute to the co-creation of customer participation value. it is very important to improve the customer’s perceived benefit. however, the analysis of the role of customer resources in value co-creation still focuses on the contribution of the enterprise, such as through the active resource investment of customers, the enterprise can reduce the resource investment. customer resources will promote the participation of customers in enterprise cooperation, thereby increasing profits for the enterprise. existing research has insufficient analysis of the positive impact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 174 published by scholink inc. that customer resources can have on customers in value co-creation. it is necessary to deeply explore the role of customer resources on customer value to make up for the lack of understanding of customer resource effects. in recent years, scholars have noticed the important role of customer resources on customer value in value co-creation, mainly describing the relationship between the two from a qualitative perspective. customer resources may increase customer value”, it is not clear how customer resources can enhance customer value. this kind of simple answer to “actually complicated questions” is not conducive to guiding enterprise practice. customer value is the relative benefit and experience perceived by customers in the interaction between customers and enterprises in the context of co-creation. some scholars have proposed that resource input can be understood as the antecedent of value co-creation, while value output can be considered as the result of co-creation, and the impact of customer resources on customer value can be realized through the process of value co-creation. according to the input-process-out (i-p-o) (如图 1) model proposed by mcgrath, the process is the key factor of this framework. existing research has not conducted in-depth exploration of the co-creation process of customer resources affecting customer value, and it is impossible to reveal some phenomena in co-creation more comprehensively and thoroughly from the mechanism, and it is difficult to explain why matchmaking service companies have tried their best to provide them single customers still feel alienated from the company, unable to be creative in the face of problems, insufficient interaction with the company and lack of co-creation ability, resulting in many single customers unable to obtain good benefits and experience. exploring the process mechanism of customer resources to customer value enhancement can provide theoretical guidance for solving the dilemma in the practice of value co-creation. figure 3. value co-creation model based on customer logic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 175 published by scholink inc. 4.2 how do customer needs affect customer value in the process of matching services? in 1943, maslow put forward the theory of “hierarchy of needs” in the article “theory of human motivation”, which divided the human value system into five basic needs, from low to high: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. in the consumer service industry, how to obtain customer needs and accurately calculate their importance ranking can enable merchants to provide more accurate service design and develop products or services that meet customer needs, thereby achieving a greater competitive advantage. in the field of service value co-creation, research has focused on how to achieve personalized value by providing customers with customized products, services, and prices. however, no matter what service methods are adopted in the matchmaking service, it is a very critical service link to effectively identify customer needs and preferences and to refine the needs at different levels. however, the existing research on the matchmaking service industry has not been discussed much. in the field of services, how to better provide high-quality services to meet customer needs and realize customer value is a hot topic sought after by businesses. at the same time, the application of big data, artificial intelligence, live video, and other technologies in internet marriage and love products and services has had a huge impact on the online and offline business of matchmaking services. under the catalysis of the epidemic, the online business of matchmaking has developed rapidly in the modes of live marriage and social networking, video blind date, and live blind dates. this model attracts a large number of users with the characteristics of low threshold, high interaction, and real immersion. the cloud blind date model accelerates the entertainment and pan-social exploration of the matchmaking business. in this context, with the development of information technology, customer demand has also produced richer content, and the customized service model of marriage and love has been further expanded. customization refers to the corresponding products or services provided according to customer needs to better meet customer needs and achieve customer value. customized service promotes the improvement of customer loyalty, strengthens the long-term cooperation between enterprises, and improves the performance of enterprises. customer demand is an important factor affecting customer value perception experience. obtaining customer demand is a necessary condition for realizing customer value. customer needs include explicit needs and potential needs. matchmaking companies need to have strong enough information processing capabilities to deal with customer demand information. there are two main ways for enterprises to obtain customer needs: first, let customers participate in the entire service process under the condition of service-led logic, and obtain customer needs through various information communication and interaction. this approach strengthens the relationship between customers and enterprises, increases the intensity, depth, and breadth of information transmission between the two parties, and at the same time increases the company’s exclusive investment in participating customers. in the process of interaction, enterprises should not only understand the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 176 published by scholink inc. customer’s conditions and which group of related resources in the mate selection market but also understand the effectiveness of customer needs, such as whether it meets the supply and demand matching of the blind date market, whether it meets the needs of service operations, compliance with legal ethics, etc. second, in the matchmaking service industry, professional matching personnel infer customer needs based on accumulated knowledge and deliver demand information guidance for customers, which is another important way to obtain customer needs. in this way, the customer experience is enhanced to a certain extent. in the process of service customization, customers not only convey information about their own needs but to some extent, also learn more about marriage and love from matchmaking service professionals. these related marriages and love knowledge and experiences acquired through learning will in turn affect customer needs and translate into customer value. these two methods will strengthen the company’s understanding of customers and the acquisition of demand information, which will help the company to more effectively meet customer needs and realize customer value. 4.3 how to enhance customer value in matching services? customer value originated from the value function research proposed by thaler based on cognitive psychology and economic theory. many scholars refer to customer value as value, customer transfer value, use-value, and customer perceived value. although these concepts have different names and focus, their connotations are the same, and they are all values perceived by customers. the above concept can also be regarded as an elaboration of the development of the connotation of customer value, that is, customer value is measured by the benefits obtained by customers in the process of consumption, and its conceptual connotation is derived from the difference between the benefits and costs of customers in the process of consumption (p. 128), to the addition of perceived preferences and evaluations (p. 129), to the development of more emphasis on the perception of experience, rather than simply on the realization of consumption results (p. 130). the customer value in co-creation is the use-value, which is the value created by customers in the process of consumption. therefore, customer value in this service field research is defined as the relative benefits and experiences perceived by customers interacting with enterprises in the service process. scholars at home and abroad generally believe that customers’ perceived gains and losses can affect customer value, which is to explore the formation of customer value from the perspective of rational measurement. perceived gain is the related attributes and support of products and services obtained by customers in the process of consumption; perceived loss is the cost that customers perceive to pay in consumption, typically represented by price, acquisition cost, and risk. scholars such as cronin proposed in the quality-value-satisfaction model that the improvement of product or service quality will promote service value, increase customer satisfaction, and then affect behavioral intentions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 177 published by scholink inc. references a. f. f., & alladi, v. 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(1988). consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence. journal of marketing, (3). http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002224298805200302 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 46 original paper integration and industrialization of film and television resources and its significance for china’s film and television work anbo yang1, wantong xie1, shanshan rao2, yu li3, yuze fu4, jiankun jin5, jingrong wu6* & nengpeng fan7 1 school of marxism, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 1 school of economics and management, zhejiang ocean university, zhoushan, zhejiang province, china 2 college of water, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 3 international college, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 4 college of veterinary medicine, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 5 college of food science and technology, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 6 school of foreign languages, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china 7 college of science, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan province, china * jingrong wu, corresponding author received: may 17, 2024 accepted: july 11, 2024 online published: july 17, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p46 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p46 abstract the abundance of film and television resources in china is notable, yet the effective amalgamation and industrialization of these resources hold immense importance for the nation's film and television endeavors. utilizing the full potential of policy, market, talent, and cultural assets, this research achieves the industrialization of film and television resources via a comprehensive amalgamation and integration of various capital, cooperation, and industry sectors. the findings of our study indicate that merging and mechanizing film and television resources in the realm of film and tv not only enhances their usage efficiency and financial worth, but also elevates their quality and expressive capacity. consequently, this approach enables efficient education in film and television for the film and television sector in china. the research aids in comprehending the significance of incorporating film and television resource industrialization into film and tv projects, and also serves as a valuable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 47 47 methodological guide for diverse film and tv endeavors via these resources. keywords film and television work, film and television resources integration, industrialization foreword china, renowned for its extensive cultural legacy and abundant resources, is celebrated for its stringent and functional film and television standards. yet, the practical application of these precious resources encounters an unresolved issue: the challenge of efficiently amalgamating and industrializing them to optimize their use efficiency and financial worth. this matter has been a focal point in our cinematic and tv endeavors for an extended period, as it allows us to replicate and revitalize these valuable resources, thereby leveraging the amalgamation of these resources to enhance the caliber and expressiveness of film and tv productions. this research aims to develop efficient frameworks for amalgamating and industrializing film and television resources in film and television, focusing on policy, market, talent, and culture. it seeks to merge various aspects like capital, cooperation, field, and industry, thereby enhancing the exploitation and use of china's abundant film and television resources and promoting the advancement of china's film and television industry. concurrently, we recognize the complete assimilation and industrialization of film and television resources. consequently, our study aims to not just enhance comprehension of film and television resource industrialization, but also to offer valuable methodological guidance for most film and tv professionals, aiding in their practical self-improvement and accountability. 1. industrialized cinema is the basic perspective of china's film and television film and television work 1.1 the importance of film and television work to the people for the chinese populace, film and television hold a significant role in their everyday life. the reason lies not just in their role as entertainers, but also in their significant contribution to spreading culture and educating. film and television, serving as instinctive and striking mediums for cultural exchange, have the power to depict history, culture, and reality, thereby enriching the public's comprehension and awareness of the nation, its history, and culture. film and tv productions, by crafting unique personas and captivating narratives, adeptly disseminate fundamental ist principles and forge an accurate perception of society, existence, and ethics (xue, 2024). 1.2 close ties between the country and the people the film and television sector in china has been significantly influenced by industrialized movies, highlighting the strong bond between the nation and its citizens. film and tv portrayals communicate the idea of societal unity, thereby strengthening individuals' feelings of identity and connection to their nation. cinema and tv serve as a bridge between the nation and its citizens, endorsing acts of heroism and highlighting the everyday and extraordinary. the use of intricate and striking movies and tv www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 48 48 shows not only enlightens viewers about the struggles and achievements of the nation's forebears but also encourages a more profound comprehension of its history, thus strengthening the physical bond between the nation and its citizens (chai, li, & wang, 2024). 1.3 the fatigue and superficiality of hollywood-style heroism hollywood-style heroism, a prevalent cultural trend, has proliferated worldwide. gradually, this act of bravery has revealed itself to be weariness and shallow. hollywood heroes' portrayals frequently appear overly simplistic and uninspiring, missing profound emotional depth and thought, thus hindering the ability to resonate emotionally with viewers. additionally, movies about heroism frequently depend on visual effects and extensive scenes to captivate viewers, overlooking narrative and character growth, thus diminishing the films' internal power. within this framework, the integration of film and television resources and the execution of industrial production (dong, 2024) by chinese film and television can lead to the development of a multi-faceted, humanistic, and historically significant hero persona. such an approach not only elevates the caliber and impact of cinematic and tv productions but also fosters a stronger bond with viewers, surpassing the constraints of hollywood-esque heroism and infusing fresh energy into the chinese film and tv sector (cao, 2024). figure 1. 2011-2023: hollywood-domestic comparison 2. current situation and challenges of the film and television industry 2.1 the shackles of china’s traditional film and television workshop capitalization china’s conventional film and tv studios primarily exhibit their financial constraints in various forms. the majority of conventional film and tv workshops depend on a solitary or restricted funding source, without the backing of a varied capital framework, resulting in inflexible capital management and an absence of resilience to risk. such reliance renders movie and tv workshops especially susceptible to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 49 49 market instability and financial instability, constraining their capacity for adaptable reactions to market shifts. in the capital management of conventional film and tv workshops, the issue of discrepancies between inputs and outputs frequently arises. inadequate management of capital leads to frequent budget excesses and ongoing projects in film and tv workshops, exacerbating the decline in their financial fluidity. the imprecise allocation of funds has resulted in numerous movie and tv ventures blindly adhering to prevailing trends, overlooking shifts in market needs and viewer tastes, thereby diminishing the investment returns (dong, 2024; tang, 2023). in contrast to contemporary major film and tv companies, conventional film and tv workshops face clear challenges in gathering capital and distributing resources. major corporations generate additional resources via the capital market, offering clear benefits in technological r&d, market marketing, and other areas, leading to a decrease in the market competitiveness of conventional film and tv workshops. capital constraints hinder the growth and creativity of classic chinese cinema and tv studios, simultaneously diminishing their impact in the era of new media. addressing this obstacle requires enhancing the efficiency of capital operations, bolstering capital oversight and project assessment, boosting the effectiveness of capital utilization, and establishing a robust base for the advancement of china's film and tv sector. 2.2 cultural alienation in the internal and external film and television capital markets amidst globalization, the growing frequency of interactions between domestic and international film and tv capital markets is leading to a major issue of cultural estrangement. this sense of estrangement primarily manifests in cultural norms, artistic benchmarks, and storytelling techniques. frequently, the local film and tv capital market faces a dilemma due to a lack of cultural assurance and a monolithic approach to production, complicating the task of accentuating the unique traits and variety of the region. guided by the pursuit of maximizing business gains, yulai capital often adopts and imitates western film and tv production models, particularly hollywood, overlooking the distinctiveness and depth of chinese culture, leading to a blend of local film and tv productions in their structure and context distortion (feng, 2024). the occurrence of cultural estrangement has stripped film and tv productions of their distinct cultural allure and diminished their cultural spread and international impact. addressing this issue urgently requires bolstering the film and television capital market's cultural self-assurance and elevating the competitive edge and artistic merit of local film and tv productions via successful cultural amalgamation and innovation. 2.3 the fragmented needs of people's aesthetics in the information age the era of information, marked by swift technological advancements, has markedly altered public aesthetic preferences (zhan & lei, 2023). the shift is primarily evident in the varied and individualized appetite for movie and tv material. fulfilling the audience's increasing artistic demands proves challenging with the conventional linear storytelling style and singular theme material. the widespread adoption of the internet and media has resulted in the proliferation of disjointed information and brief videos, leading to a growing diversity in people's tastes for movies and tv shows. the desire of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 50 50 viewers to acquire extensive information and profound emotional insights in a brief period enhances the appeal of rapid, high-frequency content. such a stylistic inclination confronts the conventional methods and perspectives of film and tv production, necessitating that producers innovate and penetrate the realms of plot, visual effects, storytelling strategies, and more, to align with the audience's mindset and the ever-evolving market needs. examining the evolution of aesthetic preferences in the digital era, it becomes evident that a position in the intense market rivalry and fulfilling the visual and emotional demands of viewers across various tiers and categories can only be secured through creative, varied, and superior content production. 2.4 film and television works that are detached from the masses are bound to be abandoned the field of film and television is distinct and confronts its own set of specific challenges. initially, the nature of film and tv productions as "robust entertainment" means that viewers frequently overlook the intrinsic value of these works, presenting fresh obstacles to the amalgamation and mechanization of film and television resources. addressing the challenge of incorporating elements of film and television into entertainment to soothe the audience for profound contemplation is a pressing issue we face. cinema and tv productions disconnected from the general public are inevitably going to be discarded, as they have forfeited the emotional impact and identity of the audience. these creations frequently don't accurately mirror individuals' personal and spiritual requirements, making it challenging to express their positive beliefs. the emergence of the information era has led to a more varied and individualized approach to the visual appeal of movie and tv content, making the focus on genuineness and impact crucial. productions in film and tv that lack cultural and societal grounding often struggle to secure enduring market recognition and attention, potentially being perceived as futile and insignificant (tang, 2023). cinema and tv productions lacking a robust mass base are fated for elimination. incorporating film and television resources into film and tv projects can foster the development of a national defense culture. the production and distribution of movies and tv content foster a spiritual ethos and a national persona, reflecting film and television culture both domestically and internationally, aiding in the shaping of the nation's cultural identity. 3. necessity and advantages of film and television resources integration 3.1 the battle between the world of film and television within the worldwide movie and tv sector, the conflict between the political left and right is mirrored in the clash between cultural production and the formation of values. the movie and tv sector, spearheaded by western financial power and technological advancements, persistently shares its principles with the globe, frequently diverging markedly from china's established systems and cultural practices. given the profound influence of western culture, safeguarding and advocating for our distinct film and television culture becomes crucial. boasting a storied history and assets in film and television, china, through the amalgamation of these strengths, is poised to not just showcase its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 51 51 distinct cultural legacy but also stand out in the movie and tv industry. integrating film and television resources is crucial as it yields valuable and genuine content for film and tv productions, thereby amplifying the authenticity and impact of these works. films themed around cinema and television have the potential to captivate viewers across various age brackets, while also effortlessly evoking their personal resonance and identity. western cinema and tv's exclusive focus on heroism and warfare themes has led to weariness and uniformity, in contrast to the traditional chinese culture of film and television, which prioritizes unity and collective struggle, offering a rejuvenating experience for viewers worldwide. achieving the amalgamation and mechanization of film and television assets in the realm of film and tv can significantly enhance collaboration across various sectors, ensure the collective utilization of these resources, fully leverage the significance of film and television assets in the creation of films and tv shows, supply more detailed and lifelike scenes, props, and apparatus for these productions, elevate the quality of production, and meet the growing needs of viewers. within the realm of video production, the amalgamation of china's film and television assets extends beyond mere technology and equipment, encompassing diverse aspects like historical narratives and biographies. by skillfully merging these components, we aim to demonstrate china's robustness and assurance globally, while simultaneously boosting national pride. amidst escalating rivalry in the worldwide movie and tv industry, leveraging the benefits of merging film and television resources to produce high-quality films and tv shows with chinese traits will bolster the global conversation and impact of china's film and tv sector. 3.2 the battle for public opinion in the current era of globalization, movies and tv productions serve not just as forms of entertainment but also as significant instruments for shaping public sentiment. the motifs surrounding anti-war and anti-defeat have sparked global apprehension. leveraging film and television resources to amalgamate and industrialize film and tv projects can lead the charge in shaping public opinion. by leveraging solid historical data and genuine film and television content, we are able to produce impactful and profound works that guide the public accurately towards comprehending war and peace. utilizing film and television as a foundation for film and tv productions can amplify their compelling and convincing impact by authentically mimicking war sequences and cinematic and television tactics, thereby communicating the principles of peace and reason to viewers. such guidance on public opinion serves to mitigate war's adverse effects and fosters unity and collaboration within the global community. by engaging in film and tv projects with a film and television theme, china's harmonious position and constructive involvement in global matters can be showcased to elevate its national reputation. amidst the intricate backdrop of global public sentiment, the journey towards industrialization in amalgamating film and television resources holds significant strategic importance and practical worth (hao & qian, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 52 52 3.3 industrialization is the next dimension in film and television production with the swift evolution of the worldwide film and tv sector, industrialization has emerged as a crucial strategy to improve the caliber and competitive edge of film and television productions. the amalgamation and mechanization of film and television assets are expected to lead to considerable advancements in technology and a boost in production productivity. film and tv production undergoes a methodical and uniform transformation due to industrialization. utilizing cutting-edge technology, special effects, and various production techniques, these productions meticulously rehabilitate and extensively recreate scenes, equipment, historical occurrences, and other aspects to significantly improve audio-visual effects. industrialization enables the strategic use of film and television resources to boost the appeal and impact of movies and tv productions, thereby solidifying their artistic expression and the genuineness of their narratives. this enhancement not only elevates the visual appeal and competitive edge of the creations, but also hastens the technological evolution and growth of the film and tv sector, fostering the industry's overall advancement. 3.4 diverse and excellent traditional film and television culture accumulation the rich and varied traditional culture of film and television in china endows it with distinctive resources for producing films and television shows. over millennia, china has developed an extensive culture in film and television, ranging from the time-honored martial arts like sun tzu's art of war and the thirty-six stratagems to the contemporary narrative of the anti-japanese war, each exemplifying deep-seated film and television acumen and strategic insight. in these societies, heroes, combat narratives, and tactical concepts consistently supply a continuous flow of artistic resources for movies and tv productions, endowing these works with unique traits and artistic merit in their presentation techniques and content richness (tao & zhang, 2021). such accumulations of culture mirror the chinese nation's cultural self-assurance and identity, thereby amplifying the allure and contagious appeal of cinematic and television productions to viewers. the distinct uniqueness of the film and television resources is quite apparent. initially, the confidentiality of film and television resources is paramount, hence they will remain undisclosed to the general public. the incorporation and use of film and television resources face significant challenges, necessitating unique management and privacy strategies to optimize their worth in sensible situations. additionally, the employment of film and television resources must adhere to specific stipulations and authorization processes. consequently, it's essential to consider these elements while amalgamating film and television resources to create a management scheme that satisfies the criteria and is effective. furthermore, resources in film and television exhibit a level of professionalism, encompassing a variety of specialized abilities and more, necessitating skilled technicians for their management and operation. consequently, in the amalgamation of film and television resources, it's crucial to factor in these elements to guarantee optimal resource utilization. given the unique characteristics and requirements of film and television resources, it's crucial to thoroughly evaluate them in developing integration strategies, consider the states' demands for their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 53 53 security and privacy, and make sure their worth is maximized to prevent resource wastage. concurrently, it's crucial to delve into the potential and advancement of amalgamating film and television resources, develop strategies for more effective resource use, and persistently advocate for the industrial production and utilization of these resources to bolster the nation's film and television infrastructure. debate regarding the tactics for amalgamating and mechanizing film and television assets in the realm of film and tv production. 4. discussion on the strategy of integration and industrialization of film and television resources in film and television work 4.1 industrialized production process the industrial production process plays a crucial role in the amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources within the film and television sector. establishing a comprehensive production management system is a prerequisite in the industrial manufacturing process to guarantee the execution of the entire process in an efficient and systematic way. concurrently, it's imperative to maintain rigorous quality control throughout the entire production cycle to guarantee that all elements of the work adhere to superior quality criteria. coordinating and managing both the producer and the field operator is a crucial aspect of the production procedure. during real-world production, the divergent needs of the producer and the field operator frequently result in unwarranted postponements and repetitive resource use in production. consequently, an industrial manufacturing process necessitates the creation of a system for coordinating and harmonizing resources. this system enhances collaboration between producers and operators and optimizes resource utilization via coordination. considering the current manufacturing methods in the film and tv industry, there's a need to enhance the use of technology during the implementation of industrial production processes. utilizing cutting-edge technologies like vr and ar, we can achieve digitalization, automation, and intelligence in production, enhancing both the efficiency and quality of the entire process. concurrently, the ongoing integration of novel technologies can significantly foster the industry's evolution, enhancement, and growth, thereby boosting its overall competitiveness and innovation. as the industrial production process comes to fruition, enhancing investment in employee training becomes essential. to excel in roles like production, field affairs, and post-production, it's essential to cultivate a team rich in experience and robust skills. furthermore, there's a need to cultivate a technical team adept at adeptly employing novel technologies to persistently foster technological innovation and application. 4.2 guide the formation and development of macro-regulation within the realm of film and television, the integration and industrialization of film and television resources heavily rely on macro guidance and regulatory measures. the direction and backing of governmental policies offer a solid assurance for the growth of the film and television sector. it's imperative for the state to develop appropriate policies and rules to define the application guidelines www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 54 54 and standards for film and television resources in film and tv productions, guarantee their fair use, and prevent resource wastage and adverse effects due to misuse. guidance on policies ought to motivate movie and tv companies to delve into innovative modes of expression, merge resources from film and television with contemporary science and technology, and enhance the technical prowess and expressive capacity of their productions. it's advisable for the government to enhance its collaboration with movie and tv companies, motivating them to allocate more resources in these areas through policy and financial aid. a robust reward system ought to be set up to motivate creators to innovate and to engage more proactively in integrating film and television aspects into their creative work, thus guaranteeing the excellence and depth of their creations. by creating unique financial resources and offering tax benefits and various strategies, capital can be further lured into the realm of film and television-related film and tv projects, thereby fostering a positive evolution in the industrial environment (hao & qian, 2022; rao & li, 2019). pertinent sectors ought to intensify their oversight of the market to curb the misuse of film and television assets by financial entities in pursuit of immediate gains. by creating a dedicated censorship body, it's imperative to rigorously scrutinize the use of film and television materials in movies and tv productions to verify adherence to national guidelines and ethics, thereby enhancing the industry's overall integrity and trustworthiness. government policies under macro-guidance, market mechanisms self-regulated, and regulatory agencies effectively overseeing will collectively foster the industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in the film and television sector, offering robust support for the growth and advancement of china's film and television industry. 4.3 spontaneous formation and development of market benefits the natural emergence and growth of market advantages are crucial in industrializing the amalgamation of film and television resources for film and television projects. the market, serving as the primary method for distributing resources, actively fosters the industrial use of film and television resources by aligning them with demand and supply. owing to their distinct charm and extensive viewership, the cinematic and tv adaptations of film and television themes have naturally created a notable impact on the market. market mechanisms are pivotal in this mechanism, prompting film and tv firms to persistently innovate and explore how film and television components, such as scenes, plot development, and technological applications, are presented, influenced by market feedback. competitive markets also motivate producers to enhance their production quality, optimize the distribution of resources, and fully exploit the capabilities and worth of film and television resources. the natural emergence of market advantages enhances not just the quality and impact of film and tv productions, but also fosters a profound amalgamation of film and television assets with the film and television sector (rao & li, 2018). the amalgamation of resources, propelled by market dynamics, paves the way for innovative growth in china's movie and tv sector, enhances industrial efficiency and market flexibility, leading to a mutually beneficial scenario for both film and tv resources and the industry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 55 55 regarding the use of application technology, the amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources in the realm of film and television must be seamlessly incorporated with contemporary information technology. currently, technologies like electronic real-name systems, network broadcasting, and mobile payment systems are widely used in information technology, significantly contributing to the industrial growth and amalgamation of film and television resources in the film and television industry. utilizing these technologies for the industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in film and tv projects can lead to cost reductions and enhanced efficiency, a key area of technological innovation. 4.4 the organic combination of macro-control and micro-subjects integrating macro-control with micro-subjects is crucial for the industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in the realm of film and television. while broad-scale policy direction and organizational structure offer guidance and environmental assurance to the sector, the involvement and collaboration of smaller entities are crucial for converting these policies into tangible productivity. state policies ought to be implemented to motivate businesses to proactively create and utilize film and television themes, amalgamate film and television resources in the production of films and tv shows, and enhance the quality and market competitiveness of these works. businesses need to modify their strategies adaptively, align with macroeconomic shifts, and implement impactful actions like bringing in skilled individuals, fostering technological advancements, and international collaboration to advance the industrial creation of movies and tv productions. during this procedure, it's advisable for the government and businesses to establish a positive collaborative bond, leverage their individual strengths, work together, and collectively bolster the robustness of china's film and television sector. by merging macro-control with micro-subjects organically, there will be an effective amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources in the film and television sector, leading to a thorough enhancement of china's film and television industry. 4.5 data-based management managing data plays a crucial role in the industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources, as well as in the evolving trend of film and television within the realm of information technology. gathering, structuring, examining, and overseeing various data types in the task via information technology can facilitate swift information dissemination, enhance managerial effectiveness, and diminish incorrect choices due to data mistakes and exclusions. when adopting data-based management, it's crucial to focus on data quality and precision, while also ensuring data security to prevent issues like data leakage. achieving this requires the implementation of expert data management software, the creation of data upkeep standards and oversight systems, and the execution of essential training and oversight in data processing for the personnel. managing through data can lead to sensible use and utilization of film and television resources, minimize construction redundancies, economize and conserve resources, and ensure the industrialization and amalgamation of these film and television resources. concurrently, managing data is essential for the simultaneous use of diverse film www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 56 56 and television resources, facilitating their interoperability and exchange (chang & deng, 2023; zhou & zhang, 2023). the impact and importance of the industrialization process and the amalgamation of film and television resources in the realm of film and television. 5. the significance and influence of industrialization and integration of film and television resources in film and television work 5.1 the iterative promotion and dimension of film and television the transformation and amalgamation of film and television assets in china's cinematic and tv endeavors bear significant implications for the evolution and enhancement of the film and television industry. the amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources enhance their production quality, elevating films in terms of visual effects, plot complexity, and technology, while also fostering the spread of fundamental harmony values. films of superior quality, themed around films and television, vividly capture the essence of patriotism. the integration of film and television resources has significantly enhanced and innovated the content and formats of film and television productions. by employing cutting-edge science and technology in film and television, along with authentic battle sequences and historical conflicts, to create films and tv productions that are both pragmatically valuable and instructive, this approach not only elevates the decorative aspect of these works but also fosters the growth and flourishing of a culture of harmony. industrializing film and television resources can foster the growth and excellence of the film and television industry network. spanning from training actors, crafting scripts, producing special effects, to post-production editing, each phase necessitates film and television resources' backing and involvement. this fosters the positive growth of the entire film and tv industry network, establishing a comprehensive and well-developed industrial chain system that robustly supports these film and tv projects (chen, 2023). achieving industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in the realm of film and television can markedly enhance the efficiency of their use. currently, due to ongoing advancements in film and television science and technology, various specialized gear, including chariots and film and television aircraft, have been regularly upgraded and enhanced. sustaining and utilizing these resources incurs significant expenses, necessitating their maximization of advantages. achieving industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in the realm of film and tv production could enhance their usage, boost resource development and utilization efficiency, and elevate the effectiveness of film and television resources (chen, 2021). 5.2 development and upgrading of the domestic film and television market the domestic film and tv industry has undergone considerable growth and enhancement due to the amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources. the effective amalgamation of film and television resources has elevated the standard of film and tv production, facilitating the creation of more works with genuine importance and deep themes, thereby expanding the range of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 57 57 themes and enhancing the viewer's experience. the abundant resources in film and television supply authentic scenes and gear, augmenting the visual appeal and genuineness of cinematic and tv creations, fulfilling the viewers' need for superior content. promoting films and tv shows with a film and television theme effectively fosters the industry's professionalization and standardization, steering the entire market towards internationalization. through invigorating market energy and boosting competitive edge, china's film and television sector has solidified its role in the worldwide film and tv industry by increasing the global reach and market share of local films and tv productions. industrializing and amalgamating film and television resources in the realm of film and tv not only elevates the caliber of local productions but also bolsters china's film and television industry's global competitive edge. through the assimilation and amalgamation of abundant film and television materials, the cinematic and tv productions of china showcase distinct cultural meanings and historical profundity, fulfilling the global audience's appetite for premium feature films. exporting this culture not only bolsters the nation's reputation and boosts cultural self-assurance, but also propagates china's film and television traditions and values worldwide, aiding in the development of china's global soft power (yin, zhang, chen et al., 2017). 5.3 the significance of integrating the industrialization of film and television resources in film and television work following the introduction of the idea to industrialize film and television resources, the amalgamation of film and television efforts has garnered extensive focus and acknowledgment. practically, its benefits have slowly become apparent. the method of amalgamating resources enhances the efficiency of film and television production. through the amalgamation of diverse resources, we can more effectively harness the power of film and television, along with film and television endeavors, enabling mutual coordination and support throughout the entire process. this approach not only cuts down on resource wastage but also guarantees the seamless advancement of film and television projects. industrializing and amalgamating film and television resources for film and tv projects can yield enhanced economic advantages. this method enables businesses and organizations to work together in the joint development and enhancement of products, ensuring a reciprocal benefit. this phenomenon can also enhance collaboration between businesses and advance the overall process of film and television industrialization. such a beneficial cyclical approach can render the amalgamation of film and television resources into a more enduring and sustainable endeavor. the concept of industrializing and amalgamating film and television resources for film and tv projects holds significant importance. this scenario has fostered collaboration between governmental agencies and private companies to realize the impact of collective building. given the present economic climate, collaboration between governmental bodies and businesses has emerged as a key strategy for policy implementation. increasing focus is being placed on the amalgamation and industrialization of film and television resources in the film and television sector, leading to a surge in future projects and investments in this area, thereby creating more employment and investment prospects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 58 58 6. conclusion this research delves deeply into the industrialization and amalgamation of film and television resources in the film and television sector. it not only thoroughly examines the significance of these resources' integration and industrialization, including policies, markets, talents, and culture, but also thoroughly explores the effective use and integration of these resources to enhance the quality and economic advantages of film and television. additionally, it thoroughly examines the crucial role of film and television education in the film industry. despite acknowledging the significance of film and television resources' industrialization and amalgamation in china's film and tv industry, numerous obstacles persist, including the complexities in obtaining and utilizing these resources, limitations in policies and regulations, and the complexities in integrating these resources, among others, all of which require additional investigation and resolution. consequently, upcoming studies ought to delve deeper into the potential for amalgamating and industrializing film and television resources, harnessing their enhanced capabilities to advance research in resource acquisition, elevating the caliber and impact of film and tv productions, optimizing the utilization of these resources, and fostering the growth of china's film and television endeavors. it is solely through this approach that we can more effectively foster the growth and amalgamation of film and television resources within china's film and tv sector, thereby enhancing china's overall economic and developmental trajectory. generally speaking, incorporating film and television resources into china's film and tv projects is a significant yet demanding endeavor, necessitating ongoing research and exploration to attain more significant advancements going forward. references 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(2023). reunderstanding of film industry, technical aesthetics and film aesthetic texture. film literature, 2023(24), 3-8. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p66 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 66 original paper transformation of urban black america into a free enterprise system jack a. kirkland1* 1 brown school, washington university in st. louis, u.s.a * jack a. kirkland, brown school, washington university in st. louis, u.s.a received: september 1, 2020 accepted: october 10, 2020 online published: october 14, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p66 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p66 abstract this article presents personal reflections on a vision to move the blacks in america from a state of despair to one of prosperity. it is a bold attempt to present the experience of 50 years of activism, teaching, and writing on the subject. i have a clear vision of how the community, local government, and the university can join forces in a social and economic development project that would help poor blacks form and own “tenant organizations” and make them “stockholders,” through carefully planned and executed cooperation. it is a real game changer in the lives of the american blacks since the days of black wall street. keywords social economic development, political power, organizing, cultural self esteem 1. a bold project america continues to excavate, burrowing and driving the country, into the deepest, darkest, and most frightening economic abyss ever experienced, while pushing downward, like a “bulldozer,” the “african urban american,” into a fierce, deeper “economic depression,” and state of desperation. this comes along with an ongoing, unimaginable, racially impactful episode of covid-19. the, inordinate, effect of the corona virus on blacks, is the result of the fact, that blacks were not planted in the comparable, rich soil, of “american equity.” and this was simply due to “pigmentation,” alone. having been sown, firmly, and contemptuously, in “social in justice,” blacks were a natural “harvest” for the virus, having been “locked out” of the natural “pool” of riches, that would have been the natural reward of a quality education and work history, based on merit. blacks have worked in every institution, imagined in this country, all of which, were designed originally, for black exclusion. this is called “institutionalized racism.” the “institution of slavery,” was set, in place long ago, while america was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 67 published by scholink inc. wrestling with how to corrupt and “wrap systems” around it. “systemic racism,” is just a saying, to opt out the abhorrence, to the charge of “guilt,” of the original reason, for committing this siamese, “original sin.” this conscious intent, to consent human beings to “unconscionable separation from family, and forced labor,” under the rationale that blacks were not human, so they would not to be assailed as racist. those who “liberally” consented, to that which is inordinately wrong, and still cling to it, find the use of “systemic,” rather than “institutionalized racism,” better camouflage, and makes them less complicit. and this, mind you, while flaunting publicly, and continuously, the greatest “economic breach of promise,” ever publicly announced, and openly reneged—“social and economic equality to all.” this injustice is now an open secret, exposed to, and blatantly apparent, before the whole world. this, affront, and mind you, regardless to the historical and highly visible contribution made by blacks, the forced abandonment of a continent, and homeland, africa, to forge the establishment, that undergirds the economic “base line” of this great nation. the gross national product (gnp), was established, sustained, and maintained by their loss of country and primary family, and awesome loss of “blood and sweat and tears.” “black slaves,” were the labor and the “bedrock” of this mighty republic. yet, the longer, lower and deeper america continues to dig into this depth of misery, it hears constantly, a rap on the floorboards, beneath, black americans, stretching, scratching, reaching and searching for a place of entry, even to the knowledge of previous discomfort, and the experience of rejection, known to be inside. still, wretched and unsheltered, and still on the outside of any modicum of economic equity, the door of entry, to this known calamity of abandonment, inside, is yet sought, as a place of refuge, as there is no other place for economic shelter. we are the lost, abandoned, detached, undeserved “immigrants” within. and, indeed, once unwillingly brought inside, even after 400 plus years, even yet, at the lowest place of economic entry, we still presume to assume the highest burden, with this immodest entry, that we might collectively, somehow, slow down and stop this fall into oblivion, and to right size this society, to one of political equity, and sanity, and save us all. youth, along with ages of all other generations, and people of all hues, are in the streets today, marching and shouting,” black lives matter.”this is part ii of the civil rights movement. it is another approach, to confront the “conscience” of america. i was in that march, with a similar shout, but different slogans, some 50 years ago. the havoc, social fallout, ramifications, and ripple effects are reminiscent of what i recall, in that pursuit of our gallant confrontation, of the “conscience,” of america. to reach this illusive “conscience,” one must bypass the protector and defender of it, the “pocketbook,” “free enterprise,” which is on full alert and on guard against heavy “pigmentation.” and that “purse,” once opened, does not do so unless, the prospect of belief, is, that the rewards will be ever more abundant. the hard reality is that “free enterprise” has a “calloused conscience.” i give my full sympathy, energy, expertise to today’s effort, of the movement, and i truly believe the confrontation will take us farther down the “tracks” each time, but not to the “station,” where we hope to arrive, “economic equality.”that will take real perseverance and political power. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. the african american must realize that he/she is, “standing on the board,” of the “monopoly game,” which is “free enterprise,” and you cannot win by getting in the game late, certainly, not 400 years too late. so, you must either change the way the game is played, or play the game a different way, or not play the game at all. we have no choice, option, to survive, so we must play in a way that we collectively use, and focus our own resources, strategically, and as well placed as possible, in our own best interest. whether this is right or wrong is not the great argument of our time. what we do know is that the way the game is being played now, in this non-egalitarian society, there is “no possible win”, or parity position for us.” like you, i have listened to and heard the “old black community sages, of my time, of, whom i am now one, say, “just keep on living,” with the following admonition, “you can’t beat a man at his own game, or tricks.” we have been experiencing and will soon realize, within the decade, that the largest economic shift of wealth in america will have taken place, since reconstruction, after the civil war. only this time “pigmentation and military victory” will not be the exclusive reason for the decision for “the privileged” to excel, and for such disbursements to be made. but you can be certain, that “color” will play a prominent role. the argument of “class” will be along these lines, “who will get the best, of the, worst,” that is, of the leavings behind, in the battle for social class positions. and no, there will be no “reparations.” and, with the disproportionate status of “poor, near poor,” reaching into higher and higher percentages, into the total population, of every ethnic group, society will become very unbalanced and unstable, socially and politically. thus, in this awkward and unhealthy imbalance, the highest income populations, will be those who will have relative economic comfort. this “elite” group will not be working for money but will “have their money working for them.” they will occupy the highest ten percent income group of all americans, and will be elevated beyond reach of the masses, as we approach the status of a “caste society.” while this is not a new phenomenon, the ranks of the powerful and wealthy, will be almost impregnable for entry. this will be established, achieved, and secured by the fact that we are eliminating, via the “digital revolution,” more jobs and workspaces for people, than can be accommodated, for potentially new work entrants, and those jobs that are lost in attrition (peters, 2017). and, because of “remote work,” and the “ripple effect,” which follows afterward, there will be lesser need to promote the sustainability of large spaces, offices, and other supportive services and resources. the people who are now placed on “furlough,” will soon, unfortunately, find themselves permanently on “awol”—absent with-out leave, but potentially permanently locked out of employment. many of whom will ultimately receive “dishonorable discharges,” from their workplaces, declared unneeded and unfit for production, due to their surplus skills and “excess hands on board.” this will be the consequence of surplus labor, and the desire to create exuberant wealth, for the “people who are using money to make money,” for the company or organization, from which they were formerly hired and associated. the only resolve, to make this adjustment, correction, “to bridge the broadening economic gap,” between the poor, near poor, and those rapidly falling into poverty, is, and will be, the greatest issue www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. facing america (woolf, johnson, & geiger, 2006). yet we risk widening the gap. this “gap” looms so frightening, in the very near future, in a decade or two, from now, when the situation of poverty becomes so painfully extreme, that it is a challenge to the “social mooring” of the system. there must be political change, or a change of the “social perspective,” to bring about social equity. the latter has been a long hard and tried, “tug of war” proposition. many people have marched, and shoes worn low and bare, flags flown, slogans printed, hearts swollen and broken, to bring about change for “social parity.” and such does bring “petite and marginal changes,” but not the realization of substantive progress. the only point of leverage that can bring equilibrium to the political, social and economic structure is the simple acceptance, and implementation, of “full representative democracy.” two factors are of great urgency for this “peace, parity, and prosperity,” for all to take place, is the operationalization and acceptance of “equal justice.” not for the quieting of any “special aggrieved group,” but as the “social healing salve,” for a nation. this must be the solution, now, and in a hurry. a continuous delay, of the treatment of this cancerous malady, and the intermittence of challenge and avoidance, of this promise, will exhaust the nation, harden positions to the refusal to participate in its own best interest and salvation, and bodes ill for the nation. not to achieve this purpose, is to burst a ground swell of “damned up rage, anger,” and the “desire for revenge.” such a punitive delay leads only to the protracted, parcel correction, of wrongs, and it gives greater reason to question the sincerity of such future commitment and honest intent. and, when a hand is extended, or offered from a position of power, only to maintain power, with an option of, “take it or get lost,” it will be summarily rejected with disdain. recall, a similar such offer was made to our indigenous brothers. 2. end of the majority group—beginning of the minorit—minority groups in less than a quarter century from now, there will be “no majority group” in america (poston & sàenz, 2019). all ethnic groups will be of minority status. but the latin american and african american groups will simply represent one third of the total population. while these populations are currently less organized and manpowered groups, coming to the “bakery,”—the “system” as we know it—with baskets asking for bread, they will soon come to acknowledge, and keenly recognize, that the “bakery” is in their community. the battle will commence soon, openly, between these two ethnic groups, as they will be set opposed, one to the other, over the “leavings” in this society. this will be the strategy of “the haves,” to maintain their status and power. this is the story of another time, not to be visited here. these two populations could—formulate their own political party—form their own political planks and assert their own needs and demands. they could support, or withhold, likewise for leverage, the meeting of their demands, as opposed to “being taken for granted,” and assumed to have no political clout or “home of their own,” to negotiate and “showcase “their grievances. this is a different approach from “pleading” or bargaining for a “splinter” in the “platform,” of the democratic party. together, they canseek and demand “social justice” from the “apex, “of the political structure. the process in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. doing so can be to “clear up,” or “clean up,” the social injustices bereft of “institutionalized racism,” which bleeds into all other institutional structures like leukemia, carrying all the same “filthy racial infirmities”—inequities and social injustices. racisms the foundation, which begets poverty, upon which all other such injustices are erected, and it is that upon which the “system depends,” to keep other disenfranchised groups disorganized, scattered and fragmented, in demands of their rights, as it rations out, its presumed allotments, of convenient and situation ally acceptable rights to others. this could/would be a future strategy of the system, that will and can be the backup, as it parlays the often-feigned, suggested promise, of incremental “good will”. this extended offer, which lags, eons, years, in limbo, seeking the appropriate adjustment, the hoped-for discharge of “egalitarianism,” which, now, is highly suspect by “people of color”. 3. while impatiently waiting for egalitarianism since “african americans” cannot stand around, on one hope and then another, watching and waiting for social justice, while our socioeconomic life sinks, into a near breathless level, or a level that barely permits us to exist above that of breathing, we know that charity cannot, and will not, sustain us. we must do what we must do, to sustain and survive, both “hope and health”. i believe, not only will poverty penetrate african american families to a point of desperation, but it will make us tread upon the lowest echelon of our moral self-esteem (kirkland, 2016). communities and city governments, for the dominant numbers of poor african americans, are, themselves, economically unstable and collapsing, “under water” (fullilove, 2016). we reside in partially abandoned, socially distraught, forsaken and forgotten residential areas. we are compelled to dwell in a food desert, the most commodity depleted, segregated and poverty devastated urban areas,” and they are becoming even more poverty bleak, and barren over the years. this being so, the area can be, and is easily condemned and “confiscated,” gentrified, and held hostage, for whatever newly federal program designed and disguised to confiscate them. this is all to the benefit for tax breaks, for the wealthy, those using governmental money—our tax money—to make money, by using such “boondoggle” and shipping us out of our “last frontier, “urban america”. 4. what is the work ahead for african americans? the “goal” is to engender hope, pride, and the entrepreneurial industry, throughout the black urban area, by organizing and establishing a “community council,” to make the urban area, a community environment, one that is economically viable, stable, safe and minimally sustainable for its residents. through this process there will be multiple establishments of venues, commercial enterprises, and corporate ventures that will create work and generate other such enterprises, some distant, that could serve as “entrepreneur satellites,” in outside areas to flourish. this will generate and encourage the prospect of inclusiveness, and a general, es spirited corps, that all are members of society, and are upwardly mobile, forward thinking, and moving progressively in a predominately “black integrated,” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. community (kirkland, 2020). this “new frontier, i have written about for years,” is the “urban core” of “anywhere black urban america,” from which the african american is being eased out, pushed out and ‘coned out,”—(deluded to think)—to search for the greater “green pastures, of suburbia” (kirkland, 2020, 2016). this “new frontier”’ will ultimately become the “last frontier,” for blacks as it become the home of the numerous white university graduates—and the so called “white pioneers”—of the last and the next decades, who cannot find employment, or housing or entertainment to accommodate their taste, style or cost of living. 5. packing up and leaving the wealth and opportunities behind in cities all that is required for profitable wealth, is that blacks amass, the combined african american capital, that is being left behind, within the “black ghetto,” and harness their mental prowess, amongst themselves. simply to purchase and lay claim to the “wasteland”, of empty and broken-down houses in any city, bereft to its non-industrialized base, and to build a housing/holding corporation—single houses and apartments, and commercial enterprises. such a corporation could sell or hold property from the advantaged position of a mortgagor, or that of a mortgagee. this can be done now because there are, yet, enough african americans left in cities to create, nearby, residential, physical presence, and they present fear of fiscal loss to other such white venturesome entrepreneurs, but not for long. they could, with the help of black elected officials, now in political office, with equal vision, purchase back land, properties, and rehabilitate and rent and recycle the money into a holding corporation/s. the goal will be to select good tenants, have them forma “tenant organization,” and make them “stockholders,” in the cooperation. within three years, or such limited time, the capital flowing from the holding cooperation/s would permit the building of other venues. private owners, and the community corporation, would be stockholders to all affiliated. tenants would be the ones responsible for the socialization of their children, the up keep of the “new town in town,” or area, and would police themselves and those “moving in,” or passing through the area. they receive “dividends” based on their ‘mutual investment,” and such a people would empower the community. they would scrutinize, police, and support its own efforts, with the capital outflows of the investment and timely maintenance; the community would exemplify “bragging rights,” for the residents, as it flourishes civilly, politically, and economically. and would invite and command the upkeep of the neighborhood and community. 6. a local effort with housing and urban development (hud) at the helm: a vision initially, there will be a grant-investment disbursement for the first phase of this bold venture. targeted areas, initially, would include such areas like ferguson, missouri and east saint louis, illinois. the former, because it is the “national epitome” for social unrest and “institutionalized racism,” the latter being that its a city with great dysfunction of political and economic systems. the social morass serves as an example that what can be accomplished there, with such formidable obstacles, is arguably www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. achievable anywhere in america. virtually, any city east of the mississippi river with a population of one hundred thousand (100,000), will find an equivalent of east saint louis population, “encamped,” imbedded within its midst. what will make this a unique approach is that there will be a designed, implemented and followed up plan, via study and research, a process for emulation. this is a process that can be evolved from the university, in consort with professional and lay experts in social economic development practices. this will be a unique, “town and gown,” marriage, whereby the founder of this social work approach, at the outstanding brown school of social work, washington university, is known for his expertise in organizing, group work/dynamics, will work in conjunction with a combination of other renowned selected scholars, of other university disciplines. additionally, business, architecture, and the like disciplines will engage in, and help orchestrate, african american urban residents, in this unheralded path to free enterprise and a “quasi sustainable” community. 7. the community council this will be the most unique technique in organization development ever undertaken. the “core members” of the community council will be selected, as the unit to consecrate the foundation upon, of which there will be a consummate number. the chief consultant—social economic developer—will approve the original members and help the “core” group plan the structure for the creation of the full elected council. the community council will be organized with the assistance of the chief, social economic developer consultant, and other consultants to formulate a five-year plan which be presented formally to the community-at-large. details of the community council-purpose—goals—structure-representation of community areas present—how the whole community is envisioned to become “stake holders” and “stockholders” will be disseminated. the concept of stockholder is unique as it delivers what it implies, benefits/dividends, to the people, as a result of their entrepreneur endeavors, which will be products of community planning and efforts in sustaining and protection (kirkland, 2020). the similarity of community process, goals and processes end here. the undertaking of this process is all inclusive. there is the recognition that there is a process of inclusion—those longing to do and be better off—which addresses the need of having—owning—belonging—hoping—and mutually sharing, that is essential for re-socialization, of the oncoming generation to understand the essence that community is co-equal to family, and the realization that “the community is the womb of the family”. this is made evident and is manifest in community provision and protection. to embrace this reality, and to exercise it in community living, changes the interactions and ethics of a people, and the reinforcement of such principles, changes the generations that are to follow. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 73 published by scholink inc. 8. the community is alive—dying—or a dead bird the translation of a people from a day to day—paycheck to paycheck—survival to existence—changes the hopes, aspirations for self and children and neighbors. this in turn leads to enhanced self-esteem, hope, and self-discipline, the transformation of community discipline and self-policing, of both criminal wrong doings and illicit and immoral behavior. furthermore, this translates into ambition, school attendance and achievement, the condemnation of crime by community, and the welcoming of police involvement as invitees, with expectation for equal service, protection, and respect, as that provided all other communities. these police officers will be known by the population, who will have been involved in their training, and are expected to “protect” the community not to “patrol” to “control” it. the two wings of a viable/good community are “economic sufficiency” and “moral discipline,” one begets the other in support, or as one wingtips and falls downward, so does the other wing uplifts-as so does the bird—to stay on even keel—in homeostatic balance, as so does the community. 9. proposed university support for the community to be adept in furthering—implementing—evaluating—the social economic development processes—classes will be taught—as required—to small “ selected” groups of city participants, including those in the community council—and they will receive certificates of participation and completion of the course with the university. the general community council is the heart of the community—i have described how it is developed in my paper, social work—the other face of social work (kirkland, 2020). there are three elements of that group essential—it consists of: (a) clergy/religious (b) merchants/residents and (c) committee members of the community council the three will function as “the group of the whole”. the function of this full body is to keep notice of the agenda and priorities of the city council, and grade how well the appropriate needs are addressed and resolved. they are to meet in concert, one week prior to the official city council meetings. they will be ready with a copy of the respective city council’s agenda, and/or their own. they will state what they would door prefer as the resolve and their position on matters and observe how their opinions correlate with those decisions of the council. they will note how the matters were voted on and review the council members’ decisions or positions, in consideration of such for future general elections. this general community council is augmented by seminars by the university in social economic development. they are to select and/or approve citizens from the community for seminars in social economic development certificate. seminar classes structured by the university, as designated, to community residents regarding social economic development processes and procedures and will be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. held in designated community sites. approval for attendance is given by the general community council to individuals who will meet as small groups of citizens, representative of community. some features of the curriculum include:  one credit hour is assigned for attendance for 15 hours class attendance  community youth who are aged 18 to 25 can qualify for a one-credit hour (free) class study at the university -after receiving three certificates from participants of the seminar and,  must otherwise qualify, according to university specifications selected community members for the social economic development certificates are—for example barbers, hairstylist, clergy, church congregation members, and merchants in the seminars—and are enabled to understand the processes of social economic development, and to gain greater understanding/assistance to the social economic development processes in community. the university will issue each graduate a certificate and the cumulative total of five certificates collected by any city resident and can enable the individual to receive the right to compete for a three-credit university class, if qualified. the process of social economic development is to be initiated by city governments, and is to be supported and scrutinized by the, “community at large,” under the leadership of the community council. the community council is to be an influential guiding force in follow up and follow through of activities planned and implemented by city government. 10. conclusion i have taught, and published nationally, for over 50 years, that blacks in america were being pushed out of the urban core, by both “bodacious” and “subtle” means. to this end, blacks are being resettled in, and beyond suburbia, and exurbia, enrooted to rural america. this is a journey in reverse, returning to where they have come from, near rural and rural america, many years ago, back to their geographical origin (falk, hunt, & hunt, 2004). only this time, without livestock to feed or eat, and not the possible means of making a living. similarly, in lifestyle, to those who are currently there, who are white, who are wrestling with the challenge of economic survival. this may sound incredible, that such a situation could possibly occur, but like the “old black sage,” referenced earlier, has said, in his prognostications, of looking down the road, at our troubled social justice future, you “just keep on living.” in a multicultural, multiethnic society, one is aware of what happens to anyone in a society happens to all; the prospect for such an eventuality is not rare, history is the great judge of such situations. but when one is in also called, “progressive society,” whereby, the question has been asked, on multiple levels, from that of the “civil rights movement,” to thitherto,” black lives matter,” the same question of caring, about the “inordinate” impact, of the incident of covid-19, “on “people of color,” is asked continually and unanswered positively, “am i my brother/sister’s keeper.”at every juncture, and turn on sustainability, the question is met and silently answered with silent indifference. this is a “dry run” on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 75 published by scholink inc. human value, and compassion and repentance to the resolve of social justice “hangs in the balance.” thesis especially true of those who have the means and power to bring “right” out of “wrong, and those with similar power, “only wait and watch.” a non-egalitarian society is one, in which, ethnically different groups are aware that they must negotiate for “first class citizenship.”should a wholesome, “healthy society,” ever materialize and be achieved, than those who are so engaged, seriously, in self-help, are not penalized for initiating their collective self-effort. they are fully enveloped into the “whole healthy society.” they are rewarded for their extra effort and contribution that they bring back, into the collective whole. and should the prospect of equity be forestalled, intentionally and/or permanently, the disadvantaged groups, while lessened in economic status, are heightened in their “cultural stature of self -esteem.” and they are not dismayed, nor denigrated, by their stamina of continuance, in their “collective cultural achievement.” and what if the “ole black sage,” is correct, and we have “just kept on living,” the gain, in no wise, cannot be erased. references falk, w. w., hunt, l. l., & hunt, m. o. (2004). return migrations of african americans to the south: reclaiming a land of promise, going home or both? rural sociology, 69(4), 490-509. https://doi.org/10.1526/0036011042722831 fullilove, m. d. (2016). root shock: how tearing up city neighborhoods hurts america and what we can do about it. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21pxmmc kirkland, j. a. (2016). self esteem development is a community effort. international journal of applied sociology, 6(1), 1-6. kirkland, j. a. (2020). social work-the other face: lifting urban black low-income communities out of poverty. new community, 18(1), 69, 37-41. peters, m. a. (2017). technological unemployment: educating for the fourth industrial revolution. educational philosophy and theory, 49(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1177412 poston, d. l (jr,)., & sàenz, r. (april 30, 2019). the us white minority will soon disappear forever. the conversation. retrieved august 26, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/the-us-white-majority-will-soon-disappear-forever-115894 woolf, s. h., johnson, r. e., & geiger, h. j. (2006). the rising prevalence of poverty in america: a growing threat to public health. american journal of preventive medicine, 31(4), 332-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2006.06.022 notes(s) note 1. i have described both the “dynamics” and “dilemma,” which faces african americans in urban america (kirkland, 2016; kirkland, 2020). i pose the social worker as a social economic developer—recognizing that the basis for change, of the “economic” situation, is paramount—i call www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 76 published by scholink inc. this—“the other face of social work”—because the emphasis is accentuated on the self-delivery of “economic development,” as the priority, but not to the exclusion of the delivery of basic social services—while the emphasis is on the former, they are to be used interchangeably, but they are required jointly and collaboratively. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 142 original paper research on the countermeasures of the art communication of rare operas under the background of rural cultural revitalization—take the wa qing opera in tengchong, yunnan province as an example li shangqi1* 1 international college, krirk university, bangkok, thailand * li shangqi, international college, krirk university, bangkok, thailand received: august 29, 2023 accepted: november 03, 2023 online published: november 20, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p142 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p142 abstract as a kind of traditional drama with local characteristics, the wa nationality qing opera itself has high artistic value, historical value and scientific research value. this paper mainly analyzes the spread of the contemporary process and characteristics of the wa opera, understand the present situation of the wa opera art spread, find out the difficulties and problems in the communication and inheritance of the wa opera art, try to explore spread potential of the wa in the background of rural cultural, explore new path and new strategies of rare operas dissemination under the new background. keywords art communication, inherits, tengchong wa qing opera 1. introduction tengchong in yunnan province is known as the “the first city on the border”. it is a provincial historical and cultural city in yunnan, and it is also a famous hometown of overseas chinese. ganzhe village is located in the platform at the south foot of ma’anshan volcano, northeast of hehua township, tengchong city. it is a village of the wa people in hehua dai wa township, and is also one of the important post stations in the tengchong section of the southwest silk road leading to myanmar. the village has a total population of 530 households, of which 503 are wa. ganzhe village, a small border village, has attracted much attention for its unique wa qing opera. after several generations of inheritance and innovation since the late ming dynasty and early qing dynasties, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 143 published by scholink inc. it still maintains its ancient and original characteristics. in 1984, after a long period of silence, the wa qing opera finally came back to people’s life, and emerged in the artistic performance of farmers in yunnan province, winning the reputation of “precious ethnic opera”. experts from the chinese academy of chinese opera also visited ganzhe village to make detailed video recordings of the wa qing operas, which officially included them into the list of chinese ethnic minority operas. the beginning of the wa qing opera is closely related to the people of hubei in the late ming and early qing dynasties. at that time, they created a new form of opera which is qing opera according to the ancient qing opera. with the communication of social economy and culture, qing opera was gradually introduced into tengchong, and spread in the ganzhe village and other places. the wa qing opera has gradually integrated into the local cultural atmosphere, and gradually developed and evolved into a unique ethnic opera. the past hundred years of historical accumulation makes the wa qing opera unique and charming, and its primitive performance form and unique artistic style have attracted the attention of many audiences. just like a pearl on the plateau, the wa qing opera blooms with a bright light, showing the unique charm and profound heritage of the wa culture. under the background of china’s battle against poverty, rural revitalization has become the inevitable trend of sustainable development in rural areas. at the same time, the domestic academia and industry are increasingly aware of the profound significance and value of culture. in the field of rural revitalization, it is a feasible path to strengthen cultural construction, give full play to the role of culture in rural revitalization, and promote the all-round revitalization of rural areas with rural culture revitalization. as an opera form with distinctive local characteristics, its artistic value is very precious, but also represents the national spirit and national feelings, which is worthy of our inheritance and development. 2. basic overview of the art communication of the wa qing opera in tengchong there are many different nationalities in the vast land of our country. with the passage of time and regional changes, these ethnic groups have gradually developed opera and drama forms with their own regional characteristics and ethnic customs. there are very few kinds of wa opera. with a history of more than 600 years, the wa qing opera, known as the “living fossil of drama”, is a folk cultural and artistic treasure that remains in the remote areas of yunnan province and has not been known and understood by many people. it is the only local opera in tengchong which has been officially listed as chinese minority operas. the wa qing opera has beautiful words, touching stories, distinct characters, and vivid plots. the expression technique is good at lyric, narrative, melodious and cadence, and has very strong artistic expression and appeal, and is known as “precious national drama”. in terms of inheritance mode, the wa qing opera mainly focuses on mass inheritance and family inheritance. the dissemination of wa qing opera is mostly carried out in the folk practice of oral transmission, which is a primitive way of dissemination and has always occupied an important position. in the process of inheritance, both teachers and apprentices are required to convey the true feelings, and create a vivid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 144 published by scholink inc. opera image through the direct body, eyes, mouth and ears, and through the actual singing and the coordination of body movements. in this respect, other means of communication cannot be compared. oral transmission requires direct face-to-face inheritance, and the music information transmitted is distinct and specific. with the development of modern media technology, oral transmission cannot adapt to the changes of the times, so it is urgent to build all-round and diversified communication channels to effectively protect folk culture and art. 3. the value of tengchong wa qing opera as an artistic medium to participate in the construction of rural culture after the introduction of the rural revitalization strategy, “countryside” has become a popular word for chinese society, from which many concepts of “village +” have been derived. the construction of art township is an important form of “village + art”, so the construction of art township has gained more and more social attention. its main purpose is to participate in rural construction with art as a medium, so that the inheritance and communication of art become a means to enhance the value of rural society. as an artistic medium, the wa qing opera can activate the traditional rural culture and enhance the endogenous power. in fact, the lagging development of public cultural services is an important reason for the backwardness of rural culture, and also one of the reasons for the lack of cultural life and aesthetic taste of contemporary villagers. as a rare folk art, the wa qing opera can bring a new cultural experience. at the same time, the wa qing opera inheritance and artists can also be art inheritance as one of the township building content, realize the function of art education and inheritance, subtle influence on the spiritual pursuit of local villagers through the art public space of the exhibition and performances. as an artistic medium, wa qing opera can help to promote the development of local rural cultural tourism industry. cultural and tourism industry is an important industry for rural revitalization. with the increasing homogenization of traditional village tourism, the intervention of art has injected new vitality into rural tourism. in order to promote the integration of culture and tourism, large-scale art activities can be held in combination with local characteristics, and modern artistic atmosphere and rich rural customs can be displayed through various art forms such as music, dance and drama performances, becoming a model for local characteristic art to help rural revitalization and the integration of culture and tourism. as an artistic medium, the wa qing opera may help to promote the upgrading of local industries. with the development of art township construction, the value of art for rural economic development has been gradually explored. the artistic communication of wa qing opera may also be able to drive other local characteristic industries, combining the local rural cultural characteristics to design multi-functional modern rural workshops such as agricultural products processing, tourist visiting experience, villagers’ activities, “drama museum” and other functions. it will provide more diversified cultural space for tourists to experience and communicate with villagers, and enhance the cultural connotation of local www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 145 published by scholink inc. industries. 4. dilemma of wa qing opera art communication in tengchong under the background of rural cultural revitalization tengchong wa qing opera has a long history, but it is also faced with various inheritance and transmission problems. as a kind of intangible cultural heritage folk art, wa qing opera has a narrow audience, and not many people can really contact qing opera. over the years, the dissemination and development of qing opera in tengchong encountered a bottleneck.with the rapid development of the country and related policy support, qing opera was included in the first batch of china national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008, however, in the process of inheritance and communication, there are still some problems, such as narrow audience, few new dramas and single transmission path. 4.1 the audience range of wa qing opera is still relatively narrow tengchong wa qing opera originated in the late ming and early qing dynasty and has a long cultural history, but so far, not many people really understand the cultural connotation behind qing opera, so its audience scope is still relatively narrow. the inheritance and communication of wa qing opera is basically based on the traditional face-to-face dissemination and performance, and the intensity of external dissemination and promotion is seriously insufficient. in recent years, the publicity and performance activities of wa qing opera have also been disseminated and publicized through the internet, but no systematic and professional communication channels have been formed, and the audience is not really open, still confined in the small circle, the public is difficult to access to information about wa qing opera. in addition, the rural economic conditions are poor, and more villagers turn to urban development, and most of the villagers in rural areas are the elderly and children. the loss of young people leads to the loss of the creation of local cultural activities, thus ignoring the inheritance and development of opera art, and the audience range of qing opera is getting smaller and smaller. 4.2 lack of professional talents leads to the shortage of new works of qing opera the number of wa qing operas in tengchong is small and most of them are traditional pieces. it is known that the traditional qing operas of the wa nationality have been handed down since ancient times. nowadays, the aesthetic of contemporary society has changed greatly with the traditional aesthetic. both the ideological content and the artistic form have a certain sense of distance, and there are few new plays of wa qing opera that are in line with the modern aesthetic and can attract the public. secondly, the wa qing opera performance is only organized in special rituals and specific festivals. in the construction of opera culture, the promotion policy of traditional opera is still adopted. the lack of new plays makes the audience gradually lose their interest in watching. in addition, the current predicament of inheritance and transmission also leads to the lack of professional talents of wa qing opera, the restriction of the growth conditions of inheritors and students and the lack of culture and education have seriously affected the inheritance and development of wa qing opera in the local area. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 146 published by scholink inc. in order to improve the lack of innovation and new plays in the content of the opera, the most important thing is to have more new works in line with the modern aesthetic needs. therefore,, it is necessary to improve the growth conditions of qing opera inheritors and strengthen the training of professional talents. 4.3 the wa qing opera publicity resources are insufficient and the communication channels are single as an intangible cultural heritage, in the process of inheritance and publicity of wa qing opera, the publicity resources are insufficient in human, financial and material resources, which directly affects the strength and effect of its dissemination. the transmission mode of qing opera is mainly carried out in the form of individuals, which is mainly manifested as the interpersonal communication by words, deeds and mouth, with a single transmission path and a lack of innovation. at present, the art of wa qing opera has not been paid enough attention by new media people, which makes the dissemination of qing opera stay in the path of natural communication, and it is not strong enough in mass communication and network communication, so it is difficult to adapt to the requirements of the new era. making good use of new media and creating an all-round, diversified and three-dimensional communication way is the key to solve the current limitations of wa qing opera communication. 5. countermeasures for the art communication of wa qing opera in tengchong under the background of rural cultural revitalization 5.1 strengthen the construction of rural opera culture platform and cultivate the audience groups at present, the inheritance and transmission of the wa qing opera are difficult, and the capital, talent, market and other aspects are facing a continuous contraction. with the process of urbanization, the wa people flowing into the city have gradually forgotten the qing opera. the government is the driving force to promote the inheritance and development of wa opera art and culture, the rural government should clear the opera art of rural culture construction, through repertoire performance and audience group training, the performance of wa qing opera will be incorporated into the public cultural service system, and the emphasis is on promoting the public welfare dissemination and promotion of qing opera. at the same time, the creation and performance of qing opera should keep pace with the times and resonate with the cultural needs of the rural people. traditional repertoire needs to be preserved and inherited, but the new era needs to innovate the content and performance form of opera repertoire, especially for the young audience, combined with the needs of rural people, the creation of popular, positive energy of the qing opera works. 5.2 strengthen the training of professional personnel it is necessary to cultivate a group of representative figures and backbone forces of the qing opera. the rural government should take the training of qing opera talents as a system, actively improve the performance environment and conditions of opera talents, increase the publicity of qing opera, and introduce a large number of talents. formulate effective incentive measures to guide performance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 147 published by scholink inc. groups to actively investigate the cultural needs of rural people, so as to carry out more effective opera performances; formulate incentive measures for cultivating rural opera talents, and encourage “native village” villagers to provide fresher and more realistic performance materials and even scripts for opera groups. 5.3 integrate resources and build diversified new media communication channels we will give full play to the advantages of the internet and build a network communication platform. in addition to traditional communication channels such as radio and television, more diversified new media communication methods, such as digital magazines, digital broadcasting, internet, short videos, etc., can form a frequent and multi-level communication stimulus to the audience. relevant opera workers and communication personnel should actively coordinate the advantages of all parties, build a diversified opera communication media platform, and use the platform to live broadcast and publicize the wa qing opera, so that more people can know and understand the wa qing opera, and improve its status and influence in people’s minds. support digital construction. the introduction of advanced technology, the attempt of digital processing in the process of protection and inheritance, and the preservation and utilization of traditional dramas of wa qing opera, ancient books, cultural historical materials and historical video materials, not only serves the protection of performing arts audio and video resources, but also can derive complete digital products and intellectual property rights. extensive online and offline qing opera popularization activities, invite famous artists for offline interviews and online live broadcast, and organize online interactive activities that meet the preferences of young people, so as to expand the audience participation and social influence. 6. conclusion as a precious artistic resource, yunnan tengchong wa qing opera is the cornerstone of the development of chinese opera culture and the link of cultural inheritance. in the context of rural cultural revitalization, the inheritance and transmission of wa qing opera have both opportunities and challenges. by analyzing the transmission status, dilemma and development countermeasures of tengchong wa qing opera, a rare opera, it aims to provide useful experience and strategies for how to protect, inherit and develop national art under the background of rural cultural revitalization. in the new background of having great communication advantages and policy support, we should take full advantage of it, promote the modernization and transformation of fine traditional culture, expand the audience of the wa qing opera art, cultivate professional talents, expand diversified communication channels, using rural intangible cultural heritage culture and art as a media to create continuous efforts in local areas, and wake up rural folk art to revitalize rural culture. reference duan, j. k. (2007). the “qing opera” of the wa nationality in tengchong county, yunnan province. hubei theory edition today, 65-66. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 148 published by scholink inc. huang, y. l., & ren, z. (2023). the internal logic and realization path of intangible cultural heritage enabling rural cultural revitalization. journal of yunnan normal university (philosophy and social sciences edition), 115-124. kong, h. (2023). the mechanism and path of intangible cultural heritage inheritance contributing to the revitalization of rural culture. smart agriculture guide, 46-49. liu, y. d. (2022). research on guqin art communication in the context of new media—based on field survey in chengdu area (master’s thesis, sichuan conservatory of music). section, y. z. (2009). the wa qing opera in tengchong, yunnan province. chinese art theory from, 203-205. wang, w. w. (2014). inheritance and communication of wa qing opera under the vision of film and television (master’s thesis, yunnan university of arts). wei, m. x., & wei, h. q. (2015). take the qing opera of the wa nationality in tengchong, yunnan province as an example. journal of yunnan university of the arts, (03), 55-60. zhang, s. (2023). the essence and promotion ideas of the revitalization of rural culture. culture, 104-109. zhao, j. (2018). the artistic value and protection of tengchong wa qing opera. art mirror, 176-177. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 106 original paper the practice and innovation of energizing the competitiveness of brand of county by the ip of culture and tourism at zigui wang zhiqiang 1 , shu boyang 2 & yang bozhi 1 1 ipmaker (wuhan) cultural and creative industry co., ltd.,, wuhan, china 2 school of business administration, zhongnan university of economics and law, wuhan, china received: april 12, 2023 accepted: may 1, 2023 online published: may 8, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p106 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p106 abstract the integration of culture and tourism makes the interaction between culture and tourism deeper and closer. after years of vigorous development, the tourism of county is no longer like before building infrastructure in the entire scenic area, and the economy of county no longer relies on hardware construction and a large investment. and now a new focus is needed to promote the economy and brand competitiveness of the county. combining the ip (intellectual property) construction method in the internet era with regional brands with local cultural characteristics, an innovative form of ip for county cultural and tourism brands at present is created, the zigui county of yichang city is the practical example of the innovative form. combine with the unique culture of qu yuan, the dragon boat festival, and navel orange specialty of zigui, the ips of brand of the county that are called “one da three xiao”, which are qudafu, chengxiaozi, zongxiaogui, and zhouxiaolong, were created. the ips are deeply loved by tourists, and quickly stand out in the competition of tourism spread in the surrounding counties and cities. by energizing the competitiveness of brand of the county through ip, the new appearance of county brand of the zigui, which effectively attracts traffic and drives the economic promotion of zigui county, is displayed with affinity, sustainability and influence. keywords culture and tourism of brand of county, integration of culture and tourism, zigui, ip 1. introduction with the development of the internet, the high degree of cultural and tourism integration has also put forward new requirements for the rebranding of county tourism. the construction and dissemination of china’s county tourism brands has become a topic of high concern for tourism departments, tourist attractions and social recognition at all levels across the country. each region’s tourism development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 107 published by scholink inc. will gradually form explicit or implicit cultural and tourism brands. successful, distinctive, cultural and tourism brands can effectively present the tourism image of the county and have a strong appeal to tourists, and can also be clearly and distinctly remembered and identified by tourists. the strength of the cultural competitiveness of the county’s cultural tourism brand is a new driver for the further development of regional tourism. by digging deep into regional cultural ip resources, we understand the differences between regions. with the help of the original cultural foundation, through a new interpretation to attract the clientele, to bring tourists or consumers a new cultural theme experience, shaping the regional ip image with local characteristics of culture becomes a new way to build the regional brand. 2. research on ip construction of county cultural tourism brand 2.1 different stages and ways of county cultural tourism brand construction according to previous studies and drawing on some ideas from marketing, a county tourism brand can be defined as an image that can represent the tourism brand and services of the county established by the county-level administrative region relying on the advantages of local cultural and tourism resources. a good county cultural and tourism brand is a highly unified body of regional tourism destinations, regional tourism enterprises regional tourism products. it reflects the county’s cultural competitiveness through a series of combinations of our tourism slogans, tourism products and tourism logos. the china city competitiveness report states that regional competition in the twenty-first century will be based on culture to win or lose. in other words, while building the county brand in the context of cultural tourism integration, culture is bound to play an irreplaceable role. empowering the county’s cultural tourism brand through cultural ip is the process of putting culture on full display, which is the key to building the county’s cultural power and enhancing the city’s county brand, as well as the key to its core. tourism and culture have been inseparable since the beginning, and wei xiao’an once said that having culture without travel is a soul without body, and having travel without culture is a soul without body. especially since the coming together of “poetry” and “faraway places” in 2018, tourism and culture have continued to mingle, and the importance of digging deeper into the cultural connotations in tourism ip planning is undeniable. stage 1: the county brand awareness stage presented in the form of logo and vi. the key element in the initial construction of a large number of county cultural and tourism branding relationships is to convince visitors that similar scenic products in the region are not identical to other regions, but are significantly different. the initial differentiation of the county’s cultural and tourism brand is mostly achieved through the design of different logos and tourism slogans. stage 2: county brand trust stage with tourism image spokesperson promotion. in order to increase trust in the county’s tourism products and image, many regions have adopted the marketing approach of celebrity endorsement, using stars to create publicity for regional tourism. tourism image spokespeople www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. are a use of the image economy and are one of the powerful tools of international tourism marketing. but the personal image of the tourism spokesperson is closely related to the image of the county brand, and is also a double-edged sword. stage 3: the resonance and win-win stage of the county brand image, mainly in the form of incubated ip. resonance and win-win is the highest stage of the county cultural and tourism brand relationship, which is centred on a strong state of attachment and loyalty. it’s not just about liking and preference anymore, consumers have even fallen in love with the brand image of the region. examples include the familiar images of the kumamon bear, the nara deer and hello confucius. nowadays, the fragmentation of tourism consumers’ attention has deepened, and cultural tourism brands are increasingly willing to create their own cultural images of local attributes in the face of the new marketing environment, from the forbidden city culture of the palace museum, to the jurassic dinosaur culture of the dinosaur park, to the eternal love culture of the songcheng... while brands provide functional attributes, cultural ips provide emotional support, and cultural tourism brand ips are the defining labels of personality in the mobile internet era. 2.2 the driving effect of regional ip on county tourism 2.2.1 regional ip brings new tourism resources to county tourism. the definition of the concept of tourism resources given in the china tourism resources census specification is: all kinds of things and factors in nature and human society that can be attractive to tourists, can be exploited for tourism, and can generate economic, social and environmental benefits can be regarded as tourism resources. a region’s tourism resources are often limited, but the cultural empowerment around them can be unlimited. the tourism resources of a region are often ip, as a form of cultural creativity, can better bring new tourism attractions to the region by empowering elements in each scenic spot, thus also becoming a new tourism resource. 2.2.2 regional ip brings new flow consumption for county tourism; flow is a core word in the internet economy, and there are generally two ways to compete for flow rates. one is to compete for pan-user flow through massive amounts of content, i.e. allowing everyone to find what they need in their own content, but this flow rate is likely to be disposable if it cannot be converted into behavioural habits. the other is to compete for loyal user flow through in-depth content, i.e. to gather fellow fans through content with personality and allow them to consume the content for a long time and in depth, but the overall size of this traffic is likely to be smaller. generally speaking, platform-based internet applications tend to take the first approach, while specialist content providers tend to take the second. animation and comic works can form a deep desire for users to interact with them and are a very effective traffic portal, and this traffic can be effectively transferred to users’ travel behaviour. 2.2.3 regional ip brings new ways of promoting tourism in the county. ip has two basic functions in terms of information dissemination. one is education and the other is entertainment. and both of these functions are precisely what tourism branding and information dissemination needs. tourism branding needs to inform audiences about what the destination has to offer and why it is worth coming. tourism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. information dissemination also needs to entertain audiences, to make people feel happy and thus develop an interest in spending money. 2.2.4 regional ips bring new differentiated impressions to county tourism. experiential differentiation is a fundamental demand of people’s tourism. this difference can be either the difference in natural endowment or human resources, the difference between the tourist destination and the tourist’s daily life environment, or the difference between the tourist destination and similar places the tourist has previously visited and known. when there are no major differences between the two scenic spots in terms of landscape or humanities, it is necessary to consider using culture to differentiate the two personalities so that tourists can recognise them and make consumption decisions more easily. even if there is a significant difference between the two scenic spots in terms of landscape and humanities, culture can be used to create a deeper differentiation between the two personalities, making the original difference more obvious and visualised. ip can build this difference between you and me, and can also visualise this difference in a very intimate way, thus creating a brand impression and motivation in the minds of tourists. 2.2.5 regional ip brings new industrial agglomeration to county tourism. in the post-industrial era dominated by service industries, environmental, sustainable cultural and creative industries like ip can be sold over increasingly distant distances as telecommunications and transport change and producer services can be positioned in all directions, consisting of information. 3. the strategies of brand ip construction in zigui county under the background of cultural tourism integration zigui county is located in the western part of hubei province, and is the first county at the head of the reservoir on the three gorges project. the great romantic qu yuan culture, the world-renowned three gorges culture, the rich and colourful gorge river culture and the long-standing ba chu culture are intermingled here. it is the hometown of the world’s cultural celebrity qu yuan, and has won many titles such as “the hometown of navel oranges in china”, “the hometown of dragon boats in china” and “the hometown of poetry in china”. as a “new kind” of city for migrants from the three gorges, it is rich in resources and has a high historical and cultural value. from the perspective of the development mode of the cultural tourism industry, after the early development mode of “tourism sets the stage, real estate sings the show”, the market is increasingly inclined to demand cultural tourism products with unique local personality or cultural characteristics of the times. from the perspective of regional competition, the competition of cultural soft power between regions is becoming increasingly fierce, and the development of its cultural and creative industry cannot avoid the challenge of fierce competition from the region. zigui county belongs to yichang city, but we must realize in advance that because zigui and yichang are both located in jingchu culture and three gorges cultural tourism circle, there is obvious competition between their cultural tourism resources. currently, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. the city card of yichang is “the hometown of qu yuan and wang zhaojun and the world famous city of hydropower” while zigui city business card is “three gorges dam, zigui qu yuan”. there is obvious homogeneous competition between them. in the communication with the cultural and tourism management department of zigui county, it was found that everyone recognized that zigui has very good resources. in a word, there are quite many resources which cannot be ignored. however, when asked what brand zigui cultural and tourism should display, its accurate county brand image cannot be clearly described. therefore, zigui must create its own county cultural tourism image, customize county ip strategy to create its cultural tourism development model. the followings are development strategies. 3.1 base on the yangtze river and look at central china. zigui county cultural tourism brand construction should be based on the depth development and value excavation of the county cultural resources, give play to the location advantage of the gorge river waterway, seize the national construction “yangtze river economic belt” policy opportunity. meanwhile, aim at the entire central china cultural and creative market, create regional and iconic cultural tourism ip and cultural and creative products, and plan the county cultural tourism brand road from a high starting point. 3.2 distinguish the main and priority first easy and then harder. zigui county is rich in cultural resources, in the process of building need to distinguish the main and secondary. qu yuan culture is the first level ip resources, should focus on development. qu yuan, dragon boat, zongzi these three elements are the most characteristic and the easiest to develop content. the unique image ip of zigui county should be designed, and the brand of cultural tourism of zigui county should be quickly played. 3.3 activate resources in a demand-oriented way the development of cultural resources should be guided by market demand, and design and create cultural and creative products favoured by consumers. at the same time, the development and utilisation of non-traditional resources and folk culture resources should change their mindset. use modern digital technology to revitalise resources and integrate them into scenario-based experiences to enhance customer experience. it is proposed below that the development strategy of the county cultural tourism brand of zigui county implements the six-step idea. the first step grades the cultural ip resources for sorting out. the second step constructs the top-level design, relying on the resources to position the ip and find the cultural competitiveness of zigui cultural tourism. the third step is to create ip, incubate ip and build ip resource matrix. the fourth step is to create a benchmark marketing demonstration ip new industry, and new ways. the fifth step is to multi-initiative marketing interaction, play ip, let ip go global. the sixth step is to implement the institutional mechanism of the ip top, fully open the interactive project settings, two sales to increase revenue of each module of the industry chain. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. 4. the practice of ip empowering the brand competitiveness of zigui county in the context of the integration of culture and tourism and the high-quality development of the culture and tourism industry in the new era, the rich cultural resources of various places have been transformed into cultural symbols adapted to new media communication by means of the “ip wisdom” link, forming cultural and tourism products adapted to the needs of popular cultural consumption, thus realising the industrial chain gathering of various cultural resources and forming the endogenous power of local culture this has become an endogenous force in the development of local culture and tourism [8], which has become increasingly evident as an engine for enhancing the ‘hard power’ of county economies and the ‘soft power’ of cultural brands. drawing on the cultural resource value assessment system currently agreed by the industry and academia, the evaluation indexes are constructed from six dimensions: resource value, resource character, development conditions, transformation ability, market potential and cultural drive, in order to systematically evaluate the cultural resources of zigui county, taking into account the current situation of cultural resources in zigui county. table 1. zigui county cultural resources evaluation grading names of resources development sequence primary cultural resources qu yuan’s hometown memorial hall, the legend of qu yuan, statue of qu yuan, orange ode literature first stage secondary cultural resources qu yuan cultural square, the great dragon boat festival, dragon boat race, saotan poetry club, guizhou street second stage tertiary cultural resources intangible cultural heritage museum, cultural center, yang lin tang drum, weeding drum, jiandong flower drum opera, zigui shadow play, etc. third stage zigui county is rich in cultural resources, high grade, great potential for development. there is a close relationship between individual cultural resources, forming a cultural resources pedigree led by qu yuan culture. planning group combined with zigui county cultural resources present situation and future industry development trend, the zigui county cultural competitiveness is summarized as : to its unique qu yuan culture, dragon boat festival culture and navel orange culture and other excellent cultural resources as the basis, to songs of chu, qu yuan’s poetry which speak of oranges, qu yuan’s hometown and other unique cultural and creative product system as the support, to qu yuan culture ip as the cultural image, open talent introduction mechanism for the system to protect the brand image of outstanding, multi-industry driven, comprehensive benefit significant cultural and creative industry system. the core of zigui’s cultural competitiveness is the deep extension from cultural resources to cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. and creative products, and then to the cultural and creative industry chain. the creation of cultural competitiveness should integrate qu yuan culture, dragon boat festival culture and navel orange culture elements, design qu yuan image ip, develop cultural and creative products, and promote the integration of culture and other industries. in the process of sorting out and evaluating the cultural resources of zigui county, it is found that there is a close relationship between zigui cultural resources. for example, qu yuan’s culture includes dragon boat festival activities and poetry activities. the dragon boat festival is not only a commemoration of qu yuan, but also provides important information for the planned ip design. based on the evaluation of cultural resources, the cultural ip strategy matrix of zigui county is constructed, as shown in figure 1. figure1. the cultural ip strategy matrix of zigui county 4.1 tourist perception and investigation of zigui cultural tourism image in order to further understand the tourists ‘ regional image and specific perception of zigui tourism, random samples were adopted to distribute questionnaires in quyuan’s hometown, le ping li scenic spot and other scenic spots from january 7 to january 21,2019. a total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and 325 were recovered, of which 318 were valid, accounting for 97.85 % of the recovered questionnaires. zigui county cultural tourism image tourist perception survey demographic characteristics are as follows. table 2. demographic characteristics of zigui county cultural tourism image perception survey basic information classification percentage（%） classification percentage （%） gender male 38.05 female 61.95 age under 20years old 13.84 40-60 years old 8.49 20-30 years old 52.2 over 60 years old 0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. 30-40 years old 25.47 marital status unmarried 50.63 married 49.37 job corporate managers 27.67 teacher 5.03 government staff 3.77 student 22.96 professional and technical staff 22.33 others 9.75 service personnel/ sales staff 8.49 annual income under 50,000 yuan 31.76 15-20 million yuan 7.23 5-10 million yuan 35.85 over 200,000 yuan 4.4 10-15 million yuan 20.75 under 50,000 yuan 31.76 tourists of different genders, different ages and different occupations must have different perceptions of the cultural tourism image of zigui county. men’s perception of qu yuan and the three gorges dam is more obvious. young people generally believe that in the process of tourism to increase knowledge, relax, but from the tourism image of a region in terms of the performance of the more vague. the managers of enterprises and institutions have stable economic income and certain savings. they have a certain understanding of the main scenic spots, specialties, history and humanities in zigui. they generally know the image representatives of quyuan hometown, zigui navel orange, three gorges dam and other regions. table 3. questionnaire on visitors’ first impressions of zigui county’s cultural and tourism image resources subtotal ratio perceptual ranking navel oranges 211 66.35% qu yuan 199 62.58% three gorges dam 130 40.88% agritainment 66 20.75% dragon dragon boat race 74 23.27% qu yuan temple 103 32.39% phoenix mountain 42 13.21% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 114 published by scholink inc. chain cliff 26 8.18% jiuwan stream 53 16.67% wang zhaojun 77 24.21% zigui tea 119 37.42% zigui chestnut 107 33.65% reading cave 12 3.77% face mirror 6 1.89% in general, zigui county is a resource-rich and unique place. survey shows that many tourists mention zigui will first think of qu yuan, navel orange, the three gorges dam, tea and other resources. from this we determined qu yuan and navel orange image can be built into zigui super cultural tourism ip. 4.2 how to create the zigui cultural tourism brand qu yuan ip qu yuan is the most important cultural celebrity and cultural brand of zigui county. doing a good job of qu yuan culture will be an important part of zigui culture and tourism brand to the country and the world. however, market research found that the general public’s evaluation of qu yuan’s image is likely to be serious, dignified, indignant, sad ... how to reverse the stereotypical image of qu yuan was a difficult and important part of the creative design of this project. market research has shown that the new generation of consumers is more inclined to cute and delightful ip images, and the state also strongly advocates the dissemination of family and national sentiments and positive ip images. therefore, in order for qu yuan ip designs to be successfully marketed, the image of qu yuan must be revitalised and positive energy must be actively promoted. in order for qu yuan culture to flourish, it must be combined with modern life, making it lifelike, interesting and ritualistic. three principles were adhered to at the beginning of the design, firstly, the main image of qu yuan inherits the tradition and pushes the boundaries. qu yuan culture is the main cultural axis that runs through the spectrum of cultural resources in zigui county. this resource is also the first-class cultural resource of zigui county. the image of qu yuan has a high reputation in the world. qu yuan should therefore be the main image of the ip design. based on his statue and the descriptions of him in ancient literature, the most representative part of the elements are selected as the recognisable features of the main image, such as his mustaches, his saber and other extremely spreading classic cultural elements. secondly, in line with the principle of easy dissemination, the dragon boat and zongzi, the representative elements of zigui dragon boat culture, and the zigui navel orange, which has a high reputation in china, are selected as the auxiliary image of the ip design. the design is world-oriented and eclectic, absorbing western fashionable elements and reflecting the characteristics of cute, lively and lovely, but also combining the classics of chinese studies and reflecting the elements of excellent traditional culture. it reflects simplicity and fashion, easy to spread, but also shows the cultural connotation and rich flavor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 115 published by scholink inc. thirdly, based on practice, the product comes first. zigui cultural tourism ip image that are called “one da three xiao”, which are qudafu, chengxiaozi, zongxiaogui, and zhouxiaolong, should be combined with the derivation of cultural and creative products, the development of marketable, very characteristic, with market competitiveness of creative cultural products. for the design and incubation of the zigui cultural tourism brand ip image “one da three xiao” scheme, the creative team again carried out online voting research, starting from august 10, 2019 and ending on august 19, 2019, of which 70% of the research users think that the ip image in the program fully reflects the zigui cultural elements; 62 % of the survey users believe that the most representative combination of zigui cultural ip image is the need for four roles ; 56 % of the survey users think that the ip image design in the scheme is very cute. 52% of the survey users think that the color matching of zigui cultural ip image design is very fresh and satisfactory. after the ip image was finalized, zigui county cultural tourism department quickly organized intellectual property-related protection measures to launch the official marketing of zigui cultural tourism brand ip image. 4.3 how to market zigui cultural tourism brand ip 4.3.1 the ip image of zigui cultural tourism “one da three xiao” is not only an image symbol, but also the leader of the whole zigui cultural tourism brand and cultural and creative industry. how to make quyuan ip available requires key project planning. only by marketing the benchmark of highlight project can quyuan ip be widely disseminated and quyuan ip activation be realized. according to the development status of zigui cultural tourism industry, the planning group has planned five key projects, such as qu yuan’s hometown cultural tourism area brand promotion project, poetic village, qu yuan’s hometown joint development project, so as to promote a new round of dissemination of zigui qu yuan ip image and realize the cultural and creative effect of qu yuan image ip. 4.3.2 the market demand of cultural tourism market has laid a market foundation for the integration and development of zigui cultural tourism industry. combined with the unique resources of quyuan culture and navel orange culture in the town, zigui boutique cultural tourism project has been built. in the field of cultural and creative product design, research and development and other creative industries, there are still relatively few creative products with independent core copyright and characteristic cultural connotation. each scenic spot and store still stays at the level of imitation, processing and improvement. in addition, the protection of intellectual property rights in the field of cultural and creative industries needs to be further strengthened, establish a sense of ip competition, and create a good environment to encourage innovation. 4.3.3 construct the knowledge graph of songs of chu, and qu yuan culture and the development of related cultural and creative products. using knowledge graph technology, collect, organize and organize various types of information related to songs of chu and qu yuan culture, and carry out the knowledge map of songs of chu and qu yuan culture. on the basis of the constructed knowledge map, with the online combining offline service model, a series of research tourism and cultural and creative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 116 published by scholink inc. products are formed. 4.4 how to quickly spread and market zigui cultural tourism brand ip with the development of the times, the cultural tourism brand ip is no longer the traditional sense of intellectual property rights. ip is the entry point for commercial transactions that follow traffic, prices, and brands. when tourism intellectual property has a unique and vivid image, it can bring its own potential energy and form a bridge between tourist attractions and tourists. so as to attract consumer experience, in the face of the user’s growing personal consumption, emotional consumption, tourism supply must be synchronized with the demand. the rapid rise of the cultural tourism ip industry has also brought opportunities for the transformation of marketing methods. for the ip industry, ip itself is a new type of marketing. combined with domestic and international cultural tourism ip marketing case, zigui county cultural tourism brand ip marketing is overviewed as a three-step strategy. the first step is to seize the opportunity to create a burst. zigui county cultural tourism brand ip in the early stage if there is no burst, it is difficult to form a focus. without focus, there is not enough attention. before the ip image content is disclosed, a large amount of content is prepared in conjunction with the current hot spots to prepare for subsequent manufacturing topics. in practice, zigui cultural tourism has grandly built momentum on various platforms and launched a series of tweets to spread the vitality of traditional culture. grasping the timing and creating hot spots is of great significance to the promotion of zigui cultural and creative ip image. the second step is multi-platform occupancy and rapidly accumulate zigui cultural tourism ip fans. a large number of fans will bring stable returns for ip promotion. the accumulation needs to occupy a place in multiple platforms to maximize the refresh sense of existence. with rapid exposure and fans to establish a deep connection, and only more interaction with users, in order to make ip hot up. in practice, zigui cultural tourism department continuously combines hot spots to enhance exposure and establish good interaction with fans on multiple platforms such as wechat, microblog, official website, hubei daily network, the paper news and the sina news. the third step is to serialize the output. through the explosive products, zigui cultural tourism ip accumulates a large number of fans, opens the channel for ip occupancy. in order to achieve a broader commercial value, it is necessary to serialize high-quality output, so that the commercial value of its ip is gradually enlarged. the promotion of its ip image is accumulating over the years, constantly bringing forth the new through the old. although blindly pursuing explosive products can benefit in the short term, it cannot explore commercial value from the perspective of long-term interests. the marketing promotion of the ip is based on the cultural and creative industry system in practice. through the online sales of zigui ip cultural and creative series products, and then according to the market feedback information, the product chain is extended and improved in time to create a series of high-quality output so that the commercial value of ip can be gradually enlarged. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 117 published by scholink inc. table 4. selected scripts for the marketing and promotion of the cultural and tourism brand ip image of zigui county number marketing and promotional article titles media channels 1 the zigui cultural tourism ip image is unveiled! the paper news, zigui tourism, wechat, microblog, jingchu.com, zigui rong media, etc. 2 hubei multi-initiatives to create “qu yuan ip” to stimulate traditional cultural vitality china news network 3 small “ip” bursts into big “flow” xingshan county people’s government-news centre-government news, tencent network, jingchu.com, etc. 4 beautiful china dialogue hubei 丨 zigui: qu yuan’s hometown to create a new “ip” cultural tourism brand xinhua network 5 a journey to trace the roots of heritage promotion “qu yuan cultural research international forum” guests yichang trip side note social news accounts under xiaoxiang morning post 6 the life of four ip images culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 7 the return of qu yuan to his hometown culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 8 dragon boat competition culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 9 rafting in jiuwanxi river culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 10 dumpling wrapping at dragon boat festival culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 11 dragon boat rap culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 12 chu time war culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 13 orange little zigzag’s immigration journey culture and tourism zigui-microvideo 14 zigui’s exclusive ip, the four little ones shine! tencent news, tencent network 15 the first ever zigui! anime invitational tournament! prize money of 150,000! tencent network www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 118 published by scholink inc. 16 spoiler alert: 2022 zigui cultural tourism event starts like this tencent network 17 you will be the reader of the zigui ip image sohu.com 18 elaborate zigui ip image to showcase the unique charm of cultural tourism three gorges zigui-all-area tourism 19 ip power, “touring yichang” has a new way to play! the paper news, yichang city cultural tourism bureau official website, three gorges news network, etc. 20 warning! zigui’s version of “ice dun dun” is being delivered→ surfing news-surfing 21 the cold “zigui”? come and eat it! surfing news-surfing 22 zigui’s cultural tourism events in the first half of 2022 surfing news-surfing 23 zigui’s folk cultural and creative products are sought after eastern consulting, three gorges daily, etc. 5. conclusion the brand image of county cultural tourism is very important for the popularity and development potential of the county. the brand ip image of county cultural tourism is the embodiment of a city ‘s culture, which can improve the popularity and reputation of the county and create the unique development advantages of the county. by creating the ip image of zigui county’s exclusive cultural tourism brand, it is convenient for multi-form, multi-channel and multi-dimensional publicity of zigui. with the support of the ip image of zigui cultural tourism, the regional culture of zigui can be infiltrated into the social circle of young people, attracting more youngsters, showing its more comprehensive attraction, thus producing huge economic and social benefits. it plays an important supporting role in promoting zigui’s local economic development. zigui county also won the top 100 counties and cities in china at the end of 2021. the essence of competition among counties is the competition of county influence and county connotation, and the competition of county cultural brand. it is an important task to promote the development of counties by strengthening the integration of local cultural resources, promoting the construction of county cultural tourism brands, building county cultural brands, comprehensively enhancing the soft power of cultural tourism and enhancing the comprehensive strength of counties. the upgrading of a county city, first of all, is the continuous dissemination of county image and the innovation of soft power. the upgrading of county economy should realize the integration and innovation of infrastructure hard innovation and cultural brand soft innovation, to achieve the true sense of wise innovation of county competitiveness. creating a good county image brand will better www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 119 published by scholink inc. enhance the competitiveness of the county economy and inject new impetus into the economic and social development of the county. references jin, y. c. (2014). the construction of county tourism brand based on the soft power of tourism-taking zhejiang qujiang as an example. journal of beijing university of aeronautics and astronautics (social science edition), (3). lai, s. z. (2014). city branding based on cultural perspective. journal of minnan normal university (philosophy and social science edition), (4). li, z. c. (2016). on the role of exhibition culture in promoting the construction of county cultural brand-taking jilin province as an example. journal of jilin economic management cadre college, (3). ma, c. l. (2012). on the import and implementation of county tourism scenic area image strategy. journalism, (4). qi, m. d., & xu, x. y. (2012). the development strategy and path of county tourism brand-taking zengcheng city as an example. urban issues, (3). shen, h. s. (2017). what it takes to make users fall in love with a brand. china wine news, 10. shu, b. y., zhang, l. t., & yu, c. y. (2021). ip wisdom in the era of cultural tourism. tourism education press. song, y. (2019). xi’an-how the ip plus tourism model can boost tourism development in the context of cultural tourism integration. contemporary tourism, (10). wang, b. (2017). research on the problems in the development of ancient village tourism-taking qinchuan village as an example, hangzhou, (3). yuan, x. z. (2009). tourism image spokesperson and international tourism marketing: an example of hangzhou’s twelve girls music clubs market development to japan. economic and social development, (10). zhao, h. s. (2021). cultivating new advantages of regional competition with new ideas-new era practice of wu’an reform and development. people’s forum, (5). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 41 original paper using the web-first tailored design method in a rural population: a follow-up investigation m. e. betsy garrison1*, timothy killian1, kelly a. way1 & zola moon1 1school of human environmental sciences, university of arkansas, fayetteville, ar, usa * corresponding author received: july 29, 2024 accepted: september 02, 2024 online published: september 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p41 abstract surveys remain a mainstay of social sciences research. the study’s primary purpose was to replicate a web-first tailored design method (tdm) in a previously surveyed rural population from a state in the mid-south of the u.s. to investigate changes in response mode (web versus paper). most respondents did not change their response mode between the two data collection periods. they chose to complete their surveys on paper rather than the internet, even though most had access to and used the internet. the use of tdm continues to be an effective data collection strategy for a rural population. given the emphasis on increasing internet access, speed, and reliability in rural areas of the u.s., along with other web-based services, future data collection efforts will likely involve web-based surveys. concerns about false identities, bots, and security will continue to need to be addressed, and personal characteristics related to survey completion considered. keywords address-based sampling, push-to-web, rural populations, survey research, tailored designed method 1. introduction surveys remain a mainstay of social sciences research. collecting data using web-based surveys creates attractive efficiencies for researchers by reducing time and cost compared to collecting data through a postal service. however, important questions about internet access and utilization persist, especially when collecting data from rural populations, where broadband can be unreliable or unavailable. data collection strategies, including sampling and population characteristics, are paramount in survey research. the generalizability of research findings and inferences is only as sound as the data, including the response rates upon which they are drawn. for several decades, dillman’s survey design methods (1978) have been considered a gold standard of survey research, initially with the total design method, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 42 then broadened to the tailored design method, and more recently push-to-web strategies (dillman et al., 2014; dillman, 2017; dillman, 2022). collecting data via a web survey has drawbacks relative to paper surveys. among these drawbacks are pre-existing and emerging issues, including technical incompatibility, data security, over-surveying, and spam emailing (daikeler et al., 2020). chief among these drawbacks is that researchers may need to be made aware of whether a person or a bot is completing the survey, particularly in studies that rely upon amazon’s mechanical turk (mturk) for the recruitment of survey respondents. in a review of the use of mturk in management research, aguinis et al. (2021) identified 10 validity threats, including its vulnerability to bots. the remaining threats can be categorized into respondent challenges, such as inattention, self-misrepresentation, self-selection bias, high attrition rates, english fluency, and mturk exposure and involvement in mturk communities. two meta-analyses, one more recent than the other, found that the response rates of web surveys were lower than for other modes in a sample of 114 studies (daikeler et al., 2020; manfreda et al., 2008). however, these analyses also suggested that response rates could be increased if researchers used prenotifications, enhanced recruitment and solicitation strategies, and increased the number of contact attempts. from a sample of 1071 studies in education-related fields, wu (2022) found an average response rate of 44%, albeit with a wide range, and neither sending a web survey to more participants nor using incentives resulted in a higher response rate. similar to daikeler et al.’s (2020) findings, clearly defined populations, pre-notifications, multi-modal approaches, and the age and occupation of respondents were related to response rates. admittedly, some of these factors are easier for researchers to control than others—mainly the first three compared to the last two. a limitation of wu et al.’s (2022) study is the reliance on education research with student respondents. they often are given extra credit in courses or other incentives to participate (e.g., pizza parties and competition prizes), and whose ages are typically younger than the general population, particularly in rural areas of the u.s. both meta-analyses (daikeler et al., 2020; wu et al., 2022) failed to consider location, particularly rural versus urban, a limitation addressed in the current study. in summary, data collection strategies in the social sciences vary, but there is concern that delivery methods may be problematic in locations where internet service is inadequate, if even available. moreover, the credibility of potential respondents is questionable if researchers are using internet-based databases, such as mturk, with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and bots. the primary purpose of the current study was to replicate the use of the web-first tdm (dillman et al., 2014) in a previously surveyed rural population (citation omitted for peer review) to investigate changes in response mode (i.e., web versus paper) over time. a secondary purpose of the current study was to examine internet access, reliability, and use within a rural population. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 43 2. method data were initially collected following the recommended multi-step with repeated reminders tdm in 2017 from a rural population in a mid-south u.s. state (martinez et al., 2020). in 2020 data were collected again from the same population using the same tdm process, with its repeated mailings and two-dollar incentives. almost half (47%) of the original 2017 study participants (n=812) responded in 2020, an improvement from the 30% response rate in 2017. most respondents were white, middle-aged, married females with at least some college with a middle-class income level. most of the survey in 2020 was the same as the 2017 survey (martinez et al., 2020), including questions about health and well-being. unlike in 2017, questions about covid-19 and the internet and cell phones were added to the 2020 survey. there were several questions in the survey about cell phones and the internet. of the questions that did not require a yes or no response, the response set for cell phone coverage ranged from almost never to very often, and the response set for internet usage ranged from never to several times a day. 3. results more than half of the respondents (57%) completed the survey by mail, and 43% finished the survey by web. most respondents (69%) did not change their response mode between the two data collection periods. however, the chosen response mode changed significantly (χ2 = 53.66, p < .001), with more respondents opting to complete the paper version than initially. as previously mentioned, questions about cell phones and internet access, reliability, and use were added to the 2020 survey. almost all (96%) of the respondents had a cellphone, and of those, 84% had a smartphone. they reported that their cell phone coverage was frequently problematic because of poor signals or dropped calls, indicating somewhat unreliable service. almost all (90%) indicated they had some form of internet access, and of those that had internet access at home, 72% reported it was broadband or high-speed access. most accessed the internet several times a day at home by either a cell phone (78%) or a computer (77%). they primarily used the internet to stay connected with family and friends (77%), shop (76%), pay bills (66%), and for entertainment (64%). the results indicated that many respondents utilized the internet daily for life activities regardless of living in a rural location, although less for survey completion. technological advancements have assisted populations in daily tasks, employment, lifestyle, and communication. 4. discussion in the present study, rural respondents chose to complete the paper version of the surveys despite having internet access. these findings are similar to those conducted during the advent of web-based surveys (manfreda et al., 2008). in a more recent meta-analysis, however, holcomb et al. (2022) did not find a significant difference in response rates between paper and web surveys. because of tdm’s address-based sampling approach, concerns about bots are avoided when employed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 44 the covid-19 pandemic might have influenced the findings of the current study. possibly, there was more comfort in completing the paper version questionnaire from this older, mostly retired sample, particularly during uncertain and socially isolated times. they might have used the internet for more necessary or pleasurable activities, especially if they had data or wi-fi plans with limited usage. unsurprisingly, respondents reported using the internet primarily for staying connected with family and friends, closely followed by shopping. covid-19 might have influenced both of these usages as the data were collected early in the pandemic and when a vaccine was not yet available and sheltering in place was highly encouraged. as television program streaming becomes ever more available and, in some cases, necessary to watch specific series, movies, and sporting events, it is not unrealistic to expect that using the internet for entertainment will be reported more frequently. future research should address this trend, particularly in rural populations within and outside the u.s. more sources of errors in survey research exist besides sampling and nonresponses (ponto, 2015). these errors include both coverage and measurement errors. holtom et al. (2022) recommended that a response-rate validity framework be utilized during a research project’s planning and design phase(s) to ensure sample quality, appropriateness, and representativeness. future survey research should also be planned and designed explicitly to detect bots and false identities (bernerth et al., 2021). the use of web-first tdm continues to be an effective data collection strategy for a rural population. an overlooked advantage of paper surveys is that they are completed by a person and not a bot. circumstances indeed exist in which paper surveys are warranted over web-based. concerning sound survey research—one size does not fit all. it is also hard to overstate the importance of research design and planning phases, including establishing trust with intended respondents and carefully appraising personal characteristics, such as age and occupation, known to be related to survey completion (daikeler et al., 2020). given the emphasis on increasing internet access, speed, reliability, and unlimited plans in rural areas of the u.s., along with other web-based services (such as telemedicine), future data collection efforts will likely emphasize web-based data collection. these efforts will become even more true as additional protection from bots are made available and security upgraded. as the digital divide narrows in rural and urban areas, studies like the current one need to be replicated, adapted, and updated to comprise both rural and non-rural populations. web-based data collection is not a panacea, however. the success of the drop-off/pick-up method with hard-to-reach populations was demonstrated more than 10 years ago (allred & ross-davis, 2011; jackson-smith et al., 2016; trentelman et al., 2016) and more recently by the vaccine hesitancy surrounding covid-19 within rural and historically underserved communities (willis et al., 2021). response rates and nonresponse bias often improve with the involvement of trusted community leaders, including those from faith-based communities. it is also incumbent on social scientists to develop mutually respectful, culturally competent relationships with the populations they study before collecting data, regardless of quantitative or qualitative methods or web or paper surveys. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 45 acknowledgments the university of arkansas school of human environmental sciences and the arkansas agricultural experiment station partially supported the project, which was approved as project number ark02480. thanks to our participants and the center for survey statistics & methodology, survey research services at iowa state university. references aguinis, h., villamor, i., & ramani, r. s. (2021). mturk research: review and recommendations. journal of management, 47, 823-837. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206320969787 allred, s. b., & ross-davis, a. (2011). the drop-off and pick-up method: an approach to reduce nonresponse bias in natural resource surveys. small-scale forestry, 10, 305-318. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2018.1496767 bernerth, j., aguinis, h., & taylor, e. c. (2021). detecting false identities: a solution to improve web-based surveys and research on leadership and health/well-being. journal of occupational health psychology, 26, 564-581. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000281 daikeler, j., bošnjak, m., & manfreda, k. l. (2020). web versus other survey modes: an updated and extended meta-analysis comparing response rates. journal of survey statistics and methodology, 8, 513-539. https://doi.org/10.doi:10.1093/jssam/smz008 dillman, d. a. (1978).mail and telephone surveys: the total design method. new york: wiley. dillman, d. a. (2017). the promise and challenge of pushing respondents to the web in mixed-mode surveys. survey methodology, 43, 3-31. retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/12-001-x/2017001/article/14836-eng.htm dillman, d. a. (2022). fifty years of survey innovation. bulletin of sociological methodology/bulletin de méthodologie sociologique, 154, 9-38. dillman, d. a., smyth, j. a., & christian, l. m. (2014). internet, phone, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: the tailored design method. new york: wiley holtom, b., baruch, y., aguinis, h., & ballinger, g. a. (2022). survey response rates: trends and a validity assessment framework. human relations, 75, 560-1584. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211070769 jackson-smith, d., courtney, g., flint, c. f., dolan, m., trentelman, c. k., holyoak, g., thomas, b., & ma, g. (2016). effectiveness of the drop-off/pick-up survey methodology in different neighborhood types. journal of rural social sciences, 31, 35-67. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss/vol31/iss3/3 manfreda, k. l., bosnjak, m., berzelak, j., haas, i., & vehovar, v. (2008). web surveys versus other survey modes: a meta-analysis comparing response rates. international journal of market research, 50, 79-104. https://doi.org/10.1177/147078530805000107 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 46 martinez, d., moon, z., killian, t., way, k., & garrison, m. e. b. (2020). does a web-first tailored design method work with rural populations? journal of rural social sciences, 35(2). ponto, j. (2015). understanding and evaluating survey research. journal of the advanced practitioner in oncology, 6, 168. trentelman, c. k., irwin, j., petersen, k. a., ruiz, n., & szalay, c. s. (2016). the case for personal interaction: drop-off/pick-up methodology for survey research. journal of rural social sciences, 31, 4. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss/vol31/iss3/4 willis, d. e., andersen, j. a., bryant‐moore, k., selig, j. p., long, c. r., felix, h. c., curran, g. m., & mcelfish, p. a. (2021). covid‐19 vaccine hesitancy: race/ethnicity, trust, and fear. clinical and translational science, 14, 2200-2207. https://doi.org/10.1111/cts.13077 wu, m., zhao, k., & fils-aime. f. (2022). response rates of online surveys in published research: a meta-analysis. computers in human behavior reports, 7, 100206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2022.100206 microsoft word assc-v4n2-p33 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 33 original paper assessment of level of local community awareness of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection in taraba state, nigeria oruonye, e. d.1*, bashir mohammed babanyaya2 & ngamdu, m. b.1 1 department of geography, taraba state university, jalingo, taraba state, nigeria 2 federal university wukari, taraba state, nigeria received: march 16, 2022 accepted: april 20, 2022 online published: april 23, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p33 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p33 abstract understanding local community awareness of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection is an important step for successful implementation of sustainable environmental protection polices in the state. it is against this background that this study examines local community awareness of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection in taraba state, nigeria. the study adopted survey research design. primary and secondary data were used. 376 questionnaires were administered to local community members in the state. the findings of the study reveal low performance of the state institutions which was mostly in the area of distribution of alternative source of domestic energy (gas and cooking stoves), planting and distribution of tree seedlings. the study findings also reveal low involvement of the local communities especially those in the rural areas. this resulted in the low level of local community awareness of the activities of the state institutions on environmental protection in the state. based on the findings, the study recommended adequate funding of the state institutions, involvement of local communities in the activities of state institutions and increasing research in awareness studies in the state. keywords environmental protection, environmental awareness, local community, state institutions and taraba state 1. introduction the environment is a very important life support system to humans all over the world. the environment and its associated resources provide people the necessary conditions and means of livelihood (ichite, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. 2017). this makes it necessary for every responsible government to ensure that the inter-relationships between citizens and their natural environment is adequately maintained at all time. this healthy relationship will guaranty that the necessary resources from the environment are readily available in the right conditions and quantity for the continuous survival of generations of citizens as well as their development at present and in the future. at the global level, environmental issues have become a significant threat to security at all levels. this has led to increased vulnerability to conflict due to increased resource scarcity; stress on society as a result of poverty and inequality; and an increase in the rate of humanitarian crises. at the same time, a us governmental report elevated environmental issues to the forefront of the security agenda by identifying climate change as “potentially the greatest challenge to global stability and security, and therefore to national security” (cna corp, 2007). in most developed countries, this new idea of security is reflected in policy and institutional frameworks on environment. the integration of environmental security concerns in such frameworks significantly account for enhanced environmental performance according to available indices, since these were first introduced in 2002, as a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of state policies (ichite, 2017). moreover, almost all of the top performing countries such as finland, sweden, denmark and switzerland among others, have achieved high level of progress and economic development unparalleled in the world as a result of well entrenched policy on environmental protection. the basis of finland’s effective environmental protection policies is found in wide-ranging and detailed environmental data and high levels of technological skills (environmental protection in finland, nd). overtime, finland has been ranked among the top 10 countries according to environmental performance index, a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state’s policies since 2002 (ichite, 2017). unfortunately, most developing countries, where over 70 per cent of the populations are dependent on environmental resources for livelihood, display very poor indices on environmental performance. most of these poor countries lack the necessary measurements of environmental performance due to low levels of technology and indifference towards the environment. this is exacerbated by the fact that these developing countries are already saddled with heavy burdens of environmental degradation both from anthropogenic as well as natural causes. furthermore, policies and institutions on the environment, where they exist, treat environmental challenges with daunting levity, except where such challenges have occasioned the securitization of the environmental resources, after violent conflicts must have taken place. nigeria, with a nominal gdp per capita of us$2,640, faces myriads of challenges from the environment with dire implications for human security, yet policies and institutional frameworks on environment remain comatose (ichite, 2017). environmental degradation in different parts of the country appears to coincide with an upsurge of violent conflicts in and from those places especially www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. over the last two decades. examples include the niger delta, north west and the northeast regions. in most developing countries, nigeria and taraba state inclusive, the livelihood of over 80 per cent of the human population are dependent on renewable natural resources, while national development depends on the exploitation of the natural resources found in the environment, especially the nonrenewable resources like petroleum according to phil-eze (2009). in nigeria, policy and institutional framework on environmental protection may be said to have started receiving attention with the incidence of the dumping of the 3,880 tons of toxic and hazardous wastes at the port town of koko, delta state, south-south nigeria, in1988. the incident created much public awareness and encouraged the formulation of policy and establishment of relevant institutions to protect the environment. following the koko toxic waste incidence, the ministry of environment was created, with the relevant departments and agencies pulled out from other ministries, especially the federal ministry of works and housing which hitherto had catered for environmental issues (ichite, 2017). the local government councils were also integrated into the activities of the new ministry, in various capacities and at different levels. besides the ministry, the federal state environmental protection agency (tasepa) was created in the same year 1988, with the state environmental protection agencies much later in the states in accordance with nigeria’s federal structure. the original mandate of fepa was the protection and development of the environment in general and environmental technology, including initiation of policy in relation to environment and technology (ichite, 2017). nigeria currently has ample legislation on almost all aspects of her environment, which hasbeen documented by several authors, including ajomo and adewale (1994), akande (1994), akinjide (1997), ikhide (2007), okorodudu-fubara (1998) and atsegbua et al. (2004). nigeria is currently recording an increase in environmental threats to human security. these are being occasioned, not only by the scarcity and degradation of environmental resources, but also by environmental disasters, from both natural as well as anthropogenic causes. deforestation, drought, flood, desert encroachment, desertification and other consequences of climatic changes are combining to increase environmental stress beyond the coping capacities and resilience of rural communities across nigeria. in the face of these environmental stressors, nigeria has articulated policies as well as institutions, constituting a formidable framework for protecting the environment in nigeria. a national policy on the environment, a national adaptation strategy and plan of action on climate change, a national environmental standards and regulations enforcement agency (nesrea), a federal ministry of environment, a defunct federal environmental protection agency (fepa), a special climate change unit transformed into the department of climate change in a full-fledged federal ministry of environment, as wellas federal ministry of agriculture and rural development, a myriad of apt laws on environmental protection, both at national and state levels, among others. however, despite the existence of all these institutional frameworks, there continues to prevail, an inept response to environmental problems and lack of ingenuity in constructive resolution of conflicts whose root cause www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. are closely associated with environmental problems (ichite, 2017). the 1999 national policy on the environment recognized the need to enlighten various levels of society on the linkages between environment and development, in order to secure the involvement of the citizenry and assure its commitment to the principle of sustainable development. the policy equally recognized the need to enlighten various levels of society on the linkages between environment and development, in order to secure the involvement of the citizenry and assure its commitment to the principle of sustainable development. some of the actions contained in the policy to achieve this include ensuring public input in the definition of environmental policy objectives; engaging the media; promoting environmental studies at all levels of the educational system; and supporting the role of cognate ngos, professional associations and other civic groups. taraba state with internally generated revenue of less that n7b per annum faces myriads of challenges from the environment with dire implications for human security, yet policies and institutional frameworks on environmental protection have not received the required attention. the state has recently witnessed an increase in environmental threats to human security. these are being occasioned, not only by the scarcity and degradation of environmental resources, but also by environmental disasters, ranging from both natural as well as anthropogenic causes such as deforestation, dry spell, flooding and other consequences of climatic changes which are combining to increase environmental stress beyond the coping capacities and resilience of rural communities across the state. thesecommunities are progressively being rendered vulnerable not only to environmental stressors, but also to its immediate consequences including violent conflicts over scarce resources (i.e., farmers and herders conflict), in addition to forced migration into urban areas with its attendant challenges. in line with the above, taraba state ministry of environment and its agency, taraba state environmental protection agency (tasepa) were created and charged with the statutory responsibility for the protection of the environment in taraba state. this include management of wildlife, monitoring of hazardous and radioactive materials, control of illegal mining activities, establishment and maintenance of forest plantations, raising of seedlings, planting and weeding, solid minerals exploration and exploitation, management of air, water and soil quality against pollution and degradation among others. in spite of the numerous policies, institutions and legislations for protecting the environment for sustainable development in the state, recent development has shown that the state has remained poor and plagued by a plethora of environmental problems. the major difficulties that the state and country faces are not only the lack of legal and economic framework for environmental protection, but also lack of participation among the general public in pro-environmental behaviours. understanding local community awareness of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection is an important step for successful implementation of sustainable environmental protection polices in the state. it is against this background that this study examines local community perception of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection in taraba state, nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. 1.1 overview of the state institutions on environmental protection in taraba state with the establishment of the federal ministry of environment, the taraba state ministry of environment was also established in the year 2000 with the aim of formulating and implementing government policies on environment. the ministry had 4 departments, namely; administrative, finance and supply, planning, research and statistics (dprs) and forestry and wildlife. the ministry has one agency, taraba state environmental protection agency (tasepa) under it. the functions of the ministry of environment include; 1) control and management of wildlife. 2) environmental protection. 3) monitoring of hazardous and radioactive materials in the environment. 4) control of mining its illegal activities in the state. 5) establishment and maintenance of forest plantations. 6) raising of seedlings, planting and weeding. 7) solid minerals exploration and exploitation. 8) management of air, water and soil quality against pollution and degradation. the taraba environmental protection agency (tepa) is an agency under the ministry of environment which was established and empowered by taraba state edict of 1994. the agency has the statutory responsibilities for the protection, conservation and monitoring of the state environment through environmental surveillance and regulation activities that impact negatively on the state environment in order to maintain a balance natural endowment and to achieve sustainable development of the state. in order to achieve its objectives, the agency undertakes the following activities; 1) preparation of comprehensive state environmental action plans (seaps) for the state. the action plan encapsulates all the anticipated action or activities that will be carried out over a period of time to protect the environment from pollution and degradation. 2) enactment of state laws, regulations and guidelines on environment for the prevention of pollution and degradation of the environment. 3) implementing national and international environmental policies and programs, law, protocols and treaties. 4) developing/improving environmental sciences and technology on environmental management, for example, the development of modern techniques and procedures for waste management (solid, liquid and gaseous). 5) developing guidelines and procedures for implementing environmental impact assessment (eia) and environmental audit (ea). 6) the agency is expected to carry out environmental surveillance and regulating the activities that impact on the environment through human activities like deforestation, industrialization, waste management among others. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. 2. materials and methods the study adopted survey research design. primary and secondary data were used. secondary data used include journals, magazines, newspapers, textbooks, proceedings from relevant seminars as well as workshops, internet resources, discourse and pronouncements by government officials of the relevant institutions on the environment, as well as associated information from local and international news bulletins. the primary data include field observation, interview schedule and use of questionnaires. interviews was held with officials of the taraba state ministry of environment and its agency, taraba state environmental protection agency (tasepa). questionnaires were administered to local community members in the sampled wards and lgas. for convenience, the study adopted the state delimitation of 3 senatorial districts. the population of this study includes 10,497 local community members aged 35 and above drawn from two lgas each from northern, central and southern senatorial districts of the state. the reason for settling for population of people of 35 years and above is to ensure the quality and integrity of the information collected. these lgas are ardokola, zing (taraba north), bali, gassol (taraba central), wukari, ibi (taraba south) senatorial districts respectively. in each selected lga, 3 political wards were purposively selected based on security convenience. in each political ward, 21 questionnaires were administered to randomly selected respondents who are adult members of the community. in total, 63 questionnaires were administered in each lga, 126 questionnaires in each senatorial district and 378 questionnaires were administered in the study area. however, 2 questionnaires were not completely filled, so only 376 complete questionnaires were used in the final analysis of the study. the data generated from the questionnaires was analyzed using descriptive statistics, while content analysis was used to analyze information generated from the interviews. the result of the findings of the study were presented using tables, frequencies and percentages. 3. results 3.1 demographic characteristics the result of the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents in the study area is presented in table 1. table 1. socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents demographic characteristics respondent percentage (%) 1 age 35 – 40 205 54.5 41 – 45 116 30.9 46 – 50 51 13.6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. 50 + 4 1.1 total 376 100 2 sex male 279 74.2 female 97 25.8 total 376 100 3 qualifications ssce/wassce 128 34.0 diploma/nce 138 36.7 degree / hnd 100 26.6 masters degree / pgd 10 2.7 total 376 100 4 working experience 0 – 10 years 113 30.1 11 – 20 years 106 28.2 21 – 30 years 101 26.9 31 years and above 56 14.8 total 376 100 source: fieldwork, 2022. the findings of the study in table 1 shows that 34.0% of the respondents have secondary school certificate qualification (ssce/wassce), 36.7% have diploma/nce, 26.6% degree/hnd and 2.7% are master degree/pgd holders. in terms of gender, the results in table 1 shows that 74.2% of the respondents are male and 25.8% are female. table 1 also reveals that 54.5% of the respondents are within the ages of 35-40 years, 30.9% are between 41 -45 years, 13.6% between 46 -50 years, and 1.1% are above 51 years respectively. the findings of the study in table 1 also revealed that 30.1% have 0-10years working experience, 28.2% have 11-20 years, 26.9% have 21-30 years and 14.8% have above 31 years working experience. 3.2 local community perception of the activities of state institutions on environmental protection the finding of the study on project intervention by state institutions on environmental protection as observed by only members of the community outside the staff of state institutions is presented in table 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. table 2. local community perception of the activities of state institutions perception of the activities of state institutions by respondents 1 are you aware of any project intervention by state institution in your community? frequency percentage (%) yes 220 58.5 no 156 41.5 total 376 100 2 are there means of regular information dissemination on environmental protection? yes 97 25.8 no 279 74.2 total 376 100 3. are you aware of any prosecution made by state institution on environmental protection? yes 53 14.1 no 323 85.9 total 376 100 4. are there provision of waste bins made available for waste disposal in your community? yes 98 26.1 no 278 73.9 total 376 100 5. was there effort made by community members to draw attention of state institutions on environmental problems in your community? yes 154 41.0 no 222 59.0 total 376 100 source: fieldwork 2022. the result of the findings of the study in table 2reveals that 58.5% of the respondents claimed to be aware of the existence of some environmental protection project interventions by the state institutions of environmental protection in their various communities while 41.5% claimed that they are not aware of any project intervention by the state institutions in their respective communities. the finding of the study on means of regular information by state institutions on environmental protection to the community members in table 2 reveals that 74.2% of the respondents are not aware of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. the existence of any means of regular information on environmental protection from the state institutions, while 25.8% of the respondents claimed to be aware of the existence of such means of regular information on environmental protection in their communities. with regards to prosecution of offenders or violators of environmental laws and regulation by state institutions, the findings of the study in table 2 revealed that 85.9% of the respondents claimed that they are not aware of any prosecution of violators by the state institutions on environmental protection in their communities, while 14.1% of the respondents claimed to be aware of some prosecutions made by the state institutions on environmental violations. in terms of provision of facilities for effective sanitation and disposal of waste, the finding of the study in table 2 also reveal that 73.9% of the respondents claimed that they do not have any provision for waste collection and disposal in their communities, while 26.1% claimed to have waste collection and disposal containers provided for them in their communities by the state institutions on environmental protection. the finding of the study on effort made by the communities’ members in drawing the attention of state institutions on environmental protection in table 2 revealed that 59.0% of the respondents claimed that they have not drawn the attention of the state institutions on the environmental challenges faced by their respective communities, while 41.0% of the respondents claimed to have made some efforts in drawing the attention of the state institutions on the environmental challenges being faced in their respective communities. 4. discussion of results the officials of the state institution on environmental protection claimed that project intervention has to do with different activities been carried out by the state government through its institutions in order to protect and promote the wellbeing of the environment. these activities include the distribution of alternative sources of domestic energy sources to reduce pressure on fuel wood and tree planting among others. in an interview, the state institution officials claimed that they have distributed 10,025 cooking gas as part of their efforts to curtail excessive deforestation in the state. in an effort to minimize the level of over reliance on fuel wood, the taraba state ministry of environment in collaboration with the national park service also distributed about 850 portable gas cylinders\burners, 90 improved firewood stoves and 75 charcoal stoves all in april, 2021 to less privileged households across the state (figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. figure 1. cooking gas cylinder distributed to local communities another important project intervention is the tree planting and distribution of tree seedlings in collaboration with some non-governmental organizations and institutions in the state. between the years 2020 and 2021, the state ministry of environment in collaboration with oxfam planted 100,000 seedlings of palm oil, mango, orange, moringa and eucalyptus among other species in six selected lgas in the state (takum, wukari, kurmi, donga, ardo kola and zing lgas) (figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. figure 2. tree seedlings that were distributed to 6 lgas in taraba state although there is no sustained program with regards to the tree planting exercise due to lack of funding from government, the state ministry of environment directed all its divisional forestry officers across the state to raise seedlings for onward planting in the forest reserves and plantations within the state. although the result of the findings revealed that 74% of the respondents claimed that they are not aware of the existence of means of information in their communities, it has been observed that the provision of information to local communities may form an important part of environmental management because it induces participation of people and through this involvement of people can ensure policy continuity and make implementation possible at the most cost-effective manner. thus, local communities awareness of the activities of government and its institutions can play crucial role in making environmental policy more successful. this information would aid in the development of awareness of needs, responsibility, trust, and collective action among individual local community members, as well as the formulation of trust in government and acceptance of policy initiatives (michiko, 2000). the provision of accurate environmental information enables citizens to make informed consumption decisions and to penalize those who violate environmental laws and regulations. according to michiko (2000), public awareness www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. was never considered as a tool for promoting environmental policy until recently. however, this tool is crucial and has the potential to be a powerful tool in the field of environmental protection. nonetheless, there are few studies on environmental awareness in developing countries, and those that do exist lack a policy-oriented perspective. as a result, it is critical that empirical research on environmental awareness be conducted in developing countries in order to: first, collect basic data, second, justify the method's validity, and third, integrate the findings into the environmental policy-making process (michiko, 2000). findings of the study reveals that available records from the state judiciary shows that from the time of the state creation to date (2021), the state institutions have only been able to make about 287 prosecutions of forestry related offences. so many seizures of timber sawing machines were made but statistics of the number of such seizures are not available. according to the state director of forestry, virtually all the forest reserves in the state have been encroached upon through settlement occupation, grazing and farming activities. this clearly demonstrated the poor capacity of the state institutions to effectively enforce environmental protection regulations in the state. however, between 2017 to 2018, 14 companies were arrested, prosecuted and one convicted for environmentally related offences as shown in table 3. table 3. enforcement of environmental regulations in the state s/n date number of arrests number of prosecutions number of conviction number that pays fine 1 12-07-2017 8 8 nil nill 2 19-11-2017 4 4 nil nill 3 11-12-2018 14 14 1 1 source: mobile environmental court (upper area court) jalingo 2021. the study findings also reveal that some of the fines and penalties of environmental regulation offences are already obsolete and overtaking by the inflationary trends in the country. there is need to review the existing laws and regulations and enact new ones to meet up with increasing environmental challenges in the state and economic reality of the day. the funding of the activities of an organization or agency is a clear demonstration of political will towards a course of action. the budgetary allocation of the state to the ministry of environment and its institution, tasepa as well as the recurrent and capital expenditure between 2000 to 2021 are presented in table 4. the table reveals that despite the revenue generation of the state institutions on environmental protection, not much has been invested in the sector. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. table 4. taraba state budget allocation to ministry of environment from 2000-2021 year taraba state budget allocation budget allocation to ministry of environment percentage of budget (%) approved recurrent expenditure approved capital expenditure for envir. protectn 2000 1,349,984,295 no allocation na na 2001 2,423,289,128 115,885,015 4.78 na na 2002 6,228,281,297 79,023,860 0.13 na na 2003 12,129,963,189 111,600,000 0.92 na na 2004 21,593,421,875 601,600,000 2.78 na na 2005 24,129,234,120 603,600,000 0.24 na na 2006 24,231,108,740 86,354,660 0.35 ₦6,000,000.00 na 2007 31,934,660,280 59,702,140 0.18 ₦6,000,000.00 na 2008 37,560,261,475 569,951,605 1.51 ₦10,000,000.00 na 2009 ₦48,968,486,645.00 282,935,345 0.62 na ₦50,000,000.00 2010 ₦64,144,351,808.00 ₦1,204,057,530.00 1.88 ₦205,057,530.00 ₦999,000,000.00 2011 70,298,282,182.00 298,709,585 0.42 na na 2012 ₦73,852,442,531.00 na na ₦15,000.000.00 ₦115,000.000.00 2013 ₦73,415,972,736.00 ₦60,000,000.00 0.08 ₦15,000.000.00 ₦124,500.000.00 2014 ₦83,355,337,529.00 ₦1,005,113,859.00 1.21 na ₦277,166,330.00 2015 ₦97,319,103,027.00 ₦950,113,859.00 0.98 na ₦870,124,699.00 2016 ₦100,785,000,000.00 ₦1,111,083,394.00 1.10 ₦1,890,587,100.00 ₦948,435,921.00 2017 ₦110,168,983,942.00 na na ₦1,325,421,422.00 ₦1,033,795,154.88 2018 146,073,726,882.10 34,352,440 1.32 ₦411,709,349.98 ₦289,500,000.00 2019 146,073,726,882.10 1,780,735,468 1.2 ₦312,013,191.48 ₦315,555,000.00 2020 176,616,318,475.00 654,500,000.00 0.52 na ₦949,009,950.00 2021 139,460,435,961.80 2,119,9240,071 1.52 na na source: compiled from taraba state planning commission jalingo. na: not available there is a huge gap between the budgetary allocation and the actual amount released or expended in the sector. for example, in 2016, ₦1,890,587,100.00 was actually approved for recurrent expenditure for the ministry of environment, but the actual expenditure was ₦183,770,015.00. in 2016 also, ₦27,428,140.00 was actually approved for recurrent expenditure for the taraba state environmental protection agency, but the actual expenditure was ₦13,734,265.00. the information in table 4 revealed that it was only in the years 2001, 2013, and 2014 that the ministry received up to 4% of the state budgetary allocation. the lowest allocation was in 2002 (0.13%), 2016 (0.10%) and 2007 (0.18%). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. the picture above is not far from what is obtainable at the federal level. this goes to show the low level of attention paid to environmental issues over the years. according to ichite (2017), the 1999 national policy on the environment recognized the fact that environmental protection and natural resource conservation require huge financial investments. it also noted that the costs of in-action will rise exponentially with increasing pressure on the environment and natural resources. strategies outlined in the policy for achieving environmental financing include ensuring adequate annual budgetary provision for implementation of the national policy on environment, particularly, the amelioration of major environmental problems; accessing the 2 per cent ecological fund; establishing a fund to be financed by at least 3 per cent of the federation account, for the restoration, rehabilitation and development of the degraded mine lands in all solid minerals producing areas; take full advantage of bilateral and multilateral technical and financial assistance in environmental protection and ensure maximum benefits from the financial mechanisms for the implementation of the conventions and protocols ratified by nigeria; and mobilizing additional finance through the imposition of taxes, fines and charges, where appropriate, on activities that deplete natural resources or degrade the environment (ichite, 2017). taraba state government must follow suit. 5. conclusion this study has examined the level of local community awareness of the activities of state institutions in environmental protection in taraba state, nigeria. findings of the study reveals that there is a general low public environmental awareness of the existence of most environmental laws, standards and regulations especially on forest reserves, grazing reserves, game reserves, and related legislation in the state as a result of poor enlightenment campaign and non-involvement of local communities in the activities of the state institutions on environmental protection. the poor funding of the state institutions activities resulted in the low performance of the institutions which culminated into the low level of local community awareness of the state institutions. 6. recommendations based on the findings, the study makes the following recommendations; 1) adequate funding of the sector because environmental protection and natural resource conservation require huge financial investments in order to achieve meaningful result. 2) there is need for the state institutions to increase the public awareness of their activities and enlighten local communities on environmental rules and regulations in the state and their communities, the responsibility, trust, and collective action required of individual local community members and penalties for violation of environmental laws and regulations. 3) there is need to increase empirical research on environmental awareness in the state. this will help to collect basic data, justify the method's validity, and integrate the findings into the environmental policy-making process of the state. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. 4) there is need review some of the environmental protection laws in the state that are obsolete, especially the fines and penalties of environmental law violation to represent the present economic reality. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the staff of taraba state ministry of environment and taraba state environmental protection agency (tasepa) for providing useful information that helps to the success of this study. the authors also appreciate the corporation of the various villages and communities in completing the questionnaires. the authors are equally grateful to authors whose work were extensively used in the study. references ajomo, m. a., & omobolaji, a. (1994, eds.). environmental law and sustainable development in nigeria; lagos: nigerian institute of advanced legal studies (nials) & the british council 1994, 35-47. akande, j. o. (1994). allocation of environmental responsibilities under the nigerian constitution: institutional challenges and conflicts”. in m. a. ajomo & a. omobolaji (eds.), environmental law and sustainable development in nigeria; lagos: nigerian institute of advanced legal studies (nials) & the british council. akinjide, o. (1997, ed.). dimensions of environmental problems in nigeria. university of ibadan: friedrich ebert foundation. atsegbua, l., vincent, a., & folarin, d. (2004). environmental law in nigeria: theory and practice. lagos: ababa cna corp. 2007. national security and the threat of climate change. rep. cna corp., arlington, va. retrieved from https://www.cna.org/cna_fles/pdf/national%20security%20and%20the%20threat%20of%20climat e%20change.pdf environmental protection in finland (nd): what is finland doing to protect its wilderness”. (2017). retrieved from https://finland.fi/life-society/environmental-protection-in-finland federal republic of nigeria (frn). (1997). draft revised national policy on the environment. federal environmental protection agency (fepa), abuja. ichite, c. (2017). an appraisal of frameworks on environmental security in nigeria. laplambert publishing, mauritius. ikhide, e. (2007). environmental protection law. warri: new pages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. michiko, i. (2000). role of environmental awareness in achieving sustainable development. economic commission for latin america and the caribbean (eclac) lc/r.1961, 23 november, 2000. okorodudu-fubara, m. t. (1998). law of environmental protection: materials and text. ibadan: caltop. phil-eze, p. o. (2009). “the environment, peace and conflict in nigeria” in miriam ikejiani-clarked.: peace studies and conflict resolution in nigeria: a reader; ibadan: spectrum. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 42 original paper the dilemma and transformation of paternity testing from the qing dynasty to the republic of china—focusing on blood kinship testing zihao wu1 1zhejiang normal university, jin’hua, zhejiang, china received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 14, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p42 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p42 abstract paternity testing is intertwined with kinship, morality, politics, and economics, and was indispensable in ancient china. through practice, the ancients developed the blood-drop paternity test, forming a self-consistent mythological narrative that persisted into the republic of china era. by the qing dynasty, intellectuals had questioned the rationale behind this practice. the introduction of western medicine, based on modern science, further challenged its validity, while the new technological myth was constrained by ethical dilemmas. this article focuses on the blood-drop paternity test, examining its evolution and challenges from the qing dynasty to the republic of china period, and exploring its significance in the history of science and technology and socio-cultural history. keywords paternity testing, blood kinship testing, technological transformation, technological dilemma 1. introduction paternity testing is inherently linked to numerous aspects, including family economics and clan morality. research on paternity testing technology involves various disciplines, such as biological science research, popular science education, law, and sociology. however, existing research often focuses on a single field, largely confining itself to a simplistic narrative of progress, with little dedicated historical study. this article aims to break away from this singular research approach by exploring the history of technology and socio-cultural history, broadening the perspective of paternity testing research, systematically tracing the development of paternity testing technology, and attempting to explain the reasons and processes behind the selection and rejection of blood-drop paternity testing, revealing the underlying knowledge games and the evolution of cultural and ethical significance. it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 43 should be noted that the author is not limited to the late qing and republican periods; rather, a long-term narrative is intended, starting from the birth and application of ancient blood-drop paternity testing to the establishment of modern scientific and technological paternity testing, focusing on the important transitional periods of the late qing and republican periods and even after the founding of the people’s republic of china, showcasing the complex social context under the evolution of paternity testing technology. at the same time, it will also take into account the changes in mentality under technological transformation, and use sociological, hermeneutic, semiotic and other disciplines to further explore the mythologizing and demystification of blood kinship testing and strive to analyze the historical structure of technological transformation. 2. the construction of myths: the authority and continuation of blood test for kinship 2.1 the necessity of the emergence of technology and traditional chinese appraisal methods the emergence and application of paternity testing technology is necessary. firstly, confirming parentage is crucial to the inheritance of political status and power, forming the foundation of the patriarchal system. secondly, confirming parentage involves property distribution; simultaneously, it embodies ethical and moral practices, with filial piety and benevolence embedded in the establishment of paternal relationships. therefore, the parentage confirmed by paternity testing links political needs, the basis for property distribution, and ethical values, and the invention and development of related technologies have their own inherent logic. however, nothing is perfect. throughout history and across the world, there have been cases where kinship was in doubt, involving individuals including parents and children, siblings, and even spouses; thus, testing technology arose in response. in ancient times, paternity tests were mostly handled by the government, and officials often relied on inferences based on facts. during the northern wei dynasty, li chong judged a case based on circumstances. two people from different counties each claimed a child as their own. li chong lied, saying the child had died young. one person was overwhelmed with grief, while the other only sighed. li chong thus concluded the former was the true father. (wei, 1974) during the song dynasty, li nangong judged a case based on reason. a widow remarried, taking her child with her. her former husband’s relatives came looking for the child, but the mother claimed he was not her former husband’s son. li nangong, because boys usually lose their baby teeth at eight, and this child had lost his a year earlier, yet his mother claimed he was seven, awarded custody to the father’s relatives. (tuo, 1985) li chong’s strategy can be summarized as the “common sense method,” testing emotional reactions to uncover the truth; li nangong, on the other hand, used the “reason method,” finding truth within common sense and logic. in addition to this, ancient china also had a method of blood kinship testing—divided into two types: “blood mixing” and “bone dripping.” the blood mixing method involved dripping the blood of the two individuals being tested into a vessel of water; if they mingled, they were considered relatives. the bone dripping method involved dripping someone’s blood onto the bones of a deceased person; if the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 44 blood seeped into the bone marrow, they were considered relatives. there are precedents for blood kinship testing during the wei, jin, and northern and southern dynasties. for example, there was the case of xiao zong, the prince of yuzhang, testing his biological father. xiao zong suspected his biological father was not his ancestor, and “heard a popular saying that if the living blood is poured onto the bones of the dead, they will be father and son.” therefore, he exhumed the tomb of the marquis of donghun, dripped his blood into the bones, and then killed his own son, took his bones, and dripped his blood again, doubly testing the truth of the saying. the result was “verified,” confirming that his biological father was indeed the marquis of donghun. (yao, 1973) the four methods of paternity testing in china are “common sense,” “common sense,” “bone drip,” and “blood matching.” in practice, the most accurate and reliable methods undoubtedly stand out, with “bone drip” and “blood matching” being collectively referred to as the blood drip paternity test. 2.2 the mythical narrative and authority of blood test for kinship it is evident from the cases of li chong and li nangong, who respectively determined paternity, that in the process of identification based on common sense and reason, the decisive factor often lies in the personal qualities of officials and gentry. the confirmation of paternity stems from the logical reasoning of the judge, which is derived from the testimonies, actions, and emotional attitudes of both parties in the litigation, without forming a set of knowledge-based identification logic or institutionalized identification procedures. blood paternity testing, however, is different. blood is naturally regarded as a bond of kinship. terms like “bloodline,” “flesh and blood,” and “blood relatives” all embody the deep affection linked by blood. blood ties were the order of ancient society. the signifier of “blood” was also broadened. in ancient times, the two parties who swore an oath of blood did not actually have a blood relationship, but after the ceremony, after drinking the blood, they formed a bond of kinship, becoming brothers. this ancient people’s reverence for blood was the cornerstone of the blood-testing kinship system. the veneration of blood has mythologized blood-drop kinship testing, but this alone is insufficient to establish its authority. the ritual of dripping blood during the identification process distinguishes it from legal and ethical methods. like the ritualistic display of blood in sacrifices, the act of dripping blood has the power to instill trust in the examinee and the audience. the act of dripping blood onto bones or dissolving it in water for testing is itself a ritual, and the concept of "blood" and its religious connotations imbue the ritual with a magical quality. the blood test for kinship can be seen as a ritual myth. the blood test for kinship signifies kinship to the test subjects and helps them understand and accept it, regardless of right or wrong. the blood-drop kinship test, requiring no government officials or forensic doctors present, was easily disseminated among the public due to its self-initiated nature, making it more accessible to the masses. in contrast, the bureaucratic method of using reason and emotion required a series of procedures, such as interrogation, deliberation, and conclusion. these procedures extended the time and space of the test, lacking the immediacy and witness ability of the blood-drop kinship test, further undermining its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 45 credibility. in the blood-drop kinship test, whether the blood mingled or seeped became the key criterion for determining kinship. therefore, compared to the reason and emotion method, the blood-drop kinship test was more “scientific” in ancient times. the mythical effect inherent in blood-drop kinship testing has already surpassed other methods, giving it unique credibility. after song ci included blood-drop kinship testing in his collected cases of injustice rectified, its authority was officially established: “the method of blood-drop kinship testing states that if someone is a father or mother, and there are bones, and someone else comes to claim a son or daughter, how is this verified? have someone prick themselves and bleed a little, dripping it onto the bones. if they are biologically related, the blood will seep into the bone; otherwise, it will not. this is what is commonly called ‘blood-drop kinship testing.’” (song, 2023) blood-drop kinship testing thus embarked on a path of institutionalization, being incorporated into the ancient chinese forensic medical system. subsequently, blood-drop kinship testing gradually evolved into official technology. the qing court devoted all its resources to compiling the collected cases of injustice rectified, published during the qianlong reign, which standardized the knowledge of kinship testing in the qing dynasty. a section of this volume retained song ci’s “blood-drop” section, making it a standard technique practiced by qing officials. this will both further promote the application of blood-drop kinship testing technology and strengthen the unquestionable nature of the technology with its authoritative credibility, but it will also put a constraint on the development of ancient kinship identification technology. 2.3 questioning and continued use of blood-drop kinship testing in the qing dynasty song ci’s collected cases of injustice rectified has always been regarded as a judicial standard. the blood-drop kinship test technique has been further consolidated after being mythologized and authoritative, but voices questioning the accuracy of the blood-drop kinship test have never stopped. before the publication of the corrected records of wrongful convictions of the legal system, huang liuhong had raised doubts: “the matter of blood dripping cannot be relied upon entirely. i have noted this here so that a wise person can decide whether to dismiss it.” (huang, 2018) even though the corrected records of wrongful convictions of the legal system included and preserved song ci’s blood dripping technique, it also made a blood dripping test based on it, pointing out that fresh blood will always coagulate when it comes into contact with salt and vinegar, and that blood dripping to verify kinship is not a complete solution. ji xiaolan also recorded something similar: “however, i heard from old officials that ‘blood from flesh and blood will always coagulate, which is normal. but if you place a vessel on ice and snow in winter to freeze it to extreme cold, or wipe the vessel with salt and vinegar in summer to give it a sour and salty taste, then the blood that is dripped into the vessel will coagulate immediately, even if it is from a close relative.’ therefore, a drop of blood is not enough to establish a reliable diagnosis.” (ji, 1980) later, the xiangxue congbian (collection of hunan studies) offered more angles of doubt: “there is also the method of blood coagulation by dripping water. however, according to western medical books, the principle of blood coagulation varies depending on temperature, movement, smoothness, and humidity, as well as concentration.” (hunan provincial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 46 education inspectorate, 2012) the author specifically pointed out the effects of concentration; when there is more blood than water in the vessel, even the blood of a stranger can coagulate; when there is less blood than water, even the blood of a parent or child will not coagulate. furthermore, he believed that bones have the property of attracting blood, therefore human blood could seep into the bones of pigs and sheep. the author explains the causes of blood coagulation from five aspects: cold and warmth, movement and stillness, smoothness and roughness, wind and atmosphere, and thinness and thickness, and refutes the claim that kinship is the cause of coagulation. wang muyou, in his questioning, specifically applied knowledge of modern science. in his annotation of wang yu’s wu yuan lu from the yuan dynasty, he wrote: “for example, in the section on determining blood kinship, it says: ‘according to the principles of modern science, hot blood dripping into flesh and bone can penetrate anyone, regardless of who they are. this is because bones contain electrical currents, which are heated by friction and absorb the hot blood. if the blood dripped is not hot, and the bone is not heated by friction, even relatives cannot have it dripped in. therefore, the method of blood dripping is unreliable.’” however, one of the reasons he gave was precisely the explanation offered by xu lian and shen jiaben: “if blood dripping does not penetrate, it is because the method of drying is unknown.” (shen, 1985) in other words, after wang muyou proposed that electrical friction and temperature are the real factors determining blood penetration and that blood dripping for kinship testing is unacceptable, xu lian and shen jiaben took the temperature, which many scholars questioned, as a prerequisite, meaning that if blood dripping for kinship testing were to be used correctly, then the bones would need to be dried. temperature was transformed from a questionable argument into reliable evidence, weakening wang mubo’s doubts and providing a supplement to the blood kinship test. electrical properties remained undisputed, and shen jiaben’s selective elaboration reinforced the accuracy of the blood kinship test. wang mubo’s insights seemed too weak, and the blood kinship test was still considered a viable solution. in summary, some shortcomings of blood-drop kinship testing have already been discovered through historical practice. even before the introduction of western medical science and technology, there were internal doubts about the technique. this wasn’t limited to learned figures like huang liuhong and wang mubo; as recorded in ji xiaolan’s writings, officials and coroners involved in actual testing also discovered its inadequacies. although the process and results of the technical verification were subject to certain variables, it was still included in the authoritative legal examination work, the corrected records of wrongful convictions. the publication of the law and regulations bureau acknowledged the feasibility of this method, prompting its implementation—as an official technology. blood-drop kinship testing became an official measure for officials to verify kinship. in other words, the underlying logic of blood paternity testing remains correct in mainstream understanding. the connection of bloodlines confirms kinship. however, due to various reasons, errors can occur in the practical application of this technology. this is precisely why blood paternity testing has been questioned. investigating officials need to combine diverse evidence and avoid the interference of blood paternity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 47 testing. therefore, the blood paternity testing technique continues to be used. in summary, blood-drop kinship testing was commonly used in paternity disputes and the identification of remains. when li hongzhang was ordered to exhume kang youwei’s ancestral tomb, he stated in his memorial that “although there are no relatives present to identify him by blood,” the ancestral tomb was confirmed based on oral testimonies from relatives and physical evidence found in the tomb. (li, 2007) from the emperor to powerful officials, the authority of this official technology was recognized. blood-drop kinship testing held a high priority, and if it was not available, other physical evidence could be used as evidence. if physical evidence was conclusive, blood-drop kinship testing was not necessary. despite numerous doubts, without concrete physical evidence, qing dynasty officials could not escape the constraints of blood-drop kinship testing, representing a compromise. on the other hand, the lack of official authority in blood-drop kinship testing itself limited its further development, yet the technique was still used in the republic of china era. therefore, the blood-drop kinship test has multiple reasons for its continuation, including technological, cultural, and political factors. firstly, its inclusion in historical records such as the xi yuan lu (records of injustice rectified) and the law and regulations bureau corrected records of injustice rectified institutionalized it, ensuring its continued existence as an official technology. secondly, technological compromises meant that few other reliable methods existed besides blood-drop kinship testing. thirdly, blood-drop kinship testing has become part of collective memory and is difficult to erase; the mythical narrative of blood ties enhances its credibility. fourthly, due to the need for a stable ethical order centered on filial piety, the birth of a child outside the clan was considered a disruption of the lineage, making a successful blood-drop test a celebrated story. finally, the continued use of blood-drop kinship testing, driven by the necessity of paternity testing technology, responds to the practical humanistic and emotional needs of finding and recognizing relatives. before the myth of blood-drop kinship testing was dispelled, its function was also a necessary consequence of its existence. despite the multiple factors that underpin the blood-drop kinship testing technology, the skepticism it faces has not diminished, and opponents will point out its fundamental flaws from a more scientific perspective, ultimately making its abandonment inevitable. 3. technological reinvention: the game between blood test for kinship and blood type identification in therepublican era 3.1 the birth of paternity blood type testing technology before discussing the interplay between blood drop kinship testing and blood typing technology, it's essential to first examine the history of blood type discovery, which is also the prerequisite for the development of paternity blood typing technology. in 1900, austrian scientist karl landsteiner discovered that the red blood cells of certain individuals agglutinated with serum. through comparative experiments, he discovered the three blood types: a, b, and o. his students further developed this system by discovering a fourth type—ab—thus forming the first human blood type system. in 1930, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 48 this naming principle was adopted by the permanent standards committee of the world health organization (who), which named the a and b agglutinins anti-a and anti-b, respectively. (jia, 2000) the abo system was officially established. more importantly, dungern and hirszfeld proved that human blood types conform to mendelian laws of inheritance. sergei natanovich bernstein further defined the exact mechanism of inheritance in 1925. (wiener, 1948) this revealed the genetic relationship between offspring’s blood type and their parents, making another avenue for paternity testing a reality, thus leading to the development of new technologies for blood type paternity testing. by the 1920s , blood typing technology was widely used for paternity testing abroad. 3.2 introduction of blood type identification technological advancements spread rapidly to china. in 1921, chinese intellectuals somewhat dismissively pointed out that the blood-drop method used in the united states to determine paternity was considered a “latest invention” by modern western medicine, while it was already recorded in china’s ancient medical text, the washing away of wrongs. (liang, 1921) two points are noteworthy here: first, if the method used in the united states was indeed a recent invention, it was undoubtedly blood typing, and information about the emergence and application of this new technology had already reached china; second, upon receiving this information, some people presumptuously claimed that china already possessed this method, mistaking modern blood typing technology for the western version of blood-drop paternity testing—likely because the specific procedures for blood typing were not simultaneously introduced, reflecting their confidence in blood-drop paternity testing. conversely, skepticism regarding blood-drop kinship testing persists within academia. as early as 1913, some argued that while blood-drop kinship testing contributed to forensic medicine in the middle ages, it should now be relegated to the dustbin of history. (yi, 1919) the author of this article merely asserted that abandoning the ancient method was inevitable, without explaining its flaws or pointing to new directions for kinship identification. in the context of the eastward spread of modern forensic knowledge, these scholars who have embraced this new knowledge believe that blood-drop kinship testing is no longer sufficient to effectively determine paternity. professors f. oppenheim and du keming of tongji university argued that blood-drop kinship testing is one of the errors in the historical text the washing away of wrongs, pointing out that the methods of “blood mixing” and “bone dripping” are inapplicable, as the blood of any two individuals will inevitably mix in the container, resulting in agglutination. while discussing the errors in blood-drop kinship testing, oppenheim and du also pointed out that while modern forensic medicine can still determine kinship from a negative perspective, confirming a non-biological relationship, it cannot definitively establish a parent-child relationship. (f.·oppenheim & du, 1924) what oppenheim and du are referring to is blood typing. although they explain its shortcomings, blood typing, based on modern science, is clearly superior to the much-criticized blood-drop kinship testing. the former is limited by the practical bias of positive results, while the latter is a substantial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 49 error. during the same period, lin ji, a pioneering figure in chinese forensic medicine, made groundbreaking contributions to the introduction and dissemination of blood typing technology. in 1924, lin ji wrote an article detailing the methods of blood typing, explaining that this technology could be used for paternity testing and to help with blood transfusions for wounded soldiers on the battlefield. after studying in germany, lin ji published more in-depth insights in 1926. he not only provided more detailed tables for study and reference but also explained the genetic basis of blood clusters, the invariance of blood clusters, and whether standard serum loses its sensitivity and ability to react, attempting to strengthen the trust of domestic readers. subsequently, lin ji wrote many articles, each time adding new knowledge about blood typing. through lin ji’s efforts, the complete picture of blood typing was outlined and presented to chinese scholars and the public. although lin ji vigorously promoted blood type identification technology, he was also aware of its shortcomings, too many classifications and the difficulty in making definitive judgments with a single type of examination. he advocated for a multi-faceted approach to identification. first, studying the genetic characteristics of skin texture; second, paying attention to the time of conception and delivery; and third, examining the physical appearance of the parents, as children’s appearances are inherited from their parents but also vary, allowing for comparison to verify parentage. lin ji applied all these examination methods simultaneously, making a comprehensive judgment to demonstrate the inadequacy of blood type identification. (huang, 1995) in an era before highly accurate technology for paternity identification existed, and facing the societal demand for reform in forensic medicine, lin ji integrated knowledge from multiple disciplines to propose a more feasible identification method, a truly pioneering contribution. lin ji’s method has also been applied in practice. 1932, the institute of forensic medicine under the ministry of justice was officially established, and lin ji was appointed as its first director. he subsequently oversaw the founding of china’s first publicly distributed forensic medicine journal, forensic medicine monthly, which published numerous cases of examination conducted by the institute. cases fourteen through eighteen are all paternity testing cases transferred from various regions to the institute for further examination. without exception, the institute first examined the subject’s conception time and gestation period, making inferences based on common sense, and then conducted blood type tests to deduce the possibility of paternity, thus eliminating the unlikely paternity among multiple suspects. however, according to the laws of heredity, it was difficult to confirm that the subject was definitely the parent, so the institute also compared the subject’s physical characteristics, including eyebrow length, nostrils, and ear shape, to compare the similarities and differences between the child and the parents. combining the results of all the above tests, a conclusion was reached regarding whether the child was the parent. case nineteen involved the identification of two packages of cremated bones, including whether the bones were human bones, the age of the owner, the time of cremation, and whether bone drip paternity testing was reliable. the examiners first dripped their own blood into the bones to be burned, then dripped human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 blood into the bones of the animal being burned, and then dripped animal blood into the bones. they found that both human and animal blood could be dripped into either human or animal bones, thus proving that the bone-drip kinship test was unacceptable. (lin, 1934) therefore, the "mythical" bone-drip method was debunked. 3.3 the game between blood drop kinship testing and blood type identification it believes that the 1930s were a crucial period of transformation for paternity testing technology. blood typing technology was introduced at this time, and through the advocacy of intellectuals like lin ji, it shifted academic thinking. simultaneously, intellectuals like lin ji also facilitated the establishment of new systems, further enabling blood typing. however, blood-drop paternity testing continued to be used. firstly, traditional forensic medicine held that experience was more important than theoretical knowledge. veteran coroners, represented by yu yuan, insisted on using the knowledge derived from the collected cases of injustice rectified, based on experience, as their method of identification. he opposed the prevailing trend of favoring western theories and attempted to inherit traditional classics such as the collected cases of injustice rectified, along with his own accumulated practical experience. yu yuan used this theory to train new coroners, thus ensuring the continued circulation of traditional forensic knowledge. secondly, there are economic factors. the appendix to the “interim measures for identification and testing” lists prices for paternity testing and genetic diagnosis at ten to thirty yuan, with individual serological tests costing even four to ten yuan. (lin, 1936) thirty yuan is enough to cover a family’s expenses for one or two months, making this testing fee a heavy burden for most lower-class people involved in paternity disputes. in contrast, blood paternity testing requires no special equipment or reagents, only a bowl of water and a silver needle, making the cost negligible. this stark economic disparity forces many people to choose the lower-cost, traditional method. furthermore, it believes that the simplicity and cultural inertia of blood-drop kinship testing still play a role. from an operational perspective, blood-drop kinship testing requires no professional laboratory environment or technical training; even county coroners and village elders can perform the procedure. in remote areas with inconvenient transportation and scarce medical resources, this simplicity makes it the only feasible option. from a cultural perspective, the concept of "blood kinship" is deeply ingrained in the national cultural fabric. blood-drop kinship testing is not only a method of verifying kinship but also embodies the public’s understanding and emotional attachment to "legitimacy of bloodlines." the interplay between blood-drop kinship testing and blood type identification reflects the trajectory of forensic knowledge transformation at the time. pioneers like lin ji promoted not only the practice of a technology, but also a revolution in the cognitive system of forensic medicine. the reason this revolution was so difficult was that it needed to overcome not only technical barriers, but also traditional inertia deeply rooted in all levels of society. 4. presentation of impact: the complex landscape of technological transformation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 51 4.1 sociocultural conflicts in technological transition technological transformation leads to the optimization of a series of work indicators such as efficiency and accuracy, inevitably causing changes in the forensic profession. in the theater of family reunion, the ancient blood-dripping method is gradually marginalized. with the introduction and repeated performances of what is considered “modern” western science and technology, the protagonist of the ritual has shifted to modern technology. like the audience, they are all shocked by the time-space dislocation of tradition and modernity, although as viewers they cannot perceive the different stakeholders behind the characters’ involvement and struggle over technology. in the early 20th century, forensic medicine in china still relied on coroners for autopsies. the coroner was a traditional forensic doctor established in ancient china, and their forensic system, as evidenced by ancient forensic books like collected cases of injustice rectified, was outdated and unscientific. therefore, the introduction of blood typing technology facilitated the transformation of traditional coroners into modern forensic doctors. through understanding society and recognizing the drawbacks of the old autopsy system, lin ji’s determination to dedicate himself to forensic medicine was further strengthened. he believed that forensic medicine uses medical knowledge to identify and study legal issues. the essence of law is the conviction of punishment. forensic medicine is one of the medical applications of the state. legislation, the judiciary, and administration all require forensic doctors. this process of career transformation also encapsulated the insignificant life of a small figure. secondly, the failure of blood-drop kinship testing shocked the public’s subconscious, refreshing their cultural and western medical perspectives. blood-drop kinship testing, as a traditional mythological narrative, encompassed both blood ties and indigenous technological identity. the late qing dynasty was an era of struggle and modernization for the chinese nation. in terms of national salvation, the narrative of blood symbolized national cohesion and identity; indigenous technology was one source of national confidence. however, the myth of blood-drop kinship testing, carrying this dual meaning, was shattered and overturned by western forensic technology. new scholars embraced and learned modern medical techniques, moving towards empirical scientists. paradoxically, the connotation of blood in blood-drop kinship testing continued to be used. in addition, trust is the foundation of a family. when the authenticity of the parent-child relationship is questioned, the crisis of trust between spouses and parents and children can have a devastating impact on the family. whether in ancient times, the republic of china era, or even in modern times, there are always families facing the ethical dilemma of paternity testing. the parties involved will inevitably fall into the tug-of-war and contradictions of family ties, and feelings of doubt and anxiety will arise. 4.2 the myth of new dnatechnology and the ethical dilemma in the latter half of the 20th century, dna technology advanced rapidly, achieving a 99% or higher success rate in confirming parentage through dna testing. undoubtedly, this is a modern technological marvel. however, the very nature of paternity testing dictates that it will inevitably touch upon ethical and moral boundaries. qian guangrong pointed out new ethical issues arising from paternity testing : www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 first, it reinforces the significance of male parental rights while neglecting the significance of female parental rights, contradicting the civilized and progressive direction of modern society’s “gender equality” in marriage and family ethics; second, it induces and fuels distrust between spouses, easily leading to a crisis of trust in marriage and family; third, it strengthens the physiological and bloodline ethical significance of sexual relationships while weakening their social ethical significance, which is inconsistent with the modern civilized trend of marriage; fourth, it deprives the embryo of its right to normal growth, infringes upon the child’s legitimate developmental rights, and demonstrates a certain contempt for the right to life and development. from blood-drop paternity testing to dna, the scope of discussion on ethical dilemmas will inevitably expand. (qian, 2006) family ethics, human rights, bloodline recognition, and national identity remain the underlying ideological themes behind technological development. ethical dilemmas arise, much like the crucifixion that binds paternity testing. however, the resurrection of jesus undoubtedly symbolizes love and redemption, and paternity testing technology can also bring about reunions and the deep bond of blood ties. therefore, it is necessary to view and apply it dialectically. 5. conclusion the century-long transformation of paternity testing technology from blood-drop kinship testing to dna testing is essentially a historical process of interaction between technology and socio-cultural factors. within the construction of mythology, blood-drop kinship testing not only symbolizes traditional blood ties but also serves as a connecting link in clan ethics. its rituals reinforce the authority of the myth, thus creating a continuously reinforcing cycle. even after qing dynasty intellectuals questioned its scientific validity, blood-drop kinship testing persisted into the republic of china era due to political ritual needs and cultural inertia. during the republican era, the introduction of blood typing brought about a technological transformation, resulting in a complex localized landscape: a reinterpretation of the meaning of blood, occupational conflicts, and the reconstruction of ethical order. however, blood-drop kinship testing continued to be used, encompassing economic, cultural, and institutional factors, until the emergence of more scientific hla and dna technologies. from blood-drop kinship testing to dna testing, we can see it as the deconstruction of an old myth and the construction of a new one. technological transformation is a reconstruction of myths. the rituals and operational logics of the two myths are quite different, but their underlying ethics are largely the same. the relationship between technology and society deserves further reflection, and a balance should be sought between technological rationality and humanistic concern. at the same time, it should be recognized that construction is an eternal process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 acknowledgments this paper was supported by provincial undergraduate training program on innovation and entrepreneurship (number: s202510345143) references f.·oppenheim, & du, k. m. (1924). views of tongji medical school professors on collected cases of injustice rectified. the law review, 63, 18-20. huang, l. h. (2018). complete book of blessings and benefits. yangzhou: guangling press. huang, r. t. (1995). forensic sage: the life and work of lin ji. beijing: world publishing corporation. hunan provincial education inspectorate. (2012). collected essays on hunan studies, changsha: yuelu press. ji, x. l. (1980). notes from the thatched abode of close observations. shanghai: shanghai ancient books publishing house. jia, j. t. (2000). a history of forensic medicine and forensic science in the world. beijing: science press. li, h. z. (2007). complete works of li hongzhang. hefei: anhui education press. liang, g. (1921). the united states also uses the blood-drop method to determine authenticity. the chinese illustrated news, 8(7), 13. lin, j. (1934). special issue on forensic case studies (vol. 1, pp. 43-105). forensic monthly. lin, j. (1936). provisional measures for forensic identification and inspection: with classification tables of identifiable cases and fee schedules. new medicine, 4(7), 213-217. qian, g. r. (2006). paternity testing: the moral paradox of technology safeguarding family ethics. studies in ethics, 4(4), 101-102. shen, j. b. (1985). a study of criminal laws through the dynasties (vol. 4). beijing: zhonghua book company. song, c. (2023). collected cases of injustice rectified. beijing: zhonghua book company. tuo, t. (1985). history of the song dynasty. beijing: zhonghua book company. wei, s. (1974). book of wei. beijing: zhonghua book company. wiener, a. s. (1948). chapter i: introduction. in blood groups and transfusion. springfield: charles c. thomas publisher. yao, s. l. (1973). book of liang. beijing: zhonghua book company. yi, m. (1913). on the blood-drop controversy. shanghai judicial journal, 11, 27-29. 1. introduction 2. the construction of myths: the authority and co 2.1 the necessity of the emergence of technology a 2.2 the mythical narrative and authority of blood 2.3 questioning and continued use of blood-drop ki 3. technological reinvention: the game between blo 3.1 the birth of paternity blood type testing tech 3.2 introduction of blood type identification 3.3 the game between blood drop kinship testing an 4. presentation of impact: the complex landscape o 4.1 sociocultural conflicts in technological trans 4.2 the myth of new dna technology and the ethical 5. conclusion acknowledgments references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 75 original paper research on the language protection modes of cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia—taking the oroqen nationality in china and the evenki nationality in russia as examples jiayi wu 1 1 department of russian, school of foreign studies, university of international business and economics, beijing, china received: june 13, 2023 accepted: july 29, 2023 online published: august 07, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p75 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p75 abstract cross-border ethnic groups are a group of people living separately in two or more modern countries due to a long history of development. the oroqen nationality and the evenki nationality, as homologous ethnic groups living across the border of china and russia, both belong to the manchu-tungusic group of altaic languages, which are very similar and have great significance for the survival of the two ethnic cultures. with the historical changes and social development, the ethnic languages of the oroqen nationality and the evenki nationality are seriously on the danger of disappearing. in this regard, china and russia have adopted institutionalized and systematic protection measures and formed their own distinctive language protection modes from three aspects: policies and laws, theoretical research and educational practice, which has alleviated the former endangered situation of ethnic languages. based on the necessity of cross-border ethnic language protection, this paper explores the protection modes of these two ethnic languages and puts forward suggestions for further strengthening the protection in the future, in order to provide help for improving the soft power of national culture and enhancing the friendship between china and russia. keywords cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia, oroqen language, evenki language, language protection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 the connotation of cross-border ethnic groups the issue of cross-border ethnic groups has been paid attention by ethnologists at home and abroad. chunzi jin and jianmin wang (1994) defined cross-border ethnic groups as the same ethnic groups on either side of a border, living in different countries and directly connected by their settlements. xing cao and zhifang sun (2015) proposed that cross-border ethnic groups are relatively primitive ethnic groups, which are “geographically connected and have ethnic settlements because their traditional settlements were divided into different countries”. due to the commonness, connection and interaction of cross-border ethnic groups in many aspects such as ethnic origin, language and culture, custom, religious belief, exchange and trade, and intermarriage, zhi liu (2004) also regarded cross-border ethnic groups as “a community of people separated by national boundaries and marked by commonness, connection and interaction”. it is not difficult to conclude that cross-border ethnic groups are actually the same people living in two or more modern countries for long-term historical reasons. the “border” in “cross-border” refers to the national boundary, which is the demarcation of the scope of sovereignty by countries. therefore, most of cross-border ethnic groups have very similar languages and cultures, and the collective efforts to protect the splendid civilization of cross-border ethnic groups have become the common pursuit of the countries where they are located. 1.2 problems faced by cross-border ethnic languages ethnic cultural inheritance is a problem that multi-ethnic and multi-cultural countries face together and need to solve urgently. as an important part of ethnic culture, strengthening the protection of ethnic language is the driving force for communication among different ethnic groups, which is conducive to one ethnic group to carry out exchanges based on the cultural characteristics and local customs of the other ethnic group, which will further enhance people-to-people bond and promote stability in the border area (li, 2021). however, the ethnic language itself has great fragility. as far as the oroqen language and the evenki language are concerned, the oroqen language has only been expressed orally since ancient times and has no written form, and the evenki language initially had no written form until it was created in the 1930s. this means that the hunting culture, shamanic culture, folk literature and art, myths, legends, stories, and folk songs of these two ethnic groups have been passed down from mouth to mouth for thousands of years. with the acceleration of the modernization process, the oroqen and evenki live together with other ethnic groups, their language environment has undergone great changes, and the intermarriage is increasing. coupled with the increasing popularity of chinese and russian, oroqen and evenki languages are facing a great risk of extinction. for these two ethnic groups, the disappearance of language means the disappearance of culture; to retain the ethnic language is to protect their traditional cultural genes and souls on which they depend for survival, which plays a significant role in stabilizing the multi-ethnic community (liu & guan, 2019). nowadays, both languages have a serious trend of aging, and young people are gradually unable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. to understand and speak them. it is urgent to save oroqen and evenki languages. 2. current protection mode of oroqen language oroqen language is the wisdom crystallization of oroqen ethnic culture. as a world endangered language recognized by unesco, the protection of oroqen language has always been highly valued by domestic experts. through the joint efforts of all parties, historic achievements have been made in the protection of oroqen language. 2.1 policies and laws since its founding, china has adhered to the principle of equality among all ethnic groups, issued a series of important policy documents and formulated numerous laws and regulations. in terms of policies, especially since the 18th national congress of the communist party of china, the central committee of the communist party of china has further pointed out the direction for language reform and development, and issued a series of policy documents such as the outline of the national medium and long term reform and development plan of the language and writing cause (2012-2020), the 13th five-year development plan of the national language and writing cause, and made important discussions on the protection of minority languages. in terms of laws, the constitution of the people’s republic of china, the law of the people’s republic of china on regional ethnic autonomy, the law of the people’s republic of china on compulsory education, and the law of the people’s republic of china on the common language of the state and other laws have clearly stated the protection of the minority language, stipulating that “all ethnic groups have the freedom to use and develop their own languages” (ai, 2020). the oroqen language, protected by policies and laws, has achieved unprecedented development, further promoting ethnic unity, social stability and cultural prosperity. 2.2 theoretical research with the strong support of the state, the “language resources protection project in china” and the “language resources audio database construction in china” continue to be implemented; ethnolinguists continue to investigate the oroqen nationality, describe, record and preserve the audio-visual materials of oroqen language, and compile many essays, dictionaries and primary school textbooks. for example, the anthology of xibe language, hezhe language, ewenki language and oroqen language edited by ge tang has made contributions to the rescue and protection of endangered languages of ethnic minorities and has certain influence in the academic circle. the oroqen-chinese dictionary edited by youfeng han and shuxian meng has been published by north literature publishing house. in cooperation with russia, the “the oroqen-russian-chinese dictionary” marked with the international phonetic alphabet is currently in the final proofreading stage and will be published soon. in terms of textbooks, the textbook of oroqen language written by youfeng han lays a good foundation for the bilingual teaching of oroqen and chinese languages in ethnic schools. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. academic research has condensed the efforts of scholars, played a positive role in the rescue and protection of oroqen language and culture, and provided important and valuable academic materials for the future research and protection of oroqen language. 2.3 educational practice under the common expectation of the country and people, the teaching of oroqen language has changed from theory to practice, and various school education activities, online education activities and transnational language exchange activities have emerged. first of all, school education activities are mainly carried out in oroqen ethnic settlements. for example, ulaga town oroqen ethnic school offers a number of oroqen ethnic culture courses, including ethnic customs and culture, ethnic dance and ethnic language, and teaches students the daily expressions of oroqen language with the help of the international phonetic alphabet and the established textbook (chen & chen, 2010). secondly, online education activities include “internet + ethnic language” online learning platform and wechat group. for example, the “heilongjiang oroqen language and culture inheritance and protection learning system” relies on modern technology to create an efficient online interactive learning platform that transcends the concept of time and space and provides for people with collective learning or personalized needs. the platform integrates sound, image, video, animation and other contents, which enhances the learning interest of oroqen students in various regions in inheriting and protecting their ethnic language. at present, the platform has 146 oroqen language courses, 4,000 oroqen words, 23 folk songs and 100 stories (liu & guan, 2019). in addition, oral transmission of oroqen language through wechat group is also a feature. for example, baolin guo and his wife xiaohua ge, the last generation of oroqen hunters who live in the greater khingan mountains region, teach young people to speak oroqen through live streaming in their self-created wechat group “folk culture exchange group” (wang, 2021). finally, transnational language exchange activities are often held between china and russia. for example, the oroqen (evenki) international olympic language and culture competition was jointly held by the heihe ethnic and religious affairs bureau and amur state university. many young students from china’s oroqen nationality and russia’s evenki nationality answered questions by computer and participated in on-site oral competition (zhao & zhang, 2019), which played a great role in breaking the communication barriers between the two ethnic groups, improving the ability of oroqen language and building a bridge of spiritual communication. 3. current protection mode of evenki language on the eve of the implementation of international decade of indigenous languages (idil) (2022-2032), russia responded positively to the call of the los pinos declaration to “guarantee indigenous people’s the right to express themselves freely, to receive education and participate in public life in their mother tongue” by taking a series of measures to preserve minority languages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. 3.1 policies and laws article 26 of the constitution of the russian federation states that everyone has the right to use his mother tongue and to freely choose the language of communication, education, study and creation (aytira, 2016). in the area of education in ethnic languages, article 14 of the law on education of the russian federation, adopted in 2012, stipulates that citizens of the russian federation have the right to pre-school education, general primary education and general higher education in the mother tongue (yue, 2017). the ethnic cultural autonomy act directly grants the right to establish non-state educational institutions and to develop curricula and publish textbooks in the ethnic languages in these institutions (zhao & zhang, 2019). in addition, the russian government provides financial support for the development of ethnic languages. on january 17, 2019, russian president vladimir putin approved the establishment of the foundation for the protection and research of the mother tongue of the peoples of the russian federation; in the same year, the ministry of science and higher education of the russian federation established the foundation for the support of northern languages in moscow to provide financial support for the research of ethnic languages and the education of children in their mother tongue throughout russia. 3.2 theoretical research as early as after the victory of the october revolution in 1917, lenin put forward the principle of “equality of nationality”, and one of the measures was to create a written language for the nations without it. in 1930, the evenki script based on the latin alphabet was successfully created. in order to facilitate the learning of russian and the ethnic language, the evenki language began to be expressed in the cyrillic alphabet in 1936. with the unified evenki written language, scholars have more in-depth and extensive research on the evenki language, and have published many high-level research monographs, dictionaries and teaching materials, covering dialects, vocabulary, phonetics, grammar, comparative studies and other aspects. among them, the most famous evenki dictionaries include the “evenki-russian dictionary” written by vasilyevich in 1958 (zhang, 2017). textbooks from kindergarten to university are written by the joint efforts of evenki teachers from all over the country, who are mostly in their 60s and 70s and are the last inheritors of the original evenki language. the publication of academic achievements contributes greatly to the conversion of the evenki language and the common russian language, and to the inheritance and development of the evenki language. 3.3 educational practice first of all, family education is the cornerstone of the inheritance of evenki language. evenki parents are mostly positive about protecting their ethnic language, and some even send their children to the taiga in the mountains in the hope that their children can better understand the evenki language in communication with the local villagers. secondly, in the area of school education, evenki teachers receive state-funded training every year. in kindergarten and the first grade of primary school, evenki language is taught in the form of games, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. homework and tests begin in the second grade of primary school. at the secondary level, evenki language is an elective subject and is not included in the national college entrance examination, but quiz scores are credited to the secondary school graduation certificate. at the university stage, there are three universities in the country that offer evenki language majors, which are located in yakutsk, ulan-ude and st. petersburg. in these three universities, students of this major will receive a diploma in evenki language. thirdly, in order to revive the language and culture of the evenki nationality, social organizations in the areas where the evenki people live have organized various activities, including language and culture forums, olympic competitions, conferences and seminars. for example, the evenki language and culture forum 2021 was held in blagoveshchensk from 25 to 28 august, with a combination of scientific workshops and training courses to strengthen the self-identity of the evenki youth. finally, online education is based on information technology, and its effectiveness in modern evenki language teaching should not be underestimated. since 2021, russia has created online courses for beginners in evenki language, which are free for citizens throughout the country. the online courses are divided into two levels, level 1 for children and level 2 for adults. there are also a number of national evenki specific websites in russia, such as the evenki academic exchange network and the evenki phonetic corpus. on these sites, there are many evenki language textbooks, literature books and various audio and video recordings available. in addition, there is a special mobile phone translation software “ayana”. this software has no threshold to use, and can automatically translate russian and evenki, which provides great convenience for learning evenki language. 4. thoughts and suggestions on the future protection of cross-border ethnic languages 4.1 joint protection of china and russia 4.1.1 the necessity and feasibility nowadays, the culture and language of the cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia are facing the crisis of disappearing, which the state and society have paid considerable attention to. however, the same nationality belongs to two countries, only the cooperation between china and russia can be complete and effective protection. fortunately, the joint protection of china and russia has a certain feasibility: (1) commonality is a prerequisite for the joint protection of the two countries. the cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia have a common ethnic origin and historical development track, only after the border between china and russia changed, some of the people located in russia were officially classified as another ethnic group. therefore, although these two ethnic groups belong to two different countries, they have a high degree of similarity in material culture and spiritual culture, which provides the possibility for cooperation of china and russia. (2) the friendly relations between china and russia and the existing cooperation experience are the basis of joint protection. in recent years, with the joint efforts of the central and local governments of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. china and russia, cultural exchanges between cross-border ethnic groups have become increasingly frequent, and a relatively stable exchange mechanism has been formed. 4.1.2 the main forms by combing the current protection modes of oroqen and evenki languages, it can be seen that the universities and research institutions of china and russia have conducted in-depth research on their respective ethnic group from various aspects, and published a series of scientific research results with their own characteristics. therefore, china and russia should make use of their respective research advantages and carry out collaborative research. for example, the two countries can jointly establish research topics, strive for research projects and funds respectively, and carry out all-round collaborative research on cross-border ethnic languages on the basis of their own geographical advantages. in addition, china and russia should form a joint investigation team to conduct social investigations in cross-border ethnic settlements. in the process of investigation, the two countries should not only pay attention to their own key contents, but also get a clear understanding through comparison, so as to form more comprehensive audio-visual and documentary materials in ethnic languages. china and russia should also continue to actively promote the holding of various forms of exchange activities to promote the inheritance and protection of the two ethnic languages and cultures. 4.2 the development of cultural tourism “cultural tourism”, as the industrial upgrading of tourism, is to introduce culture into the tourism industry and transform it to high quality and high efficiency. it not only improves the cultural attributes of the tourism industry, increases tourists’ interest in playing, but also promotes the spread and protection of ethnic culture (li, 2020). as the core of ethnic culture, the combination of ethnic language and tourism products can not only produce economic value, but also achieve the purpose of promoting and protecting ethnic language. for example, it is possible to add the oroqen (evenki) cultural performance and “close to oroqen (evenki)” entertainment projects to the tourism that receives foreign tourists, so that tourists can feel colorful ethnic language and culture through close contact with the oroqen (evenki) people. it is also possible to set up ethnic characteristic museums in scenic spots with a large flow of people to introduce ethnic language to tourists by means of video and audio. at the same time, in the museums stationery products and video products with ethnic language characteristics can be sold, such as tape, postcards, bookmarks, records and so on. for evenki language with written form, creative promotion can be carried out in local scenic spots through bilingual signs in both mainstream and ethnic languages. 4.3 clever use of video websites the advent of the new media era makes everyone with information become the “media”, which promotes the information is no longer limited to one-way communication from professionals to non-professionals, but becomes multi-directional communication between professionals professionals, professionals non-professionals, non-professionals non-professionals (liao, 2020). this means that those who have ideas and master simple video production skills are capable of becoming the source of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. information dissemination on video websites, which has undoubtedly injected new vitality into the spread and development of cross-border ethnic languages. according to the classification of language and culture videos on video websites, this paper holds that oroqen and evenki languages can be spread in the following three forms, which are of great help to increase the public’s awareness of oroqen (evenki) language, strengthen the identity of the ethnic group, and awaken the consciousness of mother tongue and intangible cultural heritage protection of the young generation of oroqen (evenki) nationality. (3) hot or classic movies, tv plays, animations and their theme songs can be re-dubbed or re-covered in oroqen (evenki) language. this form is very interesting, with the basis of the original material, the young people of ethnic groups will naturally understand and accept the new version to a higher degree; and because the difficulty of “re-creation” is relatively low, young people are likely to join the ranks of dubbing or covering, making their own works and re-distributing them. (4) the oroqen (evenki) language can be used to narrate and comment on the general situation of movies and tv series, games and sports events, as well as to recommend various products, food and tourist places. in this form, young people will be immersed in their native language while watching the video itself, which will make young people have different perceptions and understandings of the use of their native language, and enhance their sense of mission to inherit their native language. (5) the oroqen (evenki) language can also be used to popularize ethnic cultural knowledge. different from the above two interesting forms, the popularization of basic knowledge of ethnic language and culture is relatively serious but very necessary. in this form, the role of the older generation of oroqen (evenki) and ethnologists is greatly highlighted. they can not only explain the basic situation, pronunciation and daily use of the oroqen (evenki) language, but also compare the oroqen (evenki) language with other minority languages to enrich the content of creation. 5. conclusion along with the process of globalization and the construction of the belt and road initiative, china and russia have jointly ushered in new opportunities to strengthen the development of the far east region, achieve mutual learning and common prosperity of different civilizations. at the same time, cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia are moving towards the road of heterogeneous coexistence, mutual exchange and inclusiveness, which is consolidating the bridge of friendship between china and russia. in february 2019, unesco officially issued the yuelu proclamation, which introduced 20 initiatives to the world, calling on the international community, countries, regions, governments and non-governmental organizations to reach consensus on the protection and promotion of linguistic diversity of the world. this undoubtedly points the way for further strengthening the protection of ethnic languages. by combing the existing language protection modes of the typical cross-border ethnic groups in china www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. and russia—the oroqen nationality in china and the evenki nationality in russia, this paper puts forward suggestions for further protection and development of the cross-border ethnic groups in china and russia in the future, which is conducive to cultivating the sense of identity of the cross-border ethnic groups beyond the national level, and making great achievements in the china-russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era. references ai, b. j. (2020). the state is committed to protecting the spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities. inner mongolia daily (han), 002. aytira, a. (2016). language education policy of the russian federation. ethnic education research, 27(1), 115-122. cao, x., & sun, z. f. (2015). cross-border ethnic issues in the era of globalization. beijing: china university of political science and law press. chen, y. b., & chen, x. (2010). investigation on inheritance of ethnic culture of oroqen school in wulaga, heilongjiang province. contemporary education and culture, 5(3), 11-15. jin, c. z., & wang, j. m. (1994). chinese cross-border peoples. beijing: nationalities publishing house. li, h. y. (2021). an analysis of the protection of minority languages based on the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. comparative study of cultural innovation, 5(13), 131-134. li, j. w. (2020). the influence of tourism on the protection of bashu dialect—a case study of establishing a pop-up shop for dialect experience. tourism overview, 10, 81-82. liao, t. t. (2020). a study on the influence of bullet screen video websites on the transmission of dialect culture—a case study of bilibili. changsha: hunan normal university. liu, x. c., & guan, x. y. (2019). current situation and protection countermeasures of oroqen nationality language and culture. heilongjiang ethnic series, 3, 151-155. liu, z. (2004). the types, attributes and development trends of cross-border peoples. yunnan social sciences, 5, 89-93. wang, y. (2021, april 13). deep in the greater khingan mountains, a wechat group of elunchun language class. retrieved august 20, 2021, from https://www.thepaper.cn/newsdetail_forward_12157302 yue, q. (2017). an overview of contemporary russian language education policy. siberian studies, 44(5), 51-55. zhang, y. z. (2017). translations of studies by russian scholars on the evenki language (late 17th century until the collapse of the soviet union). ethnic translation, 2, 84-88. zhao, y., & zhang, w. (2019). the 2019 sino-russian cross-border ethnic cultural exchange activities and the 6th oroqen (ewenki) international olympic language competition were held in heihe university. journal of heihe college, 10(12), 2. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper anthropological explanation and practical revelation of cultural confidence ma miaozheng 1 1 school of marxism, southwest university, chongqing, china received: june 09, 2023 accepted: august 23, 2023 online published: september 05, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p1 abstract cultural self-confidence is ultimately people's recognition of national cultural values, which means that the study of cultural self-confidence must pay more attention to "people". therefore, this paper applies marxist anthropological theory to interpret cultural self-confidence from the three levels of human development, human value and human needs, and accordingly proposes that in the development of cultural self-confidence, we should know the status of "people", pay attention to the influence of "people", and play the subjective role of "people". accordingly, it proposes that in the process of developing cultural self-confidence, it is necessary to understand the status of "man", pay attention to the influence of "man", and give full play to the subjective role of "man", which lays a solid theoretical foundation and a guiding direction for building a strong socialist cultural force by consolidating cultural self-confidence. keywords marxist anthropological theory, cultural self-confidence, practical revelation. 1. introduction general secretary xi jinping, in his report to the 20th party congress, emphasised the significant instruction of "promoting cultural self-confidence and self-reliance, and forging a new splendour of socialist culture". as the nation with a continuous culture of 5,000 years, china requires robust spiritual vigour for the grand revival of the chinese people. this suggests that the development of china's cultural self-confidence is not only a contemporary proposition, but also a responsible response to history. nonetheless, the challenges posed by the fluctuation of china's cultural mentality and the effects of both internal and external factors on china's cultural construction have significantly hindered progress. to resolve this predicament, it is essential to comprehend the fundamental aspect pertaining to the advancement of cultural self-assurance, specifically, the role of humans, and employ the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. significant effect it has on the progression of cultural self-assurance, in order to stimulate the endogenous potential of cultural self-assurance in modern times. this text already adheres to the principles or lacks context, and thus does not require any further improvement. this is precisely the crucial theoretical foundation for fostering the growth of cultural self-assurance in the current era. 2. the threefold interpretation of cultural confidence in the perspective of anthropology starting from the perspective of marxist anthropology, it combines cultural self-consciousness with related anthropological theories, re-conceptualises cultural self-consciousness from the three levels of the theory of human development, the theory of human value and the theory of human needs, and interprets and deciphers the essential connotation of cultural self-consciousness in a new way, so as to provide different ideas and insights for the theoretical research of cultural self-consciousness in the new era. 2.1 cultural self-confidence is an important prerequisite for the realization of comprehensive guman development according to marx, human beings must "occupy their comprehensive nature as complete human beings" in order to achieve comprehensive development. as a crucial prerequisite for achieving holistic human development, cultural self-assurance comprises three facets that facilitate the comprehensive growth of individuals, aligning with marx's three-tier perception of "comprehensive development" in the concept of holistic human development. first, the overall development of individuals encompasses the development of their physical strength, intelligence, ideology and morality. cultural self-assurance can guide individuals through its strong intrinsic influence until their physical and intellectual abilities improve in a subtle way, and moral values gradually become personal habits, ultimately achieving the comprehensive development of individuals. this allows individuals to gradually discern which cultures are worth studying, thereby cultivating a positive mindset and healthy wellbeing. additionally, holistic human development encompasses individuals' skills and ingenuity in diverse areas of pursuit. a robust cultural identity is founded on a rich cultural legacy, and such a legacy possesses a cultural sway that should not be undervalued. individuals, as crucial participants in numerous social endeavors, unconsciously incorporate cultural influences into their lives. scientific and cultural knowledge, a type of culture, stimulates individuals' imaginative capacities in their practical activities. additionally, customs, norms, and ethical values, also considered culture, constrain individuals' behaviour and conduct in their daily lives. moreover, cultural influences regarding culture, as a form of culture, significantly impact people's development and behaviour. from this, it is clear that culture is ubiquitous and its impact far-reaching. developing cultural self-assurance can elevate its influence to a higher level, thus enabling individuals to unleash their creativity and excel in their respective fields, resulting in comprehensive personal growth. thirdly, the holistic growth of individuals can only occur within specific historical contexts, and social progress is intrinsically connected. marx asserted that "an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. individual's development is contingent upon the development of all other individuals with whom they directly or indirectly interact." the development of the individual is intrinsically linked to the development of society. each person must strive for personal growth while simultaneously contributing to the collective progression of society as a whole. in order to facilitate integration with society and the community's development, cultural self-assurance serves as the fundamental link between individuals and society. this empowers society to develop in sync with individuals and enables the free growth of each individual as a condition for collective liberation. in brief, the all-encompassing growth of individuals constitutes the pursuit of the utmost significance and the elevated objective of societal progression, whereby cultural self-assurance serves as a crucial foundation on this journey of pursuit. socialist culture with chinese characteristics, at the heart of cultural self-confidence, is an advanced culture with a wealth of cultural heritage and contemporary wisdom. it is better suited to freeing people from spiritual dilemmas, guiding them towards an appropriate path with the power of culture and spirit, unlocking the innate potential and creative energy of the chinese people, promoting their all-round development, achieving cultural confidence and autonomy, and advancing the construction of a robust socialist cultural nation. we will also work towards achieving cultural confidence and self-sufficiency, as well as promoting the development of a robust socialist cultural state, in order to progress towards the objective of constructing a modern socialist powerhouse. 2.2 cultural self-confidence is the organic unity of the individual’s self-worth and social value at the cultural level value is a relationship that exists between the subject and object in work activity, indicating that the object holds significance and plays a significant role for the person. this relationship is commonly referred to as the relationship of significance and role. the worth of an individual may comprise self-esteem and societal contributions, which can be attained through a strong sense of cultural confidence and promotion of cultural advancement to embody their own worth within cultural and spiritual aspects, thereby fully realizing human value. on the one hand, the individual realises his or her self-worth by maintaining cultural self-confidence. the so-called realisation of self-worth refers to the process of obtaining satisfaction of material and spiritual needs from others and society, with the human being as the subject of value and society and others as the object of value. as conscious beings, human beings have spiritual attributes, which means that they must have their own spiritual world and spiritual needs, and culture, as an important part of society, has values at its core, which play a guiding role in the development of human behaviour, guide people to make an all-round social orientation, and form the highest value concepts and value pursuits with truth, goodness and beauty as the core. therefore, adhering to cultural self-confidence means adhering to the socialist core values and practising their self-improvement for individuals. adherence to cultural self-consciousness, therefore, precisely satisfies the spiritual needs of individuals, and achieves the process of obtaining spiritual satisfaction from society and realising the acquisition of individual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. self-esteem. on the other hand, the individual realises his social value by promoting the development of cultural self-esteem. the so-called social value is to change the subject and object of self-worth, to take others and society as the subject of value and man as the object of value, and to create material and spiritual wealth to satisfy the needs of others and society through one's own cognitive and practical activities. especially in marx's anthropological theory, it is believed that the measure of human value should be judged by the social value of human beings. put in the cultural level, its value goal is to maximise to meet the needs of the broadest masses of people's growing cultural life, and because the value of culture, depends on the value of each individual creation, which requires that people should try their best to contribute to the development of culture belongs to their own wisdom and strength. therefore, the practice of one's own social values at the cultural level is manifested in the following ways: to unite the forces for the development of socialism with chinese characteristics through firm cultural self-confidence, to transmit the culture of socialism with chinese characteristics, to build up socialist core values, and to refine the ability to tell a good story about china, so as to continuously improve and develop the culture of socialism with chinese characteristics, and to devote oneself to building a strong socialist cultural country. 2.3 cultural self-confidence is both a spiritual need of the individual and a common need of the community people's needs often indicate the absence of certain things in real life. it is this shortfall that motivates individuals to acquire what they require. the same principle applies to social groups. with the country experiencing continuous development, individual and social needs related to survival and security have been met. as a result, people are now pursuing higher level needs, particularly those related to spirituality which is becoming increasingly important. culture plays a crucial role in shaping life and enriching the spiritual world, providing individuals with a firm cultural self-confidence while simultaneously filling a common need for the social collective. firstly, personal cultural confidence satisfies a spiritual need because human beings possess a desire for spiritual life, which encompasses the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. notably, after individuals have attained a certain level of satisfaction for material needs, their spiritual world's underdevelopment becomes evident, emphasising their urge for culture and spirit. at the same time, cultural self-assurance can have a subtle yet significant impact on an individual's conscious thought processes and behaviour in everyday life. it can provide strong spiritual support during times of difficulty and obstacles, thereby satisfying their spiritual needs and enhancing their spiritual strength. additionally, cultural self-assurance is also a shared requirement of the wider society. the society's common requirements include the necessity to sustain and progress the social organism's existence and its functions' proper functioning. contemporary society necessitates outstanding and sophisticated culture as its spiritual backing. this spiritual vigour acts as a supportive mechanism, analogous to a sea anchor, providing society with steadfast idealistic beliefs and a lucid spiritual direction. and cultural self-confidence has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. become a spiritual force, satisfying the common cultural needs of the people. it addresses the people's growing needs for a better life in the new era and further promotes the prosperity of socialist culture. the cultural heritage and continuous development of social collectives offer more excellent cultural products, meeting the people's increasingly higher spiritual and cultural needs. it is believed that such cultural confidence will facilitate the country's prosperity, allowing socialist culture with chinese characteristics to contribute even further to the advancement of human civilization. in summary, as the nation grows in prosperity and influence, the global landscape is shifting at a rapid pace. accordingly, individual and societal demands for spiritual and cultural nourishment evolve daily, necessitating an ever-increasing emphasis on developing cultural self-assurance. to achieve this, the needs of the people must guide progress whilst firmly consolidating cultural belief. the advancement and enhancement of the socialist cultural industry with chinese characteristics must also be continuously pursued to ingrain the distinctive chinese socialist culture in the people's hearts. 3. the reality of cultural confidence in the context of anthropology under the strong leadership of the communist party of china (cpc), the continuous promotion of socialist cultural self-confidence with chinese characteristics to realise new development and cultural self-improvement is a necessary way for china to become a socialist cultural power. in order to promote the transformation of cultural self-confidence into cultural self-improvement in the new era, from the perspective of marxist anthropology, it is necessary to deeply understand the status of "man", attach importance to the influence of "man", and fully play the role of "man", so as to strengthen the development of china's cultural self-confidence and promote the development of chinese culture. in the context of marxist anthropology, it is necessary to deeply recognise the status of "man", pay attention to the influence of "man" and play the role of "man", so as to give a clear direction to the development of china's cultural self-confidence. 3.1 recognizing the status of “human beings”: making it clear that the foundation of cultural self-confidence lies in “human beings” cultural self-assurance ultimately refers to an individual's acknowledgment and endorsement of the cultural principles ingrained in a nation. to cultivate and establish cultural self-assurance, it is crucial to concentrate on the citizens themselves, encompassing their necessities, principles, and progression. 3.1.1 the social attributes of human beings are the basis for the formation of cultural self-confidence the social attributes of human beings are the first source of the formation of cultural self-consciousness. among the social attributes of human beings is affiliation, which means that individuals have a certain sense of belonging to the group or society in which they grow up and are born, which also proves that human beings are social beings and not just natural beings. therefore, from the very beginning of his life, an individual is firmly branded as a member of the group to which he belongs, and inherits the unique culture and customs of that group, thus forming the so-called national and class characteristics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. of human beings. cultural self-consciousness is the cultural imprint of the chinese nation and the chinese people as a large group. this brand creates a cultural and spiritual attraction and appeal for the country, the nation and even the people as a whole, unites national emotions, strengthens national identity, and is the power of a particular culture to uphold the ideals and beliefs of the country and the nation. this sense of belonging in china is reflected in the fact that in the past, countless overseas chinese sons and daughters and aspirants have travelled thousands of miles, spared no effort to return to the embrace of the motherland, join the front line of construction and dedicate themselves to the future of the motherland. nowadays, every chinese in other countries honours their motherland in their own way during festivals, actively spreading all kinds of excellent chinese culture and showing the pride of the chinese people. 3.1.2 human needs are the driving force for the development of cultural self-confidence in mr yuan guiren's book, marx's anthropological thought, it has been suggested that "human need is man's dependence on and demand for objective conditions for his survival, enjoyment and development. it reflects man's impoverished condition in real life and can be understood as a form of man's reflection of reality, the inner motive of positive action". from this it can be seen that human needs arise from human nature, reflect the state of one's own lack and serve as an intrinsic motivation to seek change for it. at the same time, marxist anthropological theory divides human needs into three levels. the first level is survival needs, i.e. the most basic and primitive desire to survive that human beings possess as natural beings. the second level is social needs, that is, human beings as social beings participating in the process of social production and social interaction, the relevant needs such as the people's demand for freedom, equality and democracy. the third level is spiritual needs, the spiritual characteristics of human beings inevitably make people have certain spiritual life needs, and with the solid protection and increasing wealth of material life, people pay more and more attention to the acquisition of the spiritual level, which means that people's social and spiritual needs are the original driving force for the formation and development of cultural self-confidence, which not only promotes the cognitive self-consciousness of people's cultural self-confidence, but also promotes the ability to improve the cultural self-confidence to realise the cultural self-confidence. it can not only promote people's cognitive awareness of cultural self-confidence, but also promote the improvement of cultural self-confidence, so as to realise the optimisation of the cultivation of cultural self-confidence. 3.1.3 enhancing cultural self-confidence should ultimately return to the human being itself adhering to the "people-oriented" principle, the establishment and cultivation of cultural self-assurance ought to be transferred to individuals themselves. as a mindful and reflective person, perception reflects a dynamic reflection, decision-making represents the main aspect of cognitive behaviour, and the dominant avenue for the reflection process. therefore, individuals constantly make independent choices, and the selectivity inherent in such mobility has implications for the value identity of culture, which can provide a significant boost to the development of cultural confidence, but can also present a significant obstacle to its construction. under these circumstances, utilizing the constructive influence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. of individuals as the principal aspect of enriching cultural self-assurance poses a complex predicament in promoting cultural confidence. to address this issue, we must conduct thorough analysis and research on human behaviour, acknowledge their capacity for independent decision-making, and understand their preferences in order to effectively guide, educate, and persuade them. such efforts will bring forth the innate drive within humans, thereby fostering cultural self-confidence. this, in turn, will aid in nurturing, developing, and constructing a robust cultural identity. 3.2 emphasizing the human impact: avoiding loss of direction on the road to greater cultural confidence having recognised the importance of "man" in cultural self-confidence, we must also see dialectically the role of "man" in the construction of cultural self-confidence, which has both positive and negative sides. therefore, in the process of developing cultural confidence, it is necessary to strengthen human subjectivity and the problems that exist at the level of human needs. 3.2.1 attention to the negative implications of human subjectivity in marxist anthropological theory, the concept of human subjectivity primarily pertains to the capacity for mobility, autonomy, and self-directed activity as an agent in the process of engaging with the object. two aspects of subjectivity, in particular, contribute to cultural self-assurance. firstly, human subjectivity enables individuals to approach all phenomena in accordance with personal understandings, emotional states, and beliefs, enabling the alignment of actions with internal thought processes. the subjectivity of human beings cannot be ignored, as marx mentioned in "career considerations for young people" when discussing various perspectives on decision-making: "choice is a far superior aspect of human life compared to other creatures, but it can also lead to the destruction of a person's life, ruin their plans, and affect their entire existence." such a decision is unpredictable, and it can have either a positive or negative outcome. the subjectivity of human beings cannot be ignored, as marx mentioned in "career considerations for young people" when discussing various perspectives on decision-making: "choice is a far superior aspect of human life compared to other creatures, but it can also lead to the destruction of a person's life, ruin their plans, and affect their entire existence." the given text already adheres to the principles or lacks context. therefore, there is no need for improvement. under the influence of traditional culture's "mediocrity thought", individuals tend to overlook personal interests and neglect the development of their own personalities. they are habituated to passive acceptance and lack the pursuit of a higher spiritual realm, resulting in an empty spiritual world and a deficit of spiritual belief. this can have a catastrophic impact on the formation and development of cultural confidence. therefore, it is evident that acknowledging the adverse impacts of subjectivity is crucial to promoting the development and advancement of cultural self-confidence under the aforementioned influences. we must acknowledge the dialectical relationship between the favourable and unfavourable effects of human subjectivity to fully harness the role of cultural subjectivity in nurturing and constructing cultural self-confidence. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. 3.2.2 focusing on the diversity of human needs and the complexity of the social environment human needs are the original driving force of cultural self-confidence, and while meeting people's cultural and spiritual needs, it is also necessary to pay attention to the diversity of human needs and the complexity of the social environment surrounding the needy, both of which can pose considerable challenges and obstacles to the building of cultural self-confidence. on the one hand, although human needs are complex and diverse, they can be broadly categorised into two main types: survival needs and development needs. when there is a shortage of material things, survival needs will always be the first needs, but as material life becomes more and more abundant, survival needs will gradually diminish, and development needs will gradually enter into people's vision, and people will pay more attention to their own perfection and self-realisation in social work. if we do not pay attention to the transformation of people's needs, the development of cultural self-confidence will go in the wrong direction. on the other hand, the backward economic, political and ideological relations will create an extremely hostile social environment for the people, which will seriously depress the people's need for development and hinder the fulfilment of the legitimate needs of social workers, which will deprive the cultivation of cultural self-confidence of its impetus, and is one of the problems that must be guarded against in time. 3.3 playing the role of “people”: from cultural self-confidence to cultural empowerment as the adage states, "internalize in the heart, externalize in action." to achieve the transformation from cultural self-certainty to cultural self-sufficiency, it is vital to bolster positive mobility by comprehending the dynamic role of human beings. it is necessary to encourage individuals to display their abilities outwardly by first stimulating them from within. to achieve the transition from cultural confidence to cultural self-sufficiency, it is essential to enhance positive mobility guidance based on a dialectical understanding of the dynamic role of individuals. this involves encouraging individuals from within, to enable them to play a more impactful role, and focusing on the following four aspects. 3.3.1 stimulating the potential inherent in the “spiritual attributes of man” although matter determines consciousness, consciousness also has a dynamic effect on matter. the spiritual attributes of human beings confirm this point, human beings are conscious and rational thinkers, the rational thinking of human beings makes their actions purposeful, planned and creative, and they can give full play to their own subjective initiative to transform and create the objective world in their practical activities. at the same time, the spiritual qualities of man are also a guide to action in real life. as a person of rational thinking, he can recognise his own shortcomings and make adjustments to change them, and use reason to guide and regulate his will, and use his will to support and promote reason. it can be seen that the spiritual attributes of human beings contain enormous spiritual power, which is a force to be developed, with unlimited potential, the presence or absence of such power is not only a necessary factor for cultural confidence, but also at the moment of construction can be transformed into a huge material force, determining the success of cultural confidence in the construction or not. the injection of spiritual force into the construction of cultural self-confidence will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. give a strong impetus to the development and cultivation of cultural self-confidence, and then encourage the people to realise the cultural innovation of the new era. 3.3.2 strengthening the guidance of “human subjectivity” from "what to do" to "how to do", human activity is a complex process that involves objective complexity and subjective purposefulness. human cognition reflects this complexity, with choice being the main link in cognitive activity and the primary means of reflection. the selectivity inherent in human mobility involves an independent choice regarding cultural identity, which can both foster and hinder cultural self-assurance. this characteristic presents the greatest challenge in building cultural confidence: namely, how to exercise subjectivity. only by bolstering the thorough examination of human subjectivity, acknowledging the principle of the subject's independent decision-making, comprehending the direction of the subject's autonomous decisions, and providing effective guidance and education to the subject can we fully utilize the function of cultural subjects in cultural self-assurance, which furthers the enhancement and progression of cultural self-assurance. 3.3.3 promoting the simultaneous enhancement of “personal value and social value” cultural self-confidence, as socialism with chinese characteristics, involves using one's distinctive culture to tackle challenges, keep pace with the times, resolve domestic and foreign issues, and ultimately achieve development and prosperity of socialist culture with chinese characteristics. fundamentally, it is a reflection of social values. therefore, the development of cultural self-confidence must consider the simultaneous improvement of human self-esteem. it is crucial to pay attention to the grasp of primary and secondary relationships while continuously enhancing personal and social self-worth. as an individual, both intrinsic and extrinsic values are present. according to marx, individuals in society should not use self-worth as the sole criterion for assessing human value. instead, they should focus on fulfilling society's needs and being recognized by the community as the primary indicators of an individual's worth. such external factors, rather than personal feelings, should serve as the basis for assessing human worth. of course, this does not imply that individuals should entirely abandon practicing self-esteem. especially in reality, society recommends that while focusing on one's external worth, one should also cultivate one's inner worth, in order to achieve the union of the two. 3.3.4 promoting innovation in the “human values” evaluation system currently, within the progression of china's cultural pursuits, undesirable occurrences such as disorderly conduct in the cultural market, and insufficient cultural surveillance, still endure, persistently hindering the growth and establishment of a socialist culture with chinese features. it is imperative to incorporate the assessment of "human value" into the cultivation of cultural self-assurance. by promoting innovative methods to evaluate "human value," the socialist cultural self-assurance with chinese characteristics can be further stimulated, enhancing its development vitality and mitigating constraints. since human value is a social phenomenon, it encompasses both fulfilment and contribution in terms of content. the assessment of an individual's value mainly pertains to their contribution. thus, the assessment of an individual's value is based on their contribution to society. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. fundamental human contribution is the social contribution of humans. such evaluations can act as a form of value guidance, encouraging individuals to recognise their own value through active contributions to society. additionally, to encourage innovation in the evaluation of "human value" systems, the social contributions of individuals should be considered as an essential embodiment of human value and a key criterion for value judgement. these contributions are determined by a proletarian worldview, outlook on life, and values. this means that cultural self-assurance plays a crucial role in shaping human value assessments. conversely, when possessing a positive personal value assessment system, individuals can recognize how to achieve personal worth and gain spiritual gratification through various means. it will inspire people to commit themselves to social construction, encompassing the fostering and growth of cultural self-confidence. references collected works of marx and engels (vol. 3, p. 515) (1960). beijing: people’s publishing house. collected works of marx and engels (vol. 42, p. 123) (1979). beijing: people’s publishing house. collected works of marx and engels (vol. 40, p. 7) (1982). beijing: people’s publishing house. liu, f., & liu, j. x. (2022). promoting cultural self-confidence and self-improvement to create a new splendor of socialist culture. shaanxi daily, 2022-10-22(004). su, d. s. (2003). cultural reflections on the chineseization of marxism. journal of nanyang normal college (social science edition), 2003(08), 27-29. xie, x. p. (2005). on the modernization of education and the modernization of human beings. education and career, 2005(13), 10-12. yuan, g. r. (1996). in marx’s anthropological thought (vol. 146). beijing: beijing normal university press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 127 original paper the safeguarding of indigenous intangible cultural heritage: from both government and private sides zhonghua xia1 1 faculty of humanities, jinan university, zhuhai, china supported by the state-level innovation and entrepreneurship training program for undergraduates of jinan university (project no. 202310559139) received: october 29, 2023 accepted: january 19, 2024 online published: february 20, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p127 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p127 abstract ich, intangible cultural heritage, including traditional theatre, traditional handicrafts, oral literature and so on, is a concept put forward by the unesco in 2003. its most fundamental characteristic is its “dynamism”, which often changes with the environment. variables that influence the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage include inheritors, national policies, laws and regulations, etc. and because there are so many variables, it is often more difficult to protect intangible cultural heritage than tangible cultural heritage. intangible cultural heritage is an important part of china’s cultural treasury. in recent times, due to the impact of industrial civilisation, some ancient intangible cultures have been faced with problems such as lack of successors and loss of skills. in modern times, the chinese government pays more attention to the protection of ich. in this test. this paper will take the national intangible cultural heritage, jingjiang palm puppetry, as an example to explore the protection and inheritanc localised intangible cultural heritage from two perspectives: the government and the private sector. keywords indigenised intangible heritage, cultural heritage, puppetry in the palm 1. introduction intangible cultural heritage (ich) is a term used to describe the legacy of the intangible cultural transmission of oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festivals, knowledge and practical skills of humankind. intangible cultural heritage emphasises the continuity and transmission of a culture, which is different from the static preservation of tangible cultural heritage (such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 128 published by scholink inc. architecture, cultural relics, etc.), and pays more attention to the revitalisation and transmission of traditional skills, cultural performances, oral transmission, etc. china has a profound history, and countless iche cultures have emerged over the long years of its history. according to the intangible cultural heritage law of the people’s republic of china enacted in 2013, ich is defined as a variety of traditional cultural expressions handed down from generation to generation by people of all ethnic groups and regarded as an integral part of their cultural heritage, as well as the physical objects and places related to traditional cultural expressions. among them is the jinjiang palm puppetry (figure 1), a traditional theatre popular in the southern region of fujian, sung in quan accent and performed by actors who control the puppets with their fingers. on 31 october 2005, the jinjiang puppet show was selected as one of the first provincial intangible cultural heritage items in fujian province, and on 20 may 2006, it was listed as one of the first national intangible cultural heritage items. the author went to fujian for research, and found that the protection and inheritance of jinjiang palm puppetry is under the dual force of the government and the private sector. it is representative to use it as an entry point to explore the protection and inheritance of china’s localised intangible cultural heritage. figure 1. jingjiang palm puppetry performance safeguarding of ich at the governmental level intangible cultural heritage often carries a deep historical and cultural heritage, and is a unique cultural identity of a region. with the improvement of china’s economic level and material life, the pursuit of spirituality and culture is receiving more and more attention, and the chinese government has attached increasing importance to intangible cultural heritage (ich), including policy leadership, financial investment, talent training, publicity and promotion, and international cooperation. policy guidance and legal security www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 129 published by scholink inc. in 2011, the promulgation and implementation of the intangible cultural heritage law of the people’s republic of china laid a solid legal foundation for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, and in 2021, the opinions on further strengthening the protection of intangible cultural heritage provided a clear goal and direction for the protection of intangible cultural heritage in the new era. in the past ten years from 2011 to 2021, the ministry of culture and tourism has promulgated the measures for the recognition and management of representative inheritors of national intangible heritage, the measures for the management of national cultural ecological reserves, and the “14th five-year plan for the protection of intangible cultural heritage”, as well as the implementation plan for the intangible cultural heritage inheritance and development project, and a series of other initiatives to gradually improve the protection of intangible cultural heritage. a series of measures have been taken to gradually improve the policy system for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and to construct the main framework of laws and regulations for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. at present, 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have issued regulations on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and some cities and counties have also formulated corresponding local regulations. the rule of law and standardisation of the protection and inheritance of iche work has been continuously upgraded, and the gradually improved rule of law system and policy framework has also laid a solid foundation for the long-term protection and development of iche. take the southern school of puppetry as an example, fujian is a large province with rich cultural resources of nhs. the government attaches great importance to the development of iche culture, in particular, it has set up the jinjiang palm puppetry art protection and inheritance centre, whose duties include talent training, repertoire excavation and creation, documentation, etc., and in recent years, it has also added the storage of digital resources. with the times to promote the inheritance of iche culture. after years of efforts, china has now established a ich protection and inheritance system including field investigation, representative projects, inheritor mechanism, regional overall protection, inheritance experience facilities, theoretical research; established a four-level national, provincial, municipal and county iche representative project list system with chinese characteristics, and formulated corresponding protection measures by combining the protection and inheritance laws of different categories of projects. financial investment and resource allocation in recent years, the central financial authorities have been increasing their investment in the protection of iche, and to date have invested a cumulative total of 9.65 billion yuan in national funds for the protection of iche, with 1.785 billion yuan specifically allocated for the advancement of national iche protection and use facilities. in order to encourage the work of representative inheritors of national iche, the central financial administration provides an annual subsidy of 20,000 yuan for each inheritor. starting from 2022, an additional 5,000 yuan of subsidy funding will be added for those national-level www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 130 published by scholink inc. representative inheritors of nh heritage who have performed well in their inheritance activities. in addition, provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have also set up special funds to support provincial-level representative inheritors of nh heritage to carry out their inheritance activities. in 2021, the ministry of finance (mof), introduced the measures for the administration of special funds for the protection of national intangible cultural heritage, which further improved the effectiveness of the use of financial funds. jinjiang palm puppet troupe, for example, according to the “2022 jinjiang city palm puppet art protection and inheritance centre accounts”, the 2022 public budget financial allocations reached 8,266,500 yuan, jinjiang palm puppet troupe staff said the funds were used for the training of inheritors, traditional repertoire excavation and collation, the creation of new script rehearsals and so on. the government allocates similar special funds each year, specifically for the protection of iche culture. while ensuring the availability of funds, the government also focuses on the rational allocation of resources, such as repairing and maintaining traditional theatres and purchasing necessary performance props. dedicated funding and rational allocation of resources provide the necessary material safeguards for the inheritance of iche, such as the southern school of opera, so that the iche can develop in a stable and long-term manner. talent training and inheritance mechanism the national list divides the intangible cultural heritage into 10 categories, which are: folk literature, traditional music, traditional dance, traditional theatre, chinese opera, traditional sports, games and acrobatics, traditional fine arts, traditional arts and crafts, traditional medicine and folklore. up to now, under these ten categories, there are more than 100,000 representative items of non-legacy at all levels in china, of which 1,557 are national-level representative items; there are more than 90,000 representative inheritors at all levels, of which 3,062 are national-level representative inheritors of non-legacy. twenty-three national cultural ecological protection (experimental) zones have been established. many of the non-hereditary heritage seeks “only to be sensed not explained”, like cultural education, general education is not applicable to non-hereditary education, so the training of non-hereditary heritage bearers is mostly a teacher-apprentice system, the training cycle of the bearer is long, and the training of talents is small. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 131 published by scholink inc. figure 2. lingjingru (left) in rehearsal jinjiang puppet theatre municipal non-genetic heritage lin jingru, for example (see figure 2), she went through a five-year training in quanzhou art school, came to jinjiang puppet theatre and follow the old artists to continue to learn, “one minute on the stage, ten years of work under the stage” performers appearing in front of the public, behind the decades of hard work. more than ten or twenty years, as short as five or six years, is the normal training of iche talents. at the same time, because the teacher’s energy is limited, the number of apprentices taught is also limited. lin jingru and folk puppeteer wu jingliang recall that they both came from the quanzhou art school, with only a dozen or so trainees in each batch, and that some trainees would give up halfway through because of the tedium of learning. although compared to the general education, non-genetic talents are slightly thin, but compared to the previous talent training mechanism, the training of non-genetic talents has made great progress. the disadvantages of the master-apprentice system of inheritance are obvious, as the only way to learn from a master is through kinship or a network of human relationships. therefore, early non-genetic inheritance was often limited to the family and circle of acquaintances. at the same time, the rights and interests of apprentices are not protected under the master-apprentice system. in modern times, the government has taken the lead to break the shackles of kinship and set up schools and specialised institutions to recruit suitable talents on the basis of merit. in the case of palm puppetry, for example, the jinjiang palm puppet troupe was set up by the state, and the troupe’s actors mainly came from the quanzhou art school. the quanzhou art school selects talented children (some with soft fingers, some with good voice conditions) through an audition, hires professional teachers to guide these children, and after studying for a period of time, delivers the talent to the troupe. formed a positive talent flow mechanism of art school theatre company. advocacy and social participation in recent years, the government has taken a series of measures to actively promote iche culture among the public. firstly, ich has made frequent appearances at various cultural and arts festivals, gala dinners and cultural performances at home and abroad. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 132 published by scholink inc. in 2006, the chinese government established cultural heritage day, which was adjusted to cultural and natural heritage day in 2017, and since 2009, the state administration of cultural heritage of china has selected a city to hold the main city activities on cultural heritage day every year. 2007 saw the first chengdu international intangible cultural heritage festival. in 2007, the first chengdu international intangible cultural heritage festival was successfully held in chengdu, china, and since then it has set a tradition of being held in chengdu, china, every two years. take the southern school of puppetry as an example. the palm puppet theatre has become a business card of the jinjiang region, shining in cultural and artistic events such as the maritime silk road international art festival, the fujian art festival, and the national theatre festival. secondly, the government also makes use of mainstream media and social media platforms to widely publicise nrls and raise public awareness of nrls and their protection. documentaries on nrh themes and the integration of nrh with film and television are proliferating. at the same time, the government also encourages all sectors of society to participate in the protection of iche, provides policy support and financial support, and promotes the integration of iche with tourism and the cultural industry. these initiatives have not only promoted the in-depth protection of iche, but also stimulated the public’s enthusiasm and interest in iche. in the case of the jinjiang puppet theatre troupe, for example, the troupe regularly organises activities to send theatre to the grassroots and performs puppet shows for free in the folk community, with government subsidies benefiting the public. in the leicheng district of quanzhou, puppet-themed cultural tourism and cultural studies are popular among local and foreign tourists. it is worth mentioning that the government also actively promotes the entry of iche into the education system. schools at all levels, from primary schools to universities, have set up relevant interest programmes, inviting iche inheritors to come to campus to communicate with students. such measures have not only nurtured a new generation of inheritors and audiences, but also laid a solid foundation for the inheritance and development of iche culture. under the leadership of the government, more and more people in china today are beginning to understand and pay attention to nhm culture and actively participate in its protection and inheritance. the implementation of these initiatives not only promotes the in-depth development of iche protection, but also stimulates the public’s enthusiasm and interest in iche, injecting new vitality into the inheritance and development of iche culture. 2.5 international communication and dissemination there is a widely circulated chinese proverb: “what is national is also international” this saying reveals the universal value and borderless appeal of culture and the arts. although there are thousands of different languages and cultures in the world, true art is often able to cross these barriers and touch people’s deepest resonance. intangible cultural heritage, as an important part of human civilisation, is precisely such a treasure with historical, artistic and universal infectious power. they carry the historical memory and cultural wisdom of a nation, and with their unique charm and value, they attract www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 133 published by scholink inc. people from different cultural backgrounds. these valuable heritages are not only the pride of the nation, but also the common wealth of the people of the world. the chinese government has always been committed to promoting international exchanges and co-operation in iche culture, encouraging and supporting iche projects to go out and present them to the world. in order to achieve this goal, the government has provided support in various aspects, including financial support, building platforms for overseas performances, and international exchange activities, aiming to bring more iche cultures to the world stage. according to the staff of jinjiang puppet theatre, palm puppetry, as one of china’s unique iche projects, has also attracted much attention on the international stage. this kind of puppetry originated from china’s ancient tradition, by virtue of its deep historical origin, chic shape, high degree of imitation and interactivity, as well as relatively low stage performance action and skill, loved by neighbouring countries jinjiang puppet theatre troupe has also followed the diplomatic corps on many occasions to visit countries in europe, africa and southeast asia, and brought wonderful performances to the audience in these countries. these visits not only enhance the cultural understanding and friendship between the people of different countries, but also bring new opportunities for the inheritance and development of the puppet theatre in the palm. the inheritors within the troupe demonstrated their exquisite skills on the international stage, attracting more audiences and making positive contributions to the dissemination and promotion of iche culture. safeguarding of ich at the civil level china’s civilian forces play an irreplaceable and significant role in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage; they are the mainstay, promoter and guardian of non-genetic inheritance, and have made important contributions to the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage. through inheritance and innovation, protection and promotion, social participation and co-construction, they have provided strong support for the safeguarding of ich. the joint co-operation of the government, community and civil forces has built up a iche protection system with multi-party participation and synergistic development. family-centred heirloom training mechanisms in the course of its long history, chinese civilisation has produced a variety of cultural wonders, such as the blossoming of a hundred flowers. these cultural wonders originated from different regions and ethnic groups. today, they have a common name intangible cultural heritage. as a prestigious intangible cultural heritage, they have become better known, and governments have led the way in building a specialised safeguarding framework for intangible cultural heritage and implementing a series of corresponding safeguarding measures. but before that before there was a government-led safeguarding of these cultures, and even before the concept of intangible cultural heritage was born in china, these cultures were passed on mainly within families. even today, when the government has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 134 published by scholink inc. established specialised schools to train inheritors, the training of ich inheritors is still dominated by the family-teacher-apprentice system of inheritance. take jinjiang palm puppet theatre as an example. a very essential part of jinjiang palm puppet theatre is the production of puppets. a complete puppet involves three parts: the carving of the puppet head, the making of the puppet body and the sewing of the puppet costume. the carving of the head of the puppet is the core of these three parts, and the good or bad carving of the head is directly related to the final shape of the puppet. in the field of puppet head carving of jinjiang palm puppet theatre, quanzhou jiangjiazou has always enjoyed a good reputation. (figure 3) figure 3. jiangjiazou’s puppet head jiangjiazou rose to prominence in the first half of the 20th century as a modern master carver of the past and the future. through keen observation and careful study of the figure, he summed up an even carving law, he believes that the image of beauty, ugliness, loyalty, treachery, virtue, stupidity and expression of joy, anger, sadness and happiness will be in the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, eyebrows “five shapes” and eyebrow, zygomatic bone, chin bone “three bone “on the brow bone, cheekbone, chin bone” three bones “cause complex changes. by generalising, exaggerating and deforming the facial bones and musculature in accordance with the plot and character, the puppet head that does not move can be turned into a lifelike character with a distinctive personality. the puppet heads made by him are a perfect fusion of carving and pastel colours, with subtle brushwork, pure carving, refined knife skills and exquisite techniques, featuring beautiful shapes, rich images, rigorous structures, precise carving, harmonious colours, beautiful patterns and colours, and vivid and interesting disguises. the author in quanzhou field investigation, had the honour to visit the jiangjiazou go puppet head carving skills of the fifth generation of the heir apparent mr. jiang donglin. according to mr jiang donglin, the carving technique of jiangjiazou’s puppet head is passed down from generation to generation within his family. his grandfather passed it on to his father, who passed it on to him, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 135 published by scholink inc. now he carves with his sister, and his daughter, who is in secondary school, also comes to help from time to time. his grandfather was a national-level inheritor, and he himself is a municipal-level inheritor. one point worth noting is that mr jiang donglin says that family inheritance is not mandatory, but freely chosen based on personal interest. under the influence of his ears and environment, he and his fathers chose this path. when asked if this unique skill would be lost if one day the descendants of the family were not interested in the craft. he said bashfully that if that day did come, there was nothing that could be done about it. the family does not force future generations to inherit, they only provide options for them. but perhaps it is the call of the bloodline, perhaps it is the subtle influence of the atmosphere, this seemingly fragile bond of family inheritance is unexpectedly indestructible. innovative explorations of civic spontaneity innovation is an essential initiative for any culture that wants to continue. in the case of intangible cultural heritage, by incorporating new elements and concepts, it helps to revitalise and update the intangible heritage tradition and make it more responsive to the needs of modern society. at the same time, innovation makes traditional culture more attractive and allows the younger generation to participate in the intangible cultural heritage. in the present time of rapid development of science and technology, with the help of modern scientific and technological means, such as digitalisation, virtual reality and other technologies, intangible cultural heritage can be better recorded, disseminated and protected. it enables it to be transmitted to a wider audience in a more intuitive and rich way. in terms of socio-economic value, innovation helps intangible cultural heritage projects better integrate into the market and bring more economic benefits, so as to reach a virtuous cycle of culture economy, for example, intangible cultural heritage skills can be applied to cultural and creative products, tourism experience and other fields. in conclusion, innovation provides new ideas and methods for the protection of intangible cultural heritage. in the process of protection, tradition and innovation complement each other and jointly promote the heritage and development of intangible cultural heritage. in jinjiang puppet theatre, i learned that the government-led innovation initiatives, mostly focused on the development of the repertoire, and generally still moderately follow the route of inheritance. but in the private sector, jinjiang palm puppet theatre has begun its unique path of innovation. fujian youth puppet, a creative workshop of quanzhou huang qinghui puppet studio. mr huang qinghui sr. is another master of puppet head carving and has created many popular puppet figures. fujian youth puppet is represented by huang jiangyi, son of huang qinghui, as the main agent. unlike master huang qinghui himself who focused on traditional puppet carving. the young huang jiangyi is more focused on the innovation of puppet culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 136 published by scholink inc. figure 4. huang jiangyi performing with string puppets huang jiangyi’s main focus is the direction of the string puppet, wire puppet in the puppet above the installation of silk thread, a puppet wire has 8 to 16, up to 36. according to the basic movements of the human body, the strings are divided into groups and manipulated by the actor’s hands, which is more difficult to manipulate compared to palm puppetry, but both string puppets and palm puppets originated in the southern region of fujian, china, and they share a common origin. the first effective attempt they made was: dolls in one. figure 5. wu jingliang and his “wukong” traditionally, jingjiang palm puppetry is performed by people standing behind the stage with their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 137 published by scholink inc. hands raised, but now, they have chosen to step out from behind the scene and come in front of the stage. performers and puppets appear on stage at the same time, adding eye contact between the actors to the puppet’s performance, as in wu jingliang’s original theatre the wukong. taken from the popular chinese mythological character sun wukong. at the end, wu jingliang draws out the wukong’s golden rod, and the puppets and the actors, at the same time, make a distant bow to the audience. a theatre within a theatre. in addition to puppetry, huang jiangyi has also experimented with combining puppets with modern hip hop. the dancers performed a fast-paced dance on stage, while the puppets made the same movements under the puppeteer’s control. this unique idea won the audience’s applause when it was first shown despite the widespread acclaim that the innovation has brought, when it comes to economic gains, huang jiangyi admits that they are still generally at a stage where inputs outweigh outputs. the string puppets have been able to become self-sustaining, providing some financial support for their innovative path, but the palm puppets are still lacking in this area and need further work. but huang jiangyi and his team are not dispirited. they are deeply aware that innovation is a long and difficult process, which requires a lot of time and energy. but they also firmly believe that as long as they persevere, keep exploring and trying, they will be able to find a new path suitable for the development of puppet theatre. now, they are still actively exploring on the road of puppet theatre innovation, trying to promote the spread of puppet theatre in the world. in china, there are many more young teams like huang jiangyi and wu jingliang, who, while taking over the banner of tradition from their elders, are also positively integrating their own ideas and injecting young blood into the protection of intangible cultural heritage. folk communication mediated by short videos according to the 52nd statistical report on the development status of the internet in china released by china internet network information center (cnnic) in beijing, as of june 2023, the scale of chinese internet users reached 1.079 billion, up 11.09 million from december 2022, and the internet penetration rate was as high as 76.4%. among them, the scale of short video users reached 1.026 billion. short videos have short content and low filming costs, and their content production method makes the user overlap between content producers and consumers high, and many people are the consumers of content as well as the producers of new content. compared with the intangible cultural heritage documentaries and films produced by official institutions, which have invested huge resources and funds, private intangible heritage bearers often choose short videos as their main medium of communication. short videos are intuitive and easy to understand, easy to share and interact with, and have become a new channel for folk nhis to show their skills and pass on their culture, enabling more people to experience the charm of intangible cultural heritage up close. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 138 published by scholink inc. these folk inheritors of the video, props simple, background in the home or their own small yard, appearing characters simple, almost no skills to speak of, often just a simple splicing of the lens, but it is precisely such a rough shooting, but let a person through the screen feel the sincerity of the face. taking “uncle xing’s puppet theatre” on the xiaohongshu platform as an example, a somewhat simple-looking theatre, a puppet and the old man in charge of the puppet have amassed a five-digit fan base in just three months. there are many more inheritors like uncle xing on china’s main social media apps, such as tik tok and quick worker. deficiencies in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in general, china’s safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage has followed the harmonious path of “government-led, civilian participation”. the government-established safeguarding system serves as a solid pillar to ensure the soundness and sustainability of intangible cultural heritage, while the spontaneous innovative power of the private sector, like a gushing source of energy, constantly injects new vigour into intangible cultural heritage, enhancing the quality and depth of safeguarding work. but there are problems with the current model. the biggest problem is the interaction between the government and the civil society. the government and the civil society should be the two pivots of the intangible cultural heritage protection system, and the two are respectively to concentrate their efforts into a “synergy” for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. however, the fact is that they tend to work “independently” and are unable to form a synergy. take jingjiang palm puppetry as an example. the government organisation jinjiang puppet troupe and members of the fujian youth puppet folklore, both studying palm puppets, while almost all members of the two come from the quanzhou art school, each other are classmates or alumni, but the troupe and the folklore organisation has little to no interaction. during the visit and research, from the two interview statements, and even with a hidden “peer to peer” feeling. as the “two fulcrums” of intangible cultural heritage protection, the resources and funds received by civil society organisations and government organisations are also unevenly distributed. almost all of the funds invested by the government for intangible cultural heritage preservation go directly to the theatre troupes set up by the government, with very little going to the private sector. the reason behind this is not difficult to understand. folk organisations are smaller and more loosely organised than government organisations, and in quanzhou, large-scale puppet workshops are often used as a feature of cultural tourism to attract tourists to study and experience. other puppet enthusiasts also only use puppetry as entertainment outside of work, and their performances are also “festival-limited”, temporarily building a small theatre, and only perform for two or three days during festivals. therefore, in the protection system of intangible cultural heritage, folk protection is in a “lost” state, many people do not even know that there are corresponding folk protection organisations exist. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 139 published by scholink inc. in this case, the government should make some corresponding adjustments, firstly, to “see” the existence of folk organisations, and secondly, to redistribute resources, give some financial support to folk organisations, and regularly organise cooperation and exchanges between official troupes and folk organisations. in this interactive mode of protection, the government and the private sector can ensure the survival of intangible cultural heritage, and at the same time give it a new lustre in the modern society. the government’s leadership ensures the healthy operation of the overall protection system, while the spontaneous innovation of the private sector injects new impetus into the heritage, and together they construct an organic and vigorous ecology of intangible cultural heritage protection. references guo, l., & wang, j. 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(2020). research on communication strategies of intangible cultural heritage in the context of new media -a case study of ma style shadow puppetry in anhui province. new media research, 7(2020), 2. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 45 original paper engineering design of a township sewage treatment plant in eastern china meng li1 & zhuang qian1* 1 china municipal engineering central-south desi gn & research institute co., ltd., wuhan 434000, china * corresponding author received: may 22, 2025 accepted: july 07, 2025 online published: july 26, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p45 abstract a township in eastern china needs to build a new sewage treatment facility because the existing sewage treatment plant cannot meet the demand for predicted sewage volume. the scale of the new sewage treatment project is 14,000m3/d, and the effluent quality of the project shall be implemented in accordance with the discharge limit of the main pollutants of the new urban sewage treatment plant in the local standard of zhejiang province in the "pollutant discharge standard for urban sewage treatment plants (db33/2169-2018)". the process adopts the modified a2/o biochemical process as the core of secondary treatment to strengthen nitrogen and phosphorus removal. magnetic coagulation and precipitation filtration are selected for deep treatment to ensure that ss and tp meet the standards; sodium hypochlorite is used for disinfection, snail dehydrator is used for sludge treatment, and biological soil method is used for deodorization. the factory area has reasonable layout, clear functions, and smooth water flow. the total investment of the project is about 110 million yuan, and the effluent will meet the standard stably after it is put into operation in 2025, effectively improving the regional water environment and providing a demonstration for the expansion of similar township sewage plants. keywords township sewage treatment plant, engineering design,aao 1. project background a township in eastern china has an administrative area of about 159 square kilometers, and as of 2020, it has a permanent population of about 68,000, with 1,288 industrial enterprises and 72 above designated size. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 46 there is an existing sewage treatment plant in the township, with a design scale of 4000 m3/d, and the design effluent standard meets the discharge standard of table 1 of the "discharge standard for major water pollutants in urban sewage treatment plants" (db 33/2169), and the current sewage treatment process is "sewage coarse grid well and inlet pump room cast tank intermediate pool filtration system disinfection tank metering well clean water pool standard discharge". the actual average daily water output of the current sewage treatment plant is 2870 m3/d, the operating load rate is about 71.75, the average cod of influent cod is 79.48mg/l, and the average influent bod5 is 20.16mg/l. at present, the combined drainage system and the diversion system coexist in the township, and the sewage pipe network is seriously misconnected and mixed, and the shortcomings of the sewage pipe network collection system are obvious, especially in the rainy season, a large amount of rainwater enters the sewage treatment plant, which has a great impact on the treatment facilities of the sewage treatment plant. with the construction of township sewage pipe network, the current phenomenon of direct and scattered sewage discharge can be effectively improved, and the amount of sewage collected by the pipe network will gradually increase with the construction of the sewage pipe network. at present, the actual operating load rate of sewage treatment plants has reached more than 70%, and it is inevitable that new sewage treatment plants or sewage treatment capacity will be increased to solve the gap in sewage treatment capacity and improve the water environment. 2. project scale and project objectives 2.1 project scale according to the water supply plan, the maximum daily sewage volume of the township by 2030 will be 15,000 m3/d, considering the domestic sewage discharge coefficient of 0.9, the daily change coefficient of water supply is 1.2, the sewage collection rate is 100%, and the groundwater infiltration coefficient is determined by 10% of the sewage volume, and the sewage volume in 2030 is calculated to be 17,820 m3/d, rounded to 18,000 m3/d. considering the current situation of 4,000 m3/d sewage treatment facilities, the actual scale of this new project is 14,000 m3/d. table 1. sewage volume forecast table index parameter maximum daily water consumption (m3/d) 15000 diurnal coefficient 1.2 sewage discharge coefficient 0.9 groundwater infiltration rate (%) 10 sewage volume (m3/d) 17820 sewage scale (m3/d) 18000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 47 2.2 project objectives 2.2.1 design influent water quality according to the current water quality and quantity survey data of the sewage plant, combined with the design conditions of the surrounding township sewage plants and the design conditions of the influent water quality of sewage plants based on similar township domestic sewage in zhejiang province, the following influent standards are obtained: table 2. list of design influent water quality index parameter unit bod5 ≤180 mg/l codcr ≤300 mg/l ss ≤180 mg/l nh3-n ≤25 mg/l tn ≤32 mg/l tp ≤4 mg/l 2.2.2 design effluent quality according to the national, provincial and municipal standards and relevant planning requirements, the effluent water quality of this project is in accordance with the discharge limits of the main pollutants of new urban sewage treatment plants in the local standards of zhejiang province in the "pollutant discharge standard for urban sewage treatment plants (db33/2169-2018)", and other sewage not mentioned shall comply with the first-class a standard of the "pollutant discharge standard for urban sewage treatment plants (gb18918-2002)". the specific design effluent quality is as follows: table 3. design effluent quality table index parameter unit bod5 ≤10 mg/l codcr ≤30 mg/l ss ≤10 mg/l tn ≤10（12） mg/l nh3-n ≤1.5（3） mg/l tp ≤0.3 mg/l ph 6～9 2.2.3 tailwater discharge after the sewage is treated to meet the standards, it is discharged to the nearby water body. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 48 3. pollutant removal and treatment process requirements the purpose of sewage treatment is to remove pollutants from the water and purify the sewage. the main pollutants in sewage are bod5, codcr, ss, nh3-n and tp. according to the inlet and outlet water quality, the pollutant removal rate and influent nutrient ratio required by the project are shown in the following table: table 4. required pollutant removal rate index design influent water quality(mg/l) design effluent quality(mg/l) removal rate (％) bod5 180 ≤10 94.44 codcr 300 ≤30 90.00 ss 180 ≤10 94.44 nh3-n 25 ≤1.5 94.00 tn 32 ≤10 68.75 tp 4.0 ≤0.3 92.50 table 5. nutrient ratio in influent water items ratio bod5/ codcr 0.6 bod5/tkn 5.63 bod5/tp 45 according to the "outdoor drainage design standard" (gb 50014-2021), when sewage has nitrogen and phosphorus removal requirements, the following conditions should be met: the ratio of five-day biochemical oxygen demand to total kjeldahl nitrogen in sewage should be greater than 4. the ratio of five-day biochemical oxygen demand to total phosphorus in sewage should be greater than 17. according to the design of the inlet and outflow data of this project, in order to achieve the effluent index required by the sewage treatment plant, the project must adopt the secondary treatment process. 4. processing process 4.1 selection of conventional sewage treatment process the engineering influent water quality of the sewage treatment plant was analyzed, and the biological phosphorus removal and nitrogen removal process was suitable for use. according to the water quality of sewage inlet and outlet and the land conditions of the plant, combined with the common treatment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 49 technology, engineering experience and local actual situation, the improved a2/o process and the improved orbal oxidation ditch process can meet the treatment requirements of this project, both have a good nitrogen and phosphorus removal effect, and the total cost of project investment and unit water treatment is basically the same. due to the limitation of aeration equipment, the design water depth is relatively small, resulting in a slightly larger area of the structure and low equipment utilization. although the a2/o process has slightly more equipment, its process is mature and widely used at home and abroad, so as to basically meet the requirements of deep treatment, ensure that the effluent quality meets the first-class a standard of the "pollutant discharge standard for urban sewage treatment plants", and leave room for quasi-class iv discharge. the improved a2/o process is recommended as the secondary treatment process of this project (gb 18918-2002, pollutant discharge standards for urban sewage treatment plants, 2022; db 33/ 2169-2018, discharge standards for major water pollutants in urban sewage treatment plants, 2018; eternal red. china water supply and drainage, 2003). 4.2 selection of deep treatment process in order to further remove impurities in sewage that cannot be completely removed by conventional secondary treatment, deep treatment measures are required. some of these unit technologies are transplanted from water supply treatment technology, and some are specifically for sewage treatment, and the basic unit technologies of urban sewage deep treatment are: coagulation (chemical phosphorus removal), sedimentation (clarification, air flotation), filtration, disinfection, etc. deep treatment unit technologies with higher requirements for water quality include activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange, electrodialysis, and membrane treatment technology, which can be selected in one or several combinations (wu, sun, & jiao, 2008). to make the effluent of this project meet the standard, this project adopts the addition of coagulant at the outlet end of the biochemical reaction tank to appropriately reduce the load of the secondary sedimentation tank, reduce the filtration speed, and adopt the magnetic coagulation high-efficiency sedimentation tank filtration process for deep treatment. 4.3 selection of sewage disinfection methods the final treatment step of urban sewage treatment plants is disinfection, which can be roughly divided into two categories: physical methods and chemical methods. physical methods mainly include heating, freezing, radiation, ultraviolet light and microwave disinfection. chemical methods are disinfection using various chemical agents, commonly used chemical agents include chlorine and its compounds, various halogens, ozone, etc. combined with the disinfection and operation of other sewage treatment plants in the urban, it is recommended to use sodium hypochlorite disinfection method for this project, which is low price, convenient to purchase, does not produce toxic by-products, and is convenient for operation and management (song, 2006). 4.4 sludge treatment process selection sludge concentration mainly has three process forms: gravity concentration, air flotation concentration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 and centrifugal concentration. combined with the actual local situation, the sludge after dehydration of this project is finally sent to the brick and tile factory for unified disposal, so it is temporarily recommended to use a screw stacking machine for sludge disposal in this project. 4.5 deodorization process selection in order to reduce the impact of odor on the surrounding environment, this project considers the treatment structure with a strong odor to cover and deodorize, the overall operation life of the biological soil method is long, there is no need to replace the filter material during operation, the structure is simple, the operation management is very convenient, the operation cost is low, there is no secondary pollution, the grass planting above the filter body can be integrated with the greening of the plant area, the general layout is flexible, and the pollutant removal efficiency is high. the removal rate of h2s with an average concentration of 10-100ppm is more than 99%, and the overall control of odor concentration, including (mercaptan, sulfide, etc.), the removal rate is more than 95%, so the biological soil method is recommended for the deodorization process of this project. 5. engineering design 5.1 technological flow the sewage treatment process adopts secondary treatment and tertiary treatment (i.e., deep treatment) process, of which the secondary sewage treatment process adopts a2/o-ao process, the tertiary treatment adopts magnetic coagulation high-efficiency sedimentation tank filtration process, the sludge treatment adopts gravity concentration dehydration process, and the disinfection adopts sodium hypochlorite disinfection process. deodorization adopts biological soil biological deodorization process. 5.2 layout of the factory area according to the topography of the plant, the road entering the plant, the direction of the inlet and outlet lines, and other factors, the general layout characteristics of the sewage plant are as follows: (1) the main buildings (structures) of the second phase of the town sewage plant include coarse grille and inlet pump room, fine grille and aeration sand settling tank, a2/o-ao biochemical reaction tank, secondary sedimentation tank and water distribution and sludge discharge well, high-efficiency sedimentation tank, precision filter, contact disinfection tank, blower room, power distribution room, dosing room, liquid storage tank, sludge concentration tank and mud mixing well, mud storage tank, dehydration machine room, production auxiliary room, deodorization facilities and doormen, etc., of which there are 2 a2/o-ao biochemical reaction tanks, with a single design scale of 7,000 m3/d; there are 2 secondary sedimentation tanks, with a single design scale of 7,000 m3/d; there are 2 sludge concentration tanks, with a single design scale of 7,000 m3/d. the rest of the buildings (structures) are 1 with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, and the civil engineering and equipment of this project are completed at one time according to the scale of 14,000 m3/d. auxiliary rooms for production and doormen will be built at one time as required. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 51 (2) in order to facilitate management and access, the main entrance is arranged in the north side of the road, the comprehensive building, the doorman and the front area of the factory are arranged in the northwest side of the plant, the sludge treatment system and biochemical reaction tank that are easy to produce odor are arranged on the southeast side of the plant, and the secondary entrance and exit are arranged on the northeast side of the plant. (3) according to the sewage treatment process and the location of the supervisor entering the plant, the secondary treatment structure → the tertiary treatment structure are arranged from the east to the west of the plant area→ disinfection → water discharge, the starting structure the inlet pump room is close to the incoming sewage main, and the end structure the contact pool is close to the changle river on the north side of the plant. (4) the substation is close to the blower room, comprehensive building, etc. with large electricity load, and the distribution room and the blower room are jointly built, which can greatly shorten the cable length. (5) the sludge pumping room is arranged between the biochemical reaction tank and the secondary sedimentation tank, which effectively shortens the length of the production pipeline such as the biochemical reaction tank ~ secondary sedimentation tank connection pipeline, the sludge pipeline of the secondary sedimentation tank, and the sludge external return pipeline, so as to save the project cost and effectively reduce the loss of water head. (6) the soil deodorization system is close to the coarse grille and inlet pump room, fine grille and aeration sand sinking tank, anaerobic area of the bio-reaction tank, mud storage tank, sludge concentration tank, and sludge dehydration machine room, which can effectively reduce the length of the odor collection pipeline and the scale of the fan. (7) the width of the road entering the factory area is 8.0m, and the design width of other roads in the factory area is 4.0-6.0m. (8) except for the buildings, structures and roads, the rest of the area in the factory is considered to be greened garden landscape, and the greening rate is not less than 25%. see the figure below for details: figure 1. overall layout of the plant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 5.3 design of structures (buildings) (1) thick grille and inlet pump room 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, a coarse grille room and an inlet pump room, and civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. between the thick grilles: the plane size is 8.61×5.20m thick grille channels: 2 with a single channel width of 1.50m inlet pump room: semi-underground structure, pumping room plane size 11.45×9.20m. the main equipment is as follows: thick grille: 2 sets, grid spacing b=20mm, installation angle 75°, single set n=2.2kw submersible sewage pumps: 4 sets, 3 uses and 1 backup. performance parameters of a single pump: q=360m3/h, h=17.0m, n=30kw. in order to adapt to the change of flow rate in the pumping room, each set of pumps is equipped with frequency conversion belt conveyor: 1 set, single set n=0.75 kw electric hoist: 1 set, lifting capacity 2t, n=4.9 kw (2) fine grille and aerated sand sinking tank 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, a fine grille and an aeration sand sinking tank, and civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. between the fine grilles: the plane size is 10.05×4.60m fine grid channels: 2 with a width of 0.95m for a single channel aeration settling tank: the hydraulic residence time is 5min, and the plane size is 11.40×6.20m the main equipment is as follows: circulating tooth rake cleaning machine: 2 sets, grid spacing b=5mm, installation angle 75°, single set n=0.75kw double groove bridge sand suction machine: lk=4.7m, single tank type, single set of power 1.1kw. sand and water separator: 1 set, single set n=0.37kw screw conveying press: 1 set, single set n=2.2kw blower: 2 sets in total, for gas lifting and sand discharge, single set n=4.0kw wall-mounted cast iron copper-inlaid round gate: 2 sets in total, single set n=1.1kw roots blower: 3 sets in total, 2 uses and 1 spare set, single set q=1.68m3/min, p=50kpa, n=5.5kw (3) a2/o-ao biochemical reaction tank and sludge pumping room a2/o-ao biochemical reaction tank: newly built, divided into 2 groups, symmetrically arranged, a single group scale of 7,000 m3/d, each grid can be operated and vented independently, reinforced concrete structure, single grid plane size 50.0×25.0m, effective water depth 6.0m. the biochemical reaction tank was composed of a2/o-ao biochemical reaction tank, and each group of tanks was composed of a selection zone (pre-anoxic tank), an anaerobic zone, an anoxic zone, an aerobic zone (including an aoxobic zone), a post-anoxic zone and a post-aerobic zone. in order to overcome the influence of nitrate in the reflux sludge on the phosphorus removal effect, a reflux sludge www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 denitrification tank (pre-anoxic tank) is set up in the front section of the anaerobic zone to remove the nitrate rich in the reflux sludge, so as to reduce or eliminate the influence of nitrate on the phosphorus released in the anaerobic zone, so as to ensure the phosphorus removal effect of the system. after the sludge undergoes phosphorus release reaction in the anaerobic zone, it enters the hypoxic zone, uses the carbon source in the sewage to denitrify the nitrogen in the internal reflux, and then enters the aerobic zone for organic matter degradation, nitrification reaction and phosphorus absorption. 1) main design parameters the design flow rate is 583.3m3/h design water temperature 15°c sludge load 0.07kgbod5/kgmlss·d sludge concentration 3.6g/l the total hydraulic residence time is 20.0h thereinto: pre-hypoxia segment for 1.0 hours anaerobic segment 1.5h hypoxia section 7.0h aerobic section 8.5h (including oxygen elimination zone 0.5h) post-hypoxic segment 1.5h post-aerobic segment 0.5h internal return ratio ≥300% effective water depth 6.0m oxygen supply method blast aeration comprehensive sludge yield 0.6kgvss/kgbod5 the total air supply is 81m3/min air-to-water ratio 7.8:1 2) main equipment: submersible agitators: 4 sets of pre-hypoxic zones, 1.1kw of a single set, 4 sets of anaerobic zones with a single power of 1.1kw, 14 sets of hypoxic zones with a single power of 1.5kw, 4 sets of post-hypoxic zones with a power of 1.1kw submersible pusher: oxygen dissipation area, a total of 2 sets, a single set of power 1.1kw mixed liquid return pump: a total of 6 sets of biochemical tanks, 4 uses and 2 standby, all equipped with frequency conversion, equipped with hangers and slam doors, set in the aerobic area. the performance parameters of a single set of pumps are as follows: q=440m3/h, h=0.7~1.5m, n=5.5kw disc microporous aerators: 2 sets in total, including 3000 aerators. (4) secondary sedimentation tank water distribution and mud discharge well 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, reinforced concrete structure, plane size diameter of 11.7m, depth of 7.4m, civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. the second www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 54 sedimentation tank water distribution and discharge well contains sludge return pumping room and the remaining sludge pumping room. the main equipment is as follows: sludge return pump: 3 sets of submersible sewage pumps, 2 uses and 1 backup. the performance parameters of a single set of water pumps are as follows: q=480m3/h, h=6.0m, n=22kw. remaining sludge pump: submersible sewage pump, a total of 2 sets, 1 for 1 reserve. the performance parameters of a single set of water pumps are as follows: q=55m3/h, h=15.0m, n=5.5kw submersible agitators: 4 sets, a single set of power 2.5kw. (5) second sinking tank newly built, a total of 2 groups, a single group scale of 7,000 m3/d, symmetrical arrangement, reinforced concrete structure, a single pool diameter of 26m, pool depth of 4.0m. civil engineering and equipment will be completed at a time of 14,000 m3/d. 1) the main design parameters of the secondary sedimentation tank the design flow rate is 7000m3/d total coefficient of change 1.84 surface load 0.9m3/m2·h design water depth 3.5m stay time 4.0h the concentration of influent sludge is 3.4g/l the concentration of reflux sludge was 8.0 g/l sludge outflow ratio 25~100% 2) main equipment: center drive single-tube mud suction machine, a total of 2 sets, a single set of power 0.37kw. mud suction machine manufacturers provide secondary sedimentation tank water distribution holes, outlet triangular weirs, scum baffles, water retaining skirts, etc. (6) high-efficiency sedimentation tank newly built, a total of 2 groups, a single group scale of 7,000 m3/d, symmetrical layout, reinforced concrete structure, single block plane size 14.1×3.0m, civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. 1) the main design parameters of the high-efficiency sedimentation tank coagulation tank: l×b×h=1.8m×1.8m×3.09m, effective height 2.865m, residence time 1.91min; loading pool: l×b×h=1.8m×1.8m×3.09m, effective height 2.815m, residence time 1.88min; flocculation tank: l×b×h=2.3m×2.3m×3.09m, effective height 2.815m, residence time 3.06min; sedimentation tank: inclined pipe area size l×b=6.78m×2.9m, surface load 14.83m3/(m2·h). 2) main equipment: coagulation mixer: 2 sets in total, special paddle for magnetic coagulation, n=1.1kw loading mixer: 2 sets in total, special paddle for magnetic coagulation, n=1.5kw, frequency www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 conversion control flocculation mixer: 2 sets in total, special paddles for magnetic coagulation, n=2.2kw, frequency conversion control chain plate mud scraper: 2 sets in total, bottom mud scraping, v=0~0.6m/min, n=0.18kw high shear machine: 2 sets in total, n=0.75kw magnetic separator: 2 sets in total, core rare earth permanent magnet, b≥5000gs, n=0.55kw remaining sludge pumps: 2 sets in total, submersible sewage pumps, q=10m3/h, h=10m n=0.75kw (7) precision filter newly built, a total of 1 building, with a scale of 14,000 m3/d, adopting an integrated equipment type, a plane size of 12.0×11.5m, and civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. the main equipment is as follows: precision filter: 3 sets in total, single set of r100 reducer, n=0.55kw; single set of recoil pump, n=2.2kw electric gate: b×h=1100×1200, electric switchgear n=1.5kw (8) contact pool newly built, a total of 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d. there are 5 corridors in the contact tank, each with a width of 3.1m, and an overflow weir is set at the outlet end of the contact tank, with a weir height of 3.20m. the water discharge after the weir is discharged to the changle river on the north side of the plant area in the form of gravity flow on a daily basis, and the pumping station is used when the gravity flow cannot be discharged by itself during the flood period of the changle river. 1) main design parameters hydraulic residence time: about 30min flat size: 20.0×11.0m effective water depth: 3.4m super height: 0.50m 2) main equipment: submersible sewage pump: 4 sets in total, 3 uses and 1 backup, single set q=358m3/h h=7m n=11kw electric hoist: 1 set in total, cd12-9d, n=3kw (9) sludge concentration tank two new sludge concentration tanks with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d. sludge concentration tank diameter: 7m main equipment: center drive concentrator: 2 sets in total, diameter 7.0m, single set n=1.5kw (10) mud storage tank a total of 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d. plane size: 8.75×5.50m water depth: 2.5m www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 56 the sludge of the mud storage tank is discharged to the sludge decommissioning room through the pressure flow of the sludge screw pump in the dewatering machine room, and the diameter of the mud pipe is dn200. the upper part of the mud storage tank is equipped with two dn200 overflow pipes above the water level to connect to the sewage pipe network of the plant. main equipment: submersible agitator: 2 sets, single set n=1.5kw (11) dewatering machine room 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, civil engineering was completed at one time, and the machine room was equipped with deodorization equipment (fans, etc.). the amount of dry sludge treated is about 2.0t/d, the moisture content of mud inlet is 98%, and the moisture content of mud out is 78%~80%. the dehydrator adopts 2 sets of stacked screw sludge dehydrators. the dehydrator is equipped with stacked screw sludge dewatering, mud feeding screw pump, flocculant preparation device, dosing pump, horizontal scraper conveyor, inclined scraper conveyor, etc. plane size: 28.00×13.00m the main equipment is as follows: stacked screw sludge dehydrator: 2 sets, 1 for 1 backup, q=180-300kg-ds/h, n=3.03kw mud inlet progressive cavity pump: 2 sets, 1 for 1 backup, q=6-17m3/h, n=4kw flocculant preparation device: 2 sets, 1 for 1 use, q=2000l/h, n=1.9kw dosing pump: 2 sets, 1 for 1 spare time, q=0.8-2.5m3/h, n=1.5kw, frequency conversion control horizontal scraper conveyor: 1 set, l=7m, a=0°, n=3kw inclined scraper conveyor: 1 set, l=8m, a=50°, n=3kw electric single girder suspended crane: supporting electric hoist, gn=5t s=10.0m axial flow fans: 6 sets (12) reservoir 1 building, reinforced concrete structure, civil engineering and equipment scale are 14,000 m3/d, total plane size 12.0×5.3m, effective water depth 3.0m. the reservoir is divided into three compartments, which store the finished sodium hypochlorite solution, sodium acetate solution and coagulant solution respectively. main equipment: self-priming pump: 6 sets, 3 uses and 3 spare parts, q=14m3/h, h=10.0m, n=3.0kw. (13) dosing room 1, civil engineering is built at a time according to the scale of 14,000 m3/d, and the total plane size of the dosing room is 18.4×12.4m. the maximum dosage of coagulant is 40mg/l, and 4 sets of coagulant dosing pumps are installed, of which 2 sets (5#, 6#) are used at the outlet end of the biochemical tank; it is used for 1 set (3#) at the inlet end of the efficient sedimentation tank, and 1 for 3 uses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 57 the maximum dosage of sodium hypochlorite is 15mg/l, and 2 sets of sodium hypochlorite dosing pumps (1#, 2#) are installed, 1 for 1 and 1 for the inlet end of the contact tank. the maximum dosage of sodium acetate is 40mg/l, and 6 sets of sodium acetate dosing pumps (7#, 8#, 9#, 10#, 11#, 12#) have been installed recently, 4 uses and 2 preparations, and are added to the hypoxic section of the biochemical tank, with a total of 4 dosing points. the main equipment is as follows: coagulant dosing pump: using double diaphragm metering pump, 4 sets, single set of performance parameters: q=500l/h, h=30.0m, n=0.75kw. sodium hypochlorite dosing pump: using double diaphragm metering pump, 2 sets, the performance parameters of a single set are: q=500l/h, h=30.0m, n=0.75kw. sodium acetate dosing pump: using double diaphragm metering pumps, 6 sets, the performance parameters of a single set are: q=500l/h, h=30.0m, n=0.75kw. electric single girder crane: 1 set, gn=2t, s=8m, n=5kw anti-corrosion axial flow fans: 5 sets, q=7000m3/h, n=0.37kw mixer: 4 sets, n=1.1kw (14) blower room 1 building, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, the blower room and the substation are jointly built, and the civil engineering and equipment are completed at a time of 14,000 m3/d. flat size of blower room: 26.2×9.4m the main equipment is as follows: screw fan: 3 sets in total, 2 uses and 1 backup, q=50m3/min, h=70kpa, n=75kw electric single girder suspended crane: equipped with electric single girder suspended crane, lifting capacity 3t, s=6.0m axial flow fan: 6 sets, single set of parameters q=3810m3/h n=0.55kw. (15) substation 1 building, jointly built with the blower room, with a design scale of 14,000 m3/d, civil engineering and equipment are built at a time of 14,000 m3/d. (16) production auxiliary rooms 1 with a construction area of about 388m2. (17) doorman 2 blocks, with a single building area of about 9m2. (18) deodorization system the biological soil filter system set up in the first phase of the project is mainly used for the odor treatment of coarse grilles and inlet pump rooms, fine grilles and aerated sand settling tanks, anaerobic areas of bio-reaction tanks, sludge storage tanks, sludge concentration tanks, and sludge transportation workshops. in order to facilitate the layout of the biological soil filter and consider the economic cost, the project is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 58 set up with a biological soil filter deodorization system, and the specific layout is detailed in the general plan. biological soil filter deodorization system: q=20000m3/h, filter area 185m2, tank depth 1.5m, residence time not less than 50s, including inorganic mineral fillers, strains, air distribution systems, sprinkler systems and lawns and other accessories. deodorizing fan: q=20000m³/h, n=30kw, full air pressure: 2500pa, including imported adjustment damper, fan sound insulation box, fan base and shock absorption device, etc. 6. analysis of operation effect the township sewage plant has a total design investment of about 110 million yuan, and has been officially put into use in 2025 after design, construction and trial operation. after being put into use, the effluent value is stable and up to standard, which has a good demonstration effect. references gb 18918-2002, pollutant discharge standards for urban sewage treatment plants[s]. (2002). beijing: china standard press, 2002 db 33/ 2169-2018, discharge standards for major water pollutants in urban sewage treatment plants [s]. (2018). hangzhou: zhejiang provincial market supervision and administration bureau. eternal red. (2003). china water supply and drainage, 19(8), 3. wu, d. j., sun, w., & jiao, y. y. (2008). journal of shandong jianzhu university, 23(006), 506-509. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1673-7644.2008.06.009 song, f. (2006). introduction to urban wastewater reuse deep treatment technology. science and technology information, 2006(8, :2. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1672-3791.2006.08.051 original paper engineering design of a township sewage treatment meng li1 & zhuang qian1* 1 china municipal engineering central-south desi g china abstract keywords table 1. sewage volume forecast table table 2. list of design influent water quality table 3. design effluent quality table table 4. required pollutant removal rate table 5. nutrient ratio in influent water figure 1. overall layout of the plant references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 110 original paper lucius annaeus seneca: moral letters to thomas more giorgio faro1 1 philosophy (applied ethics), pontifical university of holy cross, rome, italy received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 11, 2025 online published: february 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p110 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p110 abstract this essay concludes a personal investigation, undertaken in two previous works, concerning certain similarities between seneca and thomas more, and instances where the influence of the roman stoic can be found in the works of the great english humanist. i shall focus, in particular, on the extraordinary skill seneca and more both display in delving into the human soul and his psychology. with this last endeavor, in which i have allowed myself a slight flight of fancy, i hope to interest not just the scholar, but even the common reader. keywords virtues, conscience, human soul, stoicism, christian humanism 1. introduction i have already devoted two articles to seneca and more: the first article was published in italian in acta philosophica, (faro, 2018) the other in english in moreana (faro, 2020). in the latter, i pointed out the presence of at least four implicit quotes from seneca, as well as an explicit one, taken from the epistulae morales ad lucilium (moral letters to lucilius, hereafter: eml) (note 1), a work more must have known well, some of them quite relevant. in this essay, the last in the triad, i would like to add a few other passages and significant forms of influence seneca had on the works of thomas more. i shall not revisit here the historical events of the two characters, which i already described at length in my previous articles. in his letters to the younger lucilius, seneca provides a sort of lay spiritual guidance. in order to make the present essay more compelling, let us enact something similar, imagining a hypothetical correspondence between seneca and the younger more, almost as if they were contemporaries. let us pretend seneca has indulged in a brief vacation, after relinquishing his post as nero’s counselor (ad 62). he sails off to spain, towards the pillars of hercules, but a mysterious storm blows his ship beyond them and—after three weeks in the open seas—lands him on the island of utopia, beyond time, where visitors can entertain a correspondence with people of different epochs, as if they were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 contemporaries. utopia is an island where wise people are at ease, since the role of reason—and particularly moral philosophy—is highly acknowledged here (note 2). the moral philosophy of utopians turns out to be quite close to seneca’s. (see cw 4, 160-2) there is also an open appreciation of moderate, natural physical and mental pleasure (see ibid., 166-78), which seneca allows, in contrast to the traditional stoic rigor against it, asserting pleasure should «not be the guide but the companion of a right, thinking and honorable mind.» (de vita beata, 8) a temperate pleasure which is also compatible with the christianity of more, who knows to thank god for the joys of life. travellers who thus reach utopia, however, cannot stay there longer than three months, and must then return to their habitual space-time coordinates and their own history. raphael hythlodaeus, the discoverer of utopia, often returns there and is in charge of putting in touch personalities of various epochs who show affinities. he thus decides to have seneca write to thomas more, who, although remaining in england, is very glad to correspond with the roman philosopher he already knows through reading some of his works. in my previously mentioned article in moreana, i point out that more did not attribute the same pre-eminence as seneca—as a politician—did to state interest, nor the political theology derived therefrom (pp. 82-86). this notwithstanding, it is clear he admired the pagan philosopher from several other points of view. however, in a fictional correspondence between the two intellectuals, we can imagine more would underline—as was his wont—what brought them close and not what divided them. he is also glad to accept precious counsel from someone who, though guided just by reason, at least makes good use of it, while he is forced to live surrounded by christian kingdoms—almost constantly at war with one another—where not only faith, but even reason appears to have grown weak (see cw, 216-22). more, at that moment, finds himself in a situation similar to that of seneca: he has just resigned from the office of chancellor of england (1532). mysterious winged messengers allow mail to go back and forth from utopia within a day, as if both more and seneca were in london or rome. obviously, they use latin, which i shall here—almost always—translate into english. both intellectuals appreciate in utopia the rational nature of the islanders’ faith in the unknown god of philosophers, the immortality of the soul, reward and punishment in the afterlife, as well as the religious tolerance established by the kingdom’s founder, utopus. utopians for the most part do not yet know christ, who has only been recently announced there. of this religion, seneca admits he has heard something thanks to a certain paul of tarsus—a roman citizen who appealed to the emperor’s court—and who he took pains to have acquitted some time before. once he has arrived on such an exotic isle, so distant from the world he knows, in his first letter to more (whom raphael hythlodaeus has told him much about), he says he has found confirmation of what he had always thought: there is implanted in everyone an idea concerning deity, and there is no people so far beyond the reach www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 of laws and customs that it does not believe at least in gods of some sort. and when we discuss the immortality of the soul, we are influenced in no small degree by the general opinion of mankind, who either fear or worship the spirits of the lower world. (eml 117, 6) 2. correspondence between seneca and more more introduces himself, disclosing that he has written a book about the wise government he discovered to exist on that lucky island. to break the ice, he asks seneca whether it is necessary to place liberal studies first, in education. the answer is the following: «do the liberal studies contribute nothing to our welfare? very much in other respects, but nothing at all as regards virtue.» (eml 88.20) but what is culture worth without virtue? «those alone are really liberal—or rather, to give them a truer name, “free”—whose concern is virtue.» (eml 88. 23) for «the virtue we aim at raises to a splendid eminence... because the soul is emancipated, prepared for the knowledge of heavenly things, and rendered worthy of entering into communion with god.» (preface to the naturales quaestiones 1.5) more is pleased with the answer. and he confesses that he himself wrote the following recommendations to william gonell, tutor to his four children: «warn my children [...] to put virtue in the first place among goods, knowledge in the second.» (rogers, n. 61) in my first article on seneca, i pointed out various affinities between the two figures, including a shared interest in the problem of how to combine active and contemplative life (see faro, 2018, 89-90). more writes now to his friend on this topic, and seneca is more than willing to answer: «nature [...] intended me to do both, to practice both contemplation and action: and i do both, because even contemplation is not devoid of action.» (de otio 5.8) therefore, «these things ought to be combined and blended together.» (ibid. 6.2) and furthermore: «it is by far the best plan [...] to mingle leisure with business.» (de tranqullitate animi, 4.8) it is a matter of concentration: «the mind is fully master of itself, and can, at its pleasure, find seclusion even in the midst of business; the man, however, who is always selecting resorts and hunting for leisure, will find something to distract his mind in every place.» (eml 104.7) more appreciates the advice and—connecting it to his faith-writes: i wish that, whatever our bodies may be doing, we would at the same time constantly lift up our minds to god (which is the most acceptable form of prayer). for no matter where we may turn our steps, as long as our minds are directed to god, we clearly do not turn away from him who is present everywhere. (ew, 1259) seneca seems then to inspire in his young friend the use of this metaphor regarding the relationship between soul and body: the choice of neat clothing is a fitting object of a man's efforts; for man is by nature a neat and well-groomed animal. hence the choice of neat attire, and not neat attire in itself, is a good; since the good is not in the thing selected, but in the quality of the selection. our actions are honorable, but not the actual things which we do. and you may assume that what i have said about dress applies also to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 the body. for nature has surrounded our soul with the body as a sort of garment; the body is its cloak. (eml 92. 12-13) more echoes this metaphor in his de tristitia christi, where he mentions the episode of the youth who followed christ on the mount of olives (mk 14: 51-52), but then—to escape the soldiers who sought to arrest him—left in their hands the sheet in which he had hurriedly clothed himself and fled naked into the night. in commenting the episode, more wrote: the body is, as it were, the garment of the soul. the soul puts on the body when it comes into the world and takes off the body when it leaves the world at death. hence, just as the clothes are worth much less than the body, so too the body is far less precious than the soul. thus, to give away the soul to buy the body is the same kind of raving lunacy as to prefer the loss of a cloak to the loss of the body. (ew, 1296) i had quoted this metaphor in the closing lines of my previous article in moreana, but i had not yet realized the existence of a precedent in seneca. more then recounts to the roman philosopher a bitter experience from his past, with «a great man... but glorious was he very far above all measure and that was a great pity, for it did harm, and made him abuse many great gifts god had given him. never was he satiated of hearing his own praise.» (cw 12, 213) well, on a certain occasion, this person had asked him an unbiased opinion, telling him to have no fear of saying the plain truth, about the clauses of an international treaty which he had just drafted, enticed by the great commendation he expected. more, however, who was himself a very skilled diplomat, had pointed out that there was a flaw in the treaty, which sent into a rage the important personage, who was expecting only unconditional praise (ibid. 217-8). the episode was known even to william shakespeare (his knowledge of thomas more’s works is ever surprising), who reveals the identity of the person in the part he wrote of henry viii (act one, scene one): this cunning cardinal [thomas wolsey] the articles o’ th’ combination drew as himself pleas’d; and they were ratified as he cried ‘thus let be’ to as much end as give a crutch to th’ dead. but our count-cardinal has done this, and ‘tis well; for worthy wolsey who cannot err, he did it. it would seem the cardinal did not much take into account more’s criticism... seneca answers by mentioning the case of an acquaintance who seldom comes to see him «for no other reason than that he is afraid to hear the truth, and at present he is removed from any danger of hearing it; for one must not talk to a man unless he is willing to listen.» (eml 29.1) more agrees. after that episode, he resolved never again to say the truth to that personage. then, he asks his friend for his opinion on the role of fortune in a person’s life. on this topic, seneca states: «fortune has no jurisdiction over character.» (ibid. 36.6) therefore, «a man [...] will not attain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 114 the good which is unalloyed and beyond the reach of threats, unless he is sure in dealing with that which is unsure.» (ibid. 98.3) one must remember that «fortune has not the long reach with which we credit her; she can seize none except him that clings to her.» (ibid. 82.5) even more believes the gifts of fortune to be fleeting. one must always be wary of fortune. when he ends up in prison, at a rare moment in which he sees a glimmer of hope of safety, he writes verses on fortune, which conclude as follows: «sometimes, she looks as lovely fair, and bright/... /she beckketh and smiles upon every wight./but this feigned cheer many not abide; /there comes a cloud, and farewell all our pride.» (fortune verses, vv. 102-105) 2.1 customs in common writing to each other, the two friends also discover other common habits. one of them springs from the desire to make good use of the limited time of our life. seneca reflects: «mark also how much [time] is lost even when many are very careful: people are robbed of one thing by ill-health and of another thing by illness in the family; at one time private, at another public, business absorbs the attention; and all the while sleep shares our lives with us.» (eml 117.32) therefore, seneca reminds his friend that he never spends the day in idleness, and even steals hours away from the night: «i appropriate even a part of the night for study. i do not allow time for sleep but yield to it when i must, and when my eyes are wearied with waking.» (ibid. 8.1) and he concludes: «we are deceived by those who would have us believe that a multitude of affairs block their pursuit of liberal studies [...] my time is free; it is indeed free, and wherever i am, i am master of myself.» (ibid. 62.1) more agrees, but confides to his friend how much studying and writing has cost him, as it has meant subtracting the time for sleep from great part of the night (note 3), to pray and work on his studies of the humanities: «among these things now rehearsed steal away the day, the month, the year. when do i write then? and all this while i have spoken no word of sleep, neither yet of meals, which among a great number do waste no less time than does sleep, wherein almost half the time of man creepeth away.» (letter to peter giles, in cw 4,38, italics added) (note 4). seneca agrees with more’s observation on the time—excessive for some—spent on meals. not coincidentally, when he was his political advisor, he had obtained from nero to be exempted from taking part in the imperial banquets (which sometimes even degenerated into lewd orgies). he preferred to eat soberly from the produce of his vegetable garden, giving his ill health as a reason (even tacitus mentioned this: annales 15.45). another common habit they have is examining their conscience in the evening, a habit for which seneca thanks pythagoras and the school of philosophy founded in rome by quintus sextius, who recommended this practice. therefore, «when the lamp is taken out of my sight, and my wife, who knows my habit, has ceased to talk, i pass the whole day in review before myself, and repeat all that i have said and done: i conceal nothing from myself, and omit nothing.» (de ira 3.36) more answers he shares this useful practice, which is recommended by his religion, and already contained in a writing earlier than pythagoras’: «speak in your hearts, and on your beds keep silence» (ps 4:5). he also asks seneca what the use of it is. seneca promptly answers that it allows one to see www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 one’s faults, and «indeed this very fact is proof that my spirit is altered into something better, that it can see its own faults, of which it was previously ignorant. in certain cases sick men are congratulated because they themselves have perceived that they are sick.» (eml 6.1) finally, we can add that they behaved in the same way regarding wealth. more says he is pleased to have encountered a passage in seneca which seems a good comment on the first beatitude enunciated by christ: «blessed are the poor in spirit» (mt 5:3). for seneca had confessed: he also is great-souled, who sees riches heaped up round him and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come into his possession, smiles, and hears rather than feels that they are his. [...] nor do i [...] know whether the poor man [...] will despise riches, should he suddenly fall into them; accordingly, in the case of both, it is the mind that must be appraised. (eml 20.10-11) as a political advisor of nero, seneca had accumulated a fortune in land and gardens received from the emperor, which were worth overall 300 million sesterces (see tacitus, annales 13.42). but, not wanting to have anything more to do with nero after the latter's turn to despotism, he had politely returned all the gifted estates when he had resigned from his office. the emperor, thankful and thirsting as he was after riches for his new construction projects, had been happy to accept them (see dio cassius, historia romana 62,25.3). more, who as chancellor of the kingdom of england enjoyed a high position, lodged at his own expense a poor widow in his home, and also maintained an alms-house he founded. (see th. stapleton, pdf 40/70-80). he wrote something similar in his last work: one sees rich men-less often, it is true, than i would like—but still, thank god, one sometimes sees exceedingly rich men who would rather lose everything they have than keep anything at all by offending god through sin. [...] on the other hand we see people—and far more of them than i would wish – who happen to have only light garments and quite skimpy outfits and yet have so welded their affections to those poor riches of theirs that you could sooner strip skin from flesh than separate them from their goods. (cw 14, 601-4). 2.2 fruitfulness of some of seneca’s intuitions in another letter, more thanks seneca heartily because the truth of certain profound judgments on the human spirit penned by seneca inspired in him extremely dramatic, allusive scenes which more then transferred to some of his work particularly, in the drafting of the history of king richard iii. intrigued, seneca asks him to be more explicit and detail where more is indebted to him. and more cites seneca’s words: «what is more wretched than a man who forgets his benefits and clings to his injuries?» (eml 81.23) yet this is a very frequent occurrence. more also quotes another passage of seneca’s: «we hold nothing dearer than a benefit, so long as we are seeking one; we hold nothing cheaper after we have received it. [...] we consider not what we have obtained, but what we are to seek.» (ibid. 81.28) more, with an ounce of pride, affirms that in king richard he expressed these maxims of seneca’s in an even more succinct, pithy manner when narrating the vicissitudes of jane shore, a woman who in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 happy times had aided many, but then had found herself pilloried by king richard, and was forgotten by the many she had helped. more wrote: «men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good turn, we write it in dust.» (cw 2, 57) but another consideration by seneca was much more relevant for more, namely the following: «how often has so-called affliction been the source and the beginning of happiness! how often have privileges which we welcomed with deep thanksgiving built steps for themselves to the top of a precipice.» (eml 110.3). so that «there is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for mock us.» (ibid. 13.12) more recalls other passages that go in the same direction: «we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. [...] some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all.» (ibid. 13.4-5) and he adds this passage by his mentor: «soldiers have often feared an enemy without reason, and the march which they thought most dangerous has in fact been most secure.» (ibid. 59.7) as the episode was very well known, seneca does not mention here the opposite case, which occurred to varus’s legionaries in ad 9: varus’s forces marched merrily and lightly, letting their carts carry their weapons and heavy armor, believing themselves to be completely safe. and they were slaughtered, helplessly, by the germanic forces led by arminius, who were lying in ambush behind a trench they had built in teutoburg forest. arminius, a german chief who had obtained roman citizenship and the equestrian rank, had convinced varus that the march would take place in a friendly territory, with no risk whatsoever (see dio cassius, historia romana, 16,19.2-5). three legions (15,000 men) were annihilated. more confesses to seneca that he used these intuitions of his more than once, with thespian sensitivity, in his above-mentioned account of richard iii. the first instance was in telling the story of elizabeth, the wife of an enemy, who had died in battle, of king edward iv. widowed, she asked king edward’s mercy, imploring him to support her, alone and disgraced, and her children. richard, struck by the refinement and composure of a still attractive woman, took her in marriage (cw 2,60-2). thus she who warily approached the enemy of her late husband suddenly found herself risen to the rank of queen of england, even obtaining reconciliation for her family. and more cites here another passage from seneca: «oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune.» (eml 91.13) vice versa, more quotes the case of an opponent of queen elizabeth, lord hastings, who just before entering a meeting with richard iii (brother of the deceased edward), was exceedingly merry, believing he enjoyed the king’s favor, having supported his conspiracy to take the throne to the detriment of edward’s adolescent sons. in more’s king richard, hastings recounts to an old acquaintance how much unfounded fear and trepidation he once had on a certain occasion, which had then turned into unhoped-for joy. yet, shortly afterwards, completely oblivious of his fate, on meeting with king richard, he suddenly finds himself accused of treason, and is immediately sentenced to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 117 death and executed—shortly after—in the palace courtyard (see cw 2,47-9). more also tells seneca he has long been thinking of writing a work on the passion of christ (christ who seneca has heard something of, since he met paul of tarsus) and he already intends to use seneca’s fertile intuition to portray judas’ betrayal. more tells his friend he already has in mind how to describe how judas and the armed band swarmed as they came to capture the messiah on the mount of olives. he imagines the scene as follows: all the while christ was in taking, still stood with a full furious stomach this wretched traitor amongst those that took him, as their head captain and banner-bearer, triumphing of likelihood and rejoicing to behold what peril his own fellows and his master were in. and i verily think he looked for none other but to have had them taken and slain every one. [...] thus was this traitor full glad, while he hoped to have had all his fellows in hold at once, and like a fool cast no perils of himself at all, nothing less mistrusting than that shortly after the dreadful sentence of god should light upon him. (ibid. 14, 455-8) more’s comment follows, in line with seneca: here have i occasion to lament and bewail the blindness of our miserable mortal nature. for many times while we are in most trouble and fear, though we know it not, be we in most surety. and contrariwise, ofttimes we reckon ourselves surest and make most merry, then unawares stealeth death even suddenly on us. all the apostles save judas were very sore afraid, reckoning to have been carried away and put to death with christ. and yet were they all in case safely to escape, whereas judas on the other side which nothing feared at all, but took pleasure to see them so afflicted, lost his life for ever and that in few hours after. (ibid. pp. 459-60). more also reveals his great appreciation of seneca’s tragedies, in particular thyestes, which denounces totalitarianism and includes a description of the end of the world (verses 875-884) in the triumph of moral evil, evoking the apocalypse prophecies of christianity. other verses from thyestes (verses 957-960) are inserted by more in his history of king richard iii (see cw 2,44, where the verses from thyestes appear in a somewhat free translation). but that is not all. having noticed that seneca was the only author in ancient classic literature, who-again, in thyestes (verses 344 and following) – dared to write in iambic dimeter, more decided to imitate him in three of his latin epigrams (see epigrams 109, 205, and 281, in l. bradner & ch. a. lynch [eds.], 1953). more promises to send his friend seneca his epigrams (note 5). 2.3 a common way of feeling the english humanist then describes to seneca how he reacted recently (just before being appointed chancellor to the kingdom), to the news of a fire in his barns, and the loss of their stores of corn (end of august 1529). finding himself in woodstock with his king, he wrote to his wife giving her three charges: to summon all the household and thank god, keeping good cheer; to ensure that none of their neighbors bears any loss due to the calamity; not to discharge any farmer unless after having made sure they have found another employer (cm, no 174). he holds all that occurs to be ordained by providence: god has given, god has taken away, but he must always be thanked. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 118 seneca writes back that he is pleased to see how his humanist friend faced this setback, showing the right attitude. that is why he wrote de providentia, to answer those who wonder how come adversities occur to good people. and he writes: «can you wonder at good men being shaken, in order that they may be strengthened? [...] and so it is to the advantage of good men, and causes them to be undismayed, that they should live much amidst alarms, and learn to bear with patience what is not evil save to him who endures it ill.» (de providentia 4.16) therefore, «it is best [...] to attend uncomplainingly upon the god under whose guidance everything progresses; for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander.» (eml 107.12) finally, he confides to his friend: when everything seems to go hard and uphill, i have trained myself not merely to obey god, but to agree with his decisions. i follow him because my soul wills it, and not because i must. nothing will ever happen to me that i shall receive with ill humour or with a wry face. i shall pay up all my taxes willingly. (ibid. 96.2) more answers with two quotes from paul of tarsus: «hilarem datorem diligit deus;» (2 cor 9:7) and even «omnia in bonum.» (rom 8:28) seneca would have felt even closer to more if he had known the opinion of a certain erasmus on the english humanist: «whatever comes his way that cannot be corrected, he comes to love just as wholeheartedly as if nothing better could have happened to him.» (allen, 2750, 1906-1958) on the topic of death, there is a certain analogy in the feelings of the pagan philosopher and his christian friend, who notes (in the four last things) what great benefit derives from meditating on death: «what profit and commodity cometh unto man’s soul by the meditation of death is not only marked of the chosen people of god, but also of such as were the best sort among gentiles and paynims.» (cw 1,139) (note 6). seneca wrote: «take my word for it: since the day you were born you are being led thither.» (eml 4.9). for «death has its fixed fule equitable and unavoidable.» (ibid. 30.11) but only those who have prepared long for it – such as an old friend of seneca’s, aufidius bassus – joyfully await its coming. in turn, more will take his friend’s invitation in composing a book of prayers, when he is imprisoned in the tower of london, writing in his own hand: «to make death no stranger to me.» (the prayer which includes this verse can be found online at https://slmedia.org/blog/more-fisher-conscience) furthermore, he tells seneca his wish to have his epitaph state: «might [...] this tomb made for him in his life-time be not in vain, nor that he fear death coming upon him, but that he may willingly, for the desire of christ, die and find death not utterly death to him, but the gate of a wealthier life.» (allen, no 2831) it must be noted that the hope of a happier life after death is found even in seneca. in his last works, he abandons the traditional materialist theory of stoic pantheism (and the connected flat myth of eternal return), embracing platonic anthropology and eschatology, with consequent transcendence of. god. that is why he writes to more: «do you suppose that i am now referring to the stoics, who hold that the soul of a man crushed by a great weight cannot abide, and is scattered forthwith, because it has not had www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 119 a free opportunity to depart? that is not what i am doing; those who think thus are, in my opinion, wrong.» (note 7) (eml 57.7) seneca more than once disassociated himself from traditional stoic thought, preserving however a number of cornerstones, based on which he continued to consider himself a stoic, namely the role of divine providence, conscience, natural law, and virtue. this is the reason why he will be later considered the founder of neo-stoicism. for him, «what is death? it is either the end, or a process of change. i have no fear of ceasing to exist; it is the same as not having begun. nor do i shrink from changing into another state.» (ibid. 65.24) and he adds: «what do you think the heavenly light will be when you have seen it in its proper sphere? such thoughts [...] maintain that the gods are witnesses of everything. they order us to meet the gods’ approval, to prepare ourselves to join them at some future time, and to plan for immortality.» (ibid. 102.28-29) although leaving open the possibility of nothingness (the god of philosophers is an unknown god), he indulges again to platonism when he defines death – just like christians do – dies natalis, so that «that day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.» (ibid. 102.26) it is no coincidence that the first christian philosopher whose work we still have, justin, turns out to be a platonic. seneca, furthermore, considers this life a prison, where all are sentenced to death (a theme more will develop in two whole chapters of his second-to-last work: see g. faro, 2020, 76-78). thus he writes: «sooner or later we must all go to the same place. what then? does he not appear to you the most fearful and foolish of all men who, by great entreaty, asks for a delay of death? would you not despise a man who, assigned to those about to die, seeks as a favor to be the last to offer his neck?» (naturales quaestiones 2,59.6) more will keep this maxim in mind when the duke of norfolk warns him about what it means not to acquiesce to the king’s will: «indignatio principis, mors est» (pr 16:14). more will answer that he sees, in that case, no big difference between himself and the duke: «i shall die today, and you tomorrow.» (w. roper, 1905) more—who already knows how seneca’s human life will end, although he tactfully and discretely refrains from revealing it to his friend—then asks him what he thinks of suicide. seneca immediately admits that his two greatest heroes, socrates and cato the younger, both died by suicide. however, for himself, speaking of the infirmity old age inevitably brings, he states: «a great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent; if his ship be dismantled, he can yet put in trim what remains of her hull and hold her to her course.» (eml 30.3) therefore, «i shall not abandon old age, if old age preserves me intact for myself, and intact as regards the better part of myself [reason]; but if old age begins to shatter my mind, and to pull its various faculties to pieces, if it leaves me, not life, but only the breath of life, i shall rush out of a house that is crumbling and tottering,» (ibid. 58.35) before it is too late to do so; consequently, «i shall not avoid illness by seeking death, as long as the illness is curable and does not impede my soul.» (ibid. 58.36) these thoughts should not surprise us. even for the utopians described by thomas more, who for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 120 most part do not know christianity and are guided solely by reason, euthanasia is allowed in certain exceptional cases (see cw 4, 186). now, seneca’s works are philosophical writings and, based on reason alone, this is a legitimate thought. robert spaemann points out that the authors of the dialectic of enlightenment, neo-marxist theodore w. adorno and max horckheimer, agree that no legal system can ever fully exclude the killing of a man unless religious considerations intervene (see r. spaemann, 2000,95). seneca concludes: «have i not seen many men break the thread of life? i have indeed seen such men; but those have more weight with me who approach death without any loathing for life, letting death in, so to speak, and not pulling it towards them.» (eml 30.15) as is known, seneca died by suicide, but following his vision of divine providence, or fate, which he encountered in the form of a command by nero. tacitus specifies that nero, after having had him condemned, ordered that his ex-preceptor prepare «should take is own life.» (tacitus, annales 15.61) (note 8) finally, more tells his friend about his struggle—against the prevailing sexism of his time—to secure for his three daughters and stepdaughter the same humanist education as the one provided to his only son: «man and woman both have the same human nature, which reason differentiates from that of beasts; both, therefore, are equally suited for those studies by which reason is cultivated.» (rogers, no 62) there were clichés about women even then. more writes to seneca that if they are to any extent true, «i think woman’s intelligence must be even more cultivated, with letters and sciences.» (ibid.) seneca answers that he finds traditional criticism of the female sex well-founded, unless women are educated in the sciences and virtue (de constantia sapientis 14.1). in that case, women can vie with the best of men: «yet who would say that nature has dealt grudgingly with the minds of women, and stunted their virtues? believe me, they have the same intellectual power as men, and the same capacity for honorable and generous action. if trained to do so, they are just as able to endure sorrow or labor.» (consolatio ad marciam 16.1) 3. quick epilogue but seneca must go back to rome. his brief vacation in the island of utopia, outside the boundaries of time, is now over. both friends are worried about their future. defamatory attacks loom up against them, after their respective resignation from their political offices, celebrated by great praise. from figures such as nero and henry viii anything may be expected. soon after, each will follow his doom, in his own epoch. both will be convicted of high treason. for our two heroes, inner freedom comes first and foremost. seneca reaffirms: «invulnerabile est non quod non feritur, sed quod non laeditur,» (de constantia sapientis 3.3) which may even be translated into english with another statement of his: «let us strengthen our inner defenses. if the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.» (eml 74.19) «for my body is the only part of me which can suffer injury. in this dwelling, which is exposed to peril, my soul lives free.» (ibid. 65.21) the best comment to these maxims can be found in the second-to-last letter more wrote to his beloved daughter. not without a pinch of irony, her father wrote her: «a man may lose his head [it happens to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 121 madmen] and [his soul] have no harm.» (rogers, no. 206, 589-90) unlike more, seneca used silence in a more pointed belligerent manner, attracting the suspicion of tigellinus (the new head of the pretorian guard appointed by nero). for he wrote: if fortune removes you from the front rank, stand your ground nevertheless and cheer on your comrades, and if somebody stops your mouth, stand nevertheless and help your side in silence. the services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk. (de tranquillitate animi, 4). nero ordered seneca to commit suicide (april 19, ad 65). henry viii commuted the usual death sentence of traitors – drawing, hanging, and quartering—to a simple beheading for more (6 july 1535). on his way to the gallows, more was to think of his friend’s words: «indeed, you must often be just and be at the same time disgraced. and then, if you are wise, let ill repute, well won, be a delight.» (eml 113.32). how, then, must one assess the worthiness of a man? ... to know what manner of man he is, look at him when he is naked; make him lay aside his inherited estate, his titles, and the other deceptions of fortune; let him even strip off his body. consider his soul, its quality and its stature, and thus learn whether its greatness is borrowed, or its own. [...] if a man [...] knows that it makes no difference to him whether his soul takes flight [...] you may call him happy; you may also call him happy if, when he is threatened with bodily torture, whether it be the result of accident or of the might of the stronger, he can without concern hear talk of chains, or of exile, or of all the idle fears that stir men’s minds. (ibid. 76.32-33) both more and seneca put virtue first. therefore the author of utopia, who confided foremost in god and not in his own strength, quoted one last thought of seneca: «no one, i think, rates virtue higher, or is more consecrated to virtue than he who has lost his reputation for being a good man in order to keep from losing the approval of his conscience.» (ibid. 81.20) as prisoner in the tower of london, more confided to his daughter margareth: «and therefore as for all the remnant, goods, lands, and life both... i verily trust in god, he shall rather strength me to bear the loss than against this conscience to swear.» (rogers 206/550-4). more, who had refused to take the oath to the acts of succession and supremacy, one all english people had to take, or else be tried for high treason, confessed to her: «he that thinketh against the law, neither may swear that law lawfully was made, standing his own conscience to the contrary, nor is bounden upon pain of god’s displeasure to change his own conscience therein, for any particular law made anywhere.» (cm 206/387–93) r. spaemann mentions the case of a prussian officer who refused to carry out an immoral order. knowing full well what disobedience implied in the army, he answered: «my life belongs to the king, my honour as soldier does not.» (2000,97) more said he died a loyal subject to the king, but god’s first. for seneca, who compared human life to military service (see eml 59.18, and «vivere, militia est», jb 7:1), natural law – which compels in all conscience – comes from god. his philosopher friend, stoic musonius rufus, explicitly stated that one must not obey one’s own father, nor magistrates, nor the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 122 emperor himself, should they command immoral actions (discourses, 16). an identical conclusion follows for seneca and more: «life is not to be purchased at any price.» (eml 70.7) references dio, c. (n.d.). historia romana (e. cary trans.). erasmus. (1906-1958). opus epistolarum des. erasmi roterdami (j. allen ed.), oxford clarendon press (abbreviated as allen, followed by the number of the letter). faro, g. (2020). cunning as a snake: thomas more and the right to stay silent (with a long digression on seneca). moreana, 57(1), 213, 63-88. (2018) seneca e moro: un pagano e un umanista cristiano in un solo ritratto, acta philosophica, 27(1), 83-102. more th., essential works, (2020) the essential works of thomas more, (g. b. wegemer & s. w. smith, eds.) new haven: yale university press (abbreviated as ew; (1963-) the yale editions of complet works of st. thomas more, (r. s. silvester and c. h. miller, eds.), new haven: yale university press (abbreviated as cw, followed by the number of the volume, and pages); (1947) the correspondence of sir thomas more, (e. f. rogers, ed.), princeton: princeton university press (abbreviated as cm, followed by the number of letter, and pages); fortune verses, (c. mock, trans.); de tristitia christi, (c. h. miller, trans.); (1953) the latin epigrams of thomas more, (l. bradner and ch. a. lynch eds.), chicago: university of chicago press. roper, w. (1905). life of sir thomas more. london: burns & oates, 1905 (original work published 1556). seneca, epistulae morales ad lucilium [= eml] (m. r. gummere, trans.); naturales quaestiones (j. clarke, trans.); de tranquillitate animi and de otio (a. stewart, trans.), de vita beata, (r. l’estrange); spaemann r., glück und wohlwollen, translated as happiness and benevolence (j. alberg, trans.) edinburgh: t&t clark, 2000. stapleton th., the lyfe and illustrious martyrdom of sir thomas more, retrived january 7 (2025), https://www.thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/stapleton-biography-4-27-2020 -1.pdf [40/70-80], (original work published 1588). tacitus, annales (j. jackson trans.). notes note 1. here is the passage in which more quotes seneca: «semper da opera, ne quid invitus facias» (eml 61,3): (always strive not to ever do anything unwillingly), quoted in: th. more, a dialogue of comfort against tribulation (cw 12, 254). note 2. the moral philosophy of utopians turns out to be quite close to seneca’s. see th. more (cw 4,160-2). note 3. more was wont to get up at two every night to pray, study, and write his works. a habit he had www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 123 probably taken up in the approximately four years he had spent during his youth at the london charterhouse, sharing – in part – the life of the monks. see r. w. chambers, thomas more, london: cape 1935, 77. note 4. more dedicated his most famous work to dutch humanist peter giles. the reflection about sleep taking away half of our life, mentioned by seneca, is found even in more’s latin epigrams: «almost half of life is sleep» (cw 3.2/e107). more refers to aristotle, who in his nicomachean ethics (1.13, tr. w. d. ross) declared: «the happy are not better off than the wretched for half their lives,» referring to the hours of sleep. what is not obvious, though, is that seneca and more formulate their sentences in a way different from aristotle and similar instead to each other, with regards to making good use of night-time (despite the sacrifice this involves). note 5. epigrams 109, 205, and 281 are in iambic dimeter, exactly like the ones used only by seneca in his thyestes. this was noticed by bradner and lynch, in their introduction to the text. note 6. in this work death is discussed even with tones that are typical of seneca. note 7. seneca more than once disassociated himself from traditional stoic thought, preserving however a number of cornerstones, based on which he continued to consider himself a stoic, namely the role of divine providence, conscience, natural law, and virtue. this is the reason why he will be later considered the founder of neo-stoicism. note 8 .translated into english by john jackson, in tacitus, loeb classical library (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1925-1937), vol. 4, p. 315. there were at least three reasons why seneca was sentenced. tacitus wrote that, having had nothing to do with the conspiracy of calpurnius piso, seneca – who had refused to become involved – was accused of failing to denounce it (he knew about it, but failed to report it: annales, 15.60). from dio cassius, one may deduce an incitement to tyrannicide (see seneca, de beneficiis, 7,20.3: two conspirators, interrogated by nero, echoed it in historia romana 62,24.1; and in suetonius, de vitae caesarum 6,36). i believe a determining factor was that a conspirator admitted, if the plot had succeeded, his intention –along with other conspirators– to immediately overthrow piso (who tacitus portrays in sinister tones) to proclaim seneca emperor, as the most upright man in rome; the conspirator had declared that seneca himself was not aware of the plan (see tacitus, annales 15,65). nero tolerated no rivals, whether true or presumed. but seneca had already warned him that, however much he tried, he would never be able to prevent the rise of his successor (see dio cassius, historia romana, 61,18.3). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 104 original paper the public sector of our country under the perspective of rational choice institutionalism study on the dilemma of female occupation "labyrinth" yali bi1,a & jinyi zou1,b,* 1 college of politics and public administration, northwest university of political science and law, xi'an, shaanxi, china 2 college of management, northwest university of political science and law, xi'an, shaanxi, china a biyali123@sina.com b joyiyi0908@163.com * corresponding author received: june 27, 2024 accepted: august 09, 2024 online published: august 21, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p104 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p104 abstract with the deepening of the research, the career "labyrinth" has become an appropriate metaphor for the obstacles to career promotion of modern women, and it is particularly obvious in the career of women in the public sector in our country. this paper uses the rational choice institutionalism analysis framework to study the dilemma of female occupation "labyrinth" in chinese public sector. first of all, the behavior of public sector recruitment policy makers, human resources managers and female employees constitutes the behavioral motivation of the "labyrinth" dilemma. secondly, the action situation includes the identity attributes of each actor, decision-making control, cost and benefit, which explains the operation mode of the "labyrinth" dilemma. finally, exogenous variables, including application rules, community attributes and natural material conditions, provide a macro institutional environment for analyzing the "labyrinth" dilemma. on the basis of analyzing the behavior logic of each subject, the specific elements of the action situation and exogenous variables, this paper puts forward the solution and "the right medicine". keywords rational choice institutionalism, the public sector, career “labyrinth” mailto:joyiyi0908@163.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 105 1. introduction the earliest concept that describes the difficulty of promotion for women is the “glass ceiling”. glass ceiling” was put forward by the column of wall street journal in 1986, and it was first used as “glass ceiling” to describe the “artificial invisible barriers” faced by women in the process of promotion, which are difficult to break through. (liu & liu, 2015) “which are difficult to break through. the description of “glass ceiling” implies that all women are passively confronted with homogenized barriers and can do nothing about it, and it is extremely difficult to break through such barriers. with the support of national policies for women's employment and the gradual recognition of women's achievements in all walks of life, the number of female top managers has also increased, which means that the “ceiling” has gradually been broken, and it is no longer an unbreakable existence. however, against the backdrop of a gradual increase in the number of female leaders at different levels in various fields, the strategic task of gender mainstreaming has not changed after nearly 40 years of development, (li & wang, 2016) and the number of female managers is still in the minority, so that the gender equality that we are calling for has not been truly realized. the reason for this is that we have not really discovered the key to women's promotion difficulties, and the “labyrinth” provides a better explanation. “the labyrinth is an image with a complex structure, in which various social patterns (such as gender roles), cultural mechanisms (such as the gender division of labor in the family), and workplace practices (such as role models of ideal employees) are intertwined, and personal bias is one of the obstacles that make up the labyrinth. (celia, n.d.) the concept of “labyrinth” focuses on the complexity and diversity of objective and subjective factors in the promotion process of women, where difficulties are visible and women have the opportunity to enter leadership positions. therefore, the “labyrinth” description of the obstacles to women's promotion is more in line with the ecological environment of modern women's promotion in the workplace. the plight of women's career advancement in the public sector is essentially a microcosm of the gender differences in the entire social economy. compared with other industries, china's public sector has a relatively large proportion of female senior managers. however, within the public sector, the number of female senior managers is still a minority compared to that of men. some scholars have pointed out that the ratio of men to women in china's official information database for cadres at the prefecture level and above is approximately 17:1, which reflects the seriousness of gender segregation in the public sector, (lv, 2022) or more accurately, the “labyrinth” dilemma faced by women in the public sector in the process of promotion. rational choice institutionalism is often used to solve collective action dilemmas, and it has some advantages in explaining the interaction patterns of women's career advancement in the public sector. on the one hand, the public sector women's “maze” dilemma is more representative of the study of women's “maze” dilemma in the whole society. on the other hand, it is possible to locate the main body of action, policy and other factors more clearly, reduce the influence of variable factors and clarify the logical movement of the public sector women's “maze” dilemma. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 106 2. the theoretical framework of rational choice institutionalism 2.1 explanation of rational choice institutionalism theory with the combination of rational choice theory and the related theories of new institutionalism economics, rational choice institutionalism was born and gradually became one of the three major schools of new institutionalism. rational choice theory is based on the “economic man hypothesis”, which attributes the individual's choice to the result of maximizing the interests of the individual in the given environment. along with the application of rational choice theory in the field of social sciences, some researchers began to reflect on rational choice theory's individualized approach that ignores institutional factors. they have begun to emphasize the importance of institutions and draw relevant concepts in the new institutionalist economic theory to enrich their own theoretical framework and methodology. strictly speaking, rational choice institutionalism can be divided into several branches from different research perspectives. one of them is the indiana school branch represented by ostrom (e), an american scholar who won the nobel prize in economics in 2009, and this model is especially suitable for analyzing public policies. (wang & jiang, 2011) according to ostrom's institutional analysis framework, it can be seen that the action arena is the key to analyzing the autonomous governance of public ponds, which includes two key elements: actors, and action situations. among them, actors are the key subjects involved in the overall collective action, who act according to their own preferences in order to maximize their own interests. the action situation, on the other hand, can be thought of as a set, a dependent variable that is jointly influenced and determined by seven independent variables, mainly including the set of participants, the identity of the participants, and the ability of each individual participant to control the decision. in an action situation any one or more categories of rules may be missing, so that the corresponding variables are in a default state without the rules directly constrained (default), (wang, 2010) and thus different situations of collective action research, the rules within the action situation are different. the action arena does not exist independently, and will be affected by external factors, including natural and material conditions, community attributes, and the application of rules. 2.2 adaptability of rational choice institutionalism theory the rational choice institutionalism framework provides basic assumptions for different types of collective action: actors, institutions, and actors' rational responses. actors are a collection of mutually independent individuals who act in accordance with their preferences by means of rational calculations for the purpose of maximizing their self-interests; institutions are a collection of rules that constrain and regulate the behavior of individual actors in a certain environment; and actors are constrained by the institutions and are able to respond with appropriate behaviors. in collective action, if all individuals are seeking to maximize utility in a rational manner so that they make the most satisfactory decisions, then rationality at the individual level is likely to lead to irrational outcomes at the collective level. (he, 2014) this is because although the arena of action is the same, different actors are affected by different action situations, (fang, wang, luo et al., 2021) which may result in different interest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 107 orientations and thus in rational or irrational outcomes. therefore, the key to analyzing rational choice institutionalism is what factors contribute to the actors' actions. rational choice institutionalism provides a tool for analyzing different types of formal and informal institutions, as well as informal collective action dilemmas. (kenneth & cedric, 2017) thus, the same rational choice institutionalism that applies to public policy analysis is also applicable to analyzing the dilemma of the “maze” of women's careers in the public sector. based on the above theories, we can construct the structure of the informal action arena of the “public sector women's career maze dilemma”. the actors of public sector women's career advancement are mainly composed of public sector women employees, public sector human resource policy makers, public sector human resource managers, and the result of their collective action based on their respective interests and needs may be irrational the public sector women's career advancement dilemma. (as shown in figure 1) this paper, under the perspective of rational choice institutionalism, analyzes the actors and action situations to explain the behavioral motivation of the public sector women's career “labyrinth” dilemma, and then puts forward the strategy to get through the “labyrinth”. exogenous variable natural materia conditions 1. physical differences 2. geographical conditions community attributes 1.patriarchal culture 2. communal spirit application rules 1.identity rules 2.entry and exit rules 3.aggregation rules the dilemma of the female career maze in the public sector stage of action action scenarios 1. aggregation of participants 2. participant control 3. benefits and costs behavioral motivations of actors 1. policy makers: to rationalize the gender structure 2.personnel managers: to implement the policies of superiors 2. female workers: rational choice of role; trade-off between family and work figure 1. rational choice institutionalist framework foranalyzing the dilemma of the “maze” of women's careers in the public sector www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 108 3. analysis of the causes of the “labyrinth” of women's careers in the public sector from the perspective of rational-choice institutionalism 3.1 actors and their behavioral motives as a matter of fact, in the “labyrinth” dilemma of women's careers in the public sector, the main public sector policy maker is the personnel department of the state council, which is the highest administrative organ of the country. despite the fact that china has established the basic state policy of gender equality and that nearly 40% of civil servants at the basic level are women, the proportion of female civil servants has gradually declined as their positions have been upgraded. the central organization department, in order to implement the basic state policy of equality between men and women, has formulated a quota system for the selection of female cadres, stipulating that there should be at least one female leading cadre. according to the data, in 2021, the proportion of provincial, municipal and county-level government leadership teams with a full-time female cadre will be 6.5 per cent, 8.4 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively, and the proportion of provincial, municipal and county-level government departments with a full-time female cadre will be 10.1 per cent, 14 per cent and 12.3 per cent respectively, (national bureau of statistics, 2021) a marked improvement over the previous situation, but there is still a serious imbalance in the proportion of men and women in the public sector. in the maze of women's careers in the public sector, the motivation of public sector policymakers is to solve the problem of the serious imbalance in the proportion of women in the top echelons of the public sector, to realize the rationalization of the gender structure of the public sector, and to reduce the phenomenon of occupational gender discrimination. human resource managers in the public sector mainly refer to the human resource management departments at all levels within the public sector, and they play the role of decision-makers in the maze of women's careers in the public sector. acting on the basis of rational preference, human resource departments at all levels have two contradictory tendencies in the process of appointing and dismissing leading cadres. on the one hand, in order to implement the national policy of equality between men and women, a quota system for the selection of female cadres has been implemented, and the work of training and selecting female cadres has been strengthened. on the other hand, human resource management departments, in order to maximize the interests of their own departments, tend to select leaders on the basis of the stereotype that men are more capable than women, that they have a physiological advantage over women, or for reasons such as reducing labor costs. this tendency has led to deviations in the implementation of the quota system, and some local governments have gradually turned the quota system into a system of “selecting only one female leader”, which has led to the erroneous implementation of the minimum requirement as the maximum requirement. in some places, the selection of female cadres has turned into the fulfillment of a target or a ratio; and the “first selection of female cadres” in departments has evolved into the “only suitable deployment” of female cadres as leaders in those departments. (lv, 2020) although the proportion of women in the public sector has increased, it is only symbolically close to “gender equality”. the biased implementation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 109 the policy has resulted in the reduction of promotion opportunities for women and has shackled them to a fixed sector of work, reducing their opportunities to choose other areas of work. women in the public sector, which includes women employees at all levels of government, often have preferences for action based on rational choices of their roles, which are subject to multiple conflicts. from the viewpoint of epiphenomenal conflicts, women in the public sector not only have to be a good employee in their position, but also have to be a good mother and lover at home. under the pressure of such multiple roles, many women choose the latter according to their own rationality. in addition, women have to take care of their families as well as consider their work, thus feeling the scarcity of time and energy much more strongly than men. from the viewpoint of implicit conflict, influenced by traditional culture, both the family and the society and even women themselves position women in a certain preconceived setting and do not believe that women can show their talents in the workplace. as a result, some women may cater to family concepts in order to seek harmony in family relationships. from the perspective of society as a whole, patriarchy is deeply entrenched in all areas of society and its effects are becoming more severe. walbey's public patriarchy points out that women, even when they enter the public sphere, remain segregated from wealth, power and status. (walby, 1990) thus, in the context of patriarchy, women in the public sector are sometimes forced to make more family-oriented choices. 3.2 analysis of the action situation sets of participants. participants are actors in the framework of rational choice institutionalism, and the contribution of different sets of participants to collective action varies. the ministry of personnel of the state council, as a policy maker, needs to formulate policies to promote the promotion of female employees in order to promote the relative balance of the gender structure in the public sector, and at the same time provide corresponding financial and talent support. human resource managers in the public sector mainly refer to human resource management departments at all levels, whose task is to implement the policies formulated by the ministry of personnel of the state council, and need to make efforts to carry out the relevant policies in all aspects of the selection, training, employment, retention and promotion of civil servants. in this process, female public sector workers need to have the professionalism and business ability, sufficient time and energy, strong beliefs and perseverance to be able to lead. participant control. participant control over collective action refers to the amount of decision-making power that a collection of actors have in the implementation of a decision. in the public sector women's career labyrinth, the ministry of personnel of the state council is the direct decision-maker, can most directly formulate relevant policies to promote the promotion of women in the public sector; public sector human resources managers at all levels as the implementation of the policy, its main task is to implement the policies formulated by the higher levels, in the implementation of women's promotion policies have a certain degree of discretion, and the need to reflect to the superiors the promotion of women cadres in the public sector. women in the public sector do not have decision-making power in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 110 the process of women's career promotion, but only through the enhancement of their own ability, passive hope to be valued by the relevant departments and thus have the opportunity to be promoted. benefits and costs. in the process of policy formulation and implementation, it is necessary for the actors to pay certain costs in order to get the corresponding benefits. first, in the process of promoting women in the public sector, policymakers need to give specific human resources management departments appropriate financial and human resources support in order to obtain high-level female talent, achieve gender balance in the public sector and maintain social stability. secondly, human resource management departments at all levels within the public sector need to overcome the influence of public patriarchy and pay more attention to women's promotion throughout the entire process of human resource management, so as to ensure a smooth path for women's promotion and improve the quality of leadership. finally, if women in the public sector can get out of the “maze” of promotion, they will get higher wages, improved social status, and recognition of their ability level. however, they need to pay more costs, such as making more efforts to balance family and work, sacrificing time and energy for child care, perseverance, and overcoming the stereotypes of women under the patriarchal system. 3.3 analysis of exogenous variables natural and material conditions are the objective independent variables, and all the structures of the action arena are based on natural and material conditions, and this paper mainly refers to the gender characteristics of women and the influence of different geographical environments on the careers of women in the public sector. on the one hand, women are physiologically different from men, and women are often subjected to a “birth penalty” at work, which affects their level of education, the amount of time they dedicate to their work, and their opportunities for career advancement and development. in terms of personality, women are naturally more emotional and detail-oriented than men, and although this is not a direct cause, it also affects the promotion process. on the other hand, different geographical conditions influence the promotion process of women in the public sector. the gender ratio in the public sector shows a pattern of “disequilibrium” between cities, towns and villages, with a tendency to become more and more serious in each order. there are obvious differences in women's education level, awareness of political participation and traditional gender concepts in different regions, and the more remote the region, the more women lack the conditions and awareness to engage in public administration. community attributes are the characteristics and social attributes of the communities in which the resources of the public pond are located, and in the “labyrinth” dilemma of women's careers in the public sector, the public sector is essentially a community in the resources of the public pond. in terms of society as a whole, patriarchal cultural stereotypes are still deeply entrenched, and the idea that “men should be in charge of the outside world and women should be in charge of the inside world” still has a profound impact on society as a whole. this idea of male dominance in the family and in society also exists in the public sector, and it has given rise to a series of one-sided evaluations, such as the inability www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 111 of women to be good leaders and the higher value of men. within the public sector, the public sector pays more attention to realizing the public interest than the private sector, and public sector employees are required to have the spirit of serving the public and devote more energy to their work. the requirements for leaders are even more stringent, requiring them to have strong psychological qualities and working ability, and even more comprehensive leadership ability to lead the team to do practical work. application rules are a set of exogenous variables that directly affect the action situation and are most likely to change, and they are rules and norms used to constrain people's behavior in the decision-making process, usually including seven types of variables, such as identity rules, boundary rules, selection rules, aggregation rules and scope rules. according to the importance of these seven types of variables in the public sector women's promotion “labyrinth” dilemma, the following mainly analyzes the identity rules, entry and exit rules and aggregation rules. first of all, the public sector women's career “maze” dilemma mainly involves three types of identities: public sector policy makers, public sector human resource managers, and public sector female employees. the number of the three is determined by the requirements of public sector human resource management development, and the relationship between them is a top-down behavioral interaction mode. secondly, entry-exit rules, which regulate how actors enter as well as exit the arena of action, are the main elements of boundary rules. public sector policy makers and human resource managers are always present in the process of public sector women's promotion, and the entry and exit mechanisms of public sector women employees are more clearly defined. from the point of view of the entry mechanism for the promotion of women in the public sector, the leading cadres need to have strong overall qualities and be recommended or nominated by their superiors. in terms of the exit mechanism, there are two scenarios: one is removal from office due to accountability, which means that the person removed from office will no longer hold the original position and will be transferred out. the second is removal from a post because the person has reached the required retirement age, or because the person has been in a leadership position for more than the maximum number of years of service in the post. finally, the arena of action in the “maze” of women's careers in the public sector is affected by an asymmetric aggregation of rules. policymakers have direct decision-making power, and the policies they formulate are implemented by human resources managers in the public sector, ultimately affecting women in the public sector. 4. suggestions for navigating the “labyrinth” of women's careers first, promote the formulation of effective public policies in the public sector. formal public policies tend to be more binding on society. first, public policymakers should study the promotion paths for women in the public sector, analyze the relevant policies already in place, and make up for the shortcomings on the basis of existing laws and policies, such as adjusting the quota system for female cadres. secondly, by studying foreign cases in guaranteeing women's employment rights and interests and formulating corresponding laws and regulations in conjunction with the actual situation of china's www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 112 public sector, they should pay attention to gender differences in a real sense and reduce the adverse consequences. once again, a sound monitoring mechanism for gender equality should be established in the public sector's human resources management to ensure the effectiveness of policy implementation. otherwise, even if the policy is well formulated and reasonable, it will not be able to achieve the expected results. just as the original intention of the quota system is to ensure that women in the public sector can have more opportunities to reach the top, but the final result is even running in the opposite direction. finally, in today's patriarchal system almost dominant background, the whole society's thinking is deeply rooted, the need to formulate appropriate gender protection policy, adhere to the social principles of fairness and justice, subtle influence on people's mindset. secondly, establish a reasonable human resource management system. in the life cycle of a policy, implementation is a crucial part, an effective way to realize the purpose of the policy and to solve the problems raised in the policy. (walby, 1990) human resources managers at all levels in the public sector, as the implementers of the policy, should optimize the human resources management system to ensure a smooth career advancement path for women in the public sector. firstly, they should reduce the restrictions on female candidates in the recruitment of civil servants, adjust the gender ratio of grass-roots civil servants, and rationally optimize the entry mechanism of civil servants. secondly, targeted training plans should be formulated to provide a platform for improving the comprehensive quality of female civil servants, thereby enhancing their core competitiveness in promotion. most importantly, policies on gender equality should be strictly implemented, and a fair and impartial appraisal system should be set up to give them equal opportunities for promotion and enhance the motivation of female civil servants. thirdly, female civil servants should enhance their own abilities. regardless of changes in the external environment, women in the public sector need to rely on their own strengths to develop the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment, so as to be recognized by society and to possess the excellent qualities that make them qualified for the position of women cadres. firstly, they should break the psychological implication that “men are stronger than women”, raise the awareness of safeguarding women's legitimate rights and interests, respond to work with a positive mindset, and overcome the profound influence of “patriarchy” on society. secondly, they should improve their business and leadership skills. in the political arena, they need to have excellent skills and practice hard in order to make a breakthrough in politics and make a difference in their careers. third, to harmonize the relationship between family and work, seize promotion opportunities in time, and make reasonable planning for their career development. 5. conclusion this paper takes rational choice institutionalism as the theoretical basis, takes public sector policy makers, public sector human resource managers and public sector female employees as actors, analyzes the behavioral motives and interaction patterns of actors in the public sector women's career “labyrinth” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 113 dilemma, and explores the collection of actors in the action arena, the control of decision-making, the benefits and costs, and so on. it also explores the set of actors in the arena of action, the control of decision-making, the benefits and costs, and other elements. subject to historical and practical constraints, including natural and material conditions, communal attributes, and rules of application, actors behave differently according to their own preferences, producing irrational outcomes in collective action, for which rational choice institutionalism provides the analytical tool. such irrational outcomes constrain the effectiveness of human resource management in the public sector, impede the career development of women in the public sector, and, in fact, fail to operationalize the development orientation of gender equality. therefore, the study of the “labyrinth” requires the coordination of three types of actors: public sector policymakers, public sector human resources managers and public sector women workers, so as to optimize the results of the interactions between the three, improve the career paths of women in the public sector, and lead to the real equality between men and women. acknowledgements funded project: longevity to healthy longevity-an examination of the elderly population in shaanxi province based on the dual perspectives of family life cycle and social change (project no. 2023f015). references celia, v. h. (n.d.). review”, in administrative studies quarterly, 53(2), 363. fang, w., wang, y. l., luo, w. et al. (2021). retrospect of national defense student policy from the perspective of rational choice institutionalism. education academic monthly, (05), 51-58. he, l. x. (2014). institutional analysis theory and controversies (li xufeng & chai baoyong, trans., vol 43). translated. beijing:renmin university of china press, 2014. kenneth, s., & cedric, m. (2017). rational choice institutionalism: institutions, structures, and limitations. learning and exploration, (01), 50-56+174. li, y. t., & wang, h. m. (2016). “glass ceiling” or “maze”?-barriers and paths to women's advancement in the united states. international monitor, (02), 14-29. liu, s. m., & liu, m. (2015). the “glass ceiling” effect in women's career development. dong yue lun shang, 36(04), 184-187. lv, f. (2020). obstacles to promotion and development paths of female leading cadres in china--based on the analysis of promotion patterns of female leading cadres above the prefectural department level. gansu social science, (06), 220-228. lv, f. (2022). research on occupational gender segregation in china's public sector. gansu social science, (02), 108-115. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 114 national bureau of statistics. (2021). statistical monitoring report on the program for the development of chinese women (2021-2030). china information news, 2023-04-21(001). ning, s. (2003). public policy (vol 23). beijing: higher education press. walby, s. (1990). theorizing patriarchy. oxford: wiley blackwell, 100-101. wang, q. (2010). a review of ostrom's institutional analysis and development framework. economics dynamics, (04), 137-142. wang, w., & jiang, x. l. (2011). a review of the higher education policy of “high-level backbone talents program for ethnic minorities”-based on the analytical framework of rational choice institutionalism. modern education management, 2011(12), 60-64. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 154 original paper research on the education path of art majors based on innovative and entrepreneurial thinking cultivation xinying wang1 1 sehan university 1113, korea received: february 11, 2024 accepted: apri 03, 2024 online published: april 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p154 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p154 abstract with the development of society and technology, the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship ability has been greatly increased. how to cultivate art professionals with innovation and entrepreneurship ability is a major challenge faced by universities. art majors generally have rich imagination and creativity. cultivating innovative thinking can enhance their artistic cultivation and skills, while entrepreneurial thinking is conducive to breakthroughs in the application and promotion of art. however, there are still some problems in integrating innovative and entrepreneurial thinking into the art major at present, such as insufficient understanding of the importance of integrating the two in terms of ideology, the mechanism of innovation and entrepreneurship education in universities still needs to be improved, and a shortage of university teachers who are good at innovation and dare to innovate. based on this, both universities and art majors should recognize the importance of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, and take effective actions to achieve the organic integration of their majors and innovative and entrepreneurial thinking. keywords art major, innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, education the innovation of science and technology has brought greater development opportunities and challenges to china, and cultivating applied talents with innovative and entrepreneurial thinking is more in line with the needs of social development. cultivating art majors with innovative and entrepreneurial thinking is not only beneficial for the revival of historical and cultural heritage, but also for the development of society. since premier li keqiang proposed "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", higher education institutions across the country have actively responded by establishing innovation and entrepreneurship education in schools to cultivate students' innovative and entrepreneurial thinking and abilities. based on this, this article analyzes the difficulties faced by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 155 integration of the current art major and innovative entrepreneurial thinking, and explores a suitable path for cultivating talents in the art major. 1. the significance of combining innovative and entrepreneurial thinking with art majors college students in the 21st century play an important role in achieving china's modernization construction and bear historical responsibilities. universities are important bases for cultivating high-quality applied talents, and the rejuvenation of the country relies on high-quality applied talents. art, collectively known as art in ancient times, has a long history of development. art education plays an important role in inheriting excellent traditional art and culture, and the integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education is conducive to promoting the adaptation of traditional art and culture to the development of the new era. civilization thrives, and the country thrives. art majors with innovative and entrepreneurial thinking can not only inherit traditional art culture, but also promote the development of culture in the new era and the revival of historical culture. 1.1 innovation ability is an important quality for art majors art majors have rich imagination and creativity, and have distinct professional characteristics in the cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurship education. art majors not only need the ability to apply beauty, but also need the ability to create beauty. innovation education can cultivate the artistic cultivation and skills of art majors, and entrepreneurship education plays a special role in the application and promotion of art majors. the cultivation of art majors should pay more attention to the cultivation of these two abilities, which provides clear goals for universities to cultivate innovative and entrepreneurial thinking among art majors, and is conducive to universities exploring educational paths suitable for the combination of innovation and entrepreneurship with art majors. 1.2 innovation and entrepreneurship ability is an important aspect of cultivating art majors the cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurship abilities involves two aspects. firstly, in terms of ideology, higher education institutions should enhance their understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, clarify the significant role of combining innovation and entrepreneurship education with art education, and lay a solid theoretical foundation for practical teaching; secondly, in practice, practice is a key link in innovation and entrepreneurship education, as well as an important part of art education. students engage in practical operations, which is a combination of theory and practice. innovation and entrepreneurship ability and professional ability are the concentrated tests of educational resources such as teaching and practical operation in cultivating students' abilities. therefore, universities need to integrate and optimize resources in cultivating student abilities, providing students with a good learning platform. 1.3 the integration of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking with art majors is conducive to cultural revival to achieve cultural rejuvenation, it is necessary to promote the development of cultural undertakings and industries. art education has great advantages in inheriting excellent traditional culture and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 156 cultivating students' creative thinking. innovation and entrepreneurship take innovative thinking and entrepreneurial ability as educational goals. the integration of dual education can promote the inheritance of excellent traditional art and the development of the new era. in the cultural industry, cultivating the entrepreneurial ability of art majors can promote the development of the cultural industry. for example, art majors can engage in arts and crafts design, game character design, and interior art design, which is conducive to alleviating social employment pressure to a certain extent and achieving orderly social development. in terms of cultural undertakings, it is possible to strengthen contact and exchange with local art, negotiate with local cultural departments to introduce policies or measures suitable for the development of local art, inject new vitality into the development of local art and culture, and promote the development of local cultural undertakings. 2. analysis of the current situation of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking and art majors 2.1 insufficient understanding of the importance of integrating the two ideologically the development of technology drives universities to not be confined to traditional education and teaching models, but to recognize the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship education in the new era. social development requires applied talents with innovative and entrepreneurial abilities. art education emphasizes the combination of theory and practice, and emphasizes the cultivation of creative thinking. however, innovation and entrepreneurship education have similarities with art education, and there is no essential contradiction between the two, which can be effectively integrated. however, due to various reasons, some universities have deviated from their interpretation of innovation and entrepreneurship education, thinking that there is no close connection between the two. this can easily lead to superficial understanding of the importance of integrating innovation and entrepreneurship education with art education. the superficial understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship education by schools further affects students' understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, leading to the gradual marginalization and unfamiliarity of innovation and entrepreneurship education. insufficient understanding of the importance of integrating the two leads to a lack of effective and in-depth integration between innovation and entrepreneurship education and art education. 2.2 innovation and entrepreneurship education system in higher education institutions needs improvement amature education mechanism can promote the organic integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education and art professional education, which is an important guarantee for implementing innovation and entrepreneurship education and art professional education. in response to the call for "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", universities have established innovation and entrepreneurship education. however, china's education system for innovation and entrepreneurship is still in the exploratory and adaptive stage, and has not yet formed a mature education mechanism. there are problems such as an imperfect education system, a lack of practical platforms, and a lack of educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 157 incentive mechanisms. all of these will lead to a lack of effective mechanism guarantees for the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking in art majors. in addition, due to the low emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship education in some universities, the curriculum is set as a general public course, lacking targeted education, which creates a distance between innovation and entrepreneurship education and art education, and the two cannot be effectively combined in depth. 2.3 lack of teaching staff with professional knowledge the development of schools is the joint efforts of teachers and students. innovation and entrepreneurship education, as a new field of education, universities need to establish a dual type teacher team with professional knowledge in art and experience in innovation and entrepreneurship to meet diverse educational needs. however, dual type teachers are in short supply in universities, either through temporary training for other professional teachers or direct teaching by art teachers, without conducting in-depth research on innovation and entrepreneurship education. teaching is limited to theoretical learning, making it difficult to provide students with practical educational needs. based on this, the weak dual type teaching staff cannot meet the diverse needs of students, and the development of innovation and entrepreneurship education in universities will stagnate. 3. measures for cultivating innovative and entrepreneurial thinking in art majors 3.1 taking professional education as the foundation and improving the understanding of innovation, entrepreneurship, and professional integration art education focuses on cultivating students' creative and innovative abilities, which can help them establish aesthetic concepts and improve their aesthetic level. innovation and entrepreneurship cultivate students' innovation and entrepreneurship abilities. both professional education and innovation and entrepreneurship education attach importance to cultivating students' innovation abilities, which lays the foundation for the integration of the two in terms of educational content. at the same time, the country also requires universities to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education based on professional education, promoting the effective integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education with professional education. carrying out innovative education on the basis of professional education is conducive to cultivating students' innovative ability, creative ability, and innovative thinking, and enhancing their creative thinking in art works. entrepreneurial education is necessary to adapt to the development of the new era society. currently, the employment situation is severe and employment pressure is high. entrepreneurship education for art majors aims to cultivate applied talents with entrepreneurial abilities, promote employment through entrepreneurship, and alleviate social employment pressure to a certain extent. university teachers and students should enhance their understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship education, recognize that the educational goals of the art major and innovation and entrepreneurship are consistent, understand that the integration of art major education and innovation and entrepreneurship education is of great significance, and strengthen the integration of art major and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 158 innovation and entrepreneurship education is a necessary measure. 3.2 reform and improve the mechanism of innovation and entrepreneurship education innovation and entrepreneurship education is an education that emphasizes both theory and practice. universities should explore suitable ways to integrate with innovation and entrepreneurship education based on the strengths of art majors. in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship education system, universities should make targeted modifications to talent training programs, integrating innovation and entrepreneurship education concepts and practices into various aspects of art education. at the same time, higher education institutions need to provide good platform support and technical guidance for students to engage in innovation and entrepreneurship practice, strengthen the incentive mechanism for building innovation and entrepreneurship education, encourage students to engage in innovation and entrepreneurship practice, and provide a good mechanism guarantee for the integration of art professional education and innovation and entrepreneurship education. to achieve effective integration of art education and innovation and entrepreneurship education, universities can make corresponding adjustments to the curriculum structure. the curriculum structure can be changed from traditional single to diverse, meeting the diverse knowledge needs of students, such as cultivating creative thinking, improving practical operation ability, and enriching art knowledge.universities should recognize the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship with art majors in terms of educational content and the consistency of educational goals. both emphasize the cultivation of students' innovative thinking and practical abilities. therefore, the organic integration of the two can be achieved in curriculum design. 3.3 introduction and cultivation of professional teaching staff in the context of innovation and entrepreneurship education, in order to solve the shortage of professional teachers in universities, universities should focus on strengthening the construction of professional teacher teams and reasonably setting up teacher structures. according to the diverse needs of innovation and entrepreneurship education, enhance the professional teaching and technical guidance abilities of teachers, change traditional indoctrination education methods and assessment methods, and build a dual type university teaching staff. firstly, universities need to focus on expanding their teaching staff. introduce outstanding talents who have successfully started businesses as part-time teachers, share their entrepreneurial experiences on campus, and summarize and analyze their innovation and entrepreneurship experiences; experts and teachers can be invited to teach on campus, responsible for teaching professional basic theoretical courses; by recruiting full-time teachers to lead students in professional skill training and practical operations, we provide practical platforms and opportunities for teachers and students, and build a high-quality dual type teaching staff. secondly, universities should strengthen the cultivation of professional skills in the teaching staff. full time teachers can enter enterprises that cooperate with the school to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship skills training, such as participating in innovation skills competitions to exercise www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 159 innovation skills. part time teachers participate in the cultivation of knowledge in school art education courses, such as theoretical courses related to art education, to enrich their professional theoretical knowledge reserves. meanwhile, schools should also provide humanistic care for teachers, enhancing their sense of belonging and achievement. finally, university teachers need to optimize their teaching methods and assessment methods. the traditional indoctrination teaching method is no longer suitable for innovation and entrepreneurship education and art professional education, and the traditional assessment method is also not suitable for the new teaching content, which hinders the development of students' innovation and entrepreneurship abilities and art professional abilities. based on this, in order to promote the high integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education and art professional education, teachers should update traditional teaching methods and review methods (duan, 2023), teach according to students, strengthen communication and cooperation between teachers and students, stimulate students' subjectivity, achieve mutual learning between teaching and learning, and cultivate students' innovative thinking ability. 4. conclusion in summary, the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking is the mainstream direction of social development. the prosperity and strength of a country and the improvement of cultural soft power cannot be separated from professional applied talents with innovative and entrepreneurial abilities. higher education institutions are important bases for delivering talents to the country, and attention should be paid to cultivating students' innovative and entrepreneurial thinking and enhancing their innovative and entrepreneurial abilities. to meet the needs of social development in the new era, we should strengthen the effective integration of innovation and entrepreneurship education and professional education in talent cultivation, and improve the educational mechanism of innovation and entrepreneurship education; enhance the understanding of the importance of integrating innovation and entrepreneurship education with professional education, and correctly understand the concept of innovation and entrepreneurship education; at the same time, it is necessary to reasonably set up the curriculum structure and build a teaching staff, optimize teaching methods, and provide effective guarantees for cultivating applied talents in the art profession with innovative and entrepreneurial thinking. references duan, t. (2023). innovative teaching models for art education in universities under the background of "double innovation". research on art education, (16), 149-151. gu, w. j. (2023). exploration of strategies for integrating innovation and entrepreneurship education into vocational art majors. exam and research, (36), 188-190 huang, g. j. (2021). research on innovation and entrepreneurship education in arts and crafts majors under the background of "double innovation". textile industry and technology, 50(03), 153-154 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 160 zhu, c. s., wang, w. x., & xu, j. y. (2023). construction of innovative and entrepreneurial talent training models for art majors in local universities. popular literature and art, (12), 205-207. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper portuguese azulejo: a transcultural odessey of the east and the west xinxin shen1* 1 school of foreign languages and literatures, chongqing university of education, chongqing, p.r. china * corresponding author received: december 19, 2024 accepted: january 04, 2025 online published: january 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p1 abstract this research focuses on the art of portuguese azulejo. originating in moorish andalusia during the medieval period, azulejo manifests as architectural ornamentation, tiled murals, and various forms of decorative painting. their transmission to portugal led to the development of uniquely portuguese tiled panel artistry. during the ming and qing dynasties, east-west cultural exchanges resulted in the integration of chinese blue and white porcelain artistry into portuguese azulejo, impacting their colors, styles, and aesthetics. to this day, portuguese azulejo artistry stands as a cultural heritage and a national cultural symbol. therefore, the history of azulejo is indeed a transcultural history of art. keywords azulejo, blue and white porcelain, china, portugal, transcultural communication 1. introduction the mediterranean civilization stands as a vortex of global cultural confluence and dynamism. it served not only as a wellspring for european and arab cultures but also as a crucial intermediary point for the exchange between eastern and western traditions, thereby holding a unique significance in the annals of world cultural history. situated at an exceptional geographical crossroads, the mediterranean straddles the boundaries of europe, asia, and africa, defying easy categorization as either “east” or “west”. notably, the ancient silk road, a pivotal artery of trade and cultural exchange, also terminated at the mediterranean. mediterranean is not the birthplace of tiles. tracing back to their origins, tiles are a form of expression of porcelain, and the main source of porcelain was china. the birth of ceramics was an achievement of human civilization, a product of the combination of fire and agricultural civilization. as early as more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 than 3,000 years ago, during the shang and western zhou dynasties, the earliest type of porcelain—primitive celadon (celadon ware) appeared on the land of huaxia. after the development and progress through the qin, han, sui, and tang dynasties, by the song and yuan dynasties, china’s porcelain firing techniques and porcelain making craftsmanship had reached the peak, dominating the world. although porcelain was also invented relatively early in other ancient civilizations such as egypt, chinese porcelain undoubtedly led the trend for a long time. with the exchange of cultures and the spread of civilizations, tea, silk, porcelain, and other specialties of china gradually spread to neighboring countries. in addition to the close neighbors in east asia and southeast asia having the advantage of being the first to benefit from proximity, the opening of the silk road also enabled the people of central asia and west asia to subsequently learn from china’s advanced experience. especially during the powerful yuan dynasty, as china expanded to the west, it also brought the advanced achievements of chinese civilization to the west. the dissemination route of porcelain generally followed a path from china (possibly including egypt as well) to arab countries in west asia, and subsequently to europe. (xu, 2013) during the process of porcelain firing technology’s transmission, some arab and european nations, adapting to their specific circumstances (climatic conditions, lifestyle habits, cultural customs, etc.), created the particular ceramic product of tiles. due to their novelty and practicality, they were quickly popularized and became an important product that was widely welcomed. it is generally believed that tiles were transmitted from arab countries to spain and the netherlands, and then to portugal. 2. the origin of azulejo the moors brought islamic mosaic and tile art to the iberian peninsula in the 8th century and it is here when azulejos began. etymologically, the origin of the term “azulejo”, the portuguese word for “tile”, which derives from the arabic “al-zillīj”, signifying a small, smooth polished stone employed by medieval muslims, and this evolved to azulejo in portuguese. this early adoption occurred following the moorish occupation, where elements of their artistic and material culture were integrated into the local aesthetic. the azulejo tradition gained national prominence in portugal during the 16th century, developing into a distinct ceramic tile tradition with a 500-year history. the dissemination of azulejo in portugal is often attributed to king manuel i’s exposure to the art form in granada. the initial manifestation of their application was witnessed at the national palace of sintra, the royal residence. approximately seventy years later, by 1560, workshops in lisbon began production, utilizing technological advancements originating in italy. consequently, italian ceramic aesthetics became a crucial influence on the artistic expression manifested in portuguese azulejo production. king manuel i of portugal (r. 1495-1521) visited seville and the alhambra palace in granada and was dazzled by the islamic geometric-patterned ceramic tiles he saw. king manuel was one of the wealthiest monarchs in the christian world thanks to the portuguese age of discovery (early 15th mid 17th century). he imported azulejo from seville and decorated the arab room in his palace at sintra www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 (palácio nacional de sintra). the spanish muslim geometric patterns used in this room are called mudejar, and this period of tile decoration is known as the hispano-moresque. this marked the beginning of portugal’s journey, starting with the importation of tiles, transitioning to independent production, and eventually developing into a leading industry. cosme de médicis during his 1669 visit to portugal claimed, “the azulejo is a part of portugal’s landscape” (simões, 1959, p. 23), asserting that it was a defining feature of the nation’s visual art. this notion was further reinforced decades later by merveilleux in 1726, who acknowledged the ubiquity of “glazed tile fashion” prevalent throughout the country (carvalho, 1962, p. 152). 3. the transcultural journey of blue and white porcelain the emergence of blue and white porcelain in china has often been told as a global story. cobalt was sourced from central asia, and arrived in china by means of islamic merchants, who moved freely throughout the mongol empire that extended across the eurasia landmass. not only merchants and cobalt circulated throughout eurasia, but also consumer demands from central asia (gerritsen, 2020, p. 61). the emergence of cobalt blue decorations on the type of large white dishes that were popular in the eating practices of the steppe and in central asian societies, then, is seen as a story of regional adaptation to global tastes. porcelain from the ming dynasty (1368-1644) spread throughout europe via the maritime trade routes opened up successively by the portuguese and the dutch, and in fact, they can be considered representatives of the earliest imported goods. from royal property inventories to travelers’ accounts, these documentary materials provide us with a window through which we can glimpse the exquisite beauty of items from china: “china is also the most populous region in the east, with more artisans and handicrafts than any other place, for many goods are produced here: beds, desks, cabinets, gold-threaded bed covers, exquisite porcelain, small curtains, gold and silver wire-inlaid crafts, taffeta, and thousands of other unique silk textiles, the quantity of which is comparable to the total of all other places in the world...” (faria, 1655). in the 15th century, blue and white porcelain had two characteristics: it had a distinctiveness that made it immediately recognizable as chinese and valuable; and it had a certain adaptability in its shapes and decorative patterns that allowed it to be appropriated and embedded into new contexts (gerritsen, 2020, p. 133). in those contexts, it could acquire new meanings, and communicate those values not only from the outside but from within that context. at the beginning of the 16th century, the portuguese had taken the lead in starting trade in chinese blue and white porcelain. this historical fact was recorded in the chinese and foreign literatures, and, more importantly, remains of cultural relics have been found by archeologists on the ground, underground, and on the seabed. the temporal progression reveals an initial production of armorial porcelain, a porcelain item decorated with one or more heraldic emblems. the heraldic decoration can be simply www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 the crest, or it can be the full coat-of-arms; the escutcheon, badge, coronet, helm mantlings, torse, crest and motto (edwards, 2022). manuel i of portugal (1459-1521) is thought to have been the first to commission a chinese armorial with a european armorial on it. he had received a gift of porcelain in 1499 on the return of vasco da gama from voyage to calicut. he was so delighted with the porcelain that he ordered an ewer bearing his heraldic coat-of-arms from a portuguese expedition going to china in 1517 (edwards, 2022). this incident is considered to be the genesis of chinese porcelain decorated with european armorials (denyer, denyer, & edwards, 2024) (figure 1). figure 1. jar with d. manuel i arms; 1519-1521; jingdezhen kilns; h.26cm; © casa-museu medeiros e almeida during the 16th and 17th centuries, sea vessels returning from the new world docked in the port of lisbon, bringing back exotic and fascinating “imports”: gemstones, jewelry, ivory, indian and persian silk carpets, and chinese porcelain. this metropolis became a melting pot of merchants, wholesalers, diplomats, scholars, and artists from across europe. the widespread dissemination of these items provided a rich array of materials for the hybridization and reconstruction of artistic forms. from mere importation to replication in europe, these “souvenirs” (gruzinski, 2004, p. 322) served as material vehicles for the convergence of visual cultures, giving birth to entirely new forms and decorative languages. portugal and spain have vast imperial territories thus became a stage for the exchange and interconnection of arts, with chinese porcelain gradually capturing the hearts of people through trade, collection, and dissemination, nurturing an unprecedented aesthetic combination in the iberian artistic landscape. also at that time, chinese blue and white porcelain has been exported all over the world and has influenced ceramic traditions in many other countries. during the 16th century, europe received significant amounts of blue and white porcelain, initially from portuguese merchants and subsequently from the dutch east india company and other traders. one of the most well-known products of the early european trade was kraak porcelain, a type of chinese export porcelain produced mainly in the late ming dynasty, in the wanli reign (1573-1620), but also in the tianqi (1620-1627) and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 chongzhen (1627-1644), which was characterized by a central decoration and alternating decorative borders. kraak porcelain was among the first chinese export wares to arrive in europe in mass quantities, and was frequently featured in dutch golden age paintings of still life subjects with foreign luxuries. and then chinese blue and white porcelain elements became clearly visible on azulejo in lisbon. existing scholarly discourse, as exemplified by the research of portuguese art historian maria miranda (1995), suggests three principal influences on portuguese blue and white azulejo iconography: arab, spanish, and dutch antecedents. however, these analyses arguably lack a sufficient consideration of the direct influence exerted by chinese blue and white porcelain. the characteristic blue and white palette observed in azulejo design was a direct consequence of european fascination with, and scarcity of, chinese porcelain. the limited availability of essential materials for european porcelain production rendered it a luxury commodity. therefore, the portuguese initially adopted more accessible delftware tiles from the netherlands for decorative purposes. the 17th century witnessed the successful imitation of blue and white pottery in delft, the netherlands, which was a direct outcome of the dutch participation in the vast trade of chinese porcelain. moreover, the early 17th century saw the commencement of portuguese large-scale production of blue and white ceramics. these factors, combined with the temporal proximity of chinese blue and white export during the 16th century to the rise of blue and white azulejo in portugal, strongly suggests a causal relationship. the consequent dominance of blue and white azulejo in portugal during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, temporally aligned with the 16th-century export of chinese blue and white porcelain, strongly suggests a correlation between these phenomena. several factors highlight this connection, indicating a complex interplay of trade, cultural adaptation, and artistic innovation. a portuguese expression “ouro sobre azul” (gold over blue) signifies “perfect”, indicating the cultural connotation of blue and white azulejo for portugal. prior to the late 17th century, portuguese azulejo was typically polychromatic, characterized by diagonal lines and “enxaquetado” (checkerboard) patterns often combined with patterned tiles, covering entire building interiors. this period reveals a diverse array of influences, extending beyond islamic models to encompass mongol, indian, and chinese decorative elements. from the late 16th century onwards, azulejo featuring floral motifs began to proliferate, eventually covering the entirety of building walls by the beginning of the 17th century. the transition from porcelain to tableware, and subsequently to azulejo, illustrates the adaptability of pottery artisans in adjusting and interpreting decorative patterns in response to new trends. beyond merely imitating the manufacturing processes, portuguese artisans also drew inspiration from porcelain, readily incorporating its designs into the creation of azulejo. they combined different prototypes with ease, ultimately giving birth to new hybrid images. for instance, the recurring motif of the sika deer, doe, roe deer, and elk found in azulejos are abound on porcelain plates as well (figure 2 and 3). in chinese culture, deer symbolizes longevity. when these motifs are applied to altars and other ceramic altar decorations, they retain their symbolic significance, albeit within the context of european cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 backgrounds. deer, as the mount of “shouxing lao” (deity of longevity), and as one of the animals in noah’s ark in christian culture, as well as a common presence in hagiographies, carry complex connotations. their appearance in the decorative system of azulejo is not a mere coincidence but a deliberate choice. the adaptation of a motif from taoist culture to a christian context depended on its potential compatibility within the culture of the recipient. the dissemination of themes found in chinese porcelain transcends the boundaries of aesthetic history, reflecting a considered and deliberate creative process. the artisans’ choice of porcelain patterns is not a random act, they had to be compatible with religious decorative systems, with each selected motif or figure serving a specific purpose. (shanghai museum, 2022) figure 2. azulejo of the altar; portugal; 1600-1650; 55.5x83.5cm; © national museum of the azulejo figure 3. blue and white glazed dish with deer; portugal; late 16th century – early 17th century; 5x30.4cm; © national museum of ancient art the inspiration derived from the patterns and figurative decorations of chinese porcelain significantly enriched the decorations of churches and palaces in the 17th century in portugal. the circulation of goods provided the foundation for the diversification of tile decorations. subtle transformations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 occurred in both patterns and colors. from the last three decades of the 17th century to the whole of the 18th century, the uniqueness of azulejo works lay in the simplification to a blue and white color, coupled with the skillful mastery of pattern drawing techniques. from mere imitation to free-spirited interpretations, the production of portuguese azulejo illustrates a creative process of integration, reflecting the convergence of different aesthetic traditions, and the transposition of decorative motifs from one medium to another. (shanghai museum, 2022) chinese porcelain, with its brilliance and superior quality, exerted a profound influence, despite the manufacturing techniques remaining an enigma in europe at that time. lisbon artisans strived to replicate the form and texture of the originals. these objects and art represent the material embodiment of cultural hybridization. portuguese ceramics, through the integration, transformation, and reinterpretation of foreign forms, demonstrate a unique synthesis of chinese decorative languages. azulejo reveals a rich vocabulary of decorations, reflecting a transcultural phenomenon with combination of different aesthetics and it becomes a testimony to the value of cultural exchanges. later, the advent of baroque and rococo styles further influenced azulejo design, leading to the incorporation of diverse figural elements on their surface. while this creative approach bears similarity to the methodology of chinese blue and white porcelain production, portuguese artisans integrated western principles of chiaroscuro (light and shade) and optical illusion into their tile painting, resulting in a more precise, rigorous, and realistically rendered product. this fusion of artistic techniques imbued portuguese azulejo with a distinct temperament and aesthetic charm, contrasting with the more elegant, ink-painting-inspired style of chinese blue and white porcelain (figure 4). the portuguese blue and white azulejo can therefore be described as an oil painting style on a faience canvas. figure 4. igreja do carmo (1910) in porto; photo by author 4. conclusion throughout the history, the nature of azulejo as both a practical building material and a form of artistic expression became increasingly apparent. for centuries, azulejo is not a mere decorative surface but an ongoing dialogue between diverse artistic practices and cultural influences. it displays the complex processes of adaptation, assimilation, and innovation, showcasing its role as a significant catalyst for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 intercultural exchange. azulejo experiences the journey where different cultures and aesthetics from the east and the west have merged to create something new. this versatility enabled the azulejo to convey multiple layers of meaning, making it a powerful medium for transcultural communication and creating an art treasure on the history of human civilization. in contemporary portugal, azulejo continues to function as a dynamic and evolving medium, contributing a unique and vibrant characteristic to the nation’s architectural landscape and public spaces. funding this paper is supported by project of chongqing municipal education commission foundation on humanities and social sciences (project number: 23skgh378). references carvalho, a. de. (1962). d. joão v e a arte do seu tempo (vol. 1). a. de carvalho. carvalho, r. s. (2019). to be part of…architecture, decoration or iconography. documenting azulejo as integrated heritage. the international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences, iv-2/w6. denyer, r. l., denyer, m. c. t., & edwards, h. g. m. (2024). armorial porcelain: the genesis. springer nature switzerland. edwards, h. g. m. (2022). welsh armorial porcelain: nantgarw and swansea crested china. springer international publishing. faria, s. de. (1655). noticias de portugal offerecidas a el-rey n.s. dom ioão iv. officina craesbeeckiana. (biblioteca nacional de portugal, res. 1645a) gerritsen, a. (2020). the city of blue and white: chinese porcelain and the early modern world. cambridge university press. gruzinski, s. (2004). les quatre parties du monde. édition de la martinière. miranda, m. (1995). história da arte portuguesa: época medieval. universidade aberta. shanghai museum (ed.). (2022). glaze and glory: ceramics and cultural exchanges between china and the west in the 16th-18th centuries. shanghai people’s fine arts publishing house. simões, j. m. dos s. (1959). les carreaux céramiques hollandais au portugal et en espagne. martinus nijhoff. teixeira, c. v. (2019). a palimpsest of ornaments: the art of azulejo as a hybrid language. renaissance studies, 34(4). xu, l. (2013). the fusion of portuguese tile painting and multi-culture. jiuding monthly, 73. portuguese azulejo: a transcultural odessey of the xinxin shen1* 1 school of foreign languages and literatures, cho abstract this research focuses on the art of portuguese azu keywords figure 1. jar with d. manuel i arms; 1519-1521; ji figure 2. azulejo of the altar; portugal; 1600-165 figure 3. blue and white glazed dish with deer; po figure 4. igreja do carmo (1910) in porto; photo b advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 12 original paper wisdom’s new frontier: ai and the quest for understanding katryna m. johnson1* & jack lesser1 1 metropolitan state university, department of marketing, supply chain management and international business, minneapolis, u.s.a. * katryna m. johnson, e-mail: katryna.johnson@metrostate.edu received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 11, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p12 abstract artificial intelligence is increasingly used to support human judgment and decision-making. as its role expands, a deeper question emerges: can ai meaningfully contribute to human wisdom—not just by improving access to information or enhancing efficiency, but by engaging with the more profound dimensions of human understanding? while ai excels at identifying patterns and relationships, wisdom encompasses far more—it demands discernment, ethical reflection, contextual sensitivity, and the capacity to navigate competing values. this article considers how ai may support wisdom. it also examines the extent to which ai limits judgment and impairs morality. the authors propose an “ai–human synergy wisdom model (ahswm)” to examine possible roles of ai in wise decision-making. the model views humans as being the origin of wise decision-making. this paper also acknowledges the potential of ai to assist when making wise decisions when used with care. a model is developed from cognitive psychology, moral philosophy, and research in technology management. the model advocates for creating ai that does not supplant common-sense human knowledge, but instead aligns with it, enabling ai to assist in establishing moral responsibility and serving broader social ends. thus, the article aims to provide a framework for fostering sound reasoning in complex situations, while highlighting the human capacities that are essential to wisdom. keywords ai wisdom, cognitive processes, ethical decision-making, knowledge management, theoretical models, artificial intelligence, philosophical perspectives. 1. introduction generative intelligence has become a defining feature of contemporary artificial intelligence (ai). the systems that include large language models and image generators show their ability to generate new outputs by learning from extensive datasets (casacuberta, 2012). the basic idea of generative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 intelligence is to learn patterns, structures, and meanings from previous data to create new combinations that adapt to specific contexts. the technological innovation of learned adaptive synthesis mirrors a fundamental cognitive principle that humans have used for reasoning throughout history: that the persistent examination of prior knowledge leads to expertise and discovery. indeed, the generative structure of intelligence is not unique to machines. for centuries, human wisdom has been understood as a similarly generative faculty—one that draws upon accumulated experience, memory, and moral reflection to respond to complex and uncertain situations. wisdom and generative ai both involve transforming prior knowledge into new insights. wisdom achieves this through moral reasoning, emotional awareness, and consideration of social context. for example, baltes and staudinger (2000, p. 122) define wisdom as "expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of life," emphasizing its developmental and experiential foundations. their berlin wisdom paradigm identifies five core criteria of wisdom-related performance, each of which depends on the integration of learned experience into novel, contextually appropriate judgments. sternberg (2023) defines the wics model (wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized) as the process of creating and applying experience and creative insight in the interest of the common good, encompassing wisdom as well. wisdom, according to glück (2022), arises from the ongoing interaction among cognitive, affective, and motivational processes that evolve through reflective engagement with diverse life experiences. kaufman, sternberg, and roberts (2019) explain that wisdom, creativity, and intelligence function as connected abilities that help people create meaning while adapting to uncertainty and augmenting human potential. these models demonstrate that wisdom extends beyond knowledge storage, as it requires continuous interpretation and judgment activities. kaufman, sternberg, and roberts (2019) explain that wisdom, creativity, and intelligence function as connected abilities that help people create meaning while adapting to uncertainty and enriching human development. these models demonstrate that wisdom extends beyond knowledge storage, as it requires continuous interpretation and judgment activities. according to kaufman, sternberg, and roberts (2019), wisdom, along with creativity and intelligence, forms an interconnected set of abilities that help people create meaning, adapt to uncertainty, and promote human flourishing. the models present wisdom as a knowledge application rather than a knowledge storage, because it requires active interpretation and the development of judgment. systems can demonstrate wisdom. the rapid evolution of ai has given rise to a new perspective on the role of machines in social order. the work on ai has evolved from its early days of pattern detection and language processing to encompass currently sophisticated subjects, such as responsibility and judgment (ferguson, 2025). while these developments may have great potential in various areas, such as medicine or education, there is also the question of what they mean concerning human agency, interpretation authority, and the ethically responsible design of increasingly independent systems (coeckelbergh, 2020; goertzel, 2009; vallor, 2016). ai systems today do not possess the conceptual features that define wisdom, despite exhibiting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 generative capabilities. ai systems possess data processing capabilities and predictive modeling and optimization functions, which do not provide enough support for the extensive reasoning abilities that define wise decision-making. the definition of wisdom encompasses three essential elements: contextual understanding, emotional insight, moral deliberation, and reflective abilities to handle multiple priorities and uncertain outcomes (baltes & staudinger, 2000; grossmann et al., 2020a; jeste et al., 2020). the reflective ethical processes that define wisdom are absent in ai systems that produce outputs that mimic human reasoning. the system cannot comprehend social situations, manage emotions, and assess outcomes through human value systems (chukwuere, 2024; jackson, 2024; teachflow. ai, 2023). the generative nature of ai operates through mechanisms that differ fundamentally from the generative reasoning processes that define human wisdom. the field of ai ethics has expanded quickly, but wisdom remains underdeveloped in system design and governance (taddeo & floridi, 2018; vallor, 2016). the absence of wisdom in ai domains becomes most critical when ai systems operate in morally sensitive areas, including healthcare triage, automated hiring, criminal justice, and elder care. technical performance alone is insufficient in these specific settings. systems need to be evaluated based on both efficiency metrics and alignment with ethical principles and the achievement of social priorities—highly functional systems without wisdom approximation risk generating ethically inadequate and socially disruptive outcomes. this paper, therefore, explores the question of whether and how ai might support wise decision-making—not by replicating human consciousness, but by approximating the ethical and moral reasoning, perspectival awareness, and contextual sensitivity that wisdom entails. the research draws from psychological, philosophical, and technological literature to analyze theoretical models of wisdom, evaluate their applicability to ai, and develop a conceptual framework to support the development of systems that can facilitate wiser human-machine interactions. we also consider the role of human-ai collaboration, recognizing that wisdom may emerge not from artificial systems alone, but from how they extend and enhance human moral judgment in complex environments. crucially, we approach the challenge of artificial wisdom not as a binary question of possibility or impossibility, but as a design problem. moral psychology research has studied the relationship between intelligence and wisdom since ambrose (2016) and sternberg (2023). the emergence of generative ai necessitates that researchers investigate how human wisdom can be understood and partially replicated through non-human systems to develop ethical ai and enhance wisdom. 1.1 scope and structure of the study this article examines the conceptual and design foundations for developing artificial intelligence that supports informed decision-making. it builds on the distinction made in the introduction between generative intelligence and human wisdom, considering whether ai can be intentionally structured to promote context-sensitive, ethically grounded judgment. the paper reflects this question in four parts. first, it considers the core psychological and philosophical dimensions of wisdom that remain largely absent from today's ai systems. second, it highlights real-world and technical challenges that occur in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 computationally simulating wisdom, specifically issues related to context, emotion, and ethical sensitivity. third, it offers a rough outline of artificial wisdom as a proposed architecture, synthesizing insights from metacognition, moral psychology, and system ethics. this research addresses the utilization and development of ai systems that enhance human decision-making. the paper examines 1. philosophical and theoretical models of wisdom: this segment examines the limitations of wisdom often found in modern-day ai systems. 2. examination of human wisdom's role and challenges for ai: while ai excels at data processing and pattern recognition, it lacks human consciousness, true wisdom, and the ability to understand complex moral and emotional contexts, posing significant philosophical and practical challenges for creating "sage ai" and underscoring the need for human guidance and ethical frameworks to augment rather than replicate human decision-making, especially when computationally simulating wisdom. 3. outline of artificial wisdom architecture: this framework proposes a synthesis of insights from metacognition, moral psychology, and systems ethics. the overarching goal of this article is not to argue that ai can replicate human wisdom, but rather to define the conditions under which ai might support wiser human-machine collaboration. 1.2 contribution to literature this article contributes to the growing body of scholarship about how ai can be designed to reflect more than just intelligence or efficiency. it adds to current scholarship by bringing together multiple perspectives—philosophical, theoretical, psychological, and technical—to create a well-rounded understanding of what artificial wisdom might involve. rather than treating wisdom as something ai must fully replicate, the paper suggests that ai can be developed to support wiser outcomes and decision-making processes. by presenting both theoretical foundations and practical considerations, the article helps clarify what it means to think about wisdom in the context of ai. it also offers researchers and designers a clearer direction for building systems that connect with ethical values and help people make better, more thoughtful decisions in complex situations. the ai-human synergy wisdom model (ahswm) presents a new conceptual framework that integrates the latest theories on human wisdom with the emerging promise of generative ai. it shifts the ai ethics debate from risk aversion to proactively considering how ai can empower human flourishing through the cultivation of wisdom, and it conceives of an answer that leads to a design-based solution to integrate ethical and contextual factors into ai systems. this interdisciplinary synthesis contributes to our overall understanding of ai by articulating a framework for ai that incorporates human moral judgment and intuition in decision-making. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 16 2. method the study uses conceptual and analytical approaches to investigate the applicability of ai in decision-making. this is a qualitative, cross-disciplinary literature review grounded in philosophy, psychology, ai ethics, and computer science literature, aiming to develop an emergent theoretical framework. 1) extended literature review: a comprehensive review was conducted to understand the current capabilities of generative ai, their social and ethical implications, and contemporary issues in the field. this also provided background on technological advancements and the intricate philosophical and psychological aspects of human wisdom. 2) philosophical and theoretical analysis of wisdom: this involved a detailed analytical review of various theories of wisdom, encompassing prevailing psychological models (e.g., berlin wisdom paradigm, sternberg’s wics model, glück’s model) and philosophical concepts (e.g., ancient greek notions of phronesis, modern virtue ethics). central components, characteristics, and developmental paths of wisdom from these theories were identified and synthesized into dedicated “theories of wisdom” and “philosophies of wisdom” tables. this dual analysis established rigorous standards against which ai capabilities could be measured. 2.1 ethical use of ai tools the authors utilized ai tools, including copilot, gemini, and chatgpt, to generate additional research based on complex prompts and for some editing purposes. additionally, the authors submitted the paper to grammarly multiple times to ensure proper citations and to refine the grammar and syntax. to maintain transparency, grammarly indicated a similarity score of 6%. the authors ensured that all ai usage was cited appropriately, and in a few instances, grammarly indicated a similar reference. grammarly indicated a final score of 4% for ai. in every instance, the writing was either the author's original writing or ai was cited for editing. the authors critically analyzed ai responses and maintained transparency in their writing, thereby ensuring the ethical use of ai in research (alill, 2024). 3. literature review it has already been demonstrated that ai can gather and process data quickly and accurately (riserbato, 2024; synthetix, 2024; teachflow.ai, 2023). however, the larger challenge lies in transforming that data into actionable knowledge, a task the national institutes of health (nih) has been attempting to achieve (yongjun et al., 2023). ai will evolve into a tool that generates insights and supports ethical decisions about societal norms and contexts, in addition to its current role as a data analysis tool (gonzalez et al., 2021; peschl et al., 2025; wood, 2024). the translation of knowledge into wisdom requires an interdisciplinary intervention that incorporates philosophical, psychological, and technological aspects to analyze its social applicability (valor, 2024). there must be a framework in which ai systems can articulate the potential human consequences of their decisions and those of their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 17 societies (google deepmind, 2025). considering whether ai can obtain wisdom may challenge our current views of wisdom (casacuberta, 2012; tsai, 2023). ai may only attempt to simulate wisdom, as it lacks the contextual awareness and subjectivity that humans possess. additionally, ai struggles in arenas where there is no clear solution, moral gray areas exist, context is limited, and ethical decision-making is involved (davis, 2019; jeste et al., 2021; tsai, 2023). concerns about ai's ability to make sound ethical and moral decisions suggest that we consider ai a complementary tool rather than a replacement for human endeavors (wisdom center, 2025). over time, ai needs to be presented with ethical dilemmas to learn to address complex problems in a manner that reflects societal values and customs. furthermore, vallor (2024, para. 13) discusses the emerging field of machine ethics, indicating that the goal is to build “moral machines that can serve as our ethical advisers.” vallor contrasts this with the ambitions of transhumanist thinkers, who advocate for using technology to accelerate human evolution. vallor warns that such aspirations risk undermining the very capacities—such as moral reflection, meaning-making, and existential depth—that define human wisdom. in vallor’s opinion, the search for artificial wisdom must be based on a commitment to preserving, rather than supplanting, human capacity for moral knowledge about oneself. ai's capacity to handle and process large volumes of information refines human decision-making (riserbato, 2024; synthetix, 2024; teachflow. ai, 2023). these capabilities can be beneficial in addressing global issues. ai systems can analyze major problems, including healthcare and environmental issues, to provide potential solutions at a faster pace than individual human efforts (schwab, 2025; un sustainable development goals, 2025). the exclusive use of ai systems without human values creates substantial ethical issues (celluci, 2023). balancing technology and ethical responsibility is of the highest concern, and ai's ability to employ moral reasoning necessitates human involvement. prior research has also suggested that ethical considerations are one of the biggest concerns in using ai for decision-making (gilson, 2025). huffington (2024) proposes that ai can utilize our weaknesses to enhance our virtues and create more effective institutions. wood (2024) proposes that wisdom development over time can be supported by ai-driven reflection and deliberation on decision-making, rather than focusing solely on efficiency. according to graves (2021), phronesis or practical wisdom is the most promising philosophical model for developing wisdom in ai systems. phronesis differs from theoretical knowledge and technical skill because it needs sensitivity to context and moral reasoning to achieve the common good in uncertain situations. graves proposes that while machines may never achieve moral experience, they can be trained to recognize ethically relevant features of a situation and to reason through moral trade-offs using embedded virtue-oriented principles. the model promotes the development of ai systems that produce answers while also performing goal-based deliberation across multiple stakeholder interests and social consequences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 building on graves’ philosophical framework, lake’s research also highlights the inherent limitations of current ai models in achieving such practical wisdom. lake et al. (2017) identify the main weakness of current ai models as their inability to learn through flexible, structured, causal, and coherent methods, which humans use. the authors argue that ai must integrate intuitive psychology with compositional reasoning and causal inference to achieve human-like real-world adaptability and judgment. the features are essential for systems that operate in unpredictable or changing environments, as they surpass the limitations of strict rule-based systems and narrow optimization approaches. the research of lake creates a connection between statistical methods and the decision-making approaches required for socially grounded context-aware choices. simon, rieder, and branford (2024) study how ai systems obtain implicit values through their design elements, data sources, and usage environments. the authors demonstrate that all ai systems carry inherent values even though these values remain unexpressed. according to their approach, the development of artificial wisdom requires building systems that can interpret ethics, rather than providing machines with explicit ethical rules. the development of ai requires designers to create systems that can examine their underlying assumptions while learning new moral principles and maintaining beneficial relationships with diverse human viewpoints. the authors propose mechanisms that enable ai systems to reveal and challenge their internal values while adjusting them throughout time. nguyen (2025) develops this perspective by stating that artificial wisdom needs an integrative method that unites learning architectures with ethical self-monitoring and social responsiveness. nguyen suggests that we should design systems that prioritize social impact alongside long-term effects and human dignity, rather than solely focusing on task completion. ai development would transition from measuring intelligence through task performance to measuring intelligence through contributions to a shared moral world. jeste et al. (2020) indicate that people are becoming increasingly aware that wisdom encompasses more than just mathematical reasoning and data processing. the development of artificial wisdom should remain linked to human values, interpretive flexibility, and ethical oversight based on these perspectives. ai design requires immediate integration of these frameworks because ai will continue to affect significant social domains. 4. philosophical approaches to ai wisdom according to the national institutes of health (nih), humans are necessary in generating ai wisdom, as “only humans can have consciousness, autonomy, will, and a theory of mind” (jeste et al., 2020, p. 24). this special characteristic of human wisdom is closely associated with the theory of mind, which is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others (ruhl, 2023). for ai to develop a theory of mind, it would need "to have the capability to understand and remember other entities' emotions and needs and adjust their behavior based on these. this capability is like humans in social interaction" www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 (arya, 2023, para. 12). if ai were to achieve self-awareness, it could reach human-like intelligence (arya, 2023). 4.1 philosophical perspectives on ai wisdom philosophers have diverse views on how to incorporate wisdom into ai. barkol (2025a) considers the views of thinkers such as socrates, plato, and aristotle, as well as those of ai. barkol (2025b, para. 48) suggests reflecting on agentic ai as “allport lands in the digital age to participate in lively intellectual discussions, taking their towering perspectives with them.” 1). by attributing personalities to agentic ai and constructing rich prompts, ai can supply problem-solving capacities in selected philosophical systems that entertain specific propositions. building on this, kim and mejia (2024) argue that ai development should progress from mitigating harm to utilizing what is often referred to as socratic wisdom. this method makes possible the acknowledgment of ignorance and the perpetual questioning of our hypothesis of human flourishing. they argue that ai systems should promote critical thinking among users and stimulate self-reflection, rather than merely mimicking existing behavior or upholding existing biases. building on this, polizzi and harrison (2022) suggest that “cyber-wisdom” is the new “organizing framework” to facilitate users negotiating the risks and opportunities that come with digitally mediated connectivity. this “cultivation of cyber wisdom” will be informed by neo-aristotelian ideas and moral theories, such as those that center on human nature, virtue ethics, and practical wisdom. polizzi and harrison (2022, para. 1) identify four components of cyber-wisdom: “cyber-wisdom literacy, cyber-wisdom reasoning, cyber-wisdom self-reflection, [and] cyber-wisdom motivation.” taking a more critical stance, simon, rieder, and branford (2024) argue that discussions of ai wisdom must acknowledge that ai systems are always value-laden. research in philosophy and empirical science reveals that ai systems operate through human judgment because they incorporate conceptual assumptions derived from design decisions, data origins, and their social and political contexts. therefore, any effort to develop "wise" ai needs to consider not simply how values are encoded, but how they are read and negotiated in the system's outcomes. wisdom is more than making sense of values, the authors argue: it includes the capacity to reason normatively in a flexibly transparent manner, accountable to democratic standards. taddeo and floridi (2018) add value by framing ai as a locus for ethical advancement, when guided by what they call “design for values”. they call for this kind of moral prudence to be built into ai, including the ability to consider possible future threats, long-term social consequences, and the dignity of human beings. in this sense, ai wisdom is less about mimicking human cognition and more about supporting technological agency with the ethical and epistemic responsibilities that characterize wise action. their intent illustrates the need for institutional and philosophical infrastructure that aligns in such a way that ai no longer computes efficiently, but does so in ways that consider ethical consequences. these philosophical methodologies cumulatively broaden the theoretical foundation for researching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 artificial wisdom. they claim that such frameworks assume an ai system that acts wisely is one that can reflect and use reason when dealing with ethical issues and collaborate with human beings towards human flourishing, rather than one that merely reproduces human mental processes or intuitions. this new perspective will transform ai from a mere tool into a moral agent, bound within a shared ecosystem. not only truthfully, but also scrutinizing the ethics. 4.2 ai as a support system for human wisdom however, considering ai's ability to promote wisdom also requires emphasizing a human psychological quality that predates the advent of ai. classical psychological research has consistently shown that under conditions of information overload, human decision-making can become impaired in systematic and predictable ways. early gestalt theorists described such environments as producing a high degree of uncertainty and “felt discomfort,” which often leads to rigid thinking patterns, a phenomenon they termed functional fixedness or einstellung. individuals confronted with too much information tend to simplify their cognitive processing by narrowing their attentional field, reducing flexibility, and defaulting to habitual or previously learned responses. broadbent (1971) incorporated concepts from information theory to argue that cognitive overload leads to psychological stress, which in turn affects the overall functioning of the cognitive system. from a purely psychological perspective, particularly in ethical or other complex scenarios, an individual’s attention or moral judgment may diminish. therefore, ai can serve as a support system to enable humans to meaningfully apply wisdom in ethical and other contexts, allowing them to function more productively. ai has the potential to enhance ethical reasoning—not by replacing human judgment, but by clearing the cognitive space necessary for deliberation, perspective-taking, and moral reflection. ai can help transform the context of decision-making from being overwhelming and reactive to one that is reflective and informed. 5. theoretical models of ai wisdom various theoretical models have been suggested on which imitation or emulation and culture like effects might be based, and can be considered important pointers to how such systems should be modelled and designedexamining these prevalent theories, it becomes possible to speculate about what aspects are essential to wisdom, and how these aspects can inform the design of more advanced and ethical forms of ai. 5.1 models emphasizing environmental and experiential learning 4e cognition framework: the 4e cognition model (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended) posits that ai agents can acquire “cyber wisdom” through real-time interaction with their environment. (alexander, 2025; peschi et al., 2025; santos, 2023). the model emphasizes that the cultural context, social interaction, and ongoing exchange of real-world information are crucial for enabling ai to acquire context-sensitive understanding, a fundamental component of wisdom. material engagement theory (met): met posits that cognition is not limited to the mind but is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 instead embodied and environmentally embedded (iliopoulos, 2019). for ai, met proposes that wisdom is cultivated through dynamic interaction with its social and physical environment, facilitating experiential and contextual learning. similar to human beings, ai systems need to acquire knowledge from their environment to comprehend and apply it effectively, thereby increasing their understanding of both ai and its applications (malafouris, 2019). 5.2 models focused on human cognitive processes and ethics cognitive psychology integration: to instill wisdom, the cognitive psychology integration method advocates for ai to mimic human mental operations, such as memory, learning, and decision-making, particularly by integrating empathy and ethical thinking into its simulated processes (jeste et al., 2020; marsh et al., 2016; nelson et al., 2025; taylor & taylor, 2021). common model of wisdom: this model posits that wisdom consists of moral aspirations and reputational concerns, alongside perspectival meta-cognition (pmc) (grossmann et al., 2020, p. 103). for ai, this model suggests that systems ought not only to detect climate-related knowledge gaps but also to engage with different worldviews and coordinate with moral principles, such as seeking the truth, to determine how to act. it emphasizes the contextual and cultural aspects in constructing wisdom, focusing on striving for “the common good” (weststrate et al., 2016; grossmann et al., 2020b). the dreyfus model of skill acquisition: the dreyfus model comprises five levels of proficiency, ranging from novice to expert, culminating in wisdom (dreyfus & dreyfus, 1986; tsai, 2020). according to the study’s author, a key aspect of the decision model is the ability of ai to transition from rule-based to intuitive, context-driven decision-making. this progression enables ai to make informed judgments in complex situations, potentially achieving a level of wisdom comparable to that of humans. ethical ai decision-making model: this model sets out principles for developing ai systems that are fair, transparent, and accountable. it seeks to integrate human ethical values throughout the ai development process so that systems consider cultural, legal, and stakeholder factors, deal with biases, and ultimately contribute to the broader good (nguyen, 2025; prem, 2023; sinha & lakhanpal, 2024; trotta et al., 2023; tsai, 2020). integrative ethical ai model: prioritizing the idea that for ai to be wise, it needs to gain experience, understand how to deal with new situations, and be able to understand the consequences of its actions (dabis & csaki, 2024; nguyen, 2025). such a model has the advantage of preparing students to strike an appropriate balance between efficiency and effectiveness, and to integrate both practice, knowledge and ethical reasoning in every area of their legal workit believes that sage ai systems are not only capable of managing enormous datasets but also of utilizing that intellect effectively and making informed ethical decisions while adapting to changing conditions (dabis & csaki, 2024; nguyen, 2025). metacognition: ardelt’s (2004) three-component wisdom model, grounded in moral psychology, encompasses cognitive, reflective, and affective dimensions. applied to ai, metacognition presumes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 22 that genuine ai wisdom necessitates systems having the capacity to detect biases, identify logical fallacies, develop contextual methods, gain self-knowledge, and commit to ongoing growth (johnson, 2022; crowder, 2011; johnson et al., 2024; rodriquez & kannan, 2024). self-knowledge is necessary for ai to evolve from specialist knowledge to comprehensive wisdom, facilitating ethical action and transcending subjectivity (johnson et al., 2024). neurobiological model of wisdom: this model examines the cognitive and neural processes underlying human wise decision-making (bhuyan et al., 2023). it explores how ai can replicate neurobiological properties, including emotion regulation, empathy, and self-reflection. the objective is to create ai that exhibits wise and empathetic actions and human-like moral deliberation, emphasizing the blend of biological and cognitive science into intelligent ai system design to facilitate sound and moral decision-making (lee & jeste, 2019; nguyen et al., 2020). phronesis (practical wisdom): a neo-aristotelian virtue ethics framework proposed by darnell et al. (2019), phronesis integrates moral reasoning with action through a coordinated interplay of cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective, and motivational processes. for ai, phronesis recommends ideal systems capable of making good, context-dependent choices regarding values and outcomes, ultimately leading to ai that makes morally sound decisions beneficial for individual flourishing (graves, 2024; jeste et al., 2020; maher, 2016; tsai & ku, 2024). 5.2 models for knowledge organization and collaboration hierarchical knowledge representation model: this model suggests that ai wisdom can be inductively learned by structuring knowledge hierarchically, moving from specific to general (lee, 2024). this is consistent with the notion that the structure and connection of information—not the quantity of information—are crucial in generating creative solutions. this model also enables ai to recognize its knowledge limits, meaning it can request more data or human creativity if needed—a clever endeavor requiring higher-order reasoning (bhuyan et al., 2025; lee, 2024). human-ai co-creation model: this model demonstrates how human-ai collaboration can augment intelligence and creativity. by collecting information from various sources, ai enables new possibilities at every step of the creative process, thereby making creativity more inclusive and accessible (ismayilzada et al., 2024; lockhart, 2024; wu et al., 2024). ideal ai, according to this model, should be able to sort information, identify patterns, produce new work, and make incisive connections (lockhart, 2024). to provide a structured overview of these foundational theories and their implications for ai wisdom, table 1 presents a comparative analysis of the theoretical approaches to ai wisdom. this table extends beyond simple summaries, organizing each approach by its core concept of wisdom or key contribution, its primary ai relevance (i.e., how it informs ai wisdom), and its specific ethical and contextual implications for ai. this comparative framework enables the identification of what is unique about each theory's conception of wisdom and its distinctive relationship to the challenge and potential for creating ai that supports wise decisions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 table 1. theoretical approaches to ai wisdom theoretical approach core concept of wisdom / key contribution primary ai relevance ethical / contextual implications 4e cognition framework embodied, embedded, enacted, extended cognition context-sensitive ai through real-world interaction requires cultural and environmental integration cognitive psychology integration human cognitive processes: memory, learning, empathy, ethics modeling empathy and ethical reasoning wise ai requires emotional understanding common model of wisdom moral aspirations + perspectival metacognition helps ai integrate perspectives ethically ai must align with common good aims dreyfus’s skill acquisition progression from novice to expert judgment shift from rule-based to intuitive reasoning contextual experience strengthens ai judgment ethical ai decision-making model fairness, transparency, accountability ensures ai aligns with social norms ethical safeguards required throughout lifecycle hierarchical knowledge representation knowledge structured from specific to general allows ai to generalize and recognize limits recognizing limitations is key to safety human–ai co-creation model collaborative creativity and problem-solving ai enhances human creativity must include ethical awareness in outputs integrative ethical ai model experiential learning balancing efficiency and ethics supports adaptive ethical reasoning moral integrity cannot be secondary to performance material engagement theory cognition through interaction with environment supports embodied contextual learning requires situated application to avoid misalignment metacognition self-reflection and bias awareness ai monitors and adjusts reasoning bias recognition is critical for ethical use neurobiological model of emotion regulation + empathy supports compassionate ai emotion-informed reasoning aids moral judgment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 wisdom decision-making phronesis (practical wisdom) ethical reasoning + greater good orientation applies knowledge ethically in context ai must integrate emotion, cognition, and ethics note. table content generated with assistance from google gemini (7/21/2025). formatting assistance provided by chatgpt. 6. human wisdom: guiding ai through its challenges the path toward developing ai that's truly wise depends to a great extent on the insights and wisdom of human beings. the national institutes of health (nih) agrees that human judgment and intelligence should be integrated with artificial intelligence. this type of collaboration is essential, since—as the nih points out—qualities like consciousness, autonomy, free will, and an understanding of others’ thoughts and feelings are uniquely human (jeste et al., 2020, para. 24). because of that, true wisdom, grounded in these human traits, can only come from people themselves. human wisdom enables us to instruct ai systems to operate based on specific principles to inform decision-making. ai excels at sorting through large amounts of information and assisting people in navigating complex ethical and moral decisions (graves, 2024). however, it does not have a conscience or a real sense of right and wrong—and it often has a hard time dealing with gray areas (celluci, 2023)the nih highlights ai's benefits in information provision and extensive health dataset analysis, predicting that ai systems will utilize accumulated knowledge, gained experience, diverse perspectives, and multiple scenarios to produce informed decisions. gabayan (2024) documents how human beings’ know-how and experience need to be augmented in ai. celluci (2023) also documents that people and ai need to be partnered so that they can set clear ethical limits, gain a deeper understanding of the broader impacts of ai, and avoid bias. the path to actual “ai wisdom” is not straightforward, however. every phase of progress, from trying to mimic human common sense to forming sound moral decisions, is filled with practical challenges and tough open questions. human oversight remains essential to establish ethical benchmarks, monitor ai decisions for prejudice, and guide technology so that it remains compatible with our values. in its absence, the potential of ai can be undermined by failures such as mistrust, opacity, or built-in bias. table 2 discusses issues that need to be addressed while building ai wisdom. table 2. challenges in the creation of ai wisdom theoretical approach challenges or constraints 4e cognitive framework simulating embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition in ai systems requires modeling complex interactions between mind, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 body, and environment (lake, 2017; peschi et al., 2025; santos, 2023). cognitive psychology integration bridging human cognitive processes and ai algorithms requires robust modeling of higher-level psychological functions and attention to ethical issues (kapoor, 2025). common model of wisdom incorporating moral aspirations and perspectival meta-cognition into ai while maintaining reliability and ethical decision-making is challenging (grossman et al., 2020b). dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition replicating the progression from novice to expert and capturing intuitive, experiential decision-making in ai systems is difficult (tsai, 2020). ethical ai decision-making model avoiding algorithmic bias, ensuring transparency and accountability, and accommodating multicultural ethical perspectives pose implementation challenges (wood, 2024). hierarchical knowledge representation model managing complex, multi-layered knowledge structures and ensuring accurate contextual retrieval are ongoing challenges (chen, 2024). human-ai co-creation model maintaining human creativity, establishing effective collaboration, and addressing ethical and bias concerns in co-creative work are key challenges (wu et al., 2021). integrative ethical ai model integrating multiple ethical systems while ensuring transparency, accountability, and fairness remains difficult (webb, 2025). material engagement theory simulating dynamic interaction between cognition and material culture in ai systems is difficult (microsoft, 2025; peschl et al., 2025). metacognition replicating human reflective and affective dimensions and achieving depth of wisdom in ai systems presents obstacles (rodriguez & kannan, 2024). the neurobiological model of wisdom replicating neural processes, emotional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 regulation, and ethical reasoning in ai systems poses complexity (lee & jeste, 2019). phronesis aligning human and ai moral reasoning, defining the “good”, and scaling ethical decisions in real-world contexts is challenging (sullins, 2025; tsai & ku, 2024). note. formatting assistance provided by chatgpt. table content generated with assistance from google gemini (7/21/2025) 6.1 discussion of challenges ai wisdom engineering encompasses several key areas of challenge, ideally structured to capture the intellectual and moral dimensions of human life within a simulation environment. to attain superintelligence, it is not enough to process information or have access to millions of pages of data; the system must also understand context, engage in moral deliberation, and navigate the complexities of human life. this section discusses the specific theoretical and practical barriers that have to be overcome so that ai can be directed towards true wisdom. 6.2 replicating human-like cognition the precision and subtlety of human mental powers are something that most ai models cannot approximate to the necessary degree of accuracy required for robustly mimicking human cognition.  4e cognitive framework: it stresses embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition with pervasive interactions among body, mind, and world. ai systems cannot easily replicate such effects because they lack physical bodies and therefore cannot comprehend the physical influence on cognition (peschl et al., 2025; santos, 2023).  dreyfus's model of skill acquisition: replicating the human journey from novice to expert, involving intuitive decision-making and learning from experience, is a significant hurdle. ai models currently struggle to acquire knowledge through lived experience in the same way humans do, particularly in developing intuitive skills (tsai, 2020).  metacognition: ardelt's model emphasizes the combination of cognitive, reflective, and affective features. ai systems struggle to mimic this due to the high degree of self-awareness, reflection, and emotional control—characteristics uniquely human (rodriguez & kannan, 2024). 6.2 ethical and moral integration the biggest challenge lies in integrating ethics and morality into ai decision-making, which forms the foundation for developing responsible ai.  ethical ai decision-making model: to ensure that ai systems can act morally, we need to do more than address algorithmic bias; we must also incorporate transparency and diversity of ethical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 27 norms. this is, however, challenging because the ethical norms vary significantly between cultures and contexts, making it difficult to identify a universally ethical ai. (wood, 2024).  integrating moral ideals and perspectival meta-cognition into ai systems is a challenging task. it requires ai to understand and apply moral reasoning in a manner that is ethically consistent with human ethics and societal norms (grossman et al., 2020b).  phronesis: this approach requires practical wisdom and ethical decision-making. ai technologies fall short in operationalizing a socially-conceived "good," aligning human and ai moral understanding, and scaling ethical decisions for everyday use. more detailed information is necessary to implement concepts such as zubiri’s “sentient intelligence” and establish assessment criteria for moral ai (sullins, 2025; tsai & ku, 2024). 6.3 complex knowledge management effectively managing and retrieving multi-layered knowledge structures poses a distinct challenge for ai systems.  hierarchical knowledge representation model: although useful in ai wisdom research, this model struggles with complex and multi-level knowledge systems. accurate, context-dependent retrieval and integrating various types of knowledge, especially in connecting particular facts to broad ideas, still prove challenging (chen, 2024). human-ai interaction balancing human creativity with ai capabilities and ensuring meaningful collaboration is essential for co-creation models.  human-ai co-creation model: this model needs to overcome challenges such as preserving human imagination alongside ai-generated output and addressing ethical and bias issues in co-creative processes. disparate human goals, personalities, and ai procedural logic may interfere with fruitful cooperation (wu et al., 2021). neurobiological replication replicating the intricate neurocircuitry and integrating emotional regulation found in the human brain is a formidable task for ai.  neurobiological model of wisdom: developing ai systems that incorporate emotional regulation alongside the replication of complex neurocircuitry presents significant challenges. the result of this would be contingent upon a deep understanding of brain function that would allow ai to detect and account for people's emotional state, much like humans do as part of their decision-making process (lee & jeste, 2019; google deepmind, 2025). 6.4 cultural and legal diversity one of the significant issues in deploying ai globally is negotiating conflicting ethical duties in various legal and cultural traditions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 28  integrative ethical ai model: this model integrates multiple ethical models to maintain transparency, accountability, and reduce bias in ai. the extensive ethical and legal variations across regions present challenges to creating a globally authentic ethical ai system (webb, 2025). the path to achieving true ai wisdom faces many theoretical and practical challenges. key obstacles include replicating complex human cognitive processes, such as embodied cognition, intuitive decision-making, and metacognition; integrating ethical and moral reasoning aligned with diverse human values; effectively managing intricate knowledge structures; establishing genuine human-ai partnerships; replicating neurobiological emotional control mechanisms; and implementing ethical standards across various cultural and legal frameworks. these multi-faceted problems need to be resolved when and if we develop wise ai systems. 7. the synergistic enhancement of human capabilities by ai 7.1 the ai-human synergy wisdom model (ahswm) the ahswm model proposes that humans and ai can coexist in harmony, complementing each other's strengths. humans gain superior abilities, undergo personal development, exhibit creativity, and develop strength, while ai benefits from human wisdom in ethics and morality. this model integrates human judgment—rooted in consciousness, values, and contextual understanding—with the analytical and pattern-recognition strengths of ai. the ahswm's core premise is that this synergy leads to a richer, contextually informed, and morally grounded form of “wisdom” that neither humans nor machines could achieve in isolation. ultimately, ahswm describes how practical, ethical, and customized consequences are realized through human-ai cooperation. 7.2 ahswm framework: layers and components as shown in figure 1, the ai-human synergy wisdom model (ahswm) is composed of three interconnected layers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 29 figure 1. ai-human synergy wisdom model (ahswm) note. this model was generated with the assistance of microsoft copilot (2025) 1. basic capacities: this foundational layer encompasses the distinct skills of human beings and ai.  human strengths encompass cognitive and ethical abilities, including reasoning, contextual judgments, empathy, moral and ethical reasoning, contextual awareness, consciousness, values, and social sensitivity (zhang et al., 2023). human wisdom, particularly its ability to navigate complex contexts and consider future impacts, is vital for ethical decision-making (lees & young, 2020) and social sensitivity (zhang et al., 2023).  ai strengths: ai contributes through advanced data analysis, pattern recognition, and efficient task execution, enhancing creativity by identifying new relationships and yielding innovative solutions (bozkurt & aharma; microsoft, 2025).  convergence: the interplay of these strengths leads to human wisdom integration and augmented human potential. 2. mediating variables: the second level focuses on variables that decide the extent and kind of human-ai convergence. mediators have a significant impact on how humans learn, adopt, and engage with ai technology, and its implications for establishing genuine relationships are profound.  ai interplay dynamics: human trust and perception of ai (as a tool, threat, or conscious entity) directly determine the willingness to use and depend on the technology. high trust fosters greater adoption, while perceived bias or unreliability reduces it (guingrich & graziano, 2024).  knowledge management processes (kmps): knowledge management processes (kmps): organizational knowledge acquisition, retention, and dissemination capabilities are greatly facilitated by ai's processing and analyzing capacity, allowing them to work better and react in a timely fashion (leoni et al., 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 30  attitudes towards ai: an organization's or individual's perspective on ai, along with their assessment of its usefulness and ease of use, as well as their concerns about job loss and ethical issues, serves as a direct mediator for ai adoption and integration. individuals with a positive disposition towards ai are more likely to implement it at higher levels, while institutions with a negative disposition will face greater implementation barriers. (emon & khan, 2025).  ethical governance frameworks: this dimension ensures that technological advancements evolve in accordance with human values. this dimension usually includes five main elements: ethical standards and norms, which dictate respectful ai practice by fairness, transparency, and user data privacy; compliance with laws, that ai rules and global and industry-specific laws, such as gdpr and the eu ai act, are adhered to; accountability structures, assigning clear roles and responsibilities for developing and releasing ai; transparency and explainability mechanisms, that provide transparent, understandable, and traceable ai output; and ongoing monitoring and auditing, that entails ongoing ai systems testing for performance, regulation, and bias elimination and detection. by integrating these values in design, organizations can create ethical ai that preserves human values and helps to tackle social disparity. this is true for bias, transparency, accountability as well as privacy resulting in a positive social impact (emon & khan, 2025; waehlisch, 2025).  communication effectiveness: the pace, effectiveness, and simplicity of communication terms used in human-ai and human-ai-assisted tool interactions are vital for effective communication. ai improves communication by removing barriers and delivering precise information swiftly (ateeq, 2024). 3. intended outcomes: the final layer represents the desired results of the synergistic collaboration. the last step of the ai-human synergy wisdom model is the ensuing impacts of the fruits of collaboration between humans and ai. aside from being efficient, they are supposed to have a profound positive effect on the individual and society:  facilitating ethically and contextually oriented decision-making: this cooperation facilitates decisions not only based on information, but also deeply informed by moral principles, human ethics, and a profound understanding of the interconnected complexities of social and environmental issues. through the intersection of ai's analytical capacity and human wisdom, decisions become more sophisticated, ethical, and attuned to long-term well-being.  building resilient and adaptive individuals and organizations: through greater exposure to adaptive information and advanced problem-solving capability, individuals and organizations acquire the ability to anticipate, adapt to, and flourish in adversity. this partnership fosters a robust environment for learning from information, adapting plans, and being productive in dynamic circumstances.  enabling self-determination and innovation: ai's emergent relationship perception capacity and content tailoring enable humans by providing them with customized resources that are best suited to their desires and interests. human curiosity, insight, and creativity are supported with individualized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 31 teaching and ai’s capacity to perceive emerging relations, promoting more personal growth and more inventive productivity.  designing socially responsible ai systems: continuous human monitoring and ethical monitoring are integrated into the model, ensuring that ai systems are designed and implemented in a manner that serves the common good of society. this includes designing ai that is equitable, transparent, accountable, and purpose-built to preserve human values and actively counteract biases while preventing the aggravation of social injustices. 7.3 alignment with contemporary research this model also aligns with contemporary research, which has emphasized that ai integration should not only be technical but also socially engaged, psychology-based, philosophically grounded, and ethically informed. human and artificial reasoning rely on metacognition, moral reasoning, and theory of mind in solving complex social dilemmas, as proposed by grossmann et al. (2020). likewise, abrams (2024) and brey and danow (2024) hold the view that psychological and ethical theories should be incorporated when designing ai systems that are moral, fair, and inclusive. by incorporating interdisciplinary understandings into human-ai collaboration and ai design, the ahswm provides a direction toward wiser, context-sensitive, and more ethical decision-making. 8. empirical testing of wisdom in ai systems wisdom is complicated to measure, even in humans. the ability to make ethical decisions is not a static quality or a single outcome, but a developing capacity to judge ethically while understanding the context and controlling emotions. these qualities develop through time as they form from the interaction of uncertainty with conflicting values and social complexities. measuring wisdom in artificial systems involves a shift away from traditional performance measurements towards context-sensitive and integrative evaluation approaches (google deepmind, 2025). cognitive-reflective benchmarking is also an emergent approach through scenario simulation. drawing on the berlin wisdom paradigm (baltes & staudinger, 2000), the performance of ai agents can be assessed in handling simulated moral, emotional, and interpersonal conflict scenarios. these simulations would force ai to weigh numerous points of view, adopt long horizons, and balance opposing values or compromises (e.g., justice versus compassion). the activities need organized thresholds to assess the depth of moral thinking, decisional complexity, and context relevance (microsoft, 2025). the system needs to demonstrate ethical deliberation and social awareness by reasoning through ambiguous situations, rather than focusing solely on correctness. the second method utilizes entropy as a fundamental principle of both physical and information theory, which measures the uncertainty, variability, and disorder of a system. entropy functions as a universal principle that controls thermodynamics, communication systems, biological evolution, and artificial intelligence systems. entropic measurement of the system responses to inputs indicates their predictive stability and flexibility. the system has rule-based, strict responses under low entropy, but becomes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 32 more random with higher amounts of entropy (microsoft, 2025). a system needs to maintain a balanced state between adaptability through variability and structural coherence, as well as principled behavior, to demonstrate wisdom. entropy serves as an effective tool for evaluating ai systems' ability to handle complex situations, balancing disorder and rigid dogmatic behavior. recent studies have shown that preserving entropy in training enhances generalization and reasoning capacity, which is an elementary design principle for intelligent behavior rather than a diagnostic (cui et al., 2025). the third approach involves emotional calibration through inverse-u modulation. human wisdom depends on proper emotional regulation and arousal management systems. an ai's decision quality can be evaluated under differential cognitive load or emulated emotional intensity, such as noise, contradictory goals, or ambiguous stakes. if the system functions well at intermediate levels of stress and fails in extremes, as per the yerkes-dodson curve, this would be a sign of wisdom-like regulatory patterns. the ability of ai to act under stress is a test of emotional strength, though ai is not emotional. wisdom measurement must be conducted as a collaborative effort between human beings and ai. the most significant technological weakness of ai systems is their inability to exhibit emotions, despite their technological advancements. the quest for wisdom by artificial intelligence is faced with one overriding challenge: the fact that wisdom operates beyond the domain of processing and analyzing data. wisdom involves understanding emotions, as well as the power of exercising moral judgment and the capacity to comprehend intricate situations. these elements form the essential foundation that enables wisdom to develop (google deepmind, 2025). moreover, far from being a bug in human thinking, emotion is a cornerstone of our evolution. designing wise ai, therefore, is not about replicating human affect, but rather about enabling systems to scaffold human moral insight and emotional reasoning. 9. foundations: why ai’s path to wisdom requires more than data the pursuit of artificial wisdom faces the unavoidable challenge: wisdom is not just about information handling, but also about emotional understanding, ethical decision-making, and contextual knowledge (microsoft, 2025). they are not niche capabilities; they are exactly central to what makes wisdom possible. emotion is not a defect in human reasoning—it is an evolutionary success. the human brain evolved in layers: from the instinctual brainstem, to the emotion-centered limbic system, to the reflective neocortex. wisdom emerges from the integration of these systems, where emotion tempers reason and reason gives structure to feeling. ai systems, however, lack the capacity for emotional experience. they do not feel grief, joy, or moral conflict. the systems generate affective responses through pattern recognition and probabilistic modeling; however, they lack the embodied, subjective awareness that defines human empathy and ethical courage. the absence represents a fundamental conceptual limit. human emotional competence develops through personal experiences combined with cultural values and moral growth. wisdom in eldercare, trauma recovery, and conflict mediation needs professionals to create spaces for ambiguity while showing compassion and handling multiple values without simplifying into binary choices. ai www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 33 systems focus on achieving clarity, efficiency, and resolution, which can work against the deliberative process needed for wisdom. the ability to regulate emotions functions as a cognitive resource that goes beyond being a psychological trait. through emotional regulation, humans develop the ability to handle uncertain situations by postponing judgment and evaluating different viewpoints. the capabilities that ai systems find challenging to replicate are exactly these. ai systems tend to make inflexible decisions when they lack emotional calibration, often becoming overly confident in their outputs or becoming paralyzed by ambiguous situations. actual emotional competence in ai does not mean synthetic feeling. the design of such systems requires them to be aware of their context and sensitive to relationships while enabling emotionally intelligent outcomes. wisdom is often relational. the primary value of an ai system lies in its ability to support humans in reflective processes that lead to deliberate actions with increased care and consideration. the goal is not synthetic wisdom, but supportive augmentation—amplifying what is most meaningful in human judgment, rather than attempting to replicate it. 10. limitations this study is conceptual and does not include empirical testing of the ai-human synergy wisdom model. the research incorporates multiple theoretical frameworks from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science; however, it does not provide operational definitions of what “wisdom” means. the absence of consensus regarding definitions of wisdom, measurement techniques, and instantiation methods for both humans and machines makes any wisdom modeling approach difficult to apply. the paper examines the emotional and ethical aspects of wisdom primarily through western philosophical perspectives. the analysis lacks a comprehensive cultural understanding of wisdom because it fails to incorporate cross-cultural perspectives. the paper fails to address how wisdom stands as a desirable objective for artificial intelligence systems. the above is a shortcoming of the paper's current focus. although it addresses philosophical and ethical issues, it does not sufficiently address the practical matters of wisdom achievement in ai, especially in the context of current economic and institutional incentives. today's trend is that economic and institutional incentives tend to favor rapid operations and profits over ethics (openai, 2025). artificial wisdom has yet to be attained because fundamental structural modifications to ai research and governance have not been made. 11. future research future research should focus on two key areas. first, empirical studies are needed to test whether ai systems can enhance human moral reasoning in real-world contexts. for example, can ai support wiser decisions in eldercare, climate policy, or restorative justice? such studies would help determine whether ai functions as a scaffold for human wisdom or a substitute for it, and what the consequences www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 34 are. second, design research should explore how to build emotionally aware, context-sensitive ai systems that do not simulate emotion but respect its role in moral life. this includes developing architectures that can recognize when a situation requires ethical deliberation rather than optimization, and that can defer to human judgment when appropriate—participatory design methods, value-sensitive design, and human-computer interaction research offer rich resources for this work. second, future research should examine the political and institutional factors that influence the emphasis on wisdom as a design principle. what kinds of governance, funding, and accountability structures are needed to support the development of ai systems that prioritize ethical reflection over efficiency? (openai, 2025). 12. conclusion this paper argues that the pursuit of artificial wisdom is not a question of whether machines can become wise, but instead of how they can support wiser human action. wisdom is not reducible to intellect or the product of size. it is an ethical and affective ability grounded in human experience, situational awareness, and moral regard. ai systems, as they currently exist, lack the richness of emotions, the sensitivity of morals, and the perspectival quickness that wisdom entails. however, it does not render them useless in our quest for wisdom. ai systems, as they currently exist, lack the emotional depth, moral awareness, and perspectival flexibility that wisdom requires. however, this does not mean they are irrelevant to the pursuit of wisdom. ai systems designed with care enable humans to handle complex situations while considering their values and making decisions among multiple priorities. the technology enables moral reasoning by freeing up mental space, revealing concealed assumptions, and providing fresh viewpoints. future ai wisdom requires systems that augment human ethical capacities, not machines that imitate human consciousness. this will require a reframing of the way we develop, test, and certify ai, not as efficiency tools, but as partners in ethical inquiry. if ai is to aid in wisdom, it will not be because it becomes more human, but rather through the assistance it provides in making humans wiser. references abrams, z. 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(2023). wisdom: meaning, structure, types, arguments, and future concerns. curr psycholgy, 42, 15030-15051. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02816-6 wisdom’s new frontier: ai and the quest for unders katryna m. johnson1* & jack lesser1 1 metropolitan state university, department of mar abstract keywords 6.1 discussion of challenges 7.3 alignment with contemporary research advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 45 original paper the identity construction of christian women in haiti sandy larose, ph. d1 1 ginette francilus sanon received: april 21, 2025 accepted: may 22, 2025 online published: june 02, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p45 abstract identity construction is not an isolated reality; it is always the result of relationships with others and an inevitable process of socialization. the identity construction of women raises questions about their relationship with the christian religion. this study on the identity construction of christian women is situated within a constructivist and interactionist perspective of human and social relations. the objective of this article is, on the one hand, to assess the extent of christian influence in the process of identity construction; on the other hand, the research seeks to understand the dynamics of subjectivation among these women. the results of this study, conducted with 12 women of christian faiths, reveal an identity process that varies between internalization of religious values, adherence and discussion of religious values, and contestation of religious values. keywords identity, otherness, women, christianity, subjectivation 1. introduction in haiti, women are underrepresented in many social spheres, such as in positions of power (unfpa 2017). the same applies to hierarchical roles within christianity, as evidenced by the absence of women in the catholic church's hierarchy (pope, priest, cardinal, bishop, among others). even in the highest leadership positions of protestant churches, one primarily finds pastors, bishops, apostles, etc. why, if women make up the majority of the population—52% (barrère, cayemittes, & barrère, 2002)—are they still so underrepresented in this modern era that advocates for equality among human beings? indeed, this modern era seems to promote a desexualization of competence, focusing instead on human potential. contemporary societies place all individuals on an equal footing, asserting legal equality. in this sense, it is an individual's potential that grants them the ability to fulfill certain societal roles, regardless of gender as a social classification (boisclair & saint-martin, 2006; théry, 2010; quilliou-rioual, 2014). this egalitarian vision of modern societies acknowledges no barriers between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 46 individuals. however, in some religious spaces in haiti, the reality appears quite different, revealing a socialization framework that tends toward inequality. discussing socialization immediately leads to the issue of self-construction. thus, christianity in haiti appears to be a vector of identity construction. this research examines biblical and religious values both as influential elements in self-definition and as factors shaping gender identity. according to this study, the identity construction of women is shaped by their family and religious trajectories as well as individual indicators. based on interviews conducted with twelve christian women in haiti, we found that biblical and religious values serve as the foundation for the discourses these women construct about themselves. these values also engage their reflexivity, which, in many cases, leads to a process of subjectivation. this refers to a subjective process that includes reflective aspects within the women in question. as a reflexive being, an individual is capable of attributing meaning to their lived experience (kaufmann, 2004). it is through this process of subjectivation that the central issue of this article emerges. the research question is as follows: how do christian women in haiti construct their identity in relation to their religious affiliation? 2. the concept of identity the definition of identity is far from unanimous among researchers, as the concept is highly fluid and changeable. however, understanding the process of identity construction necessarily implies an inseparable relationship between the self and the social context (kunnen & bosma, 2006; barth, 1969). identity can refer to unity, permanence, similarity, uniqueness, and differentiation in relation to another, even if that other exists only symbolically (barus-michel, enriquez, & lévy 2002). in fact, an individual in search of meaning in their own existence cannot separate themselves from their relationship with others, where processes of identification and distinction take place. this dyadic nature (individual and context, identification and distinction) gives identity a dynamic quality, making it an undeniably relational phenomenon. thus, discussing identity always refers to the set of social interactions that an individual engages in, including relationships with both moral and physical persons and with institutions. in this regard, jn-francois (2011) argues that identity encompasses the entire process of socialization, an individual’s habitus, how they perceive the gaze of others, and how they integrate the roles and norms required by society and different social spaces. therefore, identity construction occurs between collective identities, shaped through socialization, and individual mechanisms (lenclud, 2008; ollivier, 2009). however, within the framework of modern societies, identity cannot be understood outside of an individualistic perspective. the individual is a singularity (martuccelli, 2010), and this singularity plays a fundamental role in how a person exists, perceives themselves, and situates themselves in relation to others. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 47 3. women in christianity to understand the influence of christianity on the identity of haitian women, one must refer to the bible. indeed, the bible defines how a believing woman should behave and exist. in other words, the bible shapes specific attitudes and behaviors in christian individuals, as illustrated in the scripture: "if anyone is in christ, he is a new creation. the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 corinthians 5:17). from this, it is understood that being "born again" grants christian individuals a whole new set of identity markers, distinguishing them from non-christians. thus, being a christian woman implies a way of being in relation to oneself and to others. to grasp the triad between identity, womanhood, and religion, two aspects must be examined: 1. the unequal relationship between men and women in haitian society and within haitian churches. 2. the enforced submission of christian women. a vast number of biblical verses advocate for gender inequality. the apostle peter reinforces this perspective when he states: "husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker vessel" (1 peter 3:7). here, gender is used to determine human potential. according to this view, a woman is weak simply because she was born female, while a man is strong by nature. it is as if this is the natural order of things—men are endowed with strength, while women are inherently weak. this unequal relationship is also present from the very origins of humanity, according to the bible. in genesis, the woman is described as a descendant of man, created from one of his ribs (genesis 2:21-22), thus granting adam a supposed superiority over eve. this notion is reinforced in paul’s letter to timothy, where he instructs his disciple to ensure women remain submissive: "a woman should learn in quietness and full submission" (1 timothy 2:11). paul justifies this order by referring to the creation story: "for adam was formed first, then eve. and adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. but women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety" (1 timothy 2:13-15). thus, according to these verses, the first woman is designated as guilty. through the biblical perspective, this guilt becomes an inherited burden for all women across generations. women must constantly seek sanctification and purification for the sin committed by eve. men, on the other hand, are fortunate for not having succumbed to the temptation first and even luckier for having been created first. it is important to note that this transgression is presented as an essentialist reality—attributed to all women, even those who never lived in the so-called garden of eden. the bible portrays this transgression as something that has spread throughout the world, shaping christian doctrine. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 48 as a result, women are commanded to submit to their husbands as they would to the lord (ephesians 5:22). they are encouraged to follow the example of sarah, who obeyed abraham and called him her lord (1 peter 3:5-6). this denies women recognition, making their human potential invisible. this constant encouragement toward submission tends to produce individuals who uncritically internalize biblical values. a woman who assimilates these values may come to define herself from a position of inferiority relative to men. the bible presents an essentialist view of women, depicting them as inherently weak and incapable of achieving perfection because they were the first to sin. in short, women are held responsible for humanity’s downfall. even king solomon, known as the wisest man in judeo-christian history, expressed a sexist and dehumanizing view of women: "i applied my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation of things, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly. i found more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. the man who pleases god will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare... out of a thousand men i have found but one upright, but not one upright woman among them all" (ecclesiastes 7:25-26, 28). it is important to recognize that religious norms influencing identity are not egalitarian between men and women (pouliot & fortin 2013). according to them, women's identities are shaped by selective memories of tradition. in this context, selective memory refers to the systematic omission of the many injustices committed against women. these selective memories reinforce the traditional roles assigned to women, such as the man being designated as the head of the household (ephesians 5:23-24). through this biblical perspective, women are often viewed primarily as:  caregivers responsible for the household and family,  wives of their husbands,  sexual partners,  subordinates,  mothers. in the bible, motherhood is depicted as a redeeming path that compensates for original sin (1 timothy 2:15). women are not portrayed as individuals who deserve intersubjective recognition or who can engage in subjectivation in the sense of the frankfurt school thinkers. christian women in haiti construct their identities as subjects within a context of gender inequality. in this perspective, it becomes evident that studying the personal identity of christian women cannot be separated from gender relations. as lipiansky, taboada-leonetti & vasquez argue in camilleri (1998), every human being is socialized according to a gendered model. gender relations, along with gender-based inequalities and male dominance, play a crucial role in the identity construction of individuals. unequal social gender relations subject women to subjugation, reducing them to their deepest being, as they are subjected to domination and discrimination. these social gender relations can lead to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 49 assimilation of preconstructed identities. this gender dynamic is structured within a binary categorization (masculine and feminine), often criticized for classifying human beings in a rigid and essentialist manner (boisclair & saint-martin 2006). this dual categorization imposes social roles that appear to be natural and, as a result, become normative frameworks—ultimately, vectors of identity. 4. the invisible woman in the bible and in haiti in haiti, women face a dual invisibilization. first, by christian religion, which assigns the primary role and superiority to men. this notion of male primacy is widely disseminated and corroborated through the bible, particularly in verses asserting that man was created first (1 timothy 2:13). consequently, men are deemed to hold the primary position in both social and religious functions. women, by contrast, are relegated to a secondary position due to the original sin as presented in the bible: "and it was not adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into transgression. but she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety" (1 timothy 2:14-15). this leads to a social reproduction where women are often assigned an inferior status. this pattern is evident in the socialization of boys and girls in haiti, where historically, education was reserved for boys while girls remained at home to perform domestic tasks. according to a 2015 study, 47% of boys were enrolled in preschool compared to 41% of girls; at the secondary level, the figures stood at 45% for boys versus 37% for girls (avocats sans frontières canada, kay fanm & office de la protection du citoyen, 2019). these statistics clearly illustrate an inequality of opportunity. however, gender equality movements have consistently advocated for equal education for boys and girls. consequently, haitian girls—who will grow into haitian women—face multiple layers of inequality, with interrelated consequences. even today, despite increased access to education, girls are not afforded the same opportunities as boys. this is reflected in the fact that key administrative positions, both in public and private sectors, have historically been dominated by haitian men. these inequalities persist both in religious and social spheres across the country. haitian law further entrenches gender inequality by failing to recognize women as equal to men under the legal framework: "the husband owes protection to his wife, and the wife owes obedience to her husband. the wife is obliged to reside with her husband wherever he deems appropriate; the husband is required to provide her with all necessities of life according to his means and status" (haitian civil code, articles 197-198). thus, christian women in haiti are doubly subjected to obedience and relegation to an inferior rank—first by christianity and second by the legal structures of their own country. given this context, it is crucial to explore how christian women define themselves and navigate their own subjectivity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 5. methodology this study takes the form of a monograph and aims to understand how haitian women define themselves in relation to biblical values. to achieve this objective, a qualitative approach was adopted, utilizing semi-structured interviews with twelve (n=12) christian women. the purpose was to examine their processes of subjectivation and identity construction. the time and location of the interviews were arranged with the participants, and each session lasted between 45 to 60 minutes. prior to recording the interviews, participants provided their consent through a consent form. the study was conducted between may and september 2020 in port-au-prince and montrouis (haiti). participants ranged in age from 22 to 48 years and were affiliated with various christian denominations, given that christianity is a multisectoral religion. for data interpretation, thematic analysis was employed, enabling the identification of social representations and judgments expressed by the respondents through an examination of discourse elements (quivy & van campenhoudh, 1995). table 1. sociodemographic profile of the participants name age marital status religion role in congregation education employment status place of residence nadia 40 single evangelical church co-leader of a choir bachelor ngo employee port-au-prince alia 29 married pentecostal regular member bachelor ngo employee saint-marc nathalia 45 single nazarene church member of the women's group professional ngo employee saint-marc cathia 28 single catholic member of a choir bachelor unemployed delmas junia 34 married jehovah’s witness regular member bachelor self-employed gressier mathania 31 married jehovah’s witness regular member bachelor private sector employee port-au-prince sophia 22 single pentecostal children's ministry leader bachelor private sector employee plaine cathiana 24 single baptist regular member bachelor unemployed plaine kéthia 35 married pentecostal sunday school instructor bachelor self-employed port-au-prince célia 48 married adventist regular member professional ngo employee port-au-prince nélia 25 single church of christ regular member bachelor ngo employee plaine claudia 30 married pentecostal member of a socio-religious group bachelor ngo employee gressier www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 51 6. survey results the role of women in marriage and religious congregations the position of women within marriage aligns with their role in religious congregations. women are consistently placed in an inferior position compared to men, in accordance with a male-dominated hierarchy that positions men as "dominant" and women as "subordinate." identity construction occurs within this framework of socialization, shaping a sense of self that is often affirmed in a state of inferiority relative to men, who are perceived as providers of protection. women are thus considered inherently weak. in this context, biblical verses asserting that "the man is the head of the woman" are frequently invoked to justify inequalities within marriage. women are often relegated to a complementary role, positioned as supporters of men rather than independent actors. some women adhere strictly to biblical teachings: "in my congregation, women do not teach. this is a task assigned to men according to the bible." (junia, 34 years old). "in the kingdom hall of jehovah’s witnesses, women do not teach; it is god's word as written in the bible." (mathania, 31 years old). "my husband is responsible for both the spiritual and material aspects of our household. when he is present, i cannot lead family prayer—it is his duty. the bible assigns this role to men. as women, we are the wives of our brothers; we are here to support our husbands in their tasks. it is as if we share the same role as our husbands. although i am not involved in politics, i would not support a female candidate for the presidency, because by being president, a woman would exercise authority over men, which contradicts biblical prescriptions." (geneviève, 31 years old). this framework of identity construction confines women to predefined roles, preventing them from attaining higher positions in social hierarchies. consequently, womanhood itself is conceptualized as belonging to the lower strata of the social order. however, some participants challenged the biblical representation of gender inequality, offering critical perspectives on its implications. "i disagree with how women are represented in the bible. they are underrepresented and rarely seen in valued social roles. to me, this narrative is constructed to serve a specific purpose. moreover, the bible recounts the history of the people of israel, and in haiti, we are attempting to transpose that history onto contemporary christians." (alia, 29 years old). "the bible was written for a specific people at a particular time. it reflects the values and norms of that era. for instance, the practice of wearing a veil was a cultural requirement at the time of the bible’s composition, but it is not necessarily relevant for contemporary women." (claudia, 30 years old). subjectivation and reflexivity it is important to note that the identity discourse portraying women in a subordinate role is not universally accepted among the twelve interviewees. while many participants adhere to biblical values, some interpret scripture in a way that grants them greater agency. these women reject a rigid, hierarchical reading of the verse stating that "man is the head of woman," instead favoring an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 interpretation that emphasizes collaboration, mutual understanding, and dialogue within marriage. their capacity for exegesis demonstrates an effort to reinterpret biblical texts in a manner that serves their interests. "i believe submission does not imply the enslavement of women, as another verse specifies that husbands must love their wives. if one loves another, they will not mistreat them. however, i do think that the cultural context of the bible’s authors influenced their writings. in other words, the individual characteristics of the authors played a role in shaping the text—though this does not negate the fact that the bible is the work of god." (nadia, 40 years old). reinforcement and contestation of female submission in religious discourse this representation of women is further reinforced by other participants who argued that submission should be understood as a form of collaboration between spouses, fostering discussion and dialogue. these women have developed their own interpretation of the biblical verse, attributing personal meaning to it. from the perspective of identity construction, this process engages the concept of subjectivation. some women have questioned the male dominance advocated by the bible. "the biblical verse stating that man is the head of the woman strengthens male dominance in haitian society. it reflects a commanding attitude in men, similar to that of a police officer or a soldier in the army." (nélia, 25 years old). several women in this study expressed their disagreement with such verses, which they perceive as promoting male authority. for them, a relationship should be based on shared responsibility between partners, which is inherent in the very concept of a "spouse." a couple's relationship should be grounded in mutuality and cordiality. cathia, the only catholic participant in the study, aligns herself with those who believe that women should be treated as equals to their husbands. she explicitly rejected the notion of female submission, advocating instead for legal and social equality. however, she acknowledged that achieving such equality is a long-term process, as it is deeply rooted in socialization. the interviews revealed a strong sense of religious belonging among the participants, highlighting their connection to their respective faith communities. as ollivier (2009) points out, an individual’s sense of belonging is shaped by collective entities. similarly, cohen-scali and guichard (2008) describe social identity as encompassing a sense of solidarity, which emerges through an individual's integration into a group. the women in this study actively embrace their christian identities. however, for most participants, this does not imply an uncritical acceptance of all aspects of their religious identity. rather, they engage in a process of selective identification, embracing only those aspects of christianity that hold personal significance. throughout the interviews, participants frequently questioned certain biblical and religious values. this critical engagement is characteristic of reflexive thought, which fosters a process of individuation in relation to collective religious norms. in this regard, "the prevailing model of social development today www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 is that of the democratic individual, free to make their own choices” (de gaulejac, 2011). however, this model remains an ideal rather than an absolute reality, as kaufmann (2014) argues. kaufmann emphasizes the increasing importance of reflexivity in contemporary life, positioning modern individuals as self-regulating agents who actively engage with social and existential issues. among these issues, religion and fundamental questions of human existence take center stage. the following excerpt from the interviews illustrates this theoretical perspective: "i believe that certain biblical verses were added to embellish certain ideas. this is particularly the case for the verse concerning female submission to men. submission should be reciprocal, depending on the situation. i have not seen many women in the bible occupying socially valued positions. women in the bible are primarily portrayed as companions to men. i noticed that the book of genesis presents women as ‘helpers’ to men, which led me to think that this implies a deficiency in men. if women represent potentiality, they cannot be reduced to subordination." (alia, 29 years old). subjectivation and the reflexive construction of religious identity overall, the interviews reveal a process of subjectivation. the central issue in identity construction lies in the human capacity to assimilate external elements into one’s own self-concept. as lenclud (2008) has already pointed out, behind every social actor, there exists an agent who is self-aware and capable of questioning external realities through interaction. this tendency toward accommodation is also evident among participants who challenge biblical verses asserting male superiority, such as “the man is the head of the woman.” according to these women, the notion of male leadership in this biblical passage does not necessarily imply male domination. this suggests that women do not outright reject religion or the authority of the holy scriptures; rather, they strive to interpret these teachings in ways that are meaningful to them. identity construction, fundamentally, is a process of meaning-making by the social actor. for some women, if submission exists within a marital relationship, it should be reciprocal between spouses. consequently, these women advocate for open communication. other participants interpret submission as a form of necessary collaboration between men and women, likening it to a question a husband might ask his wife—“can we do this?” thus, individuals develop their own interpretations of the bible and its verses. without rejecting biblical and religious values, they seek to construct meaning while maintaining coherence within their faith. christian women, therefore, appear to be individuals striving for a sense of congruence between self and religion. this identity negotiation involves two crucial stages: first, the individual constructs a personal narrative and convinces herself of its validity; second, she shares this narrative with others, attempting to persuade them as well. in the process of self-construction, the individual seeks to ascribe meaning to the values she internalizes. identity, in this sense, is a narrative process in which individuals act as the authors of their own stories. as such, their life histories maintain coherence through personal narration. in this regard, kaufmann suggests: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 54 "it is as if the modern individual dreams his life more intensely in order to construct it according to his own vision, while remaining extraordinarily attentive to ensuring that this dream is not merely an illusion, but rather something he perceives as real." (kaufmann, 2004, p. 153). individuals strive for equilibrium both in their relationship with themselves and in their interactions with others, leading to what may be termed the subjective construction of meaning. this process of assigning personal significance to biblical verses indicates that the dynamics of individuation and subjectivation among these women are inherently tied to this meaning-making process. any attempt to distinguish oneself in the process of self-definition, particularly in relation to an external other, necessarily involves a transposition of meaning that aligns with the individual’s internal perceptions and representations. this process of subjectivation, questioning, and accommodation engages the reflexive dimension of identity formation. reflexivity enables individuals to adopt a stance that diverges from collective identity norms (kaufmann, 2004; lenclud, 2008; ferraresse, 2009). indeed, haitian christian women navigate a logic of differentiation in relation to others. in this context, reflexivity emerges as a crucial element in the identity construction of christian women in haiti. finally, it is essential to recognize that identity formation is not a monolithic process (giddens, as cited in kaufmann, 2004). individual identity develops dialectically through the interplay between self and other. the study findings reveal an identity construction process characterized by three key tendencies: (1) internalization of religious values, (2) adherence to and negotiation of values, and (3) contestation of religious values. internalization of religious values an individual who adheres to collective values is not a passive or inert subject (magnan-mac kay, 2011). on the contrary, individuals engage in an active process of assimilation. in this sense, the subject chooses to embody the essence of the values with which they identify. among the women who did not question the biblical principles upheld by their congregations, their self-definition aligns with these values. this perspective can be summarized as follows: “i define myself, i accept, and i assume what my religion advocates because it suits me and corresponds to the meaning i attribute to myself.” ultimately, it is the individual who gives meaning to their choices (kaufmann, 2004). this process of internalization, therefore, serves as an expression of christian women's religious identity. thomasset (2007) argues that religious values cannot be viewed merely as pre-established and mechanically transmitted doctrines; rather, they emerge from an original system of individual interpretation. within this framework, some women embrace the idea that women are subordinate to men. while these women also view themselves as competent professionals, they position themselves after their husbands within the family structure and defer to men in religious assemblies. this perspective reflects a self-concept in which the individual assumes a supporting role to men. adherence to and discussion of religious values some participants internalize religious values yet, in certain circumstances, engage in discussions about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 them. the construction of self is subject to variations depending on specific moments, highlighting the fluidity of the identity process. from this perspective, identity appears as a fluctuating phenomenon. one participant, nathalia, aged 45, states, “the man is the head of the woman, as she was created after him.” however, this same woman believes it is entirely acceptable for a woman to wear pants, artificial hair, or do as she pleases. similarly, nadia, aged 40, has opted to wear a hat inside her church as a substitute for the traditional veil. these examples illustrate that a woman who believes in gender equality may still choose to wear a veil in church, while another woman who upholds male superiority may reject the veil, wear pants, or adopt other behaviors that could be seen as subversive from a certain standpoint. thus, this identity trajectory includes individuals who sometimes adhere to biblical and religious values, while at other times, they distinguish themselves from these values. this identity construction oscillates between adherence and contestation. contestation of religious values the study also revealed contesting discourses regarding religious norms, with several participants critically questioning certain biblical values. in these cases, the participants’ critical consciousness becomes evident. these women argue that the bible and religious values do not fully recognize women’s potential. they assert that women are capable beings who should not be viewed as subordinates. they affirm their equality with men, a sentiment that was widely shared among participants. in this context, biblical and religious values appear to clash with their reflexivity. these women explicitly stated that they do not accept submission. this aligns with manon garcia’s (2018) assertion, encapsulated in the title of her work: “one is not born submissive; one becomes so.” submission, therefore, is not a natural given, nor does it stem from psychophysiological characteristics; rather, it is the product of social construction and individual assimilation. submission emerges as a learned behavior in the relationship with others. consequently, some individuals may emancipate themselves from these normative expectations and refuse to conform. this represents the non-conformist stance adopted by these participants in response to biblical and christian religious definitions of what it means to be a woman. their identity construction, therefore, is an ongoing process—constantly being formed, unformed, and re-formed. conclusion whether values are embraced or contested, identity construction inevitably involves both the self and the other. just as the self can transcend external values, others play a crucial role in shaping self-definition (le breton, 2004, cited in magnan-mac kay, 2011). in other words, identity is constructed through a co-presence between self and others. however, it is important to recognize that individuals may, at times, distance themselves from this interplay through their capacity for individuation and subjectivation, thereby asserting their uniqueness. the identity construction of christian women is an ongoing process shaped by their relationship with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 56 others. given their collective affiliation with christianity, this study focused on the biblical values and verses that define womanhood and prescribe how a christian woman should behave. these verses, however, are heteronormative, dictating an idealized model of christian womanhood. ultimately, christian women’s identity construction is situated at the intersection of adherence to christian values and reflexivity. reflexivity enables them to question these values and attribute personal meaning to them, thereby fostering both individuation and subjectivation. references barrère m., cayemittes m. et barrère, b. (2002) (rapport préparé par). profil des femmes en haïti : résultats de l’enquête mortalité, morbidité et utilisation des services/emmus-iii 2000. calverton, maryland, usa : institut haïtien de l’enfance et orc macro. barth, f. (1969). ethnic groups and boundaries: the social organization of cultural difference. long grove: wavwland press. barus-michel j., enriquez e. et lévy, a. (2002). vocabulaire de psychosociologie: références et positions. érès. boisclair, i. et saint-martin, l. (2006). les conceptions de l’identité sexuelle, le postmodernisme et les textes littéraires. dans recherches féministes, 19(2). cohen-scali, v., & guichard, j. (2008). l’identité : perspectives développementales. dans identités et orientations, 37(3). de gaulejac, v. (2011). l’injonction d’être sujet dans la société hypermoderne : la psychanalyse et la réalisation de soi-même, 75(14), 995-1006. ferrarese, e. (2009). qu’est-ce qu’une lutte pour la reconnaissance ? réflexions sur l’antagonisme dans les théories contemporaines de la reconnaissance. dans politique et sociétés, 8(3). giddens, a. (1990). modernity and self-modernity: self and society in the late modern age. polity press. fortier, v. (2008). les incertitudes juridiques de l’identité religieuse. université de montpellier. garcia, m. (2018). on ne nait pas soumise, on le devient. flammarion. gaudet, s. et al. (2011). le rapport à la religion dans la construction identitaire des jeunes de la diaspora palestinienne au canada, 11(2), 23-43. jn-françois, l. (novembre 2011). comment devenir « je » dans un monde qui vous met hors-jeu ? le défi de la construction d’un individu-sujet chez les jeunes du bel-air (port-au-prince, haïti) de 1986 à 2006. (thèse de doctorat, université paris diderot – paris 7). kaufmann, j.-c. (2004). l’invention de soi : une théorie de l’identité. armand colin. kunnen, s. e. et bosma, h.a. (2006). le développement de l’identité: un processus relationnel et dynamique. dans l’orientation scolaire et professionnelle, 35(2). la sainte bible (1910). la ligue biblique. lenclud, g. (2008). identité et identités. dans l’homme : revue française d’anthropologie, 3-4(187-18), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 57 447-462. lipiansky, e.-m., taboada-leonetti, i. et vasquez, a. in camilleri et al. (1998). introduction à la problématique de l’identité (pp. 7-26). presses universitaires de france. magnan-mac kay, m.-o. (2011). éducation et frontières linguistiques au québec : les parcours identitaires d’étudiants universitaires issus de l’école anglaise (thèse de doctorat université laval). martuccelli, d. (2010). la société singulariste. éditions armand colin. pierre-louis, p. (2011). code civil haïtien. éditions zémès. pouliot, e. et fortin, a. (2013). identité et mémoire des chrétiens: proposition au-delà du repli identitaire. dans héritage et projet. quilliou-rioual, m. (2014). identités de genre et intervention sociales. dunod. quivy, r. et van campendhout, l. (1995).manuel de recherche en sciences sociales. dunod. théry, i. (2010). le genre : identité des personnes ou modalités des relations sociales. revue française de pédagogie. 171 : 103-117. thomasset, a. (2007). identité éthique et identité chrétienne : expérience spirituelle, pratiques sociales, et visée universelle. dans recherche de science religieuse. 1(tome 95), 7594. unfpa (2017). faits et chiffres clés sur la situation des femmes en haïti. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 133 original paper research on the internet behavior of teenagers in xi'an and its parental intervention mechanism jiahao long1 1 school of economics and management, xi'an university of posts & telecommunications, xi'an, china fund project shaanxi province college student innovation and entrepreneurship training program project (s202311664114) received: january 29, 2024 accepted: march 21, 2024 online published: april 03, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p133 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p133 abstract with the development of modern internet technology, china's internet services are playing an increasingly important role in youth theme education and youth growth and development. people's understanding of the growth and development of adolescents is limited to their physical fitness and intellectual development, and less attention is paid to the mental health of adolescents. to this end, this article plans to use a questionnaire survey method to conduct research. through the survey, we can promote the continued development of the mental health of teenagers, so that more teenagers and parents can get better communication, so that teenagers can have a better growth environment, and more good healthy growth and happy development. keywords teenagers, internet, mental health, parental intervention 1. introduction in 1969, the internet first appeared in people's vision. subsequently, the emergence of computers and mobile phones gradually made the internet and human beings gradually connected and the relationship became increasingly closer. today, the internet has become an indispensable part of people's lives. the internet is a double-edged sword. while it brings convenience to people's lives and communication, it also brings corresponding harm to young people whose mental development is still in their infancy and development period. in recent years, china has also gradually paid attention to the harmful effects of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 134 the internet on the minds of young people. by taking the parent group in xi'an as the main sample, our team investigated parents' intervention on their children's online behavior, hoping to provide parents with more effective intervention measures for their children's online behavior, in order to promote the improvement of xi’an and even the whole of china. better healthy growth of teenagers. as china's economy develops year by year, its internet base station construction level is also constantly improving. in terms of basic network resources, as of december 2022, the total number of domain names in china has reached 34.4 million, and the number of ipv6 addresses has reached 67,369. compared with december 2021, an increase of 6.8%; the number of active ipv6 users in china reached 728 million. in the information and communications industry, as of december, the total number of 5g base stations in china reached 2.31 million, accounting for 21.3% of the total number of mobile base stations, an increase of 7 percentage points from december 2021. in terms of the development of the internet of things, as of december, the total number of terminal connections on china's mobile network has reached 3.528 billion, and the number of mobile internet of things connections has reached 1.845 billion. the foundation of the internet of everything is constantly being consolidated, and the level of internet development is also constantly improving. more than one-third of primary school students begin using the internet in preschool. in today's society with an increasingly developed network environment, the time for teenagers to first contact the internet is constantly being advanced. while the internet brings space for young people to grow, it also contains many hidden dangers. including the spread of bad information on the internet, internet induced fraud, etc., will bring considerable harm to the immature minds of young people. teenagers are in the budding stage of mental growth. protecting the minds of minors and promoting the healthy mental growth of teenagers is extremely important, and it is also the direction that china has led the investigation and development in recent years. the internet can mainly bring the following three benefits to young people. 1. the internet provides young people with a new channel for knowledge and learning. currently, when china's educational resources cannot meet the demand, the internet provides a vast campus for knowledge and learning. knowledge seekers can receive higher education at any time and anywhere. this is not only beneficial to the physical and mental health development of young students, but also beneficial to the stability of families and society. 2. the internet is conducive to innovating the means and methods of ideological education for young people. by using the internet for online moral education, educators can communicate with young people on an equal footing about their true mentality as netizens. this is very important for educators to understand and accurately understand the young people's attitudes. ideas, and provides a new and fast method to carry out positive guidance and all-round communication. in addition, due to the real-time and interactive nature of network information dissemination, teenagers can interact with multiple educators at the same time, thereby increasing the frequency of ideological interaction and improving educational effectiveness. 3. expand the global vision of young middle school students and improve their overall quality. access to the internet has broadened young students' www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 135 political horizons and knowledge, thereby contributing to the formation of global consciousness among young people. similarly, through the internet, young people can develop their ability to communicate with various groups of people, read various books online, learn from analogies, and improve their own cultural literacy. the internet is a double-edged sword, with both advantages and disadvantages. as a product that provides people with entertainment during the development of the internet, mobile online games have also made many teenagers addicted to them and unable to extricate themselves. in 2021, the beijing youth legal aid and research center conducted an in-depth survey on the "phenomenon of minors being addicted to mobile online games". the survey found that the majority of minors who are addicted to mobile online games are boys, accounting for 93%. the youngest is 11 years old, and the largest proportion is between 14 and 17 years old. among the many harmful consequences, disrupting minors' daily routine and diet is the first phenomenon that parents see. the report shows that 90% of parents reported that after being addicted to online games, their children who were originally cheerful changed their temperament and became irritable and cussed. 81% of parents reported that addiction to games has had a great impact on their children's studies, and they have even dropped out of school or had to take a break from school. in addition to being alienated from classmates, friends and other peer groups around them, some children show no interest in external activities, sports, scenery, etc., are depressed and decadent, and suffer serious damage to their physical and mental health. in addition, children's eyesight has been severely reduced due to long-term playing of mobile games, irregular eating has caused minors to suffer from gastrointestinal diseases prematurely, resulting in children's body weight loss or obesity and other problems, and some minors have symptoms of depression. frequently using parents' money to buy skin props in games, saving living expenses from parents to recharge games, and having serious verbal and physical conflicts with family members due to parents' control over game playing are all related consequences of being addicted to games. 2. literature review hu (2014) believed that there is a significant positive correlation between cyber bullying and depression among adolescents, that stress plays a complete mediating role between cyber bullying and depression, and that online social support mediates the relationship between stress and depression caused by cyber bullying events. the effect of stress on adolescent depression decreases as the level of online social support increases. the internet focus editorial department (2018) believes that how to further eliminate the risks of teenagers' internet use still needs to be further promoted and guaranteed by corresponding internet services and network security regulations; in the process of teenagers' internet use, family education and guidance are relatively insufficient, and further progress is needed. improvement and improvement; the government and society need to take on various security issues for some children living together without guardians and avoid the risks they face; uneven regional development leads to imbalanced network capabilities; it is difficult to achieve a balance between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 136 teenagers' learning, entertainment and online social interaction. lin (2021) believes that parental neglect can significantly and positively predict online game addiction, and the negative predictive effect of parental neglect on hope is also moderated by gender. yuan (2021) believes that from the perspective of home-school collaboration, by strengthening cooperation between home and school, we can build professional psychological teachers and achieve effective communication between parents and teachers; carry out diversified psychological training activities to allow teachers to assist parents in helping parents teenagers can get out of their psychological misunderstandings and resolve their inner confusion in a timely manner, which can help the youth group understand the road ahead and live a good life. to sum up, with the increasing development of computer networks, while bringing convenience to young people, there are also dangers of various negative news on the internet harming young people's undeveloped minds. due to the influence of multiple factors such as the internet and family, some teenagers are on the path to internet addiction. these teenagers are gradually disconnected from society, feel alone and lonely, and go astray step by step. strengthening parents' care for their children, improving the relationship between parents and children, and dealing with parents' intervention in children's online behavior in a reasonable manner is an extremely effective way to solve youth internet problems. but at the same time, schools also need to strengthen home-school cooperation, so that teachers can assist parents in helping teenagers get out of their psychological misunderstandings; the country needs to formulate relevant laws and regulations to reasonably limit the amount of time teenagers spend online, so that more teenagers can take the initiative to contact and understand society. let young people understand the road ahead and live their lives well. 3. research content and research design 3.1 research content the purpose of this study is mainly to understand the basic situation of the internet behavior of teenagers in xi'an, including internet tools, average daily internet use time and the main purpose of internet use, etc., and to understand the basic attitude of parents towards their children's internet use. , opinions, and how parents fulfill their supervisory obligations and use their due rights to intervene and manage their children's inappropriate online behavior when their children use internet tools inappropriately, rely too much on the internet, and may encounter internet hazards. through surveys and interviews with parents, we have initially learned how parents and children solve the problem of correct and healthy access to the internet. this reflects parents' principles and attitudes towards this issue from the side, so as to further study parents' attitudes towards their children's internet access. behavioral intervention mechanisms. 3.2 research design 1) investigation method: this survey adopts the online questionnaire method in the questionnaire survey method. using the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 137 questionnaire method can retain the objectivity of our survey results and try to avoid subjective bias. the expression form and method of the online questionnaire design are all relative stable. 2) questionnaire design: this survey mainly uses the design process of questionnaire star, and imports the survey questions compiled during the organization stage (mainly including surveys of teenage parents' attitudes towards supervision of their children's online behavior, etc.) into questionnaire star's questionnaire design system to form this survey. online questionnaire is the main data source in the survey stage. the questionnaire questions were preliminarily processed, questions with similar and identical survey purposes were removed, and the questions in the questionnaire were reordered through analysis methods. 3) the specific stages of investigation and implementation: learn the theoretical knowledge of survey research; establish research topics and review literature; understand basic data analysis knowledge; and design the overall survey plan. collect various data and issue online questionnaires; comprehensively analyze and summarize data. analyze conclusions and elicit expectations and suggestions; organize relevant data, summarize and organize investigations. a total of 457 data results were collected in this online questionnaire survey. excluding some invalid questionnaires, the total sample size of the final data analysis was 404. 4. analysis of survey results 4.1 reliability analysis there is currently no unified standard for analyzing cronbach's alpha coefficient (or half coefficient), but according to the views of most scholars, if the cronbach's alpha coefficient (or half coefficient) is above 0.9, the reliability of the test or scale is very good. , between 0.8-0.9 means the reliability is good, between 0.7-0.8 means the reliability is acceptable, between 0.6-0.7 means the reliability is average, between 0.5-0.6 means the reliability is not ideal, if it is below 0.5, it is consider reformulating the questionnaire. cronbach's α coefficient value is 0.763, indicating that the questionnaire has good reliability. table 1. the following is an example cronbach'sαcoefficient standardization cronbach's α coefficient number of terms number of samples 0.663 0.763 25 404 4.2 investigation results according to the data collection results of this survey, half of the parents' children are between 12 and 15 years old. they are in the period of adolescent development. the children have many psychological www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 138 problems or sensitive issues that are gradually emerging. at the same time, they are in the internet information age. teenagers many behaviors and thoughts are highly susceptible to its influence. the questionnaire data collection results show that the age of children's first formal contact with the internet is 3-6 years old. this range accounts for 68.464% of the entire survey sample. it can be seen that the children who are officially exposed to the internet are getting younger and younger. how to guide them correctly? children's use of the internet has gradually become a compulsory course for parents. survey data shows that when children go online, leisure and entertainment account for a similar proportion as solving learning problems. at the same time, when parents are asked about the positive role of their children in using the internet, it also reflects that parents recognize the positive effects of the internet on their children's growth in many aspects. guidance and good influence. in the sample data of this survey, 85.175% of parents equipped their children with their own smartphones. when investigating parents' understanding of their children's general access to the internet, only 9.973% used mobile phones to access the internet. tablets, computers, and other general internet access methods accounted for 29.919%, 28.841%, and 31.267% respectively. this shows that as parents are familiar with the situation, fewer children are exposed to the internet world through mobile phones, and more children are exposed to the internet through tablets, computers and other hardware internet devices with more complete functions. in the contingency (cross-over) analysis results of two issues: parents are concerned about the extent to which their children spend too much time online and whether their children will develop certain symptoms when they reduce the time they spend online, parents are more concerned or do not interfere too much. the situation is more prominent, and most children show no changes in their daily internet time after reducing their daily internet time, and a very small number of children appear uneasy, behave abnormally, etc. by analyzing the age group of the teenagers in this survey and the time when they first formally came into contact with the internet, we can know that the internet has become inseparable from the current lives of teenagers, so we can further study a series of intervention measures for parents on teenagers' online behavior. by studying the main purposes of children using the internet and what positive impacts parents think that using the internet can bring to their children, we found that parents of teenagers have gradually learned and accepted that children go online mainly for relaxation and entertainment, which makes it easier to discover the purpose of teenagers going online. the relationship between the original intention of parents' intervention behavior and the comparison with the subsequent investigation of some inappropriate online behaviors of teenagers can lead to corrective methods for parents to solve the inappropriate online behaviors of teenagers. by understanding the general ways and places for children to access the internet, it provides the ways in which most teenagers use the internet, so that parents can be given some supervision suggestions or methods. the main survey content of q12-q14 in the questionnaire data is when is it more appropriate to completely relax the internet restrictions on teenagers, and then study the relationship between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 139 teenagers' online behavior and their parents' supervision and restraint behavior. the retrieved data shows that 37.62% of parents believe that their children are facing difficulties in facing the internet. yes, self-control is more difficult, and 57.18% of parents believe that it is more appropriate to completely let go of their children's restrictions on using the internet when their children are 15-18 years old. from here, we can clearly feel that young parents have no intention of completely opening up their children's internet restrictions. concerns and a series of network security risks and other issues make them uneasy about prematurely relaxing restrictions on their children's internet access. from the above survey and analysis process, we can see that when parents supervise and intervene in the online behavior of teenagers, they strongly agree that using the internet can provide good guidance and positive influence on their children's multi-faceted development, such as broadening their horizons and cultivating innovative abilities. , so it is necessary to give children a certain amount of freedom while intervening. however, there are still a small number of parents who do not pay too much attention to the issue of their children's online behavior. at the same time, there are also many parents who do not interfere too much with their children's online behavior. , parents lack an in-depth understanding of their children's daily internet use. parents of teenagers need to strengthen daily communication with their children and manage and supervise teenagers' online behavior in a reasonable and appropriate manner to ensure their safety and health. it can be concluded from the survey data that parents' intervention in their children's online behavior is mainly achieved through traditional methods such as limiting the time spent online, verbal preaching, etc. however, when it comes to effective ways of managing teenagers' online behavior that parents think are more reasonable, most parents it is hoped that communication and understanding methods such as long conversations with children will be adopted. compared with the previous comparison, it can be seen that when parents actually encounter their children's online behavior exceeding their expectations, it is difficult to correct their children's bad online behavior in the correct management way, but they still hope to use more reasonable communication methods to correct their children's bad online behavior. providing help and guidance reflects the ambivalent psychological and behavioral entanglements of parents when interfering with teenagers' online behavior. 5. suggestions and expectations 5.1 suggestions it is recommended that parents work with their children to formulate online rules and clarify online time, content and safety precautions. parents should regularly check their children's online records to understand their children's online behavior, discover problems in a timely manner, and provide guidance and correction. parents should educate their children to protect personal privacy, not to disclose personal information at will, and to avoid online fraud and harassment. parents should guide their children to use the internet correctly, avoid being addicted to bad content such as online games and online novels, and maintain a healthy lifestyle. parents should maintain good communication with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 140 their children, understand their children's mental state and needs, help their children solve problems, and enhance their children's self-protection awareness and abilities. parents should actively participate in their children's online activities, understand their children's interests and hobbies, share online resources with their children, and enhance parent-child relationships. parents should pay attention to network security issues, understand network attacks and virus prevention knowledge, and help their children establish a safe network environment. 5.2 expectations by taking the parent group in xi'an as the main sample, our team investigated teenagers' online behavior and parents' intervention in their children's online behavior, and analyzed the role and effect of parental intervention on teenagers' online behavior. we hope to provide parents with more effective intervention measures for their children's online behavior, reduce the number of teenagers who fail to grow up healthily due to bad online behavior, and promote better and healthy growth for teenagers in xi'an and even across china. references cai, y. y. (2007). research on the psychological needs of adolescent online gamers. east china normal university. (in chinese) cai, y. y., cui, l. j., & li, x. (2007). research on the psychological needs of adolescents' online gaming behavior. psychological science, 2007(01), 169-172. (in chinese) cui, l. j., & wang, x. y. (2003). review of research on the impact of the internet on adolescents' psychological development. psychological science, 2003(03), 501-503+500. (in chinese) cui, l. j., zhao, x., wu, m. z., & xu, a. h. (2006). research on the impact of internet addiction on the social development of adolescents. psychological science, 2006(01), 34-36+33.(in chinese) editorial department of this journal. (2018). survey on internet use and network security among chinese teenagers. china information security, 2018(06), 56-59. (in chinese) hu, y., fan, c. y., zhang, f. j., xie, x. c., & hao, e. h. (2014). teenagers' online bullying and depression: the role of stress and online social support. psychological development and education, 30(02), 177-184.(in chinese) lin, y., liu, q. x., yu, s., & zhou, z. k. (2021). the relationship between parental neglect and adolescent online game addiction: the mediating role of hope and the moderating role of gender. psychological development and education, 37(01), 109-119. (in chinese) peng, y., & zhou, s. j. (2007). the relationship between adolescent internet addiction, family environment, and parenting styles. chinese journal of clinical psychology, 2007(04), 418-419+439.(in chinese) yang, b. k. (2017). negative impact of internet communication on young people and preventive measures. communications world, 2017(07), 10-11. (in chinese) https://doi.org/10.12968/cypn.2017.12.10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 141 yuan, y. p. (2022). discussion on adolescent mental health issues under home-school collaboration. tianjin education, 2022(35), 4-6. (in chinese) research on the internet behavior of teenagers in abstract with the development of modern internet technology keywords table 1. the following is an example references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 193 original paper “mega-event-driven” governance: how major guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area events foster polycentric reform in sports social organizations—a practical logic based on new scenarios and business forms xinyan liu1, huiwen bai1, zhengyang li1, & binbin yan1 1 guangzhou college of commerce, guangzhou, china fund project: research on the theory and practice of coordinated development in the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area for the 15th national games and national paralympic games (project no.: 2025gba-109) received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 17, 2025 online published: november 02, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p193 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p193 abstract grounded in the theory of polycentric governance, this study constructs an “event-driven” analytical framework to systematically investigate how major sporting events in the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area region leverage newly emerged scenarios and business forms to propel the reform and innovation of sports social organizations. through an analysis of the innovative practices of the 15th national games of the people’s republic of china, and the 12th national games for persons with disabilities and 9th national special olympics games of the people’s republic of china, this research elucidates the interactive mechanism between “events, scenarios, and organizations,” aiming to provide a theoretical reference and a practical paradigm for the modernization of sports governance with chinese characteristics. keywords polycentric governance theory, “mega-event-driven” governance, mega-events, new scenarios and business forms, reform of sports social organization the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area (abbreviation:the greater bay area), as a key www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 194 national strategy, is committed to leveraging major sporting events to explore new models of regional collaborative development. in 2025, the 15th national games and the 12th national games for persons with disabilities and 9th national special olympics games (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “15th national games and para games”), jointly hosted by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region, have inaugurated a new chapter of “joint hosting and cross-border collaboration” for china’s large-scale sporting events. this innovative practice is not merely a sporting event but serves as a critical perspective for observing the modernization of regional governance with chinese characteristics. under the traditional sports governance model, sports social organizations often exist within a “strong government, weak society” structure, where their development space and professional capacities are significantly constrained. however, during the preparation and hosting of major guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region events, the emergence of a series of new scenarios and business forms is profoundly reshaping the internal and external environment of sports social organizations. 1. the analytical framework of “mega-event-driven” governance 1.1 the concept and characteristics of“mega-event-driven” governance the “mega-event-driven” governance refers to a process that leverages major events as critical catalysts and opportunities. through deliberate planning, targeted institutional design, efficient organizational empowerment, and resource integration, it aims to activate and mobilize diverse actors to actively participate in public affairs governance. this process facilitates the gradual construction of a frequently interacting, multi-party collaborative governance network, ultimately leading to the formation of a sustainable, polycentric governance structure. this model transcends one-off event organization; it uses the hosting of events to drive and foster the optimization and refinement of the broader social governance system. the “mega-event-driven” governance exhibits several distinctive core characteristics. first is scenario orientation, which entails that this model is closely integrated with specific event contexts, tailoring governance strategies and measures to the characteristics and demands of different events, thereby ensuring a high degree of alignment between governance activities and event processes. second is multi-stakeholder collaboration, emphasizing the breaking down of barriers among participating entities to achieve resource sharing, information exchange, and coordinated action, thereby forming synergies to jointly address governance challenges. finally, dynamic adaptability refers to the model's capacity to flexibly adjust governance strategies in response to the progression of events and changes in the external environment, promptly addressing new situations and problems to ensure the maximization and sustainability of governance outcomes. through the organic integration of these three core characteristics, the “mega-event-driven” governance provides new ideas and methods for modern public affairs governance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 195 1.2 the driving mechanisms of “mega-event-driven” governance the core driving mechanisms of the “mega-event-driven” governance encompass three key dimensions: institutional innovation, resource restructuring, and organisational learning. (1) institutional innovation mechanism: the hosting of events constitutes not merely the execution of activities, but rather propels a series of profound institutional reforms. these reforms encompass optimising event management systems, refining participation regulations, and establishing safety assurance mechanisms. such institutional innovations render event operations more standardised and efficient, while also providing valuable experience and models for subsequent events. (2) resource reconfiguration mechanism: the successful hosting of events attracts substantial financial investment, policy support, and widespread public attention. this concentrated allocation of scarce resources has fundamentally disrupted the existing resource dependency model, presenting unprecedented development opportunities for sports organisations. in this context, such organisations must undertake strategic adjustments and capacity building to utilise these resources more effectively and enhance their overall capabilities. (3) organisational learning mechanism: through active participation in event organisation and service delivery, sports organisations have achieved significant improvements across multiple dimensions. for instance, in cross-border collaboration, they have accumulated rich cooperative experience through close partnerships with diverse stakeholders. in professional services, delivering high-quality event support has elevated their expertise. regarding digital applications, adopting advanced technological tools has enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of event management. these capability gains have transformed sports social organisations from passive implementers into proactive, innovative key players. 1.3 the logical connections between polycentric governance theory and “mega-event-driven” governance polycentric governance theory, as a key analytical framework in the field of public administration, critiques the limitations of the single-government-centric model. it advocates that in public affairs, multiple centers of power—including government, market entities, social organizations, and citizens—should form a governance network through institutionalized cooperation, competition, and negotiation. this theory exhibits a natural affinity with sports governance, providing a theoretical lens for analyzing governance innovations in major the greater bay area events. the joint hosting of the “15th national games and para games” by the three regions serves as both a “real-world laboratory” and a “powerful catalyst” for the application of polycentric governance principles in a specific spatiotemporal context. the event itself constitutes a complex public project whose success inherently requires collaboration among diverse actors. the “mega-event-driven” governance is not a new theory parallel to polycentric governance theory, but rather a pathway for implementation and a functional mechanism of polycentric governance theory within the specific context of major events. it specifically addresses the key question of “how polycentric governance is stimulated and constructed in the chinese context.” the core connection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 196 between the two is reflected in the three driving mechanisms of institutions, resources, and learning. in summary, polycentric governance theory provides the ultimate value goal and analytical lens for studying how the joint hosting of major events by the greater bay area events promotes the reform of sports social organizations, enabling us to observe and demonstrate whether and how a diverse, equal, and collaborative governance network is formed. on the other hand, the “mega-event-driven” governance is the key explanatory variable and intermediate mechanism identified in this study—that is, major events in the greater bay area events, through their unique driving effect, powerfully trigger the reform of sports social organizations toward the polycentric governance paradigm. 2. new scenarios and business forms generated by major the greater bay area events major sporting events in the greater bay area serve as a “super testing ground”, catalysing a range of new scenarios and business models through institutional innovation, technological empowerment and industrial integration. this provides ample scope for reform and innovation within sports organisations. 2.1 the formation of institutional composite scenarios the joint hosting of the “15th national games and para games” by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region has, for the first time under the “one country, two systems” framework, created a complex and pluralistic institutional composite scenario. this scenario not only presents numerous challenges—testing the three regions’ comprehensive capabilities in policy coordination, resource integration, and execution efficiency—but also provides a rare opportunity for institutional innovation. against the backdrop of jointly hosting various competitions, the organizing committee established a “1+4” guangdong,hong kong region, and macao region liaison mechanism to ensure highly efficient collaboration characterized by “aligned communication, consensus decision-making, and synchronized implementation.” specifically, liaison meetings are held bimonthly, chief liaison officers meet biweekly, liaison officers communicate daily, and 24 joint working groups convene regularly. this high-frequency communication and coordination mechanism effectively overcomes cooperation barriers arising from different administrative systems, legal frameworks, and social management institutions. furthermore, the three regions have innovatively realized a “one policy for three regions, one rule for three regions” coordination model to address the specific needs of cross-border event organization.for instance, at the greater bay area road cycling race, athletes achieved seamless border clearance with “zero delay, zero contact, zero waiting” through a system combining radio frequency identification and gps wristbands, enabling them to pass through checkpoints at speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour. such innovations provide institutional safeguards for cross-border services within sports organisations. naturally, the event design emphasised cultural integration and symbolic unification. the emblem features overlapping petals from guangdong’s kapok flower, hong kong region’s bauhinia flower, and macao region’s lotus, spiralling into a concentric floral pattern symbolising the greater bay area’s shared origins and profound integration. the mascot draws inspiration from the chinese white dolphin, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 197 a nationally protected species common to all three regions. these cultural symbols provide a foundation for cultural recognition in regional collaboration among sports organisations. through this cooperative endeavour, guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region have not only accumulated valuable experience in event organisation and management, but also pioneered new pathways and models for deeper cooperation and institutional integration across broader domains in the future. 2.2 the emergence of new digital intelligence scenarios during the “15th national games and para games,” guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region extensively applied cutting-edge technologies to create highly digitalized new scenarios, providing clear direction for the digital transformation of sports social organizations. for instance, in the context of smart event operations, the inaugural hengqin digital sports competition integrated advanced technologies such as vr, ai, and 5g, offering six events including digital shooting, digital archery, and digital frisbee. this broke the boundaries of traditional sports and established an immersive competitive environment. at the greater bay area women's half marathon, collaboration with an ai team enabled the provision of personalized ai video services for participants, while the use of relevant platforms facilitated the intelligent recognition and downloading of 2 million event photos. the emergence of new digital sports formats, digital service platforms, and the application of intelligent technologies have charted new directions for technology application by sports social organizations, provided them with technical means to enhance service efficiency, and offered reference cases for their participation in smart city development. 2.3 development of new cross-boundary integration business models the joint hosting of the “15th national games and para games” by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region, serving as a significant platform for resource convergence, has effectively broken down barriers between sports and other industries. this initiative has catalyzed the emergence of innovative “sports+” formats and expanded the service scope of sports social organizations. the greater bay area women’s half marathon, leveraging its innovative “sports + cultural tourism” integration model, has been successfully recognized as a provincial-level exemplary case of sports consumption scenarios. centered around the theme “joy of self, leap in running, boundless beauty”, the event showcased the sports vitality of the greater bay area through distinctive category design, technology-enhanced experiences, and coordinated cultural-tourism consumption initiatives. furthermore, the event introduced the “explore zengcheng” cultural tourism package valued at 1,600 rmb, collaborating with 30 scenic spots and hotels to provide exclusive benefits. this achievement effectively integrated sporting spirit with local cultural elements, creating a synergistic fusion of sports and regional cultural identity. ganten, as the official designated drinking water brand for the event, has embarked on its first commercial collaboration with china sports lottery. together, they have launched the “let’s go to the national games” public welfare initiative, exploring a “sport + charity” model that elevates the brand's deep involvement in sporting events into a public welfare practice accessible to all. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 198 the guangzhou young men’s christian association (ymca) has meticulously organized dodgeball frisbee training camps and exchange matches, repeatedly inviting enthusiasts from various greater bay area cities to form teams and visit guangzhou, thereby building a platform for youth exchange. in august 2025, the “guangzhou unity, youth convergence, welcoming the national games” ymca dodgeball frisbee bay area exchange match was held at the guangzhou haizhu gymnasium. twelve teams comprising over 160 young participants from guangzhou, foshan, and hong kong region engaged in communication and interaction through the medium of frisbee. this “sports + education” model has enriched the service offerings of sports social organizations. table 1. new scenarios and business forms generated by major the greater bay area events scene type typical manifestations innovation value impact on sports social organisations institutional complex scenario “1+4” liaison mechanism, “three locations, three synergies” model breaking down administrative barriers to enable cross-system collaboration to obtain the opportunity to participate in high-end event operations, it is necessary to adapt to cross-cultural communication. digital intelligent scenarios digital sports competitions, ai video services, seamless border clearance advancing the digital transformation of the sports industry. it is necessary to master digital technologies and enhance digital service capabilities. cross-sector integration industry sports + tourism, sports + charity, sports + education expanding the boundaries of the sports industry to create new value opportunities. there is a need to expand the scope of services and innovate service models. 3. the impact of new scenarios and business models on sports social organizations the emergence of new scenarios and business models has profoundly impacted traditional sports organisations, presenting them with a new environment they must navigate and new rules they must adapt to. concurrently, sporting events, acting as powerful external drivers, are propelling multi-centre reforms within these organisations through various mechanisms. 3.1 institutional environment transformation and driving effects the construction of complex institutional scenarios has reshaped the institutional ecosystem of sports social organizations, bringing unprecedented challenges and development opportunities. the different administrative systems in guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region have resulted in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 199 numerous obstacles for sports social organizations when conducting cross-border activities. the actual social environment of china’s sports system reform is mainly reflected in the fact that the driving force for reform comes from external pressure, while the main bodies within the sports system lack sufficient internal motivation. by setting clear timelines and high-quality standards, the joint hosting of major events by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region has created strong pressure for reform, compelling sports social organizations to break away from their original path dependence; event-driven initiatives are not merely about transmitting pressure but also represent an empowerment process. the organizing committee’s innovative approach of “one matter across three places, one policy for three places, one regulation across three places” has established regulatory safeguards for cross-border services of sports social organizations. this institutional empowerment enables sports social organizations to assume more significant roles within polycentric governance networks; the consensus reached by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region across six key areas encompassing cross-border events, customs clearance, personnel and vehicle credentials, food safety, environmentally sustainable event management, and competition schedules has facilitated the creation of a multi-level, cross-jurisdictional collaborative governance network. this framework provides sports social organizations with opportunities to integrate into broader cooperative platforms while establishing clear parameters for their cross-border coordination. 3.2 technological environmental transformation and driving effects the emergence of digital and intelligent scenarios is placing new demands on the service models and capability structures of sports social organizations, while simultaneously providing new tools for their transformation and upgrading. for instance, many sports social organizations face significant shortcomings in areas such as professional talent and technology application, grappling with a digital divide and capability challenges. the digital empowerment of the greater bay area women's half marathon has become a defining feature of its event services, which in turn highlights the deficiencies of traditional sports social organizations in applying digital technologies. the application of new technologies driven by such events provides a means for sports social organizations to enhance their service efficiency. through participation in event services, these organizations can achieve organizational learning and capacity building in digital application. the successful hosting of the inaugural hengqin digital sports competition demonstrates the broad application prospects of digital technology in the sports field, offering a replicable model for the digital transformation of sports social organizations. 3.3 service environment transformation and driving effects the development of cross-border integrated business models has expanded the service scope of sports social organizations while also placing new demands on their service philosophies and operational models. the service range of these organizations has extended from traditional public fitness programs and event organization to new areas such as cross-border sports services, sports services for persons with disabilities, and intelligent event services. multiple case studies from the “15th national games www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 200 and national paralympic games” demonstrate that sports social organizations need to integrate emerging sports promotion with community services, youth education, and greater bay area youth exchanges, horizontally broadening their service scope to encompass sectors like public welfare, cultural tourism, and education.event services now require higher levels of specialization from sports social organizations. thet greater bay area women’s half marathon deployed 106 referees, 200 sports photographers, and 295 medical personnel, establishing 12 medical stations and 17 ambulances setting a professional benchmark for sports social organizations’ service standards. the new business models emerging from these events necessitate innovative service approaches and promote integrated development among sports social organizations. table 2. impact of new scenarios and business models on sports social organisations and event-driven effects environmental dimension traditional model changes in new scenarios and new business models “mega-event-driven” effect institutional environment reliance on a single administrative system synergy of diverse rules within institutional complexes institutional innovation and regulatory coordination technical environment traditional mode of operation digital and intelligent technologies are being widely applied. technology empowerment and capacity building service environment single-sport service a service ecosystem characterised by cross-sector integration and multi-faceted expansion service innovation and model renewal 4. the response of sports social organizations to polycentric reform confronted by the formidable impact of emerging scenarios and novel business models, alongside the intrinsic momentum catalysed by diverse sporting events, sports organisations are now proactively and resolutely initiating a comprehensive multi-centre reform process. this transformation extends not only to the strategic positioning of these bodies, prompting a reassessment and recalibration of their roles and objectives within the sports industry, but also encompasses broad enhancements to organisational capabilities. this includes optimising and strengthening multiple facets such as internal governance, resource allocation, and talent development.simultaneously, the reach of reform extends to the construction and refinement of governance networks. by enhancing collaboration with government entities, market forces, and societal actors, these organizations are establishing more open, pluralistic, and efficient governance systems. this multi-dimensional transformation enables comprehensive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 201 organizational transition and upgrading, ultimately fostering better adaptation to the development requirements of the new era. 4.1 strategic positioning: from administrative dependency to network node sports social organisations are transitioning from their traditional state of administrative dependency to becoming active nodes within a multi-centred governance network, thereby reconfiguring their role and function within the sports governance system. to better adapt to this transformation, sports social organisations must proactively integrate into the collaborative governance network of the greater bay area. by continuously innovating and optimising the delivery of public services, they can employ more flexible and efficient means to meet the increasingly diverse and personalised sporting demands within the region. concurrently, they should fully leverage the platform of sporting exchanges to strengthen interaction and cooperation among guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region, thereby effectively promoting deeper integration and development across the region. these organisations stand poised not only to become indispensable active participants within the collaborative governance framework, but also to serve as innovative providers within the public services sector and proactive catalysts in the regional integration process, making significant contributions to the prosperity and advancement of the greater bay area. 4.2 organisational capability: from traditional operations to modern governance to better adapt to the evolving demands of emerging scenarios and innovative business models, sports social organizations are undertaking comprehensive and systematic enhancements to their organizational management capabilities, striving to achieve a profound transformation from traditional operational methods toward a more efficient and scientific modern governance system. throughout this process, these organizations are actively and extensively adopting advanced digital technologies to significantly improve both the effectiveness and quality of their services.a growing number of sports social organizations are leveraging various digital platforms to efficiently manage member services, activity planning, and administrative tasks. concurrently, they are actively learning and applying big data analytics to more accurately identify and meet the public's evolving fitness needs and personalized preferences. furthermore, these organizations are committed to developing cross-sector integration capabilities. through in-depth collaboration with different fields and industries, they continue to expand the scope and depth of their services while diversifying service content and delivery formats.for instance, by participating in various sporting events, sports social organizations not only enhance their own specialization and comprehensive capabilities but also provide crucial support for the smooth execution and success of these events. this enables them to demonstrate their unique value and contributions on a broader stage. 4.3 governing networks: from closed systems to open ecosystems sports social organisations are progressively moving away from their historically relatively closed and isolated operational systems, actively advancing towards a more open, diverse and collaborative governance ecosystem. in this process, sports social organisations are committed to establishing a new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 202 framework for collaborative governance involving multiple stakeholders—including government bodies, enterprises, communities, and other relevant stakeholders—to achieve the effective integration and efficient utilisation of resources across all parties. to better realise this objective, these organisations are not only optimising their internal structures but also actively expanding externally. they are building close collaborative networks with diverse stakeholders such as government bodies, enterprises, and communities, fostering synergistic efforts through multi-party coordination. moreover, sports social organisations have made concerted efforts in resource integration, actively establishing platforms for resource consolidation. this aims to enhance their capacity for resource mobilisation, ensuring that diverse resources are allocated rationally and utilised efficiently. through such platforms, these organisations can better pool resources from various stakeholders, fostering an environment of resource sharing and complementary strengths. simultaneously, sports social organizations are focusing on the holistic development of the region by actively promoting the establishment of regional integration cooperation mechanisms. by strengthening cooperation and exchanges with various stakeholders within the region, they are breaking down geographical barriers and facilitating resource sharing and complementarity of advantages. this contributes to the coordinated development and common prosperity of regional sports initiatives. these measures not only help enhance the governance capacity and service levels of the sports social organizations themselves but also lay a solid foundation for promoting the healthy development of the entire sports sector. 5. the practical logic and paradigm implications of “mega-event-driven” governance 5.1 the intrinsic logic of “mega-event-driven” governance the “mega-event-driven” governance follows a clear practical logic, demonstrating an evolutionary path from external drivers to endogenous development.the governance operates through a “pressure-empowerment-innovation” transmission mechanism. major sporting events serve as strong external pressures that compel reforms within traditional sports governance systems. simultaneously, these events provide empowerment support to sports social organizations through institutional innovation and resource allocation. under the dual effects of pressure and empowerment, sports social organizations ultimately achieve innovative breakthroughs. this logic has been fully manifested in the practice of major sporting events across the guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region. the governance demonstrates an interactive logic of “scenario-organization-institution”. the novel scenarios and innovative formats created by sporting events impose new demands on sports social organizations. these organizations, in turn, undergo internal reforms to adapt to these emerging scenarios. the experience gained from organizational reforms is then institutionalized, crystallizing into long-term governance mechanisms. this dynamic interplay propels the continuous evolution of the sports governance system.concurrently, the governance follows an evolutionary logic of “learning-innovation-diffusion”. through their involvement in event services, sports social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 203 organizations engage in organizational learning and capacity building. building upon this learning foundation, they proceed with organizational and model innovation. successful innovative practices are subsequently disseminated across broader domains through organizational networks. 5.2 theoretical contributions of“mega-event-driven” governance the“mega-event-driven”governance paradigm holds significant practical value while offering fresh insights into public governance theory. this framework enriches multi-centred governance theory by revealing how external drivers can activate the agency of diverse stakeholders in governance within china's distinctive institutional environment. it further expands policy experimentation theory by demonstrating how major sporting events serve as testing grounds for institutional innovation and policy breakthroughs. concurrently, the “mega-event-driven” governance paradigm deepens resource dependency theory by revealing how organisations strategically reconfigure resources to reduce external dependence and enhance autonomy. 5.3 practical implications of “mega-event-driven” governance the “mega-event-driven” governance, as a distinctive and effective model within china's modernisation of sports administration, offers crucial practical insights and invaluable experience for the modern transformation of the chinese sports governance system. under this paradigm, institutional innovation occupies a foundational position, serving as both a prerequisite and fundamental safeguard for advancing the modernisation of sports governance. through the continuous refinement and enhancement of relevant regulations and policies, a robust institutional foundation is established to ensure the healthy development of the sports sector. concurrently, organisational empowerment is regarded as a pivotal element in achieving modernisation of sports governance. by enhancing the functions and effectiveness of various sports organisations, their capacity for self-management, self-service and self-development is strengthened, thereby ensuring the smooth operation and efficient functioning of the sports governance system. moreover, digital empowerment serves as an indispensable toolkit. leveraging the formidable capabilities of modern information technology, it integrates intelligent and informatised elements into sports governance. this significantly enhances the precision, efficiency, and foresight of governance, powerfully propelling the modernisation of sports governance with chinese characteristics. 6. conclusions and outlook the co-hosting of the “15th national games and national paralympic games” by guangdong, hong kong region, and macao region under the “mega-event-driven” governance model provides a vivid case study for advancing the modernization of sports governance with chinese characteristics. this paradigm, through the effective integration of institutional innovation, resource restructuring, and organizational empowerment, has successfully activated the vitality of sports social organizations and established a polycentric governance structure characterized by synergistic interaction among government, market, and society.the new scenarios and business models generated by the event have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 204 created a dual driving mechanism of “environmental pressure-resource empowerment” for sports social organizations. this has propelled their strategic transformation from “administrative dependency” to “network nodes,” enhanced their capacities from “traditional operations” to “modern governance,” and facilitated their structural evolution from “closed systems” to “open ecosystems.” this process has not only accelerated the development of sports social organizations but also enriched both the theory and practice of sports governance with chinese characteristics. with the continuous refinement and promotion of this paradigm, the sports governance system with chinese characteristics will demonstrate even greater vitality and dynamism. following the conclusion of the 15th national games and national paralympic games, the innovative mechanisms and capacities developed during the events are expected to be institutionalized as long-term governance arrangements. this will accumulate 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(2024). study on the influence mechanism of guangdong-hong kong-macao national games on the development of sports industry in guangdong province. scientific journal of economics and management research, 6(12), 48-60. https://doi.org/10.54691/va0qkn93 dai, y. d., zhong, z. q., huang, c. h., li, y. m., zhou, j. j., & he, d. j. (2024). study on the impact of the guangdong-hong kong-macao national games on enhancing city branding in the greater bay area. academic journal of management and social sciences, 9(3), 56-61. https://doi.org/10.54097/3zw0g504. dai, y. d., zhong, z. q., huang, c. h., li, y. m., zhou, j. j., & he, d. j. (2024). study on the regional synergistic development of the guangdong-hong kong-macao national games and mass sports events in guangdong province. frontiers in economics and management, 5(12), 232-242. https://doi.org/10.6981/fem.202412_5(12).0025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 205 yoseph, m. (2025). measuring the perceived social impact of sport organizations’ csr: a longitudinal study of the public benefits on social media. sport marketing quarterly, 34(2), 156-172. https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.342.062025.05 references microsoft word assc-v4n2-p19 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 19 original paper on the effectiveness of government policy on gender based violence in maryland county, harper city, halfman station case study of republic of liberia agnes b. greene, king jawol1* & adetunde, i. a.1 1 college of management and administration, w. v. s. tubman university, harper, maryland county, republic of liberia * agnes b. greene, king jawol, college of management and administration, w. v. s. tubman university, harper, maryland county, republic of liberia received: march 16, 2022 accepted: april 20, 2022 online published: april 18, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p19 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p19 abstract this paper presents the numerical analysis of the effectiveness of government policy on gender based violence in harper city, maryland county. data used were collected from the case study area and was analysed. the study revealed that there is a great effect on the government policy on gender based violence in the case study of this article. keywords gender based violence, halfman station, harper city 1. introduction gender based violence means all acts of gender‐based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. www. http://eige.europa.eu/gender-based-violence/what-is-gender-based-violence (accessed on 19, feb. 2016) according to the united nations’ office of the high commissioner for human rights’ committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (cedaw); the term “gender-based violence” refers to violence that targets individuals or groups on the basis of their gender. it was further explained as “violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. disproportionately” (http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2004/09/01/definitions-sexual-and-gender-based-violence) this gender violence happens to women/ladies/ girls (females) because men/boys/ capitalized on the holy book of the christians that referred to women as a weaker vessel (i peter 3: 7). even right from the creation it was said by the holy books that woman (eve) was created from the ribs of adam, gen 2: 22. irrespective of this belief, we still have women of whom were values and valour, among them are: deborah the first prophetess (judges 5: 1-end), esther, (esther 4:16), ruth, abigail, elizabeth and mary in the holy book of christian “bible” nightingale, queen elizabeth of england just to mention but few women of valour it is the saying that behind any successful man there is a woman, female should not be treated anyhow, even though the wise men/women, men and women of old said the greatest evil in life that man can never be avoided is woman. with all these saying women should not be looked at as or treated as vulnerable object, because of the fragile nature god has created feminine. 2. origin on gender violence the origin of gender violence is as old as creation. god said in gen 2:18 -19 that woman/wife should be help mate to man/husband. but an africa culture has seen woman as slave when they were married. husband at times maltreated the wife because of the dowry they pay for marrying a woman. some men see the wife as boxing punches, maltreated them anyhow at any time. 2.1 types of violence domestic violence: domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. it includes physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and emotional abuse. the frequency and severity of domestic violence can vary dramatically; however, the one constant component of domestic violence is one partner’s consistent efforts to maintain power and control over the other. domestic violence is an epidemic affecting individual in every community, regardless of age, economic status, sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, or nationality. it is often accompanied by emotionally abusive and controlling behavior that is only a fraction of a systematic pattern of dominance and control. domestic violence can result in physical injury, psychological trauma, and in severe cases, even death. the devastating physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of domestic violence can cross generations and last a lifetime. (http://www.ncadv.org/need-help/what-is-domestic-violence, accessed on 24th feb, 2016) child abuse (child maltreatment): is when a parent or caregiver, whether through action or failing to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child. there are many forms of child maltreatment, including neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, and emotional abuse. (https://www.childhelp.org/child-abuse/) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. sexual violence: sexual violence includes sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. it refers to any act, attempt, or threat of a sexual nature that result, or is likely to result in, physical, psychological and emotional harm. sexual violence is a form of gender-based violence. “violence against women shall be understood to encompass, but not be limited to, the following: physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation; physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution; physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the state, wherever it occurs.” 3. sexual and gender-based violence there are 5 types of sexual and gender-based violence; ● sexual violence, ● physical violence, ● emotional and psychological violence, ● harmful traditional practices and ● socio-economic violence. 3.1 sexual violence rape and marital rape: the invasion of any part of the body of the victim or of the perpetrator with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the body by force, coercion, taking advantage of a coercive environment, or against a person incapable of giving genuine consent (international criminal court). child sexual abuse, defilement and incest: any act where a child is used for sexual gratification. any sexual relations/interaction with a child. forced sodomy/anal rape: forced/coerced anal intercourse, usually male-to-male or maleto-female. attempted rape or attempted forced sodomy/anal rape: attempted forced/coerced intercourse; no penetration. sexual abuse: actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, including inappropriate touching, by force or under unequal or coercive conditions. sexual exploitation: any abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust for sexual purposes; this includes profiting momentarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another; sexual exploitation is one of the purposes of trafficking in persons (performing in a sexual manner, forced undressing and/or nakedness, coerced marriage, forced childbearing, engagement in pornography or prostitution, sexual extortion for the granting of goods, services, assistance benefits, sexual slavery). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. forced prostitution (also referred to as sexual exploitation): forced/coerced sex trade in exchange for material resources, services and assistance, usually targeting highly vulnerable women or girls unable to meet basic human needs for themselves and/or their children. sexual harassment: any unwelcome, usually repeated and unreciprocated sexual advance, unsolicited sexual attention, demand for sexual access or favours, sexual innuendo or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, display or pornographic material, when it interferes with work, is made a condition of employment or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. sexual violence as a weapon of war and torture: crimes against humanity of a sexual nature, including rape, sexual slavery, forced abortion or sterilization or any other forms to prevent birth, forced pregnancy, forced delivery, and forced child rearing, among others. sexual violence as a form of torture is a defined as any act or threat of a sexual nature by which severe mental or physical pain or suffering is caused to obtain information, confession of punishment from the victim or third person, intimidate her or a third person or to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. 3.2 physical violence physical assault: beating, punching, kicking, biting, burning, maiming or killing, with or without weapons; often in combinations with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence. trafficking, slavery: selling and/or trading in human beings for forced sexual activities, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slaver, servitude or removal of organs. 4. emotional and psychological violence abuse/humiliation: non-sexual verbal abuse that is insulting, degrading, demeaning; compelling the victim/survivor to engage in humiliating acts, whether in public or private; denying basic expenses for family survival. confinement: isolating a person from friends/family, restricting movements, deprivation of liberty or obstruction/restriction of the right to free movement. 4.1 harmful traditional practices female genital mutilation (fgm): cutting of genital organs for non-medical reasons, usually done at a young age; ranges from partial or total cutting, removal of genitals stitching whether for cultural or non-therapeutic reasons; often undergone several times during life-time, i.e., after delivery or if a girl/woman has been victim of sexual assault. early marriage: arranged marriage under the age of legal consent (sexual intercourse in such relationships constitutes statutory rape, as the girls are not legally competent to agree to such unions). forced marriage: arranged marriage against the victim’s/survivor’s wishes, which is exposed to violent and/or abusive consequences if he/she refuses to comply. honour killing and maiming: maiming or murdering a woman or a girl as a punishment for acts considered inappropriate with regards to her gender, and which are believed to bring shame on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. family or community (e.g., pouring acid on a young woman’s face as punishment for bringing shame to the family for attempting to marry someone not chosen by the family), or to preserve the honour of the family (i.e., as a redemption for an offence committed by a male member of the family). infanticide and/or neglect: killing, withholding food from, and/or neglecting female children because they are considered to be of less value in a society than male children. denial of education for girls or women: removing girls from school, prohibiting or obstructing access of girls and women to basic, technical, professional or scientific knowledge. 4.2 socio-economic violence discrimination and/or denial of opportunities, services: exclusion, denial of access to education, health assistance or remunerated employment; denial of property rights. social exclusion/ostracism based on sexual orientation: denial of access to services or social benefits, prevention of the exercise and enjoyment of civil, social, economic, cultural and political rights, imposition of criminal penalties, discriminatory practices or physical and psychological harm and tolerance of discriminatory practices, public or private hostility to homosexuals, transsexuals or transvestites. 4.3 theoretical literature review the governments of all countries are busy trying to stop or eradicate gender-based violence. this matter had been of great concern to the international world. due to these gender-based violence across the globe several programs have been initiated across the continents. human rights and gender based violence (constitution of the republic of liberia, section 4.1.6 says that): this section focuses on promoting and protecting human rights by implementing relevant national laws and externally approved standards and preventing and responding to gender-based violence. it calls for: integrating international and regional human rights instruments: ensuring the domestication of all international, regional, and sub-regional instruments and reporting on the crc, convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimina-tion against women (cedaw), the african union protocol on the rights of women, and commitments made on ecowas gender policy. revising existing laws and enacting new laws to harmonize both customary and civil laws with international human rights standards. increasing public awareness and institutional knowledge of human rights: translating and writing ‘popular versions’ of human rights instruments, relevant laws, and constitutional provisions in user-friendly language to disseminate and raise awareness, especially in rural areas. providing gender education and human rights training for all¬ government, civil society, and other organizations, with a focus on law enforcement officers and the judiciary. preventing gender-based violence (gbv): www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. promoting, enacting and implementing laws against all forms of gbv, including but not limited to rape, sexual exploitation and abuse, domestic violence, early and forced marriage, and human trafficking. enhancing the capacity of law enforcement institutions and health care providers to effectively prevent and respond to gbv. conducting gender sensitization and public awareness campaigns on gbv targeting the entire society, including men, women, youth, boys and girls, and educational institutions. enacting and enforcing laws against sexual harassment and abuse in all workplaces. responding to gender-based violence: formulating and implementing welfare schemes or programs to rehabilitate and reintegrate gbv survivors. establishing comprehensive shelters for gbv survivors and providing psychosocial support facilities and programs, including economic empowerment programs for women and girls. establishing partnerships among the public and private sectors, civil society, local communities, those in leadership positions, and other institutions such as the media to implement integrated gbv programs that include counselling, legal advice, medical treatment, and protection. designing programs aimed at addressing perpetrators of gbv and other forms of violence against women and children. monitoring and addressing gender-based violence holistically: regularly conducting investigative research, monitoring and mapping to assess the situation of gbv in the country. coordinating, facilitating and monitoring the implementation of the national gbv plan of action. 4.4 the national gender policy in liberia the results of the 2007 demographic and health survey provided the following estimations for gbv in the country. for women aged between 15 and 49, 44% have experienced physical violence since they were 15 years old, 29% reported physical violence in the past 12 months and 17.6% sexual violence in their lifetime. for women aged between 25 and 39, this rate increased to 22% of those experiencing sexual violence; 32% reported it coming from their current husbands or partner; 10.2% from their current or former boyfriend; and 8.1% from a police or soldier. although all forms of gbv need to be addressed, specific targeted action must be prioritized for sexual violence and exploitation that is perpetrated against young children, including boys. in order to build a more effective, responsive and supportive legal, social and political environment, including all aspects of protection and access to justice, health care and education, measures need to be put in place for the prevention of and response to gbv including working towards eliminating it altogether. there are a lot of policies, groups of women, government and non-governmental organizations, societies formed to fight for equal rights. 4.5 empirical literature review at the general assembly of the united nations in the year 1993 at geneva, defined “gender based violence (gbv)” “as: … any act of violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life” under the theme “the united nations declaration on the elimination violence against women”. with reference to cari clark in 2003, in his working paper #17, titled gender-based violence research initiatives in refugee, internally displaced, and post-conflict settings: lessons learned; he defined gender-based violence (gbv) as any harm that is rooted in social roles and inequitable power structures. women and children are over-represented among those with less power and thus are more likely to experience gbv. even so, research among male victims of gbv is seriously lacking, especially in conflict-affected populations. the parameters of gbv are more clearly defined for women and usually in terms of violence against women. according to harding (1978) who talked about victimology as an act that goes against the empowerment philosophy that underpins feminist action. these acts of violence are mainly perpetrated against women. high magnitudes of violence were reported as a direct consequence of the liberian civil war, wherein 49% of the 205 female research participants reported at least one act of physical or sexual violence by a soldier or fighter as recorded by swiss et al. (1998). patricia kameri-mbote, (2002), looked at gbv from cultural point of that cultural views on the role of women within a family unit may also have a negative impact on women’s, this is another form of victimization. in many african countries, for example, a lack of acknowledgment of women as heads of households has led to discrimination in resource allocation and inheritance laws. violence against women (vaw) occurs in all societies and at any stage of a woman's lifecycle. it can even occur before a girl is born through sexselective abortion and menace women throughout their old age. some types of vaw such as sexual violence and domestic violence, occur in all cultures, although they are more common in some than others (poudel, 2011). the consequences of gbv are pervasive, affecting the health and well-being of survivors, their families, and their societies. (heise et al., 1999; heise et al., 1994). the international community has acknowledged the impact of gbv on women’s rights, development, and peace through the 1994 international conference on population and development in cairo and the 1995 world conference on women in beijing (un, 1994; un, 1995) which stated thus “advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women's ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population and development-related programmes” (un 1994, principle 4). despite very progressive policy and legal frameworks on gender equality, liberia is struggling with endemic violence against women and children. many groups of women, government and non-governmental organisations periodically embark on various anti gender-based violence campaigns, the culture of violence stubbornly persists for various historical, social, economic, political and cultural reasons (lamb, 2006; burton, leoschut and popovac, 2011; women’s leadership centre, 2010). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. 4.6 analysis and discussion of results violence against women (vaw) occurs in all societies and at any stage of a woman's lifecycle. it can even occur before a girl is born through sexselective abortion and menace women throughout their old age. some types of vaw such as sexual violence and domestic violence, occur in all cultures, although they are more common in some than others (poudel, 2011). gender-based violence is prevalent globally. it occurs in many forms, as discussed in the main body of this work these including intimate partner violence, rape and coerced sex, child sexual abuse, and human trafficking. such forms of gender-based violence are a significant risk factor for poor health, impacting on individuals’ physical, sexual and psychological health, as well as their social and economic well-being. the investigation was very well received, and the community female members interrogated/respondents reported that the questionnaire with the focus group discussion has increased their motivation and capacity to violence against genders. still, participants highlighted the need for a more integrated training and awareness on violence against genders. table 1. percentage distribution of sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents characteristics age number percentage (%) 15 -19 27 11.3% 20-24 43 18.1% 25-29 42 17.7% 30-34 43 18.1% 35-39 34 14.3% 40-44 36 15.1% 45-49 12 5.0% total 237 100% marital status married 48 20.2% never married 77 32.5% divorced 31 13.1% separated 69 29.1% widowed 12 05.1% total 237 100% educational background basic 97 40.9% middle/jss 52 21.9% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. secondary 38 16% tertiary 22 9.2% none 28 11.8% total 237 100% what job do you do student 58 24.5% clerical 17 07.2% business 28 11.8% farmer 15 06.3% public servant 37 15.6% none 82 34.5% total 237 100% how many children do you have? 1 – 3 127 76% 4 – 5 32 19% 6 – 9 8 4.8% 10 – 14 0 0 15 – 18 0 0 total 167 100% table 2. percentage age distribution of focus group discussion of the respondents characteristics age number percentage (%) 15 – 24 70 29.5% 25 – 34 85 35.8% 35 – 44 70 29.5% 45 above 12 5.0% total 237 100% table 3. sex statistics distribution of maryland county county/district male female total gwelekpoken 5,370 4,690 10,060 harper 19,591 18,433 38,024 karluway #1 4,501 3,993 8,494 karluway #2 9,429 7,730 17,159 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. pleebo/sodoken 21,884 21,339 43,223 whojay 4,761 4,160 8,921 nyorken 5,319 4738 10,057 total population of maryland 70,855 65,083 135,838 source: (ligist) office for 2008 survey harper, maryland county. table 4. offences distribution on gender based violence from december, january and february report harper, maryland co no. wacps unit case no. date reported place occurred victim sex victim age offender sex offender age offence nationality statusssss 1. maryland 1 12/29/15 green street f 16 m 18 simple assault liberia resolved 2. maryland 2 12/31/15 jacksonville f 18 m 19 simple assault liberia resolved 3. maryland 3 1/04/16 whole graway f 19 m 28 simple assault liberia resolve 4. maryland 4 1/07/16 old kru town f 41 m 36 aggravated assault liberia resolved 5. maryland 5 1/08/16 middle-cess f 20 m 19 simple assault liberia resolve 6. maryland 6 1/22/16 hoffman station f 14 m 20 disorderly conduct liberian resolve 7. maryland 7 1/30/16 pleebo f 13 m 38 persistent non support liberia resolve 8. maryland 8 2/04/16 pleebo f 30 m 34 persistent non support liberia court 9. maryland 9 2/10/16 pleebo f 37 m 27 sample assault liberia court 10. maryland 10 2/19/16 pleebo f 19 m 35 attempted rape liberia pending 11. maryland 11 2/20/16 pleebo f 41 m 19 rape liberia pending source: child protection office, harper maryland county. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. 5. discussions of the analysis the major findings from this research work are based on the questionnaire circulated among the respondents. these major findings are summarized below: table 1 depicts the percentage distribution of socio – demographic characteristics of the respondents (age, marital status, education backgrounds, occupations and the number of children each of the respondents is having. table 2 deals with percentage age distribution of focus group discussion for the respondents. table 3 reveals sex statistics distribution in maryland county, while table 4 emphasizes on the offences distribution of gender based violence in harper, maryland, republic of liberia. knowledge of gbv majority of the female (70%) that they were not been violated while 10% said they have been violated and 20% do not know of any in their life time. with reference to question 2 on the appendix b, 98% indicated that they never reported case (s) of violation in their community, while 10% indicated they have reported and 10% proved they do not know. in line with question 3 of the appendix, 100% cleared that do not know of anyone been violated before. 99% responded that they do not know of any government policy on gbv, while 1% responded that they are aware of government policies, this is also in line with question number 4 that says that are you aware of government policies on gbv. 5.1 awareness of the cases of gbv 98% supported that cases of gbv were not reported in their community, 1% responded that the case(s) was/were reported and 1% signified that they were not aware or do not know. the same result was indicated for question, which stated that “do you know of any organization/establishment fighting against gbv in your community?” response to the question, 99% choose “no” answer for the question. questions 11 and 12 have the same results of 99.5% for “no” and 1% for “yes” 100% supported that there should be benefit from the government to be giving to people that are violated. 6. conclusion this work highlighted, addressed and enumerated different types of violence and the government policies on gender-based violence. international standard-setting developments have succeeded in prioritizing attention towards the recognition and cessation of sexual violence. however, much remains to be accomplished in terms of protection, prosecution, and prevention, as compliance, implementation, and accountability remain on-going challenges. recommendations from the finding, hence the following approaches are suggested and recommended to address the issues of gender balanced violence in our family(ies), community(ies), clan(s), village(s), town(s) city(ies) and at governmental levels to reduce or eradicate gbv the . these approaches are applicable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. at community level, at the program implementation level, institutional mechanisms level, and policy level. at the community level 1. awareness of gbv should be raised at the community level: the research shows that there is no or little awareness of a number of factors that may contribute to gbv. this awareness may be done through mass media (radio stations and television stations, national newspapers) and from people-to-people should be encouraged and reinforced. this awareness of gbv should be a program that would (a) target individual young men and women of the community, like community leaders, traditional leaders (priests), spiritual leaders (pastors, reverends, imams, bishops, evangelists, village leaders, commissioners, politicians, school headmasters/mistresses, principals, etc.) (b) educate community members about their human rights related to gbv (c) involve the important role family members and friends in preventing gbv, as well as helping victims seek assistance and justice (d) provide needed assistant in preventing gbv through some local and international ngos, government functionaries, agencies, 2. accountability of policy and program must be in place, this will help the community to be able to evaluate and assess the innovative mechanisms that have been put in place. 3. educating the community members through audio and visual aids about the gbv. the telecommunications industries should highly be involved in this education program. 4. funding and support of any initiative program at the community should be giving a priority at the community level for the awareness. 5. use of regular focus group discussions, interviews with important personalities on gbv should be encouraged at the community level for the awareness. 6. interventions for the victims of gbv should be highly considered at the community level. creating more opportunities for women to become linked, in ways that are locally appropriate, to other social circles in the communities in which they live. 7. law enforcement agencies should buckle up their belt for the gbv propaganda. at the program implementation level 1. improve/develop and/or strengthen regular training programs at the district level and below to raise ngos and government staff awareness on gbv-related laws and the services available to victims, emphasizing the staff obligation to enforce the law and provide services addressing gbv. 2. official awareness and accountability at both ngos and government staff should be taking as a paramount thing as far as gbv is concern. 3. staff annual performance evaluation on gbv should be taking very serious for staff promotion; this will enable ngos and government staff to be more dedicated and diligent on their job. 4. incentives and motivation of staff should be of high priority for the workers of gbv. 5. full implementation of gbv laws. this can be achieved through: (a) increase victims’ access to timely, legally credible, medical screening in cases of reported sexual assault, by having, for example, a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. centralized, fully trained, specialist medical team (e.g., at district/local level) able to travel to more remote areas on short notice in cases of alleged sexual assault. (b) mobilize trained female community health volunteers to help victims get medical services where the assault occurred. (c) improve accessibility of shelter homes, and enhance the quality and availability of services offered by them. for example, ensure that shelters have adequate financial resources, increase the number of homes available to survivors and/or improve referrals between service providers, and ensure that extended stays are possible if warranted. (d) mobilize local media, community radios in particular, to disseminate information about availability, locations and procedures for accessing shelter services. [a study on gender-based violence conducted in selected rural district of nepal (2012)] 6. mechanisms to prevent and reduce gbv should be looked at and fully implemented. at the policy level 1. review and revisions of policies and specific laws on gbv should be adhere to 2. bridging the gap between the existing laws and circumstances of various gbv that has some loop holes. 3. police cum judiciary should be giving more power to look into/investigate any gbv. 4. publicity of education materials on gbv should be made available for community members to have learn from, read and teach others. 5. data base management should be established/use to improve the situation of gbv, made available for research to guide against any other eventuality. 6. men should be ready to blow the trumpet for gender balance to guide against any gbv. 7. education institution should be encouraged and empowered to preach and practice gender balance to avoid gbv. 8. intervention measures should be provided for the victim of gbv at the policies levels. references burgees, a. w. (1978). victimology of sexual assault national criminal justice reference service (ncjrs) publication no. 55736. car, j. c., jay, s., inaan, a. k., basem, a. ra’ad, zeinab, a. a., abdullah, a. a. a., & anwar, b. (2008). initiative partner violence and interference with woman’s efforts to avoid pregnancy in jordan. https://doi.org /10.111/j.1728-44652 harding, r. (1978). an introduction to criminal justice. victimology, 7, 213-217. harding, r. (1978). victimisation, moral, panics and the distortion of criminal justice. heise, l. l. (1994). gender based abused; the global epidemic sciello public health. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-311x1994000500009 heise, l., & chapman, j. r. (1992). reflections on a movement: the u.s. battle against woman abuse. in freedom from violence: women’s strategies from around the world (m. schuler, ed., pp. 257-294). washington, d.c.: oef international. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. heise, l., pitanguy, a., & germaine, a. (1994). violence against women: the hidden health burden. washington d.c.: the world bank. heise, l. l., alanagh, r., charlotte, h. w., & anthony, b. z. (1994). violence against women: a neglected public health issue in less developed countries. social science & medicine, 39(9), 1165-1179. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(94)90349-2 heise, l. (1994). gender-based abuse: the global epidemic. cad. saúde públ., rio de janeiro, 10, 135-145. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-311x1994000500009 jeanne, w. (2005). violence against women: a statistical overview, challenges and gaps in data collection and methodology and approaches for overcoming them. patricia, k. m. (2002). the operational environment and constraints for ngos in kenya, strategies for good policy and practice. international environment law research centre. patricia, g., & stanley, d. (1994). the representation of women in political cartoons of the 1995 world conference on women. women’s studies international forum, 21(5), 535-549. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-5395(98)00063-6 poudel, m. (2011). dealing with hidden issues: social rejection experienced by trafficked women in nepal. saarbrucken, lambert academic publishing. patricia, k. m. (2006). women, land, right and the environment; kenyan experience. developments spinger, 49, 43-48. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100274 steinmetz, s. (1978). the battered husband syndrome. victimology: an international journal, 2(3-4), 499-509. swiss, p. j., jennings, g. v., aryee, g. h., brown, jappah-samukai, kamara, s., & turay, k. (1998). violence against women during the liberian civil conflict jama, 279(8), 625-629. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.279.8.625 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 161 original paper research on the coordinated development of tourism and community participation ying zhang1* 1 kyunghee university, dongdaemun district, seoul, south korea * ying zhang, e-mail: yolandazh0326@163.com received: february 11, 2024 accepted: apri 03, 2024 online published: april 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p154 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p154 abstract with the rapid development of tourism, the importance of community participation has become increasingly prominent. through the in-depth study of the coordinated development of tourism and community participation, this paper analyzes the impact of community participation on the development of tourism, and puts forward the corresponding strategies and methods, aiming to achieve the sustainable development of tourism and the comprehensive improvement of the community. keywords tourism, community participation, collaborative development, sustainable development introduction as an important part of the global economy, the influence and economic value of tourism can not be ignored. especially in the context of globalization, tourism has become an important force to promote national and regional economic development. however, with the rapid development of tourism, a series of problems are gradually emerging, such as environmental damage, cultural conflict and so on, which directly threaten the sustainable development of tourism. in order to deal with these problems, community participation is considered to be one of the effective solutions. this paper aims to explore the coordinated development of tourism and community participation, in order to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the sustainable development of tourism. the development of tourism is inseparable from the support and participation of communities. community residents are important stakeholders in the development of tourism. their attitudes and behaviors directly affect the development of tourism. community participation can enable community residents to more actively participate in the development of tourism and form a mutually beneficial and win-win relationship with tourism. therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 162 coordinated development of tourism and community participation. 1. the importance of tourism development and community participation 1.1 overview of tourism development tourism is a comprehensive industry based on tourism resources and with the help of various tourism facilities, providing tourists with a series of services including sightseeing, accommodation, catering, shopping and entertainment. under the background of globalization, with the continuous growth of the world economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the tourism industry has shown an extremely rapid development momentum in the world. especially in some areas rich in natural and human resources, tourism has become the local pillar industry. however, the rapid development of tourism has also brought a series of problems. on the one hand, the over exploitation of tourism resources has led to the destruction of the natural environment, and some unique natural landscapes and cultural heritage are facing the risk of disappearing. on the other hand, the influx of a large number of tourists has also brought an impact on the local social culture, causing a series of cultural conflicts and social problems. these problems not only affect the sustainable development of the tourism industry, but also cause a lot of trouble to the local community. 1.2 importance of community participation community participation emphasizes the positive role of community residents in the development of tourism. specifically, it means that community residents participate in the development of tourism through various ways, including decision-making, management, operation and other links, so as to realize the rational utilization and protection of tourism resources, and promote the sustainable development of tourism. the importance of community participation is mainly reflected in the following aspects: 1.2.1 promote the rational use and protection of tourism resources community residents have a deep understanding and unique understanding of local tourism resources. they have lived in these resources for a long time and have a profound understanding of their characteristics and values. therefore, their participation can effectively protect tourism resources and avoid over exploitation and destruction. at the same time, community residents can also provide valuable suggestions and opinions for the development of tourism resources to ensure their rational use. in addition, community participation also helps to enhance the cultural value of tourism resources. as inheritors and practitioners of local culture, community residents' participation can enable tourists to have a deeper understanding of local cultural characteristics and historical background, so as to enhance the attraction of tourism resources. 1.2.2 improve tourism service quality as one of the important providers of tourism services, community residents play an important role in tourism services. their service attitude and quality directly affect tourists' satisfaction and loyalty. through community participation, community residents' service awareness and professional quality can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 163 be cultivated, and the overall quality of tourism service can be improved. specifically, the service level of community residents can be improved by carrying out tourism service training and establishing tourism service standards. at the same time, community residents can also be encouraged to participate in the design and development of tourism products to meet the needs of different tourists. this can not only improve the satisfaction of tourists, but also establish a good reputation for the local tourism industry. 1.2.3 enhance the sense of belonging and identity of community residents the development of tourism often has a certain impact on local communities, including economic, social and cultural aspects. through community participation, community residents can better understand the importance and significance of tourism, so as to enhance their sense of identity and belonging to tourism. this sense of belonging and identity can not only promote community residents to more actively participate in the development of tourism, but also enhance their sense of responsibility and mission, and contribute to the sustainable development of tourism. at the same time, community participation can also promote exchanges and cooperation among community residents and enhance the cohesion and centripetal force of the community. this spirit of unity and cooperation can not only help to solve the problems and challenges encountered in the development of tourism, but also create a more harmonious and stable social environment for local communities. 2. impact of community participation on tourism development the impact of community participation on tourism development is a complex and multidimensional issue. it is not only related to the economic level, but also involves many aspects such as culture, society and environment. the following is a more detailed discussion of this topic. 2.1 positive impact 2.1.1 promote the protection and rational development of tourism resources the in-depth participation of community residents plays a vital role in the protection and rational development of tourism resources. because they have deep emotional ties and long-term symbiotic relationships with local natural and cultural resources, they are more likely to realize the unique value and vulnerability of these resources. by actively participating in the protection of tourism resources, community residents can ensure that these valuable assets are properly maintained and prevent over exploitation and abuse. specifically, community residents can participate in the protection of tourism resources in a variety of ways. for example, they can participate in the local natural resource management plan and provide feedback on the status and use of resources to the government and relevant institutions. in addition, they can also participate in environmental protection projects, such as garbage cleaning and ecological restoration, and take practical actions to maintain the local environmental quality. community residents also play an indispensable role in the rational development of tourism resources. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 164 they know which resources have unique tourism attractions and which regions are suitable for carrying out specific tourism activities. therefore, their suggestions and opinions are essential for formulating a scientific and reasonable tourism development plan. by attracting the participation of community residents, tourism planners can more accurately grasp the market demand and tourist preferences, so as to develop more attractive tourism products. it is worth noting that community participation also helps to cultivate community residents' awareness of resource protection and sense of responsibility. when residents are personally involved in the protection and development of tourism resources, they will cherish these resources and understand the importance of protecting resources. the promotion of this awareness and sense of responsibility has far-reaching significance for the sustainable development of tourism. 2.1.2 improve tourism service quality and tourist experience the active participation of community residents has a significant impact on improving the quality of tourism service and tourist experience. as an important provider of tourism services, community residents' service attitude, professional skills and cultural literacy directly affect tourists' satisfaction and loyalty. first, community residents can improve their service skills and professionalism by participating in tourism related training and education projects. they learn how to better communicate with tourists, how to provide thoughtful and meticulous services, and how to deal with all kinds of emergencies and tourist needs. the improvement of these skills enables community residents to provide more professional and efficient service experience for tourists. secondly, the cultural literacy and regional knowledge of community residents are also the key factors to improve the tourist experience. they understand the local history, culture, customs and natural landscape, and can provide rich and in-depth interpretation and guidance services for tourists. this authentic cultural experience can often attract more tourists to visit, and enhance tourists' sense of identity and satisfaction with the destination. finally, the positive attitude and enthusiastic service of community residents can also infect and affect tourists. when tourists feel the friendliness and enthusiasm of local residents, they are more likely to have a positive evaluation of the tourism experience and are willing to recommend the tourism destination to their relatives and friends. 2.1.3 drive local economic development and cultural heritage community participation in the development and management of tourism not only contributes to the development of local economy, but also promotes the inheritance and innovation of culture. with the prosperity of tourism, the income level and quality of life of community residents will be improved accordingly, which will stimulate their enthusiasm and creativity. in terms of economic development, tourism has created a large number of employment opportunities and business opportunities for the local area. community residents can increase their income by providing catering, accommodation, tour guide and other tourism services. at the same time, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 165 development of tourism has also led to the prosperity of related industries, such as handicrafts production and sales of characteristic agricultural products, providing more sources of income for local residents. in terms of cultural heritage, the participation of community residents has made the local cultural resources better protected and utilized. they understand and cherish their cultural traditions, and are willing to show them to tourists and share them with them. through the interaction and exchange with tourists, community residents can not only inherit their own culture, but also innovate and develop in the exchange. the inheritance and innovation of this culture is of great significance to enhance the local cultural confidence and identity. 2.2 negative impacts although community participation has many positive effects in the development of tourism, we can not ignore the possible negative effects. these negative impacts need to be fully concerned and dealt with to ensure the sustainable development of tourism. 2.2.1 cultural conflict and distortion the rapid development of tourism is often accompanied by the influx of a large number of foreign tourists, which will inevitably bring cultural exchanges and collisions. in this process, cultural conflict and distortion may occur. on the one hand, the introduction of foreign culture may have an impact on the local culture, leading to the gradual disappearance or assimilation of some traditional cultures. especially when foreign culture appears in a more powerful posture, local residents may doubt or deny their own culture, thus giving up the original cultural tradition. on the other hand, in order to meet the needs and expectations of tourists, some tourist destinations may over commercialize and transform the local culture. although this approach can attract more tourists, it may also lead to the distortion and change of culture. when culture is simplified as a performance or commodity, its intrinsic value and significance may be weakened or ignored. 2.2.2 uneven distribution of interests and social contradictions in the process of community participation in the development of tourism, the uneven distribution of interests is a problem that needs attention. since the development of tourism is often concentrated in some specific areas or around scenic spots, not all community residents can benefit from it. this uneven distribution of interests may cause some community residents to feel excluded or ignored, resulting in dissatisfaction and resistance. 3. strategies for community participation in tourism destinations the effective participation of tourism destination communities is an important factor to promote the sustainable development of tourism. in order to achieve this goal, we need to adopt a series of carefully designed strategies. the following is a detailed discussion of these strategies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 166 3.1 strengthen government guidance and support the government plays a central role in community participation in tourism destinations. in order to strengthen the guidance and support of the government, we can start from the following aspects: first, the government should formulate a comprehensive and forward-looking tourism policy. these policies should not only encourage community residents to actively participate in the development of tourism, but also ensure that their interests are properly protected. policies can include financial incentives, tax incentives or loan support to stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of community residents. secondly, the government needs to establish a sound regulatory mechanism. this mechanism should ensure the rational use and protection of tourism resources and prevent over exploitation and environmental damage. the government can set up a special regulatory agency to supervise and regulate the behavior of tourism enterprises and community residents to ensure the healthy development of tourism. in addition, the government should also actively promote the construction and improvement of tourism infrastructure. by investing funds and resources, we can improve the accessibility, accommodation conditions and tourism service level of tourism destinations, so as to attract more tourists and create more economic opportunities for community residents. 3.2 establish an effective communication mechanism establishing an effective communication mechanism is the key to promote the coordinated development of tourism and community. in order to achieve this goal, efforts can be made from the following aspects: first, the government should regularly hold symposiums, hearings and other activities. these activities can provide a platform for the government, tourism enterprises and community residents to communicate and timely understand each other's needs and expectations. through face-to-face dialogue and discussion, misunderstanding and prejudice can be eliminated and mutual understanding and trust can be enhanced. second, establish an information sharing platform. by building an online information sharing platform, the government, tourism enterprises and community residents can release and obtain relevant information about tourism development in real time. this can not only improve the transparency and timeliness of information, but also help all parties to make more informed decisions. third, encourage community residents to participate in tourism planning and decision-making process. community residents are important stakeholders of tourism destinations, and their opinions and suggestions are crucial to the sustainable development of tourism. therefore, the government should encourage community residents to actively participate in the tourism planning and decision-making process, and ensure that their voices are fully heard and considered. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 167 3.3 strengthen tourism education and training strengthening tourism education and training is an important way to improve the participation and satisfaction of community residents. in order to achieve this goal, the following measures can be taken: first, popularize tourism knowledge. the government can cooperate with educational institutions or professional training institutions to provide popular courses of tourism knowledge for community residents. these courses can include the basic concepts of tourism, the development trend of tourism and the basic skills of tourism services. through learning and practice, community residents can better understand the importance and significance of tourism, and improve their professionalism and service quality. second, provide professional skills training. for community residents engaged in tourism services, the government can provide opportunities for professional skills training. these trainings can cover such aspects as tour guide explanation skills, customer service concept and tourism safety management. through the improvement of professional skills, community residents can provide services for tourists more confidently and professionally, and improve tourists' satisfaction and loyalty. finally, cultivate tourism management talents. in order to promote the sustainable development of tourism, the government should encourage and support community residents to participate in tourism management related education and training. by cultivating a group of tourism management talents with professional knowledge, we can provide a strong talent guarantee for the innovative development of tourism industry. these talents can play an important role in the management of tourism enterprises or government departments, and promote the sustainable progress and development of tourism industry. in addition, education and training can also promote the protection and inheritance of traditional culture by community residents. by imparting traditional cultural knowledge to community residents, they can better show local cultural characteristics and historical details to tourists in the process of participating in tourism. this can not only enhance the cultural experience of tourists, but also help to enhance the attraction and competitiveness of tourism destinations. 4. conclusion through the in-depth study and analysis of community participation strategies in tourism destinations, we can draw the following conclusions: effective community participation is one of the key factors to promote the sustainable development of tourism industry; government guidance and support, effective communication mechanism and strengthening tourism education and training are important strategies to promote community participation; at the same time, the implementation of these strategies needs the joint efforts and cooperation of the government, tourism enterprises and community residents. looking forward to the future, with the rapid development of tourism and the continuous improvement of community residents' awareness of participation, we can expect a more active and orderly community participation atmosphere. the government will continue to strengthen policy guidance and support to provide more opportunities and platforms for community residents to participate; tourism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 168 enterprises will pay more attention to cooperation and communication with community residents to achieve win-win development; community residents will more actively participate in the development of tourism and share the economic and cultural achievements brought by tourism. at the same time, we should also see that challenges and opportunities coexist. in the future development, we need to constantly explore and innovate the mode and mechanism of community participation to adapt to the new requirements and changes of tourism development. through continuous research and practical exploration, we can promote the deep integration and development of tourism and communities, and realize the sustainable development of tourism and the comprehensive progress of communities. references hu, z., & zhang, z. (2002). community participation and sustainable development of tourism. human geography, 17(2), 4. ma, h. (2009). community participation and sustainable development of tourism--taking maqu county as an example. development, (1), 2. yang, z., zhang, z., & li, y. (2023). community participation in tourism from the perspective of synergetics. zhao, w. (2015). research on the synergetic development mechanism of community construction and eco-tourism industry (doctoral dissertation, harbin university of science and technology). zhao, w. (2020). research on the coordinated development mechanism of community construction and eco-tourism industry (doctoral dissertation, harbin university of science and technology). zheng, x., & liu, j. (2002). on the three levels of community participation in tourism development. journal of huaqiao university (philosophy and social sciences edition), (4), 7. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper income inequality as a barrier to economic growth in the us ivaylo angelov1* 1 spanish-american institute, spain * corresponding author, e-mail: ivayloangelove@gmail.com received: january 19, 2024 accepted: april 24, 2024 online published: may 06, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p1 abstract this paper examines the relationship between income inequality and economic growth in the united states. drawing on existing literature and empirical data, we analyze the effects of income inequality on the us gdp using statistical methods such as linear modeling. our results show that high levels of income inequality are a barrier to sustained economic growth, as the concentration of wealth in a few individuals limits overall consumer spending and investment. additionally, we find that income inequality exacerbates social and political instability, leading to further negative consequences for economic growth. we conclude that addressing income inequality through policy interventions such as progressive taxation and redistribution is essential for promoting long-term economic prosperity and equity in the united states. our research contributes to the ongoing discourse on income inequality and its implications for economic growth and highlights the need for evidence-based policy solutions to address this pressing issue. keywords income inequality, economic growth, gdp 1. introduction income inequality has become an increasingly prominent topic in economic discourse in the united states and globally. the unequal distribution of wealth and income has far-reaching implications for the health and stability of economies and has been the subject of much research and debate. in particular, the impact of income inequality on economic growth has been a topic of intense interest among scholars and policymakers alike. this paper seeks to contribute to this ongoing conversation by examining the relationship between income inequality and the us gdp. specifically, we will review existing research on the topic, analyze data using statistical methods such as linear modeling, and discuss the implications of our findings for policy and future research. our thesis is that high levels of income inequality act as a barrier to sustained economic growth. addressing this issue through policy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. interventions such as taxation and redistribution is essential for promoting long-term economic prosperity and equity. the paper will examine the relationship between income inequality and the us gdp. we will investigate the impact of income inequality on consumer spending, investment, and overall economic growth. we will also explore the potential social and political consequences of income inequality and how they may further impact economic growth. to achieve this, we will use empirical data and statistical methods such as linear modeling to analyze the relationship between income inequality and the us gdp. our main arguments will include the following: 1) high levels of income inequality act as a barrier to sustained economic growth. when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, overall consumer spending is limited, leading to decreased investment and slower economic growth. 2) income inequality exacerbates social and political instability, which in turn negatively affects economic growth. when inequality is high, there is a greater risk of unrest and conflict, which can further undermine the stability of the economy. 3) addressing income inequality through policy interventions such as progressive taxation and redistribution is essential for promoting long-term economic prosperity and equity. our research questions will include the following: 1) what is the relationship between income inequality and the us gdp? 2) how does income inequality impact consumer spending and investment in the us? 3) what are the potential social and political consequences of income inequality, and how do they affect economic growth? 4) how can policy interventions such as progressive taxation and redistribution address income inequality and promote long-term economic prosperity and equity? our thesis is that high levels of income inequality act as a barrier to sustained economic growth. addressing this issue through policy interventions such as taxation and redistribution is essential for promoting long-term economic prosperity and equity in the united states. 2. literature review many studies have found a negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth. for example, a study by berg and ostry (2011) found that countries with high levels of income inequality experience lower rates of sustained economic growth. similarly, a study by alesina and rodrik (1994) found that countries with high levels of income inequality experience slower economic growth and lower levels of investment in human capital. other studies have focused on the impact of income inequality on consumer spending. for example, a study by elsby et al. (2013) found that high levels of income inequality are associated with lower levels of overall consumer spending. this is because individuals with lower incomes have less disposable income to spend on goods and services, which can limit overall demand and slow economic growth. some scholars have also explored the potential social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. and political consequences of income inequality. for example, a study by acemoglu and robinson (2000) found that high levels of income inequality can lead to social and political instability, which in turn can negatively affect economic growth. similarly, a study by alesina et al. (2004) found that high levels of income inequality can lead to polarization and conflict, which can further undermine the stability of the economy. despite these findings, there is some debate over the exact nature of the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. for example, some studies have found that the relationship between income inequality and economic growth is more complex than a simple negative correlation. a study by galor and zeira (1993), for example, found that moderate levels of income inequality can actually promote economic growth, while very high or very low levels of income inequality can be detrimental. another limitation of current research is the lack of attention given to policy interventions aimed at addressing income inequality. while some studies have explored the potential impact of policy interventions such as progressive taxation and redistribution on economic growth, more research is needed to fully understand the effectiveness of such interventions and their potential impact on economic growth. in this paper, we aim to contribute to the existing literature by using empirical data and statistical methods to fully explore the relationship between income inequality and the us gdp. we will also examine the potential impact of policy interventions aimed at addressing income inequality, and how they may affect economic growth in the united states. by addressing these gaps in the literature, we hope to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of income inequality on economic growth in the us. 3. data and methods to explore the relationship between income inequality and economic growth in the us, we will use data from the us bureau of economic analysis (bea) and the us census bureau. specifically, we will use data on the gini coefficient, a commonly used measure of income inequality, and the us gdp, which we will use as a proxy for economic growth. the gini coefficient is a measure of income distribution that ranges from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). we will use the gini coefficient for household income from the us census bureau's american community survey (acs) to measure income inequality. the acs is a yearly survey that collects data on a variety of demographic and socioeconomic variables for households across the united states. to measure the us gdp, we will use data from the bea, which provides quarterly estimates of gdp by industry and state. we will use quarterly gdp data from 2000 to 2022 to capture the most recent trends in economic growth. to analyze the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, we will use a linear regression model. specifically, we will estimate the following equation: gdp = β0 + β1*gini + ε where gdp is the dependent variable, gini is the independent variable representing income inequality, β0 is the intercept, β1 is the coefficient representing the effect of income inequality on the gdp, and ε is the error term. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. we will also include additional independent variables in our model to control for potential confounding factors, such as unemployment rates and inflation. we will estimate our model using ordinary least squares (ols) regression, a commonly used statistical method in economics. one potential limitation of our methodology is the use of the gini coefficient as a measure of income inequality. while widely used, the gini coefficient has been criticized for not capturing the full extent of income inequality, particularly at the top end of the income distribution. additionally, our use of gdp as a proxy for economic growth may not fully capture the overall welfare and well-being of individuals within the economy. furthermore, our analysis may be subject to omitted variable bias if there are additional factors that are not accounted for in our model that affect both income inequality and economic growth. to address this limitation, we will conduct sensitivity analyses and robustness checks to test the stability of our results. overall, our data and methods provide a rigorous framework for exploring the relationship between income inequality and economic growth in the us. by accounting for potential biases and limitations in our methodology, we aim to provide a robust and accurate assessment of the impact of income inequality on the us gdp. 4. results our analysis of the relationship between income inequality and economic growth in the us yields the following regression results: gdp = 14.23 116.18gini + 0.81unemployment + 0.62*inflation (r-squared = 0.71, p-value < 0.01 for all coefficients) our results suggest a strong negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth in the us. specifically, for every one-unit increase in the gini coefficient, we observe a decrease in gdp of approximately $116 billion, holding all other factors constant. this finding is consistent with prior research that has identified a negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth (ostry et al., 2014; imf, 2015). in addition to income inequality, our results suggest that both unemployment and inflation have significant effects on the gdp. a one percentage point increase in unemployment is associated with a decrease in gdp of approximately $810 billion, while a one percentage point increase in inflation is associated with an increase in gdp of approximately $620 billion. overall, our results have important implications for policymakers and the public. they suggest that reducing income inequality may be a crucial component of promoting long-term economic growth and stability in the us. by addressing income inequality through policies such as progressive taxation, increased access to education and job training, and strengthened labor protections, policymakers may be able to promote economic growth and improve overall welfare. however, our results should be interpreted with caution, as they are subject to potential alternative explanations. for example, it is possible that our results are driven by reverse causality, such that a weak economy leads to higher levels of income inequality. while we have controlled for potential confounding factors in our model, such as unemployment and inflation, there may be additional variables that influence both income www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. inequality and economic growth that are not accounted for in our analysis. in conclusion, our results suggest that reducing income inequality may be an important component of promoting economic growth in the us. while there may be alternative explanations for our findings, our data and methods provide a robust framework for further exploration of this topic. future research may seek to address potential alternative explanations and provide additional insight into the complex relationship between income inequality and economic growth. 5. discussion and conclusion the results of our analysis suggest that there is a significant negative relationship between income inequality and the gdp in the us. specifically, our linear model estimates that a one percent increase in income inequality leads to a 0.5 percent decrease in the gdp. these findings are consistent with prior research on the topic, which has consistently found that income inequality hinders economic growth. the implications of these findings for policy are significant. to promote long-term economic growth, policymakers must take steps to reduce income inequality. this may include measures such as raising the minimum wage, increasing access to education and job training, and implementing progressive taxation policies. additionally, efforts to promote economic growth should be focused on creating jobs and expanding access to capital for small businesses, particularly those owned by individuals from historically marginalized groups. there are, of course, limitations to our analysis. while we have taken care to control for a variety of factors that may influence the relationship between income inequality and gdp, it is possible that other unmeasured variables are at play. additionally, our analysis is limited to the us context, and it is unclear whether our findings would generalize to other countries. overall, our findings provide strong evidence that income inequality is a significant barrier to economic growth in the us. policymakers and researchers should continue to investigate this relationship and work to identify effective strategies for reducing income inequality and promoting long-term economic growth. references autor, d., katz, l. f., & kearney, m. s. (2006). the polarization of the us labor market. american economic review, 96(2), 189-194. https://doi.org/10.1257/000282806777212620 blanchard, o. (2014). inequality and growth: a perspective on recent research. asian development review, 31(2), 1-21. cbo. (2018). the distribution of household income and federal taxes, 2015. congressional budget office. grossman, g. m., & helpman, e. (1994). endogenous innovation in the theory of growth. journal of economic perspectives, 8(1), 23-44. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.8.1.23 imf. (2014). causes and consequences of income inequality: a global perspective. international monetary fund. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. kaldor, n. (1957). a model of economic growth. economic journal, 67(268), 591-624. https://doi.org/10.2307/2227704 oecd. (2018). income inequality update: gini coefficient of household income. piketty, t. (2014). capital in the twenty-first century. belknap press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674369542 saez, e., & zucman, g. (2016). wealth inequality in the united states since 1913: evidence from capitalized income tax data. quarterly journal of economics, 131(2), 519-578. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw004 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 81 original paper research on the impact of executives' innovation awareness intensity on corporate innovation efficiency caiyun zhang1 1 business school, shandong university of technology, zibo, 255000, china received: april 24, 2025 accepted: may 22, 2025 online published: june 09, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p81 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p81 abstract in the process of high-speed corporate innovation, there is a situation where the number of innovations is pursued while the efficiency of innovation is ignored, and the characteristics of the senior management team will determine its strategic choices, and through its strategic choices, the performance of the enterprise is determined . therefore, this paper uses the panel data of shenzhen and shanghai listed companies from 2010 to 2022 to test how the intensity of executives' innovation awareness affects innovation efficiency. the study found that the intensity of executives' innovation awareness has a positive impact on innovation efficiency, and has passed a series of robustness tests to further verify the reliability of the results; through heterogeneity analysis, it is found that the intensity of executives' innovation awareness in non-high-tech enterprises has a greater impact on innovation efficiency than that in high-tech enterprises, and the intensity of executives' innovation awareness in state-owned enterprises has a greater impact on innovation efficiency than non-state-owned enterprises. based on the above conclusions, relevant suggestions are put forward, which provide a certain degree of guiding significance for the high-quality development of enterprises. keywords executive characteristics, executive innovation intensity, innovation efficiency, high-tech enterprises, state-owned enterprises 1. introduction since china implemented the innovation-driven development strategy, enterprise innovation has become one of the most important activities of market entities, making irreplaceable and important contributions to the development of social economy and the improvement of people's quality of life. enterprise innovation is an important driving force for china to achieve high-quality development goals and promote chinese-style modernization (wang & liu, 2025). however, in the process of rapid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 82 development of enterprise innovation, there is a situation of pursuing innovation quantity while ignoring innovation efficiency. enterprise innovation efficiency is the ability to maximize the benefits of innovation output under given input resources. enterprise innovation will be troubled by lack of technical knowledge, insufficient resource input and market volatility risks, which makes it difficult for enterprises to efficiently transform innovation input into output, and the improvement of innovation efficiency is hindered. existing research focuses on the characteristics of enterprises themselves (chen, sun, & wang, 2021). enterprise innovation will be troubled by lack of technical knowledge, insufficient resource input and market volatility risks, which makes it difficult for enterprises to efficiently transform innovation input into output, and the improvement of innovation efficiency is hindered (lü, hu, & yang, 2025; xie, wang, & tang, 2020). few studies have been conducted from the perspective of enterprise human resources. therefore, this paper proposes to study the impact of executive innovation awareness intensity on innovation efficiency, which to a certain extent broadens the perspective of studying enterprise innovation efficiency. in addition to explaining that the objective environment faced by the organization will reflect the characteristics of the top management team (in addition to the psychological cognitive basis and values, the characteristics of the top management team will affect the performance of the enterprise (profitability, etc.), and the characteristics of the top management team will determine its strategic choices, and through its strategic choices, determine the performance of the enterprise (huang & shao, 2017). these studies mainly focus on financial experience, disaster experience, military experience, etc. (quan, cu, & yin, 2019; gennaro, b., vineet, b. p., & raghavendra, r. 2017). therefore, this paper proposes to study the impact of the intensity of executives' innovation awareness on the innovation efficiency of the enterprise, and further explore the impact of the characteristics of the top management team on the enterprise. 2. study design 2.1 data source and processing this paper uses the panel data of shenzhen and shanghai listed companies from 2010 to 2022 to test how the executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) affects the innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ). the basic data of enterprises comes from the guotai an database (csmar), and the patent data comes from incopat. the sample data is processed as follows: samples in st and *st status are eliminated; financial industry enterprises are eliminated; missing values are eliminated; continuous variables are winsorized at the 1% and 99% levels. 2.2 variable definition explained variable, innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ). based on the analysis of existing literature, this paper uses the ratio of the number of patents to r&d expenditure as the measurement variable of innovation efficiency (wang, wei, cao et al., 2020). the specific formula is: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 explanatory variable, executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin). this paper measures the executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin) by analyzing the text of the board report section in the annual report of listed companies that reflects the main spirit of the company's senior management team (huang & shao, 2017). the specific formula is as follows: control variables. based on the existing literature, the research used variables such as enterprise size ( size ), debt-to-asset ratio (lev), net profit on assets ( roa ), intangible assets ( intangible ), growth capability ( growth ), equity balance ( top10 ), and enterprise age ( firmage ) as control variables (chen, sun, & wang, 2021; wang, wei, cao et al., 2020). table 1. variable definition table variable types variable name variable symbols variable definition explained variable innovation efficiency innoeff1 see formula (1) explanatory variables intensity of innovation awareness among senior executives gin see formula (2) control variables enterprise scale size logarithm of total assets debt-to-asset ratio lev debt-to-asset ratio net profit from assets roa net profit margin of total assets intangible assets intangible intangible assets ratio growth capacity growth operating income growth rate equity balance top10 number of shares held by the top ten shareholders/total number of shares company age firmage years of establishment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 2.3 model design this paper uses the panel data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai to study the impact of executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) on innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ). this paper selects a fixed effect model, and the specific model settings are as follows in the above model, i and t in the following table represent the enterprise and year respectively; x is the control variable; λ j is the industry fixed effect, j is the industry to which enterprise i belongs; μ t is the year fixed effect; ε it is the random disturbance term, and robust standard errors are used to solve the heteroskedasticity problem. 3. empirical analysis 3.1 descriptive analysis table 2 descriptive analysis is the descriptive statistical results of the explanatory variable executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin) and the explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) and the control variables, which include observation values, mean values, standard deviations, minimum values and maximum values. from the descriptive analysis results in table 2, it can be seen that the explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) has a mean value of 0.167, a standard deviation of 0.0818, a minimum value of 0, and a maximum value of 0.341. by comparison, it can be seen that the overall level of innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is low, and the standard deviation of the sample data is relatively small, which is relatively stable; the explanatory variable executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin) has a mean value of 0.0122, a standard deviation of 0.00554, a minimum value of 0.000634 , and a maximum value of 0.0358. by comparison, it can be seen that the overall level of executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin) is low, and the standard deviation of the sample data is also relatively small, which is relatively stable. for details of other variables, see table 2 descriptive analysis. table 2. descriptive analysis variable obs mean std. min max innoeff1 29,449 0.167 0.0818 0 0.341 gin 29,449 0.0122 0.00554 0.000634 0.0358 size 29,449 22.21 1.261 19.76 26.45 lev 29,449 0.413 0.198 0.0319 0.896 roa 29,449 0.0401 0.0676 -0.373 0.247 intangible 29,449 0.0453 0.0433 0 0.306 growth 29,449 0.165 0.370 -0.579 3.596 top10 29,449 57.89 15.00 20.84 90.91 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 85 firmage 29,449 2.907 0.334 1.386 3.611 3.2 correlation analysis table 3 correlation analysis is the result of correlation statistics between explanatory variables, explained variables, and control variables, including the correlation coefficients and significance between each variable. from the results of the correlation analysis in table 3, we can know that the correlation coefficient between executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) and explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is 0.135, which is significant at the 1% level, preliminarily proving that executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) and explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) are positively correlated; in addition, most of the statistical significance results of the correlation between the explanatory variables, explained variables, and control variables are significant, indicating that the selection of control variables is reasonable. analyzing the contents of the correlation analysis in table 3 again, it is found that the correlation coefficients between the variables are less than 0.5, indicating that there is no multicollinearity between the sample data, which provides a preliminary guarantee for the reliability of the results obtained from the sample data analysis. table 3. correlation analysis |innoef f1 gin size lev roa intangib le growth top10 fir m ag e innoeff 1 1 gin 0.135* ** 1 size 0.334* ** -0.170* ** 1 lev 0.154* ** -0.210* ** 0.499* ** 1 roa 0.055* ** 0.075** * 0.022* ** -0.345* ** 1 intangib le -0.0080 0 -0.078* ** 0.055* ** 0.045** * -0.058* ** 1 growth 0.025* ** -0.0070 0 0.039* ** 0.016** * 0.300** * -0.014* * 1 top10 0.029* -0.029* 0.097* -0.105* 0.240** 0.010* 0.093** 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 86 ** ** ** ** * * firmag e 0.069* ** 0.098** * 0.205* ** 0.150** * -0.091* ** 0.00600 -0.086* ** -0.181* ** 1 * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.3 benchmark regression analysis table 4 shows the regression results of the explanatory variable executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) and the explained variable innovation efficiency (innoeff1). before the regression analysis, a hausman test was performed to select fixed effects or random effects for the regression model. the result of hausman's test was chi2(8)=493.53, prob > chi2 = 0.0000, so the fixed effects model was selected when performing the regression analysis. in the benchmark regression analysis of table 4, column (1) shows the results without adding control lightening and fixed effects; column (2) shows the results without adding control lightening and fixed effects; column (3) shows the results without adding control lightening and fixed effects; column (4) shows the results with adding control lightening and fixed effects. from the results of the benchmark regression analysis in table 4, it can be seen that the explanatory variable executive innovation awareness intensity (gin) has a positive impact on the explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ), and both are significant at the 1% level, proving that the higher the executive innovation awareness intensity (gin), the higher the innovation efficiency (innoeff1). table 4. benchmark regression analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 gin 1.9955 *** 2.9775 *** 0.6360 *** 1.5613 *** (23.3786) (36.0807) (6.7113) (17.7913) size 0.0231 *** 0.0287 *** (53.9560) (71.0377) lev 0.0155 *** 0.0027 (5.3949) (0.9731) roa 0.0553*** 0.0523*** (7.2059) (7.3074) intangible -0.0205** 0.0422*** (-2.0113) (3.9631) growth -0.0008 -0.0018 (-0.6030) (-1.4522) top10 -0.0001** -0.0000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 (-2.0839) (-1.1487) firmage -0.0068*** -0.0051 *** (-4.9103) (-3.6694) _cons 0.1428 *** -0.3663 *** 0.1595 *** -0.4770 *** (124.5857) (-40.1570) (126.2931) (-50.6225) n 29449 29449 29423 29423 adj. r 2 0.018 0.152 0.210 0.358 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.4 robustness analysis in order to ensure the reliability of the sample data results, it is necessary to conduct a robustness test on the reliability of the sample data and results. this paper uses the replacement variable method, the control variable addition method, the one-period lag method and the special sample deletion method to conduct a robustness test. table 5 shows the robustness analysis results of the above four methods. since different measurement methods may have different degrees of impact on the results, if the results of different measurement methods are consistent, it means that the results are reliable and robust. the first column of the robustness analysis in table 5 is the result of the replacement variable method, which changes the original measurement method of (the total number of applications for invention patents, utility models and design patents plus the natural logarithm of 1)/ln(1+r&d expenditure) to (the total number of applications for invention patents, utility models and design patents plus the natural logarithm of 1, and the weights of the three types of patents are taken as 3:2:1)/ln(1+r&d expenditure). its regression coefficient is 1.9335, which is significant at the 1% level and is positively significant with the benchmark regression results, which preliminarily proves the robustness of the sample data analysis results. the analysis results may be different due to the influence of control variables. therefore, if the control variables are increased or decreased and the results are consistent, it means that the results are reliable and robust. the second column of the robustness analysis in table 5 shows the results of adding control variables, adding three control variables: capital occupation of major shareholders ( occupy ), management expense ratio ( mfee ) and tobin q value ( tobinq ). its regression coefficient is 1.5086, which is significant at the 1% level and is positively significant with the benchmark regression results, further proving the robustness of the sample data analysis results. in real enterprise management, the impact of the improvement of executives' innovation awareness (gin) on enterprise innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) may be lagged. for example, the improvement of executives' innovation awareness (gin) in the current year will change the decision-making of enterprise management, and certain process verification and other behaviors will lead to the improvement of enterprise innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) in the next period. therefore, the one-period lagged method is used for robustness analysis. if the analysis results are consistent, it means www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 that the results are reliable and robust. the third column of the robustness analysis in table 5 is the result of the one-period lagged method. its regression coefficient is 1.5723, which is significant at the 1% level. it is positively significant with the benchmark regression results, which once again proves the robustness of the sample data analysis results. special samples, affected by their particularity, will produce certain deviations in their results. therefore, the method of deleting special samples is used to conduct robustness tests. china's four municipalities are subject to special objective factors such as policies and status. the enterprises in the sample data have certain particularities in the four municipalities. therefore, the method of deleting special samples is used, that is, deleting the four municipalities for robustness analysis. if the analysis results are consistent, it means that the results are reliable and robust. the fourth column of the robustness analysis in table 5 is the result of the method of deleting special samples. its regression coefficient is 1.5743, which is significant at the 1% level. it is positively significant with the benchmark regression results, which proves the robustness of the sample data analysis results. table 5. robustness analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff2 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 gin 1.9335 *** 1.5086 *** 1.5743 *** (19.2521) (17.0758) (16.2231) l.gin 1.5723 *** (16.0527) size 0.0304 *** 0.0286 *** 0.0286 *** 0.0277 *** (65.3199) (67.4888) (65.9724) (58.8791) lev 0.0011 0.0048 * 0.0029 0.0043 (0.3352) (1.6982) (0.9625) (1.4053) roa 0.0550*** 0.0628*** 0.0516*** 0.0577*** (6.6328) (8.1081) (6.8534) (7.2673) intangible 0.0486*** 0.0380*** 0.0408*** 0.0376*** (3.9857) (3.5110) (3.5869) (3.0707) growth -0.0019 -0.0012 -0.0017 -0.0006 (-1.3306) (-0.9752) (-1.2628) (-0.4500) top10 -0.0001** -0.0000 -0.0000 -0.0001** (-2.0760) (-1.1593) (-0.3179) (-2.1433) firmage -0.0056*** -0.0050*** -0.0044*** -0.0032** (-3.5196) (-3.5454) (-2.8010) (-2.0408) occupy -0.0311 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 (-1.4504) mfee 0.0349*** (4.1015) tobinq -0.0012*** (-3.4002) _cons -0.4762*** -0.4748*** -0.4761*** -0.4576*** (-43.8255) (-46.5107) (-46.8170) (-42.4059) n 29423 28973 24564 23969 adj. r2 0.334 0.358 0.356 0.346 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.5 heterogeneity analysis in order to explore the results of different enterprises and provide some guidance for enterprises to make more reasonable decisions according to their own circumstances, table 6 shows the results of heterogeneity analysis of whether it is a high-tech enterprise and the nature of equity. according to the content of heterogeneity analysis in table 6, the analysis is carried out. the regression coefficient of high-tech enterprises is 1.3256, which is significant at the 1% level; the regression coefficient of non-high-tech enterprises is 2.3503, which is significant at the 1% level. through the comparison of the results, it is found that the impact of the innovation consciousness intensity (gin) of executives in non-high-tech enterprises on innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is greater than that of high-tech enterprises. the results of heterogeneity analysis in table 6 (3) and (4) are the analysis results of state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. the regression coefficient of state-owned enterprises is 1.7974, which is significant at the 1% level; the regression coefficient of non-state-owned enterprises is 1.4118, which is significant at the 1% level. by comparing the results, it is found that the impact of the innovation awareness intensity (gin) of executives in state-owned enterprises on innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is greater than that in non-state-owned enterprises. table 6. heterogeneity analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 gin 1.3256 *** 2.3503 *** 1.7974 *** 1.4118 *** (13.4453) (12.7494) (10.3987) (13.4040) size 0.0296 *** 0.0273 *** 0.0297 *** 0.0267 *** (62.6742) (35.7849) (42.2357) (46.5263) lev 0.0115*** -0.0169*** -0.0171*** 0.0092*** (3.6189) (-3.1665) (-3.4016) (2.6501) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 90 roa 0.0674*** 0.0265* 0.0566*** 0.0486*** (8.1662) (1.8747) (3.7054) (5.8153) intangible 0.0811*** 0.0046 0.0643*** 0.0256* (5.8396) (0.2837) (3.8434) (1.8262) growth -0.0035** 0.0009 0.0047** -0.0034** (-2.4174) (0.4101) (2.2674) (-2.3027) top10 0.0000 -0.0000 -0.0001** -0.0000 (0.0345) (-0.6392) (-2.0135) (-0.3926) firmage -0.0060*** -0.0046* -0.0030 -0.0077*** (-3.7584) (-1.6846) (-1.0543) (-4.5437) _cons -0.4871*** -0.4681*** -0.5055*** -0.4239*** (-44.5180) (-25.9755) (-29.4499) (-31.4322) n 19859 9560 9164 19612 adj. r2 0.360 0.323 0.436 0.318 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 4. conclusions and suggestions how does the strength of executive innovation consciousness (gin) affect innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 )? exploring its influence can effectively help enterprises provide a certain degree of guidance on improving the innovation efficiency of enterprises from the perspective of executives, thereby promoting the high-quality innovation and development of enterprises. this paper uses the panel data of shenzhen and shanghai listed companies from 2010 to 2022 to test how the strength of executive innovation consciousness (gin) affects innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ). the study found that: ① the explanatory variable executive innovation consciousness intensity (gin) has a positive impact on the explained variable innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ), and both are significant at the 1% level, proving that the higher the strength of executive innovation consciousness (gin), the higher the innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ). and through a series of robustness tests such as replacement variable method, adding control variable method, lagged one period method and deleting special sample method, the reliability of the results was further verified. ②through heterogeneity analysis and comparison of results, it is found that the impact of the innovation consciousness intensity (gin) of executives in non-high-tech enterprises on innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is greater than that of high-tech enterprises; the impact of the innovation consciousness intensity (gin) of executives in state-owned enterprises on innovation efficiency ( innoeff1 ) is greater than that of non-state-owned enterprises. based on the above conclusions, the following suggestions are put forward: ⑴ make enhancing the innovation awareness of senior executives a core strategic measure. the board of directors and management of the company should deeply understand the extreme importance of the innovation awareness, investment and behavior of senior executives, and regard them as the core www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 91 driving force for improving innovation efficiency. "enhancing the innovation awareness of senior executives" can be clearly written into the company's strategic plan, and corresponding resources and mechanisms can be allocated to ensure it. avoid viewing innovation as the responsibility of the r&d department or grassroots employees only, and emphasize the leadership, decision-making and resource allocation role of senior executives in the innovation process. ⑵ strengthen the innovation cognition and behavior investment of senior executives. at the cognitive level, strengthen the innovation concept training for senior executives, so that they can deeply understand the strategic significance of innovation to the long-term survival of the enterprise, the construction of competitive advantages and high-quality development, and establish a strong sense of mission and urgency for innovation. encourage senior executives to actively learn cutting-edge technologies, gain insights into industry trends and changes in market demand. at the behavioral level, encourage senior executives to devote more time and energy to strategic thinking, opportunity identification, cross-departmental coordination, acquisition of key resources (such as funds, talents) and innovation culture building related to innovation. establish a mechanism to ensure that senior executives can regularly go deep into the front line of r&d or the forefront of the market to obtain first-hand innovation information. include the substantive participation of senior executives in innovation activities (such as hosting innovation projects and participating in technical reviews) in their responsibilities. ⑶ attach great importance to the improvement of the innovation awareness of executives in non-high-tech enterprises and state-owned enterprises: for non-high-tech enterprises, executives in traditional industries or non-high-tech enterprises often face stronger path dependence and transformation resistance. the research conclusions strongly suggest that executives of these enterprises need to play a leading role in innovation to overcome inertia and drive efficiency improvement. it is recommended that non-high-tech enterprises regard the intensity of executive innovation awareness as the core grasping force to achieve transformation and upgrading and break through growth bottlenecks. provide executives with more opportunities to understand how emerging technologies (such as digitalization and intelligence) empower the industry and stimulate their willingness to innovate. for state-owned enterprises, the research results reveal the special importance of the role of senior executives in state-owned enterprises in innovation-driven development. it is recommended that state-owned enterprises strengthen the selection and appointment of innovation-oriented cadres, and use innovation awareness, ability and past achievements in promoting innovation as one of the core criteria when selecting, evaluating and promoting executives. references wang, t., & liu, d. w. 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(in chinese) huang, s. s., & shao, y. h. (2017). executive innovation awareness, corporate innovation investment and innovation performance: an empirical study based on china's gem listed companies. east china economic management, 31(02), 151-157. (in chinese) quan, x. f., cu, w. h., & yin, h. y. (2019). senior executives’ military experience, management style and corporate innovation. nankai management review, 22(06), 140-151. (in chinese) gennaro, b., vineet, b., & p. raghavendra rau. (2017). what doesn't kill you will only make you more risk-loving: early-life disasters and ceo behavior. the journal of finance, 72, 167-206. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12432 jiang, f. x., & huang, j. c. (2013). ceo financial experience and capital structure decision. accounting research, (05), 27-34, 95. (in chinese) paul, a., griffin, h. a., & hong, j. w. r. 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(in chinese) advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 154 original paper doublespeak: the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other taher ben khalifa1* 1 university of sfax, faculty of letters and humanities, department of english, sfax, tunisia * taher ben khalifa, university of sfax, faculty of letters and humanities, department of english, sfax, tunisia received: august 16, 2019 accepted: september 6, 2019 online published: september 11, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p154 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p154 abstract regarding the ability doublespeak offers to its users to distort and mislead, the question about how power is (re)produce, distributed, and enacted becomes of great concern. within this context, the present paper seeks to study how the use of doublespeak serves for the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other. the study of this topic consists in the analysis of some examples that are taken from political speeches delivered by the us presidents; bush, obama, and trump. to analyze these examples, a combination of three theories—theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics—is used. the application of this theoretical combination is based on the use of a simple method of research. this method follows three successive steps. first, the traces of doublespeak are detected and classified. second, interest is given to the study of how each of the traced uses of doublespeak serves for empowerment. third, interest shifts to the interpretation of the obtained results to highlight the political ends standing behind any struggle for power. the paper ended by offering a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of empowerment in the political uses of doublespeak as well as a simple method of research. also, it proved that the use of doublespeak represents a strategy of empowerment that the speakers resorted to while seeking to get more power to dominate and to achieve personal goals. the paper might show as well some limitations like the uses of examples from other political contexts. however, this did not affect the quality of the research nor the results that are sought to be reached, instead, it represents a good start for future researches to look into other contexts. keywords doublespeak, politics, empowerment, dis-empowerment, and political ends www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 155 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction pretending to communicate but it does not (lutz, 1989); doublespeak is frequently used today in the world of politics. it is mostly used in that it helps politicians to manipulate the truth in the way that best serves their personal interests. for instance, the new world of politics is characterized by such fierce struggles over power and interest which means that the speaker’s ability to control his addresses is the first step towards achieving the desired goals. here, the critical investigation of control is based on the study of how political language is used to deceive, disguise, and distort reality in order to defend a given political plan. hence, the study of how language is used to empower the speaker and give him the ability to defend the undefendable. in reality, the study of how doublespeak is used to justify the non-justifiable is at the cross roads of many research projects and papers. since the articulation of the term which is traced back to orwell’s doublethink and newspeak (orwell, 1949) till today’s time, doublespeak is frequently searched and from a variety of theoretical and analytical perspectives. for instance, syntactic perspectives are used to show how constructions like nominalization, passivization, etc. (constantinescu & lesenciuc, 2015; d’ angelo, 1989; penelope, 1989) and how complex sentences (luntz, 2007) serve to hide the truth. semantic based approaches are also used to highlight how vocabulary (word choice) is manipulated to convey the meaning that the speaker seeks to covey and to obscure what he wants to hide (gibson & lutz, 1991; gambino, 1974). the examination of the role that rhetoric (metaphor, exaggeration, etc.) plays in the distortion of reality and the falsification of the truth is central too (fredal, 2011). thus, these works made clear the role that people’s linguistic choices play in the mystification of reality. moreover, the pragmatic perspective is explored to show how politicians use implicitness and explicitness to persuade their public and maintain control over them (bull & simon-vandenberg, 2014). this implicitness/explicitness strategy helps speakers to re-shape reality in the way they want it to be through hiding and revealing depending on their planned goals. as far as theories of style are concerned, kharitonova and ufimceva (2013) highlighted the triumph of style over content while speakers are seeking to deceive their public in modern political contexts. politeness, the other, is targeted to differentiate between the use of polite language to show respect and its use for the sake of deception and mis-leading (klotz, 1999). in addition, speakers’ mis-representation of the facts they knew is another way of deceiving the public to control their ways of thinking (tsvetkov & amudzhieva, 2013). smarr (2001) argues that the mis-representation of information is a form of distortion in which language is not used with its full intent of honesty. in brief, these works highlight the role of speakers’ manipulations of the contents of their messages to maintain power over what is going on in the social and political context. also, the anthropological method is employed in the study of doublespeak (lempert, 2015). this method is concerned with the study of the origin and development of the meaning of words to show that the mis-use of such terms is a discursive strategy that is used to create ambiguity and make the messages difficult to understand. equivocation theory is devoted to show that speakers’ resort to speak www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 156 published by scholink inc. in such a clumsy and an unclear way is intended to avoid and hide a given truth (bull & simon-vandenberg, 2014). indeed, the difficulty the addressees face to understand the speaker’s message signals the lack of intelligibility. this lack of intelligibility reflects the peak of the speaker’s power to control his addresses. thus, these works on anthropology and equivocation shed light on the power that language gives to its users to use words out of their context of meaning in order to deliver ambiguous messages that are meant to hide a given truth. the power that the speaker gives himself through the use of doublespeak to control the addressee is what matters in this paper. this background of literature highlights that doublespeak is a multi-disciplinary phenomenon that researchers explored from different perspectives. though the theoretical approaches are diverse, the results are unique: the distortion of the truth for the sake of justifying what the speakers want to justify. this ability to justify is the outcome of the asymmetry of power that language creates between the speaker and the addressee: the empowerment of the speaker and the dis-empowerment of the addressee. indeed, by highlighting these conclusions this course of literature can be a good start for more advanced researches on how the language of doublespeak serve for the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other. this duality of empowerment/dis-empowerment is at the cross roads of this research paper due to the specific features characterizing the politics of the current era. it is the era in which the speakers’ ability to get power over his addresses gives him the right to put into practice all his plans for action. so, to determine how doublespeak contributes to the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other, this paper needs putting together three different theories: theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics. first, theories of discourse analysis are required to trace the different manifestations of doublespeak in the selected texts. second, the need for theories of power is justified by the theoretical need for such tools that are adequate to understand how the traced uses of doublespeak serve for the asymmetrical distribution of power between the speaker and the addressee. third, theories of politics are integrated in the framework of the study in that they serve for the holistic understanding of the features of the political language we are dealing with. this is important and necessary because our understanding of how doublespeak is used to control the addressees via the power that language gives to its users requires going deep into how things work in the world of politics. the way these three theories will work together for the critical investigation of the topic under study will be carefully dealt with in the section that is devoted for conceptual analysis. the combination of the three theories introduced before seeks to find logical answers to three main research questions. these answers represent the main findings of the study of the way doublespeak contributes to the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other. they will also bring contributions to the field of study that is interested in the critique and the fight of the spread of this dishonest use of language, especially by politicians. 1) what are the traces of doublespeak in the selected corpus? 2) how does it serve for the asymmetrical distribution of power? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 157 published by scholink inc. 3) to what extend can we say that doublespeak is used to serve political agendas? to answer these questions, several theoretical and analytical concepts will be analyzed and discussed in the following section. the analysis of these concepts seeks to build a workable framework that is adequate for a detailed study of the topic. 2. conceptual analysis before embarking in the analysis of the selected speeches, it is required to start with the analysis of such theoretical concepts. the analysis and discussion of the required concepts seeks to make clear their need for the study of the topic, to determine their theoretical ties to each others, and to describe the way they will be applied in the analysis of the selected texts. these concepts will be discussed under three main titles: theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics. 2.1 theories of discourse analysis as it is noticed before, doublespeak is a multi-dimensional concept which has been dealt with from different perspectives. this multi-disciplinary nature of the concept makes the study of how doublespeak works in political discourse to empower the self and to dis-empower the other requires using a multi-dimensional theory of discourse analysis. indeed, using a multi-dimensional framework to the study of the manifestations of doublespeak represents the first step towards the critical investigation of the topic under focus. it seeks mainly to determine the different discursive strategies that politicians use to manipulate reality while seeking to defend personal agendas. the determination of these strategies entails highlighting what sort of theories of discourse analysis we should use to reach a well-detailed understanding of the topic. during the last few decades, the study of discourse witnessed a great tendency towards the use of a multiplicity of theoretical approaches and a variety of research methods. a reading across the works of the existing literature shows that scholars and researchers across the globe borrowed theories from different disciplines (slembrouck, 2003; huckin et al., 2012). they resort to various disciplines—such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, pragmatics, rhetoric, stylistics, face saving theories, etc.—to find answers to the problematics that gave raise to their studies. also, they might resort to the combination of various theories if the understanding of their problematics requires that (jorgensen & philips, 2012). for instance, while dealing with the study of many topics related to discourse and language in use, researchers might find themselves in such difficult situations. they are facing difficulties because the existing theories and methods do not serve the purposes of their researches (fairclough & fairclough, 2012). having this in mind, they might resort to the combination of theories from various disciplines seeking to reach a convincing explanation of the topics they are studying. hence, the multi-disciplinarity of the new approaches to the study of discourse is there. these combinations do not happen at random. however, these are monitored by the main points and ideas that the researcher seeks to highlight while deciding to go on researching on a given topic as well as the sorts of conclusions he seeks to achieve. these requirements offer the researcher the logical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 158 published by scholink inc. proves to borrow such theories and to make combinations as long as the arguments he built are strong to justify the need for a given theory. once the borrowing and the combination of such theories, in a given context of research, is proved, the next issue the researcher will face immediately is how to apply the theories adopted for use. indeed, the method to be used in the application of the selected theories should be designed in accordance with the need of how the data should be collected and processed to answer the problematics of the ongoing research project. in other words, the preparation of the theories and the methods that the researcher will use in the investigation of the topic he planned to study remains a matter of deciding upon what is meant to achieve by undertaking a given research project. thus, doing discourse analysis becomes open to multiple theoretical and methodological variations that are context dependent. the fact that doing discourse analysis is open to a continuous theoretical and methodological development makes the selection of the theories and the methods to be used in this paper based on three main criteria. these are: a) the nature of the concept of doublespeak; b) the relation between language and power; and c) the characteristic features of political language. first, the fact that doublespeak works at various levels of discourse makes any trial to the tracing of its manifestations requires using a multi-disciplinary theoretical background. in other words, this entails working out the traces of doublespeak and then classifying them to facilitate their analysis. second, the relation between the use of language and the distribution of power among participants is needed to understand how speakers use doublespeak to control the audience. the understanding of the theoretical connections between language and power is required in that it serves to explain why agents use doublespeak in a given communicative context. third, the recapitulation of the main features of political language is an important task too. it helps us draw strong conclusions concerning why speakers resort to deception in such social contexts (for what purpose?). thus, the theoretical framework we need here is the one that is adequate to connect these three requirements. to sum up, the study of how politicians use doubletalk to promote power to the self and to reduce the public’s power to act against their plans will use a multi-disciplinary theory of discourse analysis. this multi-disciplinary theoretical framework finds its ground in the cda movement of discourse studies, especially van dijk’s framework (van dijk, 2000). here, the use of a variety of theoretical conceptions will be applied mainly through the outlining of the different traces of doublespeak, the classification and the analysis of the collected examples, and then the discussion of the results. we need to follow these steps in order to work out how reality is being distorted to serve such political interests. however, to do this we face a strong need for the involvement of both theories of power and theories of politics. these are to be explained in the following two sections. 2.2 theories of power since long time ago, the question of power is central for debate among thinkers and scholars from different disciplines. these elites’ eagerness to know the way power works to affect relations between people in a given society makes the concept open for multiple discussions and from a variety of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 159 published by scholink inc. theoretical perspectives. these are ranging from various fields of study such as social science, psychology, philosophy, etc. for instance, critical discourse analysis, since its establishment as a field to the study of language in use, was interested mainly in the examination of how power is produced, re-produced, distributed, and abused. hence, the need for a workable theory of power, in the study of this topic, is highlighted. according to french and raven (1959) power refers to one’s ability to influence the others to believe, behave, or value in the way he likes or to make them strengthen, validate, or confirm already existing beliefs, behaviors, or values. thomas hobbes argues that man’s power is his present means to have some future apparent good (hobbes, 1946). he explains that power, which is a means to an end, is an end by itself (ibid). van dijk (1989) defines power as “a form of social control” (p. 18). weber (1978) points that power refers to the chance of a person or a group of people to realize their own will even against the resistance of the others, who are participating in the action. emerson (1962) defines power as the potential influence an actor a might have over an actor b. banfield (1961) highlights that power is one’s ability to establish control over another. parsons—quoted in (litterer, 1969)—refers to power as an actor’s ability to induce or influence another actor in order to make him comply with his directives or any other norms that he supports. bierstedt (1950) emphasized that power is such “a latent force”. to sum up, these works highlight that researchers wrote various definitions of the concept of power. this implies that there is no single definition of the term. however, all these definitions revolve around a common idea which is the control of one party over another party who has less power than the previous one. regarding the complex nature of the notion of power, it has become of crucial significance to formulate a workable definition of the term. it is workable in the sense that it paves us the ground to understand how the speaker uses doublespeak at such moments to give more power to his person and to limit the power of the other. in other words, it is a definition that enables us to reach an in-depth comprehension of how power is produced, re-produced, and unjustly distributed via the use of doublespeak. it is, hence, the definition that takes into consideration the characteristics of the topic under exploration and the goals that the paper seeks to achieve. however, this does not mean that it is a definition that will cut with the definitions developed in the existing literature. instead, it is the one that has its roots in the existing trials to the determination of the meaning of the notion which is resulting from a careful reading of many works related to this issue. therefore, it is a definition that underlines the main concepts and ideas required for the analysis of the way the process of empowerment/dis-empowerment works to control the public. the understanding of this discursive issue, in our context of study, relies on three main tasks: tracing the use of power, working out its types, and capitalizing the goals standing behind its use. first, power is exercised by means of language. hence, we need to determine how each traced stance of political doublespeak serves for the (re)production and the unequal distribution of power between the speaker and the addressees. second, power is of different types. in other words, to facilitate the analysis and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 160 published by scholink inc. discussion of how power is generated and enacted, we need to make clear the sorts of power that the speaker activated along his narrative. third, power is always activated to serve such specific goals. while they are addressing their public, speakers might activate many sorts of power in order to be able to control and/or reduce the resistance of the addresses so that they can put into practice their planned actions. these actions are the ends (goals) behind speakers’ empowerment of the self. so, our understanding of the notion of power should take into consideration these three major points. these three major points to the definition of power represent the cornerstones of the theory of power to be used for the analysis of the issue of empowerment and disempowerment in the political use of doublespeak. however, these three ideas are connected to other key concepts that are related to the notion of power such as context, knowledge, access, etc. these concepts are required in that they give an insightful analysis and discussion of how power is activated, enacted, and oriented to serve the speaker’s desired goals. however, the discussion of these issues in the selected corpus needs exploring the connection between the features of doublespeak and the characteristics of the language of politics. the distinctive properties of political discourse will be reviewed in the coming section to build a holistic theory of politics that is adequate for the study of the topic. 2.3 theories of politics political discourse has its own features that distinguish it from any other form of language use such as everyday conversation, media discourse, etc. these characteristics will be determined through the discussion of three major axes. the first axe focuses on the discussion of ‘what is political discourse?’ this task is required in order to write down a workable definition of the term. it is the definition that we need to reach a detailed critique of how doublespeak works in the realm of politics. the second axe seeks to outline the structure of political discourse in that this facilitates the analysis of the selected speeches. this axe is involved because it will help us examine the traces of doublespeak in the structures that the speakers used to serve such political agendas. the third axe is devoted to the discussion of the specific features of political discourse. the outlining of these features seeks to clarify the tendency of political language to deceive and to distort reality in the way that serves one’s personal interests. these axes will be analyzed and discussed to connect the different dimensions of the theory. first, the question—what is political discourse?—is what matters in this axe of discussion. the answer to this question involves highlighting two sorts of definitions: one simple and the other complex. at the simplistic level, political discourse refers to speeches and texts that are produced and/or delivered by political actors such as presidents, members of parliaments and governments, prime ministers, party leaders, etc. at the complex level, political discourse denotes a distinguished use of language that is meant to persuade and to promote control. while speaking about persuasion and control, it is important to introduce a second party to the scene of politics. this party consists of the public, the citizens, the people, the masses, etc. (van dijk, 1997). the fact of having two parties concerned with the definition of political discourse requires making clear the relation between both. in reality, these two parties have two opposite functions: first, the political speaker is the deliverer of the speech and he is the party www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 161 published by scholink inc. seeking for the justification of such claims and policies. second, the addressee is the receiver of the delivered speech. he represents the party who can show resistance if not convinced. thus, the speaker’s resort to doublespeak to promote power to the self (to be able to convince) and to reduce the other’s power (to avoid resistance) should be dealt with using a theoretical framework that takes into consideration the ideas stressed by this definition. second, political discourse has its own structures that can distinguish it from other forms of discourse. for instance, van dijk (1997) argues that discourse structures can serve different functions in different contexts and genres and that some structures are reserved for the political genre and context (p. 24). therefore the analysis of doublespeak in the context of political discourse should be dealt with in the way that is quite different from other discourse genres and contexts. in other words, the analysis of the discursive constructions of doublespeak, in this paper, should be carried while taking into consideration the political contexts of the speeches under investigation. the idea that doublespeak works at various levels of discourse such as linguistics, rhetoric, pragmatics, etc., will be explored in the analysis of the manifestations of doublespeak in the selected speeches based on the features of these speeches and the contexts in which they are delivered. moreover, the analysis of how these structures are selected to promote power for the self and to reduce the power of the other will take into consideration the goals the speakers seeks to achieve in that political context. goals are also involved in that political discourse is always goal-oriented. it always seeks to justify policies and actions on the ground. hence, the analysis of the discursive traces of doublespeak needs taking into consideration the properties of the political contexts that are under question. third, the capitalization of the characteristic features of political language is required because it helps us understand speakers’ high tendency to use doublespeak in the realm of politics. the discussion of these features revolves around two axes: highlighting the specificity of the domain of politics and shedding light on the properties of the language used in it. on the one hand, politics is the realm where: a) power is activated, enacted, and legitimized; b) policies and decisions are produced and justified; c) reality is re-constructed and manipulated; d) truth is falsified; and e) meaning is distorted. these proprieties are activated by means of language to serve future political calculations. on the other hand, the language of politics is a sort of language in use that is characterized mainly by: complexity, vagueness, elasticity, deception, propaganda, imagery, bias, symbolism, etc. characterized by these features, the language of politics becomes difficult to explore unless we contextualize it in its context of use (politics) and we offer the tools required for decoding its hidden messages. in brief, the study of how doublespeak is used to empower the self and to dis-empower the other entails taking into consideration the properties of both politics and the language of politics. so, an adequate theory of politics to the study of how doublespeak is used to promote control should highlight all the above three points. hence, the analysis of the corpus should take into consideration: the distinctive nature of political discourse, the specificity of its structure, and the main properties of politics and the characteristics of its language. the cornerstones of this theory will be used within the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 162 published by scholink inc. discipline of discourse analysis, specifically the cda approach, where the theoretical conceptions to the study of how power works among social groups are involved. therefore, the framework to be used in the study of the topic under focus will be formed of a combination of three sorts of theories: theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics. 3. method the examples selected for the discussion of the topic under focus are taken from several us presidential speeches. these speeches are delivered respectively by bush, obama, and trump. they are taken from different political contexts. moreover, they are selected at random to create a kind of variety at the level of the corpus and the results to be worked out during the analysis of the explored examples. the analysis of the collected data will be based on a well-detailed method to the application of the theories discussed before. the application of the theoretical conceptions described before in the analysis of the selected speeches is based on the use of a purely qualitative method of research. this method of data processing consists of three successive tasks. the first task seeks to trace the speakers’ uses of doublespeak through the scrutiny of each text of the corpus as well as to classify the collected data into different categories. the second task is concerned with the determination of the way each traced use of doublespeak contributes to the asymmetrical distribution of power between the speaker and addressee. the third task aims at highlighting the different political agendas lying behind any resort to the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other. finally, the results of the analysis will be discussed and conclusions will be recapitulated to highlight the contributions of the paper as well as to shed light on its limitations so that we can leave the doors open for future debates on the issue. 4. example analysis the examination of the texts of the selected speeches shows that doublespeak manifests itself at various levels of the speakers’ language. these traces are explored via the analysis of the following examples to shed light on how bush, obama, and trump used doublespeak to empower the self and to dis-empower the other while seeking to serve such personal interests. the detected strategies are dealt with using an alphabetical order. 4.1 analogy (argumentation) it is a reasoning strategy that politicians might resort to while seeking to highlight similarities between two things or situations by comparison. politicians attempt to find resemblances to show to their public that a given result is inevitable if their plans for action will not be put into practice. this fact is a conclusion that the speakers reach by inference. while using inference, they follow a logical way of thinking that aims at proving a given reality or course of action. this act of proving represents a cognitive trial through which they seek to control the public’s minds. this wish to control the public’s ways of thinking works basically via the creation of mental images. for instance, the images that the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 163 published by scholink inc. speakers create in the hearers’ minds are designed to remind them about something real so that they can easily believe what to be said. in other words, making the public believe in the easy way implies limiting their reactions to resist the speakers’ decisions. thus, the speakers’ use of analogy represents a wise strategy of reasoning that enables them to promote power to the self and to limit the power of the other. to make this result closer to the reader’s mind, we cite and analyze the following example which is extracted from bush’s speech on iraq on october 7th, 2002. (1) [...] i said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. saddam hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction, and he cannot be trusted. in this example, president bush used an analogy to prove that the iraqi president is a criminal. in reality, it seems that mr. bush has no proof that the iraqi regime committed an act of terror against the us. also, he stood unable to prove this fact to both his nation and the world so that he can go into war against this sovereign country. however, to make this fact acceptable, he resorted to the reasoning by inference. with reference to some information by the us intelligence, he highlighted that the iraqi regime has ties with terrorists like al-qaeda. based on this information, he claimed that president saddam is guilty too. here, mr. bush used this analogy to make his argument more plausible and to show that he is a sound speaker who is acting based on the use of specific information. in other words, by making his argument sound and plausible bush gives himself more power to convince and to continue leading his plan to invade iraq. moreover, he succeeded to limit the public’s power to resist his claimed plans for action. in other words, bush’s use of this analogy, as a means of deception, enabled him to promote more power to himself and to limit the power of the addresses on the contrary. therefore, his trial to create an asymmetry of power between the self and the other is goal-oriented. it is goal-oriented in that it sought to prove a course of action, going into war against iraq. 4.2 association (equivocation) it is a communicative strategy that a speaker might use to create a connection between two distinct things like concepts, ideas, views, events, etc. (perelman & olbrechts-tyteca, 1969; bull & simon-vandenberg, 2014). in reality, this connection is at the heart of the speaker’s rhetoric while arguing to prove that a given conclusion is true. this means that it is a logical way of processing ideas that the speaker resorts to so that he can convince his public to believe in what he is saying. to reach persuasion the speaker manipulates this connection in the way that enables him to highlight what he seeks to make of very prominent and more remarkable to his public. in contrast, he will leave unremarkable what might not serve for the defense of his choices. here, the prominence that the speaker aims to create is an implicit way to demonstrate that a given fact is true. by proving the truthfulness of a given conclusion, the speaker can maintain control over his public’s minds and make them ready to implement and to defend what he is planning for. in fact, the public’s adherence to the speaker’s decisions does not mean that what he is arguing for is logically sound. however, it is rhetorically persuasive. this persuasiveness is the result of the power of manipulation through which he www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 164 published by scholink inc. succeeded to control their thinking and to limit their tendency to resist. thus, association becomes a strong strategy of empowerment in which the speaker manipulates the connection between distinct things to deceive his public so that he can get more power to dominate. to make this explanation closer to the readers’ minds, we cite and analyze the following example which is taken from obama’s address on the un security council sanctions against iran on jun 9th, 2010. (2) [...] so let me repeat: we recognize iran’s rights. but with those rights come responsibilities. and time and again, the iranian government has failed to meet those responsibilities. iran concealed a nuclear enrichment facility in qom that raised serious questions about the nature of its program. iran further violated its own obligations under u.n. security council resolutions to suspend uranium enrichment. instead, they’re enriching up to 20 percent. it has failed to comply fully with iaea’s requirements. [...] that’s why the international community was compelled to impose these serious consequences. here, obama made a connection between rights and responsibilities to prove that iran’s non compliance with the un laws compelled the world community to impose sanctions on it. on the one hand, he highlighted the international community’s recognition of iran’s rights. by emphasizing this recognition, obama sought to convey that the international community is fair, just, democratic, and respects the others’ rights. on the other hand, he emphasized the need that iran should assume its responsibilities. his insistence on the need to comply with this moral value is meant to imply that who does not assume his responsibilities should be aware about the negative consequences. having said this, obama moved to the statement of some examples where iran failed to meet its responsibilities. first, he claimed that iran is not serious about concealing its nuclear program. second, he added that iran violated its own obligations to suspend uranium enrichment. third, he stressed that iran has failed to comply fully with the iaea’s requirements. while stating these examples, obama aimed to prove that iran failed to assume all its responsibilities. in other words, iran missed all opportunities to flee possible sanctions. therefore, the association between both rights and responsibility is used to show that iran failed to assume its responsibility and it should be punished. to defend this conclusion, obama made a contrast between the “we” (responsible) and the “iranians” (ir-responsible). this contrast is meant to polish the image of the world community and give it the right to impose sanctions and to distort the image of iran to restrict its allies’ power to vote against the un decision to sanction it. briefly, the analysis of obama’s manipulation of the connection between rights and responsibilities showed that association is a strong means of empowerment that enables the speaker to reach his ends. 4.3 binarities (meaning) it is a communicative strategy based on the use of pairs of related concepts that are opposite in terms of meaning. in politics, speakers might resort to the use of binarities to give a portrait of the self and the other. in other words, they use sets of binary oppositions to represent who we are and who the other is. this lexical-based strategy of representation seeks mainly to shed light on the positive description of the self and the negative depiction of the other. while they are praising the self and minimizing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 165 published by scholink inc. other, the speakers are trying to get public legitimacy in a given political context. indeed, the legitimacy they are seeking to acquire in that context is needed to prove a given course of action against the other. this means that they are looking for more power to dominate the public’s minds. it is the kind of domination that they need to limit the public’s tendencies to resist their choices. in brief, the use of binarities is a strategy that some speakers might find fruitful to give power to the self and to limit the power of the other. to give a concrete justification of this explanation, we cite and analyze the following examples which are taken from bush’s speeches. (3) [...] freedom and fear are at war. the advance of human freedom the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time-now depends on us. (bush’s speech on february 21st, 2001) (4) [...] america believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. people everywhere prefer freedom to slavery, prosperity to squalor, self-government to the rule of terror and torture. (bush’s speech on october 7th, 2001) (5) [...] and the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace. (bush’s speech on march 18th, 2003) in these three examples, bush used couples of opposite concepts to represent both the self and the other. he referred to the in-group people using words such as freedom, prosperity, self-government, and peace. in contrast, he used their opposites to refer to the out-group people. these are words like fear, slavery, squalor, rule of terror and torture, and violence. by using theses binarities, bush sought to highlight that the in-group nations are good, democratic, and successful. these characteristics have their opposites highlighted while he attempted to show that the out-group nations are savage, violent, and terrorist. in other words, bush used this opposition of characteristics to emphasize the positive character of the self and the negative character of the other. as far as bush’s struggle to get more power is concerned, his positive representation of the self and his negative representation of the other worked to give him the right to act while reducing the public’s chance to resist his claim to go into war. indeed, by creating a negative mental image of the other on the public’s minds, bush succeeds to promote more power to himself in order to manipulate the current political context. this result is associated with the public’s fear to face future possible threats, which might imply their surrender to the president’s choice. to sum up, the manipulation of meaning via the use of binarities could be a wise communicative strategy that speakers might use to give more power to the self and to limit the power of the other. 4.4 contrast (syntax) it is a communicative strategy used to show difference between two things, people, situations, etc. using such a syntactic structure to convey the meaning of contrast, the speaker seeks to deny a given reality in order to emphasize another reality that is more important for the pursuing of his course of action. in other words, the negation of the reality claimed in the first part of the sentence and the highlight of the reality claimed in its second part is a rhetorical strategy that the speaker uses to convince his public that the second reality is inevitable. indeed, the inevitability of this conclusion represents the peak of the speaker’s rhetoric. it is the moment during which the speaker can get control www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 166 published by scholink inc. over the public’s minds and their ways of thinking about what is going on in their social context and what the speaker is planning to do. this kind of control is goal-oriented because it serves and defends only one way of thinking and acting. hence, it is a strategy that enables the speaker to get more power to plan and to act while it reduces the public’s chance to resist his plans and actions. in order to explain the theoretical conception of how contrast is manipulated to empower the self and dis-empower the other, we cite and analyze the following example which is extracted from bush’s address to a joint session of congress and the american people on september 21st, 2001. (6) the course of action is not known, yet its outcome is certain. in this example, bush created a contrast between the course of his action and its outcome. the linguistic analysis of the relation between the two parts of this statement shows that he denied the certainty of his course of action while emphasizing the certainty of its result. in reality, the binarity of ‘denial vs. emphasis’ he used represents a rhetorical strategy he resorted to in order to convince his public that victory should be taken for granted. the claim that the result of the action to be taken – victory – is guaranteed makes the public feel less agitated about the bad consequences of the war. hence, it serves to reduce their tendency to face and resist bush’s decision to go into war. this act of reducing the other’s desire to resist will give bush more chance to dominate the public sphere and to materialize his decisions on the ground. in other words, by shedding light on this positive result, bush gave himself more power to prove his claim for war. instead, he showed a strong intension towards the reduction of his people’s chance to resist his claim. briefly, the manipulative use of contrast is a political strategy to extend the gap of power between the speaker and the hearer. 4.5 direct address (rhetoric) it is a communicative strategy that a speaker uses to convey a direct message to the hearer. to address his hearer directly, the speaker might use a name, a nickname, a pronoun, or etc. this resort to direct address seeks to serve many functions such as attracting the hearer’s attention, creating intimacy between the speaker and his addressees, etc. by serving these functions, the use of direct address enables the speaker to get control over his public through making them listen carefully to what he is saying. indeed, having the addresses listen with attention to what is going to be said helps the speaker to persuade them easily, mislead them, and make them share and defend his opinions and actions. moreover, while trying to create intimacy with his addressees, the speaker seeks to reduce their tendency to react and resist his claims to act. in other words, the speaker is struggling to get more power so that he can control his public’s reactions, their ways of thinking, and their behaviors. therefore, while being used to persuade and mislead, direct address is used to promote more power to the speaker to dominate the public and to reduce the power of the hearer in order to limit the degree of their resistance. to explain how direct address works in political discourse to give more power to the speaker and to reduce the power of the hearer, we cite and analyze the following example which is taken from bush’s war ultimatum speech from the cross hall in the white house on march 18th, 2003. (7) [...] many iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and i have a message for them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 167 published by scholink inc. if we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. as our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. we will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new iraq that is prosperous and free. here, bush addressed the iraqi people directly via the use of the noun “iraqis” and the pronoun “you”. in this direct call he sought to achieve two different but complementary communicative functions. first, he aimed to create a division between the iraqi regime and his people by highlighting that america is going into war against the regime and not the people. second, he tried to get intimacy with the iraqi people by denying the fact that he will attack them, promising to deliver the food and medicine they need, and claiming to remove fear and help them build a free and more prosperous state. these two objectives are complementary in that they help bush manipulate the iraqi people in order to convince them not to defend a regime that he depicted lawless and to welcome his project of freedom, democracy, and prosperity. the main objective of his misleading is to polish the image of the colonizer and make of him the savior and to tarnish the image of the colonized and make of him the cause of all bad deeds. by doing this, bush sought to give more power to himself as a speaker in order to maintain control over the iraqis’ opinions and behaviors. also, he tried to reduce the power of the regime by misrepresenting it and that of the iraqi people by making of them friends of the us in order to reduce the degree of their reactions and may be to reduce their resistance to the coalition’s forces later on. hence, bush’s use of direct address is a rhetorical strategy through which he sought to mislead the iraqi people for the sake of getting more power to dominate the scene and to destabilize the other’s power to resist. 4.6 implication (pragmatics) it is a communicative strategy that the speaker might use to convey indirectly what he does not like to sate in a direct way for a purpose or another. for instance, by implying meaning the speaker seeks to protect himself from the reactions of the addressees that might take place in case of delivering the message directly. in other words, while stating what can please his addressees and mystify what cannot please them, the speaker seeks to draw a positive image of the self on the hearers’ minds. this positive image is required to communicate the hearers’ feelings and make them feel closer to the speaker. by reducing the space between himself and his hearers the speaker aims to get more power to control his public so that he can easily convince them and affect their opinions and behaviors. this control of the mind works mainly to reduce people’s tendency to resist the speaker’s decisions and his claimed plan to act in a given context. therefore, the speaker’s manipulation of what to say and what to imply is a strategy to get power over the public and to reduce their power to say no for his choices to act. to show how implication is used to deceive the audience for the sake of dominating them and make them surrender to the claimed decisions, we cite and analyze the following example which is extracted from bush’s war ultimatum speech from the cross hall in the white house on march 18th, 2003. (8) [...] the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. we have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the united nations security council. we have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 168 published by scholink inc. disarmament of iraq. our good faith has not been returned. bush resorted to the use of implication to convey to his public that going into war against iraq has become an inevitable action. by highlighting the inevitability of the action, bush sought to convince his public that he did not choose to go into war, yet he found himself obliged to face the threat of the iraqi regime. in other words, going into war has become a national duty and not a political choice. having reached this conclusion, bush aimed to falsify reality as well as to deceive his public for the sake of maintaining control over their minds. this attempt to reign over the public’s minds is a political strategy that aims to re-shape their opinions about the war against iraq and to affect the way they will respond to his political claim. in reality, bush’s struggle to affect the public’s ways of thinking and behaving via the use of deception represents a political desire towards domination. his desire to promote more power to the self works simultaneously with his eagerness to limit the power of the public to resist and to react harshly against his choice. to limit his public tendency to face his decisions, bush resorted to the deception of reality and the mystification of the truth. therefore, the use of implication served to hide the double standard nature of bush’s language while seeking to justify his claim to invade iraq in 2003. also, it enabled him to promote more power to the self to succeed to lead the war and to reduce the power of the other in order not to vote for the rejection his claim to act. 4.7 incorrect terminology (anthropology) the phrase incorrect terminology is the opposite of that of correct terminology. while the use of the correct definitions of terms means conveying clear messages, the use of the incorrect meaning of terms represents a conscious way to deceive and mislead. for instance, politicians usually resort to the use of incorrect terminology to falsify reality and to mislead their public. the speaker’s desire to mislead is an attempt to hide the messages that might violate universal values, laws, etc. it is a way to hide one’s ideologies and agendas for the sake of fleeing harsh critique and may be punishment. in other words, what the speaker seeks to convey and the goals he aims to achieve are there; however, these are expressed in such a deceptive way. here, deception is a strategy that the speaker might resort to in order to make their choices more acceptable on the part of his public and to reduce any possible chance for confrontation or resistance. this means that the use of incorrect terminology becomes a strategy to save one’s face by making the inappropriate seem to be appropriate. if he succeeded to do so, the speaker will get the adequate power that enables him to maintain control over his public’s minds. also, it is the power that will enable him to put into practices his choices and plans for action. having this in mind, we can say that the use of incorrect terminology represents another strategy of empowerment in the discursive practice of language. to prove the validity of this conclusion we cite and analyse the following examples which are extracted from trump’s speech to the un general assembly in september 25th, 2018. (9) [...] we ’ve started the construction of a major border wall, and we have greatly strengthened border security. (10) [...] we had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both https://www.theguardian.com/world/iraq www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 169 published by scholink inc. countries’ interest to pursue the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago. (11) [...] we ask all nations to isolate iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues. and we ask all nations to support iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny. (12) [...] the united states has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion. i have great respect and affection for my friend, president xi, but i have made clear our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. china’s market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated. in these examples, things are not named by their correct terminology. however, trump made use of incorrect terminology to defend his choices in such local and international matters that are related to the us security, talks with north korea, tension with iran, and war trade with china. in (9), he referred to the ‘border wall’ that the us started constructing on its borders with mexico using the expression ‘border security’. his use of this expression is meant to hide his ideology of bigotry and hatred towards the other. in reality, trump’s bigotry was at the cross roads of many critiques and platform debates since the start of his electoral campaign. being aware of that and of its impact on his personal image as a president, trump resorted to the use of his america first rhetoric. border security, which is one of the sensitive issues in the us, is being used as a euphemism to empower trump’s claims to stop the entry of foreign nations. by using this expression, he will get the legitimacy to stop migration from other countries under the cover of his duties, as a president of the us, to do whatever can protect his citizens from foreign threat. in other words, he will get the adequate power that enables him to convince his public that the construction of the wall is the right choice to protect the us from any potential danger. hence, trump resorted to the use of the incorrect definition of words to defend the construction of the wall. it is under the name of border security he did so in order to be away from being accused by hatred. this takes place through the distortion of reality and the mystification of the bigoted ideology lying behind his claim to build the wall. in (10), he used the expression ‘productive conversations’ as a euphemism for ‘productive summit’. in reality, these two expressions serve two different meanings the determination of which could reveal the deceptive nature of using one phrase instead of another. first, the phrase ‘productive conversations’ means that trump succeeded to maintain a good relation with the korean leader and to convince him to give up his nuclear program. second, the phrase “productive summit” means that the summit was well-organized and that all parties have participated in its success. this gap of meaning between the definitions of these expressions highlights that trump used the first expression instead of the second to attribute the success of the summit to his person. however, he could have said a “productive summit” to reward the collective efforts of the organizing community. this implies that trump has used the incorrect terminology to serve such political ends. his use of the incorrect expression is goal-oriented in that it is meant to glorify his person and to show his ability to deal with such problematic issues that the previous us presidents did not succeed to deal with. this desire to praise the self is an attempt to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 170 published by scholink inc. manipulate the public and to convince them that he is the leader who puts america’s interests first and then acts in the way that can preserve these interests. therefore, trump’s use of the incorrect terminology represents an attempt to get more power. it is the power that will enable him to put his political views about local and international issues into practice. in (11), trump called the “interference” in iran’s local affairs as the “support” of the iranians who are “struggling to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny. trump’s call to support the iranians to defend their rights is the explicit message. however, the implicit message is to provoke the iranians and to make them revolt against their state. this message represents an indirect attempt to remove a regime that the us and its allies viewed as an aggressive one and they failed to convince it to stop uranium enrichment. by hiding the illegal meaning of the message (intervention) and expressing its legal one (support), trump sought to create a kind of division between the iranian regime and its people without being accused by the fact of calling for the instability of a sovereign state. here, trump succeeded to convey what he is seeking to convey by using the incorrect definition of the term of “support” while saving face from being accused by the violation of the un laws. in other words, trump’s use of one term instead of another is a strategy to manipulate what to convey and what to imply (implicitness/explicitness) for the sake of serving such political goals. this manipulation of meaning seeks mainly to enable the speaker to affect the political scene in iran. also, it seeks to reduce the power of the regime to resist the us power by widening the gap between it and its people. thus, by using ‘support’ instead of ‘intervention’ trump got the power and the legitimacy to address the iranians to defend their rights with the support of the world community. in (12), trump used the phrase ‘market distortion’ instead of ‘market invasion’ to highlight the impact of china’s violation of the wto’s principles on the us trade imbalance. in reality, his change of one expression by another is meant to prove the legitimacy of the new tariffs that the us announced on chinese-made goods. indeed, china has invaded markets across the globe with its various goods and proved to be competitive and able to invade more markets. this is something legal and each state has the right to be competitive and to invade more markets. however, what is illegal is to violate the trade principles of the wto. in order for trump to show that what china is doing is not legal, he resorted to the use of the expression “market distortion”. in other words, china is not invading the markets in such a legal way. in contrast, it is doing so in an illegal way that according to trump violates the trade agreements. this implies that imposing more taxes on its goods is a legal political decision to protect the us economy. this ultimate conclusion that trump sought to reach is worked out through the investigation of the huge gap of meaning between both concepts “invasion” and “distortion”. while the first is legal, the second is illegal. therefore, trump emphasized the illegality of china’s practices to get the sympathy of the world community and the support of his public to prove the validity of the need to apply the newly announced tariffs. also, he sought to reduce china’s ability to resist and to react against his taxes as well as to reduce its chance to get supporters from the world community since it is accused by the fact of violating the wto principles. hence, trump made use of the incorrect www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 171 published by scholink inc. expression to get the adequate power that enables him to put into practices his plans for new tariffs on the chinese products. to sum up, the analysis of these examples proved that trump made use of incorrect concepts each time to distort reality. his distortion of reality was meant to make of the context serve for the adoption of the claimed decisions. indeed, the analysis of the huge gap of meaning between the expression that should be used and the one he used instead of it showed that changing meaning was one of the strategies he relies on to justify a given claim. it is a way to save his face from harsh critiques and resistance while claiming such claims that might seem to be unacceptable. his attempt to save his face works mainly by means of the implicitness/explicitness technique. for instance, he conveys what he views as legal and polite; however, he implies what he views as illegal and can bring him a possible harm. in other words, by fleeing confrontation and avoiding the fact of being charged with the violation of the un laws, trump got the power to convince and to act. hence, the use of incorrect terminology is another way of empowering the self while reducing the harm of the other. 4.8 mis-representation (representation) it is a strategy that the speaker might resort to in order to highlight the negative side of the other’s character. in general, it is about giving false and misleading information to depict the counterpart. this act of giving deceptive and misleading ideas about the other is ideologically monitored in that it seeks to tarnish the other’s image. by distorting the image of the other, the speaker seeks to reduce his admission on the part of the public. in contrast, it works to give more prominence to the speaker ’s character so that he can receive more admission on the part of his public. also, it aims to reduce the public’s tendency to face and resist the decisions that the speaker made against the other. in reality, the speaker’s attempt to minimize the image of the other and to amplify the image of the self seeks mainly to give more power to the self in order to control the public’s thinking and behavior. this kind of control works mainly through the creation of mental images on the minds of the public. these images are used to re-shape reality in the way that serves the speaker’s personal and political objectives. therefore, mis-representation represents a communicative strategy that the speaker might use while looking for domination. in order to explain how misrepresentation serves for the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other, we cite and analyze the following example which is extracted from trump’s cpac speech at the conservative political action conference on february 23rd, 2018. (13) [...] just for the media, the fake news back there, they took very good care of him. they were very gentle. he was very obnoxious. it was only one person. so we have thousands of people here. so, listen, tomorrow the headline will be protesters disturb the trump—one person, folks. doesn’t deserve a mention. doesn’t deserve a headline. the headline tomorrow, disrupters of cpac. one person. and he was very nice. we looked at him, he immediately left. okay. now, i’ve heard it too often. while addressing his public in this speech, trump attacked the media by using some negative expressions such as “fake news” and “very obnoxious”. he used these expressions aiming to draw a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 172 published by scholink inc. negative image of the media on the minds of his public. this image is required to reduce the impact of the media on the americans’ thinking about him and his policies. in reality, the media attacked trump for the sexist, bigoted, and xenophobic statements he made in his speeches and interviews. for this reason, he resorted to the negative qualification of the media to show its alignment and its dishonesty in reporting and depicting reality. his trial to distort the picture of the media highlights his strong desire to polish his personal image on the part of his public. by doing this trump aimed to show to his public that he is a good leader who is the victim of the biased reports of the conspiring media. being in the position of the victim gives trump the power to deny what the media reports about his racist ideologies and his hatred of the other. this implies that he is seeking to make of himself a good patriot whose goal is to re-build america away from being racist or aligning to one race and not another. in other words, trump’s minimization of the image of the media and his amplification of the image of the self represent a personal struggle to limit its power to guide the public minds and to increase his power to materialize his policies. so, trump resorts to the misrepresentation of the media to convince his public that what they read as headlines and news are biased and have no ties to reality. hence, he tried to defeat the media by getting control over his public. 4.9 softening meaning (politeness) by softening the meaning of words and expressions, the speaker seeks to be less aggressive. in reality, the speaker’s attempt to reduce the aggressivity of his language in a given context is a way to show politeness. here, politeness is not that of showing respect, instead, it is that of saving face. it is a way to save one’s face in that it helps the speaker to avoid such possible confrontation with his hearers, especially in difficult situations where the hearer’s tendency to react and to resist is high. for instance, in the context of crisis, where effective decisions should be taken to overcome the existing difficulties, the speaker might resort to the use of a soft language in order to make his decisions welcomed on the part of his public. at this level, language is softened; however, the content the speaker seeks to convey is the same and the actions to be performed are the same as well. this means that using a soft language is a way to distort reality without changing one’s plans and objectives. it is a way of deceiving and misleading in that the softening of language is meant to manipulate the hearers’ minds and to make them accept what they might not accept if it is expressed in such an aggressive way. hence, the softening of meaning becomes a way of polishing and making what is viewed as aggressive and unwelcomed seems to be polite and acceptable. in brief, by changing the public’s views towards reality and giving the speaker the chance to dominate, the softening of meaning becomes a good strategy of empowerment. in order to make the way the strategy of softening meaning works to empower the speaker and dis-empower the hearer for the sake of achieving such personal objectives, we cite and analyze the following example which is take from obama’s address to the nation on libya on march 30th, 2011. (14) [...] and so at my direction, america led an effort with our allies at the united nations security council to pass a historic resolution that authorized a no-fly zone to stop the regime’s attacks from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 173 published by scholink inc. air, and further authorized all necessary measures to protect the libyan people. (15) [...] i refused to let that happen. and so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of congress, i authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce u.n. security council resolution 1973. in these examples, obama softened meaning to prove to his public that the us’s interference in libya is a response to humanitarian duties to save people and to stop gaddafi’s aggression. his change of aggressive words and expressions with soft ones served to distort reality for the sake of controlling the public’s thinking about his decisions to act and limiting their power to criticize. this falsification of reality is detected, analysed, and interpreted as follows. in example (14), he used the expression “a no-fly zone” instead of saying “air strikes”. here, he softened meaning to show to his public that the us is there to protect the people from the regime’s attacks from the air and not in war against the regime. the false and distorted reality that he created by using politeness becomes more effective with his emphasis on the leading role of the us. this emphasis works to serve two main functions. first, the us is not the only nation to respond to the libyan people’s appeal for rescue. however, it works in consistence with its allies and friends under the un laws. this implies that the us is not acting illegally, but it acts in a legal way. second, the us will not take the burden of the costs of intervention. instead, it leads the world community’s efforts to save the innocent people of libya, which means that there are other nations who will pay the bills of this intervention. by conveying this message, obama aimed to reassure his public, who are against bearing any further costs of military intervention, that the us will not pay. this reassurance is meant to calm the public and to make them less motivated to resist. having the reality that the public are less agitated to confront his decision gives obama more freedom to act and to pursue his political interests in the region. to sum up, these two functions proved that obama used soft language to save his face from the harshness of the critiques of his public. this means that he changed a word or an expression with other, which is less aggressive, to manipulate his public for the sake of dominating them, affecting their ways of thinking, and limiting their power to resist. in example (15), he replaced the aggressive concept of “war” by a less aggressive expression “military action”. this softening of meaning was meant to convince the public that the us’s intervention in libya will not take much time, yet it will take just few days to end gaddafi’s aggression. the deception that obama sought to create on his public’s minds by using a soft language becomes more persuasive with his emphasis on the goals of his intervention which are: to end killing and to enforce the un laws. this implies that the us is not invading libya nor killing its citizens. however, it works to enforce what the world community voted for. by emphasizing these ends, obama succeeded to distort reality and to hide the us’s political interests in libya as well as its elites’ desire to remove an old enemy from power. it is the enemy that the americans sought to remove since years before. in other words, there exists a big gap between what obama sought to convey and what reality is. this implies that language is softened in the way that serves to completely change reality. it is a change that aims to reduce the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 174 published by scholink inc. degree of the other’s critique and to offer a better image of the self. i mean an image that is able to give him the power to continue acting and to reach his desired political ends. thus, obama used a soft expression to save his face from being accused to lead an imperial act in libya and to deny the existence of any political goals more than saving lives and enforcing the un security council resolution 1973. his highlight of this noble aim was meant to reduce the public’s power to clash his interference in an independent state. to recapitulate, the analysis of these two examples proved that softening language is a good communicative strategy to distort reality. it is the kind of distortion that aims mainly to save the speaker’s face by reducing the other’s motivation to resist and giving the self more chance to dominate. here, domination works through controlling the social context by means of re-shaping reality in the way that makes the other believe in what the speaker is saying and gives the speaker the power to carry on working on his plans. hence, once being used to save face and not to show respect, politeness could be viewed as a strong means of empowerment. 4.10 stretching meaning (style) the stretching of something refers to the act of making it longer. in the same sense of the term, the stretching of the meaning of words refers to the extension of their definitions to make of them floating and fuzzy. in reality, some speakers might resort to the extension of the meaning of some concepts while seeking to make their addressees puzzled and unable to grasp what is meant by what they are saying. for instance, lynch (2006) showed that by extending the meaning of the notion of ‘warfare’ it has become difficult to define what actions a person might engage in without constituting warfare. this fuzziness of the borders between what constitutes warfare and what does not is ideologically monitored to deceptive and to mislead the public. in other words, by making his public unable to differentiate between what is false and what is true, the speaker seeks to make of them believe easily in what he is saying since he became the only part who possess the truth in that context. the fact of putting one-self in the position of a decider who knows about what the right action is gives the speaker the power to reign over his public. in contrast, it limits the public’s power to criticize and resist what the speaker said or what decisions he will take. to sum up, the stretching of meaning is another manifestation of double-speak that the speaker might resort to while seeking to get more power to dominate his public and make them adhere to his claims. to make clear how the stretching of meaning serves as a means of empowerment in political discourse, we cite and analyze the following example which is taken from obama’s address on isis in september 11th, 2014. (16) [...] so isil poses a threat to the people of iraq and syria, and the broader middle east — including american citizens, personnel and facilities. if left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the united states. while we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, isil leaders have threatened america and our allies. our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners—including europeans and some americans—have joined them in syria and iraq. trained and battle-hardened, these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 175 published by scholink inc. fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly att acks. in this example, obama resorted to the extension of the meaning of the notion of “threat” to prove his claim for the need to confront the isis. he started from the basic definition of the term to reach its extended comprehension. on the one hand, he expressed the basic meaning of the term by stating directly the isisi’s threat to america and its allies (threatened). on the other hand, he stretched the definition of the term to cover the acts of: plotting, welcoming foreigners, training fighters, and carrying out deadly attacks. first, the fact that these terrorists are plotting against the nations of the region implies that they will threaten the us’s homeland one day if they are left unchecked. though obama denied the existence of any plot against the us, he insisted that the us should confront the growing threat of the isis. second, by saying that these groups are welcoming more people from across the globe, obama aimed to show that their threat is growing and that there should be a collective act to stop it. third, these groups are training more and more fighters which means that their ability to act becomes higher. in other words, if there will be no plan to check them, we might not be able to predict their ability to harm and when they can act. fourth, the fear that these fighters will get back to their countries and carry deadly attacks before being confronted and defeated will increase the degree of their harm. in brief, obama extended the notion of “threat” in the way that makes the americans unable to check if they are threatened or not. by creating this confusion, obama sought to get more power to convince his public to go into war against isis and to reduce their power to resist his claim. 5. concluding remarks this paper offered a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the issue of empowerment in the political use of doublespeak. it made use of three different theories—theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics—in order to: first, trace how doublespeak manifests itself in the three speakers’ speeches. second, show how speakers use doublespeak to promote more power to the self and to reduce the power of the other. third, determine the political ends which stand behind any traced use of doublespeak. indeed, these three theories are combined in accordance with the nature of the topic and the needs of the problematics it raises to be answered. taking into consideration these two reasons, a combination of all these three theories has become a theoretical need for an effective approach. the theory of discourse analysis we used here is defined while taking into consideration the nature of the concept under question. according to the existing literature, doublespeak is a multi-disciplinary phenomenon that could be traced at various levels of the language in use. therefore, the theory to be used for its study should be multi-disciplinary in nature otherwise it will not be adequate to analyse the selected speeches and to reach such good results. we said a multi-disciplinary theory of discourse analysis so that we can detect all the traces of this multi-disciplinary phenomenon at the various levels of the selected texts. it is also aimed to guarantee that we will end up having a well-detailed critique of the issue. this theory finds its ground in the cda approach to language. it is the approach in which the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 176 published by scholink inc. combination of theories across disciplines is allowed at any time we feel that the existing approaches will not be adequate to solve a given problematics and that we need to add such a new theory. hence, the application of this theory entails going through out the texts to trace the manifestations of doublespeak. this task represents the first step of the method we used in this study. the theory of power we used takes into consideration three main points of the definition of the term: power is enacted through language, power is of different types, and power is enacted to serve different goals. these points dictated a three-step strategy to the examination of how power works in a given text: on the one hand, we determined how each example of double-speak served for the asymmetrical distribution of power between the speaker and the hearer. on the other hand, we highlighted the sort of power the speaker activated in each example. then, we made clear the goals any activated sort of power served to achieve. moreover, these three points are related to other concepts—such as context, knowledge, and access—that are crucial in the study of how power works in languages use. therefore, the application of this theory needs scanning each example of doublespeak apart to reveal how power is distributed, what sort of power is activated, and for what purpose. this task represents the second step of the method we used in this study. the theory of politics we used in this combination takes into consideration the distinctive characteristics of political discourse. first, we recapitulated the basic conceptions forming the definition of political discourse (simple and complex). we also questioned the nature of the relation between both the speaker and the addressee to understand how doublespeak works in the world of politics. second, we focused on the discussion of the specificity of the structure of political discourse to show how speakers use such structures in a given context to defend a specific end. in other words, the exploration of political discourse structure needs taking into account the properties of the political context of that discourse. third, we capitalized the characteristic features of political language by emphasizing the specificity of the domain of politics and shedding light on the properties of the language used within this domain. these two axes helped us understand how to decode hidden messages in a discourse of falsification, distortion, legitimization, etc. where meaning is complex, elastic, vague, biased, etc. in brief, the application of this theory serves to make clear where bias manifests itself to shed light on the political propaganda it works to defend. this task represents the third step of the method we used in this study the application of the combination of these theories showed that speakers, in the domain of politics, usually use doublespeak to create an asymmetry of power between them and their hearers. this unjust distribution of power takes place through the distortion of reality. it is by re-shaping the social context and making of it serves for the adoption of the speaker’s choices. this manipulation of power works through promoting more power to the self in order to reign and control and limiting the power of the public to reduce their tendency for resistance. this attempt to dis-empower the hearer works mainly to make of him easily convinced and adhere directly to what the speaker is saying. here, convincing the hearer does not mean that the speaker’s argument is logically sound; however, it is rhetorically www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 177 published by scholink inc. persuasive. the fact that the speaker uses doublespeak to make of the illogical seems to be logical and convincing proves that it is a strong means of argumentation. indeed, persuasion works mainly through the domination of the other’s mind for the sake of legalizing what the speaker seeks to legalize while aiming to achieve a such given political objective. briefly, doublespeak is proved to be a political tool of empowerment, legalization, persuasion, and justification. by highlighting these theoretical and practical conclusions, it becomes clear that the present paper brought such valuable contributions. these contributions can be fruitful for researches in politics, political discourse analysis, theories of power, face saving theories, pragmatics, argumentation theories, etc. it is fruitful in that it offers them a good theoretical background to the study of power and empowerment in the discursive use of language. it also offered them a simple method of research to trace the uses of doublespeak, explaining how it works to create an asymmetry of power between the speaker and the addressee, and determine the objectives it serves. however, despite bringing these valuable contributions, the paper might suffer some limitations like the diversity of the sources of the examples. here, we used us presidential speeches delivered by bush, obama, and trump. instead, we could have used speeches from other political contexts in the world. though limitations are there, they haven’t affected the quality of research in this paper since the study has reached valuable conclusions on how doublespeak works to empower the self and dis-empower the other. in brief, the limitations are limited in comparison with the paper’s contributions. but, their statement could be a good step for the stimulation of future researches on the topic. references benfield, e. c. 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(1978). class, status, and party. in g. roth (ed.), economy and society (pp. 180-195). california: university of california press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 143 original paper the effect of mobile phone use on social interactions among millennials: an ethnographic study michael p. labella1, sufyan mohammed-baksh2 & hyuk jun cheong2* 1 chestnut hill college, philadelphia, pa, u.s.a. 2 department of communication & media, university of scranton, scranton, pa, u.s.a. * hyuk jun cheong, department of communication & media, university of scranton, scranton, pa, u.s.a. received: july 16, 2019 accepted: august 6, 2019 online published: august 10, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p143 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p143 abstract the use of mobile phones among millennials has grown to alarmingly high rates thereby affecting face-to-face social interactions and group dynamics. this ethnographic research study observed 150 individuals in real world, social group setting, ranging from dyads to groups of four. analysis found that a majority of the individuals in groups participated in mobile phone interactions and some even spent more time on their mobile devices than did interacting with other members of the group. analysis also found significant incidents of shared mobile phone use and reduced offline social interactions among individuals. keywords ethnography, ethnographic research, millennials, mobile marketing, face-to-face communication, and social interactions 1. introduction 1.1 ethnography and ethnographic research ethnographic research is a cross-disciplinary, qualitative research method initially used by the disciplines of anthropology and sociology, and evolving to be used in several other areas such as psychology, business, health science, and even computer and information sciences (goodman, 2011). schensul, schensul, and lecompte (1999) best describes ethnographic research as “an approach to learning about social and cultural life of communities, institutions, and other settings” (p. 1). an important element of ethnography is its attempt to accurately record detailed qualitative information in addition to quantitative data in an attempt to reach an intimate understanding of human behaviors www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 144 published by scholink inc. and conditions. willis and trondman (2000) defined ethnography as “a family of methods involving direct and sustained social contact with agents, and of richly writing up the encounter, respecting, recording and representing at least partly in its own terms, the irreducibility of human experience. ethnography is the disciplined and deliberate witness-cum-recording of human events” (p. 395). brewer (2008) defined ethnography as “the study of people in naturally occurring settings or ‘fields’ by methods of data collection which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities, involving the researcher participating directly in the setting, if not also the activities, in order to collect data in a systematic manner but without meaning being imposed on them externally” (p. 189). the goal of ethnographic research is to accurately study the many components of the environment under research (lecompte & schensul, 1999; goodman, 2011). the researcher observes the environment in a was as to best report his or her findings (fetterman, 1998). in fact, fetterman (1998) describes the role of the ethnographer as “both storyteller and scientist” (p. 1). following these operational definitions to determine method, importance was placed on the direct and sustained nature of the social observation, systematic and nonbiased data collection, richly writing up the encounter, attempt to document an aspect of social interaction in its own terms, in this case, a public, non-artificial social environment with direct researcher presence. 1.2 study stetting & ethnographer training many times, it is normal practice to gather information about groups, and social interactions among them using other research methods such as surveys and questionnaires, the best method to intimately understand groups, especially with regard to mobile technology use and effects of this on social interaction within these groups, the ideal method suggested is active observation over a period of time (goodman, 2011). this researcher used dell hymes’ speaking mnemonic to help record and account for various details of the social environment in which the ethnography takes place; s meaning setting, p meaning participant identity (observed demographic information), e meaning ends (observed purpose of the social interaction, e.g., business or recreational), a meaning act (or organization of speech acts), k meaning key or tone of the social interaction observed, i meaning instrumentalities (language, dialect, face-to-face interaction vs. writing), n meaning norm or social rules and customs, and g meaning genre or type of social interaction (lecture vs. dialogue) (johnstone & marcellino, 2010). 1.3 social interaction & online environments hallet and barber (2014) noted that ethnographic studies traditionally sought to observe people in their natural physical environments. ethnographic studies were defined as “the study of people in their own time and space, in their own everyday lives” (burawoy, 1991, p. 1). however, one challenge faced in ethnography today, including this study, is the acknowledgment and incorporation of the online environment in research (hallat & barber, 2014). with the advent and proliferation of the internet, people now occupy online as well as physical “habitats”, and these spaces have become important for the creation and reproduction of relationships, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 145 published by scholink inc. identities, and social locations. however, the bulk of traditional ethnographers in the twenty-first century often overlook the importance of online spaces in the lived experience and thus miss data that could help them more fully understand the populations they study (hallet & barber, 2014). when exploring social interaction, the researcher must now take into account the influence and overlap of the digital environment in the physical environment. 1.4 face-to-face vs. online social interaction you et al. (2016) acknowledged that the popularization of the internet has impacted the communication behavior of adolescents. they used the preference for online social interaction (posi) scale to analyze chinese adolescents’ preference for online social interaction over face-to-face (ftf) interaction. su et al. (2016) found that humans’ conscious perception prioritizes social interactions, namely information communicated by the human body. this would suggest that people would prioritize ftf interactions over interaction with technology. however, the proliferation of live-action pictures and videos in technological media (e.g., youtube, instagram, snapchat) could offset the conditioned preference for ftf interaction. 1.5 mobile phones and social norms at present, one of the most popular and convenient methods for engaging the online environment is the smartphone. wei and lo acknowledged that the smartphone “will undoubtedly change the way people live, work, and interact with one another, perhaps even more profoundly than did the fixed telephone” (2006). jin and park noted that, in addition to the convenient accessibility to online information, the modern mobile phone provides various avenues by which to establish and maintain gratifying interpersonal relationships (2010). as stated previously, online media has the potential to offset the need for ftf interaction; this may be most profoundly observed in the incorporation of mobile phones into the physical environment. “the mobile phone is no longer just a device that facilitates communication between two individuals; it is also a hybrid technology that integrates audio, video and text with a display screen” (chan, 2013). the proliferation of cell phone use in public environments has the potential to drastically alter accepted social norms and presents social dilemmas concerning our interactions with those whom we share the public space (humphreys, 2005). 1.6 mobile phone use in the millennial generation the millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1997) have accepted and incorporated the use of mobile technology much more quickly than their parents’ generation (brown, 2017). millennials today have grown up in a technologically-rich world, using mobile phones, chat rooms, email, computer games, and listening to music and watching tv and videos, many times simultaneously as part of their social engagement (hanson, 2011). younger generations have also preferred the incorporation of mobile phone technology in the classroom, from secondary school to college. a study by nowell (2014) showed that secondary school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 146 published by scholink inc. teachers have sought to transform what was seen as a disruptive technology into a tool to encourage classroom engagement and participation. all the researchers of this study had firsthand experience in a college classroom in which a mobile phone app was used to encourage class participation in discussions. 1.7 negative social implications a study by isiklar et al. (2013) addressed the potential for habitual mobile phone use to cause symptoms such as loneliness, anxiety, and depression in adolescents. walsh et al. (2010) explored the possibility of pathological addiction to mobile phone use, which may act as an inhibitor to ftf social interactions. khosrovani and desai (2016) highlighted the potential of social media to permit high-risk sexual relationships and encounters among college students as an alternative to traditional sexual courting. jiang and chen et al. (2017) explored the role of gender in mobile phone use, and found that women may experience higher dependence on habitual mobile phone use as an outlet for social gratification and self-esteem. these potential negative social implications may be considered in the qualitative analysis of this study’s results. 1.8 implications for mobile marketing and the millennial generation current business trends force all practitioners and businesses to adjust to the needs of the customers. as mobile technologies grow, so does the need among marketing practitioners to leverage these technologies to achieve their marketing objectives (gregor & gotwald, 2013). because of the popular use of mobile technology among members the millennial generation, serazio (2013) emphasizes the importance of mobile marketing methods to reach a demographic that is more difficult to reach through traditional media outlets. gregor and gotwald (2013) noted the potential for the dissemination of marketing communications through social media networks. marketers can get access to a wealth of information using technologies connected to mobile phones. for example, when users access and interact on social networking sites using their mobile devices, marketers can an excellent chance to get to know their customers a lot better (gregor & gotwald, 2013). although there is a plethora of research available in regard to mobile marketing, its is focused more on the technology side or effect side. there remain gaps in knowledge with regard to a deeper understanding of how millennials use mobile phones in real-word group settings, and what if any, are the effects of group interactions on cell phone use and vice versa. 1.9 shared cell phone interaction in ftf social interactions & knowledge gap one topic on which this researcher did not find much previous data is the use of mobile phone technology to facilitate and enhance ftf interactions. while data was found on mobile technology used to facilitate classroom learning, or how mobile phone use could interrupt or inhibit ftf interaction, a review of relevant literature failed to find notable information on the potential for shared mobile phone interaction in a recreational social setting. in the future study and development of mobile marketing, scholars and practitioners should take into account the possible benefit of shared cell phone use in social settings to understand social interactions and disseminate messages. examples of shared cell www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 147 published by scholink inc. phone use in social settings include group photos for social media; snap chat stories; augmented reality technologies (ihlan & celtek, 2016); face-to-face sharing of articles, photos, and videos, etc. this study aims to use ethnographic research methodology to provide detailed quantitative and qualitative data and analysis concerning interruptive and shared cell phone use during social interactions among college-age millennials in public social settings. 2. methods 2.1 research questions the following research questions and hypotheses were developed based on the review of literature: research question 1. what is the total time percentage in an ftf social interaction that cell phone use occurs? research question 2. what total percentage of cell phone use during ftf interactions is interruptive, and what percentage is shared use? research question 3. from the total cell phone use observed, will some cell phone use fit the earlier definition of shared cell phone use? research question 4. what percent of cell phone use during ftf interactions will be interruptive as opposed to shared? 2.2 operational definitions for the purpose of the study, researchers provided operational definitions of four key terms drawing from review of current literature, and making distinctions specific to the purpose of this study. i. cell phone use: “any application of the cell phone as a tool, including talking, text messaging, game playing or the sheer accessibility of the instrument” (banjo et al., 2008, p. 127). ii. face-to-face (ftf) interaction: any in-person social interaction between two or more individuals including 1: face-to-face (eye) contact and 2: verbal communication. this study used earlier cited definition of cell phone use as “any application of the cell phone as a tool, including talking, text messaging, game playing or the sheer accessibility of the instrument” (banjo et al., 2008, p. 127). however, researchers made distinctions between interruptive cell phone use and shared cell phone use. iii. interruptive cell phone use: any application or use of the cell phone that breaks user engagement from ftf social interaction, including talking, text messaging, game playing or accessibility of the instrument, including checking one’s phone for messages or updates. interruptive cell phone use must include 1: break from face-to-face (eye) contact and/or 2: break from verbal communication. iv. shared cell phone use: any application or use of the cell phone that augments or facilitates a ftf or group interaction, including the physical sharing of text, audio, or video; and group use of cell phone tools, such as group photos. shared cell phone use must include 1: shared engagement in cell phone video or audio and 2: unbroken stream of verbal communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 148 published by scholink inc. 2.3 samples this study seeks to observe the cell phone use and social interaction behavior of college-age millennials. the study used a convenience sample of randomly selected social interactions of college students in public settings at a large northeastern university. this sample may have presented restrictions regarding demographic factors which were addressed in the discussion and limitation section of this manuscript. figure 1. screenshot of multitimer app 2.4 procedure this study employed ethnography as the primary data collection method. target sample were observed in their natural environment to gather the most accurate, unmodified and unbiased natural behavior (brewer, 2008) of millennials’ interaction with their cell phone while in social group setting. this researcher observed a target of 60ftf interactions between two or more individuals from the sampling frame of almost 5,000 students over a course of three weeks. interactions were observed for groups of two and more. a total of 150 individuals were observed. the total sample size included 25 dyads, 20 triads and 10 groups of four individuals. the duration of each interaction, total duration of interruptive cell phone use per interaction, and total duration of shared cell phone use per interaction was recorded via the multitimer application for accuracy and covertness (see figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 149 published by scholink inc. at the start of each ftf interaction, the interaction timer was initiated. the interruptive and shared timers was activated intermittently upon the observation of interrupted and shared cell phone use occurrences, respectively. at the end of each interaction observation period, the interaction timer was stopped, and the values of each timer for the interaction were recorded to calculate the total interaction time, the total time of interruptive cell phone use per interaction, and the total time of shared cell phone use per interaction. qualitative details from the dell hymes speaking mnemonic were noted after each observing session for thorough qualitative analysis of results. 3. results for answering research questions 1 and 2, over the course of one week, during three separate data collection periods, researchers observed 60 unique ftf interactions averaging 3 minutes and 48 seconds each, totaling 3 hours, 47 minutes and 55 seconds. of this time, 39 minutes and 52 seconds of interruptive cell phone use occurred, and 5 minutes and 22 seconds of shared cell phone use occurred. 19.84% of all interaction time observed contained cell phone use. 17.49% of all time observed contained interruptive cell phone use, while 2.35% contained shared cell phone use (see table 1). table 1. ftf interactions and cell phone use activities time spent interruptive cell phone use 39 minutes and 52 seconds (17.49%) shared cell phone use 5 minutes and 22 seconds (2.35%) uninterrupted ftf interaction 3 hours, 2 minutes and 41 seconds (80.15%) total time 3 hours, 47 minutes and 55 seconds (100%) to explore research question 3, the time spent in interruptive cell phone use and shared cell phone use was measured. approximately 88.14 percent of the entire cell phone use were interruptive cell phone use (39 minutes and 52 seconds) and 11.85 percent were shared cell phone use (5 minutes and 22 seconds). (see table 2.) table 2. cell phone use activities time spent interruptive cell phone use 39 minutes and 52 seconds (88.14%) shared cell phone use 5 minutes and 22 seconds (11.86%) total time 45 minutes and 14 seconds (100%) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 150 published by scholink inc. to explore research question 4, the numbers of instances of (1) ftf interactions without cell phone use, (2) interactions with instances of interruptive cell phone use but not shared use, (3) interactions with instances of shared cell phone use but not interruptive use, and (4) interactions with instances of both interruptive and shared cell phone use were counted. the numbers of instances are reported in table 3. table 3. ftf interactions and cell phone use activities number of instances ftf interactions without cell phone use 13 (21.67%) interactions with instances of interruptive cell phone use but not shared use 33 (55%) interactions with instances of shared cell phone use but not interruptive use 2 (3.33%) interactions with instances of both interruptive and shared cell phone use 12 (20%). total numbers of instances 60 (100%) 4. discussion of the total number of interactions observed, a majority (78.33%) contained some instance of cell phone use (see table 3). nearly one fifth (19.8%) of the total interaction time observed was permeated by cell phone use (see table 1). these data confirm secondary research acknowledging that the deep incorporation of mobile devices into the social lifestyle of the millennial generation. cell phone use during ftf social interactions has become an accepted social norm in this age group. the researcher observed no visible negative reactions by any group member(s) when other group member(s) engaged in mobile phone interaction(s). of the total time of cell phone use observed, over one tenth (11.86%) was observed as shared cell phone use. this previously unexplored observation illustrates the potential of mobile phone technology to augment and even help facilitate social interaction between individuals. this reveals significant opportunity for mobile marketing techniques and campaigns to utilize and encourage shared cell phone use to help disseminate targeted media and messaging in social environments. the data recorded were used to probe research questions 3 and 4. as to the research question 3, time spent to engage in interruptive and shared cell phone uses was gauged. a total of11.86% of cell phone use observed seemed to fit the operational definition of shared cell phone use. with regard to the research question 4, the numbers of instances of various cell phone uses were calculated. the data indicated that 88.14% of cell phone use observed fit the operational definition of interruptive cell phone use. however, 11.86% of all cell phone use observed is not a negligible time percentage. hence, shared cell phone use must be taken into account in future ethnographic research of cell phone use in social environments. also, shared cell phone use must also be considered by marketers as well as scholars as an important area to develop and study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 151 published by scholink inc. 5. limitations & suggestions for future research during the data collection periods, researchers noted several qualitative details that may have affected data collection and must be considered in future research. the primary setting of observation was a food court of the university, a popular gathering place for students to eat and socialize together. for the sake of covertness, other social environments on campus such as study rooms and lecture halls were left unobserved. it is possible that observation of the selected sample engaged in other social purpose may yield different results. another limitation to this experiment was the use of a convenience sample, college-age millennial students at a large private catholic university in the northeast united states. the demographic of this sample is predominantly caucasian, middle-to upper middle-class and with a slight female majority. potential influence of underlying factors such as ethnicity, gender, and economic status on observed social interaction remains unexamined in this study. in addition, researchers did not initially take into account the varying social dynamics between one-on-one interactions versus group interactions (more than two individuals). in multiple instances, social interactions were altered by the introduction of new members into the group, whose patterns of cell phone use may have differed from the initial interaction participants. although we reported group numbers based on the number of individuals in the group for a majority of the time observed (50%+), it may be likely that these surprise developments in the observed social interactions influenced the nature of the data collected. for further research of a similar nature, we recommend several key advancements. for a more representative sample and comprehensive data collection, multiple researchers may be employed to observe social interactions of the target demographic in different locations, such as different college campuses and public spaces in different regions. researchers should specify what types of social interactions are to be observed, such as one-on-one versus group interactions, in their methods. in addition, researchers may take into account other instances of face-to-face interruption, such as distraction by outside influences other than cell phone use. also, it may be a good practice for a set of researchers to observe a sample of the same interactions to ensure consistency of data collected. this research can also be expanded to include other demographic groups, especially different age groups and ethnic groups. references banjo, a., hu, y., & sundar, s. s. 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(2016). development of the preference for online social interaction scale for chinese adolescents. social behavior and personality: an international journal, 44(6), 1005-1014. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2016.44.6.1005 resources multitimer itunes application. developer: astakhov, sergey. updated: 17 april 2019. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 129 original paper design of voice control system for smart home yuyue xiao1 1kaili college,school of big data engineering, china project source kaili university youth research project: research on rapid charging methods for automotive lithium-ion batteries (2025yb024). received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 08, 2025 online published: october 25, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p129 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p129 abstract this paper introduces a smart home system utilizing the stm32 microcontroller as the core control board.the system integrates voice recognition and text-to-speech modules with photoelectric and temperature-humidity sensors to monitor environmental parameters. when specific conditions are detected,the system converts the user’s voice commands into corresponding actions,enabling peripheral device operations. this achieves precise temperature/humidity monitoring and light detection through voice recognition, allowing users to activate daily appliances like lighting, air conditioning,and curtains.with high recognition accuracy,stable performance,and accurate data collection, the system significantly enhances daily living quality. its broad applicability makes it the ideal choice for realizing smart home solutions. keywords smart home, stm32 microcontroller, voice recognition, voice control system 1. research background home appliances are essential facilities in every household. with the rapid advancement of science and technology, home appliances have undergone tremendous changes to keep up with the times,bringing smart homes into the public eye. as a concrete manifestation of intelligent development in developed cities, smart homes are centered around the family and are created by integrating advanced technologies such as the internet,the internet of things, and big data. smart homes originated in the united states in the 1980s, and soon after, developed countries such as those in europe and asia began to introduce and use them. compared to these developed countries, china saw the emergence of smart homes later, but with the continuous development and expansion of china’s internet technology, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 130 internet of things technology, and communication technology,smart homes have achieved a qualitative leap in china. the realization of smart homes is based on internet and internet of things technologies, achieving home intelligence by effectively connecting homes with the network. this article focuses on the intelligent voice recognition control system in smart homes.the voice recognition control mechanism integrates a speech recognition module (xie & liu, 2021) and a text-to-speech module, which process commands and relay them to the processor for specific operations to achieve home automation. the system primarily uses an stm32 microcontroller as the core control board, with photoelectric sensors, temperature/humidity sensors, and relays as key components to collect environmental parameters like temperature, humidity, and light intensity. by effectively combining voice recognition modules, text-to-speech conversion, and voice-to-action functions, it enables precise command execution. the intelligent voice recognition control represents a groundbreaking advancement that breaks through traditional limitations, delivering innovative experiences for modern lifestyles. speech recognition technology (xue, 2020) has made remarkable progress in the past two decades.speech recognition originated in the 1950s and 1960s, when research in this field was mainly focused on specific subjects and small vocabularies, with little substantial progress. in the 1980s,the main research areas gradually expanded, beginning to focus on large vocabularies, multiple subjects,and continuous speech. at that time, speech recognition algorithms included linear predictive coding,dynamic programming, and others. although these algorithms achieved certain successes, they remained confined to laboratory settings and were not applied in practice. it was not until the 1990s that speech recognition entered the public eye and gained widespread recognition. china’s research in speech recognition began in 1958. although it started later than other developed countries, through continuous innovation and development, china has nearly caught up with developed nations in recent years.intelligent speech technology has seen significant innovations across various fields, from the use of signal algorithms to the continuous updating of application scopes and scenarios. in 2020, the scale of china’s intelligent industry reached a massive size, exceeding 20 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.91% compared to 2019. it is expected that in the next decade, intelligent voice recognition will cover multiple fields such as home appliances, industry, automobiles, healthcare, households, and education. many intelligent products have already been well applied in households, and voice control is gradually reshaping people's understanding of smart homes. applying voice control technology to smart homes will become the main channel for future enterprise and market development. the intelligent voice industry will also continuously improve product quality, aiming to optimize product quality and enhance user experience. in the future,the continuous enrichment and improvement of various digital industries in china, such as smart homes, smart offices, and autonomous driving, will rely on intelligent voice systems. in the wave of iot intelligence,the smart voice industry has emerged as a rapidly growing sector,driving social progress and technological innovation. this research project aims to develop a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 131 voice-controlled smart home system where users can effortlessly command devices like curtains, tvs, and air conditioners through voice commands to turn them on/off, adjust volume levels, and perform other functions. research in smart home voice technology has not only enriched people’s material lives but also subtly transformed their spiritual dimensions,including cognitive development and knowledge acquisition. breakthroughs in internet, computing, communication, and biotechnology have revolutionized lifestyles and experiences. however, current intelligent voice technology still faces challenges, with both algorithms and hardware requiring significant refinement and enhancement. 2. system architecture composition 2.1 basic principles this smart home voice control system is built around the stm32f103c6t6 microcontroller as its core module,with subsystems including voice recognition,text-to-speech conversion, sensor modules,and infrared receivers. the environmental sensors monitor temperature, humidity, and light intensity, collecting real-time data that is transmitted to the stm32f103c6t6. when these parameters exceed or fall below preset thresholds, the system automatically announces instructions through voice prompts and controls devices like curtains,air conditioners,and temperature/humidity regulators via relays.the voice recognition module processes commands accurately, while the microcontroller decodes and executes instructions to control appliances such as lighting,air conditioning, and curtains.voice announcements provide event reminders through the voice module. 2.2 main functions this study aims to implement voice recognition and control in smart homes. users issue commands through voice input,which the ai-powered voice module processes and interprets. the system collects environmental parameter s (temperature, humidity) via sensors and triggers an audible alert if readings exceed preset thresholds. simultaneously, it transmits signals to the main control module, which automatically adjusts appliances like air conditioners,curtains,and lighting through relays. when a human presence is detected by the infrared obstacle sensor, the system automatically announces a welcome message. users interact via a question-and-answer format: commands are recognized by the voice system, which then provides instant feedback. key functionalities include: (1) speech recognition and annunciation function: the system’s speech recognition and announcement functions are implemented through its dedicated speech recognition module,which serves as the core component for all voice processing operations including recognition, playback, and text-to-speech conversion. users can issue commands at any time. the ai-powered speech recognition module processes voice signals via the su-03t chip, extracting keywords, performing spectral analysis, and accurately interpreting commands before transmitting processed signals to the microcontroller. voice announcements are generated through the syn8266 text-to-speech module, converting sensor-collected data parameters (temperature/humidity, light intensity) into audible www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 132 messages. (2) data acquisition:utilizing zigbee and wifi technologies,the system collects environmental data through temperature and humidity sensors, photoresistors for light intensity monitoring, and infrared sensors for door status detection. 2.3 system architecture this smart home voice control system consists of a microcontroller main control module,voice recognition module, text-to-speech module,temperature-humidity sensor, stepper motor driver module,relay circuit module, and infrared detection module. the voice module handles audio reception and recognition. the syn8266 text-to-speech module converts sensor-collected temperature, humidity, and light intensity data into voice announcements for users. the dht11 temperature-humidity sensor monitors environmental conditions and transmits data to the main control module for processing. the stepper motor driver module simulates curtain opening/closing operations. the hk4100f-dc3v-6 relay in the relay module powers high-voltage household appliances, enabling air conditioner activation/deactivation and temperature adjustment. a photoresistor detects light intensity to determine optimal curtain operation timing. the system collects environmental data through light sensors,infrared obstacle sensors,and temperature-humidity sensors,then transmits this information to the main control unit.the voice announcement module automatically reports whether the environmental data is too high or too low. when a user returns home, the infrared obstacle sensor detects their presence, triggering the voice announcement module to broadcast “welcome home!” the voice recognition module identifies user commands and matches them against the system’s command list.after verification by the main control module,the system automatically announces the corresponding data through the voice announcement module. 2.4 main modules 2.4.1 microcontroller main control module this article’s smart home voice control system employs the stm32f103c6t6 microcontroller as its core module. the stm32f103 series, developed by stmicroelectronics, is a widely used 32-bit microcontroller processor in mid-to-low-end applications, particularly in medical devices,air conditioning systems, led control, and motor drive systems. featuring 32-bit architecture, 72mhz clock speed, and 256kb memory capacity, the stm32f103c6t6 delivers exceptional stability, reliability, interference resistance, low power consumption, and high-speed performance. the control module is built around the minimal system (jia, 2018). 2.4.2 voice recognition and playback module the system primarily utilizes the su-03t voice recognition module. first, relevant commands are programmed into the chip,which then performs spectral analysis on corresponding signals to extract key features.these features are matched against internal keyword databases, with the most accurate command being sent to the microcontroller. the command list includes: “turn ac on/off”, “turn www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 133 lighting on/off”, “open/curtain”, “what’s the temperature today?”, and “what’s the humidity today?”. voice prompts include: “welcome home!”, “temperature too high/low”, “ac turned on/off”, “curtain opened/curtain”. the syn8266 text-to-speech module converts parameters like temperature, humidity and light intensity into voice announcements. the su-03t is a low-cost,low-power,compact voice recognition module (cheng, 2011) that can be quickly deployed in smart home devices such as lighting systems and small speakers for voice-controlled operations. 2.4.3 relay module the relay module serves as the primary output in this design, utilizing a hk4100f-dc3v-6 relay to control and transmit data from the main control module. the relay (zeng, yang, xu, jiang & peng, 2005) drives high-voltage appliances in smart homes by regulating high currents with low currents, functioning as an automatic switch. its key role involves controlling high-voltage systems with low-voltage signals and enabling remote operation. this module plays a crucial role in automatic circuit adjustment, safety protection, and circuit conversion within the smart home voice conversion system, making it an indispensable component. 2.4.4 infrared detection module this module primarily monitors door status (open/closed). the infrared obstacle sensor in the detection system operates on triangulation principles:when the transmitter emits infrared beams at specific angles, the reflected signals from obstacles are analyzed through geometric calculations to determine distances. however, this sensor has inherent limitations. significant measurement errors occur when objects are either too close (outside the detection range) or too far away (beyond the range). additionally,excessive object distance reduces measurement accuracy. 2.4.5 temperature and humidity module the temperature and humidity module employs the dht11 sensor as its core component. this integrated digital sensor combines temperature and humidity measurements, communicating with the microcontroller via a simple single-bus connection through a single t/o port. featuring low power consumption, cost-effectiveness, high accuracy, and practicality, it stands as the preferred choice for humidity and temperature data collection in smart home systems. 2.4.6 photoresistor in this system design, the photoresistor primarily detects ambient light intensity by utilizing the photoconductive effect of semiconductors. its resistance value inversely correlates with light intensity: stronger light results in lower resistance, while weaker light leads to higher resistance. during high-intensity illumination, the photoelectric conversion exhibits weak linearity and significant temperature sensitivity, resulting in slower response speeds and lower frequencies. when exposed to light, the photoconductive capability of semiconductors increases proportionally with light intensity, reaching a peak before gradually diminishing. by encapsulating the photoconductive material in a transparent housing based on the internal photoelectric effect, it functions as a photoresistor that plays a crucial role in lighting modules. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 134 3. system design and experiment 3.1 overall system design this voice-controlled smart home system utilizes the stm32f103c6t6 microcontroller as its core control board,integrating voice recognition, text-to-speech conversion, temperature/humidity sensors,and infrared detection modules through coordinated operation. when the owner initiates commands, the system translates voice inputs into precise actions for peripheral devices. if environmental data exceeds preset thresholds, the system automatically sends alerts to the main control module. the voice recognition and notification module then provides real-time feedback to users,while simultaneously adjusting connected appliances according to environmental conditions. the system initiates with xiao liu as the default voice assistant.for example:when the homeowner returns home, the system automatically announces “welcome home! lights are now on/off for you.” upon waking the smart voice system, asking xiao liu, what’s the temperature today? “triggers” hello! today’s temperature is 24°c. “when inquiring about humidity,it responds with” 50% humidity today.” the system automatically alerts when environmental conditions deviate from preset values. it activates the air conditioner when temperatures exceed 24°c and turns it off when below 24°c, announcing “air conditioning is now on.” the light sensor activates the lights when brightness drops below 150lux and opens curtains when light intensity surpasses 600lux. 3.2 instruction design this module is designed to receive and process voice commands from users,then send the processed results to the main control module via serial communication to control home appliances such as air conditioners, lighting, and curtains. the specific command design is shown in table 3-1. table 3-1 voice recognition command settings main body instruction design voice broadcast device status user what's the temperature today hello,the temperature today is xx degrees. air conditioner on/off user what is the humidity today hello, the humidity today is xx%. air conditioner on/off user i'm back/i'm leaving light turned on/off for you light on/off user the light is too low.we have turned on the lights for you. light on user the light is too bright.we've turned on the curtains for you. curtain opened user the temperature is too high or too air conditioner www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 135 low.the air conditioner has been turned on or off. on/off 3.3 programming this smart home voice control system employs a modular design philosophy, with the stm32 microcontroller serving as the central control unit.by integrating multiple functional modules,it achieves environmental perception,voice interaction,and automated device control. the main control module coordinates all peripherals, handling data acquisition, command parsing,device status management, and control logic execution. each functional module operates independently,interacting with the main control module through standardized interfaces to minimize coupling. the system adopts a “perception-decision-execution” closed-loop logic: sensors monitor environmental conditions, voice commands receive user requests, and the main control module ultimately makes decisions to manage home appliances. 3.3.1 main control module programming as the system core, it handles initialization management, scheduled data collection,voice command processing, and automatic device control. the hardware driver is implemented using stm32 peripherals, with global variables storing environmental data and device status. the main loop employs a polling mechanism combined with scheduled tasks and event-triggered processing logic. the detailed process is as follows: (1) initialization phase: initialize the delay function, gpio pins, infrared module, and serial port. after system startup, send a welcome message (“welcome home, lights on for you”) via the text-to-speech module and set the light status to on. (2) main loop logic: the system employs a 50ms interval timer task via the count counter to periodically retrieve temperature and humidity data from the dht11 sensor and light data from the adc, converting them into string formats for storage. upon detecting commands from the voice recognition module via usart1, it identifies the command type and transmits responses to the text-to-speech module through usart2. finally, it controls lighting and curtains based on light intensity, while regulating air conditioning according to temperature readings. 3.3.2 text-to-speech module programming enable serial communication between the master control module and the speech synthesis module to convert text commands into voice output. implement asynchronous serial communication using usart2, configure pins, baud rate, and interrupts, and encapsulate a function for sending strings. the detailed process is as follows: (1) serial port initialization: enable gpioa and usart2 clocks,configure pa2 as a push-pull multiplexed output and pa3 as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 136 floating input. set serial port parameters: baud rate 9600, 8-bit data,1-bit stop,no parity,and two-way mode. enable serial port receive interrupts and configure nvic interrupt priorities to ensure real-time data reception. (2) string send function: loop through the string, calling the send function character by character until the end-of-string character'\0'is encountered, to send the continuous string. 3.3.3 infrared detection module programming when an infrared sensor detects a user’s approach, it triggers a welcome message. the gpio is configured in pull-up input mode to monitor infrared signal level changes, determining user proximity through the signal status.the detailed process is as follows: (1) module initialization: enable the gpiob clock and configure pb10 as a pull-up input mode to receive infrared sensor signals. (2) detection logic: when pb10 detects a high level,it performs a 10ms delay to eliminate noise and confirms signal stability. subsequently, it sends the message “welcome home, sir” to the text-to-speech module via usart2. 3.3.4 temperature and humidity module programming the dht11 sensor collects environmental temperature and humidity data,which is then provided to the main control module for display or control. based on the dht11 communication protocol, the system implements initialization, reset, response detection, and data reading functions, with data validity verified through checksums. the detailed process is as follows: (1) sensor initialization: enable the gpioa clock, configure pa7 as a push-pull output, and verify the sensor’s functionality using dht11_rst and dht11_check after initialization. (2) data interaction process: reset: pull down the bus for 19ms, then pull up for 25us to trigger the dht11 response. response detection: check if dht11 pulls the bus low for 40-80us and then pulls it high for 40-80us to confirm the sensor is online. data read: the dht11_read_bit function reads individual bits,while dht11_read_byte concatenates 8-bit data into bytes. the dht11_read_data function then reads 40-bit data,verifies its validity through checksums, and stores the valid data into the temperature (temp)and humidity (humi) registers. in summary, this system program employs modular decomposition to break down complex functionalities into independent modules. these modules collaborate through standardized interfaces, achieving core capabilities such as environmental perception, voice interaction, and automated device control. the main control module combines polling and interrupt mechanisms to balance real-time responsiveness with periodic tasks,ensuring stable system operation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 137 4.4 experiment display after the hardware and software design is completed,the system runs as follows: figure 4-1 experimental results (1) power supply:connect the power supply, the indicator light is on,indicating that the system is normal and can start normal operation, as shown in figure 4-1(a); (2) voice recognition and broadcast module: recognize the user’s speech,the main control module processes the data,and broadcasts it through voice, as shown in figure 4-1(b); (3) relay:after the sensor collects data, it sends it to the main control module,and then the relay controls the lifting of lights and curtains and the opening and closing of air conditioning, as shown in figure 4-1(c); (4) infrared obstacle avoidance system: the infrared obstacle avoidance sensor detects the human body and lights up the green light when the human body is detected, as shown in figure 4-1(d). 5. summary and outlook voice recognition, as an effective approach to human-machine integration, represents a cutting-edge scientific advancement. its applications span across diverse domains, with potential to permeate nearly every major field. in the near future,more services and devices will seamlessly integrate with this technology. the deep integration of intelligent voice systems and smart home solutions has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 138 significantly enhanced daily life, delivering interactive experiences where products can “listen” and “speak” for various practical household scenarios. smart home voice control not only enables seamless product interaction but also bridges human-device communication. with the advancement of ai and 5g technologies, the smart home industry will continue innovating to create comprehensive intelligent systems. these smart technologies are poised to become the driving force behind china’s economic development and scientific progress. reference chen, z. (2013). design and implementation of a smart home voice control system. university of electronic science and technology of china. cheng, l. (2011). design of an stm32mp3 player. neijiang science and technology, 32(12), 100-101. ge, q. k., shi, j., li, z. l., & liu, w. (2015). design and implementation of an intelligent guide dog. heilongjiang science and technology information, 2015(20), 59-60. jia, x. l. (2018). design of a smart home control system based on voice control technology. china equipment engineering, 2018(19), 133-134. li, d. l. (2019). research and i:mplementation of a voice-controlled gateway system for smart homes. hangzhou dianzi university. li, w., zhang, z., & fan, w. h. (2015). design of an mp3 player based on stm32 microcontroller. modern electronic technology, 2015(03), 15. liu, h., tian, z. s., & feng, y. f. (2018). a raspberry pi-based voice control system for smart home applications. manufacturing automation, 2018(10), 11. wei, j. k., & chen, b. h. (2019). research on the design of a microcontroller-based mp3 player. nongjia zhufan, 2019(23), 158. xie, z. y., & liu, w. (2021). design of a smart home voice control system based on microcontroller. science and technology innovation, 2021(31), 83-85. xue, h. (2020). research and design of a voice-activated smart home control system. microcomputer applications, 36(02), 149. yan, r., & tan, z. w. (2013). a multi-functional mp3 player based on stm32. journal of hunan university of humanities and social sciences, 2013(04), 107-110. zeng, j. j., yang, p., xu, c. m., jiang, s. q., & peng, d. g. (2005). design and implementation of a machine-guided blind dog. mechatronics, 2005(04), 2. zhang, w. (2015). research on embedded voice control systems for smart homes. zhengzhou university. zhao, l. (2017). design of a smart home voice control system. xi’an university of electronic science and technology. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 139 author profile: xiao yuyue, female, master’s degree holder, faculty member at the school of big data engineering, kaili university. research focus: internet of things engineering. keywords smart home, stm32 microcontroller, voice recogniti 1.research background 2. system architecture composition 2.1 basic principles 2.2 main functions 2.3 system architecture 2.4 main modules 2.4.1 microcontroller main control module 2.4.3 relay module 2.4.4 infrared detection module 2.4.5 temperature and humidity module 2.4.6 photoresistor 3. system design and experiment 3.1 overall system design 3.2 instruction design 3.3 programming 3.3.1 main control module programming 3.3.2 text-to-speech module programming 3.3.4 temperature and humidity module programming 4.4 experiment display 5. summary and outlook reference advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 112 original paper the design and implementation of personalized learning platform based on android qiaoying ming1* 1 school of information engineering, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an, shaanxi, china * corresponding author, e-mail: 184072575@qq.com received: june 17, 2023 accepted: october 05, 2023 online published: october 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p112 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p112 abstract through an investigation and analysis of learning platforms, the author designed and implemented the personalized learning platform based on android, adhering to the design principles. the platform is customized to learners’ learning styles and ubiquitous learning. learners may receive personalized recommendations from the platform and get optimized user experience, which in turn enhances learners’motive and efficiency in learning and supports teachers’ teaching. keywords learning style, platform design, platform implementation 1. introduction as an important branch of digital learning, mobile learning has attracted extensive attention, becoming the hot research subject in the filed of education. mobile learning platform is targeted at portable mobile devices and the mobile learning protocol based on wireless internet, which stresses the portable fragmented learning that may happen anytime, anywhere. the system supports users’ implementation of distance teaching and learning through mobile devices, which means educators may check up the feedback and evaluation of learners’ learning state (chen & wang, 2021). based on android platform, this article explores the design and implementation of personalized learning platform. 1.1 platform architecture android platform adopts open license and authorization, using java in the development of language. the system architecture contains application layer, application architecture layer, system runtime library and operating environment layer, linux kernel layer. the common class library and structure of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 113 java can be used in the development and implementation of android applications (qiu, zhang, luo et al., 2020; ahmed & sallow, 2017). 1.2 learning style learning style refers to the preference for specific categories of learning resources manifested in the course of learning. learning style affects learners’ selection of learning resources, accordingly, the study of learning’s learning style is indispensable in the research on learning platform. the system screens and sort learning resources in light of learner’s learning styles to recommend the most suitable learning resources to learners, which not only enhances learners’ learning efficiency but also personalizes the learning platform. 2. design principle 2.1 the principle of education the platform and learning resources are designed for students’ learning. therefore, to better achieve teaching objectives, the designing procedure must follow the principle of education. students utilize learning platform to access the learning resources that serve their learning, gain satisfactory learning experience, finally , improving the learning quality and attaining teaching objectives. 2.2 the principle of scientificity the development and demonstration of learning resources should follow the principle of scientificity, which entails the strict designing ethic and the in-depth probe into the content of subject curriculum to make the learning resources more scientific, accurate, applicable, concise and intuitive, conforming to students’ needs and scientific cognition. 2.3 the principle of convenience the navigation of learning platform should be explicit and operable, avoiding a large number of input operation, to guarantee the accuracy of the prompt and the response or feedback to each operation (hong & hwang, 2020; sahara & ranggadara, 2018), to ensure that users may study consistently on different terminal equipment and mobile devices. 2.4 the principle of individualized teaching the mobile learning platform embeds the categories learning styles into platform design perfectly. students can select different categories of learning resources according to their personal preferences, satisfying the learning needs to the maximum extent, embodying the platform’s principle of individualized teaching (walkington & bernacki, 2020). 3. the platform design 3.1 the design of platform function module as is shown in figure 1, the function module of the mobile learning system can be divided into front-end module and back-end module. the front-end module is learner-oriented, comprising personal center, personalized recommendations and the curriculum studies. learners can check and edit personal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 114 information and configure the style of learning interface, as well as reviewing the course material they collected and the learning credits or deleting the collected course material. the contents of personalized recommendation may be learners’ favorite material, hot courses, latest curriculum based on learners’ learning style. after clicking the course learning interface, learners’ enter the selection interface of relevant course. after course selection, learners can see the corresponding course description and learning resources. learning resources generally fall into two categories, one is the general learning material, the other is the learning material customized in accordance with learners’ learning style classification. for instance, learners without particular requirements for learning materials may select conventional resources in learning. if the learner excel at practical hands-on skills, he or she may select the kinesthetic type of course; for learners with acute hearing sensitivity, he or she may select the auditory material in learning. the classification of course resources based on learning styles is demonstrated in table 1 (shemshack, 2020). figure 1. the function module of learning platform table 1. the categories of learning resources based on learning style learning style characteristics categories of learning resources visual type having keen observation and inclination to gain information from visual stimuli like animation or videos. animation, video, picture auditory type inclined to learn through listening, having the preference over auditory stimuli like audio and oral interpretation. audio, oral interpretation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 115 read and write type having preference over text reading and writing, obtaining the optimal learning effect through the application of words. writing, rote learning kinesthetic type having preference over hands-on practice and learning by doing. hands-on practice, rule-inference the back-end module is administrator-oriented, including resource management, message management and statistical management. resource management is designed for the management of course resources, realizing functions such as the uploading or removal, and the release of course information; in addition, it is also designed for user information management, such as the review or removal of users’ registration information. message management administrates the information push and the reply to messages; statistical management is mainly used to generate a statistical overview of the utilization of platform resources, aggregate students’ learning records and analyze students’ learning effect. 3.2 the design of platform dynamic model the dynamic model is mainly used to represent system behavior. the dynamic model of mobile learning platform has been constructed in line with the system function module, as is shown in figure 2. from figure 2, it is evident that system clients fall into two categories, one being the registered regular users, the other being new users. after logging in the system, regular users may proceed with learning and sets personal style (dong, 2021), as well as browsing and learning the hot curriculum, latest curriculum and the curriculum matching their personal style and interest, recommended by the learning system. new users may annotate the content of interest and fill in the course they would take in registration (hang & kim, 2019). registered users who log in for the first time may learn the curriculum and set personal style like regular users, moreover, the system may recommend the contents corresponding to the course they selected and the content they annotated, which certainly include the hot curriculum and latest curriculum, to ensure the good user experience. if users select the curriculum not included in the previous courses, the administrator will receive system notification of course content addition, meanwhile, users will receive system notification of the update time of required curriculum, which not only enrich the course content of the entire system, but also satisfy different users’ individual needs, finally enriching the online learning resources and making targeted recommendation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 116 figure 2. the dynamic model of mobile learning platform 4. platform implementation 4.1 initial interface implementation allowing for the individual differences of platform users, to make users concentrate on learning, the user interface is simplified to the maximum degree, to build the minimalist and user-friendly mobile operating learning platform. the platform will present the introduction of itself in the first installation and use, to adapt users to the platform smoothly (junaidi, irviani, muslihudin et al., 2018). 4.2 administrator module implementation administrator has the highest authority in the management of learning platform . the administration authority is not limited to the management of platform resources and messages, administrators also have moderator authority, which includes access authorization, to handle platform transactions in an effective and comprehensive way and ensure the healthy operation of the mobile learning platform (novaliendry, darmi, hendriyani et al., 2020). 5. conclusion with the development of the internet technology and the popularization of smart terminals, more and more learners choose to use mobile learning platform in their learning. mobile learning platform afford learners the freedom in selecting the space and time for learning, which enables learners to make timely adjustments to their learning plan, making classroom teaching more flexible. this research introduces personalized learning into mobile learning system, which makes active information push one of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 117 important functions of the system, providing valuable reference for better recommendations of mobile learning resources, strengthening the optimization of mobile platform functions and extending the range of application through constant amelioration. references ahmed, o. m., & sallow, a. b. (2017). android security: a review. academic journal of nawroz university, 6(3), 135-140. https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v6n3a97 chen, s. y., & wang, j. h. (2021). individual differences and personalized learning: a review and appraisal. universal access in the information society, 20(4), 833-849. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-020-00753-4 dong, y. (2021). design and implementation of network learning platform based on the concept of physical education teaching design. solid state technology, 64(1), 858-864. hang, l., & kim, d. h. (2019). design and implementation of an integrated iot blockchain platform for sensing data integrity. sensors, 19(10), 2228. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19102228 hong, s. y., & hwang, y. h. (2020). design and implementation for iort based remote control robot using block-based programming. issues in information systems, 21(4), 317-330. junaidi, j., irviani, r., muslihudin, m. et al. (2018). application program learning based on android for students experiences. international journal of engineering & technology, 7(2.27), 295-299. https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i2.27.11574 novaliendry, d., darmi, r., hendriyani, y. et al. (2020). smart learning media based on android technology. international journal of innovation, creativity and change, 12(11), 715-735. qiu, j., zhang, j., luo, w. et al. (2020). a survey of android malware detection with deep neural models. acm computing surveys (csur), 53(6), 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3417978 sahara, r., & ranggadara, i. (2018). design and implementation of treasury application based on mobile in student organization mercu buana university. international journal of computer science and mobile computing, 7(2), 1-8. shemshack, a., & spector, j. m. (2020). a systematic literature review of personalized learning terms. smart learning environments, 7(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00140-9 walkington, c., & bernacki, m. l. (2020). appraising research on personalized learning:definitions, theoretical alignment, advancements, and future directions. journal of research on technology in education, 52(3), 235-252. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1747757 1.introduction 1.1 platform architecture 1.2 learning style 2.design principle 2.1 the principle of education 2.2 the principle of scientificity 2.3 the principle of convenience 2.4 the principle of individualized teaching 3.the platform design 3.1 the design of platform function module 3.2 the design of platform dynamic model 4.platform implementation 4.1 initial interface implementation 4.2 administrator module implementation 5.conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 27 original paper participatory analysis of the vulnerability and adaptation strategies of communities faced with climate change in the sahelian zone of burkina faso: the case of the namissiguima municipality in the province of yatenga (northern region) issaka ouedraogo1*, jerome compaore2 & jean-marie dipama1 1 laboratoire dynamique des espaces et sociétés (ldes), université joseph ki-zerbo, ouagadougou, burkina faso 2 cnrst-institute of environment and agricultural research (inera), ouagadougou, burkina faso * issaka ouedraogo, laboratoire dynamique des espaces et sociétés (ldes), université joseph ki-zerbo, ouagadougou, burkina faso, email: isk.isk22@yahoo.fr received: january 19, 2024 accepted: march 01, 2024 online published: march 09, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p27 abstract climate change is a concern of our time, both at global level and at community level, where its impacts vary according to context. according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc), the causes of this change are anthropogenic and require urgent action on the part of humanity in terms of mitigation but also in terms of adaptation to strengthen the resilience of populations. the municipality of namissiguima (13° 36′ 00″ north and 2° 13′01″ west), in the province of yatenga in burkina faso, is no exception. located in the sahelian agro-climatic zone of burkina faso and receiving less than 600mm of water per year, it has a population of almost 59,000, 51.7% of whom are women and 48.3% men, whose main occupations are farming and livestock rearing (94.6%). through a participatory analysis using the “trousse a outils planification et suivi-evaluation des capacites d’adaptation au changement climatique (top-secac)”, this paper aims to analyze local communities’ perceptions of climate variability and change and their perceived causes, to assess the impacts of climate variability and climate change on communities’ livelihoods, and to discuss the adaptation strategies used by local people to mitigate these impacts. keywords participatory analysis, climate change, vulnerability, adaptation, namissiguima, top-secac www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction climate change remains one of the major challenges of the humanity (lewis et al., 2016). the impacts on natural resources in general and the livelihoods of communities in particular, no longer need to be demonstrated (caitlin et al., 2018). according to ipcc projections (ipcc, 2014), all regions of africa are likely to experience severe environmental stress. indeed, climate change will increase the area of degraded land in the sahel region, reducing the area suitable for agriculture as well as wildlife species and their habitats. in recent years, the west african sahel has been faced with enormous challenges relating to the security emergency, community conflicts, particularly over the exploitation of natural resources, and the migration and displacement of populations, all of which are exacerbated by global warming. this situation of insecurity, with its attendant loss of human life and displacement of populations, combined with the adverse effects of climate change, with repeated flooding due to torrential rains, recurrent droughts, ongoing erosion of natural resources (water, soil and land, biodiversity), the appearance and/or worsening of various pathologies, including respiratory and water-borne diseases, falling agricultural yields, changes to transhumance routes, etc., continues to erode the livelihoods of sahelian communities, who depend partly, but above all directly, on the exploitation of natural resources for their subsistence (agrhymet, 2010; julie mayans, 2020). in addition, the sahel is a mosaic of contrasting eco-climatic zones and ecosystems subject to high climate variability characterized by changes in rainfall patterns, extreme temperatures and recurrent droughts, with perceptible effects on farmland, grazing land and water availability (x. n. gnoumou et al, 2017; ccrs, 2018). this pressure on subsistence resources such as water, farmland, grazing land, etc. in the face of a population predominantly made up of farmers and pastoralists continues to fuel rivalries and conflicts over the use of resources (hellendorff, 2012; adelphi, 2016; caitlin e. werrell and al, 2018). indeed, climate change is considered to be highly detrimental to community livelihoods, particularly in the agricultural sector (dixon et al., 2001; a. dinar, 2008). because of their high degree of exposure and low adaptive capacity, sub-saharan african countries are highly vulnerable to climate change (niang et al., 2014). this situation is even worse for communities that depend almost exclusively on natural resources for their livelihoods. thus, the majority of the population of burkina faso depends on climate-sensitive sectors of activity, including agriculture, the exploitation of forest resources, livestock farming, etc. (marine lugen, 2019). climate conditions affect agricultural productivity, livelihoods, water availability, agricultural marketing systems and food prices (omm, 2014). the imbalance in the climate system due to greenhouse gas emissions is resulting in higher temperatures, with the consequences of alternating droughts and floods, particularly in the sahel countries, as illustrated by the floods of 1 september 2009 in burkina faso (jean marie dipama, 2009). in such a context, it is important to: (i) analyze local communities’ perceptions of climate variability www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. and climate change; (ii) analyze the perceived causes of climate variability and climate change; (iii) assess the impacts of climate variability and climate change on communities’ livelihoods; and (iv) discuss the adaptation strategies used by local populations to mitigate the impacts of various climate hazards, with a view to preparing the best responses to this climate emergency by using approaches that place communities at the heart of impacts assessments and solutions research. 2. method 2.1 study area namissiguima is a rural commune in the province of yatenga, northern region of burkina faso, with coordinates 13° 36′00″ north and 2° 13′01″ west. the municipality is located in a sahelian agro-climatic zone and receives less than 600mm of rainfall per year. it covers an area of 4,974.72 km2, with a population of 58,830 (10,378 households) made up of 30,417 women and 28,413 men (burkina faso rgph, 2019). the predominantly young population derives most of its income from agriculture, livestock farming and the exploitation of mining resources, mainly through gold panning. consequently, to the security concern in burkina faso since 2015, the municipaly of namissiguima has lost a significant proportion of its population, who have moved to the nearest, more stable communes, including ouahigouya. figure 1. location of the commune of namissiguima in burkina faso 2.2 conceptual framework the conceptual framework for this research is based primarily on the sustainable livelihoods approach. sustainable livelihoods comprise people, their capabilities and their resources, including food, income and assets (chambers & conway, 1992). as adaptation is particularly specific to territories and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. communities (françois bernard, 2010), the choice of this framework is justified by the fact that it places “men and women at the centre of the analysis of problems related to climate change and associated adaptation strategies” (somda. j and al, 2014). in addition, secondary data was collected through documentary research and primary data was collected in the field through interviews and focus group sessions. 2.3 tools and data collecting the primary data for this study were collected with internal displacement persons (idps) from the namissiguima in a camp for idps located in ouahigouya between march and april 2023. individual data were collected randomly from the idps of namissiguima in ouahigouya and from those who agreed to answer the interview questionnaires. this was followed by a focus group to gather information on the various hazards most prevalent in the locality, levels of exposure, population sensitivity and the strategies adopted by communities to cope with the hazards listed. indeed, a methodological approach based on field surveys with structured interviews and focus groups was deployed in order to assess the communities’ level of knowledge about climate change, their perception of the causes of the phenomenon and its impacts, and the strategies developed by the communities to mitigate the impacts and strengthen their resilience. the interview guides were digitized on kobocollect for direct interviews with the people surveyed. the tools in the adaptation capacity planning and monitoring toolkit (top-secac) (somda j and al. 2011) were used during the focus group sessions. these tools make it possible to analyze a community’s vulnerability and capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change, develop a vision, define the challenges of change, identify an action plan to strengthen the adaptive capacities of populations and institutions, and finally, identify partners who can contribute to the implementation of adaptation actions (somda j and al, 2014). in the context of this research, the top-secac tools were used only to analyze, with the communities themselves, their level of vulnerability and the adaptation strategies implemented by the populations to cope with the negative effects of climate change. these tools were tool 1 for analyzing vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change (avca) and tool 3 for participatory analysis of vulnerability factors linked to climate hazards (somda j and al., 2011). 2.4 data processing and analyzing a data analysis plan was drawn up to define the tools and parameters to be analyzed. data collected from the individual interviews were processed using appropriate statistical methods in excel and spss, such as univariate and bivariate analyses. the data collected during the focus group sessions was used to gather information on the various hazards, their location in the namissiguima commune and the coping strategies adopted by the population to deal with them. two tools from the climate change adaptation capacity planning and monitoring and evaluation toolkit (top-secac) were used for this exercise. these were: (i) tool 1: analysis of vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change (avca). this makes it possible to map resources and climate hazards, identify the hazards that have the greatest impact on the most www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. important subsistence resources, analyze the most vulnerable social groups and identify the adaptation strategies currently used to combat the hazards identified. (ii) tool 3: participatory analysis of vulnerability to climate-related hazards identifies factors (exposure and sensitivity) that contribute to community vulnerability to the climate-related hazards they face in their area, establishes a baseline of the effects of climate-related hazards on communities and their resources, and determines the characteristics of the capacities of community members that are sensitive (somda et al., 2011). 3. result 3.1 demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population of namissiguima namissiguima is a rural commune in the municipality of ouahigouya, in the province of yatenga, northern region. according to the recent report of the «recensement general de la population (rgph)», the commune had a resident population of 58,830 (10,378 households), 51.7% of whom were women (30,417) and 48.3% men (28,413), with a sex ratio of 93% (rgph, 2019). however, these statistics remain compromised today in view of the context of insecurity, which has led to a mass exodus of the population, mainly in the municipality of ouahigouya, 40km away, one of the municipalities hosting the most internally displaced persons (idps). according to a report dated 12 may 2023 by the conseil national de secours d’urgence et de rehabilitation cited in a national news (note 1), there were more than two million internally displaced people (2,062,534 idps) in burkina faso on 31 march 2023, of whom 58.50% were children, 23.91% were women and 17.59% were men. during the data collection period, idps living in ouahigouya could continue to move between their commune of origin (namissiguima) and their host commune (ouahigouya), but the inaccessibility of the commune to third parties forced us to collect data from namissiguima with idps living in ouahigouya, with the support of representatives of the ministry responsible for national solidarity. thus, seventy (70) idps agreed to to took part to the survey, 30% of whom were women and 70% men. figure 2. distribution of people surveyed by age www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. figure 3. distribution of respondents by level of education the results show that out of the sample of people surveyed, those aged between 35 and 60 accounted for 47.5%, followed by the over-60s (30%) and the 18-35s (21.43%). this could be explained by the security crisis, which has caused families to disperse and women, children and the elderly to be concentrated in reception sites. another plausible explanation for this situation could be the mining boom in the locality and throughout the country, which has mobilized the youngest people to the artisanal gold mining sites. in terms of level of education, over 50% of those surveyed had never attended school. for the rest of the population, there was an almost equal distribution between primary school (18.57%), secondary school (14.29%) and koranic school (11.43%). figure 4. main activities of respondents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. figure 5. secondary activities of respondents source: survey data, (2023) the main occupations of the working population are agriculture and livestock farming. this is consistent with national statistics, where more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas and their main activity is agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries production (rgph, 2019). according to the survey data, 83.56% of people practice agriculture as their main activity, 9.59% livestock farming and 1.37% fishing. this represents 94.52% of the population of namissiguima, who derive their main income and livelihood from natural resources, specifically agriculture, livestock farming and fishing. these results lead to the conclusion that the vast majority of households in namissiguima depend on the exploitation of natural resources, mainly agriculture and livestock farming, for food security and subsistence (rgph, 2019; bekele shiferaw, 2014; kabore et al., 2019). if it has been shown that agricultural incomes are very sensitive to rainfall in burkina faso (ouédraogo, 2012), this means that droughts and floods erode communities’ adaptive capacities by leading to a drop in agricultural production, the destruction of crops, and so on. this increases the vulnerability of dependent communities to the adverse effects of climate change, as the rural sector is almost exclusively dependent on rainfall for production (pna, 2015; x. n. gnoumou, 2017; cdn 2021). 3.2 impacts of climate change and analysis of perceived causes 3.2.1 impacts of climate change all the people surveyed (100%) said that the climate had changed for the worse, making life difficult for the local population. according to the population, several indicators attest to this change, which can be summarized in figure 7 below. the main hazards experienced are drought, flooding, strong winds, extreme heat, dust storms and extreme cold (pna, 2015, cdn, 2021). in terms of impacts, areas such as agriculture and livestock farming are the most affected. this is because almost the entire population engages in one or other activity, or almost always both (rgph, 2019; kabore et al., 2019). as agriculture is largely rainfed, the close link with livestock farming www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. means that producers are to some extent dependent on rainfall (x. n. gnoumou et al, 2017). table 1. knowledge of the main hazards identified total percentage level floods 37 53% moderate droughts 70 100% very good winds 28 40% low extreme heat 15 21% very low extreme cold 6 9% very low dust storm 11 16% very low 100% of the people surveyed have a very good knowledge of droughts ; 53% have an average level of knowledge of floods and 40% a low level of knowledge of violent winds. these data show that droughts are still the most worrying climatic hazard for the population of namissiguima, and floods to a moderate degree. this is a recurring situation for the sahelian agro-climatic zone, which receives less than 600 mm of water per year, with seasonal rainfall unevenly distributed over time and space, shifts in the start and end dates of the season, frequent pockets of drought, and high temperatures that impact on cereal production (millet, maize, sorghum) in namissiguima, the main food crop produced by the population (pna, 2015; x. n. gnoumou, 2017; lardia ali bougma et al, 2018; cdn, 2021). according to communities, the consequences are loss of agricultural yields, loss of seeds at the start of the season due to uncertainty, drying up of crops in the songs during the season due to lack of rain or following an abrupt stop (table 5). table 2. perceived impacts of climate change on agriculture effects respondents percentage knowledge level lower yields and production 70 100% very good pest attacks 14 20% very low poor plant growth 7 10% very low destruction of crops by strong winds 16 23% very low drying out of crops due to lack of rain 33 47% low loss of seeds due to sudden cessation of rain at the start of the rainy season 39 56% moderate crop loss or drying out due to cessation of rain during the rainy season 34 49% low post-harvest loss due to excess water or an extension of the rainy season 1 1% very low www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. conflicts with other producers or breeders 0 0% very low other 13 19% very low source: survey data (2023). 3.2.2 perceived causes of climate change for communities, the main causes of climate change remain human, in line with the conclusions of the ipcc (ipcc, 2014 ; ipcc, 2023). for them, climate change is mainly caused by wood cutting (99%), bush fires (59%), the divagation of animals (39%), the destruction of forests (29%) and other factors (34%), including demographic pressure, the loss of cultural and religious values, misbehaviour and lack of respect for nature, and the construction of buildings. table 3. perceived causes of climate change causes respondents percentage knowledge level wood cutting 69 99% very good destruction of forests 20 29% low divagation of animals 27 39% low bush fires 41 59% moderate use of pesticides in agriculture 12 17% very low traditional mining 3 4% very low pollution (vehicles, motorbikes, factories, burning etc.) 0 0% very low natural (god’s work) 3 4% very low source: survey data (2023). 3.3 participatory analysis of vulnerability to climatic hazards this analysis was conducted in a participatory approach with community representatives through focus group sessions using top-secac tools, including the vulnerability matrix to climate hazards (somda j, 2011). the vulnerability analysis focused essentially on the impact of climate change on the most important natural resources identified by the populations and the related activities (water, agricultural and livestock production, exploitation of non-timber and timber forest products, and mining) using a scoring system from 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest). the most important resources and the most severe hazards for local people were identified using primary and secondary data, in particular from the focus groups. the main climatic hazards impacting these resources are drought, violent winds, extreme heat and flooding. however, these hazards have different impacts on the resources that are most important to communities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. table 4. vulnerability to climatic hazards hazards resources droughts violent winds heat wave floods total of resources water 4 0 3 0 7 agriculture production (millet, sorghum, maïze, cowpea, groundnut, sesame, rice etc.) 5 3 2 3 13 livestock 4 2 3 3 12 non-timber forest products (ntfps) 3 4 1 0 8 forest (woods) 2 2 1 0 5 mineral resources 0 0 0 0 0 total of hazards 18 11 10 6 source: focus group (2023) adapted from top-secac. on a scale of influence from 0 to 5 (top-secac), drought is the most important climatic hazard with the greatest impact on community resources. it affects productivity and is the cause of the food insecurity experienced by some populations (x. n. gnoumou, 2017). in term of importance, violent winds and heat waves have almost the same impact on livelihoods. flooding was deemed to have less impact on community resources in namissiguima than other hazards. in terms of resources most affected by climatic hazards in the commune, it is mainly agricultural and livestock production that are suffering the most from the negative consequences of climate change. this is because the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries sectors in the sahel region and throughout the country are still dependent on rainfall. as access to water is essential for production (jérôme compaoré et al., 2023), the sector is directly affected in the event of drought. because of the close link between agriculture and livestock, droughts that affect agricultural production will inevitably have a negative impact on livestock feed and, as a result, will reduce the adaptive capacity of local populations by reducing their income. 3.4 analysis of vulnerability factors the observed impacts of climate change in the namissiguima commune vary according to the hazards (table 5). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. table 5. analysis of vulnerability factors linked to climate hazards hazards oserved impacts exposure sensitivity droughts • decline in agricultural yields (household food insecurity) • reduced income from livestock production • animal deaths • water shortage 100% of the community is exposed because all households are both farmers and livestock breeders. they have at least part of their fields in drought-prone areas. 80% of those exposed are sensitive because they have their fields in high-altitude areas and their crops are also sensitive to drought. less than 10% of farming households use the lowlands. less than 10% of households adopt good farming practices adapted to drought. violent winds • destruction of agricultural crops • destruction of fruit • destruction of dwellings and animal shelters • uprooting of trees 100% of households are exposed because they are farmers, stockbreeders and exploit ntfps. 70% of those exposed are vulnerable because their houses are built of banco and are not protected by wooded areas. also, the low density of vegetation and high crops are more exposed (millet and maize). heat wave • water shortage • electricity shortages • diseases • animal deaths • low animal production 100% of the community is exposed to the effects of the heat 80% of exposed people are vulnerable to water shortages, load shedding and illness, especially vulnerable people (children, the elderly). floods • destruction of crops • destruction of houses and buildings • destruction of animal pens • death of animals • destruction of foodstuffs and documents • destruction of traders’ products 80% of the community is at risk, as they either live in houses made of banco or have their fields in flood-prone areas. 20% of exposed households are sensitive because they farm in low-lying areas and live near flood-prone areas. more than 80% of households live in high-altitude areas and also farm in elevated areas. source: focus group (2023) adapted from top-secac. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. the analysis of vulnerability factors shows that the level of vulnerability of the populations of namissiguima is not homogeneous and varies according to the hazards, the types of resources exploited and their location in the area. while 100% of the population is exposed to drought, violents winds and extreme heat, only 80% is exposed to flooding. the level of sensitivity varies from 80% for drought and extreme heat to 70% for strong winds and 20% for floods. in order to strengthen people’s adaptive capacities and resilience, this situation calls for specific solutions for communities, depending on the area and the hazard (pna, 2015; françois bertrand, 2016). 4. discussion according to the survey, the climate change is known by all respondants (100%), and for a large part of them, human activities are the main cause of this climate changing with various impacts on the livelihood and income. to adapt to the negative consequences of the various hazards, the people of namissiguima adopt different coping strategies. the behaviour adopted varies according to the hazard and location (françois bertrand (2016). the table below shows the main measures taken by local people to cope with the main hazards they experience, namely drought, strong winds, extreme heat and flooding. table 6. impacts observed and people’s adaptation srategies hazards impacts observed impacts adaptation strategies adopted by communities droughts • decline in agricultural yields (household food insecurity) • reduced income from livestock production • animal deaths • water shortage • ntfp exploitation • trade of firewood • exploitation of mining resources • displacement of young people to favourable areas in search of work violent winds • destruction of agricultural crops • destruction of fruit • destruction of human habitat and animal shelters uprooting of trees • cladding housing with improved cement and banco • community mutual aid to build houses heat wave • water shortage • electricity shortages • diseases • animal deaths • low animal production • sleeping under the stars at night • take shelter in shady areas • travel early • start activities early • wash several times a day www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. floods • destruction of crops • destruction of houses and buildings • destruction of animal pens • death of animals • destruction of foodstuffs and documents • destruction of traders’ products • temporary living in schools classroom • cladding housing with improved cement and banco • community mutual aid to build houses • refraining from or limiting the production of certain crops in low-lying areas source: focus group (2023) adapted from top-secac. globally, solutions adopted are mainly reactive strategies, and are still largely ad hoc. although preventive solutions are less common, the people interviewed also mentioned certain preventive solutions such as limiting cereal production, including maize, rice and millet in lowland areas. 4.1 adapting to drought droughts are one of the main climatic hazards that have an impact on people’s income (bekele et al., 2014) and the main hazards that have a negative impact on the lives of communities in the sahelian zone of burkina faso, particularly in namissiguima. with 80% of the arable land at high altitude and crops sensitive to drought, droughts pose a problem for food security by leading to poor plant development, particularly for the main crops grown in the locality, namely millet, maize and sorghum (x. n. gnoumou et al., 2017). the consequences are poor harvests, food shortages for households, lack of fodder, early drying up of water reservoirs, etc. this vulnerability is compounded by the fact that communities depend almost exclusively on these resources for their livelihoods. according to esikuri (2005) quoted by bekele et al. (2014); 60% of sub-saharan african countries are vulnerable to frequent and severe droughts due to the dependence of agriculture on rainfall. burkina faso and the commune of namissiguima are no exception, as the agricultural production system remains almost entirely rainfed. to deal with this, the people of namissiguima have adopted the exploitation of non-timber forest products (ntfps), wood cutting and the firewood trade, the exploitation of mining resources (mainly gold mining), and the movement of young people to favourable areas in search of work. nowaday, the situation is increasingly complex due to insecurity, which makes mobility difficult and prevents access to various areas that were once favourable. presure on forest resources is also making ntfp exploitation less productive as resources dwindle. for communities, new methods exist, including off-season crops through, among other things, the mobilisation of water resources (market gardening from boreholes), income-generating activities through trade, livestock micro-projects, etc., and the adoption of cultivation methods adapted to drought and climatic conditions. however, while the technologies and tools exist (improved seeds, zaï, half-moons, stone cordons, production of organic manure, reforestation, agricultural production in low-lying areas, etc.), the implementation of these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. technologies and tools is still a long way off. indeed, the implementation of these adaptation options faces various obstacles linked to insufficient water control (jérôme compaoré and al, 2023), the departure of young people to gold mining sites and insecurity, the necessary financial resources, the high altitude of production areas (fields) and a deep water table. 4.2 adaptation to violent winds violent winds are the second cause of vulnerability of namissiguima people. the entire population is exposed to violent winds, which destroy agricultural crops, the fruit of plants, especially forest plants (ntfps), homes and animal shelters, and uproot trees (kabore, 2019). to deal with these problems, households mainly opt for community self-help and changing roof coverings to more sustainable materials. other solutions exist, according to the results of discussions with local people. these mainly involve building solid houses using quality materials, reforestation and protecting crops with hedgerows. the implementation of these additional options is coming up against obstacles such as the lack of a young, active workforce, with young people leaving for the gold-mining sites, and the poverty of the population. 4.3 adaptation to heat according to the hazard vulnerability matrix, extreme heat is the third most common cause of vulnerability for the population of namissiguima, with a weighting of 10 points, compared with drought (18 points) and strong winds (11 points). according to the agence national de la meteorologie (anam) data, peak heat periods in burkina faso occur between march and april. the impacts are varied and can be summed up as major water shortages, load shedding, disease, low animal production and the death of animals. to cope in the short term, people sleep under the stars at night or take shelter in shady areas. other tricks include carrying out their activities and travelling early in the day. finally, while toilets can be used to cool off several times a day, particularly for children and the elderly, they are still difficult to use because of the water problems that also arise at the same time. in the medium and long term, reforestation activities, particularly in public places and homes, and the adoption of building systems with airy houses such as the « voûte nubienne » could be alternatives (bruno jarno, 2015). 4.4 adaptation to flooding compared to droughts, flooding is to a lesser extent the hazard that has the least impact on the livelihoods of the people of namissiguima. it is nonetheless important, as the damage caused can range from the destruction of crops, houses and buildings, animal pens, loss of human life and the death of animals, to the destruction of foodstuffs and documents (in particular civil status documents) as well as traders’ products (jean marie dipama, 2009; pna, 2015). to deal with the situation, the local population temporarily moved disaster-stricken households into schools classroom more resistant, covered their houses with cement and improved banco to prevent them from falling down, helped each other rebuild damaged houses and built houses in the higher parts of the commune. however, these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. efforts are sometimes thwarted by a number of obstacles, such as insufficient premises to accommodate a large number of households, particularly in schools, and insufficient manpower for community work due to the exodus of young people to gold mining sites. 5. conclusion climate change remains a concern for burkina faso in general and for the population of namissiguima in particular. with more than 80% of the population dependent on agriculture and livestock farming for their livelihoods, any variation in climatic parameters has a direct impact on production yields and, consequently, on people’s adaptive capacities. nowadays, the causes of this change are well known to local people. faced with this situation, although people are increasingly adopting production methods adapted to the climate (changes in crops, the practice of zai, etc.), but their actions remain insufficient and largely reactive. the use of preventive methods, such as the use of climate information to anticipate impacts, remains very limited. the situation is even more complex actually, given the security situation in whole the country and in the sahel part of burkina faso in particular. in fact, natural resources remain one of the primary sources of supply for internally displaced populations, particularly timber and non-timber forest products for their subsistence. this is creating a dilemma in terms of the appropriate action to be taken to preserve these resources in several communes, and the humanitarian emergency in such circumstances. references a. dinar, r., hassan, r., mendelson, j. b. et al. 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(2011). trousse à outil de planification et suivi-évaluation des capacités d’adaptation au changement climatique. manuel et guide d’utilisation. centre régional agrhymet, niamey, niger. somda, j., sawadogo, i., savadogo, m., r. zougmoré, b. a. bationo, moussa a. s., nakoulma g., sanou j., barry s., sanou a. o., & some, l. (2014). analyse participative de la vulnérabilité et planification de l’adaptation au changement climatique dans le yatenga, burkina faso. programme de recherche du cgiar sur le changement climatique, l’agriculture et la sécurité alimentaire. disponible en ligne sur. retrieved from http://www.ccafs.cgiar.org x. n. gnoumou, j. t. yaméogo, m. traoré, g. bazongo, & p. bazongo (2017). adaptation aux changements climatiques en afrique sub-saharienne: impact du zaï et des semences améliorées sur le rendement du sorgho dans les villages de loaga et sika (province du bam), burkina faso. international journal of innovation and applied studies, 19(1), 166-174. retrieved from http://http://www.ijias.issr-journals.org/ note note 1. https://reliefweb.int/report/burkina-faso/burkina-faso-mise-jour-de-la-situation-mai-2023 microsoft word assc-v4n1-p25 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 25 original paper analysis on cultural differences in international communication—taking cultural differences between chinese and american as examples ning ding1* 1 college of arts, nanchang normal university, nanchang, china * ning ding, college of arts, nanchang normal university, nanchang, china received: january 6, 2022 accepted: january 20, 2022 online published: january 25, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p25 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p25 abstract this paper is written to analyze the underlying reason for the barriers, misunderstandings, or conflicts that might happen in the context of international communication: that is culture and cultural differences. around the core of this paper, the definition, categories, and characteristics of culture have been explored, and then an example of cultural differences has been given. in the case, two different cultures between american and chinese were compared. this kind of analysis is aiming to deal with some of the potential problems in international communication. keywords culture, cultural differences, comparison, international communication 1. introduction with the coming of 21st century, human beings have already stepped into the information era. advanced technology in various fields, especially in transportation, communication and internet are rapidly changing the life in every second. technology helps people to remove some of the physical barriers against international communication which once troubled people a lot in ancient times. thanks to the advancement in science and technology, it seems that one should be more optimistic and confident in conducting a good job in communication among different people around the world. however, maybe people should think twice to decide whether it is the truth. because culture is the very thing people should not forget. one may be perplexed at first sight of the word “culture”. however, it is necessary for everyone to admit that culture is an inevitable element in communication. cultures, or it can be called, cultural differences, are playing important underlying role in communication from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. day a person starts off from his motherland. the more opportunities one gets to interact with people from different countries, the more necessary it is for him to have the awareness of cultural differences. culture tells people how to behave appropriately and predictably, just as the proverb put it: “when in rome, do as the romans do.” in order to respect everyone’s communicators and be respected by them on the other side, it is necessary for people to bring some enthusiasm from their hearts to understand culture and cultural differences. what is culture? it appears that culture is so broad, complex, and abstract that it is difficult to define it in a single way. a. l. kroeber and c. kluckhohn, famous scholars, listed over 160 definitions of culture made by related scholars from their different perspectives. edward burnett tylor (1871), a british anthropologist, in primitive culture, a book, said: “culture, or civilization, on its wide range of ethnographic sense, is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (taylor, 1992, p. 1) many scholars take taylor’s definition in 1871 as a starting point of culture studies. from the definitions like this, it is known today that culture is learned. researchers tend to regard culture as a philosophical existence rather than a biological existence. a man acquires certain kind of culture based on the kind of environment he lives in. culture underlies in almost every field in a society. specifically speaking, the manner one behaves in, the notion inside one’s mind, the items one tries to make all belong to cultural field. culture sounds like an abstract conception, but if it is analyzed in a practical way and is combines with some commonsense one has, then culture becomes a fact which can be perceived. 2. method from the above discussion, the topic of culture has been brought on the agenda. culture itself is not so far from the modern life as its definition is. here is a very interesting example provided by some scholars as follows: “whereas money is considered an artifact, the value placed upon it is a concept, but the actual spending and saving of money is behavior” (samovar & porter, 1997, p. 13). this example, in an excellent way, shows how the main three elements constituting culture are reflected in a society. that is to say, the three main categories or say ingredients of culture consist of artifacts, concepts, and behaviors which have been mentioned above. artifacts are all the “items” invented by man (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 13). from daily products invented to facilitate our living to institutes such as schools and universities established to cultivate people, all the items which are not born in the nature belong to artifacts. concepts are the “values system” a society believes in (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 13). behaviors are “the actual practice of concepts or beliefs” (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 13). the three categories are not wholly separated from one another. they interact and integrate, forming a whole of culture. one behaves according to the concepts he has, and one presents concept since the artifacts he makes. in fact, this is a simple working mechanism in which culture facilitates and achieves its development. culture, like a person, has its characteristics. these characteristics make culture different from other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. similar social science subjects such as philosophy, anthropology, sociology, etc. first, one is not born like this. one is not born thinking in a certain way; one is not born eating in a certain way; one is not born speaking and making greetings like this. however, when one person has grown up, he would surprisingly find that, he has thought, behaved, and leaded his life in a certain way from generation to generation. that is, “culture is learned” (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 13). one has acquired similar way of thinking and behavior because he learned his native culture from his seniors. this process of learning is called enculturation by many scholars. the ways of enculturation are various. education is a very formal way to cultivate people’s minds. in one’s daily life, seeing a film may also belong to an enculturation activity. in a word, one acquires culture practically. life provides one person with many forms of culture learning. after learning, one can and should undertake the task to transmit the culture to the younger generation, just as the process he once received. this is the second characteristic of culture: culture can be passed on (samovar & porter, 1997, p. 13). that is why culture can be inherited for thousands of years. however, culture is not static. it must update itself for its development, so the third point is that: culture is ongoing (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 14). furthermore, culture only provides some ways of thinking and behaving for us to choose, not all the ways to think and behave. for example, chinese culture can only give its learners a specific pattern of living in chinese style rather than other styles. for the above definition, categories, and characteristics, it can be deduced that culture is everywhere. culture is in no doubt a fact existing in the world and has its own characteristics. it plays an important role in communication. because everyone is living in a society in which culture is functioning itself to its best all the time, he unavoidably has his own tendencies to see the world, think about the world, and behave in the world. everyone has his own style of acting, and the style has a cultural basis in it. is that the source which cultural shocks or communication conflicts stem from? the answer is no. when one communicates with other people, especially people from different cultures, it is the lack of understanding the characteristics of their cultures that arises communication barriers or cultural shocks. the disappearance of cultural difference is not the key to solve the problem in international communication, understanding and respecting is the right attitude one should hold. next the essay is going to take the cultural differences between american and chinese as a typical example to raise the cultural awareness. 3. result china, a country which has been influenced deeply by confucius, regards confucianism as its basic philosophical system. thousands of years’ history has seen the profound impact exerted by confucius’ value system. taking humanism, faithfulness, propriety, and wisdom as its four principles, this system pays its attention to the harmonious relationships among people, the subtle meaning contained in words, and holds past and present-conscious time attitudes. hundreds of years ago, european immigrants sailed across the ocean to settle in a new world, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. made the establishment of the united states become a fact. those immigrants brought their culture and traditions into the new world. this kind of “culture importation” made america a multicultural country. the tradition of american culture can be dated back to the ancient greeks’ culture and ancient hebrews’ culture. the ancient greeks’ culture and ancient hebrews’ culture have always been the deep-rooted culture systems in english-speaking countries such as england. and the cultures in english-speaking countries have built up the main frame of american culture. what ancient greeks’ culture and ancient hebrews’ culture is to the western world is what confucianism is to china. because of different traditions, the american culture system lays emphasis on individuality, efficiency, privacy, and accuracy. opposed to chinese culture system, american culture values on independent ability. direct oral communication is acceptable and most americans have a notion of future in mind. next, the essay is going to focus on three aspects to compare the two different culture patterns. the reason is that the three aspects play as the main points in chinese and american cultural differences. the other differences can be deducted from them. first, chinese culture system lays emphasis on collectivism while american culture emphasize on individualism. collectivism—individualism dimension can be taken as the first dimension which differentiates chinese culture from american culture. in china, collectivism is regarded as the core value in its society. chinese people tend to form an “ingroup” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 393), which is a group who has common and consistent norms, values, rules, and principles for all the members to obey. members’ behaviors are connected and have the same objective. the effective functioning of the whole group will be influenced by members’ actions. if conflicts happen, the interests of the collectivity should be assigned a high priority from the individual. always taking the collectivistic values into account, “ingroup” members do care more about teamwork. they do not admit the existence of a singular talent. “more people, stronger power” is what chinese groups believe in. in comparison, individualism lies at the most notable core of american culture. a scholar called geert hofstede defined individualism as “the emotional independence of individual persons from groups, organization, or other collectivities” (pointed out by yum, j. o.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 78). this culture pattern tends to form an “outgroup” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 393), rather than an “ingroup”. consistent norms, values, rules and principles are not musts in an “outgroup”. members have the rights to think inconsistently, judge according to their own criteria, make choices as they like, behave, and live a life in their own style. it is individualism that can be the only regulation in american society. it provides a space for every member to develop himself in a group. talents exist and have their values. efficiency of an individual can be an identity card in an outgroup society. one can choose to do one thing rather than another. he or she can voluntarily take part in an organization or withdraw from it. “i” is always capitalized while “we” is not. individualism makes everybody in this culture maximize his abilities, energy, and talents. second, chinese people prefer to conveying subtle meaning during the process of oral communication. they have formed a communication pattern in which the “spiral logic” and “indirect verbal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. negotiation” play the main parts of a communication activity (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 394). edward t. hall gave this pattern a special name: high context pattern (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar & porter, 1997, p. 394). in a high context society, message is transmitted with “minimal information” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 394). context is the practical circumstance or setting in which message is transmitted. more information is contained in the context itself rather than the message sent. in contrast, american people have formed a communication pattern in reverse to chinese people, which is named as “low context” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, l. a. & porter, r. e., 1997, p. 394) by hall. this pattern takes “linear logic” and “direct verbal communication” as its characteristics (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 394). this style of communication makes the message a speaker transmits contain as much information as possible. because the people in this communication pattern think that what they say should make up the missing information in the context. high context—low context differences may lead to misunderstandings in international communication. westerners sometimes find it difficult to grasp the subtle meaning in interaction with chinese. ambiguous and implicit, chinese people are especially sensitive to what they say to others and what others say to them. they have high expectation toward words and often weigh their words carefully. however, americans can accept directness and clearness in language speaking. for this point, we should pay special attention to raising the awareness of high context—low context differences. only in this way can we possibly conduct harmonious intercultural communication activities. at last, it comes to the concept of time in cultural differences. people’s attitudes towards time vary in accord with the cultural patterns they belong to. different patterns of time govern different cultures. the tempos and paces of a conference can be influenced by time notion. there exist two basic attitudes toward time. if the people in a time pattern “don’t take appointments so seriously” and hold “a fluid attitude toward time schedules”, it can be called a “polychronic time schedule” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 395). to the opposite, if the people in a culture “take appointments seriously”, “emphasize the accuracy of time” and hold the opinion that certain schedules should be preset to handle problems, it can be a “monochronic time schedule” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, & porter, 1997, p. 395). the two patterns were introduced by hall in 1983. he included china in “polychronic time schedule” countries while america the “monochronic time schedule”. that is sensible. chinese people tend to take more time in exploration and analysis and try to understand the process rather than just emphasize or grasp the very point of time. they pay more attention to “the process of time” and “center in the present and the past” (pointed out by ting-toomey, s.) (samovar, l. a. & porter, r. e., 1997, p. 395). chinese often combine work activities with their social activities. they regard it as a good and natural way to build a relationship between partners. on the contrary, americans lay importance on the clock time preset and tend to accurately obey the schedules. they separate work time from social time and prefer to dealing with conflicts within certain time schedules. they are future—oriented groups who look forward to the future rather than look back www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. on the past. understanding different time patterns can help one control the tempo and hold a proper attitude toward conflicts in international communication. if one knows the time pattern his partners belong to, he can easily avoid some miscommunication, unhappiness, and impoliteness. 4. discussion it is impossible for one to completely avoid or escape from intercultural communication problems. cultural differences may often lead to unexpected miscommunication and misinterpretations, which are among the reasons for cultural shocks. through the comparison of cultural differences between chinese and american, a brief view of the role culture plays in international communication can be seen. it is a world of information and communication. raising the awareness of cultural differences is as important as improving the communication technology. once cultural misunderstandings happen, it is everyone’s task to handle and clarify them appropriately and in such a circumstance one’s knowledge of cultural differences can be a big helper. a good attitude toward cultural differences is respect. the key to solving intercultural miscommunication is to understand cultural differences sincerely. respect partners and be respected by them. understand partners and be understood by them! references bodley, j. h. (2005). cultural anthropology: tribes, states, and the global system. boston: mcgraw-hill. hall, e. t. (1976). beyond culture. new york: doubleday. hall, e. t. (1983). the dance of life. new york: doubleday. haviland, w. a., gordon, r. j., & vivanco, l. a. (2002). talking about people: readings in contemporary cultural anthropology. boston: mcgraw-hill. herskovits, m. j. (1964). cultural dynamics. new york: alfred a. knopf. hofstede, g. (1980). culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values. beverly hills, ca: sage. samovar, l. a., & porter, r. e. (1997). intercultural communication: a reader (8th ed.). belmont: wadsworth pub. co. taylor, e. b. (1992). primitive culture (chinese version). translated by shusheng lian. shanghai: shanghai literature and art publishing house. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 132 original paper parental education and nucleus accumbens response to reward anticipation: minorities’ diminished returns shervin assari1,2* 1 department of family medicine, charles drew university, los angeles, ca 90059, usa 2 department of urban public health, charles drew university, los angeles, ca 90059, usa * shervin assari, e-mail: assari@umich.edu; tel.: +1-734-858-8333 received: october 27, 2020 accepted: november 8, 2020 online published: november 11, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p132 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p132 abstract background: considerable research has documented the effects of race and socioeconomic status (ses) on reward-seeking behaviors; however, less is known about the multiplicative effects of race and family ses on brain response to reward anticipation. minorities’ diminished returns (mdrs) suggest that family ses would show weaker effects on brain development of children in non-white families than in white families. objective: to test race by ses variation in nucleus accumbens (nacc) response to reward anticipation (nacc-ra) among american children. methods: for this cross-sectional analysis, data came from the adolescents brain cognitive development (abcd) study which included 6,419, 9-10 year old children. the independent variable was parental education. the moderator was race. the primary outcome was the right nacc-ra. age, sex, ethnicity, household income, and family structure were the covariates. we used mixed-effect regression models that adjusted for the nested nature of the abcd data. results: while high parental education was associated with a higher amount of right nacc-ra, this effect was stronger for white than non-white children. this finding was evident in the observed interactions between race and parental education on the right nacc-ra. discussion: for american children, nacc-ra is not shaped by race or family ses, but by their intersection. as a result of the interaction between race and ses (diminished return of ses for non-whites), middle-class racial minority children may remain susceptible to high-risk behaviors. disparities in high-risk behaviors in children should not be reduced to economic disparities. structural inequalities may reduce the return of ses resources for non-white families. keywords socioeconomic status, reward, high risk, reward-seeking, ethnic groups, nucleus accumbens www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 133 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction marginalization-related diminished returns (mdrs) (assari, caldwell, & bazargan, 2019) refer to the weaker effects of socioeconomic status (ses) indicators, such as parental education, on outcomes for members of marginalized groups when compared to their non-marginalized peers (assari, 2017c; shervin assari, 2018). as a result of mdrs, racial minority children from high ses families remain at risk of poor developmental outcomes (spera, wentzel, & matto, 2009). for example, relative to whites, non-white childrenshow weaker effects of parental education on school performance (spera et al., 2009), health (goodman, slap, & huang, 2003), depression (assari & caldwell, 2018a), anxiety (assari, caldwell, & zimmerman, 2018), suicide (assari, boyce, bazargan, & caldwell, 2020), impulsivity (morris, silk, steinberg, myers, & robinson, 2007; park & holloway, 2013), reward dependence (assari, akhlaghipour, boyce, bazargan, & caldwell, 2020; assari, boyce, akhlaghipour, bazargan, & caldwell, 2020), attention (assari, boyce, & bazargan, 2020a), aggression (pabayo, molnar, & kawachi, 2014), problem behaviors (assari, 2020c; assari, boyce, caldwell, & bazargan, 2020), and substance use (goodman et al., 2003; wills, mcnamara, & vaccaro, 1995). at least some of these effects may be due to mdrs of parental education and income on children’s brain development in non-white families (assari, boyce, & bazargan, 2020b). as a result of these mdrs, middle-class racial minority children and adults report worse than expected outcomes across a variety of domains (assari, boyce, bazargan, mincy, & caldwell, 2019; assari et al., 2019; assari, caldwell, & mincy, 2018a; assari, caldwell, & mincy, 2018b; assari, thomas, caldwell, & mincy, 2018). for example, middle-class racial minority children remain at risk of anxiety (assari, caldwell, & zimmerman, 2018), depression (assari & caldwell, 2018a), poor health (assari, 2018h), and poor school performance (assari, 2019; assari & caldwell, 2019b). with the same pattern, middle-class racial minority children engage in high-risk behaviors (assari et al., 2019), such as aggression (assari et al., 2019) and tobacco use (assari & mistry, 2018; assari, mistry, & bazargan, 2020), to a level that is unexpected given their high ses. as these patterns are repeatedly documented (s. assari, 2018f, 2018g, 2018h, 2018i; assari & moghani lankarani, 2018a) across studies, settings, and outcomes (assari, 2018f, 2018j; assari & caldwell, 2019a; assari & thomas et al., 2018), they are believed to be robust and to be the result of structural racism and social stratification that influence the daily lives of all people of color, regardless of their race and ethnicity (assari, 2017c; shervin assari, 2018). a number of studies have investigated societal and structural causes of the observed diminished returns of ses for racial minority families. racial discrimination is shown to be higher, not lower, in high ses racial minority families (assari, lankarani, & caldwell, 2018). these families are also increasingly vulnerable to racial discrimination (assari, preiser, lankarani, & caldwell, 2018). this increased exposure and vulnerability to discrimination in middle-class minority families is due in part to middle-class racial minority families living and working at a higher proximity to white families (assari, 2018b; assari & moghani, 2018b), which increases their exposure to discrimination (assari, 2020b; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 134 published by scholink inc. assari, gibbons, & simons, 2018a; assari, gibbons, & simons, 2018b). as a result, the health gains that are expected to follow ses are less for middle-class families who are non-white (assari, 2018b; assari et al., 2018; assari & moghani, 2018b; hudson et al., 2012; hudson, neighbors, geronimus, & jackson, 2016; hudson, puterman, bibbins-domingo, matthews, & adler, 2013). due to systemic societal injustice, neighborhoods (assari, 2016a) and social contacts (assari, 2017d) become less protective of children in non-white than in white high ses families. across various brain regions, the nucleus accumbens (nacc) is most central to pavlovian learning (carr, 2020; dingess et al., 2017; gugusheff, ong, & muhlhausler, 2014; olivo, caba, gonzalez-lima, rodriguez-landa, & corona-morales, 2017; romani-perez et al., 2017; saul’skaya & mikhailova, 2004), meaning that the nacc regulates incentive salience, pleasure-seeking, reward dependence, and positive reinforcement (deshmukh & sharma, 2012; kask & schioth, 2000; pan, berman, haberny, meller, & carr, 2006; pan, siregar, & carr, 2006; salamone, mahan, & rogers, 1993; whishaw & kornelsen, 1993). the nacc mediates cue-triggered reward-seeking behaviors (gomez, shnitko, caref, nicola, & robinson, 2020; grottick, fletcher, & higgins, 2000; kask & schioth, 2000; tricomi & lempert, 2015; uribe-cerda, morselli, & perez-leighton, 2018). by regulating food cues’ response, the nacc also plays a unique role in addiction pathogenesis (casquero-veiga, garcia-garcia, pascau, desco, & soto-montenegro, 2018; dingess et al., 2017; uribe-cerda et al., 2018; van de giessen, de bruin, la fleur, van den brink, & booij, 2012) and in issues such as obesity (aitken, greenfield, & wassum, 2016). alteration of the nacc function is shown to be associated with changes in seeking food and drugs (carr, cabeza de vaca, sun, & chau, 2009; naef, moquin, gratton, & walker, 2013; nakazato, 2005; singer et al., 2016; vollbrecht, nobile, chadderdon, jutkiewicz, & ferrario, 2015). in animal models (derman & ferrario, 2018) and humans (alsio et al., 2010; azzout-marniche et al., 2016; brown et al., 2017; crespo, stockl, zorn, saria, & zernig, 2008; durst, konczol, balazsa, eyre, & toth, 2019; oginsky & ferrario, 2019), nacc activity is linked to the expression of behaviors secondary to various cues (derman & ferrario, 2018). inputs and cues related to drugs, sex, and food can elicit a robust nacc dopamine response that results in seeking these behaviors (aitken et al., 2016). thus, the nacc is a part of the brain reward system and, through dopamine release, alters how an individual seeks drugs, food, and sex (alonso-caraballo et al., 2020; oginsky & ferrario, 2019; oginsky, maust, corthell, & ferrario, 2016; ong & muhlhausler, 2011; vollbrecht et al., 2015). activity in the nacc also predicts addiction susceptibility (derman & ferrario, 2018). although we know that the nacc has a prominent role in these behaviors, most of the existing evidence is limited to animal studies performed in highly-controlled laboratory settings (alsio et al., 2010; azzout-marniche et al., 2016; brown et al., 2017; crespo et al., 2008; durst et al., 2019; oginsky & ferrario, 2019). the nacc response to reward anticipation (nacc-ra) is one of the functions of the nacc that reflects how the individual responds to cues that signal a potential reward. nacc-ra and other proxies of reward responsiveness have predicted several risk behaviors, obesity, and drug use (alonso-caraballo et al., 2020; oginsky & ferrario, 2019; oginsky et al., 2016; ong & muhlhausler, 2011; vollbrecht et al., 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 135 published by scholink inc. 1.1 aims there is a need to study brain areas that reflect similar mdrs in mechanisms that are involved in reward processing (e.g., nacc). to extend the existing knowledge on the relevance of mdrs to brain development of children of color in middle-class families, we used a national sample to explore race by family ses variation in right nacc-ra among 9-10 year old american children. we expected to observe weaker ses effects on the right nacc-ra for non-white than white children (assari, 2017c; shervin assari, 2018; assari et al., 2019). this hypothesis is based on our expectation that right nacc-ra may carry some of the effects of social injustice on children’s brain development and risk-taking behaviors. 2. methods we conducted a secondary analysis of the previous abcd study data (alcohol research: current reviews editorial, 2018; casey et al., 2018; karcher, o’brien, kandala, & barch, 2019; lisdahl et al., 2018; luciana et al., 2018). using a cross-sectional design, we applied data from wave 1 of the abcd study; our analysis included a total number of 6,419, 9-10 children who had participated previously in the abcd study. the abcd participants are nested to mri devices and the families are nested to 21 sites across the nation. the abcd sample was primarily recruited through school systems with sampling (school selection) informed by demographic factors (garavan et al., 2018). eligibility criteria for this analysis were having complete data for our study variables, regardless of race, ethnicity, or sex, and having a recommended (to use) mid fmri. the study variables included race, ethnicity, age, sex, parental education, household income, family structure, and nacc-ra. the primary outcome was right nacc-ra, measured using task-based fmri. in the data set, this variable is tfmri_mid_run1_antic.large.vs.small.reward_beta_subcort.aseg_accumbens. area.rh. race was a nominal variable: black, asian, other/mixed, and white (reference). ethnicity was coded as 1 for latino and 0 for non-latino. parents reported their years of schooling, which was operational zed as a categorical variable: 1) less than high school diploma, 2) high school diploma, 3) some college, 4) college graduation, and 5) graduate-level education. household income was a three-level categorical variable: income > 100,000 usd, income 50,000 -100,000 usd, and income less than 50,000 usd (reference). children’s age, in months, was a continuous measure and was reported by parents. sex was reported as 1 for males and 0 for females. parental marital status was reported as 1 for married and 0 for any other condition (reference). 2.1 data analysis we used the data analysis and exploration portal (deap) for data analysis. deap uses r package (r version 4.0) for fitting the models. frequencies (n and %) and mean [standard deviations (sds)] were reported to describe the variables in the pooled sample and across racial groups. to estimate vicariate analyses between the study variables, we used an anova and chi-square test. to perform our multivariable analyses, we performed mixed-effect regression models that adjusted for the data’s nested nature. appendix 1 shows our modeling strategy. appendix 2 shows the distribution of our independent https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/r-4 https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/r-4 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 136 published by scholink inc. variable, dependent variable, and the test of assumption for our regression model. we also ruled out co linearity between study variables. the independent variable was parental education, and the dependent variable was nacc-ra. our models controlled for ethnicity, age, sex, family income, and family structure. all models were performed in the pooled sample. model 1 did not have any interaction terms. model 2 did include interaction terms between parental education and racial group membership. unstandardized regression coefficient (b), se, and p-values were reported for each model. a p-value that was equal to or less than 0.05 was significant. 2.2 ethical aspect our analysis was exempt from a full review. the abcd study protocol, however, was approved by the university of california, san diego (ucsd) institutional review board (irb) (auchter et al., 2018). 3. results 3.1 descriptives the sample included 6,419, 9-10 year-old children. table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the pooled sample and across racial groups. white children came from families who had the highest income and level of parental education, and black children came from families who had the lowest level of parental education and income. table 1. descriptive data overall (n = 6419) level overall all white black asian other/mixed p n 6419 4431 814 132 1042 n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) hispanic no 5189 (80.8) 3674 (82.9) 768 (94.3) 121 (91.7) 626 (60.1) < 0.001 yes 1230 (19.2) 757 (17.1) 46 (5.7) 11 (8.3) 416(39.9) sex female 3174 (49.4) 2136 (48.2) 421 (51.7) 73(55.3) 544(52.2) 0.024 male 3245 (50.6) 2295 (51.8) 393 (48.3) 59(44.7) 498(47.8) married family no 1783 (27.8) 850 (19.2) 567 (69.7) 18(13.6) 348(33.4) < 0.001 yes 4636 (72.2) 3581 (80.8) 247 (30.3) 114 (86.4) 694 (66.6) household income < 50k 1700 (26.5) 782 (17.6) 543 (66.7) 13 (9.8) 362 (34.7) < 0.001 50-100k 2849 (44.4) 2289 (51.7) 98 (12.0) 89 (67.4) 373 (35.8) > =100k 1870 (29.1) 1360 (30.7) 173 (21.3) 30 (22.7) 307 (29.5) parental education < high school diploma 193 (3.0) 73 (1.6) 70 (8.6) 2 (1.5) 48 (4.6) < 0.001 hs diploma/ged 469 (7.3) 191 (4.3) 176 (21.6) 1 (0.8) 101 (9.7) some college 1623 (25.3) 947 (21.4) 314 (38.6) 12 (9.1) 350 (33.6) bachelor 1792 (27.9) 1385 (31.3) 120 (14.7) 33 (25.0) 254 (24.4) post graduate degree 2342 (36.5) 1835 (41.4) 134 (16.5) 84 (63.6) 289 (27.7) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 137 published by scholink inc. mean (sd) mean (sd) mean (sd) mean (sd) mean (sd) age (months) 119.29 (7.49) 119.33 (7.49) 119.42 (7.32) 119.89 (8.05) 118.94 (7.56) 0.321 nacc-ra 0.07 (0.56) 0.06 (0.55) 0.09 (0.43) 0.10 (0.33) 0.05 (0.69) 0.423 nacc-ra= nucleus accumbens (nac) response to reward anticipation main effect of parental education table 2 reports the results of a pooled sample regression model. model 1, which only included the main effects, showed that high parental education was associated with higher nacc-ra levels (figure 1). table 2. mixed effect regressions on the effects of parental education and race on childhood body mass index (nacc-ra) estimate std. error pr(> | t|) high school diploma/ged 0.14976** 0.04966 0.00257 some college 0.15093*** 0.04523 0.00085 bachelor 0.15765*** 0.0475 0.00091 graduate degree 0.15725** 0.04797 0.00105 **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. figure 1. association between parental education and nucleus accumbens (nacc) response to reward anticipation (nacc-ra) 3.2 interactional effects table 3 reports the results of model 2. this model showed an interaction between parental education and race, meaning that the effects of high parental education on reducing nacc-ra were less pronounced for non-white than white children (figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 138 published by scholink inc. table 3. mixed effect regressions on the intersectional effects of parental education and race on childhood nucleus accumbens (nacc) response to reward anticipation (nacc-ra) estimate std. error pr(> | t| ) high school diploma/ged 0.32380*** 0.07934 <0.001 some college 0.36495*** 0.07096 <0.001 bachelor 0.36718*** 0.07177 <0.001 graduate degree 0.37239*** 0.07189 <0.001 race (black) 0.33161*** 0.09851 0.001 race (asian) 1.24788** 0.40346 0.002 race (mixed/other) 0.37506*** 0.10655 <0.001 black × high school diploma/ged -0.19795# 0.11431 0.083 black × some college -0.29367** 0.10467 0.005 black × bachelor -0.34115** 0.11226 0.002 black × graduate degree -0.27358* 0.11094 0.014 asian × high school diploma/ged -1.03902 0.69382 0.134 asian × some college -1.26526** 0.43526 0.004 asian × bachelor -1.18399** 0.41550 0.004 asian × graduate degree -1.25593** 0.40845 0.002 mixed/other race × high school diploma/ged -0.36484** 0.12788 0.004 mixed/other race × some college -0.39214*** 0.11248 <0.001 mixed/other race × bachelor -0.36010** 0.11371 0.001 mixed/other race × graduate degree -0.42035*** 0.11273 <0.001 # p<0.1, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 figure 2. association between parental education and nucleus accumbens (nac) response to reward anticipation (nacc-ra) by race www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 139 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion although higher parental education was associated with a higher level of nacc-ra in children (1st finding), parental education showed weaker effects for non-white and white children (2nd finding). our 1st result is in-line with what we know about parental education’s role as a social determinant of health in general (cuevas et al., 2020; williams, 1999) and brain development in particular (brody et al., 2017; farah, 2018; hackman et al., 2013; hackman & farah, 2009; hackman, farah, & meaney, 2010; hanson, chandra, wolfe, & pollak, 2011; “poverty and brain development”, 2015). marmot (2005; singh-manoux, richards, & marmot, 2005; stringhini et al., 2018), link and phelan (1995, 2009; phelan, link, diez-roux, kawachi, & levin, 2004), mirowsky and ross (2015; ross & mirowsky, 2011), and many other investigators (cuevas et al., 2020; williams, 1999) have previously theorized and discussed the health effects of ses indicators such as parental education across age groups. an extensive body of research also link slow ses to high-risk behaviors, impulsivity, and sensation seeking (assari, 2020a; assari, caldwell, & mincy, 2018a). our 2nd result may have three explanations. the first explanation is the mdrs phenomenon. a high number of investigations have shown weaker effects of ses for black than white american children (s. assari, 2018c, 2018g, 2018h). household ses indicators, such as parental education, show diminished effects on aggression (assari et al., 2019), tobacco dependence (assari et al., 2019), suicide (shervin assari, shanika boyce, mohsen bazargan, et al., 2020), school bonding (assari, 2019b), school performance (assari, 2019c; assari & caldwell, 2019b), adhd (assari & caldwell, 2019a), anxiety (assari, caldwell, & zimmerman, 2018), obesity (assari, thomas, et al., 2018), and health (assari, caldwell, & mincy, 2018b) for black than white american children. family ses plays a more robust determinant effect on impulse control (shervin, 2020; assari, caldwell, & mincy, 2018a) and attention (shervin assari, shanika boyce, & mohsen bazargan, 2020a) of white than black american children. risk of poor mental and physical health outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, suicide, chronic disease, and obesity, also remains high in high ses black american children ( assari, 2018f; assari & caldwell, 2019a; assari et al., 2018). similar mdrs (assari, 2017c) are shown for children (s. assari, 2018d; assari & moghani lankarani, 2018a), adolescents (assari, gibbons, et al., 2018a), adults (s. assari, 2018a), and older adults (assari & lankarani, 2016b; assari, moghani lankarani, caldwell, & zimmerman, 2016). under racism, parental education (s. assari et al., 2019), own educational attainment (s. assari, 2018j; assari, 2019a; assari & mistry, 2018), and other ses resources (assari & caldwell, 2018b; s. assari, 2018i), and even non-economic assets (assari, 2017a; assari & lankarani, 2016c), generate fewer outcomes for non-whites and whites. this pattern, however, is best descried for comparison of blacks and whites (bailey et al., 2017; bassett, krieger, & bailey, 2017; krieger, 2000, 2003, 2008, 2016; krieger, smith, naishadham, hartman, & barbeau, 2005; krieger, williams, & zierler, 1999; parrott et al., 2005; rich-edwards et al., 2001). the third explanation for our finding is the high level of general, economic, and racial stress experienced in middle-class black families’ daily lives. as racial and ethnic discrimination affects various aspects of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 140 published by scholink inc. health (chekroud, everett, bridge, & hewstone, 2014; clark, miller, & hegde, 2018; fourie, stein, solms, gobodo-madikizela, & decety, 2019; han et al., 2020; phelps et al., 2000; wheeler & fiske, 2005), and as high ses is a proxy of higher, not lower discrimination for non-white families (s. assari, 2018b; assari & caldwell, 2018b; assari, gibbons, et al., 2018b; assari, lankarani, et al., 2018; assari & moghani lankarani, 2018b; assari, preiser, et al., 2018; hudson et al., 2012; hudson et al., 2016; hudson et al., 2013), middle-class racial minority americans still report higher than an expected health risk. these findings can be understood through an intersectional perspective (bowleg, 2008; carbado, crenshaw, mays, & tomlinson, 2013; cole, 2009; strompolis, tucker, crouch, & radcliff, 2019; viruell-fuentes, miranda, & abdulrahim, 2012). according to an intersectionality framework, social identities such as race, ethnicity, ses, and sex do not have additive, but multiplicative effects. history, life experiences, exposures, and vulnerabilities are distinct across groups defined by more than one social identity (bowleg, 2008; carbado et al., 2013; cole, 2009; strompolis et al., 2019; viruell-fuentes et al., 2012). as a result, the intersection of race, ses, and sex shape health through variation in risk factors and vulnerabilities (assari, 2016b, 2017b; s. assari, 2018e; assari & caldwell, 2018b; assari & lankarani, 2016a). our paper also showed some negative results. these findings included that there is no significant interaction between asian or black race with high school diploma. in other terms, while higher education better served whites than non-whites, this difference could not be detected for asian and black children if their parents only had a high school diploma/ged. thus, the effects of high parental education on the outcome tended to be smaller for racial and ethnic minorities, though some irregularities and inconsistencies exist. that is, not every education level interacts with every racial/ethnic minority group; however, the general trend is clear and indicates that mdrs exist. 5. conclusions in summary, higher parental education is associated with a higher level of nacc-ra in american children; however, this boosting effect is weaker for non-white than white children. this means middle-class racial minority children show nacc-ra that is similar to nacc-ra of low ses minority children. in other terms, nacc-ra is not a strong ses gradient for non-white children. this indicates that children’s nacc-ra is not shaped by race or parental education, but by their intersection. therefore, eliminating the racial and economic disparities in children’s high-risk behaviors may benefit from an intersectional approach that acknowledges the complexities and interdependent effects of race, ses, and social context. societal barriers that reduce the health return of middle-class status for non-white families should be addressed by multi-level policies that go beyond health policies. the solutions seem to be public and economic rather than health policies. health and developmental inequalities due to race/ethnicity should not be reduced to economic inequalities in health. the effects of race/ethnicity are beyond economic effects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 141 published by scholink inc. deap acknowledgment: deap is a software provided by the data analysis and informatics center of abcd located at the uc san diego with generous support from the national institutes of health and the centers for disease control and prevention under award number u24da041123. the deap project information and links to its source code are available under the resource identifier rrid: scr_016158. author contributions: this paper has only one author. author funding: sa is supported by the following national institutes of health (nih) grants: ca201415 02, da035811-05, u54md007598, u54md008149, d084526-03, and u54ca229974. abcd acknowledgments: data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the adolescent brain cognitive development (abcd) study (https://abcdstudy.org), held in the nimh data archive (nda). this is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9-10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. the abcd study is supported by the national institutes of health grants [u01da041022, u01da041028, u01da041048, u01da041089, u01da041106, u01da041117, u01da041120, u01da041134, u01da041148, u01da041156, u01da041174, u24da041123, u24da041147]. a full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/nih-collaborators. a listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/principal-investigators.html. abcd consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in analysis or writing of this report. this manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the nih or abcd consortium investigators. the abcd data repository grows and changes over time. the abcd data used in this report came from [nimh data archive digital object identifier (http://doi.org/10.15154/1504041)]. conflicts of interest the funders had no role in the design of 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77 original paper analysis on the materials used in weaving jewelry design du xia1 & xu yao1* 1 du xia, school of jewelry, guangzhou city university of technology, guangzhou, china * xu yao, school of jewelry, guangzhou city university of technology, guangzhou, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 25, 2023 online published: january 10, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p77 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p77 abstract the present study discusses the use of materials in the weaving jewelry, weaving jewelry is a type of jewelry that has a structure or texture similar to the textiles works. although the practice of weaving jewelry is evident, there are many styles of weaving jewelry around the world, many researches talk about the designs, methods or structures of the weaving jewelries but few comprehensive overview of the materials involved. this study is a qualitative research method, bibliographical and scientific literature review were carried out as well as consulting collections of artists and designers, currently working with jewelry. this study takes the attempt of weaving materials in jewelry design as the theme, talking about how to make weaving materials unique and beautiful. keywords weaving art, jewelry design, natural fiber, weaving material 1. introduction weaving is a fabric formed by interweaving two or more different sets of threads, the warp and the weft, at right angles. weaving art is one of the dynamic links between the past and present. weaving has been an integral part of human culture for centuries. from ancient civilizations to modern societies, different cultures have developed their own unique weaving techniques and styles. in the context of jewelry design, incorporating elements from traditional weaving practices adds a sense of cultural heritage and craftsmanship. weaving techniques are traditionally worked with rope, hair, bamboo, metal and so on. in the development of the weaving art process, the use of materials is also more diverse, the artificial fiber, glass fiber, ultrafine metal fiber, etc., can be used in the weaving art jewelry design in now days. in the shang dynasty, the knot gradually changed from practical function to decorative function (shi, 2023). weaving is one of the oldest human crafts, and archaeological research has confirmed that weaving (knotting) was widespread in the neolithic age. as one of the oldest crafts, woven goods have the unique sense of texture and beauty and gone into people’s lives. with the booming development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 78 published by scholink inc. the jewelry industry, weaving as a special art element has also become an important inspiration source for the jewelry designers. the design of weaving as an element appears in a large number of jewelry，in various forms, not limited to knots or beads. each material has its own unique and irreplaceable advantages, and the design concept conveyed is also unparalleled. therefore, in the process of weaving jewelry design, the form of the work is not the only element need to be considered about, the understanding of the material is also an important role plays in the design. the beauty of jewelry products are the highly harmonious crystallization of art, processing craft and materials. with the vigorous development of the living standards and the progress of civilization, a variety of materials are richly reflected in jewelry design (yang, 2019). each material has its own characteristics of existence. the expression of woven jewelry is different because of the diversity of woven materials, understanding the specific characteristics of different woven materials is the core of the creation of woven jewelry. with the improvement of weaving technology and the continuous development of materials, the pattern and assembling method have been further expanded. “weaving” art has shifted from functionality to more “artistic” characteristics (zhang, 2022). the different forms of materials have different aesthetic values that may play an important role to influence the designer’s creativity. usually, the woven materials have distinct characteristics, rich texture and strong plasticity. how to use woven materials effectively in jewelry design is of great significance for designers to express their design concepts, enhance visual and tactile expression of jewelry. 2. nature material natural materials are readily available, and the first weaving works of humans are made from materials that are available around them, such as grass, bamboo, bark, animal hair, etc. the natural fibers have a high aesthetic appeal in fashion fabrics (yasith, 2021). with the progress of technology, people did some change on these materials, such as repeated soaking, dyeing, etc., to transform the material into a state that is easier to weave, also put some embellishments on the woven works to make it beautiful. the classic of mountains and seas · great wilderness jing · guo pu note: “taken from body nearly and from materials far…to make a knot and a net” illustrates that early humans were adept at weaving materials from nature. because of the advantages of natural materials such as environmental protection, modern waving jewelry design increasingly likes to use these materials. the natural materials originated in different biomes, these fibers have special characteristics, both regarding their physicochemical composition and their technical possibilities of weaving (ivete, edson, maria, & julia, 2019 ). 2.1 bamboo the characteristic language of bamboo weaving is expressed in line form. the texture beauty of bamboo weaving forms a unique and rich texture pattern through the superposition and interpenetration of bamboo strips of different thickness, thickness and smoothness, and this kind of pattern becomes one of the special symbols of bamboo weaving art (zhang & luo, 2022). in the design of bamboo jewelry, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 79 published by scholink inc. the texture of bamboo mainly includes the natural rhythm of bamboo node texture, smooth and refreshing skin texture, vertical and delicate longitudinal section texture, beautiful and smooth, rough and simple transverse section texture, as well as rich and soft woven texture. the bamboo is common and easy to get in many countries and areas, bamboo is also can be bend easily to make different angles and shapes. there are many outstanding artists are famous by making bamboo jewelry such as diao xiaokuan from china, silvia furmanovich from brazil, (figure 1, figure 2) etc. the clean and moist color makes the whole bamboo hair pin bright and clear, and highlights the rich changes in the structure of bamboo, so that bamboo jewelry is favored by many luxury brands, such as boucheron who has a necklace combining bamboo with diamond which is luxurious and unique (figure 3). figure 1. earrings (by diao xiaokuan, china) figure 2. earing (by silvia fuimanovich, brazil) figure 3. necklace, brand boucheron. 2022 2.2 hair or fur hair braiding was a very popular practice among victorian women. hair was commonly braided by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 80 published by scholink inc. boiling it in soda water for 15 minutes, finishing it to length and dividing each piece into 20-30 small strands (gu, 2016). in the mid-19th century, british jewelers used about 50 tons of hair per year to make mourning jewelry, which shows how popular mourning jewelry was at that time, and its commemorative significance is far greater than the decorative significance. hair woven jewelry is rare in the time after that. in the modern time, some people like to use the hair from their relatives or fur from their pets to make weaving jewelries (figure 6). figure 4. hair weaving earrings from the victorian era (note 1) figure 5. hair waving bracelet (note 2) figure 6. horsehair bracelet, cj horse-element studio (china) 2.3 other natural fiber there are many other materials in nature that can be used for weaving jewelry, such as straw, corn husks, palm leaves and even pine needles. because most untreated natural materials are prone to corrosion, few physical objects have been left. for example, the “qinghe caobian” wheat-straw handcraft from qingdao, china, which started from the late ming dynasty and early qing dynasty. now the materials for the straw knitting products are used from the original single wheat straw to weed, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 81 published by scholink inc. willow, wood, these ingenious straw products have not faded the fragrance of the field, and put on the luster of fashion (figure 7). japanese designer momoko fujii uses rice leaves and straw to make jewelry, the jewelries may turn yellow from bright green after the completion as time goes by, the changes of the color make a bridge between the wearer and the designer (figure 8). many brazil jewelry designers like the use natural fiber to make jewelry, such as ivete cattani made a pair of cufflinks (figure 9) by using one special fiber called golden grass (syngonanthus nitens bong. ruhland), which is distinguished from the others by the golden glow specific of the species and only found in a small area of the cerrado biome. figure 7. wheat-straw brooch, xinhe caobian, china qingdao figure 8. rice-straw earrings, momoko fujii, japan figure 9. ciranda cufflinks, ivete cattani, brazil 3. metal material the metal materials are mostly used in gold, silver, copper wire, sterling silver wire for waving jewelry products. it is made of tiny beads or twisted threads or a combination of both, soldered together or welded to the same metal surface (maria, 2006). metal weaving not only adds durability to the jewelry but also allows for the creation of intricate patterns and designs. the malleability of metals enables artisans to craft elaborate woven structures, providing a distinct visual appeal to the final piece. metal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 82 published by scholink inc. materials are easier to be shaped independently, thus to make the ideal spatial layers and a variety of texture effects. the metal weaving jewelry is usually called “filigree”, it is also seemed as a metal working process that uses metal wires to make the texture and structure of textiles (guo, 2023). with the continuous development of the history of human use of metals, people make use of the plasticity and malleability of metals, which are commonly used in smelting and casting in the case of metal technology, combined with the weaving process to create metal woven products (chen, 2017). 3.1 chinese metal weaving chinese filigree is a typical traditional complex metalworking technique with a long history and unique artistic charm in china, appeared as early as the zhou dynasty. chinese filigree is also a nonphysical cultural heritage of china. the filigree craft with setting is called “filigree inlay”, it is the top of china “the eight traditional palace handicrafts in yanjing (note 3)”. chinese filigree inlay can also be combined with various kinds of gold and silver production processes, such as chiseling, plating, tian-tsui, enameling, etc., making a more high-end aesthetic taste process product and the shapes and patterns of them are mostly traditional patterns with auspicious meanings, the shapes are mostly figurative (yan & zhang, 2019) (figure 10). for the contemporary jewelry, some designers of metal weaving in china still use traditional manual skills, or carry out innovative designs on this basis. some designers have developed new methods and forms of metal weaving. chinese artist zhang fan quietly puts the filigree technique in the eight masterpieces of yanjing into her designs, forming a dazzling and unique context of the jewelries. in accordance with the process method of exquisite court craftwork, and the ancient chinese tie-dyeing process is used for reference to form a gradual effect of gold and silver in the gilding, so that make the spun gold like a gradual shadow in the ink painting. the works as a whole show the aesthetics of contemporary art (figure 11). another chinese artist leslye zhang, she uses innovative methods of connection, structural shapes and flexible visual language to create a completely modern aesthetic of jewelry (figure 12). figure 10. golden crown, ming dynasty, saved in national museum of china www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 83 published by scholink inc. figure 11. golden crown, zhang fan figure 12. ring, leslye zhang 3.2 western country metal weaving there is research showing that the earliest pieces made with it go back to the beginning of the third millennium bc and are in perfect condition after 5000 years (gregorietti, 1974). persian people could use the metal weave a gold glove (figure 13) in 1000 bc (billeter, 1971). western metal weaving jewelry has developed rapidly in modern times, and many of excellent metal weaving artists have emerged. the metal woven jewelry created by mary lee hu have varied shapes and rich colors. the hard metal shows out the soft silk in texture after being woven by mary’s hands (figure 14). many of her metal weaving jewelry were showed in her book: knitted, knotted, twisted, and twined: the jewelry of mary lee hu. italy has always been famous for the metalworker jewelry, italian artist giovanni corvaja takes the delicacy of gold weaving to the extreme, he tries to build a timeless beauty through his works. his works are the artistic landmark in the study of gold fiber and weaving that combining with beauty, poetry and scientific craft, the gold fiber he used is only 1/5 the size of a human hair (figure 15). figure 13. persian gold glove, 1000 bc www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 84 published by scholink inc. figure 14. gold necklace, mary lee hu figure 15. 18k gold bracelet, giovanni corvaja, saves in tacoma art museum 4. yarn and floss the use of rope in knot shape jewelry design is more common, combined with different rope color, make a different meaning of the beautiful knot. weaving materials are slender and soft, and the most used materials in traditional weaving are yarn and floss, which are easy to weave, easy to cover, close to life, and give people a calm and warm psychological feeling. many jewelries in china are used yarn or floss to weave which contain the auspiciousness moral, some of them are made by pure yarn weaving, however, most of them are used to decorate gold or silver pieces with general line that have chinese traditional auspicious ornamentation. japanese ropemaker satsukazu matsuda uses cotton yarns to weave jewelry with lace patterns. italian artist clizia weaves bracelets with nylon fibers in romantic colors to create resonant themes by montage technique. figure 16. pendent, china www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 85 published by scholink inc. figure 17. cotton earring, satsukazu matsuda, japan figure 18. nylon bracelet, clizia, italy 5. other materials the contemporary jewelry landscape has witnessed the integration of unconventional materials into weaving art. innovations such as incorporating recycled materials, unconventional metals, or even 3d-printed components push the boundaries of traditional jewelry design. this fusion of weaving techniques with modern materials open up new possibilities for creativity and sustainability in the industry. german designer elisa strozyk makes a nice glass weaving works, firstly she puts colored glass stripes in a kiln, and then weaves these glass stripes in different layers, the different colors of glass is overlapped and intertwined, the works are magnificent under the light (figure 19). sarah roseman, a canadian designer, has developed a new material between textile and glass to weave a fabric that appears to be suspended in mid-air (figure 20). mordern synthesis company uses microbes to create a firm, lightweight bio-woven material that reduces pollution (figure 21). there are also many materials used for weaving, such as acrylic, resin, etc., as a chinese proverb says: everything can be woven. with the development of technologies such as 3d printing, more and more high-quality materials will emerge for weaving. figure 19. glass weaving, elisa strozyk, german www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 86 published by scholink inc. figure 20. light silica weaving, sarah roseman, canada figure 21. biomaterial weaving, mordern synthesis company, england many weaving jewelry products are not made of in only one material. some designers use various materials and new techniques to show the jewelry of innovativeness. 6. conclusion the application of weaving art in jewelry design is a testament to the enduring allure of craftsmanship and abundant materials. through the exploration of diverse materials, extraction of cultural symbols, and utilization of various weaving techniques, designers can create jewelry artistic that not only showcase technical skill but also carry a deeper narrative. weaving in jewelry design is a dynamic and evolving field, bridging the gap between tradition and contemporary expression. as designers continue to push the boundaries of creativity, the fusion of weaving art and jewelry design promises to yield evermore captivating and culturally resonant pieces. a variety of materials are richly reflected in jewelry design. however, each material has its own characteristics, and a variety of materials are rich in jewelry design. in short, materials that can be used to weave can be used to make weaving jewelry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 87 published by scholink inc. references billeter, e. (1974). why does man adorn himself? in ernst, a., & heininger, j. (eds.), the great book of jewels (pp. 49-86). lausanne, zurich. chen, s. y. (2017). research and application of traditional metal weaving technology in modern design (published master’s thesis). hubei institute of fine arts, hu bei, china. gregorietti, g. (1974) precious ornaments in ancient civilizations. in ernst, a., & heininger, j. (eds.), the great book of jewels (pp. 87-136). lausanne, zurich. gu, x. n. (2016). application and development of weaving in jewelry design (published master’s thesis). china university of geosciences, beijing. guo, h. x. (2023). review of the fabrication techniques of metal textile jewelry. journal of fiber bioengineering and informatics, 16(2), 135-148. ivete, m. c., edson, l., maria, s. b. de h., & julia, b. r. (2019). natural textile fibers in contemporary brazilian jewelry. sn applied sciences. retrieved december 20, 2023, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42452-019-1860-y maria, m. (2006). silver wonders from the east filigree of the tsars. ashgate pub co, 2006. shi, w. y. (2023). research on the inheritance of chinese knot art and its application in modern innovative design. masterpieces of nature, 2023(7), 46-49. yan, j. c., & zhang, m. f. (2019). the application of filigree craft and its patterns on ancient relics. journal of guangxi university for nationalities (natural science edition), 2019(1), 35. yang, y. (2019). artistic expression of woven materials in jewelry design. appreciation, 2019(08), 256-257. yasith, s. p. (2021). evolution of 3d weaving and 3d woven fabric structures. fashion and textiles, 8(11), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40691-020-00240-7 zhang, b., & wu, q. l. (2022). research on space shaping and language expression of weaving art in architecture. architecture & culture, 2022(10), 256-257. zhang, y. x., & luo, a. (2022). a practice research of innovation in bamboo woven jewelry design—taking brooches as an example. masterpieces of nature, 2022(4), 86-89. note(s) note 1. http://www.uux.cn/viewnews-79500.html, access on 30.12.2023. note 2. the bracelet made from the hair of the german emperor (frederick iii) and empress (victoria, princess royal), decorated with a snakelike ring with the fv letter hollowed out inside the ring; mid-late 19th century; size: 19.0 x 1.8 x 0.7cm; british royal collection. http://www.uux.cn/viewnews-79500.html, access on 30.12.2023. note 3. the china national intangible cultural heritage “yanjing bajue” (eight traditional palace handicrafts in yanjing), represented by the eight craft categories of filigree inlay, tooth carving, jade carving, cloisonne, carved lacquer, gold lacquer inlay, beijing embroidery and palace carpet. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 88 published by scholink inc. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 60 original paper research on interactive design of intangible heritage app based on ca/qfd/triz integration method yibo zhang1, xiaoyu ren2 & rongrong qiao3* 1 college of art, cheongju university, cheongju, republic of korea 2 school of architecture, tianjin university, tianjin, china 3 school of fine arts, shanxi university, taiyuan, shanxi, china * corresponding author received: october 29, 2024 accepted: december 04, 2024 online published: december 17, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p60 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p60 abstract this study addresses challenges in intangible cultural heritage (ich) development under cultural digitalization strategies by optimizing ich app design using an integrated ca/qfd/triz approach. user needs were identified through ca analysis of app feedback, utilizing rost cm6 software for word frequency and social semantic network analysis to categorize primary and secondary demand categories. these needs were translated into product features using qfd theory, which also identified key contradictions. triz theory was then applied to resolve these contradictions and generate solutions. based on this process, specific ich app design strategies were formulated and validated through a case study, resulting in a comprehensive design solution. the integrated ca/qfd/triz paradigm quantitatively clarified user needs, optimized design directions, and provides a valuable framework for future app design research, empowering the digital transformation of traditional ich. keywords ca method, qfd theory, triz theory, intangible cultural heritage, app design, integrated methods research 1. introduction in the context of cultural competition under the new wave of digital globalization, the digital transformation of intangible cultural heritage (ich) has become a key focus for china's efforts in ich preservation and development. the rapid advancement of china's internet infrastructure and communication technologies has highlighted the cultural dissemination potential of mobile apps, which feature low dissemination costs, broad audiences, high user engagement, convenient access, innovative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 61 browsing experiences, and rich informational content. these attributes have driven the innovative development of ich digitization, positioning ich-related apps as pivotal platforms for ich protection and dissemination. currently, ich-related apps in china remain in their nascent and developmental stages. in terms of user engagement, these apps face challenges such as low download rates and weak user retention due to their niche appeal compared to social, e-commerce, lifestyle, news, multimedia, and gaming apps. regarding content, most ich apps focus on digital showcases of specific crafts or regional traditions, offering unidirectional, informational displays that lack interactive elements, emotional resonance, and in-depth, diversified content exploration. slow or stagnant content updates further undermine user experience. from a design perspective, visual interfaces tend to be static and lack interactivity, resulting in low engagement. these limitations render ich apps mere digital replicas of printed materials, failing to achieve transformative and innovative dissemination of ich. existing studies on ich app design have made valuable contributions. for instance, ren et al. (2022) utilized conjoint analysis to identify user needs across three dimensions—visual presentation, functional attributes, and interaction experience—and translated these into design principles for ich app interfaces, validating their approach through the qing sha culture app. zhang et al. (2020) applied garrett's user experience model to analyze design principles and logical relationships at different levels, constructing a user experience model for ich apps and validating it with the design of the twenty-four solar terms app. wu (2017) adopting a user-centered design (ucd) perspective, addressed pain points in ich app design and usage. while these studies have enriched the field, they primarily rely on single theories and methods, limiting their depth of analysis. to address these shortcomings, this study proposes an integrated ca/qfd/triz methodology to ensure scientific rigor and accuracy in the research process. this approach enables a deeper analysis of ich app design, assisting researchers in creating apps that better align with user needs while effectively promoting ich dissemination. 2. research methods and design process 2.1 the integrated ca/qfd/triz method content analysis (ca) is a quantitative, systematic, and objective social science research method for analyzing human communication content. introduced by u.s. scholar berelson, ca encodes and quantitatively describes information in communication content, enabling deep analysis and inference of significant features(yan et al., 2024). this study employs ca to collect and analyze user reviews of ich-related apps, extract analytical units of user needs, encode and categorize results, and translate user feedback into app design elements. quality function deployment (qfd) is a systematic quality management and product design framework developed in the 1960s by japanese scholars yoji akao and shigeru mizuno. the core concept, the house of quality (hoq), uses matrices to quantitatively map user needs to product www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 62 features (xiong et al., 2024). this study uses qfd to decompose user needs into specific app characteristics derived from ca analysis. these characteristics are prioritized and refined to ensure the designed app aligns with user expectations. the theory of inventive problem solving (triz), created by soviet engineer altshuller in 1946, provides tools and principles for systematically addressing contradictions in innovative problem-solving. triz identifies solutions based on 40 inventive principles derived from historical innovation patterns (tan et al., 2001). ich app design inherently involves innovation; triz addresses contradictions between user needs and product features, offering strategies to refine and optimize the app design process. after identifying contradictions via qfd, triz principles guide the resolution of these conflicts, culminating in actionable app design strategies. the ca/qfd/triz methodology integrates the strengths of each method: ca identifies user needs, qfd translates these needs into app characteristics and reveals contradictions, and triz resolves these contradictions to generate optimal solutions. this progressive, complementary framework ensures a reliable and scientifically grounded app design process, ultimately producing an ich app that meets user needs and effectively promotes cultural dissemination. the integrated approach, characterized by its scientific, rigorous, and efficient nature, has been widely applied across disciplines and provides an innovative platform for ich digital preservation. by combining ca, qfd, and triz, this study offers a multifaceted methodology to overcome the limitations of single-method approaches. through theoretical integration and practical application, the research delivers an optimized ich app design that addresses user and market demands while enhancing ich digital dissemination. 2.2 ich app design process based on the integrated ca/qfd/triz method the design process for ich apps, guided by the ca/qfd/triz methodology, involves the following steps,as illustrated in figure 1: 1. ca phase: collect and organize user review texts of ich apps, extract analytical units, and construct coding categories. conduct reliability tests to ensure objectivity, integrate content, and analyze results to extract user needs. 2. qfd phase: import user needs and their weights into the house of quality to identify relationships between user needs and app features, as well as correlations among features. calculate the weights of app characteristics. 3. triz phase: use 39 universal engineering parameters to identify contradictions. resolve conflicts through the triz contradiction matrix and corresponding inventive principles. translate solutions into specific design strategies for ich apps. 4. design practice: apply the developed strategies to the design and implementation of the ich app. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 63 figure 1. design technical route 3. user needs extraction based on the content analysis (ca) method 3.1 collection and extraction of analytical units from ich app review texts first, user reviews of ich-related apps from mobile application stores were collected for content analysis. user reviews provide crucial and authentic feedback on products, reflecting user activity levels and highlighting the features of an app that users prioritize. these reviews represent user needs, which directly influence product iteration and serve as a vital information source for app design(ma et al, 2016). to ensure data reliability, the apple app store, as the earliest and most mature application platform, was selected as the source of research samples. the keyword "ich" was used to retrieve apps, and results were sorted by the number of user reviews (as provided by the store's ranking system). the top five apps selected for this analysis were: xichuangzhu (391,000 reviews), craftsman (100,000 reviews), the beauty of poetry (13,000 reviews), china treasure gallery (12,000 reviews), and folding fans (2,000 reviews). the reviews were further filtered based on the system's "most helpful" ranking. comments that did not describe app features were excluded. from each app, 10 valid user reviews describing app attributes were selected, yielding a total of 50 review samples for analysis. the collected review texts were processed to extract analytical units. the 50 review samples were imported into the rost cm6 software for segmentation, word frequency calculation, and construction of a social semantic network matrix. words with similar meanings or irrelevant terms were consolidated or removed during the word frequency analysis, resulting in the top 100 terms being selected as the analytical units for this study ,as illustrated in table 1. table 1. 100 analysis units word segmentation/word frequency games/27 form/5 attract/4 simple/3 aesthetics/2 software/24 experience/5 study/4 translation/3 wonderful/2 works/18 pronunciation/5 active/4 appreciation/3 environment/2 culture/16 place/5 development/4 uncommon/3 interaction/2 poetry/14 developer/5 interests/3 pay/3 article/2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 64 tradition/13 settings/4 screen/3 click/3 operation/2 production/10 love/4 draft/3 session/3 model/2 design/8 structure/4 willing/3 feeling/3 promotion/2 application/8 page/4 verse/3 ancient/3 suitable/2 folding fan/8 category/4 comments/3 project/3 overall/2 charge/8 errata/4 apply /3 free/3 participation/2 function/8 time/4 player/3 painting/3 feeling/2 mural/7 knowledge/4 phonetic/3 understand/3 studio/2 art/7 interface/4 supplement/3 ancient/3 version/2 select/7 promote/4 architecture/3 demo/3 copyright/2 level/7 exquisite/4 imagination/3 history/3 interpretation/2 mortise and tenon/6 help/4 polyphonetic characters/3 surprise/3 comfort/2 china/6 relax/4 first time/3 collection/3 background/2 fan/6 exit/4 cancel/3 re/3 button/2 rich/6 conscience/4 clear/3 challenge/3 style/2 3.2 construction of app coding categories the core of content analysis lies in content coding and classification. the identified analytical units were subjected to initial coding analysis, following one of three commonly used coding approaches: data-driven, research-based, and theory-guided coding (zhang et al., 2020). the construction of categories adhered to two key principles: the principle of exhaustiveness, ensuring that all analytical units were covered by the constructed categories, and the principle of mutual exclusivity, ensuring that no overlap existed between categories and each analytical unit was assigned to a single unique category (neuendorf, 2016). based on prior research, this study constructed primary and secondary categories, assigning values and codes to these categories to produce results suitable for statistical analysis. the extracted analytical units were analyzed using the rost cm6 software for social semantic network analysis, as illustrated in figure 2. the resulting network showed a multi-node divergent structure with "culture" as the core node, connected to high-frequency terms such as "china," "art," "tradition," and "exquisite." these associations highlighted the centrality of "culture" in the content of ich-related apps, particularly in aspects such as heritage preservation, educational inspiration, and cultural exchange, which are of critical importance to users. the core diffusion layer of the semantic network comprised nodes such as "games," "culture,"and "software," and "interaction." 1) high-frequency terms associated with "games" included "settings," "free," "help," and "experience," www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 65 reflecting the usability aspect of ich apps. 2) terms linked to "culture" included "tradition," "works," "promotion," and "love," emphasizing the content and experiential dimensions of these apps. 3) words associated with "software" included "interface," "apply," "form," "developer," "player," and "active," reflecting the experiential and usability aspects of ich apps. 4) terms related to "interaction" included "select,""structure," and "art," highlighting the usability dimension of these apps. this analysis underscores the multifaceted roles of ich-related apps in balancing cultural content, user experience, and functionality, providing a robust foundation for subsequent design strategies. figure 2. social semantic network analysis diagram based on relevant research, theories, word frequency analysis, and social semantic network analysis, four primary categories were established for this study: content dimension, usability dimension, availability dimension, and experiential dimension. 1) content dimension: this category aims to enhance users' access to information related to intangible cultural heritage (ich), deepen the cultural transmission of ich, and encourage the creation of original value within the ich domain. 2) usability dimension: this dimension focuses on aligning the product with users' cognitive and behavioral patterns, making the realization of product functionalities simple, efficient, intuitive, and seamless. 3) availability dimension: this layer addresses users' fundamental material-level requirements for the product, ensuring comprehensive functionality, consistent and reliable performance, and smooth, flexible interaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 66 4) experiential dimension: centered on a user-oriented approach, this category emphasizes creating user value while iteratively optimizing the product. it aims to fulfill users' personalized and social needs, enabling them to achieve self-worth, sustain ich values, and generate societal value through a seamless user experience. the social semantic network analysis employed co-occurrence matrices derived from high-frequency terms to visually represent the degree of association between these terms. through summarization, 12 secondary codes were identified, as illustrated in table 2. table 2. construction of coding category first level category secondary level category content dimension 1. diverse themes 2. cultural heritage 3. interesting usability dimension 1. smooth operation 2. clear interface 3. timely feedback availability dimension 1. continuous optimization 2. accurate information 3. practical functions experiential dimension 1. emotional transfer 2. visual attraction 3. immersive interaction 3.3 inter-coder reliability testing in the process of content analysis, it is necessary to involve two or more coders. each coder independently evaluates the analytical units against the constructed categories and aims to reach consistent conclusions (xu et al., 2005). in this study, two researchers were selected as coders. to ensure the objectivity and validity of the results, a reliability test was conducted prior to formal coding to assess the consistency and credibility of their coding. upon passing the reliability test and ensuring that both coders were familiar with the coding criteria, a random sample from the database was used for a pilot coding test. any ambiguities encountered during this process were resolved through coding adjustments. only after both coders achieved an ideal level of consistency did the formal coding work proceed. at the conclusion of the coding process, the results from both coders were compiled and organized. cohen’s kappa coefficient was employed as a statistical measure to evaluate the consistency of qualitative annotations and classifications between the two coders (smeeton, 1985). this study utilized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 67 cohen’s kappa in the divominer software to assess the reliability of the coding results. the calculated kappa value was 0.856. according to the reliability standards outlined in table 3, a coefficient between 0.81 and 1 is considered "excellent," demonstrating strong consistency between the coders. therefore, the coding results in this study exhibit high reliability, confirming their validity. table 3. cohen's kapp a coefficient reliability standard cohen’s kappa coefficient consistency -1＜x＜1 value range ＜0 very bad 0≤x≤0.4 faint/weak 0.41≤x≤0.6 moderate 0.61≤x≤0.8 considerable (highly consistent) 0.81≤x≤1 excellent 3.4 results analysis through data processing and analysis of the coding results, the secondary level categories were assigned and aggregated, yielding the word frequencies for secondary level categories, as illustrated in table 4. by summing and ranking the word frequencies of the secondary categories, the word frequency sequence of the primary categories was determined as follows: experiential dimension (152) > content dimension (126) > availability dimension (97) > usability dimension (88). through proportional distribution of first level category further facilitates an in-depth analysis and research of ich-related apps. table 4. content analysis statistics first level category secondary level categories coding results word frequenc y propo rtion/ % total proportion /% content dimension diverse themes 3, 20, 67, 70, 78 33 7.12 27.21cultural inheritance 4, 6, 18, 23, 33, 35, 40, 55, 69, 72, 73, 76, 84, 85, 86 73 15.77 interesting 24, 27, 45, 51, 56, 92 20 4.32 usability dimension smooth operation 2, 7, 9, 39, 44, 66 53 11.45 19.01 clear interface 29, 34, 37, 61, 95, 98 19 4.10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 68 in the primary categories, the experiential dimension accounted for 32.83%, highlighting the importance of user experience as a key reference for product development. this dimension emphasizes meeting users' emotional needs while optimizing the visual interface to provide an enhanced immersive interactive experience. the content dimension constituted 27.21%, reflecting users' expectations for engaging, thematically diverse cultural heritage content, particularly in an era characterized by fragmented and uneven information quality. the availability dimension accounted for 20.95%, underscoring the necessity of consistently and comprehensively fulfilling users' primary functional requirements. lastly, the usability dimension represented 19.01%, emphasizing the need for products to align with users' cognitive and behavioral habits while ensuring simple and seamless operation. in the secondary categories, users showed significant concern for cultural inheritance (73), emotional transfer (65), smooth operation (53), and immersive interaction (51). other notable areas included timely feedback (16), clear interfaces (19), interesting (20), and accurate information (23). the analysis of the coding results provides valuable insights for developers and designers, enabling them to better understand user experiences and identify issues encountered during app usage. these insights can inform iterative updates, fostering a positive cycle of improvement and enhancing the overall user experience. the analyzed statistical data is further presented in graphical form, as illustrated in figure 3. timely feedback 25, 31, 32, 59 16 3.46 availability dimension continuous optimization 21, 46, 48, 54, 65, 79, 88, 93, 94 26 5.62 20.95 accurate information 15, 28, 30, 60, 64, 96 23 4.97 practical functions 8, 11, 12, 26, 47, 50, 53, 57, 62, 71, 90 48 10.36 experiential dimension emotional transfer 5, 10, 13, 17, 19, 38, 42, 49, 63, 74, 77, 89, 97 65 14.03 32.83visual appeal 14, 16, 36, 41, 58, 75, 81, 82, 87, 100 36 7.78 immersive interaction 1, 22, 43, 52, 68, 80, 83, 91, 99 51 11.02 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 69 figure 3. proportion of user preferences 4. user need translation based on qfd theory after analyzing and calculating user need indicators for ich-related apps using the ca method, qfd theory was employed to translate these needs into the technical characteristics of the product. this approach ensures a thorough understanding of user expectations and precisely converts them into actionable design guidelines. the core of this process is the construction of the house of quality (hoq), which establishes a direct mapping between user needs and product design elements. it emphasizes creating intuitive, user-friendly interfaces aligned with the theme of cultural heritage transmission while adhering to user experience design principles. this ensures a high degree of consistency between user needs, product design, and production, aiming to provide users with exceptional cultural and interactive experiences. the user need indicators and their weighted results derived from the ca method were integrated into the hoq to form the "left wall." based on related literature and collected data, a comprehensive analysis was conducted to align user needs with the design objectives of ich-related apps. this process translated user functional requirements into 10 product characteristics, which form the "ceiling" of the hoq: interaction methods, functional architecture, user experience, content planning, personalization and customization, data analysis and feedback, education and training, sustainable maintenance, social interaction, and multimedia integration. the relationships between product characteristics were represented using "+" and "–" symbols to indicate positive and negative correlations, forming the "roof" of the hoq. a relational matrix between user needs and product characteristics was populated to create the "rooms" of the hoq. priority values for product characteristics were calculated using weighted formulas and ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 to construct the "floor" of the hoq. this process resulted in the comprehensive construction of the hoq for ich-related apps (dou et al., 2024;wang et al., 2019), as illustrated in figure 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 70 figure 4. intangible heritage apphouse of quality model the relationship between user needs and product characteristics was analyzed and categorized into four levels of correlation: strong, moderate, weak, and none. based on this classification, the correlation between each user need and product characteristic was annotated, as illustrated in table 5. table 5. the corresponding assignment of users' emotional needs and technical features degree strong moderate weak none symbol *** ** * none points 5 3 1 0 analyze the relationship between user needs and product characteristics, and calculate the corresponding total importance value (sum) of product features. the calculation equation (1) is: 1 0 1 k k s u m w m    (1) in the formula, sum represents the total importance value of product characteristics for ich-related apps, m denotes the relative importance of user needs, and w refers to the numerical value assigned to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 71 the relationship matrix within the house of quality (hoq). based on the "basement" section of the hoq model for ich-related apps and the calculation of sum, it was determined that content richness and diversity are the most critical features. the ranking of importance is as follows: user experience > multimedia integration > interaction methods > content planning > education and training > functional architecture > sustainable maintenance > social interaction > personalization and customization > data analysis and feedback. therefore, research on the design of ich-related apps should focus on these technical characteristics in the order of their importance to guide the development process effectively. 5. conflict transformation and resolution based on triz theory 5.1 identification and analysis of contradictions first, the positive and negative correlations among the product characteristics that form the "ceiling" of the house of quality (hoq) model were determined. a "+" (positive correlation) indicates that improvements in one product characteristic will enhance the other. conversely, a "–" (negative correlation) signifies that improvements in one characteristic will lead to a decline in the other. a blank indicates no correlation between the two characteristics. based on these assessments, contradictions and conflicts among product characteristics were identified. three pairs of negatively correlated product characteristics were identified, reflecting conflicts between product features and user needs. these conflicts were translated into triz problem models and categorized based on the corresponding contradiction types and generic engineering parameters, as illustrated in table 6. triz theory defines 39 generic engineering parameters, which were derived from extensive patent analysis conducted by the theory's founder. these parameters are organized into a contradiction matrix, which maps different forms of conflicts (liu et al., 2021). the following section provides an analysis of the three identified contradictions and their associated conflicts. table 6. triz transformation analysis of conflicts serial number negative correlation characteristics general engineering parameters types of contradictions 1 interaction methods multimedia integration no.25 time loss no.36complexity of the device technical contradictions 2 data analysis and feedback education and training no.37 information loss no.39 productivity technical contradictions 3 sustainable maintenance user experience no.22 energy loss no.33 operability technical contradictions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 72 conflict 1: interaction methods vs. multimedia integration an increase in interaction methods may complicate multimedia integration within the application. complex interaction methods could increase the time users spend navigating the app, negatively impacting user experience by introducing operational difficulties and errors, thereby reducing the app's usability. conflict 2: data analysis and feedback vs. education and training excessive data analysis and feedback could compromise information completeness. such information loss may lead users to question or distrust the educational content provided by the app, subsequently diminishing their willingness and efficiency in engaging with the educational training. conflict 3: sustainable maintenance vs. user experience to ensure the long-term development and sustainability of the app, continuous updates and improvements are required to address evolving user needs and technological environments. however, frequent updates may confuse or discomfort users, leading to reduced satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately affecting their willingness for long-term usage. 5.2 resolution of conflicts the three conflicts were identified as technical contradictions within the framework of triz theory. technical contradictions are addressed by referencing inventive principles in altshuller's contradiction matrix, which comprises 40 inventive principles offering guidelines for resolving technical or physical contradictions. by matching the conflicts to the relevant inventive principles in the matrix, potential solutions were identified. the associated contradiction matrix and the corresponding inventive principles for each conflict as illustrated in table 7. this structured approach provides actionable insights for resolving the identified conflicts and optimizing the design and functionality of ich-related apps. table 7. enumeration of contradiction matrix improved parameters deterioration parameters no.36 no.39 no.33 no.25 no.6、no.29 no.4、no.10 no.28、no.34 no.37 no.1 no.2、no.18 no.27、no.35 no.22 no.2、no.10 no.13、no.35 no.10、no.28 no.29、no.35 no.2、no.13、 no.19 resolving conflicts based on the inventive principles in table 7 conflict 1: interaction methods vs. multimedia integration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 73 1) inventive principle no. 6: universality by designing an interactive interface with multifunctionality, the system's efficiency and flexibility can be enhanced. for instance, a multi-mode interface could be developed, with each mode tailored to specific user needs and operational scenarios. a simple mode could support basic operations, while a more complex mode could facilitate in-depth exploration of multimedia content. users can switch between modes based on their preferences, enabling a better experience of the app's functionality and content. 2) inventive principle no. 29: pneumatics and hydraulics (pressure) the application should identify solutions within the constraints of limited resources and technical capacity. by carefully designing interaction methods and multimedia integration, the app can minimize resource demands while enhancing user experience. for example, lightweight interaction designs and optimized multimedia content can reduce system performance requirements, thereby alleviating system stress and increasing adaptability. conflict 2: data analysis and feedback vs. education and training 1) inventive principle no. 2: taking out this principle suggests reallocating redundant or surplus resources to improve system efficiency. for instance, some resources dedicated to data analysis and feedback could be redirected to education and training. useful insights derived from data analysis could directly inform updates and optimizations of educational content rather than merely being presented to users, maximizing resource utilization and enhancing training effectiveness. 2) inventive principle no. 27: cheap short-lived objects (substitution) more efficient educational methods could substitute some data analysis and feedback processes to achieve better outcomes. adaptive learning systems or personalized recommendation algorithms, for example, can tailor educational content in real time based on user behaviors and preferences, reducing reliance on extensive data analysis while improving training efficiency and effectiveness. 3) inventive principle no. 35: parameter changes (performance transformation) by leveraging system performance in one area to enhance another, the conflict can be addressed. for example, analyzing user behavior and feedback data can reveal preferences and learning needs. these insights can be directly applied to educational modules, recommending personalized content to improve learning outcomes and user satisfaction. in this way, data analysis and feedback not only provide accurate information to users but also become a key support for enhancing educational performance. conflict 3: sustainable maintenance vs. user experience 1) inventive principle no. 2: taking out this principle involves reallocating resources originally intended for frequent updates and long-term maintenance to enhance user experience. for example, resources such as manpower and technical support could be partially redirected to improving interface design, adding interactive features, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 74 optimizing app responsiveness, thereby enhancing user satisfaction. 2) inventive principle no. 13: the other way around (reverse action) in this approach, enhancing user experience indirectly supports sustainability and long-term maintenance. by improving user satisfaction and loyalty, the app can increase its user base and engagement frequency. this expanded reach can generate greater resources and funding to support ongoing maintenance and development. 3) inventive principle no. 19: periodic action periodic and planned actions can resolve the conflict. for instance, implementing a regular user feedback collection schedule can inform updates and improvements. a structured plan for user experience enhancements could improve satisfaction and maintain app competitiveness. periodic updates driven by user input not only enhance the app’s vitality but also ensure its sustainability and long-term maintenance. these inventive principles provide a systematic and actionable framework for addressing the identified conflicts, ensuring a balanced development of features while meeting user needs and maintaining technical feasibility. 6. design practice for ich-related app 6.1 functional structure and interaction flow design based on the analysis using the integrated ca/qfd/triz methodology, user needs were deeply studied and precisely translated into technical characteristics to address specific design challenges. leveraging the features of 5g-era apps, the design prioritizes user experience by directly mapping user expectations to interfaces and functions. the overall layout of the ich-related app adopts a modular design with tab-style navigation. the bottom navigation bar includes five main modules: "home," "explore," "guide," "creative works," and "my profile." 1) home: the "home" page uses a waterfall layout to push user-preferred content, addressing conflict 1 (interaction methods vs. multimedia integration) from the triz contradiction matrix. lightweight interaction design paired with optimized multimedia content minimizes cognitive load by streamlining and simplifying interactive elements such as buttons, links, and sliders. this improves operational smoothness and efficiency while reducing unnecessary steps. 2) explore: the "explore" module features multimedia content such as introductions to ich projects, crafting processes, stories of inheritors, and exhibition activities. to enhance usability, the module retains a search bar at the top and employs an auto-carousel design to dynamically present diverse content. this addresses triz principle no. 6: universality, dynamically balancing functionality and content diversity to increase user engagement. 3) guide: the "guide" module integrates an ich map guide to resolve conflict 2 (data analysis and feedback vs. education and training) by applying triz principle no. 35: parameter changes (performance transformation). analytical insights from user interaction data (e.g., dwell times and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 75 interest points) are directly incorporated into the guide's functionality, allowing for real-time adjustments to routes and recommended sites. this personalized approach enhances both the touring experience and the app’s educational effectiveness. 4) creative works: this module features a streamlined transaction framework addressing conflict 3 (sustainability and long-term maintenance vs. user experience) by optimizing negative correlation characteristics in user experience. the design employs a clear page structure, a simplified shopping cart process, and periodic reviews of user feedback. this approach avoids excessive updates and maintenance while maintaining a smooth user experience. 5) my profile: the "my profile" module includes features for viewing personal settings, saved items, browsing history, feedback, and customer service. additionally, it introduces an interactive community where users can share ich-related experiences, upload images, and participate in discussions. this design aligns with findings from ca-based category construction, which identified the experiential dimension as the most critical user need. consequently, "my profile" focuses heavily on experiential aspects, serving as a vital component of the app's integrated ecosystem, as illustrated in figure 5. figure 5. intangible heritage app interface design 6.2 content and usage mechanism design in designing the content and usage mechanisms, the conflict issues identified in the triz contradiction matrix were addressed through four key dimensions: 1)product dimension: building on foundational functionality, the app integrates advanced intelligent recommendation features to enhance the data-driven nature of ich-related apps. this supports more sophisticated data collection and analysis, providing heritage organizations with detailed insights into user interests and behavioral patterns, thus enabling a more precise understanding of user needs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 76 2) user dimension: refined operations target both existing and potential users, offering personalized content recommendations and customized learning paths based on user interests and behaviors. this approach enhances user engagement and satisfaction by tailoring the content to individual preferences. 3) content dimension: both private and public traffic channels are leveraged to develop innovative engagement strategies. these include viral marketing tools such as task-driven, incentive-based, and group-sharing mechanisms. by gamifying the dissemination of ich content, the app creates engaging and interactive experiences that encourage users to deeply explore and participate in ich culture, thereby fostering greater user involvement in cultural transmission. 4) mechanism dimension: through decentralization, the content weighting mechanism is adjusted to incorporate intelligent distribution. exclusive content recommendation mechanisms are established alongside feedback channels, encouraging users to share experiences and provide suggestions. this iterative feedback loop supports ongoing improvements to the app's mechanisms and user experience. examples of content and usage mechanism optimization as illustrated in figure 6. figure 6. examples of content and usage mechanism optimization 6.3 design evaluation to validate the effectiveness of the ich-related app design, a cognitive walkthrough method was employed to gather feedback from experienced users of ich-related apps. the cognitive walkthrough is a usability testing method aimed at evaluating a user’s ability to interact with a system while performing specific tasks. compared to other usability testing approaches, its key advantages are cost-effectiveness and rapid execution (nielsen, 1994). a detailed testing protocol was established to ensure the accuracy of the results. the testing process www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 77 involved the following steps: 1) initial interface review: observing users’ first impressions of the interface. functionality understanding: evaluating users’ comprehension of the interface functionalities. 2) task execution: identifying potential issues users may encounter during interactions. 3 )post-task feedback: collecting user feedback after task completion. fifteen participants were selected for this evaluation. each participant followed the specified testing protocol using a high-fidelity prototype on a mobile device. user interactions were recorded during task execution, and post-task feedback was analyzed. the results were combined with the coding category framework to create a design evaluation radar chart, which assessed the reasonableness of the design practice. scores were assigned on a scale from 0 to 10, as illustrated in figure 7. among the 12 evaluation indicators, 10 scored above 7, confirming the feasibility and effectiveness of the design practice. figure 7. design evaluation radar chart 7. discussion this study employed the integrated ca/qfd/triz methodology to address the challenges of designing ich-related apps, successfully translating user needs into actionable design features and resolving key conflicts between functionality and user experience. the findings demonstrate that systematic methods can enhance the cultural and technical dimensions of app design, enabling a more user-centered approach to the preservation and dissemination of intangible cultural heritage (ich). compared to prior research, which often focused on isolated aspects of design, this study provides a holistic framework www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 78 that bridges user preferences, technical feasibility, and cultural objectives. the results confirm the validity of combining ca, qfd, and triz to address the complex demands of ich-related app design. the ca method effectively captured nuanced user needs through content analysis, while qfd systematically translated these needs into prioritized product features, ensuring alignment with user expectations. triz further resolved conflicts such as interaction complexity, content richness, and sustainability by applying inventive principles, thereby demonstrating its utility in balancing user demands with technical and cultural requirements. these findings extend prior work by emphasizing the role of conflict resolution in achieving harmony between tradition and modern digital solutions. in a broader context, the study highlights the critical role of digital platforms in responding to unesco’s call for innovative methods to safeguard ich. the research underscores the importance of modular design strategies and adaptive functionalities in engaging diverse user groups and promoting cultural sustainability. however, limitations remain, including the need for greater innovation within the ca/qfd/triz framework and more explicit theoretical-to-practical mappings across all app modules. future research should explore integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance data analysis and personalization. additionally, longitudinal studies assessing user engagement and cultural impact over time would provide deeper insights into the long-term efficacy of ich-related apps. by addressing these areas, future work can build on this study’s contributions to advance the digital preservation and promotion of cultural heritage. 8. conclusion this study presents an integrated framework combining ca, qfd, and triz methodologies to address the unique challenges of ich-related app design, demonstrating its effectiveness in aligning user needs with cultural and technical objectives. by systematically analyzing and resolving conflicts, the proposed approach highlights the potential of digital platforms to bridge traditional heritage with modern technology. while the findings emphasize the importance of user-centered, modular design strategies in promoting cultural sustainability, they also reveal opportunities for methodological advancements and deeper exploration of long-term impacts. this research provides a foundational reference for future innovation in the digital preservation and dissemination of intangible cultural heritage. references dou, h., & zhang, j. m. (2024). research on information interface design of excavator based on kano-qfd. design, 37(04), 148-151. liu, x. y., wu, x. l., li, r. l. et al. (2021). research on product sensorial design method based on conflict resolution theory of triz. journal of machine design, 38(10), 136-144. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 79 ma, s. y., & xu, x. (2016). study on user online evaluation based on sentiment analysis of comments: taking douban.com movie as an example. library and information service, 60(10), 95-102. neuendorf, k. a. (2016). the content analysis guide book. los angeles: sage. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc065 nielsen, j. (1994). in usability inspection methods[c]//chi '94: conference companion on human factors in computing systems (pp. 413-414). boston, massachusetts, usa. new york: acm. https://doi.org/10.1145/259963.260531 ren, y. l., chang, h., & gu, y. s. 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(2020). research on information of online users’ additional comments based on text mining—take the mobile phone review data of jingdong mall as an example. journal of modern information, 40(09), 96-105. research on interactive design of intangible herit yibo zhang1, xiaoyu ren2 & rongrong qiao3* abstract this study addresses challenges in intangible cult keywords figure 1. design technical route figure 2. social semantic network analysis diagram figure 3. proportion of user preferences figure 4. intangible heritage app house of quality figure 5. intangible heritage app interface design figure 6. examples of content and usage mechanism figure 7. design evaluation radar chart references microsoft word assc-v3n1-p47 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 47 original paper the american and the clan johan lundberg1* 1 associate professor in comparative literature, department of culture and aesthetics, stockholm university, stockholm, sweden * johan lundberg, associate professor in comparative literature, department of culture and aesthetics, stockholm university, stockholm, sweden received: december 28, 2020 accepted: january 8, 2021 online published: january 26, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n1p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n1p47 abstract the henry james novel the american (1877) is analyzed on the basis of a conflict between the two forms of liberty, which isaiah berlin in the end of the 1950s designated as negative and positive. the concept of negative freedom is in this interpretation of the novel connected to a contrast between the state and the clan. with starting point in francis fukuyama’s the origins of political order (2011), and mark s weiner in the rule of the clan (2013), modern rule of law is in the analysis of the novel regarded as something radically different from clan society. based on an understanding of the modern state as a guarantee for individual autonomy and liberty, in berlin’s negative meaning, james depicts in the american, the problems of maintaining liberty, in the negative sense, in a community organised around the clan. in the novel, the american protagonist christopher newman with his lack of prejudices represent for his french fiancée claire de cintréa possible way to freedom. what newman does, is to offer claire the opportunity to move from the french aristocracy to the economically strong american bourgeoisie—from a kind of feudalism to capitalism. the proposed move coincides with the developmental curve of the novel, which with respect to claire runs from clan to state. in striking contrast to newman’s optimized sort of freedom, where neither any internalized norms nor any economic limitations prohibit the protagonist from acting in the way that he desires, claire is the daughter of a family that represents the old world, with all its limitations and restrictions on negative liberty. in a highly concrete manner she is prohibited from acting as she wants. this is emphasized in the question of who to marry. the analysis connects claire’s family to the ultramontanists and legitimists circles of 19th century parisian aristocracy. the terms refer to the ultra-conservative and fiercely anti-liberal movements that, after the french revolution, turned against the modern state power that allegedly forced on the french www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 48 published by scholink inc. catholics secular values. legitimism and ultramontanism are in the novel intimately connected to maintaining an organisation around the clan. in contrast to the clan, rule of law, democracy and individual freedom is seen as consequences of the framework of the modern, liberal state. keywords henry james, the american, clan, legitimism, ultramontanism, iasiah berlin, negative freedom in the american (1877), henry james puts the spotlight on the french aristocracy during the transition between the second empire and the third republic. the novel revolves around christopher newman, an american who, at the age of only 35 years old, has successfully accumulated enough capital to become economically independent. in 1868, he travels to europe and paris, with the purpose of searching for other values than those purely pecuniary. “i longed for a new world”, he says about the time before his departure for europe, recalling how he felt “a new man inside my old skin” (p. 57). (note 1) in other words: the american as a new man. in an 1869 letter, written in florence to his mother, james characterizes the american traveller to europe as “the modern man with culture quite left out”. (note 2) but newman is not simply an american, but one hailing from the american west, witch suggests that his knowledge of culture is all the more absent. in europe, he is primarily looking for culture and love—in that precise order. in both cases, one may note that his background as a capitalist has left its mark. as a parody of an american cultural tourist, he cannot approach a work of art, without asking combien?. in matters of love, too, he has a tendency to use a vocabulary indicating that he views his intended as an object of investment. (note 3) but if, in the first half of the novel, he interprets cultural history as something for his own enrichment, he will in the second part realize that cultural tradition also hides dark depths, destructive secrets. there is a power, he realizes, in the cultural tradition that turns the past into something more than a collection of picturesque accessories, and there might be a reason to protect that power in a liberty-affirming society. (note 4) in accordance with james’s predisposition for constructing his intrigues around symmetrical patterns of anti-theses, it is not surprising that newman, in his quest for love, encounters a woman, claire de cintré (born bellegarde) who originates from a venerable, very old family, a background diametrically opposed to his own. a man from the new world, vis-à-vis a woman from the old world. the arrangement of the two most intrigue-filled protagonists indicates a reciprocity, an exchange. titles for money, in the first place. his fortune is what prevents the woman’s family from immediately laughing newman out of the room when he asks for her hand. but this is far from the most important interchange that the marriage is expected to result in. newman makes claire a proposal that includes optimized liberty. but this liberty is offered at the price of her www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. being turned, at least partially, into a commodity. what newman does, is to offer claire the opportunity to move from the french aristocracy to the economically strong american bourgeoisie –from feudalism to capitalism. the proposed move coincides with the developmental curve of the novel, which runs from clan to state. (note 5) the lack of freedom which characterizes claire, can be described as a lack of liberty in the negative meaning of the term, in accordance with the opposition between negative and positive liberty in isaiah berlin’s essay” concepts of liberty” (1958). (note 6) in this case, the lack of negative liberty is manifested in the coercion that the individual is subjected to in a society organized around the clan. as is often the case with james, the contradiction between the european and the american is represented in a complex manner, where both the european and the american poles are charged with negative as well as positive connotations. the european cultural tradition is, for example, described from one perspective as a mausoleum, void of life. contrary to this, the american culture stands for reverence of liberty and the individual. in the latter case, the possibilities for self-actualization seem optimal, man being perceived as not the least pre-destined or determined by his or his family’s background—nor depending on the prejudices of himself or others. the flip side of american liberty is the transformation by the capitalist system of the individual into a commodity, or an instrument in the service of other forces—a tool—with no room for manoeuvre. newman is typically american in the same way as many others in james’s works. he seems, on the whole, untainted by the conventions and authoritative notions of the bourgeoisie. he lacks all these prejudices, passed down throughout history, from which henrik ibsen’s nora, in a doll’s house, claims that she must escape in order to become a free person. newman, who had finished school at the age of ten, says: “i am not cultivated, i am not even educated; i know nothing about history, or art, or foreign tongues [. . .].” (p. 68) on a european tour, with the purpose of visiting more places than paris, newman gets to know a young priest with a keen interest for art and culture. the priest, rev babcock, worships goethe and tries to “infuse into newman a little of his own spiritual starch”. but educating the american capitalist works out badly: “newman’s personal texture was too loose to admit of stiffening. his mind could no more hold principles than a sieve can hold water”. a blank page, thus. tabula rasa. this lack of prejudices, this lack of authoritative notions that man is supplied with by cultural history has—for james—its negative and its positive consequences. the negative consequences for newman and those of his like is made clear of james’s representations of them as shallow and vulgar in their lack of aesthetic sensibility. in the capitalist society’s transformation of everything—human subjects as well as aesthetic objects—into commodities, more or less vulgar, life itself tends to appear as prosaic, its spell irreparably broken. the novel’s two american male friends, tom tristram and newman, both lack a deeper understanding of art. but the 36 year old newmanat least carries an ambition to gain knowledge of the history of art www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. and of aesthetic sensibility. tristram, on the other hand, lives by the motto: “i don’t care for pictures; i prefer the reality!”. newman has travelled to europe in order to experience what matthew arnolds in culture and anarchy (1869) characterized as the very best: “i want to see [. . .] the finest pictures and the handsomest churches.” (p. 58) (note 7) on the other hand, newman has “never read a novel” (p. 63). when asked what sort of art he appreciates, he answers: “something bright and gay” (p. 93). and it won’t take long until he is “tired of [. . .] going to the opera” (p. 186). with his journey to europe, newman purports to strive for a cultural counterpart to the assets that he, with such great success, has accumulated in the united states. there, he is said to have earned a fortune from his business with copper mines and wash tubs (one remembers the vulgar, unmentionable product that created the family wealth of the newsomes in james’s the ambassadors). in that context, it is said that to newman, “the business of money-getting appeared tolerably dry and sterile” (p. 114). as a consequence, he has a need for art, and first and foremost, beauty. on the other hand, european culture is distinguished by a corresponding culture fatigue. while newman appears uncritically in awe of everything that he sees in the louvre, his parisian friend valentin de bellegarde, the brother of claire, only experiences boredom. and the boredom has, in that case, nothing to do with education. rather, the culture fatigue depends on negative experiences of the cultural tradition. valentin describes his feelings to newman, when they by chance meet at the louvre: the more beautiful they [the pictures] are the less i like them. their great staring eyes and fixed positions irritate me. i feel as if i were at some big, dull party, in a room full of people i shouldn’t wish to speak to. what should i care for their beauty? it’s a bore, and, worse still, it’s a reproach. i have a great many ennuis; i feel vicious” (pp. 193-194). the female copyist noémie, whom valentin and newman meet at the louvre, and with whom the latter will later fall in love, draws two red lines in the form of a cross over the painting she has grown bored of working with. newman becomes distraught and points out: “you have spoiled your picture [. . .].” but valentin argues that the painting has now become “more interesting. it tells a story”. then, he asks if it is for sale. “‘everything i have is for sale’, said mademoiselle noémie” (pp. 198-199), obviously ambiguously. now, james could have stopped there. he could have been satisfied with depicting the american as aesthetically insensitive, faced with a european cultural tradition that, in turn, has been emptied of vitality, life and power. he could have underlined how european cultural tradition, at its worst, simply reproduces problematic, conventional bourgeois values that lock man into pre-determined positions—in accordance with various ancient, oppressive structures. to a certain extent, the meeting of europe and the united states in the american is indeed presented in that manner. but as a whole, it tends to be more complicated. the novel transcends the simple, early modernist view of the european bourgeois culture as lifelessly stiff, and in need of that sort of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. vitalizing power with which modernism would impregnate the european cultural body, four or five decades after the publication of the american. the flip side of newman’s shallow concept of history and deficient aesthetic sensibility is his romanticized view of the antipathy he recognises among the french aristocracy towards all novelties of social development—from the french revolution onward. when valentin attempts to get newman to understand that, among the relatives of valentin and his sister, there are extremely problematic values and traditions, and when valentin for that reason points out that “old trees have crooked branches, old houses have queer cracks, old races have odd secrets. remember that we are eight hundred years old”, newman simply responds: “that’s the sort of thing i came to europe for. you come into my programme.” (p. 163) when claire, to newman, appears as “a very expensive article”, this depends on his conception of her having had a “elaborate education, of her having passed through mysterious ceremonies and processes of culture in her youth, of her having been fashioned and made flexible to certain exalted social needs” (p. 165). in another instance, newman describes claire as “a statue which had [. . .] come to life as flesh and blood” (p. 151). alittlelater, he speaks about her as “the admired object in all its complexity”, and with a “mechanism” that newman hopes to get the opportunity to “examine” (p. 165). newman appears, from this perspective, as the paragon of the modern, materialistic tourist of culture, naïvely fascinated by everything exotic and strange. at the same time, he lacks capacity for viewing reality in any other way than in the shape of commodities for consumption, more or less exclusive. as a capitalist, he is depicted as viewing value as exclusively a consequence of supply and demand. the closer he gets to the culturally foreign, the more he will, however, be overwhelmed with distaste. the historical perspective that characterises claire’s family appears as something incomprehensible and unfathomable to newman. and the reason for this incomprehensibility is the elements of pressure and restrictiveness that are so prominent in the bellegarde family. this becomes clear if one relates the construction of the novel to isaiah berlin’s famous distinction between two concepts of liberty: the positive and the negative. the american perspective of the novel dovetails to a large extent with the state of positive freedom that isabel archer represents in the opening of the portrait of a lady. archer represents, as does newman, an optimized sort of freedom, where neither any internalized norms nor any economic limitations prohibit the protagonist from acting in the way that he or she desires. newman does not have any moral scruples. there are no imputed restrictions from parents or other relatives. he has not gone through any education that could have given rise to obsolete values and norms. and finally: there are no economic limitations. the freedom, in the positive sense of the term, that ibsen’s nora longs for in a doll’s house, is in many ways the same freedom that newman (like isabelle archer) enjoys. in striking contrast to this, claire is the daughter of a family that represents the old world, with all its limitations and restrictions on negative liberty. her existence is connected to limitations and coercive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. actions, with her being, in a highly concrete manner, prohibited from acting as she wants. this is emphasized in the question of who to marry. it is newman’s friend, mrs tristram, who plants the idea of marriage with claire in the young protagonist’s mind. claire and mrs tristram had become close friends when they, as girls, attended the same abbey school in paris. “french by her father, english by her mother”, mrs tristram tells newman regarding claire before he has even seen a glimpse of her. “her family, on each side, is of fabulous antiquity.” (p. 74) claire’s grandfather was a catholic english count, part of the st dunstan family. it is a family whose pedigree can be followed backwards to the 16th century. but the family of claire’s dead father goes even further back in time, “back, back, back. the family antiquaries themselves lose breath. at last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, under charlemagne. that is where we begin. (p. 155) nowadays, the family fortune is “small” (p. 74). this forces them to overlook their principle of “not a case on record of a misalliance among the women” (p. 155). on claire’s part, however, there is no question of a sacrifice. on the contrary, one understands at the end of the novel that she, already from their first meetings, has been in love with the american. the incursions on negative liberty that affect claire are mainly two. the first is presented retrospectively, and revolves around her marriage with mr de cintré, a 60 year old nobleman—a marriage that she was forced into as an 18-year old; “an odious old gentleman”, according to valentin. newman is distraught when he, from the tristram couple, hears about this forced marriage: “but that sort of thing is infamous [. . .] it makes me feel savage to hear of it!” is it, then, truly possible, he asks himself, “that they do that sort of thing over here? that helpless women are bullied into marrying men they hate?” (pp. 121-122) the forced marriage is trivialized by the tristrams. “helpless women, all over the world, have a hard time of it”, mrs tristram says. she continues: “there is plenty of bullying everywhere”, after which her husbandfills in: “a great deal of that kind of thing goes on in new york [. . .]. girls are bullied or coaxed or bribed, or all three together, into marrying nasty fellows. there is no end of that always going on in the fifth avenue, and other bad things besides. the mysteries of the fifth avenue! some one ought to show them up!” (pp. 121-122). the relativism of the trist rams makes newman upset. he argues that it is an exaggeration to claim that forced marriages are as common on the fifth avenue as in other places around the world: “i don’t believe that, in america, girls are ever subjected to compulsion. i don’t believe there have been a dozen cases of it since the country began.” (p. 122) newman seems to realize that, on this point, there exists a fundamental difference. in the world inhabited by claire, the individual is completely subordinate to the collective. but that is not the case, newman argues, on the fifth avenue. surely, violence, abuse and force may occur there too. newman, however, seems to realizes that the kind of force that claire is subjected to is a remnant from another epoch, with completely different ways of organizing societies and interpersonal conduct. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. after the death of her 60-year old husband, claire succeeded against the wishes of her family, in negotiating herself into not having to start an (in her eyes humiliating) legal case about her husband’s inheritance. this, she achieved at the price of during the ten years that followed having to give up her freedom of action. the marriage to mr de cintré had, newman notes in conversation with valentin, “been made in your horrible french way”. it had been “made by the two families, without her having any voice” (p. 153). and valentin elaborates with explanations: “she saw m de cintré for the first time a month before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail, had been arranged. she turned white when she looked at him, and white remained till her wedding-day. the evening before the ceremony she swooned away, and she spent the whole night in sobs.” (p. 154) in that situation, claire’s father took her side. he stood up against the forced marriage, and was for that reason murdered by the mother (in collusion with their son urbain). but before his death, the father was able to convey to the english housemaid, mrs. bread, that his wife had tried to killed him. moreover, he wrote a short message on a piece of paper, where he accounted for his wife’s murderous plans. that letter ends up in newman’s possession (with mrs bread as intermediary). in the case of newman and claire, the behaviour of the family is thus repeated, albeit with the marital starting field now being the complete opposite. after first—thought only after various family councils—having accepted newman as claire’s prospective husband (of course exclusively because of his gigantic fortune), the family’s opinion is reversed after the engagement ball of the young couple. the reason is somewhat unclear, but appears to have to do with a more fitting, in the eyes of the family, prospective husband having shown up: lord deepmere. for claire, her family’s ban on her marrying newman results in her joining a convent belonging to the very strict order of the carmelite sisters. for claire, there is a painful consequence to this decision. to renounce newman, she points out, cannot be called “peace—it’s death” (p. 314). newman, after the family having announced their decision in the marital matters, seeks out claire at the family castle (in) fleurières. the castle is said to stem “from the time of henry iv”, that is to say from the first french king of the bourbon dynasty (who reigned 1589-1610). surrounded, as it is, by “a wide, green river which washed the foundations of the chateau”, and with the towers and walls reflecting “in the quiet water” (pp. 345-346), the castle will function as an appropriate frame for claire’s words: “i must do as they force me—i must, i must. they would haunt me otherwise [. . .] they would kill me! [– – –] it’s like a religion. there’s a curse upon the house; i don’t know what—i don’t know why—don’t ask me. we must all bear it. (pp. 352-353) she continues by noting that newman had, at one point, offered her an opportunity “to go away. [. . .] but i can’t—it has overtaken and come back to me” (p. 353). to claire, newman represents a possibility for freedom. and that freedom is, in the novel, defined as a lack of coercion, as negative liberty. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 54 published by scholink inc. after claire and newman have parted ways definitively, he wanders around among the large and leafy trees at the side of the castle, where “the old english princes fought for their right and held it” (p. 357). the environment can be seen as a typical framing of those questions about clan culture that successively unfold in the mind of newman: what had she meant by her feeling being a kind of religion? it was the religion simply of the family laws, the religion of which her implacable little mother was the high priestess. twist the thing about as her generosity would, the one certain fact was that they had used force against her.” (p. 359) when newman the following day at the castle meets mother and son bellegarde, it is as if the spirits of the past—the very foundation of clan culture—approach him, “as if the door of a sepulchre had suddenly been opened, and the damp darkness were being exhaled.” (p. 364) the housemaid, mrs. bread, thereafter recounts to newman how the mother and the brother made claire “feel wicked [–—–]. she was afraid [– – –]. that was the real trouble, sir. she was like a fair peach, i may say, with just one little speck. she had one little sad spot. you pushed her into the sunshine, sir, and it almost disappeared. then they pulled her back into the shade and in a moment it began to spread. before we knew it she was gone. she was a delicate creature.” (pp. 372-373) neither does mrs tristram care particularly for claire’s family. far earlier in the plot, she asserts: “they are terrible people—her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion.” in the salon of the family,”no one is admitted who can’t show his fifty quarterings” (p. 75). in the bellegard salon, mrs tristram points out in the same breath, one can find an immaculate selection of the ultramontanists and legitimists of parisian society. the terms refer to the ultra-conservative and fiercely anti-liberal movements that, during the 19th century turned on the national state and against the modern state power that allegedly forced on the french catholics all too secular values. the legitimists refused to accept the french revolution, and viewed heirs of the house bourbon’s older branch as the lawful rulers of france, in particular after charles x having been forced to abdicate in 1830 (he had, after the july revolution that year, handed over the power to the duke of orléans, louis philippe i, this despite insistence that the merely 10-year old grandson of charles x, henri, should be crowned king—henri who, with the hypothetical number v, would remain the throne candidate of the legitimists, and thus also of the bellegarde family, during the latter part of the 19th century). that the castle of the bellegarde family is claimed to have been built by the first king of the bourbon dynasty, henri iv (the grandfather of the sun king, louis xiv) is thus no coincidence. john carlos rowe, has, in different contexts, pointed out that the research around the historical background of the role of the bellegarde family in the novel has been flawed. as an exception, he has highlighted a 1972 article by john v antush, that he at the same time—not on entirely erroneous grounds—criticizes for getting caught up in historical circumstances, without concrete connections to james’s contemporaries. (note 8) one can, perhaps, say that antush walks into the trap set by james, when the author lets newman claim that urbain bellegarde, the brother of valentin and claire, belongs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 55 published by scholink inc. to an historical era without any kind of relevance to the present and the future: “he felt as he should have felt if he had discovered in m de bellegarde a taste for certain oddities of diet; an appetite, for instance, for fishbones or nutshells. under these circumstances, of course, he would never have broached dietary questions with him.” (p. 228) (note 9) but that is exactly what newman should have done: conducted ideological discussions with the political madman urbain de bellegarde. and this for the simple reason that legitimists and ultramontanists, just as is implied by rowe, would reveal themselves to have a perhaps unexpected, but nonetheless large, relevance in the future. at the same time, rowe goes astray in his interpretation of this complex of motives. according to him the novel can be read as a trivialisation of the libertarian ambitions of liberal society. for rowe, no differentiation is being made in the novel between the incursions on liberty in the bellegarde family, and those incursions on liberty that exist in newman’s homeland, the united states. rowe claims, for example, that newman’s “attitudes toward women are at least as reactionary as those of the old world bellegardes”. (note 10) one may note that rowe, in this case, repeats the relativist standpoint of the simple-minded tom tristram on forced marriage. in his study the other henry james (1998), rowe offer a similar reading of the novel: “james stresses the extent to which the democratic promise of america has ended up merely repeating, if not compounding, the sins of the aristocratic europe that his ancestors had hoped to escape.” (note 11) but such an interpretation not only ignores the fact that james has placed this very argument in the mouth of the narrow-minded tom tristram, it disregards the factual, historical background. ultramontanism, namely, was a movement running utterly counter to american society. the american constitution was nothing less than a curse to the ultramontanists. legitimism and ultramontanismare in the novel intimately connected to maintaining an organisation around the clan—the complete opposite of the modern, liberal state. as francis fukuyama pointed out in the origins of political order (2011), and mark s weiner in the rule of the clan (2013), modern rule of law entails something radically different from clan society. the state is, from the perspective of fukuyama and weiner, not interpreted as something oppressive. rather, they emphasize how the framework of the state, which is the prerequisite for the nation, enables rule of law, democracy and individual freedom. (note 12) while the state protects its subjects, the clan members protect their cousins. (note 13) if the state views its subjects as autonomous individuals, the clan views them as parts of a collective organism, where responsibility is communally distributed. under modern rule of law, the one who commits a crime against another person is as an individual responsible for the crime, and often also liable for the compensation of the victim. (note 14) the relatives of the criminal are not viewed as having anything do with the affair. but in a clan culture, they do. there, the important thing is that balance is achieved between the clans. having the criminal from the other clan punished is not always necessary. it might be more important for the family of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 56 published by scholink inc. victim to get an appropriate compensation for its loss. the modern state, on the other hand, rests on the principle of equality before the law, and on the idea of a general welfare system providing safety and increased possibilities for autonomy and for personal fulfilment. (note 15) it is just such a world that is detested by the conservative french aristocrats in the american. ultramontanism can be described as a conservative movement with a lineage dating to the middle ages. its goal was to increase the power of the pope in europe at the expense of the national state. after the french revolution the movement gained momentum, through their proponents arguing that the values of the new, secular state were not compatible with catholic values. catholics who accepted the values of the secular state were seen as apostates, as conforming to a false faith that would dilute the religion. freedom of religion, and other rights that were created in the modern state in order to protect the individual, were viewed as scourges—by the french ultramontanists and legitimists. and the american constitution was no less than the very moulding frame for the modern state, which had as its primary purpose to guarantee the autonomy and freedom of the individual. the ultramontanists, together with the legitimists, were thus in their very essence on a collision course with liberals as well as with the representatives of the national state. legitmists as well as ultramontanists wanted to see an international power base centred around the authority of the pope in rome. (note 16) it was for this latter reason that the battle of castelfidardo, 1860, which is mentioned in the novel, came to be an important reference point for the ultramontanists. napoleon iii then gave his approval to the italians to declare war against the papal state—which would lead to a great defeat, for the pope as well as for the bourbon dynasty and its sympathizers. and later, when the zouave forces of the pope (mentioned in the novel, in the context of valentin’s death) finally, in 1870, were defeated in rome by italian forces, an event that took place before the novel was written, but after the time of its setting, it was the final nail in the coffin for the political territorial power ambitions of the catholic church. in the middle of the 1870s, when henry james frequently lived in paris, he relatively often dedicated his american columns to the legitimists. not infrequently, he defended the rights of the conservative catholics to act within the framework of the republic. or, as in the following case—to have the own university, which the temperamental republican left-wing politician léon gambetta (pp. 1838-1882) had opposed: “if i were a frenchman i am inclined to think that i should feel more at my ease in a republic in which the catholic party was allowed to carry on, in competition with the sorbonne and the collège de france, as successful and satisfactory a university as it could, than in a republic in which it was silenced and muzzled and forced to disseminate its instruction through private channels. it is hard, indeed, to imagine a catholic university, with the full light of our current audacity of opinion beating down upon it, proving very dangerous.” (note 17) james may appear naïve in a text such as this one. at the same time, the ending of the american can be understood against the background of his wish, as a liberal, not to fall into the same way of acting and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 57 published by scholink inc. the same type of political rhetoric as his ideological opponents. according to james foreword to the heavily revised version of the novel, in the new york edition from 1907, the purpose of the american was to show newman standing on a higher moral ground than the bellegardes. the false pretence of the latter, to “represent the highest possible civilization and to be of an order in every way superior to his own”, would thus be made clear. this is shown by newman at the end of the story, when he chooses to abstain from revenge, and in that manner reveals his magnanimity. (note 18) this corresponds to what james wrote to william dean howells regarding the conception of the novel: “my subject was: an american letting the insolent foreigner go, out of his good nature, after the insolent foreigner had wronged him and he had held him in his power.” (note 19) about the united states, he wrote in the same spirit, a year after the publishing of the novel, in the essay “americans abroad”: “we are the only great people of the civilized world that is a pure democracy, and we are the only great people that is exclusively commercial.” (note 20) regarding the morals, the norm systems, the conventions and the regulations in claire’s family, newman poses the question to mrs tristram about why claire lets them “bully her[.] is she not her own mistress?” in her answer, mrs tristram refers to the family as a clan: “legally, yes, i suppose; but morally, no. [– – –] her brother is the chef de la famille, as they say; he is the head of the clan. with those people the family is everything; you must act, not for your own pleasure, but for the advantage of the family.” (p. 120) the very foundation of clan cultures can be extracted from statements like this. in the clan, the individual is subordinated to the collective. there, every singular member is obliged to maintain, respect, and, at the utmost, defend the honour of the clan—or in this case the “family”. the clan is not stronger than its weakest link. the status of the clan rests on the shoulders of every singular member. this makes the individual’s room for manoeuvre limited. what the clan offers in return for these limitations of individual liberty is community, context and safety. mark s weiner compares the clan to an insurance company that one is born into but cannot leave. (note 21) leaving the clan means that one does not have any legal, economical or medical safety net, but also that one is freed from the historical tie that constitutes one’s identity. every singular member can count on the clan as a whole standing up for him or her when he or she is in dire straits. but for such a system to work, unquestionable loyalty is demanded. the loyalty is strengthened by historical continuity. no one in the long row of ancestors wants to be the one to break the historical chain that goes back to the forefather of the clan, the founder. when newman, at the opening of the novel, visits claire in her home, claire recounts her—for clan culture so typical—patrilinear descent: “i was born here, and my father was born here before me, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfathers.” (p. 125) her brother valentin, for his part, had a strict upbringing because of the family’s fear that he might “bespatter the family shield” (p. 139). newman asks valentin (in respect, one could say, to negative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 58 published by scholink inc. liberty): “what is to hinder your ranging??” (p. 140). valentin answers by referring to the family’s demands of acting in accordance with the expectations of the family, as part of a collective: “everything is to hinder me [– – –] i couldn’t go into business, i couldn’t make money, because i was a bellegarde. i couldn’t go into politics, because i was a bellegarde—the bellegardes don’t recognize the bonapartes.” (p. 140) he can not even marry favourably: “it must be name for name, and fortune for fortune”—“the only thing i could do was to go and fight for the pope.” (p. 140) and so valentin did. he was wounded at castelfidardo, in 1860. there, as mentioned above, the italian nationalists, who struggled for a united italy, fought against the troops of the pope. the latter are said to have assembled so many noblemen from western france that a general on the opposing side compared the troops of the pope to the invitation list for one of the balls of louis xiv. it was naturally on that side—with the bourbons and their sympathizers—that valentin fought, against those who wanted to create a national state. valentin claims to be jealous of newman: “what i envy you is your liberty, [. . .] your wide range, your freedom to come and go.” (p. 140) newman is described as “the first man” that valentin “ever envied. [– – –] you have got something that i should have liked to have. [– – –] it’s a sort of air you have of being thoroughly at home in the world” (p. 141). when valentin tries to specify why he is jealous of newman, he refers to the latter’s freedom, not at least from prejudices: “you have fewer prejudices even than i, who pretend to have none, but who in reality have three or four. happy man, you are strong and you are free.” (p. 146) it is this lack of prejudice that makes newman, to claire, represent a possible way to freedom. after her first marriage, she had sworn to never again marry, but newman on his part offers her “freedom”: “if you are afraid of losing your freedom, i can assure you that this freedom here, this life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what i will offer you” (pp. 169-170). and newman further clarifies the link between marriage (to him) and freedom: “you ought to be perfectly free, and marriage will make you so.” (pp. 171-172) the wife of claire’s brother, urbain (the one who, together with the mother, is the most engaged in maintaining clan mentality), insists to newman that her attitude is one completely different from that of urbain. she refers to herself as “a ferocious democrat” (p. 215), while claiming to stem from a “much better” (p. 215) family than bellegarde. none the less, she does not have time or desire “to sit at home and count over my ancestors on my fingers” (p. 296). this younger marquise bellegarde likewise points out that she, as opposed to her husband and mother in law, views people in her surroundings from a modern and meritocratic perspective: “i don’t care a pin for my pedigree; i want to belong to my time. i’m a revolutionist, a radical, a child of the age!” (p. 215) she views people as individuals, not parts of collectives: “i like clever people, wherever they come from, and i take my amusement wherever i find it.” (p. 215) she even claims to “prefer clever bonapartes to stupid bourbons” (p. 296)! www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 59 published by scholink inc. her husband the marquis, on the other hand, detests the empire (p. 215). he claims that henri de bourbon, the count of chambord, (1820-1883), was the only lawful leader of france (pp. 227-228). henri was king under the name henri v, of france and navarra, and ruled—as mentioned earlier—as a 10-year old, technically, for one week between august 2nd and august 9th, 1830. before him, his uncle louis antoine, the son of charles x, had reigned for 20 minutes. louis antoine, under the name louis xix, came to be the pretender of the legitimists, after the short reign of henri v, until his death in 1844. louis was then (again) “succeeded” by henri v, who was pretender until 1883, when he died as the last of the bourbon dynasty of french royalty (which had commenced with henri iv, pp. 1553-1610). when the engagement ball for claire and newman takes place, it is noted that there are no uniforms present, since “madame de bellegarde’s door was inexorably closed against the myrmidons of the upstart power which then ruled the fortunes of france” (pp. 276-277). urbain’s wife also recounts that she cannot go to the theatre with her husband, as he refuses to visit “palais royal because the ladies of the court go there so much” (p. 297). peter brooks has discussed the use of melodramatic elements in the american. (note 22) he bases his observations, in part, on james’s description of the “romantic” character of the novel in the preface to the 1907 edition. with the perspective of brooks, however, one risks missing an important point of the novel: its examination of the prerequisites of freedom. from the perspective of a modern, western individual, many of the prominent elements in clan society appear as exotic and fantastic—as, in other words, melodramatic. this has to do with the modern individual (on false grounds) viewing western rule of law as more or less given by nature. as a consequence, its opposite, the clan, is falsely seen as a product of fantasy—as a melodramatic element. an undoubtedly melodramatic element in the american is the duel of valentin. however, when viewed in accordance with the conflict between, on one hand, the incursions of clan mentality upon the freedom of claire and, on the other hand, newman’s optimizing of liberty, the episode of valentin’s death in a duel appears as a way for the author to elevate the fate of claire above the individual level. what the episode shows is how clan mentality affects even a family dissident such as valentin. duelling because of violated honour is by newman viewed as an anachronistic stupidity (pp. 296-297). valentin, on the other hand, is a child of his time (or maybe rather of his family). about the duelling, he says: “it is our custom, and i think it is a good thing. quite apart from the goodness of the cause in which a duel may be fought, it has a kind of picturesque charm which in this age of vile prose seems to me greatly to recommend it. it’s a remnant of a higher-tempered time; one ought to cling to it.” (p. 309) at the end of the novel, newman visits a church. there, his hate disappears. he feels how the thought of revenge, that for a long time has occupied him, vanishes. it appears consequential. it is a logical outcome of the novel that newman’s revenge has to be withheld. he realises he comes from a world where such things as shame and honour have no meaning: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 60 published by scholink inc. newman’s last thought was that of course he would let the bellegardes go. if he had spoken it aloud he would have said that he didn’t want to hurt them. he was ashamed of having wanted to hurt them. they had hurt him, but such things were really not his game. at last he got up and came out of the darkening church[.] (p. 446) (note 23) even if the church and the religious power in europe during centuries had been forced to adapt to underlying structures of the clan, there is a fundamental opposition between, on one hand, the christian focus on (individual) sin and guilt, and, on the other hand, the structuring of clan cultures around (collective) honour and shame. from my perspective, henry james’s interest in the mentality of the clan appears as a sign of the intensity with which he, in his writing, approaches questions considering the nature and prerequisites of liberty and freedom. by inserting clan culture as an element of the plot, the differences between positive and negative liberty can be illuminated. the lack of individual liberty that characterizes the clan is representative for the lack of negative liberty. the clan uses force in order to make the individual act in ways that primarily benefit the clan and the collective. the individual freedom of action is minimized as a consequence of the collective ambition to steer the individual, by force, in the direction most favourable for the clan, the collective. references antush, j. v. (1972). “the much finer complexity” of history in the american. journal of american studies, 6(1). arnold, m. (1869). culture and anarchy. an essay in political and social criticism. london. berlin, i. (1969). two concepts of liberty. in four essays on liberty. four essays on liberty, london & oxford & new york: oxford university press, 1958. botta, e. (2011). the wavering ruins of the american. henry james’s europe. heritage and transfer, red dennis tred et al, cambridge: cambridge university press. brooks, p. (2007). henry james goes to paris. princeton nj: princeton up. (1987). the turn of the american, new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press. (1995). the melodramatic imagination: balzac. henry james, melodrama and the mode of excess. new haven ct: yale university press. delbaere-garant, j. h. (1970). james: the vision of france. paris: société des belles lettres. fukuyama, f. (2011). the origins of political order: from prehuman times to the french revolution. new york: farrar, straus & giroux. james, h. (1993). collected travel writings: great britain and america. ed richard howard. new york: library of america. – (1957). parisian sketches: letters to the new york tribune 1875-1876. ed leon edel & ilse dusoir lind, new york: new york university press, 1957. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 61 published by scholink inc. – (1975). letters. 2. 1875-1883, ed leon edel, cambridge ma: harvard university press. –(1981). the american, ed & preface by william spengelmann, london & new york: penguin classics. – (1907). the american, the novels and tales of henry james, vol 2, new york: charles scribner’s & sons. porter, c. (1987). gender and value in the american. new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press. raleigh, j. h. (1957). matthew arnold and american culture. berkeley ca & los angeles ca: university of california press. rowe, j. c. (1997). at emerson’s tomb. the politics of classic american literature. new york: columbia university press. – (1987)the politics of innocence in henry james’s the american. new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press. the other henry james. (1998). durham nc: duke university press. the politics of innocence in henry james’s. (1987). the american. new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press. veeder, w. (1985). image as argument. henry james and the style of criticism. the henry james review, 6(3). weiner, m. s. (2013). the rule of the clan: what an ancient form of social organization reveals about the future of individual freedom. new york: farrar, straus & gi-roux. wrenn, a. j. (2009). henry james and the second empire. studies in comparative lite-rature, 14. zacharias, g. w. (1990). james’s morality in roderick hudson. the henry james review, 11(2). notes note 1. all parenthetical citations refer to the 1877 edition of the novel, reprinted in henry james, the american, ed & preface by william spengelmann, london & new york: penguin classics, 1981. references (in notes) to the new york edition refer to henry james, the american, the novels and tales of henry james, vol 2, new york: charles scribner’s & sons, 1907. note 2. henry james, letters, vol 2. 1875-1883, ed leon edel, cambridge ma: harvard university press, 1975, p. 152. note 3. see carolyn porter, “gender and value in the american”, new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press, 1987, p 106. note 4. see enrico botta, “the wavering ruins of the american”, henry james’s europe. herit-age and transfer, red dennis tred et al. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011, pp. 119-121. note 5. according to carolyn porter 1987, p 115, “a major social transformation from patriarchy to capitalism has taken place beneath the surface of parisian society”. note 6. isaiah berlin, “two concepts of liberty” (1958), four essays on liberty, london & oxford & new york: oxford university press, 1969, pp. 118-172. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 62 published by scholink inc. note 7. see matthew arnold, culture and anarchy. an essay in political and social criticism. london 1869, p viii: “culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of get-ting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits.” james relation to arnold is discussed in greg w zacharias, “james’s morality in roderick hudson”, the henry james review, vol. 11, 1990, 2, pp. 116-117. william veeder, “image as argument. henry james and the style of criticism”, the henry james review, vol 6, 1985, 3, pp. 172-181. john henry raleigh, matthew arnold and american culture, berkeley ca & los angeles ca: university of california press, 1957, pp. 17-46. note 8. john carlos rowe, at emerson’s tomb. the politics of classic american literature. new york: columbia university press, 1997, pp. 185-187. the same text is published as “the politics of innocence in henry james’s the american”, new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press, 1987, p. 77. john v antush, “the ‘much finer complexity’ of history in the american”. journal of american studies, 6(1). the historical context is also mentioned in peter brooks, henry james goes to paris, princeton nj: princeton up, 2007, p. 12, and in angus james wrenn, henry james and the second empire, studies in comparative literature, vol 14, oxford 2009, p. 16. it is notable that jeanne delbaere garant refers briefly to medieval clans in france: “the authority of the family is only an epitome of the authority of the pope, and the caste system of the bellegardes a continuation of the social tyranny of the middle ages. catholicism and feudalism are closely linked together.” (henry james: the vision of france, paris: société des belles lettres, 1970, p. 274). note 9. see john carlos rowe 1987, p 78/ john carlos rowe 1997, p 187. note 10. see john carlos rowe 1987, p 90/ john carlos rowe 1997, p 197. note 11. john carlos rowe, the other henry james, durham nc: duke university press, 1998, p 67. cf the conclusion of rowes interpretation: “the american may well be a subtle warning to james’s readers, as well as to james’s own literary ambitions, that the international destiny of the self-reliant american may have more in common with the imperial claimants of france (the bellegardes), england (lord deepmere), and italy (the ducal line of bourbon-parma, the pope) than we in our democratic enthusiasm are willing to admit.” (john carlos rowe 1987, p. 93). note 12. mark s weiner, the rule of the clan: what an ancient form of social organization reveals about the future of individual freedom, new york: farrar, straus & giroux, 2013. francis fukuyama, the origins of political order: from prehuman times to the french revolution, new york: farrar, straus & giroux, 2011, pp. 49-94. note 13. mark s weiner 2013, p 86. note 14. ibid, pp. 3-5. note 15. ibid, pp. 45-46. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 63 published by scholink inc. note 16. see john carlos rowe 1987, p. 79. note 17. henry james, parisian sketches: letters to the new york tribune 1875-1876, ed leon edel &ilse dusoir lind, new york: new york university press, 1957, p 76. cf john car-los rowe 1987, p. 83. note 18. the new york edition, p. vi. note 19. henry james, letters, vol 2, p. 70. note 20. henry james, collected travel writings: great britain and america, ed richard how-ard, new york: library of america, 1993, p. 787. note 21. mark s weiner 2013, p. 100. note 22. peter brooks, the melodramatic imagination: balzac, henry james, melodrama and the mode of excess [1976], new haven ct: yale university press, 1995, pp. 153-196. see also peter brooks, “the turn of the american”, new essays on the american, ed martha banta, cambridge: cambridge university press, 1987, p. 44, where the ameri-can is described as som “a novel that began in urbanity and the play of worldly wit, with our introduction to newman seated on a divan in the salon carre of the louvre, making his first discovery of the aesthetic, seems to have veered into the gothic”. note 23. see the new york edition, p. 534, where “he was ashamed of having wanted to hurt them” is followed by: “he quite failed, of a sudden, to recognise the fact of his having cultivated any such link with them. it was a link for themselves perhaps, their having so hurt him, but that side of it was now not his affair.” differences between the two editions are discussed by naomi e silver, in “between communion and renunciation. revising the american”, the henry james review, vol 22, 2001, 3, pp. 291-292 and max f schulz, “the bellegardes ‘feud with christopher newman. a study of henry james’s revision of the american”, american literature, vol. 27, 1955, 1, pp. 43-45. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 120 original paper a study on the efficiency of disaster information communication based on the gate keeper theory cai shaojie 1 & wang wanru 1 1 xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: april 18, 2023 accepted: may 2, 2023 online published: may 9, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p120 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p120 project supported by xi’an international studies university training program of innovation and entrepreneurship for undergraduates abstract in recent years, major disasters have occurred frequently, with sudden floods, rampant epidemics, and typhoons... faced with sudden disasters, the affected population is often caught unprepared. under the background of “internet +”, the speed of information circulation has improved, but the news that the material needs of the disaster victims are not effectively met still often appears in the public’s view. in order to improve the efficiency of disaster information dissemination and enable the efficient distribution of related materials, this paper discusses this issue based on the gatekeeper theory of communication science. with a view to tracing the source and clarifying the reasons for the low efficiency and poor effect of disaster mutual aid information dissemination under the background of “internet +”, this paper proposes solutions to the problems in combination with the gatekeeper theory of communication, to promote the rational distribution and utilization of resources, meet the material needs of disaster victims, and ensure the basic life of the people. keywords gatekeeper theory, information dissemination, disaster mutual assistance 1. overview of the gatekeeper theory the “gatekeeper” theory is one of the earliest terms that entered the field of journalism in china, and it is also one of the earliest theories that chinese scholars combined with the phenomena of news communication. in 1947, kurt lewin, an american scholar and one of the founders of communication studies, first proposed the concept of “gatekeeper”. only information content that conforms to group norms or “gatekeeper” value standards can enter the communication channel. he believed that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 121 published by scholink inc. “gatekeeper” referred to individuals or groups with the decision-making power to allow something in or out. in 1950, communication scholar white introduced the concept of “gatekeeper” to the field of news communication research. he clearly expressed the gatekeeping model in his theory, believing that in the process of selecting material for news reporting, the communication medium forms a gate, and only a minority of news or information can pass through this gate and be delivered to the audience. the most obvious shortcoming of white’s theory is that he regarded the “gatekeeper” as an isolated factor and ignored the social factors associated with the “gatekeeper” and their constraints on gatekeeping activities. later, scholars such as walter geber transformed the “gatekeeper” theory into a social control model, elevating the personal “gatekeeping” of news editors to “gatekeeping” by news organizations and institutions with respect to the information. they promoted the research of “gatekeeper” and expanded and changed the “gatekeeper” model to organizations and social systems. since 1947, the gatekeeper theory has been continuously improving. the author believes that using the gatekeeper theory to analyze the channels of information dissemination in disaster situations can trace and clarify the reasons for the low efficiency and ineffective dissemination of disaster information, and propose corresponding solutions. 2. the current situation and problems of mutual assistance information dissemination during disasters 2.1 the evolution of disaster information exchange platforms in the internet age in today’s rapidly developing internet era, the application of disaster information exchange platforms is becoming increasingly open, with a variety of channels and platforms for information exchange, such as e-government, spokespersons, and new media platforms. during disasters, e-government platforms of governments at various levels have released information to achieve government transparency and guarantee citizens’ right to know. at the same time, spokesperson is an important way for the government to communicate with the public. in the current internet age, everyone can become a news publisher, making new media platforms the most frequently used communication platforms for the public. 2.2 characteristics of disaster information exchange platforms in the internet age 2.2.1 the influence of media is increasing as a medium that represents public speaking and political supervision, the media should play an increasingly important role in the dissemination of crisis information. the media plays a role as an intermediary, timely uploading the current situation and reactions of the public, and issuing the latest developments, government measures, and other information. this not only satisfies the urgent information needs of the public, stabilizes their mentality, and maintains normal living order, but also meets the information needs of the government to understand public opinion and observe social conditions. this is a two-way communication process. finally, in the process of disaster disposal, the media plays a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 122 published by scholink inc. role in guiding public opinion, and more is to assist the government in the transmission and interaction of disaster information. when facing disasters, the public often feels at a loss, and at this time, media explanations or news reports are needed to alleviate their confusion, and the media naturally plays a good guiding role. this requires the media to follow the principle of information disclosure, to respect the facts, to respect the public’s right to know, and also to choose from the perspective of social stability to scientifically guide the public to correctly understand the disaster and fully exert the positive power of news opinion guidance. 2.2.2 new media becomes the main force in communication since entering the era of “internet +”, new media, with its fast dissemination speed, high efficiency, and wide range of dissemination characteristics, has gradually occupied a place in mass communication. central departments and institutions can publish authoritative information through their official websites, use official channels such as public mailboxes and hotlines to solicit opinions, respond to public concerns, and communicate with the public. most local governments and institutions have also established official microblogs, official accounts, tiktok, and other new media accounts, relying on the new media information platform and service platform to release all kinds of information in the form of text, image and text, video, etc., to spread and social hot spots. in addition, major authoritative news media and local news media have gradually begun to use new media accounts to spread the news to the public. therefore, after a disaster occurs, effectively utilizing new media is an important means of providing information, exchanging mutual assistance messages, and stabilizing public sentiments. 3. limitations of disaster information exchange platforms in the era of the internet 3.1 delayed disclosure of media information the media often waits for the government to release the message that “the disaster is initially under control” before publicizing information about the disaster to society. they do not adhere to the principle of safeguarding citizens’ right to information and timely disclosure of information related to the public interest that they have obtained, preferring to adhere to the principle of stability. in modern society, with the development of new media, information cannot be completely blocked, and people transmit information quickly through the internet, mobile phones, and other means. this may lead to a crisis of trust in the government even if the information is accurate. if it is inaccurate, it may lead to the spread of rumors and panic. most media are dependent on the government, even serving as vassals, and are constrained in the process of disseminating information, lacking independence. there are also issues with the professional ethics of the media. in addition, the media’s quality and professionalism need to be improved, making disaster information more objective, professional, and in-depth. disaster information has a direct relationship with the public interest, but the media has failed to fully www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 123 published by scholink inc. play its role in serving the public interest. despite the significant attention and expectations from the public in the intermediary role played by the media, disaster victims are more dependent on and follow the media than usual, but the media often fails to fulfill its responsibilities in meeting public information needs and making full use of its information dissemination function to provide a platform for monitoring and restraining government actions. in reality, the media’s dissemination and interaction of disaster information is inadequate, and its role in guiding public opinion has not been fully realized. the concept of disaster information dissemination has entered the minds of various media outlets, making them pay special attention to and actively report on disaster-related news. however, problems have occurred in specific operations, resulting in the phenomenon of “media-manufactured crises.” at the same time, driven by interests, media outlets generate fear to attract readers, and due to an insufficient sense of responsibility and judgment, misunderstanding or one-sided information is disseminated to the public, causing unnecessary panic and disorder and making it unable to guide public opinions. 3.2 the level of public scrutiny varies in the era of traditional media, mainstream media occupy an absolute “quality control” position, and a large amount of information is presented in an orderly and systematic manner after the orderly and systematic screening. however, in the process of disaster mutual assistance message transmission using new media as the main information transmission platform, “everyone is a disseminator, everyone is a recipient.” anyone can become a “gatekeeper.” in this case, the composition of the “gatekeeper” group is complex, with varying levels of education. they may have different perspectives on the same event, and it is difficult to ensure the quality of “gatekeep”. especially after a disaster occurs, the untrained group of “gatekeepers” lack a sufficient level of “gatekeepers” and unified leadership, which can easily lead to problems such as information blockage and non-circulation, resulting in the situation where mutual assistance information and materials cannot be effectively distributed. 4. the particularity of the “gatekeeper” theory in the dissemination of disaster information in contemporary society, the main actors in exchanging disaster information are the government, the public, and the intermediary, namely the media. the government and media provide public services, ensuring citizens’ right to access information. with the development of the internet, the roles of these actors are continuously changing. 4.1 the role of the “gatekeeper” in the dissemination of disaster information taking the last two decades of public health emergencies in china as an example, including the sars outbreak in 2002, the h7n9 outbreak in 2013, and the covid-19 outbreak in 2019, the development features demonstrated in the three stages align with the theories of the value chain, value matrix, and value network. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 124 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the diachronic evolution of disaster information dissemination in the early 21st century, disaster information was disseminated mainly from traditional media, providing one-way information on government emergency integration to the public. at that time, new media mainly used mobile phone text messages, and the linear information flow made the value of disaster information controlled by the government. in the early 2010s, with the role of the internet, the public could participate in the topic through new media such as weibo and wechat, based on government-provided information, thus achieving interactivity. in the late 2010s, large internet platforms have permeated daily life, and news is now produced and spread together by every ordinary person in the world and the media. all types of social entities can publish and disseminate disaster information on the internet, turning disaster information dissemination into a multi-dimensional value network. in case of sudden disasters, finding the fastest way to build an information-sharing platform and effectively intervening in disaster information dissemination has become a global consensus. in the era of mass communication today, an effective information governance model for sudden disasters is crucial. it is essential to promote the open sharing of information, enhancing society’s and the public’s right to access disaster information. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 125 published by scholink inc. 4.2 the basis for “gatekeep” in the dissemination of disaster information premier li keqiang pointed out in the government work report in 2023 that “it is necessary to improve the mechanism for preventing and controlling significant infectious diseases, emergency material protection system, and strive to ensure the people’s health... improve the social assistance system and provide timely assistance to those in need.” the government ensures the public’s right to access information through official information disclosure on government platforms and official websites, fulfilling the role of “gatekeeper”. mainstream and local media disseminate disaster information through public account articles, short video platforms, and other channels, they also perform the “gatekeeping” process. the public also plays a role in “gatekeeping” by disseminating help information and commenting on disasters through diverse ways such as word of mouth and posting related articles. it can be seen that the process of “gatekeeping” exists in various stages of disaster information dissemination. after a major disaster event, it is particularly important to carefully “gatekeep” the news dissemination of disaster information. communication needs to be screened by highly skilled “gatekeepers” in order to obtain effective, fast, and high-quality distribution. 5. the guidance of the “gatekeeper” theory on the construction of disaster information communication platform 5.1 media level the suddenness, uncertainty, scale, and complexity of disasters require new media to have a multi-functional, three-dimensional, and collaborative characteristic. new media has greatly influenced and changed the way the public obtains disaster information and even the entire pattern of disaster information dissemination. the inherent defects of the media itself will inevitably affect the communication and interaction between the government and the public and even become an obstacle. therefore, the government must control the media and impose necessary constraints. for things like the media that have unlimited possibilities, only through proper management and regulation can they develop toward a healthy and benign direction, promoting communication and interaction between the government and the people. firstly, the government should implement tiered management and establish an accountability system for information release for this new personalized information terminal media. secondly, new media outlets and the mobile news industry should be guided to self-regulate, establish a network journalist qualification evaluation system, and improve the quality of network journalists. thirdly, the self-discipline spirit of the media should be vigorously promoted. fourthly, the disadvantages of new media should be transformed into advantages, promoting communication between the government and the public. the news media has a particular sense of authority over public opinion, creating an “opinion environment” through its reporting activities, which has an impact and constraint on public opinion. in disaster management, the correct public opinion guidance of news media can minimize the losses www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 126 published by scholink inc. caused by disasters, stabilize public emotions, maintain social stability, and prevent similar disasters from recurring. how the news media can guide public opinion correctly has become a major issue. 5.2 linkage between government and media in the process of dealing with disaster information, the government faces problems such as a narrow scope of information acquisition and untimeliness. with the largest information processing volume, this requires the news media to change roles, participate in information management, help the government deal with disasters, reduce harm and influence, ensure social order and stability, and better promote the construction of a harmonious society. disaster management is primarily the responsibility of the government, with the media assisting in its handling and coordinating disaster relief work. firstly, the news spokesperson system should be jointly improved. secondly, based on information disclosure, public opinion should be jointly guided. under the premise of government information disclosure, the disaster information obtained and disseminated by the media will be true, which is beneficial for the government to respond to disasters. the government should strengthen research on the dissemination laws of news media and society itself, and guide the public correctly through the news media to achieve the goal of the full participation of the people in disaster relief. to achieve multi-agency cooperation in disaster management, it is first necessary to change the role, responsibilities, and management methods of the government in the past, and clarify the functions and positioning of other entities. the government should be in the most important position, playing a role in supervision, guidance, and coordination, formulating behavior norms for every major decision and participant. at the same time, improve disaster response capabilities through various means such as controlling the economy, law, and policies. at the same time, as the leader, the government also faces problems such as a narrow scope of information acquisition and untimeliness, but the media has a wide range of mass bases and can communicate with the public more conveniently and swiftly, and can mobilize the widest range of social forces. this requires the government to supervise the news media and urge it to play the role of a bridge between the government and the people. new media plays an important role in disaster management with its advantages. on the one hand, it makes the transmission of disaster information timelier and more transparent, and communication interaction more convenient and efficient, which is beneficial to establish government credibility. but on the other hand, new media may reduce the government’s credibility, and even trigger secondary public opinion disasters. therefore, it is necessary to integrate these emerging media in an orderly manner, and actively guide and scientifically manage them, making them a powerful tool for the government to manage disaster information. the government has utilized new media to build various forms of disaster information transmission and interaction platforms, mainly composed of government weibo and online news spokespersons. these platforms need to not only leverage new media, but also fully integrate the characteristics of emerging media, cultivate the government’s communication characteristics, and enable them to play a different role in disaster resolution than in the past. the new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 127 published by scholink inc. platform can make use of the timeliness of new media to ensure the timely release of information and improve the transparency of disaster information through its openness. the highly interactive nature of new media can also be utilized to open up new communication channels for the government and the people. through the above ways to play the role of new media public opinion guidance, establish a good government image. a platform built based on new media inevitably brings inherent drawbacks, such as the randomness and distortion of information release caused by timeliness. the function of public opinion aggregation can easily lead to group polarization and make public opinion information become a “non-authoritative” gathering place. therefore, the government should take measures for scientific management, fully leverage the advantages of self-media, and make the new platform perfect. linkage and co-governance should play a role in the communication and interaction of disaster information between the government and the people. a specialized organizational structure and a reasonable management system should be established for the new media platform to be scientifically managed. and a relatively independent governmental new media management organization should be established to regulate relevant management systems and legal responsibilities, and effectively integrate administrative resources, ultimately forming a unified, authoritative, coordinated, and efficient management system. what cannot be ignored is that we should vigorously promote the real-name system and resolutely crack down on malicious rumor-mongers and lawbreakers. reference chen, y. m. (2018). an analysis of key factors of information sharing in emergency cooperation under the collaborative governance (in chinese). jinan journal (philosophy and social sciences), 40(12), 35-49. gao, j, y. (2022). analysis of the dilemma and countermeasures of information gatekeeping in the era of self-media-taking the sichuan longcaogou flash flood event as an example. journalism research guide, 13(23), 123-126. he, w. s., & li, y. q. (2020). analysis and optimization of collaborative mechanism of information publicity and sharing in public health emergencies exemplified by ncp (in chinese). journal of lanzhou university (social science edition), 13(02), 12-24. https://doi.org/10.1097/10.13885/j.issn. 1000-2804.2020.02.003 huang, d. (1996). research and evolution of “gatekeeper”. international journalism review, 1996(04), 27-31. li, g. h., huang, l., & lin, s. y. (2023). the value network of epidemic information dissemination: constituent elements and operation mechanism. e-government, 1-12. retrieved from http://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/11.5181.tp.20221031.0923.002.html liu, y. m., yin, c. c., wang, j. j., zhong, w. h., dong, l. y., an, x. b., & yan, m. c. (2022). research on information communication and risk prevention and control of public health www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 128 published by scholink inc. emergencies in the era of new media (in chinese). information science and technology, 20(16), 229-232. lu, x. j., & yao y. c. (2021). the problems and countermeasures of integrated media communication from the perspective of “gatekeeper” theory-taking douyin news short videos as an example. publishing perspective, 2021(19), 74-77. sui, y. (2018). the era of group communication: the change and impact of information production mode. social sciences in china, 2018(11), 114-134, 204-205. https://doi.org/10.1097/hp.0000000000000738 yuan, y. (2017). in the internet time the mechanism research of disaster information transmission and interaction between the government and the public (in chinese). beijing university of technology. zhang, y., lin, y., zhang, l., & tang, s. y. (2020). research on certified microblog-based rapid acquisition and information extraction technology of earthquake disaster situation (in chinese). journal of disaster prevention and mitigation, 4(02), 75-81. zhao, s. d., & zhang, n. (2016). research on disaster information service system based on wechat public platform. china emergency rescue, 2016(01), 12-15. https://doi.org/10.1097/10.19384/j.cnki.cn11-5524/p.2016.01.003 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 63 original paper shaanbei cloth art—a pioneer of non-heritage cultural creation for college students wenjie huang1, yonghui ma1, kaixuan he1, zhangmiao liu1, liu yang1 & weili miao1 1 xi’an fanyi university, information engineering institute, xi’an, china fund project 2023 shaanxi university students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program project: “shaanbei cloth art a pioneer of non-heritage cultural creation for college students” (project no. x202312714080) received: january 22, 2024 accepted: march 03, 2024 online published: march 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p63 abstract shanbei cloth art is one of the representatives of folk handicrafts in sanqin land, a unique folk handicraft in northern shaanxi, which mainly uses cloth, silk and satin as the main raw materials. it usually aims to express the beautiful aspirations of folk life and convey the meaning of life fullness. and one of the most distinctive when it comes to a series of tiger shoes products, tiger shoes production techniques as early as some years ago has been included in china’s intangible cultural heritage, since the “dictionary” on the “tiger shoes” interpretation for: the end of the qing dynasty, women in the palace of the women’s embroidered shoes, which are embroidered with a first head, called the tiger head shoes. keywords traditional cloth art, folk culture, northern shaanxi intangible cultural heritage false name in addition to evil, why not call for the head of the tiger!” note: “five or six years, the palace family every embroidered animal head on the shoes, in order to avoid ominous, called the tiger head shoes. knowledge that: tiger, banner also, military image also.” two books recorded in the tiger shoes culture is not comprehensive, but it can be seen that the tiger shoes inheritance from a long time, has a unique cultural value. both include the use of value and artistic heritage value. and people give it the function of driving away ghosts and evil spirits. tiger shoes complex workmanship, just in the tiger head on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. technology used to include embroidery, plucking flowers and other stitches, in the original embroidery based on the integration of chinese painting and calligraphy art. the technique of embroidery has been recorded as early as in the book of songs. folk embroidery not only has material use value, but also serves as an image carrier of folk culture to satisfy spiritual needs. 1. project background since the 18th national congress of the party central committee, general secretary xi jinping has talked about traditional chinese culture on many occasions, expressing on the one hand his recognition of traditional chinese culture and traditional thought and value system, and on the other hand his respect for it. in his speeches on different occasions at home and abroad, general secretary xi jinping, as a leader, has shown the spirit of the chinese government and the chinese people, and has inspired and revitalized the cultural self-confidence of the chinese people. and this project this inheritance of intangible cultural heritage as the foundation, organic dynamics combined with the current situation of shaanxi cloth, the tiger shoes cultural value of the depth of excavation, enhance the sense of independent innovation, to promote the integration of marketing diversification, change the stereotyped marketing concepts, so that the tiger shoes and other handicrafts into the public’s field of vision, this move on the one hand to the intangible cultural heritage heritage inheritors to bring benefits, while also expanding the consumer market, but also the non-genetic inheritance of the road a part of the power. strength. shaanbei cloth art initial scale construction cost is low, low risk. 2. research significance with the rapid development of the economy, people’s living standards have been greatly improved, the material level is changing day by day, more and more diversified culture into people’s lives. therefore, the children’s shoes for children with diverse styles, rich content, full functionality, loved by children and parents, but because of the fixed form of tiger shoes and a relatively single function, so that the tiger shoes gradually faded out of people’s field of vision. not only lost the use value of tiger shoes, more challenging is the tiger shoes are facing a serious challenge of inheritance, our team believes that the cultural value of shaanbei cloth tiger shoes has not yet been effectively explored, people’s objective impression of the value of the level of just staying in the shallow, just look at it as a currency exchange for the main general equivalents. in addition, the tiger shoes inheritance process is complex, few young people are willing to spend time and energy to learn the inheritance. with the help of this opportunity, we can make tiger shoes appear in people’s life again, and at the same time restore the cultural value of tiger shoes to explore its cultural vitality. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. 3. research the main research content of this project lies in how shanbei cloth art has come into the public’s view. the process from culture to commodity is an expression of abstraction to concrete, simplifying the necessary internalization process and turning it into a product that is more easily accepted by the masses. it is also through the simplest and the most common way to the northern shaanxi fabric art of non-heritage culture implanted into the lives of the masses. deepen the important role of the non-heritage culture in the public awareness level, thus promoting product innovation, production reform and other major brand building issues in northern shaanxi fabric art. and make the masses realize the scientific value, market value, historical and cultural value of chinese non-heritage culture. there is no doubt that this is the importance of the masses to recognize the non-heritage culture shaping. it is of key importance to awaken people’s consciousness of protection, to promote the solution of problems in the inheritance of non-heritage items, and to promote applied protection. 4. methodologies this project is based on the basis of the characteristics of northern shaanxi cloth, through visits to folk craftsmen, the tiger shoes, tiger hat traditional patterns and innovative design solutions for collection, organization and editing. expand publicity in the early stage, so that tiger shoes from the national culture into the ordinary people. with the help of traditional paper media and multimedia platforms for multi-channel dissemination, while coordinating the planning of offline research reports and folk art exhibitions and other popularization for the whole society. the key to the implementation of the objectives of the previous period lies in how to introduce culture, at this time the demand for capital is relatively small, when the transition is completed after the publicity period, training or selection of tiger shoes inheritors, combined with such activities as “non-heritage into the school”, initiated to popularize the tiger shoes production techniques, history and culture to all levels of students. at the same time, a file will be set up to track and train interested students or people from all walks of life. invite the professional disciplines of colleges and universities to build joint research and creation with cultural and creative studios, so that the design talents of colleges and universities can come into contact with tiger shoes and understand the culture of tiger shoes. creative gifts that emphasize both traditional culture and contemporary innovation are researched and developed to enhance the cultural identity of university students to the tiger shoes project, thus bringing together high-level and high-knowledge inheritors. we set up a teaching base of “non-heritage training center” to recruit folk inheritors, and through the combination of tourism projects and cultural and creative projects, we improve the basic production level of the inheritors and nourish their core qualities. at the same time, the traditional production techniques of tiger shoes are persistently maintained, and in the face of the changing trend of innovation and creativity, the essence of innovation is still maintained, so as to keep the core cultural connotations of the tiger shoes project. pioneering to maintain the subjective creative initiative, tell the story of non-heritage in the first place, recounting the story of the artists behind the tiger shoes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. followed. creating new possibilities for the tiger shoes with the help of short videos and driving the dissemination and sales of tiger shoes’ peripheral products through the flow is an innovative test to adapt to the contemporary economic context, and it is also a necessary internal motivation for its protection and inheritance development. cultural tourism as an important promotional opportunity as well as sales channels, the process of cultural exchanges, the unique value system of the tiger shoes dissemination, to promote the creative transformation of its cultural connotation, innovative development, to give the project ontology contemporary needs of the cultural spirit. 5. reach a verdict this project is based on the folk culture of northern shaanxi cloth art, selecting the most characteristic part of it tiger shoes, combining the righteousness and innovation, and playing the role of dialectical unity of the two. the tiger shoes of the current conditions of the emphasis on institutional reform, mechanism reform, product innovation and brand building and other key issues to improve the treatment of the same period of time, we take into account the once only over-emphasis on how to create and improve the reform and forget the essence of the starting point is in the protection. we learn from the important speeches of general secretary xi jinping about the position of traditional chinese culture, and hope that through the implementation of this project, we can achieve the role of tiger shoes to return to today’s life, and the non-heritage culture has been emphasized. according to the content of the specific implementation of the project, we take into account the historical and cultural value, scientific value and market value of the tiger shoes, to take online and offline simultaneous publicity, on the one hand, to expand the audience of the tiger shoes, on the other hand, in the process of publicity to continue to look for suitable cultural heirs through the “non-heritage culture into the school”, through the implementation of several sub-projects, such as “inheritor program” and “non-heritage training center”, which cover inheritors of different age groups, different educational conditions and different occupational types, the main project has been supplied with the necessary blood flow. through the implementation of this project, the preliminary preparations have experienced bottlenecks such as lack of technical level and overall slow growth, but after learning from the experience of implementing many non-heritage cultural and creative projects, the product marketing strategy is carried out according to the test marketing situation, and the original handcraft production is retained in the production process, from the sole to the dozen or so processes such as piping and trimming, etc., which is a very high requirement for the product production, and the detailed part of the toe of the shoes such as embroidery and plucking, etc., is even more sloppy, so as to ensure the quality of the products. the embroidery and plucking of flowers in the detailed part of the toe are even more sloppy, so as to show the high practical value of the product. with the platform built by the project, our team hopes that the tiger shoes can be recreated from history to people’s eyes. more important than the economic value is the inheritance. we are only an insignificant part of the non-genetic heritage, but we always keep in mind that our lives are like grass, but our hearts are in the mountains. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. references bai, x. (2014). study on the color of folk cloth paste in northern shaanxi--taking yanchuan cloth paste painting as an example. art science and technology. chen, z. q., & jiang, w. x. (2021). dissemination and innovation of folk art design in the background of internet. couplets. li, h. (2017). study on the decorativeness of shaanxi north folk cloth pile painting. examination weekly, 2017(18) li, y. (2014). a brief discussion on the inheritance of folk art. mango. liu, j. (2022). analysis of the integration of modern art design and folk art design. shanxi youth. research on shaanxi folk cloth art modeling and techniques. (2014). journal of xi’an engineering university. tang, x. w. (2020). the way of folk art into cultural and creative design. artist. zhang, j. w. (2020). yanchuan cloth pile embroidery modeling and its mental culture. journal of basic science of textile colleges and universities, 2020(04). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 11 original paper construction of personality and temperament of chinese male homosexuality in the social media environment zhang sitong 1 1 city university of macau, macau, china received: december 12, 2022 accepted: january 12, 2023 online published: january 24, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p11 abstract social media is a double-edged sword. it shapes a universal standard, which can be used to encourage or eliminate “beauty” through traffic. with the standard of “beauty”, guiding the public to make efforts towards the standard to generate motivation and behavior. under the influence of social media, the character and temperament of chinese male homosexuality mainly tend to be masculine. this paper analyzes the construction of their gender temperament from the visual and psychological perspectives, reflecting the top and bottom in the character and temperament of chinese male homosexuality. at the same time, it is also found that the introverted temperament is easier to be accepted and welcomed, which is closely related to chinese traditional culture. keywords homosexuality, personality, social media 1. aesthetic shaping of social media social media is a double-edged sword. it can enable children in remote mountainous areas to see the football match of the world cup and cheer for their favorite sports, and it can also enable a young girl to start dieting and die because of negative comments. but everything is not perfect, which does not mean denying the necessity of its existence. how social media interferes with people’s rational behavior is the research content of many experts and scholars, for example, social media filters content, pushes popular parts, and hides the unpopular parts. the result is that the image of “beauty” is more universal. for example, the baby walkers, we generally believe that it is because babies need to learn to walk that they need to buy walkers, but in fact, this is an acquired business marketing strategy. babies do not necessarily need walkers to learn to walk, but the walkers are using their own publicity to force consumers to create new consumption habits, which has become a common consensus, analogizing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. image of “beauty” in social media, it can be understood as a kind of aesthetic hegemony. beauty is diverse, but in social media, because we are filled with a single “beauty” every day, beauty is shaped, and is imperceptibly and passively accepted. we are filled with information. when processing images, businesses will use social media as a tool, not only to inject words and output ideas, but also to tamper with the standards of “beauty”. 2. new behavior under aesthetic standards the universal standards of aesthetics in social media have come into being, and this kind of beauty is homogeneous. for example, female groups in china on social platforms will follow the principle of “thin for beauty”, “tiny face”, or “pure lust”. stimulated by traffic and capital, they are followed by imitation. from a static process to stimulating behavior, people begin to work hard to achieve similar goals. there are many reasons for this motivation, such as jealousy. when others get attention, i will lose. especially when others get attention externally, not internally. so, if i try to decorate my external part well, i will certainly get attention and traffic; or it comes from anxiety. in fact, it is a lack of confidence in myself and an underestimate of my ability. i began to worry that if i wasn’t good enough externally, i would accomplish nothing. the image on social media is so pleasing to the eyes, but i am just an ordinary person; sometimes selling active life is also a way to get traffic. people like somebody who love life and are willing to contribute traffic to them to urge themselves. therefore, the new behavior generated by social media is a way to prove their hard life on the one hand, it is a way to earn traffic on the other hand; some people simply want to be called “beauty”, so their behavior aims to follow the public’s aesthetic, get more approval and affirmation, then having greater social utility. 3. personality and temperament of chinese male homosexuality the social styles of chinese male homosexuality are divided into online and offline social networking, and the daily offline dating activities tend to be clear. they will choose to meet in restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores and other places, gradually from “hiding” to “going out”, which reflects the friendly and positive side of their temperament. through this way, they get to meet more friends and communicate with each other. although the public opinion environment of life is not optimistic, they are still on the way to pursue equality steadily. however, the character and temperament displayed by chinese male homosexuality on social platforms are mainly masculine, which is mainly related to standard aesthetics and social evaluation. many onlookers cannot accept the female male image. from their perspective, men should have a strong and masculine image. however, gay men, like other netizens, are affected by public aesthetics, so they gradually form a masculine character and temperament. the research orientation of masculinity includes naturalistic orientation, gender psychological orientation and constructivist orientation. the naturalistic orientation mainly believes that the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. temperament is inherent and will not change. the masculinity is completely separated from the femininity, while the gender psychological orientation mainly determines its image temperament through the positioning of the sexual role. for example, the masculine temperament is competitive, active and enterprising, while the female temperament is mainly affinity, passive, empathy, etc. however, today’s constructivism orientation enriches the relationship between gender, image and temperament, and more comprehensively considers multiple elements such as sexual orientation, religion, culture and society. the formation of the personality and temperament of chinese male homosexuality is externally manifested in two aspects, one is the visual presentation, the other is the performance of character. first, on the level of showing your own photos, it is not just visually pleasing, but in the process of historical development, human beings have innate judgment on courtship. good looking people are regarded as proof of having more excellent genes and healthier bodies. therefore, strong, handsome and healthy images are more popular among gay men, and to some extent, they also reflect the masculinity of personality. in the process of research, it was also found that the male homosexual group had a unique love for white socks. as a microcosm of a male homosexual group’s fetishism, white socks represented subordination. cornell divided masculinity into dominance, subordination, collusion and marginality. the subordination symbolized that the male homosexual group would yield to the evaluation of others and change themselves to make themselves more popular. on the performance level of personality, we should understand why the popularity of tops and bottoms is different in the general environment, and secondly, the popularity of different personality performances is different, which will be explained in detail later. 4. the popularity hypothesis of top and bottom roles gay men have a common understanding that tops are more popular than bottoms. why does this happen? in fact, it can be understood that more gay men have the desire to be dominated. they hope to gain more advantages, attention, care and concern by transferring their identity traits. are there fewer top roles than bottoms roles? according to the online data, in fact, in the role selection, the proportion of tops and bottoms is almost the same, so we need to find the reason behind the hypothesis of less tops than bottoms. the reason why the tops rate is less than the bottoms rate is mainly because the two characters are different in temperament. the tops are masculine, which is introverted and practical, while the bottoms are motivated and enthusiastic. this difference will create a false impression. because the active people are the bottoms, the tops will be deemed to be less than the bottoms rate. 5. introversion is more popular than openness in the st (self-transcendence) dimension, men scored higher than women. the higher the st score, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. plainer, patient, creative, selfless and noble it is. in the eastern culture, it is usually described as smart, erudite and modest. they can accept the failure after hard work and will be full of gratitude regardless of success or failure. in gay men, masculinity is more popular, so introverted personality will be more easily accepted and welcomed. although it cannot be concluded that all tops are introverted and all bottoms are exoteric, and the distinction between tops and bottoms is an uncertain issue, this article can affirm that the introverted temperament is more popular than the exoteric temperament in china, which is to some extent related to the traditional culture of china. modesty and courtesy have been the model temperament of china since ancient times. the historical origin has also contributed to the praise of this excellent temperament until now. 6. conclusion social media has shaped a universal standard, which can be used to encourage or eliminate “beauty” through traffic. with the standard of “beauty”, guiding the public to make efforts towards the standard to generate motivation and behavior. the personality and temperament of chinese male homosexuality are mainly masculine. there is a consensus among the group that the top roles are more popular, which is essentially the embodiment of subordination and passivity in the group character and temperament. at the same time, the introverted temperament is more easily accepted and welcomed, which is closely related to china’s traditional culture. to sum up, the temperament of chinese male homosexuality is not innate and unchanging. it is influenced by social media and public opinion, to build the current mainstream temperament, that is, calm, introverted and masculine. its external presentation is to build its popular image, that is, robust, handsome and healthy, etc. references wang, y. y. (2022). media mirroring and realistic thinking. shandong normal university, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.27280/d.cnki.gsdsu.2022.001504 qi, r. z. (2016). research on the social interaction of gay men. reform and opening up, 2016(11), 66-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.16653/j.cnki.32-1034/f.2016.11.028 yi, h. f. (2020). body presentation and masculinity construction of gay men in social media. beijing foreign studies university, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.26962/d.cnki.gbjwu.2020.000425 cai, q. c., wang, x. m., liu, h., han, j. y., he, q., xia, j., shao, y., zhan, y. h., & liu, g. (2014). cloninger claude robert distribution characteristics of 240 items of temperament and personality scale (tci-r) in chinese version in different gender and age. journal of china medical university, 43(12), 1078-1083. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 161 original paper from traditional to intelligent: the development and characteristics of investigative logical thinking in the context of artificial intelligence changming feng1 1 henan police college, zhengzhou, henan 450046, china fund project this work is supported by the 2023 academy-level research project of henan police college “exploration of logical thinking in investigation in the context of artificial intelligence” (grant no. hnjy-2023-39). received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 15, 2025 online published: march 03, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p161 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p161 abstract the application of artificial intelligence in criminal investigation has become a hot spot of theoretical and practical research, the core of which is reflected in the innovation of big data technology and machine algorithms on the investigation mode. this paper starts from the perspective of logical thinking, discusses the transformation of investigative thinking and its characteristics in the era of artificial intelligence, and aims to reveal the deep mechanism of the integration of traditional investigative logic and intelligent technology. the logical thinking commonly used in traditional investigation is mainly reflected in retrospective reasoning, scientific hypothesis and best explanation reasoning. the investigation in the era of artificial intelligence is facing new requirements and challenges, which makes the logical thinking in the investigation in the era of artificial intelligence present new characteristics, thus empowering the transformation of investigative logical thinking. by exploring the transformation of logical thinking in investigation empowered by artificial intelligence, it is urgent to build a “human-machine symbiosis” model, in order to play the core role of logical thinking in investigation and improve the legality, ethics and effectiveness of investigation work. keywords artificial intelligence, investigation, logical thinking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 162 1. introduction one of the hot points of current research in criminal investigation theory and practice is undoubtedly the exploration of the application and use of artificial intelligence in investigation, such as visual cognition, trace tracing, crime scene reconstruction, expert systems, etc., which have all received extensive attention. broadly speaking, artificial intelligence includes big data technology and machine algorithms. big data technology refers to the technology that rapidly collects, stores, integrates, refines, and analyzes massive data, mines the valuable information contained in the data, and efficiently and accurately assists in practical applications. it generally includes technologies such as big data perception and acquisition, big data storage and management, big data analysis and mining, big data retrieval and application, and big data security, etc. among them, big data analysis and mining is the core part, because the value of big data is realized through analysis and mining. and the intelligence value derived from big data technology has brought new opportunities for the development of the criminal investigation field, leading to the birth of the big data investigation model. as a new type of investigation means, the emergence of big data investigation has its objective reality needs. especially in the modern construction of public security, a high degree of integration and efficient analysis and mining of public security law enforcement big data can be realized through big data technology, laying a solid foundation for intelligent case handling, intelligent supervision, intelligent assessment and intelligent management. besides, machine algorithms also play an important role in investigation. through data comparison, iris recognition, model analysis and other ways to promote crime tracking, crime identification, crime prediction and many other functions in the investigation, thus greatly improving the efficiency of the investigation. with the development of artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence has widely affected all aspects of society through the application of large models. in investigation, artificial intelligence-enabled investigation will certainly help to accurately assess the reasonableness of relevant evidence, construct reasonable assumptions in line with the reality of the case, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of handling and concluding relevant cases, as well as realize the prevention and prediction of crime. although the above studies have achieved certain results, if the logical thinking involved is not explored, these discussions will not be able to go deeper into its essential level, summarize its results at an abstract level, and gain an in-depth understanding of the characteristics and features of the transformation of the logical thinking of the investigation. in view of this, it is necessary for us to carry out research on logical thinking in investigation in the age of artificial intelligence. and it is essential to promote the in-depth development of logic in the applied disciplines, and provide guidance for the dilemmas faced by the discipline of investigation in the age of artificial intelligence in terms of the way of thinking and the thinking methodology of the ideas, so as to realize an important role in the detection of cases and crime prevention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 163 2. characteristics of traditional investigative logical thinking although the era of artificial intelligence has arrived, and there is a big change in the way and method of investigation, but the traditional investigation logical thinking still has its value and role, and continues to play its due application value in the era of artificial intelligence. therefore, we still need to explore the characteristics of the traditional investigation logical thinking, aiming to grasp the traditional investigation logical thinking way and method and carry out a good human-computer interaction in the era of artificial intelligence. based on previous research, we summarize the logical thinking commonly used in investigation as retrospective reasoning, hypothesis and best explanation reasoning, which are also the characteristics of traditional investigative logical thinking. 2.1 retrocausal reasoning retrocausal reasoning is an important method of exploring causal links. it is a mode of reasoning that starts from a known fact or result and constructs a reasonable sufficient condition hypothetical judgment of the affirmative posterior, thus presuming the affirmative antecedent. from the perspective of deductive logic, it is clear that this is not a valid form of logical reasoning and does not guarantee that the conclusion will necessarily be reached. although its conclusion does not have the characteristics of inevitable true, the conclusion reached is contingent, but in scientific discovery, innovative thinking has an important role, but also reflected in the investigation of the thinking practice process. retrospective reasoning was first proposed by the american philosopher charles sanders peirce. he used it as the third type of reasoning alongside deductive and inductive reasoning. and he pointed out that “retrocausal reasoning is a process of forming explanatory hypotheses.” () that is to say, retrocausal reasoning explores the connection from the result to the cause or the known fact to the unknown conditional reason, and proposes an appropriate and reasonable explanation. “retrocausal reasoning is essentially a hypothesis (conjecture) about why a phenomenon exists in the particular way it does, whether that phenomenon is a natural object or event or human behavior.” (randy lapolla & yao, 2023) in public security practice, retrospective reasoning is manifested in the process of determining the basic facts of the case and identifying the suspect, which involves the whole process of filing a case, investigating the scene, collecting evidence, identifying the suspect, and determining the basic facts of the case. it is well known that this is contingent reasoning from a deductive point of view, but it is consistent with the process of our practical reasoning, our everyday reasoning, and is therefore characterized by proper conformity. (gui & xie, 2018) for example, in the case of the disappearance of student hu, the reason for his disappearance is inferred by means of homicide, suicide, accident, etc., and the investigative work is carried out with the help of multiple parties looking for definite evidence, and it is finally determined to be a disappearance. this reflects the basic characteristics of retrospective reasoning, that is, inferring the cause from the facts of the case. in the era of artificial intelligence, the investigation work can be collected with the help of information with great breadth and depth, but a lot of investigation work is carried out after the occurrence of the case. there is a certain lag, which requires retrospective reasoning to the case, the person, the matter of reasoning, aiming to identify the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 164 facts of the case. even if the video tracking work, it still need to determine the direction of investigation to carry out the relevant work, and the determination of the direction of investigation depends on the retrospective reasoning. and “to achieve generalized artificial intelligence, one needs to be able to mimic the way humans create meaning, which depends on the ability to reason retrospectively.” (randy lapolla & yao, 2023) this suggests that retrocausal reasoning will still need to be used in the future development of artificial intelligence in the practical application of detection. 2.2 hypothesis hypothesis, that is, usually based on general knowledge or objective facts, on the phenomenon or the cause of the event or other unknown facts put forward beyond the scope of the premise of the hypothetical explanation and description of the process. the investigative hypothesis is the hypothesis or inference of the investigator in the case of mastering the facts of the case, in order to detect the case in the investigative practice, using the previous investigative experience or investigative theory of the case involved in the things, people and things. (zhang, 2021) the specific process of the investigative hypothesis contains three steps of investigative hypothesis formulation, inference and verification. that is to say, according to the limited case information, and based on the past theory, experience, common sense and so on, the investigators should carry out creative thinking, put forward the investigation hypothesis, and then through the investigation of the case, gradually verify the hypothesis, adjust the process of hypothesis. among them, the process of verification requires the use of relevant deductive reasoning, such as trinitarianism, hypothetical reasoning, selective reasoning and other related content. and hypotheses, by their nature, are contingent. the same is true for investigative hypotheses, which are not guaranteed to be absolutely correct. only through verification, can confirm the truth or falsehood of the hypothesis, so as to achieve the purpose of understanding objective things. the investigative hypothesis is directed at the facts of the crime, and the act of investigation that requires the investigation to be concluded within a specified time limit needs to be subject to legal procedures. “the investigative hypothesis has the two dimensions of factual determination and legal determination.” (chen, 2014) the formulation of the investigative hypothesis lies in the unearthing and analyzing of doubts in a case. the thought process of speculation should be reasoned by investigators with limited information at their disposal seeking to restore the truth of the facts and the process of their occurrence. sometimes it is also related to the investigator’s intuition, which forms a reasonable hypothesis by forming a connection between the case and the truth in an intuitive way. in the case of investigative hypotheses, work is carried out to confirm or falsify them, thus verifying the truthfulness of the hypothesis. this involves the evaluation and trade-offs of investigative hypotheses, that is, the question of their explanatory power, which requires attention to optimal explanatory reasoning. 2.3 inference to the best explanation inference to the best explanation (ibe; some researchers also use the term best illustrative reasoning; this paper does not distinguish between the two) is “a type of illustrative reasoning that yields hypotheses” and is also “a strategy for selecting the correct illustration from potential illustrations.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 165 (wang, 2013) that is to say, among the competition of multiple hypotheses, based on evidence, we recommend the best hypothesis that can explain the facts. g. harman (1965) states, “when one starts from this premise, that a known hypothesis will provide a ‘better’ account of the evidence compared to other hypotheses, then one can launch the conclusion that the known hypothesis is true.” that is, faced with a limited number of known facts, it is necessary to formulate alternative hypotheses, and then to follow up on these hypotheses from the evidence to carry out a relative judgment of good or bad. in the practice of investigation, the best explanation reasoning refers to the process in which investigators propose multiple hypotheses about a case based on existing evidence and experience, and deduce a highly accurate narrative of the crime scene as the evidence is accumulated. and such a narrative is logically characterized by acceptability, comprehensibility, and fidelity, thus allowing for a better explanation of the case’s reality. in testing the investigative hypothesis, “the testing function of best explanatory reasoning can be used in the factual organizing procedure in the mid-investigation or end-of-investigation stage.” (pan & wu, 2024) in the examination of cases, the principle of best explanation reasoning, as a crucial principle, can most reasonably interpret various types of evidence, particularly the primary evidence, thereby maximizing the restoration of the case’s truth and forming a complete and rigorous chain of evidence. in other words, the best explanation reasoning ensures the authenticity and validity of the reasoning, and by constructing a reasonable case reconstruction scenario, it clearly, explicitly, and truthfully presents the entire process and facts of the case, matter, and person, thereby persuading judges, parties, investigators, and others. this will builds a process close to the real scene restoration, aiming to reasonably explain the occurrence and development of the case, and accurately and clearly figure out the basic facts of the case, which can powerfully avoid the occurrence of false and erroneous cases. for the investigation, it is necessary to explore the case, the matter and the person in the case of certain evidence, and it is essential to have a definite and accurate conclusion. the above reasoning, which plays an important role in the investigation, shows the universality of the investigation thinking, reflecting the thinking characteristics of investigators in the actual investigation work. with the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, investigators are facing new challenges in terms of methods and means of thinking, which are mainly reflected in the change of thinking. 3. the opportunity to transform investigative thinking in the era of artificial intelligence artificial intelligence technology is an important element in the competition between countries in recent years and a new engine for economic development, which has an important role and value for social governance and national security. the arrival of the era of artificial intelligence means that the breadth and depth of the amount of data has reached a certain level, the amount of data has grown exponentially, and the data available to draw on has been greatly enriched. at the same time, machine algorithms are also changing people’s thinking methods and habits of thought, both predicting human behavior and changing people’s behavior, which are also bound to have an important impact on investigation. based on this, we mainly explore the challenges and opportunities encountered by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 166 investigation in the era of artificial intelligence under the perspective of logic, mainly from the perspective of logical thinking. the great abundance of online information has facilitated people’s work and life, and also given criminals an opportunity to take advantage of it. as a result, illegal and criminal behaviors such as gun-related, drug-related, pornography-related, and fraud-related are also lurking in cyberspace with the development of the network, and even illegal and criminal activities are carried out under the private cyberspace. and these have brought new challenges to crime fighting work. the meaning of this sentence is, in other words, that the mere mastery of past technical means is not enough to deal with today’s criminal facts, the need to re-examine the way the development of crime occurs. this requires both the provision of quantifiable predictions based on data analysis, leading to a big data investigative mindset ranging from accuracy to relevance, and data mining capabilities to make progress in obtaining information. in addition, along with the development of modern society, people’s socio-economic activities are inevitably traced on telecommunication devices, jitterbugs, microblogs, weibo, wechat, qq and other media. and the collection and arrangement of these network traces will be able to reflect the various trajectories of specific individuals and organizations, thus sketching a character portrait. from the perspective of logic, to ensure the effectiveness and accuracy of investigative reasoning, it is necessary to collect enough data to carry out intelligent analysis and manual screening and verification, which then becomes effective information for case detection. detection in the age of artificial intelligence inevitably involves the algorithmic problem of data and artificial intelligence-assisted reasoning. artificial intelligence helps investigators understand, analyze, and use data, thereby changing their previous understanding of data, and ultimately helping them achieve panoramic investigation, predictive investigation that predicts the future, and algorithmic investigation that utilizes data models. artificial intelligence can also be based on massive data to help investigators establish analysis models to predict criminal behavior and occurrence, and to deploy police in advance to prevent criminal behavior. therefore, this requires investigators to carry out advanced pre-judgment and police forecasting based on the thinking characteristics of artificial intelligence, such as full data, complexity, and relevance, in order to change traditional investigation methods, form new judgments and understandings of criminal behavior, and predict possible harmful social behavior, thereby maintaining social security and stability. with the improvement of intelligence, machine algorithms can provide early warning information, intelligent warning of possible violations of the law, so as to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the investigation. as for the early warning information, it is also necessary for investigators to conduct manual screening and checking, followed by the need to feedback and improve the reliability and accuracy of the algorithm. this also puts forward new requirements for the knowledge update and knowledge learning of investigators. the exploration of investigation in the era of artificial intelligence needs to strengthen the application of logical thinking and investigation in the context of artificial intelligence, in order to absorb the results of logic research in the new century. it is essential to enhance its transformation and innovation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 167 in the investigation in the context of artificial intelligence, and then play the important role of logical thinking in the investigation in the context of artificial intelligence. 4. the characteristics of artificial intelligence-enabled investigative logic thinking transformation and its application the first step in investigative thinking in the era of artificial intelligence is to analyze the thinking characteristics of investigative logic in the era of big data. viktor mayer-schönberger, the father of big data, has summarized big data thinking, “first, it is necessary to analyze all the data related to something, rather than relying on analyzing a small number of data samples. second, we relish the complexity of data and no longer seek precision. finally, there is a shift in our thinking away from exploring elusive causality and toward focusing on the correlations of things.” (viktor mayer-schönberger, 2013) this is a generalization of big data thinking from the three aspects of data quantity, data quality, and correlation. 4.1 thinking characteristics of investigative logic in the big data era on the basis of viktor mayer-schönberger, wang r. (2017) put forward the problem of logical thinking in big data investigation and analyzed the logical thinking in big data investigation, namely relevance, wholeness, and prediction. the first is relevance. in the process of investigation, we should rely on the richness of the data, starting from the need to detect the case, to find relevant information, thereby determining the direction of the investigation, suspects, and other key details, which serve as part of the investigation and evidence. in other words, this is an interpretation problem of behavioral relevance based on correlational information, that is, only seeing the relationship but not knowing what causes it. this also requires police officers to make reasonable explanations to form a complete chain of causal evidence. the second is holism. the holistic perspective means that the investigation process should be viewed from the perspective of all data. to characterize this as a kind of thinking is to see the richness of information about the case, people, and events related to the case, which can be shown in all aspects. the third is prediction. the so-called prediction is the process of preventing the occurrence of crime or stopping the occurrence of crime in a timely manner by taking the police front in advance based on the hot spots of past cases, data abnormal performance, etc. on the possible occurrence of crime. the predictive way of thinking, with the development of machine algorithms and the abundance of data, allows investigators to predict the probability of crime occurrence in potential crime areas and the likelihood of recidivism in advance, thereby effectively preventing criminal activities and minimizing losses to the people. 4.2 methods for artificial intelligence-enabled transformation of investigative logical thinking in the era of artificial intelligence, investigative logical thinking needs to be aided by analytical artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence. analytical artificial intelligence uses mathematical models and algorithmic rules to analyze data, thus providing decision-making information. analytical artificial intelligence can help investigators carry out case detection and early www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 168 warning in terms of abnormal information, data collection and analysis. it also can help effectively expand the thinking of investigators, and seize favorable opportunities for case detection through keyword correlation, whereabouts track correlation, and so on, so as to quickly solve the case. in recent years, generative artificial intelligence has made great progress. generative artificial intelligence is capable of producing text that resembles human-written content by acquiring and utilizing vast amounts of text generated by humans, thereby composing new literary works. in terms of investigation, generative artificial intelligence, by interpreting legal texts and their conditions of application, can help investigators in the process of handling cases to recognize cases, people, and events, and improve the legal quality and logical literacy of investigators. 4.3 application of artificial intelligence-enabled transformation of investigative logical thinking it is necessary to build a professional investigative database, relying on artificial intelligence experts to establish data models (such as bayesian networks, knowledge mapping, deep learning), to promote the development of intelligent public security. in addition, artificial intelligence can assist in identifying and reconstructing elements of a crime scene (such as reasoning about the time, method, and motive of the crime) through data collection, feature quantification, and analysis. only by using a sufficient amount of high-quality and anonymized cases to construct a specialized corpus (including case texts, legal provisions, and expert analysis records), and by regularly training specialized large investigative models, can artificial intelligence truly assist investigators in carrying out their work and provide them with reference suggestions or solutions for investigative tasks. as we all know, today’s artificial intelligence is still weak artificial intelligence, and can not replace the investigators to work and take responsibility. compared to investigators, artificial intelligence still has a significant gap in terms of counterfactual reasoning, necessitating the involvement of investigators in specific investigative work. because artificial intelligence can not break through the data, rely heavily on data quality and quantity, can not carry out innovation. nevertheless, the ability for counterfactual imagination is a fundamental characteristic of human reasoning. in other words, humans possess the capacity for counterfactual thinking, meaning that we can envision alternative or opposite scenarios, thereby engaging in creative imaginative associations. it is evident that the ability for counterfactual thinking continues is play a crucial role in the investigative work of detectives. due to the inability of data correlation to replace legal causal evidence in identifying the causes and effects of a case, a combination of traditional investigative thinking and artificial intelligence thinking is necessary. in other words, it is imperative to ensure logical rigor through the integration of human and machine intelligence, thereby forming legal causal reasoning and a complete chain of evidence. ultimately, a dual-drive model combining data and intelligence, characterized by a “human review + machine assistance” approach, should be established to achieve a complementary fusion of human and machine capabilities. therefore, we should establish an iterative closed-loop of case-data-model (such as optimizing algorithms through feedback from actual combat operations), driven by both data and intelligence, in order to achieve a new paradigm of human-machine collaborative investigative thinking. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 169 the application of artificial intelligence in public security investigation needs to take data quality and human-machine synergy as the core, and through the simultaneous construction of professional large models and legal and ethical frameworks. it is necessary to realize the leap from “weak artificial intelligence assistance” to “strong artificial intelligence symbiosis”, and ultimately promote the investigation work from “experience-driven” to ‘data-intelligence dual-wheel drive’ transformation. “in terms of the method of intelligent simulation, today’s artificial intelligence mainly takes a deductive path to the processing of data; it mainly takes statistical induction and probabilistic algorithms on data for uncertain problems, and lacks causality and correlation exploration.” (du, 2020) that is to say, there is still a need to explore the causality and correlation in the investigation in the era of artificial intelligence, to carry out explanatory work, and to explore where the reasons behind it lie. 5. conclusion the further development of artificial intelligence will inevitably lead to the development of logical thinking exploration in investigation. the discussions on formal argumentation and advancements in algorithms in recent years have facilitated the further development of investigative thinking in the era of artificial intelligence. therefore, the practical and theoretical circles should combine efforts to jointly promote the exploration of logical thinking in investigation during the age of artificial intelligence, thereby advancing research on logical thinking in investigation against the backdrop of artificial intelligence. references chen, w. g. (2014). the theory of investigative hypothesis. journal of people’s public security university of china(social sciences edition), 30(04), 130-141. du, g. p. (2020). the engine of logic:old limits and new possibilities of al. beijing cultural review, 2020(01), 58-66. gui, q. q., & xie, l. (2018). peirce’s abduction from the perspective of logical philosophy. studies in philosophy of science and technology, 35(02), 1-6. harman, g. (1965). “the inference to the best explanation”. the philosophical review, 89. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183532 pan, j. g., & wu, g. z. (2024). the technical development of best explanatory reasoning in investigation. journal of people’s public security university of china (social sciences edition), 40(02), 1-12. randy, l., & yao, z. (2023). considering abduction in artificial intelligence]. yangtze river academic, (04), 109-113. viktor, m. s., & kenneth, c. (2013). in big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think (sheng yangyan, zhou tao translated, vol. 29). zhejiang people’s publishing house. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 170 wang, h. z. (2013). retrospective reasoning and reasoning about the best explanation. philosophical trends, 2013(05), 92-97. wang, r. (2017). big data criminal investigation (pp. 54-83). tsinghua university press. zhang, t. (2021). investigation reasoning and proposal of investigation hypothesis in cases of “tianwang”. journal of guizhou police college, 33(02), 82-89. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 177 original paper globalization and education correlation: effects and perspectives; a critical overview siddik bakir1 & ismail baniadam2* 1associate professor, kazım karabekir faculty of education, social sciences and turkish language education, erzurum, türkiye 2 ph.d. candidate in international relations, zanjan azad university, zanjan, iran received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 03, 2025 online published: december 17, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p177 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p177 abstract there are a number of publications dealing with particular aspects of globalization. accordingly, “globalization studies imply research that is not just limited to the most popular spheres of economic and political globalization, but also includes the study of global problems such as climatic change, cultural globalization, and so on” (korotaev, 2013, p. xx). this paper would like to provides a wider range of overviews associated on globalization and education, mainly, the huge impact of globalization on education. it focuses on different perspectives of globalization and identifies key factors that may have an impact on education. accordingly, this study provides an opportunity to identify and assess the impact of globalization on education. keywords education, globalization, effect, perspectives introduction nowadays, knowledge is considered as a significant element in development or progress of society, while the lack can be a huge limitation in economic and civic development of each individual nation. as it is viewed, “the growth potential of the knowledge economy depends largely on its capacity to produce and absorb knowledge. in a number of countries, the knowledge-based sectors have become engines of growth” (varghese, 2008, p. 9). in fact, the high growth rates in economy, industry, and productivity are totally affected by the action or process of performing a task or function in the knowledge-based sectors (chen & dahlman, 2004). accordingly, it means that the high progresses in knowledge-based or education sectors, the most predominant economic sectors will be activated in facilitating the development of knowledge-based productivity (varghese, 2008). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 178 in knowledge—based platform, the term “education” is a totally popular item which is spoken by majority of people or groups while, understood by a very few in its right perspective. in this regard, the term ‘education’ is considered by different people in different ways. some ones consider education as a common and formal learning and teaching platform while, others see education as achievement of knowledge, talent, and perspectives in a huge context (gupta & baveja, 2014). education is considered to be a goal, and also the path for achievement of all other sustainable development goals (rieckmann, 2017). regarding unesco’s attitudes toward education mention by rieckmann (2017, p. iv), it is confirmed that “education is unesco’s top priority because it is a basic human right and the foundation on which to build peace and drive sustainable development”. irina bokova, director-general of unesco as cited in rieckmann (2017, p. 6) believes that “a fundamental change is needed in the way we think about education’s role in global development, because it has a catalytic impact on the well-being of individuals and the future of our planet”. as the role of education in global context, it is confirmed that education is becoming totally an international item in pedagogy which aims to support or actively encourage further the progress of the idea that every individual deserves the right to be educated regardless of his/her background. there are a number of publications dealing with particular aspects of globalization, while few papers have tried to review the effect of globalization on education. accordingly, the present article focuses on the effect of globalization on education. globalization the term globalization comes from english language, as base form of the word ‘globalization’ which refers to “the emerging of an international network, belonging to an economic and social system” (online etymology dictionary as cited in cuterela, 2012, p. 137). the terms “globalize/globalise” and ‘globalism’ first appeared in the 1940s and that globalization first entered the dictionary of american english in 1961. finally, it was defined as a key academic and analytical tool from the early 1980s. (scholte, 2002). about the origins and impacts of globalization, there are varieties of attitudes. “many believe that this 21st century version of globalization is merely another round, perhaps “over-heated,” of cross-border exchanges that have occurred for centuries” (wood, 2008, p. 17) which is including trade expansion, massive migrations, growth in technology and colonization, mainly in african countries (held & mcgrew, 2003; lingard, 2000). regarding the history of the term globalization, there is general agreement with harvey’s (2000) point that something akin to “globalization has a long presence in the history of capitalism” (p. 54) and that from the year 1500 onwards, the internationalization of trade and commerce. the idea of globalization has been mainly developed since the mid-1980s which caused many interests among the followers of this phenomenon. since then, the upgrade rise in its effects and prominence moved in climbing approach, especially among those who agreed with the system of global governance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 179 (robertson & robertson, 2007). correspondingly, there have also been a huge shift “in the nature of global production networks and the increasing penetration of multinational corporations and international financial institutions (ifis) across the planet” (robertson & robertson, 2007 p. xi). globalization as the critical feature of the 21st century “just as it has been a feature of previous centuries. it would be foolish to argue that it is an inevitable process today—it would have seemed an inevitable process at the same stage of the early 20th century” (mckibbin, 2000, p. 12). despite debates about the origins of globalization, “whether it is a new phenomenon, a recurrence of earlier patterns or merely a myth, the collection of meanings that are encapsulated in the term “globalization” reflect changes in the world system over time”. accordingly, it is believed that “globalization pushes toward institutional uniformity, but considerable local adaptation and modification of overall trends mark the actual processes of globalization” (astiz, wiseman, & baker, 2002, p. 68). definitions on globalization regarding this universal phenomenon, some definitions are mentioned. many authors have attempted, with relative success, to define globalization in a variety of ways. in reviewing current definitions, it is apparent that some are rather narrow and exclusive in explanation, while others are broad and inclusive accordingly. many authors have attempted, with relative success, to define globalization in a variety of ways. some claim that it cannot be done; others claim that it would constrain the meaning to do so, and still others have defied these two beliefs and have constructed a working definition. kumar (2003) argues that “the debate about what to do about globalization is still very much a debate about what globalization is” (p. 87). in the following definitions, the varieties of concepts regarding “globalization” are discussed. as jan aart scholte (2002, p. 2) mentioned, globalization is defined as “a muddled or misguided core concept compromises our overall comprehension of the problem. in contrast, a sharp and revealing definition promotes insightful, interesting and empowering knowledge, an understanding that helps us to shape our destiny in positive directions”. according to al-rodhan and stoudmann (2006, p.6). “globalization is a process that encompasses the causes, course, and consequences of transnational and transcultural integration of human and non-human activities.” according to wallerstein (1974 as cited in holton, 1988) “globalization represents the triumph of a capitalist world economy tied together by a global division of labor” (p. 11). albrow (1990 as cited in holton, 1988) believed that globalization means “…all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society” (p. 15). regarding giddens’ (1990, p.64) prospective, “globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 180 education the word education comes from the latin world e-ducere, mean “to lead out”. according to reddy (1978), education is considered as a constant process of becoming. relating to its etymology, in english the term “education” has been derived from educare. “educare means to train or mould. it again means to bring up or to lead out or to draw out, propulsion from inward to outward. the term “educatum” denotes the act of teaching” (kumar & ahmad, 2008, p. 1). the term ‘education’ is “widely acknowledged as a basic human right and a critical prerequisite for successful contemporary democracy and for thriving, sustainable, and just economies and societies” (marshall, 2018, p. 184). education, in the narrower sense, “is regarded as equivalent to instruction. it consists of the “specific influences” consciously designed in a school or in a college or in an institution to bring in the development and growth of the child” (kumar & ahmad, 2008, p. 4). education in wider sense is “the total development of the personality. education consists of all those experiences, which affect the individual from birth till death” (kumar & ahmad, 2008, p. 5). to put in the nut shell “in its narrow sense, education is a formal conservative process mainly confined to school campus. in its wider sense, education becomes a vague and informal process aiming at nothing but allowing the child uncontrolled freedom for arbitrary activities” (kumar & ahmad, 2008, p. 6). education, in particular, is key and must prepare people to utilize the new technologies, which are knowledgeand skill-intensive. education in science, mathematics and technology is critical but training also needs to prepare people for new ways of working together (collaborative, team orientation) and develop their adaptability to change. “being adaptable in a flat world, knowing how to ‘learn how to learn,’ will be one of the most important assets any worker can have, because job churn will come faster, because innovation will happen faster” (friedman, 2005, p. 239). in relating to education, there is a controversy attitude whether education is a process or a product. “mostly, we consider education as a product, that is, something that has been produced as a result of certain inputs which in this case is instruction or experiences” (gupta & baveja, 2014, p. 6). globalization and education correlation globalization as an inevitable process in the twenty-first century (1990s) has received lots of attention from researchers, and considered as one of the principal tasks of the education system (yingqin, 2012). the implications of globalization for education, and its focus on the greater use of information technology, are critically concerned in order to establish an effective tool (jahanian & soleymani, 2013). according to bola (1998, p. 489), education is considered as “an instrument of economic productivity, politicization, and enculturation can play an important part in the humanization of the process of globalization”. carnoy (2000, p. 43) believes that “if knowledge is fundamental to globalization, globalization should also have a profound impact on the transmission of knowledge”. one of the clearest perceived forms of globalization on education in what pennycook (1994) mentioned as “the spread of english as the ‘global lingua franca’” (as cited in dodds, 2008, p. 510). the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 181 acceleration of ‘global english’ all around the world is the clear example of globalization on education (chang, 2006). globalization has two main effects on education. according to carnoy (2005), “the first is that globalization increases the demand for education, especially university education, and this increases pressure on the whole system for higher quality schooling, often producing perverse educational consequences, particularly from the standpoint of equity” (p. 2). as the second effect, carnoy (2005) believe that “the globalization produces a reaction which “takes many forms, but it seems in the current historical conjuncture to be increasingly focused on ethnic-religious nationalism/regionalism. the implications of the reaction for the transmission of knowledge are also important” (p. 3). one of the great effects of globalization on education is its critical effect on women’s increased rate of education all around the world. it is believed that this rate is high for women in comparison to men in many countries (ryoo, nam, & carnoy, 1993). the global movement toward equal education for all has developed the women’s rights regarding the globalization in education at an international scale. this “has created increased demand for education by women at higher and higher education levels. so globalization is accentuating an already growing trend by women to take as much or more education than men” (carnoy, 2005, pp. 11-12). according to yingqin (2012, p. 95), it is clear that “the researchers in higher education worldwide are aware of the influences and changes in education and culture brought about by globalization in a broad sense and by the status of english as a global language in a narrow sense”. accordingly, carnoy, hallak, and caillods, (1999) believe that the changes or alternates happening in today’s global based financial affairs or economy has established three types of responses in the education affairs sectors of most countries. respectively, they are considered as the competitiveness-driven, finance-driven, and equity-driven responses. in line with same perspective, mundy (2005, p. 3) posits that most people have come to acknowledge that “globalization is making newer demands on states education systems which calls for critical reforms for the present situation”. as carnoy (1999) considered, competition-driven reforms “aim primarily to improve economic productivity by improving the ‘quality of labor” and of educational institutions which focuses on improvement in educational resources and management. (p. 37) regarding finance-driven reforms, the main purpose is to reduce the amount of fee or financial related costs which common people spending on education affairs sector. wood (2008) confirmed that “globalization in its several forms--economic, political, and cultural—has had major impacts on education. it has required a rethinking of education’s purpose, structure, content and pedagogy, methods of delivery and assessment of outcomes” (p. 31). “the need for different societies to compete in a world where knowledge is a principal currency has turned the organization and purpose of education systems into key factors for relative competitiveness” (welmond, 2002, p. 39). it is noticed that the “need to expand educational opportunities to meet the social demands for more education and the economic demands of the global economy for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 182 better-educated workers means that governments need to increase their expenditures on education” wood (2008, p. 32). discussion and conclusion globalization in education is considered as the mean of broader opportunities for all group of people (lam, 2010). according to lam (2010, as cited in butucha, 2012) “globalization of education enhances the diversity of learning chances to people globally, regardless of the difficulty of measuring the content, quality, and reliability of higher education beyond national boundaries” (p. 3). globalization also can pave the way for creating a platform to conduct a cooperation or partnership in teaching and learning with different agencies in international level (twiggs & oblinger, 1996). regarding globalization in higher education “will contribute not only through the intellectual development of students and by preparing them for work, but also by adding to the world’s store of knowledge and understanding,” (gordon, 1999, p. 09). there is a wrong idea that globalization does not have any effect on education because of traditional education system in national and local level (makule, 2008). however, “it has been observed that while globalization continues to restructure the world economy, there are also powerful ideological packages that reshape education system in different ways” (carnoy & rhoten, 2002, as cited in makule, 2008, p. 14). globalization is creating opportunities for “sharing knowledge, technology, social values, and behavioral norms and promoting developments at different levels including individuals, organizations, communities, and societies across different countries and cultures”. globalization is considered as an item which re-monitors the global economy in a large scale along with its main elements including knowledge and information with the help of educational centers or institutions (castells, 1994). there is a mutual correlation between globalization and education institutions in which both reorganize each other. as a result, the elements including globalization, knowledge and educational institutions are in cooperation with each other (arnove, 2003; carnoy & rhoten, 2002). accordingly, the purpose of education “has been transformed in order to meet the demands of the new market place which rely on investment in and productivity of the knowledge” (carnoy 1999, p. 24). carnoy noted that “a well-organized public administration will therefore be the key to educational improvement in the globalized economy” (1999, p. 83). relating to well—established management of education, de grauwe (2000) that the quality of education depends on “the way schools are managed, more than the abundance of available resources, and that the capacity of schools to improve teaching and learning is strongly influenced by quality of leadership provided by the head teacher” (p. 1). “since education is the source of knowledge, then globalization reshape the whole system of education of the specific country so as to meet its demand” (makule, 2008, p. 38). recently, some nations all around the world have considered their curricula in global scale for the sake of international education in their own countries. in this regard, researchers such as; moon and koo (2011) in south korea; o'connor and faas (2012) in england, france, and ireland; and schweisfurth www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 183 (2006) in canada have studied the global education which oriented under the title of global citizenship education (gce) (davies, 2006). accordingly, brown (2003) believes that the educational contents associated with gce are designed to response to education systems of countries in global or international scales for the sake of encouraging critical thinking (monaghan & spreen, 2016; myers, 2016). in global and knowledge-based economy, higher education institutions play an effective role. accordingly, it is demand that higher education should pave a way for development of local and national factors in educational platform (popescu, 2015). as marginson (2006) uttered “higher education is now situated in an open information environment in which national borders are routinely crossed and identities are continually made and self-made in encounters with diverse others” (p. 1). according to hirsch (2005), higher education is the main source of producing ‘positional goods’ which paves the way for development of high valued social and economic style of living. many groups of scholars (e.g., king & bjarnason, 2003; scott, 1998) believed that higher education is considered as the sense of globalization as “the widening, deepening and speeding up of all kinds of world-wide interconnectedness” (held et al., 1999, p. 14). although national education is typically activated for its citizen in each country but international or global citizenship education is also most activated in some countries all around the world which consider global curricula in their own educational system (see chong, 2015 for china; hahn, 2015 for the uk and canada; moon & koo, 2011 for south korea; schweisfurth, 2006 for canada). from global citizenship education perspective, there are two main approaches with clearly different goals. first, the global competencies approach which helps students to deal with global society skills in global scale; and second, the global consciousness approach which focuses on humanistic values that encourages student’s empathy and cultural sensitivity in international contexts. in this regard, teachers and instructors instruct their students with one of mentioned approaches relating students’ future educational perceptions which are totally prevalent for specific candidates (dill, 2013). generally, global citizenship education is comprehensively active in the counties with high range of foreign immigrants or refugees, and is considered as a common platform for establishment of common global identity for all individuals (o'connor & faas, 2012). however, in some countries with high nationalism consideration such as china (law, 2007), the movement toward global citizenship education is serving national based interests. same as other terms, global citizenship education also deals with some criticisms. these critical notions pave the way for development of specific classifications for the sake of global citizenship education. the relationship between “globalization” and “cation”, and in this case this relationship is related to the idea of “development”, is dependent upon how we define and understand them. it is significant to understand their relationship to find the effective ways to use them in the most fruitful way for the sake of development (robertson & robertson, 2007). accordingly, “globalization is primarily an exogenous process which means that ideas and information arising from outside a system have the potential to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 184 produce fundamental change in that system” (thomas, 2005, p. 138). globalization also affects education in other ways. as spring (1998) explains, “competition in the global economy is dependent on the quality of education, whereas the goals of education are dependent on the economy. under these circumstances, education changes as the requirements of the economy change” (p. 6). the spread of globalization in education “has tended to force nations with different academic needs and resources to conform to structures designed to service the interest of rich nation’s academic systems and international institutions” (geo-jaja 2008, p. 96). education in global scale can “provide the knowledge that will help people have an equal opportunity to live longer and be happy” and “contribute to feelings of control, self-esteem, and optimism” (spring, 2007, p. 12). references albrow, m., & king, e. 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(2012). exploring the impacts of cultural globalization on cultural awareness/values and english writing in chinese context. intercultural communication studies, 21(2). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 44 original paper a systematic review of green business, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility: bridging concepts for sustainable business success shimekit kelkay eshete 1* , dr. zerihun ayenew birbirsa 1 & dr. shimels zewdie worke 1 1 jimma university college of business and economics department of management * shimekit kelkay eshete (assistant professor), jimma university college of business and economics department of management, ethiopia received: march 16, 2023 accepted: april 10, 2023 online published: april 16, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p44 abstract recently many organization priorities have shifted from increased efficiency and profit maximization to long-term business success. the concepts of green business, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility which were discussed in this article have shared common bridging concepts to bring sustainable business. but the writers were lacking in addressing these common bridging concepts even if more articles were done separately. the main purpose of this study was systematically reviewing the published articles to examine the bridging concepts of green business, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility to the sustainable business success. the review process was conducted with the published articles which were extracted from database of google scholar, directory of science, springer, jstor, and doaj for the period of 2010 to 2021. totally 46 published articles analyzed and categorized in to eight concepts. the result show that the five bridging concepts: social responsibility, ethical business consideration, sustainable development, organizational performance, and environmentally friendly or green practice are all negatively impacted by a company’s failure to consider sustainability issues. firms can achieve long term business success if they can incorporate these five bridging concepts in their sustainable business strategy. finally the writers conclude the study by forwarding future line research. keyword green business, business ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainable business www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction recently many organizations’ priorities have shifted away from increased efficiency and profit maximization and toward long-term company success. to guarantee sustainable development show we ought to utilize our assets more proficiently lahti et al. (2018), which, in turn, requires focusing on sustainable development or the success of business activities. taking as a beginning point the key concept of common capital as the world’s stock of common assets—such as air, water, soil, topography, and all living life forms, whether renewable or not at that point it is fundamental to consider the preservation of this characteristic capital to guarantee the long run of humankind (costanza & daly, 2000). in case we proceed to diminish saves of characteristic assets without recharging, we run the hazard of environmental collapse. severely overseen normal capital gets to be a social and financial obligation and maintainability depends on its support (wackernagel et al., 2008). consequently, our economy cannot be based on a “take, make, consume and dispose of” model, and consumers, governments, and businesses must be aware of this reality (kong et al., 2020). the three topics discussed in this article have a direct impact on sustainable business success, which encourages sustainable industries that focus on responsible production and consumption by maximizing resource and energy efficiency while being environmentally friendly. this situation impacts the creation of new products, increasing competitive advantage in new markets, maintaining customer satisfaction, and promoting sustainable economic growth with quality employment without harming the environment (neah et al., 2014; hennemann et al., 2021). for example, green business initiatives are a practice of an ecopreneur who creates economic value through environmental sustainability. “go green” is a famous sustainability phrase that has been proposed as an eco-solution to environmental concerns in the twenty-first century (chukwuka, 2018). in this article, the researcher wants to systematically review the publications that have been grouped under the concepts green business (gb), business ethics (be), and corporate social responsibility (csr), all of which are linked by the common objective of promoting sustainable business success. the concepts of green business (gb) can be defined as business practices that are evaluated to be environmentally friendly. these practices could include using natural and organic products in the construction of its facilities, tighter emission controls, environmentally responsible supply sourcing, and developing organizations and processes to make the most efficient and cost-effective use of resources (orlitzky et al., 2011; song et al., 2019). adopting concepts, strategies, and practices that increase the quality of life for customers while also protecting resources is what green business is all about. using renewable energy sources, improving material recyclability, and decreasing hazardous dispersion are all eco-friendly corporate strategies (karagulle, 2012). green business practices refer to all linked programs aimed at assisting businesses in reducing the environmental consequences of their operations while simultaneously assisting them in saving money (chukwuka, 2018). this means they will utilize fewer raw materials, natural resources, electricity, and water, resulting in reduced waste and lower operating costs (karagülle, 2012; engelmann et al., 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. corporate social responsibility concepts have a long history in the business world. it has been a major issue in management at least since 1960 (paul & parra, 2021). companies that make money while being socially responsible contributors to certain, but not all, areas of social development. it is unrealistic to expect every corporation to be involved in every facet of social development. that would be absurd and excessively constraining (kunz, 2020). however, a company’s involvement in some aspects, both within and outside the organization, will make its products and services (for example, financial services) more appealing to consumers as a whole, resulting in increased success. the expenses of implementing csr will rise, but the advantages will very certainly exceed the expenditures (hopkins, 2012; kunz, 2020; sheehy & farneti, 2021). according to hopkins (2012) state that enterprises have recognized that social responsibility is excellent for business for and from each of the seven key azimuths within which they trade and operate. these include their shareholders and potential investors, as well as their managers, employees, customers, business partners, contractors, and suppliers, the natural environment, and the communities in which they operate, including national administrations. ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility can bring significant benefits to a business. the idea that business enterprises have some responsibilities to society beyond that of making profits for shareholders has been around for centuries (kolk, 2016). this partly accounts for the reason why the concept of corporate social responsibility (csr) has continued to grow in importance and significance (carroll & shabana, 2010). one of the core beliefs is that business organizations have a social and ethical responsibility, as well as, the economic mission of creating value for shareholders or owners of businesses (carroll, 1989). whereas, the economic responsibilities of a business are to produce goods and services that society needs and wants at a price that can perpetuate the continuing existence of the business, and also satisfy its obligations to investors; ethical responsibilities are those behaviors or activities expected of businesses by society and other stakeholders such as employees (ferrell & fraedrich, 1997) as adopted from (adda et al., 2016). the current significance of the subject gb, em, and csr is affirmed by the tremendous increment in logical writing. in any case, fair none of writing survey article right now exists that incorporates the three bridging concepts and examinations the differing qualities inside and among them concerning sustainability. there is also a few systematic literature review that contributes to a fuller understanding of the business case for corporate social responsibility and firm performance but only focuses on csr, which has been taken as a reference (kong et al., 2020). concurring to the contention of hawn and ioannou (2016), even if more writers were focusing on the gb, eb, and csr separately, still there is a gap in investigating these areas in regard to the common bridging concepts to the sustainability. in line with this gap, the intention of study systematically reviews the published articles to examine the bridging concepts of green business, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility to sustainable business success. the main objective of this study is to examine the bridging concepts of gb, be, and csr to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. sustainable business success based upon published articles. hence, the specific questions to be addressed in this study would be: first, what were the publication trends look like in these three areas from 2010 to 2021? second, what were the bridging concepts of the three topics to the sustainable responsible business success? finally, what would be conceivable gaps within the writing, permitting us to progress a few future lines of investigation? the rest of this work is organized as section 2 methodology, section 3 the result and discussion, and the final section is the conclusion, the future line of the researchers, and implications. 2. methodology 2.1 study design this study employed a systematic review method to examine the bridging concepts of green business, ethical business, and corporate social responsibility to the sustainable business success. systematic reviews are useful not just for adopting evidence-based practice, but also for assessing the state of knowledge in relation to a specific subject (or set of questions) and influencing future research. other reason for selecting systematic reviews method is to create data-based rationales for newly proposed development actions (hopp, 2009). systematic reviews can also be used to gather useful data about the effectiveness of development efforts. development initiatives may even be subjected to meta-analysis if specific conditions are met (baloyi & jordan, 2016). the methods employed to systematic review were adopted from the prisma (2009) guidelines. the process was conducted based on four phases: these are search strategy, selection criteria, quality assessment, and data extraction (included). 2.1.1 search strategy or identification phase the researcher used a search strategy to find relevant material for this systematic review. this strategy was used in four different databases. google scholars, jstor, directory of science, springer, and doaj are some of the resources available. the database was searched using the terms “green practice”, “business ethics”, “social responsibility”, “bridging concept” “sustainability”, and “business success”. journal articles that were published in english exclusively were included in the searches, which encompassed the years 2010 to 2021.the search did not include any articles or documents published before 2010. and also articles or documents from any other subject were eliminated from the search because it was primarily focused on the field of business management. from this phase, a total of identified 540 articles were recorded. 2.1.2 selection criteria or inclusion and exclusion criteria after a total of 540 articles were recorded, some inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed in this investigation. in this phase, documents were assessed to check the relevance and consistency of the search’s goal. hence, the articles which have less relevance and significance to the objective were excluded. and also duplicated articles were eliminated from the documents. at this stage, a total of 413 research articles were eliminated and 127 records have been extracted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. 2.1.3 quality assessment or eligibility phase only original research publications and review papers were used in this investigation. the researchers used a variety of criteria to preserve the review’s quality, including unambiguous indicated abstract, and conclusion. for the analysis and purifications of the articles, the abstracts and conclusion were reviewed to guarantee the quality and relevance of academic material included in the review process. at this stage after carefully evaluating the abstract of the articles we extract totally 46 articles and 81 articles were eliminated (the summarized results shown below in figure 1). figuers.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. figure 1. data extraction procedure (adopted from rashman et al., 2009) abstract of the articles checked deeply  are the articles have high qualities and relevant the subject and the objective of review process? exclusion (n=81) no yes records identified through data based searching n= are the following requirements met?  publication year: 2010-’21?  language of pub: english?  subject area?  key word? aa exclusion yes n=540 sources were assessed for relevance and consistency with the search's goal.  is the article lose its significance and quality?  are articles duplicated? exclusion (n=413) n=127 n=46 yes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. 2.2 data analysis this study used descriptive and content analysis, as well as review questions that were established at the start of the review process. it was accomplished using cross-tabulation, specifically to determine the percentage of published papers based on their subject and emphasis area, as well as a bar graph to depict the publication dispersion by year, geographical area, and country, and a database. in addition, a pie chart was used to illustrate the research type (conceptual, empirical, and systematic review).the descriptive analysis aids the research characteristics sub-part, which provides the reader with a brief background of the reviewed publications in this study in the following section. furthermore, content analysis was used as a data analysis strategy in this study. the researcher manually encodes the concerns discussed in the papers before using an interpretative approach to examine the study’s findings. 3. result and discussion 3.1 result in this section, the results of the reference index investigation are portrayed, a substance investigation to categories comes about by theme of considering is made, and patterns in distributions and most critical commitments are analyzed. 3.1.1 the literature distribution based on their subject area as illustrated in table 1 shown below total of 46 publications were obtained from the execution stage of the systematic literature review. from these articles, the percentage of green business (gb) subjects is 37.8 then followed by the percentage of corporate social responsibility (csr) which is represented 35.1%. the rest of the published articles are business ethics (be) which represents 27% of the published articles. table 1. classifications of publications based upon the topic or subject area 3.1.2 publication distribution upon a year as depicted in figure 2 shown below, the yearly published articles based upon their subject area were identified and compared. accordingly, the number of publications on these areas has been increased significantly since 2016. but it seems less publication in 2021 in the area of gb and2020 in the area of gb. these illustrations indicate that the area of gb, be, and csr is a recent cross-cutting issue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. figure 2. publication distribution in a year and topic 3.1.3 database or search engine the result presented in figure 3 or bar chart shown below more articles is searched or accessed from the directory of science followed by springer, google scholars, jstor, and doaj 2 to 4 respectively. this indicates that the articles were extracted from the reputable journals. figure 3. database of the articles 3.1.4 study type as presented in figure 4 shown below, the study characteristic is clarified in terms of the sort of studies looked into in this consider. as appeared within the pie chart underneath, lion’s share (more than 59%) of articles were empirical whereas 16% of the analyzed articles were based on conceptual or hypothetical audit and similarly, 16% were checked on based on systematic. the remaining considers were secondary information (5.4%), and meta-analysis (2.7%). this indicates that more studies were evidence-based and original. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. figure 4. type of the studies or approaches of the articles 3.1.5 publication distribution in a country when the authors’ country of affiliation was analyzed, the green business (gb) was shown to be mainly studied in china, followed by germany. the united states and taiwan were in the leading positions on analyzing the business ethics (be), and the united states, germany, and australia appeared most frequently regarding publications on corporate social responsibility (csr) (summarized in figure 5). figure 5. publication trends based on the countries 3.1.6 geographical continents of publication when we evaluate the authors’ geographical continents of affiliation, the green business (gb) was shown to be mainly studied in asia, followed by europe. north america, europe, and asia were in the leading positions on analyzing business ethics (be). europe appeared most frequently regarding publications on corporate social responsibility (csr) followed by north america. the african continent was the least one in emphasizing such aspects (summarized in figure 6). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. figure 6. geographical continents of the publications 3.1.7 publications categorization by focus area to classify the articles and recognize the main trends in publications, as well as to make the researcher’s duty of looking for papers on their topic of interest easier, an analysis of the content of the publications to obtain a categorization by theme was regarded vital. eight categories were established, with the understanding that categorization can be subjective. our main goal was to look at the three topics’ bridging concepts for long-term responsible business success. table 2 summarized these eight recognized classifications. table 2 shown below illustrate that, the result contains a total of 46 documents analyzed, categorized based on their focus area. five different categories concerning the gb were obtained according to the research contents. of these, sustainable business development (24%) was the central focus area of gb followed by environmentally friendly (21.4%) and organizational performance or success (21.4). the dominant focus area of the articles of eb is social responsibility (26%) followed by ethical business consideration (17%) and environmental friendly (17%) of the document extracted. the csr articles were classified into five categories, and the central focus area of csr was social responsibility (38 %) followed by organizational performance (23.1%).sustainable business development is the third focus area of csr which represents 17%. based upon these concept categories “sustainable business development,” “social responsibility”, “environmental friendly”, “organizational performance”, and “ethical business consideration” were discovered as bridging concepts of the three topics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. 3.2 discussion of the main finding on each topic 3.2.1 green business (gb) to the sustainable business success as shown in table 2 above, sustainable business development represents 24% of the publications, organizational performance/success (21.4%), and environmental friendly (21 %) were the main focus area of the gb documents. these three categories account for more than 66 percent of the articles. green business and sustainable development, as scholars point out, are quite significant and require a great lot of attention (hennemann et al., 2021). greening procedures have a substantial impact on the long-term viability of the green economy since they affect not just one function, but all corporate operations. sustainability is a result of long-term stability, not something that can be achieved suddenly (hasan et al., 2019). the literature reviews attempt to assert the ideas of gb as a company committed to environmentally sustainable development in its processes, people strive to use renewable energy sources and attempt to minimize the negative environmental impact of its activities, enabling to differentiate, but do not detach, the “green business” idea from the wider definition of “sustainable business” (ekanaviius et al., 2014). according to a survey conducted in turkey in the domain of green business for sustainable development and competitiveness, industry pioneers and global corporations are paying significantly more attention to sustainable development and the welfare of the country and the world. short-term plans and practices are projected to be replaced by long-term projects and investments as they focus more on strategic aims. with the stringent application of legislation and the sincere approach of managers, a “greener” industry can be formed because of companies’ key goals are long-term survival and sustainable development (karagülle, 2012). environmental friendly aspects was gb’s second idea category, accounting for 21% of all extracted articles. green growth, which is considered in academic literature as an umbrella paradigm or a heuristic notion for sustainability, is performed through sustainable firms that exhibit profitability and development potentials, according to a jordanian study on concretizing green growth and sustainable business. at the same time, these enterprises must demonstrate environmental goals such as resource www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. efficiency, innovation, low-carbon production, reuse, or circular processing by design (engelmann et al., 2019 & ekanaviius et al., 2014). the framework on green concerns or sustainability, environmental responsiveness of business, corporate social responsibility, governance intuitions, and business regulation was given front attention, according to singhal and effiong (2016). environmental innovations, according to a russian study, are changes in the socio-economic growth of society that, when combined with a positive effect, improve the state of the environment or considerably minimize the negative influence on it. the authors conclude that greening a company’s consumer relations entails, on the one hand, supporting the provision of environmentally friendly goods and services, and on the other, cultivating consumers’ good taste economic requirements and interests aligned with high environmental standards (gassiy & stoikov, 2019). the third crucial concept category of gb was organizational performance or business success which represents 21% published of articles. according to the findings of the review literature, green business efforts have a large and favorable impact on the productivity of selected industrial enterprises in emerging nations. this suggests that businesses that limit their environmental impact will be more productive than those that do not. green business activities, in turn, have a large and favorable impact on staff productivity. the productivity of employees is what drives the productivity of businesses. green business methods, ideas, and processes will produce extremely beneficial results that will be seen in both the corporation and the environment (gassiy & stoikov, 2019; chukwuka, 2018; yin et al., 2021; wu et al., 2021). the fourth critical concept group of gb was “green business practice/process management” and which represent only 14%.there is widespread agreement that we must lower our collective carbon footprint. while much research effort has been focused on developing alternative energy sources, vehicle technologies, and waste disposal systems, we frequently overlook the reality that the ability to optimize (current) activities to reduce emissions impact is critical to this exercise (ghose et al., 2010). according to the findings of the review literature, as more attention is devoted to the environmental problem, the necessity for a green business model for businesses has become increasingly important (wu et al., 2021). furthermore, including green new products can help a company’s reputation and product portfolio, as well as provide a way for businesses to secure environmental, social, and financial benefits (pritchard & wilson, 2018). the fifth noteworthy concept area mentioned in gb is the importance of ethical business considerations (12%) for long-term business success. according to the findings of pervez (2020), adopting green business ethical practices (gbeps) not only improves a company’s international reputation in terms of its responsiveness to the environment and international society, but it also aids it in increasing its ecological enactment by successfully managing its environmental responsibilities. furthermore, from an ethical business perspective, where doing the right thing is the driving force for implementing green practices, progress toward the formation of an environmental strategy that protects the environment (environmentalism view) could be facilitated (fuquene-retamoso, 2019). as a result, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. it requires a new strategic idea for “incorporating the natural environment’s threat into management” and attaining long-term competitiveness in which internal capabilities and external (social) legal repute cohabit. finally, social responsibility is the other most important aspect of gb. according to the findings of the literature review, purchasers considered purchasing an ecologically friendly industrial commodity (poulakidas & dion, 2016). buyer intent was significantly influenced by a business reputation for product quality and social responsibility, according to their findings. 3.2.2 business ethics (be) to the sustainable business success as illustrated in table 2, the most predominant concept category of be in the extracted articles were ethical business consideration, moral development and ethical business training. totally these issue accounts 37% of the published articles. the authors’ findings show that companies with ethical ideals at their core reinforce ethical behavior and successfully establish trust with their many stakeholders, resulting in the formation of an ethical and trustworthy corporate culture and a favorable corporate environment (brenkert, 2016). according to this logic, an ethical approach to business can increase organizational capital by encouraging open communication, problem-solving, knowledge sharing, and creativity among employees; increasing social capital by improving interactions and relationships with suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders; and attracting and retaining good talent by increasing human capital (su, 2014; detienne et al., 2021). floyd et al. (2013) argue that unethical behavior has reached crisis proportions in the business world. professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are extremely helpful for promoting corporate ethics, according to findings made in the united states (medeiros et al., 2017; brenkert, 2016; floyd et al., 2013). another research from germany suggests that the link between ethical awareness and the intention to participate in ethically dubious action is indirect and mediated by ethical experience, or individuals’ exposure to ethical role models in organizations (hirth-goebel & weißenberger, 2019). furthermore, when it comes to corporate ethics, moral growth is not a separate issue. according to a study conducted in the united states of america, the moral judgment-action gap is a recurring issue in cases of unethical activity. the moral judgment-action gap describes people’s inconsistency in knowing what is right but doing what they know is wrong (detienne et al., 2021). the second issue rose in the area of be was the concept of social responsibility which represents 26% of the publications. ethical business issues are critical to the success of a long-term enterprise. the idea that businesses have responsibilities to society beyond producing profits for shareholders has been present for millennia, according to the review articles (adda et al., 2016; leiva et al., 2016). business ethics, according to their research, leads to the better employee, consumer, and community relations. not only that, but socially responsible businesses can gain from improved public image/reputation, increased consumer loyalty, and stronger and healthier community relations. the third most important point of be was environmental responsibility which represents 17% of the reviewed literature. according to the author’s chang (2011) states that corporate environmental ethics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. has a positive impact on green product and process innovation. furthermore, this research establishes that green product innovation is a mediating factor in the beneficial association between corporate environmental ethics and competitive advantage. the ethical climate has a significant impact on management accountants’ willingness to refrain from engaging in ethically dubious action. the findings of the authors hirth-goebel and weißenberger (2019) confirm that the idea that the link between ethical awareness and the intention to participate in an extremely unethical activity is indirect and regulated by ethical experience or individuals’ exposure to ethical role models in organizations. the final critical issue rose from the be concepts was sustainability and organizational performance. according to the conceptual study examined in the united states, today’s managers and engineers have a responsibility to society and future generations to include a broader variety of stakeholders than are generally considered in organizational decision-making. managers and engineers should examine the implications of their actions not just on people today by minimizing, for example, poisonous materials or unsafe operations but also on future generations by agreeing to address long-term repercussions on the natural environment (hendry & vesilind, 2010). 3.2.3 corporate social responsibility (csr) to the sustainable business success as depicted in table 2 shown above, “social responsibility,” “organizational performance/success,” and “sustainability development” are the three most common csr concept categories, accounting for 38%, 23%, and 16% of the extracted document, respectively. as illustrated in figure 5 shown above, the first concept group is more popular in the geographical continents of europe which accounts16% and north america accounts for almost 11% of the writings. in europe, more publications in social responsibility come from germany. according to the findings of the authors kunk (2020); ulke and schons (2016), a study conducted in germany points that, social responsibility activities on a company and supra-organizational level have a favorable impact on intrinsic motivation while not affecting extrinsic motivation, i.e., csr neither encourages nor inhibits extrinsic motivation. as a result, a commitment to csr can be used as a powerful tool for inducing intrinsic motivation without jeopardizing extrinsic incentives. according to the results of a systematic review conducted in canada, corporate social responsibility (csr) activities have the potential to strengthen connections between businesses and their stakeholders (peloza & shang, 2011; van rekom et al., 2013). one of the techniques corporations use to positively impact stakeholder perceptions and elicit desirable business outcomes is to engage in strategic corporate social responsibility (csr) projects (beldad et al., 2020). furthermore, the company’s reputation for product quality and social responsibility had a considerable favorable impact on customer intent (poulakidas & dion, 2016). stakeholder participation favorably increases individuals’ inclination to engage with the project, according to a poll conducted in the netherlands, and this effect is mediated by views of csr motives and low levels of skepticism (beldad et al., 2020). “organizational performance” is the second most essential item in the csr concept category. this concept category is given more weight in asian geographical papers, which account for 23% of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. total number of articles assessed as depicted in figure 6. the chain review offers a better grasp of the relationship between business performance and the csr effect (kong et al., 2020; camilleri, 2017). csr is positively associated with greater financial performance (profitability), according to ekatah et al. (2011); diem hang and ferguson (2016) a uk empirical study and this association are statistically significant. also, according to research conducted in the united states, csr activities have a direct impact on the communal relationship between a firm and its personnel (lee, 2020). the focus on sustainable development was the third csr theme category. sustainable development is defined as development that meets current needs without jeopardizing future generations’ ability to meet their own. its goal is to raise per capita income and wealth without impoverishing current or future generations (sheehy & farneti, 2021). the netherlands’ conceptual studies (theoretical review) concluded that, if organizations want to strategically embrace csr to achieve a sustainable positioning of their corporate brand and long-term positive benefits for society, csr initiatives should emerge from core business processes and focus on the benefits the organization can provide to society, resulting in a win-win scenario for the organization and society (van rekom et al., 2013). the fourth point highlighted in csr is the importance of ethical corporate practices. according to the authors gheraia et al. (2019), the current market climate is defined by severe rivalry, which forces all firms to strive for greater success by capitalizing on every business strategy or instrument available in order to ensure market sustainability. as a result of the substantial benefits that businesses provide in their environments, preserving ethical business considerations in conjunction with corporate social responsibility has provided a fantastic opportunity for long-term economic success. companies are under increasing pressure to establish corporate social responsibility (csr) initiatives that account for their operations’ economic, social, and environmental implications. companies that have historically reported financial results to shareholders are now beginning to communicate non-financial results to other stakeholders. this paradigm shift necessitates a re-examination of morals, values, and ethical convictions by individuals in charge of business governance and reporting (including accounting professionals often linked with financial reporting(ackers, 2015; gheraia et al., 2019). environmental friendliness/responsibility was the final issue raised in by the csr activity. according to the findings of an empirical investigation, purchasers regarded purchasing an ecologically friendly industrial commodity (poulakidas & dion, 2016). according to camilleri (2017) pointed out that responsible business practices generate economic and societal benefits by re-aligning corporate goals with stakeholder management and environmental stewardship. it is vital to increase the number of environmentally conscious businesses and to develop environmentally sound consumer patterns (gassiy & stoikov, 2019). 3.2.4 bridging concepts (gb, eb, csr) to the sustainable business success the joint analysis of the three subjects shows that despite certain differences the common goal is achieving long-term responsible business success. when reviewing systematically a total of 46 articles, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. the author tries to observe that five common elements or focus areas which are help to interrelate the three concepts. these are: social responsibility (represent 24% of the publications), organizational performance/success (accounts 20%), sustainable development (represent 17%), environmental friendly/responsibility (16%), ethical business considerations (represent 13%) as depicted in table 2. the green business practices were categorized under the categorical concepts of environmentally friendly. and also the concepts of moral development and ethical business training were tried to categorize under the concepts of ethical business consideration. the results suggest that the concept of csr can be taken as a more general concept, considering that both the gb and the eb. it could be said that it is not complete without adequately implementing both elements of green business and ethical business considerations to bring responsible business success. the tight connection among the three ideas and their interdependency in optimizing social responsibility, ethical consideration, organizational performance, sustainable development, and environmental friendly to reach the goal of more sustainable corporate success has been demonstrated in this literature study. bridging concepts of social responsibility social responsibility has a great contribution to sustainable business success, the findings of research done in china point out that social responsibility is linked to a green company identity, which has a favorable impact on the success of new green products(song et al., 2019; sameer, 2021). dangelico and pujari (2010) points out that green product innovation can help businesses develop while also preserving the environment. chang (2016) corroborated this finding by developing a new notion of green adaptive ability and investigating the relationship between green adaptive ability and green product creation effectiveness. padilla-lozano and collazo (2021) also confirm that social responsibility and green innovation have a significant impact on manufacturing competitiveness in emerging economies. bridging concepts of ethical consideration if a firm wants to be seen as a trustworthy partner and a respected member of the industry, it must exhibit a high level of institutionalization of business ethics concepts and practices, as well as remarkable ethical behavior (sroka & szántó, 2018). commercial ethics is seen as a crucial aspect that influences business success and the corporate image of firms in the industries in concern, according to their verification. the ideas of csr and company ethics, according to gheraia et al. (2019), are the main relationships that we should regard as a major factor in the development of business and society. bridging concepts of organizational performance sustainable organizational performance or success also comes from the implementation of the principles of the three concepts within the organizations. the ecological impact score, green policies, and performance score were found to have an impact on organizational performance in manufacturing organizations; however, green reputation has a greater effect on organizational performance in service firms (ngniatedema & li, 2010). according to the findings of a study conducted in nigeria, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. implementing green business practices, concepts, and processes will result in a highly beneficial impact that will be seen in the organization and the environment (chukwuka, 2018). recently business ethics has also got wide attention for the success of the organization. business ethics’ main goal is to emphasize two points: that business decisions have an ethical dimension, and that executives should always consider the ethical consequences of strategic business decisions before acting. as a result, environmental deterioration is reduced, and industrial organizations’ long-term viability and profitability are improved (nkeobuna & ugoani, 2019; bayraktaroğlu & yılmaz, 2012).according to ezeanyim and ezeanolue (2021), decision-makers should prioritize the application of ethical conduct to improve organizational performance by allocating enough resources and committing to long-term economic success. and also it is difficult to isolate corporate social responsibility and organizational performance in business practices. according to singh (2021), corporate social responsibility (csr) is commonly utilized to motivate firms to develop strong relationships with external and internal stakeholders to improve organizational performance. csr has an impact on the company’s financial performance. csr activities are sufficient for direct engagement with customers, assisting in the improvement of economic performance (nasieku & olubunmi, 2014; pallathadka, 2021). bridging concepts of sustainable development the other most important issue raised from the bridging concepts of the three ideas is sustainable development. private companies are looking for new strategies to deliver a sustainable development strategy to deal with the harsh business environment (karagülle, 2012). environmental considerations have a significant role in long-term expansion plans. as a result, green measures have become crucial for them. green policies, as a result of environmental restrictions, may influence the success of private firms (ngniatedema & li, 2010; chukwuka, 2018; zubeltzu-jaka et al., 2018). business ethics and sustainable development are interconnected concepts for business success.as lange (2004) cited by cassar (2019) point out, business ethics has orthodoxy (correct policy) and orthopraxis (correct practice) at its core, which can be achieved through the mind, heart, and hand triad, which is touted as the best way to promote a transformative business ethically, diverging from an epistemological shift in worldviews to an ontological shift in being in the world. organizational ethics, according to wesarat p. et al. (2017), is defined as the integration of ethical environment and culture in organizations, which has a significant impact on ethical decision-making and outcomes, which could contribute to sustainable development. as a result, businesses shift their focus from increased production and profit maximization to long-term development. corporate social responsibility also takes a share in organizational sustainable business development. companies must align and integrate csr with business strategy and integrate it across all operational functions, implement an open information strategy for more transparent information sharing with multiple stakeholders, and leverage transparency to increase the level of engagement of key constituents and customers, to achieve csr and sustainable development. csr can become a facet of a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. company’s successful competitive strategy when these activities are combined (tsoulfasa & pappis, 2012; meseguer-sánchez et al., 2021). bridging concepts of environmental friendly (or green business practice) traditional economic systems have had significant negative consequences for environmental development as well as unfair wealth disparity, resulting in environmental destruction and demographic imbalance (meseguer-sánchez et al., 2021). given the prevalence of unequal opportunities and access to resources in a global economy, it would be worthwhile to investigate the concept of environmental friendly bridging to the three ideas (gb, be, and csr). environmental sustainability has now emerged as a critical concern for business growth, environment protection, and social inclusion. ignoring environmental issues can lead to natural resource deterioration and extinction, which can be harmful to both the corporate sector and society. environmental issues are a significant step for the betterment of human beings in csr, and if executed fully, maybe a significant contribution to maintaining a healthy environment (neah et al., 2014; orlitzky et al., 2011). another most important point in environmental friendly or green business practice is considering business ethics. the business has a natural, non-reciprocal obligation toward natural beings impacted by its operations, according to researchers. awareness-based ethics are sufficient for commerce at the level of individual biological entities. ecosystem ethics is important for business at the level of natural ecosystems. gaian ethics apply to commerce at the earth’s overall level (zsolnai, 2011; krishna et al., 2011). based on the bridging concepts of three ideas (gb, eb, and csr) which were extracted from the review literature, the researchers try to develop the following model or frameworks. these common elements of the three ideas expect to have a direct relationship to sustainable business success. common bridging concepts were summarized in figure 7. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. figure 7. the five bridging concepts of the gb, be, and csr to the sustainable business success (source: from my own systematic review analysis) 3.3 implication of the study business success that is sustainable is a crucial topic that is a major challenge for both enterprises and the global community. it is the practice of running a business without having a harmful impact on the environment (zilahy, 2016; peloza & yachnin, 2008). for a company to be competitive in its field, it must have a sustainability strategy (comin et al., 2020). sustainability is a long-term value-creation approach that considers an organization’s or firm’s connections with its social, ecological, and economic environment (kurniawan & iskandar, 2021). hence, this study finding implies that first; organizations’ priorities must have shifted to sustainable business success instead of only focusing on increased efficiency and profit maximization. organizations that are only focused on profit frequently make short-term decisions without regard for long-term viability. because making a lot of money or “doing well” and tackling social and environmental problems or “doing good” are two concepts that are intertwined in a sustainable business plan (wicks et al., 2012). businesses have realized that they must not only be more conscious of their environmental impact, but also be more environmentally sustainable in their core operations. second, to achieve sustainable business success, the executors, owners, managers, and concerned officials should focus on the five common bridging concepts of gb, eb, and csr. that means social responsibility, ethical business consideration, sustainable development, organizational performance, and environmentally friendly or green practice should be considered as an identity or culture of the organizations. organizational performance social responsibility sustainable business success sustainable development ethical business consideration environmental friendly (green practice) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. finally, if the goal is to make progress toward responsible business success, the concepts mentioned, which propose solutions for producing more cleanly without generating waste or gas emissions while using materials and resources efficiently and respecting nature, must not only be understood but also put into practice. these principles should be widely promoted, and business decision-makers should be urged to utilize the five bridging concept of gb, eb, and csr approaches to boost business success. 4. conclusion and limitation of the study 4.1 conclusion throughout the previous decade, the concepts of green business, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility, as well as their connections to the goals, have been crucial to achieving sustainable business success. sustainability does not imply foregoing income or putting success on hold. instead, it has evolved into a critical component of any successful organization’s strategy. the five bridging concepts: social responsibility, ethical business consideration, sustainable development, organizational performance, and environmentally friendly or green practice are all negatively impacted by a company’s failure to consider sustainability issues. firms can achieve long term business success if they can incorporate these five bridging concepts of green business, business ethics and corporate social responsibility in their sustainable business strategy. even if sustainability strategies are a short-term investment, they can pay off in the long run. finally, as evidenced from the review articles, the author’s findings deduced that all these five common variables mentioned above were direct influences on the long-term responsible business success. hence, future research needs to be done more inclusively with the common bridging concepts of the three topics. 4.2 limitations of the study the limitation of this study is that in the methodological approach for identifying the published articles only focused on management related field. this method may leave out important information regarding papers found in other fields of research. another limitation is that the analysis has concentrated solely on the publication of scientific articles from 2010 to 2020, ignoring other factors such as participation in congresses, book publications, and book chapters, as well as a different time horizon. incorporating a larger diversity of study material in this approach could result in different outcomes. furthermore, when selecting the focus area and their classification of the articles, the researcher’s subjective opinion of the articles must be taken into account. reference adda, g., azigwe, j. b., & awuni, a. r. 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(2016). sustainable business models – what do management theories say? vezetéstudomány / budapest management review, october, 62-72. https://doi.org/10.14267/veztud.2016.10.06 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 10 original paper an examination of yun d. y.'s thought on the peasant question shuli liang1 1 henan university, college of marxism, henan, kaifeng, china received: april 19, 2024 accepted: may 24, 2024 online published: july 06, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p10 abstract yun d. y., as one of the important leaders in charge of peasant work in the early days of the communist party of china, gradually formed a systematic thought on the peasant issue in the practice of revolutionary struggle. yun d. y. insisted on the leadership of the proletariat over the peasants in the peasant issue; highly affirmed the great role of the peasants in the new democratic revolution and called on the peasants to participate in the revolution; led the peasant movement and armed the peasants; and insisted that all the work should be centered on the masses, leaving behind a valuable legacy for the solution of the peasant issue in his short life. yun d. y.'s thinking and exploration of the peasant problem promoted the modernization of marxism and laid a solid foundation for the chinese communists to seek the correct revolutionary path of "encircling the city with the countryside" in theory and practice. keywords yun d. y. peasant problem yun d. y., a chinese proletarian revolutionary and early leader of the of china, was loved by chinese youth. he was born into a famous family and grew up in a turbulent era of internal and external conflicts, which made him set up the ambitious ambition of serving the country and saving the people from his childhood. 1918 to 1920, yun d. y. organized and set up the mutual aid society and liqun book club successively, and in the course of his practice, "began to pay attention to the hardship of the countryside and the peasants", and developed the revolutionary idea of "going to the countryside to set up countryside education" (editorial office of people's publishing house, 1982, p. 135) to stimulate the peasants. "in july 1921, yun d. y. founded the coexistence society in hubei, an early communist party organization, to unite the advanced intellectual youth and to study and propagate marxism, and joined the cpc at the end of the same year. at the end of the same year, he joined the cpc. thereafter, under the scientific guidance of marxism, yun d. y. rationally realized the importance of uniting the power of the peasants for the chinese revolution, and constantly explored effective ways to carry out www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 11 the peasant revolution. yun d. y. paid attention to the peasant issue for a long time during his revolutionary struggle, and constantly combined marxism with the concrete reality of china and the peasant issue, forming his unique thoughts on the peasant issue. studying and researching yun d. y.'s thoughts on the peasant issue is of great practical significance to the in-depth understanding of the modernization of marxism. 1. the formation process of yun daiying's thoughts on the peasant question 1.1 germination of ideology before he became a member of the chinese communist party, yun d. y. was concerned about and engaged in rural work. as a teenager, yun was deeply influenced by the revolutionary ideas of the intellectuals of his generation in modern china, which was under the humiliation of the great powers and poverty, and he aspired to follow the example of the patriots in striving for the realization of the country's prosperity and the happiness of the people. yun d. y. was nurtured by the excellent traditional chinese culture and influenced by the idea of emphasizing people's rights from his childhood, and in 1917, he wrote cultivation of social character that "although we cannot regard ourselves as a place of significance when we devote ourselves to a social cause, we must be a responsible person for this cause" (yun, 2014, p. 104), revealing his altruistic idea of public morality and public spirit. in the same year, yun daiying stated in the preface to ailan pavilion that he did not crave for food, drink, clothing and wealth, and took the pursuit of the people's happiness as the goal of his life. in 1918, yun d. y. initiated the organization of the mutual aid society, which advocated helping people to be happy, and to improve one's personal character and cultivation in the course of mutual help and encouragement. in 1919, yun d. y. carried out a student movement in solidarity with the may fourth movement. during the student movement, he realized that the power of the students was thin, and that "the general public must be roused to serve as a strong backing for the students." (li & zhong, 2006, p. 125) after the baptism of the may fourth movement, the members of the mutual aid society were greatly improved in their ideology. in 1920, members of the mutual aid society established the liqun book club under yun d. y.'s active initiative and planning. yun and the members of the liqun book club planned and visualized the cause of "new villages" and helped the peasants to improve themselves. the liqun book club was also closely associated with the changsha culture book club founded by mao zedong and others, and its members often shared new ideas and cultures with each other, helping each other and sharing their experiences in running the club. at this time, although yun d. y.'s thoughts on the peasant issue were relatively naïve and some of his ideas were even unrealistic, his thinking and practice on rural issues laid the foundation for his later leadership of the peasant movement. 1.2 initial formation yun d. y., one of the earliest prominent leaders of the party to recognize the importance of the peasant struggle, applied the basic marxist theories on the peasant question to the practice of the peasant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 12 revolution in china, and gradually formed a rich body of thought on the peasant question. in 1921, with the study and acceptance of communist ideology, yun d. y. gradually established a marxist worldview. in july of the same year, yun initiated the establishment of the coexistence society, a revolutionary organization of a communist nature. during this period, yun led a group of intellectual youths to conduct rural surveys in the mountains of nanling and huangshan in jingxian county. soon after, when yun daiying and other members of the coexistence society learned that the communist party of china had been founded in shanghai, they were called upon by yun daiying to join the league and the party organization one after another. after yun became a member of the communist party, he consciously applied marxist theories to his work in the countryside, and his understanding of the rural revolution shifted from the emotional to the rational. in 1923, yun d. y. edited the magazine china youth, and he wrote many articles calling on the intellectual youth to go to the society in the fields and villages to publicize revolutionary ideas and promote the awakening of the peasants. in 1924, he wrote in the newspaper awakening, a supplement of the republican daily, "the day the peasants awaken, the cause of reformation will be successful." (yun, 2014, p. 333) with regard to revolutionary propaganda work in the countryside, yun d. y. suggested that we should live with them, listen to their voices, get close to them first, then sensitize them, and then unite them, so that "they will naturally one day fully understand our ideas, and they will naturally one day, for their own benefit, become the basic force of the national revolution. " (yun, 2014, p. 395) during this period, yun d. y. took marxism as his scientific guide, correctly recognized the great role of the peasants in the revolution, and summed up his revolutionary experience in his work of propagating revolutionary ideas in the countryside; at this time yun d. y.'s ideas on the peasant question were initially formed. 1.3 towards maturity during the first domestic revolutionary war, the peasant movement created a huge wave in the roaring national revolution. the chinese communists soberly realized that "the rise of the peasant struggle is an indispensable condition for the success of the national revolution, and that the peasants are the most necessary and dependable allies of the working class." (cpc central committee party history research office, 2011, p. 156) in 1925, yun d. y., in leading students to participate in the may thirtieth movement to fight against imperialism, deeply realized that "we have to learn from the workers and peasants, and go to the masses of workers and peasants to ...... work for revolution together with them." (editorial office of people's publishing house, 1982, p. 20) in 1926, yun daiying wrote in the national revolution and the peasants that "the national revolution is the peasant revolution, and the national revolution is not successful until the peasants are liberated." (yun, d. y., & yun, 2014, p. 488) at the same time, he emphasized the extreme importance of the proletariat's leadership of the peasant movement, arguing that "only the proletariat can lead all classes in the national revolution." (yun, d. y., & yun, 2014, p. 11) in the face of the vigorous revolutionary movement of the peasants, both inside and outside the party www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 13 began to accuse the peasant movement. yun d. y. wrote an article to counterattack that only by uniting the power of the masses, organizing and mobilizing the forces of the peasants and workers could we fight against the reactionary forces, grasp the leadership of the revolution, and ensure the success of the national revolution. at this time, yun d. y. led and mobilized the peasants' movement, which enabled the peasants' power to play a great role in the revolutionary wave and began to combine marxism with the concrete reality of the chinese revolution. the experience of revolutionary struggle in this period contributed to the gradual maturation of yun's thinking on the peasant issue. 1.4 systematic formation after the failure of the revolution, the cpc was deeply aware that in the previous peasant movement, the failure to solve the peasant land problem and safeguard the interests of the peasants in order to consolidate power, and the failure to arm revolutionary forces to organize the peasants in order to fight for leadership had led to the bitter defeat of the national revolution. on july 20, 1927, the cpc central committee emphasized, in its general strategy on the peasant movement, that the present " chinese revolution has entered a new stage-the stage of agrarian revolution." (central archives, 1989, p. 215) as early as early april 1927, yun d. y. emphasized at the fifth enlarged meeting of the second standing committee of the kuomintang that "only by solving the land problem of the peasants can the national revolution win the real support of the peasants." (li & zhong, 2006, p. 319). in august of the same year, yun took part in leading the nanchang uprising. after the failure of the uprising, yun advocated going deep into the countryside to carry out the agrarian revolution together with the revolutionary forces of the peasants in hailufeng led by peng pei, and to cooperate with the peasant self-defense army to open up revolutionary bases in the countryside. in february of 1929, yun pointed out in his critique of the fallacious arguments of the kuomintang's reformist faction about the chinese revolution that "the communist party's agrarian revolution is precisely aimed at leading all the poor peasants themselves to rise up and demand liberation". agrarian revolution is precisely aimed at leading all poor peasants to rise up and demand liberation." (yun, 2014. p. 157). in march 1930, yun d. y. published two articles in red flag, highly affirming and supporting mao's practice of establishing rural revolutionary bases, and extolling the great achievements of the peasant revolution in western fujian: firstly, the driving out of the kuomintang; secondly, the setting up of the soviet regime and third, the distribution of land. in leading the struggle for the peasant revolution, yun d. y. profoundly realized the extreme importance of arming the peasant and worker masses and carrying out an agrarian revolution in order to build a revolutionary base in the countryside, and gradually developed a systematic thought on the peasant question. yun d. y.'s thoughts on the peasant question provided an important theoretical basis and practical experience for the party's exploration of the path of rural revolution, and promoted the development of the chineseization and modernization of marxism. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 14 2. important elements of yun daiying's thought on the peasant question 2.1 insisting on proletarian leadership of the peasants adherence to the proletariat's leadership of the peasant revolution was the fundamental criterion of yun d. y.'s thought on the peasant question. in 1924, yun d. y. emphasized in an article in the fifty-third issue of china youth: "there must be a great party that guides the people like this. the foundation of the party must be built on top of the oppressed peasants and workers; he must represent the interests of the peasants and workers." (yun, 2014, p. 580) in 1926, yun d. y. analyzed in detail in his article why is the industrial proletariat most revolutionary? in 1926, yun d. y. analyzed in detail the social status, living environment, and class characteristics of the proletariat, argued that the proletariat was the most thorough and revolutionary class, and highly affirmed the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution. in 1928, in the face of the right wing of the kuomintang betraying the revolution and claiming to represent the interests of the masses of workers and peasants, yun d. y. mercilessly exposed their hypocritical masks and pointed out that adherence to the proletariat's leadership of the peasant revolution was the only way to ensure the advancement of the chinese revolution, and that this was what distinguished the peasant revolution led by the party from the old-fashioned peasant revolution and what made it possible to achieve the victory of the chinese revolution. 2.2 the peasants were the basic driving force of the national revolution. a high degree of affirmation of the position of the peasants in the national revolution was the theoretical starting point of yun d. y. 's thought on the peasant question. in his article, the basic forces of the chinese revolution, yun d. y. concluded, after a sophisticated analysis and comparison, that "only the peasants and the workers are the real opposites of all the interests of the ruling class. therefore, when it comes to revolution, they are the only ones who can still have hope." (yun, 2014, p. 258) in march 1924, yun d. y. elaborated on the meaning and purpose of the national revolution and the relationship between the chinese revolution and the world revolution in what is the national revolution? in which he expounded the connotation and purpose of the national revolution and the relationship between the chinese and world revolutions, and in analyzing the forces of the revolution, he pointed out that although the peasants were more dispersed and not easy to unite, "they feel the deepest pains of the harsh political economy, and their alliance with the revolutionary army is the great force of the revolution." (yun, 2014, p. 126) in june, yun d. y. published an article in the thirty-seventh issue of china youth analyzing the reasons for the rural movement: first, peasants accounted for a large portion of the country's population; second, peasants worked hard but could not take care of their wives and children; and third, they had the desire for revolution. he specifically emphasized the need to go to the countryside to understand the peasants and educate them, and most crucially, to unite the young peasants. in 1926, yun d. y. published an article in the huangpu journal stating, "the peasants and laborers are the fundamental force of the revolution." (central archives, 1989, p. 387) in 1927, in response to criticisms of the peasant movement both inside and outside the party, yun d. y. emphasized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 15 once again at a seminar on the peasant question at the general political department of the national revolutionary army that "china's revolution is a part of the world's revolution, and the peasants and laborers are the main force of the revolution," and called on the peasant representatives to "go back to the countryside and organize themselves. organize and liberate themselves." (yun, 2014, p. 46) yun d. y.'s realization of the importance of peasants in the chinese revolution laid a solid foundation for the party's leadership of the peasant movement during the revolutionary period. 2.3 organizing and propagandizing peasants to join the revolutionary movement organizing and propagating the peasants to join the revolutionary movement was intrinsic to yun d. y.'s ideas on the peasant question. yun d. y. realized at an early stage that if he wanted to save china, he had to awaken the sleeping people. as early as during the establishment of the coexistence society, yun paid close attention to china's rural problems. he believed that the solution to the rural problems should begin with education in the countryside. in march 1924, yun d. y. vividly and exhaustively recounted the hardship and oppression of the peasants in his article life of the peasants in huangpi, hubei. he called on young people to emphasize the work of the peasants, conduct in-depth research in the countryside, and look for ways to rescue the peasants. yun d. y. pointed out that the peasants were a powerful revolutionary force, but without propaganda and organization, they were like scattered sand. therefore, "the greatest significance of the rural movement" (yun, 2014, p. 419) is to organize and propagandize the peasants and to study their sufferings and demands practically. and "the best rural movement is still the education of the common people"(yun, 2014, p. 393), to enrich the spiritual life of the peasants and inspire them with revolutionary ideas through a variety of forms of propaganda. in december 1925, yun daiying also enriched the party's ideology of propaganda work in propaganda and organization work among the peasants by detailing the do's and don'ts and detailed methods of propaganda work among the peasants in the three aspects of politics, economy and culture. yun d. y. pointed out in his letter to liu yazi that "the most important work in the party is to propagandize all the people so that they will know how to fight for their own interests; to organize all the people so that they will be able to fight for their own interests." (yun, 2014, pp. 377-378) yun d. y.’s ideology of peasant mobilization and propaganda started from the peasants' point of view, effectively grasped the pain and needs of the peasants, and organized and guided the peasants by means that were pleasing to the peasants, thus powerfully advancing the development of the revolutionary situation. 2.4 insisting that the revolution be centered on the peasant masses the insistence on launching the national revolution centered on the peasant masses was the fundamental position of yun d. y.'s thought on the peasant question. yun d. y. emphasized that work with the peasants should be done from the peasants' point of view and in their interests, and that close contact with the masses should be maintained and bureaucratic practices should be opposed. in august 1924, yun d. y. emphasized in a speech titled education for the rule of the people that in order to serve the people, firstly, one should respect the people; secondly, one should have a deep understanding of the masses; and lastly, one should work for the interests of the people. in 1926, yun d. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 16 y., in his speech thoughts on traveling to chaoshan, once again called on the comrades of the revolution to stand on the feet of the workers and peasants in their own interests and to lead them in the struggle for their own interests. in the same year, yun d. y. pointed out in his article the national revolution and the peasants that "the national revolution pays special attention to the interests of the peasant and laboring masses, and if the peasant and laboring masses are forgotten, it will not become a national revolution" (yun, 2014, p. 488), fully demonstrating his revolutionary ideology centering on the peasant and laboring masses. yun d. y. also emphasized the need to come from the masses and go to the masses, "revolutionary organizations should absorb the peasants who are generally rich in revolution and educate them with relatively strict training, so that they can become the backbone of the peasant movement; only when this backbone has strength will the peasant masses become a disciplined revolutionary army." (yun, 2014, p. 376) and if party cadres really work for the revolution, they should go deep into the masses, get close to them, and maintain close contact with the people. in the early 1930s, yun d. y. highly praised mao zedong's revolutionary base in the countryside, arguing that "the soviet in western fujian had indeed shown itself to be a government of the workers and peasants" (yun, 2014, p. 299), and that "it was a government that served the workers and peasants. yun d. y.'s idea of serving the people greatly promoted the development of the peasant revolution, profoundly influenced the development path of china's rural revolution, and provided useful theoretical support and empirical inspiration for the cpc's exploration of the path of rural revolution. 3. the historical status of yun daiying's thoughts on the peasant question 3.1 promoting the chineseization and modernization of marxism yun d. y.'s thought on the peasant question is a product of yun d. y.'s practice of exploring the peasant revolution in the chinese countryside under the scientific guidance of marxism, a product of the combination of marxism with the concrete realities of the chinese countryside, and a product of the combination of marxism with the characteristics of the chinese revolutionary epoch at that time. applying marxist theory, yun d. y. rationally recognized that the peasants were the broadest force in the chinese revolution and highly affirmed the great role of the peasants in the revolution. in the course of the revolutionary struggle, yun continuously explored scientific methods of organizing and mobilizing the peasants, summed up practical experience, and explored the path of development of the rural revolution. he adhered to the positions, principles and methods of marxism, but was not confined to the specific views of marxism and adhered to marxist dogmas unchanged. starting from the actual situation in china, he correctly understood the relationship between the chinese revolution and the world revolution, fought resolutely against the forces that denied the peasant movement, and vigorously criticized the trend of thought that denied the communist movement, and in the course of the revolutionary struggle formed the theoretical achievements of marxist revolution with chinese characteristics, realizing the innovation and development of marxism in china. yun d. y.'s ideas on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 17 peasant question have made a significant historical contribution to the promotion of the modernization of marxism in china. 3.2 laying the theoretical and practical foundation for taking the road of rural revolution yun d. y.'s thoughts on the peasant question systematically expounded in theory that the peasants are the great force of the chinese revolution, and scientifically answered a series of questions on rural work, such as how to propagandize and educate the peasants, how to lead and mobilize the peasants, and how to arm and organize the peasants. based on the reality of the chinese revolution, it enriches and develops the marxist view of the peasants, is an important part of the theory of the peasant movement of the communist party of china (cpc), and has become the guide for the cpc's leadership of the peasant revolution. in the course of leading the peasant movement and carrying out revolutionary work in the countryside, yun d. y. wholeheartedly worked for the interests of the peasants, respected the toiling peasants and strengthened their sense of affinity and trust in the party, and formed a benign and interactive relationship between the party and the masses. after the failure of the revolution, yun d. y. carried out the construction of revolutionary bases in the vast countryside, arming the peasant masses to carry out the agrarian revolution, and providing a useful practical exploration of the revolutionary path of "encircling the countryside with the city and seizing power by armed force" during the period of the agrarian revolutionary war. yun d. y.'s rich and profound thinking and practice of the peasant revolution greatly promoted the development of the chinese revolution, provided a new perspective for the exploration of the path of the chinese revolution, theoretically and practically laid a solid foundation for the chinese communists to seek the path of the rural revolution, and made a significant contribution to the formation of the party's theory of the peasant revolution and the exploration of the path of the rural revolution. reference central archives. (1989). selected documents of the central committee of the communist party of china (vol. 3). beijing: party school of the central committee of the communist party of china press. central archives. (1989). selected documents of the central committee of the communist party of china (vol. 1). beijing:press of the party school of the central committee of the communist party of china. cpc central committee party history research office. (2011). history of the communist party of china (volume 1 first book). beijing:cpc history press. editorial office of people's publishing house. (1982). recollections of yun daiying. beijing: people's publishing house. li, l. m., & zhong, d. t. (2006). yun daiying's chronicle. wuhan:huazhong normal university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 18 mao, z. d. (1993).mao zedong wenji (vol. 1) [m]. beijing:people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 1). beijing:people's publishing house,2014. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 4). beijing: people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 5). beijing: people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 6). beijing: people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 7). beijing: people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). the complete works of yun daiying (vol. 9). beijing:people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). yun daiying quanji (vol. 2). beijing: people's publishing house. yun, d. y. (2014). yun daiying quanji (vol. 8). beijing: people's publishing house. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 40 original paper emotional design optimization of memorial space based on nomadic theory jie zhu1* & jiaqi liu2 1 guangdong university of finance & economics, canton, china 2 guangdong university of finance & economics, canton, china * guangdong university of finance & economics, canton, china received: december 16, 2024 accepted: january 02, 2025 online published: february 07, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p40 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p40 abstract memorials bear the responsibility of popularizing cultural knowledge and promoting the spirit of patriotism. in recent years, due to the increasing support of the government for memorials, there are more and more memorials, and they have gradually received widespread attention from the whole society. however, with the development of the digital age, the public pays more and more attention to user experience. in today's information age, the main narrative methods of text and images have exposed the weakness of the emotional expression of memorial space. based on the nomadic theory, this paper takes contemporary memorials as the research object, adopts literature research method, case analysis method and comparative analysis method, transforms the idea of nomadic space into the design of contemporary memorial space, combines emotional design techniques, breaks the traditional spatial boundaries, and forms a multi-dimensional dynamic space, which can reshape the experience of memorials and return to the core of space, that is, human experience, and provide new methods and inspiration for the spatial design of contemporary memorials. keywords nomadic space, emotional design, memorial space 1. nomadic space 1.1 overview of nomadic theory the concept of “nomadism” originated from nomadic peoples. it is a non-rational movement mode that constantly changes their living environment while grazing on the grassland. in his book “difference and repetition”, gilles deleuze proposed that nomadism is a heterogeneous free assembly state composed of repeated movements. on this basis, the concept of nomadic space was derived, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 41 means a heterogeneous network space, referring to a dynamic, open, smooth, continuous, free and unconstrained abstract space, which is interrelated with concepts such as tubers, differences, folds, deterritorialization, and organless bodies, forming its unique generative philosophical thought. in the interaction with the environment, nomadic space attaches importance to the connection with the surrounding environment and establishes a connection with the outside world. nomadic behavior is not aimless and random roaming. it is a heterogeneous and free movement formed by nomads after they feel the surrounding environment. nomadic theory has rich connotations and complex clues, and its ideological exposition is not systematic, but free from various discourses. this section selects the core concepts related to space design for an overview (table 1). table 1. basic concepts and characteristics of nomadic theory basic concepts conceptual characteristics brief analysis tuber no center, no hierarchy, growth, derivation, rupture. refers to a decentralized and non-planar state between things. a thousand plateaus multiple derivatives, change generation, multiple interconnection, no direction breaks away from the limitations of time and space and the distinction between subject and object, and strives to construct an ideological realm of freedom, diversity, integration, and generation and change. smoothing open, heterogeneous, continuous, dynamic, nonlinear. integrating heterogeneous elements together in a continuous manner, forming an open, heterogeneous, continuous and dynamic nonlinear space. deterritorialization break free, generate, flow, change. it breaks the inherent rules and boundaries, liberates the potential of circulation, and realizes “slippage” and new fluidity. generate dynamic generation, mediation, process transformation. it refuses to take the static difference structure as the starting point of cognition, and focuses on the dynamic generation of structure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 42 nomadic space is an open, continuous, smooth space. the concept of smooth space defines a space with this potential: starting from any point, you can connect to any point without passing through any point. deleuze compares go to smooth space. in smooth space, nomads are like go pieces, without any level restrictions, and can move freely and arbitrarily in smooth space. in contrast, “textured space” like chess assumes that residents can only act according to established rules, and has a strict hierarchy and fixed paths. in smooth space, points are defined by straight lines, and nomads determine their own movement paths and stop at certain locations; while textured space uses points to define lines, and its rule is to only allow the selection of existing movement paths. nomadic space is a dynamic, possible space without clear goals, and without predetermined structures and goals. the introduction of the philosophical concept of "nomadic space" into architectural space depicts a heterogeneous connection between people and the environment, thus creating a dynamic spatial form with multiple uncertainties. architecture is dynamic, free, open, and continuous. it has the same characteristics as the regional environment and human activities. this is the nomadic feature of architecture. the “nomadic” space in architectural space is the product of the mutual influence between people and the surrounding environment. if the dynamic generation of people is ignored, the building is just a homogeneous fixed space; if the carrying function of the building and the surrounding space is not considered, people will lose their place of activities, and it will be impossible to form a nomadic space. 1.2 characteristics of nomadic space in the theory of nomadic space, deleuze uses go (figure 1) to describe “smooth space”. there is no fixed direction or goal on the go board. each piece is free, and each piece is also part of the space, that is, the movement trajectory of each piece is unrestricted. deleuze uses smooth space to show that nomadic space is a moving space, which opposes stillness. deleuze's thought emphasizes difference. smoothness is the sum of repeated differences. in space, the difference mixing method is used to extend all around to mix various difference elements, exist in space in a continuous way, and preserve the difference of each element. taking the barcelona german pavilion by mies van der rohe as an example, the spatial structure in the flowing space is to position the space through panels and sculptures, forming a transparent space with guidance, and this space is purposeful. such a highly guiding spatial form is also the most common in the spatial design of memorial halls. in the guangzhou xinhai revolution memorial hall designed by meng jianmin, in addition to the double entrance design, the exhibition hall also uses fixed guiding streamlines to switch between different exhibition halls to unfold the narrative experience, so that visitors can complete the reading of specific historical trajectories while completing the guiding streamlines. due to the unlimited trajectory of nomadic space, visitors should be able to enter the space from multiple angles, and because participants are also part of the spatial composition, the space will continue to change in the dynamic changes of visitors after entering, which also means that the gathering and dispersion of visitors will also affect the space. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 43 figure 1. go diagram 1.3 the influence of nomadic theory on contemporary space design the smoothness of “nomadic space” has expanded people’s understanding of space, and has also had a certain impact on the spatial relationship of a group of designers. designers have adopted a more open and continuous approach to deal with the relationship between space and the external environment, internal and external space, and internal space. in particular, the combination of parametric design and multiple influencing factors makes the generation of spatial form more rational. the "nomadic space" design breaks the limitations of striped space, making it more flexible and free in spatial form, thus creating a new spatial image. deeply influenced by deleuze’s nomadic philosophy and japan’s floating world thought, toyo ito has studied the uncertainty of space. from his early “bag of the nomadic girl” to a series of works at the sendai mediatheque that shocked the world (figure 2), we can see the characteristics of lightness, fluidity, and temporary nature in his works. figure 2. works by toyo ito zaha hadid believes that “the architectural landscape of this city is a very complex thing. it is not a simple relationship of square, round, high, or low. it is actually related to the environment you are in. because the environment may be uneven, with mountains, water, and ditches. in addition to buildings, you have to consider whether there are public spaces, space, and light issues.” starting from various www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 44 changing curves in space, she studies the complexity of space. in her works, spatial forms always use various continuous surfaces to meet and adapt to complex spatial relationships. figure 3. changsha meixihu international culture and art museum for example, the spatial form of changsha meixihu international culture and art museum (figure 3) is inspired by hibiscus flowers, simulating the scene of hibiscus flowers falling into meixihu and causing ripples. the curved surfaces flow and intertwine, full of vitality. through digital technology, various elements in the space are integrated in the form of curves to form a flower-like structure. there is no clear boundary between the space and the environment and landscape, forming an open space. another important concept of deleuze is “pleats”, which is a way of expressing nomadic space. time, space, and form are all formed by the “pleating-unfolding-pleating” of pleats. pleats have smooth continuity and no distinction between inside and outside. today, many designers use folding techniques to make the spatial relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces smoother. figure 4. yokohama port international passenger terminal, japan yokohama port international passenger terminal in japan (figure 4) is a typical representative of “nomadic space”. the design of foa was influenced by the cross-disciplinary influences of folding theory. the basis of the design is to transform the ground into a huge design plane, like an active flowing skin. the computer-generated continuous skin is also a spatial structure that is continuously folded in the vertical direction, forming an enclosed spatial form in all directions. this blurred spatial interval not only retains the difference but also creates new connections. in order to break the traditional directional streamline, the designer combined the non-returning diagram with the skin, and combined multiple streamlines with structures to construct a space with blurred boundaries inside and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 45 outside, achieving smooth continuity inside and outside the space. 2. emotional design of the memorial space 2.1 emotional design overview emotional design can be traced back to 2012. in donald norman’s book “design psychology 3-emotional design”, emotional design is divided into three dimensions from shallow to deep: the instinctive layer, behavioral layer, and reflective layer of emotions (table 2). table 2. characteristics of the three dimensions of emotional design dimensions of emotional design features instinct layer make users fall in love at first sight through color, texture, and form behavioral layer make users feel good through rational and logical behavior reflection layer arouse users' emotional resonance through cultural connotations the emotions contained in memorial spaces are unique to humans and are also the embodiment of their core composition and value. in terms of emotions for the same memorial theme or memorial object, due to different personal cultural backgrounds and other factors, there are social commonalities but also differences; the same space or the same memorial space action path can trigger one or more emotions at the same time, and the combination of these emotions together forms an emotion with commemorative significance. on this basis, designers need to deal with the emotions of the space more clearly and strongly in order to obtain the expected emotional feelings and expression effects. 2.2 emotional design in memorial space in the space design of the memorial hall, in order to allow the receiver of the information, that is, the audience, to receive the information more deeply, it is very important for the communicator to arouse the audience’s resonance and mobilize their emotions. then, as the carrier of this communication, the space of the memorial hall needs to accurately and logically display and convey the information to the audience in the space through multiple means, so that the audience can gain something, think about something, and do something. integrate the displayed information, and use various means, technologies, shapes, colors, and materials to combine and change according to the display content to create rich spatial expressions, express connotations, convey spirits, tell stories, and give people different experiences and feelings. as an exhibition space, the memorial hall has a natural connection with emotional design. emotional design can help it convey information better and enable the receiver of information to receive information not only from a visual level, but also from an emotional level, making the visitor's experience richer. however, the means of emotional design in the current memorial hall design in my country are relatively simple, mostly using color psychology, multimedia technology, theme symbols, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 46 etc. limited means can easily bring a boring experience to visitors, and most of the memorial hall spaces now use streamlined narrative experience methods, such as the guangzhou xinhai revolution memorial hall. this method limits the experience of the information receiver and is more likely to cause monotony in experience. 2.3 the necessity of combining nomadic space with memorial design combining nomadic theory with the spatial design of the memorial hall is to transform its original strongly guiding spatial form. in the past, most memorial hall designs followed the method of “one entrance and one exit”, that is, setting fixed entrances and exits, and limiting the movement trajectory of visitors according to the designer’s planned experience. although this experience method allows visitors to feel the “theme” set in advance and the content that the designer wants to express, it also makes the experience very single. in addition, the means of spatial emotional design are limited, and visitors are prone to feel boring and unable to immerse and deeply resonate. through the combination of nomadic theory, multiple free and non-restrictive dynamic streamlines can be formed, and visitors can enter the space from any angle and freely choose the way to visit. such a space will be a multi-dimensional dynamic space, emphasizing the diversity of differences, and human movement also brings about temporal dynamics. by breaking the traditional limited spatial boundaries, the experience of the memorial hall can be reshaped to return to the core of the space, that is, the human experience. in the design process, the entire space will undoubtedly integrate the designer's own subjective consciousness to form a given “striped space”, breaking through this limitation and returning the multiple feelings of the experiencer, and visitors can form a connection with the space according to their own ideas. since this connection is spontaneously generated between the visitors and the space, their emotional acceptance is higher and the resonance experience is stronger. 3. the construction of memorial space from a namadic perspective 3.1 open space shaping nomadic space emphasizes openness. its form is influenced by deleuze's concepts of “fold generation” and “territorialization”. it no longer emphasizes static and mechanical forms, but tends to seek dynamic and complex open systems. the interaction between various elements in the environment, such as climate, function, flow of people, and transportation, and the building is achieved through the dynamic integration of various elements inside and outside the building with the architectural space, thus forming a continuous dynamic development, breaking the closure of the place and the environment, and forming a nomadic space with fluid characteristics. the specific implementation of nomadic architecture requires solving the problem of "finding the shape" of the building. “finding the shape” is a self-organized architectural form from the bottom up, which has the greatest environmental adaptability. the design of the memorial space can adopt the method of “pleat generation” to “pleat-expand-pleat” the building to form a free and open architectural form. in the process of its space design, the folding of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 47 the building skin, the blurring of inside and outside, and the open streamline can be used to achieve a smooth form that does not distinguish between inside and outside at the philosophical level. it can also break the boundaries of traditional space and transition from the hierarchical structure of “striped space” to “nomadic space”. the dimension of space is further expanded to create a free flow of space and a continuous and open form. 3.2 coherence plane solution generation nomadic space is a free movement from point to point, which is different from the underlying logic of most current streamline-guided designs. so how can we transform the current space into a nomadic space? the scope is limited to the “convex space”, and each exhibit that needs to be displayed in the memorial hall is regarded as a point element. all point elements are randomly distributed in the “convex space” to form a random plane distribution (figure 5). each point element is part of the space, and each exhibit divides the space to form a smooth space, which is the material space with nomadic space characteristics. in such a space, visitors can choose to enter and leave from any angle and freely choose the route of the visit. such free flow lines are also a manifestation of spatial smoothness (figure 6). figure 5. plane diagram figure 6. flow line diagram the above is a spatial transformation on the two-dimensional x and y to break through the limitations of the plane. if the spatial transformation on the z axis is added to move and change in three-dimensional space, coupled with the influence of dynamic time, a nomadic transformation of four-dimensional space-time is formed. the collection route is interwoven with the mercedes-benz historical route, and the viewer can switch between the two routes at will. at the same time, there is a high degree of dynamic change in the vertical dimension, showing the dynamic and diverse tuber properties of nomadic space. 3.3 generation of ambiguous spatial functions today, as human lifestyles are constantly changing, traditional single and static spatial functions can no longer meet the needs of society, and polysemous and variable mixed spaces constitute a new spatial language. the individual activities of nomadic groups demonstrate the freedom of the subject, thereby promoting the diversity and complexity of spatial functions. the memorial can reflect the material needs of nomadic groups for social public space by adopting the design framework of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 48 "space-nomad-narrative". after entering the space, the nomadic groups can show strong autonomy in front of the functional blocks. in terms of the attributes of each functional block, it is possible to selectively ensure that the nomadic groups are free, relaxed and purposeless, realize the optimization of composite and multi-functional space, realize a free and open nomadic form, and create a relatively stable external microclimate and a comfortable indoor microecological environment of the building. 3.4 multi-dimensional synaesthesia spatial experience nomadic space has the spatial characteristics of “contact”, highlighting that the nomadic subject is an organless body with multiple tactile spatial perception capabilities. multi-tactile is the common feeling of connecting multiple senses such as sight, hearing, touch, and smell. “multi-sensory art” is a concept proposed by wang duanting of the institute of fine arts of the chinese academy of arts based on contemporary art. multi-sensory art emphasizes the simultaneous presence of critics and visitors, as well as the real-time feedback and experience of the body in space. the body in the nomadic space is in a state of intercommunication of various senses, and perceives the space in a synaesthesia way. because the cultural backgrounds of the participating audiences are different, the exhibits cannot resonate with everyone, but multi-sensory art provides a more direct sensory experience for the theme of nomadism, thereby enriching the contact spatial characteristics of the nomadic space. “multi-sensory art” is now not only used in art exhibitions but also in museums, such as the “water drop” in the nanjing massacre memorial hall. the emotional experience brought by this form of emotional design is so strong that words and pictures in traditional memorial halls cannot bring it. integrating multi-sensory art into nomadic space can bring a dynamic and diverse nomadic experience, and multi-sensory art can help visitors directly feel the experience brought by the exhibits with their bodies. the “body without organs” formed in this way is also one of the important ideas of nomadic theory. this direct sensory experience can bring equally intuitive emotional feedback. whether it is positive or negative emotions, they can be deeply conveyed to the audience through the design of “multi-sensory art”. through the placement of multi-sensory art, the memorial space can better utilize the spatial characteristics of the nomadic space to enrich the means of emotional design and deepen the experience. 3.5 free relationship connection mode nomadic space has the characteristics of analyzing the differences between the environment and the site, and can explore the implicit meaning of things and create new relationships in non-hierarchical spaces. the memorial space can blur the boundaries of the internal street space, and the expansion or contraction of its boundaries depends on the density and behavior of the people passing through. in such a memorial space, there is no clear target point. visitors can move freely and have multiple choices in the space of activities, or they can be in a state of floating in the space. faced with the flow and fusion, decomposition and stagnation between the building blocks caused by the differences in space, the building responds dynamically to the relationship between the spaces through interlacing and juxtaposition, which can provide a rich narrative environment for the space and make the interaction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 49 between the space and the nomads closer. 4. discussion this paper extends the concept of nomadic space to the field of space design and discusses the spatial characteristics of “nomadic space”. nomadic theory has a profound impact on the field of space design, bringing about changes in spatial concepts and providing many possibilities for innovation in design techniques. contemporary designers' exploration and research on “nomadic space” provides new design inspiration and ideas for contemporary space design. linear design thinking can no longer adapt to the diversified and complex needs of today’s era, and various new spatial concepts and design concepts emerge in an endless stream; the design exploration of “nomadic space” in form is more bold and innovative, completely subverting the limitations of traditional spatial geometry, and complex forms such as softness, torsion, continuity, flow, and dynamics continue to emerge, making the spatial form more open and free; the exploration of “nomadic space” design produces a new view of spatial function by focusing on non-limitation, randomness, and value-added; the development and maturity of new technologies provide favorable support for the design exploration of “nomadic space”, and the design exploration of “nomadic space” also promotes its development. in addition, while affirming the advantages of “nomadic space” design, we should also see its existing problems. for example, the unlimited pursuit of spatial openness will lead to irrational spatial functions. this paper makes a preliminary discussion on the application of nomadic theory in the spatial design of memorial halls, and provides new ideas and methods for the spatial design of contemporary memorial halls. however, there is still room for further exploration, and there are certain limitations in terms of feasibility, economy, and practicality. acknowledgement this paper was supported by 2024 guangdong province general colleges and universities key field special project from the foundation “paradigm study on the digital protection and development of guangdong's historical villages to help the implementation of the 100 million project” (2024zdzx4065). references feng, s. (2021). research on emotional expression of modern exhibition space. shandong institute of arts and crafts. min, h. (2021). research on the emotional expression of memorial space based on narratology. oriental collection, 09, 90-91. mingyu, j. (2012). pleated thought, nomadic space: research on the concept of digital architectural generation and spatial characteristics. tsinghua university. panpan, b. (2014). research on the design exploration of contemporary “nomadic space”. china www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 university of mining and technology. ran, c., & shaosen, w. (2011). the interpretation of nomadic space in architectural creation under environmental narrative: taking the conceptual design of ningbo ningyi life aesthetics museum as an example. contemporary architecture, 11, 128-131. wei, c. (2021). research on landscape space optimization design based on nomadic theory. northeast forestry university. xiaotong, m. (2016). research on the emotional expression design of memorial space. dalian university of technology. yunya, l., & jinghua, s. (2020). analysis of the characteristics of contemporary museums from the perspective of nomadic space. urban architecture, 17(22), 130-133. note(s) [1] deleuze. (2019). difference and repetition. translated by an jing and zhang ziyue. shanghai: east china normal university press. [2] guattari, d. (2010). capitalism and schizophrenia. translated by jiang yuhui. shanghai: shanghai bookstore publishing house. original paper emotional design optimization of memorial space ba abstract keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 86 original paper current situation and improvement strategies of law and regulatory awareness among young college teachers in china li jian1 & tang na2,* 1 school of finance & economics, hainan vocational university of science and technology, haikou, hainan, china 2 school of financial management, hainan college of economics and business, haikou, hainan, china * corresponding author received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 21, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p86 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p86 abstract the rule of law is the cornerstone of modern social governance, the guarantee of the rights and interests of social members, and a powerful guiding and restricting tool for social activities. the prosperity of a society is inseparable from a complete and fair legal system and everyone's conscious awareness of abiding by the law. colleges and universities are places where students are taught advanced professional knowledge and at the same time improve their moral level and legal awareness. young college teachers are the ones who directly teach students knowledge, answer professional questions and life confusions, and popularize legal knowledge. therefore, young college teachers have a strong awareness of laws and regulations. under the guidance of teachers, students' awareness of laws and regulations is comprehensively improved, and they consciously abide by laws and regulations. based on previous research, this article adds the psychological motivations of young college teachers to analyze the reasons for the weak legal awareness of college teachers, and proposes corresponding strategies. keywords young college teachers, legal and regulatory awareness, improving legal and regulatory awareness 1.introduction teachers serve as the guides who lead students toward progress and growth, and they are the first illuminators who shape students’ outlook on life, their system of values, and their nascent understanding of the law. as society continues to develop, numerous scandals involving academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 misconduct and scholarly fraud among university teachers have been exposed, provoking public concern regarding the legal consciousness of those who are regarded as “engineers of the human soul” within institutions of higher learning. with the steady advancement of society, students themselves have begun to cultivate a heightened awareness of the law, learning to wield legal instruments to safeguard their own rights and interests; yet, in such a context, if students were to bring legal action against their teachers, the resulting tension could further intensify conflicts within the teacher–student relationship. young university teachers occupy a unique position within higher education, for they transition directly from their own student years into the distinguished role of educator, thereby forming a special cohort that straddles the boundary between the times of being a student and professional academic life. this paper therefore takes the current state of legal awareness among young university teachers as its primary point of departure, examining the problems inherent in their present level of legal literacy and proposing corresponding strategies for improvement, so as to prevent these young educators from falling into corruption, violating the law, or otherwise jeopardizing the promising futures. 2.the significance of studying the legal and regulatory awareness of young college teachers the rule of law stands as the very cornerstone of governance in modern society, safeguarding the rights and interests of every member of the community and serving as a powerful instrument for guiding, regulating, and constraining social behavior. no society can truly flourish without a sound, impartial, and well-functioning legal system, nor without citizens who conscientiously uphold and apply the law in their daily lives. in china, the comprehensive promotion of law-based governance constitutes a fundamental state strategy. it entails governing national affairs strictly in accordance with the constitution and statutory law and serves as the essential guarantee of the people’s role as masters of the nation. at present, this comprehensive effort to strengthen the rule of law represents a profound transformation in china’s national governance system—a transformation that bears directly upon the well-being of the population and the long-term stability and prosperity of the nation. viewed from this broader historical horizon, it becomes evident that china’s aspiration to enter the ranks of modern socialist nations and to realize the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation depends fundamentally on the full establishment of a society grounded in the rule of law. for such a society to take root, citizens must cultivate an enduring commitment to respecting, abiding by, and utilizing the law as a guiding principle in personal conduct and public life. universities function not only as institutions where advanced professional knowledge is transmitted, but also as vital arenas in which students’ moral character and legal consciousness are nurtured and strengthened. young university teachers, who engage daily in the teaching of knowledge, the resolution of students’ academic and personal dilemmas, and the dissemination of legal understanding, hold a particularly influential position in this educational ecology. when these young educators possess a strong awareness of laws and regulations, their students, guided simultaneously by explicit instruction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 and subtle example, are far more likely to cultivate a comprehensive and lasting respect for the rule of law. however, when young university teachers themselves lack a firm foundation in legal awareness, the consequences can be deeply troubling. they may, whether intentionally or inadvertently, engage in behaviors that infringe upon students’ legitimate rights, tarnish both personal and institutional reputations, or even inflict broader social harm. at the same time, students who fail to receive proper cultivation and guidance in legal consciousness may come to transgress legal boundaries, violate laws and regulations, and ultimately pose risks to the social order. such outcomes constitute a loss not only for the individual student but also for the teacher, the university, and society at large—each bearing the repercussions of insufficient legal awareness in the realm of higher education. 3. literature review on legal awareness in higher education faculty chinese scholars have produced relatively few research outcomes concerning the legal awareness of university teachers, and in the past one or two years there have been virtually no new studies. nevertheless, the existing literature provides a theoretical foundation for the present research. ding (2015) offered suggestions on how young university teachers can enhance their legal literacy from four distinct perspectives: the state, society, universities, and young teachers themselves. among these suggestions, ding argued that young university teachers who have the necessary conditions should immerse themselves in society and participate personally in judicial practice activities; if possible, they may even serve as members of a jury, which would be conducive to cultivating their own awareness of laws and regulations. xu (2016) contended that the cultivation of legal awareness among young university teachers serves as an embodiment of leading by example, and that such awareness plays an important role in teachers’ personal development, helping them avoid actions that might jeopardize their own professional future. guo (2017) asserted that improving university teachers’ awareness of educational laws and regulations is a reflection of protecting students’ rights and respecting and fostering students’ personal development, and it also represents the practice of complying with laws and regulations in educational settings. jiang (2017) observed that university counselors are also members of the teaching staff and categorized the counselor–student relationship into two layers: the first being the relationship of teaching and being taught, and the second being the administrative-legal relationship of managing and being managed. jiang further proposed that counselors should “manage classes in accordance with the law,” and therefore, in addition to their routine work, they should strengthen their study of relevant laws and regulations. in handling problems, counselors should adhere to legal principles, rely on evidence, and follow proper procedures; they must not resolve issues based solely on personal emotions. when dealing with student-related matters, they should base their decisions on facts, use the law as a normative standard, and exercise strict self-discipline in their words and actions. liu (2018) argued that drawing on the experience of rule-of-law-based governance within american universities could help improve china’s system of governing universities according to law. this improvement, according to liu, should proceed through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 three main measures: first, constructing a regulatory framework centered on faculty and students; second, establishing independent legal affairs institutions to form a comprehensive network of legal services; and third, developing internal dispute-resolution mechanisms that prioritize the settlement of conflicts through non-litigation means. zhang (2020) argued that, on the one hand, inadequate teacher compensation and insufficient protection of teachers’ rights have led to a serious sense of occupational burnout rather than professional pride; on the other hand, repeated challenges to teachers’ moral integrity (“teacher ethics”) have brought shame upon the teaching profession. since teacher ethics represent the professional morality of the teaching occupation, discussions of such morality should be grounded in the construction of professional standards, and the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of teachers must be clearly defined. zhang argued that universities should enhance legal education for teachers, effectively safeguard students’ lawful rights and interests, and promote reforms and innovations in university legal governance in order to strengthen rule-of-law construction in higher education. yang (2023) stated that improving university teachers’ awareness of laws and regulations primarily entails four approaches: strengthening their own study of laws and regulations, consciously complying with legal requirements and university rules, ensuring that legal principles permeate the entire teaching process, and participating in university governance in accordance with the law. through a review of the literature, it becomes apparent that many universities have not established legal affairs institutions that are oriented toward and serve both faculty and students. young university teachers, aside from receiving a limited amount of legal education during their student years, face heavy research and teaching pressures once they enter academic positions. coupled with increasingly stringent requirements for promotion, young teachers find it extremely difficult to rely solely on themselves to acquire legal knowledge. in recent years, the commercialization and transformation of scientific and technological achievements by university teachers have resulted in numerous civil disputes, and scandals involving academic misconduct and academic fraud among young university teachers have also been exposed. all of these phenomena indicate that the legal awareness of young university teachers remains insufficient. universities and related institutions urgently need to pay attention to the legal awareness of young university teachers so as to prevent patent disputes and civil litigation from creating unnecessary difficulties in their research commercialization, and to avoid academic misconduct and academic fraud scandals that could damage the reputation of universities. building on previous studies, this paper summarizes the current status of legal awareness among young university teachers, incorporates an analysis of the psychological motivations underlying their insufficient legal awareness, and investigates strategies for cultivating and enhancing such awareness, thereby filling a research gap in this field. a summary table of the reviewed literature see table1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 90 table 1. the review of literatures author publication year research focus key findings / conclusions ding yuan 2015 pathways for enhancing young university teachers’ legal literacy proposed a four-dimensional framework (state, society, university, individual) to guide the cultivation of legal literacy among young university teachers. xu qisheng 2016 approaches to developing legal awareness in young university teachers emphasized that cultivating legal awareness enables teachers to manage their relationships with universities, society, and students more effectively. guo zipeng 2017 cultivation of university teachers’ awareness of educational laws and regulations highlighted that compliance with educational laws is essential to rule-of-law governance in universities and crucial for protecting student rights and fostering student personality development. jiang e 2017 legal awareness among university counselors identified two relational dimensions between counselors and students—pedagogical and administrative–legal—and advocated “law-based class management” supported by strengthened legal study. liu wen 2018 challenges in the legal governance of chinese universities found that legal governance in universities remains underdeveloped; recommended learning from u.s. practices by building internal legal systems, establishing legal affairs offices, and improving dispute-resolution channels. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 91 zhang wen 2020 the significance of university teachers’ legal awareness argued that improving legal awareness, protecting student rights, and strengthening legal governance reform are necessary to address teacher burnout and ethical controversies. yang zilan 2023 legal awareness and law-based teaching among university teachers proposed enhancing legal awareness by reinforcing legal study, maintaining compliance with laws and university rules, embedding legal elements in teaching, and participating in governance according to law. 4. the current situation and reasons for the lack of legal awareness among young university teachers 4.1 young university teachers possess only a preliminary understanding of laws and regulations because china promulgated the education law of the people’s republic of china in 1995 and the higher education law of the people’s republic of china in 1998, the content of education, the qualifications of university teachers, and evaluation standards were incorporated into statutory provisions, thereby establishing clear legal norms for the qualifications, competencies, and conduct of young university teachers. these two legislative documents have been implemented for many years, and as a result, young university teachers in china have acquired a certain level of understanding of the corresponding laws and regulations and are generally able to follow relevant requirements in teaching and other professional tasks. however, they remain unfamiliar with other legal documents. consequently, some teachers experience difficulty in accurately interpreting the terms of research project contracts, which may lead to situations in which their own rights and interests are compromised. moreover, university teachers in china generally lack sufficient understanding of intellectual property laws and regulations. as a result, they may unintentionally engage in improper citation of others’ research outcomes, fail to protect their own research outcomes adequately, or encounter difficulties in gathering evidence to defend their rights when intellectual property disputes arise. 4.2 young university teachers lack access to legal consultation and legal aid services according to liu wen’s survey (liu, 2018) of the top 35 universities in china, only 6 of these institutions have established legal service organizations dedicated to faculty and students. thus, young www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 92 university teachers and students in most of these top universities have long lacked access to professional legal education and guidance. based on the conclusions of liu’s sample survey, the majority of young university teachers and students nationwide do not have access to legal consultation services within their universities. in other words, if young university teachers or students wish to seek legal advice, they must either contact external organizations or rely on acquaintances who work in legal professions. 4.3 some young university teachers have wngaged in illegal or unlawful behavior in recent years, incidents involving university teachers violating laws and regulations have occurred repeatedly. for example, during nationwide campaigns focused on anti-corruption and integrity, some teachers continued to accept bribes from others and allocated student positions improperly; some teachers solicited gifts, money, or other benefits from students, thereby harming students’ rights and interests; some engaged in inappropriate relationships with students; some demanded kickbacks through infrastructure construction projects; some engaged in academic fraud; and some committed various forms of academic misconduct. recently, at the computer science school of xi’an oil university, a teacher publicly reported two colleagues for academic misconduct, including “one manuscript sliced into three publications,” “multiple inflated or duplicate publications,” and “widespread misuse of fund project identifiers.” isolated cases have also emerged in which teachers exchanged sexual favors for acceptance of academic manuscripts by journals. 4.4 analysis of the underlying causes of the current legal awareness among young university teachers the above cases demonstrate that the legal awareness of young university teachers requires significant improvement. an analysis of these incidents suggests four main psychological motivations behind the unlawful behavior of some university teachers: first, their personal awareness of laws and regulations is weak, and they fail to impose strict requirements on their own conduct. coupled with temptations involving power, sexual relationships, and financial gain, they may easily engage in illegal or unlawful behavior. second, the promotion of legal education within universities is insufficient. as a result, teachers may overlook the importance of laws and regulations, fail to apply legal principles in university affairs, and misuse their positions for personal gain. third, under the “up-or-out” evaluation mechanism adopted by many universities, young teachers experience extreme pressure related to research output. to achieve rapid promotion, some teachers resort to opportunistic behaviors—including various forms of academic misconduct and academic fraud—to obtain research achievement and thereby secure accelerated career advancement. fourth, some teachers exhibit jealousy and opportunism. when they see others achieving benefits through questionable means, while they themselves receive none and remain disadvantaged in promotion, they may develop jealousy and a mentality of taking chances. even under institutional oversight, some continue to engage in misconduct, which ultimately comes to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 93 light through reports or exposure of wrongdoing. only after being disciplined by the university, detained by public security authorities, or tried by courts do such teachers acknowledge their violations. in addition, during their university studies, young teachers—except for those majoring in law—receive relatively little legal education. apart from a limited number of general education courses on law, students in most disciplines can only rely on self-study to acquire legal knowledge. therefore, the legal education received during their student years is insufficient, and their legal awareness is weak from the outset. when young teachers transition from student life to academic positions, they face heavy workloads in teaching and research. as they must devote substantial time to these responsibilities, it becomes even more difficult for them to engage in self-directed learning of legal knowledge, which further hinders the improvement of their legal awareness. 5. strategies for enhancing the legal literacy and compliance of young university faculty based on the preceding analysis regarding the current status of legal and regulatory consciousness among young university faculty and the psychological motivations underlying illegal behavior, it is evident that the reinforcement of such consciousness requires a tripartite approach encompassing three dimensions: the individual faculty members themselves, the university administration, and society at large. 5.1 the dimension of young university faculty (individual level) 5.1.1 strengthening legal knowledge acquisition university teachers should elevate their individual level of legal knowledge through both autonomous study and participation in external training programs. 5.1.2 enhancing rule-of-law consciousness and practical application through daily study and regular participation in training, faculty members must establish a correct concept of the rule of law and integrate legal education into routine teaching activities. this includes interspersing legal anecdotes or general legal knowledge within classroom instruction. furthermore, they must strictly abide by laws and regulations outside the classroom context, acting as role models by setting a personal example, and utilizing legal tools to assist students or others in need 5.2 the dimension of the university (institutional level) 5.2.1 enhancing consciousness through passive learning approaches first, universities should organize regular lectures and seminars on legal knowledge by inviting judges and lawyers, ensuring that relevant legal principles are deeply internalized by young faculty through repeated advocacy by practical legal professionals. second, universities should utilize campus media, publicity boards, and other channels to popularize legal knowledge, thereby cultivating a sound campus culture characterized by the rule of law. 5.2.2 enhancing consciousness through innovative active learning approaches universities can adopt innovative legal education methodologies—such as moot courts, case studies, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 94 legal knowledge competitions, debates on laws and regulations, and organizing visits for young faculty to courts to observe trials—to improve their practical capabilities regarding laws and regulations. 5.2.3 establishing a normalized mechanism for law-based school management and teaching universities should issue relevant institutional documents for law-based governance and education. these should include measures for the construction of a rule-of-law culture, protocols for the punishment and handling of faculty misconduct or criminal behavior, and regulations for the protection of the rights and interests of both teachers and students. this establishes a sound legal working mechanism to ensure that all administrative decisions and actions strictly comply with relevant legal provisions. 5.2.4 establishing legal aid centers universities can establish legal consultation centers staffed by external legal professionals to provide legal advice and assistance to faculty and students. 5.2.5 opening channels for complaints and feedback the legal and regulatory consciousness of young faculty requires supervision by students and other staff members. opening channels for complaints and feedback facilitates this supervision, urging young faculty to enhance their legal awareness, strictly observe discipline and laws in both classroom teaching and scientific research, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of others. 5.3 the dimension of society (societal level) 5.3.1 elevating ideological stance and adhering to the construction of a rule-of-law society young university teachers are not merely educational staff but also members of the broader society. if society as a whole does not advocate for the construction of a rule-of-law society, faculty members are unlikely to prioritize the cultivation of their own legal consciousness. elevating the ideological stance and adhering to the path of building a rule-of-law society will accelerate the transition from a traditional"society of personal connections"(renqing society) to a"society of rule of law."this will mobilize all personnel toward learning and abiding by the law, enabling young faculty to establish values of understanding, respecting, and obeying the law within the broader"university of society,"thereby cultivating their legal consciousness. 5.3.2 accelerating universal legal education and shaping a positive atmosphere for learning and understanding the law various social sectors should popularize legal knowledge through diverse forms, such as television publicity, bulletin boards, newspapers, and radio broadcasts. activities such as legal salons, online legal knowledge competitions, and historical exhibitions on law should be organized to mobilize the enthusiasm of the entire society for learning the law. by accelerating universal legal education and shaping a social ethos where"law-abiding is glorious, and law-breaking is shameful,"young faculty will be encouraged to consciously strengthen their legal knowledge through various societal channels. consequently, they will spontaneously abide by laws and regulations, adhere to university rules, and set an example of law-abiding behavior for their students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 6. conclusion this paper investigates the current status of legal and regulatory consciousness among young faculty members in institutions of higher education. it conducts an in-depth analysis of both the internal psychological motivations and the external factors contributing to the observed deficiency in their legal and regulatory awareness, and subsequently proposes a comprehensive series of strategies aimed at enhancing this consciousness. focusing on the status quo, and actively cultivating and elevating the legal and regulatory consciousness of young university teachers, constitutes a pivotal component in advancing the law-based governance of class management, educational instruction, and institutional administration (i.e., promoting the rule of law in class, teaching, and school management). furthermore, it serves as a fundamental pillar for the construction of a campus culture characterized by integrity and probity. ultimately, the substantial enhancement of legal and regulatory consciousness among young faculty members is a prerequisite for effectively cultivating a sound legal worldview in students. only through this improvement can universities fulfill their mission of supplying the nation and society with high-quality talents who respect, observe, and cherish the law. reference ding, y., & mao, x. c. (2015). exploration on the path to improve the legal literacy of young college teachers. academic theory, 2015(15), 239-240. guo, z. p. (2017). on how college teachers should improve their awareness of education laws and regulations. science and technology horizon, 2017(34), 74, 132. jiang, e. (2017). the importance of legal awareness for university counselors. education moder nization, 4(03), 66-67. https://doi.org/10.16541/j.cnki.2095-8420.2017.03.030 liu, w. (2018). the current situation and problems of the rule of law construction in colleges and universities an analysis based on the establishment of legal institutions in 59 colleges and universities. china higher education research, 2018(5), 65-69. xu, q. s. (2016). on the cultivation of legal awareness of young teachers. knowledge library, 2016(6), 56. yang, z. l. (2023). research on improving the legal awareness of college teachers and governing education according to law. journal of hebei energy vocational and technical college, 23(2), 52-54. zhang, w. (2020). on the importance of improving the awareness of education laws and regulations among college teachers. comparative studies on cultural innovation, 4(12), 182-183. original paper current situation and improvement strategies of la advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 107 original paper digital transmission strategies for xiangxi’s intangible cultural heritage in traditional ethnic sports li ling1* 1 hunan agricultural university, changsha 410128, hunan,china * li ling, agricultural university, changsha, hunan, china e-mail: 249072371@qq.com received: february 29, 2025 accepted: april 19, 2025 online published: april 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p107 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p107 abstract as a vital component of regional culture, xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports carry rich historical memories and social value but face challenges in the modern era—limited transmission channels, a narrow audience, and fragmented digital resourceswing on a literature review and fieldwork, this study combines surveys and in-depth interviews to gather needs data from three stakeholder groups: government agencies, cultural institutions, and local communities. through statistical and visual analysis, it uncovers the key constraints and opportunities in digitizing these sports. building on existing platform architectures and content presentation modes, we propose a strategy framework centered on “multi-platform integration, interactive participation, and targeted delivery.” we applied this framework in the “xiangxi sports cloud” platform and a series of mobile micro-video projects, preliminarily demonstrating its feasibility and effectiveness. findings indicate that by creating an integrated digital platform, optimizing content structure, and enhancing user interaction, we can achieve long-term protection and broad dissemination of xiangxi’s intangible cultural heritage in traditional sports. finally, we discuss the strategy’s strengths and limitations and outline recommendations for policy support and future research. keywords xiangxi; traditional ethnic sports, intangible cultural heritage, digital transmission, data analysis 1. introduction xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports—including tujia wrestling, miao pole dancing, and yao drum dances—not only showcase the physical skills and aesthetic tastes of its minority communities but also embody bloodline identity, religious ritual, and local memory. yet, rapid modernization and urban–rural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 108 migration have led to aging bearers of these arts, declining youth engagement, and the reduction of rituals to mere performances. at the same time, scattered digital resources and limited platform functionality prevent online learning and outreach from forming a cohesive whole. to overcome these barriers, an integrated digital transmission system—one that unites resource collection, curriculum design, and interactive dissemination—is urgently needed. this paper analyzes the current status and needs of xiangxi’s intangible cultural heritage in traditional sports through literature review, surveys, and interviews. leveraging data analysis to identify critical factors, we propose a strategy of multi-platform integration, interactive participation, and targeted delivery, and validate its practicality via the “xiangxi sports cloud” case study, offering a systematic roadmap for the vibrant preservation and propagation of these traditions (liu, 2022). 2. literature review 2.1 current research on digitally transmitting xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports with the widespread adoption of digital technologies in cultural fields, scholars at home and abroad have focused on protecting and sharing intangible cultural heritage digitally. domestic studies have largely addressed the construction of digital archives and resource integration, establishing multimedia databases, digital museums, and online exhibitions to store and showcase diverse heritage items such as huizhou shadow puppetry and miao silverwork (zhang, hui, & liu, 2022). more recently, research has turned toward interactive experiences and user engagement—exploring immersive vr/ar browsing as well as mobile micro-video and short-video platforms to deliver more vivid, intuitive heritage presentations. in xiangxi, preliminary digital efforts have taken various forms. some work centers on regional platforms like “xiangxi sports cloud,” cataloguing key elements of tujia wrestling and miao pole dancing and implementing video capture, motion decomposition, and 3d modeling. other studies use gis to visualize the spatial distribution and historical transmission paths of these sports, laying the groundwork for cultural mapping (liu & saearani, 2021). a few teams have even introduced deep-learning–based motion-recognition algorithms to enhance the precision of online instruction and training.overall, while research on digitally transmitting xiangxi’s traditional sports has gained momentum, gaps remain. most efforts emphasize resource gathering and platform building but lack systematic theoretical frameworks and standardized data protocols. interactive features and community participation mechanisms are underdeveloped, hindering sustained user engagement. and practical pilots are often one-off trials rather than replicable, scalable solutions. future work must bridge theory and practice to build a holistic, sustainable digital transmission system that supports the living heritage of xiangxi’s traditional sports (li, 2023). 2.2 theoretical foundations and digital methods the study of digitally transmitting intangible cultural heritage now spans multiple disciplines. from a cultural-ecology perspective, heritage elements, bearers, and environment form a dynamic equilibrium; digital tools can not only archive resources but also foster ecosystem renewal through online www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 collaboration and community engagement. social-memory theory emphasizes that encoding, storing, and re-presenting collective memory are central to heritage transmission—digital platforms can create “virtual memory halls” with multimedia, timelines, and oral archives to reinforce group identity. meanwhile, the technology acceptance model (tam) and diffusion of innovations (doi) provide empirical frameworks for understanding user motivation, perceived ease of use, and pathways of technology adoption, guiding feature design and promotion strategies (yuan, li, & zhuo, 2022). in terms of methods, core technologies include digital capture, 3d modeling, vr/ar, gis, and big-data analytics. high-precision photogrammetry, structured-light scanning, and motion capture can reconstruct the fine details and spatial context of xiangxi’s sports. 3d modeling and digital-twin techniques recreate immersive environments for interactive learning. vr/ar deliver immersive browsing on desktop and real-time “experience + learning” on mobile, boosting engagement. gis visualizes the geographic distribution and transmission lineage of each sport, underpinning regional cultural maps. and machine-learning–driven analysis of user behavior and transmission outcomes offers data-driven insights for platform optimization and strategy refinement (kuang et al., 2023). integrating these theories and methods lays out a systematic, sustainable technological path for the digital transmission of xiangxi’s intangible cultural heritage in traditional sports. 3. overview of xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports as intangible cultural heritage 3.1 key activities and cultural significance xiangxi’s traditional sports are as varied as the region is scenic, with tujia wrestling, miao pole dancing (also called bamboo-pole dance), miao bullfighting, and yao long-drum dancing standing out as emblematic. tujia wrestling unfolds to the drumbeat of the hand-swinging dance, where competitors test skill and strength while honoring each other through gestures like palm strikes and embraces. in miao pole dancing, performers nimbly leap, rotate, and balance across two parallel poles—a display of bodily coordination that also symbolizes the community’s reverence for nature and prayers for good fortune (huang et al., 2022). miao bullfighting centers on elaborately decorated bulls whose duels showcase bravery and tribal pride. the yao long-drum dance fuses percussive rhythms with group choreography, its drumbeats and footwork woven into vital ceremonial and celebratory rituals. beyond physical training and aesthetic enjoyment, these traditions carry xiangxi’s minority peoples’ historical narratives, social structures, and religious beliefs, serving as vital bonds of kinship and communal identity and playing an irreplaceable role in preserving ethnic spirit and shaping regional cultural identity (wu & cheng, 2023). 3.2 current transmission and challenges transmission still relies heavily on master-apprentice relationships, village festivals, and ancestral shrine ceremonies. elder masters pass down techniques through familial and local networks, but without standardized syllabi or evaluation criteria, significant variations emerge across lineages and villages, hindering the formation of a unified teaching system. in recent years, government and cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 110 bodies have launched “intangible heritage in schools” and “in communities” initiatives, giving some students and residents close-up experiences of tujia wrestling and miao pole dancing. local museums and exhibition halls have also set up permanent displays, using videos, photographs, and artifact reconstructions to illustrate these sports’ historical lineages and technical essence. yet limited venues, funding, and professional instructors mean such offline events are often brief and narrowly scoped, failing to attract new apprentices or sustain youth interest (chang et al., 2023). on the digital front, some researchers and teams have tried short-video platforms and micro-courses to reach wider audiences, but most focus merely on showcasing movements without delving into underlying principles, detailed technique breakdowns, or interactive feedback—falls short of learners’ deeper needs. regional platforms like “xiangxi sports cloud” compile project videos and textual descriptions but suffer from slow updates, loosely structured information, poor searchability, and a lack of community engagement or online training modules, making it hard to build a stable online learning community. additionally, core masters are aging—those in their fifties and sixties now dominate—while younger generations prefer modern sports or esports, showing declining willingness and frequency to engage with traditional practices, putting these skills at risk of discontinuity.meanwhile, xiangxi’s tourism boom has provided both a stage and funding for traditional sports but also driven over-commercialization and performative simplification. some events modify technical routines or dramatize performances to cater to tourists, diluting cultural authenticity. coupled with rural outmigration, environmental degradation, and reduced festival activity, the fertile ground for these traditions is eroding. in sum, xiangxi’s traditional sports face a complex web of challenges—unstandardized teaching, fragmented digital resources, low youth participation, commercialization that strays from cultural essence, and environmental pressures—highlighting the urgent need for a long-term preservation system that integrates systematic instruction, community engagement, and digital interaction (shu et al., 2023). 4. digital transmission status and needs analysis 4.1 existing digital platforms and resources the digital transmission of xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports currently hinges on the regional “xiangxi sports cloud,” intangible heritage digital libraries run by cultural and sports departments, and scattered short-video and micro-course channels. on “xiangxi sports cloud,” users find basic overviews and tutorial videos for tujia wrestling and miao pole dancing, but the platform offers mostly one-way content with limited interactive features, and video quality and camera angles vary, making it unsuitable for in-depth learning. provincial and municipal heritage offices and cultural centers have launched digital museums and online exhibitions featuring themed articles, archival photographs, and a few 3d models, yet their tagging is imprecise, updates infrequent, and users struggle to locate needed information quickly. meanwhile, new-media channels such as douyin and kuaishou host “intangible heritage expert” accounts, and bilibili offers micro-course series, which have succeeded in short-term www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 promotion—especially among younger viewers. however, these offerings are largely performative and lack systematic instruction or in-depth exploration of cultural context and technical principles. some universities and research institutions have used gis platforms to map the spatial distribution of xiangxi’s sports traditions, providing a geographic foundation for cultural mapping, but these efforts are not integrated with online teaching or social features, limiting location-based learning or offline engagement. in sum, although a variety of digital platforms and resources have emerged, fragmentation, platform isolation, and low user engagement persist, underscoring the need for unified standards, enhanced interactivity, and seamless online–offline integration. 4.2 stakeholder needs assessment to capture the full range of practical needs for digital transmission, this study combined online questionnaires (320 valid responses) and in-depth interviews (10 heritage masters, 6 government/cultural officials, and 4 platform operators), covering five stakeholder groups: government authorities, heritage bearers, community members, tourism professionals, and academic researchers.government agencies prioritize policy support and resource allocation, seeking a standardized digital platform for project registration, monitoring, and evaluation.heritage masters emphasize comprehensive documentation and precise instruction, hoping for high-quality multi-angle videos, 3d motion breakdowns, and real-time feedback.community members desire interactive experiences and online social networks, wanting easy access to learning materials and opportunities for virtual competitions or challenges to strengthen cultural identity.tourism professionals look to ar/vr technologies to deliver immersive experiences that integrate traditional sports deeply into travel itineraries.academics and researchers stress data standardization and open sharing, requiring bulk download capabilities, apis, and statistical analysis tools to support scholarly research and teaching.these insights distill three core elements—standardized content, diverse interactivity, and open analytics—to guide the design and implementation of future digital transmission strategies. 5. data analysis this chapter builds on the preceding surveys and data collection, using descriptive statistics and visualizations to examine stakeholders’ awareness, needs, and usage habits regarding the digital transmission of xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports. our goal is to identify the key factors influencing their engagement and to suggest areas for improvement. 5.1 survey design and data sources to ensure both breadth and representativeness, we designed a questionnaire covering respondents’ basic information, frequency of participation in traditional sports, desired digital-platform features, and satisfaction ratings. we then enriched this with semi-structured interview data. the online survey was distributed via email, a wechat official account, and social media across five main xiangxi counties/cities (jishou, fenghuang, huayuan, yongshun, and longshan), yielding 260 valid responses. an additional 60 paper questionnaires were collected at festival sites and community cultural centers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 we also interviewed ten core inheritors and six government or cultural-agency representatives. all questionnaire data were cleaned, de-duplicated, and coded per standard statistical procedures; interview recordings were transcribed and thematically analyzed to supplement the quantitative findings.our data sources included: raw exports from surveymonkey, scanned and verified on-site questionnaires,verbatim transcripts of in-depth interviews,platform access logs.table 1 shows a sample of the dataset to illustrate its structure and variables: table 1. sample data sample id respondent type age gender region participation frequency (times/month) demand score (1–5) s001 community resident 28 female jishou city 2 4 s002 inheritor 54 male fenghuang co. 5 5 s003 government official 45 female huayuan co. 1 3 s004 tourism practitioner 32 male yongshun co. 3 4 s005 academic researcher 38 female longshan co. 2 4 5.2 data processing and analysis results after cleaning and preprocessing, we conducted descriptive statistics and correlation analyses on key metrics such as demand score and participation frequency to uncover differences across stakeholder groups and how usage habits affect their needs. figure 1. demand score statistics by respondent type www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 from figure 1, inheritors show the strongest overall demand for the digital platform (m = 4.72, sd = 0.45), whereas community residents are relatively less enthusiastic (m = 3.85, sd = 0.67). government officials, tourism practitioners, and academic researchers cluster around scores above 4.0, indicating high expectations for management, interaction, and data-sharing features.next, we grouped participation frequency into four categories to explore its relationship with demand score: figure 2. demand score by participation frequency as shown in figure 2, demand scores rise steadily with participation frequency, suggesting a clear linear trend. the pearson correlation between participation frequency and demand score is r = 0.68 (p < 0.01), indicating a significant positive relationship.to assess combined effects, we built a simple linear regression model using participation frequency and respondent type (as dummy variables) to predict demand score. the model explains approximately 52% of the variance in demand scores (r² = 0.52). regression coefficients show that inheritor status (β = 0.45, p < 0.001) and participation frequency (β = 0.36, p < 0.001) are both significant predictors of demand intensity.in summary, our analysis reveals that inheritors most urgently require high-quality, multi-angle content and interactive features; highly engaged participants (especially active community members and inheritors) rate in-depth learning and feedback functions more favorably; and government and academic users place greater emphasis on management tools and data-analysis capabilities. these insights provide a solid foundation for designing targeted delivery and personalized content strategies. 6. digital transmission strategy design the digital transmission platform is built on a layered microservices architecture to ensure both scalability and high availability. at the foundation lies the data‐collection tier, which uses high-resolution cameras, inertial sensors, and gis interfaces to capture live video streams, motion trajectories, and spatial coordinates of each traditional sport. after preprocessing, the data are fed into the storage tier—comprising a relational database, a time-series database, and distributed file storage—where multimedia videos, 3d models, text archives, and log files are organized and managed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 114 a big-data analytics engine then performs batch‐mode statistics and generates visual reports.above this, the business-logic layer decomposes core functionality into discrete microservices—project management, courseware delivery, motion decomposition and 3d reconstruction, online community, event check-ins with achievement badges, role and permission management, analytics, and intelligent content recommendation—each exposed through a unified api gateway for routing and authentication. container orchestration with kubernetes and a service mesh via istio provide elastic scaling and automatic fault containment, keeping the system stable even under heavy load.the presentation layer offers a responsive web interface alongside native mobile apps, supporting pcs, tablets, smartphones, and vr headsets alike. a 2d multimedia module streams hd instructional videos and illustrated guides, while a 3d engine—built on webgl and unity—renders motion models in real time, enabling user interaction. ar/vr features, powered by arcore/arkit, overlay traditional-sports scenarios onto the user’s real environment for immersive learning. open apis and an sdk invite universities, research institutes, and third-party developers to build on the platform. global cdns, load balancers, and caching further optimize latency, and comprehensive logging and performance monitoring tools underpin reliable operation. 7. content construction and interactive dissemination content is organized into four key domains—technical elements, historical origins, formal rules, and cultural significance—with standardized metadata tags to enable cross-dataset search and retrieval. for example, tujia wrestling is documented through high-definition video, 3d scans, and motion-capture data covering its origin myths, traditional attire, sequence of moves, refereeing rules, and festival context. these assets feed into richly illustrated micro-lectures and recorded oral histories. learning materials are tiered into “foundations,” “skill development,” and “case studies,” with a corresponding question bank for personalized, step-by-step progression.to foster engagement, the platform leverages social and immersive technologies. an online community combines a check-in system with achievement badges: users complete tasks (e.g., submitting a pole-dance practice video) as “online challenges,” then rate and comment on each other’s work. mobile ar recreates the miao pole-dance setting around the learner, overlaying animated poles in real time through the smartphone camera. a vr experience mode simulates festival grounds, allowing users to virtually join yao long-drum dances or miao bullfights for deeper cultural immersion. complementing these, a “heritage beats” series on short-video and live-stream platforms invites masters to demonstrate techniques with live commentary and interactive q&a. this “watch–learn–evaluate–play” loop tightly integrates digital content with offline practice, promoting both broad outreach and deep transmission of xiangxi’s traditional sports. 8. case study: “xiangxi sports cloud” developed jointly by the local culture and technology authorities, “xiangxi sports cloud” runs on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 kubernetes and integrates three core components. first, 3d motion visualization was achieved through structured-light scanning and motion capture, generating 120 high-precision models of tujia wrestling and miao pole dancing, viewable from any angle in a webgl viewer. second, the tiered micro-lecture system comprises 24 video lessons across “beginner–intermediate–advanced,” complemented by 48 intelligent quizzes that support error correction and dynamic scoring. third, the online community features check-ins, head-to-head “pk” challenges, and achievement badges: when users submit practice videos, an automated scoring engine rates their performance and publishes it alongside peer reviews and likes.in its first six months, the platform attracted 3,200 registered users and 1,150 monthly active users. average monthly check-ins rose from 1.2 to 3.8 per user, and quiz scores improved from an average of 65 to 82 points. the community logged 4,500 user-uploaded videos and 9,800 comments, demonstrating significant gains in both participation and learning outcomes. this success offers a replicable model for digital heritage transmission. 9. discussion and recommendations the proposed strategy—integrating multiple access platforms, fostering interactive participation, and delivering targeted content—yields several clear benefits. multi-device support (web, mobile, vr/ar) maximizes reach across age groups and usage contexts, making content “record once, share everywhere.” community check-ins, achievement badges, ar overlays, and vr immersion all heighten user engagement and cultural identification. meanwhile, big-data analytics paired with machine-learning recommendations enable personalized content delivery, boosting user retention and learning effectiveness.yet challenges remain. building and maintaining such a system demands substantial investment in precision hardware, cloud operations, and ai development. rural and remote areas may lack the network infrastructure or digital literacy to participate fully, risking a “digital divide.” overemphasizing technological spectacle can also dilute the traditions’ original meaning and ritual depth—care must be taken to preserve cultural authenticity.to ensure sustainable deployment and iterative improvement, we recommend a two-pronged approach. first, policy support: governments should allocate dedicated funding for intangible-heritage digitization, establish cross-departmental committees (culture, technology, education) to set standards and evaluation metrics, and form a standing advisory board of scholars, tradition bearers, and technical experts to guide content curation and platform planning. second, a phased rollout: initiate pilots in strong-heritage bases like jishou and fenghuang, collaborate with universities on instructor training and curriculum development to refine the model, then scale the mature platform across the province and ultimately to other minority regions nationwide. public-private partnerships and tourism collaborations can further embed heritage experiences within cultural tourism. finally, implement continuous monitoring and feedback—leveraging platform telemetry and regular user surveys to measure satisfaction, learning gains, and cultural identification—and use these insights to refine features and content architecture for long-term preservation and dynamic transmission. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 10. conclusion drawing on literature review, fieldwork, and data analysis, this study identified key obstacles to xiangxi’s traditional ethnic sports—skill gaps between generations, fragmented digital assets, and declining youth engagement—and proposed a triad strategy of multi-platform integration, interactive participation, and targeted content delivery. the “xiangxi sports cloud” case validated that 3d motion visualization, tiered micro-lectures, and a vibrant online community significantly enhance user engagement and learning outcomes. our findings suggest that, with policy backing and collaborative governance, standardized content frameworks and data-driven optimization can achieve systematic preservation and broad dissemination of xiangxi’s intangible cultural heritage. future efforts should focus on continuously refining the technical platform, expanding the course catalog, and strengthening online–offline linkages to secure both the longevity and authenticity of these living traditions. acknowledgements graduate research and innovation project of hunan agricultural university: internal mechanism, external driving force and future path of sports intangible cultural heritage inheritance and integrated development of "sports culture tourism" industry in xiangxi prefecture (no.2024xkc092). references chang, b. r. et al. (2023). spatial-temporal distribution pattern and tourism utilization potential of intangible cultural heritage resources in the yellow river basin. sustainability, 15(3), 2611. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032611 huang, y. h. et al. (2022). construction of cultural heritage tourism corridor for the dissemination of historical culture: a case study of typical mountainous multi-ethnic area in china. land, 12(1), 138. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12010138 kuang, r. y. et al. (2023). research on the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of central china’s intangible cultural heritage. sustainability, 15(7), 5751. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075751 li, x. q. et al. (2023). geographical distribution and influencing factors of intangible cultural heritage in the three gorges reservoir area. sustainability, 15(4), 3025. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043025 liu, j. (2022). digitally protecting and disseminating the intangible cultural heritage in information technology era. mobile information systems, 2022.1, 1115655. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/1115655 shu, y. et al. (2023). potential of the digital information platform applied in promotion of rural landscape in china: from preliminary practices to framework conception. land, 12(9), 1667. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12091667 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 117 wu, j. y., & cheng, j. (2023). image construction of china's rural sports tourism destination from the perspective of rural revitalization. tourism management and technology economy, 6(3), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.23977/tmte.2023.060301 yang, l., & saearani, m. f. t. b. (2021). research on the dilemma and countermeasures of the inheritance of xiangxi miao drum-dancing in china. international journal of frontiers in sociology, 3(3), 91-95. https://doi.org/10.25236/ijfs.2021.030318 yuan, c. c., li, g., & zhuo, h. l. (2022). coupling mechanisms and development patterns of revitalizing intangible cultural heritage by integrating cultural tourism: the case of hunan province, china. sustainability, 14(12), 6994. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14126994 zhang, x. y., hui, x., & rui, l. (2022). spatial pattern and influencing factors of intangible cultural heritage of music in xiangxi, central china. heritage science, 10(1), 39. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-022-00672-y li ling1* 1 hunan agricultural university, changsha 410128, * li ling, agricultural university, changsha, huna 2.1 current research on digitally transmitting xia 2.2 theoretical foundations and digital methods 3.1 key activities and cultural significance 3.2 current transmission and challenges 4.1 existing digital platforms and resources 4.2 stakeholder needs assessment 5.1 survey design and data sources 5.2 data processing and analysis results advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 118 original paper exploration on classification management of digital books in university libraries fenghe zheng1 1 chongqing preschool education college, chongqing 404047, china received: june 17, 2023 accepted: october 05, 2023 online published: october 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p118 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p118 abstract with the rapid development of information technology, the digital book resources of university libraries are increasingly abundant, and it is urgent to carry out scientific and effective classification management. this paper deeply explores the classification management of digital books in university libraries. firstly, it expounds the importance of classification management of digital books, including improving the efficiency of book retrieval, optimizing the allocation of book resources and promoting knowledge sharing and academic exchange. then, it analyzes the current situation and problems of digital book classification management in university libraries, mainly including inconsistent classification standards, single classification methods and insufficient technical support. aiming at these problems, corresponding strategies are put forward, such as formulating a unified classification standard and establishing a dynamic update mechanism; comprehensive use of a variety of classification methods, including classification based on user needs and knowledge graphs; strengthen technical support, increase technical investment and train professional and technical personnel; increase user engagement, encourage reader feedback and conduct user training activities. through these explorations, it aims to provide a useful reference for the classification management of digital books in university libraries, so as to better meet the needs of college teachers and students for information resources. keywords library digital resources book classification management 1. introduction in todays era of digitalization sweeping the world, university libraries are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities in book classification management. with the rapid development of information technology, especially the wide application of internet and artificial intelligence technology, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 119 the number of digital book resources shows an explosive growth trend. these resources include not only traditional forms such as e-books, online journals and databases, but also multimedia materials, open access resources and various interactive learning platforms. faced with such huge and diverse information resources, traditional book classification management methods, such as physical book management methods based on dewey decimal system or library of congress classification, are obviously difficult to meet the needs of college teachers and students for rapid retrieval and efficient utilization of information. the exploration of digital book classification management is not only to cope with the surge of resources, but also to improve the quality and efficiency of library services. by adopting advanced information technologies, such as natural language processing, machine learning and big data analysis, university libraries can realize intelligent classification, accurate retrieval and personalized recommendation of massive digital resources. this can not only help teachers and students find the required information faster, but also provide more personalized learning and research support by analyzing user behaviors and preferences. in addition, digital book classification management can also promote the open sharing of library resources, break the limitation of traditional library physical space, and make the dissemination of knowledge and information more extensive and convenient. by constructing a unified digital resource management platform, university libraries can realize resource sharing across campuses and institutions, and provide an interconnected knowledge network for scholars all over the world. therefore, the classification management of digital books in university libraries in suo is not only an innovation of traditional management methods, but also a profound influence on future educational models and learning methods. it has important practical significance and far-reaching strategic value for improving the service ability of university libraries, meeting the information needs of teachers and students, and promoting the innovative dissemination of knowledge. 2. importance of classification management of digital books in university libraries 1) in order to significantly improve the efficiency of book retrieval, the implementation of digital book classification management is very important. by constructing a scientific and reasonable classification system, readers can locate the book resources they need more conveniently and accurately. for example, using the topic classification method, books with related content or similar topics can be clustered together to form a centralized topic group, which not only facilitates readers search, but also helps them discover more books that may be of interest. in addition, the use of advanced information technology, such as powerful database management system and efficient search engine, can greatly speed up the speed and accuracy of book retrieval, thus improving the utilization rate of books. the application of these technologies enables readers to quickly find the required books and materials through various retrieval methods such as keyword search, author index, publication year, etc., which greatly saves the search time and optimizes the resource management and service quality of the library. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 120 2) in order to improve the allocation efficiency of book resources, libraries can more accurately grasp the distribution of various book resources and their use frequency by implementing refined digital book classification management strategies. this kind of classified management not only helps libraries to make more informed decisions when purchasing new books and constructing resource system, but also effectively prevents the repeated purchase of book resources and ensures that every input can give full play to the maximum benefits. through scientific classification management, the library can optimize the allocation of existing resources and improve the efficiency of resource use, so as to meet the needs of readers, reduce the daily operating cost of the library and realize the sustainable development of resources. 3) digital book classification management not only provides teachers and students with rich interdisciplinary learning and research resources, but also greatly promotes knowledge sharing and academic exchange by carefully sorting and sorting out books in different disciplines. this management method enables readers to access and utilize various academic materials more conveniently, thus facilitating knowledge sharing and academic discussion among them. in addition, it also provides a platform for the cross-integration of disciplines, helps to promote the innovation and development of academic fields, and injects new vitality into academic research. through digital means, book resources have been used more effectively, and the threshold of academic communication has been lowered, thus helping to form a more open and diverse academic environment. 3. current situation and problems of digital book classification management in university libraries 1) university libraries are faced with the problem of inconsistent standards in the classification management of digital books, which leads to the difficulty of compatibility among different libraries and affects the retrieval and sharing of resources. for example, when searching for information across schools, it is necessary to adapt to different classification systems, which increases the difficulty. in addition, the classification system often lags behind the development of disciplines, and it is difficult to classify new research results in time. in order to improve, it is necessary to establish unified standards, improve resource utilization efficiency and promote academic exchanges. library administrators should regularly update the classification system to reflect the latest trends in the discipline and better serve readers and academia. 2) the traditional book classification method relies on subject and subject classification, which was the key of book management and retrieval. but with the proliferation of digital resources, the limitations of these methods appear and cannot meet modern needs. in order to effectively manage and retrieve digital books, diversified and intelligent classification methods should be adopted. for example, the classification based on user needs can accurately meet the personalized needs, and improve the retrieval efficiency and satisfaction by analyzing the recommended books of users reading history and search habits. classification based on knowledge graph uses modern information technology to build a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 121 knowledge correlation network, realize deep understanding and classification, reveal the connection between knowledge fields, and help to discover new knowledge. therefore, it is necessary to continuously innovate and improve the classification method, combine the traditional advantages and the characteristics of emerging technologies, and build an efficient, intelligent and user-friendly book classification management system. 3) insufficient technical support, digital book classification management needs advanced information technology support, such as database management system, search engine, knowledge graph, etc. however, some university libraries have insufficient investment in technology, which leads to the imperfect function of the classification management system and fails to meet the needs of readers. the lack of professional technical personnel to conduct system maintenance and update also affects the effect of digital book classification management. 4. strategies of classification management of digital books in university libraries 1) unify classification standards, formulate unified classification standards for digital books, and standardize the classification system among libraries. in order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of library management, it is necessary to unify the classification standards of digital books and standardize the classification system among libraries. this not only helps to improve the convenience of book retrieval, but also promotes resource sharing and academic exchanges. therefore, we should refer to internationally recognized classification standards, such as the dewey decimal classification and the library of congress classification, and combine relevant domestic standards and norms, such as "chinese library classification". on this basis, combined with the specific needs and actual situation of university libraries, a set of scientific, reasonable and operational classification standards of digital books are worked out. 2) moreover, in order to ensure that the classification system can timely reflect the latest developments and changes in the subject field, it is crucial to establish a dynamic update mechanism. this means that the classification standard should not be unchanged, but should be adjusted and updated with the evolution of the knowledge system and the progress of technology. through the regular review and revision of the classification standards, the timeliness and accuracy of the classification system can be ensured, which can better serve the academic research and educational work. such a dynamic update mechanism could include regular expert review meetings, online feedback systems, and collaboration with academic institutions to collect updated information on discipline development and user feedback, ensuring that classification standards are always consistent with the times. 3) diversified classification methods, in order to better meet the diverse needs of different reader groups, we can adopt a variety of book classification methods. in addition to the traditional classification according to subject areas and topic content, we can also classify according to the individual needs of users and the relevance of knowledge graphs. by using big data analysis technology, we can dig deep into readers search behaviors and reading habits, so as to more accurately understand www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 122 their preferences and needs. at the same time, combined with artificial intelligence technology, we can intelligently analyze massive user data, identify potential classification patterns and trends, and further optimize book classification management. this comprehensive classification method can not only improve the efficiency of book retrieval, but also enhance readers reading experience, making the allocation and recommendation of book resources more intelligent and personalized. 4) strengthen technical support, in order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of digital book classification management, we will increase the investment in related technologies, and actively introduce and apply advanced information technology and equipment. this includes, but is not limited to, building a powerful and user-friendly database management system, an efficient and accurate search engine, and an intelligent knowledge graph system, which will significantly improve the overall functionality and performance of the classification management system. in addition, we will focus on the development of technical personnel, through regular training and skill upgrading activities to ensure that they can master the latest technical dynamics and maintenance skills. at the same time, we will strengthen the daily maintenance and regular update of the classification management system to ensure the stability and reliability of the system, so as to provide users with a continuous and efficient service experience. through these measures, we aim to build a more intelligent and efficient digital book classification management system, to meet the growing demand of information management. 5) in order to improve user participation, we encourage readers to actively participate in the classification management of digital books. by collecting feedback and evaluation information from users, we can continuously optimize and improve the existing classification system, and at the same time adjust and upgrade our management methods. in addition, we will regularly carry out a series of user training and education activities aimed at improving readers information literacy and retrieval ability. through these activities, we hope that readers can master the skills of using digital book resources more skillfully, so as to obtain the required information more efficiently and enhance their reading experience and learning effect. 5. conclusion in the digital age, the classification and management of digital books in university libraries is very important. to ensure the efficient use of resources and knowledge dissemination, comprehensive strategies should be adopted. the establishment of a unified classification standard is the foundation, which helps in the systematic organization and retrieval of books. diversified classification methods, such as by subject, year of publication or authors. strengthen technical support, introduce artificial intelligence and big data analysis, realize intelligent classification and recommendation, and improve the accuracy and convenience of retrieval. improve user engagement, optimize the classification system through feedback to meet actual needs. university libraries should actively explore and innovate, promote the in-depth development of classified management, optimize the allocation of resources, promote knowledge sharing and academic exchange, and provide efficient information services for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 123 teachers and students. these efforts will make the library become an important base for knowledge dissemination and academic research, and play a key role in cultivating innovative talents and promoting academic progress. acknowledgements chongqing preschool education college scientific research platform in 2024. project name: digital elderly care service big data application research center (grant number: 2024kypt-01). reference chen, f., & huang, w. b. (n.d.). research on the data governance process of university libraries under the background of digital transformation. library construction, 1-20. du, y. z., & he, p. (2024). current status and intermediate forms of digitalization and intelligence in university libraries. cultural industry, (28), 67-69. fan, x. m. (2024). position setting and training path of library data librarians from the perspective of digitalization. library work and research, (s1), 10-17. huang, l. y., sun, y. q., & zhou, y. l. (2024). practical thinking on the digital transformation of public libraries-based on 19 excellent cases of innovative application of smart libraries. new century library, (09), 68-72. https://doi.org/10.16810/j.cnki.1672-514x. 2024.09.010 li, m. c. (2024). research on the innovation and development of smart libraries in public security colleges under the background of digitalization. china management informatization, (16), 187-189. man, l. n. (2024). research on cultural elderly care services in public libraries under the background of digitalization and aging. henan library science journal, (09), 11-13. qin, s., dai, b. q., gao, x., & xu, n. (2023). the strategic picture of high-quality library development under the overall layout of "digital china". library forum, (06), 5-17. suo, c. j., & pai. y. x. (2024). connotation, methods and strategies of data architecture for library digital transformation. information theory and practice, (03), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.16353/j.cnki.1000-7490.2024. 03.004 wang, h. m.. (2024). research on the cultural subject mechanism of libraries based on digital transformation. journal of library science, (06), 15-18. https://doi.org/10.14037/j.cnki.tsgxk.2024. 06.019 wang, z. z., guan, f. t., & zeng, c. (2024). exploration of the construction of scholarly campuses in colleges and universities under the background of educational digitalization-taking the library of guangdong university of finance and economics as an example. library magazine, (09), 87-94. wen, y. c. (2024). design and practice of intelligent recommendation system for digital libraries. integrated circuit application, (05), 200-201. https://doi.org/10.19339/j.issn.1674-2583.2024. 05.089 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 124 wu, z. j.. (2024). exploration of intelligent services in university libraries under the digital transformation of education. journal of library science, (06), 55-59. https://doi.org/10.14037/j.cnki.tsgxk.2024. 06.016 yang, m., & yan, h. b. (2024). research on the construction of library data culture based on digital transformation. jiangsu science and technology information, (12), 66-69. zhao, f. z. (2023). integrated development of library governance and digitalization: symbiotic mechanism, practical dilemma and breakthrough path. library science research, (11), 33-40. https://doi.org/10.15941/j.cnki.issn1001-0424.2023. 11.001 zhao, z. x. (2024). research on digital service optimization strategy of higher vocational college libraries. china modern educational equipment, (11), 180-182. https://doi.org/10.13492/j.cnki.cmee.2024. 11.042 zheng, d. q. (2024). the value orientation of digital primary and secondary school library journals. china audio-visual education, (07), 126-129. microsoft word assc-v3n3-p80 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 80 original paper pathways of resilience and recovery from trauma for cambodian young people zoe o. wyatt1* 1 hagar international, usa received: july 21, 2021 accepted: august 7, 2021 online published: august 26, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p90 abstract the majority of trauma and resilience research in cambodia has focused on survivors of the khmer rouge. this qualitative study set out to discover what protective factors promote resilience in young trauma survivors who are at least one generation removed. a grounded theory approach offered a guiding resilience framework that shaped 40 interviews: 26 participants comprised of cambodian young people (ages 18-30) who had experienced significant early childhood trauma and 14 key informants from the cambodian child protection non-governmental organization sector. data from the young people was collected through the use of three instruments: semi-structured interviews, a narrative timeline of events and the connor-davidson resilience scale. these instruments were used to explore factors relating to recovery, resilience and wellbeing among the cambodian young people. key informant interviews were conducted to help understand how the child protection sector assists recovery from trauma in cambodia. analysis of the participants’ oral narratives sought to uncover, understand and explain the phenomena of resilience and factors contributing to their recovery, in a post-khmer rouge contemporary cambodian context. according to the young people, key factors contributing to their recovery included emotional regulation, faith and spirituality, opportunities for education and employment, social connectedness and meaning making. keywords resilience, cambodia, trauma-informed, protective factors, recovery 1. introduction the devastating outcomes of the genocide and other atrocities inflicted by the khmer rouge (kr) during the 1970s and the subsequent 20 years of international isolation that followed continue to have broader societal implications in cambodia today (bockers et al., 2011; field et al., 2013; wyatt et al., 2018). this short but profound period of forced work and family separation, punctuated by rampant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 81 published by scholink inc. starvation and violence, which included the genocide, has resulted in widespread intergenerational trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). the legacy of this era still has broader interconnected societal implications, such as the normalization of violence, extensive rural poverty, lack of access to education and limited economic opportunities (bockers et al., 2011; field et al., 2013). these factors all contribute to the high rates of trauma in cambodia across demographics and show the considerable challenges trauma survivors face in recovery, which are further compounded by pervasive intergenerational trauma. importantly, one study found that up to 28.4% of adult cambodians experience ptsd (sonis et al., 2009). with over 60% of the country’s population being born after the kr regime, more recent research on the children of kr survivors provides significant evidence of secondary traumatisation among these children (bockers et al., 2011; field et al., 2013; sonis et al., 2009). importantly, exposure to violence and other trauma in childhood can significantly impair nervous system and brain development (anda et al., 2010; danese & mcewen, 2012; felitti et al., 1998; perry & szalavitz, 2006). this can lead to lasting effects such as cognitive development challenges and learning difficulties (anda et al., 2010; van der kolk, 2014). definitions of trauma vary between researchers and across disciplines, such as neurobiology and psychology/psychiatry. more recently, cross-cultural psychology began at the end of the 20th century and addresses the dominant discourse of the science-laden construction of mental health and recovery (wastell & white, 2017). however, there is a general consensus that trauma can be defined as a psychological and/or emotional response to an event or experience that is deeply distressing. by extension, trauma can be understood as the result of an overwhelming amount of strain on a person’s stress-response system that exceeds their ability to cope (perry & szalavitz, 2006). importantly, studies have found that childhood trauma can result in changes to brain function, producing serious self-regulation deficiencies, often classified as affect dysregulation, which is inclusive of both hyper-arousal (fight/flight stress response) and disassociation (downey, 2007; zeigler, 2013). when our stress-response system has been activated continuously (such as in cases of repeated trauma and abuse), we maintain a constant state of activated stress and can view the slightest change in our environment as a threat (van der kolk, 2014). in the case of chronic, complex trauma (wherein a child experiences ongoing or multiple traumatic events), trauma can have a detrimental effect on the developing brain (seigel, 2012). children who have experienced prolonged abuse and/or neglect will often experience a broad spectrum of developmental delays (anda et al., 2005; de bellis et al., 2010). it has been argued that central to recovery from childhood trauma is connection to trusted adults, which appears to buffer the effects of trauma and build resilience (brunzell et al., 2015; perry &szalavitz, 2006). a wide body of research exists suggesting that social connectedness is a protective factor against many forms of maltreatment and trauma (brunzell et al., 2015; downey, 2007; fecser, 2015; ludy-dobson & perry, 2010; siegel, 2015; van der kolk, 2014). it has been well-documented that the presence of at least one supportive and stable relationship post-trauma can buffer the devastating impact of trauma on a child’s developmental progress, help the child build a sense of security and form www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 82 published by scholink inc. adult attachments later in life (alink et al., 2009; beckett et al., 2006; collishaw et al., 2007; national scientific council on the developing child, 2015). post-trauma, these positive relationships can be protective and reparative. moreover, despite the widespread western belief that strength of character and individual grit will triumph over adversity, research demonstrates that it is in fact the relationship with at least one supportive adult that will enable the child to develop effective coping skills (national scientific council on the developing child, 2015). the majority of psychological research on the effects of childhood trauma in cambodia and internationally, whether on children, adolescents or adults, tends to focus on negative outcomes of trauma such as ptsd and mental illness (agger, 2015; armes et al., 2019; bremner, 2006; kinzie et al., 1998; steinert et al., 2015). this is in contrast to a growing body of trauma research that focuses on the concept of resilience, or an individual’s ability to overcome, as the explanatory mechanism driving recovery from trauma (antonovsky, 1987; miles & thomas, 2007; overland, 2013; van de put & eisenbruch, 2002). there have been various definitions of resilience; however, most of the work occurs within the western framework and gaps exist in contextualising resilience in a non-western environment. broadly defined, resilience is the capacity to recover from adversity and/or withstand both physical and psychological shock (masten, 2015). instead of concentrating on the pathology of trauma, resilience research centres on trauma survivors who appear to have recovered from adversity and “do remarkably well” (antonovsky, 1987; overland, 2013). masten and cicchetti (2016) propose that resilience is a result of an interconnected system of supports. they argue that multiple levels interact with each other to shape function and development, the capacity for adaption is dynamic and always changing, change is interconnected, and the systems are interdependent. these complex adaptive systems have profound implications for individuals as they are embedded in families and other systems such as peer groups, culture, community and schools. a central implication is that resilience is far from a singular trait; rather, it arises from interactions involving multiple systems and processes working in tandem simultaneously (masten, 2018). the resilience of a traumatised child may be dependent on the resources and supports available and the many systems with which the child interacts. caregivers, foster parents, family members and important mentors and role models are likely to have played a substantial role in this. as the child grows older they are likely to have connected with other resources and relationships outside of their primary caregiving system (gunnar, 2006). the role of systems in building resilience was adopted in this project’s approach, as all of the study participants had received non-governmental organisation (ngo) support post-trauma, which helped them connect with other resources and relationships that underpinned their resilience. while this body of resilience research has provided context pertaining to risks mitigating and factors facilitating positive outcomes in recovery from trauma, most of the research has been conducted by western researchers in primarily developed nations (ungar, 2008). the emphasis here has generally been on individual and relational factors within the west. however, there are multiple variables in addition to individual and relational factors that affect a trauma survivor’s recovery—such as culture www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 83 published by scholink inc. and the socio-political environment. briere and jordan (2004) argue that external sociocultural factors such as social inequality, poverty and the political environment, as well as inadequate social and community support, are critical factors in influencing recovery from trauma, particularly among those from multicultural backgrounds. research indicates that community and cultural context are important factors for trauma survivors so they may build resilience in their lives and find a sense of wellbeing (betancourt & khan, 2008; masten & obradovic, 2008; norris et al., 2008). research suggests that the psychological effects of trauma may be experienced and expressed across cultures in markedly different ways, which need to be addressed during the trauma recovery process (briere & jordan, 2004; overland, 2013; ungar, 2008). by suspending some of our own preconceptions about what resilience and recovery from trauma look like, we may gain insights that can help critically evaluate and enhance existing models through a grounded theory (gt) approach. as such, in this study, considerable space is given to the voices, experiences and perceptions of young cambodian trauma survivors. 1.1 introducing the ngos this study explored characteristics that promote resilience and wellbeing in a population of young people that are former clients of two of the three primary ngos. these primary ngos were chosen because they work with trauma survivors in cambodia while operating from different perspectives and offering different kinds of support. participants recruited through the ngos were all survivors of human trafficking, gender-based violence, abuse and/or incarceration. some participants were supported by hagar international cambodia (hagar) and/or are employed by flame cambodia (flame). other participants were supported by this life cambodia (tlc) tlc. key informants at hagar were interviewed during previous research (wyatt et al., 2018) and they provided some early contextual information on building resilience in cambodia, which was present in some of their clients. it was through these discussions that stories of survival and recovery of hagar’s young people emerged. all participants in this study are former clients of hagar and tlc. flame was included in this study as they employed a group of ex-hagar clients. tlc was selected to complement the study population and was included in the research design for diversity of the participants. the young people all shared similarities in terms of having some type of early childhood trauma, which necessitated ngo intervention. the following is an overview of the three cambodian ngos from which the young people were recruited. 1.1.1 hagar cambodia hagar is a christian organisation which was first established in 1994 in cambodia by pierre and simonetta tami (hagar international, 2019). hagar has grown over the last 25 years, now providing trauma aftercare services in afghanistan, singapore, myanmar and vietnam in addition to cambodia. hagar provides psychosocial, advocacy and empowerment services for women and children who have survived the most extreme cases of human rights abuse from human trafficking, slavery, abuse and exploitation. hagar is committed to seeing communities free and healed from the trauma of human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 84 published by scholink inc. trafficking, slavery and abuse and believes when healing happens, the cycle of trauma stops (hagar international, 2019). hagar also provides capacity-building support to ngos and governmental partners to ensure that survivors are receiving trauma-informed care services, building capacity in each of its program countries (hagar international, 2019). over the last 19 years, hagar’s model has changed considerably. this change is characterised by hagar cambodia moving away from group homes and shelters, to adopting a community-based care model with clients in a variety of settings including their own home, kinship care, foster care and in some instances, residential care. hagar has worked alongside other ngos in the sector as a voice of support for the dismantling of orphanages, in favour of community reintegration and family-based care. through this model, hagar has supported thousands of cambodian children recovering from trauma by reintegrating them into their communities (hagar international, 2019). the young people that have been supported by hagar form the largest data set in this study. 1.1.2 flame cambodia flame was founded in 2009 and their community-based model identifies disadvantaged children living in the slums of phnom penh and provides education and academic support to help them succeed in their studies. in 2016, the model was revised to encompass the changing needs of teenagers by providing an environment where they could access a university pathway or vocational training. this model, which aims to launch young people into adulthood, was created by flame’s founder who had previously worked with hagar for over a decade before coming into this role. flame’s model focuses on identifying resilience and the belief that every child has the capacity to fulfil their potential, both of which can be achieved through inspiring children to further their education and/or career pathways. this inspiration to stay in school can come from other young people (some of whom are former clients of hagar) who have had similar lived experiences and trauma histories to the children currently supported by flame. 1.1.3 this life cambodia tlc began in 2007 as a community development organisation in siem reap. within this community development framework, there is a specific program called this life beyond bars, which works with young people in prison who are nearing the completion of their sentence. the focus of this program is reintegration after incarceration by strengthening family connections and providing vocational and life skills training (tlc, 2019). the program has decreased the recidivism rates of juvenile offenders who enter their program, from 60% reoffending within the first six months to 2% within the first six months, and 4% overall (tlc, 2019). through this program and others, tlc seeks to give individuals, families and communities the tools to build their own resilience and to overcome the adversity they face. the goal of this program is to ease their reintegration into their communities when they are released. tlc does this by providing vocational and life skills training and strengthening family connections by facilitating family visits. tlc seeks to ease the difficulties of incarceration by preparing their clients for their lives post-release. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 85 published by scholink inc. tlc does this by helping them build resilience, by ensuring that they are not “broken” at the end of their incarceration and that they are ready to face the challenges of life after prison (gorter, 2019). 1.2 study aims and objectives this study aims to address an important gap in the current literature regarding cambodian young people who have experienced significant trauma. the goal was to explore the concept of resilience through the lived experiences of young cambodians who have been supported by ngos post-trauma. the participants of this study were all cambodian young people, who had experienced traumatic events in their childhood yet appeared to be doing remarkably well. how did they manage this? what has helped them move forward and cope with events of the past? the aim of this study was to understand what factors had enabled their recovery by collecting qualitative data that could help understand their lived experiences. accordingly, the research question is as follows: what factors promote resilience and recovery from trauma in cambodian young people? in addition to answering this overarching question, the research sought to address the following four objectives: 1) understand the characteristics of a young person’s interpersonal relationships with family, friends and their wider community. 2) explore young peoples’ perception of their own personal effectiveness in their daily lives. 3) explore young peoples’ self-care strategies and capacity to manage stress. 4) identify strategies ngos implement to foster wellbeing and resilience among their clients in their intervention. 2. methodology this researcher is a member of the australian association of social workers (aasw) and bound by the aasw code of ethics for culturally sensitive practice. approval was obtained by both deakin university human research ethics committee and the cambodian ministry of health (moh). this study sought to understand the underpinning factors of recovery and wellbeing of young cambodian trauma survivors. an exploratory case study approach was used drawing upon gt. data collection occurred in two stages. recruitment for stage 1 started immediately after obtaining approval from moh on 16 may 2019. in stage 1, 26 young people were chosen according to the selection criteria with the assistance of ngo key insiders, or the official “gatekeepers” within the ngos. key insiders nominated individuals who met the criteria and who they believed to be doing remarkably well. initially this project had focused on the word “resilience” as a way of describing recovery from trauma. however, as the psychological meaning for the word “resilience” does not translate into khmer, discussions focused primarily on what “doing well” might look like. stage 1 interviews with study participants took the form of oral narratives, which were supported by individual timelines and self-reported resilience scales. during stage 2, 14 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 86 published by scholink inc. interviews with key informants from the ngo/ international ngo (ingo) child protection sector in cambodia were purposively selected. a research assistant was used for 12 interviews as an interpreter, except in the instance where prior communication with a young person indicated a high level of english. 2.1 participant characteristics the following table of participant characteristics gives an overview of the young people in terms of differences and similarities captured: table 1. participant characteristics age 19 (the youngest) to 30 (the oldest). average age 25. majority in mid-to-late 20s. this was preferable due to more time elapsing between their trauma history and the present day. gender participants from hagar and flame were both male and female. tlc participants were all young men. trauma history participants had varying trauma histories, from sexual exploitation to labour trafficking, incarceration, poverty, violence and/or abuse. education most participants from hagar and flame had completed university. none of the young people from tlc had completed university and the majority had no more than a primary school education. employment all participants were in some kind of paid employment, varying from construction and manual labour-type roles, to university lecturers and medical professionals. religious affiliations although the ngos do not proselytise, many of the participants from christian ngos hagar and flame identified as christian. this resulted in a much higher proportion of christians partaking in the study than is reflective of cambodia’s religious denomination demographics (cambodia is a theravada buddhist majority nation). tlc is secular and the participants’ religious affiliations were predominately buddhist. family of origin over half of participants from hagar and flame were orphans and had limited kinship support in their early life. this was in direct contrast to tlc participants who all had at least one parent with whom they were connected. 2.2 qualitative design a biographical interpretive method was used in the form of a one-hour interview, supported by a timeline and resilience scale. the connor-davidson resilience scale is a widely used instrument for measuring resilience and its khmer translation (kh-cd-risc-10) was used for this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 87 published by scholink inc. kh-cd-risc-10 has been used by researchers in cambodia investigating the levels of self-reported resilience among cambodian adolescents (duong & hurst, 2016). the kh-cd-risc-10 remains the only recognised khmer version of resilience scales and importantly, was not used as a standalone measure of resilience. instead, was used to explore the subjective reality of the diverse group of young people in this study. the use of timelines in narrative research has been used in the study of resilience with marginalised groups of young people to support and situate semi-structured interviewing (rose, 2007). narrative timelines build rapport, utilising participants as navigators, allowing for therapeutic moments with positive closure (kolar et al., 2015). research has shown that through a visual representation and construction of a participant’s life, a researcher can remain focused on the study objectives, moving the interview along to meet time constraints and ensuring marginal emotional distress by redirecting a participant’s attention when they appear to be showing signs of distress (berends, 2011; kolar et al., 2015; sheridan et al., 2011). by using a relatively unstructured timeline and keeping the instructions broad, the study remained exploratory, aiming to identify recovery resources and processes among participants. using this approach highlighted the coping strategies, strengths and ingenuity of the study participants. open-ended questions were used as prompts during the interview to highlight important events in an individual’s life story, as well as visual pictures on the timeline that guided the interview. data obtained from the interviews was analysed using the kh-cd-risc-10 scale and nvivo v.12. coding was then used to break down the core themes during each stage of the analysis. interactive thematic analysis began when there was enough data to provide accurate descriptions of themes. 3. result the young people interviewed were all affected by complex sociocultural and environmental dynamics, many of which stem from the ongoing challenges faced by cambodia in the aftermath of the kr regime and societal unrest that followed. these challenges include: low levels of education available to the population that survived the regime; intergenerational trauma; poverty; and gender-based violence. key themes in relation to the young people’s recovery from trauma began to emerge and intersected with the sociocultural challenges mentioned above. these themes were identified as: early childhood experiences; the shadow of the kr; rural poverty; violence; gender; being orphaned; community stigma and “keeping the fire”; moral development; attachment and the development of trust; training and educational opportunities; and faith and spirituality. many of the young people spoke of how their communities of origin did little to support them in their recovery from trauma. in fact, the role of community stigma and gossip often compounded their distress and resulted in some of the young people having a deep distrust of others. other factors that shaped their lives, such as being orphaned or challenges accessing education, also emerged. despite this environment of poverty, violence and distrust the narratives highlighted how finding love and connection through at least one significant relationship could mitigate the effects of trauma. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 88 published by scholink inc. the findings conceptualised resilience through the participant narratives which illustrated factors underpinning their recovery from trauma. these factors included: social connectedness in childhood; catalysts for change and defining moments; significant relationships post-trauma; meaning making post-trauma; the role of faith and religious communities; healing through helping; opportunities through ngo intervention; and emotional regulation. the majority of the young people demonstrated enormous tenacity for educational and economic advancement. however, their determination to succeed was challenged by the ongoing effects of their early childhood trauma, which often had been compounded by intense community stigmatisation. these effects were evident in the interviews and included: fear; sadness; anger; difficulty trusting others; and struggling with alcohol and substance abuse. despite this, the young people showed great capacity to do remarkably well and many developed alternative coping strategies, such as turning to faith for healing. in the backdrop of cambodia’s deeply spiritual roots (harris, 2008), faith-based practices appeared to have a positive impact on the trauma survivors. because of this, some found comfort and solace in their faith, which for some pre-existed, while for others it was newly found. for the young people of faith, the difficulties and challenges in one’s life could be met with prayer and a little bit of “magic.” furthermore, these participants also partially attributed their motivation to overcome past trauma and thrive in life to either being on god’s path or supernatural forces. these individuals felt that they were predestined to succeed due to external forces. moreover, they were able to reframe their trauma histories as both meaningful and necessary within this context. additionally, supporting and mentoring other young trauma survivors and the role of faith appeared to have a direct correlation with the success of the young people’s ability to overcome adversity. leadership roles were found to be a way for the young people to thrive in the face of a society and culture which continually told them that they would never amount to anything because of their trauma histories. participants with higher education viewed these roles not only as a path to economic security and advancement, but also as a societal status symbol. in fact, they believed their higher education distinguished them from the vast majority of the cambodian population. they also saw higher education as an attribute that made them positive role models for mentoring young people with trauma histories like themselves. having education also mitigated these young people’s feelings of being stigmatised by their communities, as it both enabled them to feel positively about themselves and also helped them feel that they had something to offer others who looked up to and admired them. further findings emerged from the 14 key informant interviews, who were from ngo/ingos working in the child protection sector in cambodia. these informants emphasised the importance of collaboration between the government, other ngos and community leaders in building resilience for trauma survivors under the purview of child protection policies and their implementation at local and national levels. informants spoke of how both the child protection sector specifically and the ngo sector generally must “join hands” and “walk step-by-step” by working with the government and each other to develop policies and social work standards to continue improving the protection of children in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 89 published by scholink inc. cambodia. however, many noted that successful collaboration was complicated by the faith-based tensions which arose from certain ngos in the child protection network being faith-based and others not. the child protection net work in cambodia has both types of ngos working with children and works as a collaborative body to strengthen the child protection system in the country. informants cited challenges in ngo collaborations and detailed how complications could arise from distinctly different approaches to trauma recovery due to an organisation being religious or secular. some informants from secular ngos viewed the use of faith by faith-based ngos as potentially harmful, as faith-based donors could potentially influence trauma recovery program design based on faith rather than on beneficiary needs. additionally, most of the informants spoke of further challenges complicating child protection in cambodia including: corruption, lack of support, financial constraints; and limited human resources. clinical perspectives were also offered from informants working directly with survivors. many of these informants spoke of success in terms of financial independence and societal reintegration for their clients, which was often contingent on education and training opportunities offered by the ngos. 4. discussion the analysis indicated that the young people constructed meaning in their lives using two different yet parallel pathways of recovery. the first pathway was understood through healing through helping others, by which the participants could reframe their lived experiences in meaningful ways. the second pathway was built upon the experience of being a part of a collectivist society and contributing to their family unit. it was through these avenues that a moral framework for personal conduct was shaped, which was further informed by the participants’ early significant relationships. participants had learned life lessons from those they had loved and often lost, which laid a foundational moral rubric and a series of ways of surviving and of relating to people. as the pathways shared common themes, the young people had moral beliefs that they either learned in church or in their buddhist communities, which had been internalised and practiced. the findings indicate that cambodian communities need to support trauma survivors and truly encourage trust and empowerment. the young people in this study were all recovering from early childhood trauma and the pathways they took to build resilience (individualist or collectivist) diverged largely due to important social and community factors. those experiencing community stigma and/or rejection, such as those who had been orphaned and had lived as street children, most often took the individualist route, as survival coping strategies they learned were centred on their self-reliance. those who maintained their communities and families of origin took the collectivist route and their resilience was built upon their ability to contribute to their families and the social connectedness they were able to find there as well as in their communities at large. in addition, the findings indicate that underpinning the recovery of participants across both groups was the opportunity for economic empowerment and advancement, which was supported by key relationships these individuals had in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 90 published by scholink inc. their life post-trauma. the similarities and differences between the pathways to recovery from trauma will be discussed in detail in the following sections using an individualist–collectivist framework to differentiate the construction of meaning within the context of the two pathways (jayawickreme et al., 2012; nicely, 2019). figure 1. pathways to recovery 4.1 significant adult (0–2) trust all participants had a stable connection with a significant adult before the age of 2, even in instances where there was abuse at the hands of a parent in their early childhood. it was in the next stage of childhood development where a divergence occurred among the groups of young people, which highlights how some young people struggled to trust others post-trauma. some of the comments made by members of the individualist group suggested that they had learned survival techniques from living on the streets, which spoke to this group’s overall self-reliance. the significance of close relationships for participants early in life was then carried over to later stages in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 91 published by scholink inc. life and was a positive indicator for building resilience. this has been noted in virtually every study on resilience development during the past half-century (masten, 2015). accordingly, it is unsurprising as all of the participants across both individualist and collectivist groups had one stable and loving parent or caregiver before the age of 2, were capable of forming trusting relationships later in life after experiencing significant trauma. this helped facilitate their resilience in their recovery, despite the different pathways taken. it is proposed that these early attachments served as the basis for the development of resilience in the young trauma survivors. 4.2 coping with trauma: individualist survival strategies vs. collectivist family/community support findings indicated that the coping methods of the participants were aided by their having social supports, such as faith, working with others and community resources, all of which helped them develop a sense of belonging through social connectedness. across both groups, the data showed that the young people’s ability to cope was further facilitated by societal advancement opportunities which could provide them with a sense of purpose. active coping mechanisms described by participants included sharing with someone they trusted and providing self-encouragement. for many of the individualists, helping others in their recovery from adversity was an active coping mechanism used to transform their early childhood trauma into a source of strength and resilience. passive coping strategies used by many participants included avoidance, patterns of distrust and disengagement. distrust of others emerged as a survival mode of interaction for many participants. recovery from traumatic experiences is informed by positive social functioning such as trusting relationships, as the role of social supports can act as a buffer supporting the development of resilience. the relationship between the participants and their social environment was determined by the quality of the social environment itself through key relationships post-trauma, such as with the ngos and other survivors, as well as by individual perception and understanding of information conveyed by the people around them. additionally, many participants found a sense of purpose through mentoring and working with others. these perceived social supports appeared to aid emotional regulation and active coping mechanisms for many of the young people across both groups. the data indicated that these young people were taught by significant adults around them, such as parents, counsellors and teachers, how to effectively regulate stress and other negative emotions. in instances where the participants lacked strong examples of how to positively cope with stress, these individuals engaged in more destructive coping behaviours, such as alcohol use and substance abuse. intergenerational trauma, as well as social and historical factors in cambodia, create a social legacy of trust issues, which includes the breakdown of community support systems. cultural context in combination with other environmental factors, is internalised during childhood development and importantly includes trust. as trust is both a cultural and psychological attitude, this is influenced by cambodia’s collective experiences and intergenerational trauma stemming from the kr regime and its aftermath. patterns of distrust that developed during the war and at the refugee camps during the kr www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 92 published by scholink inc. era were later passed down to future generations, which is an indicator of intergenerational trauma in cambodia. for the women in this study distrust of all men was a common theme. some connected their distrust of men to having been betrayed when they had trusted a male family member or male figure in their community. 4.3 opportunities for development: role model encouragement vs. contribution to family survival opportunities for personal and economic development were identified by the young people as important factors underpinning their resilience and recovery from trauma. a critical point for the individualist orphans, was a message of hope from an important adult in their lives, such as a teacher or a counsellor. for the collectivist non-orphan group, a family member that believed in them emerged as key to their recovery. the individualistic young people lacking the support and background of safety provided by family and community were forced to develop new cognitive frameworks and assumptive worldviews to survive and make sense of their trauma. in many instances, the experience of encouragement from a significant adult in their life would then become a critical turning point leading to education advancements. for both groups, having an adult who believed in them appeared to contribute to their ongoing growth post-trauma. participants taking the collectivist pathway of recovery were previously incarcerated and still maintained their families of origin, had limited formal education with most not finishing high school. their perceived support and personal growth came from being given an opportunity to contribute financially to their family’s survival, as all of these participants had at least one living parent. for these young people, efforts to redesign and rebuild their worlds post-incarceration were aided by successfully mobilising social resources. examples of this mobilisation included opportunities for vocational training, gaining employment, reconnecting with family and/or a peer group and reintegrating into the local community. however, despite many of the young people in both groups being able to mobilise social resources and empower themselves post-trauma, their pathways to recovery were complicated by various expressions of trauma responses in adulthood. 4.4 expressions of trauma in adulthood the findings of this study characterise the journey to recovery as a complex, challenging and continuing process for many survivors. most of the participants self-reported struggles with emotional regulation and other expressions of trauma, such as coping with alcohol and/or substance abuse. many participants in the individualist group found comfort and solace in their faith and religious practices as a way of navigating negative emotions and understanding what had happened to them. some reported intense moments of sadness or acting out in anger, while others struggled with substance abuse. however, the trauma responses present in some participants did not detract from their overall levels of resilience, suggesting that recovery is not a linear trajectory. although many of the participants still struggled with coping effectively with their past trauma, they still had managed to find success in many areas of their lives, indicating varying degrees of resilience and illustrating how recovery from trauma is an ongoing process. notably, none of the participants communicated or reported suffering from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 93 published by scholink inc. classic western symptoms of ptsd. however, this did not mean that the participants never had distressing emotions or intrusive thoughts. on the contrary, some reported acting out in anger or trauma blocking with substances. 4.5 meaning making: healing through helping and the role of faith vs. social connectedness through sense of purpose and belonging to family/community the way the young people in both groups interpreted the meaning of their lived experiences could have given them understandings, interpretations and reasons for behaving in a particular way. participant narratives were grounded in a system of meaning derived from their lived experiences, with either individualist or collectivist worldviews. the findings indicated that many had constructed meaning from their traumatic experiences through faith, helping others, connection, and sense of belonging to a family of their own. two different religious systems for creating meaning emerged from the data, which were essential in informing the participants’ individual worldviews. while the collectivist group still maintained family and community bonds and were overwhelmingly buddhist like their families of origin, the individualist orphans were mostly christian. different faith backgrounds translated to a differences in how these individuals found meaning in their worlds post-trauma. the individualist christian participants tended to interpret their world with a more postmodern belief of freedom and autonomy. this is in contrast to individuals from the mostly buddhist collectivist group who understood their world through maintaining gainful employment, being present within the context of their family unit and participating in community-oriented religious gatherings and rituals. as by-products of their cambodian buddhist communities, these individuals found meaning in life through merit-building activities, many of which involved direct participation in community and religious events and gatherings, which in turn fostered a sense of belonging. across both groups, the aspect of meaning appears to have helped some of the young people tolerate their experiences in the midst of trauma. upon reflection on their traumatic lived experiences, the majority of the young people in the individualist group were able to construct meaning by connecting who they are today with what had happened to them during childhood. here it should be further noted that unlike the collectivist group, the majority of the individualist group were also highly educated and this could have affected these individuals’ ability to verbalise how they created meaning in their lives, in addition to their faith background. contrastingly, the lesser educated, collectivist, buddhist participants did not speak about faith in the same way as the individualist christian participants. instead, the collectivist group appeared to create meaning through social connection and being a part of their family and community, with many participants emphasising the value they placed on having a family. this differed for the individualist participants who found meaning through working with others and many of whom found meaning in their personal lives by contextualizing themselves as “being on god’s path.” faith was not central for all participants, as one participant from the individualist group reported non-religious or agnostic belief systems. even so, this participant still spoke about freedom and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 94 published by scholink inc. wanting to take care of their family as their primary motivating factor to move forward from their trauma history. by establishing safety and support, providing opportunity and education, and working in ngos helping others has enabled the young people to find meaning in their lived experiences post-trauma. one of the avenues for the young people from the individualist group to find meaning in their lives post-trauma was telling their stories and working with other survivors. many of these participants spoke of wanting to help others. the findings indicated that being a role model in the community could serve as a source of pride for these individuals. this process of giving back and mentoring youth may have helped these individuals find meaning in their lives. moreover, it appeared across both groups success in life did not appear to be measured by financial wealth, but through connection to others. leadership, mentoring and working with/supporting others were mentioned frequently by the individualist group and supporting the family unit was of a high priority for collectivist participants. for most of the participants across both groups, having experienced stigma and disconnection from community throughout their lives, creating their own families and inspiring other young people is the ultimate in meaning making. the narratives of cambodian young people and the ngos that support them, were instrumental in understanding how survivors constructed meaning in their lives post-trauma, which enabled recovery. study participants demonstrated their resilience by being able to adapt to life after experiencing trauma despite encountering some personal challenges. the findings illustrated several important underlying factors that supported recovery from trauma including: having positive role models; cultivating the ability to regulate emotions; finding the capacity to understand trauma in the context of meaning making aided by faith; being presented with economic advancement opportunities including education; and forming healthy relationships. all of these complex interactions between the individual and their wider environment, including how they make meaning and understand their surroundings, demonstrated the complexities of recovery from trauma. acknowledgment this research was assisted by my academic supervisors, associate professor elizabeth hoban and associate professor petra staiger as a part of my phd at deakin university. references agger, i. 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(2017). blinded by science: the social implications of epigenetics and neuroscience. policy press. wyatt, z., hoban, e., & mcfarlane, s. (2018). trauma-informed education practice in cambodia. international journal of asian social science, 8(2), 62-76. zeigler, d. (2013). optimum learning environments for traumatized children: how abused children learn best in school. jasper mountain. retrieved from http://www.jaspermountain.org/optimum_l advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper a study on the cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian students pursuing a master’s degree in teaching chinese as a second language in china shuxin lin1 1 international chinese language education, beijing normal university, beijing, china received: january 19, 2024 accepted: march 01, 2024 online published: march 05, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p1 abstract amid accelerating globalization, the issue of cross-cultural academic adaptation among southeast asian students pursuing a master’s degree in teaching chinese as a second language in china has intensified. however, current research has insufficiently considered diverse factors affecting academic adaptation. this study employed questionnaires and interviews to analyze the academic adaptation of 83 southeast asian students in china, using spss24.0 and the random forest algorithm to examine six dimensions: study motivation, study attitudes, academic competence, academic self-efficacy, study mode, and academic environment. results reveal their strong study motivation, particular value on degree and academic achievements, and generally positive study attitudes. despite their confidence and capabilities in comprehending course content and conducting academic research, there remains room for improvement in independent assignment completion and participation in academic exchanges. most students rate their academic self-efficacy positively. though generally satisfied with the teaching approaches and materials, some struggle with the course and examination adaption. feedback on the academic environment and institutional resources is generally positive. the feature importance analysis highlights study motivation, academic environment, and study attitude as pivotal in chinese language acquisition. this study offers insights for schools and teachers to enhance international students’ cross-cultural academic adaptability and improve teaching and educational management. keywords southeast asian tcsl master’s students, cross-cultural adaptation, academic adaptation, teaching insights www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in recent years, with the continuous deepening of educational exchanges between china and southeast asia, the number of southeast asian students studying in china has shown sustained growth, with a particularly notable increase in the number of master’s students. this trend has injected new vitality into international chinese education, but it also poses numerous challenges. among these challenges, it is worth noting that southeast asian students studying in china face difficulties in cross-cultural academic adaptation due to various factors such as uneven political and economic development, religious beliefs, social customs, traditional practices, educational systems, and individual differences. however, academic concerns are among the foremost issues that international students care about (furnham & bochner, 1982). under the “academic culture shock”, master’s students will encounter difficulties in adapting to courses, research training, and academic exchanges when studying in chinese institutions. in this context, this study examined the adaptability and influential factors of cross-cultural academic adaptation of 83 southeast asian students pursuing a master’s degree in teaching chinese as a second language in china (hereafter referred to as tcsl master’s students). this study offers feasible means of enhancing their cross-cultural academic adaptability and provides effective guidance for optimizing teaching approaches and educational management. 2. literature review 2.1 academic adaptation there is yet no consensus regarding the definition of academic adaptation. existing studies define academic adaptation from two perspectives: ability and process. firstly, from the ability perspective, academic adaptation is defined as an individual’s tendency to overcome learning difficulties and achieve good learning outcomes. this view considers academic adaptation as a stable trait that can assist individuals in addressing various challenges encountered in the learning process (xu, 2004; zhou et al., 1991). early research emphasized an individual’s coping ability when faced with learning difficulties and the tendency to achieve desirable learning outcomes (zhou et al., 1991). xu (2004) further affirmed that academic adaptation is a type of academic competence. secondly, from the process perspective, academic adaptation is considered a dynamic process that involves students proactively adjusting their learning strategies, study methods, and reviewing techniques in response to changes in external conditions such as the academic environment and teaching approaches. this viewpoint argues that academic adaptation is a continuous process of adaptation, adjustment, and balance, to achieve harmony between the internal and external academic environment. for instance, tian (2002), and chen (2004) et al. have stressed the dynamic process of academic adaptation, regarding that students need to actively adjust their learning states to accommodate the ever-changing learning academic environment. although researchers may slightly differ in their definitions of “academic adaptation”, they all agree that its core processes are “assimilation” and “accommodation” which involve individuals, when faced www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. with new learning stimuli, adjusting their cognitive structures to adapt to the new academic environment, thus achieving a transformation from a learning state of “imbalance” to “balance”. therefore, this study defines academic adaptation as the series of spontaneous adjustments made by international students studying in china based on their environment and their own needs for learning chinese, aiming to maintain the balance of academic environment and achieving their objectives in learning chinese. 2.2 cross-cultural academic adaptation cross-cultural academic adaptation refers to the strategies and processes of avoiding and overcoming psychological and conceptual confusion to achieve academic goals in a cross-cultural context (baker & siryk, 1984). research on cross-cultural academic adaptation has primarily explored the influence of personal factors such as age and cognitive level, as well as social factors such as classroom atmosphere, course content, and examinations on the academic adaptation of international students (gao, 2014; wang, 2015; ya, 2013; zhao, 2013, etc.). from the perspective of personal factors, li (2019), through a study on asean students studying in guangxi, china, found differences in language acquisition, understanding of the course content, and adaptation to teaching methods and course assessment among students of different nationalities, genders, duration in china, and language proficiency. these findings provide important references for further enhancing the cross-cultural academic adaptability of international students. wang and sun (2019) found that there exist gender differences in cross-cultural adaptation in exploring central asian students’ cross-cultural adaptation issues, with males showing higher levels of cross-cultural adaptability. additionally, they identified a v-shaped relationship between cross-cultural adaptation and age, indicating that younger and older students tend to have relatively lower adaptability, while those of middle age present relatively higher adaptability. meanwhile, motivation to study abroad is also one of the significant factors influencing cross-cultural adaptability among central asian students. from the perspective of social factors, greenfield (1994) explored the importance of positive attitudes of school teachers and administrators towards international students, noting that such attitude helps reduce the difficulties international students face in the process of cross-cultural academic adaptation. ramburuth (2001) also argued that the choice of learning strategies and variations in learning styles can significantly affect the learning outcomes of international students. on zheng (2013) provided some pedagogical insights on this basis regarding influential factors of cross-cultural academic adaptation. he suggests that teachers should address two potential problems learners might encounter: the lack of knowledge and experience to effectively construct knowledge structure; and ineffective learning due to communication barriers. moreover, some studies have begun to emphasize the impact of nationality on international students’ cross-cultural adaptation. for instance, qian (2015) conducted a quantitative and interview analysis of southeast asian students’ cross-cultural adaptation from four dimensions: motivation to study abroad, socio-cultural adaptation, academic adaptation, and social networks. he found that southeast asian students are generally positively cross-culturally adapted through statistical analysis. however, they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. have problems in participating in chinese socio-cultural activities and social networks, which directly results in their insufficient social support. chen and gong (2018) surveyed over 100 african students studying in china, focusing on their cross-cultural academic adaptation, study motivation, academic self-efficacy, learning strategies, etc. the results revealed their low satisfaction concerning the learning atmosphere and teaching models because of the increased pressure during their studies resulting from chinese teachers’ too-rapid teaching pacing. the study also found a significant positive correlation between student’s proficiency in chinese, study motivation, and cross-cultural academic adaptation. in summary, although existing literature has explored the cross-cultural adaptation of international students from multiple perspectives, there have been relatively few specialized studies on southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china concerning the subjects of research. regarding the study content, while existing literature has explored the impact of personal factors such as age and cognitive level, as well as social factors such as classroom atmosphere, course content, and examinations on students’ academic adaptation, there is no consensus on how factors such as academic self-efficacy, study attitude, and academic competence influence cross-cultural academic adaptation of international students. in this context, this study focuses on southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china, exploring their cross-cultural academic adaptation from six dimensions: study motivation, study attitude, academic competence, academic self-efficacy, study mode, and academic environment. the research questions are as follows: (1) what is the current state of cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china? (2) what factors will affect the cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china? 3. research method 3.1 subjects the subjects in the study are comprised of 83 southeast asian learners (42 males; 41 females) aged between 20 and 26, the majority of whom have been in china for less than 6 months (as shown in table 1). the subjects’ chinese proficiency levels are determined based on the hanyu shuiping kaoshi (hsk) certificates obtained within the past six months, which is an international standardized chinese proficiency test designed for non-native speakers of chinese. the subjects’ chinese proficiency levels are rated at hsk6, which is considered an advanced level. all subjects have no auditory or speaking impairments and have signed informed consent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. table 1. the background information of subjects nationality number age gender male female vietnamese 36 21 and older 12 14 thai 19 21 and older 14 15 singaporean 7 21-26 3 4 indonesian 4 21 and older 2 2 malaysian 9 21-26 5 4 cambodian 4 21-26 2 2 laotian 4 21-26 2 2 3.2 research materials 3.2.1 research facilities all subjects used personal computers for online testing. during the testing, subjects from all groups completed the five-point likert scale on wjx. the filling was guided online by a researcher majoring in teaching chinese as a second language via tencent meeting. 3.2.2 questionnaire all subjects completed the questionnaire on the cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china (as shown in appendix 1). the cross-cultural academic adaptation was assessed in terms of six dimensions: study motivation, study attitude, academic competence, academic self-efficacy, study mode, and academic environment. “study motivation” refers to the process in which individuals make efforts to learn a foreign language or achieve goals for certain motives (ellis, 1999). “study attitude” refers to the attitude and perspective that learners present in their learning process (cowell, 2006). “academic competence” means individuals’ capacity to acquire, comprehend, and apply new knowledge or skills during the learning process, which is crucial for adapting to dynamic environments and solving new problems (gagné, 1999). “academic self-efficacy” measures an individual’s confidence in utilizing their skills to accomplish a task (duane, 2002). “study mode” means the individual’s preferred and stable study methods during the learning process, reflecting the cognitive, perceptual, and behavioral characteristics of learners when dealing with learning tasks (herman, 1962). “academic environment” includes both material conditions and non-material conditions such as teaching modes and strategies, learning atmosphere, and interpersonal relationships that support learning processes (wu, 2000). subjects expressed no objections to all concepts. the questionnaire used a five-point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) for measurement. in this 5-point scoring system, the mean value of each dimension represents the subject’s adaptation to it. scores equal to or less than 1.5 represent complete maladaptation; scores greater than 1.5 but less than or equal to 2.5 represent relative maladaptation; scores greater than 2.5 but less than or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. equal to 3.5 represent moderate adaptation; scores greater than 3.5 but less than 4.5 represent relative adaptation; and scores greater than 4.5 represent complete adaptation. to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire, this study conducted reliability and validity tests. internal consistency tests show that the questionnaire has moderately high consistency (cronbach’s α=0.958). regarding structural validity, the kmo test for the scale items yields a kaiser-meyer-olkin measurement of 0.837, and the bartlett chi-squared statistic is 2465.667 with a one-sided p<0.01, “rejecting the hypothesis of zero correlations among all variables”, i.e., the correlations among all variables are not 0, indicating the data’s validity. 3.3 research procedures all subjects completed the survey within two days. on the first morning, all subjects completed a background information survey. in the afternoon, the researcher randomly selected 4 students to pre-assess their questionnaires and made modifications to ensure the accuracy and comprehensibility of the questionnaire statements (10 minutes). on the second morning, all subjects completed the survey questionnaire, and in the afternoon, they were interviewed. 3.4 data analysis to investigate the cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china and its influential factors, this study employed an approach combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. the quantitative research initially conducted descriptive statistics, analyzed the survey results using the statistical software spss 24.0, and then identified that there are significant correlations among all of the influential factors through pearson correlation analysis. subsequently, the study utilized the random forest algorithm (breiman, 1996) to analyze the feature importance of the factors on the academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china, aiming to evaluate the key roles of various features in classification problems. in the experiment, the training set ratio was set at 0.3, and the obtained feature importance values only reflected the order of importance, without involving specific numerical calculations. the qualitative data from semi-structured interviews served as qualitative analysis, providing supporting evidence for the quantitative analysis results. 4. research results 4.1 the current state of academic adaptation to address research question 1, the study first conducted descriptive statistics of the six dimensions of academic adaptation. by gathering and analyzing data, the study obtained the subject’s self-assessment in these dimensions, such as average values, standard deviations, and the numbers and percentages of subjects falling into different score scales. subsequently, correlational statistics were employed to explore the correlation among dimensions of academic adaptation. 4.1.1 study motivation descriptive statistics are presented in table 2. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding study www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. motivation, the average values are all higher than 4, showing their strong study motivation. table 2. the research results of study motivation study motivation average standard deviation scores>3.5 number percentage 1. i learn chinese for my interest in chinese language and culture. 4.240 0.576 77 92.770 2. i learn chinese for future job opportunities. 4.350 0.528 81 97.590 3. i learn chinese for a degree and academic achievements. 4.520 0.571 80 96.390 the correlational analysis of factors, as seen in table 3, shows that subjects believe the need for future employment is closely related to their interest in the chinese language and culture (r=0.482, p<0.001), while obtaining a degree and academic achievements are closely linked to job opportunities (r=0.323, p=0.003). therefore, their study motivation is likely to come from their need for job opportunities, which is also reflected in their pursuit of academic qualifications and achievements. table 3. 1-3 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 1. i learn chinese for my interest in chinese language and culture. 2. i learn chinese for future job opportunities. 3. i learn chinese for a degree and academic achievements. 1.i learn chinese for my interest in chinese language and culture. pearson correlation 1 0.482 0.172 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.120 number of cases 83 83 83 2. i learn chinese for future job opportunities. pearson correlation 0.482 1 0.323 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.003** number of cases 83 83 83 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. 3. i learn chinese for a degree and academic achievements. pearson correlation 0.172 0.323 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.120 0.003** number of cases 83 83 83 notes.*: p＜0.05; **: p＜0.01;***: p＜0.001. 4.1.2 study attitude descriptive statistics are presented in table 4. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding study attitude, the average value is 4, showing their overall positive study attitude. table 4. the research results of study attitude study attitude average standard deviation scores>3.5 number percentage 4. i can listen carefully to teachers. 3.950 0.795 55 66.270 5. i can come to class on time. 4.040 0.689 65 78.310 6. i can actively participate in classroom activities. 3.920 0.784 54 65.060 7. i can actively participate in after-class discussions. 3.890 0.765 54 65.060 the correlational analysis of factors, as seen in table 5, indicates that the pearson correlation coefficients of the factors are all greater than 0.75 (p<0.001), signifying a strong correlation. specifically, the highest correlation is found between “listen carefully to teachers” and “actively participate in after-class discussions” (r=0.914, p<0.001), suggesting that these two factors may play a more central role in study attitude. moreover, significant positive correlations exist between “carefully listening to the teacher” and “come to class on time” (r=0.805, p<0.001), “actively participate in after-class discussions” (r=0.874, p<0.001). similarly, strong correlations are observed between “come to class on time”, “active participation in classroom activities” (r=0.751, p<0.001), and “actively participate in after-class discussions” (r=0.794, p<0.001). therefore, these four factors are interconnected and influence each other. a learner who attentively listens in class is also more likely to be punctual, and actively engage in classroom activities and after-class discussions. such a proactive study attitude contributes to better knowledge absorption, enhanced learning outcomes, and the ultimate realization of their study objectives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. table 5. 4-7 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 4. i can listen carefully to teachers. 5. i can come to class on time. 6. i can actively participate in classroom activities. 7. i can actively participate in after-class discussions. 4. i can listen carefully to teachers. pearson correlation 1 0.805 0.874 0.914 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 5. i can come to class on time. pearson correlation 0.805 1 0.751 0.794 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 6. i can actively participate in classroom activities. pearson correlation 0.874 0.751 1 0.899 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 7. i can actively participate in after-class discussions. pearson correlation 0.914 0.794 0.899 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 4.1.3 academic competence descriptive statistics are presented in table 6. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding academic competence, the average value is 3.73, indicating room for improvement in the academic adaptation of international tcsl master’s students in china. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. table 6. the research results of academic competence academic competence average standard deviation scores>3.5 number number 8. i can comprehend the course content. 3.900 0.790 53 63.860 9. i can complete my chinese assignments independently and on time. 3.750 0.853 42 50.600 10. i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor (e.g., thesis, research design, course paper). 3.920 0.768 55 66.270 11. i participate in academic exchanges regularly (e.g., academic conferences, salons, lectures). 3.570 0.886 33 39.760 12. i can volunteer to discuss with my lecturers. 3.510 0.755 33 39.760 according to the correlational analysis of factors presented in table 7, “i can comprehend the course content” appears to be strongly correlated with “i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor” (r=0.759, p<0.001), “i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor” (r=0.870, p<0.001), “i participate in academic exchanges regularly” (r=0.775, p<0.001), and “i can volunteer to discuss with my lecturers” (r=0.757, p<0.001). this suggests that the subject’s competence to comprehend course content is closely correlated with their abilities to complete assignments independently, conduct research, participate in academic exchanges, and interact with teachers. table 7. 8-12 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 8. i can comprehend the course content. 9. i can complete my chinese assignments independently and on time. 10. i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor (e.g., thesis, research design, course paper). 11. i participate in academic exchanges regularly (e.g. academic conferences, salons, lectures). 12. i can volunteer to discuss with my lecturers. 8.i can comprehend the course pearson correlation 1 0.759 0.870 0.775 0.757 significance 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. content. level (two-tailed) number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 9. i can complete my chinese assignments independently and on time. pearson correlation 0.759 1 0.786 0.756 0.731 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 10. i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor (e.g., thesis, research design, course paper). pearson correlation 0.870 0.786 1 0.752 0.684 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 11. i participate in academic exchange activities regularly (e.g., academic conferences, salons, lectures). pearson correlation 0.775 0.756 0.752 1 0.897 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 834. 83 12. i can volunteer to discuss with my lecturers. pearson correlation 0.757 0.731 0.684 0.897 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 **. at the 0.01 level (two-tailed), significant correlation. 4.1.4 academic self-efficacy descriptive statistics are presented in table 8. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding academic self-efficacy, the average values are all above 4, indicating their high academic self-efficacy. table 8. academic self-efficacy academic self-efficacy average standard deviation scores>3.5 number number 13. i believe i can solve problems in my studies. 4.020 0.662 70 84.340 14. i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class. 4.050 0.810 66 79.520 15. i believe i can get good academic grades. 4.060 0.669 67 80.720 16. i like choosing challenging learning tasks. 4.050 0.896 64 77.110 17. i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly. 4.020 0.715 67 80.720 the correlational analysis of factors, as displayed in table 9, indicates that there is a significant positive correlation among the five facets of academic self-efficacy. specifically, factor 13 “i believe i can solve problems in my studies” correlates strongly with factor 14 “i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class” (r=0.566, p<0.001), factor 15 “i believe i can get good academic grades” (r=0.657, p<0.001), factor 16 “i like choosing challenging learning tasks” (r=0.656, p<0.001), and factor 17 “i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly” (r=0.642, p<0.001). this demonstrates that the subject’s confidence in their problem-solving capacity is closely connected to their ability to master knowledge on time in class, achieve good academic grades, choose challenging tasks, and apply learned chinese to daily life. additionally, factor 14 “i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class” also shows strong correlations with factor 15 “i believe i can get good academic grades” (r=0.625, p<0.001), factor 16 “i like choosing challenging learning tasks” (r=0.770, p<0.001), and factor 17 “i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly” (r=0.608, p<0.001). this further illustrates the close correlation between the subject’s capability to grasp knowledge in class and their academic confidence, willingness to embrace challenges, and capacity for practical application. moreover, factor 15 “i believe i can get good academic grades” also shows a significant correlation with factor 16 “i like choosing challenging learning tasks” (r=0.748, p<0.001), and factor 17 “i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly” (r=0.609, p<0.001), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. indicating that the subject’s academic confidence is not only related to their willingness to choose challenging tasks but also to their ability to apply learned knowledge practically. table 9. 13-17 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 13. i believe i can solve problems in my studies. 14. i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class. 15. i believe i can get good academic grades. 16. i like choosing challenging learning tasks. 17. i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly. 13. i believe i can solve problems in my studies. pearson correlation 1 0.566 0.657 0.656 0.642 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 14. i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class. pearson correlation 0.566 1 0.625 0.770 0.608 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 15. i believe i can get good academic grades. pearson correlation 0.657 0.625 1 0.748 0.609 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 16. i like choosing challenging learning tasks. pearson correlation 0.656 0.770 0.748 1 0.759 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 17. i apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life regularly. pearson correlation 0.642 0.608 0.609 0.759 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 83 **. at the 0.01 level (two-tailed), significant correlation. 4.1.5 study mode descriptive statistics are presented in table 10. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding study mode, the average value of the four factors is 3.81, indicating room for improvement in their adaptation to study mode. table 10. study mode study mode average standard deviation scores>3.5 number number 18. i can adapt to the teacher's teaching approach. 4.040 0.706 64 77.110 19. i think the teaching materials currently used are good. 3.980 0.749 59 71.080 20. i like the current course schedules. 3.670 0.912 41 49.400 21. i can adapt to the current test formats. 3.550 0.887 46 55.420 the correlational analysis of factors displayed in table 11 indicates that the subject’s adaptability to the teaching approaches is closely associated with their satisfaction and assessment of teaching materials, course schedules, and test formats. additionally, there is a significant positive correlation between factor 19 “i think the teaching materials currently used are good”, and both factor 20 “i like the current course schedules” (r=0.685, p<0.001), and factor 21 “i can adapt to the current test formats” (r=0.590, p<0.001). this underscores the tight link between positive evaluations of teaching materials and the recognition of and adaptation to course schedules and test formats. furthermore, there is a significant correlation between factor 20 “i enjoy the current i like the current course schedules”, and factor 21 “i can adapt to the current test formats” (r=0.663, p<0.001), suggesting a connection between the subject’s preferences for course schedules and their adaptability to test formats. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. table 11. 18-21 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 18. i can adapt to the teacher's teaching style. 19. i think the teaching materials currently used are good. 20. i like the current course schedules. 21. i can adapt to the current test formats. 18. i can adapt to the teacher's teaching style. pearson correlation 1 0.809 0.662 0.571 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 19. i think the teaching materials currently used are good. pearson correlation 0.809 1 0.685 0.590 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 20. i like the current course schedules. pearson correlation 0.662 0.685 1 0.663 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 21. i can adapt to the current test formats. pearson correlation 0.571 0.590 0.663 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 **. at the 0.01 level (two-tailed), significant correlation. 4.1.6 academic environment descriptive statistics are presented in table 12. in the self-assessment of all subjects regarding the academic environment, the average values of factors on the academic environment are all above 4.0, showing their high evaluation of this dimension. table 12. academic environment academic environment average standard deviation scores>3.5 number number www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. 22. the school’s teaching facilities can meet my learning needs. 4.400 0.540 81 97.590 23. the school library helps me a lot in my studies. 4.390 0.514 82 98.800 24. the school has a good academic atmosphere. 4.240 0.508 80 96.390 25. the school has many online learning resources. 4.310 0.539 80 96.390 the correlational analysis of factors displayed in table 13 indicates that the condition of teaching facilities and library resources in institutions is closely related to the degree to which they help students’ learning. additionally, there is a significant positive correlation between factor 22 and both factor 24 “the school has a good academic atmosphere” (r=0.402, p<0.001), and factor 25 “the school has many online learning resources” (r=0.363, p=0.001). this suggests that the adequacy of teaching facilities positively impacts students’ perceptions of the academic environment and the availability of online resources. moreover, factor 23 “the school library helps me a lot in my studies” also correlates significantly with factors 24 and 25, indicating that library support transcends the provision of physical resources and may indirectly contribute to fostering a conducive academic atmosphere and facilitating the use of online resources. lastly, the positive correlation between factors 24 and 25 implies that rich online learning resources often coincide with a stimulating academic atmosphere, both of which are vital elements of an efficient academic environment. table 13. 22-25 two-tailed significance level on the correlational analysis of factors correlation 22. the school’s teaching facilities can meet my learning needs. 23. the school library helps me a lot in my studies. 24. the school has a good academic atmosphere. 25. the school has many online learning resources. 22. the school’s teaching facilities can meet my learning needs. pearson correlation 1 0.584 0.402 0.363 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.001** number of cases 83 83 83 83 23. the school library helps me a lot in my studies. pearson correlation 0.584 1 0.434 0.395 significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 24. the school has pearson correlation 0.402 0.434 1 0.433 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. a good academic atmosphere. significance level (two-tailed) 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 25. the school has many online learning resources. pearson correlation 0.363 0.395 0.433 1 significance level (two-tailed) 0.001** 0.000*** 0.000*** number of cases 83 83 83 83 **. at the 0.01 level (two-tailed), significant correlation. 4.2 analysis of feature importance to address research question 2, the study employed pearson correlation analysis, finding that significant correlations exist among various factors. the random forest algorithm necessitates that the data have been adapted. in the 5-point likert scale rating system, results with scores above 3.5 represent adaptation and the aggregate scores exceeding 87.5 represent overall individual adaptation. hence, after excluding datasets with aggregate scores below 87.5, 69 data sets remained for analysis of the feature importance among the influential factors in six dimensions. furthermore, building upon the obtained influential factors, a weighted superimposition was conducted on all the data to calculate the values for the six dimensions, which then proceeded to a comprehensive analysis of the feature importance, and finally, an assessment of the relative significance of the six dimensions of influential factors was conducted. table 14. the results of the analysis of feature importance feature importance of each factor feature importance of each dimension study motivation 1. i learn chinese for my interest in chinese language and culture. 0.633 0.552 2. i learn chinese for future job opportunities. 0.290 3. i learn chinese for a degree and academic achievements. 0.078 study attitude 4. i can listen carefully to teachers. 0.623 0.100 5. i can come to class on time. 0.096 6. i can actively participate in classroom activities. 0.108 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. 7. i can actively participate in after-class discussions 0.173 academic competence 8. i can comprehend the course content. 0.525 0.037 9. i can complete my chinese assignments independently and on time. 0.215 10. i can conduct research under the guidance of my supervisor (e.g., thesis, research design, course paper). 0.129 11. i often participate in academic exchanges (e.g. academic conferences, salons, lectures). 0.084 12. i can volunteer to discuss with my lecturers. 0.047 academic self-efficacy 13. i believe i can solve problems in my studies. 0.604 0.073 14. i believe i can grasp the course content on time in class. 0.107 15. i believe i can get good academic grades. 0.132 16. i like choosing challenging learning tasks. 0.091 17. i often apply the chinese i learn in class to my daily life. 0.066 study mode 18. i can adapt to the teacher's teaching style. 0.553 0.050 19. i think the teaching materials currently used are good. 0.089 20. i like the current course schedules. 0.230 21. i can adapt to the current test formats. 0.128 academic environment 22. the school’s teaching facilities can meet my learning needs. 0.732 0.189 23. the school library helps me a lot in my studies. 0.129 24. the school has a good academic atmosphere. 0.088 25. the school has many online learning resources. 0.052 according to the feature importance analysis presented in table 14, interest in the chinese language and culture (0.632) is identified as the most significant motivator for learning chinese within the dimension of study motivation. the need for future job opportunities and academic achievements are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. also part of study motivations but are comparatively less important. listening carefully to teachers (0.623) is considered the most critical study attitude, with punctuality, active participation in class activities, and engagement in after-class discussions also regarded as essential attitudes, albeit to a lesser significance. with regards to academic competence, comprehension of course content (0.525) is deemed highly important, while independently completing assignments on time, conducting research under a supervisor's guidance, participating in academic exchanges, and actively discussing with teachers are also viewed as components of academic competence, but their importance is relatively lower. in terms of academic self-efficacy, the data indicates that believing in one's ability to solve problems in studies (0.604) is the most important source of self-efficacy. this finding aligns with bandura's theory of self-efficacy, which argues that an individual’s belief in their capabilities is a key determinant affecting their choice of behaviors and persistence. other abilities such as timely mastery of knowledge, achieving good grades, choosing challenging tasks, and applying knowledge in daily life are also recognized as sources of self-efficacy but carry lower importance. for study mode, adapting to the teacher’s teaching style (0.553) is seen as a critical factor. this underscores the significance of teacher-student interaction and the impact of teaching styles on student’s study. preferences for teaching materials and course design, as well as approaches to coping with exams, are also considered part of study mode but are ranked lower in importance, indicating that they exert a smaller influence on academic adaptation. concerning the academic environment, the extent to which the school's teaching facilities meet students’ needs (0.732) stands out as the most important environmental factor. additionally, the school library, learning atmosphere, and online resources are acknowledged as important environmental factors, but with less significance. overall, this analysis suggests that study motivation, academic environment, and study attitude play a pivotal role in learning chinese as a second language. academic self-efficacy, study mode, and academic competence also exert influence, although their importance is relatively lower when compared to the former trio. these results can provide valuable references for both teachers and learners, aiding them in better understanding the learning process and optimizing teaching strategies and learning methods. 4.3 interview 4.3.1 study motivation firstly, 81 subjects (97.590%) stated that their reason for learning chinese is future employment, which indicates a certain degree of the instrumental motive of international students. this motive may mainly stem from the background of globalization and the enhancement of china’s comprehensive strength, as the mastery of chinese provides international tcsl master’s students in china with broader space and more opportunities for future employment. their instrumental motive further influences their emphasis on academic performance and qualifications (m=4.52). one interviewee pointed out, i believe mastering chinese is very important for my future career development. as china becomes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. increasingly connected with the world, mastering chinese will give me more job opportunities and growth potential. (subject 8) furthermore, 77 subjects (92.771%) also mentioned that they learn chinese because of their interest in the chinese language and culture. this indicates that interest may be one of their primary drivers for studying chinese. excerpts of interviews are as follows, i am very interested in chinese culture and history. and it’s the main reason for me to learn chinese. i hope that by learning chinese, i can better understand traditional chinese culture and modern society. (subject 39) i believe learning chinese is not just mastering a language skill but also a cultural experience. i hope that by learning chinese, i can better understand chinese society and culture, promoting exchanges and friendship between china and foreign countries. (subject 5) 4.3.2 study attitude among the 83 southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china, more than 65% of them believe they can actively participate in classes and engage in after-class discussions. this reflects that they have a certain degree of self-discipline, able to attend classes on time, interact actively, and maintain a serious study attitude. for example, three interviewees mentioned: i usually go to the classroom early because i think punctuality is respect for teachers and classmates. and attending classes helps me get into a better learning state. (subject 2) i enjoy discussing with teachers and classmates in class. i think it can help me better understand knowledge and improve my oral skills. (subject 23) i will actively discuss with classmates after class, and exchange ideas about what i didn’t understand in class and assignments. (subject 57) however, 18 subjects (21.687%) showed a relatively negative study attitude. this kind of variation is related to their personal background, study habits, etc. i think my study attitude is all right, but sometimes i do slack off. (subject 7) my study habits are not very good, and sometimes i get distracted during class. (subject 66) overall, the study attitudes of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china are generally positive. however, due to the diversity in cultural backgrounds, there are significant individual differences in their efforts, self-discipline, and study attitude. 4.3.3 academic competence 53 subjects (63.86%) have high confidence and competence in comprehending the course content and conducting academic research. i don’t think it’s a problem for me to understand the course content because i had been learning chinese for some time before coming to china, so i can keep up with the teacher’s pacing. (subject 15) when conducting academic research, i will actively search for relevant information and analyze it. i believe it’s an important way to enhance my academic competence. (subject 44) in exchanges with international tcsl master’s students in china, it was found that some students need www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. to discuss with classmates to complete assignments, while others need to browse relevant content online for their assignments. 30 subjects (36.145%) said that they could not keep up with the teacher’s pacing, that they were not good at chinese, and that their english, as a medium, wasn't so good, sometimes leading to difficulties in understanding the content. there are significant variations in their performance in participating in academic exchanges and interacting with teachers. excerpts of the interviews are as follows: i can understand most of the course content, but sometimes the teacher speaks too fast and i can’t keep up. (subject 11) i don’t like to participate in academic exchanges because i feel a bit nervous. but i will try to communicate more with teachers and ask for advice. (participant 45) 4.3.4 academic self-efficacy 70 subjects (84.337%) believe that they can resolve problems in their studies. they are confident in their ability to comprehend the course content promptly, excel academically, and apply the chinese acquired during courses to daily life. this assessment is closely related to their interest in the chinese language, the practicality of the course content, the high relevance of the teaching methodology to the content, and interactive teaching practices. interviewees stated, i frequently apply the chinese that i’ve learned in class to my daily life. i feel learning is useful in this way. (subject 16) i believe in my ability to overcome challenges encountered in my studies, as i can promptly grasp the course content. (subject 63) i feel that i have got good grades, and it boosts my confidence in my academic competence. (subject 79) nonetheless, it should be noted that despite an overall high academic self-efficacy among these students, a certain percentage of them still face challenges with their academic adaptation. given their unique state, these students face dual challenges of language and culture which may result in confusion or difficulties in academic adaptation for some students. moreover, variations in learning styles and strategies among different students can also influence their academic self-efficacy. i think my adaptability is all right, but i still feel a little helpless at certain times, such as when faced with concepts that are difficult to comprehend. i will feel confused and lack of confidence. (subject 26) i think i need to improve in some aspects. sometimes i will hesitate to choose challenging academic tasks. (subject 82) 4.3.5 study mode 64 subjects (77.110%) have expressed their satisfaction with the teaching methods and materials, yet 19 students (0.229%) have shown maladaptation to or dissatisfaction with the current course schedule and test format. this evaluation predominantly derives from individual differences, various personal needs, and their unfamiliarity with the chinese educational model. students valuing the enhancement of language skills wish for an increase in intensive reading or spoken language class hours; others who www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. have an affinity for chinese culture regard the cultural course offerings as a little insufficient. i hope the school can increase the hours of intensive reading courses because i want to pass the hsk exam as soon as possible and improve my reading skills. (subject 1) speaking skills are very important for me. i hope the school can offer more spoken language classes so that i can have more opportunities to practice spoken chinese. (subject 55) the differences in their mindset and educational philosophies also influence their acceptance of the frequency of group assignments and closed-book test formats, leading to relatively large disparities in their views on study mode. i don’t fit into the group work assignments because i feel they take up a lot of time and it is difficult to reach a consensus when opinions differ. (subject 28) i find closed-book exams too challenging because i get nervous easily, and then i will forget what i’ve learned. i hope the school can adopt more flexible assessment methods, such as open-book exams or oral tests. (subject 47) 4.3.6 academic environment according to the interviews, it was found that the international tcsl master’s students in china are generally satisfied with the hardware facilities and learning resources provided by the schools (97.590%). this positive assessment can be attributed to the high-quality hardware facilities and learning resources, which not only meet student’s learning needs but also support their academic research and personal development. the school is also active in creating a favorable learning atmosphere and cultural environment, enabling students to integrate into campus life and enhance their educational experience. the interview transcripts are as follows: the natural and cultural environment of the school is great, making my study and life here very enjoyable. (subject 3) the classroom facilities are adequate, and the library resources are rich. it is very useful for my study. (subject 62) 5. enlightenment for southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china, the dual challenges of language and culture are accompanied by the necessity to adapt in several dimensions, including study motivation, study attitudes, and academic competence. drawing upon the prior analysis of the current state of their academic adaptation and feature importance, the subsequent text will explore how to improve their cross-cultural academic adaptation from the standpoint of the school and the teacher. 5.1 suggestions for schools 5.1.1 improving course schedules and assessment methods the status of academic adaptation and the results of feature importance analysis reveal that southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china experience substantial difficulties in adapting to course schedules and test formats. schools, therefore, must tailor their training programs and course designs to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. align with their cultural background and learning needs. firstly, the school should cater to their individual needs by offering diversified elective courses with an emphasis on practical teaching such as internships for teaching chinese and chinese culture investigation, thus enhancing both chinese language proficiency and cross-cultural adaptation through practical engagement. regarding their maladaptation in test formats, schools should carry out a comprehensive review and evaluation of the existing curriculum system. and they should reform and optimize academic evaluation, giving equal importance to learning processes and outcomes. meanwhile, it is necessary to value students’ feedback to improve academic assessments. all above is crucial to establishing a sound and complete system of academic evaluation. building upon these academic evaluation reforms, the introduction of academic counseling services and support from mentors and friends will significantly increase international students’ recognition and satisfaction with their studies in china. 5.1.2 upgrading hardware facilities to meet student’s needs the analysis of feature importance indicates that teaching facilities provided by schools are considered the most crucial environmental factor in meeting students’ learning needs, which reflects students’ high dependency on teaching infrastructure in cross-cultural academic environments. in the self-assessment of academic adaptation, the average values of teaching facilities, library resources, etc., exceed 4.0, signifying that schools are performing relatively well in these factors. however, there is still a minority of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in china who perceive the infrastructure and learning resources as requiring improvement. consequently, schools should attach great importance to the improvement and updating of teaching facilities. in line with the specific characteristics of the disciplines and the student’s needs, there should be timely updates and upgrades to instructional equipment, such as modern multimedia classrooms, and specialized rooms for the instruction of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and chinese characters, and cultural experience halls. moreover, as libraries serve as vital hubs for students to learn and research, they should regularly refresh their collections and enrich their offerings in chinese and southeast asian language resources, and provide convenient book lending and online reading services to meet the diverse reading demands of students. dedicated learning spaces and cultural exchange zones for international students would offer platforms for interaction with chinese peers, fostering a favorable and enjoyable atmosphere for learning and research. 5.2 suggestions for teachers 5.2.1 improving teaching modes to enhance teaching effectiveness given the varied foundational knowledge levels among international students and the disparities in educational models and study methods between their home countries and china, some southeast asian students in china face challenges in completing their academic tasks. for these students, academic adaptation is a dynamic and continuous process rather than a static outcome. to alleviate the academic pressures they experience, it is essential that teachers provide support through various measures. the first measure is to adopt more flexible teaching approaches. teachers should continually innovate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. instructional models by incorporating diverse teaching activities, such as case-based teaching, seminars, and role-playing, to stimulate their learning interest and enthusiasm. moreover, teachers can encourage active participation in class activities to foster student’s autonomous learning capability and critical thinking through group discussions and debates. the second measure is to establish a virtuous cycle of teacher-student interaction and timely feedback. teachers can promote emotional exchanges with students through comprehensible, illustrative, and visualized teaching approaches, along with equal-footed dialogue. meanwhile, the guidance on optimizing learning strategies rather than just imparting knowledge can fully mobilize students’ intrinsic motivation and ignite their genuine learning desire. 5.2.2 enriching cultural activities to enhance academic self-efficacy according to the feature importance analysis, students’ assessment of their problem-solving abilities directly impacts their study confidence and motivation. consequently, the enhancement in their self-efficacy hinges upon helping them develop a positive perception of their academic competence. to this end, teachers can organize a series of cultural activities, such as cross-cultural expansion training, academic exchange sessions or seminars involving chinese and international students, and chinese corner activities. these are designed to facilitate communication in chinese among southeast asian tcsl master’s students, enabling them to confidently engage in various campus activities and to appreciate the joy and practicality of the chinese language. teachers can also encourage students to actively participate in class discussions and activities planning and to select challenging learning tasks, such as chinese writing competitions or debates. during this process, teachers should provide timely feedback and recognition of their progress. these tasks can cultivate their problem-solving and stress-management skills, which in turn boosts their self-efficacy. 6. conclusion as educational exchanges between china and southeast asia increasingly strengthen, there has been a steady increase in the number of southeast asian students pursuing a master’s degree in teaching chinese as a second language in china. this paper focuses on the cross-cultural academic adaptation issues faced by this group, identifying a range of challenges across aspects such as study motivation, study attitude, academic competence, academic self-efficacy, study mode, and academic environment. in terms of study motivation, most students display a keen interest in chinese and chinese culture and recognize the importance of mandarin for their future career prospects. although their overall study attitude is positive, there is room for improvement in punctuality, attendance, and classroom participation. regarding academic competence, some students struggle with understanding course content and completing assignments independently. in terms of academic self-efficacy, while most students are positive about their academic competence, a notable proportion still face academic adaptation challenges. on learning modes, there is maladaptation or dissatisfaction among some students with the current course schedules and test formats. the academic environment is generally www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. well-regarded, though a minority of students express dissatisfaction with the instructional strategies and the school’s academic atmosphere. among them, study motivation, academic environment, and study attitude are key factors influencing students’ academic adaptation. to address these challenges, the paper puts forth targeted suggestions. schools should refine their course schedules and assessment methods, and upgrade facilities to better meet student’s needs; teachers should improve instructional approaches, enhance educational performance, and enrich cultural activities to foster students’ intrinsic motivation and bolster their self-efficacy. overall, the cross-cultural academic adaptation of southeast asian tcsl master’s students in in china is a complex and multidimensional issue that requires collaborative efforts from schools, teachers, and students to foster comprehensive development and enhance 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(1991). the academic adaptability test (aat) manual. shanghai: east china normal university press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 15 original paper study on the emotional expression and playing skills of mozart's piano trio in b flat major zi li1 1 department of piano, conservatory of music, st. paul university, manila, philippines received: september 09, 2024 accepted: november 04, 2024 online published: november 12, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p15 abstract this paper focuses on the study of the emotional expression and playing skills of mozart's piano trio in b flat major (k.502), aiming to deeply analyze the artistic connotation and performance practice of this classical music masterpiece. mozart played a role in establishing the "template" in the piano trio music genre. in his creation, the three instruments in the piano trio were truly independent and unique, and the theme of the three voices began to resonate and depend on each other, one after another. he also established the three-movement pattern of piano trio writing and the musical structure of the first and last movements. through the detailed analysis of the emotional level and performance skills of the work, it provides a more abundant understanding and deductive perspective for music scholars, performers and lovers. the purpose of this study is to systematically explore the ways of emotional expression and the subtleties of performance skills through literature review, music score analysis and field performance experiments. the research process integrates the multi-disciplinary methods of music theory, emotional psychology and performance practice. the conclusion is that mozart's piano trio in b flat major not only shows his outstanding creative talent, but also provides a broad stage for players to show their personal emotional understanding and technical level. keywords mozart, piano trio in b flat major, emotional expression, playing skills introduction piano trio, as a unique chamber music genre with a long history, has been developed and matured by many masters since its birth in the baroque period. among them, mozart's piano trio in b flat major (k.502) is undoubtedly a shining pearl in this field, and has become an important object of research for its profound emotional expression and exquisite playing skills. mozart, as a giant in the history of classical music, his creation involves a variety of musical genres, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 16 and the piano trio is an important part of his music creation. k.502 this work not only shows the exquisite conception of mozart's musical structure, but also through unique emotional expression, the three instruments piano, violin and cello, closely linked together, and jointly deduces a moving musical picture. in terms of emotional expression, k.502 shows mozart's deep insight into inner emotions with its rich melodic lines and delicate harmonic treatment. the performer needs to present the emotional levels in the work one by one through precise touch keys and delicate power control, so that the audience can feel the waves in the composer's heart. in terms of performance skills, this work puts forward extremely high requirements for players. it not only requires the performer to have solid solo skills, but also needs to achieve the perfect integration of instruments and personality display in the collaboration of the trio. the unique musical charm of k.502 is presented through the delicate balance of the voice and the tacit cooperation between the players. therefore, the in-depth study on the emotional expression and playing skills of mozart's piano trio in b flat major (k.502) is of great significance to the development of piano trio art. 1. mozart piano trio creation background mozart (1756-1791), the outstanding representative of the history of classical music, his creative career covered a variety of musical genres, among which the piano trio occupies a place. he left a total of eight piano trios, most of which are officially numbered. for example, the work kv496, composed in 1786, is the first piano trio in g major. in the same year, he also completed piano trio no. 2 in f flat major (kv498) and piano trio no. 3 in b flat major (kv502). then, in 1788, he produced the piano trio no. 4 in e major (kv542), no. 5 in c major (kv548) and no. 6 in g major (kv564). among these works, kv502, kv542 and kv548 are larger works in three movements, which show mozart's unique artistic style in musical structure, emotional expression and playing technique. these works not only enrich the artistic expression of the piano trio, but also provide valuable creative inspiration and performance examples for later musicians. mozart's 1786 masterpiece kv502, piano trio no. 3 in b flat major, has a prominent place among his piano trio works and is still regularly performed in concerts today. the work was born at the height of mozart's career, when his operas "the theatre manager" and "the marriage of figaro" were performed in vienna and achieved great success. during this period, mozart experienced the ups and downs of life, and his works integrated drama and melancholy feelings, which were sometimes hidden in his bright and cheerful melodies. kv502 marked the maturity of mozart in the field of piano trio, breaking the traditional framework of accompanied clavicolor sonatas and rosettes, and cleverly integrating concerto elements. previously, he composed numerous piano concertos, such as kv459, kv466, kv482 and kv488, whose technique brought new highlights to the piano trio: establishing the standard three-movement structure, demonstrating the virtuosity of the piano's colorful passages, and establishing the piano's central position in the trio. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 17 for the piano trio, a unique chamber music form, its development process is continuous evolution and improvement. the performer should not only pay attention to the interpretation of the piece, but also deeply analyze the musical form structure, harmony and tone of the piece, so as to fully understand the composer's emotional expression and creation style, so as to more effectively convey the spiritual essence of the work. through this in-depth analysis, the performer can interpret this classic more accurately. 2. the emotional expression of mozart's piano trio in b flat major kv502, the piano trio no. 3 in b flat major, is a gem of mozart's piano trio and is still frequently featured on the music stage today, becoming a highly respected chamber music classic. this work abandoned the structural instability common in previous works, followed mozart's signature three-movement piano concerto structure, each movement follows his unique "fast-slow-fast" rhythm layout, as well as "bright-melancholy-bright" musical emotional trend and "bright-dimm-bright" color changes. these elements together constitute the unique style of mozart's music. in the first movement of kv502, mozart adopted the sonata form, creating a warm and romantic atmosphere with a bright and cheerful allegro in four meter. the theme melody unfolds melodically in b flat major, and then changes in the dominant key, with the piano leading the melody and the violin singing in rotation. the melody fluctuates throughout the movement, showing the elegant charm. the second movement adopts the classical five-part cyclotron form, creating a quiet and far-reaching mood with the soft three-meter small broad plate. the main melody in e-flat major is combined with rich decorative notes, making the whole movement filled with a beautiful and holy atmosphere. as for the third movement, mozart skillfully integrated the characteristics of rondo and sonata, presented in a cheerful and brilliant allegro to four meters, the power and tenderness co-present, the theme and the evolving development of b-flat major through the pursuit of piano and violin counterpoint, showing the exquisite musical charm. 2.1 the first movement allegro b flat major sonata form the allegro in the first movement is a typical three-piece classical sonata form, presented in regular four-four beats,the musical form analysis diagram of this movement is as follows: the musical composition consists of three main parts: exposition (bars 1-82, repeated once in its entirety), development (bars 83-118), and recapitulation (bars 119-198). in the early sonata form, the theme of exposition, as the core of the whole piece, highlights its importance through the repetition of the whole piece. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 18 in the first movement, the piano leads the melody, the violin serves as the ornament, and the cello supports the harmonic texture with its simple and profound bass, which jointly creates a full and verve musical effect. the piano starts in b flat major and plays half a bar of the theme melody, the cello continues to play the tonic over the chord bass, and the violin responds to the piano with short motion-counterpoints to form tight phrases. this way of filling the gap of piano theme phrases by violin is widely used in the whole movement and becomes an important technique to promote the development of music. in the theme, the piano part of the continuous tone is a major feature. in the process of harmonic progress, the bass part of the piano continues or repeats a harmonic bass, which not only enhances the stability of the chord, but also gives the space for harmonic change. from the 25th bar, the piano enters the fast colorful part, and the right hand high note area rapidly modulates. the violin and cello follow the piano melody to break down the chord and form a wonderful counterpoint, and the cello acts as the deep background music. in bar 36, the piano melody goes down to bar 39 and then goes up to triplet semitones, and then connects to the secondary melody in the key of f major. this chromatic connection is common in mozart's works, which not only enhances the tendency of the chord, but also enhances the tension of the music, and plays a good transitional role in the development of the music. the melody of the secondary part of the exposition section is transferred to the dominant key on the basis of the main part, and the overall melody style remains unchanged, ending in the key of f major. entering the development section of bar 83, the music continues to show the tonality of the exposition section. it is performed with the gentle accompaniment of the piano and the main melody played by the violin, and the melody is soft and lyrical, contrasting with the theme melody. the cello melody also changes slightly, and briefly interacts with the violin melody in the high register supported by the piano bass octave chord, enriching the musical level. after the piano and violin melodies answer and chase each other, the music returns to the theme melody. after the piano solo at the beginning of bar 102, the melody moved to c minor, and then to g minor in bar 111, and the composer gradually moved to the stable main key through unstable modulation, giving the music rich colors and tendencies. at bar 117, the piano's v-level chord signaled that it was about to enter the recapitulation. 2.2 second movement small largo in cyclotron form in e-flat major the small platen in the second movement uses the classical five-part cyclotron form, which has a distinct dance quality, and its three-time rhythm brings out the beauty and delicacy of the melody of the slow movement. the movement is transferred to e flat major for interpretation, the piano and violin in the theme melody of the exquisite answer, so that the overlapping music in the ears of the audience many times. the newly inserted melodic passages inject inexhaustible impetus into the advancement of the music, and the whole movement slowly spreads out in the warm and beautiful melody until it welcomes the return of allegro. the classical pentagonal form originated in the second half of the 18th century, and differs from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 19 ancient cyclotron form in that the former form forms a more regular five-part structure of the abaca, which is larger in size but less numerous than the ancient cyclotron form. in addition, a connecting section is added between the central and overlapping parts of the classical cyclotron form, and an epilogue is added at the end of the piece. in b and c, the scale of c is often larger than that of b, even reaching the climax of the music. in spite of this, the classical cyclotron form still retains a more traditional and regular character.the musical forms of the second movement are divided as follows: the use of the cyclotron form in the second movement, the adagio, is rare, because the cyclotron form is often used in the final movement of the nature of singing and dancing, and the speed is fast. however, in this piano trio, the second movement is clever use of the classical circumflex form, so that the music unfolds in the subordinate key at the same time, showing a warm and implicit quality, less dark and melancholy. this treatment fully demonstrates mozart's deep skills in controlling the singing adagio movement. 2.3 the third movement allegro minor in b flat major in cyclotron form the allegro in the third movement uses a rather unique form of the classical period, the cyclotron form. this is a new type of independent form structure which combines the characteristics of sonata form and cyclotron form. although there are different names in the music form textbooks at home and abroad, some are called the sonata form, but from the perspective of noun interpretation and analysis of musical examples, they are all "the form based on the principle of playing". the foundation of playing the cyclotron form is the cyclotron form, not the sonata form. the basic principles of cyclotron form include: the overlapping parts should appear more than three times, and the inserts between the two overlapping parts should have different contrast; multiple occurrences of the overlapping part must be reproduced on the original tone; the intersections should follow the principle of long-distance growth, that is, the contrast between intersections and overlapping parts should be gradually expanded according to the needs of musical development. there is a common feature in tonality of both the vocal cyclotron form and the cyclotron sonata form: the main part and the secondary part of the exposition part do not appear in the same key, but the secondary part of the recapitulation part needs to be consistent with the main key. to distinguish the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 20 two forms, the following two principles can be followed: on the one hand, the intonation of the exposition part of the cyclotron sonata form should be open, that is, the intonation of the end of the secondary part of the exposition part is not on the original key, but an open ending; on the other hand, the singing cyclotron form should retain the minimum characteristics of the cyclotron form, that is, the interposition should follow the principle of long distance growth. 3. mozart's piano trio in b flat major playing techniques 3.1 the timbre of piano and string instruments mozart's piano music is famous for its pure and bright timbre, which resembles his childlike attitude towards life. his musical phrases are delicate and natural, and even if they are not significant in contrast, they contain rich timbre changes and intensity levels. mozart excelled at conveying the fullest emotions with simple notes and pure timbre. in his light melody, we can feel a deep inner tension. in the interpretation of his works, we need to pay special attention to the playing strength and touching skills of each tone, a little neglect, it may lose the unique charm of mozart's music. when playing mozart's piano repertoire, it is necessary to skillfully integrate arm and finger movements. some passages may require the strength of the sinking arm to play a solid and rich sound, but more often, it is through the different ways of touching the keys to show a variety of timbre effects. in order to achieve the rich variety of timbre in mozart's music, the player needs to constantly adjust the position of the finger keys: the fingertip keys create a clear and thin sound, while the fleshy part of the finger abdomen produces a soft and full sound. in addition, to perform different levels of force, the height of the finger touch key needs to change accordingly: high touch key brings a loud sound, while low touch key is more gentle. when playing mozart's light and pure timbre, the touch points need to be very clear. at the same time, his music emphasizes playing skills that are both flexible and can maintain the continuity of palm power, so that when playing scales and arpeggios, you can feel the virtual-real transformation of timbre and the coherent flow of music. in mozart's music, the technique of linking takes two forms: one is to link notes together to form short sentences; the other is to use short lines to connect a small number of smooth sounds. in melodies connected by long lines, the player should touch the keys in a smooth way, as if the fingers are gently stroking the keys. the use of this connection is said to have been inspired by the violin bow method, which, due to its long bow, required frequent changes in the bow method to achieve flexible playing in order to maintain the coherence of the music. in the first movement, the long line is used to repeat the theme melody. for example, the thematic melodic connection in bars 23-29 and 32-33 of the exposition melody is reproduced in bars 100-104 and 107-108 of the development, and in bars 139-145 and 148-149 of the representation; similarly, the connecting melodies in bars 54-60, 63-64, 67-68 of the exposition are reproduced in bars 170-176, 183-184 of the representation. these melodic lines remain almost the same, with only a change in tone. music example 1: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 21 in the theme reproduced in the exposition of the first movement, as shown in example 7, the piano part of the exposition of the first movement uses long lines to divide the phrase, especially in the descending decomposition of the chords similar to the color. the left hand is based on the root note of the octave chord, while the right hand needs to play the sound group quickly. at this time, the fingertips should be close to the meat pad, smoothly attached to the keys, and with the help of the solid support of the palm, the power can be transferred smoothly in the fingertips. this way of playing can make the notes sound consistent and smooth, like flowing water. in the second movement, in order to enhance the singing of the music, the use of long consonants is more frequent. in the repetitions of the roundabout form, such as bars 1-8, 18-19, 21-23, 37-42, 45-52, 54-55, 85-95, and 101-109, the long connection is repeated several times. in addition, long articulation techniques are used extensively in bars 32-36 of b, and bars 74-76, 77, 79, and 81-84 of b. music example 2: in the first reappearance of the second movement's repetitions, long connections of single sentences are common in mozart's piano trio in b flat major, especially in the slow movement, where they show the beauty of the short sentences but the continuous flow of the melody. when playing the phrases of the slow movement, the key touch should be more slow and straight than the allegretto. it is also necessary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 22 to play the key slowly with the soft finger pad, and the finger tip is close to the meat pad to enhance the sense of adhesion between notes. at the same time, the arm moves naturally to ensure the smooth transfer of palm power between fingers. in the third movement, the music is light and grainy, and the use of long lines includes bars 2-11, 15-20, 31-32, 40-48, 50-53, 56, 63-66 of the exposition, which are fully reproduced in the recapitulation. another typical consonant in mozart's music is a smooth tone connected by short connections, which conveys an air of urbanity. the notes connected by this small wire are usually few, more than three notes are rare, and are usually used between two notes. when playing, a slightly shorter and gentle touch should be used on the last note, and if the two notes have the same or similar value, the first note can be slightly emphasized. this kind of circular sound with small connections occurs frequently in mozart's piano trio in b flat major. music example 3: in the second movement, as shown in bar 2 of example 4, the chords in the piano's treble section often pass through short lines. these short connecting notes continue the first note of the next beat in the second half, forming a regular mold down and down, like a stream layer by layer, adding decorative flowers to the main melody of the violin, making the music more diversified. when playing such short connected notes, it is necessary to break the conventional rhythm concept, slightly emphasize the beginning note of the short connected note, gradually weaken the end note of the connected note, and play with the finger keys, the palm is firmly supported, the fingertip movements are divided according to the short connected note, and the volume decreases with the mold, so as to accurately show the musical effect of mozart's short connected notes. music example 4: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 23 3.2 string instrument timbre playing skills there are significant differences between string instruments and keyboard instruments in performance characteristics, and the pitch of string instruments needs to be adjusted artificially, and most of them use the main tone style, so intonation is very important for string instruments. although mozart's works seem simple, lack of flashy technique and complex rhythm, but the simple melody lines and regular phrases put forward higher requirements for intonation and timbre. in the piano trio, violin and cello have a lot in common, so they are collectively referred to as string instruments for a brief analysis. the intonation training of the string is very important, both the mastery of the bowstring contact point and the positioning of the fingers on the string must be accurate. in view of the fact that the piano is the main instrument in a piano trio and is a twelve-meter instrument, the intonation is fixed in the performance of chords and intervals, and the string instrument should closely match the intonation of the piano, especially when it is used as an accompaniment. the violin and cello should not only be consistent with the intonation of the piano, but also make internal self-adjustment to clarify the role they play in the chord, whether it is the root note or the layer note. pay attention to every detail to present the best musical effect. music example 5: in the development of the third movement, the above example shows the transition from the connecting section to the development section. the connecting section is stated in the main key through the piano's triplet scale, and then the piano suddenly switches to the subordinate key development in the bar www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 24 transition. for string instruments, this modulation is not aural, but from the third bar of the example, the music clearly enters a new tone. since the piano plays the role of bass accompaniment after tuning, the intonation of string instruments is particularly important. when the cello and the piano enter the chord tone at the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the intonation is completely consistent, so that the violin main melody can be smoothly integrated into the new tone. if the string fails to accurately grasp the intonation during modulation, it will have a serious impact on the overall musical effect. 3.3 the volume and force of the three instruments match each other in mozart's piano trio manuscripts, force marks are used only in rare cases. how to more accurately represent the dynamic changes and playing forces of mozart's era has become a central challenge in the study of piano trio playing techniques. in particular, in mozart's piano works, it is more common to use soft (p) and strong (f) as force marks, while contrasting force marks such as very soft (pp) or very strong (ff) are rare. even if the p and f marks appear infrequently in the manuscript, the delicate musical quality of mozart's works still requires a deep understanding of the context of its time and the subtle changes in its handling of forces. mozart lived in the era, the keyboard instrument was in the transition stage from the clavichord to the modern piano. the clavichord's hammer was wrapped in leather instead of the felt pads used in modern pianos, and the strings were relatively thin, resulting in a bright, overtone rich sound. however, due to the delicate construction of the instrument and the slender strings, its volume is relatively "soft", between the volume of the harpsichord and the modern piano, marking a stage in the transition from the dynamic style of baroque music to the era of beethoven. when performing mozart's works, special attention should be paid to restoring the volume and timbre characteristics of this particular period. at the same time, whether playing the violin or the cello, mozart's music is deeply imprinted with the unique mark of the era. music example 6: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 25 example 6 shows the recapitulation of the exposition of the third movement, which adds decorative variations to the original material and introduces a distinct contrast melody pattern, becoming the most intensive part of the score. after the main melody of the piano solo, the violin enters the third bar, the strings and the piano accompaniment cooperate, and the harmonic texture and volume intensity form a sharp contrast with the piano solo, creating a cheerful and brilliant atmosphere. starting from the 7th bar, the violin and the piano repeat the counterpoint melody mode four times, in each mode, after the violin plays strongly, the piano responds with weak play, until the last mode, the violin turns to weak play (p), and the cello and piano play strongly in octaves, subtly pushing the music to the climax. when playing this piece, subtle differences in intensity and volume need to be carefully captured. although only two kinds of strength are marked p and f, when repeating the mold, the overall musical line should be dominated, and the strength should be increased step by step to accumulate momentum for the musical climax. in mozart's score, even if there is no explicit force mark, its melody itself contains rich force expression clues, which guides the performer to interpret the work with appropriate emotions. 4. conclusion mozart piano trio in b-flat major, k.502 this musical work is one of the best etudes for piano music learners, and it is also a very classic chamber music work. due to the limitation of space, it is impossible to analyze more details of the emotional expression and playing technique of this musical work in more detail. in the process of practicing playing, through the change of music rhythm, i deeply appreciate the unique artistic appeal of this music work. in the future study, i will practice repeatedly to feel the emotional connotation and playing skills of this musical work from multiple angles. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 26 references cheng, q. y. (trans.). (1999). mozart. (uk) peggy woodford (peggywoodford). jiangsu people's publishing house. liu, x. l. (ed.). (2006). hello, mozart. central conservatory of music press. qian, r. k. (2003). the letters of mozart. (austria) mozart; compiler. shanghai conservatory of music press. wang, k., & liu, q. j. (2022). the aesthetic characteristics and dramatic expression of mozart's opera music. sichuan drama, (11), 95-98. zhang, j. w. (2018). on the aesthetic implication of mozart's piano music. music compositions, (06), 155-156. microsoft word assc-v2n3-p73 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 73 original paper preparation for field work practicum in criminal justice settings mei-hua chien1* & chu-chun chen2 1 department of criminology, national chung cheng university, taiwan 2 taoyuan district prosecutor office, taiwan * mei-hua chien, national chung cheng university, taiwan received: july 28, 2020 accepted: august 25, 2020 online published: august 27 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p73 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p73 abstract the purpose of the current study was to assess the needs regarding preparation for field work practicum of taiwanese interns in criminal justice settings. the delphi method was used to collect information on interns’ perceived needs regarding preparation for practicum, including academic courses, selection, the application process, and expectations regarding practicum in criminal justice settings. thirty-six taiwanese undergraduate interns completed three rounds of questionnaires. the results identified seven priorities for preparation of academic courses, three apex superiorities for selection of fieldwork practicum, 11 shared needs for application, and 13 common items for expecting practicum for interns from four groups of agencies. implications and future studies for course development, professional development, and self-awareness in the fieldwork practicum of criminal justice were also discussed. keywords preparation for fieldwork practicum, criminal justice settings, delphi method 1. introduction field education is an experiential learning method that provides students with opportunities for firsthand learning about the process of criminal justice and the roles of practitioners (breci & martin, 2000), using active learning techniques (sims, 2006). fieldwork is crucial in the academic training process, and some undergraduate programs also require preparation courses in order to be eligible for fieldwork (mcbride, 2017; stichman & farkas, 2005). in the united states, the terms fieldwork, practicum, and internship are often used interchangeably (mcbride, 2017; taylor, 2012). in social work education, field work has been required for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. baccalaureate programs and master’s programs (council on social work education, 2015). students in psychology must complete practicum hours prior to attending an apa-accredited internship (american psychological association, 2013). criminal justice programs may have elective internship opportunities available to graduate students (academy of criminal justice sciences, 2018). in taiwan, the fieldwork practicum used to enquire for the criminology major is one of the strengths of the program in higher education. however, empirical studies have seldom focused on how students find their field placements, or how the field placements match their needs (baird & mollen, 2018). thus, the purpose of the current study was to assess the needs regarding preparation for field work practicum of taiwanese interns. nowadays, academic institutions and field placements may use various models to conduct field education (baird & mollen, 2018). the educational goals of field education in criminal justice are for students to understand the procedures of the criminal justice profession, to apply theories presented in the classroom to actual practice in the field, to enhance self-understanding and professional identity development, and to achieve successful transitions to employment in criminal justice (mcbride, 2017; taylor, 2012). before beginning a field work practicum, students need a certain level of preparation in order to meet the educational goals of the practicum and to progress through the placement process. thus, knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, skills development, personal development, and professional development are essential criteria for field placement (mcbride, 2017). in taiwan, students in their junior year must complete a minimum 200 hours of unpaid, full-time agency practice placement, earning one credit. before students reach the practice placement, they must take 10 prerequisite courses and complete a preparation course known as practicum (i). after taking practicum (i) for one credit in the fall semester of their junior year, students begin the ongoing process of obtaining a field placement, progressing through interviewing and reapplication, if necessary. then, they complete the actual placement, known as practicum (ii) over the summer after the junior year. after completing the field work practicum, students go on to take additional courses for the senior year before graduating. during practicum (i), students engage in roles and activities to help them develop practice skills and knowledge and to help them prepare for the process of applying for and obtaining a placement. basic topics in practicum (i) include choosing an internship site, résumé writing techniques, interviewing skills, and the importance of developing goals (baird & mollen, 2018). in the classroom, students learn about their own strengths, capabilities, and limitations; professional skill development; stress management; use of resources; and use of supervision in the field work practicum. students then make a tentative plan for selecting a field site. the field site should best match one’s interests, skills, and needs, in areas such as type of setting, type of clients, treatment approach, supervisor qualities, location, compensation, hours, and flexibility (baird & mollen, 2018). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 75 published by scholink inc. for taiwan’s students, information about available placement resources is often obtained from field presentations, conversations with peers, and field work practicum reports of schoolmates, which are provided by a faculty instructor. moreover, through visiting local agencies in the criminal justice settings, students get an overall picture of each agency’s functioning and missions. they submit the fieldwork placement form before the end of the fall semester and then go through the process of placement. the placement process includes choosing an appropriate site, completing the internship interview, and obtaining insurance (mcbride, 2017). interviewing is seen as a two-way communication process in which students and field agencies negotiate and set the goals of the field work practicum. students have the responsibility to prepare for internships and actively participate in preparation (side & mrvica, 2017). students also need to be aware that field placements seek interns who are properly qualified (baird & mollen, 2018). the present study primarily examined the needs of taiwanese junior year students regarding preparation for field work practicum in criminal justice settings. criminal justice agencies may include police agencies, prosecutor’s office, courts, and prisons (sanders & young, 2007). albanese (2012) notes that the field of criminal justice may be defined as including law enforcement, courts, and corrections; however, training of police officers is not considered to be part of academic education in taiwan. criminal justice field placement sites considered in the current study were grouped into four subgroups, based on their functioning and missions: (a) court agencies (district prosecution offices, adjudication courts, and juvenile courts); (b) correction agencies (jails, prisons, drug treatment facilities, and detention facilities); (c) adult probation agencies (after care services, probation service agencies); and (d) protection agencies (domestic violence centers, shelters, juvenile guidance committees, and victim services). 1.1 method the delphi method was adopted to collect information on the interns’ perceptions of the preparation needed for field work practicum in criminal justice settings. as linstone and throff (2002) have proposed, the delphi method is a useful tool to gather a rich collection of opinions. this structured communication method seeks input from a panel of participants in three rounds to gain refined information in a short period of time. cost, convenience, and time considerations made the delphi method valuable in the current study. two research questions were proposed: 1) what contents should be included in preparation for field work practicum in criminal justice settings? 2) what were the priorities for the process of field place men among interns who served at the four different groups of agencies? a purposive sampling method was used to select interns with sufficient field work practicum experience. the inclusion criteria included having a field work practicum experience in criminal justice, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 76 published by scholink inc. and being willing to participate in three rounds of written questionnaires. a total of 40 interns were recruited, representing the four groups: court agencies, adult probation agencies, correction agencies, and protection agencies. participants were recruited through e-mail solicitation from a list of all interns at a taiwan university which is well known for its criminal justice major. data collection for rounds 1, 2, and 3 lasted 3, 2, and 2 weeks respectively. the return rates were high: 90% for round 1 (n =36), 94% for round 2 (n =34), and 97% for round 3 (n =33). round 1 included 29 females and 7 males, 19 of whom reported that they were willing to stay in the professional discipline after their fieldwork was completed. to meet the requirement of completing field work in time for graduation, the timeline of the sequence for field work practicum during the third academic year is split into three stages: selecting placement (fall semester), the application stage(the initial phase of spring semester), and then expecting placement(the middle phase of spring semester). before the end of the third academic year, the practicum placement must be chosen in order to start the field work practicum in the coming summer. students who fail to adhere to the sequence would not be able to graduate after the fourth academic year. the round 1 questionnaire asked opened-questions regarding three areas: (a) academic coursework needed in preparation for the placement; (b) perceptions regarding the help needed in selecting, applying, and expecting field work practicum; and (c) demographic information. this study used the content analysis approach to analyze all statements obtained from the round 1 questionnaires administrated to interns from the four groups of agencies. the goal was to find consensus items that could be used in later rounds of questionnaires. the definition of consensus must be considered based on the number of participants and the purpose of the study (hasson, keeney, & mckenna, 2000). in the current study, for each item across the four groups, consensus was defined as being endorsed by four or more interns. the consensus items were then used in constructing the round 2 questionnaire. the items on the round 2 questionnaire were rated using a five-point likert scale (very unimportant = 1, unimportant = 2, neither unimportant nor important = 3, important = 4, and very important = 5). all participants were required to rank the degree of importance of each item for every type of agency. the round 3 questionnaire was constructed considering the ratings of items for four groups of agencies; any added new item was based on the results of round 2. the mean score, standard deviation, mode, and median of the results of the round 2 questionnaire were presented on the first column of the questionnaire for each item, thus demonstrating the rated importance of each item to the respondents. interns were asked to re-rate the items using the five-point likert scale described above. 1.2 results tables 1 to 4 summarize the interns’ ratings of importance for each item identified in rounds 2 and 3 for the four groups, including items covering academic course preparation, selecting a placement, applying, and anticipating field work practicum. the mean scores for all items were high. especially www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 77 published by scholink inc. for items covering selecting, applying, and anticipating fieldwork, the majority of items were rated above 4.00by the four groups. 1.3 academic course preparation in round 1 (see table 1), 36 interns identified a total of 54 items, and 17 of these items were endorsed by more than four interns. results of rounds 2 and 3 for the four groups showed that the mean scores of most academic courses were rated above 3.5 (see table 2), indicating that the participants felt that these courses were important in preparing for field work practicum. the round 3 results indicated that the highest rated course was counselling theories and techniques (m = 4.61; sd =0.61). the other high-priority courses included criminology (m = 4.58; sd =0.61), practicum (i) (m = 4.15; sd =0.76), social work (m = 4.12; sd =0.60), criminal law (m =4.67; sd =0.54), juvenile case procedure law (m = 4.09; sd =0.72), and criminal psychology (m = 4.00; sd =0.83). 1.4 selecting a placement site in round 1, the 36 interns identified 10 items as important for selecting a placement in court agencies. these were then rated in rounds 2 and 3.the five highest rated items in rounds 2 and 3 were fieldwork presentation (m = 4.67; sd = 0.54), visiting local agencies (m = 4.58; sd = 0.56), enhancing self-understanding (m =4.48; sd =0.62), symposium with practitioner (m = 4.42; sd =0.66), and introduction to potential field placements (m = 4.36; sd = 0.78). fieldwork presentation and visiting local agencies received the highest ratings in both rounds 2 and 3. for selecting a placement in correction agencies, the interns identified 10 items in round 1. the items rated the highest in round 3 were visiting local agencies (m =4.79; sd =0.49), fieldwork presentation (m =4.64; sd = 0.55), enhancing self-understanding (m =4.52; sd =0.57), symposium with practitioner (m =4.42; sd =0.66), looking up reports of fieldwork (m =4.33; sd =0.74), and introduction to potential field placements (m =4.33; sd =0.74). visiting local agencies and fieldwork presentation received the highest ratings in both round 2 and round 3. the interns identified 10 items as important for selecting a placement indult probation agencies in round 1. those rated the highest in round 3 were fieldwork presentation (m = 4.64; sd = 0.55), visiting local agencies (m =4.61; sd =0.56), enhancing self-understanding (m =4.48; sd =0.67), introduction to potential field placements (m =4.30; sd =0.77), and looking up reports of fieldwork (m =4.30; sd =0.81). fieldwork presentation, visiting local agencies, and enhancing self-understanding received the highest ratings for both rounds 2 and 3. for protection agencies, the interns identified 10 items in round 1those rated the highest in round 3 were field work presentation (m =4.67; sd =0.48), visiting local agencies (m =4.64; sd =0.55), enhancing self-understanding (m =4.61; sd =0.56), introduction to potential field placements (m =4.45; sd =0.67), and looking up reports of fieldwork (m =4.45; sd =0.71). in rounds 2 and 3, both fieldwork presentation and visiting local agencies were rated as the same priority. however, enhancing self-understanding became top-rated item in round 3. ten common needs for selecting placement were categorized across the four groups of agencies. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 78 published by scholink inc. three most important items for selecting placement, regardless of type of agency, were fieldwork presentation, visiting local agencies, and enhancing self-understanding. however, symposium with practitioner, introduction to potential field placements, and looking up reports of fieldwork had variable rankings across the different settings. 1.4 application for field work practicum placement in round 1, the interns identified many items as important for the application process for court agencies (11 items), correction agencies (9 items), adult probation agencies (10 items), and protection agencies (12 items; see table 3). for court agency interns, the mean scores of the top three priorities did not change much from round 2 to round 3.for correction agencies, the top three priorities remained the same from rounds 2 to 3, and offering professional information related to field placement moved up to the fourth place from rounds 2 to 3.of the 10 items identified by interns for adult probation agencies, in round 3, problem-solving skills training was a new choice, which was rated as the fifth most important. for protection agency interns, both advocate for quantities of interns and offering professional information were rated as more important in round 3than in round 2. court and correction agency interns rated sending application form to potential agency in time for interviewing highest. however, adult probation agency interns ranked update approval of placements (m =4.70; sd =.053) at the top, and then sending application form to potential agency in time for interviewing (m =4.64; sd =0.65). interestingly, for the four groups of interns, the top four priorities all included sending application form to potential agency in time for interviewing, advocate for quantities of interns, update approval of placements, and offering professional information related to field placement, although they were rated with different degrees of importance. comparison of the results of rounds 3 and 2 highlighted four common needs, sending application form to potential agency in time, advocate for quantities of interns, update approval of placements, and offering professional information related to field placement. although they were graded differently, they were the top four. preparing for interviewing and problem-solving skills training were identified for both courts and protection agencies. 1.5 anticipating field work practicum the interns identified 12 items as important for anticipating field work practicum for court agencies in round 1.the top six priorities based on ratings given in round 3 were clarify one’s job description of fieldwork (m =4.70; sd =0.47), learn problem-solving skills (m =4.55; sd =0.67), refine professional attitude (m =4.48; sd =0.62), refine professional behavior training (m =4.45; sd =0.62), coping skills with unexpected events (m =4.39; sd =0.56), and clarify what the placement expect from the intern (m =4.39; sd =0.56). a new priority, learn problem-solving skills, was rated as second most important in round 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 79 published by scholink inc. the interns identified 13 items as important for anticipating field work practicum for correction agencies in round 1.the priorities receiving the highest ratingsin round 3 included clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork (m =4.70; sd =0.47), personal safety training (m =4.61; sd =0.66), coping skills with unexpected events (m =4.52; sd =0.62), clarify what the placement expect from the intern (m =4.42; sd =0.56), and refine professional attitude (m =4.42; sd =0.71). in round 3, both clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork and clarify what the placement expect from the intern were rated as more important than in round 2. the interns identified 13 items as important for anticipating field work practicum for adult probation agencies in round 1. the priorities receiving the highest ratingsin round 3 were clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork (m =4.67; sd =0.48), ability to find and use social resources (m =4.64; sd =0.70),learn problem-solving skills (m =4.48; sd =0.71), refine professional attitude (m =4.42; sd =0.71), and school need for close contact with placement (m =4.39; sd =0.66). comparing the results of rounds2 and 3, learning problem-solving skills moved into the third highest place. clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork and ability to find and use social resources were graded the same as for round 2. the interns identified 14 items as important for anticipating field work practicum for protection agencies in round 1. the priorities rated the highest in round 3 were clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork (m =4.73; sd =0.45), ability to find and use social resources (m =4.61; sd =0.75), learn problem-solving skills (m =4.58; sd =0.66), refine professional attitude (m =4.5; sd =0.62), and coping skills with unexpected events (m =4.48; sd =0.57). in round 3, clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork was ranked as the top priority, but this item was ranked just seventh in round 2. the results of rounds2 and 3showedtwo common priorities across the different types of agencies: clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork and refine professional attitude. clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork was always rated as the top priority for the four groups. 2. discussion the current findings, including those for academic coursework as well as selecting, applying, and anticipating field work practicum, provide more information on the process of preparation for practicum in criminal justice settings. the present study identified seven priorities in terms of academic coursework, including counselling theories and techniques, criminology, practicum (i), social work, criminal law, juvenile case procedure law, and criminal psychology, respectively. these courses signify unique features of the criminology major in taiwan. field education provides students with opportunities to practice classroom theory in the field. interns also gain valuable work experience and relevant knowledge which will add to their overall understanding of the field of criminal justice. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 80 published by scholink inc. on one hand, interns needed to be familiar with the social contexts and theories that apply to criminal behaviours. at the same time, interns need to take actions and to deal with the impact of criminal behaviours on clients and offenders. it appears that multidisciplinary training is vital and helpful. with regard to courses required for graduation, interns in this study did not rate research methods for social and behavioral sciences or behavior statistics and computer application as essential for their fieldwork experiences. the process of performance feedback for field work practicum requires individuals to pay attention to how well they are able to describe how they have been thinking about what they do, what they know, and the result they have achieved (thomlison, 2008). perhaps interns did not see the pragmatic application of these research-oriented courses, or did not figure out how to apply them to the specific setting. further empirical studies may be needed to examine the practical meanings of these courses for students. the current results indicate that interns perceive three top priorities for selecting placements for the four groups of agencies: fieldwork presentation, visiting local agencies, and enhancing self-understanding. the academic institution in this study offers fieldwork presentation and visiting local agencies as part of the preparation course for fieldwork every academic year. these findings reflected the necessity of this preparation course. placing students in field sites involves complicated procedures embracing structural characteristics, pragmatic agency concerns, agency goals, and even social system affiliations (taylor, 2012). students who are selecting field placements also rely on peers and campus resources, as well as their needs and interests (baird & mollen, 2018). campus resources may be another where work is needed, such as providing consulting or counselling about career development. selecting field placement also involves the intern’s role, agency supervision, faculty supervision, and values and ethical standards (taylor, 2012). the importance of enhancing self-understanding in the present study calls attention to these issues. being a practitioner is actually different from the roles played by a college student. enhancing self-understanding requires ongoing internal and external effort, as well as academic coursework and life experiences. unexpectedly, interns rated symposium with practitioners crucial for three of the four types of placement agencies. this suggests that interns want to know more about potential field sites and to make a good choice for field work practicum. academic institutions may make more administrative effort to establish good connections with practitioners and agencies. alumni may also be useful resources for developing such connections. the current findings indicated 11 shared needs for the application process for the four groups, as well as two more items, professional confidence and writing fieldwork plan, for court and protection agencies. the four common needs for the application process were sending application form to potential agency in time, advocate for quantities of interns, update approval of placements, and offering professional information related to field placement. the findings suggest that interns need more help with the administrative aspects of the application process. the earlier they know about the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 81 published by scholink inc. results of their applications, the less anxiety they will have. furthermore, offering professional information related to field placement may also reduce their anxiety about the unknown. for the application process for the four types of agencies, problem-solving skills training was seen as important for corrections agencies, adult probation agencies, and protection agencies, but not for court agencies. court agencies usually require interviewing and written tests as a way to recruit qualified interns; these different needs are reflected in the relative importance of preparing for interviewing and problem-solving skills training. baird and mollen (2018) claimed that two crucial elements to applying successfully are the preparation of letters of application and practice for the interview.during the application process, as barden mollen suggested, peers can work together to provide review of resumes, practice interviews, and emotional support. for protection agency interns, the results of round 1 indicated that preparing for interviewing and refer students to agency were seen as important to the application process. however, they were not ranked as essential in rounds 2 and 3. students may initially rely on school, but the later ratings indicate that they have different opinions about the application process for these agencies that provide mandated services or victims ‘advocacy. regarding findings for anticipating practicum, the present study identified 13 common items for four groups. two more items, ability to find and use resources and practice and demonstration of practical skills, were classified as important for both court and protection agencies. the current results indicated that clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork was rated as the most important priority for the four groups in regard to anticipating field work practicum. as side and mrvica (2017) pointed out, a well-developed internship job description helps students adapt to the internship site quickly. for court agencies, learn problem-solving skills received the second highest ratings. if students have greater capacities for dealing with difficulty, they may be able to cope with challenges during practicum. thus, refine professional attitude, refine professional behaviors training, and coping skills with unexpected events may also be needed. student interns needed to understand that most of their clients were involuntarily placed in the area of criminal justice before they entered the field practicum; developing more professional skills and confidence will help them to survive in court agencies, including district prosecution offices, adjudication courts, and juvenile courts. for correction agencies, interns perceived more importance for personal safety training. the security of the working environment and personal safety were big concerns before practicum. similarly, the third priority, coping skills with unexpected events, also indicated the significance of resources for safety in agencies such as jails, prisons, drug treatment facilities, and detention facilities. the findings identified a unique feature of protection agencies, the need for working to find social resources. as expected, interns asked for more training regarding ability to find and use social resources when working with protection agencies (domestic violence centers, shelters, juvenile guidance committees, and victim services). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 82 published by scholink inc. for adult probation and protection agencies, interns rated the top needs for anticipating field work practicum as clarify one’s own job descriptions, ability to find and use social resources, learn problem-solving skills, and refine professional attitude these two types of agencies have some similar characteristics in providing services, and more training in those areas will help interns quickly adapt to practicum. limitations in the current study may reflect the one-shot nature of field work practicum experience and the limited experience of interns. interns obtained specific field experience, but the experience may not easily apply to other field placements. for this reason, the needs identified by the interns regarding preparing for practicum may not truly represent the actual needs of future interns. the current study suggests that a series of courses that are important in preparation for field work practicum may include counselling theories and techniques, criminology, preparation for practicum (practicum i), social work, criminal law, juvenile case procedure law, and criminal psychology. this reflects the idea that applying theories to practical settings and gaining acknowledgement of new techniques from working experiences is the strength of practicum in criminal justice settings (stichman & farkas, 2005). indeed, with practicum, interns learn about the reality of processes, tasks, and the criminal justice environment (beard & wilson, 2006). regarding functioning of academic institutions, the process of placement needs more administrative effort. despite the fact that interns were able to select placement based on presentations, visiting local agencies, and self-understanding, the present findings also indicate that students see a need for more updated information about the approval process, requirements for sending the application form in time, and professional information about the placement agencies. interns also see a need for advocacy regarding the number of internship positions. the current results highlight the importance of exploring needs of students in preparation for field work practicum and the impact of practicum on their future professional identity development. for future studies, special attention may be paid to details of the practicum job description and development of professional attitudes. cross-cultural studies may further explore these features of the field work practicum in criminal justice settings. references academy of criminal justice sciences. (2018). academy of criminal justice sciences standards for college/university criminal justice/criminology master’s degree programs. retrieved from http://www.acjs.org albanese, j. s. (2012). criminal justice. boston, ma: pearson. american psychological association. (2013). guidelines and principles for accreditation of programs in professional psychology. washington, dc: apa office of program consultation and accreditation, american psychological association. retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/about/policies/guiding-principles.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 83 published by scholink inc. baird, b. n., & mollen, d. (2018). the internship, practicum, and field placement handbook: a guide for the helping professions. new york, ny: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351067850 beard, c., & wilson, j. p. (2006). experiential learning: a best practices handbook for educators and trainers. london, uk: kogan page. breci, m. g., & martin, m. s. (2000). mentorship programs: bridging the gap between theory and practice. journal of criminal justice education, 11, 135-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511250000084811 council on social work education. (2015). 2015 educational policy and accreditation standards. retrieved from https://www.cswe.org/getattachment/accreditation/accreditation-process/2015-epas/2015epas_ web_final.pdf.aspx hasson, f., keeney, s., & mckenna, h. (2000). research guidelines for the delphi survey technique. journal of advanced nursing, 32, 1008-1015. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2000.t01-1-01567.x linstone, h. a., & throff, m. (2002). the delphi method: techniques and applications. newark, nj: new jersey institute of technology. mcbride, r. b. (2017). criminal justice internships: theory into practice. new york, ny: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315314372 sanders, a., young, r., & burton, m. (2010). criminal justice. oxford, uk: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/he/9780199541317.001.0001 side, c., & mrvica, a. (2017). internships: theory and practice. new york, ny: routledge. sims, b. (2006). creating a teaching and learning environment in criminal justice courses that promotes higher order thinking. journal of criminal justice education, 17, 336-357. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511250500336161 stichman, a. j., & farkas, m. a. (2005). the pedagogical use of internships in criminal justice programs: a nationwide study. journal of criminal justice education, 16, 145-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051125042000333523 taylor, d. l. (2012). jumpstarting your career: an internship guide for criminal justice. upper saddle river, nj: pearson higher education. thomlison, b. (2008). guidelines for assessing competencies: preventing good placement from going bad. in b. thomlison, & k. corcoran (eds.), the evidence-based internship: a field manual (pp. 347-368). new york, ny: oxford university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 84 published by scholink inc. table 1. importance ratings for round 2 and round 3 academic preparation courses for fieldwork round 3 (n=33) items round 2 (n=34) order m(sd) order m(sd) 1 4.61 (.61) counseling theories and techniques 2 4.59(.70) 2 4.58 (.61) criminology 1 4.68(.54) 3 4.15 (.76) practicum (i) 8 4.12(.73) 4 4.12 (.60) social work 6 4.15(.74) 5 4.12 (.74) criminal law in general part 4 4.26(.83) 6 4.09 (.72) juvenile case procedure law 7 4.15(.86) 7 4.00 (.83) criminal psychology 3 4.26(.67) 8 3.88 (.74) juvenile delinquency 5 4.18(.90) 9 3.88 (.82) social casework 9 3.94(.98) 10 3.64 (.86) criminal justice 12 3.65(.92) 11 3.61 (.70) psychology 13 3.65(.95) 12 3.48 (.83) corrections 10 3.85(.82) 13 3.42 (.87) sociology 15 3.47(1.13) 14 3.30 (.64) law of criminal procedure 11 3.65(.92) 15 3.30 (.69) criminal policy 14 3.65(.95) 16 2.79 (.89) research methods for social and behavioral sciences 16 2.85(.89) 17 2.48 (.83) behavior statistic and computer application 17 2.29(1.00) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 85 published by scholink inc. table 2. selecting placement court agencies correction agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) 1 4.67 (.54) fieldwork presentation 2 4.50 (.56) 1 4.79 (.49) visiting local agencies 1 4.62 (.60) 2 4.58 (.56) visiting local agencies 1 4.59 (.61) 2 4.64 (.55) fieldwork presentation 2 4.47 (.56) 3 4.48 (.62) enhancing self-understanding 6 4.35 (.73) 3 4.52 (.57) enhancing self-–understanding 5 4.26 (.75) 4 4.42 (0.66) symposium with practitioner 4 4.38 (.78) 4 4.42 (.66) symposium with practitioner 6 4.26 (.86) 5 4.36 (.78) introduction to potential field placements 7 4.26 (.57) 5 4.33 (.74) looking up reports of fieldwork 4 4.29 (.84) 6 4.30 (.77) looking up reports of fieldwork 3 4.44 (.75) 6 4.33 (.74) introduction to potential field placements 7 4.18 (.72) 7 4.27 (0.67) exploration of career interests 5 4.38 (.89) 7 4.27 (.67) exploration of career interests 3 4.35 (.88) 8 4.24 (.61) understand the mission of agencies — 8 4.18 (.77) discuss with field faculty 9 3.94 (.74) 9 4.21 (.74) discuss with field faculty 8 4.12 (.81) 9 4.15 (.71) understand the mission of agencies 8 4.03 (.76) 10 3.91 (.72) practice and demonstration of practical skills 9 3.94 (.98) 10 3.67 (.82) lectures 10 3.26 (.79) 11 3.70 (.81) lectures 10 3.32 (.81) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 86 published by scholink inc. table 2. selecting placement (continued) adult probation agencies protection agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) 1 4.64 (.55) fieldwork presentation 1 4.44 (.61) 1 4.67 (.48) fieldwork presentation 1 4.59 (.56) 2 4.61 (.56) visiting local agencies 2 4.35 (.73) 2 4.64 (.55) visiting local agencies 2 4.53 (.62) 3 4.48 (.67) enhancing self understanding 3 4.32 (.73) 3 4.61 (.56) enhancing self – understanding 6 4.35 (.73) 4 4.30 (.77) introduction to potential field placements 6 4.18 (.72 4 4.45 (.62) symposium with practitioner 4 4.41 (.74) 5 4.30 (.81) looking up reports of fieldwork 4 4.24 (1.02) 5 4.45 (.67) introduction to potential field placements 7 4.26 (.62) 6 4.24 (.66) exploration of career interests 8 4.12 (.95) 6 4.45 (.71) looking up reports of fieldwork 3 4.50 (.75) 7 4.21 (.78) symposium with practitioner 5 4.21 (.85) 7 4.36 (.65) exploration of career interests 5 4.38 (.85) 8 4.15 (.80) discuss with field faculty 9 3.91 (.79) 8 4.33 (.60) discuss with field faculty 8 4.03 (.76) 9 4.15 (.80) understand the mission of agencies 7 4.18 (.72 9 4.27 (.67) understand the mission of agencies — 10 3.61 (.79) lectures 10 3.18 (.80) 10 4.12 (.78) practice and demonstration of practical skills 9 4.00 (.92) 11 3.76 (.87) lectures 10 3.38 (.85) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. table 3. application for field placement court agencies correction agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) m (sd) 1 4.76 (0.50) sending application form to potential agency in time 2 4.71 (.58) 1 4.73 (.57) sending application form to potential agency in time 1 4.68 (.59) 2 4.73 (.52) advocate for quantities of interns 3 4.53 (.71) 2 4.70 (.53) update approval of placements 2 4.68 (.64) 3 4.70 (.53) update approval of placements 1 4.74 (.57) 3 4.64 (.60) advocate for quantities of interns 3 4.24 (.96) 4 4.52 (.57) offering professional information related to field placement — 4 4.45 (.67) offering professional information related to field placement — 5 4.48 (.62) preparing for interviewing 4 4.50 (.66) 5 4.33 (.65) problem-solving skills training — 6 4.42 (.75) interpersonal communication training 7 4.35 (.85) 6 4.21 (.74) writing personal statement and resume 5 3.97 (.90) 7 4.39 (.66) professional confidence 5 4.50 (.75) 7 4.15 (.76) interpersonal communication training 7 3.94 (.81) 8 4.36 (.65) writing fieldwork plan 8 4.18 (.90) 8 4.06 (.83) sharing experiences of application 4 4.12 (.88) 9 4.36 (.65) problem-solving skills training — 9 4.00 (.87) preparing for interviewing 6 3.97 (1.03) 10 4.30 (.59) sharing experiences of application 6 4.41 (.74) 10 3.85 (.91) making contract with field placement 9 3.65 (1.15) 11 4.24 (.75) writing personal statement and resume 9 4.09 (.97) 11 3.73 (1.01) refer students to agency 8 3.94 (.92) 12 3.94 (.83) making contract with field placement 11 3.76 (1.13) 13 3.85 (.87) refer students to agency 10 4.03 (.87) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. table 3. application for field placement (continued) adult probation agencies protection agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) 1 4.70 (0.53) update approval of placements 2 4.62 (.65) 1 4.79 (0.49) sending application form to potential agency in time 2 4.68( 0.59) 2 4.64 (0.65) sending application form to potential agency in time 1 4.65 (.60) 2 4.76 (0.50) update approval of placements 1 4.74 (0.57) 3 4.61 (0.66) advocate for quantities of interns 5 4.21 (.95) 3 4.73 (0.52) advocate for quantities of interns 5 4.38 (0.74) 4 4.42 (0.66) offering professional information related to field placement 3 4.24 (.86) 4 4.52 (0.57) offering professional information related to field placement 7 4.35 (0.81) 5 4.39 (0.66) problem-solving skills training — 5 4.52 (0.62) problem-solving skills training 3 4.59 (0.66) 6 4.30 (0.77) interpersonal communication training 4 4.21 (.85) 6 4.48 (0.67) interpersonal communication training 4 4.41 (0.82) 7 4.27 (0.76) preparing for interviewing 8 4.00 (1.02) 7 4.45 (0.62) preparing for interviewing 6 4.35 (0.73) 8 4.21 (0.78) writing personal statement and resume 7 4.00 (.99) 8 4.42 (0.61) professional confidence — 9 4.18 (0.77) sharing experiences of application 6 4.12 (.88) 9 4.39 (0.66) writing fieldwork plan 9 4.21 (0.85) 10 3.82 (0.95) refer students to agency 9 3.71 (.91) 10 4.33 (0.60) sharing experiences of application 8 4.32 (0.77) 11 3.79 (0.86) making contract with field placement 10 3.71 (1.09) 11 4.27 (0.76) writing personal statement and resume 10 4.12 (0.91) 12 4.00 (0.87) making contract with field placement 12 3.74 (1.08) 13 3.88 (0.89) refer students to agency 11 4.00 (0.89) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. table 4. expecting fieldwork court agencies correction agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) 1 4.70 (.47) clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork 2 4.41 (.70) 1 4.70 (.47) clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork 5 4.32 (.73) 2 4.55 (.67) learn problem-solving skills — 2 4.61 (.66) personal safety training 1 4.62 (.60) 3 4.48 (.62) refine professional attitude 1 4.50 (.62) 3 4.52 (.62) coping skills with unexpected events 2 4.44 (.75) 4 4.45 (.62) refine professional behaviors training 5 4.26 (.83) 4 4.42 (.56) clarify what the placement expect from the intern 9 4.18 (.94) 5 4.39 (.56) coping skills with unexpected events 3 4.38 (.70) 5 4.42 (.71) refine professional attitude 4 4.35 (.77) 6 4.39 (.56) clarify what the placement expect from the intern 4 4.35 (.81) 6 4.39 (.61) refine professional behaviors training 3 4.38 (.74) 7 4.36 (.65) school need for close contact with placement 6 4.26 (.93) 7 4.39 (.61) school need for close contact with placement 8 4.24 (.89) 8 4.30 (.59) clarify one’s own goal of fieldwork 7 4.21 (.69) 8 4.39 (.79) learn problem-solving skills — 9 4.30 (.59) clarify one’s expectation of fieldwork 8 4.18 (.76) 9 4.30 (.64) clarify one’s own goal of fieldwork 6 4.24 (.65) 10 4.24 (.90) ability to find and use social resources — 10 4.30 (.64) clarify one’s expectation of fieldwork 7 4.24 (.74) 11 4.15 (.83) symposium for each field 9 4.18 (.90) 11 4.09 (.77) offering students fieldwork manual 10 4.09 (.97) 12 4.12 (.78) offering students fieldwork manual 10 4.18 (.97) 12 4.03 (.85) symposium for each field 11 4.00 (.99) 13 4.12 (.82) practice and demonstrates of practical skills 12 4.00 (.92) 13 3.91 (.81) discuss with faculty 12 3.94 (.81) 14 4.09 (.72) discuss with faculty instructor 11 4.03 (.80) 14 3.88 (.89) practice and demonstrate of practical skills 13 3.76 (.96) 15 4.06 (.83) personal safety training — www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. table 4. expecting fieldwork (continued) adult probation agencies protection agencies round 3 round 2 round 3 round 2 order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) order m (sd) 1 4.67 (.48) clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork 2 4.38 (.70) 1 4.73 (.45) clarify one’s own job description of fieldwork 7 4.32 (.81) 2 4.64 (.70) ability to find and use social resources 1 4.56 (.61) 2 4.61 (.75) ability to find and use social resources 1 4.68 (.59) 3 4.48 (.71) learn problem-solving skills — 3 4.58 (.66) learn problem-solving skills 2 4.65 (.60) 4 4.42 (.71) refine professional attitude 3 4.29 (.80) 4 4.52 (.62) refine professional attitude 3 4.53 (.56) 5 4.39 (.66) school need for close contact with placement 7 4.21 (.91) 5 4.48 (.57) coping skills with unexpected events 4 4.47 (.71) 6 4.36 (.55) coping skills with unexpected events 5 4.21 (.81) 6 4.45 (.56) clarify what the placement expect from the intern 8 4.32 (.84) 7 4.36 (.60) clarify what the placement expect from the intern 9 4.15 (.93) 7 4.42 (.66) refine professional behaviors training 10 4.29 (.84) 8 4.33 (.60) clarify one’s own goal of fieldwork 4 4.24 (.70) 8 4.36 (.65) school need for close contact with placement 9 4.29 (.84) 9 4.33 (.65) refine professional behaviors training 6 4.21 (.81) 9 4.33 (.60) clarify one’s own goal of fieldwork 6 4.32 (.68) 10 4.30 (.64) clarify one’s expectation of fieldwork 8 4.15 (.74) 10 4.33 (.60) clarify one’s expectation of fieldwork — 11 4.21 (.86) personal safety training 10 4.12 (.81) 11 4.24 (0.75) personal safety training 5 4.35 (.69) 12 4.09 (.84) symposium for each field 13 3.94 (1.01) 12 4.18 (.68) discuss with faculty instructor 13 4.09 (.75) 13 4.09 (.84) offering students fieldwork manual 11 4.00 (1.07) 13 4.15 (.76) offering students fieldwork manual 11 4.15 (.96) 14 3.91 (.88) discuss with faculty instructor 12 3.94 (.81) 14 4.15 (.87) symposium for each field 12 4.12 (.95) 15 4.15 (.87) practice and demonstrate of practical skills 14 4.00 (.85) microsoft word assc-v1n1-p50 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 50 original paper perfecting the theory of meaning: the story of pragmatics and discourse analysis hosni m. el-dali1* 1 department of linguistics, college of humanities and social sciences, united arab emirates university, p.o.box: 15551, al-ain, united arab emirates * hosni m. el-dali, department of linguistics, college of humanities and social sciences, united arab emirates university, united arab emirates received: april 18, 2019 accepted: may 10, 2019 online published: may 16, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p50 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p50 abstract the common sense view of what language is for is that language is used for communication. however, some of the most prominent linguists in the field reject this view. in other words, the majority of professional linguists used to adopt a view of language which is at odds with the view held by non-linguists. the phenomenon of communication has often been thought of as peripheral in linguistic research. this view is a result of the strong hold the abstract objectivist language conception has had on modern linguistic thought. communication has been reduced to a subordinate place amongst the possible functions of language. this low status attributed to communication is challenged by different pragmatic approaches to language. on the other hand, the content and use of the term “communication” is even by humanistic standards extremely ambiguous, and it has, therefore, often been difficult to use in practical, empirical work. this study is primarily a deep survey of the major contributions of both “discourse analysis” and “pragmatics” in an attempt to clarify the problem of understanding meaning in language use. in addition, it attempts to show how language is used, as a persuasive tool, in political discourse. the present study demonstrates that it would be a mistake to adopt an approach to pragmatics and discourse analysis which focuses on linguistic factors alone, or social factors alone, to the exclusion of cognitive factors. also, it would be a mistake to adopt an approach which is exclusively speaker-oriented or exclusively hearer-oriented. the process of making meaning is a joint accomplishment between speaker and hearer; between writer and reader. in addition, the present study shows that both disciplines “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” are hybrid fields of inquiry; and their common themes are “language”, “language users”, “communication”, and “meaning in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 51 published by scholink inc. interaction”. both disciplines have borrowed their theoretical and methodological orientations from almost the same social and human disciplines. accordingly, the terms “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” can be used interchangeably. finally, the present study shows that political speech is one of the main persuasive tools used by politicians to present their political persons and to further their political agendas. keywords theory of meaning, prgamatics, discourse analysis 1. introduction language is one of the most important aspects of communication. nowadays, we can find almost everybody around us using a particular language to communicate. language is a wonder as it helps to spread our ideas, thoughts and let others know about our mood through time, space and culture. the common sense view of what language is for is that language is used for communication. however, some of the most prominent linguists in the field reject this view. in other words, the majority of professional linguists used to adopt a view of language which is at odds with the view held by non-linguists. the phenomenon of communication has often been thought of as peripheral in linguistic research. this view is a result of the strong hold the abstract objectivist language conception has had on modern linguistic thought. communication has been reduced to a subordinate place amongst the possible functions of language. this low status attributed to communication is challenged by different pragmatic approaches to language. on the other hand, the content and use of the term “communication” is even by humanistic standards extremely ambiguous, and it has, therefore, often been difficult to use in practical, empirical work. linguistic studies which depend upon elicitations from only one or a few informants are now recognized as leaving unanswered many significant questions about the relation between language and the social context in which it is always embedded. language is no longer viewed “as a closed system, but as one which is in perpetual flux” (johnson, 2002, p. 16). moreover, the extraordinary growth of sociolinguistics in the last decade or so has shown convincingly that language is closely linked to its context and that isolating it artificially for study ignores its complex and intricate relation to society. this study is primarily a deep survey of the major contributions of both “discourse analysis” and “pragmatics” in our attempt to clarify the problem of understanding meaning in language use. in addition, it attempts to show how language is used, as a persuasive tool, in political discourse. it demonstrates that it would be a mistake to adopt an approach to pragmatics and discourse analysis, which focuses on linguistic factors alone, or social factors alone, to the exclusion of cognitive factors. also, it would be a mistake to adopt an approach which is exclusively speaker-oriented or exclusively hearer-oriented. the process of making meaning is a joint accomplishment between speaker and hearer; between writer and reader. in addition, the present study shows that both disciplines “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” are hybrid fields of inquiry; and their common themes are “language”, “language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 52 published by scholink inc. users”, “communication”, and “meaning in interaction”. both disciplines have borrowed their theoretical and methodological orientations from almost the same social and human disciplines. accordingly, the terms “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” can be used interchangeably. finally, the present study shows that political speech is one of the main persuasive tools used by politicians to present their political persons and to further political agendas. 2. statement of the problem the study of language and politics is of potential interest to most of the social sciences, to development planners, and to those whose primary interests center on politics or linguistics. when politicians are challenged over their use of “language”, they often reply that the questioner is merely “playing with semantics” or confusing “style” and “content”. nonetheless, politicians rely on using language in order to communicate with their electorates or subjects: they make speeches, employ public relations experts, and write newspapers. however, it is widely held that people do not communicate with words. similarly, they do not communicate with sounds, morphemes, or sentences, nor with notions, concepts or propositions. they, instead, communicate with meaningful combinations of these entities, namely texts, that integrate meaning and structure and combine language in the form of speech or writing. the sentence “words have meaning seems to be about as simple and clear an assertion of a factual state of affairs as any statement that one can make. on closer inspection, however, it merely raises the question as to what “meaning” is. pragmatics as well as discourse analysis shed light on the many different ways in which meaning is communicated through various speech acts. it should be noted, as johnson (2002, p. 1) maintains, that words are not “objects” or “things” that have properties of their own in the same way that actually existing things do. words are relational entities. all that the air or paper and ink can carry is the symbolic representation of the actual form which is understood within the mind, and not the form itself. that is, when a word is spoken or written it becomes a relational entity which lacks the power to do or to cause anything. while it is true that the vibration in the air or the marks on a piece of paper can stimulate the senses, a word as such, can not cause knowledge. in this regard, augustine (1967, p. 30) pointed out that “we learn nothing by means of these signs we call words. on the contrary, we learn the force of the word, that is the meaning which lies in the sound of the word, when we come to know the object signified by the word. then only do we perceive that the word was a sign conveying that meaning”. the problem, however, is that words can be used to convey both more than what they conventionally mean and also something quite different. that is, there are times when people say or write exactly what they mean, but generally they are not totally explicit. they frequently mean more than their words actually say. on other occasions, they can mean something quite different from what their words say, or even just the opposite. in this regard, kempson (2001, p. 395) says: “how do we know when an expression is to be taken at its face value, when it is to be taken as conveying rather more than what it actually presents, and when it has to be interpreted in some other, metaphorical, way? … this is only the beginning of the problem of understanding meaning in language use”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 53 published by scholink inc. in addition, if one were to take an informal survey among non-linguists regarding the primary function of human language, the overwhelmingly most common answer would be, “language is used for communication”. as van valin (2001) maintains, “this is the common sense view of what language is for” (p. 319). however, some of the most prominent linguists in the field reject this view, and many others hold that the fact that language may be used for communication is largely, if not completely, irrelevant to its study and analysis. 3. theoretical discussion in the next section, i will explain how the majority of professional linguists came to adopt a view of language which is so strikingly at odds with the view held by non-linguists. more specifically, how did such a view arise? the answer lies in the theoretical development of linguistics in the 20th century. 3.1 a brief look at the development of linguistic theory in the 20th century the primary concern of linguists such as franz boas and ferdinand de saussure at the start of the 20th century was to lay out the foundations for linguistic science and to define explicitly the object to be investigated in linguistic inquiry. saussure drew a fundamental contrast between language (langue) and speaking (parole): language is a system of signs, whereas speaking is the use of the system on particular occasions. a linguistic sign is the association of a sound (signifier) and a meaning (signified). saussure argued that the proper subject for linguistic investigation is the system of signs, not the use of the system. bloomfield (1933) proposed a similar distinction: grammar (the linguistic system) vs. meaning (the use of the system on particular occasions). he, too, argued that linguistic analysis should concern itself only with grammar. in this regard, carston (1988, p. 206) points out that “before chomsky, linguistics tended to be a taxonomic enterprise, involving collecting a body of data (utterances) from the external world and classifying it without reference to its source, the human mind”. chomsky (1965) proposed a distinction analogous but not identical to saussure’s and bloomfield’s, namely competence vs. performance. in his distinction, chomsky sees that the proper domain of linguistic inquiry is competence only. in the chomskyan linguistic tradition, well-forkedness plays the role of the decision-maker in questions of linguistic “belonging”. that is, a language consists of a set of well-formed sentences: it is these that “belong” in the language, no others do. this is the definition that has been the bulwark of the chomskyan system since the late 1950s. it is also the definition that has most often come under attack from the quarters of so-called “ordinary working linguists” (often called “owis”). for example, lakoff (1971) points out that the notion “well-formedness” is a highly relativistic one; it has to do (and a lot to do) with what speakers know about themselves, about their conversational partners, about the topic of their conversation, and about its progress. another matter is, of course, what is and what is not “grammatical”. a favorite party game among linguists is to discuss whether or not a particular expression is “correct”. such discussions end with one or more of the participants invoking the authority invested in themselves as native speakers of some dialect of english (or whatever), in which such and such a construction is “grammatical” or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 54 published by scholink inc. “ungrammatical”, whichever the case might be. with the above in mind, it is easy to realize that all theorists agree that linguistics is not concerned with the analysis of “parole” (performance, meaning), but rather with the study of “langue” (grammar, competence). given that saussure is generally acknowledged to have laid the foundations for the modern study of language, it is consequently not surprising that many linguists have adopted his view: the communicative functions of language are irrelevant to the analysis of language structure. the idea of extending linguistic analysis to include communicative functions was, first, proposed by czech linguists. as van valin (2001, p. 328) points out, “all contemporary functional approaches trace their roots back to the work of the czech linguist mathesius in the 1920s as part of the prague school. he and his successors developed the theory of functional sentence perspective. this theory was developed primarily with respect to the analysis of slavic languages, but its ideas have been applied by other linguists to a range of phenomena in many languages. it was first brought to the attention of english-speaking linguists in halliday (1967). by the end of the 1970s, a number of functional approaches were emerging in both u.s. and western europe. some of the most important and coherent attempts of communication-relevant approaches to language will be clarified next: (1) soviet semiotic dialogism; (2) the prague school, and (3) functionalism. first, in the pre-stalin era of soviet intellectual life, a group of scholars emerged with a more or less common view of language, cognition, and communication; the language philosopher “voloshinov”, the psychologist “vygotsky”, and the literary critic “bakhtin”. these scholars launched an attack on the basic ideas of “abstract objectivism”. since the 1960s, their approach to humanistic studies has come to play an increasingly important role in a great number of humanistic disciplines. the basic idea of these scholars is that language is essentially “dialogic”; that is, the addresser and the addressee are integrated as part of the nature of language. language never exists as a uni-functional, closed system; rather, it is a process of communication. this process is, furthermore, characterized by the notions of multiaccentuality, heterogeneity, polyphony, intertextuality, and in particular “voicing”; all referring to the social nature of language. that is, in communication, language never appears as single-voiced: the situation, the tradition, the power relations between the communicators, and so son, all place their mark in the message. thus, language really is this multivoiced message or speech process. the soviet dialogists see the nature of language as fundamentally social; even cognition is interpreted as a communication process, or as it is called “inner speech”. cognition or “thought” is only possible through language; language is this multiaccentuated interaction process. second, the prague school was a linguistic school which did not limit its study of language to isolated utterances in so-called “normal” situations. its focus was on a number of different types of human communication where language was used as a tool. andre martinent challenged the traditional view of the basic function of language as representation; he saw language as an instrument for communication. third, halliday attempted to explain the structure of language as a consequence of social dialogue. according to halliday (1978, p. 2), language does not consist of sentences; it consists of interactional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 55 published by scholink inc. discourse. people exchange meanings in socially and culturally defined situations. when they speak to each other, they exchange meanings which reflect their feelings, attitudes, expectations and judgments. in her survey of the functional approaches, nichols (1984, pp. 102-103) categorized them as “extreme”, “moderate”, and “conservative”: “the conservative type merely acknowledges the inadequacy of strict formalism of structuralism, without proposing a new analysis of structure … the moderate type not only points out the inadequacy of a formalist or structuralist analysis, but goes on to propose a functionalist analysis of structure … extreme functionalism denies, in one way or another, the reality of structure qua structure. it may claim that rules are based entirely on function and hence there are no purely syntactic constraints; that structure is only coded function, or the like”. in this regard, bates (1987) noted that functionalism is like “protestantism”, a group of warring sects which agree only on the rejection of the authority of the pope. all functionalists agree that language is a system of forms for conveying meaning in communication and, therefore, in order to understand it, it is necessary to investigate the interaction of structure, meaning and communication. as van valin (2001) points out, functionalists normally focus on linguistic functions from either of two perspectives; the first is referred to as the “pragmatics” perspective, and the second as the “discourse” perspective. the first concentrates on the appropriate use of different speech acts. the second perspective is concerned with the construction of discourse and how grammatical and other devices are employed to serve this end. work by conservative functionalists has yielded important insights regarding the pragmatic nature of many syntactic constraints, but they do not address the crucial question of the nature of structure in language. extreme functionalists have uncovered many important generalizations about discourse structure, information flow, and the discourse functions of grammatical forms (genc & gulozer, 2013; karahan, 2011). 3.2 approaches to the study of communication the phenomenon of communication has often been thought of as peripheral in linguistic research. this view is a result of the strong hold the abstract objectivist language conception has had on modern linguistic thought. most workers in this tradition share the idea that the essence of language is to represent some intellectual structure; thus they reduce communication to a subordinate place amongst the possible functions of language. this low status attributed to communication is challenged by different pragmatic approaches to language, as well as by language-relevant research in related disciplines. on the other hand, the content and use of the term “communication is even by humanistic standards extremely ambiguous, and it has, therefore, often been difficult to use in practical, empirical work” (berge, 1994, p. 614). a very simple and general, but neither unproblematic nor uncontroversial, way of defining communication is to view it as an information process going on between at least two human communicators, embedded in a context, and a situation. more specifically, communication can be defined as a generic term covering all messages uttered in different contexts and situations (macaulay, 2005; mcglone, 2005; droop & verhoeven, 2013). the received view of communication in the philosophy of language represents communication in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 56 published by scholink inc. following way: the speaker has an idea; a representation, and an intention, in his or her mind. the hearer has to form an identical idea, representation, and a representation of exactly that intention, in his or her mind. therefore, the meaning of a communicative act depends on the idea/representation/intention in the mind of the speaker. in this regard, shisa (2001) does not endorse this view of communication. instead, she prefers another view emerging from the work of philosophers such as wittgenstein and austin. according to this view, communication consists of the fact that people act on each other in certain particular ways. in particular, utterances affect the interpersonal relationship between the interlocutors. so, in investigating a given episode of communication we should ask “who is doing what to whom?” in certain cases, the fact that an utterance affects the interpersonal relationship between the interlocutors in a certain way enables it to transmit information, as in the received view; but this is only one among the many cases in which communication is primarily “action”. one possible way of explaining the different approaches to the study of communication in linguistics is to differentiate between the various trends in communication of relevant research. these trends can be classified according to the basic models of communication they have adopted: (1) the linear, conduit model; (2) the circular, dialogic models; (3) the feedback, interaction model, and (4) the self-regulatory (autopoesis) model. first, the underlying assumption of the linear conduit model (reddy, 1979) is that language functions are considered as a sort of channel or tool for transferring a linguistic message from a source (or sender) to a destination (or hearer). this idea of communication has some of its roots in information theory. second, the basic idea of the circular or dialogic model is that for communication to take place, it is not sufficient that an addresser manifests his intention in a message which results in an effect in the addressee. it is also necessary to give the addressee a more active role in communication. this active part is the more or less conscious interpretation process that the addressee must be involved in for the intended message to get through. also, a more or less expressed manifestation of the intended effect tin the form of a response, answer, action, from the addressee is necessary for the addresser to understand that his message has been received, is a message. without a response of some sort, the addresser would be left in a situation where he is at best talking to himself. as berge (1994, p. 615) points out, “the interpretation requirement is not restricted to the addressee alone. the addresser, too, has to identify some sort of signal in the addressee’s message which can be interpreted as a response or reaction to the intended message. in this way, communication can be seen as a system of questions and answers, or as a sort of cooperation where the communicators are actively organized in the construction of the message. third, in the feedback, interaction model, communication is viewed in a much more general way than in the two previous ones. communication would include all those processes by which human beings influence one another. in its most extreme form, the model entails that all behavior can be said to be communicative. the interaction of human beings is characterized by the necessity to communicate; this necessity is superior to the notion of intention, which is based not only on the will to communicate, but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 57 published by scholink inc. also the will to interpret. communication is thus part of perception; attention to and interpretation of communication are part of the process of perceiving. fourth, in the self-regulatory (autopoesis) model, the communicators (or as they are called, the “emitters” and “receivers”) do not communicate in order to transfer and create a message, or even to create some information, a conveyed message, and an understanding, but simply to integrate elements from the communicative situation (the environment) which can contribute to the communicators’ so-called self-regulation and self-creation (hence the term “autopoetic”). this self-regulation and self-creation is an individual, idiosyncratic version of an interaction input. the basic goal of this self-regulation is to create a difference with respect to all other communicators. this model allows for another, more advanced view of linguistic messages, such as written texts, than is normal in the linguistic tradition. instead of being viewed as inferior reproductions of the prototypical or even “natural” linguistic communication, namely verbal conversation, written messages are viewed as more communicative and creative. as togeby (1994, p. 232) points out, “a communication event is a social act made possible by shared principles and rules among the participants in the event, and, as far as verbal behavior is concerned, governed by conventional grammatical rules” (barnitz, 2013). 3.3 three levels of meaning meaning has three levels: (1) abstract meaning; (2) contextual meaning or utterance meaning; and (3) the speaker’s intention, known as “the force of an utterance” (georgakopoulou & goutsos, 1999, p. 6). first, abstract meaning is concerned with what a word, phrase, sentence could mean. it is the dictionary meaning of words or phrases. it refers to what some writers call “decontextualized meaning”, “lexical meaning”, “semantic meaning” or “linguistic meaning”. it should be emphasized, however, that what the words actually mean could only be determined in context. generally speaking, competent native speakers do not have to seek laboriously for the contextual meaning of a word, phrase or sentence. nevertheless, there are occasions when we do quite genuinely experience difficulty in assigning contextual meaning and, then, we have to weigh up alternative interpretations. moreover, when people are engaged in conversations, they look for contextual sense; that is, the sense in which the speaker or writer is using a word. although the process of determining what speakers mean, as opposed to what their words mean, is straightforward, problems can occur. and, this is why we have “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis”. one of the most frequent causes of such problems occurs in the cases of (1) homonyms (words which have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings); (2) homographs (words which have the same spelling but different pronunciation and meaning); (3) homophones (words which have the same pronunciation, but different spelling and meaning). another cause of potential sentence-level ambiguity is structural, as we may notice in the following example: “afterwards, the bishop walked among the pilgrims eating their picnic lunches”. in this sentence, the source of ambiguity is syntactic. the hearer has to decide whether it was the bishop or the pilgrims who ate the sandwiches. the point, here, is that if the hearer failed to assign sense correctly, he or she would probably misunderstand what the speaker meant. in addition, we not only have to assign sense to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 58 published by scholink inc. words, but also to assign reference; that is, to determine in context who or what is being referred to. all deictic expressions, by their very nature, cause problems of reference assignment when removed from their original context of utterance. second, “utterance meaning” can be defined as “a sentence-context pairing” (gazdar, 1979, p. 19), and is the first component of speaker meaning. in this regard, thomas (1995, p. 16) points out that “when in interaction we have resolved all the ambiguities of sense, reference and structure—when we have moved from abstract meaning to what the speaker actually does mean by these words on this particular occasion-we have arrived at contextual meaning or utterance meaning. third, as miller (1974) argues, “most of our misunderstanding of other people are not due to any inability to hear them or parse their sentences or understand their words … a far more important source of difficulty in communication is that we often fail to understand a speaker’s intention” (p. 15). in “pragmatics” the term “force” is used to refer to the speaker’s communicative intention. it is introduced by the philosopher “austin”, as the second component of speaker’s meaning. and, miller was one of the first people to point out the significance of this level of analysis. furthermore, language units are not produced in a vacuum, and neither are their meaningful combinations. texts are produced and received in distinct socio-cultural environments imbued with personal and interpersonal goals. the ongoing use of texts in these communicative environments constitute discourse: “in our everyday life, we engage in discourse in a multiplicity of roles. when we write a letter to a friend or an essay for a course, pick up the telephone … in these activities, we continuously produce and interpret discourse. every human act that involves language necessarily makes use of texts in context. using language is thus synonymous with engaging in discourse” (georgakopoulou & goutsos, 1999, p. 4). 4. the first perspective: discourse analysis 4.1 defining “discourse” “discourse”, used as a mass noun, means roughly the same as “language use” or “language-in-use”. as a count noun (a discourse), it means a relatively discrete subset of a whole language, used for specific social or institutional purposes. more specifically, “discourse” as a mass noun and its strict linguistic sense, refers to connected speech or writing occurring at suprasentential levels. as van dijk (1985) points out, our modern linguistic conception of discourse (as language use) owes much to the ancient distinction between grammar and rhetoric. grammarians explored the possibilities a language can offer a “calculus” for representing the world, and were concerned with correctness of usage. by contrast, rhetoricians focused upon practical uses of speech and writing as means of social and political persuasion. in this regard, georgakopoulou and goutsos (1999) point out that “despite the centuries-old tradition of the mother discipline of rhetoric, three decades ago there were only two isolated attempts to study language beyond the sentence with specifically linguistic methods; namely harris (1952) and mitchell (1957). while harris used invented data and attempted to find the formal structural properties of connected speech, most discourse analysts these days prefer to work with naturally occurring data www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 59 published by scholink inc. and to pursue the local-contextual features and social functions of them rather than their purely linguistic properties. in this sense, a focus on discourse entails a shift in linguistics away from competence and the “langue” and towards performance and “paroles” (actual speech events) (mchoul, 1994, p. 940). 4.2 three approaches to discourse analysis reviewing the literature on this issue shows that there are three main approaches to discourse and its analysis in contemporary scholarship: (1) the formal linguistic approach (discourse as text); (2) the empirical sociological approach (discourse as conversation) and (3) the critical approach (discourse as power/knowledge). it should be borne in mind, however, that each approach is, in itself, a multi-disciplinary; each has its own controversies, and contradictions. but each is sufficiently different from the others. 4.2.1 the text-linguistic approach the text-linguistic perspective is often referred to as the “formal approach” to discourse. it tends, by and large, to construe discourse as text. it is the most direct descendant of harris (1952) and mitchell (1957). like harris, it continues to have faith in formal linguistic methods of analysis. like mitchell, it moves linguistics, as a different discipline, as mainly been in the direction of social functions and naturally occurring samples. a more recent heir to the formalist approach has been “text linguistics” (tl). the term was first used by coseriu and taken up by weinrich (1967). but it was pioneered by van dijk (1972) and later developed by de beaugrande (1980, 1984) though van dijk has, to some extent, recast tl as discourse analysis. as previously mentioned, the ongoing use of texts in their communicative environment; that is, in their contexts, has been referred to as “discourse”. “discourse” and “text” have been used in the literature in a variety of ways. in some cases, the two terms have been treated as synonyms, while in others the distinction between discourse and text has been taken to apply to units of spoken versus written communication. consequently, discourse analysis is, in some accounts, regarded as concerned with spoken texts (primarily conversation). text linguistics, as a different discipline, has mainly been associated with written texts. according to georgakopoulou and goutsos (1999, p. 3) the two terms do not refer to different domains (speech and writing) but reflect a difference in focus. in this regard, slembrouk (2003, p. 1) points out that “discourse analysis does not presuppose a bias towards the study of either spoken or written language. in fact, the monolithic character of the categories of speech and writing is increasingly being challenged”. discourse, then, is the umbrella term for either spoken or written communication beyond the sentence. text is the basic means of this communication, be it spoken or written, a monologue or an interaction. discourse is, thus, a more embracing term that calls attention to the situated uses of text: it comprises both text and context. however, text is not just a product of discourse, as customarily assumed (brown & yule, 1983), that is, the actual (written or spoken) record of the language produced in an interaction. text is the means of discourse, without which discourse would not be a linguistic activity. although the study of texts may be a central concern of other disciplines, it does not constitute the axis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 60 published by scholink inc. of their founding assumptions, as is the case with discourse analysis. these assumptions, which specify what we can call the text-linguistic perspective to discourse include the following: (1) the basic unit of analysis is text; (2) the focus of examination is the language of the text; (3) text is structured; (4) texts are meaningful language units, which primarily derive their meaning from their situated use, and (4) there are no privileged texts, but only authentic, attested texts can be the basis of analysis. as georgakopoulou and goutsos (1999) argue, the sum of these assumptions constitute the distinctive feature of the text-linguistic approach to discourse, as opposed to other approaches within other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences: what differentiates the analysis of discourse within linguistics from the same practice in other social and human sciences is, essentially, the access to discourse through texts rather than through other semiotic systems like artifacts, systems of beliefs, or even a social and cultural organization as a whole (p. 5). it is widely held that discourse analysis is not a strictly unified discipline with one or few dominant theories and methods of research. according to some, this proliferation or approaches is a sign of the area’s richness. at the same time, interdisciplinary study is indispensable. quite simply, it is almost impossible to separate discourse from its uses in the world and in social interaction; as a result, linguistic tools alone are not sufficient for its comprehensive study (al-ali, 2006; barry et al., 2006; blaauw, 2005). 4.2.2 the empirical approach this approach largely consists of sociological forms of analysis which have taken “discourse” to mean human conversation. its object has been not merely the formal description of conversational “texts”, but also the common sense knowledge at the basis of conversational rules and procedures. the most fruitful work to date has been accomplished in the area of conversation analysis (ca) pioneered by sacks, and based on the ethnomethodological approach to sociology of garfunkel (1967). in this regard, weiyun he (2001, p. 437) points out that “discourse analysis in recent years has been profoundly influenced by a distinct approach to human interaction known as conversation analysis”. one central concept within conversation analysis is the “speaking turn”. according to sacks et al. (1974), it takes two turns to have a conversation. however, turn taking is more than just a defining property of conversational activity. the study of its patterns allows one to describe contextual variation (examining, for instance, the structural organization of turns, how speakers manage sequences as well as the internal design of turns). at the same time, the principle of taking turns in speech is claimed to be general enough to be universal to talk and it is something that speakers attend to in interaction (slembrouk, 2003, p. 29). a second central concept is that of the “adjacency pair”. the basic idea is that turns minimally come in pairs and the first of a pair creates certain expectations which can train the possibilities for a second. examples of adjacency pairs are question/answer, complaint/apology, greeting/greeting, accusation/denial. adjacency pairs can further be characterized by the occurrence of “preferred” or “dispreferred” seconds. a frequently-used term in this respect is “preference organization”. the occurrence of adjacency pairs in talk forms the basis for the concept of “sequential implicativeness”. each move in a conversation is essentially a response to the preceding talk and an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 61 published by scholink inc. anticipation of the kind of talk which is to follow. in formulating their present turn, speakers show their understanding of the previous turn and reveal their expectations about the next turn to come (gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). the major strength of conversation analysis lies in the idea that an important area of interactional meaning is revealed in the sequence. its most powerful idea is that human interactants continually display to each other, in the course of interaction, their own understanding of what they are doing. this, among other things, creates room for a much more dynamic, interactional view on speech acts (hindmarsh & heath, 2000; goodwin, 2000; martin & rose, 2003; sinclair, 2004; widdowson, 2004). 4.2.3 the critical approach in fairclough’s words (1992, p. 7) the critical approach “is not a branch of language study, but an orientation towards language … with implications for various branches. it highlights how language conventions and practices are invested with power relations and ideological processes which people are often unaware of” (preyer & peter, 2005; prego-vazquez, 2007; stoke & edwards, 2007). to that end, this approach investigates language behavior in everyday situations of immediate and actual social relevance: discourse in education, media and other institutions. it does not view context variables to be correlated to an autonomous system of language; rather, language and the social are seen as connected to each other brought a dialectical relationship. texts are deconstructed and their underlying meanings made explicit; the object of investigation is discursive strategies which legitimize or “naturalize” social processes (wodak, 1995; orpin, 2005; koller, 2004; k. o’halloran, 2007; campbell & roberts, 2007). in conclusion, weiyun he (2001, p. 444) points out that, “while it is correct to say that discourse analysis is a subfield of linguistics, it is also appropriate to say that discourse analysis goes beyond linguistics as it has been understood in the past … discourse analysts research various aspects of language not as an end in itself, but as a means to explore ways in which language forms are shaped by and shape the contexts of their use”. at the same time, discourse analysis is a cross-discipline and, as such, finds itself in interaction with approaches from a wide range of other disciplines. discourse analysis is, thus, an interdisciplinary study of discourse within linguistics: discourse analysis is a hybrid field of enquiry. its “lender disciplines” are to be found within various corners of the human and social sciences, with complex historical affiliations and a lot of cross-fertilization taking place” (slembrouk, 2003, p. 1). it must be emphasized, however, that “a single, integrated and monolithic approach is actually less satisfactory than a piecemeal and multi-theoretical approach” (mchoul & luke, 1989, p. 324). 5. discourse analysis: a hybrid field of enquiry the previous discussion has shown that the term “discourse analysis” has come to be used with a wide range of meanings which cover a wide range of activities. it is used to describe activities at the intersection of many disciplines. as georgakopoulou and goutsos (1999, preface) point out, “discourse analysis, the study of the use of language for communication in context, is a rapidly-expanding field www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 62 published by scholink inc. which is characterized by proliferating analytical methods and continuously renewed tools”. the following section will shed light on the relationship between discourse analysis and “its lender” disciplines; one of them is “pragmatics” (see martinez & murphy, 2011; miller, 2011). 5.1 the “natural language school” within analytical philosophy the term “natural language school” refers to a particular tradition in analytical philosophy which is characterized by a belief in the possibility to formulate the conditions for a logical, truth-yielding language on the basis of the study or meaning in natural language (as opposed to, artificial or mathematical languages). john l. austin is the person who is usually credited with generating interest in what has since come to be known as “pragmatics”. it should be noted that austin and his group (ordinary language philosophers) were reacting against the oxford-based philosophers such as moore and bertrand russell, on one hand, and “logical positivist philosophers” on the other hand. first, whereas “moore” was interested in what he termed “the language of common sense”, russell and others took the view that everyday language is defective, a rather debased vehicle, full of impression and contradictions. second, logical positivism is a philosophical system which maintains that the only meaningful statements are those that are analytic or can be tested empirically. therefore, logical positivist philosophers of language were concerned with the properties of sentence which could be evaluated in terms of “truth or falsity”. within linguistics this approach was adopted within an area known as “truth conditional semantics” (see thomas, 1995). in this regard, austin believed that “there is a lot more to a language than the meaning of its words” (1962, p. 132). he was convinced that we do not just use language to “say” things but “to do” things. it was this conviction which led him to a theory of what he called “illocutionary acts”; a theory which examines what kinds of things we do when we speak, how we do them and how our acts may “succeed” or “fail”. austin began exploring his ideas by way of the “performative hypothesis”. first, he argued that most utterances have no truth conditions. they are not statements or questions but actions; a conclusion he reached through an analysis of what he termed “performative verbs”. second, we can contrast performative and non-performative verbs by two features: (1) performative verbs perform the action named by the first verb in the sentence; (2) we can insert the adverb “hereby” to stress this function. third, austin argued that it is not useful to ask whether performative utterances like “i warn you that legal action will ensue” are true or not; rather we should ask whether they work or not: do they constitute a successful “warning”, as in the example above? in austin’s terminology a performative that works is called “felicitous”, and the one that does not is “infelicitous”. fourth, austin proposed that communicating a speech act consists of three elements: the speaker says something (locutionary act), the speaker signals an associated speech act (illocutionary act), and the speech act causes an effect on her listeners or the participants (perlocutionary act). according to thomas (1995), the most important reason for the collapse of austin’s performative hypothesis was the realization that austin had equated “doing things with words” with the existence of a corresponding performative verb. this is clearly erroneous. there are many acts performed using www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 63 published by scholink inc. language where it would be impossible to use a performative verb. in addition, there is a problem in austin’s classification of “locution, illocution and perlocution”: the same locution could have a different illocutionary force in different contexts. for example, “what time is it?” could, depending on the context of utterance, mean any of the following: (1) the speaker wants the hearer to tell him/her the time; (2) the speaker is annoyed because the hearer is late; (3) speaker thinks it is time the hearer went home. it is worth-mentioning that austin’s work remained unknown to so many linguists. after austin’s original explorations of speech act theory there have been a number of works which attempt to systematize the approach. searle (1979) proposed that all acts fall into five main types: (1) representatives, which commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition; (2) directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something; (3) commissives, which commit the speaker to some future course of action; (4) expressives, which express a psychological state, and (5) declarations, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and which tend to rely on elaborate extra linguistic institutions (verhoeven & leeuwe, 2012). searle’s theory of “indirect speech acts” is based on the observation that by uttering what appears to be a statement (it’s hot in here), language users often indirectly perform another type of illocutionary act (voice a request to open the window). an indirect speech act, in searle’s terms, is one performed “by means of another” (1979, p. 60). the undeniable merit of speech act theory lies in advancing a view of language use as action. in searle’s words (1969, p. 17): a theory of language is part of a theory of action, simply because speaking is a rule-governed form of behavior. relatedly, thomas (1995, p. 109) notices that “it is necessary to recognize that speech acts can never be satisfactorily characterized in terms of rules but are better described in terms of principles”. thomas, further argues that searle failed in his attempt to describe speech acts in terms of “constitutive rules” because he attempted to handle pragmatics in a manner appropriate to grammar. pragmatics, thomas argues, seeks different sorts of generalizations from those made within grammar: “grammar is governed by rules, pragmatics is constrained by maxims or principles” (pp. 107-108). in this regard, leech (1983, p. 8) argues that (1) rules are all or nothing; principles are more or less; (2) rules are exclusive; principles can co-occur; (3) rules are constitutive; principles are regulative; (4) rules are definite; principles are probabilistic, and (5) rules are conventional, principles are motivated. 5.2 grice’s theory of “cooperative principle” it is more than 25 years since grice first put forward his ideas concerning the conversational maxims and his work continues to serve as the basis for much work in pragmatics and discourse analysis. grice can claim credit for asking a lot of very exciting question, which have led linguists to think about language in a completely new way. grice’s work is mostly associated with the theory of the “cooperative principle” and its attendant maxims which together regulate the exchange of information between individuals involved in interaction. his endeavor has been to establish a set of general principles, with the aim of explaining how language users communicate indirect meanings (so-called conversational implicature), that is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 64 published by scholink inc. implicit meanings which have to be inferred from what is being said explicitly, on the basis of logical deduction. the cooperative principle is based on the assumption that language users tacitly agree to cooperate by making their contributions to the talk as is required by the current stage of the talk or the direction into which it develops. adherence to this principle entails that talkers simultaneously observe four maxims: (1) quality (make your contribution truthful and sincere); (2) quantity (provide sufficient information); (3) manner (make your contribution brief, present it in an orderly fashion; (4) relation (make your contribution a relevant one. two observations can be made: (1) the fact that grice expressed the “cooperative principle” in the imperative mood has led some readers of his work to believe that grice was telling speakers how they ought to behave. what he was actually doing was suggesting that in conversational interaction people work on the assumption that a certain set of rules is in operation, unless they receive indications to the contrary. in all spheres of life we make similar assumptions all the time. (2) grice is not suggesting that people are always good and kind or cooperative in any everyday sense of the word. he was, simply, noting that, on the whole, people observe certain regularities in interaction and his aim was to explain one particular set of regularities; those governing the generation and interpretation of conversational implicature. grice, however, was well aware that there are many occasions when people fail to observe the maxims. grice (1975, p. 49) listed three ways in which a participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfil a maxim: the speaker may flout a maxim, violate a maxim or opt out of observing a maxim. he later added a fourth category of non-observance: infringing a maxim. there is a number of problems associated with grice’s theory; (1) sometimes an utterance has a range of possible interpretations; hence, how do we know when the speaker is deliberately failing to observe a maxim and hence that an implicature is intended?; (2) how can we distinguish between different types of non-observance; that is, how can we distinguish a violation from infringement?; (3) grice’s four maxims seem to be rather different in nature; (4) sometimes the maxims seem to overlap or are difficult to distinguish from one another, and (5) grice argued that there should be a mechanism for calculating implicature, but it is not always clear how this operates. looking at speech acts in whole stretches of text in context is something which both austin and searle, who further developed the theory of speech acts, failed to do. they instead tried to formalize the speakers’ intentions, which is a very complicated task. intentions are unobservable psychological states which are hard to define and assign. currently though, speech acts are increasingly focused upon as part of texts in context, in particular in discourse analysis. 5.3 register studies and the study of stylistic variation in addition, register studies are based on the observation that language variation depends not only on the social and geographic origins of the speakers, but that language use also varies according to the activity in which one is engaged. diatypic variation of this kind is grasped through the notion of “style” or within the systematic-functional framework, “register”. register can be decomposed into: (1) medium used (written, spoken, spoken-to-be-written, written-to-be-cited); (2) field of activity (science, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 65 published by scholink inc. religion, law, etc.), and (3) tenor (the social role relationships between the language users in a particular situation (teacher-pupil, parent-child) (coates & wade, 2004; evaldsson, 2005; halford & leonard, 2006). 5.4 linguistic anthropology linguistic anthropology is a cover term for mainly northern american approaches which contextualize language use in socio-cultural terms. according to hymes (1964, p. xxiii), “linguistic anthropology can be defined as the study of language within the context of anthropology.” in duranti’s (2001, p. 5) words, “linguistic anthropology as it is practiced today … is also more than grammatical description and historical reconstruction, and it is also more than the collection of texts, regardless of whether those texts were collected in one’s office or under a tent. it is the understanding of the crucial role played by language (and other semiotic resources) in the constitution of society and its cultural representations”. nowadays, many linguistic anthropologists have a double agenda (slembrouk, 2003, p. 8): (1) a premium on ethnographic fieldwork and description among indigenous peoples which continue to provide credentials for academic community membership, but with a shift “toward contemporary situations of contact (with governments, private companies …) focusing on the role of language in the formation of a communal identities, literacy projects, language rights movements, in struggles over economic resources” (collin, 1998, p. 259); and (2) commitment to the study of language use as situated institutionalized-practice (brendel & jager, 2005; halford & leonard, 2006). 5.5 ethnography of speaking ethnography of speaking develops out of a wider appeal (in the mid 1960s) for “studies that would analyze in detail how language is deployed as a constitutive feature of the indigenous settings and events that constitute the social life of the societies of the world” (duranti & goodwin, 1992, p. 1). in this regard, duranti (1997, pp. 84-85) points out that ethnography offers a set of valuable techniques which allows researchers to connect linguistic forms with cultural practices. in hymes’ (1980) view, ethnography can be characterized as an interactive-adaptive method of enquiry. ethnography stresses the necessity of knowledge that originates in participation, ordinary communication and observation. in addition, ethnography values a careful treatment of context, insisting that it is impossible to separate speech data from the history under which it was obtained (slembrouk, 2003, p. 9). ethnography of speaking offers a radically descriptive orientation for the accumulation of data on the nature of “ways of speaking”, within speech communities: “a general theory of the interaction of language and social life must encompass the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning” (hymes, 1972, p. 39). 5.6 interactional sociolinguistics interactional sociolinguistics, according to gumperz (1999, pp. 453-454), has its origins in “the search for replicable methods of qualitative sociolinguistic analysis that can provide insight in the linguistic and cultural diversity characteristic of today’s communicative environments, and document its impact on individual’s lives”. in every communicative situation, especially in intercultural interaction, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 66 published by scholink inc. interpersonal function of language is of great importance. a speaker can indicate how he perceives the social relation between him and his interlocutor, or how he would like the relation to be perceived by the hearer. he can do that by using the appropriate vocabulary and conversational style, and by making certain strategic choices in realizing speech acts. pragmatic failures in this sense could be more harmful to the communicative interaction than purely linguistic failures in pronunciation or syntax. finally, van dijk (2006, 2008ab) argues that it is not the social situation itself that influences the structure of text and talk, but rather the definition of the relevant properties of the communicative situation by the discourse participants. specially van dijk (2008a, p. ix) argues that “the new theoretical notion developed to account for these subjective mental constructs is that of context models, which play a crucial role in interaction and in the production and comprehension of discourse. they dynamically control how language use and discourse are adapted to their situational environment, and hence define under what conditions they are appropriate”. according to van dijk, context models are the missing link between discourse, communicative situations and society, and hence are also part of the foundations of pragmatics. as van dijk (2008a, p. vii) points out “in most of the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences there is growing but as yet unfocused interest in the study of context” (see li & chen-hong, 2012; mangen et al., 2013). 6. pragmatics: beginnings it must be clarified that pragmatics is also a hybrid field of enquiry, and its lender disciplines are to be found within various corners of the human and social sciences. both discourse analysis and pragmatics borrowed their major theoretical and methodological foundations from the same disciplines. in this regard, mchoul (1994) argues that the study of discourse (as language use) can be broadly and roughly associated with applied linguistics and particularly with the area of it which is now called “pragmatics”. also, levinson (1989) points out that sometimes the terms “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” are used interchangeably. in this connection, slembrouk (2003, p. 5), also, points out “as a sub-discipline of linguistics, pragmatics can be said to thematise the relationships between language use and the language user in a situational context. the adjective “pragmatic” refers to the capacity of a social actor to adjust to situational circumstances”. the following discussion may help clarify the above views. it is a historical fact that, since the early 1970s, a great and growing interest in pragmatics and pragmatic problems has been witnessed worldwide. as mey (1994) notices, pragmatics has come into its own, and it is here to stay. it has come to be a fully accepted term in linguistics. leech (1983, p. 1) remarks that “fifteen years ago pragmatics was mentioned by linguists rarely, if at all. and if indeed pragmatics was mentioned, it was more in the guise of a “ragbag” or, bar-hillal (1971) once expressed it, a “waste-paper basket” designed to absorb the overflow from semantics”. pragmatics appears to be the first, historically motivated approach towards a societally relevant practice of linguistics. such an approach is the result of four developmental tendencies, which together have made pragmatics into what it is now: (1) “antisyntactic tendency”; (2) the “social-critical tendency”; (3) the “philosophical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 67 published by scholink inc. tradition”, and (4) the “ethnomethodological tradition”. it must be noticed, here, that the same developmental tendencies resulted in the appearance of discourse analysis, as mentioned before. first, the “antisyntactic” tendency can be seen as a reaction to the “syntacticism” of the chomskyan school of linguistics, whereby all of linguistic science was supposed to fit into the syntactic framework. linguists, such as lakoff and robert ross were the first to protest against this syntactic attitude; none of them, however, was truly pragmatic in orientation. in katz’s words, “grammars are theories about the structure of sentence types … pragmatics theories, in contrast … explicate the reasoning of speakers and hearers” (1979, p. 19), when the latter try to establish a relation between what is said and the semantic “proposition” that is behind it. second, the “social-critical” tendency had its origin and heyday in europe. characteristic of this tendency is the need for a socially useful science of language, together with a wish to leave the narrow perspectives of the “single discipline” behind. the effects of language on people’s lives, especially in situations of unequal societal power, attracted the interest of these early pragmaticians such as basil bernstein, whose work was felt throughout the 1970s and far into the 1980s. third, the “philosophical” tradition originated in the british critical tradition of language investigation, and illustrated by names such as bertrand russell, john austin, and other of the school of “ordinary language philosophy”. it was only after the publication of austin’s student john searle’s work “speech acts” (1969) that the first inroads into what later became known as pragmatic territory were made by chomsky’s rebellious students; to their surprise, they found the region populated and partly cultivated by people such as those mentioned above. in this regard, leech (1983, p. 2) points out that: “when linguistic pioneers such as ross and lakoff staked claim in pragmatics in the late 1960s, they encountered there an indigenous breed of philosophers of language had been quietly cultivating the territory for some time. in fact, the more lasting influences on modern pragmatics have been those of philosophers: notably in recent years, austin (1962), searle (1969) and grice (1975)”. fourth, in the “ethnomethodological” tradition, the emphasis had always been on communication rather than on grammar; that is, how people got their messages across was considered more important than the ways in which they constructed their sentences, or whether or not their utterances were syntactically correct or logically consistent. 6.1 pragmatics: what is it? defining pragmatics implies determining its frontiers with other, adjoining fields of research within (and possibly also outside) linguistics. pragmatics, for leech (1980, p. 33), is the study of the use or application of meaning in communicative situations. in this view, pragmatics studies what a piece of language means to a given interlocutor in a given speech situation. according to mey (1994, p. 3268), pragmatics is the study of language in a human context of use. language use is the process by which people communicate, for various purposes, using linguistic means. this process is governed by the conditions of society; as these conditions determine the user’s access to, and control of, those means. hence, pragmatics can also be described as a societally oriented and societally bound linguistics. in addition, lycan (1995, p. 588) sees that pragmatics studies the use of language in context, and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 68 published by scholink inc. context-dependence of various aspects of linguistic interpretation. its branches include the theory of how one and the same sentence can express different meanings or propositions from context to context, owing to ambiguity or indexicality or both. also, fotion (1995, p. 709) says that pragmatics is the study of language which focuses attention on the users and the context of language use rather than on reference, truth or grammar (see kamel, 2000). thomas (1995, p. 17) defined pragmatics as “meaning in interaction”. this definition is based on the rational that meaning is not something which is inherent in the words alone, nor is it produced by the speaker alone, nor by the hearer alone. making meaning is a dynamic process, involving the negotiation of meaning between speaker and hearer, the context of utterance (physical, social or linguistic) and the meaning potential of an utterance. relatedly, according to the american speech-language-hearing association (2002) pragmatics involves three major communication skills: (1) using language for different purposes such as greeting, informing, demanding, promising and requesting; (2) adapting or changing language according to the needs or expectations of a listener or situation, and (3) following rules for conversations and narratives. to conclude, mey (1994) argues that “a truly pragmatic consideration has to deal with the context as a user’s context, and cannot limit itself to the study of grammatically encoded aspects of context” (p. 3267). also, thomas (1995) argues that assigning meaning is an active (dynamic) procedure. meaning is not given, but is constructed. it is a process of hypothesis-formation and testing, of making meaning on the basis of likelihood and probability. 6.2 four types of pragmatics the domain of pragmatic research is broad. in this regard, fraser (1994) points out that “carrying out pragmatic research is analogous to the inquiry of the seven men of hindustan, whose examination of an elephant has been celebrated in verse. although each man agreed that he was examining an elephant, each was quite sure that his perspective reflected the true nature of the beast. so it is with pragmatics research, and it is useful to think of pragmatic researchers focusing on utterances from five perspectives” (pp. 3256-3257). research on sentence meaning, the first of these, involves the intersection of pragmatic and semantic research. this perspective concerns pragmatic aspects of sentence meaning, that is, meaning associated directly with linguistic form. such research is necessarily contextual. the second perspective is that of contextualized sentence meaning, that is, the operational meaning of the sentence in that particular utterance context. the third research perspective is that of speaker meaning, focusing on what linguistic, contextual, and performance factors influence the interpretation of message(s) intended by a speaker via a given utterance. the fourth research perspective is that of hearer meaning; the interpretation that the speaker has made of prior contributions when acting as a hearer. discourse meaning is the fifth and final perspective. researchers from this point of view focus on how to support a conclusion that prior utterances were interpreted to create interactive sense. it may be worth mentioning, in this connection, to point out that not only that there are five different perspectives from which to engage in pragmatic research, but also that, within each, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 69 published by scholink inc. there is a wide range of research areas. because of this, there is no pragmatic methodology, no one way of collecting and analyzing the data. rather, there are various approaches, the approach for each researcher being determined by the perspective taken, the specific questions asked, and the theoretical position adopted. with the above in mind, pragmatics can be classified into four types. the first type is called “micropragmatics”. it is the study of language use in smaller contexts. traditionally, this context is understood as comprising the sentence and its immediate surroundings. with the discovery of the presupposition not only as a necessary condition for explaining certain linguistic phenomena, but also as the essential link with the larger context of human language use, we begin to see the contours of a larger structure. the users of language are no longer seen as individual agents, demonstrating linguistic behavior mainly for the benefit of the analyst. rather, the interest has been in what these users are trying to do with their words (mckellin et al., 2007). the second type is called “macropragmatics”, in which the emphasis is on what actually goes on in language use; the context of use comprises the entire environment, both linguistic and extralinguistic. the interest is focused on user interaction, in various ways, and in a number of settings. conversational analysis is one big area of research within macropragmatics. the various uses of institutional and institutionalized language have also caught the interest of pragmatic workers. also, the problems of sex-related differences in language and language use have become a prominent field of study in the last decades of the 20th century, as has the general question of the unequal distribution of societal power (haworth, 2006; heydon, 2005; holmes, 2005, 2006; jiang, 2006). the third type is called “metapragmatics”. it is a (pragmatic) discussion on pragmatics. there are two basic considerations that come into play whenever pragmatics is mentioned. one is the fact that pragmatics, by itself, can not explain or motivate its principles and maxims. the other consideration is more complex. it has to do with the fact that the explanatory framework for the observed pragmatic facts can not by definition be restricted to a single context. the world in which people live is one in which everything hangs together. for example, when someone says, “you did a great job, and i am not being polite”, the latter half of the sentence is a metapragmatic statement. more specifically, metapragmatics should worry about the circumstances and conditions that allow people to sue their language, or prevent them from using it (ifantidou, 2005). the fourth type is called “cognitive pragmatics”. it is that part of the cognitive studies of language that is related to some system of pragmatic knowledge of language use. the notion “cognitive pragmatics” has been used since the mid 1980s (kasher, 1989; preface). linguistic and psychological studies of acquisition of pragmatics have often rested on the assumption that natural language is required as a communication device directly related to previously acquired, non-verbal communication devices. more work has been done about neuropsychological aspects of language use. however, it is still unclear how the results of such research could be explained within a cognitive framework (kamp & partee, 2004; kiesling & paulston, 2005; van dijk, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 70 published by scholink inc. 6.3 pragmatics: language users the “world of users” has come to play the same role in pragmatics as the concept of “context” has done in more traditional linguistics. that is, the world of users is, for pragmatics, the very condition of its existence (mey, 1994, p. 326). as for traditional linguistics itself, the role of the context as explanatory device has been made explicit by pragmatics as a user context, a context in which the users are paramount features of interest. so, if one chooses to apply the notion of “shifting paradigm” to the “pragmatic turn in linguistics” a number of observations can be brought to the same practical denominator; for example, a shift from the paradigm of theoretical grammar (in particular, syntax) to that of the language user; the latter is what pragmatics is all about. in this regard, it is important to remember that the “pioneers” in the area of pragmatics were reacting against an approach to linguistics which was strongly biased towards meaning in abstract rather than meaning in use, or interaction. accordingly, the concept of “ambivalence” is particularly important in taking the view of pragmatics as “meaning in interaction” in which both the speaker and hearer have a part to play. “ambivalence” was first described by leech (1977) and brown and levinson (1987). it was noted that the intended force of an utterance such as “is that the phone?” might be either a straight question or a request to the hearer to answer the telephone. where the relative rights and obligations of participants, or the role of relationships between them, are unclear, it may be in the interests of both participants that the force of the utterance should be negotiable. by using an ambivalent utterance instead of making a direct request, the speaker reduces the risk of a confrontation or of receiving an embarrassing refusal, since the hearer is at liberty either to respond to the straight question by saying “yes” or alternatively, to interpret the utterance as a request and to comply. ambivalence, then, occurs when the speaker does not make clear precisely which of a range of related illocutionary values is intended (portner, 2005). 6.4 major themes in pragmatics 6.4.1 the study of presupposition the pragmatic interest in the implicit meaning dimensions of language use has been extended to include meanings which are logically entailed on the language use by the user of a particular structure. presuppositions are implicit meanings which are subsumed by a particular wording in the sense that its interpretation is conditional upon the tacit acceptance of the implicit meaning (pre-supposition = “an assumption that comes before”). for example, a sentence such as “the cold war has ended” presupposes that the existence of the entities it refers to, in this case the “cold war”. therefore, the study of presuppositions often concentrates on meaning dimensions which are “taken for granted” in an utterance or a text and hence this area of pragmatic research offers an instrument which is well-suited for examining the links between language and ideology. presupposition is a kind of pragmatic inference “based more closely on the actual linguistic structure of sentences” (levinson, 1989, p. 167). it is classified as a type of pragmatic inference by strawson (1952). it must be emphasized, here, that the notion of presupposition required in discourse analysis is pragmatic presupposition, that is, “defined in terms of assumptions the speaker makes about what the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 71 published by scholink inc. hearer is likely to accept without challenge” (givon, 1979, p. 50). the notion of assumed “common ground” is also involved in such a characterization of presupposition and can be found in this definition by stalnaker (1978, p. 321): “presuppositions are what is taken by the speaker to be the common ground of the participants in the conversation”. on the other hand, pragmaticists are accused of viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, of having a vision of society where everyone is nice and kind to everyone else. the very term “politeness”, with its widespread use in everyday interaction, encourages this misinterpretation. 6.4.2 politeness in the past thirty years within pragmatics there has been a great deal of interest in “politeness”, to such an extent that politeness theory could almost be seen as a sub-discipline of pragmatics (watts, 2003; mazid, 2006; 2008; mills, 2003; harris, 2003). recent work in politeness theory, notably that of leech (1980, 1983) and brown and levinson (1987) has focused on politeness as a pragmatic phenomenon. in these writings, politeness is interpreted as a strategy (or series of strategies) employed by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals, such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relations. following fraser (1990), thomas (1995), has grouped the pragmatic approaches to politeness under four headings: (1) the “conversational maxim” view (exemplified by leech); (2) the “face-management” view (exemplified by brown and levinson); (3) fraser’s own “conversational-contract’ view, and (4) the “pragmatic scales” view proposed by spencer-oatey (1992). these issues will be explored next. leech (1980, 1983) sees politeness as crucial in explaining why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean. leech introduces two concepts which are relevant for the present discussion: (1) ambivalence, and (2) pragmatic principles. first, by employing an utterance which is ambivalent (one which has more than one potential pragmatic force) it is possible to convey messages which the hearer is liable to find disagreeable without causing undue offense. consider the following example: if you want to enjoy the full flavor of your food and drink you will, naturally, not smoke during this meal. moreover, if you did smoke you would also be impairing the enjoyment of other guests. in the above example, the management obviously thought it inappropriate simply to put up “no smoking’ signs. instead, it is left to the guests for themselves whether they are being asked or ordered not to smoke. in addition, leech (1983) introduced the politeness principle (pp) which runs as follows: “minimize (all things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs; maximize (all things being equal) the expression of the polite beliefs” (p. 192). leech argues that the following maxims are necessary in order to understand the relationship between sense and force in human conversation: (1) the tact maxim; (2) the generosity maxim; (3) the approbation maxim; (4) the modesty maxim; (5) the agreement maxim. the tact maxim states: “minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other; maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other.” second, leech’s generosity maxim states: “minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the expression of cost to self.” the approbation maxim states: “minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other; maximize the expression of beliefs with express approval of other”. the modesty states: “minimize the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 72 published by scholink inc. expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of dispraise of self”. the agreement maxim runs as follows: “minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other”. the most influential theory of politeness was put forward by brown and levinson (1987). central to this theory is the concept of “face”, as proposed by goffman (1967). within politeness theory “face” is best understood as every individual’s feeling of self-worth or self-image. this image can be damaged, maintained or enhanced through interaction with others. face has two aspects: “positive” and “negative”. an individual’s positive face is reflected in his or her desire to be liked, approved of, respected and appreciated by others. an individual’s negative face is reflected in the desire not to be impeded or put upon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses. the concept of “face” will be, further, discussed below. brown and levinson suggest that certain kinds of interactive acts intrinsically threaten the addressee’s and/or speaker’s face. for example, a speaker’s positive face is threatened by acts such as making apologies or accepting responsibility and his or her negative face is threatened, for instance, by making excuses and expressing thanks. for an addressee, positive face is threatened by receiving criticisms or complaints, or by inappropriate forms of address, etc., and negative face by receiving orders, suggestions and requests, etc. in a business letter, the speaker becomes the sender of the letter and their addressee becomes the receiver. it is not difficult to see the potential for face threatening acts (ftas) in business correspondence, since many of the ftas brown and levinson describe commonly occur, e.g., requests, complaints and suggestions. much of what a sender includes within a business letter, therefore, can be interpreted as mitigations of ftas; the sender may for instance preface a complaint or criticism (a negative fta) with a compliment, the brown and levinson positive mitigation strategy of “giving gifts to the hearer”. the seriousness of the fta is determined by the interaction of three variables: the social distance between the participants, i.e. how well they know each other; the relative difference in power between them, which is created by their institutional roles; and the ranking of the imposition in the particular culture. the greater the social distance, relative power distance or ranking of the imposition, the greater the seriousness of the fta. these variables may be expressed in business communication in a variety of different ways. for example, the need for mitigation is likely to be greater in a letter initiating contact than in a letter from the same sender to the same receiver once they are frequently in contact, since the social distance between them will have changed. similarly, a sender is more likely to use mitigation in writing to a client rather than as a client, since their institutional role places them in a less powerful position in the first case than in the second. finally, the sender is more likely to use mitigation in a reply to a complaint than in a letter (to the same receiver) confirming an appointment, since the third variable, the ranking of the imposition, will be higher in the first letter than in the second. the language used in business correspondence may, therefore, be expected to reflect both the relationship between the sender and the receiver and the subject matter of the letter (agyekum, 2004; daly et al., 2004; wang, 2006; mutz & mondak, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 73 published by scholink inc. there are a number of options open to a speaker/sender when confronted with the necessity to make an fta. if a sender decides to make a face threatening act, he or she may do so baldly, with no concession to face, off record, (or indirectly) where the fta is made only by implication, or on record, with appropriate mitigation of the positive and/or negative threats to face. off record strategies described by brown and levinson include “giving hints”, “understating”, “using contradictions”, etc.; on record positive mitigation strategies include “claiming common ground”, “making offers”, “avoiding disagreement”, etc., and on record negative mitigation strategies include “apologizing”, “giving deference” and “being pessimistic”. a further option, when the speaker considers that the fta is too great the therefore can not be mitigated, is simply to avoid making the fta at all. previous research on requesting behavior has shown that the relative importance played by estimates of power, social distance, situational setting, and degree of imposition may differ from culture to culture, and that the proportions in the choices between more direct and more indirect strategies are culture-specific (de fina, schiffrin, & bamberg, 2006). in conventional indirectness, by far the most frequently used strategy, cross-cultural differences may appear between conventions of means (e.g., asking for ability: “can you help me?”, or for willingness: “would you mind helping me?”) and conventions of form, which specify the exact wording used to realize the request (“are you willing …?”, “would you mind …?”, “would you be so kind …?”) (blum-kulka, 1987, p. 41). with respect to the sometimes suggested link between politeness and indirectness, it should be noted that these concepts are not necessarily related in a linear fashion, that indirectness is not per se a carrier of politeness, and that cultures may vary in the social meaning attached to similar linguistic choices, and in preferences for positive and negative politeness (blum-kulka, 1987, p. 43). from the above remarks it follows that the directness level of speech acts that have traditionally been called indirect, depends on how conventionalized certain ways of speaking are, and that it is not just the speaker’s perspective that determines whether or not a speech act is indirect. the interpretation of utterances by the hearer, and hence the communicative situation in which the speech act is realized, should also be taken into account. this is where cultural variation-in linguistic form, in conventionalisation of interactional strategies, and in social meanings attached to these-influences both the notion of indirectness and its interpretation, and thus raises problems for the generalisability and universality of politeness principles (lakoof & ide, 2005; bucholtz & hall, 2005). bialystok (1993) focuses on the acquisition of pragmatic ability by second language learners, addressing the cognitive dimensions on which interlanguage competence evolves: selecting the appropriate form requires an assessment of contextual and social factors. thus the mapping is not between form and meaning-the usual problem in semantics-but between form and social context, with meaning held constant across intentions within a socially defined situation (bialystok, 1993, p. 51). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 74 published by scholink inc. 6.4.3 the “principle of relevance” grice’s “maxim of relation” has been elevated to the status of an overriding principle governing communication and cognition by sperber and wilson (1986). the principle of relevance is at the center of their claim of a new approach to the study of human communication. sperber and wilson formulate the “principle of relevance” as follows: “every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of its own optimal relevance (1986, p. 158). the term “relevance” is used in a technical sense to refer to the bringing about of contextual effect. an utterance is only relevant if it has some contextual effect. in sperber and wilson’s words: the notion of a contextual effect is essential to a characterization of relevance. we want to argue that having contextual effects is a necessary condition for relevance, and that other things being equal, the greater the contextual effects, the greater the relevance (1986, p. 119). there are varying degrees of relevance. sperber and wilson claim that there is an inverse correlation of effort and relevance. in other words, the more processing it takes to work out what a speaker intends by an utterance, the less relevant that utterance is. as various critics have pointed out, this begs the question “relevant to what?” (clark, 1987), and “relevant to whom?”(wilks, 1987). in “relevance”, human beings are viewed as information processors with an inbuilt capacity to infer relevance. this single capacity is assumed to be the key to human communication and cognition. in addition, the human mind is conceived to be a “deductive mechanism” which has the capacity to manipulate the conceptual content of assumptions from a range of sources. sperber and wilson’s favorite metaphor for the human mind is the computer. they limit their object of enquiry accordingly to how the human mind functions as a computer (talbot, 1994, p. 352). 7. part (2): political discourse: what is it? one of the goals of the present study is to discuss the interplay between language and politics. in this regard, blommaert (1998, p. 7) points out that the study of language has long been carrying with it a legacy of categorizations within its object of study, which separated “language” proper from a series of “influences” on language: psychological, cognitive, social, cultural, historical, political. connections between various categories were expressed by the connector “and”: language and culture, language and cognition, etc. political discourse is characterized by its attempt to get the audience to accept the speaker or writer’s point of view and to identify with him or her, viz. to persuade the audience (jucker, 1997, p. 121). according to van dijk (1997, p. 12), the easiest, and not altogether misguided, approach is that political discourse is identified by its actors or authors, viz. politicians. the vast bulk of studies of political discourse is about the text and talk of professional politicians or political institutions. some of the studies of politicians take a discourse analytical approach, such as dillon et al. (1990); campell and jamieson (1990); snyder and higgins (1990); harris (1991); maynard (1994) and deignan (2005). it must be emphasized that political activity and the political process involve people as citizens and voters, people as members of pressure and issue groups, demonstrators and dissidents (verba et al., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 75 published by scholink inc. 1993, p. 25). all these groups and individuals, as well as their organizations and institutions, may take part in the political process, and many of them are actively involved in political discourse. in this connection, van dijk (1997, p. 13) argues that a broad definition of politics implies a vast extension of the scope of the term “political discourse” if we identify such practices by all participants in the political process. relatedly, the first observation that needs to be made about political discourse is that it is not a genre, but a class of genres defined by a social domain, namely that of politics (van dijk, 1998, p. 13). thus, government deliberations, parliamentary debates, party programs, and speeches by politicians, are among the many genres that belong to the domain of politics (van dijk, 2001, p. 8). in this study, political discourse is the discourse of politicians. accordingly, the second observation that needs to be made is that such discourse is by the same token a form of institutional discourse. that is, “only those discourses of politicians that are produced in institutional settings must be considered. this means that an informal conversation of a politician with his/her friends does not count as a political discourse” (ibid: 8). to put it simply, we may also say that discourse is political when it accomplishes a political act in a political institution. with the above in mind, it might be pertinent to argue that although the distinguishing properties of political discourse may be largely contextual, this does not mean that we should no longer study the structures of political discourse. such a study may reveal much about the unique character of such a discourse, and allows inferences about the cognitive, social and the political functions of such discourse (blommaert & bulcaen, 1998; wodak & van dijk, 2000; givon, 2005; butler, 2005). 7.1 persuasion: what is it? the oxford english dictionary defines “persuasion “ as follows: the action, or an act, of persuading or seeking to persuade; the presenting of inducements or winning arguments; the addressing of reasonings, appeals, or entreaties to a person in order to induce him to do or believe something. thus, in this non-technical use of the word, persuasion is used to get the audience to do something or to believe something. in everyday understanding this is often taken to be negative. it is not too far removed from cheating. there are many types of persuasive speeches. the first type is the speech that addresses attitudes. this type of speech aims to change the way of people’s thinking or feeling about a particular subject. the second type of persuasive speech is the speech that urges action in which the speaker aims to argue the audience to do something. this action could be individual or group action, immediate or ongoing action. the third type of persuasive speech is the speech of contention, which aims to refute opposing arguments. in this type one can argue against someone’s argument. persuasive speech is, also, known as an argument speech, which attempts to persuade the audience to adopt a certain point of view. this argument must use sound reasoning and solid evidence by stating facts, giving logical reasons, and using examples. a good persuasive speech has important characteristics. (1) it is an interactive process between a speaker and listeners. the speaker has to put in his mind the listener’s experiences, expectations, values www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 76 published by scholink inc. and attitudes. in addition, in delivering persuasive speeches, speakers need to establish and maintain visual and personal connections with listeners and respond to their feedback. in general, speakers and listeners are engaged in a transactional communicative process. (2) persuasive speech is not a coercive or force. in this regard, the great rhetorical scholar aristotle distinguished between what he called “inartistic” proof and “artistic” proof. the first is the one that does not require art or skill on our part. we do not have to consider or respect others to get what we want. the second type of proof is the one that requires from the speaker to give reasons to convince his listeners. in this regard, aristotle distinguished three ways of persuading or convincing others: by appeal to their reason (logos), by appeal to their emotions (pathos), and by the appeal of the speaker’s personality or character. (3) persuasive impact is usually gradual or incremental. that is, listeners usually compare speeches or arguments with their experience and knowledge. they may change or shift their attitudes or behavior when they listen to a strong argument, good evidence, and a coherent organization. (4) another important characteristic of effective speech is clarity, which helps to get the development of thoughts logically. any speech has coherence when the thoughts flow from one to another in logical order. in this way, “the audience will have a chance to give appropriate emphasis on the most important points” (jordan, 1971, p. 348). (5) another characteristic of effective speech is conciseness. by using conciseness, the audience will be able to get the important information quickly and easily. these methods include using summary—type where details are not required. these methods, also, include the omission of non-essential details. all these techniques help the audience to get the most information in the shortest possible time. (6) politicians and effective public speakers must build credibility, which means the willingness of others to believe a person who has personal integrity. that is, the speaker who has good background, good will and trustworthiness can be trusted in the eyes of his people, and others. there are three types of credibility: (1) initial credibility; (2) derived credibility and (3) terminal credibility. initial credibility is based on titles, position, experiences, or achievements, which are known to the listeners before the speaker begins his speech. derived credibility refers to the situation in which the listener can recognize the goodwill and trustworthiness of the speaker during the speech. speakers who are not well known try to provide clear and logical ideas which include convincing and interesting evidences. in this way, they earn derived credibility. terminal credibility is a combination between initial and derived credibility. here the listener can recognize the credibility of the speaker at the end of the speech. the speaker’s credibility includes cumulative, expertise, goodwill and trustworthiness. (7) persuasive political speeches are characterized by the excessive use of “body language” technique: “body is a tool of persuasion. your hands guide the speech, and your posture portrays your strength and assurance. the way you sound, move, and use your eyes are just as important as the words in the speech” (think-quest. org.) . these norms give the audience confidence about what their speakers say. in this regard, mccannon (medialiteracy. net) advised political leaders to “be firm; bold; strong; have the dramatic, confident image of a leader”. all these norms can be accomplished through body www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 77 published by scholink inc. language technique. 7.2 persuasion in political speech in order to go to war in democracies, and even in dictatorship, political leaders have to give their people a reason and some reasoned justifications. and, when they have done that, they issue an “ultimatum” to the enemy; if the enemy does not do what they want, they send in the missiles, bombers and foot soldiers. all this is done by means of “language”. the aim is to get people’s brains into a state similar to that of the speaker. in politics a speaker wants to provide his political view. speaking to the public is an excellent way to do this, but just speaking will not encourage the audience to listen. therefore, successful politicians had to be at the very least competent public speakers, and many of those who reached the top were outstanding. aspiring politicians who were not naturally gifted speakers had to work hard at overcoming weaknesses and developing their technique, churchill and bevan to overcome speech impediments, harold wilson to inject humour into his earlier dry and dull speeches, margaret thatcher to lower her harsh strident tones. all this tends to reinforce the critical importance of public speaking skills for a successful political career. as atkinson (1988, p. 1) points out, the ability to speak effectively in public is one of the oldest and most powerful weapons in the armory of professional politicians. 7.3 persuasive political speeches from a neurolinguistics’ perspective persuasion is not technically brainwashing but it is the manipulation of the human mind by another individual, without the manipulated party being aware what caused his opinion shift. the basis of persuasion is always to access our right brain. the left half of our brain is analytical and rational. the right half is creative and imaginative. the idea is to distract the left brain and keep it busy. ideally, the persuader generates an eyes-open altered state of consciousness, causing us to shift from beta awareness into alpha. politicians use these techniques all the time. as sutphen (2004) points out, assume for a moment that we are watching a politician give a speech. first, he might generate what is called a “yes set”. these are statements that will cause listeners to agree. next come the “truisms”. these are usually facts that could be debated but, once the politician has his audience agreeing, the odds are in the politicians’s favor that the audience would not stop to think for themselves, thus continuing to agree. last comes the “suggestion”. this is what the politician wants us to do and, since we have been agreeing all along, we could be persuaded to accept the suggestion. neurolinguistic research adds more to our understanding of the physiological idea of persuasion. another technique is called “interspersal technique”, and the idea is to say one thing with words but plant a subconscious impression of something else in the minds of the listeners and / or watchers (primer, 2004, p. 8). in other words, this technique is based on causing a person’s subconscious mind to draw parallels to a current situation while the conscious mind ignores the hints as being unrelated. this technique can basically be used for planting any suggestion into the victim’s mind, and this is why the technique is used very frequently in political speeches. politicians are well aware of the fact that people do not generally bother to trace associations consciously, and therefore they sink in through their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 78 published by scholink inc. defences. moreover, moral values can be attacked either negatively through guilt, or positively with appeal to virtue. guilt can be invoked by placing the victim in a position in which he seems to be breaking his own moral values and then offering him a way out that benefits the manipulator. appeal to virtue can be used by getting the victim to agree that something we want would be morally virtuous, a way to set the wrong things right. relatedly, self-esteem can be attacked negatively with “intimidation” or positively with “appeal to ego”. these techniques depend on discovering what the victim bases his self-esteem on, and then attacking it. “intimidation” usually manifests itself through doubting that the victim actually has the quality and demanding proof for it in a way that benefits the manipulator. it is easy to get some people to do almost anything in order to prove their worth. appeal to ego can be done by promoting those qualities, causing the victim to do what the manipulator asks since he wants to believe him (the manipulator). finally, imagination – based techniques are fear (negative) and curiosity (positive). fear is used by having a victim to visualize horrible consequences for not doing the things the manipulator asks. curiosity is used by causing the victim to visualize pleasant and exciting consequences and thus motivating him to act the way the manipulator wants him to (primer, 2004, p. 10). to sum it up, persuasion can be described as a means of attitude change in such way that those attitudes can be made to drive desired behavior. 8. concluding remarks it may be pertinent to suggest that the different approaches to the linguistic analysis of discourse seem to agree that language is viewed as social interaction. each approach somehow incorporates this insight into its specific methods and concepts. speech act theory focuses upon the linguistic actions that we perform toward another person—the actions that initiate (or continue) interaction. the cooperative principle so crucial to gricean pragmatics is a principle applicable to human interaction: it is this assumption that governs the way people interpret one another’s meaning during interactions with one another. interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis are quite clear in their beliefs that social interaction is the locus of language use: what we know and understand about interaction complements our ability to use language. the ethnography of communication focuses upon communicative situations, events, and acts: these are “units of analysis” that can be realized only if one assumes that human beings are interacting with one another. variation analysis takes as one of its central goals the analysis of “language as it is used in everyday life by members of the social order, that vehicle of communication in which they argue with their wives, joke with their friends and decisive their enemies (labov, 1972, p. xiii). the focus of the ethnography of communication is communication as cultural behaviour: language is part of a matrix of meanings, beliefs, and values that extend beyond knowledge of grammar. like interactional sociolinguistics, the ethnography of communication also offers a contextual approach to the analysis of utterances. thus, “discourse (and language in general) is a part of culture; because culture is a framework for acting, believing, and understanding, culture is the framework in which communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 79 published by scholink inc. (and the use of utterances) becomes meaningful” (schiffrin, 1998, p. 408). conversation analysis began by searching for ways to discover our ordinary, everyday procedures for constructing a sense of social and personal reality. its main focus is the way language is shaped by context, and, in turn, the way language shapes context. the contexts upon which conversation analysts focus, however, are only those that can be empirically attested through actual speech or behaviour. similarly, inferences about language structure, about speaker intention, about relationships across utterances, and so on, must be grounded in actual doings and sayings. pragmatics began with a focus on a very different kind of meaning than the contextual approaches just discussed. it is individual, intention-based meaning that could supplement the logical, proportional, and conventional meanings representable through a linguistic code. its contextual focus is not situational or cultural contributions to utterance meaning, but the very general assumptions that speaker and hearer bring to each and every occasion of speaking. these assumptions work with textual and situational information to allow very particular inferences about speaker meaning. in this regard, schiffrin (1988, p. 409) points out that “because what is said in one utterance can contribute to the inference of speaker meaning in another utterance, discourse can be seen a chain of inferential relationships whose links are based in relationships that arise from the operation of the maxims as they apply across utterances”. the rationale for bringing together scholars from a wide variety of fields related to language and politics is the observation that, for a number of years, a renewed critical awareness had penetrated various domains of language study. there was, first, the emergence of critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis as established and recognizable sub-disciplines, within which innovative ideas on the interrelation between language and society could be explored. as blommaert (1997, p. 2) points out, critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis have brought a new awareness to current thinking on language and society, of the loss of innocence of language in relation to power, ideology, and social relations. work within this tradition is often explicitly political, and it focuses on identifiable social and political actors. moreover, the study of language ideologies and ideologies of language had been given new impulses, mostly in the us and primarily among linguistic anthropologists, by the work of silverstein (1979), who points out that language ideologies and ideologies of language are shared perceptions of what a language is, what it is made of, what purpose it serves, and how it should be used. thee perceptions are sociocultural in nature. in this regard, language ideologies or ideologies of language become a “mediating link between social structures and forms of talk” (woolard, 1992, p. 235), and “meta pragmatics” (“the study of a metalevel at which verbal communication is self-referential to various degrees”) (yerschueren, 1995, p. 367) becomes a central concern in the analysis of the political and ideological dimensions of various forms of everyday language usage. relatedly, the same american anthropological linguistic tradition yielded highly critical concepts of text and text-meaning, focused on the way in which text can be moved in and out of contexts and so become instruments for all kinds of social, cultural and political strategies (silverstein & urban, 1996; bauman & brigss, 1990). thus, textual practices can be identified as central political strategies for creating, sustaining or solving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 80 published by scholink inc. conflicts, and conflicts can be inextricably linked to textual practices (briggs, 1996). this survey of both “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” has shown some significant facts about language, communication and understanding other people’s utterances. first, language is not only linguistic as being regarded traditionally; rather it is both linguistic and sociolinguistic (in the sense of pragmatic and ethnographic approaches to language). that is, language consists of two major dimensions: linguistic and socio-cultural. the linguistic dimension of language represents the knowledge of grammar and lexicon. this dimension is the structural facet of language which integrates phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. this linguistic dimension accounts for literal meaning, derived from grammatical and lexical meanings. the second dimension accounts for conveyed or intended meaning, derived from pragmatic and ethnographic factors. second, communication between human beings involves an active receptivity on the part of the hearer and not a mere passivity. in addition, the spoken or written word does not directly actualize some potency in the mind of the receiver. rather, it prompts him or her to look at things in a new way so as to be able to form new concepts and thereby grow in understanding. third, the process of making meaning is a joint accomplishment between speaker and hearer; between writer and reader. accordingly, it would be a mistake to adopt an approach to pragmatics and discourse analysis which focuses on the linguistic factors alone, or social factors alone, to the exclusion of cognitive factors. it would, also, be a mistake to adopt an approach which is exclusively speaker-oriented or exclusively hearer-oriented. fourth, both disciplines, “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” are hybrid fields of inquiry; and their common themes are “language”, “language users”, “communication”, and “meaning in interaction”. both disciplines have borrowed their theoretical and methodological orientations from almost the same social and human disciplines. in this regard, two observations must be made: (1) pragmatics can be said to thematise the relationship between language use and the language user in a situational context; and, relatedly, discourse analysts’ task is to examine such relationships. this does not imply that pragmatic studies do not do the same. accordingly, i do agree with mchoul’s (1994) view that the study of discourse (as language use) can be broadly and roughly associated with applied linguistics and particularly within the area of it which is now called “pragmatics”. i, also, agree with levinson (1989) who maintained that the terms “pragmatics” and “discourse analysis” are used interchangeably. references agyekum, k. 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(1992). language ideology: issues and approaches. pragmatics, 2(3), 235-249. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.2.3.01wool advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 108 original paper the application and challenges of 3d model retrieval technology in the information age ziqi shi1 1 school of information technology engineering, tianjin university of technology and education, tianjin, china received: june 07, 2025 accepted: july 29, 2025 online published: august 15, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p108 abstract in recent years, with the continuous development of computer vision, 3d model retrieval technology has also made certain progress. this paper mainly describes some application scenarios of 3d model retrieval technology and demonstrates the important role it plays in current and future development.at the same time, in the face of generative artificial intelligence and the continuous demand for retrieval technology, this paper also presents the challenges currently faced by 3d model retrieval technology and the future research trends. keywords 3d model retrieval, application scenarios, technical challenges 1. introduction with the continuous development of 3d data acquisition technology, 3d graphic modeling methods and graphic hardware technology, more and more 3d object model libraries have emerged. therefore, the development of 3d related technologies has been quite rapid and can now basically be compared with text and image-related technologies.with the sharp increase in the number of 3d models, retrieving the desired model from a large number of 3d models has become an urgent need in daily life.in recent years, due to the rapid development of deep learning, researchers have mainly conducted studies from two aspects: model-based and view-based methods, based on the different formats of the input 3d models. among them, model-based methods are further divided into voxel-based and point cloud-based methods. elements in three-dimensional space are called voxels and are represented by the distribution of corresponding binary variables. the voxel-based method learns 3d features from voxels. this method has a good generalization ability while keeping the geometric structure information of the object www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 unchanged. however, due to the relatively sparse voxels, it consumes memory and has a large amount of computation, which is more limited for large-scale applications. wu, song, khosla, yu et al. (2015) first introduced deep learning into the field of 3d model retrieval and proposed a deep learning model called 3dshapenets, which learns semantic features and global features at different levels from voxelized 3d shapes. to accelerate learning from voxels using deep learning models, wang, liu, guo, sun et al. (2017) proposed a new convolutional neural network based on the octree data structure (octree-based cnn, o-cnn), which takes the normal vectors of the leaf nodes of the octree as input and performs 3d-cnn operations to extract global features. a point cloud is a collection of points of an object that have coordinate information and intensity information in a three-dimensional coordinate system. qi, su, mo, and guibas (2017) proposed the classic pointnet network, which takes the cooperation of point clouds as input, studies point cloud features through shared mlp, and to solve the problem of point cloud disorder, uses max pooling to obtain global features. to address the issue that the poinnet network cannot learn local features, qi, yi, su, and guibas (2017) further proposed the pointnet++ network. this network imitates the local connection operation in cnn and adds a hierarchical network on the basis of pointnet to perform regional learning on the data and then aggregate it into global features. to address the issue of uneven sampling density, the author proposed a method of adaptively combining features from multiple scales, which endows the network with excellent robustness. the view-based approach turns 3d problems into 2d ones by rendering 3d data into 2d views, and thus can be solved by using convolutional neural networks (cnns). therefore, it has demonstrated better performance in many tasks. su, maji, and kalogerakis (2015) proposed the multi-view convolutional neural network (multi-view cnn, mvcnn), which automatically learns and combines the features of multiple views through a cnn architecture with a pooling layer to generate a single and concise 3d shape descriptor, and its performance far exceeds that of traditional methods. in addition to using convolutional neural networks, han, shang, liu, vong et al. (2019) and ma, guo, yang, and an (2019) respectively used recurrent neural network (rnn) and long short term memory (lstm) to learn view sequence information. further obtain the connections between views. in recent years, researchers have conducted studies on multimodal 3d model retrieval to learn features under different representations. this article will focus on introducing the application scenarios of 3d model retrieval, as well as the current challenges and research trends faced by this technology. 2. application scenarios of 3d model retrieval 2.1 applications in industrial design in the field of industrial design and manufacturing, 3d model retrieval technology has become an important link in the innovation of product development processes.when engineers are faced with a complex physical sample, such as an automotive part or a consumer electronics shell, and need to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 110 reverse engineer or make design improvements, they first need to obtain a large amount of point cloud data on the surface of the sample through a 3d scanning device. in traditional design, relying on engineers for model reconstruction and comparison is inefficient and prone to errors.3d model retrieval technology can efficiently input the obtained point clouds or rough models into professional retrieval systems. the system, based on the shape features and topological structures extracted by deep learning, performs rapid similarity matching in a vast enterprise-level model library.this process can precisely identify highly similar mature models or standard parts in the historical design library. engineers can directly make parametric modifications and optimizations based on this without having to start modeling from scratch.3d model retrieval technology significantly shortens the design iteration cycle, reduces labor costs, and avoids repetitive design errors. it is a key enabling technology for modern intelligent manufacturing and knowledge engineering. 2.2 applications in biomedicine in the field of biomedical engineering, 3d model retrieval technology is playing an increasingly important role.for instance, in orthopedic implants, the degree of match between the implant and the individual affects the surgical outcome and the patient's recovery and adaptation.currently, three-dimensional reconstruction of patients' bones can be carried out based on medical images, and the reconstructed three-dimensional models can be quickly and effectively matched with the massive data in the implant database.the 3d model retrieval system can form depth features based on the key marks, volume and curvature in the key areas of the retrieved model, and at the same time combine semantic information to achieve the most suitable matching, thereby providing more refined surgery and treatment for patients.in addition, in the field of dental implants, based on the three-dimensional models of the alveolar bone of different patients, the optimal implant size and angle for each patient can be precisely matched in the existing dental implant database.the current 3d model retrieval technology can plan different solutions based on different needs in medicine. it not only effectively assists the development of current medicine but also brings more convenient and effective cure methods to countless patients. 2.3 the field of cultural heritage protection and digital twin in the field of cultural heritage protection and digital twins, 3d model retrieval technology provides powerful technical support and information retrieval functions for cultural relic restoration, cultural relic query, virtual system display of cultural relics, and other historical research.at present, many cultural relics in archaeological excavations are only partial fragments, which is not conducive to the research of archaeologists.to better apply technology to historical research, experts can first extract high-precision three-dimensional models of cultural relic fragments. the three-dimensional model retrieval technology acquires the edge morphology, texture, and material features of the model. through the three-dimensional model retrieval system for retrieval, a fragment model that is spliced with the fragment can be obtained, thereby enabling a complete restoration of the cultural relic.in addition, 3d model retrieval technology can be applied to digital museums. users and visitors can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 search for the sketches or names of cultural relics, thereby precisely displaying the virtual models of the relics, providing visitors with an immersive experience and offering convenience to the staff in their work.the application of 3d model retrieval technology in the field of cultural relics research not only facilitates the restoration of cultural relics and the display of virtual cultural relics, but also contributes to the historical research and cultural dissemination .meanwhile, by building digital twins, systematic management and analysis of cultural relics can be carried out, providing a carrier for the permanent preservation of cultural relics and a shared platform for cultural research. 2.4 the field of home service in the field of home services, currently, people's decoration and design of their houses tend to be more inclined towards full-house customization. if users need to constantly change their furniture choices, designers have to select furniture with similar styles one by one from the furniture database to ensure the similarity of decoration styles. this process consumes a lot of labor and time costs.applying 3d model retrieval technology to the home service field, a 3d model database of furniture is constructed. when retrieving the current furniture models, the system can form deep features based on the size, color, texture and style of the furniture models, and select similar furniture from a large number of furniture databases. this not only ensures the consistency of the decoration style but also meets the different needs of users. applying 3d model retrieval technology to the home service field not only enables the construction of virtualized customization to meet customers' demands, but also helps to enhance the work efficiency of designers. 3. the challenges of 3d model retrieval 3.1 the challenges brought by generative artificial intelligence in recent years, the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence such as large language models has brought huge potential to current 3d model retrieval technology, while also presenting more complex and difficult challenges. generative artificial intelligence typically takes in data such as text and images, and the system analyzes the semantic retrieval of relevant models, and then assists in generating new three-dimensional content based on the retrieved models. generative artificial intelligence generates 3d models based on demand, seemingly capable of replacing the structure of 3d model retrieval. however, in reality, current generative artificial intelligence still cannot fully meet the goals of retrieval systems. for instance, the generated models may seemingly conform to semantic requirements on the surface, but their textures, materials, and complex topological structures cannot replace the retrieval targets. especially for the refined model requirements in industrial or professional fields. therefore, it is difficult for the generative 3d model to be consistent with the current model database representation, and it is quite challenging for it to become a supplementary model to the current database. therefore, at present, large models have put forward higher requirements for semantic understanding and 3d generation. the system not only needs to be able to understand individual objects, but also the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 relationships between objects, context and implicit semantics. accurately parsing and matching such complex intentions onto 3d models is a huge challenge. 3.2 challenges faced by retrieval efficiency with the large-scale increase in the number of 3d models, the retrieval efficiency has become an issue that cannot be ignored, restricting the implementation and deployment of large-scale 3d model retrieval systems.in 3d model retrieval, the complexity of the model's structural representation (such as point clouds, meshes, etc.) (qi, su, mo, & guibas, 2017) and the massive data scale bring certain computational intensity to the retrieval efficiency.firstly, the structure of a 3d model is complex, and its features must include shape, texture, and topological structure. therefore, high-dimensional features are required to have a certain discrimination ability. as a result, both the training and testing of the model require a large amount of computing power, so high-computing-power gpus and a certain amount of time are needed.in addition to model training, due to the large number of model databases, the storage of the model feature library is also a problem that needs to be solved.at the same time, when the number of models reaches a certain scale, the calculation of feature similarity during model retrieval requires a considerable amount of time, thereby affecting the retrieval efficiency and reducing the user experience of the system. therefore, in future model retrieval technologies, it is necessary to construct lightweight feature extraction networks, reduce high-dimensional discriminative features, conduct distributed computing to lower computing power consumption, and integrate generative learning to explore more effective, compact, and discriminative features. 3.3 the challenges faced by retrieval effect although the current 3d model retrieval technology has achieved certain results, there are still certain differences between the retrieval effect, such as retrieval accuracy rate, precision rate and recall rate, and the actual requirements. the main reason for the difference lies in the certain gap between the representation of features and the understanding of high-level semantics. the structure of 3d models is complex and usually relies on scene representation. objects with the same structure in different scenes have different meanings. for example, study chairs and business chairs have a high degree of similarity in shape and structure, and thus are very close in feature representation. in the retrieval system, they are represented as similar objects.however, due to the differences in other high-level semantics such as its scene and texture, it is not the target object for users to retrieve.in the 3d model retrieval technology based on sketches and two-dimensional images, the input sketches or two-dimensional images have significant differences from the 3d models in the database , which leads to a decline in feature discrimination ability and thus affects the retrieval effect.in addition, many existing datasets have limited scale, insufficiently comprehensive category coverage, and non-standard label annotation, all of which restrict the current retrieval effect. therefore, in order to enhance the retrieval effect, a more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 powerful cross-modal semantic understanding model is needed to conduct in-depth mining of the information and structure of 3d models (dong, zhu, lin et al., 2024). 4. conclusion based on the current development of 3d model retrieval technology, this paper expounds the application of 3d model retrieval technology in the fields of industrial design, biomedicine, cultural heritage protection and home services, and explains that 3d model retrieval technology plays an important role in various fields. at the same time, the challenges faced by 3d model retrieval technology in terms of generative artificial intelligence, retrieval efficiency and retrieval effect are proposed, as well as the future research directions in response to each challenge. references dong, w., zhu, h., lin, s. et al. (2024). fusion-mamba for cross-modality object detection. han, z., shang, m., liu, z., vong, c. m. et al. (2019). seqviews2seqlabels: learning 3d global features via aggregating sequential views by rnn with attention. ieee transactions on image processing, 28(2), 658-672. https://doi.org/10.1109/tip.2018.2868426 ma, c., guo, y., yang, j., & an, w. (2019). learning multi-view representation with lstm for 3-d shape recognition and retrieval. ieee transactions on multimedia, 21(5), 1169-1182. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmm.2018.2875512 qi, c. r., su, h., mo, k., & guibas, l. j. (2017). pointnet: deep learning on point sets for 3d classification and segmentation. proceedings of the ieee conference on computer vision and pattern recognition(cvpr) (pp. 77-85). honolulu, hi, usa: ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2017.16 qi, c. r., yi, l., su, h., & guibas, l. j. (2017). pointnet++: deep hierarchical feature learning on point sets in a metric space. annual conference on neural information processing systems(neurips) (pp. 5099-5108). long beach, ca, usa: mit press. su, h., maji, s., kalogerakis, e., & learned-miller, e. g. (2015). multi-view convolutional neural networks for 3d shape recognition. proceedings of the ieee/cvf international conference on computer vision (iccv) (pp. 945-953). santiago, chile: ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/iccv.2015.114 wang, p. s., liu, y., guo, y. x., sun, c. y. et al. (2017). o-cnn: octree-based convolutional neural networks for 3d shape analysis. acm transactions on graphics, 36(4), 72, 1-72, 11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3072959.3073608 wu, z., song, s., khosla, a., yu, f. et al. (2015). 3d shapenets: a deep representation for volumetric shapes[c]. proceedings of the ieee conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (cvpr). boston, ma, usa: ieee, 1912-1920. the application and challenges of 3d model retriev ziqi shi1 1 school of information technology engineering, ti abstract keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 35 original paper meanings of life du xiao¹* & sun hanru² ¹ department of anthropology, the chinese university of hong kong, hong kong, china ² nanjing lukou international airport co., ltd, nanjing, china * du xiao, department of anthropology, the chinese university of hong kong, hong kong, china received: june 29, 2023 accepted: september 11, 2023 online published: september 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p35 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p35 abstract this study aims to explore the meaning of life for the interviewees from a more real-life perspective, thus trying to expand the answer to the question of the meaning of life. it goes beyond understanding the meaning of life from the perspective of vague and unclear philosophical concepts. this study analyzes the content of the face-to-face interviews by using the ikigai theory, which demonstrates the influence of cultural formulation, social negotiation, and institutional channeling on the formation of individuals’ meaning of life. finally, an idea is provide that genetic factors may also influence the formation of meaning in one’s life. keywords meaning, life, ikigai, interview 1. introduction there are many different answers to the question of what the meaning of life is. some people put the meaning of their lives on faith, such as in shamanism, which honors nature and puts the meaning of their lives on the spirits they trust (yu, 2020). others are looking for the relationship between religion and the meaning of life and trying to explain the meaning of life from the perspective of religion. for example, deng, in her study of religious culture and the meaning of life, finds that religion has both a guiding role and a negative role in the meaning of life and points out that seeking the positive meaning of life has become the mainstream of contemporary religious culture (deng, 2009). some people take love as the meaning of their lives. and in the view of philosophers, life may be meaningless (joske, 1974). all of the above attribute the meaning of life to some vague concepts, such as love, faith, or meaninglessness. in order to find out the meaning of life more clearly and concretely, this study will deeply investigate someone’s personal experience. it will explore their actual meaning of life from their personal experiences by asking them hypothetical questions to allow them to make choices. in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. analysis part, gorden’s ikigai theory is used to analyze the ikigai of the interviews from three aspects: cultural formulation, social negotiation, and institutional channeling (gorden, 1996). gorden defines ikigai as the things that tie you to the world around you. it has more deeply linked the self to the social world. of course, the exploration of answers to the meaning of life is never-ending. there are fewer cases to analyze in this study, but the answers can help us figure out the meaning of life. 2. interviews interviewer: sherry (s) interviewee: gu and liang (l) 2.1 gu gu, male, 28 years old, bank account manager. he was one of my customers who used to ask me for advice about love, but through chatting, we found that each of us had a lot in common in terms of our views about spiritual practice. then we gradually moved from a customer relationship to a friend relationship. when i made it clear that i would like to do an interview with him, he said that he would be happy to be interviewed. s: what do you think is most important to you in your life? or what is your pursuit in life? gu: from work, at the moment, it’s to be able to work on the front line and then work my way up to the position of bank president, and through my own continuous refinement and learning, help more and more people, such as my staff and the people around me. i mean to make things better for them. by helping them, i was able to impact each of their families. at the same time, i could enjoy the sense of achievement and satisfaction brought by the success of others. i can realize my self-worth in life through my work. in other aspects of my life, for example, i would like to have a soul mate who will accompany me and make progress together! this companion means a friend, but it would be best if the companion was my wife. as for my family, i would like my parents to be healthy and safe. s: you’ve mentioned several aspects, and which aspect do you think is the most important? gu: which aspect is the most important? i think it’s the family—my own family. only when you have a good family can you influence other people. if you can’t get your own family good, you can’t pursue those things outside. what you say about helping others or how to do so is vague. you only put your own family to be good, and then you can go to influence more people. s: let’s make a hypothetical situation where family and your job can’t go hand in hand. then which one would you choose? gu: that depends. you see, i was sent to other cities for work, and now, after two years, i chose to come back. i don’t think i can leave home for too long. it’s just a matter of time. i think i may be able to focus a little bit on my work for a certain period of time so that my career can become better, but in the end, i will still choose to go back to my family. i can’t leave my family behind all year. i must be back with my family. s: i feel like the most important thing for you is still family, right? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. gu: yes, family is more important. s: why do you think family is the most important? does it have anything to do with your own life experience? gu: based on my life experience, i think there will be some influence. because my family itself belongs to a more traditional chinese family, and the parents’ faith is also buddhism. i was always taught that i must have filial piety and then take care of the family. and after seeing many people and things, including their own experiences, i think the family is very important. some people may be quite prosperous on the outside, but when they return home, they are alone and very lonely. some people may even be separated from their wives, although they are very prosperous outside, but the family behind them is not so good. i feel that family can help me in my spirit. we chinese are all about inheritance and focus on family ties. it’s not like in the west, where i think they’re talking more about independent individuals, but we still value the connection between people. family brings a sense of belonging, and no matter what happens outside, you still have to find a place to belong. s: you have mentioned spiritual practice, if you need to make a choice between your family and your spiritual practice—that is, you can’t have a happy family and at the same time go on this path of spiritual practice—then what would you do? gu: i don’t think it’s a good idea to leave the family behind and go purely into spiritual practice unless everyone inside the family supports me. i don’t think it’s very reasonable to say i must leave my family behind to pursue my own path of spiritual practice. i need to take care of the people around me. and if they feel it’s okay and say go ahead, i think i’ll go. s: do you think your pursuit has changed from your life experience? gu: yes. in the past, i didn’t think much about the meaning of life. but from work experience, life experience, and after reading a lot of books, i have some new visions of the world and of life. and then, going back to my life, i found that my pursuits are constantly changing. s: and what were your previous pursuits? gu: i can’t remember. gu: in the past, my pursuit was to run a big business and make a lot of money. and my pursuit focused more on money. now it’s more of a spiritual pursuit. it’s more about altruism. and in the past, i was just thinking about myself. now it’s more about helping others. s: do you love your job at the moment? gu: i like it. i think my personality since i was a kid is actually shy. i’m not very good at this kind of sales work. in fact, looking back, i would not have thought that i would embark on this road of sales when i was a student in college. then i went into the bank as an account manager, and now i think i like this job more and more. this job allows me to grow. every day i would meet bosses from all walks of life. after talking with them, i would think about why some businesses are successful, why some are not. then i would share these experiences with the staff around me and help them grow together. i would feel very happy when they did well in their performance. frontline work is actually different www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. from administrative positions. i think i will stay in position unless i get old and can’t do it anymore. because only on the front lines can i experience the sense of achievement that i want. for example, the bank has new employees coming in every year, and i find it more meaningful to help them grow up by teaching them through my own experience. it will make me feel fulfilled and happy. gu: but family is the first. the first thing is certainly to solve the problem of family food and clothing. if this job cannot even bring me a good income and i just pursue my own value, i think it is not very reasonable. you know the consumption is very high. i first want to solve the problem of bread, followed by spiritual pursuit. i think i am not that kind of real practitioner. 2.2 liang liang, a male, 25 years old, special operations soldier. he graduated from the military school two years ago, and after graduation, he worked in the special operations force. he is not only my customer but also my friend and student. once, he also consulted me about romantic relationship problems. he learned tarot divination from me, so we gradually became friends. s: what do you think is most important in your life? or what is your pursuit in life? l: i think the most important thing is probably my family. but when you ask me what my pursuit is, i think there are two stages. the first stage is definitely to have a family first and settle down. the second stage is the realization of personal values. the ultimate goal is to serve people and make the world peaceful and better. s: so how are you going to realize the personal values in your daily life? l: i think it’s through work. because i’m currently in the military and will eventually become a regional civil servant. my goal is to serve the people. s: do you think it is possible to go through the two stages at the same time? l: yes. s: what if it’s not possible to do it at the same time? what if your family and your desire to realize the value of your life through your work can’t co-exist, and you have to choose one. which one do you choose? l: i choose the first one. i choose my family. in my understanding, i can only help others if i take care of my own family and live well for myself. s: so by family, you mean including your parents, your partner, and your children, right? l: yes. s: and what do you think led you to your current pursuit? l: i think that people have many attributes in society. we present different identities to different people. the only one thing that allows me to relax is my family. i do not need to pretend in front of my family. s: so would you consider yourself working for your family? l: a large part of it is. s: if your current job doesn’t allow you to realize your life value, but this job can bring you a good salary to support your family, and make your family’s life better, would you choose this job? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. l: i will choose. s: so do you think the most important thing is your family? l: you could say that. s: so can i ask what it is, or what experiences have made you feel that family is most important to you? l: because my mom and dad have always fought since i was young. i lived in an inharmonious family. they fought every day. i didn’t like this atmosphere very much. so i think a harmonious family atmosphere is very important to me. s: i find it interesting that in the same situation, different people will make different choices. some people may make different choices than you. some people may choose not to have a family in the future to avoid the risk of having a family with such a disharmonious atmosphere. because family and marriage may be like a gamble for some people. but in your case, you will choose to go after a family with a harmonious atmosphere. l: i must get married. s: why? l: i can’t go through life without getting married, not so much because of the pressure from my family or from my parents. even if i never get married in my life, my parents probably won’t impose their will on me. but as for me personally, i still have a longing and desire for a good family. because no one is going to be with themselves for the rest of their lives, my parents won’t be with me for the rest of my life, and my best friend won’t be with me for the rest of my life. i sometimes scared of being alone. i need to have the people i love by my side. i didn’t get a harmonious family atmosphere, so i want it now. s: and what kind of future state of life do you most want? l: the most wanted state of life is to have enough money—not too much—and then have the time to accompany the family to go out and travel. then, in daily life, there is no disease or disaster, just plain and simple. having my own family and my own loved ones by my side is my wish. the significance of my life is that there are people who love me and i love, and we have done something for each other. i just want to make this trip through life less lonely and difficult. i think this is the meaning of my life. 3. analysis the analysis is mainly based on the theory of ikigai theory, which uses cultural formulations, social negotiations, and institutional channelings to explore the individual’s meanings of life. in the course of the interviews, i found it interesting that both men eventually came to think of their families as their ikigai, which was unexpected. these two men are familiar friends of mine. gu always talks about his spiritual practice. before the interview, i thought he would consider spiritual practice his ikigai. but what i didn’t expect was that he considered his family his ikigai. and when both of them talked about their ikigai, they both mentioned that they wanted to realize their own self-worth through their work. gu hopes to help other people grow, thus realizing his own value in life. liang also wants to serve the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. public through his work. the idea that both of them want to realize their own self-worth by helping others is strongly related to the cultural background of chinese collectivist society. and the altruism that gu mentions in the interview also contrasts with western individualism, as he believes that chinese society emphasizes the connection between individuals. his statement reflects the influence of china’s collectivist culture on the way he realizes his personal values. liang, who is a soldier and a member of the communist party. he mentions serving the public in his narrative. and this purpose is formally the mission of the communist party of china (cpc). furthermore, i found that both of their jobs enable them to help people, thus realizing the pursuit of helping others realize their own values. from another point of view, their jobs provide them with the opportunity to realize their values. although they mentioned that they wanted to realize their self-worth in life, when i asked them to choose between work and family, both of them made a quick choice to choose family. they mentioned in the interview that only when they take care of their families can they serve others better. this is very much related to traditional chinese culture. there is an old saying in china: to keep the family in order, to cultivate the spirit, to protect the country, and then to peace the whole world. in this old saying, the stability of the family is put first. to some extent, the fact that they prioritize the family is influenced by traditional chinese culture. and in the interview, both of them mentioned that they want to treat their home as a harbor they can rely on, and they believe that a harmonious family atmosphere is crucial. the difference is that gu developed this idea mainly because he witnessed the disharmonious families of people around him. his parents told him from a young age that he should be loyal to his parents and responsible for his family, so he believes that a happy family is important. for liang, he grew up in a family full of fights. so in order to make up for the regrets he suffered during his childhood, he currently desires to have a happy family. both of them are influenced by the people around them in their desire to have a happy family. it is interesting to note that when i asked gu to choose between his spiritual practice and his family, he quickly chose his family. he believed that the support of his family was important to him and that he would not prioritize his spiritual practice if he did not have the support of his family. this also shows the influence of the opinions of the people around him on his ikigai. moreover, gu shows in the interview that his ikigai has changed, and he explains that this is due to his experiences that have led to such a change, such as reading and working. from his changes, we can see that the ikigai is influenced by the culture and the people around him. when he was growing up, the people around him were changing, and the things he experienced were changing. and by reading books, the ideas in the books are also influencing his values. during the interview, i asked liang a question: why didn’t you choose not to get married to avoid the possibility of a disharmonious family? he said that because he had not gotten a happy family before, he wanted it now. i realized that different people may make different choices when faced with similar problems. for example, i have similar childhood experiences with liang, but i would choose not to get married. the reason for such different choices may be attributed to the degree of unhappiness experienced in childhood. perhaps the unhappiness i experienced was deeper www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. than that experienced by liang, which led me to have no expectation of family life while he still has a longing for family life. but i don’t think the degree of unhappiness can be the only reason for the completely different outcomes of the choices. on the other hand, i would put it down to an inherent difference in thinking. perhaps this difference in thinking has something to do with genes or temperament types. for example, in the study of the consumption preferences and consumption decisions of consumers with different temperament types, the researchers found that temperament type affects consumers’ consumption choices (bai & zhang, 2008). this may be the reason why different people have different practices in almost the same situations. in a nutshell, factors like temperament and genetic reasons could also influence one’s ikigai. 4. conclusion this study explores how the meaning of life is more closely linked to reality. in this study, hypothetical questions were raised during the interviews to find out the respondents’ ikigai. both respondents indicated that their ikigai was their family. this analysis applies gorden’s ikigai theory to understand the reasons for the formation of ikigai among the two interviewees in terms of cultural formulations, social negotiations, and institutional channeling. and a new idea has been proposed at the end of the analysis. in addition to the three aspects of gorden’s theory, genetic factors may also influence one’s choice of ikigai. references bai, s. j., & zhang, x. (2008). the consumption preferences study of consumers with different temperament types. developmental study, (6), 148-151. (in chinese) deng, z. m. (2009). religion and mening of life, jinan university journal of humanities and social sciences, 8(1), 27-31. (in chinese) mathews, g. (1996). what makes life worth living?: how do japanese and americans make sense of their worlds? (pp. 49-53). university of california press. joske, w. d. (1974). philosophy and the meaning of life. australasian journal of philosophy, 52(2), 93-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048407412341101 yu, c. y. (2020). shamanic research in the machu sayings. modern communication, 000(016), 119-120. (in chinese) advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper a conceptual research on the relationship between consumer and advertisement of neuromarketing yakup durmaz 1 & ayda bakan 2 1 hasan kalyoncu university, faculty of economics, administrative and social sciences. gaziantep, turkey, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0332-4185 2 hasan kalyoncu university, social sciences institute, gaziantep, turkey, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4161-8937 received: march 09, 2023 accepted: may 23, 2023 online published: june 04, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p1 abstract this article aims to examine neuromarketing and neuromarketing techniques, to reveal the effect of neuromarketing on consumer behavior and advertising. due to today’s increasing competition conditions, manufacturers want to read the minds of consumers to promote their products and achieve brand success. for this reason, it is very important to determine consumer behavior and the factors that trigger the purchase. consumers’ perception of the advertisement and how they remember it is of great importance for marketing and brand success. what consumers say and think about the advertisement may not be consistent in some cases. so how can we identify the factors that cause the brain to buy a particular product? at this point, the importance of neuromarketing in discovering the subconscious thoughts of consumers emerges. neuromarketing is of great importance in making advertising more effective. it can be determined by neurological methods how consumers are affected by which advertisements and which advertisements do not cause a reaction in them. in this context, it is considered necessary to examine neurological methods, the subconscious of consumers, and their relationship. keywords neuromarketing, consumer behavior, branding, neuro techniques, advertising 1. introduction advertising is getting harder and harder these days. many advertisements either fade into oblivion or do not even come to our minds, let alone influence our decisions and choices. the brain constantly and unconsciously collects information and refines this information (dargi, 2013). some information www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. remains in our memory, while others are forgotten. neurological techniques are used to examine how the brain is physiologically affected by marketing strategies and advertisements. neuromarketing is an emerging interdisciplinary field that combines neuroscience and marketing (lee et al., 2007; kushabaa et al., 2013; amir, 2018). it links consumer preferences and decision-making to marketing research (camerer et al., 2004; pirouz, 2007; plassmann et al., 2012). neuromarketing assumes that human brain activity can provide marketers with information that cannot be obtained with traditional marketing research methods (e.g., interviews, srveys, focus groups) (ariely & berns, 2010). this is mainly because people cannot (or do not want to) fully disclose their preferences when asked explicitly; because human behavior can (and is) driven by processes operating below the level of conscious awareness (calvert & brammer, 2012). in such cases, the effectiveness of different marketing strategies can be evaluated by monitoring the brain activity resulting from consumers observing different ads and products (astolfi et al., 2009; ohme et al., 2009). the main goals of neuromarketing research are primarily to detect small changes in commercial stimuli that may prove to have significant effects on marketing effectiveness (ohme et al., 2009). second, it also aims to explain how changes in the depiction or presentation of marketing information affect the way the brain responds (changes in brain signals). it is then assumed to provide information about the preference creation/selection process (kenning & plassmann, 2008). in research on neuromarketing and advertising, the changes in the brain activities of the participants while watching television commercials were examined (custdio, 2010; vecchiato, kong, maglione, & wei, 2012). these studies found that the amount of cortical spectral activity from frontal areas and parietal areas was higher for remembered tv commercials compared with the activity elicited by forgotten tv commercials (ohme et al., 2010; astolfi et al., 2008). alpha band activity in the occipital regions and theta activity in the midline and frontal cortical regions were also observed for well-remembered advertisements (custdio, 2010). costa, rognoni, and galati (2006) investigated patterns of interdependence between different brain regions when volunteers looked at emotional and non-emotional movie stimuli. they concluded that unhappiness constitutes a pattern that includes a large exchange of information between the frontal channels, while happiness involves a wider synchronization between the frontal and occipital regions. these and similar studies reveal the real thoughts of the techniques used in neuromarketing in the brains of consumers. these techniques, which are used to determine the reasons for advertising promotion, brand awareness, and consumer preferences, provide spot-on for manufacturers to make the right moves when competition is taken into account. 2. neuromarketing and techniques used it is known that neuromarketing is a meaningful research technique since the start of neuroscience research. techniques used in neuromarketing research are used to describe decision-making processes that cannot be seen with the naked eye (duque-hurtado et al., 2020). the methods used in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. neuromarketing research are classified as neurological and non-neurological techniques. neurological techniques; fmri (functional magnetic resonance imaging) is a medical procedure used to measure brain activity by detecting the oxygen level in the bloodstream. when a brain region is more active, it needs more oxygen. (kulich et al., 2009) eeg (electroencephalography) measures and records the electrical activity of the brain (ohme et al., 2009), meg (magnetoencephalography) provides information about brain activity using a magnetic field. it is a direct measurement of brain activity as opposed to functional measurements such as fmri. it has a high temporal and spatial resolution. pet (positron emission tomography) has tremendous flexibility in interrogating biological processes using a range of target studies including radiolabeled small molecules, peptides, antibodies, and cells. pet allows for quantitative imaging of relatively low abundance targets other than the introduction of mass effects with extremely high sensitivity (shukla et al., 2006), sst (stable state topography) or tms (transcranial magnetic stimulation) measures and records brain activity. its high temporal resolution makes it possible to use sst in neuromarketing tests related to tv commercials. non-neurological techniques; can be listed as heart rate and respiration rate, galvanic skin (skin) response, eye tracking, face, body, and voice tracking (racine et al., 2005). 3. neuromarketing and consumer relationship neuromarketing focuses on the subconscious of consumers. subconscious emotions, thoughts, and desires can be detected through brain scanning tests used in neuromarketing (tüzel, 2010). researchers can use advertisements, images, logos, etc. related to the topics they are researching. after showing them to the subjects, they monitor the activities in their brains and measure how they respond to them. thus, it is determined what the consumers who are constantly exposed to product advertisements are affected by (hart, 2009). the famous pepsi-coca cola experiment conducted by baylor college of medicine to reveal the subconscious preferences of consumers is the best example of this. many types of research in the field of advertising and marketing reveal that consumer choices are made emotionally, not rationally (murphy et al., 2008). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. figure 1. model of human brain (maclean, 1982) for neuromarketing to be effective on consumers, advertisers must first target the sensory brain, then the primitive brain. in this case, attention channels are opened and information is transmitted to the rational brain. it is assumed by researchers that non-verbal, holistic, and pictorial images are stored and processed by the right side of the brain (kumar, 2015). 4. neuromarketing and advertising the research that made neuromarketing an interest is a study done by scientists to reveal the motivation behind brand preferences. this work is the famous coca-cola-pepsi experiment. the aim of the research was primarily to reveal why consumers prefer one over the other even though they are essentially the same. then they tried to understand how cultural messages affect our perception of products. the experiment was simple: there were two taste tests—one blind and one where subjects knew which drink was which—and the researchers observed the corresponding brain activity. while the volunteers were unaware of which brand they were drinking, fmri showed activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a key “reward center” when they drank pepsi. however, once the subjects knew which soda was which, the scans showed brain activity in favor of cola in the hippocampus, midbrain, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (which are the memory and emotion centers). in other words, people liked the taste of peps but believed that they preferred coca-cola based on nostalgia and emotional connections. from these results, researchers revealed that “coke preference is more influenced by brand image than taste,” according to bridgerd, lewis d (brit, 2001, 2004). the result of this experiment, on the one hand, looks interesting and amusing, on the other hand, it is alarming. it’s frustrating, to say the least when ads can cause your brain to believe something that contradicts what the rest of your body believes. for this reason, there are many critical approaches to the subject of neuromarketing (freeman, 2009). according to the forbes article, finding the “buy button in the skull” and testing products, packaging, and ads for their ability to activate it assumes an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. inexplicable purpose (james, 2004). researchers have discovered which part of the brain facilitates product recognition and selection of primitive impulses such as power, nutrition, and sex. when it comes to brand loyalty, they found that memory and emotion play a very important role. “in the not-too-distant future, companies will be able to tell with certainty whether an advertising campaign or product redesign is triggering brain activity and the neurochemical release associated with memory and action,” says james bailey, professor of organizational behavior at george washington university. 5. conclusion according to vicky phan, “neuromarketing is an emerging branch of neuroscience in which researchers use medical technology to determine consumer responses to specific brands, slogans, and advertisements. by observing brain activity, researchers in lab coats can predict more accurately than you can whether you prefer pepsi or coke. critics have already denounced neuromarketing research for finding it manipulative; however, while the field is already highly controversial, there are views that its continued development will ultimately have a profound impact on the study of consumerism and general human behavior. neuromarketing is a new field. while some work has been done in the last 10 years, only a small number of experiments have proven its ability to meet the needs of both researchers and companies. ethics is sometimes questioned, as the neurological techniques used in neuromarketing are directly related to observing the functions of the human brain and a strong interference with privacy. there is little evidence that traditional methods of measuring the effectiveness of advertisements are profoundly useful. experimenting by applying neuromarketing is very expensive and will be a deterrent for those who want to explore the field shortly. it has also been observed that participation in collaboration with various currents such as psychology, neurology, and marketing is necessary to study this field. another concern has been regarding the possible side effects of such procedures when experiments are conducted in the absence of medically approved authorities. despite the possible negative effects of neuromarketing tried to be explained above, it will be an indispensable method that marketing managers and advertisers will use to develop accurate and effective advertisements in the near future. neuromarketing minimizes the margin of error in the creation of advertising content by shedding light directly on what goes through the minds of consumers. in addition, it is thought that there will be a decrease in the cost of neurological tools with developing technologies. references ariely, d., & berns, g. s. (2010). neuromarketing: the hope and hype of neuroimaging in business. nature reviews neuroscience, 11, 284-292. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2795 astolfi, l., fallani, f. d. v., cincotti, f., mattia, d., bianchi, l., marciani, m. g., et al. (2008). neural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. basis for brain responses to tv commercials: a high-resolution eeg study. ieee transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, 27(6), 522-531. https://doi.org/10.1109/tnsre.2008.2009784 astolfi, l., vico fallani, f. d., cincotti, f., mattia, d., bianchi, l., marciani, m. g., et al. (2009). brain activity during the memorization of visual scenes from tv commercials: an application of high resolution eeg and steady state somatosensory evoked potentials technologies. journal of physiology-paris, 103(6), 333-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2009.07.002 babu, s. s., & vidyasagar, t. p. 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(2012). understanding the impact of tv commercials. ieee pulse magazine, 3(3), 42-47. https://doi.org/10.1109/mpul.2012.2189171 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.095 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 144 original paper the re-socialization path of the community elderly from the perspective of active aging: take community b as an example zhenhai yang1*, heng lei1 &yizhe jiang1 1 department of sociology, central university of finance and economics, beijing, china * zhenhai yang, affiliation, department of sociology, central university of finance and economics, beijing, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 13, 2024 online published: june 25, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p144 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p144 abstract the 20th report pointed out that “implement the national strategy of actively responding to the aging of the population, develop the pension cause and industry, optimize the services for the elderly, and promote the realization of all the elderly enjoy the basic pension services”. it is estimated that during the 14th five-year plan period, china’s population will enter a moderate stage of aging. in the current situation of the population aging trend, in addition to the establishment of relevant institutional guarantees for the elderly, we should also promote the social participation of the elderly and promote the re-socialization of the elderly. community is the basic unit of social organizations and social population gathering. with the functions of socialization, psychological support, social participation and mutual assistance, it is an important field for the re-socialization of the elderly. community social work is based on the community, through the use of relevant resources, mobilize the community strength, promote the social participation of the elderly in the form of community activities and volunteer services of the elderly. based on the theory of active aging and re-socialization, this study conducted a questionnaire survey and in-depth interview on the b community in lanzhou to understand the re-socialization level and re-socialization dilemma of the elderly in community b. on the basis of the analysis of relevant data, from the three dimensions of “participation”, “health” and “guarantee”, the beneficial measures of the community in promoting the re-socialization of the elderly are summarized, and targeted suggestions are put forward. keywords active aging, the elderly resocialization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 145 1. introduction according to the 2021 national bulletin on the development of aging, china has 267.36 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 18.9 percent of the total population. according to the change of demographic structure, china is about to move from mild aging to moderate aging, which also puts forward new requirements for the national pension undertakings and pension security. the 20th report pointed out that we will implement the national strategy of actively responding to the aging of the population, develop the elderly service industry and industry, optimize services for the elderly, and promote the realization of all elderly people to enjoy basic old-age services. developing the pension industry, promoting the social participation of the elderly and promoting the re-socialization of the elderly are important measures to deal with the trend of aging. in 1999, the world health organization formally proposed the concept of “active aging”, which means to improve the quality of life of the elderly through the efforts of the government and the society. in 2002, china officially adopted the concept of active aging, and defined it as the process in which people can improve the quality of life and maximize the opportunities of health, participation and security. promoting the re-socialization of the elderly, enhancing the social participation of the elderly and advocating active aging are important measures in the process of coping with the aging trend in china. based on the huge aging population in china, the author believes that under the positive aging trend, it is particularly necessary to explore how to promote the re-socialization of the elderly in the community field. the author has carried out two months of in-depth research and internship in lanzhou b community. it is understood that community b complies with the concept of active aging, and promotes the re-socialization of the elderly through a series of measures such as the community level and the service level. by incubating voluntary organizations for the elderly and establishing voluntary service platforms for the elderly, the social workers cultivate the independent consciousness and ability of the elderly in the community, drive the elderly in the community to participate in community governance and promote the construction of the community. therefore, on the basis of in-depth interviews and questionnaires, this study explored and summarized the beneficial initiatives and experiences of promoting active aging in community b, and made relevant suggestions accordingly. 2. introduction to active aging and re-socialization 2.1 active aging active aging was first proposed by western society. after decades of development and spread, it has become one of the important strategies to deal with the problems of aging society. after the second industrial revolution, with the rapid progress and development of western economy, some developed countries in europe entered the aging society, followed by a series of social problems. china entered the aging society later than in western countries, and in the theoretical research of the elderly, it started later than in the west. at the end of the last century, the concept of active aging was first proposed in the seven summit of denver. the concept of active aging holds that the elderly still have value and can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 146 create value for the society. the world health organization launched the global campaign for active aging in 1999, and, in 2002, proposed the action initiative for active aging at the conference on world aging. thus, active aging began and attracted wide attention around the world. in recent years, with the deepening of the aging trend in china, the term active aging has appeared many times in china’s policies and regulations, and the research on active aging has been deepened. in 2006, the decision of the cpc central committee and the state council on strengthening the national population and family planning work proposed for the first time to actively respond to the aging population, and china should explore a new old-age service system based on rural and urban areas. in 2019, the national plan for actively responding to the aging of the population made arrangements for the aging of the population in the new era. the plan pointed out that china should take a problem-oriented approach and actively respond to the aging of the population. academic studies on active aging are mainly as follows. song weifang pointed out that we should be optimistic on the aging issue; liu wen stressed that the active aging theory is both an international strategy, but also the inevitable choice for china to deal with the aging problem. scholars such as xue weiling, cui shuyi and zhang bo believe that active aging has played a key role in driving the development of the elderly care service industry and the intelligent elderly care industry. 2.2 re-socialization socialization refers to the process of having internalized and continuously learning social values. sociology divides the process of individual socialization into several stages, such as primary socialization and re-socialization. re-socialization mainly refers to further adapting to the requirements and regulations of the society by changing or giving up the value standards, behavior norms and life style that individuals have previously learned. re-socialization is divided into two types, one is active re-socialization, and the other is forced re-socialization. the re-socialization of the elderly mainly refers to the process in which the elderly people learn new ideas and accept new things after changing from “social people” to “community people” in order to adapt to the changing social environment in the new stage of life. this process is biased towards active re-socialization. psychologist havigst (havigster) pointed out that the socialization of individuals is a lifelong process. he believed that the socialization of old age includes six aspects: adaptation to physical strength and health decline; the ability to adapt to the death of a spouse; those of their age establish a happy and close relationship: the social obligations to citizens; and reduce the requirements of material life. re-socialization of the elderly refers to that due to the changing social environment of the elderly in this stage, the original social roles need to adapt to the society. in this process, the elderly gradually accept new social roles and learn new social concepts. sorkin and other scholars believe that the participation motivation of the elderly affects their willingness to participate in volunteer service activities, while the participation motivation is mainly for the elderly to expand and establish their social network by participating in social activities, which can improve physical and mental health, reduce loneliness, reduce and prevent the occurrence of depression. zhang xiaoli, zhao yang and yang lin classify re-socialization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 147 according to their behavioral characteristics, one is active re-socialization, the second is passive re-socialization. passive re-socialization mainly refers to the socialization of individuals who fail in the process of basic socialization, and are forced to reorganize in order to further adapt to the changes and requirements of the society. passive re-socialization is mostly applied to people who have had bad behavior, and there is some mandatory nature in the specific implementation process. active re-socialization can also be considered as continued socialization, which refers to the individual actively adapting to social development and change and further learning on the basis of existing values and behavior patterns. 3. research methods 3.1 questionnaire survey method during the preliminary investigation, the author had a certain understanding of the basic situation of the b community and the characteristics of the elderly, and designed a professional questionnaire based on the theoretical basis and the problems to explore. during the subsequent visit and investigation, the author randomly distributed questionnaires under the guidance of the community staff, and investigated the understanding of active aging of the elderly. 3.2 interview method since the main subjects of this study were older adults, considering their communication skills and style,unstructured interviews were used in this study. during the volunteer service activities of the elderly, the author interviewed 10 elderly volunteers to understand the basic situation of their re-socialization. 4. results analysis this study included the community b. community b is located in lanzhou, with 59 communities within the jurisdiction. the total number of elderly population is 2468, among which the total number of elderly population (80-100) is 209 people, 337 people from 80 to 90 people, and 61 people aged 90-99 years old. table 1. questionnaire investigated gender distribution frequency valid percent man 24 44 woman 31 56 total 55 100.0 as can be seen from table 1, in the gender structure, 24 males, or about 44%, and 31 females, or 56%. according to the relevant information provided by community b, more elderly volunteers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 148 4.1 b analysis of the resocial situation and needs of the elderly in the community in order to understand the social situation of the elderly in community b, 60 questionnaires were randomly distributed among the elderly in community b, and 55 were effectively recovered, with an effective recovery rate of 91.7%. statistical analysis of the questionnaires was conducted, and the research conclusions were obtained. in addition, this study used semi-structured interviews, with in-depth interviews with 6 typical subjects (including 2 volunteer service team members) and 5 volunteer service teams in the questionnaire survey. figure 1. b popularization degree of the active aging concept in the community as can be seen from figure 1,4 of the elderly in community b know the concept of active aging, accounting for about 7%; 28, heard but 50%, 50%, 8,14%; 15,14%. it can be seen that most elderly people know the concept of active aging, and 21% of them have a deep understanding of it. b community social workers will consciously publicize and popularize the concept of active aging when carrying out daily activities. for example, publicize the concept of active aging and its benefits in the group activity of “accompany peers-enjoy life”, call on everyone to actively participate in community life, and gradually change the original concept in community life. table 2. support foractive aging frequency valid percent support 34 62 nonsupport 5 9 cannot be designated as 16 29 total 55 100.0 according to table 2, 62% of the elderly support positive aging, only 9% oppose it, and the remaining 29% remain neutral. some of the elderly disagree for reasons: family opposition, not wanting to mess around; fear of being cheated. in addition, in the question 10 of the questionnaire, “have you participated in the activities of community organizations”, 78% of the elderly have participated in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 149 activities of community organizations, indicating that the elderly have strong willingness and enthusiasm to participate in the activities at the community level. table 3. frequency of elderly participation in community activities frequency valid percent often go to 8 15 once in a while 14 25 hardly 23 41 never go 10 19 total 55 100.0 in question 10,78% of them have participated in community activities. 13, “if there are subsequent community activities, are you willing to try”, more than 80% of the elderly are willing to continue to participate. however, according to question 11, only 15% of the elderly often participate in community activities, so the elderly show “high willingness and low participation” in community activities. figure 2. purpose of participating in community volunteer activities as can be seen from figure 2, most elderly people believe that participating in the activities of community organizations has certain benefits.after entering the old age, the elderly have much more disposable time. according to the questionnaire statistics, most of the elderly want to participate in community activities to meet the needs of increasing their knowledge, expanding their social circle and satisfying their interests and hobbies. in the questionnaire survey, this study found that most of the elderly to understand the concept of socialization there is a larger deviation, after the social work professionals explain, most of the elderly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 150 understand oneself is in the social stage, can through continuous participation and learning, slowly find suitable for their old way of life. in addition to participating in community volunteer service and other activities, the re-socialization of the elderly in community b include: attending universities for the elderly, learning courses such as using mobile phones, reemployment, reemployment, returning to units, etc. as can be seen from the above table, most of the elderly have the willingness to participate in the society, but in order to break through the current situation of “high willingness and low participation”, the community needs to continue to make efforts to build a way and peace platform to attract, encourage and maintain the participation of the elderly. 4.2 b community explore the path to promote the re-socialization of the elderly 4.2.1 the “health” level is to ensure the re-socialization of the elderly the health status of the elderly greatly affects the social participation status and resocialization of the elderly. health status consists of both mental health status and physical health status. physical health status has a greater impact on the participation willingness and persistence of the elderly. those with better physical condition prefer more social participation, while less participation or even no participation. in terms of mental health, the less depressed the elderly are, the more likely they tend to participate in social activities. a. link resources and multi-party cooperation to protect "health" the community and social work organizations actively link resources, and have reached cooperation with the municipal people’s hospital and the community health service center free consultation team, to carry out regular free consultation activities for the elderly in the community. for the elderly living alone and the elderly, the community provides door-to-door service on the basis of early screening, basically realizing no dead corners and full coverage, and truly achieving personalized service. for the disabled elderly, a “one-to-one” assistance plan has been formulated to link the resources of the disabled persons’ federation, apply for home renovation for the elderly with mobility difficulties, and carry out follow-up sympathy and counseling. in addition, the community mobilized philanthropists and merchants in the region to make donations to further improve the infrastructure of the community, so that the living environment of the elderly is more comfortable and suitable for aging. in the future, the community will focus on the development of elderly caregivers, and bring experienced doctors, nurses and caring people into the team. through low-cost semi-public service, the elderly can not only enjoy peace of mind at home, but also help professionals to explore and find potential health risks and timely treatment. b. focus on the mental health of the elderly according to erickson’s stage of personality development, the elderly stage is in late adulthood, characterized by a conflict between self-integration and despair. when some of the elderly recall the past, they are very easy to feel the mood of frustration, and further produce depression and despair, so it is particularly important to pay attention to the mental health of the elderly.b in the daily visits and activities, the community staff should timely find and report the elderly people who may have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 151 psychological problems, link relevant resources and make active intervention. in addition, the community often holds mental health lectures and leads the elderly to do some activities to help the elderly to conduct better self-regulation. through group activities, the elderly can talk about their later life and review their life course. in the process of sharing, they can enhance their confidence and convey positive emotional value. 4.2.2 “participation” level to attract the elderly to re-socialize the hierarchy of needs theory holds that people have the needs of social interaction, respect and self-actualization. after retirement, the original social circle shrinks, especially those whose children are not around or follow their children to the new environment, they are more likely to feel lonely. by participating in community activities and volunteer services, the elderly can effectively expand the social network; through self-dedication and participation, they can improve the sense of self-worth and avoid self-despair. a. publicity and popularization of the concept of active aging the concept of active aging plays a vital role in the social participation of the elderly. with the popularity of the internet, many media, including we-media and short video platforms, have become important channels for the elderly to receive information. as the field and main force to promote active aging, community b uses new media resources to actively publicize the concept of active aging, and produces and publishes relevant videos and articles about active aging on the community platform. in addition, community b carried out relevant theme activities, such as “reading a book with the community”, “good festival lantern festival”, “community friendship and mutual assistance”, “red spirit propaganda”, to publicize the thought of active aging, and subtly changed the elderly’s views on aging. b. community building of a volunteer service platform for the elderly b community integrates departments, business districts, enterprises, universities and other resources, with social organizations as the carrier and social work talents as the support, and builds an incubation platform and volunteer platform. b community through incubation community social organizations, to help its growth and independent operation, such as “the people urban management” community governance project, by launching the elderly to participate in community governance, for the environment of the block, patrol the surrounding security, makes, business face greatly improved, the elderly in the process also harvest a lot. b community by building volunteer platform, absorb volunteers registered, and establish volunteer parameter and scheduling center, such as in the “silver housekeeper” project, b community by organization and launch a young elderly volunteers, neighborhood assistance, for action not convenient old man provides great convenience, the young people also harvest the satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 152 4.2.3 the “security” level helps the elderly to socialize a. enrich the talent team and streamline the work process community b calls on more professional social workers and elderly care service workers to join in. by enriching professional talents, it can provide more accurate services for the elderly in the community. in addition, through the establishment of wechat small program, community b enables residents to consult related businesses without leaving home and streamline work procedures, which greatly improves the efficiency of community services. b. establish a long-term incentive mechanism and exchange points community b plans to implement the “resident service plan” for volunteers. through the volunteer service platform, residents who actively participate in grassroots governance and volunteer service will accumulate points and exchange relevant rewards, so as to mobilize the enthusiasm of residents to participate in community service. volunteers accumulate points and exchange for volunteer service in exchange for rewards. if the points reach a certain value, the community will issue “excellent volunteers” medals and install them at their doorstep. this incentive method not only affirms the time and energy paid by the volunteers, but also improves the flexibility and sustainability of volunteer service. 5. discussion at present, the aging trend in china is accelerating. the state has liberalized the two-child policy and the three-child policy to encourage residents to have more children. in view of a series of social problems brought by the aging trend, the research focus should start on the elderly group itself and apply the appropriate medicine. active aging is an important thought to deal with the aging problem, which has been mentioned many times in china. as an important carrier of the elderly activities of the elderly, the community should promote the idea of active aging and actively carry out community volunteer service activities to promote the social participation of the elderly. in addition, the community should maintain an open mind and attitude, actively learn advanced experience and develop measures in accordance with local conditions; and the whole society should change the understanding of the elderly and old age, face and recognize the benefits of the elderly group.the shortcomings of this study is that the author only carried out the experience summary of active aging path exploration for community b, and the lack of comparison for other communities in different regions and provinces, so the research conclusions lack certain generalability. reference chen, x. l. (2019). in research on the resocialization of elderly volunteers in urban communities (vol. 02). qinghai normal university. cheng, y., huang, r. l., & yang, c. (2022). take jiangsu province as an example. population and health, 2022(12), 27-30. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 153 han, m., & sun, k. x. (2022). digital emotional labor: resocialization of the silver hair group. young reporter, 2022(06), 59-61. ji, y. f. (2022). heilongjiang university, 2022(12). kaye, l. w., butler, s. s., & webster, n. m. (2003). toward a productive ageing paradigm for geriatric practice. ageing international, 2003(28), 200-213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-003-1024-6 mr wang, x. f., & liu, h. w. (2023). the chinese model of population aging. journal of demographic studies, 2023(01), 11-15. peng, h. m., & yang, x. h. (2022). introduction to sociology (pp. 103-104). beijing: hualing press. taina, r., katja, p., milla, s. et al. (2019). individualized counseling for active aging：protocol of a single-blinded,randomized controlled trial among older people (the agnes intervention study). bmc geriatrics, 2019(05), l-4. wang, l. w. (2022). practical research on social participation in the elderly from the perspective of active aging (vol. 11). heilongjiang university. wang, q. c., he, d., zhang, x. y., & zhang, l. (2021). the centennial thought of population of the communist party of china: review, summary and outlook. population research, 2021(05), 10-21. xu, c. (2021). current situation of population aging in china. rural health service management in china, 2021(11), 823. yu, y. y. (2019). research on the practice path of social participation of the elderly under the background of active aging (vol 06). shanghai university of engineering technology. zhou, y., & j. y. (2022). research on the promotion of the re-socialization of the urban elderly in china from the perspective of active aging (vol. 01). east china normal university. zhenhai yang1*, heng lei1 & yizhe jiang1 1 department of sociology, central university of f * zhenhai yang, affiliation, department of sociolo abstract the 20th report pointed out that “implement the na keywords active aging, the elderly resocialization 1. introduction 2. introduction to active aging and re-socializati 3. research methods 4. results analysis 5. discussion reference advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 133 original paper tapping and cultivating the main force of rural ecological environment governance huiwen liu1 1 xi’an fanyi university, college of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: june 22, 2023 accepted: august 14, 2023 online published: august 30, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p133 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p133 abstract the third plenary session of the twentieth central identified the advancement of integrated urban and rural development as a crucial aspect of chinese-style modernization. the session underscored the importance of refining the institutional framework for integrated urban and rural development as a viable strategy for addressing the challenges faced by agriculture and rural areas, and for fostering the growth of a robust agricultural sector. the revitalization of the countryside is essential for the overall strength and prosperity of the nation. when the countryside flourishes, the nation benefits, and vice versa. to revive the nation, it is imperative to prioritize the revitalization of the countryside. general secretary underscored the importance of this point, stating: "agriculture is a fundamental sector of the economy, and the process of modernization in china is inextricably linked to the advancement of the agricultural industry. "to revitalize agriculture, it is essential to integrate scientific and technological advancement." the primary challenges currently facing china's rural ecological environment governance can be broadly classified into three categories: the need to clarify the role of rural ecological environment governance for townspeople, the necessity to cultivate townspeople's enthusiasm for participating in rural affairs, and the importance of identifying a driving force to facilitate this participation. the second issue pertains to the "technology to the countryside" initiative, which has resulted in an increased degree of specialization and a dearth of farmers' own professional knowledge and skills. this contradiction has led to the current state of rural technology construction in the countryside. secondly, the discrepancy between the heightened specialization of "technology to the countryside" and the dearth of professional expertise among farmers has resulted in a stagnant trajectory in the development and implementation of technology in rural areas. it is imperative to disseminate scientific ecological concepts and accurate technical methods to these grassroots "elites," so that an increasing number of "elites" can master the requisite knowledge and technology. by encouraging the participation of ordinary villagers in neighboring areas, the primary force of rural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 134 ecological governance will gradually be released and activated, forming a consistent stream of endogenous power that will significantly advance the realization of rural ecological revitalization. keywords villages, governance, revitalization the third plenary session of the 20th central committee recently considered and adopted the decision on further comprehensive deepening reform and promoting chinese modernization. this document identified the necessity for further reform and modernization in order to facilitate china's continued development. the integration of urban and rural areas is an indispensable aspect of china's modernization process. the establishment of an effective institutional framework for urban-rural integration represents a viable strategy for addressing the limitations of the agricultural sector and fostering the development of a robust agricultural economy. presently, china's environmental development continues to experience profound and complex changes. the challenges associated with the domestic emphasis on china's unbalanced and inadequate development remain prominent, and the advancement of ecological environmental protection is a significant undertaking. the issue of unbalanced and inadequate development is not solely evident in material production and living standards. despite china's vast expanse, the majority of its ecological resources are concentrated to the west of the aigun-tengchong line. conversely, the majority of human activity and development occur to the east of this line. over the past four decades, the rapid development of china has resulted in the emergence of significant ecological and environmental challenges, which have become a significant impediment to further advancement. the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization has resulted in a constant search for new development space by both industrial and financial capital within the city. in parallel, the countryside has emerged as a favored destination for capital. due to the backwardness and lack of ecological and environmental protection concepts in the countryside, the irrational use of ecological resources, the development of social enterprises for profit, coupled with the reality that ecological and environmental governance compared to urban areas have been ignored, a number of ecological and environmental governance of the countryside instead of becoming a weak link, become a shackle on the road to rural revitalization. the primary actors in rural ecological environmental governance are still the villagers. it is therefore essential to identify ways of stimulating the enthusiasm of the villagers to participate in rural affairs. in order to do so, it is necessary to ascertain the driving force of the villagers, which must also be found in the masses. the lack of effective endogenous impetus for villagers' self-governance can be attributed to various factors, including the backwardness of rural ecological concepts, the weak rural ecological awareness, and the inability of technology to effectively address the challenges faced by rural communities. once a theory or technology can be grasped by the masses, its potential is limitless. first and foremost, in the context of contemporary rural ecological governance, it is imperative to adopt a deliberate training approach that caters to the specific needs of townspeople, who are known for their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 135 adaptability, assertiveness, and appeal to grassroots organizations. this approach aims to cultivate these townspeople into "grassroots elites," individuals who possess not only the capacity to think critically but also the ability to act effectively at the grassroots level. educating them in ecological concepts and cultivating their technical application skills will result in these "grassroots elites" demonstrating greater enthusiasm for participating in rural affairs. furthermore, as the "grassroots elites" originate from the general population, they can be seamlessly integrated into the broader community. leveraging their own influence, they can gradually disseminate democratic and ecological awareness throughout rural areas, inspiring the majority of the population to engage in rural affairs with enthusiasm. it is essential to cultivate and establish a grassroots elite team comprising individuals from the local community. this will facilitate the villagers' understanding of the intrinsic link between the management of rural ecological environments and their own developmental interests. this, in turn, will effectively stimulate the villagers' participation in the governance of their own affairs. secondly, the discrepancy between the increasing specialization of "technology to the countryside" and the dearth of farmers' own professional knowledge and skills has resulted in the grassroots government and grassroots organizations adopting an elite approach to the diffusion and application of emerging technologies. furthermore, the monopoly of technological talents in the countryside has led to a situation where the elites have exclusive control over the deployment of these technologies, which has in turn made the application of technologies increasingly complex. the concentration of technological expertise in rural areas has led to the formation of a monopoly by elite groups over emerging technologies in these areas. this has resulted in a lack of effective governance due to the inability of these technologies to be grasped by the masses, thereby preventing the formation of an effective governing force. the mass line has a high implementation threshold, and the elite line is susceptible to becoming detached from local reality. therefore, the most effective approach is to combine the two in a harmonious and organic manner. "grassroots elites" can be the initial adopters of new technology and skills, thereby assuming a pioneering role. these grassroots elites possess a profound sense of identity with the local ecological environment and a relatively extensive local practical experience. this enables them to effectively stimulate the local villagers' ecological governance identity and participation, fostering a sense of governance enthusiasm. ultimately, the mobilization and nurturing of the primary forces driving rural ecological governance can facilitate the development of a pluralistic co-governance model for rural ecological governance. the traditional governance structure employs a government-led unitary governance model for rural ecological environmental governance. this model faces a series of challenges, including a lack of effective supervision, limited governance inputs, and low governance efficiency. additionally, it has been observed that the grass-roots government's fulfillment of responsibility and the efficacy of their governance in terms of effecting change for the better of the ecological environment are also lacking. it is thus evident that replacing the traditional one-dimensional governance model with a shared governance model involving multiple subjects can effectively alter the current governance pattern of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 136 the grassroots government, which is currently led by a single individual. "grassroots elites play a pivotal role in the establishment of a pluralistic governance structure. they can effectively stimulate local villagers' engagement in governance through their personal networks and provide more comprehensive and objective counsel on the local grassroots government's governance strategy, assisting the grassroots government in formulating a more evidence-based strategy, which is crucial for the two-way virtuous relationship between grassroots organizations and the grassroots government. this is of great consequence for the establishment of a two-way positive interaction between grassroots organizations and the local government. in the context of the urban-rural dichotomy that has emerged in the new era, the effective governance of rural ecological environments hinges on a significant influx of resources. this includes the deployment of simple and mechanical technologies in rural areas and the migration of talents to these regions. however, these strategies have not succeeded in fostering the enthusiasm of rural communities to engage in grassroots initiatives and align themselves with the principles of governance. this is evident in the observations made by fei xiaotong in his seminal work, "vernacular china." despite the introduction of these external elements, the grassroots population has remained largely detached from the concept of ecological governance. the conscious cultivation of grassroots elites represents a potential solution to this problem. it is necessary to disseminate scientific ecological concepts and appropriate technical methods to the grassroots level, where they can be absorbed by the grassroots elites. as more and more grassroots elites gain this knowledge and expertise, they can then disseminate it to their neighbors, thereby gradually establishing a grassroots-led approach to rural ecological governance. as more and more grassroots elites master the knowledge and techniques and as ordinary villagers in surrounding areas are encouraged to participate, the main force of rural ecological governance will gradually be released and activated. this will result in a steady stream of endogenous forces, which will significantly contribute to the realization of the ecological revitalization of villages. reference study and implement the spirit of the third plenary session of the 20th cpc central committee. (2024). people's political consultative conference newspaper, 2024-08-03(003). li, y. x., yang, x. t., & mao, s. l. (2024). embedded unification: the practical logic of optimizing rural governance structure by cadres in the countryside in the new era. journal of public administration, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.16149/j.cnki.23-1523.20240823.001. literature research office of the central committee of the communist party of china. selected important literature since the 18th national congress. (vol 658). (2014). beijing: central literature press. zeng, y. n. (2019). research on on the revitalization of the old northeastern industrial base and the reform of state-owned enterprises. shanghai economic research, 375(12), 25-32. opinions of the cpc central committee and state council on the implementation of rural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 137 revitalization strategy. (2018). people's daily, 02-05(001) yan, h. y. (2017). research on the promoting role of college students' rural employment and entrepreneurship on agricultural modernization and its realization path. agricultural economy, 2017(11): 111-113. wang, c. g. (2021). towards common wealth: sociological reflections on the practical actions and paths of agricultural and rural modernization. sociological research, 36(02), 29-45+226. guo, y. z., & liu, y. s. (2021). rural development process and rural revitalization path in china. journal of geography, 76(06), 1408-1421. wang. l. (2022). party building empowers peasants and rural areas to be rich together: core meaning, endogenous logic and practical strategy. gansu social science, 1. gansu social science. (2022). 260(05), 10-17. zhao, c. j. (2018). review and prospect of agricultural information technology development in china. journal of agronomy, 2018(1), 172-178. microsoft word assc-v4n2-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper prospects electronic-relationship marketing (e-rm) in the banking sector of bangladesh dr. gopal chandra saha¹*, dr. shameem a.² & mahadi m. faisal³ ¹ associate professor, department of business administration, ranada prasad shaha university, narayanganj, bangladesh ² ex. assistant professor, department of business administration, the people’s university of bangladesh, dhaka, bangladesh ³ deputy commissioner of taxes, national board of revenue, dhaka, bangladesh * dr. gopal chandra saha, associate professor, department of business administration, ranada prasad shaha university, narayanganj, bangladesh received: march 6, 2022 accepted: march 20, 2022 online published: march 25, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p1 abstract electronic-relationship marketing (e-rm) is an emerging marketing strategy in the banking sector of bangladesh. for the last few years, rm and e-rm have attracted both customers and bankers as it is considered as a new ‘strategic weapon’ for maintaining proper relationships with the client. in the study, quantitative as well as qualitative data was gathered by taking personal interviews among 600 respondents, and the response rate was 100%. empirical tests using factor analysis and tests of hypothesis using sem were applied. an extensive analysis of the data enabled the researcher to formulate an e-rm model for the banking industry in bangladesh to conceptualize the customer-banker relationship. it contributes to the existing body of banking and marketing literature by introducing ten factors: commitment, conflict management, responsiveness, ease of use, customization, service expense, security, communication, bonding, and trust. most of the variables except three showed a significant and positive relationship between e-rm dimensions and customer satisfaction. the impact of customer loyalty on customer retention is also positive. the study suggests some recommendations in order to increase the effectiveness between e-rm dimensions and customer satisfaction. finally, the thesis ends by setting out an agenda for future research. keywords relationship marketing, electronic relationship marketing, banking sector, customer satisfaction, prospects www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction customer satisfaction is crucial for the banking industry, which is mostly based on relationship marketing (rm). nowadays, the implementation of rm has become possible through the assistance of technology, especially the internet, computers, and information technology. any service delivered by electronic means, such as the internet, cell phones, or websites, is referred to as an e-service (luran & lin, 2003). there are various e-services in bangladesh, i.e., e-banking, e-education, e-health, e-shopping, and other e-business, etc. relationship marketing was first introduced in american literature (berry, 1983). he emphasized five rm strategies: (1) developing a core service, (2) tailoring relationships to specific customers, (3) examining the core service to see if there are any extra benefits, (4) reasonable pricing to foster customer loyalty, and (5) employee marketing is essential so that employees can provide excellent service to customers. relationships with the customer can be achieved through mutual exchange and promise fulfillment. customer satisfaction is important in any business because a satisfied customer never switches to competitors; if they do, it is for another reason. to acquire new customer, huge cost is require so that existing customer have to be kept to boost the profit (gronroos, 1996). the value of rm in the banking sector to satisfy and maintain customers cannot be overstated because best practice shows that client satisfaction and retention have a direct impact on profitability. according to (payne & richard, 1993), a 5% increase in customer retention rate results in a profit increase of 25% to 80% in the american industry. satisfaction is the difference between customer expectation (e) and perception of performance (kanning & bergman, 2009). the study is conducted in the bangladesh banking sector from different perspectives. e-rm refers to the use of mobile and internet technologies to strengthen consumer relationships and sell products or services in any form of electronic industry. the study is conducted in the banking sector of bangladesh from different perspectives. in comparisions to the total number of account holders and their capabilities, the number of e-banking users is very small. existing infrastructural support is enough for them for this purpose. the banking authorities’ responsibility is to create awareness among customers of the bank through publicity, mentioning e-marketing benefits. therefore, considering the above information, it is worthwhile to implement e-rm in the context of the bangladesh banking industry to gain the benefit of this latest concept in relationship marketing. for the development of marketing performance, a new strategy has emerged, i.e., e-relationship marketing. e-rm refers to marketing practices, tools, and strategies that can be used to create and strengthen consumer relationships through the use of internet networks (lee-kelly et al., 2003). bangladesh is currently at the inception level of this strategy implementation. the traditional rm approach has been replaced by the e-rm strategy to make the banking customer more satisfied. the specific objectives of the study are: (1) to identify the impact of e-rm factors on customer satisfaction; and (2) to find out the prospects of e-rm in bangladesh banking industry through more implementation of e-rm. a lot of research has been conducted in the area of rm considering its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. dimensions in various sectors all over the world. in this study, the researchers have made an attempt to apply the relationship marketing dimension to the electronic relationship marketing perspective in the banking sector and it has been considered the gap in this study. 2. literature review rm has been a hot topic among practitioners and academics over the last few years (christopher et al., 2002). the origins of rm continue to be a source of contention. berry (1983) was the first to use the term “relationship marketing” as a modern marketing idea, which is a contradiction. rm became a broad word in marketing during the 1990s (christopher et al., 2002). according to grönroos (1994), the trend toward rm has been particularly noticeable in industrial marketing, service marketing, and channel management. 2.1 commitment-customer satisfaction a commitment is an agreement or pledge to do something in the future. a commitment is an encouragement to fulfill a financial obligation to someone in the future. the nature of commitment is, (1) action-oriented (2) focusing passion (3) obligation (4) it is larger than the self (5) voluntary (6) it is purposeful, ((7) surrender (8) conscious (9) it lives in communication. to satisfy customers and to retain customers, both parties’ joint commitment are required. the term commitment can be interpreted as a pledge to maintain existing and future relationships with both parties because it is important for all (morgan & hunt, 1994). commitment is maintaining a long-term attitude because a relationship is worthwhile and essential. benefits are derived from the basic service offered by the company (herman, 2003). since customers must be involved in the service delivery process, the idea of commitment is particularly applicable to services (kelly & davis, 1994). (randall et al., 2011) state that emotional attachment or cognitive thought can lead to commitment. relationship success will ensure a higher level of commitment (vurren et al., 2012). according to (jani et al., 2007), commitment has been found in a decreasing position with respect to the probability of switching as well as it leads to behavioral loyalty in the banking organization. by keeping a commitment, anybody can be satisfied (rahman, 2017). in rm, the commitment dimension helps to maintain a good relationship between both business parties. a hypothesis can be formulated based on the above literature. h1a: the commitment dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.2 conflict management-customer satisfaction conflict is a serious problem in the banking industry because banks deal in public money. mutual trust and performance are always harmed when there is conflict. when dealing with customers, conflict management should necessitate particular action. when a corporation solves a customer’s problem, customer satisfaction grows (ndubishi, 2007). conflict management, according to (ndubishi, 2007), is an action taken to prevent future disputes. before recurring issues arise, provide a remedy and discuss www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. the issue honestly. conflict management and customer satisfaction have a good association, according to ndubishi (2007). for clients who have an issue, conflict management is beneficial (ball et al., 2004). h1b: the conflict management dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.3 responsiveness-customer satisfaction the ability to respond rapidly is referred to as responsiveness. responsiveness obviously refers to a direct and prompt response to the other person’s inquiry (chen et al., 2009). customers are satisfied when a bank responds appropriately (korner & zimmerman, 2000). the other person will be satisfied that you are paying attention to his or her opinion if you are an excellent respondent. another hypothesis can be suggested based on the above literary document. h1c: the responsiveness dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.4 ease of use-customer satisfaction in the banking business, ease of use refers to how user-friendly the technological assistance is for offering e-rm services. that means that the majority of the bank’s clients who use the technology can do so without difficulty. online clients that use technology profit from perceived simplicity of use, according to (sharma & mehta, 2005). for both parties, electronic technology should be simple to use (tena, 2006). if the service organization is technology-oriented, customer happiness in the banking sector is influenced by the ease of use of technology (padmavathy, 2012). according to (johnson & peterson, 2014), ease of use has a direct impact on perceived usefulness and utility, i.e., whether the custom is useful. the following hypothesis can be drawn from above literature. h1d: the ease of use dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.5 customization-customer satisfaction in banking, customized service entails offering unique service to each client. this service can be provided with ease using modern technologies. many bank clients expect such service tailored to their needs, and when they receive it, they are extremely satisfied with their respective institutions. according to chen (2012), when a consumer receives customized service, they believe they have been given unique attention and feel proud as a result of their happiness. the following hypothesis can be made based on the foregoing textual evidence. h1e: the customization dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.6 service expense-customer satisfaction electronic service provision is costly, but it should be kept to a minimum so that customers are satisfied and loyalty to the bank grows. when a bank charges higher service costs than competing banks for the same services, the consumer is always demotivated. customer discontent and transferring to another bank are the end results. customers are satisfied when services are provided at a reasonable cost, according to sattar (2012). customers are attracted to the inexpensive cost of service (sharma & mehta, 2005). customers from emerging countries are often impoverished, thus they do not appreciate expensive service fees and will not be satisfied by banking institutions (kumar et al., 2013). another important hypothesis from above literature are as follows. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. h1f: the service expense dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.7 security-customer satisfaction banks primarily deal with money, along with other services, security is the primary concern with any electronic device employing banking services. if a bank wants to keep e-rm alive, it must be concerned about security. customer happiness and security are inextricably linked. if a customer who has lost money employs e-rm services, they will be disappointed and will switch banks. one of the most essential aspects of this doctoral research has been the security factor. according to (kumar et al., 2013), security in electronic relationships should be prioritized in the banking industry since consumer satisfaction exists. in his investigation, (guenzi & storbacks, 2015) discovered that there was no security, no communication, and no consumer satisfaction. providing clients with enhanced security can result in a delighted customer (johnson & peterson, 2014). every firm is grappling with the issue of security. any information should be communicated to maintain good security and consumer satisfaction with services. another crucial hypothesis for this investigation can be formulated by summarizing the aforementioned information. h1g: the security dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.8 communication-customer satisfaction staying in touch with loyal clients, providing timely and accurate updates on services and developments, and engaging proactively if a delivery issue emerges are all examples of communication in relationship marketing (ndubisi, 2007). the communication dimension has an impact on customer satisfaction, according to (hasan, 2019). communication is crucial in the banking industry. customers’ money is saved from any fraudulent actions thanks to timely communication. as a result, consumer happiness and trustworthiness improve (brun et al., 2014). the foundation of rm is communication, which is conveniently facilitated by e-rm (becker et al., 2009). communication, according to rod et al. (2009), gives customer satisfaction in a way that turns clients become loyal customers. communication in this study refers to providing timely information, fresh information, or any problem that arises. another possibility can be suggested based on the above literary document. h1h: the communication dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.9 bonding-customer satisfaction the buyer’s goal, according to (callaghan et al., 1995), is a satisfying product and expected service. customer satisfaction and loyalty, on the other hand, ensures the company’s predicted revenue. finally, the common purpose of both parties is to establish a long-term mutual partnership. according to wilson (1995), bonding may be separated into two categories: social bonding and structural bonding. social bonding encompasses social engagement, connection, and friendship, as well as success satisfaction. customer satisfaction is determined by the bonding component, according to the survey. on the basis of the above literature, a hypothesis can be developed. h1i: the bonding dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. 2.10 trust-customer satisfaction all relationship exchanges require trust, which occurs when one side has faith in an exchange partner’s reliability and honesty (morgan & hunt, 1994). trust has been identified as one of the most important and long-term relationship factors of relational engagement (sirdeshmukh et al., 2002). because it is based on genuine trust, the trust dimension has an impact on consumer satisfaction (kalam et al., 2016). instant communication about any problem is possible with e-rm. as a result, client confidence grows, and customers are more satisfied than they were previously (luo et al., 2010). customer pleasure is directly influenced by the rm component of trust (abid, 2018). customers are more likely to be satisfied when they have faith in a company’s services and products (ribbink et al., 2004). a number of elements influence customer satisfaction, but one of the most crucial is trust (lee & hwan, 2005). it reaffirms that trust is the foundation of consumer pleasure. another possibility can be suggested based on the above literary document. h1j: the trust dimension of e-rm has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. 2.11 relationship marketing and customer satisfaction relationship marketing is primarily concerned with establishing relationships between businesses and their customers at any possible point of contact. in today’s competitive marketplace, marketers are trying to deliver customer satisfaction to improve the relationship with customers (singh & sirdeshmukh, 2000). it generates a win-win situation for both businesses and consumers. overall, rm focuses on recognizing and addressing issues that influence consumer relationships with businesses to attract customers (huntly, 2006). 2.12 e-rm practice in banking sector of bangladesh since the adoption of the internet and the automation of banks, bangladesh has begun to implement e-rm. in this sense, 2001 may mark the beginning of e-rm in bangladesh’s banking sector. e-rm services did not gain traction due to expensive internet charges and computer expenditures, as well as the lack of smart phone availability. in most sectors, bangladesh is only getting started with e-rm. in bangladesh, both commercial and government banks have begun to implement e-rm processes. developing research conceptual framework the conceptual framework of the study is as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. figure 1. conceptual framework of the research source: developed by the researchers, 2021 3. methods and methodology this is a survey based research. the respondents of this survey are the banking customer of bangladesh. respondent have been selected non random technique (justified method) because the study incorporate few respondents who is not expert about electronic knowledge. total banking customer of banagladesh is the population in this study. based on pilot study among 70 respondents minor alternation was made in the final questionnaire. total number of respondents in this study was 600. this number of the sample has been selected according to the formula (cochran, 1993; mugenda, 2003). the data collection period was 15th december 2020 to 20th may 2021 (six months). the independent variables of the study are commitment, conflict management, responsiveness, ease of use, service expense, security, customization, communication, bonding, and trust. the dependent variable is customer satisfaction. the questionnaire includes the respondent’s demographic background, 44 scales for 11 latent constructs. for analysis the data factor analysis, tests of hypothesis was performed using structural equation modeling (sem). in this regard, spss (version-25) and amos (version-25) were used to analyze the data collected from field-level interviews. in this research, the following table 1 were adopted from different literature: commitmemnt conflict management responsiveness ease of use customization service expense security communication bonding trust customer satisfaction h1a-h1j www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. table 1. research constructs, its scales and sources construct scales references commitment personal information is often used by your bank to provide personalized services. mithas et al., 2005; rygielski et al., 2002 your bank assesses customer satisfaction. padmavathy et al., 2012 your bank carefully focuses on customer needs. jani et al., 2007 your bank’s employees work with customers regularly to determine service quality. jayachandran et al., 2005 conflict management your bank makes the necessary steps to solve customer complaints instantly. cho et al., 2003; ndubisi, 2007 your bank solves customer problems. padmavathy et al., 2012 your bank always ensures to avoid conflict. developed by author your bank is co-operative. padmavathy et al., 2012 responsiveness e-rm helps both bankers and customers to be more responsive. developed by author your bank provides timely information regarding services. kornerand zimmerman, 2000 the transaction process of your bank is very correct and rapid. chen et al., 2009 your bank delivers services at a convenient time. padmavathy et al., 2012 ease of use e-rm is very easy to adopt. developed by author the use of electronic processes saves time for both customers and banks than traditional banking chu et al., 2012 your bank effectively uses electronic services to ensure proper customer service. padmavathy et al., 2012 you can easily utilize information using e-rm. farnaz et al., 2012 customization personalized services are available for you. ndubisi et al., 2011 your bank always ensures your claims. ndubisi et al., 2011 you will turn into a valuable customer by receiving properly customized service. developed by researcher service expense the service expense of your bank regarding e-rm is reasonable. developed by researcher gradually, service expenses should be reduced by your bank. customers. hakim et al.,2017; farnaz et al., 2012 customers affordability should be considered while adopting technology. chen et al., 2003 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. your bank always provides incentives to encourage you to adopt the services. mahapatra et al., 2020 security your security systems do not permit unauthorized access to your account. chellappa, 2003 your bank provides enough privacy. developed by researcher your bank’s security policy is satisfactory. nupur, 2010 security for every transaction is ensured by your bank. hakim et al., 2017 communication your bank effectively maintains communication with customers. padmavathy et al., 2012 your bank provides trustworthy information. hakim et al.,2017 your bank employees fulfill the services requested by customers. hakim et al.,2017 bonding the best service is always ensured by your bank. hasan, 2019 your needs regarding banking services are always understood by your bank. hasan, 2019 your bank’s policy is enough to build strong bonds with customers. developed by author your bank employee honored you properly. hasan, 2019 trust your bank maintains service standards. chen et al., 2003 your bank provides trustworthy services. padmavathy et al., 2012 the reputation of your bank is satisfactory. hasan, 2019 maintain mutual trust is easy through e-rm. developed by author customer satisfaction you are satisfied with both the technical and functional services of the bank regarding e-rm. akroush et al., 2012; olsen & johnson, 2003 you are satisfied with the electronic relationship marketing capabilities of a bank employee. payne and frow, 2005; eisingerich and bell, 2007; huang et al.,2007 you are satisfied with the banking rules and regulations regarding e-rm. developed by researcher you support the electronic relationship marketing concept introduced by the bank. developed by researcher source: literature review. 4. results and discussions for analysis, the data from 600 respondents was entered into the spss25 version. due to outlier issues that hindered continued processing of the data into spss and amos for sem analysis, 24 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. respondents were eliminated from the study. finally, the data of (600-24) = 576 respondents was taken into account for the study’s analysis. demographic profile: demographic profile of the respondents is as follow: table 2. demographic profile of the respondents variables frequency % age 18-28 29-38 39-48 49-58 59-68 69+ total 78 239 160 59 26 14 576 13.54 41.49 27.78 10.24 4.51 2.43 education under-graduate graduate post graduate total 76 399 101 576 13.19 69.27 17.53 gender male female total 382 194 576 66.32 33.68 occupation service self employed student house wife retired total 352 79 39 85 21 576 61.11 13.72 6.77 14.76 3.64 computer knowledge expert advance beginners total 76 229 271 576 13.19 39.76 47.05 duration of attachment to bank www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 26+ total 63 248 157 63 32 13 576 10.94 43.05 27.26 10.94 5.55 2.26 source: primary data 2020-2021. structural model-cfa: the figure below shows the relationship position through path analysis. figure 2. structural model output of cfa weighted servperf with standardized loading model fit summary: the summary of the model fit in the study are as follows. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. table 3. structural model of fit indices measurement values in this study recommended source indication χ²/df 2.549 ≤ 3 gifen, 2000 excellent p-value p≥ 0.05 cfi 0.93 ≥ 0.90 byrne, 1994 excellent ifi 0.92 ≥ 0.90 bollen, 1989 good nfi 0.88 ≥ 0.90 byrne, 1994 acceptable gfi 0.90 ≥ 0 .90 hoyel, 1995 good agfi 0.91 ≥0.90 chau & hu, 2001 good pclose 0.111 >0 .05 byrne,1994 excellent rmsea 0.052 ≤ 0.06 bazzogiand yi, 1988 excellent source: primary data, 2020-2021. hypothetical result: result obtained from hypothesis test are presented in the table below. table 4. results of the hypotheses test associations between variables regression weights est. s.e. c.r. p comm cs .123 .020 3.980 *** cmg cs .160 .022 7.434 *** res cs .112 .035 3.426 *** eou cs .234 .036 1.700 .030 cus cs .080 .026 1.367 .040 see cs .049 .022 2.216 .023 sec cs .263 .022 4.234 *** com cs .143 .028 3.231 *** bon cs .103 .018 5.695 *** tru cs .122 .019 6.358 *** source: primary data, 2020-21. the findings revealed that dedication, conflict management, responsiveness, convenience of use, service expense, security, communication, bonding, and trust all had good and negative effects on customer satisfaction. previous research is conceptually and empirically consistent with the findings. the model’s data revealed that there is a direct association between e-rm dimensions and customer satisfaction, as well as other aspects of the bank’s study. as a result, the research model’s major www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. findings confirm the hypothesis that e-rm characteristics have a considerable impact on customer satisfaction in bangladesh’s banking sector. prospects of e-rm in bangladesh: prospects of e-rm in the banking sector of bangladesh are extremely huge because of the following reasons: 1) all private banks, both local and foreign, have adopted extensive e-banking. besides private commercial banks, government banks are also becoming used to this service. 2) the number of educated clients of banks is increasing day by day, which also enhances the adoption rate of e-banking and e-relationship marketing. 3) infrastructural facilities regarding e-relationship marketing have also increased in our country. specifically, electricity, internet access, and computers and high-end software. 4) on behalf of the government, bangladesh bank, the higher regulatory body in the banking sector, has taken the necessary steps to strengthen these services. 5) the country is advancing gradually to digitalization, which is beneficial to the flourishing of these services. 6) besides education, technological knowledge of clients has also increased, which helps to adopt this service. 7) various supportive apps to maintain proper relationship is now available. 8) policy makers in the banking sector have understood the necessity of e-relationships and continuous steps have been taken for its improvement. the study’s first objective, to find out the impact of e-relationship marketing dimensions on customer satisfaction was met and prospects 5. conclusion the model represented in the study can be used as a practical as well as a theoretical platform for the development of electronic-relationship marketing (e-rm) in the banking sector of bangladesh as success in this sector mainly depends on long-term relationship with customers. this model can also be applied to other service sectors in home and abroad. the findings of the study will contribute to the growing body of knowledge in e-rm as well as service marketing. the findings will also be beneficial for customers and bankers in bangladesh. the data collection was very time consuming as well as expensive. this study was a paper-based survey. the country which is advanced in internet use can do research through an internet-based survey because more respondents’ opinions are possible to collect for generalization of the results. this study focuses on e-rm in the banking sector of bangladesh; further study may extend to other sectors of bangladesh. acknowledgment first of all, our praise to god without whom we would have failed to succeed. we appreciate the support and enthusiasm of all the respondents of surveys conducted and the insightful information that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. they provided. we would also like to thanks the assistance rendered by a number of people during the data collection, without whom we would not have been able to gain access to many of the respondents. we are also grateful to a lot of bankers who shared their idea and experience with us. we cannot provide the name here because of confidentiality but many thanks for their support. references akroush, m. n., & samen, a. a. 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(2020). population, total-bangladesh data. in the world bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.totl?locations=bd advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 31 original paper tourist demand-based development strategies for yan'er valley rural tourism complex in dabie mountain area ting gan1 1 school of geography and tourism, huanggang normal university, huanggang 438000, china received: april 21, 2025 accepted: may 11, 2025 online published: may 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p31 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p31 abstract this article focuses on the research of development strategies for the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains based on tourist demand. under the background of promoting rural revitalization strategy and upgrading tourism consumption, there are problems such as homogenization in the planning of rural integrated tourism in china. therefore, it is of great significance to study the development strategies of yan'er valley. by designing and distributing questionnaires, 437 valid questionnaires were analyzed, and it was found that the respondents exhibited multidimensional distribution in terms of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. tourists attach great importance to the unique features such as natural scenery, cultural connotations, and suitable travel period of the yan'er valley rural complex, and also pay more attention to tourism environmental factors such as transportation and infrastructure. tourists are looking forward to agricultural experiences, specialty cuisine, etc. the internet is the main channel for learning about the complex. most tourists are willing to spend 201-500 yuan and prefer self driving tours. they can accept a one-way travel time of 1.5-2.5 hours and choose to stay for 2-3 days. based on this, development strategies are proposed from the aspects of target market positioning and marketing, strengthening unique features, improving the tourism environment, meeting tourist needs, expanding promotional channels, optimizing product pricing and services, improving transportation facilities, and designing diversified tourism products. finally, it is pointed out that there are issues with questionnaire design, sample selection, and forward-looking considerations in the research. future directions include combining new technologies, conducting cross regional comparative studies, exploring industry integration, and strengthening research on tracking tourism experience quality. keywords dabie mountain, yan'er valley rural complex, tourists' demand, development strategies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 32 1. introduction 1.1 research background the comprehensive promotion of the rural revitalization strategy has highlighted the importance of the agriculture, rural areas, and farmers (three rural issues) (han, 2020). since the 19th national congress proposed this strategy, relevant policy documents in 2021 have continued to emphasize the importance of developing agriculture, improving the rural environment, and increasing farmers' income. the concept of rural integrated complex was born in 2017 (chen & akita, 2021). as a new model of rural comprehensive development, it integrates modern agriculture, leisure tourism, and rural communities, and various provinces actively promote project construction. for example, in 2012, the "pastoral orient" in yangshan town, wuxi, achieved remarkable results in economic development, improvement of residents' lives, cultural inheritance and other aspects by virtue of its geographical and resource advantages. it was written into the no. 1 central document in 2017, which triggered extensive practice and showed broad prospects for development. with the upgrading of tourism consumption, tourism experience has become an important way for people to pursue spiritual satisfaction (kim, badu-baiden, kim, koseoglu, & baah, 2024). however, china's rural integrated tourism faces problems such as homogenization of planning and insufficient product innovation, making it difficult to meet the deep experiential needs of tourists (liu & chen, 2024). in this situation, it is extremely necessary to study the development of the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains from the perspective of tourist demand. this not only helps yan'er valley to accurately position itself, optimize products and services, solve development difficulties, and achieve sustainable development, but also provides reference for other rural complexes, enriches relevant theoretical and practical achievements, and assists in the implementation of rural revitalization strategies. 1.2. research purpose and significance 1.2.1 research purpose the purpose of this study is to explore in depth the relevant influencing factors of tourists' demand for tourism in the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains. by designing and distributing questionnaires, a comprehensive analysis of the questionnaire data is conducted to understand tourists' demographic and socio-economic characteristics, the degree of importance they attach to various characteristic factors of the rural complex, tourism demand preferences, consumption willingness, travel modes, and stay time. this can provide targeted and actionable optimization suggestions for the development and construction of the complex, in order to meet tourists' needs, enhance the competitiveness and attractiveness of the complex, and promote its sustainable development. 1.2.2 research significance this study has significant theoretical and practical implications. in theory, by analyzing the multidimensional characteristics and needs of tourists, the relevant theories of rural integrated tourism demand have been enriched, providing specific cases and data support for subsequent research and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 33 helping to improve the theoretical system of rural integrated tourism development. in practice, targeted measures based on tourist demand analysis can help improve the quality and service level of yan'er valley rural complex, meet tourist needs, and enhance competitiveness; attracting more tourists, driving the development of local industries such as catering, accommodation, and agricultural product sales, increasing employment, promoting local economic growth, and promoting rural revitalization; at the same time, the research results can provide reference for the development and construction of other rural complexes, promote the healthy and orderly development of the entire rural complex tourism market, and meet people's growing demand for tourism consumption. 2. current status of yan'er valley rural complex construction in the dabie mountains after more than a decade of careful development, yan'er valley in luotian county has successfully built a rural complex that integrates various industries such as agriculture, tourism, culture, animal husbandry, and education. this complex has achieved significant success in terms of scale, projects, honors, economic achievements, etc., but at the same time, it also faces some development challenges. the yan'er valley scenic area covers a vast area of 12000 acres, with a variety of projects and complete functions within the area. in terms of sightseeing landscapes, multiple flower viewing and roaming parks such as tea plum garden, plum ridge, and cherry garden have been set up, providing tourists with a good place to get close to nature and appreciate flowers. in terms of cultural and tourism education, there are 70 acres of leisure agriculture labor education base, dabie mountain national defense military education base and other cultural and tourism parks, as well as preserved natural and cultural attractions such as dabie mountain rural craftsman school and meiling wealth tree, which have both educational significance and ornamental value. in terms of supporting services, the scenic area has a landmark premium product exhibition area, providing comprehensive catering and accommodation services. in addition, a tourist town themed around the folk culture of the dabie mountains tea plum town has been developed, as well as the first retirement community for returning home yan gui yuan. major attractions such as the rural craftsman training center have also been opened. the first phase of the retirement apartments covers an area of 8900 square meters and has 210 beds, meeting the needs of different groups of people. since 2014, yan'er valley has successively won multiple important honors in its development process. in june 2014, it was awarded the title of "key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization in hubei province" and successfully passed the national 3a level scenic spot certification in december of the same year. in 2015, its main scenic spot yanwo village became a national tourism poverty alleviation demonstration site, and yan'er valley ecological farm was awarded the "top ten demonstration farms" in hubei province and recognized as a leisure agriculture demonstration site in hubei province. in order to further attract tourists, since 2015, yan'er valley has planned and held multiple tourism festivals such as the "dabie mountain tea plum festival" and the "dabie mountain plum blossom festival". these activities have achieved significant results. as of 2019, they have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 34 successfully attracted 380000 visitors and generated a comprehensive tourism revenue of over 100 million yuan. the development of the tourism industry has also driven the growth of local farmers' income. by 2020, the per capita net income of farmers reached 16300 yuan, which is three times that of five years ago. at present, yan'er valley is actively striving to become a 4a level scenic spot, committed to becoming a national demonstration project for leisure agriculture and rural tourism. leisure agriculture and rural tourism have become important pillars of local economic development, providing residents with abundant employment opportunities. although yan'er valley has achieved many accomplishments, it also faces multiple challenges in its development process. on the one hand, the problem of lagging infrastructure is prominent. roads, landscapes, and amusement facilities are still under construction, limited options for dining and accommodation, and inadequate planning for parking lots, all of which have resulted in a poor tourist experience and affected the reputation and attractiveness of the scenic area. on the other hand, the homogeneous competition of projects has intensified. the folk villages in surrounding areas such as jiuzihe town and baimiaohe town, as well as scenic spots such as "colorful flower and fruit mountain" and "ten mile lotus pond", are rapidly replicating the ecological tourism model, directly competing with yan'er valley, which poses a risk of diluting the characteristic projects of yan'er valley's integration of agriculture, tourism, culture, and education. 3. tourist demand analysis based on questionnaire 3.1 questionnaire design and distribution 3.1.1 questionnaire design the purpose of this questionnaire design is to explore in depth the relevant influencing factors of tourists' demand for tourism in the yan'er valley rural complex, in order to provide optimization suggestions for the development and construction of the complex. during the design process, some existing questionnaires from relevant references were referenced, and the final design was completed based on the specific requirements of the research topic in this article. the questionnaire is mainly divided into two parts. the first part focuses on the basic information of the respondents, including gender, age, education level, occupation, income, and place of residence; the second part, as the main body, focuses on investigating the key factors that affect tourists' travel to the yan'er valley rural complex, such as the respondents' level of understanding, willingness to participate, tourism environment, and transportation conditions. 3.1.2 questionnaire distribution to ensure the quality of the questionnaire, a pre survey was conducted before the formal survey. the pre survey mainly distributed 70 questionnaires through offline methods. after screening and removing questionnaires with incorrect answers, missed answers, and answer times less than one minute, there were 64 valid questionnaires remaining. subsequently, validity and reliability analysis was conducted on them, and some content was adjusted based on feedback from respondents. the official survey was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 35 conducted from march 1st to 22nd, 2025, using online methods and distributing questionnaires through wechat and qq channels. a total of 450 questionnaires were collected, including 437 valid questionnaires, with a completion rate of 97.11%. 3.2 questionnaire data analysis 3.2.1 analysis of interviewee characteristics the respondents exhibit multidimensional distribution in terms of demographic and socio-economic characteristics, providing rich, comprehensive, and multi-faceted references for studying the demand of tourists for the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains. this makes the research on development strategies for the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains based on tourist demand more targeted and comprehensive. in terms of demographic characteristics, the gender structure is relatively balanced, with males accounting for 49.0% and females accounting for 51.0%, which can avoid the influence of gender bias on research results; there is a significant difference in age distribution, with the highest proportion of people aged 19-30, reaching 48.7%. they have abundant tourism vitality and a strong desire to explore, and pay high attention to emerging forms of tourism such as rural complexes. the age group of 31-45 accounts for 31.6%, with a certain economic foundation and consumption ability, while the age group of 60 and above only accounts for 5.3%, which may be limited by travel ability; in terms of cultural level, 39.8% of the participants have a college or undergraduate degree, which can provide feedback information with certain depth and breadth. 15.3% have a master's degree or above, and their opinions are more professional and rational. 15.2% have a junior high school or lower education, and 29.5% have a high/vocational school or technical school education. the participation of people with different cultural levels enables the study to understand needs from multiple perspectives. in terms of socio-economic characteristics, there is a wide distribution of occupations, with students accounting for 12.8%, emphasizing tourism experience and cost-effectiveness. employees in enterprises/institutions account for 12.6%, while civil servants account for 11.7%. their income is stable and they have more leisure time. the demand for tourism is strong, with individuals and private business owners accounting for 14.9%. their economic conditions and consumption concepts have a unique impact, with farmers accounting for 5.3% and unemployed people accounting for 13.7%. other occupational groups have added different perspectives; in terms of monthly income, the highest proportion of respondents, accounting for 45.5%, are between 3000-6000 yuan, which is an important part of the tourism market. 27.5% of respondents are between 6000-9000 yuan, and 9.8% are between 9000-15000 yuan. the participation of different income groups helps to understand the needs of consumers with different economic strengths; in terms of residence, 45.5% of the respondents are from huanggang city outside of luotian county, which is the main source area, indicating that the yan'er valley rural complex has great appeal to the surrounding areas. 20.4% are from within luotian county, and 15.8% are from hubei province (excluding huanggang), reflecting its radiation range and market coverage. in addition, most of the respondents have been to the rural complex. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 36 table 1. characteristic analysis of respondents variables characteristic indexes frequency percentage gender male 214 49.0 female 223 51.0 age under 18 years old 28 6.4 19-30 years old 213 48.7 31-45 years old 138 31.6 46-59 years old 35 8.0 age 60 and above 23 5.3 education level junior high school or below 67 15.3 high school/vocational school 129 29.5 college and undergraduate 174 39.8 master's degree or above 67 15.3 vocation student 56 12.8 employee of enterprises/institutions 55 12.6 civil servant 51 11.7 teacher 33 7.6 worker 43 9.8 retired personnel 16 3.7 individual and private worker 65 14.9 farmer 23 5.3 no occupation 60 13.7 other 35 8.0 monthly income less than 3000 yuan 56 12.8 3000-6000 yuan 199 45.5 6000-9000 yuan 120 27.5 9000-15000 yuan 43 9.8 above 15000 yuan 19 4.3 residence luotian county 89 20.4 outside of luotian county huanggang city 199 45.5 hubei province (excluding huanggang) 80 18.3 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 37 variables characteristic indexes frequency percentage outside hubei province 69 15.8 have you been to yan'er valley rural complex? yes 322 73.7 no 115 26.3 3.2.2 analysis of characteristic factors of rural complexes (1) analysis of unique characteristics and factors of yan'er valley rural complex tourists attach great importance to the natural scenery, cultural connotations, and suitable tourism period of the yan'er valley rural complex, with "very important" and "relatively important" accounting for 57.2%, 58.8%, and 58.8% respectively. this indicates that beautiful natural landscapes are the key to attracting tourists, and the complex should protect and optimize the natural landscapes and create characteristic tourist routes; tourists have high expectations for local cultural elements and can deeply explore rural culture and integrate it into tourism projects; it is also necessary to plan the travel activity time reasonably and promote products according to the season to extend the peak season. however, there are differences in the frequency, experience, and brand appeal of tourism activities. 43.9% of tourists hold a "neutral" attitude towards activity frequency, reflecting that activity arrangements do not meet diverse needs. therefore, the types and frequency of activities can be increased; 61.7% of tourists attach great importance to the experiential experience of activities, and require attention to activity design and organization, as well as enhancing interactive fun; 41.9% of tourists hold a "neutral" attitude towards brand attractiveness, indicating that brand influence needs to be improved and promotion can be strengthened to establish an image. table 2. the level of importance tourists assign to the distinctive features of the yan'er valley rural complex characteristic indicators not at all less important neutral relatively important very important variables frequ ency perce ntage frequ ency perce ntage frequ ency perce ntage frequ ency perce ntage frequ ency perce ntage unique natural scenery 45 10.3 42 9.6 100 22.9 103 23.6 147 33.6 cultural connotation 26 5.9 70 16.0 84 19.2 153 35.0 104 23.8 suitable travel period 38 8.7 69 15.8 73 16.7 104 23.8 153 35.0 frequency of 32 7.3 62 14.2 192 43.9 76 17.4 75 17.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 38 characteristic indicators not at all less important neutral relatively important very important tourism activities experiential tourism activities 47 10.8 53 12.1 67 15.3 109 24.9 161 36.8 brand attractiveness 51 11.7 36 8.2 183 41.9 85 19.5 82 18.8 (2) analysis of tourism environmental factors in yan'er valley rural complex tourists place a high level of importance on multiple tourism-related environmental factors at yan'er valley rural tourism complex. specifically, over 60%, nearly 60%, and over 60% of visitors consider traffic conditions, infrastructure, and accommodation and catering conditions as "very important" and "relatively important," respectively. for tourism service level and sanitary environment, these proportions exceed 57% and nearly 58%, respectively. meanwhile, over 41% of tourists rate reception capacity as "relatively important" or "very important." this indicates that convenient transportation, well-developed infrastructure, high-quality accommodation and dining, professional tourism services, a clean and hygienic environment, and reasonable reception capacity are key factors in attracting tourists and enhancing satisfaction. table 3. the level of importance that tourists attach to the tourism environment factors of yan'er valley rural complex characteristic indicators not at all less important neutral relatively important very important variables freq uenc y perce ntage freq uenc y perce ntage freq uenc y perce ntage freq uenc y perce ntage freq uenc y perce ntage traffic conditions 47 10.8 59 13.5 67 15.3 110 25.2 154 35.2 infrastructure 46 10.5 45 10.3 89 20.4 131 30.0 126 28.8 accommodation and catering conditions 41 9.4 41 9.4 92 21.1 107 24.5 156 35.7 tourism service level 41 9.4 45 10.3 102 23.3 125 28.6 124 28.4 sanitary environment 36 8.2 64 14.6 82 18.8 149 34.1 106 24.3 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 39 characteristic indicators not at all less important neutral relatively important very important reception capacity 29 6.6 52 11.9 176 40.3 97 22.2 83 19.0 (3) analysis of tourist demand for yan'er valley rural complex tourists' expectations for the yan'er valley rural complex exhibit diverse characteristics. the proportion of expectations for agricultural experience and specialty cuisine is relatively high, with 72.5% and 73.9% of tourists hoping to experience agricultural activities and taste specialty cuisine, respectively. this indicates that tourists are eager to participate in agricultural labor, experience rural life, and have a strong interest in local cuisine. the integrated complex can enrich agricultural experience projects and explore and promote specialty cuisine. comfortable and relaxed countryside residences are also highly anticipated, accounting for 68%. the complex needs to optimize its construction and management to improve quality and service. the expectations for beautiful rural scenery, thoughtful services, lively rural atmosphere, and unique rural culture all account for over 50%. the integrated complex should strengthen the protection and beautification of rural landscapes, improve the quality of service personnel, hold rural activities, and explore and inherit rural culture. in addition, 18.8% of tourists chose the "others" option, which may have personalized needs. the complex can further investigate to provide services and products that better meet their needs. table 4. tourists' tourism demand for the yan'er valley rural complex characteristic indicators frequency percentage beautiful rural scenery 254 58.1 comfortable and relaxed countryside residence 297 68.0 thoughtful and considerate service 256 58.6 agricultural experience 317 72.5 the lively and prosperous rural atmosphere 254 58.1 unique rural culture 245 56.1 specialty cuisine 323 73.9 others 82 18.8 there are various channels for tourists to learn about yan'er valley's pastoral complex, among which the network (kwai, tiktok, little red book and other platforms is the most prominent, with a frequency of 355, accounting for 81.2%, which shows the strong information dissemination power of the network platform. yan'er valley should increase network publicity, produce beautiful pictures, interesting videos and other attractions for tourists. travel agencies are also an important channel, with a frequency of 334, accounting for 76.4%, and can cooperate with them to incorporate the complex into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 40 the tourism route to attract group tourists. the frequency of introductions from friends and colleagues is 325, accounting for 74.4%, reflecting the importance of word-of-mouth communication. yan'er valley needs to improve its service quality and create a unique experience to receive positive reviews and recommendations. the tv broadcast frequency is 320, accounting for 73.2%. although the dissemination effect is considerable, the audience targeting is weak, and appropriate advertising can be placed to enhance visibility. the frequency of "others" channels is only 15, accounting for 3.4%, which is relatively scattered and niche. further investigation can be conducted to explore potential promotional channels. table 5. channels for tourists to learn about the yan'er valley rural complex characteristic indicators frequency percentage introduced by friends and colleagues 325 74.4 tv broadcast 320 73.2 network (kwai, tiktok, little red book and other platforms) 355 81.2 travel agency 334 76.4 others 15 3.4 according to research data, the consumption amount, travel mode, acceptable one-way time, and stay time of tourists in the yan'er valley rural complex exhibit certain distribution characteristics. in terms of consumption, the majority of tourists (40.0%) have a willingness to spend between 201-500 yuan, with 22.9% spending between 501-800 yuan, 24.7% spending within 200 yuan, and only 5.0% spending over 1000 yuan. scenic areas should focus on meeting the demand between 201-500 yuan while also considering other levels. in terms of travel modes, self driving tours account for 34.8%, reflecting tourists' high demand for autonomy and convenience; public transportation accounts for 27.7%, with a focus on cost and environmental protection; renting a car, cycling, walking, etc. also account for a certain proportion. scenic areas should improve transportation facilities, consider parking needs for self driving tours, and optimize other travel experiences. in terms of acceptable single-trip time, the 1.5-2.5-hour interval has the highest number of people (37.5%). the scenic area can use the surrounding area within this driving range as a key source of customers to enhance its attractiveness and attract long-distance tourists. in terms of stay time, the highest number of tourists (45.3%) are those who stay for 2-3 days. scenic spots should meet their diverse needs and can also develop deep tourism products suitable for 4-5 days and longer to increase repeat visits and reputation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 41 table 6. characteristics of tourists' consumption amount, mode of transportation, acceptable single-trip time, and stay time variables characteristic indicators frequency percentage the amount of money willing to consume in the yan'er valley rural complex within 200 yuan 108 24.7 201-500 yuan 175 40.0 501-800 yuan 100 22.9 801-1000 yuan 32 7.3 over 1000 yuan 22 5.0 preferred mode of transportation self driving tour 152 34.8 public transportation 121 27.7 car rental 55 12.6 cycling 49 11.2 walking 30 6.9 others 30 6.9 single-trip time within 1.5 hours 78 17.8 1.5-2.5 hours 164 37.5 2.5-3.5 hours 119 27.2 over 3.5 hours 76 17.4 stay time one day or less 67 15.3 2-3 days 198 45.3 4-5 days 103 23.6 over 5 days 69 15.8 4. development strategies for the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains based on the previous analysis of the current situation and tourist demand of the yan'ergu rural complex in the dabie mountains, development strategies can be proposed from the following five aspects. precise targeting of target markets and marketing: according to questionnaire data, respondents exhibit multidimensional distribution in terms of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. the 19-30 age group has abundant tourism vitality, strong desire for exploration, and high attention to rural complexes; the population aged 31-45 has a certain economic foundation and purchasing power. the respondents in huanggang city outside luotian county are the main source. the complex can develop personalized marketing strategies targeting these key target groups. for example, for young groups, use www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 42 network platforms (such as kwai, tiktok, little red book, etc.) to promote, produce beautiful pictures and interesting videos, and highlight the natural scenery, farming experience and other characteristics of the pastoral complex; for middle-aged people with purchasing power, cooperation with travel agencies can be established to incorporate the complex into high-end tourism routes(bao, jin, & weaver, 2021). strengthening unique features: tourists attach great importance to the natural scenery, cultural connotations, and suitable travel period of the yan'er valley rural complex. the complex should protect and optimize the natural landscape, and create distinctive tourist routes, such as the tea plum garden, meiling, cherry garden, and other flower viewing and roaming parks that can be further upgraded. deeply explore rural culture and integrate the folk culture of the dabie mountains into tourism projects, such as holding folk performances, handicraft production experiences, and other activities in the tea plum town. reasonably plan the time of tourism activities, launch characteristic products according to different seasons, and extend the peak tourism season. holding activities such as the "dabie mountain camellia and plum blossom festival" and "dabie mountain plum blossom festival" can further enrich the content and form. at the same time, increase the variety and frequency of tourism activities, focus on activity design and organization, enhance interactive fun, and enhance brand influence(bao et al., 2021). improving the tourism environment: tourists attach great importance to tourism environmental factors such as transportation conditions, infrastructure, accommodation and catering conditions, tourism service level, hygiene environment, and reception capacity. the complex should accelerate the construction progress of roads, landscapes, and amusement facilities, increase dining and accommodation options, and plan parking lots reasonably. enhance the level of tourism services, strengthen training for service personnel, and improve their professional competence and service awareness. pay attention to the maintenance and management of hygiene environment, and create a clean and comfortable tourism environment. based on the flow of tourists, plan the reception capacity reasonably to avoid overcrowding or insufficient services (santana-jiménez & hernández, 2011). meeting the diverse needs of tourists: tourists have diverse expectations for agricultural experiences, specialty foods, comfortable and relaxed rural residences, and other factors. the complex can enrich agricultural experience projects, such as adding agricultural labor, picking activities, agricultural product processing and other experiential content. explore and promote local specialty cuisine, create a food street or hold a food festival. optimize the construction and management of rural residences, improve quality and service, and meet the needs of tourists for comfortable accommodation. strengthen the protection and beautification of rural landscapes, enhance the literacy of service personnel, organize rural activities, explore and inherit rural culture, and meet tourists' expectations for beautiful rural scenery, thoughtful services, lively rural atmosphere, and unique rural culture (ballantyne, hughes, & ritchie, 2009). optimize transportation facilities and product pricing: in terms of transportation modes, self driving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 43 tours account for a high proportion, and scenic spots should improve transportation facilities, consider the parking needs of self driving tours, and build large parking lots. at the same time, optimize public transportation transfer routes, improve transportation convenience, and meet the needs of tourists with different modes of travel. in terms of consumption, the majority of tourists have a willingness to spend between 201-500 yuan. scenic spots should focus on meeting the needs of this range and developing cost-effective tourism products and services, such as launching package tickets that include multiple experience projects. taking into account the consumption needs of other levels, the complex should provide high-end customized services and low-priced experience projects to attract more tourists (lin & kuo, 2019). 5. research prospects 5.1 shortcomings of the research although this study has conducted a comprehensive analysis of the tourist demand for the yan'er valley rural complex in the dabie mountains, there are still certain shortcomings. in terms of questionnaire design, although relevant literature has been referenced and pre surveys and content adjustments have been made, it may not fully cover all factors that affect tourist demand, and some questions may not be detailed and in-depth enough, resulting in some potential needs not being fully explored. in terms of sample selection, online questionnaires are mainly distributed, with a focus on tourists from surrounding areas. the geographical and group coverage of the samples has certain limitations and may not fully represent the demand characteristics of all potential tourists. in addition, the research is only based on the current market situation and tourist feedback, and lacks forward-looking consideration for the dynamic changes and emerging demand trends in the future tourism market. 5.2 future research directions future research can further expand the scope and depth of research. on the one hand, big data analysis and artificial intelligence technology can be combined to collect and analyze tourists' behavior data and demand information in a more comprehensive and real-time manner, in order to better grasp the dynamic changes and emerging demand trends in the tourism market. on the other hand, cross regional comparative research can be conducted to analyze the development models and differences in tourist demand of rural complexes in different regions, providing more targeted and innovative development strategies for the yan'ergu rural complex. in addition, in-depth research can be conducted on the integration and development of tourism with other industries, such as the integration of tourism with agriculture, culture, technology, and other industries, to explore how to enhance the competitiveness and sustainable development capabilities of rural complexes through industrial integration. at the same time, strengthen long-term tracking research on the quality of tourism experience and tourist satisfaction, continuously optimize tourism products and services to meet the increasingly diverse and personalized needs of tourists. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 44 conflicts of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest funding this study was supported by 2022 philosophy and social science research program of hubei provincial department of education (project number 22q203)；key research base of humanities and social sciences in hubei province, dabie mountain tourism economy and culture research center, scientific research project funding achievement (research on short video marketing strategies for rural tourism in dabie mountains under the new media environment). references ballantyne, r., hughes, k., & ritchie, b. w. (2009). meeting the needs of tourists: the role and function of australian visitor information centers. journal of travel & tourism marketing, 26(8), 778-794. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548400903356178 bao, j., jin, x., & weaver, d. (2021). profiling the elite middle-age chinese outbound travellers: a 3rd wave? in current issues in asian tourism: volume ii (pp. 125-138): routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003133568-9 chen, s., & akita, n. (2021). rural complex an attempt to coordinate the development of urban and rural areas in china. international review for spatial planning and sustainable development, 9(1), 93-106. ttps://doi.org/10.14246/irspsda.9.1_93 han, j. (2020). prioritizing agricultural, rural development and implementing the rural revitalization strategy. china agricultural economic review, 12(1), 14-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/caer-02-2019-0026 kim, j.-h., badu-baiden, f., kim, s., koseoglu, m. a., & baah, n. g. (2024). evolution of the memorable tourism experience and future research prospects. journal of travel research, 63(6), 1315-1334. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472875231206545 lin, c.-l., & kuo, c.-l. (2019). a service position model of package tour services based on the hybrid mcdm approach. current issues in tourism, 22(20), 2478-2510. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1524856 liu, t., & chen, b. (2024). rural tourism in china: “root-seeking” and construction of national identity. journal of hospitality and tourism management, 60, 141-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2024.06.017 santana-jiménez, y., & hernández, j. m. (2011). estimating the effect of overcrowding on tourist attraction: the case of canary islands. tourism management, 32(2), 415-425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.03.013 tourist demand-based development strategies for ya ting gan1 abstract this article focuses on the research of developmen keywords table 1. characteristic analysis of respondents table 2. the level of importance tourists assign t table 3. the level of importance that tourists att table 4. tourists' tourism demand for the yan'er v table 5. channels for tourists to learn about the table 6. characteristics of tourists' consumption references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 124 original paper a study on the matching of teaching content of computer application technology courses with industry needs wenqing kang1 1 english college, xi’an fanyi university, shaanxi, xi'an, china received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 11, 2025 online published: february 28, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p124 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p124 abstract with the rapid development of information technology, computer application technology has become an important force to promote social progress and industrial upgrading. however, there is often a disconnect between the teaching content of computer application technology courses in colleges and universities and the needs of the industry, which makes it difficult for graduates to meet the actual needs of enterprises. the purpose of this paper is to discuss the docking problem between the teaching content of computer application technology courses and the industry demand, and put forward corresponding improvement strategies by analyzing the current industry development trend, enterprise demand and the current situation of college curriculum, with a view to improving the teaching quality of computer application technology courses and enhancing the employment competitiveness of students. keywords computer application technology, course content, industry demand, docking research, teaching 1. introduction in the tide of globalization and informatization, computer application technology has become a key force in promoting social and economic development and innovation, widely penetrating into all walks of life and profoundly changing people's way of life and work. as the cradle of knowledge dissemination and talent cultivation, the teaching quality of computer application technology courses in colleges and universities is crucial to students' employment competitiveness and social innovation ability. however, at present, the teaching content of this course in colleges and universities is slow to be updated, and there is an obvious disconnect with the needs of the rapidly developing industry, which leads to graduates' difficulty in adapting to the actual needs of enterprises and limited career development. therefore, in-depth study of computer application technology course teaching content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 125 and industry demand docking problem is particularly important. this is not only the key to improve the quality of teaching in colleges and universities and enhance the employability of students, but also a necessary way to promote the deep integration of higher education and industry and enhance the innovation ability of society. in this paper, we will systematically analyze the current situation of computer application technology curriculum in colleges and universities, combined with industry demand, and put forward docking strategies to provide useful references for teaching reform, and help cultivate more high-quality computer application technology talents in line with market demand. 2. computer application technology industry development trend 2.1 technical innovation continues to accelerate in recent years, the field of computer application technology is like a never-ending feast of science and technology, technological innovation such as tidal wave like surging, new technology is like the emergence of endless. look at that quantum computing technology, is taking a steady pace towards maturity, the future is expected to shine in specific areas, to open a new chapter of commercial applications. artificial intelligence and machine learning technology has long penetrated into every corner of all walks of life, from the warmth and convenience of the smart home to the futuristic sense of self-driving cars, from the precision and efficiency of medical diagnosis to the deep insights of financial analysis, ai technology is changing our way of life in a way never seen before, making the future within reach. of course, there are also cloud computing and big data technology, which builds an efficient and flexible data storage and processing platform for enterprises, as if inserting digital wings for enterprises, helping them accelerate transformation and soar in the digital sky. 2.2 increasingly rich application scenarios the continuous progress of technology, so that the application of computer application technology has become increasingly colorful application scenarios. internet of things technology, like a magical wizard, realizes the intelligent world of things connected and human-computer interaction. smart home, smart city, smart transportation and other fields, is ushering in explosive growth, so that our lives become smarter and more convenient. virtual reality and augmented reality technology, on the other hand, are bringing unprecedented immersive experiences to education, entertainment, healthcare and other fields. students can swim in the sea of knowledge in the virtual world, entertainment enthusiasts can enjoy immersive fun in augmented reality, and medical workers can perform accurate surgical simulations in virtual reality. there is also blockchain technology, which builds a secure and transparent line of defense for finance, logistics, copyright protection and other fields, so that the security and trustworthiness of data has a solid guarantee. 2.3 data security and privacy protection are increasingly important with the rapid development of computer technology, the issue of data security and privacy protection has also become increasingly prominent, and has become an important topic that we cannot ignore. in the era of big data and cloud computing, data leaks and privacy violations occur frequently, bringing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 126 immeasurable losses to individuals and enterprises. therefore, strengthening the research and development and application of data security technology to ensure the safety of personal information and enterprise data is like building a strong shield of protection for us. only by guarding this security, we can make computer application technology better serve mankind, and let the power of science and technology gallop on the track of security, bringing more convenience and surprise to our life. 3. industry demand analysis 3.1 talent demand surge, the strong drive of emerging technology areas with the rapid development and wide application of information technology, the demand of enterprises for computer application technology talents shows a continuous growth. especially in emerging fields such as big data, cloud computing, internet of things, artificial intelligence, etc., these technologies, as a key force to promote industrial upgrading and social progress, have put forward an urgent demand for talents with relevant professional knowledge and skills. these fields not only require talents to have a deep theoretical foundation and an in-depth understanding of the principles and mechanisms of the technologies, but also require them to have rich practical experience and be able to skillfully apply the technologies to solve practical problems. this kind of composite, practice-oriented talent demand for the education and teaching of computer application technology majors in colleges and universities has put forward new challenges and opportunities. 3.2 diversification of ability requirements, comprehensive quality of the overall promotion in addition to professional knowledge and skills, the ability of enterprises for computer application technology talents increasingly show a diversified trend. good communication skills, teamwork ability, problem solving ability and innovation, etc., have become an important standard for enterprises to measure the quality of talent. these abilities not only help the talent in the team to play a greater role in promoting the smooth progress of the project, but also to promote the common growth of individuals and teams to enhance the overall competitiveness of enterprises. in addition, with the continuous progress of technology and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, enterprises also require talents to have the ability of continuous learning and self-improvement, in order to adapt to the fast-changing market demand and technology development trend. this requirement for comprehensive improvement of comprehensive quality points out the direction for colleges and universities to focus on comprehensive development and strengthen ability cultivation in the process of talent cultivation. 3.3 emphasis on practical experience and project experience, the core consideration of practical ability in the recruitment process, enterprises attach great importance to the practical experience and project experience of computer application technology talents. they hope that the recruited talents can not only quickly integrate into the team and contribute to the actual projects of the enterprise, but also play a key role in the project and promote the innovation and development of the project. therefore, when cultivating talents in computer application technology, universities must focus on strengthening the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 127 practical teaching link, and provide students with rich practical opportunities and project experience through laboratory construction, school-enterprise cooperation, project practice and other ways. this not only helps to improve students' practical ability and project experience, but also enhances their career competitiveness and employment adaptability, laying a solid foundation for future career development. at the same time, colleges and universities should also maintain close cooperation and communication with enterprises to jointly build a practical teaching system that meets the needs of the industry and realizes the effective docking of talent training and market demand. 4. the current situation of computer application technology curriculum in colleges and universities 4.1 course content lagging behind, difficult to match the rapid pace of development of the industry at present, the computer application technology course content in colleges and universities generally shows lagging behind the development of the industry. with the rapid changes in information technology, emerging technologies and applications are emerging, such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other cutting-edge technologies are gradually becoming an important force for social progress. however, the computer application technology courses in many colleges and universities fail to incorporate these emerging technologies into the teaching system in a timely manner, resulting in a significant gap between the course content and the current state of industry development. this lag not only limits students' understanding and mastery of the latest technology, but also makes it difficult for students to quickly adapt to the actual needs of enterprises after graduation, which in turn affects their career development and employment competitiveness. therefore, colleges and universities urgently need to re-examine and adjust the content of the curriculum to ensure that it can keep pace with the development of the industry and provide students with knowledge systems that keep pace with the times. 4.2 weak practical teaching, the bottleneck of practical ability cultivation as an important way to cultivate students' practical ability and project experience, the practical teaching link is particularly weak in the current computer application technology courses in many colleges and universities. on the one hand, some colleges and universities are unable to provide students with enough practical opportunities due to old experimental equipment and limited experimental conditions; on the other hand, even with certain experimental conditions, it is often difficult for students to gain real project experience due to the lack of in-depth cooperation with enterprises and the lack of effective project practice mechanism. this lack of practical teaching directly leads to the difficulty for students to quickly integrate into the team after graduation and contribute to the real projects of enterprises. therefore, colleges and universities should attach great importance to the construction and reform of the practical teaching link, and comprehensively improve students' practical ability and project experience by strengthening laboratory construction, deepening university-enterprise cooperation, and optimizing the practical teaching mode. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 128 4.3 curriculum rigidity, lack of flexibility and innovative shackles at present, the computer application technology curriculum of many colleges and universities presents the disadvantages of rigidity, lack of flexibility and innovation. on the one hand, some colleges and universities pay too much attention to the teaching of theoretical knowledge and neglect the cultivation of students' practical ability and innovation ability; on the other hand, the curriculum lacks cooperation and communication with enterprises, resulting in an obvious disconnect between the curriculum content and the industry demand. this rigid curriculum is not only difficult to meet students' diversified learning needs and interests, but also unable to adapt to the rapid changes in the development of the industry. therefore, colleges and universities should actively explore the road of reform and innovation of curriculum, through the introduction of interdisciplinary courses, set up elective courses, carry out innovative experiments, etc., to provide students with more flexible and diversified learning paths and choice space. at the same time, strengthen cooperation and communication with enterprises, and jointly develop curriculum standards and teaching plans that meet the needs of the industry, so as to realize the effective docking of the curriculum content with the needs of the industry. 5. docking strategy of computer application technology course teaching content and industry demand 5.1 course content update: keep pace with the industry, leading the technology frontier colleges and universities should uphold the concept of forward-looking education, pay close attention to the latest developments in the computer application technology industry and development trends, to ensure that the course content can reflect the innovation and progress of the industry's cutting-edge technology in a timely manner. specifically, colleges and universities need to regularly review and update the course content, incorporate quantum computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other cutting-edge technologies into the curriculum system, and make students understand the principles, applications and future development trends of these technologies through special lectures, seminars and other forms. this not only meets the needs of enterprises for talents with knowledge of cutting-edge technologies, but also stimulates students' spirit of exploration and sense of innovation, laying a solid foundation for cultivating internationally competitive talents in computer application technology. 5.2 reinforcement of practical teaching: building a practical platform and refining practical ability practical teaching is the key link to enhance students' practical ability and project experience. colleges and universities should increase investment in laboratory construction, introduce advanced experimental equipment and technology platforms to create a good practice environment for students. at the same time, they actively explore the mode of school-enterprise cooperation, establish long-term and stable cooperative relationships with enterprises, and jointly carry out joint training programs, internship and training base construction, etc., so that students can participate in project practice in the real enterprise environment and apply what they have learned in real work. in addition, through the organization of disciplinary competitions, innovation and entrepreneurship projects and other activities, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 129 we can further stimulate students' enthusiasm for practice and innovation potential, and comprehensively improve their comprehensive quality and employment competitiveness. 5.3 flexible and innovative curriculum: meet diverse needs and stimulate learning potentials in the face of the increasingly diversified learning needs and interests of students, colleges and universities should enhance the flexibility and innovation of the curriculum, and build a diversified curriculum system and learning path. by setting up elective courses, interdisciplinary courses, innovative experiments, etc., they provide students with a wider choice of space to meet the personalized learning needs of different students. at the same time, advanced teaching methods such as case teaching and project-oriented teaching are adopted to guide students to actively participate and explore, and to cultivate their critical thinking, problem-solving ability and teamwork ability. in addition, colleges and universities should encourage teachers to carry out teaching reform and research, explore new teaching models and evaluation mechanisms, and provide strong support for curriculum innovation. 5.4 deepening school-enterprise cooperation: promoting the integration of industry and education and realizing win-win development strengthening cooperation and communication with enterprises is an important way to realize the docking of curriculum content with industry needs. colleges and universities should take the initiative to establish close contact with enterprises to understand the actual needs and employment standards of enterprises, so as to provide a scientific basis for the setting and adjustment of course content. by inviting enterprise experts to participate in curriculum design and teaching evaluation, they can jointly formulate curriculum standards and teaching plans that meet the needs of the industry, and ensure that the course content is closely connected with the market demand. at the same time, colleges and universities can also cooperate with enterprises to carry out scientific research projects, technical consulting and other services, to realize resource sharing, complement each other's strengths, and jointly promote the innovative development of the field of computer application technology. in addition, the establishment of long-term mechanisms for school-enterprise cooperation, such as the regular organization of school-enterprise cooperation forums, exchanges and other activities, to build bridges of communication between the two sides, and to promote the integration of industry and education, school-enterprise cooperation to a deeper level. 6. case study 6.1 reform practice of computer application technology course in a university a university has carried out a series of reform practices to address the problem of the disconnection between the content of the computer application technology course and the needs of the industry. they firstly updated the course content and increased the introduction and application of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data; secondly, they strengthened the practical teaching link and established internship bases and joint laboratories in cooperation with enterprises; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 130 and finally, they enhanced the flexibility and innovativeness of the courses and set up elective courses and interdisciplinary courses. after several years of practical exploration, the teaching quality of computer application technology courses in this university has been significantly improved, and the employment competitiveness of students has been significantly enhanced. 6.2 a case of recruitment of computer application technology talents in an enterprise when recruiting computer application technology talents, an enterprise found that many applicants have solid theoretical knowledge but insufficient practical experience. in view of this problem, the enterprise decided to carry out cooperation with colleges and universities to jointly cultivate talents who meet the actual needs of the enterprise. they signed a joint training agreement with the university to jointly develop the curriculum plan and teaching plan; at the same time, provide internship opportunities and project experience, so that students learn and grow in practice. after several years of cooperative practice, the enterprise has successfully recruited a group of computer application technology talents with solid theoretical knowledge and rich practical experience, which provides strong support for the innovative development of the enterprise. 7. conclusion and prospect this paper discusses the docking problem between the teaching content of computer application technology courses and industry demand, and proposes corresponding improvement strategies by analyzing the current industry development trend, enterprise demand and the current situation of college curriculum. the results of the study show that colleges and universities should update the course content, strengthen the practical teaching links, enhance the flexibility and innovativeness of the curriculum, and strengthen the cooperation and communication with enterprises to promote the docking between the course content and the industry demand. in the future, with the continuous development of information technology and the changing needs of the industry, colleges and universities should continue to pay attention to the development trend of the industry and the changes in the needs of enterprises, and constantly adjust and optimize the course content and teaching plan, so as to contribute to the cultivation of more high-quality talents in computer application technology in line with the needs of the society. references chen, g. d., zhang, f. y., & luo, w. q. (2024). research on curriculum system of computer application technology major based on job requirements. information and computer (theoretical edition), 36(20), 36-38. deng, z. (2025). analysis and research on the teaching of computer application technology under the support of big data. academic weekly, (05), 4-6. jiang, r. h., & jia. j. f. (2025). discussion on the development of high quality of computer laboratory courses in local applied universities under the background of new engineering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 131 disciplines. china education technology equipment, (02), 137-139+153. mao, k. h. (2025). teaching reform and practice of professional curriculum system based on the integration of race and teaching and the integration of classes and certificates—taking computer application technology major as an example. modern vocational education, (05), 129-132. shi, h., xie, z. m., & deng, k. b. (2023). research on the construction of higher vocational modularized curriculum system under the perspective of vocational positions—taking the professional group of computer application technology as an example. industry and information technology education, (05), 80-84+94. yang, y. h. (2023). on the construction of talent cultivation mode and curriculum system of intermediate computer application technology. academic weekly, (33), 54-56. zhou, w., & lin, y. t. (2024). research on teaching reform program of university computer application foundation course. shanxi youth, (24), 135-137. original paper a study on the matching of teaching content of com wenqing kang1 1 english college, xi’an fanyi university, shaanxi advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 7 original paper judicial determination of manifest unfairness in a contract—taking mr. bao's contract dispute protest case as an entry point yue zhu1* 1 hunan normal university law school, changsha, hunan 410000, china a e-mail: xueran120w@126.com received: january 19, 2024 accepted: april 24, 2024 online published: may 11, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p7 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p7 abstract in practice, there are still differences in the judicial judgement of manifest injustice, the differences between the single element theory and the double element theory have not been completely eliminated after the promulgation and implementation of the civil code, and the practice of circumventing the double element by "non-general contract" has been developed, and there are also differences in the judicial application of the judgement of "serious imbalance of interests" and the choice of the point of time for judgement. the judgement of "serious imbalance of interests" and the choice of the point of time for judgement are also subject to divergence in judicial application. the judiciary should fully respect the principle of freedom of contract, maintain modesty in determining manifest injustice, adhere to situational judgement, abide by the principle of double materiality in the content of the judgement, and adopt a hierarchical thinking in the logic of the judgement. keywords apparent unfairness, single element theory, double element theory, rule of judgement 1. introduction 1.1 facts in 2009, yihai company for the construction of coastal engineering auxiliary ship and need a lot of money, yihai company's original legal representative mr. chen repeatedly to bao borrowing, and invited mr. bao help enterprise financing. subsequently, mr. bao provided financing services to yihai company.on january 20, 2010, yihai company issued a 'letter of entrusted financing commitment' to mr. bao, stating: 'due to the construction of engineering ships and the need for financing, we hereby www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 8 entrust mr. bao with full authority to handle the financing loan matters with zhoushan city dinghai district construction bank. considering the significant difficulty and involvement of energy in this financing.the company now solemn promise: if mr. bao so-and-so financing money can end up not less than 100 million yuan (according to the actual amount of bank loans issued), the company will pay to bao so-and-so additional monthly 0.5 per cent of the calculation of the financing remuneration (calculated on the basis of the actual amount of the loan and paid to the expiry of the loan period). the time of payment is the same as the time of interest payment to the bank. all expenses incurred as a result of this financing, whether successful or not, will be at mr. bao's own expense." after the signing of the commitment letter, mr. bao secured a total of 110 million yuan of bank loans for yihai company, and yihai company failed to fulfil the financing remuneration agreed in the entrusted financing commitment letter due to the poor flow of funds. after consultation, the two parties signed an agreement in 2012, which made clear the fact that mr. bao provided financing services for yihai company, and re-agreed on the financing remuneration, agreeing that "the initial financing service fee is 1 million yuan... the remaining portion of the financing service fee: according to the actual completion of the project quantity by party a, party a shall pay party b 1 yuan per square as the remaining portion of the financing service fee."later, as the agreement was not actually performed, mr. bao sued to the court in 2017, requesting payment of financing remuneration in the amount of 4,146,009 yuan and property preservation fees of 5,000 yuan. 1.2 issues the court of first and second instance in this case considered that the financing remuneration agreement was too high, and the remuneration of rmb 1 yuan/party had been substantially detached from the attributes of the financing service fee, although the contract was concluded voluntarily by both parties and was lawful and valid, the abnormally high financing service fee should not be protected by the law, and the remuneration agreement constituted manifest unfairness, so the court altered the financing remuneration agreement in the contract in accordance with the court's discretionary power and substantially reduced the amount of the contract. however, the prosecutor's office, after reviewing the case, believed that the court abused its discretion, and the civil liability determined by the judgement was contrary to the valid agreement of the parties, the rationale being that, since the two parties had already made a clear agreement on the financing service fee, the court should give full consideration to the agreement in accordance with the basic principle of freedom of contract, respecting the autonomy of the parties' meanings, and the court obviously lacked the legal basis for the substantial reduction of the service fee. it can be seen that the key issue in this case is whether the financing service fee agreed by both parties is manifestly unfair. in fact, the question of how to judge the apparent unfairness also troubled the judicial organs, showing that there are many differences in the judgement of fairness, the decision standard is not the same. in practice, the parties to use the rules of obvious unfairness to avoid the performance of valid contracts occur from time to time, accurate judgement of obvious unfairness to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 9 maintain the security of the transaction order, to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties to the contract is particularly necessary. in addition, with the official implementation of the civil code, which makes contract law, article 54, "in the conclusion of the contract is unfair," one party has the right to request a change or revocation of the provisions of the contract is invalidated, which adds to the judicial application of the unfairness of the new problem. in this regard, from the basic theory of the fairness of the systematic investigation, in-depth sorting and summary of the practice of the unfairness of the decision of the differences, and then study the rules of judicial judgement of the fairness of the unfairness of the obvious. 2. basic problems of the manifest injustice system 2.1 the theoretical origins of manifest injustice 2.1.1 contractual formalism legal proverb: "there is a right only if there is a remedy". in ancient roman law, substantive law and litigation law has not been separated, the parties to a substantive rights can be protected depending on whether the parties to meet the litigation elements, which is the litigation elements system. in the stage of legal proceedings, the ancient roman law to adopt a strict formalism, the parties must use the legal way, language and action to participate in the litigation, otherwise it will be considered that the parties do not have the legal right of action. this strict formalism is manifested in the contractual relationship, as long as the parties to the contract follow a strict programme and fixed phrases, complete the prescribed rituals, the contractual relationship is established. as long as the form meets the legal requirements, the contract will produce legal effect (han, 2018). in this period, the system of obvious unfairness is covered by the fixed form, the formal elements that the establishment of the contract, but also to judge the validity of the contract of all the elements. once a contract is formally concluded, the parties are bound by this "legal lock". 2.1.2 the less-than-half rule the embryonic system of manifest injustice should be traced back to the late roman empire. with the increasing frequency of commodity transactions, the strong colour of strict formalism at the stage of legal proceedings was broken, and fixed actions, language, etc., were no longer essential for the establishment of a right of action, which was acquired more flexibly and with more emphasis on examination in a substantive sense. moreover, influenced by moral philosophy and theology, it was believed that any object should have a reasonable price (barry, 2004). thus, roman law promised a right of action based on extraordinary damages. the magistrate should scrutinise the price of a contract and could adjust the content of a contract that did not have a reasonable price. in this context, corpus juris civilis created the "rule of half the shortfall", which stipulated that if the sale of land suffered a loss of more than half of the fair market price, the price should be paid in full or the contract should be null and void. in the late imperial period, "solicitude for debtors replaced the protection of claims, and the freedom of contracting was subjected to paternalistic interference by legislators (xu, 2017)", and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 10 the protection of the weaker party in the contractual relationship had developed into an important principle of legislation and justice at that time. it can be seen that the theory of apparent fairness has taken shape, although it only applies to land transactions, the scope of application is narrow, but the spirit of contractual fairness implied by it has begun to be manifested. 2.1.3 fair price theory the theory of fair price was developed in france on the basis of roman law, and scholars of ecclesiastical law considered, from a moral and ethical point of view, that it was unlawful for one of the parties to over-exploit and to reap exorbitant profits in a contract (yin, 1995). however, the theory of "fair price" did not "advance", on the one hand, in the era of autocratic kingship, prices and rents are subject to the strict control of the king's decree or professional groups, unfair price actually rarely occurred, on the other hand, by the 17th and 18th century contractual on the other hand, influenced by the 17th and 18th century contractual thought of freedom, "the parties are the best judge of their own interests", respect for the free will of the parties to the contract, to maintain the security of the transaction has become a powerful proposition, therefore, the theory of fair price actually encountered unprecedented challenges. the result of the compromise is that although napoleonic code recognises manifest unfairness (contractual damages), article 887 and article 1674 stipulate that manifest unfairness may lead to the nullity of the contract, but its article 1118 makes it clear that manifest unfairness generally does not constitute the cause of contractual nullity (han, 2018). since the apparent fairness is essentially for the judicial organs to intervene in the contract to provide a channel, from its inception there is a contract justice or freedom of contract controversy. the different value considerations and orientations of the two have determined the different elements of manifest injustice in various countries and the great differences in judicial application. 2.1.4 social orientation the social orientation of the law has led to the final establishment of the system of manifest injustice. under the social principle, the interests of society as a whole are taken seriously by the legislator, and the individual cannot exist in isolation from society. the interests of society take precedence over those of the individual, and freedom of contract and freedom of contract are gradually "relegated to the background", so that the law no longer focuses solely on the interests of the individual, but rather on the coordination of the interests of the individual and the interests of society. therefore, "legislators and judges should have the right to examine whether the contract is consistent with the public interest, whether to balance the individual interests of private individuals" (cai, 2015), which laid a solid theoretical foundation for the development of the system of manifest injustice. in addition, with the large number of transactions, in order to improve the efficiency of the transaction, the use of form contracts more and more frequently, in this context, the situation of manifest unfairness from time to time, the conclusion of the contract and the assumption of responsibility is more and more does not reflect the will of the individual, as the trust contract theory scholars, "people voluntarily assume the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 11 contractual obligations of the situation is becoming more and more rare, most of the contractual obligations in the life of the contract is based on the benefit of one party or one party due to the reliance on the contract. imposed on the basis of a benefit to one party or a loss suffered by one party as a result of relying on the other (chen, 2007)." as a result, the regime of manifest injustice has developed rapidly to become a general regime that can be applied to a wide range of contracts. the history of the development of the system of obvious fairness is the history of the game of contract justice and freedom of contract, but also the history of the change of western thought. in the course of this journey, the scope of application has been continuously expanded, and the hidden "conscience sanction" has finally developed into a written general regime. 2.2 controversy over the elements of manifest injustice 2.2.1 single-element versus double-element legislation varies from country to country and theories differ on the elements of manifest injustice. depending on whether the cause of the manifest injustice is taken into account, the relevant theories can be divided into the single element theory and the double element theory. the single element theory, i.e., the objective element theory, believes that the judgement of showing fairness should not take into account the cause of the apparent unfairness, but only from the comparison of the interests between the parties to the contract to draw conclusions. in other words, as long as the parties are considered to exist in an objective imbalance of interests, rights and obligations clearly unequal situation, should be considered to constitute unfairness. (tong, 1990) this doctrine is essentially the "contract fair" to the extreme, in the interests of the weighing of the side of the contract completely on the side of fairness. the single element doctrine holds that the entire normative value of manifest unfairness lies in preserving the reciprocity of interests between the parties in a civil transaction without regard to the subjective attitudes of the contracting parties. typical examples are article 1118 of napoleonic code, which states that "the loss suffered by a party as a result of a manifest injustice ...... constitutes a cause for the cancellation of the contract", and article 934 of allgemeines bürgerliches gesetzbuch, which states that a party to a dual contract may request the annulment of the contract if the value of the payment made by the party is less than half of the value of the other party's payment. the austrian general civil code provides that a party to a dual service contract may request the cancellation of the contract if the value of the payment is less than half of the value of the other party (wang, 2019). the doctrine of double essentials advocates the addition of subjective elements to the objective elements. to constitute manifest unfairness, there must not only be an objectively significant imbalance of interests between the parties to the contract, but also a subjective purpose to obtain a windfall profit based on taking advantage of the other party's unfavourable state of affairs, such as inexperience, distress, or imprudence. article 138 of the german civil code provides regulations on profiteering behavior, specifying that "a legal act is invalid if it takes advantage of another person's distress, inexperience, lack of judgement or weak administrative will to make an agreement or guarantee of a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 12 property interest for a payment to himself or to a third person which is clearly disproportionate in relation to the payment (peng & ge, 1999)". it can be seen that the determination of manifest injustice in germany is stricter than that in france, which adopts the single element theory. in determining manifest injustice, the judge, in addition to weighing the interests of both parties to the contract on the level of results, also needs to examine whether there is a situation at the time of the conclusion of the contract where one party is in a disadvantageous position and the other party takes advantage of it to obtain exorbitant profits. 2.2.2 china's law of the constitutive elements of manifest injustice controversy china's theoretical and practical circles for the composition of the elements of the apparent loss of fairness there is some controversy, but tends to take double important elements. general principles of the civil law of the people's republic of china, article 72 provides that "one party to take advantage of the other party's inexperience, resulting in the rights and obligations of the two sides of the obvious violation of the principle of fairness, the principle of equal pay for equal value, can be recognised as manifestly unfair", which is obviously at the same time on the subjective and objective elements to make the limitations of the drafting body of the legislation, also adopts the double important elements (hu, 2009). however, since the introduction of contract law did not make any provisions on the elements of manifestly unfair, and general principles of civil law, as the "one stroke", not only that, the draft contract law has stipulated that the rights and obligations of the parties are clearly unequal, so that one party suffers a significant disadvantage can be cancelled contract. accordingly, some scholars have concluded: manifestly unfair only need to contract the existence of an imbalance between the interests of both parties (han, 2011). professor cui jianyuan also holds a single element, he believes that china's legislation in the german law on profiteering behaviour is split into multiplying people's peril as well as manifestly unfair, at the same time, because both for the revocable contract, taking into account in order to effectively distinguish between the two boundaries, so as not to make multiplying people's peril and manifestly unfair scope of protection of the overlap, it should be regarded as the manifestly fair stripped of subjective elements, and only regulates the interests of serious imbalance of the act, the german law on the subjective element (cui, 2011). the subjective elements of german law, namely, the use of disadvantageous situation and the elements of profit actually belong to the danger of others. it must be said that there is a certain degree of reasonableness in this interpretation. in view of general principles of the civil law of the people's republic of china, the practice of the general tendency to double important elements. however, in zhonghua huang v. sanming liu creditor's right of avoidance dispute (gazette cases) (bulletin of the supreme people's court, 2013), the court stated that "manifest unfairness means that the rights and obligations of the two parties are obviously unequal, so that one party suffers a significant disadvantage." judicial practice shifted back to the single element theory, and a "compromise" emerged in the theoretical community, which held that under some specific circumstances, the single condition theory could be adopted to protect the clearly disadvantaged party. (he, 2017) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 13 however, this disagreement was put to rest with the promulgation and implementation of the civil code, and article 150 stipulates that "if one party takes advantage of the other party's state of distress or lack of judgement, resulting in the establishment of a civil legal act that is manifestly unfair, the injured party shall have the right to request the people's court or arbitration institution to revoke it", thus shifting to the theory of double essentials. 2.2.3 the rationality argumentation of the dual essentiality doctrine it should be said that the double element theory has a consensus, which is more conducive to the protection of the order of the transaction, the two sides through the "due process" of the contract concluded by the principle of lawfulness and validity, if the adoption of a single element theory, the composition of the manifest injustice is too easy, which increases the risk of the contract was cancelled by the court, improperly added to the contractual relationship between the unstable factors. one party in the contract may produce after the signing of the "precarious" feeling, and the other party is the existence of the system of obvious unfairness to avoid the contract performance of the possibility of "to the system of obvious unfairness to escape". market transactions are particularly complex, the price of the contract often involves the consideration of many factors, the judiciary should fully respect the true meaning of the parties, "if the free expression of the parties without any defects, then even if the result is unfair, but also can not be applied to the rule (zilin, 2019)", the law in the face of the freedom of contract should be kept to a minimum of the law should maintain a minimum of regulation in the face of freedom of contract, and when it has to intervene in a contractual relationship, it should exercise the utmost restraint and not expand its discretion at will. the single element doctrine provides a gateway for judicial involvement in contractual relations, which should be closed more often than not. single element is not conducive to the order of transactions, from the surface, the adjudicator on the objective results of the contract there is a clear imbalance in the adjustment, to protect the rights and interests of the parties, but in fact, due to the lack of "obvious imbalance" can be measured standards, the judge's judgement is often required to resort to the judge's discretion, and there is a risk of abuse of discretion, thereby "tear" the principle of autonomy, whether the contract is valid no longer depends on the parties to the contract, but by the judge to take up the contract validity of the final judge, and then shake the foundation of the contract law. 3. differences in judicial judgement of obvious loss of fairness in practice 3.1 differences between the single-element and double-element arguments before the civil code was issued, the divergence of judgement in judicial practice was mainly manifested in the divergence between the single element theory and the constituent element theory. for example, in the case of sichuan province (2014) shawan min chu zi no. 392, the court relied on article 72 of the general principles of the civil law of the people's republic of china to analyse the two aspects of "whether there is a party to take advantage of the situation or take advantage of the other party's inexperience" and "whether there is any unfairness in the content of the agreement in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 14 terms of rights and obligations. "the two aspects were analysed, which is obviously adopting the view of the two-pronged approach. however, some courts take a different position, such as in the case of zhong weiming and wang xiaogun right to life, right to health, right to body disputes, the court only based on the objective elements to make the determination of manifestly unfair, "the case of the appellant for the treatment of the injuries have spent more than 10,000 yuan of medical expenses, while the mediation agreement agreement appellant did not get the silk bo compensation. obvious violation of fairness, the principle of equal pay for equal value. mediation agreement should be cancelled according to law". the results-only argument is really unconvincing. 3.2 the double requirement is circumvented on the grounds of "non-general contract" it should be said that, after the promulgation and implementation of the civil code, the court should be subjective and objective elements to judge whether it is manifestly unfair or not, and can not adopt the previous general principles of the civil law of the people's republic of china to avoid the application of the practice of avoidance. however, the practice of insisting on the application of objective elements in special circumstances still exists in the practice of applying a single element on the grounds of "non-general contract". this typical reasoning is concentrated in cases involving work-related injuries, such cases, generally workers in the work-related injuries with the employer to sign a compensation agreement, the agreement is fulfilled, the workers apply for work-related injuries, and based on the results of the work-related injuries, requesting the judgement of the previously signed compensation agreement is invalid. in practice, the court no longer adopts double materiality, but directly judges the unfairness from the perspective of imbalance of interests. for example, in the case of the contract dispute between luo gang and gandhi rongyi coal co., the court held that "in this case, although the agreement reached by the two parties on the damage of the work injury has the attributes of a general contract, but this case is not dealt with for the simple creditor's debt relationship, but involves the survival of the rights and interests of the workers, and the workers in the employer's place of work suffered from work injuries, and the employer to the workers to carry out the work injury compensation is the statutory obligation in the regulation on work-related injury insurance...... the agreement undoubtedly excludes the statutory obligation of the employer, so it should be revoked for manifest unfairness." in terms of system positioning, the rules of manifest injustice in china are located in the general part of the civil code. this means that the rules of manifest unfairness should have a principle attribute, which is not only applicable to the contract, but to all civil legal acts, with a general effect. the determination of manifest injustice should strictly follow the idea of subjective and objective elements to judge, there should be no "non-general contract" as stated in the above decision. the application of a single element in special circumstances and the reversal of the balance in favour of the special group of "workers" essentially reflects the pursuit of the value of contractual fairness, but this practice of evading the rules of judgement of manifest injustice by means of a "non-general contract" has a tendency to expand in practice. however, there is a tendency in practice for this practice to evade the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 15 rule of manifest injustice by means of "non-general contracts".in the case of contract dispute between sanfeng wei and shijun cai, the court held that "although the personal undertaking issued by the plaintiff and the agreement signed by both parties on the ownership of claims in this case have the attributes of a general contract, the plaintiff and the defendant are different from the parties to a general contract ...... this case is not dealing with a simple this case is not dealing with a simple debt relationship, but involves the plaintiff and the defendant during the cohabitation of the ownership of claims". 3.3 the determination of "serious imbalance of interests" has caused disagreements the objective element of manifest unfairness is a serious imbalance of interest or a serious disproportion between what is given and what is to be given. the determination of this element, because china's legislation does not make detailed provisions, so the extent to which the imbalance of interests can be considered to be manifestly unfair has become a problem. generally speaking, the practice can be divided into three kinds of decision-making ideas: first, the judge's discretionary type, the second is the absolute amount of type, the third is the relative proportion type. the discretionary model of judges entails complete judgment by the judges regarding "serious imbalance of interests." the price of the contract, the equality of rights and obligations, and the experience of the parties are all left to the judge's judgement. the biggest advantage of this approach is flexibility, but inevitably there is a risk of abuse of discretion by the judge, the court in the case cited in this paper adopted this criterion, and adjusted the financing remuneration on the basis of a comprehensive consideration of various factors. absolute amount type, i.e., taking a specific amount as the criterion for constituting a serious imbalance of interests (sui, 2015). for example, in the case of wenyuan liu and yuqing han, the market price of the house was 2.7 million, while the contractual agreement was 2 million, which may constitute an obvious unfairness. relative proportionate decisions are generally based on article 19 of the contract law interpretation ii, which limits of 30% and 70% respectively constitute unreasonably high and unreasonably low prices. 3.4 differences in judgement of timing the point of time for judgement of manifest injustice is also divided in practice. tendency of the opinion that should be based on the general rules of the civil law of the people's republic of china, article 151 of the establishment of civil legal acts, and after the conclusion of the contract of manifest injustice into the normative field of the change of circumstances. differences in practice mainly around the time of signing the contract, the contract performance, the decision of these points. in a house sale contract dispute case, the price at the time of signing the contract for 2,000 yuan / square metre, for the transfer of the price of 4,500 yuan / square metre, the seller refused to hand over the house, the buyer sued the court for the transfer of the formalities, the seller filed a counterclaim claiming that the contract shows fairness (wang, 2010). the case should be applied to show fairness or change of circumstances becomes a problem. courts are accustomed to examining the relationship of rights and obligations between the parties in a contract from the standpoint of the time when the judgement was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 16 made. this reflects the fact that there is still controversy in our judicial practice regarding the determination of the point of time for judgement of manifest unfairness. 4. rules for determining manifest injustice 4.1 adherence to contextual judgement at the point of judgement the point of time for judgement of manifest unfairness should be "when the civil legal act is established", which is the clear provision of the civil code and also the intention of the establishment of the manifest unfairness system. the adjudicator needs to put himself in the shoes of the parties and weigh the rights and obligations of the parties in the light of a combination of factors. just as in the determination of self-defence, the referee should be "based on the specific situation of the defender defence", back to the time of the crime, a comprehensive consideration of the overall process, only to take this hindsight in order to ensure that the referee in a calm, rational perspective to assess the case. in some cases, the interests of both parties to a contract may appear to be out of balance, but the judge cannot conclude that there is a "serious imbalance" on the basis of the outcome alone, but needs to take into account the circumstances in which the contract was concluded. for example, in the case cited herein, it is clearly inappropriate for the judge to base his judgement of manifest injustice solely on facts that occurred five years later. at the time the contract was signed, the two sides of the yi hai company in the next five years, how the development of profit or loss, and can continue to operate are unknown, therefore, as long as the contract is the two sides voluntarily entered into, should not be considered as the establishment of the manifestly unfair, if we adhere to the context of the judgement will be able to avoid the problem to a large extent. in fact, similar agreements are also very common in life, the parties to buy lottery tickets, at a very small cost, fortunate to get a high prize, stand in hindsight, is this again belong to the interests of a serious imbalance? in valuation adjustment mechanisms, the failure of an investment may result in a high buy-back obligation for the enterprise, which may seem unfair. however, valuation adjustment mechanism is a risk allocation mechanism based on information asymmetry and future uncertainty, and the rights and obligations of both parties should not be judged after the fact. the price of the agreement is the result of negotiation between the two parties, which is a prudent and free choice for unknown situations. the supreme people's court has stated that "the disproportion of the payment is based on the time of the conclusion of the contract, and the increase in the price of the transaction after the conclusion of the contract belongs to the commercial risk" (ran, 2015). in fact, it is only by adhering to contextual judgement that the systems of manifest injustice and change of circumstances can be effectively coordinated, otherwise the scope of normative protection of the two systems will overlap. 4.2 adherence to double weight in the content of judgements the judgement of fairness should be made in strict accordance with the civil code, which requires both objective and subjective elements. in practice, it is not only difficult to justify the decision to adopt a single element on the grounds of "non-general contract", but also detached from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 17 increasingly complex economic life, which should be corrected. 4.2.1 determination of objective elements the question at hand, however, is what degree of "imbalance of interests" is required for manifest injustice. in extraterritorial legislation, france has adopted the "objective model", i.e., legislation that specifies the amount or proportion of imbalance of interest to be achieved. for example, article 1674 of the french civil code provides that "if the seller suffers a loss of more than seven-twelfths of the price of the immovable property because the sale is manifestly unfair and the price is too low, the seller shall have the right to request the cancellation of the sale of the immovable property", a legislative model that originated in ancient roman law. in contrast, germany has adopted a subjective model, does not specify the proportion, and "clearly asymmetrical" as a general expression as the standard (qin, 2010). the author believes that our country should adopt a compromise approach, with flexibility and at the same time play a role in limiting the discretion of the judge. the court can refer to the contract law interpretation ii in the provisions of the 30% as the price is obviously too high standard, 70% as the price is obviously too low standard, at the same time, the court in the process of adjudicating the case can also be made in the process of alternative treatment, such as in the case quoted in this paper, due to the special nature of the valuation adjustment mechanism, with a certain "adjustment" nature, rather than a purely contractual relationship, and not a simple contract. in the case cited in this paper, due to the special nature of the agreement, it has a certain "betting" nature, rather than pure contractual relationship, the judge should have the flexibility of the determination of such cases of obvious unfairness. the highest judicial authority may, when the time is ripe, determine the standard of imbalance of interests in the form of judicial interpretation. 4.2.2 determination of subjective elements the subjective element is to take advantage of the other party's state of distress and lack of judgement. in the case of manifest unfairness, one party to the contract is in a clearly unfavourable position, and the other party is based on such a disadvantageous position to obtain profiteering. specifically need to pay attention to the following points. the adjudicator should pay attention to identify the subjective characteristics of the parties. the supreme people's court has actually established the "bad faith rule", that is, the law on the unfairness of the fairness of the results of the transaction is not abstract, general evaluation, but in the presence of the law does not allow the malicious behaviour of the situation, for the malicious parties to be deprived of the undue benefits. courts in many places have also incorporated this "bad faith rule" into their reasoning. therefore, the court should give full and comprehensive consideration to the relevant evidence in the trial of the case. if it cannot be proved that the parties entered into the contract in bad faith, then even if there is a serious imbalance in the results, it should not be regarded as manifestly unfair. the adjudicator should focus on examining whether the parties are equal civil subjects, whether the price of the contract has been freely negotiated, and whether the conclusion of the contract has been www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 18 made under sufficient weighing. this is also a refereeing idea that deserves to be recognised in current practice. in addition, generally speaking, the judge can make a judgement on the subjective element by judging the option of one of the parties to enter into the contract or not. when a party is in a state of distress, the expression of its meaning is imperfect, the content of the contract is not fully understood, the choice of meaning is restricted, if the above circumstances do not exist, should be denied the constitution of manifest unfairness. 4.3 logical hierarchy of judgement the stratification theory has become an influential viewpoint in the theory of criminal composition. in determining whether an act constitutes a crime, the hierarchy theory is logical and progressive, with the possibility of incrimination at almost every level. this has an important positive effect on limiting incrimination and maintaining the modesty of criminal law. the author believes that this kind of hierarchical thinking can be applied to the judgement of manifest injustice. the determination of obvious fairness, like the determination of crime should be maintained to the maximum extent of restraint, the rationale is the principle of freedom of contract, the judiciary can not through the system of obvious fairness wantonly erosion of the foundation of the contract law. in judging manifest injustice, objectivity should precede subjectivity and form before substance. specifically, the judge should carry out a two-stage judgement, in the first stage, the judge should review the following elements: standing at the point of time when the contract is signed, whether there is inequality of rights and obligations between the two parties, whether there is a serious imbalance of interests, whether a party is in a state of distress, if the above elements are in full compliance with the judge can be preliminarily presumed that the contract is manifestly unfair. but at this point, the judge must still carry out the second stage of judgement, that is, the subjective malice of the perpetrator of the other party's state of distress to judge, if there is no such malice, should be excluded from the composition of the manifestly unfair. references barry, n. (2004). introduction to roman law (huang, f. (ttansl.), p. 185). law press, china. bulletin of the supreme people's court (no. 1). (2013). bulletin of the supreme people's court (no. 1). (2013). cai, w. c. (2015). freedom, justice, order:the value change and reconstruction of the principle of freedom of contract. private law research, 17(01), 67-85. chen, r. (2007). on the decline of "covenantal cause theory" in common law systems. modern law, (04), 161-168. cui, j. y. (2011). general theory of contract law (vol. 1, pp. 304-309); renmin university of china press, china. han, s. y. (2011). general introduction to contract law (3rd ed., pp. 198-202); law press, china, 2011. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 19 han, s. y. (2018). general introduction to contract law (4th ed., p. 289). law press, china. he, j. (2017). commentary on article, 54(1)(2) of the <contract law> (manifestly unfair system)', in jurist, 2017, no. 1. hu, k. s. (2009). edited by hu kangsheng, interpretation of the contract law of the people's republic of china (2nd ed., hu, k. s. (ed.), p. 98); law press, china. z. l. (2019). on the composition of china's contract jurisprudence system:sources, principles and doctrines. law and social development, 25(02), 5-21. peng, z. m., & ge, t. s. (1999). on the principle of apparent unfairness in contract. law review, (01), 65-71+108. qin, k. y. (2010). on the constituent elements of obvious loss of fairness. economic and social development, 8(03), 137-140. ran, k. p. (2015). the realistic dilemma and institutional reconstruction of apparent unfairness and multiplier. comparative law studies, (05), 30-43. sui, p. s. (2015). essentials of contract law (4th ed., p. 128); renmin university of china press, china. tong, r. (ed.). (1990). general rules of the civil law of the people's republic of china. people's public security university of china press (pp. 233-234). wang, d. s. (2010). study on the determination of apparent loss of fairness in the principle of change of circumstances. law application, (11), 81-83. wang, l. m. (2019). discussion on some issues of the system of change of circumstances--another comment on article 323 of the contract part (draft) of the civil code (second review draft). legal business research, 36(03), 3-10. xu, g. d. (2017). roman commercial law and its unity with "civil law"-an examination of justinian's ladder of jurisprudence]. law and social development, 23(05), 104-114. yin, t. (1995). the conflict between freedom and justice-the controversy over "contractual damages" in french contract law theory. comparative law studies, (03), 287-293. 1. introduction 1.1 facts 1.2 issues 2. basic problems of the manifest injustice system 2.1 the theoretical origins of manifest injustice 2.1.1 contractual formalism 2.1.2 the less-than-half rule 2.1.3 fair price theory 2.1.4 social orientation 2.2 controversy over the elements of manifest inju 2.2.1 single-element versus double-element 2.2.2 china's law of the constitutive elements of 2.2.3 the rationality argumentation of the dual es 3. differences in judicial judgement of obvious lo 3.1 differences between the single-element and dou 3.2 the double requirement is circumvented on the 3.3 the determination of "serious imbalance of int 3.4 differences in judgement of timing 4.rules for determining manifest injustice 4.1 adherence to contextual judgement at the point 4.2 adherence to double weight in the content of j 4.2.1 determination of objective elements 4.2.2 determination of subjective elements 4.3 logical hierarchy of judgement references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 80 original paper field instruction with integration and implementation of indigenous social work education prof pratibha j mishra 1* 1 department of social work, guru ghassidas vishwavidayalaya, central university, koni, bilaspur, (c.g.), india received: july 23, 2022 accepted: august 22, 2022 online published: august 29, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n3p80 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p80 abstract the purpose of field work is ... to clarify technical instruction. just as the botanist goes into the fields to study plants and flowers to supplement his text book knowledge, and just as the geologist turns from a study of books to the study of rocks, so the social worker goes from the classroom to the appropriate field work activity, using the field work as a means of clarifying and adding point to the classroom instruction (manshardt, 1985, p. 3). field instruction, a crucial component of social work education, is recognised as an educational process to facilitate integrative and experiential learning. though the pattern and organisation of social work practicum have some universality, the micro-based practice model adopted in the indian context has led to inappropriately designed field education programmes producing students unsuited to meet the developmental need of the indian society. efforts made to restructure field instruction to prepare students for macro-based practice roles have been too slow to find their way into the educational programme of most of the schools of social work in india. major problems such as scarcity of field placements, non-availability of qualified agency-based field instructors, inadequate linkage between classroom teaching and field realities, and poor faculty position still prevail. crucial areas for change in field instruction are examined and alternative strategies are suggested in the light of the emerging socioeconomic concerns of the country and recent trends in the profession. keywords classroom learning, experiential learning, linkages, alternative strategies, trends 1. introduction social work, being a practice based profession, has been responding to the immediate needs by finding locally viable solutions for local problems. social work has also been engaged in dialogue and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 81 published by scholink inc. knowledge formation around the processes of globalization, liberalization, the affects of market forces and media in the lives of people. however, as an academic discipline, social work in india like many other disciplines continues to be eurocentric and colonized for years. the second university grants committee review of social work curricula in 1980 introduced the syllabi for social work training engaging more with the indian social realities. for long, it has been dominated by the american social science knowledge base, owing to the extensive use of their literature and faculty training, while there has been a dearth of indigenous literature. one way forward for the growth of the profession is the recognition of social work as a profession amongst its users and the state. this necessitates a stocktaking of the indigenous knowledge base, the challenges and the opportunities available to strengthen it. thus, indigenous social work is a conscious step towards contextualizing social work practice in indian socio-cultural perspective. professional social work as it has evolved in india is a graft on the ancient heritage and not an independent transplant. as for the production of indigenous literature on social problems, welfare services, and the entire social work scene in lndia, the country has produced immense amount of literature on a wide variety of social work subjects almost from 1947, the year of india‟s independence. in terms of origin, initial efforts and evolution in the pattern of training, areas of specialisation, types of jobs and the status and composition, the professional social work in india has a very distinct model of its own. it has undoubtedly adopted and adapted a lot from other countries but it has a soul and a body of its own. it is customary to date the beginning of professional social work in india to the year 1936 when the first school of social work was established in bombay. but those who have studied the history and philosophy of social work in india know that there has been a long and ancient tradition of social work practice. the inspiration for it may have been varied; religious, humanitarian, secular or rational secular. there were several streams comprising charity, relief, social reform and institutionalised welfare services. most of it was voluntary effort; some of it had state support during intermittent periods of history. it was extended under official orders or administered with legislative support. it is too long and chequered a history even to be summarised here. but the cognisance of the fact that such a history existed (wadia, 1968, pp. 393-400) is essential to recognise an important point that when social work was launched as a profession in india, it was not a transplant from a foreign soil. rather, it was like the formation of crystals in an already saturated chemical solution. it is a well known scientific fact that, suspending in such a solution a crystal picked from another lot previously formed acts as a catalyst to accelerate the formation of crystals in the solution. in other words, the emergence of social work as a profession was not occurring in a vacuum, nor was it being written, as it were, on a clean slate. there was an indigenous base already in existence and the process of professionalization (to change the metaphor) was in the nature of a grafting. this point gathers weight and lends conceptual and operational significance to the very act of setting up the sir dorabji tata graduate school of social work in 1936. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 82 published by scholink inc. the fact that the founder director of the school was an american is always cited as proof of import of social work training and practice from the u.s.a. a little closer look into the circumstances that led to the establishment of the school wards off that impression and reveals its indigenous roots. it was clarified that indigenous knowledge is local knowledge, which is unique to a given culture or society (langill et al., 1998; dumbrill & green, 2008). it was significant to understand views of great indian thinkers such as mahatma gandhi, swami vivekananda, rabindra nath tagore and dr. ambedkar who had access to the western world and also the experiences of colonialism. they strongly felt that indigenous orientation of indian education was a must. as regards knowledge and ideas from the western world, mahatma gandhi stated, we should keep our windows open so that all kinds of ideas flow in, but not such that we are swept off our feet (khora, 2008). according to tagore, narrow utilitarianism was not the ultimate aim of education. for him the education which was rooted in the history, economy and culture of the society was meaningful to 32 ensure equality in the society (mukherjee, 1962). swami vivekananda who got his recognition first in america said, we shall add to our stock what others have to teach but we must always be careful to keep intact what is essentially our own (mani, 1965). dr. ambedkar had a vision of bringing equality in the society through education. according to him, it is the education which is the right weapon to cut the social slavery and it is the education which will enlighten the down trodden masses to come up and gain social status, economic betterment and political freedom." (www.lawyersclubindia). these thoughts of our great thinkers underscore the importance of contextualizing local knowledge. according to these thinkers the literature emerging from the west was not irrelevant in itself. but there was a need to contextualize it in view of the history, culture and society of india (khora, 2008). a brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy, paulo freire (1971), expressed that; the wisdom of indigenous culture can be used to supplement and complement the western conception through the inclusion of voices of the people to whom we serve and claim to research. there is a need to empower people to come out of their „culture of silence‟ and participate in the production of new knowledge that changes their own communities (www.infed.org). freire (1971) asserted that educational process was never neutral. people can be passive recipients of knowledge-whatever was the content-or they can engage in a problemsolving approach in which they become active participants. as part of this approach, it is essential that people link knowledge to action so that they actively work to change their societies at local level and beyond. a typical feature of freire-type education is that people bring their own knowledge and experience into the process (freire and informal education, www.infed.org). true education is a critical approach to knowledge tied to praxis. gramsci (1971) refers to critical education as a means for an overall strategy for social transformation (joll, 1977; mayo, 1999). it is a creative exercise through spontaneous and autonomous learning with the teacher as a guide (gramsci, 1971). gramsci‟s understanding of critical education inspired paulo freire. as per knowledge theory and critical theory constructivists consider learning to be an active process where knowledge is contextualized rather than acquired. personal 33 experiences guide the construction of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 83 published by scholink inc. knowledge. knowledge generators continuously test their knowledge construction through social negotiation. as one of the roles of the social work educator is to develop knowledge, according to role theory, social work educators as knowledge bearers have to discover much from the expressions of the visionaries to comprehend the importance of indigenous knowledge to strengthen the social work education and practice to make it more contextual. since the social work profession and curriculum for social work education has evolved in the west, the models of education in all the developing countries including india also have western influence and this has implications even in the present situation (reamar, 1987; ferguson, 2005). initially, the belief was that western social work had a universally relevant methodology and an international professional identity. this was, however, widely criticized as professional imperialism (mayadas & elliot, 1997; midgley, 1981). this criticism probably led to the development of indigenous knowledge in developing countries including india (shetty, 1996). concerning the availability and dissemination of ikb for social work education the views expressed by the indian writers gives diverse impressions. as pointed out by the experts the review reveals that there is dearth of indigenous knowledge and lack of its systematic dissemination (pathak, 1971; gore, 1981; nair, 1981; nanavatty, 1990; kulkarni, 1993; nagpaul, 1993; desai, 1994; siddiqui, 1999; desai, 2004). however, the experts also pointed out that continuous efforts have been made by the social work professionals in developing indigenous knowledge by writing on various subjects to strengthen the social work education and practice in india. report on standards for assessment of quality in social work education. a national seminar on standards for assessment of quality in social work education (nssaqswe) was organized by naac and tiss in 2003. the objective of the seminar was to apply naac criteria to social work education and develop minimum quality standards for assessment and assurance of quality in institutions for social work education. manual for self study of social work institutions (2005), which was an outcome of the proceedings of this seminar provided guidelines for capacity building and institutional accreditation. the document started with the definition and perspective of social work education and provided the concept and the minimum quality standards of each of the criteria of assessment applied by naac. the social work teaching-learning process requires knowledge that is contextualized culturally and shaped by the dialogical interaction between students and teachers. in order to make teachers role sensitive to facilitate learning rather than merely transmit knowledge following measures on standards for developing teaching and learning material were recommended (saqswe, 2003); faculty members were encouraged to publish articles/book reviews in the newspaper/newsletter/magazine, referred journal and edited book, and report printed on cds. faculty members were encouraged to present papers on relevant topics at seminars/conferences/workshops in india, through the ugc assigned grant procedure. faculty-cum-student publications were encouraged. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 84 published by scholink inc. utilization/citations of faculty publications were reviewed every five years. faculty members were invited to refer to articles/books or to be members of editorial boards of other journals/publishers. seminars/conferences/workshops were organized for review of field practices, research, social policy or programs and curriculum development with reference to particular issues at the state, national or international levels. reports of the seminars/workshops were circulated in print form and put up on the website. the seminars/conferences and workshops led to follow up activities like preparation of teaching materials, policy documents, manuals, and so on. selected papers presented at the seminar were revised and referred for publication in the book form. faculty members were encouraged to publish their papers in referred journals and books. based on their research or field action project faculty members were encouraged to develop audio-visuals such as video films, slide shows, and posters. faculty members wrote columns on relevant topics for newspapers or magazines. in order to fulfil these measures on standards for developing teaching ñ learning material conscious efforts needs to be made at all levels by ensuring educators active involvement in knowledge development for contextual learning. a landmark nation wise research by desai (1994) studied the students, social work educators and the educational process in 31 out of 34 social work educational institutions which existed until 1977 in india. the study covered large number (1178) of students, 170 social work educators and 43 teachers from other disciplines. the study sought to understand faculty profile and their role as social work educator with the objective of finding out their contributions in the field, research and in developing teaching materials (published/unpublished). the study pointed out that only 18 percent faculty members were involved in undertaking research studies which was an area of building and up knowledge base. some of the respondents reported that their participation in academics, administration and involvement with functional and statutory committees (at institution, university and, governmental level) in policy making /planning helped them to contribute in knowledge development. however, it was pointed out that overall the contribution of social work educators in knowledge development was very limited. availability of indigenous knowledge for social work education in india: highlighting gaps the review of literature in this study showed that indian social work professionals were aware about the dearth of ikb and made continuous efforts to produce knowledge for social work education and practice from the inception of the profession. however, the indigenous knowledge produced and used as reference is much limited, lacks theoretical background and practice models. ¾ some of the important documents such as ugc review committee reports published in 1965 and 1980, encyclopedia published in 1967 (first edition) and 1987 (second edition), bibliography prepared in 1997 and curriculum reports prepared in 1990 and 2001 are very old. these important publications www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 85 published by scholink inc. need to be timely revised and published for fresh references and to understand growth of the profession. the only nationwide research study on social work education in india entitled students, educators and the educational processes done in 1994 is very important but quite old to use as reference study. similar studies need to be conducted to update and understand profile and status of iswe and swes at regional and national level. special efforts were made by desai, m. in the ijsw (1997) issue to compile an indian bibliography for the period from 1936 to 1996 and examined indigenization of social work literature. the literature was classified into different categories. such types of efforts need to be made timely to up-date indigenous knowledge. very few, only six scholarly studies are conducted on social work education and practice by the social work educators as their phd studies , such studies on knowledge base for social work education and practice needs to be undertaken more in number by the educators and scholars. review of literature showed that peer reviewed journals published by the iswe across the country are around thirteen. however, it was noticed that only ijsw was reviewed occasionally to assess the availability of knowledge produced by the professionals for social wok education and practice. similar review of other journals also needs to be undertaken from time to time to assess the quality and contributions of indigenous knowledge produced by the journals. professional associations adequately contributed knowledge by producing research reports, editing books and conference papers up to 1986. thereafter, the associations are not active in organizing academic activities and did not produce any knowledge in the organized form. few swes had developed a high sense of commitment to their work by developing knowledge to strengthen social work profession however, amongst them; those who wrote and published were very few. name of same writers with same profile appear repeatedly in the books and journals as authors. incidentally, these authors were associated with old iswe from urban area. new young writers from iswe from the urban/rural and interior areas did not appear in the review of this literature. creative literature and anthology of contemporary short stories on specialized theme to reveal value of an interdisciplinary approach to social work education was developed only once as social work knowledge since inception of social work education. it is expected that, anthologies of this kind in different regional languages may be prepared to meet local need as social work knowledge. from the international studies it appeared that even the social work practitioners contributed quite a lot in knowledge development, whereas indian studies showed that knowledge base was developed by the social work educators alone and practitioners did not contribute in this area.there was some material available in the regional language related to social work knowledge. but very little of it was about social work strategies and techniques. attempts made by faculty members to write in the regional languages can be strengthened further. the sir dorabji tata graduate school of social work (which was later renamed tata institute of social sciences) remained the only school for professional social work education for ten years between 1936 and 1946. interestingly, it is after india‟s independence, that social work education in india was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 86 published by scholink inc. profoundly influenced by the american ideas through the following developments. firstly, after independence, influence in social work education came primarily from greater exposure of indian social workers to american social work education through increased sponsoring of study tours and appointment of american trained social workers on the faculties of the schools of social work in india. american influence came most systematically through the us government‟s technical co-operation mission and the council of social work education exchange programme. under this programme, during 1957-1962, american social work educators came as consultants or conducted faculty development programmes in the indian schools of social work. in exchange, faculty members from indian schools of social work went for study to the schools of social work in the us (pathak, 1975, pp. 176-177). secondly, as a corollary of the above, one important source of american influence in social work education in india, was the extensive use of american books and journals in schools of social work in india. though the need of indigenous study material has been urged by social work educators time and again, the situation remained unaltered, as pointed out by nagpaul (1986) and desai (2002) in an analysis of social work study materials in use in india in 1972 and 1986. social work education in india was a generic programme in the pre independence period (1936-146). the introduction of specialisations in social work emerged in the post-independence period primarily under the american influence and partly due to the felt need (desai, 1985; 1987). hence following the factories act, 1948 in india, emphasising on the need to have labour welfare officers in factories, a need was felt to have a cadre of trained personnel and hence the personnel management and industrialisation specialisation was introduced in the curriculum. social work education in india has now been recognised as a moral and practical activity. the endeavour of exploring the “indigenous value base for social work practice” faces a number of theoretical and conceptual difficulties. one is the dialectic between universal norms and a particular cultural understanding (guba, 2002) that besets our discussions of the need for developing an indigenous perspective on social work values. thus we highlight the need for a critical-hermeneutical analysis that will enable us to see the balance between insider-outsider perspectives. indigenous base of social work education or indigenisation of social work education in india demands a cultural competence on the part of professionals. 2. conclusion social work education in india has thus undergone six phases till date. although discourses do talk of multiple trajectories, broadly they could be incorporated in the following phase oriented development. the period from 1936–1946, was that of american and eurocentric influences. the period from 1947–1957, which was also the early postcolonial era for india was the period of the beginning of indigenisation and state influences on social work education and curriculum. this was also the phase where state and establishment activities and interests in welfare activities played an important role in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 87 published by scholink inc. the development of thematic specialisations. the period from 1957–1970 was also the growth of specialisations, indigenous knowledge development and the insertion of justice and rights discourses in an essentially state welfare oriented scenario. the next three decades continued this trend. post liberalisation in the 1990s and the withdrawal of state actors from several welfare activities, social work education in india has to respond to the demands of being a crucial non-state voluntary actor in indian civil society. state withdrawal, global political economy dynamics and market dynamics spearheaded several people‟s struggles and structural issues. hence contemporary social work education has to rise to challenges of structural hegemony and cultural diversity. this has to be done in keeping with the social work mandate (global/local) as well as in tandem with rights and justice discourses. one of the great strengths of social work education in india is thus its capacity to link the structural and the personal. the injunction from the anti-capitalist movement to „think global, act local‟ provides a fresh basis for social work education in india to actively make the connections between the neoliberal global agenda and their day-to-day experience. there is considerable overlap between some of the core values of the anti-capitalist movement and critical social work education values in india. the core is to appreciate a world of diversity and hence social work education in india is worth defending. a new paradigm can be invented with elements of traditional social work, radical social work and the experience of new social movements, both user-led and anti-capitalist, in a kind of hegelian synthesis. social work education in india today is at the juncture of becoming that material force. too often the knowledge generated from practice is not written and published, and hence not available for practitioners, educators and learners to use and further develop in the form a new model or theory. for any knowledge to be valuable in social work, it has to be relevant to the issues regularly encountered in practice. on the other hand, practice also needs to inform knowledge so that existing theories can be revised where they are at odds with the experiences of practice to make the knowledge rich and contextual for indigenous practice. some of the core epistemic concepts of social work education in contemporary india then are: • attuning to diversity and identify the intersections between “race”, “class” and “gender” in order to develop a wider non-oppressive, anti discriminatory form of social work theory and practice • ethics of care and justice as embedded in praxis with themes of: empathy, equality, addressing power micro politics and self-disclosure • new “client-worker” relationships in terms of a dialogue with “clients”. people are encouraged to locate themselves within their social context and connect with others experiencing similar difficulties. this also entails linking personal change with social change • commitment to critical self-examination, plurality of opinions and diversity (not fragmentation in an individualistic sense) • commitment to egalitarianism, letting people speak for themselves; seeking changes which will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 88 published by scholink inc. transform social relations; recognising the existence of a “community” and concepts of power and powerlessness within personal relationships • celebrating cultural diversities as playing a valuable role in criticising dogmatic positions (cited from jaswal & pandya, 2014, 185-186). professional social workers are found in every facet of community life in old age homes, orphanages, schools, hospitals, mental health clinics, prisons, corporations and in numerous public and private agencies that serve individuals and families in need. social work is not just about doing good deeds and helping the under-privileged. over a period of time, it has evolved into a profession. correctly it is not a “conventional” career. but with issues of disability, drug misuse, poverty, mental ill health, problems associated with aging etc. rising constantly, social work has become a vital need of our society today. if you are willing to take up a profession for emotional fulfillment and if your purpose of working is not just financial, this would be the ideal career for you. social workers require new levels of understanding and new models of practice if they are to contribute effectively toward the resolution of social problems that are rooted in worldwide social, political, and economic realities. at a minimum these new models of practice must reflect an understanding of the transnational nature of the social problems that bring clients, client groups, and other constituencies to the attention of human service workers. they also must be grounded on empirical evidence and must offer positive guidance concerning a range of social development solutions that can be applied to discrete social needs. references mathbor. g. (2008). effective community participation in coastal development. chicago. adams, n. b. (2007). toward a model for knowledge development in virtual environments: strategies for student ownership. international journal of social and human sciences. agrawal, s., kumar, m., & kumar, a. (2008). knowledge management framework for improving teaching and learning process. university news. mama, r., guevara, j., & ritchie, d. (2006). alexandria, va: council on social work education. resources for international social work educators. (n.d.). presentation at baccalaureate program directors (bpd) annual conference, los angeles, allan, g. (2000). in davies, m. (ed.), the blackwell encyclopedia of social work. oxford university press. alway, j. (1995). critical theory and political possibilities: conceptions of emancipator politics in the works of horkheimar, adorno, marcuse and habermans. greenwood publishing groups, usa. asamoah, y., healy, l., & mayadas, n. (1997). ending the international–domestic dichotomy: new approaches to a global curriculum for the millennium. journal of social work education, 33, 389-401. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.1997.10778879 asswi. (1979). report on sub regional workshop for social work educators and trainers on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 89 published by scholink inc. development of indigenous teaching material for preparing social welfare personnel for work with rural and urban poor. madras. austin, d. (1983). the flexner myth and the history of social work. social service review, 57(3), 357-375. https://doi.org/10.1086/644113 bajpai, p. k. (1998). revisiting social work education in india. contemporary social work. baker, d. r., & wilson, m. v. (1992). an evaluation of scholarly productivity of doctoral graduates, journal of social work education, 28, 204. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.1992.10778773 balkrishanan, g. (2006). social work education: supervisor-student relationship in field of practice (doctoral dissertation). mumbai university. census of india. (2001). india at a glance—statistics on demographic and socio economic characteristics. cherian, p., & joseph, s. (2003). social work education: a retrospection, social work education in india: challenges and opportunities. lucknow: new royal book. cooper, p. (2013). social work man. leicester: matador. isbn 978-1-78088508-7. desai, a. s. (1973). role of the association of schools of social work in the development of profession in india. social work forum, 11(1-2), 8-12. hokenstad, m. c., & midgley, j. (2004). lessons from abroad: adapting international social welfare innovations. washington, dc: nasw press. kendall, k. a. (2000). social work education: its origins in europe. kulkarni, p. d. (1993). the indigenous base of social work profession in india. the indian journal of social work, 54(4), 555-566. lyceum, m. j. (1997). social welfare in global context. thousand oaks ca: sage work, 1-11. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 149 original paper promoting the archival construction of higher education institutions by leveraging the undergraduate teaching assessment system wen si1 1 qing dao film academy, shandong qingdao, china received: september 19, 2023 accepted: november 11, 2023 online published: november 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p149 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p149 abstract the working system of higher education institutions is based on cultivation, scientific research, serving the economic construction, and dissemination and innovation of civilizations. undergraduate teaching assessment is a vital method to strengthen the macro-management of higher education, and enhance the efficiency of teaching and the effectiveness of schooling in china. it is also an effective way to promote the establishment of the quality assurance system of higher education. it plays a significant role a significant role in improving the undergraduate education and the quality of training and teaching. the qualifying examination is a comprehensive appraisal of the performance of undergraduate education in higher education institutions, and provides a key opportunity for promoting the establishment and development of colleges and universities. school archives are the original records with retained significance made by various functional departments of the school in the implementation and management of education and teaching, which can reflect the development of the school. archives play a vital role in teaching evaluation. similarly, archive management has been paid more attention to by school leaders and faculty by taking the opportunity of undergraduate evaluation, and has developed rapidly, thus achieving the two-way promotion of archive management and undergraduate evaluation in colleges and universities. keywords undergraduate teaching assessment, higher education, construction introduction undergraduate teaching assessment is a major evaluation work carried out by the ministry of national education to ensure the quality of undergraduate education in higher education institutions. it has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 150 published by scholink inc. improved the quality of education and promoted the further development of education in higher education institutions, which also involves the archival construction of higher education institutions. the archives of higher education institutions are the records of the work in various fields including history, humanities, education and science, and are the witness and basis of the development of the institutions. therefore, by taking the undergraduate teaching evaluation as an opportunity, we will actively promote the accelerated development of the archival construction of higher education institutions. 1. importance of undergraduate teaching assessment undergraduate teaching evaluation plays an important role in the teaching quality guarantee system in colleges and universities. this is not only the main way to carry out an all-round evaluation on teachers, school conditions and teaching staff of the university, but also a meaningful way to enhance the self-improvement, teaching quality and education quality of the university. through undergraduate teaching evaluation, we can fully grasp the situation of the university, find out the difficulties faced by the university in the process of development, and give specific solutions, so as to make breakthroughs in the teaching concept, determine the development goals of the university, and deepen the teaching reform. the critical role of undergraduate teaching evaluation in promoting the development of higher education institutions has been prominent. through evaluation, colleges and universities can recognize their own advantages and disadvantages in education, so as to enhance the conditions for running universities, improve the structure of the teaching staff, strengthen teaching management and upgrade the quality guarantee system. in addition, undergraduate teaching evaluation can encourage and guide colleges and universities to further improve the quality of teaching and management, thus providing good teaching services for universities. through undergraduate teaching evaluation, teachers can recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their own curriculum, and then enhance their own teaching mode and content through peer-to-peer improvement, so as to provide better teaching for students. moreover, it can also enhance the exchange and sharing of learning practice and teaching research among teachers, providing reference and help for the teaching reform. 2. importance of archival construction in higher education institutions the archival construction in higher education institutions is not only a record of the traditions and achievements of the institutions, but also a major carrier of the dissemination of civilization in the institutions. it contains multiple educational purposes, achievements of teaching and scientific research, and the development of the teaching staff, bearing witness to the glorious years and achievements of the university. these archives, like the marks of the times, witness the changes and development of the university, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 151 published by scholink inc. are also an important basis for the leaders of the university and the leaders of various organs to make decisions. through the classification and investigation of archives, we can further understand the characteristics, development status and future development trend of the university, and provide a solid foundation for the university to formulate scientific and reasonable development plans, policies and measures. meanwhile, the archival construction in higher education institutions holds a positive significance for improving the quality of higher education institutions. through the in-depth study of archives, people can find out the problems in the management of the university, and offer relevant solutions to improve the management of the university in a scientific, reasonable and standardized manner, which is not only greatly improve the quality of teaching and scientific research, but also create an enabling environment for the university and the teaching staff. the importance of archival construction in higher education institutions to academic research cannot be ignored as it can provide a strong guarantee and reference for academic research. through the in-depth exploration of these archives, people can understand the background and trend of academic research, and bring new vitality to the creation and development of academic research. the archival construction in higher education institutions is also vital for safeguarding the legitimate interests and rights of the teaching staff. on issues concerning the immediate interests of college students, including job evaluation, welfare benefits, etc., archives can offer essential evidence and help. in addition, for some cases related to the patents of teachers and students, archives can also serve as important evidence and offer protection. the archival construction in higher education institutions is an important part of the university’s various undertakings, which not only bears the past and present of the university, but also promotes the university’s future development. we need to work together to perform a good job in the archival construction and write the chapter of our bright future. 3. role of archives in undergraduate assessment 3.1 archives as the basis of undergraduate assessment archives play a critical role in evaluating colleges and universities by the ministry of education. the evaluation index system has 39 major observation points (40 major observation points in private colleges and universities), and all observation points are related to archives. it is necessary to consult enormous standardized educational archives when it involves seven first-level indicators, such as school-running ideas and leadership, teaching staff, teaching conditions and applications, development of major and curriculum, quality management, academic discipline construction, student guidance, and teaching quality, or nineteen second-level indicators (twenty indicators of private colleges and universities) and unique projects launched by colleges and universities. the assessment expert group sent by the superior inquired about the original account records of various projects made by the university to understand and verify the teaching ideas, education situation and school-running www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 152 published by scholink inc. characteristics of the university. archives are indispensable to the evaluation of colleges and universities. of course, evaluation also provides opportunities for the establishment and development of archival undertaking. as the basis of undergraduate evaluation in colleges and universities, archives play an irreplaceable evidential function. in previous years’ tests, the university has generated documents and basic materials about self-evaluation, sorting and rectification, etc. these materials were all sorted out according to archives, which were also indispensable in the assessment of the university. 3.2 archives are the basis for evaluation and review when visiting the university, the comprehensive evaluation and inspection expert group of the ministry of education generally focuses on the evaluation of archives, and evaluates the overall development of the university in combination with field visits. schools are required to complete the self-evaluation report before the visit of the expert group, and the self-evaluation report is based on the university’s archives. archives are the most direct and powerful guarantee materials, and the integrity, systematicness and standardization of archives will directly affect the undergraduate evaluation of colleges and universities. 3.3 problems in archival construction in higher education institutions although we have made some progress in the archival construction in higher education institutions, we still face many problems. ① methods of archive management are relatively outdated, resulting in low efficiency. many colleges and universities are still managing archives manually, which reduces the efficiency and fails to improve the quality of file inquiry, access and preservation. ② the quality of archives is unstable and the contents are incomplete. this is mainly because the records of archives are conducted by the teachers themselves in a nonstandard manner, resulting in overlapping and missing information. all these cause great trouble for future access and inquiry. ③ the archive system is independent, which cannot offer the service of data sharing. at present, the archive system of some colleges and universities is not concentrated enough, and there are various archive systems in teachers, universities, finance, infrastructure and other sectors. each system is independent, and its operation and mode are also different. such archive management method can only make it convenient for the corresponding personnel to concentrate on the archive management in their own fields. however, since a university cannot establish a centralized and comprehensive archive management system, the data cannot be shared and integrated, which may easily lead to multiple data for the same indicator. 5. measures to promote the archival construction of higher education institutions by taking undergraduate teaching assessment as an opportunity taking the opportunity of postgraduate teaching evaluation, we can promote the development of the archival construction in higher education institutions through various measures. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 153 published by scholink inc. ① strengthening management and supervision to form an effective management mechanism for archive management, and realize the organic coordination between archive management and campus work. ② establishing the sound standards and norms of archive management. through the establishment of the archive management system, the standards and norms of document collection, sorting, archiving, preservation and use are determined to improve the efficiency and quality of archive management. ③ establishing the sound network of campus and departmental archive management, and placing an emphasis on the vital role of campus archive office in campus management to provide a strong guarantee for archive management. ④ enhancing the quality of the archive management personnel through attracting professionals in archive management, and performing a good job in professional training and promotion of existing archive management personnel. ⑤ enhancing the efficiency of archive management. apart from offering the daily service of archive inquiry, we should leverage different forms of archive publicity and teaching activities to make a good presentation, and enhance teachers’ understanding of archives and awareness of the use of archives, thus enabling all teachers to recognize the importance of archives in their work. ⑥ performing a good job in the compilation and research of archives. the compilation and research of library archives has produced various thematic information collections and research results. ⑦ strengthening the modernization of archives. national standards have carried out the electronic construction and information management of campus archives, and the most advanced digital management means and information technology have been used to promote the establishment of digital archives. through adopting modern scientific and technological means to improve the preservation, management and use of archives, we can further enhance the effectiveness and convenience of the management of archives in universities, so as to maximize the value of archives. ⑧ strengthen the connection between archive management and undergraduate teaching evaluation. according to the requirements of observation points of undergraduate teaching evaluation, we should comprehensively assess and improve the archival construction of the university to better serve the undergraduate teaching evaluation. ⑨ establishing a sound feedback system. the problems in the archive management as well as the phenomenon of loose management should be reported to relevant supervisors and organs in time to improve and upgrade the management. ⑩ promoting the innovation and development of archive management. we should guide and support innovative experiments and theoretical research in archive management, and explore new modes and methods of archive management that can cater to the needs of colleges and universities and students. 11 enhancing communication and cooperation with other institutions and relevant organizations. through academic exchanges, cooperative research and other methods, we can learn from the advanced experience of other colleges and universities and relevant organizations, to promote to promote the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 154 published by scholink inc. improvement and development of archive management. 12 in the 14th five-year plan and the overall planning and development of colleges and universities in the future, archival construction should be listed as a priority, and the main tasks and objectives of each stage and specific safeguard measures and support policies should be determined, so that the archive management and various undertakings of colleges and universities can develop together. through taking the above measures, we can advance the progress of archival construction in colleges and universities in a more effective manner, enhance the archive management, and provide a good guarantee for the development of various undertakings of colleges and universities. through implementing the above measures, we can effectively promote the development of archival construction in colleges and universities and provide a strong guarantee for the prosperity and development of colleges and universities. 6. conclusions through focusing on the undergraduate teaching evaluation and promoting the archival construction in higher education institutions, we can effectively protect and leverage the historical and cultural heritage of higher education institutions, which is conducive to enhancing the comprehensive popularity of the institutions. in this way, people can recognize the importance of archival construction for higher education institutions, and take active measures to overcome the problems, thus promoting the development and improvement of archival construction. 7. outlooks in the future, people can foresee the following development trends of the archival construction in colleges and universities: first, digitalization and informatization. with the development of computer technology, the digitalization and informatization of university archives will become a trend. this will make the preservation, management and use of archives simpler and more effective. second, intelligence and automation. the extensive application of ai information technology will make it possible to realize the intelligence and automation of university archives. for example, through intelligent archive management, archives can be automatically divided, queried and recommended. third, openness and sharing of education. in the information age, the openness and sharing of university archives will become a trend. by opening and sharing archives, we can promote academic exchanges and scientific research collaboration, which can increase the utilization rate and value of archives. fourth, personalization and customization. in the future archival construction, universities should fully consider the needs and preferences of users, and provide personalized and customized educational consulting services. for example, according to users’ needs and interests, they can provide corresponding archives, and offer customized document service. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 155 published by scholink inc. in conclusion, we will encounter multiple opportunities and challenges in the archival construction in colleges and universities but we believe that through innovation and development, we can produce more outstanding results in the archival construction in colleges and universities. however we believe that innovation and development can produce more outstanding results in the archival construction in colleges and universities. taking the opportunity of the undergraduate teaching evaluation, we can promote the archival construction in colleges and universities in a more robust way, thus providing a more solid and powerful guarantee for the work in colleges and universities. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 153 original paper characteristics and development trends of network mass incidents in colleges and universities huaifang feng1 & yong chen1* 1 hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china * yong chen, hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china fund project project of hunan province college ideological and political work research (22c23); project of the hunan university of technology student ideological and political work research topic team construction project (hunan university of technology, social science letters [2023] no. 2). received: october 29, 2023 accepted: february 09, 2024 online published: february 27, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p153 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p153 abstract with the leapfrog progress of mobile internet technology, the network mass incidents in colleges and universities are increasingly concerned by many parties. the characteristics of network mass incidents in colleges and universities include the particularity of participants, the diversity of inducement causes, emotionalization and irrationalization, the non-confrontational nature of event and the extensive range of impact. with social development, the potential trends of future network mass incidents in colleges and universities include the probability and quantity of occurrences will further increase, the breadth and intensity of impact will be further enhanced, the organizational form will become more complex, the coping strategies of management department will affect the development trend of the event, the increase in uncertainty brought by the development of new technologies. keywords colleges and universities, internet, mass incidents, development trends 1. introduction according to the 52nd statistical report on china’s internet development released by cnnic in august 2023, as of june 2023, the scale of china’s internet users reached 1.079 billion, and the internet penetration rate reached 76.4%, among which the scale of mobile internet users reached 1.076 billion, accounting for 99.8%. the internet has become the main channel for people to access social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 154 published by scholink inc. information and participate in social activities. under the situation of “everyone is we-media”, a huge public opinion field has been generated. internet’s leapfrog development also led to frequent occurrences of network mass incidents. colleges and universities are huge fields, where peer groups with active minds and dense activities are concentrated. college students have high similarity in psychological characteristics, life experience, learning experience and other aspects, so they also have high in-group identity. as the most dynamic and influential important internet users at present, college students are highly sensitive to group interests and various social events. they are easily affected and induced by various factors, leading to the occurrence of network mass incidents. college students are at the key stage of shaping their values. with the frequent occurrence of network mass incidents in colleges and universities, their negative effects on students’ physical and mental health, the damage to campus management and teaching stability, the derogatory reputation image of colleges and universities and the impact on social stability have been widely concerned. faced with network mass incidents, colleges and universities are often affected by the lack of specialized personnel, the absence of rules and regulations, the poor emergency response and coordination mechanisms, resulting in poor effectiveness. studying the characteristics and development trends of network mass incidents in colleges and universities are of great value to deeply explore the nature of network mass incidents, and helps to enhance the response and supervision level of relevant departments. 2. the connotation of network mass incidents in colleges and universities at present, the academic circle has not reached a consensus on the concept and definition of mass incidents, network mass incidents, and network mass incidents in colleges and universities. in general, “mass incidents” are usually triggered by certain social conflicts of interests. it is a temporary and clustered behavior of organized or unorganized crowds, often with certain scale, sociality and action. “network mass incidents” are related to “mass incidents” in a species-genus relationship. compared with traditional mass incidents, the involvement of online media is a significant feature. participants try to cause impact and achieve goals through the internet. the speed of aggregation, dissemination, change rhythm, and impact are far beyond that of traditional mass incidents, often leading to the negative emotions of the public opinion field. the “network mass incidents in colleges and universities” are not separate from “mass incidents” and “network mass incidents”, but a unique type and branch of them. at present, there is no consistent opinion in the academic circles about its connotation. some scholars believe that the main body of the mass incidents in colleges and universities is college students, but “college students” clearly cannot represent all of this field in colleges and universities. the word “college” itself includes the specific place, background, rules and regulations, participating subjects, and impact boundaries of mass incidents. based on the academic research and implementation feasibility considerations, “network mass incidents in colleges and universities” can be expressed as: the cluster events that are mainly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 155 published by scholink inc. participated by college teachers and students, express relevant interests and opinions related to college education and management, take the internet platform as the main carrier, and cause certain social impact or potential impact. 3. the characteristics of network mass incidents in colleges and universities 3.1 the particularity of participants the network mass incidents in colleges and universities occur in the specific field, and the main body of activities is also clear, that is, college students and staff are the main participants. this group mostly has a certain level of knowledge. they pay more attention to social hot spots and are more inclined to express their personal views and opinions in the cyberspace. students are the core subjects of mass incidents in colleges and universities. they have strong abilities to adapt to new things, and have strong curiosity for various things and hot events. however, their ideological concepts and psychology are still immature, and they are more prone to be induced by network information, thus participating in and promoting the generation and spread of network mass incidents. in addition, graduates, alumni and other subjects closely related to the management of higher education have also become important participants in the network mass incidents in colleges and universities. 3.2 the diversity of inducement causes the inducing factors of network mass incidents in colleges and universities are involved in all dimensions of university management and education, including teachers’ morality, academic research, student management, logistics services, campus security and other events related to students’ own interests. in recent years, several high-profile incidents have gone viral on the internet, including the “rat head vs. duck neck” incident at a certain college in jiangxi, the “real-name complaints of unequal aid distribution in universities” incident at a university in tianjin, and the case of 11 graduate students at a certain agricultural university who filed real-name complaints against their supervisors for academic fraud. these events involve multiple parties such as student-school conflicts, teacher-student conflicts, and student-student rivalries, often with strong topicality that easily attracts attention and discussion, leading to the emergence of mass incidents. 3.3 emotionalization and irrationalization the network mass incidents in colleges and universities often show a certain irrationality, which is closely related to the particularity of the participants. any single individual usually only has partial information and publishes opinions based on subjective assumptions and standpoints without knowing the full picture of the event. this can easily lead to rumors, creating a situation where “it takes only one mouth to spread rumors, but it takes a lot of effort to dispel them.” the knowledge structure of students and their interest are subjective influencing factors of the evolution of college network public opinion. college students are the main group of we-media platforms. they are not only the creators of network mass incidents, but also the publishers and commentators of network public opinion information. however, their ability to screen network information is still weak. under the influence of conformity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 156 published by scholink inc. psychology, they are more likely to be influenced by other subjects on the network and take actions emotionally. in addition, college students have prominent personalities. affected by the anonymity and concealment of the internet itself and psychological factors such as “the law does not blame the multitude”, they are more likely to be instigated when expressing their demands in the network environment, and are more likely to take drastic measures such as publishing inappropriate statements, inciting, spreading rumors, etc., leading to the irrational and emotional situation. 3.4 the non-confrontational nature of event as an well-educated group, college teachers and students usually do not take extreme violent acts to declare their demands, but tend to maintain their reasonable rights through peer groups or network public opinions. therefore, in terms of nature, network mass incidents in colleges and universities are often a way for university teachers and students to demand their rights and interests and a pure expression of emotions. they form clusters out of concern for campus construction, dissatisfaction with the lack of student-centeredness, and emphasis on safeguarding students’ interests. they are not intended to disrupt management order and are therefore non-confrontational in nature. under the influence of public opinion of network mass incidents, sometimes it can help to promote the proper handling of the relevant issues, and it is conducive to improving the management to some extent. the attitude towards college network mass incidents should not be entirely resistance and boycott. we need to study and judge its rationality, and actively deal with it using legal thinking. 3.5 the extensive range of impact from the above cases, it can be seen that the influence of network mass incidents in colleges and universities is not limited to the campus, but has extended to the whole society. colleges and universities are relatively closed places, although to some extent keep distance from society, but all sectors attach great importance and attention to them. in the internet age, the distance between colleges and society has been greatly shortened. college teachers and students are closely linked with many areas of society. the mass incidents that occur in colleges and universities make all netizens become participants and discussants. under this circumstances, network mass incidents in colleges and universities not only affect the campus, but also may cause great concern in the broader social level, forming a huge public opinion field, bringing profound impact on government decision-making, social public opinion and so on. network mass incidents in colleges and universities often form public opinion in a short time. the dissemination of public opinion on the internet in colleges and universities has the characteristics of frequent application of social media, fast transmission speed, diversified transmission carrier and ways. if there is no timely and appropriate intervention and response, it may cause more widespread social group conflicts. 4. the development trend of network mass incidents in colleges and universities the frequent occurrence of network mass incidents in colleges and universities highlights the great power of the internet in the dissemination of public opinion and online and offline transmission. with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 157 published by scholink inc. the development and evolution of society and internet technology, network mass incidents in colleges and universities will also show new development trends. 4.1 the probability and quantity of occurrences will further increase the source of mass sentiment is values and social expectations. with the rapid development of the internet, the college teachers and students have been paying more attention to social issues, and the topics and fields involved are becoming more extensive, including education, social issues, international politics, personal rights and interests, etc. the interests and demands of the events are also becoming more diverse and complex. with the advancement of science and technology, the popularity and influence of internet platforms will continue to increase, which will provide a broader space for the dissemination of network mass incidents in colleges and universities, greatly increasing the probability of occurrence. it has been found that expressing opinions and demands on the internet and forming public opinion pressure can prompt problem solving more quickly than offline to a certain extent, which will inevitably lead to more and more teachers and students choosing to initiate actions such as reporting through the internet to resolve conflicts of interests. these factors have led to the number of network mass incidents in colleges and universities increasing year by year, and will continue to increase. 4.2 the breadth and intensity of impact will be further enhanced in the era of we-media, people can easily participate in online life and instantaneously participate in event discussions on platforms such as xiaohongshu, weibo, wechat, and douyin. each independent individual can become a producer and disseminator of information, which greatly enhances the fermentation speed and influence of online public opinion. a small event may attract a lot of attention in a short time and even cause national discussions. online mass incidents are no longer limited to the virtual space, but gradually extend to the real society. the interaction of online and offline transmission continuously expands the impact scope of events. network mass incidents in colleges and universities may no longer be limited to campus, but form cross-border issues involving schools and even the social level, which have a deeper impact on society. at the same time, these mass incidents are often accompanied by fierce public debate, different views collide on the internet, easy to cause extreme emotions to spread, produce a series of chain reactions. all these will further increase the difficulty of supervision. 4.3 the organizational form will become more complex colleges and universities are the arenas where all kinds of ideas gathered and communicated. some forces continuously carry out the infiltration of ideas and culture among countries, and colleges and universities are their main targets. they use gender confrontation, political and economic issues, distorted individual cases, negative interpretation of social problems to spread rumors, create chaos, disrupt public order, so as to achieve their political purposes. the organizational forms of network mass incidents in colleges and universities are becoming increasingly diverse, covert, and politicized. there are both spontaneous actions and collective actions organized and planned by opinion leaders. some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 158 published by scholink inc. events may seem disorganized, but there may be certain organization and planning behind them, and there are forces manipulating public opinion and seeking private interests. college students are not yet mature, and they are more likely to be misled, which further increases the complexity of the events. relevant institutions need to be vigilant against external infiltration and maintain national ideology and cybersecurity. 4.4 the coping strategies of management department will affect the development trend of the event with the increase and complexity of network mass incidents in colleges and universities, the difficulty of handling them will increase accordingly, and the supervision and intervention of relevant departments will necessarily be further strengthened. their attitude and response to emergencies will have a direct impact on the evolution of the events. in the case of “rat head vs. duck neck” mentioned before, the school and the market supervision bureau have evaded responsibility and fooled the masses, leading to the intensification of the incident; in the case of 11 graduate students at a certain agricultural university, the school’s timely response and proper arrangements for students and other measures helped to maintain the school’s reputation. in view of the frequent occurrence of network mass incidents in colleges and universities, whether government departments, colleges and other managers can take reasonable measures to strengthen the monitoring, early warning and response of the incidents is crucial. management departments need to timely grasp the dynamic development of events, take effective measures to quell the situation, and avoid the deterioration and escalation of events. for example, it is necessary to guide the trend of public opinion by releasing official authoritative information in a timely manner, avoid panic and rumors from spreading, strengthen network security management, combat online rumors, etc. whether the measures taken are appropriate or not will greatly affect whether the incident continues to spread or can be controlled. 4.5 the increase in uncertainty brought by the development of new technologies at present, policies implemented by regulators, such as strong real name system, has a certain constraint effect on the spread of online mass incidents. with the continuous innovation of science and technology, the ways and means of the spread of network mass incidents in colleges and universities are also evolving. web3.0 is a “decentralized” internet based on blockchain technology, and its core feature is encryption and stronger anonymity. the application of emerging technologies such as blockchain, anonymous communication, and generative artificial intelligence makes it more difficult to track and identify the organizers and participants of network mass incidents, which brings new challenges to the management department, and also makes the development of network mass incidents more intricate. in addition, there is a great uncertainty about how managers can fully utilize new technologies to monitor and respond to events, reducing the risk of network mass incidents. 5. conclusion in general, network mass incidents in colleges and universities need to be fully recognized and effectively responded to. the government, colleges and universities, and all sectors of society should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 159 published by scholink inc. strengthen cooperation, build a sound management system and response system, enhance the education and guidance of college students. in the face of complex mass incidents, relevant departments should constantly optimize response strategies, improve the level of online public opinion guidance, and promote the network environment towards healthy development. references cnic. (2023, august 28). statistical report on the development of china’s internet. retrieved january 15, 2024, from https://www.cnnic.net.cn/n4/2023/0828/c88-10829.htm yu, a., yanbin, w., jianfei, l. et al. (2019). analysis of the effects of internal and external influencing factors of mass incidents in universities. chinese journal of safety science, 29(1), 87-92. xu, m. (2022). research on the spread and evolution of online public opinion for emergencies in universities. information science, 40(12), 120-125. nan, w. (2021). online public opinion crisis in colleges and universities and its response. school party building and ideological education, (9), 75-77, 80. yuhang, w., & yuan, t. (2021). research on factors affecting the spread of online public opinion in university emergencies. information science, 39(12), 53-59. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 169 original paper the cultural publicity function and influence of the chinese militia during world war ii xiaomeng li1* 1 master of party history major of shandong provincial party school of the communist party of china (shandong administration institute), jinan, shandong province, china * xiaomeng li, corresponding author received: february 20, 2024 accepted: apri 11, 2024 online published: april 26, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p169 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p169 abstract during the second world war, in the sino-japanese battlefield where china resisted japanese invasion, the importance of the militia publicity and education for the construction of the base area was self-evident. it not only played an important role in the battles, but also encouraged members to actively participate in promotional activities, using leaflets, slogans, broadcasts and other media to convey the importance and necessity of the war of resistance to the public, which stimulated the public’s enthusiasm and determination to resist the japanese invasion. at the same time, militia also enhanced publicity and education through the organization of classes, lectures and other forms of activities, improving the public’s political awareness and sense of resistance. because of their close relationship with the public, the militia were able to better carry out the functions publicity and education, which had an important impact on the cultural construction of the base areas behind enemy lines. keywords militia, publicity and education, world war ii from the perspective of military science, people’s armed forces are often the reserve force of the main force, undertaking military auxiliary tasks. however, in the battlefield of china and japan during the world war ii, the people’s armed forces played an important non-military role in the construction of the base areas behind enemy lines, especially in the publicity of culture and education. this paper takes shandong base area as an example to demonstrate the role and influence of the militia in the publicity of culture and education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 170 1. the basic methods of cultural education and publicity by the militia during the second world war, in order to effectively disintegrate the enemy (mainly the japanese and puppet armies), most militia village headquarters established disintegrating squads or formed armed publicity teams together with the main forces. they mobilized the mass to record “red and black points” and “good and evil books” for the puppet troops, and taking advantage of the night and the favorable opportunity to besiege the japanese and puppet army, they called out to the japanese and puppet army in the stronghold, regularly announcing the to the puppet army their points and records, encouraging puppet soldiers with sense of justice to leave the traitor team as soon as possible, and warning those who commit heinous crimes to do less harm. (note 1) in addition, sending publicity materials to the japanese and puppet strongholds and mobilizing the families of puppet soldiers to carry out the “calling our husbands and sons” and “a letter” campaign are also important methods for disintegrating the enemy. governments at all levels have also issued permits and established guesthouses for the returned puppet soldiers, which have achieved good results in practice. (note 2) for example, the militia in siwen village (note 3) wenshang county often went to nearby japanese puppet strongholds for calling and posting slogans, and successfully won back over 40 puppet soldiers. in the coastal area, the militia adopted the method combining siege and political disintegration in january and february 1945, forcing the japanese and puppet forces in three strongholds to retreat. these examples fully demonstrate the success and effectiveness of the strategy to disintegrate the enemy. militia organizations bear the major responsibility of organizing and guiding youth to study, which is also an urgent need of the people. the youth in the liberated areas deeply experienced the suffering of slavery and cultural deprivation endured by the old society, and many young people suffered losses due to their illiteracy. therefore, improving educational level and getting rid of illiteracy have become the conscious aspirations of the vast majority of young people. with the improvement of people’s living standards, the demand for learning has become increasingly urgent. to ensure that the needs of young people are met, militia organizations have assisted democratic governments in establishing various learning organizations, including youth’s study rooms, youth’s literacy classes, children’s literacy classes, etc. the director of the youth rescue association or the village director served as the head of the learning group. the study time was arranged according to the actual situation, either at noon or in the evening. they established “young teachers” system, which involves senior students tutoring junior students to achieve mutual assistance. beginners use direct teaching methods, such as hanging a sign with the word “cow” on the horn of a cow and writing the word “door” on the door. militia also organize various cultural activities for young people, such as yangko teams and youth theater troupes. these activities were all based on the central work at that time for publicity and promotion, playing a certain role in promoting the central work of supporting the front line, tenant revolution, supporting the army and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 171 giving preferential treatment to families, and promoting mutual assistance and cooperation in mass production. in addition to cultural activities, the militia also provides education in various mass organizations of workers, peasants, young women, and women, meeting the specific requirements of each organization based on their situations. for example, they fought for workers to increase wages, and carried out liberation struggle for women to resist abuse and realize gender equality. in private schools and literacy classes, the education of reduction of land rent and the real supporting relationship are also implemented according to the plan. the government also held joint meetings of primary school teachers to provide education on reducing land rent. through primary school teachers, they further promoted learning activities among primary school students, private schools, literacy classes, and other organizations, greatly promoting the development of cultural and educational undertakings in shandong’s base areas. 2. the influence of publicity and education of the militia on the people in the base areas after being educated and publicized by the militia, the county and district governments specially convened a symposium for landlords to promote and educate on rent reduction policies and laws, and called on them to play a model role. in addition, according to the division of the joint defense zone, tenant meetings and tenant women’s meetings were held, in-depth publicity and education were carried out, and relevant activities were organized. elementary school students, literacy classes, and children’s groups were particularly active in publicity work. they first practiced shouting out slogans at home, then went to the market and streets for promotion, post slogans, and shouted to the attending crowd at the entrance of the venue, “welcome tenant brothers! wishing you victory in rent reduction!” there were also male and female students around the venue explaining the meaning of the slogans to the crowd. in addition, elementary school students and students with specific class backgrounds in literacy classes were also organized into groups and dispersed to tenant households for publicity. their publicity might not be profound or fully understood, but their actions had played an important role in expanding the influence of the slogan of rent and interest reduction. the children of landlords were also encouraged to take part in relevant activities to mobilize their parents and friends. they also shouted, “good places mainly reduce rent!” “those who don’t reduce rent must fight him!” the improvement of the material life of farmers in the base areas of shandong also increased their demand for cultural life. they began to receive education more suitable for their own needs in farmer schools. “women’s literacy classes were generally established in various villages to learn how to write permits, keep accounts and how to produce, and learn knowledge about who is the true supporter and who to rely on to counterattack”. they attended classes in groups or collectively in winter and hung literacy cards and small blackboards in the fields, and hoes to read at any time in spring and summer. there were small wall posters and blackboard newspaper in the village. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 172 “after the liberation, the masses had stood up culturally and have mastered the weapons of the new democratic cultural struggle on their own.” “due to the continuous improvement of the political level of the masses, the recreation of the masses’ literature and art were also improved. rural theater troupes had been widely established in the central base areas. during the spring festival, gongs and drums could be heard everywhere in the countryside, and young women worn colorful clothes. they organized yangko, stilts, and rural theater troupes to perform and sing, engaging in cultural and entertainment activities. the masses attempted to carry out their new culture campaign of the base areas, and their class consciousness had been greatly improved. peasants who had stood up began to “follow chairman mao”. “it was a common phenomenon to require to see the party flag and the portrait of chairman mao. among them, junan county is excellent. (note 4) junan county’s guanzhuang (note 5) militia organization was a good village for leading the public to learn. there were 215 young men, women and children enrolled in school, and there are six youth learning rooms with four classes. from 1943 to 1946, in the three years and more time, due to the earnest efforts of young children, their levels of education were significantly improved, according to the data at that time: table 1. statistics on the learning situation of the militia organizations in quanjiaoguanzhuang, junan county in 1946 over 2000 1000-2000 500-1000 300-500 200-300 50-200 number of people 23 37 28 51 57 19 percentage 10.7％ 17.2％ 26.7％ 23.7％ 26.5％ 8.8％ all teenagers became literate, and ignorant youth stood up culturally. the association of youth rescue were to be selected as learning models for the whole county at the county-level learning activist congress due to their excellent academic performance. the association of youth rescue at all levels paid attention to cultivating learning activists and models. a large number of learning model figures emerged in the learning campaign, such as gao hong’an, who was diligent in learning in central shandong, and mr. jiang tianfu, who was a model in jiaodong. (note 2) after the consciousness of the broad peasant class was aroused, they actively broke down feudal superstitions and various old customs. they demolished land temples, refused to buy paper to celebrate festivals, simplified marriage procedures, and supported free choice of lovers for young men and women. civilized marriage began to emerge. in the past, the rural marriage system was very uncultured. for example, in some places in shandong, landlords even implemented the so-called first night right system. however, with the new understanding and consciousness of the feudal bondage and unreasonable phenomena in the past, the ethos of free love and free dissolution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 173 of marriage contracts began to prevail. many places abolished traditional customs such as sedan chairs and floats, and instead they greeted or welcomed newcomers by yangko dance in a sisterly way with women’s literacy classes. in some villages, the whole village helped impoverished households get married by sending 2 bundles of cloth, 2.5 kilograms of oil, and 1 cool mat.there were no longer the traditional etiquette of kneels and kowtows, which was replaced with a simple and practical form of congratulations and responses at a new-style meeting. (note 6) the masses gained various political and economic rights in the base area, which was an evident example of liberation, so the greetings of “congratulations on prosperity” during the new year became “congratulations on liberation”. some people set a liberation day, while others ate liberation food. the liberated farmers also launched their own new cultural movement. according to incomplete statistics from nine counties in the south of shandong province, by march 1945, the winter school had grown to 3,348 places with 197,708 students. (note 7) the masses were mutually supportive and loved each other, and the production was mutually assisted. a new atmosphere was displayed in the base area. 3. the historical significance of the education and cultural publicity movement of the chinese militia the struggle to eliminate the enemy through militia armed forces in the revolutionary base areas of shandong provided a solid political guarantee for the victory of the war. at the same time, the victory of armed battles also provided strong military support for the ccp militia. these victories are inseparable from the attention and organization of the communist party leadership in the shandong base area. through training the militia team and learning the successful combat strategies of the main forces, the combat effectiveness of the militia has been improved. the military led by china has accumulated rich combat experience and tactical system in long-term revolutionary practice. these experiences and tactics are of great value to the militia. through learning, the ccp militia can gain a deeper understanding of the enemy’s characteristics, combat methods, and response strategies, thereby to improve their combat capabilities and the quality of completing tasks. armed struggle is not only a military struggle, but also a spiritual war. this spiritual power played a crucial role in the victory of the war. it was through the positive victory of the war that china effectively ensured the construction of the base areas. the militia promoted the revolutionary struggle spirit through cultural education, stimulated the national self-esteem and confidence of the people, and enhanced the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the entire nation. armed struggle has honed the willpower and perseverance of the chinese people. the chinese people have experienced countless hardships and sacrifices, but they have never given up their pursuit of victory and their desire for peace. their strong willpower and perseverance not only enabled the chinese people to achieve victory in the war, but also provided valuable experience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 174 and inspiration for political construction and cultural and educational development in the base areas. besides, respect and recognition for china’s international status and reputation were earned as well. in world war ii, the chinese people’s resistance not only made tremendous contributions to the victory of the world’s anti-fascist war, but also demonstrated the courage and strength of the chinese people. this strength and courage not only earned the chinese people respect and recognition internationally, but also played a positive role in china’s subsequent international affairs. notes note 1. research institute of party history of the cpc shandong provincial committee, yang dongqi. history of the cpc shandong 1921-1949, volume 1 (ii), beijing: central party history press, 2021, 716. note 2. “the youth rescue association active in the liberated areas of shandong”. this file is kept in shandong provincial archives. case number: g003-02-0007-005. note 3. the name of a county in shandong province. note 4. the name of a county in shandong province. note 5. the name of a county in shandong province. note 6. edited by the shandong provincial archives and the party history research office of the shandong provincial committee of the communist party of china. rent and interest reduction in shandong, beijing: communist party history publishing house, 1994, 368. note 7. yuan pengxin. the rent and interest reduction movement in the anti japanese base area of lunan. journal of shandong agricultural engineering college, 2016, (05), 5. the cultural publicity function and influence of t xiaomeng li1* 1 master of party history major of shandong provin * xiaomeng li, corresponding author abstract 1.the basic methods of cultural education and public during the second world war, in order to effective 2.the influence of publicity and education of the mi table 1. statistics on the learning situation of t 3.the historical significance of the education and c advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 29 original paper “ren” and spatial design in ancient chinese architecture: a discussion from the perspective of confucian aesthetic concepts hanzhi song1 1 school of animation and digital arts, communication university of china, beijing 100024, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 03, 2023 online published: december 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p29 abstract this paper adopts the unique perspective of confucian aesthetic principles to investigate their profound impact on the interrelationship between “ren” (benevolence) and spatial design in classical chinese architecture. drawing upon core confucian concepts such as “ren”, “tian ren he yi” (the unity of man and nature), and “jin shan jin mei” (the pursuit of perfection), the study meticulously analyzes specific instances of classical architectural layouts and spatial designs, providing a detailed exposition of the manifestation of “ren”. subsequently, it elucidates how confucian aesthetic principles influence classical architecture by inheriting and developing the spirit of benevolence and adeptly applying an aesthetic consciousness of the unity of space and time. simultaneously, the paper distinctly presents the profound insights of confucian aesthetic principles on contemporary spatial design and societal development. this influence extends beyond the formal and structural aspects of architecture, permeating deeply into the cultural connotations embedded in architecture. it injects distinctive and valuable design wisdom into contemporary society, contributing not only to the comprehension of the cultural value of ancient architecture but also furnishing a novel framework for contemporary spatial design. in doing so, it offers concrete and far-reaching guidance for the construction of a harmonious society. keywords classical chinese architecture, confucian aesthetic concepts, spatial design, cultural studies 1. overview of confucian concepts of aesthetics confucianism has been the dominant ideological framework in china for over two millennia, exerting a profound influence on chinese aesthetics (yang, 2018). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. 1.1 concept of “ren” confucian aesthetic theory places a strong emphasis on balancing a person’s emotional and spiritual demands with social and ethical obligations, especially when it comes to the idea of “ren.” confucius held that “ren” is the ultimate moral norm for the satisfaction of both individual and communal lives, and that true beauty is found in the mutual love of people. “ren” is the central idea of confucianism, signifying a wide range of moral principles. it is a useful idea with a strong foundation in reality rather than just a rigorous ethical theory or philosophical abstraction. it places a strong emphasis on each person’s subjectivity, self-improvement, and interpersonal peace and love. this is the core of confucian aesthetics, which has a distinct view of beauty. 1.2 concept of “tian ren he yi” a fundamental principle in confucian philosophy, “tian ren he yi” (the unification of heaven and humanity) represents the natural harmony that exists between people and society as well as between people and nature. it seeks to assist people in achieving harmony and balance—inside themselves, outside of themselves, and within society. the unity of heaven and humanity, as taught by confucianism, highlights the mutual dependency and symbiotic link between people and the natural world. it promotes the idea that to live in harmony and unity with the natural world, people’s actions and lifestyle choices should be in line with the laws of nature. chinese environmental aesthetics holds that the “virtue of heaven and earth” is embodied in the interaction between “humans” and the natural environment, which is essential to the well-being of all living things in the cosmos (wei & li, 2017). furthermore, the idea encourages individuals to treat others with benevolence, playing a constructive role in society. through respect for others and caring for society, an individual can contribute to a harmonious coexistence with society. the concept also promotes harmony between an individual’s inner self and the external world. it emphasizes the pursuit of inner peace and tranquility, enabling individuals to maintain stability and composure in the face of external challenges and pressures. ultimately, confucianism’s concept of the unity of heaven and humanity highlights the crucial importance of moral cultivation and character. through continuous moral refinement and the enhancement of inner qualities, individuals achieve the harmonious unity of the mind and society. confucianism emphasizes the importance of inner qualities, encouraging individuals to achieve harmony between the mind and society through self-cultivation, thereby realizing the unity of individuals with nature and society. 1.3 concept of “jin shan jin mei” the confucian concept of “jin shan jin mei” embodies the pursuit of perfection and an ideal state, guiding individuals to achieve harmony and prosperity through the continual pursuit of moral perfection and spiritual elevation. the concept underscores the individual’s responsibility to continually strive for moral and spiritual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. excellence. it emphasizes the active pursuit and creation of beautiful things in life, guiding individuals to seek excellence and spiritual elevation. simultaneously, confucianism encourages individuals to treat others with a compassionate heart, promoting social harmony and prosperity through virtuous actions. the emphasis on benevolence, respect for social order, and adherence to moral principles contribute to the stability and continuous progress of society. in the field of spatial design, various techniques such as repetition, interconnection, juxtaposition of reality and illusion, overlap, representation, and phantasmagoria contribute to the formal beauty of a space. designers, through these techniques, can create a unique and harmonious combination of elements, achieving the effect of “jin shan jin mei” (duan, 2012). in summary, the confucian concept of “jin shan jin mei” reflects a collective pursuit of moral perfection, social harmony, and individual spiritual elevation. it emphasizes that individuals should strive continuously to achieve the perfection of their lives and the harmonious unity of society. this concept underscores confucian culture’s emphasis on individual character and social morality, reflecting confucianism’s aspiration for societal harmony and happiness. its application allows viewers to engage in free contemplation and experience, enabling spatial design to reach the realm of “beauty and goodness.” 2. “ren” and spatial design in ancient architecture 2.1 case study one: suzhou garden-liuyuan suzhou liuyuan (figure 1) is a representative classical chinese garden, and its design and layout fully embody the confucian concept of “ren”. harmony between architecture and nature: various scenic spots within liuyuan are cleverly laid out and designed according to the topography, creating a harmonious coexistence of nature and culture for visitors. for instance, the “xiao peng lai” area in liuyuan features trees, flowers, and stone corridors as primary landscape elements. through meticulous arrangement and configuration of plants, a mysterious and tranquil space is crafted, immersing visitors in an environment reminiscent of the fairyland of peng lai. one courtyard within suzhou liuyuan, with independent yet interconnected courtyards, significantly highlights the temporal and spatial composition of internal architectural scenes, showcasing the enduring viewing characteristics within the buildings. expression of humanistic spirit: the lattice window patterns in suzhou liuyuan each possess distinctive features (figure 2), yet within their variations, they reveal a unified overall aesthetic. the diverse forms of windows often serve as the “frames” for scenic views, with a specific room’s window panels forming a circular “frame,” turning the external scenery into picturesque scenes that change with each step, providing endless enjoyment (chen & qian, 2023). these aspects embody the confucian concept of “ren”, reflecting care and respect for people. respect for nature: some of the stones present in the garden are crafted from taihu lake rocks. these stones, influenced by the flow of water in taihu lake, have become various stubborn rocks. the reason www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. for their extensive use in suzhou gardens lies in the complementary qualities between the stones and the gardens. taihu lake rocks exhibit transparency and elegance, fitting seamlessly into the refined and delicate atmosphere of suzhou gardens. these aspects all reflect the close relationship between “ren” and spatial design in suzhou liuyuan. in the design process, considerations extend beyond functionality and aesthetics to encompass the harmonious unity of individuals with nature, society, and their inner selves—adhering to the confucian concept of “tian ren he yi”. figure 1. suzhou garden – liuyuan figure 2. the leaky window in the liuyuan garden www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. 2.2 case study two: the forbidden city, beijing the forbidden city, located in the heart of beijing, china, served as the imperial palace during the ming and qing dynasties. it stands as the world’s largest and most well-preserved ancient wooden architectural complex. the layout and design of the forbidden city’s architecture fully embody the confucian concept of “ren”. firstly, the architectural hierarchy of the forbidden city reflects confucian notions of social hierarchy. the buildings in the forbidden city, including the hall of supreme harmony (figure 3), exhibit strict class distinctions in terms of height, scale, and ornamentation. the hall of supreme harmony, used by emperors for significant ceremonies, exemplifies unparalleled scale and arrangement, symbolizing the supreme authority of the emperor. secondly, the overall layout of the forbidden city adheres to a strict symmetry principle, embodying confucian emphasis on order and harmony. in confucian thought, order and harmony are regarded as the foundations of social stability and prosperity, a concept fully realized in the architectural design of the forbidden city. for instance, the buildings are arranged along the central axis, forming a rigidly symmetrical structure. lastly, the interior decorations of the forbidden city serve as a concentrated embodiment of the “ren” philosophy. in confucianism, the realization of “ren” is seen as the greatest happiness achievable in life. within the architectural embellishments of the forbidden city, numerous motifs featuring flora and fauna (figure 4) not only beautify the structures but also carry auspicious and harmonious meanings, reflecting the philosophy of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. figure 3. the hall of supreme harmony, the forbidden city in conclusion, as a treasury of ancient chinese architecture, the forbidden city profoundly reflects the confucian concept of “ren” in its design and layout. this philosophy constitutes the core of traditional chinese culture and has exerted a profound influence on ancient chinese architecture. the architectural design of the forbidden city not only showcases imperial authority but also emphasizes the concept of “tian ren he yi”, the unity of heaven and humanity. its design principles continue to provide significant inspiration to this day. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. figure 4. painting of the forbidden city palace 2.3 case study three: west lake, hangzhou west lake in hangzhou (figure 5) is one of china’s most renowned scenic spots, and its design and layout fully embody the confucian concept of “ren”. the natural and cultural landscapes of west lake harmoniously blend, reflecting both the confucian philosophy of “ren” and the concept of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. the mountains surrounding west lake exhibit gentle slopes, and its waters are rarely disturbed by strong winds or waves, typically presenting serene and sunny conditions or gentle breezes with light rain. the spatial arrangement of west lake is moderate, providing viewers with a balanced and not overly immersive experience, avoiding extremes of vividness or emptiness. the scale of the west lake scenery is appropriate, allowing for comfortable and panoramic views without the need for excessive tilting or angling, providing a visually pleasing and relaxed experience (zhejiang-style gardens, 2019). these qualities resonate with the confucian doctrine of moderation and balance, reflecting a life attitude and philosophical approach to existence that aligns with the confucian principles. the combination of elements, such as the gentle curves of the mountains, the moderate expanse of the waters, the delicate islets, and the petite bridges and towers, all contribute to the infinite charm of west lake. the pavilions, towers, and ancient temples both inside and outside the lake, along with the traditional boats, add to the endless fascination of west lake (zhejiang-style gardens, 2019). the diverse components of west lake’s landscape are rich in form but exhibit a gentle and rhythmic style, characterized by a yin softness, and this aesthetic quality derives from an appreciation and reverence for the intrinsic nature of west lake (zhejiang-style gardens, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. figure 5. west lake, hangzhou in summary, west lake’s architectural design and layout fully embody the confucian concept of “ren.” the spatial design of west lake not only reflects the harmony between humans and nature but also the harmony among individuals. this design philosophy continues to provide important insights for us today. 3. confucian aesthetic concepts and their impact on classical architecture 3.1 continuity and development of the spirit of benevolence the confucian aesthetic ideology of “ren” emphasizes the integration of individual emotional and psychological needs with social and ethical norms. this aesthetic philosophy is inherited and developed in classical architecture, manifesting primarily in two aspects: the beauty of warmth and the beauty of vitality. warmth beauty: the beauty of warmth in classical architecture is expressed through clever layouts, intricate structures, and delicate decorative elements. especially in spatial design, an emphasis on the rational arrangement of courtyards creates an atmosphere of warmth and pleasantness. the layout of courtyards and the design of passages convey, in detail, a warm consideration for human nature, transforming architecture into an expression of emotion and culture rather than a mere structure. vitality beauty: the confucian virtue of “ren” focuses on individual self-improvement and the harmony of social ethics, which translates into the beauty of vitality in classical architecture. architectural design incorporates carefully integrated natural elements such as plants and water features, creating vibrant spaces. the clever combination of rockeries and plants in courtyards, along with the introduction of ponds and flowing water, infuses the entire space with the breath of life. such designs not only reflect the harmonious coexistence of architecture and nature but also evoke a sense of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. vitality and beauty, where every leaf and droplet seems to convey the rhythmic essence of life, making the architecture an integral part of living rather than an isolated structure. together, the beauty of warmth and vitality constitute the continuity and development of the spirit of benevolence in classical architecture. this transforms architecture into a comprehensive embodiment of emotions, social relationships, and the beauty of nature, creating spaces that resonate not only with material presence but also with inner feelings, fostering a harmonious and warm atmosphere in society. 3.2 aesthetic consciousness of unified time and space the aesthetic consciousness of unified time and space is the epitome of confucianism’s concept of the unity of heaven and humanity. it finds multifaceted expressions in classical architecture, particularly in the aesthetic expression of interior spaces in traditional chinese architecture, where the unique and ingenious use of “dividers” stands out. interior spaces with partition walls, such as the partitioned doors in suzhou garden-liuyuan, exhibit a semi-permeable effect, delineating physical space while maintaining a sense of openness. similarly, floor-to-ceiling circular skylights, through delicately perforated floral dividers, ingeniously create a virtual division within the interior, enriching spatial layers and enhancing interior decor. emphasizing harmony and flow in space, the rotation and retrospection of sightlines, and aesthetic attention to temporality, classical architecture under the influence of confucian culture presents a harmonious unity of individuals with nature, society with individuals, and time with space. this aesthetic concept underscores ways for individuals to perceive infinite interest in limited spaces, highlighting the symbiotic prosperity of individuals in nature and society (zhang, wang, & wang, 2021). as noted by mr. zong baihua, the chinese conceptualization of the universe is intertwined with dwelling houses, forming the universe through dwellings and the movements within. under this spatial concept, time and space are inseparable, portraying a life that is calm yet orderly (zong, 2005). this concept permeates ancient chinese philosophical thinking, integrating the rhythms of time with spatial orientation and forming a uniquely chinese cosmological view. in conclusion, the designs of unified time and space, the application of “dividers,” and the interpretation of the universe concept allow classical architecture to become a work of art with unique aesthetic value and cultural connotations. 4. confucian aesthetic concepts and their insights into contemporary spatial design and social development confucian aesthetic concepts, emphasizing a human-centric approach and societal harmony, offer significant insights for both contemporary spatial design and social development. in the context of severe homogenization in modern industrial design and the rationality-driven challenges to traditional humanistic thinking, confucian aesthetic concepts provide a unique perspective and beneficial guidance to address the loss of humanistic sentiments in the backdrop of industrialization (yang & ye, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. 2023). 4.1 social development in terms of social development, confucian aesthetics underscores individual goodness and social responsibility. this inspires us to incorporate the confucian concept of “unity of heaven and humanity” in designing cities, buildings, or communities, aiming for harmonious and unified spaces. architectural design should prioritize fostering interaction and cooperation among community members, creating warm and intimate environments to promote social harmony and prosperity. one of the core principles of confucian aesthetics is “ren”, emphasizing care for others, interpersonal relationships, and the pursuit of social harmony. considering emotional needs, social responsibility, and shared spaces, modern designs can create more humane environments, fostering a more harmonious and warm social atmosphere. 4.2 sustainable development and ecological harmony looking at environmental sustainability and ecological harmony, confucianism’s concept of the unity of heaven and humanity emphasizes the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. this encourages designers to consider how to integrate natural elements, use sustainable building materials and technologies, and create ecologically friendly spaces aligned with confucian principles. through such designs, we can better protect the environment, promote the symbiotic coexistence of humans and nature, and achieve sustainable development goals. 4.3 social responsibility and shared spaces confucian aesthetics’ emphasis on social responsibility and shared spaces also provides valuable insights for contemporary spatial design. it highlights the importance of treating others well and playing a constructive role in society. in contemporary society, designers can stimulate increased participation in social activities and enhance social responsibility by providing shared spaces and public facilities. confucian aesthetic concepts counteract the “anti-industrialization” mindset by advocating a return to humanistic sentiments. in contemporary society, by revitalizing the aesthetics of literati through spatial design, and reflecting on the excessively utilitarian lifestyle, spaces can become places for reflection, relaxation, and experiencing humanistic sentiments. in conclusion, confucian aesthetic concepts offer profound guidance for contemporary spatial design, emphasizing the harmonious unity of individuals with others, nature, and society. implementing these insights into spatial design and social planning can contribute to creating more empathetic architectural and urban environments and propel society toward a more harmonious and sustainable direction. integrating these insights into spatial design and social planning allows us to construct a future society characterized by warmth and inclusivity. 5. conclusion in summary, confucian aesthetic concepts, centered around “ren”, have had a profound impact on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. layout and spatial design of classical chinese architecture. classical architecture inherits and develops the spirit of benevolence, embodying a sense of warmth and vitality, thus becoming pleasant spaces for social emotions and interpersonal relationships. simultaneously, in the interpretation of spatial and cosmic concepts, classical architecture demonstrates a sense of unified time and space, evolving into works of spatial design with unique aesthetic value. lastly, through the exploration of contemporary spatial design and social development, confucian aesthetic concepts offer profound reflections on building a harmonious society and achieving sustainable development. they provide valuable references and insights for contemporary architectural and social design. references chen, s., & qian, y. n. (2023). visual symbol transformation of leaky windows in suzhou liuyuan. china architectural decoration and decoration, 2023(18), 114-116. duan, x. (2012). discussion on the “perfection” of formal beauty in graphic design. packagin engineering, 33(20), 144-146. wei, c. y., & li, t. d. (2017). confucian aesthetics on the poetic relationship between man and nature. journal of sichuan normal university (social science edition), 44(05), 19-25. yang, c. s. (2018). origin and development of chinese aesthetic thoughts. southeast academic, 2018(04), 180-188. yang, j., & ye, x. r. (2023). contemporary literati aesthetic tea space design: commonality and personality expression. furniture and interior decoration, 30(08), 124-127. zhang, c. y., wang, m., &wang, q. h. (2021). study on flowing view and chinese traditional landscape space design. chinese garden, 37(02), 130-133. zhejiang-style gardens. (2019). the outstanding representative of zhejiang school public gardens—hangzhou west lake (vi). zcool. retrieved from https://mobile.zcool.com.cn/article/zodk3mju2.html zong, b. h. (2005). strolling in aesthetics. shanghai: shanghai people’s publishing house, 2005. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 68 original paper understanding the gender gap in iran's industrial workforce: barriers to women's participation mohammad taleghani1*, mohammadreza jabreilzadeh sola1, & motahereh siradaghi kisari2 1 department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university (iau), rasht, iran 2 department of arts research, university of applied sciences, behshahr, golestan * mohammad taleghani, associate professor, department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university (iau), rasht, iran received: february 19, 2025 accepted: march 16, 2025 online published: march 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p68 abstract this review investigates the persistent gender gap in iran’s industrial workforce, analyzing how socio-cultural norms, legal frameworks, and economic policies collectively restrict women’s participation. drawing on iranian and international scholarship from the past decade, the study highlights three interconnected dimensions. first, patriarchal values and discriminatory laws—such as spousal consent requirements and occupational stereotypes—systematically exclude women from male-dominated industrial sectors like manufacturing and energy, despite their growing presence in stem education (zahedi et al., 2022). second, economic policies, including privatization, sanctions, and subsidy programs, exacerbate gender disparities by prioritizing cost-cutting measures that displace women into informal, low-wage labor (salehi-isfahani, 2020) and reinforcing male-dominated industries (moghadam, 2019). third, these barriers undermine iran’s economic development by stifling innovation and gdp growth (world bank, 2020) while deepening social inequalities through income disparities and limited women’s agency (rostami-povey, 2021). the review underscores the urgency of legal reforms, inclusive economic strategies, and investments in women’s technical training to address systemic inequities. by aligning policies with global commitments like the un sdgs (undp, 2021), iran can harness women’s potential to drive sustainable development and social progress. keywords gender gap, socio-cultural norms, legal frameworks, economic policies, industrial workforce 1. introduction the underrepresentation of women in iran’s industrial workforce is a persistent and multifaceted issue www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 that reflects broader socio-economic inequities entrenched within the country’s cultural, legal, and economic frameworks. despite significant strides in women’s education and political participation over the past four decades, their engagement in industrial sectors—such as manufacturing, energy, construction, and technology—remains disproportionately low. according to world bank data (2023), women constitute approximately 18% of iran’s total labor force, with only 12% participating in industrial sectors, compared to a global average of 39% (ilo, 2022). this stark disparity underscores a systemic failure to leverage half of the population’s potential, raising critical questions about the socio-cultural, legal, and economic barriers that perpetuate gender-based exclusion. the persistence of this gap is particularly perplexing given iran’s demographic and educational shifts. since the 1980s, female enrollment in higher education has surged, with women now comprising over 60% of university graduates (unesco, 2021). yet, their transition into industrial careers is hindered by intersecting factors including patriarchal norms, discriminatory legislation and economic policies that prioritize male-dominated industries. these barriers not only limit individual opportunities but also undermine national economic growth. the international monetary fund (imf, 2020) estimates that closing the gender gap in labor force participation could boost iran’s gdp by 34%, a figure that underscores the economic urgency of addressing this issue. iran’s socio-cultural context is shaped by deeply entrenched patriarchal norms that prioritize women’s roles as wives and mothers over their participation in public life. these norms are reinforced by religious interpretations, familial expectations, and societal perceptions of “appropriate” work for women. for instance, industries such as manufacturing and construction are often perceived as “male domains” requiring physical strength or technical expertise, roles deemed incompatible with traditional gender roles (mir-hosseini, 2020). such stereotypes are perpetuated by media, educational curricula, and workplace cultures that associate industrial labor with masculinity. these attitudes are further institutionalized through *mahram* laws, which restrict women’s mobility and require male guardianship for certain activities, including travel or employment in certain sectors (human rights watch, 2021). even when women overcome societal pressures to enter industrial fields, they face workplace harassment, limited networking opportunities, and a lack of female role models. for example, a 2022 study by the iran chamber of commerce found that 68% of female engineers reported experiencing gender-based discrimination, with many citing familial disapprovals as a primary barrier to career advancement (icc, 2022). iran’s legal framework institutionalizes gender-based discrimination through laws that restrict women’s autonomy in the workplace. the islamic penal code and civil code, for instance, grant husbands the authority to prohibit their wives from working if they deem it “incompatible with family interests” (article 1117 of the civil code). additionally, labor laws exclude women from working night shifts, hazardous jobs, and certain industrial sectors, ostensibly for their “protection” but effectively limiting their access to higher-paying roles (kazemipur, 2019). these restrictions are compounded by the absence of anti-discrimination laws and enforcement mechanisms. while iran ratified the convention www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 70 on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) in 1995, it entered extensive reservations that rendered the treaty ineffective (un women, 2020). consequently, employers face no legal repercussions for gender-based wage gaps, which average 35% in industrial sectors (statistical center of iran, 2021). economic policies in iran have further marginalized women in the industrial workforce. decades of sanctions, inflation, and privatization have eroded job security, pushing many women into the informal sector, where they lack labor protections and social benefits. approximately 80% of employed women in iran work in informal roles, such as home-based manufacturing or agriculture, which offer unstable incomes and limited upward mobility (ilo, 2021). even in formal industrial sectors, women are concentrated in low-skilled, low-wage positions. for example, in the automotive industry—a cornerstone of iran’s manufacturing sector—women account for less than 5% of engineers and technical staff (iran automotive industry association, 2022). this segregation is exacerbated by a lack of access to capital and entrepreneurship opportunities. women receive only 5% of business loans from state-owned banks, hindering their ability to establish industrial enterprises (world bank, 2021). the exclusion of women from industrial sectors carries significant economic and social costs. at the macro level, it stifles innovation and productivity, as diverse workforces are linked to higher rates of technological adoption and problem-solving (world economic forum, 2020). iran’s industrial sectors, particularly in stem fields, face labor shortages that could be mitigated by gender-inclusive hiring practices. socially, the gender gap reinforces cycles of poverty and inequality. women in industrial roles often serve as primary caregivers, and their economic marginalization limits household resilience to economic shocks. moreover, the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles perpetuates a culture of exclusion, discouraging younger generations from pursuing non-traditional careers (undp, 2022). this article seeks to address the following questions: 1. how do socio-cultural norms and legal frameworks in iran restrict women’s access to industrial sectors? 2. what economic policies exacerbate gender-based disparities in industrial employment? 3. what are the implications of these barriers for iran’s economic development and social equity? to answer these questions, the analysis draws on quantitative data from the statistical center of iran, the world bank, and the ilo, as well as qualitative studies from iranian ngos, academic journals, and international organizations. by synthesizing these sources, this article provides a comprehensive assessment of the systemic barriers to women’s participation and offers evidence-based recommendations for reform. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 table 1. women’s participation in iran’s industrial workforce 1973-2023 (authors, 2025) time period female labor participation rate(overall) female participation industrial sectors (based on %) 1973–1979 (pre-revolution) 12–15% 8–10% 1980–1989 (post-revolution & war) 9–12% 3–5% 1990–1999 (economic liberalization) 10–13% 4–6% 2000–2009 (neo-liberal reforms) 14–16% 5–7% 2010–2019 (sanctions & crisis) 16–18% 7–9% 2020–2023 (current trends) 18–20% 10–12% 2. method the underrepresentation of women in iran’s industrial sectors has garnered increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, and international organizations over the past two decades. this literature review synthesizes key academic and institutional contributions to the discourse, highlighting socio-cultural, legal, economic, and educational factors that perpetuate gender disparities. the review also identifies gaps in existing research and underscores the need for intersectional analyses to inform policy reforms. 1) socio-cultural barriers: patriarchy and gender norms iran’s socio-cultural landscape, shaped by shia islamic interpretations and patriarchal traditions, has long confined women to domestic roles, framing industrial work as incompatible with femininity. anthropological studies emphasize how modesty norms (e.g., mandatory hijab, gender segregation) and familial expectations limit women’s access to male-dominated industries (mir-hosseini, 2020). for instance, industries like construction or heavy manufacturing are perceived as requiring physical endurance or technical expertise, traits stereotypically associated with masculinity (shahidian, 2018). media and educational systems reinforce these stereotypes. textbooks and state propaganda often depict women as caregivers, while men are portrayed as breadwinners and industrial laborers (undp, 2022). sociological surveys further reveal that familial resistance remains a critical barrier: 62% of female engineering graduates reported familial pressure to prioritize marriage over careers (iran chamber of commerce, 2022). 2) legal frameworks: institutionalized discrimination iran’s legal system codifies gender-based discrimination, directly restricting women’s industrial participation. key laws include: islamic penal code (1983): grants husbands’ authority to block wives from working if deemed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 “against family interests” (article 1117). labor law: prohibits women from night shifts and hazardous industrial roles, ostensibly for “protection” but effectively excluding them from high-paying positions (kazemipur, 2019). lack of anti-discrimination laws: iran’s reservations to the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw) render it ineffective, leaving wage gaps and workplace harassment unaddressed (unwomen, 2020). legal scholars argue that these frameworks institutionalize women’s economic dependency, reinforcing their marginalization in sectors requiring autonomy or leadership roles (esfandiari, 2021). 3) economic policies and structural exclusion economic factors, including sanctions, privatization, and labor market dynamics, disproportionately impact women. sanctions and stagflation: decades of u.s. sanctions and mismanagement have eroded formal job opportunities, pushing women into informal sectors (e.g., home-based workshops) with no legal protections (world bank, 2021). privatization: post-1990s privatization of state-owned industries reduced female employment, as private firms prioritize cost-cutting over gender equity (ilo, 2021). wage gaps: women earn 35% less than men in industrial sectors, driven by occupational segregation and employer biases (statistical center of iran, 2021). economists note that these policies exacerbate poverty, particularly for rural women, who face limited access to vocational training or capital (hoodfar, 2019). 4) education: progress and paradoxes despite significant gains in female education—women now comprise 60% of university graduates—structural barriers prevent translation into industrial careers. stem enrollment: while women constitute 45% of stem graduates, they are concentrated in life sciences rather than engineering or computer science, fields critical to industrial innovation (unesco, 2021). workforce mismatch: over 70% of female graduates work in education or healthcare, sectors with lower wages and status compared to industry (icc, 2022). cultural stigma: societal perceptions of industrial work as “unfeminine” deter women from pursuing technical careers, even when qualified (kazemipur, 2019). this “education-employment gap” highlights systemic failures in aligning educational outcomes with labor market needs (world bank, 2023). 5) emerging trends and resistance recent activism and policy debates signal gradual shifts: social media and advocacy: campaigns like #whereismyname and #womanlifefreedom challenge patriarchal norms, amplifying demands for workplace equality (human rights watch, 2021). policy proposals: reformists advocate for quotas in stem industries, subsidized childcare, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 amendments to discriminatory laws (esfandiari, 2021). private sector initiatives: a handful of tech startups and automotive companies have launched gender-inclusive hiring programs, though scalability remains uncertain (iran automotive industry association, 2022). however, these efforts face backlash from conservative institutions, underscoring the fragility of progress (shahidian, 2018). gaps in the literature while existing research provides critical insights, several gaps persist: intersectionality: few studies examine how class, ethnicity, or geography intersect with gender to shape industrial exclusion (e.g., rural vs. urban women). informal sector dynamics: limited data exists on women’s roles in informal industrial work, such as home-based manufacturing. policy impact assessments: there is a lack of longitudinal studies evaluating the effectiveness of recent reforms or grassroots initiatives. 3. result the gender gap in iran’s industrial labor force is a multifaceted issue rooted in socio-cultural norms, legal frameworks, and economic policies. this review synthesizes findings from iranian and non-iranian researchers over the past decade to answer three key questions: (1) how do socio-cultural norms and legal frameworks limit women’s access to industrial sectors? (2) which economic policies exacerbate gender inequalities in industrial employment? (3) what are the implications of these barriers for iran’s economic development and social equality? by examining these dimensions, this article aims to shed light on the systemic challenges and their broader implications. legal frameworks further institutionalize these limitations. the iranian constitution emphasizes the importance of family stability but often prioritizes men as primary breadwinners, indirectly marginalizing women in competitive job markets (hoodfar, 2017). additionally, discriminatory laws, such as those requiring spousal consent for women seeking certain jobs or traveling abroad, hinder professional mobility (tohidi, 2019). these legal barriers are compounded by workplace practices that favor men, including unequal pay scales and limited maternity leave provisions (esfandiari, 2021). research also highlights how educational opportunities fail to translate into equitable industrial employment. while women constitute a growing proportion of university graduates in stem fields, they face structural obstacles when transitioning into technical roles within the industrial sector (zahedi et al., 2022). cultural biases against hiring women for physically demanding or high-risk positions perpetuate occupational segregation, leaving them underrepresented in lucrative industries like oil, gas, and mining. economic policies in iran have inadvertently widened gender disparities in industrial employment. one critical factor is the emphasis on privatization and deregulation, which disproportionately affects www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 women workers. privatized enterprises tend to prioritize cost-cutting measures, often leading to layoffs among lower-wage employees—who are predominantly women (salehi-isfahani, 2020). furthermore, informal labor markets thrive under such conditions, pushing women into precarious, low-paying jobs with little job security or benefits (rahbari, 2021). sanctions imposed on iran have exacerbated these issues by creating an unstable economy reliant on resource-intensive industries dominated by men. according to moghadam (2019), sanctions have stifled diversification efforts, concentrating growth in sectors where women face entrenched barriers. for example, the energy sector remains heavily male-dominated, with minimal investment in initiatives aimed at integrating women into its workforce. government subsidies and welfare programs, while intended to support vulnerable populations, sometimes reinforce traditional gender roles. subsidies targeting households often assume male earners as primary recipients, sidelining women’s economic agency (kazemipur, 2022). similarly, entrepreneurship incentives rarely cater to women entrepreneurs, who encounter difficulties accessing capital and navigating bureaucratic hurdles (golkar, 2021). the barriers to women’s participation in iran’s industrial labor force carry profound implications for both economic development and social equality. economically, excluding half the population from productive sectors undermines national productivity and innovation potential. studies indicate that increasing women’s labor force participation could boost gdp significantly, particularly in emerging economies like iran (world bank, 2020). however, persistent gender gaps hinder this potential, limiting human capital utilization and impeding sustainable growth. socially, restricted access to industrial employment perpetuates inequality and reinforces existing power dynamics. women excluded from formal industrial roles often resort to informal work, exposing them to exploitation and poverty (rostami-povey, 2021). this cycle not only entrenches gender disparities but also widens income inequality across society. moreover, the absence of women in leadership positions within industrial firms diminishes diversity in decision-making processes, stifling inclusive policy formulation (shirazi, 2022). from a developmental perspective, addressing these barriers aligns with global commitments to achieving gender equality, as outlined in the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs). specifically, sdg 5 calls for eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and ensuring equal opportunities in economic participation (undp, 2021). failure to address these systemic issues risks isolating iran from international partnerships and advancements in gender-responsive policymaking. table 2. key barriers to women’s participation in iran’s industrial workforce (authors, 2025) key factors examples/findings(citations) implications patriarchal values families discourage women from male-dominated industries (e.g., reinforces occupational segregation and restricts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 manufacturing) due to cultural stereotypes (khosravi, 2018). professional mobility. discriminatory laws spousal consent requirements for certain jobs and travel abroad (tohidi, 2019). institutionalizes gender inequality and limits workforce entry. education-to-workforce gaps women stem graduates face barriers entering technical roles in oil/gas sectors (zahedi et al., 2022). wastes human capital and perpetuates gendered labor divisions. privatization/deregulation privatized firms prioritize cost-cutting, leading to female layoffs (salehi-isfahani, 2020). increases women’s reliance on informal, low-wage work. sanctions and resource dependency sanctions concentrate growth in male-dominated sectors (e.g., energy) (moghadam, 2019). limits women’s access to high-paying industrial roles. subsidy and welfare policies household subsidies prioritize male earners, sidelining women’s economic agency (kazemipur, 2022). reinforces traditional gender roles and income inequality. economic stagnation gender gaps reduce gdp potential; women’s exclusion limits innovation (world bank, 2020). hinders sustainable growth and global competitiveness. social inequality women in informal work face exploitation and poverty (rostami-povey, 2021). deepens income disparities and marginalizes women. missed sdg targets failure to meet un sdg 5 (gender equality) risks isolating iran from global partnerships (undp, 2021). undermines international credibility and development aid. 4. discussion the gender gap in iran’s industrial labor force is a systemic issue shaped by intersecting socio-cultural, legal, and economic barriers. this review underscores how patriarchal norms, discriminatory laws, and exclusionary economic policies collectively restrict women’s participation in industrial sectors, with far-reaching consequences for both economic progress and social equity. traditional gender roles and legal frameworks institutionalize inequality, confining women to domestic spheres and limiting their access to industrial opportunities. for instance, cultural stereotypes dissuade families from supporting women in male-dominated fields like manufacturing (khosravi, 2018), while laws requiring spousal consent for employment or travel further curtail autonomy (tohidi, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 2019). even educated women face structural barriers, such as exclusion from technical roles in high-paying industries like oil and gas, despite their growing presence in stem education (zahedi et al., 2022). these norms and laws not only perpetuate occupational segregation but also signal systemic devaluation of women’s economic contributions. economic policies, including privatization and sanctions, exacerbate disparities. privatized industries prioritize cost-cutting, often displacing women workers into informal, low-wage jobs (salehi-isfahani, 2020), while international sanctions concentrate growth in male-dominated sectors like energy, sidelining women (moghadam, 2019). additionally, subsidy programs and welfare policies that prioritize male breadwinners reinforce traditional gender roles, limiting women’s economic agency (kazemipur, 2022). such policies entrench gendered labor divisions and hinder women’s upward mobility. the exclusion of women from industrial sectors undermines iran’s economic potential. gender gaps in labor force participation stifle innovation and gdp growth, as half the population remains underutilized (world bank, 2020). socially, barriers push women into informal work, exposing them to exploitation and poverty (rostami-povey, 2021), while perpetuating income inequality. furthermore, iran’s failure to address these issues risks isolating it from global commitments to gender equality, such as the un sustainable development goals (sdg 5), limiting international collaboration and development opportunities (undp, 2021). addressing these challenges requires holistic reforms. legal amendments to eliminate discriminatory practices, investments in women’s technical training, and policies promoting gender diversity in industrial leadership are critical. economic strategies must prioritize inclusive growth, such as subsidies targeting women entrepreneurs and sanctions relief to diversify opportunities. by dismantling systemic barriers, iran can harness women’s potential to drive sustainable development and foster a more equitable society. acknowledgement in this article, i sincerely thank and appreciate all graduate students who were with the author in the process of implementing this research. references esfandiari, h. 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(2023).world development indicators: labor force participation rate, female. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper the influence of background music on people’s judgment of others on social media seungri han 1 1 seoul academy, seoul, korea received: november 12, 2022 accepted: december 20, 2022 online published: december 23, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p1 abstract this study explored whether background music on social networking service (sns) can influence people’s judgments about others’ personalities. we used the most popular sns app in korea and manipulated the background music. forty-four participants were recruited and randomly assigned one of two conditions: music from either classical or rock genres. after exploring the profile, the participants answered a questionnaire asking them to assess the profile’s owners’ personality. it was found that both male and female participants viewed the profile owner’s personality differently depending on the background music. the implication of personality judgment in an sns context was discussed. keywords background music, profile image, personality, judgment 1. introduction our lives before have been impacted significantly by the rise of social media. this new mode of communal interaction has already left a mark on human history, showing a distinct change in people’s lives in the years since its appearance. freed from the burden of filtering out irrelevant information, people are able to use social media to access content tailored to their preferences. based on algorithmic correlations, people are exposed to various opportunities and experiences they would never have otherwise encountered. most importantly, social media plays a major role in the modern world as a communication tool. especially in recent years, because we cannot see each other face to face as much as we did before due to the outbreak of covid-19, online communication has become an inextricable part of our lives. it allowed people to stay in touch with each other without putting their health or the safety of their community at risk. through these communication tools, we freely express our identities by sharing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. selfies, photos, videos, music, thoughts, opinions, emotions, and beliefs. as more and more people rely on and spend time on social platforms, we make an increasing number of first-time acquaintances in online spaces. since the only information we have about these new people is what we find online, we tend to judge them based on what appears on their profiles. accordingly, the impact of social networking services on our social experience has gained a lot of scientific attention, and mobile communication applications (a.k.a. messaging apps) are at the center of this discourse. many researchers have investigated how communication via a messaging app is different from the one through face to face (jaafar et al., 2014; lee et al., 2011; nguyen et al., 2021). although there are various types of mobile communication tools, it is reasonable to start with an app that is the most widely used by people to investigate how an sns influences our thinking and feeling. in south korea, kakaotalk is the most popular mobile messaging app. although it is a mobile messenger app, kakaotalk has a lot of functions which are closely aligned with our behavior in everyday life, such as talk (chat, voice talk, video talk), sending gifts, money transfer, and so on. according to kakao corp, there were more than 47.5 million active users in south korea in 2q 2022 (kakaotalk, 2022). considering the population of south korea, which is 51.8 million as of october 2022, it can be assumed that most people who live in korea use this mobile messaging app (world population review, 2022). furthermore, there were more than 53.3 million worldwide users (kakaotalk, 2022). that said, less is known about how profile information in the app influences on other users’ perception. while the app covers the various user activities, it has the function to express user’s identity as a way of representing the user. the app has a profile main page where users choose any image as an avatar to represent their identity, write a text bio, customize the page theme, and select background music. therefore, the personal profile itself delivers condensed information about the user and other users can conjecture the user’s characteristics based on the provided information. in the contact list page, you can select a person whom you want to interact with. once you click the person, you can see his or her main profile page in full screen where a user uploads his/her favorite profile photo and music (figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. figure 1. a basic profile page in kakaotalk 2. influence of music music functions in various ways and has numerous influences on human life, such as delivering identity (north & hargreaves, 1999), regulating mood and emotion (carlson et al., 2015; saarikallio, 2008), and impacting human development and everyday life (welch et al., 2020). lehmann et al. (2021) showed that while background music helps people with better transfer outcomes, background music has no effect on memory recall, especially for the extrovert. gorn (1982) explored the effects of music in advertising on decision making behaviors based on classical conditioning approach. he found that preference of music has an impact on the judgment of product purchasing behaviors. when a product was paired with a preferred music, the product was more likely to be purchased, whereas if the music was disliked, the product was rarely purchased. regarding the relationship between music preference and personality, north (2010) investigated the extent to which personality factors correlate with liking for a very wide range of musical styles using the big 5 personality inventory. he found that personality factors were related to both preference for certain musical styles and participants’ self-reported reasons for listening to this music. the study implies that people can sympathize with each other by sharing their favorite music and can intuitively judge others’ personal characteristics based on musical taste as well. in the same vein, based on questionnaire data from 341 respondents, chamorro-premuzic et al. (2010) showed that the relationship between individual differences and specific uses of music, where open and intellectually engaged individuals, and those with higher iq scores, tended to use music in a rational/cognitive way, while neurotic, introverted and non-conscientious individuals were all more likely to use music for emotional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. regulation. greenberg et al. (2022) investigated whether there are universal patterns in musical preferences, especially for western music. they included self-report measures of the big five personality traits and demographics. the results showed that individual differences in preferences for western music can be organized in terms of five latent factors that are invariant across countries and that generalize across assessment methods. also, they found that the patterns of correlations between personality traits and musical preferences were largely consistent across countries and assessment methods. this study implies that music and personality are closely related, and this means that music could serve as a factor in assessing people’s personalities. in this sense, background music on the app profile page may impact the opinions formed by those who view the page. since background music is selected by the profile page user, the visitors make an instant judgment about the page owner. although there were studies to examine the relationship between music and cognitive load or arousal, music, and consumers’ choices (gorn, 1982), music and personalities (lehmann et al., 2019), and music and perception, there are few studies that examined the effect of background music on judgment by visitors of the other person on social media. therefore, we decided to go further in investigating whether music affects how people view and judge other people on social media by using kakaotalk, where background music takes up a major part in people’s profiles. we hypothesize that there are different judgment patterns of sns profile owners depending on the type of music. 2. method 2.1 participants forty-four participants (24 male) were recruited in receipt of a remuneration from advertising and flyers posted on a website. the participants’ ages range from 23 to 33. 2.2 materials we made four kakaotalk profiles. one male who set hard rock music as his background music, one female who set hard rock music as her background music, one male who set classical music as his background music, and one female who set classical music as her background music. we chose hard music and classical music because these two were the most contrasting extremes (most calm and most loud) among many genres of music that could clearly show its effect, which would be the independent variable, on people’s judgments of others, which would be the dependent variable. the chosen hard rock music is toxicity by system of a down. the chosen classical music is pachelbel: canon d major. we decided to set the same music on profiles of both genders to reduce the bias that may be caused by sex. for a profile picture, we used a synthetic average of korean male and female faces obtained from facial volumization with fillers (seo, 2021). we wanted to use faces that won't be recognized much by participants to reduce any possible bias. to measure participants’ judgment of the person on the kakaotalk profile, we used a simple version of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. myers briggs type indicator (mbti) because it is the most direct way to examine the effect of independent variable on dependent variable, ruling out the possibilities of inclusion of bias in setting up standards of personality types based on experimental results. the simplified myers briggs type indicator (mbti) obtained from neris analytics limited (2022) was used to categorize participants’ personalities. myers briggs type indicator has 8 personality keys: e (extroversion), i (introversion), s (sensing), n (intuition), t (thinking), f (feeling), j (judging), and p (perceiving). according to arc studio, people with mbti results that have an e (extroversion) are “energized by people, enjoy a variety of tasks, a quick pace, and are good at multitasking.” people with mbti results that have an i (introversion) “often like working alone or in small groups, prefer a more deliberate pace, and like to focus on one task at a time.” people with mbti results that have s (sensing) are “realistic people who like to focus on the facts and details and apply common sense and past experience to come up with practical solutions to problems.” people with mbti results that have n (intuition) “prefer to focus on possibilities and the big picture, easily see patterns, value innovation, and seek creative solutions to problems.” people with mbti results that have t (thinking) “tend to make decisions using logical analysis, objectively weigh pros and cons, and value honesty, consistency, and fairness.” people with mbti results that have f (feeling) “tend to be sensitive and cooperative and decide based on their own personal values and how others will be affected by their actions.” people with mbti results that have j (judging) “tend to be organized and prepared, like to make and stick to plans, and are comfortable following most rules.” people with mbti results that have p (perceiving) “prefer to keep their options open, like ro be able to act spontaneously, and like to be flexible with making plans.” 2.3 design to test if there is a difference in judging other’s personality with a different type of music, two different types of music were used, rock and classical music. four kakaotalk profiles: female with rock music as background music, male with rock, female with classical, and male with classical. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. figure 2. male and female profile with classical background music (stimuli for the rock background music were prepared based on the same male and female profile) 2.4 procedure the participants were randomly assigned either a rock music or classical music group. the participants individually explored the profile page for 3 minutes and rated the subject on the mbti personality scale. after completing the personality rating, they were debriefed. 3. result we analyzed the visitors’ judgments of the profile owner’s personality with chi-square test. based on the subcategories in the personality, each personality pair was separately analyzed. it was found that the male participants judged the owner’s personality differently depending on the background music in sensing and intuition (x 2 (1, n=24) = 10.97, p < .01) and judging and perceiving x 2 (1, n=24) = 16.67, p < .01). table 1 and 2 show their judgment in cross tabulation. male participants judged a profile owner with classical background music more sensing and judging and with rock background music as more intuitive and perceiving. table 1. music and personality judged by male participants (sensing vs. intuition) sensing intuition total music classical 9 3 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. rock 1 11 12 total 10 14 24 table 2. music and personality judged by male participants (judging vs. perceiving) judging perceiving total music classical 11 1 12 rock 1 11 12 total 12 12 24 a similar pattern was observed from the female participants, who also judged a profile owner with classical background music as more judging, and one with rock background music as more perceiving (table 3), x 2 (1, n=20) = 7.21, p < .01. table 3. music and personality judged by female participants (sensing vs. intuition) judging perceiving total music classical 6 3 9 rock 1 10 11 total 7 13 20 table 4 and 5 show the cross tabulation where the sex variable was collapsed. they showed the same pattern where the participants judged a profile owner with classical background music more sensing χ² (1, n = 44) = 9.17, p < .05 than intuition and more judging χ² (1, n = 44) = 23.36, p < .01 than perceiving. table 4. music and personality sex variable collapsed (sensing-intuition) personality sensing intuition total music classical 13 8 21 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. rock 4 19 23 total 17 27 44 table 5. music and personality sex variable collapsed (judging-perceiving) personality judging perceiving total music classical 17 4 21 rock 2 21 23 total 19 25 44 finally, in both male and female participants, there was no significant difference in music’s influence on people’s judgment of others’ extroversion-introversion and thinking-feeling. the findings showed that background music had influence on people when they judged others’ personalities. 4. discussion although we did not see the different judgment pattern for all four personality pairs, it seems that background music on social media could influence people in judging others. people judged the owner of the profile with rock music as its background music as intuitive and perceiving, while judging the one with classical background music as sensing and judging. interacting with others in the online environment has become an essential part of our lives. in this study, we showed that a different background music can give a different impression about the profile owner. people use sns to express themselves and provide information that helps others to form a specific impression of their identities. in addition to what we learned from the previous studies that showed the impact of music on various parts in human life, this study showed that even background music on sns could affect people when judging others. an sns influences our judgment of people, and decision making when purchasing products. based on the results, it would be possible that people can strategically select a specific type of music and put it as background music to provide an intended impression to others, whether or not it is done with good or bad intentions. although the findings have partially confirmed the previous studies in the sense that it showed the significant difference in judging others’ personalities, this study still has a limitation. we used only two opposite genres of background music, hard rock and classical music to maximize participants' impression and judgment. however, even within the genres of hard rock and classical music, there is significant variety, and we are not sure if the music we selected could represent each genre in general. also, our sample size could have been insufficient. there must be a sufficient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. sample size to decrease the margin of error or the sampling error. we only had 44 participants in our sample, so it is not enough to identify a stronger impact of independent variable on dependent. as another limitation, it is possible that the participants were not able to answer some questions by solely relying on the background music, because participants had to make assumptions or make a guess to answer the questions. this aspect in the experiment could have made the test results less reliable. a future study under a more controlled setting and more participants will strengthen the results. references arc, s. b. (n.d.). how to use myers-briggs to develop authentic, compelling characters in a screenplay. retrieved october 10, 2022, from https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/myers-briggs-characters carlson, e., saarikallio, s., toiviainen, p., bogert, b., kliuchko, m., & brattico, e. (2015). maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation through music: a behavioral and neuroimaging study of males and females. frontiers in human neuroscience, 9, 466. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00466 chamorro-premuzic, t., & furnham, a. (2010). personality and music: can traits explain how people use music in everyday life? british journal of psychology, 98, 175-185. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712606x111177 gorn, g. j. (1982). the effects of music in advertising on choice behavior: a classical conditioning approach. journal of marketing, 46(1), 94-101. https://doi.org/10.2307/1251163. greenberg, d. m., wride, s. j., snowden, d. a., spathis, d., potter, j., & rentfrow, p. j. (2022). universals and variations in musical preferences: a study of preferential reactions to western music in 53 countries. journal of personality and social psychology, 122(2), 286-309. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000397. jaafar, n. i., darmawan, b., & mohamed ariffin, m. y. (2014). face-to-face or not-to-face: a technology preference for communication. cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, 17(11), 702-708. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.0098 lee, p. s. n., leung, l., lo, v. xiong, c., & wu, t. (2011). internet communication versus face-to-face interaction in quality of life. social indicator research, 100, 375-389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9618-3 lehmann, j. a. m., hamm, v., & seufert, t. (2019). the influence of background music on learners with varying extraversion: seductive detail or beneficial effect? applied cognitive psychology, 33, 85-94. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3509 neris analytics limited. (2022). the test was retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com nguyen, m. h., gruber, j., marler, w., hunsaker, a., fuchs, j., & hargittai, e. (2022). staying connected while physically apart: digital communication when face-to-face interactions are limited. new media & society, 24(9), 2046-2067. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820985442 north, a. c. (2010). individual differences in musical taste. the american journal of psychology, https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/myers-briggs-characters https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820985442 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820985442 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. 123(2), 199-208. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.123.2.0199 north, a. c., & hargreaves, d. j. (1999). music and adolescent identity. music education research, 1, 75-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461380990010107 saarikallio, s. (2008). music in mood regulation: initial scale development. music science, 12, 291-309. https://doi.org/10.1177/102986490801200206 seo, k. k. (2021). facial volumization with fillers. google books. retrieved october 13, 2022, from https://books.google.co.kr/books/about/facial_volumization_with_fillers.html?id=xz8veaaaq baj&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false sinch community. (2022, september 13). what is kakaotalk? retrieved october 10, 2022, from https://community.sinch.com/t5/kakaotalk/what-is-kakaotalk/ta-p/7937 south korea population 2022 (demographics, maps, graphs). (n.d.). retrieved october 13, 2022, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/south-korea-population welch, g. f., biasutti, m., macritchie, j., mcpherson, g. e., & himonides, e. (2020). editorial: the impact of music on human development and well-being. frontiers in psychology, 11, 1246. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01246 https://community.sinch.com/t5/kakaotalk/what-is-kakaotalk/ta-p/7937 https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/south-korea-population microsoft word assc-v2n3-p8 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 8 original paper the influence of the lists of virtues and vices in the jewish literature of the first century josé david padilla1* 1 department of theology and philosophy, barry university, miami shores, florida, united states of america * josé david padilla, department of theology and philosophy, barry university, miami shores, florida, united states of america received: june 20, 2020 accepted: july 1, 2020 online published: july 10, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p8 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p8 abstract biblical texts were part of a broader literary context. indeed, the greco-roman literature influenced of the first century the intertestamental literature and other jewish apocryphal books. one of these influences was the lists of virtues and vices from the popular philosophical schools of the time. these lists presented a group of attitudes and behaviors that should be applied or rejected for the proper functioning of society. different jewish groups of the second temple period adapted such lists to their teachings, presenting, in a concise manner, those attitudes that did not correspond to their vocation, as well as confirming the morality proper of the “people of the covenant.” keywords intertestamental literature, late judaism, second temple period apocryphal, qumran, virtues, vices, rhetoric, greco-roman culture, first century 1. introduction the appearance of lists of virtues and vices was common among ancient cultures, especially around the mediterranean basin. not only the behavior of an individual was enough to tag him or her either as good (virtuous) or evil (vicious) but also labeling as good or bad different social groups, clans, tribes, or states (note 1). it was the way they could maintain the ethnic purity inside the group while distancing themselves from others unless converted from their evil deeds. members of a clan or their friends were virtuous or kind. instead, the enemies, that is, the others, were identified as vicious or malefactors. the greco-roman culture was not an exception. their religious and philosophical schools used these types of lists to teach a virtuous life that ensured the well-being and honor of their disciples www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. while warning them about the vices that may dishonor them and ruin their life. this style of ethical teaching also influenced the jewish communities of the second temple period (note 2). some sort of lists of virtues and vices appeared in the literature of the jewish communities of alexandria and the books of some jewish religious groups in palestine (note 3). these lists of virtues and vices, especially from the stoicism, served as an intellectual bridge between the jews and their non-jewish fellow citizens. for them, any virtuous act was god-inspired because it helped the growth of the human person. on the other hand, a vicious action was shameful or sinful because it went against the plan of god and ended up destroying the future of the chosen people. thus, their peculiar lists of vices and virtues invited to their conversion and repentance of their wrongdoing while waiting for the day when god would make all evil and corruption disappear from the world. these philosophical concepts, especially stoicism, will be reflected in the world of intertestamental literature in which christianity also was born. 2. method in this article, i intend to include some examples of the apocryphal books that do not appear in the jewish sacred scriptures but used for teaching their code of behavior. i will also include some cases of the literature of the jewish philosopher philo of alexandria, which strongly influenced the way of thinking of judaism of the diaspora, and some texts from the dead sea scrolls that belonged to the jewish community at qumran. i will read their jewish primary sources, first in the original language and, then offer a good translation of the same, in which these lists appear clearly. as a visual aid to identify the components of these catalogs, i will write in bold an item presented as virtue or right action, and underline an element shown as a vice or evil act. however, i will give examples of how these lists appeared in greco-roman literature. then, i will be able to compare and contrast those lists with the ones found in jewish literature. 3. the popularity of the greco-roman lists of virtues and vices the ancient greeks defined virtue as the continuous practice of noble actions that allowed a human to distinguish easily between what is good and what is evil (note 4). their philosophical schools taught their disciples to practice virtues of an honorable life (knowledge, prudence, temperance, strength, etc.), and to avoid any shameful behavior or vice (cowardice, pleasures, insults, perjury, etc.). thus, a virtuous person was one who acted motivated only by the goodness of the action, following natural reason. on the contrary, a vicious person was one who behaved with a lack of integrity or defect of intention. in aristotle’s treatise on virtues and vices, there is an e note 28xcellent example of this grouping of vices and virtues. here, the philosopher grouped them in a small list to show the consequences those behaviors may carry for a good citizen: if in accordance with plato the spirit is taken as having three parts, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. wisdom is goodness of the rational part, gentleness and courage of the passionate, of the appetitive sobriety of mind, and self-control, and of the spirit as a whole righteousness, liberality, and great-spiritedness; while badness of the rational part is folly, of the passionate ill-temper and cowardice, of the appetitive profligacy and uncontrol, and of the spirit as a whole unrighteousness, meanness, and small-mindedness (note 5). the early stoics organized their lists of virtues and vices using the tetrahedral scheme of the four cardinal virtues, just as plato and other philosophers did. the philosopher chrysippus (third century bce) agreed that happiness was the goal of life. for him, as well for all stoics, happiness consisted of nothing other than virtue (de finibus iii.44), and vice was, then, the essence of unhappiness. stobaeus recorded in his anthology a catalog of virtues attributed to chrysippus. it is the most detailed record of a list of virtues by any individual stoic: some of the virtues are primary; the other [virtues] are subordinated to the primary. frist are the following four: practical wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. practical wisdom is about appropriate actions; temperance is about the impulses of man; courage is about cases of endurance; justice is about distributions. from the class of virtues which are subordinated to these, some are subordinated to practical wisdom, some to temperance, some to courage, and some to justice. subordinated to practical wisdom are: good judgement, good practical overview, quick moral sense, discretion, [shrewdness], inventiveness in difficulties; to temperance: good ordering, propriety, sense of honor, self-control; to courage: perseverance, confidence, magnanimity, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. mental stoutness, industry; to justice: piety, kindness, sociability, blameless companionship (stob. 2.59.4-62.6) (note 6). the later stoics, like andronicus (first century bce), enlarged these lists by dividing them into subgroups that adapted to the moral practices of each place (note 7), but sharing the same principle: to have wisdom was to live virtuously and to live viciously was a rebellion against human nature (note 8). towards the second half of the first century bce, the typical lists of vices and virtues were used more as a pedagogical aid to guide the disciples of different philosophical schools to their ultimate goal in life. however, these lists were no longer exclusive to the academy by different greco-roman poets and orators. the roman poet virgil, in his work the aeneid, and horace, in his epistles, used the vocabulary of the stoics within their popular literature with less rigid form and more oriented and adapted to the masses. the popularity of stoicism influenced even the way many religions around the mediterranean basin proclaimed their beliefs, proclaiming eternal damnation to those who viciously behaved unless they repented and embraced a life of virtue. for this reason, it was common to find a list of vices more than of virtues because their pedagogy consisted of presenting the idea of why all needed to convert. among those religious groups were hellenistic judaism. 4. the jewish literature of alexandria king ptolemy ii philadelphus of alexandria arranged the translation of the jewish sacred texts from hebrew into greek (known popularly as the septuagint). it was one of the earliest extant koine greek translations of hebrew books (note 9). this translation included additions made to some of the original texts and other books mostly written originally in greek—known today as apocryphal (note 10). the septuagint could help us, then, to better understand the theology, philosophy, and practices of the hellenistic jewish communities of the first century ce. however, the book of wisdom, one of the apocryphal texts written in greek, dedicated most of its pages to a treatise about wisdom and her relation to god and humans. 4.1 the book of wisdom the book of wisdom (ca. 50 bce), written by a jew in alexandria, denoted an influence of the philosophy, religion, and popular morality of hellenism propagated during those last two centuries. the author’s concept of god was of an infinitely powerful being (11: 21), omnipresent (1: 7; 12: 1), and all-loving (11: 24). for him, the power of god as the creator is not because god made the world out of nothing, but rather god made an orderly cosmos out of a formless matter (11: 17 interpreting gen 1: 1; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. si 1: 2-9). wisdom played a significant role in this creation. she appeared personified as a woman (6: 12-21) that was with god, sat next to god’s throne, knew god’s thoughts, and was “god’s partner” at the beginning of creation (8: 3; 9: 4.9), and she permeated all things as an emanation of the glory of the almighty (7: 725). that was why everything followed unwritten laws, and the cosmos had an organization without equal, following closely to the hellenistic understanding of the cosmos as harmonious. thus, the author concluded that creation was the conversion of chaos into cosmos. it is the order and beauty of the universe that amazes the author, not the fact that god created everything out of nothing (11, 20; 12, 3) (note 11). in the book of wisdom, chapter 8, there was a discourse on the attributes that wisdom produced in a righteous life. this discourse had notable similarities with the discussion on the virtues by heraclitus, as presented in the work of xenophon memorabilia ii (1: 37). interesting enough was to find a presentation of the cardinal virtues just as taught in the platonic and aristotelian philosophy—wisdom, fortitude, temperance, and justice: or if one loves righteousness, whose works are virtues, for she teaches temperance and prudence justice and fortitude and nothing in life is more useful than these (pp. 8-7). later on, the book of wisdom also presented a long list of vices that the jewish mentality attributed to the depravity of the pagans that rejected to know god or to ask him for wisdom: then it was not enough for them to err in their knowledge of god; but even though they live in a great war resulting from ignorance, they call such evils peace. for while they practice either child sacrifices or occult mysteries, or frenzied carousing in exotic rites, they no longer respect either lives or purity of marriage; but they either waylay and kill each other, or aggrieve each other by adultery. and all is confusion: blood, manslaughter, theft, and dissimulation, corruption, unfaithfulness, tumults, perjury, disturbance of good people, forgetfulness of good turns, defiling of souls, unnatural lust, disorder in marriages, adultery, and shameless uncleanness. for the worshipping of idols not to be named is the beginning, the cause, and the end of all evil (vol 14, pp. 22-27). the author was content to gather together the degradation of a pagan life without inviting them to correct such a vicious way of life. for him, their sin was not recognizing god as the author of all order and beauty and, consequently, they lived in chaos, in a total disorder of life (note 12). idolatry was, for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. him, the origin of all the evil deeds and mistakes because the service (cult) to false gods was the equivalent of ignorance. god granted wisdom to those seeking for her (7: 22), especially the righteous and the rulers of the earth (1: 1-15; 6: 1-22). in conclusion, a virtuous life was one that sought wisdom above any other earthly treasure. it was the closest that a mortal would ever be to god. 4.2 philo of alexandria philo of alexandria (ca. 15-10 bce—5-50 ce) was the most important representative of hellenistic judaism. although many of philo’s writings have survived, the few facts about his life came from occasional hints in his books and a small number of external references like flavius josephus (note 13). his writings provided an accurate view of how the jewish mentality developed in the communities of the diaspora that consisted of mixing the traditional midrashic allegories of the jewish rabbis and the principles of greek philosophy (note 14). for example, the argument that god and the cosmos were not of the same divine or eternal nature went against the aristotelic concept of an eternal universe. philo made the distinction between the finite beings (creation) and the infinite being (god) as the only efficient and immanent cause in the cosmos. philosophy was just an aid to understanding the truth that was revealed by god in the sacred texts and the jewish traditions, not the other way around. therefore, to explain to non-jews the concepts of their jewish faith, philo used the method of allegory. still, this allegorical method confused this reader quite often. for example, philo used the same symbols and allegoric names to speak of the divine logos, wisdom, or virtue (note 15). his concept of virtues and vices followed the teachings of late platonism and the stoic school closely. they were developed, especially in his allegorical discourses on different biblical passages. in his treatise on the sacrifices of abel and cain, philo followed the stoic understanding of virtue and pleasure very closely (note 16). he did this by personifying them as two sisters: “lady pleasure” was beautiful and pleasing to the eye. “lady virtue”, on the other hand, presented herself as a rough woman, more like a maid than a lady. undoubtedly, he said, men were easily seduced by pleasure and rejected virtue at first sight. yet, despite the seductions and false promises of complete happiness given by “lady pleasure”, philo unmasked her deceptions by publishing a long list of vices (errors) in which anyone who had fallen in love with her will drowned to perdition: know, then, my good friend, that if you become a votary of pleasure you will be all these things: a bold, cunning, audacious, unsociable, uncourteous, inhuman, lawless, savage, ill-tempered, unrestrainable, worthless man; deaf to advise, foolish, full of evil acts, unteachable, unjust, unfair, one who has no participation with others, one who cannot be trusted in his agreements, one with whom there is no peace, covetous, most lawless, unfriendly, homeless, city-less, seditious, faithless, disorderly, impious, unholy, unsettled, unstable, uninitiated, profane, polluted, indecent, destructive, murderous, illiberal, abrupt, brutal, slavish, cowardly, intemperate, irregular, disgraceful, shameful, doing and suffering all infamy, colorless, immoderate, insatiable, insolent, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. conceited, self-willed, mean, envious, calumnious, quarrelsome, slanderous, greedy, deceitful, cheating, rash, ignorant, stupid, inharmonious, dishonest, disobedient, obstinate, tricky, swindling, insincere, suspicious, hated, absurd, difficult to detect, difficult to avoid, destructive, evil-minded, disproportionate, an unreasonable chatterer, a prosper, a gossip, a vain babbler, a flatterer, a fool, full of heavy sorrow, weak in bearing grief, trembling at every sound, inclined to delay, inconsiderate, improvident, impudent, neglectful of good, unprepared, ignorant of virtue, always in the wrong, erring, stumbling, ill-managed, ill-governed, a glutton, a captive, a spendthrift, easily yielding, most crafty, double-minded, double-tongued, perfidious, treacherous, unscrupulous, always unsuccessful, always in want, infirm of purpose, fickle, a wanderer, a follower of others, yielding to impulses, open to the attacks of enemies, mad, easily satisfied, fond of life, fond of vain glory, passionate, ill-tempered, lazy, a procrastinator, suspected, incurable, full of evil jealousies, despairing, full of tears, rejoicing in evil, frantic, beside yourself, without any steady character, contriving evil, eager for disgraceful gain, selfish, a willing slave, an eager enemy, a demagogue, a bad steward, stiff-necked, effeminate, outcast, confused, discarded, mocking, injurious, vain, full of absolute sheer misery (note 17). meanwhile, although “lady virtue” was rejected for her rough appearance, at first sight, philo showed her true identity. she was not a slave but a noblewoman well dressed and adorned with beautiful jewels, who as a free citizen: she was attended by piety, and holiness, and truth, and right, and purity, and an honest regard for an oath, and justice, and equality, and adherence to one’s engagements and communion, and prudent silence, and temperance, and orderliness, and meekness, and abstemiousness, and contentment, and good-temper, and modesty, and an absence of curiosity about the concerns of others, and manly courage, and a noble disposition and wisdom in counsel, and prudence, and forethought, and attention, and correctness, and cheerfulness, and humanity, and gentleness, and courtesy, and love of one’s kind, and magnanimity, and happiness, and goodness (note 18). for philo, endowing the life of people with ethical-moral conduct had priority in any philosophical and spiritual teaching and practice. virtue was not the result of hard work to acquire the habits of a good life. she was instead the fruit of an excellent maturation of a human life led by reason. the law of moses has many examples of a virtuous and mature life (i.e., noah and the patriarch isaac). another example of his understanding of virtue and vices appeared in his text: the allegories of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. sacred laws. in it, philo said that from one fundamental virtue—goodness, four virtues emerged: temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude (note 19). he did this by using the allegory of the four rivers that came out of the garden of eden (cf. gen 2:10). in contrast, philo insisted that the passions were ‘superfluous’ and had to be ‘pruned’ because they were not necessary to the soul (note 20). finally, in his treatise on abraham, he pointed out that human senses were often subject to the four stoic passions of lust, sadness, greed, and fear (note 21). in conclusion, philo of alexandria was a devoted jew that saw in his faith the foundation for his morals. religion indeed helped a person to achieve the virtue that cannot be achieved by herself (contrary to the stoic thought). virtue was for the greeks what divine wisdom was for the jews. god implanted virtue in a person’s life to lead her to walk a virtuous life until she reaches the ecstatic contemplation of god after her physical death (note 22). 5. the judeo-palestinian literature not only had the jews of the diaspora felt the strong influence of the hellenistic culture and philosophy. in the holy land, certain radical groups of jews who lived during the second temple period were too, in some way, influenced by the ethical teachings of the platonic and stoic school. some of them assimilated some of the hellenistic lifestyle (as it was the case of the sadducee groups). at the same time, others resisted against it (as in the case of the pharisees and essenes). meanwhile, the influence of lists of virtues and vices continued to appear not only among the jewish communities of the diaspora but also among those sectarian groups in judea, with obviously less interested in explaining their beliefs to the gentiles but marked with a heavy apocalyptic accent. let us see, for example, how in some writings of the qumran community and other apocryphal texts, the list of vices and virtues of hellenistic philosophy may have left their imprint in palestinian judaism. 5.1 the qumran literature qumran was a valley on the slopes of the western coast of the dead sea, southern israel, where members of the essene jewish community, also known as the community of the covenant (second century bce—first century ce). this movement began probably by supporters of the traditional priestly family descendants of sadock and against the dynasty of the hasmonean kings. many of the texts found in the caves around their settlement (known as the dead sea scrolls) seem to broadly represent the beliefs and practices accepted by this jewish group of keeping the purity of life and the ancient traditions of judaism (note 23). other texts seem to speak of divergent interpretations and unique or minority commentaries on various books of the jewish sacred scripture, mainly the torah. thanks to these texts, we know today that the members of this community committed themselves to practice piety towards the “deity” (to theión) and justice towards humanity. they accepted all the hebrew scriptures as divinely inspired, the reverence to the name of the angels, the belief in an immortal soul, and their reward after death (note 24). they also maintained a pure lifestyle, abstaining from crimes and any immoral activity, to transmit their norms, traditions, rituals, and to preserve their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. books without corruption. to what extent was this community influenced by the hellenistic philosophy? two aspects called the attention in this matter: first, their dualistic understanding of justice and evil, light and darkness, shaped primarily by the duality of righteousness and unrighteousness, following a model found in the greek dualistic understanding of the human being. second, this community showed a preference for addressing the issue of virtue and vice adapted, of course, to their religious principles, but in an incredible parallel with the use of the lists of virtues and vices of the greco-roman rhetoric. one example of it was their book, commonly known the community rule (1qs) or the manual of discipline where two lists of virtues and vices distinguish those led by fear of god’s god from those dominated by the spirit of lies (note 25): the angel of darkness leads all the children of righteousness astray, and until his end, all their sins, iniquities, wickedness and all their unlawful deeds are caused by his dominion in accordance with the mysteries of god […] but the god of israel and his angel of truth will succor all the sons of light (1qs 3:22-24). and later on, it continues saying: these are their ways in the world for the enlightenment of the heart of man, and that all the paths of true righteousness may be made straight before him, and that fear of the laws of god may be instilled in his heart: a spirit of humility, patience, abundant charity, unending goodness, understanding, and intelligence; (a spirit of) mighty wisdom which trusts in all the deeds of god and leans on his great loving kindness; a spirit of discernment in every purpose, of zeal for just laws, of holy intent with steadfastness of heart, of great charity towards all the sons of truth, of admirable purity which detests all unclean idols, of humble conduct sprung from an understanding of all things, and of faithful concealment of the mysteries of god. these are the counsels of the spirit to the sons of truth in this world[...] but the ways of the spirit of falsehood are these: greed, and slackness in the search for righteousness, wickedness and lies, haughtiness and pride, falseness and deceit, cruelty and abundant evil, ill-temper and much folly and brazen insolence, abominable deeds (committed) in a spirit of lust, and ways of lewdness in the service of uncleanness, a blaspheming tongue, blindness of eye and dullness of ear, stiffness of neck and heaviness of heart, so that man walks in all the ways of darkness and guile (1qs 4:3-11). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. the book of jubilees provided with another list of vices (note 26): i see, my son, that all the works of the children of men are sin and wickedness, and all their deeds are uncleanness and abomination and pollution, and there is no righteousness with them (4q jub 21:21). the book of jubilee highlighted the supremacy of the law of moses, especially the norms and conducts of the levitical ordinances, and the terrible effects of a life without it while attacking the pagans and apostates, events that took place during the maccabean period (note 27). it was during this period that the apocalyptic literature was born, presenting the hope for that day when god will wipe away all evil from the land and reward those who act in righteousness but punish all the wicked. one representative of this apocalyptic literature was the apocryphal books of enoch, traditionally attributed to noah’s great-grandfather (note 28). 5.2 the book of enoch the book of jubilees in qumran mentioned a set of books, owned by abraham and his descendants, containing the wisdom of the patriarchs. however, they were written by several jewish with an apocalyptic tone typical of the late theology in judaism, and subsequently, of the emerging christian movement authors (third century – mid-first century bce). to this group belonged the books of enoch, the secrets of enoch, iv esdras, the apocalypses of baruch (greek and syriac), apocalypse of zephaniah, apocalypse of elijah, and others. in the first book of enoch (note 29), there was a small list containing those evil acts (vices) that god will cleanse from the earth in an eschatological time: [you] will purify the earth from all oppression, from all injustice, from all crime, from all impiety, and from all the pollution which is committed upon it. exterminate them from the earth (1enoch 10: 20) (note 30). the second book of henoc (probably written at the end of the first century ce) described, first of all, those who will live in paradise forever and, secondly, to those who god will punish in the place of eternal torment: and those men said to me: this place, o enoch, is prepared for those who dishonor god, who on earth practice sin against nature, which is child-corruption after the sodomitic fashion, magic-making, enchantments, and devilish witchcrafts, and who boast of their wicked deeds, stealing, lies, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. calumnies, envy, rancor, fornication, murder, and who, accursed, steal the souls of men, who, seeing the poor take away their goods and themselves wax rich, injuring them for other men’s goods; who being able to satisfy the empty, made the hungering to die; being able to clothe, stripped the naked; and who knew not their creator, and bowed to the soulless (and lifeless) gods, who cannot see nor hear, vain gods, (who also) built hewn images and bow down to unclean handiwork, for all these is prepared this place among these, for eternal inheritance (2enoch 10:3) (note 31). in both books, the emphasis was on the evil acts that god rejected and would cleanse the earth from it. meanwhile, their group of virtues was not present because the book assumed that a good and pious jew knew that keeping the commandments of the law was the way to a virtuous (holy) life. however, in the apocryphal book the testament of the twelve patriarc (note 32) (around the first or second century ce), each one of the descendants of jacob gave several councils and warnings against certain particular sins and commended the contrary virtues, illustrating and enforcing the moral by the example or experience of the speaker: and now, my children, i bid you to keep the commands of the lord, and to show mercy to your neighbors, and to have compassion towards all, not towards men only, but also towards beasts. (testament of zebulun 5:1). observe, therefore, my children, the commandments of the lord, and keep his law. depart from wrath, and hate lying, that the lord may dwell among you, and beliar may flee from you. speak truth each one with his neighbor. so shall ye not fall into wrath and confusion; but you shall be in peace, having the god of peace, so shall no war prevail over you. love the lord through all your life, and one another with a true heart (testament of dan 5: 1-3) (note 33). it was clear that this intertestamental text adopted the typical list of virtues and vices (or bad behaviors) of the greco-roman schools by a jew or a jewish christian to teach that to live in communion with god and neighbor was the way, the virtue that brings true happiness. 6. result greek philosophy and culture influenced the jewish communities scattered throughout the mediterranean basin, especially in the city of alexandria, north of egypt. it was due to the large number of greek-speaking jews living in alexandria in 250 bce. the rhetorical lists of virtues and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. vices were in the literary background of the moral catalogs used in the religious texts of judaism and, in a diversified or modified sense, in the writings of the new testament. these catalogs would have specific functions that continue with the classic style of greco-roman rhetoric, but with their proper form, typical of the jewish communities. these lists helped their synagogue exhortative preaching in two ways. the first is the protreptic function, an appeal to escape an old way of life and start a new one. the second was the paraenetic function used in the post-conversion to advise and instruct the neophytes in their new way of life. the result was that the jewish moral catalogs were a mixture of virtues and vices along with specific good or evil actions. they were easy to recognize in the jewish literature that has survived because they contained three or more elements grouped, either as adjectives, nouns, verbs, or short phrases. moreover, these lists followed two rhetoric styles popularly known in the first century bce. the first was the polysyndeton style: the elements were joined through the repetition of conjunctions in succession that refer to the same theme. the second was the asyndeton: its components had no connection to each other, despite the presence of grammatical conjunctions among them (note 34). finally, some moral lists presented an amplified style: a discursive expansion was necessary to connect some or all of the elements of the list (note 35). 7. conclusions as i presented in this article, the motivation behind the use of the different lists of virtues and vices of the philosophical schools was the old-fashioned way of identifying who belongs to whom. the jews, especially those of the diaspora, saw themselves a righteous and virtuous. anyone else, unless they change their behavior and adhere themselves to the community, had to be avoided because they were vicious and acted with unrighteousness (note 36). moreover, the lists of virtues and vices were modified to teach correct and irreproachable conduct from the perspective of jewish morality. the fact that there were few virtues listed in the late jewish literature could be the fact that keeping the law in itself was essential to any good jew who lived in the diaspora or the holy land. for this reason, they endeavored to enumerate those attitudes that a believer had to reject to be part of the people of the covenant. on the other hand, they also reminded that a life with no communion with god was a futile and meaningless life destined to perish. the primary value of all this intertestamental literature is their moral teachings typical of the theology of the judaism of the second temple period and intimately connected to the early christian doctrine because jesus and his first followers were all embedded by the same theological milieu. all this summary of the hellenistic influence on the literature of late judaism leads us to the dawn of christian literature found in the new testament, which has also used these lists of virtues and vices to produce its literary rhetoric from the second half of the first century. the early christian authors took it to a more personal level. first, the lists of vices were the catechetical instruction of the sinful behavior abandoned to start a new life, transformed by the spirit who raised christ from the dead. second, they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. added to their moral catalog the main element proper to the christian life: the virtue of love (agape) – a love that it manifests itself concretely within a fraternal communion in the same spirit. references benson, a. d. (2000). alexandrian judaism: the precursor of christianity. the origins of christianity & the bible. san francisco: prudential pub. co. bickerman, e. j. (2007). studies in jewish and christian history: a new edition in english, including the god of the maccabees (vol. 1). new york: brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004152946.i-1242 charles, j. d. (2000). vice and virtue lists. s. e. porter y c. a. evans, dictionary of new testament background. a compendium of contemporary biblical scholarship. downers grove: intervarsity press. charles, r. h. (1913). book of jubilee. oxford: clarendon press. book of enoch. (2013). oregon: postomorrow books. book of enoch. (2017). eastford: martino fine books. the testaments of the twelve patriarchs. (2005). eugene: wipf & stock publishers. charlesworth, j. h. (1979). the pseudepigrapha and modern research, with a supplement. michigan: scholars press for the society of biblical literature. fagothey, a. (1995). ética, teoría y aplicación (5th ed.). méxico d.f.: mcgraw-hill. jedan, c. (2009). stoic virtues: chrysippus and the religious character of stoic ethics. new york: continuum international. keener, c. s. (2003). the gospel of john: a commentary (vol. 1). peabody: hendrickson publishers. kirby, p. (2020, june 4). early jewish writings. retrieved 4 june, 2020, from http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com rackham, h. (1935). aristotle, athenian constitution; eudemian ethics; virtues and vices. loeb classical library 285. cambridge, harvard university press. https://doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.aristotle-virtues_vices.1935 van der kam, j. c. (2001). an introduction to early judaism. cambridge: william b. eerdmans.. vermes, g. (2011). community rule in the complete dead sea scrolls in english (7th ed.). london: penguin books. zeller, e. (2009). the stoics, epicureans, and sceptics. london: general books lcc. notes note 1. grouping moral values in the form of a list have emerged in various ancient cultures, from iran and india to egypt and the mediterranean cultures. the religious practices of these ancient civilizations were characterized by the determination and behavior of their members. it was not surprising that different religions used these lists of vices and virtues as a tool to transmit their beliefs. cf. j. daryl www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. charles, vice and virtue lists, in stanley e. porter y craig a. evans, dictionary of new testament background. a compendium of contemporary biblical scholarship (downers grove: inter varsity press, 2000), 1.252-1.257. note 2. there are examples of similar lists in the jewish sacred scriptures, although different from the greek philosophical schools (i.e., ex 34:6; is 11:1; os 2:19-20; mi 6:8; pr 6:16-19). note 3. the experience of the diaspora was a turning point in judaism’s syncretism with the greek culture and the greek mystical religions. cf. andrew d. benson, alexandrian judaism: the precursor of christianity, in the origins of christianity & the bible (san francisco: prudencial pub. co, 2000), 137-155. note 4. etymologically, a virtue (virtus, vir) was the strength proven in a man ready to serve and protect their city-state. vice was its opposite, referring to any type of fault or a wrong action perpetrated against society. cf. austin fagothey, ética, teoría y aplicación. 5th edition (méxico d.f.: mcgraw-hill, 1995), 155-165. note 5. aristotle, on virtues and vices, 3-4. text found in aristotle, athenian constitution; eudemian ethics; virtues and vices, translated by h. rackham loeb classical library 285 (cambridge, harvard university press, 1935), 498-504. note 6. christoph jedan, stoic virtues: chrysippus and the religious character of stoic ethics (new york: continuum international, 2009), 82-83. note 7. andronicus created some extensive lists divided into twenty virtues, twenty-seven wishes, twenty-seven sorrows, thirteen fears, and five pleasures. note 8. the stoic idea of virtue is debatable as it is a bit inconsistent. by its very notion, virtue is a means since it consists of good habits; and they are good precisely because they lead the individual more easily and comfortably to the fulfillment of some goal in life. in short, virtue is a straight path, a true direction that points to the highest good. but she is not the end in herself. note 9. the jews divided into three categories their holy books of judaism, the law (torah), the prophets (nevi’im), and the writings (ketuvim). it was the latest who was more influenced by the hellenistic culture, especially in the understanding of wisdom. first, the hebrews understood wisdom as a virtue not attained by human skill but as a gift from god (cf. 2 cr. 1:7-12; prov. 2:6; 3:19; 19:20). god was the source of all wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (cf. ps. 111:10; job 12:13; dn 2:20), and blessed was the person who wanted, asked, and received it (cf. prov.12:15; 24:3-7). later, wisdom became personified, obtaining a divine status near god (cf. prov. 1:20-33; 3:13-18; 4:5-9; 7:4-5; 8:1-36; 9:1-2). cf. e. j. bickerman, studies in jewish and christian history: a new edition in english including the god of the maccabees, 1 vol. (new york: brill, 2007), 169. note 10. the books known as deuterocanonical are tobias, judith, baruch, ecclesiasticus, wisdom, first and second maccabees, also certain additions to esther and daniel. the lxx, together with these books, were integrated inside the early christian literature among the texts considered as divinely inspired, just as it appears in the work of eusebius, church history, book iv: 26, 14. the orthodox and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. eastern churches also included among their sacred texts psalm 151, the prayer of manasseh, third and fourth book of esdras, and third and fourth book of maccabees. note 11. the teaching of god creating everything from nothing (ex nihilo) comes from late judaism as evidenced by 2m 7:28, “i urge you, my child, to look at the sky and the earth. consider everything you see there, and realize that god made it all from nothing, just as he made the human race.” note 12. this list has been one of the most influential in the jewish concept of a pagan society. the stereotypical jewish mentality of the second temple period was that any group of non-jews (gentiles) behaved that way. the book of wisdom wanted to help the pious jews in alexandria in maintaining the traditions of the faith against the development of science and free thought, at the same time as it reminded them of the nobility of their religion compared to that of the pagans. note 13. james c. vanderkam, an introduction to early judaism (cambridge: william b. eerdmans, 2001), 138. note 14. jewish philosophy may have begun with aristobulus of alexandria (c. 150 bce), known as a “religious philosopher.” he made a very positive assessment of greek philosophy, making extensive use of the stoic, platonic and pythagorean philosophy, opening the teachings of judaism to the gentiles in a language familiar to them. aristobulus seemed to link judaism with greek philosophy, so there could be more gentiles converted to judaism by interpreting the law of moses according to the greek philosophical standards. cf. andrew d. benson, alexandrian judaism, 140. note 15. philo’s doctrine of the logos as the archetype of the cosmos of god was built by bringing together different elements of greek philosophy. for example, he took his concept of the divisive logos (tomeus logos) from the doctrine of heraclitus in his contention of the “principle of movement.” according to craig s. keener, some scholars think that philo of alexandria’s concept of logos as a creative principle of god influenced early christology. others think both concepts took their information from a common source. craig s. keener, the gospel of john: a commentary, vol. 1 (peabody: hendrickson publishers, 2003), 343-347. note 16. philo also followed closely the stoic school of thought, although he was not totally convinced that complete apathy or moderation were the characteristics that identify the virtuous condition of the human being, since, for him virtue identifies itself with divine wisdom. cf. philo of alexandria, leg iii, 129-132. note 17. philo of alexandria, sacr., 32. note 18. ibid., 27. note 19. philo of alexandria, leg i., 63-76. the works of philo of alexandria are taking from kirby, peter. early jewish writings. 2020. 4 june 2020 <http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/>. note 20. philo of alexandria, spec i., 305. note 21. philo of alexandria, abr., 238. note 22. cf. philo of alexanria, leg i., 53. note 23. in the archaeological excavations carried out since 1950 on the hills around the dead sea, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. various manuscripts have been found on the history, doctrine, statutes, and regulations of this community. the settlement may have come from the hellenistic period and was built presumably around the reign of john hyrcanus (134-104 bce). this location was the essense home until destroyed by the romans in the first century ce, as flavius josephus mentioned. cf. flavius josephus, belj ii, 7; antj xiii, 171-172; vita, 10. note 24. flavius josephus, belj, ii, 139-142; 153-158. note 25. the community rule described the lifestyle of the community settled in qumran, the ideal of the community governed by a priestly presence, the ritual and ceremony to enter in it, the current renewal of the covenant, and the need for interior conversion. their dualistic beliefs and a whole set of organizational rules, oaths, and norms also appeared. there was also a reference to a true spiritual temple established in the desert, and with its liturgical calendar. cf. geza vermes, community rule in the complete dead sea scrolls in english, seventh edition (london: penguin books, 2011). note 26. r.h. charles, book of jubilee (oxford: clarendon press, 1913), i. note 27. the book of jubilees was a book of religious fiction. in it, the story of the history of israel was rephrased in a midrashim form. it began with the creation of the world until the giving of the law at mount sinai. the scroll contains 50 chapters and claims to be a revelation to moses by the angel of the presence (1:29-2:1). cf. james h. charlesworth, the pseudepigrapha and modern research, with a supplement (michigan: scholars press for the society of biblical literature, 1976), 143-144. note 28. the coptic church considers the book of enoch as a canonical book since it also appears in the septuagint (lxx). the only intact versions of this book remaining are in the liturgical languages of the coptic church, but many fragments known in greek, syriac, armenian, arabic, and latin. besides, other pieces were found in aramaic, and one in hebrew in qumran (4q317), and the christian letter of judas (1:14) seems to contain a passage from 1 enoch. note 29. the book of enoch is also mentioned in the book of jubilees (4q 4:19). in fact, aramaic and hebrew fragments from four of the five sections of the book the book of enoch were discovered among the dead sea scrolls. note 30. the text is taken from r.h. charles, book of enoch (oregon: postomorrow books, 2013). note 31. the text is taken from r.h. charles, book of enoch (eastford: martino fine books, 2017). note 32. the so-called “testaments” of prominent figures in bible history made a particular class of apocryphal literature. the testament of the twelve patriarchs text narrated the close of the hero’s life, sometimes with a retrospect of his history, last counsels and admonitions to his children, and disclosures of the future. the eschatological element is also present in varying proportions, most likely derived from the books of enoch. it calls the attention of the numerous and notorious christian interpolations in this text. note 33. texts are taking from r.h. charles, the testaments of the twelve patriarchs (eugene: wipf & stock publishers, 2005). note 34. cf. j. daryl charles, vice and virtue lists, 1253-1254. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. note 35. cf. siegfred wibbing (1959), die tugendund lasterkataloge im neuen testament und ihre traditionsgeschichte unter besonderer berücksichtigung der qumrantexte, beihefter zur zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche wissenschaft 25 (berlin: töpelmann, 1959). note 36. cf. charles, virtue amidst vice, 112-127. microsoft word assc-v4n1-p31 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 31 original paper female aggression: evolution’s not so secret weapon margaret m. matthews1 & abigail a. baird1* 1 department of psychology, vassar college, poughkeepsie, usa * abigail a. baird, department of psychology, vassar college, poughkeepsie, usa received: february 10, 2022 accepted: february 22, 2022 online published: february 25, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p31 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p31 abstract in the present article, we examine the relatively recent and substantial increase in physical aggression among adolescent females. we review what is known about the prevalence and specific characteristics of aggression among adolescent females, and then propose a novel way of understanding this behavior. existing evidence from multiple academic disciplines is reviewed and integrated to propose a new framework for considering the underpinnings of physical aggression in females. most examinations of physical aggression in females have focused on non-human animal models of maternal aggression. in spite of this, the growing prevalence of physical aggression among adolescent females continues to be poorly understood. we endeavor to integrate multiple viewpoints on female aggression and posit a conceptualization of female aggression among adolescents that reflects an immature, socially inexperienced, precursor to functional maternal aggression. keywords physical aggression, female, adolescence, evolution 1. introduction in nearly all evolutionary depictions of human evolution, physical aggression has been ubiquitously associated with the male of our species. this characterization is likely the result of the greater frequency and intensity of physical aggression among men being well documented in the empirical literature, in conjunction with the fact that exceptions to this narrative have been dismissed or ignored (campbell, 2013; campbell, 1995; frodi, macaulay, & thome, 1977). until recently, the literature on human aggression supported stereotypical views of women and girls as consistently devoid of physical aggression. over the years empirical studies have consistently reported far higher levels of aggression in males of all ages compared to their female counterparts, even as personal and observational accounts of severe bullying and antagonism among females mounted (see block, 1983; parke & slaby, 1983; berkowitz, 1993 for reviews; pipher, 1994). contemporary ethnographic studies have revealed a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. particularly vicious style of physical aggression between adolescent girls, paradoxically suggesting that the intensity of their fights may actually be greater than that of boys’. this stands at odds with the mainstream understanding of physical aggression between women as being less frequent and/or intense than physical aggression between men. while rigorous investigation is required to empirically validate these increasingly consistent observations, researchers must also confront the dissonance between what is observed in the real world and that which can be explained using existing theoretical frameworks. maternal aggression, which serves to prevent harm to offspring, is one form of physical aggression among females, that has received empirical examination (see denson et al., 2018 for a review). as such, which is known about maternal aggression may provide an excellent lens through which to examine physical aggression among adolescent girls. the present discussion seeks to integrate relevant insights from biological, social, moral and evolutionary psychology to explore and better understand the intensity of physical aggression among adolescent girls. following this interdisciplinary exploration, we suggest that physical aggression among adolescent females may be, at least in part, a behavioral precursor to maternal aggression. 2. female aggression: what is known “girls are worse” is the most common phrase to emerge from qualitative interviews with high school students, teachers, counselors, administrators, youth workers and police officers about physical aggression (ness, 2004; bright, 2005; lynch, 2014; baines & adler, 1996; waldron, 2011). while many report boys’ fights as more common, they unfailingly characterize girls’ fights as more vicious and consistently describe them as lacking emotional and behavioral restraint. practitioners who work with physically aggressive adolescent females underscore a high potential for danger, noting that inflicting or sustaining serious injury is unlikely to curb the tenacity with which one girl attacks another. as one girl described, “i get so hyped up, i black out. i don’t care who gets hurt then. i don’t even remember what happens afterwards” (ness, 2004). ness (2004) found that without exception, police officers find it much harder to break up girls’ fights and strongly prefer stepping between two boys: “girls just won’t let it go,” one sergeant explains, “you tell them you’re gonna take them in and they get in your face and curse you out. you give a boy a chance to walk and he does.” not only are girls’ fights regularly reported to be “wilder” than those among boys but also more enduring. whereas boys’ fights often resolve as quickly as they flare up and seldom ruin relationships, fights among girls appear amidst episodes relational aggression (see crick & grotpeter, 1995 for a review) that involve gossip or rumor-spreading and have a lasting impact on social alliances, in some cases evolving into a “war” between friend groups (waldron, 2011; talbott et al., 2002; levy, 2012; ness, 2004). furthermore, they rarely express remorse or feel guilt for hurting another girl, as reported by youth workers, school employees and girls themselves. typically, adolescent girls feel justified in their actions and often invoke the notion of self-defense, even in situations where the perceived threat (e.g., a facial expression interpreted as a personal slight or insult) is often imperceptible to an observer (ness, 2004; esposito & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. edwards, 2018; waldron, 2011) “i do it to them or they do it to me, so why should i feel bad?” (ness, 2004). two things are undeniably clear to those who work closely with adolescent girls: 1) physical aggression is already a significant part of the day-to-day lives of many, and 2) under certain conditions, girls’ fights may be more dangerous than those of boys. why, then, has no work emerged that empirically investigates these ideas? and perhaps more importantly, how do behavioral neuroscientists approach studying the complex and multi-faceted phenomenon related to physical aggression among female adolescents? nicki crick’s groundbreaking work may offer a relevant model for how to approach some of these questions, as her team was the first to empirically invalidate the traditional perception of females as rarely aggressive. in 1995, crick and grotpeter posited an alternative explanation for the gender gap, suggesting it was inadvertently manufactured by previous studies that failed to identify and assess the forms of aggression most common to girls. indeed, they demonstrated that while boys are more likely to inflict harm on peers by physical or verbal aggression—the “overt” forms aggression overrepresented in the literature—girls are more likely to focus on aggression within a relational context. crick’s construct of relational aggression includes behaviors intended to damage interpersonal relationships or feelings of inclusion by peers, such as spreading rumors, purposefully excluding others and threatening to end a friendship. these behaviors are hostile, hurtful, emotionally distressing and are often motivated by anger (crick & grotpeter, 1995; crick, 1996). the construct’s introduction was a critical innovation because it equipped the field with the first tool developed using female participants, enabling empirical work on the most common forms of female aggression. crick and colleagues did not, however, revise existing approaches for studying physical aggression. ethnographic evidence continues to reveals a gap between public perception and extant literature on female aggression; and in spite of this, female subjects continue to be excluded from this portion of the empirical literature (denson et al., 2018; been, gibbons, & meisel, 2019) and, there is a clear need for additional work. although aggression among females has been almost entirely unexplored in humans, there is one form of female aggression that is well-known in the natural world for both its ferocity and relentless efficacy. for the purpose of the present discourse what is currently understood about maternal aggression may provide a valuable framework for extending crick’s seminal work provides essential insights for understanding physical aggression in females. throughout the animal kingdom, maternal aggression has served to protect the lives of offspring. it is a defensive, reactive pattern of behavior set off by perceived threats. this means that maternal aggression must not only function in the face of intense fear and stress but also be incited by situations in which the perceived risks are high (avram & cymerblit-sabba, 2017; maestripieri, 1992; numan, 2017). this is particularly notable given that perceived danger typically deters aggression in females. research has shown that not only are females likely to perceive higher risks than males in the same objective situation, but the same perceived risks are more likely to inhibit aggressive behavior in females (campbell, 2004). from an evolutionary perspective, it is advantageous for women to pay more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. attention to safety and survival than men: “natural selection has favored females who avoid danger because of the higher evolutionary fitness costs of risking their lives,” (campbell, 2004). whereas the evolutionary fitness of men generally depends on access to mates, women’s fitness relies on their ability to keep offspring alive and well throughout the juvenile period (campbell, 1995; campbell et al., 1998; archer, 2009; campbell, 2004; buss & shackelford, 1997; rosvall, 2011). however, as others have noted, because situations in which offspring are mortally threatened may pose a greater risk to long-term genetic potential than the loss of an individual mother’s life, maternal aggression enables mothers to override the physical and social risks that are thought to prevent physical females from engaging in physical aggression in most circumstances (brain, 1999; harris, 1999; fox, 1999; maestripieri & carroll, 1999). while there remains much to be learned about maternal aggression, especially in humans, the extant literature continues to emphasize the neurophysiologic importance of oxytocin. perhaps most notably, oxytocin has been shown to play an important, and somewhat paradoxical, regulatory role with regard to maternal aggression. oxytocin’s well-known anxiolytic effects are known to promote social attachment, emotional memory, and affiliative behavior, all of which have undoubtedly benefited the survival of the human race (bosch, 2005; trainor, sisk, & nelson, 2009; esch & stefano, 2011; numan, 2017). interestingly, more recent work suggests that oxytocin’s anxiolytic properties may, in some contexts, increase humans’ propensity for physical aggression by reducing fear and inhibition (dewall et al., 2014; trainor, sisk, & nelson, 2009). these seemingly contradictory effects are especially prominent among people who have been shown to exhibit, and more often find themselves in situations involving defensive aggression, highlighting the importance of individual differences and contextual factors (bartz, zaki, bolger, & oschner, 2011; bartz et al., 2011; de dreu et al., 2010; levy et al., 2016). taken together, this work adds critical insights the nuanced function of oxytocin, in that there are conditions under which oxytocin increases physical aggression in some women. oxytocin accomplishes this by acting on the brain’s corticotrophin-releasing hormone (crh) circuits, reducing fear and anxiety and in doing so lowers perceptions of danger that typically inhibit physically aggressive behaviors among many women (bosch, 2005; trainor, sisk, & nelson, 2009; esch & stefano, 2011; numan, 2017). maternal aggression is unique in that it requires not only the aggressive but also the prosocial properties of oxytocin to work together to produce a natural superpower, the most lethal form of aggression known to the animal kingdom. the especially intense ethnographic accounts of female-on-female aggression in adolescence similarly defy expectations based on generalized observations of female aggression—and it is hard to believe that this is merely coincidence. once a female enters puberty and has the capacity to bear children, logic would suggest that she would also have the capacity for maternal aggression in order to protect any potential children. this is not the only purpose of female aggression, nor is it fully descriptive of the female threat response. but thus far, the literature has sidestepped the fact that human females are biologically predisposed to protect their offspring against possible threat, and the circuitry that enables aggression in life-or-death scenarios www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. provokes an “at any cost” approach (avram & cymerblit-sabba, 2017; maestripieri, 1992; numan, 2017). depending on one’s temperament and environment, the neurophysiological circuitry supporting maternal aggression may never get activated. however, when this circuitry is activated, the behavioral response is strikingly similar to the kind of intense physical aggression on served during adolescent girls’ fights: completely uninhibited and divorced from the behavioral standards that typically govern boys’ fights. ethnographic reports of the vicious and relentless nature of physical aggression among adolescent girls clearly call for models of female aggression that better account for the specific interaction of biological, temperamental, environmental and socio-cultural factors in the developing female. 3. conclusion physical aggression in adolescent females is overdue for thorough empirical study, and it is crucial that researchers consider the pubertal emergence of myriad factors that, over developmental time, enable maternal aggression. it is our hypothesis that it is these underpinnings may best contextualize the intensity and ferocity of ethnographically documented physical aggression among adolescent females. while the complexity of female aggression may be intimidating, this hardly justifies chronic empirical neglect, especially as growing arrest trends among adolescent girls (puzzanchera, 2020; zahn et al., 2008) contribute to the widespread public perception that they have become more violent (letendre, 2007; lynch, 2014; bright, 2005; graves, 2007; rosvall, 2011; garbarino, 2007; prothrow-stith & spivak, 2006). 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(1999). costs and benefits of female aggressiveness in humans and other mammals. the behavioral and brain sciences, 22(2), 231-232. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x99421818 ness, c. d. (2004). why girls fight: female youth violence in the inner city. the annals of the american academy of political and social science, 595(1), 32-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716204267176 numan, m. (2017). parental behavior. in reference module in neuroscience and biobehavioral psychology (p. b9780128093245004000). elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-809324-5.00400-4 parke, r. d., & slaby, r. g. (1983). the development of aggression. handbook of child psychology, 4, 547-641. pipher, m. (1994). reviving ophelia: saving the selves of adolescent girls (p. 304). g p putnam’s sons. prothrow-stith, d., & spivak, h. r. (2006). sugar and spice and no longer nice: how we can stop girls’ violence. wiley. puzzanchera, c. (2020). juvenile arrests, 2018. ojjdp national report series. washington, dc: u.s. department of justice, office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. rosvall, k. a. (2011). intrasexual competition in females: evidence for sexual selection? behavioral ecology, 22(6), 1131-1140. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arr106 trainor, b., sisk, c., & nelson, r. (2017). hormones and the development and expression of aggressive behavior. in hormones, brain and behavior (3rd ed., pp. 145-173). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-803592-4.00005-5 waldron, l. m. (2011). “girls are worse”: drama queens, ghetto girls, tomboys, and the meaning of girl fights. youth & society, 43(4), 1298-1334. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x10382031 zahn, m. a., brumbaugh, s., steffensmeier, d., feld, b. c., morash, m., chesney-lind, m., miller, j., payne, a. a., gottfredson, d. c., & kruttschnitt, c. (2008). violence by teenage girls: trends and context (issue overview no. 218905; ojjdp girls study group series). washington: office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. https://doi.org/10.1037/e450102008-001 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 63 original paper a gateway of sustainable development: nep 2020 prof. pratibha j mishra 1* 1 department of social work, guru ghassidas vishwavidayalaya (central university) koni, bilaspur, (c.g.), india * prof. pratibha j mishra, department of social work, guru ghassidas vishwavidayalaya (central university) koni, bilaspur, (c.g.), india received: october 2, 2022 accepted: october 22, 202 online published: november 4, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p63 abstract learning takes us to immortality. education leads to research and learning leads to consciousness. youth will become self-reliant through national education policy 2020. it is our responsibility to encourage the dreams of the youth. education enables a person to identify and solve the problems of his life, society and country. indian higher education institutions are making their place in the international rankings. we have to motivate the youth for research and innovation. national education policy 2020 takes education out of the narrow circle and connects it with modern ideas. our higher educational institutions have to present their research results with evidence so that the credibility of our research in the world increases. . the national education policy 2020 emphasizes on the use of technology in education. every decade a new system comes for knowledge up gradation. in the aftermath of the global pandemic covid-19, there is no other option except the use of technology from continuous to blended learning. there were three stages in this process of education—shravan, manana and nididhyasana. hearing means receiving knowledge through all the senses. manan means the process of thinking, contemplating, brainstorming, etc. nididhyasana means to bring the heard knowledge into one's life through contemplation or to give it practical form. he said that the biggest challenge before the country and the world today is a crisis of character. at the root of most of the problems of the country and the world is the crisis of character. our education system needs to return to this basic goal. the national education policy-2020 has accepted this very well. the national education policy 2020 has focused on e-content and resource based learning through technology enabled learning so that young students are prepared according to the current requirements of the industry. emphasis has been laid on employable education for entrepreneurship development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. keywords technology, e-content, resources, multidisciplinary vishwa guru academic bank 1. introduction learning takes us to immortality. education leads to research and learning leads to consciousness. youth will become self-reliant through national education policy 2020. it is our responsibility to encourage the dreams of the youth. education enables a person to identify and solve the problems of his life, society and country. indian higher education institutions are making their place in the international rankings. we have to motivate the youth for research and innovation. national education policy 2020 takes education out of the narrow circle and connects it with modern ideas. our higher educational institutions have to present their research results with evidence so that the credibility of our research in the world increases. the national education policy 2020 emphasizes on the use of technology in education. every decade a new system comes for knowledge up gradation. in the aftermath of the global pandemic covid-19, there is no other option except the use of technology from continuous to blended learning. the national education policy 2020, the cooperation with and use of technology has also been told to fulfil important requirements like quality education, access to education and equality of education. academic bank of credits, moocs and other online platforms are being promoted. the national education policy 2020 has focused on e-content and resource based learning through technology enabled learning so that young students are prepared according to the current requirements of the industry. emphasis has been laid on employable education for entrepreneurship development. the national education policy 2020 has encouraged all new educational traditions and has acted as an inspiration, which will be active in making india a vishwa guru through education. academic bank account means an individual account with academic bank of credit opened and operated by a student wherein all academic credits earned by the student from the course of study are recognized, stored, or redeemed for the purpose of awarding the recognized, maintained and accumulated degree. this allows educational institutions to maintain the integrity of credit. it also maintains the authenticity and confidentiality of student credits and helps in easy credit transfer through digital mode, and facilitates faster credit identification. improving the quality of higher education institutions is critical to achieving our larger goals. we have to set standards to achieve the best in the world. higher education institutions are at the canter of this as our young citizens are not only the heirs of the past but will also lead india into its next golden age. higher education institutions have a big responsibility for the transformation of influential youth. for this we need to fulfill their aspirations as they are future leaders in different walks of life. academic bank accounts along with academic quality and facilities provide students with options in the selection of various subjects and sharpen their skills. to improve it we also need to consider sophisticated and innovative teaching approaches which is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. necessary for academic bank account. the key to achieving excellence can be by harnessing the transformative benefits of digital technologies to enrich the teaching and learning experience and is made possible by an academic bank account. national education policy 2020 will set new paradigms of education and teaching. the provisions made under this are helpful in making the students self-reliant. the holistic development of the students, the facility of multidisciplinary option has been provided in the national education policy 2020. being multidisciplinary, students can choose subjects according to their convenience. in the traditional policy, students studying science, humanities or arts subjects had to complete their education in the relevant subject itself, but in the national education policy 2020, students will have the option of choosing from different subjects. for this, under the national education policy 2020, emphasis on induction program, maximum use of information technology and technology facilities, multidisciplinary research, social-industrial relations, skill development, accreditation of institutions, examination reform, teacher training, continuous evaluation process of students and components like learning outcome based communication framework etc. have been combined. multidisciplinary education and research university along with holistic multidisciplinary education of the students. mous, collaborations and patents and the national university foundation are need of hour. the role and responsibilities of higher education institutions in azadi ka amrit mahotsav, international ranking of higher education institutions, collaboration between academia-industry and policy makers, integration schools, higher and vocational education, technology education and research topics needs more attention. the objective of national education policy-2020 is to prepare youth who are not job seekers but job givers, and under this idea guru ghasidas university bilaspur has started swavalambi chhattisgarh scheme to make youth power, the students, self-reliant, taking a pioneering initiative. a portal has also been started for implementation of self-reliant chhattisgarh scheme, on which students and companies have started registration in self-reliant. the national education policy-2020 is a roadmap for the direct role of our acquired and available knowledge in academic excellence, economic development, and value addition. the objective of nep-2020 is to impart knowledge to students of the ancient indian wisdom tradition and cultural heritage along with 21st century skills and innovation, solving complex problems, enhancing creativity and digital literacy. the students by creating academic bank of credit at pg level from the academic session 2022-23 in the continuation of the policy of implementation of national education policy 2020. academic bank of credits aims to encourage a student-centric, learner-friendly approach in higher education across the country to promote more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies with multiple entry and exit options. abc enables the students to choose the best courses or the right course group according to their aptitude www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 66 published by scholink inc. and knowledge quest. it provides opportunity to the students to pursue degree or specialization by choosing the subject as per their choice. education is the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and equality. inclusive and equitable education . more heis shall be established and developed in underserved regions to ensure full access, equity, and inclusion. the gross enrolment ratio in higher education (including vocational education) shall increase from 26.3% (2018) to 50% by 2030. while a number of new institutions may be developed to attain these goals, a large part of the capacity creation will happen by consolidating, expanding, and improving existing heis. education is a public good and must not be a commercial activity or a source of profit. the matter of commercialisation of education has been dealt with by the policy through multiple relevant fronts, including: the “„light but tight” regulatory approach that mandates full public disclosure of finances, procedures, course and programme offerings, and educational outcomes; the substantial investment in public education; and mechanisms for good governance of all institutions, public and private. references national education policy. (2020). (goi) advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 122 original paper cluster supply chain network organization governance model and governance mechanism research zhong han1* 1 school of teacher education, weifang university of science and technology, weifang 262700, shandong, china * zhong han, e-mail: middlehan@wfust.edu.cn received: january 29, 2024 accepted: march 20, 2024 online published: april 01, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p122 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p122 abstract this paper aims to explore in-depth the organization governance model and governance mechanism of cluster supply chain networks, and analyze their roles and impacts in modern supply chain management. firstly, the concept and characteristics of cluster supply chain networks are introduced, emphasizing their innovation and flexibility based on the internet and information technology. then, the common organization governance models in cluster supply chain networks are analyzed in detail, including decentralized governance, centralized governance, and collaborative governance, as well as corresponding governance mechanisms such as decision-making mechanisms, supervision mechanisms, and incentive mechanisms. through comparing different organization governance models and mechanisms and conducting case studies, the advantages, disadvantages, and applicable scenarios are analyzed in depth. furthermore, the challenges faced by cluster supply chain networks in organizational governance, such as information asymmetry and cooperation difficulties, are discussed, and strategies and suggestions for addressing challenges and making improvements are proposed. finally, the main findings and conclusions of the research are summarized, emphasizing the importance of organization governance models and governance mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks and providing prospects for future research and practice. keywords cluster supply chain network, organization governance model, governance mechanism, decentralized governance, centralized governance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 123 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction with the continuous development of the global economy and the increasing complexity of supply chain management, cluster supply chain networks, as a new organizational form, have gradually attracted attention from academia and industry. a cluster supply chain network is a networked organizational form formed by multiple enterprises or organizations sharing information, resources, and capabilities, aiming to improve the efficiency, flexibility, and innovation capability of the entire supply chain. its core idea is to optimize and coordinate various links in the supply chain through collaborative cooperation and resource sharing. in cluster supply chain networks, organization governance models and governance mechanisms play a crucial role. suitable organization governance models can promote cooperation and win-win among stakeholders, while effective governance mechanisms can improve decision-making efficiency and resource utilization. therefore, in-depth research on the organization governance models and governance mechanisms of cluster supply chain networks is of great significance for improving the overall operational efficiency and competitiveness of the supply chain. this paper aims to further reveal the operation mechanism and influencing factors of cluster supply chain networks from theoretical and practical perspectives by exploring the organization governance models and governance mechanisms of cluster supply chain networks. next, different organization governance models and governance mechanisms will be explored in depth, and their advantages, disadvantages, and applicability will be analyzed, followed by corresponding recommendations and prospects. 2. introduction to cluster supply chain networks 2.1 definition and characteristics of cluster supply chain networks cluster supply chain networks are innovative organizational forms that bring together multiple independent yet interconnected enterprises or organizations through the sharing of information, resources, and capabilities. unlike traditional linear supply chains, cluster supply chain networks exhibit greater flexibility and dynamism. a key characteristic of these networks is their interconnected structure, which comprises numerous independent entities linked through networks, forming a multi-party networked structure. this interconnectedness facilitates the swift exchange of information and resources within the network, fostering collaborative operations and cooperation across different segments of the supply chain. participants in cluster supply chain networks commonly engage in resource sharing, encompassing production facilities, technical expertise, and market intelligence. this sharing of resources leads to cost reductions, efficiency enhancements, and expedited time-to-market for products or services. additionally, these networks serve as platforms for collective innovation, encouraging advancements in technology, product offerings, and business models. by fostering cross-industry collaboration and knowledge exchange, cluster supply chain networks accelerate the dissemination and application of innovative solutions, thereby bolstering the competitiveness of the entire supply chain ecosystem. furthermore, cluster supply chain networks demonstrate remarkable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 124 published by scholink inc. flexibility and adaptability, enabling swift responses to market demands and fluctuations. given the relative independence of network participants, production plans, supply chain configurations, and collaboration arrangements can be adjusted on the fly to align with evolving market dynamics and uncertainties (adetoyinbo, a., asravor, j., olaleye, a. s. et al., 2024). lastly, risks within cluster supply chain networks are often shared among participating entities. this risk-sharing mechanism mitigates individual enterprise risk exposure, enhancing the overall stability and resilience of the supply chain. in essence, as a novel organizational paradigm, cluster supply chain networks present modern enterprises with valuable opportunities for collaboration and growth in an ever-evolving business landscape. 2.2 advantages and application areas of cluster supply chain networks cluster supply chain networks offer a multitude of advantages, positioning them as indispensable solutions across various industries and applications. primarily, these networks foster resource sharing and collaborative innovation, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency and competitiveness of supply chains. by pooling together production facilities, technical expertise, and market insights, participants can drive down costs, streamline production processes, expedite product development, and market entry. this collaborative approach optimizes and synchronizes the entire supply chain ecosystem, delivering mutual benefits to all stakeholders involved. furthermore, the inherent flexibility and adaptability of cluster supply chain networks enable swift responses to market demands and fluctuations[2]. as individual entities within the network maintain a degree of autonomy, they can readily adjust production plans, supply chain configurations, and collaboration arrangements to align with evolving market dynamics and uncertainties. this agility ensures that the supply chain remains responsive and resilient in the face of changing conditions. moreover, the concept of risk sharing within cluster supply chain networks is pivotal in mitigating individual enterprise risk exposure. by collectively bearing risks and uncertainties associated with supply chain operations, participants contribute to the overall stability and resilience of the network. this collaborative risk management approach fosters a sense of shared responsibility and fosters stronger partnerships among network participants. cluster supply chain networks find application across a diverse array of industries, including manufacturing, retail, logistics, and beyond. in manufacturing, these networks facilitate process optimization, quality enhancement, and accelerated time-to-market for products. within the retail sector, cluster supply chain networks streamline inventory management, order fulfillment, and customer satisfaction, thereby enhancing market competitiveness. similarly, in logistics, these networks optimize transportation routes, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs associated with transportation operations. in conclusion, the versatility and effectiveness of cluster supply chain networks render them indispensable in modern business operations. with their ability to promote collaboration, flexibility, and risk sharing, these networks offer promising prospects for application across a wide spectrum of industries, driving innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness in the global marketplace (gokhan, a., birdogan, b., murat, i. a. 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 125 published by scholink inc. 3. organizational governance models 3.1 common organizational governance models in cluster supply chain networks in cluster supply chain networks, the organizational governance models play a pivotal role in shaping the collaborative dynamics and operational efficiency of the network. let’s delve deeper into the common organizational governance models and their applicability within these networks. the decentralized governance model empowers participants within the cluster supply chain network by dispersing power and decision-making authority among them. each participant enjoys a level of autonomy, fostering a culture of collaboration and autonomy. decisions are made through negotiation and consensus, allowing for flexibility and adaptability. while this model encourages innovation and initiative among participants, it may encounter challenges such as lower decision-making efficiency and disparities in resource allocation. conversely, the centralized governance model consolidates power and decision-making authority within a centralized entity or organization. typically managed by a dominant enterprise or institution, this model facilitates efficient decision-making processes and streamlined operations. however, it may lead to the neglect of other participants’ interests and risks associated with information asymmetry and unilateral control. the federated governance model integrates elements of both decentralized and centralized governance, aiming to strike a balance between participant autonomy and centralized decision-making efficiency. in this model, decision-making authority and management rights are shared among multiple participants, fostering a collaborative governance structure. by allowing participants to engage in decision-making based on their interests and capabilities, this model promotes a more democratic decision-making process. nevertheless, effective cooperation and coordination mechanisms are essential to ensure the successful execution of decisions. the choice of governance model depends on various factors such as the nature of relationships among participants, network goals, and resource allocation. the decentralized governance model is suitable for environments emphasizing flexibility and innovation, where participants value autonomy and collaboration. conversely, the centralized governance model may be preferred in situations requiring swift decision-making and centralized control, such as during emergencies or market fluctuations. the federated governance model finds application in scenarios where a balance between autonomy and efficiency is sought, enabling diverse stakeholders to participate in decision-making processes while ensuring effective coordination. in conclusion, the selection of organizational governance models in cluster supply chain networks should be guided by an understanding of the network’s unique characteristics and objectives. each model presents its own set of advantages and challenges, highlighting the importance of aligning the governance structure with the specific needs and dynamics of the network. by carefully evaluating these factors, organizations can effectively harness the potential of cluster supply chain networks to drive collaboration, innovation, and sustainable growth (peng, l., w. t. e. n., edwin, t. c., 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 126 published by scholink inc. 3.2 explanation and comparison of governance models the governance models adopted within cluster supply chain networks play a pivotal role in shaping the network’s dynamics and effectiveness. let’s delve deeper into the characteristics and comparisons of decentralized governance, centralized governance, and federated governance models. in a decentralized governance model, autonomy and cooperation are emphasized, with decision-making authority distributed among network participants. this model promotes a collaborative environment where decisions are made through negotiation and consensus, granting each participant a level of autonomy and rights. decentralized governance fosters innovation and proactiveness among participants, enhancing the network’s flexibility and adaptability. however, it may encounter challenges such as lower decision-making efficiency, disparities in resource distribution, and difficulties in achieving cooperation due to diverse interests. conversely, the centralized governance model centralizes power and decision-making authority within a single entity or organization, typically led by a dominant player responsible for making unified decisions and managing operations. this model facilitates efficient decision-making processes, enabling swift responses to market demands and changes (e. c., a. f. g. i., et al., 2024). however, it may overlook the interests of other participants, leading to risks associated with information asymmetry and unilateral control. the federated governance model integrates aspects of both decentralized and centralized governance models, aiming to strike a balance between participant autonomy and centralized decision-making efficiency. in this model, decision-making authority and management rights are shared among multiple participants, fostering a collaborative governance structure. by allowing participants to engage in decision-making based on their interests and capabilities, this model achieves a balanced power distribution and democratizes the decision-making process. nevertheless, effective cooperation and coordination mechanisms are essential to ensure the successful execution of decisions. each governance model presents its own set of advantages and challenges, necessitating careful consideration based on the network’s objectives and characteristics. the decentralized governance model is conducive to fostering autonomy and innovation, making it suitable for environments emphasizing flexibility and creativity. in contrast, the centralized governance model prioritizes efficiency and rapid decision-making, making it suitable for situations requiring centralized control and swift responses to market dynamics. the federated governance model offers a middle ground, balancing autonomy with efficiency, making it applicable to scenarios where diverse stakeholder interests and participation need to be considered. in conclusion, the selection of governance models in cluster supply chain networks should be guided by a thorough understanding of the network’s unique requirements and goals. each model offers its own benefits and drawbacks, highlighting the importance of aligning the governance structure with the specific needs and dynamics of the network to ensure its effectiveness and success. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 127 published by scholink inc. 4. governance mechanisms 4.1 governance mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks governance mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks play a vital role in ensuring smooth operations and effective coordination among network participants. let’s delve deeper into each of these mechanisms and their significance within the context of cluster supply chain networks. decision-making mechanisms encompass the processes and structures used to determine and implement network decisions. in cluster supply chain networks, decision-making mechanisms may vary, including voting systems, consensus-building processes, and delegation systems. these mechanisms empower participants to contribute to decision-making, ensuring fairness and effectiveness in the decision-making process. for instance, in scenarios requiring rapid responses to market changes, a consensus-based decision-making approach may be more appropriate, allowing stakeholders to collectively assess and address emerging challenges. supervisory mechanisms involve monitoring and evaluating the performance of the network’s operations. within cluster supply chain networks, various supervisory mechanisms can be employed, such as internal audits, external audits, and self-assessment protocols. these mechanisms serve to detect and rectify operational issues promptly, enhancing transparency and accountability within the network. for example, regular performance audits can help identify inefficiencies or compliance breaches, enabling corrective actions to be taken promptly to maintain operational integrity. incentive mechanisms are designed to motivate participants to actively engage in network operations by offering rewards for desirable behaviors and imposing penalties for undesirable ones. in cluster supply chain networks, incentive mechanisms can take various forms, including financial rewards, recognition programs, and collaborative incentives. by aligning incentives with desired outcomes, such as improved cooperation and performance, these mechanisms encourage participants to contribute their best efforts, thereby enhancing overall network efficiency and effectiveness. information sharing mechanisms facilitate the flow and exchange of information among network participants, fostering transparency and collaboration. in cluster supply chain networks, information sharing mechanisms may encompass the use of information platforms, regular exchange meetings, and standardized reporting procedures. these mechanisms enable timely access to relevant information, reducing information asymmetry and transaction costs while promoting informed decision-making and coordinated actions among participants. in summary, governance mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks, including decision-making, supervisory, incentive, and information sharing mechanisms, are essential for promoting effective collaboration, enhancing operational efficiency, and achieving the optimization of the entire supply chain. by implementing and leveraging these mechanisms effectively, cluster supply chain networks can navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and drive sustained growth and development in today’s dynamic business environment. 4.2 advantages, disadvantages, and applicability of different governance mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks, different governance mechanisms can address various challenges and needs. decision-making mechanisms, as a means of rapid decision-making, are particularly suitable for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 128 published by scholink inc. situations requiring rapid responses to market changes and emergencies. for example, during sudden shortages of raw materials or sharp increases in market demand within the supply chain, decision-making mechanisms can be used to quickly coordinate resources from various parties, optimize supply chain configurations, and ensure timely supply. however, a potential disadvantage of decision-making mechanisms is the possibility of overlooking the interests of some participants. therefore, in situations involving complex conflicts of interest among multiple parties, careful consideration is needed. supervisory mechanisms are crucial for ensuring fair and compliant network operations (maram a., ali b., ali, a., et al., 2024). in cluster supply chain networks, supervisory mechanisms can promptly identify and correct problems in operations, enhancing network transparency and accountability. especially in cases involving large amounts of funds or resource flows, supervisory mechanisms can effectively reduce potential fraud and misconduct, enhancing participants’ trust and willingness to cooperate. however, supervisory mechanisms may bring additional costs and complexity, especially in establishing and maintaining supervisory institutions or committees, requiring significant human and material resources. incentive mechanisms are effective means of stimulating participant enthusiasm and creativity. in cluster supply chain networks, incentive mechanisms can guide participant behavior through rewards and penalties, improving cooperation efficiency and quality. for example, by establishing reward mechanisms to encourage participants to propose innovative solutions or efficient workflows, supply chain innovation and development can be effectively promoted. however, inappropriate use of incentive mechanisms may lead to waste and abuse of resources, requiring the design of reasonable incentive mechanisms based on actual circumstances and goals. finally, information sharing mechanisms play an important role in improving communication efficiency and information sharing among network participants. in cluster supply chain networks, information sharing mechanisms can reduce information asymmetry and transaction costs, promoting cooperation and collaboration. however, information sharing mechanisms may also pose risks of information leakage and misuse, especially when involving trade secrets or sensitive information, necessitating the establishment of strict information protection measures and permission management systems. in conclusion, selecting appropriate governance mechanisms requires comprehensive consideration of the network’s characteristics, environment, and goals to ensure the maximum improvement of operational efficiency and cooperative effects (oyebode, j. o., & abdulazeez, o. z., 2023). 5. case analysis in real cluster supply chain networks, the application of different organizational governance models and governance mechanisms can be demonstrated and analyzed through specific cases. in a certain automotive manufacturing cluster supply chain network, which includes automotive manufacturers, component suppliers, logistics service providers, and other participants, appropriate organizational governance models and governance mechanisms are needed to improve the efficiency and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 129 published by scholink inc. competitiveness of the supply chain. in the decentralized governance model and decision-making mechanism, in this automotive manufacturing cluster supply chain network, automotive manufacturers adopt a decentralized governance model where each participant has a certain degree of autonomy and decision-making power. in response to urgent market demand changes, participants can quickly negotiate and formulate response measures, such as adjusting production plans or increasing the production of certain components. this decision-making mechanism allows the supply chain to adapt more flexibly to market changes, improving the responsiveness and adaptability of the entire supply chain. in the centralized governance model and supervisory mechanism, at the same time, a centralized supervisory mechanism is also established in the cluster supply chain network, with the automotive manufacturer acting as the leading enterprise responsible for unified decision-making and supervising network operations. by establishing a supervisory committee and formulating supervisory rules, problems and contradictions in supply chain operations can be promptly identified and resolved, increasing the transparency and accountability of the network. for example, when a component supplier encounters quality issues, the supervisory mechanism can intervene promptly and require improvements to the quality management system to ensure the stable operation of the entire supply chain. incentive mechanisms and information sharing mechanisms, to incentivize the active participation and creativity of all participants, the automotive manufacturing cluster supply chain network also adopts incentive mechanisms and information sharing mechanisms. by establishing reward systems such as annual best supplier awards and technology innovation awards, suppliers are encouraged to provide high-quality products and services, promoting technological innovation and quality improvement. meanwhile, establishing an information sharing platform enables real-time information sharing and communication, allowing participants to timely understand market demands and supply chain dynamics, thereby enhancing communication efficiency and cooperation effectiveness. in this case, through the combined application of different organizational governance models and governance mechanisms, the operational efficiency and cooperation effectiveness of the automotive manufacturing cluster supply chain network have been effectively improved. the rapid decision-making mechanism under the decentralized governance model enhances the flexibility and responsiveness of the supply chain, while the centralized supervisory mechanism ensures the normative and stable operation of the network. incentive mechanisms and information sharing mechanisms stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of all participants, promoting technological innovation and quality improvement. in summary, this case demonstrates the application and effects of different governance models and mechanisms in cluster supply chain networks, providing valuable reference and insights for similar supply chain networks (miri, k. l., m. z, b., bahar, m. et al., 2023). 6. potential challenges and response strategies in cluster supply chain networks, despite the adoption of different organizational governance models and governance mechanisms, a series of challenges may still be faced. firstly, conflicts of interest may www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 130 published by scholink inc. lead to tension and difficulties in cooperative relationships. various participants in the supply chain network may pursue maximizing their own interests, making cooperation difficult to achieve consensus, or even leading to competitive relationships. for example, suppliers may prioritize maximizing their profits, while manufacturers focus on cost reduction, potentially resulting in conflicts over pricing or resource allocation. to address this challenge, establishing effective negotiation and conflict resolution mechanisms is crucial. by facilitating open dialogue and fostering mutual understanding, participants can find common ground and collaborate more effectively, mitigating conflicts of interest and promoting cooperation. secondly, information asymmetry is another potential challenge, where some participants may have more information resources, resulting in unfairness in information and imbalance in transactions, thereby affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of cooperation. for instance, manufacturers may possess market insights or production data that suppliers lack, leading to unequal bargaining power or suboptimal decision-making. to mitigate information asymmetry, enhancing information sharing and transparency is essential. implementing robust information-sharing platforms and protocols enables all participants to access relevant data and insights, fostering trust and collaboration while reducing the risk of misunderstandings or misalignments. additionally, technological risks are also a significant concern. technological developments in the supply chain network may face challenges from market changes and technological updates, potentially leading to instability and increased risks in the supply chain. for example, disruptions in technology adoption or advancements in competitors’ systems can impact the competitiveness and resilience of the supply chain network. to address technological risks, increasing investment in technological innovation and research and development is paramount. by staying abreast of emerging technologies, investing in robust infrastructure, and fostering a culture of innovation, supply chain networks can adapt to technological disruptions and maintain their competitive edge. moreover, collaboration risks and competitive pressures also impact the stable operation of the supply chain network. the constantly changing market environment and challenges from competitors may bring uncertainty and pressure to the supply chain. for instance, changes in consumer preferences or the emergence of new market entrants can disrupt existing supply chain dynamics and relationships. to mitigate collaboration risks and competitive pressures, establishing flexible cooperation mechanisms and risk management systems is essential. by proactively identifying potential threats and opportunities, supply chain networks can develop contingency plans, diversify their supplier base, and cultivate strategic partnerships to enhance resilience and competitiveness. in conclusion, response strategies to the challenges faced by cluster supply chain networks include establishing effective negotiation and communication mechanisms, enhancing information sharing and transparency, increasing investment in technological innovation and research and development, establishing flexible cooperation mechanisms and risk management systems, and strengthening internal cooperation and alliances with industry peers. through the comprehensive application of these strategies, various challenges can be effectively addressed, enhancing the operational efficiency and cooperation effectiveness of the supply chain network, and achieving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 131 published by scholink inc. common development and success. 7. conclusion in cluster supply chain networks, the choice of organizational governance models and governance mechanisms is crucial for the stable operation and cooperation effectiveness of the network. through the discussion in this paper, we can see that different governance models and mechanisms play different roles in addressing various challenges and promoting cooperation. the decentralized governance model can improve the flexibility and responsiveness of the supply chain, while the centralized supervisory mechanism ensures the normative and stable operation of the network. incentive mechanisms and information sharing mechanisms can also stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of participants, promoting cooperation and collaboration. however, it should be noted that in practical applications, these governance models and mechanisms may face some challenges such as conflicts of interest, information asymmetry, and technological risks. to address these challenges, a series of effective response strategies need to be adopted, including strengthening communication and negotiation, enhancing information sharing and transparency, increasing technological innovation and risk management, etc. through these efforts, potential challenges can be better addressed, enhancing the operational efficiency and cooperation effectiveness of the supply chain network. in conclusion, the selection of appropriate governance models and mechanisms, coupled with effective response strategies, is key to achieving sustained development and mutual success in cluster supply chain networks. references adetoyinbo, a., asravor, j., olaleye, a. s. et al. (2024). food quality and supply chain networks in dynamic business environments: evidence from the nigerian shrimp subsector. british food journal, 126(3), 995-1013. ttps://doi.org/10.1108/bfj-02-2023-0171 e. c. a. f. g. i. et al. (2024). spatially-explicit optimization of an integrated wind-hydrogen supply chain network for the transport sector: the case study of sicily. international journal of hydrogen energy, 52(pc), 761-774. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.10.105 gokhan, a., birdogan, b., & murat, i. a. (2024). blood supply chain network design: a systematic review of literature and implications for future research. journal of modelling in management, 19(1), 68-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/jm2-05-2022-0132 maram, a., ali, b., ali, a. et al. (2024). analysis of co2 emissions reduction on the future hydrogen supply chain network for dubai buses. international journal of hydrogen energy, 54, 256-266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.04.121 miri, k. l. m. z. b. bahar, m. et al. (20223). ten-tier and multi-scale supply chain network analysis of medical equipment: random failure intelligent attack analysis. international journal of production research, 61(24), 8468-8492. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2022.2152892 oyebode, j. o., & abdulazeez, o. z. (2023). optimization of supply chain network in solid waste www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 132 published by scholink inc. management using a hybrid approach of genetic algorithm and fuzzy logic: a case study of lagos state. nature environment and pollution technology, 22(4), 1707-1722. https://doi.org/10.46488/nept.2023.v22i04.003 peng, l., w. t. e. n., & edwin, t. c. (2024). supply chain network structures and firm financial performance: the moderating role of international relations. international journal of operations production management, 44(1), 75-98. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijopm-07-2022-0434 zhuyue, l., & chunxiao, z. (2024). designing a two-stage model for the resilient agri-food supply chain network under dynamic competition. british food journal, 126(2), 662-681. https://doi.org/10.1108/bfj-12-2022-1135 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 8 original paper suggestions and thoughts on integrating environmental choreography into dance teaching in higher education wei zhang 1* 1 sichuan university of media and communication, chengdu, china * wei zhang, corresponding author received: march 19, 2023 accepted: june 03, 2023 online published: june 19, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p8 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p8 abstract this paper explores the implementation of environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching. the aim is to better engage students in social and environmental issues through movement, and to promote the development of a more sustainable and conscious society. the paper proposes a framework for implementing environmental choreography in dance courses, including strategies for selecting relevant topics, designing movement sequences, and evaluating outcomes. the paper also presents case studies from universities in different regions, illustrating how environmental choreography has been successfully integrated into dance curricula and highlighting some challenges that still need to be addressed. ultimately, this research contributes to the ongoing discussion on the role of arts in promoting sustainability and social change. keywords environmental choreography, dance education, sustainability, social change introduction dance is not just a form of artistic expression, but also a means of communication, reflection, and action. through movement, dancers can convey messages, embody emotions, and connect with their audience and environment. by acknowledging this potential, dance educators have started to explore ways to integrate socio-environmental issues into their teaching practices, creating meaningful experiences of learning and engagement. one specific approach that has gained attention in recent years is environmental choreography, which uses movement as a way to explore and raise awareness about ecological and social challenges. this paper aims to examine the implementation of environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching, and to propose strategies for creating effective and impactful experiences for students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. 1. environmental choreography definition and conceptual framework environmental choreography is a relatively new field of dance practice that emerged in response to the global environmental crisis and the need for more sustainable and socially conscious cultures. according to kagan (2017), environmental choreography “explores the interconnections between the body, the environment, and the socio-political context, seeking to create movements that embody, critique, or transform these interrelations” (p. 3). this definition suggests that environmental choreography is not limited to a specific style or genre of dance, but rather encompasses a wide range of approaches that use movement to address environmental and social issues. these issues can include climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, human rights, gender inequality, among others. to effectively implement environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching, it is essential to establish a conceptual framework that guides its design and evaluation. the following framework proposes four key components of environmental choreography: topic selection, movement language, contextualization, and evaluation. 1.1 topic selection the first step in designing an environmental choreography project is to select a relevant topic that addresses a specific environmental or social issue. the topic should be chosen based on its relevance to the local and global context, its potential for artistic exploration, and its educational value. for example, a dance class in a coastal city could explore the impact of rising sea levels on the community, while a class in a polluted urban area could investigate the effects of industrial waste on public health. the topic should also align with the learning outcomes of the course and the interests and backgrounds of the students. 1.2 movement language the second component of environmental choreography is the movement language, which refers to the vocabulary and style of movement used to express the chosen topic. the movement language should be informed by the cultural and historical context of the issue, as well as the aesthetic preferences of the choreographer and the dancers. it may include gestures, shapes, rhythms, partnering, floor work, improvisation, and other techniques that reflect the emotional, physical, and intellectual aspects of the issue. the movement language should also be accessible to a range of skills and abilities, and inclusive of different body types, cultures, and identities. 1.3 contextualization the third component of environmental choreography is the contextualization, which refers to the way the dance piece is situated within a broader socio-political and environmental context. the contextualization includes the setting, the music, the costumes, the lighting, and other elements that create a coherent and immersive experience for the audience. it should also include a clear message or intention that communicates the issue and the call to action. for example, a dance piece about deforestation could be performed in a forest-like setting, accompanied by sounds of nature, and dressed in earthy colors. the contextualization should aim to provoke an emotional and intellectual response www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. from the viewer, and to inspire reflection and dialogue. 1.4 evaluation the fourth component of environmental choreography is the evaluation, which refers to the assessment of the learning outcomes and impact of the project. the evaluation should include both formative and summative methods, and involve the participation of the students, the teachers, and the community. it should measure the students’ acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to the topic, as well as their engagement with the creative process and the final performance. the evaluation should also assess the visibility and influence of the project on the wider community, and its potential for creating social change. 2. case studies: examples of environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching to illustrate the practical application of environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching, we present three case studies from different regions of the world. these case studies demonstrate how environmental choreography can be adapted to different contexts and challenges, and how it can foster interdisciplinary collaboration, social justice, and environmental awareness. 2.1 case study 1: the ocean project at university of california santa cruz (usa) the ocean project is a multidisciplinary initiative at uc santa cruz that engages students and faculty in exploring the ecological and socio-political dimensions of ocean health and conservation. as part of the project, a dance course was developed that focused on creating environmental choreography related to marine issues. the course included visits to local oceanic sites, lectures on marine science and policy, and collaborative work with marine biologists and conservationists. the students were encouraged to investigate diverse themes such as coral bleaching, ocean acidification, overfishing, and plastic pollution, and to express their findings through movement. the project culminated in a public performance that showcased the students’ choreography, accompanied by spoken word and live music. the performance was attended by a wide audience, including local policymakers and environmental activists, who praised the students’ creativity and activism. 2.2 case study 2: the green step dance project at university of cape town (south africa) the green step dance project is a community-based initiative at uct that aims to raise awareness about environmental issues affecting local communities in the cape town area. the project involves collaboration between dance students, local environmental ngos, and community members, and focuses on creating site-specific environmental choreography that responds to the specific needs and concerns of the community. the students first conduct research on the environmental challenges facing the community, and then work with local residents to create movement sequences that embody these issues. the project also includes educational workshops on sustainable living, waste management, and biodiversity conservation, as well as performances in public spaces such as parks, markets, and community centers. the project has been highly successful in engaging diverse audiences in environmental issues, and has inspired many students to pursue careers in environmental education and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. activism. 2.3 case study 3: the eco dance project at taipei national university of the arts (taiwan china) the eco dance project is a student-led initiative at tnua that explores the intersection of dance, biology, and ecology. the project involves collaboration between dance majors and science majors, and focuses on creating interactive environmental choreography that highlights the biodiversity and ecological characteristics of the local environment. the project includes fieldwork in different ecological sites, such as forests, wetlands, and urban parks, and laboratory work on biological systems and processes. the students are also encouraged to incorporate technology and multimedia into their performances, using sensors, projections, and soundscapes to create immersive experiences for the audience. the project has attracted significant attention from the scientific and artistic communities in taiwan, and has been recognized as a pioneering example of interdisciplinary education and research. 2.4 case study 4: the “balcony garden choreography” project of beijing dance academy (china) in a balcony garden choreography performance of beijing dance academy, the students used the balcony garden as a dance venue, and arranged the trees, flowers and other elements in the garden, forming a beautiful dance scene. during the performance, the students constantly interact with the garden elements, showing the harmony between the body and the natural environment. 3. challenges and recommendations despite the many benefits of environmental choreography in higher education dance teaching, there are also some challenges that need to be addressed. these include the lack of resources and support for interdisciplinary collaboration, the difficulty of defining and assessing the learning outcomes of the project, and the risk of superficial or tokenistic engagement with environmental and social issues. to overcome these challenges, we suggest the following recommendations: 1) foster interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue between dance educators, environmental scientists, community activists, and policymakers. this can be done through joint projects, workshops, and conferences, as well as by integrating interdisciplinary perspectives into dance curricula. 2) develop clear and measurable learning outcomes for environmental choreography projects. this can be done by aligning the projects with the objectives of the course, and by using formative and summative assessment methods that evaluate both the students’ artistic and environmental skills and knowledge. 3) ensure that the engagement with environmental and social issues in environmental choreography is authentic and meaningful. this can be done by involving local communities in the research and creation process, by acknowledging the power dynamics involved in environmental activism, and by promoting an ethic of care and respect for the environment and its inhabitants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. 4. conclusion environmental choreography is a promising approach to integrating socio-environmental issues into higher education dance teaching. through movement, dancers can communicate, reflect, and act on the challenges facing our planet and its people, and create meaningful experiences of learning and engagement. this paper proposed a conceptual framework for implementing environmental choreography in dance courses, and presented case studies from different regions of the world that illustrate its potential and challenges. by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, developing clear learning outcomes, and promoting authentic engagement with environmental and social issues, we can create a more sustainable and conscious society, one dance at a time. funding project support 1. key project of higher education talent training quality and teaching reform in sichuan province in 2021-2023: exploration and practice of all-media media talent training in the new era (project no.: jg2021-1462; project document no.: sichuan teaching letter [2022] no.114). 2. the first batch of university-level scientific research team construction project of sichuan university of media and communication: “sichuan-chongqing local dance creation research research team” project (project no.: sichuan media institute [2022]132-05). references chrysandi, g., pratiwi, e., pujiastuti, s., & martono, h. (2013). koreografi lingkungan’masyarakat plempoh, prambanan, daerah istimewa yogyakarta. journal of urban societys arts, 13(2). jia, d. l. (2014). research on lingnan choreography teaching—exploration of environmental choreography from the perspective of lingnan culture. house of drama, (08), 231-249. li, y. y. (2015). study on the behavior mode of environmental impromptu choreography. the university for nationalities of china. lin, c. (2020). environmental choreography method exploration. the voice of the yellow river, (13), 155-156. martono, h. (2011). laku gunung sagara: perubahan sosial dengan pendekatan koreografi lingkungan. resital: jurnal seni pertunjukan, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.24821/resital.v12i2.494 wang, j. w. (2018). body mapping—new perspective of environmental choreography teaching method. yihai, (12), 50-53. wei, z. (2023). thoughts on the professional construction of choreography under the concept of obe. world journal of education and humanities, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.22158/wjeh.v5n2p83 xu, w. (2016). on the creative characteristics of environmental choreography. dance, (10), 38-40. yu, s. l. (2017).the role and significance of environmental choreography and dtv in dance. journal of pla art academy, (02), 145-148. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. about the author zhang wei, vice dean, professor of dance school of sichuan university of media and communication, master tutor, research direction: choreographer, e-mail: scyspx168@163.com advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 71 original paper dissemination of ethnic cultures of characteristic villages in guangxi from the perspective of rural revitalization weichao wang 1* 1 guangxi minzu university, nanning, china * weichao wang, guangxi minzu university, nanning, china received: july 13, 2022 accepted: august 18, 2022 online published: august 22, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n3p71 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p71 abstract currently, in the implementation stage of china’s rural revitalization strategy, the cultivation and construction of characteristic villages is of great significance. on the basis of reviewing the relevant research on characteristic villages, this study deeply analyzes the problem that ethnic cultures have not played a sufficient role in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi, while proposing two key points in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi, i.e., the activation of ethnic cultures of characteristic villages in guangxi, and the aggregation of cultural dissemination talents, so as to collaboratively promote the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi. keywords characteristic village, rural revitalization, ethnic culture, dissemination fund project “research on dissemination tactics for guangxi’s ethnic cultures under the background of rural revitalization strategy”—a philosophy and social science planning research project of guangxi in 2021 (21fxw007); “research on development of red culture publishing resources in guangxi”—a key project for social science think tank of guangxi in 2021 (zkzdkt-67). 1. introduction in 2009, the national ethnic affairs commission and the ministry of finance jointly launched a protection and development pilot for minority-characteristic villages (“characteristic villages”). since then, a large number of characteristic villages have been cultivated with distinctive residential features, rich ethnic cultures, strong industrial support and harmonious ethnic relations. so far, the state ethnic affairs commission has organized three batches of naming and listing of “chinese minority www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 72 published by scholink inc. characteristic villages”, and 59 villages in guangxi have been selected as “chinese minority characteristic villages”. in the construction of characteristic villages, these 59 villages have achieved certain results in promoting the excellent culture of ethnic minorities in guangxi, carrying out ethnic folk tourism, protecting traditional ethnic minority houses, cultivating rural characteristic advantageous industries, improving people’s production and living conditions and levels, and consolidating ethnic unity. currently, in the implementation stage of china’s rural revitalization strategy, the cultivation and construction of characteristic villages is of great significance. the rural revitalization strategy is just purposed to stimulate the vitality and creativity of rural development and create a beautiful rural life with civilized rural customs, lovely ecology, prosperous industries and affluent life, so as to realize the comprehensive development of the countryside and completely eliminate the backwardness of rural areas. therefore, it can be said that the construction of characteristic villages has played a positive exemplary role in rural revitalization and development. when all walks of life across the country vigorously promote the strategy of rural revitalization and build characteristic villages, many scholars have conducted in-depth research on characteristic villages from the perspective of their respective disciplines. these studies have either discussed the common problems with characteristic villages or analyzed some cases of characteristic villages. they mainly cover theoretical construction research on the protection and development of characteristic villages, on the practical strategies for protection of characteristic villages, on the ethnic cultures of characteristic villages, and on the economic development of characteristic villages. in 2014, the economic development department of the national ethnic affairs commission published the series books on the protection and development of chinese minority characteristic villages, which provides strong guidance for the research and practice of the protection and development of characteristic villages. among the books, research on the experience in protection and development of chinese minority characteristic villages demonstrates, in a more truly manner, the successful experience of carrying forward the traditional ethnic cultures, promoting the transformation of industrial structures, and boosting the economic and social development of ethnic areas in the construction of many characteristic villages in china. professor li zhongbin has been engaged in the study on characteristic villages for nearly ten years, with a series of in-depth and influential academic achievements delivered, such as construction of minority characteristic villages and the development of ethnic cultures, theoretical discussion, effect evaluation and policy innovation research of construction of minority characteristic villages and others. they conduct profound theoretical discussions in terms of the index systems for selection of characteristic villages with cultures as the core, the policy innovation for cultural industries in construction of characteristic villages, and other aspects, while proposing some innovative theories, such as the bools of “townization of villages”, “ternary interaction”, “balloon effect, consolidation of bases and expansion of borders” and “digital property rights of ethnic cultures”. based on the field investigation in five yao ethnic villages in guangxi, zhong xuesi explored the factors affecting the efficiency of tourism poverty-alleviating resources’ allocation among www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 73 published by scholink inc. characteristic villages in ethnic areas, and put forward certain policy suggestions for promoting the optimal allocation of tourism poverty-alleviating resources in yao nationality characteristic villages in guangxi in the following four dimensions: governmental functional agencies, tourism operation enterprises, community and social organizations, and tourism-participating individuals. in summary, while rich results are acquired in the protection, development and practice of characteristic villages in various places, the theoretical research on characteristic villages also deliver some influential academic achievements. however, the theoretical research on the construction of characteristic villages is still lagging behind, with some deficiencies: first, the development of characteristic villages is not integrated closely enough with the rural revitalization strategy; second, discussions on the construction of characteristic villages pays more attention to rural tourism, but ignoring the research on the development of agricultural characteristic industrialization; third, although many scholars have paid attention to the important roles of ethnic cultures in the construction of characteristic villages, their discourses are mainly concentrated on the level of case analysis, lacking more in-depth theoretical elaboration. based on this situation, this study will, from the perspective of the rural revitalization strategy, explore the endogenous mechanism of the coordinated development between ethnic culture dissemination and characteristic village construction in guangxi, reveal the effective dissemination paths of ethnic cultures, and then provide helpful references for the construction of characteristic villages in ethnic areas as well as the rural revitalization. therefore, it is more innovative to carry out this study from the perspective of rural revitalization strategy, and it has more practical guiding significance to put forward the dissemination path of ethnic culture based on the case of characteristics villages in guangxi. 2. weak driving force of ethnic cultures of characteristic villages in guangxi the excellent traditional ethnic cultures are an important resource for building up a powerful ethnic culture area. guangxi is rich in ethnic cultural resources. in the hard development of the habitants of 12 ethnic groups, they have formed the characteristics of ethnic cultures with profound accumulation, diverse forms, distinctive features, openness and tolerance. however, in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi, the issue that the ethnic cultures have not played their functions sufficiently is prominent, mainly manifested in the following two aspects. 2.1 weak individuality of the ethnic cultures the shaping and dissemination of characteristic villages’ ethnic cultures are not “characteristic”. in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi, the characteristic ethnic cultural resources and advantages of each village have not been highlighted, lacking the characteristic shaping of ethnic cultures, and thus resulting in aesthetic fatigue. so the development and construction of rural characteristic cultural industries in the characteristic villages cannot be effectively promoted. this situation is showcased in the following three aspects: first, some models for development of villages’ ethnic cultural industries are simply copied, leading to the sameness and the lack of innovation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 74 published by scholink inc. some villages even follow the trend of building up internet-influencer card-punching spots, leading to the homogeneous replication of villages and no differentiated advantages of characteristic villages. if the geographical advantages in terms of the village history, cultures and people’s living habits are not fully exploited, there will be a lack of endogenous driving force for the development of the villages, eventually leading to ephemeral consequences. due to the above reasons, some of the 1,652 named minority characteristic villages in three batches across the country have found they are in insufficient development stamina or stagnation. second, ethnic cultures are showcased intensively in the major ethnic festivals of villages, so the rendering and dissemination of ethnic cultures have not formed a normalized mechanism. there are no good echoes between major ethnic festivals of local villages and their excellent traditional cultures as expressed in daily production and life, so no synergistic dissemination effect can be delivered. often, some characteristic villages will gather all their ethnic cultural resources to carry out grand celebrations during their major ethnic festivals. for example, from may 15th to 17th, 2008, the first young crops festival celebration was held. in addition to the traditional sacrificial ceremonies of the wa ethnic group, such events as ethnic history and culture exhibition, ethnic matrix parade, wooden drum pulling by thousands of persons, artistic performances and others were organized. however, after the all-out carnival feasts, even the ethnic culture exhibition halls of some villages were closed immediately. so, how may characteristic traditional cultures can be presented in daily life? third, the ethnic cultural personality of the characteristic villages does not demonstrate strong cohesion. there is a lack of deep exploration, refinement and presentation of the villages’ cultural relics, ethnic cultural resources and intangible cultural heritages, and no unique ethnic cultural brands of the villages have been formed. brands bring out vitality, competitiveness and recognition. without the brand differentiation strategic idea of “i have what other do not have; i have the better things than what others have; and i have things more special than the excellent things of others”, it is impossible to show the personality features of ethnic cultures of characteristic villages. of course, the shaping and refining of the ethnic cultural personality proposed here is not something “specially” created in a grandstand manner to attract the public; instead, it is the uniqueness of ethnic cultures that is generated from the inside of the ethnic villages themselves. 2.2 lack of human resources the report of the 19th national congress of the communist party of china put forward the strategy of strengthening the country with talents, pointing out that “talents are the strategic resources to realize national rejuvenation and win the initiative in international competition.” therefore, talents should be the key to the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi as well as an important resource to realize rural revitalization. but in reality, the lack of human resources is the key problem hindering the current construction of characteristic villages in guangxi. the talent structure for the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi should include not only such management talents as grass-roots government and village cadres, but also the traditional folk forces, such as new rural sages, village elders and tribe influencers. however, with the deepening of the urbanization process, the rural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 75 published by scholink inc. population have transferred to cities in large scales, and a large quantity of new rural sages with high cultural level, strong ability, open mind and technical knowledge have left the countryside, resulting in the increasingly scarce talent resources for the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi. similarly, more and more young adults are leaving rural areas for cities, leading to a large-scale outflow of rural talents from ethnic areas. so the phenomenon of hollowing out in the countryside is increasingly prominent, gradually driving some villages into a vicious circle that the more backward, the fewer talented people will be retained; and the fewer talents, the more the areas will fall behind. moreover, in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi, the important role of traditional folk forces such as village elders and tribe influencers is often overlooked. village elders and tribe influencers own deep knowledge and feelings about the inheritance, development and dissemination of the ethnic cultures of their villages, while having a certain prestige in their villages. so they play the role of opinion leaders of their villages. their attitudes, views and participation in the construction of characteristic villages would directly affect the choice and action of related villagers. in reality, however, their power has not been effectively and fully explored, integrated and exerted, and they have not formed a kind of consciousness to participate in the construction of characteristic villages. of course, in the construction of characteristic villages, the vast majority of villagers are the direct participants, builders and beneficiaries; and they are the subject for dissemination of ethnic cultures of villages and the key to the construction of characteristic villages. however, in the real world, because government and other relevant agencies pay insufficient attention to the role of villagers in the construction of characteristic villages and the villagers themselves have certain limitations, many problems have appeared, such as low enthusiasm of villagers to participate in the construction of characteristic villages, few opportunities to participate in the construction, and low service levels. 3. innovate the dissemination path of ethnic cultures and help revitalize the characteristic villages of guangxi while enjoying the fruits of reform and development, villages shall constantly stimulate and enhance their own endogenous dynamics and improve their self-developing ability. the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi shall rely on guangxi’s rich ethnic cultural resources, explore the excellent elements and characteristics in traditional ethnic cultures of each village, take ethnic cultures as the driving force for the construction of characteristic villages, expand the channels for the dissemination of excellent traditional ethnic cultures, and help the revitalization of characteristic villages in guangxi. 3.1 activation of the ethnic cultures of the characteristic villages in guangxi in the historical development of the characteristic villages across guangxi, due to differences in ethnic origin, geographical and natural environment, and social and economic development conditions, these villages have formed their own distinct traditional ethnic cultures, which are contained in their residential buildings, food, clothing, production methods and life styles, among other aspects. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 76 published by scholink inc. existence of traditional ethnic cultures is the foundation for the generation and continuation of the villagers’ sense of happiness, satisfaction, locality and settlement, and it is also the basis for the realization of rural revitalization. therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to and give full play to the role of traditional ethnic cultures in the revitalization of characteristic villages in guangxi. based on these analyses, this paper puts forward the viewpoint on activating the ethnic cultures of the characteristic villages in guangxi, which mainly includes understandings at three levels. first, the excellent traditional ethnic cultures of the characteristic villages shall be presented in the actually daily production and life of the villagers, and shall neither be put on the shelf to become a museum-style display nor be showcased only in major ethnic festivals of villages. only when the excellent traditional ethnic cultures are deeply rooted in, generated from, and manifested across the lives of villagers, the ethnic cultural tourism, and the development of agricultural industrialization, may they become a dynamic and sustainable endogenous driving force for the revitalization of characteristic villages. second, the construction of characteristic villages is not simply to excavate and compile ethnic cultures, nor simply to protect and restore characteristic residential buildings. rather, it is to use the ethnic cultures contained in the villages as an element to develop the economy and promote the revitalization of villages and their people. in other words, there should be a mutually associating and promoting relationship between the construction of characteristic villages and the ethnic cultures of villages. in addition, now that ethnic cultures are regarded as an element in the construction of characteristic villages, it is necessary to highlight their distinctiveness by shaping individuality, building brands, and making differentiated strategies. only by deeply exploring and forming the uniqueness of characteristic villages from such aspects as the connotation, expression and industry development mode of ethnic cultures, may it be possible to fundamentally solve the problem that “characteristic villages has no characteristics”. third, the people of characteristic villages have created their ethnic cultures, while consuming such cultures. that is to say, the ethnic cultures of characteristic villages is not eternal, but is constantly enriched and changing with historical fluctuations, social and economic developments and their own evolvement laws. it is inadvisable to stick to all traditional ethnic cultures, which should be made into dynamic traditional ethnic cultures that adapt to the development of the times and satisfy the requirement of the construction and revitalization of characteristic villages. in addition, the government should strengthen macro-guidance to deliver a large-scale effect by forming “a long chain” or “connected blocks” between characteristic villages, so as to forge an overall atmosphere for ethnic cultural characteristics. 3.2 assemble cultural dissemination talents and promote the construction of guangxi’s characteristic villages in a coordinative manner the marxist proposition that talents are the decisive factor for economic and social development and come from the masses and other basic principles, as well as deng xiaoping’s incisive claim that “whether china’s affairs can be done well... the key lies in talents”, fully demonstrates that talents are the core and foundation of all activities. undoubtedly, talents are the key to the success or failure of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 77 published by scholink inc. construction of characteristic villages. since rural areas are less attractive than cities, the phenomenon of brain drain is serious. so, how to retain talents? how to attract talents to feed back to their hometown? this is the key to the construction of characteristic villages. although in the process of rural construction, cases are often seen that successful people donate and invest in their hometowns or scholars voluntarily join the construction of cultural hometowns after retirement, there is a lack of mature mechanisms for encouragement and motivation. such cases are just actions called by the nostalgia by chance. therefore, local government should make corresponding policies to establish a normalized mechanism for introducing and absorbing talents, so as to attract, encourage and motivate talents to return to and back-feed their hometowns by actively participating in the construction of characteristic villages. in particular, it is necessary to attract the cultural people, economic talents, technical backbones and highly respected retired people who have moved out from the countryside, so that they can become “new rural sages” in the construction of characteristic villages in guangxi. these talents are well familiar with the ethnic cultures of their hometowns, with profound insights into compiling, refining and remodeling the traditional ethnic cultures of their villages, while holding certain objective and scientific judgments on how the rural ethnic cultures can boost the economy and productivity. therefore, only by assembling the talents for the dissemination of ethnic cultures of villages, driver “new rural sages” to back-feed the villages, and cultivating the reserve force of the young-adult generation with the influence of “new rural sages”, may the effective and sustainable development of the construction of guangxi’s characteristic villages be truly promoted. of course, in a broad sense, talents should include the people of the characteristic villages, who are the creators, sharers, inheritors and disseminators of the ethnic minorities’ cultures of the characteristic villages. the villagers’ identification with their own ethnic cultures and the establishment of their cultural self-confidence can form the cultural consciousness of inheriting and disseminating their ethnic cultures, and is of great significance for the construction of characteristic villages. therefore, it is necessary to give full play to the strong power of the people in characteristic villages, so as to jointly create the revitalization of characteristic villages. in addition, during the construction of characteristic villages, the relationship between the development law of ethnic cultures and the economic interests should be properly processed. over recent years, in the context of the integrated development of culture and tourism, some villages have vigorously developed ethnic cultural tourism programs to glean economic benefits. in order to highlight their “characteristics” and attract the public’s attention or enhance the public’s sense of experience and interest, some villages have even added improper “ingredients” or “flavors” in their original simple and authentic traditional ethnic cultures. for example, some villages’ tourism projects simulate local ethnic wedding events by inviting tourists to perform their wedding customs together. male tourists are invited into the villages’ storied buildings to act as “bridegrooms” in “weddings”. in the “wedding festivity” section, such male tourists are forced to give the “brides” an amount of “meeting and greeting money”. this kind of off-odor wedding custom performance uses stimulating the senses of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 78 published by scholink inc. tourists as a gimmick, seriously deviating from the original intention of the folk custom display and misleading the public’s cognition and understanding of the village folk cultures. therefore, in the construction of characteristic villages, on the one hand, it is necessary to deeply excavate ethnic cultural resources and protect, develop and disseminate ethnic cultures in a scientific manner; on the other hand, when excavating ethnic cultural resources, it is necessary to pay attention to screening and selecting the ethnic cultures suitable for development and dissemination. the development and leverage of the traditional cultures of characteristic villages cannot be completely focused on the acquisition of profits for the purpose of realizing capital appreciation. otherwise, villages’ status, significance and value will be degraded in the hearts of the villagers, while the villagers’ respect and love for their own hometowns will also be destroyed. as a result, their original sense of security, belonging, cohesion and identity would be gradually replaced with the feelings of anxiety and loss. [9] 4. conclusion nowadays, rural revitalization is the pivot to china’s social and economic development. general secretary xi jinping emphasized: “rural revitalization requires not only shaping, but also building a soul.” the cultivation and construction of characteristic villages is an important initiative to implement the rural revitalization strategy. therefore, following the instructions of general secretary xi jinping, in the process of rural revitalization, we should deeply explore how to protect and inherit the ethnic cultures carried by the characteristic villages and retain the ethnic cultural memory, while innovating the ethnic cultures of the characteristic villages, mining and giving play to the tension of ethnic cultures, and creating a characteristic village industry chain. of course, the premise of building characteristic villages properly must be in-depth investigations, so as to objectively, comprehensively and deeply explore ethnic cultural resources; and in turn, ethnic cultural resources shall be integrated, outstanding traditional ethnic cultural characteristics be refined, and the spirit and connotation of ethnic cultures reshaped. in this way, the dissemination of unique ethnic cultures will boost the development of such villages’ advantageous industries. making and implementing policies according to the villages’ local conditions would help truly realize the revitalization of characteristic villages in guangxi! references cao, c. h. (2018). obstructive factors and countermeasures for rural revitalization in the current frontier ethnic areas. guangxi nationalities research, (4), 115-122. economic development department of the national ethnic affairs commission. (2014). research on the experience in protection and development of chinese minority characteristic villages. beijing: nationalities publishing house. huang, c. w. (2015). from villages’ sacrificial ceremonies to statutory nationality festivals: the changes and reconstruction of the wa nationality’s young crops festival in gengma, yunnan. journal of southwest university for nationalities (humanities and social sciences edition), (5), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 79 published by scholink inc. 48-52. liao, l. y. (2018). research on the innovation of rural governance mechanism in frontier ethnic areas from the perspective of rural revitalization. journal of northwest university for nationalities (philosophy and social sciences edition), (1), 6-12. li, z. b. (2016). construction of minority characteristic villages and the development of ethnic cultures. wuhan: hubei science and technology press. li, z. b. (2019). construction of minority characteristic villages and the development of ethnic cultures. wuhan: hubei science and technology press. ma, d. y. (2020). the relationship between cultural authenticity, locality attachment and tourism support: an empirical study from the perspective of ethnic tourism village residents. social scientist, (7), 51-56. zhong, x. s. (2019). analysis and optimization of resource allocation efficiency of tourism poverty alleviation in yao nationality characteristic villages of guangxi. social scientist, (3), 91-96. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 114 original paper study on the party’s sports practice and its contemporary value in the shanxi-gansu-ningxia border region during the yan’an period li yan 1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: june 19, 2023 accepted: august 15, 2023 online published: august 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p114 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p114 fund project 2022 xi’an fanyi university school-level project: “research on the sports thought and practice party’s in the shanxi-gansu-ningxia border area during the yan’an period” (project no.22b22);2023 regular project of shaanxi provincial sports bureau: “the value implications of ideological and political education on the spirit of beijing winter olympics and the path to realization” (project no. 2023530). abstract in order to improve the physical quality of the soldiers and civilians in the border areas, cultivate athletes on the battlefield, and improve the combat power of the army, border region party and government actively organized a series of sports practices for the soldiers and civilians in the border areas during the yan’an period, including mass sports, army sports, and school sports activities. it played a very important role in the defense of the red regime at that time. now reviewing the sports practice of the party during the yan’an period is of great significance for us to promote the construction of a strong sports country, realize the dream of a strong army, and promote the diplomacy of a great country with chinese characteristics. keywords yan’an period, shanxi-gansu-ningxia border area, sports practice 1. introduction since the establishment of the people’s republic of china for more than 70 years, the development of china’s sports has made great progress, one of the important reasons thanks to the development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 115 published by scholink inc. china’s sports is always in the implementation of the sports ideology of the party, and the party’s sports practice in the yan’an period is an important source of the party sports ideology, and in the new era we need to continue to dig out the party’s sports ideology and practice in the yan’an period, and actively explore its contemporary value. 2. overview of the historical background of the party’s sports practices in the yan’an period all fruits come from causes. the party practice of sports in the yan’an period had a profound historical background: in 1934, the wrong leadership of the party “leftist” adventurism directly led to the defeat of the red army in the fifth anti-occupation campaign. in order to get rid of the kuomintang reactionaries, the main force of the central red army was forced to carry out a strategic transfer and a long march. during the long march, the red army soldiers overcame many difficulties and broke through layer after layer of enemy encirclement. it was incredible that the red army soldiers could still insist on carrying out sports activities such as mountain climbing, running and gymnastics under such an extremely harsh environment. in october 1935, the red army finally arrived at the town of wuqi in northern shaanxi province, and established a revolutionary base. in july 1937, the war of resistance against the japanese invasion broke out in full force. the shaanxi-gansu-ningxia border region government, with yan’an as its general command center, fought an all-out anti-japanese war under the leadership of mao zedong and other central leaders. at this time, the kuomintang reactionaries imposed an economic blockade on the border areas, which made the already poor and backward border areas even worse, the border areas were backward in production, there were also occasional disasters, and the physical quality of soldiers and civilians was deteriorating. this situation had a serious impact on the fighting strength and daily life of the soldiers and civilians in the border areas. faced with this situation, the party and the border area government actively put forward measures to cope with it. in order to solve the problem of lack of supplies and insufficient food and clothing for the soldiers and civilians in the base area, the party and the border area government actively advocated the idea of “do-it-yourself”, and carried out a great production campaign, aiming at solving the problem of food and clothing for the soldiers and civilians in the base area. in the face of the base area military and civilian physique is weak, frail and sickly, the red army combat effectiveness is reduced, the party and the border government actively advocate the military and civilian participation in a variety of sports activities, which can not only enhance the physical fitness of the military and civilian population, reduce the expenses of the border area of the health care services, enrich the base area of the military and civilian life, but also for the war service. there existed a part of comrades in the army who liked to talk about military theories, thus neglecting the physical quality they used to revolutionize with the enemy, resulting in a serious phenomenon of weakness and without the spirit of a soldier’s fighting power. therefore, the party and the border region government proposed to actively organize and carry out various forms of sports activities in the base area, and encourage the military and civilians to participate in physical exercise, so as to achieve the effect of physical fitness, and to cultivate fit www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 116 published by scholink inc. children on the battlefield, to kill the enemy bravely on the battlefield, and finally to achieve victory in the war. under the crisis that the chinese nation might die at any time, sports, as a means to serve the war, was given a special historical mission and pushed onto the historical stage. it was against this historical background that the party launched a vigorous sports practice. 3. the main forms of sports practice carried out by the party in the yan’an period 3.1 carrying out mass sports activities the party central committee in yan’an 13 years period, in the base area carried out a vigorous construction campaign, so that the base area in the political, economic, cultural and other aspects of the rapid development of the party in the process, the party also attaches great importance to the work of sports, so that to yan’an as the center of the revolutionary base area of the mass sports in full swing, which not only enriches the mass of the material and cultural life, improves the level of health of the masses, and vigorously support the revolution. the leaders of the organs actively participated in sports activities. during the yan’an period, in addition to their busy daily work, the leaders of the central authorities also found time to actively participate in various sports activities. for example, mao zedong would actively participate in table tennis, swimming and other sports activities in his busy schedule; zhu de and he long liked to play basketball and volleyball. peng zhen and deng fa also often drive more cadres around them to go out of the office to actively engage in physical exercise after work. they swam in summer and skated in winter. yan’an period of material scarcity of the revolutionary war years, the active participation of leaders at all levels of the party central committee, so that the base of sports activities in full swing, which also objectively contributed greatly to the development of mass sports. the masses in rural areas actively participate in sports activities. in the yan’an period under the leadership of the party and the promotion of the border area government, the rural mass sports activities in the shanxi-gansu-ningxia border area have also been carried out, the mass activities are mainly based on traditional folk activities, reflecting the spirit of self-improvement of the nation. border area elderly, children and other rural people actively participate in sports activities, martial arts is one of the very important sports activities, due to the special revolutionary era, martial arts traditional folk sports combined with the needs of the war at that time, was given a new content. for example, martial arts, stone lifting, cavalry fighting, catching spies, night sentry and other martial arts games were widely spread in the rural areas of the border areas and were very popular among the masses, and these sports activities were of great significance to the enhancement of the masses’ physical health. enterprise workers actively engaged in sports activities. during the yan’an period, with the continuous development of the base area’s economy, by 1944 the number of factories in the border area exceeded 80, and the number of enterprise workers exceeded tens of thousands, who, in addition to their daily work and production, were actively engaged in various sports competitions. for example, they participated in the shaanxi-gansu-ningxia border region “august 1” games held in yan’an in 1937, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 117 published by scholink inc. and in 1942, the first military factory, guanghua printing factory, and electric factory sent teams to participate in the basketball, volleyball, swimming, and other sports in the yan’an “september 1” games. swimming and other sports. in addition, in order to better promote the border area enterprise workers to participate in sports activities, in november 1944, the shaanxi-gansu-ningxia border area cultural and educational conference adopted the “resolution on the development of cultural and educational work in factories,” which stipulates that the enterprise should strengthen the work of physical education, physical education and sports, and to encourage the staff to overcome all the difficulties, and actively participate in sports activities, and objectively promote the development of sports for employees of the enterprise flourished. in short, during the yan’an period, under the leadership of the party and the border region government, the mass sports activities in the border region were carried out vigorously and in full swing, greatly promoting the development of sports in the base areas. 3.2 to carry out military sports activities shaanxi-gansu-ningxia border area during the yan’an period, in order to improve the physical quality of the red army, enhance the combat effectiveness of the army, under the leadership of the party, the army organized a series of military sports activities, military sports activities are flourishing, and has become an important part of the daily life of the red army. in order to better guarantee the army to carry out sports activities, under the leadership of the party, actively organize and establish all kinds of sports institutions. at that time, the more influential sports organizations mainly included: the yan’an youth club established in may 1937, the establishment of the club, directly promoting the enthusiasm of the youth of yan’an to participate in military sports; in 1938 and 1940, respectively, the shaanxi, gansu, ningxia and border region sports committee was established, yan’an sports association, it is worth mentioning that comrade li fuchun, who was the deputy director of the organization department of the central committee of the party at that time, also acted as honorary president of the yan’an sports association, and he attached great importance to the military sports. honorary president, he attaches great importance to military sports activities, and has repeatedly emphasized the importance of military sports; established in 1942, yan’an sports association, comrade zhu de as honorary president, he has repeatedly in-depth inspection of the first line of the army to carry out sports, and actively participate in military sports activities. at the same time, in the grass-roots units have also set up a military sports organizations, responsible for the unit’s daily military sports activities. from this point of view, the party and state leaders have elevated the development of military sports to a strategic level, and regarded military sports as an important part of the war of resistance. after the establishment of various sports organizations, various types of military sports clubs in the border area were also opened one after another. border area soldiers and civilians enthusiastically participate in the rich and colorful military sports, military sports constantly to the climax. among the more influential are the 1938 “may day” sports and cultural games; 1939 may fourth youth games; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 118 published by scholink inc. 1940 “september 18th games”; 1942, 1943 national defense youth games and military games. these games, the addition of many military projects, the soviet military and civilians to participate in the military sports games to promote the healthy development of military sports in yan’an. in addition, in addition to participating in all kinds of military sports games, the army sports program is rich and diverse. in addition to military sports combined with military training to carry out shooting, assassination, crossing the log bridge, throwing grenades, armed river crossing, crossing obstacles, etc., in their leisure time, through the sports organization lenin room (club) to carry out basketball, single bar, double bar playing swing and other activities. 3.3 conducting school sports activities yan’an period, the party and the border area government attaches great importance to the cause of education, abolished the original feudal slavery of the education system, instead of the establishment of a scientific, popular new democratic education system, in the party and the border area government’s attention, based on a variety of specifications of the school have been established, after checking the history, the eve of the war in shaanxi and gannings border area only 320 elementary school, more than 5000 students, to the fall of 1940, primary schools developed to 1340, the primary school, the primary school, the primary school, the elementary school, the elementary school, the elementary school, the elementary school, the primary school, the primary school, the primary school. by the fall of 1940, elementary school had grown to 1340, with 41,260 students. the development of education laid the foundation for the development of school sports activities. during the yan’an period, the party advocated the education concept of all-round development of morality, intelligence and physical fitness in school education, and, according to the war situation, put forward the strategy of combining sports and military, and combining sports and labor in a timely manner, and actively carried out school sports activities in schools. due to the lack of materials in the war era, in the spirit of “saving every coin for the war and revolutionary cause”, teachers and students used their brains diligently, for example, twisting worn-out cotton into a ball to serve as a leather ball; making full use of the local terrain to engage in some fun sports such as climbing mountains, crossing the water, etc., to actively create the conditions for sports activities. in addition, in order to make all students participate in sports activities as much as possible, the government of the border area issued relevant regulations, which made clear requirements and regulations for sports courses, sports equipment, etc. for example, the border area government stipulated that the weekly time for participating in sports activities was different for each age group, with no less than 150 minutes of physical education per week for junior high school and elementary school students and no less than 180 minutes for senior high school students, and also pointed out that children should participate in physical education according to their own needs. it also pointed out that physical education activities should be conducted according to the children’s own physical condition. during the yan’an period, with the importance attached by the party and the border region government, school sports in the base area were better developed. sports workers, combining teaching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 119 published by scholink inc. with practice, i.e., linking teaching with anti-japanese, organized students to carry out some sports activities that were both fun and political, such as running to catch traitors and fighting ghosts. such as running to catch traitors, fighting ghosts, looking for leaders, through the enemy blockade line. night sentry, etc. these sports activities not only exercise the physical quality of students, but also enhance their communist beliefs, greatly promoting the development of school sports. in conclusion, under the high attention of the party and the government during the yan’an period, school sports were well developed both at the institutional level and at the practical level, cultivating reserve forces for the anti-japanese war. 4. the contemporary value of the party’s sports practice in the yan’an period 4.1 advocating the concept of “sports for all” and promoting the construction of a strong sports country since the 18th national congress of the party, general secretary xi jinping has mentioned the idea of people-centeredness many times on various occasions, which is the party’s new ideology of governing the country. since the reform and opening up, the state council has issued the “outline of the national fitness program” and the “olympic competition program”, which have promoted the development of china’s sports industry, and in this regard, our country has become one of the major sports countries, so that china’s sports industry has stepped into a completely new stage of development. now that socialism with chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the party has put forward new requirements for the development of china’s sports, that is, to promote china’s development from a big sports country to a strong sports country. in the report of the 19th party congress, it is pointed out that “widely carry out national fitness activities and accelerate the construction of a strong sports country”, and then general secretary xi jinping has put forward new ideas and requirements for accelerating the construction of a strong sports country on different occasions. general secretary xi jinping emphasized that to build a strong sports country, party committees and governments at all levels must adhere to the people-centered ideology, always take the people as the main body of the development of sports, and take meeting the people’s fitness needs and promoting the overall development of people as the starting point and ending point of sports work. the new concept put forward by general secretary xi jinping is in the same vein as the party’s idea of “sports for all” during the yan’an period, when the party always attached great importance to the people’s physical health, and repeatedly instructed the party to develop “sports for all” and strengthen the people’s physique. today, we are promoting the construction of a strong sports country in the process, we must protect the people’s right to sports, increase the development of “sports for all”, adhere to the sports is for the people, party committees and governments at all levels to actively organize the military and civilian to carry out various types of sports and games, in order to better adhere to the development of sports for the people, and to promote china’s development towards a strong sports country. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 120 published by scholink inc. 4.2 develop the idea of “sports to protect the country” and promote the road to a strong military with chinese characteristics xi jinping’s strategic thought of strengthening the military with chinese characteristics in the new era takes the strengthening of the military as the main focus, leading the construction of national defense and military construction. throughout all periods of china’s history, building a strong people’s army has always been the unremitting pursuit of our party. in order to build a strong people’s army, the party has timely adjusted its strategic program according to changes in the situation and tasks, leading our army to move forward. xi jinping pointed out that “the party’s goal of a strong army in the new era is to build a people’s army that listens to the party’s command, is capable of winning battles and has an excellent style of work, and to build the people’s army into a world-class army.” listening to the party’s command, being capable of winning battles, and having an excellent style of work are the party’s goal of a strong army in the new era, and the three are closely linked and inseparable. among them, being able to fight and win battles is the key to a strong army, which requires strengthening the ability to lead soldiers into battle and training the army in daily training to enhance the combat effectiveness of the army. our party has consistently emphasized the role of military sports in enhancing the army’s combat effectiveness. general secretary xi jinping proposed at the opening ceremony of the 7th world military games that “sports are an important symbol of social development and human progress, and an important part of humanistic exchanges. the military and sports have a natural connection, shooting, marathon and many other sports programs have their origins in the military. military sports can strengthen the physical fitness of officers and soldiers, unite military morale, display the image of the military, and promote military exchanges.” this is in line with the party’s idea of “sports for the defense of the country” during the yan’an period, when the party believed that the military should pay attention to the development of military sports, and that soldiers must strengthen their sports training, so that they can improve the combat effectiveness of the military and the military can take up the important task of defending the country. today, under the guidance of xi jinping’s idea of a strong army with chinese characteristics in the new era, china is taking a road of a strong army with chinese characteristics. history is always a source of inspiration. under the specific historical conditions of the yan’an period, the party put forward the idea of “sports and defense of the country”, which strengthened the physical fitness of soldiers and improved the combat effectiveness of the army, and played a very positive role in the revolutionary war period. this provides a useful reference for promoting the road of strengthening the army with chinese characteristics in the new era. in the new era in the army training, we must play the role of military sports in strengthening the army, and actively organize military sports training and military sports games for soldiers, but also take the world military games as an opportunity to increase the training of equestrian, shooting, track and field, orienteering and cross-country, water rescue, parachute jumping and other projects, to effectively strengthen the military physical fitness and enhance the army’s combat www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 121 published by scholink inc. effectiveness, and promote the road of strengthening the army with chinese characteristics. it is worth mentioning that in the 7th world military games held in wuhan before, china’s army sports delegation won 133 gold medals in the current military games, ranked first in the gold medal list, creating the best record in the history of china’s participation in the military games, and for the rest of the world to show the pursuit of excellence in the chinese military, not afraid of pain, not afraid of death of the glorious tradition. xi jinping, chairman of the central military commission, signed a general order, commendation to participate in the seventh world military games athletes, coaches, commendation order pointed out that: “your tenacious and outstanding performance, centrally shows that our military sports team is a party command, can win battles, excellent style of hard team, fully demonstrated the reform of the army’s new image of the new changes in the new style! “the commendation order calls:” the whole army troops and the general officers and soldiers should learn from the athletes and coaches who participated in the 7th world military games, to realize the party’s goal of strengthening the army in the new era, and to build the people’s army into a world-class army in all respects!” this points out the direction for the construction and development of china’s army in the new era, that is, the development of military sports, improve the sense of mission and sense of responsibility of military personnel, and help the road of strong army with chinese characteristics. 4.3 developing the idea of “competitive sports” to promote the diplomacy of a great power with chinese characteristics sports play a very important role in promoting the diplomacy of a great power with chinese characteristics. after decades of efforts, china has become a major sports country, and sports play a pivotal role in the international sports arena. china has always emphasized the important role of sports in promoting diplomacy. as early as during the socialist construction period, the party put forward the idea that through the development of competitive sports and sports exchanges, we could strengthen our ties with other countries, enhance exchanges and cooperation with other countries, and promote the development of our diplomatic cause. today, we stand on a new historical starting point, we need to continue to carry forward the yan’an period of the party in the masses to develop “competitive sports” ideas, not long ago, the attention of millions of people in the 24th winter olympic games held in beijing, since then beijing became the first in history to run the summer and winter games at the same time the city of the double, in the winter olympic games, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes, the chinese athletes and the chinese athletes. at the winter olympics, chinese athletes galloped on the sports field, fought hard, and made unremitting efforts to achieve good results, showing the world china’s strength and china’s image. xi jinping pointed out: “the goal of the olympic movement is to realize the comprehensive development of human beings. we should follow the trend of the times, adhere to the common values of all mankind of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom, promote exchanges and mutual understanding of different civilizations, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 122 published by scholink inc. and jointly build a community of human destiny.” participation in competitive sports through participation in the olympic games is an important means of exchange and cooperation among different countries and peoples of the world. therefore, we should make full use of the opportunity of organizing and participating in all kinds of large-scale sports events to tell a good chinese story to the people of the world. at the same time, we should understand and learn from the outstanding cultures of the world. as the slogan of the beijing winter olympics says, “together to the future”, china is willing to work with the rest of the world to move forward to a better future, and to provide strong impetus for the promotion of great power diplomacy with chinese characteristics. 5. conclusion in the era of extreme material scarcity, sports in the border areas were quite fruitful. the main reason for this is that the party centralized and unified leadership of sports, always made the people as the center and insisted on sports for the people. on this basis, the party also creatively utilized the educative function of sports to raise the ideological awareness of the military and the people. these successful experiences provide useful reference for china in the new era to promote the construction of a strong sports nation and the road to a strong military with chinese characteristics. reference cai, c. m., guo, f. b., & shi, c. z. (2023). development history, experience and prospect of military sports under the leadership of the party. sports culture guide, 2023(06), 17-24. chang, b. r. (2021). characteristics and contemporary value of red sports in yan’an period. sports culture guide, 2021(04), 28-34. cui, l. q., & zhao, z. j. (2023). appearance logic, essential characteristics and world significance of chinese-style modernized sports road. journal of wuhan institute of physical education, 57(07), 5-14. dong, z., & whu, x. l. (2023). development of “health first” ideology in 100 years of the founding of the party: history, characteristics and implications. sports science research, 27(01), 23-31+64. ma, j. (2021). sports practice of the party in yan’an during the anti-japanese war[j]. journal of capital institute of physical education, 33(05), 575-580. yang, f., &shi, j. (2022). review of red sports research in china in the past ten years. journal of yan’an university (social science edition), 44(02), 118-122. yang, f., &yang, x. (2022). development history, characteristics and new era revelation of red sports in china. sports culture guide, 2022(09), 29-35. zhai, x. q. (2016). the historical value of sports development in the shanxi-gansu-ningxia border area and its enlightenment to contemporary sports development. journal of nanjing institute of physical education (social science edition), 30(04), 44-53. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 123 published by scholink inc. zhang, m. m., &liu, y. q. (2023). on the innovative development of people’s sports in the advancement of chinese-style modernization in the new era [j/ol]. journal of china university of mining and technology (social science edition), 1-13(2023-08-26). zhu, z. l. (2022). red sports construction practice and its historical experience in the shanxi-gansu-ningxia border area. journal of beijing sport university, 45(06), 152-160. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper impact of u.s. trade and economic policies on sino-american bilateral relations luxi zhang1 1 the university of glasgow, glasgow, united kingdom received: september 09, 2024 accepted: october 24, 2024 online published: november 05, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p1 abstract since the trump administration initiated the u.s.-china trade war in 2018, it has pushed the u.s. to adopt stronger economic and trade policy instruments against china through tariff policies, exacerbating the trend of economic decoupling between china and the u.s. and seriously affecting the normal operation of the global supply chain; the biden administration continued some of the tariff measures against china, and was affected by the political contributions to 5g communication high-tech enterprises, semiconductors and other industries during the biden period, and joined forces with european the biden administration has continued some of the tariff measures against china, influenced by political contributions to 5g communications, semiconductors, and other industries during the biden years, and has joined with european allies to push for the blockade of china's high-tech fields, and has imposed a technological embargo on china, mainly in the semiconductor and new energy fields. within the framework of realism, the article focuses on the number of u.s. lists of chinese entities and the sanctions and tariff increases imposed on chinese companies, which have further led to the deterioration of bilateral relations between the u.s. and china. keywords bilateral relations, tariffs, corporate sanctions, import-export trade 1. introduction there have been many academic overviews of the strategic competition between the united states and china and many analyses of the causes, means, and corresponding impacts of u.s. economic and trade policies. however, the mechanism of influence of u.s. economic and trade policies affecting the u.s.-china bilateral relationship is still a question worth exploring. through a realist framework, this study deeply analyses the extensive impacts of the u.s. economic and trade policies implemented towards china during different periods of trump and biden on bilateral relations, especially in terms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 2 protecting domestic industries and coping with the rise of chinese technology. after china acceded to the world trade organization wto in 2001, export-oriented growth in the 2000s after the rapid surge in its share of the u.s. economy from 12% in 2000 to 40% in 2010, the rapid development of china's trade with the u.s. has brought a particular threat to the u.s. in order to safeguard the status of the world's economic power to make a series of measures to curb the development of china's economy, which is the fundamental cause of the u.s. and china's technological competition initiated by trump and biden. the fundamental reason for the launch of technological competition in the trump administration is that this measure is mainly reflected in the imposition of tariffs. the trump administration launched a tariff war against china in march 2018. in mid-june and late august, the u.s. imposed 25% tariffs on chinese exports worth $34 billion and $16 billion, respectively, and china imposed the same tariffs on u.s. exports, which led to a more severe stage of the trade war between china and the u.s. (steinbock, 2018). the united states launched its second 301 investigation into china in the 21st century in august 2017, accusing china of practices that undermine u.s. intellectual property rights, innovation, and technological development. the u.s. released its 301-investigation report in march 2018, proposing punitive tariffs on more than $60 billions of chinese imports involving china's high-tech industries (qu et al., 2018). expanding from what began as national security reviews to intellectual property and technology, these bilateral frictions will expand if the trump administration continues to depart from the regular trade regime (steinbock, 2018). in addition to tariffs, the trump administration has included major chinese firms on the entity list in order to restrict transactions between u.s. and chinese firms, a u.s. move that could affect the operation of regular global supply chains as the firms covered by the entity list are essential in global production networks and supply chains (zeng et al., 2022; peng, 2024). during the biden administration, the competition with china escalated again, with biden increasing u.s. technological innovation by boosting domestic innovation and manufacturing capacity and the u.s. senate passing the american innovation and competitiveness act (aica), which provides $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing, and allocates $19.6 billion over five years to support research and development in critical areas such as ai, 5g technology, and robotics, and authorizes sanctions against chinese entities and personnel. the implementation of u.s. economic and trade policies toward china has further deteriorated u.s.-china bilateral relations by authorizing sanctions on relevant chinese entities, companies, and personnel (jiangyu & hewett, 2021). secondly, the u.s. economic and trade policies towards china have led to tense political relations between china and the u.s. and caused disruptions in the global international trade order. this study will analyze the background of the u.s. economic and trade policy towards china, the primary rationale for the implementation of the economic and trade policy, and the impact of the economic and trade policy on the u.s.-china bilateral relations through a realist framework. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 3 2. literature review this study will analyse the main background of the u.s.-china economic and trade war, the main areas involved, and the impact on u.s.-china bilateral relations. this study explores the impact of u.s. economic and trade policies on china-u.s. bilateral relations, especially the evolution of china-u.s. bilateral relations in implementing u.s. economic and trade policies towards china. qin (2019) points out that since july 2018, the united states has imposed additional tariffs on most chinese imports, and the trade war between china and the united states has formally erupted, with the core contradictions mainly on issues such as forced technology transfer. steinbock (2018) also emphasized that china's rapid economic growth has become the main target of the u.s. trade war. the u.s. sanctions against china's semiconductors reflect a response to the challenge to u.s. global influence (peng, 2024), the essence of which reflects hegemonic behaviour. as the global situation is evolving, the clash between the u.s. and china in the science and technology trade war will not only impact the relationship between the two countries. however, it will also trigger a protracted global recession and a new geopolitical confrontation. this study will analyse the background of the u.s.-china economic and trade war, the main areas involved, and the impact on u.s.-china bilateral relations. 2.1 background of sino-us economic and trade war the root cause of the u.s. economic and trade policy towards china is that china has opened its market to the outside world, and the rise of chinese trade has affected the position of the u.s. hegemonic power. yan (2019) points out that as china's influence grows in the global market, the economic and trade competition between the u.s. and china is becoming increasingly intense. the u.s. sees the rise of china as a threat to its global leadership and has countered china's influence by forming alliances with other countries. chukwuma et al. (2024) this study examines the root causes of the trade war between the u.s. and china and argues that structural changes in the globalization of the economy facilitated by the diffusion of technology have impacted the internal structure of the united states. olteanu (2022) starts from offensive realism and argues that 5g communication technology has become critical in us-china relations. thus, u.s. economic and trade policies are implemented to protect its hegemonic position. song (2023) further supports this argument by demonstrating that the u.s. has shifted its strategy from maintaining relative competition with china to striving for absolute technological superiority. this shift is evident in u.s. policy decisions, sanctions against chinese companies, and cybersecurity measures to restrict china's development in the 5g sector. qin (2019) emphasizes that semiconductors are critical to the u.s. military's global influence and that the rapid development of china's semiconductor industry in recent years poses a potential threat to the u.s. national security and economic stability, which has led to u.s. adoption of economic and trade policies to maintain the country's strategic advantage and thus contain china's technological progress. 2.2 the impact of sino-us technology trade war on bilateral political relations the u.s.-china trade and s&t conflict and the implementation of u.s. policies on the u.s.-china economy and trade in recent years have become a hot topic in the academic field (cigna, 2022; zeng, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 4 2022). cigna et al. (2022) analysed data on monthly product-level information on u.s. imports from 30 countries from 2016 to may 2019, focusing on the impact of the policy measures taken by the trump administration on u.s.-china bilateral trade in the third quarter of 2018. the results of this study indicate that the implementation of tariff measures has a significant negative impact on u.s. imports from china, thus leading to the deterioration of the bilateral relationship between china and the united states. in addition, zeng et al. (2022) further discuss other restrictive measures besides tariffs, and this study emphasizes that the u.s. has included chinese firms in the list of entities to restrict their participation in the global production network and that this u.s. measure has also had a particular impact on the u.s.-china bilateral relationship. the u.s.-china technology war has further escalated political tensions between the two countries. competition in science and technology is not limited to the economic sphere of influence; it also involves national security, military technology, and other vital issues. steinbock (2018) shows that goldman sachs initially estimated that china would overtake the u.s. in the late 2020s and that continued u.s.-china trade tensions could lead to a severe global recession. as yao (2018) pointed out, the u.s.-china trade war has disrupted the global trade order and negatively impacted global integration. zeng et al. (2022) study measured the tension between china and the u.s. using the mainstream newspaper text search methodology. the negative sentiment towards the bilateral relationship and whether the two countries are in a military alliance is an important variable that affects the level of trade and the potential for trade conflict. to summarize, the u.s.-china economic and trade conflict stems from the rapid rise of china's economic and technological capabilities, as well as china's global market influence. in response, the u.s. has implemented economic and trade policies against china, such as tariffs, sanctions, and technological restrictions, designed to maintain u.s. global leadership and, thus, its hegemonic position. the u.s.-china trade conflict and technological rivalry are primarily in the core areas of 5g and semiconductors, where both countries compete for economic dominance and national security advantages. the technology trade war has exacerbated tensions beyond the economic sphere, increasing political and military friction. the imposition of tariffs and restrictive measures has not only worsened bilateral relations but also raised concerns about the stability of the global economic order. u.s. efforts to contain china's technological advances have led to an increasingly polarized international landscape. 3. methodology 3.1 introduction the u.s.-china bilateral relationship is a central issue in current international relations. the united states has implemented several rounds of tariff measures against china in recent years, especially since the trade war in 2018. these tariff measures have affected not only the import and export trade between the united states and china but also enterprises to a certain extent, especially the sanctions against chinese enterprises. in this context, this paper is of practical significance in studying the u.s. tariff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 5 policy on china, the number of entity lists, and the changes in the bilateral relationship between the u.s. and china. this section summarizes the main parts: research design, data collection methodology, data analysis and conclusion. the research methodology in this chapter aims to study the underlying causes, central areas, and impact on the sino-us political relations in the science and technology trade war between china and the united states. 3.2 research design this study aims to analyse the impact of u.s. economic and trade policies on china's bilateral relations with the united states. the study analyses three main aspects: bilateral trade between china and the united states, the number of sanctions imposed by the united states on chinese companies, and the impact of tariff policies on bilateral relations between china and the united states. the study adopts the perspective of realism theory in international political economy, emphasizing national interests and competition for wealth, and uses realism theory to explore the bilateral relations and games between great powers. on the other hand, economic and trade policy directly affects bilateral trade relations through export control, tariff measures and other measures, and the u.s. seeks to increase its market share by controlling the dominant power in the international market to obtain more economic benefits. , especially in the competition for dominance in critical technologies and industrial chains. according to mearsheimer's (2003) theory of offensive realism is argued that the anarchic nature of the international system leads to a power struggle between great powers to secure their survival, especially between rising and hegemonic powers. in the tragedy of great power politics, when the rise of one great power threatens the dominance of the other, conflict between the two countries becomes inevitable. for example, the rivalry between the united states and china is a typical struggle for dominance in east asia, where the united states tries to prevent china from becoming the dominant power, and economic and trade relations react to the main battleground between the two countries' industries and technologies. in order to cope with the strategic competition between china and the united states, the economic and trade policies formulated by the u.s. industrial leaders have a direct impact on the global economic situation, especially in the case of limited global resources, the need to maintain u.s. hegemony, which also reflects the hegemonic and protectionist behaviour of the u.s. up in the 21st century the u.s. considers china as the most prominent rising country, especially in the trump era, especially obvious, and trump regards china as a significant competitor in the global strategic competition, the u.s. formulates policies to prevent china from becoming the dominant force in east asia. trump sees china as the leading competitor in the global strategic competition, and the root cause of the u.s. policy is to win the strategic competition between china and the u.s., such as figure 1: the interrelationship between hegemonic countries and rising countries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 6 figure 1. the interrelationship between hegemonic power and rising power the study is based on the following three core hypotheses: hypothesis 1: the decrease in u.s.-china bilateral trade and increased corporate sanctions worsen the u.s.-china bilateral relationship. hypothesis 2: u.s. export restrictions on crucial technology products (e.g., chips, semiconductors) in china's supply chain directly affect the operations of chinese high-tech firms and deteriorate u.s.-china bilateral relations. hypothesis 3: the policies formulated by the u.s. government during different periods, although different, have led to the deterioration of the bilateral relationship between china and the u.s., especially during the trump and biden administrations. 3.3 data collection methods this study will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect relevant data on the bilateral trade volume between china and the u.s., as well as the number of u.s. enterprises sanctioned against chinese entities, and the monthly scores of the bilateral relationship between china and the u.s. for the period from 2017 to 2024. first of all, from the official databases of the u.s. department of commerce and the department of the treasury, we collect the amount of u.s.-china export trade, the amount of import trade and the number of trade balances in millions of u.s. dollars, such as table1: number of new u.s. export controls on china per year, 2018 to 2021 and table2: u.s. trade in goods with china (from 2016 to 2024) . at the same time, in addition to the data related to the amount of trade between china and the u.s., in order to increase the accuracy of the study, this study also collects data related to the amount of trade between china and the u.s., which are collected by the u.s. department of commerce bureau of industry and security the number of sanctions against chinese companies issued and counted from 2016-2021. in addition, u.s. tariffs on china are also used as the dependent variable. in addition, based on yan and zhou's (2004) event data analysis method, this paper assigns values to positive and negative bilateral events between the u.s. and china respectively to quantify the impact of these events on bilateral relations, correlates major events with trade volume and sanctions data each year, and analyzes the 2017-2024 u.s.-china relations in the china-power relations score table of the institute of international relations at tsinghua university. we extracted the scores from the china-u.s. relations score table of the institute of international relations at tsinghua university for the years 2017-2024 and calculated the annual average score of china-u.s. relations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 7 table 1. number of new u.s. export controls on china per year, 2018 to 2021 year annual additions to u.s. export controls on china 2018 57 2019 153 2020 241 2021 83 2022 144 2023 155 2024 53 source: bureau of industry and security. url:https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/11/ 2024-07760/addition-of-entities-to-and-revision-of-entry-on-the-entity-list 3.4 data analysis methods this study first investigates whether there is a linear relationship between the values of the total import and export trade of china and the united states and the bilateral relationship between china and the united states by establishing a linear regression model for the annual average scores of the total import and export trade of china and the united states and the bilateral relationship of china and the united states for the period of 2017-2023, which the following regression linear equation can express: (1) where y denotes the bilateral relationship between china and the united states, x denotes the total export and import trade between china and the united states, αas the regression coefficient, and β for denotes the expected amount of change in the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. in addition to the total export trade between china and the united states having an impact on the bilateral relationship between china and the united states, this study investigates whether there is a linear relationship between the united states and the united states through the establishment of a linear regression model of the number of u.s. lists of controls on china and the annual average score of the bilateral relationship between china and the united states, where the number of lists of controls is the independent variable, and the annual average of the bilateral relationship between china and the united states as the dependent variable, which can be expressed as the following equation: (2) where y' denotes the bilateral relationship between china and the united states, x' is the number of u.s. control lists of chinese entities, as regression coefficients, and for denotes the expected change in the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. meanwhile, pearson correlation coefficient was calculated by correlation analysis to measure the correlation coefficients between the total amount of import and export trade between china and the united states, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 8 the number of control lists, and the annual average score of the bilateral relationship between china and the united states, in order to test the by-effects of the model, the study also simultaneously assesses the validity of the model through the coefficients of determination of the regression model. table 2. u.s. trade in goods with china (from 2016 to 2024) year exports imports total exports and imports 2017 129,997.2 505,165.1 635162.3 2018 120,281.2 538,514.2 658795.4 2019 106,481.2 449,110.7 555591.9 2020 124,581.5 432,548.0 557129.5 2021 151,439.4 504,246.3 655685.7 2022 154,125.4 536,259.3 690384.7 2023 147,777.8 426,885.0 574662.8 2024 81,469.8 239,246.9 320716.7 source: united states census bureau. "trade in goods with china." table 3. u.s. trade in goods with china (from 2016 to 2024) year average annual score of china-us relations 2017 -1.43 2018 -3.69 2019 -6.03 2020 -7.63 2021 -7.99 2022 -7.96 2023 -7.5 2024 -6.72 source: institute of international relations, tsinghua university. url:http://www.tuiir.tsinghua.edu.cn /info/1145/6141.htm 3.5 case study this study focuses on the trump term (2017-2021) and the biden term (2021-present) to compare and analyze the changes in economic policies towards china, involving the measures of u.s. economic and trade policies such as tariffs, technological restrictions, and economic coercion in the u.s.-china strategic relationship. during the trump presidency, u.s. tariffs on china have been increasing, and the target of taxation has been expanded from high-tech chinese products to all chinese products entering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 9 the united states. trump's tariffs against china have also triggered higher tariffs on the chinese side. in addition to tariffs, the trump administration has also targeted its main blow at high-tech companies such as huawei and zte, trying to block the supply chain of chinese high-tech companies through a series of export controls. moreover, in the trade negotiations, trump administration officials constantly exerted pressure, and the chinese side also made a series of countermeasures in response, directly leading to further tensions in the bilateral relationship between china and the united states. moreover, the biden period adopted a different economic and trade strategy policy, mainly restricting emerging technologies such as semiconductors and new energy vehicles. this led to the instability of the supply chain of related technology industries, ultimately leading to further sino-us bilateral relations. after trump took office, he proposed a crackdown policy against china's trade based on a realist framework. in august 2017, the trump administration signed an executive memorandum and conducted a 301 investigation (tong & ju, 2021). in march 2018 published the section 301 investigation of china's trade practices, accusing the chinese government of actions such as technology transfer and intellectual property rights, as shown in table 2: u.s. trade in goods with china (from 2016 to 2024), which decreased from a total of 658,795.4 million dollars in u.s.-china import and export trade in 2018 to 555,591.9 million dollars in 2019, indicating that the implementation of section 301 has rapidly reduced the volume of trade between china and the united states. the tariffs on steel and aluminium imposed by the trump administration in march 2018 led to the gradual expansion of the trade conflict between china and the united states, thus worsening the bilateral relationship between china and the united states; the tariffs imposed by the united states on chinese imports came into effect on september 1, 2018, a move that also had a particularly negative impact on the local u.s. agricultural industry. trump formally signed a pota with china's vice premier and chief trade negotiator in the january 2020 agreement. the move marked the announcement of a ceasefire in the 18-month trade war between the two sides, a conflict that had posed a significant and unprecedented threat to the global economy (fattah, 2023). during the biden administration, the united states has taken a series of economic coercive measures against china, especially export restrictions through the u.s. department of commerce, to curb china's development in high technology and protect the u.s. technological leadership. first, through the bureau of industry and security (bis), the u.s. department of commerce has further increased export restrictions on products and technologies related to china's high-tech industries, mainly semiconductors and artificial intelligence. the biden administration's efforts to provide the u.s. with a legitimate framework to respond to china's trade disputes through the wto appeals mechanism will be a powerful tool for the u.s. to counter china's policies. the u.s.'s rejoining the comprehensive and progressive trans-pacific partnership (cptpp) or pushing forward with the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (ttip) may further strengthen its influence over global trade rules ( tong & ju, 2021); emerging high-standard trade agreements such as the cptpp may require china to make more reforms in the areas of competitive neutrality between soes and private enterprises, openness in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 10 government procurement, and labour rights. in summary, biden's tenure has been characterized by more robust controls on semiconductor and new energy vehicle supply chains and focusing on "de-risking" strategic objectives with allies in europe and japan. it is trying to create a new exclusive "alliance" to compete with china. compared with the trump administration, biden's presidency in the high-tech field of technology and export control is more strengthened, to a certain extent, to limit china's industrial upgrading. china-us relations have remained the same since trump's term. in summary, the trump and biden administrations have differences in their economic and trade policies regarding china. however, they are generally consistent in the direction of strategic competition, both based on maximizing national interests. for example, the high tariffs and supply chain reorganization policies implemented during the trump era (steinbock, 2018) and the sanctions imposed on related technology companies and personnel during the biden administration (jiangyu & hewett, 2021); in summary, the implementation of economic and trade policies towards china during the trump and biden administrations has further deteriorated the bilateral relationship between china and the united states. 4. results figure 2. average value of china-us relations shows that the annual average score of china-us bilateral relations decreased from 2017 to 2023 and reached its lowest value of -7.99 in 2021; however, the average score of china-us bilateral relations slowed down from 2022 to 2023 but remained at a lower value. figure 2. average value of china-us relations from figure3. total imports and exports (us $million), the total trade between china and the united states increased from 2017-2018, and there is a decreasing trend from 2018 to 2019, but it is still an increasing trend from 2020 to 2022 and reaches the maximum value of the total trade in 2022 at 690,384.7 million dollars in 2022; after 2022 it starts to decline again. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 11 figure 3. total imports and exports (us $million) from figure 4. scatter plot about total imports and exports (u.s. $million) against the average value of china-us relations. this linear regression equation indicates that an increase of one million dollars in the total trade volume of the u.s. and china will raise the average value of china-us relations by 0.000007 units. in addition, about 2.09% of the variability in the mean value of the sino-u.s. relationship can be explained by the total amount of imports and exports, indicating that the total amount does not contribute significantly to the change in the mean value of the bilateral relationship. the total trade between china and the u.s. shows a weak positive correlation with the annual mean of bilateral relations. r^2 is 0.145 from figure 4, which indicates that this linear relationship is hardly helpful in explaining the changes in the sino-u.s. relationship. figure 4. scatter plot about total imports and exports (us $million) against average value of china-us relations through the graph of figure5. number of us control lists on china against average value of china relations each year, we can see that the linear regression equation of the number of us control lists on china and the average value of china-us bilateral scores each year is -5.2406. through this through this linear equation we can see that for every increase in the number of u.s. control lists against china, the average value of china-u.s. relations will decrease by 0.0063 units. this means that the increase in the number of u.s. control lists against china further deteriorates the bilateral relationship between the u.s. and china. =0.0272 means that the linear model can only explain 2.72% of the variation in the annual average value of the bilateral relationship between the u.s. and china. therefore, the number of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 12 control lists has a small impact on the relationship between china and the united states and is also influenced by other factors. figure 5. number of us control lists on china against average value of china relations each year u. s. tariffs on china and the average annual score of the u.s.-china bilateral relationship, 2015-2023 these tariff hikes during trump's are likely to lead to a deterioration in us-china relations. tariff policies usually trigger economic friction and trade conflicts, which may lead to a decline in the average annual score of the u.s.-china bilateral relationship. according to the regression analysis of total u.s.-china trade and bilateral relations, although total trade and u.s.-china relations show a very weak positive correlation, the imposition of tariffs may negatively affect total u.s.-china trade, especially after the tariffs are imposed on all the remaining commodities in september 2019, which may have a knock-on effect on the overall trade volume, and further affect the bilateral relations. these tariff measures are one of the critical factors affecting u.s.-china relations in 2018-2019, especially at the level of bilateral economic cooperation. a trade agreement with china was reached for 2019-2021, with no increase in tariffs and essentially no change in the u.s.-china bilateral score. biden chose to raise chinese tariffs in areas where his administration has set growth goals and where the u.s. has invested heavily in clean energy technology and semiconductors. tariffs on chinese solar cells would be 50 per cent. tariffs on advanced batteries and critical minerals needed to make them would rise to 25 per cent. tariffs on semiconductors reach 50 percent. some of these tariffs will be delayed from going up, apparently to allow domestic companies to increase production and find other sources of supply outside of china. other tariffs will affect industries in crucial swing states, including heavy metals. tariffs on certain imported steel and aluminium products will triple and reach 25 per cent. the imposition of tariffs would significantly impact the u.s.-china bilateral annual scores. 5. conclusion this study applies the realist theory in the field of international political economy to explore the dynamics of bilateral relations between the united states and china. the fundamental reason for the u.s. trade policy toward china is the rapid rise of china's economic and technological capabilities and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 13 china's influence in overseas markets, in response to which the u.s. has adopted economic and trade policies such as tariffs, sanctions on physical companies, and technological restrictions in order to safeguard the hegemonic power's global dominant position; these policies have focused mainly on critical technological areas such as 5g communications and semiconductors, and the two countries have been competing for economic dominance and international security. during their struggle for economic dominance and international security, the intensity of tariffs and the increasing number of control lists on chinese entities have worsened the bilateral relationship between the united states and china, leading to an increasingly polarized international landscape. this paper, by building a linear regression model, examines the u.s. to show that economic and trade policies, such as export controls and increasing tariffs, have negatively affected the sino-u.s. bilateral relationship, viewed in a realist framework as a competitive strategic measure implemented by the u.s. to preserve its hegemonic position. the results of linear regression equations show that with the number of export controls and the total volume of trade, the frequency of increase in tariff measures leads to the deterioration of bilateral relations between the united states and china. the realist perspective further argues that in strategic competition between great powers, economic and trade policies are not only a means of defending national interests but also part of the great powers' efforts to maintain their hegemonic position and dominance. during the trump and biden administrations, different strategic tools have been implemented to curtail china's expansion in overseas markets. during the trump administration, the primary means of suppressing china was through tariffs to reduce the trade deficit and protect their national industries. the biden administration has focused on export controls on critical technologies and high-tech industries, mainly in new energy. both aim to preserve u.s. global hegemony and dominance, further aggravating bilateral relations between china and the u.s. references cigna, s., meinen, p., schulte, p., & steinhoff, n. (2022). the impact of us tariffs against china on us imports: evidence for trade diversion? economic inquiry, 60(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13043 fattah, a. (2023). sino–american relations in the trump era. east asian policy (singapore), 15(2), 104-122. https://doi.org/10.1142/s1793930523000156 jiangyu, w., & hewett, d. y. (2021). u.s.-china trade relations in the biden era: trade war, industrial policy, and rule-based international order. proceedings of the asil annual meeting, 115, 315-320. https://doi.org/10.1017/amp.2021.127 mearsheimer, j. j. (2003). the tragedy of great power politics (updated edition). ww norton & company. olteanu, m. (2022). the sino-american competition on the 5gtechnological field. perspective politice, xv(1-2), 41-55. https://doi.org/10.25019/perspol/22.15.3 peng, y. (2024). the relationship between us-china semiconductor friction and us national security: a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 14 realism perspective. obrana a strategie, 2024(1), 41-60. https://doi.org/10.3849/1802-7199.24.2024.01.041-060 qin, j. y. (2019). forced technology transfer and the us-china trade war: implications for international economic law. journal of international economic law, 22(4), 743-762. https://doi.org/10.1093/jiel/jgz037 tong, j., & ju, x. (2021). strategic competition between china and the u.s. during the biden era: challenges and responses—from the perspective of bilateral economic and trade relations. international economic review, (3), 102-120+6. yan, x. (2019). strategic competition between china and the u.s. in the digital era. world political research, (02), 1-18+208-209. yan, x., & zhou, f. (2004). quantitative measurement of bilateral relations between countries. chinese social science, 6, 90-117. yue, q., xiaoyu, q., haigang, h., & youfu, x. (2018). the impact of china-u.s. trade friction on chinese industries and economy: taking the 2018 u.s. 301 investigation report on china as an example. china science and technology forum, (5), 128-135. zeng, k., wells, r., gu, j., & wilkins, a. (2022). bilateral tensions, the trade war, and us–china trade relations. business and politics, 24(4), 399-429. https://doi.org/10.1017/bap.2022.8 impact of u.s. trade and economic policies on sino luxi zhang1 1 the university of glasgow, glasgow, united kingd abstract keywords figure 1. the interrelationship between hegemonic table 1. number of new u.s. export controls on chi table 3. u.s. trade in goods with china (from 2016 source: institute of international relations, tsin url:http://www.tuiir.tsinghua.edu.cn /info/1145/61 after trump took office, he proposed a crackdown p during the biden administration, the united states in summary, the trump and biden administrations ha references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 158 original paper research on the construction of social support system framework of sports service for the aged in the new era faze liang 1* 1 emilio aguinaldo college, 1113-1117 san marcelino st., paco, manila 1007, philippines * faze liang, emilio aguinaldo college, 1113-1117 san marcelino st., paco, manila 1007, philippines fund project: fujian provincial young and middle-aged project (social sciences) project number: jas21430 received: april 16, 2023 accepted: may 15, 2023 online published: may 19, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p158 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p158 abstract through the documents, logic analysis and other methods of the study of the sports service social support system for the elderly in our country, the paper thinks that the sports service social support system for the elderly refers to by the government, social organizations or individuals through the formal and informal way, for the elderly sports services to provide social support, according to a certain order and contact formed the whole. relevant responsibility subjects cover the government, communities, sports non-profit organizations, social workers, volunteer service teams. they mainly include formal social support system, informal social support system, professional social support system and community support system. in the future, philosophy reform should be adopted as soon as possible to guide the formulation of relevant policies, and on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government, a social support system for sports services for the elderly with chinese characteristics should be constructed. through multiple cooperation, an effective supply of sports services for the elderly in china should be realized. keywords the elderly, sports service, social support as the world’s largest population country, china began to age from the turn of the century on january 1, 2001, and the speed of aging gradually accelerated, and the number of elderly population is becoming larger and larger, rising year by year. according to the data of the national bureau of statistics of china, statistics show that the number of people over 60 years old in china is growing at an average rate of about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 159 published by scholink inc. 6 million per year. in december 2010, the total number of elderly population in china was 178 million, and in december 2014, the number of elderly population increased by 34 million, a total of 212 million. has reached 15.8% of the total population, the number of elderly people aged 65 and above in december 2010 was 119 million, to december 2014 increased to 138 million people, accounting for 10.1% of the total population. by december 2017, there were 240.9 million people over the age of 60, accounting for 17.3% of the national population, and about 158.3 million people over the age of 65, accounting for 11.4% of the total population. the united nations predicted the growth trend of the elderly population in china and pointed out that the elderly population over the age of 60 would maintain a gradual rise. in the middle of this century, it is expected to peak at 440 million people, about one third of the total population of the country. sports services play an important role in promoting the physical and mental development of the aged groups. however, since social support is still in the primary development stage in china, it has not yet played an important role in the supply of sports services for the aged. at present, through the ideological reform, the formulation of relevant policies is guided and on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government. to build a formal social support system, informal social support system, community support system and professional social support system of sports service for the elderly with chinese characteristics. through multiple cooperation, to realize the effective supply of sports service for the elderly in the new era, has important theoretical and practical significance. 1. connotation of social support system of sports service for the elderly to understand what is the social support system of sports service for the elderly, we must first understand what is social support. social support is a foreign term, first used in the field of medicine. in the works of psychiatry, social support is generally associated with social factors that can promote physical health. in western developed countries, the research on the problem of social support was earlier, and the concept of social support began to appear in the 1970s. however, due to the different fields that researchers focus on, there are some debates about what social support is. from abroad, smith. adams believed that social support is an individual or group in need of help, and can get support from other social forces; according to cullen, social support refers to a social group that provides both moral and material help to an individual, titan. according to li, social support is an individual’s external perception of wanting help. china began to discuss the issue of social support in the 1990s, and there are mainly the following definitions of social support: li qiang et al., believe that social support is a broad concept. all the help provided by social organizations and individuals to groups in need of help can be called social support. such support can be non-profit organizations, units and individuals, and family members. chen chengwen et al., believe that social support can be classified as a selective social behavior, which mainly refers to the material and spiritual support and help provided to socially vulnerable groups through certain ways and channels. according to chinese and foreign research results, although there are different understandings of social support, they all include four elements: support network, support method, service object and service target. therefore, this study believes that social support for the elderly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 160 published by scholink inc. is to provide necessary support and help for the elderly at different ages who are lacking in material and spiritual aspects through social organizations, units, individuals and other forces. the social support system of sports service for the elderly is to provide necessary support for the elderly who have sports service needs through sports non-profit organizations, units, families or individuals and other social forces to enjoy the right to sports service. according to the research results of sociology, the social support of sports service for the elderly includes formal social support and informal social support. formal social support refers to the material support and spiritual support provided by the government and social organizations according to the current laws and regulations; informal support refers to the support provided by acquaintances and relatives who are often contacted by the elderly. the main difference between formal support and informal support is that formal support must be protected by law and policy, while informal support does not need legal and policy support and can be done anytime and anywhere. based on the above analysis, the social support system for sports services for the elderly refers to the whole system formed by the government, social organizations or individuals to provide social support for sports services for the elderly through formal and informal means, in accordance with a certain order and connection. 2. analysis of the main responsibility of the social support system for the elderly sports service supply the supply of sports services for the elderly involves many subjects, including the government, sports administration departments, civil affairs departments, sports non-profit organizations, families, volunteers, etc. different subjects have different responsibilities. clarifying the main responsibilities is the premise of constructing the classification framework of the social support system of sports services for the elderly. 2.1 the government the government is the basic body to provide social support for sports services for the elderly. in sports services for the elderly, the government should have the following functions: first, it should provide necessary sports facilities, equipment and venues for the elderly, which lays a solid foundation for the supply of sports services for the elderly. according to the research group’s field survey, the elderly are very dissatisfied with the current supply of sports facilities, equipment and venues in both developed and underdeveloped areas. this is on the one hand restricted by the level of social and economic development in china; on the other hand, governments at all levels have been paying more attention to the utilization efficiency in the supply of sports facilities for a long time. attaching importance to universal sports service facilities while ignoring the special needs of the elderly and other groups, which requires the government to focus on the supply of sports facilities, equipment and venues for the elderly in the future sports work and work for the elderly. the second is to formulate sports service policy for the elderly, which makes clear the direction of the development of sports service for the elderly. the government should formulate and revise the policy according to the development of chinese sports and the actual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 161 published by scholink inc. needs of the elderly. in the formulation of the policy, it should not only pay attention to the text content, but also pay attention to the implementability of the policy, so as to ensure that the elderly sports policy can take root and point out the direction for the elderly sports supply. thirdly, a series of rules and regulations should be formulated to ensure the orderly supply of sports services for the elderly. as the government, it is necessary to comprehensively examine and consider the complexity of the supply of sports services for the elderly, and ensure the steady progress of the supply of sports services for the elderly through the formulation and implementation of a series of systems such as input system, supervision system and evaluation system. 2.2 sports non-profit organizations a sports non-profit organization refers to a non-profit social organization whose main goal is to promote the development of sports in social sports activities. sports non-profit organizations play a very important role in sports services for the aged, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, to alleviate the shortage of government professionals. the biggest difference between sports services for the elderly and ordinary sports services is that the service objects have certain particularity, their physical and mental states are different from those of the general population when they participate in sports activities. as the government, there is rarely a reserve of professional talents in this field, which requires sports non-profit organizations to develop their strengths comprehensively and make up for the shortage of the government. the second is to supervise the sports services for the elderly. although china’s current supervision in the supply of sports services proposed to build a multi-regulatory system, it still relies on government supervision in the actual work. due to the complex process of sports services for the elderly, relying on the government alone can not carry out the whole process supervision and management, especially in recent years, the government purchase of sports services for the elderly and other innovative forms have been increased. the government has no energy to comprehensively supervise the supply of sports services for the elderly, which requires sports non-profit organizations to play a regulatory role in the supply of sports services for the elderly, timely investigation and understanding of the elderly’s satisfaction with sports services, in order to provide help for the elderly sports service supply and demand. third, provide diversified sports services for the elderly. as the government provides more general sports services for the elderly, for some personalized services, the government is unable to afford either in terms of funds or human resources, which requires sports non-profit organizations to give full play to their flexible advantages, make use of existing social resources or develop new sports services for the elderly. try their best to provide diversified and personalized services to the elderly. 2.3 community from the experience of developed countries, communities are playing an increasingly important role in social and economic development and in the supply of services for the aged. the biggest characteristic of community is that it has a bond function. on the one hand, it connects the residents in the area as a whole, and on the other hand, it connects the residents and the government as a whole. therefore, the importance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 162 published by scholink inc. of community in the supply of sports services for the elderly is obvious. at present, the role of community in sports services for the elderly is mainly to organize sports activities and competitions for the elderly. as a community, we should actively carry out sports activities for the elderly through associations and other organizations, make full use of traditional festivals, combine our traditional culture with the supply of sports for the elderly, and provide the enthusiasm of the elderly to participate. the community should regularly hold sports competitions suitable for the elderly, in the arrangement of competition items, to highlight the fun and safety, through sports competitions to improve the enthusiasm of the elderly to participate in sports activities. third, it should be combined with pension institutions to provide help for some special elderly groups. the community should pay attention to the elderly and the elderly with mobility difficulties in the supply of sports services, and actively promote and improve their quality of life through sports, so as to provide certain help for the equal development of sports services for the elderly. 2.4 family family has a special status in our social structure, influenced by traditional culture, almost all the elderly people have a deep attachment to the family, compared with pension institutions and other ways of supporting the elderly, more elderly people like to spend their old age in the family, so the family plays a very important role in the supply of elderly services. however, due to the implementation of the family planning policy in recent years, there are some problems in the family structure of our country, and there is great pressure for children to provide family pension services for the elderly. in the elderly sports clothes. in the provision of services, the family mainly has the following responsibilities: first, to help the elderly develop a correct way of life. the elderly due to muscle strength degradation, to a certain age stage will appear restless, restless behavior, which is a normal physiological phenomenon, as a family member, must encourage the elderly to continue to carry out physical exercise, as far as possible to delay muscle aging and visceral function degradation. two is to popularize the old age health knowledge for the elderly. as a family member, do not take the popularization of health knowledge as the responsibility of the community and the government, the family is also responsible. the popularization of health knowledge of the elderly is mainly divided into two parts, one is nutrition and health, the other is sports and health, to make the elderly understand what kind of physical exercise they need to do, why to do, how to do it. the third is to improve the convenience of physical exercise for the elderly. from the economic level, as a family to give the elderly necessary sports consumption funds, promote the formation of their healthy sports consumption habits; in the specific exercise process, family members should give appropriate accompany and help, all-round promote the development of physical and mental health of the elderly. 2.5 social workers social workers, referred to as social workers, take social work as a specialized profession and play a key role in services for the elderly in many western countries. in recent years, due to the surge of the elderly population in china, social workers also begin to play an important role in services for the elderly. from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 163 published by scholink inc. the theoretical level, social workers can use professional knowledge, through individual cases, administrative and community, adopt professional methods suitable for the elderly population, improve the elderly people’s ability to join society and adapt to society. for the supply of sports services for the aged, social workers can also make use of their professional advantages to improve the supply effect of sports services for the aged. first of all, chinese governments and communities at all levels will give certain subsidies to some poor elderly people or elderly people with diseases. with the promotion of poverty alleviation through sports, the scope of poverty alleviation has also been expanded to the field of sports services for the elderly. in this case, accurate identification of sports poverty for the elderly is very important. in the process of sports poverty alleviation, the elderly should not only be guaranteed the sports rights they should enjoy, but also avoid blind poverty alleviation. this requires social workers to collect and sort out the information of the elderly and determine the scope of sports poverty alleviation for the elderly. secondly, for some elderly people with special needs, social workers can also give play to their own advantages, especially for some elderly people who need to promote their health through sports. since most social workers have certain medical knowledge and fitness knowledge, they can play an important role in the integration of fitness and health for the elderly. however, the current main problem is that the number of social workers in china is small, some professional social workers charge high fees, ordinary elderly people can not afford the relevant costs, as the government and the community should actively intervene, through targeted poverty alleviation, government purchase and other forms to solve this problem, to promote the healthy development of social workers. 2.6 volunteers there are two types of volunteers: permanent volunteers and temporary volunteers. generally speaking, long-term volunteers have a clear service direction, and some volunteers have fixed service objects. while short-term volunteers generally do not have clear service direction and fixed service objects, but according to the needs of schools, units, associations and other organizations to participate in volunteer activities temporarily. for long-term volunteers, in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the emphasis should be placed on the cultivation of the elderly’s sports awareness and specific physical exercise assistance. for temporary volunteers, the emphasis is generally placed on the organization of sports activities for the elderly and the development of sports competitions. because the organization of sports activities and sports competitions for the elderly is different from ordinary sports activities and competitions, it not only needs a referee team and organization personnel, but also needs logistics services and medical security for the elderly. in the case that the long-term volunteer team cannot meet the needs, communities, schools and units and other organizations can enrich the volunteer service team through temporary recruitment. to ensure the smooth progress of related activities and competitions. 3. construction of social support system framework for the elderly sports service in the new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 164 published by scholink inc. era from the actual situation of the supply of sports services for the elderly in china, in order to achieve a diversified support system of sports services for the elderly, the government should play the leading role, the government should actively absorb other subjects to participate in the supply of sports services for the elderly, and play the role of other subjects to “enhance the ability” to form a “small government, big society” work pattern in the supply of sports services for the elderly. as the government should take the initiative to carry out the function transfer, the elderly sports services can be borne by the social forces to the society, to minimize the financial pressure, improve administrative efficiency. for other subjects in the social support system of sports services for the aged, they should actively undertake government empowerment according to their own advantages, and improve their service capacity through various means. generally speaking, the diverse subjects of sports services for the elderly in our country under the current system can form a formal social support system, informal social support system, professional social support system and community support system, which together play a role in the supply of sports services for the elderly. 3.1 formal social support system the official social support system of sports service for the aged in our country should be dominated by the government, through the formulation and implementation of the system and policies to ensure that the supply of sports service for the aged is scientific and rational, and the distribution and reorganization of sports service resources for the aged. firstly, the formal social support behavior of sports service for the aged should focus on the construction of the security mechanism of sports service supply for the aged, and provide a solid foundation for the supply of sports services for the aged through funds investment, site construction and facility purchase. in terms of fund investment, under the circumstance that the reform of the financial system will not undergo a fundamental change in the short term, we can try to establish a special transfer payment system for sports services for the elderly, so as to meet the fund demand of sports services for the elderly to the greatest extent through transfer payment. in terms of site construction and facility allocation, on the one hand, we should build sites and purchase special facilities for the elderly within the permitted conditions. on the other hand, we should play the coordinating role of the government to promote the integration of social resources, and use the resources of schools, medical institutions, administrative institutions and enterprises to serve the elderly and resolve the contradiction of the shortage of sports service resources for the elderly. secondly, the government should actively manage and guide other social support subjects. on the one hand, it should regulate their supporting behaviors, and on the other hand, it should mobilize their enthusiasm to participate in the social support of sports services for the elderly. in addition, in order to promote the cooperation between different subjects, it is necessary to actively construct the cooperation platform of social support for the elderly service, carry out reciprocal cooperation through “internet +” and other forms, and actively promote the market-oriented reform of social support for the elderly sports service, so as to provide continuous power for the development of the formal social support system of sports service for the elderly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 165 published by scholink inc. 3.2 community support system in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the community becomes the hub between the government and the elderly. in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the community support system mainly uses community resources to provide help for the supply of sports services for the elderly, including skills training support, sports rehabilitation support, sports facilities support, sports consumption support, etc. different communities have different ways and contents of sports service support for the elderly, which should be based on the situation of the community and the needs of the elderly. generally speaking, the community support for the elderly sports service is closely related to the community culture. for example, in baiyiqiao community in fuyang, anhui province, the elderly have always been fond of dancing for the elderly. the community has put the content of support in the aspect of skill training. since 2016, it has hired professional coaches for guidance for the elderly for three consecutive years. in the adjacent qinghe community, the elderly are deeply influenced by the traditional martial arts culture, most of the elderly like tai chi and other traditional health projects, the community will put the content of support on the martial arts, the way of support is mainly to organize activities and related competitions. at present, according to the actual situation in china, due to the rural community in the economy, organizational ability and other aspects of some problems, the current stage of the elderly sports service community support system can focus on the urban community, gradually infiltrate into the countryside. in the concrete construction process, we should not only clarify the functional division of different subjects, but also define the direction of community support, and strive for different communities, different subjects of the community can complement and cooperate with each other, at the same time, we should pay attention to play the role of community neighborhood committees, sports associations and other aspects, promote the all-round development of the elderly sports service community support system. 3.3 informal social support system the informal social support system for sports services for the elderly refers to the action unity formed by informal organizations (mainly including sports non-profit organizations, some for-profit organizations, foundations, volunteer associations, etc.) providing social support for sports services for the elderly in the supply of sports services for the elderly. compared with the formal social support system, the informal social support system has two obvious characteristics: one is that the organization is more closely connected with the elderly, which can effectively solve the problem of government failure in the supply of sports services for the elderly. in the specific sports service supply, it is more in line with the needs of the elderly. secondly, in the specific sports service supply, it is more professional and can provide personalized sports services for the special elderly groups. in view of this situation, the current work should be done in three aspects: first, for the senior sports non-profit organizations, appropriately relax access restrictions, and strive to improve the number of senior sports non-profit organizations in the shortest possible time, after all, the current number of sports non-profit organizations is insufficient, and the number of senior sports non-profit organizations is even less, unable to meet the practical needs. the second is to improve the professional level of sports service teams such as members and volunteers of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 166 published by scholink inc. sports non-profit organizations through policy support or financial support, so that they can better provide professional sports services for the elderly; third, we should strengthen publicity to attract more organizations and volunteers to participate in the supply of sports services for the elderly. in particular, we should strengthen the cooperation between communities and local colleges and universities, make full use of high quality human resources of colleges and universities, and solve the problem of insufficient capacity of the current government. in addition, in order to realize the diversification and multidimensional social support of sports services for the elderly, it is necessary to establish a cooperation platform between the formal support system and the informal support system as soon as possible, so as to provide a smooth communication channel between the government, social organizations and volunteers, realize information sharing, and help the elderly to enjoy the best sports service support. 3.4 professional social support system sports services for the elderly can be divided into two types: universal and professional. generally speaking, universal sports services for the elderly refer to fitness sports services that the elderly can participate in independently, while professional sports services are mainly physical rehabilitation and sports promotion services arranged according to the physical status of the elderly. for universal sports services for the elderly, basically all volunteers and sports non-profit organizations can be responsible for providing them, but for professional sports services for the elderly, they need personnel with professional knowledge. in germany, this task is usually completed by the elderly sports instructors and community doctors. at present, the number of community doctors in our country is small, and few have sports background, so they cannot truly realize the professional support for sports services for the elderly. however, there are no sports instructors for the elderly in our country, and the general social sports instructors have been analyzed in the above article. they have little medical knowledge background, and cannot realize professional sports service support for the elderly alone. at present, the integration mechanism of sports medicine combination has not been completely established in china, which causes great obstacles for social sports instructors and community doctors to jointly provide professional sports service support for the elderly. therefore, at present, social workers can provide professional sports services for the elderly. although the main duty of social workers at present is to take care of the elderly’s diet and daily living, as there are no institutional barriers, they are fully capable of doing this job as long as they receive proper training. therefore, civil affairs departments should speed up systematic training of social workers and carry out professional reform of social workers in areas where conditions are ripe, so as to facilitate the social needs of providing sports services for the elderly. 4. conclusion in recent years, with the accelerating process of aging society in china, the elderly sports service supply has been paid more attention by governments at all levels and sports management departments, hoping to improve the physical and mental health level of the elderly through sports fitness. but what we can’t deny www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 167 published by scholink inc. is that compared with the elderly’s increasing demand for sports services, there are still many deficiencies in the current supply of sports services, both in quality and quantity. the main reasons include economic factors and insufficient social support. therefore, it is particularly important to build a relatively perfect social support system for sports services for the elderly as soon as possible. in the new historical period, we should fully realize that the elderly sports service social support system, is an important guarantee for the elderly sports service supply, the relevant subject covers the government, communities, sports non-profit organizations, social workers, volunteer service team, etc., should guide the formulation of relevant policies through the ideological reform, on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government, to construct formal social support system, informal social support system, community support system and professional social support system for the elderly sports service with chinese characteristics. at present, through system construction and policy support as soon as possible, and constantly promote the diverse cooperation of different social support systems in the supply of sports service for the elderly in china, to realize the effective supply of sports 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(2011). investigation and analysis of the status quo of “empty nesters” physical fitness in six cities of guangdong province. journal of physical education, 18(02), 65-68. microsoft word assc-v3n1-p33 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 33 original paper digital stories of youth who injure their own bodies and challenges in today’s society carina henriksen1* 1 faculty of social sciences, bodø, norway * carina henriksen, faculty of social sciences, bodø, norway received: january 2, 2021 accepted: january 20, 2021 online published: january 23, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n1p33 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n1p33 abstract the responsibility and solution for bodily self-harm has been tied to the individual, while society and the social context have remained exempt from accountability. this article portrays the challenges that youth who injure their own bodies experience in today’s society. society has changed, and along with such changes come certain implications for today’s youth. changes in the family situation for youth who harm their own bodies lead to loneliness and a reduction in social capital. bodily self-harmers are influenced by societal discourses on what is expected of youth today, and such discourses are internalized. injury of one’s own body is considered a deviant act and, thus, self-harmers feel they do not fit in today’s society. they experience increased pressure in relation to both education and physical appearance. this analysis is based on the digital stories of seven youths who injure or have injured their own bodies. keywords self-injury, society, loneliness, deviation, social capital 1. introduction growing up in today’s society can be challenging in many ways. today, young people experience pressure and expectations to a greater degree than was the case a few generations ago (øverland, 2006; hegna et al., 2014). many who harm their own bodies perceive today’s society as placing higher demands on them, and they experience difficulties meeting such demands (fjelldal-soelberg, 2013). failure in today’s society is attributed to the individual rather than to societal conditions (hammer & hyggen, 2013). skårderud claims that individuals today want to “make it on their own” in every way; however, the risk is that one is left alone and feeling more lonesome (aftenposten, 2014). injuring one’s own body must also be viewed in light of the time and society one grows up in and is a part of. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. this article, the challenges that young people who harm their own bodies face in today’s society are addressed. the number of youth who injure their own bodies today is extremely disturbing. the incidence of bodily self-injury in norway shows that 16.2% of young people injure their own body (tørrmoen et al., 2020). this is an increase from previous years, where epidemiological studies showed that 10.3% of girls and 3% of boys reported bodily self-injury (ystgaard et al., 2003). this is in great contrast to today’s research that offers optimistic portrayals of youth and their everyday life in many different arenas (hegna et al., 2014). today’s youth are more reasonable, hard-working and conscientious than before. both criminality and the use of illegal substances have been reduced, while youth also perform better at school. at the same time, youth experience more stress and are more discouraged than before, which begs the question of whether increased pressure can have its price (ibid.). according to ribe and mehlum (2015), bodily self-injury is a considerable health problem in norway. nonetheless, knowledge on the topic is scarce at the societal level and within the health system as well. research on bodily self-harm is traditionally connected to a psychological and/or medical perspective, whereby the issue is considered an individually pathological problem often tied to a mental condition (adler & adler, 2011). such viewpoints are important; however, other perspectives should not be ruled out. the phenomenon is complex and is influenced by many factors. sommerfeldt and skårderud (2009) believe that the causes of bodily self-injuryinclude mental, social and cultural factors. the social context has often been neglected in research on bodily self-harm (adler & adler, 2011). the responsibility and solutions have been tied to the individual, while society and the social context have remained exempt from accountability. people do not live independent of their social surroundings and are always being influenced by the societal context. it is, therefore, important to view bodily self-injury in light of current structures that exist in today’s society. the term “self-injury” is the most common label used nationally, having strong connections to the psychological perspective. hetland et al. (2013) writes: “the problem with harming oneself is not that the body is harmed. it is not the blood, the bruises, the cut marks or the scars that are the worst part. the problem with self-injury is not that you injure the body, it is that you injure yourself” (2013, p. 34). from a sociological perspective, it is the body that harms and is harmed. the body is the bearer of the self, and the self cannot be seen as independent of the body (goffman, 1992). therefore, in this article the term “bodily self-injury” is used to refer to the phenomenon rather than “self-injury”. crossley (2006) claims that the body is not only something we are but also something we have. it is inter subjective and available to others (ibid.). rubæk (2009) asserts that media often portray the phenomenon as something new in today’s society. harming one’s own body is not something new from a historical perspective; furthermore, the act is often connected to a religious and ritualistic context that is culturally acceptable. today one finds bodily self-injury as a form of expression through bodily modifications, where bodily self-harm has taken on a certain entertainment value (for example fakirs). this article does not focus on such forms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. bodily self-injury. the definitions of injuring one’s own body are multiple and varied according to perspective and motive. in this article the phenomenon is defined as follows: “bodily self-harm is an act that is not socially, culturally or ritually accepted, in which one inflicts a directly visible injury on one’s own body without suicidal intent” (fjelldal-soelberg, 2013, p. 11). cutting is the most common form of bodily self-injury, though other forms of bodily self-harm also take place (adler & adler, 2011; rubæk, 2009). bodily self-injury occurs far more often among girls than among boys (sund & larsson, 2011), however, there are most likely hidden statistics when it comes to the boys (møhl, 2006). according to skårderud (2007), bodily self-harm is a shameful and lonely act that happens behind locked doors. due to differing definitions, terminology and presumably hidden statistics, epidemiological studies present challenges. according to sommerfeldt and skårderud (2009) the behavior can result from a combination of mental, social, and cultural conditions. the perception of bodily self-injury must always be viewed in light of the culture and society of which the individuals are a part (farber, 2000). as søndergaard (1996) points out, people are existentially dependent on the integration of both culture and society. 2. method and analytical view in this article a qualitative method is applied, where data that form the basis for analysis are collected through contact with youth who blog on the internet about bodily self-harm. selection of bloggers was based on whether they were active and registered with an email address through which they could be contacted. requests were sent out to 12 bloggers, of which 7 young women between the age of 22-32 replied that they would like to be informants. all of the informants had harmed their own bodies for many years. some of them were still bodily harming themselves while others had stopped. all of them shared the fact that they knew what it was like to be a bodily self-harmer in today’s society. the informants were sent questions by email, which they answered and returned. this method of collecting data, rather than interviewing, was chosen based on prior research for my doctoral thesis (1). previous experience showed that it could be challenging for many young bodily self-harmers to meet face-to-face with an unfamiliar researcher to talk about such a shameful topic. boyd (2006) contends that, with the development of technology and web 2.0, researchers are presented with new ways of participating in social organization. through various social arenas on the internet, researchers are granted access to different social phenomena that were previously not available in the same way. bodily self-injury, as a phenomenon, has moved from the private sphere to the virtual world (fjelldal-soelberg, 2012). with increased participation by people who injure their own bodies, and their public expression of the phenomenon through the internet, a larger realm of research is created for the academic field. email responses from informants were sent as finished written documents. in contrast to interviews that need to be transcribed, for example, the documents constitute data material that is complete. such a method of data collection involves indirect contact with the informants, as the researcher does not meet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 36 published by scholink inc. with them face-to-face. nonetheless, this does not mean that the document exists as «passive, dead material», to borrow an expression from mik-meyer (2005). she points to the fact that a document is nothing in and of itself, but that it gains meaning only when brought into synergy with the reader. documents will continuously change in significance and content according to the social context they are brought into (ibid.). the digital stories of the bodily self-harmers are not without context either. the informants in this article are influenced by cultural discourses in society, which their narratives thus represent. the project has been approved by the norwegian social science data service (nsd), and ethical research guidelines have been followed. data was coded and categorized for subsequent interpretation and analysis. the analysis is based on an interactionist-constructivist perspective (järvinen, 2005). additionally, central theoretical contributions from bauman, bourdieu and becker, as well as mead, have been used to shed light on the challenges young people who harm their own bodies face in today’s society. despite this broad foundation, it was nonetheless challenging not to be able to follow up on informant responses in the same way as an interview setting provides. although some of the bloggers were contacted to elaborate on their answers, not everyone remembered what they had actually meant when they had responded to the questions. the advantage with this type of data collection can be that the informants likely answered more honestly to digital questions than they would have in an ordinary interview. järvinen (2005) shows, among other things, how interviews with deviants can appear to be “purely defensive”, where informants present themselves in the best possible way for fear of “losing face”, to borrow an expression from goffman (1967). with the use of digital stories, one cannot eliminate the possibility that legitimate explanations for bodily self-harm have been reduced. 3. a society in transition halvorsen (2002) feels that society has been characterized by a period of transition from being an industrial society to becoming a society at risk, whereby globalization and individualization lead to many individuals living in great uncertainty as a result of the transition. society is not static and we see that social changes occur rapidly today and are more comprehensive than previously (ibid.). beck (1997) shows how a society at risk, along with the structural changes that take place in a modernizing society, leads to extreme individualization. according to krange and øia (2005), individualization means that youth are left more to their own devices in handling critical life events. it is not only the individual who is individualized but also the family (frønes & brusdal, 2000). the family situation in norway has undergone considerable changes, from having constituted a large family structure to embodying the more modern core family (øia & fauske, 2010). at the same time, we know that there has been an increase in the number of divorces, and that children often “commute” between two homes after the parents have split up (ellingsæter & widerberg, 2012). several of the informants pointed out that they felt changes in the family situation were challenging. one of the informant’s digital stories described how her parents’ divorce had affected and done www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. something with her life situation: it was frustrating to be in the middle of mom and dad’s arguments. i was kind of dragged into it all and (put) between them. nobody asked what i actually thought, not afterwards either. now it’s ok, because they don’t have hardly any contact. mom works all the time and she has enough (to manage) with just herself. dad and my stepmom have just gotten another child, (they) have two from before. they never have time. all the weekdays and weekends are filled up with everything possible, work, piano lessons, football matches and swim meets, and now a little baby. but i guess that’s the way it is for all families, not just ours. among other things, elligsæter and widerberg (ibid.) point to an increase in the number of divorces, new family constitutions and the fact that children often live in two homes after their parents have divorced. ellingsæter (2004) believes that modern family life is full of contradictions, and there are many needs to be met at any given moment. in her digital story, one of the other informants described her perception of various family constitutions: i don’t have any contact with my biological father. i’ve seen him twice in my life. i have a stepfather who i grew up with, but he and mom split up when i was 7. so, actually, i don’t have any good connection to a father figure. my relationship to mom is very up and down. it can be warm but also cold between us. soest and hyggen (2013) claim that the increase in the number of divorces, along with growing up with just one parent, can be an explanation for the rise in mental disorders among today’s youth (particularly among girls). bauman (2001) describes a flowing modernity that bears signs of uncertainty in many areas; with increased individualization, lack of predictability and a family home that is no longer safe and permanent. in a society characterized by individualization at all levels, it is important to be seen and acknowledged by one’s closest friends and relations (ibid.). the family as an institution has undergone great changes. when combined with a lack of time spent with those one is closest to, these changes can lead to loneliness. 4. the production of loneliness halvorsen (2005) feels that today’s society “produces” loneliness. there is considerable focus on individualization and material consumption along with a lack of social relations. if social distance to others increases, it can lead to an expansion of loneliness. according to halvorsen, society makes demands on how the individual should live; and those who fall outside the norm can experience isolation and loneliness. among other things, modernity has meant that the community of family and society, in general, has gotten lost (ibid.). as one of the girls described: “it’s me against the world, or the opposite”. all of the informants gave depictions of experiencing loneliness in everyday life, which is perceived as painful and challenging for many of them. one of the informants had this to say: i think everybody feels loneliness today, it’s hard to avoid it. everyone is so focused on themselves that there isn’t time to be with others. even when you see that you have someone there, you don’t have time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. i, myself, have been very lonely. i actually feel that i am lonely every day, it’s, like, not something that just goes away. this informant missed spending time with her family and expressed frustration over the fact that everyone was so busy with “their own stuff” in the daily routine. parliament’s report nr. 39 points out that today’s society is characterized by considerable changes and that today’s youth are growing up in a time that is very different from when their parents grew up. much of society’s development is positive for today’s youth; but, at the same time, we also see a great deal of challenges. youth today have a need for safety and stability. very clear demands are made on parents, among others, to be safe and clear role models. one of the other informants wrote the following in his digital account: many times i see that i don’t have anyone. i don’t have anyone to talk with, who is interested in hearing what i have to say. it’s generally hectic, and if i ever spent time talking about self-injury, nobody would ever talk to me again. so it ends up that i just keep thoughts and feelings about self-injury to myself. yip (2005) believes that family relations are of great significance and that good relations to one’s parents can be insulating such that bodily self-injury of youth is reduced. if we look at durkheim’s (1993) studies of society, for example, suicide rates are highest when society demonstrates either a large degree of social control or a small degree of integration. a society characterized by a small degree of integration leads to loneliness and little contact with other people (ibid.). hammerlin claims that, «modern society’s efficiency and demands to be productive, along with structural changes and high rate of development, is characterized by social unrest (2010, p. 32); whereby social and geographical mobility and globalization can come at the cost of social networks (ibid.). 5. social capital according to bourdieu (1995), social capital is the access one has to social networks, whereby participation in such networks may be converted into a form of power. for bourdieu (1996), power refers to symbolic power; i.e., a form of power that is concealed and difficult to discover and that only works when it is acknowledged. bourdieu and wacquant (1995) describe social capital as follows: “social capital is the sum of resources, whether they be actual or possible, that an individual or group administers based on the condition that the individual or group reigns over a lasting collection of relations, acquaintances and mutual recognitions that are more or less institutionalized; that is to say, the sum of capital and power that can be mobilized through one such collection.” (ibid, p. 104) moi (2002) asserts that social capital is one’s network of acquaintances, colleagues, close friends and/or family relations that are valuable and that offer benefits in many and varied arenas. two of the informants, in particular, described that they had a small degree of social networks. one of the digital narratives went like this: i feel that i stand alone, i don’t have any particularly good friends. the friends i had have pulled away from me after they found out about the self-injury. my family almost never sees each other in the day-to-day routine, and it’s a shame that it’s like that. i wish we lived like they did in the past, when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. everybody lived together on big farms and, of course, had a lot to do, but then you did it all together as a big family. colman (1988) points to the fact that changes in family structures are one of several reasons that social capital is reduced in society. jensen and ulleberg (2011) contend that culture in the western world is oriented toward the individual. people often put their own happiness and self-realization ahead of the community’s interests when these come into conflict. it is the individual’s rights that are predominant, and such values as self-realization, independence and freedom lie at the core. all forms of capital (financial, cultural and/or social) function as symbolic capital, in both social and existential ways. bourdieu (1999) feels, therefore, that it is better to talk about the symbolic effect of the capital. symbolic capital is the feeling that one means something to others; i.e., that one receives continuous confirmation of one’s significance to others and, in turn, receives confirmation of the importance of one’s own existence. there is a great deal of agreement on the fact that social capital is a resource based on relations between people, and that most definitions focus on networks and the norms that guide interactions between network participants (kilpatrick et al., 2003). the experience of loneliness, along with having a small network, can mean that one’s social capital is converted into what bourdieu (1999) calls negative symbolic capital. with limitations on the social network of bodily self-harmers, the possession of symbolic power is reduced. hegna et al., believe that today’s youth must “manage adolescence as valuable capital for the future” (2014, p. 376). if they are not able to do this, the question of blame is placed on the youth. in today’s society, where individualization is so highly valued, structural problems are ascribed to the individuals themselves (ibid.). 6. increased pressure culture bears the mark of the hectic time in which we live. in today’s society young people experience pressure and expectations to a greater degree than was the case just a few generations ago. the informants’ narratives gave very clear indications that they perceived everyday life to be challenging. several of the informants point to the demands society places on them and the difficulties they have in meeting those demands. they experience “great pressure” and the feeling that they “never manage”. society’s expectations, versus what one is able to manage oneself, create a conflict that can be challenging. when asked who informants felt the pressure came from, one of the girls responded in the following way: everyone! but mostly from myself, i think, and that’s because of society. we live in a society where we automatically start to push ourselves to be better in everything possible. other people’s facades and achievements are easily accessible, and then you want the same yourself. nobody wants to be worse than others, i think. in their digital stories, several of the informants depicted society’s focus on the body as both harsh and frightening. in today’s western society there is much focus on the body, and the ideal body is portrayed from a perfectionist’s point of view (shilling, 2005). this applies perhaps, in particular, to the female www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. body. one of the informants gave the following account: if you don’t succeed today, both in body and everything else, then you are not accepted by society. you are immediately viewed as different. the focus on the body has taken off completely, and everybody wants to have the perfect body of a model. if you have it, then you’ve kind of achieved something. it’s not strange that people have started with self-injury the way things have gotten. it can be ok to shift focus onto something else, cause then you don’t have to feel the pressure for a while. sort of that you can think about something totally different than having to achieve all the time. i don’t think self-injury even existed before, and now almost everybody does it. there sort of has to be a reason for it. before, you didn’t have the same pressure at school or work, you got a job no matter what. today, you have to be able to succeed at everything, and preferably all at once. it’s actually a bit frightening. descriptions like this show that, no matter how hard the youth try to succeed in various arenas, it is easy for them to feel they are not good enough. before, adolescents perhaps compared themselves to the girl next door or to a few of their idols. today’s youth have an entire world “within youth cyber space”, via the internet, as a basis for comparison. no matter how hard they try, someone will always appear to be better or will have done better than them. this can very obviously be frustrating. hegna et al. (2014) claim that academic pressure is considerable and that today’s youth feel they are expected to do well at school. hammer and hyggen (2013) express concern about the constantly increasing educational level of the norwegian population, along with evidence of an increase in the number of youth who do not complete their upper secondary education. several of the informants expressed that they felt “stress” in relation to school and a future professional career: what i feel most focus on today is that you have to do well at work, at school, and how you look. you have to do well at school, if not you end up as a «nothing». if you don’t do well at school, then it’s hard to find a job. it’s, like, expected that everyone should do well, and the ones who don’t manage, they suffer. then society doesn’t have any use for you. one of the other informants explained that she feels different, as though she’s on the outside; that she doesn’t fit into today’s society. she is also unsure of what is expected of her: i feel completely useless and abnormal. while others my age are starting families and careers, i feel like i’m really on the outside and sick. i really want to live up to what others and society expect/want. this girl, along with several of the other informants, felt that the pressure to do well at school came from her surroundings. one of the other informants, in contrast, perceived that she had placed the demands and expectations on herself. she explained: i never feel “good enough”, and things i do could always be better. i’ve always reached to be “best” in everything i do (very good at school, for example), and that has also show up in, for example, self-injury. good, better, best—or bad, worse, worst. my fear is to be “mediocre”, “average”. the pressure, the demands and the expectations come very clearly from myself, cause i know that the world around me thinks i’m “good enough” or, actually, doesn’t really care much about where i am on the scale. most people today are most concerned with themselves. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. the expectation that this girl describes is something that has been internalized through a lifetime of interacting with others. mead (2005) believes that the individual is developed through interplay with social surroundings and that, through interaction with others, one better understands one’s own behavior. one perceives oneself through the reactions of others. the individual is part of a society that, in turn, is part of the community (or “community of meaning”, as mead calls it). mead called this community of meaning “the generalized other”, and referred to attitudes, values and norms that the individual faces in society. 7. society’s attitudes most bodily self-harmers hide wounds and scars from those around them and feel shame when interacting with others (fjelldal-soelberg, 2011). shame, according to scheff and starrin (2002), is an emotion that influences social interaction more than other feelings. shame occurs because one views oneself from others’ perspective, which cooley (1922) refers to as “the mirror self”. according to mead (1995) we humans are affected by the perceptions and evaluations that others have of us. with inspiration from mead, becker launched his theory on labeling in the middle of the 1960s (meeuwisse & swärd 2002). becker (2005) contends that all social groups (society) have social rules that individuals try to follow. people who fall outside the category defined as «normal» are labeled as “outsiders” by the group (society). the informants described how they felt those around them perceived bodily self-injury. as one of the girls said: “it’s me against the world, or the opposite”. she went on to share the following: i believe most people eventually are familiar with the term self-injury, but i definitely don’t think that most have a good enough or correct understanding of what it is. i think there are lots of prejudices, misunderstandings and ignorance out there. it’s probably not easy for everyone to understand why someone chooses to do something so extreme, sick and “meaningless” as cutting themselves up—while, for the one who’s doing it, it seems absolutely necessary in order to survive. one of the other informants described an everyday life that was challenging as a bodily self-harmer, where she felt she was judged by those around her: it’s not so easy to face the perceptions of others. it’s a long time now since i injured myself like i used to, but it’s still a part of me and i have scars a lot of places on my body that others notice, even though my friends say that they understand, i actually think they feel it was bizarre that i hurt myself. i just think they don’t dare to tell me. lots of people who harm themselves are seen as having some kind of attention-seeking illness, or that they’re manipulative, and it’s not easy to get that kind of label. then people stop taking you seriously after a while and it’s not right. even though this girl has stopped harming herself, her body still carries permanent traces of the past. she feels that she is labeled and put into a category of having an “attention-seeking illness” and being “manipulative”. this is not uncommon. however, research shows that injuring one’s own body is not about attention or manipulation (adler & adler, 2011; fjelldal-soelberg, 2013; sutton, 2007). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. according to becker (2005) people are placed in various categories to which certain associations are then attached. in other words, people are placed in categories based on where others think they belong, and those around them automatically consign them characteristics that are associated with the group they have been tied to. those around them emphasize their negative characteristics based on which group they belong to. this is well described by one of the informants, who says: i always feel that others see me as something different from what i actually am. they look at the scars i have all over my body and surely think what they will. this is true for both those who know me and complete strangers. i feel judged no matter what. i feel like it’s never worth explaining, there’s no point in trying to get others to understand. they can’t understand, or maybe it’s that they don’t want to understand. i’m never seen for who i am, but they judge me by how i look. but actually there isn’t anything wrong with me. here, we clearly see that this girl feels she is being placed in a category and judged because of her injured body. her body deviates from what is perceived as “the normal body” in today’s society. becker points out that there is no universal consensus on norms for what is considered deviant. “on the contrary, they are open to conflict and disagreement, a part of society’s political process” (2005, p. 38). how others react to a deviant act is something that varies with time (ibid.). part of the problem with categorizing is often that the cause of the problem is individualized and then tied to negative characteristics of the individual (halvorsen, 2002). according to becker, deviation is created by society. what he means is that deviation is not a characteristic of the act a person undertakes but rather a consequence of how others react to the act (ibid.). discourses in society help to form our attitudes to categories and terms and, as foucault (1988) claims, there is power in the application of language. youth who injure their own bodies exist in a culture and society where they are an integral part of established discourses. they are affected by society’s discourses and what is expected of youth today, and such discourses become internalized. bodily self-harm leaves behind a body with permanent marks that is not in accordance with today’s focus on the ideal body. societal discourses lay the groundwork for what is perceived as normative, and when self-harmers have a body that deviates from “the normal body”, this leads to social sanctions. 8. conclusion bodily self-injury is a complex and challenging topic and is, therefore, important to address and interpret from various perspectives. much of the social context has been missing from the research on bodily self-harm, which means that central components for understanding the issue are also missing. bodily self-injury has taken place in and is a part of society. therefore, as the illustration below demonstrates, the phenomenon is viewed with societal structures, in historical and cultural contexts, in societal discourses and from various perspectives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. figure 1. bodily self-harm and social structures hammer and hyggen point out that “we, in contrast to a society characterized by community and solidarity, are heading towards a polarized society where the gap between those who are on the outside and those who are on the inside is constantly getting larger (2013, p. 18). the focus of this article has been to demonstrate challenges that bodily self-harmers face in today’s society. in today’s society at risk, we can clearly see societal characteristics that may lead to vulnerability for youth who injure their own bodies. changes in the family situation for youth who harm their own bodies can bring loneliness, leading to reduced social capital. if bodily self-harmers lose social arenas where they can find acknowledgement from others, there is the risk of being excluded from important social capital. self-harmers are influenced by societal discourses on what is expected of youth today, and such discourses are internalized. injuring one’s own body is considered a deviant act, such that self-harmers feel they do not fit in today’s society. however, it is not the bodily self-harmers themselves who create deviation. it is society that creates deviation. if one is to approach an understanding of self-injury, one must make room for the social context in which the phenomenon occurs and is a part of. the focus must shift from viewing bodily self-harm as internalized in the individual to looking towards the society and challenges connected to the phenomenon. as one of the informants pointed out, “i refuse to take all the blame for the scars i have, society also owns a part of the blame”. by including the social context in understanding bodily self-injury, it can help to provide a better understanding of this contemporary phenomenon. notes (1) kroppsskadingens menings mang fold—en sosiologisk studie av personer som skader egen kropp (2013) (bodily self-injury’s diversity of opinion—a sociological study of persons who injure their own bodies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 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(2014). retrieved from http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/psykiater-finn-skarderud-hva-skjedde-med-det-sosiale-783 7767.html advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 14 original paper two states in palestine? anthony oberschall 1* 1 emeritus professor of sociology, university of north carolina at chapel hill, north carolina, us * anthony oberschall, emeritus professor of sociology, university of north carolina at chapel hill, north carolina, us received: april 8, 2019 accepted: may 2, 2019 online published: may 4, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p14 abstract israelis and palestinians have off loaded the costs of their conflict to outsiders and lack incentives for peace making. massive subsidies for the palestinians should be gradually withdrawn and israel should pay rent for the settlements and other land it occupies. the rents will fund the palestinian economy and compensation payments in lieu of the right of return. the palestinian state will be demilitarized and neutral, and become viable with economic ties to israel and with international aid. two states will coexist along the 1967 green line and east jerusalem will be part of “jerusalem: one city, two capitals”. peace making will be backed by the major international stakeholders and the agreement will be legitimized by the voters in both countries. keywords two state solution, peace building, israeli settlements, jerusalem, one city, two states, failed state 1. introduction currently (spring 2019), after prime minister netanyahu’s reelection and weak and divided palestinian leadership, an agreement for two states in palestine, israel and a palestinian state, is a remote possibility. no one is under illusions about the obstacles to an israeli-palestinian peace agreement. yet ideas that seem far fetched become in time actionable: for decades no one expected that majority rule in south africa would be peacefully achieved, and few anticipated franco-german cooperation and alliance after two bloody world wars to give birth to the european union. situations change, leadership changes, the international context and external stakeholders change. a plan, not just vague ideas, needs to be on the table, examined, debated, and that is what i provide in this essay. my plan conforms to three key principles in peace building (anthony oberschall, conflict and peace building in divided societies, routledge, 2007, chapter 7). adversaries have no incentive for an agreement when outsiders, rather than they themselves, pay for the costs of conflict. adversaries are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 15 published by scholink inc. not likely to make peace if their economic well-being and security are imperiled. adversaries will accept a realistic peace plan if it is an improvement over the status quo for both. 2. obstacles to peace both adversaries profoundly mistrust one another and are internally divided on a “two state solution”. israelis believe that an independent palestinian state will be a weak or failed state not able to prevent attacks on israel, as has been the gaza experience, and that security will require israeli reinvasion of the territories and military operations, as in gaza. a peace process might precipitate civil strife among palestinians, as happened in gaza when hamas ousted fatah by violence, and result in a hostile, unstable state controlled by religious and nationalist extremists. the status quo is preferable for many israelis. palestinians believe that an israeli government will not be able or willing to deliver on east jerusalem as their capital and evacuate many wb settlements, outposts and illegal israeli sites because armed settlers and their allies will resist the idf, and israelis will refuse to shoot one another. a palestine state will thus remain a swiss cheese” entity with limited sovereignty, like the status quo, not a viable independent state. as well, palestinian leaders fear that signing the agreement might trigger civil war among palestinians and their assassination by militants. status quo is preferable for many palestinians. neither adversary has had to pay the costs of the conflict. for decades israelis and palestinians have outsourced the costs of occupation to the international community and to their allies, who have become enablers of the status quo. paying the costs of conflict for the palestinians means phasing out the billions in international subsidies; for the israelis it means bearing the full costs of military occupation of the territories under international law, including compensating the palestinians for the israeli occupied west bank land. the peace agreement has to achieve a better and realistic future for both adversaries compared to the status quo: israel has to have security, and a palestinian state has to achieve a viable economy. israel has an interest in a viable palestinian neighbor instead of a failed state vulnerable to extremists. two states and two peoples can coexist and prosper in the entire israel/palestine area, in what is potentially an economic “common market”, but such cooperation keeps being disrupted by violent conflicts and threats to normal life. according to the historian ilan pappe, palestinians were sucked into the pool of labor needed by the israeli economy…they provided nearly a quarter of the labor in israeli industry in the mid 1970s (a history of modern palestine, p. 202). in the 1980’s before the first intifada, about one third of the palestinian work force was employed in israel. nowadays there are 80,000 work permits issued for palestinians to work in israel, and thousands more palestinian work illegally in the israeli settlements. 120,000 palestinian workers commute to israel every day (nyt, 2018). the palestinian prime minister and the israeli finance minister have announced plans to develop three joint industrial free trade zones in the west bank (jerusalem post, 2018). economic incentives persist for overcoming political barriers. what is now micro-economic cooperation can develop into macro-economic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 16 published by scholink inc. cooperation when peace gets institutionalized. the peace process will gradually deliver security for israel and build a viable palestinian state. in the short run both israelis and palestinians will have to make sacrifices. the palestinians and israelis by themselves will not work out a successful peace deal. major outside powers, international agencies and stakeholders must help achieve peace in palestine, provide resources for the peace transition, refrain from proxy wars by taking sides, and exert pressure against extremists of both sides unwilling to compromise. 3. contours of the peace agreement the peace process will take place under the sponsorship and with assistance by stakeholder states, diplomats, international agencies, and groups of experts (military, jurists, science, etc.) the israeli and palestinian publics need to know what the contours of the outcome look like and have assurances about the openness, fairness and enforcement of the process. during the oslo process, incremental tinkering with boundaries, settlements, and security arrangements has not built confidence and led to breakdown. the shared vision of realistic peaceful coexistence and recognition of realities has to overturn collective myths maintained by the israelis, the palestinians, and the international stakeholders. reality 1: israel is permanent and will remain a jewish state; the palestinians are permanent and will not be a quasi-colony of israel or pushed out into other arab states. reality 2: israel is an occupying power in wb and east jerusalem. it has to assume the responsibilities of military occupation. reality 3: palestinians have the unparalleled status of oldest unsettled refugee population in un history and are largest per capita recipient of foreign assistance worldwide. the palestinian state must end such dependency, develop a viable economy, and assume the responsibilities of a normal state. reality 4. the end of the peace process is a peace agreement by two sovereign states, israel and the palestinian state, endorsed by the international community and legitimized by the majority of voters of both states. two states, israel and a palestinian state, will be defined along the green line boundary (the 1967 armistice line); east jerusalem will be the capital of the palestinian state but institutions for jerusalem will be created to make it one city, two capitals” that avoids an east berlin/west berlin divided city; the palestinian state will be neutral (like switzerland) and demilitarized with joint security arrangements with israel; israel will financially compensate the palestinian state for land it occupies on palestinian territory and does not vacate; in lieu of a failed state, the new palestinian state will develop viable institutions, and economic cooperation with israel will benefit both peoples. 4. concrete steps for peace the adversaries must pay the costs of the conflict. under the geneva conventions, israel is an occupying power and “the occupying power does not acquire ownership of immovable public property in occupied territory” and the “transfer of civilian populations by the occupying power into occupied territory” is illegal. israel has not paid for settling israelis on wb land. under the geneva conventions, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 17 published by scholink inc. an occupying power after the end of hostilities must ensure the provision of food, medical care, public health and education to the occupied people. when jewish settlers arrived in palestine, they purchased land: “by the end of the 1930’s, 40% of all expenditures of the jewish agency was on purchase of land and agricultural colonization” (pappe, op.cit., pp. 94-95); they dd not appropriate land without compensation. that changed after 1967. as an expert wrote, “…probably most jurists throughout the world, including many in israel, regard all the settlements in the west bank as illegal under international law, specifically article 49 of the fourth geneva convention…” (david schulman, nyrb, 2014). israel has outsourced the obligations of an occupying power to the international community, except for security, to the american government, which provides financial, military and diplomatic support to israel, and to american jewish ngos and donors. the security costs of the status quo are huge for israel. for instance, israel is building a 40 mile concrete and electronic security barrier costing $1 billion deep in the earth at the gaza border to bloc the tunneling by hamas and islamic jihad (nyt, 2018). the palestinians have become the largest per capita recipients of aid (european commission, 2017): wbgs got $495 per capita yearly, double the next largest refugee recipient; in gaza, 80% rely on humanitarian aid, mostly for food; unrwa operates one of largest middle east school systems for palestinians, ½ million students, pays 70% teaching staff, costing $750 per annum per student. the palestinian refugee status and aid programs created by the un in 1948 and 1967 have morphed into permanent dependency and an aid economy that dwarfs the real palestinian economy. the international community and outsiders have become the principal enablers of the status quo. the u.s. pays about $650 million a year for all forms of assistance (congressional research service, 2016, “u.s. foreign aid to palestinians”). the palestinian authority is not held to the norms of a modern state responsible for employment, social, health and education services. it will not be a normal state until it has a viable economy. the “refugee” status has enabled outsourcing these responsibilities to the international community, especially in gaza. a stopgap measure has become permanent and has not brought peace and good governance for palestinians. outsourcing is coming to an end because the international community including the u.s. is wary of being an enabler and because refugees and war migrants from syrian and other catastrophic wars are making huge demands on international assistance (alex & asaf, “the un agency that keeps palestinians from prospering” wsj, 2018). because thousands of palestinians’ food needs, jobs and salaries depend on international assistance, it has to be terminated gradually parallel to the creation of a viable palestinian economy. international financial and technical assistance, e.g., from the world bank, eu and arab states, will be necessary for a considerable time. israel won’t empty the major settlements in the wb but it will assume the responsibilities of an occupying power and pay rent for settlements and water they consume because it has an interest in a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 18 published by scholink inc. viable rather than a failed state for neighbor. there are about six hundred thousand settlers, in blocs adjacent to the 1967 borders, east jerusalem and in some 130 settlements scattered in the wb. the palestinian state can lease land currently occupied by these israeli settlers to israel; it would be long-term 50 year leases for settlements and allow continuation of israeli law and authority within them. leases will also be made for outposts, military bases, access roads, security barriers and buffers, and are expected to be phased out after some time. some settlers will return to israel voluntarily when the idf gradually withdraws from the palestinian state, but some will not. nevertheless, over time, the “swiss cheese” aspect of the wb will diminish, without the use of force. leasing the land is a cost effective deal for continued israeli settlers in the new palestinian state and a much needed source of revenue for the palestinian authority as international assistance is phased out. there is a precedent: israel has rented land from jordan for decades on behalf of the israeli agricultural/military settlements in the jordan valley. the assumption of gradual sovereignty by the palestinian state requires the cessation of settlement expansion and continued loss of palestinian living space. concrete benefits to palestinians from an independent state are secure property, residence, water and building rights. the rents will go to several palestinian funds, for compensating palestinian refugees who give up their right of return, for government expenditures covering the phasing out of international donor aid, and for palestine state building and economic development. a controversial principle is compensation for the right of return when physical return is not possible, as it is not in any realistic peace settlement. at termination of many conflicts, like insurgency in south africa and the bosnian civil war, and major regime changes at the end of communism in eastern europe, provisions were made for compensating victims and their families. in south africa it was part of the truth and reconciliation commission (trc); in bosnia it was part of the dayton peace agreement; in eastern europe, in different ways, new democratic regimes restored some property or instituted some compensation scheme. for making a peace settlement acceptable to the palestinians, there has to be a compensation scheme in lieu of the right of return. limits have to be put on who is eligible, and what the amounts are; there are precedents from the trc and from the implementation of dayton on commissions and procedures for doing it. polls have shown for years that most palestinians are willing to give up their right of return for financial compensation. the funds will be managed under international supervision or controls to ensure they are not diverted to other uses; this is similar to controls exercised by international agencies and donor states for funds allocated to the pa, palestine ngos and international ngos for the palestinians. a rand study estimated that a palestinian state will need a capital investment of $33 bn. for the first ten years. the palestinian funds will also raise moneys from other sources like the world bank, arab states and islamic foundations, european union, u.s., un agencies. the funds will pay israel for electricity, telecommunications, water, port facilities, transportation, technical and other services provided to the palestinians, e.g., the technology of irrigation agriculture and water recycling in an arid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 19 published by scholink inc. regions that the israel has successfully developed. it is hoped that the economic, labor and financial ties between the two states will gradually grow into permanent cooperative economic institutions, building on labor migration and investments that already exist, perhaps later including other states like jordan. east jerusalem will become the capital of the palestinian state under “one city, two capitals” institutions. the specifics of jerusalem governance, its boundaries, its economy and governance under the two state peace agreement will have to be worked out. palestinian sovereignty will ensure that palestinians will not lose their right to live in the city and will have voting rights to elect representatives who are accountable for taxes and municipal services. the topic requires a separate analysis and essay. jerusalem functions now as a unified city, and the outcome to be avoided is a divided west berlin/east berlin city. several israelis and palestinians have been reflecting on such a plan, cf. daniel seidmann “terrestrial jerusalem” (youtube, 2018, jerusalem: city in crisis). in addition there would be an international agreement for access to and administration of the temple mount and other holy places. the current arrangements work pretty well and might be continued, but the faith communities will have to be consulted and approve. there will be security arrangements and enforcement, including demilitarization of the palestinian state, banning offensive weapons, internationally recognized neutrality status (precedents switzerland and sweden), decommissioning of weapons held by hamas and other militant groups under international inspection, dignified return of fighters to civilian status (as in south africa, northern ireland, colombia), release of prisoners held by israel and a declaration by both sides of the cessation of hostilities pending a permanent peace agreement. fighters would enlist in a “trading violence for jobs or education” program. there will be an agreement of all stakeholders to keep offensive military weapons out of the palestinian state, to secure borders against weapons smuggling, and commitment of outside states and organizations (iran, saudis, gulf states, lebanon, turkey) to stop support for rejectionists of the peace agreement. as the security grows, there will be phased withdrawal of idf and gradual assumption of responsibility for security by palestinian police. provisions will have to be made about the regulation and legality of israeli settler weapons living in the palestinian state. the palestinian state has to become economically viable, a gradual process. the two states have been partially integrated for decades and will become even more so with peace. the rand corporation, other think tanks and international agencies have given it some thought and come up with estimated numbers. solar energy development and water management are obvious projects to be jointly undertaken with israel. with growing security palestine labor migration to israel will increase. export of gaza agriculture products (e.g., strawberries, vegetables) and textiles can be reestablished as before 2005; investment in manufacturing for export to arab states will becomes attractive. as economic cooperation grows, agreements and practices will be worked out on the flow of goods and people, transportation, currency, official languages, religious rights, law courts, education, licenses and degrees, tariffs, identity papers, coordinated governance, in particular for jerusalem. further side agreements will be made about time tables and conditions for phasing out the occupation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 20 published by scholink inc. and phasing in palestinian governance. the permanent peace settlement between israel and the new palestinian state will be approved by all stakeholders in an international peace treaty and legitimized in referenda by the israeli and the palestinian populations. 5. conclusion these are guiding ideas, first ideas, that are meant to start discussion. the israeli and palestinian publics will have to be convinced that a peace agreement is preferable to the status quo and to alternatives. scholars can’t make that happen; leaders, public intellectuals, the media, international stakeholders can make it happen. it worked in south africa when the leaders of the african and white populations came to share the view that a viable south africa needed compromises and cooperation by both groups; it worked in europe when german and french leaders understood that european reconstruction and future peace necessitated franco-german cooperation. in time it may also happen for israelis and palestinians. references anthony, o. (2007). conflict and peace building in divided societies. routledge. congressional research service, us foreign aid to palestinians. (2016). washington dc. european commission. (2017). european civil protection and human aid operations, brussels. ilan, p. (2006). a history of modern palestine. cambridge. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 153 original paper research on the intervention of interaction design in digital media exhibition design xiao yang1 1 guangdong jimei design & construction co., ltd, guangzhou, guangdong, china received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 15, 2025 online published: march 03, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p153 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p153 abstract with the rapid advancement of information technology and the increasing prominence of mass consumer culture, exhibition design is undergoing a profound transformation. traditional static exhibition models are no longer sufficient to meet contemporary audience expectations, leading to the rise of new media-driven interactive exhibition formats. interaction design plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between audiences and exhibits by facilitating multi-sensory, multi-layered, and immersive experiences. this study examines the evolution of exhibition viewing in the digital media era and establishes design principles that enhance interactivity. through an analysis of case studies from the past three years, the paper explores the core components of interaction design in exhibitions: interaction object design, interaction behavior design, and interaction feedback design. this research identifies emerging innovations and technological advancements that shape the future of exhibition design. the findings offer unique cross-disciplinary insights and propose a forward-looking perspective on the integration of ai, multi-sensory engagement, and adaptive interactivity in future exhibition environments. keywords interaction design, new media exhibition, multi-sensory experience, human-computer interaction, ai-driven interactivity 1. evolution of exhibition viewing in new media design 1.1 from passive reception to active engagement traditional exhibition models rely on unidirectional information dissemination, where audiences passively absorb exhibit content with minimal engagement. in contrast, new media exhibition design integrates interactive technologies that transform passive viewing into dynamic, participatory experiences. audiences are encouraged to explore exhibit information, provide feedback, and form www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 154 meaningful connections with the content, fostering an immersive interaction.one notable example is “the van gogh experience” (2022), a traveling digital exhibition that uses large-scale projections and interactive floors to immerse audiences in van gogh’s works. the 40-minute looped presentation relies on state-of-the-art video mapping technology, and is coupled with projections on the floor ,visitors can walk through digital paintings, interact with animated brush, to create the impression of being enveloped in the art. figure 1. van gogh exhibition: the immersive experience 1.2 from one-way communication to reciprocal interaction conventional exhibition formats prioritize content presentation over audience participation. new media exhibition design shifts the focus toward two-way or multi-directional communication, fostering a collaborative dialogue between audiences and curators. this participatory approach enhances user engagement and satisfaction.the “relational gestures” by sougwen chung at hofa gallery ， 2023.chinese-canadian artist sougwen chung, recognized as a 2023 time100 ai honoree, presented works that explore human-ai collaboration. the exhibition showcased a blend of physical paintings, digital videos, augmented reality sculptures, and immersive media installations. chung’s innovative practice involves partnering with ai-powered robots to create art, exemplifying the synergy between human creativity and machine learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 155 figure 2. sougwen chung co-creates with multi-robotics through biosensors 1.3 from single-sensory input to multi-sensory immersion traditional exhibitions predominantly rely on visual and textual narratives, limiting engagement and accessibility. new media exhibition design incorporates multi-sensory elements—sound, lighting, digital projections, and haptic feedback—to create a more immersive and memorable visitor experience. for example, the *2023 ars electronica festival* in austria showcased an interactive installation where visitors used vr headsets, scent-emitting machines, and responsive surfaces to experience data visualization through multiple senses. this case highlights the increasing importance of integrating touch, smell, and sound into exhibitions.this expansion of sensory inputs deepens audience involvement and enhances content comprehension. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 156 2. characteristics of new media exhibition design 2.1 spatial expansion new media exhibition design transcends static spatial constraints, enabling dynamic and adaptive exhibition environments. through interactive installations and projection mapping, interactive installations have extended exhibitions beyond traditional venues. “the teamlab borderless” exhibition . the entire art space is essentially one large canvas featuring over 50 artworks, many of which flow and move freely between the various sections. once inside the facility, there are no set walking routes nor clear cut entrances or exits. like the artwork, visitors are encouraged to just go with the flow. some artwork may look repeated to the uninitiated, but it is an expression of the borderless nature of the museum, in which artworks crossover or spill into and interact with one another. figure 3. universe of water particles on a rock where people gather at team lab borderless exhibition 2.2 intangible exhibition content while traditional exhibitions emphasize tangible artifacts, new media exhibition design often revolves around abstract themes and conceptual storytelling. compared to its sister exhibition teamlab planets in toyosu, which is space and universe themed, borderless focuses on nature and the elements. as such, visitors can expect to see and interact with flowers, animals and element-inspired artwork. additionally, the specially formulated scents in specific sections of the museum also ensure that the immersive experience goes beyond sight, touch and sound, but also includes smell. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 157 figure 4. author's selfie at teamlab borderless exhibition 2.3 interaction-centric design a defining characteristic of new media exhibition design is its prioritization of human-centered interaction. the primary objective is to facilitate meaningful exchanges between audiences and exhibits, transforming exhibition spaces into interactive environments. interaction is now central to exhibitions. “the new teamlab borderless 2024”.there is a tea house inspired by the traditional tea ceremony for visitors to drink tea, in which digital flowers bloom in cups of tea and scatter when no tea is present. this taste experience makes a visit a complete sensory experience, and further allows visitors to create their personal work of art. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 158 figure 5. interactive tea house experience at teamlab borderless exhibition 3. principles of interaction design in new media exhibitions 3.1 instinctive interaction intuitive interaction design ensures that audiences engage with exhibits effortlessly. natural interaction mechanisms, such as touchscreens and motion-sensing technologies, enable seamless information retrieval without imposing cognitive strain. these interaction methods mirror familiar real-world behaviors, enhancing accessibility and usability. for example, the use of multimedia touch screen in the new media display enables people to obtain information by touching their fingers, zooming, stretching, moving and other operations. these technologies enable people to obtain information about exhibits only through their daily behavior, increase the interactivity and interest of the cognitive process, reduce the cognitive burden of the interactive process, and enable the audience to smoothly obtain the exhibition experience in a natural and relaxed atmosphere. 3.2 emotional engagement interactive exhibition design should evoke emotional responses, fostering deeper audience connections. emotional interaction design incorporates sensory stimuli, behavioral responses, and environmental ambiance to create immersive experiences. by engaging multiple cognitive and emotional faculties, exhibitions can create more profound and lasting impressions.from the perspective of design elements, emotional interaction design mainly has three types of elements: (1) sensory elements, which mainly include five types of elements: vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste; (2) behavioral elements, which mainly include language, sound, movement and other elements; (3) environmental elements, i.e., the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 159 spatial environment in which people are located. emotional interaction design requires that it interacts with people through different levels of design, which firstly triggers people's emotional response to the exhibits by interacting with their senses, secondly triggers people's perceptual experience of the exhibits by interacting with their behaviors, and lastly enables people to emotionally resonate with the exhibition through the display environment created for people. 4. interaction design methodologies in new media exhibitions 4.1 designing interaction objects new media exhibition design encompasses three primary modes of interaction: human-space interaction: spatial design elements facilitate engagement, with digital installations extending the physical environment. human-computer interaction: digital interfaces enhance engagement, ensuring efficient information exchange. interpersonal interaction: social interaction components, such as collaborative exhibits and multiplayer installations, enrich the visitor experience. 4.2 designing interactive behaviors exhibition interactions can be classified based on input modalities: gesture-based interaction: systems like microsoft kinect allow audiences to control digital elements using body movements. voice interaction: speech-controlled exhibits enable hands-free engagement. brainwave-driven interaction: experimental installations, such as the *idea stadium* exhibit, utilize neural feedback to create interactive experiences. 4.3 designing interactive feedback mechanisms interactive feedback enhances engagement through real-time responses: sensory feedback: tactile, visual, and auditory feedback reinforce interactive experiences. physical feedback: dynamic installations react to audience inputs, fostering tangible interaction. 5. conclusion new media exhibition design represents a significant evolution in audience engagement, transitioning from passive consumption to immersive interaction. this study has explored key principles and methodologies for designing interactive exhibitions, and their real-world applications. emphasizing the importance of human-centered engagement. the future research direction should be in the following aspects • exploring brain-computer interaction (bci) in exhibition environments. • investigating the psychological effects of immersive multi-sensory exhibitions. • developing ai-driven adaptive curation for personalized exhibition experiences. as interaction design continues to evolve, future research must explore how ai, neural interfaces, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 160 cross-disciplinary methodologies can further enhance cultural storytelling and audience engagement in exhibitions. reference amershi, s., weld, d., vorvoreanu, m., & fourney, a. (2019). guidelines for human-ai interaction. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300233 budge, k., & burness, a. (2018). museum objects and instagram: agency and communication in digital engagement. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2017.1337079 deterding, s. (2015). the lens of intrinsic skill atoms: a method for gameful design. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.993471 javornik, a. (2016). augmented reality: research agenda for studying the impact of its media characteristics on consumer behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.02.004 miller, c. h. (2019). digital storytelling 4e: a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment. onyejelem, t. e., & aondover, e. m. (2024). digital generative multimedia tool theory (dgmtt): a theoretical postulation. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429440045 serrell, b. (2015). exhibit labels: an interpretive approach. microsoft word assc-v3n2-p16 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 16 original paper student perceptions of covid-19 on mental health and academic success: a comparison between university and community college students rose, stephanie f.1*, christian, samantha a.2 sego, anita3 & demers, denise4 1 university of central arkansas, department of health sciences, conway, ar 2 national park college, department of social sciences, hot springs, ar 3 university of central arkansas, department of health sciences, conway, ar 4 university of central arkansas, department of health sciences, conway, ar * rose, stephanie f., university of central arkansas, department of health sciences, conway, ar received: march 3, 2021 accepted: march 12, 2021 online published: march 14, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p16 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p16 abstract very little evidence addresses college students’ perceptions of mental health and supportive services available to assist them with being academically successful since the covid-19 pandemic began. this is also true for comparing community college students and university students. this study examines the concepts of how covid-19 has impacted overall student-perceptions of their mental health. data on perceptions was collected from both community college and university students. a total of 932 students completed a survey regarding their views of mental health, academic success and supportive services relationships between perceived mental health and supportive services rendered significant findings. perceived differences between perceived mental health and supportive services were also significantly significant in the data. recommendations for future research is also explored. keywords mental health, academic success, covid-19 pandemic, university student, community college 1. introduction the corona virus 2019 (covid-19) was deemed to have caused a pandemic by the world health organization (who) in 2020. many colleges began to shift to remote learning. this included higher-educational faculty who may not have had any experience with remote teaching, which created additional challenges. this also created the largest conversion to remote learning in the history of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. higher education (faize & nawaz, 2020). while online education continues to grow, 84% of college students were attending face-to-face courses prior to the covid-19 pandemic (gould, 2020). the shift to remote learning occurred rapidly, triggering some challenges. some faculty were required to use both synchronous and/or asynchronous teaching methods. as students worked to adjust to new expectations, many also struggled with additional life stressors, including balancing employment or loss of employment. additional stressors include obtaining adequate childcare, as well as personal illness and/or caring for an ill loved one. these factors caused unequal opportunities among students (gillis & krull, 2020). many colleges selected to hold courses virtually only. this caused a shift for many students regarding housing, on-campus supports and interrupting daily routines that assisted students with success (hadler, 2020). early research identified inequalities among students from various backgrounds and access to resources. this was particularly challenging for students dependent upon university and public spaces available to use to complete their work as more places were required to shut down. higher levels of stress and anxiety were reported, triggering difficulty completing academic responsibilities, particularly for students with low-income and students of color. while not all colleges were completely virtual, social distancing guidelines were put in place, triggering an overall decrease in social interactions and increased isolation. prior to the pandemic, college students tended to have higher rates of feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and depression. the restrictions related to covid-19 have contributed to worsening symptoms (hadler, 2020). challenges related to online learning exist as there are many online learning management systems being utilized, with many faculty using them for the first time. additional challenges included technological issues (i.e.: poor internet connection and equipment, poor audio and video quality, rural areas with fewer resources, etc.). a lack of technological understanding of both faculty and students existed as well. these challenges are correlated with overall decreased student-satisfaction (faize & nawaz, 2020). new college students struggled with having to shift from living independently on campus to moving back home with their parents. while this can be seen as a positive support, it was also a stressor for many students/young adults wanting to experience their independence (gould, 2020). one study reported 71% of students reported an increase in stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. triggers for these symptoms included fears about their own, as well as their loved ones’ health. additional reported triggers included decreased concentration, sleep, and social interactions. furthermore, fear related to academic performance and the use of unhealthy coping skills were also reported (son, hegde, smith, wang, & sasangohar, 2020). students also reported a decrease in physical activity and an increase in sedentary activities, such as smartphone usage (huckins, dasilva, wang, hedlund, rogers, subigya, wu, obuchi, murphy, meyer, wagner, holtzheimer, & campbell, n.d.). some universities even provided food pantries to students, with increased access during the covid-19 pandemic. this is especially important when considering that on-campus dining services may have been limited due to the pandemic (chloe, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. continuing to provide mental health services through colleges was important, as well as ensuring that students received reliable information regarding covid-19. this was to assist students with decreasing anxiety and increasing feelings of safety. furthermore, linking students to community resources was recommended for assisting students as well (chloe, 2020). faculty needed to consider additional stressors of students and to attempt to adjust learning provisions appropriately; for example, not requiring additional assignments or “surprise assignments” that may produce undo stress (gould, 2020). students with disabilities expressed concern that their accommodations would be upheld in an online learning environment. many student support offices reported increased reports from students needing accommodations and report increased efforts to work with faculty and students to ensure accommodations are met (gould, 2020). certain factors are correlated with higher student satisfaction and online learning: faculty appropriately addressing student issues and faculty promoting, as well as fostering student-interaction (faize & nawaz, 2020). due to the previously mentioned factors, it is important that faculty develop and maintain a strong connection that includes prompt and regular communication with students. providing clear learning objectives and an organized course was correlated with student success and satisfaction. faculty education on the learning management system is important to best assist students with online learning (gillis & krull, 2020). there are some key differences in community colleges versus four-year universities. students attending four-year universities tended to spend more time preparing their assignments in comparison with community college students. levels of student participation are similar between community college students and four-year university students. collaborative, academic work was significantly lower in community college students with 21 percent of community college students reporting collaborative work projects and 58 percent of four-year university students. student-faculty interaction was consistent between both types of learning institutions. this is despite four-year university students having increased access to faculty on-campus. 70 percent of community college students reported feeling adequately supported on-campus, which is comparable to 72 percent of four-year university students reporting the same (education source, 2006). community colleges tend to serve low-income, part-time, minority and first-generation college students. approximately one-third of community college students are first-generation college students, while minority students make up approximately one-half of students enrolled in community colleges. it is argued that due to these factors, community colleges must provide increased resources and support to attending students. increased support-services are correlated with student success in community colleges. considering this information, community colleges do not receive increased funding based on student population and fiscal need (kolbe & baker, 2019). early research identified inequalities among students from various backgrounds and access to resources. this was particularly challenging for students dependent upon university and public spaces to complete their work as more places were required to shut down. higher levels of stress and anxiety were reported, triggering difficulty completing academic responsibilities particularly for students with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. low-income and students of color (gillis & krull, 2020). these issues will further be explored as community colleges and universities are compared regarding supports and effects of covid-19. 2. method 2.1 procedure the purpose of this study was to examine the concepts of how covid-19 has impacted overall student-perceptions of their mental health. using an online self-report survey, this study measured the effect of covid-19 on the perception of mental health of college students at a four-year university and a community college in the southern united states. after developing a survey and obtaining irb approval, the researchers used survey monkey to create a link to be shared with participants. using an email listserv provided by the university, each student received an email invitation with a description of the study, consent form, and a link to the survey. clicking on the link opened the survey through survey monkey where they proceeded to the 3-item survey with likert-scale statements regarding their mental health during covid-19. the first question on the survey was an agreement to consent to the study, and the second question was where students identified whether they were a community college student or a university student. lastly, students completed the likert-scale statements section. data collected had no personal identifiers and was completely anonymous and confidential. we hypothesized community college students would report lower rates than four-year university students’ mental health being negatively impacted by covid-19. we also predicted community college students would have fewer difficulties completing due to covid-19 and feel more supported in comparison to four-year university students. 2.1.1 research design an online self-report survey was used in an independent samples t-test to compare four-year university and community college students’ perceptions of the impact of the covid-19 global pandemic on their overall mental health. this data was used to provide comparative analyses about the intersectionality between mental health and the covid-19 crisis. 2.1.2 testing instrument the survey consisted of 4 questions, the first one indicating if they were currently attending a four-year university or community college. the remaining three questions were likert scale questions created by the authors regarding their perceptions of how covid19 has impacted them. the choices for the likert scale responses were: 1) not at all; 2) a little bit; 3) no change; 4) somewhat; and 5) extremely. the questions asked on the survey were: 1) i feel like my mental health has been negatively impacted by covid-19. 2) i feel that covid-19 related mental health difficulties have caused problems with completing assignments. 3) i feel as though there are adequate supports at my learning institution to assist me to overcome barriers related to my mental health and covid-19 and be academically successful. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. 2.1.3 participants participants for this study were college age students from two higher education institutions in the southern united states. the total response number was 940. eight respondents skipped questions and were not used. of those respondents, (n=932) a total of 789 were four-year university students and 143 were community college students. they were recruited through an email sent to the students’ email accounts. 2.1.4 data analysis in order to determine if there was a difference between the two populations, data was analyzed using spss statistics for windows version 27.0 (ibm corp., 2020). descriptive statistics and an independent samples t-test were analyzed. additionally, welch’s test was used to account for the sample size difference. a total of 932 responses were included for analysis. eight respondents skipped questions, and those were not used in the data analysis. 3. result there was a statistically significant difference between the four-year university and community college students on all three questions. community college (m=3.34, sd=1.24) and four-year university students (m=3.60, sd=1.15) had different perceptions of mental health being affected by covid-19 t(928)=2.45, p=0.014. community college (m=2.99, sd=1.46) and four-year university college students (m=3.37, sd=1.36) also differed if they felt as though they were having difficulty completing assignments due to covid19 t(929)=3.11, p=0.002. the greatest significant difference between community college (m=3.39, sd=1.26) and four-year university students (m=3.04, sd=1.6) was regarding whether they felt as though they had adequate support at their learning institution t(925)=3.29, p=.001. in order to account for the unequal sample sizes and the possibility of a type i error, a welch’s test was also used. this type of test is considered to account for unequal variances and sample sizes (derrick, toher, & white, 2016). this test yielded significant results as well at the p< 0.05 level. for the three questions, p=0.02, p=0.003, and p=0.002 on the welch test. to surmise, our hypotheses were found to be correct as four-year university students reported having greater difficulty with mental health and completing assignments during the covid-19 pandemic. also, university students reported higher lower rates of adequate support services at their institution. table 1. group statistics group statistics i attend a .... n mean std. deviation std. error mean i feel like my mental community 143 3.3427 1.23963 .10366 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. health has been negatively impacted by covid-19. college four-year university 787 3.6023 1.15057 .04101 i feel that covid-19 related mental health experiences have caused difficulty with completing assignments. community college 143 2.9860 1.45827 .12195 four-year university 788 3.3744 1.36043 .04846 i feel as though there are adequate supports at my learning institution to assist me to overcome barriers related to my mental health and covid-19 and be academically successful. community college 141 3.3901 1.25796 .10594 four-year university 786 3.0369 1.15980 .04137 table 2. independent samples test levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means i feel like my mental health has been negatively impacted by covid-19. equal variances assumed 1.540 .215 -2.452 equal variances not assumed -2.329 i feel that covid-19 related mental health experiences have equal variances assumed 1.286 .257 -3.105 equal variances not -2.959 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. caused difficulty with completing assignments. assumed i feel as though there are adequate supports at my learning institution to assist me to overcome barriers related to my mental health and covid-19 and be academically successful. equal variances assumed 6.416 .011 3.286 equal variances not assumed 3.105 table 3. robust tests of equality of means statistica df1 df2 sig. i feel like my mental health has been negatively impacted by covid-19. welch 5.424 1 189.097 .021 brown-forsyth e 5.424 1 189.097 .021 i feel that covid-19 related mental health experiences have caused difficulty with completing assignments. welch 8.758 1 189.543 .003 brown-forsyth e 8.758 1 189.543 .003 i feel as though there are adequate supports at my learning institution to assist me to overcome barriers related to my mental health and covid-19 and be academically successful. welch 9.643 1 185.183 .002 brown-forsyth e 9.643 1 185.183 .002 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. figure1. institutional differences of student reports of covid impact on mental health figure 2. institutional differences of student reports of covid impact on assignment completion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. figure 3. institutional comparison of student reports regarding academic supports 4. discussion as previously mentioned, our hypotheses were correct regarding university students struggling more with mental health and assignment completion. community college students reported higher rates of adequate support from their higher education institution. approximately 25% responded that they felt extremely, adequately supported versus less than 15% of university students feeling extremely, adequately supported. further information regarding student success and satisfaction regarding faculty practice and parental support is needed (faize & nawaz, 2020). the current study demonstrated students from a community college felt more supported than those from the four-year university. further studies could contribute information regarding specific supports that students found to be significantly helpful during the pandemic. few studies exploring the impact of covid-19 on college students’ mental health exist. approximately 30% of community-college students in this study reported no change in their mental health due to the covid-19 pandemic compared with approximately 25% of university students reporting no change in their mental health due to the pandemic. future studies could contribute to the literature by analyzing students’ perceptions of mental health and specific stressors. this could assist with better serving students struggling with mental health. larger sample sizes from various higher educational institutions are recommended. gillis and krull’s (2020) particular study was conducted at an elite flagship university; thus, results from higher educational institutions with a more diverse student base are recommended (gillis & krull, 2020). additionally, the studies that exist tend to only provide information on larger universities (son et al., 2020). both higher ed institutions for this study were diverse in several ways. both are in smaller, rural communities which added additional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. stressors for students already struggling with limited resources. also, the community college in this study offers four-year programs in partnership with other universities. it is important to note that community college students for this study reported feeling more supported; thus, further studies that explore how increased support and smaller institutions are beneficial with overcoming these barriers. in conclusion, while covid-19 has been a landmark, historical event, understanding how students are affected can assist should future complications arise as higher educational institutions continue to adapt to meet the needs of their students. references chloe, t. (2020, april 13). these resources can help students struggling during coronavirus pandemic. daily targum, the: rutgers university of new jersey (new brunswick, nj). derrick, b., toher, d., & white, p. (2016). why welch’s test is type i error robust. the quantitative methods for psychology, 12(1), 30-38. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.12.1.p030 education source. student engagement in community colleges vs. four-year institutions. (2006). eduexec, 25(1), 5. faize, f. a., & nawaz, m. (2020). evaluation and improvement of students’ satisfaction in online learning during covid-19. open praxis, 12(4), 495-507. https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.12.4.1153 gillis, a., & krull, l. m. (2020). covid-19 remote learning transition in spring 2020: class structures, student perceptions, and inequality in college courses. teaching sociology, 48(4), 283-299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055x20954263 gould, k. j. (2020). covid-19 and college students with special needs. exceptional parent, 50(5), 44-46. hadler, n. (2020). coping with the covid-19 pandemic as a college student. retrieved october 13, 2020, from https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/psychiatry/michigan-psychiatry-resources-covid-19/adults-specifi c-resources/coping-covid-19-pandemic-college-student huckins, j., …, campbell, a. (2020, june 17). during the early phases of the covid-19 pandemic: longitudinal smartphone and ecological momentary assessment study. retrieved october 13, 2020, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32519963/ https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4enzm ibm corp. (2020). released 2020. ibm spss statistics for windows, version 27.0. armonk, ny: ibm corp kolbe, t., & baker, b. d. (2019). fiscal equity and america’s community colleges. journal of higher education, 90(1), 111-149. https://doi-org.ucark.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1442984 son, c., hegde, s., smith, a., wang, x., & sasangohar, f. (2020, september 22). effects of covid-19 on college students’ mental health in the united states: interview survey study. retrieved october 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7473764/ advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 156 original paper mao zedong&apos;s development of socialist democratic politics in the early period of new china and contemporary revelations zhiwei niu1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: september 19, 2023 accepted: november 06, 2023 online published: november 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p156 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p156 abstract in the new era, china&apos;s institutional system has been continuously improved, and a series of systems under which the people are masters of their own house, which is a sine qua non for the development of socialist democratic politics in china, has also been upheld and perfected. in the early days of the founding of new china, mao zedong, the founding leader of the people&apos;s republic of china, made great efforts in the exploration of socialist democratic politics. at the beginning of the new china, the development of democratic politics was plagued with problems, the root of which was the inadequacy of the state system. in response to this situation, mao zedong made fruitful explorations of the system of people&apos;s congresses, multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the communist party of china (cpc), the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of grassroots selfgovernance, laying the foundation of china&apos;s institutional system. in developing democratic politics with chinese characteristics in the new era, it is important to learn from the experience and inspiration of mao&apos;s series of explorations, to continuously improve and implement the relevant systems, to grasp the transformation of institutional advantages into governance effectiveness, and to adhere to the fundamental leadership of the party. keywords mao zedong, democracy, the masses, system 1. introduction the fourth plenary session of the nineteenth central committee of the communist party of china (cpc) has profoundly explained the “mapping” of our country&apos;s system, which is very much characterised by chinese features, and which is centred on the fact that the people are the fundamental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 157 published by scholink inc. driving force behind the development of our country and the implementation of its system. at the plenary session, one of the fundamental institutional systems that china adheres to and improves is that of the people being the masters of their own house, highlighting the idea of people centred development. in the early days of the founding of the state, when our democratic political system was very imperfect, mao zedong made great efforts to promote the building of a system in this regard, which has had far-reaching effects on the present day. 2. difficulties faced by the country in the early years of the new china the party&apos;s centennial birthday, and from 1921 to the founding of new china through the twenty-eight years of bloodshed is still vivid in our minds. the founding of new china really enabled the chinese nation to realise its independence and complete the great leap of “standing up”, but a century of turmoil has left our country riddled with holes and institutional devastation. economically, during the kuomintang&apos;s rule, the oppressed chinese people were subjected to heavy taxes and levies because of the need to maintain huge military expenditures and to pay reparations to foreign powers. coupled with the negligence of the domestic market under its rule, speculation was rampant. for example, when beijing and tianjin were just liberated, there were more than 200 private banks (banks and moneychangers), and the funds invested in production accounted for only 17% of the funds in the front accounts, while the remaining 70% or more went into commercial speculation; the vast majority of the banks and moneychangers had other back accounts in addition to the front accounts (one book, two books, and more than three books), and the funds used in the back accounts accounted for more than 80% of the funds, and the back and front accounts accounted for more than 80% of the funds, and the back and front accounts accounted for more than 80% of the funds. more than 80% of the funds, before and after the account, into the production of only 1−4%, more than 96% for commercial speculation. the chaos in the market caused by this state of affairs led to serious inflation, resulting in a sharp fall in the value of the currency and soaring prices. militarily, although the founding of the new china was a great encouragement and the people really stood up, the war of people&apos;s liberation was not yet completely over. millions of kuomintang (kmt) troops were still dispersed in guangdong, guangxi, sichuan and guizhou, etc., and in the liberated areas, there were even vicious incidents such as riots between remnants of the kmt and local bullies, whose aim was to stop the new china in its infancy. in these areas, the greatest victims are still the people. in the international context, many countries favoured the establishment of people&apos;s democracies, but most of the countries that received support for the establishment of new china were still struggling for national liberation and independence. because of the weak national strength of these countries, the support that the new china received from the international community was still very limited, and its influence in the international arena was negligible. the western imperialist countries, led by the united states, were bound to play an obstructive role in china&apos;s rise because of ideological conflicts, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 158 published by scholink inc. and diplomatic blockades and conflicts against china were inevitable. 3.mao zedong&apos;s development of socialist democracy in the early years of the founding of new china 3.1 system of popular congresses marxism spread rapidly after the october revolution in russia. the may fourth movement in china also broke out under the influence of its rapid spread, and then the communist party of china was founded in 1921, using marxism as a weapon to arm the whole party from the beginning to the end. it was with this weapon that the party was able to win the revolution and establish a new china. after 28 years of arduous practice, the cpc has learnt the lesson of recognising the decisive role of the people in historical development, and has always aimed at raising the status of the people as the main body of the nation, and enabling them to take effective control of the power they should have in the new china. through his study of the marxist doctrine of the state, mao zedong said as early as 1940, “china can now adopt a system of all people&apos;s congresses, provincial people&apos;s congresses, county people&apos;s congresses, district people&apos;s congresses up to township people&apos;s congresses, and have the government elected by the congresses at all levels.” (mao zedong election, 1991) this was the initial conception of the system of people&apos;s congresses in china. and with the success of the meetings at all levels, the people felt that the cpc had brought them real rights, that the people were no longer an oppressed and enslaved group, and that their enthusiasm for participating in political life had increased significantly, and that they had more confidence in the cpc to lead the people forward. 3.2 the multiparty cooperation and political consultation system under the leadership of the communist party of china (cpc) the question of whether the democratic parties should stay or go has always been the focus of debate among the parties, and there is a wide range of opinions within the party. on the fundamental premise that the new china must adhere to the leadership of the cpc, many people believed that there was no longer a need for the democratic parties to exist. however, mao zedong always believed that the democratic parties could play a supervisory role, which would have a significant impact on the development of the party and the country. thus, at the time of the founding of the new china, he stated that “a political consultative conference must be convened which includes the democratic parties... to proclaim the founding of the people&apos;s republic of china and to elect a democratic coalition government to represent the republic...” (mao zedong election (volume 4), 1991) this system was also adopted in 1946 as the first democratic party in the people&apos;s republic of china, and was then adopted in 1946 as the first democratic party in the people&apos;s republic of china. [this system was also established with the convening of the chinese people&apos;s political consultative conference on 28 september 1949, and the first constitution of the people&apos;s republic of china, promulgated in 1954, included the democratic parties as an important member of the united front of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 159 published by scholink inc. democracy, thus legally defining this fundamental political system. 3.3 regional ethnic autonomy system at the time of the victory in the war of resistance against japan in 1945, the central committee of the communist party of china gave clear instructions on inner mongolia, requesting it to establish a local autonomous government composed of its own nationalities. how to unite the various ethnic groups requires a long period of practice and exploration; in 1952, china promulgated the outline of regional ethnic autonomy of the people&apos;s republic of china, which clearly defined the content of the system. in 1953, during the transition period, mao zedong demanded that “...all ethnic groups should be guaranteed equality in all rights, and regional ethnic autonomy should be implemented. ...... gradually develop into political, economic, and cultural (which includes steady and necessary social reforms) for all nationalities, and to eliminate the de facto inequalities among the nationalities inherited from history.” [in 1984, china promulgated the law of the people&apos;s republic of china on regional ethnic autonomy, which clearly stipulates the rights and obligations of all ethnic groups in all aspects, and this autonomy law continues to be improved to this day. 3.4 grassroots mass self-governance system as early as the founding of the people&apos;s republic of china, the grass-roots mass self-governance system was initially explored, and as one of china&apos;s basic political systems, its emergence was in keeping with the times. because of the differences between urban and rural areas, there are two types of autonomous organisations: urban neighbourhood committees and rural village committees. since 1950, neighbourhood committees have been established in various places in accordance with local conditions. due to the lack of corresponding laws and regulations, the size and functions of the neighbourhood committees varied, and some members of the committees used their power to create chaos and use their power for personal gain. 1953 peng zhen made it clear that the organisational nature of the neighbourhood committees should be mass self-governance. mao zedong and other central leaders agreed with peng zhen and unified the names of the organisations. in 1954, the regulations on the organisation of urban residents&apos; committees were promulgated, stipulating the nature, role and organisational status of the neighbourhood committees. in contrast to the neighbourhood committees, the village committees emerged after the third plenary session of the eleventh central committee of the communist party of china (cpc) when the household contract responsibility system was universally implemented, and were only formally established in 1987 with the adoption of the organic law of the villagers&apos; committees (for trial implementation). the system of mass self-governance at the grass-roots level was put forward by mao zedong and other national leaders in order to stabilise the nascent people&apos;s democratic dictatorship of the new china, in the light of marxist theories and the actual situation of the country&apos;s large population, and it has distinctive chinese characteristics. why do they have chinese characteristics? firstly, the grass-roots mass self-government organisations were established under the leadership of the party, and adherence to the party&apos;s leadership ensures that the direction of development is correct. secondly, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 160 published by scholink inc. grass-roots mass self-governance organisations have always reflected the people&apos;s aspirations and represented their interests. 4. mao zedong&apos;s contemporary revelations on the development of socialist democratic politics mao zedong fully affirmed the people&apos;s wisdom, recognised and relied on the people&apos;s power, and found the fundamental driving force for revolution and construction, which also reflected his wise greatness. as the first leader of the new china and the greatest marxist statesman in the history of the party, he always insisted that it is the people who can create history. so today in the new era, if we want to make socialism with chinese characteristics enter a brand new chapter, it is all the more necessary to respect the people&apos;s aspirations and safeguard the interests of the masses. since xi jinping came to power, the new leadership has put forward the idea of people-centred development. but because the political environment was so different from today&apos;s, it was inevitable that the previous political system could not be copied and adapted. mao zedong&apos;s contribution to democratic politics was inherited and developed at the recently held fourth plenary session of the 19th central committee. 4.1 adherence to and improvement of the system is a prerequisite with the thirteen significant advantages of the socialist system with chinese characteristics fully analysed, all activities related to national governance should be consciously carried out in accordance with the socialist system with chinese characteristics. these distinctive advantages are derived from marxism and have been deepened through a series of outstanding achievements in the chineseisation of marxism since mao zedong thought. the people-centred development ideology upheld by general secretary xi jinping gives more prominence to the status of the people&apos;s main body, so that the fundamental rights and interests of the people can be effectively safeguarded before consciously adhering to china&apos;s socialist democratic political system. in the current complex and changing domestic and international situation, it is impossible to achieve long-term development by simply adhering to the existing system in china. in the new era, if we want to achieve more long-term development and the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, we must continuously improve and develop the existing system and policies to meet the ever-changing international and domestic environments. the party&apos;s thirteen “insisting and improving” principles emphasise insisting on and improving the system of people&apos;s sovereignty and developing socialist democratic politics, which is an important manifestation of highlighting the status of the people as the main body of government. the new generation of leaders with xi jinping as general secretary has fully inherited mao zedong&apos;s correct attitude towards the people, making socialist democratic politics even better, raising the status of the people as the main body of government, and truly relying on the power of the people to drive the country&apos;s development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 161 published by scholink inc. 4.2 translating institutional strengths into governance effectiveness is key in more than seventy years of practice from the founding of the state to the present, china has achieved rapid development in all aspects, which has been called the chinese miracle. the thirteen significant advantages in the fourth plenary session of the 19th central committee are showing a comprehensive grasp of china&apos;s socialist system. but just as a student&apos;s performance depends fundamentally on his or her own efforts rather than on the teacher, having an advanced system and being able to bring its sophistication into full play is a key factor in determining the development of china&apos;s governance capacity. whether such a chinese miracle can be continued or even surpassed depends on more comprehensive policy implementation. the improvement of the system and the superiority it embodies is the best manifestation of the lineage of the chineseisation of marxism. whether or not the socialist system can continue to be upheld and implemented is both a reality check for xi jinping&apos;s thought on socialism with chinese characteristics in the new era and a more vivid practical model for the subsequent development of socialism. china is a large country with a population of 1.4 billion people. improving the system is hard to come by, but whether the system can be firmly implemented is the key. it is difficult to put the system into practice after it has been formulated. therefore, the establishment of grass-roots mass self-governance organisations facilitates the implementation of systems and policies, with the goal of promoting and safeguarding the work of the party and playing a driving role in the deployment of national work. grass-roots mass self-governance organisations were originally set up to address livelihood issues, so the work of self-governance organisations inevitably revolves around the most concerned and realistic interests of the masses, and to address the core issues of people&apos;s lives. this system highlights the importance that the new socialist china attaches to democracy, which not only enables the state to grasp the interests and demands of the masses in the first instance, so that the formulation of the system can be more in line with the reality of the people; it also enables the people to participate in political life, thus promoting the formulation and implementation of the system, with a wide and far-reaching impact. party members and cadres, moreover, should make marxism their life&apos;s creed, strive to become a good marxist scholar as a lifelong pursuit, and constantly improve their talents and abilities. the people&apos;s study of the spirit of the fourth plenary session of the central committee should be strengthened, so that the people will more consciously surround themselves with the central committee of the party and consciously promote the implementation of the system and policies, so that the whole country will work together as one, and the party and the people will work together as one to ensure the implementation of the system for the country&apos;s comprehensive and rapid development. 4.3 party leadership is the fundamental guarantee marxism, as the party&apos;s fundamental guide since its founding, is the “panacea” for the party to maintain its scientific character. there are six requirements for adhering to and improving the party&apos;s leadership system. among them, not forgetting the original intention and keeping the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 162 published by scholink inc. mission in mind have been incorporated into the system for the first time. from the maintenance of the authority of the central committee of the party, the comprehensive nature of the party&apos;s leadership, the relationship between the party and the people, the party&apos;s ability to govern, and the overall strict governance of the party, the party&apos;s leadership system has been comprehensively explained in six aspects. these six requirements should always be developed and continuously improved. among the thirteen “insisting on and perfecting”, insisting on and perfecting the party&apos;s leadership system is the fundamental leadership system of the country. in the new era, the party leads everything. in order to strengthen the leadership of the party, on the one hand, the party itself should continue to improve and develop, and build itself into a stronger and more powerful political party, the cpc is a political party founded nearly a hundred years ago with a population of 90 million. why can it develop so rapidly? it is precisely because the party has the courage to revolutionise itself and never runs away from problems. in the course of a series of socialist practices carried out by uniting and leading the people, the cpc has never been afraid of making mistakes and has been more courageous in self-correction. in the process of comprehensively governing the party strictly, the party dares to turn the blade inward, and is more than capable of leading the people to the future and the chinese nation to rejuvenation. a big country with a population of 1.4 billion, if the cpc is no longer the leading core of the country and the backbone of china, then such a china is bound to be scattered and divided. the practice over the past seventy years since the founding of new china has proved that the cpc has been able to unite and lead the people to overcome any risks and challenges on the way of china&apos;s development. party leadership is the greatest advantage of the socialist system with chinese characteristics, and in the report of the 19th national congress of the cpc, general secretary xi jinping put forward the “four greats” approach to governing the country, and it is the great project of party construction that plays a decisive role. the party has always adhered to the principle that “to strike iron, one must be hard”, and the lessons learnt over the past hundred years have proved that strict governance of the party is not only related to the party&apos;s future destiny, but also has a decisive impact on the future of the country and the nation. it is precisely because of this impact that the party should carry out a self-revolution with greater determination, courage and perseverance. on the other hand, as the status of the people continues to rise, the role they play is becoming more and more important. it is necessary to strengthen the relevant education of the people, to consciously co-operate with the policies of the party and the state, and to abide by the state&apos;s system. consciously upholding the leadership of the party central committee with general secretary xi jinping at its core, truly realising the flesh and blood connection between the party and the people, concentrating their efforts to give play to their significant strengths, and constantly striving to realise the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 163 published by scholink inc. reference communiqué of the fourth plenary session of the 19th central committee of the communist party of china. (2019). beijing: people&apos;s publishing house. regional ethnic autonomy: the thinking and action of the cpc in reconstructing the unified multi-ethnic state. (2019). journal of the central institute of socialism, 2019(04), 165-173. selected works of mao zedong (vol. i, 1991). beijing: people&apos;s publishing house, 1991. mao zedong election (vol. ii). (1991). beijing: people&apos;s publishing house, 1991. mao zedong election (volume 4). (1991). beijing: people&apos;s publishing house, 1991. chen, jianyue. wu, j. (1958). problems of china&apos;s capitalist economic transformation. beijing: people&apos;s publishing house, 1958. microsoft word assc-v3n2-p36 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 36 original paper a business effort in favor of sustainability, the case of combustibles ecologicos de acatic sa de cv maríadel refugio carmona peña1, cándido gonzález pérez1* & ana gabriela gonzález anaya1 1 centro universitario de los altos, universidad de guadalajara, avenida rafael casillas aceves 1200 tepatitlán, jalisco, méxico * cándido gonzález pérez, centro universitario de los altos, universidad de guadalajara, avenida rafael casillas aceves 1200 tepatitlán, jalisco, méxico received: march 3, 2021 accepted: march 14, 2021 online published: march 22, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p36 abstract in this work we present the case of a company born from an individual dream that has made its way to success from one of the most unsuspected activities: recycling. against all odds, in our globalized world that prioritizes the generation of economic wealth to the detriment of natural resources, an ingenious initiative emerged that has turned bad into an economically enviable business. in the most diverse daily uses of factories, agriculture and even homes, the recycling of hazardous materials is generated. against all logic and with a persistence worthy of recognition, an artisan company was founded in a rural population that has transcended regions and above all archaic thoughts that privilege profits over everything else. with the passage of time, the artisan work was transformed to become an industrial company that generates great resources with the paradox that it has become a business to avoid environmental pollution when the latter is the result of excessive economic growth. keywords sustainability, recycling, technological development 1. introduction the main partner of the company combustibles ecológicos de acatic s.a. de c.v. heriberto de la torre padilla, began with the sale of fuels, while he was artisan bricks producer, in the town of acatic. it’s a places that has characterized since the middle of the last century as one of the main manufacturers of bricks for construction, tile and roof bricks. in his beginnings as an entrepreneur, the idea of inquiring about the sale of alternative fuel arose, at that time what was being done had no comparison with its current level of manufacturing. they used it to burn furnaces and many “pirate” producers who www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. sold contaminated oil proliferated. this oil was not treated, which was a good business for them because a large number of producers consumed them. his first task was to investigate how they did it and he discovered that previously in mexico, due to ignorance or lack of information, the oil was thrown away and the large producers who did something for nature, sent it to germany. there they recycled it and of course, they charged for receiving it. so, while looking for information, he found that there was a company in our country that was a pioneer, it was called ilubsa, with national income but partnered with italians. he investigated how they started, got information that one of the owners went on a research trip, so that’s where the idea was born. this was in the late nineties. after those events, heriberto de la torre got into everything related to oils, he learned everything about the treated oil. it is a very simple process, he tells in the interview, because the oil itself is a fuel. the process consisted of removing the humidity, the water. it was decanted and filtered and an additive was added so that it had a flash point similar to the one it had when its use began. that was like a dream for him, he thought that he really could do that. at that time he didn’t have any financial resources. he didn’t have the money nor the knowledge, both necessary ingredients. he began to work informally because he was completely unaware of the government authorizations. at first he had problems with the authorities because he did not have the permits. the truth is that the authorities themselves were unaware of the processes (don heriberto relates). for everything, the beginning is the difficult part, when they caught his attention, to a certain extent they were right because he did not have the documents that would protect him as a producer of alternative fuels. but everything was to know and to learn, that was the obligatory principle that helped him to overcome. an unwritten but easy to verify rule, is that the treated oil was better than the one that had not been modified. with a correct process, impurities are eliminated and the effect of polluting factors such as sulfur is reduced, an element that by the way, with the advances that don heriberto was making in the knowledge of his object of work, he could know that it contained very low levels and that was good news. knowing that he could not have enough knowledge and sometimes not even the necessary knowledge, he found himself in the need to hire a manager and says that this was of great help: when i started to get more in-depth, -he says, -i hired someone to inform me about the characteristics of the oil. he, you can say that he opened my eyes in this matter, but the truth is that there were more important people that i met for the transformation process. let’s say that manager gave me about 15 percent of what i needed, but it was very important of course because i was starting from scratch. nobody has everything that is needed in this job, you cannot count on a magic wand. the manager was like a component to get me environmental permits, special studies, but many more fields were needed. several authorities intervened, the municipality one with the use of land, the state one as a collection or storage center, and the federal one in the field of hazardous waste (the latter already in relation to transformation). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. 2. method the results that we present come from a qualitative research in the area of social sciences. it is based on the analysis of a company whose modus vivendi is the treatment of agricultural and industrial waste in western mexico. the origin is not older than three decades in time and the participation of two people has been fundamental for its operation and success in an area that had a localized origin in a micro-region. the company has expanded and serves clients in a third of the mexican republic. the theoretical perspective that was used in the research is the sustainability theory. the oldest backgrounds of this conception go back to the postulates of the french economic current known as the physiocracy, from the 18th century, where the main postulates established that economic growth should be based on respect and care for the land. even the roots of the word physiocracy mean: government of nature (lópez et al., 2016, pp. 441-442). with the appearance in that same century of the industrial revolution, a new economic system was born that has dominated the globe: capitalism, and with it, a free market logic that has put relations between the population on the razor’s edge. and nature (martínez & martínez, 2016, p. 124). we have chosen the sustainabillity theory because it is the way in which nature can be transformed in a respectful way, without damaging the environment. it is based on the premise that it is feasible to cohabit with natural resources by adequately using technological advances in the face of new challenges. with the use of new materials, the transformations can become harmful and this is where recycling actions and proper treatment of the substances must be carried out. a real sustainable development model requires protecting society, its cultural heritage, tradition and national identity as well as ecosystems and their diverse species of flora and fauna, which play an essential role in maintaining ecological and socio-economic processes (martínez & martínez, 2016; p. 140. alvarado, 2017, p. 15; olaguez-torres et al., 2019, p. 2; bermeo-paucar, et al., 2018, p. 30; bermeo-paucar et al., 2018, p. 35). 3. research results in the nineties of the last century, the state did not grant permits for the production of fuels and according to the interviewee, the tragedy that took place in the capital of jalisco: guadalajara in april 1992, motivated the authorities to modify the policies in the field of hydrocarbons. that year, without currently having a report fully endorsed by the government agencies, kilometers of the drainage pipes of the second largest city in the mexican republic were filled with gasoline. this unleashed a series of explosions while the streets were saturated with houses and people, causing the death of hundreds of inhabitants and the destruction of houses over several kilometers. without ever having accepted the guilt of the company petróleos mexicanos (pemex), there was an urgent need to collect waste from all forms of fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel, naphtha and toluene. originated by those changes, -don heriberto saysit was where we fit in with the company we started. at first they were cautious about those permits, not just anyone could get them. when i started, i didn’t www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. have a penny, i was broke; i never thought that starting the procedures would be so difficult. i couldn’t imagine all the obstacles that there were, everything that i would have to go through, but mainly because i never wanted to skip stages. something that was completely clear to me was that in 2003 when i got my first permit from the collection center it was that i always had to do things right, legally. everyone i talked to told me that it was going to be necessary for me to bribe people in order to get the help that i needed. i can absolutely assure you that in this case it is not true, the permits do not cost, they are free, i wondered why no one can get a permit. i had been told that in the whole country only about four authorizations had been granted. when i proposed to obtain the authorizations, it was said that some companies that were doing the same, although to a much greater extent than mine, should have workers from semarnap on their payroll. i do not know anything of that, nor do i believe it. analyzing what i did, i think that nobody had the need to do what was discussed. they gave me the authorizations very soon, i don’t know if it was because they saw me as a small business, but the paperwork was never complicated. it took me about four years to get my first authorization (that was between 2001 and 2005), when i obtained the federal authorization, i was the only one to get it in that year, throughout the country. they had instructed him to take special precaution in the existence of a type of oils that were very polluting: the plorichlorinatedbiphenates. it is the type of oil that was added to electrical transformers until before the eighties. it is a retardant that had the function of preventing them from catching fire when they came into contact with lightning in a storm. that was its usefulness, it delayed a fire. if a person comes into contact with these biphenyl, it causes thyroid problems, it can cause cancer. those oils were banned since that decade throughout the world, not just in mexico. you can still find them because there are those who, for some reason, keep very old electrical transformers. that in particular was one of the dangers that don heriberto took special care to take in high regard. they had always warned him to watch out for pollutants, but especially to have the ability to detect the most dangerous ones. the vast majority of oils are of mineral origin and it is very common for people to have frequent contact with them, for example mechanics work daily their working days in contact with the oils used in cars and nothing happens. for some other people, when they have contact with some type of these oils, nothing happens to them. the vast majority had the same retardant system and contain biphenytes, except those already mentioned that come from transformers. when they give you the first authorization, -don heriberto saysthe first thing they tell you is that it is totally forbidden to collect this type of oil.” when they are collected, it is necessary to carry out a study beforehand to know how many particles per million they have of biphenes. it is assumed that by this time there should be none of these liquids, but there is always the surprise that some may appear. if some person kept some type of these transformers or starters, there could be the danger of their existence, but since studies are always carried out before receiving the liquids, one is obliged to have them destroyed. before that process was done only in texas, in the united states, and there is still nothing here in mexico for this destruction process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. the company that don heriberto started encountered difficulties with potential buyers because they were people used to buying cheap, regardless of whether the oils were polluting. very few were aware of the use of treated fuels and preferred to purchase the so-called “burnt oil” because it had a cost of three hundred pesos per “tambo” (metal container with a capacity of 200 liters). it was less than the one transformed. he did his best to explain to them that by using a liquid to which additives were added, he was winning because the degree of combustion required was greater, but that was not seen by people who had learned all their lives to burn brick with fuel without industrially improving. don heriberto for his part, in addition to being a seller of oils, was also a brick producer and always used the hydrocarbon that he tried to commercialize, because he considered that it was the most beneficial economically and in its dealings with the environment. he has naturally committed himself to what is known as sustainable development, which consists of “satisfying our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy theirs” (martínez & martínez, 2016, p. 127). that line has continued to the present day. although acatic does not have a distribution that could be considered acceptable, it is proud to mention that there are tequila companies that are located in the guadalajara metropolitan area and sell their merchandise without any restriction. it even has among its client portfolio companies that produce food for human consumption that require boilers and that are also located in guadalajara and its surroundings. the company has grown gradually: our company has a group of people who collect used oil, -he explains in detail-. our area of work covers several states of the republic: zacatecas, aguascalientes, guanajuato. querétaro, michoacán, colima, jalisco, nayarit and baja california sur, we are talking about virtually half the country. once the problem we have faced from the beginning i think it was the permits, we went to the second one, which has been the logistics. how to solve what has to be done with waste, how you have to treat it. there is no advisor that tells you from start to finish what you have to do. there is no hydrocarbons advisor in mexico who will explain the entire process to you. pemex is a monopoly but they hire many engineers from outside the country. the chemical formulas for how to make all fuels are really the hardest. if you were to ask me what the keys to success have been in companies like the one i lead, i would say they are research, perseverance and honesty. those three together, it’s not on the money, it’s on the job. when i started i had no resources but that was not an obstacle to growth. i say that the strongest problem that can be faced is within one, is the attitude, overcoming that, the rest is accommodated. and of course, with a focus, you should always think if you don’t know something, someone does. and another thing, common sense: you have to look for those people who are going to tell you how to do it because no one is going to come to you. although he started alone, he has always believed that he should associate with other people. in this regard it has had great successes and at the same time serious difficulties. the main achievement has been that he found an environmental engineer trained at the instituto tecnológico y de estudios superiores de occidente (iteso), with whom he has tasted the honeys of success for many years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. they are clear that environmental care must be taken care of by many actors as established by martínez (2016, p. 124) and alvarado (2017, p. 21): governments, businessmen, universities and international organizations. both partners have accompanied each other in big plans and have brought them to reality, they respect each other a lot and provide support without restrictions, in their opinion, that has been the key to their great achievements. it was clear to don heriberto from the beginning that it was essential to have professionals in two specific areas: chemistry and the environment; of the latter he found his partner, and of the former they have hired staff throughout the society. to work with hydrocarbons and their transformation it is certain that standards must be known and met, otherwise failure is certain. also, from the beginning, both partners have planned to invite a third party to take over the administrative-accounting; it has become clear to them that one is in charge of everything environmentalist, another of the operations and sales, but they have always felt the existence of a void in the desk work area. “the environmental issue is complex because it encompasses many aspects of reality that occur simultaneously and with interrelations not fully understood, it requires transdisciplinary work to be able to address it” (martínez & martínez, 2016, p. 126). opportunities have been given, almost twenty years ago they invited a person to fill that profile, someone who would be one hundred percent involved in the company and who, like them, would take charge of a third part, the aforementioned administrative. but the results were not as expected, neither for the two of them as partners, nor for the person who had joined, so they decided to take a few steps back and start looking again. they have supported the partnership perfectly although always in their talks they consider that they need a third partner to balance the functions and to raise the standards and profits. they have not found the right person. there was another opportunity to incorporate a partner with those characteristics but it did not work either. in view of the results, they have tried to make the most of what they can do between the two of them: in environmental matters we hit the nail on the head because we registered a patent there at iteso—he states-, we did an investigation of how to extract fuel from the vapors; we own 85% and iteso the remaining 15%. we still maintain an area of research because that is one of the parts in which we have benefited. we had reniecyt which is a registration number in the conacyt (consejo nacional de ciencia y tecnología), that is granted only to companies that do research and which can be verifiable. all the time we have had a budget assigned to research. companies are always innovating, for example the paint companies make new lacquers and new pigment agents because they have better quality, but that also generates new pollutants. our role is to work to neutralize these new pollutants, all negative processes must be reversed. everything comes out of nature, but new formulas are being generated that cause new results, it comes by logic. for example, arsenic is a heavy metal of natural origin, mercury too. all hydrocarbons of fossil origin are also natural. i started alone, at first i was looking for clients, then my wife helped me, there were two of us. it was when i had the brick workshop, it ended at six in the afternoon and from that time, my wife and i www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. would start selling oil, sometimes until eleven at night. we started completely from scratch. here in the factory we sort: there are certain wastes that we can treat, others we cannot. for example, one that everyone knows are lithium batteries, we cannot treat those ourselves, we have to send them to monterrey, and there is only one place where these batteries are delivered. why is lithium polluting? because it is an energy insulator and when someone consumes it, it can go to the brain and stop thinking because the brain’s process is through energy; they would stay like zombies. it is said that this is the pollution that comes from the future because lithium is used more and more in electric batteries, currently that of cars that do not use gasoline and that there is going to be more every day. finding a way to recycle lithium is of capital urgency. today there is only one confinement that is located in the north of the country, in monclova, coahuila. my business is that i charge to receive it and deliver it to the confinement center, where it is also charged. my profit is that i charge more than what i pay and what it costs me to take them there. what i started with the oils treated for the brick makers, i still have, but let’s say that just for history, it represents almost nothing in proportion to what we do here in the factory. many producers always preferred to use bad oil, even the bricks were stained. one day when i went to buy pork rinds i noticed how they cleaned the butter, poured water on it, i asked the butcher what he did that for and he told me that it was so that the butter would come out pure, then from there i came up with a way to eliminate impurities in the oil would be adding water to it, and yes, with that change, let’s say artisanal, we managed to improve the process; that’s where the idea was born. but we have already advanced a lot with our laboratories, we can already determine which oils stain, it is no longer necessary to do that type of home test. with the use of our laboratories we can already determine which oils are not suitable for burning in the brick workshops at acatic. when they receive a substance of any kind, the first thing they have to do is classify it. then, analyzes are carried out in the laboratories that the company has, but at the same time they must send those samples to certified laboratories assigned by the state (fernández, tapia, fernández, & carrazco, 2017). everything, before unloading the vehicles. with the experience they have accumulated and through the performance of their own analyzes, they already know what is appropriate, however, it is an obligation that the standards set to wait for the results of the external laboratory in order to continue with the process. according to specialists (lópez et al., 2016, p. 440), an ideal world would be made up of societies that reduce the consumer desire for natural resources, since this does not exist, the most important task is the recycling of waste from both production and consumption, or, in short, seeking to use only renewable energy sources as pointed out by alvarado (2017, p. 24, díaz-ojeda & aguiluz-león, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. table 1. sales ratio (in tons) month and year solids oil water total (in tons) october 2019 66,037 390,933 437,117 894,087 november 2019 212,841 963,473 918,814 2´095128 december 2019 182,357 850,538 945,747 1´978,642 january 2020 115,715 895,696 1´116,440 2´127,851 february 2020 113,219 860,098 1´080,384 2´053,701 march 2020 151,356 1´180,733 1´060,781 2´392,870 april 2020 137,856 914,014 365,570 1´417,440 may 2020 215,416 880.953 441,060 1´537,429 june 2020 135,136 940,395 580,504 1´656,035 july 2020 118,758 1´148,006 594,980 1´861,744 august 2020 104,771 610,536 660,294 1´375,601 september 2020 93,702 723,452 617,279 1´434,433 before receiving any type of substance, -don heriberto says-it is necessary to classify it. we have enough types of laboratories for our work. before receiving we must do an analysis. it may be that we charge or that we pay, but every substance that reaches us is previously studied. we must classify, we must analyze, and in the case of liquid substances, we must characterize. all this is done before in order to unload a vehicle. the authorities oblige us to have an internal laboratory and require external analyzes with a laboratory certified before the competent authorities. we cannot be judge and party. every month we are taking samples and analyzing them in their laboratory. they are delivered to a laboratory that is private but that has a federal permit that must also have the certifications that require them. in short, that private laboratory takes samples of one hundred percent of the substances we receive and although we obtain our results from the laboratories themselves, as a rule, they must do their job and then we compare it, but 100 percent samples are always obtained. in particular, in the case of water, an analysis is carried out to verify that we are complying. what would happen if we did not comply? we would get in serious trouble. they could cancel the authorization they gave us. for due compliance, we must comply with what an outside laboratory they chose tells us. we do our thing but then they do the analysis and tell us if we are doing well or if we made a mistake. the things that we receive is a very extensive list-he adds-, being liquid, the analysis we carry out is of the ph, it must be three points down. if it falls above that point, it is still a hazardous waste. it is also analyzed that it should not contain heavy metals. as for solids: energy-saving light bulbs, cables used in computers, cell phones, batteries, and cooking oil (all this is generated in homes), we all generate hazardous waste (bermeo-paucar et al., 2018, p. 30). even the lacquer that ladies use to paint their nails, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. are hazardous waste. a company, if it is for example a tequila company: laboratory reagents, lamps (some are mercury vapor), the solvents they generate, fuel remnants, tank sludge, paint buckets. farmers use laboratory reagents, pesticide containers: poultry farmers: all the containers of what they consume, paints, thinners, pesticides. none of this should be thrown away, much less burned, because a long time ago it was thought that burning would prevent contamination. but it doesn’t, it is even more dangerous. the plastic in which these substances were used as pesticides for example, cannot be recycled, especially the red ones that are already prohibited in many countries of the world (in our country their use is still authorized). when a container that contains these contaminants is used, the residues that remain are named traces, they are very bad. for example, if a woman is pregnant and has contact with it, the child is at risk. it is assumed that an adult is not so much. although it can cause leukemia, but are they already banned in most countries of the world. in short, all companies generate pollutants, be it metallurgical, agricultural, tequila, etc., even, as we have already seen, we also generate hazardous waste in homes. we are authorized to collect anything that is dangerous. here the use of language is important, a substance is considered waste when it is used. for example, what is contained in energy saving light bulbs is legal to purchase and distribute because they have a specific use, they are considered hazardous waste once they have stopped be used either at home or in a business. if we talk about gasoline when it is new it is a dangerous material, when it is already used, it is considered as waste. and so, in oils it is the same. when new, they require a type of transportation permit. when it is already used, you need a special permit from the communications and transportation secretary to take it from one place to another. each waste is assigned a form of transportation; they vary according to their origin. each transportation must have a bill of lading and a safety sheet in the event that a truck overturns. everything is classified to avoid contact with these types of waste. the legislation on which we rely is the same as in canada and the united states. all the codes that are used are the parameters under which we abide by. for example, a pesticide has a small skull and it comes with a square that has lines, there always comes a number. if we buy something that has a small diamond, it comes with four colors: yellow, blue, red and white, these colors each have a meaning, for example, blue means health and has a degree of danger, it is measured from zero to four. for example, if one is marked, it means that it is slightly dangerous, and thus it goes up to four, which in that case is considered a very severe danger to health. if someone sees that the color blue has the four, it means that it cannot be touched with the hand (what damages is irreversible). the same applies to the four colors: red is flammable (for example gasoline and diesel are grade two or three; four means that it can ignite with the sun, with some type of contact). there are reagents, when one is going to take an x-ray, you can see that a yellow box appears that contains a number, and special products (blue). well, based on all this, you must have the safety sheet that must be in the transport vehicle because if an accident happens one day. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. figure 1. illustration 1 cretib from the environment and natural resources secretary (note 1) for example, there are substances that ignite with water, transporters and traffic officers must have had special training because imagine that you spill one of those liquid and for now they add water to supposedly to extinguish it, it is like adding fuel to the fire; for that there is a type of foams and special powders. personally, i am not an environmental engineer but we have learned it in constant training, it is our obligation to attend to this area because it is a priority in our work. for example, we have just concluded one that we had with those from the civil protection area of the state government. we are certified as a clean industry; these documents are issued by the procuraduría federal de protección al ambiente (profepa) and i can say that it is one of the most reliable mexican certifications, it is the only certification accepted by the united states and canada in this area. fifty people work directly in the company and we employ another eighty indirectly. the laws are changing as well as the pollution parameters, you must always be up to date, including new pollutants are also changing. the company of don heriberto and his partner started with the oils because the sale to the brickyards was marking them that way, but then they went for the solids, all that is dangerous. there are four: explosive, reactive, corrosive and toxic. they have three areas: one is the recycling of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 46 published by scholink inc. oils and produces fuel, another is the collection of dangerous garbage (any garbage that is considered delicate, they can collect it). they concentrate it in one place to neutralize it or send it to a co-processing to transform it, and the third is the treatment of hazardous waste water. it is known in the professional field as cretib because it stands for: corrosive, reactive, explosive, toxic, flammable and biological-infectious. the negotiation already has a third federal authorization that was granted by semarnap for the treatment of water that is characteristic of becoming hazardous waste. in the country, very few companies are dedicated to this.” i think there are only three of us in the whole country,” don heriberto affirms. 4. discussion with this presentation it is shown that entrepreneurship has no limit since it is possible to innovate in adverse conditions and with limited means. the work carried out by two partners of a company that deals with the treatment and recycling of hazardous waste has been titanic, but it has shown that persistence is the main quality that the people who are in charge of the businesses must cultivate. the work trajectory of two people for three decades has created jobs, has fostered the well-being of many families and has made a part of the environment more livable. the recycling of more than two million tons per month has made an enormous contribution to the environment and to society in general. there is an urgent need for the proliferation of companies with these characteristics, unfortunately their existence is restricted to negligible quantities at the national level when pollution levels have been increasing hand in hand with technological advances. finally, with the advancement of daily life, we have realized that the greed for economic profit is always above the protection of the environment, national and international companies and the different levels of government leave the obligation in the background. to ensure social welfare. it does not echo one of the maxims of ecology: that we must leave a world, but a better one, at least similar to the new generations. references alvarado, r. (enero-junio de 2017). de la teoría del crecimiento económico hacia un cambio de paradigma tecnológico sustentable. administración y organizaciones, 20(38), 13-34. barkin, d. (2012). superando el paradigma neoliberal: desarrollo popular sustentable. cuadernos de desarrollo rural, 11-31. bermeo-paucar, j., lópez-bermudez, r., pico-yépez, m., & rea-sánchez, v. (2018). el reciclaje la industria del futuro en ecuador (universidad). ciencia y tecnología. díaz-ojeda, j. l., & aguiluz-león, j. (2019). alternativa territorial sustentable: planta de valorización de residuos industriales, en cuautitlán izcalli, estado de méxico. cuatutitlán izcalli, estado de méxico, estado de méxico. estenssoro, f. (2015, vol 30, núm. 1). el ecodesarrollo como concepto precursos del desarrllo sustentable y su influencia en américa latina. universum, 81-99. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 47 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-23762015000100006 fernández, m., tapia, s., fernández tapia, s., & carrazco, a. (2017). el reciclaje tecnológico como contribución al cuidado del medio ambiente y una educación econóicamente sostenible, caso iunidad académica de economía. universidad & ciencia. lópez, á., zúñiga, c., sánchez, á., & santiváñez, j. (2016). teorías del desarrollo sustentable para el siglo xxi: un breve análisis. revista iberoamericana de bioeconomía y cambio climático (vol. 2, núm. 1, pp. 437-451). https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v2i1.5710 martínez, r., & martínez, d. (2016, vol. 16 núm. 26). perspectivas de la sustentabilidad: teoría y campos de análisis. revista pensamiento actual, 123-145. https://doi.org/10.15517/pa.v16i26.25188 mejía, e., & ceballos, o. (2016 julio-diciembre). medición contable de la sustentabilidad organizacional desde la teoría tridimensional de la contabilidad. ciencia y tecnología, 14(18), 215-243. https://doi.org/10.21830/19006586.50 olaguez-torres, e., espino-román, p., acosta-pérez, k., & méndez-barceló, a. (2019). plan de acción a partir de la percepción en estudiantes de la universidad politécnica de sinaloa ante el reciclaje de residuos sólidos y la educación ambiental. sinaloa: formación universitaria. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-50062019000300003 microsoft word assc-v3n2-p26 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 26 original paper greek revolution and art. the protagonists on marble. illustrative and typological specimens markella-elpida tsichla1* 1 university of patras, department of cultural heritage management and new technologies, patra, greece * markella-elpida tsichla, university of patras, department of cultural heritage management and new technologies, patra, greece received: february 2, 2021 accepted: march 12, 2021 online published: march 18, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p26 abstract the greek revolution of 1821 was one of the most important issues in europe of the early 19th century on a political and military level. the outbreak of the greek revolution was not supported by the great powers of the time, since as a liberation struggle it violated the terms of the holy alliance (1815), however it managed to prevail thanks to the support of the people of europe as they regarded this an effort of a small nation to claim its freedom and oppose to slavery and authoritarianism. after all, we are in the time of romanticism and this kind of struggle enjoyed the support of intellectuals, collectives, and different groups of citizens. philhellenism was on the rise, and painters like delacroix made a huge impact with works that made a strong impression on europe. after the success of the revolution, many foreign artists came to greece, some on their own initiative as travelers and others carrying out their king’s orders. some of them were painters (both amateur and professional) that painted live portraits of the leading figures of the revolution, leaving behind a remarkable oeuvre when seen from a historical, factual, and artistic point of view. and since at that point in greece there could be no room for domestic artistic creation, the work of these artists is considered particularly important in terms of portraiture, history, facts, and artistic value. the most important out of the painters that were in greece at that critical time are the bavarians karl krazeisen and peter von hess, who painted portraits of greek fighters and these portraits have since become the blueprints that other artists, painters, and sculptors based their work on resulting in the perpetuation of the historical memory. it is worth mentioning that in the 200 years of independence these works remain of enduring value when paying tribute and respect to the first martyrs of the greek struggle. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. keywords greek revolution 1821, holy alliance, karl krazeisen, peter von hess, philhellenism, romanticism, greek fighters, portraits, london protocol, eugene delacroix, 200 years of greek independence 1. introduction the greek revolution broke out at a critical political juncture for europe. the holy alliance (1915) was founded to support the status quo in europe, and make sure the balance between the great powers of the time was maintained. however, the greeks revolted in 1821, the first among the balkan countries to do so, and their success was sealed with the london protocol of 1830 and the subsequent founding of the kingdom of greece (koliopoulos, 2014). during the struggle, the greeks received great support from persons in the philhellenic circles of europe, who in the name of greece’s glorious historical past and the right to their orthodox religion as christians oppressed by the ottomans, supported the struggling greeks in every possible way. this support was given on three different levels: the humanitarian, the political (military), and the economic (huyghe, 1971). as far as the humanitarian part is concerned, the greatest contribution is the illustrations of great historical events, the painting of portraits of the most distinguished revolutionaries, famous for their bravery, and in the depiction of historical places. these works, depending on their size and importance, appealed to the sensitivity of europeans and led to the recruitment of great intellectuals, while the public watched in amazement as the events and the outcome of the greek liberation struggle unfolded (barth & kehring, 1960; muoni & guido, 2016). the works of eugene delacroix, the massacres of chios (1824) (figure 1) and greece in the ruins of messolonghi (1826) in particular, had a huge impact on people, as did the death of the british poet lord byron in messolonghi in 1824. it is a fact that many foreign artists, poets, architects, archaeologists, and designers were in greece at that time to capture art, monuments, people, historical sites, and episodes of war. some of them came to greece on their own initiative, while others carried out orders from their kings, like the historical painter peter von hess and the landscape painter carl rottmann, who came to greece by order of king ludwig i of bavaria. the painter who concerned himself most with the greek revolution and its main figures is peter von hess. he is the artist who painted the the entry of king othon of greece into nauplia (figure 2) in 1833 and illustrated portraits of the most important historical figures of the revolution. his war scenes and portraits are still considered some of the most important works of this heroic period and became the basis on which other artists, especially greek, based their work on. another bavarian artist worth mentioning is karl krazeisen, who came to greece in 1826 as a member of the military expeditionary force that arrived in greece by order of king ludwig of bavaria. he was an amateur painter, but excellent at drawing and his works depict the lead figures of the greek www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. revolution who he knew personally and were his live models (figure 3). his portraits are also seen as items of historical value and are considered to be one of a kind. the work of these two artists, along with the work of artists from other countries (germany, france, and italy), was an important cultural legacy for greek artists, painters, and sculptors, who made their first appearance in the artistic scene in the mid-19th century. they were their factual, typological, and illustrative prototypes and have since adorned public and private spaces, as carriers of collective memory. 2. method 2.1 greek sculptors of historical themes and outdoor heroic sculptures the creation of monuments in public spaces in greece as a way of expressing gratitude to those who died for freedom, but also as means of strengthening the historical memory, first appeared in the second half of the 19th century. the reason is simple. there was no potential for professional artistic illustrations nor the sufficient technical knowledge for the construction of monumental works (e.g., statues) in the newly formed greek state. the school of fine arts was founded only in 1837 and it was far too soon for it to undertake large-scale projects. the only artists who mastered western art techniques were those from the ionian islands, who already had the necessary knowledge and experience. for example, the first statue erected in public is the bronze statue of the ionian commissioner frederic adam in a central square of corfu, made by the sculptor pavlos prosalentis in 1832. the first sculptures erected in public spaces and in central spots of the greek capital, athens, depict heroes of the greek revolution, and were used to complement in a way, the mythological figures that adorn various neoclassical buildings as well as the various cemeteries themes of the historical first cemetery. those that excelled in this last category are the famous marble sculptors and stonemasons, who knew the techniques in the processing of stone and marble by tradition. there are two sculptors who marked this new kind of the so-called “heroic” sculpture, in a period when historical subjects were dominant. the first is george fitalis (1830-1880) who crafted the marble statue of patriarch gregory v (1872, propylaeus of athens) (figure 4) and the second ioannis kossos (1822-1873), who also created a marble statue, that of the pioneer of the revolution rigas feraios (1871, propylaea of the university of athens) (figure 5). both are considered the first martyrs for freedom and the first national martyrs by greek historians as they were two figures with spiritual scope and influence on the greek revolutionaries. the first was hanged at the beautiful gate of the patriarchate by order of the sultan on april 10, 1821, on the outbreak of the revolution. he is considered a national martyr and was declared a saint by the greek orthodox church. rigas feraios was an intellectual and a revolutionary and an advocate for the principles of the enlightenment. because of his ideas he was arrested in trieste and imprisoned in belgrade where he was executed by the turks on june 24, 1798. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. the next creative project was dedicated to the fighters who took part in the struggle and the role of artistic supervisor was taken over by the sculptors of the school of munich. the dominant figures in this project were konstantinos kanaris, georgios karaiskakis and theodoros kolokotronis. the statues were crafted by george vitalis (18380 1901), michalis tombros (1889-1974) and lazaros sohos (1862-1911), respectively. the illustration of the greek revolution inspired most of the artists from the middle of the century onwards, with the painters stealing the spotlight since the repertoire that could be used in this form of art was richer. painting depicted many historical figures, all of whom played an important role in the revolution and became well known for their victories both at land and sea, like athanasios diakos, andreas miaoulis, general makrygiannis, alexandros ypsilantis, alexandros mavrokordatos, and markos botsaris to name a few. as a result painters such as the ionian dionysios tsokos, theodoros vryzakis, nikolaos gyzis, filippos and georgios margaritis, the painter of makrygiannis’ portraits and many others, chose this theme for their works to one extent or another. 3. result 3.1 the portraits of greek fighters and their prototypes during the revolution, which lasted for about seven years, obviously none of the fighters had the time or desire to pose in front of artists for a portrait. but this was not the case in one particular occasion. it was between 1826 and 1827 when a young officer from bavaria, karl krazeisen (1796-1878) with a knack for drawing faces and acquainted with most of the greek officers, with whom he fought battles against the turks as a member of the greek body managed to convince some of the most notorious captains and generals to pose for him including theodoros kolokotronis (figure 3), georgios karaiskakis, konstantinos kanaris, ioannis makrygiannis, alexandros mavrokordatos, andreas miaoulis, giakoumakis tombazis and others, who even signed their portraits as a way of authentication. these portraits were turned into lithographs in munich and gained international acclaim (papanikolaou, 1999; seidl & wolf, 1981). in january 1833, prince otto, son of the philhellene king ludwig i of bavaria, arrived in nafplio as the new king of greece, following a decision made by the great powers, england, france, and russia. he was accompanied by the successful historical painter peter von hess (1792-1871), who had been commissioned by louis to paint scenes from the greek revolution in order to decorate the galleries of the hofgarten palace in munich. these murals were destroyed by the bombing of the city during world war ii. they also depict well-known faces of greek fighters, whom the artist met in person. hess in his work the arrival of otto in nafplio (new gallery of munich) (figure 2) drew many famous people, in order to add realism and credibility to his work. these historical figures were designed by the painter separately and it became apparent that the result is not only accurate when it comes to their personal attributes and features, but he also managed to faithfully depict the ethnographic elements (costumes) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. of that period (mykoniatis, 1979). portraits of famous greeks were also painted by the artists who completed the fresco of the hall of trophies in the palace of otto in athens (today’s greek parliament) in 1840-1845. there are portraits of alexandros mavrokordatos, kanaris, famous philhellenes and others, such as markos botsaris, which is surprising since this war hero, well known in europe for his achievements, was killed in battle early on, in 1824 (papanikolaou, 2007). these images were the prototypes that inspired the corresponding works of greek artists, painters, and sculptors, after 1850 as the demand for such pieces was high. in particular, the outdoor sculptures were the ones that dictated the guidelines that would be followed by other artists when depicting these historical figures since they were in plain view and should obey to certain principles and values, which were the idealization of the image, the emphasis on the moral personality of the depicted and the heroic character of their presence (tsichla, 2020; 2020a). their display on pedestals was a requirement for a sculpture to be commissioned in order to highlight the baroque elements of the personality of those depicted. they were not only military, but also people of moral stature as freedom fighters. without exaggeration, it was those statues that replaced the military saints of orthodox worship, such as saints demetrius and george, who supposedly protected the disciples from their enemies. it is interesting to see that this perception is inherent in foreign artists as well, because they treated this type of illustration as a requirement of that time, ie the emphasis on the national and religious elements in specific persons who marked the course of recent greek history (helmut & friedel, 1979). 4. discussion 200 years after the greek revolution, the historical memory brings the faces that define that heroic period back to the spotlight through the depictions created by these artists. the painting of their portraits was undertaken by foreign artists as there were not any potential artists with the knowledge and technique to achieve the levels of realism and resemblance that were a given for the western art scene of the same period. the form of art that was flourishing in greece during the turkish occupation was the one that followed the byzantine standards and the places where it was mainly displayed were the sacred temples. another form of art that was popular at the time was folk art, which flourished mostly in the countryside and adorned either mansions and cottages or was imprinted on handicrafts, costumes, and household items. thus, european artists were the ones who took upon themselves the portrayal and visual depiction of various episodes of war. european artists based their portraits either on journalistic descriptions of the fighters and their heroic deeds, or on their personal experiences with them after they met them in person. of course, works of the first category were products of imagination, while the latter were the result of personal knowledge and experience (krazeisen, hess, painters of otto's palace, etc.). and as expected, those works of art inspired many greek artists after the revolution and served as prototypes for their own artistic endeavors, while presently they are historical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. evidence on a personal, ethical and ethnographic level. there are many artists that came to greece around that time but our research focuses on those among them whose work was recognized the most and in a way contributed in the creation of a national identity and awareness by the greek people. figure 1. eugène delacroix, the massacre at chios, 1824, oil on canvas, 419x354cm, louvre museum, paris www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. figure 2. p. von hess, the entry of king othon of greece into nauplia, 1853, 415x269cm, neue pinakothek, munich figure 3. k. krazeisen, theodoros kolokotronis, 1828, lithography, 16.5x12.1cm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 33 published by scholink inc. figure 4. g.fytalis, patriarch gregory v, 1872, marble, propylaea of the university of athens, athens www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. figure 5 i. kossos, rigas feraios, 1871, marble, courtyard of the national kapodistrian university of athens, athens references barth, w., & kehring-korn, n. (1960). die phihlellenenzeit. muenchen. friedel, h. (1979). das bild griechenlands in der muenchner malerei, 1800-1850). in muenchner landschaftsmalerei 1800-1850 (auss. kat.), muenchen staedtische galerie im lenbachhaus, 8/3-20/5/1979. huyghe, r. (1971). delacroix and greece. athens: issued by ionian and laiki bank. koliopoulos, g. (2014). history of modern greece. 1797-1980. thessaloniki: vanias publications. lydakis, s. (1981). the greek sculptors. modern greek sculpture, history, typology, dictionary of sculptures. v. v. athens: publications melissa. mykoniatis, i. (1979). the twentieth in painting. contribution to the study of the iconography of the struggle (unpublished doctoral dissertation). thessaloniki: auth. muoni, g. (2016). philhellenic literature in italian romanticism, ed., anda mpoumpara, trs. spyros koutrakis. thessaloniki: university studio press papanikolaou, m. (2007) the wall-paintings in the house of the hellenic parliament. athens: hellenic parliament foundation. papanikolaou, μ. (1999). the history of art in greece, painting and sculpture of the 20th century (vol. i). athens: adam publications. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. papanikolaou, μ. (1981). german painters in greece during the 19th century (1826-1843). dissertation on lecturership. athens: nkua. seidl, w. (1981). bayern in griechenland. die geburt des griechischen nationalstaats und die regierung koenig ottos. muenchen: prestel-verlag tsichla, m. ε. (2020). “the semiotics of the imagery of the greek war of independence. from delacroix to the frieze in otto’s palace, the current hellenic parliament”. american research journal of humanities & social science, 3(1), 36-41. tsichla, m. e. (2020a). art and politics: the expediencies of the artistic choices made by the newly-founded greek state (1830). american research journal of humanities & social science, 4(3), 67-71. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 32 original paper research on the cross-land zhongwan river bridge plan of haicang road, hangzhou bay new district, ningbo fajin lin1 & tao yang1* 1 central & southem china municipal engineering design and research institute co.,ltd., wuhan, 430010, china * corresponding author: tao yang (1990-), male, master of engineering, engineer, e-mail: 445991808@qq.com research direction: urban and highway road design received: may 19, 2025 accepted: july 01, 2025 online published: july 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p32 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p32 abstract through the analysis of the current status of the bridge around the proposed project, it can be seen that there are many forms of surrounding bridges, which also forms a certain sense of rhythm, enriching the architectural form of the water network system. therefore, in this plan design, the bridge plan should continue the rhythm of the bridge combination, forming a combination layout with high and low, sparse and dense; finally avoid similarity with the built bridge and has landscape characteristics; plan 1 takes the "shell" of marine culture as the design element, which looks like an open shell, with a unique shape, the bridge sidewalk is widened, the arc shape is perfectly coordinated with the open shell outline and pattern, and the high and low arch ribs give people a visual spatial effect of moderate opening and closing, highlighting the opening and closing of open space, the spirit of relaxation and progress, while listening to the wind and watching the scenery on the bridge, feel the unique charm of the bridge shape; plan 2 takes the "fishing net" of marine culture as the design element, and the layout of the arch bridge boom adopts a grid-shaped nelson system, which is perfectly combined with the "fishing net" of marine culture, like the scene of a harvest in the countryside of fish and rice, symbolizing the spirit of rich construction and pioneering, and the precipitation of local feelings. a plan comparison and research is conducted on the cross-land zhongwan river bridge of haicang road, hangzhou bay new district, ningbo, and selects a suitable bridge shape. keywords scheme design, shell, fishing net 1. design concept www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 33 1) provide a design document that meets the project construction requirements according to the planning and design points, guide construction, and strive to achieve the design goals of planning satisfaction, environmental protection satisfaction, and owner satisfaction (including citizens’ satisfaction, operation satisfaction, and project satisfaction). 2) correctly understand and resolutely implement the idea of "people-oriented and circular development", focusing on the elements of driving, pedestrians, and environmental landscape elements. 3) take into account both long-term development and short-term construction, and achieve a "combination of long-term development" to strive to be neither contradictory nor repeated investment in the long-term development nor repeated investment. 4) the project should compare multiple plans. through the optimization and combination of design plans, control construction behavior and expected results of engineering behavior, measures and investment control standards should be proposed from the perspective of design. 5) fully consider the implementation conditions of the project, project risks, and technical level of construction and installation to create conditions for the smooth implementation of the project. 6) the design should be carried out in accordance with the bridge's usage tasks, functions, properties and future development needs, and in accordance with the principles of application, economy, safety and aesthetics. 7) make necessary explanations on construction technology, process flow, construction organization and acceptance standards. strive to ensure accurate, reasonable and precise investment estimation. 8) under the premise of safety and economicality, bridge engineering projects should use novel, beautiful and environmentally friendly materials as much as possible, so that after the project is completed, it can give citizens a bright, comfortable and bright feeling. 9) the design process instills and implements the concept and awareness of creating high-quality projects from beginning to end, encourages designers to explore ideas, constantly innovate, and produce more high-quality products to change the phenomenon of urban construction being the same, dull, and no new ideas. 2. design guidance idea after sufficient on-site survey and investigation, based on the characteristics of this project and combined with similar engineering design experience, the following overall design ideas of the bridge should be implemented in the design of this project: 2.1 reflect the importance of landscape design 1) bridge landscape design and its content focus on the ontological landscape of the bridge. in bridge landscape design, the environmental landscape echoes the general background, adhere to the four principles of unity, coordination, balance and rhythm, and maintain the sustainable development of the landscape. 2) through bridge landscape design, the spatial scale and landscape harmony of the surrounding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 34 environment of the bridge and landscape and urban concepts are reflected, and the bridge landscape is attached to the suitability of the bridge landscape to the terrain and landform, and the respect and symbiosis of the bridge landscape for the cultural environment. 3) carefully handle the positioning of the bridge image, and form a bridge landscape concept through urban spirit, citizen behavior code, urban development strategic goals, etc., and determine the markers, logo patterns and logo colors. 4) landscape bridges are not only limited to meeting the basic functions of bridges, but also highlighting the structural technology, morphological aesthetics, and material texture research of bridge landscape design, thereby improving the overall environmental quality. 5) take into account the landscape effects of day and night, use local characteristics and lighting effects, and combine them through different techniques to create a multi-level and rich color changes. it can not only fully reflect the culture with the characteristics of new cities, but also be full of modern and fashionable atmosphere. through the organic combination of soft landscape and hard landscape, it integrates each other, making the bridge landscape a whole. 2.2 reflect the speed of bridge construction with the construction and development of the new city, the new city is expanded to the north, and the new industrial transformation base will rise rapidly. the bridge across shitang hengjiang should also be opened to traffic as soon as possible. the bridges will connect regions and connect the economy. as a pilot zone for ningbo's future industrial transformation and upgrading, it is of great significance to the development of this block. therefore, the design of this project should fully consider the construction speed to ensure that the bridge is completed as soon as possible. 2.3 reflect the importance of environmental protection environmental protection is a basic national policy of our country and an eternal theme in the process of social development. this project is located in ningbo hangzhou bay new district. its superior geographical location, natural conditions and strong cultural heritage objectively put forward higher requirements for environmental protection, soil and water conservation and humanistic environment protection in the project design. therefore, during the design process of this project, we must be ahead of time, emphasize environmental protection, achieve green energy conservation, reduce bridge maintenance costs, reduce automobile exhaust emissions, and reduce driving noise. we must strive to build this project into a modern bridge project integrating ecology, environmental protection, beauty and economy. 2.4 absorb successful experience in bridge constr uction fully absorb the successful experience of urban bridge construction at home and abroad, earnestly design the bridge plan, and lay the foundation for building this project into a high-quality project with high-quality technical quality, investment and good efficiency. in addition to focusing on implementing the above guiding ideology in design, the following issues should also be considered in specific application: safety of bridge operations; excavating sea coating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 35 culture and introducing the concept of dynamic design; determining reasonable construction standards and controlling engineering investment. 3. overall landscape analysis 3.1 master plan analysis hangzhou bay new district is located at the south bridgehead of the hangzhou bay cross-sea bridge, in the northern part of ningbo city, and central cities such as shanghai, hangzhou, and ningbo are within their two-hour access range, with superior location conditions. the area has rich tidal flat wetland resources and dense water networks, rich land resources and reserves, and extremely good ecological environment. the plan positions the development of hangzhou bay new area as: ningbo north new city, ecological hangzhou bay. it is emphasized that the new district is the "frontier" connecting with shanghai and the core of leading the development of ningbo's northern wing. it focuses on realizing the coordination of production, life and ecological environment in the new district, highlighting ecological construction, and creating a high-quality new city with cultural characteristics, waterfront landscape, and comprehensive modern functions. 3.2 surrounding environment analysis the plan analyzes and sorts out the unique seawall culture and water culture of hangzhou bay new district. the area east of the cross-sea bridge and west of the luzhong bay river is the new business city area, and builds a new city-level core area around the central landscape lake shengxi lake, focusing on the layout of business office, livable life, green ecology and other functions. the haicang road cross-lu zhongwan river bridge designed in this plan is adjacent to ningbo hangzhou bay new district sports park and hangzhou bay haipi island scenic area, and to the east side of ningbo engineering college. haicang road is an urban secondary road running through the core block of the new business city area and an important connection with the high-end industrial zone on the east side. therefore, this bridge plan requires the end point to consider the landscape effect of the bridge. 3.3 peripheral bridge type analysis due to the developed water system in the area and many bridges, in the bridge design, the surrounding areas should be investigated for planning and building bridges to guide or eliminate some solutions that are not suitable for this bridge shape, avoid the duplication of bridge shapes, and thus achieve the best regional and landscape value of the bridge. through the analysis of the current status of the surrounding bridge, it can be seen that there are many forms of surrounding bridges, which also forms a certain sense of rhythm, enriching the architectural form of the water network system. therefore, this bridge plan should continue the rhythm of the bridge combination and form a combination layout with high and low, sparse and dense; secondly, add bridge structural forms, such as suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, etc.; finally avoid similarity with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 36 built bridges and have landscape characteristics. 4. bridge design 4.1 bridge design principles (1) the bridge plan should implement the technical goals of "functional application, structural safety, cost economy, structural durability, aesthetic shape, and environmental coordination" and engineering implementability. (2) the layout form of bridges should fully consider factors such as the feasibility, operability and socio-economic benefits of the project, adapt to local conditions, combined with the topography, landforms, rivers, etc. within the scope of this project, and reasonably arrange them according to the requirements of the overall planning. on the premise of ensuring traffic functions, the impact on the surrounding environment and the overall planning should be minimized as much as possible, and the impact on the surrounding environment and the overall planning should be optimized through multiple plans, and the nearand long-term functional planning of the road should be fully considered. (3) the bridge plan and construction plan must achieve technical goals based on the full study of their feasibility. (4) pay full attention to bridge landscape design, strive to be beautiful in shape, coordinated in the surrounding environment, and reflect the characteristics of the times. (5) the impact of natural disasters on bridge structure should be fully considered. (6) the structural types and materials used by bridges must be fully considered to ensure the anti-corrosion of the structure, improve the durability of the structure, and ensure the normal service period of the bridge for 100 years. 4.2 bridge-type solution design ideas (1) bridge type feasibility analysis based on the current situation of hangzhou bay new area, a specific analysis of the feasibility of bridges was conducted, as shown in the table below: project haicang road crossing luzhong bay river bridge current situation analysis adjacent to the ningbo hangzhou bay new area sports park and hangzhou bay seapanda island scenic area on the west, and ningbo university of technology on the east. it is an important channel connecting the business district and industrial area, with a river width of 165m. functional positioning located in the business new urban area, the regional bridge must fully consider its landscape effect while meeting transportation and under-bridge navigation functions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 37 project haicang road crossing luzhong bay river bridge commonly used bridge types prestressed concrete continuous beam, arch bridge, cable-stayed bridge, suspension bridge. feasibility analysis 1. all commonly used bridge types can meet transportation function requirements, but small-span precast beams have some impact on navigation. 2. suspension bridges are generally only suitable for super-large spans and crossing rivers, other rivers, or structures; the small span here cannot achieve the expected landscape effect. 3. arch bridges and cable-stayed bridges have strong spanning capabilities and are suitable for this bridge. 4. given the special location of the bridge and the effects of existing bridge types, the landscape effect of the bridge must be prioritized. construction difficulty analysis arch bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and suspension bridges generally have large spans and use steel beams or steel-concrete composite beam structures, requiring high construction standards. prestressed concrete continuous beam bridges have mature construction techniques and lower difficulty. cost analysis arch bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and suspension bridges generally use steel beams or steel-concrete composite beam structures, with higher costs. prestressed concrete continuous beam bridges have lower costs. (2) overall concept through feasibility study and overall planning analysis, the business new urban area where haicang road crosses the zhongwan river bridge is located emphasizes the organic combination of ecological construction and quality life. it is adjacent to ningbo hangzhou bay new district sports park and hangzhou bay haipi island scenic area on the west side, and to ningbo engineering college on the east side, which is an important channel connecting the business district and the industrial district. high requirements are put forward for the design of bridge landscape. in the design, we should combine actual conditions, follow the concept of adapting to local conditions and sustainable development, and use "water, ecology, and humanities" as the design concept to build an international new urban area with a modern urban atmosphere and rich pastoral scenery, which is livable, business-friendly and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 38 business-friendly. 4.3 the plan of haicang road cross-land zhongwan river bridge design theme—bei hai shizhen the plan takes the "shell" of marine culture as the design element, which looks like an open shell with a unique shape. the bridge sidewalk is widened, with arc shape, perfectly coordinated with the spread shell contours and patterns. the high and low arch ribs give people a visual spatial effect of moderate opening and closing, highlighting the spirit of openness and enterprising. on the bridge, you can feel the unique charm of the bridge shape while listening to the wind and watching the scenery. the shape of the bridge is in harmony with the surrounding environment, showing the integration of the romantic city and the spirit of struggle and innovation, symbolizing the shining of the new city like a pearl in a shell; it also symbolizes the development of the ocean with a vast world and infinite space. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 39 concept diagram a bird's-eye view of the plan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 40 plan a train rendering one-day perspective effect diagram one-night scene renderings 4.4 plan 2 of haicang road cross-land zhongwan river bridge design theme fishing sea style this plan takes the marine culture "fishing net" as the design element. the layout of the arch bridge boom adopts a grid-shaped nelson system, which is perfectly combined with the marine culture "fishing net" and is like a scene of a harvest in the countryside of fish and rice, symbolizing the spirit of rich construction and pioneering, and the precipitation of local feelings. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 41 schematic diagram of modeling concept arch bridge is the earliest and most widely used bridge type in the history of world bridges. the arc of the arch is beautiful, gentle, simple and elegant, and has the artistic characteristics of the chinese national arch-style architecture. it also has the characteristics of being compatible with the coordinated beauty of human landscape and natural landscape. the arch contains a sense of tension and rhythm of vivid force, which makes the bridge show a vibrant and tenacious temperament and a powerful and magnificent momentum. the arch bridge crosses the river in a graceful posture, like a long rainbow lying on the waves, with a strong sense of signification and space. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 42 plan two-day view bird's eye view side view of the two-day scene www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 43 solution 2 night scene rendering 5. conclusion the comprehensive comparison of plan 1 and plan 2 is made from the aspects of landscape characteristics, superstructure form, lower structure form, construction difficulty and maintenance requirements, etc. as follows: project scheme 1 scheme 2 bridge layout 50+85+50m 1×175m landscape characteristics the scheme uses "shell" as a design element from marine culture, resembling an open shell. it showcases the blending of a romantic city and the spirit of striving and innovation, symbolizing the new city shining like a pearl in a shell and development as vast and boundless as the ocean. the scheme uses "fishing net" as a design element from marine culture. the arrangement of the arch bridge’s suspension rods uses a grid-shaped nielsen system, perfectly combining with the "fishing net" of marine culture, resembling a bountiful harvest scene in a land of fish and rice, symbolizing the spirit of prosperity, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 44 project scheme 1 scheme 2 construction, and pioneering, as well as the precipitation of local sentiment. superstructure form adopt special-shaped arch bridges, with steel main beams and orthotropic bridge decks. adopt tied arches, with suspension rods using the nielsen system, steel main beams using a longitudinal and transverse beam system, and concrete bridge decks. substructure form column piers, abutments with seat slabs, and bored pile foundations. abutments with seat slabs and bored pile foundations. construction difficulty relatively difficult difficult maintenance requirements general general construction period 22 months 24 months project cost 121.702 million yuan 129.045 million yuan comparison result recommended not recommended references overall planning of ningbo hangzhou bay new area. (n.d.). regulatory detailed planning of ningbo hangzhou bay new area. (n.d.). original paper research on the cross-land zhongwan river bridge p abstract advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 92 original paper juggling work and studies: a focused study on work-life balance and well-being of part-time student workers raghid ghassan el ali1 & khadija kandil2 1 raghid ghassan el ali, doctorate in business administration student at beirut arab university, the united arab emirates 2 khadija kandil, doctorate in business administration student at beirut arab university, the united arab emirates received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 19, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p92 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p92 abstract where social unrest, economic downturn, and political instability coexist, part-time workers and students have difficulties in balancing their personal, professional, and academic commitments. to understand how part-time students achieve work-life balance, this study examines work-related stress, flexible work schedules, productivity while working from home, supervisor and coworker support, and work-related characteristics among part-time employees who are also students in lebanon. data from a sample of part-time employees who are also students will be gathered using a quantitative survey approach in order to examine how these characteristics interact. in order to improve the academic performance and general well-being of part-time employees who are also students in lebanon, the findings are intended to influence organizational practices, inform policy interventions, and contribute to the corpus of existing research on work-life balance. 1. part 1 1.1 introduction the juggling of work and studying has become increasingly common among university students, particularly those who are part-time workers. in lebanon, where the cost of education is high and the job market is competitive, many students find themselves having to balance their academic responsibilities with part-time employment. this can take a toll on their well-being and work-life harmony, as they battle to juggle the demands of their jobs and their studies. in this study, we aim to examine the specific challenges faced by part-time student workers in lebanon, with a focus on how this juggling act impacts their overall well-being. by conducting surveys with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 93 students and employers, we hope to gain insights into the strategies employed by students to manage their time effectively and maintain a sense of equilibrium between their work and studies. additionally, we will explore the support systems available to these students, both within their academic institutions and in the workplace. this study is important because it provides important information and understandings on the health and work-life balance of part-time student workers in lebanon. the research findings hold potential implications for higher education institutions (heis) in lebanon, as they can inform the development of policies and programs aimed at supporting the health and work-life equilibrium of students who work part-time. in line with the expanding interest in this field worldwide, this study contributes to the body of information on work-life balance and its consequences on the wellbeing of part-time student workers. understanding the specific challenges faced by part-time student workers in lebanon contributes to the broader discourse on work-life balance, benefiting employees across different countries and industries. in summary, this research closes a significant gap in the research by shedding light on the experiences of part-time student workers in lebanon with regard to work-life balance and by making insightful recommendations for improving their well-being and work-life balance, possibly both domestically and internationally. this study, titled "juggling work and studies: a lebanon-focused study on work-life balance and well-being of part-time student workers", seeks to investigate the difficulties encountered by part-time employee-students in managing their employment, academic, and personal responsibilities. 1.2 research question limited research explores work-life balance for part-time student employees in lebanon, despite its critical importance in a nation facing political and economic turmoil. existing global studies offer a foundation, but lebanon's unique context demands deeper understanding. research question how do work stress, flexible work arrangements, work-from-home productivity, supervisor support, and co-worker support relate to the work-life balance of a part time students? this study investigates this question through the lens of the following hypotheses: main hypothesis (h1):  higher levels of work stress negatively impact work-life balance among part-time student employees. moderation hypothesis 1 (h2):  supervisor support and coworker support moderates the relationship between work stress and work-life balance, such that higher levels of supervisor support weaken the negative impact of work stress on work-life balance. mediating hypothesis 1 (h3):  work-from-home productivity mediates the relationship between work stress and work-life balance, such that higher levels of work-from-home productivity weaken the negative impact of work www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 94 stress on work-life balance among part-time student employees. mediating hypothesis 2(h4):  flexible work arrangements (fwas) mediate the relationship between work stress and work-life balance, such that the availability of fwas weakens the negative impact of work stress on work-life balance among part-time student employees 1.3 justification of research: why this topic matters this topic is important and worth studying for several reasons: first, addressing a critical gap in knowledge: limited research exists on the experiences of part-time employee-students, emphasizing the importance of understanding their challenges, coping mechanisms, and the impact of their dual roles on various aspects of life. existing literature predominantly focuses on full-time employees or traditional students, overlooking the unique dynamics of work-life balance for part-time employee-students. despite extensive research on the quality of life, studies specific to this group are scarce. consequently, there is a dearth of information in the literature about the experiences of part-time employees who are also students with regard to work-life balance, underscoring the need for more research on this understudied group. furthermore, there is a lack of longitudinal studies tracking the progression of part-time employee-students over time, which could provide valuable insights into their evolving work-life balance and quality of life. this research gap is particularly notable in lebanon. second, urgent need for solutions: research has shown that a poor work-life balance can lead to negative outcomes like stress, burnout, and poor performance at work and in the classroom (shockley, 2017) and (amstad, 2011) this urgency underscores the necessity for tailored interventions and support mechanisms to address the specific needs and challenges faced by part-time employee-students, ultimately enhancing their overall quality of life and academic performance. third, impact on future workforce: part-time employee-students, as emphasized by (draugalis, 2009) have a significant impact on forming the future labor force and leaders of the nation's social and economic landscape. finally, policy and practice implications: understanding the factors influencing their work-life balance is imperative for developing effective policies and practices to support their well-being and academic success, and the research will provide evidence-based recommendations for strengthening this understanding. 1.4 literature review balancing work and studies are a significant challenge, especially for students who work more hours (tuttle, 2005). this juggling act often leads to stress and exhaustion due to the mental and physical demands of both work and academic obligations. financial constraints often compel students, particularly those from low or middle-income households, to work while studying (devlin, 2008). the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 95 cumulative burden placed on students can affect their confidence, time management abilities, and prospects for future employment in both positive and bad ways (haqifa, 2013). while there are potential benefits, research suggests that working too much can lead to lower academic achievement and decreased social involvement (tuttle, 2005). this is particularly true with rising tuition fees putting a financial strain on students (devlin, 2008). unfortunately, the pressure to balance work and study can also lead to unhealthy eating habits, with students opting for convenient but unhealthy choices (dolan, 2015). these dietary patterns can increase the risk of obesity and chronic diseases over time (bransford, 2000); (busch, 2003). the impact of balancing work and study varies. on the positive side, working students can develop valuable skills like financial management, independence, time management, and problem-solving (devlin, 2008). however, working more than 35 hours per week can negatively affect academic performance, potentially leading to failing classes or dropping out altogether (devlin, 2008). with the increasing number of working students, understanding these effects is crucial (alipio, 2020). higher education, after all, aims to foster learning and personal development, empowering individuals to contribute meaningfully to the world. work life balance the concept of a balanced work-life is widely accepted, offering a framework for individuals to manage work and personal commitments effectively (akdere, 2006). definitions vary, but the core idea is about juggling paid work with other meaningful aspects of life, leading to a fulfilling existence both inside and outside the workplace (new zealand department of labour, 2008a; pocock, 2005a; (bruin, 2004). research shows that work-life balance policies are effective in attracting and retaining talent in competitive markets, benefiting both individuals and organizations (de cieri, 2005). these policies can lead to higher productivity, improved employee morale, and reduced absenteeism defining work-life balance remains challenging due to its multifaceted nature. while some describe it as balancing time, emotional investment, and behavior (hill, hawkins, ferris, & weitzman, 2004), others emphasize achieving overall life harmony. studies indicate a connection between enhanced well-being and a work-life balance and better quality of life (greenhaus, 2011). however, in lebanon, with its political and economic challenges, understanding the specific challenges faced by part-time student employees is crucial. here, things like the amount of work they have to do in school, extracurricular activities, corporate culture and policies, social conventions, and cultural expectations all have a big impact on their work-life balance. work stress stress as it is explained by riggio (2018), encompasses both physiological and psychological responses to challenging or threatening circumstances, which are often triggered by environmental stressors. robbins and judge (2017) further elaborate that stress is an unpleasant psychological process resulting from external stressors, yet it can occasionally yield positive outcomes, such as enhancing work quality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 96 and personal fulfillment. however, excessive stress may indicate mental health issues and can hinder work performance by increasing errors. research conducted by (allen, 2013) reveals a direct correlation between elevated work stress levels and reduced work-life balance. this result is in accordance with earlier research (byron, 2005), which found that particular work stressors such high workloads, tense deadlines, and role ambiguity were significant contributors to work-life imbalance. furthermore (frone, 2003) highlighted the detrimental effects of work-related stress on general wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of managing these stressors at work. (greenhaus, 1985) discovered a negative relationship between workplace stress and work-life balance. suggesting that high stress levels make it difficult to manage both personal and professional obligations. (grzywacz, 2000) found that individuals facing high work stress perceive less control over their tasks and schedules, exacerbating challenges in achieving work-life balance. according to research, social support and coping mechanisms might lessen the negative impacts of job stress on work-life balance (frone, 2003); (ten, 2012)). (kossek, 2011) affirmed this by highlighting the importance of supportive supervisors, colleagues, and flexible work arrangements in helping employees manage work stress and enhance work-life balance. (thompson, 2005) also emphasized that access to organizational resources for workload management contributes to improved work-life balance for employees. flexible work arrangements: in recent years, striking a work-life balance has grown in significance, and flexible work arrangements, or fwas, have become a practical means of granting employees more autonomy over their schedules. the effect of fwas on the work-life balance of student employees is still largely unknown, though. fwas include a range of strategies, including job sharing, telecommuting, flextime, and reduced workweeks (golden, 2017). research suggests that fwas offer numerous benefits for students, including increased flexibility to manage academic schedules, leading to reduced conflicts between work and study commitments (allen, 2013). moreover, fwas contribute to improved job satisfaction, reduced stress levels, and enhanced productivity among student employees (shockley, 2017). notwithstanding these benefits, fwas may cause problems for students, such as making it difficult to draw boundaries between work and personal life, which could lead to burnout and poor academic achievement (berg, 2018). additionally, students in demanding academic programs may face challenges in negotiating suitable fwas with employers, limiting their access to flexible work options (golden, 2017). organizational support and culture play a crucial role in the effectiveness of fwas for students. supportive managerial practices and clear communication channels facilitate successful implementation of fwas (hill, 2019). furthermore, organizations prioritizing work-life balance initiatives are more likely to attract and retain student employees, thereby enhancing their overall www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 97 well-being and academic success (kossek, 2014). work from home productivity: the rise of remote work (wfh) presents a complex picture for student work-life balance. while wfh offers potential benefits like flexibility and reduced commutes (allen, 2015); (gajendran, 2007), it can also create challenges. on the positive side, wfh allows students to tailor their work schedules around academic commitments, minimizing conflicts and freeing up time for studies and personal pursuits (allen, 2015); (gajendran, 2007) however, wfh can also blur the lines between work and personal life, making it more difficult to separate and raising the possibility of burnout (golden & geisler, 2017). social isolation, technological issues, and increased home responsibilities can further complicate work-life balance for remote students (gajendran, 2007); (golden, 2017); (mesmer-magnus, 2005). supervisor and co-worker support supervisor and co-worker support significantly impact student wlb (kossek et al., 2014). wlb can be fostered at work by understanding the needs of their students and providing flexibility in scheduling, workload, and communication (kossek, 2014); (golden & geisler,2014). clear expectations and regular feedback further empower students to manage time and reduce stress. positive relationships with co-workers are equally important. supportive colleagues who offer assistance, collaborate effectively, and provide social support can alleviate isolation and contribute to overall well-being (shockley, 2017); (golden, 2017). conversely, a lack of support from supervisors and co-workers can be detrimental. it can lead to isolation, stress, and difficulty managing work responsibilities, ultimately compromising work-life balance (kossek, 2014). 1.5 methodology 1.5.1 research design for this research, a quantitative survey design is the most appropriate methodology. this study will investigate the factors influencing work-life balance among part-time student workers. a cross-sectional survey approach will be utilized to collect data. 1.5.2 data collection to assess the factors influencing work-life balance among student employees, this study will employ a two-pronged approach to data collection. first, a structured questionnaire was distributed to 500 student employees. this questionnaire, built on validated scales and existing research, it evaluates work stress, flexible work options, work-from-home productivity, considering the degree of assistance obtained from supervisors and co-workers. a pilot test at a modest gathering was conducted beforehand to ensure clarity, effectiveness, and minimize potential biases in the questionnaire. ethical considerations will be paramount. participants will be provided informed consent, fully briefed on the study's goals, and informed of their right to withdraw at any point. confidentiality of all responses will be strictly maintained. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 98 second, to enrich the analysis, secondary data was collected from various credible sources, including websites, journals, research reports, books, magazines, and newspapers relevant to the topic. variables:  independent variables: work stress  moderating variables: supervisor support, co-worker support.  mediating variable: flexible work arrangements, wfhp.  dependent variable: wlb. theoretical framework greenhaus and arthur model (1986) proposes that work-life balance hinges on managing three key factors: work demands, family demands, and individual characteristics. these characteristics encompass personality traits, values, and coping mechanisms that influence how individuals perceive work and family pressures. the model suggests that striving for balance between these components is crucial. when work and family demands become overwhelming, work-life conflict arises. conversely, individuals achieve better balance when demands are lower or they possess strong coping skills. work-life balance model for part-time student employees. adapted from (demerouti, 2012); (allen, 2015). work stress supervisor and coworker support work life balance flexibility work arrangements work from home productivity figure 1. research conceptual framework 1.6 data analysis plan variable’s definitions and measurements: the conceptualization of the variables, as well as the operating definitions of the variables, are presented in the table below: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 99 table 1. variable’s definitions andmeasurements variables conceptual definition operational definition work stress 1. i am discouraged about my work. 2. i feel many things are beyond my control and ability while working from home. 3. i feel unable to get out from my work during working from home. 4. i feel like giving up on work during working from home. 4 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (lait and wallace, 2002). flexible work arrangements 1. flexible work arrangements are an important benefit that accounting majors use to select the firm they plan to work for. 2. flexible work arrangements generally enhance morale and improve the quality of work life for those involved. 3. flexible work arrangements are a women’s issue; most men don’t want or need these options. 3 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (anderson, j. c. ,2020). work from home productivity 1. i am very productive while working from home. 2. i can concentrate on getting work done even when there are distractions from family members during working from home. 3. working from home motivates me to work better. 4. i receive technical assistance from my workplace in completing work during working from home 4 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (neufeld and fang, 2005). supervisor & co-worker support 1. my supervisor is understanding when i have personal or family problems which interfere with my work. 2. my supervisor is helpful when i have a personal emergency. 3. my supervisor is concerned about me as a person. my co-workers encourage each other when someone feels down. 4. my co-workers try to act like peacemakers when there are disagreements. 5. my co-workers willingly share their expertise with 5 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (stankevičiūtė & kunskaja, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 100 each other. work-life balance 1. time for hobbies is difficult for me 2. do you ever miss out any quality time with your family or your friends because of pressure of work? 3. forgetting work issues is hard to do 4. i have to take work home most evening 4 items on 5-point likert scale were adopted from (shange et al., 2022). source: developed by the researcher. 1.6.1 quantitative data collection: surveys the target population for this study comprises university students enrolled in various lebanese universities. sampling strategy: a multi-pronged approach is employed to reach a diverse sample of students: randomized whatsapp group distribution: a survey link is disseminated through whatsapp groups targeting 200 students across several lebanese universities (aub, lau, usj, uob, usek, aust). targeted distribution: 200 surveys are directly distributed at the modern university for business and science (mubs). additionally, 300 surveys are distributed at the lebanese international university (liu). convenience sampling: hard copies of the survey are distributed at lebanese university's beqaa campus to target students there. sample size: the target sample size is 211 completed surveys. this allows for sufficient data for statistical analysis while acknowledging potential limitations due to the non-randomized sampling methods employed through whatsapp groups and convenience sampling. survey instrument: a self-administered, online survey instrument is developed using google forms. the survey is designed to be user-friendly and takes approximately 3-4 minutes to complete. data analysis: spss is described as a tool for data management and statistical analysis, with a focus on descriptive analysis and regression analysis. descriptive analysis involves summarizing dataset features using statistics like frequencies, means, and standard deviations, aiding in understanding variables' characteristics. regression analysis examines relationships between dependent and independent variables, helping identify factors predicting part-time student work-life balance. spss steps for both analyses are detailed, highlighting the importance of interpreting results to inform interventions and support mechanisms. overall, spss facilitates thorough analysis of convenience-sampled data, supporting the study's exploration of work-life balance among part-time student workers. 1.7 timeline and budget 1.7.1 timeline as for the timeline, to ensure a well-structured and efficient research process, a detailed timeline was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 101 established. table 1. outlines the key milestones and deadlines for completing this research project week 1 week 2 day 1-2: select research topic and refine research questions. day 8-9: begin drafting the literature review section. day 3-4: conduct initial literature review and gather relevant sources. day 10-11: continue drafting the literature review section and distribute the survey/questionnaire. day 5: formulate research methodology and data collection plan. day 12: write the methodology section. enter spss and analyze the data. day 6: develop survey/questionnaire (if applicable) and finalize data collection tools. day 13: analyze collected data and begin drafting the results section. day 7: obtain approvals required in order to collect data. day 14: finalize the results section and begin drafting discussion/conclusion. submit the research paper. source: developed by the researcher. 1.7.2 budget this research project prioritized cost-effectiveness throughout the data collection process. data collection expenses were minimal, totaling approximately $150. this included fuel for stakeholder interviews across lebanon and the printing of 300 hard copies of the survey distributed. the survey instrument itself was built and distributed for free using google forms. using free student versions of specialized data analysis tools, such spss, for statistical analysis and qualitative data coding helped to minimize software costs. it's crucial to remember that the budget will change based on a number of variables, including the size of the research team, the difficulty of data gathering techniques, and any unique project requirements. 1.8 ethical considerations even though we didn't initially get informed consent using a separate form, our survey explained everything about the study: what we wanted to find out, how we were collecting data, keeping it safe, and what rights participants had. this helped them understand the research and decide if they wanted to take part, including the option to stop at any time. we made sure the survey didn't ask for personal details like names or addresses, so everyone stayed anonymous and their information confidential. we also used strong security measures like passwords and encryption to protect the data we collected. while we see the importance of getting consent in a separate way in the future, our survey didn't cause any harm because we were clear about what we were doing and didn't collect personal details. this shows we're serious about ethical standards. moving forward, we'll make sure to explain things clearly and follow stricter consent rules in our future research. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 102 2. part 2 2.1 data collection and analysis 2.1.1. descriptive analysis 2.1.2 demographic statistics table 2. gender frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid female 119 56.4 56.4 56.4 male 89 42.2 42.2 98.6 prefer not to say 3 1.4 1.4 100.0 total 211 100.0 100.0 source: spss. the study provides data that demonstrates the distribution of respondents by gender. with a frequency of 119, 56.4% of the 211 people surveyed identified as females. in contrast, 89 people (or 42.2% of the total) identified as male. three people, or 1.4% of the total, chose not to reveal their gender. looking at the total proportion, we can see that 98.6% of those who took the survey identified as male or female; 1.4% chose not to say. table 3. education frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid graduate 61 28.9 28.9 28.9 graduate, post-graduate 1 .5 .5 29.4 post-graduate 43 20.4 20.4 49.8 undergraduate 104 49.3 49.3 99.1 undergraduate, graduate 1 .5 .5 99.5 undergraduate, post-graduate 1 .5 .5 100.0 total 211 100.0 100.0 source: spss. table 2 displays the respondents' educational backgrounds based on the data supplied. with 104 out of 211 respondents possessing an undergraduate degree, 49.3% of the total were in the education bracket. be that as it may, 61 people (or 28.9% of the total) reported having a graduate degree. forty-three www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 103 people, or 20.4% of the total, reported having post-graduate degrees. furthermore, a tiny percentage of respondents (.5%) claimed to have a mix of educational degrees, such as a graduate with post-graduate or an undergraduate with graduate credentials. table 4. age frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 18 – 25 years old 123 58.3 58.3 58.3 26-30 years old 19 9.0 9.0 67.3 29-39 years old 50 23.7 23.7 91.0 40 years old and above 19 9.0 9.0 100.0 total 211 100.0 100.0 source: spss. based on the responses, we can see that respondents were mostly between the ages of 18 and 25, 26–30, 31–39, and 40 and higher (table 3). according to the results, 123 people (or 58.3% of the entire sample) are between the ages of 18 and 25, making up the biggest demographic of responders. afterward, 9.0% of the total, or 19 people, are in the 26–30 age bracket, and almost a quarter, or 23.7%, are in the 29–39 age bracket, with 50 people making up this group. similarly, there are nineteen people (or 9.0% of the total) who are forty years old or older. more over two-thirds of the respondents (67.3%) are under the age of 30, and almost all (91.0%) are under the age of 39. table 5. working hours frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid 10-12 hours 15 7.1 7.1 7.1 7-8 hours 107 50.7 50.7 57.8 8-9 hours 51 24.2 24.2 82.0 9-10 hours 29 13.7 13.7 95.7 more than 12 hours 9 4.3 4.3 100.0 total 211 100.0 100.0 source: spss. the five categories of respondents' usual workweeks are shown in table 4: 10-12 hours, 7-8 hours, 9-10 hours, and more than 12 hours. statistical analysis revealed that 107 respondents, or 50.7% of the total, reported working for 7-8 hours. then, 51 individuals, or 24.2% of the total, reported working 8 to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 104 9 hours daily. thirteen persons, or 7.1% of the total, reported working for 10-12 hours, while thirty-nine, or 13.7%, reported working for 9-10 hours. on top of that, nine individuals (4.3% of the total) reported working above 12 hours daily. many individuals work 8 hours or less (57.8%), 82.0 percent work 9 hours or fewer, and 95.7 percent work 10 hours or fewer, as seen in the total percentage column. conversely, only 4.3% of workers put in shifts over 12 hours. table 6. job nature frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid field work 45 21.3 21.3 21.3 managerial 32 15.2 15.2 36.5 office work 82 38.9 38.9 75.4 staff 31 14.7 14.7 90.0 technical 21 10.0 10.0 100.0 total 211 100.0 100.0 source: spss. table 5 provides insights into the distribution of job natures among respondents, categorized into five groups: field work, managerial, office work, staff, and technical. the data reveals that the largest proportion of respondents, constituting 38.9%, are engaged in office work, with 82 individuals in this category. following this, 21.3% of respondents reported being involved in field work, with 45 individuals engaged in such roles. of the responders, 15.2% (or 32 people) hold managerial roles, and 14.7% (or 31 people) work as staff members. additionally, a smaller proportion of respondents, 10.0%, reported having technical roles, with 21 individuals in this category. the cumulative percentage column indicates that 75.4% of respondents are involved in either office work, staff, or technical roles, while 90.0% are engaged in managerial roles or below. 2.2.1 workplace stress table 7.workplace stress n minimum maximum mean std. deviation i am discouraged about my work. 211 1 5 3.18 1.088 i feel many things are beyond my control and ability while working from home. 211 1 5 2.77 1.058 i feel unable to get out from my work during working from home. 211 1 5 2.75 .955 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 105 i feel like giving up on work during working from home. 211 1 5 2.86 .988 valid n (listwise) 211 source: spss. using a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), the supplied data analyzes workplace stress among respondents for four statements pertaining to their experiences working remotely. the average score was 3.18, indicating that respondents were somewhat discouraged about their employment. it seems that they were on the fence about the idea of being discouraged. also, while working remotely, the average score of 2.77 suggests that people prefer to disagree with the idea that there are a lot of things that are beyond their control and abilities. respondents gave their ability to step back from work when working from home a mean score of 2.75, indicating a significant disagreement. in addition, those who work remotely are somewhat more likely to disagree with the statement "i feel like giving up on work" (mean score of 2.86). 2.2.2 flexible working arrangements table 8. flexible working arrangements n minimum maximum mean std. deviation flexible work arrangements are an important benefit that accounting majors use to select the firm they plan to work for. 211 1 5 2.19 .751 flexible work arrangements generally enhance morale and improve the quality of work life for those involved. 211 1 5 2.13 .603 flexible work arrangements are a women’s issue; most men don’t want or need these options. 211 1 5 2.97 1.066 valid n (listwise) 211 source: spss. the average score given by respondents regarding the significance of flexible work arrangements was 2.19, indicating a tendency towards agreement but not strong agreement. extremely consistent responses from the participants are demonstrated by the low standard deviation of 0.751. respondents gave flexible work arrangements an average score of 2.13 out of 5 for raising morale and bettering work-life balance. with a standard deviation of just 0.603, it seems that most people have the same opinion. with a mean score of 2.97, respondents generally agreed that flexible work arrangements are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 106 more of a problem for women than males. this statement seems to have a larger level of response variability than the others, as shown by the higher standard deviation of 1.066. 2.2.3 work from home productivity table 9.working from home productivity n minimum maximum mean std. deviation i am very productive while working from home. 211 1 5 2.55 1.015 i can concentrate on getting work done even when there are distractions from family members during working from home. 211 1 5 2.69 1.072 working from home motivates me to work better. 211 1 5 2.73 1.067 i receive technical assistance from my workplace in completing work during working from home 211 1 5 2.65 .893 valid n (listwise) 211 source: spss. using a strong disagreement rating of 1 to a strong agreement scale of 5, respondents' views of productivity and assistance when working from home are shown in the table. the average response from those who have worked from home on their own productivity was 2.55, suggesting some disagreement but not outright severe disagreement. along similar lines, they gave themselves a 2.69 (skewed toward disagreement) for their ability to focus on work despite interruptions from loved ones. with an average score of 2.73 on the desire to perform better when working from home survey, we can see a tendency of disagreement, but not a significant one. also, respondents gave their workplace's technical support for remote work a mean score of 2.65 out of 5, suggesting some dissatisfaction but not outright significant disagreement. 2.2.4 supervisor & coworker support table 10. supervisor & coworker support n minimum maximum mean std. deviation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 107 my supervisor is understanding when i have personal or family problems which interfere with my work. 211 1 5 2.41 .913 my supervisor is helpful when i have a personal emergency. 211 2 5 2.46 .715 my supervisor is concerned about me as a person. 211 1 5 2.63 .954 my co-workers encourage each other when someone feels down. 211 2 5 2.50 .662 my co-workers try to act like peacemakers when there are disagreements. 211 2 5 2.64 .669 my co-workers willingly share their expertise with each other. 211 1 5 2.43 .827 valid n (listwise) 211 source: spss. from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), across six categories, the table sheds light on how respondents perceived the level of support from their supervisors and coworkers. when asked how well their supervisor understood when their personal or family issues got in the way of work, most respondents gave it a moderate rating of 2.41. they also indicated a comparable amount of perceived assistance when they assessed their supervisor's helpfulness during personal situations as 2.46. on top of that, with an average score of 2.63, respondents indicated a modest degree of perceived worry about their supervisor's care for them as an individual. on average, respondents gave their colleagues a 2.50 for encouraging them when circumstances became difficult and a 2.64 for being ready to mediate conflicts, indicating modest levels of support from coworkers in these areas. on top of that, they gave a 2.43 for their coworkers' readiness to share information, which suggests a reasonable amount of support for sharing expertise between colleagues. 2.2.5 work-life balance table 11. work-life balance n minimum maximum mean std. deviation time for hobbies is difficult for me 211 1 5 2.56 .984 do you ever miss out any quality time with your family or your friends because of pressure of work? 211 1 5 2.86 1.014 forgetting work issues is hard to do 211 1 5 2.59 .887 i have to take work home most evening 211 1 5 2.92 1.013 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 108 n minimum maximum mean std. deviation time for hobbies is difficult for me 211 1 5 2.56 .984 do you ever miss out any quality time with your family or your friends because of pressure of work? 211 1 5 2.86 1.014 forgetting work issues is hard to do 211 1 5 2.59 .887 i have to take work home most evening 211 1 5 2.92 1.013 valid n (listwise) 211 source: spss. respondents, on average, rated the difficulty of allocating time for hobbies as 2.56, suggesting moderate challenges in finding time for personal interests. additionally, they rated the extent to which they miss quality time with family or friends due to work pressure as 2.86, indicating a tendency towards agreement with this statement. moreover, respondents rated the difficulty of forgetting work issues as 2.59, suggesting some challenges in mentally disengaging from work. lastly, they rated the frequency of needing to take work home in the evenings as 2.92, indicating a moderate level of agreement with this statement. 2.3 reliability analysis table 12. reliability analysis cronbach alpha work life balance .708 workplace stress .539 flexible working arrangements .771 work from home productivity .642 supervisor coworker support .746 source: spss. the table presents cronbach's alpha coefficients for various constructs, which assess the internal consistency or reliability of scales used to measure each construct. wlb: the cronbach's alpha coefficient for the wlb scale is .708, indicating moderate internal consistency among the items assessing this construct. workplace stress: the workplace stress scale displays an alpha of cronbach's coefficient of .539, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 109 suggesting relatively lower internal consistency among its items. flexible working arrangements: the flexible working arrangements scale shows a cronbach's alpha coefficient of .771, suggesting good internal consistency among its items. work from home productivity: for the work from home productivity scale, the cronbach's alpha coefficient is .642, indicating moderate internal consistency among its items. supervisor coworker support: the supervisor coworker support scale demonstrates a cronbach's alpha coefficient of .746, suggesting good internal consistency among its items. overall, constructs such as work-life balance, flexible working arrangements, and supervisor coworker support exhibit relatively higher internal consistency, while the workplace stress scale shows lower consistency. improvements in the measurement items for workplace stress may enhance its internal reliability. 2.4 pearson correlations table 13. pearson correlations workplace stress flexible working arrangements work from home productivity supervisor coworker support work life balance workplace stress pearson correlation 1 -.601** -.439** -.516** -.525** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 211 211 211 211 211 flexible working arrangements pearson correlation .601** 1 .618** .736** -.642** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 211 211 211 211 211 work from home productivity pearson correlation .439** .618** 1 .618** -.629** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 211 211 211 211 211 supervisor coworker support pearson correlation .516** .736** .618** 1 -.663** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 n 211 211 211 211 211 work life balance pearson correlation -.525** .642** .629** .663** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 110 n 211 211 211 211 211 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level source: spss. the table displays the pearson correlation coefficients between several dimensions, such as work-life balance, supervisor-coworker support, work-from-home productivity, flexible working arrangements, and workplace stress. the analysis that focuses on work-life balance is as follows: a strong negative relationship (r = -0.525, p < 0.01) exists between workplace stress and work-life balance. this suggests that a decline in work-life balance is associated with elevated levels of workplace stress. higher levels of occupational stress are correlated with a weaker work-life balance. there is a strong positive correlation (r = 0.642, p < 0.01) between flexible work arrangements and work-life balance. it appears that when flexible work arrangements proliferate, work-life balance tends to get better. increased job flexibility is associated with a better work-life balance. when working from home, there is a positive association between productivity and work-life balance. (r = 0.629, p < 0.01). this suggests that a better work-life balance is connected with increased productivity while working from home. positive correlations have been found between work-life balance and supervisor colleague support. (r = 0.663, p < 0.01). this provides further evidence that a healthy work-life balance is linked to encouragement from superiors and peers. 2.5 regression analysis 2.5.1 regression one table 14. workplace stress andwork-life balance regression model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .525a .275 .272 .63583 a. predictors: (constant), workplace stress anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 32.086 1 32.086 79.367 .000a residual 84.494 209 .404 total 116.581 210 a. predictors: (constant), workplace stress b. dependent variable: work life balance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 111 coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig.b std. error beta 1 (constant) 1.398 .189 7.395 .000 workplace stress -.506 .057 -.525 -8.909 .000 a. dependent variable: “work life balance” source: spss. table 13 displays the results of a regression study that looks at how stress in the workplace relates to the concept of wlb. based on the model summary and the r-squared value of.275, workplace stress is the predictor variable that explains 27.5% of the variation in wlb. accounting for the number of factors in the model, workplace stress explains roughly 27.2% of the variation in work-life balance, according to the modified r-squared value of.272. the standard error of the estimate, 0.63583, indicates the average deviation of the observed values from the regression line. workplace stress is a major predictor of work-life balance, as shown by the statistically significant regression model (f = 79.367, p <.001) in the anovatable. according to the coefficients table, there is a considerable negative correlation between workplace stress and wlb (beta = -.525, p <.001). workplace stress is inversely connected with work-life balance, according to this evidence. beta, the standardized coefficient, is -.525, which shows how strong and in what direction this association is. moreover, the constant term in the model (b = 1.398, p <.001) represents the projected mean score for wlb in the absence of workplace stress. 2.5.2 regression two table 15. supervisor support moderates the relationship between work stress and work-life balance model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .711a .506 .501 .52631 a. predictors: (constant), ws scp, workplace stress anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 58.964 2 29.482 106.431 .000a residual 57.617 208 .277 total 116.581 210 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 112 model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .525a .275 .272 .63583 a. predictors: (constant), ws scp, workplace stress b. dependent variable: work life balance coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig.b std. error beta 1 (constant) 2.162 .175 12.379 .000 workplace stress -.126 .080 -.131 -1.589 .114 ws x scp .135 .014 .813 9.850 .000 a. dependent variable: work life balance source: spss. with an r-squared value of.506, the model summary shows that the predictors, workplace stress and supervisor support (ws scp), explain 50.6% of the variation in work-life balance. with a modified r-squared value of.501, we may deduce that the number of predictors accounts for about 50.1% of the variation in wlb. with a value of 0.52631, the amount that the observed data normally depart from the regression line is displayed by the standard error of the estimate. the anova table reveals a statistically significant regression model (f = 106.431, p <.001), indicating that workplace stress and supervisor support together have a considerable predictive power for work-life balance. workplace stress is not a significant predictor of wlb (beta = -.131, p =.114), according to the coefficients table. however, there is a substantial positive correlation between wlb and the interaction term "ws x scp" (supervisor support multiplied by workplace stress; beta =.813, p <.001). this suggests that having a supportive supervisor mediates the connection between stress at work and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. moreover, the constant term in the model (b = 2.162, p <.001) represents the projected mean work-life balance score when both workplace stress and supervisor support are set to zero. all things considered; the results show that having a supportive supervisor lessens the impact of stress on wlb. when employees feel more support from their supervisors, it helps to mitigate the negative effects of stress at work on their work-life balance. this emphasizes how important it is to have supportive leadership in order to lessen the detrimental effects of workplace stress on employees' ability to maintain a good wlb. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 113 2.5.3 regression three table 16. work from home mediates the relationship between workplace stress and work life balance model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .687a .472 .467 .54411 a. predictors: (constant), work from home productivity, workplace stress anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 55.001 2 27.500 92.888 .000a residual 61.580 208 .296 total 116.581 210 a. predictors: (constant), work from home productivity, workplace stress b. dependent variable: work life balance coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig.b std. error beta 1 (constant) .863 .173 4.995 .000 workplace stress -.297 .054 -.308 -5.494 .000 work from home productivity .406 .046 .493 8.798 .000 a. dependent variable: work life balance source: spss. the model summary table's regression analysis looks into the connection between office stress, work-from-home productivity, and how these factors affect work-life balance. together, the predictors of work-from-home productivity and office stress explain for 47.2% of the variance in work-life balance, as indicated by the r-squared score of.472. the adjusted r-squared value of.467 indicates that roughly 46.7% of the variance in work-life balance is explained after adjusting for the number of factors. the average deviation of the observed values from the regression line is indicated by the standard error of the estimate, which is 0.54411. the findings of the anova demonstrate that the regression model is statistically significant (f = 27.500, p <.001), suggesting that work-life balance is significantly predicted by the combination of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 114 workplace stress and productivity from home. the regression's sum of squares is 55.001, indicating that the independent variables—work-from-home productivity and office stress—explain the variability of the dependent variable, work-life balance. regarding coefficients, the constant term in the model (b = 0.863) represents the estimated mean work-life balance score when work-from-home productivity and workplace stress are both zero. workplace stress has a negative coefficient (b = -0.297), implying that a poorer work-life balance is linked to higher levels of workplace stress. conversely, work-from-home productivity has a positive coefficient (b = 0.406), indicating that higher levels of work-from-home productivity are associated with better work-life balance. 2.5.4 regression four table 17. flexible working arrangements mediates the relationship between work stress and work life balance model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .665a .442 .437 .55912 a. predictors: (constant), flexible working arrangements, workplace stress anovab model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 51.557 2 25.778 82.460 .000a residual 65.024 208 .313 total 116.581 210 a. predictors: (constant), flexible working arrangements, workplace stress b. dependent variable: work life balance coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig.b std. error beta 1 (constant) .965 .175 5.516 .000 workplace stress .209 .062 .217 3.353 .001 flexible working arrangements .476 .060 .511 7.892 .000 a. dependent variable: work life balance source: spss. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 115 table 16's regression analysis looks into the role that flexible work schedules play as a mediator in the relationship between work-life balance and workplace stress. the.442 r-squared value shows that the predictors—flexible work schedules and workplace stress—account for 44.2% of the variation in work-life balance. after adjusting for the number of predictors, the adjusted r-squared value of.437 indicates that 43.7% of the variation in work-life balance can be explained. the average departure of the observed values from the regression line is represented by the standard error of the estimate, which is 0.55912. work-life balance is substantially predicted by the combination of workplace stress and flexible working options, according to the statistically significant regression model (f = 82.460, p <.001). work-life balance is the dependent variable, and the regression's sum of squares, or 51.557, shows how the independent variables explain variation in this measure (workplace stress and flexible employment arrangements). in terms of coefficients, the constant term in the model (b = 0.965) represents the estimated mean work-life balance score when flexible working arrangements and workplace stress are both zero. workplace stress has a positive coefficient (b = 0.209, p = .001), suggesting that a better work-life balance is linked to higher levels of workplace stress. additionally, flexible work schedules have a positive coefficient (b = 0.476, p < .001), suggesting that higher levels of flexible working arrangements are associated with higher work-life balance. the standardized coefficient (beta) for flexible working arrangements is 0.511, indicating its stronger influence on work-life balance compared to workplace stress (beta = 0.217). comparing these results with the previous regression analysis, the mediation effect of flexible working arrangements is evident in the change in beta coefficients. workplace stress had a higher direct impact on work-life balance in the prior regression analysis (beta = -0.506), but this mediation model shows that the effect of workplace stress on work-life balance is less pronounced (beta = 0.209). this attenuation suggests that flexible work schedules are more beneficial to work-life balance and that the relationship between workplace stress and work-life balance is somewhat mitigated. thus, although work-life balance is still impacted by workplace stress, this effect is lessened when flexible working arrangements are available, suggesting that flexible working arrangements have a mediating function in this interaction. 2.6 conclusion and recommendation the analysis of the data collected on workplace stress, work-from-home productivity, flexible working arrangements, and wlb among employees provides valuable insights into the dynamics of modern work environments. key findings from the study reveal significant relationships between these variables, illuminating the elements that affect work-life balance and employee well-being. recommendations stemming from these insights include prioritizing supportive leadership practices to mitigate the negative impact of workplace stress, promoting flexible working arrangements to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 116 accommodate diverse employee needs, enhancing work-from-home productivity through support and resources, fostering peer and supervisor support to create a supportive work environment, and continuing to measure and improve these factors through regular assessments and adjustments to policies and practices. employers may prioritize employee well-being and encourage a healthy work-life balance by putting these suggestions into practice and creating a welcoming and adaptable work environment that eventually benefits both the company and its employees. references akdere, m. 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(2005). relationships among organizational family support, job autonomy, perceived control, and employee well-being. journal of occupational health psychology, 10(4), 100-118. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.10.4.100 abstract 1.part 1 1.1 introduction 1.2 research question 1.3 justification of research: why this topic matt 1.4 literature review work life balance flexible work arrangements: work from home productivity: supervisor and co-worker support 1.5 methodology 1.5.1 research design 1.5.2 data collection theoretical framework 1.6 data analysis plan variable’s definitions and measurements: 1.6.1 quantitative data collection: surveys 1.7 timeline and budget 1.7.1 timeline 1.7.2 budget 1.8 ethical considerations 2.part 2 2.1.2 demographic statistics 2.2.1 workplace stress 2.2.2 flexible working arrangements 2.2.3 work from home productivity 2.2.4 supervisor & coworker support 2.2.5 work-life balance 2.3 reliability analysis 2.4 pearson correlations 2.5 regression analysis 2.5.1 regression one 2.5.2 regression two 2.5.3 regression three 2.5.4 regression four 2.6 conclusion and recommendation references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 215 original paper research on the pathways for cultivating core competencies in contemporary college students through art and aesthetics courses chuyuan wu1 1 xi’an fanyi university, phoenix digital intelligence media industry academy, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 17, 2025 online published: november 03, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p215 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p215 abstract this paper focuses on exploring pathways for cultivating core competencies in contemporary university students through art and aesthetic education courses. by analyzing the essence of art and aesthetic education courses and the composition of core competencies in university students, it highlights their close interconnection. current courses face issues such as unreasonable curriculum design, uneven distribution of educational resources, and monotonous teaching methods. based on this analysis, the paper proposes cultivation pathways including optimizing curriculum design, enriching teaching resources, innovating teaching methods, and improving evaluation systems. these aim to enhance students' core competencies such as aesthetic literacy and innovative abilities, providing reference for art and aesthetic education in higher education institutions. keywords art and aesthetics courses, contemporary college students, core competencies, development pathways 1. introduction in today’s society, the cultivation of college students extends beyond the transmission of specialized knowledge; the enhancement of comprehensive competencies has become a key objective. core competencies, as essential qualities and critical abilities for students to adapt to lifelong development and societal needs, encompass multiple dimensions. as a vital component of the higher education system, art and aesthetic courses possess unique educational value and play an indispensable role in cultivating the core competencies of contemporary university students. however, current research on how these courses effectively foster such competencies remains incomplete. therefore, exploring their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 216 cultivation pathways holds significant theoretical and practical importance. 2. the essence and connection between art and aesthetic courses and university students’ core competencies 2.1 the essence of art and aesthetics courses art and aesthetics courses utilize artistic works as vehicles. by guiding students in appreciating, analyzing, and creating art, they systematically cultivate core competencies such as aesthetic perception, artistic expression, creative practice, and cultural understanding. these courses transcend the limitations of single art forms, encompassing diverse artistic domains including painting, music, dance, theater, calligraphy, and photography to form an interdisciplinary network of artistic education. for instance, in painting courses, students analyze the compositional proportions and use of light and shadow in leonardo da vinci’s mona lisa. this process not only helps them master artistic principles like the golden ratio but also enables them to understand the humanistic ideals of the renaissance through the painting’s details. this dual-track teaching model—combining technical analysis with cultural interpretation—enhances students' artistic skills while deepening their understanding of art’s essence. 2.2 components of college student core competencies the college student core competency framework comprises three dimensions—cultural foundation, self-directed development, and social engagement—forming a multidimensional competency development structure. the cultural foundation dimension encompasses humanistic literacy and scientific spirit: the former emphasizes inheritance and understanding of china's outstanding traditional culture and global civilizational achievements, while the latter focuses on cultivating critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. the self-directed development dimension covers learning to learn and healthy living, requiring students to master autonomous learning methods and develop a positive life attitude. the social engagement dimension encompasses responsibility and practical innovation, particularly emphasizing the practical requirement of translating professional knowledge into social service capabilities. taking practical innovation as an example, this competency requires students to apply interdisciplinary knowledge to propose innovative solutions in real-world scenarios such as artificial intelligence and rural revitalization, demonstrating knowledge transfer and value creation abilities. 2.3 interconnections between the two art and aesthetic courses exhibit multidimensional integration with the cultivation of core competencies for university students. first, through project-based learning and artistic workshops, these courses establish a complete chain of “observation-analysis-creation-reflection,” effectively enhancing students' practical innovation abilities. for instance, in theater performance courses, students engage in the entire process from script adaptation to stage presentation, thereby honing teamwork skills while developing innovative problem-solving thinking. second, artistic works serve as cultural carriers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 217 imbued with rich historical information and value systems. the dunhuang murals course, by analyzing the evolution of flying apsaras, enables students to tangibly experience the cultural fusion along the silk road, deepening their understanding of the diverse yet unified characteristics of chinese civilization. moreover, the artistic creation process requires students to independently complete the entire closed loop from capturing inspiration to realizing the work. this “problem identification-conceptualization-execution-evaluation and refinement” mindset training aligns closely with cultivating metacognitive abilities within the learning dimension. finally, aesthetic judgment training in arts education subtly shapes students' sense of social responsibility and value selection capabilities by guiding them to discern the value orientations of different artistic styles. 3. analysis of the current state of cultivating core competencies in college students through art and aesthetics courses 3.1 current state of curriculum design the current art and aesthetics courses in higher education institutions exhibit structural contradictions at the systemic level. while some institutions have introduced general education courses such as music appreciation and fundamentals of fine arts, the curriculum framework lacks systematic planning and presents a fragmented distribution pattern. specifically: horizontally, courses across different art disciplines lack organic connections. for instance, chinese painting courses and digital media art courses fail to establish a dialogue mechanism between tradition and modernity. vertically, foundational courses and advanced courses are poorly integrated, hindering students’ ability to transition from aesthetic perception to creative practice. for example, a comprehensive university schedules calligraphy appreciation and sculpture creation in the first and third years respectively, with no transitional courses like ceramics or printmaking in between, creating a gap in students’ artistic thinking development. curriculum design exhibits a tendency to “prioritize skills over literacy.” surveys indicate that 62% of university art courses remain technique-dominated, reducing painting courses to figure drawing exercises and confining music courses to instrumental performance assessments while neglecting theoretical foundations like art history and aesthetic psychology. this “skill-centric” curriculum model enables students to master foundational techniques but leaves them unable to grasp the aesthetic essence of the blue-green landscapes in the thousand miles of rivers and mountains scroll or interpret the structural tension in beethoven’s symphony no. 5. more critically, the evaluation system overemphasizes final outputs while neglecting the explicit thinking processes during creation. this drives students to mechanically imitate for grades, sacrificing the authenticity of artistic expression. 3.2 current state of teaching resources significant disparities exist in teaching resource allocation between urban and rural areas as well as among institutions. leading universities commonly establish new teaching spaces such as digital art laboratories and virtual reality creation platforms, while local institutions still face issues like www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 218 insufficient studio space and outdated musical instrument equipment. in one provincial university's music classrooms, 40% of pianos exceeded 15 years of service life, with severe tuning inaccuracies significantly impairing students’ aural training. regarding faculty development, the student-to-artist ratio stands at 1:320, far exceeding the ministry of education’s 1:150 standard, making personalized instruction challenging. faculty competency structures exhibit imbalances. surveys indicate that among teachers under 35, 68% hold master’s degrees or higher, yet only 23% possess practical artistic experience. this “academic-oriented” faculty composition results in the drama performance course emphasizing theoretical lectures over stage direction practice, while the advertising design course prioritizes software operation over creative concept training. more concerning is the severe shortage of interdisciplinary faculty. less than 5% of teachers are qualified to teach both art history/theory and digital technology, hindering the development of emerging “art + technology” fields. 3.3 current state of teaching methods monotonous teaching methods also pose a challenge for current arts and aesthetics courses. many instructors still rely on traditional lecture-based approaches, emphasizing knowledge transmission while neglecting students’ active participation and engagement. in classrooms, students often passively absorb information, lacking opportunities for independent thinking and exploration. this teaching methodology hinders the cultivation of innovative thinking and practical skills, failing to meet students' diverse needs for arts and aesthetics education. 4. constraints on cultivating core competencies in college students through arts and aesthetics courses 4.1 educational philosophy factors within the current higher education system, arts and aesthetics courses face structural cognitive biases. some university administrators still adhere to a utilitarian educational philosophy prioritizing “professional disciplines above all,” viewing arts courses as “decorative” rather than “essential competencies.” this cognitive bias creates practical challenges on three levels: first, in talent development plans, art courses typically account for less than 3% of total credits—far below the 5%-8% standard in developed countries. second, course positioning remains ambiguous, with 63% of universities failing to clarify the logical relationship between art courses and professional courses. this results in a lack of coordinated design for related courses like “mechanical drawing” and “industrial design aesthetics.” third, evaluation systems are misaligned, with 87% of universities equating art course assessments with professional courses, emphasizing knowledge memorization over aesthetic creation. a “skill-centric” teaching mindset persists among faculty. surveys reveal that 58% of art instructors reduce course objectives to skill mastery, such as transforming “fundamentals of photography” into camera parameter adjustment drills while neglecting core competencies like visual language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 219 construction. this mindset stems from outdated art education evaluation standards. in current university art faculty promotions, 72% of criteria emphasize research papers over teaching innovation, undermining teachers’ intrinsic motivation for curriculum reform. more concerning is the limited adoption of interdisciplinary education—only 15% of universities integrate art courses with emerging fields like artificial intelligence and big data, hindering the cultivation of “art + technology” composite talents. 4.2 social environmental factors value conflicts arising from societal transformation exert a deconstructive effect on art education. the efficiency-driven orientation of the market economy has spawned an “art utilitarianism” trend, with 39% of university students believing art education should serve employment needs. this perception has led to enrollment rates below 20% for culturally grounded courses like intangible cultural heritage inheritance. simultaneously, capital logic permeates the art sphere, with 76% of works in commercial exhibitions adopting standardized aesthetic models, undermining the development of students’ critical aesthetic thinking. a survey at a fine arts academy revealed that while 81% of graduates secured commercial illustration commissions, fewer than 15% produced work with distinctive artistic language. this highlights how societal demands skew the direction of art education. the “simulacrum world” constructed by mass media creates an aesthetic recognition crisis. among the 30 million daily posts on short-video platforms, 62% employ high-saturation colors and exaggerated forms, fostering students’ “visual pleasure dependency.” this environment diminishes college students’ aesthetic endurance for classics like the thousand miles of rivers and mountains. an experiment at a university revealed that the average time students could sustain focused appreciation of traditional paintings dropped from 12 minutes in 2015 to 3.2 minutes in 2023. more critically, algorithmic recommendation systems create “information silos,” with 48% of students trapped in information environments dominated by a single aesthetic style, hindering the development of diverse aesthetic capabilities. 4.3 family factors family education suffers from a “lack of literacy education.” in urban households, 67% of parents equate art education with specialized training, prioritizing certification exams over aesthetic enlightenment. this leads to an abnormal development in students’ artistic learning, characterized by “rapid skill advancement but lagging literacy.” rural families face resource scarcity: 31% of county-level secondary schools lack dedicated arts curricula, forcing students to engage with art through fragmented online exposure. this “wild-style” learning results in 73% of rural college students exhibiting distorted artistic perceptions. uneven distribution of family cultural capital exacerbates educational inequality. high-income households spend an average of 8,200 yuan annually on arts education—12 times that of low-income families. this disparity manifests in access to artistic experiences: children from affluent families are nine times more likely to participate in international art exchanges than their peers from low-income www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 220 backgrounds. more notably, the intergenerational transmission of aesthetic guidance within families shows significant effects. in households where parents possess artistic cultivation, 89% of children can proactively discover the aesthetics of daily life, whereas this proportion drops to just 23% in families lacking an artistic atmosphere. such disparities have already manifested as pronounced differences in foundational aesthetic abilities like spatial cognition and color perception. 5. exploring pathways for cultivating core competencies in college students through art and aesthetics courses 5.1 optimizing curriculum design higher education institutions should optimize the design of art and aesthetics courses based on the physical and mental development characteristics of college students and the requirements for cultivating core competencies. a systematic and coherent curriculum framework should be established, integrating art and aesthetics courses throughout the entire learning process of college students. for example, a three-tiered structure comprising foundational art courses, specialized art courses, and exploratory art courses can be implemented to meet the diverse learning needs of students. simultaneously, enrich course content beyond traditional art forms by incorporating contemporary art and cross-cultural art to broaden students’ artistic horizons. for instance, teaching emerging art forms like digital art and new media art should be added to keep students informed about the latest developments in the art field. 5.2 enhancing teaching resources increase resource allocation for art and aesthetics courses to improve teaching facilities and equipment. construct modern teaching spaces such as art classrooms, studios, and concert halls to provide students with an optimal learning environment. concurrently, strengthen faculty development by recruiting and cultivating art educators with high professional standards and teaching capabilities. encourage teachers to participate in artistic practice and academic exchanges to continuously enhance their comprehensive competencies. furthermore, leverage internet and multimedia technologies to develop online art courses and teaching resources, offering students more accessible learning pathways. for instance, establish an online learning platform for art and aesthetics courses, uploading rich instructional videos, courseware, and other materials to facilitate anytime, anywhere learning. 5.3 innovate teaching methods employ diverse teaching methods to stimulate students’ learning interest and creativity. for instance, utilize project-based learning, where students cultivate practical skills and teamwork through designing and implementing art projects. during project execution, students engage in independent thinking, exploration, and problem-solving, thereby enhancing their innovative thinking and practical abilities. contextual teaching methods can also be adopted, creating scenarios related to artworks to immerse students in the charm of art and enrich their aesthetic experiences. furthermore, case studies are introduced to guide students in analyzing and discussing classic artworks, deepening their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 221 understanding of artistic concepts and creative processes while elevating their appreciation skills. 5.4 refining the assessment system a scientific and rational evaluation framework for art and aesthetics courses is established to comprehensively and objectively assess student learning outcomes. this system emphasizes a blend of formative and summative evaluations, focusing not only on academic achievements but also on students' performance and progress throughout the learning journey. for instance, multiple assessment components such as classroom participation, homework evaluations, and project outcome assessments can be implemented to holistically evaluate students' aesthetic perception, artistic expression, creative practice, and cultural comprehension. concurrently, students should be encouraged to engage in self-assessment and peer evaluation to cultivate self-reflection and critical thinking skills. 5.5 strengthening campus culture and practical activities foster a vibrant campus artistic atmosphere by organizing diverse artistic practice activities. universities can host art exhibitions, concerts, theatrical performances, and other events, allowing students to engage closely with and appreciate outstanding artistic works, thereby elevating their aesthetic standards. simultaneously, encourage student participation in art clubs and interest groups, providing platforms for display and exchange. through practical activities, students can apply acquired artistic knowledge and skills to real-world contexts, honing their practical abilities and innovative capabilities. for instance, organizing campus art creation competitions can ignite students' creative passion and spark their inventiveness. 6. conclusion art and aesthetic courses play a vital role in cultivating core competencies among contemporary university students. by optimizing curriculum design, enriching teaching resources, innovating instructional methods, refining evaluation systems, and strengthening campus cultural development and practical activities, these courses can effectively enhance students' aesthetic literacy, innovative abilities, and humanistic foundations. higher education institutions should fully recognize the significance of art and aesthetic education, increase investment and support for such programs, and create favorable conditions for students’ comprehensive development and growth. concurrently, educators must continuously explore and innovate to enhance the teaching quality of art and aesthetics courses, thereby contributing to the cultivation of contemporary college students with high-caliber qualities and innovative capabilities. future research should further explore the integration of art and aesthetics courses with other disciplines, as well as how to better adapt to societal developments and evolving student needs, thereby refining pathways and methodologies for nurturing core competencies through these courses. references bai, s. (2024). strategies for constructing art and aesthetic systems in applied undergraduate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 222 universities from a fine arts perspective. art appraisal, (09), 189-192. chai, s. j. (2025). aesthetic experience: the construction logic of general art courses in higher education institutions. education theory and practice, 45(21), 55-60. li, y. c. (2024). research on the infusion of aesthetic literacy in college students through art education. art appraisal, (08), 99-104. liu, x. q. (2024). on the essence, requirements, and objectives of ideological and political education in art courses. special zone economy, (11), 156-160. tang, x. m. (2025). building a new era aesthetic education curriculum system based on disciplinary integration: a case study of applied universities. journal of beijing union university (humanities and social sciences edition), 23(01), 109-116. xian, g. j. (2023). research on cultivating aesthetic literacy among college students in the new era. lanzhou university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 21 original paper under three heavy mountains—identity construction and subjectivity struggle of chinese women workers yu linhao1 1 faculty of liberal arts, the chinese university of hong kong, hong kong received: july 29, 2024 accepted: august 27, 2024 online published: september 20, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p21 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p21 abstract this paper examines contemporary chinese women workers, whose experiences have gained increasing attention as rural labor forces migrate to urban areas and china’s status as the “factory of the world” evolves. it utilizes pun ngai’s ethnography “made in china” as the primary text, alongside supporting texts such as “rural women in urban china” (jacka, 2006), “the change of factory regime in china and its impacts on workers” (zhao, 2010). this paper provides a detailed analysis of the construction of these workers’ identities and their struggle for subjectivity. confronted with triple oppression, female workers navigate and reshape their identities amidst the tensions between urban and rural settings. keywords chinese women workers, pun ngai, triple oppression, factory girls 1. introduction as the vast labor force from rural china transitions to urban centers and china continues to solidify its role as the “factory of the world,” the experiences of contemporary chinese women workers are receiving heightened scrutiny. this paper delves into their identity construction and struggle for subjectivity by analyzing pun ngai’s “made in china” along with “rural women in urban china”, “workers in the reconstruction of the factory system”. it explores how these women confront and negotiate their identities in the complex interplay between city and countryside, recognizing the unique challenges they face compared to workers in state-owned enterprises. they build their identities in a heterogeneous, fractured, and fluid manner, incorporating both their femininity and rural backgrounds. unlike their counterparts in state-owned enterprises, they face the dual challenge of their working-class identity and the reinforcement of their peasant and regional-community identities, ultimately resisting through various “possibilities.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 22 2. triple oppression and the subject’s call in mainland china, the women workers (dagongmei)’s subject is created by the interaction of being questioned and self-formed. they are subject to a patriarchal society for the reason that they are women. the patriarchy, the state, and the capital have all oppressed them in three specific ways. they live in a patriarchal society as women who are responsible for carrying tradition and maintaining a predetermined course for their lives. through the pervasive everyday domestication, patriarchal power forces women to adopt the virtue of submissiveness. “obedience” is deftly packaged and injected into the impressionable girls, and when they grow up, it ultimately turns into a control mechanism ingrained in their marrow. this due to historical inertia, the training of “obedience” continues today. patriarchal authority thus forms the earliest oppression of women, and tame women are the “products” born under this tyranny. their first subjectivity is the “tame”. but with the dream of the city, they made the decision to work as female industrial employees. when the rural girls moved to the city to work, they underwent identity transformation, becoming female factory employees, and the production subject started to take shape. they start working in factories as women, and the topic of production starts to be formed. the power of global capital and the technology of power surrounding them begin to refract. the “microphysical theory of power” of foucault is referenced by pun in order to examine how capital controls labor. (pun, 2005, pp. 106-107) the subjectivity of women workers is again evoked under the regulation of capital. the peasant body in the socialist context is not adapted to capitalist production, and the regulation of their bodies by capital is necessary and the techniques of regulation are justified, i.e. the “hegemonic discourse”. (tao, 2011, pp. 228-230) by fixing women workers on the production line, capital demonstrates its spatial art, thus reuniting the divided individuals into a coherent operation of the whole. they are then required to follow a uniform command and produce in accordance with the conveyor belt’s speed, producing most like a machine and maintaining a constant speed. moreover, the schedule is the art of time for the disciplinary power, which, within a seemingly simple framework of the schedule, quickly transforms the rural girl with no sense of time, as imagined by the disciplinary power, into a worker in the capitalist global economy, who observes industrial time. the external mechanism of capitalism is also “internalized” in these women workers, most of whom work hard to get more pay, and “time is money”. the modern subject is formed by the “inquisition” of the self in the discipline. (althusser, 2008, pp. 84) although they have transformed from being country girls to productive subjects who are generally subdued but not lacking in agility, women workers nonetheless feel deficient, uneasy, and dissatisfied in the face of the pervasive dominance. what capital needs is not only the tamed working bodies under the power of regulation, but also the “willing” workers. therefore, the process of self-constitution of working girls is an important area of control by capital. taming is a valuable texture of “material” for capital, which only needs a pair of hands to work mechanically. they are attracted by capital and begin the process of being shaped by industrial capital. for a variety of reasons, they are drawn to the city, but because there hasn’t been much accumulation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 23 human capital, they essentially have to decide to become factory girls. this constitutes a second layer of oppression. the leviathan/state, in its need for development, creates a de facto collusion with capital, providing more “convenient conditions” for shaping a “working machine” that is perfectly suited to production. “with the shelter of the hukou system, capital’s temporary use of chinese labor gained institutional legitimacy. thus, exploitation and plunder are further branded as local and cultural, so that the temporary use of labor, which is prevalent in shenzhen and other globalized factories in economic development zones, is permanently fixed.” (pun, 2005, pp. 48) this constitutes the third layer of oppression, which also makes factory girls fall into a completely passive and powerless subject. 3. urban and rural areas in between: self-awareness and identity of women workers in the book “rural women in urban china”, tamara put his awareness on women’s self-consciousness and sought to find out the changing psychological roles of chinese rural women in the process of modernization. in 2000, tamara asked members of the “working girl’s home” in haidian, beijing, about their reasons for leaving their hometown. the result was that “23.9% of the respondents cited backwardness or poverty in their hometowns as an important reason for moving away from home, and 23.9% said it was because ‘there was nothing to do at home’. however, the most frequently cited reason for moving out was ‘to develop myself (48.9%)’.” according to the data, tamara argues that the impetus for young working girls to leave the countryside does not usually come from economic necessity or past experiences of deprivation or hardship, but from this clearly expressed desire to develop themselves, broaden their horizons and try their independence. (jacka, 2006, p. 108) young, unmarried women generally do not do so at the behest of their parents or to contribute financially to their families; rather, these women make their own decisions and choices, primarily to improve their lives and to seek self-fulfillment as “modern” individuals. the women workers chose to “make their own decision”, not only because they awakened their individual subject consciousness and consciously chose to work in the city between “staying in the countryside” and working in the city, thus proving the value of their individual existence, but also because they were pushed by fate to go to the city without the space of choice. additionally, fate forces them into the city because there are too many “things that can’t be done” in the countryside. working-class identity is particularly important for women workers. both the women workers who left their hometowns to make a living in the city and the former workers of state-owned enterprises who experienced unit reform and dictatorship face the problem of working-class identity, which they construct passively and actively in a series of factory politics, while being deprived of their own interests or infringed upon in the enterprises. outside the production plant, the rights to lifelong employment and welfare guarantees that workers in both enterprises were supposed to enjoy, which the state had originally promised by means of implicit contracts, were gradually abolished with the dissolution of the unitary system, the introduction of the labor contract system, and the changes in the wage system and the social security system. in terms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 24 welfare, with the conversion of enterprises, the original complete welfare of the state-owned enterprise period -welfare housing, pensions and publicly funded medical care were transformed into a social security system that is shared by the state, the enterprise and the individual. along with a series of reform measures in factories, the workers’ own experience of being gradually deprived of their institutional identity and welfare benefits in the former state-owned enterprises made it easier for them to construct their own identity as workers in their former enterprises. whereas during the planned economy, working-class identity was a kind of identification with their particular identity and unit, during the period of market transformation, this strong sense of contrast provided the basis for the group of soe employees to identify themselves. (zhao, 2010, pp. 88-93) similar to the workers of the former state-owned enterprises, the rural girls in chinese women workers gradually establish their working-class identity in urban factory work, where they are reunited into an overall coherent operation, maintaining speed, on the conveyor belt preferably evenly, like a machine; the strict work schedule transforms the timeless rural girls into workers who observe industrial time, and the rural girls into disciplined and generally still tame workers in the face of omnipresent power. although their identity is unclear, the logic of “migrant worker” is embedded in them, the term “migrant worker” blurs the line between peasant and worker identities. but as thompson argues, class arises when a group of people conclude in a shared experience, sensing and articulating an interest among themselves that is different and often antagonistic to that of others. in fact, they identify themselves with their own working class identity, but they are not yet conscious of this class consciousness of themselves as working class. (song, 2013, pp. 217-222) they will openly or covertly oppose the hegemony to recognize their bodies as more than “tame”, realizing that the faster they work on the production line, the more profit the bosses make, while they still only receive a meager wage for their labor. collective resistance highlights their self-contained working-class identity. it can be noted that the identity construction process of women workers is heterogeneous, fragmented, fluid and full of conflicts. in addition to their own working-class identity, female migrant workers also face the strengthening of their original identity as “peasants” and the accompanying regional-ethnic identity. once they enter the factory, their original identity as peasants is reinforced passively or actively. the anachronistic appearance and behavior of female workers make them look less like factory workers and more like the so-called rural people. the female workers express their dissatisfaction with this discrimination in their own unique way, sneering at the bosses who chastise them and call them by various nicknames after work, which strengthens their perception of themselves as “rural women” in the process. in this confrontation, their identity as “rural women” is reinforced. however, on the other hand, female workers are also fighting against their former identity as “peasants” in order to avoid or reduce discrimination. they attempt to gain a new identity and a new sense of life through a variety of efforts, such as listening to hong kong popular music together after work, going shopping together like city people, dressing more formally, and purchasing hong kong cosmetics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 25 most of the working girls come from rural areas all over the country and speak mandarin with different local accents. there is a great gap between their different personalities and the requirements of the capital, which needs a homogeneous group of working girls. under these requirements, the very different working girls are forced but at the same time voluntarily terrain themselves and try to become a modern working subject. for example, in the factories where female workers work, cantonese is a kind of cultural capital, and the bosses and top managers speak cantonese, which represents their status. if female workers want to get the opportunity of upward mobility, speaking cantonese is a necessary condition, and they must temporarily give up their original identity and complete the construction of a modern subject. (pun, 2005, pp. 128-132) occasionally, there is defection and struggle, but this does not prevent women workers from joining the performance of language politics dominated by capitalists. language is entwined with town and country, region and ethnic group, which sometimes obey and sometimes resist capital’s conspiracy to individualize women workers. the formation of the modern subject is thus a complex and divisive process. 4. how does energetic resistance become possible? pun believes that the resistance of chinese women workers is a poetics of rebellion, and she repeatedly emphasizes that the resistance of women workers is a new kind of resistance. it emerges from the process of subjectification of women workers themselves and the process of shaping them by various power forces. it emerges from the process of subjectification of women workers and the process of shaping them by various power forces. this is a historical performance of control and resistance. the female workers’ form of resistance can be attributed to a daily life strategy and physical illness, where “resistance” and “taming” are intertextual. it is rare to see the emergence of mass strikes in factories, and it is only when the speed of the assembly line is set too fast or the bonus rate is too harsh that collective faking of illness becomes a regular occurrence. slowing down on the assembly line, making deliberate mistakes, and even stopping work are all forms of resistance by women workers, while physical pain, nightmares, and screams are the physical resistance of women workers to the objective forms of industrial labor. dysmenorrhea was a common chronic pain that women workers suffered from. in order to keep the assembly line running, supervisors would give the surprised women workers contraceptive-like drugs to alleviate the pain. the women workers’ bodies could not be regulated and absorbed by the rhythm of industrial production -they had their own clocks. the screams and nightmares are the ultimate human experience, a cry for human freedom at the limit of pain, and the female worker, ying, is the subject of the screams depicted by the author. this form of physical resistance is seemingly imperceptible, but it is constantly embodied in the factory, in industrial time. the body of the working girl is always in conflict between being tamed by capital and becoming a body of resistance out of self-protection. the desire to escape from the former is an impossible dream, or at best a lesser degree of control; becoming an object of resistance in the full sense of the word seems even more impossible. after all, the former determines the fate of the latter. the resistance of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 26 working girls can only be limited and moderate; beyond a certain limit, they have no choice but to lose their jobs, and even in the “resistance deconstruction” of the old protector itself using hegemonic discourses. (pun, 2005, p. 78) another “positive” expression of “domestication” is “cooperation”, where resistance and cooperation, two seemingly opposite strategies, are in every corner of the workshop at every moment. the two strategies of resistance and cooperation, which seem to be almost the exact opposite, are in every corner of the workshop every moment. the resistance to patriarchy is an important motivation for many rural women to work outside the home, and pun sees the limited autonomy and freedom of women workers, depicting a married woman, chun, who leaves home alone without her husband’s permission. the purpose of “chun” is still to pay off her family’s debts, and unmarried women are forced to struggle between the male-dominated marriage and family and the masculine capital system, unable to earn a way out. the paradoxes and contradictions were revealed in pun’s books in the 1990s. in order to fight against the oppression of capital, the rural family and the various social relationships attached to it provide the most important material support and identity for the working girls. this support includes mutual care in daily life and collective action in the production sphere. (pun, 2005, p. 77-78) but when women hope to escape the oppression and alienation of capital through marriage, they seek the refuge of patriarchy but have to accept the oppression of patriarchy. in “working girls”, a best-selling book about the survival of china’s second generation of female workers, zhang tonghe places the individual freedom and autonomy of female workers in a higher place, even as the ultimate goal. in their rebellion against patriarchal power, both lv qingmin and her sister rebel against their parents’ arrangements for their marriage and strive to take control of their own destiny and lives, and because of their elevated economic status in the family, qingmin “overturns the power structure of the family”. capitalism’s demand for free labor gives young women a voice and freedom to fight against patriarchy. pun’s ying refuses to be her boss’s lover, but lives with the anxiety of choosing a spouse, but the urban-rural and class differences still deeply prevent her from finding a suitable marriage partner in a foreign country. in contrast to pun’s ying’s fugitive rebellion against male power, zhang tonghe’s lv qingmin and wu chunming share the same desire and anxiety for marriage and family, only that women of this generation appear to be more open and proactive in gender relations. however, neither zhang tonghe nor pun tells the reader the final fate of these working women, as the family system continues unintentionally and intentionally, and more women protest in disguise against the oppression of capital and patriarchal power. the idea of rebellion does not coalesce in one place in the spirit of the self, forming a clear sense of rebellion. their attempts to clarify the chaotic ideas of resistance were interrupted by the heavy burden of daily life and plunged back into chaos. their thoughts wavered and they were unable to accurately climb the three mountains, and their resistance could not find a direction -only a sense of powerlessness that left them with empty punches, and finally they were lost in confusion and numbness and accepted a traditional arrangement. are the screams of the female workers in pun’s writing ignored www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 27 by our daily life? what is even more frightening is that not only is this neglected, but also people take it for granted, thinking that these sacrifices are inevitable or simply remain indifferent. references althusser, l. (2008). on ideology. verso. braverman, h. (1998). labor and monopoly capital : the degradation of work in the twentieth century (25th anniversary ed.). monthy review press. jacka, t. (2006). rural women in urban china : gender, migration, and social change. m.e. sharpe, inc. pun, n. (2005). made in china : women factory workers in a global workplace. duke university press/hong kong university press. pun, n., & lai, y. m. (2006). the voice of the aphasia: chinese migrant girls (beijing, 1st ed.). sdx joint publishing company. song, s. p. (2013). dynamic subjects and rigid institutions: where is the way?—the different ways of “working girl” and “female workers in china”. open era, 5, 217-222. tao, y. l. (2011). the poem of the life of the unknown: the formation and struggle of female workers in china. society, 31(5), 226-242. tong, x. (2003). alienation and struggle : a study on the work history of female workers in china (1st ed.). china social sciences press. zhao, w. (2010). the change of factory regime in china and its impacts on workers: case studies from the white goods industry in china (1st ed.). social sciences literature press. abstract keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 209 original paper non-existent “liuchuan”—review of “the long confession” xunzhi chang 1* 1 macau university of science and technology, macau, china * beijing normal university, zhuhai, china received: april 6, 2023 accepted: may 11, 2023 online published: may 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p209 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p209 abstract following the two works “a quiet dream” (2016) and “fukuoka” (2019), director zhang lu once again interpreted a new “three-person” story in “the long confession” (2021). this article, based on foucault’s “heterotopia” theory, analyzes director zhang lu’s work from three dimensions: “the cross regional nature of fragmented memory, the fluidity of emotional rivers, and the polysemy of character language.” the aim is to observe and explore the director’s profound thinking on memory, emotions, language, and image itself, as well as the complexity, variability, and captivating beauty of human emotions. keywords memory, emotion, language, image itself 1. the cross regional nature of fragmented memory foucault elaborated on his proposed “heterotopia” as “alternative spaces”: “these actual utopians are real places outside of places-gardens, cemeteries, shelters, opportunities, prisons, clubs, big villages... i dream of creating a science about these mysterious, controversial, and extraordinary spaces that we live in, called heterotopias”, director zhang lu used light and shadow as a medium, using reality as a basis, transplanting the dreamy memories of past years into seemingly trivial life, portraying for the audience a “heterotopia” in his heart (also in the protagonist’s heart), that is, the “transregional nature of memory”. the director’s skillful and effortless use of film narrative techniques is evident in both dreamlike and close to the eye. at 13′21 into the film, against the backdrop of a spacious and well-arranged room, the iconic subtitle “directed by zhang lu” appears on the screen. at this moment, a man walks out from the background of the inner room, and his brother enters the foreground from the left, starting a conversation. this is zhang lu’s consistent narrative style, using the search/resolution of an inner dilemma as a reason to embark on a journey of life or memory roaming. the narrative structure of “the long confession” is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 210 published by scholink inc. based on the pursuit of a woman named a’chuan (played by ni ni) who suddenly disappeared from their lives by two brothers, lichun (played by xin baiqing) and lidong (played by zhang luyi). years ago, this woman named “liuchuan” had left without saying goodbye, disappearing from the lives of the two brothers, and both of them have unresolved guilt and affection towards a’chuan. although the two men are brothers, they are very different in personality from a visual perspective. besides the “dead fish eyes” that younger brother lidong described about lichun, it seems to be the only similarity between the two men. based on their age and experience, it seems that only exhaustion and weariness from life are left in their eyes. when lidong learned that he was seriously ill and didn’t have much time left, he invited his brother to travel together to uncover the scars of their memories. from houhai in beijing to yanagawa in japan, the mysterious woman they encountered linked not only a love story with no result, but also a youthful memory of them, a misunderstanding and a chance for communication between the two brothers, and a memory dialogue triggered by geographical mobility. the scene moved from beijing to liuchuan and then back to beijing, memories slowly stripped away. people’s actions constantly outline the past amidst the alternating scenery and changing environment, also constantly crossing back into memory from the present moment. to some extent, they are all nostalgic for a certain stage of the past, so they cannot let it go. in the unfamiliar atmosphere of a foreign land, seeing familiar people is like entering a “heterotopia” of memory. foucault described his “heterotopia” as “alternative space”: “these utopias of actual existence are real places outside the place—gardens, cemeteries, shelters, opportunities, prisons, clubs, large villages... i dream of creating a science about these mysterious, controversial, and extraordinary spaces we live in, calling it heterotopia.” unlike utopia, which relies on imagination to exist, heterotopia itself is an escape from existing order in time and space. in yanagawa, it seems that the beginning of spring has truly entered this space beyond life, and in the midst of recalling old memories in winter, he created new memories of his own. 2. the flowability of emotional undercurrents returning to the title of this film, “the long confession”, also known as “yanagam”. yanagam is a place name and also a person’s name in chinese “liu chuan”, the object of confession, but in a broader sense, it can actually be a virtual reference. because this is destined to be a confession without a specific goal, it is a statement and confession related to love, family, and personal emotions. each of the person in the film has their own confusion, but they throw the same confusion to the audience: what is the pursuit of a person’s life? is it regret for misunderstanding, compensation for mistakes, curiosity about unknown possibilities, or the pursuit of romance? there were many references to the love story between yoko ono and john lennon in the film, as a metaphor to describe the unspeakable emotional flow between the characters. when lidong and lichun first came to the bar where a’chuan was singing, he immersed himself in singing “oh my love” and elegantly held a glass of wine in front of the two brothers, starting the three of them on a walk where www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 211 published by scholink inc. ambiguous emotions began to flow on the streets. when a’chuan and lichun sat chatting on chairs outside a small shop, lidong rode chuan’s bicycle in front of them wandering, not far away and not close, observing from a distance without getting too close. soon, a more dramatic scene unfolded, and the relationship between the three turned into an interaction between four people. the owner of the inn who was waiting for a’chuan and his party to arrive at the shop was an english friend who introduced a’chuan to yanagawa, japan. lidong, who also wanted to be alone with a’chuan, always maintained a polite distance when he finally met him, pulling one corner of the polygon to try to balance its shape. in this constantly changing polygon, several men have confessed their love to a’chuan’s character. the female character played by a’chuan is like a point, extending one branch after another, spreading out a network of interpersonal relationships. however, this point cannot be close to just one line, because this origin has become a symbol, a sign, an intangible object of confession. the film reaches an emotional climax in a hallway scene with three people. a’chuan suddenly runs forward, reminiscent of a classic scene from the 1960s françois truffaut film “jules et jim” that captivated jules et jim’s catherine. in that moment, the three forget all immorality and unpleasantness. in this tribute, director zhang lu’s “three-person” story reaches its peak. in the long passage of time, it is unclear whom they are trying to confess to, and because this confession will never have an answer or result, it becomes prolonged. 3. the polysemy of character language it is impossible to separate zhang lu’s directorial work from his korean identity and filming experience. in addition to his tolerance and exploration of different regional cultures, he also attempts to break the limitations of language through film. in “the long confession”, he dissolves and erases the differences between different languages, and amplifies the ambiguity and multiple meanings of words. the most common occurrence is the simultaneous use of multiple languages by several characters during conversations. when lichun was in japan and needed to communicate face-to-face with unfamiliar japanese people, he had to rely on lichun to translate. the two brothers had completely different personalities when chatting with others, with lichun always seeming to want to compare himself with his younger brother in terms of appearance and masculinity. even when chatting with the bar auntie, he enthusiastically asked such questions. lichun couldn’t help but secretly compare himself to his brother in his heart, because when facing a’chuan, his brother was his biggest “competitor”. the true feelings of the two brothers were revealed through the words of others, adding another layer of ambiguity to the translation. when facing another innkeeper who also likes a’chuan, several people sat together and spoke in chinese and switched to japanese, with english mixed in the conversation. the indirect language pattern made the understanding between people more reliant on things beyond language. even in just a few words, a’chuan’s mysterious feeling became even stronger. in addition, the film also highlights the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 212 published by scholink inc. ineffectiveness of everyday language by borrowing from literary and musical language, emphasizing the functionality of the “third language”. just like when korean tourists sing korean songs while riding a boat, they are strangers in a foreign land, but warmth and longing can still be felt in their songs. in order to find a’chuan in japan, laidong secretly learned japanese several years in advance, and hid his admiration for a’chuan in his words and deeds. during the spring equinox, he always joked about irrelevant matters related to men and women. when expressing love or other non-verbal conversations in another language (not the mother tongue of daily communication), it seems easier to say and adds more infectivity, which is the ambiguity and ambiguity of language. just as kazuo ishiguro’s literary works may not convey their artistic charm 100% through translations into other languages, using different or the same language may not necessarily lead to mutual understanding among humans. silence may also be a way to reach each other. the languages of multiple countries, the reproduction of multiple images, and the overlapping of multiple emotions are destined to dissipate this long confession, along with the death of lidong, in a nonexistent “yanagawa”. i’m afraid she’ll never be happy here on earth. she’s an apparition, not a woman for one man. —”jules et jim” (1962) references liu, x. y., & xu, s. s. (2023). looking at zhang lu’s mainstream return from “long confession”. film literature, 2023(04), 155-158. zhang, l., & xu, f. l. (2023). confession: living elsewhere, soul here—interview with zhang lu. film art, 2023(01), 97-103. zhang, l., & wang, y. j. (2023). cross domain subject, cross-cultural imaging and practice: director zhang lu’s creative talk. new film works, 2023(01), 51-60. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p125 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 125 original paper white paper—satellite radio: the first decade sufyan mohammed-baksh1*, john kilker iii1, & howard fisher1 1 department of communication & media, university of scranton, scranton, pa, usa * sufyan mohammed-baksh, department of communication & media, university of scranton, scranton, pa, usa received: october 20, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 online published: november 11, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p125 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p125 abstract this white paper discusses the evolution of the satellite radio industry during its first decade. since their inception, both sirius & xm have gone through major developments as well as changes include the acquisition of sirius by xm in march 2008. this paper is an important to the current literature in this field as it preserves the history of the origins and development of the satellite radio industry during its first and most important decade. keywords satellite radio, digital radio, xm, sirius, radio media, digital radio industry 1. introduction in 1992, the satellite radio industry began when the federal communications commission (fcc) designated a spectrum in the “s” band (2.3 ghz) for the nationwide broadcasting of satellite-based digital audio radio service (dars). two of the companies that applied for a license to broadcast were cd radio, which became sirius satellite radio and american mobile radio, which changed to xm radio, inc. in 1998. sirius satellite radio and xm radio both transmit in north america. world space began satellite audio services in 1999 and broadcasts throughout asia, europe, the middle east, and africa. satellite radio is dependent on listeners that are willing to pay a monthly subscription fee to retrieve a wider range of programs than conventional am or fm radio stations. the fcc license continues for eight years, and it has been estimated that the total expense of initiating a satellite service is approximately one and one-half billion dollars. satellite radio utilizes the 2.3ghz “s” band in north america and shares the 1.4 ghz “l” band with local digital audio broadcast (dab) stations elsewhere. satellite radio does not require a satellite dish to receive, but there is a four-second delay due to the distance of twenty-two thousand and three hundred miles into space to the orbiting satellites www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 126 published by scholink inc. and the rebroadcast back to earth. as long as the listener is able to receive the orbiting satellite’s line of sight, he is able to obtain the programming services. satellite radio uses a network of land repeaters, usually cell phone towers, to enhance reception in urban locations or sites with tall buildings to eliminate “dead spots.” i often wonder exactly how this technology works inside buildings with no windows, because my gps system that works similarly does not function inside a building. 2. industry origins with satellite digital audio radio services (sdars), customers are able to listen to the same radio stations coast-to-coast. the digital satellite radio transmissions permit a deep forceful sound with near cd quality audio signals that are not available from analog radio stations. satellite radio broadcasts are not subject to the same fcc rules as regular radio programming, so content that may not be appropriate for conventional radio can be located on satellite radio. most satellite radio companies offer very few, if any commercials, so they must charge a subscription fee for their services, roughly ten to fifteen dollars per month plus an initial price of two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars. most subscribers feel that this small fee is worth the price. satellite radio service eliminates the crackling of am radio and the hissing of the shorter ranges that fm broadcasts because the service is completely digital. each receiver has an electronic serial number (esn)-radio id that distinguishes it, and when the unit is activated with the subscription and the authorization code is sent in, the digital stream advises the receiver to allow access to the blocked channels. like other radio services, satellite radio also transmits program-associated data (pad) with the artist and title of each song or program and often, the name of the channel. my xm radio, however, does not transmit the pad, and it is a 2004 model. accessories are also available in order for the customer to listen to satellite radio at home through a stereo, a boombox, or online. in eighty-seven metropolitan markets, satellite radio has attracted a sixty-three percent male audience. over seventy-six percent of all adult listeners are over the age of thirty-five, and almost fifty percent are over the age of forty-five. the demographic profile is affluent with household incomes of fifty thousand dollars or more and well educated with fifty-five percent possessing at least one college degree. two companies dominate the satellite radio industry in the united states: sirius satellite radio and xm radio, inc. cd radio paid eighty-nine million dollars for the fcc’s approval, and in february 2002, sirius introduced its service in the four markets of denver, houston, phoenix, and jackson, mississippi. sirius satellite radio is based out of a facility located at rockefeller center in new york city and was officially launched on july 1, 2002. sirius uses three ss/l-1300 satellites to form an inclined elliptical satellite constellation to guarantee that each satellite spends about sixteen hours a day over the continental united states, with at least one satellite over the country at all times. the three-satellite constellation was completed on november 30, 2000. a fourth satellite remains on the ground ready to be launched if any of the three active satellites encounter transmission problems. sirius www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 127 published by scholink inc. is traded on the nasdaq (siri) at a current price of seven dollars, giving the company a market cap of nine and one-half billion dollars sirius satellite radio features sixty-five music channels and forty specialized sports, news, and entertainment channels. xm radio paid ninety-three million dollars to receive the approval from the fcc to broadcast in 1997 and like sirius radio, xm covers most of north america but is only licensed for the united states. worldspace originally owned xm satellite radio and is responsible for some proprietary technology, original programming, and format structure. the official launch date for xm radio was september 25, 2001, as it debuted in its two lead markets of dallas/ft. worth and san diego. two months later, xm radio was introduced nationwide. xm radio is headquartered in washington, dc in a state-of-the-art broadcast complex with eighty-two all-digital broadcasting studios in a one hundred and fifty thousand square foot facility. the sixty-five million dollar site also houses two, seven-meter satellite dishes. xm radio broadcasts live daily from studios in washington, d.c., new york city, and nashville at the country music hall of fame. xm radio uses two satellites, identified as rock and roll, that are positioned in parallel geostationary orbits. one is at eighty-five degrees west longitude, and the other is at one hundred and fifteen degrees west longitude. xm also has a third satellite on the ground that is ready for take-off in case one of their existing satellites fails. as of march 20, 2006, xm radio declared over six million subscribers. xm radio is traded on the nasdaq (xmsr) with a current price of approximately thirty-five dollars, providing the company with a market cap of just over seven billion dollars. xm radio subscribers have access to sixty-seven commercial-free music channels; thirty-nine channels of news, sports, talk, and entertainment; twenty-one traffic and weather channels; twenty-three sports channels; three comedy channels; two premium channels; and one special-features channel. there are more than one thousand, five hundred hours of live programming every week. 3. evolution over the first ten years car manufacturers of the 2001 and 2002 models installed satellite radio receivers, and soon after, electronics companies began to distribute models of portable satellite radio receivers. in 2001, there was a merger between general motors and xm radio when the two companies agreed to add the availability of the xm radio to the forty gm models starting with the 2003 models. in 2002, the cadillac division of gm was the first to successfully offer the option in the deville model. xm radio announced agreements totaling four hundred and seventy five million dollars worth of business within the auto industry that included honda, toyota, and gm motors. sirius has exclusive partnerships with audi and vw from 2007 through 2012, brands that previously offered both xm and sirius services. xm radio offers subscriber traffic information in twenty-one markets with the unique features of a system called xm navtraffic that allows the user to be updated on current traffic problems. the navtraffic system can be added to the car’s navigation system and alerts the driver about pending traffic problems and alternate routes. in 2004, xm launched xm emergency alert, a channel dedicated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 128 published by scholink inc. to providing listeners updated information during natural disasters, weather emergencies, and other hazardous incidents. the emergency alert channel delivers key survival information such as evacuation routes, shelter locations, and updated weather emergency information for impacted areas. xm raised its monthly rates last year from $9.95 per month to $12.95 per month and sirius satellite radio ceo mel karmazin stated that sirius would raise the monthly fee for sirius, up from $12.95 in the future. although getting figure 1. us satellite radio subscribers howard stern was a major coup for sirius, according to business week, “sirius has signed up just 350,000 to 500,000 more subscribers than xm during the two critical quarters in which stern left cbs in december and launched his new show in january.” presently, both xm and sirius are posting losses. xm reported a loss of $268.3 million for q1 of 2006 while sirius reported a $311.4 million loss for the same period. although these losses seem to be growing each year, the rapid growth of subscribers, in addition to the deals both xm and sirius are making with artists and car manufacturers are a clear indication that the future looks bright for both players. according to xm ceo hugh panero, “satellite-radio companies are at the beginning of their growth curve” and sirius and xm, will start turning profits by 2008. there are more than two hundred and eight million drivers in the united states and most of them listen to traditional broadcast radio while commuting. by contrast, xm and sirius satellite radio have a combined subscriber base of 10.5 million subscribers as of the first quarter of 2006. the competition for satellite radio is not just between xm and sirius but rather, satellite radio as a technology competes with traditional broadcast radio and a host of new technologies such as ipods, portable mp3 players, and audio content on cell phones. the way the industry has attracted, and continues to attract, a huge subscriber base is by using a four-pronged approach. first, by offering customers extensive choices from talk shows, to live coverage of college football and nba playoffs, to uncensored comedy, in addition to many more choices – all without the constant botheration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 129 published by scholink inc. commercials. the second strategy is to offer content, which may not be deemed appropriate for traditional broadcast. both xm and sirius offer many channels that use explicit language and contain adult content like the playboy channel and adult comedy channels and hence, attract an audience, which demands freedom of expression from the airwaves. the third strategy is to hire celebrities to host and guest host shows on the various channels. sirius created and broke many industry records when it hired howard stern for more than one hundred million dollars per year for five years while xm got oprah winfrey for fifty million dollars. the fourth strategy is to partner with automobile manufacturers to offer xm or sirius radios as standard equipment, often with three to six months of free programming, in many car models. xm has joined with chrysler, honda, and ford, while sirius offers its receivers in gm, mercedes, and kia automobiles. the future looks bright for satellite radio with a projection of twenty million subscribers by 2010. the cost of the receivers has been reduced, and the subscription rate has maintained around twelve to fifteen dollars a month. xm radio’s ceo recently announced plans to work with cell phone manufacturers to place satellite receivers into cell phones that allow subscribers to access their satellite radio service via their cell phone. with the popularity of the ipod and mp3 players, both sirius and xm have made the leap away from satellite radio only in the car and into the consumers’ homes. the introduction of units such as xm radio’s im2go, a walkman-like portable receiver, should increase the number of potential users. sirius has developed the kenwood portable satellite radio tuner, here2anywhere, and the sirius s50. the satellite radio programming channel line-up is also expected to continue to improve over time. video streaming through the satellite radio system is a possibility and would be similar to having a satellite television service in your car. there is a possibility of future mandates by the fcc for interoperability between xm and sirius hardware within the next few years. xm satellite radio has recently partnered with wlw-am, cincinnati and is rebroadcasting the renowned am radio station on xm channel 173. this legendary am radio station deserves a national audience and though satellite radio is known for its specialty programming, analysts believe this is a good move. on november 1, 2004, the canadian radio-television and telecommunications commission (crtc) began hearing applications for canada’s first satellite radio operations. three applications were filed including one by standard broadcasting and the cbs in partnership with sirius; one by canadian satellite radio in partnership with xm; and one by chum limited and astral media. xm satellite radio was introduced in canada on november 29, 2005, with sirius radio following on december 1, 2005. 4. discussion critics of satellite radio state that the service could result in the downsizing and eliminating of many www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 130 published by scholink inc. local radio stations including the jobs of the disc jockeys, producers, and other employees. they are concerned that there will be a greater concentration of mass media in the hands of fewer companies. i believe, however, that the domain of satellite radio was integrated at an opportune time. consumers have become vocal about the fcc’s regulation of standard radio stations, and they constantly complain about clear channel playing the same music repeatedly. satellite radio provides a great escape from the tribulations presented by regular am and fm radio. i enjoy the satellite radio in my car, and it is always turned to xm channel 43xmu. though sirius and xm presently have complete domination of the satellite radio industry, and i have not seen or heard advertising from any other companies that have tried to make a move into the market, satellite radio may be a viable option worth investing in for other companies the price of one and one-half billion dollars to initiate the satellite service, however, is a definite drawback for my pocketbook! references http://satellite-radios-solutions.com http://satelliteradiousa.com/satellite_radio_history.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://4wheeldrive.about.com/od/autoparts4x4accessories/a/satelliteradio_5.htm http://4wheeldrive.about.com/od/autoparts4x4accessories/a/satelliteradio_5.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://radio.about.com/od/satelliteradio/a/aa051505a.htm http://satelliteradiousa.com/satellite_radio_history.html http://4wheeldrive.about.com/od/autoparts4x4accessories/a/satelliteradio_5.htm http://satelliteradiousa.com/satellite_radio_history.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://satelliteradiousa.com/satellite_radio_history.html http://www.radio-xm.com/ http://4wheeldrive.about.com/od/autoparts4x4accessories/a/satelliteradio_5.htm http://satelliteradiousa.com/satellite_radio_history.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://www.satellite.info/idx/8/015/satellite_radio/article/xm_satellite_radio__corporate_history.ht ml www.businessweek.com www.xmradio.com/investor.html www.sirius.com http://www.streetauthority.com/cmnts/pt/2004/11-24.asp www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 131 published by scholink inc. http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06040309.htm http://radio.about.com/od/satelliteradio/a/aa051505a.htm http://www.satellite.info/idx/8/015/satellite_radio/article/xm_satellite_radio__corporate_history.ht ml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://4wheeldrive.about.com/od/autoparts4x4accessories/a/satelliteradio_3.htm http://radio.about.com/od/satelliteradio/a/aa030506a.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/satellite_radio advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 40 original paper study on the activation strategy of historical and cultural blocks from the perspective of smart cultural tourism—acase study of the three lanes and seven alleys in fuzhou city nanxi chen1* 1 school of tourism and history and culture, southwest minzu university, chengdu, sichuan province, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: may 21, 2024 online published: june 06, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p40 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p40 abstract in recent years, as living standards have improved, there has been an increasing demand for spiritual fulfillment. new leisure activities such as visiting exhibitions and urban exploration, as well as immersive tourism, are replacing traditional sightseeing tours. as lifestyles change, so do people’s consumption habits. located in fuzhou city, three lanes and seven alleys is known as “manchu architecture museum” and “half of modern chinese history”. in the digital age, three lanes and seven alleys keeps up with the wave of smart cultural travel. through “cuocuo youyu” mini program, media facilities in the museum, it uses scientific and technological means to achieve multi-connectivity and enhance tourists’ sense of experience and interactive participation in visiting historical blocks. this paper starts with an analysis of the current digital development status and existing challenges faced by three lanes and seven alleys before delving into a study of strategies for activating this historical area. keywords fuzhou, smart cultural tourism, cultural relics and monuments, three lanes and seven alleys 1. literature review smart cultural tourism is the integration of information technology and cultural tourism. it uses internet big data to integrate various resources and provide corresponding tourism services on mobile phones to improve tourists’ sense of experience and convenience. xu and cai summarized the experiences of smart tourism construction in europe, the united states, japan and south korea in “the international experience and policy inspiration of smart cultural tourism to help rural revitalization”. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 41 includes policies such as upgrading digital facilities, constructing smart tourism destinations, implementing smart networks, etc., which involve transportation, compilation of tourist routes, big data analysis, among other aspects (xu, 2024); jing yanhong’s research on the construction of public cultural service system under the background of the integration of culture and technology believes that the smart cultural tourism service platform is committed to creating a “people-oriented” smart tourism experience for tourists (jing, 2018); in “smart tourism big data application analysis”, yan qiaozhi et al. pointed out that during the initial stages of construction there was no unified plan for business systems related to cultural tourism departments resulting in relatively closed information flow that hindered data sharing and interaction within the cultural tourism industry (yan, huang, & lin, 2023); yang pingping’s research on the construction of intelligent cultural travel service platform under the background of cultural and travel integration focuses on architecture design by integrating infrastructure development with technology and application system construction (yang, 2019). based on field research, conducted by this author at three lanes and seven alleys site (a popular tourist destination), shortcomings were identified regarding their implementation strategies for smart cultural tourism; thus corresponding strategies were proposed aiming at enhancing tourists' sense of experience. 2. research background three lanes and seven alleys is the largest and most complete ancient architectural cluster retained in fuzhou city center. there are 270 ancient buildings, among which 159 are listed as protected buildings and 15 are national key cultural relics protection units (ye & zheng, 2019). under the renovation in recent years, it is a typical lifang-style historical and cultural block with strong fuzhou traditional architecture and cultural characteristics. it mainly focuses on residential functions while integrating culture, leisure, commerce, and tourism. the existing historical and cultural resources mainly include former residences of celebrities, characteristic folk houses and historical relics. in recent years, on the basis of the protection of cultural relics, the government and the public have increasing attention to making cultural relics and historic sites “alive” during the process of modernization. in december 2022, the administrative measures for the activated utilization of cultural relics buildings in fuzhou were issued and implemented to encourage rational utilization of these buildings while regulating activation methods to inject vitality into them alongside cultural relic protection efforts. according to the “digital china development report (2023)”, china’s digital economy is projected to maintain steady growth in 2023, and the added value of the core industries of the digital economy will account for 10% of gdp. the scale of fuzhou’s digital economy has surpassed 400 billion yuan mark, accounting for more than 53% of gdp. three lanes and seven alley have been well developed towards becoming smart blocks by incorporating digital industry into their modernization process which enhances their uniqueness amidst homogenized historical-cultural blocks while highlighting their rich cultural connotations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 42 3. basic overview of the digital application of three lanes and seven alleys 3.1 digital interpretation in three lanes and seven alleys mini program called “gold commentary”, visitors can explore scenic spots such as lin juemin bing xin former residence, yan fu former residence, and water pavilion stage. visitors can scan the qr code at the gate to follow the public number and click on the link to access the scenic spot page, 15 yuan to unlock the ar interpretation service of 45 scenic spots in three lanes and seven alleys. no registration is required; simply scanning the code will take you there. the page will provide a catalog of explanations narrated by professional tour guides through live audio recordings. tourists can experience this exclusive guide service through a mini program, which can be used with ar glasses to achieve a more intuitive and independent one-stop tour. 3.2 multi-party internet applet in scenic spot the mini program “cuocuo youyu” integrates the resource information about ancient houses in fuzhou city, integrates a number of technologies such as blockchain and digital commemorative tickets, and provides functions such as scenic spot reservation, play ticket purchase, map and ip display. on its homepage, tourists have the option to register for research courses offered by the mini program called “mingcheng youth”. additionally, this mini program includes an encyclopedia of lanes, regularly updated activity information, as well as introductions of cultural and creative ips. through this mini program, tourists can efficiently learn about the development of scenic spots and easily access service information. 3.3 real-scene digital drama tour the scenic spot launched the “mindu secret lane surprise” real digital drama tour, using ar technology to allow visitors to complete tasks at specific locations and promote the progression of the plot. this creates a platform for interaction and communication between ancient houses and tourists, allowing them to experience the cultural charm during their visit. 4. problems existing in the digital construction of three lanes and seven alleys 4.1 lack of close connection between online and offline in terms of the display of scenic spots within the block, online tourists can access the “cuocuo youyu” mini program to view the hand-drawn map of three lanes and seven alleys, while offline, only the main street on both sides of the entrance has the map display board for the block, and there are no self-collected portable maps placed in prominent places within the block. the integration of various digital platforms such as mini programs for exhibition halls, digital melodrama mini programs, and “cuocuo youyu” requires tourists to switch between each mini program repeatedly during their tour, which is not convenient. additionally, lack of publicity for the mini program means that most tourists are unable to obtain information beyond simply following the flow to the main street without taking initiative to explore historical and cultural attractions preserved in the alleyways. 4.2 function settings are not humanized enough www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 43 take the “gold medal explanation” applet as an example. the main issue is that the explanation directory is not arranged according to the tour order, leading to different tourists choosing different tour routes and needing to manually adjust the explanation and play after it. this affects the experience of its main exclusive tour guide service. in terms of pricing, a fixed price of 15 yuan for explaining 45 scenic spots in the scenic spot does not provide enough flexibility. additionally, there is a question about whether tourists who have visited more than half of the explained spots should pay for the rest. furthermore, in the “cuocuo youyu” intangible cultural heritage map plate for three lanes and seven alleys, there is an issue with small text size that cannot be scaled, limiting its practical use for tourists during visits. 4.3 the internal support of each plate of the digital platform is insufficient the digital platform of three lanes and seven alleys has been set up, but the development of each function is unbalanced. for example, the five blocks in the mini program of “cuocuo youyu” focus on the specific scenic spot introduction, special activities and booking tickets of three lanes and seven alleys and liangcuo, while for zhuzi fang, there is only one video to show the beautiful scenery, the video below is blank, there is no text science popularization, and the “click into” of shangxia hang and nangong river estuary plate is only decoration, which cannot be opened. in the “cultural and creative ip” plate, only “zhou student” pop-up shop may day activity publicity, and for “zhou student” the origin of the ip has no text introduction. 5. three lanes and seven alleys activation strategy the revitalization of three lanes and seven alleys should be grounded in their rich history and cultural heritage. it should aim to promote the integration of resources, foster innovative ideas and plans, and enhance the overall experience for tourists as well as the sense of participation for local residents. in order to effectively protect and utilize the historical and cultural assets of three lanes and seven alleys, the following four countermeasures and suggestions are proposed: 5.1 expand business on the basis of repair and protection for historical districts, some buildings can be opened for cooperation with tourism and photography companies on the basis of restoration and protection. this will enrich the smart cultural and tourism platform, providing tourists with more choices. the style and scenic spots of the block serve as an eye-catching background for photos, attracting tourists to visit. the yantai mountain historical and cultural area in fuzhou, also known as the “architecture museum of all nations," has attracted numerous photography studios, cultural and art studios to settle in. the historical culture behind the architectural style continues to attract a steady stream of tourists. 5.2 creative use of cultural resources in three lanes and seven alleys combine cultural resources with emerging media, change people’s stereotyped influence on cultural resources, make traditional culture and modern social development integrate well, realize the transformation of cultural resources into cultural capital, and drive economic development. add more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 44 experience projects to enhance the participation of tourists, rather than just passing through. based on the humanistic history and folklore of three lanes and seven alleys, we will design cultural and creative products with characteristics and in line with modern aesthetics. the digital platform will update the page activities and major events of scenic spots from time to time, and can also provide channels for the design and sale of ip derivatives of scenic spots. 5.3 planning recommended routes for cultural tourism within the block coordinate the relationship between the community, the government and the residents in three lanes and seven alleys through the mechanism, encourage the joint participation in the protection of cultural resources in three lanes and seven alleys, and encourage the participation of residents and suggestions to improve the scientific and reasonable development of local cultural resources on the basis of the protection of historical and cultural resources. the function of selecting recommended tour routes is provided in the mini program of explaining historical and cultural blocks, and the online explanation service is carried out according to the tour order. 5.4 actively promote cultural exchanges and let local cultural resources go out multi-platform marketing the new look of the three lanes and seven alleys to expand its popularity. on holidays or before it holds special activities, preheat the activities, open official accounts on multiple internet platforms, release the latest information, and carry forward the cultural resources. additionally, collaboration with historical and cultural districts in other regions is sought in order to facilitate mutual learning and development. summary under the wave of digitalization, internet big data technology provides a new way for the revitalization of historical and cultural blocks, and provides technical support in enhancing tourists’ sense of experience and interaction. while building the digital platform, how to integrate various resources in an orderly logic and way is a problem that needs to be considered before the platform is built. smart cultural tourism is the integration of information technology and cultural tourism, so the development and construction should also take full account of tourists’ sense of experience, design into the identity of tourists, understand the needs of tourists and tour habits, so that the product can really provide convenience for tourists. references dai, j. k., & chen, y. (2024). city name cards and cultural heritage: a study on the countermeasures for the activation and utilization of former residences of modern celebrities in ningbo. ningbo economy (sanjiang forum), 2024(01), 42-44. jing, y. h. (2018). research on the construction of public cultural service system under the background of the integration of culture and science and technology. media forum, 1(18), 31-32. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 45 li, r. q. (2023). study on commercial forms and distribution characteristics of residential historical and cultural districts—a case study of tanhualin [c]// urban planning society of china. people's city planning can assign 2023 china urban planning conference proceedings (09 urban cultural heritage protection.) 2023, 14. xu, y., & cai, b. z. (2024). international experience and policy implications of smart cultural tourism in helping rural revitalization. journal of hunan institute of science and technology, (01), 96-100. yan, q. z., huang, x. j., & lin, z. (2023). wisdom tourism big data applications. journal of xi'an aviation academy, 9(5), 67-75. yan, x., & fu, y. j. (2024). drum tower digital literature tour plays new tricks. fuzhou daily, 2024-03-22(002). yang, p. p. (2019). research on the construction of smart cultural travel service platform under the background of cultural and travel integration. journal of software, 45(02), 155-158. ye, l. l., & zheng, y. p. (2019). fuzhou the three lanes and seven alleys historical and cultural blocks culture resource utilization present situation and countermeasure research. journal of urban architecture, 2019(26), 13-15. zhang, x. t. (2019). research on preservation and activation strategies of historical and cultural blocks—a case study of zhonghua baroque historical block outside laodao, harbin. urban architecture space, 31(03), 67-68. 5.1 expand business on the basis of repair and pro 5.2 creative use of cultural resources in three la 5.3 planning recommended routes for cultural touri 5.4 actively promote cultural exchanges and let lo summary microsoft word assc-v3n4-p36 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 36 original paper enhancing the reading for pleasure habit of the students of samtse college of education yangdon1*, daker, s.1, dorji, u.1, gyeltshen, t.1, wangmo, k.1, & wangmo1 1 royal university of bhutan, bhutan * yangdon, royal university of bhutan, bhuta received: october 10, 2021 accepted: october 25, 2021 online published: november 12, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n4p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n4p36 abstract reading is an essential skill for everybody especially for the students of samtse college of education who are future teachers. they need to read to enhance their communication skills, upgrade their knowledge and skills and be role models in reading for their students. however, we have found that the reading for pleasure habit among the students is poor. students generally use social media during their leisure time instead of reading which is a concern both for their lecturers and the institution. an action research study was carried out to improve students’ reading for pleasure habit. data for the study were gathered using a survey and interview. a total of 325 students completed the survey and 57 students participated in the interview. the data were collected twice; before (baseline) and after the intervention. comparison of means was used to analyse the quantitative data and the qualitative data were analysed thematically. following the analysis of the baseline data, three intervention strategies were employed; our time to enjoy reading (otter), self-indulgence reading, and raffle draw. these strategies were implemented in all the 16 classes for a period of 8 weeks. the comparison of the analysis of the pre-and post-data showed that the interventions have been effective in promoting the reading for pleasure habit of the students. keywords reading, leisure, improve, intervention, effective 1. introduction reading is an essential skill and its importance in this era of information explosion cannot be undervalued. it is a skill that must be possessed by all students at tertiary level and more importantly by the students of sce as future teachers who will be role models in reading for their students. the investment students make in reading for pleasure will pay huge dividends during their time in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. college as well as in their future. as teachers, it is their responsibility to guide and encourage their students to read. if they do not possess a love for reading, it will be difficult and impractical for them to motivate their students to read. however, it has been found that the students of samtse college of education (sce) do not show an interest, or engage in, reading for pleasure despite encouragement, motivation, and persuasion from their lecturers. in addition, it has also been observed that most of the students have poor written and oral communication skills which could be attributed to their lack of reading habit. these observations are echoed by all the colleagues in the college. this attitude of students towards reading has become a serious concern for the lecturers since students do not realize the value of reading for pleasure in their personal and professional lives. many students are found to be spending their time on social media or doing other things instead of reading which nurtures their knowledge and intellectual abilities. the decline in the reading habits of the youths is also a concern for his majesty the fifth king jig me khesar namgyel wangchuck who always encourages young people to read. for example, during the launch of the national reading week in 2015, his majesty said: “you must read about everything around you-not just subjects that interest you. you must learn about current events, history, science, culture, and people around the world-the pursuit of knowledge must be lifelong”. given the importance and benefits of reading, it is essential to initiate reading activities in the college to foster students’ reading habit and promote their critical thinking, creativity, communication skills, and make them life-long readers and learners. they may cascade these reading activities into their own classrooms in future and develop their students’ love for reading. this study was conducted to promote students’ habit in reading for pleasure through the use of different intervention strategies. since our intention was to improve this situation, action research was the most appropriate research strategy (maxwell, 2003). the study was also aimed at providing findings on the effectiveness of the intervention strategies used. 2. reconnaissance prior to establishing the precise action research question, maxwell (2003) proposed a thorough reconnaissance. reconnaissance is derived from a french word “reconnaitre” which means “to look at”. he identified three parts to a reconnaissance; situational analysis (looking at situation in terms of a range of factors such as resources and practices); competences (the profile and competences of researcher(s); and relevant literature (linking with the previous work in this field). dillon (2008) contends that “reconnaissance allows investigators to be more aware of where they are at, what they hope to achieve, and how they are going to get there” (p.15). 2.1 situational analysis we noted in the introduction, reading is an important skill that tertiary students, particularly sce students as future teachers, need to possess. they need to be role models of reading for their students. however, lecturers have found that the habit of reading for pleasure among the students in the college is very poor. students do not engage in reading for pleasure despite the encouragement and persuasion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. from their lecturers. they are observed to be on social media during their leisure time rather than engaging in reading for pleasure. most of the students lack good communication skills and choeda et al. (2020) found that poor reading habits are a barrier to good communication skills. these behaviors of students towards reading for pleasure and their poor communication skills are concern for the lecturers. 2.2 competence all the authors have the experience of conducting research and have published in international journals. they also read for pleasure and four of them teach english modules in the college. 2.3 literature review a review of literature on reading for pleasure, its importance, factors affecting it, and strategies to enhance it are discussed in the following section.  reading for pleasure reading for pleasure is defined as reading for enjoyment (clark & rumbold, 2006). it is also referred to as independent reading (cullinan, 2000), voluntary reading (krashen, 2004), leisure reading (greaney, 1980), or recreational reading (manzo & manzo, 1995). the process of reading for pleasure is described as a form of play that allows the reader to experience other worlds (nell, 1988) and a creative activity (holden, 2004). reading for pleasure is done at a place that suits the reader with the material of his/her choice (clark & rumbold, 2006). according to moore et al. (1999), “pleasure reading today has become an endangered activity, particularly among the youth” (p. 3). research indicates that reading for pleasure has great influence on students’ academic performance (pearson, 2015). reading has the power to stimulate and promote development, instil discipline (danladi & yohanna, 2018) and develop imagination, induction, reflection, critical thinking, and vocabulary (wolpert, 2009). reading is an important gateway to personal development, social, economic, and civic life (holden, 2004). it is not a discrete skill but consists of several skills and procedures in which the readers interact with printed words for content and pleasure thereby teaching oneself to write, speak, spell, grammar structure, vocabulary, and other language skills (salehi et al., 2015). this shows that reading for pleasure is linked to increase of cognitive progress over time (alvermann, 2017). further, krashen (2004) advocates the power of reading forpleasure in literacy development. reading for pleasure is shown to affect readers’ wellbeing. reading deepens the feelings of empathy, and presents the reader with a greater understanding of others’ mental states (koopman & hakemulder, 2015). furthermore, a positive association of reading for pleasure with emotional and personal well-being is identified in studies which states that “reading for pleasure enhances empathy, understanding of the self and the ability to understand one's own and others’ identities” (bop consulting, 2015, p. 11). reading is also essential to obtain information and success. capps and huang (2015) in their study revealed that the rate of high academic performance is directly proportional to one’s reading. clark and rumbold (2006) have pointed out that reading for pleasure develops text comprehension and grammar, builds positive reading attitudes, pleasure in later life as well as increased general knowledge. a study done by diaz (2016) found that reading for pleasure impacts personal, academic/professional, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. and linguistic spheres of individuals. a study by the institute for education (university of london) highlighted that people who read for pleasure had a 14.4% advantage in vocabulary and a 9.9% advantage in math (sellgren, 2013). according to moore et al. (1999, p.3), “adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history”. though reading is important and its benefits are infinite, the reading habit among the “born digital” generation, bewitched by facebook, texting, and multichannel stimulation is on the decline (nicholas, 2008).  factors affecting reading for pleasure the factors affecting reading for pleasure include positive attitude (twist et al., 2007), reading frequency (clark & douglas 2011), access to resources and having books of their own (clark & poulton, 2011), choice (clark & phythian-sence, 2008), role model (cremin et al., 2009), and rewards (clark and rumbold, 2006). conversely, reading for pleasure is impeded by lack of time, work overload, a desire to socialize, or a decision to spend time in other ways (gilbert & fister, 2010). additionally, andrianatos (2019) found that students did not engage in reading for pleasure owing to lack of reading abilities.  strategies to enhance reading for pleasure literature shows that the reading for pleasure habit of the students can be promoted through different strategies. for example, dewan (2010) contends that libraries play a vital role in boosting the reading interest of the students by creating popular reading and having a place in the library for students to relax and read, opportunity for book discussion (salter & brooke, 2007). currently the library at samtse college of education has limited books for recreational reading and there is lack of space for students to read and relax. literature highlights that where appropriate teachers and parents could lead by example, provide time for daily independent reading, host reading-related events, assign a reading log or host a book club (stinchcomb, 2007) and share reading experiences, invite authors to speak, and teaching reading strategies (aguilar, 2013).people who have books of their own enjoy reading more and read more frequently (clark & poulton, 2011). literacy-targeted rewards, such as books (raffle draw) or book vouchers (clark & rumbold, 2006), opportunity for independent reading (our time to enjoy reading-otter), and self-indulgence reading (tyson, 2013) are found to be effective strategies for promoting reading for pleasure. these are the major strategies that will be employed in our intervention. 3. the action research question based upon this reconnaissance, the following action research question was formulated: how can we enhance the reading for pleasure habit of the students of samtse college of education? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. 4. research design and methodology the action research was implemented because improvement was desired (maxwell, 2003). the research participants were 16 classes of sce who were bachelors of education, masters in education, and bachelors in social work students. to ensure effective results, two approaches to data collection (questionnaire and interview) were used. data were collected twice: baseline data and post data. the collection of baseline data was followed by the collection of post data in order to see if improvements in the reading for pleasure habit of the students have occurred. the methodology details follow: 4.1 questionnaire a six-point likert questionnaire (1= strongly disagree, 2 =disagree, 3 = somewhat disagree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5 = agree, and 6 = strongly agree) was constructed and administered to gather objective data on students’ interest, motivation, benefits, and barriers to reading for pleasure. the participants were students from all the 16 different classes. a total of 325 students (142 bachelors in education, 123 masters in education, and 60 bachelors in social work) completed it. following each administration, the data were analysed firs tlyusing descriptive statistics through the measure of mean and then inferential statistics. participants’ ratings on the frequency were grouped into six distinct levels employing best and kahn’s (1988) criteria. they suggest that each grouping needs to maintain an interval width of 1.0. for clarity, the mean scores of the frequency were interpreted in terms of the ranking as reflected in table 1. the ranking of the mean range is classified according to the range of mean scores that indicate the frequency of occurrence. table 1. likert scale converted to numerical mean s1. no mean range rank 1 0.01-1.00 strongly disagree 2 1.01-2.00 disagree 3 2.01-3.00 somewhat disagree 4 3.01-4.00 somewhat agree 5 4.01-5.00 agree 6 5.01-6.00 strongly agree 4.2 interview a semi-structured interview was conducted to gauge participants’ understanding of reading for pleasure, its benefits, barriers, motivation, and reading behaviour (number of books read in a month and daily time spent on reading for pleasure). a total of 57 participants participated in the interview. random sampling was used to select the participants. the interview was conducted before and at the end of the intervention. for the baseline data, the interview was audio recorded and transcribed, however, for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. post data, email interview was conducted owing to restrictions imposed by covid 19. following each interview, the data were thematically analysed. 5. action plan the study followed the action (interventions) presented in table 2. the action plan was adapted from the kemmis and mctaggart (1988). table 2. action plan activity timeline details action research proposal february 2021 develop action research proposal baseline data collection first week of march  conduct survey with all students in the class  interview 57 students data analysis 2nd week of march analyse the baseline data interventions 3rd week of march to end of 2nd week of may implement the following intervention strategies:  out time to enjoy reading (otter)  self-indulgence reading  raffle draw post-intervention data collection 3rd week of may collect post data post-intervention data analysis last week of may triangulate the data write the final report june-july write the final research report 5.1 interventions based on the literature review and the findings of the baseline data, the following interventions were implemented for 8 weeks to enhance students’ reading for pleasure habit. prior to the implementation of the interventions, the lecturer in each of the 16 classes created awareness on the importance and benefits of reading for pleasure. the students were encouraged to lend their books to their friends after they finished reading them.  our time to enjoy reading (otter): it was implemented for 20-30 minutes every block period(2 hours) to overcome the barrier students had in not being able to read owing to their excessive workload and time constraints. there are two block periods in a week. the lecturers were also engaged in reading with the students; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 42 published by scholink inc.  self-indulgence reading: a group chat was created on wechat/whatsapp/telegram for each class. after the class hours, students spent some time every day on reading for pleasure. they shared the summary/quotes/interesting lines from their reading on the group chat for other members to read and comment; and  raffle draw: a raffle draw box was created for each class. as soon as a student completed reading a book, he/she wrote the name of the book, title, his/her name on a piece of paper, rolled it and put it in the raffle box. the raffle was drawn on the last day of the intervention period and book prizes were awarded to the winners. results the results show a comparison between baseline data and the data at the end of the intervention. questionnaire the comparison of the quantitative data is provided in table 3. table 3. comparison of baseline and post data means and standard deviations (sds) item baseline post data mean sd mean sd i like reading in my leisure time. 4.80 1.033 5.04 .958 i read for pleasure. 4.71 1.004 4.86 1.010 i am self-motivated to read. 4.83 1.013 4.97 .949 reading positively affects my academic performance. 5.07 1.029 5.17 .878 reading develops my multiple reasoning. 5.27 .733 5.36 .653 reading enables me to express my feelings. 5.21 .804 5.33 .668 my lecturers motivate me to read. 5.11 .925 5.22 .800 my lecturers are my role models for reading. 4.50 1.088 4.70 1.154 my lecturers guide me to read. 4.25 1.155 4.58 1.016 my lecturers encourage me to read. 5.01 .920 5.17 .788 i have access to reading materials. 5.18 .802 5.26 .734 as evident from table 3, there is an apparent increase in the mean for all the items after the intervention. this indicates that the interventions are likely to have enhanced the reading habit of the students by providing them time to read, access to more reading materials, and through external motivation of the lecturer. as shown in the table3, students are likely more enlightened on the benefits www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. of reading through the first-hand experience of the intervention strategies for there is also increase in the mean for the items on the benefits of reading. it can also be deduced from the table that both external and internal motivations are essential in promoting the reading habit of the students. a paired samples t-test was also conducted to compare the mean scores of baseline and postdate as shown in table 4. table 4. comparison of pre data and post data mean scores mean score mean mean difference sd sig(2 tailed) baseline data 4.90 .17 .32 .000 post-data 5.06 .26 as depicted in table 4, the t-test result shows a statistical significant increase in the mean scores from baseline data (m=4.90, sd=.32) to post data (m=5.06, sd= .26), t(11)= -6.914, p < .001. the result suggests that the interventions have been effective in promoting the reading for pleasure habit of the students. 5.2 interview the comparison of the qualitative data showed that following the interventions, the number of books read in a month increased to two to three from zero to one. similarly, the number of hours spent on reading for pleasure increased to two from half an hour. participants also pointed out that the interventions allowed them to have more access to reading materials since they could borrow books for reading from their friends and tutor. further they also indicated that they were motivated to read more by their lecturers and friends and that they would continue reading in future. all the participants highlighted that the interventions were effective in enhancing their reading for pleasure habit. in the post data interview, the following two additional questions were asked to the participants: a. out of the three intervention strategies, which one was the most effective and why? b. how have the interventions benefitted you? the participants stated that if they have to choose the three interventions, majority would prefer otter followed by self-indulgence and raffle draw respectively. this is exemplified in the following quote by one of the participants: i loved all the three interventions but if i have to choose, it will be the otter time. it was a real-time everyday practice that motivated me to enjoy reading independently, rather than reading only specific module related materials. furthermore, all the participants have contended that the interventions have benefitted them by encouraging them to read; inculcating a reading habit in them; nurturing their critical thinking, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. creativity and communication; and expanding their horizons of intellectual and language development. for instance, one of the participants said: interventions have benefited me in many ways. i could read more books compared to (the) other semester. i was able to read more if not i would not have got time to read because we have been loaded with work and it was hard to manage time to read. it was a great idea to have the interventions because it gave us (a) specific time to read so, i fully utilized this time to read. furthermore, when we read together it created (a) peaceful reading environments so i enjoyed reading. it enhanced my interest towards reading and it also enhanced my way of thinking and reflection. all the participants recommended that all the interventions must be implemented in future to enhance the reading for pleasure habit of the students. further they also pointed out that there should be a variety of books for recreational reading in the library and that the college must create awareness on the importance and benefits of reading to motivate students to read more. 6. data triangulation in summary, triangulating the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data, revealed improvement in students’ reading for pleasure habit. from reading one or no book in a month, over time the participants read two to three books in a month. similarly, the time spent on reading for pleasure also increased. additionally, the participants also identified a repertoire of benefits of reading for pleasure. the participants had more access to books as they could borrow them from their friends and tutors. the participants attributed these positive outcomes to the different interventions used in the class. 6.1 reflection the three strategies (otter, self-indulgence and raffle draw) were used to enhance students’ reading for pleasure habit. the lecturers encouraged and motivated the students to read and explained the unparallel benefits of reading. after reflecting on the first action research cycle, it is evident that this study has possibly helped enhance students’ reading for pleasure habit. if a second action research cycle were to be developed as an extension to the first, it would be on the different comprehension strategies to assist students in deriving maximum benefits from the act of pleasure reading. 7. conclusion the present study was carried out to promote students’ reading for pleasure habit. it employed a comparative analysis of the preand post-intervention results to find out the effectiveness of the interventions used. reflecting on the action research cycle and comparing the findings of the baseline and the post-intervention data, it can be concluded that students demonstrated an overall improvement in their reading for pleasure habit owing to the interventions. this finding is in line with literature that shows that some of the strategies to enhance students’ reading for pleasure habit are literacy-targeted rewards, such as books-raffle draw (clark & rumbold, 2006), opportunity for independent reading (our time to enjoy reading-otter) and self-indulgence reading (tyson, 2013). the finding also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. showed that the interventions have helped nurture students’ critical thinking, creativity and communication and expanded their intellectual and language development. consistent with this finding, literature highlights that reading for pleasure develops imagination, induction, reflection, critical thinking and vocabulary (wolpert, 2009). in the technology dominated world, reading for pleasure is an endangered activity but with the right interventions, it can become a part of students’ daily activity. reference aguilar, e. (2013). ten ways to cultivate a love of reading in students. retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/cultivating-love-reading-students-elena-aguilar alvermann, d. (2017). adolescent literacies: a handbook of practice-based research. guilford publications. andrianatos, k. (2019). barriers to reading in higher education: rethinking reading support. retrieved from https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/241 https://doi.org/10.4102/rw.v10i1.241 best, j., & j. kahn. (1998). research in education (8th ed.). allyn and bacon. bop consulting. (2015). literature review: the impact of reading for pleasure and empowerment. retrieved from https://readingagency.org.uk/news/. capps, m., & huang, s. (2015). reading habits of education majors. literacy information and computer education journal (licej), 6(3), 1976-1982. https://doi.org/10.20533/licej.2040.2589.2015.0264 choeda, gyeltshen, t., daker, s., gyeltshen, s., wangmo, & letho, d. (2020). communicative competence of secondary school students of bhutan .journal of humanities and education development (jhed), 2(1), 12-25. https://doi.org/10.22161/jhed.2.1.3 clark, c. (2011). setting the baseline: the national literacy trust’s first annual survey into reading-2010. national literacy trust. clark, c., & douglas, j. (2011). young people’s reading and writing: an in-depth study focusing on enjoyment, behaviour, attitudes and attainment. national literacy trust. clark, c., & phythian-sence, c. (2008).interesting choice: the (relative) importance of choice and interest in reader engagement. national literacy trust. clark, c., & poulton, l. (2011). book ownership and its relation to reading enjoyment, attitudes, behaviour and attainment. national literacy trust. clark, c., & rumbold, k. (2006). reading for pleasure: a research review. national literacy trust. retrieved from http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/reading%20for%20pleasure.pd cullinan, b. e. (2000). independent reading and school achievement. school library media research, (3), 1-24. danladi, d., & yohanna, s. (2018). the role of school libraries in promoting reading culture among secondary school students: a case study of federal government college, jos. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2058 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 46 published by scholink inc. dewan, p. (2010). why your academic library needs a popular reading collection now more than ever. college & undergraduate libraries, 17(1), 44-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691310903584775 diaz, f.c. (2016). the impact of pleasure reading in english as a second language on colombians who have a postgraduate level of education (master’s dissertation). retrieved from https://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/attachments/mda2017_bath_spa_univers ity_camila_fuentes_diaz.pdf dickinson, d. k., griffith, j. a., golinkoff, r. m., &pasek, k. h. (2012). how reading books foster language development around the world. child development research, 1, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/602807 dillon, p. (2008). reconnaissance as an unconsidered component of action research. alar journal, 13(1), 2-17. greaney, v. (1980). factors related to amount and type of leisure reading. reading research quarterly, 15, 337-357. https://doi.org/10.2307/747419 gilbert, j., & fister, b. (2011). reading, risk, and reality: college students and reading for pleasure. college and research libraries. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-148 holden, j. (2004). creative reading. demos. kemmis, s., & mctaggart, r. (1988). the action research planner (3rd ed.). deakin university press. koopman, e., & hakemulder, f. (2015). effects of literature on empathy and self-reflection: a theoretical-empirical framework. journal of literary theory, 9(1), 79-111. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2015-0005 krashen, s. (2004). free voluntary reading: new research, applications, and controversies. retrieved from http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/singapore/01.html. manzo, a. v., & u. c. manzo. (1995). teaching children to be literate. harcourt brace college publication. moore, d.w., bean, t.w., birdyshaw, d., & rycik, j. (1999). adolescent literacy: a position statement. international reading association. nell, v. (1988). the psychology of reading for pleasure: needs and gratifications. reading research quarterly, 23, 6-50. https://doi.org/10.2307/747903 maxwell, t. (2003). action research for bhutan. rabsel, 3,1-20. nicholas, c. (2008). is google making us stupid? what the internet is doing to our brains. retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/ salehi, h., asgari, m., & amini, m. (2015). impacts of the extensive reading texts on the writing performance of iranian efl pre-university students. asian journal of education and e-learning, 3(4), 306-316. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 47 published by scholink inc. salter, a., & brook, j. (2007). are we becoming an aliterate society? the demand for recreational reading among undergraduates at two universities. college & undergraduate libraries, 14(3), 27-43. https://doi.org/10.1300/j106v14n03_02 sellgren, k. (2013). maths advantage for pupils who read for pleasure-bbc news. retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-24046971 stinchcomb, s. (2017). ten ways to promote pleasure reading. retrieved from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2017/11/30/10-ways-to-promote-independen treading twist, l., schagan, i., & hogson, c. (2007). progress in international reading literacy study (pirls): reader and reading national report for england 2006. nfer and dcsf. tyson, k. (2013). how schools can promote literacy and independent reading. retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/literacy/25-ways-schools-can-promote-literacy-independent-readin g/ wolpert, s. (2009). is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? retrieved from https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 90 original paper “small house! the cross‟s religiously modified institution.” a historical cultural materialist approach to the genesis, growth and development of small houses in zimbabwe archieford kurauone mtetwa 1* 1 department of philosophy, religion and ethics, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe received: july 23, 2022 accepted: august 22, 2022 online published: august 30, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n3p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p90 abstract the family is the most important basic social institution in any state since time immemorial. it is from this institution that clans, tribes and nations were born. it was the center of the means of production. africa in general and zimbabwe in particular, the family system tallies with the religious or the ideological system or vice versa. african indigenous religion (air) is a religious ideology anchored on communalism and it is anti-individualism in the same way the african family system operates. through the historical cultural materialist approach this paper argues that the “empire” (imperial states) disrupted, dismembered and destroyed the pristine african family institution through its pervasive tool; “the cross” and its willing agents. the cross (church/temple or christianity) and its agents criminalised the communal family for the individualistic idealistic family. individualism is not an african value, it is a foreign model and as such foreign models will not work to the expectations of africans. among other causes, the cross, through cultural hegemony gave birth to the “small house” in zimbabwe. the church is an anti-structure institution to the zimbabwean communal kinship system. it is the argument of this paper that the cross was developed and deployed to criminalise, shame and stigmatize the african family or kinship values (among them polygamy) resulting in nefarious clandestine legitimation of an illegitimate western construct “small house”. a family is ideologically unique and as such the conception of a family with regard to the religion of the empire is individualistic as its christian religious ideology is. the paper goes behind the present through solely focusing on the historical cultural and material conditions that led to the genesis, growth and development of the „small house‟ in zimbabwe as an offspring of the church. this chapter concludes by arguing that the small house is a genetically modified institution of the church. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 91 published by scholink inc. keywords small house, cross, polygamy, popular and official 1. introduction there was africa and zimbabwe beyond the veil of christianity, slavery, colonialism and imperialism. africa before and after the conquest by the “global north” is the pertinent issue examined by this paper. from the 15 th century europeans not only colonised the rest of the world, they also colonised information about the world. they developed monopoly over concepts and images and the hall mark of their colonisation or hegemony was the colonisation or violence over african culture, particularly marriage. the church/cross was a colonizing structure responsible for producing marginal societies, cultures and human beings. the church, “new enemies disguised as friends”, upon their arrival in africa they had an agenda not of making africa as africa but of making africa europe, socially, economically, politically and otherwise. the church of the empire was on a mission to impose its language, religion, trade, dress, marital system, images and democracy. the victims of imperialism became the colonised, that is, those whose lands, minds, cultures, economies and political institutions have been taken possession of and rearranged according to the interests and values of the imperializing powers (mudhimbe, 1988, pp. 1-2). the paper is not tied to the common assumption that the encounter or the relationship between the european missionary and the african people were all rosy and smooth. the seeds of the victorian cultural ideology of divorce, individualism, adultery (small house), patriarchy and victimization of african women were planted during this encounter. the church is the institution that bore the small house among other methods through criminalization of polygamy. this is exclusively a historical cultural materialist analysis of the genesis of the small house institution in zimbabwe and it is not motivated at the contemporary jokes or sayings associated with the small houses. to understand the present, one has to understand the history behind for backward is forward and forward is backward or history is the future and the future is history. 2. the historical background of “small house” pristine africa was defined by diverse values and traditions; polygamy, monotheism, ancestor veneration among others. these were the unquestioned african values, or the founding values of africa. all these pivotal aspects were anchored on a collective ideology which was informed by africa‟s religious ideology: african indigenous religion (air). air is a religious ideology practiced communally. it is anti-individualistic in all its aspects. this explains why all facets of life in pristine africa were carried out collectively or communally; marriage, ancestor veneration, farming, and education and so on. monotheism, polygamy, ancestor veneration and life being characterised as here and now and never futuristic (zvobgo, 1986, p. 44). life was materialistic. however, zvobgo‟s claim that africans are not futuristic is problematic if not wrong. africans believe in the here and after and that is why they believe in the spiritual world; the abode of the ancestors or the living-dead. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 92 published by scholink inc. this paper is focused exclusively on the resilience of polygamy through revitalization process of small house. “small house” is transformed clandestine polygamy! to really understand the resilience of polygamy one has to trace and appreciate the cause, growth and development of the zimbabwean loathed “small house”. it is the position of this chapter that “small house” is a clandestine form of polygamy! a small house, is a woman who lives with a married or unmarried man as if she were his wife, without being lawfully married to him. this kind of woman is more or less a “modern” phenomenon in zimbabwe, brought to africa by the influence of “western civilisation” that is christianity and colonialism. generally, unlike polygamy; it is practiced clandestinely since it is not part of or acceptable a culture, above all, it only began with the advent of the foreigners particularly the missionaries of the empire. missionaries regarded polygamy as a sin and instituted some punitive measures against polygamous africans. the church through its agents (missionaries) and the bible brought this loathed form of union. in this paper church (religion of the empire) is in reference to religious institutions of the “global north and west”, which among them; the roman catholic, anglican, methodist, the dutch reformed, united church of christ in zimbabwe (uccz), and presbyterian to mention a few. these churches were the front-runners or foot soldiers of the empire with a double mandate of “evangelization and civilisation of zimbabweans!” there were no small houses before the criminalization, banning and defamiliarisation of polygamy by the church (zvobgo, 1986; mann, 1994, p. 167, p. 174). various methods were deployed by the missionaries to totally destroy polygamy through giving birth to small house, which among them include, criminal law, divorce, baptism, excommunication, christian villages, schools and medical missions (kapungu, 1974; vambe, 1972, 1976; vengeyi, 2013). all this was well calculated at institutionalizing “social death” (patterson, 1982) of the zimbabwe‟s popular social system of marriage. all these instruments were deployed to make sure african values were totally replaced by western traditions. this is an age-old system readily deployed by the empire to assert its control over natives‟ culture. this paper is motivated towards deconstructing misrepresentation of one of the key african social custom of polygamy/polygyny which was forced to transform into an individualistic clandestine un african “small house.” unlike the western ideology of monogamy, polygamy was a popular kinship system to both men and women in zimbabwe in the precolonial era. marriage in pristine africa was collective in nature which affirms that the whole family or clan (men and women) took part. however, the advent of the church through cultural hegemony, intentionally disrupted and destroyed the african family structure and institution. marriage in africa was carried out by the family and as such the bride was not for an individual but the entire family. it is the position of this paper that the legislation against (authored by the cross-in collusion with the empire) polygamy has done more harm than good. however, it has to be noted that polygamy was never patriarchal as victorian knowledge production would like to project. as said earlier, polygamy was a result of marriage which was a collective affair with agreement and at times request by the first wife to have deputy. there are many reasons why www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 93 published by scholink inc. polygamy was the popular marital culture but that is beyond the scope of this paper. the church pleaded with the government to craft a legislation that criminalised polygamy amongst africans (cheater, 1987; vambe, 1972; zvobgo, 1986). the church‟s position is neither warranted by scripture nor sanctioned by apostolic example nor justified by common reason. the cross‟ position exacerbate and immortalizes the growth and spread of hiv/aids in africa. it breaks up families and weakens the social fabric resulting among others in “fatherless children”, “single mothers”, “street kids”, coloureds and orphanages. small house is a term used to express a form of clandestine unsanctioned “family life” in which promiscuous or adulterous relations of the sexes results in the child‟s father being unknown (intentionally or unintentionally) or a social condition in which kinship is reckoned through females only and in which there would be no recognition of any social relationship of fatherhood. in such kinship, men are neither given exclusive rights to sexual relation with the woman nor take the wife to live with, but only visits her in her home. men do not have any legal rights over her or her property. the wife “small house” can divorce the man by asking him to discontinue to visit her. no roora/lobola is payable or required for the small house union which affirms why it is not part and parcel of african values and culture and by implication it conforms to western kinship system of non-payment of roora/lobola. despite differing viewpoints about the purpose and perception of roora/lobola its payment gives value to a woman (gelfand, 1973, p. 173; bourdillon, 1987, p. 50). despite being a social reality, small house does not constitute an african family system neither is it in line with the african spirituality; ancestors. african spirituality does not condone adultery/small house. in reality, a small house is an adulterous affair or in real terms prostitution. instead it reduces the status of women to sex objects which is a western conception of women, despite being projected as an african conception of women. (dinan, 1983; karanja, 1994; lacombe, 1987; mann, 1994, p. 167, p. 174) argues that “outside wives” emerged in the late sixteenth through eighteenth century at the same time that christianity became established in africa. small houses hardly existed in africa until the advent of christianity and colonialism between 1560 and 1800 respectively. the prevalence of small houses in zimbabwe affirms that polygamy is a sacred and popular culture of the africans (men and women) and above all it is resilient to western cultural hegemony. monogamy instead, it is the “official culture” of the elitist settlers, missionaries and their african agents. despite monogamy being the official kinship culture, it was/is not popular culture among most zimbabweans! monogamy only managed to be widespread and to be projected as the popular marriage system because of various reasons (coercion by the empire through a battery of embargoes against polygamists) that compelled africans to hypocritically accept and practice it. however, the prevalence of small houses is an affirmation that monogamy or “christian marriage” is just a mere “front-stage” drama (goffman, 1959) devoid or realism. in short, monogamy is just a front stage act hiding behind the reality (polygamy/polygyny) which is in the backstage. zimbabweans became engaged in this frontstage drama (monogamy/christian/western marriage) for various reasons www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 94 published by scholink inc. including the following; the need for baptism, employment and status. this subsequently, was the genesis of the sex and class system resulting in women in zimbabwe (due to western cultural hegemony over air) losing their privileged status to be subordinate to their male counterparts. this was also the birth of “patriarchy” and “gender” inequality in africa; both (patriarchy and gender) of which are western social constructs which have done much harm to the african family institution. this is so because all the abrahamic religious ideologies (christianity, islam and judaism) are patriarchal where males are the centre of everything; a male god, his son, his bishops and priests (amadiume, 1987, p. 121; ani, 1994, p. 171; oyewumi, 1997; williams, 1987, p. 56; vengeyi, 2013, p. 72). polygamous families could not receive baptism until divorce was instituted (inyamah). it has to be noted that the „official‟ culture is always associated with the elite in any society. the official culture normally exists where there is a counter culture; which is the popular culture. in “postcolonial states”, (there is nothing postcolonial, it is a myth) the official culture is almost and always a foreign culture to the society whilst the popular culture is the indigenous culture which is always practiced and embraced by the majority of a given society. this is so because all postcolonial states, through the elite; have adopted foreign values and traditions (christian marriage system, the roman-dutch law, religion, dress, language and worldview) without any changes. why the elite? this is so because the empires strategy was to target those in corridors of power for social and religious conditioning and in turn the underclasses will be inspired by their leaders too. this explains why the ancient israelite/davidic monarchy (pushed for and loved by the elite) was regarded by the underclasses as “a return to egypt” (colonialism or subjugation) (vengeyi, 2013, p. 77). to the majority underclasses instituting a monarchy was a vote of no confidence on israelite independence from the imperial egypt. it is a top-down culture and it is not socially engaged nor does it appeal to the common people or the underclasses. as such, such a culture has to be imposed upon the underclasses by those within corridors of power accompanied by written legislation (native marriages act 1901) often with heavy criminal penalties such as imprisonment, excommunication, demotion or death penalty to polygamists. on the other hand, the “popular culture” or the indigenous culture is socially grounded and engaged with/within the society or the common people. the popular culture comes from the grassroots and there is no need for written legislation to compel one to practice it. it is highly valued and associated with the underclasses (storey, 2001), and such a culture carries the founding values of the society. popular culture also goes hand in glove with the popular religion, in the case of africa; air is the popular religion whilst christianity is the “official religion”. small house is a new form of “polygamy” in zimbabwe which is a direct response to the criminalisation of polygamy by the cross and the law among other causes such as the “white or yellow peril” (schmidt, 1992, p. 172; pape, 1990). missionaries together with the colonial government of the day crafted legislations like: native marriage ordinance and the native adultery ordinance which were meant to reinforce the european monogamy system which they projected as a “civilized” kinship system to be embraced by all zimbabweans. this settler‟s legislation made it unacceptable or a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 95 published by scholink inc. criminal offence to marry in “twos and threes” and it was illegal to register more than one wife (mukonyora, 2007, p. 50). what then were the implications of this victorian legal instrument? in short, it legalised divorce. this was not surprising as it was a common and acceptable cultural practice among the missionaries and the empire. diana jeater (1987, pp. 9-10) also argues that the once recognised system of african marriage was not only declared illegal but also made into a criminal offence. in addition, the gravity of the church together with the rhodesian legislation on the polygamous families resulted in them being denied sacraments of baptism or the holy eucharist. sacraments of baptism and holy eucharist were some of the tools employed by the missionaries to institute divorce among polygamous men to liquidate the rest of their wives to remain with only one. some polygamists were ordered to divorce the rest of the wives and remain with only one wife under the blessings and command of the very missionaries (mbiti, 1973, p. 82; zvobgo, 1996). this, by implication the church gave birth, endorsed and blessed divorce amongst polygamous zimbabweans. it has to be noted that divorce has been there but it was not an african culture for the church (a foreigner in this case) to institute divorce. divorce was only carried out mainly on adultery grounds and collectively by both families (of the bride and the bridegroom) not by an individual or an alien institution such as the church. this by implication gave birth to the rise of small houses in zimbabwe. for zimbabweans, there is nothing called small house other than adultery or prostitution. small house is a western designation that tries to sanitise and project this western engineered kinship institution as the best for zimbabweans through the denigration and atomisation of everything that is indigenous, for example, polygamy. such is the context that led to the rise, development and “popularization” of the small house phenomenon in zimbabwe and beyond. 4. theoretical framework small house is a socially constructed reality in zimbabwe and beyond. to really understand and appreciate its inception, development and practice, historically, culturally and materially; the sociological exegesis or the historical cultural materialist methodology will be used particularly its paradigm of struggle between zimbabwean and western marital systems or the intellectual paradigm of struggle between african scholars where some understand and analyse african issues in western lenses while others understand and analyse the same issues with african lenses. it makes use of the marxist tools of sociological analysis to interpret texts/narratives, particularly on the class struggle and the role of religion in social organisation (vengeyi, 2013, p. 39). the method assumes that the historical, cultural and material existential situations of the people affect in every way how they read, interpret and understand particular social realities or any other issues. thus for this method, the reader‟s history, culture, class, gender and race are very important hermeneutical tools to unpack the meaning of particular social realities since the small house is a product of a similar context in zimbabwe. by implication, the meaning and existence of the small houses/co-habiting is conditioned by the nature of struggles of the society in which the reader is situated. this chapter confirms vengeyi‟s (2013, p. 41) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 96 published by scholink inc. argument that situating the bible in the life struggles of the society is not at all out of place. he argues that for a society to really appreciate the relevance of the bible, such a text has to respond to pertinent questions of a particular society in which it is placed in and the same is true for the development and existence of the small house. the method also argues that behind every text/narrative there is an underlying struggle which has to be analysed and interpreted. in this case, this method‟s relevance has to be appreciated in the underlying struggle behind the small house through the historical cultural materialist approach to zimbabwe‟s pristine marital traditions in relation to the western traditions through the church. “small house” is a direct product of the underlying struggles instigated by religio-political struggles between air and christianity, between the missionaries and the autochthons. also, to be noted in this struggle is the foreign legal instruments on marriage as enshrined in the roman-dutch law. this category of struggle provides lenses to understanding and appreciating the direct causes of the informal kinship relations of the small house. it also shows the struggles between the dominant/coloniser (church/ missionaries) and the dominated/colonised (air/africans) socio-economic and religious classes in zimbabwe using the racial, class and gender struggles between the empire and the colonised. it affirms the struggle between the “centre” (air and polygamy) and the periphery (christianity and small house). the periphery always struggles to be the centre whilst the centre want to remain rooted. this approach explains how the struggles between natives and the missionaries culminating in the dominant class, missionaries; banning and criminalising polygamy fueling africans to go underground (small house). small house versus polygamy was also a class, gender and race struggle between the cross and zimbabweans. . however, besides the historical genesis of the small house it will be too simplistic to ignore the material conditions which also fuel this phenomenon. it becomes a complex issue when one considers other drivers to the rapid and widespread growth of the small house phenomenon in zimbabwe. other than the church and the western marital laws, there are also numerous circumstances fueling and leading to small houses: marital disappointment and divorce, failure to get a man for marriage, widowhood, some socio-economic reasons, natural disasters, physical disability and pathological reasons. there are many reasons why men go for small houses. he may come to her not because she is a prostitute or an easy lay, as some people put it, but because she is a likeable personality. or she could be someone who understands his needs better. or someone who knows how to handle him effectively, physically and spiritually. or someone who appreciates his thoughts or aspirations. the view given by many people is that the small house is an evil, worthless, and foolish person. that is indeed, not true always, and or rather is a grand generalization. among other issues as discussed above responsible for small houses in zimbabwe today, namely, childlessness, wife‟s bad health, sexual incompatibility and so on. there are couples who cannot accept a childless marriage even today, so the door for small house is still open. invalidity, sexual incompatibility and inequality, widows, and men who are still charged with a moral conscience to marry the girl they have made pregnant-all are still with us today. all this is fertile ground for small houses in zimbabwe. pertaining incompatibility “christian married” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 97 published by scholink inc. couple, the husband may want to dissolve the union but since divorce may result in some legal, economic and social disaster, he may ceremonially decide to keep his licensed/legal wife. by virtue of this licence which is referred to commonly as “marriage certificate”, she acquires a new designation-mrs. however, to get out of such marital doldrums he clandestinely engages a second, third or fourth wife and under these circumstances this wife is popularly known as “outside wife” or “small house”. small house might also be known in various names, “outside wife” “single mother”. this is the dimension of this chapter that the small house is a western marital “legal” system and the church‟s offspring with reference to zimbabwe. 6. polygamy according to jonas (2012, p. 143) the term polygamy is derived from the greek word polugamos which literally means “often marrying”. a polygamist is simply a man who is married to more than one wife, living with them at the same time. polygamy therefore, is the act of being polygamist. africa has practiced polygamy as far back as the records can take us. in other words, polygamy is and has always been a way of life in africa. since the arrival of the white men in africa, with the joint effort of the church, he has been doing his best to abolish polygamy. indeed, a great deal has been done to wipe out polygamy in colonial africa. yet the tradition has continued to survive albeit in a new form: small house. the colonial church in particular, has been fighting against this tradition on the basis that it is incompatible with the bible, or that it a sin; whereas the colonial administration went against it with the claim that it is not in keeping with modern civilisation (maillu, 1988, p. 1). polygamy allows for sexual relationships between one man and two or more women, all of whom are members of the single socially sanctioned marital unit. in africa polygamy occurs in many tribes to regulate social relationships between men and women (mbiti, 1973). many people among them scholars assume polygamous marriage were a male goal before reducing women to slavery (bourdillon, 1987, p. 50) and forces them to become economic chattels (falen, 2008, p. 52). in most african states polygamy is considered a laudable ambition, not a handicap, to have a plurality of wives (daneel, 1992, p. 176). polygamy is not due to human concupiscence, insatiable sexual drives and the like as most western scholars‟ claim. polygamy lowers the incidence of “illegitimate” children, whom are unwelcome in an african society, and eliminates the need for adoption, which africans loathes. in polygamous societies few girls remain unmarried and the number of men who engage in “adulterous affairs” (small house) is considerably reduced. polygamy stabilises african society since it allows all women a chance for marriage, eliminates fornication and decreases tendencies for divorce. in addition, children are seldom born out of wedlock. this also explains why the concept of “street kids” just like “prisons and orphanages” is very foreign to africa and africans before the advent of the agents (missionaries) of the empire. this background review of polygamy is discussed intentionally as a bedrock on which the small house is invented. the paper is not myopic to other causes to the genesis of the small house such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 98 published by scholink inc. as white or yellow peril, however, that is beyond the scope of this paper. it should be noted from the outset that the small house can easily be understood after an in-depth discussion of the various facets of polygamy. 7. the cross and the small house’: strategies employed by missionaries when western missionaries first arrived in africa, they thought that people who had married according to their tradition which they pejoratively described as “customary” social structure in polygamous marriages were living in sin. it has to be noted that every marriage in this world is just but customary. the so called “white wedding/marriage”, or “christian marriage”, is just but a victorian customary marriage foisted on africa and beyond to dismember and falsify african marriage systems. missionaries considered polygamy a social problem, neglecting to reckon with the fact that it was a social system with both legal and ethical approbation (bourdillon, 1987, p. 36). the church‟s rejection of polygamy has been socially disruptive and morally questionable in that the bible did not condemn the practice of polygamy. instead, the bible is replete with polygamous marriages: lamech and his two wives (gen, 4:23), abraham with sarah and his concubines hagar and kethurah (gen, 16, p. 25, pp. 1-2), jacob with leah and rachel (gen, p. 29, pp. 15-30), david with seven named wives (1 sam 18:17-30; 25:38-43; 2 sam 3:2-5), solomon and his royal harem (1 kgs 3:1, 11:3) and rehoboam with his eighteen wives (2 chron 11:21). instead, polygamy was the most popular and acceptable marriage system in ancient israel (gen 25:1; gen 30:1-10; 1kgs 11:1-4; 2 sam 3:7). the church has often by legislation refused to baptize or to recognize christian converts who continued to live in polygamous relationships (mbiti, 1973, p. 82; zvobgo, 1986, p. 44; mukonyora, 2017, p. 50). the church rather authorized divorces, which africans regarded as rather a despicable social evil. the jesuit priest, fr. j. o‟neil and later supported by revd. richard sykes wrote in 1905: “with regard to the older pagans, there does not seem to be much hope of converting them to christianity. polygamy prevails among them all, and about the last thing man could be persuaded to do would be to give up any of his wives” (zambezi mission records, 1906, p. 9). the phrase, “to give up any of his wives,” by father j. o neil implies nothing less than divorce of polygamous union. as this was not enough, fr peter prestage and the wesleyan missionary revd. j. w stanlake were of the same mind in regarding lobola and polygamy as the purchasing of a wife. what then was the solution? the zambezi mission records notes that the majority of missionaries and mission stations advocated the “reform of the native family”. reforming the native family is just mere propaganda for nothing less than destroying the african marital structure through divorce, excommunication, dispossession of land, mission stations and so on. the cross was a colonizing structure responsible for producing marginal societies (small houses), cultures and human beings. sykes for example, said that the defeat and displacement of polygamy would necessarily be slow. “you cannot uproot in a day from the life of a nation what is part of that national life.” (zvobgo, 1986, p. 46). in other words, sykes is just a reflection of the church‟s hegemonic stance against embracing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 99 published by scholink inc. ideology of unity in diversity. the church has tried to encourage monogamy by citing its apparent advantages: less dowries, less nagging in the home, yet the church has ignored other factors: moral problems created by abstinence from sexual intercourse for two years after child birth, the dilemma, the shredding of the social fabric when there is no male heir born of monogamous union. before the coming of westerners, it has to be noted that polygamy was hardly an issue at all, neither was gender and patriarchy as well. it only came to be an issue with the advent of the missionaries and settlers. indeed, this was a war against african culture (amanze, 1998, pp. 52-53). for missionaries, polygamy was the “chief obstacle” (kitching 1935, p. 35) and “strongest hindrances” (nau, 1945, p. 279) to missionisation in africa. this is well summarized by jean and john comaroff who argued that the church had used ideology and hegemony to enforce a worldview that is very foreign but powerful. for the comaroffs, colonialism is not merely taking over of land but also the consciousness of the people (jean & john comaroff, 1986). in short, the church falsified the marital consciousness of zimbabweans through various facets. such factors forced many africans to decide against the church‟s traditional teaching in favor of preserving the stability of their social system or else to become hypocritical, that is, to claim marriage to only one woman and yet to secretly propagate children by means of sexual union with many women. many africans doubt the validity of the church‟s stance because in the bible they read about polygamous marriages that were not condemned but instead they were praised; abraham, jacob, david, solomon. in addition, the bible condemns divorce or anyone (including the church) to separate the two in marriage (matthew, p. 19, pp. 5-6). polygamy does not vitiate the lord‟s saying that in marriage two people become one flesh. to manufacture consent and execute the total destruction of polygamy as an african marriage custom the missionaries deployed a number of instruments against africans which among them included, excommunication, schools, christian villages, medical missions (vengeyi, 2013, pp. 207-212; vambe, 1972, pp. 34-49) to mention just a few. 8. manufacturing consent: missionaries/the cross and the law after realising polygamy was deeply entrenched a custom among africans the missionaries, particularly the jesuits, after dismally failing to convert and convince africans of the “goodness” of monogamy over and above polygamy they decided among themselves of what they referred to as “reforming the native family.” reforming the native family (as noted above) was actually a total destruction of the native family structure. it has to be noted that the destruction of ones‟ culture included destroying the ideological (social, religious and political) identity as well. this was systematically carried out through the enactment of a battery of racist legislation like: native marriages act of 1901, native marriage ordinance 1912, native adultery punishment ordinance (machingura, 2011, p. 192). the native adultery punishment ordinance was directly criminalising polygamy as adultery which then projected the custom as a shame to all africans. to add on, diana jeater (1987, p. 9) also noted that the passing on of the 1912 ordinance marled the first time in rhodesia that recognised www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 100 published by scholink inc. system of african marriage was not only declared illegal but also made into a criminal offence. all these acts were meant to manufacture the consent of the africans to give in to victorian marriage custom of monogamy. in order for the church of the empire to succeed on its mission it had to “manufacture the consent” of the blacks. manufacturing consent is a strategy employed by the powerful elite to undermine freedom and sovereignty in societies and institutions through systems such as sanctions, restrictions and propaganda (herman & chomsky, 1988). it is a subtle and insidious way of oppressing the majority where more overt means like violence and terror just won‟t work. manufacturing consent means doing what you want and getting away with it by creating the impression that it‟s what everybody wants you to do in the first place. a number of strategies were employed and celebrated by the missionaries to fulfill their mission to „civilise‟ blacks. they made use of the bible, the law, education, christian villages and the sword to manufacture consent of the blacks into accepting monogamy. being polygamous became a criminal offense being interpreted as “adultery” despite one having customarily married. they thought by making harsh measures against natives this would bring polygamy to an end. this was an act of cultural hegemony by the missionaries. how and why one may pose a question? this is so because monogamy was equally a western (victorian) customary marriage practice in the same way polygamy is to africans! if customary marriages were to be criminalised then both polygamy and monogamy should have been criminalised as they are both customary marriages. monogamy just like polygamy is a customary marriage of the west! this clearly shows that the church is an institution heralding cultural violence against zimbabwean marital or kinship culture; a negation of the concept of unity in diversity. this resulted in africans accepting and embracing monogamy in a hypocritical sense only to save their skin. in other words, because of the fear of incarceration or excommunication they publicly practiced monogamy while having “unregistered” women (small houses) behind the scenes who were not even known by immediate family members or the missionaries/church. this has continued to date as anything african including polygamy continues to be disparaged and stigmatised as evil and backward. one has to note that the law enacted by the missionaries was not for the protection of the interests of the zimbabweans but to guard and realise the interests of the church. by nature, laws are never crafted by the oppressed but by the oppressor, however, there are always projected as “people driven” by the elite so that the underclasses embrace them as their product. this explains why men continued in “clandestine polygamy” or small houses. accordingly, the twin tools of the empire; the church and the law forced zimbabweans to relinquish polygamy for the private and informal small house union. tools deployed by the church to establish the “small house” (mis)education it is a fact that the church is credited with the building of a number of mission schools throughout zimbabwe, and many scholars have noted this. however, very few scholars have gone beyond this popularized social reality (vengeyi, 2013; mlambo, 1972, p. 73; ado, 1998; kapungu, 1974, p. 84) into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 101 published by scholink inc. interrogating why they built schools? did not africans had education before the advent of the settlers? was education introduced by missionaries? since history is the only laboratory we have in the human experience, we must not ignore its teachings. the reality is when the missionaries arrived in zimbabwe, they found out that the indigenous people had their own form of education based on family, clan and tribal units. such an education system was excellent to groom and make africans appreciate and be proud of being africans. above all, it was excellent in that it molded society to be good citizens and empowered the society both physically and intellectually. it was a socially engaged education which emphasised nothing else other than african values and traditions. it has to be acknowledged that there is no such thing as neutral educational process. education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it or it becomes the “practice of freedom” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (freire, 1970, p. 15). no lions will ever send their cubs to be trained by polar bears! the whole western education curriculum was designed to preserve and protect the interests of the “global north,” christianity, capitalism and western culture, awkwardly called “civilisation,” almost making learners neglect and abandon their own language, culture, religion, social and political heritage (mtetwa, 2015, p. 150). further, walter rodney (1988, p. 248) also noted that colonial education was focused on producing clerks and auxiliaries for the colonizers, and not focused on providing creative economic producers of necessary goods and services for the colonized africans. furthermore, under colonialism africans were educated so that they could be better enslaved and “europeanized”. as governor cameron of tanganyika put it in the 1920s, the intention [of colonial schooling] “was that the african should cease to think as an african and instead should become “a fair-minded englishman.” it was meant to europeanise africans so that they will, eat, think, act, dress, walk and even marry (small house) like a whiteman. europeanisation should never be taken lightly but should be borne in mind that it was the colonisation of the mind of the african child! the western education took shape after 1907 when the british government passed the first order-in-council on african education. this ordinance came as a result of southern rhodesian missionary conference of 1906 by fifteen christian church bodies. the british crown regarded education of the african as a responsibility of the missionaries (mlambo, 1972, p. 73). the catholic missionaries believed that without schools there would be no missions, no african adherents and no success…pupils meant catechumens and converts (dachs & rea, 1979, p. 107) while anglicans and wesleyan viewed education as a powerful force by which to weaken the influences of indigenous religion, superstition, customary marriage and witchcraft on african society and expedite the acceptance of christianity (zvobgo, 1980, pp. 42-43). this is the education that defamiliarised africans from their traditional marriage systems through appreciating the western systems among others “small houses” or adultery; regarded by the west as liberalism. the european education system was also meant to sanitise or legalise wanton kinship practice among zimbabweans. education is such a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 102 published by scholink inc. powerful force by which western influence easily found its way among africans. thomas sankara and steve bantu biko (1987) once said “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” such an education system was meant to capture and control the mind of an african. this was anchored on the ideological premise that if the mind is conquered then everything is conquered as well. the question is whose education was this? was this education or miseducation? it was meant to disorient africans from their culture, to reproduce and conform to the idea that “to be is to be like and to be like is to be white.” in culture, dressing, food speech, religion, and marriage (monogamy instead of polygamy). it also gave rise to the class system resulting in class struggle which sharply divided the african social setup let alone the governance system. in other words, western education system led to social death of the zimbabwean marriage system culminating in the loathsome western small house system which to date has won the allegiance of agents of the empire in the form of feminists, gender activists and various girl-child non-governmental organisations (ngo). by practicing christianity and being non-polygamous one was regarded as “civilised,” while practicing air and being polygamous was negatively described as “uncivilized” and “pagan”. therefore, colonial education as a source of influence among africans is no small significance towards embracing clandestine relationships. 8.1 preaching (african agents) and translation of scripture zvobgo (1987, p. 50) argues that missionaries hoped to convert africans to christianity through the “ministry of preaching” through the use of fellow africans. africans were used to witness to fellow africans (ado, 1998). this has been the strategy of the empire in conquering and dividing nations. this strategy has been deployed by ancient empires like babylon particularly against 7 th through 6 th century israel when jeremiah and nehemiah became agents of babylon against their own people (jeremiah, pp. 36-45). in crude but realistic terms they were puppets or sellouts of their fellows, identity and their culture as well. they committed what is referred to class suicide, however, in a negative way of shooting their own. the importance of africans preaching to their fellows was emphasized by dennis kemp, a wesleyan missionary in 1898: the life of the consistent native christian is a greater testimony to the gospel than the life of the european ever can be… he is skin of their skin; his life is known from his youth upwards; he is trained under conditions known to them, and similar to theirs. in this case his associates can but attribute to the gospel the changed life he lives. he is a standing advertisement to the gospel he preaches, and his message gains cogency from the fact of his life. when a man can get up and say, „you know me and my former life; you witness you witness the life i now live. this life i now live, not of myself, but through the power of the christ whom i proclaimthe effect is conviction. this prompted all christian churches to promptly train african evangelists and zvobgo (1987, p. 51) points out some of the earliest african evangelist as nyamhlope, peter mantiziba and andria khumalo. a lot of natives converted after listening to their fellow “civilized” african preachers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 103 published by scholink inc. in addition, to the use of african agents the missionaries also africanized the scriptures in order to strengthen the faith of converts. the missionaries realised that if their message was to be accepted, there was a need for them to translate their foreign message into the language of the people. they then began the process of translating the various books of the bible into the local language (togarasei, 2009). the translations were carried out by john white of the methodist church from 1897-1902. this enabled literate zimbabwean converts to understand the teachings of the scriptures better than before. however, it has to be noted that no translation is an innocent process. in addition, every translation is an interpretation and every interpretation is a corruption of the text. every translation is to serve the interests of the translator and every translation is a corruption of the text. translation does not take place in a vacuum which implies that every redactor is driven by certain ideology or ideologies obtaining in his context. most of the translators of the bible were europeans which by implication they interpreted the text in a eurocentric worldview, which may not be the reality or universal as the universe is never monolithic in terms of cultural values. this is so because one‟s historical background influences the way one interprets the text amanze (1998) sums this by describing how european missionaries in africa understood themselves and the people to whom they were to minister. he says, salvation (for the missionaries) was only possible if they (the africans) renounced their past, that is, their beliefs and practices and show willingness to live according to the christian principles. this involved a wholesale transformation of african ways of life for africanness‟ or blackness was, to the europeans, a symbol of evil (1998, p. 52). with reference to marriage the missionaries projected the view that it was a sin before god to be polygamous. this is despite the fact that the bible does not explicitly condemn polygamy neither does it condone fornication and adultery, “small house‟‟. according to hastings the bible does not provide a firm foundation for limiting marriage to monogamy (hastings, 1973, p. 8). 8.2 excommunication and divorce as argued earlier, polygamy was deeply entrenched kinship custom among the zimbabwean people and as such the indigenous people never compromised on their culture. this later resulted in the missionaries deciding on another heinous strategy of expelling polygamist and those perceived to be. in 1902, the jesuits expelled polygamist from empandeni. zvobgo (1987, p. 46; vambe, 1972, p. 170) argues that a report from empandeni for the year 1902 read: we shall loose in numbers, but we shall gain by the deepening of the conviction in the minds of the natives that we mean business, and that there can be no compromise between christianity and paganism on the all-important question of marriage (zambesi mission record, 1902-1905, p. 54). this had great effect upon the natives to the point that most of them gave in to the demands of the missionaries. they gave in because it was very brutal to be dispossessed of their means of production, the land on account of polygamy. being expelled meant being disconnected with your relatives and friends. this prompted many zimbabwean men with a desire for polygamy to be hypocritical by engaging in “clandestine polygamy,” or small house. this in african worldview is adultery as a result www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 104 published by scholink inc. of the missionaries and western settlers. as if excommunication was not enough, a polygamous family could not receive baptism or mass (amadiume, 1987, p. 119). there were several options one could do to be baptized. one of the requirement by the missionaries was for the husband to divorce the rest of his wives and only remain with the senior wife (vambe, 1972, p. 170; gray, 1990, p. 47; hastings, 1967, p. 171). it has to be noted that missionaries popularized and institutionalized divorced, an abomination among africans. this has destroyed and desacralised the african marriage traditions as confessed by g. hartmann, cape province missionary; i feel that by our narrow approach of the problem influenced by european theories, a tremendous harm is done to african people. i myself shall never ask a man to dismiss his wives. it is cruel, immoral and has nothing to do with christ at all… i have done it once in my life and never again. with respect to african traditions a husband had no authority to divorce his wife as an individual and no woman was liable for divorce on any other ground other than adultery. however, divorce was always carried out by the entire family collectively. it is clear from this that missionaries turned what was in-lawry into outlawry and outlawry into in-lawry! children of polygamists were also labelled as bastards and churches could expel polygamous families as well (mann, 1994, p. 169). this also led to stigmatization of polygamous families in both church and society. in other cases, people publicly relinquished polygamy out of the desire for material wealth, access to schools and political power that they recognised among europeans (ekechi, 1972, p. 48). however, all this could not stop clandestine polygamy and it remains common among mainstream christians to date. 9. conclusion marriage which constitute a family is very important to africans and was regarded as sacred. marriage in precolonial africa was both monogamy and polygamy and there were no problems at all about these two marriage systems. polygamy among other issues made adultery rare among africans and there were no clandestine marriages (small houses) as they were a taboo which would lead to excommunication from the village. polygamy and patriarchy are two different institutions with nothing common between them; one being african and the other western respectively. the arrival of missionaries of the empire ushered in the victorian cultural hegemony particularly on african marriage systems which saw the popular polygamy being criminalised by the missionaries to save monogamy. christianity or the cross through direct and indirect forces became the central religious ideology over and above the native africans‟ air. small house is western system of kinship which found its way on zimbabwe through the church and the roman-dutch law. the church is the fountain of the condemnation of polygamy and the birth of the loathed colonial “small house”/clandestine union or adultery. the church with the aid of various western legal instruments entrenched the small house as the in-thing for africans, thereby warranting this paper to assert that indeed, the small house is the church‟s genetically modified institution! www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 105 published by scholink inc. references amadiume, i. (1987). male daughters, female husbands: gender and sex in an african society. london: zed books. amanze, j. n. (1998). african christianity in botswana. gweru: mambo press. ani, m. (1994). yurugu: an african-centered critique of european cultural thought and behaviour. new jersey: africa world press. bourdillon, m. f. c. (1987). the shona peoples. gweru: mambo press. cheater, d. (1987). mothers and prostitutes: the reconstruction of african gender relationships in southern rhodesia 1898-1923. history seminar paper, university of zimbabwe. clarke, j. h. (2011). christopher columbus and the afrikan holocaust: slavery and the rise of european capitalism. new york: eworld incorporated. comaroff, j., & comaroff, j. (1986). christianity and colonialism in south africa. in american ethnologist (vol. 13(1), pp. 1-22). dinan, c. (1983). sugar daddies and gold diggers. in c. oppong (ed.), female and male in west africa, london: george allen & unwin (pp. 344-366). ekechi, f. k. (1972). missionary enterprise and rivalry in igboland, 1847-1914. london: frank cass. falen, d. j. (2008). polygyny and christian marriage in africa: the case of benin. in africa studies review (vol. 51, pp. 51-75). freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york: continuum. gelfand, m. (1973). the genuine shona. gweru: mambo press. grey, e. (1990). black christians and white missionaries. new haven: yale university press. goffman, e. (1959). the presentation of self in everyday life. usa: doubleday publishers. hastings, a. (1967). church and mission in modern africa. new york: fordham university press. herman, e., & chomsky, n. (2002). manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media. new york: pantheon books. inyamah, n. g. n. (n.d.). polygamy and the christian church. in concordia theological monthly (vol. xl111, no. 3). retrieved from http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/inyamahpolygamychristianchurch.pdf jeater, d. (1987). mothers and prostitutes: the reconstruction of african gender relationships in southern rhodesia 1898-1923. london: school of oriental and african studies. kapungu, l. t. (1974). rhodesia the struggle for freedom. new york: maryknoll. karanja, w. w. (1994). the phenomenon of outside wives: some reflections on its possible influence on fertility. in c. bledsoe, & g. pison (eds.), nuptiality in sub-saharan africa (pp. 194-214) oxford: clarendon press. kitching, a. l. (1935). from darkness to light. london: society for promoting christian knowledge. google scholar. machingura, f. (2012). the messianic feeding of the masses: an analysis of john 6 in the context of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 106 published by scholink inc. messianic leadership in post-colonial zimbabwe. bamberg: university of bamberg press. maillu, d. g. (1988). our kind of polygamy. nairobi: heinemann. mann, k. (1994). the historical roots and cultural logic of outside marriage in colonial lagos. in c. bledsoe, & g. pison, (eds.), nuptiality in sub-saharan africa, oxford: clarendon press (pp. 167-193). mbiti, j. s. (1973). love and marriage in africa. harlow: longman group limited. mlambo, e. (1972). rhodesia the struggle for a birthright. london: c hurst and company. mtetwa, a. (2015). “fishers of land!” missionary church and land in zimbabwe. an afro-centric biblical philosophy of justice in zimbabwe. in z. makwavarara, r. magosvongwe, & o. b. mlambo (eds.), dialoging land and indigenisation in zimbabwe and other developing countries: emerging perspectives (pp. 140-154). mount pleasant: university of zimbabwe publications. mudhimbe, v. y. (1988). the invention of africa: gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge. bloomington: indiana university press. mukonyora, i. (2007). wondering a gendered wilderness: suffering and healing in an african initiated church. new york: peter lang publishing. nau, h. (1945). we move into africa. st. louis, mo: concordia publishing. oyeronke, o. (1997). the invention of women: making an african sense of western gender discourses. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. pape, j. (1990). black and white: the “perils of sex” in colonial zimbabwe. jsas, 16(4), 699-720. patterson, o. (1982). slavery and social death: a comparative study. usa: harvard college. rodney, w. (1972). how europe underdeveloped africa. great britain: bogle-l‟ouveture publications. schmidt, e. (1991). patriarchy, capitalism, and the colonial state in zimbabwe. signs, 16(4), 732-756. tiberondwa, a. k. (1998). missionary teachers as agents of colonisation in uganda. kampala: fountain publishers. togarasei, l. (2009). the shona bible and the politics of translation. journal of studies in world christianity, 15(1). vambe, l. (1972). an ill-fated people: zimbabwe before and after rhodesia. britain: university of pittsburgh press. vambe, l. (1976). from rhodesia to zimbabwe. britain: university of pittsburgh press. vengeyi, o. (2013). aluta continua biblical hermeneutics for liberation: interpreting biblical texts on slavery for liberation of zimbabwean underclasses. bamberg: university of bamberg press. williams, c., & chancellor, w. (1978). the destruction of black civilization. chicago: third world press. wilson, a. n. (1993). the falsification of afrikan consciousness: eurocentric history, psychiatry, and the politics of white supremacy. michigan: afrikan world infosystems. wesleyan methodist archives. (1922). harare methodist house (18-24) rhodesia district report, 11. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 107 published by scholink inc. zambesi mission records. (1906-1909). 111(38), 292. zvobgo, c. j. (1986). aspects of interaction between christianity and african culture in colonial zimbabwe. in zambesia, x111(1), 43-57. zvobgo, c. j. m. (1996). a history of christian missions in zimbabwe 1890-1939. gweru: mambo press. zvobgo, r. j. (1980). government and missionary policies on african secondary education in southern rhodesia with special to the anglican and wesleyan methodist churches, 1934-1971. edinburg: university of edinburg. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 69 original paper the shortcomings and improvement strategies of public physical education courses in chinese universities tang yao 1&2* , cheng yang 3 & zhu hongjing 4 1 guiyang institute of humanities and technology, guiyang, china 2 faculty of psychology and education, universiti malaysia sabah, kota kinabalu, malaysia 3 college of physical education, guizhou normal university, guiyang, china 4 college of physical education, guizhou university of finance and economics, guiyang, china * corresponding author: tangyaogege@126.com received: march 6, 2023 accepted: april 10, 2023 online published: april 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p69 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p69 abstract with the development of china’s higher education, china’s university education has developed rapidly and the number of students enrolled has been increasing. at present, the number of college students in china has exceeded 24 million, showing a prosperous scene. however, with the rapid development of college education, the participation rate of college students in sports is generally low, and the college physical education courses set up to promote college students’ sports have not played their due role. this study analyzes the shortcomings of current college physical education and proposes that college physical education in china should change the current situation of outdated teaching concepts, unreasonable teaching evaluation system, insufficient teaching content, and cultivate college students’ interest in sports and lifelong sports. keywords college physical education, physical education, physical education, physical education 1. introduction university public physical education is an important part of university education, which can improve students’ health awareness and physical practice ability, strengthen students’ physique, and promote students to become qualified talents with all-round development of morality, intelligence and physique (wang, 2015). college physical education is compulsory, and physical education credit is a necessary condition for students to obtain degrees. its purpose is to develop students’ physical fitness, learn scientific fitness, and entertainment, release the physical and mental pressure of college students in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. their studies and life, cultivate the habit of exercise, improve the awareness of sports and health, and develop the concept of lifelong sports. at present, china’s primary and secondary schools generally focus on exam-oriented education rather than physical education, resulting in poor overall physical fitness of college students. the physical quality of college students is a major issue related to the country and the national people’s movement. how to make college students better participate in physical exercise is the goal of every college physical education worker (yao, 2022). in 2010, the outline of the national medium and long-term education reform and development plan (2010-2020) proposed to reform the education quality evaluation and talent evaluation system, improve the education and teaching evaluation, and explore various evaluation methods to promote student development (the cpc central committee and the state council, 2010). in 2002, the ministry of education of china issued the national guidelines for the teaching of physical education courses in general universities, which proposed that physical education courses must be offered in the first and second grades of universities. completing the prescribed physical education credits is one of the necessary conditions for students to graduate (ministry of education, 2002). some schools have also added the assessment results of physical education courses in proportion to the development of scholarship programs, limiting the participation of some students with poor physical quality in the selection. 2. deficiencies of physical education in chinese universities 2.1 old teaching concepts in the teaching process of college public physical education courses, some teachers’ teaching ideas and concepts remain in the past and are bound by traditional education concepts. in the face of the relevant concepts of the new curriculum reform, the transformation is not timely, the understanding is not clear enough, and the new spirit of the curriculum reform cannot be correctly interpreted and grasped. many teachers still follow the old path of traditional teaching with the slogan of new curriculum reform in the teaching process (zhang & zhao, 2020). students are still in a passive position in the teaching process, and it is difficult to play the role of students as the main body in the physical education class, and it is difficult to achieve the teaching effect and mobilize the enthusiasm of students in physical education. 2.2 the teaching content is boring the content of university public physical education is lack rationality. many schools pay too much attention to the training of students’ sports skills in the process of physical education, while ignoring the training of relevant sports theories and emotions, resulting in teaching only for students to master and improve the level of sports services, which is not conducive to the realization of the three-dimensional goal of teaching; most universities focus on competitive events in the selection of teaching materials, and fail to effectively utilize and integrate the content according to the school’s own and local characteristic teaching resources, which makes the teaching lack of characteristics and vitality, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. and is not conducive to the effective development of physical education teaching (wang, 2014). 2.3 the teaching evaluation system is not reasonable bound by traditional concepts, some teachers are still using traditional teaching assessment models. in the current teaching process of university public physical education courses, many teachers pay too much attention to the evaluation of the final skill level in teaching evaluation, while ignoring the evaluation of students’ learning process. in terms of evaluation methods, most of them adopt same way of examination. this backward evaluation method and evaluation concept, evaluates public physical education curriculum overemphasize objectivity and quantification, and the evaluation content is rigid and single, which is not conducive to the comprehensive evaluation of students’ learning, and affects the development of students (kang & duan, 2012). in addition, in the evaluation process, there is still a lack of convincing evaluation criteria for the learning of non-skilled items that cannot be evaluated by examinations, which makes the objectivity of the evaluation of public physical education curriculum teaching lack of stability and not conducive to the sustainable development of teaching. 2.4 limitations of sports facilities sports facilities are necessary for sports teaching and extracurricular sports activities. the lack of sports facilities will affect the development of extracurricular sports activities in sports teaching. however, due to the continuous enrollment expansion of chinese universities, the number of students has been increasing, and the country’s investment in higher education has not kept up with the pace of the enrollment expansion of the university for a long time. for its development, the university can only invest limited funds in the construction of various disciplines, while the investment in school sports venues and equipment is limited (liu, 2009). this has led to a reduction in the per capita area of sports venues and per capita sports equipment for students, affecting their physical exercise. 3. discussion 3.1 establish the teaching guiding ideology of health first in the reform and innovation of university public physical education curricula, guiding ideology is the key. the national college physical education curriculum teaching guidelines issued by the ministry of education provide the guiding ideology of health first for the reform and innovation of college public physical education curriculum and guides the reform of college public physical education curriculum. universities should implement the guiding ideology of health first, cultivate students’ interest in sports, and establish a student-oriented teaching concept. 3.2 strengthen the construction of teaching staff and venue equipment with the continuous expansion of university enrollment, the number of college students is increasing. but the sports teaching staff and venue equipment have not kept up with the pace of enrollment expansion. from the perspective of teachers’ academic structure, undergraduate education still accounts for a large proportion, and teachers’ scientific research level is not high, and the sports venues and sports facilities in most colleges and universities have not been able to adapt to the expanding number www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. of students. these are not conducive to the development of school physical education and extracurricular physical activities. 3.3 select appropriate teaching contents and methods, and pay attention to the cultivation of students’ lifelong sports awareness from the perspective of teaching content, college physical education is still affected by traditional school physical education. the teaching content is mainly competitive sports, and the teaching content is mainly basic technology teaching, which is difficult to arouse students’ interest in learning; at the same time, teaching methods should also be flexible and should be able to adapt to the characteristics of students of all ages and their own physiological and psychological characteristics, to achieve better teaching results. the content of physical education curriculum textbooks should be in line with the development of the times, fully tap local resources and characteristics, achieve the update and modernity of the content of the textbooks, enhance the vividness and vividness of the textbooks, and meet the interests of students (ma, 2014). 3.4 design a reasonable and scientific evaluation system for the physical education curriculum the curriculum evaluation of physical education teaching should be comprehensively evaluated from various aspects, starting from the actual situation of each student. take the learning effect of students on sports knowledge and skills as an evaluation aspect, and also pay attention to the physical development of students and the cultivation of sports ability; it not only assesses the students’ achievement of reaching the standard in physical education, but also combines the progress and effort of students’ learning and exercise; we should not only evaluate the intuitive learning and training effect but also pay attention to the evaluation of students’ psychology and learning attitude in physical training. 3.5 implement the course selection system in the form of clubs most universities implement the form of physical education class of two hours a week, which is far from the goal of exercising for one hour a day, and it is difficult to meet the students’ physical training needs. therefore, universities can set up optional courses in the form of different items, levels, and time to meet the physical training needs of students at different levels and preferences. students can choose individual sports items according to individual conditions, train students to master the means of physical exercise and stimulate their interest in participating in physical exercise, and promote the development of student’s physical and mental health and the formation of lifelong sports awareness. 4. conclusion universities physical education are related to student’s physical health and the development of sports habits, as well as the future of the country and nation. college physical education should change the current phenomenon of single teaching form, boring teaching content, unreasonable evaluation system, and insufficient venues and equipment. physical education teachers should actively explore and learn, improve teaching quality, carry out teaching with a more scientific and reasonable evaluation system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. and rich content form, and cultivate college students’ interest in sports and the formation of lifelong sports. reference zhang, w., & zhao, j. (2020). research on the curriculum and teaching problems of public physical education in colleges and universities—a review of college physical education. forest products industry, 8, 119. kang, j. y., & duan, z. y. (2012). research on the optimization of teaching content and assessment methods of public physical education. journal of shanxi coal management cadre college, (04), 216-217 the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council. (2010). outline of the national medium and long-term education reform and development plan (2010-2020). ministry of education of the people’s republic of china. (2002). national general university physical education course teaching guidelines, 13. wang, h. w. (2015). haiwen. reform and innovation of public physical education curriculum in ordinary universities. school physical education, (17), 5. wang, g. y. (2014). research on the problems and development ideas of public sports reform in china’s universities. reading and calculation, (42), 342-343. liu, c. q. (2009). on the reform and development of physical education in higher vocational colleges under quality education. vocational education, 2, 180-181. ma, y. p. (2014). research on the problems and development ideas of university public physical education curriculum reform. china off-school education, s, 193. yao, t. (2022). influencing factors of college students’ sports participation behavior: a literature review. asian journal of research in education and social sciences, 4(4), 7-14. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 59 original paper the reconstruction of literary theoretical paradigms through media studies xuefei wang1 1 university of jinan,no. 336, south xinzhuang west road, shizhong district, jinan city, shandong province, china e-mail: 16605227926@163.com received: may 22, 2025 accepted: july 11, 2025 online published: july 29, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p59 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p59 abstract in the era of rapid media evolution, literary theory is undergoing a paradigm shift. this paper explores the development trajectory of modern media theory through the lens of "is media text?" by focusing on marshall mcluhan's media as texts theory. it examines how this framework challenges fundamental assumptions in literary studies—including traditional linguistic centrism, authorial autonomy, and textual autonomy. the media have transformed from being a passive carrier of literature into a dynamic force in meaning production. the convergence of communication patterns, technological integration, and evolving audience perceptions has rendered the concept of "literature" inherently dynamic and open-ended. by analyzing media studies through three dimensions—communication, text, and reception—the paper demonstrates how these developments have driven literary theory toward comprehensive analyses of sensory structures, interactive relationships, and cultural contexts, thereby redefining both the research boundaries and methodological foundations of literary studies. keywords media extension theory, literary theory, media research 1. introduction since the 20th century, the media has transcended its role as a neutral conduit for literary creation, evolving into a pivotal lens for understanding literary production mechanisms, communication paradigms, and reception frameworks. the advent of television, cinema, digital networks, and digital technologies has fundamentally transformed human perception patterns, cognitive structures, and modes of expression, challenging the traditional literary theory paradigm centered on language and anchored in printed texts. media now function not merely as information carriers but as forces that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 shape the form and structure of communication—as marshall mcluhan famously stated, "the medium is the message." against this backdrop, the "media turn" has become an underlying trend within literary theory. from cultural studies and critical theory to media ecology, growing numbers of scholars recognize media's decisive influence on constructing cultural experiences and ideologies. literature is no longer seen as a purely linguistic act divorced from technology and social structures, but rather as a composite practice embedded within a mediatronic-cultural system. this paper responds to this theoretical shift by exploring how literary theory has transitioned through perspectives of communication, text, and reception in the context of media transformation, revealing the deeper logic behind the proposition that "the medium is the message." 2. from cultural research to media theory: the awakening of media consciousness in literary theory even before media emerged as an independent theoretical category in literary criticism, the development of modern communication technologies had already sparked cultural vigilance and reflection. particularly since the 19th century, the rapid expansion of mass media such as newspapers, radio, and film brought intense challenges to existing cultural discourse systems. this transformation initially did not lead to the establishment of media theory, but manifested through internal anxieties, critiques, and rejections within literary and cultural theories. as a transformative force in perceptual structures and social mechanisms, media became a target of criticism before it was truly "recognized." in the earliest voices reflecting media culture, british humanist scholars formed the conservative camp. from the standpoint of defending cultural purity and civilizational traditions, they criticized the "mechanized faith" and sensory culture proliferation brought by industrial society. matthew arnold proposed that the "faith in tools" concealed spiritual poverty, where people overtrusted technological means while neglecting the ultimate purpose of cultural pursuit—human perfection and spiritual harmony—. he regarded culture as a transcendent path to fulfillment beyond religion, emphasizing the core role of classical education and aesthetic cultivation in maintaining social order. building on this stance, lewis further proposed the binary opposition between "minority culture" and "mass culture," pointing out that mass media represented by radio, newspapers, and films were eroding the aesthetic standards and moral judgments of elite culture. in their view, media was not a neutral technology but a force disrupting existing cultural hierarchies. although this critique still rested on literary centrism at the time, its "hostile response" demonstrated that media had quietly rewritten cultural production methods and reception pathways. unlike cultural conservatism, the frankfurt school represented a more systematic critical stance. grounded in marxism and psychoanalysis, they developed structural critiques of the "cultural industry." in their work, horkheimer and adorno argued that modern capitalism no longer relies on violent suppression of individuals but achieves ideological homogenization through media and technological systems. they contended that "instrumental rationality" operates under the guise of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 61 efficiency, norms, and science, with media serving as the critical conduit for this governance logic. television, radio, and film are not merely information channels—they cultivate compliant subjects through repetition, entertainment, and pseudo-needs, reducing culture to consumable industrial products. marcuse extended this critique in one-dimensional man, noting that under technological rationality, culture ceases to be a heterogeneous and critical synthesis but becomes an extension of institutional reproduction. art, philosophy, religion, and even rebellious discourse are transformed into commodities under mass media integration, their inherent critical edge dulled. once culture loses its "transcendental quality," it circulates within the logic of exchange value, leaving literature equally trapped within this system. however, the frankfurt school did not entirely dismiss the cultural potential of media. walter benjamin's theoretical stance was complex and profound. while warning against the destruction of "aura" by mechanical reproduction, he keenly recognized the democratizing opportunities brought by media technology. he argued that photography and cinema had overturned the exclusivity of traditional art, enabling broader public participation in artistic experiences. benjamin proposed a dual aesthetic framework of "shock" and "flavor": the former representing the immediacy and fragmentation of modern perception, while the latter preserves the contemplative, reflective, and meditative dimensions of traditional art. this analytical perspective essentially transcends the role of media as mere "obscuring agents," instead revealing how media constructs entirely new perceptual frameworks and aesthetic experiences. unlike the anglo-american aesthetic school, american media theory is rooted in its pragmatic tradition and communication system construction. although initially leaning towards empiricism, it later gradually integrated with critical theory, developing a media cultural studies with local characteristics. the chicago school represented by john dewey and george herbert mead emphasized the importance of communication for democratic societies. they believed that media could facilitate the establishment of shared social experiences, serving as a crucial mechanism to maintain public life and individual participation. while still theoretically belonging to the empiricist lineage, their emphasis on "communication as social construction" laid the ideological foundation for later media constructivism. james carey proposed the "ritual view of communication" to counterbalance the mainstream american "transmission view," emphasizing that communication is not merely information transmission but also a cultural symbol-sharing behavior. he advocated understanding communication activities from a cultural perspective, viewing them as key processes maintaining social meaning communities. this interpretive approach has gradually been applied to redefine the functions and forms of literature: literature is no longer just text production but the dissemination and re-encoding of meanings. douglas kellner and lawrence grossberg represent the trend of further integrating american cultural studies with communication political economy. they advocate combining media constructivism with economic considerations. structural criticism posits that contemporary media constructs human history, identity, and behavior—all embedded within capital logic and cultural norms. grossberg particularly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 emphasizes how people increasingly "understand themselves and history through media," a phenomenon that has directly influenced literary theory's reevaluation of "narrative power," "discourse of identity," and "media representation." driven by cultural critique and academic theories, media consciousness has gradually become prominent, transforming the foundational perspectives upon which literary theory is built. from initial resistance to mass culture to cultural studies' redefinition of audiences, communication forms, and ideologies, and further to systematic frameworks of media-society relations developed by american academia, media studies have not only broadened our understanding of literary and cultural production but also prompted literary theory to consciously reflect on its own communication mechanisms and media technologies. (lisa, wu, & huang, 2005) as this awareness gradually emerges, people increasingly recognize that media are not merely tools for content transmission, but rather a deep structural element that shapes cultural meaning and values. this structural shift has become a crucial driving force behind paradigm shifts in contemporary literary theory. following the formation of media consciousness, philosophical reflections on media essence have unfolded, making marshall mcluhan's media theory of extension a pivotal turning point in modern media studies. 3. "the medium is the message": the enlightenment of mcluhan's extension theory to literary theory in the mid-20th century, the rapid development of electronic media such as television and radio sparked an unprecedented wave of communication transformation in american society. media technology not only reshaped the flow of information but also profoundly altered human perception, behavior, and cultural life. against this backdrop, while critical scholars like the chicago school, political economy school, and cultural studies school observed media society from a critical perspective, another group of researchers turned their attention to the cultural significance of media itself, attempting to reinterpret its impact on humanity through technological and perceptual dimensions. among them, canadian scholar marshall mcluhan stood out as the most representative figure. his groundbreaking proposition "the medium is the message" shattered the entrenched notion of "content supremacy," proposing revolutionary theories like "media as an extension of humanity," "the global village," and "hot media versus cold media." these ideas profoundly influenced subsequent media and cultural studies. mcluhan argued that with the rise of electrical technology, the world entered an era of "inner explosion" characterized by rapidly changing information patterns and perceptual structures, where human living environments and social organization were being reshaped by media. he emphasized that technology is not a neutral tool but an extension mechanism embedded in human perceptual frameworks: while printing mechanized visual perception, electronic media transformed humanity's understanding of time, space, and its own nature. (mcluhan: understanding media: on the extension of man, 2000) methodologically, mcluhan transcended disciplinary boundaries by synthesizing resources from psychology, anthropology, and art studies. his texts, brimming with aphorisms, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 63 metaphors, and visual-textual structures, exhibit distinct postmodern characteristics. mcluhan emerged as a pivotal figure precisely during the americas media-centric transition in the 1950s-60s: television became the central medium, transmitting major events and news through screens; meanwhile, the advertising industry skyrocketed, immersing the public in visual-sensory information overload. amid this media landscape evolution, youth grew skeptical of traditional systems and mainstream values. the "silent generation" and "beat generation" emerged, sparking anti-cultural movements that reshaped societal discourse. it was within this context that mcluhan, through his unique philosophy of perception and technological media analysis, ushered in a new era of modern media theory, profoundly influencing literary theories paradigm shift regarding media studies. mcluhan's "media extension theory" emerged not in isolation but through the convergence of multiple philosophical traditions. in classical thought, aristotle proposed that "tools are extensions of the body and soul," defining the relationship between humans and tools as externalization of bodily functions—a concept that laid the groundwork for media as an extension of the human body. 19th-century marx, when examining the relationship between humans and machines in industrial society, noted that while technology extended natural organs, it could also alienate human activities, revealing the counter-effect of extension. in the early 20th century, technological philosopher kap further proposed that "technology is a projection of organs," comparing telegraphs to extensions of the nervous system and railways to expansions of the circulatory system, systematically articulating functional correspondences between media and bodily senses. from the perspective of media extensions developmental logic and life dynamics, french philosopher bergson's concepts of "life impulse" and "duration" also provided crucial intellectual resources for the extension theory. mcluhan inherited bergson's understanding of individual creativity, diversity, and multiplicity, emphasizing that media evolution stems from internal drivers of human perception and experience rather than mere responses to external environmental changes. essentially, mcluhan transformed classical philosophy and political.. the integration of diverse ideas of economic governance and life philosophy into the overall consideration of media technology establishes its highly original media theoretical position. (wu, 2015) the theoretical cornerstone of marshall mcluhan's media extension theory lies in his seminal proposition "the medium is the message". this perspective transcends traditional communication paradigms that view media as neutral information carriers, instead emphasizing how media fundamentally transforms human perceptual frameworks, psychological experiences, and social organization. mcluhan posits that any medium is not merely a tool for content transmission but constitutes an "environment" and "structure" shaping human experience. the transformative effects of media do not primarily manifest at the ideological level, but rather reside in reshaping sensory proportions and perceptual patterns. this constitutes what he termed "human extension" . media becomes information precisely because it extends certain human capabilities through technological means, thereby altering our interactions with the world. influenced by erving innis, mcluhan regarded writing systems, language, digital technologies, clothing styles, and transportation routes as media, as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 they all carry information and, to some extent, shape human social organization and cognitive frameworks (regis, 2016). according to mcluhan's classification, different media extend various human senses and bodily structures. traditional media (such as writing and machinery) enhance specific organs, while electronic media (like television, telephones, and the internet) more profoundly externalize the central nervous system. he particularly emphasized that the shift from oral to written language marked humanity's first systematic structural "cutting" and "reorganization" of sensory systems. the emergence of writing suppressed auditory dominance, shaping a visually-oriented linear thinking pattern. in contrast, electronic media exhibit a trend toward holistic perception, activating multisensory coordination and reintroducing humans to a "resonance between hearing and speaking" perceptual ecosystem. this profoundly transforms cultural production, circulation, and reception mechanisms. regarding linguistic media, mcluhan proposed that language is essentially an extension of sensory perception—products of coordinated visual, auditory, and tactile interactions. he stressed that language is not merely a product of a single sense but rather an externalization of human bodily senses and cognitive abilities at the symbolic level. this externalization not only shapes communication patterns in human society but also provides foundational frameworks for cultural memory and abstract thinking. thus, language becomes the primordial form of extension theory, serving as the root of all technological evolution. in terms of technical media, from wheels to roads and tools. from mechanical technologies like telephones and television to electronic media such as the internet, all demonstrate a developmental trajectory evolving from localized extensions to central extensions. mcluhan posited that this progression from physical to neural systems has transformed human interaction from physical contact to real-time connectivity, ultimately establishing a globally interconnected "global village" where all entities share identical structures. furthermore, mcluhan's proposition that "the content of a medium is another medium" reveals the hierarchical structure and dynamic interplay among media forms. for instance, while books represent the content of print media, they themselves evolved from handwritten texts. television programs, for example, integrate various media formats including radio dramas, theatrical performances, and news footage. building on this framework, he constructed a nested, mutually reinforcing media ecosystem model. this model emphasizes that no new medium emerges in isolation but develops within the boundaries of existing media, thereby reshaping the entire cultural and cognitive framework. in summary, mcluhan's media theory of extension, rooted in the core premise that "the medium is the message," revolves around the triad of "body-sense-technology." its profound significance lies not in the physical description of media tools, but in revealing how media permeates human perceptual systems and reshapes cultural structures. this theory not only expands philosophical contemplation on technological influence, but also provides a fresh perspective for reinterpreting the intrinsic mechanisms of literature, art, and communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 65 4. theoretical turn of literature under media change: new paradigm of communication, text and acceptance mcluhan's propositions "the medium is the message" and "the medium is an extension of man" have provided profound inspiration for the transformation of literary theory. traditional literary theory has long focused on the internal linguistic structure, narrative logic, and symbolic meaning of texts, tending to view literature as a content-oriented artistic expression. however, the extension theory of media breaks down the boundary between "form and content," pointing out that the meaning of any literary expression not only comes from the text itself but also from the media environment it relies on. the text is no longer a "transparent container" but a generative process shaped by media forms. this concept directly challenges the linguistically-centered paradigm of literary studies, guiding theorists to focus on sensory structures beyond words, media forms, and their profound shaping of literary reception methods. according to marshall mcluhan, the printing press not only transformed text production methods but, more crucially, fostered cultural patterns such as "linear logic," "individualized thinking," and "isolated reading experiences." these cultural patterns in turn shaped literary writing techniques, textual structures, and readers' aesthetic expectations. the emergence of novels, the strictness of paragraph structures, and the fixation of narrative perspectives—all these are profound outcomes of the printing medium's deep influence on literature. therefore, mcluhan's media analysis demands a re-examination of the media forms that underpin literature—from parchment and movable type printing to electronic screens, each media innovation has accompanied changes in literary forms, styles, and even the definition of "literariness." literature is no longer a spiritual existence transcending material media, but rather a cultural configuration that evolves through specific media technologies. the rise of electronic media has fundamentally transformed the dissemination, textual composition, and reception of literature. in this digital age, texts have evolved from "fixed objects" into "fluid streams," blurring the boundaries of literary discourse. emerging forms like sound literature, visual poetics, and interactive narratives compel literary theory to transcend traditional writing-centric frameworks, evolving into cross-media, multisensory aesthetic theories. mcluhan's distinction between "cold media" that stimulates audience participation and "hot media" emphasizing passive sensory absorption foreshadowed the later emergence of "reader-response theory" and "sensory poetics." more crucially, mcluhan's revelation of media perception structures compelled literary theory to integrate human bodies, senses, and media technologies into analytical frameworks, re-examining how perception shapes meaning. essentially, mcluhan's media extensivism fundamentally expanded the frontiers of literary theory by situating literature within a broader media ecosystem. it demands researchers to focus not only on "what the text says" but also on "how it exists." against the backdrop of emerging research paths like digital humanities, media archaeology, and image-based storytelling, mcluhan's theories continue to provide a foundational framework for literary studies. the research perspective starting from the material form and entering into the perceptual structure not only transcends the traditional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 66 humanistic literary view, but also indicates a profound shift of literary theory towards the comprehensive research paradigm of media. from the perspective of communication, traditional literary studies often treat dissemination as a post hoc circulation process—that is, the diffusion phase following text completion. however, within cultural structures dominated by media logic, communication has long served as a prerequisite mechanism for textual creation. media methods of capturing attention and their capacity to shape discourse patterns profoundly influence the initial stages of literary production. (liu, 2025) works are no longer isolated aesthetic entities but multifaceted conglomerates embedded in platform logic, user behavior, and symbolic strategies. this transformation has driven literary theory to shift from "text-centric" perspectives toward theoretical reflections on "communication mechanisms," focusing on how works are organized, directed, and received through media frameworks. secondly, the boundaries of textual content are continually being blurred and expanded within digital media environments. while traditional texts were viewed as finite combinations of linguistic elements with meaning generated through rhetorical devices, structural frameworks, and stylistic conventions, the nature of texts as carriers of meaning has fundamentally transformed in online cultural production. elements like comments, bullet chats, recommendations, visual content, and interface structures—collectively termed "quasi-texts" —now serve not merely as supplementary information but as integral components of the textual network. this evolution has turned texts into dynamic processes of continuous emergence, extension, and reconfiguration, fundamentally challenging literary theory's "textual centrism". the subject of textual analysis has shifted from isolated linguistic units to embedded multimodal information fields within media mechanisms. more crucially, the paradigm shift in the "reception" framework has become the pivotal axis for reconstructing literary theory in the media age. in traditional reception aesthetics, readers were positioned as primary interpreters, yet this process remained text-centric. within contemporary media ecosystems, readers not only receive meaning but also actively participate in its construction through media mechanisms. (gan, 2009) behaviors like commenting, sharing, imitating, and re-creation place original texts within open processes of meaning negotiation, transforming the "reader" concept into "user" or "co-author". the transmission pathways of literature, reception feedback, and regenerative mechanisms mutually reinforce each other, collectively forming an "interactive textual existence" embedded within media networks. this structural shift in literary theory essentially points to a new paradigm shaped by media composition. communication mechanisms now serve as mediating systems between textual creation and reception feedback, with text structures evolving from closed to fluid states and reception behaviors transitioning from passive perception to active engagement. this transformation not only expands the scope of literary theory's research but also reshapes the ontological logic of literary practice. under the contemporary proposition that "media equals text," literary theory must immerse itself in the deep media context woven by technology, form, and perception to respond to the new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 realities of textual production and meaning-making. 5. conclusion media is not merely an external tool for literary creation and criticism, but an integral component of the intrinsic structure of literary activities. as media forms continue to evolve, the fundamental logic of literature undergoes restructuring: from a language-centric textual perspective to multimodal perceptual construction, from unidirectional communication models to interactive network architectures, and from individualized reading experiences to community-based reception feedback. mcluhan's media extending theory provides an effective interpretive framework that emphasizes how media shape perception and behavior, while also revealing how literature becomes internalized as a cultural mechanism within media structures. under the theoretical vision of "media as text," literature ceases to be a purely spiritual expression transcending materiality, form, and medium, but instead emerges as a dynamic entity embedded in social-technical networks, sensory channels, and communication mechanisms. this paper traces the developmental trajectory of media theory, interprets mcluhan's core perspectives, and examines contemporary examples of literary transformation in digital media environments, attempting to demonstrate an internal paradigm shift in literary theory. this renewal demands that researchers confront the practical logic of media technologies while redefining the existence modes, dissemination pathways, and reception mechanisms of literature. future literary theories will inevitably need to redefine their boundaries within the reality of media interweaving. define the problem awareness, method path, and critical perspective. references gan, f. (2009). critical communication theory: the communication perspective and methods of lohenthal’s literary research. journal of northwest normal university (social science edition), 46(5), 7-12. lisa, t., wu, j., & huang, p. (2005). media studies: text, institution and audience. peking university press. liu, g. q. (2025). a new perspective on textual categories: network arts as a whole. literary criticism, 2, 1-9. mcluhan: understanding media: on the extension of man. (2000). translated by commercial press, edition. regis, d. (2016). media studies manifesto, translated by huang chunliu, nanjing university press, 2016. wu, l. j. (2015). the past and present of media extension theory: understanding mcluhan. journal of nanjing university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 42 original paper wuthering heights and the sprout of feminism wang yujia 1 1 school of language, literature and law, xi’an university of architecture and technology, shaanxi province, china received: june 13, 2023 accepted: july 19, 2023 online published: july 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p42 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p42 as i depicted in the last reading notes, the option that cathy decides to marry linton instead of heathcliff is the inevitable corollary of firmly entrenched patriarchal, which absolutely can’t be denied; however, with further reading of content and grasp of author’s authentic milieu, the awakening descended on me that i err to simply attribute cathy’s such choice to her surrender to the patriarchal ideology. on the contrary, this virtually manifests her unyieldingness and defiance against this irrational and barbarous social notion. i will remedy my errors as followed. cathy, the heroine under the writing of author, incisively embodies the willful and stubborn. it seems that the rebellion and defiance are inveterately embedded in her disposition. since she was a child, she was enamoured of the boundless wilderness where she usually carefreely roamed. glaring compared with the other girls, she had avid affinity for the whip and often played with it. she trampled on the holy bible and tossed it into kennel. she was accustomed to butting up against her father, a man, by words and deeds, and these discourtesies of her is considered as “flagrant” anti—tradition amid the male—dominated society. cathy valiantly rushes out of the traditional choking definition of women—weakness, ignorance, humbleness, obedience and so forth. sensibly, in the world which is structured in cathy’s brain, instead of being reduced to the accessories of men and families, women are independent individuals with self ideology and the irrational gender disparity should be eliminated. emily bronte, the author of the book, “manipulates” cathy to go against the mainstream and conveys the growling accusation towards the era shrouded by absurd patriarchy; nevertheless, i stuck in why such a resolute girl betrays her personality and marrys linton who she doesn’t love. as analyses of many reviewers, “the vanity facilitates cathy to make this decision” “cathy’s true love can’ compare with the craving for the mobility of class” “cathy ultimately yields to the patriarchy” which also correspond with my original opinions, i just still can’t subdue a sense of confusion. i turned to grope the surroundings of author once more. the family of emily bronte, in a manner, is a microcosm of patriarchal society. her brother, as it were, the “atrocious tyrant” with male superiority, overrides the emily bronte and the remaining two sisters. her brother leverage his male privileges to exploit them, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. which spurs emily’s crashing dissatisfaction. added the ascent of society, during that period, there existe minor educated women who begin to ponder upon their own value and hanker after the equality, and emily bronte is one of them. whereas the early emerging hazy feminism lingers over on the verge of the society, which still can’t generate so immense power that can bring ruin to the male—dominated society, emily bronte resorts her indignation to the words in her work. in my perspective. i reckon that cathy’s brother is the equivalent of emily bronte’s, both of whom exceedingly relish in the superiority which patriarchy brings them. the itch for the retreat of the patriarchal swallow prompts cathy to pursue the power and right, thus it is possible for her to reverse her current suppressed situation. the marriage between her and linton, for her, symbolizes not so much for so—called money and statue as for the intangible deterrence, the deterrence endowed her that bolster her morale to rival with her brother, to rival with the entrenched patriarchal. as portraied in the beginning, cathy’s such choice is not the surrender to the patriarchal ideology, but her unyieldingness and defiance against this irrational and barbarous social notion, albeit the people, who uphold the belief that the marriage between cathy and linton indicates cathy eventually compromises on the feudal patriarch, are superior numbers. after all, there are a thousand hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes. despite the wuthering heights didn’t bring the heavy blow to the traditional solid notion and be acclaimed during that victorian era when women were subjected to the male domination, emily bronte and the remaining two sisters indeed open the floodgates of female voice. the words under their pens inspire the awakening of female consciousness which in the past are deeply buried, and they also shore up women’s ccourage to struggle for the freedom, equality, independence, dignity…in retrospect, the road of feminism brim with trials and tribulations. until today, the time virtually has witnessed trailblazing achievements in female business. i’m exuberant that in my day, i can watch a film, called the lost daughter, that challenges the traditional defination for a mother, instead of great and selfless, it presents a woman who forsakes her children and the whole family in order to pursue her own dreams. a series of issues has been intrigued by this movie, such as “is the mother necessarily being the self-sacrificing character?” “does a mother have the right to be herself?”; in the foreign periodical, i can know about that women take the paintbrushes to express themselves, which contributes to more and more female portraits under female gaze are emerging in the museum gallery walls. double chin, fleshy arms, sagging chest, love handle and stockly legs are authentically disclosed by women’s paintbrishes. the female artist don’t idealize women, but to expose the real sides of women; from news i can see increasingly female names appear on the winners lists of the nobel prize, the pritzker architecture prize, turing award and so on. the conspicuous achievements still can’t pay off the hardships towards the complete elimination of gender disparity. the existing “default parent syndrome” in family, the “glass ceiling” in work environment…consecutively make the issue of feminist stand in the teeth of the storm. we haven’t the vaguest idea of how long will this fight last, but what we are certain is that innumerable women from all over the world, just like emily bronte, will pour all efforts into the great fight for freedom and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. equality. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p14 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 14 original paper representations of surrogacy: feminist and lgbt controversy over film and media mingming zhuang1* 1 stuart country day school of the sacred heart, princeton, united states * mingming zhuang, stuart country day school of the sacred heart, princeton, united states received: september 11, 2020 accepted: september 14, 2020 online published: september 19, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p14 abstract although transnational surrogacy has received much criticism owing to racial and class issues, the u.s. media portrays domestic surrogacy with overwhelming positive languages by employing specific narrative frameworks. accompanying this shift, it is not so surprising that the number of gestational carrier cycles have skyrocketed from 727 to 3,423 over the last decade. (note 1) in particular, increase in the number of gay and single men looking for surrogacy has yielded more controversies. this paper asks the following questions: how does the documentary made in boise present surrogacy in the context of a broader debate over feminist and lgbt’s positions? how are gay parents used in the altruism narrative framework to downplay exploitation of surrogacy? by providing insight into the intricate economic and power relationships between surrogate and a new emerging group of intended parents, my case study prompts broader questions such as: how to best document the most authentic narratives of the surrogates? how can feminist and lgbt scholars reconcile their viewpoints over surrogacy? these are pertinent questions concerning exploitation and coercion in the industry, thus influencing future feminists’ studies on reproductive technology and politics. keywords surrogacy, media representation, feminism, lgbt, boise, exploitation, narrative framework 1. introduction in 1989, the highly controversial baby m case was the first court ruling in the united states on the controversy of surrogacy. the court awarded custody to the intended parent, william stern, instead of the surrogate mother, mary beth whitehead. since then, the new york state governor has banned surrogacy. (note 2) the case was contentious in part because the surrogate mother had genetic affiliation with the child. in other words, mary beth whitehead offered both her egg and womb when she decided to become www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. a paid surrogate, and this was referred to as traditional surrogacy. hence, she was the biological mother of the child she bore (note 3). however, recently, new reproductive technologies have modified the dynamics of debates centered around surrogacy in ways that aggravate the ethical dilemma it displays. the emergence of in vitro fertilization (ivf) and embryo implantation no longer requires the surrogate mother to provide her eggs. (note 4) instead, either the commissioning parents or the egg donors, as in the case of gay men couples, offer genetic material for the child. this new trend expedites the formation of clinics which accentuate gestational surrogacy’s benefit as the genetic unrelatedness between the child and surrogates. on the surface, gestational surrogacy seems to set right the moral quandary that appeared in the baby m case. it becomes easier to argue that the baby is not the surrogate’s when the two are not biologically related, hence the practice does not involve any baby selling, a contestation held by many scholars against the legalization of surrogacy (note 5). nonetheless, many issues remain unresolved including whether the choice of the surrogate is completely freely made, despite clear economic incentives, and whether surrogacy, from an ethical perspective, abases women by instrumental zing their bodies and reproductive capacities. while many countries, especially european countries, have taken proactive legal steps to outlaw surrogacy, the number of institutions providing surrogacy services within the united states has grown tremendously. in fact, according to the centers for disease control, between 1999 and 2013, a total of 18,400 infants were born through surrogacy. (note 6) since the baby m case, any form of surrogacy has been banned in new york state. however, the growing focus of lgbt rights activism on surrogacy in recent decades has begun to fluctuate people’s opinions on reproductive technologies and surrogacy specifically. in 2019, the new york state senate passed a bill intending to legalize paid gestational surrogacy for couples who are unable to conceive (note 7). brad hoylman, the only openly gay senator in new york state, was one of the main supporters of the bill who had two daughters through gestational surrogacy. soon, the bill faced widespread criticism, especially from feminists like gloria steinem, underscoring the sharp divide between the lgbt communities and feminists. the same year of 2019, made in boise, a new documentary that won the news & documentary emmy award was released and aired on pbs’s independent lens series. (note 8) filmmaker beth aala revealed the booming surrogacy industry that has emerged in boise, idaho. made in boise follows four paid gestational surrogates and their respective commissioning parents as they prepare for the rigors of pregnancy and negotiate their complicated feelings out of the surrogacy experience. (note 9) one of the intended parents, david and todd, are gay couples looking for the last reproductive option in order to have their own genetically-related children, making the formation of a family possible. interestingly, two out of four intended parents filmed in the documentary are both single men. hence, despite having drastically different geographic locations and polarizing political inclinations—comparatively liberal new york and conservative idaho—a surprising parallel is spotted between new york state’s recent surrogacy bill and the surrogacy industry in idaho. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. in this paper, i argue that the dominant representation of altruism, specifically in helping gay partners and resisting the overwhelming nuclear family narrative of heterosexual family building, has been used as a way to downplay the exploitation of surrogacy. i do so by first conducting a literature review which examines filmic portrayals of surrogacy in popular media, including documentaries and fictional accounts. then, i proceed to explicate the different positions that feminist and lgbt scholars hold for and against surrogacy. the scale of the literature review comprises of journals and books published over the last 25 years found on google scholar, sage journals, ncbi, and jstor. after a comprehensive literature review of surrogacy in documentaries, films, and public debates, i go on to analyze how the broader discussion about feminist and lgbt positions on surrogacy is present or absent in made in boise by considering its presentation and the filmmaker’s presentation of the relationship between exploitation and altruism. i attempt to investigate how gay parents and single male parents are portrayed and emphasized in popular media by selecting qualitative quotes from the documentary and investigating the discourses that circulate around it. 1.1 filmic representations of surrogacy documentary films help make visible the varied configurations of family norms, critical kinship, and reproductive politics. documentaries such as google baby, house of surrogate, and a mother’s dream are exemplary references for the debate about complicated subjects concerning surrogacy. given documentaries' unique angle of analyzing surrogacy’s socio-political impacts, they can form “the way in which the visual medium makes the common, non-expert audience, see the problem and learn about reproductive technologies.” (note 10) as a result, in order to gain a comprehensive perspective of how gestational surrogacy and split parenthood are narrated and molded in both academic and nonacademic discourses, it is conducive to survey the interrelation of different story-telling frameworks adopted by the media. (note 11) since the documentary made in boise is relatively new and no scholars have discussed it yet, i will present other films and documentaries about surrogacy that scholars have examined as a way to contextualize my analysis of made in boise. charlotte kroløkke, professor for the study of culture at university of southern denmark, examines the documentary film made in india which follows a couple from texas as they embark on their journey to build a family via a surrogate in india. (note 12) kroløkke suggests that the film utilizes two main rhetorical frames and narratives: “baby-selling” and “the plight of the infertile couples”. (note 13) the film’s portrayal of baby-selling positions the child as a commodity, the fertility industry as a baby factory, the intentional parents as privileged and self-indulgent consumers, and the surrogate mother as comparable to an oppressed factory worker. (note 14) in sharp contrast, the film’s “unfortunate infertile couples” framework legitimizes the choice of being a surrogate mother and engaging in these commercial transactions. (note 15) scholars have also scrutinized other documentaries that restrictively frame the roles of intended parents. in the analysis of monsoon baby by german professor waltraud maierhofer in the global health studies program, the representation of a childless female as sorrowful and worthless underpins the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. socially-constructed idea of women being sentimental and irrational, thereby deepening sexist stereotypes. (note 16) maierhofer poses essential questions for people to reexamine motherhood and womanhood: “why is there so much obsession to reproduce? who benefits when women think they can only be happy with a biological child? how have women learned to hate their bodies and find their relationships incomplete when there is no child of their own?” (note 17) these inquiries are necessary to gain a clearer understanding of the true incentives that impel women into the surrogacy industry. with the assistance of reproductive technology, the social norm which states any women and couple can build a normative family with a biological child has gradually been established, rendering a childless family structure intolerable and adoption—raising a genetically unrelated child—less tolerable, be it due to infertility, homosexuality, or single parenthood. (note 18) besides the prevalent narratives of surrogates and intended parents, the issue of legal obscurity also attracts scholars’ attention to further investigate laws and ethics surrounding the practice of surrogacy. in a filmic analysis of the documentary made in india, scholars remark that during transactions among the commissioning parents, the surrogate, the clinics, and the third-party companies, legal obscurities are widely present. (note 19) a medical tourism company based in california offered a surrogate pregnancy service for a couple from san antonio, texas who were unable to conceive children. the surrogate this company found was an illiterate mother in mumbai, india who was experiencing extreme poverty while having to raise three children. (note 20) however, the twins’ legal status was questioned after the surrogate mother gave birth to them. eventually, the us consulate intervened and issued the twins american citizenship. after the dispute was resolved, the surrogate was paid much less than promised. (note 21) however, this one example of transnational surrogacy did not explicitly outline the underlying problems with cross-institutional arrangements. what if incidents had happened to the surrogate mother during pregnancy? what if the legal status of the twins was settled in favor of the surrogate? where a lawsuit would be heard, in this case, india or texas? furthermore, the illiteracy of the surrogate mother also put her at a disadvantage. was she acquainted with the possibilities of multiparity, hemorrhage, or surgery? was there a contract to sign? if so, how would the surrogate be able to fully understand the terms in the contract to protect herself against exploitation of her basic rights. if there was a legal dispute, the costs for gathering evidence and securing witnesses would be challenging for both sides, not to mention that the imbalanced power relationships, economic disparities, and racial differences between the genetic parents and the surrogate would yield more difficulties for the surrogate to have an equal footing in a lawsuit. (note 22) according to hillary berk from berkeley, the legality of surrogacy currently depends on the normalization of “a socially acceptable emotion culture.” (note 23) although it is not uncommon to see third-party organizations imposing emotional separation between surrogate mothers and the child they gestate, enforcing the legal terms in written contracts which require surrogates to actively participate in the process of law to disenthrall from any emotional attachments is something that warrants more investigation from legal institutions. berk asserts that “in managing risk and intention for parentage through the formal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. legalization of emotion, lawyers actively redefine and constitute broader social norms in the absence of informed collective agreements on the ethics and legality of commercial pregnancy” (note 24) as made in india has showcased to its audience, the nature of surrogate motherhood is deeply rooted in dealing with individual emotions; therefore, it is imperative to explore how regulations related to feelings can both challenge and moderate legal ambiguities. in addition to documentary representation, surrogacy is depicted in popular fictional accounts. gender studies scholar, laura harrison, analyzes the fictional movie baby mama which depicts an economically well-off, middle-class white woman kate holbrook who found herself unable to conceive after choosing her profession over pregnancy when she was young. it is in itself quite ironic that when a woman does not place childbearing on the pedestal, she is doomed to some negative consequences, such as infertility issues in the case of baby mama. out of desperation, kate eventually resorts to look for a gestational surrogate angie ostrowski in order to have her own genetic child. interestingly, laura harrison remarks how the filmmaker deliberately portrays the surrogate mother with negative physical and personality traits which discredit her motherhood. the film also reinforces stereotypes that surrogate mothers are usually from the ethnic minorities, have poor hygiene, and tend to be materialistic and dishonest, thereby typifying angie as “white trash”. (note 25) besides instilling stereotypical ideas to categorize surrogates as lacking education and financial capability, laura harrison points out that baby mama deepens popular assumption of “infertile women as the selfish victims of feminism-gone-wrong.” (note 26) the desperation of the tragically infertile and the selfless surrogates seem to match with each other perfectly; therefore, the popular women helping women narrative framework becomes more entrenched. such media accounts of surrogacy impose the idea that altruism is the only acceptable motivation for becoming a surrogate while financial remuneration is just an add-on to a selfless act. (note 27) therefore, for harrison, tension appears in surrogacy discussion between the two seemingly incompatible branches: “altruism and paid work.” (note 28) over the course of history in the united states, women’s financial contributions to the households have been deemed less valuable. (note 29) in reverse, altruism is impelled by “less tangible rewards such as emotional satisfaction or personal growth” that “precludes financial gain”. (note 30) surrogacy as a clinical labor is thus rarely seen as a kind of work. the surrogates are depicted as voluntary, altruistic, and contributing to a greater cause, even if compensation is never absent. (note 31) such ambiguous incompatibility oftentimes subtly compels surrogates to avoid mentioning financial compensation when being interviewed. additionally, instead of discussing financial arrangement with the intended parents right away, remuneration issues are left for the agencies or legal personnel to deal with. (note 32) 1.2 politics of surrogacy: feminist and queer positions opinions of surrogacy differ among feminist and queer studies activists and; therefore, i divide them into four different sections in order to demonstrate the arguments each holds and the frameworks each utilizes: feminist scholars supporting surrogacy, feminist scholars opposing surrogacy, lgbt advocates supporting surrogacy, and lgbt advocates opposing surrogacy. the review intends to respectively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. answer the following questions: first, how do feminist supporters of surrogacy utilize feminist ideologies to buttress their arguments for the legalization of surrogate motherhood? second, how do feminist opponents respond to the queer communities that aspire to build their own families through surrogacy? third, what reasonings do queer scholars use to justify the ethics of surrogacy? how do they perceive the concept of family building? finally, how do lgbt scholars in opposition to surrogacy react? how do they argue against the idea that family building is not a necessity for queer communities? 1.2.1 feminism and debates over surrogacy in the book full surrogacy now sophie lewis argues that the legalization of surrogacy will not exploit surrogates but allow institutions to have the means to protect the surrogates from infringement upon their rights. on the contrary, the inundation of unregulated underground markets should be the culprit that deteriorates the exploitation. by presenting a concept of “family abolition,” (note 33) lewis goes on to justify paid gestational surrogacy, which she proclaims facilitates a communal fashion of raising children instead of under the nuclear family units. a pervasive idea in her writing—“children don’t belong to anyone, not the patriarchy, but themselves”—again, presents a new reproductive system that lewis envisions as she describes in one of the interviews, “a radically collectivized, pluralized, communized gestational reality to come.” (note 34) dismantling the nuclear family structure of heterosexual reproduction is a popular framework adopted by feminist scholars supporting surrogacy. anthropologist shireen kashmeri from the university of toronto, for example, also analyzes the notion of kinship which she deems capable of disrupting the essentialists conceptions of motherhood and parenthood which expect certain individuals to act in accordance to social expectations. for kashmeri, these essentialist ideas deteriorate the sufferings of women who are unable to conceive and consolidate the “normative nuclear family stenography;” (note 35) as a result, surrogacy can be a good catalyst to counteract normative notions that many feminists firmly champion. hence, the poststructural feminist perspective in favor of more diverse family construction alternatives and a wide spectrum of interpretations for parenthood seems to dominate feminist arguments advocating for the legalization of surrogacy. this idea also comes into play when lgbt scholars assert the significance of exploring other possibilities of family building for single parents and gay partners. other feminist scholars have provided criticisms to the current practices of surrogacy, but they claim that by actively addressing these potential issues, surrogates can actually feel a sense of empowerment within the public operation of gestational surrogacy, according to feminist gillian m. goslinga-roy, author of body boundaries, fiction of the female self. (note 36) thus, the surrogacy industry needs continuous examination and supervision of the power relationship between surrogates, intended parents, and third parties because one of the major problems with surrogacy is the overwhelming singular narrative of the surrogacy experience. charis thompsen, the professor of sociology at the london school of economics, also introduces the ideas of “good patients” in her book making parents: the ontological choreography of reproductive technologies. (note 37) the “good patients” concept can also be termed as “good surrogate” in the case of surrogacy. in particular, this framework is restricted by a set of embedded rules www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. that permit the surrogates to act in just one way which is conducive to the procreative objective and the operation of infertility clinics. intended parents benefit from not having “to deal with the surrogates’ feeling of grief, ambivalence, and vulnerability” while the third-party, such as clinics, doctors, and lawyers, benefit from receiving more revenue when an increasing number of women enter the surrogacy industry. (note 38) because of the attempt to epitomize all surrogacy experiences with one narrow narrative, surrogates report unspoken social pressures in conforming to the expectations of the prevailing discourse of the “good surrogate.” these include the discouragement of crying and grieving, forming a close relationship with the babies they gestate, the secrecy and shame that surround surrogacy, as well as the emphasis of selflessness when proving this reproductive service. (note 39) nonetheless, goslinga-roy and thompsen both positively believe that proactive and open discussion about surrogacy to weaken stereotypes embedded in the “good surrogate” narrative which deems the practice as secretive and dishonorable can potentially help surrogate mothers to rearrange relations with their own family and minimize unnecessary misunderstanding. similarly, brakman and scholz, authors of research “adoption, art, and a re-conception of the maternal body” elicit that a “feminist embodied maternity,” which stresses the physical relations instead of the genetic or biological connections of the subjective body, is also necessary to reconceptualize motherhood. (note 40) consequently, for brakman and scholz, one way to eradicate the confidence that obscures the process of surrogacy is through embodied practice of gestational surrogacy, thus shifting the focus to open communication and empathy. while multiple scholars have utilized feminist ideologies to support their arguments for surrogacy, other feminist scholars have, otherwise, demonstrated that surrogacy is simply an exploitation of women. due to disparities in socio-economic conditions between the surrogates and the commissioning parents, feminist scholars have been perturbed by the risks of coercion that can exploit women unaware of the forceful terms offered by the third party. although supporters of surrogacy provide a counterargument stating that women voluntarily choose to become surrogates, whether the choice is entirely free and cognizant is still debatable when the surrogates make those decisions under the pressure of financial imperatives, either consciously or unconsciously. (note 41) moreover, the murkiness of policies centered around surrogacy also allows for more possibilities of exploitation. for instance, some surrogacy agencies specifically look for surrogate who display submissive characteristics because they can be easily manipulated. (note 42) while intended parents and medical personnel have the power to determine terms in the contract concerning to pregnancy that are beneficial to themselves, the surrogates have little autonomy over their own body once they enter the process because their failure to adhere to the criteria is considered a breach of the contract. (note 43) these unfair practices proliferate especially when the demographics of the surrogates include mostly those who receive limited education, have little knowledge of legal terms, and in some worst cases, are illiterate. (note 44) some other clinics even expect surrogates to stay in surrogate homes where exploitation can further take place, including imposed residential rules, asymmetric power relationships between doctors and surrogate mothers, and hygiene www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. deficiency due to overcrowded surrogate populations. according to dorothy e. roberts, a legal expert in gender, race, and class, surrogacy markets exert both visible and invisible influences on those who are socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged. because of their specific status, the markets have great potential to take advantage of the minorities and manipulate underprivileged parents and children as money-making subjects. that being said, although baby markets give childless parents new possibilities for family building, “the baby markets aren’t free because they are just as susceptible to coercive practices as to liberating ones.” (note 45) baby markets maneuver within systematic oppressions that denigrate the choices made by particular groups of people. moreover, goslinga-roy, though identifying herself as someone who supports surrogacy, also criticizes that objects like “the scrapbook, the ultrasound images, the practices and language of the assisted reproductive technologies” (note 46) devalue surrogates’ contributions and obliterate their desired narratives while emphasizing the aspirations of the intended parents. in other words, these reproductive materials automatically place one narrative above the other, driving the conversation around surrogacy to be only about intended parenthood instead of the natural experiences of the surrogates. this intentional deletion from third party agencies can be awfully distressing for surrogates who voluntarily partake in the procreative service for, or at least the agencies and surrogates claim, majorly altruistic reasons. (note 47) hence, even though baby markets may grant privileged infertile couples, gay men, and single men capable of affording reproductive services an improved capability to oversee their own reproduction, it does not equate to giving society greater justice, equality, and autonomy. people with certain social status still remain to be the victims of such systems, and the most equitable way to deal with baby markets is through unveiling the superficial freedom that the industry has endeavored to present. roberts gives an example of the adoption and foster care centers: “whatever benefits accrue to people who can afford to purchase reproductive goods and services are largely denied to those who don’t have enough money to do so. this deprivation is not just the unfortunate result of being poor or low income; it is the result of state and corporate decisions to prefer private reproductive market approaches to more equitable policies. the adoption and safe families act, passed by congress in 1997, attempts to solve the problem of an exploding foster care population by incentivizing private adoption instead of supporting families to avoid placement of children in foster care in the first place. baby markets not only favor the rich; they substitute for policies that would benefit those who aren’t.” (note 48) the privatization of foster care can be applied to the surrogacy clinics as well. recently, an increase in the number of private-owned surrogacy organizations have encouraged more women to become surrogates. the state, instead of addressing infertility issues and an exploding single parent population, indirectly supports the privatization of surrogacy clinics by not picking a stand or not setting clear legal rules. one of the main motivations behind such legal obscurity and inaction is the rising demand for such services from the infertile rich. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. 1.2.2 lgbt and debates over surrogacy what are the motivations for pursuing parenthood for lgbt couples or family units? the propensity for both lesbian and heterosexual women to narrate their desire to parent as a natural human instinct may be affected by the dominant belief that motherhood is an indispensable component of womanhood, that motherhood sublimates womanhood. (note 49) while lesbians tend to share similar reasons for the pursuit of parenthood with heterosexual women due to common socialization and the eminence of motherhood to female identity buildout, lesbian couples’ motivation do seem to be less complied to heteronormative norms which regard motherhood as mandatory for female identity development. lesbian women are more free from the idea of “generativity,” which refers to the passing on of one’s genetic material through pregnancy, as well as the “the preservation of family tradition.” (note 50) it is thus “possible that the lesser salience of generativity” for lesbians indicates their disposition as “sexual minorities”—situating themselves outside of the heteronormative nuclear family ideals by pursuing parenthood alone, or simply with another woman. this also potentially indicate that gay men’s sexual minority status may also influence how they comprehend and construct their own motivations for parenthood. (note 51) research on gay couples’ motivations for parenthood manifests a different pattern, however. eddie e. goldberg, professor of psychology at clark university and the author of “lesbian and gay parents and their children: research on the family life cycle,” has pointed out in her research that gay couples are prone to place “relational ties over biolegal ties in defining who they consider to be ‘family,’ perhaps in part because they are vulnerable to rejection” (note 52) by their biological families. in the 1980s, gay men were largely rejected as parents because of prevailing social ideas that associate heterosexuality with parenthood or an intact family and homosexuality with infertility, childlessness, and dystopic. (note 53) over the past years, the popularization of gay rights movement and the legalization of gay marriage have gave rise to a trend of gay parents seeking for parenthood through adoption, reproductive technology (i.e., ivf), and gestational surrogacy, in part to reject the narrative of their unfitness as prospective parents. however, because it is often assumed that gay men are insufficient and, gay couples are met with countless difficulties in the adoption process, making surrogacy an appealing option. such an environment has also led to an increase in agencies for surrogacy particularly serving gay clientele and having more surrogates actively choosing to bear children for gay couples. (note 54) on the other hand, scholars who simultaneously support gay rights offers arguments that question the necessity for gay men to seek parenthood from surrogacy. laura harrison records that in mainstream media, gay dads resorting to surrogacy epitomize the normalization of no normative family structure since “both their queerness and their use of a surrogate require naturalization.” (note 55) gestational surrogacy has been presented with more optimism in recent decades mainly due to the incitement of gay men questioning and shattering social norms about reproduction, family, and parenthood. nevertheless, during this supposedly empowering process, they also become unexpected defenders of conventional ideologies. (note 56) the unequal gender dynamics in this gay men-surrogate relationship can also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. further deteriorate the already embedded gender stereotypes. so why do popular media and representative features of reproductive politics always project the narratives of gay men instead of lesbian women? economic liability does play a role, and gay men are, indeed, more financially stable to afford the services that are not available to many other women who face gender discriminations in their workplaces and are obligated to take care of the family. besides this, lesbian couples usually rely on “vaginal insemination and intrauterine insemination to conceive.” (note 57) lesbians have also employed a special form of in vitro fertilization (ivf) to provide both partners a biological attachment to their child. this is achieved by producing embryos that combine the eggs and a sperm from a donor. afterwards, the medical practitioner implants the embryos into the other partner who is, nominally, the “surrogate” for her own genetically unlinked child. (note 58) regardless of the biological differences between gay and lesbian parents, the overall trend is that lesbians do receive less attention than gay men, both in fictional accounts, documentary films, and popular media. harrison goes on to explicate the complexity of arguments about surrogacy and gay couples breaking the nonnormative ideologies. she contends that reproductive technologies are indeed capable of deconstructing normative ideologies; nevertheless, many of these attempts are then reintegrated into the conventional normative framework which feminists or lgbt activists first intend to dismantle. (note 59) as harrison expresses in her research, such phenomenon is “exemplified by the birth stories that intended parents construct, the assimilationist rhetoric expressed by and imposed upon gay intended parents, and the multiple news reports that assert the ordinariness of surrogate families.” (note 60) recent surge in the frequency of utilizing these narratives indicates that we need to find out other possible ways of deconstructing normative ideology and non-exploitative processes of normalization that will most effectively respond to the particular complexion of reproductive technologies. 2. method through scene analysis of the documentary, i intend to answer the following questions: who is represented as a surrogate? who is represented as the commissioning family? what isn’t being talked about? who’s watching the film and where is it discussed? these questions will help me to compare and contrast the narrative frameworks proposed by scholars and those appeared in made in boise. i record the number of times positive and negative comments show up in the documentary and further analyze several representative quotes to demonstrate how surrogates and intended parents’ perspectives shape the public image of surrogacy. then, i trace discourses around made in boise by locating 11 different blog posts on google search and perform a qualitative and quantitative analysis on news and media’s portrayal of the documentary, including multiple interviews with the producer and the cast, website articles, blogs, as well as on comments posted by viewers online. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. 3. data and analysis 3.1 made in boise: a case study the documentary made in boise narrates the stories of four surrogates and their respective intended parents in boise, idaho. the film presents surrogacy with positive language, as the filmmaker beth aala emphasizes how surrogacy can be a loving, helping, and empowering experience. on top of stimulating the practice of surrogacy, the documentary underlines that boise has turned into an attractive harbor for surrogacy because of the relatively cheap price for hiring a surrogate compared to other places like california. its website and other media platforms even describe boise as the unofficial “surrogacy capital.” intended parties come from both domestic and international areas to rent the wombs of women in boise with an ardent intention to have their own children. before diving into in-depth analysis of the documentary, i will incorporate essential context of surrogacy in idaho. firstly, in idaho, the only statute or published case law that regulates surrogacy simply asks for a genetically unrelated parent to go through legal adoption process if the child that is born through surrogacy. (note 61) additionally, the courts are inclined to vindicate the contract drafted by the agencies and intended parents, indicating idaho’s favorable attitude towards surrogacy. that being said, the risks that commissioning parents may undergo are limited, which explains the recent surge in the number of individuals and families searching for surrogacy statewide. the potential for profit thus incentivizes the fertility industry to look for more surrogates by capitalizing on current economic conditions and boise’s demographics. furthermore, fertility clinics have been operating in boise for years, but population increase and social and economic changes in the 2010s aggravate the problems inherent to surrogacy. 80,000 people moved to boise, idaho in 2018, (note 62) placing a huge strain on the residents’ economic and social well-being. (note 63) although boise experiences less unemployment compared to other states and benefits from a growing job, (note 64) grocery stores like target and walmart occupy the majority of the labor market. hence, while hourly wages have remained the same, the cost of housing has doubled with a huge influx of new inhabitants. under tightening financial situations, the monetary compensation gained from becoming a surrogate is a true blessing for those who are economically vulnerable. in made in boise, a surrogate can receive a revenue between $28,000 and $38,000, an amount that is equivalent to the yearly income of many boise residents. (note 65) it is thus undeniably an appealing option for many low-income families to sustain their life. moreover, the demographics also indicate what the fertility industry wants in a surrogate. idaho contains a sizable population of latter-day saints (lds) in the united states (note 66) because the lds religious community encourages its members to marry and form large families, lds women are perfect candidates for surrogacy. they are in their prime reproductive stage and have given birth to at least one child, thereby validating the authenticity of their motherhood. as an additional advantage, lds mothers can receive monetary compensation from surrogacy to support their family and thus solidify the traditional female roles in the domestic realm. made in boise overwhelmingly adopts the women helping women narrative framework devised by laura www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. harrison as shown in the literature review. (note 67) just like many other media portrayals of surrogacy, altruism is frequently presented as the most essential indicator that propels fertile women to become surrogates. cindy floyd, one of the surrogates featured in the documentary states that “if [the intended parents] didn’t do surrogacy, they would’ve never been able to be parents and they were amazing. [she] just felt like if [she] could give that to somebody, [she] would love to do that.” the producer also incorporates opinions of some other surrogates who are not presented in the documentary in the voice over. these women comment how surrogacy is an uplifting experience for them because of the selflessness that’s involved: “seeing that intended parents hold their baby for the first time, you can’t describe that moment.” however, financial compensation, another influencer of the decision to become surrogates, is barely investigated even though it has great potential to be the determining cause given the socio-economic background. consequently, because of increasing media exposure of a forced-upon binding between surrogacy and altruism, surrogates may feel compelled to only disclose the altruistic motives but not their financial incentives. chelsea frei, another surrogate featured in the film, discloses that “[she] feels like surrogacy has a really bad name to it, that it’s all deceit and money-seeking people. a lot of the women [she] met here are doing it for the most amazing reasons…incredible experience.” although economic transactions are never absent in all four cases, they are either intentionally avoided or immediately diverted to the altruism framework which dominates the discussion around surrogacy. besides emphasizing altruism between women, made in boise explores altruism between surrogates and gay men, single male parents, and other nontraditional intended parties. in fact, this modification which distinguishes itself from many other films or documentaries on surrogacy is substantial as demonstrated by the frequency these new forms of family units are presented. out of the four intended parents, only one of them (case 2) involves heterosexual relationships, the normative family unit. case 1 and case 4 are both male single parents from foreign countries and case 3 features a gay couple, one from the united states and one born and raised in taiwan (table 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. table 1. description of the four surrogates and the commissioning parents based on these numbers, surrogacy seems to simply be women providing reproductive services for men to fulfill their desires to build families. the fact that three out of four of the intended parents featured in made in boise are male instead of infertile women unveils the specific narratives the media employs in order to promote surrogacy in a positive light. for instance, a steadfast advocate for surrogacy in the documentary repeatedly emphasizes that the normative nuclear family structure is counterproductive to making possible other available family building options which surrogacy can help make viable. in addition, intended parents construct birth stories that reinforce the destabilization of non-normative, heterosexual families through inviting the public to emphasize with their needs to form families in nontraditional ways. the narratives of gay couples and single male parents tend to concentrate on how social norms and ambivalent legalizations have barred them from having children just like any other heterosexual parent. in made in boise, both male intended parents report their failed attempts to adopt a child due to legal restrictions in their own countries. nonetheless, the gay man/single male parent narratives which the film employs to justify surrogacy are also highly likely to strengthen processes of normalization. such narratives inadvertently imply that gay intended parties should always assimilate into the family-building practice even when family construction, a normal process of heterosexual relationship, might not be necessary for gay couples and could be an integral step to utterly destabilize the normative social structure. as lgbt movements have gained popularity with the legalization of gay marriage in the recent decade, the media has started to capitalize on public’s support to champion arguments in favor of surrogacy while ignoring how this portrayal can submerge other equally important narratives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. surrogacy has been a controversial topic since the baby m case in the united states, but oppositional voices have waned over the past few years when gestational surrogacy gradually replaced traditional surrogacy. however, surrogacy still garners scholars’ critiques on its potential exploitation of women and unethical baby-selling practices. made in boise does not adequately address these concerns of surrogacy. i counted the number of positive and negative comments concerning surrogacy made by the cast throughout the documentary, and positive comments appear 34 times, 32 times more than that of negative comments, which only show up twice in the film. the only two negative comments on surrogacy only appear briefly in the film. a family friend of ernesto—the male intended single parent—declares that “surrogacy is just another way of exploiting women.” ernesto does not directly respond to her doubts about surrogacy; instead, he claims that he is looking forward to how this will come out after years of failed adoption. in the second comment, a legal official, herself an advocate of surrogacy, mentions the practice’s potential exploitative nature but blames it on the lack of legal clarity surrounding surrogacy. despite the only two negative remarks, the filmmaker presents surrogacy with mostly optimistic comments. one steadfast advocate for surrogacy passionately asserts in her speech that “the woman that’s carrying the child is never the parent. they are never the mom. so, we don’t refer to them as moms, and we don’t refer to them as surrogate moms. no. the intended parents who’re gonna parent the child are the parents.” the surrogates even believe that the children never belong to them and they actually consider the birth of the child as “giving the baby back” not “giving the baby up.” for either heterosexual parents or gay partners, the ease that accompanies the child’s clear detachment from the surrogate mother makes surrogacy a yet more alluring business for many. hence, gestational surrogacy has reshaped its meaning by undermining the surrogates’ maternal credentials. when it is separated from genetic parenthood, gestational motherhood becomes less valuable because her labor is alienated. the surrogate must, and is anticipated to, disenthrall from her emotional ties with the child, a detachment in which the social practice of surrogacy encourages. this idea is pervasive in made in boise, particularly when the filmmaker endeavors to adopt the gay and single male parents’ sides of story to depreciate that mother-child bond developed in pregnancy. these positive images of surrogacy, which serve to further promote the industry and attract more customers—especially prospected gay and single male intended parents whose requests are on the rise—obscure other essential questions in the vicinity of surrogacy. for example, from the devaluation of gestational motherhood, the media could’ve guided public attention to discuss “the extent to which the mother-child bond formed during this period is assumed to be a product of the genetic tie rather than of the nurturing relationship” and to “recall a long-rejected notion that parents have a property-like interest in their children based on biology.” (note 68) the imbalance of positive and negative comments on surrogacy, therefore, does not align with this reproductive practice’s equal potential for both empowerment and exploitation. in a sense, disguised optimism prevalent in made in boise downplays more important discussions that help the audience to critically assess surrogacy and the possible causes leading up a burgeoning surrogacy industry in boise, idaho. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. 3.2 tracing discourses around made in boise i have accrued eleven online sources that discuss made in boise, including blog posts, interviews, news articles, and promotional material from the northeast assisted fertility group blog, kpbs, npr news, boise state public radio (note 69), motherly (note 70), she knows (note 71), love and kindness surrogacy (note 72), pbs (idaho public television), ktvb7 (note 73), and “society of st. sebastian.” out of the eleven sources, seven of them support surrogacy and help promote the documentary. two sources hold a neutral stance on surrogacy since they are recorded interviews. three of them provide criticism to the documentary’s portrayal of surrogacy, with one of them found on the comment section of a promotion post for the documentary. the northeast assisted fertility group blog holds favorable opinions towards surrogacy, but it also points out the weaknesses of made in boise, especially the filmmaker’s inaccurate portrayal of surrogacy. though not one of the filmic representations i have analyzed above, the webpage does provide another angle that reveals how the documentary has employed certain narrative frameworks to amplify the optimistic aspects of surrogacy while avoiding investigating the issues. the blogger writes, “although i enjoyed the film and left the theatre pleased that surrogacy was presented in such a positive way, my reaction to made in boise was not all positive. having worked in the field for many years, i know that surrogacy is complicated. in my experience, women who become gc’s think about it for many years and go through an arduous screening process before being matched with ip’s. many lovely women do not move forward to become gc’s either because they don’t pass their medical or psychological screening or (less often), they decide along the way that it is not the right decision for them. the long path to surrogacy is not captured in made in boise—at least not for the gc’s. as i mentioned earlier, made in boise is well made and well filmed, but i think that my problems with the film originate not in the filmmakers but in the agency that they feature. the agency director, a several time gc herself, comes across as rather glib and remarkably casual about signing women on to be gcs. yes, the gcs featured seem to be kind, caring and responsible people, but there were things about their lives or their histories that i think would disqualify them for surrogacy in many programs.” (note 74) the blogger particularly identifies the documentary’s method of enlarging the stories of the intended parents and their interactions with the surrogates, which results in inadequate description of the processes that women have to go through before committing to become surrogates. the fact that there are certain elements in the surrogates’ lives that “disqualify them for surrogacy” also highlights the film’s failure to address potential risks associated with surrogacy. in addition, during an npr interview of made in boise, when the interviewer asks nicole williamson, the owner of surrogacy agency “a host of possibilities” and a 4th-time surrogate featured in the film, “how does her agency make sure that the surrogates aren’t exploited,” nicole responds that the agency has to verify that the surrogates are “not on any state assistance, that they are financially stable, that they don’t have any mental issues.” simply assuming that surrogates who are not on state assistance don’t have any financial difficulty underestimates how economic incentives could play a role in surrogates’ decisions to provide their wombs. nicole goes on to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. explain that the surrogates can’t have more than “two c-sections and six pregnancies; 44 is the cutoff age, and the fertility clinics are also at work to review all their medical records to make sure their previous pregnancies were no complications.” (note 75) these quantitative prerequisites are insufficient to determine whether a female is in good physical and mental condition to become a surrogate, not to mention that many women suffer from medical issues and psychological depression or other complicated emotions after surrogate pregnancies. to certain extent, the documentary does not convincingly elicit the reasons which explain surrogacy’s prevailing popularity and its ripe development in boise. in another interview with npr news, nicole williamson stated that boise tends to be “active and outdoorsy” (note 76) and promotes a healthy lifestyle, which she thinks partly explains surrogacy’s popularity in boise. however, it’s worth noting that the fertility industry, indeed, values healthy women, not that women become surrogates because they are “outdoorsy.” therefore, there’s still the concern for financial disparity that lies between the surrogates and the intended parents which can result in easier exploitation in boise. hence, exploitation is still highly possible even though the film seems to downplay the exploitative nature of surrogacy. based on the comments found under articles about made in boise, the public reacts with concerns and criticisms over the practice of surrogacy. jennifer lahl, founder and president of the center for bioethics and culture network commented on a boise state public radio post with the following: “woman. mother. ‘gestational carrier’ is dehumanizing and offensive to women. how many of these women would do this for no money (like an organ donor)? money motivates and if it is removed many of these women who you say ‘just want to help someone’ won’t help someone for free.” in addition, under pbs’s independent lens, one user remarked that made in boise is “the untold story of the ‘volunteer handmaidens’?!” these comments from public viewers on different websites, therefore, powerfully manifest the film does not straightforwardly address general concerns remained for surrogacy and even expose other potential risks attached to such a practice. although the film puts much weight on depicting male intended parties—two male single parents and one gay couple—as filmmaker beth aala advertises made in boise with the headline “an inside look at the lives of women who are carrying babies as surrogates for gay couples, single men and infertile couples,” discussion about the intersection of gay men, single men, and surrogates does not dominate the documentary’s discourses. only one of the eleven sources briefly touch on the disputes between feminist and lgbt advocates over surrogacy. surprisingly, the gender perspective as a determining feature of the film is barely brought up in conversation despite scholars’ different standpoints on gender power imbalance. limited attention has been diverted towards examining the critical relationship of men looking for surrogates as a means to have children and build families. besides, whether such reproductive liberation for men is achieved at the expense of systematic oppression of women is another pressing question that demands further research. over the past five years, media exposure of gay men in search of surrogacy services has been on the rise, but there’s a lack of public response to this new trend, specifically how gender identities can tremendously impact the power dynamics of surrogacy. partly due www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. to the overwhelming positivity that media attempts to implant into surrogacy to draw more intended parents into the market and due to the equally massive oppositional voices that denounce third party’s exploitation of surrogate, gender imbalance involuntarily becomes less vital for people to spot and then scrutinize. the one source that introduces the topic of gay men and surrogacy is an interview by pbs’s idaho public television which featured producer beth aala and nicole williamson. the followings are their conversations: “a lot of the intended parents are gay men. has that been a change since you first started, or do you think that’s also a reason for the growth of surrogacy because now gay marriage is legal?” “i would say the majority of my non-traditional couples are from other countries where they can’t have a surrogate. i don’t know if the marriage piece has increased…” “because there are so many gay couples wanting surrogacy now, does that make it more controversial especially in a potentially more conservative state like idaho?” “at the beginning of filming, before marriage equality, there were a lot of states that were prohibitive to using a surrogate if you were a gay couple: you have to be married, you have to be heterosexual. and once that passed, i do think that it had an impact, and certainly worldwide, people come here because there is law here in place for civil protection.” (note 77) again, by utilizing a helping gay couple narrative framework, made in boise helps to counter the forces that thwart homosexual relationships from meeting the normalized standards of society. when the interviewer critically raises concerns over the increasing population of gay couples wanting surrogacy, the conversation immediately deflects to civil and social issues, perfectly according with popular activism that emphasizes equal treatments of interest groups regardless of their sexual orientation. therefore, in the case of surrogacy, the tendency to focus on the grievances of gay couples that align with current social movements easily submerges the authentic narratives of surrogate and obscures the potential damages generated from disproportional gender relationships. 4. discussion as society becomes increasingly engaged in genetic engineering and biotechnology, reproduction has evolved to encompass political and legal disputes that require more scholars, legislators, and activists today to examine the fundamental ethical questions the surrogacy industry faces. from traditional surrogacy to gestational surrogacy, technological improvement in surrogacy eliminates intended parents’ concern for genetic ties, contributing to surrogacy’s growing popularity in the united states. even though proponents and opponents of surrogacy had argued extensively since the baby m case, after gestational surrogacy, their intensity waned. since surrogacy is indeed a hugely profitable industry, there’s a surge in the number of clinics that are looking for surrogates and providing the service, and popular media follows suit to portray surrogacy with overwhelming positivity in order to attract more intended parents. to keep up the demand, the industry employs specific narrative frameworks to hire potential surrogates. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. portrayal of the “surrogate mother” in made in boise, therefore, provides an opportunity to explore the dominant concepts of agency, exploitation, and emerging gender issues when gay and single male parents also become a huge part of the industry. made in boise as a case study demonstrates that the surrogate’s does have a dual identity instead of the only one presented by the media. she is simultaneously perceived to be bestowed with the capacity for agency, shattering the normative heterosexual family norms and enabling new possibilities for bearing children, as well as to be susceptible to the coercion, either by financial imperatives or by emotional persuasion of altruism that takes advantage of womanhood and motherhood. the surrogate’s ambiguous identity, hence, can interfere with her decision-making process of becoming a surrogate. the dominant narrative of altruism in helping gay partners to build family also involuntarily ignores how gender imbalance that could pose a threat to the surrogates. even in a political setting of legalizing surrogacy, gay men and single male parents are frequently brought up, downplaying potentiality of exploitation. this is not to say that every single narrative of gay couples and single men is counterproductive, but rather a call to attention that there’s been a lack of discussion of the potentially negative consequences of a dominating altruistic narrative framework which has already permeated our society. similar pattern found in new york state’s surrogacy bill in 2019 signifies that the same narrative framework is used in circumstances which involve legal efforts, and this new trend warrants serious attention from scholars and the general public, especially when the practice is permitted in 47 states but laws regulating surrogacy are limited and equivocal. the producer of made in boise claims to showcase the most authentic stories of the surrogates who are selfless enough to provide help for gay men, single men, and infertile couples, but is the documentary filmed in a specific narrative that compels surrogates to follow the exact framework of telling their stories? are there possibilities for a variety of narratives to exist, thus diminishing the potential of coercion and exploitation and truly allowing the surrogates to utter their stories? should surrogacy ever include financial compensation, or should it be purely voluntary to prevent financial imperatives that unknowingly impel women to become surrogates regardless of whether their physical and psychological conditions are suitable for the task? what are some precautions that legislators can take, and activists can inform the public to minimize gender imbalances when surrogacy is and most likely will remain legal in more than 40 states? these are questions that still need careful consideration before giving a conclusive and responsible answer. references aala, b., & nicole, w. 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(2020). surrogate pregnancy battle pits progressives against feminists. the new york times. retrieved july 22, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/surrogate-pregnancy-law-ny.html williamson, n. (2020). documenting surrogacy in “made in boise”. interview by lulu garcia-navarro. new jersey public radio. retrieved august 7, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2019/10/27/773817341/documenting-surrogacy-in-made-in-boise notes note 1. kiran perkins et al., trends and outcomes of gestational surrogacy in the united states (n.p.: 2016). note 2. alex finkelstein et al., surrogacy law and policy in the u.s.: a national conversation informed by global lawmaking (new york: columbia, 2016), 9. note 3. matter of baby m., 537 a.2d 1227 (n.j. 1988). court listener. last modified february 3, 1998. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1956465/matter-of-baby-m/. note 4. elizabeth scott, surrogacy and the politics of commodification (n.p.: duke, 2009), 120-121. note 5. michael sandel, justice: what’s the right thing to do? (new york: farrar, straus and giroux, 2009), 101. note 6. “art and gestational carriers,” centers for disease control and prevention, last modified august 5, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/art/key-findings/gestational-carriers.html. note 7. vivian wang, surrogate pregnancy battle progressives against feminists, the new york times, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/surrogate-pregnancy-law-ny.html. note 8. “made in boise.” pbs independent lens. last modified october 28, 2019. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. note 9. “made in boise.” pbs independent lens. note 10. nadja-christina schneider, crossmedia flows of documentary images and the transnational communicative figuration surrounding gestational surrogacy in india (n.p.: sage journal, 2019), 1. note 11. schneider, crossmedia flows, 1-2. note 12. karen hvidtfeldt, documentaries on transnational surrogacy in india: questions of privilege, respectability, and kinship (n.p.: rowman & littlefield international, 2016), 216. note 13. susan markens, surrogate motherhood and the politics of reproduction (n.p.: university of california press, 2007), 85-86. note 14. ibid., 86. note 15. ibid., 80. note 16. waltraud maierhofer, indian womb—german baby: transnational gestational surrogacy in the film monsoon baby (iowa: university of iowa, 2014), 16. note 17. ibid., 16. note 18. maierhofer, indian womb, 16. note 19. samuel sessions, made in india: a film about surrogacy (n.p.: books and media reviews, 2012), 2. note 20. ibid., 1. note 21. ibid., 2. note 22. sessions, made in india, 2. note 23.hillary berk, the legalization of emotion: managing risk by managing feelings in contracts for surrogate labor (n.p.: wiley, 2015), 31. note 24. ibid., 31. note 25. laura harrison, brown bodies, white babies: the politics of cross-racial surrogacy (new york: nyu press, 2016), 58. note 26. harrison, brown bodies, 58. note 27. ibid., 55. note 28. ibid., 56. note 29. ann crittenden, the price of motherhood: why the most important job in the world is still the least valued (new york: henry holt and company, 2001), 3-4. note 30. harrison, brown bodies, 56. note 31. ibid., 57. note 32. harrison, brown bodies, 57. note 33. sophie lewis, full surrogacy now: feminism against family (london: verso, 2019). note 34. lewis, full surrogacy now. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2951-full-surrogacy-now note 35. shireen kashmeri, unraveling surrogacy in ontario, canada: an ethnographic inquiry of surrogacy contracts, parentage laws and gay fatherhood (n.p.: vdm verlag, 2009). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. note 36. gillian goslinga-roy, body boundaries, fiction of the female self: an ethnographic perspective on power, feminism, and the reproductive technologies (maryland: feminist studies, 2000), 119. note 37. charis thompsen, making parents: the ontological choreography of reproductive technologies (cambridge, ma: massachusetts institute of technology, 2005), 85. note 38. ann fisher, a narrative inquiry: how surrogate mothers make meaning of the gestational surrogacy experience (n.p.: university of victoria, 1998), 148-149. note 39. fisher, a narrative inquiry, 133-146. note 40. sarah-vaughan brakman andsally j. scholz, adoption, art, and a re-conception of the maternal body: toward embodied maternity (wiley online library, 2009), abstract. note 41. sheela saravanan, transnational surrogacy and objectification of gestational mothers (economic and political weekly, 2010), 26-27. note 42. ibid., 28. note 43. ibid., 28. note 44. saravanan, transnational surrogacy, 28. note 45. dorothy roberts, why baby markets aren't free (uc irvine law review, 2017), 612. note 46. goslinga-roy, body boundaries, 135-136. note 47. goslinga-roy, body boundaries, 136. note 48. roberts,why baby markets aren't free, 613. note 49. amanda siegenthaler, the value of children to lesbian and non-lesbian mothers (journal of homosexuality, 2000), abstract. note 50. ibid., 78. note 51. abbie goldberg et al., why parenthood, and why now? gay men's motivations for pursuing parenthood (wiley: national council on family relations, 2012), 157. note 52. goldberg et al., why parenthood, and why now?, 160. note 53. ibid., 159. note 54. ibid., 169-170. note 55. harrison, brown bodies, 83. note 56. ibid., 83. note 57. harrison, brown bodies, 85. note 58. ibid., 85. note 59. ibid., 86. note 60. harrison, brown bodies, 85. note61.surrogacy laws, the surrogacy experience, accessed august 10, 2020. https://www.thesurrogacyexperience.com/u-s-surrogacy-law-by-state.html. note 62. deni hawkins, nearly 80,000 people moved to idaho in 2018, here's where they came from, idaho news, accessed august 10, 2020. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. https://idahonews.com/news/local/nearly-80000-people-moved-to-idaho-in-2018-heres-where-the y-came-from. note 63. ana brennan, the surrogacy capital of the us: boise's unfortunate reputation (society of st. sebastian, 2019), https://www.societyofstsebastian.org/copy-of-sebastian-s-point-65. note 64. brennan, the surrogacy capital of the us. note 65. shirah matsuzawa, 'our dream brought us to boise': why surrogacy is bringing people from around the world to idaho (ktvb 7, 2019). note 66. brennan, the surrogacy capital of the us. note 67. harrison, brown bodies. note 68. harrison, brown bodies, 87. note 69. gemma gaudette, a look at surrogacy in idaho (boise state public radio, 2018), https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/post/look-surrogacy-idaho#stream/0. note 70. jacqui tapp, this film sheds human light on the surrogacy boom in the u.s.—specifically, in boise, idaho (motherly, 2019), https://www.mother.ly/surrogacy-movie-made-in-boise. note 71. madison medeiros, why this mom chose to be a surrogate—4 times (she knows, 2019), https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/2121897/why-become-a-surrogate/. note 72. a rare inside look at surrogacy: made in boise on pbs, love & kindness surrogacy, https://loveandkindnesssurrogacy.com/en/blog/parents/a-rare-inside-look-at-surrogacy-made-in-bo ise-on-pbs/. note 73. matsuzawa, “our dream brought us to boise” (ktvb 7, 2019). note 74. ellen glazer, egg donation and surrogacy: facts, insights and opinions about egg donors, surrogates, and intended parents (northeast assisted fertility group, 2019), https://www.assistedfertility.com/blog/2019/10/12/made-boise-documentary-review/. note 75. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/27/773817341/documenting-surrogacy-in-made-in-boise note 76. same as 69. note 77. beth aala and nicole williamson, made in boise, interview by marcia franklin, public broadcasting service, 2019. https://www.pbs.org/video/made-in-boise-ynhhag/. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 16 original paper evaluating the roles and challenges of government in social protection for immigrants in sweden: a qualitative analysis shanjeeda sultana khanam1* &md. mokter ali2 1 corresponding author, teacher at futuraskolan international school, stockholm, sweden e-mail: khanams75@yahoo.com 2 assistant professor, department of sociology and social work, faculty of arts and social sciences, gono bishwabidyalay (university), mirzanagar, savar, dhaka-1344, bangladesh e-mail: dipugb@gmail.com received: june 19, 2025 accepted: august 22, 2025 online published: september 11, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p16 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p16 abstract people are constantly migrating in modern times, either permanently or temporarily, to reside in new regions. sweden has long been a popular destination for immigrants seeking better prospects for its extensive welfare state. however, the government and society at large face a number of challenges in integrating immigrants into sweden's social protection system. the functions and challenges the swedish government faces in offering immigrants equitable social protection are examined in this study, with a focus on implementation tactics and societal dynamics. qualitative research methods were applied using primary data sources through thirteen interviews between migrants and government service providers. by analyzing the data, it can be said that through the execution of constitutional principles, the swedish government should follow a comprehensive, inclusive approach to sweden's immigrant communities, revising existing support programs and regular monitoring of social protection measures to ensure long-term economic benefits. keywords immigrants, social protection, integration, sweden, government 1. introduction sweden is now one of the top destinations in europe for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers due to immigration, which has become a distinguishing feature of the country's cultural and demographic evolution. for people looking for better living conditions, economic opportunity, or safety from violence, sweden is a popular destination due to its robust economy, human rights commitment, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 17 large social welfare system. sweden's foreign-born population has grown dramatically over the last 20 years, more than doubling from 2000 to 2022, when 2.14 million of the country's 10.61 million citizens were foreign-born. that's roughly more than 20 percent. the percentage increases to 26% if a more inclusive definition is applied, encompassing those who were born in sweden but have two parents who are foreign-born (hedlund, 2024). in general, sweden is well-known for its extensive welfare system and has long maintained the values of equality and universal access to social protection. the swedish welfare state, often referred to as the social democratic model, is a social policy based on equality-promoting principles and a strategy to include the middle class in the social protection system. it combines universal benefits for residents and earnings-related entitlements for the economically active population (ahlén & palme, 2020). besides, in sweden, recent immigration had a negative impact on views toward universal spending, suggesting that ethnic heterogeneity has a negative impact on support for social welfare spending (eger, 2010). the growing diversity caused by immigration has made it more difficult for the swedish government to guarantee that everyone, especially immigrants, receives services in an efficient and equal manner. the way that structures and policies of the government change to accommodate a changing population while protecting the integrity of sweden's welfare state is called into question by this complexity. economic, social, and administrative complexity make it difficult for the swedish government to provide social protection for immigrants. language hurdles, unrecognized credentials, and mismatched talents are just a few of the obstacles that immigrants frequently encounter; they might result in unemployment and a greater need on welfare payments. attempts to develop inclusive policies are hampered by housing constraints and societal discussions regarding national identity and cultural integration. other difficulties include administrative hold-ups and inefficiency in social services and asylum claim processing. so, it is essential for the welfare state of the swedish government to strike a balance between immediate humanitarian demands and long-term financial viability. the qualitative research method is applied where the main aim of this study is to explore the role and challenges of the swedish government in providing social protection to immigrants. specifically, the main research question is how does the government make decisions about organizing immigrants, and what challenges does the government face in providing them with social protection. this study focuses on analyzing decision-making processes, reviewing the practical and structural obstacles that the government faces, and determining the broader impact of these issues on immigrants and society. again, this also helps to find out the services gap needs and demands of immigrants in sweden. the recommendations suggest a comprehensive and inclusive approach to addressing the unique needs of immigrant communities in sweden. the government should revise existing support programs to better meet these needs. economic integration is crucial for social protection, with collaboration with companies to establish apprenticeships, vocational training programs, and job routes for immigrants. adequate funding is necessary for these initiatives, considering the long-term economic benefits of well-integrated immigrant populations. cultural integration is also essential. after all regular www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 monitoring and evaluation of social protection measures can help identify gaps and make necessary revisions. 2. literature review the three main concepts of the study are: immigrants, social protection under government intervention, and roles & challenges. these fundamental concepts have aided in the development of this study as well as in relating to theories, evaluating the results, and having discussions. zolberg defines immigrant as the people who move as a result of larger political, social, and economic changes are known as immigrants, highlighting migration as a structural process (zolberg, 1989). according to organization for economic co-operation and development (oecd), an individual who was born outside of their country of citizenship and currently resides in the host nation is an immigrant (oecd, international migration outlook 2017, 2017). when immigrants are separated from their families of origin, they are less likely to adjust to their new situation than those who have close family ties or who have family members with them (crush & dodson, 2010). on the other hand, social protection is a framework for lowering vulnerability and poverty through government initiatives including unemployment insurance, healthcare, and cash transfers (barrientos & hulme, 2009). devereux and sabates-wheeler propose a transformative approach to social protection, extending beyond safety nets to address structural inequalities (devereux & sabates-wheeler, 2004). social protection is defined by the international labour organization (ilo) as policies aimed at guaranteeing healthcare access and income security, especially for vulnerable groups, as a fundamental right. the ilo's commitment to sustainable development and human rights places a strong emphasis on the role that government action plays in creating universal social protection programs (ilo, 2017). ian gough and geoff woods analyze the global government's role in social protection, highlighting the need to balance economic efficiency with social equity (gough & woods, 2004). the swedish government has made it clear that everyone should have equal rights, duties, and opportunities in regards to discrimination and segregation, regardless of the ethnic or cultural background of immigrants (cetrez, demarinis, pettersson, & shakra, 2020). in one report, united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) examines that, sweden's well-established asylum system, dedication to resettlement, and integration initiatives have made a substantial contribution to global vulnerable immigrants’ protection. it advocates for the empowerment of displaced women and girls and is a powerful voice for solidarity and just eu refugee policies. sweden is commended by unhcr for its social protection and humanitarian leadership (unhcr, 2022). sweden lacks a single regulation for immigrants' integration into society and the labor market. since the 1970s, various strategies have been implemented, including the ministry of integration and gender equality in 2007 and the ministry of labor in 2014. the integration of immigrants in sweden is governed by a number of laws and regulations, including the act on the responsibility of measures for the introduction of certain newcomers (cetrez, demarinis, pettersson, & shakra, 2020). regardless of their country of origin, immigrants in sweden are granted universal social benefits, such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 as housing, healthcare, education, and income support, after they are permitted residence (esping-andersen, 1990). numerous integration initiatives are offered by the swedish government, including civic orientation programs, vocational training, and swedish language instruction. these are designed to give immigrants the skills they need to enter the workforce and fit in with society (andersson joona, wennemo lanninger, & sundström, 2016). swedish social insurance agency (försäkringskassan) provides pensions and unemployment insurance are available to immigrants once they meet certain residency and work requirements (försäkringskassan). in spite of those, immigration has put more strain on sweden's social system, especially after the 2015 refugee crisis, which has resulted in lengthier wait times for integration, housing, and medical care (oecd, social protection in sweden, 2020). sweden's welfare system faces financial challenges due to the increasing number of immigrants, some of whom take longer to contribute due to unemployment or low wages (lindbeck, 1997). public opposition to high immigration levels has led to political pressure to restrict welfare benefits for immigrants, complicating the government's ability to maintain equitable social protection policies (dahlström & esaiasson, 2013). one report shows that the swedish government is preparing a study on migration costs and benefits, focusing on integrating large numbers of illiterate adults with children, a challenge compared to previous waves. it also writes that even the social democratic party (which always supports immigrants) has now released a report acknowledging that the country is in crisis as a result of two decades of failing integration and uncontrolled immigration (hedlund, 2024). from the overall discussion, it is evident that the swedish government is making every effort to offer immigrants social security, despite a number of issues with the policy's implementation and some flaws. these government initiatives are being questioned and partly impeded. this discussion also helps to find the gap between the lack of services and the needs of immigrants in sweden. 3. theoretical frameworks sir william beveridge, known as the "father of the welfare state," introduced a comprehensive welfare state in 1942, based on universalism, providing coverage for all citizens. a welfare state uses organized power to modify market forces by guaranteeing minimum income, narrowing insecurity by allowing individuals to meet social contingencies like sickness, old age, and unemployment, and offering the best standards of social services to all citizens, regardless of status or class (andersen, 20121). a welfare state with open borders could become a haven for poor immigrants, putting a fiscal burden on the state, leading to less-generous benefits or restricted immigration (razin, sadka, & suwankiri, 2011). increasing the rights and accommodating for migrants can exacerbate the sustainability of a large welfare state (banting & kymlicka, 2006). sweden's postwar open borders and migratory trends have led to one of europe's largest foreign-born populations and the seventh-largest proportion of refugees globally. even, introduced dual citizenship benefits for immigrants who have lived in sweden for five consecutive years, although it did not impose any language requirements or citizenship tests. in general, immigrants are given the same social and economic rights as swedish employees (cantrell, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 on the other hand, integration theory explores how immigrants adapt to new societies, focusing on the balance between cultural identity preservation and participation in the host country's social, economic, and political life. john berry emphasizes the significance of social protection in promoting immigrant inclusion, balancing cultural identity with societal participation, by addressing fundamental needs like housing, healthcare, education, and employment (berry, 1997). in the case of sweden, welfare state theory and integration theory are crucial in ensuring immigrant inclusion and social cohesion. these theories highlight the challenges of maintaining a universal welfare state amid growing immigration. the success of integration depends on the welfare state's ability to adapt policies and resources to meet diverse needs and foster mutual acceptance. therefore, these two theories are important for this study to explore the research question and the objectives. 4. objectives and research question the main objective of the study was to understand the role and challenges of government in social protection for immigrants in sweden. the main research question was: how does the government make decisions about organizing immigrants, and what challenges does the government face in providing them with social protection? the specific objectives of the study were to: 1) understand the professional standards that government-sponsored social protection services follow while coordinating with immigrants. 2) to explore the present scenario of social protection for immigration in sweden. 3) to find out the services gap needs and demands of immigrants in sweden. 5. research methodology 5.1 study area and location this study was conducted in two well-known cities (stockholm and malmö) of sweden. stockholm, sweden's capital and largest urban area, is home to 27% of its population, primarily immigrants, with a history of receiving refugees from war zones. with a municipal population of 357,377 in 2022. malmö is the sixth-largest city in the nordic area and the third-largest city in sweden, behind stockholm and gothenburg. approximately one-third of malmö's population was immigrants (visit sweden, 2025). the nation's overall percentage of foreign-born citizens has risen. compared to the rest of the country, the large cities have a higher proportion of foreign-born residents. 5.2 data collection methods and instruments certain data collection techniques, including questionnaires and interviews, are likely more recognizable to many readers than others (bryman, 2016). in this research, two different kinds of questionnaires were used in the study, which was directed by the qualitative method. one was an interview with immigrant’s respondents, and the other was govt. service providers. the interview questionnaire was divided into various sections, and solely asked descriptive or opinion-based questions. the goal of both interviews was to examine the government's social protection program in order to gauge the current state of affairs and the complexity of immigrants in sweden. for ease of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 comprehension, the questionnaire was developed in english. prior to its ultimate use, the questionnaire underwent pre-testing to assess its validity and usefulness. reports from numerous national and international organizations as well as national and international periodicals were the sources of secondary level data. 5.3 sampling non-probability purposive sampling was utilized in this study to gather qualitative data through interviews. this study was completed with only thirteen samples for the lockdown situation (covid-19), seven from malmö and six from stockholm. selection criteria were based on swedish immigration laws, which stipulate that individuals with work permits and related documentation are eligible for residency within four years and can acquire swedish citizenship within 5-10 years. therefore, respondents were chosen from those who had legally lived in sweden at list 5 years. this demographic provided valuable insights into social protection mechanisms for immigrants. data collection was conducted in two phases during 2022. in the first half of the study period, data were gathered from malmö, and the process concluded in march with data collection from stockholm. the immigrant participant comprised four males (two from each city) and five females (three from malmö and two from stockholm). other participants of four (two male and two female) government service providers were those who defined the government's function and difficulties. there were two from malmö and two from stockholm. the purposive approach ensured that respondents' profiles aligned with the study's objectives, providing relevant and meaningful data. 5.4 data analysis techniques interviews are a qualitative research technique that entails in-depth discussions with individuals who possess specialized information on a subject. so, with the participants' permission, these interviews were audio recorded utilizing an encrypted recording device. conversely, the interviews, including open-ended questions, were taken by note. each interview took between 60 and 70 minutes. despite taking a lot of effort, this allowed for a deeper understanding of the data. to ensure secrecy, no outside help was requested for data processing. each interview's transcriptions were kept in a different file. here, the coding scheme was as follows: for instance, five malmö-based respondents (immigrants) were assigned the codes m001, m002, m003, m004, and m005. similarly, the codes for stockholm respondents were s001, s002, s003, and s004. among the four government service providers, stockholm was labeled as gs01 and gs02, whereas malmö was coded as gm01 and gm02. 5.5 ethical considerations questions about the treatment of study participants who serve as subjects or informants are central to the field of research ethics. it may seem obvious that these individuals should have the best protection available from any harm or wrong that may arise from their involvement in research (swedish research council, d. e., 2017). in this research participants gave their specific verbal and written agreement in a standard manner after being fully informed of the study's goals, and i placed a high priority on protecting their privacy and confidentiality as well as their opinions. in reporting the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 22 statistics, only particular ids and gender are mentioned in order to protect participant identities. we took steps to guarantee that the results are presented in a transparent manner during the reporting and publication process, paying special attention to preventing harm to any parties involved in the study process. overall, this research took full care to maintain research ethics. 6. results the results of the role and challenges of the swedish government in social protection for immigrants reveal a complex interaction of its progressive welfare state principles with the pragmatic problems of how these principles are implemented. the following themes are used to discuss the results: roles and challenges pertaining to the swedish government social assistance program for immigrants. 6.1 policy development and implementation the swedish government is actively engaged in creating inclusive policies that give immigrants access to housing, financial support, healthcare, and education. and to do this, the first thing the swedish government does is to shelter these vulnerable immigrants in asylum camps. one of the respondents narrated the following: my family and i didn't have a place to stay when we first arrived. we settled into the camp primarily. some government service provider groups, however, had made arrangements for our safe housing after a few days. we started our stay there by paying the bare minimum in rent." (id: m002). immediately, the municipalities have been tasked by the swedish migration board with building temporary housing for immigrants from several war-torn nations. the local municipality provides them loans so that they can arrange accommodation to stay and meet primary expenses. simultaneously, the government makes a list of immigrants and submits it to migrationsverket (the swedish migration agency) in order to secure their initial residence permit or visa in sweden. the swedish government first issues lma cards to these immigrants as evidence of residency. the card certifies that the individual is an asylum applicant and may be in sweden while awaiting a decision, even though it is not an identity card (migrationsverket, 2025). one of the government service providers said: we generally concern about how soon new immigrants in sweden get their lma cards. (id: gs01). another government service provider said: the lma card is a plastic card bearing the immigrant's photo proving they are applying for asylum. (id: gm02). 6.2 integration programs the swedish government offers specialized programs to help immigrants gain socioeconomic skills, including labor market integration and swedish language instruction. immigrants with swedish personal numbers must register with the swedish public employment service (arbetsformedlingen) for priority jobs, training, and allowances. swedish fluency is a prerequisite for employment, and the government offers free swedish for immigrants (sfi) language classes for rapid language acquisition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 schools are also established to educate immigrant children in their native tongue, with some communes having other language schools, such as arabic or english-language schools. one person said, without a swedish personal number, i was unable to access sfi. however, i was able to enroll in the sfi sessions and develop my fluency in swedish after i eventually obtained my personal number (id s003). in this regard, government service providers stated: we make every effort to provide new immigrants with swedish personal numbers as soon as possible. however, because to the large number of candidates, there are occasionally minor delays (id: gm02). sfi classes require a swedish personal number and help immigrants get employment. (id: gs02). 6.3 protections under law to protect immigrant rights and guarantee equitable access to social services, the government upholds anti-discrimination laws and regulations. many of these immigrants have suffered serious violations of their human rights. according to a government service provider, our government strives to ensure that all immigrants enjoy all civil rights equally with native citizens (id: gs01). but since arriving in sweden, they have been able to use all the benefits of their citizenship. the majority of respondents said that they are grateful to be here. sweden's strong human rights foundation ensures equal rights and legal assistance for all citizens, regardless of race or ethnicity. most immigrants from muslim-majority countries face religious obstacles and harassment, leading to trauma. however, after arriving in sweden, experts provide motivational training to help traumatized immigrants heal and start a new life. another government service providers affirmed, many immigrants discover new purpose and learn to live again, after receiving motivational training from swedish government social services programs. (id: gm02) 6.4 long-term planning replacing short-term crisis management with long-term integration strategies that tackle structural injustices. the swedish government brings these immigrants into long-term facilities to address systemic inequities by replacing short-term crisis management with long-term integration strategies. so that, these immigrants are granted a permanent residence permit after completing certain procedures and remaining in sweden for five years without engaging in any offensive behavior. it should be noted here that some of the respondents had a swedish passport before to the year of five. according to most of the immigrants’ responses, the migration process in sweden is easier than in other countries, and the swedish government helps a lot to get resident permits. government service providers assured, the swedish government is more active in granting residency permits compared to other nations, but due to the high number of immigrants, final decisions can take longer (id: gm01). immigrants must return the lma cards to migrationsverket once they have obtained a swedish passport and a permanent resident permit. (id: gm02) 6.5 integration challenges www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 moving to a new country can present many difficulties for migrants, especially when it comes to adjusting to the language, culture, and way of life of the new country. in sweden, learning swedish is frequently required in order to get employment, which might be a difficult undertaking for certain immigrants. this situation often leads to financial challenges, which increases the pressure on immigrants and their families. one respondent stated, i didn't even know swedish, so i couldn't even handle a job or participate in any manual labor. i didn't have much financial means when i first came to sweden from my war-torn country. (id: m005). in difficult circumstances, some people may resort to illegal activities to make a living. host countries should address this problem by enacting flexible laws that enable immigrants to find acceptable jobs while also trying to improve their language skills. immigrants with children face challenges in integrating into the educational system due to cultural differences, bullying, linguistic difficulties, and ostracization, while parents struggle to support their children academically due to limited understanding. as, sweden is very strict about their language education, so both immigrants and the government face many problems. in this case, govt. service providers said, it is true that many immigrants do not obtain employment despite possessing the necessary qualifications or abilities due to language barriers. (id: gs02) the language barrier is one of the biggest challenges. without being able to communicate in the language of their new nation, migrants find it difficult to find work in any industry, even those that could normally hire them. (id: gs01) 6.6 financial instability financial difficulties might result from a lack of employment possibilities, low pay, and excessive living expenses. moreover, according to the new rules of the swedish government since june last year, the minimum monthly salary for an immigrant to get a work permit should be 28,480 swedish kronor. whereas previously it was 13,000 swedish kronor per month. the least uneducated or semi-educated immigrants are the ones who are affected the most. because they usually do industrial or labor-intensive jobs. and the monthly income in these jobs is not that high. as a result, they are facing a financial crisis, and on the other hand, their stay in sweden is also becoming increasingly uncertain. this new initiative taken by the swedish government has become one of the social protection challenges for immigrants. this financial uncertainty affects their ability to sustain themselves, making it more difficult for them to invest in the local economy. one responder stated, i work as a laborer because i am not much educated. furthermore, the monthly wages of this kind of worker are extremely low. it would be quite challenging to obtain a work permit if i were to demonstrate a monthly wage of more than 13,000 kronor. i might even have to leave sweden.(id: m003) 6.7 anti-discrimination policies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 anti-discrimination laws are crucial for creating an inclusive society for immigrants, ensuring equal opportunities in social protection, employment, and housing, and are exemplified by sweden's discrimination act, which rejects racism and xenophobia. a government official stated that, the swedish government has zero tolerance for racism, so it is our responsibility to make sure that these rules are carefully upheld. however, it is true that we hardly ever hear of unexpected occurrences (id: gs02). however, racism still exists in a few. while speaking with several responders, a few of the immigrants revealed some of their experiences in this area. the swedish government can take the required steps to increase public awareness of racism and xenophobia. but in practice, very few instances show that the government takes action to address these problems. they are able to increase awareness and awareness of these issues by launching campaigns. one immigrant said, sometimes we face some discrimination either. regardless of an immigrant's nationality or immigration status, the swedish government must ensure that they have equal access to welfare benefits, healthcare, education and legal assistance (id: s001). 6.8 administrative barriers immigrants in sweden face administrative barriers such as long processing times for welfare applications and residence permit cards, which hinder access to social services, healthcare, employment, and education. these delays can be emotionally and financially taxing, and can also cause emotional pain and familial separation for those seeking settlements. these challenges pose significant challenges for the swedish government in social protection. two immigrant stated, i had to wait 18 months when i applied for a residence permit. i was consequently unable to visit my homeland for a considerable amount of time, even though my father was gravely ill there" (id: m001). the government should take necessary steps to eliminate this administrative complexity" was said by another immigrant (id: s002). 7. discussion sweden's welfare system is well known throughout the world for being inclusive and equitable, focusing on all aspects of society. the two aspects of government participation in social protection for immigrants in sweden are critically examined in this discussion: the functions it performs in guaranteeing fair access to welfare and the difficulties it encounters in upholding an inclusive and sustainable system. by discussing these aspects, this section draws attention to the difficulties in striking a balance between the particular requirements of immigrant communities and general welfare concepts. based on both theoretical and empirical data, this discussion examines the responsibilities and difficulties the swedish government faces in offering social support to immigrants. the swedish welfare state is individualistic, focusing on individual welfare rather than household. its social security model combines universal benefits for residents and earnings-related entitlements for economically active individuals. securing income and joint financing depends on high labor force www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 participation, employment rates, taxes, and social security contributions ( ahlén & palme, 2020). sweden's social-democratic welfare model prioritizes equality and universalism, but the strain from rising immigration challenges its resilience. the government extends benefits to legal immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees through policies like temporary housing and language training. sweden has all the characteristics that a welfare state should have, and the swedish government has always given immigrants all the same benefits as native people. in this regard, welfare theory is revealing an important aspect in our study. open borders and a welfare state like sweden can serve as a refuge for vulnerable immigrants ( razin, sadka, & suwankiri, 2011). sweden has a long history of migration, with germans from merchant trading communities being the largest immigrant group during the middle ages. in 2015, over 160,000 asylum seekers sought asylum, with an estimated 280 million international migrants in 2020 (si, 2022). sweden's approach to immigrant aid is still one of the most inclusive when compared to other eu countries. however, the government is under pressure to change its policies to conform to eu-wide migration rules, which do not always take sweden's particular economic and demographic circumstances into consideration. in this case unhcr report shows that sweden's asylum system, resettlement initiatives, and advocacy for displaced women and girls have significantly contributed to global vulnerable immigrants' protection and solidarity in eu refugee policies (unhcr, 2022). in sweden, in terms of social protection, social assistance (försjönningsstöd/ekonomomiskt bistånd) is one of the benefits that can be considered a minimum income scheme. social assistance is a right of all legal citizens to ensure a good standard of living. this benefit is administered by the municipalities. social assistance is a system of last resort (ahlén & palme, 2020). even, for immigrants who fulfill residency and job requirements, the swedish social insurance agency (försäkringskassan) provides unemployment insurance and pensions, which is one of the benefit for immigrants as social protection given by government. the first responsibility when a large number of people depart their home countries and seek asylum in sweden is to provide them with shelter and protection. mostly, municipalities are in charge of this. municipalities always keep an eye on changes under the direction of the swedish government. they are unable to sustain themselves when migrants flee their nations because of conflict or political instability. they are confronted with various financial obstacles in this scenario. they are therefore compensated by the swedish government through a number of non-governmental organizations (ngos) and social assistance agencies. on the other hand, these migrants also receive loans to assist with their living expenditures (khanam, 2022). moreover, the government plays a crucial role in promoting societal integration through programs like sfi, job matching services, and language skills training, aiming to transition immigrants from welfare dependency to active labor market participation. although labor market integration has been given a lot of attention by the swedish government and is the primary goal of its integration program, but sweden's welfare system is under structural and financial pressure. sweden's financial difficulties are due to the rising number of immigrants, some of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 27 whom are taking longer to contribute due to unemployment or low wages (lindbeck, 1997). moreover, inclusive welfare programs are more difficult to implement when there are policy gaps, such as the lack of assistance for undocumented immigrants. the function of the government is further complicated by societal opposition to immigration. the swedish parliament's temporary law, adopted in 2016, restricts asylum seekers' ability to obtain permanent residence permits. the previous government extended the legislation for two years beyond 2019, requiring work-related income and a maintenance requirement for family reunification. despite a decrease in asylum seekers since 2015, immigration concerns remain a significant political issue. even, new ruling party proposes policy restrictions on migrants' social benefits, including language and work-based requirements for parental insurance, social assistance, and guaranteed pension (ahlén & palme, 2020). while the large influx of immigrants is increasingly feeling the need for more social protection, these recent actions by the swedish government raise serious concerns about the advantageous social protections they have implemented for immigrants and also shows the services gap needs and demands of immigrants. when relocating to a new nation, immigrants may encounter financial challenges and language problems. swedish is difficult to learn. immigrants find it quite challenging to handle a work until they are proficient in swedish (khanam, 2022). although, the government has already launched numerous language-teaching efforts. however, the primary issue with these programs is that they frequently take a lot of time. this causes severe financial hardship for immigrants, which occasionally pushes them to turn to illegal means of assistance. host nations should assist immigrants in finding acceptable jobs by offering social service organizations in sweden and lenient legislation. the most worrying aspect is that even minor employment are now unavailable since the swedish government has recently placed a greater focus on language acquisition. despite their numerous credentials, even highly educated individuals struggle to manage successful careers only for language barrier. the swedish social protection system, which combines universal benefits and earnings entitlements, has evolved since 1990 due to market orientation, tax cuts, and changes in welfare programs. however, social security benefits have been deviating somewhat from the fundamentals of an all-encompassing model, where the middle class is likewise sufficiently protected by the social protection model. restricting the qualifying conditions for social insurance benefits (unemployment insurance, illness insurance) and further reducing their duration are other changes made to the swedish social security system (palme, 2017). most swedes believe that foreigners enrich sweden's cultural landscape (74%, 2022). however, they also perceive a need for immigrants to adapt to swedish culture and traditions. this contradiction can be seen as positivity towards foreign culture if it aligns with swedish values and traditions, or as enriching sweden with exotic food, music, or cultural expressions. however, a rigid view of what constitutes the dominant culture can also construct other cultures and people with foreign backgrounds as non-belonging to the nation and non-equals (groglop, ahmadi, & munobwa, 2023). although the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 28 swedish government admits that racism and xenophobia are not present, racism does nevertheless exist across numerous small fields. raising awareness can be achieved by government involvement, social work advocacy, and awareness campaigns (khanam, 2022). additionally, the participation of immigrants in the swedish workforce is praised for their essential contribution to the economy. however, some native swedes see them as a burden on the workplace and view their work negatively. immigrants can only have social welfare or citizenship if they demonstrate skills and productivity (groglop, ahmadi, & munobwa, 2023). in addition, the swedish government has revised its regulations since june of last year, requiring an immigrant to earn at least 28,480 swedish kronor per month in order to be eligible for a work permit. where it was 13,000 swedish kronor before. rumor has it that this sum will be raised even more. the new pay scale has already caused numerous issues for a large number of immigrants. sweden is losing a lot of workers, especially industrial workers or labor intensive job workers. now-a-days, swedish government is trying to encourage repatriation, so that the swedish migration agency or migrationsverket offers financial support for repatriation, allowing individuals to seek protection in sweden and move to their own country or another with the right to reside. each adult will receive sek 10,000, and each child under the age of 18 will receive sek 5,000. the most a family can get is sek 40,000 (migrationsverket, 2025). immigrants significantly enrich the economies, cultures and societies of host countries by filling labor market gaps, acquiring specialized skills, driving innovation, introducing diversity, balancing demographics, strengthening global connections and inspiring social growth through resilience and adaptability. sweden is also benefiting in many ways from these immigrants. but under a center-right coalition government lead by the sweden democrats party, the liberal utopia of sweden is enacting more stringent immigration laws. these include expanded deportation and repatriation programs, tougher regulations on family members joining immigrants, and more stringent asylum laws. additionally, the government hopes to significantly lower the number of low-skilled workers that relocate to sweden (ellyatt, 2024). in summary, the swedish government's strategy for providing social protection for immigrants is a prime example of its dedication to striking a balance between adaptation and universalism. even if there are still issues like public opposition, administrative hurdles, and financial limitations, sweden continues to be a global leader in inclusive welfare. for the welfare state to remain an integral component of social justice and sustainable economic growth, future changes must address these problems. by doing this, sweden may continue to be a leader in developing welfare systems that are resilient and egalitarian for a range of demographics. 8. limitations of the study the study has a number of shortcomings that could affect how comprehensive and applicable it is. the results of this qualitative study are unique to sweden and might not apply to other nations with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 29 dissimilar welfare systems. purposive sampling may induce bias in participant selection, and the small sample size, typical of qualitative research, may not adequately capture the diversity of experiences among immigrants. the interpretive character of thematic analysis raises the possibility of researcher bias since, despite the implementation of reflexivity measures, the researcher's perspective might still affect how the data is interpreted. participants may provide socially desirable answers rather than candid responses, particularly on sensitive topics like discrimination or political influence (braun & clarke, 2006). policies for social protection are complex and involve several agencies and governmental levels. an incomplete picture could result from simplifying this intricacy in the analysis. it's possible that some unofficial or non-governmental ways of helping immigrants aren't thoroughly investigated. participants with poor swedish or english competence may not be able to respond as fully or accurately due to language hurdles, including the possible need for translators. this limitation is particularly significant to research with individuals with varying cultural and language backgrounds. due to its temporal focus, the study only offers a moment in time, failing to capture the long-term changes in patterns or policy. participants' candor on touchy subjects like discrimination or political pressures may be restricted by ethical issues. furthermore, because the study may oversimplify the many facets of governmental duties, the complexity of social protection measures may lead to an inadequate image. legal and safety concerns may limit access to some participant groups, such as undocumented immigrants, which would limit the inclusion of underrepresented perspectives that are essential to the study's goals. participants' truthfulness on sensitive topics like political pressures or discrimination may be restricted by ethical issues. furthermore, the study might overgeneralize the complicated duties of the government, which could lead to an incomplete view of social protection measures. 9. conclusion and recommendations the study's conclusion emphasizes the importance of the swedish government's social protection role for immigrants as well as the major obstacles that come with carrying out this duty. although the inclusiveness of sweden's welfare system is well known, meeting the special requirements of immigrants has shown shortcomings in both its conception and execution. the government has attempted to develop policies that address the social protection needs of immigrants, but their successful implementation has been hampered by systemic inefficiencies, resource constraints, and sociopolitical opposition. the study also shows that there is a gap between the goals of these programs and what immigrants actually experience, that means the services gap needs and demands of immigrants in sweden, especially when it comes to integrating into swedish culture, overcoming linguistic and cultural difficulties, and obtaining welfare assistance. again, the discrepancy between the creation of policies and their actual execution is one of the main problems found. sweden's policies may not adequately address the unique difficulties experienced by immigrants, such as a lack of documents, complicated legal issues, or the requirement for specialized support systems, even if they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 30 frequently seek to offer universal assistance. although the existing institutional and structural frameworks are strong for the general public, the study emphasizes that they are not always adaptable enough to the particular needs of immigrant groups. this leads to unequal results, with immigrants frequently slipping through the cracks of a system that isn't fully prepared to meet their requirements.  the recommendations emphasize adopting a comprehensive and inclusive approach to addressing these issues. existing support programs by the government should be revised to better meet the unique needs of immigrant communities. while the government already has a number of initiatives in areas such as housing, access to healthcare, child support and employment assistance, more emphasis needs to be placed on these areas. the particular disadvantages of undocumented immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers need to be taken into account to ensure that they are not deprived of essential support services.  for social protection to be effective, economic integration is essential. the government ought to collaborate with companies to establish apprenticeships, vocational training programs, and job routes for immigrants. by recognizing and certifying foreign credentials, competent immigrants can more promptly enter the workforce, minimizing underemployment and maximizing their potential contributions.  adequate funding is necessary to ensure the success of initiatives targeting immigrants. the government must allot enough funds to finance these programs. the long-term economic advantages of well-integrated immigrant populations, such as their contributions to the labor force and local economies, should be considered when creating budgets.  for social protection programs to be successful in the long run, cultural integration is essential. immigrants will benefit from easier integration into the workforce and society if free and easily available language training programs are expanded. cultural competence training should be provided to public sector workers and service providers to guarantee courteous and sympathetic interactions with immigrants, lowering the possibility of prejudice or miscommunication. furthermore, establishing community areas for cultural interchange helps promote acceptance and understanding between immigrants and the general public.  the intricacy of sweden's social welfare system may discourage foreigners from applying for assistance. immigrants will find it simpler to comprehend and utilize the benefits that are available to them if administrative processes are made simpler, documentation requirements are decreased, and bilingual resources are made available. efficiency and accessibility can also be improved by establishing "one-stop" service centers that house several services under one roof.  social protection measures must be regularly monitored and evaluated in order identify gaps, evaluate their efficacy, and make any required revisions. both quantifiable metrics, such employment rates and service uptake, as well as qualitative insights from immigrants' actual experiences should be included in data gathering and analysis. investing in longitudinal research can yield important insights into how policies and programs will perform over the long run. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 31  by implementing these all-encompassing policies, sweden may improve the quality of its social protection system for immigrant communities and bring its policies into line with the inclusion and equity tenets that form the foundation of its welfare state. this will help the country's overall social and economic cohesiveness in addition to helping immigrants. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank dr. brigitte pircher, assistant professor at linnaeus university (lnu), for her assistance and insightful criticism during the course of the study. despite their hectic schedules, we appreciate the time and voluntary contributions of our research participants. we would like to express our appreciation to swedish government service providers and immigrants who made it possible to reach the appropriate respondents and gather study data. it is noted, we occasionally applied ai technologies (quillbotgrammar checker) to preserve linguistic accuracy. disclosure statement the author or authors did not disclose any potential conflicts of interest. funding no special funding was given to the investigation. however, this study was completed as a component of a thesis for an mss in international affairs at linnaeus university's political science department. ethical approval the study was approved by the general data protection regulation (gdpr). the data collected was controlled by linnaeus university authority, as these data monitored by thesis supervisor dr. brigitte pircher, assistant professor at linnaeus university (lnu) on a regular basis. authors’ contribution based on the first author's master's thesis, the paper was written. however, the study was overseen by the second author, who also made significant contributions, such as a thorough review and substantial feedback on every aspect from the proposal to the article's submission to this journal, substantial assistance in developing conceptual thought and writing methodology, as well as inputs from a substantial number of literature reviews and language editing. references ahlén, a., & palme, j. 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(1989). the next waves: migration theory for a changing world. international migration review, 23, 403-430. references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper the cross and land politics in zimbabwe: the forgotten side of the church archieford kurauone mtetwa 1* 1 department of religious studies, classics and philosophy, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe received: july 29, 2022 accepted: august 28, 2022 online published: september 4, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p1 abstract since 1500, christianity is the major and official religion in zimbabwe while african traditional religion remains the popular religion among zimbabweans. such a scenario is comparable to the ancient israelite religion; yahweism (monotheism) being the official religion while polytheism being the popular religion amongst the israelites. christianity as a religion did not bring with it land to zimbabwe. this study will explore the position of christianity in relation to land and land politics in zimbabwe. christianity is a foreign religious ideology to zimbabwe. the advent of christianity does not mean that zimbabweans were short of religion. african traditional religion (atr) is the indigenous religion to africans including zimbabweans. christianity is of great interest in this study because it is embraced by the majority of zimbabweans (ruzivo, 2008, p. 28). the arrival of christianity dates back to the 14 th century. it was introduced to zimbabwe by the missionaries. the article highlights and chronicles the less emphasized issue of religion and land politics in zimbabwe. in this case, the religion in question is christianity and land politics or politics of land in zimbabwe. 1. introduction the paper discusses the position and contribution of christianity to land politics in zimbabwe since the arrival of the abrahamic faiths. the article does not trivialise the contributions of christianity to zimbabwe. much has been written on the contribution of christianity to zimbabwe especially on healthy, social amenities and education but rarely on land. this is despite the centrality of land in any real development the world over. the article is premised on the following questions. was christianity for evangelism, imperialism or both? is christianity imperial or not? did christianity/ the church/ the cross grabbed land or not? whose interests was christianity representing? did christianity place land (in relation to the zimbabwean) at the centre or at the periphery? was christianity a separate entity from the empire? was it a burden or a solution to zimbabwe? christianity in zimbabwean can only be mailto:archiemtetwa@gmail.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. understood in relation to a proper analysis of its agents; the missionaries and its major religious arsenal; the bible. missionaries and the bible are the faces and centers of christianity in zimbabwe. 2. the primordial land ownership and utilizations zimbabweans conceive of land as something that determines their identity, history and livelihood. it is a repository of family ties between the living and the living-dead. land is sacred. the sacredness of land is that it belongs to the whole community. an individual cannot own what is sacred. africans and zimbabweans in particular, regard the earth as some kind of womb (bakare, 1993, p. 47). it is where life comes from and as such, land is synonymous with life. the earth is the source of life. the sacredness of land is also symbolized by the burying of the umbilical cord after the birth of a child. this also shows the symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature. the bible is also a witness to the sacredness of land for adam and eve are products of land and they depended on it land for survival (gen 1-2). it has broader implications that each and everyone have land as birthright (weinburg & weinburg, 1996, p. 39). the african worldview considers land sacred because it belongs to the earth spirit as well as to the ancestors and the living community. for africans it is the basis of their god-given self-respect and dignity as beings. african traditional religion is imbued with life on the land, reflecting traditions such as planting time and harvest festivals. land has the greatest moral and spiritual significance and constitutes the way of life (guma & milton, 1997, pp. 42-56). land is a source of livelihood and is aptly called mother-earth. no individual owns the land; instead it is owned collectively for the benefit of each and every member of the community. such a system of land ownership and use ensures that no member is destitute and without land because each member of the community is attached to one of the land allocations. land did not have a commercial value. it could not be sold. it is an inheritance. land was a means of production to all zimbabweans and without land one was in abject poverty and without any dignity at all. wealthy depended on how much land one had. it is africa‟s rallying point (mararike, 2001). having provided the status, ownership and value of land to africans before the advent of christianity, it would be logical to give a historical background of how christianity came to be one of the religions in zimbabwe and its relation to land. 3. the advent of the cross-in zimbabwe christianity found its way to zimbabwe through a portuguese catholic jesuit missionary gonzalo da silveira in 1560 (mudenge, 1986; zvobgo, 1996; kapungu, 1974; bhila, 1977). this was the early phase of christianity to enter zimbabwe. silveira is the earliest recorded missionary to visit mutapa. he “evangelized” the mutapa shortly before his assassination in 1561 after the mutapa functionaries saw a mercenary than a missionary in him. from the death of silveira there was a break in missionary work in zimbabwe until the second phase of the missionaries, that is the 19 th century. gonzalo‟s efforts were followed by those of the dominicans and jesuits. according to bhebhe (1999, p. 122), a new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. missionary venture was initiated by robert moffat of the london missionary society who visited mzilikazi. the second attempt of christianity in zimbabwe started with robert moffat in 1836. he was a representative of the london missionary society (lms). he felt the need to “evangelise” the matabele tribe under the kingship of mzilikazi. the king received moffat and the king showed interest in what moffat had to say. as a result, the king offered moffat permission to establish a mission at inyati in 1859 (zvobgo, 1996, p. 1; bhebhe, 1999, p. 122). the pioneers of the missionary enterprise in matabeleland were missionaries of the lms who started their first mission at inyati (1859) and the second one at hope fountain in 1870. inyati mission covered 8000 acres and hope fountain 6000 acres of land. this paved way for an influx of mission churches, anglicans, methodists (british and american), the salvation army and the dutch reformed church to zimbabwe. this is how christianity began in zimbabwe. the significance of these early missionary efforts was not in their evangelistic success but in that “…they helped, through the correspondence and publications of the missionaries, to open zimbabwe and its resources of the human souls to the gaze of the christian world” (bhebhe, 1999, p. 122). 4. christianity and the rise of capitalism in order to understand the rise of christianity in africa in general and zimbabwe in particular, it should be noted in the light of the resolutions made at the berlin conference in 1884. the berlin conference was a unilateral decision by fourteen european powers to carve up africa for their convenience and benefit, a decision in which the mission (christianity) functioned as a support mechanism for white social control and domination of africans. rhodes desired to use the christian message to pacify africans (bhebhe, 1999, p. 123) so he made an offer for missionary societies to take advantage of the new opening of zimbabwe and to avoid suspicion and criticism from fellow british citizens (zvobgo, 1996, p. 3). the task of this conference was to ensure that each european country that claimed possession over a part of africa must bring “civilization” in the form of christianity and trade to each region it would have occupied. also a country‟s claim over a territory was only valid only if it informed other european powers and established some occupying force on the ground. the occupying force among other agents was the missionaries (tiberondwa, 1998; zvobgo, 1996; vengeyi, 2013, pp. 186-230; banana, 1996). specific lands were obtained by having african indigenous rulers being forced or duped to sign an “x” to a general agreement for „protection‟ by a european power (bakare, 1993, p. 84; vambe, 1972, p. xv). often these rulers had no idea what they were signing since most could not read, write, or understand european languages. fourteen nations signed the agreement to “gang-rape” africa. the conference affirmed the political, economic and religious alliance that existed between colonialists and missionaries-the linking of the cross and the crown provided a link of law and order for missionary work in africa. the rise of capitalism in zimbabwe is inseparable from colonialism and christianity. the earliest attempt at establishing capitalism and christianity was executed by the portuguese through gonzalo da www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. silveira. land was not owned by individuals neither did it had a commercial value (bakare, 1993, p. 47; mararike, 2011, pp. 78-79). however, christianity brought a new world order of capitalism. capitalism is a model whereby the original producers and owners of the means of production are dispossessed and transformed into possessors of marketable labour power. capitalism is the new form of slavery. it can also be referred to as a phase of substitution by elimination, since this historical phase, the interest is at transforming or reordering the society through destruction and reconstruction to fit the model favourable for capitalism to flourish unhindered (vengeyi, 2013, p. 188). it is has to be noted that every religion is embodied with economic, political, social and cultural values. in this case capitalism is an integral economic value of christianity; a value which is diametrically opposed to communalism, an integral value of atr. during the 19 th century colonial invaders at the cape were joined into the interior and further north by fellow europeans who presented themselves as man of god on a mission to spread the gospel and thereby introduce christianity and civilisation to the natives of zimbabwe. christianity became a superior religion to african traditional religion as it despised the african indigenous religion as well as its culture. christianity became an imperial religion to atr. 5. christianity and land politics in zimbabwe having discussed the entry of christianity in zimbabwe from 1500ad, it should be noted that christianity and its relations to land became very clear from 1890 to the present. zimbabwe was colonised by britain in 1890 through the british south africa company (bsac) led by cecil john rhodes. colonialism was all about grabbing land and all the downstream resources including people by force. colonialism can be understood as forced reordering or transformation of societal realities such as religion, culture, political and the economic systems. rhodes managed to usurp zimbabwe with the aid of the cross or the cross managed to have land with the aid of the crown. zimbabwe was colonised with the spiritual blessings of christianity (ruzivo, 2012, p. 360; gundani, 2002, p. 156). land has a central place in the history of christianity. the church is a major land owner to date in zimbabwe (chitando, 2005, pp. 182-199). in addition, between 1890 and 1900, ten denominations were operating in zimbabwe and 325 730 acres were given to missionary societies in land grants (bhebhe, 1999, p. 123). the quotation below bares it out clearly that christianity was another form of land conquest responsible for mass dispossession of africans. this was one of the aspects of the close association of the christian missions with the rest of the colonial forces with the anti-colonial revolutionaries like mugabe and others kept on referring to. in early years, missions, like any other settlers, seemed to have no scruples in participating in the general land dispossession of africans. even though churches in the later years were at pains to explain to the nationalists and anti-colonial critics that the land they held was not being used for commercial profit but for the social advancement of africans, all the missionaries imposed economic and social regulations on their properties (land included), which clashed with the customs and traditions and restricted the economic advancement of their tenants so that the later were forced to abandon their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. traditional homes and to fling themselves on the reserves which were invariably groaning under the weight of overpopulation and overstocking (bhebhe, 1999, p. 123). the church owning land may not be a problem, however, the question is how did it came to own such vast pieces of land? the church only bought a few farms, while the majority of the farms were gifts from cecil john rhodes, the architect of colonialism. the churches‟ acceptance of land forcibly disposed of blacks confirms the missionaries‟ collusion with colonialism. this is the context in which the introduction of western values couched as christianity among africans was described as a mission to “civilize” or bring light to the world of darkness. lobengula could not give ground despite rhodes‟ grandiose schemes of his envoys messrs thomas r. maguire, frank r. thompson and charles d. rudd (vambe, 1972, p. 74). lobengula firmly resisted until reverend charles david helm, a catholic missionary, duped him through an assurance that by signing the document he was not giving away his land. helm of the lms was acting in concert with rhodes in the bsac, fuelling the claim that missionaries were the spiritual wing of colonialism. helm had been sent by rhodes to execute this plan in return for a salary of 200 pounds a year. through lobengula‟s trust of the “man of god”, r.c.d helm, lobengula signed the rudd concession on 30 october 1888. on this note thorpe argues that after lobengula succumbed to rudd, maguire and thompson‟s trickery persuasion he made a “…untidy cross and thumb-mark… to the bottom of the document; and so the famous rudd concession was signed in october 1888” (thorpe, 1951, p. 32). this was the death warrant to zimbabwe as a sovereign state initiated by the missionary. a man of god cheated lobengula of his land. this paved way not only for capitalism but colonisation as well. when the pioneer column made its maiden trip north of the limpopo, invading zimbabwe which they achieved in 1890, it was well represented by two missionaries; a roman catholic and an anglican priest whose main roles was to give spiritual and moral sanction to the colonisation and massacre of natives. it is clear from the argument above that christianity played a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the colonisation of zimbabwe. one douglas pelly shows that by 1892 he was already tired of carrying out orders of knight bruce, the anglican bishop of mashonaland to acquire vast tracts of land on his behalf, dispossessing african owners. pelly wrote in a letter to his parents in europe that, „the one thing i strongly object to is to go looking for more farms,…he already has more than 40!! all over 3000 acres! and not one of them is being worked, either as farm of station as far as i can discover (palmer, 1977, p. 37). when the pioneer column set off to mashonaland in 1890, the jesuit missionary andrew hartmann accompanied it as a chaplain and canon balfour of the anglican diocese of bloemfontein also accompanied the pioneer column as a chaplain. the majority of missions in zimbabwe are built on land that was donated to them by rhodes as per their agreement. in 1891 the company parceled out land to various missionary bodies. the administrator leander star jameson promised the anglicans 3000 acres of land whenever they set a mission. each of the 196 pioneers were promised verbally a free farm of 1500 morgen (3 175 acres) and 15 reef claims of 400 by 150 feet (palmer, 1977, p. 26). all the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. above arguments point to one issue; the land. christianity to take root it needed land to set missions. anywhere a mission was placed the natives were dispossessed of their land as no mission station was set on a vacant piece of land. christianity changed the entire way of life of the natives by bringing in a new world order which was completely foreign to the natives. natives lost their land and they were moved to reserves; gwayi, shangani and chikukwa which were later known as tribal trust lands. these were poor, waterless and tsetse infested pieces of land. these were the places natives were dumped as settlers and missionaries settled on fertile pieces of land from whom natives used to live. wesleyan methodist pioneer missionaries owen watkins and isaac shimmin later joined earlier missionaries. shimmin was offered (by rhodes) a gift of 100 pounds a year for five years towards the expenses of a mission station in mashonaland. he made a further promise of building stands and mission cities in various parts of the country if methodism would help pioneer the way to civilisation in rhodesia (naz). one of the methodist missionary society documents reads; “…in 1891 the bsac offered our society land, and 100 pounds a year towards the cost of a mission station in southern rhodesia”. the methodists were given land by rhodes, including five stands in the salisbury township, four stands in umtali township and three farms of 3000 acres each. pioneer missionaries of the salvation army in 1891 also settled on 3000 acres in mazowe valley. missionary bodies were indeed in a scramble for land in zimbabwe, with the catholics dispossessing the chishawasha people on a farm of 12000 acres in 1892 (vambe, 1972, p. xv; zvobgo, 1996, pp. 3-5). the dutch reformed church of south africa led by a. a louw settled at morgenster after they had been granted a farm of 6000 morgen. on 19 october 1893, the american board of commissioners for foreign missions settled at mount selinda and set their mission before opening another at chikore in chipinge. the seventh day adventists also settled on 12000 acres of land at solusi. there was a stampede for land by the church in zimbabwe. zimbabwe was partitioned between settlers and missionaries. the partition of zimbabwe was a replay of the partition of africa at the berlin conference in 1884. in short, what was partitioned is nothing else other than the land, and all mission stations were set where zimbabweans lived. from the above description, the entire zimbabwe was scrambled upon by the various christian denominations. the methodists, baptists, anglicans and american board of missions concentrated mainly in manicaland province, the salvation army concentrated in mashonaland central, the lutherans in mashava-zvishavane belt; the dutch concentrated in masvingo province. 6. manufacturing consent: the cross, the law and conquest as said earlier, the church did not come to liberate us or take us to heaven! it came as a colonizer to take our land and heritage from us, just like rhodes. when the missionaries realized they could not make converts under lobengula‟s regime, they invited rhodes to overthrow him to pave the way for christianity. in order for the christianity to succeed on its mission it has to manufacture consent of the blacks. manufacturing consent is a strategy employed by powerful elites to undermine democracy and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. erode freedom in democratic societies. it is a subtle, insidious way of oppressing the majority where more overt means—like violence or terror—just will not do. “manufacturing consent” means doing what you want and getting away with it by creating the impression that it‟s what everybody wants you to do in the first place. a number of strategies were employed and celebrated by the missionaries to fulfill their mission to “civilize” blacks. they made use of the bible, the law and the sword to manufacture consent of the blacks. the bible was the most deadly arsenal that christianity employed to utterly destroy africans. christianity as a “weapon of mass destruction and deception” deployed the bible. its main mission was to prepare the ground for colonization and exploitation of africans. in fact serving capitalists was interpreted as serving god. the bible was invoked to maintain a pacifist mentality and status quo (bhebhe, 1999, p. 122). this was echoed by mugabe who said that: if you study the history of the church in south africa, zimbabwe and elsewhere in africa you will discover that originally the church tended to side with the colonial authorities. colonialism itself was completely wrong and unchristian but the churches at first held it as justified. missionaries came to africa to spread the gospel but in the process opening the way for colonialism. society became organized on the basis of race and the churches supported the racist and oppressive legislation which exposed the majority to hunger (mugabe, 1983, p. 153). the oppressed were made to love and endure suffering and being oppressed would make them closer to god. texts that victimized africans were employed to indoctrinate africans. matthew 5:39 was meant to pacify africans from resisting thereby making it easier for christianity through its agents the missionaries to usurp african resources without any fear or remorse. missionaries cited luke 6:20-22 as lullabies for those in poverty. parables of the prodigal son (luke, 15, pp. 11-32), richman and lazarus (luke, 16, pp. 19-31) were recited by missionaries. africans were thus encouraged to aspire to be like lazarus rather than to be the rich man/white men, who get every kind of wealth on earth; land, food, clothes, money and every necessity. the reading narratives used emanated from those in power and was meant to make poverty and hunger acceptable to the disempowered masses. such scriptures were meant to make africans docile and regard their fate as divinely ordained. they also intended to make africans accept exploitation and domination, in the vain hope that questioning the status-quo and resisting colonization would inhibit one‟s chances of entering the kingdom of heaven. even as the blacks labored in the farms, mines and homes of white people at close to nothing, they were expected to know that their reward was in heaven and not on earth! this was scandalous. it was the main goal of all colonial apparatus even missionary schools and hospitals to create a bunch of people loyal to their masters in all circumstances. king leopold ii‟s charge in 1883 to the belgian missionaries in the congo laid the plan bare for all to see. christianity served the belgian economic interests and nothing more. the missionaries were couched to interpret the bible to achieve these interests. he said: “reverends, fathers and dear compatriots: the task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. much tact. you will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all belgium interests. your principal objective in our mission in the congo is never to teach the niggers to know god, this they know already. they speak and submit to a mungu, one nzambi, one nzakomba, and what else i don‟t know. they know that to kill, to sleep with someone else‟s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. for these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. to avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you. your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “it‟s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of god.” you have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. i make reference to their mystic system and their war fetish—warfare protection—which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear. your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won‟t revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent‟s teachings. the children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. you must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. there, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you must apply. you will find many other books, which will be given to you at the end of this conference. evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. recite every day—“happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of god is for them.” letter from king leopold ii of belgium to colonial missionaries, 1883 2 convert always the blacks by using the whip. keep their women in nine months of submission to work freely for us. force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs-every time you visit their villages. and make sure that niggers never become rich. sing every day that it‟s impossible for the rich to enter heaven. make them pay tax each week at sunday mass. use the money supposed for the poor, to build flourishing business centers. institute a confessional system, which allows you to be good detectives denouncing any black that has a different consciousness contrary to that of the decision-maker. teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. never present a chair to a black that comes to visit you. don‟t give him more than one cigarette. never invite him for dinner even if he gives you a chicken every time you arrive at his house” (letter from king leopold, 1883). king leopold‟s letter bares it all that missionaries had other agendas other than preaching. having realized they failed to use persuasive measures to turn people against their history, religion and culture the missionaries insisted on the use of force. father prestage (roman catholic jesuit) wrote on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. 29 may 1883, “until the matabele are put down by brute force, they will never be any progress in missionary work. our failure at empandeni was not owing to the unwillingness of the natives to become christians. it was due to the overwhelming terror engendered by lobengula‟s pagan system of government. i trust the matabele kingdom will be smashed up. leander s. jameson asked whether the clergy would approve the chastisement of the ndebele, prestage said there was just cause for the company to destroy the ndebele‟ in a telegraph prestage said the ndebele should be punished at once. „no settlement can be durable or satisfactory which fails to insure security of life and property to whites‟ (linden, 1980, p. 9). in july 1893, shimmin of the methodist episcopal church said missionary progress would be severely handicapped as long as the ndebele question remains unsettled. “on this point the clergy, the english and the colonial are at one” (zvobgo, 1996, p. 8). g.w h knight-bruce advocated the establishment of an english protectorate over the shona with him in charge. it was perfectly clear that the main motive behind all the attack on the ndebele, for the whites involved in fighting, was economic, cattle, labour and land. following the victory by the settlers a number of legal instruments were put in place to legitimate the europeans (settlers and missionaries) hold to african natural resources chief among them being land. most of the legal instruments were enacted with the church‟s approval or conspiracy. this is not surprising as both were emissaries of the empire and were both answerable to the crown. racism became one of the guiding philosophies, with many believing that whites constituted the superior race. through colonialism and christianity land was integrated into the global capitalist economy. settler colonialism involved the alienation and concentration of land in the hands of settlers and the restructuring of the indigenous tenure systems. the establishment of the land commission under morris carter (1925) and the land apportionment act (laa) of 1930 brought the maximum satisfaction to rhodesia and british politicians as well as to missionary bodies (mlambo, 1972, p. 35). various individuals, organizations (churches included) offered their supporting views to the commission. the morris carter commission was designed to limit the points of contact between blacks and whites (banana, 1996, p. 153). the main aim of the laa was to end african occupation of what was declared european land, in so doing, it affected the relations between the european settlers and he african tenants. tshuma (1998) argues that the act caused land shortages and the deterioration of african agriculture, reduced the agricultural economy of the shona and ndebele to subsistence levels and reduced the variety of crops grown thereby negatively affecting the volume of trade involving black people. there was overcrowding and overstocking in reserves, a fact that was acknowledged in the southern rhodesia government gazette no. 52 in 1944. the laa (1930) which was made into law in 1931 divided the country into black and white areas which is aptly referred to as „land apartheid‟ (hanlon, smart, & manjengwa, 2013, p. 31). it reserved fertile land for the white minority and facilitated the forced removal of blacks to the sandy and barren native reserves (gundani, 2002, p. 130). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. other oppressive pieces of legislation were also brought on board like the maize control act (1934), land husbandry act (1951) and the land tenure act of (1969). land was distributed in favour of the white minority and this was never challenged by the church for obvious reasons. frans (1998, pp. 102-103) noted that, “during the time of imperial/colonial white minority rule (1890-1980) 181, 424 sq. km were apportioned to whites, and 182, 099 sq.km to blacks”. the whites were a tiny minority, about 300 000, while blacks were about 12 million. this land tenure system inspired the peasants to take up arms in order to overthrow capitalism and colonialism. all these pieces of legislation were systematically set to manufacture abundant poverty. as such, it should be noted that poverty in africa (zimbabwe included) is a direct product of land dispossession during the colonial era. therefore, poverty in zimbabwe and africa in general is man-made! the cross, the sword and conquest were systematically deployed to persuade, negotiate and also force blacks to give in to the demands of the white capital, missionaries included. despite all this gruesome treatment of africans by the settlers the church remained silent. therefore, affirming the words of amos, the eighth century bc prophet that can two walk together unless they agree (amos, 3, 3)? even in ancient israel, many a times, the temple and the palace were in agreement. for evil to triumph it is enough at good man to do nothing! from 1890 evil triumphed in rhodesia and the church was silent. the church did not begin to criticize the rhodesian political system until their interests were at stake in the late sixties. they neither protested against the bsac, the laa, the maize act, land husbandry act nor the establishment of two voters‟ rolls, one for the europeans and the other for the africans. they supported the 1961 “apartheid” constitution which had two rolls. this shows how christianity represented the settlers‟ interests at the expense of the peasants or the autochthons. the church only protested the 1969 land tenure act which had placed the interests of the church at stake (kapungu, 1974, p. 19). in 1969 the rhodesian government enacted the land tenure act. there is little difference between the land apportionment act (1930) and the land tenure act (1969) but that little difference is what affected the churches and they pointed out their outcry against the rhodesian political system. all along christianity benefited from the legal framework that impoverished africans until late in 1969. this was the period in which christianity began to shift its allegiance from supporting the settlers to supporting the africans through selected individuals (missionaries) among them ralph dodge and rev john white of the methodists, bishop lamont of the roman catholic, arthur shearly cripps and bishop skelton of the anglican church. these missionaries were involved in class suicide through siding with the peasants. 7. christianity and social amenities the advent of christianity is credited with the creation of various social amenities in zimbabwe such as schools, hospitals and churches. “civilisation” was associated with writing reading, astronomy and other „academic‟ subjects. zvobgo wrote and extensively appreciated the missionary contribution to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. african education (zvobgo, 1980). among the mission hospitals are mount selinda, morgenster, nyadiri, mnene and mutambara. the question which quickly comes to mind is; did africans lack any of these amenities? when the missionaries arrived in zimbabwe they found out that the indigenous people had their own form of education based on family, clan and tribal units. africans had their own form of medical institutions, units and professional medical practitioners typically involving midwives, herbalists and n’anga/inyanga. missionary facilities (schools, hospitals and churches) were primarily for conversion of indigenous people to christianity (tiberondwa, 1998, p. vii). “most churches made it part of their explicit mission policy to build hospitals with the specific aim of „winning souls‟…(and) for many years the only purpose for erecting mission schools was that they could help people to read the bible,”and nothing more (daneel, 1987, p. 78). the whole curriculum was designed to preserve and protect “christianity”, capitalism and the victorian culture awkwardly called “civilisation,” almost making the learners neglect and abandon their own language, culture, religion, social and political heritage. all these institutions had a net effect of making african students, clergy and patients to admire christianity and concede that indigenous religion, cultures and languages were inferior and primitive to western culture and language. to colonise people forever the empire realized the importance of schools, hospitals and churches. all these institutions were concentration camps meant for the falsification of african consciousness and or the importance of african values and ethos. all these christian institutions worked on changing the brains or perspective of the african so that africans may embrace things of no value at the expense of their birthright; the land. there is need to control the mind of the subject in order to subdue him/her forever. these were centers of western ideologies and worldview, which was completely divorced from the african worldview. missionary education falsified african history, ideology, worldview and conscience. vengeyi observed that the attack on the culture, religion and history of the people is an important phase and very tactical move to conquer the people especially considering that these are the weapons of the struggle. this is why always when people became naked of their culture, history and religion they follow anything and is easy to control (vengeyi, 2013, p. 214). missionary education, healthy and religion was meant to manufacture docility and destroying african history, cultural values and traditions so as to make them useful tools of the capitalist economy. religion, education were potent weapons in the hands of the empire to control the mind of the oppressed. missionary education and religion culminated in the divisions in the african society between the “civilized” and the indigenous members. in this regard, missionaries by commission or omission contributed directly and indirectly to the destruction of the indigenous african values using education and christianity as their main weapons of mass destruction. thereby warranting the designation of the church/the cross in zimbabwe as a robber of zimbabwe‟s means of production: the land. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. 8. conclusion this chapter demonstrated that valuable lessons can be drawn from christianity‟s relation to zimbabwe‟s means of production, the land. the abrahamic religion defiled the spirituality attached to african land and its people. it dislodged land from being at the centre of life to the periphery. it bolstered the interests of the colonialists and was a willing participant of mass suffering of zimbabweans to date. christianity overtly and covertly transformed the land tenure system of zimbabweans through various means among them persuasion and force. christianity with the aid of the missionaries sided with the imperial states in mass dispossession of africans from their birthright. missionaries fully and willingly participated in the exploitation and oppression of the black people in africa, through biblical interpretation, translation, biased education, targeted at manufacturing docility and destroying african history, cultural values and traditions so as to make them useful tools in capitalist economy. their conception of land ownership and utilisation was radically opposed to the african system. the religion of the empire brought with it capitalism and individualistic economic system to bulldoze the communal mode of production. christianity should identify with the struggles of the peasants over the land. the church instead of siding with the underclasses over land, it became or still is a weapon of mass destruction in zimbabwe! references auret, m. (2009). from liberator to dictator; an insider’s account of robert mugabe’s descent into tyranny. south africa: david philip publishers. bakare, s. (1993). my right to land in the bible and in zimbabwe: a theology of land for zimbabwe. harare: zimbabwe council of churches. banana, c. s. (1996). the church and the struggle for zimbabwe: from the programme to combat racism to combat theology. gweru: mambo press. bhebhe, n. m. b. (1973). missionary activity among the ndebele and kalanga: a survey. in a. j. dachs (ed.), christianity south of the zambezi (pp. 41-52). gweru: mambo press. bhebhe, n. (1999). the zapu and zanu guerrilla warfare and the evangelical lutheran church in zimbabwe. gweru: mambo press. bhila, h. (1977). trade and the early missionaries in the southern zambezia. in m. f. c. bourdillon (ed.), christianity south of the zambezi (vol. 2, pp. 25-42). gweru: mambo press. chitando, e. (2005). the sacred remnant? church land in zimbabwe‟s fast track resettlement programme. studies in world christianity (vol. 11, issue 2, pp. 182-199, p. 184). https://doi.org/10.3366/swc.2005.11.2.182 daneel, m. l. (1987). quest for belonging: introduction to a study of african independent churches. gweru: mambo press. dube, m. (2000). postcolonial feminist interpretation of the bible. missouri: charlice press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. gelfand, m. (1968). gubulawayo and beyond: letters and journals of early the early jesuit missionaries to zambesia, 1879-1887. london: godfrey chapman. guma, m., & milton (1997). l. an african challenge to the church in the 21 st century. cape town; the methodist church of south africa, gundani, p. (n.d.). land crisis in zimbabwe and the role of the churches towards its resolution. studia historiae ecclesiasticae, 122-169, 130. gundani, p. h. (n.d.). the land crisis in zimbabwe and the role of the church towards its resolution, studia historiae ecclesiasticae, 28, 122-169. hanlon, j., manjengwa, j., & smart, t. (2013). zimbabwe takes back its land. south africa: kumarian press. hinchcliff, p. (1968). the church in south africa. london; spck. retrieved from http://www.afcast.org.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=195:purchased-peopl e1-peter-29&catid=45:zimbabwe&itemid=207. kapungu, l. t. (1974). rhodesia the struggle for freedom. new york: maryknoll. linden, i. (1980). the catholic church and the struggle for zimbabwe. london: longman. machingura, f. (2012). the messianic feeding of the masses: an analysis of john 6 in the context of messianic leadership in post-colonial zimbabwe. bamberg: university of bamberg press. mclaughlin, j. (1988). we did it for love: refugees and religion in the camps in mozambique and zambia during zimbabwe‟s liberation struggle. in c.f. hallencreutz, & a. m. moyo (eds.), church and state in zimbabwe. gweru: mambo press. mlambo, e. (1972). rhodesia the struggle for a birthright, london: c hurst and company. moyana, h. (1984). the political economy of land in zimbabwe. gweru: mambo press. mudenge, s. i. g. (1986). christian education at the mutapa court: a portuguese strategy to influence events in the empire of munhumutapa. harare: zimbabwe publishing house. mugabe, r. g. (1983). our war of liberation: speeches, articles, interviews, 1976-1979. gweru: mambo press. national archives of zimbabwe, harare. (1945). (naz) (63/ 4 in), 50 years: the story of the growth of methodism in bulawayo 1895-1945. https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.1945.01230030068001 palmer, r. (1977). land and racial domination in rhodesia. london: heinemann. richard, m. (1897). colonial office confidential prints (p. 5). ruzivo, m. (n.d.). african agents of the gospel message and expatriate missionaries: a cultural exchange in the production of knowledge in zimbabwe with special focus on the jesuit catholic missions. in u. van der heyden, & a. feldtkeller (eds.), missionsgeschichte als geschichte der globalisierung von wissen (p. 361). german: franz steiner verlag. thorpe, c. (1951). limpopo to zambezi sixty years of methodism in southern rhodesia. london: cargate press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. tiberondwa, a. k. (1998). missionary teachers as agents of colonisation in uganda. kampala: fountain publishers. tshuma, l. (1997). a matter of (in) justice: law, state and the agrarian question in zimbabwe. harare: sapes books. vambe, l. (1972). an ill-fated people: zimbabwe before and after rhodesia. london: heinemann educational books. vengeyi, o. (2013). aluta continua biblical hermeneutics for liberation: interpreting biblical texts on slavery for liberation of zimbabwean underclasses. bamberg: university of bamberg press. vengeyi, o. (2013). forward (n) ever! backward march! towards an afro-centric biblical philosophy of reconciliation in zimbabwe. pula: botswana journal of african studies (vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 27-43, p. 34). verstraelen, f. j. (n.d.). zimbabwean realities and christian responses: contemporary aspects of christianity in zimbabwe. gweru: mambo press. wesleyan methodist archives.(1922). harare methodist house (pp. 18-24). rhodesia district report, 11 january winburg, m., & winburg, p. (1996). back to the land. johannesburg; porcupine. zvobgo, c. j. m. (1996). a history of christian missions in zimbabwe 1890-1939. gweru: mambo press. zvobgo, r. j. (1980). government and missionary policies on african secondary education in southern rhodesia with special to the anglican and wesleyan methodist churches, 1934-1971. edinburg: university of edinburg. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 98 original paper india’s nationalist agenda: religion, science, politics robert v. davis, jr.1 1 department of history, coastal carolina university, conway, south carolina received: october 29, 2023 accepted: january 15, 2024 online published: february 02, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p98 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p98 abstract science is a particular way of understanding the natural world. it is specific to the development of western european culture beginning in the sixteenth century and presumes that our physical environment is regulated by humanly comprehensible laws, can be reduced to constituent parts, and performs predictably. there is no role for interventionist gods. in india, historical obeisance to the metaphysical strictures of the vedas prevented the development of a non-religious alternative to deconstructing the natural world that, in the west, became science. nevertheless, india’s nationalistic political agenda has attempted to credit the vedas as providing the conceptual origins of science many thousands of years ago. this may be good politics in india, but it is bad history and misrepresents what science is. keywords india, nationalism, science, religion 1. introduction the american cable television history channel has programming that includes well documented and interesting science and technology-centered historical vignettes that appeal to a broad range of viewers including those with professional academic backgrounds. however, it also provides the more impressionable viewer a steady dollop of conspiracy theories that tie major scientific advances to non-human sources. such findings are typically embraced by a cast of “ancient alien theorists” including a charming and amulet-wearing fellow sporting hair that appropriately stands on end. it is difficult to envision a major american or european professional academic society hosting papers with conclusions that would be indistinguishable from those of ancient alien theorists. nevertheless, that is exactly what happens at the annual conference of the indian science congress association (isca). a century old with over forty thousand members, the isca is officially a part of the ministry of science and technology within the indian government. the membership is composed largely of academically trained technical professionals, many with doctorates in the hard sciences. at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 99 published by scholink inc. well-attended annual conferences previously keynoted by the indian prime minister, there is an extensive array of advanced technical presentations covering the gamut of the sciences which would be expected by a country’s premier technical association. however, there are also presentations that could well have been scripted by american ancient alien theorists. at the 102nd annual conference in mumbai in january 2015, a retired pilot trainer presented a paper concluding that “aviation technology in ancient india is not a tale of mythology, but it is a total historical document giving the technical details and specifications” (subramanian, 2015). in assessing who the isca invited to deliver papers at the ancient sciences through sanskrit session, “there is definitely place for such a session at the indian science congress”, one indian institute of science at bengaluru professor commented. “my grouse is that they didn’t ask people who do science-oriented work to speak about it. they asked a bunch of jokers with a political agenda” (abinandanan, 2015). this, however, has not been the only instance when the indian nationalistic political agenda has employed a religious belief to “document” science in india thousands of years before its commonly accepted appearance. at the 106th isca conference in 2019: the vice chancellor of one university opined that the 1500 year old ramayana showed that a demon king had aircraft and landing strips in what is now sri lanka; a scientist from a second university announced that isaac newton and albert einstein were both mistaken and that “narendra modi waves” were responsible for gravity; and the head of yet a third university used ancient religious texts as evidence that stem cell research was first performed thousands of years previously in india (bbc news, 2019). a fundamental part of any culture includes an essential relationship with nature. each culture’s relationship is, nevertheless, largely distinctive. science is a particular way of understanding the world and presumes that our physical world is regulated by humanly comprehensible natural laws, can be reduced to constituent parts, and can be mathematized. there is no role in this regime for interventionist gods or goblins. one of the enduring historical puzzles is the failure of the great and ancient civilizations in indian and china not to develop what we now consider to be science. for much of the past 3000 years, their cultures were more advanced, at times significantly so, than that of europe in the study of linguistics, astronomy, medicine, mathematics and technologies. the mathematical basis for modern science has its fundamental roots in the indian development of the concept of zero as well as the decimal system (abdi, 1999, pp. 50-93); yet india did not develop the concept of deductive logic analogous to that of ancient greece (winter, 1975, p. 160). while there is little basis for a deterministic belief that it was human destiny to progress toward modern science, the conundrum is that china and indian each had many of the necessary early cultural elements to be the civilization that created science; but neither, in fact, did. this article investigates india’s religious history as an impediment to an independently developed modern science and investigates its attempt to misrepresent its historical scientific practice to advance its modern nationalist agenda. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 100 published by scholink inc. 2. religious approaches to nature conceptual approaches to nature have existed as long as homo sapiens. however, the development of science as a focused academic discipline is relatively recent. academic scholarship documents the interrelationship of the cultural elements—such as urbanization, individualism, capitalism—that both shape and are shaped by science and technology. much has been written which addresses china and europe, but relatively little scholarship has been produced addressing india. moreover, much of the literature would seem to have a clear ideological bent attempting either to justify the imposition on “backward” india of british colonial science, or to help legitimize the modern independent indian nation-state by documenting the ancient “scientific” roots of its culture. in his analysis of the impact of the vedic texts on the modern indian approach to nature, brian smith stated that “knowledge is never disinterested” (smith, 1994, p. 323). this could be applied as well to the scholarship addressing the role of science in indian culture. behavior is determined by options that are available for action within the bounds of imagined possibilities. science creates new opportunities, offering members of society new options to choose from, thus presenting contradictions in value systems that alter the fundamental system of values itself (mesthene, 2003, p. 628). while western science is clearly indebted to the ancient greeks for its initial methodological and philosophical underpinnings, it is also indebted to the biblical tradition for its view of human mastery over nature. as reijer hooykaas put it: “whereas the bodily ingredients of science may have been greek, its vitamins and hormones were biblical” (hooykas, 1991, pp. 160-161). unlike the abrahamic religious tradition, however, hinduism provided no conceptual space for “rendering unto caesar” that which was allotted to the secular world. hinduism provided no potential for separation between science and religion; religion and proto science were inextricable (prakash, 1999, p. 76). even for eleventh century abu rayhan al-biruni, the cultural inability of the hindus to conceive of the creation of secular space was clear: “some of them do not pass beyond what their senses perceive; some pass beyond this, but stop at the knowledge of the laws of nature” (al-biruni, 2002, p. 14). al-biruni further noted that there was no distinction between natural and supernatural, both of which were subject to the whim of the gods (rahman, 1999, p. 17). according to max weber, the different hindu castes “were as unlike as man and animal. all men, however had equal opportunities, but not in this life...there was no ‘natural’ order of men and things in contrast to positive social order. there was no sort of ‘natural law’” (weber, 1958, p. 144). gyan prakash concluded that during the british raj, “the british saw empirical sciences as universal knowledge, free from prejudice and passion and charged with the mission to disenchant the world of the ‘superstitious’ natives, dissolving and secularizing their religious worldviews and rationalizing their society” (prakash, 1999, pp. 4-5). because of china’s long and well-documented history, there is a great body of literature. india, however, presents historiographical problems. first, due to its particular cultural ethic, the historical period (a consistent availability of written records) in india begins much later than in the other great civilizations of the world; thus, there are scant written records of its early cultural development. second, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 101 published by scholink inc. there has typically been a political agenda, witting or otherwise, in much of the historical analysis. beginning in the sixteenth century, the literate class was dominated by the islamic scholars of the mughal regime, to be followed by two hundred years of writings by the british colonial powers. unfortunately, much of the scholarship of independent india appears to be a largely unconvincing nationalistic attempt to project its scientific modernity retrospectively onto its hindu cultural roots. tying modern science to these imagined roots is an attempt to give a meaning to the vedas that it never had in order to legitimize modern indian society. a society’s conceptions of nature cannot be divorced from its conceptions of social structure. for india, a pervasive ethic can only be through the vedic scriptures and the development of the varna classificatory system of castes. although philosophers of science debate the extent to which nature presents us with a fixed physical reality, it is much less debatable that a particular culture’s approach to investigating nature is socially constructed. the values and classificatory relationships that are embedded in a particular way of knowing and manipulating nature are crucial to differentiating between religion, magic and what is science. the roots of hindu culture came in the second millennium b.c. with the aryan migration/invasion and the creation of the veda texts. the values of the veda accompanied by the classificatory caste system of the varna bounded the creative limits of hindu imaginings of nature. brian smith has argued persuasively that the values inherent in the vedas are the conceptual structure behind the varna which had a pervasive impact beyond merely the social (smith, 1994). pollock believed that the varna arranges “under one basic structure such seemingly diverse realms as the world of the gods, the divisions of space and time, spheres of what we would call the ‘natural world’ (i.e., flora and fauna), and the realm of revelation or ‘scripture’” (pollock, 1985, p. 511). while this may well be considered a philosophical approach to the conditions in which humanity finds itself, there is little inherent in it that could be considered science. analytical, perhaps; scientific, definitely not. embedded in mainstream western values is the biblical sense that humans are privileged over other animals, plants and inanimate material. this is a classificatory hierarchy governing how to investigate and control nature that is unique to european culture. the hindu culture has had a distinctly different approach. for india the task becomes an effort to determine what they were attempting to comprehend about the world that they believed was around them. as pollock termed it, “what is presently at issue is not the veracity of this or that model of the origins and transmission of cultural knowledge, but rather how such things were understood in traditional india” (pollock, 1985, p. 511). modern science attempts to answer questions relating to how nature functions. an important aspect of any religion is its quest to understand why nature exists and why it functions the way it does. although the how and why questions have largely become segregated into separate ontological domains in the west, this break never occurred on the indian subcontinent. hindu conceptions of the origin and evolution of the universe continued to be entirely matters of religion rather than of science (basham, 1954, p. 488). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 102 published by scholink inc. in its organization of the physical universe, the vedic myths also simultaneously created social structures that were parallel in the natural and supernatural worlds, providing an immutably religious basis for the caste system (smith, 1994, p. 321). with the vedas being recognized as the acknowledged authority for the structure of both the mundane and supermundane worlds, it was unlikely that this same source would be denied authoritative status about the varnas. more than the structuring of the physical world, it was the vedic social structuring that provided the largest obstacle in traditional india to the development of the modern ethos associated with science. 3. śāstra, science and nationalism the words that a society chooses to articulate its concepts not only reflect its cultural values, but also potentially limit its ability to form concepts at variance with its existing social norms. modern india is a multi-lingual society synthetically interconnected by the english language. its common conceptual roots, however, originate in the sanskritic texts of the vedas. for any culture the relationship between language and science is a complex mélange of historical artifacts and cultural imaginings. perhaps more than any other word, the sanskrit term śāstra underscores the difficulties that are presented in using modern science as a metric for examining the cultural roots of indian society. although śāstra is an ancient word associated with the sacred vedic writings of hinduism, according to pollock there was no meaningful definition until the medieval era. prior to that, śāstra was considered “a verbal codification of rules, whether of divine or human provenance, for the positive and negative regulation of some given human practices” (pollock, 1985, p. 501). it can generally be understood as meaning a set of rules or precepts, originally as relating to the foundational scriptures of hinduism. as such, the term has been applied to such various activities as cooking, elephant-rearing, thievery, mathematics, and sexual intercourse (pollock, 1985, p. 502). typically, however, śāstra is unfortunately translated as “science” in modern indian academic literature addressing indian history and culture. for example, śāstra sahitya parishad becomes society for scientific literature. while it may be colloquially expedient to translate śāstra as science, this translation fails to address accurately what science is, what śāstra is not, or the political implications of the indian nationalist linguistic agenda. both śāstra and science may be considered as systems of knowledge, as processes for interacting with the natural and social worlds. yet there are distinct differences. science is not a general system of knowledge, but one that requires a particular way of approaching nature that includes replication and a process of proofs that specifically excludes divine revelation and supernatural intervention. the śāstra of the veda does not meet this standard. a critical element of modern science is independent discovery. however, the vedic roots of hinduism present the creation of knowledge as an exclusively divine undertaking; there is no concept of scientific progress, experimentation, or innovation that moves knowledge away from the original immutable vedic texts (pollock, 1985, p. 515). consequently, pollock is correct in positing that śāstra should more properly be translated into english as theory rather than science (pollock, 1985, p. 511). science has rules and theories, but rules and theories alone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 103 published by scholink inc. do not make a science. religion is a powerful cultural force. even for non-religious members of a given culture, their intellectual boundaries can be shaped by a dominant religious ethic. in the abrahamic tradition, a critical concept for the development of modern science was the “clockmaker” god who created and set in motion a mechanical universe according to discoverable natural laws and then rarely, if ever, intervened. this created the conceptual space in the west for broad agreement on natural laws that is independent of religiosity. in the twenty-first century having a clear ethic of science is now also a marker for recognition as a viable nation-state. this is true of modern india and the nationalist agenda to attempt to tie india’s scientific modernity to its cultural vedic roots (prakash, 1999). the british colonial intervention into india was not only a physical occupation, but a conceptual confrontation as well. the islamic conquerors were not the civilizational threat that the colonial british were (d. kumar, 1995, p. 270). prior to the raj, india did not conceive of itself, nor did it function, as a nation. that idea “was summoned in the time and space configured by colonial modernity.” (prakash, 1999, p. 199). as a means of intellectual resistance, assertion of india’s autonomy and entitlement to modern nation status relied upon the universal nature of its cultural tradition (prakash, 1999, p. 96). in the industrializing world of the nineteenth century, science was perceived by indian nationalists to be a talisman of sorts to protect their cultural identity through creation of a modern nation-state. as prakash concluded: “to assert that hindu culture was equal to western culture was to also claim that it was the heritage of all indians…. the definition of india as an embodiment of hindu science required its signification in other signs” (prakash, 1999, p. 9). the path to redefinition of the vedas was also driven by the need for the brahmins to reconstitute themselves as not only the custodian of knowledge, but also the arbiter of indian science (rahman, 1999, p. 12). as the european colonial powers claimed the universal application and truth of modern science, indian nationalists reinterpreted the vedic texts as embodying eternal and universal scientific laws that transcended the regional variations in indian dialects and religious sects (prakash, 1999, p. 89). nineteenth century indian nationalists argued that the ancient hindus had, in fact, originated scientific knowledge, thereby justifying the modern existence of indians as a people, as a nation. (prakash, 1999, p. 86). the net result was to “recover” archaic knowledge that had never existed and to find modern values in the veda that were never even conceived of at the time (prakash, 1999, p. 111). to culturally relocate the vedas in modern terms requires an appropriate language. during the british raj, the status of english was superior to that of the various indian dialects for articulation of scientific issues. “at stake was the integrity of the indian languages, which did not participate in the creation of modern scientific discourses but were obliged to incorporate them” (prakash, 1999, p. 50). one of the markers of this reinterpretation was the transplantation of the ancient sanskritic term śāstra as meaning science in english. the nationalist success in repurposing śāstra not only helped to affirm the nationalistic legitimacy of india itself, but also resulted in western academic scholarship on indian culture to uncritically translate classical indian texts in oxymoronic terms such as the “science of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 104 published by scholink inc. religion” (rahman, 1999, p. 20). indian nationalists have successfully politically intervened in their own history to redefine it. 4. historical elements coincident with the development of science often unstated is that the natural and inevitable course of events for a culture is to progress through a series of “revolutions” beginning with scientific, progressing to technological, and continuing to industrial—all in the context of an adaptation to western european culture. in some cases, a particular social construct such as urbanization or feudalism is identified with what occurred in western europe but is absent in a culture which did not experience the scientific revolution. conclusions are then reached that the scientific revolution indeed could not have occurred, because of the very absence of this social construct. to some extent, these failings are understandable. as derk bodde has pointed out, we are in “the unhappy position of the historian who, presented by the nature of his discipline from proving his hypothesis by means of controlling repetitive experiments, is obliged instead to formulate theories to explain events whose outcome is already known. faced with this situation, the temptation becomes strong to ‘prove’ the ‘inevitability’ of everything that has happened simply because it has happened” (bodde, 1991, p. 357). however, as one metric to measure whether there was indeed an ancient hindu science, a detailed examination of several historical elements—status of artisans, urbanization, marriage of theory and practice, information accumulation and transmission, mercantile capitalism, and democratic spirit and individualism—coincident with the development of science is useful. 4.1 status of artisans artisans or craftsmen have been the social element closest to the practical application of technological innovation through time and across cultures. in ancient greece and rome, however, the social perception of the artisan class was quite negative. plato referred to their “stumped natures” (plato, 1991, p. 228) and famously admitted that while society could not do without them, “would you let your daughter marry one?” (plato, 1990, p. xiv). aristotle declared that a man “living the life of a mechanic” had no virtue. (aristotle, 1991, p. 228). cicero described craftsmen as “the very sewage of the state” (cicero, 1991, p. 229). in fact, artisans in both ancient greece and in the roman empire were typically slaves. although the status of artisans gradually improved in the west, it is only in modern times that social and political equality has been realized. in china, the historical incidence of artisans who were slaves is rare (needham, 1969, p. 29). yet, despite the large number of artisans working in imperial workshops and arsenals, even senior engineers were not a part of the civil service, and their status was low. (needham, 1969, p. 29). in traditional india, the reputation of indian artisans reached as far as the mediterranean and china for manufactures ranging from cotton textiles to wootz steel. nevertheless, despite the low social status accorded artisans throughout the major historic civilizations, only those in india were unalterably locked into their social station. in societies where the artisans were frequently slaves, they could be freed by military defeat, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 105 published by scholink inc. valorous acts, or the largess of an owner. no such mechanisms existed in traditional india. even if a roman slave-craftsman escaped and improved their social position, there was not a penalty in the next life awaiting him as there would be in caste-conscious india. this hindu social divide would have adverse repercussions on the advancement of technology which in europe proved critical to the scientific and industrial revolutions. in india, “scientific activity and knowledge, by and large, remained a preserve of the elite, while arts and crafts remained with the less privileged groups. a result of this division was that the problems generated by technology were not attempted by scientists to widen scientific knowledge and create a theoretical understanding of problems” (rahman, 1999, p. 28). in a relatively few instances in medicine, the low social scale of the practitioners of human and veterinary medicine was not an absolute barrier to interactions with the brahmin caste as documented by the occasional technical medical treatise written in sanskrit by an author, presumably a brahmin, with a formal education (thapar, 2002, p. 258). although the caste system typically barred indian artisans from crossing social boundaries, military conquest, trade, and immigration ensured a diffusion of technology across civilizations. “for example, the chinese prisoners brought to samarqand started making paper for the central asian kingdoms. from samarqand, the paper technology was brought to sind in the tenth century and later to kashmir… where it spread to all over india. the second impact related to innovation. when immigrant craftsmen interact with local artisans and craftsmen, it led to innovation in machinery” (rahman, 1999, p. 243). nevertheless, india, unlike europe, did not become a culture driven by the economics of machinery. the varna effectively blocked the intellectual and artisan classes from the intimate interactions necessary to the technical context necessary for an industrial revolution. 4.2 urbanization over the millennia, as an increasing human population transitioned from a nomadic to an agrarian lifestyle, urban concentrations slowly evolved. as the human condition improved beyond a subsistence existence, the potential for urban surplus labor facilitated specialization. george basalla has posited that philosophers, physical and social scientists, and literary figures are among those who have suggested that science and the city have a natural affinity for one another (basalla, 1984, p. 513). there has been a relentless urbanization in western culture that has paralleled the rhythm of the scientific and industrial revolutions. basalla provided historical examples from plato citing socrates (“men who dwell in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the country”) to fourteenth-century islamic philosopher and statesmen ibn khaldūn (“within the city the growth of the economy and the population call for the creation of the bureaucrat and administrator in the maintenance of a highly diversified and skilled group of artisans who produce specialized goods for the populace”) to an eighteenth century baltimore gentleman (“liberty, science, and commerce” are “inseparably connected together” and they “always took up their chief residences in cities”) (basalla, 1984, pp. 513-527). in addition, science and technology in an urban setting is woven into the seventeenth century european utopian works of tomasso campanella (citta del sole), johan v. andreae (constantinopolis), and sir francis bacon www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 106 published by scholink inc. (new atlantis). an urban setting for science and technology was even included in jonathan swift’s dystopian gulliver’s travels. as early as 2500 b.c. planned urban cities were located in the indus valley at harappa in the punjab and at mohenjo-daro in the sind (winter, 1975, p. 141). between the seventh and the fifth centuries b.c., urban areas had arisen with a class of well-to-do merchants enjoying comparative opulence (embree 1988, 43). “with the foundation of the sultanate in north india about the beginning of the thirteenth century…the old cities took on the form of cosmopolitan urban centres” (siddiqui, 2008, pp. 22-23). in 1581, the census of the mughal emperor akbar reported “120 large cities and 3,200 small towns (qasbas), each controlling one hundred to one thousand villages” (rizvi, 1987, p. 204). in the late seventeenth century, there were reportedly “hundreds of prosperous market towns’ in northern india (richards, 2005, p. 194). so, what does this all mean with regard to the impact, if any, of urbanization on the development of modern science? in europe, increased population and urbanization occurred simultaneously with scientific and technological innovation. in india it did not. the metaphorical association of science and the city may well reflect that in the west, “scientific activity, dependent on the exchange of ideas, was modeled after the urban exchange of goods and commercial transactions” (basalla, 1984, p. 523). that is, urbanization might be a necessary, but, certainly in the case of india, not a sufficient condition for a scientific revolution. 4.3 marriage of theory and practice in today’s world, science and technology are inextricably bound. yet, until the seventeenth century in europe, technology was conceived without controlled experiment and used with little consideration of what became known as the laws of nature. in other words, until then scientific theory had largely yet to meet technological practice (bodde, 1991, p. 361). as one of the first documents recognizing the fundamental relationship between science and technology, robert hooke’s draft for the 1663 charter for the newly founded british royal society stated that “the business of the royal society is: to improve the knowledge of natural things, and all useful arts, manufactures, mechanick practices, engynes and inventions by experiment—(not meddling with divinity, metaphysics, morals, politics, grammar, rhetorick, or logicks)” (bodde, 1991, p. 234). this formally captured what was to become a key british contribution to science and technology through the institutional merging of theory and practice. there is an additional important distinction between science and technology. in his grand titration, joseph needham pointed out that while many technologies could migrate across civilizations, science—which is intimately related to a specific approach to nature—typically could not (needham, 1969, pp. 15-16). needham’s logic is that until the modern age, most technology was survival-related and task-specific that was universal in its application. science, however, is correlated with specific concepts that may not exist in a particular culture. the modern diffusion of science from the west to countries such as india and china was accomplished as a part of a much broader transfer of culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 107 published by scholink inc. in the eleventh century the mechanical clock was invented in asia. some 300 years later it was either imported into western europe or was developed independently. what is important, however, is that in europe this development was fundamental to the explosion in science and technology that became the scientific revolution. in india and china, no corresponding development took place. this difference can be largely attributed to the european capability to see the clock as a symbol of a mathematical model of nature which can be applied to a mechanical universe. this perceived relationship between theory and practice was absent in asia (pacey, 1990, p. 96). one of the principal usages of early clock devices throughout asia was for astronomical observations. while both india and china used such observations largely for farming and astrological purposes, in india they were also a central part of the ritual planning process. yet despite the clear indian theoretical capabilities in mathematics, astronomy in india was static. writing in the late eighteenth century, john mayfair, the eminent scottish mathematician, wrote that the indian astronomer “gives no theory, nor even any description of the celestial phenomena, but satisfies itself with the calculation of certain changes in the heavens, particularly of the eclipses of the sun and moon, and with the rules and tables by which these calculations must be performed….he obtains his result with wonderful certainty and expedition; but having little knowledge of the principles on which his rules are founded, and no anxiety to be better informed, he is perfectly satisfied” (mayfair, 1971, p. 13). mayfair further estimated the origination of the astronomical tables to have occurred during the pre-aryan calyougham times of approximately 3100 b.c. (mayfair, 1971, p. 24). even if mayfair had dated the tables four thousand years later, his basic point was demonstrated with regard to the lack of theoretical progress in indian astronomy. improvements in management and organization were clearly key factors in the success of the science and technology revolutions. they were prevalent in places where the revolutions took place, even belated ones such as in japan, and absent in places such as in traditional india and china where it did not. as rahman explained, in the absence of theoretical avenues, advancements in india in the development of technology had to rely on trial and error. the “separation of scientists and scholars from artisans and craftsmen,” according to rahman, resulted in “the absence of institutionalization of empirical experience into a research system for the development of technology” (rahman, 1999, pp. 246-247). the successful industrialization efforts in twentieth century india and china were accompanied by the wholesale importation of western concepts of management and organization and the critical relationship between science and technology. without the application of theory to the everyday practices of the artisans, indian laborers lagged far behind other countries, even other asian countries such as china, in increasing productivity through the use of mechanical devices. (rahman, 1999, p. 247). while there was little significant effort to link the practical and the theoretical, that does not mean that the indian intellectual tradition was devoid of theory. indeed, indian thinking in such theoretical subjects as mathematics ranks as some of the finest intellectual achievements in human history (winter, 1975, p. 154). however, their theory was entirely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 108 published by scholink inc. constrained by the limits of the vedas. pollock concluded that the “veda is the general rubric under which every sort of partial knowledge—the various individual śāstra—are ultimately subsumed…there is, in the last analysis, hardly any branch of learning whose texts do not claim authority by asserting a quasi-vedic status in one way or another” (pollock, 1989, p. 609). one area where the vedic constraints on theory development were particularly evident was in the development of medicine. the first recorded inoculations in the world, called tikah, are reported to have taken place in bengal in the sixteenth century. yet the scientific advancements were left to the conquering colonial powers. indigenous proto-scientific knowledge “was the preserve of discrete groups, mostly the brahmins. it was too theoretical with its philosophy and logic to be of any use in everyday life. further, the framework of that knowledge did not provide an alternative view of life, other than what was sanctioned by religion” (rahman, 1999, p. 423). moreover, the veda-based caste system constrained the brahmins from the contamination of physical contact with a corpse. consequently “the scientific procedures of observation and experimentation suffered. the intellectual classes withdrew from active participation in science” (prakash, 1999, p. 113). there can be no doubt of ancient india’s contribution to mathematical theory; however, mathematics is not science. as nobel prize physicist richard feynman graphically put it, physics is to math what sex is to masturbation (feynman). 4.4 information accumulation and transmission surely one of the major advances in human history is the ability to convey abstract thought from person to person, from place to place, and from time to time—all based on the development and use of simple tools. the two seminal developments were spoken language and written representation. once a society has made permanent physical record of a particular advancement, there need be no reinvention and no consequent need for new recording. consequently, the gradual accumulation of knowledge should give a particular culture a sense of progress in the accumulation of its theoretical and mechanical achievements. despite neither india nor china making the significant connection between theory and practice that in the west led to the scientific and industrial revolutions, there were distinct differences between the two great asian civilizations. an indicative area for comparison between india, china, and europe at the beginning of the european scientific revolution is printing. even though comparable printing capabilities were available in all three cultures, their applications proceeded along separate paths. china combined its inventions of paper and block printing technologies, and later the europeans took the initial steps toward a revolution in knowledge by printing books (rahman, 1999, p. 244). both india and china had developed the technology of using carved wooden blocks to print textiles; india, however, did not apply this technique to the printing of books whereas china did (rahman, 1999, p. 246). “widespread adoption of mechanical printing only began in bengal under british colonial rule” (richards, 2005, pp. 288-289). this lack of readily available printed material describing existing knowledge inhibited indian culture www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 109 published by scholink inc. from laying the foundations for significant improvements in its material production capability. helenus scott, in a 1790 letter from india to sir joseph banks, president of the royal society in london, concluded that artisanal knowledge was “never communicated by writing nor printing nor their experience reduced to general laws”, and only passed with difficulty from father to son within the same caste on penalty of being excluded from the caste (scott, 1971, p. 265). over seven hundred years earlier, al-biruni noted that hindu artisans withheld information, especially “from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course from any foreigner…their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in khurâsân and persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar’” (al-biruni, 2002, p. 6). much as do modern scholars, a thousand years ago al-biruni attributed to the vedas many of these inhibitions against the production and sharing of information. he defined veda as meaning “knowledge of that which was before unknown…they do not allow the veda to be committed to writing” (al-biruni, 2002, p. 100). in eleventh-century hindu culture there was an aversion to committing an important body of knowledge such as the vedas to written form even if it meant losing the information. by contrast, during this same period the monasteries of europe were employing scribes to preserve and translate important proto-scientific works, and the chinese had already become masters at keeping detailed records. there is also reason to believe that the ahistorical, anonymous, and timeless nature of the vedas was directly translated into popular culture. pollock terms ancient indian writings as unanchored: “we can read thousands of pages of sanskrit on any imaginable subject and not encounter a single passing reference to a historical person, place or event—or at least to any that, historically speaking, matters” (pollock, 1989, p. 606). as al-biruni indicated, they believed important words were to be known by heart, not by the written word (al-biruni, 2002, p. 3). an oral tradition permits knowledge to be shared only face to face. the written word is freed from being bound to time, place or person. 4.5 mercantile capitalism a host of scholars have supported the thesis that capitalism and its agent, the merchant class, facilitated the scientific and industrial revolutions by promoting the concepts of profit and efficiency as well as fueling the drive toward urbanization and democracy. in europe technology and economic growth advanced in parallel. (skolnikoff, 1993, pp. 16-17). basalla assessed how european capitalism was used as a metaphor to describe the commoditization of the intellect as well as social relationships. (basalla, 1984, p. 523). richard hadden believed that the metaphor encompasses the “reduction of social relations to the value of commodities” (hadden, 1994, p. xi). needham concluded that since merchants had need for exact measurements to carry on trade, they found it necessary to finance the initial foundation of what would become modern physics (needham, 1969, pp. 186-187). li wan concluded that “in principle, scientific and technological knowledge can be put on the market as a commodity, and it can be influenced by the market mechanisms” (wan, 1991, p. 44). francis bacon, in new atlantis, dispatched “merchants of light” in pursuit of knowledge (basalla, 1984, p. 521). the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 110 published by scholink inc. european application of scientific theory to technology revolved about the economic axis of productive efficiency. this economic imperative was missing in india. while the western world was perfecting new concepts such as division of labor and interchangeability of parts, comparable activity did not occur in india (pacey, 1990, pp. 101-102). finally, whether the capitalist motive force was from individual merchants or sovereign governments, shigeru nakayama bluntly concluded that: “the only conscious goal that anyone has been able to find in the social processes that led to modern science is capitalist profit” (nakayama, 1973, p. 67). addressing india, the academic scholarship typically focuses on the impediment that the caste system presented in integrating science and technology in the indian economic structure. prakash concluded that it was necessary for india to reconstitute itself “through empirical sciences” before it could enter “a grid of modern infrastructures and economic linkages that drew the unified territory into the global capitalist economy” (prakash, 1999, p. 4). prior to the colonial dominance of india’s economy by great britain, western scholars rated the task as unlikely. weber found that the challenges for india were embedded throughout the entire economic system and included the difficulty in employing caste labor in modern industrial facilities. “a ritual law in which every change of occupation, every change in work technique, may result in ritual degradation is certainly not capable of giving birth to economic and technical revolutions from within itself, or even of facilitating the first germination of capitalism in its midst” (weber, 1958, p. 112). in europe, merchant guilds played a significant role in pressing for improvements in manufacturing through technological innovation. according to weber, however, there were fundamental differences between the european merchant guilds and the general association of indian castes within a particular craft. during the development of european merchant guilds in the middle ages, apprentices were typically allowed a free choice of a master, permitting “the transition of the children to occupations other than those of their parents, a circumstance which never occurs in the caste system. this difference is fundamental” (weber, 1958, p. 35). a second important difference is the interaction between the guilds themselves. in europe, while the competition could, at times, resort to violence, there was considerable social interaction between the guilds and other merchant associations, including cooperation to achieve mutually beneficial political aims. the cultural barriers made such fraternization between hindus castes improbable (weber, 1958, pp. 35-36). it must be remembered, however, that there were two social structures extant in india at the time that the merchant guilds were developing in europe. in india the vast majority of the population were hindus and therefore constrained by the particular mores of the vedas. at the top of the power structure and overlaid across indian society were the muslim rulers who were not constrained by the varna system and who were motivated by the accumulation of material wealth. iqtidar husain siddiqui concluded that “if any merchant came to delhi, he was honoured at the royal court and treated as a state guest during his stay in the capital” (siddiqui, 2008, p. 30). yet this positive attitude toward the capitalist ethic apparently did not percolate throughout the rest of indian society. that same hindu www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 111 published by scholink inc. cultural stability that was resistant to the islamic religion of its rulers was also resistant to their economic ethic as well. 4.6 democratic spirit and individualism there is extensive scholarship supporting the thesis that democracy, with its concomitant sense of individualism, is a principal ingredient in the development of modern science. while democracy and individualism are not identical concepts, they are the opposite sides of the same coin. for example, josephson found that “historians and sociologists of science maintain that science operates according to democratic principles” (josephson, 1996, p. 2). needham concluded that “there is a fundamental correlation between science and democracy” (needham, 1969, pp. 136-137). a.c. graham cited the “seminal rise of individualism.” (graham, 1973, pp. 41-42). the growing sense of democracy and individualism, on the one hand, and the practice of science and technology, on the other, were mutually reinforcing processes. a major impact of democracy and individualism was to render irreparable the schism between matters of the intellect and matters of the soul. reinforced by the movement toward capitalism, people were empowered to investigate new concepts as they arose. needham described it as a “hidden connection between science and democracy, namely the bridging of the gulf between the scholar and the artisan.” he documented “the complete gulf between theoretical scientific thought and technical human practice for thousands of years.... with the coming of capitalism, however, all was changed…the scholar, from being the support of the king, becomes the comrade of the artisan” (needham, 1969, pp. 140-141). needham ultimately concluded that “democracy might therefore almost in a sense be termed that practice of which science is the theory” (needham, 1969, p. 145). conversely, the practice of science and technology reinforces democracy and individualism. the very nature of modern scientific inquiry is inherently indifferent to the race or socio-economic status of the investigator; it is antagonistic toward cultures which venerate age. democracy and individualism reinforce the modern practice of science, which in turn present new options for behavior choices that, in a democratic structure, are more easily recognized and acted upon. in india the rigidity of the caste system severely impeded social mobility. obeisance to democratic ideals is a twentieth century phenomenon in india. 5. conclusion there is a broad range of cultural factors that played a role in the historical indian relationship with nature. these diverse factors include religion, the concept of nature, the role of artisans, mercantile capitalism, urbanization, information accumulation and transmission, the democratic spirit and individualism, the marriage of theory and practice, and the concept of śāstra. the caste system was certainly a critical element inhibiting the development in india of the necessary social context vital to the development of science in europe. the framework of the caste hierarchy is derived from the varnas as laid out in the vedas; as such, it has a canonical status in hindu teachings. it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 112 published by scholink inc. is presented as the ideal social order, with violations enforced through the threat of soteriological sanctions (smith, 1994, p. 319). much as western scholars attribute the rise of science to specific cultural values in europe that were reinforced by biblical authority, the varna system may well have inhibited the development of these same values in india through the cultural authority associated with the vedas. in the western world, science became an alternative path for proposing cultural truths which challenged those of the existing religious and political systems. the caste system not only created an inflexible social framework, but also privileged brahmins—the social group most threatened by change—with the authority for being the final arbiters of both natural and religious truths. in comparison with europe, indian culture was extremely stable. like china, india succeeded in adapting to military invasion, mercantile capitalism, urbanization, new religious movements, environmental pressures, and the introduction of new technologies in such a manner as to avert challenge to its fundamental cultural values. as needham concluded during his search for the causal elements of the rise of modern science in europe, “from the fifteenth century a.d. onwards a complex of changes occurred; the renaissance cannot be thought of without the reformation, the reformation cannot be thought of without the rise of modern science, and none of them can be thought of without the rise of capitalism, capitalist society and the decline and the disappearance of feudalism. we seem to be in the presence of a kind of organic whole, a packet of change” (needham, 1969, p. 40). although any culture can certainly be thought of as an organic whole, india successfully resisted those changes that began the transformation of europe in the seventeenth century. a careful deconstruction of indian nationalist literature typically uncovers a systematic cherry-picking of information rather than a comprehensive analysis. in accurately asserting that modern history does not adequately credit hindu culture for its many mathematical and technological contributions, nationalists make a leap of faith that these meritorious contributions were indeed science. the obvious repurposing of śāstra cannot accomplish such historical revisionism. one book on so-called ancient hindu science concluded that joseph needham believed that the history of science for china is incomplete and that india’s contribution has not adequately been complied by historians (a. kumar, 2019, p. 3). while that is certainly accurate, that author does not mention that needham’s many-volume examination of chinese history and knowledge also concluded that china indeed did not independently develop science. moreover, while a trained scientist, this author omits a basic analysis of what constitutes the practice of science and whether the translation of śāstra as science is appropriate. such apologists also generally appear to misunderstand that a technological innovation can well involve no scientific understanding. one of the most significant advances in human development was the ancient flaking of stone to make tools. despite its technological significance, there clearly was no science involved. science is a particular way of understanding the natural world. it is specific to the development of european culture beginning in the sixteenth century and presumes that our physical world is regulated by humanly comprehensible natural laws, can be reduced to constituent parts, and can be mathematized. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 113 published by scholink inc. in india, historical obeisance to the strictures of the vedas prevented the development of a non-religious alternative to understanding the natural world that, in europe, became science. nevertheless, india’s nationalistic political agenda has attempted to credit the vedas as the origins of modern science many thousands of years ago. this may be good politics, but it is bad history, and misrepresents what science is. references abdi, w. (1999). “glimpses of mathematics in medieval india.” in a. raman (ed.), history of science, philosophy and culture in indian civilization: volume iii part 1, history of indian science, technology and culture ad 1000-1800. oxford: oxford university press. abinandanan, t. a. (2015). in subramanian, samanth. january 5, 2015. “hindu nationalists claim ancient sage ‘invented spaceships,’” the nationalist. al-biruni, a. r. (2002). albêrûnî’s india: an account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of india about a.d. 1030 (transl. by edward c. sullivan). new delhi: rupa & co. aristotle. (1991). quoted in bodde, derk. chinese thought, society, and science: the intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern china. honolulu: university of hawaii press. basalla. g. (19840. “xxxxxxx” in mendelsohn, everett. ed. transformation and tradition in the sciences: essays in honor of i. bernard cohen. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. basham, a. l. (1954). the wonder that was india: a survey of the culture of the indian sub-continent before the coming of the muslims. new york: grove press, bbc news. (2019). “india scientists dismiss einstein theories”, january 7, 2019. retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879 bodde, d. (1991). chinese thought, society, and science: the intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern china. honolulu: university of hawaii press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824846954 cicero. (1991). quoted in derk bodde. chinese thought, society, and science: the intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern china. honolulu: university of hawaii press. embree, a. t. (1988. ed.). sources of tradition (volume one: from the beginning to 1800). new york: columbia university press. graham, a. c. (1973). “china, europe, and the origins of modern science” in s. nakayama, & n. sivin (eds.), chinese science: explorations of an ancient tradition. cambridge: mit press. hadden, r. w. (1994). on the shoulders of merchants. albany, ny: state university of new york press. hooykas, r. (1991). quoted in derk bodde. 1991. chinese thought, society, and science: the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 114 published by scholink inc. intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern china. honolulu: university of hawaii press. josephson, p. r. (1996). totalitarian science and technology. atlantic highlands, n.j: humanities press. kumar, a. (2019). ancient hindu science: its transmission and impact on world cultures. williston, vermont: morgan and claypool publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79402-5 kumar, d. (2005). science and the raj: a study of british india. oxford: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195687149.001.0001 mayfair. (1971) in dharampal, shri. 1971. indian science and technology in the 18th century: some contemporary european accounts. new delhi: impex india. mesthene, e. (2003). “the social impact of technological change”. in scharff, robert c., & val dusek (eds.), philosophy of technology: the technological condition. malden: blackwell publishing. nakayama. (1973). “joseph needham, organic philosopher” in n. shigeru, & n. sivin (eds.), chinese science: explorations of an ancient tradition. cambridge: mit press. needham, j. (1969). the grand titration: science and society in east and west. toronto: university of toronto press, canada. pacey, a. (1990). technology in world civilization: a thousand-year history. cambridge: mit press. plato. (1990). quoted in katz, barry m. 1990. technology and culture: a historical romance. stanford: stanford alumni association. plato. (1991). quoted in bodde, derk. 1991. chinese thought, society, and science: the intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern china. honolulu: university of hawaii press. in journal of the american oriental society (vol. 105, no. 3, pp. 499-519) indological studies. pollock, s. (oct.-dec. 1989). mimāmsā and the problem of history in traditional india. journal of the american oriental society, 109(4), 603-610. https://doi.org/10.2307/604085 prakash, g. (1999). another reason: science and the imagination of modern india. princeton: princeton university press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691214214 rahman, a. (1999). history of science, philosophy and culture in indian civilization: volume iii part 1, history of indian science, technology and culture ad 1000-1800. oxford: oxford university press. richards, j. f. (2005). (seventh reprint). the mughal empire. cambridge: cambridge university press. rizvi, s. a. a. (1987). the wonder that was india (volume ii: a survey of the history and culture of the indian sub-continent from the coming of the muslims to the british conquest 1200-1700). new delhi: rupa. scott, h. (1971). “aspects of technology in western india” quoted in dharampal, shri. 1971. indian science and technology in the 18th century: some contemporary european accounts. new delhi: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 115 published by scholink inc. impex india. siddiqui, i. h. (2008). “social mobility in the delhi sultanate” in habib, irfan. ed. medieval india: researches in the history of india 1200-1750. oxford: oxford university press. skolnikoff, e. b. (1993). the elusive transformation: science, technology, and the evolution of international politics. princeton, nj: princeton university press. smith, b. k. (1994). classifying the universe: the ancient indian varņa system and the origins of caste. oxford: oxford university press. subramanian, s. (2015). hindu nationalists claim ancient sage ‘invented spaceships,’” the nationalist. thapar, r. (2002). early india: from the origins to ad 1300. berkeley: university of california press. wan, l. (1991). in könig, w., h. poser, w. radtke, & w. h. schnell. (1991). technological development, society, and state: western and chinese civilizations in comparison. proceedings of a conference sponsored by the volkswagen foundation, singapore: world scientific publishing co. weber, m. (1958). the religion of india: the sociology of hinduism and buddhism. glencoe: the free press. winter, h. j. j. (1975). “science”. in basham, a. l. (ed.), a cultural history of india. oxford: oxford university press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper a study on the attainment of regional peace: insinuation of johan galtung’s philosophy of peace in southeast asian countries taha husain 1* 1 60 decibels, inc. 205 e 42nd street, 20th floor, new york, ny 10017, usa * taha husain, 60 decibels, inc. 205 e 42nd street, 20th floor, new york, ny 10017, usa received: april 8, 2019 accepted: may 2, 2019 online published: may 4, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p1 abstract the purpose of this study is to scrutinize the insinuation of galtung’s “positive” and “negative” peace in southeast asian countries. applying the qualitative research methodology and a case study approach, this study finds a relation of galtung’s’ peace theory and peaceful coexistence in contemporary southeast asian nations. this study reveals that the southeast asian nation-states beneath the authority of asean’s regionalism have efficaciously been managed its negative peace since the 1970s. the execution of positive peace, on the other hand, had instigated with the enactment of treaty, accord and agreement since the 1980s. this regional organization has taken numerous strategies, which contributes to speed up its economy, improve social lifespan and develop a culture of peace in this area. the zone which was once well-known for its mutual confrontation, hostility and conflict, has now converted diplomatic. its non-coercive approaches, soft diplomacy and, nuclear nonproliferation has now turned into a pioneer characteristic for the conflict-prone regions of the world. keywords negative peace, positive peace, southeast asia, regionalism, soft diplomacy, security community 1. introduction galtung, pioneer of peace study in his early age (1964-1971) wrote many theoretical papers based on his structural theory, along themes such as aggression (1964), institutionalized conflict resolution (1965), non-violence (1965), integration (1968), violence, peace and peace research (1969), structural and direct violence (1971), and, imperialism (galtung, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1971). one prominent idea that comes out of these papers is that an adequate understanding of violence is required in order to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 2 published by scholink inc. understand and define peace. violence is being “present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realization” (galtung, 1969). this definition is much wider than violence as being merely somatic or direct, and includes structural violence. this extended definition of violence leads to an extended definition of peace, where peace is not merely and the absence of direct violence (negative peace) but also the absence of structural violence (positive peace). structural violence stems from violence in the structure of society, rather than the actor-generated personal and direct violence. he further clarifies the idea of negative peace and positive peace in 1990s. he pointed out that there are three types of violence these are direct, structural, and cultural. negative peace would mean the absence of direct violence, whilst positive peace would mean the absence of indirect violence, such as bliss and contentment of body and mind (galtung, 1996). however, development of galtung’s philosophy of peace has similarity with in world politics. the repercussion of the world war ii, there came out an upsurge of regional peace movements in different parts of the world (cortright, 2008). having witnessed the culmination of notorious wars the surviving countries launched the practicalities of regional reconciliation in lieu of pledging stability, in the finale, there has been some inventiveness similarly in the southeast asian region (acharya, 2014; ba, 2009; ruland, 2000; pempel, 2005). this region, erstwhile to ww-ii was colonized by global forces such as britain, the united states, france and spain. in the early ages, countries in southeast asia were not documented as a region (turnbull, 1999). essentially, this region encompassing of indonesia, philippines, malaysia, singapore, thailand, brunei, vietnam, lao pdr, myanmar and colombia is a 1970s derivation which is gradually escalating (narine, 2002; stubbs, 2002). ever since its origination in the 1970s, fashioning regional peace and stability has to turn out to be a crucial point for these nation-states (nathan, 1988; thambipillai & saravanamuttu, 1985; keeling et al., 2011; patmanathan, 1980). the regional association asean, supports these countries to make an unrestricted, nonviolent and impartial atmosphere in southeast asia supporting all the superpower to circumvent their interference in the region. the member nations acknowledged their commitment to inaugurating an asean community which emphases on forming a community by means of a free flow of goods, services, investment and capital. resulting in the justifiable economic enlargement and condense the poverty and socio-economic discrepancies by the year 2020 (guerrero, 2009). therefore, these countries under the asean regional order launches joint trade and improve ways and means to preserve security and to preclude the regional disorder (antolik, 1994; khoman, 1992). in this backdrop, this study aims to evaluate john galtung’s peace theory in the context of southeast asian countries. this study follows a qualitative research methodology. the comparative historical approach, using case studies, is the approach of qualitative discovery that will be employed. the qualitative, a historical case study approach. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 3 published by scholink inc. 1.1 literature review there is a profusion of literatures which depicts on the topics of regional study, regionalism, regional peace, regional safety and security. bulut (2012), an expert on regionalism explained the regional movement in southeast asia by two integration theories, i.e., the neo-functionalism and inter-governmental. the study of kurlantzick (2012) also illustrated how neo-functionalism theory applied in southeast asia. countries in this region benefited through regionalization which help managing internal conflict. asean secretariat in comparison to other regional organization’s secretariat would be more effective for its economic potentiality and help to improve relationships super powers. sukma on the other hand, presents an analytical overview of regional security in the southeast asian. countries in this region succeeded in promoting peace through managing of conflict. it grows a strong sense that war is no longer possible. this issue further explained by professor michael leifer (1999). he described the asean peace process as a distinctive activity which refers as regional peacemaking. regional prerogative managerial role in promoting peace can be experienced as a model for other regions. diplomatic paralysis in response to a number of acute regional problems has played a positive role in providing a framework for avoiding and managing contention among member states. the mode of activity, informal confidence-building and trust creation, has been directed to mitigate tension and intra-mural problems. it is evident from the literature, that the study on the peace, security and regionalism is not new. a significant number of studies focus on these themes. but no significant academic study on the attainment of john galtung’ peace theory in regional context has been found, which indicates that this particular area has not yet been adequately focused on. thus there is created a research gap in this particular field of study. therefore, this paper seeks to meet the research gap and provide the contextual description of the facts in detail. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 4 published by scholink inc. 1.2 theoretical framework figure 1. johan galtung’s peace theory source: galtung, 1996. 2. methods to accomplish this paper specific cases relevant to asean role in peace is needed, so the principal methodology of this paper is comparative case study. thus, the methodology is qualitative in nature. the comparative historical approach, using case studies, is the approach of qualitative discovery that is employed. qualitative methods can be useful when the unit of analysis is categorical rather than numerical. agenda of this paper contains historical components; themr are philosophical rather than empirical. samples are insufficient for a large-n study. in this circumstances the qualitative approaches can build, reject, modify, clarify, or fill gaps of the study. as such, the qualitative, a historical case study approach can provide significant utility to the goals of the study. this approach provides valuable contextual and inferential insight as to the causal and sustaining mechanisms of a phenomenon. this study takes four cases of conflict, confrontation and war. three cases started in pre-asean ages and ended peacefully in post-asean era. another case of conflict, which started in post-asean era and end up with, expanded asean era. i have selected these cases because there was significance indication of peace creation by asean. violence peace absence of structural violence positive peace direct violence personal, e.g., assault, riot, terrorism, war indirect violence structural, e.g., poverty, hungry, apartheid, discrimination, social injustices absence of personal violence or negative peace www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 5 published by scholink inc. 3. result 3.1 the road to peace: insinuation of john galtung’s philosophy of peace in the southeast asian country figure 2. johan galtung’ peace theory in asean context 3.2 attainment of negative peace mitigation of interstate conflict by treaty, declaration and concord. asean was formed in 1967, from the beginning there was a dispute among the asean states including indonesia and malaysia confrontation (case study-1) and dispute between malaysia and the philippines (case study-2) over their claims on the north borneo territory of sabah (sukma, 2010). declaration of asean concord and the treaty of amity and cooperation worked as a preventive strategy. the conflict-prone states managed to resolve their disputes effectively because they agreed not to pursue their disagreements by force. thus by the 1990s, asean had managed to incorporate most of its former enemies, i.e., the vietnam and laos into the grouping (sukma, 2010). the “declaration on the conduct of parties in the south china sea” was adopted in 2002 to keep way the state parties from resorting force. this declaration, in line with the principles of international law, settled the dispute in south china sea. it was a victory for asean state to get china away from its action. and last but not the least in 2003 regional leaders signed the asean concord ii, which established asean community parallel to security community (ameer, 2005). the straits of melaka (case study-3) was renowned for its pirates, territorial border dispute, waters security, sovereignty, illegal immigrants and illegal fishing among the malaysia, singapore and indonesia and these countries with the help of asean platform made the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 6 published by scholink inc. straits of malacca cooperation treaty in 2005 and resolved the dispute. this cooperation brings the security of straits of malacca is under control. the following table illustrates the treaties southeast asian countries made and the dispute is resolved. table 1. treaty of asean that contributes to resolve the interstate conflict name of the treaty dispute resolved bangkok treaty indonesia vs malaysia confrontation declaration of asean concord malaysia vs philippine land dispute treaty of amity and cooperation all member states settled their dispute declaration on the conduct of parties in the south china sea asean vs china dispute over numbers of islands asean concord ll establish de facto security community strait of malacca cooperation crime and dispute among malaysia-singapore, indonesia and thailand besides the treaties several occasions, diplomacy of asean countries helps to mitigate interstate conflict. for instance, during the third indochina war in 1980s, asean states kept the diplomatic pressure up on hanoi to stop its military invasion in cambodia. the diplomatic effort of asean led to the withdrawal of vietnamese troops from cambodia in 1991 (case study-4). the ability to speak with one voice in this conflict brought asean’s international recognition as the most successful regional organization in the establishment of peace (narine, 2002). thus, the countries of southeast asia avoided the use of coercive strategies. as a result, a de facto security community exists among the southeast asian states where their interactions are similar to those of the members of a secured society. mitigation of the inter-state conflict were succeeded in southeast asian region because the regional superpower states were agaist the mindset of forceful intervention. for instance, indonesia is a largest state in the southeast asian region, but it has little influence to its small states. therefore, the power differences between the largest state and the others are not very wide. secondly, the control of outside intervention. southeast asian states incorporated powerful states outside of asean regional gathering through dialogue, discussion and diplomacy and no state in this region are unhappy with such a presence of external actors, i.e., the china, japan, and usa (sridharan, 2008a). diplomatic approach against the vietnamese invasion in cambodia drew support from the us and china, working in tandem, asean and these powers were able to end the cambodian crisis. the culture of cooperation, on the other hand, among the southeast asian countries has created an environment to resolve their disputes. president suharto’s role impacted greatly in this regard along with it other leaders from this region emphasized strongly to create a culture of cooperation. the state in this region act like a society and they are willing to grip the practice of cultural cooperation (sridharan, 2008b). several case studies will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 7 published by scholink inc. clarify the issue. 3.2.1 case study-1: malaysia vs. indonesia conflict during 1961-1965, the relations between malaysia and indonesia were hostilities, conflict, and confrontation. tunku abdul rahman, in the year of 1961, gave the proposal of creating malaysian federation, which was aims to amalgamate the federation of malaya, singapore, sarawak, brunei and sabah. after this declaration, conflict between malaysia and indonesia erupted. the sukarno government said that the federation of malaysia is a form of neocolonialism, he desired an absolute independence which will free from all source of external domination where none of the western powers should interfere. so the sukarno’s confrontation policy towards malaysian federation did not only confront with malaysia but also with great britain and the americans because they have political and strategic interests in that region. as a result of cold war china and the soviet union gave strong support to the indonesian government. therefore, sukarno launched the confrontation policy towards malaysia in september 1963. the internal situation and political structure had also influenced sukarno to launch the confrontation policy towards malaysia. his government hoped that they could increase another territorial boundary. (source: jones, 2001; hindley, 1964). 3.2.2 case study-2: malaysia vs. philippine conflict the malaysian-philippines territorial dispute, also known as the north borneo dispute was a result of the sulu sultanate’s division. in colonial period the british government controlled the northern borneo, while the remainder of the sulu land felt under spanish rule. however, malaysia was also ruled by britain and philippine was under spanish rule. the problem at hand refers to the state of sabah, which both parties lay claim on, malaysia because of the sabah’s vote on joining the malaysian federation, and the philippines, because of their presentation as the successor state of sulu. because of the connections between people living on both sides of the border, illegal immigration, incidents of cross-border raiding and kidnappings have become a commonplace (source: fernandez, 2007; storey, 1999; jie, 1994). 3.2.3 case study-3: strait of malacca conflict oceans dominate the southeast asia region and cover almost 80 per cent of its area. within southeast asia, the strait of malacca is geographically important and is used as a gateway for many oceans moving commercial, private and military vessels. the strait lies between the littoral states of indonesia, malaysia, and singapore just north of the indonesian island of sumatra and south of malaysia. it is 600 miles in length and is the main corridor of passage between the indian ocean and the south china sea. approximately 60,000 ships traverse the strait each year, transporting more than 80 per cent of northeast asia’s oil. the strait of malacca has been home to a number of types of transnational crime such as piracy. however, in recent years, the region has accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all attacks worldwide, and the waters surrounding indonesia continue to be the most frequent area for recurrent piracy attacks. acts of piracy have ranged from stealing a ship while it is anchored to the classic boarding and hijacking of a vessel on the high seas. piracy attacks, both actual and attempted, vary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 8 published by scholink inc. from year to year in the strait. at the height of the attacks in 2003, there was 154 and recently in 2006, there was 71 (source: leifer & nelson, 1973; sittnick, 2005; raymond, 2009). 3.2.4 case study-4: cambodian conflict for almost 30 years before 1990s, the people of cambodia have been the victims of conflicts and violence. death and devastation have been their constant companions. civil wars, a foreign invasion, the slaughter of citizens by their own government and gun battles in the streets of the capital have together produced suffering. cambodian attitudes towards war started from 1975 to 1979. when the khmer rouge ruled in phnom penh, the cambodians were assured that the enemy need not come from outside one’s rather they had to wage war against its own people. when the vietnamese invaded in 1979 and occupied cambodia, people realized that foreign invaders deserve worse treatment than one’s compatriots hold (source: mcgregor, 1990; peang-meth, 1992; amer, 2007). in this backdrop, the formation of asean is perceived as to handle prevailing and probable inter-state disputes through peaceable measures and minimalize the jeopardy of militarized conflicts. there was a desire to secure a peaceful and co-operative environment in southeast asia. during the first half of the 1960s, deep conflicts erupted between indonesia and malaysia and between malaysia and the philippines (jones, 2005). if conflict management within asean is examined from the perspective of the prevention of inter-state military conflicts, the record of accomplishment of asean is impressive since no dispute has led to such conflicts between the original member-states since 1967. the period after 1965 was very different in the field of political relations between indonesia and malaysia marked by friendship, harmony, and co-operation. the new regime in indonesia in 1967 reversed the old policy and type of political relationship with malaysia. the new government under president suharto took the initiative to end the confrontation with malaysia, and actively sought co-operation with malaysia and other neighbouring southeast asian countries. the littoral states of indonesia, malaysia, and singapore have recently begun to engage in maritime security cooperation in the malacca strait in 2004 on a trilateral basis. this runs counter to the norms of the greater southeast asian region. by being able to deduce and determine what has allowed for increased cooperation between these states it may point to how they may cooperate more in the future and reduce the instances of piracy in the strait of malacca (teo, 2007). 3.3 attainment of positive peace 3.3.1 economic attainment the rapid growth of industrialization: asean economic committee initiated asean industrial projects in bali conference in the year of1976. the committee decided that every member states will be given specific project allocation that involves investment between usd 250 million to usd 350 million. under this program, malaysia and indonesia were given the responsibility to handle urea fertilizer. the philippines were given the phosphate sulfur project, soda ash project to thailand and singapore was assigned to run the diesel engine thus asean as a regional organ enhanced its industrialization cooperatively in southeast asian countries (guerrero, 2009). the creation of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 9 published by scholink inc. asean free trade area: next initiative was taken by asean at kuala lumpur in 1991 where they agreed to establish the asean free trade area. that means all asean goods can be traded to member states with a minimum tariff or without tariff. priority is given to 11 industries, where no tariff policy implemented thus asean brings the economy of southeast asian countries in one-step ahead (guerrero, 2009). the formation of aia: another initiative was the framework agreement for asean investment area signed in manila in 1998. aia was aimed to encourage direct flow from inside and outside asean that make a competitive, open and liberal investment area. at the same time, aia also targets to build the asean region as a competitive investment area by 1 january 2010. by this policy, asean allowed foreign direct investment and advance their economy (guerrero, 2009). the initiation of eaec: the creation of east asian economy caucus and regional economic negotiation council increases the seriousness of economic cooperation between east asia and asean. when china, japan, and south korea agreed to participate in asean+3, the commitment of east asian and southeast asian countries in the economy was established, and this is also a success for asean in the economic area (guerrero, 2009). 3.3.2 socialization asean has a social charter which defines various commitments that every member state are morally agreed to undertake in their respective countries (asean, tuc, 2015). despite the charter bilateral commitment on socialization are also prominent. for example, indonesia-malaysia bilateral cooperation in the field of education, that has started in 1980s. this cooperation covers various fields such as medical, housing, information-technology and agriculture. on the other hand, the countries in southeast asian nations socialized itself through sea games, aimed to maintain the existing good relationship among regional states and as a platform for a local athlete to increase their capabilities in olympics. asean also socialized itself by resolving illegal migrant’s problem. for instance, asean used the amnesty program which administered by the malaysian government to treat 1.2 million illegal immigrants in 2004. the program helps to return their own country without imposing legal action or allowing them to enter malaysia legally (deacon et al., 2007). asean member states agreed to eradicate drug abuse by cooperating with relevant parties. asean also attempted to eliminate border crimes, organized crimes and the eradication of smuggling and termination of crimes in borders between regional countries, so that they can be more socialized and live with peace and tranquillity (deacon et al., 2007). 3.3.3 asian way: an effective approach for promoting peace maintain the policy of non-interference: the non-interference policy has become the principle of asean based on the bangkok declaration 1967, and kuala lumpur declaration 1971, which produced zopfan and further reinforced with the cooperation and friendship treaty in 1976. southeast asian countries believe that interference is the impediment to freedom, independence and sovereignty of sea countries. for example, article 2 of the treaty of amity and cooperation portrayed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 10 published by scholink inc. principles for its member countries. the principles include mutual respect of independence, sovereignty, territories and respect national identity. these principles help to get success as a regional organ and promote peace in that region (acharya, 2003f; acharya, 2003g). another principle is the non-intervention in internal affairs of member countries. this principle is the major content of zopfan and tac, which aims to avoid possible political and military intervention from superpowers (us, china, and russia) in that region (acharya, 2003a). with this agreement, the countries agreed that they should not involve in the political arena of superpowers rather maintain a friendly relationship with every country regardless of political ideology so that peace and security in this region are guaranteed. the non-coercion policy, on the other hand, a way to resolve any dispute among members is another vital point. the countries in this region upholds this policy to ensure the preservation of peace (acharya, 2003e). the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons: the southeast asian countries accelerated its peace and stability by adopting seanwfz agreement in the year of 1995. this treaty aims to avoid member countries from possessing, placing and utilizing nuclear weapons. thus, the asean countries are prohibited from owning, manufacturing, transporting and using a nuclear weapon (acharya, 2003b). practicing soft and track two diplomacies is another way that the states of southeast asia has been implied so far. track 2 diplomacy means informal method of generating confidence between countries. it involves informal visits, closed-door meetings, keep away the media, and bilateral agreement that enhances confidence among country members (acharya, 2003c). however, the political cooperation for the southeast asian nations intensified soon after the declaration of singapore in the year of 1992. it paved way asean regional forum (arf) as the principal entrance to promote political and security issues between asean and the asia pacific. thus, the arf has become a centre stage to solve dispute, security threat, and nuclear threat in a peaceful manner (acharya, 2003d). 4. conclusion this study finds that asean from its initiation sidestepped sensitive disputes from its agenda and emphasis on economic collaboration. though, it does not mean that asean overlooked the dogmatic and security complications between member states. states in this region preferred a bilateral approach rather than a multilateral through soft diplomacy. they preferred informality in managing conflict, confrontation and hostility thus the informality turn out to be more effective when influential countries developed closer individual ties. the leaders of this region has been continued to adopt a steady attitude to stockpile the collaboration between them. the peaceful mitigations of confrontation between malaysia and indonesia, vietnam and laos’s crisis, third indochina war, vietnamese troops over cambodia proves that the southeast asian country manage to establish negative peace. additionally, the cambodian conflict, island crisis in south china sea as well as problem in the straits of melaka such as pirates, border dispute, water security, border invasion, sovereignty, illegal immigrants and illegal fishing also resolved peacefully. on the part of positive peace this paper finds that by taking innovative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 11 published by scholink inc. economic policy, political norms and values, and pro-active socialization process these countries able to establish steadiness. the role of zopfan, arf and seanwfz in security management, collaborative economic advancement, soft diplomacy and informality are also helped these countries to attain positive peace. reference acharya, a. 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(1999). formal and informal empire in east asia. the oxford history of the british empire, 5, 379-402. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205661.003.0025 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 96 original paper research on the inheritance and innovation of zhanjiang folk music under the background of cultural and tourism integration jia luo1 1 school of music and dance, lingnan normal university, zhanjiang, guangdong, china received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p96 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p96 abstract against the backdrop of china's accelerating integration of culture and tourism, the preservation, dissemination, and social embeddedness of zhanjiang folk music have undergone significant transformations. as a distinctive embodiment of lingnan culture and maritime traditions, this musical heritage has gained renewed visibility through tourism-driven initiatives. however, challenges such as the erosion of traditional transmission mechanisms, homogenization of musical content, and the loss of cultural depth have become increasingly prominent. drawing on theories of cultural ecology and culture–tourism integration, this study employs methods including literature review, field investigation, interviews, and case analysis to examine the historical and artistic dimensions of zhanjiang folk music. it explores the role of folk music in tourism development and investigates pathways for revitalizing traditional music within the dynamics of cultural tourism. the findings indicate that while the expanding cultural tourism sector offers broader platforms for dissemination, the lack of robust preservation and creative renewal mechanisms may lead to the over-theatricalization, symbolic simplification, and commercial dilution of musical traditions.in response, this study proposes strategies such as establishing a multi-stakeholder system for music heritage preservation, promoting digital and cross-sectoral innovation, and strengthening cultural branding to support the sustainable development of zhanjiang folk music within integrated cultural-tourism contexts. overall, this research contributes to the academic understanding of regional musical culture and offers a practical reference for the contemporary transformation of intangible cultural heritage. keywords zhanjiang folk music, culture–tourism integration, intangible cultural heritage, cultural ecology, heritage transmission and innovation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 1. introduction with the filing of china’s merging of culture and tourism at a faster pace, the preservation, communication, and social embedding of zhanjiang folk music have been changed significantly. as a unique collective memory of lingnan culture and maritime traditions, this musical heritage has got the new cultural visibility through the contemporary tourism-driven initiatives. simultaneously, the thinning of tradition carriers, the musical content homogenization, the cultural depth disappearance, etc. issues have also become louder and clearer. this article, grounded in cultural ecology and culture–tourism integration theories and using literature analysis, field investigations, interviews, and representative case studies as methods, traces the historical and artistic aspects of zhanjiang folk music, studies the employment of this music for tourism, and researches the revival of the traditional music method under tourism dynamics. it infers that the expanding cultural tourism sector provides larger dissemination platforms but, on the other hand, the nonexistence of strong preservation and creative renewal mechanisms may bring about the over-theatricalization, symbolic simplification, and commercial dilution of musical traditions. urged by these revelations, the study drafts the measures like stimulating the multi-stakeholder system for the music heritage, promoting digital and cross-sectoral innovation, and facilitating cultural branding to nurture the sustainable growth of zhanjiang folk music in the integrated cultural-tourism environments. this work, in general, deepens the academic understanding of regional musical culture and serves as a practicable reference model for the intangible cultural heritage contemporary ‍transformation. the rising attention to cultural revival and the focus on regional characteristics in china have made the integration of culture and tourism a key force in local development. as cultural tourism moves from basic sightseeing to deeper experience-based activities, traditional cultural forms are placed into wider frameworks that connect heritage display, city image building, and cultural industries. in this changing environment, zhanjiang’s folk music—formed in daily life, local identity, and long-term community practice—has become an important subject for redefining cultural value and exploring new cultural innovation.zhanjiang, located in the southwest of guangdong province, stands at the meeting point of lingnan, maritime, and multi-ethnic cultural traditions. through many centuries, its folk music has developed various styles influenced by migration, coastal living, and ritual customs. melodies from the leizhou peninsula and work songs of fishermen show local musical taste and also carry collective memory and community identity. however, industrialization, rapid urban movement, and modern media have weakened the social environments and transmission systems that once supported these traditions. more young people now prefer global cultural products, and the original cultural contexts of folk music are slowly disappearing. because of this, the protection and renewal of zhanjiang folk music has become an urgent and complicated issue.at the same time, the fast growth of cultural tourism has created new chances for folk music to enter public view in different ways. a bigger tourism market and the growing interest in meaningful cultural experiences let traditional music reach more people. stage shows, immersive cultural events, and digital media also give folk musicians more ways to express their work. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 but when music and tourism come together, it often makes the culture too simple. many traditional elements are shown in a very dramatic or symbolic way. this can make the depth and real meaning of folk music weaker in commercial situations. so it is important to study how zhanjiang folk music can be protected, continued, and changed in creative ways under the culture–tourism integration.using ideas from cultural ecology, intangible heritage studies, and culture–tourism development models, this research looks at the history, musical features, and modern uses of zhanjiang folk music. the study uses fieldwork, interviews, and case analysis. the main goal is to explain the inside logic of how traditional music is changing today. it also tries to give strategies that can help the music continue and develop in a creative way that fits both cultural ecology and market needs. in general, this study gives more academic understanding of regional folk music and provides practical ideas for cultural development in zhanjiang and the larger lingnan area. 2. the cultural ecology and artistic features of folk music in zhanjiang 2.1 historical origins and cultural formation the development of zhanjiang folk music comes from long-term cultural mixing, not from a single or isolated process. as an important part of lingnan culture, zhanjiang has been shaped by many waves of han migration from the central plains, by maritime traditions formed through fishing life, and by contact with local ethnic groups such as the li and liao people. since the song and yuan dynasties, different melodic ideas, rhythm patterns, and lyric styles started to blend, creating a clear regional musical style (zhang, 2024). during the ming and qing periods, the arrival of hakka groups added more musical elements, including new narrative structures, tune types, and performance habits.from a cultural ecology perspective, the growth of zhanjiang folk music is closely connected to local production activities and ritual practices. leizhou peninsula is both an agricultural and maritime society, so music was part of farm work rhythms, fishing teamwork, and religious ceremonies. leizhou songs were often sung during short breaks in farming work. fishermen also used work chants to help group actions, such as rowing or pulling nets together. in this case, the music was not only a way of artistic expression. it also made the community more united, kept ritual order, and supported cultural identity. this close link with daily life gives zhanjiang folk music its stable form and helps it stay alive for a long time.zhanjiang is located on important sea routes, and this made it interact with hainan, guangxi, and southeast asia. these connections brought new ideas in melody and rhythm. they gave the music a more open style that shows the wider maritime culture. so zhanjiang folk music has both strong local traditions and outside cultural influence.understanding these historical and cultural roots is very important when we study how zhanjiang folk music changes today, especially when it enters new cultural and tourism fields. this background also helps us explain different musical types and gives support for later discussion about cultural innovation (xi, 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 99 2.2 musical types, stylistic features, and cultural meaning zhanjiang folk music has many kinds of musical forms. each form was shaped by different social needs, ways of expression, and people’s taste. the main types include farming songs, fishermen’s work chants, ritual and ceremonial music, wedding and festival music, and some traditional narrative or performance styles. all these forms together build a cultural system that shows local society and daily life.in terms of style, the music keeps the smooth melodies and flexible rhythms that are common in lingnan traditions. it also shows expressive features from the maritime culture. leizhou songs usually use a small melodic range and have a soft and gentle flow. this makes them easy to sing during farm work or community events. fishermen’s chants often have a strong and steady rhythm to support teamwork. ritual music often uses free tempo and a serious sound. it expresses spiritual and symbolic ideas in local belief systems.besides the musical structure, zhanjiang folk music also carries social, cultural, and emotional meanings. folk songs describe rural life and include values, farming knowledge, and shared feelings. work chants show cooperation and persistence. they express the rhythm of maritime labor and the spirit of fishing communities. ritual music supports kinship ties and keeps the symbolic order in traditional religious life. in this way, zhanjiang folk music is not only sound. it also shows community life and the regional view of the world on many levels.performance practices also show the cultural complexity of this tradition. many folk songs allow improvisation, so singers can change the melody or lyrics based on the situation. work chants often use call-and-response and group participation to make collective identity stronger. ritual music is usually performed by trained cultural members or specialists, which keeps a strong link between the music and the ceremony. together, these practices create a cultural ecosystem that helps zhanjiang folk music continue from one generation to the next.overall, the many musical types, styles, and cultural meanings show that zhanjiang folk music is both very traditional and able to change. this mix of stability and openness gives a strong base for its creative development in tourism settings and also supports new ideas for cultural innovation (guo, wang, & li, 2025). 3. challenges facing zhanjiang folk music in the context of culture–tourism integration 3.1 intensifying weakness of transmission agents and the emerging cultural gap as social structures and everyday lifestyles continue to undergo rapid transformation, the traditional mechanisms that once sustained the transmission of zhanjiang folk music have been substantially weakened. what used to function as a community-rooted system—embedded in family networks, village life, and collective cultural practices—has gradually given way to fragmented and informal modes of learning. the authority and social roles of veteran musicians in rural society have diminished, and the model of apprenticeship based on daily immersion and intergenerational teaching has become increasingly difficult to maintain. younger generations, drawn overwhelmingly toward popular music, digital entertainment, and urban cultural forms, display declining emotional attachment to local musical traditions. as a result, the community base that formerly upheld zhanjiang folk music has noticeably www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 contracted.this structural shift is further compounded by the aging of tradition bearers and the scarcity of younger successors. many of the remaining master practitioners have never benefited from systematic documentation or professional preservation support; their knowledge is still mainly kept in the body and passed on through oral teaching (zhuan, 2024). once these lines of transmission break, the loss of cultural memory and musical skills cannot be changed back. in recent years, intangible cultural heritage policies have grown, but the gap between official protection and real community continuity is still very big. in zhanjiang, many heritage projects focus on making records and giving official titles. but they do not always support the long-term growth of living practitioners. because of this, their influence on local cultural ecosystems is limited. the fast commercialization of the tourism industry adds another level of difficulty. using folk music in tourist shows seems to make it more visible, but these “performative revivals” often bring new kinds of cultural disconnection. standardized choreography, artificial stages, and designs that focus mainly on visual effects do not show the real situations where the music was first used. when the performances become too stylized or too decorated, the music loses its social background and turns into only a visual symbol made for tourist expectations. over time, these created versions of tradition may cover the real community practices. they may also push cultural inheritors aside and make their cultural authority weaker. in general, the difficulties in the inheritance of zhanjiang folk music do not come from one single reason. they result from the combined influence of population movement, cultural modernization, policy practices, and the business logic of cultural tourism. understanding these issues in depth is important for later discussions on how to build a sustainable model for cultural inheritance in the culture–tourism environment. from this point of view, rebuilding a strong and meaningful link between the inheritors and their cultural environment becomes the first and most important task for supporting the long-term development of zhanjiang folk music (song, 2024). 3.2 homogenization challenges in market-driven and tourism-oriented contexts although the expansion of cultural tourism has provided zhanjiang folk music with broader platforms for public exposure, the accompanying market pressures and consumption-oriented logic have simultaneously intensified the risks of homogenization and superficial cultural presentation. as tourism destinations nationwide increasingly incorporate folk performance programs and regional music showcases, standardized production models have begun to dominate the industry. within this environment, zhanjiang’s musical traditions often undergo selective adaptation to fit the expectations of fast-paced tourist experiences. performance teams tend to favor catchy melodies and simplified arrangements that align with stage rhythms, often at the expense of the intricate musical structures and cultural nuance that define the original repertoire (zhan & nan, 2025). from a broader perspective, content creation in tourism settings prioritizes spectacle and instant emotional impact. traditional music that lacks dramatic visual appeal is often considered less competitive. as a result, some cultural products now mix in modern musical elements, such as electronic sounds, louder percussion, or multi-layer harmonies, to make the stage shows more attractive. this mixed style may help audience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 acceptance, but it also slowly moves zhanjiang folk music toward a more common performance style. this process weakens the special musical features that make it different from other regional traditions. in this way, the music becomes separated from its cultural roots and is turned into a “tourism product” for commercial use.competition among tourism programs makes this trend even faster. to shorten production time and lower development costs, some organizers use ready-made “cultural templates.” they bring performance styles from other regions directly into zhanjiang, and this often ignores local cultural traits. this template-based way also reduces the chances for zhanjiang folk music to show its real cultural value in the tourism market. this kind of homogenization weakens community recognition of the performed content. and when real cultural practitioners are not included, it pushes the true musical tradition further to the side (zhang, 2025). overall, marketization and tourism have opened more channels for spreading folk music. but they also bring structural problems, such as making the culture too simple, using music only as a symbol, and repeating the same performance formats. because of this, keeping cultural depth, authenticity, and local features has become a very important challenge in today’s development of zhanjiang folk music. to face these problems, it is necessary to create a more balanced relationship between cultural heritage and market demands. this balance is the basic condition for finding sustainable and creative development paths in the future (wang, 2024). 4. innovative pathways for zhanjiang folk music under culture–tourism integration 4.1 cultural revitalization through performance innovation and immersive spatial presentation as culture–tourism integration becomes more important in regional development, the way zhanjiang folk music spreads has changed a lot. in the past, people sang this music during farm work, rituals, and village life. but today’s tourism cares more about immersion, stage feeling, and interactive activities. these new cultural spaces give traditional music new chances to appear again. they turn it from daily-life sound into a performance that can reach many more people.because of this, scene-based shows have become a key way to bring traditional music back to the public. many cultural tourism projects use lights, videos, and planned movements to create stage stories based on local traditions. for example, some night shows about maritime culture use the rhythm of fishermen’s work chants as the main story idea. this helps the audience feel the group spirit in the music through both sound and visuals. with this cross-media style, folk music becomes a cultural “text” that people can experience in a more emotional and meaningful way on modern stages. immersive cultural experiences also make new kinds of innovation possible (cai, 2024). in rural tourism areas, coastal places, and old travel routes, traditional music is not only background sound. now it appears in activities where visitors can join directly, such as music experience rooms, workshops teaching fishermen’s chants, or recreated ritual spaces. these activities let visitors learn the music in person. this gives them a feeling of cultural presence and helps the music return to its original social setting. it also makes the culture stronger and more continuous.performance innovation also includes changing the musical structure and stage presentation. to fit modern stages better, creators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 make some small changes but still keep the main melody and cultural meaning. they add stronger beats, more vocal parts, or instruments from both traditional and modern styles. mixing leizhou melodies with percussion, pipa, or digital keyboards makes a stage language that connects old and new styles. this keeps the main cultural ideas but allows flexible change in form. it also helps zhanjiang folk music communicate better and look more attractive to today’s audience. overall, these performance innovations and scene-based shows give more ways to spread zhanjiang folk music. they also offer practical paths for creative development. by linking musical heritage with tourism themes and audience needs, these methods help the music reach more people and grow in new cultural settings. because of this, creating performance models that keep authenticity but also fit market needs is very important for the long-term development of zhanjiang folk music in the culture–tourism integration era (liu, 2024). 4.2 digital empowerment and cross-sector integration as drivers of innovation rapid growth in digital technology has greatly changed how traditional music is recorded, shared, and explained today. for zhanjiang folk music, digital work offers more than new ways to keep records. it also builds many layers of cultural transmission, letting music that once belonged to local communities reach wider groups across different regions, media platforms, and social settings. with this change, digital tools make new kinds of reinterpretation possible while still keeping the cultural base of the tradition. one major development is the careful recording and archiving of musical materials. high-quality audio and video, ai tools for sound repair, and digital transcription help keep important details, such as singing skills, rhythm patterns, and style differences among different performers. projects like local digital heritage archives — often created by cultural groups and universities — play a very important role in protecting endangered musical pieces. compared with traditional oral teaching, digital archives make the music easier to access, easier to repeat, and easier to study. in this way, they open musical knowledge to more people and give a strong base for research and creative use.digital sharing through online platforms has also changed how zhanjiang folk music reaches the public. short-video apps, music streaming sites, and live online performances turn traditional music from something that is only preserved into something that moves actively through the internet. young creators have tried remixing, rearranging, and mixing genres. because of this, leizhou songs and fishermen’s chants now have more attention among online users. these new ways of spreading the music help young audiences become interested again and place the tradition inside modern digital culture. cross-sector integration is another strong driver of modernization. traditional music is now used in films, documentaries, stage shows, video games, and animation. this lets its cultural meaning enter different media fields. some artists even mix maritime rhythms with electronic music, hip-hop, or modern dance. these creative works keep the cultural meaning of folk music but show it in new ways. these cross-field collaborations not only increase the cultural influence of zhanjiang folk music but also create new chances for cultural industry growth.at the same time, vr and ar technologies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 provide new ways to make immersive cultural experiences. by digitally rebuilding fishing villages, ritual places, or farming environments, vr and ar let audiences experience folk music in scenes that feel real. this kind of “immersive cultural revival” goes beyond physical limits and helps people understand the social and cultural background of the music in a deeper way. overall, digital tools and cross-sector cooperation form an important innovation path for the future of zhanjiang folk music. these methods change how the music is kept, shared, and shown, and they reshape its cultural role to fit modern media and society. through these changes, zhanjiang folk music is slowly building a more active, diverse, and sustainable system of innovation inside the larger trend of culture–tourism integration. 5. case studies: practical explorations of folk music in zhanjiang’s cultural–tourism projects 5.1 applications of folk music in representative regional cultural–tourism projects as culture–tourism integration continues to grow, many tourism projects in zhanjiang and nearby areas have started to include local folk music in their cultural design. studying these cases helps us see how traditional music is used in tourism settings, how it is shared with visitors, and what problems appear when cultural heritage meets commercial production. these examples also help us understand how regional folk traditions are changing today.the leizhou cultural tourism zone is a clear example. the project highlights symbols of leizhou culture and adds elements such as leizhou folk songs, traditional vocal styles, and wedding songs into the space and performances. at the entrance and main square, leizhou folk songs play repeatedly to create a strong local atmosphere and help visitors build an initial cultural impression. the well-known “leizhou night show” tries to create a dramatic story based on traditional music by using theatrical singing, choreography, costumes, and lighting. however, field observations show that these performances focus more on emotional effect and visual beauty than on musical depth. many complex rhythmic structures and performance features found in traditional singing are simplified or removed. this reflects a common problem in commercial tourism shows: artistic complexity is reduced when traditional genres are adapted for market needs.a different model appears in projects on naozhou island, where maritime culture is central. here, fishermen’s work chants and songs from boat-dwelling communities are performed in settings such as “fishing-song experience boats” and “harbor morning shows.” visitors can hear the music in the natural seascape that originally shaped it, which keeps a higher level of authenticity. but with increasing tourism competition, some projects started adding electronic beats or pop-style instruments to make the music more attractive. although these changes increase entertainment value, they weaken the cultural meaning and the real labor rhythms in maritime musical traditions.in addition to large tourism projects, some rural revitalization areas also use folk music as a cultural resource. local villages hold leizhou song gatherings, ritual shows, and community performances to bring the music back into daily social life. these grassroots activities focus more on community leadership and cultural continuity instead of commercial profit. however, they have some limits because they often do not have enough money, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 professional support, or strong ways to communicate with the outside world. overall, these cases show that zhanjiang folk music is used in different ways in tourism. large tourism parks focus on stage shows and cultural symbols. maritime projects show the connection between music and the natural environment. rural revitalization pays more attention to community traditions. together, these examples show the two sides of folk music in tourism: it is an important cultural sign, but it can also become too simple or commercialized. because of this, it is important to make clear what role folk music should play in different tourism contexts to help its sustainable and creative development. 5.2 strategies for integrating folk music into festivals and tourism branding as zhanjiang’s culture–tourism system becomes more developed, festivals have become an important platform for showing and reinterpreting folk music. festivals express local identity and also help build tourism brands. when traditional music is included in festivals in a planned and meaningful way, it can increase cultural depth, make themes clearer, and expand public influence. recent examples show that festival use of folk music is moving from simple display toward richer cultural storytelling, although problems still exist.major regional festivals—such as the leizhou cultural festival, local folk ceremonies, and the fishermen’s open-sea festival—often present leizhou songs, fishermen’s chants, and ritual music in opening ceremonies, parades, and stage shows. in these events, music helps create atmosphere, support ritual order, and shape meaning. for example, during the fishermen’s open-sea festival, chants and maritime songs are used in boat-blessing ceremonies. they show respect for the sea and express hopes for good harvests. through these ritual settings, traditional music gets new public meaning and becomes a stronger cultural symbol for local people.festival music also plays an important role in tourism branding. in promotional videos, theme songs, and marketing materials, zhanjiang folk music works as an audio symbol of regional culture. producers often change melodies and rhythms a bit to create a clear and recognizable cultural image. a common method is to match the smooth style of leizhou folk songs with videos of coastlines, fishing ports, or old villages. this makes the music an important part of storytelling and helps show the emotional and cultural identity of the region. it also makes the tourism brand stronger.however, festivals also bring risks of shallow cultural presentation. many big events shorten or rearrange traditional music to fit limited stage time. sometimes newly made “pseudo-folk songs” take the place of real traditional pieces. large chorus performances may look exciting, but they often hide the gentle emotion and storytelling found in authentic genres. when music is used only as background sound, without explanation or demonstration of how it is performed, its cultural meaning becomes weak and mainly decorative.to deal with these problems, some festivals now use more detailed cultural methods. one way is to include explanations from heritage bearers, cultural stories, or ritual re-enactments so that audiences can understand the music better. another way is to encourage participation, such as interactive workshops, chant-learning sessions, or traditional instrument demonstrations. these activities help visitors build emotional connection and increase cultural understanding. they also help the music play a stronger www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 communicative role.in conclusion, festivals and tourism branding offer strong chances to promote zhanjiang folk music. but success depends on keeping a balance between authenticity and market needs. adding deeper cultural stories, encouraging participation, and highlighting the role of real cultural bearers can make festival presentations more meaningful and help folk music remain an important part of zhanjiang’s cultural identity. 6. strategies for the transmission and innovation of zhanjiang folk music under culture–tourism integration as culture–tourism integration becomes a defining feature of contemporary cultural development, the preservation and revitalization of zhanjiang folk music can no longer rely solely on traditional transmission mechanisms. instead, its future must be envisioned within a broader sociocultural ecosystem, where cultural value is renegotiated and multiple actors collectively participate in cultural production. a sustainable model hinges on the formation of a collaborative cultural ecology in which communities, government, tourism enterprises, educational institutions, and heritage bearers engage in dynamic, reciprocal interaction. within such a framework, traditional musicians should not be positioned merely as sources of cultural materials but restored to their role as interpreters and narrators of cultural meaning. communities, as the living environment of folk music, must regain agency in cultural practices so that musical traditions may continue evolving organically within everyday life. meanwhile, government institutions need to move beyond short-term or project-based support. they should build long-term investment systems, improve heritage-focused education, and create open-access cultural data platforms. these actions can make a more stable and strong environment for keeping and passing on zhanjiang’s musical heritage. for tourism companies, it is important to develop cultural sensitivity in their business work. they should create content together with heritage bearers, tell deeper cultural stories, and design experience-based programs that show the real logic of musical traditions, not just use them as symbols or staged decorations. only through shared participation and shared responsibility can the transmission chain become active again and cultural vitality be restored. based on cultural ecological reconstruction, the innovative development of zhanjiang folk music needs to build meaningful links between traditional musical heritage and modern communication channels. digital transformation gives new and large opportunities for recording, keeping, and sharing traditional music. by creating digital archives, audio–video databases, and open-access platforms, it becomes possible to go beyond the limits of place and time. this also helps keep different kinds of musical materials in a clear and complete way. digital tools together with other art forms also give new chances for creative work. technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality can rebuild ritual spaces and old cultural scenes, helping traditional music return to public attention in a vivid and immersive form. music visualization, immersive theater, and interactive digital installations also make traditional music easier to experience in a modern way.cross-sector cooperation is another important method. when fishermen’s chants or leizhou melodies are used in films, stage shows, modern music www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 arrangements, game sound effects, or sound designs in tourism spaces, the music gains new meaning in different cultural situations. at the same time, building festival-based cultural branding systems can help folk music become more deeply connected to regional tourism stories. in these systems, traditional music is not only a background element but becomes a key cultural symbol. with methods that combine cultural storytelling, experiential scenes, and digital communication, folk music can be transformed in high-quality ways while still keeping its authenticity and gaining more value in today’s society. in the end, the sustainable transmission and innovation of zhanjiang folk music need a flexible balance between cultural ecology, tourism market needs, and modern communication methods. real progress can happen only when different groups work together, digital technology supports cultural work, cross-industry cooperation grows, and cultural narratives become richer. under these conditions, traditional music can change from something that is only protected to a living cultural resource that can grow, be reinterpreted, and renew itself. in this way, zhanjiang folk music can build a strong and lively future in the era of culture–tourism integration. 7. conclusion overall, the development of zhanjiang folk music in today’s culture–tourism integration shows both new chances and new problems. on one hand, traditional music has become more visible in tourism through performance innovation, festival activities, and digital media. this shows strong potential for cultural revival. on the other hand, problems such as weaker transmission groups, loss of original cultural settings, and increasing cultural homogenization create risks that may harm the core values of the music if they are not handled with care.this study gives several important insights. building a cultural ecology that includes communities, heritage bearers, and the culture–tourism industry is necessary for long-term development. using digital tools, cross-art practices, and modern communication methods is also a key path for creative transformation. increasing cultural storytelling, offering richer experience formats, and improving cultural explanation are important for strengthening the expressive power of folk music.in general, the transmission and innovation of zhanjiang folk music must find a careful balance between cultural authenticity and modern needs. with stronger cultural awareness and better industry practices, the tradition can continue to develop in ways that stay connected to its roots while also being open and active for the future. through this process, zhanjiang folk music can become more vibrant, meaningful, and sustainable in the long run. acknowledgments research title: “innovative path of discourse system innovation for zhanjiang's intangible cultural heritage in the context of rural revitalization: a study of ‘short video + cultural tourism’” zhanjiang social sciences 2025 annual planning project, approval no.: zj25gj07 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 107 references cai, z. q. et al. 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(2024). inheritance and innovation of lanjiefu culture in the age of digital economy. asia pacific journal of business, humanities and education, 9(2), 130-141. xi, y. (2024). the development of curriculum for the preservation and inheritance for xinjiang folk music, china. sciences of conservation and archaeology, 36(3), 303-315. yue, z. et al. (2025). spatiotemporal distribution pattern and evolution characteristics of intangible cultural heritage in northwest china. geocarto international, 40(1), 2567951. zhan, l. n., & nan, q. (2025). development of cultural and creative tourism based on iot sensors and data fusion from the perspective of industrial integration. journal of computational methods in sciences and engineering, 25(1), 1048-1060. zhang, x. p. (2024). inheritance and innovation of chinese folk song vocal music: tradition and integration in modern vocal perform. philosophy and social science, 1(4), 85-94. zhuan, l. m. (2024). the living protection and inheritance of jiangzhou drum music based on field research. journal of roi kaensarn academi, 9(9), 1507-1520. 2.1 historical origins and cultural formation 3.1 intensifying weakness of transmission agents a 3.2 homogenization challenges in market-driven and 4.1 cultural revitalization through performance in 5.1 applications of folk music in representative r 5.2 strategies for integrating folk music into fes advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 36 original paper unity in diversity: religion cum language argument for african multiculturalism dominica e. ukpong (ph.d) 1* & peter nyah (ph.d) 1 1 department of foreign languages, university of uyo, uyo, nigeria * dominica e. ukpong (ph.d), e-mail: nkoyodomi@gmail.com received: february 16, 2023 accepted: march 22, 2023 online published: march 31, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p36 abstract multiculturalism is a relatively new and engaging area of scholarship, and has been viewed variously from an interdisciplinary point of view especially as having more problems than it can resolve. africa is also known as a hub for multiculturalism with a handful of ethnic and tribal groups. despite the problems associated with multiculturalism such as diversity in language and cultural beliefs, this work attempts to x-ray the concept of “unity in diversity” from a religious cum language basis that supports the argument that multiculturalism from a traditional african point of view, is very beneficial, important and helpful rather than its negative perception. the method employed in the study is critical analysis. keywords multiculturalism, unity in diversity, africa, religion and language résumé en tant qu’un domaine nouveau de connaissance, le multiculturalisme est vu différemment dans plusieurs disciplines comme englobant plus de problèmes qu’il ne peut résoudre. l’afrique est le moyeu du multiculturalisme avec de nombreux groupes ethniques et tribaux. en dépit des problèmes associés au multiculturalisme comme la diversité des langues et les différentes croyances culturelles et religieuses, cette étude tente donc, d’examiner le concept de l’unité dans la diversité à partir du dire que le multiculturalisme du point de vue traditionnel africain est important et bénéfique contrairement à sa perception négative. la méthodologie adoptée pour cette étude est celle d’une analyse critique. mots clés : multiculturalisme, unité en diversité, afrique, religion et langue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction one of the distinguishing features of culture is religion and language. these two simultaneously play some very important roles in the galvanization and preservation of a people’s way of life there by giving it, a marked identity. africa as a continent is home for hundreds if not thousands of tribes and ethnic groups with varied cultures. despite this, africans seem to share a lot in common as far as cultural norms and practices are concerned by virtue of their communalistic beliefs. multiculturalism is a contemporary ideology or movement of multiple groups of cultures existing within one society, largely due to the influx of immigrant communities or the acceptance advocacy of this phenomenon. the crisis in the world today such as wars and the refugee situations, has raised supporters of multi-culturalism who are of the opinion that different traditions and cultures can enrich a society. however, some critics argue that the acceptance of the culture of immigrants can create a lot of problems for the host community and her culture even if the acceptance of such cultures is endorsed by the state. there is the other side of the argument where the immigrants being put into ethnic boxes, where individual needs and rights become defined by virtue of the boxes into which people are put and those boxes are used to shape public policy that later makes diversity becomes difficult to manage. in the case of africa as a continent and her nation states, her understanding of diversity is hinged on unity such that, in spite of her multi-cultural affinities and/or differences, africans are well able to dwell together because of the common history they share. this paper therefore attempts to establish that, one continent where multiculturalism is rife and yet works perfectly is africa because of her communalistic and shared history hence, africa’s unity lies in her diversity despite the multiplicity of her languages. let us now proceed to discussing what multiculturalism connotes from the point of view of some scholars. 2. what is multiculturalism? multiculturalism as a concept, has a relatively young history. even though it means various things to many scholars today, its origin is not in dispute as bostock avers: the term multiculturalism was coined in canada in the 1960’s and was used by the trudeau government to try to promote harmony between the pre-dominant frenchcanadian and british-canadian cultures, as well as with the various minority cultures (p. 32). ideally therefore, there is a spectrum between a monoculture where everyone is exactly the same, and the negative stereotype of multiculturalism where a society is totally divided into separate ethnic communities who never associate. in any authentic society, people will mix or associate with those of other races/cultures, while keeping some kind of social or cultural identity. hence multiculturalism strives to assimilate, harmonize and enhance unity in the midst of diversity whether we are talking about the demographic, prescriptive or normative, holistic or liberal or political multiculturalism. to this modood states that: with much greater certainty one could state that the appeal of multiculturalism as a public policy has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. suffered considerable political damage, such that the argument that multiculturalism is a valuable means of remaking of public identities in order to achieve an equality of citizenship that is neither merely individualistic nor premised on assimilation, is not being embraced as broadly as it once might have been (5). multiculturalism no doubt for some, facilitated social fragmentation and divisions, distracted attention away from socio-economic disparities, encouraged moral hesitancy amongst ‘native populations and international terrorism” meer and modood, (2). however, while the above outlined points reveal the concerns and anxieties over multiculturalism, “other beneficiaries have included a number of competing political orientations concerned with promoting unity, variously conceived, alongside or in a greater degree to recognizing diversity” modood and meer (2). the tenets of multiculturalism are very much essential as a political or socio-economic policy framework because of its rich diversity. the problem however, has always been to galvanize every culture into one mould so that unity can be attained. this is why in “political philosophy the question arose in attempts to define the nature of a good liberal society” rex and singh (4). such a society, it had been thought, would involve the guarantee of the rights of individuals, but now the question asked is, whether such rights should be extended to groups? questions have also been raised as to whether culturally distinct groups can co-exist in a single society because of several factors including language barriers as societies with single unitary culture are no longer likely in the modern world due to migration. georgiou therefore asserts that “a truly multicultural society would make provision for the use of all languages in everyday affairs, including official transactions” (135). before we go into full discussion about the religious and language question in african multiculturalism, let us examine other related issues to the essay. 3. african worldview the african worldview encapsulates all that makes africans who they are. one cannot separate africans from their belief system which informs their culture from where we have other component units like language, arts, architecture, cuisines, religion and so on. even though africa as a continent is comprised of heterogeneous societies, ethnic groups and tribes, it nevertheless, has a homogenous outlook to reality. it is often called tradition, and tradition as oladipo will say “is a set of enduring or recurring beliefs, values, linguistic and other symbolic usages and social practices, which define a people’s way of life” (12). african worldview or ontology, the science or nature of being, is traceable to common ancestral lineage and destiny that almost all africans share, which the most active period of colonization (the scramble for africa) has not been able to erase. the history of africa goes beyond her colonization period thus, belt stated that: parts of africa like egypt and ancient abyssinia (present – day ethiopia and eritrea) have long www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. traditions of written history and civilizations older than greek civilization; … but what are now known as the sub-saharan nation states, those largely carved out by a few european countries in 1884 for the convenience of their colonizing interest, reflect larger regional cultures and traditions than their boundaries suggest. these regional cultures were broken up and destroyed (or at least radically altered) primarily by the european and islamic incursions going back some 500 years (x). the point that is being stressed here is that africa has always existed as one entity without fragmentation despite its vastness and multicultural outlook. the wonders of this must be hinged on a common bond of unity that crisscrosses her culture. though a lot of history must have been lost, bell avers that: “what remains of them are fragmentary pictures: icons from ritual life, histories of smaller communities passed on orally. some form of governance preserved in village life, a few written records, judicial judgements, clerical texts, and a rich and a diverse artistic heritage. most important, however, is a reflective memory carried forward for generations of a people whose dignity and way of life simply would not die” (xi). another defining feature of african worldview is her religion or religious inclination. in fact, culture in africa is influenced by religion. religion defines a being and its hierarchy making it easier to hold certain beliefs about god, the ancestors, spirits and so on, perhaps this informs why africans are regarded as too religious. mbiti would say that, “african religions and philosophy deal almost exclusively with traditional concepts and practices in those societies which have not been either, christian or muslim in any deep way, before the colonial period in africa” (xi). let us now proceed to discussing a little about the concept of unity in diversity. 4. unity in diversity the concept is popularly used today in almost all spheres of life. it is used as a political, economic, social, religious or cultural slogan. it tells about the possibility of gaining unity amidst diversity. the question goes thus: how is it that, there is a basic unity in the midst of amazing diversity of things in the universe? this reality is indeed puzzling and mind bugging, yet it is factual. looking at the world or the universe for instance, there are lots of fluxes or various degrees of diversity, but in the midst of all these, there is an underlying unity. on the social and political level, the concept is viewed by lalonde as: unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation that shifts focus from unity based on a mere tolerance of physical, cultural, linguistic, social, religious, political, ideological and/or psychological differences towards a more complex unity based on an understanding that difference enhances human interactions (4). unity in diversity clearly captures the ideology behind multiculturalism. it is a statement that has a very rich truth as evident in the universe and in human relations. there is unity amidst diversity and this is not potentially construed but an actuality. this is why it is easier to delineate the possibility and actuality of attaining a multicultural existence within the african worldview, a feat that may not be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. possible elsewhere. one may ask how this can be in actuality especially with differences in languages, among people of different cultures? this question will be evaluated shortly, but before then, let us first examine what language is, in order to understand its nature and objectives. 5. understanding the nature and purpose of language language has been viewed differently for different usages. it has been seen and used as a tool for effective communication. it has been used to order and categorize reality. it has been used to make meaning to our existence. it has also been used to unmask the veil of ignorance. language is the genius of human rationality and development and it has assumed a different dimension with its artificial creation and systematization. however, as coupland will observe: one of the premises of a critical approach to language and society is that, it is possible to launch some sort of resistance to ideological constraint. sociolinguists are interested in language ideologies because exposing takenforgranted, social structuring assumptions about language might provide the means to challenge and to loosen their effects (99). despite the limitations of language, it is purposive and important by reason of the fact that, it helps to formulate the most general and pervasive facts about the world, including an enumeration of the most basic categories to which entities belong and some depiction of their interrelation. to this end, the language we use to talk about the world is as crucial as meaning is, at the foundation of language, for what will be the use of language if it does not convey meaning and makes sense of reality? language is also understood as the means for cultural identity and assimilation. language also features prominently in religious worship. a people’s destiny is bound by the speaking and understanding of a particular language, which can percolate into thinking and belief. thus, the definition of culture by sapir is very apt; he sees culture as “what a society does and thinks” (207). what a society does and think is done in language. raday also gives a holistic account of culture as: …a macro concept because it is definitive of human society… anthropologists commonly use the term “culture” to refer to a society or group in which many or all people live and think in the same ways. similarly, any group of people who share a common culture and, in particular, common rules of behavior and a basic form of social organization constitute a society (666). language is one of the most forceful instruments for social cohesion. a society operates by virtue of language structure. it is a means of communication and understanding which fosters unity amongst a group of people with a peculiar identity. language can be simple or complex; however, the outcome of language, it is a pointer to the sophistication of the human mind and what it is capable of attaining or achieving. abbassi et al see language as being used to: maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. different ideas stem from differing language used within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships starts at one’s birth. language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex system of communication or to a specific instance of such a complex co-communication. human language is highly complex in that, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. it is based on a set of rules relating symbols to their meanings, thereby forming an infinite member of possible innovative utterances from a finite number of elements (84). 6. critical evaluation the whole idea of multiculturalism from our discourse so far is to unify diversity arising from a multicultural situation. this does not seem to be an easy task to undertake because of complexities occasioned by culture and its components. thus, it becomes much easier to achieve this unity in a monoculture society and not in a multi-culture. this argument will seem to hold a lot of implication for africa as a continent because of its multicultural reality. howbeit, the reverse is the case as the fact still remains that, despite the multicultural underpinning of africa, there is unity in diversity as a result of certain cultural similarities such as religion. mbiti makes made this point vividly when he asserts that “i am, because we are, and since we are, therefore i am” (108-109). africa may appear multicultural but in reality, it is mono-cultural by reason of religion. as raday opines: religion is a part of culture in its wider sense. it might even be said that it is an integral part of culture. what exactly constitutes religion remains a conundrum… usually such definitions include some transcendental belief in or service to the divine (667). before the advent of christianity or islam to africa, africa had her own traditional religion with belief in various hierarchies of beings: god, the supreme being is at the apex of this hierarchy, followed by spirits, ancestors, man, animals and plants. this belief permeates through traditional africa without exception, despite differences in language and established bond of unity of all with a common destiny. awolalu even noted that: when we speak of african traditional religion, we mean the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the africans. it is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present africans and which is being practiced today in various forms and shades and intensities by a very large number of africans including individuals who claim to be muslims or christians (1). as far as multiculturalism is concern, there must be a rallying or confluence point, or some kind of understanding that will foster unity amongst people of various cultures. if this missing link is not reconciled, there cannot be unity in diversity. this is why georgiou (1984) made a case for language. this seems to suggest that, there must be elements in cultures that can foster a harmonious relationship amongst humans. this being the case, it makes it easier to understand why traditional africa did not have problems with a multicultural society or such dispositions because the unity of the people is premised upon their collective heritage via religion. language to the africans is not an instrument for division, but one that binds her people together because of their collective beliefs through religion so that, what language couldn’t achieve, religion could. this explains why heterogeneous traditional africa does not have conflict with multiculturalism because there is something more forceful and binding than it. thus, beyers while talking about the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. sanctity of a unified african society avers: african traditional religion exhibits specific understanding of the place of the individual in community. there is a dynamic natural bond between the individual, the extended family, the clan or the tribe, and the ancestors, nature and god… this is not merely a social understanding, but extends ontologically (5). as we tie our thoughts and arguments together, it is imperative to state that, the benefits of multiculturalism are enormous and one of which is unity in diversity. the world we live in today is in dire need of unity in diversity hence the creation of bodies like african union (au), economic community of west african states(ecowas), united nations (un), european union (eu), north atlantic treaty organization(nato), common wealth and so on. these bodies try to make the point that a people have something very unique in common which is the delineation. this is the reason why it becomes easier to look for indices of social cohesion in culture which a people share. once we can pinpoint that out, it becomes easier to make a case for multiculturalism and this is one of the salient contributions of this paper to scholarship. 7. conclusion this work sets out to use the very important concept of “unity in diversity” to make a case and to justify why the term multiculturalism with its antecedent problems is possible in the african continent because of the binding nature of african culture that is founded on traditional religion and language. african culture which by nature is heterogeneous, has a homogenous outlook via her religion which harmonizes and enhances unity amongst all, irrespective of demographic or geographic consideration. and for this reason, there is much to be done that will foster unity in africa beyond just rhetoric’s and the creation of bodies like the au. if africa must get it right and be united under one god and destiny, it must look inward to the common strands that bind all and that will be found in her culture. africa’s multiculturalism is therefore not a curse but a blessing if it can be galvanized to bringing about the desired unity in factionalized modern africa. as we conclude, it is germane to state categorically that what multiple languages cannot achieve under multiculturalism, religion can; and language is also a medium of religious propagation. references abbasi, g. et al. (2013). “language, translation and culture”. in international conference on language, medias and culture ipedr, 33, 83-87. bell, r. (2002). h. understanding african philosophy: a cross cultural approach to classical and contemporary issues. london: routledge, 2002. print. beyers, j. (2010). “what is religion? an african understanding”. in theological studies, 66(1), 1-8. print. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v66i1.341 bostock, w. w. (n.d.). “ethnicity: an issue of the eighties and beyond”, sherwood john (ed). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. multicultural education: issues and innovations, creative research. north perth: wa. 9181. print. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511755064 coupland, n. (2007). style: language variation and identity: cambridge. university press. giorgiou, p. (1984). “speech on multiculturalism”. in proceedings of the first national congress, sixth national conference and annual general meeting of the federation of ethnic communities councils of australia inc., 3-9 december, 1984. print. lalonde, r. (1994). unity in diversity: acceptance and integration in an era of intolerance and fragmentation. ontario: carleton university. mbiti, j. s. (1969). african religions and philosophy. london: heinemann. meer, n., & modood, t. (2011). “how does inter-culturalism contrast with multiculturalism”. journal of intercultural studies, 1, 1-22. modood, t. (2005). multicultural politics. edinburg: university press. oladipo, o. (2003). the third way in african philosophy. ibadan: hope publications, 2002. raday, f. (2003). “culture, religion, and gender”. in icon, 1(4), 663-715. ttps://doi.org/10.1093/icon/1.4.663 rex, j., & singh, g. h. (2003). multiculturalism and political integration in modern nation – states – thematic introduction” international journal on multicultural studies, 5(1), 3-19. sapir, e. (1921). language. new york: harvest books. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 10 original paper research on guangdong she culture from the perspective of symbols and signs muci li1 1 macau university of science and technology, panyu district, guangzhou city, guangdong province, china received: july 29, 2024 accepted: august 27, 2024 online published: september 20, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p10 abstract the purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth study of the symbols that coalesce in guangdong's she culture, and to reveal the historical, cultural, social and spiritual connotations carried by these symbols through the analysis of dress, architecture, craftsmanship, customs and other aspects. through the study of these symbols, understanding the origins of the she elements and the common cultural symbols and spiritual trust they unite will help to better protect and pass on the she culture, and promote exchanges and integration among various ethnic groups. the symbols of guangdong she culture are not only the mark of the unique identity of this ethnic group, but also an important force to unite the national emotions, pass on the national spirit, and promote the development of the ethnic group, and moreover, they embody the she people's perception and understanding of nature, as well as reflecting their aspiration and pursuit of a better life. this study starts with the interpretation and aesthetic analysis of the elements of she people's dress, architecture and craftsmanship by using the case study method to examine and research. it studies the cultural symbols of the she people, searches for the origin and attribution of the culture, effectively transmits the value of the excellent national culture, and keeps the she non-heritage culture abreast of the times, attracts more attention and in-depth understanding of more people, so that it can be more widely disseminated and recognized in the modern society. the cultural self-awareness and self-confidence of the she people themselves are also increasing, and they actively participate in the inheritance and innovation of cultural symbols. keywords she ethnic group, cultural symbols, dress, architecture, craftsmanship www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 11 1. introduction as an ethnic minority in china, the she people have a long history and rich culture. the she people have experienced many migrations throughout history, and in the process of moving from the border region of fujian, guangdong and gan to other areas, they have continuously adapted to new environments, and their cultural symbols have gradually been formed and evolved in the process (fang, 2019). she culture unites the wisdom and creativity of the she people and is a bright pearl in the cultural treasury of the chinese nation. for example, the genealogy of the she people records information about the migration of the family, which is not only a witness to the history of the family, but also becomes an important part of the cultural symbols of the she people. 2. literature review the gao huang song, which has been passed down from generation to generation by the guangdong she ethnic group, points to the birthplace of the she ethnic group, phoenix mountain in chaozhou, guangdong, recognized as the origin of the she settlement and known for its unique mountain habitat and rich cultural heritage (blažević, peters, & chen, 2018; yousaf, liu, & xiang, 2024). some scholars believe that the she ethnic group originated from the ancient “wuling barbarians”, and the main basis for holding this view is that the legend of discord of the she ethnic group is similar to that of the wuling barbarians, and there is a certain degree of correlation between some of the customs and cultural characteristics. the she people migrated from parts of guangdong in the early days, and have been living in mixed communities for a long time, surrounded by han culture and influenced by it (li & zhang, 2023). according to the “hou han shu southern barbarians biography”, wuling barbarians take pan gou as their ancestor, and the she people also circulate the myth of pan gou (zhang, 2019). fengping she village in fengshun county, meizhou city, still retains the custom of the “recruitment festival”. the festival is in honor of the she ancestor, panzou, and in thanksgiving for the divine soldiers. the unique custom is preserved as evidence of the she cultural heritage and has since evolved into a large-scale festival held every three to five years. the recruitment of soldiers festival is a collection of she culture, covering she myths and legends, genealogy, language, folk songs, dances, martial arts, music, costumes, food and migration, etc. it demonstrates the face of the original form of she culture in many ways, and it is an important carrier of she cultural inheritance. 2.1 the geographic influence of she culture in guangdong fengping she village in fengshun county, meizhou city, is located at the northern foot of the highest peak of the phoenix mountain range, jigongbun mountain (1,409 meters above sea level), with treacherous terrain and dense mountain forests. in ancient times, such a geographic environment provided a relatively safe living space for the she ethnic group. the rich natural resources of the phoenix mountain region provided the necessary material basis for the she ethnic group's agricultural production and life, enabling them to flourish on this land. in conclusion, the phoenix hill area of chaozhou has an important position in the historical development and cultural inheritance of the she www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 12 people, and is regarded as the birthplace of the she people in guangdong. it has preserved rich she cultural heritage and unique ethnic customs, which are of great value to the study of the origin, development and cultural inheritance of the she people. 2.2 inheritance mechanisms of symbolic symbol systems according to existing research, the key reason why the symbol system of the she culture can be passed on from generation to generation among the ethnic minorities in the south is that the homologous ethnic groups, in the course of their independent development, have gradually constructed a cultural sharing mechanism based on the memory of their ethnic origins. this mechanism provides recognizable historical information for the continuous development of ethnic identity through elaborate explicit symbols. this mechanism's manifestation in clothing and its internal structural relationship is the core point of this paper (meng, 2021). 3. methodology 3.1 she cultural symbols 3.1.1 clothing symbol the phoenix costume is the most representative clothing symbol of the she women. there are various colors of embroidered floral patterns and bird, dragon and phoenix motifs on the collars, lapels, buckles and even the cuffs of the blouses worn by she women. the main color of the clothing is usually black or blue (ding, li, chen, & zou, 2023), and the collar, cuffs and lapels are embroidered with colored lace, symbolizing the feathers of the phoenix. there are also special aprons in the costume, mostly red, embroidered with various patterns of flowers and birds, like the colored feathers of the phoenix. the headdress is high up and resembles a phoenix crown. the overall shape is like a beautiful phoenix, signifying good luck and nobility. the whole set of costumes implies the beauty, nobility and auspiciousness of she women and reflects the worship of the phoenix by the she people (xin, li, & zhang, 2019). she clothing patterns are accomplished by embroidery craft, using techniques such as hypothesis, metonymy, and harmonization to weave and embroider patterns with allegorical images (table 1). she clothing patterns are derived from she totems, in the she totem worship, the coil gourd and the phoenix are coexisting, and the she totem culture is mostly reflected in the clothing (figure 1). based on the practical and decorative purpose of she embroidery is completely handmade flat embroidery (fine embroidery), the stitching method is based on the neat needle (flat needle), supplemented by whirling needle, set needle, twisted needle and other embroidery stitches for the pattern embroidery, the stitches are flush, firm and wear-resistant, which is conducive to the preservation of embroidery (liu & xu, 2022). she embroidery is not only used to decorate clothing, but also to make various crafts, such as purses, scented bags and pillows. embroidery is an important way for she women to pass on their culture and express their emotions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 13 table 1. she motif allegory form motifs lesson be learned phoenix motif auspiciousness,goodness, happiness butterfly pattern free, lively and cheerful peony wealthy,prosperous, beautiful wintersweet (dialect) perseverance,purity,and elegance pomegranate pattern the more sons, the more happiness lozenge pattern abundance,prosperity, stability circular pattern unity,harmony and wholeness triangle-shaped pattern the great mountains, awe and dependence on nature figure 1. she women's flower clothes (image credit: chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee (2019). the complete collection of chinese minority designs. she. (shanxi people's publishing house.) 3.1.2 color symbolism in the color scheme of the embroidery style, the three primary colors of red, yellow and blue are mostly used, and the contrasting colors of green and orange are used to match the strong visual effect of the embroidery pattern (figure 2), and the overall style of the picture is highly saturated, bright and richly layered, and strongly decorative (chen, 2022). blue: the color blue often represents the sky and the sea in she clothing, implying vastness and depth. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 14 she people live in the mountainous areas and yearn for the sky and the sea, and the blue color of their costumes also reflects their pursuit of freedom and the wide world. red: red symbolizes enthusiasm, festivity and good fortune. on important occasions such as traditional festivals and weddings of the she people, people will wear red costumes to express their joy and blessings. red is also a symbol of vitality and vigor in the she culture. figure 2. she embroidery patterns (image credit: https://www.sohu.com/a/296476979_1001360480 the decorative she patterns and borders carry the history, culture and beliefs of the she people. they have been passed down through generations and have become an important part of the she culture. the images presented by the weaving and embroidery and the profound cultural connotations behind the images, the patterns and themes that are universally recognized by the people, have been preserved in the scrubbing of the long river of history and have become the theme patterns recognized by the people. 3.1.3 she weaving craft she compilation crafts include ribbon weaving, earth cloth weaving, bamboo weaving, grass weaving and thread weaving. she bucket hats, also known as “flower hats”, are part of the traditional culture of the she people and one of the dowry items for she women when they get married . the she people live in the mountains and forests and are rich in dianthus, bambusa, bitter bamboo, mao bamboo, and other bamboos (li & zhang, 2023), which provide abundant raw materials for bamboo weaving crafts, used for weaving handicrafts and household items. the shape of the she bucket hats is usually round, with a pointed top and wider edges, somewhat like a combination of a cone and a cylinder . this shape is designed with practicality in mind, effectively shielding from the sun and rain, but also has a certain aesthetic appeal, reflecting the aesthetic concepts of the she people. with the change of time, the use of the she bucket hat has also changed, from the initial tool for sheltering from the sun and rain, gradually evolved into an ornament and a symbol of the she culture. the appearance design is also very unique, above the bucket hat swallow, top, four compartments, three eaves, cloud head, swallow mouth, tiger's teeth, bucket hat star, etc., and the surface is usually woven with a variety of exquisite patterns and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 15 patterns. the cloud-head pattern is usually regarded as a symbol of good luck and happiness; the swallow-mouth pattern may be related to she legends or myths; and the tiger's teeth pattern may symbolize strength and courage. in addition, the weaving patterns of she bucket hats may include other elements, such as flowers and animals, etc. the combination and variation of these patterns are rich and varied, reflecting the creativity and aesthetic concepts of the she people. looking inside the bucket hats, they are also matched with decorations such as colorful beads of various colors and ribbons of red and yellow colors, etc. the whole bucket hats are woven with colorful nine-fold fine gimlets (figure 3), and these patterns and motifs are not only decorative, but also reflect the cultural traditions and living customs of the she people. the production process of she hats is very complicated, requiring nearly 40 procedures, including material selection, material production and weaving, each of which has strict operational requirements. in the process of weaving, it is also necessary to use the unique tung oil and other leakage-proof technology, so that the hats are delicate and lightweight, but also watertight. the bamboo splints are as fine as hair, uniform in thickness and color, and the patterns are exquisite and delicate. bucket hats, as the carrier of traditional handicrafts of the she cluster, are the witness of cultural inheritance. the weaving process has been passed down from generation to generation, carrying the historical memory and culture of the she people, and its development and evolution process reflects the way of life of the she people, their aesthetic concepts, and their exchanges and fusion with neighboring ethnic groups. this exquisite handicraft is the crystallization of the wisdom accumulated by the she people over a long period of time, and has been passed down through masters and disciples, families and other ways to this day, forming a unique style of she decorative arts and embodying the pursuit of beauty and the unique aesthetic concepts of the she people. it was used as a tool to protect she people from the sun and rain when they went out to work, go to market or visit friends and relatives, and later gradually evolved into a kind of jewelry and one of the dowry items for the marriage of she girls, which embodies the wisdom of the she people's life and the quality of their hard work, and enhances the sense of national identity and cohesion of the she people. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 16 figure 3. she bamboo bucket hat (image credit: chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee (2019). the complete collection of chinese minority designs. she . (shanxi people's publishing house.) colorful belts: she colorful belts are the traditional handicrafts of the she people, known as hop hand towel belt, or flower belt (figure 4; figure 5), with various patterns and generous colors, and the weaving of colorful belts is also the women's hong of the she women. at first, they were used as belts, straps and other daily necessities, but later they were also used as clothing decorations, and they are lucky objects and tokens of love for the she ethnic group, and the inheritance of their weaving process is also a reflection of the symbols of cultural inheritance. ribbons are usually woven from silk threads with bright colors and patterns of natural life forms and geometric shapes, including flowers, birds, fish and insects, cloud patterns, water patterns, etc. (sun, zhao, hu, zhao, & liu, 2023), signifying happiness, good fortune and a good life. colorful ribbons are not only used to decorate costumes, but also play an important role in important occasions such as fixation and marriage in she. figure 4. she weaves colorful ribbons diagram (image credit: chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee (2019). the complete collection of chinese minority designs. she . (shanxi people's publishing house.) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 17 figure 5. she weaves colorful ribbon extension (image credit: chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee (2019). the complete collection of chinese minority designs. she . (shanxi people's publishing house.) 3.1.4 architectural symbol she dwellings have distinctive ethnic characteristics, and the she people tend to prefer places on hillsides, facing the sun, sheltered from the wind and with water sources. such a location is conducive to obtaining sufficient sunlight and avoiding strong winds, and is convenient for obtaining water for living. around the villages, the she would plant trees such as pine, maple, quince, green chestnut, bitter chinkapin, etc. fruit trees or bamboos were planted in front of and behind the houses, which not only purified the air, but also practiced the environmental concept of “a tree at the entrance of the village can block the wind, and planting a tree behind the house can store water”, and provided certain resources for living. sheliao (figure 6): historically, when the she ancestors lived a nomadic lifestyle, they would build simple mountain huts called “grass huts” or “grass shelters”. this kind of building used bamboo and wood as pillars and supports, thatched grass to prepare grass curtains for tiles, small bamboo pieces and reed stalks to prepare fences, and diy strips to prepare doors and windows, with building materials all taken from nature. sheliao are mostly wooden structures with thatched roofs or tiles. most of them are twoor three-story buildings with black tiles on the roof. the interiors of sheliao are well laid out and usually divided into functional areas such as living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. sheliao buildings are characterized by beautiful shapes,reasonable structures and strong ethnic characteristics. sheliao is not only a place of residence for the she people, but also an important space for them to pass on their culture and hold traditional ceremonies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 18 she dwellings: she dwellings are usually wooden-framed hammocks or earthen buildings with unique architectural styles. the roofs are covered with black tiles and the eaves are often carved with various patterns, such as dragons, phoenixes, flowers and birds, etc. these carvings are not only decorative, but also symbolize the she people's desire for a better life and their reverence for the gods and spirits of nature. gatehouse: gatehouses are usually built at the entrance of villages or family settlements, which can play the role of defense against invasion by foreign enemies and is an important sign of entering the village. in ancient times, gatehouses were often equipped with defense facilities, such as archery towers and gates, to protect the safety of the family. doorways are usually carved with she totems, figures from myths and legends, or auspicious patterns, such as the dishrag, phoenix, dragon, etc., reflecting the cultural characteristics and national spirit of the she people. she gatehouses are usually simple and generous in shape, mostly adopting the traditional chinese architectural style, with wooden structures, giving people a sense of simplicity and elegance. the decorations are very exquisite, often carved with various patterns, such as flowers, birds, figures, landscapes, etc. these patterns are not only beautiful, but also contain rich cultural connotations. the bright colors of the she gatehouse, mostly in red, yellow, blue and other bright colors, which not only attract people's attention, but also reflect the passion and boldness of the she people. she gatehouse is not only an architectural form, but also an important carrier of she culture and a symbol of she family, which represents the honor and dignity of the family. in the she society, the scale and degree of decoration of the gatehouse are often directly proportional to the status and wealth of the family. it is a witness to the history of the she people, which records the migration, development and prosperity of the she people. architectural decorations: wood carvings and relief carvings: the halls of ancient she dwellings are tall and spacious, and the shrines and window panes are often decorated with wood carvings and relief carvings, and most of the carvings are of flowers, birds, fishes and insects, etc., which are of exquisite craftsmanship. doorways, windows, pillars and other parts of she architecture are carved with various patterns, which are not only decorative but also contain profound cultural connotations. for example, the dragons, phoenixes and unicorns in the she architecture symbolize the aspiration and pursuit of a better life of the she people; while the plum blossoms, orchids and bamboo symbolize the noble quality and spiritual pursuit of the she people. the architectural style is simple and generous, blending in with the natural environment with high artistic value. stone carvings: the main gate and the patio will be decorated with stone carvings, and there will be a wall of illumination in front and a back wall of illumination in the back, which not only play an aesthetic role, but also reflect the cultural connotation of the she people. corridor bridge: the she corridor bridge is a unique form of bridge created by the she people in their long-term production and life, with strong ethnic characteristics and cultural connotations. she corridor bridges are usually built between mountains and waters, and their sites, shapes and colors complement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 19 the surrounding landscape and villages, blending with the surrounding natural environment to form a unique landscape. in the past, the corridor bridge was an important transportation facility in the she region, providing convenience for people's travel, and at the same time, the corridor bridge was also a place for people to rest, communicate and trade, which promoted local social interaction and economic development. usually constructed of wood and stone, the bridges are built with porch houses for pedestrians to rest and take shelter from the rain. the unique architectural style of the corridor bridge, carved with various exquisite patterns, such as dragons and phoenixes, flowers and birds, and figures, reflects the artistic creativity and aesthetic concepts of the she people, their respect for nature and their pursuit of beauty, and has a high artistic value of the landscape. even in modern times, the corridor bridge not only has practical value, but also has high artistic value, some corridor bridge is still a good place for local residents to relax and have fun, and it has a positive role in enhancing community cohesion and social harmony! figure 6. she thatched cottage (image credit: chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee (2019). the complete collection of chinese minority designs. she . (shanxi people's publishing house.) 4. discussion 4.1 the value and meaning of she cultural symbols in guangdong province the cohesive symbols of guangdong she culture are the crystallization of the wisdom and creativity of the she people. through the study of these symbols, the guangdong she cultural symbols carry the historical memory of the she people and are an important source for the study of the history of the she people. through the study of these symbols, we can understand the migration history, production and life style, and social system of the she people, which provides important clues and bases for the study of the history of the she people. through the study of these symbols, the essence and characteristics of she culture can be better understood, and the inheritance and development of she culture can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 20 promoted. has important social value. these symbols can not only enhance the national pride and cohesion of the she people, but also promote the communication and integration among various ethnic groups. references blažević, m., peters, k., & chen, g. (2018). developing rural tourism in minority ethnic villages: zlot and xiaocang she ethnic township. hotel and tourism management, 6(2), 71-78. https://doi.org/10.5937/menhottur1802079b chen, j. y. (2022). aesthetic research and exploration of clothing design of she embroidery patterns in eastern fujian. journal of social sciences of jiamusi university, (03), 182-184+191. chinese minority design complete collection compilation committee. (2019). complete collection of chinese minority designs. she. shanxi people's publishing house. ding, x., li, t., chen, j., & zou, f. (2023). research on she nationality clothing recognition based on color feature fusion with pso-svm. autex research journal, 24(1), 20230005. https://doi.org/10.1515/aut-2023-0005 fang, z. m. (2019). inheritance and culmination a study of the she clothing in fujian, zhejiang, guangdong and gan since modern times chinese and foreign cultures. science press. li, l. x., & zhang, c. y. (2023). application and research of traditional weaving art of she ethnic group in creative clothing. fashion designer, (12), 53-56. li, l. x., & zhang, c. y. (2023). application and research of traditional weaving art of she ethnic group in creative clothing. fashion designer, (12), 53-56. liu, y., & xu, q.. (2022). research on the characteristics of dress art of she women in eastern fujian. light textile industry and technology, (04), 43-45+55. meng, l. f. (2021). mythological memory and symbolic symbols: the sharing mechanism of she-yao-miao clothing culture in the imagery genealogy of pan-hou. journal of yunnan normal university (philosophy and social science edition), (06), 63-74. sun, x. f., zhao, q., hu, x. w., zhao, j. y., & liu, x.. (2023). research and application of assisted rapid design of she ribbons in textiles. silk, (12), 106-118. xin, y. f., li, j., & zhang, s. u.. (2019). a study on the structural form and cultural connotation of the dress of the she ethnic group in western fujian. journal of leshan normal college, 34(7). yousaf, s., liu, y., & xiang, y. (2024). tourism and sociocultural identity discourses in ethnic minority communities: a study of she ethnic townships in zhejiang province, china. journal of sustainable tourism, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2024.2347544 zhang, j. (2019). the dilemma and inheritance of the “discus taboo” in the modern reconstruction of she totem culture. ethnic forum, (1), 7. original paper research on guangdong she culture from the perspec 3.1.3 she weaving craft microsoft word wjeh-v3n4-p48 world journal of education and humanities issn 2687-6760 (print) issn 2687-6779 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh 48 original paper multiculturalism in worldview nizami ganjavi parviz firudin oqlu kazimi1* 1 doctor of philosophy, baku state university, baku, azerbaijan * parviz firudin oqlu kazim, doctor of philosophy, baku state university, baku, azerbaijan received: october 3, 2021 accepted: october 17, 2021 online published: novenber 22, 2021 doi:10.22158/wjeh.v3n4p48 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/wjeh.v3n4p48 abstract articles about the “concept” and “danger” of “turanism” in political and publicistic works are often published in the international media, and this is so convincing that it has an impact on some scientific literature. in fact, on the contrary, materials obtained from scientific literature should be a source of political science and journalistic materials. in this context, we see that attempts to find a “brand” in historical research are still ongoing. we try to reveal the general picture, taking contradictions on this topic from the sources of the works of nizami ganjavi and firdosi, as well as on the basis of existing historical documents. has there ever been a state called turan in history? if not, what was the source and purpose of this legend? if there was no turan, how did iran exist? who won the war between iran and turan? if firdosi knew this story, then why does nizami write in his works the complete opposite of this story? as you can see, in addition to collecting tips from the works of nizami and firdosi to answer many questions, one can distinguish place names and ethnonyms from ancient mythology and zoroastrianism and determine the true “threat” by creating a general picture, defining the history and geography of events. this article attempts to answer some questions by comparing a number of historical, literary events and positions. keywords nizami ganjavi, works of nizami and firdosi, 880th anniversary of nizami, nizami and turan 1. introduction nizami ganjavi is an artist who left his mark on world literature in the 12th century. many works have been written, researched and translated into many languages of the world about him. in this article, we will try to look at nizami from an unprecedented perspective, comparing material from a number of sources and literary passages about his multicultural thinking, religious and ethnic tolerance, dedication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh world journal of education and humanities vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. to human values and attitudes towards history. nizami lived in the xii century, knew his time well and could freely express his views on various statesmen. nizami, who considers himself a turk, writes: pedər bər pedər mərəmra tork bud ke hər yek be nıru yeki gorg bud. (текст написан на персидском языке в латинской транскрипции) translation of the verse: my father and his father were turks each in his place, like a wolf. also, in different parts of nizami’s works, he talks about the turks and different peoples, presents them, attracts attention, expressing a multicultural approach to all peoples. we are not mistaken when we say that nizami’s “seven beauties” is a work that literally expresses and promotes multiculturalism. also, the word “turk” and hundreds of “components” (phrases) and expressions derived from it are noted in the persian hamsa nizami, “turk”, “turki”, “turkan”, “turkane”, “turktaze”, “turkvash”. “and others. the poet’s goal was to express steadfastness, courage, beauty, kindness, fearlessness, courage and so on. the poet even praises the kings, whom he praises for being turks, thinking that they are far from disgraceful. nizami knows firdosi, who wrote and worked two hundred years before him, is familiar with his work and marks him as a poet of a high level. but when we look at the works of firdosi, we see that his whole worldview is divided into good and bad, good and evil, the point of view “ours” and “not ours.” it is clear here that he was under the influence of zoroastrianism and that all natural and social phenomena took place between good and evil. the main idea in the poems of shahnamehfirdosi, preserved in history, is the iranian-turanian war, and in this war there is “good” and “evil”, that is, iran, which is the side of “good”, and turan, which is the side of “evil”. it should be noted that in the work of nizami there is “division” and “opposition”. in “khosrov and shirin”: the line “if he is keyhosrov, then we are afrasiyabs”, he declares that turan is able to confront iran and answer on equal terms. however, nizami does not represent “iran” or “turan” as enemies. in the work of nizami, both keikhosrov and afrasiyab are worthy personalities. the idea that a number of new mythological events were included in the text of the “holy book” in the sassanian version of the avesta was analyzed in detail in my research. firdosi introduces “turan”, based on the mythology of the sassanid period, and does not hide his incomprehensible “hatred” for the turks. in the legend, based mainly on sassanid mythology, firdosi builds a model of war that has no history, defines the good and bad sides in this war, takes the position of the “iranian” side as a side of good, evaluates the “turanian” side as an evil turk. and says: تو گفتی دل از رده دارد به خشم ابا سرخ ترکی، بدی، گربه چشم هم بد نژاد است و هم بد تن است که آن ترک بد ريشه و ريمن است زخونش دل سنگ مرجان کنم تن ترک بد ذات بی جان کنم ای دوزخی روی دور از بهشت س بپرسيد، از آن ترک زشتاز آن پ زاينده را بر تو بايد گريست !چه مردی و نام و نژاد تو چيست؟ نام پدرشان ندارند ياد »ديو زاد«و » بد طينت«بود ترک، سواالتی می کند که اين شخص جواب می دهد در جايی هم هرمز از يکی از بزرگان و پيران دربار www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh world journal of education and humanities vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. translation of the verse: (this is a turk who has a bad race and is cunning. he has a bad background and a bad soul (body). i will destroy the body of an evil turk, make the heart of a stone “coral” from his blood ask him, you shameful turk, you are a man of hell and your face is far from heaven what kind of man you are, what is your name and origin, the one who brought you into this world should mourn you. a turk can be evil and is born of a “giant” who does not know his father and does not know his name.) admittedly, many of the concepts and expressions of the persian language of the 9th-10th centuries, based on the expression of poetic thought, create problems in translation. when translating, it is difficult to convey the aggressiveness of thought and the scope of hatred. naturally, persian was not a “folk” language at that time. in the middle ages, dictionaries were developed to explain many of the words and phrases used in firdosi’sshahnama. at that time, the persian language was developed in the temples “mobids” and “mitraistomi”, epics and legends were created and disseminated. islam, which was already established in the ninth and tenth centuries, did not participate in this process. firdosi’s writings about living together neighbors do not bring him “headship” and respect. it is known that even after his death he was denied a burial in the “common” cemetery. he was buried in the garden of his house in the city of tus, and later a monument was erected to him by order of the ruler of khorasan. the tomb of firdosi, which was soon destroyed, was restored by rza shah pahlavi in 1928-1934, creating a “mausoleum” for him and reproducing his legacy, making it the basis of the “paniran” worldview. there are almost no traces of islam in the images and events of firdosi. as can be seen from the poem, a turk with a negative image is the son of devin. dev is a negative image of the sassanian worship of fire (sassanian zoroastrianism), represents an evil force. the heroes of firdosi are also historical and mythological figures of the sassanian period. it can be assumed that firdosi did not have a lot of information about the history of iran in the achaemenid period. otherwise, he would have praised them in his work. unlike firdosi, nizami illuminates in his work the history of the achaemenid period and creates an image of the legendary alexander, different from the history of herodotus. he compares alexander to the ruler of barda, not to kyrius. nizami does not call alexander “a descendant of a giant or does not know his roots and ancestors”, but presents him as an “intellectual”. on the whole, nizamiganjavi is far from thinking “winner or loser”. nizami thinks about the “wise and ignorant” and at the end of his work gives “perfection” to all people. in his poem written to sultan sanjar, the seljuk shah, nizamiganjavi considered justice, loyalty and beauty to be the characteristic features of the turks: مملکت از داد پسندی گرفت دولت ترکان که بلندی گرفت ترک نه ای، هندوی غارتگری چونکه که تو بيدادگری پروری translation of the verse:(when the state of the turks “rose”, their countries flourished and saw www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh world journal of education and humanities vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. justice. “if you oppress the people,” then you are no longer a turk, maybe some kind of a robber). 2. historical knowledge about touranism according to encyclopedias, the word turan is of persian-tajik origin and is known as a geographical area in central asia. it was created by adding the persian plural form “an” to the word tour. “turan” means a place and has long been used as a toponym. he is referred to in the avesta as “tuirianam”. according to ancient persian mythology, the origin of the “persians” begins with a man named firidun. it is believed that this mythology was formed mainly during the sassanid period. firidun has three sons. iraj, turan and salim. turan kills iraj, and salim has no heir. only turan has a son named zadsham, through whom the genealogy continues. there are many opinions about turan. after the conquest of sogdiana by the turks in 565 in neighboring countries, especially in iran, two ethnonyms “tur” (iran) and “turk” (-) are confused by phonetic similarities. in the shahnam, where the iranian-turks conflict was recorded, the name “turan” (country of tours) began to be used in the meaning of “turkestan” (country of turks). however, the “turanization” of the turks began at the end of the 10th century, after the ghaznavids, who conquered iran, divided into turkic dynasties. the karakhanids who occupied turan elevated their ancestors to the legendary king of turan afrasiab and began to be called the “house of afrasiab” in order to legitimize their rule over turan. afrasiab himself was identified with the hero of turkic legends alp-er-tong. the german “map of iran and turan” dates back to 1850 (during the gajar dynasty). the territory of turan is marked with an orange line. the name “turan” appears in the east of the aral sea. on the map, turan covers the territories of modern kazakhstan, uzbekistan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, as well as the northern provinces of afghanistan and pakistan. this area is almost identical to modern central asia. iran also appeared as a place name and was known as “iran falati” (iranian plain). firdosi was one of the first to use the iranian place name as a political concept. firdosi, who wrote the mythology about the iranian-turanian war, probably knew that there were no such states. at that time there was neither iran nor turan. maybe, but as a geographic name for a place. not as the center of a single political force. shahnameh firdozi does not comment on ethnic groups representing the iranian side if the turanians are nomadic tribes from the northeast. given that firdosi himself lived and worked in central asia, the “iran” he had in mind was different from the geographic area we now know. although the iranian-turanian war is not really in history, the number of those who want to present this event as historical has especially increased in the xx-xxi centuries. in world history, there was neither the great unity of the germanic tribes, nor the great unity of the slavic peoples, nor the great unity of the turkic peoples. what do political scientists and historians want to remind, “accumulating” this topic, what do they want to “convey” to the world community? what explains the threat from turan? reza shah pahlavi made the first attempts to synonymize the concepts of iran and persia in the 1930s. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh world journal of education and humanities vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. referring to the global political arena as “we are no longer persia, we are iranians,” these two concepts have come to have the same meaning. the pahlavi government has also done a lot to “persianize” iran. as a result, multinational iran as “persian” denied the multicultural composition of a large geography and introduced the concept of “iranian-speaking” peoples, which had no scientific basis. the geographical area inhabited by the nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes of the saks in kazakhstan was called turan. of course, these saka tribes did not know about the mythological “sons of firidun” and the mythology between them, history and conflicts. later, saks, massagets, kushans, parthians, hephthalites and other eastern peoples began to be called turanians. the term referred to almost all of central asia inhabited by these peoples. the topic of the centuries-old confrontation between iran and turan in persian literature has received wide coverage, and the merits of firdosi played an important role in this. the cultural “environment” created by shahname firdozi did not achieve its goal. turkism and turanism were presented and lived in this geography as an expression of tolerance and multiculturalism. for the first time, the term turan as a special name in the form of “alp-turan” is found already in the ancient turkic inscriptions of the 7th-8th centuries. this is 3-4 centuries before the time of firdosi, and firdosi does not know this “history”. the emirs of bukhara were also presented as “rulers of turan” or “kings of turkestan and turan” before the russian occupation of central asia in the early 19th century. turan is also known as one of the regions of the sassanid empire. according to the geographical information of the books of muslim historians, turan was a mountainous region in eastern baluchistan. at the same time, the word “turan” became known as the name of an area inhabited by turks and other non-persian peoples, located in khorasan, northeast of the amu darya river. turanism became a political ideology that provided for the unity of all ural-altai peoples. it was originally intended to unite the finns, hungarians, estonians and finno-ugric peoples, as well as the manchus, mongols and turkic-speaking peoples. this ideology, supported by the azerbaijani and tatar intelligentsia in russia before the 1905 revolution, began to spread in turkey after the proclamation of the second constitution in 1908. the “turanist” views, which zia gokalp put forward among the leaders of the “union” and “party of progress”, were taken as a basis. anwar pasha, one of the ottoman generals of that time, in 1918-1922 tried to spread the idea of turanism in central asia. many historical figures expressed their views and words about turanism. amir teymur: “we are maliki-turan, emir-tukistan. we are a turk, son of tur. “i am the greatest and most ancient of the peoples, the leader of the turks,” he said. zia gökalp, the founder of the idea of turanism, said: “the motherland is not turkey, the turks are not turkestan, the motherland is a large and eternal country of the turks: turan.” mustafa kemal ataturk: “i believe in the unity of turks and i see it,” he said, and many thinkers saw and supported this idea within the framework of multicultural values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjeh world journal of education and humanities vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. 3. conclusion as you can see, in the work of nizami, the turks and “turanism” express an idea that does not express a specific ethnic group and includes progressive features. however, there is an opinion that non-turks are not enemies, they describe all peoples with their uniqueness and quality. the work “seven beauties” is a very good example of this. unlike nizami, firdosi sees non—“iran” as an enemy, and the target of criticism is not only the turks, but also other peoples, who become the object of criticism, and sometimes even “insults”. in the works of nizami, every nation of the world is under the protection of “heaven”. all peoples are unique, individual and irreplaceable. in the seven beauties, the indian beauty is protected by saturn, the turkestan (chinese) beauty is protected by the sun, the slavic beauty is protected by mars, the byzantine beauty is protected by jupiter, and no one is left aside. nizami lovingly praises the uniqueness of the “people” he represents, in defining each “beauty”, shows their uniqueness. the ideological architecture of firdosi’s work, distinguished by a high level of rhetoric and skillful use of poetic techniques, was not taken into account in the middle ages. of course, the fact that he was not loved during his lifetime, and that the works written by him besides the shahnameh (of course, he had other works ...) were not preserved, was the result of public attitudes towards him. in the 1920s and 1930s, through the efforts of reza shah pahlavi, the work of firdosi again came to the fore and laid the foundation for the ideology of “paniranism”. on the contrary, nizami does not have “pan-turkism” or “pan-turanism”. there is love for the peoples of the world, respect for world culture, there are peaks that need to be conquered in the general process of cognition for all. references bakı, m. (2019). socıal and cultural communıcatıon ın early hıstory. retrieved from https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/3418/1351 ferdowsi, a. q., & mausoleum, s a. s. (1999). encyclopædiairanica. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 67 original paper discussion on english cultural communication and english teaching in the new media environment jiajia zhou1* 1 university of macau, macau, china received: october 12, 2022 accepted: november 3, 202 online published: november 7, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p67 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p67 abstract as a global language, english has become the main foreign language teaching choice in all countries. after decades, great progress has been made in english teaching in china. english has not only been popularized, but also a large number of english professionals from various industries have been trained. in the new media environment, in order to better improve the quality of english teaching, teachers should pay attention to the integration of english culture and teaching content when teaching english. by analyzing the characteristics of english teaching in the new media environment, this paper puts forward the relationship between english cultural exchange and english teaching, and puts forward strategies. keywords new media, english cultural communication, english education i. introduction with the development of information technology, new media has become an important channel for information dissemination. with the development and optimization of the internet, new media is rapidly commercialized, which has a huge impact on traditional media. in the new media environment, cross-language cultural content is also being spread in the form of video and words. as the world’s common language, under the new media environment of the internet, the spread of english cultural content becomes more intensive and extensive. as the concentrated users of the internet, young students are naturally interested in the english language and culture. it is a very effective way to improve the level of english teaching content by using this new media and network culture to promote college english teaching. however, in the spread of english culture and language on the internet, in addition to effectively promoting english teaching, we should also pay attention to the protection of our national culture, strengthen the screening of english cultural content, and ensure that the english www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 68 published by scholink inc. cultural content spread by new media is consistent with our basic values, so that we can really play the role of internet english culture in teaching and educating people. 2. the characteristics of information dissemination in the new media environment 2.1 a wide range of information dissemination with the popularity of mobile smart devices in china, mobile internet has become a major form of media network. this also greatly improves the efficiency of information dissemination, which is not limited by region and time, and makes the spread of network media more extensive. as a part of the youth group, college students have almost completely covered the mobile internet during their study and life in colleges and universities. every student can receive and disseminate information through mobile devices, such as smart phones. at the same time, college students live in the same group, and their dissemination and sharing of internet information leads to further expansion of information dissemination scope. 2.2 new media information dissemination is interactive the so-called interactivity means that users participate in the dissemination of information. in the era of traditional media, users can only serve as receivers of information through paper, tv, outdoor and other media forms, and cannot give specific feedback to the information. in the information dissemination environment of new media, users are not only the receivers of information, but also can give feedback to the received information at any time. in this case, users themselves can also create information and spread it in the new media environment, and each user can become a media for publishing information. the interactivity of the new media directly stimulated the enthusiasm of users to participate in network information dissemination, thus further increasing the amount of information on the internet and making information dissemination more active. 2.3 the new media information content is personalized and active new media users can search for relevant information content according to their own preferences, so that information dissemination changes from passive display to active search, which makes information dissemination more valuable and richer. in addition, with the continuous application and promotion of big data cloud computing technology, pushing content according to the needs of different network users has become another characteristic of new media information dissemination. today, new media information dissemination has undergone great changes, not only becoming an important part of users’ use of network services, but also its commercial value has been greatly developed. and it has entered the formal market operation and becoming an important part of the market economy. 3. analysis of the content of english cultural communication in the new media environment 3.1 the spread of audiovisual culture such as british and american film and television works as a major english-speaking countries in britain and the united states, the entertainment culture industry is very developed, with strong export ability and wide variety of entertainment culture. after www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 69 published by scholink inc. the reform and opening-up, china gradually introduced film and television works from britain, america and other western countries, which were sought after by the people because of their high production level and cultural differences. especially in 1980 s, it once triggered a domestic upsurge of going abroad. with the popularization of english in chinese education, chinese audiences are more and more familiar with british and american film and television works, especially after the 21st century, almost every year, british and american film and television works have aroused great repercussions in china. in the new media environment, british and american film and television works have a new way of communication. viewers can watch the original british and american movies and tv works at any time through smart devices, and learn about the social life and cultural customs of british and american countries. this has played a great role in promoting the spread of english culture, especially under the context of endless stream of self-media platforms. many fragmented english film and television works have played a great role in promoting english film and television works, and at the same time, english culture is more and more well known to the public. in the information dissemination of new media, college students’ understanding ability and pursuit of british and american film and television works are higher than those of other groups, and even some british and american film and television works take the lead in spreading among college students. with the continuous development of self-media, fragmented english film and television content dissemination is more in line with students’ living and learning habits, so it is sought after by students. 3.2 information dissemination of english education products and services with the rise and upsurge of english culture, english language learning has become the focus of the whole society. at present, in addition to formal school english education, some private english training institutions have sprung up. these private english training institutes are not only numerous, but also set up english training services for different groups. among college students, cet-4 and cet-6, toefl, ielts and other english test training content are more common. in the new media environment, many private english training institutions have also set up online training systems to provide online teaching services for trainees. not only that, but some private training institutions also promote english training content online in order to expand students and gain competitive advantage in the market. in order to attract students to learn english, these contents may include related english language and culture and national culture. college students have great demand for english learning and strong interest. learning english language and culture through the online publicity of online training institutions will greatly improve students’ english scores and related skills. 3.3 information dissemination of english news hotspots english, as an international language, is frequently used in international political, economic and cultural exchanges. after the reform and opening up, china actively integrated into the world. joining the world trade organization and holding various international conferences and sports events have aroused the attention of many countries and people in the world. english and translation have become the main means of communication in these international conferences and sports events. for example, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 70 published by scholink inc. during the 2008 beijing olympic games, a large number of foreign athletes and spectators came, and english became the main language for local people and tourists from many countries to communicate with. during this period, the upsurge of learning english arose in cities such as beijing, and even a large number of ordinary urban people were trying to learn english for basic communication. in the new media environment, many international conferences and press conferences of national government agencies will also be spread on the internet, and on-site english translation and english exchange will also become the focus of public attention. even the instant translation content of many meetings is regarded as the classic translation content by the majority of netizens, which has become a part of english teaching worth learning. 4. analysis of english cultural communication and english teaching strategies in the new media environment 4.1 the use of new media to expand english teaching content one of the characteristics of the internet is the huge amount of data and rich content. on the internet, there are a lot of contents about english culture and english translation. in college english teaching, teachers should make use of new media and other network technologies to expand english teaching content. on the basis of ensuring the english syllabus, we should integrate the related contents of the internet into english teaching to improve students’ english knowledge. for example, teachers can collect and sort out related english culture or other contents through daily online browsing and content recommendation, and recommend them to students in classroom teaching; or through new media, etc., push the relevant english content to students, so that students can learn english independently after class. 4.2 enrich new media and other online teaching forms nowadays, it is very common for college students to use the internet, and online teaching in colleges and universities can also be carried out effectively. under the new media environment, english network teaching is a very effective teaching form. therefore, teachers should make full use of network media to carry out various teaching forms. first of all, teachers can constantly push relevant english culture and teaching content by opening self-media accounts, so that students can keep an eye on and understand all kinds of english culture and professional knowledge. at the same time, teachers can interact effectively with students on the network self-media platform, so as to enhance the feelings between teachers and students and establish a good relationship between them. in addition, teachers can make students systematically learn excellent english culture and related courses of english majors through the network platform through the “massive open online courses” resources in the school, thus improving their english ability. for students who need to obtain relevant qualification certificates, teachers can also recommend appropriate online english training institutions for students through their own experience and social status, which can provide effective reference for students’ learning and progress. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 71 published by scholink inc. 4.3 stimulating students’ interest in learning english through the spread of english culture in the new media environment, the spread of european and american cultures has made english culture an important part of network culture. nowadays, college students grow up in the network environment, and they have a strong interest in english culture. for this reason, many young students at present are proficient in learning english. during the period of learning english, college students have to face many problems in english examination and application, but they are not interested in learning english. in the new media environment, teachers should make full use of english culture in online media to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning, so that students can set lofty language learning goals. for example, teachers can show some movies and tv works related to the english in class, or introduce relevant talents in translation and language fields to stimulate students’ interest in learning english. 5. conclusion. in the new media environment, the spread of english culture is rich in content and far-reaching. cultural exchange and learning has become a social phenomenon. professional teachers in colleges and universities should make full use of the opportunity brought by new media, improve the overall effect of english classroom teaching according to the characteristics and contents of new media english culture, establish an english teaching mode that adapts to the characteristics of the new era, improve students’ english learning achievement and application ability, and lay a foundation for their future development and further improvement of english level. references agussani, a., & ansari, k. (2020). the approach to indonesian language and literature curriculum in the industrial revolution era 4.0 and society 5.01. kumpulan penelitian dan pengabdian dosen. al faruqi, u. (2019). future service in industry 5.0. jurnal sistem cerdas, 2(1), 67-79. https://doi.org/10.37396/jsc.v2i1.21 antony, j., balzer, w. k., brodke, m. h., & kizhakethalackal, e. t. (2015). lean higher education: successes, challenges, and realizing potential. international journal of quality & reliability management. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijqrm-08-2014-0119 benito-osorio, d., peris-ortiz, m., armengot, c. r., & colino, a. (2013). web 5.0: the future of emotional competences in higher education. global business perspectives, 1(3), 274-287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40196-013-0016-5 budiarta, i. k., & krismayani, n. w. (2014). improving speaking skill and developing character of the students through collaboration of think-pair-share and the concept of tri kaya parisudha. jurnal santiaji pendidikan (jsp), 4(2), 73. https://doi.org/10.36733/jsp.v4i2.446 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 72 published by scholink inc. dong, f. (2011). research on chinese media and communication: china and the west. j mass communicat journalism, 19(106). https://doi.org/10.4172/2165-7912.1000106 geng, y. (2019). reform and innovation of college english teaching in the new media environment. journal of hubei correspondence university, 32(22), 15-16. hobbs, r. (2011). “un’istantanea multinazionale sulla me in sei paesi europei.” media education. studi, ricerche, buone pratiche. special issue on the european project onair, 1(1), 53-70. jeong, h-s. (2008). media education in south korea: history, dynamic and challenges, in cheung. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9529-0_6 kim, k-t. (2004). viewer’s sovereignty and viewers’ movement. seoul (korea): han-narae. kim, k-t. (2007). the analysis of the nature of media education in korea. journal of the kore. liu, x. h. (2018). on the reform and innovation of college english teaching in the new media environment. journal of jiamusi vocational college, 2018(03), 407. yang, j. (2018). research on college english teaching reform and innovation in the new media environment. china journal of multimedia and network teaching (middle), 2018(06), 37-38. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 127 original paper a study on the job-person matching model for counselor positions in private universities based on the bp neural network linjie zhao1 & ke zhang2 1&2 xi’an fanyi university, xi'an, china funding project xi’an fanyi university 2023 university-level scientific research project topics “acomputer-based job-person matching measurement model: a case study of x college” (project number: 23b57). received: june 17, 2025 accepted: august 09, 2025 online published: august 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p127 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p127 abstract with the popularization of higher education, the demand for counselor positions in private universities has been growing steadily. however, current job-person matching products on the market struggle to meet the actual needs of this position. this study focuses on counselor positions in private universities and constructs a job-person matching model based on the bp neural network algorithm, aiming to improve the accuracy and efficiency of counselor recruitment. by collecting and analyzing counselor competency feature data, the bp neural network model was trained and tested, verifying its feasibility and effectiveness. this study provides a scientific basis for counselor recruitment in private universities, helping to optimize the structure of the counselor team and enhance the work efficiency of counselors. keywords bp neural network, private universities, counselor positions, job-person matching model 1. introduction in human resource systems, job-person matching occupies an irreplaceable and important position. with the state's great emphasis on higher education, private universities have played a key role in cultivating urgently needed talent, promoting the popularization of higher education, and advancing educational system reform, resulting in a significant increase in their development speed. however, as private universities expand in scale, issues related to job-person matching for counselor positions have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 128 become increasingly prominent. currently, counselor teams in private universities generally face challenges such as insufficient qualifications, lacking professional competence, and unreasonable job allocation, leading to low work efficiency and adversely affecting the effectiveness of student ideological and political education and daily management. adhering to the principle of “the right person for the right job”, constructing a scientific job-person matching model has become a core task for enhancing the efficiency of human resource management in private universities. traditional job-person matching calculation methods primarily rely on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and the analytic hierarchy process (ahp). while ahp is simple to operate and has strong explanatory power, the subjective weighting assigned by experts is easily influenced by their experience, and the evaluation process is cumbersome. the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method faces challenges such as difficulties in constructing membership functions and information loss when handling non-linear relationships among multiple indicators. for example, when a private university used the ahp method to match counselor positions, differences in experts' weighting of the “communication skills” indicator led to a 23% deviation between the matching results and actual job performance. therefore, there is an urgent practical need to develop a model that can objectively, comprehensively, and dynamically assess the degree of job-person matching. the back propagation (bp) neural network, as a computational model simulating the structure of human brain neurons, possesses strong self-learning, self-organizing, and generalization capabilities. it optimizes the objective function through gradient descent, automatically inducts patterns from training data, and adjusts network weights via backpropagation until the output meets error requirements. for example, in a study on the job-person fit of air traffic controllers, the bp neural network model improved matching accuracy by 18% and reduced misjudgment rates by 12% compared to traditional methods. its intelligence, adaptability, and self-learning capabilities have led to its widespread application in the field of management evaluation. in recent years, scholars have conducted in-depth research on the job responsibilities, competency characteristics, and career development of counselors in private universities. for example, yuan airong et al. proposed applying the person-job matching theory to counselor selection and hiring, constructing an evaluation system using the holland occupational interest test and the mbti test; jiao hejun et al. achieved precise matching of counselor positions in higher education institutions using a bp neural network, with a matching accuracy rate of 89%. however, existing research has primarily focused on theoretical framework construction or the application of single algorithms, lacking systematic consideration of the unique characteristics of private universities, and has yet to form a complete theoretical framework and operational methods. this paper proposes a person-position matching model for counselor positions in private universities based on the advantages of the bp neural network. the model constructs a neural network structure with multiple input layers and a single output layer, integrating four-dimensional indicators such as moral qualities, physical and mental qualities, knowledge, and abilities. it trains the network weights www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 129 using historical data to achieve dynamic and precise matching between positions and job seekers. this research not only expands the application scenarios of job-person matching theory but also provides a practical tool for optimizing counselor team configuration in private universities. it holds significant practical value for enhancing the quality of ideological and political education for students and promoting the sustainable development of higher education institutions. 2. research design 2.1 research objectives this paper aims to construct a position-personnel matching model for counselors at private universities based on a bp neural network, with the goal of improving the efficiency and accuracy of counselor recruitment and providing strong support for human resource management at private universities. 2.2 research methods this study employs a combination of literature review, interviews, and empirical research. first, relevant literature and materials are reviewed to understand the theoretical foundations of job-person matching and the basic principles and application domains of bp neural networks. second, the competency characteristics of counselor positions in private universities are surveyed and analyzed. finally, a job-person matching model is constructed based on bp neural networks, and its feasibility and effectiveness are validated through empirical research. 2.3 data sources and processing the data for this study were obtained from five years of counselor recruitment data and competency characteristic data of counselors at a private university. during data collection, multiple methods were employed, including questionnaire surveys, interviews, and expert scoring. the questionnaire design covered multiple aspects, including counselors' basic information, educational background, work experience, professional skills, ideological and political qualities, and professional ethics. interview participants included the head of the university's human resources department, leaders responsible for student affairs in each college, and some current counselors. the expert scoring phase invited experts and scholars with extensive recruitment experience to evaluate the competency characteristics of job applicants. in the data preprocessing stage, the collected raw data was first cleaned and organized to remove invalid and abnormal data. then, quantitative data was standardized to make data of different units comparable. for qualitative data, expert scoring was used for quantification. finally, the processed data was divided into training and testing sets according to a certain ratio for subsequent model training and testing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 130 3. model construction 3.1 competency feature analysis 3.1.1 identifying key features through literature reviews and expert interviews, preliminary competency features for the position of counselor at private universities were identified. these competency features were analyzed, and this study selected key features as input variables for the bp neural network. these features comprehensively reflect the job requirements and personal qualities of the counselor position. the specific key features are shown in table 1: table 1. key indicators of competency for counselors at private universities key characteristics characteristic description political and ideological qualities a firm political stance, good moral character, a high sense of responsibility and mission, etc. professional ethics and integrity integrity and adherence to laws and regulations, self-discipline and integrity, respect for students, and care for students, etc. professional knowledge and skills knowledge related to education, psychology, management, etc. psychological qualities a positive mindset, strong ability to cope with pressure, and emotional stability, etc. organizational management skills skilled at communicating with students, coordinating student relations, handling unexpected events, etc. cultural compatibility with private universities ability to adapt flexibly and multitask 3.1.2 feature data processing based on the preliminary selection of competency features, combined with actual data from over 200 applicants for counselor positions at a private university over the past five years, and expert evaluations of each competency feature. the scoring range is from 1 to 5, representing five levels: “very unsuitable,” “unsuitable,” “average,” “suitable,” and “very suitable.” after scoring, data analysis was conducted to calculate the mean and standard deviation of each competency characteristic, and those with higher scores were selected as input variables for the final matching model. 3.2 bp neural network structure design in constructing the bp neural network model, the network structure and parameters were first determined. this study adopted a three-layer bp neural network structure, including an input layer, a hidden layer, and an output layer. the number of nodes in the input layer is determined based on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 131 number of selected competency characteristics; the number of nodes in the hidden layer is determined through multiple experiments and comparisons; the number of nodes in the output layer is 1, representing the job seeker's overall score. regarding network parameters, appropriate learning rates, iteration counts, and error thresholds were selected. next, the training set data was normalized to meet the input requirements of the bp neural network. the normalization method used the minimum-maximum standardization method to map the data to the [0,1] interval. next, the bp neural network was trained using the training set data, continuously adjusting the weights and biases within the network to minimize the error between the network's output values and the actual values. during training, the gradient descent algorithm and backpropagation algorithm were used to update the weights and biases. finally, the trained bp neural network is tested using the test set data to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the model. during the testing process, the test set data is input into the bp neural network to obtain a comprehensive score for job-candidate matching. 3.3 model training and validation in the model training phase, this paper uses actual data as training samples to perform weight learning and adjustment for the bp neural network. through iterative optimization, the model's output error is minimized. in the model validation phase, this paper uses cross-validation methods to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the model. by comparing the matching results of different job seekers and counselor positions, the model's matching accuracy and stability are verified. 4. improvement suggestions for counselor recruitment and position-person matching in private universities based on the empirical analysis results of the bp neural network model, combined with the current status and challenges of counselor team building in private universities, this study proposes the following improvement suggestions aimed at optimizing the recruitment process, improving matching accuracy, and promoting the professional development of counselor teams. 4.1 building a dynamic competency feature system the competency requirements for counselor positions in private universities need to move beyond traditional static indicators (such as education level and certificates) toward dynamic, scenario-based capability assessments. practice-oriented metrics such as “number of crisis intervention case handling” and “accuracy rate of identifying student psychological issues” should be added to reflect counselors' ability to handle complex situations. for example, a private university introduced a “simulated student counseling” scenario test and found that applicants with over three years of student leadership experience scored significantly higher in the emotional guidance section compared to other groups. continuous updating: every two years, competency weights are recalibrated based on recruitment data and the performance of current counselors. for example, data from a certain university in 2023 showed that the weight of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 132 “online ideological and political education capabilities” increased from 12% to 18%, reflecting new demands in student work under the new media environment. 4.2 application of optimized bp neural network models data governance: establish a two-dimensional database of “applicants-positions” and integrate multi-modal data such as resume information, assessment results, and interviews. for example, a certain school used ocr technology to extract the “number of student activities organized” from resumes and combined it with expert scores to construct a structured dataset. introduce data cleaning rules to exclude samples with missing information rates exceeding 30%. for example, in a university's 2022 recruitment data, 15% of applicants did not fill in their practical experience, and such data should be marked as “low-quality samples” and have their weights reduced. model optimization: adopt the “ahp-bp hybrid inheritance” method to incorporate the competency weights determined by the analytic hierarchy process (ahp) into the neural network's input layer. for example, a certain school found through ahp analysis that the weight of “political literacy” was 0.25, far higher than the 0.12 for “language expression ability,” and adjusted the weights of the neural network input nodes accordingly. add model interpretability tools, such as lime (local interpretable model-agnostic explanations) technology, to generate specific feedback such as “a certain applicant has low match due to insufficient crisis management experience,” to assist in recruitment decisions. dynamic training can be conducted using artificial intelligence tools. new recruitment data can be incorporated annually to update model parameters. for example, in a certain school's spring 2024 recruitment, “ai tool usage ability” was included in the training set, improving the model's matching accuracy for digital office scenarios by 12%. 4.3 improve the recruitment process and supporting mechanisms job-candidate matching relies not only on technical models but also on the coordinated support of recruitment processes, training systems, and career development paths. conduct phased screening. in the initial screening phase, use a bp neural network to quickly screen the top 30% of high-match candidates, reducing the workload of manual reviews. the model reduced the initial screening time from 15 days to 5 days, with a significant decrease in misclassification rates. in the in-depth assessment phase, structured interviews are conducted with high-scoring candidates recommended by the model, focusing on soft metrics such as “value alignment” and “cultural adaptability.” for example, a certain school adopted the “behavioral event interview method” (bei) and found that the performance of “highly matched” candidates recommended by the model in real work scenarios was consistent with the predicted values at a rate of 87%. training reinforcement: develop a “job competency gap diagnosis system” to generate personalized training plans for newly hired counselors. for example, a certain school identified that 35% of new counselors lacked “online ideological and political education capabilities” through the model, and designed specialized courses such as short video production and public opinion response based on this finding. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 133 establish a “mentor-project” training model, pairing experienced counselors with new hires to jointly complete practical projects such as student crisis intervention and career guidance. in a certain school's “freshman adaptation period counseling project,” the student satisfaction rate for mentor-new counselor pairs reached 92%, far exceeding that of individual workgroups. career development: design a “dual-track promotion pathway” distinguishing between management sequences (e.g., student affairs office director) and professional sequences (e.g., counselor, career planner). for example, a certain school allows counselors to choose their development direction based on competency strengths assessed by a bp neural network, resulting in a significant increase in the proportion of professional sequence counselors within three years. 4.4 promoting the integration of organizational culture and technical support private universities need to foster a “data-driven decision-making” culture at the organizational level and strengthen their technical infrastructure. cultural transformation: conduct “data literacy training” to enhance the hr department's understanding and application of model results. technical support: deploy an “integrated recruitment management system” that integrates resume parsing, model assessment, and interview scheduling functions. for example, a certain school's system has achieved full process automation from resume submission to hiring decisions, reducing the recruitment cycle by 40%. explore “ai+recruitment” applications to ensure the security and traceability of applicant data. for example, a certain school has piloted the use of blockchain technology for academic credentials and practical experience verification to prevent data tampering and enhance recruitment credibility. 5. conclusion this paper constructs a position-to-person matching model for counselor positions at private universities based on a bp neural network. through multi-dimensional indicator analysis and non-linear mapping, it achieves an accurate evaluation of counselor position matching. empirical validation demonstrates that this model has higher precision and reliability than traditional methods, providing a scientific basis for optimizing counselor team configuration at private universities. future research can further optimize the indicator system and explore integration with other algorithms (such as ahp) to enhance the model's generalization capabilities. references gui, l. n., lin, j. n., & tong, q. l. (2025). a study on the coupling and coordination of education and industrial structure in fujian province based on a bp neural network. journal of kaili university, 43(03), 45-57. guo, p., & wen, x. g. (2015). research on bot project risk assessment based on bp artificial neural networks. science and technology management research, 35(21), 210-214. liu, z. (2019). research and implementation of a precise matching system for college counselor www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 134 positions based on ahp and bp neural networks. tianjin normal university. shi, y. y., peng, l. l., & liu, t. y. (2025). research on issues and optimization pathways for the construction of counselor teams in private universities in the new era. science, education, and culture, (10), 32-35. zhang, z. g., xie, m. x., & lin, d. (2020). a performance evaluation system for china's manufacturing enterprises based on bp neural networks: a case study of listed white goods manufacturing enterprises. science and technology management research, 40(15), 217-223. zhuo, f. (2024). research on kpi performance evaluation of counselors in private universities in sichuan incorporating okr concepts. sichuan normal university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 91 original paper exploring the code of rural talent attraction: a configurational study on the influencing factors of college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas—based on the survey in city s and analysis using the fsqca method linqi wang1, yaozhong zhang1 & jiashen fu1 1 school of public administration and law, liaoning technical university no.47 zhonghua road, fuxin city, liaoning province, china fund projects liaoning provincial department of education 2023 provincial-level college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program (project no. s202310147021); liaoning provincial department of education 2024 university-level college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program (project no. x202410147089). received: january 15, 2025 accepted: february 09, 2025 online published: february 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p91 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p91 abstract in light of the current situation where college graduates face employment difficulties and rural areas suffer from a shortage of talent, leading to slow development, and by integrating social cognitive theory, a ternary framework and research model for college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas have been constructed. using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, the differential impact of various factors on the willingness of college graduates from city s to work in rural areas was studied. the research indicates that the willingness of college graduates to work in rural areas is influenced by multiple concurrent factors, yet these factors converge in different ways, and there exists an asymmetric nature of causality. the antecedent conditions leading to high willingness outcomes are not consistent with those leading to low willingness. furthermore, the research reveals the sufficient and necessary conditions influencing the willingness of college graduates to work in rural areas. in addition, the study identifies two configurations each for high and low willingness groups, namely, high ability + resource-driven type, policy-led type, external deficiency type, and internal-external linkage deficiency www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 92 type. keywords college graduates, rural work, willingness, configuration study 1. introduction the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china proposed to prioritize the development of agriculture and rural areas, integrate urban and rural development, and facilitate the flow of factors between urban and rural areas. it also emphasized that the key to rural revitalization lies in talent, especially young talent. young talent plays a decisive role in rural revitalization and sustainable development. therefore, attracting college graduates to develop in rural areas, injecting youthful energy into rural development in the new era, and driving the revitalization of rural areas is an important solution to the current shortage of rural talent. however, with the rapid development of urbanization, the most significant issue in rural talent development at this stage is the poor effect of talent return: according to data from the national bureau of statistics in 2022, the number of rural employment personnel in china has been decreasing year by year for five consecutive years, showing a trend of continuous reduction. with the continuous loss of population, not only is the rural workforce of young adults decreasing, but a large number of young talents are also being lost, which to some extent has caused a situation where there is no one to carry on rural revitalization. at the same time, the main source of young talent—the universities—face difficulties in employment for college students. college graduates flock to the south, flock to cities, and do not want to return to rural areas, especially those in northeast china. therefore, on this basis, exploring the mechanism that affects the willingness of young people to work in rural areas, and further explaining how to bring young talent back to rural areas to promote revitalization and development, is particularly important. for college graduates, the rural work they can participate in mainly falls into three categories: first, policy-oriented training positions, such as the "three supports and one assistance" program and the selection and appointment of cadres plan. these jobs have a term and are mainly for training, after which one may no longer engage in rural work; second, serving as village officials, such as the "college student village official" program and special positions plans, some of which have a term, while others are long-term in rural areas; third, starting a business in the village or taking on challenging positions, which is unstable in terms of security but has government policy support and subsidies. the willingness to work in rural areas, also known as the willingness to be employed in rural areas, refers to the process by which college graduates choose their careers based on their self-awareness of their employment abilities and their expectations for future professions. it is also an evaluation of work values and social dominant values, as well as an expectation for future personal development. therefore, the willingness to work in rural areas can be seen as the aspirations and hopes of college graduates for their future careers, as well as the psychological needs for future career choices. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 93 research on the factors influencing college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas primarily focuses on internal and external factors. from the perspective of internal factors, scholars have introduced the concept of career decision-making self-efficacy (bandura, 1977), which refers to college students' confidence in their ability to secure employment successfully. this concept examines the internal factors within college graduates themselves. aligning with current academic research, various personal internal factors such as graduates' identification with the "three rural issues" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers), employment values, academic performance, innovative capabilities, social capital, and place of origin can be categorized under the dimensions of career decision-making self-efficacy. furthermore, existing studies have demonstrated a negative correlation between career decision-making self-efficacy and the willingness to work in rural areas (wang, 2023). other internal influencing factors, such as weak identification with the "three rural issues", deep affection for one's hometown (sui, 2023), and limited entrepreneurial challenge capabilities, also impact college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas from an internal perspective. from the perspective of external factors, existing research offers diverse viewpoints. for instance, from the human capital theory perspective: guan (2020) innovatively categorized human capital into education, health, experience, migration, and mobility costs to study the influencing factors of talent recruitment in the context of rural revitalization. shan (2023), based on human capital theory and through empirical research, identified factors influencing talent returning to rural areas, including policy guidance, environmental optimization, integration of human resources and industries, and attracting and nurturing local elites (shan, 2023). from the perspective of economic motivation theories, scholars have empirically demonstrated that factors such as employment opportunities, family background and social resources, job matching and quality, welfare factors, and urban living costs all influence talent returning to rural areas.additionally, drawing on established theoretical models from previous research, current studies have also explored influences from the rural environment, such as low rural population quality (hui, 2021), poor infrastructure (liao, 2008), low development expectations (shan, 2023), and limited resource allocation. the impact of talent policies has also been examined, including the significant trend of "emphasizing recruitment over cultivation" (xu, 2023), weak policy feasibility and operability, and insufficient policy sustainability (luo, 2017). since factors do not operate in isolation, some scholars have investigated the combined effects of various factors. for instance, internal factors such as personal development plans and external factors including family, job market, and employer considerations collectively influence college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas (jiang, 2014). through surveys of rural-origin college students, scholars have identified family background and social resources as key factors affecting graduates' willingness to work in rural areas.in summary, despite differences in theoretical perspectives and research levels, several issues emerge: within the combined influences on college graduates, which conditions play a core role and which are peripheral, whether there are different configuration mechanisms among multiple conditions, and whether different research conclusions are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 94 symmetrical—all these require further explanation. therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the differential impacts of various factor configurations on the willingness of s city's college graduates to work in rural areas (mok, 2017), thereby addressing the aforementioned questions. consequently, exploring the "individual pathways" of college graduates' participation in rural work from a configurational perspective and summarizing the synergistic mechanisms of multiple factors in their decision-making process are not only crucial for rural talent revitalization but also pressing practical issues for advancing overall rural revitalization. by understanding these mechanisms, we can enhance graduates' enthusiasm for participating in rural work under different configurations and translate this enthusiasm into action. based on this, this paper will utilize the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsqca) method to analyze and explain the above issues through configurational analysis. the aim is to identify the key conditions for transforming from "attracting talent" to "talent voluntarily entering," thereby breaking the current constraints on attracting young talent to rural areas and providing more insights for rural talent revitalization. 2. theoretical foundation and model construction watson and skinner believed that external stimuli were the determining factors of behavior, but bandura identified the limitations of this basic behaviorist perspective. by integrating cognitive elements into traditional behaviorist personality theory, he proposed the social cognitive theory in 1986, introducing the concept of "triadic reciprocal causation," which emphasizes the continuous interaction between individual cognition, environment, and behavior (li, & zhao, 2008). this theory not only expanded social learning theory but also incorporated cognitive factors such as beliefs, self-perception, and expectations. albert bandura argued that, in addition to environmental factors, an individual's cognitive abilities and expectations of action outcomes also directly influence behavior. first, personal factors include self-efficacy, which refers to an individual's belief in their ability to successfully complete a specific activity and their subjective perception of their own capabilities. in the context of college graduates' career decision-making, scholars refer to this as "career decision-making self-efficacy," representing graduates' belief in their ability to navigate the job search process. second, behavioral factors include outcome expectations, which refer to an individual's anticipation of the potential results and feedback from performing a specific behavior, such as material rewards, sensory experiences, or emotional satisfaction. for college graduates, policy perceptions align closely with outcome expectations. clearly, if an individual believes that imitating others' behavior can lead to similar success, they will be motivated by outcome expectations. furthermore, when deciding whether to perform a behavior, individuals carefully consider the expected outcomes, known as behavioral expectations. third, environmental factors, such as social and family support, can significantly influence individual behavior. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 building on the aforementioned analysis of social cognitive theory and aligning it with the realities of college graduates' participation in rural work, as well as insights from interviews and surveys, this paper proposes a triadic model combining personal factors, behavioral expectations, and environmental factors to explain the influences on graduates' willingness to work in rural areas. as shown in figure 1, personal factors include career decision-making self-efficacy, reflecting graduates' subjective perception of their cognitive abilities, career decision-making skills, and past experiences. behavioral expectations include policy perceptions, referring to graduates' anticipation of the potential outcomes and feedback from participating in rural work, such as the policy support and incentives they might receive. environmental factors encompass social perceptions and family circumstances, indicating that graduates' decisions to work in rural areas may be influenced by social support and family pressures. figure 1. ternary model of college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas 3. research design 3.1 research methodology qualitative comparative analysis (qca), grounded in set theory and boolean algebra, is designed for case-level research and facilitates cross-case comparative analysis. it treats cases as configurations of conditions and examines the set-theoretic relationships between specific combinations of antecedent conditions (configurations) and outcomes. through these relationships, qca can explain the "combined effects" on specific phenomena. among its variants, fsqca (fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis) is particularly advantageous as it can handle not only categorical variables but also matters of degree. unlike crisp-set qca, which relies on binary distinctions, fuzzy-set qca employs a more rigorous subset relationship, with its continuous membership scores better aligning with the continuous phenomena often studied in social sciences (wang, 2003). this characteristic makes fsqca particularly suitable for exploring the synergistic effects of different configuration logics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 96 on college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas, which is the focus of this study. therefore, this paper adopts the fsqca method to investigate this issue. 3.2 variable measurement 3.2.1 outcome variable the willingness of college graduates to work in rural areas (wc). drawing on previous research (wang, 2023) with some modifications, a likert five-point scale and five aspects of work-related questions were used to measure their willingness. respondents were asked to self-assess their situations based on the options: "completely disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree." given the definition of rural work willingness in this study, entrepreneurship in villages was included, resulting in a total of six questions. these questions cover participation in the western region service plan, the three supports and one assistance program, special post for rural teachers, village official positions, special post for rural technicians, and entrepreneurship in villages. 3.2.2 causal conditions career decision-making self-efficacy (cd). drawing on previous research (long, 2003), a likert five-point scale and eight questions across four dimensions were used to measure career decision-making self-efficacy. respondents were asked to self-assess their situations based on the options: "completely disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree." the four dimensions include self-evaluation, information gathering, planning, and problem-solving. policy perception (pp). based on the coding analysis results from previous research (xu, 2023), policy perception was summarized into four dimensions with eight questions. a likert five-point scale was used to measure policy perception, with respondents self-assessing their situations based on the options: "completely disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree." the four dimensions include policy design, policy implementation, policy support, and policy environment. social perception (sp). drawing on the literature review summary of "beyond economic behavior" in return migration research from previous studies (zhou, 2023), social perception was categorized into four dimensions with eight questions through literature synthesis. the questions were adapted from existing research by other scholars or evaluated by experts. a likert five-point scale was used to measure social perception, with respondents self-assessing their situations based on the options: "completely disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree." the four dimensions include social norms, social belonging, social relationships, and social capital. family capacity (fc). similar to social perception, family capacity was categorized into four dimensions with eight questions. the questions were adapted from existing research by other scholars. a likert five-point scale was used to measure family capacity, with respondents self-assessing their situations based on the options: "completely disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree." the four dimensions include family background, family expectations, family resources, and family pressure. 3.3 data collection this study focuses on college graduates from s city as the research subjects, aiming to explore the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 differential impacts of various factor configurations on their willingness to work in rural areas. s city was chosen for two main reasons: first, as a resource-based city, it faces severe population outflow and relatively underdeveloped economic conditions, making it a representative case for this study. drawing on previous research, this study employs a questionnaire survey to measure college graduates' perceptions and judgments of various factors, investigating the differential impacts of different factor configurations on their willingness to work in rural areas. additionally, interviews were conducted with 10 college graduates who have returned to their hometowns (and are already employed) to provide in-depth exploration and further theoretical explanations. the survey targeted high school graduates from s city, with questionnaires distributed through one-on-one online invitations and acquaintance referrals. the survey period ran from january 4, 2024, to january 20, 2024, spanning 16 days. a total of 830 questionnaires were collected, and after screening, 824 were deemed valid for research, resulting in an effective sample rate of 99.27%. the basic demographic data of the sample are presented in table 1 (shen & qiu, 2019; zhou, 2020). table 1. survey on college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas descriptive statistics basic information question options frequency percentage what is your gender? male 355 43.08% female 469 56.92% what is your domicile? rural 441 53.52% urban 383 46.48% what is your political affiliation? communist youth league member 393 47.69% cpc member (including probationary) 155 18.81% democratic party member, masses, or non-party democrats 276 33.50% what is your highest academic qualification? graduate student 140 16.99% bachelor's degree 456 55.34% associate degree 228 27.67% what is your economic status? impoverished student 288 34.95% non-impoverished student 536 65.05% what is your experience as a student leader? student cadre 346 41.99% non-student cadre 478 58.01% what type of institution are you currently studying at? 211 and 985 universities 262 31.80% non-211 and non-985 universities 562 68.20% what is your field of study? science and engineering 398 48.30% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 humanities and social sciences 426 51.70% 3.4 common method bias test due to the self-reporting nature of the survey and the potential for certain questions to be misleading, to test for common method bias in a set of data, the harman single-factor method was employed using spss 27.0 software. the results are shown in table 3. from table 2, it is evident that there are 5 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, exceeding one; the variance explained by the largest factor is 44.769%, which is below 50% (tang & wen, 2020). therefore, it can be concluded that there is no severe common method bias in the study. table 2. total variance explained component initial eigenvalues extraction sums of squared loadings total % of variance cumulative % total % of variance cumulative % 1 17.46 44.769 44.769 17.46 44.769 44.769 2 4.287 10.994 55.763 4.287 10.994 55.763 3 2.119 5.433 61.195 2.119 5.433 61.195 4 1.622 4.158 65.353 1.622 4.158 65.353 5 1.436 3.683 69.036 1.436 3.683 69.036 note. the eigenvalues less than 1 in the composition have been omitted. 3.5 reliability and validity test firstly, by conducting a reliability and validity test on the collected data of the willingness of college graduates from city s to work in rural areas, as shown in table 3, the data was subjected to validity testing. factor analysis was applied, and the average variance extracted (ave) was calculated from the rotated component matrix. the values involved for the antecedent variables were all close to or greater than 0.5, the factor loadings were all greater than or close to 0.5, and the composite reliability values (cr) for each variable of the antecedent variables were all greater than 0.7, indicating that the variables have a high level of convergent validity (shen, wang, & liu, 2023). table 3. results of reliability and validity test causal conditions second-order dimension factor loading ave cr cd self-evaluation 0.699-0.845 0.601 0.518 0.749 0.895 information gathering 0.704-0.717 0.505 0.671 planning 0.682-0.709 0.484 0.652 problem-solving 0.693-0.694 0.481 0.65 pp policy design 0.661-0.798 0.537 0.465 0.697 0.874 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 99 policy implementation 0.652-0.653 0.426 0.597 policy support 0.650-0.676 0.44 0.611 policy environment 0.664-0.689 0.458 0.628 sp social norms 0.670-0.805 0.548 0.48 0.707 0.88 social belonging 0.685-0.690 0.473 0.642 social relationships 0.670-0.672 0.45 0.621 social capital 0.662-0.678 0.449 0.62 fc family background 0.816-0.852 0.696 0.622 0.821 0.928 family expectations 0.808-0.809 0.654 0.791 family resources 0.831-0.844 0.701 0.825 family pressure 0.448-0.819 0.436 0.587 4. data analysis 4.1 variable calibration the data used in this study for the fsqca research process were collected from survey results. therefore, before calibration, the data must first be processed and converted into fuzzy membership scores. regarding the selection of key anchors for fully out, crossover point, and fully in, although existing literature has suggested using "5, 3, 1" from the likert scale as thresholds for fully in, crossover point, and fully out, respectively, the actual data distribution does not align with these points. to ensure the research is more meaningful, this study refers to previous literature (wang, 2021) and calculates the average score of the eight questions related to each antecedent variable. the 25th percentile (lower quartile), 50th percentile (median), and 75th percentile (upper quartile) of these average scores are used as thresholds for fully out, crossover point, and fully in, respectively. the variable calibration results are shown in table 4. table 4. variable calibration variable type variable name calibration upper quartile median lower quartile outcome variable wc 4.14 3.43 2.71 causal conditions cd 4.25 3.88 3 pp 4.25 3.75 3 cp 4.25 3.88 3 fc 4.13 3.5 2.38 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 4.2 necessary conditions analysis consistent with mainstream research, this study first examined whether the outcome constitutes a subset of a single condition. consistency is a crucial criterion for measuring necessary conditions. if a condition is a subset of y (with a single condition consistency greater than 0.9), it constitutes a necessary condition, meaning the condition is a core factor. as shown in table 5, this study used fsqca 3.0 software to test for necessary conditions. the table indicates that the consistency of all variables is less than 0.9. therefore, none of the antecedent conditions examined in this study are necessary conditions for rural work willingness. table 5. results of necessary condition analysis total sample outcome variable wc ~wc causal conditions consistency coverage consistency coverage cd 0.7373 0.7196 0.3924 0.3797 ~cd 0.3643 0.3768 0.7102 0.7284 pp 0.7528 0.7362 0.3739 0.3626 ~pp 0.3482 0.3593 0.7279 0.7449 pp 0.7198 0.7509 0.3422 0.354 ~pp 0.3807 0.3686 0.7592 0.7287 fc 0.5958 0.5935 0.5213 0.5149 ~fc 0.513 0.5194 0.5885 0.5908 note. the symbol "~" represents the negation in logical operations. 4.3 configuration analysis the purpose of configuration analysis is to reveal the sufficiency of different configurations of multiple conditions leading to the outcome. therefore, configuration analysis is the core of this study and a central aspect of the qca methodology. following previous literature, this study sets the consistency threshold for condition configurations at 0.8, the proportional reduction in inconsistency (pri) threshold at 0.70, and the case threshold at 2 (shen, z. b., wang, m., & liu, 2023). since existing research and established theories cannot provide precise expectations for counterfactual cases in this study, both "presence" and "absence" were selected as states that could lead to either high or low rural work willingness. by setting high rural work willingness and low rural work willingness as outcome variables, two distinct configurations were identified. the overall consistency of all configurations was close to or exceeded 80%, indicating that nearly or more than 80% of college graduates exhibited high or low rural work willingness when the configurations were met. this demonstrates that the condition variables are sufficient conditions for the outcome variables. following previous research, the results of the configuration analysis are reported in table 6. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 table 6. configuration analysis results causal conditions wc ~wc z1 z2 z3 z4 cd   pp    cp     fc    consistency 0.9221 0.9139 0.8174 0.7982 raw coverage 0.2976 0.2959 0.4805 0.57 unique coverage 0.0178 0.0161 0.0477 0.1373 overall consistency 0.9023 0.7931 overall coverage 0.3137 0.6177 note. “”and “” represent the presence or absence of core conditions, while a blank indicates that the condition is optional with respect to the outcome. first-hand presentation of configuration analysis results: 1) the "intermediate solution" and "parsimonious solution" derived from the configuration analysis are consistent, indicating that the antecedent conditions involved in this study are all core conditions in the configurations. 2) the "parsimonious solution," "intermediate solution," and "complex solution" for the outcomes are also consistent, suggesting that the large sample size of this study has no logical remainders and covers all possible combinations. from the perspective of the relationships between configurations:first, both z1 and z2 have the presence of "social perception" as a core condition and the absence of "family capacity" as a core condition. this indicates that the presence of social perception is a necessary condition for high rural work willingness, and the absence of family capacity is also a necessary condition for high rural work willingness.similarly, both z3 and z4 have the absence of "policy perception" and "social perception" as core conditions, indicating that the absence of policy perception and social perception are necessary conditions for low rural work willingness.furthermore , in the case of high rural work willingness, the antecedent variables career decision-making self-efficacy and policy perception exhibit a substitutive relationship.in the case of low rural work willingness, the absence of career decision-making self-efficacy and the absence of family capacity exhibit a substitutive relationship.finally, there is a property of causal asymmetry, meaning the configuration paths influencing high willingness outcomes are not the same as those influencing low willingness outcomes. to further elaborate on the mechanisms through which the configuration analysis results affect the outcome variables, the article provides a detailed analysis in part 5. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 4.4 robustness test of results this article conducts a robustness check using a simplified approach, by adjusting the threshold of pri consistency from 0.7 to 0.8, the configuration remains consistent before and after, with only some minor differences in coverage (cheng & wang, 2023). therefore, it can be considered that this article has passed the robustness test. 5. results analysis and discussion 5.1 the mechanism of multiple factors jointly affecting the willingness to work in rural areas configuration 1: high capability but lacking conditions. the main characteristics of this configuration are graduates with high career decision-making self-efficacy, strong social perception, and the absence of family capacity. in this configuration, the presence or absence of policy perception has no direct impact on graduates' willingness. under this configuration, graduates with high career decision-making self-efficacy have a significant advantage in terms of social perception. high career decision-making self-efficacy indicates that graduates in this state are more autonomous, have strong planning awareness, and can carefully consider their post-graduation career plans, weighing the relationship between policy benefits provided by the state and their own needs in rural work. strong social perception confirms that, for graduates in this state, the rural environment enhances their sense of social belonging, enabling them to carry out related work more effectively. the absence of family capacity means that no one is available to guide or assist these graduates, leaving them to rely solely on themselves. however, some graduates may no longer choose rural work if their family capacity improves or if they gain high family capacity, opting instead for urban life. "looking back at my life before and after graduation, i was the vice president of the student union and a class monitor, involved in many student activities. but after returning home, the only benefit i received was an extra 10 points on the special post exam for rural teachers. i didn’t get anything else. seeing classmates whose families arranged jobs for them, i sometimes wonder why my family doesn’t have that kind of capacity. i think more young people will return to their hometowns in the future, but if i had a better opportunity, i would still choose to work in the city." excerpt from interviewee ft001 configuration 2: policy-driven type. configuration z2 is characterized by the presence of policy perception and social perception, along with the absence of family capacity, as core conditions. the presence or absence of career decision-making self-efficacy has no direct impact on graduates' willingness. first, the adequacy of the policy environment directly influences the direction and intensity of graduates' career choices. therefore, in the process of choosing rural work, graduates place more emphasis on whether policies are well-implemented and whether they can gain 'additional benefits' beyond rural life, which are key factors guiding their decision to participate in rural work. additionally, the presence of social perception is also a core condition of this policy-driven configuration. this means that the richness of local social resources and whether the social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 environment is conducive to rural work are important factors in their willingness to participate. finally, the absence of family capacity is another core condition of this configuration. the lack of family capacity is a controlling factor in this state, as it compels graduates to take the risk of participating in rural work to enjoy the benefits of rural work policies. moreover, most returning youth under this configuration have rural household registration, making rural work their preferred choice. "the main reasons for returning home to work are the proximity to home and the availability of a permanent position. when i lived in h city, i mostly stayed on campus and studied in the library. what motivated me to return to rural employment was the stability of the job, the permanent position, and the fact that my household registration is in a rural area... the extra points on the special post exam were the main reason i wanted to return. this might be the only policy benefit i enjoyed during the job search process, and it actually worked." excerpt from interviewee ft002 the essential difference between the two configurations lies in the distinction between internal driving forces and external driving forces. the internal driving force is career decision-making self-efficacy, which, stemming from graduates' inner sense of capability and the absence of family capacity, internally motivates them to participate in rural work. the external driving force is policy perception, which attracts graduates (most of whom have rural household registration) to return to rural employment. by distinguishing between configuration 1 and configuration 2, a path model for high rural work willingness is constructed, as shown in figure 2. figure 2. path model of high rural workwillingness based on the above results, case analysis, and the core conditions of the configurations, this study proposes the following propositions: proposition 1: in the process of influencing high rural work willingness, career decision-making self-efficacy acts as an internal driving force, motivating college graduates to stay and work in rural areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 proposition 2: in the process of influencing high rural work willingness, policy perception acts as an external driving force, motivating college graduates to stay and work in rural areas. 5.2 the mechanism by which multiple factors jointly affect the low willingness to work in rural areas configuration 3: external deficiency type. configuration z4 is characterized by the absence of policy perception, social perception, and family capacity as core conditions. the presence or absence of career decision-making self-efficacy has no direct impact on graduates' willingness. first, the lack of policy perception creates significant uncertainty for graduates when considering rural work, making them more anxious and cautious, thereby reducing the attractiveness of rural work. second, the lack of social perception also affects graduates to some extent. in the absence of social resources and support, graduates may feel work pressure and life difficulties, making them more hesitant about rural work. additionally, the absence of family capacity negatively impacts graduates' career choices. family expectations may further discourage them from choosing rural work due to the high cost of trial and error and the inability to repay their families. therefore, even if rural work opportunities are available, graduates in this configuration are unlikely to be interested. "when i graduated with my bachelor's degree, i remember the school offered me a position as a village official, but my family didn’t agree. my family lives in the city, and my parents wanted me to find a job closer to home with a higher salary. they were afraid i might not return if i left. now i wonder if things would have been better if i had taken that opportunity." excerpt from interviewee ft003 configuration 4: internal and external linkage deficiency type. configuration z4 is characterized by the absence of career decision-making self-efficacy, policy perception, and social perception as core conditions. the presence or absence of family capacity has no direct impact on graduates' willingness. under this configuration, graduates face numerous challenges, with low career decision-making self-efficacy, unfavorable policy perception, and a lack of social perception being the main barriers to their participation in rural work. first, graduates with low career decision-making self-efficacy lack life planning and may struggle with the realities of rural life, unable to find hope through planning or accurate employment awareness. second, unfavorable policy perception indirectly affects graduates' willingness to participate in rural work. insufficient government support and investment in talent development and employment guidance will lead to more difficulties and challenges for graduates in rural work. furthermore, the lack of social perception means graduates lack strong support during their participation in rural work. they face significant limitations in information access, practical experience, and networking, which further reduces their willingness to work in rural areas. "i don’t really know much about the rural work policies you mentioned... to be honest, i don’t want to work in rural areas. when i was in high school, my parents had to pull strings to get me in, and now it’s the same with work—i rely on my family." excerpt from interviewee ft004 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 comparison of the two configurations,the essential difference between the two configurations also lies in the distinction between internal and external driving forces. the internal driving force is the lack of career decision-making self-efficacy, which, due to graduates' insufficient awareness and planning for employment, internally discourages them from participating in rural work. the external driving force is the absence of family capacity, as family expectations make them even more reluctant to choose rural work due to the high cost of trial and error and the inability to repay their families. by distinguishing between configuration 3 and configuration 4, a path model for non-high rural work willingness is constructed, as shown in figure 3. figure 3. path model of non-high rural workwillingness based on the above results, case analysis, and the core conditions of the configurations, this study proposes the following propositions: proposition 3: in the process of influencing non-high rural work willingness, the lack of career decision-making self-efficacy acts as an internal driving force, discouraging college graduates from staying and working in rural areas. proposition 4: in the process of influencing non-high rural work willingness, the absence of family capacity acts as an external driving force, discouraging college graduates from staying and working in rural areas. 6. research conclusions 6.1 conclusions from a configurational perspective and integrating social cognitive theory, this study constructs a theoretical and research model of college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas. using college graduates from s city as the survey subjects, the fsqca method was employed to explore the differential impacts of various factor configurations on their willingness to work in rural areas. the following conclusions were drawn: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 1) multiple concurrent causes with convergent outcomes: college graduates' willingness to work in rural areas is influenced by multiple concurrent factors, yet these factors lead to convergent outcomes. although the configurations leading to high and low willingness differ, they ultimately result in either high or low willingness. additionally, there is a property of causal asymmetry, meaning the antecedent conditions influencing high willingness outcomes are not symmetrical to those influencing low willingness outcomes. 2) internal and external driving forces: both high and low willingness are influenced by internal driving forces and external driving forces, validating the triadic framework of "individual, behavior, environment" in social cognitive theory. this framework explains how individual and environmental factors influence behavior. 3) sufficient and necessary conditions: the study reveals that career decision-making self-efficacy, policy perception, social perception, and family capacity are sufficient conditions for rural work willingness. the presence of social perception is a necessary condition for high rural work willingness, while the absence of policy perception and social perception are necessary conditions for low rural work willingness. in the case of high rural work willingness, the antecedent variables career decision-making self-efficacy and policy perception exhibit a substitutive relationship. in the case of low rural work willingness, the absence of career decision-making self-efficacy and the absence of family capacity exhibit a substitutive relationship. 4) configurations and mechanisms: using fsqca, the study explores the mechanisms through which multiple factors influence rural work willingness. the results identify two configurations each for high-willingness and low-willingness groups:high-willingness configurations:high capability but lacking conditions type & policy-driven typelow-willingness configurations:external deficiency type & internal and external linkage deficiency type furthermore, in the process of influencing high rural work willingness, career decision-making self-efficacy acts as an internal driving force, motivating graduates to stay and work in rural areas, while policy perception acts as an external driving force. in the process of influencing low rural work willingness, the absence of career decision-making self-efficacy acts as an internal driving force, discouraging graduates from staying in rural areas, while the absence of family capacity acts as an external driving force. 6.2 practical insights by studying the differential impacts of various factor configurations on the willingness of s city’s college graduates to work in rural areas, this research provides insights and guidance for governments in formulating rural work policies, universities in offering career guidance, and graduates in enhancing self-awareness. 1. strengthen the intrinsic development of rural work programs the government should increase policy support and resource allocation to enhance graduates’ authentic perception of policies, thereby encouraging them to consider rural work. a robust incentive mechanism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 107 should be established to motivate businesses and social organizations to set up branches or projects in rural areas, providing diverse employment opportunities for graduates. local governments could also establish special funds to offer subsidies for graduates working in rural areas, reducing their living costs and enabling them to work with peace of mind. 2. enhance rural employment education and skills training in universities universities should emphasize the teaching of rural employment knowledge and skills to improve graduates’ competitiveness in rural job markets. they should also cultivate a correct employment outlook among students, strengthen their awareness of the "three rural issues" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers), eliminate urban biases, and help them recognize the potential and opportunities in rural development. by organizing rural practical activities, universities can deepen graduates’ understanding of rural living and working environments, fostering their passion for and commitment to rural service. additionally, universities should strengthen the dissemination of rural employment policies to ensure graduates fully understand policy advantages and incentives, thereby boosting their willingness to work in rural areas. 3. strengthen collaboration between local governments and universities local governments and universities should improve communication and cooperation to establish effective interaction mechanisms. governments should proactively understand graduates’ needs and expectations to formulate targeted policies. universities should stay informed about rural development trends, adjust academic programs and talent cultivation strategies, and strengthen university-local government collaboration. for example, universities could establish rural work bases to guide more students into rural areas. 4. promote a positive social environment local governments should foster a societal atmosphere that respects labor, knowledge, talent, and innovation. through media and social platforms, they should widely publicize success stories of graduates who have achieved remarkable results in rural work. by highlighting exemplary cases and offering commendations, governments can inspire more graduates to contribute to rural revitalization. 6.3 limitations and future research while this study explores the differential impacts of various factor configurations on s city’s college graduates’ willingness to work in rural areas, it has several limitations. limited generalizability. the focus on s city alone may restrict the generalizability of the findings. including graduates from different cities or analyzing real cases of graduates already working in rural areas could enhance the validity of the results. narrow scope of antecedent variables. the selection and depth of antecedent variables in this study are limited. future research should incorporate more representative variables grounded in theoretical frameworks to enrich the analysis. subjective measurement. this study relies on respondents’ subjective perceptions to assess antecedent variables. combining case studies with objective measures of non-subjective variables could yield www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 108 more practical and actionable insights. references wang, c., & li, d. y. (2023). the influence of career decision-making self-efficacy on college students' willingness to work at grassroots level. heilongjiang researches on higher education, 41(11), 132-140. sui, m. r., zhang, z. j., & deng, j. (2023). "three rural issues" identity: the ideological guarantee for rural talent revitalization. journal of northwest a&f university (social science edition), 23(6), 50-58. guan, l. y. (2021). research on rural talent revitalization from the perspective of human capital development (master's thesis). hebei normal university. shan, d. c. (2023). research on rural talent revitalization strategy in dalian (master's thesis). dalian ocean university. hui, z. d. (2020). research on agricultural universities serving rural talent revitalization under the rural revitalization strategy (master's thesis). huazhong agricultural university. liao, x. m., & zhou, w. (2008). research on the development countermeasures of rural public management talent resources in china. chinese public administration, (7), 79-82. xu, y. c., & han, y. (2023). research on influencing factors of local talent policy effectiveness: a grounded theory analysis based on h province's talent policies. enterprise economy, 42(7), 68-77. luo, j. (2017). tracking study on the implementation of innovation and entrepreneurship talent policies for shanghai's science and technology innovation center construction. scientific development, (3), 11-18. jiang, c., luo, y., & zhang, y. q. (2020). the influence mechanism of academic achievement and moral development of impoverished college students. educational research, 41(6), 134-144. mok, k. h. j. (2017). massification of higher education: challenges for admissions and graduate employment in china. managing international, 219-243. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1736-0_13 li, x. d., & zhao, q. (2008). educational psychology. peking university press. wang, y. g. (2023). management research methods: theory, frontiers and operations. china renmin university press. long, y. m. (2003). research on career decision-making self-efficacy of college students (master's thesis). shanghai normal university. zhou, x. g. (2023). simulation research on college students' returning home employment based on sd model: a case study of zhejiang province. journal of anhui agricultural sciences, 51(16), 247-254. shen, j., & qiu, f. h. (2019). the influence of family employment concept on financial engineering students' expected employment region choice: an empirical analysis based on ordered multiple www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 logistic regression. contemporary economics, (7), 156-160. zhou, q. (2020). family background, social mobility expectations and rural family education expectations. journal of hainan tropical ocean university, 27(4), 64-71. tang, d. d., & wen, z. l. (2020). common method bias testing: problems and suggestions. psychological science, 43(1), 215-223. shen, z. b., wang, m., & liu, j. z. (2023). the influence of open innovation community governance mechanism on users' knowledge sharing behavior: a two-platform comparative analysis based on fsqca. science & technology progress and policy, 1-12. wang, c. (2021). influencing factors of intelligent customer service usage intention in e-commerce context (master's thesis). anhui university. cheng, l. j., & wang, l. q. (2023). institutional configuration research on high-quality economic development of resource-based cities: analysis based on nca and dynamic qca. urban problems, (9), 22-33. 1. introduction 2. theoretical foundation and model construction 3. research design 3.1 research methodology 3.2 variable measurement 3.3 data collection 3.4 common method bias test 3.5 reliability and validity test 4. data analysis 4.1 variable calibration 4.2 necessary conditions analysis 4.3 configuration analysis 4.4 robustness test of results 5. results analysis and discussion 5.1 the mechanism of multiple factors jointly affe 5.2 the mechanism by which multiple factors jointl 6. research conclusions 6.1 conclusions 6.2 practical insights 6.3 limitations and future research references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 93 original paper secondary public opinion network sentiment analysis of public events based on social network analysis: taking the weibo topic # huang yangtiantian's father under investigation # as an example zhili li1* 1 shanghai university, shanghai, china * corresponding author received: april 24, 2025 accepted: may 22, 2025 online published: june 09, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p93 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p93 abstract in the digital era, the "secondary" public opinion phenomenon in public events is becoming more prominent. original events can lead to new issues due to improper official responses or conflicting social sentiments, worsening public opinion crises. this study focuses on the weibo topic #huang yangtiantian's father under investigation#, using social network analysis to build a public opinion dissemination network based on weibo retweets. it explores the characteristics of secondary public opinion spread. results show the network has high sparsity, core node dominance, strong community differentiation, and flat transmission. information spreads rapidly but rational discussion is limited, increasing governance difficulty. the study offers a social network analysis perspective for public opinion management, stressing the importance of optimizing information dissemination paths, guiding core nodes, and breaking community barriers to enhance guidance effectiveness and maintain social stability and government credibility. keywords secondary public opinion, social network analysis, weibo, public opinion governance 1. introduction the deep development of the digital age is changing the environment of public opinion dissemination. the popularity of mobile internet and social media has enabled everyone to become an information disseminator, and the traditional media-dominated public opinion field is gradually transforming into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 94 an open space with multiple participants. while this change has improved the efficiency of information dissemination, it has also increased the complexity of the public opinion field: information about hot events often spreads across the internet in minutes, and self-media often use exaggerated headlines to attract traffic, making emotional content more likely to spread; algorithmic recommendations, on the other hand, reinforce the "information cocoon", leading to growing differences in perception of the same event among different groups. against this backdrop, the evolution of public opinion in public events shows a significant "subbiochemical" feature original events often give rise to new issues due to improper official responses, one-sided interpretations by opinion leaders, or social sentiment opposition, triggering a secondary public opinion crisis. the "sky-high price earrings" incident involving huang yangtiantian in 2025 is a typical example: the celebrity huang yangtiantian's wearing of what seemed to be 2.3 million yuan worth of graff earrings sparked original public opinion, and netizens initially questioned how ordinary families could afford luxury goods and the authenticity of the earrings; later, it was revealed that her father was a former civil servant in ya 'an, and that he registered a business during his tenure as a civil servant, embezzled earthquake relief funds by using public power and started a biotech company to make money from the national disaster during the pandemic. the focus of public opinion shifted from the earrings themselves to the integrity of public officials. on may 22, the city of ya 'an announced that his father had "engaged in illegal business and concealed his second child", but did not specify the source of the funds for the earrings and other core issues, which sparked widespread dissatisfaction among netizens, accusing the announcement of "evading the main issue". not only did the announcement fail to quell the doubts, but it also sparked secondary public opinion the public raised more questions about the content of the announcement and created a crisis of trust in the fairness of the local government's self-examination, and the focus of the discussion shifted from individual incidents to widespread doubts about the connection between government and business. this case validates the core contradiction of secondary public opinion in the digital age: strategic deviations in official responses (such as selective disclosure of information) not only fail to dispel doubts but also act as a catalyst for the fission of emotions, highlighting the new paradigm challenge in public opinion governance. this study focuses on the secondary public opinion triggered by the announcement of the test results of huang yangtian's father, analyzing its dissemination characteristics from the perspective of social network analysis. this helps to more comprehensively grasp the complex dissemination laws of online public opinion. the research also has significant practical value. currently, online public opinion events occur frequently, and the public opinion response capabilities of government departments face many challenges. this study can assist government departments in identifying potential risk points and key links in the dissemination of public opinion in advance, thereby enhancing the efficiency of public opinion response and strengthening government credibility. at the same time, it also provides useful references for online platforms to optimize management strategies and create a healthy online public opinion environment, so as to better cope with the complex online public opinion situation at present. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 2. literaturereview 2.1 social network analysis system network analysis (sna) is a quantitative analysis method based on mathematical theories such as graph theory, used to study social relations and network structure (otte & rousseau, 2022). social network theory has been widely applied in the study of public opinion events. by constructing a social network system based on objects and relations, it can objectively present the complex connections among netizens (liu, 2013). from a macro perspective, sna can be used to explore issues such as the network structure characteristics, density, propagation speed, and evolution and evolution process of information dissemination in emergencies, thereby grasping the overall situation of public opinion; at the micro level, sna can study the topological characteristics of online network platform users, discover online opinion leaders, and predict the online behavior of each individual opinion with algorithms such as machine learning (zhang, zhang, li et al., 2023). a large number of empirical studies have been carried out in the academic community using social network analysis. zhao and wang (2018) used the social network analysis method to study the identification of key nodes of online public opinion in emergencies. through the analysis of network community graphs and other means, key nodes such as opinion leaders in the public opinion dissemination network were identified, and the internal structural characteristics and evolution patterns of public opinion dissemination were explored. qiu (2013) used the complex network analysis tool gephi to construct a microblog public opinion network map, then observed the composition and network structure of microblog user relationships under a certain hot topic, and based on this, proposed strategies and suggestions for guiding and controlling the dissemination of microblog public opinion information. yang et al. (2022) took microblog emergencies as an example, constructed a microblog public opinion dissemination network for emergencies, identified key nodes and dissemination paths using quantitative methods, and proposed corresponding intervention and guidance strategies. li, zhang et al. (2022) selected sina weibo's "2018 pyeongchang winter olympics" as an analysis case, combined with the zhiwei big data analysis platform to select the three most popular topics of this event, used java to obtain all weibo posts and retweets and comments related to the topic on sina weibo, and processed the data to make it analyzable. then gephi was used to draw a network graph and perform related metric analysis. from academic research on the social network analysis of microblog public opinion, it can be seen that most of these studies were conducted by domestic scholars, and the main tools used in the research were gephi and ucinet. researchers take the authors and netizens who follow hot events on weibo as nodes and the reposting relationships among them as edges, and introduce them into the tools. through methods such as centrality analysis and agglomerative subgroup analysis, they identify the key nodes and faction distribution in public opinion events, thereby promoting public opinion guidance and management. this paper will also obtain the nodes and edges and use gephi for social network analysis to guide public opinion in a positive direction by controlling the social network. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 96 2.2 secondary public opinion the subgeneration of public opinion in the digital age brings many new challenges to the field of public opinion governance. its connotation and characteristics have been analyzed from multiple dimensions by the academic community. at the level of characteristic cognition, sun (2019) pointed out that secondary public opinion has the characteristics of "complexity" and "derivatization", which is manifested as the fission and intersection of the original event issues; liang et al. (2023) emphasized secondiousness, relevance and contingency from the perspective of practice, revealing its dual attributes of being both dependent on the original event and triggered by external variables. liu et al. (2016) based on the case of the tianjin port explosion, found that secondary public opinion often has a "tortuous" fluctuating trajectory and a "rumor-ridden" information environment, reflecting its unpredictability risk, which reflects the new form of public opinion evolution in the digital age. most of the research on the evolution of public opinion in china belongs to the procedural school, focusing on the steps of public opinion formation. earlier studies focused on the comparison of formation mechanisms, such as zhao et al. (2017), by comparing new media with traditional media, pointed out that the former formed a "decentralized cycle" pattern due to the decentralization of communication; kuang (2014) constructed a three-stage model of "incubation period outbreak period dissolution period" to reveal the parabolic pattern of public opinion energy shifting with public attention. however, as the emotional attributes of new media become more prominent, there is an important shift in the research perspective: wang (2016) proposed the essential change that "social sentiment is the dissemination of information", and yu et al. (2018) further introduced the framework of the sociology of sentiment, attributing the internal driving force to the resentment sentiment accumulated by the tension of social structure and the external driving force to multimedia mobilization and the trust crisis of public power, both of which jointly drive the explosive evolution of sensitive public opinion. the current academic analysis of the causes mainly focuses on the continuous spread of social sentiment, the concentrated spread of online rumors, the imbalance of social order and the weak response of the public sector. (liang et al., 2023) zhang et al. (2021) summarized the causes of secondary public opinion in online politics into five reasons: the hype in cyberspace, the pollution at the source of political information, the impact of media dissemination methods on the authenticity of political information, the impact of internet users' dissemination methods on political security, and the psychology of internet users. the external effects of digital media and internet technology, the chaos of pan-entertainment and social tension have led to a tense and disconnected state of public secondary public opinion in the multi-layered structure of technology, culture and space, and the subgeneration of public opinion is facing the challenge of structured governance of "technology culture space". (liang et al., 2023) the governance of secondary public opinion has also become a key topic of discussion in the academic circle. establishing a communication mechanism for online secondary public opinion, improving the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 supervision mechanism for online secondary public opinion, perfecting the response mechanism for online secondary public opinion, and fostering a healthy online secondary public opinion field have become the common consensus in the academic circle in terms of public opinion governance. regarding the governance of public opinion on online hot events, liu (2024) proposed that it is necessary to grasp the characteristics of theme evolution and achieve precise information response; smooth information dissemination networks and build multi-party governance entities; strengthen the guidance of netizens' emotions and create a clear and clean cyberspace. 3. summary of publicopinionevent 3.1 overview of the original public opinion event on may 11, 2025, actress huang yangtiantian posted photos of her coming-of-age ceremony on social media, and the earrings she wore were accused by netizens of being classic emerald diamond earrings from luxury brand graff, with a market reference price of about 2.3 million yuan. due to her limited popularity as a young actress but abundant acting resources, and the exposure of her father yang wei's background as a civil servant in ya 'an city, sichuan province, public doubts have been raised about her family's spending power and income sources. some netizens further disclosed that yang was in charge of the bidding for the post-disaster reconstruction project in ya 'an during his public service, and pointed out that he "spent 5 million yuan to set up a film and television company the year after the disaster (2014)" and "registered a biotech company during the pandemic in 2020", questioning whether he "made money from the national disaster" or profuded from his power. in response to the growing public opinion, yang responded via weibo on may 16, denying that the earrings were genuine, saying they were counterfeits and willing to be appraised. he also clarified that he had resigned from public office in 2017 and had not participated in the bidding for post-disaster reconstruction projects or charitable donations during his tenure, and claimed that the online accusations were false. however, netizens later discovered that yang wei's affiliated companies (such as shenzhen shuicimu beauty trade co., ltd.) had urgently changed their legal representative, shareholder information and business scope after the incident escalated. this move was interpreted by public opinion as "cutting the chain of interests", which instead exacerbated public doubts. on may 17, the commission for discipline inspection and supervision of ya 'an city responded that it had paid attention to the matter and intervened to handle it. on may 22, a joint working group in ya 'an issued an official announcement confirming two investigation conclusions: first, yang wei was suspected of running a business in violation of regulations and deliberately concealing the illegal birth of a second child during his public office from 2011 to 2017, and the supervisory authorities have lawfully initiated an investigation; second, his work was not related to the approval and management of funds for post-disaster reconstruction in ya 'an and charitable donations. after the announcement, the topic # huang yangtiantian's father under investigation # quickly topped weibo's trending list, with 610 million views, marking the peak of public opinion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 3.2 overview of secondary public opinion events although the notification confirmed that yang wei, his father, had engaged in illegal business during his public office and concealed the issue of his second child and initiated an investigation, it did not respond at all to the core disputes such as the authenticity verification of the earrings and the legitimacy of the source of the family's huge wealth. the public regarded the notice as "evading the main issue" and questioned the fairness of the ya 'an government's self-examination. a large number of netizens criticized it as "picking it up high and putting it down lightly", demanding that the provincial or central commission for discipline inspection intervene in the investigation. the content of the notice has raised more doubts. the notice mentioned that yang wei had served as the "contact person for the development project of yunfeng mountain scenic area in yingjing county, which is estimated to cost 700 million yuan," and although the project failed to attract investment, netizens questioned whether he was using his position to pave the way for subsequent business. at the same time, doubts were raised about the motives behind his sudden resignation in 2017 under the pretext of "taking care of his family", suggesting it might be related to evading supervision. the ya 'an investigation team's announcement not only failed to quell public anger and dispel public concerns, but instead sparked further public discontent. while dissatisfied with the official announcement of the investigation results, netizens have spontaneously sorted out the timeline of the incident, delved into more detailed personal experiences of yang wei, the father, and even turned suspicious eyes to his mother and grandmother. there are more and more doubts behind the case, and the public's demand for a thorough investigation is growing. ​ 4. researchcontent andmethods 4.1 research methods this study takes the secondary public opinion topic # huang yangtiantian's father is under investigation # of the "huang yangtiantian sky-high price earrings" incident on weibo as the research object and conducts a social network analysis of it. the social network analysis focuses on the diffusion structure and key actors of secondary public opinion, with microblog authors (source nodes) and forwards (target nodes) as the main network subjects, constructing directed edges based on the forwarding relationship, drawing a dynamic social network map to reveal the information flow path, and using gephi to calculate indicators such as node average, network diameter, and modularization. locate the core disseminators and community clustering characteristics in the diffusion of public opinion, and compare the changes in network topology to analyze the phased structural differences in the diffusion of secondary public opinion. 4.2 data acquisition all the data for building social network relationships came from sina weibo. through the qingbo public opinion platform, we crawled the authors and retorers of weibo posts related to the "huang yangtian sky-high price earrings" incident at each stage from may 22 to may 28. for the convenience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 99 of directly crawling their ids, if there were retorers, they were crawled; if not, they were removed. if there were multiple retweets under the same weibo author, the crawled data showed that the same weibo author corresponded to different retweets. consider the weibo author and the forwards corresponding to the weibo author as nodes. if there is a forwarding relationship between them, there is an edge between them; if not, there is no edge. summarize all the nodes and edges in one excel sheet to form an edge table in csv format. import the edge table into gephi, draw a visual graph of the social network, count the number of nodes and edges, and run the relevant metrics in network overview, community test, node overview, edge overview in the statistics area to analyze the characteristics of the social network graph at each stage. 5. social networkanalysis 5.1 basic network structure and node degree distribution the initial network constructed after importing the data contains 5,314 nodes (microblog users) and 5,321 directed (forwarding relationships), as shown in figure 1., the network structure shows significant sparsity characteristics. figure 1. initial node relationship diagram perform the degree operation on the data imported into gephi, and the average degree of the network is 1.055, indicating that the overall connection density of the network is extremely low. as can be intuitively seen from the distribution of node degrees in figure 2., 93.83% of the nodes in this microblog network have a degree of 1, that is, the probability of connection with other nodes is very small, and only a very small number of nodes have a large degree, so these nodes with a large degree are the core nodes in the dissemination of public opinion in this network. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 figure 2. node proportion distributionmap about 97 percent of the nodes in the network have a low degree of connectivity, that is, only one edge connected in or out, and only a very small number of nodes have multiple connections. this is in line with the "scale-free" nature of many online social networks, where a few nodes have a large number of connections while the vast majority have few connections. some of the high-out-degree nodes listed in table 1., such as xinhua news agency with an out-degree of 3597 and cctv news with an out-degree of 194, have typical "source of information" characteristics. the connection degrees of these nodes are generally 0, indicating that they mainly play the role of information publishers, and the microblogs they post are widely retweeted, but they rarely retweet content from other users themselves. in contrast, a large number of nodes in the network with a degree of 1 are mostly "information receivers" or "edge participants", and they may have retweeted the content of the core information source only once (with a degree of 1 and a degree of 0). table 1. in-degree, out-degree and degree (partial) of nodes id in-degree out-degree degree the xinhua news agency 0 3597 3597 peanut youngster 0 238 238 cctv news 0 194 194 people's daily 0 131 131 capital orange 0 101 101 1x1x 0 46 46 azinan 0 45 45 beijing youth daily 0 40 40 egg yolk pie y 0 34 34 e-sports trendsetter 0 34 34 reborn star b king 0 25 25 gossip circle 0 23 23 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 playful noble guo 0 23 23 observer network 0 21 21 little fortune from the m78 nebula 0 20 20 mulixiaojinbao 0 20 20 cinema judge malena 0 19 19 big-eyed sleeping beauty 1 17 18 melon eater cj 0 17 17 phoenix network 0 17 17 global times 0 17 17 the degree distribution of this network reveals the high concentration of information dissemination. the spread of secondary public opinion mainly relies on the initial release of a few core media accounts (such as xinhua news agency, cctv news, people's daily) and some high-influence self-media users (such as peanut xiaoshenghua, capital yiqi, etc.). the vast majority of ordinary users are on the fringes of the internet, and their actions contribute little to the wide spread of information, mainly by receiving or forwarding core information in one go. this structure implies that controlling the content and dissemination of core information sources is crucial for guiding the overall direction of public opinion. 5.2 community structure and modular analysis modularization analysis of network data using gephi, as shown in figure 4., yields a modularization value of 0.512, indicating a strong community structure in the network. a higher modularization index indicates that nodes tend to form dense connections within communities, while connections between communities are relatively sparse. figures 5 and 6 further show that there are seven relatively large major communities in the network. figure 4. modular report the algorithm identified 188 communities, and gephi visually demonstrated the modular nature of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 network by using different colors to represent different modules. it is evident in figures 5.and 6. that the network has seven larger modules, with a central node in the middle of each colored module, which has a high degree of out-connection and a low degree of in-connection, and is the core driver of information diffusion within the community. in the public opinion storm of the investigation and notification of huang yangtiantian's father, several major nodes play a dominant role in the network. grasping the information dissemination of major nodes is the key to controlling the direction of public opinion. figure 5. modular hierarchical node degree ratio (partial) figure 6. modular distribution structure of the network the modularization index of 0.512 confirms that the secondary public opinion network is not completely randomly connected but has formed multiple "small groups of public opinion". these seven major communities may represent different groups of users who are concerned about the event. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 topics discussed by each community mainly depend on its central node, namely opinion leaders or core media. this structure indicates that the secondary public opinion is spreading in a multi-centered and fragmented manner within the microblogging network. 5.3 analysis of information dissemination efficiency and node centrality as shown in figure 7., the average path length of the network is calculated to be 1.003 and the network diameter is 2. this means that the average distance of information from one node to another is close to 1 step, and the longest path only takes 2 steps. this reflects that the depth of information dissemination is not great and the network as a whole is not strong in terms of hierarchy. figure 7. figure distance report the betweennesscentrality and proximity centrality of each node were analyzed by gephi software. the betweenness centrality measures how often a node appears on all the shortest paths in a network. if a node has a high degree of mediation centrality, it means that the node plays the role of a "bridge" or "mediator" in the network, through which a lot of information is passed. according to the data shown in table 2., among the 5,314 nodes, only two have an intermediate centrality greater than 0, namely ids "big eye sleeping beauty" and "xu ji observation", while the majority of the remaining nodes have an intermediate centrality of 0. such a small number of non-zero nodes indicates that nodes playing the role of "bridge" or "intermediary" in the network are very scarce, and information dissemination mainly occurs between the information source node and the direct forwarder, or only passes through specific nodes in very few paths, such as "big eye sleeping beauty". table 2. centrality data (partial) id closeness centrality betweenness centrality big-eyed sleeping beauty 1.0 17.0 xu's observer 1.0 1.0 world kiwi 1.0 0.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 ----------18506 1.0 0.0 1x1x 1.0 0.0 24k gold manatee 1.0 0.0 blood flag 1.0 0.0 teacher b loves beauty 1.0 0.0 bloomsbury2012 1.0 0.0 emo mouse 1.0 0.0 proximity centrality measures the average distance from one node to all the other nodes in the network. if a node has a high degree of proximity centrality, it means that the node can quickly access all the other nodes in the network. table 2 shows that 236 nodes in the network have a proximity degree greater than 0, accounting for 4.44% of the total number of nodes, indicating that the vast majority of nodes are relatively isolated in the network and have difficulty quickly accessing most of the other nodes in the network, that is, the vast majority of nodes have difficulty forwarding hot topics in the first place. in summary, the extremely short average path length and network diameter, combined with the extreme scarcity of nodes with high mediation centrality, reflect the "flattening" and "one-step diffusion" characteristics of information dissemination in this secondary public opinion network. the information mainly spreads directly from the core information source to the forwarder, with very few cases of multi-level forwarding or cross-community dissemination. this limits the depth and breadth of information dissemination, but it also means that information spreads very quickly. the analysis close to centrality further emphasizes the high concentration of information dissemination: only a very small number of nodes have the potential to quickly reach some of the other nodes in the network, and there are many structural holes in the network. therefore, monitoring and guiding these few core nodes with high connectivity and high proximity to centrality can effectively influence the process of information dissemination and the direction of public opinion throughout the network. 5. conclusion through a social network analysis of the secondary public opinion reported by huang yangtiantian's father, the study found that the public opinion network presented three typical characteristics: high sparsity, core node dominance, strong community differentiation, and flat dissemination. specifically, the network has 5,314 nodes and 5,321 directed edges, with an average degree of only 1.055, indicating an extremely low overall connection density. further analysis reveals that 93.83 percent of the nodes have a degree of 1 and are at the edge of information dissemination, while a few core nodes, such as xinhua news agency and cctv news, have become the core engines of public opinion diffusion. these core nodes are mostly official media or top self-media, and they have the characteristic of "high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 out-degree, zero in-degree" of information sources, that is, they usually release information one-way and rarely forward others' content, highlighting their key control over the direction of public opinion. in further analysis of the network, it was found that the network's modularity index reached 0.512, forming 188 independent communities, including seven larger ones. these communities are closely connected internally, but the connections between them are very sparse, creating a typical "islands of opinion" phenomenon. each community relies on a single core node to drive the internal flow of information, a structure that can easily lead to secondary issues reinforcing themselves within closed groups. looking at the analysis of the efficiency of information dissemination again, it reveals a flattened diffusion mechanism. the average path length of the network is only 1.003, the network diameter is 2, and it has the characteristics of extremely short paths, which indicates that information can reach the target node in an average of just one step, and multi-level forwarding is almost non-existent. the centrality metric further validates this mechanism. only two nodes have an intermediate centrality greater than 0, and 99.96% of the nodes do not act as a bridge, resulting in an extremely scarce flow of information across communities. at the same time, only 4.44% of the nodes (236) have a proximity centrality greater than 0, indicating that the vast majority of users have difficulty accessing the entire network quickly. while this "one-step diffusion" pattern speeds up the coverage of information, it suppresses the hierarchical deepening of rational discussion and encourages emotional expression. overall, the essence of secondary public opinion dissemination is that a few core nodes dominate the diffusion of information, strongly modular communities sever the formation of consensus, and short-path dissemination weakens in-depth discussions. the one-way diffusion of the core nodes mechanically spreads the notification content, but fails to absorb netizens' doubts about core issues such as "the source of the earring funds" and "where the disaster relief funds go", resulting in a mismatch of information supply and demand. the highly modular community reinforces cognitive bias in a closed environment. when notifications only respond to "illegal business" and avoid political-business connections, different communities develop their own interpretations, leading to derivative topics such as "collusion between officials and businesspeople" and "family scandals". the flat path and the absence of intermediary nodes have blocked the rational dialogue, causing the unclarified doubts in the notification to be distorted into the label of "local asylum" within two steps of dissemination. the "evasive" of the notification was magnified in the microblog network structure, the core node solidified the framework of questioning, the community fragmented the consensus base, the short path accelerated the contagion of emotions, and ultimately triggered the collapse of credibility. this also reflects that when the official response is combined with the flaws in the network structure, the risk of the original event going viral will increase geometrically. this research, by integrating social network analysis methods, offers a new approach to analyzing secondary public opinion dissemination, contributing to the enrichment and improvement of the theoretical framework of public opinion dissemination. it also deepens our understanding of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 characteristics and mechanisms of secondary public opinion dissemination in the new media era. compared with previous research results, this study focuses more on the microstructure of the secondary public opinion dissemination network and the interactions among different nodes. while previous studies might have emphasized the macro-level features and trends of public opinion dissemination, this research delves into specific network structures, such as the "high out-degree, zero in-degree" characteristics of core nodes and the modularity index of the network. this provides a more detailed and in-depth analysis of secondary public opinion dissemination. however, the study also has limitations. for instance, the data source might be relatively limited, mainly focusing on the secondary public opinion triggered by huang yangtiantian's father's report, which may affect the universality of the research conclusions. additionally, the research methods could be further diversified. incorporating methods such as content analysis and case studies might yield more comprehensive conclusions. from a practical application perspective, this research can provide more valuable references for relevant departments and institutions in managing and guiding public opinion. by identifying core nodes, understanding the community structure and dissemination mechanism of secondary public opinion, effective public opinion guidance strategies can be formulated to enhance the accuracy and timeliness of information release and prevent the escalation and spread of secondary public opinion. this can also accumulate practical experience for the construction and optimization of social media platforms. future research can be expanded and deepened in several directions. firstly, expanding the data sources and conducting comparative studies of multiple cases to enhance the universality and reliability of the conclusions. secondly, combining advanced technologies such as machine learning to further explore the dynamic evolution patterns of secondary public opinion dissemination networks. thirdly, conducting in-depth research on the psychological and social factors behind secondary public opinion dissemination to provide a more comprehensive theoretical explanation. in terms of research methods, the integration of multiple methods needs to be continuously optimized and improved. in the future, it is hoped that more scholars will pay attention to the research on secondary public opinion dissemination, continuously explore and innovate, and provide stronger theoretical support and practical guidance for the healthy development of public opinion dissemination. references kuang, w. b. 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(2016). governance of social sentiment and social emotion in the new media age. exploration and debate, (11), 35-38. yang, l. l., jin, r. h., & wang, l. h. (2022). a study on identifying key nodes of online public opinion in emergencies based on social network analysis: a case study of the topic # dr. li wenliang's death #. network security technology and application, (03), 142-145. yu, h., ma, x. y., & li, r. f. (2018). an analysis of the dynamic mechanism of evolution of sensitive hot public opinion from the perspective of the sociology of emotion. news forum, (01), 78-81. zhan, j. y., zhang, p., li, s. j. et al. (2023). research on dynamic opinion leader identification method for sudden public opinion events based on real-time social network analysis. journal of intelligence, 42(09), 109-116+126. zhang, a. j., & cao, t. f. (2021). research on the formation and correction of secondary online political public opinion in emergencies. journal of jiangsu university (social science edition), 23(05), 1-12. zhao, r. y., & wang, x. (2018). research on identifying key nodes of online public opinion in emergencies and countermeasures for guidance and control: a case study of the flood disaster in daxian village. modern intelligence, 38(01), 19-24+30. zhao, x. l., huang, s. m., & zhang, a. j. (2017). new media and traditional media public opinion formation mechanism comparison. journal of youth press, (22), 43-44. javascript:void(0) javascript:void(0) advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper exploration of cultivating the historical initiative of college students tingting wang1 1 xi’an fanyi university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china fund project the 2024 research project of xi’an fanyi university: the effect of narrative ability on the teaching of “history of china syllabus”, project number: 2024b30 received: july 09, 2024 accepted: august 24, 2024 online published: september 05, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p1 abstract under the background of the new era, cultivating the historical initiative spirit of college students is one of the important contents of the socialist modernization construction with chinese characteristics. as the successors of the socialist cause, college students shoulder the great mission of the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. in order to cultivate the historical initiative spirit of college students, it is necessary to understand what they think and need, and the society, universities, and individual students all need to constantly explore and learn, so as to effectively cultivate the historical initiative spirit of college students. keywords college students, the historical initiative spirit, the cultivation path 1. introduction the spirit of historical initiative was put forward as an important proposition in the sixth plenary session of the 19th party central committee, and in recent years, general secretary has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the spirit of historical initiative and placed it in a prominent position. at present, china has entered a new stage of development, and only by insisting on carrying forward the spirit of historical initiative can we create new historical greatness. contemporary chinese youth is a generation that walks with the new era and advances together, and is born in the prosperous times and shoulders important responsibilities. post-“00” college students grew up in the critical period of the motherland's prosperity, both ideological concepts and values have a far-reaching impact on society as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. a whole. however, there are some problems with the spirit of historical initiative among some students. therefore, how to promote college students to carry forward the spirit of historical initiative, so that they consciously grow up to be ideal, dare to take responsibility, able to suffer, willing to struggle for the construction of the new era has become an important topic of ideological and political education and teaching in colleges and universities. 2. the connotation of the historical initiative spirit 2.1 clear historical subjects “the whole so-called history of the world is nothing else than the birth of man through the labor of man”. the materialist concept of history considers the masses to be the creators of history, and scientifically answers the question of “who creates history”. the proletariat is the advanced element among the people, with a high degree of historical initiative and thoroughgoing revolution. marx once said, “what flexibility, what historical initiative, what self-sacrifice these parisians have”, highly affirming the proletariat's historical initiative and spirit of historical creativity. as lenin said, “the main point in marx's doctrine is the clarification of the world-historical role of the proletariat as the creator of socialist society.” looking back at china's modern history, all the reform movements that tinkered with the imperial system invariably ended in failure; all the revolutionary efforts that hoped to take the capitalist road without facing up to the real needs of society also retreated in dismay. after this series of attempts, history has proved that only under the leadership, with marxism as its scientific guide, has it grasped the law of development of modern chinese society in the course of continuous practice and revolution. on this basis, fully mobilizing the spirit of historical initiative, the united and mobilized the people, clarified the historical task of anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, and finally led the people to victory. “as historical activity deepens, it will surely be the expansion of the ranks of the masses”, the spirit of historical initiative, with the broad masses of the people as the main body, is constantly creating history, and the masses in turn are using the spirit of historical initiative as a weapon to constantly enhance their own historical subjectivity. 2.2 sober historical consciousness looking back on the history of the chinese people, the chinese nation has always been continuous in the long and turbulent river of history. the splendid chinese civilization has been shining to this day and is still being talked about today. however, modern china has suffered a lot, and the advanced chinese people have been seeking for a better way, and finally won the victory under the leadership. this victory was the result of the party's unity in leading the people to a deep understanding of the laws, on the basis of which it played the role of the subjective initiative, clearly defined the historical task, and then actively engaged in the reality of the practice. that is to say, to transform the world on the basis of knowledge. in modern china, all kinds of ideas have come into the country. the fact that the was able to find a correct course in the midst of the complexity of the situation and continue to walk it unswervingly shows that has a high degree of sobriety and historical self-awareness. with a proactive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. stance, the has united and led its people to plan the historical figures soberly, and grasped the initiative of the development of the party and the country's cause in its hands. it is because of the party's historical self-awareness of the situation, see their own tasks, and firm practice, to realize the leap from small to large, from weak to strong, leading the chinese nation to victory. the party's historical self-awareness has always enabled the party to represent the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people, to insist on taking the people's interests as the standard of measurement for its work, to maintain the self-awareness of facing problems squarely and the courage of self-revolution, to deepen its understanding of the laws of human history in the process of insisting on truth and correcting errors, and to make the party move forward continuously in its explorations. 2.3 a lofty historical mission comrade pointed out in the report of the 19th party congress that “once was founded, it took the realization of communism as the party's highest ideal and ultimate goal, and unhesitatingly shouldered the historical mission of realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation.” the report comprehensively summarizes the glorious history of the cpc in realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, and at the same time clearly puts forward new requirements for realizing the party's historical mission in the new era. the historical mission of each historical period is different, but ultimately they all share a common mission, namely, the pompous mission of realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. looking back at the history of china since modern times, the shame made modern china face the crisis of the destruction of the country and its species, and all kinds of ideological and political practices came and went, but they all ended in failure. the most important reason for the failure of these practices was that they did not recognize the historical mission. the emergence of the party has changed the destiny of the chinese people and created a new glory for the chinese nation. this is because as soon as the party was founded, it unhesitatingly shouldered the historical mission of realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. in order to realize the historical mission of the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, generations of chinese communists have struggled successively with the chinese people, overcoming one after another seemingly insurmountable difficulties and creating one after another miracles on earth that have made history. practice has amply proved that, inspired and led by the lofty historical mission, the people have been closely united with the party and opened up the road of socialism with chinese characteristics, enabling china to catch up with the times in a big way, ushering in the great leap of the chinese nation from standing up to getting rich and strong, and opening up a bright prospect for the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. 2.4 fearless historical responsibility as general secretary has pointed out, " communists must be responsible for transforming society and the world, dare to take on responsibilities and face up to difficulties. "responsibility is one of the important contents of the historical initiative, is the practical character of the historical initiative of the communist party of china, mainly refers to the party in the process of no fear of strong enemies, no www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. fear of risks, brave forward, brave and able to practice responsibility, responsibility and strong courage. the spirit of responsibility emphasizes that in the face of special historical opportunities and challenges in each historical period, they can always undertake the historical mission bravely and devote themselves to the practical revolutionary practice with an active spirit. the courage of chinese communists to shoulder their historical responsibilities is not only reflected in its practice of seeking happiness for the people and rejuvenation for the nation, but also in its actions of seeking progress for mankind, for world peace, and in its commitment to the cause of peace and development of mankind. from the new democratic revolution to reform and opening up and socialist modernization, to the process of struggle and innovation in the new era of socialism with chinese characteristics, all demonstrate the party's spirit of facing up to challenges and taking bravely. the efforts of the party over the past 100 years fully prove that the party is committed to the world and is an important force for safeguarding world peace and global development in today's world. china has continuously contributed chinese wisdom, solutions and strength to world issues, which has been widely recognized and appreciated by most countries and the vast majority of their people in the world. 3. the path for college students to cultivate the historical initiative spirit cultivating the spirit of historical initiative means “transforming the spirit of historical initiative into a powerful driving force for young people's growth and success”. the cultivation of the spirit of historical initiative is essentially the same as the educational goal of moral education in colleges and universities. both are to make college students take the initiative to undertake the historical mission of realizing the chinese dream of national rejuvenation through education, and to inspire them to devote themselves to the cause of socialist modernization and construction with high morale and enthusiasm. in the context of the new era, the cultivation of the historical initiative spirit of college students has far-reaching significance for the development and destiny of the country and the nation as well as for the growth and success of individuals. 3.1 the necessity of cultivating the spirit of historical initiative the special position of college students determines that they are the group of special attention. they are the main force and reserve force of china's night socialist modernization construction. we should fully mobilize their historical initiative spirit and let them devote themselves to the socialist modernization construction with a positive attitude. in order to cultivate the historical initiative of college students, we should first understand the problems on college students and grasp their realistic needs for the historical initiative. therefore, to find out the problem, can better cultivate. 3.1.1 erosion of historical nihilism in recent years, various short video platforms and mobile games have risen to prominence and quickly become popular pastimes among students. short videos can easily distort historical facts and inadvertently spread historical nihilism due to their fast dissemination and fragmentation. similarly, some cell phone games, named after historical figures, cause students' historical theories to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. misplaced, remembering only the settings of the historical figures in the game, and downplaying the real appearance of the historical figures in the original history. these are the manifestations of historical nihilism, and short videos and games use the internet to influence the behavior and thoughts of college students. historical nihilism is hurting college students' correct knowledge of history, affecting their correct attitude towards history, and even causing them to doubt marxism, ignore the achievements of the chinese communists, and deny chinese civilization, thus shaking the beliefs of college students and diluting their political identity. 3.1.2 inadequate parenting in schools and families marx said, “man creates his environment, and likewise the environment creates man.” college students spend half of their time in family life and the other half of their lives in school. in the decades-long school life, after elementary school, middle school, high school and then college, each link of school education is very important, and the society tends to give all the education responsibility to the school, but the family's influence on a child is lifelong. first of all, parents are a child's first teachers and the family is a child's first school. before formally entering school life, family education has a great influence on children. many parents only want their children to be well-fed and warmly clothed, but do not care about their children's thinking or their interpersonal relationships. if something goes wrong with the child, instead of solving the problem first, they blame the child for the problem. children in this environment for a long time are very likely to be left with psychological trauma, so that in the future all the education and learning in life appear bad phenomena. one of the main goals of cultivating the historical initiative spirit of college students is to stimulate students' historical initiative and guide them to exert their subjective initiative; if college students are in a passive situation for a long period of time, it will have a negative impact on the cultivation process. secondly, the school's cultivation experience is insufficient. at present, the experience of university education in the cultivation of historical initiative of college students still needs to be accumulated. in the cultivation of historical initiative, it should require the cooperation of all relevant departments, but in the process of practice there are often various problems, thus weakening the effect of the cultivation of the historical initiative of college students. at the same time, colleges and universities still pay more attention to theory than practice, emphasize on quantity rather than quality, and instill students with theories to the neglect of practical education. 3.1.3 college students lack the enthusiasm to learn the target of cultivating students' initiative in history is the contemporary college students. if the college students themselves have a high degree of motivation to study, then the cultivation of the spirit of historical initiative will be very effective; on the contrary, if the college students' motivation to study is poor, then the cultivation of the spirit of historical initiative for the college students will be ineffective. as the main force of the development of the country and the nation, college students are the successors of the socialist cause. however, the ideals of some college students are detached from reality, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. seemingly ambitious, but in fact no content, from egoism, valuing self-feeling. after entering the university, their thoughts as well as behaviors are completely slackened in all aspects, so that they lose their fighting spirit and enthusiasm for active learning. 3.2 the path to carry forward the spirit of historical initiative cultivating college students' historical initiative should start from the problem, and at the same time combine the connotation of historical initiative to cultivate it. specifically, firstly, it is necessary to cultivate college students to have a correct view of history and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong; secondly, the school and the family should make their respective efforts to explore the interactive educational methods of home and school; thirdly, it is necessary to carry out the educational practice of the historical initiative spirit that connects theory with practice, so as to let the historical initiative spirit be integrated into the students' actual life and arouse their learning initiative. 3.2.1 establishing a correct view of history and purging the influence of historical nihilism “we should adhere to the materialistic view of history and the correct view of party history, see clearly from the party's century-long struggle why we were able to succeed in the past, and figure out how we can continue to succeed in the future, so as to be more resolute and conscious of practicing the initial mission, and to better adhere to and develop socialism with chinese characteristics in the new era.” college students stepping into colleges and universities have been exposed to a lot of online media, and it is easy and convenient to obtain information in terms of speed and content. however, college students are unable to quickly determine whether the information is comprehensive and correct, and are easily affected by some negative influences. to deal with the influence of historical nihilism, first of all, colleges and universities can specially open an open and interactive course for explaining history, which is conducted in the way of students asking questions, teachers answering them, and then students debating with each other, and teachers commenting on them. in this process, students are able to understand the incomplete history they used to know on their own, and they can also cultivate their independent thinking ability. the timely explanation and comment of the teacher can also correct the students' possible wrong ideas in time, so as to cultivate the students to have a correct view of history, i.e. the materialistic view of history. secondly, the party branch and the group branch of colleges and universities are important departments for ideological and political education of college students, colleges and universities should not only play the role of the party branch and the group branch to cultivate the historical initiative spirit of college students, but also form a linkage, and all the staff of the whole school have the responsibility to cultivate. at the same time, we should strengthen the relevance of the party class and group class, expand the scope to the whole school students, actively understand the ideological dynamics of each profession and even each student, and organize regular exchange class meetings, so that each student can gain. in the exact understanding of the whole picture of history, to ensure that college students firmly historical self-confidence, bravely take up the responsibility of history. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. 3.2.2 home-school benign linkage, to promote the cultivation of diversified development general secretary pointed out that the civics and political theory class should “explain the truth deeply, thoroughly and vividly”, so as to enhance the effect of the civics and political theory class. the consciousness of today's college students presents the phenomenon of overstepping, and there is a certain resistance to the traditional indoctrination mode of education, so teachers need to constantly innovate their classroom teaching methods to enhance the students' interest in learning. at the same time, we should play a good role in the family, and improve the ideological quality of college students in a subtle way. at present, the ideology and politics class in colleges and universities is an important way to cultivate the historical initiative spirit of college students in the new era, and it is necessary to always adhere to the dominant position of the ideology and politics class. teachers of the civic and political science class, as the main implementer of the civic and political science class, should ensure that they play a facilitating role in the process of cultivation. teachers should carry out the cultivation of college students' historical initiative spirit throughout the beginning and end of the course, while teachers of professional courses should also lead students to cultivate their historical initiative spirit in the study of professional courses as appropriate. in the family life, the whole society should call on parents to keep learning to be lifelong learners, to be qualified parents, to pay attention to their own behavior and behavior, and to set a good example. schools have their own focus, and families have their own special role. the two should be linked. schools should design a set of cultivation programs for collaborative parenting between schools and families, and form a convention on collaborative education in the family, so that every parent can participate in the process of learning and education. cultivation is carried out separately during the semester and during holidays. in this way, students will not only be able to learn in school, but also reap the benefits of family life. 3.2.3 home-school benign linkage, to promote the cultivation of diversified development a favorable environment is of great significance to the ideological and political education of college students. in the process of cultivating college students' historical active spirit, it is necessary to connect the macro and micro environments, from the social environment to the internal environment of a certain network platform, which are complementary to each other, and contribute to the cultivation of college students' historical active spirit. first of all, in this day and age, the development of various media is very rapid, and people are in the cyberspace, and college students are the first to bear the brunt. relevant departments should introduce relevant laws, strictly audit the content and mode of operation of each media platform, and do a good job of supervision. at the same time, encourage the mainstream media stationed in each platform to interact with college students in close proximity, with college students like and easy to accept the form of publicizing the spirit of historical initiative. secondly, it is necessary to create a good school environment and family environment. schools can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. organize a variety of history-related activities to promote the spirit of historical initiative. they can also utilize the official website of the school, the radio station and other forms of media, set up columns to expand the scope of publicity, regularly push articles about the spirit of historical initiative and typical examples, and integrate the spiritual qualities of historical self-awareness and historical responsibility into the students' learning and life. the whole society should advocate and learn about good family styles, promote good family styles, make families more harmonious, and emphasize the cultivation of positive and healthy lifestyles and optimistic attitudes among family members. third, the relevant departments jointly carry out various forms of online and offline activities, so that students can visit historical sites and admire the deeds of their ancestors, and constantly raise their interest in history during each practice. the university students will be motivated to learn about the history they are interested in. all relevant archives and history museums should be opened in time, so that students can have access to them without any obstacles. society and colleges and universities should work together to enrich the forms of social practice activities for college students, deepen their sense of social responsibility and historical mission through lectures, dramas, voluntary labor, etc., and strengthen their spirit of historical initiative. reference bureau of compilation and translation of the works of marx, engels, lenin and stalin of the central committee of the party & translation room for the works of marx and engels.marx, engels, lenin and stalin on politics and political systems (part i).mass publishing house (1983). 167. central compilation and translation bureau. (2009). collected works of marx and engels. people's publishing house, 1, 196. central compilation and translation bureau. (2009). collected works of marx and engels, vol.1. people's publishing house, 1, 545. resolution of the central committee of the communist party of china on the great achievements and historical experience of the party in its centennial struggle. (2021). people's publishing house, 2. selected works of vladimir lenin volume 2. (2012). people's publishing house, 305. xi, j. p. (2018). speech at the symposium commemorating the 120th anniversary of the birth of comrade. people's publishing house, 12. xi, j. p. (2022). during xi visit to renmin university of china, emphasized: adhering to the leadership of the party and inheriting the red gene, rooted in the land of china, to take a new road to build a world-class university with chinese characteristics. people's daily, 2022-04-26(01). xu, b. z. (2022).the key choice of a century-old party. beijing united publishing co, 203. zheng, s. p. (2023). promoting the party's self-revolution with the spirit of historical initiative. ideological and theoretical education guide, 2023(01), 32. zhou, x. l. (2022). an analysis of the path of science popularization in southern xinjiang universities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. under the perspective of forging the consciousness of the chinese national destiny community. data, 2022(07), 183-186. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 63 original paper research on the impact of executive innovation awareness on innovation efficiency lingxiao qi1 1 qilu medical university, zibo, 255300, china received: july 19, 2025 accepted: september 12, 2025 online published: september 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p63 abstract based on panel data from a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai from 2008 to 2023, this paper constructs an indicator of executive innovation awareness from a textual quantitative perspective and examines its impact on firm innovation efficiency. executive innovation awareness significantly improves firm innovation efficiency. further robustness tests and endogeneity tests maintain consistent direction and significance, supporting the main conclusion that is independent of specific metrics or sample years. in terms of mediating mechanisms, management shareholding ratio partially mediates the “executive innovation awareness → innovation efficiency” effect chain. heterogeneity analysis shows that this positive relationship is stronger in firms with low competition and high employee density, suggesting that resource redundancy and human capital conditions can enhance the transformation from awareness to efficiency. the research conclusions provide a basis for firms to enhance executive innovation awareness from a strategic and governance perspective, optimize equity incentives, and improve organizational configuration to improve innovation efficiency. keywords executive innovation awareness, innovation efficiency, management shareholding ratio 1. introduction with the deepening development of globalization and the knowledge economy, corporate innovation capabilities have become a key factor in determining their competitiveness. against this backdrop, executive innovation awareness, as a core element in corporate innovation decision-making, has increasingly attracted attention from both academic and practical circles regarding its impact on corporate innovation efficiency. in recent years, the chinese government has placed significant emphasis on the innovation-driven development strategy and has introduced a series of policies and regulations, such as the “outline of the national innovation-driven development strategy” and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 “13th five-year plan for national science and technology innovation”, aiming to stimulate corporate innovation and enhance the country’s overall innovation capabilities. currently, enterprises face numerous challenges in the innovation process, including insufficient innovation resources, a shortage of innovative talent, and imperfect innovation mechanisms. against this backdrop, studying the impact of executive innovation awareness on corporate innovation efficiency is of great practical significance. on the one hand, it can help enterprises gain a deeper understanding of the role of executive innovation awareness in the innovation process, thereby optimizing innovation management mechanisms and improving innovation efficiency. on the other hand, it can help the government formulate more targeted policies to promote the improvement of corporate innovation capabilities. research level of executive background: multi-dimensional exploration of the key factors for improving corporate innovation performance. first, focus on executive incentives and team stability to solve the problem of corporate innovation performance. zhang et al. (2023) proposed that there is a significant positive correlation between executive incentive mechanisms and corporate technological innovation performance. executive incentive mechanisms have a partial mediating effect on innovation through team stability, and different incentive methods have different innovation effects on different patent types (zhang & zhang, 2023). jing et al. (2021) proposed that both long-term and short-term executive pay gaps have a significant promoting effect on innovation investment, but the long-term impact is more significant, and the background of the board of directors’ human capital and the short-term pay gap have a complementary effect on the promotion of innovation investment. this shows that the impact mechanism of executive pay gaps and board capital on corporate innovation investment is complex, which has important implications for formulating effective pay incentive mechanisms and optimizing board governance mechanisms (jing, jiang, zhao, & lin, 2021). second, focus on the effectiveness of corporate innovation management and solve the problem of the interactive influence of executive background and internal and external environment. yue et al. (2015) proposed that in an increasingly turbulent environment, corporate executives should regard business innovation as one of the core functions of the company, because their emphasis on innovation awareness and the creation of a good innovation atmosphere have a significant positive correlation, which in turn strengthens innovation activities from the perspective of product innovation and technology, thereby promoting enterprises to support innovation activities from multiple aspects, building flexible systems, empowering innovation, optimizing innovation processes, cultivating a supportive culture, expanding external partners, and identifying strategic frontiers for innovation growth, which have become key issues for corporate executives to form innovation-driven (yue, zhu, zhang, & zhu, 2015). wang huifang et al. (2024) showed that executives with a scientific research background can significantly promote corporate innovation investment and innovation quality, while executives with an r&d background can improve innovation output. optimizing the business environment and equity incentives play a key role in promoting executive innovation decisions, so that enterprises can more effectively implement innovation decisions when considering “physical”, “rational” and “human” factors (wang & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 65 chen, 2024). the third is to focus on the research of executive backgrounds to solve the problem of corporate innovation. zhu et al. (2017) proposed that highly educated executives have a significant positive impact on the innovation intensity of entrepreneurial companies, and risk preference plays a partial mediating role in this process. at the same time, the age of the executives has a negative moderating effect on the mediating effect (zhu, zhang, be, kuek m, zhang, & zhao, 2017). cao et al. (2025) proposed that the it background of corporate executives significantly enhances the company’s digital technology innovation, especially in the field of digital technology invention patents. the effect is particularly significant and leads to improved corporate financial performance, which highlights the importance of executive it human capital and provides inspiration for government and corporate talent recruitment policies (cao &wu, 2025). innovation efficiency research level : explore the path to improve innovation efficiency, optimize the supply chain knowledge sharing mechanism, and the efficiency and risk balance strategy in enterprise innovation. first, focus on innovation efficiency research and solve the problem of supply chain knowledge sharing. chen xueying et al. (2025) proposed that the supply chain intellectual property relationship between listed companies and important transaction partners significantly improves enterprise innovation efficiency by reducing innovation risks, communication costs and improving market bargaining power, thereby revealing the key role of knowledge sharing in innovation collaboration and industrial upgrading (chen, ye, & liu, 2025). wei qinwen et al. (2025) proposed that the development of the technology market has significantly improved the innovation efficiency of high-tech enterprises by promoting enterprises to absorb external knowledge, innovate specialized division of labor and coordinate investment of innovation factors, especially in areas with advantageous economic development locations and developed technology markets. this improvement effect is more significant (wei & sun, 2025). second, focus on innovation efficiency research and solve the problem of digital transformation and policy combination optimization. tian gaoliang et al. (unknown) proposed that digital transformation can significantly improve the innovation efficiency of enterprises, and by improving the quality of innovation, it can double the improvement of the innovation momentum and efficiency of enterprises. this impact has a positive regulatory effect on the quality of internal control, salary gap, and the digital level of regional governments and peer enterprises. in particular, this promotion effect is more significant in industries and regions with strong market power, a high proportion of executives with r&d backgrounds, high educational levels of employees, capital and technology intensiveness, fierce competition, high financing costs, and high levels of marketization and intellectual property protection. zhu xiangyu et al. (2025) proposed that the innovation policy combination has a positive impact on the innovation efficiency of high-tech industries, and has a significant promotion effect through mechanisms such as improving industrial agglomeration, talent and technology agglomeration, and enterprise innovation investment. at the same time, its impact has a threshold effect, making the effect more significant when the policy combination is below the threshold value. (zhu & zhang, 2025) the third is to focus on enterprise innovation research and solve efficiency www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 66 and risk problems. wang tao et al. (2025) emphasized that the impact of financing constraints on corporate innovation efficiency presents a significant inverted u-shaped threshold effect, and is negatively regulated by the development of digital finance and corporate internal control. as a result, the advancement of digital finance and the strengthening of internal control can significantly alleviate the inhibitory effect of financing constraints on corporate innovation, thereby promoting the improvement of corporate innovation efficiency (wang & liu, 2025). huang et al. (2017) proposed that the improvement of executives’ innovation awareness can significantly promote corporate innovation investment and innovation performance, and revealed the mediating role of corporate innovation investment in the relationship between executives’ innovation awareness and corporate innovation performance, thus making corporate executives’ innovation awareness a key factor in improving corporate innovation performance (huang & shao, 2017). on executives’ influence on enterprises reveals that innovation incentives, executive background, innovation efficiency, and corporate knowledge sharing have become research hotspots, providing important insights for improving innovation performance and optimizing enterprise management. however, unresolved issues include the following: 1. incomplete research on incentive mechanisms. existing research has largely focused on executive compensation incentives, while insufficient exploration of other internal incentive mechanisms has failed to fully reveal the full impact of incentive mechanisms on innovation performance. 2. the influencing mechanisms of executive background are complex. while research has revealed the impact of executive background on enterprise innovation, the analysis of these influencing mechanisms is insufficient, failing to fully reveal how executives from different backgrounds influence enterprise innovation through different pathways. 3. the paths to improving innovation efficiency are unclear. although research has proposed multiple paths to improve innovation efficiency, a lack of in-depth exploration of the interrelationships and mechanisms between these paths leads to ambiguity in the selection and implementation of these paths. to address these three issues, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the relationship between executive innovation awareness and enterprise innovation efficiency, drawing on data from a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai, to reveal the mechanisms by which executive innovation awareness influences the innovation process. 2. research design 2.1 sample data and sources this paper examines the impact of executive innovation awareness on innovation efficiency using panel data from shenzhen and shanghai-listed companies from 2008 to 2023. the company data are sourced from the china securities regulatory commission (csmar) database. the sample data undergoes the following processing: excluding companies with st or *st status; excluding companies in the financial sector; eliminating missing values; and winsoring continuous variables at the 1% and 99% levels. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 2.2 variable definition explained variable: innovation efficiency (innoeff1). based on existing literature references, the measurement method of innovation efficiency (innoeff1) is as follows: ln (total number of applications for invention patents, utility model patents, and design patents + 1)/ln(1 + r&d expenditure) explanatory variable: executive innovation mindset (tmi). this measure of executive innovation mindset is conducted by analyzing the text of the board report section of the annual reports of gem-listed companies, which reflects the core values of the company’s senior management team. the specific steps are as follows: i collected all the annual reports of the listed companies in my study, converted them from pdf files into plain text files, and used a shell script programming language to calculate the keyword share in batches using computer calculations. this paper selected ten words that reflect executive innovation mindset, including “innovation”, “independence”, “research and development”, “scientific research”, “new products”, “new technologies”, “development”, “scientific research”, “research”, and “patents”. the proportion of these words in the total word count of the board report was calculated to represent the strength of executive innovation mindset. specifically, the strength of executive innovation mindset = the total word count of keywords reflecting executive innovation mindset / the total word count of the board report section in the annual report. control variables. see table 1 for reference to existing literature. table 1. variable definition table variable type variable name variable symbols variable definition explained variable executive innovation awareness innoeff1 innovation efficiency index explanatory variables executive innovation awareness tmi intensity of executives’ innovation awareness control variables enterprise scale size logarithm of total corporate assets debt-to-asset ratio lev debt-to-asset ratio net profit on assets roa net profit margin of total assets management expense ratio mfee ratio of management expenses institutional investment insp proportion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 68 institutional investment equity checks and balances balance equity index two jobs in one dual whether two positions are combined into one company age age years of establishment 2.3 model construction this paper uses the panel data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai to study the impact of executive innovation awareness on innovation efficiency. this paper selects a fixed effect model. the specific model settings are as follows in the above model, i and t represent the enterprise and year, respectively; x is the control variable; λj is the industry fixed effect, where j is the industry towhich enterprise i belongs; μt is the year fixed effect; εit is the random disturbance term, and robust standard errors are used to address heteroskedasticity. 3. empirical analysis 3.1 descriptive analysis this study has a large sample size of 35,586, which helps ensure the reliability of subsequent statistical inferences. the distribution characteristics of the core variables are as follows: first, the mean of executive innovation awareness (tmi) is 0.0130, with a standard deviation of 0.00613. this relatively low mean indicates that, across the sample, management generally allocates little attention to innovation strategy, and innovation may not yet occupy a central position in their overall strategic agenda. furthermore, the standard deviation of this variable is relatively small compared to its mean, reflecting that while executive innovation awareness varies across companies, the absolute differences are not significant, with the majority of observations concentrated around the mean. its value range is 0 to 0.0876, indicating that some companies’ executives place a high priority on innovation (tmi = 0), while others show no focus at all (tmi = 0). this provides the necessary basis for variation in the variable’s impact on corporate innovation efficiency. secondly, the mean of firms’ innovation efficiency (innoeff1) is 0.161, with a standard deviation of 0.0824. this value indicates that, on average, firms are moderately efficient in converting innovation inputs into outputs. the standard deviation reveals significant differentiation in innovation efficiency across firms, suggesting that some firms are able to efficiently utilize innovation resources, while others may experience significant resource waste or inefficient management in their innovation processes. the range of values, from 0 to 0.441, further confirms the significant heterogeneity in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 innovation efficiency across firms. this significant variation provides a sound data foundation for empirical research on the role of executive innovation awareness. in summary, the descriptive statistics indicate that the core variables exhibit significant variation within the sample, meeting the basic criteria for further regression analysis. while executive innovation awareness is generally low, there is variation, while corporate innovation efficiency exhibits significant differentiation, initially suggesting a possible correlation between the two. table 2. descriptive analysis variable obs mean std. min max tmi 35,586 0.0130 0.00613 0 0.0876 innoeff1 35,586 0.161 0.0824 0 0.441 roa 35,586 0.0349 0.0892 -4.946 0.786 lev 35,586 0.398 0.206 0.00752 3,919 size 35,586 8,313 1.267 4,009 14.79 age 35,586 1.912 0.955 0 3.526 mfee 35,586 0.188 15.15 -0.111 2825 insp 35,586 41.25 25.10 0 101.1 balance 35,586 0.797 0.633 0.00450 4 dual 35,586 0.332 0.471 0 1 boardsize 35,586 8.412 1.645 4 18 3.2 regression analysis table 1 reports the regression results of executive innovation awareness (tmi) on firm innovation efficiency (innoeff1). columns (1) and (2) use a baseline regression approach, with the sample containing all firm-year observations. column (1) excludes control variables and fixed effects, while column (2) adds fixed effects. to verify that the conclusions are not due to differences in model specifications, column (3) adds control variables but excludes fixed effects while maintaining the sample size. column (4) includes both control variables and fixed effects. the regression results show that the regression coefficient of tmi is significantly positive in all four specifications: 1.002 (t=13.563) for column (1), 0.231 (t=2.814) for column (2), 1.788 (t=24.365) for column (3), and 1.248 (t=16.667) for column (4), all of which are significant at the 1% level; the corresponding adjusted r2 is 0.006, 0.198, 0.132, and 0.347. this shows that regardless of whether control variables and fixed effects are included, the stronger the executive’s innovation awareness, the higher the enterprise’s innovation efficiency, and the conclusion direction is consistent and the statistical strength is high. after adding fixed effects (columns (1) → (2)), the coefficient shrinks from 1.002 to 0.231, and the fit is significantly improved, indicating that the fixed effects effectively absorb unobserved www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 70 time-invariant/slow-variant heterogeneity; when only control variables are added (columns (2) → (3)), the coefficient rises to 1.788, indicating that the main effect is stronger after the observable confounding is eliminated; under the most stringent simultaneous control setting (column (4)), the coefficient of 1.248 is still highly significant and the model fit is the highest (adj.r2=0.347r^{2}=0.347r2=0.347), which can be used as the benchmark specification for the main conclusion. since the table does not provide the standard deviation and mean of the variables, this paper does not perform a specific “standard deviation-economic magnitude” conversion here, but the estimated size and significance in column (4) show that the effect has statistical significance and potential economic significance. table 3. regression analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 tmi 1.002*** 0.231*** 1.788*** 1.248*** (13.563) (2.814) (24.365) (16.667) roa 0.061*** 0.037*** (9.411) (6.193) lev 0.023*** 0.002 (8.799) (1.039) size 0.023*** 0.027*** (51.175) (65.686) age -0.002*** 0.003*** (-4.560) (5.237) mfee -0.000*** -0.000*** (-12.398) (-13.791) insp -0.000*** -0.000 (-7.561) (-0.662) balance 0.001* -0.001** (1.827) (-2.061) dual 0.001 0.001 (0.604) (0.862) boardsize -0.000 0.001*** (-1.373) (3.927) _cons 0.148*** 0.158*** -0.054*** -0.098*** (134.604) (136.194) (-14.506) (-28.916) n 35586 35586 35586 35586 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 adj. r 2 0.007 0.194 0.131 0.131 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.3 robustness analysis this paper conducts three types of robustness tests to determine whether improving executive innovation awareness (tmi) robustly improves firm innovation efficiency. the conclusions are all consistent with the baseline regression and statistically significant: 1. substituting the dependent variable. replacing the innovation efficiency measure from innoeff1 to innoeff2, the regression results show that the coefficient of tmi is 1.657 (t=17.246), which is significant at the 1% level, indicating that the main conclusion is not dependent on a single measure of innovation efficiency. the corresponding adjusted r² is 0.315. 2. adding control variables. further adding staff density (staffint), financing constraints (sa), and supervisory board size (supsize) to the baseline, the coefficient of tmi is 1.301 (t=15.587), which remains significant at the 1% level. the adjusted r² increases to 0.341, indicating that the positive relationship between tmi and innovation efficiency remains robust after controlling for more observable confounding. 3. excluding special years. taking into account the interference of abnormal macroeconomic shocks, after excluding 2015 and 2020, which were affected by the financial market and the epidemic, the coefficient of executive innovation awareness (tmi) was 1.303 (t=15.619), which was also significant at the 1% level; the adjusted r² was 0.340, which was almost consistent with the result after expanded control, indicating that the main conclusion was not driven by abnormal years. based on the above three robustness tests (the sample size is n=30,329), regardless of replacing the dependent variable measurement, expanding the control variables, or excluding special years, the impact of tmi on innovation efficiency is always significantly positive, which further enhances the credibility and extrapolation robustness of the core conclusions of this article. table 4. robustness analysis (1) (2) (3) innoeff2 innoeff1 innoeff1 tmi 1.565*** 1.245*** 1.266*** (18.302) (16.588) (15.661) roa 0.040*** 0.038*** 0.037*** (5.741) (6.315) (5.573) lev 0.002 0.003 0.004 (0.693) (1.171) (1.449) size 0.029*** 0.027*** 0.027*** (59.573) (63.461) (60.263) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 age 0.003*** 0.003*** 0.003*** (4.992) (6.111) (4.821) sorry. -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** (-15.171) (-3.088) (-23.616) insp -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 (-1.059) (-0.674) (-0.277) balance -0.001* -0.001** -0.001* (-1.740) (-2.057) (-1.846) dual 0.000 0.001 0.001 (0.136) (0.743) (0.756) boardsize 0.001*** 0.001*** 0.001*** (4.575) (4.092) (3.242) supsize -0.000 (-0.493) staffint 0.000** (1.971) sa 0.005*** (3.267) _cons -0.075*** -0.078*** -0.099*** (-19.412) (-10.956) (-27.074) n 35586 35586 30329 adj. r 2 1.565*** 1.245*** 1.266*** t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.4 endogeneity analysis this paper conducts endogeneity tests to determine whether improving executive innovation awareness (tmi) significantly improves innovation efficiency (innoeff1). the results are consistent with the baseline conclusion and statistically robust: 1. individual fixed-effect tests. after controlling for year and industry fixed effects and adding individual fixed effects, the current coefficient of tmi is 0.505 (t=5.884), which is significant at the 1% level. this indicates that the positive impact of tmi persists even after accounting for time-invariant firm heterogeneity, mitigating the upward/downward bias caused by omitted time-invariant factors (n=35,252; adj. r²=0.661). 2. time series lead-in (first-order lag) tests. when replacing the current tmi with the one-period lagged tmi, the coefficient is 1.234 (t=15.152), which is significant at the 1% level (n=29,050; adj. r²=0.354). the results show that even when only the previous period’s executive innovation awareness explains the current period’s innovation efficiency (innoeff1), the main effect remains significant and positive, helping to alleviate concerns about reverse causality caused by performance negatively influencing management intentions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 (3) time-series lead-in (two-order lag) test. using the second-order lagged executive innovation awareness (tmi) as the core explanatory variable, the coefficient is 1.240 (t=13.553), which is significant at the 1% level (n=24,653; adj. r²=0.358). this result suggests that the impact of executive innovation awareness (tmi) on innovation efficiency (innoeff1) is persistent and not limited to a short-term, current effect. (4) time-series lead-in (three-order lag) test. using the third-order lagged executive innovation awareness (tmi) as the core explanatory variable, the coefficient is 1.234 (t=12.669), which is significant at the 1% level (n=20,906; adj. r²=0.363). as the lag period increases, the sample size decreases as expected, but the direction and significance of the main effects remain stable, further supporting the lagged and persistent impact of tmi on innovation efficiency (innoeff1). in summary, under stronger fixed effect constraints and multi-period time series pre-settings, the positive impact of executive innovation awareness (tmi) on innovation efficiency (innoeff1) is always significant. the conclusion does not depend on the specific current period setting and is temporally leading and robust. table 5. endogeneity analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 tmi 0.505*** (5.884) l.tmi 1.234*** (15.152) l2.tmi 1.240*** (13.553) l3.tmi 1.234*** (12.669) roa 0.004 0.027*** 0.023*** 0.027*** (0.936) (4.466) (3.862) (4.297) lev -0.013*** -0.001 -0.003 -0.006* (-3.746) (-0.501) (-0.915) (-1.829) size 0.023*** 0.028*** 0.028*** 0.028*** (24.910) (61.639) (58.333) (54.524) age 0.008*** -0.000 -0.001 -0.001 (7.720) (-0.170) (-0.983) (-1.275) sorry. -0.000** -0.010** -0.014*** -0.022*** (-2.093) (-2.042) (-3.835) (-3.222) insp 0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 (0.553) (-0.060) (-0.454) (-0.443) balance 0.001 -0.001* -0.001** -0.001* (0.619) (-1.712) (-2.079) (-1.680) dual 0.001 0.000 -0.000 -0.001 (0.931) (0.012) (-0.471) (-0.778) boardsize 0.001** 0.001*** 0.001*** 0.001*** (2.062) (4.194) (4.006) (4.678) _cons -0.058*** -0.092*** -0.090*** -0.088*** (-7.448) (-24.464) (-22.278) (-19.593) n 35252 29050 24653 20906 adj. r 2 0.661 0.354 0.358 0.363 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.5 mediation analysis this paper uses a three-step approach to examine the mediating mechanism by which executive innovation awareness (tmi) influences innovation efficiency (innoeff1) through management ownership (mh). results are presented only for the core variable. using innovation efficiency (innoeff1) as the explained variable, the regression coefficient for tmi is 1.248 (t=16.667, p<0.01), with an adjusted r² = 0.347, indicating a significant positive correlation between tmi and innovation efficiency (innoeff1). using management ownership (mh) as the explained variable, the coefficient for tmi is 0.354 (t=2.438, p<0.05), indicating that tmi significantly increases management ownership (mh), confirming the necessary prerequisite for conducting a mediation analysis. the adjusted r² = 0.636. based on the first-step model, the management shareholding ratio (mh) was added. the coefficient of management shareholding ratio (mh) was 0.028 (t=9.678, p<0.01), which had a significant positive impact on innovation efficiency (innoeff1). the innovation consciousness of executives (tmi) was still significantly positive (1.239, t=16.533, p<0.01), and its point estimate was only slightly lower than that of the first step (1.248). the adjusted r2 = 0.349. the results of the three-step approach consistently show that while top management innovation awareness (tmi) directly improves firm innovation efficiency (innoeff1), it also has a significant, though smaller, indirect promoting effect through increased management ownership (mh). this suggests that mh plays a partial mediating role in the mechanism by which tmi affects innovation efficiency. this mediation path is clear and statistically valid, but its economic magnitude relative to the main effect is limited. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 table 6. mediation analysis (1) (2) (3) innoeff1 mh innoeff1 tmi 1.248*** 0.354** 1.239*** (16.667) (2.438) (16.533) mh 0.028*** (9.678) roa 0.037*** 0.190*** 0.031*** (6.193) (7.858) (5.618) lev 0.002 -0.066*** 0.004* (1.039) (-14.319) (1.804) size 0.027*** 0.022*** 0.027*** (65.686) (30.048) (63.427) age 0.003*** -0.098*** 0.005*** (5.237) (-97.396) (9.344) sorry. -0.000*** -0.000 -0.000*** (-13.791) (-0.489) (-12.294) insp -0.000 -0.005*** 0.000*** (-0.662) (-139.278) (5.912) balance -0.001** 0.001 -0.001** (-2.061) (0.807) (-2.107) dual 0.001 0.011*** 0.000 (0.862) (6.969) (0.469) boardsize 0.001*** -0.003*** 0.001*** (3.927) (-7.679) (4.303) _cons -0.098*** 0.425*** -0.110*** (-28.916) (70.700) (-30.508) n 35586 35586 35586 adj. r 2 0.347 0.636 0.349 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.6 heterogeneity analysis by market competition level, the coefficient for executive innovation awareness (tmi) in the low-competition group (column 1) is 1.498, t=12.436, and significant at the 1% level. for the high-competition group (column 2), the coefficient for executive innovation awareness (tmi) is 1.085, t=11.520, and significant at the 1% level. regardless of competitive strength, tmi has a significant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 positive impact on innovation efficiency (innoeff1). the coefficient is even greater in low-competition (high market share) environments, indicating that when a firm has a high market share, resource slack, and greater absorptive capacity, tmi is more likely to translate into process improvements and output efficiency gains. in highly competitive environments, despite the external driving force of “competitive pressure-efficiency improvement”, management may be constrained by short-term survival constraints and tight budgets, resulting in a relatively convergent marginal conversion rate for tmi. by employee density, for low-employee density (column 3), the coefficient for executive innovation awareness (tmi) is 1.042, t=10.238, and significant at the 1% level. for high-employee density (column 4), the coefficient for executive innovation awareness (tmi) is 1.492, t=13.532, and significant at the 1% level. the main effect of executive innovation awareness (tmi) is significantly positive in both sample types, but the effect is significantly stronger in high-employee density firms. this is consistent with the complementarity between “human capital and organizational learning/knowledge sharing”: when employee input accounts for a high proportion, executive innovation awareness (tmi) is more likely to be widely diffused to frontline functions through institutional innovation, process reengineering, and incentive design, resulting in higher conversion efficiency to innovation efficiency (innoeff1). in contrast, in low-employee density ( compared to capital /technology intensive) firms, improvements in innovation efficiency (innoeff1) are more dependent on equipment upgrades, r&d cycles, and the pace of capital expenditures, resulting in a relatively small immediate marginal effect of executive innovation awareness (tmi). table 7. heterogeneity analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 innoeff1 tmi 1.498*** 1.085*** 1.042*** 1.492*** (12.436) (11.520) (10.238) (13.532) roa 0.029*** 0.041*** 0.037*** 0.042*** (2.860) (6.398) (5.633) (3.631) lev -0.002 0.008** 0.002 0.006* (-0.656) (2.492) (0.469) (1.741) size 0.025*** 0.029*** 0.028*** 0.028*** (39.384) (37.748) (49.569) (41.017) age 0.002*** 0.001** 0.003*** 0.001* (3.261) (2.050) (4.534) (1.928) fee 0.065*** -0.000*** -0.000*** 0.026* (4.627) (-12.934) (-12.469) (1.893) insp 0.000** -0.000*** -0.000 -0.000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 77 (1.981) (-3.075) (-0.593) (-0.338) balance -0.002** 0.000 -0.002** -0.001 (-2.383) (0.218) (-2.007) (-0.599) dual 0.001 0.001 -0.000 0.001 (0.584) (0.791) (-0.011) (0.807) boardsize 0.001*** 0.000 0.001** 0.001*** (4.299) (0.697) (2.127) (3.227) _cons -0.096*** -0.094*** -0.097*** -0.105*** (-16.246) (-15.732) (-20.806) (-18.187) n 17794 17784 17794 17792 adj. r2 1.498*** 1.085*** 1.042*** 1.492*** t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 4. conclusions and recommendations 4.1 conclusion executive innovation awareness significantly improves corporate innovation efficiency. the coefficient of tmi on innoeff1 is positive and significant at the 1% level across the baseline and various settings. this conclusion remains consistent across multiple robustness tests. the positive impact of tmi remains significant at the 1% level, regardless of whether the dependent variable scope (innoeff2) is modified, control variables are added, or even outlier years are excluded. endogeneity is mitigated, and the effect is persistent. even after adding individual fixed effects, the tmi remains significantly positive in the current period; even when lagged one to three periods, the coefficient remains significantly positive, demonstrating both leading and persistent effects. there is partial mediation: management shareholding (mh). tmi significantly improves mh, which has a significantly positive effect on innovation efficiency. furthermore, the direct effect of tmi only slightly decreases after incorporating mh, indicating that mh plays a small but clear mediating role. heterogeneity: resource redundancy and labor intensity reinforce the effect. in low-competition (high market share) scenarios and high-employee-density firms, tmi has a stronger impact on innovation efficiency. in highly competitive environments, marginal conversion rates converge due to short-term constraints. 4.2 management practice recommendations embed innovation awareness into corporate strategy and governance. establish an annual innovation agenda, jointly reviewed by the board of directors and senior management, and clearly define three to five cross-departmental innovation themes with corresponding milestones, budgets, and responsible individuals. optimize incentive compatibility and leverage the “partial intermediation” approach. introduce equity/restricted stock plans tied to midto long-term performance, moderately increase management ownership (mh) to incentivize continuous exploration and transformation. link this to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 78 r&d milestones, patent quality, and commercialization to prevent a focus on quantity. tailor resource and organizational allocation to each company. companies with low competition and significant resource redundancy: establish a “platform-based r&d + shared technology middle platform” to accelerate the translation of executive innovation initiatives into processes and tools; expand external collaboration and scenario pilots to improve diffusion efficiency. highly competitive industries: implement a combination of “stage-gate” and “small, fast steps” to ensure sustained exploration intensity within budgetary and survival constraints. companies with high employee density: focus on institutional innovation and knowledge sharing (cross-departmental hackathons, internal workshops, and communities of practice) to enable frontline staff to more quickly absorb and reuse new approaches. references cao, s., & wu, y. j. (2025). executives’ it background and corporate digital technology innovation: evidence from chinese microenterprises. plos one, 20(4). chen, x. y., ye, q. h., & liu, f. (2025). supply chain knowledge sharing and enterprise innovation efficiency. economic management, 47(08), 128-145. huang, s. s., & shao, y. h. (2017). executive innovation awareness, corporate innovation investment and innovation performance: an empirical study based on my country’s gem listed companies. east china economic management, 31(02), 151-157. jing, x. x., jiang, r. c., zhao, n., & lin, x. r. (2021). effects of executive pay gap and board capital on enterprise innovation investment: a case study based on high-tech listed companies. transformations in business & economics, 20(2), 197-222. tian, g. l., & zhang, x. t. (n.d.). digital transformation and enterprise innovation efficiency: mechanism and empirical test. business research, unknown, 1-12. wang, h. f., & chen, n. (2024). an empirical study of executive research backgrounds on enterprise innovation the moderator of internal and external institutional environments on physics -reason human methodology. international review of economics & finance, 93, 140-151. wang, t., & liu, d. w. (2025). the impact of financing constraints on enterprise innovation efficiency: based on the moderating effect of digital finance and internal control. science and technology management research, 45(07), 77-85. wei, q. w., & sun, n. h. (2025). research on the effects and mechanisms of technology market development in empowering high-tech enterprises’ innovation efficiency. journal of management, 22(07), 1289-1297. yue, w. l., zhu, k. l., ba, z. h, be, & zhu, k. (2015). research on effectiveness of enterprise innovation management from corporate executive perspective. statistic application in modern society, 361-365. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 zhang, c. y., & zhang, d. s. (2024). executive incentives, team stability and corporate innovation performance. finance research letters, 58. zhu, b., zhang, j. r., be, k. m, zhang, w., & zhao, r. (2017). how does executives’ educational background influence innovation intensity in entrepreneurial firms? based on a moderated mediating model. proceedings of the fourth international symposium management, innovation & development, bk one & two, 802-806. zhu, x. y., zhang, c., & chen, l. (2025). the mechanism of innovation policy combination on the innovation efficiency of high-tech industries. science and technology management research, 45(15), 20-32. 2. research design 2.1 sample data and sources 2.2 variable definition 2.3 model construction 3. empirical analysis 3.1 descriptive analysis 3.2 regression analysis 3.3 robustness analysis 3.4 endogeneity analysis 3.5 mediation analysis 3.6 heterogeneity analysis 4. conclusions and recommendations 4.1 conclusion 4.2 management practice recommendations microsoft word assc-v2n4-p77 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 77 original paper the “crisis” and “opportunity” of the hosts in the new media environment wenjing hu1* & fansheng cao1 1 college of music, jiangxi normal university, nanchang, jiangxi 330022, china * wenjing hu, college of music, jiangxi normal university, nanchang, jiangxi 330022, china received: september 22, 2020 accepted: october 16, 2020 online published: october 19, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p77 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p77 abstract along with the continuous progress of science and technology, in recent years, the improvement and optimization of the structure of the media and the rapid development of the network are promoting continuous changes in the media environment. new media has penetrated into people’s daily life and become an integral part of the whole social environment. as an indispensable component of the media industry, the host industry is facing challenges from many aspects in the new media environment, which requires the announcers and hosts to give full play to their subjective initiative, finding the “opportunity” in the “crisis”, keeping up with the pace of the times, embracing the emerging media, and grasping the needs of the audience, to produce high-quality content, so as to transform “crisis” into “opportunity”. keywords new media, host, “crisis” and “opportunity” 1. introduction only a short while ago, the “host” was a brilliant and enviable profession. however, under the background of the rapid development of the national economy, the rapid progress of cutting-edge science and technology, and the shift of the people from material pursuit to spiritual pursuit, new media emerged with electronic information technology as the medium, digital and network technology as support, internet and satellite as channels, and computers, mobile phones, digital television and so on as the terminal. the birth of new media provides society and the people with more channels to obtain information, but at the same time, traditional media are faced with the dilemma of declining audience rating, diversion of audience and substantial decline in advertising revenue. therefore, the development of traditional media hosts has been greatly challenged. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 78 published by scholink inc. 2. the “crisis” of the hosts in the new media environment 2.1 the challenges brought by ai the progress of science and technology has affected the development of the media industry, and even the important elements of the media. ai can not only preliminarily screen and edit the video material of the programs, but also can replace the hosts who communicate face to face with the audience and are good at interpersonal communication. on november 7, 2018, ai synthetic anchor, who kept the expressions and lip movements in a natural and consistent manner when hosting the program through the techniques of speech synthesis, lip synthesis, expression synthesis and deep learning, made its debut at the fifth world internet congress, mixing the spurious with the genuine. the emergence of ai synthetic anchor brings great challenges to the host industry. compared with the traditional hosts, ai synthetic anchor has multiple advantages: it can work 24 hours a day according to the program command, real-time online, that is, it can not only achieve the timely dissemination of news, to the maximum extent to meet the characteristics of the timeliness of news, but also can work all the time; it can operate according to the pre-set program, and because the program is made up of fixed codes, the possibility of errors such as phonetic errors and stutters in the broadcasting work is very low. through the input of the program, ai synthetic anchor has the ability to broadcast in multiple languages and can change freely. for example, during the two sessions, ai synthetic anchor transmitted chinese voices to the world in english, japanese and korean, showing the image of china. 2.2 the challenges brought by crossover hosts at the spring festival gala in 2020, actress tong liya stepped onto the stage of the performance party with the largest scale and the highest specification in china, the spring festival gala, as a host. this special host immediately caused a heated discussion on the internet, one of the reasons was that she did not have any hosting experience, and she was not a host, so we call her a crossover host. the characteristics of the crossover hosts are that, firstly, the host may not have a professional background, but he or she has unique views in a certain field, which is suitable for the style of the program, so the programme group invites him or her to be a host; secondly, he or she has a certain degree of famousness, which can produce a brand effect for the program. nowadays, such crossover hosts are not uncommon in radio and television programs. for instance, gao xiaosong eventually transformed from a musician, songwriter, producer, and director into a talk show host, and dancer jinxing founded “jinxing show”, and the veteran actor zhang guoguo has been invited to host “national treasure”. more and more talents from other industries have begun to “rob crossover” and seize the job opportunities of the hosts. 2.3 the challenges brought by the network hosts network hosts, who are usually average people with grassroots characteristics, are produced with the progress of science and technology. due to the popularity of mobile phones and the continuous updating and optimization of software functions, the threshold for video production has been greatly reduced. individuals can shoot, edit and make short videos through a variety of mobile phone software. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 79 published by scholink inc. in this era when everyone has a “microphone” and everyone can “voice”, the boundary of the host has become more and more blurred. in the past, the host meant that he or she had a platform and the opportunity to become a star in public attention, but now the host has already stepped down from the altar, and is no longer a superior “opinion leader” in a sense. in the era when there was no internet, tv was the only entertainment for people, and tv programs were the only choice for the audience, but now almost no one can focus all their attention on tv. they are attracted by the richness and speed of internet information, and vote through their own click and watching, to fulfill their favorite hosts, it can be said that the phenomenon of pan-host is becoming more and more intense. 2.4 the challenges brought by the change of audience with the advent of the new media era, it is not just the communicators (the producers of the content) who have been changed, but the recipients (the recipients of the content) have undergone earth-shaking changes, too. in the early stage of the development of radio and television in china, due to the relatively limited production and communication channels, the hosts were relatively fixed and the audience was relatively fixed, too, such as zhao zhongxiang and ni ping, who was the idol in the eyes of women and the lover in the eyes of men respectively. nowadays, however, with the diversification of production content and communication channels, the audience has the right to choose, and the scope of choice is constantly expanding. the audience, who needs the host to bring emotional satisfaction, information supply, ideological inspiration and communication like friends, is no longer satisfied with the host’s “announcer” function. especially in the network era, the broadcasting platform is constantly expanding, and all kinds of programs emerge one after another, which results in the continuous segmentation and change of the audience group. in addition, with the passage of time, the audience with strong “stickiness” has gradually lost, so how to attract the ever-changing audience and transform this group into a fixed audience with strong “stickiness” is another major challenge for the hosts. 3. the “opportunity” in the new media environment 3.1 have a broader professional platform the more new media platforms are, the larger the stage that belongs to the hosts will be, which means the hosts can make full use of these platforms to upload their works or share the details of their life, that is, to get closer to the audience, letting more people know them and expanding their audience. for example, wang jianning, a host of suzhou radio and tv station, often updates her life on weibo: showing off her talents in front of the camera, or sharing interesting stories in life, etc., and interacts closely with netizens on weibo. in this way, wang jianning’s followers are more willing to watch programs hosted or participated by her, forming a virtuous circle. from a higher dimension, the host represents the image of his or her media, and by narrowing the distance between the host and the audience, it is more conducive to the realization of the broken wall between “communication” and “reception”. for example, “xinwen lianbo”, or “news broadcast” promoted “anchors talk about news” on the official account of wechat. once this new form was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 80 published by scholink inc. launched, the response was enthusiastic, and everyone thought that the previously superior “news broadcast” is now becoming more and more approachable. the reason is that “news broadcast” cleverly opens up a new media platform, allowing the host to let go of his or her work in the studio, interpret today’s news in a kind and telling tone, attracting more audiences on the new platform, and at the same time, feeding back to the “news broadcast” program itself. 3.2 promote audience interaction more deeply the application of new media seems to impact the traditional media, but the new media technology really shortens the gap between the media and the audience. from a macro point of view, weibo, wechat, text messages and official account messages have all set up a platform for interaction between the audience and the media, making it easier for the audience to better communicate with the media. the key content emphasized in the new media era is “interaction”. on the one hand, interaction can enhance the audience’s “sense of participation” and enhance the audience’s “stickiness”. on the other hand, interaction can also help the host better understand the preferences of the audience, to provide viewers with more high-quality program content. the media industry has always advocated “station-network linkage”, which in fact is not only limited to delivering high-quality tv programs through the advantages of the internet, but more importantly, is integrated into the process of hosting the program. for example, while the program is recorded, a large screen is specially placed to show the real-time comments and interaction of weibo netizens, which not only satisfies the audience’s sense of participation, enriches the connotation of the program, but also allows other viewers to see clearly their views on this event or issue, achieving many things at one stroke. 3.3 expand more information channels the emergence of new media platform has further expanded the channels of mass communication, and more information is coming from all directions. the host industry has high requirements for practitioners, and the hosts must maintain the state of “dynamic learning” and “learning at any time”. the original main channels of learning can be print media, electronic media, interpersonal communication and so on. in such a new media environment, however, the network media greatly improves the speed of information acquisition, and one can obtain more high-quality content in the same unit of time. this provides great convenience for the hosts to improve their knowledge and cultural level. for instance, on bilibili, there are “knowledge”, “classroom” and other special areas, including social sciences, humanities, finance and economics, science popularization, campus learning, workplace learning and other sections, providing platform users with diversified learning content, and providing more channels for the hosts’ information collection, learning and promotion. 4. explore the plan to turn crisis into opportunity since the development of new media has become a trend, rather than passively affected and restricted by the environment, it is better to actively adapt to the environment and seek new opportunities for development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 81 published by scholink inc. 4.1 embrace new media the emergence of new media has a profound impact on the entire media industry. at this stage, the popularity of short video apps such as tiktok, kuaishou, mei pai and so on, as well as the development of the live broadcast industry, make many ordinary people become well-known internet celebrities. practice and time have proved that traditional media need to be integrated into the development trend of new media in order to develop better. newspapers, for example, have “surfed the internet” and opened electronic editions, which have given new vitality to the traditional newspaper industry; major television stations have been reformed one after another, and greater benefits have been produced through the “station-network linkage” ... it is not difficult to see from the practical examples that people’s reading habits, viewing behavior, aesthetic standards and value evaluation have all changed in the new media era. in order to stand out in the dazzling array of infotainment products, only traditional media hosts understand and integrate into emerging things, dare to try, embrace new media and promote personalized development, can they keep up with the pace of the times, achieving longer-term development. 4.2 expert in one and good at many in the current media environment, the competition is becoming more and more fierce. generally speaking, the number of host posts is relatively small with relatively fixed candidates. to stand out from the crowd not only depends on outstanding individual skills, but also requires the host to have a strong comprehensive quality: with planning, interview, editing, broadcasting and even operation and other abilities, namely, all-round talent. at present, most hosts are still limited to their own professional areas: staying in the field of “broadcast”, which causes problems: in the small area of “broadcast”, a large number of people of the same level are gathered, resulting in fierce competition. when a host has one specialty and many abilities at the same time, he or she will be able to widen the gap with other hosts, and better adapt to the needs of the new media environment for host talents, so as to be able to survive in the media industry for a long time. 4.3 pay attention to specialization and deep ploughing with the continuous development of tv programs, the audience continues to narrow and subdivide, which requires the host to have a deeper understanding of a certain industry and the ability to develop vertically in this industry. this is also why some programme groups do not invite professional hosts, but invite experts and masters from the industry related to the theme of the program, which is the underlying reason for the emergence of pan-host. compared with the traditional host, the advantage of pan-host is that he or she is professional to his or her own industry and can bring more praiseworthy content to the program. therefore, while ensuring their own professional study and training, traditional hosts should also specialize in a certain industry and a certain field. only in this way, they will not talk in general terms like most hosts, can provide their own unique insights for more audiences instead. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 82 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion under the background of the integration of traditional media and new media, the introduction of technology has brought new opportunities and challenges to the field of broadcast hosting. in any environment, “crisis” and “opportunity” always coexist, and the crux of the problem is how to give full play to our subjective initiative and transform “crisis” into “opportunity”, which requires announcers and hosts in the new media ecological environment, keep up with the pace of the times, grasp the needs of the audience, and produce high-quality content. as long as “there is rich cultural and scholarship foundation in your mind”, then no matter how the media situation changes, you will be in an invincible position, and can find opportunities in the crisis, seeking better development. references chen, s, y. (2016). research on the transformation and upgrading of chinese program hosts in “the all-media era”. tianjin normal university. cheng, y., & xie, j. l. (2016). traditional hosts: transition, job transfer, turn around?—a re-analysis of the phenomenon of “de-host”. southern television journal, 2016(03), 8. duan, x. h. (2018). capacity-building of tv hosts in the all-media era. china journal of radio and television, 2018(06), 66-68. li, d. p. (2016). the change of the role orientation of the hosts in the new media environment. introduction to journalism and research, 7(11), 130-131. wang, s. y. (2017). an analysis of the hosting form of de-host” in reality show programs—taking back to field as an example. communication & copyright, 2017(06), 87-89. ying, t. c. (2016). “de-host” is a false proposition. southern television journal, 2016(03), 13-16. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 171 original paper research on the implementation path of industry-education integration from the perspective of educational power ping fu1, cuijuan huang1, & dandan sun1 1 school of educational sciences, guangdong polytechnic normal university, guangzhou guangdong, 510665, china funds this work was supported by guangdong province educational science planning project[2021gxjk068]; guangdong basicand applied basic research foundation [2022a1515110259]; guang zhou philosophy and social science project [2023gzyb55] received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 09, 2025 online published: october 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p171 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p171 abstract by gradually improving the policy system and exploring innovative typical models, the deepening integration of industry and education in vocational education has become an important measure to improve the quality of technical and skilled personnel supply and serve the construction of a strong educational country in china, which helps to strengthen the service function of vocational education, enhance the advantages of vocational education types and upgrade the industrial structure. however, in the process of practice, there are still some practical difficulties, such as the “last mile” of the implementation of the policy of integration of industry and education in vocational education has not yet been opened, the supply and demand channels of integration of industry and education are more “quantity” than “quality”, and the endogenous motivation of enterprises to participate in vocational education is insufficient. it is urgent to promote the reform of “management and evaluation” of industry-education integration to build a policy chain landing mechanism, implement multi-collaborative governance to promote the operation of industry-education integration entities, and realize the co-construction, co-governance and sharing of the government, universities and enterprises to stimulate the internal motivation of enterprise participation. keywords education power, vocational education, integration of industry education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 172 in april 2025, the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council issued the outline of the plan for building a strong country through education (2024-2035), which proposed to build a “vocational education system integrating industry and education”, emphasizing the need to “speed up the construction of a modern vocational education system and focus on training craftsmen, skilled craftsmen and highly skilled personnel in large countries”. as an important part of the national education system and human resources development, the high-quality development of vocational education is directly related to the achievement of the goal of strengthening the country through education. deepening the integration of industry and education in an all-round way is not only the realistic demand of the development of vocational education, but also the key path to realize the high-quality development of vocational education. from the strategic perspective of building a strong educational country, the integration of industry and education is an important institutional link between the education system and industrial development. it can not only effectively strengthen the synergistic relationship between education and industry, optimize the structure of talent supply and demand, and enhance the ability of vocational education to serve economic and social development; it also helps to solve the structural contradiction between education and employment, and promotes the formation of a more closely linked training system for technical and skilled personnel. this integration mechanism of education chain, talent chain, industry chain and innovation chain is an important manifestation of the realization of high-quality and efficient education supply in the construction of a strong educational country in the new era. based on this, in-depth exploration of the optimization path of the implementation of the integration of industry and education in vocational education is not only a practical demand to respond to the practical challenges of vocational education, but also a theoretical exploration to implement the strategic deployment of strengthening the country through education. based on the reality of china’s vocational education reform, this paper combs the reform achievements, analyzes the practical problems, and puts forward targeted optimization strategies, in order to provide reference for speeding up the construction of modern vocational education system with chinese characteristics. 1. the value implication of the integration of industry and education under the strategy of strengthening the country through education building a strong educational country is one of the core strategies of china’s high-quality development in the new era. vocational education, as an important type of education for the training of technical and skilled personnel, plays a fundamental and supporting role in it. as the key path of the construction of modern vocational education system, the deep logic of the integration of industry and education lies in the organic connection between education chain and industry chain, talent chain and innovation chain, so as to realize the high matching and linkage between education system and economic and social development. from the perspective of the strategy of strengthening the country through education, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 173 value of the integration of industry and education is mainly embodied in three aspects(as shown in figure 1). figure 1. value implication of industry-education integration 1.1 strengthen the service function of vocational education and enhance the national strategic support capacity on october 16, 2022, the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china emphasized for the first time that education, science and technology and talents are the basic and strategic support for building a socialist modern country in an all-round way, and that we should speed up the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology and talents. among education, science and technology and talents, education plays a decisive role. scientific and technological innovation and personnel training depend on the development of education. therefore, we must insist on giving priority to building a strong educational country as an important first step to promote the development of various undertakings of the party and the state. the essence of building a strong educational country is to enhance the ability of the education system to support the overall national strategy through a systematic talent training system, especially in the stage of high-quality development, technical and skilled personnel have become an important component of the core competitiveness of the country. as the main channel of technical and skilled personnel training, the development level of vocational education directly affects the response speed and support ability of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 174 country to major strategies such as scientific and technological innovation, high-end manufacturing, regional coordination and so on. as the core mechanism of strengthening the national strategic ability of vocational education, the integration of industry and education is an important way to promote the deep coordination between education and industry, and to connect the chain of personnel training and scientific and technological innovation. on the one hand, by breaking the barriers between education and industry, it promotes the precise docking of “education chain” and “talent chain” with “industry chain” and “innovation chain”, so that vocational education can continuously provide high-quality skilled personnel for key areas of the country. on the other hand, the integration of industry and education also promotes enterprises to participate in the process of educating people in depth through the platforms of modern apprenticeship, municipal industry-education consortium, industry-education integration community and industrial colleges, so as to enhance the ability of education to train compound talents, and enhance the support of education for major national technological research and regional economic layout. therefore, strengthening the integration of industry and education and enhancing the core role of vocational education in serving the strong country of human resources and science and technology are important ways to build a strong country of education. 1.2 deepening the mechanism of integration of industry and education and enhancing the advantages of vocational education types the national vocational education reform implementation plan points out that we should “adhere to the orientation of type education and promote the coordinated development of vocational education and general education”, and establishes that vocational education is a form of education with unique type attributes, whose core characteristics lie in emphasizing practice-oriented, competency-based and employment-related. in order to promote the construction of a strong educational country in the new era, we must build a modern vocational education system with chinese characteristics and reflecting the essence of the type, so that it can go hand in hand with general education and show its strengths. the integration of industry and education is the key mechanism to support the deepening development of the orientation of vocational education types. on the one hand, the integration of industry and education helps to build a curriculum system and teaching mode with ability as the core. through the construction of the comprehensive education system of “post class competition certificate”, the knowledge imparting, ability training and professional post requirements of vocational education are integrated, and the logic of teaching reform oriented by practical problems is formed. this kind of curriculum reform based on industry standards and enterprise posts has promoted vocational education from the traditional subject type to the post type and task type, effectively highlighting the professional and practical nature of vocational education. at the same time, the integration of industry and education constantly improves the multi-education structure of vocational education through system coordination and platform construction. new organizational forms such as “industry-education consortium”, “industrial college” and “school-enterprise cooperation alliance” are promoting the development mode www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 175 of vocational education to achieve regional coordination, industry co-ordination and school-enterprise linkage. through co-construction of specialties, co-compilation of teaching materials, co-assignment of teachers and co-establishment of courses, the integration of industry and education broadens the growth channels and development space of vocational education talents, and makes its functions clearer and its characteristics more distinct in the type education system. 1.3 enabling industrial transformation and upgrading to release the economic momentum of vocational education the proposal of “modern industrial system” and “new quality productivity” indicates that industrial development has changed from “resource-capital” to “technology-talent”. in this new stage, through the integration of industry and education, vocational education can not only provide stable talents for industrial development, but also promote the penetration of industrial standards, technological processes and technological upgrading into the education system, so as to realize the two-way empowerment of education and economic development. through the establishment of talent cultivation mechanism of “professional cluster docking industry cluster” and “curriculum chain service industry chain”, the integration of industry and education can enable vocational colleges to dynamically adjust professional settings and teaching contents according to regional development priorities and industrial needs, realize the integration of production, production and education, and promote vocational education and regional economy. in order to effectively solve the structural mismatch problem that has plagued vocational education for a long time, and enhance the contribution of education to regional economy. in addition, in the process of building technology platforms, training bases and production, teaching and research centers with enterprises, vocational colleges can gradually embed the enterprise r&d system and product iteration chain, and become the intermediate force of technology dissemination, achievement transformation and talent incubation. vocational education has been transformed from simple employment-oriented to development-oriented and innovation-oriented, which strengthens its basic position in the modern industrial system and effectively improves the supporting capacity of the education system for industrial innovation. it can be seen that the construction of the mechanism of deep integration of industry and education is the core path for vocational education to serve economic and social development, and is also the basic force for the continuous evolution of modern industrial system. 2. effectiveness of the integration of industry and education in the process of building a strong educational country under the background of accelerating the construction of a strong educational country, the integration of industry and education, as a key hub to open up the education chain, talent chain, industry chain and innovation chain, has achieved remarkable results through the iterative upgrading of the policy system and the innovative breakthrough of the practice mode. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 176 2.1 combination and linkage to gradually improve the policy system of integration of industry and education from the macro-layout at the national level to the implementation at the local level, from the pilot construction of industry-education integration cities, industries and enterprises to the construction of city-level industry-education consortia, china has built a systematic and complete policy system of industry-education integration. firstly, multi-departments jointly formulate relevant policies for the integration of industry and education, and build a policy closed-loop of “top-level design-pilot promotion-incentive guarantee” for the development of the integration of industry and education. in december 2017, the general office of the state council issued “several opinions on deepening the integration of industry and education”, which extended the integration of industry and education to the construction of “double first-class initiative” universities, and since then it has become the guideline for all types of universities, clarifying the overall requirements, main objectives and key tasks of deepening the integration of industry and education, and laying a policy foundation for the deep integration of industry and education. in october 2019, the national development and reform commission, the ministry of education and other six departments issued the national pilot implementation plan for the integration of industry and education, proposing the first batch of pilot construction of about 20 cities with integration of industry and education. start the second batch of pilot projects in time, cultivate a number of industry-education integration industries with unique regional characteristics, build more than 10000 industry-education integration enterprises, and build a sound industry-education integration enterprise system and combined incentive policy system. subsequently, the national development and reform commission, the ministry of education and other six departments jointly issued the notice on the issuance of the national pilot implementation plan for the integration of industry and education, requiring provincial governments and pilot cities to focus on the innovation of the system and mode of the integration of industry and education, and to promote the pilot work as a whole. in april of the same year, the national development and reform commission and the ministry of education issued the implementation measures for the construction of industry-education integration enterprises (trial implementation), which made it clear that enterprises entering the certification catalogue of industry-education integration enterprises would enjoy the combined incentives of “finance with land and credit” and related tax preferential policies, so as to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate in the integration of industry and education. secondly, lay the foundation of multiple participation in vocational education from the top-level design level, and build a co-governance institutional framework for the integration of industry and education. in april 2023, the general office of the ministry of education issued the notice on the construction of municipal industry-education consortium, which proposed that "based on industrial parks, a number of municipal industry-education consortium with the functions of personnel training, innovation and entrepreneurship, and promoting high-quality development of industrial economy should be built". in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 177 july 2023, the ministry of education issued the notice on supporting the construction of the industry-education integration community of the national rail transit equipment industry, taking the lead in exploring the establishment of a set of industry community management system, construction mode and operation mechanism in the national rail transit equipment industry. subsequently, it issued the guidelines for the construction of industry-industry-education integration community, opened the project declaration of industry-industry-education integration community, and formally entered the substantive operation. in october 2024, the general office of the ministry of education issued the notice on strengthening the construction of the municipal industry-education consortium, aiming at improving the construction level and quality of the municipal industry-education consortium, and issued the standards for the construction of the municipal industry-education consortium(trial implementation)to track, monitor and dynamically manage the whole process. in 2025, the outline clearly put forward the idea of “building a strong city-wide industry-education consortium, industry-industry-education integration community, optimizing the layout of vocational education in coordination with regional development and linking up with industrial layout”. 2.2 combining points with areas to explore the typical mode of deep integration of industry and education with the continuous improvement of the policy system of integration of industry and education, practical exploration has become the key link to promote the deep integration of industry and education. through the strategy of “point breakthrough and surface promotion”, china has carried out diversified exploration according to local conditions. firstly, we will build a pilot city for the integration of industry and education, and establish a synchronous linkage mechanism between the integration of industry and education and economic and social development. on the one hand, pilot reforms should be carried out according to regional economic development. in october 2019, the state launched the first batch of 21 pilot industry-education integration cities, covering tianjin jinnan district, tangshan city, hebei province and other areas, of which the eastern region accounted for 52.4%, the western region accounted for 19%, the central region accounted for 23.8%, and the northeastern region accounted for 4.8%. this is in line with the development of the eastern coastal areas with developed economy and strong industrial and agricultural foundation. in 2023, the national development and reform commission and other eight departments jointly issued the action plan for promoting the integration of industry and education in vocational education (2023-2025), which clearly states that by 2025, the number of pilot cities for the integration of industry and education will reach about 50, and the number of pilot cities will increase by about 30. on the other hand, the pilot cities are inclined to key industries through capital investment and resource allocation to train technical and skilled personnel to support regional development. according to the special audit report of the ministry of finance in 2024, the first 21 pilot cities of industry-education integration at the national level have invested a total of 85.03 billion yuan in special funds, which are inclined to key industries. among them, ningbo, qingdao and hefei www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 178 accounted for 35% of the total investment, focusing on building industrial education clusters such as “intelligent network united automobile”, “high-end home appliances manufacturing” and “integrated circuit”. for example, hefei “china sound valley-vocational education park” as a landmark project, the state arranges 50 million special industrial funds every year, anhui province and hefei city arrange special supporting funds according to the ratio of 1:1:3 to support industrial development.at the same time, a set of industrial policies are formulated, and two major policy service systems of “financial innovation and market promotion” are innovatively established. the park environment, park support, family members of talents entering the park are supported in an all-round way. relying on the talent market of anhui, it gives priority support to the needs of all kinds of talents of enterprises. secondly, we should build a number of city-level industry-education consortia and industry-education integration communities to serve the transformation and upgrading of regional industries. in 2023, the ministry of education first selected and constructed 28 municipal industry-education consortia nationwide, and in 2024, six new national industry-education consortia were established, which promoted the construction of 237 provincial-level industry-education consortia and enhanced the “closeness” of the integration of vocational education and local economy. at the same time, in july 2023 and july 2024, two national-level industry-education integration communities, namely, the national rail transit equipment industry and the national non-ferrous metal industry, were established, which led to the construction of more than 1100 industry-education integration communities in all walks of life, and enhanced the adaptability between vocational education and industry development needs. the municipal industry-education consortium plays the overall role of the government of the industrial park, promotes the cooperation between the park enterprises and relevant schools and institutes, carries out technical research and personnel training, and improves the ability and accuracy of vocational schools to serve the local economic development. the pujiang municipal industry-education consortium, based on the pujiang economic development zone, is the only national-level municipal industry-education consortium built at the county level in china, with 58000 students enrolled, 19000 full-time graduates trained and 56000 social training conducted in 2023, contributing to 1289 industry-universityresearch cooperation projects, with an investment of over 1 billion yuan. provide multi-level and full-cycle skilled personnel support and technical services for all kinds of enterprises in jinjiang. the public service platform of changzhou new energy industry-education consortium released 428 scientific and technological achievements in 2024, held 21 offline technology supply and demand docking meetings, excavated 216 technical needs, and solved 116 technical needs. the member colleges and universities of the consortium served more than 600 local enterprises in changzhou, and 396 new authorized patents were added. at the same time, the consortium issued a list of talent demand, school-enterprise joint employment supply and demand talks, providing more than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 179 9200 jobs for students in the new energy industry, and more than 6000 students to achieve counterpart employment. the industry-education integration community focuses on giving full play to the cross-regional leading role of state-owned enterprises, local leading enterprises and chain-leading enterprises, and concentrating high-quality resources in the industry to improve the overall quality of industrial personnel training. the two state-level industry-education integration communities highlight their strategic position, scale advantages and leading role. by organizing colleges and universities, vocational schools and enterprises to form teaching teams and build teaching resources, they will focus on building 80 majors, developing 270 professional core courses and 330 high-quality teaching materials, building 200 production practice centers and 280 productive training projects. the large-scale state-owned enterprises and central enterprises represented by china national automobile group co., ltd. and china aluminum group co., ltd. have taken active actions to build platforms, mechanisms and strong measures through the integration of technology, talents, resources and culture between schools and enterprises, so as to construct the integration of schools and enterprises, the full integration of production and education, the organic integration of education and training, and the cooperation between schools and enterprises. it provides a model for leading enterprises to participate in the organization of high-quality vocational education. the integration of industry and education in regional industries reflects the characteristics of fast construction and large scale. the proportion of local industry-education integration communities registered in the eastern, central and western regions is 48.6%, 26.4% and 25.0%, respectively, covering almost all the industry classifications of the national economy, with the proportion of major industries reaching more than 95%. 3. the practical dilemma faced by the implementation process of integration of industry and education under the background of education power under the background of deepening the strategy of strengthening the country through education, the integration of industry and education, as a key link between the education chain and the industrial chain, has become increasingly important. as an important carrier of the integration of industry and education, vocational colleges undertake the important mission of providing high-quality technical and skilled personnel for industrial transformation and upgrading. despite the continuous improvement of the policy system at the national level and the initial success of local pilot exploration, there are still many deep-seated contradictions and practical challenges in the implementation of the integration of industry and education, which restrict its function and efficiency. 3.1 the integration of industry and education in vocational education is facing difficulties in policy implementation as the key hub of policy implementation, the implementation efficiency of the grass-roots government directly determines the landing effect of the policy. at present, in the process of promoting the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 180 integration of industry and education, the “last mile” problem of policy implementation is frequent, reflecting the deep contradiction between policy implementation and realistic needs. firstly, school-enterprise cooperation faces obstacles to policy implementation, which are mainly reflected in the absence of property rights system, the failure of tax incentives and the high cost of implementation. at the level of property rights system, the current policies and regulations related to the integration of industry and education do not clearly stipulate the definition of property rights, the transfer of ownership and the distribution of benefits in school-enterprise cooperation. as a public institution, the assets of the school are mostly state-owned, and the property rights are clear. however, it is difficult to clarify the ownership of property rights of equipment, technology, sites and other assets invested by enterprises in the process of school-enterprise cooperation. the absence of property rights system leads to more disputes between the two sides in asset accounting, profit distribution and other links, which weakens the enthusiasm and stability of cooperation between schools and enterprises. at the level of tax incentive failure, although the state has issued a series of preferential tax policies to encourage school-enterprise cooperation, there are some problems in the actual implementation process, such as vague scope of policy application and complex approval process. some enterprises reflect that it is difficult to accurately judge whether their business meets the conditions of tax preferences, and the application for tax preferences requires a large number of supporting materials and multi-level approval, which is often time-consuming and labor-intensive, and may fail, which makes many enterprises hesitate. in terms of implementation cost, from negotiation and contract signing in the early stage of cooperation, to asset integration and system construction in the middle stage, to operation and management in the later stage, every link needs to invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources. the high cost of implementation makes both schools and enterprises face greater economic pressure in the process of cooperation, especially some small and medium-sized enterprises and schools with tight funds, which limits the extensive development of school-enterprise joint-stock cooperation. secondly, there are structural defects in the current evaluation mechanism of integration of industry and education, which lead to difficulties in policy implementation. first, in the construction of evaluation indicators, too much emphasis is placed on quantitative indicators and quality indicators are neglected. for example, more attention has been paid to the number of cooperative projects, the amount of capital investment and the number of student internships, while less attention has been paid to the indicators reflecting the quality and connotation of the integration of industry and education (the innovation of school-enterprise cooperative curriculum development, the fit between talent training programs and industrial needs, the transformation and application of technological research and development achievements, etc.). this evaluation orientation of emphasizing quantity over quality will lead schools and enterprises to pursue only short-term achievements and interests, thus ignoring the role of evaluation in the process of integration of industry and education, which makes it difficult for the policy to really promote the deep coordinated development of vocational education and industry in practice. second, the evaluation subject is relatively single. at present, the evaluation of integration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 181 industry and education is mostly dominated by government departments and schools, and the participation of enterprises, trade associations and other important stakeholders is low. the evaluation perspectives of the government and schools tend to focus on education and teaching management and personnel training, while the evaluation opinions of enterprises on talent quality, technology demand and cooperation benefits, which are the direct representatives of industrial demand, are difficult to fully integrate into the evaluation system. this single evaluation subject makes the evaluation results unable to fully reflect the actual effect of the integration of industry and education, and it is difficult for policy makers to obtain real and effective feedback information, which ultimately affects the targeted adjustment and precise landing of policies. thirdly, the assessment method is mainly short-term, and it is difficult to comprehensively examine the long-term benefits and sustainability of the integration of industry and education. the integration of industry and education itself is a long-term dynamic process, which takes a long time to show its effectiveness from specialty setting, curriculum development and personnel training to technological innovation and achievement transformation, but the current evaluation of integration of industry and education is mostly based on one academic year or one project cycle. short-term assessment methods will make schools and enterprises more inclined to carry out projects that are easy to achieve results in the process of cooperation, but lack enthusiasm for projects with long-term value but large investment and long cycle, which also runs counter to the goal of promoting the high-quality development of vocational education by the policy of integration of industry and education, making it difficult for relevant policies to achieve the desired results. thirdly, the imbalance of regional allocation of vocational education resources restricts the balanced development of education and the coordinated upgrading of industry, which is manifested in the significant regional differences of school-enterprise cooperation resources such as hardware facilities, teachers and cooperation opportunities. developed areas rely on strong economic strength to invest heavily in the construction of vocational colleges, often attract many excellent professional teachers and enterprise technical personnel with advanced teaching facilities, and also easily rely on the advantages of industrial agglomeration to carry out in-depth cooperation with enterprises to form a good integration of industry and education ecology. however, due to the shortage and aging of training equipment in vocational colleges, insufficient number of teachers and low educational level, and lack of enterprise resources in underdeveloped areas such as the central and western regions, school-enterprise cooperation is easy to become superficial and difficult to truly implement the integration of industry and education. this imbalance not only undermines educational equity, but also hinders the coordinated development of regional industries and balanced economic growth. therefore, it is urgent for the government to increase policy and financial support for underdeveloped areas, improve the talent incentive mechanism, and promote pairing assistance cooperation in vocational education between developed and underdeveloped areas, so as to realize resource sharing and complementary advantages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 182 3.2 the operation mechanism of the integration of industry and education is empty and the function orientation is single in recent years, under the guidance of policy promotion and reform, vocational colleges have actively explored diversified modes of industry-education integration, such as industrial colleges, vocational education groups, municipal industry-education consortia, and industry-education integration communities. through the development of these platforms, a multi-level, multi-regional and multi-subject integration pattern has been initially established, the number of which has increased significantly, the coverage has continued to expand, and the subjects of cooperation have become increasingly diverse. however, from the overall operation effect, the current integration of industry and education has obvious problems of “emphasizing construction over effectiveness” and “emphasizing quantity over quality”, the integration mechanism has not yet moved from organizational construction to substantive coordination, and there are still deep obstacles in the system operation level of supply and demand docking channels, which are manifested in many aspects, such as the weakening of cooperation mechanism and the single function orientation. firstly, some platforms for integration of industry and education are not built, relying too much on “listing” and “co-construction” projects, lacking in-depth exploration of cooperation mechanism, and there is an obvious tendency of formalization. taking industrial colleges as an example, some colleges and enterprises set up nominal offices quickly after the signing of the agreement, but they still do things in their own way in daily operation, and have not expanded their cooperation to the deep level of resource sharing and curriculum development. teachers and students of the 66th training course for young and middle-aged cadres in colleges and universities of the national institute of educational administration set up a research group to carry out a survey on the current situation of industrial colleges in higher vocational colleges, and found that 77.24% of the industrial colleges in 375 higher vocational colleges in 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) did not have independent legal personality. the organizational structure is generally attached to the school administrative system, lacking the independent governance mechanism and performance evaluation system for market-oriented operation. this loose organizational model of “school setting as the main and enterprise participation as the supplement” leads to the superficial participation of enterprises in school-enterprise cooperation projects, which makes it difficult to form a stable and long-term mechanism of joint education and technical cooperation. secondly, at present, most industry-education integration platforms still take supporting traditional talent training as their core function, and have not yet formed a comprehensive service system covering the whole process of industry-university-research and innovation, which makes the comprehensive benefits of the platforms insufficient and the functions single. in the established industrial colleges, the cooperation content is mainly in the form of order classes, work-study combination, enterprise internship and so on, which promotes the innovation of talent training mode to a certain extent, but the collaborative ability in curriculum development, technology research and development, achievement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 183 transformation, social services and other aspects is obviously insufficient. survey data show that although 71.06% of industrial colleges have carried out different degrees of reform and innovation in personnel training mode, only 29.88% of them can undertake the service function of production, teaching and research at the same time, forming an unbalanced development pattern of “emphasizing education, neglecting research and development" and "emphasizing teaching, neglecting transformation”. under this mode, the depth and breadth of vocational education docking industry demand are limited, and it is difficult to support the multi-dimensional development needs of regional economic and technological progress. 3.3 there is no unified value consensus and goal orientation among the subjects, and the endogenous motive force of enterprise participation is insufficient despite the continuous release of incentive signals at the policy level, there is no unified value consensus and goal orientation among the government, schools, industries, enterprises and other multiple subjects in the process of promoting the integration of industry and education. all parties often participate in cooperation based on their own interests and lack of deep recognition of the concept of “symbiosis and co-prosperity”, which leads to short-term cooperation goals and utilitarian behavior, and makes it difficult to form a sustainable and stable coordination mechanism. especially in the case of insufficient motivation for enterprises to participate and the disconnection between school education objectives and industrial needs, the integration of industry and education is easy to fall into the dilemma of “formalization” and “superficialization”. firstly, there is an imbalance between the risks and benefits of enterprises. enterprises need to invest a lot of money in equipment renewal, staff teaching, but also bear potential risks such as production interruption and technology leakage, and because of the long training cycle, enterprises can not get manpower supplement and benefit transformation in the short term, and there are many uncertainties in the market application of technological research and development achievements, which leads to enterprises in the integration of industry and education. this greatly weakens the enthusiasm and sustainability of enterprise participation. a listed company has set up a subsidiary company of integration of industry and education, and signed contracts with more than 50 secondary and higher vocational colleges to establish training bases. however, due to the definition of property rights, all the contracts signed with public vocational colleges were cancelled, which not only lost the agreed tuition fee share and financial subsidies, but also failed to recover the funds invested in the early stage, resulting in a serious imbalance between investment and income. secondly, the dislocation of policy incentives further aggravates the passivity of enterprises. most of the existing policies are based on external incentives, such as tax relief and financial subsidies, but they fail to deeply bind the core interests of enterprises, such as technological upgrading and market expansion, with vocational education. although the proportion of equipment investment subsidies to enterprises in some areas is up to 30%, it does not guide enterprises to obtain sustainable benefits through technology equity, curriculum development and other means, and the incentive means remain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 184 at the level of cost compensation, rather than at the level of revenue creation. in addition, enterprises always lack the right to speak in the core links of education and teaching, such as specialty setting and curriculum development, which makes it difficult for personnel training and industrial demand to resonate at the same frequency. the demand for 5g base station maintenance courses put forward by an electronic enterprise has been delayed for 18 months due to the long adjustment cycle of the syllabus of colleges and universities. the market demand of enterprises can not be translated into teaching content in time. the disconnection between policy incentives and the actual needs of enterprises weakens the willingness of enterprises to participate actively. thirdly, the ambiguity of governance powers and responsibilities makes it difficult for enterprises to really play the main role in the integration of industry and education. firstly, the agreement on key issues such as training safety, ownership of intellectual property rights and distribution of results in school-enterprise cooperation agreements is generally vague, which leads to frequent disputes. if the cnc processing technology developed by a mechanical enterprise in cooperation with colleges and universities is used by a third party without authorization, the enterprise has to bear all the litigation costs alone because the agreement does not specify the responsibility of safeguarding rights. secondly, the decision-making mechanism of most industry-education consortia and industrial colleges is dominated by colleges and universities, and the proportion of enterprise representatives in the council seats is only about 20%. they lack substantive voting rights on major issues such as professional adjustment and the use of funds, and can only passively participate in cooperation, which makes it difficult to formulate personnel training objectives, design curriculum system and establish training standards. this marginalized governance status further frustrates the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate, and makes the integration of industry and education fall into the embarrassing situation of “hot school and cold enterprise”. 4. systematic optimization strategies to promote the integration of industry and education in view of the realistic dilemma in the process of integration of industry and education in vocational education, based on systematic thinking, the optimization path of integration of industry and education can be explored from at least three dimensions (figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 185 figure 2. optimization path of industry-education integration 4.1 promote the reform of “management and evaluation"" of the integration of industry and education, and build a policy chain landing mechanism to solve the “last mile” problem of policy implementation, the key lies in reshaping the governance system of integration of industry and education. through deepening the collaborative innovation of management system, school-running mode and evaluation system, breaking departmental barriers, optimizing resource allocation and strengthening dynamic supervision, the policy of integration of industry and education will be transformed from “paper planning” to “practical efficiency”, so as to lay a solid institutional foundation for the high-quality development of vocational education. firstly, detailed policy operational guidelines. first, detailed implementation rules should be formulated to ensure the smooth implementation of multi-subject collaborative education. it is necessary to clarify the key rules of asset evaluation, equity allocation and exit mechanism in the process of school-enterprise joint venture, and actively explore the management mode of “government trusteeship+enterprise operation” to ensure clear property rights. by improving the mechanism of asset evaluation and equity allocation, the problem of unequal rights and responsibilities in school-enterprise cooperation can be effectively solved. second, we should innovate the synergy between preferential tax policies and the reform of the approval process. simplify the application process of preferential tax policies, and implement the system of one-window acceptance and parallel examination and approval. reduce the cost of enterprise policy acquisition. at the same time, a data platform for the integration of industry and education is established to realize the interconnection and interoperability of the databases of the three departments of education, taxation and industry and telecommunications, and to automatically verify the authenticity of the materials submitted by enterprises through data sharing, so as to further improve the efficiency of examination and approval and consolidate the achievements of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 186 process reform. third, we should strengthen the credit-driven mechanism of the policy of “exemption from application and enjoyment” and build a policy synergy ecology. establish a credit file system for the integration of industry and education, incorporate the data of enterprises participating in the integration of industry and education into credit evaluation, and form a linkage with the optimization of approval process and the construction of data platform. for cooperative enterprises with outstanding performance, the preferential policy of “exemption from application and enjoyment” is implemented. for example, enterprises with aaa credit rating (including receiving more than 100 interns for three consecutive years and r&d investment accounting for more than 5%) automatically enjoy preferential policies such as tax credit and land priority. through the application of credit evaluation results, enterprises are encouraged to actively participate in the integration of industry and education, and at the same time, the dynamic management of credit information is realized by means of data platform, so as to ensure the precise implementation of the policy of “exemption from application and enjoyment” and form a virtuous circle of policy coordination to promote the integration of industry and education. secondly, we should build a scientific and accurate “red, yellow and green light” evaluation system to enhance the scientificity and operability of the evaluation. it is suggested that the ministry of education should take the lead in building a national index framework, with the participation of industry associations, leading enterprises and experts from colleges and universities, and establish a three-level index system covering “participation degree-process management-result effectiveness”. in the design of indicators, we should shift from the traditional quantity orientation to the comprehensive quality orientation, instead of focusing on the single data such as “the number of cooperative enterprises”, and comprehensively consider the key indicators such as the participation rate of enterprises, the employment rate of graduates, the frequency of curriculum updating, and the degree of job matching, so as to achieve the goal of “the number of cooperative enterprises”. it also introduces indicators reflecting the effectiveness of cooperation, such as the intensity of enterprise investment (such as the proportion of annual vocational education funds to enterprise revenue) and the difference in starting salaries of graduates (compared with non-cooperative institutions). in terms of regional assessment criteria, we should combine the differences of industrial structure between the east and the west and the basis of enterprise development, set the evaluation weights of classification and classification, and enhance the fairness of the system and the effectiveness of incentives. in order to ensure the authenticity and reliability of the evaluation data, we can explore the introduction of digital technologies such as blockchain and data label encryption, and link up the key link data such as enterprise equipment donation records, students’ training process and post conversion rate, so as to prevent data fraud and “paper cooperation”. at the same time, a dynamic early warning and graded response mechanism should be established. once the actual participation rate of enterprises in the region is found to be less than 30%, or the failure rate of key equipment investment is higher than 40%, the red light warning will be triggered and the deadline for rectification will be initiated. for areas entering the “yellow light” interval, collaborative supervision mechanism and expert consultation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 187 mechanism can be arranged to intervene in advance to prevent the spread of problems. in addition, a special guiding fund for rectification should be set up to support the improvement of backward regions or weak links, and enterprises should be encouraged to participate continuously through differentiated tax preferential policies, so as to truly build a closed-loop quality management system of “monitoring-early warning-intervention-feedback” and promote the integration of industry and education to be institutionalized, standardized and effective. thirdly, we should improve the performance-oriented assessment mechanism of local governments and enhance the internal driving force of policy implementation. the implementation quality of the policy of integration of industry and education should be formally incorporated into the performance appraisal system of local governments, and a weight of no less than 10% should be set. this proportion is between the current “double-creation” index (usually 5%-8%) and the rural revitalization index (15% -20%), which can highlight the priority of the integration of industry and education in the strategy of strengthening the country through education without affecting other key inputs of people's livelihood. at the same time, we should strengthen the practical application of performance appraisal results and link them with policy tools such as financial transfer payments, special funds for education and land use indicators. for example, we can reduce the special subsidies for vocational education by 10% in areas where the integration of industry and education is not up to the standard, and force local governments to integrate the resources of education, human society, industry and telecommunications and other departments, so as to promote the formation of a cross-system and multi-subject coordinated work pattern. in terms of assessment content, we can learn from the german “quality spiral” theory to build a quality monitoring system with dynamic feedback and continuous improvement. it is suggested that industry associations, trade unions, colleges and other units jointly set up a third-party evaluation team to conduct a “two-track evaluation” of on-the-spot evaluation and graduate development tracking every three years to ensure that the evaluation system pays attention to both project implementation and output results. in the field of strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits and new energy, we can try out the multi-evaluation mechanism of “government guidance-industry leadership-participation of labor model studios”, which gives the front-line technical specialist substantive voice, and makes the evaluation closer to the front-line needs of the industry. at the same time, we should promote the construction of data-driven performance feedback mechanism. through the establishment of a regional graduate career development database, we can dynamically track their performance in technological innovation, job promotion and career stability within five years, and feed back the data to relevant institutions and enterprises to promote the iterative updating of professional courses and personnel training programs. for enterprises with poor long-term evaluation effect and low quality of cooperation, an exit mechanism should be set up to cancel their eligibility for tax incentives or financial subsidies, thus forming a closed-loop incentive and restraint linkage system. in addition, it is suggested to introduce the resource allocation mode of “performance allocation” orientation, and to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 188 explore the financial support mechanism of “index linkage+differential floating” by referring to the practical experience of the united states. by linking the amount of funds allocated by colleges and universities with key indicators such as the passing rate of students’ skills certification and the retention rate of graduates’ enterprises, the total amount of funds allocated can fluctuate by 30% around the benchmark value. in order to stimulate local enthusiasm, a “floating incentive fund” can also be set up to give 20% financial incentives to the top 10% of the regions in the performance of integration of industry and education. 4.2 implementing multi-collaborative governance and promoting the operation of industry-education integration entities firstly, we should promote the transformation of industry-education integration organizations to the direction of materialization and consolidate their institutional and operational foundations. we should clarify the legal attributes of all kinds of industry-education integration platforms, take “quasi-corporatization” as the reform orientation, and give priority to the pilot projects of type positioning in representative organizations such as municipal industry-education consortia, industry-education integration communities and modern industrial colleges. by exploring the operation mechanism with independent legal status, we can promote the construction of relatively independent internal governance structure and operation rules, endow the organization with stronger autonomous operation ability, independent decision-making power and responsibility-sharing mechanism, so as to realize the transformation from administrative subsidiary to entity autonomy. at the same time, we should strengthen the top-level design of the system, provide clear policy support for organizational transformation, promote the adoption of local legislation or special documents, define the boundaries of rights and responsibilities of all parties involved, establish a standardized legal protection system, and ensure the steady progress and effectiveness of organizational entity reform. for example, zhejiang province takes hangzhou economic development zone (qiantang science city) as the carrier to promote the substantive construction of the industry-education consortium through the three-level organizational structure (council, secretariat, expert committee). in 2023, more than 30 joint government-school-enterprise consultations were held, 12 industrial colleges were established, and nearly 2000 talents were trained, which significantly improved the transformation of achievements and the effectiveness of school-enterprise cooperation. secondly, build an integrated governance system to enhance the effectiveness of multi-party synergy. we should actively explore the compound governance structure that combines the logic of corporate governance with the characteristics of bureaucratic management in colleges and universities, and reshape the allocation of rights and responsibilities and the operation mechanism of the integration of industry and education. by establishing a board of directors or a board of directors jointly participated by the government, enterprises, schools and scientific research institutions, we can clarify the boundaries of responsibilities and decision-making powers of the participants, break the institutional restrictions such as fragmentation and departmental barriers, and promote the governance system from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 189 cooperative participation to co-construction and co-determination. further improve the collaborative decision-making procedures and interest linkage mechanism to enhance the efficiency of organizational operation and the scientific nature of decision-making. at the level of system integration, it is necessary to standardize the internal process of the governance structure, build a clear and efficient coordination mechanism, protect the rights and interests of all parties, promote resource sharing and system coordination, and effectively enhance the overall governance capacity and effectiveness level of the industry-education integration platform. thirdly, deepen the integration of industry and education systems and promote ecological co-construction. guided by the outline of the plan for building a strong country in education (2024-2035), we will promote the organizational innovation and functional expansion of the platform for the integration of industry and education, and realize the multi-dimensional integration of “production, learning, research and application”. relying on industrial parks, vocational education parks and other agglomeration areas, integrating multi-resources to build a “government-school-enterprise-research park” co-construction mechanism, forming a “talent co-education, professional co-construction” and other “eight-party” integrated cooperati on pattern, to create a complex functional operation entity. strengthen system integration, coordinate regional industrial layout and education planning, improve school-enterprise cooperation, work-study integration and other integration modes, and build a system solution from personnel training to industrial support. by optimizing the regional layout, strengthening the platform construction and improving the system interface, we can stimulate the multiplier effect of vocational education in serving the regional economy. 4.3 realizing co-construction, co-governance and sharing, and stimulating the internal motivation of enterprise participation by building a community of interests guided by the government, led by schools and enterprises, and linked by many parties, we can break the traditional pattern of passive cooperation between enterprises. starting from the dimensions of system design, rights and interests protection and resource sharing, the development needs of enterprises are deeply embedded in the whole chain of integration of industry and education, so as to build consensus, optimize ecology through co-governance, release vitality through sharing, truly activate the endogenous power of enterprises to participate in the integration of industry and education, and promote the formation of a new model of sustainable coordinated development of industry and education. the first is to build a market-oriented core mechanism of “technology equity+performance sharing”. through professional third-party evaluation agencies, the equipment and technology input of enterprises are accurately evaluated, and the proportion of shares is clearly defined and strictly limited to less than 30%, so as to ensure the rationality of the distribution of rights and interests of school-enterprise cooperation. at the same time, the dynamic adjustment mechanism is introduced to flexibly adjust the proportion to 3%-10% according to the multiple indicators such as the passing rate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 190 of student skill certification and the income of enterprise technology transformation. this form of contract with clear rights and responsibilities not only stimulates the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate in teaching in depth, but also effectively improves the quality of personnel training in vocational colleges, and truly enables enterprises to achieve accurate matching of risks and benefits. the second is to promote the implementation of the pilot work of “comprehensive insurance for the integration of industry and education”, aiming at providing security for enterprises to carry out the integration of industry and education. in view of the core risks in school-enterprise cooperation, such as abnormal loss of equipment, intellectual property disputes and other issues, it provides solutions for enterprises. the government should implement a graded subsidy policy according to the local financial situation, with the proportion of subsidies ranging from 30% to 60%. for small and medium-sized enterprises actively participating in vocational education, the government will provide an additional 10% premium subsidy to reduce the risk of enterprises participating in cooperation. in addition, a linkage mechanism between insurance claims and risk provention and control will be established, and premium return incentives will be given to enterprises without compensation records within one year, so as to encourage enterprises to strengthen risk control. the priority of market access. for enterprises deeply involved in the integration of industry and education, priority should be given to the list of government procurement suppliers, and green credit line support should be provided. implementing the rule of “giving priority to winning bids under the same conditions” not only guarantees the fairness of the market, but also highlights the orientation of social responsibility. enterprises are encouraged to participate in curriculum construction with intangible assets such as technical standards and patents, and tax relief is given according to a certain proportion of the income from the transformation of achievements. enterprises leading the development of cutting-edge technology courses (such as artificial intelligence, new energy technology) are given priority to the qualification of their products to be included in the government procurement catalogue. the second is to set up a “market expansion fund for the integration of industry and education”. special loan discounts are provided to enterprises that have achieved technological upgrading and successfully opened up new markets through school-enterprise cooperation. in view of the resource shortage of small and medium-sized enterprises, we should learn from international experience to improve special support policies, such as singapore’s “skills development fund”, which allows enterprises to apply for up to 70% of the cost of staff training and include it in esg reports; japan stipulates that enterprises and vocational colleges can enjoy 150% of the excess deduction of enterprise income tax for the cost of building laboratories. we should implement dual-subject collaborative governance to improve the participation and decision-making power of enterprises in the integration of industry and education. it requires that the proportion of enterprise representative seats in organizations such as industry-education consortia and industrial colleges should not be less than 40%, and that enterprises should be given the right to vote on major issues such as specialty setting, curriculum development and fund use. for example, higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 191 vocational colleges can work together with enterprises to build characteristic secondary colleges and professional groups to form a benign operation mechanism of deep integration of schools and enterprises, synchronization and coordination of professional construction and industrial development. the second is to establish a joint decision-making meeting system between schools and enterprises, and regularly discuss the direction of personnel training programs or technology research and development, so as to ensure that enterprises are deeply involved in the core links of education and teaching. the achievements of technological innovation and talent reserve achieved by enterprises through industry-education cooperation are included in esg scores, which are linked to government project declaration and industry qualification recognition. enterprises with high esg scores should be given preferential resources in industry exhibitions and market promotion to achieve a win-win situation of social responsibility and commercial interests. references duan, m. (2021). property rights dilemma and countermeasures of school-enterprise cooperation in running schools under the background of mixed ownership reform. education and occupation, 2021(22), 27-34. gu, r. j., & wang, h. j. (2023). integration of industry and education in vocational colleges from the perspective of skilled society: basic logic and practical path. educational academic monthly, 2023(7), 53-59. guo, f. c., & xu, j. y. (2025). dynamic mechanism and practical approach of digital transformation of vocational education from the perspective of new quality productivity. china vocational and technical education, (01), 105-112. liu, p. c., & liu, h. p. (2024). internal logic, theoretical dilemma and governance model of integration of industry and education in vocational education from the perspective of community. vocational and technical education, 45(34), 42-48. liu, x. q., & deng, j. (2024). reflections on the integration of industry and education from education power. journal of education of renmin university of china, (01), 11-16+181. member of the 20th cpc central committee, secretary of the party group of the ministry of education, minister huai jinpeng. (2025). in-depth study and implementation of the spirit of the national education conference creating a new situation of building a strong educational country (2025-03-28) [2025-06-02]. retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/moe_176/202503/t20250329_1185338. html pan, h. s., & li, y. (2023). from concept to action:connotation evolution, change motive force and path selection of industry-education integration in vocational education in china. higher education research, 44(04), 43-52. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 192 state council. (2019). notice of the state council on issuing the implementation plan of national vocational education reform (gf[2019]no. 4)[eb/ol]. (2019-02-13)[2025-06-02]. retrieved from https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2019-02/13/c ontent_5365341.htm the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council. (2025). outline of the plan for building a strong education country (2024-2035). [eb/ol]. (2025-01-19)[2025-06-01]. retrieved from https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202501/content_6999913.htm wang, h. m., & li, h. w. (2019). from school-enterprise cooperation to industry-education integration:dilemma and solution. journal of xinyu university, 2019(2), 123-128. xing, h., cao, r. p., & dai, q. p. (2022). investigation and suggestions on the current situation of industrial colleges in higher vocational colleges. journal of national institute of educational administration, (09), 20-29. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper a preliminary discussion on the arrangement of pottery at the eastern zhou period cemetery in hongyingpan, weining county, guizhou ting lai1 1 college of history and ethnic culture, guizhou university, guiyang,china received: june 19, 2025 accepted: august 22, 2025 online published: september 03, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p1 abstract in 2004-2005, the guizhou provincial museum archaeological group conducted a trial excavation of the eastern zhou dynasty cemetery in hongyingpan, located in xinjie village, zhongshui town, weining county, guizhou province. a total of 26 burials were unearthed during the excavation, including 11 pottery burials. it is noteworthy that the pottery in these burials was predominantly placed around the head of the tomb owner, a phenomenon that has not yet been discussed by academics. the present study focuses on the pottery unearthed in hongyingpan cemetery, exploring its shape, function, decorative features, and interaction with coexisting artifacts. the analysis suggests that the placement of the pottery may reflect the local funeral concept of 'taking the head as the honour' during the eastern zhou dynasty, emphasizing the connection to ancestor worship and agricultural rituals. the study also found that the common nipple decoration on the shoulders of the pottery may have the function of gender marking, which provides clues for inferring the gender of the tomb owner. furthermore, the initial comparison of the pottery forms, craftsmanship and placement practices between the hongyingpan cemetery and the shayuyingpan class b tomb in zhaotong, yunnan reveals notable similarities.the jigongshan culture and the yinzitan cemetery in weining are also examined, leading to the conclusion that there were extensive cultural interactions and regional traditions in the region during the eastern zhou dynasty. however, it is emphasized that further archaeological evidence is required to clarify the specific relationships. keywords hongyingpan eastern zhou dynasty cemetery, pottery, position www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 1. introduction pottery as burial goods holds significant importance in archaeological and cultural studies.it offers valuable insights into ancient lifestyles and material culture, while also reflecting—to varying degrees—the religious beliefs, social organization, artistic expression, and technological development of the period. the discovery and ongoing investigation of the eastern zhou dynasty cemetery at hongyingpan in weining county, guizhou province, have provided critical material evidence for understanding burial customs, social hierarchy, and cultural exchanges in the eastern periphery of the yungui plateau during the eastern zhou period. from 2004 to 2005, the department of archaeology at the guizhou provincial museum carried out systematic trial excavations at the hongyingpan site, uncovering a total of 26 tombs. among these, pottery vessels were recovered from 11 burials, with a notable concentration around the heads of the deceased. this spatial pattern has not been adequately examined in previous scholarship. the arrangement of grave goods constitutes an essential element of funerary ritual, imbued with deep cultural cognition and symbolic meaning. it serves as a key point of entry for interpreting the spiritual worldview and behavioral practices of ancient populations. current archaeological research on burial pottery primarily focuses on typology classification, chronological sequencing, and cultural attribution. however, there remains a relative lack of in-depth analysis regarding the specific placement of these objects within the tomb space and the underlying funerary concepts, social structures, and identity markers that such arrangements may express. the patterning of pottery vessels at the hongyingpan cemetery likely reflects localized burial traditions and cognitive frameworks, warranting further detailed interpretation.this paper takes the placement of pottery unearthed from the eastern zhou cemetery at hongyingpan as its central focus. by integrating analyses of pottery materials, forms, decorative features, and associated artifacts, we aim to elucidate the cultural connotations and social functions embodied by their spatial distribution. we approach this material from multiple perspectives, including the funerary concept of “respecting the head as the primary locus,” ancestral veneration, agricultural rituals, and gender symbolism. furthermore, we conduct comparative studies with neighboring archaeological complexes, such as the shayuyingpan cemetery in zhaotong, yunnan, the jigongshan culture, and the yinzitan cemetery in weining. through these comparisons, we seek to clarify the cultural attributes of the hongyingpan remains and to evaluate their role and significance within the broader context of cultural interaction in northwestern guizhou and northeastern yunnan during the eastern zhou period. this research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of regional cultural dynamics, inter community contacts, and the shared ritual practices that may have connected different groups in this frontier area. the study ultimately emphasizes the importance of contextual and spatial analysis of burial assemblages in archaeological interpretation. by reconstructing the symbolic and social dimensions of pottery placement, we can move beyond purely morphological or chronological approaches to engage with the lived rituals and ideological systems of ancient societies. future research should combine www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 detailed excavation recording, cross-regional comparative work, and interdisciplinary methods to further explore the rich funerary traditions of the eastern zhou period in southwestern china. 2. overview of excavated pottery and burials the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan, weining county, guizhou, are situated on a small earthen ridge between the qian river and zhong river at the southern end of the zhongshui basin, approximately 400 metre west of the yinzitan burial site. according to liu (2007) between 2004 and 2005, the archaeology department of guizhou provincial museum conducted systematic excavations at the site, uncovering 26 tombs. all were elongated vertical pit graves. traces of burial containers were found only in tombs m11, m23, m24, and m25; no such evidence was detected in the remaining graves. these were small tombs, each measuring less than 2 square metre in area. the primary burial posture was supine with straight limbs, and there was essentially no overlapping or disturbance between graves. eleven graves contained no grave goods, while the remaining fifteen held only a few items, reflecting either simplicity in burial customs or local characteristics. the graves were arranged in an orderly fashion with minimal overlapping or disturbance, indicating that the cemetery was planned and likely used continuously by the same ethnic group over a relatively short period. a total of 54 artifacts were unearthed, comprising pottery, bronze, bone, and jade objects. among these, 16 were pottery items, predominantly placed at the head of the burial pits. the forms included flat-bottomed jars, single-eared folded-rim jars, pottery bowls, and straight-sided cups. the 11 graves containing pottery, 10 were oriented north-south and one east-west. table 1 indicates that pottery was arranged around the head in eight graves, while the pot in m17 was positioned near the abdomen (the burial positions in m3 and m26 were not detailed in the excavation report and are therefore excluded from consideration). most tombs yielding pottery also contained bronze artifacts (primarily weapons and ornaments), bone objects (mainly arrowheads), and jade/stone items (such as jade huang and jue rings). taking m14 and m17 as examples: m14 was situated at the northeast corner of t6, opening beneath layer 1 and cutting through the undisturbed soil layer at a depth of 26 to 40 centimeter below ground level. measuring 260 cm in length, 60 cm in width, and 40–50 cm in depth, its fill comprised greenish-grey clay mixed with yellowish loam containing gravel. the tomb orientation was 10 degrees, with an uneven base. the remains were positioned with the head facing north and the face westward, exhibiting crossed lower limbs; sex was indeterminable. burial goods comprised one earthenware jar, one bronze ring, one bronze knife, and one pair of jade ornaments (fig. 1). m17 is situated at the northeast corner of t6, opening beneath the first layer and breaching the undisturbed soil layer at a depth of 27–35 cm below ground level. dimensions: length 270 cm, width 54–62 cm, depth 21–37 cm. fill consists of greenish-grey clay and yellowish clay containing gravel. orientation: 10 degrees. human remains lie supine with extended limbs, head oriented north. burial goods comprised one bronze sword, one bronze tube ornament, one pottery jar, one grinding stone, one bronze arrowhead, and one bone arrowhead. the pottery jar was positioned near the abdomen (fig. 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 table 1. statistical analysis of pottery placement locations and quantities at the hongyingpan eastern zhou cemetery tomb number around the head below the shoulders m4 1 m5 2 m8 3 m9 2 m11 1 m13 2 m14 1 m15 1 m17 1 figure 1. m14 plan and sectional views 1. earthenware pot; 2. copper ring; 3. two jade discs united as one; 4. copper knife www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 figure 2. m17 plan and sectional views 1. brass trim; 2. copper sword; 3. grinding stone; 4. earthenware pot; 5. copper arrowhead; 6. bone arrowhead the pottery unearthed from the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan consists entirely of sand-tempered ware. characteristic by a porous, fragile texture and entirely hand-made, the collection comprises sixteen pieces predominantly comprising jars. the most representative jar exhibits a distinctive form: a scalloped rim with a spout, shoulder decorated with nipple-shaped motifs, and a relatively bulbous body. the vessel types include flat-bottomed jars (types i, ii, and iii), single-handled folded-rim jars, ring-footed bowls, straight-sided cups, and small cups, predominantly featuring flat bases. the pottery decoration is relatively simple, comprising pricked patterns on the vessel bodies and symmetrical nipple-shaped decorations on both sides of the shoulders, with nipple patterns predominating (table 2). in summary, the hongyingpan burial ground represents a small-scale eastern zhou community cemetery characterized by orderly planning and uniform burial customs. as the primary category of grave goods, the specific placement, combinations, and craftsmanship of these pottery vessels provide valuable insights into bronze age funerary practices, technical economies, and conceptual worlds within this region. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 table 2. statistical analysis of pottery decorations from the eastern zhou period cemetery at hongyingpan vessel form without ornamentation nipple-like pattern puncture mark type i flat-bottomed vessel 1 type ⅱ flat-bottomed vessel 1 2 type ⅲ flat-bottomed vessel 1 4 single-eared folded-rim pot 1 bowls with foot rings 1 straight-sided cup 1 small cup 1 3. the significance of pottery placement at the eastern zhou cemetery in hongyingpan based on the excavation data from the hongyingpan burial site, a clear and repeated pattern can be observed among the tombs that contained pottery: in eight of the eleven burials, pottery vessels were deliberately concentrated around the head and shoulder areas of the deceased. each of these graves contained no more than three such vessels, suggesting a conscious and non-random placement rooted in funerary custom rather than coincidence. this structured arrangement offers a valuable window into the ritual behavior and underlying cultural worldview of this eastern zhou community.technologically, the pottery itself provides important contextual clues. the vessels were produced using coarse clay and manufactured through relatively rudimentary techniques, with firing processes that were neither advanced nor fully controlled. as a result, the ceramics are characterized by poor durability, uneven surface treatment, and impure glaze quality. jars represent the most common form, indicating a likely origin in everyday utilitarian use. yet when viewed in conjunction with other grave goods—such as bronze items, bone artifacts, grinding stones, and small jade ornaments—the overall assemblage suggests a society with limited economic development and emerging social differentiation. within this context, the pottery’s role in burial likely held symbolic significance that exceeded its practical function. the consistent placement of these vessels around the upper body of the deceased suggests a mortuary practice that accorded special symbolic importance to the head. this emphasis aligns with a concept we might term “anthropocentric hierarchy”—a belief system widespread in ancient china and east asia that regarded the head as the sacred seat of identity, spirit, and social honor. concentrating funerary offerings around this area may have expressed reverence for the deceased, provided spiritual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 sustenance, or mirrored a broader cosmological order within the confined space of the grave.notably, this practice finds resonance in other archaeological cultures of the pre-qin period. for example, xu (2020) argue that similar configurations have been observed in the qin tombs at xinfeng in lintong and studies by xia et al. (2018) indicate that the kele type b tombs in hezhang, guizhou. these parallels suggest that the concept of “head as honor”was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader shared tradition among diverse regional cultures.moreover, the conventionality behind this spatial organization hints at deeper social and ideological functions. in a context of material scarcity, the restrained inclusion of pottery—capped at three vessels per grave—may reflect normative or sumptuous conventions. the act of placing these objects in symbolically charged zones likely served to reinforce social hierarchies, strengthen familial lineage, and consolidate collective memory through ritual performance.by examining both the technical attributes of the pottery and its precise contextual placement, we gain insight into not only the economic and technological conditions of the hongyingpan society but also its ritual grammar and cultural imagination. this approach enables a more nuanced understanding of how funerary practices served as a medium for negotiating identity, status, and belief systems in the complex social landscape of ancient southwestern china. secondly, the placement of burial goods, particularly pottery, around the head area in the eastern zhou cemetery at hongyingpan likely reflects a meaningful connection to ancestral veneration and agricultural symbolism within the community. among the unearthed pottery, jars constitute the predominant type, followed by cups, bowls, and vessels with distinctive rim profiles. functionally, these objects correspond to containers and utensils associated with food storage, consumption, and possibly ritual offerings. their consistent deposition near the head of the deceased suggests a symbolic convergence between physical sustenance and spiritual practice.this practice may be interpreted as an expression of the central role agriculture played in the social-economic and symbolic life of the population. in positioning containers that held grains, liquids, or prepared foods close to the head—the seat of identity, memory, and honor—the community might have been articulating a hope for continued abundance, fertility, and prosperity, both in this world and the next. alternatively, it could imply a symbolic identity between the deceased and agricultural productivity, framing the individual as a guardian or perpetuate of agrarian life even after death. such an arrangement transforms the tomb into a microcosm of the social-natural order, where the deceased continues to participate symbolically in cycles of growth and nourishment.in addition,the striking uniformity in the placement of these artifacts across multiple burials indicates that this was not a matter of personal or familial preference but rather a culturally standardized practice. the recurrence of this pattern implies the existence of institutionalized ritual knowledge—a set of shared, transmitted conventions dictating the proper treatment of the dead. in this sense, the spatial organization of grave goods served as a material expression of collective ritual norms, reinforcing social cohesion and cultural continuity through repetitive performance.the pottery, therefore, functioned not only as utilitarian object or personal possession but also as a ritual instrument, employed according to deeply ingrained prescriptions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 concerning body space, cosmology, and social order. through the structured placement of ceramics, the living enacted a ceremony that linked the deceased to ancestral forces and ecological cycles, thereby mediating between the human, natural, and spiritual realms.this kind of funerary behavior underscores how burial customs can operate as a form of social memory and cultural reproduction. by adhering to established protocols, the community reaffirmed its values, worldviews, and identity across generations. the hongyingpan burial assemblage thus offers a compelling case study of how mortuary space was organized to reflect and perpetuate fundamental beliefs concerning life, death, and livelihood in ancient china. altogether, the concentration of pottery around the cranial zone constitutes a sophisticated cultural text—one that communicates agricultural dependence, collective ritualize, and a profound integration of daily life and symbolic practice in the eastern zhou periphery. furthermore, an in-depth analysis of the pottery decorations recovered from the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan suggests that the spatial arrangement of burial vessels was intimately linked to the social and biological identity of the deceased, particularly in terms of status and gender expression. a notable feature among the ceramic assemblage is the recurrence of symmetrically arranged nipple-shaped appliques, predominantly located on the shoulders of flat-bottomed jars. these decorative elements appear in varying numerical patterns—most commonly in sets of four or six, arranged in two symmetric groups—and may have served as visual and ritual markers embodying culturally constructed notions of femininity and social role.researcher zhang herong of the guizhou provincial institute of cultural relics and archaeology has previously drawn attention to similar decorative patterns observed on pottery from the hezhang kele site, specifically type c jars bearing four nipple-shaped protrusions on the vessel body by xia baoguo et al.(2018). zhang interpreted these features as symbols associated with femininity and possibly linked to fertility beliefs, leading to the identification of associated burials as likely female. this interpretation offers a compelling comparative framework for examining the hongyingpan material.within the hongyingpan cemetery, such nipple-shaped decorations are most frequently identified on flat-bottomed jars, with notable examples deriving from several tombs. for instance, in tomb m9, type i flat-bottomed jars displayed two sets of bilateral nipple-shaped decorations, each cluster consisting of two elements. in tombs m4, m5, and m11, type ii vessels were decorated with two sets of three such elements, while a type iii jar from tomb m17 featured a single nipple-shaped motif in each of two symmetrical sets. a solitary decoration also appeared on a type ii jar from tomb m13. the consistency in the application and symmetry of these motifs suggests a highly conventionalized symbolic system rather than arbitrary ornamentation.significantly, these decorated jars are often found in association with personal adornments such as jade rings and bronze finger rings, objects which themselves are frequently linked to gender and social identity in archaeological contexts. the co-occurrence of symbolically laden pottery and jewelry within the same burials provides reinforcing evidence that these interments may have belonged to women whose social and biological identities were expressed through specific material culture.it thus becomes evident that the decorative program of the pottery functioned in concert with their placement within the tomb to construct and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 9 communicate aspects of the deceased’s identity. the nipple-shaped decorations, likely embodying ideas linked to fertility, nurturing, or feminine virtue, served as a form of symbolic communication that complemented the spatial rhetoric of the burial assemblage. together, vessel type, ornamentation, and placement within the grave formed a multifaceted semiotic system—one that articulated not only personal identity but also community values, cosmological beliefs, and social hierarchies.this decorative grammar, embedded in the material remains from hongyingpan, offers a rare glimpse into the cultural mechanisms through which gender and status were ritualized and remembered in ancient highland societies. it underscores the importance of incorporating symbolic analysis into the archaeological study of mortuary customs, moving beyond typology and chronology to engage with the intimate relationships between material culture, identity, and belief systems in the past. 4. the relationship between pottery from the eastern zhou period cemetery at hongyingpan and other burials zan (2020) found that from the perspective of immateriality and form, the structural elements of a tomb—including the burial chamber, grave goods, tomb murals, and funerary vessels—constitute the fundamental components of a burial site. the quantity, diversity, and spatial distribution of grave goods serve as fundamental elements in reconstructing ancient social landscapes. these material remains not only reflect the technological capabilities, economic foundations, and exchange networks of their time but also convey deeper cultural meanings and institutional values embedded within funerary practices. through a careful analysis of the number, types, and arrangement of burial objects, it becomes possible to interpret contemporary attitudes toward death, conceptions of the afterlife, and broader understandings of human existence.moreover, the structure and composition of mortuary assemblages encapsulate vital information regarding social hierarchy, identity, and collective symbolism. the placement of objects within the tomb—whether surrounding the head, aligned along the body, or grouped in specific corners—often follows culturally prescribed norms that mirror cosmological beliefs and social order. for instance, concentration of pottery vessels in the cranial zone may signal aesthetic, ritual, or ideological priorities rooted in regional traditions. similarly, variations in the quality, quantity, and origin of grave goods can reveal disparities in wealth, status, and access to trade networks.cross-cultural comparative studies further illuminate how burial customs and material forms were shared, adapted, or transformed across different regions and periods. the presence of similar artifact types, decorative motifs, or ritual configurations among distinct archaeological cultures—such as those found in the eastern zhou sites of hongyingpan, hezhang kele, and yinzitan—attests to early forms of intercultural communication and integration. these interactions suggest that, as early as the pre-qin period, there existed dynamic processes of cultural hybridization and mutual influence that contributed to the formation of a shared civilization framework.such transnational and inter-regional material connections help trace the deep historical roots and developmental trajectories of chinese civilization. they offer an archaeological perspective on how diverse local traditions gradually www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 10 interwove, forming a complex yet unified cultural tapestry that characterized early china. the patterns of ritual practice, aesthetic expression, and technological dissemination preserved in mortuary contexts thus provide concrete evidence for understanding the mechanisms—such as trade, migration, ritual diffusion, and political expansion—that facilitated the integration of multiple ethnic and cultural groups into what would eventually become a cohesive yet pluralistic entity.in this sense, the study of grave goods extends beyond mere typology or chronological concerns. it engages with broader questions concerning civilization formation, cultural identity, and the enduring process of unity within diversity that defines the chinese nation. the hongyingpan burial site does not represent an isolated cultural phenomenon; rather, it constitutes an integral node within a broader network of regional interactions during the eastern zhou period. the cultural attributes reflected in its pottery assemblages reveal substantial affinities with several adjacent archaeological cultures, underscoring a dynamic environment of cultural exchange and integration across northwestern guizhou and northeastern yunnan. these connections manifest through multiple dimensions of material culture, including artifact morphology, production technology, decorative systems, and burial practices, collectively illustrating a shared cultural milieu despite localized variations.for instance, parallels in vessel forms—such as flat-bottomed jars and high-necked pots—can be traced to findings from the burial sites of yinzitan in weining and the kele cultural remains in hezhang. technological similarities, particularly in clay selection, hand-building techniques, and low-temperature firing, further suggest knowledge transfer or shared craft traditions among these communities. moreover, decorative motifs, such as nipple-shaped appliques, incised geometric patterns, and symmetrical compositions, exhibit striking resemblances to those documented in the shayuyingpan cemetery in zhaotong, yunnan, and the jigongshan culture, indicating either direct contact or indirect cultural diffusion.the funerary customs observed at hongyingpan, such as the placement of pottery around the head of the deceased and the inclusion of personal ornaments like bronze rings and jade pendants, also find echoes in surrounding regions. these practices imply not only a shared belief system regarding death and the afterlife but also possibly similar social structures and identity markers cutting across geographical and cultural boundaries.such widespread cultural consonance points to an active and multifaceted interaction sphere wherein ideas, technologies, and ritual behaviors were continuously negotiated and transmitted. this network of interchange would have facilitated the formation of a regionally coherent yet internally diverse cultural landscape, contributing significantly to the broader historical processes leading toward regional integration in ancient southwestern china.therefore, the archaeological record at hongyingpan provides critical evidence for understanding the mechanisms of cultural contact and adaptation in peripheral regions—zones often characterized by hybrid and innovation. it underscores the fact that even seemingly remote communities played essential roles in the larger tapestry of chinese civilization, participating in and shaping intercultural dynamics long before formal political unification. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 11 4.1 the connection between the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan and the category b tombs at shayuyingpan village, zhaotong, yunnan the hongyingpan burial ground exhibits multifaceted and systematic similarities with the category b tombs of shayuyingpan village in zhaotong, yunnan, wang (1998) strongly indicating that both sites belong to the same archaeological cultural community or engaged in exceptionally close and frequent ethnic interactions. this cultural affinity is most profoundly manifested in material culture: both sites feature predominantly sand-tempered pottery, with flat-bottomed vessels being prevalent. jars typically exhibit scalloped rims with spouts, shoulder sections decorated with nipple-shaped knobs, and uniformly bulbous, low-profile forms, all produced using relatively primitive techniques. these highly consistent artefact characteristics, particularly the decorative motif and arrangement of nipple-shaped knobs, reveal that the populations of both regions shared common aesthetic traditions, pottery-making techniques, and even symbolic expression systems. geographically, weining and zhaotong are contiguous, both situated within the cultural corridor spanning northeast yunnan and northwest guizhou. this connectivity provided a natural foundation for sustained interaction between the two areas. the convergence of cultural features likely stemmed from multiple mechanisms: a foundation of shared ancestry and cultural inheritance, coupled with frequent trade exchanges, the dissemination of techniques by artisan groups, and inter-community marital alliances. these factors further facilitated the integration and standardization of material culture and burial practices. particularly noteworthy is the placement of pottery concentrated around the head in graves, alongside the potential religious significance of the nipple-shaped knob motifs, suggesting deep-seated shared spiritual concepts and ritual behaviors.consequently, the similarities between the hongyingpan and shayuyingpan type b tombs signify that, by the eastern zhou period at the latest, a cultural community spanning modern administrative boundaries had formed in this region. this discovery not only deepens our understanding of the archaeological cultural landscape in northwest guizhou and northeast yunnan but also provides crucial empirical evidence for comprehending cultural interactions within southwest china and their historical contributions to the formation of the “multiple-unity” pattern of chinese civilization. 4.2 the connection between the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan and the jigongshan culture the cultural continuity between the hongyingpan site and the jigongshan culture provides crucial insights into the archaeological cultural evolution during the eastern zhou period in the northwestern guizhou-northeastern yunnan region. studies by zhang (2022) indicate that as a representative bronze age archaeological culture in northwest guizhou, the jigongshan culture exhibits typical characteristics including a predominant sand-tempered pottery tradition, a prevalent plain-surfaced pottery style, and a focus on flat-bottomed and ring-footed vessels, all reflecting strong local traditions. the hongyingpan burial site demonstrably perpetuates this tradition in multiple respects: not only does pottery production continue to predominantly employ sand-tempered clay, but flat-bottomed vessels remain absolutely predominant. representative artifacts—such as single-eared, folded-rim jars and slender-necked www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 12 bottles—can be regarded as direct continuations and progressive developments of comparable jigongshan culture vessels in terms of overall form, production techniques, and functional use. researcher zhang herong has explicitly stated that the hongyingpan-type remains formed and developed by absorbing substantial elements from the jigongshan culture. this assertion fully reflects the marked continuity and stability in the cultural evolution of this region. notably, the recurrent burial custom of concentrating pottery near the head of the deceased in hongyingpan tombs may also derive from local ritual traditions of the jigongshan culture or earlier phases, suggesting the enduring transmission of certain spiritual concepts and ceremonial practices in this locality. nevertheless, the hongyingpan remains represent not a mere replication of the jigongshan culture, but rather an inheritance marked by innovation and continuity with development. this reflects both the strong cultural conservatism and traditional inertia of the local community, and may also indicate that during this new historical period, the hongyingpan population selectively preserved and reconstructed their traditional culture in response to surrounding cultural influences and social transformations. the lineage between the hongyingpan remains and the jigongshan culture extends beyond the continuity of artefact forms, potentially encompassing multiple inheritances of technological systems, ritual activities, social organization, and even conceptual worlds. this provides a crucial case study for exploring the evolutionary pathways of early bronze culture in southwest china. further clarification of the relationship between the two holds profound significance for constructing the archaeological cultural genealogy of the shang-zhou period in northwest guizhou. 4.3 the connection between the hongyingpan eastern zhou cemetery and the yinzitan cemetery according to li (2006) about the yinzitan cemetery, situated merely 400 metre from the hongyingpan site, though dating slightly later (mid-warring states to late western han periods), exhibits marked cultural affinities. both cemeteries feature a core ceramic assemblage comprising sand-tempered earthenware jars, cups, and bowls, with plain-surfaced wares predominating alongside nipple-decorated pieces, predominantly flat-bottomed vessels. notably, certain burials at yinzitan similarly placed pottery near the deceased's head, a burial custom identical to that observed at hongyingpan. given the striking similarities in vessel forms, ceramic traditions, and placement positions between the two sites, it is reasonable to infer that the yinzitan cemetery likely represents a temporal and cultural continuation of hongyingpan. together, they constitute a distinct local cultural sequence spanning the eastern zhou to han periods within the zhongshui basin. the cultural landscape of the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan did not develop in isolation but was deeply embedded within a regional network of interactions. to the east, it shared a common lineage with the jigongshan culture of northwestern guizhou; to the south, it blended elements of the category b tomb culture found in the zhaotong region of northeastern yunnan; while locally, it continued the traditions established by the yinzitan burial ground. these multifaceted cultural connections vividly illustrate the ‘multiple cultures within a unified whole’ cultural pattern of the eastern zhou period in southwest china. they demonstrate that even on the periphery of the huaxia realm, ancient ethnic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 groups collectively shaped the distinctive features of regional culture through sustained exchange, mutual learning, and integration. the hongyingpan burial site stands as a crucial node for observing this dynamic cultural process. 5. conclusion as crucial material manifestations of ancient funerary practices, burial goods serve not only as indicators of the social status and position of the deceased but also as embodiment of profound religious beliefs and cultural worldviews. they offer archaeologists invaluable evidence for interpreting ancient economic systems, social organization, technological capabilities, and intercultural exchanges. within tomb archaeology, significant research attention has been devoted to the typology, composition, and assemblage of grave goods. however, the spatial distribution of these objects within burial contexts—a aspect rich with cultural meaning—has frequently been overlooked in prior scholarship. this study addresses this gap by examining the placement of pottery vessels in the eastern zhou period tombs at the hongyingpan burial site in weining county, guizhou province. it aims to interpret the funerary customs, social hierarchies, and economic patterns implied by these arrangements.findings from the hongyingpan cemetery reveal that pottery vessels were predominantly concentrated around the head area of the deceased. this patterned placement likely reflects a mortuary concept that may be termed “respecting the head as the honored locus,” suggesting a culturally rooted belief in the symbolic importance of the head in rituals related to death and ancestry. moreover, the close association between pottery forms—such as storage jars, cooking pots, and serving vessels—and daily agricultural life highlights the interplay between funerary rites, ritual activities, and subsistence economies. the presence of such pottery assemblages around the head area may also indicate practices linked to offerings or rituals intended to sustain the deceased in the afterlife. additionally, this study investigates specific decorative features of the pottery, such as nipple-shaped protrusions on the shoulders of certain vessels. these elements are examined as potential markers of social identity, including gender distinctions, clan symbols, or status indicators. preliminary inferences suggest that such ornamentation may correlate with male burials, possibly representing masculine symbolism or roles associated with warfare, hunting, or social leadership. the symbolic resonance of these decorations, alongside their technological execution, provides insight into the cultural values and social narratives of the communities using the hongyingpan cemetery. to contextualize these findings, a preliminary comparative analysis has been conducted with contemporaneous archaeological cultures across the region. this includes the category b tombs at shayuyingpan village in zhaotong, yunnan, the jigongshan culture, and the yinzitan cemetery in weining. the comparison focuses on vessel morphology, decorative styles, raw material selection, production techniques, and spatial organization within graves. these analyses reveal notable similarities in ceramic forms and mortuary practices, suggesting shared cultural traditions or active intercultural communication across a broader geographic area during the eastern zhou period. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 the evidence points to the possibility of extensive cultural exchanges and the emergence of regional traditions within this sphere of ancient southwestern china. however, the exact mechanisms of interaction—whether through trade, migration, marital alliances, or conflict—remain unclear. similarly, the degree and direction of cultural influence among these groups require further investigation. while the shared characteristics in material culture and funerary behavior suggest interconnected communities, the precise social and historical processes underlying these patterns demand verification through future archaeological discoveries and more comprehensive, interdisciplinary research. in conclusion, this study emphasizes that the spatial organization of burial goods constitutes a critical dimension for decoding the cultural, ritual, and social frameworks of ancient societies. beyond mere inventory or typology classification, the intentional placement of objects within mortuary contexts offers a rich symbolic language through which communities articulated beliefs about death, identity, and cosmology. the hongyingpan case study exemplifies this approach, providing not only a window into the ritual behaviors and social organization of eastern zhou communities in the guizhou region but also underscoring the active role of this area in broader inter-regional dialogues. the patterns observed—such as the concentration of pottery near the head and the recurrence of gendered symbolic decorations—reveal a society deeply engaged with concepts of hierarchy, ancestry, and agricultural spirituality. moreover, the site’s material culture illustrates how localized practices intersected with influences from neighboring regions, including northeastern yunnan and other parts of southwestern china, reflecting a dynamic landscape of cultural adaptation and exchange. these interactions suggest that even peripherally located communities were integral to the network of cultural flows that characterized the eastern zhou period. to advance these insights, future research should move beyond traditional typology studies and embrace more integrated methodologies. combining detailed technological analyses—such as fabric composition and manufacturing techniques—with contextual and spatial approaches can uncover deeper narratives about production processes, consumption practices, and ritual meanings. furthermore, employing comparative frameworks across regional archaeological cultures will help clarify the nature and direction of cultural influences, revealing whether similarities stem from shared traditions, exchange, migration, or convergent evolution. interdisciplinary methods, including archaeological dating, chemical sourcing of materials, and ethnographic analogy, will also be essential in constructing a richer, more nuanced understanding of these ancient communities. ultimately, such holistic approaches will not only illuminate the funerary practices of the hongyingpan people but also contribute to broader questions about social complexity and cultural integration in china. note figure 1 and 2, along with table 1 and 2, are derived from the arrangement and decoration of pottery from the eastern zhou tombs at hongyingpan, as documented in the guizhou field reports (1993-2003). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 references li, f. (2006). the analyse of the yinzitan cemetery in weining guizhou (master's thesis). sichuan university, sichuan. liu, x. d., zhang, h. r., & luo, e. h. (2007). the eastern zhou cemetery at hongyingpan, weining county, guizhou . archaeology, (02), 7-18+97-99+2. wang, h. (1998). brief report on the excavation of the yingpan ancient tomb cluster in zhaotong, yunnan. in yunnan archaeological papers. yunnan:yunnan nationalities publishing house. xia, b. g., qiu, m. h., yang, l. j., & zeng, x. f. (2018). a study of the identity of class b tomb owner at kele of hezhang county—from the perspective of funerary objects' layout. journal of shaoyang university(social science edition), 17(01), 99-107. xu, l. (2020). funeral customs of qin tombs in xinfeng as evidenced by the placement of burial goods (master's thesis). minzu university of china, beijing. zan, j. g. (n.d.). a preliminary discussion on the placement of pottery in small and medium-sized han dynasty tombs in shandong region. china national exhibition, (12), 195-196. zhang, h. r. (2024). communication and inheritance of jigongshan culture. guizhou ethnic studies, 43(02), 184. 5. conclusion references liu, x. d., zhang, h. r., & luo, e. h. (2007). the xu, l. (2020). funeral customs of qin tombs in xin advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 54 original paper the irrecoverable trauma of emily: a study of trauma in william faulkner’s a rose for emily zhekang jin1,a,* 1 school of international studies, hangzhou normal university, hangzhou, china * corresponding author, e-mail: 3120264317@qq.com received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 14, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p54 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p54 abstract william faulkner’s a rose for emily is a short story that describes the tragic life experiences of emily, who goes through various traumas and becomes psychologically distorted. based on judith herman’s work, trauma and recovery, this thesis first analyzes the traumatic symptoms of emily, using herman’s three main categories of traumatic symptoms, which includes the symptom of hyperarousal, intrusion and constriction. then, the causes of emily’s trauma will be analyzed, focusing on analyzing the constraints of family, the social oppression and isolation, and the betrayal by her lover. ultimately, under the guidance of judith herman’s three stage model of trauma recovery, this thesis manages to demonstrate the inevitable failure of emily’s trauma recovery, focusing on analyzing emily’s failure in the establishment of safety, remembrance and mourning, and the reconnection with ordinary life. keywords a rose for emily, william faulkner, trauma, recovery, inevitable failure 1. introduction a rose for emily is a short story written by william faulkner, who was awarded the 1949 nobel prize in literature for his literary achievement and is now hailed as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. through a non-linear narrative structure, this short story depicts the life of emily grierson, a faded southern belle living in the southern town of jefferson. emily encounters many misfortunes in her life, including her father’s oppression, societal pressure, her lover’s betrayal and so on. these experiences cause irrecoverable trauma to her, leading her into a state of psychological distortion and perversion. at the age of seventy-four, she passes away after living an isolated life and failing to recover from her trauma. since the publication of this short story, it has drawn significant attention from scholars across various mailto:a3120264317@qq.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 fields, who have analyzed this work from various perspectives, including ethical literary criticism, the narrative techniques, the gothic style, feminism, existentialism, etc. however, traumatic elements in this story receive less attention and few studies have directly looked at the traumatic symptoms of emily. therefore, this thesis attempts to analyze the irrecoverable trauma of emily, thus systematically exploring the psychological mechanisms behind her trauma and forging new pathways for the application of trauma studies in the field of literary analysis. trauma, a term widely used in the realm of literary criticism and psychology, originally refers to an injury to living tissue caused by the external force. later, as contemporary trauma studies progress, the meaning of trauma expands to represent the intangible mental injury that cannot be seen or physically sensed. many scholars have defined this term in their studies. according to cathy caruth, an important scholar of trauma studies, trauma is “an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which the response to the event occurs in the often delayed, uncontrolled repetitive appearances of hallucination and other intrusive phenomena” (caruth, 1996). this definition focuses on the mental symptoms following trauma experience, which is now a commonly understood interpretation of trauma. moreover, freud, the pioneer of trauma study, defines trauma as “any excitations from outside which are powerful enough to break through the protective shield. there is no long any possibility of preventing the mental apparatus from being flooded with large amounts of stimulus” (freud, 1961, p. 23). in addition, based on the studies of these scholars, judith herman, a famous psychiatrist, not only presents a summary of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms but also offers various therapeutic methods for the recovery of traumatized person in her book trauma and recovery. her theories are widely used in the fields of literary criticism and psychology, and therefore serve as the theoretical basis of this paper. considering the above information, this paper will first analyze the traumatic symptoms of emily, using herman’s three main categories of traumatic symptoms. then, the causes of emily’s trauma will be analyzed. in the final part, this thesis will use herman’s three stage model of trauma recovery to demonstrate the inevitable failure of emily’s recovery. 2. the traumatic symptoms of emily traumatic symptoms encompass both emotional and physical aspects. the various trauma can result in intense feelings, affecting one’s mindset, actions and perception of the world. generally, the traumatic people often behave in ways that reflect their past traumatic experiences and show some specific symptoms. herman points out that “the many symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder fall into three main categories. these are hyperarousal, intrusion and constriction” (herman, 1997, p. 35). in a rose for emily, emily has been through a series of traumas, showing the three symptoms to varying degrees. 2.1 hyperarousal the first cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder is hyperarousal, an abnormal state of increased responsiveness to stimuli. according to herman, “after a traumatic experience, the human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 56 system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment. physiological arousal continues unabated” (herman, 1997, p. 35). hyperarousal causes people who have been traumatized to react irritably to small provocation. they are more sensitive to noise and experience difficulties with sleep. some may become fractious and lose their temper easily. the traumatized people are more vigilant than those who have not experienced trauma, focusing their attention on potential dangers. in a rose for emily, emily’s symptom of hyperarousal can be seen in her reactions to certain stimuli. one significant manifestation of emily’s hyperarousal is her extreme vigilance towards the intrusion into her secluded life. after murdering homer barron, emily locks herself in her house and withdraws from society. as a result, she knows nothing about the changes in the social system and holds the firm belief that she has no taxes in jefferson as colonel sartoris has remitted her taxes as a gesture of respect to her family. in her secluded house, she conceals her perverted acts of crime and clings to the past, refusing to acknowledge the present-day authorities who, years later, attempt to collect the due taxes. when a delegation from the board of aldermen arrives at her home, her reaction is described with a sense of indifference and defensiveness, reflecting her symptom of hyperarousal. “she did not ask them to sit. she just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain”(faulkner, 1995, p. 81). it’s clear that she is extremely wary of this group of people and adopts a cold and indifferent attitude towards them. then, when the delegation continues to reason with her, emily immediately loses her temper and kicks them out of the house. she says, “see colonel sartoris. i have no taxes in jefferson. tobe! show these gentlemen out” (faulkner, 1995, p. 81). it can be seen from these words that, though the delegation communicates with emily in a respectful manner, she still reacts strongly to it and becomes very irritable. this shows her extreme vigilance towards other people, which is the symptom of hyperarousal. 2.2 intrusion intrusion reflects the lasting impact of the traumatic moment. even though the traumatic event happened a long time ago, the traumatized person still can’t stop thinking about the painful experience. according to herman, “long after the danger is past, traumatized people relive the event as though it were continually recurring in the present. they cannot resume the normal course of their lives, for the trauma repeatedly interrupts” (herman, 1997, p. 37). for emily, she is constantly disturbed by the memories of her past traumas. emily’s refusal to accept her father’s death and the refusal to allow his body to be removed immediately is a notable example of her intrusion. as a southern belle, emily is confined to her house by her father and is still single at the age of thirty. when her father is still alive, her fate is determined by him. her father imposes traditional values on her, firmly controls her life and exerts pressure on her, causing her great trauma. he prevents emily from pursuing her own love, turning down many men who expressed their love for emily. as a result, people in the town believe that “none of the young men were quite good enough for miss emily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 57 and such” (faulkner, 1995, p. 82). over time, emily’s negative outlook on her life gradually develops and she becomes extremely obedient to her father. eventually, the traumatic memories caused by her father’s oppression transform into her mental pillar. when her father passes away and this mental pillar collapses, all of her traumatic memories, however, do not disappear. in fact, these traumatic memories have become an indispensable part of her life. in order to rebuild her mental pillar, she forces herself to believe that her father is still alive and has not passed away. “miss emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. she told them that her father was not dead” (faulkner, 1995, p. 83). it can be seen from these words that she is constantly disturbed by her past traumatic memories and even sees these traumatic memories as the foundation and pillar of her life, showing the symptom of intrusion. 2.3 constriction constriction, the numbing response of surrender, is the third cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. according to herman, “when a person is completely powerless, and any form of resistance is futile, she may go into a state of surrender. the system of self-defense shuts down entirely” (herman, 1997, p. 42). in the face of unavoidable danger, people who are haunted by trauma may not only show fear and anger but also enter a state of numbness and calmness. additionally, one significant impact of constriction is its interference with an individual’s ability to plan for the future. herman points out that “constrictive symptoms also interfere with anticipation and planning for the future” (herman, 1997, p. 46). when someone is trapped in a state of numbness, they may find it difficult to set goals for themselves in a rose for emily, the most prominent traumatic symptom of emily is constriction. after the death of her father and her lover, emily’s actions and behaviors demonstrate a clear sense of surrender and numbness in the face of her past traumas. she spends her days locked inside her house, refusing to communicate with the outside world and ignoring any visitors to her house. “after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. a few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the negro man” (faulkner, 1995, p. 82). from this description, it can be seen that emily is immersed in her own world and tries to escape from the reality. later, when people attend emily’s funeral, they discover the secret that emily had poisoned homer and slept with his corpse for decades. in fact, after suffering all kinds of traumas, emily imprisons herself in the fantasy of her “happy” marriage with homer. she has become completely numb, unable to distinguish between illusion and reality and has lost her sanity. therefore, it is evident that emily is completely unaware of her current situation and gives up on planning for the future, rotting away in her own house. this extreme act of secluding herself can be seen as a very serious symptom of constriction. as a result of her constriction, emily is trapped in a world of delusion and gives up her plans for the future. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 58 3. causes of emily’s trauma throughout her life, emily has encountered numerous traumas, which are caused by various factors. in this section, this paper will analyze the causes of emily’s trauma, focusing on analyzing the constraints of family, the social oppression and isolation, and the betrayal by her lover. 3.1 constraints of family emily’s trauma stems from her family. according to the family systems theory, “the emotional symptoms of an individual are an expression of the emotional symptoms of the family, which are often embedded in patterns of behaviors from past generations” (haefner, 2014). therefore, the family environment has a tremendous influence on an individual’s life and can cause people to experience emotional distress, which may lead to the emergence of trauma. emily’s father is a traditional southern aristocrat who firmly believes in southern traditional values, viewing women as the property of men. he tightly controls emily and keeps her living in an oppressive family environment, depriving her of the right to pursue love. to achieve this, emily’s father drives away all the young men who tries to pursue emily, which makes the townspeople think of them as a tableau: “miss emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip” (faulkner, 1995, p. 83). from this description, it can be seen that emily’s father has managed to create an oppressive family environment in his family. as a result, emily loses her autonomy in this environment and becomes a tool of her father, causing her great trauma. moreover, according to bowen’s family systems theory, the process of individual growth is referred to as the differentiation of self in the family and “bowen proposed that the level of chronic anxiety correlated with the level of differentiation of self” (haefner, 2014). in a free family environment, individuals can attain self-development and progress towards maturity, whereas in an oppressive family environment, they are denied the freedom to grow independently and become reliant on their parents. as the daughter of a noble family, emily is taught how to be a proper southern belle from a young age. also, every word and action of emily’s father subtly influences and controls her thoughts, causing her to willingly accept his manipulation and lose her independent spirit. therefore, emily’s personal growth is impeded and her mindset is stuck in an immature state. when her father dies, emily fails to accept the reality and even tries to deny it. in fact, her immaturity and excessive reliance on her father have made her quite vulnerable. as a result, her father’s death has inflicted a profound trauma upon her. and it’s clear that without the constraints of her family, the trauma she experiences would not be so severe. 3.2 social oppression and isolation emily’s trauma also stems from social oppression and isolation. social oppression can be defined as the systemic and institutional subjugation of individuals or groups based on their social identity, such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or disability. after the civil war, the southern aristocracy is in decline, and emily, as a member of the southern aristocracy, becomes a representative of the remaining www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 59 southern spirit. at this time, the people in the town have not moved away from the traditional values of the south, and many still believe in the southern traditional values. therefore, they regard emily as a symbol of their past southern spirit and believe that emily should adhere to southern traditions. “alive, miss emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (faulkner, 1995, p. 80). as a result, when emily tries to pursue her own love and dates with a day laborer from the north, the townspeople begin to oppose this behavior and believe that she has fallen. some of the ladies even say that “it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people” (faulkner, 1995, p. 85). this social oppression hurts emily’s dignity as a noblewoman. although she still puts on her noble demeanor and “carried her head high enough” (faulkner, 1995, p. 84), her heart has been greatly traumatized. this noble tradition, which she is so proud of and is respected by the townspeople, becomes the source of her pain under the great oppression of the society. in addition, social isolation, a result of her previous painful experiences, exacerbates emily’s trauma and leads to further harm. social isolation refers to “the absence or paucity of contacts and interactions between a person and a social network” (gardiner, geldenhuys, & gott, 2018). as previously mentioned, the most prominent traumatic symptom of emily is constriction. the symptom of constriction prevents her from interacting with the people around her, leading to the absence of contacts between her and the society. therefore, social isolation appears in emily’s situation. it deprives emily of opportunities for emotional support, leaving her more vulnerable to negative thoughts and memories associated with her trauma. in turn, her indifferent and repulsive attitude causes people in the town to fear her and distance themselves from her. as time goes by, she is described by the townspeople as an “inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse” 6 person. this forms a vicious cycle, which brings more harm to emily and deepens the extent of her trauma. 3.3 lover’s betrayal according to the betrayal trauma theory, “relational traumas–traumatic events that occur in the context of an ongoing relationship, and which involve the betrayal of important bonds are more highly correlated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other symptoms of emotional distress than are non-relational traumas” (freyd, klest, & allard, 2005). it can be seen that the trauma caused by betrayal in interpersonal relationships is much more severe than that caused by other factors. therefore, emotional betrayal is likely to bring great trauma to the victims. emily, the poor woman who has suffered so much trauma, is completely shattered by the trauma brought about by homer’s betrayal, losing her own soul. after her father’s death, emily’s self-awareness wakes up for a short period. she bravely breaks tradition and chooses to enter into a romantic relationship with homer, a foreman from the north. despite the social oppression she faces, she persists in pursuing her love. they go on outings together and attend gatherings. their love brings her a new sense of hope. therefore, she wholeheartedly devotes herself to this love, putting all her heart into it and even preparing the necessary items for their marriage. “we learned that miss emily had been to the jeweler’s and ordered a man’s toilet set in silver, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 with the letters h.b. on each piece. two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing” (faulkner, 1995, p. 85). however, the passion and the dedication she offers are met with heartless rejection and betrayal. the harsh reality is that homer is merely playing with this romance and has no desire to marry emily. this betrayal utterly shatters emily’s fragile self-esteem as a noblewoman. in fact, constrained by the ideals of being a southern belle, emily believes that finding a husband can change her current helpless situation and help fill the void left by her father’s death. however, homer’s betrayal undoubtedly turns her dreams into ashes. this emotional trauma causes her to completely give up on her own life, shattering her last psychological line of defense. at this point, emily has already lost her soul, falling into her symptom of constriction. 4. the inevitable failure of emily’s trauma recovery suffering from a series of traumas, emily has gone through many difficulties and hardships. for emily, her tragic ending is inevitable and her trauma will never recover. in judith herman’s trauma and recovery, there are three main stages in trauma recovery: “recovery unfolds in three stages. the central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. the central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. the central task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life” (herman, 1997, p. 155). obviously, emily has failed in each of these three recovery stages. based on herman’s theory, this paper will analyze the inevitable failure of emily’s recovery from the following three perspectives: failure in the establishment of safety, failure in remembrance and mourning, and failure in the reconnection with ordinary life. 4.1 failure in the establishment of safety the traumatized people often experience a deep sense of insecurity within their own bodies and feel unsafe in their interpersonal relationships with other people. according to herman, “the first task of recovery is to establish the survivor’s safety. this task takes precedence over all others, for no other therapeutic work can possibly succeed if safety hasn’t been adequately secured” (herman, 1997, p. 159). thus, the initial step of recovery is the establishment of safety. in herman’s theory, “establishing safety begins by focusing on control of the body and gradually moves outward toward control of the environment” (herman, 1997, p. 160). the control of the body includes “attention to basic health needs, regulation of bodily functions such as sleep, eating, and exercise and control of self-destructive behaviors” (herman, 1997, p. 160) and the control of the environment includes “the establishment of a safe living situation” (herman, 1997, p. 155). as no one can build a safe environment alone, “a component of social support” (herman, 1997, p. 155) is needed in the control of the environment. therefore, to recover from her trauma, emily has to first control her bodily condition. then, she should try to establish a safe environment by developing a trusting relationship with others. unfortunately, emily has failed in both of these aspects. first, emily has failed in controlling her bodily condition. initially, emily is a slender traditional noblewoman, attracting numerous young men. “miss emily a slender figure in white in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 61 background” (faulkner, 1995, p. 84). after her father’s death, emily cuts her hair short and looks like a girl. during this period, her self-awareness wakes up and her body is still in good condition. “when we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows: sort of tragic and serene.” (faulkner, 1995, p. 83). however, from homer’s rejection of her love, her body has undergone a huge change, and she begins to lose control of her body. “she was still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eye sockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look” (faulkner, 1995, p. 84). after homer’s death, emily isolates herself from the outside world and spends her days in her house. under this great trauma, she is completely unable to control her body and emotions and sleeps with homer’s corpse, the smell of which even begins to affect the neighbors. living in this extremely detrimental environment, emily makes no changes, refuses to go out and has almost perverse lifestyle habits. over time, this very unhealthy and oppressive living environment causes her body to deteriorate significantly. therefore, when the deputation arrives at her home, emily’s terrifying bodily condition gave these people a big shock. “a small, fat woman in black…her skeleton was small and spare…she looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough” (faulkner, 1995, p. 81). from this description, it can be seen that emily completely fails to control her body, which prevents her from establishing a sense of safety in the first stage of recovery and deprives her trauma recovery of the most fundamental physical foundation. additionally, emily never tries to build a trusting relationship with others, failing to establish a sense of safety in interpersonal relationships. she refuses to engage with anyone, and cuts off all the possibilities of social support, making it impossible for her to establish a safe environment. this will be analyzed in a detailed way later in the part of “failure in the reconnection with ordinary life”. in summary, emily has failed in both the control of her bodily condition and the control of the environment. she is unable to fulfill the recovery task of establishing safety in the first stage, which undermines the foundation of her trauma recovery and makes the subsequent two stages of recovery even more difficult to carry on. 4.2 failure in remembrance and mourning remembrance and mourning is the central task of the second stage. in the second stage of recovery, “the survivor tells the story of the trauma. she tells it completely, in depth and in detail” (herman, 1997, p. 175). it can be seen from herman’s words that sharing traumatic stories is of vital importance in the recovery process. in fact, retelling trauma stories helps the patients to integrate their traumatic memories into their life stories and is crucial for recovery. it allows survivors to understand their traumatic experiences, turning their stories into a testimony for healing and relieving them of the burden of traumatic past. moreover, telling the trauma story inevitably plunges the survivor into profound grief. this process of mourning is the most necessary and the most dreaded task of this stage of recovery. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 in a rose for emily, emily never retells her traumatic stories or mourns for her past traumas. after her father’s death, emily does not release her grief through storytelling. she is tightly controlled by the pain caused by the trauma and buries it deep within her heart, which prevents her from expressing her emotions and mourning for her father. in fact, she even attempts to escape her mourning for her father by imagining that her father is still alive. “miss emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. she told them that her father was not dead” (faulkner, 1995, p. 83). as previously mentioned, her symptom of intrusion constantly disturbs her, making it difficult for her to break free from her own world and mourn for her father. later, after being rejected by homer, emily does not retell the betrayal trauma she experiences to anyone. she keeps this trauma buried deep within her, causing psychological distortion and ultimately poisoning homer. this perverse behavior may appear to fulfill emily’s desire to be with homer through marriage, but in reality, it further intensifies her trauma and plunges her deeper into her own fantasy world. also, as the perpetrator of homer’s death, emily cannot disclose her crime to others, leaving her with no opportunity to share and retell her traumatic story. this accumulation of her great trauma and turbulent emotions prevents her from mourning for homer’s death. she remains completely controlled by the memories of her trauma and even sleeps with homer’s corpse until her own death. “then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. one of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron gray hair” (faulkner, 1995, p. 88). it can be seen that emily always believes that homer is still alive and will never mourn for him or for her own traumatic experiences. it’s evident that emily’s second stage of trauma recovery also winds up in failure. she fails to complete the task of retelling her stories and mourning. this makes it impossible for her to express her trauma and understand her traumatic experiences, leaving her trauma with no chance of being treated. 4.3 failure in reconnection with ordinary life reconnection with ordinary life is the central task of the third stage. according to herman, the survivors must “develop new relationships”, “find anew a sustaining faith” and “build a new life within a radically different culture from the one they have left behind” (herman, 1997, p. 196). in the first stage, the focus is on achieving basic safety. however, by the third stage, survivors become prepared to actively engage with others. therefore, in the third stage, the survivors are already able to trust others and begin to risk deepening their relationships. for them, reconnecting with others can foster a sense of belonging and offer them a chance to express their emotions, ultimately aiding in their recovery from trauma. however, emily does not fit into the category of these survivors who already possesses the foundational conditions for recovery. therefore, her third stage of recovery is bound to be a failure. it’s clear that emily has already failed in the first two stages, which means that she has neither established her basic safety nor integrated her traumatic experiences into her life experiences, leaving her completely lacking in the basis for reconnecting with others. as previously mentioned, emily stops going out after homer’s death and refuses to make contact with anyone else in her town. therefore, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 63 only person who has a connection with emily is the negro man, who is responsible for taking care of her daily needs. “the only sign of life about the place was the negro man, a young man then, going in and out with a market basket” (faulkner, 1995, p. 82). however, their relationship is clearly limited to that of master and servant. during that period, in the confines of traditional southern beliefs, black people were still seen as subordinate to white people and it was not possible for them to establish deep friendships with their masters. as a consequence, despite the frequent visits of the negro man, emily has not formed any trusting relationships with anyone and she has completely isolated herself from the society. in fact, severe social disconnectedness has occurred to her. “social disconnectedness can be characterized by a lack of contact with others. it is indicated by situational factors, like a small social network, infrequent social interaction, and lack of participation in social activities and groups” [8]. this causes her to develop a strong sense of fear and aversion towards social interaction, making her unwilling to reestablish connections with others. as a result, her third stage of recovery becomes a distant hope. she cannot even establish the basic connections with other people in the first stage of recovery, let alone actively build trusting relationships with others. in summary, without the foundation of the first and second stages of recovery, emily cannot accomplish the task of the third stage and cannot establish trusting relationships with others. up to this point, based on the discussion of the three stages, it can be concluded that all three stages of emily’s trauma recovery have ended in failure, which proves that her trauma is irrecoverable. 5. conclusion in conclusion, in a rose for emily, william faulkner depicts the tragic life experiences of emily. she goes through a series of traumas and becomes psychologically distorted. after failing to progress through all three stages of trauma recovery, her trauma becomes permanently irrecoverable. based on herman’s trauma theory, this paper has thoroughly sought out and analyzed the traumatic symptoms of emily, including her hyperarousal, intrusion and constriction. after analyzing the causes of emily’s trauma, this paper uses herman’s three stage model of trauma recovery to demonstrate the inevitable failure of emily’s recovery, discovering emily’s failure in the establishment of safety, remembrance and mourning, and the reconnection with ordinary life. by combining trauma theories to analyze this short story, this thesis has systematically explored the traumatic elements in this work and analyzed the psychological mechanisms behind emily’s irrecoverable trauma, paving new way for the application of trauma studies in the field of literary analysis. references caruth, c. (1996). unclaimed experience: trauma, narrative, and history. baltimore: john hopkins university press. cornwell, e. y., & waite, l. j. (2009). social disconnectedness, perceived isolation, and health among older adults. journal of health and social behavior, 50(1), 31-48. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 faulkner, w. (1995). collected stories. new york: vintage. freud, s. (1961). beyond the pleasure principle. london: the hogarth press. freyd, j. j., klest, b., & allard, c. b. (2005). betrayal trauma: relationship to physical health, psychological distress, and a written disclosure intervention. journal of trauma & dissociation the official journal of the international society for the study of dissociation, 6(3), 83-104. gardiner, c., geldenhuys, g., & gott, m. (2018). interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness among older people: an integrative review. health & social care in the community, 26(2), 147-157. haefner j. (2014). an application of bowen family systems theory. issues in mental health nursing, 35(11), 835-841. herman, j. (1997). trauma and recovery. new york: basic books. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 84 original paper research on the protection and development of traditional villages in xijie village, zhuxian town, henan province in the context of rural tourism yanjun meng 1 (note 1) 1 college of applied science and technology, beijing union university, beijing, china received: june 13, 2023 accepted: august 09, 2023 online published: august 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p84 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p84 abstract traditional villages are the crystallisation of the development of china’s agricultural civilisation, carrying profound historical and cultural values. however, under the wave of urbanisation and informatisation, traditional villages in china have suffered considerable impacts, with some of them being destroyed and many difficulties arising from their development. as a wing of mass tourism, rural tourism, inspired by the national rural revitalisation strategy, plays a powerful role in promoting rural revitalisation. developing tourism with traditional villages is both a protection strategy and a development opportunity. on the occasion of the announcement of the list of six national traditional villages, this paper selects xijie village, the only remaining national traditional village in kaifeng city, henan province, as the research object. on the basis of research on the basic situation of xijie village, it analyses the current situation of its protection and development, and finally puts forward corresponding suggestions and strategies for its protection and tourism development. keywords traditional villages, rural tourism, xijie village, conservation and development 1. introduction traditional villages are a relatively new concept, a product of our country’s farming civilisation for thousands of years, representing the historical, cultural and socio-economic values of a certain region, a carrier of our cultural memory and a concrete carrier of our nostalgia. china has identified the first batch of traditional villages since 2012, and so far there have been six batches of traditional villages, and the list of traditional villages has 8,155 traditional villages, and the identification of traditional villages is not only in the protection of history and culture, but also rises to the level of the national law, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. and the protection of traditional villages has played a great role in the protection and restoration of villages’ historical buildings, cultural customs and vernacular characteristics. the protection of traditional villages plays a great role in the protection and restoration of historical buildings, cultural practices and local characteristics. in the list of traditional villages, 275 villages in henan have been selected, accounting for 3.37%. these villages include the well-known guo liang village, chen jiagou village, the birthplace of taijiquan, and so on. the distribution of traditional villages in henan is very uneven, with 275 national-level traditional villages distributed in 18 provincial municipalities, but kaifeng city has one village listed as a national-level traditional village in xijie village of zhuxian town. traditional villages are the roots of our culture, and the current tourism development of traditional villages is not yet in place. with the rapid increase of urbanisation and the vigorous development of rural tourism, the contradiction between the protection and development of traditional villages is becoming more and more significant. traditional villages are leaders in the development of rural tourism because of their own historical, cultural, economic and other values. in the process of development, if the relationship between development and protection is not handled well, it is likely to produce a series of problems. such as tourism pressure is too large and the contradiction between the infrastructure, in the process of development, the villagers’ short-term interests and the protection of the contradiction between the payment. grasp the historical opportunity under the national strategy of rural revitalisation, use the development of rural tourism to really drive the protection and development of traditional villages, to avoid those historical villages with a long history and rich cultural heritage disappeared in the rolling torrent of urbanisation, so that the traditional villages are better protected, the quality of life of the villagers is better, as well as to let the two to achieve a virtuous circle. this paper studies the tourism development of traditional villages in xijie village, zhuxian town, kaifeng city, hoping to provide a reference for the protection and development of traditional villages of the same type. 2. status of development of xijie village 2.1 overview of villages the huanghuai plain is the birthplace of chinese agricultural civilisation, and the plains also carry agricultural culture. kaifeng is in the hinterland of the north china plain, and the only national traditional village in kaifeng is studied to provide a reference for the development of traditional villages in the plains. traditional villages have multiple values in the new era, the countryside is a good place for people in the city life to relieve their body and mind, and traditional villages can bring physical and mental comfort and a sense of belonging to traditional culture to people living a fast-paced life. taking xijie village as an example, the study of traditional villages in the plains can bring people closer to the only national-level traditional village under the ancient capital kaifeng, and let people understand this historical and cultural village that has been forgotten under the halo of the ancient capital, and the study of the protection of the village can enhance the vitality of the village. combined www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. with the current development of the village, the existing problems are analysed and solved on the basis of exploring ways suitable for the development of the village. seize the opportunity of rural tourism and at the same time, seize the best way to protect traditional villages, and provide a way to protect and utilise traditional villages with different histories and cultures. located in the southeast of zhuxian town, xiangfu district, kaifeng city, henan province, xijie village is part of zhuxian town, one of the four famous towns in the ming and qing dynasties, and is a typical village in the central plains where hui people gather. 2.1.1 physical geography xijie village is located in the huanghuai plain of the north china plain, which is part of the yellow river alluvial fan plain and belongs to the centre of the yellow panhandle, where the terrain is flat and the soil is rich and fertile, and the canal river, the historical river of kaifeng area, passes through the village, and the village is conveniently located in the central plains with convenient traffic, and the s219 provincial highway passes along the village, which provides a strong basic condition for the development of the village. the climate of xijie village belongs to the temperate continental monsoon climate, in addition to the influence of climate regulation by the yellow river and other rivers, with four distinct seasons, hot and rainy summers, and cold and less snowy winters, which is suitable for the growth of the cash crop of watermelon, and is also the origin of the famous kaifeng watermelon. 2.1.2 history xijie village has a very long history, as early as in the neolithic age there were footprints of human activities here, and gave birth to a brilliant civilisation, in the spring and autumn period xijie village began to have early settlements. since the tang and song dynasties, xijie village has been a major waterway in kaifeng area, and commercial activities were born and facilitated by water, making it a famous commercial gathering area. during the northern song dynasty, kaifeng became the capital of the country, and xijie village, as the southern gate of the capital, attracted a lot of people to come here, the most important of which was the hui ancestors from shaanxi who came here for travelling, doing business, settling down, and continuously integrating and developing, becoming the earliest ethnic settlement in the area. since then, through the continuous development of the times, the civilisation of the central plains in kaifeng has gone from prosperity to decline, and the once bustling prosperity has gradually receded, but the local people have been living and reproducing for generations, and it has become a traditional village with ethnic characteristics, and more than 90% of the population of the village are hui. 2.1.3 architectural features the architectural style of xijie village is based on the rural architectural style of the central plains, with the unique hui islamic architectural features. residences are basically along the street with large windows on the first floor of the square, and some built along the street attic style with flying eaves of the ancient buildings, the ancient village to the ming and qing dynasties, the building colour is grey, giving a sense of simplicity and a pure sense of history. reflecting the national characteristics of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. architectural content in the windows will reflect the semi-circular and quadrilateral window structure, residential compound above the gate and on both sides of the porcelain plate will be engraved with islamic arabic couplets. the layout of the village is centred on the mosque in the village, which is the landmark of xijie village and a national key cultural relics protection unit. the mosque was first built in the northern song dynasty, and then expanded and rebuilt in the ming and qing dynasties, making it a 1,000-year-old mosque. this mosque is a courtyard style building, is a combination of islamic culture and local culture, this architectural pattern of the mosque is rare in the country. with the ancient mosque as the core, xijie village expands in all directions, forming a traditional historical neighbourhood with national characteristics such as beijing goods street, tongfang street and xidajie street, which has a strong islamic style and traditional appearance. 2.1.4 cultural folklore xijie village is a village of hui people, islamic culture is relatively strong, the mosque in the village is a place for villagers to carry out cultural activities, villagers will regularly hold traditional lion and dragon dance performances and other folk performances. xijie village is located in zhuxian town, the village’s intangible cultural heritage of woodblock prints is also a feature of the village, zhuxian town, the woodblock prints are the root of chinese woodblock prints, has a long history, and superb production techniques, there are many old shops in the village to make woodblock prints. in addition, the traditional food of xijie village, “halal snap bowls”, also known as “halal ten bowls of snap meat”, is not to be missed when travelling here. the cuisine is based on beef and mutton, with 10 bowls of buckled meat, each with a different taste, and has been reported and promoted by many food programmes. 2.2 analysis of the current problems in west street village there are still many problems in the development process of xijie village, in general the village is still in zhuxian town, part of the comprehensive tourism area, but the development of tourism in the village is still in the initial stage, the development of the village itself as well as the integration of the process of the development of tourism there are a number of problems, the village is still in the initial stage. 2.2.1 single industrial structure and low utilisation of tourism resources at present, the main industries in xijie village are still supported by traditional agriculture and the emerging tourism industry, in addition to some scattered individual household operations. however, the development of the industry is relatively homogeneous and lacks systematisation and scale. in terms of agricultural products, in addition to common cash crops such as wheat and corn, the village also produces a unique agricultural product-watermelon. despite the outstanding quality of watermelon, its development has not formed a systematic chain, and it is only cultivated by villagers individually, which is insufficient for the cultivation of special agricultural products. as a result, there is a lack of stable sales channels to protect the villagers’ income, which is not conducive to the development of rural tourism. for the development of tourism in xijie village, tourism resources are relatively abundant, however, in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. the process of development, the utilisation rate and deep excavation of these resources are still insufficient. the village is mainly supported by islamic resources as the core, forming a relatively single tourism industry. tourists often only rush to see the temple landscape, the lack of in-depth tour experience. historical, cultural and folklore resources have not been effectively integrated into the tourism experience, and folklore performances are only grandly presented at traditional festivals, failing to fully integrate their roles in tourism development. regional tourism integration is low, tourism development lacks comprehensive synergy and fails to give full play to its driving effect, tourism resources have not been comprehensively developed, resulting in insufficient development momentum. most tourists only visit the temples or buy woodblock prints, and stay for a limited time. 2.2.2 low quality of the cultural environment in historic districts located on the southeastern edge of zhuxian town, xijie village has not been integrated into the vast commercial system of zhuxian town, the scale of commercial activities in the village is limited, and the commercial environment has not yet formed an obvious scale effect. until 2016, xijie village was selected as one of the fourth batch of national traditional villages. before that, no different from other general villages, although xijie village has rich resources, but failed to give full play to them. after being ranked among the national traditional villages, the xijie village historical neighbourhood has experienced rapid development. however, the construction of the neighbourhood has shown a relatively homogeneous trend, and compared with other ancient villages, there are obvious problems of homogenisation and hollowing out of the construction. the rich cultural connotations of the historic district have not been deeply explored, so it is not strong in attracting tourists and has relatively few repeat visitors. several traditional neighbourhoods, centred on mosques, have failed to fully demonstrate their unique cultural advantages, which in turn affects the prominence of the cultural advantages of the rest of the village. 2.2.3 inadequate protection of traditional buildings xijie village has many existing ancient buildings, there are national key cultural relics protection unit mosque, a thousand years of history, there is a county-level cultural relics protection unit, in addition to 23 ancient homes, these ancient homes is the village of xijie village, and even kaifeng area of the village of the evolution of the living fossil. most of these ancient dwellings are left over from the ming and qing dynasties, the age of the more distant, after hundreds of years of history, many dwellings are in a more fragile state, before the local residents did not pay too much attention, as well as repair funds and other practical reasons, resulting in some architectural integrity has been destroyed. in addition, under the impetus of the booming economic development, local villagers have not highlighted the awareness of heritage protection in order to follow the trend of the times. in order to improve their quality of life, they occasionally demolish old dwellings in order to build more modern and comfortable residences, unfortunately leading to the destruction of some traditional buildings. after xijie village was recognised as a traditional chinese village, the traditional dwellings were partially restored, but a long-term strategy for the conservation of the dwellings has not yet taken shape. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 89 published by scholink inc. addition, houses built by individual villagers show distinctive personalities and differ from traditional architectural styles, resulting in the further compression of space in the old village and the stripping away of traditional connotations. 2.2.4 inadequate tourism infrastructure and village management mechanisms rural tourism thrives not only on its intrinsic charm, but also on a sound infrastructure of supporting facilities. these facilities cover a wide range of areas, ranging from public living facilities, leisure venues and even recreational facilities, all of which play a key role. the relatively late development of tourism in xijie village has resulted in inadequate public facilities, a scarcity of public toilets and a lack of appropriate public open spaces. the management organisation of the village is limited to the village committee, with no management organisation dedicated to the development of ancient architecture and tourism, nor is there any professional management personnel. in addition, there is a lack of clear planning for the development of the village, as well as a lack of clear internal rules and regulations to regulate the behaviour of villagers and tourists. 3. conservation of xijie village and the development of rural tourism 3.1 heritage conservation of the western street village 3.1.1 enhancing the concept of protection in today’s social context, the vulnerability of traditional villages is becoming increasingly evident. these villages carry unique and non-renewable historical and cultural resources, so the importance of conservation is self-evident. in this context, local government departments should attach great importance to the protection of traditional villages, and actively strengthen the corresponding protection publicity. necessary measures should be strengthened to enhance the protection of traditional villages, enhance the conservation awareness of the residents, closely combined with the protection and development of rural tourism, so that the villagers can benefit from the protection. further stimulate the conservation awareness of the residents, while cultivating the cultural self-confidence of the villagers, and ultimately form a virtuous circle, not only to protect the benefits, but also to enhance the cultural self-confidence. 3.1.2 classification and zoning protection of ancient buildings according to the level of traditional architecture in xijie village to divide the protection of the area, xijie village has national, county-level ancient buildings. in the national heritage conservation unit mosque area is divided into the core protection zone, the county-level protection unit for the buffer protection, for other ancient villages set up as a general protection zone, in the protection zone must be protected first, in the protection of the basis for the development of tourism. in addition to the overall coordination of the village building to make a unified plan, in other ordinary residential self-personality on the basis of the optimisation of transformation, is the style of other residential and traditional architecture unity, enhance the overall coordination of the village building. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. 3.1.3 protection of traditional intangible tourism resources xijie village is rich in intangible cultural treasures, and these valuable resources are of great value to the development of tourism, cultural heritage, and the lives of the villagers. however, the participation of the younger generation in the transmission of intangible culture in xijie village is insufficient, and there is an urgent need to strengthen the support for traditional culture such as woodblock prints in xijie village. it is desirable for relevant learners and practitioners to receive appropriate funding to promote the transmission and innovation of intangible culture. in addition, given the hui ethnic group’s unique lion dance and other folklore performances, a well-planned performance should be planned and organically integrated into rural tourism. with the rapid development of the information age, relevant institutions can also use online media to strengthen the protection and dissemination of villages. for example, by means of real-time live broadcasting and the construction of an exclusive website, the popularity of xijie village can be expanded, and at the same time, the opinions and suggestions of the public can be absorbed, so as to present this traditional treasure in front of the eyes of the world. 3.2 tourism development measures in xijie village 3.2.1 optimise industrial structure and promote integration of tourism resources for the current industrial structure of the village should be further optimised, change the individual form of agricultural planting, the village’s agricultural development must be cultivated with their own characteristics of agricultural products, based on the village’s own village status advantages to form their own brand of agricultural products, the development of rural tourism, the need for characteristics of the countryside to support things, in turn, rural tourism can promote the sale of agricultural products. to see the village as a holistic tourism area, traditional architecture, intangible cultural heritage, folklore, agricultural products and other resources are integrated with each other, with the development of tourism to promote the overall protection and development. integrate tourism resources into the village’s food, clothing, housing and transport, and promote the integrated development of rural tourism and traditional villages through intercultural penetration. 3.2.2 enhancing the environmental quality of historic districts historic districts are unique in that they carry rich historical and cultural connotations, and several of the historic districts in west street village need to be further upgraded in terms of their environmental quality. the first step is to improve the appearance of the streets and buildings in the neighbourhood, in order to show the unique beauty of the nation and to highlight the neat and orderly internal and external environments in a more profound way. the second is to focus on constructing the historical and cultural atmosphere of the historic district, focusing on the sublimation of cultural connotation at an in-depth level. on this basis, the creation of a historical and cultural atmosphere should be stepped up, with merchants and villagers dressing modestly in traditional costumes and playing music with a mood. however, it is crucial to set up activities and venues involving culture and folklore in order to give tourists a rich and varied tourist experience. 3.2.3 increase financial investment to improve infrastructure and management mechanisms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 91 published by scholink inc. as xijie village has been recognised as a national traditional village, the protection of xijie village has a legal basis, and the state will also give relatively more financial support to protect and improve the appearance of traditional villages. while the state gives financial support, the local community should also increase the input of funds through various forms, such as government input, villagers’ fund-raising, fund-raising by religious believers, etc. the funds should not only be used directly in the village, but also in the village itself. funds should not only be used directly for the protection of villages, but also for the scientific protection and management of villages by professionals, the establishment of professional organisations for the protection of villages and the development of tourism, as well as encouraging the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage in villages. 4. conclusion with the country’s elevation of rural development to a national strategy, the protection of traditional villages has entered a golden period. in this context, the development of rural tourism is considered an effective path for the protection and development of traditional villages in the new era, and it is expected to solve the problems encountered by villages in the process of tourism development in a targeted manner. this paper takes xijie village as an example, and through the analysis of the current situation of protection and tourism development, it puts forward corresponding protection suggestions for villagers, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and other levels. in addition, specific development countermeasures are proposed from the perspectives of integration of tourism resources, enhancement of the environmental quality of historical neighbourhoods, improvement of infrastructure, and improvement of the management system. references xiao, x., & ouyang, y. (2021). research on the characteristics and conservation of traditional villages in henan. urban housing, 28(03), 172-173. shi, s., & pei, x. (2020). research on the dynamic conservation and integrated development of traditional villages and tourism. journal of kunming university of science and technology, (5), 103-108. li, h. et al. (2021). conservation and utilization of traditional villages under the intention of rural tourism: a case study of xiaodianhe village in xinxiang city. modern horticulture, 44(17), 140-142. liu, f. (2021). exploration of traditional village conservation and culture based on rural tourism. contemporary tourism, 19(03), 35-36. note note 1. yanjun meng (1998-), female, linyi, shandong, master’s degree, research interests in vocational and technical education, tourism service management, e-mail: 1944894702@qq.com. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 122 original paper research on the communication thought of lin qiansan and guo moruo in music historiography dong xiaoya1* 1 china conservatory of music, beijing, china *dong xiaoya, corresponding author received: june 02, 2023 accepted: august 10, 2023 online published: august 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p122 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p122 abstract the exchange of musical historiographical ideas between lin qisan and guo moruo reflects the exchange of musical academic ideas between china and japan in the early 20th century, and is a reflection of the exchange and convergence of historical views, perspectives, and research methods in chinese and japanese music historiography, as well as the formation of their musical ideas under the joint action of japanese sinological and chinese historical thinking. at the beginning of the 20th century, china was faced with a dilemma, both politically and culturally, as to whether to adopt full westernization or to adhere to chinese culture? or should stick to chinese culture? many scholars went to japan to search answers to the question of whether to adopt full westernization or to adhere to chinese culture, and how to learn from the success of japan’s modern reformation. chinese and japanese cultural scholars, including li shutong, zeng zhimin, guo moruo and lin qiansan, all expressed their cultural orientation and research thoughts in the ideological dialogue of cultural exchange. among them, shutong li, zhimin zeng et al.’s practice in music in the academy, lin qiansan and guo moruo et al.’s exploration of music theory, tanabe’s “history of chinese music”, and lin qiansan’s “study on yan music in the sui and tang dynasties” are all brief reflections of the musical cultural exchanges between china and japan in the last century. in particular, guo moruo ‘s translation of lin qiansan’s “study of yan music tunes in the sui and tang dynasties” has become an important academic reference for later scholars studying the culture of yan music in the sui and tang dynasties. at the same time, qiansan lin and guo moruo’s music thought also profoundly influenced the construction of music historiography in japan and china. this paper argues that, if want to explore the spirituality of the ideas of lin qisan and guo moruo in the turbulent environment of the intersection and collision of chinese and japanese cultural thoughts in the 20th century, the cultural and ideological backgrounds of lin qiansan and guo moruo, their coinciding academic perspectives, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 123 and the revelation and significance of the interaction of musical ideas in their respective times should be analyzed and studied. keywords sino-japanese music exchange, music ideas, music history 1. lin qiansan and guo moruo’s cultural and ideological background lin qiansan has devoted his life to the study of chinese music history and published numerous works. among them, “study on yan music in the sui and tang dynasties” was translated and recommended by guo moruo and published in shanghai commercial press, and was also the first treatise in lin qiansan’s academic career. during his lifetime, guo moruo produced a large number of literary and historical works, such as “yuan” (drama), “tiangou” (poetry) and “studies of ancient chinese society”. it should be noted that when guo moruo arrived in japan in 1928, his view of music history was not yet mature, at this time, both chinese and japanese scholars were aware of the importance of ancient chinese music research, compared with china, japan had already established a relatively mature music research system, under this background, the exchange of musical thought between lin qiansan and guo moruo began. from the 19th to the 20th century, it was the transition period of sinology studies in japan, under the influence of the complex international current situation, the japanese academy underwent a subtle change in its attitude towards the cult of traditional confucianism and began to use western methodologies to study chinese culture in the previously iconic field of japanese sinology. in particular, after the meiji restoration, with the advance of the inverted curtain movement, the chinese culture, which had been the official school of the shogunate, was gradually suppressed along with the advancement of the shogunate movement, and the western philosophy, thought, and theoretical research methods advocated by the “shogunate school” became the new object of pursuit in japanese academia. lin qiansan is a member of “japan society of oriental music” (note 1), whose doctrine has deep academic roots in japanese sinology. during the edo period, the mainstream ideology of japan was that of zhu zixue, developed the kyoto zhuzi school, represented by fujiwara shieo (note 2) (1563-1619), advocating the “unity of reason and qi” and the “exhaustion of reason”; the zhu zi school of haixi, represented by yasuhara yoshixuan (1360-1714) (note 3), he advocates critiquing and inheriting zhu xi’s idea of “material knowledge” and combining it with empirical naturalism. the ideas and doctrines of these schools of thought, it was (japanese official) the study, reference and accumulation of sinology research on chinese confucianism and the achievements of hundreds of schools of thought, (making) the study of japanese sinology a cornerstone of modern japanese oriental historiography. japanese oriental historiography is a subject of politics and culture of the whole asian region with china as the center. it is the foundation of chinese music historiography in modern japan. it could be said that the use of chinese ancient materials and the understanding of ancient chinese human history by modern japanese scholars of music history are mostly based on the long-term www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 124 accumulation of japanese sinology studies and japanese oriental history studies. after the meiji period, japanese oriental historiography was further divided, and the study of oriental music was initiated (this paper takes kiyohji nakamura’s writing of “japanese chinese music rhythm examination” as a sign of the formation of modern oriental musicology). from 1920 to 1936, shoo tanabe’s research on eastern music took many achievements one after another, publishing books such as “history of modern chinese music” and “history of eastern music” and other books, which have accumulated a certain reputation in japan. in 1935, the idea of founding the music society came up during the conversation between the current president of the toyo music society, shinichio kishiba, and the first member of the society, tadao iida. the next year, shore chengxiong graduated from dongda’s toyo history major and immediately devoted himself to the preparation of this idea. he invited masahiro tanaka as a consultant and shangxiong tanabe as the first president. under the proposal of shangxiong tanabe, the name of the society was finally established as the “toyo music society”. the initial members (note 4) were: shoo tanabe, graduated from the theoretical physics department of the university of tokyo, worked under dr. masahira tanaka, a doctor of science, in the study of modern bon music, and began his work on eastern music in 1918; shobe chengxiong graduated from the department of literature of tokyo imperial university in the discipline of oriental history. his graduation thesis was titled “research on the folk music of sui and tang dynasties—qiuci pipa seven tones and five dants: twenty eight seconds of folk music”, to investigate the origin of chinese music and xicheng music, especially the relationship between pipa and its tone theory; tomoto iida, a japanese official from the atlantic ocean, specializes in islamic history. as a western music critic, he was active in islamic studies and worked in toyama house. he was the only japanese researcher of islamic music at that time; taro taida, an esthetician from tohoku university in japan, taught the history of western music at the tokyo conservatory of music, and wrote an article on musical instrument witchcraft in the first volume of toyo music research, which was the first time in this field to be noticed. he died in 1945, the twentieth year of showa; gong liang dangzhuang, a linguist, joined the association after being introduced by mr. tian bian, and then withdrew from the association due to his concentration on linguistic research; lin qiansan, graduated from tokyo academy of fine arts majoring in sculpture, loves music and has studied art history. inspired by art history, music history research aims to “study the history of the eastward spread of western city music”; wenxiong ishii graduated from the chinese literature department of dazheng university with a thesis titled “research on chinese ancient music”. in 1932, he entered the research department of dazheng university and began to study “chinese ancient music”; long liaoyi, who graduated from the oriental history department of dongda with his graduation thesis “research on qin and han music”, joined the tokyo research institute of the oriental culture institute in 1932 to study chinese ancient music; these scholars are the first group of members of the toyo music society, most of whom are specialized in the study of chinese music history, these scholars relied on the “oriental music society” and, in the form of a gathering of organizations, founded the journal “oriental music studies”. the founding concept of the journal is “to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 125 conduct historical and theoretical research on music from all over the east, mainly in japan, from a purely academic standpoint. in 1989, in a lecture at the “first oriental society of china,” naruo kishibe said, chinese music research accounts for an overwhelming majority of the papers published in ‘oriental music studies’.” for decades, “oriental music studies” played a contemporary role as a medium of musical exchange between china and japan, with essays represented by naruo kishibe’s “an overview of tang dynasty music literature” and many essays published in “oriental music studies” being translated into chinese and introduced to china. some of the music works published by chinese scholars will also be publicized by japanese scholars to the japanese academic circle through “oriental music studies”, for example, after the publication of yang yinliu’s manuscript on the “history of ancient chinese music”, the journal published several times about the journal and its author, yang yinliu, which contributed to the practical development of sino-japanese musical academic exchanges in a pragmatic academic environment. it is worth noting that during this period, some scholars in the chinese academy also devoted themselves to the construction of chinese musicology, and scholars of chinese music theory, represented by xiao youmei, wang guangqi, and yang meilei, began to explore chinese music rhythm, music history, and comparative music studies. for example, xiao youmei’s “a comparison of chinese and western music” and “an introduction to the chinese and western scales in ancient and modern times”, as well as wang guangqi’s “history of chinese music” are all influential works in the study of chinese musicology. the author found that when shoo tanabe visited china in 1923 and gave a lecture on ancient chinese music at peking university, the number of people attended the lecture, which shows the enthusiasm of the chinese academia for musical exploration at that time. unfortunately, compared with japan, chinese musicological research never formed an influential organization and system in the early 19th century. the teachers and students of peking university have tried to establish the peking university traditional chinese music research association, and hired tanabe shoo as its honorary president, but the author has not yet found any relevant systematic theoretical results published. 2. lin qiansan and guo moruo’s coincidental academic vision in the exchange and collision of various theories, more abundant academic thoughts are accumulated. the active exchange of chinese and japanese cultural scholarship in the modern era has led to a marked difference in the direction of attention of scholars in the two countries. in the chinese academy, wang guowei focused on ancient writing and archaeological research, chen yinke focused on ancient systems and religious research, and luo zhenyu focused on ancient writing and dunhuang studies, etc. thus, ancient writing, archaeology, and ancient political and economic systems became the research trend in the historiography at that time; japanese sinology: naka tomose and shiratori kukichi successively proposed and refined the concept of orientalism; in 1920, tanabe kamio began to investigate and study the history of oriental music; in 1936, tanabe shoo, hayashi kenzo and others established the society of oriental music, which shows that the path chosen by japanese scholars was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 126 to base on orientalism as a whole and conduct research in different subdivisions. in this context, although guo moruo was in japan and was acquainted with lin qiansan and had the intention of music research, his main research efforts were still focused on the great historiography rather than music history. there are very few musical writings related to guo moruo that can be found, two in total: : the essay “wan bao chang, the great musician of the sui dynasty” (the japanese version is “wan bao chang his career and art” (later abbreviated as “wan”) and (translated) lin qiansan’s “study of yan music tunes in the sui and tang dynasties”. lin qiansan graduated from tokyo imperial university (today’s tokyo university) with a bachelor’s degree, which was the center of japanese oriental studies at the time, and his academic research was heavily influenced by oriental studies and the oriental musicology of shoo tanabe. in his study of chinese dodecaphonic rhythms, tanabe shonao, inspired by lü’s spring and autumn period-ancient music, argued that chinese dodecaphonic rhythms originated in western asia (this view has been refuted by several chinese scholars), and then lin kenzo proposed in his study of sui and tang yan music tunes that the seven tunes of sujiva are the seven tunes of india. the culture of the west was the mainstream of the japanese academy at that time. the culture of the west is the mainstream of the japanese academy at that time, and under the influence of the japanese environment at that time, guo moruo almost completely accepted the “music culture of the west”. however, guo moruo held such a view at that time, and this paper believes that there is an important reason that guo moruo came to the conclusion that “characters such as qin and ser in divination and jinwen have no influence” in the process of oracle bone research, and such material testifies to a certain extent to the view that “the west speaks”. on the “west to say” lin qiansan “east asian musical instruments test” has the following views: (wind instruments) “...... its structure is roughly the same as the wicker bamboos, is equipped with compound spring (playing together spring) of the tube. these instruments are not inherent to the han chinese, but are foreign.” (playing musical instruments) “ancient chinese zither, zhengzhu and other important stringed instruments, the original mother of the half-tubular zither and more ancient round tubular zither is still a large number of distribution in the south china sea, as far as africa ......” the text through reverse examination that hu jia and wicker bamboos and other musical instruments in this article, we believe that the ancient chinese musical instruments such as hu and wicker are not inherent in china, and their origins are not in china. this article will not discuss the right or wrong viewpoints, but will only raise questions about the content of the article, as there are many wind instruments listed by lin qiansan, including wicker and wicker, but not the most influential and widely used flute and harp in east asia. whether it is the study of the sui and tang dynasties, or the study of east asian musical instruments, the main theme of the study is the exchange of music between china and other parts of west and central asia. lin qiansan’s expression of “to the west” is more euphemistic than guo moruo’s, but guo moruo once said, “i have seldom asked about the story of music in my own country even if i were an amateur in music, but since i befriended lin, i have been able to understand a bit more”, which shows that guo moruo’s understanding of music at that time www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 127 depended on lin qiansan. it is clear that guo moruo’s understanding of music depended on lin qiansan, or that guo moruo’s understanding of “chinese music coming from the west” originated from the influence of lin qiansan. guo’s methodological approach to music research was based on the “twofold method of evidence” (not explicitly proposed by wang guowei during his lifetime, but reflected in his works, and explicitly proposed in new evidence in ancient history in 1994). guo excelled at both the comprehensive dialectical use of paper records and his familiarity with subterranean oracle bone and gold materials, which has been described by contemporary scholars as “the creation of a materialistic historical system of ancient chinese culture. (note 5) “for the study of chinese ancient history, a new era has been opened.” (note 6) in guo moruo’s “wan bao chang, the great musician of sui dynasty”, the above method is used several times. in the examination of wan baochang’s life and “the creator of 84 tunes”, he uses documentary evidence to identify the falsity of different documentary records, for example, there is no record of wan baochang’s birthplace and birth year in sui shu wan baochang zhuan, but guo deduces that wan baochang was born in jiangnan through bei qi shu wang lin zhuan, bei qi shu zu xiaofeng zhuan, and sui shu music zhuan. in the testimony of “the creator of 84 tunes”, “sui shu music” records that zheng created 84 tunes, but “sui shu wan bao chang’s biography” clearly records that wan bao chang “has discussed for these two inconsistent historical records, guo moruo, through a comprehensive examination of the historical records such as “the general dictionary” and “the book of northern qi zu scepter’s biography”, finally concluded that the eighty-four tunes were created by wan bao chang, and that zheng yi had plagiarized wan bao chang’s creation. lin qiansan describes his exchange with guo moruo: “mr. moruo is a fearful friend whom yu has been working with for many years, and he has taken it upon himself to perform the labor of translating this small work with his friendship over the past few years, but this is not an ordinary translation. the translator himself has also made efforts to investigate, and to point out any inaccuracies in what is said, and to correct any slight contradictions. ......”. as can be seen from “a study of yan music tunes in the sui and tang dynasties”, the book as a whole focuses on specific music-historical issues (ancient music rhythms), with traces of guo moruo’s style of historical research, his insistence on humanism, and his great sympathy for musicians such as wan baochang and su guibao, not wanting them to be overshadowed by history, and discussing in detail their contributions to the progress of music rhythms in the tang dynasty. hayashi kenzo specializes in a research method that combines positivism and dichotomous evidence, originally a philosophical idea that values sensory experience over metaphysics, and later extended to a method of historical research centered on examinations. japanese empirical historiography, under the dual influence of the chinese qianjia school and western rankism, focused on the combination of historical evidence and argumentation, and this research method was also widely disseminated in the field of oriental studies. it is worth noting that lin qiansan’s research on the dunhuang pipa spectrum also used empirical research to determine the time of the sutra on the sacred day of the zhongxing hall in the fourth year www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 128 of changxing. there is a lot of wealth music information in dunhuang art, both lin qiansan and guo moruo have focused on research in this area. lin qiansan, from the perspective of dunhuang pipa music, confirmed the eastward flow of ancient western asia music culture with the existing results, which completely coincided with wang guowei’s dual evidence method of “getting more underground materials”. 3. the revelation and significance of the communication between lin qiansan and guo moruo’s musical thoughts for a long time, the musical and cultural exchanges among east asian countries revolved around china, and the theory of chinese musical thought represented by confucianism has long ruled the official discourse of east asian countries, for example, japan and korea imitated china to establish the yale-liao, which is the embodiment of these ideas. the musical ideas of guo moruo and lin qiansan unfolded under such a historical foundation and in a new form of communication in the new era. from the end of the 19th century to the 20th century, with the spread of modern western learning to the east, japan became an important window for the introduction of western academic ideas into china, every year, a large number of chinese youths flowed to japan, and some students who stayed in japan, represented by zeng zhifan, shen xinguang and xiao youmei, introduced songs and music theories popularized in japanese academies into china, thus forming another climax in the history of sino-japanese musical and cultural exchanges. the frequent academic exchanges between chinese and japanese historians have brought about progress in research methods, and the formation of wang guowei’s “double evidence method” was influenced by lankan historiography, which was first developed by bai niao kuji (note 7) introduced to the chinese academy. japanese academic thoughts and ideas were introduced into china with academic exchanges, but when chinese academic circles accepted academic ideas, they often substituted the historical views of japanese scholars at the beginning of the last century into their own academic ideas. up to now, they often see the expression “western advanced academic ideas and scientific research methods have impacted chinese traditional cultural research” in articles. this article does not explore whether this expression is correct or not,however, the context of this perspective itself is a direct copying of japanese sinology. for example, japanese scholar hetian qing commented on bainiaokuji that “the characteristics of dr. bainiao’s research method, in general, lie in the adoption of western methods. most japanese scholars have always been affected by sinology, and most of them cannot get rid of the heavy pressure of chinese thinking methods. generally speaking, the history of the rule of law in the west and the history of the east” (note 8). this is the perspective and attitude of modern japanese towards china. although most of the objects of japanese japanese studies and chinese cultural studies overlap, the vision of chinese “insiders” cannot be completely consistent with that of foreign “outsiders”. this paper believes that the distinction between what kind of position and what kind of background scholars make is also the focus of research that cannot be ignored. contemporary scholars have published articles on the influence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 129 japanese ethnomusicology (japanese musicology) on mainland chinese musicology, and on lin qiansan’s textual research on east asian musical instruments. (note 9) the evaluation of the book is: “a comprehensive discussion has been made on. traditional musical instruments. in the book of comparative musicology used to study oriental music, the book has a high academic status and reference value, and has had a great impact on the east asian musical instrument research field in china and the world for half a century.” japanese scholar tanabe shangxiong the idea of “chinese music coming from the west” is controversial in china. lin qiansan never directly supported this idea in his works and was praised by chinese scholars. yang yinliu once said: “japanese musicologist tanabe shangxiong’s” history of chinese music “is basically a” foreign theory “. another scholar, lin qiansan, has a different view from him. he studies hard, pursues facts, and has a serious attitude”. this paper agrees with yang yinliu’s academic attitude of praising lin qiansan, but if we study lin qiansan’s works as a whole, its fundamental idea is still to provide theoretical support for tanabe shangxiong’s theory of “chinese music coming from the west”. although lin qiansan has never expressed himself in his works published in china, as he said in the introduction of the founder of the first issue of oriental musicology, he has always “dedicated himself to the study of the history of the eastward spread of western music as a permanent topic”. this paper argues that although lin qiansan’s research object is the music history of sui and tang dynasties or the history of musical instruments of east asian countries more than 1000 years ago, the core idea has not changed “demonstrating the spread of western music to the east”. music thought can reflect the problems of music research under the complex background of the times, that is, the researchers themselves are affected by the overall academic atmosphere and political environment. therefore, lin qiansan’s music theory has its own selfish aspects, but its flaws do not hide its flaws. it is worth mentioning that guo moruo’s article “wan” mentioned above abhorred zheng’s plagiarism of wan bao chang’s 84 tunes (this article does not discuss the creator of the 84 tunes, but only paraphrases guo moruo’s attitude in the article), and repeatedly emphasized that zheng was “a man of no character”, “plagiarizing the achievements of others”, and “a cultural bandit”. the author of “a study of yan music tunes in sui and tang”, lin qiansan, directly quotes the record of zheng’s translation of 84 tunes in “sui shu music zhi”, here, this paper speculates that although the article “wan” was published in 1935 and “a study of yan music tunes in sui and tang” was published in 1936, the guo moruo’s translation of “sui” should have been published before the publication of “wan”, and “study of yan music tunes in sui and tang” also slightly mentions that wan baochang might be associated with 84 tunes, so it is clear that guo moruo’s musical thoughts also had quite an influence on lin qiansan. 4. conclusions the academic interaction between lin qiansan and guo moruo carries a silhouette of the musical exchange between china and japan in the last century, confirming that the flourishing and existence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 130 an academic must be due to the mutual flow of ideas and mutual influence. the study of eastern music engaged in by hayashi kenzo and others developed under the influence of japanese sinology, which was an overseas extension of traditional chinese theory (sutra, history, and scripture), and the academic thinking formed by japanese scholars on this basis influenced the chinese academy in turn. as time passes, looking back at the academic perspectives of the 1930s, one cannot help but sigh at the influence of japanese scholars such as shoo tanabe and naruo kishibe who organized academic groups to study eastern music (mainly chinese music) during this period, relying on the academic journal “eastern music studies” and actively publishing relevant articles in international academic journals, and whose works were translated into chinese and introduced to china, while at this time the only chinese scholars with at this time, there were only a few influential musicologists in china, such as wang guangqi and yang wule, and there was no relevant academic organization, so it was difficult to form academic synergy in research. the academic interaction between lin qiansan and guo moruo reveals the historical shortcomings of the past research on the exchange of musical ideas between china and japan, and highlights the real needs of the research on the exchange of cultural ideas between china and japan in the new era, and provides a good reference and direction for the future exchange of musical culture between china and japan. references guo, m. r. (1979). wan bao chang, a great musician of the sui dynasty. in guo moruo’s book “historical figures” people’s music publishing house, 1979. he, g. z. (1937). the third series of the self-education series for young people: a debate on the history of chinese society (vol. 7). shanghai life bookstore. li. q. s. (1955). transl. (g. m. r.), a study of the sui and tang yan music tunes. beijing: the commercial press, 1955. lin, q. s. (1962). a study of musical instruments in east asia (vol. 2). music publishing house, 1962. liu, m. x., dong, z. b., qiu, x. g., & hu, z. y. (1996). the modern chinese academic classics dong zuobin (vol. 10). shijiazhuang: hebei education publishing house. huang xianfan’s oral statement; gan wenjie, gan wenhao, gan jinshan sorted it out huang xianfan’s self description [m]. guilin: guangxi normal university press, october 2018 edited by the oriental music association, research on oriental music (no. 1) [m]friends of music, showa 11 (1936) wang guangqi; selected notes by feng wenci and yu yuzi selected works of wang guangqi on music[m]. beijing: people’s music publishing house, 1993.01 written by guo muruo research on oracle bone literature [m]. beijing: science press, 1962 guo, m. wrote moruo anthology volume 1[m]. beijing: people’s literature publishing house, 1957.03 guo moruo wrote research on ancient chinese society [m]. beijing: china overseas chinese press, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 131 2008.02 guo moruo wrote guo moruo’s famous poems[m]. changchun: times literature and art publishing house, april 2001 edited by the editorial committee of cihaicihai 1989 miniature[m]. shanghai: shanghai dictionary publishing house, 1990.12 (japan) masao tanabe history of chinese music [m]. shanghai: shanghai bookstore press, march 1984 (japan) masao tanabe; translated by feng zikai life and music [m]. dajiang bookstore, republic of china 38.03 (japan) lin qian wrote three books; translated by pan huaisu study on the interpretation of dunhuang pipa spectrum [m] shanghai: shanghai music publishing house, 1957, 09 translated by wang bangwei; master xingyun, chief inspector xiurecords of the western regions of the tang dynasty [m]. beijing: oriental publishing house, october 2018 translated and annotated by hu pingsheng and zhang mengon the book of rites [m]. beijing: zhonghua book company, 2017.11 wang guowei; selected by wang fengthe 20th century chinese spiritual life collection of jing’an [m]guiyang: guizhou education press, 2014.07 (japan) bainiaokuji; translated by wang gulutranslations of historical and geographical papers of the series of modern overseas chinese classics [m]taiyuan: shanxi people’s publishing house, december 2015 (japan) naito hunan; translated by ma biaohistory of chinese history [m]shanghai: shanghai ancient books publishing house, june 2008 notes note 1. initiated by naruo kishibe, the first president was shoo tanabe. note 2. his name was su, his character jinfu, and his name was humwo, and he was a native of hosokawa village, miki-gun, harima country (present-day hyogo prefecture). he joined kagemusha temple as a zen monk when he was seven or eight years old and renounced his buddhist faith around the age of thirty and returned to zhu zixue, which he is known as the founder of japanese zhu zixue. note 3. he was the founder of the empirical theory school of dechuan zhuxi school. under his advocacy, the development of empirical rationalism in japanese zhu zi school made the category of zhu xi’s “reason” the basis for the development of rational thinking in the preparation of japanese modernization and the media for the introduction of modern western natural science. note 4. study of eastern music introduction to the founder note 5. dong zuobin, “the understanding of ancient chinese culture,” modern chinese academic classics dong zuobin volume, hebei education press, 1996, p. 164. note 6. he ganzhi, “the debate on the history of chinese society”, shanghai life bookstore, 1934, p. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 132 105. note 7. bainiaokuki (いらとりくらきちち), 1865-1942, professor of tokyo university, chairman of toyo library. note 8. huang xianfan dictated; compiled by gan wenjie, gan wenhao and gan jinshan, huang xianeven’s autobiography, guangxi normal university press. note 9. (japan) by lin qian, a study of musical instruments in east asia [m]. music publishing house, 1962(02). microsoft word assc-v3n3-p58 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 58 original paper the social construction of defect personal stories of emotions in eating disorders hilde berit moen1* 1 faculty of social sciences, nord university, bodo, norway * hilde berit moen, faculty of social sciences, nord university, bodo, norway received: june 22, 2021 accepted: july 15, 2021 online published: august 19, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p58 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p58 abstract this article explores episodes characterized by overwhelming emotions in eating disorders (ed). in ed, emotions and symptoms are connected. the mentalizing perspective understands eating disordered symptoms as a form of regulation of painful emotions and as indicative of a reduced ability to attend to mental states in oneself and others (impaired mentalizing). however, the interpersonal and emotional processes associated with impaired mentalizing are insufficiently attended to in research. based on interviews with eating disordered patients, this article analyses stories of everyday episodes portrayed as emotionally overwhelming. the results of this analysis establish that a wide array of emotions or emotional experiences are activated, the most prominent being inadequacy, anger, discomfort, fear, and sadness. episodes are typically “multi-emotional”, characterized by a variety of emotional constellations. the findings do not indicate that eating disordered patients generally have difficulty identifying emotions. eating disordered symptoms are therefore discussed as a form of defense. the episodes described typically instigate the activation of eating disordered symptoms. furthermore, the episodes are predominantly social, with other people present, whether physically or in mind. in conclusion, the article discusses the implications of the findings to the understanding of eating disorders and treatment. keywords eating disorders, mentalization, emotions, illness narratives, qualitative study 1. introduction in spite of extensive research in various disciplines to establish a “single paradigm of the ‘real’ origin of the disease” (brumberg, 2000, p. 26), there is still a lack of consensus concerning the etiology of eating disorders (tozzi et al., 2003). accordingly, eating disorders (ed) are described as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 59 published by scholink inc. “incompletely understood,” but are “generally agreed to be multi-factorial” (serpell & troop 2003, p. 151). bruch’s pivotal work on anorexia nervosa (an), and her hypothesis that an was a condition that grew out of the inability to experience or express one’s own emotions (bruch, 1962, 1982; fox 2009; skarderud, 2013) has been central to the field of eating disorders and emotions. in recent years, considerably more attention has beenpaid to the significant role emotions play in eating disorders (fox & froom, 2009; fox & harrison, 2008; geller et al., 2000; waller et al., 2003). consequently, having proved productive in analyzing emotions in eating disorders, the metallization model has achieved a recognized position in the eating disorder field (skarderud & fonagy, 2012). this study explores episodes in which patients are overwhelmed by emotions, i.e., experiencing impaired mentalizing. in this context, an “episode” means an incident (individual occurrence) in the course of a series of events in a person’s life or everyday experiences. the concept of metallization is relatively new, but is used with increasing frequency in the literature (brown, 2008, skarderud et al., 2011). according to allen (2003), mentalizing relates to the concept of intentionality, as it involves the acknowledgment of “intentional mental states such as desires, feelings, beliefs and the like” (2003, p. 94). mentalization is further connected to mental representation, which concerns the ability to hold an idea about something in our mind even if it is not congruent with our reality, such as being able to imagine diverse ways in which others may think or feel, “wondering why they do what they do, striving to understand their actions” (brown, 2008, p. 31). similarly, bateman and fonagy describe mentalization as “our ability to attend to mental states in ourselves and in others as we attempt to understand our own actions and those of others on the basis of intentional mental states” (2012, p. xv). for the purpose of this study, mentalization refers to the ability to identify and express one’s own thoughts and feelings and those of others. in discussing verbal expression of emotions in anorexia and bulimia nervosa (bn), davies et al., (2011) refer to bruch’s (1973) famous explanation that an inhibition of emotion is a key feature of an. in other words, bruch considered this reduced mentalizing capacity to contribute to the maintenance of the disorder. self-report studies have shown that individuals with an eating disorder fear the consequences of expressing positive and negative emotions (geller et al., 2000; lawson et al., 2008; iannou & fox, 2009, davies, 2011). reduced affect regulation has long been considered a quality in ed patients (espeset et al., 2012), and numerous theoretical models suggest that eating disordered symptoms are a means of affect regulation (cooper et al., 2004; harrison et al., 2009, fox & fromm, 2009, fox & power, 2009; schmidt & treasure, 2006; skarderud & fonagy, 2011; waller et al., 2007). despite the recognized relationship between affect regulation and eating disordered symptoms, there is limited knowledge about these processes and the context in which this correlation occurs (espeset et al., 2012). while treatment is beginning to focus on emotional and interpersonal processes, “the precise nature of these processes, and their contribution to the maintenance of the ed still requires empirical exploration in order to refine these treatments” (davies, 2011, p. 476, my emphasis). the article describes these social end www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 60 published by scholink inc. emotional processes by exploring the qualities of episodes where strong emotions arise, contributing to eating disordered behavior. 1.1 eating disordered symptoms as representations of impaired mentalizing in early psychological and psychoanalytic models of eating disorders, symptoms were seen as representative of an internal state of mind that had specific meanings (skarderud & fonagy, 2012). the mentalizing model, however, understands symptoms as representations: starvation, purging, and other symptoms represent a need to drown out or reduce painful, distressing self-states. this is a shift in perspective for eating disorders, from a focus on the meaning of symptoms (what they mean), to an interest in “the how of representation” (ibid, p. 352), or in other words an awareness of impaired symbolic or mentalizing capacities. the concept of “embodied mentalizing” suggests that for patients with an eating disorder, the body has anexpressive (communicative) function, as mentalizing-or identifying and expressing the emotions-fails: the thin body, the empty body, the numb body, “talks” about painful emotions. however, with the exception of skarderud (2007, 2007a, 2007b), few studies have explored overwhelming emotions asexperienced by eating disordered patients. although the experience of “feeling fat”, according to bruch, is directly connected to the inability to distinguish or express one’s own emotional states (bruch, 1962, 1982), psychological therapies were late in taking the emotional difficulties in eating disorders into account. however, the idea that eating disordered behaviors seek to moderate or suppress emotions has started to gain influence within the literature (fox, 2009, cooper et al., 2004, waller et al., 2007, skarderud & fonagy 2012). while espeset et al. (2012) explore how patients view the relationship between negative affect and anorexic behavior, this study includes both anorexia nervosa (an) and bulimia nervosa (bn). additionally, and based on the assumption that weakened mentalizing may occur in relation to any kind of emotion, this study aims to identify any emotionor emotional experience that is experienced as overwhelming, whether these are “negative” (e.g., sadness) or “positive (e.g., happiness) in character. models that understand eating disorder symptoms to suppress emotions ask questions about the role of emotions in ed, about which emotions are important, and about whether some emotions occur more frequently than others do. the level and duration of emotional arousal are also interesting topics in this respect. fox (2009, p. 238) raises the question of whether persons with eating disorders have difficulties with everyday levels of emotion. this study responds to these questions. thus, we know little about both the behavioral and social features, and the communication that characterize these processes. to address this knowledge gap, this article identifies the location where the episodes occur and the people depicted as characters in the episodes. further, it uncovers the emotions activated in the situations, and exposes the crisis or incident that provides tension and emotion arousal. according to bochner and riggs (2014), stories also always have a point or moral that gives meaning to the experiences depicted. this article starts with a presentation of the “mentalization” concept in ed, followed by a presentation of the research design. thereafter, the presentation of the results pays special attention to the emotions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 61 published by scholink inc. identified in the interviews and the context in which these emotions arise. the article concludes with a discussion of the findings, underlining the defense aspect of episodes and its implications. recommendations for further research is suggested. 2. method the study goals and choice of methodology address the point that the role of subjective experiences of basic emotional processes in the development and maintenance of ed has not been sufficiently considered. this has contributed to the neglect of “emotional inhibition” as an important concept in studies of emotions in ed (fox, 2009), and limited discussion in the literature on the subjective experience of emotions in ed, and how people account for the difficulties they experience when their emotions are hindered. this study therefore employs a phenomenological approach in which understanding the phenomenon from the perspective of the patient is emphasized. the research design thus understands the patient as the expert of his or her own illness experience, and asks the participants to describe episodes or situations in which they have experienced being overwhelmed by (strong) emotions. these are situations in which the ability to identify both own and other peoples thoughts and feelings may be affected. such narratives about illness told by ill persons themselves also contain “the culturally patterned social and personal elements of sickness,” elements often excluded from the technically constrained discourse of disease (kleinman & seeman, 2000, p. 231). the illness narratives are thus “narratives about illness” (hydén, 1997, p. 54); stories that convey knowledge and ideas about the ed. however, they are also “narrativesas illness” (ibid.), indicating that the storyteller, illness and narrative are combined, and that the ed experience is told through a personal narrative about occurrences that have been problematic for the person. the participants were asked to describe episodes in which they were overwhelmed by emotions. therefore, they told stories. storytelling is not an easy endeavor in general. first, stories are told in situ, as a response to a request, “assembled to meet situated interpretive demands” (gubrium & holstein, 1998, p. 166). stories are thus not readymade to tell, they actually are “unfinished” (author, 2010), and have to be construed in the exact moment of telling. this incomplete aspect of the illness narratives means that the storytellers appreciated an “assistant voice” (hydén, 2000), to guide them through the recounting of their experiences of illness. in this case, the assistance was a semi-structured interview guide that helps the interviewee in starting and structuring the telling. another aspect of storytelling about ed that is likely to be challenging is the description of experiences of an illness that to date has an unanswered etiology not yet put into words (author, 2010, 2012). 2.1 participants participants were recruited from a specialized service for eating disorders and were inpatients at the time of the interview. twenty persons were invited to participate, of whom14 accepted. this number is presumed to be large enough to cover different episode characteristics. furthermore, data collection, transcription, and analysis had to be manageable within the time available. the sample consists of 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 62 published by scholink inc. women and 2 men aged 18 to 44 (mean 26.4). nine participants had no previous history of hospital treatment for their eating disorder, while five had a previous history of hospitalization, two for only very short periods (days). participants thus had limited familiarity with the understandings of and terminology for ed used in treatment. the inclusion criteria consisted of inpatient hospitalization for a regular period of three months of treatment in the eating disorder unit. illness severity was an exclusion criterion, as some acutely ill patients were considered unsuited to participate in the study for health reasons and it was also considered ethically inappropriate to ask these patients to participate. decisions about which patients were too ill to be asked to participate were made in consultation with the therapists in the unit. table 1. overview of participants participants age gender ed diagnosis at admittance bmiat interview relationship status children 1 21 m an 18.0 single 2 27 f bn 26.7 single 3 32 f bn 21.9 single 4 33 f bn 20.2 boyfriend 2 5 20 f bn 19.7 single 6 40 f an 15.9 single 7 18 f an 16.0 single 8 22 f an 15.5 single 9 28 f an 15.0 single 1 10 20 f an 17.6 single 11 25 f bn 22.8 co-habiting 12 22 f an 18.4 single 13 18 f an 16.7 single 14 44 m an 15.8 single in total mean: 26.4 an: 25.9 bn: 27.4 male:2 female:12 an: 9 bn: 5 mean: 19.4 an: 16.5 bn: 22.3 single: 12 in relationship: 2 having children: 2participants as the ed-unit accepted an and bn patients only, these are the diagnoses represented among the participants in the study. nine participants had an an diagnosis, while five were diagnosed with bn. the majority had an additional diagnosis, the most common being depression. twelve participants www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 63 published by scholink inc. were single at the time of the interview. only two of the participants had children. both relationship status and parent status are similar to those found in previous studies (moen, 2010), in that participants are mainly single with no children. at the time of the interview, the current body mass index (bmi) averaged 16.5 (range 15.0 to 18.4) for the an group, and 22.3 (range 19.7 to 26.7) for the bn participants. 2.2 data collection and analysis the semi-structured interview guide developed by skarderud and karterud (2011) to explore impaired mentalizing in ed has been further developed by the author to correspond to the purpose of this study: to explore episodes characterized by overwhelming emotions in eating disorders. the interviews took place in a suitable room in the hospital. the interviewees were thus familiar with the site, and they were also familiar with the interviewer, as i worked part-time at the hospital ward at the time. all interviews were conducted and transcribed by the author. the interviews lasted from 30 minutes to two hours, resulting in approximately 300pages of interview transcripts. in contrast to other studies of ed in which interviewees withdrew (i.e., fox, 2009), all participants appeared for the interviews. the interviewer opened the interviews by repeating the purpose of the study, which had also been explained in the consent form. then the interviewee was asked whether in the past week or so they had experienced one or more episodes where they have felt overwhelmed, for instance felt like “losing control”, felt “unable to think clearly”, felt like “shutting down”, or like the situation is unbearable. often the interviewees were able to remember one or several episodes that were either recent or took place sometime earlier. the participants were then encouraged to talk about the episode they found to be the most emotional and then to talk about one or more such episodes, if able to. in these stories, the identification and exploration of emotions or emotional experiences were of particular interest. the framing, such as the location of and potential participants in episodes, was also a significant focus area for the research. the interviews also focused on information that could help illuminate thoughts, ed symptoms, level and length of emotional arousal, and the episode rate in recent months. the interviews were analyzed using first cycle and second cycle codes and coding (miles et al., 2014). the first cycle coding represent the codes initially assigned to the data. by descriptive coding, i assigned labels to data to summarize the basic topics in the participants’ descriptions of the episodes, i.e., where the episode took place, persons present, incident and thoughts and emotions that occurred. some codes were made prior to fieldwork, as i wanted descriptions of the specific episodes in which participants had felt emotionally overwhelmed. in the second cycle coding, segments of data from first cycle coding were grouped into categories, identifying emergent themes and explanations. the final discussion on defect and defense is a result of this condensation. 2.3 ethical aspects the study is approved by the norwegian regional committee for medical research ethics. the topic of this research is sensitive, as it concerns behaviors that are “intimate, discreditable or incriminating” (renzetti & lee, 1993; in liamputtong, 2009, p. 227), and occurs in back regions (goffman, 1992), the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 64 published by scholink inc. “private spaces” where personal activities take place and only insiders participate (de laine, 2000, in liamputtong, 2009, p. 227). the researcher must be attentive to these intimacies. about two weeks after potential participants arrived in the hospital ward, they were handed an invitation to participate in the study by the staff at the hospital ward. the invitation consisted of a description of the study and a consent form. the patients were asked to sign the consent form and return it to the staff if they wanted to participate in the study. as the participants were considered vulnerable (liamputtong, 2009), the staff was made aware that patients might feel pressured to participate given the context of their hospitalization, and staff was therefore instructed to highlight the voluntary nature of their participation. 3. results in total 38 multifaceted episodes characterized by overwhelming emotions are portrayed in the data and analyzed. table 2 below illustrates the key components in the episodes: they take place at a location. at the location, there are typically one or more characters present (social interaction). the location and the characters form the context for the occurrence itself. the fourth component included is the emotions activated. table 2. episode (n=38) components and characteristics episode components locations interaction occurrence overwhelming emotions specific or non-specific locations social or non-social episodes critical event/ happening types of emotions the locations where the episodes occur are categorized as specific and non-specific locations or places. different characters also appear in the episodes, and these largely depend on the location in question (for instance, in the parents’ home, the characters are usually parents, step-parents or siblings). characters are thus significant others or general others (mead, 1934), such as family members or random people at the scene. further, characters are either physically present at the scene or present in the storytellers mind only. the location and the characters constitute the context for the occurrence. this problematic event or happening underpins the overwhelming emotions. the stories describe several emotions as interrelated in the episodes. however, some emotions are identified as occurring more frequently than others occur. the emotions have in common that they are perceived as overwhelming in nature. a representation of the identified components in the episodes is provided below. based on the findings, the article also argues that the episode components form a temporal order, in which they start out at a social or not-social location where something happens. this context generates emotions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 65 published by scholink inc. 3.1 episode locations the episodes are categorized as taking place at specific or non-specific locations. the specific locations are a) the parents’ home, during visits, b) the hospital ward, where the person is an inpatient, or c) in the storyteller’s own home. however, about half of the episodes (16) take place at non-specific locations, and are categorized as “could be occurring anywhere,” in the words of one participant. in these latter stories, the physical location is understood as not having a significant impact on the episode. this contrasts with the former case, where the location influences both participants and events in the episodes. episodes taking place in parents’ homes occur during visits to participants’ parents. visits often include meals; having coffee and cakes or dinner. however, the situations described do not relate to food per se; rather, the interaction between the participants in the episodes and the topics discussed seem to be the most important elements. one exception is anna’s childhood memories of being denied another slice of pizza. to be served pizza at her parents now, hands her the overwhelming sad emotions on a plate, so to speak. filling her up. the binging and purging that follows, lasts for days. in this way, food, relations, present and past is intertwined. episodes taking place in the hospital ward either concern a specific event (weighing) that normally takes place on a specific day of the week as inpatients have to step on the scales, or episodes relate to meals or food. one episode also involves participation at a weekly staff meeting, during which the treatment for the specific patient is discussed. episodes taking place at home are situations characterized by the person being home alone, either because they live alone, or because the person they live with (partner, mother) is away. even though these are all situations where the storyteller is alone, they are social in character. this is because the stories of the episodes include other persons, their actions, and/or their presumed thoughts and feelings. episodes taking place “anywhere” (non-specific)are also characterized by being social. such situations include being “in the exercise room and the person next to you is a faster runner” or at the supermarket and the salesperson does not smile at you and you think, “no one is nice to me”. another example involved being at the library borrowing a book, reading in it, and finding that “this is in fact too advanced for me”, or just “starting to think about something you have said” (that brings up feelings of shame). these situations include interaction with other persons, with other minds, or comparison with other persons. a frequent subject in these stories is the feeling of inadequacy: of not being satisfactory or good enough when it comes to physical appearance, academic/intellectual achievements, athletic skills or intellectual or social capital (bourdieu, 1995). 3.2 episode interaction a majority of the episodes describe other persons physically present. six of the episodes have people present in the storytellers/participants mind. thus, in total 32episodes include other persons, physically present or present in mind. these are therefore defined as social episodes. six episodes are defined as non-social, meaning that they contain no apparent interaction with other persons. most of the episodes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 66 published by scholink inc. are social in character. when the narrator, on the other hand, is alone both physically and in mind, the episode is characterized as non-social. in these episodes, the overwhelming emotions are described as generated by, for instance, the weighing in the hospital ward activating anger and fear: the fear that arises while being home alone and bored, or the uneasiness and insecurity evoked by thinking that maybe one will never recover. in addition, one person described the ed and the daily binging and purging as a habit. six episodes where the interviewee is physically alone are social in character, as the stories include other persons appearing in the interviewee’s mind. these other persons are often significant others (mead, 1934) such as parents and siblings, but may also be generalized others (ibid), such as when interviewees think about “what other people might think.” most episodes are characterized by social interaction with other persons physically present at the same location as the interviewee. as table 3 illustrates, half of these episodes are described as occurring “anywhere” (at random locations) and consequently, the persons interviewees interact with in the episodes are also random and dependent on the location or activity. furthermore, seven of the episodes take place in relation to significant others, like parents, siblings or the interviewee’s own children. six episodes are described as happening in interaction with staff and other patients in the hospital ward, while another seven episodes happen in interaction with people in the course of everyday activities: pupils at school, members at the gym, or customers in the cafeteria. 3.3 episode emotions/emotional experiences each episode describes the activation of a range of emotional experiences. an episode is never described as activating one or two emotional experiences only. however, some types of emotions are described as occurring more often than others, and this is especially true for the emotions of inadequacy and anger, which, as table 4 shows, are portrayed as prominent in half of the episodes. table 3. emotions/emotional experiences activated in episodes-frequency (episodes: n=38) emotion/emotional experience frequency (n=38) percentage of total inadequacy 19 50 anger 18 47 discomfort 13 34 fear 11 29 sadness 10 26 resignation 9 24 shame 6 16 uncertainty 5 13 stress 3 8 exhaustion 3 8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 67 published by scholink inc. as illustrated in table 3, the most frequently occurring emotional experience is inadequacy, described in half of the episodes, closely followed by anger (experienced in 18 of 38 episodes). these two are distinguished from the rest by their relative dominance in the stories. the third most common emotional experience is discomfort (13), followed by fear (11), sadness (10) and resignation (9) – all occurring relatively often in the stories (in about one-third of the episodes). below, the emotions and emotional experiences that are most common in the stories are presented. due to their relative low incident rate, the emotional experiences of uncertainty, stress, and exhaustion are not included. 3.3.1 inadequacy nineteen out of thirty-eight reported episodes of weakened mentalizing describe emotions of inadequacy. this emotional experience is also portrayed as inefficiency, shortcoming, incapacity, lack of independence, and feelings of failure. further, interviewees describe feeling incompetent, not being “good enough,” feeling “like a loser,” as if they are “not doing things right,” or as if they will “never be able to succeed at anything”. cindy’s story takes place at her parent’s house, sitting “around the dinner table... everybody talking about the fantastic life my sister lives”: you know; living abroad, now she is going to new york, funding her education through a grant, and you know...“lalala”. and here i am; in and out of hospitals, struggling to finish my studies, not knowing what i’d like to do... and... and... so... that meal was quite... difficult. it was thus not the food aspect of the meal that cindy experienced difficult, but the topic of the conversation and how this made her feel. when i asked how the episode made her feel, she responded: “mmm, a feeling of inadequacy and as if... one had the impression that positive attention requires an effort.” cindy got the feeling that she had to accomplish something, had to be effective. bruch describes the feeling of ineffectiveness as a symptomatic feature in ed, explaining anorexia as “a struggle for control, for a sense of identity, competence and effectiveness” (bruch, 1973, p. 24). according to bruch (1962, 1973) the paralyzing sense of ineffectiveness is caused by the “lack of awareness of inner experiences and failure to rely on feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations to guide behavior” (skarderud, 2013, p. 176), or in other words, impaired metallization. however, it could be argued that the social interaction cindy describes communicates the valuation of achievements and successful constructions of identity that is characteristic of contemporary society (giddens, 1990, 1991; beck, 1992). cindy also describes feeling “some kind of envy, but also deep fury (underlining indicates that the word is stressed), because... my sister has not gone through the same things that i have”; this refers to her parents’ divorce, which she believes had a harsher effect on her as the oldest child. the episode made her think that “i have to pull myself together, rather... in my life” and she noticed that self-examining thoughts about stagnation emerged. her story illustrates how feelings of inadequacy, but also anger, arise during the interaction: the experienced lack of social valuation produces the emotional experience of inadequacy. she handled the emotional turmoil later that afternoon by binging. sarah also describes the emotional experience of inadequacy. she states that eating makes her feel “like a big loser,” but if she does not eat, she feels like “i am light, and as if i am winged, and i am good at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 68 published by scholink inc. something.” “why is ‘not eating’ to be good at something?” i asked. she explained: “because… i am really not good at anything, but if i can do that, then it is something.” it is hard, not eating, and this makes it an achievement. “there is nothing that i am good at,” she stated loudly, “you know, that is something to mention.” she continues: i wish there was something that could define me, that…for instance if you are really good at soccer, then... “oh, linda, she’s the good soccer player.” or, if i for instance played the violin, but i… i gave it up, but if i had continued and been… you know, if i had been good at it, and practiced more, and continued, then i could have been “sarah who is such an accomplished violin player,” right? or… when somebody is, like my sister, she is very, you know, sociable and charms people, she is good at storytelling or... entertaining, or… very... so that is sort of something that she is good at. whereas me… i wish i were good at… puhh (small laughter), i don’t know... the feeling of inadequacy, that she will “never accomplish anything in her life” and that she “will be in this same spot for the rest of my life,” is evident in sarah’s despairing voice. she is angry with herself, and sad that emotions and thoughts make her miserable all the time, “but it is really hard turning a complete way of thinking around,” she explains. both cindy and sarah have emotional experiences of inadequacy, stagnation, and a challenged identity. both also express inadequacy related to their introverted personality, perceiving their extrovert siblings as more interesting. both also express anger in relation to the experiences their stories portray. the emotional experience of inadequacy is not a basic emotion. anger, however, is. according to fox (2009), there is a growing consensus of a minimum set of basic emotions, which includes anger, disgust, anxiety, happiness, and sadness (fox, 2009, p. 329). emotions that are more complex are derived from these. among the four negative emotions, anger (and also sadness) has been found to be a significant contributor to disordered eating (fox & fromm, 2009). 3.3.2 anger the second most identified emotion in interviewees” stories is anger. the terms aggression, rage, frustration, irritation, annoyance, or feeling “really cranky” or “pissed off” are also used. in line with fox (2009), these labels represent complex emotions deriving from the basic emotion of anger. in cindy and sarah’s stories above, anger and the emotional experience of inadequacy are the more prominent and appear together. the multidimensional specter of emotions isa general characteristic of the episodes described. the situation recounted by peter below predominantly portrays anger. the event narrated takes place in the hospital ward: we were having a meal, i think. and it was… first of all, we had… it was just before christmas, so we were served rice porridge. and, we were served three pieces of ham to go with it. the portion of porridge was fairly large, and we had to add quite a lot... of butter or almonds, in addition to being required to have the ham, next to it. that alone, both that the dish was new, that is, it was not what we expected to have. but, also, because it (the portion) was quite huge, and it was... i associated... there were these strips of fat in the meat. in addition to all this, there was the porridge. in other words, quite www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 69 published by scholink inc. an overwhelming meal. i then felt, my immediate response (...) the first thing i feel as i observe this meal, is… that it starts to flame up inside. a violent... i just have a feeling of getting burning hot inside. i feel a fierce rage inside of me. that is, i feel a fierce rage, and then aggression. (...) thus, everything indicated that i had a crisis. and that i was simply really pissed off. peter describes how the meal catches him off guard, and how he cannot control the rage that arises inside him. along with anger, both disgust and anxiety (for food) are prominent in his story. davey and chapman (2009) maintain that disgust is significantly correlated with measures of ed symptomatology, but that disgust may be linked to other relevant emotions, such as anxiety, rather than being an independent risk factor for symptoms. fox and harrison (2008, p. 94) also argue that the emotions of anger and disgust may be related in people with eating pathology, describing disgust as representing a way to manage “the toxic” and egodystonic (in conflict with one’s ideal self-image) or distressing emotion of anger. the authors suggest that persons with eating pathology experience much higher levels of anger compared to people without such pathology (ibid.). the anger felt by peter could thus trigger the emotion of disgust, and importantly in relation to ed, the specific disgust for food. cindy’s emotional experience of inadequacy also comprises anger related to how her sister has “gotten away with” things easily, and sarah feels angry with the ed and the way it diminishes her thoughts, feelings, and life in general. within the eating disorder literature, the relative contribution of each basic emotion has not been studied extensively (fox & froom, 2009). however, as already mentioned, there havebeen several attempts to understand the role of anger in ed, and these reveal both higher levels of anger and higher levels of anger suppression in people with eating disorders (fox & froom, 2009; fox & power, 2009; geller et al., 2000; waller et al., 2003). when it comes to disgust, which interestingly is not obviously prominent in the episodes (apart from in peters story), the majority of studies find self-disgust to be important in eating disorders (fox, 2009). yet, it could be argued that sarah’s experience of a lack of identity typically signals self-disgust. it is, however, foremost in relation to food and body shape that disgust has been found to be important in ed (fox & froom, 2009; troop et al., 2002). 3.3.3 discomfort the emotional experience of discomfort is also labelled uneasiness or unpleasantness. hanna feels uneasy thinking that “i will never recover, it is no use trying.” she is also uncomfortable gaining weight, afraid that the number on the scales will increase endlessly. catherine describes the uneasiness of days with binges: it is as though it is decided from early on that day; i feel such an...an inner uneasiness, that i (she pauses), yes, that i just have to...have to get it over with. interviewer: how does that feel? how do you know? i just feel it… such an inner uneasiness, as if i... (she pauses)... yes, that i just have to... that it just has to be done. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 70 published by scholink inc. some days catherine just feels the urge to binge. one of the triggers for these binges “has a lot to do with not being good enough, it begins there, and then it escalates to everything being wrong,” she states. as such, the experience of inadequacy is part of her discomfort. in addition, along with the uneasiness, a strong sense of sadness emerges, experienced as difficulties finding happiness in life. the only thing that can make her happy is the pleasures of food: “it can be the most positive thing happening to me during a whole day, that big meal as i...yes.” food thus represents both sadness and joy in catherine’s life, representing the dichotomy of ed as both friend and foe (serpell et al., 1999), both usefuland problematic. this is described as one of ed’s distinct features and what distinguishes it from other illnesses, namely “the friend,” or “the highly valued nature of anorexic symptoms” (ibid, 177). the friend is exemplified here by catherine’s bulimic symptoms giving her the pleasure of enjoying food, and the release following compensation (vomiting) afterwards. discomfort or uneasiness is a state of mind described in a significant number of episodes. the emotions or emotional experiences described are categories emerging from participants” use of words. discomfort is not considered a basic emotion, and is thus labelled as an emotional experience. adam depicts feeling uncomfortable among people, for instance in a line by the register in the cafeteria, knowing his skinny body is observed, or getting glances at the local store. he describes these episodes by the term “social,” fearing “that people can see what i have been doing.” “what have you been doing?” i ask. adam explains: right...that i have been so …that i am not eating ... that i am workingout so much... that i …that people can see it, and that people talk about it. interviewer: mm... and i feel uncomfortable that ... that.. sort of, yes ... that people care at all ... interviewer: mm ... ...because i don’t think it is any of their ... problem, and they should not be involved inmy problems. adam states that he knows that people notice because he has received comments: “i have had episodes where people have confronted me face-to-face, telling me that “you have to eat!” and that is hard.” such episodes scare adam: “you get very anxious when somebody comes and states that “you are way too thin,” and “you have to eat” and “this is not good”.’the fact that people notice makes him anxious. he has started to fear “the glances” people send. additionally, he feels angry because “i think that it is none of their business.” there is no care in such an attention, it is only exhausting, he states. summing up adam’s story, the emotional experience has multiple aspects, encompassing discomfort, anger, exhaustion, and anxiety, all predominantly activated by the glances and comments experienced in social interaction. 3.3.4 fear nearly one out of four episodes encompasses fear. the interviewees also use the terms anxiety, panic, distress, feeling upset or scared to define this emotional experience. gina recalled two specific episodes, both containing discomfort and uneasiness. interestingly, fear is prominent in only one of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 71 published by scholink inc. episodes. the “fear-episode” took place in the high school cafeteria. gina sits down by a table alone. after a while, she feels immensely uncomfortable, leaves the cafeteria, and walks home. i ask her to describe the emotions that emerged: mmm... i don’t know... maybe... i feel ashamed, sort of, by... my own awful appearance... in a way, and i feel some discomfort inside... feel a bit uneasy, and that (pauses), i am not sure... (pauses). yes, i almost feel a bit scared, or in a way, that it is an unpleasant situation, in a way. gina searches for words best suited to describe the experience. as she arrives at the emotion of fear, she seems content to have pinpointed the central, maybe most prominent emotion to describe the situation; fear; “fear that everybody will... see me, in a way... that they, yes, don’t know, just that they see all the things that i myself can see about me that are flawed, somehow.” she could not stop thinking about what everybody else in the cafeteria was thinking as they observed her, and she was “feeling what they were thinking,” which was that she was fat and ugly. uncomfortable and upset, she left school. these are typical thoughts and feelings she has been having lately. i ask her if these feelings typically occur in social settings: it is... ehm... (she pauses), i don’t know, like, both in social settings when i am with people, but that is in a way since many of these thoughts in a way are my thoughts... eeh...or that is, my beliefs. uh... but, they also appear in non-social settings, except when the settings are social i am thinking that everybody else... think... the same thoughts. thus, it has also happened when i have been alone that i have... that it could be... for instance that i have been looking in the mirror or… perhaps fear has not been part of it, but... in any case, i have felt shame and uneasiness. both social and non-social settings thus activate overwhelming feelings of shame and uneasiness in gina. however, the feeling of fear is activated in social settings only. social settings give her the sensation that everybody present has similar thoughts about her as she has herself. the social noise from people present is thus the factor that for gina creates fear in social settings, as opposed to non-social settings. according to cooley (1902), a person’s self grows out of their interactions with others, and thus our concepts of self are based on our understanding of how others perceive us. thus, we see ourselves through others, but not for who we really are, but for how we believe others see us. gina sees herself through the eyes of the others, and this look--what she believes other people think of her--escalates the uneasiness and fear inside of her. this is similar to how “the glances” adam gets escalate the uneasiness inside of him. 3.3.5 sadness the interviewees refer to sadness and despair in six and four episodes respectively. jenny’s story contains both. the location of the episode is a meeting at the hospital ward. her treatment is on the agenda, and she attends the meeting. the others present are members of the staff: therapists, doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, physiotherapists, and managers of the ward. there are generally about 10-12 participants in the meetings. a primary issue at this particular meeting was jenny not gaining enough weight, and ultimately losing weight. underweight patients at an eating disorder unit www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 72 published by scholink inc. are commonly expected to gain weight during treatment. she explains that she had “no idea why it happened (losing weight), and did not understand myself why it happened, because i did not do anything to make it happen.” prior to the meeting, she had been given an extra meal to compensate for the weight loss. jenny underlined that she had not “been messing with food at all” to lose weight. she describes arriving at the meeting: and then they said that we were to find a solution together as to how to... what to do, for them to make sure that i did not lose weight, and then i informed them that i now had an entire extra meal, and i know that it might be what is needed, because… but then they had, in fact without me having a say in it, they had decided that i had to be monitored more strictly (after meals) …and that i could not make my own sandwiches... and they had to be stricter when it came to… for instance what i had to drink… they thought i drank too much water... everything seemed kind of to be wrong, which i truly disagreed with, and then… i in fact really despaired, because they expressed pretty strong distrust in me—“that strong!” i thought… and then, then i fell a bit apart… first, jenny identifies that she felt “a little sad” because she felt blamed of dishonesty: “when i tell them truthfully: “no, i did not do anything,” and they do not believe me, then i feel really sad that they don’t believe what i am telling them.”she was also distressed by the fact that she was supposed to participate in the decision-making, yet she felt decisions were made without her. she did not feel that the decision was mutual, and thus “genuinely felt that it was completely sad.” she states that only she could know the truth, and she was “awfully sad to be mistrusted by everybody or that they are suspicious of you.” jenny also describes anger in relation to the incident: “it just made me pissed ... off, or i was ... yeah, i don’t know what i was.”after leaving the meeting, she went back to her room and cried for the rest of the day, “it didn’t stop; i think i cried all day, and the next day, too.”to assure weight gain, the staff decided that it was in jenny’s best interest that restrictions were introduced. the dishonoring of the situation, however, discredits her (goffman, 1990). fox and fromm (2009) conclude that anger and sadness are the basic emotions that are significant contributors to disordered eating. jenny’s description of both anger and sadness in connection with the same episode illustrates an interesting combination of the two, indicating a relationship between anger and sadness (contributing to or enforcing each other), which were both prominent in jenny” story. 3.3.6 resignation the emotional experience of resignation is also referred to as hopelessness, impotence, disappointment, powerlessness, or helplessness. resignation and sadness occur frequently and often interrelated in the episodes. according to bulic (2000), clinical observations of women with an commonly reveal feelings of hopelessness and also depressed or flat affect, guilt, a sense of worthlessness, low self-esteem, and irritability. in this study, resignation represents a general, overall feeling towards one’s life or situation as a whole, while sadness and despair (presented above) are predominantly connected to distinct episodes or situations. the emotional experience of resignation brings the presentation of emotional experiences back to its starting point, namely inadequacy, such as in the manifestation of resignation in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 73 published by scholink inc. cindy’s “family dinner experience.” the situation produces self-examining thoughts about stagnation and hopelessness. meredith describes several episodes and numerous emotions, but hopelessness is at the core. i ask: interviewer: you describe quite a number of emotions...are there any emotions that are recurring, which you think occur... more often than others ... in these situations? it is, i would say, hopelessness, that you have not achieved ... yeah, you have sort of not accomplished anything ... so you feel a bit powerless and sad, really—sad a lot. for a long time meredith had not been able to go to school, which she described as having not “gotten anywhere,” and this had been “a vicious circle for years.”sarah had already identified the emotional experiences of discomfort, loneliness, and frustration in her story when i asked her if she considered these emotions typically to be the most challenging for her. she paused, before answering in one word: “hopelessness.”hopelessness, i repeat, what is it about? the fact that i am not able to... change ... and how it is going to be ... i think, like, a lot about the future, things like that, you know ... i want to move on, and ... but i keep ruining for myself all the time ... sarah pauses, her voice sad and despairing. i pointed out that her whole life is ahead of her. she continues, arguing: “but hopelessness that i will not be able to achieve anything, that i will be at a standstill for the rest of my life. and then ... yeah ...” sarah maintaines in a tearful voice, describing hopelessness as an omnipresent and dominant emotional experience in her life. 4. discussion this study examines episodes where persons with eating disorders experience being emotionally overwhelmed. four main episode components are explored: episode location, episode interaction, critical events, and emotions in episodes. episode locations are specific or non-specific. “specific locations” are at parents’ house, at home, at the hospital ward or at places like the school, cafe, or cinema. “non-specific location” refers to episodes that could take place anywhere. the different locations also entail different participants in the episodes. the most commonly present participants are family members, staff, and patients in the hospital ward. however, pupils, teachers, and friends are also present in everyday life. in non-specific locations, the interviewees interact with general others: people happening to be at the same place at the same time as the interviewee. thirty-two out of 38 episodes are social in character, meaning that other people are present, either physically or in the interviewee’s mind. only six episodes are described as non-relational, indicating that no other persons influence the situation. the results further demonstrate that episodes are “multi-emotional”, encompassing various emotions and/or emotional experiences. no episode are described to encompass only one or two emotional experiences. however, some emotions occur significantly more often than others do. the most regularly occurring emotions/emotional experiences are (ranked by frequency): inadequacy, anger, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 74 published by scholink inc. discomfort, fear, sadness, resignation, shame, uncertainty, stress, and exhaustion. inadequacy and anger are apparent in half of the episodes, while discomfort is present in one third, and fear, sadness and resignation appear in approximately a quarter of the episodes. findings illustrate that the emotional experience of inadequacy typically emerges in social interactions. this is primarily due to the value others communicate that they give to achievements and successful constructions of self and identity. secondly, interviewees find that others prefer extroverted personalities, which is also a trait validated by contemporary society’s emphasis on personal constructions of identity (giddens, 1990, 1991; beck, 1992) in general and in social media specifically. this might give rise to experiences of inadequacy. these feelings of inadequacy in eating disorders are somewhat different from the “lack of awareness of inner experiences and failure to rely on feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations to guide behavior” that bruch (1962, 1973) describes as causing the specific sense of ineffectiveness in ed. this article therefore argues that the personal experience of ineffectiveness and inadequacy emerge in social interaction due to the social value ascribed to specific personality traits and personal achievements. in the individualized society (beck, 1992), it could be argued that “positive attention requires an effort,” as one participant notes. this study confirms the presence of anger in eating disorders (fox & fromm, 2009). participants describe anger to occur in relation to various emotional experiences, such as inadequacy, disgust, and discomfort. the social context in which anger emerges is prominent in interviewees” stories, with anger arising because of expectations and “glances” from others present. as such, this study demonstrates the former limitedly studied social location of the emergence of anger in ed. likewise, the emotions of fear is described as arising within social context. thinking that everyone else present shares your negative thoughts about yourself creates an overwhelming social noise. this unasked for social influence, or unwarranted positioning, is prominent in the story of sadness told by jenny. the importance of sadness in eating disorders, as established by fox and fromm (2009), is hence confirmed by this study. the relatively low rate at which shame is mentioned in interviewees’ stories is noteworthy, especially given that shame is considered a central emotion in eating disorders (skarderud, 2007c). however, as the categorization of emotions is based on how interviewees name their experiences, some of the described emotional experiences could be derivatives of shame. for instance, it can be argued that the emotional experiences of inadequacy and ineffectiveness derive from shame (scheff, 1988, 2000, 2003). knowing the social shame (and other emotions) derivatives will contribute to the understanding of the role the emotions of shame plays in ed. further research is needed on emotions and their derivatives in ed. in describing the emotions and emotional experiences in the episodes, the storyteller’s ability to identify their own and others’ thoughts and emotions is notable. given the metalizing perspective and the recognition that people with ed tend to display alexithymia, the rich descriptions of emotions were not anticipated. however, fox’s (2009) qualitative study also includes findings that broadens the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 75 published by scholink inc. understanding of alexithymia in ed as a trait not prominent in ed in general. this contributes to the understanding of ed, emphasizing the social feature of this phenomenon. nevertheless, the episodes and the emotions that emerge from them typically lead to ed symptoms such as binging, purging, and starving, even though the participants demonstrated ability to put feelings into words in retrospect. this could indicate, as argued by pedersen et al. (2014), that the ability to mentalize may not necessarily entail a capacity to regulate affects. to summarize, episodes characterized by overwhelming emotions and emotional experiences in eating disorders are characterized by being social: the experience of overwhelming emotions mainly emerges from social interaction. illuminating the social context in which these emotions occur allows for an additional understanding of impaired mentalizing, namely as defense rather than defect (impairment); a defense or protection against social ideals and judgments. the social construction of defect or impaired metalizing is firmly anchored in the medical discourse. it is however, only by scrutinizing the context of the episodes that the defense aspect–this social shield-becomes visible. not uncommon is the social interaction that takes place in the episodes experienced as degrading. due to the devaluation of the narrator’s or participants self in the social interaction, the social interactions that give rise to ed episodes are experienced as unpleasantly interfering. results indicate that ed treatment could benefit from considering the overwhelming emotions in ed as indicative of defense, as a shield against social interference. the experienced emotions could be argued to be natural and comprehensible, rather than pathological and unreasonable. thus, defense or defect in this respect indicate different understandings of ed in general and symptoms in particular, and might require different treatment approaches. efforts should be made to consider and apply knowledge of society, social interaction and how it affects individuals in treatment of ed. as brown (2008) explains, seeing a lack of mentalization as defensive means that the treatment goal is not remediation, but rather insight or understanding. therapeutic empathic understanding of personal emotional reactions to social contexts as defenses will likely strengthen therapeutic alliances, as the illumination of context makes visible participants” need to defend themselves, as their selves are not acknowledged. under these social conditions and requirements, defense emerge as a shield. references allen, j. g. 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(2007). the role of emotional abuse in the eating disorders. implications for treatment. eating disorders, 15, 217-231. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 58 original paper the path of integrated development of digital technology and health care industry under the background of aging population xiaomei wang1, qiuyan wang1, & lin ji1 1 department of construction engineering management, southwest jiaotong university hope college, chengdu, sichuan 610400, china fund project "research on the integrated development of digital economy and health care industry system under the background of aging" (sjwc2023zc006) funded by the digital economy and cultural creativity integration development center of chengdu philosophy and social science research base ;sichuan university student ideological and political education research center project: theoretical development and practical exploration of "course-based ideology and politics" in engineering management major of colleges and universities (csz230103). received: july 29, 2024 accepted: september 27, 2024 online published: october 04, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p58 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p58 abstract this article focuses on the integrated development of digital technology and the health care industry in the context of an aging population. the intensification of aging both globally and in china highlights the importance of the health care industry. digital technologies such as building information modeling (bim) and artificial intelligence (ai) are widely applied in the health care industry but face challenges. the digital transformation of the health care industry is imperative. although china has achieved success in infrastructure and technological research and development, it also faces issues such as technology acceptance and data security. integrated development is supported by theoretical and technical foundations, forming personalized, intelligent, and networked service models, and innovation including the development of new service products. in the future, digital transformation needs to address challenges, deepen research, build a high-quality health care ecosystem, improve the quality of life for the elderly, and promote industrial development and social harmony. keywords aging, digital technology, health care industry,integrated development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 59 1. introduction globally, the aging of the population has become an increasingly serious social phenomenon. according to the "2023 world population aging report" released by the united nations department of economic and social affairs, it is projected that by 2050, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above worldwide will surge to 2.1 billion, accounting for 22% of the total population. this change not only indicates that there will be significant adjustments in economic and social structures but also poses unprecedented challenges to the healthcare system (united nations department of economic and social affairs website, 2023). the international community generally defines the proportion of elderly people aged 65 and above as exceeding 7%, 14%, and 20% of the total population as the three stages of an aging society: early, deep, and super-aged. since china entered the aging society in 1999, the number of elderly people and their proportion in the total population have been continuously increasing. the latest data from the national bureau of statistics shows that, as of the end of 2022, the population aged 60 and above in china has reached 280 million, accounting for 19.8% of the total population; the population aged 65 and above is 210 million, accounting for 14.9%. the national health commission predicts that around 2035, the population aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total population, at which time china will fully enter the stage of severe aging. the integration of health care and health aging is closely related, and it can be said that the integration of health care is the objective requirement and practical path to achieve healthy aging (lin, 2021). the "health care blue book" points out that between 2022 and 2023, the domestic health care industry market size has exceeded ten billion yuan, but compared with developed countries in europe and america, china's health care industry accounts for only 7% of gdp, which is significantly low (he et al., 2023). under this background, the rapid development of digital technology has opened up a new path to address the issue of aging. the extensive application of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, big data, and cloud computing is gradually reshaping the traditional health care service model. technologies such as smart wearable devices, remote medical services, and data analysis provide the elderly with more accurate and convenient health management services. the health care industry, as a key field to respond to the challenge of aging, is becoming increasingly important. it not only covers traditional elderly care services but also includes a variety of services such as health management, rehabilitation care, and daily life care. as the elderly's demand for the quality of life continues to rise, the health care industry is moving towards personalization and intelligence to better meet the diverse needs of the elderly. however, the application of digital technology in the health care industry is not smooth sailing. issues such as technology acceptance, data security, and privacy protection all need to be fully considered in the process of integrated development. how to ensure that the application of technology fits the actual needs of the elderly and truly serves the welfare of the elderly is an urgent problem to be solved. in-depth discussion on the path and strategy of the integrated development of digital technology and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 60 the health care industry under the background of aging, by analyzing the current situation of the aging society, the development of digital technology, and the importance of the health care industry, policy recommendations and practical guidance for promoting the integrated development of the two are proposed. a deep understanding of the relationship between aging and digital technology provides theoretical support and practical basis for formulating effective coping strategies, promoting the sustainable development of the health care industry, and improving the quality of life of the elderly, which is the key content of this research. 2. application of digital technology in the context of aging as the elderly population undergoes generational shifts and their income levels increase, their demand structure is generally shifting from subsistence to development and enjoyment, transitioning from material security to service and spiritual-cultural types. the elderly are increasingly eager for a rich and dignified later life, which poses higher demands on the development of multi-level, personalized, quality, and precise elderly care systems and service supply (li, 2020). in the process of addressing the challenges of aging, the application of digital technology has become an important support for the health care industry. especially the application of building information modeling (bim) technology and artificial intelligence (ai) technology has shown unique value and potential in the health care industry. 2.1 application of bim technology in the health care industry bim technology, by constructing detailed building information models, not only optimizes the planning and design process of health care facilities but also enhances the functionality and safety of the buildings. during the design phase of health care facilities, bim technology can simulate lighting, ventilation, and pedestrian flow, providing a comfortable and safe indoor and outdoor environment for the elderly. moreover, the three-dimensional visualization function of bim allows non-professionals to intuitively understand the design intent and architectural details, facilitating communication and collaboration between interdisciplinary teams. the application of bim technology is also crucial during the construction and operation and maintenance phases of health care projects. it can provide real-time data of facilities, helping managers monitor the operational status of buildings for timely maintenance and upgrades. for example, with bim technology, the usage and maintenance cycles of various equipment in health care project facilities can be accurately tracked to ensure continuous and stable operation of the facilities. 2.2 extensive application of ai technology in the health care industry the application of ai technology in the health care industry is even more extensive and in-depth, as detailed in table 1. ai-assisted diagnostic systems analyze medical images to assist doctors in detecting disease signs, greatly improving the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosis. in the daily health management of the elderly, ai technology can collect health data through smart wearable devices, use machine learning algorithms to analyze the data, and provide personalized health advice and early www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 61 warnings for the elderly. the application of intelligent voice assistants brings great convenience to the elderly. they can not only remind the elderly to take their medication on time and arrange daily activities but also provide companionship and psychological comfort through voice interaction. ai technology can also predict potential health risks by analyzing the behavior patterns of the elderly and issue timely warnings to safeguard their health. table 1. application of ai technology in the health care industry application area specific application advantages health management health monitoring (data collection by wearable devices to generate reports), disease prediction and diagnosis (analysis of medical data to assist diagnosis), nutritional diet management (planning and recipe recommendations) providing precise health services, early warning of disease risks, meeting personalized dietary needs rehabilitation training development of personalized rehabilitation plans with real-time guidance and feedback, use of humanoid robots to assist in physical rehabilitation enhancing rehabilitation efficiency, achieving precise training elderly care assistance development of intelligent elderly care assistance devices (smart wheelchairs, canes, etc.) for autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance improving the mobility and safety of the elderly home environment smart home and environmental control (intelligent control of appliances, lighting, temperature, etc.), safety monitoring and early warning (identifying abnormal situations and issuing timely alerts) providing a comfortable and convenient living environment, ensuring the safety of the elderly companion services intelligent voice assistants provide personalized services, companionship, and chat alleviating the loneliness of the elderly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 62 the application of ai technology in the health care industry also covers intelligent environmental control and robot nursing services. intelligent environmental control systems can automatically adjust indoor temperature, humidity, and lighting according to the needs and preferences of the elderly, creating a more comfortable living environment. nursing robots can assist with daily living care, such as mobility assistance and dietary care, reducing the burden on caregivers and improving the quality and efficiency of nursing services. however, despite the broad prospects for the application of bim and ai technology in the health care industry, there are also a series of challenges in the promotion process. the acceptance of new technology by the elderly, data security and privacy protection issues, and the needs for technology maintenance and updates are all issues that we must seriously consider and resolve in the process of digital transformation. to fully leverage the potential of digital technology, we need to make efforts in technology education, data protection, and policy support. through continuous innovation and practice, the application of bim and ai technology in the health care industry will become more in-depth and extensive. they will provide safer, more comfortable, and personalized health care services for the elderly, providing more effective solutions to the challenges of aging. this is not only an innovation at the technical level but also a profound commitment to improving the quality of life for the elderly, indicating that the health care industry is about to enter a more intelligent and personalized new era. 3. digital transformation of the health care industry amidst the acceleration of the global aging population, the health care industry is at the forefront of digital transformation. according to forecasts by the international data corporation (idc), by 2025, the global health technology market is expected to reach 1.1 trillion dollars, a figure that highlights the potential and importance of digitalization in the health care industry. the necessity for digital transformation is not only reflected in the anticipated growth of market size but also in its ability to provide the elderly with more precise and personalized health management services. the use of information technology to build a medical and health care integration platform can eliminate information barriers between elderly care institutions, medical institutions, communities, and families, and improve the communication and cooperation mechanism between medical institutions and elderly care institutions to achieve resource sharing and organic integration.for example, according to data from the china internet network information center (cnnic), by 2023, the number of internet users in china aged 60 and above has exceeded 100 million. this large user base provides a vast market space for digital services, as shown in figure 1.despite this, digital transformation is not something that can be achieved overnight. it requires a clear strategic plan and a feasible implementation path. in terms of infrastructure construction, according to the "2023 white paper on china's digital economy development," china's digital economic infrastructure construction has achieved significant results, providing a solid foundation for the digital transformation of the health www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 63 care industry. in terms of technology research and development, according to the "2023 china health technology industry report," china's investment in the research and development of smart medical devices and health management applications continues to increase, promoting the innovation and application of related technologies. figure 1. trend chart of user base for digital transformation in the health and wellness industry in terms of service model innovation, digital transformation has made the integration of online and offline services possible. for example, the widespread adoption of remote medical services, according to the "2023 china remote medical development report," user satisfaction with china's remote medical services has been increasing year by year, showing the potential of digital services to improve user experience. during the transformation process, the challenges we face are also multi-dimensional. in terms of technology acceptance, according to the "2023 china elderly digital life report," although the digital skills of the elderly have improved, there is still much room for improvement. in terms of data security and privacy protection, with the collection and use of health data, ensuring data security and protecting user privacy have become issues that must be taken seriously during the transformation process. to address the above issues, efforts should be made to raise funds through multiple channels to reduce the cost of transformation. according to the "2023 china health industry investment report," the scale of investment in the health industry continues to grow, providing financial support for digital transformation. at the same time, close communication with relevant government departments should be maintained to ensure that the transformation process complies with legal and regulatory requirements.successful cases of digital transformation, such as qianxiang health, huibo medical, and dongjiao home, have significantly improved the efficiency and quality of health management for the elderly through digital means, as detailed in table 2. successful cases can provide us with valuable experience and insights. through these practices, we can see that digital transformation can not only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 64 enhance the service capabilities of the health care industry but also bring a healthier and more comfortable life experience for the elderly. the digital transformation of the health care industry is a profound change. it requires us to embrace new technologies with an open mind and also requires us to face various challenges in the transformation process with a cautious attitude. through continuous exploration and practice, we have reason to believe that digitalization will bring a broader development prospect for the health care industry. table 2. successful cases of digital transformation in the health care industry case name main measures outcomes and advantages qianxiang health integration of resources, use of smart wearable devices to monitor health status, provision of personalized suggestions through big data analysis, combination of online and offline activities, and provision of diversified services. provision of personalized health services, enhancement of elderly health awareness, and comprehensive care for the spiritual world of the elderly. huibo medical market demand-oriented, provision of digital solutions, selection as a high-tech enterprise and innovative support project, and inclusion in the tsinghua university school of economics and management case library. continuously leading in the health care industry, promoting the development of the medical industry and the construction of a healthy china. dongjiao home construction of a digital o2o service platform, provision of door-to-door massage services, optimization of services based on data analysis, and provision of one-stop door-to-door services for the elderly. saving users' time and energy, promoting the personalization and precision of health care services, and enhancing the professionalism and targeting of services. taikang home creation of an online smart community platform, integration of medical resources, use of big data for resident health provision of comprehensive health management and convenient living services, improving the safety and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 65 case name main measures outcomes and advantages management, and introduction of smart devices. timeliness of elderly care services. qinhe source construction of a digital membership management system, and conduct of online and offline interactive activities. improvement of service efficiency and quality, enrichment of the spiritual and cultural life of the elderly, and enhancement of membership belonging. ouboting use of artificial intelligence to assist nursing decision-making, monitoring of the elderly's activities and health status through smart sensors, and development of personalized nursing plans. improvement of the scientific and precise nature of nursing, reduction of nursing risks, and enhancement of the quality of life and satisfaction of the elderly. 4. integrated development model of digital technology and health care industry promoting supply-side structural reform is crucial for the elderly care service system. the focus is on mobilizing the enthusiasm of all parties in society to achieve a diversified supply of services; fully leveraging the role of the market to achieve a market-oriented supply mechanism; vigorously developing community services to facilitate convenient supply methods; innovating elderly care service technologies to diversify supply means; and adjusting the functions of elderly care institutions to specialize in supply content (lin, 2017). driven by the wave of digitalization, the health care industry is undergoing a profound transformation. the integration of digital technology not only brings new opportunities for the development of the health care industry but also provides the elderly with richer and more personalized health management services. this integrated development model, supported by a series of theoretical technologies and innovative modes and mechanisms, is gradually taking shape and being implemented. 4.1 theoretical technologies for integrated development the integration of digitalization and the health care industry is based on a range of theoretical technologies. technology is an important support variable in addressing population aging (li lu et al., 2020). the development of artificial intelligence, big data analysis, the internet of things, and cloud computing has provided strong technical support for the health care industry. for instance, artificial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 66 intelligence technology can analyze the living habits and health data of the elderly to provide personalized health advice and early warnings, as detailed in table 3. big data analysis can help health care institutions understand the needs of the elderly more accurately, optimizing service content and processes. table 3. digital technology support for the health care industry technology name technology features support role in the health care industry application examples artificial intelligence learning and reasoning capabilities, simulating human intelligence. assists in disease diagnosis and prediction, formulates personalized rehabilitation plans, provides functions of smart elderly care assistance devices, and implements companion services through intelligent voice assistants. humanoid robots assist in rehabilitation training, intelligent voice assistants accompany the elderly. big data analysis ability to process massive amounts of data and mine data value. analyzes health data of the elderly, provides precise health management reports and warnings, provides a basis for nutritional diet management, and assists in medical decision-making. personalized health management plans for the elderly through big data analysis. the internet of things interconnects devices with each other. collects health data of the elderly through wearable devices and sensors and transmits it, achieves smart home device and environmental control, and monitors the living environment of the elderly in real-time for safety. smart health monitors transmit real-time health data of the elderly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 67 technology name technology features support role in the health care industry application examples cloud computing strong computing and storage capabilities with scalable elasticity. provides strong computing power support for various data storage and processing in the health care industry, realizes data transmission and processing for remote medical services, and ensures the stable operation of various health care service platforms. remote medical service platforms rely on cloud computing for data processing and service provision. according to the "2023 china health technology industry report," china's investment in the research and development of smart medical devices and health management applications continues to increase, showing the extensive application and in-depth research of digital technology in the health care industry. the application of these technologies not only improves the quality and efficiency of services but also brings more convenient and comfortable life experiences for the elderly. 4.2 integration development model and mechanism supported by theoretical technologies, the integrated development model of the health care industry is becoming clear. this model emphasizes personalized, intelligent, and networked services. personalized services provide customized health management plans by collecting and analyzing the health data of the elderly. intelligent services use smart devices and applications to achieve remote monitoring and instant response. networked services build a platform that combines online and offline services to achieve resource sharing and optimal allocation. for example, according to the "2023 china remote medical device research report," the user satisfaction of china's remote medical services is increasing year by year, indicating that the networked service model has a broad application prospect in the health care industry (china academy of information and communications technology, etc., 2023). at the same time, this model also promotes the balanced distribution of medical resources, allowing more elderly people to enjoy high-quality health care services. 4.3 design and implementation of innovative models based on the integrated development model, the design and implementation of innovative models have become key to promoting the development of the health care industry. this includes the development of new service products, such as smart health monitoring devices and online health consultation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 68 platforms; exploration of new service models, such as community health care centers and home-based elderly care services; and the establishment of new cooperation mechanisms, such as cooperation with medical institutions, research institutions, and enterprises. the popularization and application of intelligent platforms and products can enhance the possibility of self-care for the elderly, reduce the burden of family and society in elderly care, and lower the risk of special elderly people living alone or being empty-nesters; the use of smart products can stimulate the elderly to continue to participate in economic, social, political, and cultural life within their capabilities, and comprehensively improve the welfare of the elderly (yang juhua, 2019). taking smart health monitoring devices as an example, according to the "2023 china elderly digital life report," more and more elderly people are beginning to use such devices to manage their health. these devices monitor the vital signs of the elderly in real-time and provide timely health warnings, greatly improving the elderly's sense of health security. at the same time, community health care centers, as a new type of service model, are gradually becoming popular with the elderly. this model integrates community resources to provide one-stop health care services for the elderly, including health consultation, rehabilitation training, cultural entertainment, etc., effectively meeting the diversified needs of the elderly. the integrated development model of digital technology and the health care industry is a transformation supported by technology, driven by innovation, and centered on service. this model can not only improve the quality and efficiency of health care services but also bring a healthier, more comfortable, and dignified life for the elderly. with the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous exploration of innovative models, we have reason to believe that this integrated development model will bring a broader development prospect for the health care industry. 5. conclusion in this study, we have delved into the theory and practice of the integrated development of digital technology and the health care industry, analyzing the necessity, strategies, challenges, and future development trends of this integration under the backdrop of an aging society. by comprehensively considering the current status of aging, the development of digital technology, and the needs of the health care industry, we have reached a series of insightful conclusions. firstly, digital transformation has become an inevitable choice for the development of the health care industry. with the continued growth of the global elderly population, especially the rapid expansion of china's elderly population, traditional health care service models can no longer meet the increasing personalized and diversified needs. the introduction of digital technology, especially artificial intelligence, big data analysis, the internet of things, and cloud computing, has provided innovative service models and solutions for the health care industry. these technologies not only improve the efficiency and quality of services but also meet the elderly's higher pursuit of health and quality of life through personalized health management plans. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 69 secondly, the successful implementation of digital transformation requires a clear strategic plan and a feasible path. this includes infrastructure construction, technology research and development, service model innovation, and adaptation of policies and regulations. for example, china has made significant achievements in the construction of digital economic infrastructure, providing a solid foundation for the digital transformation of the health care industry. at the same time, continued investment in technology research and development has promoted the rapid development of smart medical devices and health management applications, providing the elderly with more accurate and convenient health management services. however, there are also some challenges in the process of digital transformation. issues such as technology acceptance, data security and privacy protection, and capital investment all pose obstacles to the digital transformation of the health care industry. especially for the elderly population, their acceptance of new technology may be lower, and their technical usage ability needs to be improved through training and education. in addition, data security and privacy protection are issues that must be taken seriously during the transformation process. with the collection and use of health data, ensuring data security and protecting user privacy have become problems that we must solve. in response to these challenges, this study proposes a series of measures. in terms of technology acceptance, user education and training can improve the elderly's acceptance and usage ability of new technologies. in terms of data security and privacy protection, strict data security and privacy protection policies need to be formulated to strengthen the protection of user information. in terms of capital investment, diversified funding channels such as government subsidies and social capital participation can reduce the cost of transformation. at the same time, close communication with relevant government departments is needed to ensure that the transformation process complies with legal and regulatory requirements. looking to the future, the digital transformation of the health care industry will continue to deepen. with the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous exploration of innovative models, we look forward to achieving more intelligent and personalized health care services. at the same time, policymakers, industry practitioners, and the academic community need to work together to ensure that technological development matches social needs, protects the rights and interests of the elderly, and promotes the healthy development of the health care industry. furthermore, future research also needs to be further deepened. long-term tracking studies will help us better understand the long-term effects and impacts of digital transformation. cross-regional comparative studies can reveal the similarities and differences in digital transformation across different regions, as well as successful factors and challenges faced. user participation research will help us better understand the elderly's acceptance and usage habits of digital services to design service models that better meet user needs. policy formulation and regulatory improvement research will help us better understand how to deal with policy and regulatory issues in digital transformation to promote the healthy development of the health care industry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 70 ultimately, this study emphasizes that the integration of digital technology and the health care industry is not only a technological innovation but also a profound commitment to improving the quality of life for the elderly. through this integration, we hope to build a more inclusive, convenient, and secure health care ecosystem, allowing every elderly person to enjoy the benefits brought by technology and achieve a healthy and dignified old age. this integration will not only promote the development of the health care industry but also make an important contribution to the overall progress and harmony of society. references artificial intelligence medical device innovation cooperation platform new generation wireless diagnosis and treatment application technology research working group, china academy of information and communications technology, national medical products administration medical device technical review center. (2023). remote medical device research report [r]. beijing: china academy of information and communications technology, february 2023. chen, h. y., cui, z. h., chen, z. q., & zhang, x. p. (2022). identification and research on the development issues of china's health care industry from the perspective of active aging. health economics research, 2022(9), 36-42. he, m., peng, f., du, j., shen, s., & cui, y. w. (2023). china's health care industry development report (2022-2023). beijing: social sciences academic press. li, l., zhao, y. f., & ji, j. y. (2020). research on the collaborative development of elderly affairs and industry under the background of population aging. macroeconomic research, 2020(10), 103-113. li, z. h. (2020). proactive strategies and national policy responses to population aging during the "14th five-year plan" period. journal of gerontological research, 2020(8), 3-21. lin, b. (2017). supply-side reform of elderly care services: key tasks and reform ideas. journal of beijing university of technology (social science edition), 2017(6), 11-16. lin, b. (2021). the integration of health care and elderly care: a new stage in the construction of the elderly care service system. journal of huazhong university of science and technology (social science edition), 2021(35), 9-18. one behind in an ageing world [eb/ol]. retrieved from https://desapublications.un.org/publications/world-social-report-2023-leaving-no-one-behind-agei ng-world united nations department of economic and social affairs. (2023). world social report 2023: leaving no yang, j. h. (2019). smart health care for the elderly: concepts, challenges, and strategies. social science journal, 2019(5), 102-111. original paper the path of integrated development of digital tech xiaomei wang1, qiuyan wang1, & lin ji1 1 department of construction engineering managemen fund project "research on the integrated development of digital abstract this article focuses on the integrated development keywords aging, digital technology, health care industry,in 1. introduction microsoft word assc-v3n1-p64 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 64 original paper sympathy, blame, and just allocation of health costs entailed by risky conventional lifestyles mdr evans1* 1 department of sociology, applied statistics program, interdisciplinary phd program in social psychology, and nevada agricultural experiment station, university of nevada, reno, nv, usa * mdr evans, department of sociology, applied statistics program, interdisciplinary phd program in social psychology, and nevada agricultural experiment station, university of nevada, reno, nv, usa received: january 18, 2021 accepted: january 27, 2021 online published: february 23, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n1p64 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n1p64 abstract how does the general public feel about people suffering from lifestyle related conditions, and what do they see as a socially just division health costs for these conditions? using data from random, nationwide surveys of australians, 1989-2001 (n=8031) my structural equation model with multiple-item measurement and corrections for attenuation due to random measurement error predicts respondents’ ideal division of medical payment responsibility. the only significant sociodemographic influence is education, which inclines people towards governmental financial responsibility. cultural and social-psychological factors have large effects. a net time trend favors individual responsibility. blaming sufferers is strongly associated with favoring individual responsibility. by contrast, people who sympathize with the sufferers tend to favor government payments. political party preference also matters: partisans of the main conservative party tend to support individual responsibility. there are clear implications for the current covid-19 epidemic, especially with regards to “social distancing” behavior. keywords medical care, welfare state, risk, responsibility, blame, sympathy, partisanship, education 1. introduction 1.1 context the western moral heritage of traditional christian teachings enjoins people to take good care of ourselves, but individualism, increasingly influential since the enlightenment, holds that each person www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 65 published by scholink inc. knows what is best for themselves, that risk and self-neglect are matters of taste, rather than matters of duty. do people in post-christian societies blame people whose lifestyles (although broadly conventional) involve sensuous pleasures that entail known, serious medical dangers? do we pity them when they suffer the consequences of those lifestyles? the expansion of the welfare state, especially the rise of socialized medicine, poses the question of whether people choosing medically risky lifestyles are entitled to ask other citizens to pay the costs. modern health care systems are at least semi-socialized, with taxes paying at least part of the costs of medical treatment for substantial portions of the populace, but it remains an open question how well this meshes with the values and goals of the citizenry. should people take full responsibility for their own health care, regardless of how illness came about? or, for unavoidable illnesses, should the government use taxpayers’ money to cover at least part of the costs? or should government responsibility go further—should taxpayers also pay for illnesses that stem from lifestyle choices that the community at least tolerates? these questions are likely to become even more pointed in the future, with ever more advances in medicine, indisputably abundant information about risks, and possibly growing differentiation of lifestyles. let us begin with public opinion towards illnesses that stem from conventional, but risky, lifestyles. in a series of cross-sectional surveys, the international social science survey/australia in 1989-2001 asked random nationwide samples of australians (n=8,031) a series of questions on sympathy, blame, and financial responsibility for lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, and obesity-related heart attacks (evans & mccallum, 1991; evans, 1995). these are diseases that bear little social stigma (although they may have an aura of self-indulgence), but nonetheless people can substantially reduce their risk of these diseases if they choose. in 2001, these questions were supplemented with parallel batteries of questions about (1) injuries entailed by a very hazardous recreation which does not share the sensuous indulgence aura of overeating, drinking and smoking—hang-gliding, (2) medical care for diabetes, a disease which, focus groups suggested, is seen by ordinary people as less controllable, (and which, objectively, accounts for over 10 percent of health care expenditures in most advanced societies (hex et al., 2012)) and (3) a risky habit outside the conventional mainstream—drug addiction. these three questions provide points of comparison for the main questions. plan of the paper. the next section provides a set of hypotheses about public attitudes on who should pay for these conditions. it is followed by sections covering the data, measurement, and methods used here. next come the empirical results, beginning with descriptive statistics for the key variables—the prevalence of sufferers from these various conditions in people’s social networks, perceived personal risk of the condition, the degree to which respondents blame sufferers for their condition, the degree of sympathy they have for people with the condition, and respondents’ ideals about the balance of financial responsibilities for medical care between individuals and governments for the various conditions. these descriptive materials help illuminate the popular culture of medical care and set the stage for the analysis of social and cultural differences in ideal about who should pay for the care for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 66 published by scholink inc. the various conditions. the analytic results are then presented, and their implications form the focus of the concluding discussion section. 1.2 hypotheses figure 1 summarizes the hypotheses. the arrows imply a causal relationship, and each labelled paragraph below describes one of them. the left panel of the figure gives the total effects of background factors, contact with the afflicted, and risk perceptions. the right panel of the figure gives the direct effects of these variables, plus the direct effects of two key social psychological variables: sympathy and blame. figure 1. hypotheses about sources of ideals about the balance of financial responsibility between the individual and the government 1.2.1 the key hypotheses: sympathy and blame over the past several decades, sociologists’ attention has been increasingly drawn to emotions (barbalet, 1998; bourdieu & wacquant, 1992; shott, 1979), with recent research documenting important effects in topics ranging from moral judgments (emotive moral reasoning (e.g., evans & kelley, 2003)) to the influence of emotions on a variety of attitudes (sousa, 2007). for present purposes, the key idea is that emotions can enhance or undermine the legitimacy of moral claims (berger & webster, 2018; fernandez & jaime-castillo, 2018; hegtvedt & parris, 2014; monroe & malle, 2019), in this case claims to use of the public purse for medical care for lifestyle-induced diseases/conditions. prior research has shown that blame and sympathy are separate dimensions rather than opposite ends of the same dimension, so it is reasonable to think that both will have separate influences on attitudes about the just allocation of health care payment responsibilities (evans, 1999). the hypothesis that sympathy and empathy are the keys to altruistic behavior can be traced at least to adam smith’s theory of moral sentiments (smith, 1759). research findings are mixed, e.g., some research finds little effect of empathy on willingness to help strangers (maner & gailliot, 2007), but other research finds an important effect (hitlin & harkness, 2018; van oorschot, 2000), so the hypothesis remains worth investigating. the key hypothesis here would be that sympathy tends to induce the moral judgment that government should bear a large part of the financial burden for medical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 67 published by scholink inc. care for lifestyle-related diseases. extending that line of reasoning suggests that sympathy should also be an important transmitter variable. if, we will find that many total effects of background variables (in the model without sympathy—left panel of figure 1) will be much larger than their direct effects in a model including sympathy (right panel of figure 1). the other emotive response to lifestyle-related diseases that we investigate is blame—a perception of individual responsibility with negative affect attached (shaver, 1985). here the hypothesis is that people who blame those afflicted with lifestyle-related diseases will be much less likely to accept collective responsibility (via government) for their health care. there are strong findings in analogous research on welfare spending preferences showing that in the usa individuals who blame blacks for their lower socioeconomic outcomes are strongly opposed to government spending and other actions to equalize the outcomes (bobo & kluegel, 1993; kluegel, 1990). returning to our medical care example, it seems reasonable to expect that blame will also be an important transmitter variable, that direct effects of background variables in a model including blame will shrink or disappear compared to their total effects in a model without blame, so the effects in the left panel of figure 1 will be larger than the effects in the right panel. 1.2.2 potential sources of ideal allocations of financial responsibility self-interest could play several roles here. people with high occupational status and those on high incomes are likely to see themselves as the deep pockets likely to be tapped for any expansion of governmental financial responsibilities. that makes it likely that these variables will have negative effects (both total and direct) on seeing it as ideal for government to bear the financial burden for lifestyle-related diseases. by contrast, to the extent that self-interest plays a role, people at high risk of the diseases should be inclined to favor governmental rather than individual responsibility (e.g., miller, 1999). it is also plausible that elderly people (because they are intensive users of health care) might see it in their interest to promote socialize medicine generally, and hence in these cases as well. similarly, women, with their more precarious labor market positions might also see it in their interest to promote governmental responsibility for health care. but these anticipated effects could be undermined by the fact that perceptions of personal risk can be quite distorted even among respondents who have veridical perceptions of risk to people like themselves (kim et al., 2007). one possible explanation is that acceptance of risk may be threatening to identity—may imply accepting an identity with negative connotations (howard, 2006). self-interest arguments have an attractive logic, but prior research on other aspects of governmental spending cautions against high hopes here. in particular, prior research on attitudes towards inequality issues, welfare spending and spending on old age programs tends to find weak or absent self-interest effects, with ideology and emotion being much more important (e.g., bobo & kluegel, 1993; evans & kelley, 2018, gilens, 1995; rudolph & evans, 2005; swank, 2005). more generally, the role of simple self-interest in shaping attitudes and motivating behavior has been hotly debated in social psychology in recent decades (cialdini et al., 1997, holmes, miller, & lerner, 2002). an important hypothesis in the sociology of ethnic relations is the contact hypothesis holding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 68 published by scholink inc. that, in general, interpersonal interactions in a neutral or positive context should reduce prejudice. the evidence is somewhat mixed, but the bulk of the evidence in the domain of ethnic relations favors the hypothesis (evans & kelley, 2019; pettigrew & tropp, 2006; zagefka, noor, & brown, 2012). for our application, the hypothesis is that contact should increase sympathy and, indirectly, willingness to share the costs of medical care. empirical research has not tested our exact issue, but there are indications that familiarity does not always foster charitable feelings, indeed, sometimes the reverse. for example, one study found that hospital staff who had more contact with aids patients had less sympathetic attitudes towards them (pleck, 1988), so the issue remains open. even without knowing afflicted individuals personally, urban residents are likely to be exposed to images and stories about afflicted individuals (ridgeway, 2018). urban cosmopolitanism tends to increase tolerance and universalism without attachment (chernilo, 2007) which in our case would mean a direct positive effect of urban residence on preference for collective responsibility (net of sympathy and blame). in addition to that, cities are rich in linking and bridging networks—exactly the kinds of networks that are especially important for health (ferlander, 2007). religion is expected to have ambivalent effects. australia is largely a christian and post-christian society, so this paper focuses on the potential effects of christianity. (a) christian belief because of its emphasis on the body as a temple is expected to lead people to be more censorious of lifestyle related diseases so there should be a negative total effect and a nil direct effect on support for governmental financial responsibility (evans & kelley, 2011). (b) church attendance is strongly associated with fellowship (cohen & johnson, 2017; evans & kelley, 2004; green & elliott, 2010; holmes & mckenzie, 2018; stark & maier, 2008), so it seems likely to draw churchgoers towards collective solutions (kelley, 2015), such as governmental responsibility for medical care for diseases/ conditions induced by risky conventional lifestyles. (c) because catholicism is a more communitarian religion, it should be more inclusive of straying sheep (houtman, pons, & laermans, 2020; sikora, 2009), and hence catholics should be more inclined to share the burden of financial responsibility across the whole community another cultural hypothesis is that even net of self-interest, a generalized preference for individual rather than government financial responsibility, as indicated by favoring australia’s main conservative party , will incline people to think that sufferers from lifestyle-induced medical conditions should pay the costs whereas those who tend to prefer collective solutions in general, as indicated by opposition to the main conservative party (australians call this the “liberal party”, where “liberal” is used in the sense, common outside the us, of favoring free markets and, more generally, a society with relatively little governmental engagement. to avoid confusion, i will refer to the “liberals” as “the main conservative party”, using “conservative” in the us sense). in sum, the basic theory proposed here is that the desire to pay for others’ medical treatment depends on the legitimacy of the claim those others have. that legitimacy is a contested matter between different social groups and adherents of different cultural values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 69 published by scholink inc. 1.2.3 the australian health care system there had been some prior moves towards and away from a socialized medical system in the 1970s and early 1980s in australia (sax, 1984), but the introduction of “medicare” by robert j. hawke’s government in 1984 marked a strong shift towards governmental responsibility for medical care, with many, in the early days, expecting that the end of private medical care was in sight. instead, a mixed system has evolved with the continued shifting between more governmental responsibility or more private responsibility depending on whether the left-wing labor party or the main conservative party holds power (collyer, 1998; collyer, mcmaster, & wettenhall, 2001). in recent years something over 40% of australian adults have private health insurance coverage, some at all income levels because they seek timeliness and perceive the quality as better, many on high incomes because they face a surcharge (and no gain in service) if they do not hold private insurance. throughout these changing currents, universal access to a basic standard of medical care has been maintained. in practice, the australian government has financial responsibility for all the conditions considered in this survey, although some australians with these conditions would be paying for their own care through the private sector (duckett, 2007; grbich, 2004; willis, 2006). thus, to the degree that public opinion is influenced by current practice, the availability of governmentally funded care for all these conditions should tilt attitudes in favor of governmental provision. 2. data, measurement, and methods 2.1 data the data used here are from the isssa-pool (the pooled cross-sections of the international social science surveys/australia). here i use the simple pooled cross-sections of primary respondents selected at random from the electoral rolls. the population sampled by the isssa consists of citizens of australia who reside at the address which they have provided to the electoral office, who can read english sufficiently well to answer a self-completion questionnaire, and who are not too cognitively impaired to answer a self-completion questionnaire. for simplicity, i refer to this population as “australians”. the isssa is based on a simple random sample from its target population, so its standard errors do not require corrections for clustering. the isssa surveys are sent by mail, individually addressed by name, to simple random samples of australian citizens drawn by the electoral commission from the electoral rolls (which are public documents) using a minor modification of dillman’s total response method (dillman, 1993). voting is compulsory in australia, so the electoral rolls approximate a complete enumeration of citizens. details on the survey’s fieldwork and data preparation procedures are in (kelley & evans, 1999). the representativeness of isssa achieved samples has been clearly established in prior research, although there is an underrepresentation of young adults because many people only register at the first election after their 18th birthday rather than on the birthday itself and there is also an underrepresentation of frequent movers (bean, 1991; sikora, 1997). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 70 published by scholink inc. 2.2 measurement sociodemographic background variables. age is measured in years, divided by 10 to reduce random measurement error by keeping the range more similar to the other variables (mosteller & tukey, 1977). male is a dummy variable with female being the reference category scored zero, and male being the deviation category scored 1. education is measured in equivalent full-time years of study based on a detailed series of questions about primary and secondary schooling and post-school qualifications. income is the natural log of family income from all sources. urbanicity is the natural log of the size of place where respondent lives. cultural background variables. catholic denomination is a dichotomous variable with catholics scored 1 and others zero. christian belief is a 4-item scale measuring adherence to traditional christian doctrine that has been validated in prior research (kelley & de graaf, 1997). church attendance is the natural log of number of days attended per year, because for many behaviors and attitudes, the effects of church attendance are not linear, but rather are relatively larger towards the low end and relatively smaller towards the high end (kelley & graaf, 2004). politically conservative is the difference between a respondent’s feeling thermometer ratings for the main conservative party and for the labor party. the scales measuring blame, sympathy, and payment attitudes were conceptualized in advance, subjected to an analytic pretest, and then validated on a full national sample using confirmatory factor analysis (evans & mccallum, 1991). these attitudes scales have since been repeated episodically in the isssa. their measurement characteristics and item wording are given in the tables in the descriptive results section, below. the factor loadings given in the tables are from confirmatory factor analysis which is justified by the invention process (bollen, 1989). the maximum likelihood estimates of standardized confirmatory factor loadings and mles of full information factor loadings suggest clear and strong factors, except that the number of contacts with heart disease has a deviantly low correlation, so the contact factor is just measured with the observed variables for liver disease and lung cancer. the measurement model fits the data very well with chi-square being reduced to just 4% of its value in the baseline independence model and the average discrepancy between observed correlations and those implied by the model is a low 0.022. the bentler-bonett normed goodness of fit index, 0.953, is satisfactorily high. 2.3 methods to assess the effects of the sociodemographic, cultural, and affective forces on ideals about the just allocation of financial responsibility for medical care for these conditions, i used full information maximum likelihood procedures to estimate a structural equation model. these procedures correct for attenuation due to random measurement error, which is often a major problem in attitudinal data. however, the scales in this analysis are, in fact, highly reliable so these corrections are not large here. the parameters of interest in the structural model are to be understood like standardised regression coefficients. the full information maximum likelihood procedures provide consistent and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 71 published by scholink inc. asymptotically efficient estimates. not all variables in the model are normally distributed; gender is a dichotomy and church attendance is somewhat skewed. even though assumptions of normality are not met, full information maximum likelihood procedures are still justified because they are equivalent to the method of full information least generalized residual variance, although standard errors and the chi-square measure of fit are no longer strictly correct. 3. descriptive results 3.1 contact with the afflicted how much contact do australians have with people suffering from lung cancer, cirrhosis, or heart attacks? knowing that will help us to see how many respondents were making abstract judgments, and how many may have had their judgments shaped by personal contact. heart attack lung cancer liver disease diabetes hang gliding drugs none 5 30 49 12 91 55 one 10 23 25 17 6 14 two 15 17 12 22 2 10 three 14 10 5 15 0 6 four or more 56 21 8 34 0 15 total = 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% average number known 3.3 1.8 1.0 2.6 0.1 1.2 factor loading [2] -.89 .62 - - -(cases) 6,287 7,763 7,729 1,501 1,501 7,724 table 1. description of number of acquaintances who have had diseases related to risky conventional lifestyles, diabetes, been injured hang-gliding, or become drug addicts. percentage distributions, means, and factor loadings. australia, 1989-2001.[1] [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, heart attach questions in all years except 2001. [2] standardized item-to-true-score loadings from the structural equation analysis of table 6, column 2. for items related to risky conventional life-styles only, and excluding heart attacks which did not scale as well as the others. 1. how many people have you ever known who have ... a. had a heart attack? b. got lung cancer? c. got liver disease? (cirrhosis) d. got diabetes? e. injured themselves while hang-gliding? f. have been drug addicts? heart disease, of course, is a very prominent cause of death in modern times, so it is not surprising that nearly everybody knows several people who have had heart attacks. only 4% report that they have never known anyone who suffered a heart attack, and another 8% have known only one heart attack victim (table 1). 13% have known 2 and 14% have known 3. fully 61% report that they have known 4 or more. the mean number of heart attack victims known is 3.3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 72 published by scholink inc. contact with people who have lung cancer is rarer: the average australian knows just under 2 victims. 23% of australians include no one with lung cancer among their acquaintances. another 21% have known one lung cancer victim, 18% have known 2, 12% have known 3, and 26% have known 4 or more. thus, many more people will be making more abstract judgments on the issue of lung cancer than on the issue of heart attacks. australians have even less contact with cirrhosis, knowing only one victim, on average. about half the population have had no acquaintances with cirrhosis: 43% say that they have never known anyone who suffered from cirrhosis of the liver. 25% have only known one such person, 15% have known 2, 6% have known 3 and 8% have known 4 or more. these are not unrelated circles of acquaintances. people who know heart attack victims tend also to know cirrhosis sufferers and also lung cancer patients. this is shown by the factor loadings (table 1) which reveal the degree to which several items measure one underlying dimension. in this case the underlying dimension is acquaintance with those suffering from diseases stemming from conventional but risky lifestyles. the loadings here range from fairly strong (.62 for knowing cirrhosis victims) to very strong (.89 for knowing people with lung cancer), all acceptable under conventional statistical criteria. in this dataset, the number of people that respondent knows who have had heart attacks had somewhat deviant correlations, so it is omitted from the multiple-item measure. in terms of the conditions that were only asked about in the 2001 survey, on average, australians have 2.6 acquaintances with diabetes—that is fewer than heart attack victims, but more than lung cancer sufferers. they know 1.2 people who have been drug addicts, and just 0.01 person who has been injured while hang-gliding. 3.2 at risk themselves? do respondents feel that these diseases are a danger to themselves? feeling vulnerable to a disease might lead to more benign feelings towards sufferers by increasing sympathy through feelings of “being in the same boat”, of mechanical solidarity (durkheim, 1902, esp. pp. 70-110), i.e., an amalgam of particularism and ascription (parsons, 1951). moreover, perceived risk for one’s self might lead directly through self-interest to desire to place the expense of medical treatment with the government. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 73 published by scholink inc. heart attack lung cancer heavy drinker diabetes hang gliding drugs definitely not [0 points] 8 24 36 16 71 70 probably not [25 points] 20 41 38 37 25 27 maybe yes, maybe no [50 points] 49 29 23 33 3 3 probably yes [75 points] 19 5 2 10 1 1 definitely yes [100 points] 4 1 0 4 0 0 total = 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% average (points out of 100) 48 30 23 37 9 9 factor loading [2] .71 .51 .41 - - -(cases) 6,251 7,749 6,252 1,501 1,507 1,506 table 2. personal perception of risk.. percentage distributions, means, and factor loadings. australia, 1989-2001.[1] and do you think it is likely that you will ... a. have a heart attack? b. get lung cancer? c. become a heavy drinker? d. get diabetes -likely? e. go hang-gliding regularly? f get addicted to drugs? [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes, drug, and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, heart attach questions in all years except 2001. [2] standardized item-to-true-score loadings from the structural equation analysis of table 6, column 2. for items related to risky conventional life-styles only (first three columns) heart attacks are most widely perceived as a risk to one’s self, with only 8% feeling that they definitely will not suffer one. another 20% say that they will “probably not” have one, 49% think “maybe yes and maybe no”, 19% think “probably yes”, and 4% say “definitely yes” (table 2). the average perceived risk score, 49, is very near the neutral point “maybe yes and maybe no” of 50. the average perceived risk score for lung cancer is substantially lower, at 30 points out of 100. and the perceived risk of cirrhosis is even lower, only 24 points out of 100, about half the level of the perceived risk of heart attack. the underlying dimension of perceived personal risk of experiencing a risky lifestyle-related disease is measured by using these three items in a multiple item scale. perceived personal risk of a heart attack has a factor loading of 0.71, with 0.51 for lung cancer, and 0.41 for becoming a heavy drinker. these loadings indicate that the available items are only moderately good measures of a single underlying dimension, so future research will need to explore this zone more thoroughly. in terms of perceived personal risk for the items that were only asked in 2001, getting diabetes has a perceived risk level of 37 points out of 100, about midway between heart attack and lung cancer, but the personal risk of becoming a hang-glider or a drug addict is seen as very small, about 9 points out of 100, very close to the “definitely not” zero point. 3.3 responsibility for the illness do ordinary australians hold people responsible for everything that happens to them? or hold them responsible only for illnesses related to life-style choices? or absolve everyone from responsibility for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 74 published by scholink inc. their medical condition? this is basically an issue of perceived agency vs structure. that makes it important first to learn which medical conditions australians hold their fellow citizens responsible for, and then to assess whether such attribution of responsibility diminishes their willingness t pay for treatment of it. we asked a strongly worded question about responsibility for the condition (table 3). heart attack lung cancer heavy drinker diabetes hang gliding drugs definitely not [0 points] 2 1 1 39 2 1 probably not [25 points] 10 5 4 45 13 7 maybe yes, maybe no [50 points] 25 11 12 13 18 12 probably yes [75 points] 43 45 51 3 39 33 definitely yes [100 points] 20 37 32 1 27 47 total = 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% average (points out of 100) 67 78 77 20 69 79 factor loading [2] .72 .79 .87 - - -(cases) 6,292 7,803 7,807 1,505 1,508 1,511 table 3. blame: are individuals responsible for their difficulties? percentage distributions, means, and factor loadings. australia, 1989-2001.[1] would you say that they have only themselves to blame... a. big eaters who get heart attacks? b. what about smokers who get lung cancer – only themselves to blame? c. heavy drinkers who get liver disease? d. people who get diabetes – only themselves to blame? e. what about people who get seriously injured while hang-gliding? f. drug addicts – only themselves to blame? [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes, drug, and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, heart attach questions in all years except 2001. [2] standardized item-to-true-score loadings from the structural equation analysis of table 6, column 2. for items related to risky conventional life-styles only (first three columns) in fact, the australian public places a great deal of responsibility for their medical condition on those choosing the risky lifestyles. the average “blame scores” are highest for smokers and drinkers: 78 points out of 100 for “smokers who get lung cancer”, 77 points for “heavy drinkers who get liver disease”, and 67 points for “big eaters who get heart attacks”. in short, according to the citizenry, people who experience lifestyle-related diseases are responsible for their own fate. australians tend to blame all those experiencing life-style related diseases, or to absolve all from blame, rather than treating each disease separately. this underlying unity of response to the three separate conditions is shown by the fact that the three items all load strongly on one factor, with loadings between .72 (big eaters) and .87 (heavy drinkers). blame for the conditions only asked about in 2001 shows that respondents do differentiate strongly among different conditions: the average blame score for diabetes is just 20 points out of 100, while hang-gliding injuries elicit a blame score of 69 and drug-addiction 79. the latter two are very similar to the blame levels for the conventional life-style related diseases discussed above, but views on diabetes are very different. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 75 published by scholink inc. 3.4 sympathy however, the attribution of personal responsibility does not mean that australians lack sympathy for those suffering from lifestyle-related diseases (table 4). twelve percent of the population say that they definitely do not have sympathy for smokers who get lung cancer, and another 21% say “probably not.” 17% take a neutral stance. 42% feel that they “probably” have sympathy for smokers who get lung cancer, and another 8% “definitely” feel sympathy for them. thus, 50% “probably” or “definitely” feel sympathy for smokers who get lung cancer, an average sympathy rating of 53 points out of 100, near neutral. the average sympathy score for “big eaters who get heart attacks” is 57, a tad warmer. but australians are a bit cooler towards “heavy drinkers who get liver disease”, with a score of 48, very near the neutral point. heart attack lung cancer heavy drinker diabetes hang gliding drugs definitely not [0 points] 6 12 13 1 10 29 probably not [25 points] 19 21 30 2 15 25 maybe yes, maybe no [50 points] 24 17 18 5 18 14 probably yes [75 points] 43 42 33 59 46 27 definitely yes [100 points] 7 8 6 34 11 6 total = 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% average (points out of 100) 57 53 48 81 58 39 factor loading [2] .92 .88 .82 - - -(cases) 6,298 7,808 7,808 1,508 1,504 1,509 table 4. sympathy for sufferers. percentage distributions, means, and factor loadings. australia, 1989-2001.[1] do you have sympathy ... a. for big eaters who get heart attacks? b. have sympathy for smokers who get lung cancer? c. sympathy for heavy drinkers who get liver disease? d. sympathy for people who get diabetes? e. sympathy for someone seriously injured hang-gliding? f. sympathy for drug addicts? [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes, drug, and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, heart attach questions in all years except 2001. [2] standardized item-to-true-score loadings from the structural equation analysis of table 6, column 2. for items related to risky conventional life-styles only (first three columns) thus, some portion of the populace who blame those who lead risky lifestyles nonetheless feel sympathy for the sufferers. the average “blame” scores are much closer to the “only themselves to blame” end than to the neutral point, whereas the sympathy scores are closer to the neutral point than towards the “definitely not sympathetic” end. a generalized tenderheartedness towards those with lifestyle-related diseases underlies responses to these three diseases. in a factor analysis, they all load strongly on one factor: .92 for heart attack victims, .88 for lung cancer patients, and .82 for cirrhosis sufferers. sympathy is not always near the neutral point. australians are much more sympathetic towards diabetes sufferers (average sympathy score of 81 points out of 100), and are much less sympathetic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 76 published by scholink inc. towards drug addicts (average sympathy score of 39). sympathy for those injured while hang-gliding comes in at 58, very near the level for big eaters who get heart attacks. 3.5 who should pay? given these mixtures of blame and sympathy, who do australians think should be responsible for paying for the health care of those afflicted with diseases involving high-risk conventional lifestyles? are views polarized or tending towards a mixed model drawing on both sources? the data show that a just allocation of financial responsibility, according to public opinion, would include contributions from both the government and the individual, with the individual putting in slightly more (table 5). heart attack lung cancer heavy drinker diabetes hang gliding drugs they should pay for all of it themselves [0 points] 12 18 18 1 15 16 they should pay for most of it [25 points] 24 29 30 3 32 18 they should pay half, and the government pay half [50 points] 36 30 29 23 31 25 the government should pay most of it [75 points] 21 17 16 43 17 30 the government should pay all of it [100 points] 7 6 6 31 5 11 total = 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% average (points out of 100) 46 41 40 75 41 50 factor loading [2] .92 .91 .92 - - -(cases) 6,225 7,722 7,709 1,494 1,493 1,490 table 5. ideals about financial responsibility. percentage distributions, means, and factor loadings. australia, 1989-2001.[1] and who should pay for their medical treatment – how much should they pay, and how much should the government and taxpayers pay... a. big eaters who get heart attacks? b. what about smokers who get lung cancer? c. heavy drinkers who get liver disease – who should pay for their treatment? d. people with diabetes? e. treatment for someone seriously injured hang-gliding? f. rehabilitation treatment for drug addicts? [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes, drug, and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, heart attack questions in all years except 2001. [2] standardized item-to-true-score loadings from the structural equation analysis of table 6, column 2. for items related to risky conventional life-styles only (first three columns) first, as to smokers who get lung cancer, only 6% of australians think that the government should pay all the health costs. another 17% think that the government should pay most of the health costs; 30% think that the government should pay half and the sick individual should pay half; 29% think that the sick individual should pay most of the health costs; and 18% think that the sick individual should pay all the health costs. scoring these answers from zero (payment entirely the individual’s responsibility) to 100 (payment entirely the government’s responsibility), gives an average of 41 points out of 100. thus, the balance of opinion is a long way (41 points) from allocating full responsibility to the individual (which would be a score of zero), but an even longer way (59 points) from allocating full financial responsibility to the government. rather, it is a bit below the halfway mark, indicating shared public and private financial responsibility, with the balance slightly tipped toward private responsibility. rather than polarization towards a free market solution or a welfare state solution, the general public is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 77 published by scholink inc. expressing a preference for mixed responsibility in paying for health consequences of choosing to smoke. public opinion on who should pay for cirrhosis treatment for heavy drinkers is similar, with a payment responsibility score of 40 out of 100. the average payment-responsibility score on big eaters who get heart attacks is 46, very near the halfway point where the government should pay half and the individual half. opinions on financial responsibility for these three life-style related diseases clearly reflect one underlying attitude: the factor loadings are all over 0.9. public views on the just allocation of the costs of treatment for diabetes are tilted much more towards the government, with a payment responsibility score of 75 out of 100. financial responsibility for rehabilitation treatment for drug addicts should be equally shared between the government and the individual, according to public opinion (mean score of 50), but the community thinks that hang gliders need to take somewhat more financial responsibility (score of 41). for all these health conditions that are substantially attributable to lifestyle choices, the general public is expressing a preference for mixed payment responsibility, rather than polarization towards a free market solution or a welfare state solution. the ideal balance of responsibility in the public mind varies a good deal according to the condition. the public would allocate somewhat over half the cost of the medical expenses for all these conditions to the individua, except for diabetes, where the financial responsibility is strongly tilted towards the government. 4. analytical result: social differences 4.1 the model to what degree do blame and sympathy actually shape benevolence and what social differences shape attitudes towards illness that stem from risky conventional lifestyles? to find out, i estimated a full-information maximum likelihood structural equation model that combines a psychometric model of attitudinal dimensions with a structural equation model of the causal relationships among variables (table 6). the key dependent variable is a three-item scale measuring the balance of preferences for individual or governmental payment responsibility for three lifestyle related diseases (table 5, above gives details on the scale). the causal model is derived from a moral-issues model developed in prior research (kelley, evans, & headey, 1993), adapted to this health-and-public-policy context. table 6 presents the key results. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 78 published by scholink inc. total direct total direct total direct total direct year of survey -.06 -.06 - - - - - -age ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns male -.04 ns ns ns -.09 ns -.07 ns urban resident (ln) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns catholic ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns church going (ln) ns ns ns ns ns ns .20 ns christian belief -.06 ns ns ns ns ns -.15 ns education .10 ns ns ns .14 ns .17 ns occupational status ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns family income (ln) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns liberal party -.12 -.08 ns -.10 -.13 -.09 -.09 ns # known with condition ns ns .13 ns ns ns ns ns feel self at risk of condition .15 ns ns ns ns ns .11 ns blame sufferers --.27 --.40 --.33 --.17 sympathy with sufferers -.32 -.20 -.34 -.37 r-squared .05 .27 .04 .30 .06 .37 .09 .26 fit: rmsea .065 .056 .071 .068 .070 .065 .071 .068 (cases) [1] international social science survey/australia, various years. diabetes, drug, and hang-gliding questions asked in 2001 only, multiple item measurement for risky conventional behavior, with measurement coefficients shown in tables 1 to 5. table 6. who believes the government should pay for medical expenses arising from conventional risky behavior (over eating, heavy drinking, smoking), diabetes, hang-gliding, and drug use? standardized structural equation estimates . australia, 1989-2001. [1] 8,031 1,545 1,545 1,545 conventional risky behavior diabetes hang-gliding drug addiction the most striking features of the table are that most of the social differences are rather weak and that blame and sympathy play very prominent roles in people’s moral judgments about the just allocation of financial responsibility for all these health conditions. let us investigate the impacts of all these influences more closely, beginning with the total effects. 4.2 total effects of background variables the deepest causes, the background variables, in our model are sociodemographic characteristics, cultural elements, and social networks generating personal contact with the afflicted. looking first at the effects on public attitudes towards the just allocation of health care costs for conditions associated with risky conventional lifestyles (table 6, column 1), few of the sociodemographic variable have significant total effects. compared to women, men see just payment balances as tilted a little more towards the individual (standardized coefficient of -.04). highly educated people favor a little more governmental responsibility for payment than do their less educated peers (standardized coefficient of .10). there is a moderately large effect (standardized coefficient of .15) of perceiving oneself at risk of life-style related diseases on preferring government to bear more financial responsibility for healthcare for these conditions. all three effects operate entirely indirectly through sympathy and blame: they become non-significant when sympathy and blame enter the model www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 79 published by scholink inc. (table 6, column 2). it is interesting that income has no effect. theories positing the declining marginal utility of income might suggest that those on high incomes could be expected to be more supportive of all government expenditures than their less prosperous peers, because the dollars at risk of being taxed bring them less joy. alternatively, one might have expected those on higher incomes to be less favorable towards governmental responsibility, because they will expect a very large part of that responsibility to be passed on to themselves through taxes. but neither of these possibilities matches the facts. openhanded and tight-fisted folk are to be found equally among the rich and the poor, at least with respect to responsibility for medical payments for lifestyle-related diseases. there are also several cultural total effects (table 6, column 1). the stronger the adherence to traditional christian beliefs, the more a person tends to prefer individual responsibility, although the effect is not large (standardized coefficient of -.06). political preferences play a larger role: the more one prefers the main conservative party over the labor party, the more one tends to favor individual responsibility. this is a moderately large effect (standardized regression coefficient of -.15). there is a weak but statistically significant time trend away from governmental responsibility towards individual responsibility. the patterns for the three additional lifestyle-related conditions that were asked about in 2001 are broadly similar (although no time trend is available for them). 4.3 adding in the social-psychological influences the social psychological influences, sympathy and blame, both add substantially to the explained variance in just allocation of financial responsibility for these health conditions. this means that the influence they exert is largely independent of the background variables discussed above. thus the r2 for financial responsibility for medical conditions stemming from conventional risky lifestyles is only 5% for the model of just the background variables, but augmenting this model with blame and sympathy lifts the r2 to 27% (table 6, compare columns 1 and 2). similarly, the r2 rises from 4% to 30% when we include blame and sympathy into the model for financial responsibility for diabetes table 6, compare columns 3 and 4). the same thing happens with the models of hang-gliding (6% to 37%) and, to a slightly lesser extent, drug addiction (9% to 26%). moreover, the connections are strong. blame’s effects on financial responsibility, as indicated by their standardized regression coefficients, range from moderately strong for drug addiction (-0.17) to strong for conventional risky lifestyles (-0. 27) to very strong for hang-gliding (-0.33) and diabetes (-0.40). the negative signs on these effects indicate that they all tilt a person’s moral feelings about financial responsibility away from the government and towards the individual. sympathy’s effects are also pervasive, but less varied. the strength of the effects of sympathy on the just allocation of financial responsibility ranges from strong for diabetes (0.20) to strong for conventional risky lifestyles (0.32), hang gliding (0.34), and drug addiction (0.37). these effects are all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 80 published by scholink inc. positive, showing that they tilt people’s moral judgments about who should pay in the direction of the government rather than the individual. note that sympathy and blame are two distinct influences, not opposite ends of a single spectrum. of course, the obvious polarities are present: there are people who blame and do not sympathize, and there are people who sympathize and do not blame. but all possible other combinations are present too: there are people who both strongly blame and strongly sympathize, people who feel some of each in varying combinations and people who feel neither. blame and sympathy both need to be taken into account as separate influences. turning to indirect influences, the christian belief effect and gender effect on conventional risky life styles and drug addiction work entirely indirectly through sympathy and blame, but political preference does not (table 6, compare column 1 to column 2 and compare column 7 to column 8). 5. discussion for all three lifestyle-induced diseases, the citizenry would prefer a mix of governmental and individual financial responsibility. australians both pity and blame people suffering from diseases that stem from risky conventional lifestyles, but they pity them less than they blame them. these feelings of sympathy and blame pull them in somewhat different directions in forming ideals about financial responsibility. these mixed feelings lead to a mixed ideal which is neither socialism nor individualism, but combines elements of both. the strong effects of both sympathy and blame are consistent with this article’s key hypotheses about the importance of affective moral reasoning in shaping policy preferences: emotions play an important role here, as was expected from analogies to other kindred areas of research (e.g., evans & kelley, 2003; sousa, 2007). it could also be that perceptions of the social and financial costs of care related to risky-lifestyle related disease vary greatly. meta analyses show that even experts’ estimates vary widely, depending on just what aspects they include (verhaeghe et al., 2017). one finding contrary to expectations was that the prevalence of sufferers in one’s network does not affect willingness to pay. perhaps the reason that is that we have so many ties in modern societies that few of them influence us deeply (smith-lovin, 2007), or it is also possible that “familiarity breeds contempt” as often as it breeds sympathy, that observing the lifestyles of actual persons afflicted with these conditions moves the observer to repugnance about as often as it elicits sympathy (pleck et al., 1988). all in all, naked self-interest plays a prominent role in some realms of social life, but very little role in people’s ideals about financial responsibility for medical care for diseases that stem from risky lifestyles. the most direct indicator of self-interest, feeling at risk one’s self of these diseases, has no direct effect at all (table 6). at most, self-interest has some small indirect effects. a tiny increase in desire for governments rather than individuals to pay arises through these indirect channels. as anticipated in the hypotheses, this is consistent with much prior research on attitudes towards inequality issues, welfare spending and spending on old age programs which tends to find weak or absent www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 81 published by scholink inc. self-interest effects, with ideology and affect being much more important (e.g., bobo & kluegel, 1993; gilens, 1995; rudolph & evans, 2005; swank, 2005). reviewing all the findings, it is striking how small a role social structural effects play in generating policy preferences about financial responsibility for life-style related diseases. by comparison, the cultural influences are more important, and most important of all is affective moral reasoning—positive and negative emotions shaping policy preferences. this is perhaps especially striking because all of the risky lifestyles we asked about are at least mildly socially disapproved, except possibly hand-gliding. an issue for future research should be the degree to which acceptance of public responsibility for medical care associated with risky lifestyles depends on the status or glamour of the lifestyle. for example, does the prestige of extreme sports increase feelings of public responsibility (shephard, 2013)? it will be interesting to see whether the general public’s feelings about people who knowingly take risks with covid-19 follow the same pattern. theory suggests very mixed feelings (evans, kelley, & kelley, 2020), involving both blame and deference to those who have acquired immunity, regardless of whether they took a non-normative path. of particular interest will be public attitudes toward those who acquired immunity through vaccination and those who acquired immunity by getting the disease. acknowledgement i thank the respondents to the survey for taking the time to share their perceptions and thoughts on these topics. references barbalet, j. m. 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(2012). familiarity breeds compassion: knowledge of disaster areas and willingness to donate money to disaster victims. applied psychology. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper the greatest success in the comex company: matching color through computer technology manuel ignacio campos gonzale1 & candido gonzalez perez2* 1 postgraduate student in business administration at los altos university center, mexico 2 research professor at the los altos university of the university center of guadalajara, member of the national system of researchers level i, mexico * candido gonzalez perez, research professor at the los altos university of the university center of guadalajara, member of the national system of researchers level i, mexico received: may 20, 2020 accepted: june 1, 2020 online published: june 4, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p1 abstract the comex company went through a large number of changes in administrative matters, in sales, in labor processes and in the implementation of technological innovations; it started with mexican capital and sold its entire operation to foreign companies. the main objective of this document is to explain how one of its main problems was solved in the transformation of its products, for which we describe the implementation of a technological development consisting of the matching of colors by means of a computerized equipment. the method used for the exhibition is the qualitative one and in particular it is based on testimonies of life of the dealers. the results can be analyzed from the perspective of business, administrative or human resources; for any of them, the success that this internal change in painting production produced is remarkable. keywords technological innovation, company, sales 1. introduction at the beginning of the 1950s, a businessman from syria, josé achar tussie, was the owner of a hardware store in the capital of the republic. on one occasion, he was forced to collect a debt from a client who became insolvent. the manufacture of paint. without having proposed it, he became an industrial producer of that branch, the first company was called comercial mexicana de pinturas and had a mill that had been used in the second world war and a mixer; it was installed in a small garage of a house located in the inderependencia neighborhood of mexico city. it made two types of products: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. a water-based one that was dubbed supertone; and another of matte oil, the flat comex. in a family reunion the possible names of the new company were discussed, they could not conceive both and a short one was chosen: comex that brought together comercial mexicana de pinturas, which was long and difficult to create in capital society. inauguration of the factory in mexico city (1960s). table 1. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, the comex pioneers: chains of loyalty and affection at first, sales focused on providing supplies to the hardware store, they had 12 employees in production, a chemical engineer, an assistant, a secretary and an administrative assistant. no further proposal was required from its owner, a career began for innovation that incorporated the investigation of new products that could be carried out in the same space that it already had, but that covered more areas of commercialization. they came up with the sale of a little studied product: satin vinyl paint, for this, hired several german and other mexican engineers. soon he advanced in the investigations and this type of merchandise became the company’s insignia. the growth was unusual for what they considered necessary a new expansion and not only to serve the hardware industry but to venture into the decorative line with what their new clients were those who worked not only metals but also the mafera. circumstances forced them to expand the work space, impossible to continue in the garage of a house and they moved to a space located in san antonio azcapotzalco in an area of half a block (4,500 square meters). exterior view of the plant in san antonio azcapotzalco, mexico. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. figure 2. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, los pioneros comex: chains of loyalty and affection less than a decade after starting its work, the paint company already had well-deserved recognition from a full-fledged factory. unfortunately, as it happens, for lack of taking forecasts an accident took place, the industrial line where the varnishes were manufactured burned down. the problem had great consequences to such a degree that it was necessary to stop production. having overcome the problem, growth was more elevated to such a degree that mr. achar tussie’s company ranked in the first places with respect to the competition, which they organized to boycott it when they saw that buyers preferred comex. eight companies in the comex market branch joined together and were putting pressure on the hardware industry to withdraw their products from the market. the boycott began to give them good results. hardware stores lined up to return products to comex and demand refunds. in addition to the fire, this other premeditated action in that case forced the company to change course. the objective of the companies that carried out the boycott was to go as far as the bankruptcy of the company because with the increase in inventory due to the return of supplies, it became impossible to maintain the wages of their workers and the increase in the lack of liquidity became unbearable. on this occasion the comex company found the light at the end of the tunnel with a bold measure: if their customers no longer bought their products, they began to open direct stores for their customers. they would no longer supply hardware stores, now they would have their own points of sale. with this, the warehouses that were full of paint, were moving to the branches, no employees were laid off, some relocated and everything resulted in the sale points being exclusively for comex paints. efforts were now aimed at finding points of sale in key places and from having been suppliers for the hardware companies, they became their competition, at least as regards the paints. the first store that sold exclusive comex paintings in the year 1961 was located at 316 fay servando teresa de mier street in mexico city. one characteristic to highlight was the fact that the first counter employees were the old www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. factory workers. a short time later, in 1965 a new plant was built in tepexpan with a surface area of 70,000 square meters (remember that the first was installed in a half-block lot, the new one occupied 70); there they began to manufacture decorative and automotive products, their well-known names were in the vinyl section: vinimex, delco, plasticolor, real flex, comsa, magicolor, while in enamels: rekor enamel, esmate 100, velmar, flat comez, in woods: sealers and lacquers; and in the automotive line: autolac and suplalux. in the seventies the company already had 800 retail stores in the republic. at this time there were no fires or boycotts, but the weak side was constituted by the scarcity of oil products, caused by the very high price changes that forced the arab crisis with its fuel embargo. on this occasion the company was forced to drastically reduce production and focused on the area of decorative products and especially on the marketing policy with the creation of a training area called cetec that provided advice to customers and professionalization of the consessionaries. after cetec, the kroma distributor was founded to continue developing the marketing activities. during the decade of the eighties, the country entered into frank economic crises that certainly had a lot of influence on comex’s development, however, it maintained a good growth rate and it expanded to central america, for which the aga flat was founded. in 1990, which sought to standardize the format of stores (this aspect had not been contemplated before, despite having established itself as a strong chain of stores selling direct to the consumer). at the end of the millennium, all the points were already approved both in the presentation of the products and in the facilities to give it its own personality. marcos achar levy, the son of mr. alfredo achar, took over the post at the management of the company, which by 2005 already had 3,700 points of sale for which the exito brand had been purchased, which belonged to the brochas y accessorios. the comex negotiations reached our 2 northern neighbors and took shape by operating 314 stores (of which 234 were located in the united states and the other 80 in canada). also, comex sold paints and coatings in approximately 1500 spaces in canada. being placed as the 15th company in the world (expansion, 2013). another important change was when hendrik bergtron was appointed president of comex and vice president of recubrimientos arquitectonicos para anmerica latina when mr. marcos achar retired from the general administration. 2. method during the sixties mr. rodrigo campos reyeros joined the company as an accounting assistant and through many years of work he rose to the job ladder. comex started as a company with a very discreet presence and over the years its development was rapid, don rodrigo similarly evolved to become its national credit and collection manager and today one of the most important dealers in mexico. originated in the negotiation plans and as it will be explained in detail below, don fernando became a concessionaire when acquiring a point of sale; thanks to the closeness of don rodrigo with the achar family, his life, all, revolved around the company and the business, so over time they incorporated his www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. father, don manuel campos marquez, who sold a taxi that he had bought for him. your kids and a grocery store to invest in the merchandise. “the cheap” of itzapalapa turns 50 in 2021 and its two brothers: lourdes and ignacio, who in turn, following the example of their brothers, went one by one and built their own points of sale. manuel ignacio, ignacio’s son, represents a third generation rocket and is currently a comex dealer in the city of tepatitlan, in western mexico. this work is based on the life testimony of both manuel ignacio and his family members who provided first-hand information since the establishment of the business in the 1960s. this family has spread to branches that are located in baja california sur, sonora, jalisco (as is the case of manuel ignacio), xalapa, mexico city, monterrey, chiapas and the neighboring countries of guatemala and nicaragua. since its inception, economic science has taken pestered concepts from other areas of knowledge, affirming, for example, that there are endogenous and exogenous innovations. these categories come from the health sciences and mean that there are endogenous diseases, which are those generated within the human body; and exogenous diseases, which are those received from abroad (example: viral diseases). in economics it is said that there are endogenous and exogenous innovations in the same sense as the health sciences. the first economist to catalog technological advances in companies by their origin was schumpeter (jimienez barrera, 2018; pp. 173-174). he affirmed that the main changes in technology were implemented within the production centers (that is, they were endogenous in nature); two followers of the schumpeterian tradition were kaldor and mirrelees (alvarado lopez, 2017, p. 15). another author, solow, on whom we base ourselves on this exhibition, says that the most important technological changes come from abroad (they are exogenous). he states that the development of a country is based on technological evolution, which goes through five stages, however it is very important to point out that in the case of this writing, we will refer exclusively to the implementation of a productive innovation within a company and the changes it originated. this notion of the stages generated criticism, of which the main one has to do with the conception of ascending linearity. the comex company has experienced a considerable number of innovations, some generated by employees and others that have been acquired through contracts with external agents. a palpable feature of the company has been betting on research, which is where you experiment with technology. it has been innovated in several areas, however, the objective of this writing is to describe the avamce carried out with the color equalization in the paintings, which had an exogenous character. this advance improved the production and sale of merchandise, it was incorporated in the middle of the life of the company (it was founded sixty years ago and the incorporation of color life dates from the beginning of the nineties). in summary, the change was reflected in three typical ways (jimeno serrano, 2019, p. 97): increased productivity of capital and labor; there were displacement of employees because the color matching stopped being manual; and jobs were created in different spaces for the production of the new machines. on this we will base ourselves with respect to the theoretical contributions on the matter. a long-standing discussion of economic theory writes that some authors consider technology as a fourth factor different from the three classics enunciated by classical economics since its appearance, namely: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. land, labor and capital. in this article, the old version is taken into account in the sense that technology is part of capital because it acquires a specific form in machines. there are those who have also considered the knowledge of the workers classified as part of the “fourth factor”, neither is it this way in this writing because it is considered that labor characteristics, no matter how developed, will always be work. specifically, as far as we are concerned, we consider technological innovations as an increase in the capital factor and although it requires increasingly qualified work, we conceive them separately. finally, marxist bullfighting has devoted large spaces to the characterization of technology, however its statements correspond to macroeconomics, which is not the subject of analysis in this article. the marxist current, affirms and with great scientific support, that through technological innovations the time of work socially necessary for the production of goods decreases and that this causes a global tendency to decrease the rate of profit, however the interest this writing is the specific description of an economic phenomenon within the private company, not the economic evolution of a country. for this reason, the statements of marxist economics are dismissed. 3. result 3.1 franchise network from the beginning of the seventies and due to the boycott organized by the companies of understanding, the owners have given shape to the idea of creating a franchise network. this consisted of changing the status from employees to partners, since that time and to date it has been one of the greatest successes of subsisting and evolving the comex company. there are currently 5,000 stores (1,300 more than marcos achar’s 3,700) that have cultivated the loyalty and solidarity of the company because it is very different to work as a wage earner in a business to share in the profits and be an intrinsic part of it. for the cohesion and development of the company as a whole, there are values that are respected, they consist of maintaining the high quality of the goods, respecting the payment terms of the products, keeping the price to the public stable (you can not step on a foot with the other), and respect the areas of influence of each of the more than 600 franchises. they have been very scrupulous in the planning area to extend an immense network of salespeople-concessionaires in 5,000 stores spread throughout the mexican republic. the current owners express their appreciation and loyalty to the initiators and although they had no business experience and most of them had no professional training, they have grown hand in hand since the inception of the factory. the descendants of the original owners (there are now three generations) have grown in the aforementioned fields: in experience and university training. there are children of entrepreneurs or who have already taken the reins of their participation in the company themselves, who have studied at harvard, yale and the best universities in mexico. at first the new franchises were afraid to migrate to other places. of course, it was important to spread the branches because one of the main objectives, as already said, was not to compete with each other, so it was necessary to expand to cover most of the country’s regions. the new owners adapted to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. circumstances and that which was a problem at the beginning has disappeared. in many cases, such as that of manuel campos, co-author of this article, the only reason to live in tepatitlan, jalisco is comex, for having become a concessionaire. comex has undergone qualitative changes since its founding to date and the vast majority have benefited it. in 2014 they gave a new turn of the wheel that at first generated many doubts among the new members of the company, but little by oco they have been blurred, the company was sold in 2014 to the north american firm ppg industries, an institution successful that has long been known for leading the market. the central idea to dispel the doubts was that the idea of supporting and using the independent concessionaires has been maintained. it is worth mentioning that the profit has always been both-way, because the owners of most of the shares win because they have guaranteed many points of sale, and the minority owners retain the support of the production of quality merchandise and supply them with efficiently your warehouses. 3.2 technological development the second of the two great sources of comex’s success is having invested in technological advances related to the production of paints. the first, whether it is pointed out, is having made its employees co-owners. the main effort directed towards innovations was the creation of the polymer research center (cip), which consisted of research on coatings. the international market was not limited to the mexican sphere, and it can be considered endogenous innovation. subsequently, a visual evaluation laboratory (called lev for its acronym) was created and it was considered the most important in its field in all latin america, its area of influence consisted of measuring the lighting on different surfaces and under different visual angles, the results from this laboratory they were always well received by the buyers, which was ultimately their main object; it also consisted of endogenous technological change because it was produced by company workers. subsequently, he ventured into the professionalization of the distribution network and created the integral training center (cfi), its main function was to offer specific consultancies and workshops to end customers and store staff, with special interest in training professionals at the industrial level. after the establishment of this last center and after having entered the latin american markets, the north american market was attended. synthetically, it can be said that, with the actions described above, comex managed to become the supplier of approximately 45% of the national market in its last 60 years of history. it is stated that in 2012 it managed to establish itself as the number one company in its field in mexico (celis, 2013). the time of the early sixties seems very distant when it began its operations in the garage of a house and with a social capital of $ 100,000 pesos. in 1998 alfredo achar tussie became the ceo and president of the board of directors, it was when he spread to central america. at the proposal of marcos achar levy son of don alfredo, the company was offered for sale to the international and well-known sherwin-williams company, the attempt was about to materialize had it not been for the intervention of the federal commission on economic competition (cofece) that it dismissed the transaction on two occasions; the amount of the transaction had been quoted at $ 2,340 million dollars. in 2014, the sales www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. attempts were successful and another north american company, ppg industries, acquired it for $ 2,300 million dollars. to give an idea of the success of the sale, in november 2017 they had closed their sales for an amount of $ 13,900 million pesos of which 70% were accounted for by their network of national franchises. according to forbes magazine in its electronic edition of april 15, 2020 marcos achar and his family, occupy the tenth place of the mexican fortunes after the sale of the company to ppg industries. the feeling of the dealers even though it is no longer a national company, has been maintained by the respect and affection that the brand has and they have fully identified with the international firm, even though in mexico it is still called comex (staff, 2016). the main technological advance, the main reason for this writing, was the purchase of equipment called “tintometricos”. inside the comex, the “collor center” area was created, the origin of which dates back to an alliance with an italian equipment manufacturer for these purposes, called corob. that company specialized in color matching through the use of computers. the purchase of equipment was unique in the national market, no other had ventured into this area. the main improvement observed by the concessionaires in all the points of sale was the repeatability of colors and the notable decrease in product, inventories were markedly reduced and this led to a very great distinction with respect to the competition. they reduced costs because less labor was needed, less warehouse space and above all an improvement in quality because fewer base colors were used. inside there was an extra benefit because it was possible to standardize the service to customers, in the shortest time possible and at the same prices in any of the points of sale regardless of the region of the republic. comex stores, year 1960 fiure 3. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, los pineros comex: chains of loyalty and affection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. comex stores, year1990. figure 4. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, los pineros comex: chains of loyalty and affection comex stores, year 2000. figure 5. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, los pineros comex: chains of loyalty and affection comex, stores, year 2020. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. figure 6. vazquez mota, josefina, 1990, los pineros comex: chains of loyalty and affection color center in 1993, the achar family made a trip to germany where they met with an italian who was dedicated to the manufacture of machines that match colors. it was a great discovery because they signed an agreement through which the production exclusivity of these equipment for mexico was granted. they built machines that were developed to such a degree that they make it possible to repeat the tone of any color from a sample card; for this they use a team that is fed by colorants (basic colors and accents) and a base of charges (recina, water and adhesives). color center currently gives technical support to equipment that is used in 5,000 points of sale and is avant-garde in the paint market. the equipment itself consists of bulky hardware and software and a mixing equipment priced at around $ 10,000 per package. its process consists in dosing the exact amount of colors to a base and it is obtained from the formula loaded in the system, they are beaten by means of a special machine achieving the expected color. a great advantage is that volumes from 4 liters can be marketed and they can be at the customer’s choice although in vinyl paint or enamels, products for fashion and the new technology allows to match epoxy paint, being the universal colorants. previously, the plant produced 700 different colors, they were packaged and stored at the points of sale. with the years of existence the company had hired an employee who had the special task of matching colors based on instinct, always working through trial and error, the only quality with which they could be supported were the experience that the practice was giving them everyday. they were asked to have a “good eye and to be cordial in serving customers.” that position was one of the best paid and according to veterans in the business “it became a power reserve within organizations”, businesses became increasingly dependent on their success from exclusively on this type of staff. much was done through training courses to prepare for the generational replacement, but owners and employees knew that the most precious link was the one they represented in production. according to the concessionaires “inventories, shrinkage, ant theft and expiration were a big problem”. even when the new equipment was installed, rejection was detected first, then when they learned that its application was going to be mandatory, the employees showed concern. as is to be expected in this type of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. phenomenon, the greatest barrier is the opposition inertia of those who see their participation compromised. as an anecdote, before the appearance of color center, there were more expensive colors than others, and from their use the prices were also homogenized. the launch was in 1994 and from that date, although gradually, the employees dedicated to color matching were learning to do it with the teams because the practice of doing it by eye disappeared and the competition has not abandoned that scheme. so comex has that comparative advantage that keeps them one step ahead. another qualitative advantage is that the names of the colors that reflect the national identity have been registered and, in addition, it was mexican engineers who proposed them, each tone was given identity with a name and a code, for example: chiapas f3-11 (oxide). the system that now exists has been developed so much, mobile applications the size of a lighter by means of which the exact shade of the color to be matched can be known. with the introduction of this type of machine, the whole process changed and the storage decreased exponentially because now with only 12 base colors, any color can be produced. not only the handling of the producer was facilitated by reducing the storage of paints, but also the use of labor was reduced, the problem of constantly supervising the expiration of paints that had no sale for long periods was eliminated, the handling was facilitated from warehouses and the waiting time for some color that would not be in stock disappeared virtually. training was significantly reduced and spare parts for the equipment are readily available because the machines that are supplied to the 5,000 points of sale have been standardized. it’s kind of a henry ford model t. 4. discussion with the technological innovation of color matching implemented by the company, one of its main production problems was solved and a new business model was created. activities that were previously carried out were stopped and new actions had to be implemented. the workers who had as their only modus operandi to match colors, were no longer useful and it was necessary to relocate them inside the company to carry out different jobs; creating hardware and software to generate equal shades of color required employing qualified personnel outside the company because that work has required highly qualified personnel in areas other than paint production. this simple fact served to make the company stand out qualitatively from the rest of the competition, which continued with artisanal equalization. using the computerized system it is possible to offer for sale more than 6,000 colors. with the production of dyes online, the exercise of having a huge storage of base colors and the existence of large tubs for their transformation was abandoned. a long-standing problem with which this type of company survives was eliminated in the open: the expiration of paints that are kept in the cellar for a long time. another solution that came hand in hand with the color matching equipment was the sale of the product in small quantities; before that innovation, it was impossible to sell a special type of color in a 4-liter container because “the required work” could not be paid in small volumes; as a consequence of the new policy, color price differences disappeared (competition continues to sell www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. different colors at different prices). minimal quantities are now required and are mixed through computerized processes. one characteristic to be highlighted is that before the introduction to the electronic system, the activity was intended to be carried out only by male personnel, now with the facilities offered by the innovation, the activities have been shared in proportional male-female parts. the comex company throughout its life trajectory has incurred in important innovations, among which two should be highlighted: an administrative one that consisted of converting the workers into dealers, and having experienced a technological change from abroad as it was color matching. however, the latter became the main driver of his sales success. the change brought about by the innovation by computer equalization for the company created an abyss against the competition, 26 years later the gap has been reduced with similar projects. today comex stopped having in the color matching the center of its commercial project, today colors are the objective that is commercialized in stores, it was then given to an intangible asset, weight, shape, value and recognition by the customers. people take matched color for granted, now they want the color that most closely matches their lifestyle. references alvarado lópez, r. a. (2017). de la teoría del crecimiento económico hacia un cambio de paradigma tecnológico sustentable. administración y organizaciones, 13-34. celis, d. (19 de julio de 2013). dinero en imagen. obtenido de veta cfc concentracion de comex y sherwin-williams por riesgo en el mercado. retreived from https://www.dineroenimagen.com/2013-07-19/23266 expansion. (16 de septiembre de, 2013). obtenido de shervin-willieams compra negocio de comex. retrieved from https://expansion.mx/negocios/2013/09/16/sherwinwilliams-compra-negocio-de-comex jiménez barrera, y. (2018). aproximación crítica a las principales teorías sobre el cambio tecnológico. revista problemas del desarrollo, 171-192. https://doi.org/10.22201/iiec.20078951e.2018.193.59405 jimeno serrano, j. f. (2019). innovaciones tecnológicas, demanda de trabajo y empleo. madrid: banco de españa, cemfi, universidad de alcaclá, cepr e iza. sagasti, f. r. (1981). el factor tecnológico en la teoría del desarrollo económico. jornadas, 94, 1-160. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6mtcmp staff, f. (1 de marzo de, 2016). forbes mexico. obtenido de marcos achar responde a su incorporacion a la lista de millonarios forbes. retreived from https://www.forbes.com.mx/marcos-achar-responde-a-su-incorporacion-a-la-lista-de-millonarios-f orbes/ valencia lópez, ó., soto hernández, d., & cruz meléndez, c. (2019). centros de desarrollo tecnológico en méxico: teoría, contextos, innovación e implicaciones. lajed, 161-180. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. vázquez mota, j. (1998). los pioneros de comex, cadenas de lealtad y afecto. azcapotzalco, méxico: exel servi gráfica s.a. de c.v. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 57 original paper research on legal issues of ecological protection of cultivated land under the background of food security peng mingru1* 1 law school of guangxi university, nanning city, china * peng mingru, law school of guangxi university, nanning city, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 15, 2023 online published: december 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p57 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p57 abstract a sound legal system for ecological protection of cultivated land plays an important role in ensuring ecological protection of cultivated land and food security. the legalization of ecological governance will inevitably become an important governance approach in the future. with the development of agriculture and the further expansion of urban scale, the sustained high-intensity utilization of arable land resources has led to severe degradation, quality decline, ecological imbalance, and insufficient reserve resources. the sustainable utilization of arable land resources is facing severe challenges. this requires stricter requirements for farmland protection work, clear implementation of hard measures for farmland protection, and adherence to the strictest farmland protection system while comprehensively promoting the rule of law and ensuring food security. by exploring the problems in legal system for ecological protection of arable land, starting from timely strengthening the systematic legislation for ecological protection of arable land, improving the legal mechanism for ecological protection of arable land, improving legal measures for ecological control of arable land, and improving the legal protection system for pollution prevention and control of arable land, we aim to improve the legal system for ecological protection of arable land, promote the sustainable utilization of arable land resources, and ensure national food security. keywords food security, ecological protection of cultivated land, legal system, improve the path 1. the necessity of ecological protection of cultivated land under the background of food security the concept of food security was first proposed at the 1974 world food conference. food is a necessary condition for human survival. to achieve the goal of food security, it is necessary to ensure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. that every person in a specific region can access a certain amount of food at any time to ensure human survival and health. the 2021 publication of the “food security cadre reader” believes that the connotation of china’s food security includes food quantity security, food quality security, and food industry security. the 2019 bulletin on the quality grades of cultivated land in china classified the quality of cultivated land into grades one to ten, with an average grade of 4.76, an increase of 0.35 levels compared to 2014. among the 1.918 billion acres of arable land in china, less than one-third are high-quality, while over one-fifth are of poor quality. about two-fifths of them are sloping farmland, facing abandonment due to the difficulty of machine farming. there are also 180 million mu of arable land with a slope greater than 15 degrees, which is close to one tenth of the total arable land area. flat arable land only accounts for about 62% of china’s arable land. due to the difficulty of mechanized cultivation, these sloping arable lands are facing the threat of natural degradation and desertification. according to the communique, the quantity and quality of china’s arable land resources are worrying. in addition, in recent years, the phenomenon of abandonment, non agriculturalization, and non grainification of arable land in china has been expanding, further exacerbating the shortage of arable land resources, leading to a serious impact on food production capacity. cultivated land is an important foundation for food production. without ecological protection, cultivated land cannot guarantee the production and supply of food, thereby endangering national food security. farmland protection can improve the efficiency of food production. ecological high-quality farmland can increase the yield and quality of crops, reduce production costs, improve the economic benefits of agriculture, thereby increasing food supply and providing strong support for national food security. ecological protection of arable land is also a necessary measure to promote sustainable agricultural development. in modern agriculture, agricultural production has shifted towards efficiency, ecology, and sustainability. this requires ensuring high-quality ecological farmland resources, strengthening ecological protection and management of farmland, maintaining soil fertility and ecological environment stability, and promoting sustainable agricultural development. in summary, under the background of food security, strengthening the ecological protection and management of arable land, ensuring the stable supply of arable land resources, improving food production efficiency, and promoting sustainable agricultural development are inevitable choices to ensure national food security. 2. the current situation of ecological protection system for cultivated land under the background of food security at present, the ecological protection of cultivated land in china has just begun, and the connotation of ecological protection of cultivated land is vague and even controversial. professor zhang fengrong believes that the connotative of ecological protection of cultivated land should include three aspects: firstly, from the perspective of regional land spatial structure is inhibited to cultivate wetlands with important ecological service functions or even large areas of “unused land”, and to return farmland that has caused serious ecological problems and severe degradation, or adjust it to other suitable land types; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. the second is to improve the production function of high standard farmland or transform medium and low yield farmland, and make every effort to maintain or play its ecological function; thirdly, it is necessary to ensure that cultivated land is not polluted during the utilization process and to minimize negative external environmental effects. (zhang, 2021) ecological protection of cultivated land is an important way to maintain sustainable development of cultivated land. it is necessary to simultaneously consider the quantity, quality, and ecological protection of cultivated land, and achieve the sustainable utilization and development of cultivated land resources. due to long-term excessive pursuit of economic development, ecological protection of cultivated land has been neglected, resulting in many problems: firstly, the soil fertility foundation of cultivated land is weak and severely degraded. the data shows that the average organic matter content in chinese farmland soil is 1.86%, which is lower than the world average. (kong, 2020) according to the research of zhang fushuo (zhang, 2016), since the 1980s, the ph of cultivated soil in china has decreased by 0.13-0.80, with soil acidification in the southern region being the most significant; the degradation of soil physical properties and the long-term excessive use of chemical fertilizers in monoculture have led to physical barriers in the soil of chinese farmland. secondly, the scarcity of water resources restricts and restricts the realization of the production potential of cultivated land. the center of gravity of cultivated land in china has an obvious northward movement trend. the north is a major grain producing area and a traditional resource water shortage area. the north china plain has become one of the three major groundwater “funnels” in the world. the decline of groundwater level is not conducive to the utilization of cultivated land resources. thirdly, soil pollution and ecological problems seriously constrain the sustainable utilization of arable land resources. the 2021 china ecological environment status bulletin shows that heavy metals are the main pollutants affecting the soil environmental quality of agricultural land in china, with cadmium being the primary pollutant. in 2021, the area of soil erosion in china was 2.6927 million square kilometers, with mild, moderate, severe, extremely severe, and severe erosion accounting for 63.3%, 17.2%, 7.6%, 5.7%, and 6.2% of the total soil erosion area in china, respectively. china is also one of the countries with the largest desertification area, the largest affected population, and the most severe sandstorm hazards in the world. according to data released by the state forestry and grassland administration, the total area of desertified land in china is 2.6116 million square kilometers, accounting for 27.2% of the national land area; desertification covers 1.7212 million square kilometers, accounting for 17.9% of the national land area. desertification and desertification have become important hidden dangers affecting regional economic development and ecological security. the stability of the farmland ecosystem is related to food security and livelihood strategies. the quantity and quality of farmland systems are of great significance for maintaining their basic functions and structure, promoting sustainable agricultural development, and maintaining ecosystem stability. china is a populous country, a major producer, importer, and consumer of food. in the current era of food hegemony, frequent extreme climate disasters, and increasingly complex international food trade www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. environment, the uncertainty of food production and imports has increased, and the national food security situation is severe. the security of farmland ecosystems has a profound impact on national food security, and practical and effective measures must be taken to ensure national food security. 3. problems in the legal system of ecological protection of farmland under the background of food security since the reform and opening up, china has continuously strengthened the construction of land rule of law, effectively protecting arable land and ensuring national food security has always been a major strategic focus of the country to ensure food security. at present, china has basically formed a legal system for the protection of arable land, with the land management law and its implementation regulations, the land reclamation regulations, the basic farmland protection regulations, and others as the core. although the construction of the legal system for cultivated land has achieved good results, there are still many shortcomings in the legal system for ecological protection of cultivated land. 3.1 the decentralization of legislation on ecological protection of farmland one is that the legal system for protecting arable land is not sound. nowadays, important single line legislation in environmental protection such as the marine environment protection law, the air pollution prevention and control law, the water pollution prevention and control law, and the mineral resources protection law have already been promulgated. however, as a basic national policy in china, the farmland protection law has not yet been officially promulgated, which is not in line with the importance of farmland resources. in this context, the relevant laws and regulations on the protection of cultivated land in china are scattered among multiple laws, mainly including the land management law, the implementation regulations of the land management law, the land reclamation regulations, and the basic farmland protection regulations, covering various aspects such as land use control, basic farmland protection, land occupation tax and fee system, and legal responsibilities for land occupation. the current legal system for farmland protection is incomplete and scattered, which may lead to conflicts between different laws regarding farmland protection, affecting the effectiveness of farmland protection. secondly, there is insufficient coordination in legislation on ecological protection of cultivated land. in terms of legislation on ecological protection of cultivated land, it mainly involves a series of laws and regulations such as the land management law, the environmental protection law, the land contracting law, the agriculture law, the water law, the fisheries law, the forest law, and the grassland law. from the division of labor among management departments and the different legal settings, it can be fund that the land management law is independent of other ecological and environmental protection legal systems and lacks integrated integration. (wu, 2018) the current legislation on natural resources in china is to issue separate laws for each type of resource, which directly relates to the reasonable development of a certain type of natural resource under the jurisdiction of a single law. this may lead to neglecting the development and protection of other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. resources, and even damaging and polluting other resources. the construction of ecological civilization and the protection of arable land in certain areas are a pair of contradictions, often colliding, and the phenomenon of “land competition” is repeatedly prohibited. local governments sacrifice the ecological services of arable land for ecological civilization construction. in recent years, through investigations in beijing, tianjin, hebei and other places, a large number of new illegal land use behaviors have emerged, using ecological agriculture, tourism development and other names to illegally occupy farmland and construct “greenhouse houses”, “agricultural ecological houses”, and “tourism villas” in disguised form. the ecological service value of farmland has been destroyed by such illegal land use behaviors, which is related to the insufficient legal system of ecological protection of farmland in china. the legal system for ecological protection of cultivated land is decentralized, with a fragmented legal framework and a lack of supporting policies for regulating the ecological service functions of cultivated land. there is a lack of clear regulatory standards and boundaries in policy implementation, which affects the timeliness and effectiveness of law enforcement and supervision of illegal land use. 3.2 the legal mechanism for ecological protection of farmland is incomplete one is insufficient protection of the ecological function of cultivated land. cultivated land is the essence of land resources, which bears the functions of economic production, social security, ecological services and cultural inheritance. farmland is a valuable means of agricultural production, which can provide products and services that meet the needs of human survival and development. it is also an important material condition for promoting economic development and an important barrier for maintaining social stability and supporting ecological security. at different stages of human social development, the demand for the function of cultivated land varies, and the economic and social factors of cultivated land currently dominate the impact on its function. therefore, we are currently facing a situation where various functions of arable land are not coordinated, mainly manifested in the following aspects: firstly, we have long focused on “economic functions”. as a traditional agricultural country, cultivated land has long played an important role in economic development in china. moreover, influenced by the national political system, although local governments play the role of proxy managers for farmland protection, they often relax their control over farmland in order to explore more development opportunities. in some cases, farmland protection is seen as a burden on local economic development. farmers, on the other hand, are limited by their own level of understanding and place greater emphasis on the economic output function of cultivated land, while neglecting the ecological, landscape, and cultural functions that are less relevant to their immediate interests. secondly, overloading “social functions”. the important impact of arable land on national food security is fundamental and strategic, and the production function of arable land can derive functions such as national food security and social security for farmers. the issue of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers has always attracted widespread attention in china and is also related to the stable operation of the entire society. china’s special urban-rural dual system determines that most farmers still regard arable land as their primary livelihood guarantee. for a long time, china’s rural social security system can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. only rely on arable land, and the rural social security system is not yet perfect. it is difficult to build a comprehensive social security system for 900 million farmers in the short term, both financially and institutionally. in addition, due to the decrease in the quantity and quality of cultivated land in china, and the russia-ukraine conflict, the prospect of global food security is worrying. cultivated land should not only take into account the social security function of farmers, but also ensure food security. social functions have become “overloaded”. thirdly, neglecting the ecological value function. currently, china advocates for the “three in one” protection of cultivated land quantity, quality, and ecology. the protection of cultivated land quantity and quality has already achieved significant results, but the ecological protection of cultivated land is facing difficulties, making it difficult to choose between production and ecology. it is crucial to play the ecological role of cultivated land. at present, the academic community has recognized the ecological value of cultivated land, but has not yet proposed specific methods and approaches to incorporate cultivated land into the ecological protection system. governments at all levels and relevant departments also recognize the ecological value of cultivated land, but their understanding of ecological civilization construction and cultivated land protection has not yet reached a high level of collaborative protection. at present, china has a vague understanding of the ecological value of cultivated land in terms of farmland protection, and the ecological function of cultivated land is also relatively neglected. secondly, there is a lack of ecological compensation mechanism for regional cultivated land. the health status of cultivated land directly determines food security. while the main grain producing areas shoulder the burden of national food security, they also face increasingly severe agricultural security and ecological security protection issues of cultivated land. due to long-term neglect of the ecological environment of cultivated land, major grain producing areas in china have varying degrees of ecological problems. due to the long-term implementation of farmland protection policies, a large amount of farmland in the main grain producing areas has been used for grain production, resulting in the loss of opportunities to develop the secondary and tertiary industries and obtain high economic benefits. this has led to slow economic development, severe population loss, and backward socio-economic development. in addition, the lack of compensation for the interests of the main grain producing areas has made the vast grain producing areas “major grain producing areas”, “industrial areas”, and “financially poor areas”. nowadays, the core areas of china’s grain production have shifted their focus, and hard constraints such as arable land and water resources have been further tightened. the economic benefits of agricultural and ecological land in the vast grain producing areas are low, and ecological land restoration is difficult to sustain. farmers have meager income, and abandonment and abandonment of farmland occur from time to time. despite possessing abundant land resources, they face the dilemma of “ecological diseconomy”, “food diseconomy”, and “agricultural diseconomy”. in some economically developed areas, the process of industrialization and urbanization is accelerating, and construction land resources are scarce, making it difficult to find a single land, resulting in rising land prices. they do not need to play the role of major grain producing areas, allowing the government www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. to obtain substantial income through land transfer. the main grain producing areas have taken on too much responsibility for farmland protection, leading to an imbalance in farmland protection between regions. the current compensation mechanism for the interests of major grain producing areas in china is not perfect enough, coupled with limited compensation provided by cities and developed regions to these areas. this lack of institutional guidance and non-standard compensation mechanism will further widen the gap between major grain producing areas and other regions, exacerbating regional development imbalances (zhao, 2018). 3.3 lack of legal measures for ecological control of farmland firstly, there are significant regional differences in the implementation of the policy of returning farmland to forests. firstly, compared to other ecological projects, returning farmland to forests has extremely significant regional differences. this is because the implementation of returning farmland to forests covers a wide range of provinces in northern and western china, from inner mongolia autonomous region in the north to yunnan province in the south, from heilongjiang province in the easternmost part to gansu province in the westernmost part. china has a vast territory, significant differences in climate and terrain, and a complex and diverse geographical environment, which makes the problems encountered in the implementation of returning farmland to forests different. according to monitoring data in 2021, the area of soil erosion in the western region is 2.2473 million k square meters, accounting for 33% of its land area, seriously threatening the survival and development of people in the region. the implementation difficulty of the grain for green project in the region has also increased. in addition, there are differences in the level of economic development between different regions of returning farmland to forests. compared with the eastern region, the western region has a lower level of economic development, which leads to significant differences in the understanding and acceptance of the policy by the local people. this is also an important factor affecting the implementation effect of returning farmland to forests. there are significant differences in natural conditions and cultural backgrounds among different regions, which can also limit the implementation of the policy of returning farmland to forests. therefore, the complexity of the grain for green project is relatively high. secondly, there are conflicts among the various stakeholders involved in returning farmland to forests. the main stakeholders include the central government, local governments, and farmers returning to farmland. due to the central government’s greater consideration of national ecological environment construction and social development, it is more cautious in implementing the policy of returning farmland to forests, prioritizing the overall interests. local governments, on the other hand, place greater emphasis on local interests and prioritize the economic development and living standards of residents in the region. this has led to certain conflicts between the two sides in the implementation of the policy of returning farmland to forests. due to the policy of returning farmland to forests being supported and supported by national financial funds, farmers will only actively participate in afforestation projects when private interests outweigh costs. these three issues are mutually conflicting, and how to resolve each conflict is a key factor in the success or failure of reforestation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. the second is the excessive utilization of arable land in the main grain producing areas. grain production is the cornerstone of national food security, and the main grain producing areas are the core driving force for ensuring effective food supply. in the past decade, the grain production in 13 main production areas including heilongjiang, henan, and shandong accounted for over 75% of china’s total grain production. from 2013 to 2022, the total grain production of 13 major grain producing regions in china continued to increase, from 488.1 million tons to 537.18 million tons. the proportion of grain production in major grain producing regions to china’s total production increased from 77.42% in 2013 to 78.25% in 2022, and the total grain production increased by 10% in these 10 years. (xue, 2021) the pressure of grain production has led to high-intensity continuous cropping of arable land in the main grain producing areas, overdraft of arable land fertility, and many problems such as land degradation, serious decline in arable land quality, soil pollution, soil erosion, excessive consumption of water resources, and serious overexploitation of groundwater. the utilization and protection of arable land face significant pressure. the sustained intensive agricultural development and excessive exploitation of arable land directly threaten the sustainable utilization of resources and the ecological security of arable land, and may affect the country’s long-term food security strategy. the third issue is the imperfect legal system related to crop rotation and fallow. firstly, the legal system for crop rotation and fallow has not yet been established. in recent years, china has successively issued relevant documents and the “thirteenth five year plan suggestions”, proposing to implement a system of crop rotation and fallow, with a focus on pilot projects in areas with groundwater funnels, heavy metal pollution, and severe ecological degradation. the 13th five year plan for agricultural science and technology development proposes to carry out ecological planting models and technologies such as intercropping and rotation fallow for land cultivation. notice on the pilot work of the 2019 farmland rotation and fallow system, proposing a “technical route for fallow areas”. the fifth plenary session of the 19th central committee of the communist party of china passed the “proposal of the central committee of the communist party of china on formulating the 14th five year plan for national economic and social development and the long range objectives for 2035”, proposing to promote the recuperation of grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes, strengthen the protection of black soil, and improve the system of crop rotation and fallow. the report of the 20th national congress once again emphasizes the establishment of a sound fallow and rotation system for arable land. therefore, it is evident that the central government attaches great importance to the system of fallow and fallow cultivation. however, at the legal level, only article 36 of the land management law and articles 27 and 54 of the soil pollution prevention and control law involve the system of fallow and fallow cultivation, and the legal protection and supervision system of the system of fallow and fallow cultivation is lacking. at the national level, there are no relevant laws and regulations on the implementation of fallow crop rotation system yet; at the local level, there are also no sound local regulations and policies; the implementation of the fallow crop rotation system may lead to a vacuum between policies and laws. to ensure the effective implementation of the fallow crop rotation system, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. corresponding legal support and maintenance must be provided to ensure consistency between policies and laws, as well as the effectiveness of policy implementation. in addition, it is necessary to establish comprehensive implementation rules and operational procedures, as well as establish unified industry standards and norms, to ensure the effective implementation of the fallow crop rotation system. in addition, the management of fallow cultivation requires the use of legal means to resolve conflicts of interest between the government, local authorities, and farmers, ensuring the effectiveness of fallow cultivation management and the sustainability of ecological efficiency of cultivated land. secondly, farmers lack awareness and spontaneity towards fallow farming. in 2016, china implemented a pilot project of land rotation and fallow cultivation, and the implementation measures and rules for fallow cultivation in pilot areas were relatively complete. however, research has shown that farmers have a weak concept of implementing rotation and fallow cultivation. farmers lack awareness and spontaneity of fallow farming. on the one hand, due to the top-down fallow model, many farmers do not have a comprehensive understanding of fallow policies, procedures, etc., but they still carry out fallow due to policy regulations, and very few farmers actively or voluntarily participate. on the other hand, traditional and backward agricultural knowledge also restricts the actual effectiveness of crop rotation and fallow. some farmers believe that the so-called fallow farming refers to not plowing or planting, allowing the land to recover its fertility independently within a certain period of time. (jiang, 2018) this traditional fallow farming method is called “abandoned fallow”. however, scientific crop rotation and fallow require a series of maintenance measures to be taken during the fallow period, such as loosening soil, planting green manure, irrigation, etc., in order to protect and improve land productivity. 3.4 inadequate implementation of laws and regulations for the prevention and control of farmland pollution firstly, the current laws and regulations on the prevention and control of farmland pollution are scattered. in order to achieve higher agricultural output, farmers invest too much in the application of fertilizers and pesticides, which not only has a direct impact on crops, but also causes large-scale non-point source pollution of farmland, bringing serious impacts. the extensive application of fertilizers and pesticides can lead to the release of organic and harmful substances in the soil, thereby affecting the normal growth and development of crops, thereby affecting food security, damaging ecosystem diversity, threatening water safety and human health, and even causing serious environmental pollution, which has a huge impact on agricultural ecosystems. since entering the new century, china’s grain production has achieved continuous growth, with a total grain production of 1373.1 billion catties in 2022, reaching a historic high. however, the continuous increase in grain production is inseparable from the high input of pesticides and fertilizers. since 2000, the amount of agricultural chemical fertilizers and pesticides used in china has been continuously increasing, showing a continuous upward trend. in addition, the situation of non-point source pollution in farmland is severe due to the indiscriminate disposal of agricultural film and other waste materials. in this context, although various levels of government in china have taken various measures to prevent and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. control non-point source pollution of farmland, they have also achieved certain results. however, in practice, due to insufficient technical means and capital investment, the dispersion, latency, difficulty in detection, and difficulty in supervision of farmland non-point source pollution control have led to insignificant prevention and control effects, and strict implementation of pollution prevention and control measures is difficult. the problem of farmland non-point source pollution still exists in large quantities, and prevention and control work faces challenges. faced with the current severe pollution situation, controlling non-point source pollution of farmland is an important measure to ensure china’s food security and sustainable agricultural development, as well as an important guarantee for maintaining national security and social stability. at present, a legal system for soil pollution prevention and control has been formed with the soil pollution prevention and control law as the core. although there are many laws and regulations related to the prevention and control of farmland pollution, there are also barriers to departmental laws. firstly, the prevention and control of pollution on cultivated land has its particularity, and the soil pollution prevention and control law only provides special provisions for the prevention and control of soil pollution on agricultural land in the “risk control and restoration” section, while other parts are general provisions. the particularity of pollution prevention and control on cultivated land has not been specifically realized. in addition, there are many sources of pollution in farmland, often involving different management agencies such as environmental protection, agriculture, and water management. the power boundaries of each agency have not been clearly defined due to the lack of unified legislation. in such situations, the phenomenon of power struggle and buck passing is not uncommon. this situation has led to a chaotic management system for farmland pollution and poor enforcement effectiveness. at the local legislative level, local regulations can be formulated to prevent and control farmland pollution. however, there is still a lack of unified legislation on farmland pollution in china, which can easily lead to defects such as arbitrary legislation and weak operation in local farmland pollution prevention and control. the second issue is the imperfect construction of the standard system for environmental pollution of cultivated land. at present, the requirements for the prevention and control of farmland pollution in china are becoming increasingly high, and existing standards are difficult to meet the needs of farmland pollution prevention and control. firstly, due to the lack of risk control values for individual basic projects, it is impossible to implement control measures for this type of pollutant in farmland. the agricultural land standard specifies risk screening values for 8 basic projects, but only provides risk control values for 5 projects, without involving risk control values for the three basic projects of copper, nickel, and zinc. not fully considering the migration and accumulation effects of these metal elements in soil may pose potential hazards to the soil environment. if the pollutant content in cultivated land is high, and the value is higher than the screening value corresponding to that pollutant, and the pollutant content is less than or equal to its corresponding control value, the operator can adjust the agricultural production method and plant other types of agricultural products to ensure that the agricultural products are not contaminated and improve the quality and safety of agricultural products. if the pollutant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. content in a piece of farmland exceeds the reference value of relevant pollutants, the agricultural products grown on that plot cannot be consumed. from this, it can be seen that due to the uncertainty of project risk control values and the uncertainty of pollutants in cultivated land, relevant entities are unable to implement effective control over them, which in turn cannot guarantee food security and the ecological health of cultivated land. secondly, there are few types of organic pollutants in the standard. the probability of using pesticides and fertilizers in agricultural production in china is increasing year by year. according to data released by the ministry of ecology and environment, the fertilizer utilization rate of china’s three major grain crops, rice, wheat, and corn, was 40.2% in 2020, and the pesticide utilization rate was 40.6%. these organic pollutants have become important pollutants in china’s farmland. due to the widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers, they can enter the environment through bio-accumulation, bio-accumulation, and pathways such as atmosphere, water, and soil, thereby causing toxicity to human health. in addition, these organic pollutants may also cause cancer, carcinogenicity, induce various diseases, and pose a huge threat to human survival and development. thirdly, the legal responsibility is unreasonable. the current law on the prevention and control of farmland pollution has unreasonable provisions on legal liability. firstly, the legal responsibility of administrative agencies in preventing and controlling farmland pollution has been overlooked. the current laws on the prevention and control of farmland pollution have detailed provisions on the legal responsibility of polluters, but the legal responsibility for illegal and derelict acts of administrative entities is insufficient, resulting in the phenomenon of “failure to follow the law, lax enforcement, and failure to investigate violations” in the law enforcement process, greatly reducing the effectiveness of administrative agencies in law enforcement. secondly, the administrative penalty measures are unreasonable. the current laws on the prevention and control of farmland pollution mostly impose administrative penalties on illegal activities that pollute farmland, mainly including fines, orders for correction, confiscation of illegal gains, etc., to ensure effective protection of farmland resources. however, there are also situations where administrative penalty measures are unreasonable and the punishment effect is poor. taking fines as an example, for intentional and malicious illegal pollution of farmland, the amount of punishment is too low and obviously cannot play a sufficient deterrent role. there are few regulations on measures to restore the soil environment of cultivated land, but the remediation of contaminated soil has a long cycle, high difficulty, and high technical requirements, making it difficult to complete in a short period of time. therefore, legal regulations should be improved. thirdly, criminal responsibility is unreasonable. farmland pollution, as a serious environmental problem, has the characteristics of long-term latency and concealment. during a period of time after the subject of the behavior has committed farmland pollution, the consequences of farmland pollution are difficult to manifest and the consequences of pollution are difficult to prove in the short term. the crime of polluting the environment is a result offense, and the prerequisite for assuming criminal responsibility is that the act causes significant environmental pollution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. consequences. this also means that many behaviors that seriously pollute farmland do not constitute environmental pollution crimes and therefore do not bear criminal responsibility if no major pollution accidents have occurred, or if no major pollution accidents have occurred. such regulations are obviously unreasonable, with unreasonable legal responsibilities, unclear rights and responsibilities, and difficult measures to implement. they cannot fully punish related crimes and are not conducive to the smooth and orderly implementation of farmland pollution prevention and control work. 4. the pathto improve the legal system of ecological protection of farmland under the background of food security protecting arable land resources in accordance with the law is a necessary path for china to achieve sustainable development. currently, the legal system for protecting arable land resources in china is not systematic enough, especially the lack of legislation on ecological protection of arable land. the existing legal system has not yet formed a good constraint on ecological protection measures for arable land, such as fallow rotation, damage and pollution of arable land resources. therefore, it is necessary to improve the legal system for ecological protection of farmland from multiple aspects to ensure the effective promotion of ecological protection of farmland. 4.1 timely strengthen the systematic legislation on ecological protection of cultivated land one is to improve the legal system for ecological protection of cultivated land. at present, the laws and regulations on farmland protection are mainly reflected in the land management law, the implementation regulations of the land management law, the land reclamation regulations, and the basic farmland protection regulations, covering multiple aspects. however, the provisions on farmland protection are still relatively scattered and lack systematicity, which cannot effectively solve the new situations and problems that arise in farmland protection work. as a precious and special arable land resource, the black soil protection law can provide certain reference for the formulation and development of arable land protection laws. however, to establish a systematic framework for arable land protection, a more targeted legislative system needs to be constructed. 1.8 billion mu of arable land is the foundation of national food security, and it must be taken as the bottom line to strengthen overall protection. efforts will be made to enhance the intensity of farmland control and resolutely curb the trend of continuous reduction in the quantity and quality of farmland. we need to scientifically delineate the red lines for arable land and permanent basic farmland, establish and improve a balance system for arable land occupation and compensation, and ensure that the quantity, quality, and production capacity of supplementary arable land are equivalent to those of non-agricultural construction arable land. actively promote the construction of high standard farmland, strictly control the scale of non agricultural construction occupying farmland, actively carry out the transformation of high standard farmland and the development and utilization of unused land suitable for agriculture, and effectively improve the quality of farmland. take measures to guide farmers to reasonably transfer their land management rights and promote the large-scale development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. agriculture. actively promote the registration and certification of rural land rights, establish and improve the system for the transfer of land contracting and management rights, and establish a regulatory mechanism for the registration and certification of land contracting and management rights. we need to strengthen the government’s assessment of the responsibility for protecting arable land, strengthen the main responsibility of rural collective economic organizations, and ensure that they have a responsibility to protect and fulfill their duties. intensify the protection of arable land, implement the “field chief system”, layer by layer strengthen responsibilities, and implement land law enforcement and supervision. we need to strengthen the main responsibility of rural collective economic organizations, guide farmers to use land in accordance with laws and regulations, and safeguard land rights and interests. strengthen the implementation of farmland protection responsibilities and use control in the process of contracted management, and ensure national food security. the second is to strengthen the coordination of legislation on ecological protection of cultivated land. in order to improve the legal level of farmland protection work and further improve the legal system of farmland protection, it is necessary to strengthen the coordination of legislation on farmland ecological protection when formulating farmland protection laws. firstly, we must always adhere to the stability, scientificity, and operability of the law, balance the basic concepts of environmental protection and sustainable development, respect the original intention and purpose of the law, incorporate it into the existing legal system as a whole, use systematic interpretation methods to regulate it, ensure the legitimate rights and interests of farmers in the protection of farmland ecology, and ensure that the law complies with the principles of farmland protection. secondly, by formulating the law on the protection of cultivated land, clarifying the connotation of cultivated land, administrative law enforcement subjects, and boundaries of power exercise, we ensure that the utilization and protection of cultivated land are effectively protected by law, thereby providing comprehensive legal protection for government, enterprises, and farmers, promoting modern agricultural development and rural construction, and achieving sustainable development of rural economy and ecological civilization. finally, it is necessary to strengthen the interconnection between laws. when constructing legislation for ecological protection of farmland, it is necessary to consider the functional transformation between different land types, fully recognize the relationship between existing laws and regulations, to ensure the operability of the legal system for ecological protection of farmland, and make necessary adjustments according to the actual situation to adapt to new situations and changes. therefore, in the process of formulating legislation for ecological protection of cultivated land, it is necessary to strengthen the connection with existing laws and regulations. legislation should also adhere to the concept of ecological civilization. advocating ecological civilization is to link human development needs with the survival and development of the biological world. as an important component of the natural ecological giant system, the utilization layout of cultivated land is the main spatial carrier for ecological civilization construction. the scientific and orderly layout of national land space is of great significance for achieving green development and meeting the needs of life and consumption. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 70 published by scholink inc. therefore, we should adhere to the overall cognitive view of “mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, and grasses” as a community of life, establish new concepts for ecological management of farmland, and promote sustainable utilization of farmland. at the same time, through the mutual adaptation between the multifunctional integration of cultivated land and the construction of ecological civilization, regional ecological security and high-quality socio-economic development can be achieved. the results of the “three adjustments” show that china’s ecological construction has achieved positive results, and the achievements must be consolidated. in response to the unstable ecological construction pattern in certain regions, it is necessary to further strengthen management, enhance ecological construction, and increase efforts to implement protection measures. we must adhere to the strictest ecological environment protection system, build a more stable ecological environment, and achieve sustainable development. therefore, strengthening the ecological protection of cultivated land is a key measure for green development based on the logic of ecological security strategy, a basic condition for ensuring china’s food security and food safety, reflecting the advancement of laws with the times, respect for scientific laws, and compliance with social development needs. it is also a strategy for implementing natural resource management and sustainable utilization under the background of socialist ecological civilization. (fang, 2020) 4.2 establish a sound legal mechanism for ecological protection of arable land one is to fully leverage the multifunctional protection and interest coordination mechanism of cultivated land. firstly, it is necessary to establish a broad range of values for cultivated land and improve the evaluation index system for the value of cultivated land resources. in addition to providing food and important agricultural products, cultivated land also has multiple functions such as ensuring employment, soil and water conservation, maintaining biodiversity, landscape and cultural support. the non social value of cultivated land protection is included in the government decision-making framework, mainly reflected in the social security and ecological construction of cultivated land, in order to achieve the goal of effectively utilizing land resources and protecting the ecological environment. secondly, by exchanging resources between regions, we can compensate for the opportunity costs paid by land protectors. at the same time, strict restrictions should be imposed to avoid the occurrence of abnormal situations such as improper protection of farmland for profit and occupation of farmland for development, reduce the huge social costs of farmland protection, and achieve balanced development of interests among all parties, forming a balance between the benefits of protecting farmland and the costs of occupying farmland. finally, in order to optimize the functional allocation of arable land, arable land, as an important component of the rural regional system, has dual attributes of resources and assets. attention should be paid to the coupling relationship between the characteristics of arable land and regional socio-economic development. macroscopically speaking, in the developed eastern coastal areas with high levels of economic development and productivity, the main focus should be on leveraging the ecological and cultural functions of cultivated land; in the central region where agriculture is an important industry, the focus should be on improving production www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 71 published by scholink inc. functions; in the western regions where the ecological environment is fragile and the level of economic development is relatively low, most farmers still rely on arable land for livelihood. therefore, based on strengthening ecological design, emphasis should be placed on the social security function of arable land. the second is to improve the ecological compensation mechanism for cultivated land areas. farmland protection is the foundation for ensuring food production security and plays an important role in ensuring sustainable growth of food production. corresponding institutional mechanisms and policy systems should be established. (li, 2020) in order to ensure the safety of cultivated land in the main production areas, the country should take measures to strengthen the protection of cultivated land. therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of a compensation legal system for the protection of cultivated land in the main production areas of grain, improve the income level of grain farmers, and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. specifically, first of all, it is necessary to clearly define the compensation subject, clarify the compensation object and compensation standards, and formulate relevant regulations to determine the source and operation mode of compensation funds. secondly, it is necessary to determine the specific usage method and operation mechanism of compensation funds to ensure the effectiveness of farmland protection compensation. finally, it is necessary to improve the supervision and management system, formulate corresponding laws and regulations to regulate the use and distribution of compensation funds, and use an effective supervision and management system to ensure the effective use of compensation funds for farmland protection. in addition to expanding the sources of compensation funds, the government also needs to strengthen the supervision of farmer participation in standard formulation and fund operation to ensure the effective implementation of compensation measures for farmland protection. in short, only by improving and strengthening the legal system for protecting and compensating cultivated land in major grain producing areas can we truly achieve effective protection and sustainable utilization of cultivated land resources by the country, and to some extent, promote the development of china’s agriculture and rural economy. 4.3 improve legal measures for ecological control of cultivated land one is to promote the transition from returning farmland to forests and grasslands to crop rotation and fallow cultivation. at the end of the last century, china began implementing the policy of returning farmland to forests and grasslands in response to the problem of unreasonable utilization of arable land, especially in mountainous areas and the blind expansion of arable land in the transitional zone between agriculture and animal husbandry. this policy was piloted in 1999 and quickly began to work within china. the white paper “twenty years of returning farmland to forests and grasslands in china (1999-2019)” shows that over the past twenty years, china has accumulated over 515 million mu of farmland to forests and grasslands. returning farmland to forests and grasslands has produced significant ecological effects in water source conservation, wind and sand prevention, carbon and oxygen fixation, and has also promoted the adjustment of agricultural industry structure and helped www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 72 published by scholink inc. farmers lift themselves out of poverty and become prosperous, resulting in significant social and economic benefits. ultimately, it has made important contributions to increasing forest carbon sinks, responding to climate change, and participating in global ecological governance. the systematic return of farmland to forests and grasslands has fundamentally reversed the trend of farmers in mountainous areas destroying forests and reclaiming land to increase arable land, and basically solved the ecological problems caused by the unreasonable use of arable land in mountainous areas and the agricultural pastoral transitional zone. (song, 2022) currently, due to the outflow of young and middle-aged labor in mountainous areas, the phenomenon of abandoned farmland is frequent. in addition, the coexistence of “non grainification” and “non agriculturalization” of cultivated land in plain areas has intensified the pressure on food security. as a result, the pressure on grain production in some cultivated land has increased, leading to high-intensity continuous cropping and severe soil overdraft, resulting in many problems such as land degradation, soil pollution, soil erosion, and excessive consumption of water resources. the utilization and protection of cultivated land is facing significant transformation pressure. in this context, crop rotation and fallow can efficiently integrate and optimize resource allocation, becoming a new approach to ecological protection of cultivated land. the second is to strengthen the ecological protection of cultivated land in the main grain producing areas. firstly, strictly control the scale of construction land. with industrialization and urbanization, a large amount of high-quality farmland has been occupied. compared with other regions, the main grain producing areas have more abundant arable land resources. the scale of construction land should be strictly controlled, land should be used intensively, and the phenomenon of attracting project investment with cheap land should be resolutely eliminated. develop corresponding management measures, strictly control the occupation of farmland for construction according to the characteristics of different regions, ensure the long-term sustainable use of high-yield and high-quality farmland, and achieve sustainable agricultural development. (yuan, 2017) secondly, we will continue to promote the construction of high standard farmland, optimize and integrate related projects, scientifically and reasonably arrange the construction schedule, and coordinate the crop planting structure and layout. we will continue to promote the construction of high standard basic farmland, and strengthen the construction of farmland infrastructure and soil improvement in accordance with the requirements of “no reduction in quantity and improvement in quality”. improving the quality of farmland and consolidating the foundation of high-yield soil can not only increase grain production capacity, but also enhance the disaster resistance of farmland. in the process of constructing high standard farmland, special attention should be paid to improving soil and enhancing basic soil fertility. (guo, 2020) thirdly, improve the technology promotion system for protecting the fertility of cultivated land. on the one hand, it is necessary to continuously increase the development efforts of soil conservation technologies, develop soil conservation technologies with low costs, significant results, and easy acceptance, and form corresponding technical specifications. on the other hand, we will carry out detailed investigation and remediation pilot work on soil pollution, and establish and improve relevant monitoring and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 73 published by scholink inc. evaluation systems. build a technical system, service system, and support system for the protection and improvement of farmland quality, and strengthen scientific research and technology promotion and application. the third is to establish strict legal measures for crop rotation and fallow. firstly, establishing a fallow crop rotation system and enhancing its legal status is a systematic project that cannot be achieved solely through the efforts of one party. at the legal and regulatory level, it should be incorporated into laws and regulations, and coordinated with land property rights systems, land management systems, and systems such as returning farmland to forests and grasslands, to form a complete policy system. at the same time, it is necessary to gradually establish sound policies, such as establishing effective compensation mechanisms, appropriate subsidies, and strengthening supervision and inspection of farmland protection work. in addition, it is necessary to adjust the local government’s grain production target assessment system to ensure the effective implementation of the fallow crop rotation system. only in this way can the fallow rotation system truly play a role, benefit farmers, and improve the agricultural environment and food security. secondly, fully mobilize the awareness of fallow farming among farmers. the state can leverage the support of grassroots governments, village committees, and village social organizations to increase the promotion of fallow cultivation, eliminate concerns among farmers about the deprivation of arable land, and explain the economic accounts of farmers before and after fallow cultivation. at the same time, the government should provide re employment training for farmers who engage in fallow farming, improve their professional skills, increase their economic income, and provide social security for the elderly population of fallow farmers to meet their living needs. in addition, the government should establish a dedicated department for fallow management to manage and supervise fallow. through these measures, on the one hand, it can promote the smooth implementation of fallow land, and on the other hand, it can also make farmers aware of the importance and necessity of ecological protection of cultivated land. 4.4 establish a sound legal protection system for the prevention and control of farmland pollution one is the implementation of a strict legal system for the prevention and control of farmland pollution. to ensure the effective implementation of laws on the prevention and control of farmland pollution, a legislative system for farmland pollution prevention and control that reflects the characteristics of the farmland environment and public opinion should be established to ensure the effective implementation of farmland pollution prevention and control work. on the basis of current relevant laws and regulations, combined with practical needs, determine the basic principles and measures for preventing and controlling farmland pollution, adhere to the principle of prioritizing farmland protection and the best protection technology, and establish a sound system for preventing and controlling farmland pollution. firstly, effective measures should be taken to prioritize the protection of arable land, and risk control measures should be taken for arable land with high pollution risks to prevent further pollution and avoid contamination of unpolluted arable land. at the same time, it is necessary to treat and restore already contaminated arable land to ensure soil environmental quality. secondly, improve the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 74 published by scholink inc. ecological compensation system for non-point source pollution control of farmland. against the backdrop of increasingly severe non-point source pollution on farmland and the lack of effective pollution control measures, the country should promptly introduce systematic ecological compensation policies for the control of non-point source pollution on farmland, clarify compensation objects, formulate reasonable compensation standards, clarify compensation methods, and supervise compensation effects, in order to build a sound ecological compensation policy for the control of non-point source pollution on farmland. establish an effective ecological environment protection mechanism to enable farmers to better utilize arable land resources, reduce pollutant emissions, improve the ecological environment, and provide more development opportunities for them. once again, clarify the responsibilities of relevant parties. from the perspective of ecological civilization construction, establish the concept of green development legislation, clarify the responsibilities of the government, producers, and farmers, and incorporate abstract responsibilities into legal provisions, truly exerting the positive role of the law in preventing and controlling non-point source pollution of farmland. it can also provide legal protection for improving the quality of cultivated land, protecting the ecology of cultivated land, achieving environmentally friendly agricultural production, and ensuring food security. finally, strengthen the supervision and inspection of the use of agricultural inputs, the disposal of agricultural inputs after use, and the disposal of agricultural inputs after disposal, and investigate and punish illegal activities in accordance with the law; regularly carry out soil environmental quality monitoring work, grasp the real-time dynamics of soil environmental quality, and provide strong support for improving soil environmental quality. the second is to improve the ecological environment standard system for cultivated land. firstly, the adherence to the principle of strict standards. according to the provisions of the soil pollution prevention and control law, local legislation should be based on ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products and human health when formulating risk control standards for farmland soil pollution. projects that are stricter than national standards can be formulated to maintain the quality and safety of farmland in the local area. in addition, when formulating more specific standards for risk control of cultivated land, the characteristics of cultivated land in different regions should be fully considered, and targeted standards should be formulated to achieve refined management of cultivated land in different regions. this can not only meet the control of soil pollution risks in different regions, but also be used for the improvement of national standards. secondly, supplement the basic project risk control value. at present, china’s agricultural land standards stipulate risk control values for 8 basic projects and risk screening values for 5 basic projects. however, with the extensive use of chemical and organic fertilizers in agricultural production, the content of elements such as copper, zinc, and nickel in cultivated soil continues to increase. even though copper, zinc, and nickel are metal elements required for crop growth, excessive amounts can have adverse effects on crop growth, causing heavy metal accumulation and leading to crop pollution, seriously endangering crop safety. therefore, when formulating the basic project risk control values, adjustments should also be made according to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 75 published by scholink inc. actual situation to ensure the applicability and scientificity of the standards. suggest supplementing the basic project risk control values in the agricultural land standards to maintain the ecological security of cultivated land. the third is to strictly enforce the legal responsibility for ecological protection of cultivated land. the current legal liability regulations for farmland pollution cannot effectively control and manage the destruction and pollution of farmland. therefore, the urgent need to control farmland pollution cannot be fully met, and the severe situation of farmland destruction and pollution is becoming increasingly out of control. to solve this problem, diversified solutions are needed. firstly, it is necessary to urge administrative agencies to assume corresponding legal responsibilities. make clear provisions in the law on the specific legal responsibilities that relevant administrative agencies should bear in the prevention and control of farmland pollution, in order to urge administrative agencies to strictly enforce the law. in addition, if pollution behavior occurs due to the inaction of the administrative department, the administrative department should also bear the corresponding legal consequences and supplementary responsibilities. the second is to strictly enforce administrative responsibility. the current administrative responsibility for farmland pollution in china is relatively light, and there is a contradiction between it and the serious situation of farmland pollution. therefore, administrative responsibility should be further strictly enforced. for example, in the case of difficulty in restoring contaminated farmland, when determining the compensation amount, full consideration should be given to increasing compensation to cope with the cost increase caused by long-term restoration. from the perspective of restoration costs, it is recommended to increase the punishment for soil pollution and increase the cost of illegal activities. the third is strict criminal responsibility. the existing criminal law stipulates that the crime of polluting the environment is a result offense, but due to the lag and concealment characteristics of farmland pollution, the actual harm results are not easily discovered in a timely manner. based on this, the result offense should be changed to an abstract dangerous offense. the act of discharging and accumulating environmental pollutants does not require actual harmfulness, but objectively has the possibility of causing major environmental pollution accidents, and the perpetrator needs to bear corresponding criminal responsibility. by strictly enforcing legal responsibilities, punishing environmental violations and crimes, and leveraging the general social preventive effect of laws on farmland pollution prevention and control, we can promote the healthy development of farmland pollution prevention and control. references fang, b. (2020). china’s arable land protection system in the context of ecological civilisation: generative logic and contemporary revelations. land science dynamics, 5(1), 9. guo, x. y. (2020). mechanisms affecting the overdraft of arable land in china and countermeasures for its management. rural economy, 3(3), 32. jiang, j. l. (2018). research on constraints and countermeasures of implementing fallow ploughing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 76 published by scholink inc. system in china. journal of southwest university (social science edition), 3(3), 54. kong, x. b. (2020). strategies and paths of arable land protection in china in the context of ecological civilisation. china land science dynamics, 16(1), 2. li, z. (2020). research on the ecological security of the main grain producing areas. study and exploration, 8(4), 90. song, w. (2022). promoting the all-round transformation of cultivated land protection in the new era. china land science dynamics, 11(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11081184 wu, z. l. (2018). interlaw integration and institutional interaction of “cultivated land protection”-centred on the synergistic regulation of tax and environmental laws. journal of nanjing university of technology (social science edition), 11(4), 3. xue, x. d. (2021). analysis of the spatial correlation between the ecological footprint of arable land and food security in major grain producing areas. ecological economy, 15(8), 94. yuan, h. b. (2017). research on the protection of arable land quality and sustainable development of agriculture in the main grain-producing areas of northeast china. economy vertical and horizontal, 13(11), 109. zhang, f. l. (2016). current status and impact of soil acidification in chinese farmland. democracy and science, 6(2), 26. zhang, f. r. (2021). clarifying the connotation of ecological protection of cultivated land. qinghai land and economic strategy, 11(5), 37. zhao, g. q. (2018). how to integrate and coordinate ecological construction and arable land protection. resource guide, 13(7), 18. peng mingru1* 1 law school of guangxi university, nanning city, * peng mingru, law school of guangxi university, n microsoft word assc-v1n1-p39 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper from history of the world to the world—a reflection on establishing a community with a shared future for mankind sang yanhai1* (note 1) 1 school of marxism, jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu province, china * sang yanhai, school of marxism, jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu province, china received: april 18, 2019 accepted: may 8, 2019 online published: may 10, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p39 abstract nowadays the world is still in a state of anarchy and the real political meaning of “world” does not truly exist. in this sense, the design of establishing a community with a shared future for mankind is a great innovation of theory, which, theoretically, has the significance of breaking through the world history and reconstructing the social order of the real “world”. the logical deduction of “family-country-world” in chinese traditional culture is of great theoretical significance for the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. keywords community, a community with a shared future for mankind, history of the world, history 1. “community” and “community with a shared future for mankind” in classical theory the notion “community” involves philosophy, politics, ethics, sociology and many other subjects, so it has a wide range of connotations. the most popular explanation is that it consists of the group of interests of several aspects. the german sociologist ferdinand tennis is the first to explain the notion “community”. in his book community and society, he puts forward the idea of mutual relationships with others in many ways and any of them will have an effect on our “will” and “body”. the community formed by this kind of positive relationship can be understood as “a connection with subjects or objects acting inwardly or outwardly”. (note 2) meanwhile, he thinks that the relationship itself is the connection: it can either be regarded as organic life in reality, the nature of community; or the mechanic form of thinking, the definition of society. (note 3) tennis stands on the point that there are two kinds of social relationships: community and society, which, respectively derives from two human wills: the organically instinctive will and purposefully selective will. the community is formed by the instinctive will motivated by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 40 published by scholink inc. inner factors such as personal preference, habits and memorization while the society is formed by purposefully rational consideration under the encouragement of deliberation, wish and notion. however, since the “body” is the realization and realistic expression of “community” and “society”, tennis’ discrimination is still in the abstract sense. in marx’s ideological system, community is not only the object of criticism, but also the object of his theoretical pursuit. in marx’s view, the capitalist mode of production has caused alienation of the human because the capital relationship of production is created by people but now it is pressing and captivating people. in order to eliminate this mode of production, it is not helpful to criticize it through writing or advertising, and it is necessary to rely on the emancipating activities armed with weapons. so marx said, “a critical weapon cannot, of course, replace the criticism from the equipped pubic, and the material power can only be destroyed by the material force”. the “material force” that marx has said refers to the activity of the awakened proletariat with the consciousness of communism. only the proletariat, who serves as the material critical force of reality, can be united in the liberation of all mankind. only by the liberation of all mankind can the proletariat free themselves and finally establish a free kingdom. the realization of the historical mission of the proletariat is impossible without the design of “community”. marx’s pursuit of the community—a free man’s union, certainly has positive significance in practical activities. in contrast to marx, emile durkheim thinks that the competition, division of labor and private ownership in the capitalist mode of production have not caused the alienation of the human. instead they are a force of social solidarity and social integration, “the division of labor requires a kind of order, harmony and social solidarity, so it is moral” (note 4). the unity of the division of labor and competition under the private ownership of capitalism is regarded as a manifestation of the whole society’s morality. it is by this mode of production that the organic unity of social and individual consciousness can be achieved. finally, the purpose of social integration is attained, thus establishing a “community”. the idea of building a community with a shared future for mankind is put forward by mr. xi whose theoretical design focuses on human development and the future of the world. xi jinping points out that nowadays the degree of communication and interdependence between countries are deepening unprecedentedly. we live in a contemporary earth village where history and reality come across, gradually forming into a community with a shared future for mankind. the world multi-polarization, the economic globalization, the information-based society, the culture diversity is growing; the global governing system, the change of the international order is accelerating; the relations and interdependence of all countries are deepening; the international power is more balanced, and the tendency of peace and development are irreversible. at the same time, the instability and uncertainty facing the world are prominent; the momentum of world economic growth is insufficient; the gap between rich and poor is becoming more and more serious; and regional hot issues are frequently appearing. non-traditional security threats such as terrorism, network security, major infectious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 41 published by scholink inc. diseases, and climate change continue to spread and challenge human beings. (note 5) he describes “ a community with a shared future for mankind” as “a homeland with lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and tolerance, clean and beautiful view” (note 6), a concept that encompasses international rights, common interests, sustainable development and global governance. it is designed to establish the consciousness of a community with a shared future for mankind under win-win cooperation within the sphere and to promote the achievement of world peace beyond the boundaries of nation, nationality and cultural. therefore, we must stand on the real “world” point, which requires crossing the obstacles of system and culture to achieve full communication within the globe, and to found a world order based on reality. 2. “history of the world” is not the “world” history of the world, fundamentally serves as a philosophical concept of history and existence. this concept was not proposed by marx, but by hegel. hegel sets out from the perceptual and finally understands the absolute spirit after going through the intellectual and the rational. hegel realizes that this process of reflection is only the alienation of the absolute spirit which he finally returns to and all these are the unity of logic and history. “history of the world is therefore a rational process”, in other words, the world is just the process of self-consciousness knowing absolute spirit and constant alienation of absolute spirit. therefore, history of the world is a movement, a process of change. marx starts logically from the “perceptual activity” of men in reality and actively sublimates hegel’s view of “history of the world”, absorbing its rational cores. moreover, marx takes commodity as the logical starting point of capitalist mode of production, and explains the theory of world history for the first time in the process of discussing capitalist mode of production. “the transition from history to history of the world is not a ‘self-consciousness’, a purely abstract action of the spirit of the world or a metaphysical ghost, but an action that is completely material and can be empirically proved”. (note 7) it shows that history of the world is an objective material process of production, and the transition from history to the world is an empirical fact. the three industrial revolutions since the seventeenth century have widely overthrown the agricultural and animal husbandry modes of production and realized the capital mode of production: the feudal system is overthrown while the capitalist system is founded; the closed small markets are destroyed and the worldwide market of capitalism is set up. a grand capitalist world system has been established around the world. with the globalization of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, all regions and nationalities and their cultures have begun to merge in an unprecedented way, and the national boundaries of the traditional peoples newly discovered by geography have gradually been broken down. since then, social history has been transformed from national history to world history. however, marx believes that it is the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie who open the capitalist world market and establish the capitalist mode of production and the capitalist world system. driven by capital, capitalists look for places where capital can increase as much as possible including www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 42 published by scholink inc. communication between people and nations. capital has become a real force for dominating people, and there is no such thing as true emancipation for humans. therefore, the mission of the proletariat is to overthrow the capitalist system, liberate all mankind and establish a union of free people in the processing history of the world. with the development of world history, the capitalist world system still exists, but its internal structure has undergone profound changes. although peace and development are still the theme of modern world and the economic globalization is irreversible, global instability and uncertainty are becoming more and more prominent. as xi jinping said at the opening ceremony of the 2017 session of the world economic forum, “this is the best and also the worst time”. our destiny is closely related to each other with further development of globalization, the rapid innovation of information, cultural communication and combination. however, “human beings are also in an era of endless challenges and increasing risks. the economic growth of the world is weak; the clouds of the financial crisis remain constant; the gap in development is becoming increasingly prominent and there are frequent confrontations in the military. the threats of cold war and powerful politics persist while terrorism, network security and major infectious diseases continue to occur. climate change and other non-traditional security threats continue to spread”. (note 8) consequently, the idea of establishing “a community with a shared future for mankind” is the necessity of historical development and needs of the time. 3. a theoretical reference for a community with a shared future for mankind as the notion of “world” in the geographical sense already exists, the formation of the concept of “world history” also originates from the discovery of the world in the geographical sense. and the real “world” must be considered at the level of political philosophy, or the social order of the whole world. in this sense, the real “world” does not yet exist. throughout the history, the international community has so far been anarchy, or hobbes “natural state. but hobbes” exposition of the struggle between humans in his theory “the state of nature” is too abstract and hypothetical. xunzi, an ancient chinese philosopher, may explain the theory of humans’ natural state more logically. he said “in physical power they are not so good as an ox, in swiftness they do not equal the horse; yet the ox and horse can be put to their use. why is that? i say it is because humans alone can form societies and animals cannot. why can man form a society? i say it is due to the division of society into classes. how can social divisions be translated into behavior? i say it is because of humans’ sense of morality and justice.” he thinks the difference between humans and animals is that man can be well-organized into groups. the reason is that humans can be divided into various classes under the control of social moral principles. xunzi believes that in order to survive, people must have a cooperative relationship from the beginning. in other words, coexistence is the condition for any individual to survive and the conflicts between people derive from their struggle for the common interests. people first cooperate to become a group, then everyone demands the maximization of their own interests and all try to occupy more wealth created by cooperating with others, but in order to take more advantages, he will certainly minimize www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 43 published by scholink inc. other people’s interests. therefore, it is the unbalance of interests in the process of cooperation that causes the conflicts. as a result, cooperation precedes conflicts, and it is unjust cooperation that leads to conflicts. in the background of globalization, we have reason to doubt whether humans can work together as one group and how to guarantee conflicts can be conquered by cooperation in the process of team work. or whether an effective way remains for people to deal with conflicts over public interests. in traditional chinese culture, the concept of politics conveys a kind of social order instead of a dominating approach. the universal value of chinese philosophers is more inclined to seek the “governance” of social order rather than “chaos”. “governance” is the prerequisite and foundation for the achievement of all other purposes, while “chaos” only destroy social order thus leading desirable purposes unattainable. therefore, “governance” is the first principle of chinese political philosophy. in this way, we can understand why modern masters of confucianism are more “conservative”. a well-governed society is not necessarily the best society, nor is a society of satisfaction for all, for any order will always limit certain freedom. but only in a well-governed society can it be possible to make improvements, which is considered to be the starting point and the basic guarantee of any ideal society. thus we can understand why chinese politicians always put social stability in their first concern. confucius said “to rule is to set straight”, meaning “to correct order and relations”. chinese traditional politics is to create a community of harmony rather than a country of national difference in the western sense, not to mention a state or nation in the modern sense. according to the above theory, when a social order is universally accepted by mankind, then it is of world significance. and only in this sense can a true “world” be formed. therefore, today’s anarchic “world” cannot be called a true “world”. in other words, a “world” based on social order and political sense has not existed yet but only the “earth” of geographical significance remains. it is illustrated by today’s unresolved global ecological crisis and geo-conflicts. it also implies that “western political thinking” does not help to solve the problem, and even causes various profound international or cultural conflicts. in the western political thinking pattern, “country” is the largest political unit while “world” is inevitably only a geographical sense of the national federation. in other words, the western mode of thinking is “individual—community—country/city-state”, which stops at the national level. this is the limitation of western thinking that they do not have the awareness of the whole world where public interests matter. where public interests cannot be maintained is bound to fall into hobbes “jungle hypothesis”. therefore, the horizon of the true “world” emphasizes the necessity of treating the “world” as a unit of political analysis and a unit of regulation that can accommodate all issues of international relations. if the social order cannot be established in the sense of the world, then there are bound to be some unresolved international problems. the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind fills the gap of “world order”. meanwhile, in order to establish a real “world” and “a community with a shared future for mankind”, we can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 44 published by scholink inc. benefit from chinese traditional culture. the theoretical deduction of “home-country-world” in chinese traditional culture is aimed at seeking the universal and effective compromise on human conflicts. the logical deduction of the “home-country-world” in the great learning is the concentrated embodiment of confucian practical thoughts, which requires people to perfect their moral consciousness through their own cultivation, and then to take social responsibility, participate in social activities, and construct an ideal social order of harmonious family and society, beautiful world and shared community. references emile, d. (2010). theory of social division of labor (q. dong, trans.). beijing: san lian bookstore. ferdinand, t. (2010). community and society-the basic concepts of pure sociology (l. rongyuan, trans.). beijing: peking university press. liu, q. z., & qian, w. (2019). the wisdom of chinese traditional culture of building a community with a shared future for mankind—an investigation centered on culture. journal of shanghai institute of socialism, 2019(01), 61-64. marx, e. (2009). in works of marx and engels (vol. 1). beijing: people’s publishing house. marx, e. (2012). selected collections of marx and engels (vol. 1). beijing: people’s publishing house. shao, f. j. (2018). marx’s theory of social community from the perspective of modernity criticism. study of socialism, 2018(06), 36-44. xi, j. p. (2017). a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way to win a great victory for socialism with chinese characteristics for the new era-report at the 19th congress of the communist party of china. beijing: people’s publishing house. xi, j. p. (2018). xi jinping’s thirty thoughts on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era. beijing: study press. zhao, t. y. (2008). a brief description of the world system. world economy and politics, 2008(10), 57-65. zhao, t. y. (2015). the futuristic nature of world order. exploration and contention, 2015(11), 7-21. zhu, x. (1983). the chapter variorum of the four books. beijing: publishing house of china. notes note 1. sang, y. h. (1991-). male (han nationality), comes from wuwei, gansu province and now studies the localization of marxism in china as a postgraduate in school of marxism, jiangsu university note 2. ferdinand tennis. translated by lin rongyuan. community and society-the basic concepts of pure sociology. beijing: peking university press, 2010, 43. note 3. marx, engels. selected collections of marx and engels (vol. 1). beijing: people’s publishing house, 2012, 9. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 45 published by scholink inc. note 4. emile durkheim. translated by qu dong. theory of social division of labor. beijing: san lian bookstore, 2000, 1. note 5. xi jinping. a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way to win a great victory for socialism with chinese characteristics for the new era-report at the 19th congress of the communist party of china. beijing: people’s publishing house, 2017, 58. note 6. xi jinping’s thirty thoughts on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era. beijing: study press, 2018, 291. note 7. marx, engels. works of marx and engels: volume 1. beijing: people’s publishing house, 2009, 541. note 8. xi jinping. a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way to win a great victory for socialism with chinese characteristics for the new era-report at the 19th congress of the communist party of china. beijing: people’s publishing house, 2017, 285-286. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 72 original paper policy reflection and demystify on street vendors in the context of covid-19—based on the empirical investigation of pingfang district in harbin minna yan 1 , yike zhao 1 & yang haomiao 1 1 minna yan, zijin school of geology and mining, fuzhou university, fuzhou, china 1 yike zhao, school of journalism & communication, northwest university, shaanxi, china 1 haomiao yang, department of business english, harbin finance university, heilongjiang, china received: january 12, 2023 accepted: february 8, 2023 online published: february 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p72 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p72 abstract at the beginning of 2020, the epidemic raged in china. faced with the great pressure of economic downturn, the state has issued policies to relax the limitations on the street vending economy, making it promote employment and maintaining social stability in the stage of economic restart and recovery. this paper discussed policies related to street vendor economy under the background of epidemic in pingfang district and gave reasonable suggestions for the orderly and stable development of the vendor economy in the post-epidemic era. keywords street vending economy, epidemic, social survey, policy analysis jel classification numbers: d74, r58 1. introduction as a common economic behavior, there is no strict definition to street vending economy when it used as a concept, and there are differences in the definition among different scholars (pan zhendo, 2020). some scholars believe that street vending economy refers to an economic form that obtains income by setting up land stalls, and it is a marginal economy in cities. some scholars define it as a form of self-employment in which urban disadvantaged groups earn a living through their own labor, providing services to society or selling commodities on urban streets. based on the results of research and investigation, this paper defines the street vending economy as a low-cost, independent and free form www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. of self-employment economy with night operation as the main form for the survival and development of urban low-income people, and the main content is to provide certain products or services. in terms of the characteristics of street vending economy, it mainly has the characteristics of low entry threshold, low cost and low risk. low barriers to entry is refers to the vendor does not need to meet the high skills and education required to enter the market, low cost refers to the vendor to bear the cost of raw material and stores is lower than ordinary shops, low risk mainly self-employed with employment closely related to the nature of, vendor should bear the risk of unemployment is low, at the same time because of the small investment, make the management risk is greatly reduced. since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, people across the country have stayed indoors and stopped production in order to cooperate with the epidemic prevention and control work. as the battle line for epidemic prevention and control is lengthening, economic problems and social livelihood issues have become increasingly serious. prime minister in 2020, li praised lay in “economy” is “earthly fireworks”, is the life of china (song dui-dui, 2021), based on the reality of low income and employment, the government of “bundling” of squatter communities, and then the squatter communities springing up, among them, the cities show a thriving vitality, through innate soft economic advantage to build characteristic squatter communities, combined with the structure of production capacity, adjust the relationship between social supply and demand, so as to better drive the recovery and development of local related economic industries. this article selects the lay in the densely populated places in harbin city collection as the main survey sites, from the perspective of consumers, the combination of vendor and the game analysis of government policy, the street vending economic development of the existing problems, puts forward suggestions for specification out of the economic development, make its better integrated into the city, lay in the urban construction and economic development hand in hand coordination, create a vision for your life. 2. background 2.1 brief introduction of respondents the survey site is pingfang district, also known as harbin economic and technological development zone, which is subordinate to harbin city, heilongjiang province. it is located in the southern suburb of harbin city. pingfang district has jurisdiction over 7 streets and 1 town, with a total area of 93.8 square kilometers, and its geographic coordinates are 126°33 ‘45 “to 126°48’ 45” e, 45°30 ‘00 “to 45°40’ 00” n (figure 1). pingfang district has a long history and its historical evolution can be traced back to before the qing dynasty. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the boroughs of pingfang district 2.2 introduction and interpretation of current policy this understanding is mainly based on government documents from the people’s government of pingfang district, harbin city, heilongjiang province and the harbin city bureau of letters and visits.” at present, the district encourages the gradual development of the street economy, and in particular strongly supports the development of night-time businesses. having expanded the two original market stalls, the pingfang district now has 18 street market stalls, 1,358 stalls, 2,648 employees, one temporary market in the neighbourhood, 23 streets open and businesses allowed to operate outside their doors. the original market maintains the same fee system as before. under the current regulations, stalls are mainly located in squares, neighbourhoods, on the outskirts of main roads and commercial areas. an example of this is the night market in another district of harbin that adheres to the same policy. the night market was established in 2013 as a government plan for the original market, with dedicated staff responsible for maintenance, management and cleaning. within the planning area of the district’s dongyuan office, the following blocks (2-56) and zhonghe hutong (2-24) are designated as free business zones, in response to the government’s call to develop mass stalls and stabilise people’s livelihoods. those who wish to work here can apply to the subordinate office and operate once they have passed the application. under the leadership of the epidemic prevention command, our district was briefed two years ago by the district urban management bureau on specific measures to strengthen the market’s epidemic prevention. by the district urban management bureau before and after the opening of the market to carry out a centralized disinfection in order to strengthen the management of the stalls, set up several cameras in the market for full monitoring, strengthen scientific epidemic prevention, close the market to natural enemies, set up several cameras in the market for full monitoring, strengthen the autonomy of the owners, effectively tow volunteers, mobile patrols without interruption and publicity work has been promoted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. 2.3 policy implementation status the urban management bureau of pingfang district also takes into account comprehensive epidemic prevention and orderly liberalization. in terms of market stall management, the urban management bureau of pingfang district has high standards and strict requirements, and comprehensively improves the management and control mode of stall planning, clear operation time limit and standardized health standards, so as to stimulate the economy, increase income and promote consumption as much as possible on the basis of ensuring the good order of urban living environment. 3. material and method based on the public documents of harbin government and the research results of previous scholars, the survey was carried out through the distribution of specific questionnaires, field observation and face-to-face interviews. the respondents, who included street vendors and city dwellers, were the result of random sampling. as a result, 57 questionnaires issued to street vendors included 50 valid and 7 questionnaires which were eliminated through preset questions. 62 questionnaires aimed at residents were no discarded. 3.1 for the street vendors we carried out the survey mainly through questionnaire survey supplemented by field observation and communication. we designed a concrete questionnaire which included different questions that constituted the main research focus. the questionnaire was subdivided into 4 parts including: 1) personnel composition characteristics of street vendors group; 2) the operation of stalls and its influence factors; 3) in the context of covid-19, the main difficulties faced by street vendors in the operation;4) vendors’ concrete feelings about the current relevant policies;5) vendors’ receptivity of the proposed policies.(table 1) 3.2 for the urban residents relevant data were collected through a well-designed questionnaire, which covered the influencing factors and preferences of street stalls’ consumption as well as their feelings towards the relevant policies. (table 2) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. table 1. questionnaire content designed for street vendors table 2. questionnaire content designed for residents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion 4.1 personnel component analysis the street vendors surveyed in this questionnaire were mainly middle-aged (40-50 years old), accounting for 68%, young and middle-aged (30-40 years old) and old (over 50 years old) accounting for 12% and 22% respectively. the survey showed that the majority of street vendors are women, accounting for 66% of the total. questionnaire results show that 54% of street vendors have a junior high school education, which was followed by primary schools at 36%. thus, the practitioners are mostly people with low employability. according to the survey of residents, 58% of respondents said they frequented street stalls. it reflects that floor stall consumption has become a part of the daily consumption of residents in cottage areas, further revealing that floor stall products have a huge consumer market. at the same time, the ground stall entrepreneurship is also characterized by a wide range of existence, low entry threshold, less start-up capital and flexible business scope, which not only helps to stimulate the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of disadvantaged groups, but also helps them accumulate business experience with low risk. this is why the us has adopted “lemonade stand” as a basic entrepreneurship course for young people. the income of street vendors is not bad either. according to the questionnaire survey results of street vendors, the average daily operating income of street vendors is mainly within the range of 300-500 yuan (the average disposable income of urban residents in harbin is 42,745 yuan in 2021 (harbin municipal government office, 2022)). from the above reasons, it is not difficult to conclude that street vendors can provide a large number of employment opportunities for the disadvantaged groups with low employability in cities (qing bo & meng qing, 2022). at present, countries around the world have been hit by the covid-19 pandemic, which led to the unemployment rate has risen to varying degrees (international labour organization, 2021). encouraging residents to run street stalls is a good way to increase the employment rate. (zhou xiaosui & wu xiao, 2020) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. 4.2 the operation of booths and its influence factors according to the results of field visit and questionnaire survey, stalls independently assembled by vendors can be divided into three types according to geographical location (gengzhi, 2015) (figure 2). the first type of stalls is located near the shopping mall and shares customer groups with the shopping mall. the second type of stalls are located near residential areas with relatively fixed consumer groups, mainly nearby residents. the third type of stalls are located near schools, and consumers are mainly students, their parents and residents of nearby school district houses. the main characteristics of these locations are convenient transportation and large flow of people. due to restrictions imposed by the government, the business hours of street vendors are usually between 5 am and 8 pm. hawkers operate a very simple range of goods, selling raw meat and vegetables and other agricultural products accounted for up to 80%. through field interviews, we learned that due to the covid-19 epidemic, many recreational street stalls gradually disappeared due to the epidemic prevention and control requirements, and the types of goods sold by street stalls gradually shifted to raw meat and vegetables and other daily necessities. figure 2. main areas where street vendors concentrated 4.3 policy implications it is of great significance for alleviating employment pressure, ensuring people’s livelihood and maintaining social stability. it also plays a role in stimulating market vitality, promoting economic consumption and displaying a unique market culture. it is a good policy to ensure employment, warm people’s hearts and increase vitality after the epidemic. however, the advantages and disadvantages of the policy are becoming more and more obvious as the street vending economy becomes more and more popular. the existing or criticized problems in the past and the new problems under the new policy are worthy of our attention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. 4.3.1 strong government policy support in march 2020, the general office of the state council issued the opinions on the implementation of measures to strengthen employment stability in response to the impact of covid-19 (hereinafter referred to as the opinions), which stated that “the management mode of street vendors without fixed business premises should be reasonably set up, and free markets, stall groups and other business outlets should be reserved.” the opinions provide a theoretical basis for liberalizing the street vending economy (practice innovation group of “guide the normalization of grey economy development exploration”, 2013). harbin city in july 2020 frame for squatter communities, to effectively do a good job in “six stability” to carry out the “six protect” task, effective response to the outbreak, accelerate the return to release and energy consumption potential, harbin municipal government released “prosperous night in harbin economic plan (2020-2022)” (harbin municipal government office, 2020), to promote the development of out of the economic system guarantee is given. the document makes specific provisions on guiding the construction of key business areas, creating thematic cultural scenes, improving the site environment, improving the level of site hardware facilities, improving the service level and quality of the planning area, and taking preventive measures against covid-19, providing institutional guarantee for promoting the development of land sharing economy. in the notice of “ten measures” to invigorate circulation and promote consumption by using urban public space in harbin (harbin municipal government office, 2020) released by harbin municipal government on june 3, 2020, we can see the efforts made by the government to promote the development of land sharing economy. in terms of capital, harbin municipal government reduces its operating costs by reducing or exempting booth fees, aiming at the poor risk resistance ability and insufficient working capital of most street vendors. at the same time, it establishes corresponding incentive policies to improve the enthusiasm and initiative of street vendors. in terms of space, the government caters to the business subject’s demand for fixed stalls, carries out reasonable urban planning, and opens up commercial blocks with the characteristics of ground stalls, which not only facilitates the business subject, but also facilitates the unified supervision and management of the government. in terms of service management, the government has implemented an inclusive supervision system and made relevant regulations on logistics work such as environmental sanitation, garbage removal and traffic order to ensure order and harmony in the commercial district. 4.3.2 critical thinking about current policies based on the above analysis, it can be seen that there are some deficiencies in the current policies in this area, mainly in the following aspects (chen, 2017). 4.3.2.1 single commodity type in the same region 70% of respondents believe that the main difficulty they face today is fierce competition, which we assume is related to the large concentration of stalls selling similar products in the same area. in the course of field visits, we found that 80% of vendors sell mainly farm products. in our opinion survey www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. on the location of stalls in cottage areas, 70% of respondents believe that the government-designated areas lead to the enrichment of merchants selling similar goods in a large number in the same area, which increases the difficulty of competition. this result corresponds exactly to our view. booths in harbin have clear requirements for the day market, morning market and night market, which are very convenient and quick to operate. but vendors gather in the same area, sharing customers in the same area，further increasing competition among them. the impact of the covid-19 pandemic has reduced the living space of those who sell recreational products as well, which further reduce the variety of goods available for sale. according to the understanding, before the epidemic, vendors in squares, parks and other places had a relatively selective selection of children’s games, such as fishing games, self-operated trampolines, balloon pistols, etc. however, due to the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, such vendors gradually disappear after the outbreak. first, follow the policy guidance. second, parents will not choose to let their children play in the game stalls in the park during the epidemic stage, which is a considerable contrast with that before the epidemic. before the epidemic, the game stalls in squares and parks were more popular types, while such vendors have only two choices, for vendors who give up or switch to other types, there will inevitably be a large gap in income and stall mode compared with that before the epidemic. the above situations inevitably led to the simplification of goods types sold at street stalls. in addition, the supplier model is fixed. this consumption model will undoubtedly promote the competition among vendors in the same region. due to the convergence of commodity types, the sales revenue of vendors of the same type in the same region is relatively close but generally lower than the ideal level or the difference is too large. at the same time, the results of the questionnaire survey for consumers show that variety is the third most important factor affecting consumers’ choice of stalls, and too single product category is likely to reduce consumers’ enthusiasm for stall products. while this facilitates government regulation, it is hard to ensure that it can continue for long without collapsing. consideration should be given to promoting complementarity among various suppliers within the same region. guiding different vendors in the same area to sell complementary goods can not only enrich the variety of goods, stimulate consumption potential, but also ease the relationship between vendors and create a good scope of business cooperation. therefore, the booth structure needs to be adjusted from a single to diversified. 4.3.2.2 difficulties for vendors to stabilize under the normal situation of the epidemic in the context of the outbreak of the epidemic, the implementation of the home isolation policy in many places has seriously hit the survival of street vendors. combined with the different conditions of relaxing the control of street vendors in various parts of china, there are loopholes in the operation of vendors in each region. 84% of the vendors in the questionnaire chose the epidemic, which has a great impact on their operation. 64% of respondents believe that the epidemic has reduced passenger flow and caused business difficulties. and the vast majority of vendors’ income accounts for more than half or even all of the total family income, and most vendors are full-time mobile vendors. it can be seen www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. that the income of vendors is the basis of the total family income. however, in the current situation, although the policy is relaxed and there is help for vendors from zero operation and current operation, it is inevitable to control the number and space range of vendors due to both epidemic control and the improvement of residents’ awareness of infection prevention leads to reduced travel, which resulted in decrease of passenger flow. 4.3.2.3 lake of direct communication and feedback between vendors and managers downtown pressure on the economy and the pressure of the domestic economy is under the influence of the international environment, covid-19 and the pressure of the domestic economic downturn. the social economy is full of challenges. the relationship between the workers and the subordinates is complex. there is also the possibility of disputes between the vendors and the city managers in the seemingly free management of mobile vendors. from the analysis of the vendors’ questionnaires, we know that only 6% of them are satisfied with the attitude of the managers. we know that most of the vendors sell in the morning market because the district’s documented policy specifies the operating hours of the morning and night markets; based on the spatial distribution of the vendors, we know that some of the morning markets are in front of secondary schools. because the policy and regulations do not interfere with school teaching as much as possible, the city manager should ensure that the morning market ends at the right time. during the daily negotiations, the environment is noisy and some verbal arguments inevitably arise. in the post-epidemic era, major cities have reconciled the relationship between urban management and mobile vendors through “legal recognition” and “spatial concessions”, resulting in a new situation where the stall economy and the city develop in harmony. although the original intention of the urban authority was to implement policies and serve the city, the fact is that although it is still a small problem, it is necessary to establish the contact between the vendors and managers in some aspects, so that the opinions of both sides can be exchanged in time (jiang, 2018). 4.3.3 proposed policies 4.3.3.1 establish an autonomous organization of vendors the existence of street vendors undoubtedly makes urban management more difficult. how to urge street vendors to abide by social norms, to limit street vendors’ behavior of destroying the urban environment meanwhile enjoying the economic dividend brought by street vendors’ business, so as to achieve the best game results between street vendors, the public and the city, is a problem worthy of our thinking and practice. the successful precedent of establishing the self-government system of street vendors in taipei ningxia night market can be used for reference. the famous ningxia night market vendors in taipei set up an autonomous organization called “ningxia night market tourism association” (li, 2015). all the vendors in the night market are members of the association, and the association has a director, several directors, the director general and a financial officer who are responsible for the daily administrative work of the association. three other supervisors are responsible for supervision. the chairman and the supervisor are elected by the members, while the director general www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. and the treasurer are appointed by the chairman. the relevant department of taipei city government is the competent authority. as an autonomous organization, the stallholders have been creative and organized activities such as “environmental night market” and “not going along with the dirty” which have been attended by all members of the autonomous council, attracting more local people and tourists from all over the country. therefore, it is not hard to see that “street vendor autonomy” plays a positive role in both mobilizing street vendors to participate in urban management and promoting the efficient implementation of public policies. in addition, the supplier model is fixed. according to the questionnaire, the morning market focuses on fruits, vegetables, raw meat and clothing, while the night market focuses on snacks and toys. this can also reflect the diversity of local stalls from the side. this consumption model will undoubtedly promote the competition among vendors in the same region. due to the convergence of commodity types, the sales revenue of vendors of the same type in the same region is relatively close but generally lower than the ideal level or the difference is too large. at the same time, the results of the questionnaire survey for consumers show that variety is the third most important factor affecting consumers’ choice of stalls, and too single product category is likely to reduce consumers’ enthusiasm for stall products. while this facilitates government regulation, it is hard to ensure that it can continue for long without collapsing. in the investigation aimed at consumers, 45% of respondents said they were most worried about substandard goods when buying street stalls. about 27 percent of residents said they were concerned about hygiene and after-sale services. 77% of respondents indicated that the government’s enhanced control over the product quality, food safety and site hygiene would enhance their consumption desire (figure 3). the successful case of street vendors spontaneously improving environmental hygiene and product quality after the implementation of autonomous system in ningxia night market tells us that the self-government system can better constrain street vendors to improve health awareness and produce high-quality goods. this has a high possibility to improve residents’ consumption desire for stall products. figure 3. concerns when buying stall products at the same time, the self-management of stallholders can transform the contradiction between stallholders and urban management into a cooperative relationship of joint management (zhan et al., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. 2008). if an autonomous organization of stallholders is established, the conflicts between stallholders and urban management officers can be reduced and unified management opinions can be reached through joint discussion and consultation between the urban management officers and the organization as well as within the autonomous organization, and mutual supervision and self-supervision of stallholders can be promoted to create a good atmosphere for self-management. (cui, 2014) it is reported that under the current situation of normalization of the epidemic situation, the pingfang district of harbin has implemented vendor autonomy in market epidemic prevention and control. outside the market, citizens are guided to line up with seats through the combination of playing audio and setting fences; at the market entrance, set up video equipment, collect personnel information, and use scientific and technological means to help accurately prevent and control the epidemic; in the market, six cameras are set up to monitor the whole process, and the measures of owner autonomous management + effective counseling of volunteers + continuous patrol of mobile sentry are adopted to prevent personnel from gathering, and the incorrect wearing of masks by businesses and citizens are corrected in time. in order to prevent aggregation, two entrances are set for the market to control the flow of people, and the flow of residents entering the market is limited to prevent aggregation of residents. epidemic prevention and control reminder facilities and temperature detection equipment shall be set at the entrance and exit. reset the booth position according to the single and double numbers and maintain the distance between the stalls. now the direction of owner autonomy management and effective counseling of volunteers has been successfully implemented. if the focus is extended from epidemic prevention and control to all directions of vendors, so as to establish a bridge between leaders and vendors, it is feasible. 4.3.3.2 to build digital multiple governance models, power booths in new economic development at present, china’s digital economy ranks second in the world, and it can be said that china is a worthy digital country. if we can use digital economy and internet plus technology to promote the development of street vending economy, the effect may be twice the result with half the effort. we can use advanced technology to make statistical disclosure of vendors’ information and business scope. on the one hand, consumers can understand the information of stall owners. on the other hand, it can also facilitate management. in addition, it is also an effective method to arrange the range and time period of stall owners according to traffic conditions through internet plus technology, provide digital technical support for stall setting, and use mobile payment and other tools to promote the development of street vending economy. for stallholders, the supply of goods and financial support can also be guaranteed through digital management, which can enrich the profit of stallholders. with the support of digital technology, the street vending economy will be revitalized and can better provide convenience for people (xiu, 2020). there is a need for innovative ways of communication between stall owners and city managers. establishing a bridge of communication between the two sides is essential to the healthy and sustainable development of a stable economy. the production of stall information distribution map www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. involves joint efforts of urban management and transportation departments. the official “stall information distribution map” can be pushed in real time in intelligent forms such as software or official accounts, so that stall owners can conveniently know relevant information in time. the information distribution map not only contains all kinds of real-time policies and regulations, but also incorporates various contents such as the placement requirements of stalls, total number of stalls and traffic information. in addition, public accounts or software can be set up. the software and the public account can not only push the information distribution map of the street stalls, but also set up a communication plate to facilitate the timely communication between the stall owner and the city manager, and build a bridge for convenient communication between the two sides. during the epidemic period, we can clearly see the vitality of the market economy. while complying with the law of the development of the street vending economy, downtown managers must take precautions to do a good job in management and service. in order to assure the long-term existence of the street vending economy as a certified and compliant economic model, continuous practice and exploration are required. of the 62 residents surveyed, 48 requested for stronger supervision and control of land stalls. meanwhile, the local residents believe that the stalls can be enhanced in the digital age. since entering the internet era, electronic certificates have long been a universal thing. its existence makes the card-holding management to get rid of time and space bondage. among the vendors surveyed this time, 62% of respondents showed their willingness to participate in the training of business and network technology related to street stall operation. so the card-holding management of street vending economy has certain conditions. “electronic certificate” is a new way to standardize the operation of local street vending economy, which can ensure the operation mode, operation order, food safety, environmental protection, tax fees and other aspects. in the post-epidemic era, we can know the operator’s business information, health status and travel track through the electronic certificates, and use big data analysis to guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, health and safety. the electronic operation of road stall certificate can not only serve consumers, but also provide effective booth location and booth period for the self-employed at the bottom by utilizing mechanical, baidu and other large map data, so as to decrease costs and improve efficiency and achieve digital empowerment (chen et al., 2020). the return of street vending economy is the general trend, the result of market economy and marginal economy. rather than “catch up”, “catch up”, “one size fits all”, it is better to build a digital diversified governance mode, so as to explore multi-party linkage mechanisms to promote the healthy development of street vending economy. through taking various measures to reduce the harm caused by the street vending economy, creating a good environment conducive to the healthy development of the street vending economy, the street vending economy becomes a new era. make the economy more prosperous, the people more happy, and the city more harmonious. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion the purpose of this paper is to understand the current situation of street vendors in the main economic zones of harbin city and to analyze the impact of street vendors in the current economic zones of harbin city. this work contributes to our understanding of the implementation and outcomes of the government’s economic policies towards vendors under the epidemic and expands our understanding of the relationship between the government, vendor owners and residents under the epidemic. this research has found that generally, overall, we know that harbin has some policy assistance for vendors under normal conditions of the epidemic, but there are still issues such as the impact of the epidemic on business and the difficulty for vendors to respond upwards. this evidence confirms that while the policy is helpful to the vendors, there are still loopholes. this addresses the problems reflected in the survey analysis and makes feasible recommendations for the problems of the stall economy in the post-epidemic era as well as for future stability and long-term development. references chen, h., & huang, m. r., zhan, y., zhan, l. y. (2020). how to ensure the steady and long-term development of “street-stall economy”—investigation and consideration of fuzhou “street-stall economy”. china statistics, 08, 13-15. chen, l. j. (2017). a study on the everyday urban public space–a case analysis of hankou former concession area. huazhong university of science and technology. cui, z. f. (2014). on development and management of modern vendors in cities: from the perspective of economic sociology of vendor evolution. journal of business economics, 06, 5-13. harbin municipal government office. (2022). economic performance of the city in 2021. harbin municipal government office. (2020). notice of “ten measures” to invigorate circulation and promote consumption by using urban public space in harbin. harbin municipal government office. (2020). notice of the general office of harbin municipal people’s government on printing and distributing the implementation plan of prosperous night economy in harbin (2020-2022). huang, g. z. (2015). social and economic roots and spatial politics of urban stallholders. china: the commercial press. international labour organization. (2021). world employment and social outlook: trends 2021. jiang, r. r. (2018). identity, social network, and effective governance–taking the governance action of mobile vendors in xindai town, zhejiang province as an example. east china university of political science and law. li, m. (2015). the enlightenment of taiwan night market autonomous management. party & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. government forum, 05, 48-49. pan, z. d. (2020). research on the economic development of urban street-stall distribution. marketing circles, 08, 26-27. practice innovation group of “guide the normalization of grey economy development exploration”, (2013). analysis of positive and negative effects and countermeasures of land sharing economy. national business conditions (theoretical research), 36, 17-20. qing, b., & meng, q. (2012). street vendors in the cities: policy debate and planning management. urban and rural management, 19, 83-97. song, d. d. (2021). research on the economic policy of street-stall allocation in large and medium-sized cities in china in the post-epidemic era. china business theory, 30, 32-34. yuan, x. (2020). reflections on the transformation and upgrading of street-stall economy. management and technology of small and medium-sized enterprises (next ten-day issue), 14, 35-36. zhang, g. p., & zhang, c. g. (2008). peddlery administration: transformation of governance mode, realization and path choice. academic journal of jinyang, 05, 51-54. zhou, x. s., & wu, x. (2020). study on the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of street vendors: discussion on inclusive governance strategies for street vendors. modern urban research, 01, 89-96. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 35 original paper research on the historical value of the agricola jialing dai 1* 1 suzhou university of science and technology, suzhou city, jiangsu province, china * jialing dai, corresponding author received: june 03, 2023 accepted: july 11, 2023 online published: july 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p35 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p35 abstract tacitus’s biography of agricola is the first work on britannia history that has been handed down to date, and occupies an important position in the western historical circle. tacitus expressed his ideals by defending and glorifying his father-in-law. therefore, he left behind the most concentrated and rich account of the political history of roman britannia. based on this biography, this paper discusses the life and achievements of governor agricola, the “romanization” of britannia, the customs and social conditions of britannia. however, there are many problems in this biography, such as incorrect records, vague expressions and exaggerated rhetoric. therefore, it is an important way to get out of the predicament to fully learn from archaeological and other handed down documents. keywords agricola, tacitus, roman britannia, the value of historical materials 1. introduction tacitus as a historian has long been highly valued by scholars. thompson called it the greatest name in roman historiography, comparable to thucydides. chen qineng praised his rigorous and serious attitude towards history, and his works have high historical value. even the short biography of agricola has attracted much academic attention in recent years. it is considered not only from the perspective of philology, vocabulary and structure of the text, but also from the perspective of biographical history and political history. however, there are still many problems in this biography. and most scholars’ research is based on this biography, and to some extent, they ignore the newly unearthed archaeological inscriptions in recent years. this led to a bias in their conclusions. in view of this, this paper tries to explore the historical value of the biography of agricola by combing through the great achievements of the biography of agricola, the social economy and customs of britannia. through the analysis of documents and archaeological inscriptions, the paper discusses the trap of unequal importance between the number of historical materials and historical facts, and tries to answer the importance of multiple www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. historical materials in the process of ancient history writing. 2. the value of historical materials 2.1 research agricola and the britannia governors from claudius to diocletian, the roman empire appointed nearly 70 governors in the britannia provinces, 58 of whom were known by name. but the agricola is the only detailed and direct history of the roman governors of britannia. this biography records in detail the life and activities of the biographer; it also deals with the related content of the governors such as paulinus and maxim. this biography has become an important historical material for the study of the historical figure and the britannia governor. gnaeus agricola was born into the knighthood class in the roman colony of gaul, in the town of forum julii, where both his grandfather and his maternal grandfather served as imperial treasury officials. his father, julius grechinus, who became a senator and was known for his study of rhetoric and philosophy, was envied by caligula for his sense of justice and was eventually persecuted to death. therefore, agricola was raised by his mother. he served under the britannia governors paulinus and cyelearis, served as commander of the army, governor of the province of aquitania, and became governor of britannia after leaving the consulship. in ad 78, agricola became governor of britannia. first, in his conquest, he immediately set about conquering wales, england, and the north of scotland. exterminating the armed resistance of the jawdovises and caledonian tribes (tac.agr.18); using the new tactics of sending troops to swim and surprise, march and occupy the island of anglesey; the battle of graupius was won (tac.agr.33-37). tacitus states that this succession of victories made agricola famous, but he did not consider the campaign to be worth bragging about, and there was not even a “triumphal note” in the report sent to rome (tac.agr.18). second, he was a builder of military installations with a strategic vision. it is reported that he personally selected and supervised the construction of all the places where the legion was to camp (tac.agr.20). the famous forts on the isthmus of forth and clyde were also chosen and built by him (tac.agr.23). finally, he was a clean and fair chief executive. in domestic management, business was never communicated through the released slaves; the selection of generals always insists on merit. the administration of the firm and the gentle are combined, minor errors are forgiven, and major errors are severely punished (tac.agr.19). in response to livelihood problems, he reduced taxes, abolished tyranny, and cracked down on corruption. in the winter of 78, agricola learned the lessons of his predecessors and abolished tyranny (tac.agr.20). he took steps to curb abuse of power. the most serious of these was the expropriation of cash or in kind, especially of food for the use of the army. it was a lucrative business in which some camp commanders and centurions were involved. when the subjects had no surplus grain and the army sometimes, centurions would deliberately force grain. the grain is sold to the victims at high prices through threats and terror. the officials then requisitioned the farmers’ newly purchased grain. the grain was not touched in the granaries, but the money of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. britannia people was seized by these officials. in order to avoid the occurrence of these forced purchases, agricola adopted the method of equalizing the burden of the people to reduce the tribute, thereby abolishing this dangerous method of extortion (tac.agr.19). 2.2 research the romanization of britannia the first roman invasion of britannia was in the time of caesar in the middle of the first century bc, and it had been more than a hundred years by the time of agricola. during these 100 years, the influence of roman civilization on britannia was considerable. the britannia people lost their independence and freedom to a large extent and became roman subjects and subjects, and gradually “romanized”. this biography has become an important source for the study of the “romanization” of britannia. according to this biography, the author instituted a number of policies conducive to the urbanization and romanization of britannia. in the first place, temples, public places, and residential buildings (tac.agr.21) are built, under the leadership of the government, by encouraging individuals or individuals to pay for them jointly with the public (tac.agr.21), so that the barbaric and warlike population can live a quiet life and induce them to become accustomed to peace and abandon warlike customs in order to maintain social stability. secondly, roman culture permeated britannia and directly affected the daily life of the local people. the messenger encouraged the chief ’s son to receive a liberal arts education. from then on, those inhabitants of britannia who did not accept latin began to learn roman speech and dress, and wearing toga became very popular (tac.agr.21). the natives were gradually enchanted by the degenerate apparatuses such as flower halls, baths and elegant banquets. tacitus says, “these are only ways in which they are enslaved, and they are foolish enough to call these things’ culture”. these acts of conciliation promoted the harmonious development of society and promoted the trend of romanization in britannia. 2.3 research the local customs and social conditions of britannia the biography of agricola is the first work on britannia history that has been handed down to the present day. it occupies an important position in the western historical circle and also becomes an important historical material for us to study the customs and social conditions of britannia. this biography records the source of the britons. tacitus suggests that it may have been germanic, iberian, and gauls from continental europe. this is not only because of their geographical proximity, but also because their “superstitions and religious rituals closely resemble those of the gauls, and their languages do not differ much from each other.” according to his records, britannia in the first century was still in the stage of military democracy at the end of primitive society. it was roughly at the same level of social development as the germanic people and the gauls in continental europe. their life gradually began to flow from nomadic to relatively settled, and agriculture has occupied a rather important position. moreover, britannia, which had once been ruled by several kings, was now divided into many departments, each headed by a chieftain. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. 3. existing problems although the biography of agricola has high historical value, the problems in it should not be taboo. tacitus wrote this biography in defense of his father-in-law, thus exaggerating the role of agricola in the book, and due to the lack of geographical knowledge, the accuracy of his accounts of britannia and other islands is questionable. second, 25% of agricola is devoted to the battle of groupius, it seems reasonable to assume that tacitus considers this battle to be the battle in which agricola became famous as a general. but some scholars have questioned the importance of gropius and the integrity of the war. according to historical data analysis, there are indeed several points worth thinking about. first, in this campaign, he did not show a new tactical strategy, a new war principle, no superior strategy, only straightforward tactics and a large number of troops to ensure victory. second, tacitus considered the use of auxiliary troops in the front rather than legions to be a major innovation. however, this claim is unfounded. the tactic of staging operations and retaining reserve forces has a long history. in a.d. 70 , when he faced civilis, cerialis kept his legions in reserve; ostorius scapula defeated the iceni using only auxiliary forces. this tactic was not invented by agricola. tacitus’s account of agricola’s contribution to “romanization” and urbanization in britannia is also worthy of further investigation. various materials fully prove that the “romanization” of britannia has a long history and is not the result of one person. first of all, the large number of romanized buildings and the expansion of roman citizenship throughout the empire is enough to show that the process of romanization has been promoted by official and other governors. second, the romanization of britannia, driven by cultural methods such as latin and roman dress, continued for a long time in britannia. seneca credited claudius with making britannia a robed civilization. third, it was a long-established principle that the sons of local chiefs should be educated in the roman style. this both provided rome with a hostage and ensured the pro-roman stance of future local leaders. during agricola’s tenure, a greek teacher named demetrius appeared in yorkshire. this fact shows that it is precisely because of this long-standing principle that the teacher was present in britannia during his reign. as martin hennecker suggests, perhaps the romans did not need to use force to conquer southern britannia at all. decades before the roman invasion, the surrogate princes had begun to embrace roman culture. on the question of urban construction, the major towns of britannia, such as winchester, silchester and chichester, had grown before he became governor. in the late claudys and early flavians, public baths began to appear in chichester. winchester’s grid-lined fortifications and timber-framed buildings date back to nero’s reign. in silchester, the amphitheatre and the first wooden municipal square also seem to have originated from the nero period. the only building that can be definitively completed during the reign of agricola is the forum monument of verulameen. but even then, there is no guarantee that it was built by agricola. because such a monument could take more than two years to build. in this light, agricola’s contribution to the romanization of britannia towns was not as significant as tacitus www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. suggests. the above facts show that agricola did promote the “romanization” of britannia to some extent, but it was more to add to the policies of his predecessor and prepare for the subsequent governors. he did his duty, but he could not exaggerate his role, still less deny or obscure the contributions made by other britannia governors. 4. discussion in a.d. 96, the reign of domitian was overthrown, and rome entered a “golden age” under nerva and trajan, and began to regain the winds of “liberty”. as a result, many politicians in the tumesian period were criticized, and agricola was no exception. he reached the peak of his power under the tyrannies of emperors such as claudius, nero, vespasianus, and domitian. his death, in particular, has led to accusations that he was a smooth and weak man. in order to defend the reputation and status of agricola, tacitus wrote a biography to defend him, explaining his attitude towards man and tyranny, and explaining why he was not persecuted. in the agricola, tacitus states directly, “this book was written in defense of my father-in-law agricola”. in the biography he repeatedly emphasizes domitian’s jealousy of agricola, portraying his father-in-law as modest, modest, and submissive. in addition, tacitus used it to express his political ideals. it is not difficult to see that the biography is full of tacitus’s criticism of the brutal and clean rule under the absolute monarchy and his admiration for the republic; it also reflects the brutal rule of the romans over the britannia and the dark face of roman officialdom. in the agricola, he wrote, “in our time, the atmosphere is so bad, the virtue is so cold.” it is full of his criticism of people’s enslavement and freedom exploitation under autocratic rule, and his attachment to the old slave-owning aristocratic republican system and the “freedom” enjoyed under the republican system. it is important to note that the agricola is essentially a biographical novel. tacitus, like other historians, was inevitably influenced by the beliefs of his time. tacitus’s biography is a blend of biography and history, introducing agricola’s family background and career, with about two-thirds of the book describing his accomplishments as a general, military builder, and administrator in britannia. this biography provides detailed and abundant historical materials for later scholars to study agricola and other roman governors of britannia, the “romanization” of britannia, the customs and social conditions of britannia; it also allows later readers to further understand the scope of roman activities and major actions in britannia at the end of the flavian era, thus providing a basic historical framework and context for in-depth study of the history of this period. however, this work was written only a few years after agricola’s death, and tacitus had not seen his father-in-law for four years. unless the work had been conceived at least ten years before publication, he would not have had the opportunity to question his father-in-law about specific events. therefore, in the content, it is inevitable that there are errors in the record, vague expression and rhetorical exaggeration. for this problem, perhaps the combination of archaeology and other handed down www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. documents has become an important way out of the dilemma. there is a close connection between archaeology and historical research, and the two are intertwined. archaeological materials, as physical relics, give us rich information and make up for the shortage of literature. the materials we find through archaeology, on the basis of critical documentary materials, try to approximate the true picture of history. it is important to note that although the study of the figure of agricola is based on a large amount of documentary, archaeological and epigraphic material, this is only a drop in the ocean of real history. this study is still affected by the limited archaeological evidence, and the relevant evidence needs to be supplemented. acknowledgement project fund: graduate student scientific research innovation projects in jiangsu province in 2022; “agricola and the study of roman rule over britannia in the early empire” (kycx22_3245). references a. h. m. jones. (1970). a history of rome through the fifth century (vol. ii, the empire). london: macmillan publishers limited. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00491-1 a. j. turner. (1997, july to september). approaches to tacitus’ agricola. latomus, t. 56, fasc, 3. a. j. woodman. (2010). the cambridge companion to tacitus. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol9780521874601 a. n. sherwin-white. (1973). the roman citizenship (2nd ed.). oxford: clarendon press. a. r. birley. (1999). tacitus: agricola and germany. new york: oxford university press. a. r. birley. (2005). the roman government of britannia. oxford: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252374.001.0001 b. c. mcging. (1982, summer). synkrisis in tacitus’ agricola. hermathena, (132). c. a. snyder. (2001). the britons: legends and history (fan yongpeng (trans.)). beijing: peking university press. d. atkinson. (1922). the governors of britannia from claudius to diocletian. the journal of roman studies, 12. https://doi.org/10.2307/296172 d. c. braund. (1984). rome and the friendly king: the character of client kingship. new york: st martin press. s. david. (2004). roman britannia. new york: routledge. down. a. (1978). roman sussex-chichester and the chilgrove valley in p. l. drewett, archaeology in sussex to a.d.1500. london: council for britannia archaeology. j. morris. (1982). londinium: london in the roman empire. london: weidenfeld and nicolson. m. biddle. (1975). excavations at winchester, 1971: tenth and final interim report, parts 1 and 2. antiquaries journal, 55. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003581500035514 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. m. fulford. (1985). excavations on the sites of the amphitheatre and forum-basilica at silchester, hampshire: an interim report. antiquaries journal, 65. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003581500024690 j. p. bews. (1987, october). language and style in tacitus’ agricola. greece & rome, 34. https://doi.org/10.1017/s001738350002814x plutarch. (1900). obsolescence of oracles (vol. 2). ma: harvard university press. r. g. collingwood, & r. p. wright. (1965). the roman inscriptions of britannia: inscriptions on stone. oxford: clarendon press. t. s. s. frere. (1987). roman britannia in 1986: sites explored. britannia, 18. https://doi.org/10.2307/526462 seneca. (1975). satyricon. apocolocyntosis. 2. 3. ma: harvard university press. w. s. hanson. (1991). tacitus’ agricola. sprache und literatur. w.s. hanson. (1988). administration, urbanisation and acculturation in the roman west in d. c. braund, eds., the administration of the roman empire (241b.c.-a.d.193). exeter: university of exeter press. note note 1. agricola cited in this article, unless otherwise noted, is based on the english-chinese translation of the lobe classical library of harvard university press. the annotation follows the classical practice of listing the section in the form of a note. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 47 original paper the impact of online opinion on justice: two cases in comparative law perspective he shuang1 1 shanghai university of political science and law, shanghai, china received: july 29, 2024 accepted: september 07, 2024 online published: september 30, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p47 abstract in the early stages of the judicial process, trials were characterized by a pursuit of independence and justice, with judges adhering strictly to legal statutes and delivering judgments that aligned with legal logic. however, as today's digital landscape evolves, internet users engage with the judiciary in distinct ways; they communicate online, actively voice their opinions, and gradually cultivate a representative form of public opinion on the web. as the impact of online public sentiment on judicial administration grows stronger, it increasingly exhibits a tendency to exert dominance. while the independence of the judiciary remains unquestionable, certain explosive instances of online public opinion also highlight pressing societal issues that warrant attention and cannot be overlooked. using two well-known cases as an entry point, we will compare how networked public opinion influences justice differently in japan and china. this analysis will delve into the underlying jurisprudence while seeking solutions tailored to china's national context. the goal is to foster positive interaction between these two realms—leveraging the constructive influence of online public opinion on judicial processes—and ultimately enhance china's judiciary system. keywords online public opinion, justice, judicial authorities, judicial independence 1. the impact of online public opinion on the administration of justice in two cases 1.1 an analysis of the case of yao jiaxin late at night on october 20, 2010, yao jiaxin was operating a motor vehicle and struck zhang miao, who was on foot. after exiting the vehicle, jiaxin proceeded to stab miao eight times, ultimately resulting in the victim's demise. in the process of fleeing the car, hit the pedestrian again at the intersection, was caught by the nearby people, was sent to the police station and released. on october 23, 2010, accompanied by his parents, yao jiaxin surrendered to the police station. on january 11, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 48 2011, the xi'an municipal procuratorate formally charged yao jiaxin with intentional homicide. subsequently, on april 22, 2011, the xi'an intermediate people's court rendered a first-instance verdict sentencing yao jiaxin to death and permanently depriving him of political rights. on may 20 of the same year, the shaanxi provincial supreme people's court affirmed the death sentence issued by the lower court. the case of yao jiaxin generated significant shock among netizens when it was first disclosed online. the day following the revelation, nearly all major websites republished the news, leading to a surge of online opinions condemning the perpetrator. the public widely acknowledged that yao jiaxin's actions were exceptionally cruel and the circumstances surrounding them were dire. according to an opinion poll initiated by zheng yuanjie, over 90% of netizens believed that the court should impose a sentence of "immediate execution." (su, 2011) in this context, the online public opinion has prevailed. the significant public outcry is attributed not only to the egregious circumstances surrounding the case but also to the disposition of legal professionals in the judicial process. the court's expedited public opinion survey conducted at the trial's commencement, which predominantly sought input from a specific group—80% being college students, many of whom attended the same institution as the defendant jiaxin—has raised concerns. in contrast, villagers and families of victims constituted merely 5% of respondents. (court seeks sentencing opinions from bystanders at trial site of yao jiaxin case, 2011) this disparity has led many netizens to suspect potential behind-the-scenes manipulation, thereby eroding public trust in the judicial process. there are three fundamental principles of criminal law. the first is the principle of equality in the application of criminal law, which asserts that all individuals are equal before the law. the second is the principle of proportionality between crime and punishment, indicating that the penalty imposed on an individual should be commensurate with the severity of their offense. china's criminal law specifies that penalties for intentional homicide may include capital punishment, life imprisonment, or a term of imprisonment lasting ten years or more. additionally, china's sentencing system includes provisions for self-reporting; offenders who voluntarily confess to their crimes may receive a lighter or less severe sentence. the case was evidently influenced by public opinion on the internet during the judicial process, resulting in a more severe sentence. given these circumstances, does the immediate imposition of the death penalty on yao jiaxin align with his crime? in this instance, justice ultimately favored public sentiment—a choice driven by necessity rather than representing an ideal resolution. the optimal outcome would involve media fostering positive public opinion, thereby bridging the divide between intellectuals and the general populace. (su, 2011) most of the time, public opinion on the internet reflects the moral standards of society. judicial trials result from a combination of legal reasoning and various non-logical factors; judges, during the trial process, are not merely mechanical but draw upon their experiences and emotions. if justice becomes overly aligned with public sentiment, it risks losing its impartiality, which can lead to an imbalance in the scales of justice. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 49 1.2 an analysis of the jiangge case in the early morning of november 3, 2016, jiang ge, a student in japan, intervened to assist her close friend liu nuanxi (formerly known as liu xin) in confronting her ex-boyfriend chen shifeng. tragically, during this confrontation, jiang ge was stabbed multiple times in the neck by chen shifeng and subsequently lost her life. on december 14 of the same year, japanese authorities formally charged the suspect, chen shifeng, with intentional homicide. subsequently, on november 4, 2017, jiang ge's mother, jiang qiulian, traveled to tokyo to initiate a series of petition campaigns. she utilized social media and various platforms to advocate for the imposition of the death penalty on chen shifeng by the japanese court. the public trial of the case commenced on december 11, 2017, at the tokyo district magistrate's court in japan. on december 20, the court delivered its verdict, sentencing chen shifeng to 20 years' imprisonment for intentional homicide and intimidation. since then, jiang's mother, jiang qiulian,, and liu nuanxi have been embroiled in a dispute regarding the cause of jiang's death. liu nuan xi has made provocative remarks about jiang qiulian via the internet. on april 15, 2021, the court held a hearing for the case of jiang qiu lian v. liu xin concerning the right to life dispute. the trial was initially scheduled to commence on december 31; however, it was postponed due to the sudden illness of the presiding judge.on january 10, 2022, the chengyang district people's court in qingdao city, shandong province delivered its first-instance verdict. subsequently, on december 30, 2022, the qingdao intermediate people's court issued a second-instance ruling in this case. the court rejected the appeal and upheld the judgment from the first instance. in the jiang ge case, based on the principle of territorial jurisdiction, the nation in which the crime occurred holds primary jurisdiction. consequently, the case was adjudicated in japan. according to recent judicial precedents in japan, most first-time offenders convicted of killing a single individual receive prison sentences ranging from 13 to 20 years. in an effort to pursue the death penalty for chen shifeng, jiang ge's mother, jiang qiulian, initiated a petition on microblogging and successfully gathered 4.5 million signatures in support of the death penalty in japan prior to the trial. however, the japanese court did not take this public sentiment into account; it ultimately had no significant impact on the judge's deliberation of the case. as a result, chen shifeng was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in the first trial. (tai, 2020) the verdict did not quell the nation's anger. in china, under similar circumstances, chen shifeng would likely have been subjected to a more severe sentence. at the conclusion of the second trial concerning the right-to-life dispute between jiang qiulian and liu xin, numerous netizens expressed their belief that justice has finally been served. the case has elicited differing opinions among the japanese and chinese publics. most chinese netizens appear to lack a legal perspective on the matter, expressing support for jiang ge's mother's petition and arguing that liu nuanxi should also be held accountable. meanwhile, japanese netizens tend to be more rational, believing that it is a moral judgment. in the cases of yao jiaxin and jiang ge, from the inception of each case to the conclusion of their respective trials, public opinion on the internet played a significant role and sought to influence judicial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 50 proceedings. however, the courts in these two cases rendered differing judgments. in the case of yao jiaxin, from the commencement of the first trial to the conclusion of the second trial, public opinion on the internet has exerted a profoundly significant influence on the administration of justice. while this influence may superficially appear to serve as a robust mechanism for oversight, it has, in fact, interfered with the adversarial nature inherent in judicial proceedings. in the jiang ge case, the japanese court acknowledged jiang's mother's petition for the death penalty, which was influenced by online public opinion. however, it did not allow this sentiment to affect the trial proceedings. instead, the court made its ruling based on the actual circumstances of the case, utilizing online public opinion as a means of social oversight. 2. the role of internet public opinion in the administration of justice in two countries with the advancement of internet technology, the cost of national communication online has gradually decreased. coupled with the anonymity afforded by online discourse, an increasing number of citizens are voicing their opinions on the internet. this phenomenon appears to relax restrictions on freedom of speech, leading people to perceive internet public opinion as “the most effective means of expressing public sentiment.” gradually, netizens have begun to harness the power of online public opinion to engage in social issues, articulate their sense of justice, and even attempt to influence the judicial process. in various countries, the influence of internet public opinion on the judiciary exhibits a degree of variability. this phenomenon will be analyzed below, primarily using china and japan as case studies. 2.1 internet public opinion and the judiciary in china in the process of judicial adjudication in china, the influence of public opinion on the administration of justice has increasingly exhibited a complex trend. in various types of cases, public opinion manifests in diverse forms and encompasses different content, thereby exerting varying impacts on the administration of justice. the imposition of penalties in individual cases, the identity of the perpetrator, the identity of the victim, and the social issues highlighted by these cases are key factors that draw public attention to matters of justice on the internet. serious criminal cases are particularly likely to capture public interest and create tension between online opinion and judicial proceedings, as exemplified by the jiang ge case. however, this does not imply that misdemeanor or seemingly innocuous cases will fail to capture public attention. when a case has broader social implications or when the underlying societal issues are significant, it can indeed garner widespread interest. notable examples include the "panda burning incense" computer virus incident and the arrest of chen pingfu for his online postings. in terms of the identity of the subjects involved in criminal cases, there is a notable disparity in public sentiment regarding punishment. for instances where individuals with significant social standing—such as officials, affluent individuals, and their descendants—commit crimes, or when those closely associated with them are implicated in criminal activities, the public's demand for stringent and severe penalties is markedly strong. a pertinent example is the case of yao www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 51 jiaxin, who was sentenced to immediate execution; in cases involving crimes committed by vulnerable individuals, the public tends to attribute these actions more to social factors while paying less attention to the personal circumstances of the offenders. consequently, there is a prevailing demand for the judiciary to impose lighter sentences on such vulnerable subjects. this call has been answered, at least at the judicial level, within the elastic space of the law. for instance, in the case of li changkui, he was convicted of murdering two individuals; however, his sentence was subsequently modified to probation during the second trial. (xu, 2015) in the case of yao jiaxin, the influence of internet public opinion on justice was unprecedented. as a consequence of the proliferation of various forms of misinformation on the internet, the public came to believe that yao jiaxin was a "second-generation government official" or a "wealthy heir" who struck individuals with his vehicle and exhibited discrimination against rural migrant workers... some netizens engaged in an extensive online search for information about his family, leading to rumors suggesting that they were attempting to leverage their influence to manipulate the judicial system and secure immunity from capital punishment. with the assistance of online media, public sentiment became increasingly agitated. finally, the online public opinion prevailed. although there are instances where online public opinion may influence the independence of the judiciary and act as a negative force swaying judicial decisions, it is undeniable that such public sentiment also has a positive impact on the judicial system. it fosters communication between officials and the public, helps identify and rectify errors, and provides robust support for online oversight of the judiciary. furthermore, the interplay between online public opinion and justice is an inevitable topic of discussion, with the trajectory of online sentiment regarding judicial trials being inherently unpredictable. the optimal outcome lies in effectively restraining and appropriately guiding online public opinion so that both can mutually reinforce each other. (yue, 2019) 2.2 the influence of internet public opinion on the judiciary in japan japan is a country that follows the civil law system, and its legal system has undergone a process of integration and reform based on both the civil law system and the common law system. its judicial system includes multiple levels, such as the supreme court, high courts, and district courts. in 2009, japan officially introduced the jury system, also known as the lay judge system. judicial officers in japan are mandated to successfully complete the national "judicial examination," which is widely regarded as the most challenging of all national examinations in the country. consequently, japanese judicial personnel typically possess a strong sense of mission and high self-esteem. furthermore, japanese courts benefit from comprehensive and absolute "judicial independence." individual judges should bear the main responsibility for their decisions. judicial officials are not allowed to interfere in the trial process. simultaneously, judges are assured that they can exercise their judicial authority in accordance with the law through rigorous trial procedures and structures, as well as multi-tiered appeal and protest mechanisms. therefore, japanese judges enjoy complete independence in their judicial power. japan's online media exert limited judicial influence,and the online media have not avoided the courts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 52 to conduct moral trials on the internet. (wang, 2018) japanese justice prioritizes the safeguarding of judicial authority and prohibits the media from making arbitrary judgments regarding case outcomes. furthermore, it does not accommodate public opinion that contravenes legal standards. japanese law and cultural morality exhibit a profound sense of "oneness" or "synonymity," wherein the law is perceived as a form of morality that has been both "normalized and culturalized." this has rendered the japanese courts, in effect, both “legal” and “moral.” they have consistently demonstrated a “judicially activist” approach in their treatment of individual rights and personal privacy. therefore, the online public demand for the death penalty for chen shifeng and the petition of jiang's mother, which did not receive support from japanese courts, is the correct result of handling online public opinion within the legal context of japan. 2.3 variations in the influence of internet public opinion on the judiciary in the two countries the nature of the countries of china and japan, their cultural concepts, the people's understanding of the relationship between law and morality, and the effectiveness of justice have led to differences in the impact of online public opinion on justice. the nature of the socialist state of china's people's democratic dictatorship determines the people's nature of china's justice, and this nature requires that the judicial organs must fully reflect and embody the fundamental interests of the broadest possible range of people in the judicial process, and the people's appeal to “be the masters of the people” and the mentality of officials have permeated the trial process throughout china's successive dynasties, and public opinion will to a certain extent influence the judiciary's trials. to a certain extent, public opinion affects the judiciary's trials, and the stronger the public opinion, the greater the impact on the judiciary. japan's state system is guided by two basic principles democracy and rule of law (constitutionalism) and the judiciary takes into full consideration factual and reasonable public opinions that are in line with the spirit of the constitution before making a judgment, and resolutely resists public opinions that run counter to the spirit of the constitution, are not in line with the facts, and are unreasonable and irregular. (zhang & ding, 2021) japan is a country with separation of powers, where the government has no right to interfere with the judiciary, and where the judiciary plays the most crucial role as the “gatekeeper” of the rule of law. and in japan, the constitution gives the court “the power of review of unconstitutional legislation”, one of the purposes is to give the judiciary to resist the unreasonable “public opinion” of the authority. in japan's legal education, emphasizing the “independence of the judiciary”, “previously refers mainly to the independence from the political and executive branches,but now more emphasis is placed on independence from public opinion on the internet. behind the netizens' concern about the judiciary's verdicts and their desire to influence the judiciary is their desire to understand the various cases reported on the internet, and then to comment on what they consider to be unreasonable. in the case of yao jiaxin, he was impulsive, intentional murder, but not intentional murder, and there is a self-surrender behavior, it is “killable” or “unkillable”, in the face of enormous public pressure, the judicial trial finally sentenced yao jiaxin to death immediately. the influence of network public opinion on the judiciary has taken over the dominant position, leading to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 53 the independence and impartiality of the judiciary to be questioned. in china, judges during trials are not strictly managed, and they inevitably come into contact with the internet, and their subjective handling is a channel through which online public opinion enters and influences judicial trials; every aspect of a judicial trial requires the judge to combine his or her work experience, and the end result of the trial should be a consideration of current social policies and an understanding of future directions of development, and should be a blend of sensibility and rationality. japan is influenced by western culture and civil law system, coupled with its complete and total independence of the judiciary, nationals are more inclined to act in accordance with the law, for the violation of the constitution, law, unsubstantiated public opinion, the japanese judiciary will be firmly excluded. in the case of jiang ge, many media part of the statement or testimony of the parties simply as the court has confirmed the facts to be reported and disseminated, etc. behavior in japanese law is illegal, in the japanese judicial circles, “the media public opinion supervise the court” this proposition is considered to be “the cart before the horse! “in a country governed by the rule of law, it is not the media that should supervise the courts, but rather the courts that should supervise the media. (wang, 2018) moreover, japanese courts have established independent “sentencing databases”, in which different data elements of a case are entered into the database, the results are analyzed based on big data from similar cases in the past, and the final conviction and sentence are imposed by a full-time judge and adjudicator. in conducting judicial trials, japanese courts have avoided the negative impact of internet public opinion on legal activities, and internet citizenship is used only as a form of social supervision. (meng, 2021) 3. how to correctly handle the relationship between public opinion and justice on the internet in order to correctly deal with the relationship between online public opinion and justice, we must first correctly understand online public opinion. network public opinion is composed of private individuals with independent personality, through the internet speech, fully integrated to form a representative "public opinion", compared with the traditional form of public opinion, network public opinion is younger, more active thinking, often full of sense of justice, when the network public opinion reaches a certain degree of power, it will try to break through the barriers, effective impact the judicial trial and intervene in it. this is essentially a conflict of value standards between the two subjects, as well as netizens' distrust of the quality of judicial personnel. today, with the high popularity of the internet, chinese netizens lack self-discipline, and the media have not played an exemplary role in leading the way, so network morality and civilization are slowly disappearing, and the "anonymity" of network speech gives netizens the "courage" to say what they want, and some network media publish false information irresponsibly, leading to a lack of awareness of netizens. some online media irresponsibly release false information, causing netizens to blindly follow the trend, resulting in online public opinion to promote justice, but also brought about violent interference. nowadays, china's online public opinion is mostly formed by articles, comments and forwarding on the internet, and the media also tend to publish some special events to stimulate the internet's desire to talk, so that the majority of users can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 54 participate in the discussion at the first time. internet public opinion does not suddenly interfere with judicial trials, it has its own unique way usually manifested as moral intervention, this situation is a "battle" between judicial authority and public morality. when public opinion and morality jointly interfere in judicial proceedings, it can lead to unpredictable judicial trials. although the judiciary is independent, due to the historical and cultural reasons in china, judges are influenced by public opinion in the trial process, and will cater to their own subjective emotions to find the most reasonable judicial results in the public voice, but this does not mean that after the conviction of a particular case must listen to the internet public opinion. the quality of netizens varies, the anonymity of network speech and the immaturity of china's public opinion monitoring mechanism, resulting in the opinions of netizens are often irrational, unpredictable and violent, in the case of jiang ge, the network in order to recover the responsibility of the other victim liu nuanxi, outflow of the murder weapon to commit murder is the liu nuanxi handed chen shifeng's remarks, which led to the outbreak of some of the netizens in the network and even in real life to liu nuanxi "recovery", but this is actually chen shifeng in the trial to reduce the responsibility of fabricated. in the process of judicial and network public opinion "contest", the judicial trial must not be because of the network public opinion of one of the values of the previous rules will be given up, if it is so wavering, it will be very easy to lose their own independence, lose the authority of the law. we cannot dismiss one or the other when there is a conflict between public opinion on the internet and the administration of justice. the purpose of both is social justice, the law is the bottom line of morality, justice from the beginning is a hot spot of public concern, the popularity of the internet is for public attention to provide a powerful condition, to create a good social environment, improve the credibility of the judiciary, and effectively control and guide the network of public opinion, the network of public opinion into a good and effective way of supervision, into a tool to promote the judiciary, and jointly promote the rule of law the construction of society. 4. some recommendations everything has two sides, to correctly recognize the impact of network public opinion on justice. first of all, it is necessary to improve the legal literacy of citizens, correctly guide and control network public opinion, rationally and legally play a positive role in network public opinion, strengthen the media's self-discipline and legal awareness, and build a harmonious environment between network public opinion and justice. it is necessary to build a good network environment, construct a perfect network monitoring mechanism, standardize the media's coverage of judicial activities, and use the will of public power to guide and channel network public opinion. improve the legal thinking and legal literacy of citizens, instead of evaluating legal activities only with moralized thinking. secondly, build an institutional channel to promote the direct interaction between online public opinion and the judiciary. due to the irrationalization and unpredictability of the formation of online public opinion, it often leads to interference and mixing of other factors in the process of public opinion reaching the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 55 judiciary. improving the direct interaction between online public opinion and the judiciary can reduce the interference of other factors and eliminate uncontrollable factors. the direct interaction between network public opinion and the judiciary is conducive to the realization of good interaction between network public opinion and the judiciary, and promotes the supervisory role of network public opinion, as well as facilitates the judiciary to respond to network public opinion in a rational manner, and guarantees that the judgment will not deviate from the law. finally, the judiciary should give full play to its role in guiding online public opinion, improve the standardization and accuracy of judicial activities, and ensure the disclosure of trial information while insisting on the independence of the judiciary, so as to eliminate people's doubts fundamentally. when the public pays attention to an individual case, it is often because netizens are worried about the social relations and social impacts reflected behind the case, fearing that justice will be abused, and the public hopes to promote reforms in these areas through online public opinion. when the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed, trial information is publicized, and the public can see that their concerns are being handled, the tension between online public opinion and the judiciary will be alleviated, which will be conducive to the positive interaction between online public opinion and the judiciary. 5. conclusion judicial independence and public opinion supervision are important factors in the rule of law in china, and have always existed in the process of building a socialist rule of law country with special characteristics; today, with the increasing development of the internet, the public participates in the administration of justice and supervises the judiciary in its own way. judicial trial is based on laws and regulations as the premise, rational and emotional combination of legal logic reasoning process, in this process, including experience and feelings, it is impossible to exclude factors other than legal logic. internet public opinion represents the general will of the majority of netizens, standing from the public's point of view and analyzing legal issues from a non-professional point of view. moreover, the mainstream viewpoints of internet public opinion are usually in line with traditional values, which can facilitate the communication between the official and the public, and make the results more reasonable. therefore, under the premise of maintaining a relatively independent status, the judicial system should pay proper attention to the social hotspots reflected by online public opinion, give timely solutions, and form a good interaction with online public opinion. references chen, x. (2013). exploration of the influence of public opinion on justice--a comparison of chinese and american judicial attitudes toward public opinion and its implications. youth years, (16). huang, s. (2021). reflections on some legal issues of online public opinion in hot cases. journal o western l, (16). meng, s. h. (2021). the impact of internet public opinion on justice in comparative law. legal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 56 system and society, (08). su, l. (2011). internet public opinion and judicial trial--the case of yang jiaxin. journalism communication, (08). su, l. (2019). sensible legal response to sensational cases--taking the trial and defense of the drug jiaxin case as an example. hebei law science, 37(06). tai, y. r. (2020). the impact of online public opinion on justice comparing jiang ge case and yao jiaxin case. ability and wisdom, 2020(07), 248-250. wang, y. h. (2018). "jiang ge case" and japan's judicial culture. journal of law application (judicial case), (02). xu, g. h. (2015). criminal justice and public opinion under the threshold of case type characterization--taking 130 impactful criminal cases from 2005 to 2014 as a research model. science of law(journal of northwest university of political science and law), 33(05). yue, f. (2019). the relationship between judicial trial and network public opinion. atlanti press. zhang, x. q., & ding, h. b. (n.d.). impact of internet public opinion on judicial activities--jiang ge and yao jiaxin cases in the perspective of chinese and japanese comparative law. journal of puyang vocational and technical college, (06), 49-53. notes note 1. su ling. internet public opinion and judicial trial--the case of yao jiaxin. journalism communication, (08). note 2. court seeks sentencing opinions from bystanders at trial site of yao jiaxin case[n]. xinhua newspaper network-yangtse evening post. april 14, 2011 . note 3. su ling. internet public opinion and judicial trial--the case of yao jiaxin. journalism communication, 2011, (08). note 4. tai yingru. the influence of online public opinion on justice: a comparative analysis of the jiang ge case and the yao jiaxin case [j]. ability and wisdom, 2020(07), 248-250. note 5. xu guanghua. criminal justice and public opinion under the threshold of case type characterization--taking 130 impactful criminal cases from 2005 to 2014 as a research model[j]. science of law(journal of northwest university of political science and law),2015,33(05) note 6. yue fei. the relationship between judicial trial and network public opinion[c] atlanti press,2019 note 7. wang yunhai. "jiang ge case" and japan's judicial culture[j]. journal of law application(judicial case), 2018, (02). note 8. zhang xiaoqing, ding hanbing. impact of internet public opinion on judicial activities--jiang ge and yao jiaxin cases in the perspective of chinese and japanese comparative law [j]. journal of puyang vocational and technical college, 2021, 34(06), 49-53. note 10. same as 7. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 57 note 11. meng shaohao. the impact of internet public opinion on justice in comparative law[j]. legal system and society, 2021, (08). microsoft word assc-v3n4-p23 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 23 original paper return of the prodigal son? transformations in zimbabwe’s relations with china since 1963 blessing simura1* 1 independent researcher, zimbabwe * blessing simura, e-mail: blessingsimura@gmail.com received: october 10, 2021 accepted: october 25, 2021 online published: november 5, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n4p23 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n4p23 abstract the zimbabwe african national union (zanu) introduced zimbabwe into the realm of china during the liberation struggle as it sourced military support. in line with the chinese dominance in zanu, the zimbabwe african national liberation army (zanla) guerrilla warfare followed the maoist doctrine. however, at independence, zimbabwe joined the british commonwealth and became a part of the western orbit. although the country continued to have some form of political and economic linkages with china, the relations were cosmetic. it was at the fall of the cordial relations with the west at the end of the 1990s that zimbabwe refocused on china. zimbabwe hinged its survival on chinese support as it turned full circle to the east. this paper analyses the long historical relations between zimbabwe and china. it argues that political transformations returned back zimbabwe to china’s hegemony. the paper is based on qualitative research methods and information was gathered primarily through the use of archival data. keywords look east policy, zanu, liberation struggle, china, zimbabwe 1. introduction mutsvangwa, quoted in tendi (2020, p. 39) stated that, “mujuru [nhongo] came to china (in 2005) to seal a mining deal. after he saw shanghai, he said to me in some amazement that the chinese have come a very long way. i asked him what he meant. he said the last time he had been to china was in 1976 to get weapons. i was surprised. i asked myself, ‘the chinese gave him the weapons that made him the great commander that he was and after independence he never went back to china again?’. i was shocked this was his first trip to china since 1976.” the relationship that can be derived from the above quote in a way captures how zimbabwe related www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. with china from the time it was fighting for independence until the post 2000 era when its relations with the west got sour. tendi (2020) goes on to note that while the china of mao was appealing to the guerrillas during the liberation struggle, economically they perceived the west as being the best model, hence the amusement in the post mao period which captured the zimbabwean government leaders post the year 2000 when china had been transformed. the zimbabwe-china relations were created in the liberation struggle when china supported the zimbabwe african national union (zanu), which went on to win the first majority elections and formed a majority government in 1980 under prime minister robert mugabe. china came to the support of zanu in one of its greatest time of need. when zanu was formed as a break-away faction from the zimbabwe african peoples union (zapu), it was hard for the movement to attract regional and international recognition and support apart from the personal ties that the new party leadership had with tanzanian and ghanaian political leadership (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2011). when zanu gained chinese attention, it got a cocktail of support which opened the avenues for international and regional recognition and support. the support which zanu from china transformed it from being “another” movement to being an ideologically grounded and militarily strategic liberation movement which gained mass support under its chosen chinese version of leninism-marxism. be it as it may, in the post-independence era, zimbabwe’s ties with china were a hollow publicized close political relationship which was punctuated by zimbabwean political leadership visits to china to show gratitude for the liberation support. however, beyond that, there were no meaningful ties. the new country viewed china as being as equally poor as it was and hence zimbabwe fell back into the british and western orbit for perceived socio-economic gain (note 1). even during the independence negotiations at lancaster house, after a successful armed struggle, zanu did not call for the chinese input, or call on the chinese for advice or support. britain, the commonwealth, the united states of america (usa) and the frontline states had influence of varying degrees, while china waiting for the end of the negotiations to be given political recognition only. the ignoring of china by zimbabwe was not because china had no capacity but zimbabwe believed promises of catalysed development by the west as exemplified by the fact that the usa was the largest donor to post-independence zimbabwe (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2011). zimbabwe could have aligned with the chinese given that at the time of its independence, china was already an aspiring major power.china had not only sponsored a number of liberation movements to show that it could challenge other major powers, but was also using other dominating tools like investment and aid to africa to challenge for global influence and dominance (yu, 1977). among these big investments was the tanzania-zambia railway line (yu, 1977). the fallacy of the promises only came to light many years later that the west only sought to protect white minority interests in the post liberation era. when the zimbabwean government moved to address colonial imbalances like the land question, the west started to consider zimbabwe a pariah state and worked for its socio-economic destruction. it was at this time, in the post 2000 era, that zimbabwe reverted seriously to the chinese for socio-economic and global www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. diplomatic support. the only major difference in this instance is that the policy was now more blended with the development or deepening of diplomatic and socio-economic ties with other asian states like russia, and iran, with china having the lion’s share. 2. research method this paper is based on a review of related literature. various literature has been written on the roles played by various outside states competing for influence in post-colonial africa. the major states were the united states of america (usa), britain, france and other european states, from the west and russia and china from the east. the role of china is mostly given to explain how its conflict with the then soviet union (ussr) drove china to seek to counter russian influence by sponsoring rival liberation movement in african colonies in which russia was already sponsoring liberation movements. various arguments and propositions in the fragmented literature are brought together to put forward the arguments in this paper. initial methodology also intended to have interviews with members who had extensive knowledge on the liberation struggle, independence negotiations and post-independence alignment policy of the government of zimbabwe. however, this was rendered impossible by the corona virus (covid-19) pandemic which gripped zimbabwe in particular and the rest of the world in 2020. the researcher, therefore only managed to have a single interview with one ex-combatant of the second liberation struggle who is coded as interviewee a. be it as it may, review of the available literature gave enough information for the completion of the paper. 3. discussion 3.1 the liberation struggle and the development of china—zanu relations historical romanticism, especially among politicians, locate the cordial relations between zimbabwe and china to the pre-colonial times, prior to the arrival of western colonialist to southern africa. however, the cementing of the relations between zimbabwe and china was born during zimbabwe’s struggle for independence. the relationship between zimbabwe and china during the liberation struggle was born from the relationship between the zanu and china. the relationship was surrogated by the animosity between russia and china in exporting socialism and communism to africa. it was hard for zanu to gain international recognition after its birth in august 1963. international recognition was important to assert the relevance of a liberation movement in southern africa and also to secure important material resources for the survival of liberation movement and supplies for military struggles (reed, 1993). liberation movements in zimbabwe had started in the early 1950s and joshua nkomo became a dominant figure from the formative stages. zapu, from where zanu splinted from, had been an established movement which had already created relations with regional and global state and non-state players. reedand ndlovu-gatsheninote that zanu managed to acquire continental ties and support from ghana and tanzania based on personal ties of robert mugabe and herbert chitepo, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. respectively (reed, 1993). zanu undertook various military operations inside colonial zimbabwe to show various state and non-state actors that the movement was deserving of regional and international attention like the chinhoyi battle of april 1966 and some other acts of sabotage (reed, 1993). however, these acts which are viewed differently depending on one’s standpoint were not enough to turn international recognition and support full circle from zapu or at least to place the two liberation movements on equal footing. the long life of zapu as the liberation movement in zimbabwe had given it alliance and recognition from other liberation movements in africa and globally, which also translated into it gaining the international recognition of being the liberation movement in the then rhodesia (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2011). transformations in international relations in the east where the sino-soviet alliance break-up gave zanu an opportunity that reshaped internal politics in zimbabwe’s liberation movement and transformed zanu into a formidable liberation movement with an ideology and strategy. at the break-up, china sought to challenge the soviet union in gaining ideological and diplomatic influence in africa and isolate the soviet union at the global stage (yu, 1977). china also sought the support of african states against taiwan’s claims of being the bona fide china, at the united nations as well as in claiming the security council permanent seat (yu, 1988). in order to achieve its objectives, china took serious diplomatic offensives which included creating diplomatic ties with the already independent african states and also to counter support liberation movements that were rival to soviet union supported liberation movements. on this front, china supported the national union for the total independence of angola (unita) against the soviet union sponsored, people's movement for the liberation of angola (mpla), in angola (legum, 1976). in zimbabwe, china began supporting zanu against the soviet union ally, zapu (legum, 1976). the chinese support to zanu included both moral and material support. alao (2014, p. 6) summarizes the assistance which zimbabwe got into four categories, and states that, “the first was the provision of military assistance, which saw china sending military hardware to guerrillas in the zimbabwe african national liberation army (zanla, the military wing of zanu). the second form of support was the extensive military training that was given to zanla guerrillas. a significant number of zanla soldiers received military training in china that would advance the zanla insurgency. the third was the financial assistance given to the cause of zimbabwean liberation through zanu, while the final was the nature and extent of the ideological solidarity that resulted from the above.” of importance was the ideological and military training that zanu guerrillas obtained from china. notable on the military training was the training that was given to the josiah magamatongogara, zanu chief of defence (1973-1979), emmerson dambudzo mnangagwa, personal assistant to robert mugabe from 1977 until 1980 (bhebe, 1999; voice of america (voa) news, 2017) when he became the minister of state security. in total, three groups were trained in china with mnangagwa leading the first group of five in 1963, another group of four which had received basic training in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. ghana in 1964 went to china in 1965 (bhebe, 1999), while the third group of eleven led by josiah tongogarawent for training in 1966 (the herald, 2015; nkala, 2021). in addition to the combatants who were trained in china, china sent teams of military instructors to train the zimbabwe african national liberation army (zanla) (the military wing of zanu) combatants in tanzania (south african history archive (saha), 2021; nkala, 2021). eight instructors were stationed at itumbi training camp and twenty at mgagao (the herald, 2015). there were also other instructors who trained zanla recruits in ghana (bhebe, 1999). according to the embassy of the people’s republic of china in the republic of zimbabwe, china trained “about 15,000 freedom fighters and 240 military officers” of zanu (embassy of the people’s republic of china in the republic of zimbabwe, 2016), some great feet which impacted on the direction of the zimbabwe struggle especially on the impact the ideology of the respective liberation movements. records of arms, financial and other social support are not easy to establish. however, records from prominent nationalists like tekere (2006), shows that the chinese did not only extend material support but also logistical support for materials acquired from other supportive eastern countries. the military assistance was vital because it tipped the internal ground in favour of zanu which increased its recruits and in turn increased the numbers of its military incursions in the country. the internal dominance of zanu brought with it the acknowledgment of the regional and other international players who had once frowned on zanu as a breakaway faction. chung (2006, p. 75) noted that in the early 1970s, zanla forces posted victories against the rhodesian military machinery which made her “realise that it would be zanu rather than zapu that would one day rule a free zimbabwe.” this realization can be seen as proof of the transformative role played by external support to zanu, but which support could only be acquired after the movement had been incubated by china. whilst the role of china was central in giving zanu an ideological and military footing which translated into becoming a force in the contestation of dominance between zapu and zanu, its actions from the independence negotiations at the lancaster house conference until zimbabwe’s fall-out with the west showed action of no meaningful gratitude to a diplomatic relation that could be characterized as “all weather”. the lancaster house talks became a field dominated by britain, the commonwealth, the united states of america (usa) and in some cases the frontline states flexing their influence. there are no records that the zanu component in the patriotic front sought political backing or advice from china to counter-leverage the talks. in the post-independence period, zimbabwe joined the commonwealth group of nations which was dominated by britain and practically adopted capitalism. it only paid lip-service to socialist-marxist doctrines which it had used as mobilizing ideologies during the struggle, some form of dumping the chinese doctrine as unworkable. these are the issues that are contrasted in the following sections to show that zimbabwe gave its back to a diplomatic relation which natured it in the first instance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. 3.2 independence and zimbabwe’s foreign policy the road to the independence of zimbabwe was marked by milestone international meetings under which the british government sought to limit the role of the military solution in zimbabwe’s independence. prior to the 1979 lancaster house talks, liberation movements in zimbabwe, the smith regime and external players (britain, usa, south africa, zambia and the front line states) held various talks which were mostly instigated by the british government, the usa and south africa on the need to have a controlled political solution against a military solution to the ‘rhodesian question’. the discussions which were instigated by britain, usa and south africa with ian smith and the patriotic front, were driven by the fear of increased influence of socialism from the east, whilst the talks might have also been used to assure the rhodesians that the transition would be managed in a manner that would keep the new state under the ambit of the british (western) club with robust control of the elections outcome to preserve white privileges under the new government (smith, 1997). the position of the patriotic front, and in particular the zanu component is the subject of note by this paper. zanu (and the patriotic front team) knew, or at least suspected that the british government favoured a political settlement that would not bring much to the realization of the ambitions that influenced the struggle (rwodzi & mubonderi, 2015; tekere,2006; nkomo, 1984; mugabe, 1982). in many instances, records show that during the lancaster house talks, the main talks which culminated in the end of the struggle and ushered in majority rule, the patriotic front delegation was infuriated by the partiality of the british delegation in trying to frustrate them (nkomo, 1984; southern rhodesia constitutional conference report, 1979). however, with all this knowledge and suspicion, in the post-independence period, the new government allied more with the british and the west than it did with china and the east. ndlovu-gatsheni (2011, p. 10) states that in the post-independence period, “zanu–pf endeared itself to the us, which emerged as zimbabwe’s largest single donor in the 1980s. this was despite zanu–pf’s continued use of marxist–leninist rhetoric.” this section takes account of some milestone issues which prove this assertion: lancaster house talks was a complex discussion in which the british took charge of the transformation of zimbabwe to keep the new state under its ambit. a major take-off from the talks was the establishment of a westminster model of governance, with entrenched white privileges. as noted earlier, the patriotic front negotiating team had known the british stance from the onset of the talks. there had been considerable eastern ideological influence among the liberation movements. zapu and its military wing (zipra) were more inclined to the russian model of socialism, while zanu and its military wing (zanla) were more inclined to the chinese model of marxist-leninism. robert mugabe, the leader of zanu was feared and loathed by the west for being a marxist-leninist. however, with all this knowledge, the patriotic front bequeathed to britain the role of the umpire in the negotiations they had so much considerable interests. they also sought advice and direction from the commonwealth, the frontline states and the intervention of the usa (rwodzi & mubonderi, 2015). there is no information which showed that at least the zanu component consulted and sought counsel www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. from the chinese. from the major role it played during the lancaster house talks, britain became a central figure in zimbabwean governance from the time of transition deep into the 1990s. the merging of the security forces in the post-independence period and the training of the forces came under direct british influence through the british military advisory and training team (bmatt). the british ministry of defence (mod) began preparations for training and integrating belligerent forces in zimbabwe in 1976 (whitaker, 2014). the training and equipping of the military force were to be controlled by the british government in order to control the military equipment which zimbabwe would use, so that it would not offset the balance of power against apartheid south africa and also to make zimbabwe a market for its military and defence products (whitaker, 2014). whilst informing the british that as a sovereign state, zimbabwe could seek military assistance from any country it chose, mugabe requested to the british assistant chief of the defence staff for operations, major general kenneth perkins, that the zimbabwe national army (zna) be trained in line with british standards (whitaker, 2014). mugabe had also noted on a need to have the military adopt a pseudo-maoist chinese model but it was not taken along and bmatt adopted a british model (jackson, 2011). the proposal by mugabe might also have not been sincere. mugabe knew that the british needed to avoid zimbabwe being a socialist outpost and played well his cards to use the fear for his benefit. the british influence on the army only contended with the guerrilla tradition which had been achieved during the war of independence era and was more engrained in the senior officers. however, some of these senior officers were also to be trained in british tradition with solomon mujuru, the first black commander of the zimbabwe national army being trained in pakistan and the second air marshal, perrance shiri, being trained at the royal college of defence studies at sandhurst in london. zimbabwe was also to get military training for the fifth brigade from the north koreans. the north korean training was in line with agreement signed between zimbabwe and north korea after then prime minister robert mugabe’s visit to the country in 1980. the training might have been driven by the need to have a branch of the army that could be fully trusted by the ruling zanu party, against an army trained by the british were zanu did not render then complete trust (evans, 1991). the request by mugabe for the zimbabwe army to be trained in british military standards might be seen as a betrayal of the ethos that had resulted in the successful execution of the struggle. the zanla forces which mugabe had commanded were trained in line with the maoist doctrine, and the popular liberation song, which the army returned to eulogizing after the fall out with britain, nziradzemasoja (soldiers’ guide) was a transcription of the maoist military doctrine morphed with some african and christian morality (chung, 2006, p. 80). economically, zimbabwe had already been initiated into the british sphere of influence by colonialism. despite the reduction in volumes of trade due to the un sanctions from 1966 the effect might have only been nominal given that the rhodesian regime still exported and imported goods using south africa as a sanctions busting partner (mckinnell, 1969; hawkins, 1967). having acquired www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. independence with british influence and joining the commonwealth, zimbabwe’s economy was clutched in the western economic orbit. saungweme (2013) notes that in the 1990s zimbabwe’ strading partners were dominated by the western countries and japan with around sixty percent of the trade. trade with britain and the european union (eu) transformed from the early 2000 impacted by the fast – track land reform programme (ftlrp) which saw the institution of various trade sanctions and measures impacting on trade. there were no major efforts to disentangle from the western orbit given that the west was seen as developed and rich. zimbabwe, however, since independence, managed to maintain nominal business relations with china. the chinese were contracted to build the national sports stadium which was completed in march of 1987, in harare. the zimbabwean government would also purchase some military equipment from china (jeuck, 2011). however, as earlier noted, the relations did not make china realise its intentions of challenging western world order in africa. the rhetoric of socialism was dying with each year after the independence of zimbabwe. in the post-independence period, zimbabwe became western and discarded the chinese model and principles. there could be a number of explanations which can be given as to why zimbabwe became metaphorically ‘british’ when it could have learnt from the chinese models to chat its path into development. internally, the lancaster house agreements favoured the maintenance of the pre-independence status-quo on major economic activities and political system. it was a premeditated status-quo by the british, the usa and the internal white community which had thrown its support behind a settlement that would preserve the pre-independence status-quo and promote the growth of neo-liberalism in the new state (sadomba, 2008). 3.3 post 2000 and the relook to china zimbabwe’s political decision to relook at its relations with china, in particular and the eastern bloc, in general, was a push from the fall with the west, in general, and britain, in particular. from the end of the 1990s, zimbabwe moved on a collision path with the british government after the rise of the tony blair led new labour party. the new labour party did not recognize the colonial baggage of the british government as had been the norm and international legal practice, at least on the zimbabwean case (short, 1997). the agreement on the disbursement of funds for the second phase of the land reform programme which had been agreed to by the outgoing government of john major (mbeki, 2016; chan, 2003) was discarded and the labour party proposed disbursing fund under a donors driven land reform programme as a component of poverty eradication (short, 1997). the proposal was tantamount to unilaterally multilateralise a historically bilateral case and a renege from a colonial responsibility, a move which zanu-pf rejected. the zanu-pf government had been reeling under socio-economic pressure in the aftermath of payments of unbudgeted for, gratuities to the veterans of the second liberation struggle, the military intervention in the democratic republic of congo (drc) and the manifestations of the effects of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap) (asuelime & simura, 2014). the government had pinned its hopes of gained public confidence through implementing a land reform programme and retain political power in the 2000 and 2002 parliamentary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. and presidential elections, respectively. the matter was worsened by the fact that in september 1999 a new, labour and civil society driven, opposition political party, the movement for democratic change (mdc) had been born and the british government and the white commercial farmers in zimbabwe had openly shown support for the party (asuelime & simura, 2014). the aggregate of these events saw the government arguing that britain had created the party in order to topple it from power (tendi, 2014), hence the actions of the blair government on land was seen as a sabotage on a policy that could assist zanu—pf to retain power. the zimbabwean government, therefore, in the post 2000 defeat of its sponsored draft constitution, threw its support to land occupations which it had discouraged between 1997 and 1998 when chief svosve in mashonal and east province and some veterans of the second liberation struggle led peasants to occupy then white owned farms on the pretext that they were ancestral lands or that they had been enlisted by the government for compulsory acquisition (simura, 2009; moyo, 2001). the land occupations were chaotic, violent and at first showed no signs of central control and command. it was only later, in 2001, that the government instituted the ftlrp and brought sanity to the occupations. britain and the west tried to reign in mugabe and zanu—pf without success. the land occupations and the subsequent ftrlp was not only an issue of property rights but also seen as setting a wrong precedence against neo-liberal domination in the former settler economies. this led the west to impose various sanctions on the government of zimbabwe, some selected individuals in government, business and zanu—pf and some business entities which had links to the government, zanu—pf, and the security sector (moretti, 2017; chingono, 2010). of importance on the various sanctions were the conditionalities given for the repeal of the usa sanctions law on zimbabwe, the zimbabwe democracy and economic recovery act (zidera) of 2001. the western bloc also attempted to have united nations comprehensive sanctions on zimbabwe in july 2008 when the usa sponsored a draft sanctions resolution. having already returned to the eastern bloc, china and russia blocked the resolution with a double veto (united nations, 2008; worsnip, 2008). zimbabwe turned to china, primarily, and other eastern countries like russia for trade and investments to offset the deficit caused by the pull-out of the west. zimbabwe rekindled the title of ‘all weather friend’ for china. it also began retooling its defence and security apparatus with mostly chinese produced equipment and technology (vines, 2017; edinger & burke, 2008). this also included some training programmes (mukaro & mugari, 2005). the re-turn to the east particularly to china yielded the best results for the country. the various sanctions regimes which had been imposed on the country by the west were meant to see the economy crush and the country to be ungovernable. this in extension was meant to set an example that any former settler colony that challenges colonial privileges would suffer. deepened relations with china therefore kept zimbabwe afloat and brought some notable investments like the “expansion projects of victoria falls airport, kariba south hydro power station and hwange thermal power station” (embassy of the people’s republic of china in the republic of zimbabwe, 2016), the construction of the new parliament building and opening up of some manufacturing plants. zimbabwe also managed to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. get access to chinese funding of some projects when the western creditors had slammed the door on the southern african country. during the covid-19 pandemic, china donated and also sold covid-19 vaccines to zimbabwe at a time when there were lamentations over “vaccine nationalism” especially in the west. zimbabwe was among the first african countries to administer the vaccine. china, therefore, can be seen as a benevolent “father” who supported zimbabwe in most of its darkest moments against the west. 4. conclusion the government of zimbabwe’s return to china was not simply by operation of pull factors. zimbabwe, at the attainment of independence did not grab the pull factors, namely the relation which had been created during the war of liberation and china’s desire to secure strategic allies africa at the time. zimbabwe was baited by the dangled aid and industrial development from the west that it thought that its newly found foreign policy was being driven by pragmatism. it was also yoked by the manner in which it acceded to independence negotiations wherein the patriotic front in general and zanu in particular, did not also turn to china as a strategic ally to leverage on the talks. hence, the patriotic front accepted the hamstringing clauses due to the pressure that was mounted on them by the british, the commonwealth and the frontline states, as well as promises of increased western aid and funding that would turn zimbabwe into a fast developing state (sadomba, 2008). the return, as discussed in the paper was driven more by push factors. the fallout with britain and the west was the major push factor which drove zimbabwe to relook at its global relations leading to it turning back to the east. the return has paid dividends as shown by how china assisted zimbabwe in its time of dire need. however, it has seen zimbabwe with little bargaining power on various concessions, which has made the country to be seen as a vassal, with little diplomatic leverage due to its western pariah status. references alao, a. (2014). china and zimbabwe: the context and contents of a complex relationship south african institute of international affairs. occasional paper 202. october. asuelime, l., & simura, b. (2014). the movement for democratic change (mdc) and the changing geo-political landscape in zimbabwe. in l. asuelime, & s. francis (eds.), selected themes in african political studies: political conflict and stability (pp. 69-81). new york and london: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06001-9_6 bhebe, n. (1999). the zapu and zanu guerrilla warfare and the evangelical lutheran church in zimbabwe. gweru: mambo press. chan, s. (2003). land and starvation. the world today, 59(3), 18-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1359-6446(02)02573-4 chingono, h. (2010). zimbabwe sanctions: an analysis of the “lingo” guiding the perceptions of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 33 published by scholink inc. sanctioners and the sanctionees. african journal of political science and international relations, 4(2), 66-74. chung, f. (2006). re-living the second chimurenga: memories from the liberation struggle in zimbabwe. stockholm: the nordic africa institute and weaver press. edinger, h., & burke, c. (2008). a research report on zimbabwe: african economic research consortium (aerc) scoping studies on china-africa relations. nairobi: aerc. embassy of the people’s republic of china in the republic of zimbabwe. (2016, may 30). all-weather friendship between china and zimbabwe beats the slander. retrieved june 8, 2021, from http://zw.china-embassy.org/eng/xwdt/t1367721.htm hawkins, a. m. (1967). the rhodesian economy under sanctions. the rhodesian journal of economics, 1(1), 44-60. jackson, p. (2011). the civil war roots of military domination in zimbabwe: the integration process following the rhodesian war and the road to zanla dominance. civil wars, 13(4), 371-395. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2011.629865 jeuck, l. (2011). arms transfers to zimbabwe: implications for an arms trade treaty. stockholm international peace research institute (sipri) background paper. stockholm: sipri. legum, c. (1976). the soviet union, china and the west in southern africa. foreign affairs. https://doi.org/10.2307/20039611 mbeki, t. (2016, february 22). in defence of my zimbabwe policy. politics web. retrieved march 31, 2021, from https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/in-defence-of-my-zimbabwe-policy--thabo-mbeki mckinnell, r. (1969). sanctions and the rhodesian economy. the journal of modern african studies, 7(4), 559-581. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x0001884x moretti, v. (2017). zimbabwe in dubious battle: the unexpected consequences of western sanctions. institut francais des relations internationales (ifri) note no. 18. paris: ifri. moyo, s. (2001). the land occupation movement and democratization in zimbabwe: contradictions of neoliberalism. millennium: journal of international studies, 30(2), 311-330. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298010300021001 mugabe, r. g. (1982). struggle for nationhood: the birth of zimbabwe. encyclopedia britannica. retrieved june 8, 2021, from, https://www.britannica.com/topic/robert-mugabe-on-zimbabwe-1985189/armed-struggle-begin s mukaro. a., & mugari, s. (2005, june 17). zim “looks east” for military training/hardware. the zimbabwe independent. retrieved june 8, 2021, from https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2005/06/17/zim-looks-east-for-military-traininghardware/ ndlovu-gatsheni, s. j. (2011). “reconstructing the implications of liberation struggle history on sadc mediation in zimbabwe,” south african institute of international affairs (saiia) south www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. african foreign policy and african drivers programme occasional paper no. 92. september, saiia, pretoria. nkala, s. (2021, june 9). investing in the future: china’s bankrolling of zanu’s liberation struggle has paid off handsomely. daily maverick. retrieved july 6, 2021, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-06-09-investing-for-the-future-chinas-bankrolli ng-of-zanus-liberation-struggle-has-paid-off-handsomely/ nkomo, j. (1984). the story of my life. london: richard clay. reed, w. c. (1993). international politics and national liberation: zanu and the politics of contested sovereignty in zimbabwe. african studies review, 36(2), 31-59. https://doi.org/10.2307/524732 rwodzi, a., & mubonderi, b. (2015). the dilemma of the patriotic front and the influence of the zimbabwe-rhodesia government on the final 1979 lancaster house constitution. the international journal of humanities and social studies, 3(9), 215-220. sadomba, w. z. (2008). war veterans in zimbabwe’s land occupations: complexities of a liberation movement in african post-colonial settler society (unpublished doctoral thesis). wageningen university, wageningen. saungweme, t. (2013). trade dynamics in zimbabwe (1980-2012): the untold trade story of zimbabwe. russian journal of agricultural and socio-economic sciences, 10(22), 31-34. https://doi.org/10.18551/rjoas.2013-11.05 short, c. (1997, november 5). official letter to the then zimbabwe minister of agriculture and land, kumbirai kangai. retrieved march 2, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/foi/images/0,9069,1015120,00.html simura, b. (2009). zimbabwe’s fast track land reform programme: addressing colonial imbalances or gaining political mileage (unpublished bachelor’s thesis). midlands state university, gweru. smith, i. (1997). the great betrayal: the memoirs of africa’s most controversial leader. london: blake publishing. south african history archive (saha). (2021). zapu: through zenzo nkobi’s lens (regional alliances). retrieved march 26, 2021, from https://www.saha.org.za/zapu/regional_alliances.htm southern rhodesia constitutional conference report, held at lancaster house. london september (1979, december). retrieved march 1, 2021, from https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/5847/5/1979_lancaster_house_agreement.pdf tekere, e. (2006). a lifetime of struggle. harare: sapes books. tendi, b. m. (2020). the army and politics in zimbabwe: mujuru, the liberation fighter and kingmaker. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108561600 tendi, b. m. (2014). the origins of and functions of demonization discourses in britain-zimbabwe relations (2000-). journal of southern african studies, 40(6), 1251-1269. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2014.933646 the herald. (2021, november 24). china in zimbabwe, africa: past, present and future. retrieved www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. march 26, 2021, from https://www.herald.co.zw/china-in-zimbabwe-africa-past-present-and-future/ united nation. (2008, july 11). security council fails to adopt sanctions against zimbabwe leadership as two permanent members cast negative votes. press release. retrieved march 31, 2021, from https://www.un.org/press/en/2008/sc9396.doc.htm vines, a. (2017, november 20). what is the extent of china’s influence in zimbabwe? bbc news. retrieved june 8, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42012629 voice of america (voa) news. (2017, november 14). who is emmerson mnangagwa? voa. retrieved june 7, 2021, from https://www.voanews.com/africa/who-emmerson-mnangagwa whitaker, b. h. (2014). the ‘new model’ armies of africa? british military advisory and training team and thecreation of zimbabwe national army (unpublished doctoral thesis). texas a & m university, texas. worsnip, p. (2008, july 12). russia and china veto u.n. zimbabwe sanctions. reuters. retrieved march 31, 2021, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-crisis-un-idusn0917887320080712 yu, g. t. (1988). africa in chinese foreign policy. asian survey, 28(8), 849-862. https://doi.org/10.2307/2644590 yu, g. t. (1977). china’s role in africa. annals of the american academy of political and social science, 432, 96-109. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271627743200109 zimbabwe democracy and economic recovery act (zidera). (2001). united states of america (usa), public law 107-99, december 21, 2001. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 45 original paper the application of online literature circle in english reading teaching in chinese vocational colleges ning huang 1&2* 1 english department, zhanjiang preschool education college, zhanjiang 524000, china 2 ph. d. in english and literature, college of arts and science, silliman university, dumaguete 6200, philippines * ning huang, e-mail: hn@zhjpec.edu.cn received: june 13, 2023 accepted: july 15, 2023 online published: july 28, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p45 abstract reading teaching plays a crucial role in vocational college english. the ability to read proficiently has a significant impact on students’ english performance. for a long time, cultivating students’ reading ability is one of the important goals of english teaching. however, students in vocational colleges often struggle with their reading skills, as well as their cognitive abilities, cultural awareness, and learning capabilities. through the exploration of literary reading, it has been discovered that the reading teaching mode of literature circle aligns well with the objectives of english reading teaching in vocational colleges. based on this, the author conducted an in-depth investigation into the application of the online literature circle mode in english reading teaching and its impact on students’ reading and learning abilities. this paper outlines the process of integrating the online literature circle mode into english reading teaching, and discusses its effects on students’ reading and learning abilities. experimental results have demonstrated that the literature circle teaching mode can enhance students’ reading skills and learning capabilities. this research further enriches the literature circle teaching mode and provides valuable insights for front-line teachers in english reading teaching in vocational colleges. keywords online teaching, literature circle, vocational college english reading 1. introduction 1.1 the negative influence of the traditional teaching mode on reading literacy the current state of english reading teaching is unsatisfactory in terms of both quantity and quality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. (wang et al., 2021). currently, most chinese vocational colleges still adhere to the traditional teaching mode of english reading, which only focuses on theoretical knowledge and neglects practical application (mu, 2021). furthermore, it fails to consider the individual differences and learning characteristics of students. in this traditional model, teachers maintain a dominant position and dedicate a significant amount of time to teaching knowledge points, while ignoring the training of effective strategies and methods. consequently, students can only read articles based on the explanations provided by teachers, resulting in a lack of comprehensive understanding and limited opportunities for active thinking and practice. this teaching method greatly hinders students’ individual comprehension of reading materials, fosters excessive dependence on teachers, and dampens enthusiasm for english reading. such a situation is detrimental to the development of students’ reading literacy, fails to enhance their practical application abilities, and diminishes their interest and motivation. additionally, in an effort to quickly improve students’ reading performance, traditional reading teaching often resorts to monotonous and mechanical drills. the selection of reading materials is typically random and arbitrary. many articles and reading materials in textbooks are based on abstract concepts and theories, lacking specific examples and application cases. consequently, students find it challenging to understand and apply the knowledge they have acquired. in the long run, this approach easily leads to a loss of interest in reading, exacerbating the challenges faced in english reading teaching and hindering student development. 1.2 reading requirements’ high demand for the online environment the conventional approach to teaching reading is characterized by a slow pace of knowledge acquisition because it is predominately based on the use of printed books and the explanations provided by teachers. the students have to either spend a significant amount of time travelling to the bookshop or the library to look for appropriate books, and then they have to either acquire knowledge by reading and taking notes, or wait for the direction and answers provided by the teachers. in addition, the conventional method of instructing reading can only offer a limited number of instructional materials and reference books, which are unable to satisfy the requirements that students have for a diverse range of reading resources. internet users have access to a wealth of reading material that is both useful and varied. reading material that is presented to students in the form of multimedia, photos, videos, and other formats is both more intuitive and vivid, which contributes to an improved learning effect. this enhances both the participation in learning and the effectiveness of that learning. students can save time and effort by using search engines, electronic books, and other internet resources to swiftly access a significant amount of reading content. students also need to be able to pick, analyze, and manage a vast variety of reading resources on their own. this places additional demands on students’ capacity to engage in independent learning. online reading has supplanted reading from paper media as the primary mode of reading. online teaching has been increasingly prevalent in the field of english education within vocational colleges as a result of the development of technology relating to networks. educators need to actively study and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. implement new teaching models and technology means in order to meet the reading needs of the internet era. they also need to give more diverse reading materials and learning techniques, as well as foster students’ independent learning ability and information literacy. the question of how to utilize the technology of “internet + education” to help english reading teaching at vocational colleges is one that has to be investigated further. in this context, on the basis of teaching practice, we put forward an online literature circle english reading teaching model, design a flow chart, detail the operation steps, and improve the students’ english reading interest as well as their reading ability. our ultimate goal is to solve the problems that exist in the current english reading teaching in vocational colleges. 2. literature review in 1994, the distinguished american scholar professor harvey daniels made the first public suggestion of the idea that would later become known as the literature circle. a literature circle is a student-led reading discussion group in which all members of the group read the same material, such as short stories, poems, novels, or plays, and write a role sheet according to the role assignments that have been allocated to them. every member is responsible for independently completing the readings both in and outside of class, and recording them in accordance with the responsibilities that have been allocated to them. the following step involved participants following a practice sheet for reading talks and holding regular group discussions in which everyone was requested to contribute their perspectives. when the group discussion is finished, the members of the group or groups within the group talk to one another about the reading and the conclusions of the discussion. at the end of the literature circle, each group will have the opportunity to switch members and re-select the books that they will read for the next cycle of the literature circle (daniels, 1994). the investigation of the literature circle and the relevant educational practice in other countries have both seen a great deal of success. the researchers blum, lipsett and yocom (2002) used the literature circle teaching mode in mother tongue instruction, and they discovered that students were able to fully converse with one another while participating in the literature circle. students can thus develop their thinking skills and their capacity to comprehend what they read to a certain degree by using this form of instruction. anderson (2004) used the literature circle in the context of the subject of special education. shelton-strong (2012) utilized the literature circle when instructing pupils in a second language. she noted that the format sparked students’ interest in studying and boosted their sense of self-assurance. in recent years, with the advocacy of student-centered, cooperative learning, and independent learning, the research on literature circle in china has gradually increased, and more and more academics have begun to pay attention to the application significance of literature circle teaching model in china’s teaching. this growth in research on literature circle in china can be attributed to the advocacy of student-centered, cooperative learning, and independent learning. both liu and jin (2006) agreed that the literature circle reading mode, which was student-centered and can increase students’ self-confidence and self-awareness as a result, played a beneficial function in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. chinese teaching process. lv (2013) selected students majoring in english as the research objects for his study of the literature circle teaching mode. the results of this study showed that the literature circle teaching mode not only increased the interest of college students in reading, but it also helped enhance their writing and listening abilities. xiao and long (2016) implemented the literature circle in the context of collegiate chinese instruction with the goal of assisting individuals in better comprehending the model from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. according to the findings of researchers from both inside and outside of china, the literature circle not only helps to bolster the primary role that students play in the teaching practice, but it also encourages the growth of students’ comprehensive literacy. this paper investigates the use of an online literature circle in college english classes and breathes new life into practical english teaching. 3. method the author makes an effort to incorporate the instructional method of literature circle into english novel reading courses. in addition, the author implements the teaching design of escape, a masterpiece written by canadian author alice munro (1931 ), who was awarded the nobel prize in literature in 2013, in order to investigate how to carry out teaching activities in a way that gives full play to the benefits of the literature circle teaching method. 3.1 text analysis the novel escape first appeared in print in 2004, and ever since then, it has garnered a great deal of interest in the literary community. the work is comprised of eight short stories, each of which is set in a canadian village and introduces readers to the lives of everyday women living there, as well as their private thoughts and feelings. the theme of this collection of eight stories, which appear to be unrelated to one another at first glance, is women’s resistance to routine daily existence and their longing for passion. every one of the female characters is a denial of average people who live in the crevices of everyday life and a rejection of existence in its most boring form. as regular people, they have the desire to live a brilliant life, the want for life to the extent that summer flowers have that thirst, and the optimism that the future will be better. the events depicted in escape are taken from the everyday lives of regular ladies who live in a town with a dark secret and a tragic ending. while munro gives readers with a calm and objective account of the particulars of everyday life, terrible fate seeps into every nook and cranny of that life. the bewilderment and struggle of women in the basic crisis life that munro describes is brought out more strongly, and it generates an indescribable melancholy due to the writer ’s use of a calm and restrained brushwork. 3.2 research process the online literature circle teaching mode is broken into five steps: picking reading materials—setting up a literature circle—assigning roles and filling in role sheets—independent reading and online group discussion—evaluation and summary. at the completion of the last phase, students can re-form a new literature circle, choose new reading materials, and start a new cycle. in the whole process, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. students are the focus and the subject of implementation, and teachers play a guiding and auxiliary role. the specific design methodology is as follows: (1) picking reading materials the author instructs english reading, a required subject for english majors at a vocational college in zhanjiang, which is located in guangdong province. the instruction was scheduled to take place during the first semester of the second year. there were a total of 32 teaching hours and 2 credits spread among the 16 weeks that made up a teaching week. forty students served as the learning object. in the process of instructing this class, the teacher selected 32 english readings for students to read based on the teaching objectives and course requirements. next, she took into account the students’ current level of english as well as their degree of interest in learning, and she created a comprehensive reading list. the majority of the reading materials were of well-known works from important english-speaking countries or regions, such as the united kingdom, the united states, canada, and australia. these works, which may be brief or lengthy passages, were included. the literature circle method required the students to select one piece to read each week, and then they discussed what they read. (2) setting up a literature circle the students were organized and directed by the teacher to form groups and then built up a literature circle in those groups. there would be four students in each group. because some students might not be familiar with the specific steps of literature circle, and also because the teacher chose the reading materials for the first time, this means that each reading group selected the same novel and read it in the same manner. this made it easier for the class to have a collective discussion and collect data, and it also eliminated any confusion among the students about how literature circle works. to ensure that students have an overall and thorough comprehension of the material, it was important for the whole class to finish the reading assignment for the current week before the beginning of each new class session. (3) assigning roles and filling in role sheets the four students took on the following roles: discussion leader, character explorer, literary person, and plot drawer. the teacher could adapt or supplement the part, give play to the varied intelligence of students, and promote their enthusiasm to read in order to ensure that each and every student was able to benefit from the role. the teacher distributed a pre-made role sheet once every member of the group had finished defining their respective roles and duties. in addition, the teacher created the role sheet by basing its contents on the textual content of the assigned reading material as well as the responsibilities of each individual character. each role sheet contained a description of the obligations associated with the role, as well as the tasks that needed to be done during the phase in which the group discussed the topic. after finishing the reading assigned to them individually, the four members of each group fill out the role sheet. (4) independent reading and online group discussion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. when students are reading, the teacher urged them to take notes, record terms they didn’t understand, great expressions, personal feelings, or article remarks. additionally, the teacher encouraged students to choose themes freely and offer comments with confidence. following the completion of their individual role diaries, the members then participated in internal group conversations through the use of online video sent over the chosen network platform. all members had the opportunity to voice their perspectives in group discussions, share the results of their reading. during the process of the discussion, the members of the literature circle should pay close attention to the remarks that were being made by the other members of the group, took notes on the significant content, and participated actively in the conversation when it was their chance to do so. the teacher should listen in on the conversations of all of the different student groups and took notes. using munro’s escape as an illustration, the teacher delegated the following responsibilities to the four members: discussion leader: the person who was in charge of guiding the conversation within the literary circle; created open-ended questions and did post-discussion analysis; helped the group communicate the content of the text while also maintaining discipline. for instance, other members were led through an analysis of the reasons for women’s flight from the three perspectives of the heroine’s personal reasons, the heroine’s living environment, and female awareness. the character explorer selected grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs. the members of the circle should listen to him or her read aloud, and he or she should also explain why chose the particular sentence or paragraph. for instance, when analyzing the language form and semantic transmission in escape using halliday’s language meta-function theory, it was discovered that munro’s wonderful language art, which appeared to be plain and simple language, actually had hidden waves that reflected the powerful ideology of women’s courage to resist under the patriarchal society. the student working towards the literary luminary illustrated the storyline of a story through the use of tables, charts, and graphics. he or she ensured that the story’s plot was an exact reflection of the text. use a table, for instance, to list the many kinds of males that are about the heroines in escape. plot tracer would be able to associate things that were unrelated to the text but were similar to what was in it. consider both the parallels and the divergences. after that, the teacher led the communication and sharing among the different groups of students, as well as organized them so that they would concentrate on the most important aspects of the class discussion. this procedure was genuinely intended to summarize and sublimate on the basis of group discussion. it was also intended to guide students to explore the connotation of the book, experience the simplest human emotions described in the article, and feel the immense effect of the beauty of human nature. students had the opportunity to be exposed to a more diverse understanding and to experience a manner of thinking that was multi-layered and multi-perspective when they participated in inter-group conversations in the classroom. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. 4. result following the class discussion, the teachers provided students with a concise summary of the entire process of reading activities and a targeted evaluation. evaluations should steer clear of providing direct comments based on students’ scores and instead place an emphasis on students’ capacity for self-reflection and progress. in order to summarize the phased learning results of students and provide suggestions, the teacher used a combination of quantitative evaluation and qualitative analysis as the basis for student evaluation. this was accomplished by the teacher listening in on intra-group and inter-group discussions as well as reading the role diary that had been completed by each student. in addition, when carrying out the reading teaching activities associated with the literature circle, the teacher should also pay attention to extending students’ cultural knowledge and broadening their horizons. one example of this would be boosting the introduction of munro, the author of escape, as well as expanding her life. after the students had participated in the online literature circle discussion, the teacher would conduct an analysis and explanation of the students’ lack of comprehension, as well as the most important and challenging points. the teacher would also assist the students in mastering the usage rules of vocabulary, sentences, and grammar, and then allowed the students to further strengthen and consolidate this law through reading. many students had expressed that the literature circle had provided them with a relaxed and unrestricted setting in which to read; as a result, both their enthusiasm for reading and their level of participation in the activity had significantly increased, and they had a deeper and more comprehensive comprehension of the material when communicating with other students. after the students had completed the reading and discussion of escape, the teacher summarized and evaluated, supplemented information, and extended. this would bring an end to one cycle of literature circle, which indicated that another round of literature circle activities will likely be started very soon. at the end of the class, the teacher questioned the students to determine whether or not they had any uncertainties regarding the entirety of the literature circle reading process, and then she responded to the students’ inquiries through either online or live instruction. the author used the reading test paper, the questionnaire, and the interview outline at the end of the semester in order to test whether or not the literature circle teaching mode has an influence on students’ reading ability and english learning ability. the data from the questionnaire and the test taken before reading the test paper were gathered before the experiment, and the data from the questionnaire, the test taken after reading the test paper, and the interview were gathered afterwards. the findings indicate that the majority of students are able to embrace the instructional method of literature circle and that they benefit much as a result of learning through this mode. when students’ scores on english reading tests taken before and after the intervention are compared, it can be shown that the students’ reading scores have improved, and their reading ability has also developed as a result of the intervention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. 5. discussion to begin, students need to have a shift in their mindset on the process of learning english. students have spent a significant amount of time in classes that utilize conventional teaching strategies, and as a result, they are accustomed to passively absorbing the information that is imparted to them by their instructors. at this point, students need to modify the idea of something in exchange for nothing and take an active part in the activities that take place in the classroom. students also need to overcome inertia and dependence, engage in proactive problem-solving regarding learning challenges, and not rely on the answers provided by others. in order to make the most of cooperative learning, students need to work on their capacity to cooperate with others, as well as enhance their communication and expression skills. second, teachers must abandon the conventional way of thinking about the instructional process. in the conventional method of instructing, the teacher does all of the necessary preparation for the class, both the questions and the answers are already planned out in advance, and the role of the students is limited to simply passively accepting the information. when using this kind of instruction, students frequently find that, after reading an article, they are unable to comprehend its logical structure or the goal of the author. in the online literature circle teaching mode, students engage in open conversation in intimate settings and make extensive use of the resources provided by the network in order to obtain the maximum amount of information possible. in addition to simply imparting information, teachers take on the roles of organizers, facilitators, and guides. the role of the teacher is to direct the students towards the desired output and assist them in making necessary adjustments at the appropriate moments, such as when the students are on the verge of veering off course. funding this work was supported by big data research center of foreign languages reading, nppa key laboratory of publishing integration development, fltrp (nkf2021bc10). references anderson, n. j., & cheng, x. (2004). exploring second language reading: issues and strategies. foreign language teaching and research press. blum, h. t., lipsett, l. r., & yocom, d. j. (2002). literature circles: a tool for self-determination in one middle school inclusive classroom. remedial and special education, 23(2), 99-108. https://doi.org/10.1177/074193250202300206 harvey, d. (1994). literature circles: voice and choice in the student-centered classroom. liu, m., & jin, y. f. (2006). literary circle—the reform of reading teaching methods. language planning, (08), 45-47. lv, x. h. (2013). the comparison and analysis of “literature circles” mode and traditional approach of english reading teaching. journal of jimei university, 14(03), 105-108. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. mu, h. j. (2021). teaching design of english novel reading course based on reading circles—taking the last leaf as an example. journal of wuyi university, 40(04), 74-79. shelton-strong, s. j. (2012). literature circles in efl. english language teaching, 66(2), 214-233. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccr049 wang, d. p., pang, g. l., feng, j. (2021). the discussions on the “literature circles” online english reading teaching model. curriculum, teaching material and methods, 41(03), 90-96. xiao, y., & long, j. (2016). the application of american “literary circle” mode in college chinese. journal of qinzhou university, 31(09), 80-83. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 155 original paper the inheritance and innovation of shu embroidery technique and culture in the new era qihui fang1, xinyu zhang1 & guohui rao* 1 school of foreign languages, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, sichuan, china * corresponding author, guohui rao, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, sichuan, china received: september 17, 2024 accepted: october 28, 2024 online published: november 07, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p155 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p155 abstract shu embroidery is a type of embroidery art originating from the western sichuan plain, renowned for its exquisite appearance. the cultural value of shu embroidery runs deep, and it has taken on new significance in modern times. in ancient times, shu embroidery experienced a period of peak development; however, under the impact of modern society, the inheritance and future development of shu embroidery also face some difficulties and challenges, such as monotonous styles, slow updates, a small number of people inheriting the skills, the lack of a complete industrial chain, small scale, and the absence of representative brands. this article delves into the cultural value behind shu embroidery while also proposing solutions to these issues, including accelerating research and development, popularizing knowledge about shu embroidery, increasing promotional efforts, and cultivating relevant technical talent. keywords shu embroidery, inheritance and innovation of shu embroidery 1. introduction shu embroidery, also known as sichuan embroidery, ranks alongside suzhou embroidery, hunan embroidery, and guangdong embroidery as one of china's four great embroideries, highlighting its unique cultural status. as a fine embroidery technique passed down in the bashu region, shu embroidery has been recognized as a chinese national geographical indication product. it has always been an essential intangible cultural heritage in the bashu area, with its history traceable back to the sanxingdui civilization period. shu embroidery mainly uses silk threads made from silkworms to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 156 embroider exquisite patterns on silk or other fabrics, often featuring flowers, birds, insects, fish, and various animals and plants. today, in the face of the rapid development of the era, inheriting and innovating shu embroidery culture has become necessary. this not only serves to protect shu embroidery culture but also enhances people's livelihood and raises the profile of shu embroidery by further exploring its commercial value, making it a highly meaningful and necessary measure. 2. the value and significance of shu embroidery 2.1 the cultural value of shu embroidery shu embroidery, also known as sichuan embroidery, originated among the folk in the western part of sichuan province, china. due to sichuan being referred to as the bashu region, this embroidery technique is also called shu embroidery. at that time, the western part of sichuan was abundant in silk, which was not only used as raw material for making luxurious clothing but also for creating shu embroidery. by the jin dynasty, embroidered products had already become specialties of the ancient shu kingdom. after the sui and tang dynasties, the silk road opened up new trade routes between the east and west, and the exquisite silk fabrics became very popular among foreigners, leading to an increased demand for embroidered products. during this period, shu embroidery experienced rapid development. due to the characteristic of ancient chinese society where men tilled the fields and women wove, many chinese women were familiar with the embroidery techniques of shu embroidery, which led to its widespread dissemination among the populace. shu embroidery is famous for its stitching techniques, with a total of 122 different embroidery stitches. different stitching methods are used to embroider different themes, and upon completion, the animals appear lifelike, with natural and vivid expressions, while landscapes are grand and majestic, allowing people to experience the unique charm of traditional culture. shu embroidery is not only a form of intangible cultural heritage but also carries profound cultural significance. it has witnessed thousands of years of changes and developments in sichuan, representing the cultural characteristics and local customs of the sichuan region, and stands as one of the most representative cultural calling cards of sichuan. 2.2 the commercial value of shu embroidery nowadays, the commercial value of shu embroidery culture has become increasingly prominent. it is not only a traditional handicraft but also possesses high artistic value and cultural significance. with the development of society and the improvement of people's aesthetic standards, there have been many creative applications that integrate shu embroidery culture with various aspects of modern cities, generating commercial value while expanding the influence of shu embroidery culture. to tap into the potential of shu embroidery, it is necessary to combine traditional culture with the needs and trends of modern society. a clear example today is the cultural and creative market, which integrates traditional handicrafts with everyday items used by people, promoting shu embroidery to thousands of households while creating profits. shu embroidery, as a well-known high-end folk art, can also be given as gifts to others, especially foreign friends, thereby enhancing the influence of chinese culture. moreover, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 157 fashion industry is another commercial market that shu embroidery can consider entering. with its diverse natural themes and exquisite embroidery techniques, these elements are highly sought after in the fashion industry. the exquisite appearance and unique cultural status of shu embroidery determine its significant commercial value. by adopting appropriate innovative ideas, this value can be tapped into, both preserving culture and fostering economic development. 2.3 the significance of inheritance and innovation of shu embroidery as one of the four great embroideries of china, the delicacy of shu embroidery goes without saying. behind the exquisitely crafted shu embroidery pieces lies a long history and unique cultural value. shu embroidery is a treasure of chinese embroidery art, often featuring themes such as flowers, birds, insects, fish, and flying and walking creatures. the patterns are lifelike, rich in layers, and possess a soft luster, making them superior artistic treasures. the value of shu embroidery extends beyond its artistic and cultural worth. nowadays, traditional handicrafts have a broader market and definition. shu embroidery not only represents the essence of art in the bashu region but also serves as a vital means of livelihood for many bashu residents. therefore, inheriting and promoting shu embroidery culture is a necessary and correct choice. we can analyze and understand the significance of inheriting and innovating shu embroidery from multiple perspectives. firstly, as one of the four great embroideries of china, shu embroidery is not only a precious legacy of historical culture but also a refined work of art, embodying the unique aesthetics and cultural depth of the chinese nation. from these two aspects, shu embroidery holds extraordinary value, whether in terms of culture or art, and its culture deserves to be inherited and protected. secondly, the reason for the need to inherit shu embroidery culture lies in the less than optimistic current state of its development. at the end of the 20th century, the emergence of computerized embroidery undoubtedly dealt a significant blow to traditional embroidery. in an era that values efficiency, many traditional techniques have gradually been abandoned, with some shu embroidery artisans seeking alternative careers, and the remaining ones scattered in small workshops. without dedicated brands or a certain scale, the skills of shu embroidery are undoubtedly in crisis. if left unchecked, the techniques of shu embroidery may even face the risk of extinction. additionally, inheriting shu embroidery culture is also aimed at creating new value. the economic value brought by shu embroidery can drive local development, providing artisans with material security, and industries related to shu embroidery can also benefit from this development. 3. current situation of the development of shu embroidery among the four great embroideries, the current development status of shu embroidery is less ideal compared to suzhou embroidery, hunan embroidery, and guangdong embroidery. nowadays, most people seek jobs with stable and substantial economic income, and very few are willing to learn the embroidery techniques of shu embroidery, with some techniques even facing the risk of being lost. the number of people engaged in the shu embroidery industry is small, the scale is limited, there is no complete industrial chain, and there are no well-known shu embroidery brands. these factors www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 158 collectively represent the current development status of shu embroidery. however, there have also been more positive developments. compared to the past, the shu embroidery industry has made some progress. under the background of innovation and development as well as network dissemination, the fame and influence of shu embroidery have also seen a certain degree of enhancement. 3.1 the number and scale of inheritance of shu embroidery according to historical records, the development of shu embroidery culture was most prosperous during the ming and qing dynasties, with the embroidery workshops in chengdu standing out the most, and several well-known brands emerging at that time. by then, specialized embroidery workshops in chengdu had reached over 80. in the 1970s and 1980s of the 20th century, with strong support from the state, shu embroidery experienced new growth, and the chengdu shu embroidery factory was established in 1961, with the number of people engaged in the shu embroidery industry reaching a considerable scale. in 2006, shu embroidery was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list, attracting attention for its exquisite patterns and unique cultural connotations. shu embroidery in china is found in sichuan, and shu embroidery in sichuan is centered in chengdu, with the most representative location being anjing town in pi county. to promote the development of the shu embroidery industry, chengdu city established the 'chengdu shu embroidery industry park' and the 'chengdu shu embroidery engineering technology research center' in anjing town in 2009. currently, the number of professional shu embroidery inheritors is not large, and young people willing to learn shu embroidery techniques are few. although some industries have been established to develop shu embroidery, most are relatively small in scale, and the promotional efforts are not strong enough, resulting in low visibility. overall, there is still considerable room for improvement and development. 3.2 the development of shu embroidery industry over the past dozen years, the development of the shu embroidery industry has undergone a series of changes and innovations. firstly, the government's attention to and protection of shu embroidery have seen a certain level of improvement. in addition to listing shu embroidery in the intangible cultural heritage catalog, efforts have been made to establish a series of shu embroidery industrial bases. in 2022, jingxiuyuan shu embroidery co., ltd. in anjing town, chengdu city, sichuan province, was designated as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage protection and inheritance base. this indicates that significant progress has been made on the path of inheriting and protecting shu embroidery culture and developing the shu embroidery industry. moreover, shu embroidery has achieved a certain degree of industrialization, which mostly involves combining shu embroidery with modern industries. a representative example is the integration of shu embroidery with the fashion industry. traditional arts and ethnic characteristics have always been favored themes for high-end clothing, and shu embroidery undoubtedly possesses outstanding artistic value and national cultural representation. besides the fashion industry, cultural and creative industries, cultural tourism, and home furnishings have also adopted shu embroidery elements in their product production, pushing shu embroidery culture into a broader market. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 159 3.3 the influence and popularity of shu embroidery culture in sichuan sichuan embroidery, as a representative traditional embroidery art of the sichuan region, originated from the ancient shu kingdom period 3,000 years ago. this profound historical background endows sichuan embroidery with extremely significant historical and cultural status, making it well-known throughout the sichuan region and even across the country. with the development of online platforms, the beauty of sichuan embroidery has spread far and wide, and the comments under videos showcasing sichuan embroidery works are filled with people's praise, clearly expressing their recognition and pride in sichuan embroidery. apart from the giant panda, sichuan embroidery is undoubtedly the second most distinctive cultural calling card of sichuan. over the long course of time, sichuan embroidery has evolved to be more than just a local embroidery technique; it has become an important component of sichuan culture. however, sichuan embroidery still lacks a certain degree of fame. the retention of intangible cultural heritage (ich) bearers is challenging, and the salary and benefits are not optimistic. moreover, ich enterprises are mostly small-scale, with unsatisfactory income, which makes it difficult for these enterprises to allocate additional funds for brand building and promotion. in summary, while sichuan embroidery has a significant influence in sichuan, it is relatively less known in regions outside of sichuan, which poses difficulties for its inheritance and also leaves room for future development. 4. the challenges faced by shu embroidery today 4.1 intense market competition and high pressure with consumers' pursuit of traditional handicrafts and their emphasis on cultural arts, the shu embroidery market has gradually emerged and developed. however, this has also brought about a diversification and personalization of consumer demand for shu embroidery products. consumers not only pay attention to the exquisite craftsmanship and material quality of shu embroidery, but also increasingly prefer customized products and services to meet their unique aesthetic and functional needs. as a high-quality handmade embroidery product, shu embroidery has relatively high costs, including raw materials, labor costs, and other aspects. however, with the popularization of machine embroidery and the intensification of market competition, shu embroidery manufacturers are facing pressure from price wars. how to control costs while ensuring product quality has become an important issue that enterprises need to face. 4.2 relatively limited audience shu embroidery, as a traditional handicraft with profound historical and cultural heritage, is often limited to people who have a deep interest and understanding of chinese traditional culture and art. in the fast-paced modern life, the younger generation may have a relatively narrow audience for shu embroidery due to insufficient knowledge or low interest in traditional handicrafts. at the same time, the promotion of shu embroidery is relatively insufficient, and the brand awareness is not strong, resulting in many potential consumers having limited understanding of it and difficulty in forming a broad consumer base. shu embroidery products also have shortcomings in innovation and diversity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 160 4.3 low management efficiency and level affected by the development of the market economy, many shu embroidery enterprises have failed to adapt to the needs of the modern business environment in their management systems in a timely manner. compared with peers such as su embroidery and xiang embroidery who have specialized research institutes, the shu embroidery industry lags behind in terms of management system and lacks efficient and scientific management mechanisms to promote the sustainable development of the industry. in addition, there are relatively few large-scale enterprises in the shu embroidery industry, and there are many scattered family embroidery workshops with small scale, single variety, and extensive management. this situation leads to difficulties in financing, lack of development funds, and difficulty in forming brand scale effects and agglomeration effects, which in turn affects overall management efficiency. 4.4 lack of relevant skilled personnel the inheritance of shu embroidery skills has always relied on the master apprentice system, but with the acceleration of social changes and the pace of life, many old artists are unable to fully inherit their skills due to their advanced age or lack of suitable successors. at the same time, due to the relatively low salary and benefits in the shu embroidery industry, as well as the high work intensity and long and boring learning process, many young people are unwilling to engage in this industry, resulting in serious talent loss and a phenomenon of skill gap.at present, there is a lack of majors or research institutions related to shu embroidery in universities, which hinders the cultivation of high-end design talents. although some training institutions and vocational schools are trying to provide training on shu embroidery skills, their scale and influence are limited, making it difficult to meet the industry's demand for talent. in addition, the teaching quality of these training institutions varies greatly, making it difficult to ensure that students can truly master the essence of shu embroidery skills. 5. corresponding measures 5.1 accelerating research and development to increase competitiveness the government can establish a special fund for the research and development of shu embroidery skills to support the inheritance, protection, and innovation of shu embroidery techniques. these funds can be used to support mentorship projects, education system construction, technology research and development, and product development. in addition, tax incentives can also be provided. provide tax incentives to enterprises and individuals engaged in the research and innovation of shu embroidery skills, reduce their economic burden, and stimulate their enthusiasm and creativity. in addition, modern technological means can be introduced into the research and development of shu embroidery techniques, such as digital design and intelligent production. through the application of modern technology, the design efficiency and production quality of shu embroidery products can be improved, and production costs can be reduced. develop innovative and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 161 practical shu embroidery products based on market demand and consumer preferences. for example, shu embroidery elements can be integrated into modern clothing, household goods, cultural gifts, and other fields to broaden the application scope and market space of shu embroidery products. encourage shu embroidery enterprises to strengthen brand building, enhance brand awareness and reputation. through brand building, a good image of shu embroidery products can be established and market competitiveness can be improved. 5.2 popularizing knowledge and expand the audience 5.2.1 education and training education and training primary and secondary schools, shu embroidery knowledge can be included as part of local cultural courses, allowing students to have a preliminary understanding of the history, culture, and skills of shu embroidery through handicrafts, classroom lectures, and other forms. in universities and vocational schools, establish majors or courses related to shu embroidery, cultivate professional shu embroidery talents, and promote the popularization and in-depth development of shu embroidery knowledge through teaching and research.the government and industry associations can jointly organize training courses on shu embroidery techniques, inviting experienced veteran artists to teach their skills and attract more people to participate in learning. training courses can be designed at different levels for different groups of people, such as beginner classes, improvement classes, and master classes, to meet the needs of different learners. 5.2.2 media promotion through traditional media platforms such as television, radio, and newspapers, broadcast documentaries, special reports, and advertisements related to shu embroidery to enhance its visibility and influence. invite shu embroidery masters and inheritors to give media interviews, share their skills and stories, and let more people understand the charm and value of shu embroidery. you can also use the internet, social media and other new media platforms to publish articles, pictures and videos related to shu embroidery to attract young people's attention and participation. open wechat official account, microblog account and short video platform account with shu embroidery theme, regularly publish shu embroidery knowledge and skills introduction, and interact with fans. 5.3 improving management efficiency the protection of intellectual property related to shu embroidery skills should be strengthened, infringement should be combated, and the legitimate rights and interests of the inheritors of these skills should be safeguarded. by enhancing intellectual property protection, we can encouraged more enterprises and individuals to engage in the reseaearch and innovation shu embroidery. embroidery techniques: optimization of the organizational structure of shu embroidery enterprises should be clearly defined to delineate the responsibilities and authorities of each department and position, thereby preventing functional overlap and the passing of responsibility. it is essential to establish a dedicated management department or position tasked with coordinating and overseeing various aspects of shu embroidery production, sales,and research and development. furthermore, it is important to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 162 comprehensively streamline the existing management processes by eliminating redundant steps, simplifying the approval process, and enhancing overall management efficiency.advanced information management systems, such as enterprise resource planning (erp) systems,should be introduced to facilitate real-time sharing and automated management of production, sales, inventory, and other information.in addition, it is necessary to establish clear quality standards and strengthen quality supervision. develop and refine the quality standards and testing procedures pertaining to shu embroidery products, ensuring they are in adherence to both national and industry benchmarks. establish a comprehensive quality traceability system, which will be meticulously monitoring and documenting every stage of the production process, encompassing raw material procurement, manufacturing, processing, and final product inspection. furthermore, a dedicated quality supervision department will be created or a specific role will be appointed, tasked with carrying out routine inspections and overseeing the quality of shu embroidery products. additionally, the quality management of suppliers will be bolstered to guarantee a consistent and dependable supply of raw materials. 5.4 cultivating new craftsmen system continue to promote the traditional master apprentice system, encourage experienced veteran artists to lead apprentices to pass on their skills, and ensure the complete inheritance of shu embroidery techniques. at the same time, specialized mentorship programs can be established with funding from the government or industry associations to provide necessary funding and resource support. establish shu embroidery related majors or courses in universities, vocational schools, and training institutions, and build a systematic education system from primary to advanced levels. by combining theoretical teaching with practical operation, cultivate shu embroidery talents with solid skills and innovative abilities. research cooperation encourage cooperation between shu embroidery enterprises, universities, and research institutions to jointly develop and innovate shu embroidery techniques. through industry university research cooperation, various advantageous resources can be gathered to enhance the research and development efficiency and level of shu embroidery skills. 6. conclusion the future of shu embroidery will be a development process that covers skill inheritance and innovation, diversified market demand expansion, branding and internationalization strategy promotion, deep integration of technology and culture, and equal emphasis on sustainable development and environmental protection. in this process, the shu embroidery industry will continue to radiate new vitality and energy, making greater contributions to the inheritance and promotion of excellent traditional chinese culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 163 acknowledgements this study is supported by the project “study on the protection and external communication of shu embroidery as intangible cultural heritage” (no. 202410621262) of chengdu university of information technology. references a brief analysis of the application of shu brocade and shu embroidery in the design of local catering spaces in chengdu. charm china, 2013, issue 026 cao, z. q., & zhang, s. (2024). the application and expression of folk art represented by shu embroidery in cultural and creative design. 1. sichuan polytechnic university. 2. citi university of mongolia.3. chengdu jincheng university.2024.7.30. cheng, s., & qiao, h. (2022). research on the marketing status of shu embroidery and analysis of development countermeasures (no. 9, pp. 6-11). college of fashion and design art, sichuan normal university. investigation and innovative application of shu embroidery and shu brocade. western leather. (2018). issue 014. ren, h. (2024). analysis of the current situation and strategies of shu embroidery development. today's china forum. research on strategies for cultivating students' aesthetic judgment in high school folk art appreciation: taking shu embroidery appreciation teaching as an example. (2021). subject teaching (fine arts). research on the cultural characteristics and value of shu embroidery. (2021). original content document (e-shu alliance). sichuan menggongfang shu embroidery co., ltd. (2023). bai hua: exquisite craftsmanship condenses the spirit of shu embroidery, 2023(02), 62-63. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 27 original paper study on the innovative development path of rural characteristic sports events in ganzi prefecture under the background of culture and tourism integration duo dai1* 1 sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china *dai duo (1992-), female, liaoyang, liaoning, is now a lecturer in the school of physical education, sichuan college of nationalities, with main research interests in traditional national sports and school sports. received: september 09, 2024 accepted: november 04, 2024 online published: november 13, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p27 abstract under the background of cultural and tourism integration, the development of rural characteristic sports events in ganzi prefecture faces new opportunities and challenges. by analyzing the rich culture, natural resources and the current situation of characteristic sports events in ganzi prefecture, this paper discusses how to innovate the development of these events in order to realize the deep integration of cultural tourism and rural sports and promote the development of local economy and society. the study finds that ganzi prefecture has a broad space for innovation in terms of event branding, integration of events and tourism projects, technological empowerment and community participation. to this end, this paper proposes an innovative path based on the excavation of local cultural resources, branding, digital promotion and industry linkage development, specifically including event branding, exploration of the integration mode of culture and tourism, the application of scientific and technological means, and the improvement of the community participation mechanism. keywords ganzi, rural characteristic sports events, cultural and tourism integration background, innovation, development culture is the soul of tourism, tourism is the carrier of culture, and the integration of culture and tourism has become the leading trend of future tourism development in china. ganzi prefecture, located in the western part of sichuan province, constitutes a unique system of cultural and tourism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 28 resources with its rich culture, unique geographic features and diversified ecological resources. religious, festival and handicraft cultures centered on kangba culture have formed strong regional characteristics; geographic resources such as plateau mountains, rivers and lakes, grasslands and forests provide natural venues for all kinds of outdoor and traditional sports events; while rich biodiversity and nature reserves enhance the attractiveness of ganzi prefecture’s eco-tourism. culture and tourism integration is “the phenomenon and process of mutual penetration, cross convergence or integration and reorganization among culture, tourism industries and related elements, gradually breaking through the original industrial boundaries or elemental fields, and intermingling with each other to form a new symbiosis.” in addition, ganzi prefecture has formed a tourism brand combining ecological sightseeing and cultural experience through iconic attractions such as aching yading, kangding love song scenic area and luding bridge. these resources not only lay a solid foundation for the development of ganzi’s rural characteristic sports events, but also provide a broad innovation space for the integration of culture and tourism, which helps build an attractive rural tourism brand and realize the sustainable development of the culture and tourism industry. 1. types and characteristics of rural specialty sports events rural characteristic sports events are sports activities based on the unique natural environment, cultural traditions and folklore activities of the countryside, with various types and distinctive features. they mainly include traditional national sports (such as horse racing, archery and wrestling), outdoor sports (such as hiking, mountaineering and cross-country running), water activities (such as rafting and boating), and fun events combined with the rural environment (such as farming competitions and fun marathons). these events fully integrate the unique geographic and cultural resources of the countryside, which not only have strong spectator and participatory qualities, but also enhance community cohesion, promote cultural heritage and tourism development, and bring unique economic and social benefits to rural areas. the main challenges in the development of sustainable development of rural sports events: lack of resources, lack of branding and marketing. deficiencies in the level of tournament organization and management, tournament attractiveness, etc. external market environment and competition challenges. 2. innovative development of rural characteristic sports events in the context of culture and tourism integration 2.1 culture and tourism integration and sports event development the integration of culture and tourism refers to the deep combination of culture and tourism resources, in order to realize the mutual promotion of cultural experience and tourism industry, and promote the common development of regional economy and cultural heritage. in rural sports events, the integration of culture and tourism plays an important role: through the integration of local cultural elements, the event not only has the attraction of sports competition, but also becomes a platform for cultural display, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 29 so that tourists can enjoy the local culture in the game. the integration of culture and tourism can theoretically promote the sustainable development of rural tourism, which not only enhances the awareness of the protection of local culture, but also enriches the experience of tourists, thus promoting the branding of the event and the innovative inheritance of rural cultural resources. 2.2 branding of sports events branding of sports events refers to building a unique position in the market by shaping a unique event image, enhancing the event’s recognition and influence, and building audience loyalty. event branding can give events unique cultural connotations and emotional connections, making them attractive not only to participants but also to spectators and tourists in the long term. key brand management strategies include clear brand positioning, differentiated marketing, use of social media promotion, and integration with local culture so that the event forms a strong memory in the minds of spectators. branded events play an important role in cultural tourism, not only driving tourism consumption of the event, but also closely associating the event with local culture through brand image, forming a more attractive cultural tourism brand. 2.3 drivers and influences of innovation in sports events the driving force for innovation in sports events stems from various aspects, including policy support, growing diversified social demands and the need for cultural inheritance. policy support provides institutional guarantee for event innovation, while social demand for healthy life and entertainment experience drives the continuous updating of event forms and contents, while the integration of local cultural elements enhances the uniqueness and attractiveness of events. the impact of tournament innovation is broad and far-reaching, which can not only effectively enhance local economic benefits, but also promote the dissemination and recognition of regional culture, while enhancing community cohesion and participation, making sports events a bridge between social development and cultural inheritance. 3. innovative development path of rural characteristic sports events in ganzi prefecture 3.1 deep exploration of local resources and culture ganzi prefecture possesses profound cultural resources, including religious beliefs, traditional festivals, handicrafts and unique folk activities. these elements provide a rich resource base for the content innovation of sports events. by digging deeper into these local cultural resources, traditional activities such as horse racing, string dance and archery can be integrated into the event program, making the event more geographically distinctive and culturally embedded. combining traditional activities with modern event forms, such as integrating traditional horse racing into modern endurance races or adding the opening performance of string dance, not only enriches the event experience, but also enhances the cultural attraction of the event, so that the tourists can more deeply feel the unique cultural atmosphere of ganzi prefecture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 30 3.2 race branding path event branding requires clear brand positioning, distinctive brand image design and extensive brand promotion strategies to establish a unique event brand. first, the core cultural connotation of the event needs to be accurately positioned, such as highlighting the characteristics of the culture and ecological beauty of kampa, and making the brand image more recognizable through the design of a figurative event logo and a unique slogan with local flavor. secondly, through the combination of online and offline promotional means, such as placing advertisements on social media and organizing promotional activities, etc., the brand awareness of the event is gradually enhanced, so as to increase the market competitiveness and attractiveness of rural sports events in ganzi prefecture. 3.3 exploration of “sports + tourism” integration mode the “sports + tourism” model can organically integrate events with tourism projects and realize cultural and tourism interaction. after the event, tourists can further understand the natural and humanistic landscape of ganzi prefecture through customized post-event tourism activities, such as scenic area visits, folklore experience, ecological hiking and so on. by designing tournament experience tours, cultural display interactions and other activities, the tournament is made into a comprehensive activity integrating the functions of race watching, cultural display, recreation and educational experience, enriching the tourists’ experience while enhancing the tournament’s cultural connotations and tourism attractiveness. 3.4 technology enablement and digital promotion the application of modern technological means can significantly enhance the communication power and management efficiency of the event. through the live broadcast of the event, social media promotion and vr/ar and other technological means, remote spectators can also participate in the interaction of the event, expanding the scope of the audience of the event. in addition, the application of digital platforms in event management (e.g., e-registration, online navigation, real-time updates) can optimize the event organization process and improve the event experience. through accurate data analysis, event organizers can better understand audience needs and provide more attractive content for future events. 3.5 community participation and rural economic linkages the successful organization of village sports events cannot be separated from the depth of community participation. guiding community residents to participate in the organization and service work of the event can enhance the cultural heritage and inner cohesion of the event, and make community members have a stronger sense of identity and belonging to the event. at the same time, the tournament can also drive the development of local catering, lodging, handicrafts and other industries, benefiting rural residents and realizing economic linkage development. by introducing community power, the tournament not only creates local employment opportunities, but also provides tourists with a more authentic rural cultural experience, which contributes to the sustainable development of rural economy in ganzi prefecture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 31 4. implementation safeguards for innovative development 4.1 policy and financial support the government plays a crucial role in the innovative development of sports events, especially in terms of policy guidance and financial support. first, the government should formulate relevant policies to promote the development of sports events with rural characteristics, such as reducing or exempting taxes, providing subsidies, and setting up special funds, in order to encourage the enthusiasm of event organizers and investors. secondly, the government should promote synergy and cooperation among many parties, such as enterprises and social organizations, by integrating resources. for example, it can build a platform through the government to promote corporate sponsorship and social organizations to participate in the planning and implementation of events, so as to jointly promote the prosperous development of rural sports events in ganzi prefecture. 4.2 talent development and event management enhancement effective event organization and management cannot be achieved without the support of professional talents, so attention should be paid to the cultivation of sports event organization and management talents. through cooperation between institutions of higher learning and vocational training institutions, professional courses on sports event management can be offered to cultivate talents with professional knowledge and practical experience. in addition, existing event organizers are encouraged to participate in relevant training and certification to improve their management ability and service level. through standardized organization process and professional services, the quality of the event can be significantly improved, the overall experience of participants and tourists can be enhanced, and the event can become an important engine for promoting rural tourism and economic development in ganzi prefecture. 4.3 promotion and media cooperation strategy in today’s highly developed information world, cooperation with media and social platforms is an important strategy to enhance the visibility of events and attract participants. by establishing partnerships with various media (e.g., tv, newspapers, online news, etc.), tournament organizers can gain access to a wider range of publicity channels. at the same time, actively utilizing social platforms (e.g., weibo, wechat, jitterbug, etc.) for real-time updates and interactions of the tournament can effectively attract the attention and participation of young groups. in addition, the use of online live streaming and other forms allows spectators who are unable to attend the event to experience the event, enhancing the influence and attractiveness of the event, thus attracting more domestic and foreign tourists to participate. 5. conclude based on the unique culture and natural resources of ganzi prefecture, the development path of rural special sports events in the context of cultural and tourism integration is explored. the study shows that by exploring local cultural resources, building event brands, innovating the “sports + tourism” model, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 32 introducing technology and promoting community participation, ganzi prefecture can effectively enhance the influence and competitiveness of rural sports events, thus promoting the coordinated development of regional economy and culture. these measures not only provide new ideas for the sustainable development of rural sports events in ganzi prefecture, but also provide a reference for the development of other rural tourism with regional characteristics. fund projects sichuan minzu college, rural sports events in ganzi prefecture under the background of cultural and tourism integration research on the path of innovative development (item number: xyzb2421sb). references dai, q. w. (2022). research on strategies for the high-quality development of rural homestays in china. journal of southwest university for nationalities (humanities and social sciences edition), 43(10), 41-50. liu, l. (2023). exploring the practice of rural tourism brand image design under the background of rural revitalization. art and design. sichuan provincial sports bureau. (n.d.). notice on the issuance of the "14th five-year plan for sports development in sichuan province" [eb/ol]. retrieved from [url if available]. sun, d. e., lü, f., sun, h. et al. (2020). exploring high-quality development paths for china’s sports industry under the new normal. heilongjiang science. zhang, z. p. (2021). promoting high-quality development of rural tourism through the concept of cultural and tourism integration: formation logic and path selection. nanjing social sciences, (7), 157-164. original paper study on the innovative development path of rural advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 22 original paper integration of traditional cultural heritage and modern values in university language programs renqing zhuoma1 1 college of education, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an, shaanxi, china received: january 19, 2025 accepted: march 06, 2025 online published: march 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p22 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p22 abstracts this paper discusses the integration of traditional cultural inheritance and modern values in university language courses. by analyzing the traditional culture content and inheritance status in university language courses, as well as the value embodiment of traditional culture in modern society, it puts forward strategies to promote the integration of traditional culture inheritance and modern values. the article argues that university language courses should deeply excavate the essence of traditional culture, innovate teaching methods, strengthen practical teaching, and at the same time, utilize modern scientific and technological means to promote the living inheritance and modern transformation of traditional culture, so as to realize the effective inheritance of traditional culture and the full integration of modern values. keywords university language courses, traditional culture inheritance, modern value integration, teaching method innovation 1. introduction as an important part of higher education, university language courses bear multiple tasks such as inheriting the excellent traditional culture of the chinese nation and enhancing the humanistic literacy and language expression ability of college students. under the background of globalization and informationization, the inheritance and development of traditional culture are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. how to effectively integrate traditional culture into university language courses and realize the excavation and integration of its modern value has become an urgent problem in the current education field. the purpose of this paper is to discuss the traditional culture inheritance and modern value integration in university language courses, with a view to providing useful reference for the reform of university language teaching. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 2. traditional cultural content in university language courses as an important part of the higher education system, the university language course not only carries the task of learning and using language and writing, but also shoulders the historical mission of inheriting and promoting the excellent traditional culture of the chinese nation. traditional culture is rich and colorful, covering ancient literature, philosophical thinking, morality and ethics, art and aesthetics, etc., which provides university language courses with profound cultural heritage and rich teaching resources. 2.1 ancient literature ancient literature is the treasure of traditional cultural heritage in university language courses. from the classic poems of the pre-qin period, such as the classic of poetry and chu ci, to the poems and essays of the han, wei and six dynasties, to the poems and songs of the tang, song, yuan, ming and qing dynasties, and the operas and novels, these works are like a scroll of history, which show the long history and culture of the chinese nation and the unique national spirit. they not only have high literary value, but also contain rich philosophical thoughts, moral concepts and artistic aesthetics. through studying these works, college students can gain a deeper understanding of the traditional culture of the chinese nation and feel its profound ideological connotation and unique artistic charm. at the same time, these works are also important materials for college students to improve their literary literacy and language expression ability. 2.2 philosophical thought ancient chinese philosophical thought is profound and has had a profound influence on later generations. confucianism, as the mainstream of traditional chinese culture, emphasizes benevolence, propriety, righteousness and the middle way, advocates the moral concept of “benevolence” as the core, and focuses on personal cultivation and social harmony. taoism, on the other hand, advocates the law of nature and the rule of inaction, emphasizing obedience to the laws of nature and the pursuit of inner peace and freedom. mohist thought advocates love, non-aggression, and virtue, and advocates equality, fraternity, and frugality. these philosophical ideas are widely reflected in university language courses. by learning and understanding these philosophical ideas, college students can cultivate their critical thinking ability and humanistic spirit, learn to think from multiple perspectives and form independent opinions. 2.3 morality and ethics the ancient chinese concept of morality and ethics is an important part of traditional culture, which emphasizes personal cultivation, family harmony and social harmony. the moral concepts of confucianism, such as “benevolence”, “filial piety and fraternal duty”, “loyalty and trust”, are the concentrated embodiment of the traditional virtues of the chinese nation. these moral concepts emphasize care, respect and trust between people, and advocate harmony and courtesy. the moral concepts of taoism, such as “doing nothing and governing” and “following nature”, emphasize following the laws of nature and pursuing inner peace and tranquility. by learning these moral and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 ethical concepts, college students can establish correct values and moral values, improve their moral qualities, and form sound personalities and good behaviors. 2.4 art aesthetic ancient chinese art aesthetic concepts are unique and profound, emphasizing aesthetic principles such as mood, rhythm and harmony. this aesthetic concept is fully reflected in literary works. the elegance and boldness of tang and song poems, the freshness and simplicity of yuan operas, and the dramatic plots and vivid characters of ming and qing novels all show the unique artistic style and aesthetic pursuit of the chinese nation. through studying these works, college students can cultivate their aesthetic ability and art appreciation, learn to appreciate and savor the aesthetic elements in literary works, and improve their artistic cultivation and aesthetic taste. 3. the current situation of the inheritance of traditional culture in university language courses as an important carrier for the inheritance and promotion of traditional chinese culture in higher education system, the status and role of university language courses cannot be ignored. in the current teaching practice, the inheritance of traditional culture faces many challenges and problems, which are specifically manifested in the following aspects. 3.1 the content of teaching materials is not closely connected with traditional culture the current arrangement of university language textbooks covers traditional culture to a certain extent, but its proportion is relatively low, and it mostly focuses on ancient poems and literary texts. this way of content setting makes it difficult for students to gain a comprehensive and systematic understanding of traditional culture, thus limiting the depth of traditional culture inheritance. at the same time, some textbooks are too much in favor of modern literature in content selection, ignoring the core status and value of traditional culture in language teaching, further weakening the effect of traditional culture inheritance. this status quo that the content of teaching materials is not closely connected with traditional culture undoubtedly has a negative impact on the inheritance of traditional culture. 3.2 single teaching method, lack of innovation in the teaching practice of university language courses, some teachers still use the traditional “indoctrination” teaching method, paying too much attention to the one-way transmission of knowledge, but neglecting the active participation and personal experience of students. this kind of single, boring teaching method is difficult to stimulate students' interest in learning, especially in traditional culture, thus affecting the effect of traditional culture inheritance. in addition, the lack of innovative teaching methods and means also makes it difficult to adapt the inheritance of traditional culture to the needs of modern education. in the context of the era of informationization and diversification, students need more interactive and exploratory learning methods, and traditional teaching methods are obviously difficult to meet this demand. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 3.3 students' lack of identification with traditional culture against the background of fast-paced lifestyle and information explosion in modern society, students' cognition and identification with traditional culture gradually weaken. they tend to be more inclined to pursue fashionable and trendy cultural elements, have insufficient awareness of the importance of traditional culture, and lack the consciousness of active learning and inheritance. the formation of this mentality is related to both the cultural environment of modern society and the lack of traditional culture education in the education system. in the university language courses, if there is a lack of cultivation and guidance for students' traditional cultural identity, the inheritance of traditional culture will face serious challenges. 4. the value of traditional culture in modern society although traditional culture faces many challenges in modern society, its unique value and charm are still irreplaceable. traditional culture is the foundation and soul of the chinese nation, and it is the concentrated manifestation of the national spirit, and its value in modern society is mainly manifested in the following aspects. 4.1 enhancement of cultural identity and national cohesion traditional culture is an important symbol of national identity and cultural identity, and is the source of national cohesion. through the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture, it can enhance national pride and sense of belonging, and promote national unity and social stability. in today's globalized and diversified world, where various cultures intermingle and collide with each other, the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture is of vital significance to the maintenance of national cultural security and national dignity. it is not only the embodiment of national self-confidence, but also an important part of national soft power. strengthening the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture through university language courses and other educational channels can enhance students' sense of identity and pride in national culture, thus strengthening national cohesion and centripetal force. 4.2 guidance and shaping of moral ethics and values moral and ethical concepts in traditional culture are important resources for moral construction and value guidance in modern society. the moral concepts of “benevolence and love”, “filial piety and fraternal duty”, “loyalty and trust” in confucianism, and “ruling by doing nothing” and “following the rules of nature” in taoism are important resources for the moral construction and value guidance of modern society. and taoism's moral concepts such as “doing nothing to rule” and “following nature” all contain profound philosophies and life wisdom. these moral and ethical concepts have far-reaching guiding significance for the moral construction of modern society. guiding students to learn and understand these moral and ethical concepts through university language courses and other educational channels can help them establish correct values and moral concepts, improve their moral qualities, and promote social harmony and progress. at the same time, the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture can also help shape the common values of society and enhance social cohesion and stability. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 4.3 inspiration and promotion of art aesthetics and cultural innovation the concept of art aesthetics in traditional culture has an important inspirational role for modern art and cultural innovation. the aesthetic pursuits of mood, flavor and harmony in ancient chinese literature, as well as the unique expressive methods and creative techniques in calligraphy, painting, music, opera and other art forms are valuable assets that modern art and cultural innovation can draw on. through university language courses and other educational channels, guiding students to learn and appreciate the artistic aesthetic concepts of traditional culture can broaden their artistic vision and creative ideas, and stimulate their innovative spirit and creativity. at the same time, the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture also provide rich resources and sources of inspiration for the prosperity of modern cultural industry. in the modern society, the competition of cultural industry is getting more and more intense, and the unique charm and profound heritage of traditional culture is the important support for the innovative development of cultural industry. 5. strategies for promoting the integration of traditional cultural heritage and modern values in order to effectively promote the in-depth inheritance of traditional culture and the organic integration of modern values in university language courses, we need to adopt a series of scientific and systematic strategies to ensure that the traditional culture has new vitality and vigor in modern society. 5.1 digging deep into the essence of traditional culture and realizing its docking with modern values in the teaching practice of university language courses, we should devote ourselves to digging into the essence of traditional culture, exploring its inherent philosophical thoughts, moral concepts and artistic aesthetic concepts, and connecting them with the needs and values of modern society. specifically, we can select those traditional cultural contents with contemporary significance and universal value, and guide students to deeply understand the rich connotation and unique value of traditional culture through meticulous analysis and interpretation. at the same time, we should also closely integrate traditional culture with the hot issues of modern society, and encourage students to use the wisdom of traditional culture to scrutinize the reality, think about the problems and seek solutions. this teaching method can not only enhance students' sense of cultural identity, but also cultivate their critical thinking and innovation ability. 5.2 innovative teaching methods and means to enhance the inheritance effect in order to effectively stimulate students' interest in traditional culture and improve the inheritance effect of traditional culture, we must constantly innovate teaching methods and means. on the one hand, we can adopt diversified teaching methods such as interactive, discussion, case study, etc., and encourage students to actively participate in classroom discussions and express their own views and opinions. this kind of teaching method can fully mobilize students' enthusiasm and initiative and make them learn traditional culture in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. on the other hand, we can also make full use of modern technological means, such as multimedia and the internet, to assist teaching. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 27 by displaying pictures, videos, audios and other materials related to traditional culture, we can enhance the intuitiveness and vividness of teaching and make students feel the charm of traditional culture more deeply. in addition, we can also organize various forms of extracurricular activities and practical activities, such as cultural lectures, book clubs, field trips and so on, in order to enrich students' extracurricular life and deepen their understanding and experience of traditional culture. 5.3 strengthen the practical teaching link to promote the living inheritance of traditional culture practical teaching is an indispensable and important part of traditional culture inheritance in university language courses. we should let students personally participate in the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture by organizing various forms of practical activities, such as literary creation, drama performance, calligraphy and painting. these practical activities can not only improve students' practical ability and innovation ability, but also enhance their sense of identity and pride in traditional culture. in the practical activities, students can personally experience the charm of traditional culture and feel its unique artistic style and aesthetic value. at the same time, by participating in these practical activities, students can also combine the traditional cultural knowledge they have learned with the actual needs of modern society, try to integrate traditional cultural elements into modern works, and realize the modern transformation and innovative development of traditional culture. 5.4 utilize modern scientific and technological means to promote the digital inheritance of traditional culture with the rapid development of modern science and technology, digital technology provides a new opportunity for the inheritance and development of traditional culture. we should make full use of digital technology, virtual reality and other modern technological means to present traditional culture to the public in a more vivid and intuitive way. specifically, we can produce traditional culture-related digital museums, virtual reality exhibitions and so on, so that students can feel the charm of traditional culture immersively in a virtual environment. this kind of digital inheritance not only breaks the limitation of time and space, allowing students to learn and appreciate traditional culture anytime and anywhere, but also enhances students' interest and participation in learning through interactive experience and other means. in addition, we can also develop traditional culture-related cell phone applications or online courses, etc., to provide students with a more convenient and efficient way of learning. 5.5 promote the modern transformation and innovative development of traditional culture to realize its contemporary value the modern transformation and innovative development of traditional culture is a key link in the integration of traditional cultural heritage and modern values. we should actively promote the modern transformation and innovative development of traditional culture on the basis of inheriting traditional culture, so as to make traditional culture revitalized and energized in modern society. specifically, we can combine traditional cultural elements with modern design concepts to create cultural products with national characteristics and modern aesthetic needs. these cultural products can not only meet the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 28 aesthetic needs of modern people, but also inherit and promote the essence of traditional culture. at the same time, we can also combine traditional culture with modern science and technology to develop new products and services that are innovative and practical. for example, we can utilize the wisdom and concepts of traditional culture to develop new products with environmental protection, energy saving and other characteristics; or integrate traditional cultural elements into modern service industries, such as tourism, catering and so on, to enhance the quality of service and cultural connotation. these modern transformations and innovative developments can not only inject new vitality into the inheritance and development of traditional culture, but also meet the actual needs of modern society and make positive contributions to economic and social development. 6. conclusion as an important part of higher education, university language courses undertake multiple tasks such as passing on the excellent traditional culture of the chinese nation and improving the humanistic literacy and language expression ability of college students. under the background of globalization and informationization, the inheritance and development of traditional culture are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. through in-depth analysis of the content of traditional culture in university language courses, the current situation of inheritance and the value of traditional culture in modern society, we can find that traditional culture has an important status and role in university language courses. however, there are still some problems and challenges in the inheritance of traditional culture in the current university language program. in order to promote the inheritance of traditional culture in university language courses and the integration of modern values, we need to adopt a series of effective strategies such as in-depth excavation of the essence of traditional culture, innovative teaching methods and means, strengthening the practical teaching links, using modern technology to promote the living heritage of traditional culture and promoting the modern transformation and innovative development of traditional culture. the implementation of these strategies will help realize the effective inheritance of traditional culture and the full integration of modern values, contributing to the cultivation of high-quality talents with humanistic literacy and innovation ability. references ha, y. f. (2022). exploration on the construction of university language courses based on the inheritance of chinese excellent traditional culture. education guide, (04), 28-34. li, t. z. (2024). inheritance and innovation of traditional culture in teaching university language courses. chinese character culture, (14), 42-44. qiu, p. y. (2024). research on the integration of chinese excellent traditional culture and university language teaching. chinese character culture, (18), 29-31. sheng, l. y. (2024). exploration of strategies for integrating chinese excellent traditional culture www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 29 into university language curriculum. chinese character culture, (23), 45-47. zhao, j., & tian, g. x. (2025). exploration on the path of inheriting and promoting chinese excellent traditional culture in university language program. university education, (04), 108-111. zhu, s. j., & yang, y. (2025). research on strategies of inheriting chinese excellent traditional culture in university language teaching. journal of jilin institute of education, 41(03), 103-107. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 34 original paper innovation pathways of local universities red resources empowering sme party building qun shi1 1 taishan university, tai’an, shandong, china received: july 19, 2025 accepted: september 12, 2025 online published: september 19, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p34 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p34 abstract how to effectively integrate university red resources, as distinctive cultural resources, into enterprise party building is an important topic for enterprises high-quality development in the new era. taking the red resources of universities in the tai'an city as a case study, this paper explores the application and practice of local university red resources in enterprises party building. it proposes effective integration pathways and implementation methods for integrating these resources into enterprises party building, offering new insights and references for innovating enterprises party building in the new period. keywords universities, red resources, enterprises party building, innovation, pathways since the 18th national congress of the party, the party central committee with president at its core has placed high importance on the preservation and utilization of red resources, stating that "red resources bear witness to our party's arduous yet glorious struggle and constitute the most precious spiritual wealth." in the new era and on the new journey, red resources have become a unique political advantage and vital spiritual resource for enterprises to achieve high-quality development. as multicultural hubs, universities possess rich and varied red resources, providing ample materials and robust support for innovation in enterprises party building. empowering enterprises party building with the unique red resources within universities can infuse new vitality into it, enhance the cohesiveness and and combat capability of party organizations in enterprises, and continuously improve the quality and standards of enterprises party building. 1. overview of red resources in tai'an universities the red resources in universities primarily encompass the red legacy inherent in their development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 35 history. this includes physical artifacts and personal stories preserved in university museums and history archives, such as the history of the southwest associated university at tsinghua university and the spirit of aerospace exploration at harbin institute of technology. furthermore, historic revolutionary sites on campuses, archival documents recording the predecessors' struggles, as well as the revolutionary spirit inherited by faculty and students, all fall within the scope of university red resources. these resources carry unique red memories and play a vital role in preserving the revolutionary legacy and promoting patriotic education. tai'an is home to over a dozen institutions of higher learning, whose internally established university history museums, exhibitions on notable figures and events, and locally representative red cultural exhibition halls can all serve as distinctive red resources. based on investigations, the typical red resources of universities in the tai'an region have been categorized and summarized as follows: 1.1 taishan university as a pioneer in tai'an's teacher education, taishan university has sustained an enduring cultural legacy. in the 1930s, its predecessor, the tai'an county normal school, served as a crucial bastion for disseminating progressive ideas and motivating young students to engage in revolutionary struggles. the publications the rose and the jackdaw, founded during this period, stand as powerful testimonies to the revolutionary activities conducted by the tai'an special branch of the communist party at the foot of mount tai. today, these publications are preserved in the shandong provincial museum. taishan university incorporates this historical narrative into its curricula, perpetuating the "red normal school spirit." wan li library, located on the campus of taishan university, opened in 2010. its exhibition, "wan li and china’s rural reform: documentation and photos", showcases the historic contributions of comrade wan li, a pioneer of china’s rural reform, in advancing agricultural and rural development. it highlights the distinctive character of chinese communists in their courageous exploration and commitment to self-reform. the exhibition is open free of charge to all sectors of society both within and outside the province. having welcomed nearly 100,000 visitors to date, it has become an social science education base of shandong province, a social science research base of tai’an city, and a patriotism education base. 1.2 taishan college of science and technology the red wuwen ideological and political education base at taishan college of science and technology was inaugurated in 2020. guided by the principles of "tracing roots, exploring origins, preserving heritage, and showcasing legacy," it systematically presents "the passing of the torch, red classics, revolutionary spirit, red cinema, and president thought on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era" ([2])through both three-dimensional and two-dimensional displays. this provides a vibrant, concrete, diverse, and contemporary learning platform for ideological and political education. the red wuwen ideological and political education base comprises six modules: red wuwen interpretation, historical continuity of the torch, figures of red spirit, classic red quotes, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 36 red cinematic classroom, and learning classroom. these modules comprehensively showcase the party's journey through the content, composition, spirit, and value of red wuwen culture [3]. it enables visitors to delve into the heritage and essence of red culture, reflect on the party’s growth and struggles, and appreciate its evolution and challenges, thereby fostering a powerful spiritual pillar that motivates students and faculty to strive with unwavering determination. additionally, taishan university of science and technology has established red cultural initiatives within its academies: zhan yan academy features a cultural wall celebrating the spirit of mountain porters, hosts lectures on the party's century-long history, and displays red cultural creations; jiu he academy dedicates an exhibition area to exemplary figures of the era and runs lecture series on their achievements. these academies deeply cultivate traditional chinese culture, positioning "exploratory capacity" as their core leadership principle. they integrate the spirit of "curiosity, discovery, and sharing," encouraging visitors to pursue knowledge and truth persistently. 1.3 shandong liming polytechnic vocational college the red culture and ideological and political education observation base at shandong liming polytechnic vocational college is a distinctive feature of the institution and an important practical venue for inheriting red culture and innovating ideological and political education. the base houses a collection of over 200,000 historical red materials and artifacts, vividly recreating the glorious journey of the chinese people's revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the communist party of china. from the xinhai revolution to the war of resistance against japanese aggression, from the liberation war to the founding of new china, each historical stage is represented through corresponding photographs and physical objects. this allows visitors to intuitively grasp the hardships and greatness of those extraordinary times and inspires them to steadfastly continue marching on the long march of the new era.the base not only provides an immersive learning environment for students but also serves as an important window for people from all sectors of society to understand red history and experience the red spirit. the museum of ancient and modern education houses precious educational artifacts preserves over ten thousand sets of rare ancient medical texts. it traces the evolution of chinese education over thousands of years, reflecting the confidence and respect of the chinese people for the value of their native culture. amid globalization, the museum contributes to the maintenance of cultural diversity and showcases the unique charm of chinese culture. 1.4 other institutions other higher education institutions in tai’an also possess rich folk culture and red culture resources. these include the china coal digital library within the library of shandong university of science and technology, the digital exhibition hall of ancient agricultural texts at shandong agricultural university, and the ancient coin exhibition hall in the library of dongfang college, shandong university of finance and economics.these resources, along with other red culture sites in tai’an such as the culai mountain campaign memorial hall and the lufang campaign memorial hall and the mao www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 37 zedong literature museum, can be transformed into meaningful educational content that educates, inspires, and shapes character. they can be incorporated into enterprise party building initiatives, driving the development of a enterprise cultural economy. 2. current status and innovation needs of party building in small and medium enterprises in tai'an party building in small and medium enterprises (smes) in tai'an has achieved remarkable results in areas such as organizational coverage, base construction, and support for enterprise growth. however, several practical challenges remain, as detailed below: 2.1 weak awareness and insufficient emphasis on party building small and medium enterprises (smes) often have a limited number of party members, with some having no party members at all or experiencing high mobility among members. this makes it difficult to establish independent party organizations, resulting in low coverage of party structures and a lack of organizational foundation for party building activities. moreover, some sme managers prioritize production, operation, and profitability, viewing party building as "time-consuming and labour-intensive." they underestimate the value of integrating party building with enterprise development, which leads to the marginalization of party activities and limited allocation of resources such as funding and personnel. 2.2 weak party-building capacity and lack of professional personnel smes typically lack dedicated party-building positions, with responsibilities often assigned to administrative staff or key operational personnel. already occupied with their primary workloads, these staff members have limited time to study party building knowledge in depth. their lack of experience in party affairs, coupled with low motivation to engage with red culture and policy theories, results in activities that often become mere formalities—such as mechanically fulfilling required tasks like the “three meetings and one lecture” system—with little room for innovation. this situation also leads to irregularities in developing new party members and conducting organizational activities, making it difficult for these enterprises to meet the review standards of higher-level party committees. 2.3 monotonous activity formats with limited appeal constrained by funding and space limitations, smes in tai'an find it difficult to carry out field visits or practical training activities. they underutilized red culture resources from universities and local revolutionary education bases, resulting in activities lacking appeal. most of the activities organized are limited to meetings and document studies, which are often perceived as dull and not sufficiently integrated with business operations. this lack of relevance leads to low enthusiasm and participation among party members. 2.4 weak resource integration capabilities and insufficient external support smes in tai'an are typically small in scale, with limited channels for collaboration with universities, government agencies, and social organizations. this hinders their access to red education resources www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 38 (such as university red education venues, expert lectures, and party history research findings). consequently, they have not developed party building programmes that effectively integrate with red education bases, resulting in a lack of external empowerment for their party building work. 2.5 low integration of party building with business operations and poor practical outcomes some smes in tai'an exhibit an entrenched mindset prioritising business over party building, viewing the two as unrelated. failure to embed party building into operational processes results in a disconnect between party work and business activities. this prevents party building from enhancing corporate cohesion and competitiveness, and undermines its role in guiding and advancing business operations. concurrently, enterprises lack mechanisms to harness the vanguard role of party members, hindering their ability to demonstrate leadership in business areas such as technological innovation and service optimization. 2.6 absence of long-term mechanisms and insufficient sustainability some enterprise leaders adopt a perfunctory attitude towards party building, reducing responsibilities to routine record-checking, form-filling and data entry. without establishing effective long-term assessment mechanisms, pressure diminishes at each management level, and standardized, regularized systems (such as study plans and assessment mechanisms) remain unformed. consequently, party building becomes superficial, and its effectiveness proves unsustainable. 3. innovation pathways of local universities red resources empowering sme party building the predicament of party building in taian's smes fundamentally stems from the tension between "limited resources" and "specialized party building expertise." the key to breaking the impasse lies in strengthening awareness of party building, integrating external resources, innovating activity formats, and deeply embedding party work into business operations—only then can party building truly empower enterprise development. in terms of resource integration, beyond government support, combining the red resources available in tai’an’s universities with enterprises party building efforts is both a fundamental guarantee and a necessary condition for achieving high-quality enterprises development through high-quality party leadership. the following section explores four pathways of local universities red resources empowering smes party building innovation. 3.1 resource exploration and integration universities in tai’an possess unique red resources that serve as vivid educational materials for enterprises red culture education and party building learning. to better explore and systematize these resources, universities should strengthen collaboration with the local tai'an government and enterprises to integrate them into a dedicated database. this involves digitizing information on as red culture sites, historical figures’ deeds, academic achievements, and literary and artistic works, enabling enterprises to access and utilize these resources at any time. for example, exhibition content from university red memorial halls can be developed into online virtual exhibition halls, enabling enterprise party members www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 39 to visit and learn remotely at any time. research papers and lecture videos by experts and scholars on red culture can be uploaded to the database, providing theoretical learning resources for enterprise party members. 3.2 education and training cooperation carry out special thematic training on red culture. universities can invite experts and scholars on party history to conduct specialized red culture training for enterprise party members. starting with the revolutionary history of tai’an, these sessions can illustrate the glorious journey and great achievements of the party—for example, by explaining the historical background, progression, and significance of the armed uprising against japanese aggression in culai mountain. this helps enterprise party members deeply understand the spirit of struggle and firm belief of revolutionary predecessors. the training can adopt a format combining offline lectures and online live streaming to extend its reach and meet the learning needs of party members from different enterprises. establishing practical teaching bases. university red culture venues, such as the art palace at shandong liming polytechnic vocational college, serve as practical teaching bases for enterprises party building. enterprises should regularly organize party members to participate in practical teaching activities at these bases. enterprises can regularly organize party members to conduct practical teaching activities at these bases, enhancing their learning experience through on-site visits, live instruction, and scenario simulations. for instance, in the “war of resistance against japan exhibition hall” within the art palace, holographic projections can be used to recreate scenes from the “battle of pingxingguan,” allowing enterprise party members to immerse themselves in the brutal reality of war and the bravery of revolutionary heroes, thereby igniting their patriotic enthusiasm and sense of responsibility. 3.3 innovation in party building activities jointly organize themed party day activities. party organizations in tai’an universities and enterprises can collaborate to carry out themed party day events, enriching both the format and content of these activities. for example, under a theme “inheriting red genes, promoting enterprise development,” universities faculty and student party members and enterprise party members can jointly visit local red culture sites in tai’an. these include the tai'an party history exhibition and the party constitution education hall established by the tai'an party day activity centre. following the visit, both sides can engage in discussions on how red culture inspires enterprise development and share their insights and reflections. jointly organize red culture activities. universities and enterprises can co-host red culture events, such as red culture festivals, red story speech contests, and red-themed art performances. enterprise party members as well as university faculty and students are encouraged to actively participate in these activities to deepen their understanding and inheritance of red culture.for example, by organizing a red story speech contest, enterprise party members can share how they embody the red spirit in their work—overcoming difficulties and achieving results—while university students can narrate stories of revolutionary historical figures. this fosters mutual learning and collective progress. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 40 3.4 talent cultivation and exchange cultivating talent for red culture dissemination. universities should incorporate red culture dissemination into relevant professional curricula, nurturing professionals proficient in both specialized knowledge and cultural propagation. this initiative supplies enterprises with core personnel for red culture promotion, supporting corporate party-building publicity efforts. for instance, journalism students trained in red culture dissemination techniques could produce high-quality party-building promotional videos and posters for enterprises. promote talent exchange and cooperation. establish a talent exchange mechanism between universities and enterprises. enterprises may select key party members to participate in short-term training programs at universities to enhance their political literacy and theoretical knowledge. in return, universities can assign faculty and student party members to enterprises for practical training, enabling them to understand the practical needs of corporate party building and provide professional guidance. meanwhile, both sides can collaborate on party building research, jointly applying for research projects to explore new models and pathways for integrating red resources with corporate party building. references li, w. (2024). research on optimization strategies for red culture promotion services in shandong provincial university libraries. qufu normal university, 2024(04). liang, z. z. (2022). integrating the hongyan spirit into ideological and political education in higher education: implications, value and direction. china light industry education, 2022(25). project introduction this article is a phased achievement of the tai’an 2024 science and technology innovation development project (policy guidance category) "research on local universities’ red resources empowering enterprise party building innovation under high-quality development" (project no.: 2024ns105), and the horizontal project of taishan university in 2024 "research on party building leading brand construction in automotive sales enterprises" (contract no.: 24hx0077). author profile qun shi, associate research librarian at the library of taishan university, research interests include cultural development and ideological and political work. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 206 original paper analysis of fall incidence and influencing factors among home-dwelling elderly in china qiurong fu1 & yuanyuan liang1 1 school of international nursing, hainan vocational university of science and technology, haikou, hainan, china received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 17, 2025 online published: november 03, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p206 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p206 abstract objective: to explore the current situation of falls among elderly people at home in hechi city, guangxi, china, and its influencing factors, so as to provide a basis for the formulation of targeted fall prevention intervention strategies. methods: a convenience sampling method was used to conduct a questionnaire survey on 140 home-based elderly aged 60 or above in a community in hechi city, guangxi in 2025. survey tools included a general information questionnaire and the morse fall risk assessment scale. the χ² test was used to analyze the fall status and influencing factors among older adults. results: the fall incidence rate within the past year was 22.9%. the rate of seeking medical attention after a fall was 28.1% (9/32). chi-square test results indicated that chronic diseases, gait abnormalities, use of assistive devices, and insufficient self-awareness of fall risk were major risk factors for falls among the elderly (all p<0.05). conclusion: the high incidence of falls among home-dwelling older adults results from multiple interacting factors. emphasis should be placed on enhancing self-assessment awareness, strengthening health education, improving home environments, and implementing multifactorial interventions to prevent and reduce falls. keywords fall risk, community-dwelling older adults, fall cognition, prevention, influencing factors 1. introduction with the acceleration of global population aging, health issues among the elderly have become increasingly prominent. falls, as a common accidental event among older adults, have emerged as a significant public health concern. data from the world health organization (who) indicate that falls rank as the leading cause of accidental injury deaths among older adults worldwide (world health organization, n.d.). in china, according to the seventh national population census, the proportion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 207 the population aged 60 and above reached 18.7%, reflecting a continuously deepening aging society (office of the seventh national population census leading group, state council, n.d.). falls among older adults can lead to severe physical injuries such as fractures and traumatic brain injuries, trigger psychological issues like anxiety and depression, and impose substantial family and socioeconomic burdens (ambrose, paul, & hausdorff, 2013). the home environment is a high-risk setting for falls among older adults. compared to institutional care, older adults living at home face more complex and diverse fall risk factors, including physiological decline, chronic diseases, medication side effects, home safety hazards, and insufficient awareness of fall risks (dengiz, aytepe, sirri et al., 2025). existing research has primarily focused on fall prevention in medical or institutional settings, with insufficient systematic studies on fall risks and self-management factors among community-dwelling older adults, particularly those in specific regions. therefore, this study aims to analyze the current fall situation among community-dwelling older adults in hechi city through a cross-sectional survey and to explore its influencing factors in depth. this research seeks to provide scientific evidence for developing locally tailored, effective fall prevention interventions, which is crucial for reducing fall risks and improving the quality of life among older adults. 2. subjects and methods 2.1 study population convenience sampling was employed to select community-dwelling older adults aged ≥60 years residing in a residential community in hechi city, guangxi, from january to march 2025. inclusion criteria: (1) age ≥60 years; (2) long-term home-dwelling elderly residents with local residency ≥6 months; (3) clear consciousness, basic communication ability, comprehension of questionnaire content, and willingness to complete the survey; (4) informed consent and voluntary participation. exclusion criteria: (1) individuals completely unable to perform activities of daily living independently; (2) individuals with severe mental illness or cognitive impairment (e.g., moderate or higher dementia); (3) individuals with severe complications or in acute disease exacerbation; (4) individuals refusing participation or withdrawing mid-survey. ultimately, 140 elderly individuals were included as valid research subjects. 2.2 survey tools 2.2.1 general information questionnaire designed by the researchers, including gender, age, educational attainment, living arrangements, chronic disease status, medication use, and self-rated health status. 2.2.2 morse fall scale (mfs) the chinese version of the morse fall scale was used to assess fall risk (liu, luo, chai et al., 2024). this 6-item scale evaluates fall history, secondary diagnoses, walking aids, intravenous therapy, gait, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 208 and mental status, with a total score range of 0–125 points. based on internationally accepted standards and our hospital's clinical practice, risk levels were categorized as: low risk (0–24points), moderate risk (25–45points), and high risk (≥45points). this scale demonstrated good reliability and validity in the study population, with a cronbach’s α coefficient of 0.81. 2.3 statistical methods data analysis was performed using spss statistics, version 26.0. categorical data were described using frequencies (n) and percentages (%). the chi-square test (χ² test) was employed to compare the differences in the incidence of falls among elderly populations with different characteristics. a two-sided test was used for all hypotheses, with the statistical significance level set at α=0.05. a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. 3. results 3.1 demographic characteristics of participants the study included 140 community-dwelling older adults. among them, 63 (45%) were male and 77 (55%) were female; 70 (50%) were aged 60-70 years, 45 (32.1%) were 70-80 years, and 25 (17.9%) were 80 years or older; 84 (60%) resided in rural areas and 58 (40%) in urban areas; 65 (45%) were illiterate and 77 (55%) were not. a total of 119 participants (85%) had a spouse, while 21 (15%) did not. other basic characteristics are presented in table 1. table 1. basic information of questionnaire collection type category number percentage gender male 63 45% female 77 55% age 60-70 70 50% 70-80 45 31.11% ≥80 25 18.89% educational attainment illiterate 65 45% non-illiterate 77 55% residence rural 84 60% urban 58 40% spouse status yes 119 85% no 21 15% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 209 3.2 current status of falls among older adults over the past year, 32 elderly individuals experienced falls, resulting in an annual fall incidence rate of 22.9%. among them, 7 elderly individuals (21.9% of those who fell) experienced a fall within the past 3 months. of the 32 individuals who fell, 9 required medical attention due to fall-related injuries, yielding a fall-related medical treatment rate of 28.1%. elderly falls and medical treatment status 3.3 fall risk assessment for older adults based on morse fall risk assessment scores, 20 individuals (14.3%) were classified as low risk (<25 points), 65 (46.4%) as moderate risk (25-45 points), and 55 (39.3%) as high risk (>45 points). this indicates that over 85% of community-dwelling older adults face moderate to high fall risk. the distribution of morse fall risk assessment scores is shown in table 2. table 2. frequency distribution of morse fall risk assessment scale scores fall risk assessment scale score (points) frequency frequency (%) cumulative percentage (%) 10.0 7 5.00 5.00 15.0 13 9.29 14.29 25.0 21 15.00 29.29 30.0 22 15.71 45.00 35.0 10 7.14 52.14 40.0 3 2.14 54.29 45.0 9 6.43 60.71 50.0 14 10.00 70.71 55.0 10 7.14 77.86 65.0 10 7.14 85.00 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 210 70.0 4 2.86 87.86 80.0 5 3.57 91.43 85.0 2 1.43 92.86 95.0 5 3.57 96.43 100.0 3 2.14 98.57 110.0 2 1.43 100.00 3.4 univariate analysis of factors influencing falls in older adults using the occurrence of falls within the past year as the dependent variable, χ² tests were conducted to analyze potential influencing factors. results (table 3) indicate that gender and age showed no statistically significant association with fall incidence (p > 0.05). however, educational attainment, presence of chronic diseases, living arrangements, gait status, and use of walking aids were significantly associated with fall incidence (all p < 0.05). the incidence of falls was relatively higher among illiterate and elementary school-educated elderly individuals (χ²=11.100, p=0.004). elderly individuals with chronic diseases had a significantly higher incidence of falls than those without chronic diseases (χ²=21.543, p=0.000). the incidence of falls was lower among non-lonely elderly individuals than among those living alone (χ²=7.933, p=0.005). the incidence of falls was significantly higher among elderly individuals with a "frail" or "unbalanced" gait compared to those with a normal gait (χ²=41.665, p=0.000). elderly individuals requiring the use of walking aids had a higher incidence of falls (χ²=30.644, p=0.000). table 3. univariate analysis of elderly falls variable variable falls in the past year (%) total χ² p no yes gender female 59 (55.14) 18 (54.55) 77 (55.00) 0.004 0.952 male 48 (44.86) 15 (45.45) 63 (45.00) age 60-70 58 (54.21) 12 (36.36) 70 (50.00) 3.298 0.19270-80 32 (29.91) 13(39.39) 45(32.14) 80-90 17 (15.89) 8 (24.24) 25 (17.86) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 211 level of education junior high school and above 17 (15.89) 9 (27.27) 26 (18.57) 11.100 0.004 elementary school 47 (43.93) 4 (12.12) 51 (36.43) illiterate 43 (40.19) 20 (60.61) 63 (45.00) chronic disease status yes 89 (83.18) 14 (42.42) 103 (73.57) 21.543 <0.00 1 none 18 (16.82) 19 (57.58) 37 (26.43) living arrangement living alone 4 (3.74) 6 (18.18) 10(7.14) 7.933 0.005 non-single-person household 103 (96.26) 27 (81.82) 130 (92.86) gait status balance disorder 1 (0.93) 5 (15.15) 6(4.29) 41.665 <0.00 1 normal 94 (87.85) 11 (33.33) 105 (75.00) frail 12 (11.21) 17 (51.52) 29(20.71) walking aids no 102(95.33) 19 (57.58) 121(86.43) 30.644 <0.00 1 yes 5 (4.67) 14 (42.42) 19 (13.57) 4. discussion 4.1 high prevalence of fall risk among community-dwelling older adults this study found that chronic diseases are strong predictors of fall risk in the elderly population. a variety of chronic diseases, such as degenerative arthritis, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, cardiovascular disease, and visual impairment, can directly or indirectly elevate the risk of falls through both physiologic and functional levels. at the physiological level, such diseases may cause pain, decreased joint mobility, reduced sensory input, hemodynamic instability, or impaired acquisition of visual information; at the functional level, they may significantly impair mobility, dynamic balance, reaction time, and environmental awareness and judgment, which together increase susceptibility to falls. in addition, multimorbidity is often accompanied by multiple medications, and the side effects of some medications in complex medication regimens, including postural hypotension, sedation, dizziness, and decreased muscle strength, may further impair postural control, resulting in a “disease-medication-function decline” superimposed effect that significantly increases fall susceptibility. this may further impair postural control, resulting in a “disease-drug-function decline” superimposed effect, which significantly increases the probability of falls (milla, marianne, heidi et al., 2020). therefore, it is important to include a thorough medication review in the assessment of fall risk in the elderly, examining the presence of medications and their interactions that may increase the risk of falls. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 212 this study found that decreased gait stability and walking aid use, as directly observable and measurable indicators, were shown to be significant predictors of falls. these two indicators are essentially a concentration of core impairments such as lower limb muscle weakness, impaired balance and limited mobility (kuo, yen, chen et al., 2022). gait analysis reveals compensatory changes such as slowing of gait speed, shortening of stride length, widening of the base of the stride, and prolongation of the time spent in bipedal support, which are “cautious gait” strategies adopted by the body in order to maintain stability, but which in themselves reflect a lack of confidence in balance and an increased risk of falling. in addition, aids such as canes and walkers are designed to enhance stability and broaden the base of support, thereby reducing the risk of falls. however, the reality is often more complex. if aids are not properly configured (e.g., inappropriate height, mismatched type), are not individually adapted, or if the user is not adequately trained in their use, they may become new barriers rather than effective aids. assistive devices themselves may also become a substantial fall risk, suggesting the need for a comprehensive assessment of the overall coordination of the “human-machine-environment” system in clinical practice. the results of this study suggest that low educational level is a risk factor for falls in older adults. as a social determinant, the impact of low education is far-reaching and fundamental. it may indirectly increase fall risk by limiting health literacy. older adults with lower levels of education may face more difficulty in accessing, understanding, evaluating, and applying health information related to falls prevention (e.g., the importance of balance training, recommendations for home environment modifications, and identification of medication side effects). this can affect the accuracy of their risk perception, and they may either overestimate their abilities and ignore potential hazards (e.g., engaging in high-risk activities with blind confidence) or have an excessive fear of falling that leads to severe limitations in range of motion, instead accelerating muscle atrophy and functional decline. in either case, it undermines their intention to adopt proactive and scientific risk-averse behaviors. the results of this study identified solitary status as a risk factor for falls in older adults. when older adults experience precursor symptoms that may signal a fall (e.g., sudden dizziness, weakness due to postural hypotension) or have a non-fatal minor fall, the lack of people around makes it difficult to obtain timely assistance, making it possible for a minor event that could have been manageable to develop into dehydration, hypothermia, pressure ulcers, or even more serious secondary injuries. even more important is its indirect psychosocial impact. living alone is often closely associated with social isolation and loneliness, which in turn are strong risk factors for depression, anxiety, and decreased cognitive function. depressed moods can directly lead to decreased energy and loss of interest, causing older adults to reduce their outings and daily activities (petersen, könig, & hajek, n.d.). together, these psychological states lead to a significant reduction in physical activity, which in turn leads to “disuse” changes further muscle atrophy, accelerated deterioration of balance, and loss of bone density. this creates a vicious cycle of “psychosocial-physical functioning”: living alone/loneliness psychological distress/reduced activity-decline in physical functioning -increased risk of fallingfurther www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 213 reduction in activity/exacerbation of social isolation due to fear of or actual falling. therefore, fall interventions for elderly people living alone must not be limited to the physical level, but must incorporate social support, psychological care and promotion of social participation into comprehensive intervention programs. although age and gender have been identified as influencing factors for falls in some of the previous literature, this study did not find a statistically significant association between them and fall risk. this difference in results may be related to the characteristics of the source of the sample in this study, the relatively limited sample size, geographic and cultural factors, or confounding variables that were not fully measured, and it is recommended that future studies expand the sample size, carry out multicenter collaborations, and introduce finer-grained moderation and mediation analyses to clarify the pathways through which demographic variables play a role in the risk of falls. therefore, our findings highlight the need for future research to expand the sample size and conduct multi-center collaborations to enroll more diverse and representative populations, thereby controlling for biases associated with specific sample sources. 4.2 implications for fall prevention practices based on these findings, preventing falls among homebound older adults requires a multidimensional, individualized comprehensive intervention strategy. for instance, community healthcare providers should conduct regular fall risk assessments for homebound seniors, particularly those with chronic conditions, gait abnormalities, mobility aid users, and individuals living alone. additionally, for seniors with lower educational attainment, fall prevention knowledge should be disseminated through more intuitive, accessible methods (e.g., videos, diagrams, face-to-face explanations) to correct misconceptions and enhance self-management skills. standardize medication use among the elderly and monitor for adverse effects of polypharmacy. strengthen chronic disease management to mitigate functional decline caused by underlying conditions. encourage and guide seniors in exercises that enhance muscle strength and improve balance (e.g., tai chi, balance training). provide home safety assessments and modification recommendations, such as improving lighting, installing handrails, maintaining level and dry floors, and removing obstacles. pay special attention to seniors living alone, promote neighborly assistance, and establish regular visitation mechanisms. 5. conclusions as this study was conducted among homebound elderly residents in a specific community in hechi city, guangxi, its value lies in providing actionable fall prevention strategies for families, communities, and healthcare institutions, particularly emphasizing the concept of “prevention-oriented, multidimensional intervention.” however, the relatively small sample size means the findings only represent the current situation of a portion of homebound elderly in this specific area and may not be applicable to all regions. the proposed strategies and research results are not yet comprehensive. furthermore, genuinely improving fall prevention among homebound seniors requires sustained www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 214 intervention and further refinement. future research on “survey analysis of self-management practices and influencing factors in fall prevention among homebound seniors” could explore additional avenues, such as the application of smart technologies or ai-based fall prediction systems, to broaden intervention coverage and benefit a wider elderly population. in summary, fall prevention for home-dwelling seniors is a systemic endeavor requiring sustained research investment and dynamic adjustments. through scientific evaluation, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and technological innovation, we aim to build safer home-based care environments and ultimately achieve the goal of “healthy aging”. future efforts should balance practical effectiveness with humanistic care, enabling seniors not only to reduce falls but also to enhance their overall quality of life. references world health organization. (n.d.). retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls office of the seventh national population census leading group, state council. (n.d.). seventh national population census bulletin. retrieved from http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/ ambrose, a. f., paul, g., & hausdorff, j. m. (2013). risk factors for falls among older adults: a review of the literature. maturitas, 75(1), 51-61. dengiz, a., aytepe, a., sirri, b. et al. (2025). investigation of commonly used assessment methods for predicting fall risk in the elderly. experimental gerontology. liu, j., luo, y., chai, x. et al. (2024). rasch analysis of morse fall scale among the older adults with cognitive impairment in nursing homes. geriatric nursing, 5694-99. wang, s., bao, k., gong, q. et al. (2024). analysis of factors influencing falls among the elderly in ningbo city. preventive medicine, 36(08), 654-657+662.024.08.003. carvalho, d. m. l., lira, b. l., oliveira, d. b. l. et al. (2024). analysis of hospital safety and risk of falls in the elderly: a cross-sectional study in brazil. international journal of environmental research and public health, 21(8), 1036. milla, i., marianne, h., heidi, s. et al. (2020). association between chronic diseases and falls among a sample of older people in finland. bmc geriatrics, 20(1), 225. kuo, f. l., yen, c. m., chen, h. j. et al. (2022). trajectories of mobility difficulty and falls in community-dwelling adults aged 50+ in taiwan from 2003 to 2015. bmc geriatr, 22(1), 902. petersen, n., könig, h. h., & hajek, a. (2020). the link between falls, social isolation and loneliness: a systematic review. arch gerontol geriatr, 88, 104020. 2.1 study population 2.2 survey tools2.2.1 general information questio designed by the researchers, including gender, age the chinese version of the morse fall scale was us 2.3 statistical methods 3. results 3.1 demographic characteristics of participants the study included 140 community-dwelling older ad table 1. basic information of questionnaire collec 3.2 current status of falls among older adults 3.3 fall risk assessment for older adults 3.4 univariate analysis of factors influencing fal 4. discussion 4.1 high prevalence of fall risk among community-d 4.2 implications for fall prevention practices 5. conclusions as this study was conducted among homebound elderl references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 73 original paper exploration of hotel interior design methods based on regional culture—chaoshan cultural hotel as an example yuancheng ma 1 1 guangzhou university, guangzhou university, no. 230, waihuan west road, xiaoguwei street, panyu district, guangzhou city, guangdong province, china received: october 14, 2022 accepted: november 9, 202 online published: november 12, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p73 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p73 abstract in recent years, chaoshan culture is a popular object of research for many scholars in recent years, and there are many research points worth digging. as an open space, hotels have very notable regional qualities, and with the development of domestic hotel interior design, various regional cultural hotels have emerged in front of the world. based on the perspective of regional culture, by analyzing the basic attributes of hotel interior design, this paper explores the gene of regional culture in chaoshan region, and discusses the application of regional culture in hotel interior design. keywords regionalism, chaoshan culture, hotel interior design, design ideas 1. status of cultural theme hotel design in chaoshan area 1.1 special geographical location as well as human the chaoshan region, known in ancient times as chaozhou, is the collective name given to the present three cities of shantou, chaozhou and jieyang, which in ancient times were governed by the same prefecture-level administrative region—the chaozhou prefecture. the chaoshan region is situated on the chaoshan plain on the southeast coast of guangdong province, one of china’s southern china plates. according to rao zongyi’s cultural records of chaozhou, the cultural history of chaozhou can be traced back to the ancient stone age, and the three major migrations of northern peoples throughout history have all had an impact on the cultural development of the chaoshan region [1] . the chaoshan region is full of cultural figures who left behind many literary works, as evidenced by the pagoda street in the ancient city of chaozhou, which is now a tourist attraction. han yu, a famous literary scholar of the tang dynasty, governed chaozhou for eight months and left behind many literary masterpieces, which had a profound influence on chaozhou in terms of politics, thought and culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 74 published by scholink inc. yang wanli, a famous poet of the song dynasty, also visited chaozhou and wrote a number of poems on han mountain. in addition to literature, the unique geographical location of chaoshan has given rise to unique works of art such as chaozhou opera, chaozhou embroidery, chaozhou wood carvings and inlaid porcelain. today, you can still see historical relics from several dynasties in the streets and alleys of chaoshan. 1.2 the current state of hotel design in the chaoshan region hotels are important places for many travelers, not only for the people of the region but also for those who come and go from all over the world. the development of hotel design has now become an important city card, and nowadays hotel design is not just about fashion but also about the culture of the region. with the rapid development of the tertiary sector in many regions, more and more culturally themed hotels are coming to the fore. at the same time, the problems of many cultural theme hotels have been exposed. problems such as “blindly following the trend”, “wholesale modeling” , “cultural deserts” and “stolen concepts” have made people re-examine cultural theme hotel design. it is also very unfortunate that the chaoshan region, an important puzzle area of the future guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area, lacks a culturally themed hotel that matches the region. 1.3 trends in hotel design in the chaoshan region hotel design along with the advent of the information age, “landmark”, “ internet-popular” and other star hotel architecture has attracted widespread attention and debate, the introduction of high luxury hotel brands, master design, people have more pursuit, expect to feel more more humanistic care and regional cultural characteristics. in recent years, designers have gone into the countryside and into the community and created many “internet-popular” buildings that have left a deep impression on travelers. the construction of star-rated hotels has become the city’s calling card to the world, and the rise of “landmark” buildings has demonstrated the prosperity of the city’s development. whether it is a b&b, a special hotel, or a star hotel, each project is characterized by specific regional features, and the search for its unique locality is the only way to create a fine product and continue the vitality of the building. in recent years, with the vigorous construction of the local government in chaoshan, many special tourist areas have become popular. the old city of chaozhou has been restored to its former prosperity, and the popularity of the special tourist street in shantou small park has led to the rapid development of tourism in the chaoshan region. with it, the opportunity for the development of hotel design has grown, and the excavation and use of local culture has become a key research area for the hotel design industry in the chaoshan region. 2. the basic characteristics of the hotel interior design 2.1 the basic characteristics of hotel interior design hotel interior design is a product of modern urban development, hotel design in the information age, the phenomenon of uniformity, and the emergence of the theme hotel, but the hotel design has become the same. cultural theme hotels use a specific theme to render the style of hotel design, a specific www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 75 published by scholink inc. cultural atmosphere, so that travellers enjoy a cultural feeling rich in personality, while in order to make the service more relevant to the theme, using personalised services, such as spa, food, theme music, etc. to distinguish from traditional hotels [2] . cultural theme hotels are more grounded in the highly influential regional and cultural features of the hotel location as elements in their design [3] , and the use of visual elements with significant regional characteristics is one of the most commonly used in cultural hotel design, enabling travelers to gain joy, knowledge, and excitement in the most direct way. 2.2 the basic attributes of the hotel interior design as a regional open public place, a hotel with cultural characteristics is not only a carrier to reflect local culture, but also a place to promote local culture. local cultures are works of art that combine national creativity and artistry with strong national characteristics and a unique local aesthetic resulting from the long history of the region. traditional culture is also uniquely sustainable, and the cultural characteristics of the hotel lie in the heritage and innovation of the cultural values that lie behind the local lifestyle [4] . designers may not be native to the area, but they have a deep understanding of the habits and customs of the area, so that they can naturally incorporate local cultural characteristics in the design process in order to design themed hotels with regional cultural characteristics. the characteristics of hotel interior design come from the excavation and use of specific regional culture, which is inseparable from the rich cultural heritage, and regional culture not only affects the overall style of hotel interior design but also directly affects the intuitive experience it gives travelers. in today’s increasingly sophisticated interior design style, cultural theme hotels as an effective carrier of a specific culture, the cultural symbols it carries is not only a specific emotion, but also the style of bearing space design, but also highlight the national culture of the logo, but also a strong basis for the cultural “hundred schools of thought”, but also the hotel interior design it is also one of the original intentions of hotel interior design. for people, the design is people-oriented, so that the design works can better serve the life of people today, and can better adapt to the habits and aesthetic requirements of people today. for culture, the excavation of regional traditional culture can better reflect the local characteristics of cultural theme hotels, and visitors can better taste the local customs. the function of the hotel determines the comfort level of its unique experience, and the hotel, as an immersive experience space, should not only meet the basic needs of travelers but also have local characteristics. for example, there are special dining spaces, special accommodation spaces, special leisure and entertainment spaces, and so on. this ensures that the experience is unique to the traveler. 3. research on the regional culture of chaoshan 3.1 keeping up with the times of regionalism the so-called regional design refers to the absorption of local, national, folk style and various cultural traces left by the history of the region in the design. in a way that is more narrow or exclusive than national, and has the recognizability of machine guns [5] . throughout the country’s hotel interiors, designers are making great efforts to render local culture and local characteristics, using local www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 76 published by scholink inc. characteristics and culture through visual elements in their designs. while respecting regional culture, designers must also think and design from a “regional” perspective in order to create works with “regional” characteristics. in a time of rapid cultural and technological development, “regionalism” is also changing quietly with the times. today’s “regionalism” is not only about regional characteristics, regional customs, regional cuisine, and so on, but also about the inclusion and integration of non-regional cultures. since ancient times, chinese traditional culture has presented a pattern of “a hundred schools of thought contend” and “a hundred flowers bloom”. according to the confucian classic “li ji · music ji”, “those who enjoy music are the same, while those who perform rites are different. the same makes friends, the different respects each other, the happy wins the flow, and the polite wins the separation [6] .” therefore, chinese traditional culture has been characterized by seeking common ground while reserving differences since ancient times, and its essence is openness and diversity. openness means inclusiveness, openness and absorption. openness is the foundation of the design and development of culture-themed hotels and an important basis for the future development of hotel design. in recent years, it is not difficult to see from many excellent hotel interior design works that the designer not only focuses on creating the unique cultural rendering of local or regional characteristics in the process of hotel design, but also focuses on creating an “international” hotel, trying to organically combine local culture and exotic culture in the hotel design. for example, the interior design of the magnificent hotel in guangzhou not only uses the “manchurian window” in guangfu culture, “blue brick”, such as figure 1, and other elements, but also mixes light luxury with new chinese style. the mixed style not only reflects the diversified and open attitude of guangfu culture, but also enhances the tourists’ impression of the hotel on the style of guangfu. therefore, the use of traditional culture in hotel interior design has an important position. figure 1. a corner of the restaurant at the crowne plaza guangzhou hotel interior design should keep up with the times, combining fashionable elements of the time with regional cultural symbols in an organic way. the development of modern technology has made it possible to implement many designs, not only in terms of construction and materials, but also in terms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 77 published by scholink inc. of aesthetics to keep up with the times. hotel interior design not only pursues traditional simplicity but also fashion. with social progress, technological development, and the advancement of the times, consumers are becoming more and more demanding, pursuing not only material experiences but also spiritual enrichment. today’s technological innovations have brought infinite possibilities for art and design, allowing many excellent designs to be displayed in front of the world’s eyes. 3.2 excavate the gene of regional culture in chaoshan region chaoshan culture, as one of the three important parts of lingnan culture, began in the early stage of human society and has developed up to now with the changes of the times. when referring to the carrier of teochew culture in the impression, people often think of the three main art forms of “teochew wood carving”, “teochew stone carving” and “porcelain embedded” on the decoration of traditional chaoshan houses, such as figure 2. this is due to the wisdom of ancient chaoshan artisans. besides, “ying song and dance”, “chaozhou opera” and “ancient lecture” are also popular cultural forms in the chaoshan area. according to the records of chaozhou prefecture, in the chaoshan region, chaozhou culture began to take shape around the time of the qin and han dynasties, and during the tang and song dynasties, with the introduction of chinese culture into he influence, a variety of folk art activities gradually developed to their heyday during the ming and qing dynasties and have been passed on to the present day [7] . the craftsmanship of the ancient chaozhou people can still be seen in many of the well-preserved ancient buildings today, and many folkloric activities still remain in many rural areas of the chaoshan region. figure 2. chaozhou wood carving, chaozhou stone carving, inlaid porcelain chaoshan region is located in the chaoshan plain in the southeast corner of the chinese mainland. it has a subtropical monsoon climate and a large terrain, high in the northwest and low in the southeast, multiple mountains in the northeast and northwest, and sea in the southeast. due to its special geographical location, the unique culture of chaoshan region is nourished. therefore, chaoshan culture has obvious characteristics of mountain culture and ocean culture. in terms of the construction of traditional chaoshan residential buildings, local conditions are a prominent feature of traditional chaoshan residential buildings. the architectural decorative art and interior decorative art mostly take www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 78 published by scholink inc. natural ecology as the creation prototype, such as bats, monkeys, chickens and other birds and animals; sea creatures such as conch, shrimp, crab and shell; longevity peach, orchid, lotus, chrysanthemum and other herbs; the interior decoration is composed of folk tales, fairy tales and natural elements. embody the awe of nature and the gratitude of nature. the temple is decorated with fairy tales, such as: heaven soldiers heaven, double dragon play beads, double phoenix play peony, birds worship the phoenix, etc., reflecting the belief in religious myths. in the decoration of the ancestral hall, folk stories, literati and historical heroes are mainly combined and matched with natural elements and animal images. reflect the chaoshan people to the ancestors of admiration and worship. based on the characteristics of appeal, chaoshan culture includes: natural ecological genes, religious myth genes and ancestors worship genes. combined with the chaoshan cultural genes, the themes of chaoshan cultural architectural decoration can be divided into three types: plant and animal themes, religious and mythological themes, human themes and other themes, these three types of themes throughout the interior and exterior, inlaid porcelain, wood carving, wall painting, etc. are reflected. the use of plant and animal themes throughout the traditional architecture of chaoshan, whether in the ancestral halls, homes are visible in their themes decorated with bats, peonies, magpies and other animals with auspicious meaning, because of its harmonious sound and its symbolic meaning is often used in a variety of craft themes. religious mythological themes, such as double dragons playing with pearls and double phoenixes playing with peonies, are the most popular, and are used in ancestral buildings and temple buildings. on the subject of figures, the subjects are more abundant and can be broadly divided into two kinds, one for heroic deeds and the other for literati, especially in interior painting and decorative painting. 3.3 analysis of the regional cultural genetic symbols of the chaoshan region in history, many talented people came to chaozhou to work, but chaozhou people prefer “all things bear the surname han”. the han wengong temple built in memory of han yu is the best evidence. the name of han jiang was also named in memory of han yu’s arrival in chaozhou to rule chaozhou. in ancient times, hanjiang river was called wenshui, and it was later called alligator creek because of its crocodiles, which was called “evil creek” among the people [8] . legend has it that when han yu took office in chaozhou, han jiang wrote the crocodile text. he held a sacrifice on bijia mountain beside the river and read out the crocodile text to persuade the crocodiles to move away. thus, han river became an important water transportation hub of chaozhou and greatly promoted the development of chaozhou. in memory of han yu, it was renamed han river after his family name, so it was renamed han river. bijia mountain beside the river was also renamed han mountain, and the magnificent han wengong temple was built on han mountain. the roads built in the city were named jinghan pavilion and changli road. although han yu was not the first person to set up an academic institution in chaozhou, he dared to reform, employed local talents, and maintained a good style of learning. the culture of worship of literature and learning has been maintained for a long time, which still attracts students from chaoshan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 79 published by scholink inc. region. for thousands of years, han yu was regarded as a mentor and even a god by the people and officials of chaozhou. su dongpo once wrote in the monument to the han wen gong temple in chaozhou, “the public service of the tide people, food and drink will be sacrificed, flood and drought disease, where there is a request will pray [9] .” it can be seen that during the song dynasty, chaozhou people had already worshiped han yu as sacred. han yu was banished to chaozhou for less than eight months, but he won the respect and worship of the chaozhou people for more than one thousand years. zhao puchu said that han yu “did not escape eight thousand li from the south and won the surname han.” chaoshan people’s respect for nature and worship genes of ancestors are reflected in its architecture. mr. chen hanchu, a scholar of chaozhou culture, believes that: “the custom of honoring and offering sacrifices to the gods of chaoshan people is quite distinctive. hipsters generally deify nature, the sky, ancestors, sages, national heroes, emperors and loyal officials, and worship them as gods... [10] ” this religious belief has quite a benzoic image. among the belief systems of chaozhou gods, han yu was unique. 4. the application of chaoshan regional culture in hotel interior design 4.1 theme rendering the thematic atmosphere of a hotel can improve the comfort of customers and also enliven the state of the hotel’s operation [11] . as a model of worship in the hearts of chaoshan people, the story of han yu can be used as the theme in the hotel interior design, and the atmosphere can be created by using the spatial narrative technique. for example, the design theme of the lobby of guangzhou garden hotel adopts a dream of red mansions, one of the four classical chinese classics, and the lobby of the hotel adopts a dream of red mansions—twelve flowers of jinling as the theme decorative background wall. for example, such as figure 3. figure 3. guangzhou garden hotel lobby backdrop “dream of the red chamber—the twelve hairpins of the golden palace” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 80 published by scholink inc. in the lobby design of chaoshan hotel, the same technique can be used to apply the story of han yu to the hotel lobby design. the chaoshan area is now the core area of the development of the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area. the story of han yu’s treatment of the tide meets the spiritual needs of the development of the chaoshan area, meets the emotional needs of the people in the area, and at the same time, it can narrate the chaoshan culture and humanistic spirit through this historical story. 4.2 interior design the effective use of regional culture can more rationally bring out the ideology to be reflected in interior design [12]. nowadays, in many hotel interior design, designers seize the characteristics of local culture, mainly local culture, and organic combination with exotic culture, so as to meet the experience needs of different ethnic groups. chencihong’s former residence in architecture using the traditional “chaisuan trailer” combined with western houses, decorative patterns using local technology combined with western patterns for decoration, the whole building filled with elegant and common with simple charm, chinese and western combination of chencihong’s former residence highlights the chaoshan culture of openness and inclusiveness. the interior design of the chaoshan cultural hotel can make full use of its features. in terms of layout, reference is made to the layout features of traditional chaoshan residential buildings, while the decoration can be organically combined with traditional craftsmanship and exotic culture. the interior decoration can be matched with the interior decoration techniques used in traditional chaoshan houses, such as chaozhou wood carving, chaozhou stone carving, and color painting, to create a cultural atmosphere with local characteristics. for example, the interior decoration can be emphasized with backdrops and installations, and through the deployment of lighting and decorative colors, it can be used to set the mood for a sedate experience for visitors, effectively playing a role in the promotion of local culture and highlighting cultural characteristics. 4.3 furnishing design contemporary chaoshan young artist chen xunan draws on traditional inlaid porcelain techniques to create a different inlaid porcelain work, rhapsody of the sea, which is used in the liwan station of the shenzhen metro, such as figure 4, where traditional chaoshan craftsmanship is integrated with modern elements without losing its traditional charm. in the interior furnishings, representative themes from the three main types of chaoshan traditional crafts can be used to create designs for the display of chaoshan traditional crafts and the decoration of hotel interiors, for example, interior furnishings created by chaozhou wood carvings, decorative objects created by chaozhou embroidery, etc. at the same time, traditional crafts can be innovated and integrated with contemporary elements to embellish the interior furnishings of hotels and can also be decorated with the aesthetic features of chaoshan traditional crafts. the design of the furnishings can also be based on the aesthetic characteristics of traditional craftsmanship, for example, the use of decorative motifs commonly used in traditional chaoshan craftsmanship to deepen the impression of the hotel’s image by means of visual elements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 81 published by scholink inc. this can also be used as an extension of the cultural and creative design, so that when visitors leave the hotel, they still have a medium to recall and remember, thus serving to promote the hotel and local culture. figure 4. chen xunan’s work “rhapsody of the sea 5. conclusion chaoshan culture, as one of the three important cultural sectors in lingnan, stands in the forest of chinese national culture. its unique artistic treasures stand out from the rest, its unique historical style and its unique artistic symbols are nutrients for the design elements of chaoshan hotels in the future. its rich historical background and exquisite arts and crafts are the excavable parts of hotel design and other design industries. the chaoshan area is the core area for the development of the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area in the future. as a city name card, hotels play an important role in urban development. as an important part of lingnan culture, chaoshan culture is inclusive and open, which is conducive to the development and dissemination of chaoshan culture. for traditional skills in traditional culture, we should innovate on their basis and apply them to design by tapping and analyzing the genetic characteristics and symbolism of regional culture and using the form of visual symbols as a carrier to emphasize and deepen people’s impressions of the distinctive culture. references rao, z. y. (1989). chaozhou city cultural records. guangdong: chaozhou local history office, 1989. wang, s. h. (2013). research on cultural characteristics in theme hotel design. kunming university of technology. liu, c. y., & yu, m. h. (2015). an analysis of the artistic and cultural design of theme hotels in china. artistic appreciation, 2(12), 2 wang, x., & jia, z. h. (2013). the cultural characteristics of boutique hotel positioning and design expression. huazhong architecture, 30(6), 24-27. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 82 published by scholink inc. wang, q. (2002). “regional and cultural aspects of hotel design”. interior design and decoration, 2002(06), 38-39. the book of rites: the book of music. (1986). people’s literature publishing house. wu, y. (n.d.). wu ying guangdong: chaozhou local history office. zheng, x. d. (2011). economic geography of the han river basin in ancient times (qin-yun. jinnan university, 2011. guan, y. l. (1990). a dictionary of appreciation of ancient texts. shanghai tongji university press. li, z. x. (2012). the myth and deification of han yu in chaozhou. journal of shaanxi normal university (philosophy and social science edition), 41(02), 166-171. xie, d. y. (2017). “large-scale business hotel interior design: the example of tianjin crown lido hotel design”. art and design (theory). wu, h. y. (2017). analysis of the continuation of regional cultural design characteristics in interior design. design, 2017(22), 96-97. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 63 original paper research on the development of shaanxi red culture under the view of metacosmos lei zhang1 1 xi’an siyuan university, school of marxism, shaanxi, xi'an, china received: june 29, 2023 accepted: september 23, 2023 online published: october 08, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p63 abstract the year 2021 is known as the year of the metaverse. culture entering the meta-universe is an inevitable trend of the times. based on the meta-universe technology, the commercializability, concrete visualization, and unification of ubiquity and immersion of shaanxi red culture are conducive to the enhancement of shaanxi’s local cultural discovery ability and cultural self-confidence. first, to understand the general situation of shaanxi red culture in terms of spatial and temporal distribution, quantity, and characteristics of the era. second, to analyze the inevitability of the meta-universe embedded in the development of shaanxi red culture. finally, analyze the path of the meta-universe embedded in the development of shaanxi’s red culture. among them, the “inner cycle” mechanism includes the process of cultural resources placement, use, feedback and reinforcement, the “inter-cycle” mechanism includes the construction of meta-universe cultural communities within the province and the construction of meta-universe cultural communities within the country, and the “virtual-real cycle” mechanism includes the general situation of the meta-universe embedded in shaanxi’s red culture development, such as the number of spatial and temporal characteristics. the mechanism of “virtual-real cycle” includes the logical process of digital twinning, virtual-real integration, virtual originality and virtual reality. keywords metacosmos, red culture with the rapid progress of artificial intelligence technology and the emergence of digital people, human beings have started the first year of meta-universe. the outline of the fourteenth five-year plan for national economic and social development of the people’s republic of china and the vision for 2035 includes “accelerating digitalization and building a digital china” as a separate chapter, which explicitly puts forward the need to “embrace the digital era, activate the potential of the data elements, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. push forward the construction of a strong networked country, accelerate the construction of a digital economy, a digital society, and a digital society. accelerate the construction of digital economy, digital society and digital government, and drive changes in the mode of production, lifestyle and governance with digital transformation as a whole”. 1. the current situation of shaanxi red culture development shaanxi red cultural resources are mainly divided into two components, the first part is the surviving resources, and the second part is the spiritual resources. the so-called surviving resources, i.e., documents, cultural relics and revolutionary sites and memorial sites of revolutionary activities carried out by the people in shaanxi province during the revolutionary war era, which include developed and undeveloped, movable and immovable ones. spiritual resources are the various spiritual connotations contained in the material cultural resources, including revolutionary spirit, revolutionary traditions and the political, economic, cultural, ideological, and institutional systems formed during the revolutionary war period, etc., which belong to the intangible components of the red cultural resources. shaanxi is rich in red cultural resources, with many fine products and high grade. among the 12 key red tourism zones cultivated in the country, there are two involving shaanxi province, i.e., shaanxi-gansu-ningxia red tourism zone and sichuan-shaan-chongqing red tourism zone; among the 30 red tourism boutique lines developed in the country, there is one involving shaanxi province (xi’an, luochuan, yan’an, zicang, suide line). shaanxi red cultural resources have obvious uniqueness and scarcity. for example, the red cultural resources of various revolutionary bases, such as the northwest revolutionary base, the e-yu-shaanxi revolutionary base, and the sichuan-shaanxi revolutionary base, all have a deep imprint of the times. among them, the red cultural resources pioneered during the yan’an period are exceptionally unique and unrepeatable throughout the country. in addition, in the context of the construction of digital china, yuan universe has provided a new path for the development of shaanxi’s red culture by deeply embedding it in various industries through virtual and real integration of digital interactions. for example, online scenic observation, “cloud” history museum, digital culture and science and technology venues and so on let the real scene show in front of people in a new way. therefore, the study of the development and innovative application of meta-universe embedded in shaanxi red culture has important research value for the inheritance of shaanxi red culture and the application of the concept of meta-universe. 2. the inevitability of the development of metacosmos embedded in shaanxi red culture 2.1 the concept and connotation of meta-universe culture entering the meta-universe is an inevitable trend of social development. the display of culture will no longer rely on traditional physical objects, but will be carried out in the higher-order virtual space, and the creation, exhibition, appreciation, trading, and collection of culture will be completely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. digitalized and deeply virtual. the space of meta-universe has the characteristics of diversification and strong integration, therefore, making full use of the spatial advantages of meta-universe, integrating human thinking consciousness, cultural beliefs and values, and then it will become a good platform to carry out spiritual civilization education activities. the core role of the metaverse is “virtual digital person”, which can represent any person in reality. at the same time, the meta-universe is based on the material life of an individual and creates a relatively independent spiritual life field from reality. therefore, from the perspective of “virtual digital person”, the real person is an extension of the virtual world, which is more adaptable to the various experiences in the virtual space, and forms a one-to-one correspondence between the digital identity and the real identity. based on the characteristics of virtual digital technology, linking it with the records of real human social, economic, cultural and other activities helps people construct virtual identity and meta-universe value system from social and cultural level. 2.2 meta-universe promotes the integration of local red culture so far, the concept of metacosmos is still in the stage of exploration and evolution. to build the ecological map of meta-universe, three major segments are needed: the underlying technical support, the front-end equipment platform and the scene content entrance, among which the scene content entrance has been closely watched and rapidly laid out by the cultural industry. for example, in 2021, bojun culture, a subsidiary of shaanxi tourism group’s science and technology sector, and juntu.com’s “hi yuan universe” digital cultural and creative platform, which has blockchain as its underlying structure, is a good attempt to combine the real world with the virtual world for virtual excursion and exploration scenarios. with the arrival of the first year of the meta-universe, people’s lives have changed a lot, and more and more real-world scenarios have been incorporated into the virtual world, which to a certain extent accelerates the development of the cultural industry, tourism, and agriculture, etc. among them, the cultural industry and the meta-universe have become more and more important. among them, the combination of cultural industry and meta-universe is counted as a kind of business model innovation. for example, the digitization of shaanxi’s non-legacy, the digitization of qin, han and tang themes, the digitization of qinling’s landscape theme, and the digitization of shaanxi’s red theme. they all draw on the meta-universe technology system to a certain extent, especially blockchain, virtual reality, nft and so on. although meta-universe technology is still in a relatively initial stage of development and it faces many challenges, there is a huge space for meta-universe related industries to expand. among them, the cultural and exposition industry, which is closely related to the development of shaanxi’s red cultural resources, should keep pace with the times, synchronize with the times, deeply promote the cross-border fusion of “culture + science and technology”, promote the integration of resources, and let the development results of the cultural industry better realize the sharing of the whole people. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. 3. the meta-universe embedded in the path of shaanxi red culture development 3.1 the “inner cycle” mechanism of shaanxi red culture’s meta-universe the “internal cycle” mechanism includes the process of putting, using, feedback and strengthening of cultural resources. from the technical level, the experience of metacosmos has transitioned from the initial wearable experience to the advanced stage of connecting the human brain and the machine through the interface of cerebral telecommunication signals, which also signifies that the development of metacosmos technology is constantly moving towards humanization and maturity. from the cognitive level, with the change of human medium, the meta-universe technology will continue to expand the range of human body extension, change the way people perceive the world, and integrate the living and digitalization of history. in the development and use phase of spiritual civilization products, the meta-universe simulates multiple organs to recreate the original space of spiritual culture, and digital technology develops from virtual reality to brain-computer interfaces to create the experience of spiritual civilization. through technological technology, digital twins and vr and other technologies are used to present realistic scenes of national life in different eras, simulate specific events or scenes of the common struggles of chinese children in different eras, and combine real events with the virtual world in combination with specific regional cultures. for example, through the experience of “digital simulator”, people can evoke the historical memory of local cultural history and cultural pride, and enhance people’s homeland sentiment. 3.2 the “inter-cycle” mechanism of shaanxi red culture in the meta-universe the mechanism of “inter-circulation” of meta-universe is to establish connections between spiritual and cultural products in different meta-universe worlds to realize the effect of interoperability. in the process of combining the meta-universe and red cultural resources, the limitations of time and space will be well solved by the meta-universe time and space, reflecting the time and space advantages of the meta-universe. with the help of artificial intelligence, digital twin and other digital technologies, we map the real scene into the specific scene of the meta-universe, and show the red cultural resources in a brand-new way by creating virtual communities, red history memorials, cultural figures, costumes and so on. the mode of “meta-universe + red cultural resources” is also conducive to enhancing national historical confidence and cultural confidence. on the one hand, there are a lot of valuable spirits in shaanxi red culture, such as yan’an spirit, nanniwan spirit, maban spirit, etc. if these valuable spiritual wealth can be spread and publicized with the help of meta-universe technology, the scope and effect of its dissemination and publicity can be maximized, which is conducive to the inheritance of our excellent culture. on the other hand, the experience and interaction of virtual meta-universe give the experiencer a sense of spiritual belonging and happiness, for which we should actively utilize the meta-universe space technology to develop more and better meta-universe red cultural products by combining with the red culture of the region to ensure that the development of meta-universe always follows the track of the correct values. 3.3 the “virtual cycle” mechanism of shaanxi’s red culture in the metaverse www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. meta-universe “virtual cycle” mechanism through graphic modeling, virtual simulation technology in the virtual space according to the reality of red cultural resources to copy the cultural elements (historical figures, historical materials, scenes online, etc.). combining the network virtual space and the digital twin world through physical principles, the shaanxi red cultural resources are vividly simulated. we integrate the meta-universe digital twin with the virtual reality of red cultural products, the physical reality entity corresponds to the virtual original elements in the meta-universe unit, forming a relatively independent database with the ability to be perceived, edited and melted down, and adding the realistic scenes and scripted elements with the characteristics of the local culture into the meta-universe unit to become the meta-universe red cultural and spiritual products. people can deeply experience history and historical characters in an immersive way. the development of meta-universe technology is closely related to the development of shaanxi’s red cultural resources, and the cultural and bo industry should keep abreast of the times, keep pace with the development, deeply promote the cross-border fusion of “culture + science and technology”, and realize the integration of resources, so as to make the achievements of the development of shaanxi’s red cultural resources better shared by all the people. references liu, g. z. (2021). research on red culture communication in the context of popular culture. news lover, 2021(06), 62-64. zhang, a. j., & zhou, y. (2022). meta-universe and the construction of virtual space community. administrative forum, 29(04), 21-28. zhao, x., qiao, l. l., & ye, y. (2022). a review of meta-universe research and application. journal of information resources management, 12(04), 12-23+45. microsoft word assc-v2n1-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper studying the learning environment of el newcomer students in the schooling process hector rivera1, bizhu he1*, julia lynch1, & sara castro-olivo1 1 educational psychology, texas a&m university, college station, united states * bizhu he, educational psychology, texas a&m university, college station, united states received: february 6, 2020 accepted: february 22, 2020 online published: february 26, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n1p1 abstract in this study, we examined the schooling process of newcomer students in secondary urban schools involving survey research with newcomers and other els (n=268). additionally, we conducted focus groups with students (n=10) and educators (n=12). through qualitative measures, we examined: (a) grade level placement, (b) content area placement, and (c) academic challenges confounded by l1 proficiency, previous academic experiences, and socio-cultural experiences among newcomers. we employed quantitative methods (e.g., descriptive, chi square, factor analysis) to detect group differences in regard to perceptions of the classroom learning environment as a function of time in the united states. in general, the principal component factor analysis yielded ten factors that accounted for 66.8% of the variance. these factors provide insight into key components for the development of effective classroom learning environments in order to serve el newcomers in the schooling process. the implications for teaching and learning practices within the classroom and school learning environments of el newcomers are discussed. keywords newcomers, english learners, secondary schools, learning environment, teaching practices 1. introduction educators across the nation face the challenge of providing equitable educational opportunities to immigrant children entering the schooling process (adelman & taylor, 2015; boyle, 2015; rivera, lynch, li, & obamehinti, 2016). this is because there are multiple factors that may hinder children’s academic development such as the child’s previous academic experience (e.g., limited formal schooling), the families’ migration experience, and the lack of a classroom environment conducive to learning, as well as the lack of protective factors in the school environment to support immigrant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. children academic development (jafffe-walter, 2018; niehaus & adelson, 2014; sibley & brabeck, 2017). the english learner (el) population includes newcomer families and their school-age children. they represent voluntary as well as involuntary immigrants and refugees who are facing tremendous challenges in school settings (short & boyson, 2012). for example, suarez-orozco, gaytan, bang, pakes, o’connor, and rhodes’ (2010) figures from the u.s. census indicate that 31.1% of the foreign-born population who works full-time earned less than $20,000 per year. this socio-economic situation forces many of them to reside in low-cost neighborhoods, which are often dangerous, poverty-stricken, and offer poor living conditions (suárez-orozco et al., 2010). to compound matters, many newcomer and refugee families are coming from war-torn developing countries and running away from organized crime. consequently, many of the school-age children were exposed to the traumas of war and witnessed violence (carlson, cacciatore, & klimek, 2012; nur & hunter, 2009; rivera et al., 2016). aside from living in poor conditions and having difficulties speaking english, urban immigrant students are more likely than suburban students to be exposed to risks associated with less desirable outcomes (lippman, burns, & mcarthur, 1996; jaffe-walter & lee, 2018). for example, these students are more likely to encounter safety and health risks, less likely to have access to regular health care and more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors (lippman et al., 1996). within this diverse population, there are newcomers who thrive academically; however, there is also a significant proportion that struggle academically which can have devastating consequences that may perpetuate a family cycle of poverty (suárez-orozco et al., 2010). the academic struggles of newcomers can have consequences on their educational achievement. for example, research by carhill, suarez-orozco, and paez (2008) indicates that 51% of english language learners in the united states who spoke english with difficulty did not complete high school compared to 31% of students who spoke english without difficulty. furthermore, national longitudinal data indicate that the great majority of the nation’s els are scoring at or below basic levels of academic proficiency (national center for education statistics, 2012). for example, findings from a national assessment of reading comprehension show that only 4% of eighth grade el students scored at or above the reading proficient level (national center for education statistics, 2012). in addition, research by carhill et al. (2008) indicates that these students’ vocabulary levels are often well below average, sometimes with a group average as low as the 20th percentile. such low vocabulary levels are insufficient to support effective reading comprehension and writing, and in turn have a negative impact on their overall academic success (francis, rivera, lesaux, kieffer, & rivera, 2006). thus, el students continue to struggle in greater proportions as they encounter an increase in the demand for numeracy and literacy skills (carhill et al., 2008; francis et al., 2006). a closer examination of their schooling process and perceptions of it can assist in improving the learning environment of english learners, particularly newcomer students who have arrived to the country within the past three years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. the classroom environment of el newcomers plays an important role in their academic success. for instance, research by the national mathematics advisory panel (2008) shows that there are large measurable differences in the effectiveness of content area teachers in generating achievement gains. those classroom environment differences in teachers account for 12% to 14% of total variability in students’ achievement gains during a school year (national mathematics advisory panel, 2008). the panel’s findings also indicate that the effects of teachers on students’ achievement compounds if students receive a series of effective or ineffective classroom teachers during their schooling process (national mathematics advisory panel, 2008). therefore, understanding the ecology of the classroom learning environment is a vital step in the process of identifying factors that contribute, or pose threats to students’ learning and academic success. in the present study, we seek to examine newcomer students’ academic success across secondary schools in an urban setting. the study focuses on several issues related to students’ schooling process such as: (a) students’ perceptions and attitudes towards their classroom learning environments, (b) students’ experiences with grade level and content area placement and (c) students’ perceptions of the classroom environment in regard to second language (l2) teaching and learning processes. other factors examined include (d) individual students’ attributes (e.g., students’ motivation, help-seeking behaviors, differences due to the age of arrival and/or time in the usa), and (e) educators’ perceptions on students’ needs and educators’ needs for professional development. understanding the schooling process of newcomers and other els may also enable us to identify specifically those alterable factors for their learning and academic success as well as assist in the design of preventive measurements and interventions for newcomer students. 2. research framework this study examines the schooling process of el newcomers through a learning environment research framework. learning environment research focuses on indicators and points of leverage that promote students’ success through the development of supportive systems that serve as protective factors for students (benard, 2004; condly, 2006; rivera et al., 2016). theoretically, learning environment is an area of research that has important implications for the educational improvement of el students. empirically, it focuses on examining students who succeed in academic settings despite the presence of adverse conditions (e.g., low ses, single parent, english as a second language) that may place these students at-risk of academic failure (haertel, walberg, & haertel, 1981). 3. review of literature the classroom learning environment has been extensively researched in the past three decades (borman & overman, 2004; downey, 2008; 2008; haertel et al., 1981; masten, herbers, cutuli, & lafavor, morrison, brown, d’incau, o’farrell, & furlong, 2006; nettles, mucherah, & jones, 2000; padron, waxman, & huang, 1999; rivera, lynch, li, & obamehinti, 2016; waxman & huang, 1996; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. waxman, huang, & padron, 1997). several major reviews and research syntheses have concluded that the socio-psychological environment significantly impacts students’ cognitive and affective outcomes (haertel et al., 1981). from a theoretical perspective, learning environment research emphasizes the student-mediating or student-cognition paradigm, which maintains that the way in which students perceive and react to their learning environment is more important in terms of influencing students’ academic outcomes (knight & waxman, 1991). in other words, this paradigm assumes that better understanding and the improvement of teaching and learning practices can emerge by examining the ways that instructional activities and the learning environment are viewed or interpreted by the students themselves (chavez, 1984; fraser, 1990). given the growing number of el students, it is essential to understand and serve this population effectively (carhill et al., 2008). for example, there are newcomers with unique needs such as those who enroll in the u.s. schools at the middle and high school levels. these students come with limited english proficiency and sometimes with limited formal schooling. these students are an especially diverse group of learners. as they enter the school environment, they differ on key factors related to academic achievement, including: (a) amount and degree of formal schooling, (b) level of literacy in their native language, and (c) age of arrival in the u.s. schools (carhill et al., 2008; francis et al., 2006; genesee, lindholm-leary, saunders & christian, 2006). english learners also face cultural and linguistic challenges that confound their learning experiences and academic outcomes. the challenges faced by newcomer students point to the linguistic, socio-cultural, and pedagogical issues that need to be addressed as points of leverage for their academic success. 4. learning the new language in socio-cultural context research indicates that for those el newcomers who are literate in their first language, with exposure to academic instruction in their country of origin, much of their native language reading skills can be applied to their reading in the second language (e.g., english) (carhill et al., 2008; cummins, 1979; short & boyson, 2012). however, there are several factors that affect this process of applying (or transferring) the literacy skills from the first language (l1) into a second language (l2). these include the individual’s reading proficiency in their first language as well as the degree of overlap between the oral and written characteristics of the second language (i.e., english) to the el newcomers’ native language (francis et al., 2006). some of the similarities between languages that affect this process of learning to read in a second language include: (a) the conventions for writing (e.g., both languages are alphabetic, writing progresses from left to right in both languages and languages share orthographic elements), (b) commonalities in the sounds of the two languages and in the orthographic conventions for representing similar and different sounds, and (c) the degree of overlap between languages in semantic elements or cognates (francis et al., 2006). for example, in the case of languages such as chinese mandarin and persian farsi that are dissimilar from english, the challenges may be in areas including orthographic conventions, writing processes as well as phonology to name a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. few (francis et al., 2006). research also shows that el newcomers who arrive in the middle and high school years encounter less support for language learning in the school environment; they have more complex academic content to learn in the new language (english); and they have less time to catch up to their native-speaking peers before they encounter gate-keeping assessments that have serious consequences for their future (carhill et al., 2008). this means that while simultaneously developing basic conversational abilities and basic reading skills, these students must quickly begin to develop oral and written academic language skills for their success in content-area subjects (carhill et al., 2008; short & fitzsimmons, 2007). in classroom settings, this translates into challenges in the vertical and horizontal alignment of curriculum in order to meet the needs of el newcomers. meeting the needs of newcomer students will require concerted and thoughtful efforts (e.g., differentiated instruction, scaffolding, modeling, contextualization, and instructional dialogue) that account for multiple effective classroom strategies as well as for interconnected efforts across classrooms and grade levels as students continue to progress in their schooling. this is important as we consider the demarcated differences between the socio-cultural experience of refugee students, children crossing the border (involuntary immigrants) and voluntary immigrants. these experiences may affect how they perceive and react (e.g., socio-emotionally) to the classroom learning environment (ogbu & simons, 1998; rivera et al., 2016). 5. pedagogical points of leverage for the classroom learning environment foundational research (ovando & combs, 2018; short & boyson, 2012; dalton, 2007; benard, 2004; tharp & gallimore, 1988; gonzalez et al., 1993) indicates that there are social and intellectual resources that can be mobilized to begin the process of enhancing teaching and learning in the classroom setting. students’ previous knowledge, first language, and socio-cultural practices are experiences that can serve as a bridge to new practices in order to build new academic competencies. educational practices are effective when students’ ways of knowing, talking, valuing and interacting are taken as the basis for patterning classroom activity when building new academic knowledge (dalton, 2007; tharp & gallimore, 1988). pedagogical points of leverage include those factors that can enhance students’ academic skills, e.g., contextual ways of teaching, responsive assistance to students’ performance, and modeling content as well as supporting their overall socio-emotional development (e.g., sense of belonging). instruction must be connected to students’ lives and developing newcomer students’ sense of belonging in the classroom through joint productive activities (rivera et al., 2016; rogoff, 1991; tharp, estrada, dalton, & yamauchi, 2000; tharp & gallimore, 1988). in settings outside the classroom, even the youngest children, as well as mature adult learners, develop their competencies in the context of joint productive activity (moll, 1990; rogoff, 1991; tharp et al., 2000; tharp & gallimore, 1988). whether it is mother and child cooking together, or experts and novices producing together, shared ways of understanding the world are created through the development of language systems and word meanings that are used www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. during joint productive activities in the learning environment (rogoff, 1991; tharp & gallimore, 1988). language, thinking, values, and culture have deep interconnections; dialogue, particularly during joint productive activity, supports students’ academic achievement and affective development (au, 1980; cazden, 1986; tharp, 1997; vygotsky, 1978). likewise, newcomer students need authentic and purposeful opportunities to speak and write, to practice language use, and to receive the natural feedback of conversation from their teachers and peers. for example, oral and written language development can be fostered by restating, modeling, offering alternative phrasing, and questioning (rivera, galarza, entz, & tharp, 2002; tharp & gallimore, 1988). through collaborative practices in the classroom, newcomer students can also develop the social skills and inter-group relations essential to academic success (ovando & combs, 2018). collaborative activities influence students by: (a) providing opportunities for students to communicate with each other; (b) developing social, academic, and communication skills; (c) decreasing anxiety and boosting self-confidence and self-esteem through individual contributions and achievement of group goals; (d) improving individual and group relations by learning to clarify, assist, and challenge others’ ideas; (e) developing proficiency in english by providing students with rich language experiences that integrate speaking, listening, reading, and writing (christian, 1995; rivera & zehler, 1991); and (f) providing skills that are necessary to function in real-life situations, such as the utilization of context for meaning, the seeking of support from others, and the comparing of nonverbal and verbal cues. instructional models that integrate these teaching strategies offer positive academic, social and developmental outcomes for all children, including els (francis et al., 2006; masten et al., 2008; morrison et al., 2006). in the present study, we examine urban middle school and high school students’ attitudes and perceptions toward their classroom learning environment as well as their perceptions on what works regarding effective teaching and learning practices. moreover, it examines key differing characteristics in the schooling process of newcomer in contrast to other el students and provides potential points of leverage for students’ academic success. 6. method 6.1 research questions the research was guided by three questions. they represent the guiding themes used in this line of inquiry. they include: 1) what are the schooling processes and academic experiences of newcomer students and other els at the secondary level? 2) what are the students’ attitudes and perceptions of the classroom learning environment as it relates to their teaching and learning? 3) what guidance can this research provide for the professional development and training of educators in order to meet the needs of el newcomer students in the schooling process? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. 6.2 participants and settings survey participants included 268 newcomers and other el students from one urban middle school and one urban high school in texas. the newcomer classification was operational zed using the current definition in the literature of those students (e.g., immigrant and refugee) who have lived in the country for three years or less. the el general population represents those students with over three years of residence in the country (francis et al., 2006). focus groups were also conducted with a total of twelve educators. one focus group was conducted at the middle school level (n = 6) and it included teachers, school counselors, school principal, and assistant principals. the second group with educator was carried out at the high school level with a similar group of participants (n = 6). the research team also conducted two focus groups with newcomer students; one focus group at the middle school (n = 5) and the other at the high school setting (n = 5). 6.3 instruments the design of the study involved random surveys with el newcomer students. in general, the students’ survey instrument focused on gathering the following information: (a) background of participants such as level of education, years residing in the u.s., grade level achieved in the country of origin, current grade level, (b) participants’ experience in the school/classroom setting, attitude and beliefs about their schooling process, and (c) participants’ learning experiences, and activities related to their schooling such as their previous knowledge and linguistic processes for mastery of content knowledge. the survey contained 58 items and it was administered in either english or spanish. in the case of the focus groups, protocols were developed for teachers and students. each contained approximately ten open-ended questions. in the case of the students’ focus group protocol, the questions were also translated to spanish in order to accommodate the linguistic diversity of participants. 6.4 procedures this study is part of a larger project on teacher professional development. the goal of this five-year project was to provide esl supplemental certification and professional development for middle and high school teachers serving el newcomer students across multiple schools and districts. the survey participants represent a random sample of middle school and high school el students from two schools (middle school and high school). the goal of the focus groups was to acquire a thicker qualitative description of the factors that students and educators felt were importance for the academic development of el newcomer students in the schooling process. students were randomly chosen to participate in the focus groups given a list of classrooms that were providing esl instruction to newcomers; however, in the case of the teachers, the criteria selection was to be the teacher of newcomer students participating in the surveys. two focus groups were carried-out among middle school (n = 5) and high school (n = 5) students; and two focus groups among middle school (n = 6) and high school (n =6) educators, respectively. in the case of the educators, participants were instructed on the procedures for answering the focus group www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. questions according to their roles as counselors, teachers, and principals. all participants in the student focus groups were newcomer students. rooms were secured at the school sites to videotape all focus groups for subsequent transcription and qualitative data analysis. 6.5 results in general, the findings from this study are presented in a mixed method research approach. first, a qualitative descriptive analysis of the focus groups carried-out with students and educators is offered. secondly, a section on the quantitative analysis of the surveys is presented, using descriptive statistics, chi square and factor analysis. 6.6 focus groups with students the results from the students’ focus groups, as shown in figure 1, are revealing at several levels. the findings point to the difficulties students are facing academically in areas such as their previous level of school (e.g., schooled or unschooled newcomers) and age of arrival (e.g., age equivalence, grade placement, or over age). one key finding shows the need for what students called “student orientation” or a “joint approach that includes students, teachers, and counselors in the selection process of their classes”. from the students’ point of view, such activities may assist them at several levels: (a) to understand the schooling process; therefore, decreasing their frustrations with classes and (b) to provide the appropriate grade level placement in order to avoid the sense of failure experienced due to grade level misplacement issues (ex. too high or too low academic content) (see figure 1). figure 1. pattern of responses from focus group sessions carried-out with secondary newcomer students (n=10) in regard to their needs and schooling process www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. 6.7 focus groups with educators the focus groups with middle and high school educators yield some important patterns on the current status for grade placement of el newcomer students (see figure 2). in general, they expressed the need for: (a) teacher professional development (pd) focused on instruction methods for newcomers, including the learning of spanish for educators so they can assist their biggest population of el newcomers (e.g., they need to learn high order vocabulary in spanish in order to assist students in complex activities in english), (b) training on the use of esl strategies so they can provide effective activities in their classrooms, (c) instruments to assess newcomer students in their first language (l1), and (d) a classification system to identify students for appropriate placement (e.g., newcomers, general el population, etc.) (see figure 2). figure 2. educators’ pattern of responses (n=12) from focus group questions in regard to the multiple needs and schooling processes of newcomer students 6.8 findings from the students’ survey the statistical program for the social sciences (spss) was used to examine the survey data. parametric statistics were run to examine descriptive aspects of the student population. furthermore, chi-square and factor analysis procedures were used to examine participants’ differences in learning strategies as well as their consensus on beliefs and perceptions of the classroom learning environment, respectively. 7. descriptive statistics descriptive analysis of the students’ surveys showed a high degree of diversity in the student population. the survey results indicate representation from afghanistan, nepal, korea, somalia, sudan, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. vietnam, mexico and central america (e.g., el salvador, honduras, and guatemala) as well as u.s. born el students. they come from countries that exemplify not only cultural but also linguistic diversity. however, it is important to notice that 51% of the 268 students surveyed come from mexico. this is congruent with research that shows that approximately 70% of the students in the classrooms, in this district, are of mexican descent. the findings from the survey also point to the wide diversity in the newcomer students’ level of schooling at point of arrival into the u.s. from the sample, 14% did not attend school, 10% had an elementary level of schooling, 26% achieved a middle school level of schooling and 50%reached a high school level of schooling. however, in this last category, students clustered at ninth and tenth grade. there were only four students who had reached eleventh and twelfth grade in their respective countries. 7.1 chi-square results chi-square analysis shows the results from the students’ survey items to be statistically significant (see table 1). for this analysis, the el category was dichotomized in order to examine the differences between those students who have been in the country for one month to three years (el newcomers) and those who have been in the country for longer than three years (el general). table 1. chi-square results on students’ perceptions of the classroom learning environment and their language strategy processes for understanding subject matter by classification of groups as newcomers and el general population in secondary school indicators newcomers (n = 179) % el general (n = 89) % chi-square v33. when i start an assignment, i usually finish it even if i need to ask for help. 5.46* yes 81.7 70.1 no 17.7 29.9 v48. my teacher does tell me why i get problems or answers wrong for the work i do in this class. 6.27* yes 87.0 75.9 no 12.4 24.1 v51. i plan to go to college 6.69* yes 84.0 75.3 no 13.7 24.7 v53. what i am learning in this class will help me in my future career. 4.70* yes 97.7 92.0 no 2.3 8.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. v54. i need help figuring out how to succeed in school. 20.0*** yes 87.4 65.9 no 11.5 34.1 v56. i usually translate, in my head, to my first language in order to understand what i need to do in class. 43.2*** yes 93.8 62.9 no 5.7 37.1 v57. many of the things we do in this class i already learned while in school in my country of origin. 7.39* yes 58.3 41.6 no 41.1 58.4 v58. when i cannot do a problem, i usually think about it in my first language and that helps me to figure out how to solve it. 19.7*** yes 90.9 70.8 no 8.5 29.2 * p< .05. *** p< .00. table 1 reports on the chi-square results by student group (i.e., newcomers (n = 179) and el general (n = 89). the findings indicate statistically significant differences between newcomers and el general students on their perceptions of the classroom environment, their attitudes towards education and linguistic challenges they face academically. newcomer students reported having received more assistance and feedback from teachers than the el general population, χ2 (2, n = 262) = 5.46, p <.05. newcomer students also have a positive perspective about schooling and to what education entails for their future, χ2 (2, n= 264) = 6.69, p < .05. in terms of their current academic needs, we also find significant differences between newcomers and el in general, for example, more newcomers expressed the need to figure out how to be successful in school, χ2 (2, n = 262) = 20.00, p <.001. this is in regard to their need to learn how to navigate the educational system; however, they also feel supported by teachers as indicated by other survey items. the academic challenges for newcomers are in the form of linguistic barriers. for example, newcomers expressed that they need to translate into their first language in order to understand what to do in class, χ2 (2, n= 265) = 43.15, p <.001. newcomers also expressed that when they do not know how to solve a problem, they first think about it in their first language (l1) and that helps them to figure it out, χ2 (2, n = 265) = 19.71, p < .001. this linguistic process of using their l1 to figure out academic challenges in l2 is also intertwined with their academic background in their country of origin, as previously discussed in the literature review. for example, significant differences among newcomer and el general population were also found regarding what they perceive to be their educational background knowledge, χ2 (2, n= 264) = 7.39, p <.05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. 7.2 factor analysis results a principal component factor (pcf) analysis was performed to reduce the survey data to meaningful themes that may further inform the teaching and learning of el newcomers and other els in the schooling process. due to the non-orthogonal nature of the survey items, obliging rotation was used, as a method of extraction. the results are shown in table 2. overall, pcf analysis yielded ten factors that accounted for 66.8% of the variance with item loading criteria set at .30 or higher for each factor and item communalities ranging from .57 to .88. the findings revealed three themes under which these factors were organized. theme 1: students’ beliefs and valuesthis included factors (fs) related to (a) students’ self-efficacy (f1, eigenvalue = 3.72), (b) college aspirations (f3, eigenvalue = 2.01), (c) students’ academic strategies (f4, eigenvalue = 1.77), and (d) students’ perseverance (f6, eigenvalue = 1.40). theme 2: teaching and learning—this included factors (fs) related to (a) teacher responsiveness (f5, eigenvalue = 1.46), (b) teacher instructional practices (f2, 2.36), and (c) teacher feedback (f10, eigenvalue = 1.05). theme 3: the classroom learning environmentthis theme included factors (fs) related to (a) students’ participation and/or inclusiveness (f7, eigenvalue 1.26), (b) perception of fair classroom practices (f8, eigenvalue = 1.23), and (c) perceived challenges in context (f9, eigenvalue = 1.11). table 2. principal component factor analysis of newcomers and el general population with oblimin rotation (n = 268) eigen values factor loadings communality factor 1: student self-efficacy 3.715 (14.289%) 30. i am one of the best students in this class. .792 .649 28. i am very good in the subject i am studying in this class. .727 .628 29. most students in this class do better than me. -.636 .547 32. i am one of the poorest performing students in this class. -.420 .560 factor 2: teacher instructional practices 2.360 (9.078%) 44. my teacher helps me when i have trouble with my work. .820 .744 48. my teacher does tell me why i get problems or answers wrong for the work i do in this class. .672 .581 46. my teacher lets me know when my work is good. .623 .653 factor 3: college aspirations 2.010 (7.731%) 51. i plan to go to college. .934 .878 52. i plan to finish college. .930 .857 factor 4: students’ academic strategies 1.769 (6.803%) 58. when i cannot do a problem, i usually think about it in my first language and that helps me to figure out how to solve it. -.846 .748 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. 56. i usually translate, in my head, to my first -.778 .726 54. i need help in figuring out how to succeed in school. -.471 .559 factor 5: teacher responsiveness 1.459 (5.613%) 45. my teacher carefully checks all my work. .834 .744 49. i think i have what it takes to succeed in school. .632 .629 factor 6: students’ perseverance 1.400 (5.383%) 35. when i do my work in this class, i am usually careful to make sure i do it right. .760 .728 38. i expect to do well in this class since i know how to do most of the work and when i have questions i ask for help. .732 .654 36. when i have hard work in this class, i usually keep trying to finish it even if it takes more time. .480 .606 factor 7: participation in classroom environment 1.255 (4.825%) 39. i am treated the same as other students in this class. .725 .574 41. my teacher calls on me as much as other students. .586 .651 34. when i do well in this class, it is because i work hard. .554 .588 factor 8: perception of fair classroom practices 1.228 (4.725%) 42. i get the same chance to answer questions in class as other students. .748 .659 31. i do my work as well as other students in this class. .558 .619 factor 9: perceived challenges on content 1.108 (4.262%) 37. sometimes i am lucky to do well in this class given the difficulty of the subject. .850 .773 57. many of the things we do in this class i already learned while in school in my country of origin. .450 .696 factor 10: teacher feedback 1.054 (4.054%) 47. my teacher always tells me how i am doing in class. -.795 .730 50. i plan to finish high school. .501 .580 total variance accounted for by extracted factors 66.764% 8. discussion the findings are discussed considering the three research questions. first, we sought to understand the schooling process and academic experience of newcomers and other els at the secondary level. this line of inquiry revealed that students felt disconnected from their schooling process. on the other hand, they wish to be more involved in the decision making (ex. sense of agency) regarding their academic placement. this seems to suggest that a newcomer program that implements activities that foster initiative and choice might serve to empower newcomers by creating a sense of ownership and socio-emotional development in school. these are important aspects to consider as the role of educators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. is to develop self-regulated learners. however, self-regulation is a learned skill, and as these students come into a new environment, they need assistance in order to make positive adjustments (ex. cognitive modeling, problem solving, etc.). the findings also indicate that students come into the schooling process with great aspirations (e.g., wanting to become doctors, businesspeople, and architects). however, somewhere along the way, they disengage from the schooling process and from these types of aspirations. this disengagement places them at risk of academic failure. however, their answers reveal that these are solvable problems. future programmatic efforts need to be focused on helping them understand the importance and meaningfulness of school (ex. connecting the known with the unknown). as educators, we also know that meaningful discourse builds on previous knowledge. therefore, students’ involvement and engagement in the process, as expressed by them and with the guidance of educators, is vital. furthermore, the educators’ focus groups also addressed the need for differentiated instructional practices and differentiated teacher professional development. this is because in the same way that students need differentiated teaching and learning practices, due to their diverse socio-cultural backgrounds; likewise, teachers also require differentiated professional development that accounts for their diverse needs for effective teaching in the classroom (e.g., linguistic, cultural, teaching strategies, etc.). the findings also revealed some overlapping concerns by educators, such as students lacking in reading skills and academic english. however, the urgency for action by school and district administrators was differently accentuated by middle and high school educators. this needs to be understood in the context of the time that is available for these students to perform and grow academically. it may be that at middle school there is a lesser sense of urgency in comparison to the high school level. for example, high school newcomer students only have a maximum of 4 years (if they enter at 9th grade) to master english and master content as well as to meet graduation requirements and be college ready. secondly, the students’ attitudes and perceptions of the classroom environment, as it relates to their learning, revealed that there are demarcated differences and academic needs between newcomers (less than three years in school) and other els who have been in the schooling process for longer than three years. this variability of schooling experiences is an important issue to consider for grade placement as well as for effective teaching and learning practices to be used with el newcomer students. therefore, future teacher trainings should include second language acquisition models and linguistic methods that combine esl and bilingual teaching practices. they are learning a second language; therefore, esl strategies are needed, but they also speak another language and have grown in other cultural settings. therefore, bilingual strategies will serve to connect their knowledge and skills in l1 to new knowledge and skills in l2 (ovando & combs, 2018). students need to incorporate all new knowledge into their previous repertoire of skills and knowledge, regardless of how wide or narrow their schooling experience may have been in their country of origin. this means that even those students who have no formal schooling also have a repertoire of knowledge and skills that can be used as a bridge to higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. meta-cognitive development such as critical thinking. as educators, we understand that teaching is assisting students’ performance at the zone of proximal development (tharp & gallimore, 1988; vygotsky, 1978) and those means of assistance will require differentiated instructional practices in the classroom (tharp & gallimore, 1988). this also speaks of the importance of having proper instrumentationto assess students who have a wide range of schooling experiences and a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. in reference to proper instrumentation, as educators, our goal is to assess in order to assist (tharp & gallimore, 1988). the survey findings also point to differences in relation to how students perceive the classroom learning environment and their language processes for understanding subject matter as a function of their status as either newcomers or el general students. the findings suggest that el newcomers are using cognitive strategies in their first language (l1) in order to incorporate l1 into the every-day academic activities. connecting teaching to students’ language and experiences may facilitate academic success. these findings on the status of students’ use of l1 in the classroom also point to the need for teacher professional development on key linguistic instructional practices relevant to language acquisition processes. this finding demystifies the notion that if educators simply immerse newcomer students in english, they can soon catch up to their english-speaking counterparts in a swim or sink approach. the cognitive demands placed on newcomer students are greater as they face multiple factors including linguistic challenges, level of academic proficiency, and navigating the school educational system. this is also further compounded due to their previous academic background, migration experience (e.g., voluntary or involuntary migration), living in poor urban environments, and other socio-cultural factors. thirdly, the study also provides guidance regarding the professional development and training for educators working with el newcomers. the factor analysis examined the underlying characteristics under which all survey participants agree. theme 1 (students’ beliefs and values) revealed that students are motivated to learn, and they are also aware of their academic needs. furthermore, they aspire to go to college, but they also need assistance in figuring out how to succeed in school. they also have a positive attitude towards achievement, and they believe that if they work hard, they will succeed. this sense of industry needs to be supported in the learning environment. theme 2 (teaching and learning) revealed good teaching and learning practices that students see as helpful for them in the classroom environment. they perceive teacher’s responsiveness and instructional dialogues as effective practices. furthermore, this theme connects with their view on a supportive learning environment. under theme 3 (the classroom learning environment), the results from factor analysis provide guidance on classroom practices in order to engage students through effective teaching and learning practices (e.g., differentiated instruction, targeted instruction, etc.) (lin, 2015; ovando & combs, 2018) as well as effective teaching strategies that may also serves to develop students’ sense of belonging through participation, inclusiveness and challenging activities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 1, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. 8.1 limitation of the study there are several limitations to the finding of this study. first, the sample size for the surveys and the number of focus groups is small. also, due to the nature of our approach for data collection within two schools, there is no representation from other districts. therefore, the findings need to be interpreted with caution regarding their limitation for generalizability. 9. conclusion el newcomer students experience a variety of difficulties in their schooling process. these difficulties involve learning processes and interactions that affect students’ placement across grade levels and content areas as a function of their limited english proficiency, schooling experience, and socio-cultural background, to name a few. in urban settings, successful school/classroom programs are those seeking to establish (and capitalize) on the importance of newcomer students’ cultural and linguistic diversity. programs of instruction that are sensitive to cultural and linguistic diversity develop students’ academic skills as they interconnect domains 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(1997). motivation and learning environment differences between. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 58 original paper a study on the tripartite logic of ai empowerment in cultural industry development theory practice and field hongjing he1 & longying li2 1wuyi university, jiangmen, guangdong province, 529000, china 2wuyi university, jiangmen, guangdong province, 529000, china received: april 21, 2025 accepted: may 28, 2025 online published: june 06, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p58 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p58 abstract this paper grounded in the marxist theory of the dialectical relationship between productive forces, production relations, and superstructure, systematically constructs a three-dimensional logical framework for the development of the cultural industry driven by artificial intelligence. the theoretical dimension elucidates the causal chain where intelligent technology restructures the cultural productive forces, innovates production relations, and fosters new paradigms in the superstructure. the practical dimension analyzes the "technology-culture-business" integration of new business models formed through the synergy of technological logic, data intelligence, and intelligent ecosystems. the field dimension focuses on three key areas: innovation and creation, heritage preservation, and international dissemination, proposing mechanisms for collaboration among government, enterprises, and society, as well as pathways for optimizing the value ecosystem. the study finds that artificial intelligence is driving the cultural industry to transition from an efficiency tool to a paradigm revolution, but it warns against the risks of algorithmic dominance and cultural alienation. it recommends building a "self-evolving" ecosystem of human-machine collaboration, achieving sustainable development through the dialectical unity of technological empowerment and cultural innovation. keywords artificial intelligence, cultural industry, theoretical logic, practical logic, field logic 1. introduction the cultural industry encompasses the production, distribution, and consumption of cultural products, forming a core component of the superstructure. this sector exhibits diverse development trends across different countries, primarily due to differences in economic conditions, economic systems, ideologies, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 59 and the uneven development of information technologies like artificial intelligence. according to marxist theory, which posits that “productive forces determine production relations”, cultural productive forces play a decisive role in shaping cultural production relations and the economic foundation. conversely, the cultural economic foundation influences the cultural superstructure. based on this principle, artificial intelligence, as a key technology in the cultural productive forces domain, has profoundly impacted the interactions among cultural productive forces, cultural production relations, and the cultural superstructure in the new era, thereby establishing the theoretical foundation for the empowerment of the cultural industry by artificial intelligence. 1.1 the elements of cultural productivity are reshaped cultural productivity refers to the ability of cultural industry workers to create cultural products using production tools. in the new era, the development of artificial intelligence has advanced cultural productivity through intelligent creation, content generation, and process optimization, impacting four key areas: workers, materials, objects, and audiences. first, the transformation of workers into human-machine collaborative entities. in traditional cultural production, professionals dominated, with a limited number of producers and a lack of intelligent tools. in the age of artificial intelligence, workers are gradually transforming into "human-machine collaborative entities." they leverage advanced generative ai tools to deeply integrate creative generation and aesthetic judgment, thus developing a new type of composite digital cultural labor capability. for example, in the industrialized process of film and television, ai image generation systems have been integrated into script visualization, storyboard previews, and other creative stages. according to the 2023 annual report of the china film association, leading film and television companies have adopted ai technology at a rate of 79.6%, making it a standard practice in the industry. second, the evolution of labor tools: the enhancement of intelligent infrastructure systems. in traditional cultural production, labor tools primarily relied on physical media like paper and pens or software platforms. with the advent of the ai era, these tools have been upgraded to intelligent systems such as algorithm engines and big data analysis, which are now widely used. for example, the "ancient south china sea digital library" uses human-computer interaction technology to transform user behavior and digital library information into relevant knowledge, achieving natural, flexible, and intelligent interactions between humans and machines. secondly, the object of labor: the value release of data elements. in traditional culture, the objects of labor were primarily text and images, presented in a static format. however, in the age of artificial intelligence, these objects have expanded to include virtual forms such as “ai hosts”, digital twins, and user behavior data profiles, leading to the emergence of intelligent virtual cultural configurations like “metaverse” culture. for example, digital immersive smart scenes provide a wide range of media channels, enabling intangible cultural heritage to be reinterpreted in “virtual-reality” settings. finally, the audience: the transformation of precise dissemination mechanisms. the audience for traditional cultural products is highly diverse and distinct from the producers. social platforms like www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 “tiktok” use algorithmic recommendation technology to create personalized cultural consumption profiles for each user. moreover, on ai platforms, users have evolved from passive recipients to active creators and participants in the creation of cultural content, blurring the lines between producers and consumers. 1.2 reconstruction of cultural production relations the rapid development and wide application of artificial intelligence promote the formation of new cultural production organization mode, and lead to the reconstruction of ownership relations, collaboration relationship between creative subjects and achievement distribution mechanism in the cultural industry. first, the all-weight structure of the cultural industry. the control over production materials in traditional cultural industries emphasizes tangible physical carriers. however, in the age of artificial intelligence, this control is increasingly shifting towards data resources and ai systems. the mastery of algorithm models and computing power is becoming the core of new production material control. a few tech giants have established a new cultural technology hegemony by monopolizing ai training data and algorithm patents, replacing the traditional model where capital monopolizes production tools. second, the restructuring of labor relations in the cultural industry. traditionally, cultural production has been dominated by standardized graphic and text creation by workers, but in the age of ai, these tasks are increasingly being taken over by ai. workers are now engaging in higher-level cognitive activities such as “creative planning” and “value judgment”, and are participating in a collaborative cultural production model centered around “prompt engineers + algorithm models”. however, the loss of cultural jobs due to ai has exacerbated social inequality, leading to an imbalance in power and interests within society. secondly, the distribution mechanism of the cultural industry is being restructured. traditionally, the value of cultural products was primarily determined by human labor time, but in the age of artificial intelligence, this has shifted towards algorithmic efficiency. the traffic distribution mechanism is gradually reshaping the revenue distribution of cultural products. for example, the line between the creation and recreation of cultural products is becoming increasingly blurred, and the traditional copyright framework faces challenges in measuring the contribution of algorithms. issues such as data copyright and ai work copyright ownership are continuously sparking controversy. 1.3 cultural superstructure recast the superstructure of culture is an ideological system and its institutionalized expression form built on a certain economic foundation. the development of cultural productive forces and cultural relations in the new era and the prominence of their contradictions promote the innovation of cultural superstructure in cultural products and cultural concepts. on one hand, cultural product innovation. not only are the creation of cultural products in fields such as novels, poetry, painting, and music increasingly relying on ai tools but their dissemination and value are also increasingly dependent on ai platforms, leading to the phenomenon of "cultural ipization" [10]. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 61 the evaluation system for public figures such as renowned writers, poets, musicians, painters, and athletes is gradually shifting from traditional elite literary criticism to a balance between traffic value and algorithmic recommendations. for example, the rapid spread of “luo sha hai shi” has created a miracle in the history of chinese music in the new era dao lang’s resurgence is largely due to the support of internet platforms and their algorithmic recommendations. on the other hand, cultural concepts are innovating. social media users focus on major national events and promote the core socialist values of prosperity, democracy, civilization, and harmony. they also address social issues and advocate for the core socialist values of freedom, equality, justice, and the rule of law. additionally, they reflect personal feelings and promote values such as patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendliness, while firmly opposing any concepts, practices, or phenomena that violate these values at the national, social, or individual levels. 2. the practical logic of artificial intelligence enabling the development of cultural industry the deep integration of technology and culture, driven by artificial intelligence (ai), is revolutionizing the cultural industry, leading to revolutionary changes in its form, mode, and ecosystem, thus giving rise to new cultural industries. in the digital age, the core of these new cultural industries lies in using ai, big data, cloud computing, and other advanced information technologies to reshape the entire chain of cultural production, dissemination, and consumption. the empowerment of the cultural industry by ai is not merely a simple replacement of tools; it involves a two-way interaction between technological and industrial logic, fostering new cultural forms, business models, and industrial ecosystems, resulting in a new state of integration and development among technology, culture, and commerce. 2.1 the reconstruction of technological logic and cultural production form: from the tool revolution to the paradigm shift the empowerment of artificial intelligence in cultural production has transcended the role of merely an “efficiency enhancement tool”. it has introduced a new production model centered on “human-machine collaborative creation”. this transformation fundamentally involves the integration and reconfiguration of technological logic throughout the entire cultural production process, specifically through the systematic reshaping of creators, tools, and their relationships. first, the creation subject: from professional monopoly to mass co-creation. the widespread adoption of generative ai technology has dismantled the traditional binary structure of “creator-audience”. for instance, 72% of midjourney's users are ordinary individuals without a background in fine arts, yet they generate over 20 million images daily, far exceeding the annual output of professional designers globally. this' creative equality 'phenomenon marks a significant shift in cultural production rights from the elite to the masses. the ai writing assistant launched by china's online literature platform tomato novels, by analyzing a corpus of 1 billion characters, provides users with a creation framework that includes character relationships and plot conflicts, increasing the first-work signing rate for amateur writers from 3% to 18%, thus fostering a "mass writing" ecosystem. this transformation not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 only reshapes the structure of production subjects but also profoundly alters the value evaluation system of cultural content, with traditional "professional authority certification" gradually being replaced by a "user data verification" mechanism. secondly, in terms of creative tools: from physical media to digital intelligence. ai technology has transformed cultural production tools from physical media to digital intelligence systems. in the film and television industry, disney’s ai virtual production system “has upgraded traditional green screen shooting to real-time engine rendering, allowing directors to directly schedule shots in virtual scenes using vr devices. for instance, the mandalorian 'used this technology to reduce the production cycle of a single episode by 40% and cut costs by 35 million us dollars. this data, when compared with other industry measurements, highlights the significant advantages of virtual production technology in scene construction efficiency, cost control, and collaboration convenience compared to traditional methods. in the music industry, ai composition platforms like amper music use deep learning to analyze databases of masterpieces by bach, beethoven, and other composers, generating music segments that match specific moods and styles. spotify data shows that ai-generated music now makes up 17% of the platform's new library. the intelligence of these tools not only significantly boosts production efficiency but also opens up new aesthetic realms that are hard for humans to achieve: for example, google's deepdream algorithm, which creates psychedelic art images through feature visualization, has been adopted as a digital art collection by the museum of modern art (moma) in new york. the third aspect is the creation relationship: from linear collaboration to a distributed network. the integration of blockchain and ai is reshaping the organizational methods of cultural production. the decentraland virtual platform, which has gathered creators from 142 countries, uses smart contracts to ensure the ownership of digital assets. among the 38,000 virtual buildings co-created by users, 23% are modularly constructed using ai collaborative tools. this crowdsourcing model is 4.2 times more efficient than traditional centralized teams. this distributed creation relationship taps into the potential of a "global creative resource pool": african digital artists use ai translation tools to incorporate local totem elements into nft works, leading to a 580% year-on-year increase in trading volume on the opensea platform, creating a new path for cultural export under the principle of "technological equality." 2.2 data intelligence reshapes the mode of cultural consumption: from channel hegemony to scene wisdom driven by digital intelligence technology, the communication mechanism has experienced three stages of evolution: "mass communication-precise push-scene adaptation", forming a new communication ecology with data as fuel, algorithm as engine and scene as carrier. first, the restructuring of power dynamics: the paradox of algorithm-led democratization. tiktok's recommendation algorithm processes over 10 billion video distribution decisions daily, using a complex multi-layer neural network model and 72 user interest tags to achieve efficient personalized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 63 content matching, with a content matching error rate of less than 0.3%. this' algorithmic dominance "appears to democratize cultural dissemination (the proportion of video exposure for ordinary creators increased from 32% in 2019 to 67% in 2023), but it actually constructs a new power structure: the platform controls the fate of content through a" traffic black box "mechanism, leading to" dominance by favoritism 'as the survival rule for creators. the' guofeng revival plan "case on b station shows that algorithm-weighted recommendations of traditional cultural content have helped the average monthly growth rate of up owners" followers soar by 210%; however, over-reliance on algorithms has also led to a significant issue of content homogenization, with 38% of users reporting highly similar recommended content. secondly, the elevation of communication scenarios: from information transmission to immersive experiences. spatial computing technology is leading cultural dissemination beyond the screen, ushering in a new era of scene-based intelligence. the palace museum has developed an 'ar time travel' system that uses lbs positioning and computer vision technology. when visitors stand in front of the hall of supreme harmony, ai automatically triggers 3d architectural deconstruction animations and holographic reconstructions of historical events, extending the visit duration from 27 minutes to 52 minutes. the ai virtual curator "qihang" at the shanghai astronomical museum not only provides knowledge but also uses an emotional computing engine to recognize visitors' emotions, switching to a cartoon narrative mode for children. this scene-based communication model has increased user interaction by 320%. finally, the redefinition of communication value: from a traffic economy to an emotional economy. the rise of virtual idols marks a fundamental shift in the evaluation system of communication value. a-soul, a virtual girl group under lehuo entertainment, uses multi-modal motion capture and real-time rendering technology to achieve over 200 micro-expressions per live stream, with fans spending 1.8 times more on average than they would on physical idols. the key to its success lies in building a "hyper-real emotional connection": the ai system analyzes 50 million fan comments, continuously refining the interaction model, which results in 64% of fans developing a strong emotional attachment despite knowing their idol's virtual nature. this transformation from a' battlefield of attention "to an" emotional value oasis' signals that cultural communication has entered a new era in the realm of the mind. 2.3 intelligent ecology gives birth to cultural industry ecology: from industrial upgrading to paradigm renewal the deep integration of artificial intelligence and cultural industry has given birth to a new state of "technology-culture-business" trinity, which is reflected not only in the innovation of business model, but also in the reconstruction of the entire industrial ecology. first, the evolution of business models: from product sales to ecosystem operations. artificial intelligence is driving the cultural industry to transition from a "product economy" to an "experience economy." for instance, shanghai disneyland has implemented an aiot system to create a smart park, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 64 using real-time data analysis to optimize visitor flow and significantly reduce queue times for individual attractions. according to the latest data, average queue times have been reduced by 40%. coursera, an online education platform, has significantly increased its course completion rate by integrating ai-driven tools, from 13% to 45%. this data-driven innovation in business models is reshaping how cultural products are valued. the dynamic pricing mechanism is redefining the value system of cultural products. live nation's ai-based concert pricing system monitors 32 indicators, including social media buzz and hotel bookings, to dynamically adjust ticket prices hourly. this strategy has maintained an occupancy rate of over 95%, resulting in a 23% increase in revenue compared to the traditional fixed-price model. the rise of digital collectibles (nfts) has opened new avenues for the operation of cultural assets. the dunhuang academy's ai-generated nft of flying apsaras, leveraging blockchain technology, has achieved personalized collections for each individual, with a secondary market premium rate of 570%, forming a closed-loop ecosystem of "digital assets-community operations-derivative development." third, the blurring of industry boundaries: from vertical specialization to cross-sector integration. cultural products are evolving with "digitalization, intelligence, and personalization." netease cloud music's ai recommendation algorithm has introduced a' daily recommendation "feature, increasing user dwell time by 50%. the rise of metaverse technology is driving the deep integration and coordinated development of the cultural industry and the real economy. tencent has developed a' digital twin cultural tourism system 'for zhangjiajie scenic area, using ai to generate virtual landscapes driven by real-time weather and crowd data, which increases the arpu (average revenue per user) of online visitors to 1.5 times that of offline visitors. this fusion of the virtual and the real not only expands industry boundaries but also creates new value exchange models: nft souvenirs purchased by users in virtual scenic areas can be exchanged for physical goods offline, forming a cross-scene conversion chain of' traffic, data, and consumption.' third, the transformation of cultural governance: from administrative supervision to intelligent co-governance. ai technology is reshaping the paradigm of cultural governance. the "ai content review system" deployed by the china network audio-visual program service association uses multi-modal recognition technology to process over 80 million video contents daily, increasing the detection rate of non-compliant content from 92% to 99.7% through automated review. more significantly, large language models are being used for cultural policy simulation. hangzhou city has utilized big data and ai technologies, such as gpt-4, to analyze over 100,000 pieces of data on citizens "cultural needs, resulting in the automatic generation of innovative policy proposals, including the" 24-hour ai library "and the" digital opera inheritance plan. "these proposals precisely meet citizens" cultural consumption needs, promoting the diversification of cultural consumption and the development of smart services, thereby increasing public service satisfaction by 28 percentage points. the process of artificial intelligence empowering the cultural industry is fundamentally a historical process where technological rationality and humanistic spirit are mutually shaped. on one hand, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 65 algorithmic dominance can lead to a decline in cultural diversity. for example, recommendation systems may overly focus on top-tier content, leading to the neglect of long-tail content, which can increase the concentration of top-tier content by 41%. however, ai tools and recommendation systems also offer niche cultures the potential to break out of their niche. for instance, b station's traditional chinese style content has seen a 380% increase in exposure through algorithmic weighting. this contradiction highlights the evolutionary characteristics of new cultural industries: they are not about replacing one thing with another but creating new forms of civilization through ongoing human-machine interaction, data feedback, and ecological adaptation in a dynamic equilibrium. the future competition in the cultural industry will focus on building an ecosystem with' self-evolutionary capabilities' —— one that can absorb the energy of technological revolutions and align its development direction with human values. this may be the greatest challenge of the digital intelligence era for the cultural industry: to compose a new chapter of human civilization in the symphony of bits and souls. 3. the field logic of artificial intelligence enabling the development of cultural industry the principle of "the interaction between the generation relationship and the productive forces" in marxism highlights the contradictions and conflicts between cultural productive forces, cultural production relations, and the cultural superstructure, as well as the conflicts of interests and values among different social entities. this principle guides the development of cultural productive forces, promoting dynamic adjustments and innovative coordination in the cultural superstructure and production relations. in terms of the interaction between the generation relationship and the productive forces, the logic behind ai empowering the cultural industry's development lies in promoting the development of cultural productive forces, optimizing cultural production relations, and achieving innovation and adherence in the cultural superstructure. more specifically, this involves focusing on key areas such as cultural innovation and creation, the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, and international cultural influence, to achieve ai-empowered innovation, collaborative efforts among multiple entities, and the optimization of the value ecosystem in the cultural industry's development. 3.1 ai-enabled innovation in three major fields from the perspective of the field logic of cultural productivity development, ai technology improves the national cultural production, circulation and consumption capacity, and profoundly shapes the new era cultural power style in terms of cultural innovation, cultural heritage protection and inheritance, and international cultural influence. first, to enhance the capacity for cultural innovation and creativity. ai technology empowers artistic creation, aids in cultural and creative innovation, promotes the development of the cultural industry, and boosts the nation's cultural innovation and creativity. firstly, in artistic creation, tools like' ai + poetry, '' ai + novels, 'and' ai + music' have significantly improved the efficiency of artistic innovation and creation. secondly, in cultural and creative innovation, traditional views held that artificial intelligence (ai) struggles to generate unique ideas, but generative ai (genai) has overturned this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 66 notion. multi-modal model generation technology can produce culturally rich content with strong logic and coherence. lastly, in the cultural industry, ai technology, through its ability to intelligently analyze and predict market demand, helps cultural enterprises accurately target the market, efficiently develop products, and implement precise marketing strategies. second, enhance the capacity for protecting and inheriting cultural heritage. ai technology empowers the digitalization of cultural heritage, the organization of cultural resources, and the education of cultural heritage, ensuring that the work of protecting and inheriting chinese culture keeps pace with the times. firstly, in the digitalization of cultural heritage, ai tools like image recognition and 3d reconstruction enable the digital processing and automatic classification of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage, ensuring their permanent preservation and inheritance. secondly, in the organization of cultural resources, image recognition and algorithm tools assist in organizing, analyzing, and identifying various types of cultural heritage. for example, ai algorithm training has improved the accuracy of oracle bone script detection and recognition to 95%, significantly enhancing the ability to organize and analyze oracle bone script materials. lastly, in the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, virtual tour guides, interactive games, and virtual teachers help a wider audience understand, appreciate, protect, and inherit cultural heritage. the third point is to enhance international cultural influence. through the empowerment of artificial intelligence technology, the creation and global dissemination of cultural ips have been significantly boosted, thereby enhancing international cultural influence. on one hand, in the creation of cultural ips, it helps to build national cultural symbols and boost the country's cultural soft power. notable cultural ips such as' black myth: wukong, '' kaguya three kingdoms, 'and' falling from heaven "span multiple vertical fields including games, films, tv series, animation, and card games, fully demonstrating the powerful empowerment and catalytic effect of ai technology in the cultural domain. on the other hand, in terms of the influence of chinese culture, general ai platforms like deepseek, social platforms like tiktok, and cultural ips like" nezha 2 "have demonstrated strong international cultural influence. the' going out "of chinese culture is characterized by content" china-fashion-ization,' diversified subjects, and extended ecosystems, driving the continuous enhancement of the international influence and appeal of chinese culture. 3.2 collaboration among multiple actors in three major fields from the perspective of field logic of optimizing cultural production relations, artificial intelligence enables the practice of building a strong cultural country by promoting the synergistic effect of multiple subjects in specific fields such as cultural innovation, heritage protection and global communication through technological innovation, policy guidance and resource integration. the collaboration among the government, enterprises, and society in the field of cultural innovation and creation. in the realm where artificial intelligence empowers cultural innovation and creation, the roles of the government, enterprises, and society vary. firstly, the government focuses on deepening the reform of the cultural industry system, building a collaborative platform among the government, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 enterprises, and society, optimizing the incentive mechanisms for artistic creation, stimulating the enthusiasm of enterprises and social entities to engage in cultural originality, and promoting the construction of ai inclusive capabilities through basic public policies. secondly, enterprises should leverage ai technology to create cultural ips, driving the iterative upgrade of cultural production, circulation, and consumption. lastly, social entities should utilize user-generated content platforms to stimulate grassroots creativity, fostering a bottom-up cultural innovation path. second, the collaboration among government, enterprises, and communities in the field of cultural heritage protection and inheritance. in the realm where artificial intelligence empowers the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, cultural institutions, research universities, and community residents play a crucial role. firstly, museums, libraries, cultural centers, and exhibition halls, with the support of government policies and technological advancements from businesses, actively apply ai technology. for instance, the restoration of notre-dame cathedral in paris demonstrates how ai can facilitate the digital collection, precise preservation, in-depth research, and innovative presentation of cultural heritage. secondly, research universities conduct ai-supported projects on cultural heritage protection, exploring technologies for preservation, restoration methods, and ways to realize cultural value through ai, thus providing talent support for the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage. lastly, community residents, who have a deep emotional connection and value recognition of cultural heritage, serve as protectors, inheritors, and learners of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. the third aspect is the collaboration among government, enterprises, and society in the field of international cultural influence. in the realm where artificial intelligence empowers international cultural influence, this collaboration transcends national boundaries. first, governments establish international cultural exchange and cooperation systems at the global, regional, and inter-state levels, creating platforms and organizing activities such as the "china-asean year of people-to-people exchanges" and the "belt and road road international cultural exchange and cooperation." second, enterprises leverage ai technology to tap into international cultural resources, build networks for international exchanges and cooperation, and promote the continuous evolution of international cultural production, circulation, and consumption. third, various sectors of society provide intellectual support through ai in the international arena, conduct talent training, and enhance the capabilities of developing countries in cultural innovation, creation, and the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage. 3.3 optimization of value ecology in three major fields from the perspective of the field logic of innovation in the cultural superstructure, the government, market, society, and international forces collaborate to promote the value distribution of cultural products among various cultural entities, including small and medium-sized enterprises and platform companies, capital and labor, users and ai platforms, dominant ethnic groups and ethnic minorities, developed and developing countries. this collaboration aims to reconstruct the value distribution in the specific context of building a culturally strong nation through artificial intelligence, fostering an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 68 inclusive cultural value ecosystem. the first aspect is the optimization of the value ecosystem in the cultural innovation and creation field. this primarily involves two areas: the cultural industry and cultural undertakings. on one hand, the optimization of the value ecosystem in the cultural industry sector. the government should aim to guide and promote the development of a collaborative network for the cultural industry, characterized by technological empowerment by platform companies, participation from small and medium-sized enterprises, balanced distribution of labor value, and legal protection of user rights. this is to prevent issues such as platform monopolies, imbalances in the capital-labor relationship, and damage to public interests, and to effectively address issues like ai face-swapping that infringe on rights and laws. on the other hand, the optimization of the value ecosystem in the cultural undertakings sector. by utilizing ai-driven public cultural service platforms, equal access to intelligent network resources should be provided to ethnic minorities, underdeveloped regions, and impoverished groups, thereby narrowing the regional and technological gaps in accessing intelligent network resources and building capabilities. second, the value ecosystem optimization of cultural heritage protection and inheritance. this involves addressing the conflicts between the market development and utilization of traditional cultural heritage and its protection and inheritance. a multi-stakeholder collaborative governance mechanism should be established to address these conflicts, involving ai service providers, the entities of traditional cultural heritage, and consumers or users. traditional craft-based culture, characterized by its time-specific, exclusive, and intangible nature, should receive enhanced intellectual property protection. particularly, the increasing reliance on ai creation and product promotion models has raised questions about human subjectivity, necessitating the establishment of ethical standards, organizations, and review mechanisms for artificial intelligence to ensure harmonious coexistence between humans and ai. the third aspect is the optimization of the value ecosystem in the field of international cultural influence. this involves achieving a moderate balance between the cultural empowerment role of international ai capabilities and their construction between developed and developing countries, as well as between china and foreign countries. on one hand, it is necessary to establish multi-language intelligent cultural dissemination channels, engage in actions to build ai capabilities and exchange cultural resources, and overcome the "cultural discount" caused by factors such as power, content, and space. on the other hand, it is essential to formulate global ai governance standards, construct a global ai governance platform, and conduct global ai governance activities, with the aim of preventing the loss of national cultural subjectivity in international cultural exchanges and dissemination, and effectively ensuring national cybersecurity and cultural security. funding: 1. ministry of education research special project for ideological and political theory course teachers in 2024: "research on the logical mechanism and practical path of teaching the the ory of chinese-style modernization in the course of 'an introduction to the thought on social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 ism with chinese characteristics for a new era'" (2024jdszk068); 2. guangdong provincial e ducational science planning project in 2024: "research on teaching 'new-form productivity' in the course of 'an introduction to the thought on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era'" (2024gxjk036); 3. 2023 guangdong province higher education ideological and political education research topic "research on the collaborative innovation mechanism of pr actical talent cultivation in university ideological and political courses from the perspective o f systematic thinking" (2023gxsz070); 4. the topic of the ideological and political education research project of the guangdong province higher education institutions ideological and pol iticalcourse regional collaborative innovation center in 2024: "research on integrating the ge neral secretary's cultural thoughts into the teaching of ideological morality and law courses" (zfj202414) references zhang, x. w. 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(2024). copyright dilemma and solutions of ai training: an analysis of modular licensing mechanism. intellectual property, 2024(11), 94-111. 1.introduction 1.1 the elements of cultural productivity are resh 1.2 reconstruction of cultural production relation 1.3 cultural superstructure recast 2.the practical logic of artificial intelligence ena 3.the field logic of artificial intelligence enablin 3.1 ai-enabled innovation in three major fields 3.2 collaboration among multiple actors in three m 3.3 optimization of value ecology in three major f funding: references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 98 original paper the cultural essence of the "circle" in chinese classical dance hanshu zou1 1 renmin university of china, beijing, 100872, china received: november 09, 2024 accepted: december 14, 2024 online published: january 01, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p98 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p98 master of chinese aesthetics, mr. zong baihua, once said: "‘dance’ is the quintessence of all artistic realms in china," and "it is a symbol of the creative process of the universe." as the oldest of all art forms, dance itself contains the most ancient and mysterious connotations. the extension, rotation, twisting, and leaping movements of the human body in dance have a strong impact on emotional expression. dance is the most silent art, yet it can evoke the deepest resonance in the human spirit, hence it is also known as the "silent art." as an art form, dance is deeply influenced by china's 5,000-year-old traditional culture. chinese classical dance, as a typical representative of chinese dance, contains a deep cultural core and, like any other traditional chinese art form, embodies the spirit of chinese traditional art in every aspect. what is the connotation of traditional chinese art? it seems all-encompassing: the solemnity of confucianism, the detachment of taoism, the emptiness of zen buddhism, the humor of the folk, the elegance of the literati, the mystery of tai chi, and the yin-yang. all these originate from the foundation of chinese traditional culture, which is the emotional consciousness with a strong confucian, taoist, and buddhist philosophical meaning that grows out of the roots of chinese culture, and this is the essence of chinese art. influenced by the confucianism, taoism, and buddhism, chinese artistic expression is always reserved and implicit, different from the west, which is quite straightforward. chinese art creates "images" that have profound connotations, integrating subjectivity and objectivity, and blending emotions, intentions, and forms, as its most significant characteristic. mr. ye lang once said: "in the view of chinese classical aesthetics, the essence of poetry is aesthetic intention." but it's not just poetry; for the entirety of chinese art, "image" is the core means of expression. mr. zong baihua pointed out incisively that "creating realms from the mind" and "turning the void into reality" encompass the entire essence of chinese painting, and chinese dance art is no exception. all elements of chinese classical dance, whether movements or dynamics and structure, are influenced by the essence of chinese art. all the dynamic forms and "spirit and rhythm" of dance have profound connections with chinese philosophy, aesthetics, and cosmology. the most typical image in classical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 99 dance is the "circle." therefore, this article will discuss the "circle" in classical dance, trace back to its origins, and explore the primitive genes of the national artistic tradition buried in the chinese cultural soil. the so-called image is to "exhaust the meaning through the form." the core of chinese dance movement laws is "drawing circles," and this dynamic rhythm is most fully and centrally reflected in classical dance. this dynamic image is visually clear and distinct, vivid and easy to perceive, and naturally generates associations during the perception process, leading to deeper insights and thus receiving more "meaning." as early as tens of thousands of years ago, when the ancestors of the chinese nation looked up to the sky and down to the yellow soil on this land, they used their totem sacrificial dances to express their strong sense of life and various hopes for life, as well as their worship and prayer to the spirits. "circle" runs through the entire body movement of dance. specifically, it mainly refers to the "three circles" and "two circles," which are the "horizontal circle," "vertical circle," and "figure-eight circle," as well as "large circle within a small circle." other postures, such as twisting, tilting, and bending, also belong to the dynamic range of "circle." these traces of movement naturally evoke associations with the tai chi diagram. the tai chi diagram is a graphical representation that symbolizes the principles of the "i ching" (book of changes), often used in conjunction with the bagua. there are a considerable number of "i ching" diagrams passed down through the ages. although these diagrams vary in form, they all simulate the patterns of heaven and earth, containing information about the laws of the universe, the changes of yin and yang, and centrally represent the core content of the "i ching." the tai chi diagram is a typical representative. the tai chi diagram uses a large circular ring, an s-line, and two small circles, supplemented by the interplay of black and white colors, to form the basic "i ching" imagery of the diagram. first, the large circular ring represents "taiji." the outer circle of the tai chi diagram symbolizes the cosmic space where vital energy is mixed as one. additionally, the "s" line in the diagram divides the entire circle into two contrasting and corresponding parts, symbolizing yin and yang. the yin and yang fishes separated by the "s" line represent the two opposing and mutually fluctuating material forces in nature, and the two small circles represent the eyes of the black and white fishes, symbolizing "yin within yang" and "yang within yin." the tai chi diagram displays the "two forms," "four images," and "eight trigrams," directly fitting the essence of the universe, and its imagery contains many complex spiritual concepts and endless philosophies about life, nature, and society. the above is the basic characteristic of the tai chi diagram, so what is the connection between the dynamic form of chinese classical dance and the tai chi diagram? firstly, the "horizontal circle" and "vertical circle" in classical dance are relatively simple and, compared to the tai chi diagram, resemble the outer circle of the diagram. the "figure-eight circle" and "large circle within a small circle" are not exactly the same as the tai chi diagram, but they are not different in nature and characteristics. the most representative is the "figure-eight circle." because this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 100 form is relatively the most distinct graphic in classical dance dynamics compared to the tai chi diagram, but at the same time, it encompasses all the essence of dance "circle drawing" dynamics—circle, twist, and bend. therefore, clarifying the relationship between the "figure-eight circle" and the tai chi diagram also clarifies the cultural genes behind the "circle" dynamics in chinese classical dance. why does the "figure-eight circle" dynamic exist in classical dance? when studying any artistic phenomenon in the world, tracing back to its origins, one can only find the roots and opportunities for its emergence in the culture of its own nation. the soviet aesthetician m. m. kagan has a viewpoint: in the large system of culture, philosophy plays the role of "cultural consciousness," and art plays the role of "cultural self-consciousness." therefore, based on the dynamic characteristics of classical dance, we can determine that this is a reflection of ancient chinese cultural consciousness in the art of dance. according to the ancient chinese philosophy, regarded as the noumenon and life of the universe and all things, "qi" is the root of movement, and change of all things in heaven and earth. if so, the noumenon and life of all things in heaven and earth are "qi," and humans are "one of the things." there are similar statements, such as "people are born with qi and die when the essence is exhausted." these expressions all affirm one point: the subject of dance activity, humans, and their activity space are different forms of "qi." in this sense, dance can be regarded as an artistic activity where "qi" interacts with "qi." the "force" projected by the human body's "qi" interacts with the space's "qi," occupying different spaces, creating different pressures, forming different directional angles. in this series of confrontations and conflicts, unifications and resolutions, inductions and reflections, the rhythm of dance is gradually formed. a movement image of qi's cyclical and endless motion. but why is this "qi" reflected in the "figure-eight circle"? in fact, if we regard the "s" line in the tai chi diagram as the image of the universe's "qi transformation" or "all things are born from it," then the formation of classical dance dynamics will also have corresponding connections and inspirations. the above is a more abstract discussion of the relationship between the "figure-eight circle" and the tai chi diagram. specifically, there are three main reasons behind it. firstly, the national mode of thinking has a direct impact on artistic creation in terms of linearity. the "i ching" has a profound influence on the spiritual culture of the chinese people, which also determines that it is the cultural cornerstone behind all traditional arts. the "i ching" uses bagua to explain various phenomena in nature, society, and human history, the so-called "covering the way of heaven and earth." bagua is formed by the mutual overlap of yang yao and yin yao or self-overlap. the characteristic of the bagua structure is that "the total number of yang yao and yin yao is equal, both being twelve. bagua is structurally opposite to each other in pairs. the spatial arrangement of the gua forms a circle that is cyclical and self-circulating." secondly, the cultural personality and emotional expression pattern of the nation. chinese culture has always had the characteristic of introspection. at the same time, due to the significant influence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 101 confucian culture on the chinese nation, which advocates the doctrine of the mean and pursues a moderate and peaceful humanistic spirit, pursuing "joy without indulgence, sorrow without injury," there is a conscious control over the intensity of emotional expression. therefore, the chinese have formed a reserved cultural psychology. cultural psychology inevitably affects artistic expression. when the four major factors in dance—gravity, time, space, and fluidity—and the eight major movement elements—chopping, pressing, rushing, twisting, dotting, floating, sliding, and flashing—are considered, there is a natural emphasis on the factors of "twisting" and "time," so the formation of a soft and implicit figure-eight circle shape is an inevitable result under the influence of this mode of thinking. lastly, traditional aesthetics. traditional artistic aesthetics emphasize the symmetrical arrangement of composition in terms of front and back, left and right, and tend to form a surrounding layout with a central point as the axis. this is reflected in tomb stone carvings, religious grottoes, paper-cuttings, new year paintings, and is especially evident in chinese architecture. the forbidden city is a typical representative. therefore, the formation of the "figure-eight circle" in chinese classical dance is closely related to the national cultural psychology, emotional expression pattern, thinking mode, and aesthetic view. in summary, the essence of the "drawing circles" dynamic in classical dance is ultimately a movement image of qi's cyclical and endless motion, as well as the spiritual image of the dancer's "heart and qi." the "circle" in chinese dance, along with its dynamic "turning," is the most fundamental and essential movement rule of chinese dance under the influence of traditional philosophy. it is a wonderful understanding of the universe's essence and the "tao" of dance. behind it lies the cultural genes rooted in thousands of years of chinese traditional culture, which are the cultural psychology, emotional expression pattern, thinking mode, and aesthetic view inherent in the chinese nation. chinese classical dance not only shows the characteristics of chinese dance but also implies the mysteries of human life movement, with unique imagery and aesthetic style. references cai, d. l. (2020).iscussion about the characteristics of circle dance of chinese chaoxian nationality—take the agricultural dance in wangqing county as an example. communication & education review, (5), chen, l., & liu, c. (2023). intercultural aesthetics in traditional chinese dance performance. international review of the aesthetics and sociology of music, (1), 129-146. https://doi.org/10.21857/mwo1vc37wy fan, y. (2018). the aesthetic image of "circle" in chinese classical dance. (eds.) proceedings of the 2018 3rd international conference on humanities science, management and education technology (hsmet 2018) (advances in social science, education and humanities research vol.237)(pp.332-335). art college of xiamen university; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 102 lu, s. s. (2024). appearance relaxation, internal movement of qi—on "relaxation" in classical chinese dance. frontiers in art research, (3), sun, z. y. (2024). exploration of the development direction of chinese folk dance culture in the context of the new era. frontiers in art research, (2). wang, x. l., yan, q. y., & ronnell, d. d. r. (2022). a study on the aesthetic value and etiquette culture of the traditional chinese dance. journal of aussie-sino studies, (4). yuan, k. (2023). the new changes in form and cultural motivations of banquet dance in medieval china. academic journal of humanities & social sciences, (13), zhao, x. g., liu, d. x., & wang, j. (2024). association of tai chi and square dance with cognitive function in chinese older adults. healthcare (basel, switzerland), (18), 1878-1878. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12181878 microsoft word assc-v1n1-p90 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 90 original papers drivers of households’ decision making in agroforestry practices in akwa ibom state, nigeria ubokudom etim okon1*, ubon asuquo essien2 & iniobong augustine udousoro1 1 department of agricultural economics and extension, akwa ibom state university, ikot akpaden, mkpat enin. p.m.b. 1167, uyo, nigeria 2 department of agricultural economics, federal university of technology owerri, imo state, nigeria * ubokudom e. okon, department of agricultural economics and extension, akwa ibom state university, ikot akpaden, mkpat enin, uyo, nigeria received: april 28, 2019 accepted: may 22, 2019 online published: may 28, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p90 abstract the increased pressure on the world natural resources has resulted in unsustainable use of natural resources, environmental instability and soil degradation. this study investigated the drivers of agroforestry practices in eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state, nigeria. data were collected by the use of structured questionnaires. simple random sampling was adopted in the selection of 102 farm households from eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state. data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and probit model. the result showed that the average year of formal education was 11.86, with the mean age of 44.46. also, the mean score of 2.61 suggest that majority of the respondents were aware of agroforestry practices. the probit analysis indicates that factors such as marital status, farming experience, educational level and land ownership status had positive and significant effects on their decision to adopt agroforestry practices. conversely, total household income had a negative and statistically significant effect on farmers’ decision to adopt agroforestry. socio-economic characteristics such as marital status, educational level, farming experience and land ownership status were the major drivers of household’s decision making in agroforestry in the study area. keywords agroforestry, decision making, farm households, binary pobit, nigeria 1. introduction the importance of agroforestry to the sustenance of mankind is an incontrovertible fact that should not be overlooked. trees do not only provide livelihood for rural people, they are important ecosystem www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 91 published by scholink inc. functions and sustainability as carbon sinks and oxygen pool. the world bank reported that forests and trees outside forest contribute to the livelihood of more than 1.6 billion people worldwide (world bank, 2008). agroforestry is a sustainable land use practice and system that can be implemented worldwide in any type of land cover and is able to fulfill any of the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environment and social by fostering green growth and creating jobs (mbow, noordwijk, luedeling, minang, & godwin, 2014). agroforestry has a positive impact on food and energy security, human nutrition, poverty reduction and it helps farmers to build resilience to climate change. agroforestry practices take advantage of the interactive benefits (both environmental and productive) from integrating trees, shrubs with crops and/or livestock. it offers ways to take advantage of new and profitable product markets while applying specialized knowledge and skills to the development of stable, resilient and sustainable production systems. available literatures suggest that in a context of population growth and climate change, food insecurity still remains a challenge in developing countries. in nigeria, the federal government has taken several steps over the years to use agriculture to alleviate poverty and attain food security. but the efforts faced significant constraints (forum for agricultural research in africa, 2018). agricultural lands have been largely degraded due to continuous and/or intensive production leading to low soil fertility. hence, the need to improve soil fertility and meet nutritional needs of the rapidly increasing population has become a very important issue in development policy. to meet nutritional needs, the productivity and efficiency of current agricultural land use must increase (godfray, beddington, crute, haddad, & lawrence, 2010). smallholder farmers are therefore faced with the challenge of attaining food security while at the same time ensuring sustainability of their natural resource-base, and struggling to cope with climate-related variability and change. agroforestry practices have emerged as sustainable measures of addressing land degradation and loss of soil fertility (lehmann, peter, steglich, gebaure, huwe, & zech, 1998) as well as reducing the effect of climate change. agroforestry combines shrubs and trees in agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, ecologically sound, and sustainable land-use systems (mbow et al., 2014). the insight that trees on farms provide livelihood benefits is not new, and diversity-based approaches to agricultural adaptation to climate variability have been adopted by many farmers (thangata, mudhara, grier, & hildebrand, 2007). furthermore, in light of recurring food shortages, projected climate change, and rising prices of agricultural inputs, agroforestry has recently experienced a surge in interest from the research and development communities, as a cost-effective means to enhance food security, while at the same time contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation. nigeria for instance, and other developing countries are already experiencing low crop yields and altered animal compositions as a result of extreme weather and climate change. this is evidenced by the late arrival of rains, drying up of streams and small rivers that usually flow year round. it follows therefore that a well-performing agricultural sector is fundamental in addressing hunger, poverty and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 92 published by scholink inc. inequality through addressing climate variability. but there seems to be under appreciation of trees and forest resources by governments at all levels in nigeria. available report indicates that nigeria losses about 350,000 to 400,000 hectares of land yearly to deforestation (vanguard news editorial, 2016). the annual rate of deforestation in nigeria is put at 3.5 percent per annum. as such, nigeria is at the brink of losing it forest resources. also, less than 5% of the country’s total land area is afforested and even the sparse forest remainders are under threat with land use pressures from agriculture, infrastructure, housing and resource harvesting which are critical drivers to deforestation (onoja, 2018), which is a major cause of climate variability. as climate variability increases and related extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, there is a need to assess the level of awareness of farmers on agroforestry practices in the area. this is important because most rural farmers are not aware of the benefits of agroforestry as a sustainable land use system which enhances farmers’ ability to adapt to climate change. agroforestry systems has emerged as having the potential to enhance the resilience of smallholders to current and future climate risks including future climate change (lasco, delfino, catacutan, simelton, & wilson, 2014). previous researchers on agroforestry observed that factors such as farm size, land tenure, lack of planting materials perceived low fertility, and farm preparation methods and age influenced farm households’ decisionmaking in agroforestry (kwesgia et al., 2003; kiel et al., 2005; mwase et al., 2015; ajaji et al., 2008; wafukes, 2012). furthermore, rogers (2003) noted that the decision to practices or adopt any innovation is influenced by physical, socio economic and mental factors. majority of farmers in the study area are not aware of the benefits of agroforestry practices (i.e., improved household income, employment generation and food security). this study therefore investigates the factors that influence farm household’s decision to adopt agroforestry in eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state, nigeria. 2. materials and methods 2.1 study area the study was carried out in eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state, nigeria. eket is the second largest city in akwa ibom state, nigeria. the name also refers to the indigenous ethnic group of the region and to their language. the city itself is an industrial city that in recent years has become a conurbation engulfing separate village, as a population of over 200,000 while entire urban area, which covers okon, nsit-ubium, idua, afaha-eket onna-eket and esit-eket, has a combined population of 364,489. farmers in the state are also experts in palm products especially palm oil production, kernels, yams, raffia products, raffia fibers, sweet wine, cassava, fluted pumpkin, maize, pepper, rice, garden egg, cucumber, and leafy vegetables. the cropping pattern in the area is dominated by mixed cropping, although sole cropping is also practiced. some farmers keep livestock like goats, pigs, sheep rabbit and poultry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 93 published by scholink inc. 2.2 sampling procedure and data collection multi-stage and random sampling techniques were employed in selecting the 102 farm households for the study. the first stage involves the random selection of three l. g. areas (blocks) out of seven l. g. areas (blocks) in the zone. secondly, two communities (cells) were randomly selected from each of the three selected l.g.areas (block) making six communities (cells). thirdly, from each of the six communities, (cells) seventeen households were randomly selected making a total of one hundred and two farm households for the study. data for this study was obtained mainly from primary source with the use of structured questionnaire. the instrument for data collection focused on such information as socio-economic characteristics of farm households, level of awareness of agroforestry practices, types of agroforestry practices, drivers of farm household’s decision on agroforestry and other vital information relevant to the study. data were collected between march and june, 2018. 3. data analysis descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics, such as binary probit model were used for this study. probit model is useful in situations where you have a dichotomous output that is thought to be influenced or caused by levels of some independent variable (indiana state university, 2005). abah (2011) used probit model to estimate the determinants of farmers willingness to pay for solid waste used for tomatoes gardening in federal capital territory, abuja, nigeria. also, oni, oladele, and oyewole (2005) also used probit to determine the factors influencing default in loan repayment among poultry farmers in ijebu ode local government area of ogun state, nigeria. brain seveir and won (2005) in their study on the precision farming adoption by florida citrus producers used the probit model in analyzing personal willingness to adopt technology in citrus production. probit analysis is very similar to logit and tobit, but is preferred when data are normally distributed (kim, 2000). to estimate the drivers of adoption of agroforestry among farmers in eket agricultural zone, a binomial or discrete dependent variable provides a good framework where there is a cluster of farmers who are adopting agroforestry practices and farmers who are not adopting. the discrete dependent variable y was assigned 1 if farmers adopt and/or practiced agroforestry in the study area and 0 if otherwise. the explicit form of the binary probit model is specified as: pr (y = 1/x) = ß0 + ß1x1 + ß2x2 + ß3x3 + ß4x4 + ß5x5 + ß6x6 + ß7x7 ...............+ e where: y = is dichotomous (discrete) dependent variable which can be explained as y= 1 if a farm household adopt agroforestry practices, y= 0 if otherwise. ß0 = intercept ß1…ßn = coefficient of the independent variables www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 94 published by scholink inc. x1…xn = the drivers of adoption of agroforestry in the study area e = the stochastic error term. 3.1 binary probit model the hypothesised drivers of “agroforestry practices” in this study are x1-xn are explained thus: x1 = gender of the household head dummy (1 if male, 0 otherwise) x2 = ages of household head (years continuous (in number) x3 = marital status dummy (1 if couple, 0 otherwise) x4 = years of farming experience continuous (in number) x5 = membership of organization dummy (1 if member, 0 otherwise) x6 = educational level years of formal schooling (number of years) x7 = household size continuous (in number of persons) x8 = land ownership status dummy (1 if owner of farmland, 0 otherwise) x9 = land size continuous (in ha) x10=total household income x11 = extension visit continuous (in naira) dummy (1 if visited by extension agents, 0 otherwise) 3.2 results as presented in table 1, majority (63.73%) of the farmers were male while the remaining (36.27%) were females with a mean age of 44.46 years. similarly, asa and archibong (2016) reported that the study area is dominated by male household heads. about 86% of the respondents were married while the remaining 16% were single. majority (about 65%) of the respondents were non-members of social organizations and most (56.86%) of the farmers fell within the household size of 5 to 8 persons, this is in line with the findings of okon and enete (2009) and bassey et al. (2015). also, the mean farming experience and mean household size were 17 years and 9 persons, respectively. these agreed with the findings of udofia, owoh, and thomas (2010). a cursory look at table 1 shows that majority (68.63%) inherited their farm land, 28.43% purchased their farm land and 2.94% acquired their farm land through contact farmers. the mean farm size was about 1.42 ha. table 1. frequency distribution of farmers according to their socioeconomic characteristics genders of household heads male 65 63.73 female 37 36.27 total 102 100 age (years) _<30 7 6.87 31-40 26 25.49 41-50 49 48.03 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 95 published by scholink inc. 51-60 17 16.67 >60 3 2.94 total 102 100 marital status of household heads single 16 15.69 married 86 84.31 total 102 100 educational qualification primary education 5 4.9 secondary education 46 45.1 tertiary institution 51 50 total 102 100 household size 1-4 3 2.94 5-8 58 56.86 9 and above 41 40.9 total 102 100 years of farming experience 1-5 7 6.87 6-10 19 18.62 11-15 22 21.57 16-20 17 16.67 above 20 37 36.27 total 102 100 land acquisition status inheritance` 70 68.63 lease purchase farm 29 28.43 total 102 100 membership of social organization 0 65 63.73 1 37 36.27 total 102 100 distribution of respondents based on farm size <1ha 19 18.63 1-2ha 73 71.57 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 96 published by scholink inc. above 2ha 10 9.8 total 102 100 source: field survey, 2018. 3.3 drivers of farmer’s decisions to adopt agroforestry practices in eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state, nigeria driver of farmer’s decision on agroforestry was done using probit regression model as presented in table 2. the result showed that five of the eleven explanatory variables were statistically significant. the chi-square result shows that the likelihood ratio statistics (18.207) is highly significant (p<0.000), suggested that the model has a strong explanatory power. the pseudo r2 value of the model was 0.589. thus the explanatory variables used in the model are collectively able to predict about 59% of the variations farmers’ decision to adopt agroforestry practices. however, the parameter estimates of the binary probit model provided only the direction of the effect of the independent variables on the dependent (response) variable: estimates do not represent actual magnitude of the change or probabilities. the marginal effects were also estimated in order to derive the magnitude of the impact of the independent variables on the probabilities of a farmer adopting agroforestry practices. the coefficient of marital status (1.68195) was positive and statistically significant (p<0.05). the coefficient of years of farming experience (0.21960) was positive and highly statistically significant (p<.0.01). years of formal schooling (edu) had a positive and statistically significant (p<0.05) co-efficient (0.16954).land ownership status had a positive and statistically significant (p<0.10) coefficient (1.64072). conversely, the coefficient of total household income (-0.00024) was negativity related to the probability of adoption of agro-forestry practices by farmers. table 2. binary probit model of the drivers of agroforestry practices in the study area explanatory variables coefficient (standard error) z-values marginal effects intercept -2.78592 (1.57755) 1.77* gender (x1) 0.48254 (0.62825) 0.77 0.00775 age (x2) -0573124 (0.0383745) 1.49 0.00073 marital status(x3) 1.681954 (0.74438) 2.27** 0.1137 experience (x4) 0.21960 (0.730317) 3.01*** 0.00282 membership. of org. (x5) 0.474655 (0.61883) 0.77 0.00543 education (x6) 0.1695498 (0.07362) 2.30** 0.00247 household size (x7) 0.03212 (0.109100) 0.29 0.000413 land ownership status (x8) 1.64072 (0.94490) 1.74* 0.06063 land size (x9) 0.01855 0.03 0.00023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 97 published by scholink inc. (0.58091) total farm income (x10) -0.000241 (0.00001) 1.93* 3.09e-09 extension visit (x11) regression diagnostics 0.21172 (0.579391) 0.37 0.0027211 log likelihood ratio = 18.207121 lr chi2 = 52.21 pseudo r2 = 0.5891 no. of observations = 102 source: field survey, 2018 *** = significant (p<0.01),** = significant (0.05), *= significant (p< 0.10) and a = dy/dx is discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1. 4. discussion the variables with significant influence to the adoption of agroforestry practices in the study area were marital status, farming experience, educational level, land ownership status, and household income. majority (80.39%) of the farmers were of a primeage considered to be very productive in farm activities. however, age was found not to influence adoption of agroforestry technology. this is in line with the findings of wafuke (2012) who found out that there was no significant relationship between age and adoption of agroforestry technology. the results could also mean that young people in the area were involved in formal employment and business activities that supplement household income than agroforestry. the large household size could mean regular supply of labour for agroforestry practices. jamala, shehu yidau, and joel (2013) also had similar findings. years of farming experience was high, and this could make them to be more efficient in production through learning by doing. the mean farm size of less than 1.5 ha implies that the respondents were typically smallholder farmers possessing relatively small landholdings. mwase et al. (2015) noted that small land holdings influenced adoption of agroforestry in south-africa. similarly, ajayi et al. (2003) found out farm size have a positive association with farmers decision to continue with agroforestry practices. the marginal effect with respect to marital status showed that a unit increase in the numbers of married respondents will increase the likelihood of adopting agro-forestry by 11%. this implies that married respondents adopted agro-forestry in the study area. in addition, more experienced farmers adopted agro forestry practices on their farmland. the marginal effects suggest that a one year increase in the respondent’s years of experience will increase the probability of them adopting agro-forestry practices by about 0.2%. educational status showed positive and significant coefficient, an indication that highly educated respondents adopted agro-forestry practices. the marginal effect showed that a one year increase in the level of education of the respondents increased the probability of adopting agroforestry practice by 0.02%. these findings lend credence from the findings of jamala, shehu, yidau, and joel (2015), who observed that education was a significant factor in facilitating awareness and adoption of agricultural technologies. also, adekunle www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 98 published by scholink inc. (2009), pointed out that the level of education of farmers could directly affects their ability to adapt to change and to accept new ideas. land ownership status had a positive and statistically significant relationship, an indication that farmers who own land will invest on tree planting since he/she knows that whatever is invested on that land is fully owned by them, wafuke (2012) had similar findings. furthermore, the marginal effect of total farm income shows that a 1 naira increase in total household income will reduce the likelihood of a household adopting agroforestry practices. this is intuitive because as the household income increases, the farmers tend to diversify into non-farm activities, hence not willing to adopt agroforestry practices. this result is in line with the findings of mwase et al. (2015). 4.1 significance statement this study uncovered the drivers of agroforestry practices in the study area. even though adoption of agroforestry practices could improve soil fertility, land quality and also help to suppress weeds. agroforestry also ensures the provision of non-timber products such as fruits, fodder, energy and fiber. majority of the farmers in the study are yet to fully adopt agroforestry. understanding the drivers as well as the constraints to agroforestry adoption of agroforestry in the study area will help researchers and policy makers to develop policy that will reduce the barriers to adoption of agroforestry, hence, ensuring food security in the study area. 5. conclusions this study estimated the drivers of farmers’ decision to adopt agroforestry in eket agricultural zone of akwa ibom state, nigeria. the study showed that the sampled farmers were mostly male, fairly educated, young and in their active/productive age. however, most households were aware of agroforestry practices and were willing to adopt. socio-economic characteristics such as marital status, educational level, farming experience and land ownership status were the major drivers of household’s decision making in agroforestry in the study area. references abah, e. o. (2011). economics of organic solid waste utilization in urban tomatoes gardening in abuja, nigeria (an unpublished m.sc thesis). submitted to the department of agricultural economics, university of nigeria nsukka. adekunle, v. a. (2009). contributions of agroforestry practices in to environmental sustainability and sustainable agricultural production in ondo state, nigeria. africa focus, 22(2), 22-40. ajayi, o. c., akinifesi, f. k., mitti, j.de woif., & matakala, p. (2008). adoption, economics and impact of agroforestry technologies in southern africa. in d. r. batish, r. k. kohli, jose, & p. singh (eds.), ecological basic of agroforestry (pp. 343-360). ajayi, o. c., franzel, s., kuntashulla, e., & kwesiga, f. (2003). adoption of improved fallow technology for soil fertility management in zambia: empirical studies and emerging issues. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 99 published by scholink inc. agroforestry systems, 59(3), 317-326. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:agfo.0000005232.87048.03 asa, u. a., & archibong, e. m. (2016). social capital and food security among rural farming households in akwa ibom state, nigeria. journal of advances in social sciences-humanities, 2(15-19). https://doi.org/10.15520/jassh20234 bassey, n. e., edet, m. e., & okeke, c. c. (2015). determinants of off-farm labour supply among farming households in akwa ibom state, nigeria. agricultural science, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.12735/as.v3i1p31 brain, j., seveir, & won, s. l. (2005). precision farming adoption by florida citrus producers: university of florida; ifas extension: first published february 2005. https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.18840 forum for agricultural research in africa, fara. (2018). scaling strategies for agricultural innovation in nigeria. fara research report, 2(1). godfray, h. c. j., beddington, j. r., crute, i. r., haddad, l., & lawrence, d. (2010). food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. science, 327(812). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1185383 indiana state university. (2005). analyzing data in spss 13.0 using regression analysis. indiana: office of information technology jamala, g. y., shehu, h. h., yidau, j. j., & joel, l. (2015). factors influencing adoption of agroforestry among smallholder farmers in toungo, south-eastern adamawa state, nigeria. iors journal of environmental science. toxicology and food technology (iors-jestft), 6(6), 66-72. https://doi.org/10.9790/2402-0666672 keil, a., zeller, m., & franzel, s. (2005). improved fallows in smallholder maize production in zambiaido initial testers adopts the technology. agroforestry systems, 64, 225-236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-004-2410-0 kim, v. (2000). probit analysis: a quick overview. retrieved march 12, 2018, from http://home.gwu.edu/~soyer/mv1h.pdf kwesgia, f., akinnifesi, f. k., mafongoya, p. l., mcdermott, m. h., & agumya, a. (2003). agroforestry research and development in southern africa during the1990s: review and challenges ahead. agroforestry systems, 59(3), 173. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:agfo.0000005222.68054.38 lasco, r. d., delfino, r. p., catacutan, d. c., simelton, e. s., & wilson, d. m. (2014). climate risk adaptation by smallholder farmers: the roles of trees and agroforestry. current opinion in environmental sustainability, 6, 83-88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.11.013 lehmann, j., peter, i., steglich, c., gebauer, g., huwe, b., & zech, w. (1998). below-ground interactions in dryland agroforestry. forest ecol. & management, 111, 157-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-1127(98)00322-3 mbow, c., noordwijk, m. v., luedeling, e., minang, p., & godwin, k. (2014). agroforestry solutions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 100 published by scholink inc. to address food security and climate change challenges in africa. current options in environmental sustainability, 6, 61-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.10.014 mwase, s., nyoloma, n., manduwa, & naika. (2015). factors affecting the adoption of agroforestry and evergreen agriculture in southern africa. environment and natural resource research, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.5539/enrr.v5n2p148 okon, u. e., & enete, a. a. (2009). resource use efficiency among urban vegetable farmers in akwa ibom state, nigeria. tropicultura, 27, 4. oni, o. a., oladele, o. i., & oyewole, i. k. (2005). analysis of factors influencing loan default among poultry farmers in ogun state nigeria. journal of central european agriculture, 6(4), 619-624. onoja, j. (2018). nigeria: deforestation-national conservation foundation seeks data base of indigenous trees. daily trust editorial april 6. rogers, e. m. (2003). diffusion of innovations (4t ed.). new york free press. thangata, p. h., mudhara, m. grier, c., & hildebrand, p. e. (2007). potential for agroforestry adoption in southern africa: a. comparative study of improved fallows &green manure adoption in malawi. zambia &zimbabwe ehnobotory research & application, 5, 67-75. https://doi.org/10.17348/era.5.0.67-75 udofia, s. i., owoh, p. w., & thomas, y. k. (2010). study on agroforestry practices in abak local government area, akwa ibom state, nigeria. global journal of agricultural sciences, 9(1), 9-16. https://doi.org/10.4314/gjass.v9i1.62780 vanguard news editorial. (2016). nigeria loses about 350,000 to 400,000 hectares of land per year to deforestation report. 19th april. wafukes. (2012). adoption of agroforestry technologies among small scale farmers in nzoia location, luari, district kenya. an msc. thesis submitted to the department of environmental science, egertion university, kenya. world bank. (2008). agriculture for development: overview. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 108 original paper research on the impact of executives' green cognition on corporate green transformation du xue1 1 qilu medical university, zibo, 255300, china received: april 24, 2025 accepted: may 25, 2025 online published: june 17, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p108 abstract the green transformation of enterprises is an important way to achieve the dual goals of environmental protection and economic growth. this paper uses the panel data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai from 2003 to 2023 to explore how executive green cognition (egp) affects the green transformation of enterprises ( gre ). the following conclusions are found:① there is a positive relationship between executive green cognition (egp) and the green transformation of enterprises ( gre ), that is, the higher the executive green cognition (egp), the higher the green transformation of enterprises ( gre ), ② in the positive impact of executive green cognition (edp) on the green transformation of enterprises ( gre ), the regression coefficient of enterprises with a larger number of employees is greater than that of enterprises with a smaller number of employees ; the regression coefficient of enterprises that use the big four accounting firms for auditing is greater than that of enterprises that do not use them. keywords green recognition of senior executives, green transformation of enterprises, employee size 1. introduction enterprises have always assumed the main responsibility in social and economic development and can effectively connect natural, economic and social elements. enterprise green behavior directly supports the implementation of the national macro green development strategy (wang, qin, & wang, 2014). enterprise green transformation is an important way to achieve the dual goals of environmental protection and economic growth (christos, & lin, 2017; eugenie & marion, 2021). existing studies have conducted a lot of research on the influencing factors and economic consequences of corporate environmental behavior (hu, wang, & yu, 2021), but most of them choose single dimensions such as green patents, environmental investment and environmental management system certification to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 indirectly describe corporate green transformation behavior. green transformation is a comprehensive summary of corporate green development model, including but not limited to gradually improving management green concepts, continuous additional environmental investment, continuously optimized green production processes and innovative green products (xie & han, 2022). the degree of corporate managers' awareness of environmental issues and their judgment of future environmental trends will affect the formulation and deployment of corporate green strategies. therefore, based on the high-level echelon theory, some researchers believe that senior corporate managers have a more profound impact on organizational behavior choices, strategic decisions and corporate performance (yuan & li, 2023). therefore, this study explores the impact of executive green cognition on corporate green transformation. 2. study design 2.1 sample data and sources this paper uses the panel data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai from 2003 to 2023 to explore how executive green cognition (egp) affects corporate green transformation ( gre ). the basic data of enterprises comes from the guotai an database (csmar), and the sample data is processed as follows: samples in st and *st status are eliminated; enterprises in the financial industry are eliminated; missing values are eliminated; continuous variables are winsorized at the 1% and 99% levels. 2.2 variable definition explained variable: enterprise green transformation ( gre ). with reference to relevant studies, 113 keywords for enterprise green transformation were selected from five aspects: publicity and advocacy, strategic concepts, technological innovation, pollution control, and monitoring and management. then, the frequency of each keyword in the annual report text of listed companies was counted to form the frequency of green transformation words. the natural logarithm of the frequency of the word plus 1 was used to characterize the green transformation of enterprises (zhou, wang, tao et al., 2022). explanatory variables: executive green cognition (egp). with reference to existing studies, the following keywords were selected based on three dimensions: green competitive advantage awareness, corporate social responsibility awareness, and external environmental pressure awareness: energy conservation and emission reduction, environmental protection strategy, environmental protection concept, environmental management agency, environmental education, environmental technology development, environmental audit, energy conservation and environmental protection, environmental protection policy, environmental protection department, environmental protection inspection, low-carbon environmental protection, environmental protection work, environmental protection governance, environmental protection and environmental governance, environmental protection facilities, environmental protection-related laws and regulations, and environmental protection pollution control. the frequency of each keyword in the annual report text of listed companies was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 110 counted to form the frequency of executive green cognition words, and the natural logarithm of the word frequency plus 1 was used to characterize executive green cognition (egp) (yuan & li, 2023; li, xia , & zhao, 2023) control variables. based on the research in existing literature, variables such as enterprise size ( size ), debt-to-asset ratio (lev), net profit on assets ( roa ), cash flow ratio ( cashflow ), growth ability ( growth ), equity balance ( top10 ), board size (board), and enterprise age ( firmage ) are selected as control variables. table 1. variable definition table variable types variable name variable symbols variable definition explained variable green transformation of enterprises gre the natural logarithm of the word frequency plus 1 explanatory variables executives' green awareness egp the natural logarithm of the word frequency plus 1 control variables enterprise scale size logarithm of total assets debt-to-asset ratio lev debt-to-asset ratio net profit from assets roa net profit margin of total assets cash flow ratio cashflow cash flow ratio growth capacity growth operating income growth rate equity balance top10 number of shares held by the top ten shareholders/total number of shares board size board percentage of independent directors company age firmage years of establishment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 2.3 model construction this paper uses the panel data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai from 2003 to 2023 in china to explore how executives' green cognition (egp) affects corporate green transformation ( gre ). according to the results of the hausman test, this paper selects a fixed effect model, and the specific model settings are as follows: in the above model, i and t in the following table represent the enterprise and year respectively; x is the control variable; λ j is the industry fixed effect, j is the industry to which enterprise i belongs; μ t is the year fixed effect; ε it is the random disturbance term, and robust standard errors are used to solve the heteroskedasticity problem. 3. empirical analysis 3.1 descriptive analysis table 2 descriptive analysis shows the results of descriptive analysis of the explanatory variable executive green cognition (egp), the explained variable enterprise green transformation ( gre ), and the control variables. the explanatory variable executive green cognition (egp) has a mean of 0.911, a standard deviation of 0.900, a minimum of 0, and a maximum of 5.994. overall, the distribution of executive green cognition shows great differences. most executives have a low level of green cognition (mean 0.911), but some executives have a very high level of cognition (maximum 5.994). the large standard deviation (0.900) means that the difference in cognition level is significant. some executives have almost no green cognition (minimum 0), while some executives have a high level of green cognition. the overall distribution may be "right-skewed" (biased towards low values) because most of the data are concentrated near the mean. the explained variable, enterprise green transformation ( gre ), has a mean of 1.750, a standard deviation of 0.952, a minimum of 0, and a maximum of 6.001. overall, the distribution of enterprise green transformation is quite different. although the mean is 1.750, the standard deviation is 0.952, indicating that the level of green transformation among enterprises is significantly different; the overall level of green transformation of enterprises is low (mean is 1.750), and most enterprises may be in the initial or primary stage of green transformation; at the same time, there are also some enterprises with very high green transformation (maximum value is 6.001), and these enterprises may have achieved relatively mature results in green transformation. the descriptive situation of the control variables is shown in table 2 descriptive analysis. table 2. descriptive analysis variable obs mean std. min max gre 50,125 1.750 0.952 0 6.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 egp 50,125 0.911 0.900 0 5.994 size 50,125 22.05 1.310 15.58 28.70 growth 50,125 3.312 605.0 -1.445 134607 lev 50,125 0.424 0.214 0.00708 9.699 roa 50,125 0.0401 0.0765 -1.859 1.285 cashflow 50,125 0.0473 0.0769 -0.744 0.876 board 50,125 2.130 0.209 0 2.944 top 10 50,125 0.587 0.154 0.0131 1.012 firmage 50,125 2.838 0.409 0 4.190 3.2 correlation analysis table 3 shows the correlation analysis results of the explanatory variable executive green cognition (egp), the explained variable enterprise green transformation ( gre ) and the control variable, which includes the correlation coefficients between the variables and their significance. the correlation analysis in table 3 shows that the correlation coefficient between the explanatory variable executive green cognition (egp) and the explained variable enterprise green transformation ( gre ) is 0.650, and is significant at the 1% level, indicating that the relationship between executive green cognition (egp) and enterprise green transformation ( gre ) is positively correlated, preliminarily proving that enterprises with higher executive green cognition (egp) also have higher enterprise green transformation ( gre ) ; there may also be certain correlations between other variables, proving the rationality of the selection of control variables. in order to further ensure the reliability of the data, the multicollinearity test was conducted on the explanatory variables of executive green cognition (egp), enterprise green transformation ( gre ) and control variables. the test results showed that the vif value of size was 1.50, the vif value of lev was 1.54, the vif value of roa was 1.45, the vif value of cashflow was 1.17, the vif value of growth was 1.00, the vif value of board was 1.00, the vif value of top10 was 1.13, the vif value of firmage was 1.10, the vif value of egp was 1.11 and the average vif value was 1.24, all of which were less than 5. the vif values of all variables were less than 5, and most of the vif values were close to 1, indicating that there was no significant multicollinearity problem between the independent variables in the model, further ensuring the reliability of the data. table 3. correlation analysis gre egp size growth lev roa cashflow gre 1 egp 0.650*** 1 size 0.299*** 0.252*** 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 growth -0.00600 -0.00500 -0.00100 1 lev 0.019*** 0.050*** 0.416*** 0.00500 1 roa 0.011** 0.015*** 0.014*** 0 -0.395*** 1 cashflow 0.026*** 0.051*** 0.072*** -0.00100 -0.140*** 0.376*** 1 board -0.065*** 0.012*** 0.205*** 0.00200 0.150*** 0.009* 0.041*** top 10 0.023*** 0.017*** 0.074*** 0.00300 -0.142*** 0.247*** 0.109*** firmage 0.329*** 0.221*** 0.250*** 0.00300 0.102*** -0.093*** 0.00500 board top 10 firmage board 1 top 10 0.011** 1 firmage -0.078*** -0.218*** 1 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.3 main effect analysis before analyzing the main effect, it is necessary to test the sample data, which helps to select the appropriate model for analysis and ensure the reliability of the sample data results. this study uses the hausman test to test the sample data. the result of the hausman test is chi2(8)=675.12; prob>chi2=0.0000, so the fixed effect model is selected. in the main effect analysis of table 4, column (1) is the result without adding control variables and fixed effects; column (2) is the result without adding control variables and fixed effects; column (3) is the result without adding control variables and fixed effects; column (4) is the result with adding control variables and fixed effects. the regression coefficients are all positive and significant at the 1% level, proving that there is a positive relationship between the explanatory variable executive green cognition (egp) and the explained variable enterprise green transformation ( gre ), that is, the higher the executive green cognition (egp), the higher the enterprise green transformation ( gre ), which verifies how executive green cognition (egp) affects enterprise green transformation ( gre ). table 4. main effect analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) gre gre gre gre egp 0.6877 *** 0.6110 *** 0.4849 *** 0.4663 *** (191.4230) (171.0722) (124.7736) (118.5083) size 0.1198 *** 0.0758 *** (41.9386) (27.4172) growth -0.0000 -0.0000 *** www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 114 (-0.8160) (-4.6303) lev -0.4011 *** -0.0126 (-22.6355) (-0.7724) roa -0.2495 *** 0.0527 (-5.1909) (1.2286) cashflow -0.2650 *** -0.1098 *** (-6.1490) (-2.8051) board -0.3576 *** -0.0151 (-23.5763) (-1.0961) top 10 0.2027 *** 0.0358 * (9.5525) (1.8544) firmage 0.3924 *** -0.0850 *** (47.9422) (-9.6516) _cons 1.1233 *** -1.7274 *** 1.3080 *** -0.0851 (244.1913) (-27.6969) (281.1596) (-1.3386) n 50125 50125 50125 50125 adj. r 2 0.422 0.483 0.603 0.612 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.4 robustness analysis in order to ensure the reliability of the sample data, it is necessary to conduct a robustness test on the sample data. according to the existing methods, this study selected the methods of adding fixed effects, adding control variables, lagged one period, and removing special samples for robustness testing. in order to solve the omitted variable bias, control the interference of all time-invariant and unobservable individual characteristics on the relationship between the explanatory variables executive green cognition (egp) and corporate green transformation ( gre ); provide a cleaner identification, use the changes within individuals over time to estimate the effect, and reduce the influence of confounding factors. therefore, the method of adding individual fixed effects is used for robustness testing. table 5 the first column (1) of the robustness analysis is the analysis result of the method of adding individual fixed effects. its regression coefficient is 0.4388 and is significant at the 1% level. it is the same as the result before adding individual fixed effects. both are normal and significant, which preliminarily illustrates the robustness of the sample data. affected by the control variables, the analysis results may change due to the variables not added. the hollowing out of company resources by major shareholders (such as occupying funds) will weaken the financial capacity of the enterprise and directly restrict green investment (such as technology upgrades and environmental protection equipment purchases); the shareholding of management binds the interests of senior executives to the long-term value of the enterprise, which may motivate them to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 promote green transformation (because green investment has long-term benefits) ; high management expense ratio may reflect that management squanders resources, squeezes out green investment budgets, and organizational redundancy reduces transformation execution. therefore, the method of adding control variables is used for testing. this study adds three variables: major shareholder capital occupation ( occupy ), management shareholding ratio ( mshare ), and management expense ratio ( mfee ). the first column (2) of table 5 robustness analysis is the analysis result of the method of adding control variables. its regression coefficient is 0.4674 and is significant at the 1% level, which is the same as the result before adding control variables. both are normal and significant, further verifying the robustness of the sample data. by cutting off the reverse causal chain through time sequence and eliminating the interference of the same period, more credible evidence is provided for the causal relationship of "executives' green cognition drives corporate green transformation". therefore, a one-period lag method is used for robustness test. the first column (3) of table 5 robustness analysis is the analysis result of the one-period lag method. its regression coefficient is 0.3646 and is significant at the 1% level, which is the same as the result before the one-period lag. both are normal and significant, which once again verifies the robustness of the sample data. the existence of special samples may affect the general results and cause a certain degree of deviation. therefore, the method of removing special samples is used for robustness test. however, the four municipalities directly under the central government of china, namely beijing, tianjin, shanghai, and chongqing, have administrative privileges, policy biases, and regional extreme values that interfere with the estimation, affecting the universality of the impact of executives' green cognition (edp) on corporate green transformation ( gre ) in general areas. therefore, the sample data of the four municipalities directly under the central government are removed. the first column (3) of the robustness analysis in table 5 is the analysis result of the method of removing special values. its regression coefficient is 0.4627 and is significant at the 1% level, which is the same as the result before removal. both are normal and significant, verifying the robustness of the sample data. table 5. robustness analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) gre gre gre gre egp 0.4388 *** 0.4674 *** 0.4627 *** (91.3428) (119.0828) (105.9191) size 0.0910 *** 0.0816 *** 0.0878 *** 0.0741 *** (16.9142) (28.5094) (27.5416) (23.0757) growth -0.0000 -0.0000 *** 0.0004 -0.0000 *** (-0.0679) (-4.4389) (1.4434) (-12.2425) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 lev 0.0284 -0.0032 0.0059 -0.0001 (1.3817) (-0.1851) (0.3159) (-0.0078) roa 0.0994 ** 0.0200 0.0874 * 0.0683 (2.3452) (0.4649) (1.7769) (1.4235) cashflow -0.0004 -0.0978 ** -0.0868 * -0.1428 *** (-0.0117) (-2.5011) (-1.9062) (-3.2424) board -0.0170 -0.0052 -0.0108 -0.0206 (-0.8536) (-0.3808) (-0.6700) (-1.3202) top 10 0.1544 *** -0.0048 0.0558 ** 0.0341 (4.9743) (-0.2446) (2.5216) (1.5754) firmage 0.0720 ** -0.0736 *** -0.0985 *** -0.0706 *** (2.5146) (-8.2929) (-9.1068) (-7.1944) occupy 0.0149 (0.5457) mshare 0.0015 *** (9.6300) mfee 0.0002 *** (5.8886) l.egp 0.3646 *** (82.6725) _cons -0.9330 *** -0.2684 *** -0.2026 *** -0.0680 (-6.7183) (-4.0309) (-2.7344) (-0.9312) n 49814 50125 43259 40345 adj. r 2 0.750 0.612 0.546 0.610 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.5 heterogeneity analysis in order to explore the results of different enterprises and provide some guidance for enterprises to make more reasonable decisions according to their own conditions, heterogeneity analysis is conducted. table 6 shows the results of different enterprises divided by employee size and whether they are audited by the big four accounting firms. table 6 heterogeneity analysis (1) is the sample data result of larger employee size, with a regression coefficient of 0.4803, which is significant at the 1% level; table 6 heterogeneity analysis (2) is the sample data result of smaller employee size, with a regression coefficient of 0.4471, which is significant at the 1% level; table 6 heterogeneity analysis (3) is the sample data result of audited by the big four accounting firms, with a regression coefficient of 0.5192, which is significant at the 1% level; table 6 heterogeneity analysis (4) is the sample data result of not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 117 audited by the big four accounting firms, with a regression coefficient of 0.4564, which is significant at the 1% level. through comparison, it is found that in the positive impact of executives' green cognition (edp) on corporate green transformation ( gre ), the regression coefficient of enterprises with larger employee scale is greater than that of enterprises with smaller scale. the reasons may be: enterprises with larger employee scale usually have more abundant cash flow and human resource reserves, which can provide sufficient trial and error costs for green transformation (such as clean technology research and development, equipment renewal); green technology (such as photovoltaic equipment, carbon capture) has significant economies of scale, and large enterprises have lower unit transformation costs due to their large output; large-scale employee groups contain cross-domain knowledge diversity (such as engineers + legal affairs + marketing personnel collision), and executives' green cognition (edp) can stimulate internal innovation (such as green product design), while small enterprises have a single knowledge base and a low innovation conversion rate. through comparison, it is found that in the positive impact of executives' green cognition (edp) on corporate green transformation ( gre ), the regression coefficient of enterprises that adopt the big four accounting firms for auditing is greater than that of enterprises that do not. the reasons may be that: the big four audits symbolize high reliability of financial information, and their audit reports can enhance the credibility of executives' green cognition (edp) -related decisions (such as green investment plans); the strict audit procedures of the big four can restrain management opportunism (such as cutting environmental protection investment to beautify short-term profits). table 6. heterogeneity analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) gre gre gre gre egp 0.4803 *** 0.4471 *** 0.5192 *** 0.4654 *** (89.6782) (76.9865) (31.1389) (111.2169) size 0.0906 *** 0.0861 *** 0.0946 *** 0.0702 *** (22.1238) (16.0328) (9.3743) (22.2378) growth -0.0000 *** 0.0006 *** 0.0006 *** -0.0000 *** (-4.0754) (4.0727) (3.7875) (-4.5077) lev -0.0328 0.0320 0.0839 -0.0062 (-1.2382) (1.5428) (0.9333) (-0.3580) roa 0.0155 0.0911 * 0.3518 0.0974 ** (0.2245) (1.6501) (1.4802) (2.1486) cashflow 0.0455 -0.1673 *** -0.3292 * -0.1187 *** (0.7188) (-3.3340) (-1.6638) (-2.8702) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 118 board -0.0361 * 0.0246 -0.0858 * -0.0147 (-1.8729) (1.2447) (-1.6607) (-0.9936) top 10 0.0150 0.0648 ** 0.3267 *** 0.0319 (0.5619) (2.2529) (3.5961) (1.5318) firmage -0.0838 *** -0.0943 *** -0.0921 *** -0.0797 *** (-6.4315) (-7.7756) (-2.7033) (-8.4812) _cons -0.4084 *** -0.3515 *** -0.7115 *** -0.0141 (-4.2427) (-2.8502) (-2.8319) (-0.1952) n 25087 25036 2769 44373 adj. r 2 0.630 0.595 0.676 0.603 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 4. conclusions and suggestions by selecting sample data of a-share listed companies in shenzhen and shanghai from 2003 to 2023, this paper studies the impact of executive green cognition (edp) on corporate green transformation ( gre ). the following conclusions are found through the analysis of sample data:① there is a positive relationship between executive green cognition (egp) and corporate green transformation ( gre ), that is, the higher the executive green cognition (egp), the higher the corporate green transformation ( gre ), which verifies how executive green cognition (egp) affects corporate green transformation ( gre ). and a series of robustness tests such as adding individual fixed effects method, adding control variables method, lagged one period method and eliminating special values have been passed. ② in the positive impact of executive green cognition (edp) on corporate green transformation ( gre ), the regression coefficient of companies with larger employee scale is greater than that of companies with smaller employee scale; the regression coefficient of companies that use the big four accounting firms for audits is greater than that of companies that do not use them. based on the above conclusions, the following suggestions are put forward: ⑴ deepen the environmental awareness of senior executives and embed it into the strategic action decision-making mechanism incorporate executives' environmental awareness into the strategic investment evaluation process, and require the addition of an "environmental benefit-cost analysis" to all new project feasibility reports ; transform capacity building, carry out environmental technology and economic training, and jointly offer practical courses with universities to improve the accuracy of executives' green decision-making ; implement a benchmark factory secondment program, and arrange executives to conduct practical learning in industry environmental benchmark companies. ⑵ customize the transformation path according to the size of the company's employees for large enterprises, we will establish a professional environmental protection technical team and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 119 assign full-time environmental protection engineers to transform the environmental protection strategies of senior executives into technical solutions ; we will activate the scale leverage effect and use the purchase volume advantage to implement the "green supply chain plan". for small and medium-sized enterprises, we will develop lightweight transformation tool kits, promote modular environmental protection equipment and shared testing platforms ; we will build a transformation mutual assistance alliance, and small and medium-sized enterprises in the same industry will jointly purchase environmental protection services. ⑶ strengthen the role of audit in safeguarding environmental protection transformation expand the boundaries of audit functions. add an environmental compliance audit module, and include verification of the authenticity of environmental investment in the annual report audit. develop transformation progress certification services, with the audit agency issuing a "green transformation progress verification certificate" every quarter as a basis for banks to renew green credit. reduce costs for non-big four companies, establish a regional audit collaboration pool, and promote simplified environmental audit standards. references wang, x., & qin, s. s., & wang, k. (n.d.). analysis on the green development driven by green technology innovation in enterprises. journal of technical economy and management, (08), 26-29. (in chinese) christos, k., & lin, z. (2017). green tax reform, endogenous innovation and the growth dividend. ssrn electronic journal, 97, 158-181. eugenie, d., & marion, d. (2021). green product innovation in industrial networks: a theoretical model. journal of environmental economics and management, 107, 102420. hu, g. q., wang, xi. q., & wang, yu. (2021). can the green credit policy stimulate green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises? evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in china. energy economics, 98, 105134. zhang, z. g., zhang, c., & cao, d. t. (2019). is corporate environmental management system certification effective?. nankai business review, 22(04), 123-134. (in chinese) xie, x. m., & han, y. h. (2022). how can local manufacturing enterprises achieve “gorgeous transformation” in green innovation?—a multi-case study based on the attention-based view. management world, 38(03), 76-106. (in chinese) yuan, x. p., & li, p. (2023). executives’ environmental awareness, r&d investment and corporate green innovation performance. finance and accounting monthly, 44(18), 20-27. (in chinese) zhou, k., wang, r. x., tao, y. q. et al. (2022). corporate green transformation and stock price crash risk. management science, 35(06), 56-69. (in chinese) li, y. b., xia, y., & zhao, z. (2023). the impact of executives’ green cognition on corporate performance in heavily polluting industries: a moderated mediation effect model. science and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 120 technology progress and countermeasures, 40(07), 113-123. (in chinese) about the author du xue, born in december 1998, is a han chinese master and a teaching assistant at qilu medical college. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 180 original paper research on the cultivation mechanism of huxiang red culture under the perspective of “three comprehensive education” qiurong qian 1 & xiao zhou 1* 1 hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china * xiao zhou, hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china received: april 12, 2023 accepted: may 16, 2023 online published: may 22, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p180 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p180 fund project project of hunan provincial department of education (21c0420); project of the hunan university ideological and political education research association (22sz23); project of hunan university of technology (2021b01) abstract hunan red culture is an important part of chinese revolutionary culture and a valuable spiritual wealth in hunan. it carries the heroic deeds and valuable qualities of hunan revolutionary martyrs and has a unique nurturing value, which is an important material and content for the ideological education of colleges and universities. in order to give full play to the nurturing value of hunan culture in the field of “three-wide nurturing” and to promote the innovation of nurturing mode and mechanism in colleges and universities, this paper elaborates the concept of hunan red culture and “three-wide nurturing”, as well as the relationship between hunan red culture and “three-wide nurturing”. the paper also further discusses the consensus, clear objectives, and promote the synergy among all education subjects to realize the “whole staff” education; connect the growth of students to inherit the genes of hunan culture to realize the “whole process” education. the mechanism of nurturing people with hu xiang red culture is explored in three levels: integrating hu xiang culture nurturing resources and enriching nurturing carriers to realize “all-round” nurturing people, promoting hu xiang red culture and the “three whole nurturing people” system in colleges and universities, and building a system of “three whole nurturing people”. it also explores the mechanism of educating people with hunan red culture in three levels, and promotes the “three-wide education” system of education between hunan red culture and colleges and universities to build a “big thinking and government” pattern. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 181 published by scholink inc. keywords three whole education, huxiang red culture, education mechanism 1. introduction xi jinping stressed that “culture is the soul of a country and a nation. culture is the soul of a country and a nation. culture is strong and the nation is strong.” without a high degree of cultural confidence, without cultural prosperity, there will be no great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. it is an important mission of the new era to carry forward the glorious tradition and continue the red bloodline. universities are an important position of ideological work, and young college students are an important force to inherit the red gene and walk a new path of the times. the integration of huxiang red culture into the “three whole education” system of colleges and universities is an important content to promote the inheritance of red gene, cultivate and practice the core socialist values, and an important measure to implement the fundamental task of establishing moral education. 2. hunan red culture and “three comprehensive education” 2.1 the connotation of the concept of “three-wide education” since the 18th party congress, the party central committee has been planning and promoting education from the strategic height of achieving the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, implementing the fundamental task of educating people with moral character, and establishing the institutional mechanism of “three-wide education”. at present, with the continuous development of education “three whole education” law understanding continues to deepen, practical experience continues to accumulate, the institutional mechanism continues to improve. the “three whole education” refers to the whole staff education, the whole process education, all-round education. the whole staff nurturing is proposed for the nurturing subject, requiring full coverage of the nurturing subject, in collaboration with the strength of all staff, to achieve everyone nurturing; the whole process of nurturing is proposed for the nurturing time, requiring nurturing throughout every moment of students’ learning, life, growth, combined with the characteristics of students’ growth at all times; all-round nurturing is proposed for the nurturing space, requiring the integration of all resources, carriers and other aspects of nurturing in order to achieve all-round nurturing, we need to integrate all resources, carriers and other aspects of nurturing, online and offline, inside and outside the school, multi-point efforts. 2.2 the origin, spiritual connotation and nurturing value of hunan red culture 2.2.1 the origin of huxiang red culture hunan red culture is an important part of china’s revolutionary culture, and its origin can be traced back to the early 20th century. as early as during the xinhai revolution, a number of revolutionary pioneers emerged in hunan, such as huang xing and mao zedong. with the rise of the new culture movement in china, chen duxiu and other leaders of the new culture movement in hunan put www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 182 published by scholink inc. forward the slogan “a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend”, which promoted the diversification of social thought and cultural forms. in this context, the xiangjiang school, represented by mao zedong, was formed, with the purpose of criticizing reality, advocating freedom and pursuing truth, and using nature, folk and revolutionary themes as materials, forming the basic characteristics of hunan red culture. meanwhile, in the autumn of 1927, the successful nanchang uprising led by the chinese communist party marked the birth of the chinese workers’ and peasants’ red army, in which mao zedong and other hunan revolutionary pioneers actively participated, opening up a new path for the chinese revolution. these historical and cultural backgrounds give huxiang red culture a unique spirit of the times and ideological connotation. 2.2.2 the spiritual connotation and nurturing value of hunan culture (1) patriotism with concern for the world the patriotic spirit of concern for the world is the soul of hunan red culture, from the origin, development and in the process of perfection, the red culture of hunan always runs through the patriotic thought of worrying about the world and taking the world as one’s duty, worrying about the country and the people. in the face of the unprecedented national crisis in which china was invaded by the powers, the country was shattered and the people were suffering, countless xiang proletarian revolutionaries rose up to save the country from the crisis, sacrificing needlessly for the revolutionary cause, practicing their patriotism with practical revolutionary actions, and interpreting the true meaning of the patriotism spirit of worrying about the world with revolutionary enthusiasm. its nurturing value for college students is mainly reflected in the following aspects: firstly, it can help college students establish a correct view of the country. the patriotism spirit of worrying about the world emphasizes the concern and responsibility for the whole country and nation, which is very important for college students to establish the correct national concept and deeply realize the importance of the country and their own responsibility; secondly, it can cultivate the family sentiment of college students. the patriotism spirit of worrying about the world contains deep feelings for the country and the people, and encourages people to contribute their strength to the development of the country and society. it can stimulate college students’ patriotic feelings and make them establish the belief of fighting for the country and the people. (2) the value of the application of the world hunan red culture has always adhered to the value of the world, talking about the empty talk is wrong, practical work to prosper the country, to solve the practical problems of society as the starting point. the values reflected in the education of people are practical learning, practice, and practical work. it is also the most vital and most practical spiritual characteristics of hunan red culture. a large number of proletarian revolutionaries of hunan origin, represented by mao zedong, were strongly influenced by the idea of applying the world to the world in hunan culture, and were the first to put forward the revolutionary theory of “power comes from the barrel of a gun”, pointing out that “without investigation, there is no right to speak”, emphasizing that we should the content of “seeking truth www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 183 published by scholink inc. from facts” and “mass line” in the soul of mao zedong’s thought is the result of incorporating the thought of the world in revolutionary practice. its nurturing value for college students is mainly reflected in the following aspects: firstly, it can help college students cultivate practical ability and innovation spirit. the value orientation of “the world is useful” emphasizes practical innovation, which guides college students to improve their practical ability and try to solve practical problems through participating in various practical activities and social practice projects, so as to exercise their innovative spirit; secondly, it can promote college students to learn to link theory with practice. the value orientation of “the world is useful” focuses on the transformation of results and guides college students to make contributions to social development by combining theoretical knowledge with practical problems, exploring and trying, and actively promoting the transformation and application of knowledge and technology in the process of practice; thirdly, it can help college students improve their comprehensive quality. the value orientation of “worldly application” focuses on the accumulation of practical experience, guiding college students to learn to accumulate practical experience, enhance teamwork ability, improve communication ability and management ability and other comprehensive qualities, so as to better adapt to future career development and social roles; fourthly, it can cultivate college students’ sense of responsibility and dedication. the value orientation of the world-oriented approach emphasizes the courage to take responsibility, which guides college students to better understand the practical social problems, enhance patriotism and social responsibility, and actively participate in the cause of promoting social progress and development through participating in various voluntary services and public welfare activities. (3) indomitable spirit of hard work the indomitable spirit of hard struggle is the undertone of hunan’s red culture, which refers to the spirit of perseverance, rising to difficulties and moving forward in the face of adversity and hardship. under the leadership of the communist party of china, the people in hunan and hubei carried out the revolutionary struggle with great hardship and perseverance under the aggression and oppression of domestic and foreign enemies, and achieved a series of glorious victories. its nurturing value for college students is reflected in the following aspects: firstly, it can stimulate the struggle spirit and enterprising spirit of college students. by learning the indomitable spirit of hard struggle of hunan red culture, college students can understand that only through hard work can they achieve success, and they need to maintain the spirit of pursuing excellence and climbing to the top at all times; secondly, it can cultivate strong willpower of college students. the indomitable spirit of hard work emphasizes indomitable in the face of difficulties and guides college students to overcome difficulties and setbacks and cultivate tough will and perseverance; thirdly, it can educate college students to cherish opportunities and study diligently. the indomitable spirit of hard struggle tells us that we should not give up learning and exploration at any time, and guides college students to cherish every opportunity and improve their own ability and quality; fourth, it can cultivate college students’ social responsibility. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 184 published by scholink inc. the indomitable spirit of hard struggle emphasizes that individuals are connected with the fate of the country and the nation, guides college students to establish correct values, earnestly fulfill their social responsibilities, and contribute to the development and prosperity of the motherland. (4) innovative spirit of pioneering the innovative spirit of daring to be the first in hunan red culture covers the spirit of reflection and subversion of old traditional concepts, active exploration and innovative practice, as well as the spirit of firm belief and indomitable struggle, which is also a kind of innovative spirit emphasizing the attempt to change and seek new ideas. during the revolutionary struggle, the masses of people around hunan and hubei courageously explored the road to liberation, advanced the revolutionary cause, and reflected on and subverted the old concepts. during the new democracy period, the leaders of the communist party of china, represented by mao zedong, were brave enough to seek new changes and open up a revolutionary path of “encircling the cities with the countryside and seizing power with arms”, taking into account the realities of the revolution at that time. it is this new path of seeking changes that has guided our new democratic revolution to victory. this spirit of courageous revolution, courageous struggle and fearless sacrifice is influenced by the hunan red culture of seeking change and innovation and daring to be the first in the world. its nurturing value for college students is reflected in the following aspects: first, it can stimulate the innovative thinking and creativity of college students. it helps them develop a positive and innovative consciousness and the ability to adapt to change and innovate; secondly, it enhances the sense of social responsibility and mission of college students. more profoundly recognize the rich connotation and value covered by the history of chinese revolution, strengthen the self-confidence of socialist culture with chinese characteristics, and guide them to contribute to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. 2.3 the relationship between the three comprehensive education and hunan culture (1) the red culture of hunan province enriches the connotation value and path of “three comprehensive education” in colleges and universities hunan red culture is a valuable and high-quality education resource for colleges and universities, which enriches the connotation, value and path of “three-wide education” in colleges and universities. the patriotism spirit of huxiang red culture, which is concerned about the world, the value orientation of the world, the indomitable spirit of hard work and the innovative spirit of daring to be the first, can be used as important contents of ideal and belief education and patriotism education for college students, which enriches the connotation of ideological and political education of “three-wide education” for college students. the education process of hunan red culture can also further enrich the path of “three-full education” by incorporating revolutionary stories and revolutionary figures into the education method. (2) the “three comprehensive education” system of universities provides a good platform for the development of hunan red culture the “three whole education” system in colleges and universities is an important initiative to innovate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 185 published by scholink inc. the way of educating people in the new era, and the inheritance and development of hunan red culture cannot be carried forward without the main position of colleges and universities. the “three whole education” system provides a good platform for hunan red culture in colleges and universities in terms of education subject, education time and education space, so that the education of hunan red culture can stimulate the motivation of all staff to educate people and educate people, enhance the whole process of education synergy and strengthen the education of people at all times, optimize the effectiveness of all-round education and create the education of people everywhere. at the same time, the two are mutually promoting and symbiotic relationship, as the red culture of hunan is integrated into the “three whole education” system as an excellent resource, promoting the development of the “three whole education” system, and the red culture of hunan is also in the “three whole education” system. the red culture of hunan is also fully displayed on the big platform of the “three-wide education” system. 3. education mechanism of huxiang red culture in the context of “three comprehensive education” 3.1 gather consensus, clarify goals, and promote the synergy of all human education subjects to achieve “total” human education strengthen the construction of the team of school, family and society, and strive to improve the red connotation of each education subject, especially the team of full-time teachers, civic science teachers, school party workers and counselors in colleges and universities, dig deeper into the spiritual connotation and education value of hunan red culture, and clarify the role of hunan red culture in promoting the work of “three comprehensive education” in colleges and universities. the important position of hunan red culture in promoting “three comprehensive education” in colleges and universities. at the school level, we need to create a multi-level structure of “school party and government cadres civic theory teachers counselors, class teachers all staff students”. improve the education subject’s literacy of hunan red culture, guide them to be good believers, active propagators and exemplary practitioners of hunan red culture, and create a “big thinking and politics” education environment of hunan culture. firstly, we can improve the red culture literacy of civics theory and professional teachers through “civics teaching content + hunan red culture” and exploring innovative civics education methods; by building a high level civics teacher team and optimizing the “teaching material system” of civics + hunan red culture in the curriculum “, coalescing the team strength of the civics teachers; by carrying out declaration and research on various special topics of huxiang red culture at all levels, guiding civics teachers to deeply explore the contemporary value and nurturing connotation of huxiang red culture, so as to fully integrate the educational elements of huxiang red culture into teachers’ teaching and teaching materials design, and stimulating the endogenous motivation of civics teachers; secondly, it can stimulate the endogenous motivation of civics teachers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 186 published by scholink inc. through secondly, through the way of “cultural propaganda + thinking and political practice + campus immersion”, focus on theoretical propaganda and practical experience of huxiang red culture. we should make full use of the dual identity of teachers and management of counselors and class teachers to carry out lectures and thematic class meetings such as “inherit the red gene, continue the red spirit of lian”, so that college students can understand the profound spiritual connotation of huxiang red culture and lead students to be the inheritors and practitioners of huxiang red culture; carry out various forms such as “the students can immerse themselves in the education of hunan red culture and empathize with the deeds of the revolutionary martyrs, thus acquiring the excellent quality of sticking to the original heart and taking up the mission; through rich educational activities of party and league themes, campus cultural activities, etc., we can create the atmosphere of hunan red culture so that students can be influenced by the red culture in a subtle way, so as to consolidate the red values. thirdly, we can play the role of leading by example and influence of the party and league organizations and student cadres through the way of “ideological leadership + activity integration”. focus on the education and leadership of the “key minority” team of hunan red culture, such as the organization of hunan red theme speech, learning salon and other activities to fully integrate the hunan red culture, while focusing on the creation of physical and non-physical hunan red culture publicity environment, so that the hunan red culture into the eyes and hearts. in addition, colleges and universities should form a joint effort of home, school and society, and take the initiative to absorb social education. integrate the huxiang red culture education resources of each red culture education base and strengthen the responsibility of educating people. actively carry out home-school cooperation, organize practical activities of huxiang red culture with joint participation of home and school, collaborate with the role of the main body of education inside and outside the school, and build the “big thinking and government” pattern of education of the whole staff of xiang red culture education mechanism. 3.2 bridging the growth of students to inherit hunan culture and realize the “whole process” of education the whole process of nurturing people, bridging the whole process of nurturing people. emphasis on the education of hunan red culture throughout the whole process of college students from the first year of campus to the fourth year of graduation out of campus, all stages. in the first year of college, as freshmen, they are full of novelty about their future campus study and life, and this stage is the “nurturing stage”, which is suitable for students to carry out education on ideals and beliefs, career planning education, and can focus on integrating into education the patriotism spirit of revolutionary figures in hunan red culture who fill in their hearts, pursue communism and work for the happiness of the chinese people. the sophomore and junior years are the accumulation period, in which students have initially adapted to university life and have a better understanding of their major courses, but are prone to problems such as lack of motivation and career confusion, which is a “comprehensive growth” piloting stage. in the education, we can combine the heroic figures and revolutionary deeds in the red www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 187 published by scholink inc. culture of hunan province, and use story-telling to let students perceive the hardship of the revolutionary cause and the persistent pursuit and dedication of the revolutionary martyrs to the communist ideals and beliefs, so as to help college students adjust their mentality and build up their strength to move forward; senior year is the graduation period, and students are about to enter the society, so students at this stage are prone to lose themselves in the face of employment, and it is a stage of in this stage, students are prone to lose themselves in the face of employment, and it is a stage of voyage of “brightness and success”, so we can integrate the mission and responsibility of chinese communists and the spirit of reform and innovation in hunan red culture in education, consolidate the foundation of students’ integrity in employment, guide them to plan their careers rationally, internalize the hunan red culture and externalize it to achieve self-growth. 3.3 integrating huxiang red culture education resources and enriching education carrier to realize “all-round” education all-around nurturing refers to the nurturing of the full range of coverage. emphasis on the full integration of the resources and enrichment of nurturing carrier, so that the red culture of hunan into all aspects of nurturing, to create an all-round nurturing environment, weaving a dead-end framework of nurturing people. first of all, integrate hu xiang red culture nurturing resources, enrich the nurturing carrier, and promote the mutual integration of the two. as an advanced revolutionary culture, hunan red culture has unique nurturing value. colleges and universities should integrate huxiang red culture resources inside and outside the school as high-quality educational resources, innovate educational methods and approaches, enrich the nurturing carrier, explore the development of specific programs for nurturing huxiang red culture in line with the actual school, and do a good job of top-level design of red culture nurturing in the ten nurturing systems of colleges and universities. for example, “red service” is proposed from the perspective of management education, reflecting the education requirements of “caring for students should be warmed up”; from the perspective of “culture education”, it is proposed to from the perspective of “cultural education”, we propose to “red infiltrate”, optimize the school style and school spirit, and prosper the campus culture; from the perspective of “practical education”, we propose to “red practice”, enhance the practical ability and establish the national sentiment. students can deeply perceive the spiritual power of hunan red culture in the practical study. combining with the actual situation of the school, we will explore the establishment of huxiang red culture courses and huxiang red culture education and practice bases inside and outside the school to enrich the carrier of huxiang red culture and strengthen the nurturing effect of huxiang red culture. secondly, strengthen the propaganda, to create a strong atmosphere of huxiang red culture education. the influence of environment on people cannot be ignored, and a good cultural learning environment plays an important role in students’ absorption of huxiang red culture. we should strengthen the propaganda of huxiang red culture from all levels, and create a strong atmosphere of huxiang red culture nurturing. colleges and universities should encourage teachers to increase their research on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 188 published by scholink inc. huxiang red culture and consolidate the theoretical foundation. at the same time, they should also integrate the elements of huxiang red culture into all aspects of the practical activities of the family, school and society, so as to create a good family, social and teaching culture. in addition, make full use of the online platform to promote the online communication, dissemination and education of huxiang red culture. once again, horizontal expansion, vertical extension, multi-point efforts, so that the red culture of hunan province into all points and lines of education, the formation of education grid. combining theory with practice, curriculum with practice, education close to students, and vividly presenting hunan red culture. explore the huxiang red culture to promote the civic and political science curriculum and the curriculum civic and political science resonate with the same frequency, the same direction peer education mechanism, and ultimately build a comprehensive education grid. 4. conclusion hunan red culture has very high nurturing value and function, and the system of “three-wide nurturing” is a powerful measure to implement the fundamental task of establishing moral education in colleges and universities, which is compatible with the core connotation of hunan red culture and can mutually co-exist. combining with the requirements of the “three-wide education” in colleges and universities, we explore the education mechanism of hunan red culture in the context of “three-wide education”, mainly from consensus building, clear objectives, and promoting the synergy among all education subjects to achieve the “three-wide education”, “three-wide education” and “three-wide education”. all staff” education, connecting students’ growth and inheriting hunan culture genes to realize “whole process” education, integrating hunan culture education resources and enriching education carriers to realize “all-round” education. reference dong, h. (2020). research on the path and mode of integrating red culture into ideological and political education of college students in hebei province. shanxi youth, (03), 37-38. dong, y. (2020). research on the integration of ideological and political education resources in colleges and universities in the context of “three comprehensive education” (master’s thesis). shenyang normal university. fan, y. x. (2022). research on the development and utilization of red resources for ideological and political education in inner mongolia (master’s thesis). inner mongolia university of science and technology. long, x. y. (2020). research on the dissemination of red culture in local colleges and universities in ethnic areas (master’s thesis). guizhou normal university. shi, j. t. (2023). research and practical exploration on the mechanism of “three comprehensive education” in digital empowerment universities. modern business industry, 44(9), 113-115. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 189 published by scholink inc. wang, k. x. (2020). practice and consideration of patriotic education using local red cultural resources. culture industry, (09), 131-132. wang, y. (2022). exploration of the teaching practice path of integrating red culture into college civic education. journal of hubei open vocational college, 35(18), 84-85. yang, z. (2021). research on the contemporary value of huxiang red culture and the cultivation path of colleges and universities. economist, (09), 184-185. yin, h. q. (2022). analysis of the connotation, characteristics and functions of red culture education in colleges and universities. industry and technology forum, 21(23), 71-74. zhang, j. (2022). research on the problems and countermeasures of red culture education in new era colleges and universities (master’s thesis). wuhan light industry university. zhang, l. (2021). the current situation, problems and countermeasures of red culture education for college students in the new era--an empirical analysis based on 71 colleges and universities in china. journal of hunan university of science and technology (social science edition), 24(02), 163-169. zhu, h. y. (2022). exploring the path of huaian red resources into ideological and political education in colleges and universities. journal of huaiyin normal college (natural science edition), 21(04), 328-331. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 28 original paper restrictions on the trade in cultural goods jose luis bonifacio ramos 1* 1 faculty of law, university of lisbon, portugal * jose luis bonifacio ramos, faculty of law, university of lisbon, portugal received: october 2, 2022 accepted: october 18, 202 online published: november 4, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p28 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p28 abstract restrictions on the trade in cultural goods are of particular importance, constituting a special legal regime focussed to protect the culture and memory, aspects that have gained special importance nowadays. the present study intends to focus, above all, on the export, import and restitution of cultural goods, in the light of domestic law, but also under the terms of international conventions, unesco and unidroit, as well as european directives. keywords cultural goods, memory, export, restitution, unesco, unidroit, european directives, due diligence, nationalism and internationalism, historical and archaeological value, macron report 1. introduction regardless of whether we may encounter a guideline underlying the questions around ownership of cultural goods backed up by some ardent cultural nationalism (note 1), it is nevertheless worth looking in detail at the restrictions in effect on the trade in cultural goods. this primarily arises because commerciality does not represent a characteristic of the exploitation of tangible goods (note 2) and the apparent conflict between article 202(2) cc and article 1304 cc resolves in favour of this principle. furthermore, should we reject the unity of the public goods regime, we may also understand that the object of reality does not stop at the boundaries of commercial goods but also encompasses other tangible goods which, momentarily or more persistently, fall beyond the scope of commerce (note 3). while the scope of right in rem runs wider than the circle in effect for tradable goods, this does not mean we may avoid highlighting those aspects we consider of greatest relevance to illuminating the proposed theme. therefore, just as there are issues pertaining to non-commerciality, we also encounter points of view, appropriate to commerciality, especially illustrative of the complex restrictiveness applied to the trade in cultural goods, susceptible of bringing about important contributions to the modernisation of rights in rem. therefore, it makes sense to present, attentively and in great detail, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. certain topics that we perceive as structural. we have accordingly selected the following: the pre-emption right, export and shipment, import and admission, due diligence, restitution, the 1970 convention, the unidroit convention and the report commissioned by president macron, authored by felwine sarr and benedicte savoy. 2. export and shipment in addition to the complex issues surrounding the grounds for restricting the export and shipment of cultural assets (note 4), we must at this point highlight the essential features of positive law. while export represents an exit of cultural assets outside the borders of the european union and shipment constitutes an exit to the territory of another european union member state, they share a common thread. we nevertheless face two ways of removing movable goods and hence the importance of highlighting some of their most striking features. let us first of all state that the existence of the internal market implies the establishment of regulations on trade with third countries. this accordingly adopts measures to ensure uniform controls at external borders on the export of cultural assets. therefore, regulation no. 116/2009 (note 5) correspondingly determines that exports of cultural assets outside eu territory is subject to the presentation of an export licence (note 6) issued by the competent authority of the member state in whose territory the cultural asset was lawfully and definitively located on 1 january 1993 (note 7), or after that date by the competent authority of any member state in whose territory it is located following either the lawful and definitive shipment from another member state or importation from a third country or re-importation from a third country after lawful shipment from a member state to that country (note 8). the export licence, issued by the competent authorities indicated by member states, becomes valid throughout the european union (note 9) and is required for presentation in support of the export declaration at the time of the completion of formalities with the competent customs authorities, who shall thereby ensure the details of the declaration correspond to those of the export licence (note 10). furthermore, any such export is subject to three different types of authorisation in keeping with the respective implementing regulation (note 11). accordingly, the duration of authorisation validity cannot exceed twelve months as a normal authorisation while this may also be a specific open authorisation or a general open authorisation in accordance with the provisions of articles 10 et seq. of the aforementioned regulation. the export licence may be refused when the cultural assets in question are covered by legislation protecting national treasures holding artistic, historical or archaeological value to the member states (note 12). in other words, the regulation allows for the corresponding inapplicability of its provisions whenever faced by a more restrictive and protectionist national legal regime. therefore, in addition to the basic law articles on the export and shipment of goods classified as in the national interest (note 13) and the export and shipment of other classified goods (note 14), we shall have to look to the provisions of decree-law no. 148/2015. in fact, this legal instrument establishes several rules www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. applicable to the export and shipping of movable cultural assets and we will here underline only those which we consider most striking. as regards goods already classified or under classification as in the national interest, a distinction needs making between temporary export and shipment and definitive export and shipment. thus, while the temporary departure of classified goods or goods undergoing classification processes may only be authorised by order of a member of the commission responsible for culture, for cultural or scientific purposes, including temporary exchanges for other goods of equal interest to the cultural heritage (note 15), the permanent exit of national interest state owned assets or those under such classification processes may only be authorised on an exceptional basis by the council of ministers, following consultation with the national council of culture and for the purpose of a permanent exchange for other assets existing abroad that are of exceptional interest to portuguese cultural heritage (note 16). in any event, permanent or temporary exits, with scope for their sale, of goods classified as in the national interest, or in the process of classification as such, which do not belong to the state, are prohibited (note 17). temporary exports and shipments of movable assets classified as in the public interest, or undergoing classification processes require authorisation from the competent patrimonial management authority (note 18). whereas definitive or temporary exports and shipments, with the scope for sale, of movable goods classified as of public interest, or in the process of classification, can only be exceptionally authorised by means of a duly justified order signed by the government member responsible for culture and issued after obtaining the opinion of the national council of culture (note 19). however, as regards the exports and shipments of goods classified as in the municipal interest or undergoing such classification processes, these must be preceded by notification to the competent cultural heritage management entity (note 20). additionally, regarding permanent or temporary exits of movable property of municipal interest with the scope for sale, this prior notice must be accompanied by a favourable opinion from the municipal council (note 21). in turn, should exports and shipments of inventoried assets depend on the authorisation of the competent patrimonial authorities (note 22), we cannot affirm that the removal of goods that are not classified or inventoried is free of any onus. in fact, the temporary or definitive departure of movable goods covered by article 55 of the framework law, neither classified as of national or public interest, nor inventoried, must be preceded by notification submitted to the competent cultural heritage entity (note 23). subsequently, within fifteen days counting from the prior notification, the competent patrimonial authority will assess the cultural value of the assets and, whenever so justified, may preliminarily prohibit their export or shipment as a provisional measure (note 24). 3. import and admission while export covers the exit of cultural assets outside the borders of the european union and shipment the exit to the territory of another european union member state, import and admission are their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. antonyms. in other words, import means the entry of a cultural asset originating from a third country into the national territory, while admission means the entry of an asset originating from a fellow eu member state. imports and admissions of cultural assets must also be preceded by notification submitted to the competent cultural heritage authority (note 25). moreover, the import and admission rules concern the wide range of assets detailed in article 55, paragraph 3 of the basic law regardless of any final assessment of cultural interest (note 26). this demonstrates that such restrictions cover a very wide range of assets, which reach far beyond the universe of classified assets or assets undergoing classification processes, while also demonstrating how, in the case of cultural asset imports and admissions undertaken by private individuals, the owner benefits from the right to the asset‟s identification deed, which is equivalent to the status of the inventoried asset. (note 27) this furthermore assumes the right to exclusion from classification processes leading to declarations of national or public interest for a period of ten years following import or admission (note 28). this represents quite a unique provision and conveys how the legislative body itself not only understands the restrictive classification regime but even grants an exceptional regime in order to encourage individuals to promote the importation or admission of cultural assets. despite the tight restrictions imposed by the import and admission regime, in contrast to the export and shipment regime, it is not clear that a particular asset receives protection whenever located, even temporarily, in portuguese territory; reflecting how such assets fall under the scarce regime for stipulating administrative offences (note 29). however, as is accepted in other legal systems, verification of the legality of importation has become increasingly important as the means of protecting cultural assets (note 30). this derives from how the return of goods, in accordance with the verification of illicit situations, does not have to be solved in its entirety by the restitution activity in keeping with how the respective system presents various imperfections and clear shortcomings as we shall return to below. in any case, the study of restitution helps in clarifying that already achieved and, correspondingly, what still needs improving. 4. restitution questions relating to the restitution of cultural assets are not new nor even contemporary in european union law. in fact, the problem of restitution of cultural assets came to the fore in the 19th century. during the napoleonic campaigns, in a letter to general miranda, the archaeologist quatremère de quincy protested against the appropriation of the cultural assets of vanquished peoples. in his opinion, works of art should be preserved in a specific place, because nobody had the right to arbitrarily appropriate that which was held in common ownership, the aforementioned property of the arts (note 31). consequently, no leader or chief could attribute himself a position of supremacy even when holding some momentary strength or success in a battle or a conquest (note 32). canova, drawing on the writings of quatremère de quincy, expressed disagreement with napoleon www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. firstly about the transfer of works of art (note 33) and, on a later occasion, when representing the claims of the papal state over recovering works transferred by napoleonic troops, he maintained that the republic of arts should place itself above the laws of war (note 34). thus, he not only refuted the concept of plunder, which provided the scope for victorious parties to appropriate the property of vanquished peoples, but he also sought to enunciate another rule according to which a state might recover its works of art even when located in foreign territories (note 35). in this context, while not managing to recover all the works of art (note 36), canova, demonstrating coherence, maintained the same position when, following a request addressed to the pope for the return of books belonging to the palatine library of heidelberg, he invoked the principle of asset nationality (note 37). this proved a position that would henceforth gain increasing acceptance. indeed, it was canova who, when visiting london, advised the british government to acquire the friezes from the parthenon (note 38). thus, the acceptance of the national value of works of art must be accepted to the detriment of local or merely territorial connections (note 39). however, although this paradigm shift deserves highlighting, we should nevertheless observe that this did not represent the terminus nor even a restraint on the non-consensual appropriation of cultural assets. in addition to the enormity of the acts of warfare during the 20th century, with its two global conflicts, it is important not to overlook the other transfers also displaying flagrant illegality. the parthenon friezes were allegedly acquired by lord elgin from the turkish authorities (note 40) in a transaction that motivated, in view of the doubtful and circumstantial acquisition, heated debate in the british parliament about the subsequent custody of assets (note 41), as well as intermittent controversy over returning the friezes to their place of origin (note 42). within the scope of the global conflicts, let us remember the consequences of the first world war and the russian revolution (note 43) or the massive displacements of populations brought about by the second world war. it is indeed worth noting not only the immense amount of assets plundered by the nazi troops (note 44) but also how, at the end of that period, the assets plundered and stolen in those terrible and unfortunate circumstances were never returned in full (note 45). a similar case prevailed with the thousands of cultural assets transported by the soviets from areas occupied by the former ussr (note 46). the restitution of german works of art was also extremely slow and silent, a factor that triggered repeated recourse to legal actions taken in third party countries (note 47). alongside these events and the dire consequences of seizures of movable cultural assets by belligerent nations (note 48), by authoritarian state authorities or even by dubious deals agreed with occupying powers, there are other aspects for clarification. thus, starting from cultural identity as a category of right (note 49), we nevertheless have the non-acquisition a non domino and the protection of bona fide third parties. furthermore, while the acquisition of ownership by a non-owner was, in terms of movable assets, rather rare (note 50) or even exogenous to roman law (note 51), the same does not hold for several legal systems in the roman-germanic system. we may first indicate german customary law that contains relevant protection for purchasers and to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. detriment of third party claims, (note 52) as well as limiting any demand to payment of compensation by the possessor when acting in good faith (note 53). in a second approach, following the consolidation of gewere (note 54) as a means of ensuring social peace and easing conflicts (note 55), the emergence of the hand wahre hand rule (note 56) according to which owners who entrusted movable properties to custodians or lessees could not claim them from third parties (note 57). finally, in a third phase, such claims would be exempted in case of bona fide purchases by third parties from traders, the tax authorities or at public auctions (note 58). we may also point to the model of possession equalling ownership adopted by the french cc (note 59) in order to ensure legal trade (note 60) and later replicated in other civil codifications; specifically, in the italian, german and spanish codes. indeed, regarding the italian codes, we would duly note that the 1865 code mentions good faith (note 61) while that of 1942 does not even mention stolen or lost assets (note 62). thus, this prioritises the defence of trade (note 63) and, therefore, lends protection to bona fide third parties, according to requirements justifying an autonomous cause of acquisition (note 64) that, however, does not reach any limit as it requires onerosity with the corresponding rejection of free transfer (note 65). the bgb provides for acquisition by bona fide third parties whenever there is delivery of the asset to which the right corresponds (note 66). whenever lacking any knowledge about the seller not being the real owner, implying conduct without any intention or serious fault, the third party may acquire ownership over the asset (note 67) provided such has not been stolen or lost (note 68). another facet arises from the spanish code in determining how possession of movable property, acquired in good faith, is equivalent to a deed (note 69), thus not only emphasising legal certainty for bona fide sub-purchasers and thereby also striving to enhance the credibility and security of legal commerce (note 70). finally, the model which prefigures possession not as an acquisitive cause but as a presumption of ownership of an undeniable, or juris tantum, nature. therefore, possession does not automatically confer ownership as the presumption may be rebutted by the holder‟s claim even when the asset has been sold to a bona fide third party (note 71). in short, as we have sought to demonstrate on another occasion, the portuguese civil code adopted this model through article 1268 that determines how the possessor enjoys a presumption of ownership of the right unless there is a presumption in favour of someone else based on a registration made prior to the taking of possession (note 72). moreover, any interpretation of the provisions of article 1301 cc only serves to reinforce the exclusion of the possession equals ownership model in portuguese law (note 73). 5. the unesco convention in view of the domestic legal status quo in the main legal systems of the roman-germanic system, the general conference of the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) set out to emphasise the importance of restitution. accordingly, at its 16th session, held in paris on 14 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. november 1970, the conference approved the convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property. thus, unlike the 1954 convention, aimed at protecting cultural assets in the event of armed conflict (note 74), the 1970 convention intended to cover a very broad range of goods. in addition to times of peace and war, this seeks to safeguard cultural assets irrespective of their location or origin. however, the convention does not present any notion of cultural asset with this issue left to the internal laws of states (note 75). moreover, while declaring it is indispensable for any state to be aware of the moral obligations inherent to respecting its own cultural heritage, the heritage belongs to all nations as does the undeniable duty of protecting the cultural asset heritage existing on its territory against the dangers of theft, clandestine excavation and/or illicit exportation, it enshrines a precept concerning the return of cultural assets. thus, following the undertaking by state parties to endeavour to prevent museums and other similar institutions on its territory from acquiring cultural assets from another state party which have been unlawfully exported subsequent to the entry into effect of the convention, article 7 establishes the need for the state to implement appropriate measures to seize and return, at the request of the state of origin, any asset stolen from museums, civil or religious public monuments or similar institutions, located on the territory of another state party whenever there is evidence documenting the inclusion of such assets in the respective inventory. thus, we here encounter state obligations in relation to subsequent material norms and neither directly applicable nor executable (note 76). furthermore, the return of stolen or imported assets is subject to the requesting state paying fair compensation to persons acquiring assets in good faith or holding them as their lawful possessor. however, the range of assets eligible for return would seem extremely limited. according to the convention‟s wording, this only covers assets stolen from museums, public, civil or religious monuments or similar institutions located in the territory of another state following due demonstration the assets are included in the respective inventory. logically, these assumptions did not cover circumstances reported in important legal cases which request the restitution of stolen or illicitly exported cultural assets (note 77). thus, should export controls be unbalanced and inefficient (note 78), bona fide possession also poses problems, taking into account the diversity of national regimes as regards the moment of verification of this important subjective characteristic (note 79). the unesco convention, imbued with a certain cultural nationalism (note 80), introduces a system for monitoring and limiting cross-border trade in cultural assets but does not establish any system for keeping goods in a particular place (note 81). indeed, the convention‟s rules are not directed at the cultural assets of one state located in one territory but rather seek to promote the protection of cultural assets located in another state that, under certain circumstances, must return the asset (note 82). however, as we are dealing with conventional norms, the adoption of measures by the state party in order to promote the confiscation and restitution of stolen or illicitly exported cultural goods implies the adoption of norms designed to transpose the unesco guidelines. therefore, as these are not directly applicable, they require effective transposition and implementation through the internal legal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. systems of states. however, as this represents a framework convention (note 83), this firstly ensures state parties gain a wide margin of choice regarding the provisions for implementation and secondly, according to other opinions, even implies a real and proper obligation for transposition. any given state only needs to declare that, at the time of ratification, its normative order appears adequate and compatible with the determinations of the unesco convention. such was the case with the portuguese ratification process. in fact, as ratification took place in 1985 (note 84), when the previous basic law, law no. 13/85 of 6 july, was still in effect, there were thus no means of enforcement by any of the prevailing legal instruments. indeed, a status quo symptomatic of the legislator‟s distressing inertia, deserving of deep reaching repairs and somewhat blunt criticism (note 85). however, while the need to develop legal instruments was clearly understandable as a result of the entry into effect of another framework law, coupled with the ratification of an important international convention, this does not mean that any legal transposition instrument for the convention was automatically and indispensably required. in fact, this is what happened in italy or in spain, unlike in germany. in the latter case, reform of the law dated 18 may 2007 on the return of cultural assets was an important step towards transposing the unesco convention (note 86). hence, the convention did not enter into effect in the german legal regime until afterwards, more precisely on 29 february 2008. 6. the unidroit convention in view of the failures (note 87) and shortcomings (note 88) of the unesco convention, the international institute for the unification of private law (unidroit) has made an attempt to unify this complex regime in an area known to be sensitive, multifaceted and interdisciplinary (note 89). to this end, the unidroit convention on stolen and illicitly exported goods was approved in rome on 24 june 1995 with the objective of protecting not only the interests of states but also those of individuals subject to the theft of their cultural assets. however, the convention, contrary to that expected, did not constitute a uniform law or even a minimum set of substantive legal rules despite this being seemingly suggested by the content of article 9(1) (note 90). indeed, if the unidroit convention, which entered into effect on 1 july 1998, refers to rules of a national nature and establishes the jurisdiction of state courts to examine applications for restitution or return, we nevertheless face aspects of utter incompleteness, which places the convention outside the scope of uniform substantive rules (note 91). in any case, despite not achieving its stated aim (note 92), there is acknowledgement of how the unidroit convention has contributed towards more effectively protecting cultural assets as its articles do contain some positive aspects. thus, they not only put forward a specific notion of cultural assets, unlike the unesco convention, but they also attempt, and with a view to the illicit trafficking of assets and the plundering of archaeological sites, to implement a broad scope for returns while distinguishing between the restitution of stolen goods and the return of illicitly exported goods. in highlighting objects which are of major archaeological, prehistoric, historical, literary, artistic or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. scientific value, whether for religious or secular reasons in one of the categories listed in the convention annexes, this adopts an autonomous concept which is distinct from the domestic law of contracting states. logically, in adopting a concept, this seeks to devalue the contributions made by state law and even the circumstantial fact that the asst has been qualified, registered or classified in accordance with the provisions of a particular national law (note 93). as regards return, the unidroit convention contains a chapter on the return of cultural assets and another on the return of unlawfully exported cultural assets. accordingly, bearing in mind the shortcomings pointed out in the unesco text (note 94), a stolen asset is that obtained through illicit excavations or, in the case of lawful excavations, one which has been unlawfully withheld, in accordance with the laws of the state hosting the excavations (note 95). this also establishes a series of deadlines designed to reconcile the interests at stake (note 96). correspondingly, any restitution action must be brought within three years counting from the point in time when the claimant became aware either of the place where the cultural asset is located or of the identity of the possessor and, in any case, within a maximum period of fifty years from the time of theft (note 97). furthermore, the possessors of stolen cultural assets who are required to return them are entitled, at the time of return, to fair compensation provided that they did not know, or could not reasonably have known, that the asset had been stolen (note 98). cultural assets are deemed unlawfully exported whenever temporarily exported from the territory of the requesting state, in particular for exhibitions, research or restoration purposes, and then not returned in accordance with the authorisation issued under the applicable provisions of national law (note 99). nevertheless, the return of exported assets, whenever requested, may be conditioned by significant impairment of any of the following interests: material conservation of the asset or the context of its location; the integrity of a complex asset; preservation of information relating to the asset, in particular of a scientific or historical nature, and usage by an indigenous or tribal community (note 100). thus, the mere illicit exportation of cultural assets does not in the least justify their return. this becomes especially the case, as merryman explains in some detail, because export controls are not even designed to protect ownership (note 101). any return requests must be submitted within three years from the time the requesting state became aware of the location and identity of the possessor and, in any case, within a maximum period of 50 years from the date on which they should have been returned in keeping with the authorisation issued (note 102). however, owners who acquire assets subsequent to their illegal exportation shall be entitled, at the time of return, to fair compensation from the requesting state provided that, at the time of acquisition, the owner did not know or could not reasonably have known the asset had been unlawfully exported (note 103). after accepting the unidroit convention does not apply uniform material rules, it remains to be seen what the consequences of its ratification will be. in effect, as there is no need for any transposition, it also seems clear that, as the interim report on the basic law recognises, the restitution and return of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. cultural assets depends on national legislation (note 104). however, a certain doctrinal sector defends the growing restrictiveness over bona fide acquisitions by third party (note 105). furthermore, at a second level, especially following the ratification of the unidroit convention by the italian republic, the inapplicability of the fee-paying ownership model, consecrated in article 1153 cc, to cultural assets (note 106). conversely, siehr advocates the urgent need to review the domestic legislation protecting the bona fide purchaser by states ratifying the unidroit convention (note 107). while prott also allows for the direct and healthy influence of the convention's content, the author also points to the legislative reforms of the domestic order necessary to implementing some of the main restitutive guidelines of the convention (note 108). furthermore, whenever domestic legislation provides more favourable rules regarding the return or restitution of stolen or unlawfully exported cultural assets, the convention prevents the application of those rules by the contracting state (note 109). this makes every sense from the point of view of protecting cultural assets, as it allows certain states to retain the most favourable rules and encourages others that lack such rules to amend them accordingly (note 110). additionally, this even encourages more daring stances in order to defend the scope for private individuals directly requesting the restitution of cultural assets (note 111). regardless of the respective position adopted in relation to the immediate effect of the convention‟s provisions on the internal legal order, and while the content is not perfect and displays ambiguities (note 112), it nevertheless makes some highly impressive contributions to the modernisation of property law. we need only consider, for example, the basic rule enshrined in convention article 3 that stipulates owners must return stolen cultural assets. any owner is under an absolute obligation to return a cultural asset that has been stolen even when personally unaware of the theft, the robbery or even the person committing such acts. therefore, while this provision attributes extreme prevalence to the claims of the original owners, adopting the position advocated by some of the prevailing doctrine (note 113), it also remains true this does not account for the main option applied in the domestic law of several states. moreover, as we shall return to when considering the problems around bona fide third parties, we need only consider the precepts relating to extinctive prescription and how these contrast with the legal entitlement of the right of ownership. while this does allow for restitution actions to be filed within three years from the date of owners receiving knowledge about their assets, and even providing a maximum time-limit of fifty years or even longer, seventy-five years in particular cases, this nevertheless prompts various other reflections. accordingly, we must question the important dissimilarities both in relation to the domestic laws of different countries and to the legislation applicable to any given circumstance of restitution of stolen cultural assets. however, should the restitution request be made before a court or other authority of the state where the cultural asset is located, according to the provisions of article 8, the convention does not indicate the national law applicable to such legal actions (note 113). furthermore, in view of the content of article 10, which is restricted to thefts occurring within state territories following the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. convention entering into effect there, and to the circumstantial fact that the assets are now located in the territory of another signatory state, this reduces the respective scope of applicability very significantly. although the unidroit convention represents a commitment between exporting and importing states, it only provides for the future in accordance with its article 12(1). logically, this constitutes exactly the reason some authors stress the convention‟s objectives do not involve promoting the restitution or return of goods previously stolen or illicitly exported but rather seek to reduce illicit trafficking by fostering progressive change in the behaviours of those acting in the art market (note 114). moreover, in order to extend its range of protection, others have proposed that the convention could, over a more or less extended period of time, apply real retroactive effects so as to make it more binding in terms of restitution (note 115). 7. the eu directive to better understand the content of directive 2014/60/eu of the european parliament and of the council (note 116), we should outline certain aspects of its preceding version, directive 93/7/eec (note 117), which also deals with the return of cultural assets unlawfully removed from the territory of a member state. as we know, this directive arose within the context of the abolition of internal borders as from 1 january 1993, with the aim of adapting the rules in effect for the return of assets in the event of their unlawful exportation from a member state. understandably, there is some resemblance between one section of the unidroit convention, chapter iii, and the objectives pursued by this directive. moreover, the convention had also included a provision to avoid conflicts between rules with the same scope of application (note 118). this directive arose not only from the existing unesco convention but also from the preparatory work for the unidroit convention (note 119). moreover, we should recall that this directive only covers cultural goods classified as national treasures or national treasures of artistic, historical or archaeological value under national legislation and administrative procedures, before or after they were unlawfully removed from the territory of a member state (note 120). moreover, such goods needed to meet the criteria for one of the categories in the annex, particularly as regards the minimum value stipulated for different categories of assets (note 121), a facet that naturally conflicts with a notion, however imprecise, of national treasure (note 122). this also fails to mention the obvious difficulties in assessing assets potentially covered by the 1993 directive (note 123). in these terms, restitution means the physical return of the cultural asset to the territory of the requesting state from whichever territory it was unlawfully transported to (note 124). thus, this does not even distinguish between stolen assets and non-stolen assets. moreover, in order to identify the feasible grounds for supporting restitution, while ferrer correia mentions six cases of connection between the work of art and the culture of a state (note 125), the directive opted to highlight assets as national treasures. (note 126). however, the meaning was also not without doubt or controversy (note www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. 127). furthermore, while the directive attributed member states the right to initiate legal proceedings against the owner or holder (note 128), the same right was not extended to the legitimate owners of stolen assets. furthermore, cultural assets in private ownership might be subject to legal restitution actions only when the said assets were classified as national treasures. in any event, the comparison between the unidroit convention and the directive only extends to the context of returning unlawfully exported cultural assets in breach of the legislation of the member state or of (eec) regulation no. 311/92. there was no parallel in the 1993 directive providing for the restitution of stolen cultural assets. there are also other aspects that indicate how this directive is less protective than the unidroit convention (note 129). in this context, we should highlight the one-year period of limitation and the maximum period of thirty years in contrast to the aforementioned three-year limitation period and the fifty-year limit. considering the lesser ambitions of the 1993 directive and the need to introduce other amendments, it was later deemed convenient to approve a new directive, directive 2014/60/eu of the european parliament and of the council. not only does the scope of applicability appear to be wider but this also seeks to eliminate constraints on the return of cultural assets. this directive defines a cultural asset as any asset protected or defined by a member state before or after it was unlawfully removed from its territory (note 130). it may furthermore cover assets of historical, paleontological, ethnographic, numismatic interest or scientific value, whether or not they form part of public or private collections or are single assets, and whether they originate from authorised or unauthorised excavations. consequently, member states may ensure the restitution of cultural assets that are neither protected nor defined as national treasures and, furthermore, need not belong to categories or comply with limits relating to any given antiquity or financial value. in short, the cultural asset is characterised separately from any gradation of economic value in contrast to the previous directive, which has since been twice amended, in 1996 (note 132) and 2001 (note 133). furthermore, under the 2014 directive, member states must provide in their legislation for restitution action to lapse within three years from the date on which the competent central authority of the requesting state became aware of the location of the cultural asset and the identity of its owner or holder (note 134). in every case, restitution proceedings lapse after a period of thirty years from the date on which the cultural asset was unlawfully removed from the territory of the requesting state. however, in the case of public collections of assets belonging to the inventories of state religious institutions which are subject to special protection under national legislation, restitution actions lapse after a period of 75 years (note 135). well aware that the methodologies applied to transposing the directive differ across the various states (note 136), we must pay particular attention to the content of law 30/2016 (note 137), intended to transpose the directive into portuguese domestic law and, accordingly, to highlight particular aspects of relevance to the theme of this lesson. one derives from the enshrinement of a principle of protection to cultural assets that imposes the duty on the portuguese state to endeavour to recover cultural assets www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. from the territories of other member states to that from where the assets were unlawfully removed, whenever protected or defined by any member state as national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value and subject to unlawful removal from the national territory in breach of both the respective national protective legislation and (ec) regulation no. 116/2009 or in violation of any other condition applied to temporary transfers (note 138). finally, among the presuppositions of any action for the return of cultural assets, whenever there is no decision resolving the conflict through arbitration, we would point out that the claimant is the member state from which the cultural asset has been unlawfully removed and the defendant is the possessor or, failing that, the holder (note 39). despite the progress achieved by directive 2014/60/eu, there are still weaknesses that need addressing. in this sense, weller warns of the lack of any single and harmonised definition of cultural heritage, leading to clear regulatory fragmentation (note 140). additionally, the same author highlights the scattered nature of the legislation determining seizures of assets and the unclear linkage between member state laws and the directive (note 141). furthermore, there is a plurality of substantive rules in domestic laws, insufficient measures concerning future transactions of cultural assets stolen by the nazis and contradictory recommendations in the case of complaints over the transactions of assets plundered during the height of the national socialist regime (note 142). in a rather critical sense, schönberger also emphasises how the directive does not impose its own substantive system of illegal export protection, leaving member states a broad margin of appreciation (note 142). moreover, on the restitution of assets looted by the nazis (note 143), this understands that much remains to be done as stated in the washington declaration (note 144) and detailed in the subsequent nominal list of important jewish collectors (note 145), taking into account the non-retroactivity of the unesco and unidroit convention provisions alongside those of the european union and even of the domestic legislation of most member states. 8. due diligence due diligence extends far beyond the issues at stake here (note 146). however, the topic is of acute importance to the field of cultural assets (note 147) and, most especially to the acquisition regime for movable cultural goods, directed to the third party in good faith. however, this does not revolve around the susceptibility of the third party to acquiring stolen assets, as the adopted model excludes any such pretension, but rather in the sense of ascertaining whether the third party is entitled to compensation, hence, to receive an indemnity payment. in other words, we must approach the potential acquisition not of a tangible asset, thus a cultural asset, but rather an indemnity generated by a claim for restitution by the legitimate owner. in this way, we are faced with due restitution and a claim for indemnity corresponding to the presumed bona fide acquisition by a third party, reflecting the irrelevance and shortcomings of the possession equals ownership model and other models of movable asset ownership protection (note 148). nevertheless, the use of the expression due diligence has been criticised in the specific context of the law on movable cultural assets (note 149) even if it is no less true that this has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. gradually become consolidated. while the term due diligence represents no factor of novelty (note 150), the meaning has been adopted for movable cultural assets by the doctrine and international conventions dedicated to the subject. in truth, taking into account the exegesis of the unesco and unidroit conventions, the issue of due diligence was necessarily highlighted in these conventions. correspondingly, in unesco convention article 7(b), we encounter the obligation to confiscate cultural assets, even from bona fide third parties, and to ensure their restitution on request by the state of origin. unidroit convention article 4 extends further. not only do bona fide possessors also hold the duty to return assets but they would only be entitled to compensation when not knowing, or could not reasonably have known, that the respective asset was stolen and when demonstrating they exercised due care and attention at the time of acquisition (note 151). what is more, in determining whether the possessor exercised due diligence, account shall be taken of all the circumstances of the acquisition, in particular the capacity in which the parties thereto were involved, the price, consultation of registers or other documents, access to bodies, and any other steps which any reasonable person should take in similar circumstances (note 152). as the unidroit convention also imposes restitution of stolen goods, ruling out the claims of the bona fide purchaser without any further ado, this obviously does not accept the possession equals ownership models, hand wahre hand or rebuttable presumption. this only admits a right to compensation on behalf of the third party provided that they should not reasonably have known the good was stolen and prove they acted with due diligence. in any case, such requires analysis of an extensive series of acquisition circumstances. all the more so as the precept does not allude to the totality of the causes and rendering it clear that the enumeration is merely exemplificative. therefore, doctrine and jurisprudence allude to various different reasons, in particular, to negative conjunctures, very unusual places or times for the transfer of ownership as well as at a considerably reduced price (note 153). conversely, they place emphasis on contexts which might instil confidence in the purchaser. for example, consulting databases of stolen assets (note 154), transactions carried out by prestigious auction companies or certified by antiques specialists (note 155). indeed, on these facets, and when approaching due diligence, reichelt defends the need to expand the responsibilities held by the different experts across the artistic fields (note 156). nonetheless, due diligence, regarding cultural assets, extends beyond the aforementioned conventions. in fact, the subject has played a leading role in european union law as well as in international jurisprudence. thus, while under the previous directive, courts may grant compensation whenever convinced that possessors acted with due diligence when making their acquisitions (note 157), directive 2014/60/eu reaches still further. this not only refers to the due diligence undertaken by the possessor at the time of acquiring the goods. the directive requires establishing all the circumstances of the acquisition in order to certify due diligence, in particular documentation on the asset's provenance, the authorisations to remove the asset required under the law of the requesting member state, the status of the parties, the price paid, consultation by the possessor of any records of stolen www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. cultural assets that are normally accessible or of any relevant information they may reasonably have obtained or any other steps a reasonable person might take in similar circumstances (note 158). moreover, regarding international jurisprudence, this understands that due diligence deserves added importance as it has evolved and emerged as a structuring legal principle (note 159). portuguese domestic law also takes this issue into consideration. law no. 30/2016 (note 160), transposing directive 2014/60/eu, approaches this subject in symmetrical terms to those of the directive. in addition, in the precept on the trade and restitution of cultural assets, the basic law not only declares null, under the terms of reciprocity, any transactions carried out on portuguese territory involving the cultural heritage of another state and that happen to be in the national territory as a result of the respective protective law while also determining the assets eligible for restitution under the terms of the european or international laws binding the portuguese state (note 161). furthermore, in addition to transposing this directive, portuguese ratification of the unesco convention and the unidroit convention also need taking into account. in sum, this topic may also contribute to modernising rights in rem. indeed, the regime of restitution of a stolen asset may rule out the acquisition of ownership, even of possession, by bona fide purchasers. due diligence appears as a possible compensation to be attributed to certain purchasers. to those who act in more diligent ways than the scope prefigured by ethical good faith. therefore, should we set aside the idea that seeks to reconcile good faith with mere effective ignorance of whoever harmed the rights of other people (note 162), understanding the arguments of those adopting different perspectives, as the law does not expressly stipulated excusability or reprehensibility of ignorance (note 163), we then find that the differences become self-evident. indeed, there are greater requirements than psychological good faith or ethical good faith. in fact, it is not enough for possessors not to be aware about fault but rather for them to actively ignore such even when having followed long, demanding and time-consuming paths in order to ascertain very relevant aspects connected with the ownership of a given cultural asset. therefore, international conventions, european law and the domestic law of some countries (note 164) do not expressly waive the buyer's due diligence. there is a great contrast, regarding the regime for the utilisation of movable cultural assets, in the legal systems across the european system, particularly among those integrating the roman-germanic system. 9. other restitutions bearing in mind the provisions of the unesco and unidroit conventions, there is general acceptance that the provisions apply to cultural goods unlawfully appropriated after the entry into effect of these international legal instruments. however, the issue of retroactivity was neither ignored in the preparatory works nor totally omitted in the respective articles. nevertheless, the unidroit convention determines that the provisions of chapter ii, under the title restitution of stolen cultural assets, apply from a time subsequent to the entry into effect of the convention in the respective signatory state (note 165). as regards the unesco convention, despite the rule embodied in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. vienna convention and international custom in favour of non-retroactivity, the matter was considered by the committee of experts. faced with the opportunity of including an article clarifying that the convention‟s provisions were not retroactive, this was deemed superfluous (note 166). however, in the face of the insistence by some states over inserting an explicit non-retroactivity clause, this was later introduced only to be definitively deleted at a later phase (note 167). regarding the unidroit convention, although the text states that it applies to future situations of theft or illicit export (note 168), it is no less true that the text states it does not legitimise any unlawful act which occurred before its entry into effect or to which it does not apply by virtue of article 10(1) and (2) nor does it limit the right of any state or other person to make a request, outside of the scope of the convention, for the return or restitution of cultural assets stolen or unlawfully exported before this entered into effect (note 169). without prejudice to relevant decisions by the courts (note 170), we also need to emphasise how certain states did not legitimise theft and other misappropriations that occurred in previous historical periods even when supported by special legislation for those troubled times or even by subsequent third party acquisitions in good faith. accordingly, we should note how, in 1968, the german constitutional court declared that the legal prescriptions corresponding to the nazi period, in particular those which legitimated the confiscation of the properties of enemies of the people and the state (note 171), ceased to hold any legal validity because they contradicted essential legal values and principles (note 172). in turn, the british parliament, in order to encourage the return of looted or illegally appropriated assets from the nazi period, passed the return of cultural property bill in 2009 (note 173). conversely, regarding assets owned by criminal organisations, the italian legislation on the confiscation of mafia assets particularly stands out (note 174). another historical period that deserves special attention is the colonial period. indeed, while this period has come in reflection (note 175) for some time, it gained relevance and sharp topicality following the report on the restitution of african cultural heritage (note 176) by the senegalese academic felwine sarr and french historian bénédicte savoy. the report, presented on 23 november 2018, under the high patronage of president emmanuel macron who, approximately a year earlier, had delivered an impassioned speech in ouagadougou, seeks to reflect on the problematic issues around african cultural assets. indeed, macron had declared at ouaga i university that it was the french republic's ambition to promote access to the cultural assets of humanity. consequently, and to this end, he had highlighted strengthening the protection and the circulation of cultural assets as priorities of his international cultural policy (note 177). he went on to explain that this circulation had to take on various forms and with the scope for making changes to national inventories and temporary or definitive restitutions of african heritage. following these impressive public statements and the subsequent invitation issued to felwine sarr and bénédicte savoy, the report published by these intellectuals caused heated controversy both in france and elsewhere. therefore, as we are here dealing with the restitution of assets, considering the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. fundamental features of this report holds relevance. thus, after emphasising the guidelines of the speech and the invitation by president macron, the report highlights setting a five-year deadline for establishing conditions conducive to the temporary or definitive restitution of cultural goods of african origin as well as the need to promote new ethics for relationships. subsequently, after a historical period in which heritage acquisitions were framed by an era replete with violence (note 178) and the transfer of goods in keeping with colonial guidelines, the report recognises how the french republic had acted in a context of international competition to collect a large number of objects intended to enrich the collections of national museums (note 179). the report then highlights the attitude of the republic of zaire when, in 1960, it requested the return of the collections of the museum of the belgian congo (today the tervuren museum). this action is qualified as year zero in a new era (note 180). next, it emphasises nigeria's 1968 request to icom to ask western museums for the return of a list of pieces from the kingdom of benin to the collection of the national museum in lagos, as well as the 1978 speech by the unesco director-general, amadou-mahtar m'bow, when he defended the restitution of cultural heritage considered irreplaceable by most african countries (note 181). the report also highlights the request, addressed to the french republic, on 26 august 2016, by the minister of foreign affairs of benin for the restitution of royal statues and symbols, illicitly appropriated by french colonel alfred dodds following the plunder of the abomey palace, which occurred in 1892, and their subsequent delivery to the trocadéro ethnographic museum, located in paris (note 182). as regards these returns, the report expresses serious and well-founded concerns over the scope of any temporary restitution. it not only considers this ambiguous but even describes it as a veritable oxymoron (note 183). the rapporteurs maintain that any non-final restitution is likely to give rise to disputes over interpretation and tensions of various kinds, and hence emphasising the permanent restitution and related transfer of property (note 184). based on the idea that the word restitute means to reinstate the legitimate owner with usage and enjoyment, and this inherently implying recognition of the ownership of the assets, the report stresses the need to promote the reconstruction of memories and the re-socialisation of these assets with contemporary african communities (note 185). in short, the return to the communities of origin would reactivate their hidden memories and thus enable them to perform functions of an integrative and mediating nature within current african societies (note 186). legitimising the protection and conservation of objects, the report notes that safeguarding can be ensured by african museums. consequently, because the current status quo is not disastrous, the findings nevertheless accept that restitution be conditional on the carrying out of works and other developments deemed indispensable (note 187). moreover, and to understand the complexity of these issues, the report declared there were over eighty thousand assets from sub-saharan africa, deposited in the collections of french museums (note 188). accordingly, while some derive from private donations, many others came from looting, exploration missions, ethnographic or scientific campaigns (note 189). furthermore, it should be noted that important acquisitions have been made since the 1990s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. to enrich the branly-chirac museum's very rich collection (note 190). after eminently descriptive analysis, the report sets out the criteria for mass restitution alongside a timetable for such a transfer. this thereby recommends the rapid restitution of objects originating from military activities; from the functional workings of military or administrative officials during the colonial period (1885-1960); from work promoted by scientific missions prior to 1960 and as a result of restorations or loans that have dragged on over time (note 191). simultaneously, this calls for further research into objects incorporated into the collections of french museums after 1960, while accepting, even when the circumstances of the acquisition are not especially clear, restitution should the interest of the requesting country be considered relevant. finally, the report suggests that the french collections should continue to include either assets legitimately acquired with documentation or those purchased on the art market in strict compliance with the guidelines of the 1970 unesco convention. in terms of a timeline, the report sets out a first stage (from november 2018 to november 2019) incorporating, among other aspects, the following initiatives: restitution of the most symbolic pieces, long since claimed by states or other african communities (note 192); the adoption of legislative measures to make these returns irrevocable; transfers to the country of origin after completion of works and other refurbishments of host infrastructures (note 193). a second phase (from spring 2019 to november 2022), focuses on the inventory and proposes data sharing and an intensive transcontinental concertation process (note 194). finally, in a third stage (from november 2022 onwards), the report lists a series of measures designed to dispel the impression that the window opened in the president‟s ouagadougou speech would swiftly close with the provision to accept other future requests for restitution beyond the aforementioned five-year period (note 195). the report also warns that restitution would entail amending the heritage code and the general code on the property of public persons (cgppp or cg3p), with obvious consequences for the principle of the inalienability of public collections (note 196). to this end, there is the proposal to introduce a new chapter on restitution based on the prior bilateral cultural cooperation agreement with former colonies, protectorates or other territories administered by the french republic (note 197). moreover, this also notes how the works looted during the nazi occupation were never integrated into public collections so they might be returned to their rightful owners (note 198). as would be expected, the report was received with enormous scepticism and some incredulity in french cultural circles. without any claim at being exhaustive, we will mention, in logical, chronological order, some of the more paradigmatic positions. thus, firstly, there was the statement by the historian hélène leloup, contesting the assumptions of the report following its publication in its consideration that restitution supposes fraudulent acquisition (note 199). as she had participated in many acquisitions of african art from guinea, ivory coast and mali since the 1950s, she testified to having never seen or even being aware of any looting or subterfuge. (note 200). in turn, adopting a different approach, the jurist yves-bernard debie, in a speech given at a conference organised on the subject (note 201), expressed well-founded reservations about the report‟s directives in the light of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. current french law, particularly regarding the inalienability of cultural assets held by public museums. stéphane martin, director of the quai branly-chirac museum, when appearing before the parliamentary committee on education on 19 february 2020, confirmed museums in the west did possess numerous african goods (note 202). he further agreed that the seizure of goods, as a consequence of prevailing in warfare, should not be immutable or even ascribed as a natural right (note 203). having stated all this, he stressed his surprise at how the report was requested from two persons, sarr and savoy, without any professional background in museologic property (note 204). he also declared extraordinary the perception that the museum was a western invention and a house of crime as the report seemed to be based entirely on the assumption that such goods had only ever been acquired violently in an attempt to cast global opprobrium over all assets acquired before 1962. martin then explained that it was first essential to urgently establish the ethical and legal principles appropriate to identifying the objects that should be incorporated into museum collections. as he exemplified regarding the statue of the god gou, claimed by the republic of benin, this piece was supposedly sculpted by a prisoner from a neighbouring kingdom and abandoned on a beach before its only later recovery by a french captain. thus, he concluded there was as much to be clarified about the nationality of that statue as about the nationality of the gioconda on display in the louvre. martin furthermore pointed how museums did not own their collections but the state held them under the auspices of public property subject to strict principles of inalienability and unseizability (note 205). he also argued for the need to look at practices in other countries. as regards the first part of the report, he said the european parliament would have "no objection" to the commission's proposal before also highlighting the harmful consequences of the entry into force of nagpra (the native american graves protection and repatriation act) with the consequent destruction and subsequent disappearance of funerary items of undeniable artistic and cultural value. on the other hand, while alluding to the lack of staff in african museums, especially regarding the need to train conservators and offer them decent and appealing careers, he highlighted the success of the louvre-abu dhabi project, arguing that this was the model for replication elsewhere (note 206). despite these criticisms, macron has expressed how he has not given up on the direction outlined in his famous speech in november 2017. indeed, he pushed through a draft law on the return of cultural property to benin and senegal at the council of ministers on 15 july 2020 (note 207). hence, this draft law derogates the principle of inalienability of public assets to enable the transfer and consequent authorisation for the release of twenty-six works from the abomey treasure, resulting from the donation of general alfred dodds (1842-1922) to the republic of benin, and a sabre and its scabbard, attributed to el hadj oumar tall, resulting from the donation of general louis archinard (1850-1932), to the republic of senegal (note 208). however, criticism did not wane in the wake of this presidential and governmental initiative. in fact, on the very next day, rykner stepped up to underline the historical mystification surrounding the objects subject to the recent draft law. accordingly, in the case of the works donated by dodds, he recalled they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. had been saved from a fire set by béhanzi following a battle for the liberation of slaves imprisoned by the slave-owning monarch of dahomey (note 209). therefore, he considers any restitution as strange as the state, at the time of the event, did not even exist (note 210). in addition, regarding the return of the sabre, hadj oumar tall is perceived as a jihadist and he considered it odd for president macron to pay homage to a model revered by the current enemies of french soldiers (note 211). furthermore, on this subject, a few months earlier, yves-bernard debie had written that oumar tall had been the spiritual guide of the first of the islamic holy wars that west africa was to experience over the course of the 19th century (note 212). indeed, oumar tall had deployed terror as a weapon, massacring men, enslaving women, repeatedly using robbery and plunder, especially against animist populations (note 213). logically, debie declared it paradoxical that the french government on one day wants to restore the symbol of jihadist repression and, on the next day, to participate in a forum aimed at implementing peace and security in africa (note 214). as might be expected, the controversy stirred by the macron report also arrived in portugal, with the appearance of both favourable and unfavourable opinions on the restitution of african cultural heritage. by way of example, we may contrast the opinion pieces by antónio sousa ribeiro, professor at the university of coimbra, and luís raposo, icom president published in the o expresso newspaper (note 215). correspondingly, sousa ribeiro pointed out that many of the african objects and artefacts on exhibition in european museums were acquired within the scope of a violent colonial relationship. he added that museums should certainly demonstrate the legitimate provenance of the objects in their collections before negotiating the return of the rest. in turn, luís raposo described how most african countries have not yet ratified the conventions on the restitution of cultural property as their political elites preferred to keep their hands free to supply the international art market. moreover, he questioned the true meaning of the restitution of assets, both in terms of the mode of appropriation and the identity affection generated by the assets. on this topic, he particularly questioned the validity of the germanic controversy about the restitution, requested by namibia, of a standard erected by diogo cão in 1485. thus, the questions arising here also extend to whether restitution to namibia or to the standard‟s country of origin, in this case portugal, would be more appropriate. understandably, this controversy has since deepened, motivating reflections from academics, museum directors and even policymakers. as far as the latter are concerned, we would highlight the statements by leopoldo amado, the ecowas (economic community of west african states) education commissioner, who described how this issue was more advanced in the francophone or anglophone contexts than in lusophone countries (note 216). there were also proposals from livre and pan for the devolution of cultural heritage from the former colonies, promptly contradicted by the chega leader through ironic and allegedly racist remarks. from another perspective, commenting on the return proposals, paulo costa, the director of the national museum of ethnology, defended the need to distinguish between works removed by theft, robbery or plundering and pieces brought back as part of legal acquisitions and research in order to illustrate the habits and ways of life of other countries and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. other cultures (note 217). 10. conclusions in summary and in conclusion, we would like to reinforce the perspective that the aim of this lesson is not, nor could it ever be, to set out any exhaustive study of the legal regime for movable cultural assets. rather, within an approach committed to the modernisation of property rights, this strives to refute the alleged crisis and supposed underdevelopment of this sub-branch of civil law. accordingly, we have highlighted aspects of enormous value and topicality capable of contributing to more modern and more appropriate applications of movable tangible assets that are, concomitantly, cultural assets. after highlighting the importance of the category of movable goods, as well as the impossibility of coincidence or overlap between intangible cultural heritage and material cultural heritage, as opposed to some more aprioristic and inconsequential radicalism, we sought to emphasise the importance of exploiting archaeological assets coupled with the special protection endowed to national treasures in the face of the outdated and simplistic civil regime for finds. furthermore, should the declaratory theory demonstrate the existence of a vast multitude of cultural goods that remain unclassified or are undergoing classification processes, inventory and registration raise issues related to security in the transmission of ownership of movable goods. while reiterating that marketability is not a characteristic of reality, it is nonetheless important to clarify the quality and scope of restrictions on the trade in cultural goods. therefore, cultural preference, export, import and restitution constitute core aspects of this theme. as regards restitution, we can see how enriching the reflections on the unesco and unidroit conventions, the eu directive, due diligence and the macron report are, and all oriented towards a path that devalues the scope of acquisition for third parties even acting in good faith and that may even compromise acquisitions by adverse possession, safeguarding the original ownership or, at the least, that which precedes theft, robbery, plundering or any other circumstance that failed to take into account the will of the owner or holder of another right in rem to enjoy a particular cultural asset. finally, aware that the chosen themes reflect the modernity of this reality and denying any crisis or minor development, we may understand these issues still require further study on a subsequent occasion when the regulatory constraints of the present lesson, especially of a temporal nature, do not exist. nevertheless, we believe this opportunity served not only to refute an alleged underdevelopment of this reality but also attained considerable progress in the study of highly relevant and extremely current aspects to the usage of movable cultural assets. this makes perfect sense as cultural assets do not only affirm memory and the past but also confront daily life and announce the future. furthermore, in times of pandemics, the importance of tangible assets in the face of the vulnerability of human life is undeniably highlighted. among these objects, material cultural goods stand out as objects that, in addition to their undeniable structural durability, they convey authentic and indelible testimony of civilisational and cultural value. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. reaffirming this opinion, john merrymann, “the public interest in cultural property, california law review, 1989, pp. 339 et seq.; sophie lenski, “der uneingestandene nationalismus des deutschen kulturgüterschutzes” in die öffentliche verwaltung, year 68, 2015, pp. 677 et seq. note 2. cf. oliveira ascensão, direito civil: teoria geral…op. cit., p. 345. note 3. see our manual…op. cit., pp. 34-5. note 4. on the historical development of the grounds for prohibiting or severely restricting the export of cultural assets, see sophie schönberger, “der entwurf des neuen kulturgutschutzgesetzes” in kultur im recht: recht als kultur, baden-baden, 2016, pp. 60 et seq.. note 5. regulation no. 116/2009 of 18 december 2008, on the export of cultural assets, repealed regulation no. 3911/92 of 31 december. note 6. cf. article 2(1) of the regulation. note 7. cf. article 2(2)(a) of the regulation. note 8. cf. article 2(2)(b) of the regulation. note 9. cf. article 2(3) of the regulation. note 10. cf. article 4 of the regulation. note 11. cf. implementing regulation no. 1081/2012 of 9 november 2012. note 12. cf. article 2(2) of the regulation. note 13. cf. article 65 of the basic law. note 14. cf. article 66 of the basic law. note 15. cf. article 49(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 16. cf. article 49(3) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 17. cf. article 49(4) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 18. cf. article 50(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 19. cf. article 50(3) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 20. cf. article 51(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 21. cf. article 51(3) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 22. cf. article 55(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 23. cf. article 57(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 24. cf. article 58(1) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 25. according to article 68(1) of the basic law, article 64(1) of the same law is directly applicable. note 26. also according to article 68 (1) of the basic law, article 64 (2) is applicable. note 27. cf. article 68(2)(a) of the basic law. note 28. article 68(2)(b) of the basic law and article 60(2) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 29. cf. article 62(b)(iv) of decree-law no. 148/2015. note 31. in this sense, regarding german law, sophie schönberger, “der entwurf…” in op. cit., pp. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. 65 et seq.. note 32. cf. quatremère de quincy, lettres sur le préjudice qu‟ occasioneraient aux arts et à la science le déplacement des monuments de l‟ art de l‟ italie, de démembrent de ses écoles et la spoliation de ses colections, galeries, musées, paris, 1796, pp. 2 et seq.. note 33. ibidem. note 32. according to erik jayme, when canova was in paris in 1810 to sculpt a bust of the empress marie louise, he talked to napoleon about transferring of works of art, alluding in particular to the antiquities of the roman prince borghese, who was said to possess a sacred right over his historic possessions. cf. kunstwerk und nation, heidelberg, 1991, pp. 22-3. note 33. cf. erik jayme, kunstwerk…op. cit., pp. 25 et seq.. note 34. cf. erik jayme, “antonio canova, la reppublica delle arti ed il diritto internazionale “ in rivista di diritto internazionale, no. 4, 1992, p. 892. note 36. on this matter, tullio scovazzi sets out a list of assets that have been returned, such as the restitution to venice of the horses of saint mark while also recalling how tintoretto's paradise and tiziano's christ crowned with thorns, among others, still remained in the louvre. cf. “analisi e significato della pratica italiana” in la restituzione dei beni culturali rimossi com particolare riguardo alla pratica italiana, milan, 2014, pp. 39 et seq.. note 37. although the pope argued, as erik jayme explains, that the heidelberg codices had been donated to him and that the works of art taken to paris had been subject to violent looting and theft, he eventually agreed to return a significant proportion of the codices to the heidelberg library. cf. kunstwerk…op. cit., pp. 26-7. note 38. on this topic, tullio scovazzi, “evolutionary trends as regards the return of removed cultural property” in el tráfico de bienes culturales, valencia, 2015, p. 36. note 39. cf. erik jayme, “die nationalität des kunstwerks als rechtsfrage” in internationaler kulturgüterschutz, vienna, 1992, p. 17 note 40. on the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the marbles corresponding to part of the friezes decorating the parthenon, see john merrymann and albert elsen, law, ethics and the visual arts, 3ª ed., london, 1998, pp. 14 et seq.. note 41. the vote following the debate that took place on 7 june 1816, demonstrated a very divided house of commons. cf. parlimentary debates, 1816, pp. 1031 et seq.. note 42. john henry merrymann, while acknowledging the importance of the friezes, recalls the attacks carried out by the ottomans on the acropolis. any permanence of the friezes on that site would therefore face, in addition to serious political instability, a very adverse climate and level of pollution which would have led to significant destruction of those cultural assets. cf. “thinking about the elgin marbles” in michigan law review, vol. no. 84, no. 1, 1985, pp. 1895 et seq.. from another perspective, christopher hitchens, after dismantling lord elgin's supposed acquisition, defends the return of the friezes and not even ruling out an extensive restoration of the parthenon itself. cf. “the elgin marbles” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. in the elgin marbles: should they be returned to greece?, london, 1997, pp. 45 et seq.. note 43. as astrid müller-katzenburg points out, the extent of the expropriation of works of art carried out by the soviet union government, right after the october revolution, that later motivated the filing of lawsuits in german courts when some of those assets were put up for sale at public auctions to be held on german territory. cf. internationale…op. cit., p. 240. note 44. on this subject, quentin byrne-sutton describes the systematic looting of allied cultural assets. cf. le trafic international des biens culturels sous l´angle de leur revendication par l‟ état d‟ origine, zurich, 1988, pp. 12-3. note 45. jeanette greenfield underlines this topic, stressing how subsequent returns have always been far from reaching the totality of the lost or stolen goods. cf. the return…op. cit., pp. 204-5. note 46. on the activity of the soviet war trophies brigade on german territory, susanne schoen, “beutekunst: von der kriegstrophäe zur handelsware” in raub, beute, diebstahl, baden-baden, 2013, pp. 77 et seq.. note 47.this was the case with the request for the return of the holy family painting by joachim wtewael, brought by the federal republic of germany, which obtained a favourable decision from the british high court of justice on 9 september 1998. cf. kurt siehr, “guter glaube im kunsthandel” in bulletin kunst und recht, no. 3, 2012, pp. 5 et seq.. note 48. on this topic, see sigrun holst, biens culturels et relations internationales: spoliations, protection, restitution, paris, 1983, pp. 23 et seq.. note 49. according to erik jayme, the postmodern era is characterised by the cultural identity of individuals which is affirmed as a legal category. cf. “identité culturelle et intégration: le droit international privé postmoderne” in recueil des cours, no. 251, 1995, pp. 167 et seq.. note 50. cf. gabriel lepointe, droit romein et ancien droit français: droit des biens, paris, 1958, p. 23. note 51. cf. max kaser, römisches privatrecht, munich, 1992, portuguese translation, p. 147. note 52. pieter van bemmelen attaches great importance to the customs of port cities which, to a certain extent, privileged the protection of purchasers. accordingly, regarding the practice in effect for the city of hamburg in 1270, and later replicated in the statutes of bremen, lübeck and riga, he stresses the circumstantial nature of purchases involving goods from abroad and how they were witnessed by two men of good repute. cf. le système de la propriété mobilière, paris, 1887 pp. 56 et seq.. note 53. in this context, pieter van bemmelen alludes to the statutes of murten, leobschütz and bamberg where, in several passages, the duty to compensate the buyer in good faith, deceived by the perpetrator of the theft, stands out. cf. le système…op. cit., pp. 172 et seq.. note 54. as there was no animus, which was practically equivalent to corpus, gewere was eventually circumscribed to detention. cf. wilhelm albrecht, die gewere als grundlagen des ältern deutschen sachenrechts, konisberg 1828, pp. 19 et seq.. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. note 55. cf. andreas heusler, die gewere, weimar, 1872, p. 492. note 56. according to sachsenspiegel, the person who lends or entrusts an object to another cannot ask for its return from a third party who, in turn, has acquired it for a paid amount. cf. deutstschenspiegel uns ausgsburger sachsenspiegel, ii, 60, § 1º. note 57. cf. ulrich von lübtow, “hand wahre hand” in festschrift der juristischen fakultät der freien universität berlin, berlin, 1955, p. 177. note 58. cf. part i, 15, §§ 17 et seq. of the alr, allgemeines landrecht für preussischen staaten. note 59. article 2279 of the code stipulates the following: “en fait de meubles, la possession vaut titre”. note 60. the model of possession equals ownership favours the transmission of movable assets and inherent confidence in such transactions to the detriment of the conservation of assets and the private interests of the dispossessed person. on this matter, marcel planiol, traité élémentaire de droit civil, tome i, 3rd ed., paris, 1946, pp. 1110-1; louis tournesac, application pratique de la maxime “en fait de meubles possession vaut titre”, paris, 1913, pp. 38-9. note 61. cf. article 707 of the italian civil code of 1865. note 62. cf. articles 1153 et seq. of the italian civil code of 1942. note 63. acknowledging this, marco comporti, “il codice italiano e la convenzione unidroit” in protezione internazionale del patrimonio culturale, milan, 2000, p. 156. note 64. according to ludovico barassi, we would be faced with a true principle of protection of third parties acting in good faith that favours modernity, the anonymity of exchanges and the overcoming of the distinction between deposited or entrusted goods and other goods that have not been so entrusted. cf. diritti reali e possesso, vol. ii, milan, 1952, pp. 462 et seq.. note 65. cf. rodolfo sacco, il possesso, 2ª ed., milan, 2000, pp. 282 et seq. note 66. cf. §§ 932 and 935 bgb. note 67. therefore, jean sauveplanne accepts that the acquirer's legitimacy when purchasing stems from the absence of intention or serious fault when taking into account the circumstances of the specific case. cf. la protection de l‟ acquereur de bonne foi d‟ objets mobiliers corporels, vol. i, rome, 1961, pp. 55 et seq. note 68. according to anette hipp, § 935 covers at least the following situations: stolen cultural goods; the misappropriation of goods handed over for restoration; the actions of restorers/specialists whenever appropriating a cultural good. cf. schutz von kulturgütern in deutschland, berlin, 2000, p. 156. on the other hand, raymond salleiles argues theft is a relative vice and hence not precluding any subsequent acquisition by persons acting in good faith. cf. de la possession des meubles, paris, 1907, p. 137. note 69. cf. article 464 of the spanish civil code. note 70. alfonso-luis caravaca positions the spanish cc solution as closer to that of article 1153 of the italian cc. cf. “private international law and the unidroit convention of 24th june 1995 on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects” in festschrift für erik jayme, vol. i, 2004, pp. 88 et seq.. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. note 71. see our “bens culturais…” in op. cit., p. 900. note 72. ibidem. note 73. thus, rui pinto duarte argues that article 1301 and the enunciative register seek to ensure the protection of the trust that, under other legal regimes, was assumed by the possession equals ownership model. cf. lições de direitos reais, 3rd ed., cascais, 2013, pp. 182-3. note 74. cf. unesco convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, adopted in the hague on 14 may 1954. note 75. cf. article 1 of the convention. note 76. kurt siehr emphasises precisely this point cf. “kulturgüter als res extra commercium im internationalen rechtsverkehr” in festchrift für reinhold trinkner zum 65. geburstag, heidelberg, 1995, p. 717. note 77. gerte reichelt points out the case winkworth versus christie, mason and woods, of 1980, when a collection of japanese artworks belonging to a british subject were stolen in the uk and then exported to italy, where they were sold to an italian citizen. the latter, in turn, re-exported them to london in order to be sold at christie's. as reichelt notes, this conditionality does not therefore only prefigure a situation concerning goods from museums or public collections. cf. “la protection internationale des biens culturels” in révue de droit uniforme, vol. i, 1985, pp. 80 et seq.. note 78. accordingly, daphné voudouri highlights such inefficiency by identifying how the convention does not prohibit the export of cultural assets unaccompanied by certificates. cf. “circulation et protection des biens culturels dans l‟ europe sans frontières” in révue de droit public et de la science politique, no. 2, 1994, pp. 500-1. note 79. cf. gerte reichelt, “la protection…” in op. cit., pp. 110 et seq.. in a similar vein, lyndell prott, “unesco and unidroit: a partnership against trafficking in cultural objects” in révue droit uniform, no. 1, 1996, p. 60. note 80. john merrymann argues that the unesco convention is imbued with cultural nationalism in contrast to the 1954 hague convention with its clear internationalist or cosmopolitan emphasis. cf. “two ways of thinking about cultural property” in american journal of international law, vol. 80, 1996, pp. 845 et seq.. note 81. cf. sophie lenski, “der uneingestandene…” in op. cit., p. 683. note 82. cf. kurt siehr, “die umsetzung des unescoübereinkommens von 1970 in deutschland aus der sicht der wissenschaft” in kulturgüterschutz-künstlerschutz, baden-baden, 2009, p. 79. note 83. adopting this perspective, kurt siehr, “die umsetzung…” in op. cit., p. 92. note 84. the convention was approved for ratification by government decree no. 26/85 of 26 july 1985 and the corresponding instrument was deposited on 9 december 1985 with the unesco director general. note 85. on this topic, see joão martins claro, “enquadramento e apreciação crítica da lei no. 13/85” in direito do património cultural, lisbon, 1996, pp. 297 et seq.. in fact, the insufficiency and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. inoperability of the previous basic law was also the object of criticism in the report that preceded the current basic law. cf. relatório intercalar…op. cit., p. 20. note 86. kurt siehr does not only underline this fact but also argues that the convention is difficult to apply in any direct manner and thus requiring subsequent transposition into the legal orders of member states. cf. “die umsetzung…” in op. cit., p. 79. note 87. according to pierre lalive, the failure of the unesco convention stemmed from an imbalance favouring the claims of states that export cultural assets to the detriment of the interests of importing states. furthermore, emphasising the multidisciplinary nature of this problem, it would be necessary to reach beyond the level of mere declarations of intent of public international law and proceed according to the relevant reflections on the basis of private law and private international law. cf. “sur le retour des biens culturels illicitement exportés” in nouveaux itinéraires en droit: hommage à françois rigaux, brussels, 1993, pp. 293 et seq.. note 88. as the unesco convention only covers the importation of assets stolen from museums or similar institutions and registered in that entity's inventory, it excludes assets stolen from private individuals and non-inventoried cultural assets. cf. stefano rodotà, “les aspects de droit civil de la protection international des biens culturels” in la protection juridique international des biens culturels: actes du 13º colloque de droit européen, strasbourg, 1998, pp. 100 et seq.. in a similar vein, marques dos santos describes how the convention does not solve the problems raised by theft, robbery or illegal export as it only covers goods that are part of the collections of museums or public monuments. furthermore, this takes into account aspects of public law without considering the issues arising at the level of private law under the auspices of the international protection of cultural assets. cf. “draft unidroit convention on the international return of stolen or illicitly exported cultural property” in estudos de direito internacional privado e de direito processual civil internacional, 1998, p. 223. note 89. therefore, allusion is made to contract law, rights in rem, public international law, private international law and administrative law. cf. pierre lalive, “une avancée du droit international: la convention de rome d‟unidroit sur les biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés” in révue de droit uniforme, no. 1, 1996, p. 41. note 90. according to article 9(1), nothing in the convention shall affect the application by a contracting state of other more favourable provisions concerning the return or restitution of stolen or unlawfully exported cultural assets. note 91. within this scope, jean-sylvestre bergé identifies rules on limitation periods, claims for return and the restitution of assets as examples of areas where recourse to national law appears necessary, and accordingly demonstrates the absence of a uniform substantive law. cf. “la convention d‟ unidroit sur les biens culturels: remarques sur la dynamique des sources en droit international” in journal du droit international, year 127, 2000, pp. 244 et seq.. in a similar vein, ioannis voulgaris warns on the competence of national courts for interpreting the questions arising from the convention‟s specific www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. terms. cf. “les principaux problèmes soulevés par l‟unification du droit régissant les biens culturels” in révue de droit uniforme, no. 1, 2003, pp. 547-8. conversely, guido carducci maintains that the convention represents a system of substantive law. however, he adds at the outset that directive 93/7/eec also constitutes a system of substantive law even while not establishing an exhaustive normative system. cf. la restitution internationale des biens culturels et des objets d‟art, paris, 1997, pp. 8-9. note 92. according to georges droz, chapter ii sets out a uniform law designed to regulate the civil aspects of cultural asset theft while chapter iii provides a type of convention for mutual judicial and administrative assistance. cf. “la convention d‟ unidroit sur le retour international des biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés” in révue critique de droit international privé, no. 2, 1997, p. 258. note 93. according to kurt siehr, it is of little importance for the unesco convention that the cultural assets have been qualified as national treasures in the state of origin as the convention is based on its own assumptions, such as importance and qualification, according to the categories set out in its annex. cf. “the protection of cultural property: the 1995 unidroit convention and the eec instruments of 1992/93 compared” in uniform law review, no. 2, 1998, pp. 673-4. in a similar vein, marilú marletta, la restituzione dei beni culturali: normativa comunitaria e convenzione unidroit, milan, 1997, pp. 137 et seq.. note 94. according to gerte reichelt‟s stance, the shortcomings of the unesco convention represented the impetus for the drafting of the unidroit convention. in particular, regarding the inability of the respective articulation to solve a circumstantialism similar to that described in the winkworth versus christie case. or even the one known as the weimar collection versus elicofon, decided by the us court of appeal, in 1984, where the theft of two dürer portraits, later sold by an american soldier to the lawyer elicofon for a patently derisory price, was at issue. cf. “20 jahre unidroit konvention: status quo und ausblick” in kultur im recht: recht als kultur, baden-baden, 2016, pp. 44 et seq. note 95. cf. article 3(2) of the unidroit convention. note 96. guido carducci emphasises the possibility under the unidroit convention of bringing an action for restitution before the courts within clearly defined time limits, in contrast to the diplomatic application and the absence of time limits under the unesco convention. cf. “complementarité entre les conventions de l‟unesco de 1970 et d‟unidroit de 1995 sur les biens culturels” in révue de droit uniforme, vol. xi, 2006, p. 97. note 97. cf. article 3(3) of the convention. note 98. cf. article 4(1) of the convention. note 99. cf. article 5(2) of the convention. note 100. cf. article 5(3) of the convention. note 101. according to john merryman, export control is not even intended to protect property but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. rather represents a limitation on its exercise. cf. “il controllo nazionale sull‟ esportazione dei beni culturali” in rivista di diritto civile, 1988, p. 635. note 102. cf. article 5(5) of the convention. note 103. cf. article 6(1) of the convention. note 104. cf. interim report …op. cit. p. 90. note 105. on the growing restrictiveness of the acquisition a non domino and, consequently, of the precepts of article 1153 of the italian civil code, see marco comporti, “per una diversa lettura dell‟ art. 153 cod. civ. a tutela dei beni culturali, in scritti in onore di luigi mengoni, vol. i, milan, 1995, pp. 402 et seq.. in the opposite direction, and forming a counter-current to a certain extent, see geo magri, “beni culturale e acquisto a non domino”, in rivista di diritto civile, year lix, no. 3, 2013, pp. 741 et seq.. note 106. cf. marco comporti, “il codice…” in op. cit., pp. 160-1. note 107. cf. kurt siehr, “a special regime for cultural objects in europe” in uniform law review, 2003, p. 562. note 108. cf. lyndel prott, “the unidroit convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects: ten years on” in uniform law review, 2009, pp. 231 et seq.. note 109. cf. article 9(1) of the convention. note 110. lyndel prott reaffirms this view. cf. biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés, paris, 2000, p. 127. note 111. cf. guido carducci, “complementarité…” in op. cit., p. 99. note 112. in this sense, frédéric-edouard klein, “en relisant la convention unidroit du 24 juin 1995 sur les biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés: réflexions et suggestions” in révue de droit suisse , no. 118, no. 3, 1999, p. 270. note 113. josef kohler, regarding the return of a work of art, already defended, at the beginning of the 20th century, the prevalence of the original owner‟s claim. cf. “das recht an denkmälern und altertumsfunden” in deustche juristenzeitung, vol. ix, no. 16/17, 1904, pp. 771 et seq. subsequently, many others followed suit. accordingly, kurt siehr dismisses the relevance of the purchaser‟s good faith in purchasing cultural assets. cf. “international art trade and the law” in recueil des cours, 1993, pp. 57 et seq. note 113. according to alfonso-luis caravaca, this becomes one of the problems of the unidroit convention. cf. “private…” in op. cit., pp. 91-92. note 114. on this subject, marina schneider alludes to a movement of solidary relations between states in order to cooperate in the protection of cultural assets. cf. “la convention d‟ unidroit sur les biens culturels. état de mise en oeuvre” in révue de droit uniforme, vol. ii, 1997, p. 507. note 115. pierre lalive expresses sympathy for some retroactivity. cf. “une avancée…” in op. cit., p. 55. conversely, maher el wahed, reflecting on egyptian law, as an exporting country, considers that only retroactivity would materialise the intentions inscribed in the unidroit convention. cf. “the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. 1995 unidroit convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects: a view from egypt” in révue de droit uniforme, vol. viii, 2003, p. 539. note 116. cf. directive 2014/60/eu of the european parliament and of the council of 15 may 2014 on the return of cultural assets unlawfully removed from the territory of a member state. note 117. directive 93/7/eec of the council of 15 march 1993. note 118. cf. article 13(3) of the unidroit convention. on this subject, alessandro tomaselli, la tutela dei beni culturali nel diritto dell‟ unione europea, ariccia, 2015, pp. 56-7. note 119. on this topic, guido carducci, la restitution…op. cit., pp. 5 et seq.. note 120. cf. article 1 of directive 93/7/eec. note 121. daphné voudouri doubts the fairness and reasonableness of this classificatory measure, which was intended to avoid clogging up the courts. cf. “circulation…” in op. cit., p. 517. note 122. in this regard, see ignaz seidl-hohenveldern, “patrimoine culturel mobilier et marché intérieur de la communauté européenne” in études de droit international en l „honneur de pierre lalive, bâle, 1993, p. 756. note 123. regarding this difficulty, see kurt siehr, “international protection of cultural property in the european community” in études de droit international en l „ honneur de pierre lalive, bâle, 1993,p. 766. note 124. cf. article 1 of the directive. note 125. among others, ferrer correia highlights the following primordial conditions: assets which were integral parts of buildings or groups of buildings of undeniable historical or artistic significance; assets of great importance from the point of view of ancient religious worship; works of art produced by leading national artists; archaeological objects of artistic interest or historical significance; works of art by foreign artists integrated for a considerable time into public or private collections of a given country. cf. a venda internacional de obras de arte, coimbra, 1994, pp. 22 et seq. note 126. françois rigaux expresses its agreement with the choice of directive. cf. “libre circulation…” in op. cit., p. 110. similarly, susanna quadri, “il regime dell‟ unione europea in materia di restituzione dei beni culturali illecitamente exportati” in la restituzione dei beni culturali rimossi com particolare riguardo alla pratica italiana, milan, 2014, pp. 211 et seq. note 127. although, on another occasion, françois rigaux raises several questions in order to identify a national treasure. in particular whether a matisse, illicitly exported from italy to the united states, can still be considered an italian treasure or whether a manet, sold in london, can become an english national treasure. cf. “le commerce des oeuvres d‟ art dans le marché commun” in études de droit international en l„ honneur de pierre lalive, bâle, 1993, p. 744. still on the same issue, “nations et nationalismes au cours des deux dernières siécles” in festchrift für erik jayme, munique, 2004, pp. 1204 et seq.. note 128. cf. article 5 of the directive. note 129. in this sense, jean-françois poli, after recognising that the protective purpose between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. directive and the unidroit convention has similarities, states that the convention is more understandable and appropriate. cf. “droit communautaire, compé tences culturelles des états membre en matière de protection du patrimoine national, et convention d‟ unidroit sur les biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés” in révue du marché commun et de l‟ union européenne, no. 415, 1998, p. 91. for his part, josé sánchez felipe recommends adapting european legislation to the guidelines of the unidroit convention. cf. “el convenio de unidroit sobre los bienes culturales robados o exportados ilícitamente, hecho en rome el 24 de junio de 1995” in revista española de derecho internacional, vol. 48, no. 1, 1996, p. 439. note 130. cf. article 2 of the directive. note 131. cf. directive 96/100/ec of the european parliament and of the council. note 132. cf. directive 2001/38/ec of the european parliament and of the council. note 133. cf. article 8(1) of the directive. note 134. idem. note 135. as regards spanish law, the strengthening of the powers of the central authority and the courts. cf. maria jesús benayas, “transposición al ordenamiento español de la directiva 2014/60/eu sobre restitución de bienes que hayan salido de forma ilegal de un estado miembro mediante la ley 1/2017” in revista española de derecho internacional, vol. 70, no. 1 2018, pp. 181 et seq.; in german law, the possibility of adopting new protective legislation has been considered, with a view to unifying in a single piece of legislation the aspects relating to the movement, importation and return of cultural goods. on this issue, lucas elmenhorst and moritz wargalla, “sinnloser behördenaufwand oder drägende notwendigkeit? der entwurf zur neuregelung des kulturgutschutzrechts” in zeitschrift für rechtspolitik, no. 15, 2016, pp. 1 et seq.; henrike weiden, “kulturgutschutzgesetz: deutsche bilder nicht mehr handelbar?” in gewerblicher rechtsschutz und urheberrecht, 2015, pp. 1085 et seq.. note 136. law no. 30/2016, of 23 august, transposing directive 2014/60/eu, regulates the regime for the restitution of cultural assets that have been unlawfully removed from the territory of a european union member state. note 137. cf. article 3(1) of law 30/2016. note 138. cf. article 11(1) of law 30/2016. note 139. cf. mathias weller, rethinking eu cultural property law: towards private enforcement, baden-baden, 2018, pp. 40 et seq. note 140. cf. mathias weller, rethinking…op. cit., pp. 42 et seq. note 141. cf. mathias weller, rethinking…op. cit., pp. 46 et seq. note 142. cf. sophie schönberger, “der entwurf…” in op. cit., pp. 62-3. note 143. on this topic, see jason lustig, “who are to be the successors of european jewry? the restitution of german jewish communal archives” in looted art and restitution in the twentieth century: europe in transnational and global perspective, cambridge, 2014, pp. 11-12; bianca gaudenzi e astrid swenson, “looted art and the restitution in the twentieth century: towards a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. global perspective” in journal of contemporary history, 2017, pp. 491 et seq.; bruce hay, nazi-looted art and the law, cambridge, 2017, pp. 15 et seq.. note 144. the washington declaration on the restitution of cultural assets confiscated by the nazi authorities was adopted on 3 december 1998 at a conference to discuss the losses caused to the jews. on this subject, see lisiane ody, “restituição internacional de obras de arte” in revista da escola de magistratura do trf da 4ª região de porto alegre, no. 13, 2019, pp. 179 et seq.. note 145. cf. gunnar schnabel and monika tatzkow, nazi looted art, berlin, 2007, p. 44. note 146. the term has been used in a variety of contexts. in particular, in relation to the duty to report suspicions of money laundering and tax evasion. cf. max heywood and jessica ebrard, tainted treasures: money laundering risks in luxury markets, berlin, 2017, pp. 19 et seq. note 147. according to sandrine giroud and charles boudry, the term due diligence is an ethical concept that seeks to guide professionals acting in the art market in aspects as diverse as lending, exporting and requisitioning works of art. cf. “art lawyers‟ due diligence obligations: a difficult equilibrium between the law and ethics” in international journal of cultural property, no. 22, 2015, pp. 405-6. note 148. on another occasion, we have distinguished between the following models of protecting the legal entitlement to movable assets: the fair deed; hand wahre hand; possession equals ownership and rebuttable presumption. see our “bens culturais. posse não vale título?” in o direito, no. 142, 2010, pp. 886 et seq.. note 149. according to lyndell prott's opinion, another term would have been preferable because due diligence has been deployed differently under north american law. thus, if he also disagrees with the locution "due diligence", he believes the expression "required diligence" to be more appropriate, which is able to move beyond the idea of degrees of diligence in favour of something required or demanded without any malleability. cf. biens culturels…op. cit., p. 82. note 150. on this topic, jan hessbruegge, “the historical development of the doctrines of attribution and due diligence in international law” in new york university journal of international law and politics, no. 36, 2004, pp. 265 et seq.. note 151. cf. article 4(1) of the unidroit convention. note 152. cf. article 4(4) of the unidroit convention. note 153. lyndell prott mentions the airport customs office, the departure pier, night time, or even a very low price compared to market prices, as factors that may indicate suspicious circumstances. cf. biens culturels…op. cit., pp. 83 et seq.. note 154. accordingly, marcílio franca filho, matheus vale, nathálya lins da silva highlight, among other initiatives, the consultation of databases from interpol, carabinieri, unodc, icom, getty provenance index and smithsonian provenance research initiative. cf. “mercado de arte, integridade e due diligence no brasil e no mercosul cultural” in revista da secretaria do tribunal permanente de revisão do mercosul, ano 7, no. 14, 2019, p. 266. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. note 155. cf. lyndell prott, biens culturels…op. cit., p. 84. note 156. cf. gerte reichelt, “20 jahre…” in op. cit., p. 49. note 157. cf. article 9 of directive 93/7/eec. note 158. cf. article 10 of directive 2014/60/eu note 159. according to gerte reichelt, a paradigmatic example of this fundamental principle arises from the case of marei von saher versus norton simon museum. she also allows for the previous case of thwaytes versus sotheby's, concerning a painting attributed to caravaggio, having already denoted this. cf. “20 jahre…” in op. cit., p. 49. note 160. cf. law no. 30/2016 of 23 august. note 161. cf. article 69(1) and (2) of the basic law. note 162. see our manual…op. cit, pp. 164-5. note 163. cf. pires de lima and antunes varela, código civil yeartado, vol. iii, coimbra, 1981, p. 20.\ note 164. the lack of protection of the bona fide third party purchasing stolen assets appears, for example, in us law. cf. jean sauveplanne, “the protection of the bona fide purchaser of corporeal movables in comparative law” in rabels zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales privatrecht, no. 4, vol. 29, 1965, pp. 651 et seq.; deborah demott, “artful good faith: an essay on law, custom, and intermediaries in art market” in duke law journal, no. 3, vol. 62, 2012, pp. 611 et seq.; note 165. cf. article 10(1) of the unidroit convention. note 166. cf. report of the special commission, unesco 16c/17, annex ii, 1969, pp. 6-7. note 167. cf. minutes of the 4th expert session, unesco doc. 48, 1970, pp. 238 et seq.. note 168. in addition to paragraph 1, also article 10, paragraph 2 of the unidroit convention. note 169. cf. article 10(3) of the unidroit convention. note 170. let us recall, in this regard, the request for the return of klimt's painting, entitled portrait of adele bloch-bauer, also known as the golden lady, decided by the supreme court of the united states in 2004, after a long dispute between maria altmann and the republic of austria. cf. http//www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/03pdf. note 171. cf. gesetz über die einziehung volksund staatsfeindlichen vermögens of 14 july 1933. note 172. cf. judgment of the german constitutional court, bverfg, of 14 february 1968. note 173. cf. holocaust return of cultural objects act of 12 november 2009. note 174. on this topic, see alessandra buonasera, la destinazione dei beni confiscati alla mafia, caserta, 2020, pp. 26 et seq. note 175. for example , e. k. agorsah, “restitution of cultural material to africa”, in africa spectrum, no. 12, 1977, pp. 305 et seq. note 176. the original title reads as follows: rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. vers une nouvelle éthique relationelle. note 177. speech by the president of the french republic, emmanuel macron, delivered at ouaga i www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. university in ouagadougou, on 29 november 2017. cf. https: //www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2017. note 178. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 9 et seq.. note 179. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 11. note 180. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 14. note 181. accordingly, the director-general of unesco stated that the peoples who were victims of colonial plunder had not only been dispossessed of irreplaceable masterpieces but had also been deprived of a memory that would help them to know themselves better and, likewise, the others around them. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 15. note 182. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 17. note 183. felwine sarr e bénédicte savoy deploy the term oxymoron in a sense equivalent to contradictory or paradoxical. cf. rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 24. note 184. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 24. note 185. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 25 et seq. note 186. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 32. note 187. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 28-9. note 188. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 38. note 189. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 43 et seq.. note 190. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 51-2. note 191. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 53. note 192. on this item, the report highlights, among others, as regards benin, the statue of king ghézo, the four doors of the royal palace as well as the thrones of the monarchs glèlè and ghézo. as regards senegal, the pieces correspond to the sack of ségou, concerning the el hadj treasure. for mali, the goods collected by the laboutet (1932); dakar-djibouti (1931-1933); sahara-sudan (1935) and niger-lago iro (1938-1939) missions. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 55 et seq.. note 193. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 54. note 194. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., pp. 57 et seq.. note 195. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 59. note 196. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 61. note 197. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 67. note 198. cf. felwine sarr, bénédicte savoy, rapport sur la restitution…op. cit., p. 63. note 199. cf. interview with hélène leloup, in le point-culture newspaper, on 19 november 2018. note 200. ibidem. note 201. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llbo5kwiqy0 note 202. http://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20200217/cult.html note 203. idem. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. note 204. idem. note 205. idem. note 206. idem. note 207. https://www.gouvernement.fr/conseil-des-ministres/2020-07-15/restitution-de-biens-culturels-au-beninet-au-senegal-?utm_source=emailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=conseil_ministre_202007 15 note 208. idem. note 209. cf. didier rykner, “restitutions: un project de loi basé sur des falsifications de l‟ histoire” in la tribune de l‟ art, july, 2020, pp. 1 et seq.. note 210. cf. didier rykner, “restitutions …” in op. cit., p. 2. note 211. cf. didier rykner, “restitutions …” in op. cit., pp. 2-3. note 212. cf. yves-bernard debie, “la restitution du sabre d‟ el hadj oumar tall: un périlleux galop d‟ essai au mépris du droit ed de l‟ histoire” in la tribune de l‟ art, november, 2019, pp. 1 et seq.. note 213. cf. yves-bernard debie, “la restitution…” in op. cit., pp. 4-5. note 214. cf. yves-bernard debie, “la restitution…” in op. cit., p. 5. note 215. cf. “duelo” in the expresso newspaper, 15 december 2018, p. 7. note 216. cf. interview by leopoldo amado, to lusa news agency, on 12 november 2019. note 217. cf. interview with paulo costa in diário de notícias, 28 january 2020. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper teaching and assessing soft skills for health and education professionals: a scoping review svetlana daly 1 , katrina j. phillips 1 & clare m. mccann 1 1 school of psychology, the university of auckland, auckland, new zealand * svetlana daly, school of psychology, the university of auckland, auckland, new zealand received: june 13, 2022 accepted: july 20, 2022 online published: july 29, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n3p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p39 abstract soft skills are a collection of abilities instrumental to one being a successful professional. soft skills are knowing why, what, when, and where to perform specific technical, hard skills. traditionally, universities and other professional training providers have focused on teaching hard skills, relying on graduates to learn necessary soft skills on the job or through personal experiences. with more professional training requiring tertiary education and less work experience, a skills gap has developed between labour markets and professional training providers. a scoping review was conducted to answer two research questions: how are soft skills conceptualised and taught to health and education professionals? how are soft skills assessed for health and education professionals? the pager framework was utilised to present and synthesise the scoping review results. eight themes emerged from the patterning analysis and data synthesis: lack of definitions of soft skills; what soft skills are taught; methods of teaching soft skills; curriculum: embedded vs. stand-alone courses; use of digital tools; assessment of soft skills; variation of assessment tools; limited regard for cultural competency, diversity, equality, and inclusion. these themes are discussed in relation to advances, gaps, evidence for practice, and research recommendations. keywords soft skills, training, assessment, health, higher education 1. introduction soft skills in the workplace are instrumental to success (cimatti, 2016). soft skills can be conceptualised as a collection of skills and abilities about knowing why, what, when, and where to perform specific capabilities related to the execution of technical competencies or domain-specific knowledge. hard skills, conversely, are the specific capabilities required to perform a particular job. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. traditionally, universities and other professional training providers focus on teaching hard skills, resulting in a skills gap between labour markets and professional training providers that has been filled by industry (cimatti, 2016). industries such as business, it and engineering, where factors such as return on investment and meeting the bottom line are paramount for business success, have shown increased research on soft skills. soft skills in the health and education professions are less prevalent in research. research into teaching soft skills for medical and nursing professions is starting to emerge but very little in other health professions. the education field presents an even greater paucity of literature. although many countries have undergone, and continue to undergo, reforms to include soft skills as part of the education curriculum, evidence is lacking into how soft skills are taught to educators responsible for teaching them to others. the current study is a scoping review examining existing research into how soft skills are conceptualised and taught to health and education professionals. these professions are considered together because of the similar roles they play in public sector multidisciplinary teams with children, young people, and adults; and because they are often employed by the same fields a scoping review method is appropriate because research is still emerging on how soft skills are taught and assessed for health and education professionals. this is in agreement with arksey and o‟malley‟s (2005) purposes for carrying out a scoping review (i.e., to examine the extent and reach of research activity in a particular field). the purpose of this scoping review is to examine existing research into how soft skills are conceptualised and taught to health and education professionals. it will systematically map current research, identify any existing gaps in how soft skills are taught and assessed for health and education professionals, and present findings which will provide useful information beyond identification of gaps (bradbury‐jones & aveyard, 2021). the following research questions were formulated:  q1: how are soft skills conceptualised and taught to health and education professionals?  q2: how are soft skills assessed for health and education professionals? 2. method 2.1 search strategy the scoping review protocol was designed using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis extension for scoping reviews (prisma-scr) (daly et al., 2022). articles included in the scoping review needed to address teaching and/or assessment of soft skills to health and/or education professionals. peer-reviewed articles written in english were included in the review. no beginning date limitations were applied. grey literature such as magazines, trade journals, and student theses were not included. a wide range of information sources was used to capture publications from both health and education fields. the databases were searched until december 2021. for a full list of databases see daly et al., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. 2022. an initial search was conducted on 27 th january 2021 (table 1) to identify existing reviews on soft skills, become familiar with the volume of literature in both health and education, identify key terms, and develop a search strategy (booth et al., 2012). the initial search yielded a large number of unrelated items as well as a number of review articles about soft skills (chaka, 2020; dalaya et al., 2015; murray et al., 2018; touloumakos, 2020). the search terms were refined to: “soft skills training”; “training soft skills”; “teaching soft skills”; “soft skills teaching”, to more accurately capture literature that addressed both course-based and on-the-job training. the modified search terms were used to identify how soft skills are taught and assessed for health and education professionals as part of their professional and post-qualification training. the search strategy was developed by the first author after consultation with the university librarian. it was reviewed and agreed upon by all authors. table 1. initial search strategy for scopus # query s1 “soft skills” s2 “soft skills” or “interpersonal skills” or “social skills” or “compassionate care” s3 (“soft skills” or “interpersonal skills” or “social skills” or “compassionate care”) and (teach* or train*) s4 (“soft skills” or “interpersonal skills” or “social skills” or “compassionate care”) and (teach* or train*) and (health* or education or nurs*) s5 “soft skills training” s6 “soft skills development” s7 s5 & s6 following the final search, items yielded from each database were exported into zotero and duplicates removed. all titles and abstracts were screened by the first author against the inclusion criteria. approximately one third of excluded titles and abstracts were independently reviewed against the inclusion criteria by the second and third authors as well as independent students in the department. any disagreements were resolved through discussion and consensus. this process was repeated for full texts. all three reviewers read the final articles included in this review. 2.2 data charting process a data charting form to determine which variables to extract was developed by the first author, reviewed by the other authors and extraction variables adjusted following discussion. this process was guided by the joanna briggs institute reviewer‟s manual (peters et al., 2020) and the pager framework (bradbury-jones et al., 2021). the revised data extraction tool can be seen in table 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. table 2. data extraction tool evidence source details and characteristics citation details (author/s, date, title, journal, volume, issue, pages) source: research/review/thesis/conference/book/other country cultural considerations contextfield/sector health/education participant information students/professionals role/profession current practices identified location tertiary/on the job intervention methods/study design specific soft skills discussed soft skills defined general/individual how soft skills taught embedded/stand alone how soft skills assessed self-assessed/assessed by others future research considerations identified by author the first author extracted the data for all included sources. the second and third authors independently extracted data for 13 randomly selected sources each. thus, calibrating approximately half of the total sources. results from each extraction were checked for consistency. any inconsistencies in the charting were resolved through discussion between all three authors until consensus was reached. given the nature of this scoping review critical appraisal of the sources was not required, but limitations and gaps identified by the sources were documented. 3. result the final search of electronic databases and review article references yielded 5874 citations. after removing duplicates and unrelated titles, a total of 3022 citations remained. based on title and abstract, 2606 references were excluded, with 416 full-text references assessed for eligibility. of these, 386 were excluded for the following reasons: 224 did not address soft skills for health or education professionals; 94 did not teach or assess soft skills; 36 were not peer reviewed; and 32 full texts were not retrievable. a forward and backward citation search of articles meeting inclusion criteria was also conducted. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. process yielded a further 10 articles that met the criteria and were included in the final 48 articles in this review, as illustrated in figure 1. records identified through searching multiple databases (n= 5874) exclude papers not relevant by full text (n= 368) not health or education professionals: 224 not taught or assessed: 94 grey literature: 36 no full text available: 32 records excluded by title (n= 1092) records after duplicates removed (n= 3022) review full text papers (n= 416) exclude studies not relevant by abstract (n= 1514) records screened by title (n= 3022) screen papers by abstract (n= 1930) papers included in this review (n=48) figure 1. prisma diagram for the inclusion of articles for analysis individual characteristics of included articles can be viewed in the patterning chart, table 3. of the 48 articles reviewed, 37 were in the health sector and 11 in education. twenty-five articles included students as participants and 14 included professionals and/or faculty staff who provide training. most soft skill training and/or assessment occurred in tertiary settings, with only 12 articles addressing soft skills in the workplace. almost all (n=10) articles addressing soft skills for education professionals were in a tertiary setting. the one article that did not specify the location was a review article (coll, 2002). included articles were 34 original research, eight reviews (including two literature reviews), four conference articles, and two programme descriptions. in terms of the research geographical representation, 18 were from asia, 13 from north america, nine from europe, four from australia/oceania, and two each from africa and south america. although the earliest article included in this review was published 20 years ago (coll, 2002), almost half (n=20) of the reviewed articles were published in the last two years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. table 3. patterning table of characteristics of individual sources article sector participant information location specific ss discussed how taught how assessed cultural considerations health education student professional tertiary on the job embedded stand alone self-assessment evaluation by other coll et al. (2002) bergh et al. (2006) cziraki et al. (2008) ross et al. (2011) maschuw et al. (2011) nor et al. (2011) minden (2013) deptula & chun (2013) kuthy et al. (2013) gonzalez et al. (2013) gade & chari (2013) conkey et al. (2013) lau & wang (2014) treem guerin (2014) abu kasim et al. (2014) ngang et al. (2015) hassan et al. (2015) annamalai et al. (2015) charoensap-kelly et al. (2016) singh et al. (2017) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. article sector participant information location specific ss discussed how taught how assessed cultural considerations health education student professional tertiary on the job embedded stand alone self-assessment evaluation by other schutt et al. (2017) sagorika & hasegawa (2018) ibrahim et al. (2018) center (2018) giussi bordoni et al. (2019) de pietro et al. (2019) bhagat et al. (2019) bastos et al. (2019) sidebotham et al. (2020) morrell et al. (2020) meiners & wisdom (2020) mailool et al. (2020) jardim et al. (2020) imwattana et al. (2020) dmitrenko et al. (2020) cham et al. (2020) alhouli & al-khayatt (2020) sharma et al. (2021) abraham et al. (2021) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. article sector participant information location specific ss discussed how taught how assessed cultural considerations health education student professional tertiary on the job embedded stand alone self-assessment evaluation by other bajjaly & saunders (2021) continisio et al. (2021) ghimouz et al. (2021) haseeb et al. (2021) kniaz & chukhno (2021) lluch et al. (2021) maren et al. (2021) pang et al. (2021) plotzky et al. (2021) addressing the first research question “how are soft skills taught to health and education professionals?”, 42 of the 48 articles included in this review discussed this. seven of these covered soft skills training for education professionals, 35 were taught in the health sector. addressing the second research question “how are soft skills assessed for health and education professionals?”, 26 articles discussed this. nineteen covered assessment of soft skills for health professionals, and the remaining seven assessing the soft skills of education professionals. twenty-two articles covered both teaching and assessment of soft skills. thirty-four of the reviewed articles discussed specific soft skills. these can be seen in figure 2. the remaining articles discussed soft skills in general terms without highlighting specific ones. the top ten soft skills discussed in the reviewed articles were communication, teamwork, interpersonal/social skills, problem solving, self-management, critical thinking, life-long learning, leadership, professional ethics and morals, and information and technology management skills. communication was most discussed, with ability to listen, staff management, conflict resolution, commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion, employability, entrepreneurial skills, and cultural competency discussed least. cultural competencies and entrepreneurial skills were only mentioned once. only ten articles considering specific soft skills provided a definition beyond the general for them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. figure 2. specific soft skills considered by the reviewed articles twenty-six of the reviewed articles assessed soft skills. most assessment tools relied on self-assessment (n=16). only three reviewed articles used both self-assessment and observer-assessment of the soft skills. most observers were trainers or supervisors. one article included feedback from clients, peers, supervisors, and self-assessment as part of the assessment method. it should be noted that the discussed soft skills were not necessarily those that were taught and/or assessed. figure 3 depicts how soft skills were taught to health and education professionals: 19 of the reviewed articles integrated soft skills in training curricula; 24 taught soft skills through specific, targeted courses. the most common methods of teaching soft skills were discussion, simulations, hands on activities, group work, case studies, and providing feedback. less common teaching methods were goal setting, escape room, intensive training, restorative practice, peer-evaluations, and extra-curricular activities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. figure 3. methods of teaching soft skills in the reviewed articles most assessment tools were created by authors, with only eight articles using a referenced scale. two reviewed articles published results of a measurement tool validation. there were no commonalities of referenced scale or assessment tool between articles that used them. the synthesised results of the reviewed articles can be viewed in table 4 in relation to the two research questions. the pager framework (bradbury-jones et al, 2021) was utilised to summarise key themes that arose from this review. table 4. synthesised findings using pager framework pattern advances gaps evidence for practice research recommendations 1. definitions agreement on general definition of soft skills but not specific soft skills. attributes of soft skills listed rather than definitions. a need for health and education sectors to have clear operational definitions. both trainers and trainees need clear operational definitions of soft skills. both trainers and trainees will know what is being taught and assessed. conduct research to develop operational definitions. 2. which soft skills? commonalities in the top no sector agreement as to need for trainers and trainees to understand which soft conduct research to identify which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. pattern advances gaps evidence for practice research recommendations ten soft skills reported. which soft skills are most important. skills are most important within their sector. soft skills are most important within health and education sectors. 3. methods of teaching several methods for training soft skills. active learning more effective than passive learning in acquiring soft skills. paucity of empirical evidence demonstrating specific methods that are most effective. many training programmes engage in the „train and hope‟ method of teaching soft skills. methods that emulate scenarios likely faced in the workplace are most effective. opportunities to practice and receive feedback on performance are key to acquiring new skills. conduct research to evaluate effectiveness of training methods in teaching soft skills. 4. embedded vs stand-alone courses evidence for using embedded and stand-alone soft skills training. some soft skills are easier to incorporate into the curriculum. others require more specific training programmes. acknowledging the shift needed to incorporate soft skills and hard skills training into the curriculum. faculty staff may not possess the necessary soft skills themselves, thus less effective in teaching them. evidence for both stand-alone and embedded training. more resources needed for soft skills to be embedded into the curricula. resources needed for trainers to develop the necessary soft skills themselves. conduct research to evaluate effectiveness of embedded versus stand-alone soft skills training. conduct research to explore which soft skills are best taught using which method. 5. digital tools emerging evidence that digital tools can be effective in teaching some soft skills. emerging evidence comparing online and in-person training delivery, and the use of blended learning environments. the growth of digital technologies has enabled greater use in teaching some soft skills. artificial intelligence emerging as a tool to provide live feedback to students. blended learning may be appropriate in teaching soft skills. digital simulations may be used to practice using soft skills in various scenarios. training providers should consider investing in digital tools. conduct research to assess effectiveness and efficacy of digital tools in teaching soft skills 6. assessment assessment relies largely on self-report. soft skills are viewed as personal attributes, but self-assessment may be appropriate. evidence for competence-based limited evidence for which assessment method is best. incorporating an observation measure will add to the validity of the assessment method. there is no one universal validated tool to measure soft self-assessment is easy to administer, but training providers need to evaluate its reliability. direct observation should be considered to increase reliability. conduct research to develop sector and professional competencies. conduct research to develop and validate tools for measuring soft skill competencies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. pattern advances gaps evidence for practice research recommendations assessment as a valid and useful tool. skills. 7. varied assessment tools evidence of attempts to use published measurement tools when assessing soft skills. no commonalities found in the assessment tools. trainers should consider competence-based measures rather than psychometric inventory scales to assess soft skills. conduct research to develop a competency-based measure of soft skills. 8. culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion evidence that different countries are developing their own cultural competencies. emerging discussion of the need to promote inclusion, diversity, and equality. a stark lack of consideration for health and education professionals working with individuals from diverse backgrounds. no evidence of how these should be taught. trainers should be incorporating cultural competencies that are relevant in their countries/areas of training. trainees need to be made aware of the need for cultural diversity, equality, and inclusion considerations. conduct research to explore the incorporation of cultural diversity, equality, and inclusion considerations into training. 4. discussion 4.1 discussion of themes forty-eight articles across health and education sectors were reviewed and the results synthesised using the pager framework (bradbury-jones et al., 2021). the eight patterns identified (see table 3) are discussed below. 4.1.1 definitions the articles that defined specific soft skills did not demonstrate consensus on definitions, apart from communication skills. there is evident overlap between specific definitions, which may explain the lack of consensus (chaka, 2020). for example, lifelong learning and information and technology management were defined together, as an ability to engage in independent learning, self-regulation, ability to search for information using various sources, and ability to manage that information (abu kasim et al., 2014; giussi bordoni et al., 2019; gonzalez et al., 2013; ngang et al., 2015). this lifelong learning definition also overlaps with those of self-management (continisio et al., 2021; kniaz & chukhno, 2021; treem guerin, 2014). further overlap occurred between interpersonal skills and empathy, self-awareness, teamwork, and communication (continisio et al., 2021; kniaz & chukhno, 2021; lluch et al., 2021; singh et al., 2017; treem guerin, 2014). critical thinking and problem solving were defined together and individually (abu kasim et al., 2014; de pietro et al., 2019; gonzalez et al., 2013; kniaz & chukhno, 2021; ngang et al., 2015). critical thinking is a pre-requisite to engagement in problem solving, where one needs to be able to analyse the situation, select an appropriate solution, implement it, and evaluate the results. furthermore, professional ethics and morals require one to engage in both critical thinking and problem solving in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. relation to ethics and ethical practice (abu kasim et al., 2014; deptula & chun, 2013; gonzalez et al., 2013). despite overlaps and the pre-requisite nature of some soft skills, there is emerging evidence for definition uniformity. abu kazim et al. (2014), de pietro et al. (2019), gonzalez et al. (2013), and ngang et al. (2015) use the same soft skills definitions as provided by the malaysian ministry of higher education that defines by abilities (i.e., skills that can be acquired). however, they do not identify the competency level required for the soft skills, nor do they stipulate how the soft skills would be displayed. there is a gap where most of the reviewed articles do not provide specific definitions of soft skills. to be reliably taught and assessed soft skills need to be reliably defined. operational definitions will provide clear and measurable objectives for both trainers and students of the soft skills to be taught and assessed. both health and education sectors need to conduct qualitative research to identify and agree on the operational definitions. these should then be developed into sector standards that can be applied throughout one‟s professional career. 4.1.2 which soft skills? across the health and education fields there does not seem to be agreement on which soft skills are most important, apart from communication which is universally agreed as essential. this gap likely stems from the lack of consideration given to soft skills by the health and education sectors when training professionals. different sectors will prioritise soft skills they determine are most important. gonzalez et al. (2013) proposed that entrepreneurial skills, prioritised for business professionals, may be valid in setting up and running a successful dental practice and so may not be applicable to all trainee dentists. entrepreneurial skills, by definition, require one to take risks in bringing new ideas into the field, this may not be ethical practice for trainee health practitioners. health and education professionals can pursue the development of this skill independently. the health and education sectors would benefit from research into the soft skills that are important for graduates to have. these would need to be identified and agreed between tertiary training providers and employers, as well as the sector consumers (e.g., clients, patients, students, etc). identifying the important soft skills for each field will further support the development of sector standards. 4.1.3 method of teaching the reviewed articles covered teaching strategies embedded in professional training curricula and specifically designed training courses. despite a move towards active learning and incorporating hands on experiences into the training across both reviewed fields, lectures and group discussions were still widely used, especially in embedded curricula (bajjaly & saunders, 2021; gonzalez et al., 2013; hassan et al., 2015; imwattana et al., 2020; mailool et al., 2020; meiners & wisdom, 2020). it is recognised that while lectures are not as effective in engaging students in active learning (imwattana et al., 2020), it takes time for teaching staff to change the way they deliver material within the tertiary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. education structure. engaging students in active learning has been attempted through group discussions, hands on activities, group work, case studies, role play and simulation. some courses have reported using more creative ways for students to engage in active learning (e.g., escape rooms (morrell et al., 2020), mock trials (ghimouz et al., 2021), camps (lau & wang, 2014), and across faculty group assignment (cham et al., 2020)). this review identified a significant gap in the effectiveness of teaching methods for soft skills. training providers are using resources they currently have to teach soft skills and using ad hoc approaches, without consideration of the effectiveness of the teaching methods. extensive research is needed to evaluate soft skills teaching methods. from behavioural literature we do know that an effective way to teach skills is through behaviour skills training-where important components include modelling, role play and feedback. simulations and role-plays share similar features, where trainees have multiple opportunities to practise the required skill in a controlled environment. simulations go further, emulating real life situations and providing an element of emersion. having multiple opportunities to practise skills is important; equally as important is receiving performance feedback. trainees may be practising skills incorrectly or ones that are not important. feedback provides information of what learners are doing correctly, and what needs to change in their performance to reach criterion. although eleven of the reviewed studies used feedback as a teaching method, only six used feedback with simulations or role play (bhagat et al., 2019; cziraki et al., 2008; minden, 2013; pang et al., 2021; schutt et al., 2017; sidebotham et al., 2020). 4.1.4 embedded vs. stad-alone courses there is a global shift in higher education to ensure graduates come out with necessary hard skills, as well as being readily employable. a number of the reviewed articles mentioned either national or global reference to competency, employability, or 21 st century skill standards (abu kasim et al., 2014; alhouli & al-khayatt, 2020; bastos et al., 2019; bergh et al., 2006; cham et al., 2020; gonzalez et al., 2013; jardim et al., 2020; mailool et al., 2020; maren et al., 2021; meiners & wisdom, 2020; morrell et al., 2020; ngang et al., 2015; nor et al., 2011; schutt et al., 2017; sharma et al., 2021; singh et al., 2017; treem guerin, 2014). nineteen of the reviewed articles incorporated soft skills training into the professional training curriculum, while 24 presented these as non-integrated. the global shift for employability among graduates across both healthcare and education may yield more integration of soft skills into the training curricula. it can be argued that some soft skills, such as written and oral communication and presentation skills, can be incorporated into curricula more easily, and to a certain extent already are. soft skills such as professional ethics and morals may require their own course as part of professional training (e.g., mailool et al., 2020). regardless of how they are delivered, there is an almost universal call for soft skills to be formally taught as part of health and education professionals‟ training. despite this, this review identified a reported resource gap, whether it be resource restraints at faculty level or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. within the workplace (de pietro et al., 2019; gade & chari, 2013; hassan et al., 2015; ngang et al., 2015; plotzky et al., 2021; sagorika & hasegawa, 2018; schutt et al., 2017; sharma et al., 2021). health and education are public service sectors, the lack of resources for training soft skills could be attributed to their lack of resources overall. investing in resource development especially at the start of professional training may be necessary. this way, necessary soft skill acquisition can commence during training and be further developed in the workforce, rather than solely relying on the work setting for their development. 4.1.5 digital tools there is growing evidence for the use of digital tools in teaching soft skills to health and education professional trainees (bhagat et al., 2019; charoensap-kelly et al., 2016; conkey et al., 2013; deptula & chun, 2013; giussi bordoni et al., 2019; ibrahim et al., 2018; maschuw et al., 2011; plotzky et al., 2021; sagorika & hasegawa, 2018; schutt et al., 2017). the use of digital technologies varied from using video models (bhagat et al., 2019; charoensap-kelly et al., 2016; deptula & chun, 2013; sagorika & hasegawa, 2018) to virtual simulations and live feedback (conkey et al., 2013; maschuw et al., 2011; schutt et al., 2017). giussi bordoni et al., (2019) outlined a blended model of teaching, with soft skills taught through online modules and a four-hour face-to-face component. no evaluation of the teaching method was provided. charoensap-kelly et al., (2016) went further and compared the online versus face-to-face methods of soft skills training. the authors reported that the face-to-face group demonstrated higher levels of comprehension and behaviour change, compared to the online learning group. with the current global pandemic environment, blended teaching of soft skills may be appropriate to consider. however, sometimes face-to-face teaching is not an option as highlighted by sagorika and hasegawa (2018) and sharma et al. (2021), where they taught skills to health workers in remote locations in india. both relied solely on remote digital delivery of the soft skills training modules. perhaps not the most effective way of teaching, but it may be all that is available. other reviewed articles take digital tools development further, with digital simulations to train both hard and soft skills (maschuw et al., 2011; plotzky et al., 2021; schutt et al., 2017). although continuous development of virtual and artificial intelligence technologies is making tools more accessible, the upfront cost of developing them is high. more research is needed around the effectiveness of digital tools in teaching soft skills to health and education professionals, especially tools that emulate real life scenarios and provide immediate feedback. 4.1.6 assessment the second aim of this review was to identify how soft skills are assessed for health and education professionals. most of the assessment tools in this review relied on self-report. seven reviewed articles relied on assessment by others (coll et al., 2002; dmitrenko et al., 2020; ghimouz et al., 2021; pang et al., 2021; ross et al., 2011; schutt et al., 2017) and three used both self-assessment and assessment by others (deptula & chun, 2013; imwattana et al., 2020; singh et al., 2017). the reliability of self-report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. and self-assessment is always questionable. with self-awareness and self-management having been identified as soft skills themselves, individuals that have not developed these may be under or over reporting on self-report measures. although criterion or competency measures with direct observation would be ideal and were reported to be used (deptula & chun, 2013; pang et al., 2021; ross et al., 2011), the resources required are not always feasible. it is also important to consider that competencies for various health and education professionals differ. research needs to consider developing professional sector standards that use valid and reliable measures when assessing soft skills. 4.1.7 varied assessment tools a variety of soft skill assessment tools were used in the reviewed articles. self-assessment was the only agreed measure available for trainees, trainers, or organisations. of the reviewed articles, most used some sort of rating scale, which were either unvalidated previously published scales or idiosyncratic author created scales. there were no same scales used in the reviewed articles, highlighting the lack of sector standards and agreement. articles using previously published rating scales did not have agreement on what skills they were measuring and focused on traits rather than competencies. the scales were used to assess teamwork (center, 2018); presence and assertiveness (conkey et al., 2013); professionalism (deptula & chun, 2013); situational judgement (kuthy et al., 2013); communication (lau & wang, 2014; nor et al., 2011); clinical interaction, interpersonal dysfunction and social problem solving (lau & wang, 2014); motivation, self-efficacy and stress-coping (maschuw et al., 2011); general soft skills (jardim et al., 2020; maren et al., 2021). de pietro et al. (2019) and jardim et al. (2020) presented validation of their assessment tools. both articles developed their assessment tool based on the psychometric properties of soft skills. the use of psychometric constructs could also be attributed to the lack of operational definitions. given the lack of definitions, even a vague measure provides some information. however, the use of psychometric constructs perpetuates the view that soft skills are innate and cannot be learned. once the soft skills are defined, more robust measures of soft skills need to be developed. 4.1.8 culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion given today‟s multicultural societies, it was surprising to see the limited regard given to cultural competencies, diversity, equality, and inclusion in the articles reviewed. although many tertiary providers in their respective countries have developed individually relevant cultural competencies, these need to be discussed among the soft skills. awareness of one‟s own culture and the cultures of people around you are soft skills. the malaysian ministry of higher education included some cultural competencies in their definitions of soft skills (abu kasim et al., 2014; de pietro et al., 2019; gonzalez et al., 2013; ngang et al., 2015). there is also an emerging discussion in the literature with regards to promoting inclusion, diversity, and equality (bajjaly & saunders, 2021; mailool et al., 2020). although both articles highlight the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. importance of teaching these skills, they are not given further consideration. with health and education professionals most likely to interact with individuals from diverse backgrounds, this needs to be more prominent in the soft skills literature. 4.2 limitations this scoping review had a number of limitations. grey literature, such as theses, were excluded from the final inclusion criteria. this exclusion may have caused a bias in the sample of articles reviewed. however, the review scope remained as wide as possible as it did not differentiate based on quality of article. similarly, the use of the omnibus search term “soft skills”, rather than individual soft skills, may have biased the sample of literature reviewed. however, the purpose of this scoping review was to identify how soft skills were taught and assessed for health and education practitioners, not focus on individual soft skills. thus, the implications of this review should be viewed holistically rather than addressing any one specific soft skill. generality of this research should be viewed with caution, although it covered health and education sectors across the globe, only articles in english were included. publications in other languages may have provided more or different information. similarly, teaching and assessment methods may be more developed across other industries, such as commerce, it, and engineering, which may mean more coherent and robust operational definitions of soft skills have been developed. future research needs to review all the definitions of soft skills available across industries and develop robust competency-based definitions. 4.3 conclusions this scoping review, based on 48 articles, examined current practices in teaching and assessing soft skills for health and education professionals. tertiary providers are recognising the importance of and need for soft skills to be taught during the trainees‟ professional training. integrating soft skills into the current curricula continues to require development and the resources for this. the current methods of teaching and assessment of soft skills are ad hoc and seem to lack cohesion. this is perpetuated by the lack of operational definitions for soft skills as well as needing sector standards of these for the professional fields. it is paramount to know what needs to be taught, to teach it, and then assess it. vague definitions of soft skills will promote vague teaching methods and will continue to rely on vague methods of assessment. as societies and communities evolve, so will their needs. it is important that professional training providers continually communicate with their respective professional industries to ensure graduates have the necessary skills to participate and succeed in their chosen career paths. this will help training providers to prioritise what soft skills are needed for their graduates. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement “there was no funding provided for this review”. the present paper was conceived and designed by the first author as part of doctoral research. all authors read, edited and approved the final manuscript. we would like to acknowledge the postgraduate students enrolled in the aba programme at the university of auckland, who completed the inter-rater agreements as part of the selection of the sources process of the scoping review. references abraham, t. h., stewart, g. l., & solimeo, s. l. 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(2014). relationships matter: the role for social-emotional learning in an interprofessional global health education. journal of law, medicine and ethics: a journal of the american society of law, medicine and ethics, 42(4), 38-44. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 132 original paper investigation on the distribution status of transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia in southwest china li ping. li* 1 dali university, dali city, yunnan, china received: august 29, 2023 accepted: october 23, 2023 online published: november 16, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p132 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p132 abstract through the compilation and analysis of relevant research in the papers and works of international scholars, this study aims to understand the attention and research of international and domestic scholars on transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia, and explore the significance of studying these groups in southwest china. by investigating their distribution, the study focuses on the survival situation of transboundary ethnic groups from the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia in southwest china, examining aspects such as population size, areas of residence, ethnic background information, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural characteristics. the goal is to contribute to the international development of research on transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china and eliminate barriers by adopting an international perspective. furthermore, it should be noted that the mountainous transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia have long faced challenges related to politics, drugs, and socio-economic underdevelopment. however, since the last century, the chinese government has been committed to the development of ethnic groups residing in the mountainous regions of southwest china, achieving remarkable results. this development is set to positively impact the healthy growth of transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia. keywords transboundary ethnic groups in mountainous regions, southwest china, distribution status 1. introduction transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia mainly refer to ethnic communities residing across national borders in the mountainous areas of mainland southeast www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 133 published by scholink inc. asia. these groups typically live in remote inland mountainous regions that border neighboring countries, earning them the title of transboundary ethnic groups. the prehistoric cultures of the southeast asian peninsula, approximately ten thousand years ago, have long been categorized as hoabinhian culture in academic circles. these cultural remains were primarily discovered in the mountainous regions of northern vietnam, the limestone mountains in the north and west highlands of kanchanaburi province and the southern region in thailand, as well as the malay peninsula. southwest china refers to the five provinces of sichuan, chongqing, yunnan, guizhou, and tibet, which are located in the inland southwestern region of china characterized by plateaus and mountainous areas. this region boasts abundant natural resources and diverse ecological environments, housing various ethnic groups. yunnan province and guangxi province are provinces bordering mainland southeast asia. yunnan province has 25 border counties (cities), sharing borders with myanmar to the west, laos to the south, and vietnam to the south, with a total length of 4,060 kilometers of national borders. guangxi province has 8 border counties (cities) adjacent to vietnam, with a national border stretching 1,020 kilometers. 2. method 2.1 literature review since the 1990s, research on ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia, including the indochinese peninsula, has been conducted by western countries. although these studies were not specifically focused on transboundary ethnic groups, the multi-ethnic composition of southeast asia necessitated research in the fields of anthropology and sociology. additionally, early chinese historical records also mentioned the ethnic groups in the region. for example, the 4th-century local chronicle huayang guo zhi documented the presence of various ethnic groups such as the ancestors of the bulang, blang, wa, and jingpo people. similarly, the 5th-century historical records, hou han shu and nanman zhuan, provided detailed accounts of the southwestern ethnic groups. however, the ancient chinese texts primarily served as historical records and lacked in-depth understanding. in the mid-19th century, western travelers began to describe the mountainous ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia, including notable works such as “journey from india to the qing empire” by karlne and “in the yunnan province: from tokyo bay to india” by henri d’orleans. these works provided descriptions of social customs of certain ethnic groups, but did not offer in-depth analysis or generalization. missionaries also conducted research on the mountainous ethnic groups in the region, such as the “miao people’s history” by savena and “the tai people: brothers of the han” by william dodd. however, the hypotheses regarding the origins of these groups put forth by the researchers were met with extensive controversy due to a lack of concrete evidence, and subsequent research has debunked many of these hypotheses. the anthropological study of transboundary ethnic groups can be traced back to the concept of “hill tribes,” particularly emphasized by thai researchers, who established the tribe research center to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 134 published by scholink inc. accommodate scholars from around the world. this institution has played a crucial role in the study of transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia, covering various topics such as ethnic migrations, religious beliefs, social issues, political conflicts, and even tourism development. notable research achievements include “tribes, minorities, and ethnicity in southeast asia,” edited by quentin d. atkinson, and “ethnic groups of the golden triangle” by the lewis couple. the researchers at the tribe research center not only introduced the concept of “hill tribes” but also laid the foundation for the study of transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia. additionally, japanese and taiwanese researchers also started to study transboundary ethnic groups in the mid-20th century. with increasing attention to the southeast asian region, driven by strategic and security considerations, researchers have focused on issues such as diaspora, politics, and ethnic studies, inevitably connected to the region’s complex religious and social structures. southeast asia is known for its exceptional historical, cultural, and ethnic diversity due to significant influences from confucianism, buddhism, hinduism, islam, and christianity, as well as the colonial experiences of portugal, spain, the netherlands, britain, france, and the united states. research on transboundary ethnic groups within china began relatively late. initially, the focus was on providing evidence for hypotheses about the origins of mainland southeast asian transboundary ethnic groups. researchers such as fang guoyu and xu songshi analyzed the formation of transboundary ethnic groups from linguistic and migrational perspectives. scholars like he ping examined the distribution, origins, and influence on the stability of the yunnan border regions by cross-border ethnic groups. in his work “research on transboundary ethnic groups in mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia from the perspective of anthropology,” zhang liming reviewed and analyzed the current research status of transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia, providing insights into the non-traditional security situation in southwest china and southeast asia. however, it should be noted that current chinese research on transboundary ethnic groups focuses more on ethnic relationships and identity among cross-border and overseas ethnic groups, as well as the analysis of security situations, diverging significantly from the research direction of foreign scholars regarding transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia. moreover, it is undeniable that the mountainous ethnic groups living in southwest china face different challenges in the preservation and uniqueness of their cultural heritage in an era of advanced information and convenient transportation. these challenges differ from the political, drug-related, and socio-economic issues faced by transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia. consequently, addressing these differences and researching the transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china with a broader international perspective can provide positive contributions to the development of transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia, given the healthy developmental examples and favorable conditions available. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 135 published by scholink inc. 2.2 survey method the survey aimed to understand the distribution of transboundary ethnic groups from mainland southeast asia in southwest china, as well as analyze their ethnic information, population size, areas of residence, economic development, and cultural characteristics. these data served as the foundation for further research. the survey covered the following aspects: 1) population size and areas of residence: the survey investigated the population distribution and areas of residence of transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china, providing insights into population density and geographical distribution patterns. 2) ethnic background information: this included the ethnic group’s name, country or region of origin, language, and religious beliefs. 3) socioeconomic conditions: the survey aimed to understand the employment status, primary livelihood methods, and factors influencing socioeconomic development among transboundary ethnic groups. 4) cultural characteristics: the survey explored the cultural characteristics, customs, cultural heritage, and cultural identity of transboundary ethnic groups. the survey was conducted in eight border counties and cities in guangxi province, namely fangcheng district, dongxing city, ningming county, pingxiang city, longzhou county, daxin county, jingxi city, and napo county. in yunnan province, the survey covered 25 border counties or cities, including funing county, malipo county, maguan county, hekou county, jinping county, lvchun county, jiangcheng county, mengla county, jinghong city, menghai county, lancang county, menglian county, ximeng county, cangyuan county, gengma county, zhenkang county, longling county, mang city, ruili city, longchuan county, yingjiang county, tengchong city, lushui city, fugong county, and gongshan county.the survey focused on ethnic groups living in these regions. specifically, it excluded ethnic groups with a population of less than 1,000 individuals in each county or city, as well as transboundary ethnic groups with a total population of less than 10,000 individuals within these areas. due to their small numbers, these groups do not possess representative group characteristics and are therefore outside the scope of this survey. 3. result 3.1 population size and areas of residence the transboundary counties and cities in guangxi are mainly adjacent to vietnam. the transboundary ethnic groups residing in these areas are primarily zhuang, yao, and jing. other ethnic groups with a population of less than 1,000 individuals or with a total population of less than 10,000 individuals within these regions are not within the scope of this study. based on distribution surveys and statistics, the jing ethnic group has a larger population in areas closer to the seaport, such as fangcheng district and dongxing city. the jing people are descendants of the main ethnic group in vietnam and began migrating to china from places like tu shan in vietnam (near hai fang city) since the 16th century. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 136 published by scholink inc. unlike other transboundary ethnic groups, the jing people migrated against the tide upstream and settled in dongxing city, making them the only marine ethnic group in china. however, since this study mainly focuses on transboundary ethnic groups from the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia, the jing ethnic group is not included. therefore, the transboundary ethnic groups from the mountainous regions of mainland southeast asia involved in the eight counties and cities in guangxi are mainly zhuang and yao, with a primary border with vietnam. compared to the transboundary counties and cities in yunnan, the ethnic diversity is relatively low in guangxi, with a strong presence of ethnic concentration. for example, the zhuang people are primarily concentrated in longzhou county, jingxi city, daxin county, and napo county, with over 90% of the population belonging to the zhuang ethnicity. in ningming county and pingxiang city, the zhuang people account for over 75% of the total population. according to the sixth national census conducted in 2010, the zhuang population in the transboundary areas of guangxi exceeds 1.5 million. the yao population in the transboundary areas of guangxi is around 34,000 individuals, mainly residing in fangcheng district. table 1. ethnic distribution and population size in the transboundary areas (data sourced from the seventh national census conducted in china in 2020) no ethnic group main region population transboundary 01 zhuang ningming county, longzhou county, daxin county, jingxi city, funing county, etc 1,928,367 vietnam, laos 02 yao fangcheng district, funing county, malipo county, hekou county, jinping county, etc 208,935 vietnam, laos 03 miao funing county, malipo county,maguan county, hekou county, lvchun county, etc 289,169 vietnam, laos, myanmar 04 yi maguan county, jinping county, jinghong city, lancang county, zhenkang county, etc 514,611 vietnam, laos, myanmar 05 dai mengla county, jinghong city, menghai county, mang city, yingjiang county, etc. 788,819 vietnam, laos, myanmar 06 buyei maguan county, hekou county, ruili city, yingjiang county 9,227 vietnam, laos 07 hani lvchun county, lvchun county, mengla county, jinghong city, menghai county, etc. 618,225 vietnam, laos, myanmar 08 lahu mengla county, lancang county, menglian county,ximeng county,cangyuan county, gengma county, etc. 378,556 vietnam, laos, myanmar www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 137 published by scholink inc. 09 blang mengla county, jinghong city, menghai county, lancang county, gengma county, etc 60,845 vietnam, laos 10 va lancang county, menglian county, ximeng county, cangyuan county, gengma county, etc. 351,110 vietnam, laos 11 lisu yingjiang county, tengchong city, lushui city, fugong county, gongshan county, etc. 249,343 myanmar 12 de’ang gengma county, zhenkang county, mang city, ruili city, longchuan county 16,755 myanmar 13 jingpo gengma county, longling county, mang city, ruili city, longchuan county, yingjiang county, etc 136,322 myanmar 14 achang longling county, mang city, longchuan county, yingjiang county, tengchong city, etc. 21,440 myanmar 15 nu lushui city, fugong county, gongshan county 27,837 myanmar 16 drung fugong county, gongshan county 5,631 myanmar according to the data shown in table 1, the transboundary counties and cities in yunnan are primarily adjacent to three countries: vietnam, laos, and myanmar. jiangcheng county is adjacent to vietnam, and hani and yi autonomous county is adjacent to laos. menghai county is adjacent to laos and myanmar, and it is only a little over 200 kilometers away from chiang rai in thailand. chiang rai is an important research area for the center for mountain ethnic studies in thailand and serves as one of the most representative gathering places for transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia. the transboundary ethnic groups living in this region have received extensive attention from researchers, resulting in rich research outcomes. these outcomes provide valuable insights for comparative studies on transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china. compared to guangxi, the transboundary ethnic groups in yunnan are more dispersed in terms of their places of residence, with a notable phenomenon of ethnic mixing, particularly more evident as one moves westward. among these groups, the most populous transboundary ethnic groups include zhuang, dai, hani, yi, with each having a population exceeding 500,000 individuals. the population of other ethnic groups such as lahu, wa, miao, lisu, yao, and jingpo exceeds 200,000 individuals. in this study, we will focus on the ethnic background, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural characteristics of these populous ethnic groups residing in the border counties and cities. 3.2 ethnic background information according to molecular anthropological research utilizing molecular analysis of human genomes and dna genetic information, populations in east asia with the gene for short stature, dark skin, and curly hair include the tibetan, yi, jingpo, and yao ethnic groups. approximately 30,000 years ago, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 138 published by scholink inc. o-type mongoloid people arrived in the regions of myanmar, yunnan, and northeastern india, leading to a split. the o3 branch joined mainland china from yunnan, forming the “baipu” ethnic groups in the yunnan-guizhou plateau. examples of these ethnic groups include the dulong, yi, jingpo, naxi, lisu, bai, hani, lahu, pumi, nu, and achang ethnic groups, all of which belong to the sino-tibetan language family. the o2 branch settled in yunnan and developed into the austroasiatic language family, including the wa, de’ang, and blang ethnic groups. it can be said that the majority of ethnic groups in china, including the transboundary ethnic groups residing in southwest china, share the same ancestral roots. additionally, these mountainous ethnic groups have been documented in ancient literature and records since the qin and han dynasties. table 2. summarizes the language families, religious beliefs, and ancestral origins of the transboundary ethnic groups no language ethnic group religious belifes ancestral origins 01 sino-tibetan language family zhuang-dong dai branch zhuang ind religion，taoism， buddhism “baiyue”, “liao” people 02 dai theravada buddhism “baiyue” 03 buyei ind religion，taoism， buddhism ， catholicism “baiyue”, “liao” people 04 sino-tibetan language family tibeten-myanmar language branch hani ind religion “baipu”，qiang ethnic minority 05 yi ind religion，taoism， buddhism ， catholicism 06 lahu ind religion, buddhism ， christianity 07 lisu ind religion “baipu” ， qiang ethnic minority 08 jingpo ind religion 09 achang theravada buddhism 10 drung ind religion ， christianity “baipu” 11 nu ind religion, catholicism, christianit, tibetan “baipu” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 139 published by scholink inc. buddhism 12 sino-tibetan language family miao yao branch miao ind religion miao ethnic group 13 yao ind religion, taoism， buddhism qiang ethnic minority 14 austro-asiatic language family mon-khmer branch va ind religion, buddhism, catholicism “baipu” 15 de’ang theravada buddhism “baipu” 16 blang theravada buddhism the language structure of transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china is highly complex. in general, different ethnic groups living in the same region have mutual understanding of each other’s languages. for example, the lisu language is widely used among many ethnic groups in the nujiang area, while the jingpo language is well-known in the counties and cities of the transboundary region. basic words related to animals and numbers in the dai and zhuang languages are similar and widely circulated in areas where various ethnic groups live together. furthermore, there can be significant linguistic differences among the same ethnic group due to variations in their living areas. for instance, the yi language spoken in funing county and malipo county, located in the border region of yunnan and guangxi, differs from the yi language spoken in the nujiang area. therefore, the study of the languages of transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china is highly complex and cannot be simply divided based on ethnic groups. it requires a focus on regional and social conditions. the linguistic characteristics can be summarized as follows: firstly, the languages of ethnic groups with smaller populations are often influenced by the dominant ethnic groups in their living areas. secondly, languages within the same language family show similarities, with some ethnic groups even sharing common vocabulary. thirdly, the languages of ethnic groups with larger populations but living in dispersed areas widely circulate within the same region. fourthly, certain ethnic groups have linguistically simple structures with a small number of basic words, leading to direct borrowing of vocabulary from other ethnic languages for expression. lastly, onomatopoeic words also exist in some languages. 3.3 socioeconomic conditions since 2020, the demographic landscape of the 33 border counties and cities in southwest china has been subject to frequent changes. among them, the ethnic population proportion has shown an upward trend in 14 counties and cities, while a downward trend is observed in 19 counties and cities. according to the economic data from the national bureau of statistics of china in 2022, among the 22 border counties in southwest china, only pingxiang city in guangxi has a per capita gdp of 54,000 rmb, surpassing the average level of guangxi’s per capita gdp of 52,200 rmb. the per capita gdp of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 140 published by scholink inc. other seven border counties and cities in guangxi is lower and falls below the standards of guangxi province and even lower-level municipal areas. in yunnan, among the 35 border counties and cities, the per capita gdp reached 61,700 rmb in 2022. he kou yao autonomous county stood out with a per capita gdp of 120,000 rmb, ranking first in honghe prefecture, while the per capita gdp of ruili city reached 68,000 rmb. however, the per capita gdp of the remaining 31 border counties and cities falls below the level of yunnan province. for instance, fugong county and gongshan dulong and nu autonomous county in nujiang prefecture, as well as jinping miao, yao and dai autonomous county and lvchun county in honghe prefecture, all have a per capita gdp of less than 20,000 rmb. moreover, a common characteristic of these areas is the significant urban-rural disparity, with urban residents having much higher disposable incomes than rural residents. therefore, the economic conditions of these transboundary ethnic groups in the mountainous regions may be even poorer than the actual data suggests. however, compared to the transboundary ethnic groups in other countries in mainland southeast asia, the transboundary ethnic groups residing in southwest china enjoy more stable and peaceful social conditions, as evidenced by the recent population migration trends in china. in fact, the population surveys conducted among these transboundary mountainous ethnic groups show stable population development with sustained growth and a balanced gender ratio. with the strong support and assistance from the government, they enjoy more stable lifestyles, higher economic incomes, and healthier sources of income. even in underdeveloped and impoverished areas like nujiang, national policies have been implemented to ensure highway accessibility and internet connectivity in every village. 3.4 cultural characteristics the transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china share their cultures and histories through ethnic clusters and community settings. from artistic forms like architecture, craftsmanship, music, and dance to cultural aspects such as language, writing, religious beliefs, customs, and mythological legends, there are close connections among them. in terms of architecture, the traditional dwellings of these transboundary ethnic groups are mostly two-story bamboo and timber structures known as “stilt houses” or “thousand-foot houses,” with roofs made of thatch or palm leaves. these houses are typically built amidst forests, with low walls that blend into the surrounding mountains. kitchens are usually located at the central part of the house, and a hearth is often placed at the center space of the main house, where people gather to live and share communal hearth customs. from the perspective of craftsmanship, these transboundary ethnic groups excel in weaving, using similar weaving tools. they are particularly skilled in bamboo crafts. although the development of this craft has been declining in recent years, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the quantity of bamboo crafts in possession was considered an indicator of wealth in social-economic surveys. this indicates the prevalence of bamboo crafts among these ethnic groups. some of these groups possess the knowledge of silver and iron craftsmanship, with the achang ethnic group known for their ironworking skills, producing renowned achang knives. additionally, music among these ethnic groups is performed mainly through duets and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 141 published by scholink inc. solos. the songs cover various themes, including historical narratives, labor scenes, religious rituals, and love life. they make use of natural elements such as leaves and utilize musical instruments like wind instruments, stringed instruments, and percussion instruments. the dances are often related to ceremonies and are performed in group or accompanied by music. 4. discussion after nearly half a century of development, the transboundary groups in southwest china have experienced astonishing regional growth. however in today’s rapidly changing era, the social and attributes formed by regional cultures are being assimilated at the pace. in comparison to southwest china, the transboundary ethnic groups in the mainland southeast asia region have certain advantages in terms of regional cohesion. due to their settlements in border mountainous areas and prolonged underdevelopment and marginalization, these transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia face challenges in their livelihoods. social unrest, political instability, drug cultivation, and trafficking hinder their healthy development. in contrast, the chinese government has long been committed to the development of the mountainous ethnic groups residing in southwest china. according to the distribution survey data from this study, social stability and steady economic development have been observed in these areas. therefore, although there are certain differences in the research directions between the study of transboundary ethnic groups in southwest china and the study of mountainous ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia, it is crucial to learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses in future research. this study aims to lay a solid foundation for subsequent research. in any case, conducting research on transboundary ethnic groups in mainland southeast asia as a whole concept will play a significant role in future studies. references chen, r. b., ye, g. y., geng, z. c., wang, z. h., kong, f. h., tian, d., & zhao, x. z. (1993). clustering analysis and frequency distribution of hla polymorphism among major ethnic groups in mainland china: implications for the origin of the han chinese. acta genetica sinica, 20(5), 389-398. higham, c. f. w. (1989). in the archaeology of mainland southeast asian (pp. 31-32). cambridge: cambridge university press. nicholas, t. (2000). in the cambridge history of southeast asia (pp. 12-15). cambridge university press. zhang, l. m. (2017). cross-border hill-tribes on the indo-china peninsula in perspective of anthropology. journal of world peoples studies issue, 1, 60-72. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 91 original paper a study of the application and adaptation of international marketing strategies in a cross-cultural environment huishan xu1 1 english college, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an, shaanxi, china received: february 19, 2025 accepted: march 26, 2025 online published: april 05, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p91 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p91 abstract this paper discusses the application and adjustment of international marketing strategy in cross-cultural environment. with the deepening of global economic integration, cross-cultural marketing has become an important way for enterprises to expand overseas markets. the article firstly analyzes the background and significance of cross-cultural marketing, and then elaborates on the application of international marketing strategy in cross-cultural environment, including the adjustment of product strategy, channel strategy, pricing strategy and promotion strategy. meanwhile, the article also discusses the challenges and coping strategies in cross-cultural marketing, and puts forward corresponding suggestions. through case studies and theoretical discussions, this article aims to provide valuable references for enterprises in cross-cultural marketing. keywords international marketing, cross-cultural environment, marketing strategy, cultural adjustment 1. introduction in today's deepening globalization, enterprises are no longer confined to their home markets, but actively seek to expand overseas markets. however, there are significant cultural differences between different countries and regions, and these differences have a profound impact on the international marketing strategies of enterprises. cross-cultural marketing has become one of the key factors in whether enterprises can successfully enter and occupy international markets. therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the application and adjustment of international marketing strategy in cross-cultural environment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 92 2. background and significance of cross-cultural marketing 2.1 background of cross-cultural marketing in the rapid development of the electronic information age, global information exchange is taking place at an unprecedented speed. the widespread popularization of the internet, the vigorous rise of social media and the continuous progress of digital technology have jointly constructed an information dissemination network that transcends national boundaries and changes rapidly. against this background, the wave of economic globalization is surging, and economic ties between countries are becoming increasingly close, with frequent trade exchanges and deepening investment cooperation, forming a globally integrated economic pattern. as an important promoter and participant of economic globalization, multinational enterprises have continued to increase in number and expand in scale, and their business scope has crossed many countries and regions. however, multinational enterprises face many challenges when entering new markets, among which cultural differences are the most significant and complex one. consumers in different countries have unique cultural backgrounds, values, consumption habits and aesthetic preferences, and these differences constitute important factors that must be taken into account when developing marketing strategies. to meet this challenge, cross-cultural marketing has emerged. cross-cultural marketing is a marketing strategy aimed at adapting to and respecting the cultural differences of the target market, which requires enterprises to deeply understand and adapt to the local cultural environment when entering a new market to ensure the effectiveness and relevance of marketing strategies. cross-cultural marketing is not only a test of an enterprise's international management ability, but also one of the key strategies for enterprises to succeed in the international market. 2.2 the significance of cross-cultural marketing the significance of cross-cultural marketing for enterprises is far-reaching and multi-faceted. first of all, it helps enterprises to expand overseas markets and increase sales and profits. through a deep understanding of the cultural characteristics of the target market, enterprises can formulate marketing strategies that are closer to the needs of local consumers and improve the market acceptance and satisfaction of their products. this customized marketing strategy can better meet the needs of consumers, thus winning the favor and trust of more consumers, which in turn increases the enterprise's share in the local market and brings considerable economic benefits. cross-cultural marketing can enhance the international competitiveness and brand image of enterprises. in the globalized market competition, enterprises must have the ability of cross-cultural marketing if they want to stand out. successful cross-cultural marketing not only demonstrates the enterprise's international vision and cross-cultural communication ability, but also establishes a good international brand image and enhances the enterprise's popularity and influence in the global market. the enhancement of this brand image helps the enterprise to establish a leading position in the international market and strengthens its advantage in global competition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 93 cross-cultural marketing can also promote the exchange and integration of different cultures, and promote the development of global cultural diversity and inclusiveness. in the process of cross-cultural marketing, enterprises need to deeply understand the cultural characteristics of the target market, respect local cultural practices and values, and communicate and interact with local consumers in an equal, open and inclusive manner. this cross-cultural interaction not only enhances the understanding and friendship between different cultures, but also promotes the development of global cultural diversity and inclusiveness. through cross-cultural marketing, enterprises can spread and exchange different cultures globally, contributing to the building of a community of human destiny and promoting the prosperity and development of global culture. 3. international marketing strategy in cross-cultural environment 3.1 adjustment of product strategy 3.1.1 product design and function in cross-cultural marketing, the adjustment of product strategy is the first task. consumers in different cultures have different needs and preferences for products. therefore, enterprises need to localize the design of products to meet the needs of local consumers. for example, in terms of product design, enterprises need to take into account the cultural characteristics and aesthetic concepts of the target market. when launching new products, some international brands will customize their designs for markets in different countries to meet the aesthetics and habits of local consumers. in addition to the appearance design, the function of the product also needs to be adjusted according to the cultural characteristics of the target market. for example, in some muslim countries, the sale of alcohol-based products is restricted, so companies need to develop alternatives that conform to local religious and cultural habits. another example is that in some developing countries, due to the unstable power supply, enterprises need to develop more energy-saving and durable products. 3.1.2 packaging and labeling packaging and labeling is an important part of the product and an important channel to convey product information and cultural connotations. in cross-cultural marketing, enterprises need to adjust packaging and labeling according to the cultural characteristics of the target market. for example, in some countries, red is regarded as an auspicious and festive color, while in others it may be regarded as a color of danger or warning. therefore, companies need to take these cultural differences into account when designing packaging and labeling. in addition, the text and information on the packaging needs to be localized. enterprises need to use the official or common language of the target market to label product information and instructions for use so that consumers can understand and use the product correctly. 3.2 adjustment of channel strategy 3.2.1 selection of sales channels in cross-cultural marketing, the choice of sales channels is also crucial. consumers in different cultures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 94 have differences in purchasing behavior and channel preferences. therefore, enterprises need to choose appropriate sales channels according to the characteristics of the target market. for example, in some developing countries, traditional retail channels may be more suitable due to imperfections in infrastructure and logistics systems, while in some developed countries, more emphasis may be placed on online channels and e-commerce. in addition to traditional retail channels, companies may consider partnering with local distributors or agents to gain faster access to the market and reduce marketing costs. in addition, emerging channels such as cross-border e-commerce offer more possibilities for cross-cultural marketing. 3.2.2 maintenance of channel relationships in cross-cultural marketing, the maintenance of channel relationships cannot be ignored. enterprises need to establish good cooperative relationships with local distributors, agents and retailers to jointly promote product sales and market expansion. in order to maintain good channel relationships, companies need to provide high-quality products and services, and strengthen communication and collaboration with channel partners. in addition, companies also need to pay attention to the interests and needs of channel partners, through the provision of training, support and incentives to enhance the loyalty of channel partners and willingness to cooperate. 3.3 adjustment of pricing strategy 3.3.1 cost consideration in cross-cultural marketing, the adjustment of pricing strategy needs to consider a variety of factors. first of all, companies need to take into account the differences in production costs and transportation costs, etc. of products in different countries and regions. these cost differences will have an impact on the pricing of products. for example, in some developing countries, the production cost of the product may be relatively low due to factors such as low labor cost and favorable tax policies; while in some developed countries, it may be relatively high. 3.3.2 market demand and competitive conditions in addition to the cost factor, enterprises also need to consider factors such as the demand and competitive situation of the target market. consumers in different cultures have different demands for products and price sensitivity. therefore, enterprises need to develop appropriate pricing strategies according to the demand and competition situation in the local market. for example, in some developing countries, due to the relatively low purchasing power and high price sensitivity of consumers, enterprises may need to adopt a low-pricing strategy to attract consumers; while in some developed countries may pay more attention to the quality of the product and brand image, and adopt a high-pricing strategy to obtain higher profits. 3.3.3 exchange rate changes and regulatory restrictions in addition, exchange rate changes and regulatory restrictions and other factors will also have an impact on product pricing. enterprises need to pay close attention to exchange rate changes, and timely adjust www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 the product pricing strategy to cope with exchange rate risk. at the same time, enterprises also need to understand the target market regulations and tax policies and other restrictions to ensure that product pricing in line with local laws and regulations. 3.4 adjustment of promotional strategies 3.4.1 advertising in cross-cultural marketing, advertising is an important means to convey product information and brand image. however, there are differences in the acceptance and preference of advertising campaigns by consumers in different cultures. therefore, enterprises need to adjust their advertising campaigns according to the cultural characteristics of the target market. for example, in some countries, a humorous and exaggerated style of advertising may be more popular; while in other countries more attention may be paid to the truthfulness and credibility of the advertisement. in addition, companies need to pay attention to issues such as cultural taboos and sensitivities in advertising campaigns. avoid touching issues such as local cultural taboos and sensitive points in advertising to avoid consumer resentment and resistance. 3.4.2 public relations and business promotion in addition to advertising, public relations and business promotion are also one of the common strategies used by enterprises in cross-cultural marketing. enterprises can enhance their brand image and awareness by establishing good cooperative relationships with local media, government and social organizations. at the same time, companies can also organize promotional activities and giveaways to stimulate consumers' desire to buy and increase the market share of their products. in cross-cultural marketing, companies need to pay attention to the cultural adaptability of public relations and business promotion activities. ensure that the content and form of the activities are in line with the characteristics of the local culture and consumer acceptance. 4. challenges and strategies in cross-cultural marketing 4.1 challenges brought by cultural differences 4.1.1 differences in consumption habits and preferences consumers in different cultures have significant differences in consumption habits and preferences. these differences have a profound impact on the international marketing strategies of companies. for example, in some countries, consumers may pay more attention to product quality and brand image; while in other countries they may pay more attention to factors such as product price and practicality. in order to meet these challenges, companies need to gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics of their target markets, such as consumption habits and preferences, and develop marketing strategies that meet the needs of local consumers. for example, through market research and consumer behavior analysis and other means to grasp the needs and preferences of local consumers and other information, to provide strong support for the enterprise's marketing strategy development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 96 4.1.2 communication barriers and misunderstandings in international marketing, communication barriers and misunderstandings are one of the challenges that cannot be ignored. consumers in different cultures differ in language, words, symbols and other cultural elements, and these differences may lead to problems such as misunderstandings and communication barriers in information transfer. in order to cope with these challenges, companies need to strengthen the cultivation of cross-cultural communication and communication skills. improve employees' cross-cultural communication skills and cultural literacy through training and education, and strengthen communication and collaboration with local partners and consumers to minimize communication barriers and misunderstandings. 4.2 response strategies 4.2.1 cultivate cross-cultural marketing talents in order to cope with the challenges of cross-cultural marketing, enterprises need to cultivate a team of talents with cross-cultural marketing capabilities. these talents need to have in-depth understanding of different cultural backgrounds, good communication skills and innovation and other characteristics. cultivate and introduce talents with cross-cultural marketing ability by means of recruitment and training; at the same time, strengthen the cross-cultural training and education for employees to improve their cultural literacy and cross-cultural communication ability. 4.2.2 strengthen market research and consumer behavior analysis market research and consumer behavior analysis is one of the important bases for enterprises to formulate international marketing strategies. through the means of market research and consumer behavior analysis to grasp the target market needs and preferences and other information; at the same time to understand the characteristics of the local culture and consumer habits and other factors in order to provide strong support for the enterprise's marketing strategy development. in addition, you can also establish a consumer database to track and analyze consumer purchasing behavior and preferences and other information in order to adjust the enterprise's marketing strategy and product design and other work in a timely manner. 4.2.3 establish cross-cultural cooperation mechanism establishing cross-cultural cooperation mechanism is one of the effective ways for enterprises to deal with cross-cultural marketing challenges. by establishing close cooperation with local partners to jointly promote product sales and market expansion; at the same time, strengthen the establishment of good relations with local media, government and social organizations to enhance brand image and awareness. in addition, by participating in local cultural and social activities, we can enhance interaction and communication with local consumers to better understand and satisfy their needs and preferences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 5. case study 5.1 coca-cola's cross-cultural marketing strategy as one of the world famous beverage brands, coca-cola has accumulated rich experience and successful cases in cross-cultural marketing. when coca-cola enters a new market, it will deeply understand the characteristics of the local culture and consumer demand preferences and other information; and based on this information, it will make adjustments to the product packaging, advertising and promotional activities in order to adapt to the needs of the local market. for example, in the chinese market, coca-cola has launched a variety of flavored beverages to meet the tastes of local consumers; at the same time, it has also incorporated chinese cultural elements and symbols into its advertising campaigns in order to attract the attention and love of local consumers. in addition, coca-cola also actively participates in local cultural and social activities to enhance the interaction and communication with local consumers in order to better understand and satisfy the needs and preferences of local consumers. 5.2 unilever's localization strategy unilever, as one of the world's most famous brands of daily necessities, has adopted a localization strategy in cross-cultural marketing and achieved remarkable results. when unilever enters a new market, it will deeply understand the information of local consumers' needs and preferences; and according to this information, it will make adjustments to the product formulations, packaging designs and advertising campaigns in order to adapt to the needs of the local market. for example, in the indian market, unilever has launched a variety of daily care products that meet the needs of local consumers in terms of their preference for natural ingredients and herbal formulas, and has incorporated indian cultural elements and symbols into its advertising campaigns in order to attract the attention and love of local consumers. in addition, unilever also actively participates in local social welfare and environmental protection activities to enhance brand image and awareness in order to better meet the needs and preferences of local consumers. 6. conclusion and prospect 6.1 conclusion cross-cultural marketing has become one of the most important ways for enterprises to expand overseas markets; enterprises need to understand the cultural characteristics of the target market and consumer needs and preferences in order to formulate a marketing strategy that meets the needs of the local market. in cross-cultural marketing, companies need to adjust their product strategy, channel strategy, pricing strategy, and promotion strategy to meet the needs of the local market; they also need to pay attention to the challenges of cultural differences and coping strategies to ensure the effective implementation of the marketing strategy. the case study shows that successful companies in cross-cultural marketing have adopted localization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 strategies and actively participated in local cultural activities and social welfare to enhance brand image and awareness in order to better meet the needs and preferences of local consumers. 6.2 research outlook with the deepening of global economic integration and the increase of cross-cultural exchanges, the application and adjustment of international marketing strategies in cross-cultural environments will receive more and more attention from enterprises. future research can further explore the issues of cultural adaptability in cross-cultural marketing and the cultivation and enhancement of cross-cultural communication skills; it can also combine new technological means such as big data and artificial intelligence to optimize the process of formulating and implementing international marketing strategies in order to better satisfy the needs and preferences of global consumers and other characteristics. references wang, y. (2020). discussion on cross-cultural countermeasures in international marketing. modern marketing (business edition), (03), 69-70. wen, z. j. (2025). analysis of marketing measures in international market of cross-border e-commerce under the perspective of “internet+”. international public relations, (03), 148-150. wu, w. j., & jin, x. l. (2020). analysis of company a's cross-cultural marketing strategy in china. mass investment guide, (18), 52-53. zhang, l. f. (2021). cross-cultural research in international marketing of multinational enterprises. business culture, (05), 16-17. zhang, m. (2021). cross-cultural barriers and marketing strategies in international marketing. marketing world, (28), 27-28. zhou, y. n. (2019). “cross-cultural barriers and marketing strategies of international marketing under the background of the “belt and road” strategy—taking china huawei technologies co. as an example. business economy, (06), 101-102. original paper a study of the application and adaptation of inter huishan xu1 1 english college, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an, advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 119 original paper research on the digital pathways for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage xia shi1 & hongyu li2 1 associate professor of computer science, school of information engineering，yueyang vocational and technical college, yueyang, china，ph.d. student in information technology, university of the east,manila, philippines 2 sinopec changling refining & chemical company, yueyang, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 20, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p119 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p119 abstract this study aims to explore how local vocational colleges in yueyang, hunan province, protect and inherit intangible cultural heritage (ich) through digital means. by analyzing the current status and challenges of ich protection and considering the development trends of digital technology, the study focuses on the unique role of vocational colleges in the digital protection of ich. using literature reviews, interviews, and case studies, the study proposes specific pathways for the digital protection of ich in yueyang, including the construction of digital archives, digital education and training, digital display and dissemination, and social participation and interaction. the study finds that vocational colleges have multiple advantages in ich protection, such as resource integration, talent cultivation, and technology application. the application of digital means will effectively enhance the efficiency of ich protection and the breadth of its dissemination. finally, the paper proposes relevant policy recommendations and implementation strategies to provide theoretical and practical references for promoting the digital protection of ich. keywords intangible cultural heritage, digital protection, vocational colleges, yueyang, hunan 1. introduction with the acceleration of globalization, intangible cultural heritage (ich) faces unprecedented challenges. as a unique cultural resource, ich not only carries rich historical memories and cultural values but also serves as an important link in maintaining cultural diversity. however, with the advancement of modernization and urbanization, many ich projects are facing the crisis of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 120 discontinuity and extinction. therefore, how to effectively protect and inherit ich has become an urgent issue in today’s society. ich encompasses a wide range of cultural expressions, including oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge, and practices concerning nature and the universe, as well as traditional craftsmanship. these elements are not only vital to the identity and continuity of cultures but also contribute significantly to the world’s cultural diversity and richness. however, the pressures of economic development, changing lifestyles, and external influences often lead to the erosion of these traditional practices. in recent years, the rapid development of digital technology has provided new opportunities for the protection and inheritance of ich. through digital means, not only can ich data be permanently preserved and easily disseminated, but technologies such as virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) can also vividly recreate cultural scenes of ich, giving new life to it. digital archives, for instance, can store vast amounts of information about ich, including videos, audio recordings, photographs, and textual descriptions, ensuring that this knowledge is not lost to future generations. especially in local vocational colleges, combining educational resources and technical advantages to carry out digital protection and inheritance of ich is of great practical significance. these institutions can serve as hubs for the community, bringing together students, educators, and ich practitioners to collaborate on projects that document and promote traditional cultural practices. by incorporating digital tools into their curricula, vocational colleges can equip students with the skills needed to create digital representations of ich, from simple databases to immersive vr experiences. as a historic and cultural city, yueyang in hunan province has rich ich resources. this city is home to numerous traditional crafts, folk performances, and cultural practices that have been passed down through generations. local vocational colleges in yueyang have already carried out a series of explorations and practices in the protection and inheritance of ich. they have engaged in activities such as recording traditional performances, creating digital archives, and developing educational programs that teach students about local ich. however, current research and practice mainly focus on static protection of ich, lacking systematic and long-term digital pathways. most of the efforts have been fragmented and short-term, without a comprehensive strategy that integrates various digital technologies and methodologies. therefore, this study aims to explore how local vocational colleges in yueyang can construct effective pathways for the digital protection and inheritance of ich through digital means. it will investigate the potential of a more holistic approach that leverages digital tools to create sustainable and dynamic records of ich. the research content of this paper mainly includes the following aspects: first, analyzing the definition, classification, and protection status of ich, and exploring the necessity and feasibility of digital technology in ich protection; second, analyzing the main challenges and current status of digital protection of ich in yueyang; then, discussing the role and advantages of local vocational colleges in ich protection; finally, verifying the feasibility of the proposed pathways through case studies and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 121 proposing corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. the definition and classification of ich will involve a thorough review of existing literature and international guidelines, such as those provided by unesco. this will help to establish a clear framework for understanding what constitutes ich and how it can be categorized for digital preservation efforts. the protection status will be assessed through surveys and interviews with local practitioners and experts, providing insights into the current practices and challenges faced by those working in the field. the challenges and current status of digital protection in yueyang will be examined through case studies of specific ich projects. these case studies will highlight the successes and limitations of current approaches, identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement. the role of local vocational colleges will be explored in depth, considering their educational mission, technical capabilities, and community connections. the study will propose specific digital protection pathways. this model emphasizes a comprehensive approach to ich preservation that includes gathering digital data, creating digital representations, transmitting knowledge through educational programs, and utilizing digital tools for ongoing cultural activities. these pathways will be tested through pilot projects and evaluated for their effectiveness. finally, the study will offer countermeasures and suggestions to address the challenges identified, providing a roadmap for local vocational colleges to follow. this will include recommendations for policy changes, funding strategies, and collaborative efforts with other institutions and organizations. through this study, we hope to provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for local vocational colleges in the digital protection and inheritance of ich, promoting the sustainable development of ich in the new era. by doing so, we aim to ensure that the rich cultural heritage of yueyang and similar regions can be preserved and appreciated by future generations, maintaining the cultural diversity that is so essential to our global society. 2. overview of intangible cultural heritage in yueyang definition and classification of intangible cultural heritage: intangible cultural heritage (ich) refers to various cultural traditions and expressions existing in forms such as oral traditions, practices, performances, knowledge, and skills. ich has unique cultural value and historical significance, reflecting the rich cultural diversity of humanity. however, with the acceleration of modernization and the influence of globalization, many ich projects face difficulties in inheritance and the risk of disappearing. china, with its long history and rich cultural heritage, has made great efforts in protecting and inheriting ich. the country has issued numerous policies and regulations, such as the “law of the people’s republic of china on intangible cultural heritage”, to promote the protection, inheritance, and development of ich. yueyang in hunan province is one of the regions in china rich in ich resources, with many unique ich projects. however, traditional protection methods have issues such as incomplete information preservation and single transmission channels, requiring the introduction of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 122 modern technological means for improvement. protection status of intangible cultural heritage: with the modernization and globalization of society, ich faces many challenges. traditional lifestyles and cultural environments have undergone significant changes, leading to the disappearance of many ich projects. for example, oral traditions have been lost with the passing of older generations, and traditional crafts are on the verge of extinction due to a lack of market and inheritors. additionally, urbanization has destroyed many traditional cultural spaces, severely impacting the transmission environment of ich. currently, various measures have been taken globally to protect ich, including legal protection, project recognition, inheritor training, and cultural space protection. since china joined the “convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage” in 2005, significant progress has been made in ich protection. for instance, the establishment of national ich lists, government support for ich projects and inheritors at all levels, and various forms of ich exhibitions and educational activities have greatly promoted ich protection. necessity of digital protection of intangible cultural heritage: the rapid development of digital technology has provided new means and pathways for ich protection. the necessity of digital protection of ich can be seen in the following aspects: permanent preservation: digital means can accurately record and preserve the sounds, images, texts, and other information of ich projects, preventing loss over time. convenient dissemination: digitized ich materials can be widely disseminated via the internet, increasing public awareness and participation and enhancing the social impact of ich. educational inheritance: digital technology can vividly recreate cultural scenes of ich through vr and ar, providing rich resources and platforms for education and inheritance. innovative development: digital technology offers new space and possibilities for the innovative development of ich, such as integrating ich with modern life through the digital creative industry, creating new cultural products and services. 3. application status of digital technology in the protection of intangible cultural heritage in yueyang current status of intangible cultural heritage protection：with the modernization and globalization of society, intangible cultural heritage (ich) faces numerous challenges. traditional lifestyles and cultural environments have undergone significant changes, leading to the risk of many ich projects disappearing. for example, oral traditions are lost with the passing of older generations, and traditional crafts are on the verge of extinction due to a lack of market and inheritors. additionally, urbanization has destroyed many traditional cultural spaces, severely impacting the transmission environment of ich. currently, various measures are being taken globally to protect ich, including legal protection, project recognition, inheritor training, and the protection of cultural spaces. since china joined the “convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage” in 2005, significant progress has been made in ich protection. for instance, the establishment of national ich lists, government support www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 123 for ich projects and inheritors at all levels, and various forms of ich exhibitions and educational activities have greatly promoted the protection of ich. with the rapid development of information technology, digital technology has provided new means and pathways for ich protection. the necessity of digital protection of ich can be seen in the following aspects:permanent preservation: digital means can accurately record and preserve the sounds, images, texts, and other information of ich projects, preventing loss over time.convenient dissemination: digitized ich materials can be widely disseminated via the internet, increasing public awareness and participation and enhancing the social impact of ich. educational inheritance: digital technology can vividly recreate cultural scenes of ich through virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar), providing rich resources and platforms for education and inheritance.innovative development: digital technology offers new space and possibilities for the innovative development of ich, such as integrating ich with modern life through the digital creative industry, creating new cultural products and services. in recent years, yueyang city has actively explored the application of digital technology in the protection of intangible cultural heritage (ich) and has achieved certain successes. for example: digital archive construction: yueyang city has systematically digitized its ich projects, establishing a comprehensive digital archive. these archives not only include high-resolution images, videos, and audio recordings but also detailed textual descriptions, historical backgrounds, and information about the inheritors. through these high-fidelity digital archives, ich materials are preserved for the long term and can be accessed by researchers and the public at any time. the archive system also supports various search methods, allowing users to quickly find the information they need. virtual exhibition platform: yueyang city has established a virtual exhibition platform for ich, showcasing various local ich projects in digital form on the internet. this platform not only provides high-definition images and videos but also utilizes 3d modeling and virtual reality technologies to vividly recreate the production processes and performance scenes of ich projects. the public can intuitively understand and learn about ich culture through online browsing, virtual tours, and interactive experiences. additionally, the platform includes special exhibitions and online forums, enhancing user engagement and interactivity. digital educational resources: to enhance public awareness and interest in ich, yueyang city has developed a variety of digital educational resources. these resources include multimedia courseware, online courses, virtual labs, e-books, and interactive learning applications. through these rich educational resources, ich knowledge is systematically integrated into school education and social education. for example, by collaborating with local schools, ich education is incorporated into the school curriculum, allowing students to engage with and understand their local traditional culture from an early age. online courses and virtual labs also provide opportunities for remote learning, enabling more people to participate in ich education. interactive experience projects: utilizing advanced technologies such as augmented reality (ar) and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 124 virtual reality (vr), yueyang city has developed a series of interactive ich experience projects. these projects include virtual festival activities, traditional craft interactive experiences, and ich cultural explorations, providing immersive experiences that allow the public to appreciate the charm of ich in a virtual environment. for instance, users can “attend” traditional festivals through vr devices, experiencing the lively atmosphere of the celebrations, or observe and learn the production process of traditional crafts through ar applications, even trying their hand at making them. these interactive experiences not only enhance the attractiveness of ich but also increase public participation and recognition. despite the achievements in ich protection, yueyang city still faces numerous challenges: generational gap among inheritors: many ich projects have inheritors who are relatively old, and the younger generation shows little interest in traditional culture, leading to a gap in the transmission of ich. to address this issue, measures need to be taken to attract and train more young inheritors. for example, establishing ich inheritor training programs, providing scholarships, and organizing exchange activities can stimulate young people's interest and enthusiasm for ich. at the same time, supporting and protecting existing inheritors is crucial to ensure they can better pass on their skills. insufficient funding: the protection and transmission of ich require substantial funding, including for archive construction, educational resource development, and interactive project development. however, existing financial support and social donations are insufficient to meet the actual needs. therefore, it is necessary to explore diversified funding sources, such as establishing special funds, attracting social capital, and enhancing international cooperation. additionally, organizing ich cultural festivals and charity sales can attract more social donations and sponsorships. inadequate promotion: although some progress has been made in ich protection, promotion and publicity efforts are still lacking, leading to low public awareness and participation in ich. to address this, it is crucial to increase promotional efforts through various channels and forms to raise the visibility and influence of ich. for example, leveraging social media platforms for promotional activities, producing ich documentaries and promotional videos, and organizing ich-themed exhibitions and competitions can attract more public attention and involvement. additionally, collaborating with the tourism sector to integrate ich culture into tourism products can expand its influence. impact of modernization: the processes of modernization and urbanization have impacted traditional cultural spaces and lifestyles, affecting the survival environment of ich. to protect ich, urban planning and development must fully consider the preservation of traditional culture, creating an environment conducive to the survival and development of ich. for example, preserving and restoring traditional cultural spaces and protecting historical buildings and traditional neighborhoods during urban construction are essential. additionally, exploring new ways to integrate ich into modern life, such as developing cultural and creative products related to ich, ensures its transmission and development in contemporary society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 125 4. the role and functions of vocational colleges in ich protection 4.1 educational resources and advantages of vocational colleges program setup: vocational colleges have great flexibility and specificity in setting up programs. they can establish relevant programs based on local needs. for example, some vocational colleges in yueyang have specifically set up programs in cultural industry management, art design, and traditional crafts, which directly relate to the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage (ich). by establishing these programs, vocational colleges can cultivate talents with relevant knowledge and skills, providing strong talent support for ich protection. faculty strength: the faculty strength of vocational colleges is also an important resource for ich protection. many vocational colleges hire experienced ich inheritors, artists, and scholars as teachers to impart traditional skills and cultural knowledge. these teachers not only possess rich professional knowledge and practical experience but also integrate the concepts and methods of ich protection into their teaching, cultivating students’ awareness and practical abilities in protection. additionally, vocational colleges can continuously improve the professional quality and teaching ability of their faculty through training and further education, providing strong intellectual support for ich protection. school-enterprise cooperation: cooperation between vocational colleges and enterprises is an important pathway for promoting ich protection. through school-enterprise cooperation, vocational colleges can introduce ich projects into the campus, conducting practical training and teaching activities. at the same time, enterprises can provide financial and technical support to jointly advance ich protection work. for instance, some vocational colleges in yueyang have established cooperative relationships with local cultural enterprises and ich protection institutions to jointly conduct research, development, and promotion activities for ich projects. this cooperation model not only enhances students’ practical abilities but also promotes the sustainable development of ich protection. 4.2 the necessity of vocational colleges participating in ich protection vocational colleges play an indispensable role in the protection of intangible cultural heritage (ich). in yueyang city, vocational colleges have made significant contributions to the protection and transmission of ich by providing technical support, talent cultivation, and educational promotion. specifically, the necessity of vocational colleges' involvement in ich protection is reflected in the following aspects: technical support: vocational colleges possess abundant technical resources and professional knowledge, which enable them to provide technical support in the digital protection of ich. for instance, by utilizing multimedia technology, virtual reality (vr), and augmented reality (ar) technology, they can vividly recreate cultural scenes of ich projects. vocational colleges are equipped with advanced facilities and laboratories that can conduct high-quality digitization and data processing. they can develop virtual exhibitions and interactive experience projects, allowing the public to experience and learn about ich in innovative ways. additionally, vocational colleges can create specialized databases and digital archive systems to ensure the long-term preservation and easy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 126 retrieval of ich materials. talent cultivation: vocational colleges cultivate a cohort of ich protection talents with professional knowledge and skills by offering courses and programs related to ich. these courses include traditional craft techniques, cultural heritage management, and digital media technology, aiming to develop students’ comprehensive abilities in ich protection and transmission. these talents can participate in practical ich protection work, such as document sorting, artifact restoration, and digitization. they can also provide intellectual support for the innovative development of ich. for example, they can engage in the innovative design of ich products, combining traditional crafts with modern design concepts to develop market-potential cultural and creative products. furthermore, vocational colleges can collaborate with ich inheritors and conduct school-enterprise cooperation projects, offering students practical opportunities to enhance their hands-on skills. educational promotion: vocational colleges can enhance students' and the public's understanding and interest in ich by organizing ich-themed lectures, exhibitions, and practical activities, promoting the dissemination and popularization of ich culture. these activities can include ich cultural festivals, workshops, and interactive exhibitions, attracting more people to participate. for instance, ich inheritors can be invited to the school for live demonstrations and teaching, providing students with a direct understanding and hands-on experience of ich projects. additionally, vocational colleges can organize students to conduct ich research, documentation, and promotional activities, allowing students to deeply appreciate the importance of ich protection through active participation. through these educational promotion activities, not only is the cultural literacy of students and the public improved, but a favorable social atmosphere for ich protection and transmission is also created. the involvement of vocational colleges not only enhances the professional level of ich protection but also promotes the innovative development and social recognition of ich. through technical support, talent cultivation, and educational promotion, vocational colleges play an irreplaceable role in ich protection, providing strong support for the sustainable development of ich. 4.3 analysis of existing cases of ich protection in vocational colleges in yueyang, vocational colleges have implemented several successful initiatives in the protection and transmission of intangible cultural heritage (ich). here are more detailed examples: yueyang vocational and technical college collaboration with local ich inheritors: yueyang vocational and technical college has established cooperative relationships with local ich inheritors, such as those specializing in the yueyang flower-drum opera. the college has set up a dedicated ich transmission base within the campus where students can learn directly from these inheritors. the college provides facilities and technological support to document and preserve the performances using high-definition video and audio recordings. this not only ensures the preservation of these art forms but also creates educational materials that can be used for teaching and promoting ich. digital archiving projects: the college has undertaken several digital archiving projects. for instance, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 127 the traditional techniques of yueyang lacquerware have been meticulously recorded through multimedia documentation, including detailed video tutorials and interviews with master craftsmen. these digital archives are stored in a dedicated database accessible to both students and the public, ensuring the long-term preservation of these skills. integration into curriculum: courses specifically focused on ich have been integrated into the college’s curriculum. for example, students enrolled in the cultural industry management program are required to participate in projects related to the preservation and promotion of local ich. this includes developing business plans for ich-based products, which helps in creating a sustainable market for these traditional crafts. community engagement and public workshops: the college regularly organizes community engagement activities and public workshops where local residents can learn about and participate in ich activities. these workshops are often held in collaboration with local cultural organizations and schools, fostering a community-wide appreciation and participation in ich preservation. use of advanced technology: the college has leveraged advanced technologies such as vr and ar to create immersive experiences of ich. for instance, a vr project was developed to simulate the traditional yueyang dragon lantern dance, allowing users to experience the dance virtually. this project not only helps in preserving the choreography and music but also makes it accessible to a broader audience. research and publications: faculty and students at the college actively engage in research on ich topics. their findings are published in academic journals and presented at conferences, contributing to the broader body of knowledge on ich preservation. for example, research on the economic impact of revitalizing traditional yueyang ceramics has been instrumental in developing strategies to promote these crafts. these specific initiatives demonstrate how vocational colleges can effectively contribute to the protection and transmission of ich through a combination of traditional and modern methods. they also highlight the importance of community involvement and the use of digital technologies in ensuring that these cultural treasures are preserved for future generations. 5. research on digital protection pathways for intangible cultural heritage digital preservation technologies utilize information technology to record, preserve, and disseminate ich projects. the main technologies include: multimedia recording technology: this technology uses various forms such as text, images, audio, and video to comprehensively record and preserve ich projects. it captures the detailed aspects of ich projects, providing a multi-dimensional recording system. for example, high-definition photography and videography can document every step of traditional craftsmanship; audio recordings can preserve oral traditions like stories and songs. text records can provide detailed background information and explanations, ensuring the complete preservation of the historical and cultural significance of each ich www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 128 project. virtual reality (vr) technology: by creating virtual environments, vr technology vividly recreates cultural scenes of ich projects, allowing users to experience ich culture immersively. vr can transport users into a realistic virtual world where they can feel the atmosphere of ich projects. for example, users can “attend” a traditional festival through vr headsets, experiencing its lively and festive atmosphere. this immersive experience not only enhances public interest in ich but also serves as an effective educational tool, helping more people understand and pass on ich culture. augmented reality (ar) technology: ar combines virtual content with the real environment, providing new ways to display and disseminate ich projects. through ar, users can see virtual ich project displays in real environments using smartphones or tablets. for example, in an ich museum, visitors can use an ar app to view 3d models and animations of exhibits, learning about their production processes and historical backgrounds. this interactive method greatly enhances the visitor experience, making ich culture more vivid and understandable. big data and cloud computing technologies: these technologies manage and analyze ich project data through big data analysis and cloud computing platforms, improving the scientific and effective protection of ich. big data technology can collect and analyze large amounts of ich data, uncovering patterns and trends in preservation and transmission. cloud computing provides powerful storage and computing capabilities, ensuring the safe and efficient management of ich data. for example, big data analysis can reveal the transmission status and audience demographics of an ich project, enabling more precise protection and dissemination strategies. 5.1 case studies of digital preservation technologies in ich protection there are numerous examples of digital preservation technologies applied in ich protection, including: the palace museum: as one of china’s most important cultural heritage protection institutions, the palace museum has comprehensively recorded and protected its artifacts and architecture through digital means. the museum has developed several digital projects, such as the virtual palace museum and palace museum ar, allowing the public to visit the museum via the internet or mobile devices. these projects not only preserve the history and culture of the palace museum but also enhance public engagement through interactive experiences. for example, the virtual palace museum uses high-precision 3d modeling and virtual reality technology to recreate the museum's architecture and artifacts, allowing users to explore the virtual environment and learn detailed information about each exhibit. dongba culture in lijiang, yunnan: the dongba culture, unique to the naxi ethnic group, has been comprehensively digitally preserved and showcased using multimedia recording and virtual reality technologies. for instance, vr technology enables users to “attend” dongba religious ceremonies, experiencing their unique spiritual atmosphere. multimedia recordings have preserved a vast amount of dongba literature and oral traditions, breathing new life into this ancient culture. additionally, lijiang has developed digital educational resources for dongba culture, spreading it globally through online www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 129 courses and virtual museums. 5.2 digital preservation models and paths of vocational colleges in yueyang vocational colleges in yueyang have adopted several models in digital preservation of ich, including: school-enterprise cooperation: vocational colleges collaborate with technology companies, leveraging their advanced technology and equipment to digitally record and showcase ich projects. for example, vocational colleges in yueyang have partnered with local tech firms to develop several digital ich projects, using 3d scanning and modeling technology to meticulously digitize traditional crafts and recreate their production processes and usage scenarios through vr technology. this cooperation model not only enhances the technical level of ich protection but also provides valuable practical opportunities for students, improving their practical skills. school-local cooperation: vocational colleges collaborate with local governments and ich inheritors to jointly undertake ich protection projects and establish ich transmission bases. for example, vocational colleges in yueyang have set up an ich protection research center in collaboration with local cultural departments, focusing on recording and studying local ich projects. the colleges also maintain long-term partnerships with ich inheritors, inviting them to teach and guide at the schools, ensuring the authentic transmission of ich skills. additionally, colleges organize students to conduct community surveys and promotion activities, enhancing their social responsibility and cultural identity. educational integration: vocational colleges integrate ich protection with educational teaching by offering ich-related courses and organizing student participation in ich practical activities to cultivate ich protection talents. for instance, colleges offer majors in ich culture and digital preservation, covering traditional culture theories, digital technology applications, and ich protection practices. students not only learn systematic ich protection knowledge but also gain valuable experience through participation in actual projects. colleges also regularly hold ich cultural festivals and workshops, inviting experts and inheritors to give lectures and demonstrations, increasing students' interest and understanding of ich culture. paths for digital preservation of ich by vocational colleges in yueyang: establishing ich protection alliances: forming ich protection alliances with governments, enterprises, and ich inheritors to jointly develop ich protection plans and implementation schemes. this alliance can integrate resources and strengths from all parties, creating a synergistic effect that enhances the overall level of ich protection. for example, alliance members can hold regular meetings to share their experiences and achievements, jointly addressing issues and solutions in ich protection. implementing digital ich projects: utilizing the technological advantages of vocational colleges and the resources of enterprises to undertake digital recording, showcasing, and dissemination projects for ich. for instance, vocational colleges can collaborate with enterprises to develop digital ich museums and online exhibitions, spreading local ich culture globally through the internet. schools can also involve students in these projects, honing their practical skills and innovative thinking. promoting ich education: offering ich-related courses and majors in vocational colleges to cultivate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 130 ich protection and transmission talents and enhancing students’ awareness and skills in ich protection through practical teaching. for example, schools can establish ich research scholarships to fund students’ research and project development in ich. they can also provide more internship and employment opportunities through school-enterprise cooperation, encouraging students to pursue careers in ich protection. 5.3 digital protection models and pathways for ich in vocational colleges in yueyang vocational colleges in yueyang have adopted several models for the digital protection of intangible cultural heritage (ich). the main approaches include: school-enterprise cooperation: vocational colleges collaborate with technology companies to leverage their advanced technology and equipment for the digital recording and display of ich projects. this cooperation includes: technology integration: through partnerships with technology companies, vocational colleges integrate cutting-edge technologies such as high-definition video recording, 3d scanning, and digital archiving into ich protection efforts. for instance, high-definition cameras and professional audio recording equipment are used to document traditional performances and craftsmanship processes. 3d scanning technology is employed to create detailed models of ich items, and digital archiving techniques are used to systematically preserve these data. these technological tools not only accurately capture every detail of ich projects but also provide high-quality digital resources for future research and dissemination. joint development projects: vocational colleges and technology companies work together to develop virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) experiences that allow users to interact with and learn about ich in immersive ways. for example, they might develop a vr application where users, by wearing vr headsets, can “attend” a virtual traditional festival, experiencing its lively atmosphere and cultural significance. alternatively, ar applications could enable users to see virtual ich project displays in real environments, learning about their history and craftsmanship. these joint development projects enhance the accessibility of ich and increase public interest and engagement. resource sharing: in the course of their cooperation, vocational colleges and technology companies can share their financial, technical, and human resources, enhancing the quality and reach of ich protection efforts. technology companies provide advanced equipment and technical support, while vocational colleges offer professional knowledge and talent. through resource sharing, ich protection projects can be conducted more efficiently, achieving mutual benefits. school-local government cooperation: vocational colleges work closely with local governments and ich inheritors to carry out protection projects and establish ich transmission bases. this cooperation involves: policy and funding support: through collaboration with local governments, vocational colleges secure more policies and funding support to ensure the smooth implementation of ich protection projects. local governments can introduce relevant policies that prioritize ich protection and provide necessary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 131 financial resources and support. for example, governments can establish special funds for the digital recording and protection of ich projects and offer tax incentives to encourage the participation of enterprises and social organizations in ich protection. community involvement: vocational colleges, in collaboration with local governments and ich inheritors, ensure that the planning and execution of ich protection projects fully consider the opinions and needs of local communities. for instance, during the digital recording of ich projects, ich inheritors and community representatives can be invited to participate in discussions and decision-making processes. this approach not only ensures the cultural relevance of the projects but also enhances community recognition and involvement. public awareness campaigns: vocational colleges and local governments can jointly organize various public awareness campaigns to increase public knowledge about the importance of ich and the efforts being made to preserve it. examples include organizing ich cultural festivals, exhibitions, and lectures, where ich inheritors demonstrate and explain their crafts, enhancing public participation and interest. additionally, promotion through television, radio, newspapers, and social media can broaden the impact and reach of ich protection efforts. educational integration: vocational colleges integrate ich protection into their educational curriculum through various methods: course offerings: vocational colleges develop and offer courses specifically focused on ich, such as traditional crafts, cultural heritage management, and digital preservation techniques. these courses not only cover theoretical knowledge but also emphasize practical skills development. for example, in traditional crafts courses, students learn various traditional craftsmanship techniques; in cultural heritage management courses, students understand ich protection policies and management methods; in digital preservation techniques courses, students acquire skills in using modern technological tools for ich recording and protection. practical training: vocational colleges provide students with hands-on opportunities to participate in ich protection projects, allowing them to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world contexts. for instance, colleges can collaborate with local ich protection agencies and communities, organizing students to participate in the digital recording and display of ich projects 6. countermeasures and suggestions government support and policy assurance: the government should increase support for ich protection by formulating policies and increasing funding to ensure the smooth implementation of ich protection projects. additionally, the government should strengthen publicity and promotion of ich protection to enhance public awareness and participation. building ich protection capacity in vocational colleges: vocational colleges should enhance their own capacity by introducing advanced technology and cultivating professional talents to improve the technical level and management capabilities of ich protection. additionally, colleges should strengthen www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 132 cooperation with external institutions to jointly carry out ich protection projects. school-enterprise cooperation and social participation: vocational colleges should actively cooperate with enterprises to utilize their technology and resources to jointly carry out ich protection and transmission work. additionally, they should strengthen cooperation with communities, ich inheritors, and social organizations to promote the socialization of ich protection. continuous improvement and innovation: vocational colleges should continuously summarize experiences in ich protection, improve working methods and technical means, and promote innovative development in ich protection. schools should encourage teachers and students to conduct research and practice in ich protection, exploring new protection pathways and models. 7. conclusion this study analyzes the current status and challenges of ich in yueyang and proposes the necessity and specific pathways for vocational colleges’ participation in digital ich protection. yueyang vocational colleges have achieved certain results in ich protection through cooperation, technological innovation, and educational integration, but there are still some issues to be addressed. in the future, vocational colleges should continue to play an important role in ich protection through government support, school-enterprise cooperation, and social participation, continuously improving the scientific and effective protection of ich. this study aims to provide references and insights for the practice of vocational colleges in ich protection, promoting the sustainable development of ich in the new era. references li, x., & zhou, q. (2022). the role of vocational colleges in the digital preservation of intangible cultural heritage: a study in yueyang, hunan. educational technology & society, 25(1), 112-128. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.1880853 liu, y., & zhang, x. (2021). digital preservation of intangible cultural heritage in vocational colleges: a case study of yueyang, hunan. journal of cultural heritage management and sustainable development, 11(2), 89-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/jchmsd-09-2020-0123 wang, h., li, j., & chen, f. (2020). integration of digital technologies in intangible cultural heritage education: experiences from yueyang vocational and technical college. international journal of heritage studies, 26(3), 240-256. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2019.1686894 zhang, l., & huang, y. (2019). challenges and strategies for digital preservation of intangible cultural heritage in local vocational colleges. heritage science, 7(1), 45-60. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0287-3 fund projects: june 2023: principal investigator of the general project of the hunan provincial association of educational science researchers, "research on the construction of master studios for employment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 133 and entrepreneurship guidance in vocational colleges" (project no. xjkx23b268), ongoing. june 2023: principal investigator of the project of the yueyang federation of social science circles, "research on the digital pathways for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage in local vocational colleges" (project no. 2023y146), ongoing. october 2023: principal investigator of the key youth special project of the hunan provincial basic education teaching reform research project, "research on the training path of rural music, physical education, and art teachers based on the 'gctu' model in the context of rural revitalization" (project no. z2023040), ongoing. original paper research on the digital pathways for the protectio xia shi1 & hongyu li2 1 associate professor of computer science, school 2 sinopec changling refining & chemical company, y abstract this study aims to explore how local vocational co keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 46 original paper a scientific way of thinking to pass on the red family tradition juleiyao1 1 xian fanyi university, college of marxism, shaanxi, xian, china fund project this paper is the research result of the project of shaanxi provincial social science foundation, "research on the path of integrating the red family style into ideological and political education in colleges and universities (project no. 2022a048)", and the project of shaanxi provincial educational science "14th five-year plan" 2022 general subjects. stage research results of "research on the path of integrating red family style into ideological and political education in colleges and universities". received: april 27, 2024 accepted: may 21, 2024 online published: june 07, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p46 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p46 abstract the red family style is a valuable spiritual wealth left by the old proletariat to our descendants, we should be inherited from generation to generation, to inherit the red family style should have a scientific method of thinking, we should be guided by marxist theory, combined with general secretary’s new era of socialism with chinese characteristics thought of the world view and methodology of the scientific inheritance of the red family style, adhere to the righteousness and innovation, adhere to the systematic thinking, and adhere to the issue-oriented the method of thinking to inherit the red family style. keywords red family style, inherited family style, scientific method 1. first, the inheritance of the red family style to adhere to the correct and innovative thinking methods general secretary emphasized in the report of the twentieth national congress that "we must insist on observing the right and innovating" as one of the worldviews and methodologies for grasping the idea of socialism with chinese characteristics in the new era. we are engaged in a great cause that no one has ever done before, and we can only observe the right in order to keep from losing our way and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 47 making subversive mistakes, and can only innovate in order to grasp the times and lead the times. keeping the right and innovation emphasizes the unity and complementarity of tradition and innovation, and only on the premise of keeping the right can we better innovate, and only through continuous innovation can we better carry forward and inherit the tradition. keeping the right and innovation complement each other, profoundly manifesting the dialectical unity of "change" and "no change", inheritance and development, principle and flexibility. 2023 on june 2, general secretary emphasized at a symposium on the development of cultural inheritance in beijing that "it is impossible to understand ancient china, or modern china, or future china, if china is not understood in terms of its long history of continuity", just as general secretary emphasized in the sansu ancestral temple that "we should be adept at drawing concepts and thinking of governance from the excellent chinese traditional culture". the construction of good family style in the new era must first inherit the ideological essence of family style construction in china's excellent traditional culture. for example, general secretary, when meeting with representatives of the first national civilized family, emphasized that the chinese nation has always attached importance to the family. as the saying goes, "the foundation of the world is at home". respect for the old and love for the young, a good wife and husband, a kind mother and filial son, and respectful brothers. the traditional family virtues of the chinese nation, such as cultivating and reading, being diligent and thrifty, knowing the books and abiding by the law, and prospering in all things, are remembered in the hearts and blood of the chinese people, and are an important spiritual force supporting the chinese nation's unceasing existence and the passing of the flame from one generation to the next, and are a valuable spiritual wealth for the construction of family civilization. general secretary's discourse on family ethics has inherited the essence of family ethics in the excellent traditional chinese culture, and has been constantly innovated in the light of the characteristics of the new era and the needs of state governance. inheriting the red family style in the new era can only be innovative by keeping the right. the red family style is a model for the construction of good family style in the new era. red family style is a typical representative of good family style, red family style is the party and the chinese people's valuable spiritual wealth. inheriting and promoting the red family style is the cultural consciousness of the party. the red family style is the family culture formed by the old generation of proletarian revolutionaries of all times in the historical process of long-term revolutionary practice, social construction and reform and opening up, which is reflected in the idealism, moral character, integrity and self-discipline, family and friendship, and other aspects of the spiritual style, group consciousness and political character. it vividly interprets the spirit, beliefs and moral qualities of the party, is the unique cultural identity and historical imprint of the party, and is a valuable spiritual wealth of the party and the chinese people. 2. the inheritance of the red family style to adhere to the system concept of thinking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 48 methods the family is the cell of society, the family style linked to the party style, political style, social style, the family as long as the wind is correct, in order to clear the political style, social style good. since the 18th party congress, with the central committee's anti-corruption efforts to increase, some family corruption, family corruption cases gradually come to light, so that we are deeply aware of the family style is small but far-reaching, family style is not only a small matter of the family, linked to the political style and the social style of the new era must attach importance to the construction of party cadres and the excellent family style. study the red family style of the old generation of revolutionaries, learn from their strict self-cultivation, strict self-discipline, cleanliness and integrity of the family, distinguish between public and private, give up a small family for the sake of the noble quality of the big, combined with the new era of new issues, to the construction of excellent family style to cultivate the moral cultivation of party members and cadres. general secretary's discourse on the construction of family style has inherited the basic moral value orientation of the excellent traditional chinese family culture. in volume 2 of general secretary on governance, general secretary general secretary talks about the relationship between the individual and the family, family education, and family style, and emphasizes the "nurturing" function of family style, "the family is the first classroom of life". the family is not just a place for people's bodies, but also a place for people's hearts." if the family culture is good, the family will be prosperous and harmonious; if the family culture is bad, it will inevitably affect the children and grandchildren and jeopardize the society. in addition to schools, families also bear the important responsibility of cultivating talents for society, and should help children buckle up the first button of life and take the first step in life. in general secretary's digest of discourses on focusing on family, family education, and family ethics, it is said that we should strive to make the family an important base for national development, national progress, and social harmony. in his report to the 20th national congress, general secretary emphasized the need to raise the level of civilization of society as a whole, implement a project to build civic morality, carry forward traditional chinese virtues, strengthen the construction of family tutelage and family culture, strengthen and improve the ideological and moral construction of minors, and promote the understanding of great morality, the observance of public morality, the strictness of private morality, and to raise the people's moral and civilized standard. it also promotes the spirit of labor, struggle, dedication, creativity, diligence and thrift in society as a whole, and fosters a new style and outlook for the times. only by adhering to the systematic concept of thinking can we realize that the construction of family culture is not only related to the future destiny of the family, but also related to the party style, political style and social style. general secretary linked the construction of family culture and party culture and political culture and social culture, clarified that society is a system, in this large system of various factors are interconnected and intertwined, the family is the cell of the society, without the happiness of millions of families, there will be no prosperity and development of the country, only the construction of the family culture of each family, in order to support the morale of the whole society. the 20th report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 49 also emphasized widely practicing core socialist values, promoting the spiritual lineage of chinese communists with the great party spirit as its source, making good use of red resources, deeply carrying out publicity and education on core socialist values, deepening education on patriotism, collectivism and socialism, and focusing on cultivating new people of the times who will take up the big responsibility of national rejuvenation. general secretary general secretary has revealed that family style construction bears the important responsibility of talent cultivation, and talent is the strategic support for modernization in the new era, so it is evident that family style construction has an important mission in talent cultivation, and only by adhering to the systematic conceptual thinking can we really pay attention to family style construction, and take family style construction as an important hand to cultivate more successors for the society in the new era, and consolidate the strategic support for the realization of the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation in our country. in his speech at the 2019 spring festival reunion, general secretary emphasized that we should vigorously promote family and national sentiments in the whole society, cultivate and practice socialist core values, carry forward the spirit of patriotism, collectivism and socialism, and advocate the unity of love of family and patriotism, so that everyone and every family can make contributions to the chinese national family. only by adhering to the systematic concept of thinking can we realize that the family style is closely related to everyone, and everyone should inherit the red family style and build their own family style. 3. third, the inheritance of the red family style to adhere to the problem-oriented thinking approach problems are the voice of the times, and answering and guiding the solution of problems is the fundamental task of theory. we need to enhance the awareness of problems and focus on new problems encountered in practice. only by adhering to the problem-oriented way of thinking can we find real problems, solve real problems, and truly promote the inheritance of the red family style and the construction of good family style in the new era. general secretary's important discussion on family style is precisely to adhere to the problem-oriented way of thinking, giving new ideas and concepts in line with chinese characteristics for solving the problems of the party's style of government and society in the new era, the problems of practicing socialist core values, and the construction of a harmonious society, starting from the family's family education and family style. general secretary met with representatives of the first national civilized families and emphasized in his speech that "the majority of families should carry forward the good family style, and the good family style of millions of families should support the good culture of the whole society, especially the leading cadres at all levels should take the lead to grasp the good family style" rituals. university" said 'the so-called governance must first qi family, his family can not teach and teach people, no'". the family style of leading cadres is not only related to their own families, but also related to the party's political style. leading cadres at all levels, especially senior cadres, should inherit and carry forward the excellent traditional chinese culture, inherit and carry forward the red family style of the revolutionary predecessors, learn from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 50 comrades, and do the example of family style construction, and put the cultivation of the body, the family into practice. it is by adhering to the problem-oriented way of thinking that we can constantly find new problems and solve them, constantly combine the spirit of the red family style with the needs of the new era, and realize the creative transformation and innovative development of the excellent red culture. references a counseling reader on the resolution of the central committee of the party of china on the significant achievements and historical experience of the party's centennial struggle. (2021). people's publishing house, (11-1), 288-289. xi, j. p. (2023). speech at the symposium on cultural inheritance and development. seeking the truth, 2023(17). xi, j. p. (n.d.). hold high the great banner of socialism with chinese characteristics and unite for building a modern socialist country in all aspects. http://www.news.cn/politics/cpc20/2022-10/25/c_1129079429.htm.(p.16) xinhua: cpc central committee state council issues outline for the implementation of civic moral construction in the new era [eb/ol]. (2019). retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/201910/27/c_1125158665.htm yang, z. h. (2022). cultural implications and basic experiences of the red family style construction of party in the century. secondary school politics teaching reference, 2022(3), 73-74. yu, d. (2020). inheritance and application of good family style and family training culture in ideological and political education in colleges and universities. journal of bengbu college, 9(3), 88-91-111. zhang, t. q. (2018). red family style. baihuazhou literary publishing house, 2018.03.193-250. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 137 original paper research on the content of similarity comparison in trademark infringement judgment haolan li1 1 east china university of political science and law, songjiang, shanghai, china, 201620 received: october 19, 2025 accepted: november 29, 2025 online published: december 09, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p137 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p137 abstract as for trademark infringement, in judicial judgment, the focus is on the scope and criteria of the similarity comparison. the comparison will be carried out based on the plaintiff ’s registered trademark (legal right basis), and the defendant’s trademark used in practice (factual behavior object). comparison should be conducted in terms of the mark as a whole, its visual and conceptual appearance, and its stand-alone source-identifying elements for the issued mark. in the constituent element analysis, one must take into account the actual usage situation of the trademark, since different situations may lead to different identification results of similar elements. in essence, trademark similarity infringement is a negation of the basic function of the registered trademark, which is source identification. the main standard for judging infringement is whether defendant’s trademark possesses the capability of guiding customers to the source of plaintiff ’s goods and services. fact that the defendant's trademark itself indicates it is the source as well does not preclude infringement established. this study systematically sort out logical framework of similarity comparison in trademark infringement judging, and combine theory with typical cases in order to clarify the core problems like subject of similarity, object of similarity, dimension and standard of similarity, providing theoretical support and operational references for the unified application of law in judiciary process. keywords trademark infringement, trademark similarity, similarity comparison, source-identification function 1. the problem article 57(2) of china's trademark law clearly stipulates that "without the permission of the trademark registrant, using a trademark similar to its registered trademark on the same kind of goods, or using a trademark identical or similar to its registered trademark on similar goods, which is likely to cause confusion" shall constitute trademark infringement. this legal provision directly establishes the core www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 138 position of "trademark similarity" in determining infringement liability in trademark infringement cases. in fact, in the practice of trademark protection both in china and internationally, "trademark similarity" has become a crucial factor for judicial and administrative authorities to evaluate the likelihood of consumer confusion and ultimately determine whether infringement has occurred. with the rapid development of market economy and the increasing intensification of market competition, trademark has become an important intangible asset for enterprises to gain competitive advantage, and the number of trademark infringement disputes has shown a year-on-year growth trend. among these disputes, cases involving similarity comparison account for an absolute majority. however, due to the diversity of trademark forms (including text trademarks, graphic trademarks, composite trademarks, etc.), the complexity of usage scenarios, and the subjectivity of similarity judgment, there are often differences in the understanding and application of similarity comparison standards in theoretical and practical circles (judgment on the conflict between trademark right and trade name right—taking a trademark infringement dispute of an eyewear company as an example, 2025). admittedly, determining whether trademarks are similar—and to what degree such similarity constitutes infringement—involves a value judgement which lacks a unified criteria and relies heavily on intuitive reasoning. however, identifying the specific thing to be compared is a factual matter that must strictly adhere to the principle of trademark law. in fact, correctly defining the subjects of the similarity comparison forms the essential foundation for conducting an accurate assessment, which helps ensure, to a considerable extent, the correctness of both the similarity comparison and the ultimate infringement determination. to clarify the objects of similarity analysis, a lot of questions should be answered. for example, how to define the scope of the plaintiff's registered trademark and the defendant's used trademark in the comparison? should we prioritize the overall impression of the trademark or focus on the analysis of constituent elements in the comparison process? whether the defendant's addition of its own source identification information can negate the finding of similarity? these issues have a direct impact on the fairness and authority of case handling results, and also relate to the effective protection of trademark registrants' legitimate rights and the maintenance of a fair competition market order. the theoretical research on issues above and the content of similarity comparison in trademark infringement judgment is not only conducive to improving the theoretical system of trademark law, but also has important practical significance for unifying the criteria for handling similar cases, reducing the inconsistency of judgment results, and enhancing the predictability of legal practice. therefore, based on the existing legal provisions and academic research results, this paper conducts in-depth exploration on the key issues of similarity comparison, and strives to construct a scientific and reasonable similarity comparison framework to meet the needs of theoretical research and practical application. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 139 2. distinguishing between "registered" trademarks and "used" trademarks 2.1 the basis of comparison is the trademark registered by the plaintiff with the exception of well-known trademarks that may acquire rights through use, china's trademark law exclusively protects registered trademarks. in other words, under this legislation, exclusive trademark rights are established through registration, meaning registrants can only obtain specific legal entitlements by completing the registration process (judgment on the conflict between trademark right and trade name right—taking a trademark infringement dispute of an eyewear company as an example, 2025). the rationale behind this provision is twofold: granting trademark owners exclusive rights inherently imposes a duty of care regarding trademark usage on others. if the owner subjectively neglects registration and the trademark objectively fails to achieve the status of a well-known mark—where even potential confusion would not cause significant harm—there is no need to impose such obligations on unspecified third parties. this mechanism also incentivizes trademark owners to actively pursue registration, thereby fostering a business environment governed by legal principles. furthermore, since the purpose of trademark similarity comparison is to determine infringement, and the essence of trademark infringement lies in the violation of exclusive rights, the basis for such comparisons must naturally be the registered trademark—the plaintiff's trademark—that holds such rights. therefore, if the plaintiff’s non-compliant use of his registered trademark results in a discrepancy between the mark actually used and the one registered, the altered mark actually used by the plaintiff, which is unregistered, cannot receive production under the trademark law unless it is recognized as a well-known mark. in the situation discussed above, the plaintiff’s original registered trademark, which has not been genuinely used by the plaintiff, can be canceled because of “non-use without justifiable reason for three consecutive years”. however, it is worth noting that whether a mark is a registered trademark shall be determined according to the records of the china national intellectual property administration (cnipa). this means even if the plaintiff has engaged in improper use of its registered trademark or other grounds for cancellation of the trademark exist, as long as the cnipa has not yet issued a final and effective decision to cancel the registration, the plaintiff’s registered trademark remains valid and should still serve as the basis for assessing trademark similarity. 2.2 the object of comparison is the trademark used by the defendant unlike trademark opposition procedures where the registered trademark of the objector serves as the comparison benchmark, trademark infringement determinations focus on the trademark actually used by the defendant. this distinction arises because trademark infringement disputes address not "whether a trademark meets registration requirements," but rather "whether its use causes confusion and infringes the trademark owner's exclusive rights." in other words, infringement cases target actual trademark usage that directly harms the owner's interests and requires immediate cessation. whether the defendant's trademark is registered or not is irrelevant to infringement determination. therefore, regardless of whether the defendant holds a registered trademark or whether their registered trademark www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 140 matches the actual one used, the defendant must bear legal liability if they use a trademark similar to another party's registered trademark without legitimate justification. in practice, registered trademarks generally do not constitute trademark infringement. compared to infringement determinations, trademark registration oppositions apply more lenient standards for assessing similarity, making similarity claims more likely to succeed in opposition proceedings. specifically, to protect prior trademarks, oppositions consider broader abstract scenarios, rejecting any trademark that might potentially harm existing rights. the similarity comparison criteria are therefore more flexible. in contrast, infringement cases require consideration of actual usage patterns or contexts, leading to stricter similarity evaluation standards. however, numerous instances of improper trademark use exist in practice, where registered trademark holders may still be liable for infringement. in such cases, the trademark actually used by the defendant may differ from the defendant’s registered trademark, and the trademark causing damage to others' rights is the improperly used trademark. the similarity comparison and infringement determination should naturally focus on this specific trademark. in other words, judicial determinations of trademark infringement are independent of administrative proceedings concerning trademark registration oppositions. while assessing trademark infringement, the similarity comparison focuses solely on the trademark actually used by the defendant regardless of the defendant’s registered mark. 3. distinguishing between the "overall impression" and "component elements" of a trademark 3.1 the change of "overall impression" does not affect the determination of trademark similarity the primary function of a trademark is to distinguish the source of goods or services, a role known as the source identification function. accordingly, the fundamental objective of trademark law is to ensure the proper fulfillment of this source identification function. when two trademarks exhibit identical or substantially similar overall visual effects, this clearly undermines the source identification function of the registered trademark, and such cases should be classified as trademark similarity. however, the impairment of the source identification function does not solely occur when trademarks visually resemble each other. even if the accused trademark contains elements identical or similar to the plaintiff's registered trademark, and these elements can serve as identifiers, the source identification function of the plaintiff's trademark may still be compromised. therefore, trademark similarity comparisons should not be limited to visual similarities but must also consider the constituent elements of the accused trademark. even if the accused trademark creates a distinct impression from the plaintiff's registered trademark in its entirety, it may still be deemed similar to the plaintiff's registered trademark. the issue was clarified in the "thomson life" case adjudicated by the european court of justice. in this case, the defendant's trademark "thomson life" included the plaintiff's registered trademark "life", but the dominant element was the defendant's business name "thomson", resulting in a distinct overall impression from the plaintiff's registered trademark. if the "impression theory" were strictly applied, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 141 the defendant's "thomson life" would not be considered similar to the plaintiff's "life", and the defendant would not be deemed to have infringed the plaintiff's trademark rights. however, while the european court of justice acknowledged that identical or similar overall impressions could lead to trademark similarity and that the overall impression might be influenced by the dominant role of individual elements, it further noted that if a prior trademark is incorporated into a subsequent trademark as an element—even if that element lacks dominance and the two trademarks' overall impressions differ—if the element can independently serve as a source identifier, confusion may still exist. therefore, to protect the source-identifying function of the prior trademark, "thomson life" should be deemed similar to "life". otherwise, the source-identifying function of the earlier registered trademark would gradually be eroded as it is absorbed by the later trademark including additional elements. in this case, since the "life" component of the accused infringing trademark is similar to the plaintiff's registered trademark, the two trademarks are considered similar. consequently, the court used the "life" component of the accused infringing trademark as the similarity comparison object, concluding that "thomson life" is similar to the plaintiff's registered trademark "life". this method of determining the content of comparison is conducive to preventing the prior registered trademark from gradually losing its function of identification source when the later trademark absorbs the prior trademark. in judicial practice in china, courts are generally able to make accurate judgement when comparing text marks for similarity. however, when comparing figurative marks, courts are highly susceptible to the influence of the “impression theory”. 3.2 the disassembly of "constituent elements" is the key to the comparison of trademark similarity trademark similarity comparison may involve analyzing specific components of the accused trademark, necessitating structural breakdown in such evaluations. what constitutes trademark elements, and how should they be analyzed? for text trademarks, key components include specific words, font styles, sizes, and color schemes. when dissecting textual elements, particular attention should be paid to generic terms and conventional expressions[3]. for example, in the phrase "sakura butterfly," the generic term "sakura" should be separated as a distinct component from the character "butterfly." in addition, while fonts, sizes, and colors are typically attached to specific words, variations in these elements may create visual prominence that complicates analysis. in the case of "xin 'an seahorse," the enlarged "seahorse" character should be recognized as a separate component from "xin' an." for graphic trademarks, the primary elements are patterns and colors. if the plaintiff's registered trademark features a black-and-white design, and the defendant applies color to it for commercial use, the black-and-white pattern and the colored design are two distinct components in the defendant’s trademark. given that the "black-and-white pattern" element in the accused trademark is identical to the plaintiff's registered trademark, the two trademark should be considered visually similar for infringement purpose. as for composite trademarks, the constituent elements of them are simply the sum of the elements of both textual trademark and graphic trademark, encompassing patterns, colors and characters with their font styles. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 142 different ways of decomposing the constituent elements of trademark might lead to different outcomes of the similarity comparison. taking the allegedly infringing mark “yelang gujiu” as an example: if it is decomposed into “yelanggu” and “jiu” (liquor), or alternatively into “yelang” and “gujiu” (ancient liquor), then both “yelanggu” and “yelang” are clearly different from the plaintiff’s registered trademark “lang” for alcoholic beverages. however, if, in the mark “yelang gujiu”, the characters “ye” and “gu” are displayed in significantly larger fonts––thereby visually separating them from “lang” and “jiu”––the mark may be perceived by consumers as comprising three distinct elements: “ye” “gu” and “lang jiu”. in this case, the character “lang” remains its independent prominence and could be recognized as referring to the plaintiff’s registered trademark “lang”. consequently, the defendant’s use of “lang” in this context may constitute trademark infringement due to the likelihood of consumer confusion. 4. distinguishing between "retention" and "addition" of identifiable sources 4.1 "reservations of identifiable sources" are the key to trademark infringement “reservations of identifiable sources” refers to the situation where the plaintiff’s registered trademark, as a component of the allegedly infringing mark, still serves to identify the source of the goods or services. on one hand, the requirement for source identification preservation mandates that the plaintiff's registered trademark must constitute an integral part of the accused infringing trademark. in other words, the plaintiff's registered trademark must be incorporated into the accused trademark as a component. otherwise, there would be no possibility of source misidentification, and no need to determine similarity or infringement. for instance, if the plaintiff's registered trademark is a circular graphic design while the accused trademark, though circular, features unique patterns and text, the plaintiff's circular trademark cannot be considered an element of the accused trademark. this is because the circle merely represents the shape of the accused trademark, whereas the distinctive patterns and text serve as the source-identifying components. in such cases, the comparison of trademark similarity can only focus on the unique patterns and text of both trademarks. obviously, these elements do not constitute similarity, and trademark infringement cannot be established. on the other hand, the retention of identifiable source requirements also necessitate that the plaintiff's registered trademark maintains its independent source-identification function within the accused infringing trademark (wang, 2020). if the plaintiff's registered trademark, though included in the accused infringing trademark, has formed a new entity distinct from the plaintiff's original trademark, the plaintiff's registered trademark loses its independent source-identification function, and the newly formed entity no longer serves to direct the source of goods or services to the plaintiff. in such cases, the claim of trademark similarity infringement based on the accused infringing trademark containing the plaintiff's registered trademark becomes untenable. for instance, while the accused infringing trademark "shengda fowen" includes the plaintiff's registered trademark "dafowen", the established reputation of the business name "shengda" means "dafowen" has already formed a new entity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 143 combining "shengda" and "fowen", thereby losing its independent source-identification function. consequently, "shengda fowen" and "dafowen" are not considered similar. notably, whether a plaintiff's registered trademark retains its independent source-identification function within the accused infringing trademark requires linguistic context analysis. for example, when the head and tail of a text trademark can form a generic term, the middle word or modifier may be overlooked. consider cases where the plaintiff's registered trademark "meisheng" is contained in the accused infringing trademark "meikesheng," and "six walnuts" is contained in "six stone mill walnuts"—in these instances, the plaintiff’s registered trademarks still function independently as source identifiers, which constitutes trademark similarity. 4.2 "the increase of identifiable sources" has nothing to do with trademark infringement the concept of "increased identifiability of source" refers to a trademark used by the defendant not only indicating the plaintiff's origin but also explicitly pointing to the defendant's own identity. in legal practice, some scholars argue that while the accused trademark resembles the plaintiff's registered trademark in line composition and design elements, constituting trademark similarity, the accused trademark's central position displaying the defendant's name along with business address, phone number, and mobile contact clearly indicates the product's origin (li, 2025). therefore, it should not be deemed trademark infringement, as the accused trademark has clearly points to the defendant as the source of the goods or services. under this view, the determination of trademark infringement is influenced by the "increased identifiability of source". however, if this judicial perspective holds, there will be no trademark infringement anymore. to avoid trademark infringement, anyone attempting to exploit the trademark owner's rights and associated goodwill could simply mark their company name in the center of the target registered trademark. this would render all trademark infringement acts legally permissible through such labeling, thereby nullifying the purpose of trademark registration and trademark law (feng & mao, 2024). the crux of trademark similarity infringement lies in the continuation of the plaintiff's registered trademark's source-identifying function within the accused trademark. while the accused trademark may still indicate the defendant's origin, as long as it retains the potential to point to the plaintiff's source, it should still be recognized as trademark similarity infringement. 5. conclusion the determination of trademark similarity in trademark infringement cases is a complex process involving legal provisions, theoretical analysis and practical judgment. although it has a certain subjective color, the factual judgment of the content of similarity comparison must adhere to the fundamental principle of trademark law, that is, protecting the source identification function of trademarks. only by taking this principle as the guide can we ensure the objectivity, fairness and rationality of the similarity comparison results. when defining the content of similarity comparison in trademark infringement judgment, two core www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 144 points should be grasped. firstly, in terms of the scope of comparison objects, the basis of comparison is the plaintiff's registered trademark, and the object of comparison is the defendant's actually used trademark. the registered trademark determines the scope of rights protected by law, and the actually used trademark is the specific behavior that may cause infringement. only by clarifying the relationship between the two can we accurately define the scope of similarity comparison. secondly, in terms of the comparison perspective, it is not only necessary to compare the overall impression of the defendant's trademark with the plaintiff's registered trademark, but also to focus on the analysis of the constituent elements of the defendant's trademark. even if the overall impression of the two trademarks is different, if the defendant's trademark contains the constituent elements of the plaintiff's registered trademark that can independently identify the source, it may still be deemed similar. in addition, the key to determining trademark similarity infringement lies in whether the accused trademark retains the source identification function of the plaintiff's registered trademark, that is, whether it is likely to cause consumer confusion about the source of goods or services. the fact that the defendant's trademark adds its own source identification information has no bearing on the infringement determination. this conclusion is not only in line with the legislative purpose of trademark law, but also conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of trademark owners, maintaining the order of fair competition in the market, and promoting the healthy development of the market economy. for academic research, it is necessary to further strengthen the research on the content of similarity comparison in trademark infringement judgment, combine the new problems and new situations emerging in the development of the market economy, such as the similarity comparison of new types of trademarks such as sound trademarks and three-dimensional trademarks, and continuously enrich and improve the theoretical system of trademark similarity comparison, so as to provide more solid theoretical support for the practice of trademark protection. reference feng, x. q., & mao, s. m. (2024). reexamining the source-identifying function of trademarks in the artificial intelligence era. china trademark, (07), 4-7. jiang, h. s. (2025). review and improvement of the trademark registration acquisition system. electronic intellectual property, (07), 101-113. judgment on the conflict between trademark right and trade name right—taking a trademark infringement dispute of an eyewear company as an example. (2025). china glasses science & technology magazine, (02), 70-72. li, j. (2025). suggestions on distinguishing the calculation of illegal turnover between product trademarks and service trademarks in the measures for calculating illegal turnover in trademark infringement cases. china brand and anti-counterfeiting, (10), 24-25. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 145 wang, z. z. (2020). research on the theory and system improvement of fair use of trademarks. zhongnan university of economics and law. https://doi.org/10.27660/d.cnki.gzczu.2020.002996. xu, y. h., & peng, x. l. (2024). regulation of symbol monopoly under the expansion of trademark constituent elements. china trademark, (08), 74-78. 1. the problem 2. distinguishing between "registered" trademarks 2.1 the basis of comparison is the trademark regis 2.2 the object of comparison is the trademark used 3. distinguishing between the "overall impression" 3.1 the change of "overall impression" does not af 3.2 the disassembly of "constituent elements" is t 4. distinguishing between "retention" and "additio 4.1 "reservations of identifiable sources" are the 4.2 "the increase of identifiable sources" has not 5. conclusion advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 125 original paper young adults’ cellphone dependence, stress, depression and self-esteem mikiyasu hakoyama, ph.d.1* 1 human development and family studies, central michigan university, mt. pleasant, mi, usa * mikiyasu hakoyama, ph.d., human development and family studies, central michigan university, mt. pleasant, mi, usa received: june 10, 2019 accepted: july 4, 2019 online published: july 11, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p125 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p125 abstract cellphones have become an indispensable communication device, especially for young adults. based on an online survey conducted in the midwest, usa, the current study examined young adults’ (n = 1,659, m age = 19.38, sd = 1.71) use of cellphone and its influence on their psychosocial states. almost 90% of the participants owned their first cellphone at age 14 or younger; 96.5% of the cellphone owners were smartphone users. women spent significantly longer time for both voice calling and texting, were more cellphone dependent, stressed and depressed than men. both men and women spent significantly more time for texting than voice calling. path analysis revealed that the time spent for texting and the fear of social isolation for being a non-texting user predicted cellphone dependence, which subsequently predicted self-esteem; the latter relationship was mediated by the level of perceived stress and depression. implications of the findings are discussed. keywords cellphone, gender, structural equation modeling, path analysis, addiction 1. introduction rapid advancement of communication technology such as the internet, e-mail, cellphone and text messaging has impacted our daily lives immensely. particularly, the cellphone has been rapidly adopted by many people worldwide (the world bank, 2017). it has become an indispensable device for more than a decade in some societies such as norway where cellphone ownerships among 16-year-olds grew from 20% in 1997 to almost 100% in 2001 (ling, 2002), leading adolescents to perceive cellphones as an integral part in their lives (walsh, white, & ross, 2008). many people, therefore, perceive cellphones as a fundamental and indispensable tool in maintaining and managing their social worlds www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 126 published by scholink inc. (bond, 2010; hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011; nasar, hecht, & wener, 2007; walsh et al., 2008). in addition, increased multi-functionality of the recent smartphones has led more and more adolescents (age 12-17) and young adults (age 18-30) to spend increased time on their cellphones, creating deep concerns for cellphone dependence (choliz, 2012). young adults’ preferred method of cellphone communication appears to have shifted from talking to texting, as they spent more than an hour a day sending more than 70 messages; this is twice as much time texting than talking on the phone (lenhart, 2012). the heavy use of cellphone for numerous social networks may disrupt healthy psychosocial development among teenagers (jenaro, flores, gomez-vela, gonzalez-gil, & caballo, 2009; sanchez-martinez & otero, 2009). for instance, increased use of cellphone is associated with the importance of cellphone among young adults (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011) and an adoption of cellphone at a younger age relates to poor cellphone manners (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2012). however, it is unclear the degree to which the heavy use of cellphone has effects on psychological states. therefore, the current study, based on the responses of an online survey, examined cellphone use among young adults (n = 1,659) and its subsequent influence on their psychosocial states. non-drug addiction, especially the internet and modern communication related addiction, such as video-gaming (chiu, lee, & huang, 2004; gentile, 2009), facebook (elphinston & noller, 2011), internet (jenaro, flores, gomez-vela, gonzalez-gil, & caballo, 2009; young, 2009), texting (atchley & warden, 2012), and cellphone (billieux, maurage, lopez-fernandez, kuss, & griffiths, 2015; jenaro, flores, gomez-vela, gonzalez-gil, & caballo, 2009) has attracted interest of many social scientists. for instance, elphinston and noller (2011) examined the impacts of facebook use on romantic relationships among college students and found that facebook intrusion was associated with romantic relationship issues such as jealousy and relationship dissatisfaction. studies on gender effects on cellphone use reported that women were more likely to be heavier users than men (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011; roberts, yaya, & manolis, 2014). numerous studies focused on cellphone dependence (billieux, linden, d’acremont, ceshi, & zermatten, 2007; block, 2008; pies, 2009; choliz, 2012; van deursen, bolle, hegner, & kommers, 2015). urgency and lack of perseverance, two of the four components associated with impulsivity, were related to cellphone dependence (billieus, van der linden, d’acremont, ceschi, & zermatten, 2007). habitual use of cellphone and social stress positively influenced dependence to the smartphone and women were at a higher risk of addictive behavior than men (van deursen et al., 2015). addiction to cellphone may be life-threatening, as the risk for accidents increases when drivers engage in cellphone activities while driving (horrey & ickens, 2006; mccartt, hellinga, & braitman, 2006). predictors of cellphone dependence include age of initial ownership (geser, 2006; hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011), length of ownership (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011), gender (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011; van deursen et al., 2015), degree of use (zulkefly & baharudin, 2009), texting, and social networking use (ehrenreich, underwood, & ackerman, 2014; pettigrew, 2009; underwood, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 127 published by scholink inc. rosen, more, ehrenreich, & gentsch, 2012). the longer ownership, the younger initial ownership, and the longer minutes spent on the cellphone a day were likely to contribute to the sense of cellphone importance (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011). further, the shift from flip-phones to multifunctional smartphones have given cellphone users access to numerous online social networking services, which might have contributed to cellphone addiction (salehan & negahban, 2013). it was found that the intensive use of cellphone was associated with low self-esteem (bianchi & phillips, 2005; zulkefly & baharudin, 2009), cellphone dependence, and depression among adolescents (sanchez-martinez & otero, 2009). stress may lead to depression (bartolomucci & leopardi, 2009) and excessive cellphone use induced stress and symptoms of depression (panova & lleras, 2016; thomee, harenstam, & hagberg, 2011). another study (chesley, 2005) that utilized structural equation modeling for analyzing longitudinal data also indicated that cellphone use over time is associated with increased distress and family dissatisfaction. psychosocial theory (erikson, 1968) describes adolescence and young adulthood as a stage of identity development. teenagers, as their cognitive capacity increases, begin to explore who they are, what they want to be and with which group they wish to be identified. this is also a period when adolescents spend less time with their parents and more time with peers, frequently making their efforts to fit into their social world outweigh respecting their familial values (richards & larson, 1989). adolescent egocentrism (elkind, 1967) further describes adolescence as a period of heightened self-consciousness; adolescents become extra-sensitive to how they are viewed by their peers, known as the imaginary audience. these theoretical views explain commonalities among teenagers in their fashion, language, and selections of favorite music; adolescent developmental agendas for communication have shifted from face-to-face and phone conversation to the use of facebook and texting (lenhart, 2012). empirical studies (ling, 2002) support the view that adolescents are particularly susceptible to fashions and trends, making them to more willingly adopt new technological devices. these developmental agendas for teenagers likely continue well into their young adulthood. 1.1 the current study excessive engagement in cellphone activities and the need to be socially connected are reported to contribute to cellphone dependence among adolescents and young adults and such dependence is likely to influence psychosocial states. it is unclear, however, how these factors fit together. based on the responses of online survey (n = 1,659), therefore, the current study examined the influence of cellphone dependence on psychosocial states among young adults. more specifically, path analysis examined the mediating effects of perceived stress and depressive state on the effects cellphone dependence has on self-esteem. the predictive effects of cellphone ownership, cellphone usage, and fear of social isolation were also examined, figure 1. while self-esteem may be considered a predictor in some instances rather than an outcome, self-esteem was considered an outcome in the current study, as it is an affective state as a result of self-evaluation of self-worth based on various previous experiences (ghen, gully, & eden, 2001). for instance, studies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 128 published by scholink inc. that examined predictive effects of self-esteem by comparing with those of self-efficacy suggested that self-efficacy is a better predictor of personal behavior than self-esteem (bandura, 1986; mone, baker, & jeffries, 1995); self-efficacy influences self-esteem, not vice versa (lane, lane, & kyprianou, 2004). numerous studies also treated self-esteem as an outcome (hakoyama, griffore, & phenice, 2014; malonebeach, hakoyama, &traum, 2016). further, to examine the relationships among these variables, path analysis, a form of structural equation modeling (sem), was used. sem requires a sophisticated estimation, however, it allows to examine directional and relative assumptions among the variables in the model (olobatuyi, 2006). while the current study examines cross-sectional data, based on both theoretical perspectives and empirical findings that indicate constant conjunction (greenstein, 2013) along with the use of sem, it was hypothesized that both age of initial cellphone ownership (geser, 2006), ownership history (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011), cellphone usage and fear of social isolation (roberts et al., 2014) predict cellphone dependence; cellphone dependence, mediated by perceived stress and depressive state, in turn, predicts self-esteem; higher cellphone dependence leads to increased stress (van deursen et al., 2015) and depressive state (sanchez-martinez & otero, 2009), resulting in lower self-esteem (bianchi & phillips, 2005; zulkefly & baharudin, 2009). figure 1. predictors of cellphone dependence and its subsequent effects on psychosocial states: a hypothesized path model 2. method 2.1 procedure an institutional review board (irb) approved anonymous online survey was conducted in a midsize university in the midwest, usa. participants were recruited from numerous undergraduate courses in human development and family studies; many of these courses were introductory courses belonging to the university’s basic education program taken by students of various disciplines. students were provided extra credit for participation, a common incentive exercised on university communities for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 129 published by scholink inc. recruiting survey participants. students interested in earning extra credit visited the online survey, which took approximately 30 to 40 minutes; when the survey was completed, participants were directed to a separate web survey where they entered necessary information for extra credit. spss version 24 was used for quantitative analyses; the independent-samples t test was used to examine gender effects examinations and when significant, cohen’s d indicated the effect size. gates’ delta, and hedges’ g measured the effect size when there was a gap in the standard deviation or sample size between groups. amos was used for path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation. due to a small number of missing cases (missing < 5%), mean replacement was used in dealing with missing cases (takahashi, 1998). 2.1.1 instrument the survey consisted of more than 100 questions related to cellphone and internet use, numerous scales (e.g., self-esteem, perceived stress, depression, personality, and academic attitudes), and demographic questions. demographic questions included the participants’ age, gender, ethnicity and marital status. numerous questions asked participants’ cellphone related behaviors such as the age of initial cellphone ownership, cellphone ownership history (years owned a cellphone), time spent a day talking and texting on the cellphone, most frequent correspondent, texting frequency, etc.). rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965) assessed participants’ self-esteem, which consists of 4-point (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree) ten-item statements, five positive (e.g., on the whole i am satisfied with myself; i feel that i have a number of good qualities) and five negative (e.g., i feel that i do not have much to be proud of; i wish i could have more respect for myself); scores of negative statements were reversed to create a composite which could range from 10 to 40. perceived stress scale (pss; cohen, kamarck, & mermelstein, 1983), a 5-point (1 = never, 2 = almost never, 3 = sometimes, 4 = fairly often, 5 = very often) 10-item statements, assessed participants’ stress level; six statements expressed stress (e.g., in the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?) while four were positive (e.g., in the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?); positive scores were reversed to create a composite score, which could range from 10 to 50. a 5-item (i felt depressed, my sleep was restless, i felt lonely, i had crying spells, i could not get going) depression scale (radloff, 1977) assessed participants’ degree of depression; participants were asked to select one of the four choices (1 = rarely or none/less than 1 day; 2 = some or a little of the time/1-2 days; 3 = occasionally or a moderate amount of time/3-4 days; 4 = all the time/5-7 days) based on how frequently they felt this way in the past week. a composite was created which could range from 5 to 25. test of mobile phone dependence (choliz, 2012) assessed participants’ degree of cellphone dependence, which consists of two sections; the first 10 items (e.g., i have put a limit on my mobile phone use and i couldn’t stick to it; when i am bored, i use my mobile phone) are a 5-point (1 = never, 5 = frequently) scales and the following 12 items (e.g., i need to use my mobile phone more and more often; i would grab my mobile phone and send a message or make a call right now) are 5-point (1 = www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 130 published by scholink inc. completely disagree, 5 = completely agree) scales. the current study applied a composite of 13 items by eliminating items irrelevant to the current focus and the nature of participants (e.g., items related to cost such as i have argued with my parents or family members about the cost of my mobile phone; i spend more money on my mobile phone now than when i first got it). a 4-point item (1 = no, i don’t think there will be any change, 4 = yes, absolutely; hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011) assessed the degree to which participants felt whether they think they will be out of their friends’ loop and their social life will be damaged if they did not use texting. participants were also asked at what age they first owned their cellphone, how long (converted into months) they have owned a cellphone, how many minutes a day they spend talking on their cellphones or texting. 2.1.2 participants of the 1,668 questionnaires returned, the current study focused on 1,659 (99.5%) undergraduate students who owned a cellphone; their ages ranged from 18 to 30 (m = 19.38, sd = 1.71); 71.9% were women; 86.0% were white, followed by african american (6.4%). a great majority (93.5%) were single. of those who owned a cellphone, 96.5% (1601/1659) reported that their cellphones were smartphones. 3. result age at initial cellphone ownership more than one half of the participants (60.0%) first owned a cellphone at age 12 to 14 and 26.0% owned it at 11 years or younger; this means that 86.0% of the participants owned their first cellphone at age 14 years or younger (m = 12.55, sd = 2.00). female participants’ age at first owned a cellphone (m = 12.44, sd = 1.95) was significantly younger than that of male participants (m = 12.83, sd = 2.09), t(1657) = 3.55, p < .001, 95%ci [.17, .60], d = .19, delta = .19, g = .20. length of cellphone ownership participants’ cellphone ownership length ranged from one month to 212 months (m = 87.85, sd = 24.96); 99.0% of them have owned a cellphone for 24 months or more. no gender difference was found in the length of cellphone ownership between male (m = 89.26, sd = 26.46) and female (m = 87.30, sd = 24.34) participants, t(792.157) = 1.39, p = .166. of those who owned a smartphone (n = 1601), more than one half (54.5%) owned a smartphone for 24 months to 59 months (2 years to 4 years 11 months) and more than one third (37.4%) owned it for 60 months (5 years) or more; only 8.1% owned a smartphone for less than two years (m = 50.95, sd = 23.33). no gender difference was found in the length of smartphone ownership, t(1599) = 1.28, p = .202. length (minutes) of cellphone talk per day more than three quarters (75.8%) talked on their cellphones for 30 minutes a day or less and only 10.5% spent for more than 60 minutes (m = 27.43, sd = 29.06). female participants (m = 29.87, sd = 30.21) talked significantly longer than their male counterparts (m = 21.20, sd = 24.86), t(1026.97) = -6.00, p < .001, 95%ci [-11.51, -5.84], d = .31, delta = .29, g = .30. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 131 published by scholink inc. length (minutes) of texting per day about one quarter (26.8%) spent 30 minutes or less a day for text messaging while more than one half (54.4%) spent 60 minutes or more. (m = 63.85, sd = 55.88). female participants (m = 69.56, sd = 56.08) spent significantly more time texting than their male counterparts (m = 49.21, sd = 52.65), t(891.41) = -6.92, p < .001, 95% ci [-26.12, -14.57], d = .37, delta = .36, g = .37. time (minutes a day) spent for texting (m =63.85, sd = 55.88) was significantly longer than time spent talking (m = 27.43, sd = 29.06), t(1645) = 24.83, p < .001, 95% ci [33.67, 39.44], d = .82. time spent for texting and for talking were weakly correlated, r(1644) = 1.22, p < .001. fear of social isolation a 4-point item (1 = no, i don’t think there will be any change, 4 = yes, absolutely) assessed participants’ views on the importance of being a texting user in relation to social networking. while 17.7% thought that their social world will not change even if they were non-texting users, 12.0% thought that their social world will be absolutely damaged (m = 2.39, sd = .91). women’s mean score (m = 2.45, sd = .92) was significantly higher than that of men (m = 2.24, sd = .89), t(1647) = -4.15, p < .001, 95% ci [-.30, -.11], d = .23, delta = .23, g = .23. for both men and women, no significant difference was found between smartphone owners and flip-phone owners, t(461) = .67, p = .502; and t(1184) = 1.17, p = .241, respectively. cellphone dependence participants’ composite score of test of mobile phone dependence (13 items) ranged from 13 to 65 (m = 42.28, sd = 8.60),  = 84. women’s mean score (m = 43. 56, sd = 8.37) was significantly higher than that of men (m = 39.96, sd = 8.29), t(1590) = -9.86, p<.001, 95% ci [-5.51, -3.68], d = .55, delta = .55, g = .55. smartphone owners’ ratings, for both men (m = 39.31, sd = 8.13) and women (m = 43.76, sd = 8.18), were significantly higher than those of flip-phone owners (men: m = 33.35, sd = 8.99; women: m = 35.50, sd = 11.79), t(443) = 3.61, p < .001, 95% ci [2.72, 9.22], d = .70, delta = .73, g = .73 and t(27.65) = 3.69, p = .001, 95% ci [3.67, 12.86], d = .81, delta = 1.01, g = .10. perceived stress participants’ perceived stress scores ranged from 10 to 46 (m = 28.93, sd = 5.43),  = .79. women’s mean score (m = 29.46, sd = 5.42) was significantly higher than that of men (m = 27.56, sd = 5.22), t(1657) = -6.50, p<.001, 95% ci [-2.48, -1.33], d = .36, delta = .35, g = .35. no difference was found between smartphone owners and flip-phone owners for both men, t(465) = .08, p = .935, and women, t(1190) = -.29, p = .773. depression participants’ depression scores ranged from 5 to 20 (m = 9.13, sd = 3.38),  = 83. women’s mean score (m = 9.30, sd = 3.34) was significantly higher than that of men (m = 8.70, sd = 3.44), t(1657) = -3.25, p = .001, 95% ci [-.96, -.24], d = .18, delta = .18, g = .18. no significant mean difference was found for men or women between smartphone owners and flip-phone owners, t(465) = -1.21, p = .227, and t(1190) = -1.18, p = .239 respectively. perceived stress and depression were moderately correlated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 132 published by scholink inc. for both men and women, table 1. self-esteem participants’ self-esteem scores ranged from 11 to 40 (m = 29.80, sd = 5.17)  = .87. men’s self-esteem (m = 30.24, sd = 5.15) was significantly higher than that of women (m = 29.63, sd = 5.16), t(1657) = 2.16, p = .031, 95% ci [.06, 1.16], d =.12, delta =.12, g =.12. no significant difference was found between smartphone owners and flip-phone owners for both men and women, t((465) = 1.13, p = .258, and t(1190) = 1.32, p = .186, respectively. for both men and women, self-esteem was negatively correlated with depression and with perceived stress, table 1. table 1. correlations and descriptive statistics: variables for the final models (figures 2 and 3) figure 2 (n = 1161) 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 texting time 2 fear .04 3 cellphone dependence .19*** .37*** 4 stress .01 .07* .23*** 5 depression .03 .05 .22*** .54*** 6 self esteem .03 -.02 -.10*** -.55*** -.52*** v 1 2 3 4 5 6 m 69.93 2.67 43.76 29.46 9.28 29.66 sd 56.32 .91 8 .03 5.41 3.32 5.17 figure 3 (n=440) 1 2 3 4 5 6 texting time 1 fear of social isolation .10* 2 cellphone dependence .25*** .37*** 3 perceived stress .06 .07 .24*** 4 depression .04 .11* .25*** .47*** 5 self esteem .01 -.04 -.17*** -.61*** -.57*** v 1 2 3 4 5 6 m 50.26 2.47 39.30 27.57 8.66 30.30 sd 53.57 .93 7.93 5.27 3.40 5.19 + p<.10, *p<.05, **p< .01, *** p< .001. predictors of cellphone dependence and its subsequent effects on psychosocial states focusing on the smartphone owners (n = 1601), path analysis, a form of structural equation modeling www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 133 published by scholink inc. (sem; kline, 2005), was used to examine predictive effects of cellphone ownership (age at first owned a cellphone and the length of ownership), use (minutes of voice calling and text messaging) per day, and psychological states (fear of social isolation by disengaging from text messaging) on cellphone dependence and its subsequent effects on the participants’ psychosocial states (perceived stress, depression and self-esteem) as expressed in the hypothesized model, see figure 1. while the gender difference was apparent in many of the variables considered in the model, inclusion of nominal variables in the model violates sem assumptions (gallini, 1983); therefore men and women were examined separately. path analysis estimates directional and relative assumptions between variables, however, it requires a sophisticated estimation process; generally a range of indices is used to report the model fit. common indices for a good model fit include: insignificant chi-squared test result (p > .05); root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) of < .08 to be an acceptable fit and < .05 as a good fit; .95 or higher goodness of fit index (gfi), incremental fit index (ifi), comparative fit index (cfi), normed fit index (nfi) and non-normed fit index (nnfi) also known as tucker-lewis index (tli); and .90 or higher adjusted goodness of fit index (agfi) (marsh, balla, & hau, 1996). numerous indices indicate that the data fit well for both gender models, table 2. insignificant predictors and factor loadings were eliminated from the model, therefore, all the coefficients, variances and covariances shown in the final models were significant (p < .01), table 3. as a result, several variables were eliminated from the final model for both genders. table 2. fit statistics for the models tested n x2 df p x2/df rmsea pclose gfi agfi cfi ifi nfi tli figure 2 1161 9.88 7 .195 1.411 .02 [.00, .04] .985 1.00 .99 1.00 1.00 .99 1.00 figure 3 440 4.87 7 .676 .696 .00 [.00, .05] .964 1.00 .99 1.00 1.00 .99 1.00 note. rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; gfi = goodness of fit index; agfi = adjusted goodness of fit index; cfi = comparative fit index; ifi = incremental fit index; nfi = normed fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index. as shown in figure 2 and figure 3, for both men and women, time (minutes a day) spent texting and fear of isolation by disengaging from text messaging predicted cellphone dependence; the stronger fear of social isolation for disengaging from text messaging predicted stronger cellphone dependence, explaining 19% of the variance in cellphone dependence for men; for women, texting time and fear of social isolation also predicted cellphone dependence, explaining 16% of the variance in cellphone dependence. further, standardized coefficients indicated that the fear factor had greater effects than the minutes of texting per day, figure 2, figure 3, table 4. for both men and women, cellphone dependence, mediated by perceived stress and depression, as hypothesized, predicted self-esteem, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 134 published by scholink inc. explaining 47% of the variance in self-esteem for men and 37% of the variance for women, figure 2, figure 3. table 3. unstandardized and standardized estimate, and significance level for the models tested parameter estimate unstandardized standardized p figure 2 texting time fear of isolation .00 .08 .005 (n=1161) texting time cellphone dependence .02 .16 .000 fear of isolation cellphone dependence 3.10 .35 .000 cellphone dependence perceived stress .16 .23 .000 cellphone dependence depression .04 .10 .000 perceived stress depression .32 .52 .000 perceived stress self-esteem -.36 -.37 .000 depression self-esteem -.50 -.32 .000 figure 3 texting time fear of isolation .00 .19 .000 (n=440) texting time cellphone dependence .03 .18 .000 fear of isolation cellphone dependence 3.26 .37 .000 cellphone dependence perceived stress .16 .24 .000 cellphone dependence depression .07 .15 .000 perceived stress depression .28 .44 .000 depression self-esteem -.55 -.36 .000 perceived stress self-esteem -.43 -.44 .000 figure 2. cellphone use, cellphone dependence, perceived stress, depression and self-esteem: path analysis (women, n = 1161) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 135 published by scholink inc. figure 3. cellphone use, cellphone dependence, perceived stress, depression and self-esteem: path analysis (men, n = 440) table 4. standardized direct and indirect effects for the models tested figure 2 (n = 1161) texting time fear of isolation cell dependence perceived stress depression direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect fear of isolation .083 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 cell dependence .164 .029 .354 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 perceived stress .000 .045 .000 .082 .231 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 depression .000 .042 .000 .076 .096 .120 .519 .000 .000 .000 self-esteem .000 -.030 .000 -.055 .000 -.155 -.373 -.166 -.320 .000 figure 3 (n = 440) texting time fear of isolation cell dependence perceived stress depression direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect direct indirect fear of isolation .194 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 cell dependence .175 .071 .367 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 perceived stress .000 .058 .000 .086 .235 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 depression .000 .063 .000 .093 .151 .103 .436 .000 .000 .000 self-esteem .000 -.048. .000 -.072 .000 -.195 -.439 -.158 -.362 .000 4. discussion the current study examined multiple aspects of young adults’ use of cellphone and the degree of cellphone dependence as well as its subsequent effects on their psychosocial states. almost 100% of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 136 published by scholink inc. participants have been cellphone owners for quite a long period of time (mean months = 87.75) and almost all of them (96.5%) have shifted to smartphones; more than 90% of the smartphone owners made this shift more than two years ago. a great majority (86.0%) of the participants of the current study owned their first cellphone at age 14 or younger (mean age = 12.55). these results indicate that cellphones have truly become an integral part of young adults’ and adolescents’ life (bond, 2010; hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011; ling, 2002; nasar, hecht, & wener, 2007; walsh et al., 2008). consistent with what has been previously reported (lenhart, 2012), young adults spent more than one hour a day sending more than 70 messages; this is twice as much time than talking on the phone, confirming the previous finding that their communication preference has shifted from talking to texting (lenhart, 2012). consistent with previous findings (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011; junco, merson, & salter, 2010), young women in the current study were more likely to have owned their first cellphone at a younger age than men, were more likely to talk on the phone for a longer period of time, and also spent more time for text messaging than men. women were also more likely to perceive that disengaging from text messaging would lead to social isolation. further, for both men and women, smartphone owners’ cellphone dependence was significantly higher than flip-phone owners, and again, women tended to be more cellphone dependent than men. these findings strongly indicate that women are more engaged in cellphone activities and are at a higher risk of cellphone dependence. the current study also examined predictors of smartphone dependence and its subsequent effects on psychosocial states. contrary to the previous finding (hakoyama & hakoyama, 2011), cellphone history (length of ownership and the initial age of cellphone ownership) failed to predict cellphone dependence; time spent for texting and fear of social isolation due to disengagement from text messaging, however, predicted cellphone dependence; cellphone dependence further predicted perceived stress, depression, and self-esteem, partially supporting the hypothesis and enhancing previous findings (chesley, 2005; panova & lleras, 2016; thomee et al., 2011). cellphone history such as the initial age of cellphone ownership and the length of ownership no longer predicted cellphone dependence, maybe because a great majority of these young adults have started using their cellphones at a young age and have used cellphones for quite a long period of time, the effects of these factors on cellphone dependence has dissipated. their patterns of use may have become normative. considering the significant associations between cellphone dependence and psychosocial states, especially the negative effects of cellphone dependence on perceived stress, depression and self-esteem, cellphone use needs to be examined and monitored regularly. dissemination of the research findings (e.g., the higher cellphone dependence contributes to higher stress and greater depression, leading to lowered self-esteem) would help cellphone users to more consciously engage in cellphone activities, resulting in reducing the risk of cellphone dependence, which would subsequently improve their psychosocial states. knowing the vulnerability to peer influences during early adolescence (elkind, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 137 published by scholink inc. 1967; erikson, 1968), parents may need to pay closer attention to their children’s use of cellphone to prevent them from being negatively affected by excessive and inappropriate use of and dependence to the cellphone. the following tips are believed to help protect adolescents and young adults from heavy dependence on the cellphone. first, it is important to provide research findings that dependence to the cellphone could lead to numerous negative psychosocial states such as increased stress and depression and lower self-esteem. second, introducing coping strategies may help to control the use of cellphone. some of these strategies include self-monitoring, goal setting and restrictive use. numerous studies indicated that self-monitoring is effective for behavior modification (altrows & alberts, 1990; freeman & dexter-mazza, 2004; gansle & mcmahon, 1997; kobori & uebuchi, 2001; toney, kelley, lanclos, 2003); simply monitoring and recording certain behaviors such as the number of times engaged in texting or minutes a day spent on facebook would contribute to reduced engagement. other methods include goal setting, and restrictive use. for instance, set a rule to disengage oneself from cellphone activities associated with certain spaces, time, or activities. examples include disengaging in cellphone activities while driving, cooking, or walking and set an automatic reply message informing the unavailability during these periods; turning off the cellphone when going to bed; or disengage from cellphone activities in a certain environment such as classrooms, bedrooms, or on public transportation. set a goal such as the number of minutes allowed for each voice-calling or to spend a minute or a message less each day than the previous day. these methods will help gain control of cellphone use. cellphones, like any other devices, help us enrich our daily lives. however, we should be aware of possible negative consequences when misused or overused. clearly, cellphones have become indispensable for young adults’ social life, who prefer texting to voice-calling. young cellphone users may focus mainly on its functionality and dismiss possible negative effects associated with its excessive use. however, the results of the current study provide evidence that excessive texting leads to cellphone dependence, which subsequently causes stress and depression, resulting in lower self-esteem. women tend to engage in texting more extensively than men; however, negative effects on psychosocial states due to excessive texting and cellphone dependence appear to be evident for both men and women. in order to promote young adults’ healthy psychological wellbeing, therefore, it is imperative that researchers, educators and parents proactively endeavor to share possible negative effects of excessive cellphone use and coping strategies with young cellphone users. limitations and future research due to ethnic homogeneity of the current sample, the findings of the current study may be limited in their generalizability to ethnic minority groups. use of and dependence to the cellphone may be different for non-college bound young adults. the current study examined cellphone history and the use of cellphone as predictors of cellphone dependence; some of these variables failed to predict cellphone dependence. other factors such as time spent for other functions and access to the internet via www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 138 published by scholink inc. cellphones were not included. future research that incorporates these limitations are bound to help us better understand the roles of cellphone in our daily lives and further provide science-based tips that encourage wise cellphone usage while simultaneously limiting its negative effects. despite these limitations, the findings of the current study eloquently illuminated young adults’ cellphone-related behaviors and gender differences in the use of cellphone. it has also reminded us that modern communication devices such as cellphones may provide us convenience and even joy, however, we constantly need to remind ourselves of negative effects due to overuse and to consciously maintain control over them. references altrows, i. f., & alberts, g. 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(2009). mobile phone use amongst students in a university in malaysia: its correlates and relationship to psychological health. open journal of scientific research, 37(2), 206-218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-009-9120-x microsoft word assc-v4n1-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper ethical thoughts of the regulation of false information in social media: based on legitimacy and social justice chien-wei kung1* 1 school of communication, hong kong baptist university, hong kong sar, china * chien-wei kung, school of communication, hong kong baptist university, hong kong sar, china received: december 6, 2021 accepted: december 25, 2021 online published: december 27, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p1 abstract it is now common for social media to regulate rumors. they claim that the purpose of this action is to safeguard social interests. however, some cases have proved that the regulation of rumor has exceeded the necessary limit, but also showed the partiality of the regulation object and the irrationality of the “rumor” standard. although freedom of speech has boundaries, the regulation of social media is much stricter than it, which hurts social media to play its role as a public sphere. we can’t ask individuals to take too much responsibility for rumor spreading. at the same time, we can’t easily take harsh regulatory measures such as deplatforming and even legal sanctions against individuals, because this will lead to the lack of legitimacy of the regulatory behavior of social media and the aftereffect of injustice. keywords social media, false information, regulation, ethics, justice, legitimacy 1. introduction nowadays, social media and social media regulation coexist in the world. although the control methods may be different in different places, it seems that control has long been a “matter of course”. there are various reasons for regulation, but in most cases, “cracking down on rumors” is a legitimate reason. but is it morally blameless to regulate social media in the name of “combating rumors”? i’m afraid not. 2. cases and problems firstly, we use a case to lead to the problem of this paper. in december 2017, people’s daily, china daily, global times, and other media sent a piece of news on weibo and other social media accounts, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. entitled “a 6-year-old computer programming student who has been admitted to mit at the age of 14”, “a 14-year-old middle school student has signed an enrollment agreement with mit. he said he wants to go to the united states to learn a top technology and go home to serve his motherland.” at first glance, it seems that this is just ordinary news about “gifted youth”, but facts have proved that this is completely false news, and its content is meaningless from beginning to end. not only that, but the people around the middle school student also showed some “invitation letters from tsinghua university, south china university of technology and southern university of science and technology” to prove that he is a genius. however, the evidence is also full of mistakes: the format is wrong, the content is wrong, chinese and english are mixed, and even the signer under the email is william jefferson clinton—the full name of former us president bill clinton. as we all know, “don’t believe rumors and don’t spread rumors” is a very popular sentence on china’s internet in recent years. many internet opinion leaders and media also call themselves “rumor refuters” and are keen to “rumor refutation” in history, current politics, and many other aspects. however, in this kind of social news that most people are keen on, they collectively act as “rumor mongers”, and spread such obvious and low-level rumors. after spreading rumors, the accounts of these official media did not (in fact, it is impossible) accept any punishment, which is very different from the consequences of spreading rumors by ordinary people. because of this, the question of this paper is ready to come out: is it ethically justified to regulate social media in the name of “cracking down on rumors”, and why do “rumor crackers” can take no responsibility for their rumor spreading behavior, and what deep-seated problems does this reflect? 3. theoretical framework of social media regulation 3.1 “gatekeeper” and self-censorship the regulation of social media is a kind of “gateway”, that is, a special “door guard” decides to “enter or exit” (lewin, 1947). when it comes to social media, the gatekeeper should be the platform management of social media. however, because of the substantial non-independence of social media and the influence of political factors, some official or semi-official institutions, such as government agencies or some major media, can usually also play the role of gatekeeper. even if these institutions do not issue clear instructions to social media platforms, social media managers may also make censorship based on the preferences of these institutions. but unlike external gate-keeping, when regulation exists for a certain period, people tend to act as gatekeepers themselves before they speak, i.e., to self-censor. whether it is individuals in general, public figures, or the news media, if their statements are blocked or deleted due to censorship, it is difficult for them to achieve the purpose of disseminating information. therefore, self-censorship to ensure that they pass the “gate keeping” process has become a conscious and unconscious action taken by the majority of social media users. of course, the purpose of self-censorship is likely not just to pass the social media gatekeeper; on the one hand, in some areas, the consequences of some speeches are not just punished by social media. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. potential legal deterrent will induce them to conduct self-examination with higher standards and even make a lot of false statements (robinson & tannenberg, 2018; shen & truex, 2021); on the other hand, psychological factors such as fear of isolation (i.e., the spiral of silence) (bar-tal, 2017), economic factors (gray & bishop kendzia, 2009), etc., may also lead to self-censorship, so the fear of being punished by the platform or furthermore by other institutions is not the only factor of self-censorship. however, in the context of this paper, we believe that the contribution of gatekeeping to self-censorship is evident, as evidenced by the relevant studies cited earlier. 3.2 the limits and standards of freedom of speech when it comes to regulating the media, it is necessary to mention freedom of expression. take the united states as an example. the legal root of freedom of speech in the united states is the first amendment to the constitution: “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.” the above-mentioned freedom of speech includes the freedom of “what to say” and “what not to say”, but this does not mean that freedom of speech in the united states has no boundaries. for example, speech and publishing activities that infringe intellectual property rights, threaten the president of the united states, or incite imminent violence are not protected by the first amendment (volokh, 2008). the example of the united states shows that freedom of speech must have boundaries, which seems to provide legitimacy for social media to regulate rumors. however, we still need to pay attention to one problem: most of the unprotected speech stipulated by the united states has already belonged to the level of “felony”, and its social harmfulness is also obvious. however, in contrast, many rumors regulated by social media are not harmful at all many are not even “rumors” at all. moreover, social media tends to discriminate when regulating, that is, they prefer to protect social media accounts with official background, which is clearly reflected in the cases at the beginning of the article and will be discussed in detail later. in short, the “rumor regulation” standard of social media is much higher than the “due standard of freedom of speech” in the general sense, and the object is selected. therefore, the conflict between regulation and freedom of speech is still worth discussing. 3.3 social media as a public sphere habermas put forward the concept of the “public sphere”, that is, a public communication space for organizing, disseminating, discussing, and negotiating the information required for democratic operation in society. this is a virtual structure formed by information that can promote democratic politics. the media is not a natural public sphere, in countries such as north korea and saudi arabia, the rulers exercise absolute power over the media, and any content criticizing the ruling elite can not be seen in the newspapers. only when the media can act as the “fourth right”, that is, exercise the political right of public supervision on behalf of its readers, can the media constitute the “public sphere” in the sense of habermas (schulz & cobley, 2018). in a theory of justice, rawls proposed the principle of justice based on the “veil of ignorance” and regarded them as the realization path of social justice, and the media should act accordingly (schulz & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. cobley, 2018). rawls believes that if we know nothing about our situation (that is, the veil of ignorance), we are bound to seek what he calls “justice as fairness”—that is, an egalitarian justice that only tilts towards the most disadvantaged. because under the veil of ignorance, each of us may worry that we will suffer from all kinds of systematic discrimination. therefore, only fair and targeted preference can solve the problem. so is the public sphere media or the north korean media more conducive to the realization of social justice? the answer is obvious. the north korean media does not have any autonomy, but as a medium in the public sphere, it can speak for the interests of everyone to the greatest extent—including all kinds of vulnerable groups. to sum up, based on the concept of the public sphere and justice theory, the media should strive to become the public sphere to promote the realization of social justice, which is the direction of its ethical legitimacy. the theoretical framework has been elaborated so far. the following will make a comprehensive analysis of the rumor regulation of social media based on the above theoretical framework. 4. why is the legitimacy of social media regulation in doubt 4.1 ethical query on excessive regulation different from traditional newspapers and other media, the particularity of social media is that almost everyone can speak, and individuals can compete with the largest media in a country. this relative equality enables social media to achieve its mission as a public sphere with the depth and breadth that traditional media do not have, especially in many aspects such as supervision and public opinion feedback. social media can usually reflect many problems that traditional media can’t do with high timeliness and communication speed. but obviously, this public domain attribute is being hurt by excessive regulation, and the degree is gradually deepening. social media has established the moral legitimacy of regulation on the grounds of preventing social harm. however, as we have noticed when discussing freedom of speech, “the boundary of freedom of speech” is an excellent excuse, but the regulatory action of social media has far exceeded the necessary boundary. further, the regulation of social media is fundamentally contrary to “public”. although social media usually lists many rules most of these guidelines are unclear and vague, and the resulting self-examination is more significant. over time, although social media will not completely lose its uniqueness, it can no longer fulfill its duty—that is, the voice channel of ordinary people. this fundamentally obliterates the legitimacy of social media and is not conducive to the realization of social justice under rawls’ framework. especially considering the problem based on rawls’ justice principle of “the most unfavorable is the most favorable”, ordinary people are undoubtedly in the “most unfavorable” position in the right to speak. the excessive regulation of social media makes them silent and unable to speak even if they have the intention, which is untenable in ethics. overall, on the one hand, excessive regulation hurts the public domain attribute of social media itself, on the other hand, it almost strangles the voice right of ordinary people, which are two reasons why the current social media regulation should be criticized ethically. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. 4.2 regulator’s lies we can go back to the case to further think about the problem of “regulation” itself. as mentioned earlier, the current regulation of social media is selective. individuals are in the most disadvantageous position in the regulation, and various official—or “mainstream” accounts will be protected. there were many loopholes in the false information in the case, but many official accounts turned a blind eye to it. it was not until a few days after many netizens questioned it that the false information was deleted by some official accounts. this is enough to make us doubt what the rumor regulation of social media is for. as we all know, in many cases, social platforms prevent and control rumors of some negative news quite quickly. for example, social media will respond within an hour when some negative social events begin to spread. however, although the rumors in the case at the beginning of this paper spread widely, they were not regulated by social media. as of december 14, 2021, this false news is still kept in the weibo of various multimedia such as the northern morning post. in ordinary times, many “rumors” will be deleted and even further investigated for responsibility without factual verification. however, it turns out that this information is not a rumor. some official organizations will choose to declare that the real news is a rumor, and their behavior is a strict rumor. for example, in the dismissal of nurses from xianyang maternal and child health hospital, the hospital directly claims that this “false report” is related to “hostile forces” without showing any evidence. similarly, the hospital of the incident, like many official media in the case at the beginning of this article, was not punished, although they made quite severe and unfounded charges against the whistleblowers of the incident. the above events jointly prove a view already put forward above, that is, the “rumor regulation” is not as legitimate as they claim. the text of the rules and regulations is vague and “dumb” when encountering specific objects. this is enough to prove that the ostensible reason for rumor regulation, that is, the platform statute and its declared “social interests”, are just excuses. on the contrary, regulation is more often just to serve the “mainstream” accounts and the people behind them, which is the true face of “rumor regulation”. it is undeniable that many regulated rumors may be rumors, but why do unregulated rumors slip through the net? why are ordinary people likely to stop their accounts and even be punished by law when they spread rumors, and these “mainstream” accounts are safe? let alone those accounts that claim to be “refuting rumors” but are actually “fabricating rumors”, why should they not be responsible for their actions at all? these are questions that the current social media rumor regulation is unwilling to answer and impossible to answer. with the gatekeeper theory, this is perfectly normal. why do they conduct self-censorship because of regulation? it is because they are aware of the possibility of punishment for their statements, not because of the so-called “social interest” in censoring whether their statements are “rumors” that are being gated. in other words, they are aware that social media gate-keeping is not essential for the social good, nor is it really about fighting rumors, but rather is a pretext for some other purpose. from this point of view, they may even be able to exercise different levels of self-censorship on different social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. media. if social media were to regulate rumors purely in the social interest, why would they need to “tailor” their self-censorship standards for different social media? meanwhile, the impure motivation of regulation can also explain why these “mainstream” accounts can be exempted from punishment. otherwise, these “mainstream” accounts cannot go unpunished. but in fact, regulation exists for these “mainstream” accounts, and “mainstream” accounts can even be said to be the actual controllers of regulation to a considerable extent, so they can “spread rumors” almost irresponsibly. 4.3 personal responsibility so far, the negative impact of social media regulation and the impure purpose of regulation have been obvious. but some people may question it. after all, rumor regulation has indeed played a role in combating rumors. don’t individuals have to be responsible for their rumor-spreading behavior at all? of course, we do not think that all rumors should not be held responsible. after all, freedom of speech can not be unlimited. but in many cases, asking for personal responsibility is just empty talk. unlike professional news media, it is almost impossible for individuals to fulfill the obligation of fact verification when disseminating information, which is determined by personal limitations. if an individual has to check the facts carefully, the only appropriate result is to keep them quiet. if you are strict about “not spreading rumors”, you can’t even be the microphone of the mainstream media. after all, even the mainstream media may make mistakes. therefore, all punishments beyond “deletion” are inappropriate unless the parties deliberately and try to harm society with rumors. we can use a hypothesis similar to the “veil of ignorance” to provide another basis for the weakening of personal responsibility. if we do not directly prohibit the public from speaking but only strictly investigate the responsibility for public rumors, everyone will be afraid. after all, individuals cannot carefully verify the facts. it is difficult for you to know whether the information you reprint is true. in other words, when we reprint the news, each of us is actually in a small “veil of ignorance” so we are bound to ask for a lighter punishment for our possible rumors. if not, one day everyone will tacitly conduct strict self-examination and even shut up, thus falling into the strange scene of “no voice is prohibited, but no voice”. in addition, social media should defend the voice of almost everyone. most traditional media have their positions and prejudices on many issues such as politics, some algorithms have been able to identify this bias (hamborg et al., 2019). however, no matter what kind of prejudice they have, the opinions of the mainstream media are mostly within a certain range, that is, “established pluralism”. this is not to say that there is only one voice in the mainstream media, but most of these voices still have their direction, that is, they are helpers of the authorities, not complete critics (lee, 2002). we should note that if the media want to fulfill their mission as the public sphere, they should be independent of power (schulz & cobley, 2018). however, few media are completely independent of power in the world. this does not mean that the media is controlled by the government, nor does it mean that the media has reached cooperation agreements with some powerful figures. after all, the audience has their positions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. and preferences, they will tend to some power figures, and the media is bound to cater to the audience. of course, the media can certainly have their position and shape public opinion based on it, but the public that these media can not represent is in a state of complete aphasia. at this time, the particularity of social media is revealed: social media provides a voice platform for “outsiders”, allowing them to be seen by the world; this determines that social media, as a public sphere, must be more representative and popular than traditional media, and also makes its role in supervising power more significant. finally, let’s turn our attention to the case and the problem that has been repeatedly emphasized: it is absurd not to require the responsibility of “mainstream” accounts while requiring personal responsibility. after all, they have much more influence than ordinary people. however, there is another difficulty in holding “mainstream” accounts accountable. after all, directly disabling the “mainstream” accounts will cause considerable inconvenience and may even lead to legal disputes. however, at least we can be sure that the punishment of “deletion” should be applied to this obvious rumor. but until today, this rumor of many “mainstream” accounts has not been deleted. therefore, since the official account has not suffered even the lightest punishment, why can we assert that it is legitimate for individuals to be disabled and even bear legal responsibility? to sum up, even those who spread rumors should not be required to bear much responsibility if they do not have great harm and subjective malignancy. if not, social media itself will lose its meaning at least in the public sphere. although some people may be happy to see such a scene, it does not comply with the due principles of social justice of social media and will make social media lose its “the fourth estate” attribute. 5. lack of legitimacy of social media rumor regulation the excessive regulation of communication media shows a lack of legitimacy, that is, it is not “a value whereby something or someone is recognized and accepted as right and proper” (chen, 2016). although defenders of regulatory behavior will claim that “deplatforming” (i.e., disabling accounts) can effectively prevent the spread of false information (chandrasekharan, 2017), it is doubtful whether this measure is “necessary” for ordinary social media users. the particularity of social media is that most people use it not to play the role of “media” in the traditional sense, but more to obtain emotional support (hamburg et al., 2019), establish people to win respect (chua, 2016), and other needs, which means that “deplatforming” not only curbs users from spreading rumors, it also infringes other rights and interests of users especially those that have little to do with news communication. therefore, for ordinary people, the legitimacy of direct “deplatforming” is not widely recognized, which is a matter of course. as mentioned above, the excessive regulation of social media and the self-censorship caused by it does great harm to social justice, even from a non-utilitarian point of view. even from the perspective of deontology, “deplatforming” also hurts the natural human right of freedom of speech. although freedom of speech does not mean that pseudoscientists have the freedom of speech in academic journals (i.e., the issue of “time, place and way of freedom of speech”), social media is different. it is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. closer to the nature of “traditional public forum”, so it should only be regulated by “content-neutral time, place and way restrictions” specifically, such regulatory measures should “leave sufficient channels for information exchange” (o’neill, 1999). depriving users of their freedom to express other opinions because they publish some content beyond the bottom line is a kind of “prior review”, but this is not justified. another question of legitimacy of regulation is why “rumors” are “rumors”. if we judge a piece of information as a rumor directly based on the statements of stakeholders without combining other evidence, this behavior is not justified at all. interestingly, this is the most common situation on social media in some regions. this does not mean that stakeholders cannot refute rumors about themselves, but they need evidence to refute rumors. of course, not all rumors can produce evidence. for example, if someone forges a document and claims that it is a top-secret document of a company, it is difficult for the company to prove it is false information. in this case, it is still necessary to review the authenticity and support of the information itself—but similarly, this operation should be cautious. generally speaking, the legitimacy of rumor regulation lies in the injustice of regulation means on the one hand, and the injustice of regulation content on the other hand. as long as these two problems are solved, its legitimacy is bound to be significantly improved. finally, the mission of social media as the public sphere can be achieved only on the premise of appropriate supervision, and the goal of social justice can be achieved only in this way. 6. conclusion we conclude that: social media claim that they regulate rumors for social interests, but the facts have proved that this is not entirely true. if regulation can be based on social interests, the problems of its legitimacy and justice will no longer exist to a great extent. “public sphere” is always one of the most precious attributes of social media. the abused “deplatforming” and unreasonable “rumor regulation” will only hurt this attribute, but can not play its social role. the content discussed in this paper is not just rumors, but all social media regulations. today, i think this issue deserves our attention. references bar-tal, d. (2017). self-censorship as a socio-political-psychological phenomenon: conception and research. political psychology, 38, 37-65. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12391 chandrasekharan, e., pavalanathan, u., srinivasan, a., glynn, a., eisenstein, j., & gilbert, e. (2017). you can’t stay here: the efficacy of reddit’s 2015 ban examined through hate speech. proceedings of the acm on human-computer interaction, 1(cscw), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134666 chen, j. (2016). useful complaints: how petitions assist decentralized authoritarianism in china. rowman & littlefield. chua, t. h. h., & chang, l. (2016). follow me and like my beautiful selfies: singapore teenage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. computers in human behavior, 55, 190-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.011 gray, g. c., & bishop kendzia, v. 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(2008). the first amendment and related statutes: problems, cases and policy arguments. foundation press. microsoft word assc-v3n2-p65 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 65 original paper healing the healer: exploring barriers and solutions to supporting workers in the domestic violence sector katrina milaney phd1*, lisa zaretsky, msc1, carrie mcmanus2 & becky van tassel2 1 community health sciences, university of calgary, canada 2 ethno-culturally diverse communities, calgary domestic violence collective, canada * katrina milaney phd, community health sciences, university of calgary, canada received: march 24, 2021 accepted: april 2, 2021 online published: april 15, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p65 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p65 abstract individuals who work with domestic violence (dv) survivors are often exposed to traumatic events that can leave them feeling overwhelmed, distressed, and susceptible to experiences of trauma themselves. the purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the health and wellbeing of staff in the dv sector to build capacity around providing safe and supportive working environments. a focus group was conducted with 40 members of a local domestic violence collective while surveys were completed by 61 professionals within the dv sector. thematic analysis of focus group discussions and descriptive analysis of survey data highlighted primary barriers to supportive and safe organizational cultures including the work environment, leadership, and supervision. specifically, supervisors and organizational culture play a significant role in contributing to employee health and wellness. results suggest the need for increased importance on the role that senior/executive staff must take in protecting their staff from trauma-related harms, including focusing on trauma-informed supervision, structure, self-care, education and training, agency policies and the safety of the work environment. future research could explore the impact of prioritizing the role of senior and executive staff in creating a safe working environment while informing new policies and strategies for mitigating staff burnout. keywords domestic violence, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, organizational culture, trauma-informed supervision 1. introduction individuals who work with domestic violence (dv) survivors are exposed to traumatic events and stories that can leave workers feeling overwhelmed, distressed, and susceptible to experiences of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 66 published by scholink inc. trauma themselves. the psychological effect of trauma on individuals who work with trauma survivors is often referred to as secondary traumatic stress (sts), compassion fatigue (cf) or vicarious trauma (vt), ultimately resulting in burnout. although similar, sts, cf, and vt have been defined in the literature as follows: •sts has been defined as the trauma and emotional distress experienced by listening to survivor stories with symptoms including re-experiencing the survivor’s traumatic event, avoiding any reminders of the event, arousal or hyper vigilance, and psychological symptoms similar to post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) such as exhaustion, avoidance, and numbing (baird & kracen, 2006; baird & jenkins, 2003). •cf has been defined as “a condition that is the cumulative result of the strong, authentic, empathetic feelings experienced by a healthcare professional while continuously caring for and meeting the emotional and medical needs of patients and/or their families” (mennella, 2018, p. 1). the symptoms of cf may include emotional numbness, apathy, anger, anxiety, powerlessness, physical problems such as headaches or muscle tension, absenteeism, and substance use (abendroth, 2011; billhartz, 2012; carpenter, 2013; hooper et al., 2010; jenkins & warren, 2012). •vt is often referred to as secondary trauma and is a harmful shift in an individual’s beliefs about themselves, others, and the world around them due to their engagement with client trauma. individuals who work with dv and sexual abuse survivors are extremely vulnerable to developing symptoms of vt which may include flashbacks, nightmares, numbing, disassociation, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, reduced personal accomplishment, interpersonal difficulties and difficulty controlling negative emotions. (peled-avram, 2017; cunningham, 2003; jenkins & baird, 2002; bell, kulkarni & dalton, 2003). a likely outcome of sts, cf, and vt is burnout which leaves individuals feeling emotionally exhausted, having a negative attitude towards clients, and experiencing a reduced sense of accomplishment, meaning and commitment to one’s job. health service workers are extremely vulnerable to burnout due to the emotional expectations of the work and may also include a lack of recognition for one’s work, conflict between one’s values and the values of the organization they work for, and a lack of input into organizational decisions (bell, kulkarni, & dalton, 2003; tarshis & baird, 2018; newell & macneil, 2010). for individuals who work within the dv sector, sts, cf, vt, and burnout can have a profound impact on their personal and professional lives. beckerman and wozniak (2018) identified hyper vigilance, negative impacts on personal life, a harmful shift in worldview, and a lack of coping methods in dv workers who were deeply affected by the stories they heard from those they were supporting. additionally, iliffe and steed (2000) found that dv workers reported feeling drained, upset, and horrified by the stories they heard, resulting in feeling less safe, more wary, and fearful, isolation from friends, family and coworkers, powerlessness and being distrustful of others. furthermore, individuals who work with trauma survivors may experience a heightened awareness of the reality and occurrence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 67 published by scholink inc. of traumatic events making them more aware of their vulnerability, experiencing a loss of control and unsafe or insecure feelings, difficulty with intimacy and feelings of avoidance, anger, and guilt (trippany, white kress, & wilcoxon, 2004). accumulation and/or sustained feelings can result in physical illness, rage, diabetes, hypertension, apathy, depression, insomnia, and weight gain with impacts to organizations including absenteeism, tardiness, poor client care, inadequate communication, decreased quality of client care, increased staff turnover, lack of engagement and lost dollars in revenue (mattioli, walters, & cannon, 2018; newell & macneil, 2010). there is an increasing amount of research around the importance of organizational culture and supervision teams taking an active role in supporting the health and wellbeing of employees. research suggests there is a correlation between high levels of burnout and low organizational support, inadequate wages, excessive overtime, unpaid vacation, difficult working relationships, and a lack of mentorship or guidance (babin et al., 2012; slattery & goodman, 2009; iliffe & steed, 2000). additionally, ineffective supervision can have detrimental effects on employee well-being. individuals who are exposed to trauma often work without quality supervision are more likely to experience symptoms of burnout, sts and vt with workers feeling isolated and alone, unable to process their feelings about their trauma work, struggling to find creative ways to cope, experiencing very high or unmanageable caseloads, having no access to appropriate training and overall, experiencing symptoms of burnout very quickly (beckerman & wozniak, 2018; baird & jenkins, 2003; peled-avram, 2017; newell & macneil, 2010). to understand how sts, cf, vt, and burnout may impact individuals in the dv sector and to build upon the research surrounding the role of organizational culture and supervision in safe and supportive working environments, the purpose of this study is to explore the health and wellbeing of staff within the dv sector and explore potential barriers and solutions to providing safe and supportive working environments. in a previous study with the same co-hort as this project, 68% of workers in the dv sector reported personal experience with or witnessing dv (milaney et al, 2021). given previous researchers arguments about the deleterious impact of dv work and the high rates of personal experience among workers, the research questions are as follows: 1) how does working in the domestic violence sector affect the health and wellbeing of staff? 2) how can we build capacity to create healthy workplace cultures and provide safe and supportive working environments? 2. methods to help understand the health and wellbeing of staff within the dv sector, the chosen method for this study was qualitative with the goal of understanding and utilizing participant’ experiences to find ways to build capacity and enhance organizational culture. data was collected through focus groups and surveys interviews. in total, 101 participants were recruited from a local dv collective for this study (organizations included addictions, children, disability, ethno cultural, funders, government, health, immigrant, justice, mental health, research, sexual abuse, treatment, and women’s shelters). first, a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 68 published by scholink inc. focus group was held with 40 participants to discuss barriers, gaps, and strategies to providing safe and supportive working environments for those who work in the dv sector. second, survey interviews were administered to either supervisors, directors, and executive directors (n = 35) or front-line staff (n = 26). the instrument for both groups was similar and asked questions about organizational policies, perceived barriers to organizational support, and strategies to reduce perceived barriers. this study received ethics approval from the university of calgary (reb19-1009). 3. results 3.1 focus group focus group discussions about the barriers, gaps, and strategies to providing safe and supportive working environments for those who work in the dv sector highlighted four key themes: 1) organizational support; 2) organizational self-care; 3) training and policies; and 4) workload and expectations. 3.1.1 organizational support participants spoke of the need for organizations and leadership to acknowledge and address their role in employee burnout instead of placing blame entirely on employees. participants re-iterated the importance of organizations establishing a safe and supportive environment as follows: 1) establishing daily and weekly debrief meetings; 2) creating support networks within the agency; 3) carefully selecting strong leadership teams in which supervisors are open and available to discuss emotional impacts of trauma work; 4) creating supportive space for workers to deal with the process of grieving and frustration in trauma work; and 5) considering the individuality of each staff member and asking what they need to be successful. “it is on us to take care of ourselves, but responsibility lies within organizations to create supports and safety.” “hold leadership accountable to support.” “burnout does not come from clients—it comes from hitting our heads against the wall and not moving forward.” “choose your team wisely—pick people who you know can build a strong team that works well to support each other.” 3.1.2 organizational self-care participants spoke of the importance of organizations and leadership teams encouraging self-care within the work environment by embedding it into job roles and making it a daily responsibility. some participants reported not knowing what self-care was or how to do it, while others acknowledged their work roles included no form of self-care. suggestions for having the leadership team “on board” with self-care included the following: 1) establishing a wellness committee to create scheduled self-care activities at work such as weekly yoga sessions; 2) encouraging self-care activities that are work appropriate such as clothing swaps or libraries; 3) empowering staff to have difficult conversations as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 69 published by scholink inc. self-care may be hard for some; 4) promoting a culture the focuses on rest, response and learning; 5) developing a sense of community with other agencies to bring people together and collaborate with each other; 6) finding innovative ways to support and encourage self-care; and 7) modifying work hours to encourage a healthy work-life balance. “i just don’t know what to do—counselor says i need a hobby—i end up helping others… that is my hobby. i like helping people, it is hard to get away from that.” “self-care should be part of daily responsibility of your day—need to empower and support staff to engage in self-care” “we don’t perceive our own wellness as part of the work—it is done on the side or after work.” “set aside time to support each other—we have to be creative.” 3.1.3 training and policies participants discussed the need for ongoing training around trauma and burnout including safety awareness training, psychological health and safety standards, and vicarious trauma training. additionally, participants identified the need for hr policies and practices that are trauma-informed to help mitigate triggers that could be re-traumatizing. “it can be a small circle and we may know the abuser… may be a trigger for staff.” “we bring our own stuff with us…. how can we create policies and procedures that do not further traumatize?” “hr policies knowing it is okay [for staff] to access counseling.” “guiding principles are voice, trust and collaboration.” 3.1.4 workload and expectations participants identified workload and expectations as the biggest challenges they face when trying to take care of themselves. participants described these barriers as follows: 1) small agencies with limited number of employees results in workers being extremely busy and having no time for healing strategies; 2) workers being asked to do more with less as funding gets cut, leaving no funding for culture and wellness; and 3) staff are encouraged to heal people, meet unrealistic expectations and work under high pressure. “small agency with 3 full time employees—hard to develop culture because there is work to be done.” “sometimes there is just too much work—made to feel guilty if there is waitlist.” “society encourages us to wear exhaustion as a badge of honor… the harder you work, the more tired you are, the busier you are—the better employee you are.” 3.2 surveys surveys completed by frontline staff and leadership highlighted the importance of organizational support, safety, and self-care; however, identified barriers and strategies to these barriers were different between the two groups. 3.2.1 organizational support of the frontline staff who participated in the survey, 37% were aware of organizational policies while www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 70 published by scholink inc. 63% were very aware. this compares with 19% of supervisors being aware and 71% being very aware. interestingly, 10% of supervisors were only slightly aware or not at all aware of organizational policies. 50% of frontline staff reported feeling supported by organizational leadership when dealing with stress and burnout, followed by 42% feeling very supported, and 8% feeling no support at all. “i find that often we put the responsibility of staff mental health on the staff themselves but don’t really look at how the agency treats staff or look at improving communication process or the culture of the organization. i think these are extremely crucial to address staff mental health.” (supervisor survey) frontline staff were asked “my organization has strategies in place to help me deal with stress and burnout”. over 40% of respondents somewhat agreed. results are shown in figure 1. figure 1. percentage of frontline staff who believe their organization has strategies in place to deal with dtress and burnout frontline staff were asked “i feel safe at work”. over 75% of respondents strongly agreed/agreed. results are shown in figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 71 published by scholink inc. figure 2. percentage of frontline staff who feel safe at work frontline staff were asked if they had self-care strategies in place. over 75% respondents strongly agreed/agreed. results are shown in figure 3. figure 3. percentage of frontline staff who have delf-care strategies in place “i avoid working and checking emails in evenings, weekends and holidays, except in emergencies. ensure there is time for my health and spiritual needs during time off”. (frontline staff survey) “i do a lot of outdoor activities to help me with burnout, i take time to myself so i do not bring it home to my own family… i sit with my elders or talk to them when needed.” (front-line staff survey) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 72 published by scholink inc. “when feeling overwhelmed or burned out i try to make time (30-60 minutes) to tackle a task or research a topic that gets me inspired. this could be professional or personal development goals.” (front-line staff survey) 3.2.2 barriers there was a difference in priorities between frontline staff and supervisors regarding barriers to a safe and supportive working environment. frontline staff identified inadequate funding as the biggest barrier while supervisors reported a lack of leadership training. front-line staff ranked barriers as follows: 1) inadequate funding; 2) inadequate resources (e.g., limited training, high caseloads); 3) lack of effective supervision to deal with burnout; 4) lack of organizational time/support for debriefing/mentorship/peer support; 5) lack of training/education for leaders; 6) lack of organizational policy to respond to burnout/secondary trauma; 7) vt support is not prioritized. supervisors ranked barriers as follows: 1) lack of training/education for leaders; 2) inadequate resources (e.g., limited training, high caseloads); 3) inadequate funding; 4) lack of organizational policy to respond to burnout/secondary trauma; 5) lack of organizational time/support for debriefing/mentorship/peer support; 6) lack of effective supervision to deal with burnout; 7) lack of autonomy; 8) vt support is not prioritized. “most organizations don’t have a lot of redundancy across roles so if someone is burnt out or has to go on leave it impacts their team. this can create an environment of frustration when someone isn’t taking care of themselves because we all know what it will lead to. i think respecting people’s personal boundaries around their health and wellness creates difficult grey areas for employers in the context of burnout and secondary trauma.” (supervisor survey). 3.2.3 strategies frontline staff identified the need for organizations to advocate for funding for balanced workloads as the most important strategy to reduce burnout, followed by developing organizational polices and encouraging staff to follow them, providing training and capacity building, and hosting events and opportunities to self-care. “advocate to governments and service providers on the importance of self-care. collect and publicize statistics on prevalence and effects of burnout (effects on staff, absences and on service delivery).” (front-line staff survey) “i think everyone working in frontline work is doing amazing and they do need to be compensated for their hard work and praised…be open and aware of what your staff may be experiencing. talk on the regular about self care and how important it is, if our managers follow this model then the frontline staff will see that self-care is important too.” (front-line staff survey) “more wellness days. we have three per year. it’s not enough and often it isn’t meant to address burnout, stress, or mental health-related issues.” (front-line staff survey) “organizational day-staff attend a day of sessions on self care, burn out, etc. to build capacity and team cohesion. these sessions can occur in one hour time slots, and following a learning session there www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 73 published by scholink inc. could be some self care exercises scheduled like yoga, adult crafts, art exercises, meditation, cooking a small meal in community kitchen setting, etc.” (front-line staff survey) supervisors identified the need for training and capacity building as the most important strategy to reduce burnout, followed by advocating for funding, hosting events and opportunities for self-care, and developing organizational polices and encouraging staff to follow them. “organizations need to learn how to ensure that staff are the product they need to survive and make sure they are put first-introducing the concept of the inverse hierarchy.” (supervisor survey) “i believe it really comes down to effective leadership where staff and supervisors feel safe to communicate their experiences and needs without feeling shame or worry of being seen as incompetent. relationship based leadership and building high trust cultures is essential.” (supervisor survey) education for all staff and leadership to better understand the signs of cf and vt. i believe it is important for staff to have the information, be aware of signs and be self-aware enough to know when they are experiencing symptoms. if it is more normalized and validated staff might feel less shame and judgment surrounding the issue. stigma is getting in the way of preventative conversations.” (supervisor survey) frontline staff and supervisors suggested specific ideas for organizational policies including: 1) debriefing sessions, case consultations; 2) onsite self-care opportunities; 3) access to counselling; 4) maximum caseloads; 5) extended mental health days; 6) policies that empower staff to “feel connected to the bigger why of the work we do as an antidote to vicarious trauma and burn out”; 7) policies on how change is communicated, who is included in change processes, how to make change and policy development more of a collaborative process with staff rather than a top down process . “if staff have been affected by a client passing or being severely abused then provide them with more support, debrief the situation but also ensure your staff are okay, provide them the time to grieve… build relationships with them.” (front-line staff survey) 4. discussion results from this study highlight the need for organizations to take an active role in creating and sustaining an organizational culture that promotes health and wellness such as embedding trauma-informed supervision, developing trauma-informed organizational structures and policies, and modelling and incorporating strategies for self-care. 4.1 trauma-informed supervision our results support previous findings that highlight the crucial need for effective supervision within organizations in the prevention and mitigation of sts, cf, vt, and burnout (beckerman & wozniak, 2018; bell, kulkarni & dalton, 2003; peled-avram, 2017; trippany, white kress, & wilcoxon, 2004). although organizations may say they are trauma-informed, it is vital that the principles of trauma-informed supervision are in action and embedded within the organizational culture to ensure the health and wellbeing of staff are prioritized. trauma-informed supervision must inspire, teach, support, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 74 published by scholink inc. model, challenge, evaluate, collaborate, and advocate (peterson, 2015). strategies for capacity building around trauma-informed supervision could include: 1) defining what trauma-informed is and how to practically apply it; 2) ongoing training around boundary setting, conflict resolution, problem solving, and vulnerability; 3) encouraging supervisors to build their self-awareness through reflective questioning and dialogue; 4) sharing current research, evidence, and best practices for trauma-informed supervision; 5) challenging supervisors to reduce power differences with staff and create shared decision making and input into organizational decisions; and 6) advocate for their staff to ensure there are adequate resources to protect their health and wellbeing. future research could explore the impacts of embedding trauma-informed supervision through the administration of follow up surveys and focus groups to assess any changes in understanding and response trauma and burnout. results could help inform the development of needed strategies and recommendations. 4.2 organizational structure and policy similar to trauma-informed supervision, our findings support the need for organizational structures and policies to be grounded in principles of trauma-informed practice. trauma-informed practice is guided by principles of safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment as well as respect for diversity (reference?). suggestions for building trauma-informed organizational structures and policies include: 1) clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and job descriptions; 2) establishing open, transparent lines of accountability and decision making; 3) ensuring staff caseloads are manageable and providing options for time away from direct client contact; 4) creating formal measures of informed consent with staff regarding risks of trauma work at time of hiring; 5) creating and implementing ‘best practices’ and strategies to protect staff; and 6) having opportunities for staff to participate in social change activities such as work towards influencing policy. future research could evaluate the impact on dv workers’ experiences of sts, cf, vt, and burnout once organizational policies and practices have shifted towards a lens that is trauma informed. 4.3 self-care strategies self-care must be built into policy and modeled by executive staff, leadership, and supervisors. our findings suggest that organizations must take responsibility in ensuring self-care is encouraged and offered as part of the job role. strategies for building self-care into organizational structure and policy could include: 1) establishing peer support groups, counselling services, and debrief sessions; 2) pairing newly hired staff and practicum students with more experienced staff; 3) stress management sessions, yoga classes, a walking or a meditation group, or artistic activities; and 4) team retreats (could be hosted by organizations with resources). in alignment with trauma-informed supervision, staff should be engaged and included within the decision-making process of self-care activities. future research should explore if and how partner organizations embed trauma-informed principles of self-care into policy and practice and how they could be adapted. furthermore, future research could examine how building capacity with other agencies in the dv sector supports self-care strategies and normalizes it within the sector. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 75 published by scholink inc. 4.4 limitations a limitation of this study was the use of surveys which can be open to interpretation and/or subject to bias while limiting the range of responses from participants (simon & goes, 2013). 4.5 conclusions dv workers are extremely vulnerable to stress and trauma due to their ongoing exposure to dv survivors’ traumatic stories, and often, personal experiences with violence. barriers to providing safe and supportive working environments for dv workers include a lack of organizational support, supervision, and self-care, training and policies that are not trauma-informed, and unmanageable expectations and workloads. potential solutions to address these barriers include an organizational culture that promotes health and wellness such as embedding trauma-informed supervision, developing trauma-informed organizational structures and policies, and modelling and incorporating strategies for self-care. the primary responsibility for self-care is on individual workers; 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(2017). the role of relational-oriented supervision and personal and work-related factors in the development of vicarious traumatization. clinical social work journal, 45(1), 22-32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-015-0573-y peterson, s. (2015). trauma-informed supervision: what they didn’t teach us in grad school. (www.reliaslearning.com/webinars). slattery, s. m., & goodman, l. a. (2009). secondary traumatic stress among domestic violence advocates: workplace risk and protective factors. violence against women, 15(11), 1358-1379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801209347469 tarshis, b., & baird, s. (2019). addressing the indirect trauma of social work students in intimate partner violence (ipv) field placements: a framework for supervision. clinical social work journal, 47, 90-102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-018-0678-1 trippany, l. r., white kress, e. v., & wilcoxon, a. (2004). preventing vicarious trauma: what www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 77 published by scholink inc. counselors should know when working with trauma survivors. journal of counseling and development, 82(1), 31-37. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00283.x advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 15 original paper hypermodern documentary context: a kernel of authentic choices jarmo valkola received: december 12, 2022 accepted: january 12, 2023 online published: january 26, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p15 1. cognitive and phenomenological challenges in hypermodern documentary, the rhythms, and intonations of images, sounds and speech of everyday life are usually inhabited and pervaded by immersive and reflective traces of the past, which influences the present and points out to the future. the mental functioning of thinking and reasoning are mechanisms participating in this atonement of social, psychological, and cultural framework. they are felt as social functions of our history and as paraphrased fragments and sources of material perception and withdrawn consciousness. the constitutive contingency of the hypermodern stance of documentary discourse is concerned with the philosophical domains about the paradigmatic state and status of documentary in our times. nowadays it is not always easy to differentiate personal experience from the mediating technologies that have reconstituted and irradiated both personal and collective experiences. in this regard, media technologies of communication correspond to our somatic channels. obviously, in the case of sight, the medium is visual and in the case of hearing, the medium is sound. these are the two sensory channels thought to be the most consequential for thinking. in thinking about language, the matter is different, because there is no single sensory channel corresponding to and possibly inspired by it. language can be spoken in which case it is heard or written in which case it is seen. so, language is not so much a medium of perception but of representation, and a medium in which we often speak of the visual arts as different media like painting, drawing, and sculpting. whether or not language is not merely an inventory of the various items of experience which seem relevant to the individual, it is also a self-contained, creative symbolic organisation. and this organisation not only refers to experience largely acquired without its help but defines the experience for us through reason of its formal completeness, and because of our unconscious projection of expectations in the field of experience (sapir, 1931, p. 74). (note 1) later, this idea was developed into the whorfian hypothesis that language moulds sthinking. of course, it might be necessary to point out that thinking is susceptible by language, which itself adapts to thought and action. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. the embedded connotation of an interior world comes close to these perceptive embodiments, which exist in time. (note 2) impression or “trait saillant”, as henri thulié recognised, to understand a physiognomy well, one must render the impression that one has when on sees it. there are always conspicuous features in a face or a costume that are immediately striking. (note 3) following the same instruction, impressive, significant audiovisual details form the kernel of documentary discourse. this similar ideation provides the needed links between early fragmentations of impressionist, figurative instalments of painterly dimensions, and they go along with attributes of hypermodern theorisation, and are linked to a fulfilment of highly complex exchange of the acknowledged matter that implies the complicity of reading modes and interpretative strategies behind hypermodern illustration. therefore, the further combined use of the cinematic, the pictorial, and the architectural unites all these different approaches to favour the durational quality of the works. on the pictorial framing level, the contemplative, slowly appearing modifications hold the images in duration, between the photographic parameter of stillness, and the cinematic prediction of the movements of the performers, and the movements of the camera. we do not perceive time in the images as such, but mostly in unique flashes and changes of proceedings. the viewer’s increasingly delicate consciousness moves along this continual stream of time inside the narrative rhetoric, and the illustrated stillness of individual images can morph into an eloquently mannered artistic concoction of filmic qualities. the audiovisual flow in the films of alan berliner, chris marker and pirjo honkasalo solicits deep attention, involving concentration on a single image, partly ignoring outside stimuli, and preferring the frothing tributary of images and sounds. this sort of ‘synthetic’ approach needs the viewer’s capability to be concentrated and indivisible on this hypersensitive flux of events. we are not leaping from one object to another in a state of hyperattentive surfing, as we are ensuring an incisive level of situation and a foreboding of future views and professed expectations related to each other. this happens with the joy of encapsulating the time at hand. moreover, we are favouring a hypothetical sense-intuition of indelible phenomenology as an integral scientific explanation that is based on the viewer’s active proficiency and precision for observation to be present during these instances. on many occasions this concentration creates a fantastic, stylised world, in which reality and imagination merge, but which is still essentially real and true. often in cases like these, the art of cinema is revealed through the realism of what happens in front of the camera; “performance” is anathema to cinematic truth (isaacs, 201, p. 162). many phenomenal functions are dependent on mental representations: we must identify targets through the generic and other information stored in our memory. recognition of this might vary from amazingly simple cases into complex ones. in art, one example would be the recognition of a rembrandt painting. this sort of identification is always determined by the past: to recognise something we must notice the structural similarities between the actual information, and the information of some earlier moments. for example, the alleged cathartic effect of the past on cognitive processes is an overly complicated issue, which cannot be construed just through information storage. for instance, in marker’s films, this means different levels www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. of outlooks that coexist in his films, providing a spatial and temporal outlining which offers relations between contemporary and past circumstances. in general learning, there is a close addition and dialogic interaction between experience and earlier understanding. the recognition of single objects depends on the perception of specific characteristics and textures. in everyday experience, all these three forms and systems of perception will function smoothly together. all this calls for thinking about the pictorial qualities of the image and its perception, all the different theories and scientific research approaches, and what possibilities they have opened in creating future skylines in this field. a broader view of pictorial perception can see these different approaches complementing each other, helping us to have a better understanding of the whole process. there is a defined multiplicity of questions to be answered. for example, gestalt psychology connotes that perception goes out immediately towards comprehensively abstract patterns, the so-called gestalt. in this kind of thinking, concrete perception comes before the awareness of generalised abstract gestalt. (ehrenzweig, 1993, p. 18) the perceptual laws and other gestalt psychological principles can help and guide us on how to organise perceptions into unified schemes and objects. the perceptual laws describe the effects of explicitly innate and exceedingly early learned schemes on the organisation of perception. gestalt psychologists thought that these organising principles had a physiological basis, so they would be innate ways of organising perception. (note 4) as a consequential criticism of these views, we can connote that we are alleged to set in and define the condition of these conceptualizations more exactly, pointing out to the thoughts around these issues, notifying the unused potentials of narratological hybridity, new models and other structural devices that are essential ingredients of our approach. if we think that there are innate and learned strategies, we can see the unification of many perceptions, although our experiences and interpretations of them might be quite different in tone, but still in the background there is common information which has been picked. from the same targets. accordingly, we have perceptual and conceptual hypotheses of the world; they are different and might work on different timescales. the innate psychological schemes occasionally seem flexible. in the studies concerned with complex image transcriptions, there is a perspective in which the primary organisation of perception might happen in several ways. so, the innate schemes are not always stiff but can produce fluctuations of different shapes on the same material basis. different perceptions are consequences of different schemes that will change during a lifetime, and in the perception of art it seems by comparison that the same work of art will look different when viewed during transitional periods of life. perception functions remarkably quickly because unexpected events do happen. thus, reality is made by private hypotheses of perception, and shared hypotheses of conception. visual and pictorial models, descriptions, and representations are partly learned because they are based on earlier experiences. all learned schemes are not modes or representations because they can deal with the ways and principles of perception. the different visual models, mindfully detailed delineations, and conceptual representations are linked easily with the basic system of perception. circumstantial phenomena may be invested here through an expectant flash of glances in relation to the overall schematic and cognitive mapping that is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. open to associations while also recording subjective professions. film/body/architecture: a haptic dynamics, a phantasmatic structure of lived space and lived narrative; a narrativised space that is intersubjective, for it is a complex of socio-sexual mobilities. giuliana bruno (2002, p. 65) films from sweetgrass (ilisa barbash lucien castaig-taylor, 2009) with its intense sights and sounds of sheep amid the high plains of the rocky mountains; être et avoir (to be and to have, nicolas philibert, 2002), with its patient immersion in the day-to-day life of a rural schoolteacher and his pupils; and one of the most inspiring works of this kind, koyaanisqatsi (godfrey reggio, 1982), itself a radical revision of the city symphony films of the 1930s., all attest to the ability of the documentary to speak about the world poetically and movingly, as well as politically and motivationally. bill nichols (2016, p. 86) these glimpses of perceptual variance insist on engaging the eye of the viewer to transcribe documentary like expression, passages of momentary ocularcentrism, concentrated eyesights, in which the camera notices the small gestures and their piecemeal appropriation to filmic ends. the dominant accents of social contexture, as well as poetics of cinematic representation are at stake here along with performative and audiovisual powers of documentary to address elementary perspectives of our lives. the films addressed here come up with essential aspects of emotional charge and other evident engagements, or disengagements, and techniques of persuasion to convey their messages in an orderly and comprehensible way. these figural modes of documentary are modernist practices and fusions within the capacity to create discrete rhetorical attempts in depicting the ramifications of documentary. 2. the ethos of documentary in documentary, narrative structures can reshape the spaces they depict, and create historical discourses by providing images and sounds that make historical and cultural domains openly visible in accounting for the everyday experiences of people. the memory questions are usually related to these frames of mind, offering rare seconds of delight in depicting the peculiar features of the world. it is in these specific terms and attested preconditions that various documentary forms can be exemplified. in some cases, documentaries are dealing with “image architecture” that consists of an attempt to give “form” to the images. documentary modes allow these modulations and viewpoints to exist and affect the audience. it is a way to give space to images and sounds that have an original form. the temporal nature of the narrative becomes essential, since in many documentary films the seconds of waiting and patient observation are crucial and constructive. aside from a general contextualisation of scholarly investigation on cinema, the discussion here points toward a deepened account of the promises and settled positions of filmic interpretation and understanding from the idea of cognitive and, more specifically, phenomenological intentions to reconsider and deepen some standpoints of controversy that may increase and process our comprehension of filmic narration and its response among the audience. for instance, in art, images are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. focal points of persuasive communication and mediation, and they combine all media forms. thinking about the image and its perception, while also considering different approaches and theories, both transcriptional and scientific, will help us view new horizons in the field. cognitive and phenomenological relations and viewpoints become essential. through this kind of initial and partly clandestine explanation, we can describe our target points from inner and outer angles. we can also dialogically relate our viewpoints with modern traditions of thought and philosophically and scientifically relevant themes. (note 5) modern documentary doctrine employs a wide variety of methods and methodologies. to guarantee a methodologically logical and consistent analysis of hypermodern audiovisual culture, it is needed to comprehend and conceptualise the historical and cultural appropriation of cinema. the purely scientific method of documentary doctrine relies, however, on the large-scale testing of hypotheses and using experimentation. for instance, the scientifically factual study of memory has a long history, starting in the year 1885 when german psychologist hermann ebbinghaus started his tests. this early, laudable work has since then demonstrated the flexibility of memory issues, and what can be accomplished when a researcher is totally dedicated to the work. nowadays, we can see more clearly the different functions of memory and our willingness to fill in memory gaps and our recollection of past events. this will also help researchers to appropriate and develop better theories around these subjects. our audiovisual perception becomes a partly concrete and partly virtual perspective through which we can look at films from our current viewpoint that is part of our timely existence. we are arranging a historically lighted tableau. our relation to history becomes a meditative practice that gives observational possibilities to comprehend and re-interpret views and visions from this angle. (note 6) the objective is to conceptualise these matters, and, in an abundance of ways, this is an archaeological map, which in consonant with these and other precisions will help us to demarcate more intensively what documentary theory, philosophy and aesthetics truly means, and to understand the challenging nature of this phenomenon. it will also help us to situate cognitivism in a historically specific resonance, and in relation to other similar phenomena in media history laced with a specific concentration on challenges concerning media and art edification. this is both a theoretical and practical challenge since we are dealing with an interest in mapping transnational networks of different influences in terms of the narrative rhetoric and audiovisual stylisation that has existed but also transformed through time. this shaping of the persistence of forms and traditions is affecting our global mediascape constantly, creating various challenges through an increased circulation of images and sounds. this evolution can be depicted from several media educational frames and viewpoints offering new insights to the questions raised. in this context, our media pedagogical stance would serve to demystify these viewpoints and create perennial criticism toward these questions. this is no simple representation of these matters, but mostly a wide and complex discourse to reveal the historical, aesthetic, and other values concerned here. the ethos of our initial target is to identify more precisely these traditions and more contemporary strategies that have emerged at the end of the twentieth century, the new modes, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. and envisages of thinking that have formed and modulated original typologies inside the whole media circle. in the late-twentieth-century documentary, hypermodern features are already present in the form of various accents, gaining further prominence and significance. after 2000, the hypermodern phraseology appropriates a more representational, figurative, and tangible presence on the level of documentary discourse, featuring also perceptive, more far-reaching, and even scientific intentions and repercussions of representation, as some films set out to describe and recite the transitional points and climaxes of history, and its epic contours of momentariness. in this pictorial mode of storytelling, documentaries focus on the sketched representation of the tentative dispositions embodied in the phenomenal attention between the figural landscape and the personified existence of social actors. the historicist analysis is useful in relation to media edification challenges that evolved around concepts of visible evidence of the alleged authenticity of images in the age of digital media communication where truthfulness accordingly acquires new forms. these discourses are also related to the certainty and appropriateness of moral and ethical questions concerning the encounters between film and media apparatuses. the needed agenda allegedly sets up a tension of a subsequent idea of metaphysical perspective on ethics. in the documentary, it is centred on the question of objectivity, precisely addressing whether ethical predicates represent real properties of an external reality or merely apparent properties that owe their existence to the perception, emotion or thought of those who describe them. regardless of approach to these matters, the documentary frame generally highlights valid argumentation, and conclusions of judgments that have an intrinsic value and are conundrums explicable as complexes of ostensibly empirical properties. investigations into the nature of psychological phenomena are essential to documentary ethics. for a cinematic enactment of the documentary discourse with all its subtexts, the discussion is inherent in further, suggestive presence of documentary forms and their developmental unfolding. usually, these matters are explicable through reasoning. there is a need to create and establish a directive and argumentative logic that borders between objective and subjective approaches challenging dominant discourses inside the collective mediascape of different phenomena. our interdisciplinary and comparative approach exists in a variety of epistemological and other debates around these issues. general questions of the formal modes of art and their overlapping dimensions will clear further inferences and ameliorate the continuities between several different embodiments of art, largely the intertwined attachments and linkages between different media forms of our hypermodern spectacle. (note 7) these larger issues may be tackled more productively if viewed within the broad parameters of cultural dimensions rewritten and constructed as essential connections with audiovisual aesthetics. the programmed outcome can also suggest a substitution in succession when thinking about the mode, form, and style of documentary in accordance with its accent on general theoretical viewpoints, symmetries of bodies, and subjects of social setting. audiovisual ethnography: chris marker’s hypermodern setting of sunless (sans soleil, 1982) the filmic experience of memory is alternately reconfigured, partly socially constituted and adjusted by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. a will and a meditative consciousness as an integral source for the cinema’s silent evocation and melancholic account of states of acquired existence. the many-faceted experience of memory (public and psychic) brings in traces that might have been partly lost in the continuity and discontinuity between memory and history. the experience of the past can resort to a shifting field of relations and invoke a sense of the range of technical possibilities of polyphonic montage. or maybe we can situate ourselves in the middle of the phenomena and mediate in the same way as the french visionary and far-sighted filmmaker chris marker (1921-2012) did through his films, rejecting the idea of history as a ‘mirror’ of the course of events. marker implied instead that the epistemology of writing and the compositional semantics of rewriting history does not simply record or reproduce events as they were but gives form to, and perpetually transmogrifier, those events. (note 8) marker’s work is intricately connected to the integral question of montage in cinema and, simultaneously, it is preoccupied with the very logic of historical continuity. through his dialectical, prefilmic montage of images and sounds, he develops variable logics, which occasionally, may be at work within even a single scene or image. it generates a high degree of semantic instability, with the result that is an apparent assertion of single images and sequences become contrapuntal and acquiring multiple significance and distinct resonances on different planes of explanation as the narrative achieves further meanings. in marker’s world, the spatial resonance and complicated strategy of figuration of acousmatic world of sound creates the pictorial depth and evocative completion of the image. the spatial representations are arguments of the internal and external codes of cinematic landscaping in order to control the overall fashioning and refashioning of the facilities. the perception can be mobile and organised according to some specific adjustments what follow marker’s premises and offer more or less treated parallels between the cinematic, architectural language of the film. many of these edits are structured around the embodied interplay of motion and stillness, the basic rhythms of cinema, bringing in the intention of temporal passing. time relates to virtual perception and to the experience of the images. photographic stillness and cinematic movements are steps into a hypermodern setting of affairs since they activate the phenomenology of perception and articulate and imitate the apparent desire to produce pictorial portrayals of the depicted events. in this regard, marker’s work can be situated between still photography and cinema because of the application of meaningful images and montage-juxtapositions, and the usage of time as a discrete and manoeuvrable phenomenon. sunless contains the hypermodern variability of textures, being an example of ‘classified realism’. marker explores changing social range of oppositions between different countries and continents, while, for instance, berliner’s and guzmán’s works are investigations into more personal and more geographically restricted surroundings, and marker’s way of utilising transcultural experiences brings forth a sort of levelling affect, a collateral kind of experience of the pictorially illuminated everyday reality in the territory of audiovisual culture. (note 9) in considering marker’s pictorially charged universe, the spectator is shuttled back and forth between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. different postures of the pre-industrialised landscape of africa and the post-industrialised economy of japan. through the rhythmic counterpointing, she becomes aware not only of the disparities between the two, but also of the persistence of frameworks of thinking and cultural appropriation that link these permeated places and spaces together. these patterns of thinking are ultimately utilised in the film as a way of critiquing and challenging western ideologies, in particular the metaphysics of “presence” in western thought, concerned with its privileging of what is spoken over what is left unsaid. pictorially, many images speak for themselves needing no further comment and, especially in this regard, marker’s film comes close to pictorial understanding, including long sequences of sounds and images that mirror the cineaste’s comprehension of specific still/movement aesthetics to emphasise seemingly contradictory views and perspectives. (note 10) these references establish counterpoints complicated by the anecdotal representation of the proceeding narration. recognising the “truth” of an event always exceeds the documented fact. marker’s attempt to locate the contributory subjects of intimation and association, whether these subsume personal, social, ideological, emotional, philosophical, moral, ethical, cultural, or ethnographical dimensions, is worked out through a metaphorical play of direct disparities and oppositions that include the spectator in the very definition of the conferred meaning itself. marker’s “associative hypermodern frame” offers a nuanced, pictorially multivalent spatial and temporal structure through editing and gives an audiovisually palpitating experience and a conceptual description of matters. the french cineaste produces an event resulting from the intersection of the everyday and the modern, and a convergence of various and integral filmic forms (stillness, animation, movement, frame-based aesthetics of prefilmic montage and hypermodern framing) that takes place across the suavity of the lines marked by the simultaneity of reflection and a sense of rhetoricity of history and memory, manifested in resonations on the advance of digital technology. however, one of the most schematically offered propositions from marker’s angle emerges from the investigation of film’s valence to work as an audiovisual ethnography concerned with the depiction of an arc of a privileged universe of places and spaces in the narrative. acknowledges its funnelled biases and constructiveness as a systematic and open-ended analysis, especially in lipovetsky’s underlining of the ‘social and historic basis’ of the camera-based audiovisual process. in some cases, documentary discourse can be underlined by an incentive of a quest, probing, and testing concerns over social and historic realms of representation, which is usually explained as a filmic figuration and a context that foresees an explication of the central placement of predominant themes and leitmotifs. these appear as constant references and points of reflection between past, present, and future – a context in which narrative figuration is highly appreciated. (noe 11) the narrative connotation of the represented images depends a lot on the commentary. while appropriating the medial representations of the inescapable influence of the enunciator’s delineation of these situations, there lies an echo of the idea according to which marker’s hypermodern echoes can be understood on two levels: on the one hand, regarding narration, which is constructed by means of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. constant interplay between fictional strategies and documentary contexts; on the other, regarding and funnelling the conferred historical meaning of the representation, which works more as connoted than revealed by the narrator’s imagistic field of perception. this includes footage of the wing of a contemporary jet flying high above africa, and dogs trailing across the waterline of a sandy beach. in diametrical turn and following this, there is an appearance of a striking overhead shot of desert dunes; the surface of which is caressed as a far more contingent emblem, resembling the illuminative patterns of the waves in the previous shot. in the closing moment of the sequence, there is another overhead shot, which contains the raised and intent gaze of an african woman linking her powerful, close-up steering to the perspective of the spectator. the pictorial freeze-framing of her face both recalls and links to other overlapping sequences in which marker focuses on the reciprocal interchange of gazes between subject (cameraman) and object (those whom he films) and brings the convoluted interplay of images of stillness and motion to a temporary halt. the camera is often a visible catalyst and a phenomenal presence of the dissecting gaze that one might imagine. the camera does not need to be turned on or even in place for the inspecting gaze to exist; merely its potential to exist might have this effect. (note 12) expressing the same concern as a metacinematic work, marker’s documentary echoes the aesthetic and moral t́ruth’ of hypermodern prescription concerning the role of present-day technology and its aspirations, by and large the way they affect our perception of the past. the “reality” domain has moved to a collateral level, and a peculiar tone of reality is everywhere, overlaid on top of the representation. for marker, the mythology of the image represents his phenomenological and metaphysical intertextuality of solving artistic dilemmas. some of his views might be a bit uncomfortably limited in their overall ramifications, recording mainly an artistic voyage, in which parts are construed to produce a whole that is something more meaningful than its parts. (note 13) the option is specific in connection with the overall contingency of marker’s oeuvre. 3. narrative connotations: metaphors of the real marker’s editing-scheme in the tokyo-cityscape sequence of sunless, its creation of temporally abrupt and constantly shifting quantities of views from street level to rooftop, confers a slight sense of compelling vocalization between stillness and movement, and by animating reconstructions of the images in the film’s sequence at the tokyo-subway, camerawork re-creates an effect of evanescent glances scanning the city for its signalized signs. the ramifications of cinematography immediately create a kind of moving camera poetry or stilling of the image. these images shuttle back and forth in a rapid swap of succession, some immediately decipherable, some less so, with little in the way of guidance for the viewer. it is how marker pictorially takes hold of both the feel of exhilaration and seductive allure that the predictable rendezvous with the city provides, and the genuine and strangely manifested sense of fragmentation, illegibility, repudiation, and disunification. tracking images of crowds and assortments of people descending the stairs of the subway, the explicit commentary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. connotes that the city should be deciphered like a complicated proscenium of a moody “musical score”, one in which “one could get lost in the great orchestral masses and the accumulation of detail”. the city’s pictorial form is always therefore on the brink of formlessness and actual alternation. marker indelicately draws out the sense-instinct of disarticulation by way of allowing assertive juxtapositions and the significance of something that is displayed. in general, matters of architecture and audiovisual design have shaped the history of cinema. in cinematic narration, things are framed for viewing, and assembled as a part of the spectacle. this has to do with the atmospheric presence and change of cinematic architecture, moving between interior and exterior spaces. the items on display are ordered, partly symmetrically arranged as sequences through spatial structures, and finally assembled as parts of the narrative chain. the history of cinema shows how stories were developed in shaping various views through the processes of montage for imaginatively fascinated spectatorship. in a hypermodern style, cinema’s ever-ended capacity to transcend the compact limitations of temporal and spatial dimensions is at play in enriching metaphorical picture-changes, and compositional reframing, as well as concretely moving from one part of the city to the next, he classifies and catalogs the clash of developmental references and quotations of the architecture and public works adorning the streets of tokyo. occasionally awkward outlooks testify to a structural affinity between the hypermodern code of narrative and the way it is used as the creation of atmosphere feeding the overall mood. in one of the most revealing of these poignant indicators, and one which creates an extended impression of historical comprehension, density and high-concept perseverance, marker films the statue of a buddha in a cemetery overlooking the network of train lines that form the city’s nerve centre. marker seems to think that we need a new role for the imagination in everyday life. the atmospheric charge of this expression is wider than imagined. the inclusion of attributes of association is typical for marker’s cinematic logic, which is alleged to dissolve and further develop its aligned mimesis. this recurrent reproach for new combinations of thinking and a wealth of narrative solutions replicates and establishes a hypermodern range and classification of accomplished ideas. a means of theoretical intention and sufficient explanation is provided as well when the cineaste consequently transcribes and manifests the audiovisual world in front of him. it forms an iconic modeling of narration, and a hypermodern ascribing of our existence and history in order to discuss and comprehend the valuable merits and limitations of more contemporary artistic and cinematic theories. the film’s strangeness in its own time comes straight from its unlikeness to familiar filmmaking. marker invokes the queues of cinematic concepts characterising his ‘drama’ to be unfolded in several acts. the grand cultural and historical movement stands beside his aspirations, offering a second variant of the spectacle. this all forms a phenomenon of defining attributes, thereby creating a distinctive position of narrative rhetoric, moving continually back and forth between various landmarks. it is a celebration of 20 th century magnifications and answers that are exposed in continuing enactments. in marker’s hypermodern kingdom of filmic magic, the elementary scale of matters is overwhelmingly assertive, and besides sunless, it is expressed in films www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. like koumiko mystery (le mystère koumiko, 1965), if i had four camels (si j’avais quatre dromadaires, 1966), the train rolls on (le train en marche, 1971), the loneliness of a long-distance singer (la solitude du chanteur de fond, 1974), a grin without a cat (le fond de l’air est rouge, 1977), the last bolshevik (le tombeau d’alexandre, 1992), just to name a few. 3. phenomenological realism in a hypermodern documentary or, in marker’s case. an audiovisual poem and a filmic “gobelin of visual parameters”, the narrative may undertake a sensitively formalised approach and heightened quality concerning other levels of representation, with a more downright use of narrator’s field of perception, which repeatedly questions and refers the idea of temporal switches of our time and minutely records the aspirations and smallest visual details of action in these points in time of assuring presence. this sort of accurate documentation is a very typical feature of marker’s oeuvre, promoting his exceptional accuracy of clinging into scanning momentums and experiences that echo the worldview of a traveler who turns his memoires into a literary invocation of notions and anecdotes, and further into an audiovisual form of spectacle that uses all the possible links related to our perceptive undercurrents. it features a phenomenological form of realism and address that is quite difficult, almost impossible to determine in all its ramifications and discursive spheres. the traveler embodies and engraves a decisive difference, and through the process of narrating also meditates it. this all features an established mode of communication involving several links and inescapable inciting influences concerning and concentrating on modeling of our hypermodern times. to grasp this new role, we need to abstract and elevate the map of hypercultural images in accordance with mechanically produced ones, to revive the idea of the imagined community, and the french idea of the “imaginary”, as a constructed landscape of social and political form of tactical collective impacts and aspirations. in this regard, sunless presents a composite of hybrid interrelations between various systems of persuasive communication inside the metropolis and places filmic practices within the infrastructure. marker’s objective axiom is not only to measure the gulf and difference between various political cultures, but also to reflect and retrace the subtle ties and chains that bind the present to the past, to virtually show how the burden of the politics of the 1960s continues to determine the present. at stake is a constitutive cognizance between the globalisation of different cultures, the rising of new forms and doctrines of hyperculture and hypermodernity, as well as the mass migrations and dispersions that mark the present scanning moment of time as being distinct from the past. (note 14) following marker’s polysemic signature and its expressive, almost psychopathological inscriptions by referring explicitly to the image-echo of the city, tokyo is exposed as a delirious and socially distressed “reality of divergent appearances”, a dystopian 20th century equivalent of the ancient, primordial floating world of the edo period. marker insists on this specific complexity, engaging to fill the narrative, engraving, and morphing into metaphors, which find their substantially concrete and tangible embodiments in the shots of the many advertising signboards and placards of young japanese www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. supermodels suspended in mid-air over the city, hanging from invisible wires and cables above the streetscape and railway lines which run through the city. the pictorially mustered, enthusiastic union of advertising and the mass media communication invades public space and private thought alike. here the fine line between indifference and attentiveness is tested, as well as the temporality of perception: the omnipresence and iconicity of video and television screens rule the ‘city-image’ and decorate the department store walls, and the computer-generated images and huge advertising billboards and murals taken from the comic strip books hail to and prevail upon the passers-by, dwarfing them with their monumental scale. there is more than a suggestion in such narrative imagery of the way in which hypermodern city life acquires the character of a space of absorbing surveillance. the narrative can be seen as promoted of acting in similarly opening terms and theorems of perception, integrating, unifying, and assembling continuities and discontinuities through which the spectator’s gaze, its thoughtful and addressed attention is guided into processes and verifications that confirm and contest the shifting quantities of immersion and redesign from one stimulus to another. as a result, the enormous, elegant, and exquisite images are adorning the city’s billboards featuring a figurative, symmetrical style and formula of looking out of the posters, casting the eyes across the cityscape, “voyeurising the voyeurs”, as the film’s narrator confirms. these are sequences of psychological rhetoric, layers of visual action that are piled up and addressed to the audience. faces are full of potential expression, as if waiting for possible solutions and outcomes that seem enigmatic and tuned with different structural and other details. in a similar, hypermodern vein, and as a part of decorative and contingent planning, marker is pointing out to the general markings of erotically charged images of young women and comic-strip heroines, appearing on a marked scale, played upon, and inflated out of all proportions. they seem to desolately counterpoint the impersonality, constraint and strenuous conformity that reign over the street-life below. the artistically controlled vision reflects as though all these could be the newly acquired projections of repressed genealogy of inner desires. marker addresses the contemporaneity and ingenuity of hypermodern perception and a theorem of attention, in the middle of which earlier precisely employed and recited continuums may have become significantly unbalanced. marker orchestrates his generous professions around the order of representing an audiovisual, heterotopic scheme of the city. and in one of the most striking envisages, the reflections that are visibly composed of a wide array of moving figures in the subway are almost entirely absorbed within the giant billboard image of a fashion model. as to imply that these superimpositions create a strong intuition and doctrine of overlaid hypermodern technologies in the heart of marker’s long-standing aspirations. their partly discomposing balance of physical and social presence sharpens the edge of encounters. the shadowy figure over another image-formation seems to infuse and embody the forwardness of the other image just for a few seconds, which in this case seems by comparison to be enough to arouse the spectatorial, immediate psychic relevance. attempts to control it, by creating dramatic looks and silently open gestures and faces that emphasise the stages of contemplation and reverie slowly but surely. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. in the hypermodern megalopolis, filmic existence, reality, and dreams are inextricable from each other, as representation becomes a way of determining the quintessence of reality. following the sequence in which the cameraman (hungarian fictive poet sandór krasna) scans japanese late-night television with its accent on plethora of images of desire, horror and violence, the scene shifts to the subterranean tunnels that lead from the department store malls to the train stations. in this sequence, marker resorts to the longstanding and important trope of the train, both as a metaphor for the cinematic apparatus and as a symbol of industrial progress. one can see an echo and an additional reference to russian kino-trains, invoked in the thirties by alexander medvedkin (1900-1989), the elusive filmmaker behind marker’s films le train en marche (1971) and le tombeau d’alexandre (the last bolshevik 1992). marker’s prophetic references to medvedkin are being discovered and confirmed at these instants by the changing roles of the image in these narratives. yet, marker’s attributed invocation of the metaphor of the train reinvents its nuances. whilst, for the soviet monteurs, the metaphor of the train was initially bound up with the image of the progression of history, for marker, placed in the context of tokyo’s cityscape, it becomes a metaphor for a society given over to fashions of pictorially conferred spectacle. according to an axiom by nicholas mirzoeff, visual culture is a provisional and constantly shifting view, not defined by a medium so much as by the interaction between viewers and viewed (1999, p. 13). within the diegetic world of fictional plot, krasna’s utterly fragmented voyage tackles many questions, referring to the historical layers of meanings. as the enunciator of sunless continues: “more and more, my dreams find their settings in the department stores of tokyo, the subterranean tunnels that extend beyond them and run parallel to the city. a face appears, disappears, a trace is found, is lost, all the folklore of dreams is so much in its place that the next day, when i am awake, i realise that i continue to seek in the basement labyrinth the presence concealed the night before. i begin to wonder if those dreams are really mine, or if they are part of a totality, of a gigantic collective dream of which the entirety of the city may be the projection. it might suffice to pick up any one of the telephones that are lying around to hear a familiar voice or the beating of a heart––sei shönagon’s for example. all the galleries lead to stations, the same companies own the stores and the railroads that bear their name, keio, odakyu, all those names of ports. the train inhabited by sleeping people with all the fragments of dreams, makes a single film of them, the ultimate film. the tickets from that automatic dispenser grant admission to the show.” the pictorially laden images accompanying the categorical commentary show people buying tickets for the subway, boarding train compartments, and once seated, drifting into sleep, a segment which self-reflexively recalls and brings full circle the journey into the city in the film’s opening moments. the dreamy architectural ambience continues as the sequence progresses, images of the passengers’ sleeping faces are allusively and dialectically intercut with images of the late-night television sequences replayed from the night before, connoting the way in which these images of desire and violence become imprinted and inscribed onto their subconscious thoughts and dreams. it is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. metaphorical way to describe the symbolic interaction between the media and the audience. the subway sequence is an evocative treatment of sleeping, dreaming, and waking as they relate to the experience of the spectator (walsh, 1998, p. 13). it meticulously “pictorializes” the momentums when media affect us, are part of our dreams, and influence our thinking. it happens especially in seconds when faces are deliberated to illuminate and reflect the passing moments of continuous alternation rather than only a straight reaction to views ahead or inside the passengers’ minds. the expedition offers us not only an extraordinarily apt example of the film’s intricate use of montage to slip nimbly between the realms of desire and the everyday, dream and wakefulness, subjective and collective memory, but also an image of a world whose experience of the real is constantly and imperceptibly shifting between these categories. in a sublime way, and in the spirit of gilles lipovetsky’s theoretical forebodings, chris marker foresees the inward and external addresses of the physical and psychological shifts of emotional and affective self at curious seconds of time. marker’s quest for the true, precise image is an on-going task, as such images are not often found, and when they are, they often come by surprise. through this display, marker’s hand-held camera seems to respond directly to the diegetic world (branigan, 1992, p. 216). this could be even more developed in a swift-changing montage, marker’s images are highly structured, and the atmospheric echo and logic of the narrative rhetoric is exclusively controlled. there are passages, such as the tokyo subway sequence, that critically examine the subtleties and modifications of the structural cognizance of representational media to material reality, explicitly questioning the way in which our perception of the world is saturated by different forms of representational media. convoluting this dictum still further, it echoes the precarious state of documentary filmmaking in a world that also seems mostly drenched with images and sounds, in which the function and kudos of each image and sound are not always so irrefutable. these similar questions had already been raised in the 1960s when marker was producing his early films. secondly, it has to do with his working methods and particularly the historical approach to filmmaking. the specific significance of his earlier films becomes clearer when we realise that a history of images and sounds, conceived of as the product of filmmaking practices, is rooted in sociohistorical and psycho-physiological intricacies, problematics, and contingencies of “classical modernity” (lipovetsky). in this regard, sunless constantly shifts its views between different levels of representation and different levels of impending reality, analysing the mediating role of representational media communication in our collective histories and personal memories. throughout the film, the filmmaker gives examples of how the historical meaning of the inquiries into cityscape has changed over time. likewise, marker uses clever framing and editing figures to depict krasna’s voyages around the globe. in tokyo-images we see the spirit of the place where old and new customs and rituals are appearing as symmetrically closed entities. these practices can be distinctively classified into three different groups: the first is performed through short remarks to the enunciator’s own memory places, the second is the documentary coverage of the cityscape, and the third refers to the more global view www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. and further floundering of his ruminations. 4. stylized entities in this sense, it is a hypermodern working method and theorem, allowing the employment of different motifs in connection to the expressed and prosaic recording of various phenomena. every once in a while, the narrative seems to be asking about the point and value of editing in the middle of things and matters that reflect to themselves. this self-reflexivity is typical for the cineaste, presenting a mode of cinema that is open for new developments and constructive operations which start from the essence of the medium. it may be partly spontaneous. partly mediated action of reaching the dissolved goals of affection. (note 15) marker’s method is never simple or one-sided but more like a painterly sketch, seized on open possibilities to work out a genuine and confident film structure based on artistically influenced impressions and their possible outcomes as a combination of looks, gestures, movements, and other similar views and effects. the enunciator’s imagistic field of perception works as a gaze at the world, capturing the manifestly ordered sense of time at that specific scanning moment of historical precariousness that may be read as an audiovisual metacommentary of matters. (note 16) the camera with its painterly flavour influences the form of sensitive realism lined up with purist aesthetic and stylised features. yet, if at times marker presents a picture of the city as overcrowded, megalomaniac, and inhuman, he qualifies this by drawing explicit attention to other subtler sides of the city, to the austere beauty of the diffused, photographic light in january, and especially to the particularity of the scattering of faces, subjective moods and the lives of the twelve million or so inhabitants of the city, “as different and precise as groups of instruments”, or to the ways in which the patterns of everyday existence restructure and reclaim the cityscape: the way, for example, that, after dark, the impersonality of the city by day gives way to the transformation of the city into a series of villages. marker is also sensitive to the atmospheric, marginal life of the city, to all that disrupts its rational functioning. at the commencement of the film, a homeless alcoholic in a run-down quarter of the tokyo suburbs assumes the role of a policeman directing the traffic from the middle of a busy junction. in an added sequence, the poorest of the tokyo poor park themselves in front of television screens in chic department stores to watch the sumo contests. as precisely defined by marker, sunlessl derives its title from a six-part song cycle by russian composer modest mussorgsky (1839-1881). marker’s provisional technique of expression features similarities with mussorgsky’s emphasis. the last of the songs in this cycle is entitled sur le fleuve, and it is heard in the film. marker’s thematic leitmotif tended to follow the song cycle for dramatic effects and in attention with his narrative progression. in a similar equation, marker establishes a virtual dialogism between the film and the song cycle, expressing through this method and doctrine of design his “hypermodern connection” (lipovetsky) between the two. this all is done with utmost sensuality and poetic expressiveness that controls the movements and acts of sunlessl. the hypermodern imagination is at its best in marker’s oeuvre, controlling most aspects of narration and working in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. conjunction with the overall conception and stylistic framework of narration, and other main trends of direction with its sublime and melancholic but nevertheless demanding critical undertones. the hypermodern form of sunless, its provisional continuity and polyphonic montage combine hand-held images shot in various places around the world. it contains a rapid, patchwork montage of privileged places, positions, and alleged settings. some images are accompanied by commentary, sounds and music, and chris marker alternately reinforces and gradually intensifies the focal points of audiovisual montage in representing the communication technology through mediatic implements and transcriptions. the perpetually enhanced humanity of marker is contained in the intertextual metaphoric dialogue and debate between images and sounds, therefore creating an echo and needed reflection of the constructed affinity of hypermodern thinking. the fragmentary nature of narration contributes to this perspective, and the main settings of the documentary support this reading of matters with some crucial implications. the elusive, and sometimes quaint patterns of montage are related to the overall philosophy of the work, and the audience perceives this bit by bit. through marker’s monumental practice, the spectators are continually aware of the proceedings at the level of the productive process. the integral and poignant prefilmic montage of sunlessl consists of composite sources meticulously underpinning and recalling the journeys depicted in the film. the wholeness is a hypermodern metacommentary of immersive and partly acousmatic resounding lessons on the plight of human beings and their situation in the world filled with the tangible manifestations of industrial and cerebral currents. 5. the forms of hypermodern journey the reconnection of images and principally their interdependence creates minutes of spatial and temporal modifications that grow in significance in the light of the tightly coded and hierarchically ordered japanese society. the circulation of tropes and concepts between these sketched representations by marker does not, however, infer causally interactive relationships between the distinctive cultural realm of contingency. more or less, the narrative interacts and functions with the photographic and pictorial continuums and complements, and the spectator is assailed by a multiplicity of techniques that interrupt and disconnect time and give space and causality an unstable existence. these are necessary but not sufficient conditions for our perceptual and reticent consciousness to be present in these sections when marker attacks our comprehension of images and sounds and their tightly embodied infiltrations. from the very commencement, the narrative consistently emphasises that the moving images and sounds on the screen can have a specific affectionate as elaborate regimes of simulation of the depicted “reality”. the hypermodern meditative lexicon upon the metropolis of tokyo becomes continually interwoven with a series of commentaries that are related to questions on the economic position of japan, its politically charged and, at some passing moments, naive landscape, and its difficult relations to other continents. one of the reasons why marker obsessively and compulsively returns to japan is that the country has arguably become the leading manufacturer of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. new technologies that are transforming our experience of the world. and the ingenuity of the experience, concerned with the past and the present, is increasingly dissolved and complex. the present is absorbing the attributes of the past and maybe even the future. in other words, the fascination of japan is the way the impact of new audiovisual technologies and digital culture has not simply eclipsed previous long-standing cultural customs but increased the mediated interaction and mutual exchange between the pre-existent cultural forms, thereby imbuing a peculiar, elevating, and synthetic cognizance between modernisation and the perpetuation of various traditional forms. in this conceptualization, modernity, wherever it appears, does not occur without a shattering of belief, or without a discovery of the lack of reality––an epiphanic rediscovery linked to other realities. (note 17) marker’s shots are pictorially-decorated entities, laced with a specific, almost unfettered phenomenological sensation of the ontology of time’s dimensions. for marker it is typical to continually return to various sacred rituals that perpetuate the practices and historical dimensions of the past. but in addition to a number of such representations, marker points out the rapid substitutions that have taken place in recent japanese history, and he investigates the cultural mediation and forms of modern japan to see the scattered vibrations, concrete observations, and the symptomatic patterns of the eradicated past. (note 18) postand hypermodern discourse of japanese culture signifies an era in which pictoriality and the visualising of things that are not necessarily visual have accelerated so dramatically that the global circulation of images has become an end, a dictum of itself, specifically through the internet and other digital formations. marker’s description in lettrè de sibérie (letter from siberia) of siberia as a land of contradictions situated between the middle ages and the 21st century might endow a fitting epigraph for the analysis of his portrayal of japan in sunlessl. these observations about japan lead on to a probing examination of the question of the indispensable acknowledgement between the “developing third world” and the west. in marker’s hands japanese visual culture is a fractal network, permeated with signs and emblems from all over the globe. such a glowing network has key points of interface and interaction that have more than ordinary complexity and importance. with marker the potentiality to be intentionally polemical to visualise a culture or society almost becomes synonymous with understanding it. paying attention to the coexistence of vastly different experiences of modernity within the global economy therefore allows us to glimpse and comprehend the structural affinity of allegedly genuine, authentic manifestations, apparitions, symmetries, and invocations of the narrative in this respect. in the alternation and rapid interand crosscutting of images of the highly technological and affluent society of contemporary japan with images of the rural poor of africa, an elaborated disparity is drawn between the processes of modernisation in japan and a way of life that involves a daily struggle for survival. 6. hypermodern sensibility as we make observations, these diametrical disparities are not only registered as economic divisions, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. but also imply a different experience of the temporal and nature. marker is keen to undercut any sentimentalisation of the rural existence of the “third world” – a professed vision which is obliquely referenced during the film by way of a succession of images of monuments to rousseau, his chateau, and its grounds. instead, he pictorializes its hardships and local struggles as a form of existence almost forgotten by the west. marker is concerned, however, to show not only the separation of the “first” and “third worlds”, but also the delicate ties that bind such disparate places together. for, in the post-modern logic, few borders remain intact. this insistent theme unfolds during the narrative, initially through images of displacement. images of “exoticism”, indicative of a prior wave of colonialism, are transferred to europe (i.e., the narrator even comments on two occasions about the emus that live in ile-de-france, and footage of them recurs on a few occasions). similarly, elements of european kitsch and remnants of european culture are shown to pervade asia and africa. aphoristically, the permeability of the boundaries is made more explicit in a sequence in which the cameraman comments on a shortwave radio announcement projected to tokyo that is picked up on cape verde island. as a hypermodern documentary and explicitly open axiom, sunlessl is a key work among chris marker’s cinematic essays. it comprises a hypermodern replication and an extent to which it portrays itself as a strange planet among other documentaries. it looks like an elusive phenomenon that combines classic knowledge, formal beauty and a more ingenious, albeit stylistic conceits and modulations of poetry. it touches the embedded human soul and its flow in a specific way, and it is a rare work since its global reach and efficacy is so genuine, as well as its intuitively demarcated ambience. in establishing a specific relation between memory and history, the film simultaneously postulates that memory is constantly rewritten in the same way as history. it is a cognitive attribution of existence that intermittently reflects the hypermodern lexicon very eloquently, allowing a phenomenological substance that is particularly prominent in advocating an alleged set of interlocking similitudes that function as verified conditions of representation in marker’s oeuvre. this could be even more known and pronounced when a hypermodern parable might be embedded in a mass of various theoretical and practical contexts related to filmmaking processes, the discursive and figural elements of it can be surprisingly fluid and absorptive. furthermore, a similar account of the traces of hypermodern, redolent sensibility can create and enrich narrative modes that are supplemented by fictional strategies and narrative patterns, playing a constitutive contingency in the gradual emergence and formulation of the canon of hypermodern documentary discourse. within it, the modes of representation can be read as an allocated invocation and embodiment of various outcomes that are metaphysical and far-reaching as themselves. the variations of this mode can be unexpected in their dimensions, emphasising the figurative pluralities of identity, constitutive of hypermodern theorisation and the adequately poetic realism of intense filmic medialect. as understood, this highly complex exchange of influences implies a complicity of readings and strategies of display. “time passes, and the present is in some sense unique.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. robin le poidevin (note 19) our understanding of the past is therefore only the sum of representations that can be made of it at any one moment perpetually in time. yet, the problem is significantly deeper than in a self-conscious documentary of the limits of historical recuperation. the same strategy can be observed from various points of view. as maureen turin maintained already in 1989: filmic treatment of temporality and memory might inspire scientific inquiry or it might simply run parallel to it; in few cases historically can film artists be said to be directly schooled in their filmic research by scholarly writings – though, as we saw, the twenties avant-garde is one moment where some evidence of intellectual cross-fertilization is evident. (1989, p. 206) in a similar continuation and exploration of other findings, we can see how the conundrum of historical interpretation is also scientifically essential and consequential, and bound up with the experience and rearticulation of temporality and its ramifications. memory and time are in intimate connection with each other. this dialogic interplay and implied theory of nearness mean that, for instance, history can be caught in a double bind; if what the present understands about the past is never simply and straightforwardly the past as it was, it is equally true that our understanding of the present is always refracted through our imperfect recollection of the past. this sounds like a metacinematic commentary, in which a further implication is that past and present are ultimately inseparable, for the present perennially and discreetly inhabits our perception of the past and the past our perception of the present. these entangled explanatory forces can be therefore ascribed as elementary aspects of a partial codification of our existence. according to this planned envision, we are ultimately unable to disentangle what we project back onto the past from the past itself, for we are incapable of detaching ourselves fully from the present. our inability to stand ‘outside of history’ means that we are daringly ill-equipped to judge whether there is an underlying order to the apparent sense of randomness and chaos of historical events, because the order of history if, indeed, it is conceivable must exist beyond the limits of our perception, and thus beyond the reach of our understanding. this prevalent transcription affirms that the enunciated problems of history thus become enmeshed in a series of conundrums of perspective. the fact that the observation of history is made from a vantage point within history relates the knowledge that it seeks to come up with the world, and thus undermines its claims to objective neutrality or more secure foundations on which it is based. but these films can contradict the suspicion that the convergence of experimental aesthetics and nonfiction cinema threaten the referential quality of documentary filmmaking. they show, instead, that this subjective approach to nonfictional presentation involves dialogue with the historical world, a productive exchange between the filmmakers and their subject matter. louise spence and vinicius navarro (note 20) in marker’s work, there is a straight link to the form of so-called essay film. the label ‘cinematic essay’ is encountered with an increasing frequency in scholarly act of writings on the cinema, owing to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. the recent proliferation of personal, epistephilic, reflexive, and subjective documentaries and short films. it comprises a highly stylised mode of audio-visual production that can be called cinematic or audiovisual essay, and this form has existed and in recent years and reappropriated within the disciplines of film and fine art. it has also been called as filmed philosophy, and these essayistic connections include a wide variety of approaches, starting from a filmic genre which originates in the 1920s, and has increasingly come to be conceded as a distinguishable and independent branch of international cinema. it has a recognisable authorial presence and an impressive voice that has been notified as “overtly personal, in-depth, thought-provoking reflection” (rascaroli, 2009, p. 33). we can see the cinematic essay form as a facilitator of a filmic hybrid that mixes diverse documentary and fiction material substrates to produce something unique and intellectually satisfying, an intermediate space in harnessing the cognitive instinct of the word. the filmmakers who use this approach, arrange all kinds of audiovisual tools according to their own conceptions that cross usual discursive boundaries and create a subjectivity of form and content. (note 21) the narrative trajectory that they follow can consist of individual and collective accounts, personal memories and historical sources of affection and further reflection. producers of audio-visual essays include not only feature filmmakers, documentarists, and avant-garde filmmakers, but also artists who produce installations for gallery and museum display. it may suffice to point out that filmic essay has its roots in the literary essay that goes back to the times of michel de montaigne, the french writer who produced his essais in 1580 and this etymology is significant since it points to the experimental nature of the semantics of essay-writing, involving already than a nuanced and deliberate attempt to try something totally new. this forms an operation of intellectual cognition, meaning productive thinking that is characterised by the interplay between the free interaction of forces within the field and the solidified entities that persist as invariants in changing contexts (arnheim, 1969, p. 235). at best, this sort of information producing can actively enhance palimpsest knowledge in a passing situation where the audiovisual world of happenings is dispersed in infinite complexity, a flux of constantly enhanced intentions which must be organised by our minds, and this organisation and vocalisation of the audiovisual world happens also in the phenomenological and labyrinthine structure of perception itself. in this sense, intellectual cognition can achieve something that, for instance, dreams and paintings do not, since it can combine different and separate levels of abstraction in one sensory occasion, it can connect specific levels of thought without an apprehension of letting them blur each other. this is related to the way how the human mind operates whether intuitively or cerebrally coordinating the products of ambiguously interacting forces and dismantling the simultaneity of the strategy of spatial structures. this all stresses the way how the documentary filmmaker selects the significant properties of the product in question and modifies the dynamic components of the work to arouse the perceptual evocation among the audience. all media of representation can rely on isomorphic and on non-isomorphic references…in the visual arts or in music, for example, strictly non-isomorphic references are exceedingly rare…a continuous gamut of shapes leads from the least to the most isomorphic media; it includes such intermediate features as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. onomatopoetic speech sounds, ideographs, allegories and other conventional symbols. rudolf arnheim (1969, p. 251). with an expressly reliable assertion, rascaroli is actually following these lines with her declaration that exposes the essay film as ‘a cinema in the first person, a cinema of thought, of investigation, of intellectual searching, of self-reflection (2009: digital age, the blend of individual and collective aspirations, and the emphasis on self-documentation. audiovisual essays complicate the elements of representation. the more general shift away from literacy toward visual and audiovisual culture in the late 20th century 185). the subjectivity of cinematic essay affects both form and content and is also affected by the has also spurred on production within this scope of medium. modes of sketched representation are in line with these thoughts forming an intersection of personal accounts and subjective and socio-historical thematic, relying on cerebral currents and conscious artistic innovation. by examining and evaluating previous and currently existing definitions of essay form, we can approach and develop a vivid theory of the essay film. several scholarly contributions to this field do exist and they promote the intention that the definition of essay film is instantly significant. the general outlining of the current situation emphasises its form as hybrid and focuses on its ability to blur and overstep boundaries. notes note 1. sapir, edward (1931) “conceptual categories of primitive language”, science. note 2. henri thulié wrote about the interior as follows: the interior is the intimate part of life, there one deposits all one’s hypocrisies; like clothing, little by little it takes on the inflections of the body, it betrays all it habits, ne can guess at a man by seeing his rooms. the choice of furniture, colours, of a thousand little nothings spread all about are traitors which recount tendencies, meannesses, and secret vices. frequently, in describing an interior, one recount the private life of an individual or of a family. l’intérieur c’est l’intimité de la vie, on dépose chez soi toutes ses hypocrisies; comme le costume il prend peu à peu toutes les inflexions les corps, trahit toutes ces habitudes, on peut deviner un homme en voyant sa chamber. le choix des meubles, des couleurs, des mille petit riens qui traînent partout sont des traîtres qui racontent les tendances, les mesquineries, les vices secrets. en décrivant un intérieur, on raconte souvent la vie privée d’un individu ou d’une famille. thulié, henri (1857) ‘du roman: la description,’ réalisme, no. 4, 38. reprinted in lewis, mary tompkins (ed.) (2007) critical readings in impressionism & post-impressionism: an anthology. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 172-3. note 3. pour bien comprendre une physionomie, il faut rendre l’impression qu’on a éprouvée en la voyant. il y a toujours des traits saillants dans le visage et dans le costume qui frappent des primes aux abords. ibid. note 4. there has been a lot of controversy around these issues. for the controversy, see more about gestalt-criticism in friedenberg & silverman (2006, pp. 81-82). note 5. a wider approach to these matters can be found in anderson, john, robert (1980) documentary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. psychology and its implications. san francisco: freeman; anderson, joseph, d. (1996) the reality of illusion: an ecological approach to cognitive film theory. illinois: southern illinois university press; cummins, robert (1983) the nature of psychological explanation. cambridge: the mit press; dennett, daniel (1969) content and consciousness. london: routledge and kegan paul; eco, umberto (1997) kant and the platypus: essays on language and cognition. new york: harcourt; ehrenzweig, anton (1993) the hidden order of art: a study in the psychology of the creative eye. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press; flanagan, owen (1984) the science of the mind. cambridge: the mit press; gardner, howard (1985) the mind’s new science: a history of the documentary revolution. new york: basic books; gombrich, ernst, h. (1969) art and illusion. princeton: princeton university press; haugeland, john (1985) artificial intelligence: the very idea. cambridge: the mit press: jackendoff, ray (1987) consciousness and the computational mind. cambridge: the mit press. these books are comparable studies on art, cognition, psychology and perspectives of the mind and consciousness, as well as scientific and historical outlines around these matters. note 6. see further in landsberg, alison (2009) memory, empathy, and the politics of identification. international journal of politics and culture. (pdf) academia.edu. in her innovative essay, she links memory questions together with, for instance, the concept of empathy, and succeeds in establishing an important role to the interconnections between them. furthermore, see reference 63. note 7. as a consequence, general questions of the forms of art and their overlapping dimensions will also clear symmetrical inferences, and aspire to define the continuities between different forms of symmetry and balance in documentary studies, especially the larger connections and linkages between painting, architecture, photography, and film. note 8. we can draw attention to these possibilities of rewriting the history of documentary cinema with an adopted doubt concerning the limits and fallacies of historical representation. note 9. a structurally similar interaction is emphasised and appropriated in johan van der keuken’s documentary amsterdam global village (1996). in addition to narrative patterns and rhetorical figures, van der keuken’s iconographic approach circulates the dramatic and cinematic forms and enactments towards an elaborately choreographed performance, in which the dutch cineaste emphasises the dialectic of camerawork and montage, which happens not only within single shots, or between them, but also between the audiovisual forms and details of narration and their overall context. through this approach one can think that relentless camerawork and then a possible editing are somehow inseparable entities in order to arrange the relations between images and sounds. on a larger cognitive level, it means that both film and media are bound up with finding ways to order. re-order and re-write actual and historical elements at display acknowledging the constructive and reciprocal processes of interaction between media and culture, providing insights into the visions that foresee the contingent realization and appropriation of fundamental discourses among documentaries. van der keuken’s uplifting attitude narrows the one with the early filmmakers’ bottomless curiosity and preference www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. without prejudices including a genuine exaltation towards filmmaking. van der keuken’s disciplined philosophy of audiovisuality is not narrowly orchestrated but mostly associational, containing a collection of hypermodern advanced realism – a specific sensitivity to camera’s ability to produce audiovisual memories and pieces of remembrance. note 10. see, for instance, metz, christian (1985) ‘aural objects’ in weis, elizabeth and john belton (eds.) film sound: theory and practice. new york: columbia university press, 158-160. note 11. see wahlberg (2008), 40-1. our audiovisual perception is a perspective through which we can look at films from our current viewpoint. our relation to history becomes a contemplation, a meditative practice that gives observational possibilities to comprehend and re-interpret cinematic views and visionary recitations. note 12. useful parameters of these connections are laid out in sturken, marita and lisa cartwright (2001) practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. oxford: oxford university press. note 13. this notion aligns with the gestalt-approach of deciding whether the effect has fulfilled all its promises. note 14. in film theory, temenuga trifonova has made a remark concerning ‘hyperlink cinema’, which brings together ‘multiple protagonists from different social classes, ethnic or racial groups, and nations. this all simply reflects the contradictory nature of globalization’. it appears as a form of hyper-associational cinema, ‘a reflection of an increased awareness of the intensification of time and space under the conditions of globalization.’ these are signs and forms of temporal and spatial restructuring that happens throughout the whole architecture of communication. see, trifonova, temenuga (2009) european film theory. new york and london: routledge, 284. note 15. “prosthetic memories” are not the products of lived experiences, but are derived from engagement with a mediated representation, such as a film or an experiential museum, and like an artificial limb, they are actually worn on the body; these are sensuous memories produced by an experience of mass-mediated representations. their ability to circulate widely is occasioned by their commodified form. it is precisely the commodified nature of mass cultural representations that makes them so widely available to people who live in different places and hail from different backgrounds, races, and classes, and that ultimately precludes them from being the private property of a particular group. finally, i call these memories prosthetic to underscore their usefulness. because they feel real, they help condition how a person thinks about the world and might be instrumental in articulating an ethical relation to the other. prosthetic memories emerge at the interface between a person and a historical narrative about the past, at an experiential site such as a movie theatre or museum. in this moment of contact, an experience occurs through which a person sutures him or herself into a larger historical narrative. in this process, the person does not simply learn about the past intellectually, but takes on a more personal, deeply felt memory of a past event.” see landsberg, alison /2018) ‘prosthetic memory: the ethics and politics of memory in an age of mass culture’, in memory and popular film, edited by paul grainge. manchester university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. chapter doi: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137531.00014 online publication date: 30 jul 2018 note 16. it is something to be found also in agnés varda’s documentaries. note 17. for a seminal analysis that combines cultural and historical aspects of postmodernism, see lyotard, jean-francois (1993) the postmodern explained. minnes advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper chinese artists living abroad: art, cultural identity and hybridity suixin. zhang1* 1 adm, birmingham city university, birmingham, unite kingdom * suixin. zhang, suixin. zhang adm, birmingham city university, birmingham, unite kingdom received: february 6, 2022 accepted: february 24, 2022 online published: february 27, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p39 abstract this article will reveal the discussion of identity conflict between past and present chinese art practice abroad through reflection on the art workstrace, and through homi bhabha’s theory of identity hybridization. it seeks to explore the significance of the individual and its connection to the globalized art theme. keywords chinese artists, abroad, contemporary art, cultural identity, hybridity 1. introduction we could suggest, that the topic of identity, has been extensively explored within the history of art (jones, 2013). this is based on a universal topic which has inspired artists, to create work that explores questions around who we are, or identity (robert son & mcdaniel, 2009). these questions can be guided by the intention to know oneself on two levels: selfpublicity and individual consciousness. (robertson & mcdaniel, 2009). within the field of contemporary art in china, artists such as xu bing, yan wang preston have explored the topic of identity through the creation of work that focuses on hybridity (anderson, 1999), or the sense of hybrid identity that the international experience of living away from their home country has provoked. an example of such work can be observed in the work of innovation of calligraphy and status of river in urban place. yet, it can be suggested that each of them will be impact my practice. therefore, i will also introduce my own works by the enlightenment of these artists to show their ideals about feeling of globalization to respond the theme of hybridity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 hybridity in chinese culture identity cultural identity has long been a new topic in the field of chinese contemporary art. starting from the 1990s, when chinese artists went to the world through the then chinese avant-garde art, the awakening of their ideas gave their works a strong personal flavor (jiang, 2007). the atmosphere of showing interest in private life (gao, 1986) has continued until now. wu hong described in “works and exhibitions -wu hong on chinese contemporary art” that “many chinese artists have become travelers in the past 10 years, traveling and living in different parts of the world and returning to participate in exhibitions.” the works of these artists with overseas life experience are often mixed with a considerable flavor of chinese culture and western culture. faced with this situation, most scholars believe that it is more appropriate to discuss this phenomenon from the perspective of chinese contemporary cultural identity, especially to choose homi bhabha’s identity theory “the third space” to discuss, which is more in line with the context of the current globalization theme of interaction (hou & gao, 1990). despite some scholars unwilling to use this theory because that it is inappropriate to put the phenomenon in to the discussion of the colonialism and post colonialism which is bhabha’s theory background. they believe the culture identity in china, which is full of integration of theory with western and east, is not a single national culture identity that western thinks (hou, 1994). however, i want to focus on using the theory of homi k bhabha to explain the creative purpose of chinses artist who living abroad. there have good historical evidence and works of art to support this view. began in the 1990s, the western aesthetics generally believed that colonial thought was superior to chinese art, which made the chinses artist taste orientation at that time too political, catering to western aesthetics and markets (smith, 2005). some chinese artists’ involvement in cultural identity hybridity in their works is a strategy and means to curry favors with the western art market (zhang & frazier, 2017). this phenomenon accords with the research background of bhabha’s theory-the influence of post-colonialismnon-western cultures are selfshielded, written in a western way, and dominated by western words. at the same time, this cultural strategy can be look as artists growing as well, crossing cultural divides, and transforming their cultural experience into effective language to intervene in new social reality (hou & gao, 1990). choosing the latter perspective will more force on the discussion of the artist’s personal cultural identity, and these artworks mixed with different cultures may be analyzed simply from the perspective of “translation and negotiation” in baba’s hybrid identity theory. homi k bhabha’s research believes that every identity can be rewritten and negotiated to give the weak the initiative to rewrite the dominant culture. it indicates a state of integration between two different individuals, thus coping with the anxiety of unknown identity. this means that when these overseas artists receive the knowledge of different local cultures, they may try to convert these foreign www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. knowledges into their own cognition, thus weakening their unidentified anxiety caused by different cultures. (homi, 2004) especially in the context of globalization in recent years, the internet, and even high-tech vehicles such as airplanes have expanded the scope of people’s activities and made it easier for them to send and receive information (anderson, 1999). science and technology have expanded people’s perception of the region, thereby reducing the identification of the identity of the location and the environment (he, 2012). this exacerbates the occurrence of heterogeneity in different cultures and arts. under this phenomenon, artists who travel abroad change their cultural identity through their own initiative and flexibility: while modifying and supplementing their own cultural identity, they draw a line between themselves and others and recognize themselves (he, 2012). this coping strategy makes them reduce the anxiety brought about by identity, while also satisfying their pursuit of the most primitive and pure desire: answering the human instinct about who i am. 2.1.1 the chinese artist examples the above theory can be illustrated by two artists related to this topic. xu bing. following the creation of “book of sky” in the 1990s, xu bing continued to explore the aesthetic and understanding possibilities of chinese characters. after immigrating to the united states, he obtained new artistic aesthetic inspiration (smith, 2005) and created the most influential artistic font work “new english square calligraphy”. this artistic font consists of 26 english letters inside, but its appearance is presented in a square structure peculiar to chinese fonts. its reading habits are also very consistent with those of china or the west: from left to right, from top to bottom, and from outside to inside (li, 2014). this approach, which is based on the cultural background of traditional chinese calligraphy and can smoothly reset western characters into the chinese character structure, can prove that artists can smoothly convert foreign cultures such as english into their own cognitive attribution through the basis of local culture, namely chinese. however, bing xu has solved the problem of arts and culture that do not conform to local specifications in different cultural backgrounds (smith, 2005). it retains the laws of traditional chinese calligraphy, and at the same time, it also creates a possibility that transcends cultural barriers and expands specific contexts (jiang, 2007). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. figure 1. xu bing. new english square calligraphy – longfellow’s warming 2016. (177 x 192 cm) yan wang preston. yan wang preston’s long-term photography project “mother river” can also be used as an example of the complexity of cultural identity. this work is a photography that she uses a large-frame film camera to shoot the 6211km long yangtze river at precise intervals for 4 years. her inspiration for creation comes from anxiety about her vague identity. since she came to britain to study photography in 2005, she has been reflecting on the influence of chinese identity on herself. this kind of reflection full of homesickness makes her notice that she can make use of the aesthetic appreciation she learned in the west and re-examine her chinese identity (preston & barth, 2018). cheatle (2015) commented in his special contribution to the works of yan wang preston and her mother river: “wang yan’s life in england, britain’s land and its natural scenery have all given her more acute observation of china’s land.” with such new foreign life experience and chinese roots, she chose to re-show the scenery along the yangtze river that “mother river” with traditional symbolic significance in china. examining herself and even the most authentic status quo in modern china, which has been hit by economic shocks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. figure 2. yan wang preston. mother river. 2013. photograph 3. art practice: trace enlightened by the above-mentioned artists, it has concept that inspects experience subjects that can be seen in our life. the practice absorbs period drawing skills learned from chinese paintings and attempt to integrate them into the context of chinese contemporary art. also, trees were observed in daily to leave an extremely profound impact on individual art experience. this practice is a piece of paper which is made from leaves and plants. in addition, there will have an original appearance of the leaves painting on the surface. those original materials are noticed from city parks that have mounts of different plants and these “permanent residents” rooted in birmingham. in addition, the main reason i chose the leaves as a raw material because with inspiring by the photography of wang yan preston as a case study. in this situation, trees have the same territoriality as humans. first, trees are rooted in the soil and can only be found in this place. for that reason, their growth status is affected by soil and climate which are the essential elements to disguise the diverse areas. in south of china, such as guangzhou, the climate is similar with spring in all four seasons. besides, the soil in that place is fertile. secondly, most trees will not change the color of the leaves as the seasons changing. however, in birmingham, soil and climate characteristics have changed, so it will be more clearly to feel the outlet of temperature and humidity. therefore, the leaves in birmingham will turn red in autumn and withering in winter when they turn www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. yellow. their states-no change or change, are like symbols of this area (anderson, 1999). life in china has imprinted me on an indelible cultural gene, making me a chinese. when i went abroad and received a different environment in birmingham, it also transformed a part of me as the life in china. basically, i am also a chinese born and raised. however, i am also different from this kind of people because i have a unique memory of birmingham outside china. choosing paper as the main carrier of creation, mainly represents one of my own symbols-an objects that can represent my cultural identity. in my previous art learning experience, the study of chinese painting occupied most of the time. for this reason, most of this knowledge is applied to paper, that is, painting on the shelf. naturally, i am very familiar with the material of paper, so i want to transform the materials between paper and the leaves to expresses the ideal that the changes of diversity and cross-media in my study of contemporary art in birmingham. for example, chinses artist xu bing, who using the brushwork of chinese calligraphy and combining the western languageenglish, have created the series of special typefaces created as his own style or a peculiar symbol as himself. being inspired for xu bing, i have an ideal that using the leaves of the trees that are rooted in birmingham to imitate the papermaking process of xuan paper, a reproduced “xuan paper” which is made in birmingham specially. paintings on paper emphasize the different results of the same process by recreating the original appearance of the leaves. this is the same principle as imitating process of xuan paper, but the method of re-selecting the leaves is foil sticking in traditional chinese painting techniques. the attempt that translates chinese painting techniques into contemporary language is also in line with the theory of cultural transformation between east and west mentioned above. for example, techniques are used to weaken the non-realistic treatment in chinese paintings and emphasize the realistic texture of leaves. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. figure 3. artwork: trace www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. figure 4. artwork: trace 4. discussion (conclusions) at present, globalization has still become the hottest topic and inevitable trend. in this context, it is more important to study the complexity of chinese cultural identity. the reason is that cultural diversities can prevent the emergence of identity essentialization, and cause people not stand still, but bravely accept new knowledge and help the chinese themselves to carry out effective knowledge reconstruction in today’s information explosion. (he, 2014) this reconstruction is conducive to our development in the general environment of contemporary art. additionally, when everyone realizes that they have different cultural identities, people can have miraculous creativity. these reflections and process of these creations are all about my past and present explorations of culture and identity, especially impact of miscellaneous: sparks from a combination of two different experiences in my practice. with the reconstruction of xuan paper in my work, it is also an important way for me to know individual life and even the world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement references becker, l. j., & seligman, c. (1981). welcome to the energy crisis. journal of social issues, 37(2), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1981.tb02623.x hamner, h. a. (in press). research in cognitive development. new york: springer. hilts, p. j. (1999, february 16). in forecasting their emotions, most people flunk out. new york times. retrieved november 21, 2000, from http://www.nytimes.com laplace, p. s. (1951). a philosophical essay on probabilities (f. w. truscott & f. l. emory, trans.). new york: dover. (original work published 1814) publication manual of the american psychological association (5th ed.). (2001). washington, dc: american psychological association. rocklin, t. r. (1989). individual differences in item selection in computerized self-adapted testing. paper presented at the annual meeting of the american research association, san francisco, ca. ryerson, j. f. (1983). effective management training: two models (unpublished master’s thesis). college of technology, potsdam, new york. schwartz, j. (1993, september 30). obesity affects economic, social status. the washington post, pp. a1, a4. anderson, w. t. (1999) communities in a world of open systems. future: the journal of policy, planning and futures studies, 31, 457-463. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-3287(99)00005-1 cheatle, z. (2015) yan wang preston and her mother river. artron. net, 21 july. retrieved from https://news.artron.net/20150721/n762482_1.html erickson, b., & xu, b. (2001). the art of xu bing words without meaning, meaning without words. washington, d.c. seattle: published by arhur m, sackler gallery and the university of washington press. feng, y., & xu, b. (1996) the plight of chinses contemporary art system. dialogue on xu bing’s new work < new english square calligraphy>. artist correspondence, 10, 25-27. gao, m. (1986). the’85 art movement. in wu. h (ed.), contemporary chinses art primary documents (pp. 52-61) durham, n.c: duke university press. guo, y. (2007). the revival of chinses cultural nationalism. directory of open access journals, 4(1). retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v4i1.424 he, y. (2012). research on homi k. bhabha’s hybrid identity theory. beijing: china social sciences. press. homi, k. b. (2004). the location of culture. routledge: routledge ltd. hou, h., & gao, m. (1990). strategies of survival in the third space: a conversation on the situation of overseas chinses artist in the 1990s. in m. l. gao (ed.), inside out new chinses art (pp. 183189). san francisco: san francisco museum of modern art. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. hou, h. (1994). entropy, chinses artist, western art institutions: a new internationalism. in h. wu (ed.), contemporary chinses art primary documents (pp. 363-365) durham, n.c: duke university press. jiang, j. (2007). burden or legacy: form the chinese cultural revolution to contemporary art. hong. kong: hong kong university press. jones, r. (2013). on the value of not knwing wonder, beginning again and letting be. in f. elizabeth & f. rebecca (eds.), on not knowing: how artists think (pp. 16-31). london: black dog publishing. lee, c. (2011). chinses avant-garde art: body and spirit struggle for a new cultural identity. aras. connections, 4, 1-21. li, a. (2014). an analysis of the focus of xu bing new english calligraphy. chinses culture forum, 12, 74-77. preston, y., & barth, n. (2018). mother river. berlin: hatje cantz. preston, y., & barth, n. (2018). forest. berlin: hatje cantz. robertson, j., & mcdaniel, c. (2009). themes of contemporary art visual art after 1980 (1st ed., p. 49). new. york: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t2088866 smith, k. (2005). nine lives: the birth of avant-garde art in new china. zurich: scalo. wu, h. (2001). chinses art at the crossroads: between past and future, between east and west. hong kong: new art media. xu, b. (2016). new english square calligraphy-longfellow’s warming. [paper and ink] 177 x 192 cm in. © the artist and the china academic journal electronic publishing house. photo: courtesy china academic journal electronic publishing house. zhang, l., & frazier, t. (2017). playing the chinese card: globalization and the aesthetic strategies of chinses contemporary artists. international journal of cultural studies, 20. retrieved from https://journals-sagepubcom.ezproxy.bcu.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1177/1367877915600554?utm_source=summon&utm_ medium=discovery-provider https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877915600554 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 50 original paper solve the plight of rural healthcare talent from the success of the barefoot doctor period jiaxin yu1 1 university of jinan of china, guangzhou, china received: january 21, 2024 accepted: march 01, 2024 online published: march 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p50 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p50 abstract the barefoot doctors (bds) have contributed tremendous strength to the protection and promotion of the health and well-being of vast farmers in china, and the country’s three-tiered medical and preventive healthcare network of counties, townships, and villages is widely acknowledged as a valuable experience in providing rural healthcare in developing nations. in the twenty-first century, china’s rural health care is facing new opportunities and challenges in terms of talent issues. in order to provide a new avenue for the survival and advancement of rural health care workers in the twenty-first century, this paper addresses the predicament of the current workforce and incorporates an interview with ms. song, a former barefoot doctor, to distill the successful experience and propose a solution to the current predicament. keywords rural medical, rural healthcare professionals, barefoot doctors 1. introduction the “developing and strengthening the rural medical and healthcare talent team” guideline is presented in the opinions on further deepening reform and promoting the healthy development of rural medical and healthcare system of 2023 . its objectives are to enhance the health of rural residents and to support the sustainable growth of rural medical and healthcare endeavors. enhancing the healthcare and medical infrastructure in rural areas is crucial for advancing the development of a healthy china, and it is also the correct definition of advancing the revitalization of the countryside. (the opinions on further deepening the reform and promoting the healthy development of rural medical and healthcare system issued by the state council of the people’s republic of china, developing and strengthening rural medical and healthcare talent team, 2023) the medical professional team also plays a crucial role in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. development of the rural medical and health system. the state has invested significant material resources and introduced a number of public policies since 2000, under the direction of the government health system, with the goal of providing health talent to rural areas. however, the paradox of the “surplus-scarcity” of medical personnel in urban and rural areas remains unresolved, and the shortage of medical personnel in rural areas remains a problem. the paradox of “surplus and shortage” of medical personnel in urban and rural areas lies in the path of progress in rural health care. chairman mao zedong’s directive to “put the focus of medical and health care work in the countryside” in the 1960s and 1970s led to the emergence and quick growth of barefoot doctors and the brigade co-operative medical stations they oversaw in the vast rural areas. a group of medical and health professionals who could treat common and frequent diseases in rural areas, who were ingrained in the rural soil at the grassroots level, and who the rural economy could afford to support and retain. (wen, 2005) made a significant contribution to the promotion and protection of the lives and health of a large number of rural people, and at the time created the “world health miracle” under china’s economic circumstances. at that point, this led to a “global health miracle” and left behind for china experience in rural health work that is worth exploring. medical and health care personnel serve as the gatekeepers of rural residents’ health at the bottom of the medical and health service network. this paper intends to using ms. song, a barefoot doctor in heilongjiang province, as a case study, the comprehensive use of literature and oral history, once again look back at the then social context of the barefoot doctor ’s work and life in the specific scenes. through the experience of rural medical and health personnel in the period of barefoot doctors, efforts have been made to solve the problem of talents in the rural grassroots medical and health care undertakings. 2. dilemmas faced by rural healthcare professionals 2.1 shortage of health personnel makes it difficult to cover the last kilometer according to the 2023 china statistical yearbook, the number of village doctors has declined sharply in recent years, and as many as nearly 30 percent of them are over the age of 60. as of 2022, the number of rural doctors and health workers in china was 665,000, while the number of village health rooms in china was 58,000, and the phenomenon of village health rooms being idle or village doctors being affiliated with these facilities is not uncommon. the following information about the educational backgrounds of health technicians in primary healthcare facilities in 2021 is taken from the 2022 china health and wellness statistical yearbook : (national health and wellness commission, 2022) the proportion of postgraduates, undergraduates, and specialists in township health centers is 0.1%, 23.9%, and 43.3%, respectively, and that of urban community health centers is 1.9%,42.1%,and 38.1%,with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. educational level of health technicians is significantly lower than that of urban areas, and the level of medical services is relatively backward. to enumerate the plight of the rural health talent shortage in three main areas: 1) fault lines in rural health talent: the structure of talent in the health sector should ideally consist of three generations-old, middle-aged and young—to form an echelon. however, at the moment, the proportion of young village doctors in china’s wide rural areas is extremely small. 2) loss of rural health talent: within the framework of the urban-rural dual structure, health talent flows in both directions: from lower-level health organizations to higher-level health organizations, and from rural to urban areas. this clearly unidirectional flow of health talent results in the village health office, (tian, 2019) which is at the bottom of the hierarchy, having no room for risk transfer. additionally, after the rural doctors are poached or leave to pursue better opportunities, many clinics have been forced to close, which has led to a blank village situation. 3) the supply-side structure of medical education: on the one hand, colleges and universities recruit medical students for targeted training in the relatively backward rural areas of the region, but they face the problem of many graduates defaulting on their contracts; on the other hand, graduates from vocational education face problems with their qualifications and social treatment, which has led to the phenomenon that china’s medical education has been facing the problem of “planting broadly but not harvesting thinly”. 2.2 poor functioning of staffing mechanisms due to irrational talent policies and management models with the reform and opening up, and rise of the “engagement economy”, the income level of rural doctors practicing medicine in villages has relatively declined, and they no longer have the superiority of intellectuals jumping out of the farm gate in terms of their personal status; the market mechanism makes it possible to reshuffle the resources of the rural labor force, including rural doctors. there have been two major issues with rural medical and health care staff in recent years. one is that issues related to talent policy, insurance coverage, and doctor pay in rural areas cannot be implemented. from the standpoint of a logical economist, this makes it simple to argue against the problems’ interests. one kind is insurance fraud through false patients, false conditions, false invoices and other false behaviors; (wang, 2021) the second kind is the adulteration of unreasonable content in the diagnosis and treatment process, such as prescribing over-scope examination items, excessive and repeated diagnosis and treatment, and tied selling auxiliary medicines that are not necessary to be used; and the third category is the violation of the medical staff ’s right to accept or ask for red packets. (li, 2016) secondly, the services of village doctors as well as village health offices are purchased by the state, usually placed outside the system of the new rural cooperative, and cannot be included in the reimbursement, villagers are not willing to come to the village clinic to see a doctor, the medical personnel at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. bottom of the net loses the significance of their existence, and the wastage of the personnel team is intensified. (sun, wang, x. y., wang, c. et al., 2011) although the government has made substantial financial investments in rural health -care institutions, it has played the role of a bottom-up guarantee. however, with regard to talent, it has been difficult to implement a system of incentives for rural medical and health care personnel in terms of salary and benefits, and it has been difficult for county and township governments to get money for differentials. in the face of the plight of the brain drain, only in the administrative establishment, treatment, try to retain retirees, and the newly added village doctors’ social insurance and medical insurance have not been applied for a long time, can only wait for the empty space to fill, so that the entire talent system cannot come in, cannot come out, resulting in a “bloated-shortage” of the talent dilemma. the new rural cooperative medical system mainly focuses on the reimbursement of major illnesses, and minor illnesses such as headaches and cerebral fevers that are common in daily life are not included in the scope of reimbursement, which makes many farmers not go to the village health clinic to see a doctor, and the operation of the health clinic naturally deteriorates, and the grass -roots health care personnel who are unable to make ends meet are forced to lose their jobs. 2.3 the lack of a practical match between training methods and the culture of society has led to the saying “position and morality cannot coexist” since the 1980s, barefoot doctors have been renamed rural doctors, and they are required to pass a physician practice examination in order to be qualified to practice medicine. this is undoubtedly a major initiative to improve the quality of medical services for rural doctors, but there are also many practical problems with its implementation. jin according to jin jianqiang scholars, one of the main causes of the dearth of rural medical practitioners in china is that the country’s current physician qualification examination application requirements (education, age, and difficulty level) are disconnected from the realities of rural areas. (jin, 2009) chen tao scholars also highlighted the following: there is no targeted setting of the examination and access standards; the content and standards of china’s medical licensing examination are nationally uniform, according to the score from high to low for admission, and for the phenomenon of different practical situations between regions, there is no targeted setting of the examination and access standards. due to the generally lower academic qualifications of grassroots medical students, the examination pass rate of primary care physicians is lower, which is the main reason for the decrease in the number of primary care physicians. (chen, 2016) considering the current state of affairs in rural china, general practitioners—or those better suited to the country’s rural terrain—and china’s current practitioner subjects are divided into four categories of practitioners: clinical, public health, stomatology, and traditional chinese medicine practitioners, even if they have obtained the qualification certificate, their consultations are often subject to the constraints of not being able to conduct cross-disciplinary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. consultations. in traditional chinese culture, the concept of identity hierarchy is rooted in people ’s hearts, and with the establishment of medical institutions corresponding to the level of administrative division, (yang, 2023) some rural doctors face a subconscious identity awareness barrier when it comes to treating identity recognition disorder. with the arrival of the new era, the life and spiritual level of farmers have been improved, coupled with some existing health insurance and medicine financial chaos, they are more inclined to go to the county-level hospitals and above to seek medical services. worship and trust for rural health offices and doctors have also greatly reduced, which is a significant departure from the extremely harmonious doctor-patient relationship in the time of the barefoot doctors. this has led to an obvious gap between rural doctors in terms of social and cultural factors, which not only affects their motivation and professional identity, but also restricts the development of rural medical and health care personnel. 3. strategies for solving the dilemma of rural medical and health care personnel from the successful experience of the barefoot doctor period in the 1970s, with the widespread implementation of the rural cooperative medical service throughout the country, the barefoot doctors’ group became the focus of much attention and won wide recognition and praise from society. the medical model of this period, despite the simple equipment and the fact that the system was still in the exploratory stage, but effectively solved the problem of the shortage of medical resources in rural areas through primary medical care and human services. the barefoot doctors contributed to the prevention and control of diseases in rural areas by popularizing health knowledge and improving the health literacy of farmers through regular patrol medical service and health education, as well as the innovations in doctor-patient relationships, training methods, and management models demonstrated during this period. these insights and experiences have a significant impact on how modern rural medical and healthcare professionals grow. by learning from the practical experience of the barefoot doctor period and combining it with the development of modern medical science and institutional policies, we will continue to improve the system of rural health care personnel and provide more scientific and efficient medical services for the rural masses. 3.1 reclaiming the intimacy and trust of the patient relationship of the barefoot doctor era barefoot doctors were called “the peasants’ own doctors”, and the peasants gave them political trust and cultural respect. the candidates for barefoot doctors training at the time had to meet two strict requirements: they had to be politically and ideologically sound, come from a good family background, and prioritize the children of lower-middle-class and impoverished parents who met the above criteria”, (the party committee of the ministry of health., 1965) as well as those who have a degree of primary, junior and senior high school education. the rural people, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. especially the poor and lower-middle peasants, had a deep trust in the barefoot doctors, a trust that stemmed from the historical background of the countryside and the political consciousness cultivated through years of propaganda and education. additionally, the barefoot doctors ’ writings were widely publicized by the press, radio, and cinema, and the term “barefoot doctor” seemed to have originated from a noble vocabulary that reverberated across the great river north and south. the majority of barefoot doctors have genuinely embodied the medical profession ’s “treating patients like family members” credo. most of them were selected and trained by local villagers and returned to the local villages, and their relationship with the villagers was either with their own families, neighbors or classmates, etc. through a complex and deep network of human interactions, the contact between the doctors and the patients amounted to much more than just a patient-doctor relationship. the ideological education received by the barefoot doctors—to serve the people wholeheartedly, to carry forward the humanitarian spirit of the revolution, and so on—reinforces the fact that the vernacular society “sustains private morality” (wang, 2011). the winds of politics may blow over sooner or later, but the link of hometown camaraderie will always blow. ms. song, who worked as a barefoot doctor, recalls: whenever i visited people’s homes, everyone was very welcoming and respected me. i had to eat at my folks ‘house when i was assisted-delivery. there was no white flour at home, so they went to other people’s houses and borrowed flour to cook for me. i used to tell them that since i was a doctor and had a duty to take care of you, i could eat anything and they shouldn ’t worry about me. the villages within the brigade were quite far from one another, and despite their own financial hardships, the locals would drive their oxcarts to fetch me when they asked me to visit them for medical attention. even though they were so poor in those days, when i gave birth to my child, they sent more than 3,000 eggs and four or five bags of flour to my home. on the day i moved from the village to the city, the family of a woman who had given birth came to me, and i left the moving truck and ran after them. to be honest, i would no longer be a barefoot doctor if i left the community. however, i reasoned that it was my obligation as a doctor to use my medical ethics to solve the problems of the patients in my brigade, i have to stand on the last post well. the day the moving truck left, everyone was crying. even after so many years, every time i went back to the village, everyone still came to see me, and the relationship with the villagers at that time was really good; i genuinely missed them. doctors, we have to have a human interest, i have to prescribe at least thirty or forty prescriptions a day, hard i do not feel hard, i feel very honorable, as long as my patients are good, i will be at ease. china’s rural barefoot doctors use the most simple way to let the “humanistic care” advocated by modern medicine shine on the chinese countryside. (liu, 2021) in order to create a culture of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. respect for the practice of rural medicine in social circles, the government should make the public aware of the wonderful deeds and contributions made by rural doctors through a variety of channels and media. this will help the public recognize the resilience and protection of rural doctors as the wind and rain that they are. according to the medical service situation of each place, the software and hardware level of rural health centers will be improved systematically, so as to make the working environment of rural doctors more convenient and comfortable. in the process of hiring rural doctors, evaluating their titles, and addressing other issues, raising their social standing through promotion channels would help the villagers recognize and value them more and actively cultivate a positive doctor-patient connection. rural doctors themselves should always be patient-centered, caring for the plight and needs of the majority of patients, and providing more accurate and effective medical services for patients, thus enhancing the reputation of rural doctors and service evaluation. 3.2 taking a leaf out of the barefoot doctors period of training in the 1960s and 1970s, china established three major health systems in rural areas, consisting of the “barefoot doctor”, “the rural cooperative medical system”, and “the three-tiered health care network”. this system was once recognized internationally as china’s main approach to “obtaining the greatest health benefits with the least investment”. (hu, 2008) barefoot physicians are first chosen in the community, then after receiving approval and assignment from the village or local government, they attend the county health school for one to three years, or even longer, to complete their training. after that, they return to the villages to resume their work. in order to improve the medical level and service capacity of barefoot doctors, china has carried out various forms of on-the-job training. centralized training in county hospitals or community health centers is the most popular type of instruction. in addition, regular meetings for business study, correspondence courses, formal training at health schools, and training for medical teams in the countryside are also important forms of training. in accordance with instructions from the central government, medical staff from big city hospitals and the people ’s liberation army also dispatch a number of capable traveling medical teams to train barefoot doctors. “barefoot doctors” are generally able to master the diagnosis and prevention of 100–200 common and frequent diseases in rural areas, apply 100–200 chinese and western medicines, use acupuncture and moxibustion at more than 100 acupuncture points, and administer everything from chinese herbs to western antibiotics, and even simple surgical procedures. the application of the new midwifery method in gynecology and pediatrics has resulted in a notable decrease in the overall death rate of expectant mothers and babies. (zhang, wen, & liang, 2002) under the guidelines of the “three earths and four selves”, barefoot doctors and peasants have actively explored and used chinese herbs to treat illnesses with herbs and earth prescriptions. as consequently, the culture of traditional chinese medicine has grown in an unparalleled manner. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. ms. song recounted: we must select clever individuals with junior and senior high school education from the community, taking into account the family structure in addition to your ability to manage your affairs. following the selection of our group’s unified organization in the county-wide learning classes at the hospital, we learned how to inject first, followed by vaccination, acupuncture, gynecology, pediatrics, and so on. regardless of whether chinese medicine and western medicine should be learned, everyone should become a unique and comprehensive hand, everyone would cure the disease. our teachers included graduates of the harbin medical university, veteran chinese medicine practitioners who had been seeing patients for decades, and full-time obstetricians and gynecologists. over the course of my three years as a general practitioner student in the county, we followed the teacher to the countryside to see patients, participate conducting camp and field training, and learnt a lot of knowledge that can be directly used in practice. i was responsible for patients with conditions such as midwifery, vaccinations, colds, pneumonia, tuberculosis, heart disease, sepsis, neonatal conditions, gynecology and pediatrics, and so on. there is a kind of scleroderma neonatorum, theoretically the mortality rate is 98 percent, but for the children who have passed through my hands, i use acupuncture, chinese herbal medicine, and a set of prescription, none of the children died. today’s medical personnel training model can take the “barefoot doctor period” as a model, and endeavor to strengthen the cultivation of rural general practitioners and improve the overall quality and level of the current rural grass-roots medical and healthcare team. we will continue to enhance the policy mechanism for the cultivation of rural-oriented medical students in the areas of top-level design, talent cultivation, curriculum construction, clinical practice, etc. by utilizing the ministry of education’s opportunity to promote the implementation of the excellent doctor education and training program, combining the actual needs of rural medical and health services, and collaborating with the local government, local colleges, and un iversities. (xu, 2023) taking positions as the leading role, cultivate oriented talents close to the position needs of rural doctors. establish medical ethics and a medical style, study with chinese medicine practitioners, teach by example in the clinic, incorporate chinese medicine instruction into the training program, and develop chinese medicine talent that is tailored to the requirements of rural medical and health services. the difficulty and content of the license exam should be tailored to the real circumstances of providing medical care in rural areas, and the practice itself should be localized, practical, and standardized. really cultivate a group of “can-pick-up, top-of-the live” rural doctors. 3.3 improve the management model and draw on the cooperative medical management strategy the cooperative medical management model from the 1970s was influential in the field of rural health, and it is still worthwhile to research the communal brigades’ administration of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. barefoot doctors. at that time, farmers only needed to pay a small amount of money annually or could even use chinese herbs or grains in place of the fund-raising money. (peng, lv, wang et al., 2011) the funds for cooperative medical care came primarily from individual fund-raising and the brigade’s allocation. the majority of the villagers’ medical costs were covered by the cooperative medical care, and the money was utilized to open pharmacies and purchase medical supplies. the majority of rural residents were drawn to the convenient and reasonably priced policy. once they realized the advantages of receiving medical care, they became even more eager to cooperate, which eventually provided barefoot doctors and cooperative medical care with a large mass following. the value of the barefoot doctor’s labor and the remuneration for his labor were realized through the work points kept by the brigade, such a way of remuneration cut off the interest relationship between the doctor and the patient, and because of the guidance of the political ideology at that time, the barefoot doctor did not have the idea and motivation of overmedicating. on the premise of no interest dispute, the role of the interpersonal relationship model of chinese vernacular society could be fully manifested, and other factors could also play a role (wang, 2011). at that time, the management system of barefoot doctors was also relatively perfect, with brigades directly managing barefoot doctors and assessing their participation in production and labor and their overall performance in the practice of medicine; communes restraining them administratively; commune health hospitals guiding and training barefoot doctors and providing them with regular business assessment and guidance; and the county health bureaus managing them indirectly. the collective economy guaranteed the regular operation of the brigade health office, and in the context of the three-level network of prevention and healthcare at the time, the county, commune, and brigade were all in charge of managing the village clinics and the work of the barefoot doctors. so under such a management system, the profit and loss of the operation of the village clinic were not a matter of excessive consideration for the barefoot doctors, who were more capable of devoting themselves to the provision of health care services for the tow nspeople. (sun, wang, x. y., wang, c. et al., 2011) in this regard, ms. song said: in my opinion, the farmers greatly benefited from the communal medical care. to ensure that everyone could afford to take the medications, farmers contributed a small amount collectively, and the brigade would be compensated for the cost of the medications as well as the expense of traveling to the county hospital for medical attention. we went to the doctor to get the delivery fee, which we then turned in to the brigade. the money was then utilized to buy medication that the people may need. our pay was based on the quantity of work points we were given, and all fees had nothing to do with our salary; instead, they were measured in centimeters. at that stage, we also assessed the brigade’s advanced members based on the number of centimeters they had received. the number of centimeters we had received was determined by our work output, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. attitude toward serving others, and technical proficiency; if the villagers were dissatisfied with our work, we could not have received the centimeters at random. at that time, we followed mao zedong’s thought, leaders and the peasants should be treated the same way, using medication when they were sick and treating them however they needed to be treated. no one had so much to think about, we were just dedicated to serving the people. the happiness index of the peasant masses is directly correlated with the quality of care provided by rural doctors, who serve as the major medical services spokesperson and coordin ator. (wang, tang, wu et al., 2021) priority one when building a rural medical talent team is to always uphold the progress and integrity of medical professionals. to ensure that the health care industry and medical and health institutions can be effectively implemented and put into practice, the county health talent policy must be put into practice. this includes the introduction of a perfect mechanism for the introduction and application of the policy, supporting the corresponding policy support. second, governments at all levels should fully grant medical and health institutions, as well as the medical community, the authority to recruit, introduce, and cultivate incentives for talent. additionally, wages and benefits for rural medical workers should be appropriately raised to enable them to fully develop their talents in the vast rural land. last but not least, talent incentives should be implemented, a sound incentive mechanism that respects the value of talent and the laws of growth should be established, and the urban-rural mobility of medical talent should be strengthened. third, a new structure of fair allocation at the county, township, and village levels should be formed, and the active development and expansion of the talent team at the county level of administration should be encouraged. furthermore, the assessment and supervision should be put into place to strengthen the annual assessment of the construction of county -level health personnel and to support integrated management of county medical and health care personnel. fourthly, it’s important to cultivate ideological awareness. the primary duty of the health care authorities’ party style and clean government construction should be consolidated under the direction of party building. strengthening the party style, clean government construction, and disciplinary control of healthcare facilities are necessary. (yang, ji, & huang, 2021) in terms of philosophy, establish cutting-edge conventional models, garner media attention and recognition, and actively push the development of a hygienic medical facility with high standards for medical ethics and a hygienic culture. 4. concluding remarks the research presented here examines the difficulties faced by rural medical and healthcare workers in detail, this paper looks back at the successful experience of the barefoot doctor era and draws wisdom from it to solve the current predicament. although the medical facilities of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. that era were rudimentary and the medical model was plagued with all kinds of problems, but the barefoot doctors’ team embodied the human touch and professionalism that are lacking in today’s rural medical care. the state has undoubtedly expended a great deal of time and money reforming rural healthcare over the years, but the problem of rural healthcare talent will not be resolved overnight. we must accept the situation as it is, rise to the occasion, and progressively address the lack of qualified medical and healthcare professionals in rural areas through monetary assistance, model innovation, leadership development, and policy direction, among other means. to investigate a rural medical development route with chinese characteristics in the ongoing practice and summary. “with medicine boxes on their shoulders, mud under their feet, and the people in their hearts”, the group of barefoot doctors who trekked on mountain trails in worn-out shoes have gone far away with the development of the times, and the rural medical talents who use their hands and knowledge to deliver health and happiness to the people in rural china in the new era are still struggling on the front line. it is envisaged that with the combined efforts of the government, society, and individuals, the hardship of rural medical and healthcare talents can be effectively relieved, and that rural medical and healthcare endeavors would deliver increasing advantages to the chinese people. acknowledgment supported by the state-level innovation and entrepreneurship training program for undergraduates of jinan university (project no. 202310559139). references chen, t. (2016). reasons and countermeasures for the shortage of primary practitioners in china. medicine and society, 29(03), 30-33. hu, s. l. (2008). analysis of the operation and evaluation of the new rural cooperative medicalsystem in china. china health economy, 25(2), 26-27. jin, j. q. (2009). research on the problems and countermeasures of rural doctors and clinical doctors of township health centres transitioning to practising (assistant) physicians. huazhong university of science and technology. li, z. g. (2016). briefing on typical cases of supervision and discipline in healthcare system. minxin, 106(10), 9. liu, y. (2011). the reasons for the creation and existence of barefoot doctors and their revelations. journal of fujian normal university (philosophy and social science edition), 2011(05), 107-110 national health and wellness commission. china health and health statistics yearbook. (2022). beijing: peking union medical college press. peng, y. c., lv, z. f., wang, x. y. et al. (2011). factors contributing to the success and failure of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. co-operative medical system during the barefoot doctor period. chinese family medicine, 14(16), 1845-1846+1850. sun, d. y., wang, x. y., wang, c. et al. (2011). implications of the management system during the bare foot doctor period for current rural health talent management. chinese family medicine, 14(07), 723-725. the opinions on further deepening the reform and promoting the healthy development of rural medical and healthcare system issued by the state council of the people’s republic of china, developing and strengthening rural medical and healthcare talent team. (2023). china talent, 2023(04), 6. the party committee of the ministry of health. report on shifting the focus of health work to the countryside. (1965). 1965-8-11. tian, m. (2019). institutional changes and realistic dilemmas of rural healthcare in china. huazhong university of science and technology. wang, s. (2011). social identity of barefoot doctors group and reasons analysis—a case study of shenze county, hebei province. history of the communist party of china, 2011(01), 109-115. wang, x. y. (2021). aiming at the risk points and key points of the healthcare industry to make supervision more precise, governance more effective and measures more efficient. chengdu daily, 2021-07-16(5). wang, y. z., tang, z. t., wu, j. x. et al. (2021). contemporary value of the barefoot doctor model from the perspective of talent cultivation. journal of henan university, 40(06), 445-447. wen, y. q. (2005). social and cultural factors in the creation and existence of “barefoot doctors”. journal of yunnan university for nationalities (philosophy and social science edition), 2005(02), 60-63. xu, y. f. (2023). policy research on rural doctors’ team construction based on public policy tools. zhejiang gongshang university. yang, j. x. p., ji, z. g., & huang, j. (2021). research on the shortcomings and weaknesses of rural health care system in the new period. china rural health care management, 43(10), 686-693. yang, y. h. (2023). supply dilemma and educational reflection of rural medical and health care talents. medicine and philosophy, 44(12), 5-9. zhang, k. n., wen, y. q., & liang, p. (2002). in from barefoot doctors to country doctors (vol 8). kunming: yunnan people’s publishing house. appendix: synopsis of an interview 1. when did you take up the job? 2. what are the criteria for selection for training as barefoot doctors? 3. how were barefoot doctors trained at that time? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. 4. what medical knowledge was learnt during the training? 5. what else will you do during the training besides learning about medicine? 6. who were the teachers who trained you at that time? 7. what are the common ailments in the practice of medicine and how are they treated? 8. how is the relationship with patients in the village 9. what financial assistance is received and where does the remuneration come from. what is the funding for medical care and how is it remunerated? 10.is there any corresponding organization to manage and discipline the barefoot doctors? advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 209 original paper paradigm shift and strategic construction of chinese culture's international communication in the new media era: a dual-case study of li ziqi and tiktok xinyi gong1 1 three gorges university, xiling district, yichang, 443002, china received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 05, 2025 online published: december 19, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p209 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p209 abstract the international communication of chinese culture in the new media era faces the dual challenges of the cultural discount and narrative silence. traditional communication models exhibit prominent issues such as the cognitive gap between official and public perceptions and misalignment in content supply. employing a methodology of case study and theoretical integration, this paper focuses on two representative cases: li ziqi's "oriental pastoralism" visual utopia and the "fragmented" communication of tiktok short videos. it systematically investigates the paradigm shift and practical pathways for chinese culture’s international communication in the new media context. the research finds that the core breakthrough of the new media communication paradigm lies in: li ziqi's approach of deep cultural embedding and tiktok's model of scaled dissemination, representing the diversified practical paths of "slow narrative, deep implantation" and "lightweight, viral diffusion" respectively. meanwhile, current communication still faces challenges such as cultural decoding barriers, credibility dilemmas, and content homogenization. based on these findings, this paper proposes communication strategies centered on "humanized narratives, localized platforms and collaborative actors" and points out new forms for the future of international communication of chinese culture. it aims to provide theoretical reference and practical insights for constructing a future-oriented international communication system for chinese culture. keywords new media era, international communication of chinese culture, paradigm shift, communication strategies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 210 1. introduction the waves of globalization and the iteration of digital technology are reshaping cross-cultural communication. in this era empowered by new media, breaking through cultural communication barriers, achieving the effective export of cultural value, and thereby transforming it into intangible influence have become increasingly crucial. china possesses a profound cultural heritage, yet it faces the dual dilemmas of cultural discount and narrative silence in cross-cultural communication: the grand narratives dominated by traditional media struggle to reach ordinary overseas audiences, while the fragmented dissemination on social media easily falls into the pitfalls of symbolization and superficiality. in the new media age where platforms such as tiktok and youtube have become the main arenas for cultural diffusion, the paradigm for chinese culture's international communication urgently requires reconstruction. based on this, this paper employs a methodology of case study and theoretical coupling to explore the paradigm shift and practical challenges in chinese culture’s international communication in the new media era, and attempts to propose communication strategies centered on "humanized narratives, localized platforms, and collaborative actors". 2. research design 2.1 research questions this study revolves around two core questions: first, as current international communication of chinese culture faces challenges such as cultural decoding barriers, credibility dilemmas, and content homogenization, how can new media facilitate a paradigm shift from "one-way output" to "two-way interaction"? second, what communication strategies can be adopted when constructing a future-oriented system for china's cultural communication? 2.2 research methods this study adopts a research methodology combining case analysis and theoretical frameworks. after analyzing the media development process of chinese culture’s international communication, it conducts an in-depth examination of the communication logic behind two major case studies: li ziqi and tiktok. this approach clearly demonstrates the paradigm shift in cultural communication from "one-way output" to "two-way interaction" in the new media era. it verifies that the communicative efficacy of deep cultural embedding and the scalability advantage of lightweight dissemination can jointly construct a diverse ecosystem for cultural communication via new media. 3. theoretical framework 3.1 encoding-decoding theory the encoding-decoding theory, proposed by cultural studies scholar stuart hall, breaks the linear perception of "communicator-audience" and emphasizes communication as a process of production and circulation of symbolic meaning. communicators "encode" messages, embedding cultural connotations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 211 and ideologies into content through symbols such as text, images and sound. audiences, however, are not passive receivers. based on their own cultural backgrounds and social experiences, they form three types of decoding positions: dominant-hegemonic (fully accepting the intended meaning), negotiated (partially accepting while interpreting through their own context), and oppositional (explicitly rejecting the intended meaning) (hall, 2020). in the new media context, "discount" is not the ending point. by embedding multimodal cues (visual, sensory, resonant), opening interpretative space and encouraging user participation, producers can shift potential oppositional readings towards negotiated readings. this enhances not only "effective reach" but also "effective comprehension." 3.2 media convergence theory henry jenkins' media convergence theory posits that cultural communication in the new media era is a combination of "trans-media storytelling" and "participatory culture" where different media platforms form a communication matrix through content extension (jenkins, 2004). rui yu's research on henan tv's "chinese festivals" series perfectly illustrates the practical value of this theory. the program utilizes 5g+ar technology to achieve visual integration of "virtual stages & real scenes." through an "online-first, tv-follow" model, it releases fragmented short videos on platforms like douyin and weibo to generate buzz, then completes the communication loop with full broadcasts on the satellite tv channel. concurrently, it extends into cultural and creative products like blind boxes and hanfu, constructing a converged ecosystem of "content-dissemination-consumption" (yu, 2022). this convergence is not merely a technological overlay; rather, it leverages "digital content creation and multi-platform distribution" to help cultural content break free from single-channel limitations and achieve a synergistic communication effect where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 3.3 trans-cultural communication theory trans-cultural communication represents an advancement and transcendence of traditional cross-cultural communication theories (1985). its core principle lies in replacing the concepts of "crossing, difference, opposition" with "flow, integration, and transformation" (samovar & porter, 2004). distinct from the traditional "one-way output" logic, trans-cultural communication emphasizes that chinese culture should deeply engage in global cultural co-creation, becoming an integral part of a shared human culture through interaction. 3.4 glocalization theory "glocalization" is a composite concept that blends "globalization" and "localization". it originated from the japanese business practice of "local adaptation" and was systematically elaborated by sociologist roland robertson into a core theory of cross-cultural communication (robertson, 1992). its central tenet is the "simultaneous existence of the universal and the particular". it emphasizes that the process of globalization is not a mere cultural homogenization but rather an interaction and dynamic balance between global trends and local contexts. it advocates local adaptation within a global vision and responding to global imperatives through local practices (robertson, 1995). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 212 4. the evolution of media in chinese culture's international communication 4.1 the traditional media era: grandiose monophonic narratives represented by the external publicity system of outlets such as the overseas channel of china central television (cgtn) and xinhua news agency, this traditional media era long held the dominant narrative function. it possessed advantages in authority, timeliness and organized production, capable of providing high-credibility information supply. cao yun points out that international communication during this period was "easily perceived as a propaganda tool". for instance, early xinhua reports often focused on economic achievements, lacking cultural content relatable to audiences; cctv-9's portrayal of chinese culture remained at the level of grand symbols like the forbidden city and the great wall, struggling to evoke emotional resonance (cao, 2019). 4.2 the new media era: pluralism, interactivity and micro-level penetration platforms like tiktok and youtube have disrupted the state-dominated communication landscape, enabling a transformation towards "everyone is media". mobile internet and platform societies have brought about a triple transformation: pluralism of actors: a shift from an "institution-centric" to a "person-centric or community-centric" model. creators and key opinion consumers (kocs) have become "micro-narrative nodes", capable of efficiently reaching and spreading content within interest-based communities. algorithmic mechanisms: recommendation systems reshuffle content visibility based on interaction signals, making content quality, engagement patterns, and publishing rhythm key variables determining cross-cultural penetration. fragmented and scenario-based content: short videos employ a "light narrative" approach blending "scenario, emotion, and technique", strengthening the pathway of "being understandable, inspiring participation, and encouraging sharing". 4.3 convergence and innovation in commercial media: the market-driven transmission of cultural value commercial forces, guided by market demand, achieve an "implicit conveyance" of cultural value. commercial platforms and brands possess three unique advantages in cross-cultural communication: user-oriented content engineering: utilizing data-driven topic selection, a or b testing, and multilingual localization to enhance the efficiency of the "reach-comprehension-conversion" pathway. this embeds cultural value into "consumable usage scenarios" such as cuisine, travel, lifestyle and aesthetic trends. ip-centric and matrix operations: extending the life cycle of cultural content through trans-media integration across "novel-film/tv-game-merchandise-offline immersive experiences", thereby forming sustainable narrative assets. industrial spillover and community co-creation: cross-sector collaboration between content and e-commerce, cultural tourism, design and fashion promotes the concept of "content as channel, product as medium". this facilitates "implicit persuasion" towards value acceptance through consumption www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 213 behaviors. for example, chinese creators on tiktok explain the techniques of intangible cultural heritage in foreign languages, meanwhile, cross-border e-commerce and live-streaming further transform "seeing chinese culture" into the quotidian experience of "appreciating chinese culture". however, commercial logic may also lead to the "excessive commodification of cultural meaning", resulting in a hollow cycle where "only the surface remains, while the essence is lost". therefore, a collaborative governance model of "value guardrails plus creative freedom" is needed to ensure a balance between "market viability" and "cultural authenticity". 5. in-depth analysis of dual case studies 5.1 case study 1: li ziqi constructing a visual utopia of "oriental pastoralism" 5.1.1 construction of visual symbols li ziqi utilizes symbols of eastern aesthetics for encoding, achieving cross-cultural communication with minimal decoding barriers. in terms of practice, she employs sweeping landscape shots of nature and close-up depictions of the entire process involved in intangible cultural heritage crafts, complemented by traditional attire and seasonal rituals. this constructs a visual utopia embodying the concept of "harmony between man and nature". although li ziqi's youtube videos contain no narrated commentary, relying solely on subtitles and a silent cinematic language, her single video has achieved an unprecedented view count exceeding 80 million. even after a three-year hiatus, her channel continues to gain an additional 5 million subscribers. 5.1.2 innovation in communication formats li ziqi engages in differentiated content distribution across multiple platforms, catering to the fragmented viewing habits and demand for in-depth content among diverse platform users. in terms of practice, she releases 18-minute long-form videos on youtube organized into thematic series; edits 1-3 minute highlight clips optimized for tiktok's algorithm and promotes vertical short videos and live streams on domestic platforms. 5.1.3 transmission of cultural values the yearning for a slow-paced life, natural beauty as well as pastoral poetry is a universal human sentiment. li ziqi uses these universal emotions as a bridge, enabling cultural values to resonate across different contexts. in terms of practice, narratives involving interactions with her grandmother and depictions of persevering labor convey values such as diligence, benevolence, and environmental consciousness, thereby eliciting a sense of healing and resonance. 5.1.4 innovation in cultural heritage transmission li ziqi integrates intangible cultural heritage crafts into everyday narratives, facilitating a transformation from "heritage" to "livelihood". in terms of practice, her videos comprehensively showcase the entire processes of crafts like carved lacquer, shu brocade and velvet flowers, avoiding didactic or purely expository approaches.the average view count of related intangible cultural heritage videos exceeds 15 million, driving a 300% increase in online sales of heritage products such as velvet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 214 flowers and shu brocade. 5.2 case study 2: tiktok short videos the "fragmented" display and viral spread of everyday culture 5.2.1 content democratization short video content encompasses street-style hanfu photography, chinese-style dance, calligraphy practice, street food and more. this diversity makes the content more relatable and persuasive. concurrently, ordinary users have become subjects of cultural dissemination, aligning with the "everyone is media" characteristic of the new media era. 5.2.2 algorithm-driven dissemination the platform's algorithm recommends content based on user behavior tags(e.g., likes, comments, searches). this enables a tiered dissemination model: "niche cultural content precisely reaching target users mass cultural content achieving broad coverage", thereby avoiding ineffective exposure. furthermore, the interest-based recommendation mechanism allows overseas users interested in chinese culture to easily discover relevant content. 5.2.3 challenges and memes the tiktok "transformation challenge" is an interactive short video format on the platform centered around rapid, contrasting costume changes. it often forms memes through standardized procedures and highly symbolic content, achieving viral spread through user-generated content (ugc) diffusion and algorithmic amplification. the "replicability" and "variability" of memes allow them to adapt to different cultural contexts overseas users can adjust hanfu styling and scene selection based on local aesthetics (blackmore, 1999). this enables hanfu culture to retain its core essence while incorporating local characteristics during dissemination, reducing resistance in cross-cultural communication. a comparative analysis of the tiktok short video case and the li ziqi case reveals that "challenges and memes" possess advantages in being lightweight, scalable and interactive. in contrast, li ziqi's videos are characterized by "slow narrative and deep cultural embedding". this demonstrates the multidimensional nature of cultural communication paradigms in the new media era. 6. real-world challenges 6.1 cultural discount and narrative gaps according to hall's "decoding" theory (hall, 2000), the philosophical connotations of concepts like daoism in chinese culture or the complex logic of a relationship-based society are often difficult for overseas audiences to grasp. the essence of this challenge lies in the discrepancy between the cultural presuppositions of the encoder and the decoding context of the audience, leading to deviations or obstacles in the decoding process. 6.2 the "propaganda" label and the credibility dilemma overseas audiences often maintain a degree of skepticism towards content perceived as having an official background or agenda. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 215 6.3 content homogenization and a lack of innovation a significant portion of content remains concentrated on a limited set of traditional symbols,failing to adequately showcase the diverse, innovative, and modern facets of contemporary china. 7. strategies and future outlook 7.1 narrative strategy: from "telling about china" to "storytelling" this strategic shift emphasizes a people-oriented approach and emotional resonance, using individual narratives to carry grand cultural themes. the reason lies in the fact that ordinary people’s daily practices implicitly embody cultural values, for instance, a food blogger’s vlog about making zongzi during the dragon boat festival not only shows the craft of rice dumpling wrapping but also conveys the cultural meanings of family reunion and respect for ancestors behind the festival. 7.2 platform strategy: deepening "glocalization" this requires content customization based on the cultural habits and preferences of target markets. different overseas markets have distinct dominant new media platforms shaped by internet infrastructure and user behavior, thus, blind cross-platform replication often leads to communication inefficiency.the key lies in abandoning a one-size-fits-all platform strategy and deploying tailored content formats based on each region’s platform ecology. 7.3 actor strategy: building a collaborative ecosystem of "government guidance, corporate leadership, and public participation" the government's role is to build platforms and establish rules together with enterprises acting as pioneers in innovation and market exploration as well as grassroots creators providing a continuous stream of vitality and authenticity. 7.4 future outlook: embracing trans-cultural communication and technological revolution 7.4.1 moving towards trans-cultural communication chinese culture can engage more deeply in the co-creation of global culture, becoming an integral part of a shared future human culture. cross-border collaborative creation breaks the limitation of "self-telling" of chinese culture and integrates local contexts to produce culturally resonant works. a typical case is the animated film ne zha’s global co-production project: its overseas version collaborated with local dubbing teams in europe and latin america to adjust lines and humor styles, while retaining the core theme of "defying fate". meanwhile, the film’s derivative products were co-designed with international artists, blending traditional chinese mythological symbols (lotus, wind chimes) with modern western aesthetic trends (minimalist design, sustainable materials). this model transforms chinese cultural symbols from "exotic elements" into shared creative resources. 7.4.2 ai and vr current technologies like ai-powered translation can help lower language barriers, while virtual reality (vr) can offer immersive cultural experiences, such as virtual tours of the palace museum. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 216 in the context of new media-driven chinese cultural external communication, the integration of ai and vr transcends the limitations of traditional text and video dissemination, constructing a multilingual, sensory-engaged and interactive communication paradigm that enhances the accessibility and appeal of chinese culture for global audiences. 8. conclusion the iteration of new media technologies and the restructuring of the global communication landscape present a historic opportunity for the international dissemination of chinese culture. however, opportunities coexist with challenges. core bottlenecks constraining effective communication persist, including the cross-contextual decoding gap of cultural connotations, the credibility dilemma of official or state-affiliated content, the over-reliance on traditional symbols, and the insufficient communication of a modern chinese image. this signifies that the international communication of chinese culture cannot rely on a singular model, instead, it necessitates the construction of a pluralistic system that integrates both depth and breadth, blending local specificity with global relevance. looking ahead, the international communication of chinese culture should adhere to a "people-oriented" core in its narratives, using personal stories to carry cultural essence and emotional resonance to dissolve cultural distance. it should deepen the "glocalization" of platform operations, customizing content according to the cultural context of target markets to achieve "localized expression and globalized dissemination". a collaborative ecosystem of "government guidance, corporate leadership and public participation" must be constructed to integrate the strengths of various actors and form a synergistic communication force. simultaneously, it should actively embrace the waves of technological revolution and trans-cultural communication, leveraging technologies like ai and vr to break down language, temporal and spatial barriers, and promoting the deep participation of chinese culture in global cultural co-creation. only in this way can the profound chinese culture maintain its unique charm while integrating into the dialogue of global civilizations, truly achieving the leap from being "recognized" to being "identified with", and from "cultural export" to "value sharing". this will inject enduring cultural strength into the building of a shared future for mankind. this study has certain limitations, for instance, both the number of cases analyzed and the amount of first-hand data collected are limited. future research could further expand the scope of case studies, focusing on communication differences across diverse regional cultural contexts, to provide more robust empirical support for the formulation of refined communication strategies. references hall, s. (2000). encoding/decoding. in g. luo & x. liu (eds.), cultural studies reader (pp. 359). beijing: china social sciences press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 217 jenkins, h. (2004). the cultural logic of media convergence. international journal of cultural studies, 7(1), 33-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877904040603 yu, r. (2022). an analysis of traditional chinese culture communication from the perspective of new media: a study on henan tv's "chinese festivals" series program. media, 20, 42-44. robinson, g. n. (1985). cross-culture understanding. pergamon press. samovar, l. a., & porter, r. e. (2004). intercultural communication. beijing: china renmin university press. robertson, r. (1992). globalization: social theory and global culture. london: sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446250563.n2 robertson, r. (1995). glocalization: time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. featherstone m, lash s, robertson r. global modernities. london: sage. cao, y. (2019). new approaches to the overseas communication of chinese culture in the new media era. academic exchange, 11, 180-187. blackmore, s. (1999). the meme machine. oxford: oup. 1. introduction 2. research design references microsoft word assc-v2n4-p56 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 56 original paper misinformation regarding 5g and covid-19 and the psychological mechanism behind them yufan chen1* 1 brooks school, north andover, usa * yufan chen, brooks school, north andover, usa received: september 20, 2020 accepted: october 4, 2020 online published: october 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p56 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p56 1. introduction in late 2019, the covid-19 pandemic started to spread around the world (fauci, lane, & redfield, 2020). along with the virus, misinformation about the pandemic started to spread as well. rumors regarding the usefulness of masks, conspiracy theories regarding the legitimacy and origin of the virus, and the astonishing amount of fake news about the virus posted online every day are extremely hard to distinguish from factual news reports (mian & khan, 2020; brennan, simon, howard, & nielson, 2020). one example of this alarming phenomenon is the conspiracy theory that links the pandemic to 5g, which is in the early stages of being commercialized (shafi et al., 2017). this conspiracy theory claims that 5g and the radiation it causes disrupted the natural magnetic field of the earth, and started this pandemic (geary, 2020). though it might look like an absurd concept, the “5g causes corona” conspiracy theory has gained an extremely large following, and the effect of that is clear on and off the internet, as multiple 5g antennas have been vandalized all over the world by mobs claiming they are the means of spreading the coronavirus (reichert, 2020). the fabrication and spreading of misinformation regarding 5g and its link to the coronavirus are largely connected with the multiple psychological mechanisms and manipulation of sources. 2. background 2.1 5g and anti-5g sites 5g is the fifth generation of cellular connection standard that was commercialized in 2019. it is a network that provides internet connections to cell phones and other connected devices within its service area by emitting a radio wave to the antennas in the device that could reach a higher bandwidth than previous generations of cellular networks (shafi et al., 2017). rumors and conspiracy theories regarding 5g have existed long before the pandemic struck. these conspiracy theories, or rumors that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. question the legitimacy of certain current issue, deduce with little to no evidence that 5g leads to different diseases. 5gcrisis.com, one of the most vocal anti-5g websites, was registered in early 2019 by its parent company, grassroots environmental education inc., which has been spreading rumors against cell phones since its founding in 2000. manhattanneighbors.org, registered in 2014, is another anti-5g website and one of the first websites to publish misinformation that directly links 5g to the covid-19 pandemic (manhattan neighbors, 2020). these websites and their authors, knowingly or unknowingly, use psychological mechanisms to spread the misinformation, including motivated reasoning, asymmetry of knowledge, manipulating social media algorithms as well as cognitive reflection skills. 2.2 motivated reasoning and asymmetry of knowledge motivated reasoning refers to the phenomenon in which one uses emotionally, logically or other biased reasoning to make judgments or decisions rather than basing it on the information presented (slothuus & vreese, 2010). in other words, readers will interpret these articles in a way so that it suits their own opinion, instead of judging it objectively with the information given. these websites also take advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge and difference in expertise between the writers and the readers to help the spreading their rumor. asymmetry of knowledge and difference in expertise refers to the gap in the level of knowledge between the writer and the reader in a given subject, which makes a reader believe the website is a reliable source, instead of questioning its legitimacy (lorenz-spreen, lewandowsky, sunstein, & hertwig, 2020; clarkson, jacobsen, & batcheller, 2007). 2.3 motivated reasoning and asymmetry of knowledge motivated reasoning refers to the phenomenon in which one uses emotionally, logically or other biased reasoning to make judgements or decisions rather than basing it on the information presented (slothuus & vreese, 2010). in other words, readers will interpret these articles in a way so that it suits their own opinion, instead of judging it objectively with the information given. these websites also take advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge and difference in expertise between the writers and the readers to help the spreading their rumor. asymmetry of knowledge and difference in expertise refers to the gap in the level of knowledge between the writer and the reader in a given subject, which makes a reader believe the website is a reliable source, instead of questioning its legitimacy (lorenz-spreen, lewandowsky, sunstein, & hertwig, 2020; clarkson, jacobsen, & batcheller, 2007). 2.4 social media social media platforms are a rather new phenomenum, but they are a big catalyst for misinformation. two ways social media platforms help the spreading of misinformation is the rumor cascading effect and source monitoring. when one reads something on social media, they can choose to share it with their followers, and their followers can choose to do the same. this reposting cycle is known as the rumor cascading effect, and it increases the speed of the spread of misinformation (lorenz-spreen, lewandowsky, sunstein, & hertwig, 2020). source monitoring, on the other hand, refers to the tendency for readers to remember solely the content of an article or other forms of media, and ignores www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. or misremembers the source of said media (dywan & jacoby, 1990). this leads to the spreader of the rumor could pass the rumor off to the next person as a claim from a reliable source, instead of being an unreliable social media post. 2.5 cognitive reflection and pseudo profound hogwash cognitive reflection skills are one’s ability to override a “gut” reaction and reflect further based on the evidence presented (frederick, 2005). these skills can often be tested with a cognitive reflection test, and lower crt scores have often been linked with the fact that a reader can be easily misguided by misinformation and pseudo profound hogwash, which is another common tactic used by conspiracy theory sites (pennycook & rand, 2019). pseudo profound hogwash refers to articles that seem to be extremely scientific and profound, but actually has no real meaning or is made up. according to pennycook, one’s receptivity to pseudo-profound hogwash can be closely linked to one’s likeliness to assume new information as true (pennycook, cheyne, barr, koehler, & fugelsang, 2015). conversely, by intentionally creating a large amount of pseudo-profound hogwash, readers with lower cognitive reflection skills would be more likely to assume the information as the truth. 3. misinformation and the psychological mechanisms behind the spreading of misinformation 3.1 rumors regarding 5g and brain cancer risks before the pandemic, these websites posted rumors that link 5g to various health issues, such as brain cancer. these websites would quote certain scientific studies, cherry pick them and changing the context so it would fit their narrative (5gcrisis.com, 2019). one study frequently quoted by these sites is a 1996 study by dr. henry lai and dr. narendra singh, “magnetic-field-induced dna strand breaks in brain cells of the rat.” this study was conducted by exposing rats to acutely continuous radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation for 2 hours. the magnetic field explosion was a simulation of cell phone signals (lai & singh, 1996); however, the experiment was set up at a different frequency than a typical 1996 cellphone, and the amplitude is 3 times as strong as the legally allowed amount of radiation by the federal trade commission. more importantly, the 2-hour continuous exposure simulates someone holding a cell phone that is on an active call next to their head for 2 hours straight, not using a smartphone with a wireless connection of any kind. these issues are all mentioned and acknowledged by lai and singh in their paper (lai & singh, 1996), however, the 5g crisis site does not address any of these core differences between this study’s results and their claim that 5g causes health issues. in fact, the website glosses over the actual content of the paper, only incorrectly paraphrases the paper’s results as showing “biological damage from exposure to wireless radiation” was possible (5gcrisis.com, 2019). moreover, the only mentions of 5g in their “sciences” page are theoretical papers written before 5g technology was completely developed. inconsistency between narratives is also a common issue with these websites. one of the website’s biggest endorsers, dana ashlie, said in her youtube video that she thinks cell phones themselves are safe, and the only harmful part of a cell phone is the wireless connection (ashlie, 2019), which is directly against the research the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. website and herself uses to back up that claim (lai & singh, 1996). 3.2 rumors regarding 5g and pandemics including the coronavirus when the corona virus pandemic struck the world, these anti-5g sites started to spread the seemingly absurd conspiracy theory that the pandemic was caused by the 5g radiofrequency radiation (manhattan neighbors, 2020). these rumors started to spread on facebook and twitter initially, but some anti-5g websites started to publish articles about this conspiracy theory. one of the most notable sites that relates 5g to the coronavirus is manhattan neighbors, a website dedicated to purge new york of any 5g antennas. in their article, they cite arthur firstenberg’s book “the invisible rainbow”, where he connects past pandemics to new wireless technology. he points out that the united states was building the world’s largest radio communication network during the 1918 influenza pandemic; he also links the electrified railroad expansion in the late 19th century to the 1889 flu epidemic (firstenberg, 2020). in both of these cases, manhattan neighbors and firstenberg ignores all other factors that might lead to the virus, such as world war i and the massive amount of movement during the 1910s, and concludes without any evidence beyond “they happened at the same time” that the cause of the virus is the wireless communication network. one thing manhattan neighbors and arthur firstenberg fails to acknowledge is that correlation does not equal causation. while the spanish flu and the building of the us army radio network occurred at the same time, it is irresponsible to claim, without conclusive proof, that the radio network caused the spanish flu. additionally, one of the website’s published articles, pall (2020), concluded that “these all argue that 5g radiation is likely to greatly exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus and to greatly increase the lethality of the infections produced by it. the good news is that it is likely that those of us that live in areas with no 5g radiation and who avoid other emfs wherever possible will probably escape much of the impacts of this prospective global pandemic (p. 7)”. this statement, however, can be easily proven untrue within his own citation. ookla, a technology data analysis company, has been tracking 5g installment all around the globe (ookla, 2020), and arthur cites their data to back up his claim that wuhan was the first city in china to commercialize 5g. while it is hard to distinguish whether that statement is true or not, it is clear from ookla’s data that his claim that areas without 5g should be rather unscathed from the virus is completely untrue, considering india, the third most affected country, has no 5g availability anywhere (worldometers, 2020; ookla, 2020). yet, even after these clear flaws with the conspiracy theory have been pointed out, they still have an extremely large following. the destruction of cell towers even after multiple public notices proves the sheer size of the spread of this misinformation (reichert, 2020). this is because these websites used multiple psychological mechanisms to manipulate the reader’s mind and to gain the following and profit. these websites cater to the motivated reasoning of the reader and low cognitive reflection skills by manipulating their information and taking advantage of social media platforms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. 3.3 motivated reasoning and asymmetry of knowledge motivated reasoning plays into the spread of almost all misinformation, and this is no exception. the main type of motivated reasoning at play when it comes to the virus is political, where a person intentionally or accidently misunderstands an article due to their political beliefs (slothuus & vreese, 2010). the virus has always been a political topic, and both sides of the political spectrum are trying to defend their point of view on the internet, which leads to strong motivated reasoning when it comes to articles about the topic. as a rather new technology, 5g is not widely understood by everyone, and the website takes advantage of that asymmetry of knowledge as wellpe. since the website seems to be extremely scientific and professional, for those who don’t understand the technology and mechanisms of 5g as well, they are more likely to believe the claims made, especially when the claims made on the website helps their argument and fits into their motivated reasoning. conservatives living in metropolitan settings are the target audience for sites like 5g crisis and manhattan neighbors, and they generally view the virus as a liberal scheme. when they read that the virus could be caused by 5g communication, something liberals are pushing in large cities, their motivated reasoning overpowers their skepticism, and they immediately give their trust to these websites. to disguise themselves as reliable, they would cherry pick topics and keep in certain parts of actual real information, which would make it incredibly confusing for a reader who decides to check the legitimacy of the source (lorenz-spreen, lewandowsky, sunstein, & hertwig, 2020). to further confuse the reader and curb the skepticism, these websites cite an enormous number of sources, even if their relevance to the topic is extremely low. it is hard for an average person to track down academic papers, and when they see the hundreds of papers and research journals cited by these websites, instead of checking the paper, they would choose to believe these sources, and in turn, the website and the article. this becomes incredibly clear on 5g crisis and their science studies page, where they cite 195 scientific studies regarding radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation and its effect on newborn development, children, dna, male fertility and tumors (5gcrisis.com, 2019). an average reader would have no way of tracking down all 195 sources, and the amount of studies that actually back up their claim could be extremely scarce. however, due to the political motivated reasoning of the website’s target audience and the asymmetry of knowledge, the website successfully disguises itself as a reliable source, and spreads the misinformation to the first layer of the rumor cascade. from there, social media’s influence becomes increasingly greater. 3.4 social media’s influence on the spreading of misinformation social media algorithms, rumor cascades and source monitoring also contribute greatly to the spread of misinformation. with rumor cascades, it can be even more difficult for an average reader to track down the source and verify the information. unlike websites created by professional writers, social media users don’t tend to be as scientific and as formal when drafting their posts. while websites like 5g crisis cite an enormous number of sources, an average social media post most likely cites none. this is because when an average reader reads an article, they only focus on the content of the article, not the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. website that published it. this leads to “#5gcorona” on twitter showing a lot of users posting images or statements about 5g causing corona, but very few can back up their claim with any source, let alone a reliable source (“truth warrior”, 2020). however, social media and their algorithm promote a user’s content to people they already know, and likely share the same opinion and motivated reasoning with (milan, 2015). moreover, with these algorithms and cookies in place, once you express interest in a subject or opinion, social media platforms will push you more content about that subject, whether that opinion is correct or not. with the social media algorithm and rumor cascades, more people will read about these rumors, and their motivated reasoning, which are usually similar to the sharer of the rumor, will drive them to not only believe in the rumor, but also share it to their feed. this creates another layer of the rumor cascade, and so forth and so on. rumor cascades and algorithms like this make it increasingly difficult to track down the sources, and extend the potential reach of the rumor far greater than it could have been without social media. 3.5 cognitive reflection and pseudo profound hogwash while it is clear to some that these conspiracy theories are clearly untrue, for others, these articles seem not only plausible, but is possibly the truth. this can be attributed to one’s cognitive reflection skills, general intelligence and illusion of understanding. professor gordon pennycook once concluded that readers with a higher crt score can distinguish fake news from real ones, and while carefully manipulated content has been more significant in recent years, and social media has become more prevalent as well, this rule still stands (pennycook & rand, 2019). one clear example is the product description on 5g bioshield’s website, which claims their product “acts as a carrier for the quantum nano layer technology for the balance and harmonisation of the harmful effects of most forms of imbalanced radiation” (5gbioshield, 2020). while this sentence seems to be incredibly scientific, with words like “quantum nano layer technology” and “imbalanced radiation”. however, both of these terms are completely made up and non-existent in the real world. “quantum nano layer technology” is a parody of quantum nanoscience, which is an extremely abstract field in physics that refers to manipulating particles that range from 1 to 100 nanometers (milburn & woolley, 2008). however, electromagnetic radiation, which is what’s often considered by these websites to be the harmful side of technology, is essentially a wave, not a particle. furthermore, since radiation is a wave, there is no such thing as an “imbalanced radiation”. nevertheless, quantum nanoscience is an extremely abstract and hard to understand subject. it is highly unlikely that the average reader, especially those with lower cognitive reflection skills, can find an article that explains this field well enough for them to understand. in fact, even with high education and extensive research, it is still hard to understand this extremely abstract and new field of physics. however, it is also because of its abstractness that one is likely to write it off it as real. someone with low cognitive abilities also often has a fragile ego due to the lack of said ability and an illusion of understanding. when they see something extremely abstract and “scientific” that also happens to fall into their motivated reasoning, instead of doubting the legitimacy of the sources, they end up writing it off as true and pretend to understand the articles to prove to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. themselves that they have a higher cognitive reflection ability than they actually do. this is not only a way to validate their ego, but also to validate their biased views (pennycook, cheyne, barr, koehler, & fugelsang, 2015). this is why pseudo-profound hogwash is extremely hard to detect, and it is also why misinformation can be spread so easily in the form of pseudo profound hogwash to those with lower cognitive reflection skills. 4. discussion 4.1 spreading of misinformation the fabrication and spreading of misinformation regarding 5g and its link to the coronavirus are largely connected with multiple psychological mechanisms. these websites knew extremely well how take advantage of their reader’s political motivated reasoning through a divisive time and topic by creating misinformation that would benefit themselves financially or socially through popularity. they knew their target audience extremely well and used their audience’s political motivated reasoning against them (slothuus & vreese, 2010). they were also aware of the asymmetry in knowledge between themselves and their readers, and through careful and subtle manipulation, such as cherry-picking articles, mixing correct information with misinformation, and citing an enormous number of sources, they appear scientific to their readers, and spread the misinformation through the first layer of the rumor cascade (lorenz-spreen, lewandowsky, sunstein, & hertwig, 2020). the misinformation then gets spread even further through rumor cascades on social media with the algorithms for these platforms. due to the nature of these algorithms, people with the same biases and same views are often subjected to see the same contents (milan, 2015), which makes it incredibly easy for these websites to spread their conspiracy theories to those who wouldn’t have been able to see these otherwise. finally, websites like this would take advantage of the readers’ low cognitive reflection skills and the fact that it would be less likely for them to realize their false first impression to spread their misinformation. they would purposefully use pseudo-profound hogwash or other confusing and seemingly scientific concepts to justify their misinformation (pennycook, cheyne, barr, koehler, & fugelsang, 2015). at the end of the day, the spread of misinformation regarding the coronavirus and 5g is an incredibly dangerous and harmful phenomenon. not only does it promote the destruction of cell towers and other properties, it can be incredibly dangerous for those involved. claiming 5g is the cause of the coronavirus downplays the actual scientific research behind it and can confuse those who are just afraid and seeking a solution and cure to this incredibly complex public health crisis. 4.2 possible ways to identify and combat the spread of misinformation one possible way to counter this effect is to promote checking for source biases, reliability, and fact-checking before forming an emotion-based opinion or a biased conclusion while using social media platforms. nudging readers towards forming an unbiased opinion through a “related links” that directs readers towards easy to understand and peer-reviewed articles is one way to combat the effect of misinformation. (benartzi et al., 2017) another possible way to combat the effect of misinformation is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. to flag misinformation manually with independent fact-checkers instead of automatically through flagging keywords, which would verify the misinformation of flagged posts and increase credibility of the fact-checking and flagging process. when a reader sees a post, which is flagged by a reliable and trustworthy fact-checker and links to the correct information, the spread of misinformation would not only slow down, but in turn become a way of promoting real and educational facts. acknowledgement i gratefully acknowledge the support of joe austerweil from the university of wisconsin madison for his guidance with the research and writing of this essay. references benartzi, s., beshears, j., milkman, k. l., sunstein, c. r., thaler, r. h., shankar, m., . . . galing, s. (2017). should governments invest more in nudging? psychological science, 28(8), 1041-1055. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617702501 brennan, j. s., simon, f. m., howard, p. n., & nielson, r. k. (2020, april 7). types, sources, and claims of covid-19 misinformation. retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation clarkson, g., jacobsen, t. e., & batcheller, a. l. (2007). information asymmetry and information sharing. government information quarterly, 24(4), 827-839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2007.08.001 could 5g be triggering the spread of the coronavirus? (2020, march 4). retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://manhattanneighbors.org/5g-corona/ dywan, j., & jacoby, l. (1990). effects of aging on source monitoring: differences in susceptibility to false fame. psychology and aging, 5(3), 379-387. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.5.3.379 ecker, u., & lewandowsky, s. (2014). the effects of subtle misinformation in news headline. journal of experimental psychology: applied, 20(4), 323-335. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000028 fauci, a. s., lane, h. c., & redfield, r. r. (2020). covid-19—navigating the uncharted. new england journal of medicine, 382(13), 1268-1269. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejme2002387 fernbach, p. m., rogers, t., fox, c. r., & sloman, s. a. (2013). political extremism is supported by an illusion of understanding. psychological science, 24(6), 939-946. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612464058 firstenberg, a. (2020). the invisible rainbow: a history of electricity and life. white river junction, vt: chelsea green publishing. frederick, s. (2005). cognitive reflection and decision making. journal of economic perspectives, 19(4), 25-42. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533005775196732 lai, h. (1994). neurological effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation. advances in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. electromagnetic fields in living systems, 27-80. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2542-4_2 lai, h., & singh, n. p. (1996). single-and double-strand dna breaks in rat brain cells after acute exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation. international journal of radiation biology, 69(4), 513-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/095530096145814 lorenz-spreen, p., lewandowsky, s., sunstein, c. r., & hertwig, r. (2020). how behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online. nature human behavior. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0889-7 mian, a., & khan, s. (2020). coronavirus: the spread of misinformation. bmc medicine, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01556-3 milan, s. (2015). when algorithms shape collective action: social media and the dynamics of cloud protesting. social media + society, 1(2), 205630511562248. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115622481 milburn, g. j., & woolley, m. j. (2008). quantum nanoscience. contemporary physics, 49(6), 413-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107510802601724 pennycook, g., & rand, d. g. (2019). lazy, not biased: susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. cognition, 188, 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011 pennycook, g., cheyne, j. a., barr, n., koehler, d. j., & fugelsang, j. a. (2015). on the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. judgment and decision making, 10(6), 549-563. shafi, m., molisch, a. f., smith, p. j., haustein, t., zhu, p., silva, p. d., ... wunder, g. (2017). 5g: a tutorial overview of standards, trials, challenges, deployment, and practice. ieee journal on selected areas in communications, 35(6), 1201-1221. https://doi.org/10.1109/jsac.2017.2692307 slothuus, r., & vreese, c. h. (2010). political parties, motivated reasoning, and issue framing effects. the journal of politics, 72(3), 630-645. https://doi.org/10.1017/s002238161000006x ashlie, d. (director). (2019, september 22). the real reason five gee exists...learn the tactics foil their plans. [video file]. retrieved august 22, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cmiejs2uvm pall, m. (2020, february 25). professor emeritus martin pall massive predicted effects ... retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://manhattanneighbors.org/wp-content/uploads/mainzaccount4.pdf geary, l. (2020, march 02). wait, what? 5g caused the coronavirus? retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://www.coolsmartphone.com/2020/02/26/has-5g-caused-the-coronavirus/ reichert, c. (2020, may 07). 5g coronavirus conspiracy theory leads to 77 mobile towers burned in uk, report says. retrieved august 22, 2020, from https://www.cnet.com/health/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-sees-77-mobile-towers-burned-rep ort-says/ “truth warrior”. (2020, june 28). twitter post. retrieved august 21, 2020, from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 65 published by scholink inc. https://twitter.com/truthwa88868072/status/1277240501004046337 how it works. (2020, august 18). retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://5gbioshield.com/how-it-works/ science explained. (n.d.). retrieved august 21, 2020, from https://www.5gcrisis.com/science-explained coronavirus cases. (2020). retrieved august 22, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ookla 5g map™. (2020). retrieved august 22, 2020, from https://www.speedtest.net/ookla-5g-map microsoft word assc-v1n2-p211 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 211 original paper the state, market and citizens’ sector in post-transition societies: towards an inclusive framework of governance in nigeria abdulhamid ozohu-suleiman, ph.d.1* 1 department of public administration, university of abuja, nigeria * abdulhamidozohu-suleiman, ph.d., department of public administration, university of abuja, nigeria received: october 26, 2019 accepted: november 18, 2019 online published: november 20, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p211 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p211 abstract the crisis of governance being experienced by states in the continent of africa since the fourth quarter of the last century has provoked widespread debates on good governance and its requirements. these debates revolve around the premises of welfarism aimed at evaluating the capacity of the state to deliver existential requirements of citizens. the point at issues is that the most significant ends of good governance are citizens and their quality of life. thus, in connecting government with the society as a whole (to secure this mandate), scholarly preoccupation has been on the changing tripartite relationship among the state, market and the citizens’ sector. this paper seeks to interrogate this relationship in nigeria in terms of what has been achieved and the prospects for improved quality of governance, bearing in mind the constraints imposed by certain tendencies in the democratization process. it argues that the post-transition impact of civil society (broadly referred to as citizens’ sector), which constitutes a significant part of the environment in which the state operates has not received sufficient scholarly attention in states of sub-saharan africa. the paper observes that the triumph of market economy and the concomitant shrinking of the state have significantly altered the institutional landscape of governance for the citizens’ sector to deepen its engagement with a trimmed government. in other words, outside the formal institutions of the state and market, the citizens’ sector has a crucial role to play in the good governance project. in states like nigeria, liberal political conditions have provided the needed impetus for this inclusive framework of governance to flourish. it acknowledges that though, civil society (operating under a variety of organizations) has established its visibility in the political space, none-the-less, proactive and sustainable engagement with the state on policy issues is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 212 published by scholink inc. required to effectively drive the good governance project. be that as it may, this paper recommends among others that the legal framework in respect of this tripartite relationship should be strengthened for optimal results, and that in (specific terms), in order to deepen the collaboration between the state and the citizens’ sector, the national assembly should make law to provide a legal framework aimed at institutionalizing the office of the senior special assistance to the presidents on civil society. this institutionalization will cascade into the role of civil society in the citizen engagement process. keywords citizens, democracy, economy, governance, market, state, society 1. introduction the long spell of colonialism in africa on the one hand and the contradictions generated by wide spread authoritarian rule in post-colonial africa are historical fault lines that had and will continue to shape the governance narratives of many states of the continent. the specific implications of these experiences constitute the dominant themes of contemporary discourse on africa and her development trajectory. however, beyond the discourse on colonialism and post-colonial authoritative rule, scholarly preoccupation shifted to discourses on the globalization of the democratization process (especially the onset of the third wave democratization), in terms of the continuing effort to dissect its governance contours in states of africa. a significant part of this effort has been devoted to the enviable role of the civil society (broadly referred to as the citizens’ sector in the demands and actualization of regime transformation from authoritarian rule to democracy. in nigeria for example, scholarly reports have acknowledged the primacy of the civil society in the stream of development that provided the leeway for the third wave in nigeria (ake, 2001; aiyede, 2002; diamond, 1999; kukah, 2003)). thus, civil society became not only what bratton (1994) describes as the source of legitimating of state power, but also a formidable third sector in the governance project of contemporary africa, (the state and market) being the first and second respectively. this much was acknowledged by dagnino (2016), when he observed that in the wake of the emergence of leftist government in latin america, the citizens’ sector ignited social movements that confronted the neo-liberal statism that had increased inequalities, eliminated rights and taken to an extreme the alliance between the state and market. however, in states of sub saharan african where the battle for transition to democracy has been won, there remains the urgent need to sustain and consolidate democratic rule and to ensure that government respond adequately to social demands and citizens’ expectation through good governance practices. whereas the third wave is considered as the good tidings, the bad news is that most of the post transition societies are yet to install good governance practices that guarantee significant and continuing improvement in the quality of life for the vast majority of the people. this failure is largely attributed to the lack of state capacity. despite the much touted viability of the market in efficient resource allocation that leads to economic development, the state (whose authoritative allocation of values) can help to address market failure and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 213 published by scholink inc. deepen prosperity for all, remains a significant partner in the development process. to this end, empirical statehood imposes on the state three core functions, namely extractive, coercive and administrative (hanson & sigman, 2013) that define the capacity of state institutions to effectively deliver on its mandate. among these core functions of the state, administrative capacity “is a broader dimension that includes the ability to develop policy, the ability to produce and deliver public goods and services and the ability to regulate commercial activities” (omotola, 2016, p. 21). the constitutional order of societies in transition has made provisions for this core function of the state. in nigeria for example, the 1999 constitution of the federal republic under fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy provides that the state shall control the national economy in such a manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity. in discharging the social obligations inherent in the foregoing provision, private individuals are also invited to undertake economic activities. thus, the constitution provides: without prejudice to the right of any person to participate in areas of the economy within the major sectors of the economy, protect the right of every citizen to engage in any economic activities outside the major sectors of the economy. this provision underscores the legal framework for the active participation of the private sector (broadly referred to as the market institution) to undertake economic activities with far reaching implications for national development. the economic order of market capitalism which this provision introduced is ideologically grounded on a set of assumptions the most instructive of which are that: (i) the economy should be the dominant institution in modern society; (ii) a steady increase in productivity is necessary for continued gains in standards of living; and (iii) free market generally results in the most efficient and socially optimal allocation of resources (xing, 2001). however, such unqualified faith in the efficacy of the market, only serve to extenuate the enormous challenges that confront developing countries of the global south. just like the failed state thesis that confirms the inability of post transition societies of africa to furnish the existential requirements of citizens, the market institution do fail, and it has failed on a number of occasions (the great depression of 1929, the global economic meltdown of 2009 and recently the economic recession experienced by nigeria between 2016 and 2017). thus, from smith’s liassez-faire through keysian economics to the euphoria of neo-liberal democracy (with profound rivalry between the market capitalism and the developmental state), the career of the political economy of the modern state has gone full cycle. on this note, (xing, 2001, p. 80) acknowledged the resilient onslaught of market capitalism and observes that “today, the market defines the limits of state politics…the domestic political and institutional spheres face an inherent contradiction; on the one hand, states are the custodians of society that have obligations to fulfill the role of providing social welfare, on the other hand, the undisputable power of capital mobility reduces their capacity to do so”. to address this contradiction, the capacity of the citizens’ sector to engage with the state through various means remain an attractive option available to post transition societies of africa. to this end, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 214 published by scholink inc. nigeria offers a good example where the civil society operating under a variety of organizations has established its visibility in the liberalized political space to engage with government on sundry policy issues that border on good governance. within the broad paradigm of neo-liberal democracy, this paper seeks to interrogate the interaction among the state, market and citizens’ sector in an inclusive framework of governance in nigeria. this inclusive framework takes into account the flipside of statism and the soulless advances of market capitalism while recognizing the potentials of a vibrant citizens’ sector to stage the balancing act with prospects for improved state capacity to superintend development and deepen prosperity for all. 2. objectives/methodology in the debates on good governance (especially in transition societies), the relationship between the state and citizens’ sector has not been nuanced if only to underscore the primacy of a ‘third sector’ in the governance project. to this end, the major objective of this paper is to develop an inclusive framework of governance that acknowledges the role of the citizens’ sector working in tandem with the state and market to address the vexed issue of good governance. the specific objectives are: (i) to interrogate the tripartite relationship among the state, market and citizens’ sector in the light of the democratization process in nigeria; (ii) to assess this relationship in terms of what has been achieved and the prospects for improved quality of governance; (iii) to examine the constraints imposed by certain tendencies in the democratization process; and (iv) to offer policy recommendations towards optimizing this tripartite relationship. to realize these objectives, the paper adopts a methodology that is both descriptive and analytical. this approach relies on official records and a considerable volume of related literature. in respect of official records, the study examines: (i) the federal government policy document on economic recovery and growth programme (ergp); (ii) the policy document on public private partnership (ppp); and (iii) reports on the current reality of the state-civil society relations in nigeria. the review of related literature considered a wide range of scholarly perspectives on the subject matter of the paper. 3. problematizing the governance project in an effort to interrogate the contradictions that characterize the governance project in transition societies of sub-saharan africa, it might be helpful to first clarify the concept of governance. governance is seen as a process of social engagement between the ruler and the ruled in a political community. its components are rule making and standard setting, management of regime structures and outcome of the social pact (uneca, 1999). in the same vein the undp view governance as: the totality of the exercise of authority in the management of a country’s affairs, comprising of the complex mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights and mediate their differences (undp, 1997a, p. 7). it is perhaps in view of the foregoing that olowu (2005), observed that leadership is central to the idea www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 215 published by scholink inc. of governance because it determines the manner in which state power is used or misused to promote social and economic development or to pursue agenda that undermine such goals. it follows that the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy does not suggest a guarantee of acceptable use of state power to promote the common good; rather, regime transformation imposes on the new set of managers of state institutions the obligation to exercise legitimate authority in a manner that is consistent with citizens’ expectations and social demands. in another perspective, it has been argued (adejumobi, 1999; huntington, 1997) that most states in southeast asia have made remarkable growth rates within the context of authoritarian rule. this contention has led to the conclusion that, what is important is not so much the form of government, but its outcome—economic wellbeing, political stability, social order, communal harmony, efficient and honest administration (huntington, 1997, pp. 11-12). however, the requirements of good governance should emphasize both structure and outcome. while authoritarian rule may promote good governance, there is the problem of sustainability. on this note, a number of studies have attempted to debunk the fetish of authoritarianism as a desirable political condition to install good governance practices by pointing out the fact that the persistence of authoritarian regimes has been a major impediment to sustainable political and economic development (randall, cited in ecosoc, 2013). thus, there is a strong argument that the liberal political conditions that democracy engenders is critical to enhancing the effectiveness of the state capacity to deepen prosperity and spread the benefits of socio-economic development. in the final analysis, democratic governance seeks in common with good governance, efficient institutions and a predictable economic and political environment that make economic growth possible and public service effective (undp, 2006). therefore, the debates on good governance and its requirements does not consider authoritarian rule as an option, rather, it’s about the ideological rivalry between the state and market in post transition societies. initially, protagonists of the market dominated the debates on the state-market conundrum. inspired by the triumph of the market friendly economies of western europe and north america, and the subsequent capitulation of socialist command economies of eastern europe, this school of thought argues that state intervention has proven to be barriers to economic growth and development. they submit that: state capacity—its ability to promote and undertake collective action efficiently is over-extended. therefore, reduction and refocusing of the state’s activities are needed to improve macro-economic stability, as well as the implementation of stronger incentives to performance (world bank, 1989, p. 5). this argument implies a reduced role for the state in national development, insisting that state should be limited to providing the enabling environment by implementing appropriate economic policy reform and furnishing the necessary legal and regulatory framework for market institutions to thrive. the second perspective favours the retention of the state by its emphasis on effective and efficient public administration working in tandem with the market to promote good governance. thus, as opposed to a wholesale reversal of state involvement, there is broad consensus in the literature about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 216 published by scholink inc. the capacity of the state. through “re-engineering” (hope, 2002) or “invigorating” (klitgaard, 1997), public institutions are required to address the human problem in an era characterized by rapid social transformation. this perspective has had profound influence on the discourse about the prospect of establishing and sustaining developmental state in post transition societies of africa (eca, 2005, 2011; edgheji, 2005). thus, under liberal political conditions, a number of states have demonstrated active involvement in influencing the direction and pace of development. this renewed commitment was a predictable response to the crisis of expectations that accompanied the relative success of the third wave democratization. however, there are considerable reservations about the capacity of the state and market to install good governance and promote inclusive development. part of the explanations lie in the fact that states institutions under liberal political conditions are designed to secure the primacy of the propertied class in the governance project. adejumobi (2004) has argued that the crafting of liberal democracy and the hegemonic interest that it represents is largely that of capital and bourgeois class while that of equality and socio-economic rights are more abstract than real for the majority of the people. although liberal democracy is anchored on the notions of equality, justice and freedom, these values may be severely compromised by the free market where the state (lacking in administrative capacity) provides an unfettered environment for the market to atomize the rest of society, the consequence being “the empowerment and inclusion of some, while the marginalization and exclusion of others creates political and social contradictions and inequality (xing, 2001, p. 76). thus, two decades after the onset of democratization, the nigerian state is still immersed in poverty, inequality, economic stagnation and social tension. these negative social realities are consequences of the lack of state capacity on the one hand and the mercerization of democracy on the other hand. although, in the last couple of years, democratic reforms have engendered a semblance of favorable policy environment for modest macro-economic performance, the resulting economic expansion has not contributed meaningfully to the material wellbeing of the citizens (ozohu-suleiman, 2018). with a reputation as the 6th largest producer of crude oil coupled with a variety of solid mineral deposits, the prevailing level of poverty and inequality in nigeria is a stringent indictment on the handlers of state institutions established to manage these enormous resources. it was revealed that between 1999 and 2014, the oil and gas sector raked in 529 billion dollars while the solid mineral sector earned 143.5 billion naira between 2007 and 2014 (neiti, 2017). today, with a population estimated at about 200 million people, nigeria approximates the despair and failure of the continent. this unenviable state of affairs has been captured with a variety of adjectives some of which include; soft, weak, delayed, rentier, predation, criminal, fragile, failing, failed and collapsed, etc. (see omotola & alumona, 2016). however, this despair comes into bold relieve with the emergence of the citizens’ sector and its nascent participation in the governance project. this development partly defines the legitimacy of a state in terms of its ability to allow for strong civil society and a network of non-governmental institutions that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 217 published by scholink inc. ensure the development of a well-functioning economic system, the strengthening of democratic procedures, and a wide spread participation by people in public life (weiss, 2000). the intervention of the citizens’ sector to counterbalance the state is an interesting (though nascent development) in nigeria that has not been a major preoccupation of scholars. the question as to how much space has liberal political conditions provided for the citizens’ sector to interface with the state, what has been achieved so far and what are the challenges of this third sector in the good governance equation, constitute the foci of this paper. 4. the triad of inclusive governance a triad by definition is a group of three closely related persons or things. it is commonly associated with musical notes that can be stacked vertically on threesome or triangular support. however, the term can be adapted to describe activities (including social transactions that suggest a relationship among three parts. thus, governance is here treated as a social engagement among three social structures of the state, market and citizens’ sector. to this end, the triad of inclusive governance is a social construct that seeks to establish the functional interrelatedness of the state with the market and citizens (both of which constitute significant parts of the environment of governance). this social construction is anchored on gabriel almond’s model of structural functionalism, and therefore draws its inspiration from the underlying assumptions of the model. however, whereas almond’s model identified how structures of a political system (namely, political parties, legislature, executive, judiciary, etc.) perform certain functions meant for them, the triad of inclusive governance considers these structures as given and observes that they constitute parts of the larger structures of the state, market and citizens’ sector. almond’s thesis assumes that for a social system to survive and maintain its going concern, certain degree of order and stability is required (haralambo & heald, 2003). thus, imbued with coercive authority, the state institutional capacity to maintain this order and stability is fundamental. working in tandem with the market institution and the citizens’ sector, the state is host to a multiplicity of formal and informal institutions whose activities determine the concrete outcome of governance. the triad of inclusive governance treats the state as the primus inter pares in a system characterized by the structural functional attributes of comprehensiveness and interdependence (varma, 2003). by comprehensiveness is meant the interaction of both formal and informal institutions of the social system and their implications for state coercive authority. interdependence has to do with the close connection among state institutions, the market and citizens’ sector. we proceed to clarify these social structures in order to establish their conceptual fit into the triad of inclusive governance. although the concepts of state, market and citizens’ sector are value-laden, there is considerable effort towards a generally acceptable definition. a sparing review of some scholarly submission in the literature is imperative. the state in the opinion of (maciver, 1950) is an association which acting through law as promulgated by the government endowed to this end with coercive power, maintains within a community, territorially demarcated the universal external conditions of political order. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 218 published by scholink inc. similar vein, a state is also defined as a sovereign entity with a jurisdictional claim to geographical/spatial, political, demographical, economical and socio-cultural expressions (omotola & alumona, 2016). while recognizing coercive power and territorial integrity as essential attributes of the state, maciver’s (1950) definition leaves out the equally important attributes of demography, economic and socio-cultural attributes, which in the opinion of (omotola & alumona, 2016), are fundamental to the defining attributes of a state. harold laski, in his book entitled, the state in theory and practice, sees the state as a society which is integrated by possessing a coercive authority, legally supreme over other citizens or group which is part of society. the society reveals within its boundaries not only citizens but also association of citizens grouped together to promote all kinds of political, economic, cultural, religious object in which they are interested (laski cited in obasa & achugbue, 2004). this broad conception of the state is consistent with the notion of democratic open society where there exist, a robust environment in which all the constituent elements of society interact among themselves in line with formal rules of engagement. one of the constitutive elements of a society is the market institution defined…” as the self-regulating system in which fundamental economic problems (what, how, and for whom) to produce are solved ‘automatically’ through the price mechanism rather than through conscious social decisions” (fotopoulos, 1997, p. 5). from this definition, it is understood that market institution exists in an economic system in which decisions regarding investment, production and distribution are guided by the forces of demand and supply. in this context, the market is autonomous and self-regulating operating within the broad legal framework created by the state. as an autonomous institution, the framework of control by the state is meant to create stable environment and smooth functioning of the market without affecting its essential self-regulating nature (fotopoulos, 1997). apart from the market institution, the second element, which constitute a significant part of the environment in which state operates is the civil society and other non-governmental organizations (broadly referred to as citizens’ sector). contemporary articulation of civil society has produced diverse yet closely related definitions. the most commonly quoted definition conceives of civil society as the area outside the family, the state, and the market, which is created by individual and collective actions, organizations, and institutions to advance share interests (civicus, 2011; pria et al. cited in vandyck, 2007). this view of civil society is corroborated and elaborated (taking into account its current evolution, nuances and growing diversity) by the conception of civil society as: …an ecosystem of organized and organic social and cultural relations existing in the space between the state, business, and family, which builds on indigenous and external knowledge, values, traditions, and principles to foster collaboration and the achievement of specific goals by and among citizens and other stakeholders (vanddjck, 2017, p. 1) this broad conception of civil society is consistent with our social construction of the triad of inclusive governance. the definition emphasizes the collaboration between the citizens and other stakeholders. these stakeholders are treated here as the state (which provide the locus of public service) and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 219 published by scholink inc. market (which provide the locus of a self-regulating system of investment, production and distribution). the diagram below represents a graphic illustration of the system of collaboration between the state, market and the citizens within the framework of a triad of inclusive governance. figure 1. the diagram as the primus inter pares, the state stands atop the pyramidal triad in a system of interaction between it, the market and citizens. this system of interaction is rule bound which clearly defines the scope and limits of each stakeholder, and is characterized by comprehensiveness and interdependence. as the diagram illustrates, the state provides the locus of public service with an extensive array of functions categorized under coercive, extractive and administrative capacities. coercive capacity has to do with the legitimate use of force and other key aspects of the ability of the state to maintain continuity and implement the provisions of the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. extractive capacity relates to harnessing the resources (revenue and information) required to carry out its mandate. these core state capacities are precursor of administrative capacity where there exists “autonomous and professional bureaucracies that legitimize the authority of the state, manage complex affairs and ensure efficiency” (hanson & sigman, cited in omotola & alumona, 2016, p. 22). next to the state is the market institution which furnishes the society with a price mechanism for the efficient allocation of resource. an essential attribute of this mechanism of resource allocation is what we earlier referred to as a “system of self regulation” to safeguard the autonomy of the market. this institutional autonomy is fluid in so far as the state has the overarching constitutional mandate to dictate the direction of the national economy. this is mostly expressed in the form of intervention in priority sectors, including reforms of the public service that call for state-market partnership in the delivery of critical public services. this partnership has gained currency in the wake of the global market resource allocation wealth creation partnership citizens’ sector policy advocacy demands for accountability participation melting pot public service coercive capacity extractive capacity state www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 220 published by scholink inc. transformation of governance and the rise of the global south. in developing economies like nigeria, this governance reform represents a strategic choice to reinvigorate state capacity. two fundamental issues serve to drive the emerging partnership between the state and market: (i) resource constraints which has made it increasingly difficult for the state to respond adequately to the existential requirements of citizens; and (ii) the abiding concern to implement the 3es of economy, efficiency and effectiveness in order to establish greater accountability, legitimacy and credibility. the citizens represent a “third sector” and (unarguably the most significant stakeholder) in this multi-organization approach to inclusive governance. similar to our conception of a triad of inclusive governance, strosbery and gimbel (2002) have articulated an iron triangle which accommodates: (i) public administrators who manage programmes and implement policies; (ii) the private sector whose initiatives and enterprise propel the engine of development; and (iii) non-governmental organizations and interest groups who focus on particular policy area. at this level of interpretation, governance in the context of liberal democracy is taken beyond the state and market to embrace (to a larger extent) the participation of citizens through a variety of civil society organizations. to this end, citizens are also becoming aware that the social order to which they belong can be transformed, and that a commitment is required to realize this transformation for the general benefit of the public good (castano, 2010). citizens’ commitment is demonstrated through the various engagements with the state on policy issues, participation and demands for transparency and accountability. in the area of policy advocacy, there is increasing awareness that a variety of non-state actors offer a robust market place of ideas. thus, in engaging with government on policy issues, extensive knowledge and professional competence are brought to bear on the observations they make and the options they put on the table. at the level of public policy implementation, citizens’ engagement with the state is crucial for accountability and efficient service delivery. as a requirement of good governance, the demands for accountability have been the most compelling issue in the interface between the state and the citizens’ sector. this is especially the case in nigerian where the bane of governance is largely attributed to official infractions and rent-seeking preoccupation of public officials. closely connected to the demands for accountability is citizens’ direct participation in public service delivery. olowu (2002, p. 24) has acknowledged that, “increasingly, interest is shifting to the possible roles of voluntary organizations and the communities in improving the delivery of public services”. this volunteering does not only seek to set standard of public service, but also challenge public institutions to live up to citizens’ expectations of the highest standards of accountability in public service delivery. although this framework of governance recognizes the collaboration among the state, market and citizens’ sector, a mutually exclusive relationship between the state and market on the one hand, and the citizens’ sector on the other hand cannot be ruled out. despite the attempt by neo-liberal democracy to draw a distinction between the state and market, where each is able to act upon its goals, values and objectives without subordination or subjection to the other, the market is a political institution (emphasis added) that eventually empowers some and marginalize others (xing, 2001). in the face of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 221 published by scholink inc. this obvious contradictions, the citizens sector that exists and operates for the common good, steps in to mitigate undesirable alliance between the state and market. in the light of this framework of governance, the discussion of findings is devoted to evidence of concrete manifestations of the collaboration among the state, market and citizens’ sector in nigeria. 5. discussion the nigerian state in transition has recorded a mixed bag of experience. whereas liberal political conditions have significantly changed the nature and character of state policy and its nexus with the vexed issue of good governance, the expected improvement in the existential conditions of the citizens leaves much to be desired. state commitment to address this challenge is debatable and at best incremental. however, the good news is that the laissez faire environment of governance offers many opportunities for stakeholders to collaborate on the governance project. to this end, the state is increasingly becoming receptive to the emerging synergy between it on the one hand, the market and citizens’ sector on the other hand. this synergy has produced a range of significant outcomes that have gone a long way to change the governance narratives. the remaining part of the discussion is devoted to concrete evidence of this collaboration. the state and market: in an effort to provide the legal and institutional framework for this collaboration, the state has developed and activated a number of policy frameworks, the most significant of which are: (i) the public-private partnership (ppp) policy document; (ii) the economic recovery and growth plan (ergp); and (iii) four executive orders (eo nos. 01, 04, 05 & 08). the ppp represents a significant dimension of the paradigm shift from traditional model of organization and delivery of public service to a market-based public service delivery and management. given the huge deficit in socio-economic infrastructure, the federal government has acknowledged the urgent need to “make massive investments beyond the means available to government in order to close its yawning infrastructural gap…thus,…the private sector can play an important role in providing some of these investments through public-private-partnership (frn cited in ozohu-suleiman & oladimeji, 2015). since its introduction, a number of critical infrastructure projects cutting across various sectors of the economy have been implemented while some are undergoing implementation. these infrastructures include but not limited to; rail transportation projects, airport concession, road construction and rehabilitation, seaport concession, hospital and educational facilities and electricity projects. coming close to the very recent times, the economic recovery and growth plan was developed in the twilight of the economic recession that ravaged the nigerian economy between 2016 and 2017. the ergp is a “medium term plan for 2017-2020 developed for the purpose of restoring economic growth while leveraging the ingenuity and resilience of the nigerian people—the nation’s most priceless assets” (frn, ergp, 2017, p. 10). the key principles of ergp are: (i) focus on tackling constraints to economic growth; (ii) leverage the power of the private sector as strategic partner for economic recovery and transformative growth; (iii) promote national cohesion and social inclusion, bearing in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 222 published by scholink inc. restoring investing in  mind that nigerians are the beneficiaries of inclusive growth; (iv) allow market to function while strengthening regulatory oversight to minimize market abuse; and (v) uphold core values of discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance and patriotism as enshrined in the 1999 constitution. these principles are meant to achieve the vision and broad objectives of the plan as encapsulated in the figure below: figure 2. vision for 2020 source: frn (2017), economic recovery and growth plan 2017-2020. as part of government efforts to enforce the overarching principle of (allowing market to function) through regulatory oversight, four executive orders have been endorsed by the president and are being implemented by the state. they are: (i) executive order no. 01 on the promotion of transparency in the business environment; (ii) executive order no. 04 on voluntary assets and income declaration scheme; (iii) executive order no. 05 for planning and execution of projects, promotion of nigeria contents in contracts, science, engineering and technology; and (iv) executive order no. 08 on voluntary offshore assets regularization scheme. the implementation of ppp along with the complementary policy instruments highlighted above have led to a robust and enduring collaboration between the state and market in the provision of critical infrastructure. the ppp projects are concentrated in the transportation sector (rail, road, sea and air transport facilities), urban and rural electrification, development of new/upgrade of existing health care facilities, development of new/upgrade of existing educational facilities spread across the country. for example, the second niger bridge is a ppp project that is significant to the nigerian economy in many respects. the flagship bridge meant to link the south eastern nigeria with the rest of the country is the most ambitious ppp project in recent history and is reported to have reached 50% completion (cdn.ampproject.org). there are 51 ppp projects of various descriptions currently under implementation vision for 2020 promote national prosperity and an efficient, dynamic and self-reliant economy to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every governance delivery www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 223 published by scholink inc. across the country (icrc, 2019). the table below indicates selected ppp infrastructure projects across the six geo-political zones currently undergoing implementation. table 1. selected ppp projects in nigeria s/n o project govt. agency concession aire duration status geo-politi cal zone 1. concession for the development, finance, maintenance, operate and transfer of port terminal (apapa) nigerian ports authority (npa) apapa bulk terminal ltd “a” 25years october 2005-october 2030 under implementat ion south-west 2. concession for the development, finance, maintenance, operate and transfer of port terminal (port-harcourt) nigeria ports authority (npa) bua ports and terminals ltd 20years may 2006 – 2026 under implementat ion south-sout h 3. concession for build, own, and operate a container freight station of inland container deport (abia state) nigerian shippers council (nsc) eastgate inland container depot ltd 30years from 2007– 2037 under implementat ion south-east 4. concession for build, own, and operate a container freight station of inland container depot (plateau state) nigerian shippers council (nsc) duncan maritime ventures nigeria ltd 20years from 2007– 2027 under implementat ion north-cent ral 5. concession for build, own, and operate a container freight station of inland container depot (kano state) nigerian shippers council (nsc) dala inland dry port nigeria ltd 25years from 2007 – 2032 under implementat ion north-west 6. provision of data capture services, personalization, issuance and distribution of general multi-purpose cards (gmpc), development of card acceptances devices (cads) nationwide national identity managemen t commission (nimc) onesecureca rd limited 10years from 2007 – 2017 under implementat ion nation-wid e 7. concession agreement for the design, build, finance, operate transmissio n company phase 3 telecom ltd 15years from 2006 – 2021 under implementat western nigeria www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 224 published by scholink inc. tcn’s fibre optic cable telecommunications infrastructure for the western part of nigeria of nigeria ion 8. concession agreement for the design, build, finance, operate tcn’s fibre optic cable telecommunications infrastructure for the eastern part of nigeria transmissio n company of nigeria alheri engineering services ltd 15years from 2006 – 2021 under implementat ion eastern nigeria 9. concession for the design, construct, install, operate and maintain the dadinkowa hydro dam for the purpose of electricity generation with a capacity of 39mw – gombe state federal ministry of water resources mabon limited 25years 2005 -2030 under implementat ion north-east source: http://www.icrc.gov.ng/projects-under-icrcs-costudy/. the projects listed in the foregoing table are by no means exhaustive of the scope of infrastructural facilities (cutting across various sectors) that are required to address the huge deficit in the country. they form part of the social overhead capital which provision will facilitates socio-economic activities that ultimately affect the existential conditions of the citizens. it is understood that in the face of severe resource constraints, only an incremental approach is feasible in addressing the humongous infrastructure deficit. however, a conception of governance that is limited to the collaboration between the state and market is problematic for many reasons, some of which were highlighted elsewhere in the paper. however, two of them deserve further clarification here. first, it subordinates the role of the critical mass of citizens while prioritizing that of the propertied class. secondly, such a narrow conception does not allow for the democratization of governance. therefore, democratic citizenship requires that non state actors take interest in participating in the policy process that shapes their lives. the state and citizens’ sector: government exists for the people. this statement sounds simplistic but it may well convey the force of revolution. the revolutionary undertone of the statement is underscored by the social obligation of the citizens to hold government accountable for its actions and inactions. in nigeria, the open society engendered by liberal political conditions has provided the impetus for citizens-state engagement. this engagement has taken many forms including but not limited to dialogue, peaceful protest/negotiation and voluntary participation. today, the political space is saturated with civil society groups and ngos of various descriptions such that it is almost impossible www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 225 published by scholink inc. to take a comprehensive census of non-state actors in nigeria. however, our discussion is limited to a few of them that have made appreciable impact on the governance project. in the area of policy engagement through dialogue, significant achievements have been recorded, aimed at installing accountability and transparency in governance. the neiti bill was signed into law in 2003 and its application commenced in 2004. a coalition of csos play major roles in the neiti process, notable among which are #publish what you pay and cislac. in operationalizing the neiti process, csos are on the governing board of the national stakeholders working group (nswg). also neiti has a civil society steering committee in which csos and neiti board are partners in the various outreach programmes and activities organized by it (ekhator, 2014). for example, cislac in collaboration with neiti conducted a public perception survey in 2015 and made its report available to neiti (neiti, 2015). through the concerted efforts of a coalition of csos (namely #budgit, serap, cislac and the national resource governance institute (nrgi), the petroleum industry governance bill which is on the verge of being passed into law. the whistleblower protection bill, which clarifies the protections of persons who make disclosures about corruption and other infractions in government was also signed into law in 2017 (itodo and d’regan, 2018). the national assembly was made to create and release a budget of its expenditure in 2017, for the first time in seven years through the efforts of the #open nass campaign launched in 2013 by enough is enough with support from budgit and other csos. on peaceful protest and negotiation to build pressure on the state for desired change, a coalition of csos along with the nigeria labour congress (nlc) and the trade union congress (tuc) have made significant impact in confronting the state to reverse unpopular and anti-citizen policies. one notable example that has united the citizens against the establishment is the fuel subsidy removal strikes. given that the nigerian economy is dependent on oil, attempts by government to deregulate the downstream sector have consistently met with disapproval from organized labour. while government decision is usually predicated on the unsustainability of subsidy on fuel, the citizens concern is on the consequential inflation and its severe impact on the existential conditions of the people. this form of engagement has forced government to observe circumspection in the governance of oil resources in nigeria. the figure below indicates trends in protest. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 226 published by scholink inc. 0 500 1000 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 524 protests protests have surged from a few dozen to over 400 per year, a trend that has persisted since 2014 figure 3. trends in protest source: armed conflict location & event data project (acled) www.acleddata.com the most memorable of these protests was the january, 2012 mass action against government decision to remove fuel subsidy and the consequential increase in the price of transportation and food items (jalade & rafiu, 2014). the spread, coordination and resilience of the nationwide protests by a coalition of csos under the aegis of the nlc and tuc (which lasted for one week), took nigeria to the precipice until government capitulated by reducing the increase from n141 to 97 per litre. in 2016, the government succeeded in increasing the price from n97 to n145. however, the confrontation that ensued led to the signing of mou between labour and the government on measures to cushion the predictable effects of such increase on the livelihood of ordinary nigerians. civil society engagement with the state through voluntary participation in public service delivery is also becoming noticeable in some parts of the country. the niger delta region presents an exceptional case. owing to the widespread environmental, developmental and resource distribution challenges, the region has witnessed the emergence of civil society groups of various descriptions, many of which are preoccupied with voluntary participation in public service delivery. csos involved in this volunteering are; communal, ethnic/regional civil groups, environmental activists, youth groups and community based organizations. the table below provides a list of selected csos and their engagements in the niger delta. table 2. selected csos and ngos engaged in voluntary public service delivery in the niger delta name activities projects funding support partnerships/collaborations ogoni solidarity forum enlightenment programmes, facilitation of economic empowerment through agricultural production enlightenment programmes on aids/malaria. town hall meetings cbos in ogoniland www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 227 published by scholink inc. niger delta wetland centre economic empowerment through it, agricultural production training natural park and forest reserves. training macarthur foundation, eu, usaid, national state governments, brass lng lapo development foundation socio-economic empowerment, health care support, governance issues micro-credit projects, project executions, health programme world bank, mpp6, ford foundation, oxfam novib, cordaid, eed (germany), developmen t and peace (canada) state government community partners for development poverty eradication/economic empowerment, health care, humanitarian assistance, community development community development projects, relief for displaced persons, malaria/hiv aids/stis programmes eu, actionaid, world bank, global rights, unifem, undev, osiwa state governments, exxon-mobil. national commission for refugees institute for human rights and humanitarian law research/documentatio n, legal services/access to justice, economic empowerment, governance, democracy and human rights etc councilors for peace programme, para-legal rights groups in communities oxfam gb, dfid, tmg, british council, macarthur foundation, national endowment for democracy ngo/cbos niger delta citizens and budget participation and dialogue in governance, promoting transparency training of community activists on revenue watch, dfid, other ngo/cbos www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 228 published by scholink inc. platform and accountability in governance budget execution and control, town hall meetings usaid, national democratic institute women health and economic development association economic empowerment, women empowerment, health care sensitization/awareness baseline studies, health care awareness/suppo rt campaigns, women empowerment programmes micro credit schemes global funds, ford foundation, eze (germany) state governments, tnocs, other ngo/cbos source: codep profile cited in ikelegbe (2013), cped monograph series no. 7 one aspect of civil society engagement with the state that has not been properly documented (perhaps because of its novelty) is town hall meeting, which is gaining currency in the wake of the democratization process. a significant number of such meetings have taken place between the citizens and officials of the state at federal, state and local government levels. specific examples of these meeting cannot be provided owing to paucity of data. however, this form of engagement is outstanding for two reasons. first, it provides an informal platform for citizens of diverse backgrounds and social pedigree to interact with their leaders on a variety of issues of governance that concern their existential wellbeing. secondly, this form of engagement is not subject to the limitations, which have constrained the operations of organized civil society. some of these constraints stem from the argument that the conventional understanding of civil society is rooted in western practices and therefore incompatible with the socio-political realities of third world societies in transition (encarnacion, 2000). he maintains that “undeveloped political systems, overburden newly democratic governments and highly politicized populations” (encarnacion, 2000, p. 3), are some of the obstacles extenuating the capacity of civil society to promote governance reforms. these parlous socio-political conditions have given rise to a general environment of violent conflicts, insecurity and widespread disaffection among citizens, which is not conducive for state-civil society engagement. in nigeria for example, these constraints are further exacerbated by poor internal democracy, exogenous influence, elite domination, the tendency for csos to operate as business entity for economic gains and poor accountability and transparency (ikelegbe, 2013). 6. conclusion the increasing involvement of the citizens’ sector in shaping public policy that affects their lives in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 229 published by scholink inc. nigeria is an indication that the learning curves in the democratization process have been overcome. government on its part has come to terms with the reality of a unique feature of democratic governance which provides the institutional platform for citizens to express themselves and ventilate their queries. this interface is the highest form of democratic practice not so much because it offers citizens the opportunity to partake in steering state affairs, but more because of the inherent strength of democratic citizenship to counterbalance the state and (to borrow the words of ernest gellar, 1996, p. 1), “prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of society”. this inherent power of the citizens’ sector has challenged our conventional understanding of the nuances of governance. thus, in the light of the rising profile of this third sector, contemporary governance is less oriented towards the state and more oriented to the citizens. from the analysis and discussion in this paper, the implicit indivisibility of the state and market has been made obvious. while acknowledging the complementarities of their roles in the governance project, the inescapable conclusion is that they represent a dominant class interests that are well protected by the constitutional order of liberal democracies. however, the liberal political conditions that it engenders are enablers for the citizens/sector to project the interest of the rest of society. for nigeria and many other societies in transition, this third sector has the potentials to change the governance narratives. recommendations in the light of issues discussed, arguments advanced and observation made, the following recommendations are put forward: i. an inclusive framework of governance that gives primacy to the citizens’ sector requires a political environment that is save and secured. to this end, there is an urgent need for the nigerian state to improve on the security situation in country. the open society that liberal democracy projects is not one populated by subversive elements nor is it one characterized by violent criminality. it is imperative on government to muster sufficient political will to deploy its coercive capacity to create save and secured environment for citizens to promote governance reforms ii. closely related to the foregoing is the ongoing military campaign against the boko haram insurgency in the north eastern nigeria. there is an urgent need for a review of strategy in order to de-emphasize the military contents of the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency efforts of the federal government. the intractable nature f the war and the resilience of the boko haram terrorists’ organization require a non-kinetic approach to contain the menace. this approach should be anchored on a compassionate change of attitude and perception towards the insurgents. to this end, the nigerian military should declare a quarterly amnesty corridorto be followed immediately with a combination of relief materials and moral suasion aimed at winning the hearts and minds of repentant insurgents (which is fundamental to the de-radicalization process). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 230 published by scholink inc. iii. the tripartite relationships that characterize this inclusive framework of governance should be governed by legislation. while the relationship between the state and market is regulated by extant law, no such law exists in the case of state-civil society relations. the absence of a governing law has made the interaction between the two stakeholders more adversarial than mutual. therefore, a legislation is required to furnish the relationship with emphasis on the rights and obligations of civil society. iv. the office of the senior special assistant to the president on civil society is an indication that government is ready to collaborate with the citizens’ sector. however, given the progress that has been recorded in the democratization process, the time has come to take this collaboration to the next level by means of an executive bill for a law to provide the legal framework to institutionalize this collaboration. such legal framework will spell out details of its operational autonomy, viability and influence within the socio-political environment v. town hall meeting which is currently adhoc in nature should be made a permanent forum with predictable calendar of events. government should also refrain from the tendency of using town hall meeting as a reactive measure to reach the people. given it potentials to inform, sensitize and mobilize the people, town hall (in addition to transforming it to a permanent and regular forum), should be proactive to target the critical mass of the people. acknowledgement the author wishes to place on record the support given by universities of abuja and maiduguri to undertake the research that produced this paper. the support of the university of maiduguri (where the author is currently a visiting professor) is particularly noted for the convivial environment, which provided the required inspiration that revitalized his ideas. the rosa park information resource centre (irc) of the united states embassy in nigeria was also helpful in providing part of the materials for the paper. references adejumobi, s. (2004). democracy, good governance and constitutionalism. in s. odion-akhaine (ed.), governance: nigeria and the world. a publication of the centre for constitutionalism and demilitarization (lencod), lagos: panaf press ltd. aiyede, r. (2002). the dynamics of civil society and democratization process in nigeria. development policy centre, ibadan. ake, c. (2001). democracy and development in africa. ibadan: spectrum books limited. castano, g. m. (2010). citizenship and civil society as key elements for democratic strengthening: a new approach to regional cooperation between the european union and latin america. international institute for democracy and electoral assistance, stockholm, sweden. dagnino, e. 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(2001). the market-democracy conundrum. journal of political ideologies, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310125320 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 140 original paper a study of cultural-loaded words translation in the classic of tea from the perspective of translator behavior criticism xiuwen zheng1 1 school of english studies, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: january 2, 2024 accepted: january 26, 2024 online published: february 25, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p140 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p140 abstract as the earliest surviving monograph on tea, the classic of tea, namely the encyclopedia of tea, has been translated into japanese, english, french, german and etc. it had a profound impact on the study of tea in china and even in the world. this book contains interdisciplinary knowledge, systemically listing various aspects of tea studies, and accordingly there are a series of cultural-loaded words. cultural-loaded word is an eternal topic in the translation of chinese classic, and how translators appropriately deal with cultural-loaded words has become one of the vital factors affecting the effect of readers’ reception and book promotion. based on the truth-seeking-utility-attaining continuum mode of evaluation, this paper evaluates the translation of cultural-loaded words in the classic of tea from library of chinese classic series, and to explore the dynamic impact of the translator’s behavior on the transmission of cultural connotations across languages. it is found that the translators are more inclined to utility side to reduce the reading barriers that cultural-loaded words bring to the readers. keywords the classic of tea, translator behavior criticism, cultural-loaded word 1. an introduction to the classic of tea lu yu, also called “tea sage”, written the classic of tea for the earliest surviving monograph on tea all over the world. three volumes in this book systematically explains the origin, manufacturing, utensils, drinking and many other aspects of tea knowledge. besides, it has laid a foundation for the formation of tea science and tea ceremony. wang (2018) pointed out that both in terms of content and influence, the classic of tea is unrivaled in chinese tea classics. as the excellent chinese classics gradually go to the world, the classic of tea, as a dazzling pearl among the chinese tea classics, has also received the attention of many scholars in its translation. however, the differences between chinese and western cultures inevitably lead to the emergence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 141 published by scholink inc. cultural mismatch, which make the translation work difficult. this difference is reflected in cultural-loaded words. cultural-loaded words refer to those words, phrases or idioms that are used to express something specific to a certain culture. it also known as lexical vacancies, referring to the fact that the cultural information contained in the source language vocabulary, but cannot be found in the translated language (yu, 2016). at present, the domestic research on the english translation of the classic of tea is mainly carried out from the perspectives of translation strategy, functional linguistics, cultural imagery, etc., and mainly discusses specific issues such as aesthetic meaning, philosophical thought, writings and the foreign dissemination of tea culture in the english translation of the classic of tea. however, fewer scholars have conducted specific studies on the translation of many cultural-loaded words from the perspective of translator behavior. in this paper, we will evaluate the translation of cultural-loaded words in the jiang’s translation of the classic of tea from the perspective of translator behavioral criticism, and explore the dynamic impact of translator's behavioral changes across the continuum on the transmission of cultural connotations. 2. translator behavior criticism and truth-seeking-utility-attaining continuum mode of evaluation at the end of the twentieth century, bassnett and lefevere proposed the cultural turn in translation, which provided a new understanding of translation criticism, and made translation studies no longer stay on the textual level of equivalence or non-equivalence (zeng, 2006). this shift has led to a descriptive shift in translation studies, breaking away from the previous dilemma of focusing only on the textual level and placing translation studies in a broader social context. zhou proposes a descriptive, critical and framing theory named translator behavior criticism. this theory specifically takes the translator behavior as the entry point, takes the social perspective as the evaluation perspective, and aims at evaluating the bilateral relationship between the translator behavior and translation quality (zhou, 2014). as a conscious body, translator has social aspect, and thus simultaneously possesses both linguistic and social attributes in carrying out actions, which is also called the translator’s behavior in a broader sense. under the perspective of translator behavior criticism, translators have both the identities of linguist and sociologist. meanwhile, they are oriented to the original text and the society (ma, 2013). under the theoretical framework of translator behavior criticism, zhou creatively proposes truth-seeking-utility-attaining continuum mode of evaluation. truth-seeking refers to the translator’s behavior of seeking the truth of the meaning loaded in the original language. it achieves the goal of pragmatism for the readers and society. utility-attaining means a kind of pragmatic attitude and method which is attained on the basis of seeking the truth of meaning loaded in the original language in a whole or in part (zhou, 2010). this continuum mode breaks the traditional pattern of binary opposite in the past and puts truth-seeking and utility-attaining at the two ends of the continuum, with the translator behavior and the translation process presenting a dynamic process of change. when the translator www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 142 published by scholink inc. behavior is close to the original text or the author, the linguistic nature of the translator is reflected and the translator behavior is truth-seeking. on the contrary, when the translator behavior is close to the reader or the society, the social nature of the translator is reflected and the translator behavior is utility-attaining. truth-seeking is the basis of utility-attaining, and the two can be transformed under certain conditions. translators need to strive for their own ideal balance between truth-seeking and utility-attaining, which means to maintain the linguistic significance of the original text while preserving the social function of translation. 3. cultural-loaded words in the classic of tea from truth-seeking-utility-attaining continuum model of evaluation cultural-loaded words refer to those words, phrases or idioms that are used to express things specific to a certain culture. over the long period of time, people all over the world have formed their own language systems with their own cultural, religious, social and thinking characteristics. generally, they appear in the form of cultural-loaded words at the vocabulary level. since cultural-loaded words contain their own cultural connotations, it’s extremely difficult to find alternatives in the target language that carry the same meaning when communicating with other cultures. therefore, how to deal with these cultural-loaded words appropriately in translation is an vital issue that every translator needs to think about. referring to linguist nida’s way of dividing culture, cultural-loaded words can be divided into five categories: ecological cultural-loaded words, material cultural-loaded words, social cultural-loaded words, religious cultural-loaded words and linguistic cultural-loaded words (nida, 1993). the classic of tea involves many aspects of tea knowledge and covers many different fields, such as chinese history, social customs and traditional religions, etc. the existence of a large number of cultural-loaded words increases the challenge of foreign translation work. in the following section, we will criticize the translator behavior in the english translation of the classic of tea by jiang from the perspective of cultural-loaded words. 3.1 social cultural-loaded words as a major category of cultural-loaded words, social cultural-loaded words usually refer to words and expressions created by local people and influenced by the unique habits, customs and lifestyles of the local society. there are great differences between chinese and foreign societies, so when traditional literature is translated, it is often impossible to find definitely appropriate word substitutes in the target society. 1) 籯，一曰“篮”，一曰“笼”，一曰“筥”。以竹织之，受五升，或一斗、二斗、三斗，茶人负以采 茶之。 ying, also called lan, long or ju, is also a basket-like container woven with thin bamboo stripes. the capacity of a ying varies from five liters to one, two or three decaliters. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 143 published by scholink inc. the classic of tea contains a large number of measurement, including length, capacity, weight, etc. in example 1, the translator translates “斗，升” into “liters, decaliters”. first of all, the translator simply equates the unit of “升” with “liter”, which obviously lacks accuracy. in ancient china, there are different standards for “升”. for instance, a liter was 600 ml in sui and tang, while a liter was 702 ml in song, so it is difficult to use a fixed value to represent “liter”. “斗” is a traditional chinese unit of volume, which doesn’t exist in western societies. therefore, there is no equivalent word in english. however, translator understands that “斗” is equal to ten liters in chinese weights and measures, and that there is an english equivalent for “decaliters”. the translator uses naturalized translation strategy to satisfy readability as much as possible, and utility-attaining is demonstrated here. 2) 阴山坡谷者，不堪采掇，性凝滞，结瘕疾 tea plants growing on a slope deprive of sunshine yield valueless leaves, whose sluggish nature could lead to side effects like stagnation of circulation, lumps or indigestion in the drinker. in chinese terms in traditional chinese medicine and pharmacy, “性凝滞” refers to a traditional chinese illness that cold causes qi and blood to run poorly and meridians not be able to get through, often manifested as a variety of pain symptoms. in za bing yuan liu xi zhu, it mentioned how“瘕 疾”appears. “瘕疾”is caused by the inappropriate balance between cold and warm, and it is often seen under the umbilicus. the chinese medicines involved in this sentence is still difficult to understand for the local readers, but even more obscure for the western readers. the translator uses “lump” and “indigestion” to explain the tcm symptoms mentioned above, which makes up for the tcm cultural gap in the western society. translator behavior is closer to the society, and the translator’s social nature is reflected. in this example, translator behavior shows utility-attaining. however, since western readers know little about the basic concepts of chinese medicine, such as yinyang and qi, and is unfamiliar with the cause and effect between tea grown on the shady slopes and tcm diseases, it may lead to an incoherent logic when reading the text. 3.2 material cultural-loaded words due to the different lifestyles in different parts of the world, there are differences in clothing, food, housing, transportation, etc., and it is difficult to find equivalent expressions in the target language and culture, thus the term “material cultural-loaded words” emerges. there is a huge difference between chinese and western life, and a large number of unique chinese items also appears in the classic of tea, which are highlighted in chapter 4 and chapter 5. 3) 瓢，一曰牺杓。剖瓠为之, 或刊木为之。 the tea ladle: this kind of ladle is also known as a bail or a scoop. it can be made by cutting a gourd into two halves, or it can be carved from wood. “瓢” is a traditional chinese utensil which usually made from dried gourds. ancient people split the dried gourd into two pieces, and they are used as daily container for scooping water and wine. until https://doc.wiki8.cn/hanxie_14775/ https://doc.wiki8.cn/qixue_150918/ https://doc.wiki8.cn/jingluo_13364/ https://doc.wiki8.cn/tengtong_80/ https://doc.wiki8.cn/zhengzhuang_152020/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 144 published by scholink inc. today, people in some chinese area is still using this kind of container. in the classic of tea, it is a tea utensil used to ladle water and tea broth. the translator translates “瓢” into “the tea ladle”, where “ladle” refers to a long-handled spoon, and “tea” specifies the application of the ladle. readers are able to understand this object as a ladle related to tea and find its counterpart in their own culture, which enhances the reading experience. here the translator brings the translation closer to the reader, and the translator behavior represents utility-attaining. 4) 凡酌，置诸碗，令沫饽均。沫饽，汤之华也。 floating on top of the tea is the tea marrow. the thick cream is called bo, and the thin spume of the marrow is called mo. hua (literally meaning “flower”) refers to even finer froth. “沫饽”is composed of “沫” and “饽”, which refers to a layer of foam floating on the surface of the tea broth, the thinner foam called “沫” and the thicker one named“饽”. represented by british tea culture, the tea broth in western tea culture is directly brewed by tea leaves after filtering the tea residue obtained. however, tea leaves need to be smashed into tea powder, and then boil out in the specific tea kettle in chinese tea culture. during the process of boiling, bubbles would appear gradually over time. the ancients believed that these bubbles were the essence of the tea broth. the difference between the chinese and western ways of making tea broth makes it impossible to find a corresponding word for the cultural information contained in “沫饽” in the target language. the translator directly translates “沫饽” into the pinyin “bo” and “mo”. this translation preserves the form of the original text to the greatest extent and brings the reader closer to the original text. translator behavior is expressed as truth-seeking. 4. conclusion and finding with regard to the translation of the many cultural-loaded words in the classic of tea, the translators varied continuously between truth-seeking and utility-attaining. in order to be closer to the reading habits of english-speaking readers and to fill the cultural gap, the translators put pragmatism in a more important position, which is reflected by the fact that the translator behaviors in the continuum model of evaluation are biased towards the utility-attaining end. on the contrary, for the sake of preserving the traditional culture with chinese characteristics, truthfulness is put in the first place, which is reflected by the translator behaviors in the continuum model of evaluation as favoring the truth-seeking end. in a word, jiang’s translation tends to be more pragmatic. the translator strives to get closer to the target language readers and tries to fill in the gaps between chinese and western cultures, so as to further enhance the dissemination of the classic of tea and the chinese tea culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 145 published by scholink inc. references chinese national committee for terminology in traditional chinese medicine and pharmacy. (2005). chinese terms in traditional chinese medicine and pharmacy 2004. beijing: science press. eugene, n. (1993). language, culture and translating. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. jiang, x., & jiang, y. (2009). the classic of tea. hunan: hunan people’s publishing press. ma, f. h. (2023). a study on the translation of hua tuo’s wuqinxi from the perspective of translator behavior criticism. journal of leshan normal university, 1, 50-55. wang, h., & liu, x. f. (2018). a survey of domestic studies on the english translation of the classic of tea in china (2008~2017). foreign studies, 2, 64-69+108. yan, y. (2006). speak of tihu. studies on the history of chinese language, 370-373. yu, l. x. (2016). a comparative study on the translation of culture-loaded words in english version of mao’ s poems. foreign language research, 6, 106-109. zeng, w. x. (2006). second-thoughts about the cultural turn in translation studies. foreign languages research, 3, 45-47+80. zhou, l. s. (2010). translator’s behavior and the “truth-seeking-utility-attaining” continuum mode of evaluation. foreign language education, 1, 93-97. zhou, l. s. (2014). a theoretical framework for translator behavior criticism. beijing: the commercial press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 49 original paper teaching adaptation strategies for chinese university english teachers in the ai era pingqing chen1* 1 hainan vocational university of science and technology, haikou, hainan, china * correspondence author: pingqing chen, hainan vocational university of science and technology, haikou, hainan, china received: july 19, 2025 accepted: september 12, 2025 online published: september 29, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p49 abstract the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (ai) technologies is reshaping language education worldwide, compelling teachers to adapt their pedagogy and professional identities. this article examines how chinese university english as a foreign language (efl) teachers are adjusting their teaching methods in response to the ai era, drawing on the author’s personal reflective teaching practice in tertiary classrooms. recent advances in ai-assisted tools—from automated writing evaluation and intelligent feedback systems to ai-generated learning materials and conversational chatbots—offer new opportunities to enhance efl instruction. chinese university instructors have begun integrating these tools to provide more personalized writing feedback, facilitate flipped learning, and engage students in novel ways. the reflective findings illustrate how ai integration has improved students’ writing revision and participation, while also challenging teachers to redefine their roles and maintain the human touch in teaching. through critical engagement with literature from 2020-2025, the article contextualizes these pedagogical shifts within broader trends in ai-mediated language education and the evolving teacher identity in the digital age. it discusses the benefits of ai (such as increased efficiency and learner autonomy) alongside concerns (such as bias, academic integrity, and teacher displacement), emphasizing the need for ongoing professional development and ethical guidance (unesco, 2023; hockly, 2023; kasneci et al., 2023). the article concludes that ai can enrich efl teaching in chinese higher education when used as a complementary tool, with teachers’ reflective adaptation being key to harnessing ai’s potential while safeguarding pedagogical values. keywords language education, chinese university efl teachers, higher education (china), reflective practice, ai-assisted writing evaluation, intelligent feedback systems, chatbots for language learning, flipped www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 50 learning with ai, personalized feedback & student engagement, complementary human–ai pedagogy introduction artificial intelligence has rapidly become a powerful force in education, with applications ranging from intelligent tutoring systems and automated assessments to adaptive learning platforms (almashour et al., 2025; kasneci et al., 2023). in the field of language teaching, ai tools are increasingly prevalent. educators have noted ai’s ability to act as a conversational partner for students, generate novel ideas for lesson plans, and offer tailored feedback on language use (minnillo et al., 2024; hockly, 2023). at the same time, many instructors and scholars voice concerns about ai’s biases and its impact on student learning and academic integrity (minnillo et al., 2024; unesco, 2023). this duality is particularly evident in english as a foreign language (efl) education, where technologies such as grammar-checking algorithms, automated writing evaluators, and chatbots are becoming integral to classroom practice (almashour et al., 2025; han & li, 2024). these innovations promise greater personalization and efficiency in language learning, but they also raise questions about the evolving role of the teacher. in china’s higher education system, the integration of ai into teaching and learning has gained momentum in recent years. universities are exploring ai-driven language learning apps, intelligent essay-scoring systems, and virtual teaching assistants to support efl instruction. chinese university efl teachers thus find themselves at the forefront of a pedagogical shift, tasked with incorporating advanced technologies into traditionally face-to-face, exam-oriented classrooms. as a result, chinese efl educators are experimenting with ai to enhance writing instruction, provide instant feedback, and boost student engagement (gao & wang, 2024; zhou & hou, 2025). however, adopting ai in the classroom also challenges teachers to update their skills and reconsider their teacher identity in an age where information and guidance are increasingly provided by machines (pan & wang, 2025; qin & chuaychoowong, 2025). purpose and scope: this article investigates how chinese university efl teachers are adapting their teaching strategies in the ai era, focusing on practical techniques and the implications for teacher roles. it is based on the author’s reflective teaching practice and situates these experiences within the growing body of literature on ai in language education, efl pedagogy transformation, and teacher identity in the digital age. by examining both the opportunities and challenges presented by ai, the paper aims to provide insights for language teachers, teacher educators, and researchers interested in the confluence of technology and pedagogy (feng & sumettikoon, 2024; xue, 2024). literature review ai in language teaching: opportunities and challenges the past few years have seen a surge of interest in applying ai technology to language education. a variety of ai applications are now available to assist language learning. for example, ai-powered www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 51 grammar and writing checkers (such as grammarly and similar tools) offer immediate, individualized feedback on written language, and automated scoring systems can evaluate essays or short answers in seconds (mekheimer, 2025; han & li, 2024). these tools provide instant correction and suggestions, supplementing teachers’ feedback and allowing learners to practice and revise independently. in addition, ai-driven speech recognition and chatbot systems serve as conversation partners for speaking practice, giving students low-pressure opportunities to improve their oral skills. educators have praised ai’s ability to personalize learning and generate useful instructional content (minnillo et al., 2024; hockly, 2023). for instance, generative ai models can quickly produce level-appropriate reading passages or vocabulary exercises tailored to specific topics, which teachers might use to enrich their course materials. however, the integration of ai into teaching also brings new challenges. ai systems are not infallible; they sometimes provide incorrect or biased information, which can mislead learners if not checked (minnillo et al., 2024; kasneci et al., 2023). there are concerns about students’ overreliance on ai or misuse of ai tools (for example, using translation engines or text generators to do assignments), which raises issues of academic integrity (minnillo et al., 2024; unesco, 2023). additionally, the use of ai in the classroom can blur the teacher’s traditional role. if students turn to ai for answers or feedback, the teacher’s authority and control over the learning process may diminish, requiring educators to redefine their value in the classroom context (almashour et al., 2025). these concerns highlight that while ai offers exciting opportunities, teachers must adapt by developing strategies to ensure ai is used ethically and effectively, and by focusing on what human teachers do best (such as providing mentorship, context, and critical judgment) (unesco, 2023; hockly, 2023). transformations in efl pedagogy with ai ai technologies are also catalyzing broader shifts in efl pedagogy, encouraging more student-centered and flexible learning formats. one noticeable change is in writing instruction. automated writing evaluation tools enable students to engage in iterative drafting with immediate feedback on grammar and style. research has found that efl students who use ai feedback during writing revision tend to make more improvements and achieve higher writing quality than those who rely on traditional feedback alone (al ghaithi & behforouz, 2023; han & li, 2024; mekheimer, 2025). that said, the presence of the teacher remains vital, as students often need guidance to interpret and apply ai feedback effectively (mekheimer, 2025; han & li, 2024). in practice, this means teachers spend less time on rote error correction and more on higher-level coaching (for example, helping students develop ideas and organization), leveraging ai to handle many lower-order concerns. another significant innovation is the ai-enhanced flipped classroom. flipped learning – where students learn new content at home and practice skills in class – can be augmented by ai-generated resources and support. yavuz et al. (2025) reported that a university course using an ai-supported flipped model saw increased student motivation, more active class participation, and improved personalized learning experiences. ai tools help address common flipped-classroom challenges: adaptive learning platforms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 52 and chatbots can guide students through pre-class materials by providing personalized content and answering questions on demand, thus better preparing them for in-class activities (yavuz et al., 2025; lo & hew, 2023). by arriving to class with a stronger grasp of foundational knowledge, students can engage in deeper communicative or analytical tasks during the lesson. nevertheless, teachers implementing flipped models with ai must still carefully design and monitor the process. for instance, they need to verify the accuracy of ai-created materials and ensure student accountability. some studies note that not all learners consistently engage with pre-class ai activities, showing that student motivation and clear expectations remain crucial (lo & hew, 2023; minnillo et al., 2024). teacher identity in the digital age the integration of ai into education is prompting a re-examination of teacher identity and professional roles. recent studies indicate that ai adoption is reshaping teacher identity at multiple levels. satvati et al. (2025) found that ai integration significantly impacts language teachers’ identity at the micro (classroom), meso (institutional), and macro (societal) levels. at the micro level, teachers who embrace ai often report an enhanced sense of efficacy, as ai tools can relieve them of routine tasks and allow more focus on creative teaching (zhou, hashim, & sulaiman, 2024; zou & song, 2025). at the meso level, factors such as institutional support, peer influence, and professional development opportunities shape how teachers adapt to ai (zhou, hashim, & sulaiman, 2024; lan, 2024). in zhou et al.’s study, educators with strong support systems and training were more positive about using ai in their practice, whereas a lack of support or understanding from administrators could hinder adoption (zhou, hashim, & sulaiman, 2024). ethical considerations also come into play at this level (e.g., deciding whether to use ai to detect plagiarism or how to ensure all students have fair access to ai tools) (unesco, 2023). such factors become part of teachers’ professional identity as they develop personal stances on appropriate ai use in education. on a macro-societal level, public discourses about ai and the future of work influence teacher identity. fears that “ai will replace teachers” can lead to anxiety about job security; however, research shows that engaging with ai through professional development can mitigate these insecurities and even empower teachers (satvati et al., 2025; lan, 2024). many teachers come to see ai as an augmentation of their role rather than a threat. still, educators emphasize the need to maintain the human qualities of teaching that machines cannot replicate. empathy, mentorship, cultural understanding, and ethical judgment are facets of teacher identity that become even more salient in the ai era (almashour et al., 2025; hockly, 2023). as almashour et al. (2025) found in jordan, students appreciate ai’s efficiency but stress the irreplaceable value of teachers’ human connection and understanding. thus, a key aspect of teacher identity in the digital age is negotiating a balance between embracing innovative ai tools and preserving the human-centric ethos of education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 53 methodology reflective practice approach this study adopts a qualitative reflective practice approach. the author, a chinese university efl teacher, systematically examined her own teaching over two semesters (8 months) while integrating various ai tools into her courses. the approach is similar to an autoethnographic teacher-research: the teacher was both practitioner and researcher, using self-reflection to gather insights on pedagogical changes. data for reflection included weekly teaching journal entries, annotated lesson plans, and informal student feedback (from conversations and end-of-course surveys). after each instructional innovation involving ai, the author recorded observations about student engagement, learning outcomes, and her own role adjustments (xue, 2024; sun & sun, 2025). the teaching context spanned undergraduate efl courses (e.g., academic writing, college english, business english) with class sizes of about 30 students. over the reflection period (2023-2024), the teacher gradually implemented four major ai-supported strategies in these classes: (1) using an ai-assisted writing evaluation tool for student essays, (2) providing intelligent feedback via an ai tutoring system, (3) employing ai-generated materials in a flipped classroom model, and (4) engaging students with an english conversation chatbot. through iterative reflection, recurring themes and lessons were identified regarding how each innovation affected teaching practices and student learning. the author also occasionally consulted with two colleagues who were experimenting with educational ai, which provided additional perspectives and helped validate her interpretations (liu, q., chou, & feng, 2025; xue, 2024). the reflective findings are organized by these four key strategies. for each strategy, the author describes how the ai tool was integrated, what changes were observed in the classroom, and how the teacher’s role or sense of professional identity evolved. these practice-based insights are later discussed in light of current research to draw broader implications for efl teaching in the ai era. findings from reflective practice ai-assisted writing evaluation one of the first adaptations was incorporating ai-assisted writing evaluation into an academic writing course. the author introduced an online automated writing evaluation platform that students could use to check their essay drafts before submitting them for grading. students uploaded their drafts and received detailed feedback from the ai within minutes. the system automatically highlighted grammatical errors, pointed out awkward phrasings, and offered suggestions for improvement (for example, indicating if a sentence was unclear or if a different word choice might make a point stronger). it also provided summary scores on dimensions such as organization and clarity. armed with this instant feedback, students were able to revise their work before the teacher’s review. the impact of this tool was evident in the quality of student writing. final drafts showed fewer language errors and better structure compared to previous semesters when students did not have access www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 54 to the ai tool. students reported that they appreciated the immediate feedback; as one student put it, it was like having a “24/7 editor” to consult while writing. in line with this classroom experience, a study by al ghaithi and behforouz (2023) found that efl students who received feedback from an ai writing evaluation system made greater writing gains than those who received no automated feedback. similar benefits are reported when teachers combine ai suggestions with human coaching (han & li, 2024; mekheimer, 2025). the teacher’s reflections, however, highlighted the continued need for human guidance. the ai feedback was purely mechanical and sometimes suggested changes that were stylistically inappropriate or misunderstood the student’s intent. a few students initially followed every ai recommendation blindly, which occasionally led to odd word choices or a loss of the essay’s personal voice. to address this, the teacher guided students on how to critically evaluate the ai’s suggestions. she spent a portion of class time discussing examples of ai feedback, showing which suggestions to accept or reject and explaining the reasoning behind those decisions. this approach aligns with the advice of researchers who stress that ai-generated feedback should be used in conjunction with teacher guidance and student reflection, rather than replacing them (han & li, 2024; mekheimer, 2025). implementing ai-assisted writing evaluation also influenced the teacher’s role and workload. by delegating the initial round of grammar and spell-checking to the ai, the teacher could devote more time to higher-order feedback on content and organization. in effect, the ai took over some of the labor of error correction, freeing the teacher to act more as a writing coach focusing on ideas and structure. the teacher’s identity in the writing classroom shifted subtly: she became less of a proofreader and more of a mentor guiding students through the revision process—an identity shift widely observed when teachers weave ai into feedback cycles (han & li, 2024; qin & chuaychoowong, 2025). intelligent feedback systems another adaptation involved using an ai-driven tutoring system to deliver personalized feedback, particularly for speaking practice. the author integrated a mobile app powered by speech recognition and natural language processing that served as a virtual language coach. students regularly recorded short spoken responses (e.g., summarizing a news article or giving an opinion on a topic), and the ai system instantly analyzed their speech, providing feedback on pronunciation, intonation, fluency, and word choice. the app also gave each recording a fluency score and highlighted problem areas (for example, specific mispronounced consonants or overly long pauses). this allowed students to receive individualized coaching on their spoken english on a frequent basis, far beyond what the teacher could realistically provide one-on-one in a large class. the impact of this intelligent feedback system was positive. students appreciated the immediate, private feedback on their speaking. many reported that practicing with the ai coach helped them become aware of pronunciation mistakes they hadn’t noticed before. for instance, one shy student who was usually reluctant to speak in class found that the app’s gentle corrections and the ability to replay her own speech boosted her confidence; she practiced certain troublesome sounds repeatedly with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 55 app and gradually improved. overall, learners’ pronunciation and fluency showed improvement over the semester, and they grew more willing to participate in face-to-face speaking activities as a result of their practice with the ai—consistent with the broader promise of ai tutors to expand practice opportunities (kasneci et al., 2023; wang & xue, 2024). despite the benefits, the teacher’s reflections noted some limitations of the ai tutor that required her intervention. the ai’s feedback, while excellent for pronunciation and timing, was less nuanced when evaluating content or grammar. for example, the system might tell a student to “speak more naturally” or “add more details,” but it could not explain how to do so in context—something the teacher later addressed in person. in one case, a student with a strong regional accent consistently received low fluency scores from the app’s algorithm, which affected his motivation. the teacher stepped in to reassure him that the ai was not fully attuned to his accent and to provide a fairer assessment of his progress. this highlighted that ai tools may carry biases or blind spots (in this case, favoring certain accents or speech patterns), and the teacher’s judgment was necessary to interpret the ai’s results appropriately (unesco, 2023; hockly, 2023). using the intelligent feedback system also changed the teacher’s role in the feedback process. instead of being the sole provider of feedback, she now acted as a mediator and interpreter of ai-generated feedback. in class, the teacher reviewed common trends from the ai reports (for instance, noting if many students struggled with the same vowel sound) and then tailored her instruction to address those issues. she guided students on how to use the ai feedback to improve—for example, demonstrating in class how to shape a difficult vowel sound that the app flagged. the teacher thus became a coach who combined the ai’s data-driven insights with her own expertise to support each student. this collaboration between teacher and ai meant students received more feedback overall, while still benefiting from the teacher’s human insight (kasneci et al., 2023; gao &wang, 2024). flipped learning with ai-generated resources the author restructured parts of her course into a flipped classroom model enhanced by ai-generated materials. instead of introducing new content during class, she used generative ai tools to create pre-class study resources. for one unit on “technology and society,” for example, the teacher had an ai produce a short reading passage tailored to her students’ proficiency level and context (including relevant examples), along with a list of key vocabulary and a set of comprehension quiz questions. students were assigned to read the passage and take the self-check quiz online before coming to class. in the subsequent class session, students arrived with background knowledge and vocabulary already in hand, allowing the teacher to devote class time to deeper discussions, debates, and problem-solving activities on the topic rather than basic explanation. the majority of students completed the ai-generated pre-class tasks; even those who were usually quiet were more willing to participate, having gained some understanding in advance. class discussions were notably more substantive and interactive. this outcome aligns with findings that ai-supported flipped learning can improve students’ engagement with content and their level of preparation for class (lo & hew, 2023; yavuz et al., 2025). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 56 using ai in this way also enabled quick customization of materials. the teacher could tailor content to student interests (for instance, including local or up-to-date examples in the reading) much faster than writing materials from scratch, which potentially increased student motivation. however, the teacher found it crucial to review and edit the ai-generated resources before distribution. she checked the ai-produced passage for accuracy and cultural appropriateness, making minor revisions to ensure the content was correct and suitable. this extra step addressed occasional issues (such as an awkward phrase or a biased statement) in the ai’s output. ensuring quality control of ai-generated materials became a new part of the teacher’s preparation routine (unesco, 2023; minnillo et al., 2024). another challenge in the flipped model was holding students accountable for the pre-class work. while most students engaged with the ai materials, a few admitted to skimming or skipping the readings. to reinforce accountability, the teacher began incorporating a brief, graded quiz at the start of class (drawing on the ai-generated questions) and tracking quiz completion online. these measures helped encourage all students to do the necessary preparation (lo & hew, 2023). overall, the ai-enhanced flipped approach transformed the teacher’s role in the classroom. rather than spending class time lecturing on basic content, she shifted to curating content beforehand and then facilitating active learning activities in class. this demanded more planning before class—finding or generating appropriate materials and designing in-class tasks—but made the class itself more student-centered and participatory. the teacher noted that her planning mindset evolved: she became a designer of learning experiences, using ai as a tool to deliver preliminary input, and then focusing her in-class teaching on guiding application and critical thinking. the result was a more efficient use of class time and a learning experience that students found engaging and tailored to their needs (yavuz et al., 2025; gao &wang, 2024). student engagement via chatbots to further boost student engagement, the author integrated ai chatbots as conversational partners for language practice. students were encouraged to chat in english with an ai chatbot (similar to chatgpt) for at least 10 minutes a day on any topic of interest, and to share highlights of these conversations in class. many students found chatting with an ai to be motivating and low-pressure. one student noted that the chatbot was patient and never “judged” her for grammar mistakes, which made her more willing to practice speaking. several learners increased their speaking time thanks to this tool, and this extra practice led to observable improvements in their fluency and confidence over the semester. these observations mirror research findings that ai-driven chatbots can significantly foster efl students’ behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement (wang & xue, 2024; hockly, 2023). students were not only spending more time on task (speaking and writing to the bot), but also exploring new vocabulary and ideas prompted by the ai, and they often came to class excited to discuss their chatbot interactions. the teacher also introduced a chatbot-based virtual assistant on the course’s online forum to handle common queries (e.g., assignment deadlines or technical issues). this 24/7 “ta” chatbot addressed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 57 routine questions, freeing the teacher to focus on more substantive interactions with students. the convenience of instant answers was appreciated by learners and significantly reduced repetitive emails to the teacher. as with the other ai tools, using chatbots required establishing clear guidelines. a few students initially attempted to misuse the chatbot by asking it to produce homework answers instead of practicing their english. the teacher intervened to set rules for ethical use, emphasizing that the chatbot should be used for practicing conversation, getting explanations, or brainstorming ideas – not for cheating or bypassing learning. this guidance, along with class discussions about the reliability of ai-generated information, helped students use the chatbot constructively. for example, when one chatbot conversation provided a questionable historical “fact,” the class, guided by the teacher, cross-checked and corrected the information. this incident underscored the importance of critical thinking and taught students how to treat ai outputs with healthy skepticism (unesco, 2023; kasneci et al., 2023). integrating chatbots expanded the learning environment beyond the classroom and the teacher’s direct supervision. learning became, to some extent, a student–ai partnership, with the teacher acting as a facilitator and coach. she had to trust students to engage with the ai on their own time and guide them in reflecting on those experiences. while this meant ceding a degree of control, it also created more opportunities for autonomous practice. the teacher’s role shifted toward designing the activity and then monitoring and supporting students’ engagement, rather than being present in every interaction. this shift exemplified how teacher roles are evolving in the ai era—from being the sole source of practice to orchestrating diverse learning opportunities (hockly, 2023; almashour et al., 2025). discussion the reflective practices outlined above demonstrate how ai integration is changing the landscape of efl teaching in the chinese university context, and they carry several broader implications for pedagogy, teacher identity, and educational policy. a central finding is that ai can greatly augment teaching and learning when used deliberately, but it does not diminish the importance of the teacher—if anything, it recalibrates the teacher’s role. evolving teacher roles: the adoption of ai tools has nudged the teacher from a traditional knowledge transmitter toward a facilitator and manager of learning. rather than being the sole source of information or feedback, the teacher in these cases orchestrated interactions between students and ai resources, stepping in to guide and correct as needed. this confirms observations in the literature that ai integration tends to shift teachers’ roles toward being coordinators of human–ai collaboration in the classroom (kasneci et al., 2023; almashour et al., 2025). teachers find themselves developing new competencies (e.g., ai literacy) to effectively integrate these technologies. they must exercise professional judgment about when to rely on ai outputs and when to intervene with human insight. in the author’s experience, this meant learning to interpret ai feedback reports, curate ai-generated content, and moderate chatbot use—activities that were not part of language teaching in the past. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 58 adapting to these tasks is now becoming part of modern teacher identity (lan, 2024; zhou, hashim, & sulaiman, 2024). student learning and engagement: the experiences strongly suggest that well-implemented ai tools can enhance student learning outcomes and engagement. across the different strategies, students wrote more polished essays, practiced speaking more frequently, came to class better prepared, and showed greater enthusiasm for participation. these improvements are borne out by contemporary research—e.g., improved engagement with chatbots (wang & xue, 2024) and higher writing performance with ai feedback (han & li, 2024; mekheimer, 2025)—and were evident in the author’s classes. it is important to note, however, that the gains were mostly in areas where ai excels: providing instant feedback, reinforcing practice, and personalizing tasks. deeper aspects of learning—such as critical thinking, creative expression, and cultural nuance – still required the teacher’s guidance. this aligns with the view that ai works best as a complement to human instruction. the ai can handle repetitive drills, evaluations, and information delivery, while the teacher focuses on higher-order skills, addresses nuances, and keeps students motivated. teacher identity and professional growth: from the teacher’s perspective, integrating ai was initially accompanied by uncertainty—would it threaten her role or overwhelm her with new tasks? over time, the reflective practice showed that embracing ai, especially with proper support, can be empowering for teachers. this mirrors findings that engaging with ai through training and reflection can boost teachers’ confidence and alleviate concerns about job insecurity (satvati et al., 2025; lan, 2024; zhou, hashim, & sulaiman, 2024). the author found that each successful implementation (be it an ai writing tool or a chatbot activity) reinforced her sense of professional competence and opened up new ways to be effective in the classroom. she evolved to see ai not as a rival but as a valuable assistant, and her professional identity shifted to incorporate being an “ai-enhanced” educator. crucially, this process was facilitated by collegial support and ongoing learning, including plc-style collaboration (xue, 2024) and reflective, self-directed pd (sun & sun, 2025; liu, q., chou, & feng, 2025). ethical and practical considerations: the use of ai in the classroom also brings to light important considerations. teachers must develop clear policies on academic integrity in the age of ai—for instance, distinguishing between acceptable use of ai for learning versus misuse. in the reflections, setting guidelines for chatbot use was one example of maintaining ethical standards. similarly, issues of access and equity are relevant: not all students have equal access to devices or reliable internet for using ai tools outside class, so educators and institutions should strive to provide necessary resources or alternatives. maintaining the human touch: perhaps the most significant insight from this inquiry is that the human dimension of teaching remains irreplaceable, even as ai becomes more prevalent. students may enjoy interacting with chatbots or benefit from automated feedback, but they still look to their teachers for mentorship, motivation, and meaningful human connection. recent studies echo that students value www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 59 ai’s efficiency yet emphasize the enduring value of teacher empathy, understanding, and relational engagement (almashour et al., 2025; hockly, 2023). in the author’s classes, the introduction of ai did not reduce students’ reliance on the teacher’s guidance; rather, it altered the focus of that guidance. the effective integration of ai actually places greater demand on teachers’ pedagogical discernment, creativity, and emotional intelligence. the reward, as seen in this case, is a richer learning environment where students benefit from the best of both worlds: ai-driven resources and human-driven mentorship. conclusion as ai technologies become increasingly embedded in education, chinese university efl teachers are actively reshaping their pedagogical approaches to integrate these tools in meaningful ways. this article, through a blend of reflective practice and engagement with current research, has detailed several adaptation strategies that illustrate the transformative potential of ai in the language classroom. from automated writing evaluators to intelligent tutoring systems, ai-generated lesson materials, and chatbots, each tool can play a distinct role in enhancing teaching effectiveness and student engagement. the experiences of the author echo a key message from the literature: ai is most powerful as a complement to, not a replacement for, human teachers. by leveraging ai for what it does best—rapid feedback, personalized practice, and data-driven insights – teachers can free themselves to focus on higher-order instruction and mentorship. in the context of chinese higher education, where efl instruction often contends with large classes and exam pressures, such augmentation is particularly valuable. the reflective findings showed concrete benefits: improved student writing revisions, more speaking practice, better preparedness for class, and heightened enthusiasm for learning. these outcomes align with emerging research in the 2020–2025 period, reinforcing their validity and offering evidence that ai integration can lead to positive pedagogical change (qin & chuaychoowong, 2025; feng & sumettikoon, 2024). however, this journey also underscores that successful adaptation requires more than just adopting new tools; it demands a rethinking of teacher identity, continuous professional learning, and attention to ethics. teachers must navigate the balance between technology and teaching, ensuring that ai’s use is pedagogically sound and aligned with educational values. ongoing professional development and institutional support are essential so that teachers gain confidence in using ai and share best practices—illustrated by the importance of peer collaboration and targeted training (xue, 2024; sun & sun, 2025; pan & wang, 2025). moreover, maintaining the humanistic core of education is paramount. qualities like empathy, cultural insight, and inspirational guidance should guide ai’s integration so that the “smart” classroom remains a deeply human space (unesco, 2023). in conclusion, chinese university english teachers in the ai era are not passively being replaced or overwhelmed by technology; instead, many are proactively adapting, leading change in their classrooms through reflective experimentation. their strategies—from ai-assisted feedback loops to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 60 flipped ai classrooms and chatbot engagements—demonstrate a path forward for language educators worldwide. these educators are building a new model of efl teaching that is enhanced by artificial intelligence while firmly grounded in the art of teaching. as ai tools continue to evolve, so too will the strategies and identities of teachers. the insights presented here contribute to an ongoing conversation about that evolution. ultimately, the teacher’s role remains indispensable: it is the teacher’s expertise, creativity, and humanity that turn ai from a mere tool into a catalyst for deeper learning (gao & wang, 2024; zhou & hou, 2025). by embracing that synergy, teachers can ensure that the ai era in education fulfills its promise of enriching learning experiences for all. references al ghaithi, a., & behforouz, b. 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(2024). using ai-driven chatbots to foster chinese efl students’ academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 62 engagement: an intervention study. computers in human behavior, 159, 108353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2024.108353 xie, x., teng, m. f., zhang, l. j., & alamer, a. (2025). exploring ai literacy and ai-induced emotions among chinese university english language teachers: the partial least square structural equation modeling (pls-sem) approach. international journal of applied linguistics. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12798 xue, l. (2024). urgent, but how? developing english foreign language teachers’ digital literacy in a professional learning community focusing on large language models. european journal of education. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12899 yavuz, m., balat, ş., & kayalı, b. (2025). the effects of artificial intelligence supported flipped classroom applications on learning experience, perception, and artificial intelligence literacy in higher education. open praxis, 17(2), 286-304. https://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.17.2.811 ye, l., ismail, h. h., & abdul aziz, a. (2025). bridging the ai gap: a needs analysis of chinese pre-service efl teachers in developing intelligent-technological pedagogical content knowledge. arab world english journal (awej) special issue on artificial intelligence, 59-80. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/ai.4 zhou, c., & hou, f. (2025). how do efl teachers utilize ai tools in their language teaching? theory and practice in language studies, 15(2), 403-413. zhou, q., hashim, h., & sulaiman, n. a. (2024). digital echoes: crafting chinese efl teacher identity in the era of ai-enhanced instruction—a qualitative exploration. forum for linguistic studies, 6(5), 32-50. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v6i5.6864 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 162 original paper the development and innovation of subject services in university libraries under the background of artificial intelligence xinghua luo1* 1 library of northwest polytechnical university, xi'an, shaanxi, china * corresponding author: e-mail: luoxinghua@nwpu.edu.cn received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p162 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p162 abstract this article explores the impact and trends of artificial intelligence technology on the development of subject services in university libraries. it analyzes the current state of application of artificial intelligence technology in library subject services, including intelligent self-service applications, intelligent consultation and knowledge services, personalized services and user profile construction, as well as the construction of intelligent subject service spaces. innovative strategies are proposed to optimize resource allocation, improve service efficiency and quality, and support teaching and research work. keywords academic libraries, subject services, artificial intelligence 1. research background and purpose the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has injected new momentum into the improvement of the quality of services in university libraries, and subject services have gradually become an important pathway for university libraries to actively connect with the construction of first-class disciplines in universities. the application of artificial intelligence technology in libraries is not limited to traditional information retrieval and consulting services, but also includes aspects such as knowledge construction, knowledge discovery, and knowledge reasoning (huang, 2021; luo, 2023). artificial intelligence technology can promote innovation in library operation models, enhance the efficiency and quality of library services. by accurately grasping user needs, artificial intelligence can provide users with personalized, high-quality services to meet the diverse needs of users. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 163 this article deeply explores the application of artificial intelligence technology in the subject services of university libraries, aiming to optimize resource allocation and improve service efficiency and quality by analyzing how artificial intelligence technology affects the service model of libraries. the core purpose of the research is to formulate strategic plans for libraries that are in line with digital transformation, thereby enhancing their service competitiveness. 2. current state of research at present, research on the application of artificial intelligence in academic library subject services mainly focuses on two aspects: technical implementation and evaluation of application effectiveness. in terms of technical implementation, researchers are concerned with how to use artificial intelligence technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to build efficient and intelligent library service systems. for instance, natural language processing and speech recognition technologies are utilized to provide students with more efficient and accurate book queries and borrowing services. moreover, the application of artificial intelligence technologies like natural language processing, machine learning, and image recognition in library automation services has achieved certain results, offering more possibilities for the automation of library services. in terms of evaluating application effectiveness, researchers use methods such as comparative experiments and surveys to assess the actual effects of artificial intelligence technology in library services, providing data support for technology optimization and promotion. for example, the tsinghua university library has collaborated with a major language model provider to develop ai navigation assistants and ai reading assistants (tsinghua university library, 2024). in addition, the reshaping of digital academic services in academic libraries based on user relationship management also emphasizes a closed-loop management mechanism of implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback to comprehensively assess service effectiveness (zhang, chen, ning et al., 2024). with the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, researchers have begun to focus on how to use artificial intelligence technology to promote innovation in subject services of academic libraries. at the same time, researchers are also exploring how to use artificial intelligence technology to optimize the processes and management models of subject services, improving service efficiency and quality (fudan university. focusing on the digital transformation of libraries under the background of 'ai for science, 2024). 3. development trends 3.1 intelligent self-service applications in university libraries, intelligent self-service applications are mainly reflected in areas such as intelligent service robots, self-service book borrowing and returning machines, and intelligent navigation systems. taking the library of china university of mining and technology as an example, its intelligent service robots can not only interact through voice but also provide intelligent consultation, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 164 information broadcasting, and route guidance. in addition, the chatlibrary ai intelligent service platform integrates multiple functional modules, including the chatanswer intelligent q&a system, which uses natural language processing technology to quickly understand and answer various questions from readers. intelligent services not only save users' time but also make the library's services more personalized and efficient. 3.2 intelligent consultation and knowledge services the application of intelligent consultation systems and knowledge service platforms in academic libraries is mainly reflected in improving the efficiency of information retrieval and meeting personalized needs. taking the chatlibrary ai intelligent service platform as an example, it can quickly understand the questions of readers and provide answers in natural language, bringing a more intelligent service experience to readers (kunming university: “chatlibrary ai intelligent service platform” trial notice"[eb/ol], 2024). the advantage of these systems lies in their fast information retrieval capabilities and the depth of personalized services. the application of artificial intelligence technology enables libraries to provide intelligent push, personalized agency, and customized services, which greatly enriches the connotation of services and improves service quality. intelligent consultation systems can also provide customized recommendations and services according to users' search history and preferences, thus better meeting the personalized needs of readers. 3.3 personalized services and user profiling academic libraries implement personalized services and the construction of user profiles through big data analysis technology. this includes collecting data on users' borrowing history, search behavior, and browsing habits. by employing artificial intelligence generated content (aigc) technology, these data are deeply analyzed to accurately depict users' behavioral patterns and preference characteristics. by building user profiles, academic libraries can better understand users' needs and interests, thereby providing more personalized services and products (liang, 2024). this not only enhances user satisfaction but also increases user engagement. 3.4 construction of smart subject service spaces driven by the "double first-class" policy, the construction of smart subject service spaces adopts a multi-level framework design, covering various levels such as information management and smart services. for instance, an academic library has conducted an empirical investigation, thoroughly analyzing the current state of subject services in 42 "double first-class" university libraries, and based on this, proposed principles and an overall architecture for building smart subject service platforms (chu &wang, 2018). it has driven innovation in library subject services by providing professional data analysis and decision-making references. in addition, the intelligent subject service platform can also provide a variety of library consultations and subject construction services for researchers, teaching staff, and student readers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 165 4. innovative strategies 4.1 build an intelligent q&a system to enhance consultation efficiency with the support of artificial intelligence technology, academic libraries can build an intelligent q&a system that uses natural language processing technology to automatically understand and quickly answer user inquiries. this system can provide continuous, around-the-clock consultation services, greatly improving service efficiency and user satisfaction. at the same time, the intelligent q&a system can also make personalized service recommendations based on the user's inquiry history and behavioral data, further enhancing the user experience. 4.2 utilize big data analysis to implement personalized recommendation services by analyzing data such as users' borrowing history, search records, and browsing behavior, academic libraries can understand users' academic interests and needs, and use artificial intelligence technology to implement personalized book recommendation services. this service can not only improve user satisfaction but also help users discover more valuable academic resources, promoting academic exchange and cooperation. 4.3 introduce an intelligent navigation system to optimize spatial layout and resource utilization academic libraries typically have large collections and complex spatial structures, and users often feel lost when looking for books and using other resources. to address this issue, libraries can introduce an intelligent navigation system that uses artificial intelligence technology to achieve indoor positioning and navigation guidance functions. this system can help users quickly locate the books and resources they need, improving search efficiency and resource utilization. 4.4 strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation to expand the scope of subject services artificial intelligence technology has promoted the intersection and integration between different disciplines, providing strong support for the expansion of subject services in academic libraries. libraries can strengthen cooperation and communication with other disciplinary fields to jointly carry out interdisciplinary research projects and service activities. this can not only enrich the library's academic resources and service content but also enhance the library's influence and competitiveness in the academic community. 4.5 focus on user experience and build a smart library environment under the background of artificial intelligence, academic libraries need to pay more attention to user experience and service quality. libraries can build a smart library environment, using artificial intelligence technology to achieve intelligent monitoring and management of the library environment, equipment, resources, etc. at the same time, libraries can also carry out a variety of cultural activities and service projects, such as academic lectures, exhibitions, training, etc., to attract more users to the library for academic exchange and interaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 166 5. conclusion under the impetus of artificial intelligence technology, the future development of subject services in university libraries will focus on deepening intelligent and personalized services, strengthening interdisciplinary cooperation and knowledge innovation, accelerating digital transformation and open sharing, as well as valuing talent cultivation and team building. libraries will leverage ai technology to provide users with more accurate and personalized academic resource recommendations and consulting services, while also enhancing collaboration with other disciplines to promote knowledge discovery and innovation. fund projects 2023 shaanxi province "14th five-year plan" education science planning project, project number: sgh23y2204; 2024 shaanxi provincial science and technology information society project, project number: 2024ktp-21; 2023 shaanxi provincial library association class a project, project number: 231012 references huang, y. p. (2021). research on the application of artificial intelligence in intelligent services of college libraries. inside and outside lantai, 2021(28), 50-52. https://doi.org/10.1109/icaa53760.2021.00043 luo, x. h. (2023). theory and practice of discipline services in higher education libraries. xi'an: shaanxi people's education press, 2023. tsinghua university library. (2024). new experience of ai services at tsinghua university library. [eb/ol]. retrieved from https://lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1073/6869.htm,2024-04-28 zhang, g. p., chen, h. y., ning, z. c. et al. (2024). remodeling of digital scholarship services in academic libraries based on user relationship management. journal of academic libraries, 42(03), 49-55. fudan university. focusing on the digital transformation of libraries under the background of 'ai for science[eb/ol]. (2024). retrieved from https://news.fudan.edu.cn/2024/0619/c2463a141344/page.htm,2024-06-19 kunming university: “chatlibrary ai intelligent service platform” trial notice [eb/ol]. (2024). retrieved from https://www.kmu.edu.cn/info/1037/13758.htm. 2024-05-27. liang, j. c. (2024). on the construction of library personalized recommendation service system based on user portrait. the library journal of henan, 44(05), 79-82. chu. j. w., & wang, m. (2018). research on the standard service countermeasure of university library subject under the background of double-first-class construction. journal of modern information, 38(07), 107-112+127. the development and innovation of subject services xinghua luo1* 1 library of northwest polytechnical university, x abstract this article explores the impact and trends of art keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper research of the external communication of zigong dinosaur lantern festival from the perspective of new media zixuan, liu1, zhining, zhang1 & guohui, rao1* 1 college of foreign language, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, 610025, china * corresponding author, guohui, rao, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, 610025, china received: january 19, 2025 accepted: march 06, 2025 online published: march 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p1 abstract this article devolves the current insufficient communication of zigong dinosaur festival both domestically and internationally. it aims to propose several remedies from the perspective of new media to tackle it. it discusses the cultural communication effects and impacts and based on the current outcomes and strategies and explores how to optimize the communication and promotion of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival and puts forward practical strategies, offering new insights into the inherit of traditional culture. keywords zigong dinosaur lantern festival, communication, new media, traditional culture introduction with the constant advancement of globalization, cultural exchange and communication have become significantly important. china—a nation with a long history and profound cultural heritage, boasts numerous unique culture and arts. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival, an integral part of china’s lantern festival culture and a representative of china’s intangible cultural heritage, not only embodies traditional chinese culture but also serves as a vital carrier for international cultural exchange. effectively utilizing the increasingly powerful new media platforms to enhance both domestic and international (external) communication of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival, which presents not only a tremendous opportunity but also a fresh challenge for the preservation and promotion of traditional lantern culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 1. the cultural significance and communication value of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival 1.1 the historical background of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival the zigong dinosaur lantern festival is a traditional folk cultural activity in the zigong region of sichuan province, which characterizes long history and distinctive features. since the tang dynasty, the zigong area has had a local tradition of lighting lanterns during the chinese new year. during the prosperous tang and song dynasties, lantern festivals were mostly in small-scale exhibitions organized spontaneously by locals during traditional holidays such as the spring festival and spring lantern festival. the lanterns were primarily simple handmade articles, which were often made of bamboo frames covered with colored paper (usually red) and adorned with basic floral and bird patterns or auspicious characters, symbolizing new year blessings and wishes. by the ming and qing dynasties, the scale of the lantern festivals in zigong gradually expanded. with emerging a greater variety of styles, the most notable development was the improvement in lantern craftsmanship. beyond that traditional lanterns, more complex designs such as dragon and lion lanterns had appeared. these lanterns not only featured more lively shapes but also incorporated other various artistic folk elements like paper-cutting and embroidery. the festivals also introduced new activities such as dragon lantern dance and lion lantern dances, which became popular among the locals. the time of the festivals became more fixed and typically held around the lantern festival, making it a significant holiday event for the local population. by the early 20th century, zigong area had developed unique activities such as lantern parades, evolving into a grand festival with traditional folk customs. until 1964, the zigong government organized and successfully hosted the first spring lantern festival since the founding of the people’s republic of china, marking the transition of the lantern festival from a demotic activity to a government-organized event. in 1987, zigong, known as the region with the most abundant and well-preserved jurassic dinosaur fossils in the world, therefore, officially renamed the festival the zigong dinosaur lantern festival, incorporating numerous dinosaur elements to bring the creatures to life. this change attracted countless tourists from around the globe, which significantly boosted the local economy. today, the zigong dinosaur lantern festival continuously innovate, integrating modern technologies such as 3d printing and some intelligent lighting control technology into lantern production. additionally, the festival blends various both domestic and overseas cultural elements, collaborating with popular ips like the game “honor of kings” and the hot toy brand “pop mart” to attract younger audiences, aiming to foster a love for traditional culture among the youth. 1.2 diversified forms of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival today, the zigong dinosaur lantern festival has rapidly developed, offering a rich variety of formats. with technological advancements, the festival has become more and more sophisticated, incorporating elements of foreign cultures. for instance, the 31st zigong dinosaur lantern festival featured seven theme zones, such as “the brilliant china” and “the civilization intersection”, each of them tightly aligned with its theme to provide visitors with diverse experiences and cater to different audience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 interests. moreover, the festival has successfully bridged tradition and technology. in traditional skills, while preserving traditional techniques like bamboo tying, the festival showcases exquisite traditional lanterns, highlighting the value and charm of ancient craftsmanship. simultaneously, it embraces modern technologies such as artificial intelligence. for example, the “the dinosaur valley” exhibition area, by using ai, employs visual recognition and multi-sensory interaction to enable precise interactions between the “dinosaur” lanterns and visitors, which made people are personally on the scene. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival collaborates with intangible cultural heritage techniques and popular ips to create a “new” festival that appeals to younger generations. by integrating elements of other chinese traditional culture such as porcelain, paper-cutting, and opera into lantern designs, the festival showcases the charm of traditional culture. for instance, aligning with the year of the snake in 2025—ancient chinese used 12 kinds of animals from a myth story to number years which afterwards became a special chronology, the festival incorporates storytelling elements to create lantern displays like “twin beauties of qingcheng mountain”, celebrating the cultural significance of the zodiac. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival also engages in extensive online promotion. various traditional media outlets provide extensive coverage, using different kinds of modalities like text description, picture and videos to showcase the festival and the allure of chinese traditional culture to a global audience. 2. current communication situation of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival and introduction of the communication new media 2.1 current communication situation of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival at present, traditional media, including xinhua news agency, people’s daily, and cctv’s (china central television) “news broadcast”, have extensively reported the zigong dinosaur lantern festival. they show vibrant and unique charm to audiences both domestically and internationally. additionally, sichuan tv station has provided live streaming online to allow people from all over the world have opportunities to get involve in to such kind of grand event, which attracted a large number of viewers to watch and participate virtually. influencers on social platforms like douyin (tiktok) have also hosted live sessions, guiding viewers enjoying “online viewing” experience. furthermore, around chinese new year, the regarding topics of zigong dinosaur lantern festival frequently trend on chinese social media platforms such as weibo and douyin, which arouse widespread attention and discussion among netizens. a large number of users share their experiences, photos, and videos from the festival, creating a trendy vibe and attracting people to take part in. zigong dinosaur lantern festival has also placed advertisements on major media platforms, increasing its national focus and drawing the appeal of potential visitors. moreover, the zigong government has launched advertisements on local buses, subways, and outdoor billboards along the expressway in zigong and surrounding cities, effectively reaching local and regional audiences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 the targeted audiences of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival have gradually shifted. although it initially attracted mostly middle-aged and elderly visitors, it has made grand efforts to people in other ages. for example, the 30th zigong dinosaur festival had collected children’s imaginative drawings from around the world, which showed their imaginary lanterns and rose the interest of younger audiences. the festival also collaborated with some popular ips, which, have also drawn large numbers of young people and international tourists, gradually raising the festival’s profile on the global stage. however, zigong dinosaur lantern festival still faces communication shortcomings. firstly, despite utilizing traditional media for promotion, the depth and range of its publicity remain limited. its current promotion primarily focuses on showing and introducing the festival, failing to fully convey its unique charm and cultural value. additionally, it still loses emphasis on the craftsmanship behind the lanterns, and stories about their connection with dinosaur in zigong. with regard to live streaming, it often lacks of interaction, such as engaging with audiences’ comments and questions, resulting in audiences’ viscidity. moreover, despite attracting more people through media and platform online, the festival still has room to improve. the inherit of traditional culture requires active participation from younger generations, yet the festival’s presence on newer social media platforms remains inadequate, with information dissemination being neither precise nor in-depth. there are still information barriers among potential visitors, which limited the festival’s promotion. internationally, the festival lacks collaboration with global media and social platforms, bringing draw backs to its influence, international reputation and impact on the global stage. in terms of the time of the festival, it only promotes around chinese new year, without sufficient promotion in other time. while after chinese new year, its customers leave, which pose a threat to the festival’s long-term popularity and the enduring influence of related cultural traditions. 2.2 characteristic of new media communication 2.2.1 definition of new media new media refers to media that utilize digital technology and internet infrastructure for information dissemination and communication, which include social media platforms, mobile applications, and digital content creation. new media encompasses a variety of forms and platforms. the most commonly used are social media platforms, such as wechat and qq, which integrate functions like messaging, sharing with friends, reading, shooting and posting short videos. internationally, platforms like facebook, x (formerly twitter), and instagram are the mainstreams. also new media conclude traditional media like xinhua news agency and people’s daily, with transitioning from print formats like newspaper and magazines to digital apps and software for content releasing. internationally, influential platforms like buzzfeed and the huffington post dominate. moreover, video platforms are a significant part of new media, including short-video platforms like douyin (tiktok), kuaishou, and weishi in china, and long-video platforms like tencent video, youku, and iqiyi. globally, platforms such as youtube, netflix, and twitch offer a vast range of videos, tv series, documentaries, and movies. educational paid media also play a role in, with platforms like netease cloud classroom and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 ximalaya in china providing paid courses, e-books, and audio dramas. internationally, platforms like coursera and udemy offer diverse learning opportunities, which often collaborate with some famous universities and institutions around the world. furthermore, e-commerce platforms such as taobao, jd.com, and pinduoduo, as well as gaming media, further expand the extent of new media. 2.2.2 characteristics of new media communication the characteristics of new media communication can be summarized as follows: instantaneity, interactivity, individuation, and integration. creators can produce content using just a smartphone and share it in real-time. people can send information immediately, whatever the content like news events, personal opinions, or creative work and updates and revisions of the content reflect the latest process. interactivity is a defining feature of new media, enabling both way of communication between creators and audiences. users can make subscriptions to their favorite creators to receive the latter’s updates and provide feedbacks with engaging through likes, shares, comments, and polls, all of which facilitate the content dissemination. big data play a pivotal role in individuation with analyzing users’ browsing history, interests, and location, offering related content recommendations. users can also customize their experience by selectively following creators and build their social media platform to meet their individual preferences. lastly, the integration of new media lies in its ability to coalesce multiple media forms, such as text, images, audio, and video, providing users with a rich and immersive experience. 3. domestic communication strategies of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival from the perspective of new media 3.1 integrated communication through traditional and new media the zigong dinosaur lantern festival, as an event rich in cultural heritage and local characteristics, should fully leverage the strengths of both traditional and new media to maximize its promotional impact. traditional media excel in the depth and professionalism of content production, while new media offer advantages in speed and reach of dissemination. the festival can produce in-depth special reports, which can be initially broadcast through traditional media. subsequently, highlights and discussion points can be edited into short videos for secondary dissemination through new media platforms, thereby expanding its influence. the following are some strategies for integrating the strengths of traditional and new media for effective communication. 3.1.1 leveraging the influence of traditional media firstly, it is essential to capitalize on the authority and credibility of traditional media. traditional media platforms, such as television, radio, and newspapers, have long-standing reputations that command high levels of trust and authority among the public. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival can utilize these channels to disseminate official information and in-depth reports, thereby reinforcing the event’s formality and credibility. this approach is particularly effective in attracting the attention of middle-aged and elderly audiences, who often have a deeper emotional connection to and identification with traditional culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 as one of china’s national intangible cultural heritages, the zigong lantern festival carries rich historical and cultural significance. participation in the festival allows the middle-aged and elderly to reconnect with their national history, integrate national sentiments, and pass on traditional culture. in their post-retirement years, this demographic often shifts its focus from the workplace to social, community, and family life. the festival provides a platform for them to develop interests, broaden horizons, and enjoy a sense of belonging and fulfillment. moreover, many middle-aged and elderly individuals prioritize health and wellness. activities such as walking and jogging, which are part of the festival experience, align with their needs for maintaining health and vitality. additionally, this demographic, often described as “having both time and money”, has become a significant consumer group in china’s tourism industry. the zigong lantern festival, as a major cultural tourism event, attracts a large number of middle-aged and elderly tourists. their participation not only enhances their quality of life but also boosts local economic development. the festival’s exquisite lantern art and grand spectacle appeal to the middle-aged and elderly, who have more time and interest to appreciate these artistic displays. social interaction during the festival further enriches their experience. furthermore, some members of this demographic are passionate about lifelong learning, and the festival offers an opportunity to explore and understand traditional chinese culture, fulfilling their spiritual and cultural needs. lastly, the middle-aged and elderly often have a special emotional attachment to traditional festivals. the zigong lantern festival, as an extension of the traditional lantern festival, evokes nostalgia and provides an emotional anchor for their cherished memories. 3.1.2 leveraging the interactivity and timeliness of new media secondly, it is essential to capitalize on the interactivity and timeliness of new media. new media platforms, such as social media and video-sharing websites, are known for their rapid dissemination and high interactivity. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival can release real-time updates, highlights, and interactive topics on platforms like weibo, wechat video, douyin, and red notes. this approach enhances the participation and sharing of younger audiences. due to the high interactivity and speed of dissemination, the zigong lantern festival can quickly spread among the younger demographic. the herd mentality of young people means that once a hot topic or content related to the zigong lantern festival emerges, they are inclined to follow trends, engage in discussions, and share, thereby expanding the festival’s social influence. on top of this, the zigong lantern festival can utilize new media platforms for publicity and interaction through advanced technologies such as ar (augmented reality), 5g + 4k “cloud lantern viewing”, and the development of metaverse lanterns. these technologies offer novel experience methods. for example, ar and vr (virtual reality) can provide immersive experiences. the festival can develop virtual reality applications to allow those who cannot attend in person to experience the charm of the lantern festival, enhancing its technological and modern appeal. these innovative experiences not only quickly attract a large number of users but also increase participation and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 engagement. this not only boosts the festival’s visibility but also drives related tourism and consumption. reports indicate that during the zigong lantern festival, hotel bookings increase, and the city’s brand marketing capacity is enhanced, positively impacting the local economy. in recent years, the festival has introduced new themes and activities beyond traditional chinese themes, such as collaborations with game ips, movies, tv series, and the integration of modern technology in lantern design. these efforts have effectively increased the festival’s diversity and attractiveness. 3.1.3 adopting an integrated communication strategy lastly, an integrated communication strategy is crucial. content should be published on various new media platforms in diverse formats, such as video explanations, audio lectures, and virtual reality experiences, to cater to the needs of different audiences. interactivity should also be enhanced through online cultural activities, knowledge competitions, and educational promotions in schools. although new media has significant advantages in dissemination, traditional media remains an important vehicle for the spread of traditional culture. the zigong dinosaur lantern festival can leverage television programs, such as special features and documentaries, to promote and preserve lantern festival culture. 3.2 integration of content innovation and tradition the zigong lantern festival should build on its traditional foundations while continuously striving for self-transcendence and improvement, combining excellent traditional culture with modern aesthetics. for example, the festival can perfectly integrate traditional culture with modern technology to create breathtaking artistic effects. this integration is not only reflected in the shapes and designs of the lantern displays but also in the overall planning and thematic settings of the festival. one example is using the lantern displays to tell chinese stories and showcase the charm of chinese culture. 3.2.1 actively engage with popular culture the zigong lantern festival should actively collaborate with popular culture, such as obtaining ip authorizations from popular games and animations to develop exclusive lantern displays based on these themes. such collaborations can integrate elements and character images from popular culture into the festival, attracting the interest of younger audiences, especially those with a deep affection for contemporary pop culture. for instance, hot tv dramas like love between fairy and devil (canglan jue) and empresses in the palace (zhen huan zhuan) can serve as inspiration for themed lantern displays. by using iconic scenes and characters from these dramas, the festival can draw fans to visit. examples include creating a lantern display based on the love story of dongfang qingcang and the fairy xiao lanhua from canglan jue, or a section dedicated to classic court life scenes and characters from zhen huan zhuan, or a display of the qingqiu immortal residence from three lives three worlds, ten miles of peach blossoms, allowing visitors to feel as if they are in the peach blossom forest from the drama. the festival can also offer opportunities for cosplay, where visitors can dress as characters from the dramas and take photos or interact in specially designed festival scenes, enhancing their immersive experience. interactive games could be designed, such as finding hidden clues or completing tasks from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 the dramas, allowing visitors to experience the plot while enjoying the festival. additionally, professional actors could perform classic scenes from the dramas on-site, such as the emotional entanglements in canglan jue or the fantasy battles in chinese paladin, increasing the festival’s ornamentals and interactivity. with the help of lighting and sound effects, these performances can recreate iconic scenes from the dramas, providing visitors with both visual and auditory enjoyment. inviting orchestras to perform the original soundtracks of these tv shows, such as zhen huan zhuan and eternal love from chinese paladin, can evoke memories and emotional resonance with the audience. furthermore, dedicated areas could be set up to sell merchandise related to these tv dramas, such as character dolls, costumes, and props, satisfying fans’ desire for collectibles. by leveraging social media platforms like weibo and douyin to release previews and live updates of the festival, the festival can attract more young visitors by capitalizing on the popularity of these tv shows. ai technology can also be introduced to create interactive installations, allowing visitors to virtually interact with characters from the dramas, such as reappearing dialogues from zhen huan zhuan or meeting cosplay of dongfang qingcang and xiaolan in the world of canglan jue. 3.2.2 sustaining tradition the tradition of the lantern festival can be continued by innovatively interpreting ancient chinese stories. elements such as the central axis, hutongs, cultural relics, traditional chinese paintings, poetry, and peking opera can be integrated into the designs. this allows visitors to immerse themselves in the essence and charm of chinese traditional culture while admiring the dazzling lanterns. the collaboration between the zigong lantern festival and the ancient text classic of mountains and seas has achieved remarkable success and widespread influence. for example, lantern displays themed around mythical creatures from the classic of mountains and seas, such as the nine-tailed fox, hundun, zhen, di jiang, kui ox, taotie, bai ze, ying long, phoenix, and the heavenly dog, showcase the rich imagination and creativity of ancient mythology. each creature is uniquely designed. in 2022, the “strange tales from the mountains and seas” themed area of the zigong lantern festival took center stage, with its 22-meter-tall “goddess jingwei” lantern display being the most eye-catching. the craftsmanship of this display is exquisite, from the facial makeup to the intricately coiled hair, with each eyelash clearly defined, demonstrating the superb skills of zigong’s lantern-making techniques. the “goddess jingwei” display incorporates the latest facial recognition technology, with cameras embedded in the goddess’s eyes that capture and live-stream the expressions of visitors. this integration of lanterns, culture, and technology offers visitors a brand-new experience. it also brings the mythical creatures of the classic of mountains and seas to life through technological means. visitors can enter an ancient fog forest and experience the ancient scroll of the classic of mountains and seas through the five senses of sound, light, movement, touch, and smell. they can participate in mythological stories such as helping goddess nuwa mend the sky or accompanying houyi to shoot the sun. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 9 moreover, each of the five themed zones in the “strange tales from the mountains and seas” section of the zigong lantern festival has unique highlights. visitors can step into the ancient world of the classic of mountains and seas amidst mist, sound effects, and lighting, experiencing the charm of traditional chinese culture. notably, the classic of mountains and seas themed lantern displays have not only been well-received domestically but have also successfully reached an international audience, becoming an important window for promoting chinese traditional culture. the zigong lantern festival has left its mark on all five continents, with lantern exhibitions held in over 80 countries and regions, attracting the attention of a global audience. through these achievements, we can see that the collaboration between the zigong lantern festival and the classic of mountains and seas has succeeded not only in artistic expression but also in cultural dissemination, technological integration, and international exchange. this innovative interpretation has revitalized traditional culture and enriched the diversity of the lantern festival. 3.2.3 integration of technology and art the zigong lantern festival emphasizes the innovative integration of art and technology. it employs the expressive forms of sound, light, and electricity, incorporates new concepts of installation art and various new media art creations, and explores interactions between exhibits and between visitors and exhibits. this combination of technology and art adds a modern touch to the traditional lantern festival, attracting more young audiences. the festival also creates new immersive digital experiences, such as panoramic cloud lantern viewing, offering an immersive experience. this approach allows visitors to more deeply appreciate the charm of the lantern festival. especially for those who cannot visit in person, it provides an entirely new way of viewing, creating a unique lantern-watching experience that attracts a broad audience, including young people. 3.3 enhanced interactivity and participation of different groups 3.3.1 for children firstly, children’s creativity can be tapped through a global children’s art competition. the zigong lantern festival could hold a “global children’s creative art competition for zigong lanterns,” inviting children worldwide to submit their drawings, which would then be transformed into lantern displays. this not only stimulates children’s creativity but also gives them a sense of participation and belonging by showcasing their work. secondly, interactive and immersive experiences can be provided, such as a “creative art museum” section where children’s drawings come to life, enhancing interactivity and engagement. parent-child workshops and creative activities, like handicraft making and baking, could also be organized to strengthen family bonds. sharing photos and the creative process on social media would attract more families with children to join. 3.3.2 for youth leveraging new media platforms for interaction is essential. for example, the festival can use platforms like weibo and douyin for publicity and engagement, targeting the youth demographic. by creating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 10 trending topics such as #firstlanterninthesouth# or #zigonglanternfestivalcollaborateswiththelatesthit#, the festival has garnered significant online attention. currently, the zigong lantern festival’s topic on douyin has reached over 8.6 million views, with individual videos achieving up to 500,000+ views. additionally, ai technology can be utilized to make content creation more personalized and intelligent. ai can analyze and understand media content formats to generate intelligent text, thereby creating a framework for media content. this ai-empowered interactive narrative strategy offers personalized experiences, effectively capturing the attention of young people. moreover, collaborations with influencers and key opinion leaders (kols) can drive more youth engagement. by inviting them to visit and share their experiences, the festival can increase its online popularity and participation. new media technologies, such as integrating naked-eye 3d visual effects and ar (augmented reality), can also enhance interactive experiences for young visitors. for instance, the “salt rhythms through the ages” lantern display allows visitors to interact with the mascots on the lanterns, while “lantern city fantasy” offers immersive gaming experiences accessible via smartphones, computers, or vr headsets. the festival can also create a story-driven metaverse and a diversified super-ip world, including features like “meta lantern viewing”, “meta collectibles”, “meta goods”, “meta live streaming”, and “meta games”, to support this virtual world. 3.3.3 for middle-aged adults cultural experience activities can be the focus. the zigong lantern festival should emphasize the integration of culture and experience, such as immersive performances like “only this green and blue” and “a thousand miles of rivers and mountains”. these activities allow middle-aged visitors to appreciate the charm of traditional culture. additionally, interactive games, lotteries, and wechat-based large-screen interactions, such as interactive games and check-in lotteries, can be implemented. visitors can participate by scanning qr codes with their wechat, enhancing engagement. 3.3.4 for seniors the zigong lantern festival already offers preferential policies for seniors, providing free admission for those aged 70 and above. this shows care and concern for the elderly and increases their participation. traditional lanterns derived from chinese cultural heritage can attract seniors’ interest in traditional culture. promoting the festival through traditional media, such as television advertisements and flyers, can also draw the attention of the elderly. typically, seniors visit the lantern festival accompanied by their children or grandchildren, which can significantly boost the number of visitors. 3.4 collaboration with other popular elements in recent years, the zigong lantern festival has successfully integrated traditional culture with modern popular culture. by collaborating with hanfu (traditional chinese clothing), anime, game ips, and other elements, the festival has innovated its presentation and built an integrated media promotion matrix. this includes comprehensive publicity through official media, short videos, long videos, live streaming, and self-media channels, thereby expanding its brand influence and attracting audiences of different www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 11 age groups. the festival has successfully drawn the attention of hanfu enthusiasts by creating an immersive “hanfu-only zone” called the “shangyuan elegance gathering”. after implementing this concept in cities like zigong and xi’an, the “ethereal” scene design has won the hearts of hanfu enthusiasts and become a new popular spot for socializing and taking photos. during the festival, there is a wide variety of lanterns, ranging from traditional auspicious dragons and phoenixes to modern anime characters. each piece is lifelike and breathtaking. in particular, anime-themed lanterns have captured the attention of countless fans. for example, the straw hat crew from one piece, the ninjas from naruto, and even tanjiro and nezuko from demon slayer have been skillfully incorporated into the lantern displays. collaborations with well-known ips such as bubble mart, kung fu panda, tegu, and teddy bear collection have created a rich and diverse array of festive lantern displays, forming a series of lunar new year-themed content titled “enjoying the spring festival in shanghai with tigers leaping into the new spring”. the “national trend” and “world’s light” lantern displays are positioned at the entrances and exits of the lantern park, offering visitors a chance to view “national trend” lanterns upon entering and “world” lanterns upon exiting. the festival also features many cosplayers from games and tv shows, as well as artisans demonstrating their skills by making exquisite handcrafted lanterns, which visitors can’t help but want to take home as souvenirs. this has successfully attracted the attention of younger audiences. one notable collaboration is with the popular game ip, king’s glory. this partnership has enabled the zigong lantern festival to attract gamers. traditional lanterns are mostly themed around animals or objects, but by leveraging popular game ips beloved by young people, the festival has refreshed the public’s perception of traditional lantern fairs, showing that intangible cultural heritage can keep pace with the times and incorporate contemporary elements to create new forms of expression. in the 29th zigong international dinosaur lantern festival held in 2022, the event collaborated with the well-known game ip to create a trendy play area called the “valley of eternal night”. this was a successful attempt to expand the festival’s reach among younger audiences. upon entering the lantern display area, visitors embark on an immersive “valley journey” following the “dragon cart”. for example, when passing by “luban no. 7”, visitors can interact with the character, and elements like firecrackers, lanterns, and red envelopes are used to create a festive new year atmosphere. at the “step-by-step station”, visitors see the upward leap of “gongsun li” and the ascending figure of “li yuanfang”, who offer new year blessings of “progress and promotion”. the “adding flowers to brocade station” is inspired by the storyline of “cai wenji” and “lan” from king’s glory. at the “fortune favors the prepared station”, the character “diao chan” stands gracefully on a music box, dancing lightly. additionally, in the three lantern-box-style “king’s market”, visitors can purchase lanterns featuring characters from king’s glory. zhong min, the assistant to the chairman of the lantern trade group and the person in charge of this section, said that the ip conveys an eastern, chinese worldview. the many stories and personalities of the heroes in king’s glory reflect the unique www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 12 values and emotions of the chinese people. he explained that the highlight of the lantern display is the first use of 3d-printed photopolymer resin technology at the lantern festival. the head sculptures of the five characters were created using 3d printing technology, achieving a “1:1” scale reproduction of the ip images. this has greatly attracted the interest of king’s glory fans, a game that is widely popular among teenagers and has effectively enhanced the festival’s visibility. the zigong lantern festival has also collaborated with tv dramas, such as the chinese paladin ip, attracting many fans of these shows. this tv series is a cherished childhood memory for many middle-aged and young people, and it has sparked their interest in visiting the lantern festival. the high level of discussion on new media platforms like douyin has further amplified the festival’s publicity. 3.5 challenges and suggestions in the new media environment, the dissemination of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival faces both challenges and opportunities. 3.5.1 challenges and constraints the relatively low prominence of zigong as a location hampers the city's image, restricting the urban branding and dissemination of the dinosaur lantern festival. zigong, situated in sichuan province, lacks the high visibility compared to some major metropolitan and tourist cities. this results in difficulties for the dinosaur lantern festival to attract tourists and garner external attention. the city's tourism resources and cultural features remain insufficiently showcased, impacting the festival's visibility both domestically and internationally. cities like chengdu, xi'an, and nanjing, for instance, enjoy widespread recognition due to their unique culture, history, cuisine, and effective promotion, making them more adept at attracting visitors. therefore, zigong needs to enhance its overall city visibility to increase both domestic and international attention towards the zigong dinosaur lantern festival. also, the zigong dinosaur lantern festival faces challenges with low visibility, a limited reach, and inadequate promotional methods. competition in the new media environment. in the new media environment, information spreads rapidly and competition is fierce. standing out from the vast array of information to capture audience attention has become a significant challenge. moreover, with the increasing diversity of audience needs and the rising standards of aesthetic appreciation, the lantern festival needs to continuously innovate in content and form to maintain its appeal. the issues in promotional strategies are crucial factors affecting the dissemination of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival. the festival relies on relatively conventional methods, possibly centered around traditional media or local events, lacking the creativity and diversity found in more innovative promotional approaches. in contrast, well-known events such as the chinese new year gala achieve broader attention through global broadcasts and social media. the limited publicity of the dinosaur lantern festival could be attributed to budget constraints, preventing large-scale promotional activities. simultaneously, the narrow scope of promotion, predominantly concentrated locally, fails to reach a more extensive audience. the insufficiency in promotional methods is also a challenge, such as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 underutilization of emerging channels like the internet and social media, hindering the ability to attract more attention and participation. what’s worse, the zigong lantern festival industry experiences issues of disorderly development and unhealthy competition. the emergence of a nascent industry inevitably encounters challenges such as disorderly development and unhealthy competition. simultaneously, the shortage of professional talents with a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, talent generation gaps, lack of core technology and competitive edge, outdated production techniques, single production forms, and delays in the formation of the industrial chain all contribute to potential disruptions in the sustained inheritance and development of zigong's artistic lantern culture, an exemplary facet of china's outstanding folk culture. the powerful capacity of the zigong lantern festival to create a festive, auspicious, and vibrant atmosphere has led numerous small and medium-sized cities, as well as businesses nationwide, to invite zigong lantern festival displays or seek assistance from zigong to organize local celebratory events in the form of lantern festivals. initially, zigong had only one government-organized exhibition team for external displays, with limited capacity to address the needs of smaller cities and businesses. however, there have been some improvements in recent years. 3.5.2 opportunities and strategies new media offers the zigong lantern festival the opportunity for digital transformation. through online displays and interactions, the festival can expand its audience base and enhance its influence. what’s more, the zigong lantern festival has already gained international recognition, and new media platforms can further amplify its global impact and attract visitors from around the world. as part of chinese traditional culture, the zigong lantern festival can leverage the trend of national cultural confidence to elevate its brand value. by presenting the festival through storytelling, it can be not only a visual feast but also a means of cultural inheritance and narrative. additionally, leveraging new media platforms such as douyin, red note, and wechat video, the festival can use big data to analyze visitor behavior and preferences, enabling precise marketing and higher conversion rates. this also strengthens the promotion of zigong city, enhancing its visibility and allowing more people to learn about zigong and its lantern culture. similarly, by utilizing the interactivity and diversity of new media, the festival can innovate its content, such as by adding ar and vr experiences and collaborating across industries with popular culture, gaming, and film and television. for instance, partnerships with games like king’s glory and league of legends can attract younger audiences and increase engagement. combining modern technologies like ai and 3d printing can enhance the festival’s technological and contemporary appeal, drawing in tech enthusiasts. while expanding its domestic market, the festival can also implement international communication strategies: using multilingual content and international social media platforms to amplify its global reach and attract foreign visitors. emphasizing the festival’s environmental philosophy, such as using recycled materials for lantern displays, can respond to the global call for sustainable development and enhance the festival’s international image. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 4. international communication strategies of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival from the perspective of new media 4.1 analysis of international communication strategies 4.1.1 cross-cultural communication and brand positioning the zigong lantern global tour project has been selected as one of the key activities in the “thousand sails out to sea” initiative for cultural trade abroad in 2024 by the ministry of commerce and five other departments. this indicates that the zigong lantern festival has become an important vehicle for chinese culture to reach a global audience. through international tours in multiple countries and regions, the festival has enhanced its international influence. additionally, the zigong lantern festival actively engages in the belt and road initiative. for example, events like the chinese lantern festival in annecy and montauban, france, have become significant components of sino-french cultural exchanges. these cross-cultural exchange projects help elevate the international image of the zigong lantern festival. the festival has successfully hosted six consecutive editions of the “chinese lantern festival” in gaillac, france, attracting a large number of international visitors and becoming a model for sino-french cultural exchange. these successful international cooperation cases demonstrate how the zigong lantern festival enhances its international brand image through cross-cultural exchanges. the zigong lantern festival leverages countries and regions with cultural affinities to chinese culture as starting points, such as singapore and south korea. by utilizing cultural kinship for dissemination, the festival can establish a sense of cultural identity among target audiences, thereby enhancing its international brand image. the festival also benefits from national-level promotion and support. for example, during the g20 summit, the “global lantern festival—chinese lanterns in hamburg” series of activities helped elevate its international brand image. moreover, the festival employs market-oriented operations, such as collaborating with international light festivals, importing advanced lighting equipment, and combining traditional craftsmanship with modern technology to enhance its visual appeal and attractiveness. the festival continuously innovates in design by incorporating local cultural characteristics. for instance, in france, lanterns were designed in conjunction with the local wine industry. this strategy of innovation and integration helps attract more international visitors and improve the brand image. through cross-cultural exchanges, the zigong dinosaur lantern festival has successfully brought traditional chinese culture to the world while also incorporating international elements, achieving mutual learning and integration of cultures. by leveraging international tours, the belt and road initiative, international cooperation cases, cultural kinship for dissemination, diplomacy-driven promotion, market-oriented operations, and strategies of innovation and integration, the zigong lantern festival has not only enhanced its international brand image but also made a positive contribution to the international dissemination of chinese culture. 4.1.2 multilingual content production and dissemination the zigong lantern festival needs to select appropriate translation tools to translate its content. these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 tools can range from automated translation services, such as the google translate api, to professional human translation teams. when choosing tools, accuracy and cultural adaptability of the translation should be considered to ensure that the content is accurately conveyed across different languages and cultural contexts. in addition to language translation, the zigong lantern festival also needs to focus on content localization. by leveraging multimedia content management technologies—such as multilingual translations of video subtitles, audio translations, and text within images—it can enhance its international appeal. this means not only translating text but also considering cultural differences, such as colors, images, and historical contexts, to ensure that the content is appropriate and sensitive across different cultures. during the translation and localization process, the zigong lantern festival must take into account the unique customs and expectations of different cultures. for example, certain images or symbols may hold special meanings in one culture but may be meaningless or have different connotations in another. therefore, adjustments and optimizations of content are necessary to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. moreover, the zigong lantern festival should test its multilingual content and collect feedback from users who speak different languages. this can be achieved through user testing or market research to ensure that the content functions properly and meets user needs across different language versions. with advancements in technology, the zigong lantern festival can utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the quality of automated translations, content personalization, and user behavior prediction, thereby enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of multilingual content management. additionally, by relying on cloud computing services and integrating with other systems through apis and microservices architecture, the festival can achieve seamless data and service integration, allowing for rapid updates and synchronization of multilingual content. 4.1.3 utilizing international social media platforms the zigong lantern festival can effectively utilize international social media platforms such as tiktok, facebook, twitter, and instagram to disseminate content that is interesting, creative, humorous, or engaging. first, the festival can use the advertising tools provided by these platforms to target specific audiences and enhance the effectiveness of its promotions. for example, targeted ads on facebook and instagram can attract the desired audience. next, the festival should skillfully use post captions, such as imperatives and questions, to encourage active engagement from followers. it can also solicit feedback from users about their impressions of the festival or their expectations, thereby increasing interaction. for example, it can post behind-the-scenes videos of lantern production, highlights of the festival, and content that integrates with local culture. it can also showcase its commitment to sustainable development and social responsibility to attract international visitors who are increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues. for example, it can highlight the use of eco-friendly materials and energy-saving technologies in lanterns to enhance its brand image and attract audiences from diverse cultural backgrounds. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 16 given the popularity of video content on social media, the zigong lantern festival should increase the quantity and proportion of video posts, especially on short-video platforms like tiktok. by using short videos to showcase the grand scenes and highlights of the festival, it can capture more user attention. additionally, since authenticity in images and videos is highly valued abroad, the festival needs to use high-quality images, videos, and graphic design to enhance the visual appeal and impact of its content. on platforms like instagram and facebook, where visual content is particularly important, posting stunning and authentic lantern images and videos can maximize the likelihood of users liking, commenting on, and sharing the content. the zigong lantern festival can also use small gifts to encourage both chinese and international visitors to create and share festival-related content, thereby increasing user engagement and retention. for example, it can encourage visitors to post their own experience videos or photos during the festival and share them on official accounts. it should also ensure timely interaction with fans through official accounts and actively organize activities to engage them. for example, it can hold like, share, and comment contests on facebook and twitter to attract user participation and sharing, thereby increasing brand exposure and user engagement. finally, the zigong lantern festival should produce content in multiple languages to cater to audiences from different countries and regions. for example, it can invite chinese students studying abroad or foreign friends in china to write festival introductions and event information in languages such as english, french, spanish, and portuguese, thereby expanding its international audience base. 4.1.4 international audience analysis public perceptions of chinese culture vary significantly across different countries and regions, influenced by geopolitics, culture, history, and ideology. the zigong lantern festival needs to consider these factors to better target its international audience. currently, the international dissemination of chinese culture is largely at the stage of impression-based communication, where overseas audiences primarily see the phenomena and external connections of the elements being disseminated. the zigong lantern festival can help audiences shift from superficial impressions to a deeper understanding of chinese cultural concepts by delving into the cultural connotations and offering richer cultural experiences. in western countries, cultural symbols such as giant pandas, the great wall, and chinese cuisine are widely recognized. the zigong lantern festival can leverage these well-known symbols to attract more visitors by showcasing them through lantern art, thereby increasing the festival’s appeal and recognition. in asian countries, where geographical proximity and cultural similarities lead to a deeper understanding of chinese culture, the festival can emphasize shared cultural elements such as confucianism and chinese characters, as well as traditional art forms familiar to asian audiences, using them as inspiration for lantern designs. in africa, where china is viewed as one of the most influential foreign powers on the continent, the festival can attract interest by highlighting themes of sino-african friendship and china’s positive image in africa. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 17 the giant panda, a widely beloved symbol of chinese culture both domestically and internationally, can be a key element of the zigong lantern festival. panda-themed lantern displays can attract international visitors, especially families and children. the dragon, an important symbol of chinese culture, has garnered significant attention in international fashion shows, representing eastern aesthetics. the zigong lantern festival can further enhance the design of dragon-themed elements by integrating modern technology and innovative concepts to attract international audiences. traditional chinese colors and patterns, such as those found in blue-and-white porcelain and round fans, are highly recognized in the international fashion world. the festival can utilize these elements, combining traditional craftsmanship with modern design, to create lantern artworks with international appeal. additionally, chinese gardens and the great wall, which are not only symbols of china but also masterpieces of art and architecture, can serve as inspiration for lantern displays that showcase china’s traditional aesthetics and historical depth. the trend of “chineseness” in popular music, which blends tradition with modernity, can also be applied to the zigong lantern festival. incorporating musical elements, especially popular music with classical chinese beauty, can enhance the festival’s interactivity and entertainment value. the festival can also pay attention to traditional cultural elements from other countries and appropriately introduce themes such as adventure themes beloved in western countries, like jurassic park combined with zigong’s own dinosaur culture, or collaborations with superhero ips such as marvel, dc, and transformers. for asian countries, elements like south korea’s k-pop culture and japan’s kimono and cherry blossoms can be incorporated. in african countries, wildlife themes can be highlighted. the zigong lantern festival can consider integrating these cultural elements with chinese culture to demonstrate cultural diversity and harmonious coexistence. it can also showcase high-profile technological themes by designing lantern displays themed around modern global technology, highlighting china’s achievements and innovative spirit in the context of global modernization. the zigong lantern festival has been exhibited in over 70 countries and regions worldwide, attracting more than two million chinese and international visitors annually. this demonstrates the festival’s significant effectiveness in cultural dissemination and the positive feedback from audiences regarding chinese culture. the festival’s integration with overseas cultures has made it widely beloved by international tourists, indicating a high level of acceptance and interest in activities that incorporate chinese cultural elements. 4.2 cultural differences and adaptability in international communication cultural differences play a crucial role in international communication. variations in cultural backgrounds, values, aesthetic preferences, and reception methods among audiences from different countries and regions can affect the transmission and reception of information. for example, significant differences exist between western regions and china in terms of cultural background, values, and modes of thinking. this requires that the dissemination of chinese films in western regions pay special attention to the cultural background and viewing interests of the target audience, avoiding cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 misunderstandings and conducting precise promotion in a respectful and friendly cultural environment. 4.2.1 case study the zigong lantern festival has seized the opportunity of the belt and road initiative by launching the “zigong lantern festival double hundred action plan”. since 2006, it has held over 100 exhibitions and performances in mainstream western countries, attracting tens of millions of viewers from various ethnic groups and reaching an audience of over 100 million through media coverage. the lantern festival undertook the “perceiving china” series of activities accompanying national leaders’ visits to hamburg, germany, in 2017 and santiago, chile, in 2019. it has also won several international awards, including the “bronze bell award” and the “heritage development cooperation award”. the “chinese lantern festival”, with its unique traditional approach, effectively spreads chinese culture, demonstrating china’s cultural soft power and confidence. by holding the “sichuan lanterns shine the silk road” event in key cities along the belt and road, the festival illuminates the initiative with its dazzling displays. zigong lanterns have thus become an important vehicle for chinese culture to reach the global stage, and the festival’s overseas success has become a microcosm of zigong’s participation in the belt and road initiative. zigong is home to 1,594 lantern companies, with over 50 of them having consistent export records, capturing 92% of the international lantern market share. since 2019, zigong has held more than 50 international lantern festivals in 17 belt and road countries and regions, including russia, the uae, ukraine, estonia, and romania. these events have generated over 20 million usd in foreign exchange earnings, with more than 5 million visitors, continuing to “light up” the belt and road. in 2023, zigong lantern companies undertook 90 overseas lantern projects, achieving a cultural export value of 50.61 million usd. notably, zigong lanterns were displayed at the main media center of the beijing winter olympics and paralympics, using lanterns of the olympic mascots combined with the “chinese red” theme color to create a festive chinese new year atmosphere and promote ice and snow culture. as a traditional art form of intangible cultural heritage, zigong lanterns showcased their charm to the world, enhancing the festival’s international appeal and influence. the international communication and cooperation bureau of the ministry of culture and tourism, in collaboration with china daily, hosted the “hello! china” lantern festival global 24-hour live broadcast, featuring six well-known lantern festivals worldwide, including the zigong lantern festival. the live broadcast allowed global audiences to experience the beauty of traditional chinese culture. with over 5.5 million real-time interactions worldwide and a global reach of more than 170 million, the event significantly enhanced the international visibility of the zigong lantern festival. when exhibited overseas, the zigong lantern festival skillfully integrates local cultural elements. in brignais, france, over 40 sets of zigong lanterns were displayed at the parc de la tête d’or, featuring cartoon characters such as snoopy and peter rabbit. the lantern festival combined traditional chinese and french cultural elements, using a mix of intangible cultural heritage lanterns and modern light-and-shadow interactions to showcase representative architecture, culture, folklore, and technology www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 from both countries, better adapting to the international market. moreover, the french partners in brignais learned to use chopsticks under the guidance of zigong craftsmen, fostering a harmonious relationship between the chinese and french teams in both life and work. in november 2023, christmas lanterns made by zigong craftsmen from sichuan were lit in cardiff, uk. in 2024, during the lantern festival in france, a french audience member named alainka sent an email expressing her love for chinese culture and her wish to have a giant panda lantern at her wedding. “we agreed to alainka’s request,” said li zhongwen, general manager of the international market department of zigong lantern group. “to make more foreign audiences love chinese lanterns, we need not only to tell chinese stories well but also to express local cultures through lantern art.” wherever the lantern festival is held, local cultural elements are incorporated into the design and display of the lanterns. “we combine chinese culture with local foreign cultures. for example, in italy, we made the leaning tower of pisa into a lantern, which was very well received by the audience.” 4.3 challenges and solving strategies in the process of going global, zigong lanterns face dual challenges of cultural differences and market competition. the cultural backgrounds and aesthetic concepts of different countries and regions vary, and how to better adapt zigong lanterns to the international market is an urgent issue to be resolved. 4.3.1 challenges and dilemmas firstly, the stereotyping and continuity issues in international communication: in international communication, there are dilemmas such as the stereotyping of traditional culture narratives, the continuity of traditional culture, and insufficient cross-cultural communication practices in the international acceptance of chinese stories. secondly, compared with information powerhouses like the united states, china is at a disadvantage in international communication. moreover, some western countries’ media intentionally block and distort chinese information, leaving china facing difficulties in self-shaping and limited channels for communication. 4.3.2 solutions zigong lantern companies need to shift from the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach of copying and pasting content and forms to customizing content based on the target market to better adapt to the international market. at the same time, they should present traditional culture through diverse narrative techniques and creative expressions. for example, using modern technological means such as holographic projection or virtual reality to display traditional stories can create more attractive and interactive experiences. understanding the cultural background, values, and aesthetic concepts of the target audience and adjusting communication strategies accordingly can better disseminate chinese traditional culture. firstly, design a multi-level, three-dimensional communication matrix: create a multi-layered, comprehensive external communication matrix that includes official mainstream media, short-video commercial platforms, overseas social media, and civilian self-media accounts to form a three-dimensional, vocal network for external cultural communication. new social media based on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 internet and mobile phones have become the main channels for information dissemination. coordinating the use of mass media and emerging media channels and leveraging the advantages of social media platforms in targeted delivery and community gathering can effectively enhance the coverage of chinese culture’s overseas dissemination. moreover, pay attention to targeted research and effectiveness assessment of chinese culture’s global outreach. audience research can provide in-depth insights into the cultural traditions, value orientations, and reception psychology of different foreign audiences, enabling tailored strategies for different countries. breaking stereotypes of cultural archetypes, adding new meanings, revealing hidden meanings, reinterpreting, and reconstructing meanings can achieve precise visual international communication, realizing the inheritance, transformation, and innovative conversion of local culture on a global scale. finally, leverage visa-free policies: with china now offering visa-free access to many western countries, increasing cultural exchange activities and tourism promotion can attract more foreign celebrities, influencers, and culture enthusiasts to experience the zigong lantern festival firsthand. this will enhance the festival’s international visibility and influence. 5. conclusion overall, the history of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival is of long standing and well-established. the writer traces its origins and development through a long time. we focus on searching how this festival has evolved and what is its currently communication and promotion in today from the perspective of new media. we mainly seek for the current situation of communication and promotion both domestically and internationally and explore new strategies and solutions for the communication of zigong dinosaur lantern festival. in addition, we simply introduce the cultural communication effects of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival and point out the representing the rich heritage and creative traditions of zigong, the festival serves as a significant cultural symbol. we briefly examine the growing interest in the festival as a result of media and online platforms. based on the current communication strategies and outcomes, we offer several strategies of media behind the festival’s full potential in reaching a wider and more diverse audience. including adopting an integrated communication strategy of both traditional and new media, actively engaging with popular culture to attract young people and utilizing international media platforms, etc. furthermore, we delve into several potential ways to increase the communication and promotion of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival. we present some practical and innovative strategies, such as promoting cross-cultural engagement, collaborating with influencers, and utilizing immersive technologies like augmented reality, to enhance the festival’s visibility and improve the audiences’ engagement. we not only aim to boost the festival's international publicity but also to sustain the inheritance of traditional cultural elements, providing new perspectives on how to maintain cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 authenticity. acknowledgements this study is supported by the project “research on the cultural value and international communication of the zigong dinosaur lantern festival” (no.s202410621099) of chengdu university of information technology. references deng, j. (2016). experience and reflection on the productive protection of intangible cultural heritage of traditional handicraft—taking zigong lantern craftsmanship as an example. journal of sichuan university of technology (social science edition), 31(01), 86-99. liang, c. (2022). the development and creativity of festival cultural industry—taking zigong lantern festival and zigong lantern festival as examples. journal of guizhou university, 36(2), 53-61. miu, z. q. (2023). research on overseas communication of zigong lantern festival,. diss. southwest university of science and technology. peng, z. j. (2022). the influence of folk festival activities on shaping city image. china culture daily, 2022-12-27(003). qian, h. (2022). research on the development of urban cultural tourism industry from the perspective of three-dimensional night economy—taking zigong lantern festival as an example. travel overview, 2022(24), 162-164. song, y. (2008). research on the aesthetic art of zigong folk lantern. diss.chongqing university, 2008. tang, j. (2024). an research on culture industry of zigong lantern and communication path of city brand. art and technology, 37(5), 103-106, 128. wang, m. l., hou, x. f., & tian, r. t. (2014). analysis of innovation in sustainable development of china's cultural and creative industries—taking zigong international dinosaur lantern festival in sichuan as an example. theory of chinese commerce, 2014(5x), 204-205. wang, y. n. (2020). analysis on the innovation trend of zigong lantern fair in the view of new media. western leather, 42(12), 123-124. wang, y. z. (2025). influence on new media communication of traditional culture inheritance and innovation in the digital era. the study of propagation, 9(1), 28-30. yang, q. (2007). research on folk culture and tourism development of sichuan province. diss. chongqing university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 186 original paper construction and image communication of urban cultural space under the collision of modern art elements and chinese traditional culture: a case study of the wuzhen theatre festival zhenyi xu1 1 school of journalism and communication, shanghai university, shanghai, china received: february 21, 2024 accepted: apri 11, 2024 online published: april 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p186 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p186 abstract since its inception in 2013, the wuzhen theatre festival has gradually grown into one of the most influential theatre festivals at home and abroad. as one of the brand characteristic events, it has helped wuzhen transition from a traditional jiangnan ancient town to a well-known cultural landmark through media communication. this paper aims to analyze the multiple cultural spaces presented in the wuzhen theatre festival, explore how this medium combines modern art elements with jiangnan culture, builds a bridge between high art and ordinary people, thereby endowing wuzhen with a more diversified international image. it also attempts to summarize the enlightenment of the wuzhen theatre festival on the construction of urban cultural space and image in china today. keywords wuzhen theatre festival, jiangnan culture, cultural space, urban image 1. introduction listening to the stories of wanderers in street pubs in chengdu, checking in at the same scenic spot as ding zhen in litang, sichuan, queuing up to have a cup of tea with joy on may 1st square in changsha, dodging crowds for a photo by the light rail in chongqing, weibo filled with “running water” from henan tv... every city has its own distinctive features and unique image, and with the empowerment of new media, the characteristics of each city are becoming more prominent. behind the emergence of cities large and small, the role and significance of cities as subjects in the communication system are becoming increasingly prominent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 187 for both theatre enthusiasts and ordinary tourists, wuzhen is a dreamlike cultural utopia. as a theatre festival that started in 2013, the wuzhen theatre festival has gradually grown into one of the most influential theatre festivals at home and abroad over the past decade. in the past, most of the art festivals in china were held in economically and culturally prosperous big cities such as beijing and shanghai. similar to the famous avignon theatre festival held in a small town in southern france, the wuzhen theatre festival is held in the typical jiangnan water town of wuzhen. from a tourism town primarily focused on jiangnan culture in the past to hosting the wuzhen theatre festival since 2013, becoming the permanent site of the world internet conference in 2014, and hosting the international contemporary art invitation exhibition in 2016, wuzhen has gradually transformed into an internationally renowned cultural ancient town. as the discourse power in the public discourse space has been redistributed in the context of all-media background, forming a dual or even multiple discourse space for disseminating reality (huang, chen, zhou et al., 2019), wuzhen has gradually moved away from the traditional image of “small bridges, flowing water, and households” in jiangnan. it has injected various elements such as modernity, technology, and internationalism into the two labels of “jiangnan” and “tradition”, making it a leader among chinese ancient towns. more and more ancient towns are striving to imitate the wuzhen model and image communication, eager to learn from this successful experience. in this process, the wuzhen international theatre festival is undoubtedly a significant contributor. as the 10th wuzhen theatre festival unfolds, how does wuzhen combine with the international theatre festival full of modernity and collide to present what kind of cultural space under the theatre festival? what inspiration does the wuzhen theatre festival provide for the construction of new urban image communication and local culture? these are the questions the author wants to explore. 2. constructing cultural space and communicating urban image through the wuzhen theatre festival 2.1 communication characteristics of urban physical space: coexistence of traditional and modern cultural landscapes and symbols compared to other domestic and international theatre festivals, the wuzhen international theatre festival has its unique characteristics. its uniqueness lies in fully leveraging its distinctive humanistic and natural environment. by ingeniously selecting representative buildings and venues and meticulously arranging indoor theaters and outdoor public performance spaces, it presents a unique and eye-catching charm. wuzhen outlines a quaint and jiangnan-style physical picture with traditional elements such as green water, blue bricks, grey tiles, and black awning boats, injecting the festival with a unique historical heritage and jiangnan artistic conception. at the same time, theatrical elements are cleverly integrated into the alleys and streets of the town, enriching the cultural connotation of the town and deeply embedding theatre into the daily cultural life of the town, forming a coexistence of traditional and modern cultural landscapes and symbols (huang, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 188 the experience of urban physical space often evokes emotional resonance among locals or tourists. every corner and space of the city is constructed and determined by different emotions, meanings, and social relationships. the physical space where the wuzhen theatre festival is located, as a product of the cultural exchange between east and west, is not only a medium but also a new paradigm for building interpersonal and social relationships (cui, 2019). what truly brings the wuzhen theatre festival and wuzhen itself into the limelight and popularity is not only the universally appreciated theatrical performances but also the lively and jiangnan-style urban spaces. the 'theatre bazaar' unit of the wuzhen theatre festival not only extends the cultural atmosphere of the festival from day to night but also enhances proximity and interaction with tourists. it allows more ordinary people to have close contact with avant-garde art and traditional chinese intangible cultural heritage, feel the warmth and charm of art amidst the hustle and bustle, and turn the festival into a cultural carnival accessible to everyone. another feature of the wuzhen theatre festival, the “long street banquet”, also fully reflects the dissemination of urban image brought about by this combination. the long street banquet is a folk celebration in wuzhen, used during the festival to host guests, troupes, artists, media reporters, etc. the ancient festival ceremony shines brightly in the new cultural space, reflecting wuzhen's traditional hospitality and organically integrating jiangnan town’s traditional customs with modern elements. media and public figures further spread and promote this unique model of wuzhen. the wuzhen theatre festival extends the performance venues of theatre to broader spaces, making changes and transformations in communication from physical space. the most typical representation is the “ancient town carnival”. the ancient town carnival is a street performance form in the wuzhen theatre festival, where invited teams may appear at various locations in the xizha scenic area to perform street theatre at any time. as playwright and critic shi hang said, “the biggest difference of the wuzhen theatre festival is that it no longer confines theatre to the theater”. through street performances, theatre performances are not limited by time and are omnipresent in space, creating a mobile theatrical cultural field in wuzhen and truly making wuzhen a paradise for theatre. the unique jiangnan temperament of wuzhen combined with the carnival of theatre not only creates an immersive experience blending tradition and modernity but also revitalizes traditional high art forms at the grassroots level. at the same time, this highly inclusive performance style also allows some traditional theatrical forms, such as tibetan opera and nuo opera, to shine brightly, expanding the display space for intangible cultural arts. in the construction of physical space, architecture and various cultural landscapes serve as cultural symbols in the communication process. influenced by pierce's semiotics, the german philosopher cassirer proposed the theory of cultural semiotics, pointing out that human cultural phenomena originate from the use of symbols. the annual theme posters of the theatre festival further disseminate the thematic significance of the festival by concretizing these cultural symbols. for example, the theme of the third wuzhen theatre festival was “inheritance”, with the meaning of “inheriting and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 189 innovating”. the poster depicted a large fish tail emerging from the sea, with the tail wings carrying the waterside scenery of wuzhen, where the town’s rivers and the ocean converge, and a black awning boat seemingly sailing from wuzhen towards the sea. this poster vividly expresses the theme of “inheritance”, symbolizing that the wuzhen theatre festival will gradually integrate into the international stage based on traditional culture and the jiangnan town, embarking towards a broader cultural ocean. 2.2 virtual images in urban image communication: new media expands theatrical carnival to cyberspace the urban communication network presents a co-constructive relationship between physical space and virtual space, allowing individuals to move within or between cities and communicate information through media networks while in a state of “physical absence”. castells deepened this viewpoint by using the concept of “space of flows”, stating that cities are simultaneously constructed and reconstructed by the competitive logic of flow space and place space, cities have not disappeared into the virtual network but have been transformed at the intersection of electronic communication and material interaction. as a form of virtual image, mass media images not only serve as instrumental representations of urban images but also profoundly shape urban images through popular culture media such as television, movies, and music. in addition to the physical and cultural spaces of the live events, the wuzhen theatre festival also has a media space used for promotion and documentation. each festival holds two press conferences to announce the theme, scale, and program content, inviting major media outlets for interviews and coverage. due to the limited availability of tickets for major performances and events, the organizers open live streaming channels to provide online visual and auditory feasts for remote audiences. the festival also produces special publications in the form of magazines to review and document the event. additionally, the festival has established official websites, wechat public accounts, weibo, douyin, and other social media accounts for long-term promotion, announcements, and showcasing, expanding the theatrical carnival to cyberspace, establishing closer connections with theater enthusiasts, and providing authentic and vivid records of this cultural celebration, thereby promoting the image of wuzhen due to factors such as transportation and accommodation. as mcquail said, movies transform a series of fragmented perceptions and intuitions about cities into concrete emotional experiences. media plays a significant role in people's urban experiences, going beyond merely “representing” the city. furthermore, as subcultural resistance weakens, youth subcultures dominated by “interest” and “entertainment” gradually shape their sense of identity towards the city. theater enthusiasts and some fans consider wuzhen as their personal 'second hometown' and regularly participate in the wuzhen theatre festival. the unique style of subcultures undoubtedly absorbs and integrates local cultures, namely the daily living space of young groups. by integrating local culture into subcultural practices, the local identity of young groups gradually forms. meanwhile, through carefully crafting new media www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 190 images, these local subcultures may potentially form close interactive ties with mainstream culture and local cultural industries. 2.3 media pilgrimage: personalized dissemination and diffusion of urban image media pilgrimage refers to “traveling to important locations in media narratives”. in the increasingly prosperous trend of traveling to internet-famous destinations, after years of development and promotion, wuzhen has become one of the pilgrimage sites for theater enthusiasts or ordinary tourists. individuals participate in the construction of media territorial landscapes through self-display. in the social media environment, people “check in” at locations “inside” the media, take photos imitating characters from the media, and finally share their pilgrimage experiences on social media in the form of images. (wu, 2014) during the wuzhen theatre festival, the fan groups are a special attraction, as they seem to spontaneously engage in orienteering or escape room activities in wuzhen, with this year’s mission named “let’s find wang yibo together”. in addition to wang yibo, during this year’s theater festival, one might also encounter zhang yixing, wei daxun, chen li, wan qian, qu chu xiao, sun honglei, and others. besides, it's unclear whether the girls singing on the gondola boats dressed in european court costumes are ordinary tourists or carnival actors, or whether the boys wandering around with selfie sticks collecting material are media personalities hired by the organizers or just regular tourists. short videos and posts on platforms like douyin and xiaohongshu have replaced traditional media as more direct and immediate means of communication. it can be said that in the increasingly fervent atmosphere of media pilgrimage, wuzhen’s urban image, apart from theater, has also gained popularity through social media, with its significance constantly being constructed and reconstructed in the process of dissemination. this also explains why wuzhen has become a symbol of culture and art in the eyes of theater enthusiasts or young people. as mentioned in class, a city is not merely a container of social life but a constructor of social life and interaction. 3. insights from the wuzhen model for urban space construction and communication 3.1 urban managers: top-level design reflecting local characteristics with cultural core urban managers need to consciously shape urban visual symbols according to the city's characteristics. they should evaluate from two dimensions: the cultural value of the city and its potential spread on new media platforms. this lays the foundation for the precise positioning of the city's image and timely captures or creates hotspots for effective communication. when it comes to tourism landscapes, the water-town features of wuzhen can be seen in other jiangnan towns as well. choosing theatre as an entry point is because it meets the cultural demands of modern young people. as a modern cultural event, the theatre festival has indeed brought new vitality to this millennium-old town. it not only provides fertile ground for various avant-garde arts and youth cultures but also creates a broader space and environment for the protection and inheritance of traditional culture, making wuzhen's unique cultural brand known at home and abroad. local development needs to identify local characteristics, and cultural core is an important lever for sustainable development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 191 moreover, as castells pointed out, the competition in urban network infrastructure construction may widen the gap between the flow space and the local space, leading to a new urban dichotomy: on the one hand, the flow space connects distant places prioritized by market value, on the other hand, people in isolated local spaces have fewer opportunities to engage globally. (wu, 2014) the construction of a cultural core also needs to keep up with the times, using new media and online platforms for digital dissemination and shaping, integrating wuzhen’s international image into globalization and the world stage. the shadow of the “digital divide” not only looms over individuals but also becomes a threat to cities. cities that have not entered the information age will eventually face the fate of being eliminated. cities that lag behind in the digital trend gradually lose competitiveness and face inevitable pressure of elimination. 3.2 local cultural development: people-oriented approach to build urban public cultural spaces the most active participants in the city are its people. unlike organizational communication and mass media dissemination, individual communication with citizens as the main body is particularly important in today's urban communication. its value lies not only in the traffic contributed by citizens to internet communication but also in the pride and cultural identity demonstrated by citizens in their communication about their city, which constitutes a profound reflection of communication effectiveness. (ren, 2021) the purpose of constructing cultural spaces is to serve ordinary people. it should not only be confined to inaccessible halls but should also “enter the homes of ordinary people”. the popularity of the wuzhen theatre festival lies in its approachable demeanor. mobile theatrical forms like the ancient town carnival make high art no longer aloof, while public cultural spaces like the muxin art museum fulfill the cultural needs of town residents in a localized manner. local cultural development needs to maintain an approachable attitude, fully consider the needs of local people, provide more localized public cultural spaces, and balance commercialization with public interests. 4. conclusion the expanding realm of mobile spaces is gradually eroding traditional urban public spaces for people to linger, connect, and converse. however, in the dual realm of physical and virtual spaces, people are rediscovering the millennium-old wuzhen in the era of mobile internet, breaking free from the uniform urban ambiance and jiangnan impressions. whether theater enthusiasts or ordinary individuals, everyone can find meaning in wuzhen. wuzhen is no longer merely a space for traffic flow but serves as an important bridge for communication and dissemination functions. the construction of multiple cultural spaces during the wuzhen theatre festival integrates and ignites traditional, modern, and international elements in this jiangnan town, providing grassroots spaces for appreciating art and exchanging ideas for the general public. representing characteristic towns like wuzhen play a significant role in china's new urbanization efforts, and their experiences in cultural development can serve as a reference and inspiration for regions across the country. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 192 references cui, y. (2019). media pilgrimage: imagination and longing for media regional landscape. youth journalist, (20), 13-14. guo, y. c., & zhang, j. z. (2022). “breaking” and “establishing” in the cultural tourism industry: immersive formats, national trend, or emerging trends. china business newspaper, 2022-12-12(b11). huang, j. (2020). between the virtual and the real: the logic transformation and path reconstruction of urban communication. study and practice, (06), 132-140. huang, w, j., chen, s. b., zhou, z. j. et al. (2019). from “jiangnan water town” to “internet ancient town”: exploring the mediated image construction of wuzhen in official discourse space. holiday tourism, (01), 148-149. ren, j. (2021). how to utilize new media for urban image communication. shanghai broadcasting and television research, (04), 97-103. wu, y. m. (2015). from “mediated urban survival” to “communicable city”: reflections on urban communication research and its public issues. journalism and communication research, 21(03), 6-19+126. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 143 original paper racism, transformation, and awakening—a postcolonial interpretation of identity in the grass is singing zhaoyu yang 1 1 xianda college of economics and humanities shanghai international studies university, shanghai, china received: april 26, 2023 accepted: may 5, 2023 online published: may 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p143 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p143 abstract doris lessing’s “the grass is singing” depicts british expatriates’ migration experiences accommodated into their new living and social surroundings in southern rhodesia (now zimbabwe) to highlight the dilemmatic situation full of shocks and hardships those migrants confronted with in their lives as a result of dynamic colonial identities on african land. the purpose of this paper is to expound on racial discrimination against the native blacks in this novel, analyze the white hostess’s identity transformation, and study the native’s awakening of his ethnic consciousness. since culture is by no means static, the resilience and adaptability of colonial societies should not be underestimated. therefore, i argue that through learning how colonized peoples responded to the political and cultural dominance of europe, the resilience and transformability of colonized cultures would change the characteristics of imperial culture itself in ways that have been both profound and lasting. the themes of racial discrimination, identity transformation, and the awakening of ethnic consciousness depicted in “the grass is singing” continue to have important implications for today’s society. keywords postcolonialism, racism, identity transformation, awakening, cultural identity, southern rhodesia, the grass is singing, doris lessing 1. introduction the world of the 20 th century was dazzled by massive migration, and southern rhodesia (now zimbabwe) was one of the most compelling examples. the expatriates who led a life there not only relished the exoticism of colonial myth but also faced the impact of clashes between two or even more cultures. with the passing of doris lessing in 2013, aged 94, the world lost one of the most important post-war writers in english. doris lessing was born in persia (now the islamic republic of iran) to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 144 published by scholink inc. british parents in 1919. later her family moved to a farm in southern rhodesia (now zimbabwe). lessing, as an expatriate who led a life abroad, relished the exoticism of colonial myth and was exposed to multiple foreign cultures. early life experience on the african continent exerted a decisive impact on the dramatic protagonists she molded in her early literary works, which enabled those novels to focus on a wide range of 20 th century issues concerning the politics of race, and the grass is singing is among them. as a british resident of a colony in africa, lessing was equipped with dual identities: a white outsider in africa and an insider from outside the african continent. due to this lessing experienced political, economic, and cultural situations of africa from double dimensions as both a stranger and a native. on the one hand, her white heritage made it impossible for lessing to be successfully assimilated into the local community. on the other hand, lessing’s long life overseas alienated her from her british mother culture, which reduced her to having a marginalized status in the motherland. she disclosed how african colonized peoples responded to the political and cultural dominance of europe and how colonialism destroyed indigenous cultures from the perspective of a white colonizer with superior discourse. thus, lessing was also dedicated to observing the losses and senses of estrangement in white colonists’ hearts on african land. the grass is singing is doris lessing’s first classic novel (lessing, 1950) which was published in 1950 when southern rhodesia (now zimbabwe) still remained a self-governing british colony while northern rhodesia (now zambia) retained its status as a colonial protectorate. set in rhodesia, the novel is the story of dick turner, a failed white farmer, and his wife, mary turner, a dependent and disappointed woman (lessing, 1950). partly with her own life abroad as a prototype, lessing portrayed mary’s marriage to a luckless farmer, a union doomed to failure before they had even met, and the story of the murder of a poor white woman by her black houseboy, an illustration of the tension between native subject and imperial power. the story is mingled with the harsh, majestic beauty, and the remorseless social values of the white of southern africa. the grass is singing is a poignant exploration of race, power, and oppression, and it continues to be relevant today as we continue to grapple with the legacy of colonialism and racism (mutekwa, 2009; wang, 2009). there have been plenty of literature based on the grass is singing to elaborate racism (ahmed, 2013; schwarz, 2016) and mary turner’s identity transformation (wang, 2009) and her awakening (zhang, 2017). however, one limitation of the existing literature on the grass is singing is its tendency focus on mary turner’s character and her psychological breakdown (boruah, 2020), neglecting the broader social and historical context that shaped mary’s identity transformation, and thus failing to analyze the systemic issues of racism and colonialism that affect all characters in the novel. another limitation of the existing literature is that most studies on the grass is singing have a tendency to analyze the novel in its historical context, without exploring how it can offer insights into contemporary issues of racism and colonialism. finally, with a few exceptions (e.g., keramatfar, 2022), there is the dearth of exploration of awakening of the colonized african people from oppression by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 145 published by scholink inc. white. much of the existing literature on the grass is singing focuses on the white protagonist, mary turner, and her experiences, while overlooking the african characters’ experiences of oppression and resistance, particularly in terms of their cultural and political agency. taken together, this paper aims to address these limitations by first exploring how lessing’s novel challenges dominant narratives of white superiority and african inferiority, and how it can offer insights into contemporary discussions on race and colonialism, themes and insights can be applied to contemporary discussions on racism and colonialism, and how it can offer a deeper understanding of the legacy of colonialism in africa and its impact on present-day societies. the paper also aims to analyze mary’s identity transformation in the grass is singing through a postcolonial lens by linking to broader social and historical context that shaped mary’s such transformation. finally, the paper aims to explore how the novel portrays the african characters as active agents in their own lives and struggles, how their experiences are shaped by their social, cultural, and historical contexts, and how the awakening among the black natives and growing awareness of the injustices and oppressions they face under colonial rule. the ultimate goal of the paper is to highlight the relevance of the issues of racism, colonialism, and oppression in the today’s world, particularly in the context of ongoing struggles for social justice and equality that are the central goals of our current world (united nations, 2015). 2. racial discrimination against the natives by european colonizers once the so-called civilized europeans stride onto the primitive colonies, taking charge of those lands and governing the native dwellers at will, colonization is established. then appear the colonizers, who are the governors and dominators of the colonies, and the colonized, the natives who are oppressed in their own motherland. to a large extent, the colonial aftermath combines the obfuscations of both verdrängung and verwerfung. its unwillingness to remember what bhabha describes as the painful and humiliating “memory of the history of race and racism” (bhabha, 1994, p. 63) is matched by its terrified repudiation and utopian expulsion of this past. racism refers to “a system in which one group of people exercises power over another on the basis of skin color; an implicit or explicit set of beliefs, erroneous assumptions, and actions based on an ideology of the inherent superiority of one racial group over another, and evident in organizational or institutional structures and programs as well as in individual thought or behaviour patterns” (henry & tator, 2006, p. 352). it is the colonizers’ belief that only their own anglo-european culture is the noblest and that the people of their own blood are well-educated and sophisticated. according to births, titles, qualities, and the more highly advanced technology, the white belongs to the highest social class. on the contrary, those indigenous are considered nothing but a group of barbarous, backward, and undeveloped inferiors. in truth, the forgotten content of postcoloniality effectively reveals the story of an ambivalent and symbiotic relationship between colonizer and colonized (leela gandhi, 2018). lessing’s writing of colonial discourse in the grass is singing is first reflected in the wording and tone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 146 published by scholink inc. of the characterization. she depicted the imagery of white people in an appreciative tone but the imagery of black natives in rather insulting and discriminatory words. mary turner, the female protagonist in the grass is singing, possesses all the genetic features of the white europeans who are the ancestors of the southern african migrants. although both of mary’s parents are southern africans who even have never set foot on british land, for mary, nostalgically speaking, england means “home”, and “home” refers to britain because of those letters and magazines from overseas. mary had never come into contact with black african natives before, and she had been forbidden to talk to her mother ’s servants whom she had been afraid of. she had even been forbidden to walk alone in her childhood as she had been told that the black natives were so furtive, lowered, and nasty that they might do horrible things to her (lessing, 1950). after mary married dick turner, the first native she had to deal with was samson. although samson was a kind-faced respectful old native (lessing, 1950) who with deference and courtesy was eager to show mary, the bride, around the house, and despite there being a perfect understanding between samson and his boss dick, as dick “locked up everything, but put out for use a third as much again as was required, which was used by samson, who did not regard this as stealing” (lessing, 1950, p. 49), there was still racial hostility between the couple and their servant. once samson had done something imperfect or ignored something, dick unleashed his dissatisfaction with impolite and discriminatory words which reinforce the stereotype of native black inferiority and sluggishness: “that old fool has let those dogs go again. i told him not to.” he explained: ‘they get restless and go out by themselves, for hunting trips, if i am not here. sometimes for days. always when i am not here. he let them out. then they get into trouble in the bush. because he is too damned lazy to feed them.’ he sat heavy and silent through the meal, a nervous tension between his eyes… (lessing, 1950, p. 62). in addition to dick’s impolite and discriminatory words towards native servant, lessing also portrayed the appearance of local female natives from mary’s perspective: if she disliked native men, she loathed the women. she hated the exposed fleshiness of them, their soft brown bodies and soft bashful faces that were also insolent and inquisitive, and their chattering voices that held a brazen fleshy undertone. she could not bear to see them sitting there on the grass, their legs tucked under them in that traditional timeless pose, as peaceful and uncaring as if it did not matter whether the store was opened, or whether it remained shut all day and they would have to return tomorrow. above all, she hated the way they suckled their babies, with their breasts hanging down for everyone to see; there was something in their calm satisfied maternity that made her blood boil. ‘their babies hanging on to them like leeches,’ she said to herself shuddering, for she thought with horror of suckling a child. the idea of a child’s lips on her breasts made her feel quite sick… (lessing, 1950, p. 104). lessing’s writing of colonial discourse in the grass is singing is also revealed in discriminatory laws and practices imposed by white colonizers. at the beginning of the novel in chapter one, lessing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 147 published by scholink inc. accounted for a murder mystery in which mary turner, wife of richard turner, a farmer at ngesi, was found murdered on the front verandah of their homestead. the native houseboy, who had been arrested, confessed to the crime. after the police snapped the handcuffs on the houseboy, they saw dick turner come out of the bush. “they let him be, while keeping an eye on him, for he was a white man, though mad, and black men, even when policemen, do not lay hands on white flesh” (lessing, 1950, p. 5). in the workplace, the natives were treated as if they were machines (lessing, 1950), born to exert themselves and shed sweat for the white yet with their wages often deducted and bargained over by the white for any loafing on the job or not obeying her summons, or even with no sound reason at all. after mary sent away the first native servant samson, then came another native asking for work. he wanted seventeen shillings a month. mary beat him down by two, feeling pleased with herself because of her victory over him. that night, at supper, the native laid the table badly. mary flew at him in a frenzy of annoyance. when the native had gone out, dick tried to persuade mary to take things easy with a new native servant, yet mary retorted that: “but i told him! if i have told him once i have told him fifty times!” “but this is probably the first time he has ever been in a white man’s house!” “i don’t care. i told him what to do. why doesn’t he do it?” (lessing, 1950, pp. 56-57) the next day at lunch, the servant dropped a plate through nervousness. mary dismissed him at once. the third native boy came. quite different from the previous servants, this boy had learned some native code of politeness to present a blank, neutral surface, and to answer in a soft neutral voice, and he replied gently to everything she said, “yes, missus; yes, missus,” not looking at mary. but it made mary angry that he would never meet her eyes. instead of regarding it as a part of the native code of politeness not to look a superior in the face, she thought it was merely further evidence of their shifty and dishonest nature. she even felt she would like to pick up a plate and throw it in that native’s face so as to make it human and expressive (lessing, 1950). in this novel, discriminatory practices by the white colonizers are especially featured by charlie slatter, a typical representative of the white dominant power’s belief in farming with the sjambok which, as a motto which hangs over his front door says, “you shall not mind killing if it is necessary”. when he killed a native in a fit of anger, he was fined merely thirty pounds. moreover, it was slatter who educated dick turner to buy a sjambok before a plow or a harrow when dick started farming (lessing, 1950). mary supervised the natives unloading the dusty sacks from the wagon, holding them by the corners on their shoulders. they were like a human conveyor-belt. swinging the sjambok from her wrist, mary suddenly noticed that one of the boys was not working as he fell out of the line, standing by. after warning him to get back to work several times, the native still didn’t follow the order but insisted on getting some water to quench his thirst. that lazy insolence stung her into such an inarticulate rage that she lifted her whip and brought it down across his face in a vicious swinging blow. a thick weal pushed up along the dark skin of the native’s cheek, and from it a drop of bright blood gathered and trickled down and off his chin and splashed to his chest (lessing, 1950). last but not least, lessing’s writing of colonial discourse in the grass is singing is embodied in her www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 148 published by scholink inc. discriminatory depiction of the sights of southern africa as well as in the imagery of the “store”. as lessing wrote in chapter two: as the railway lines spread and knotted and ramified all over southern africa, along them, at short distances of a few miles, sprang up little drops that to a traveller appear as insignificant clusters of ugly buildings, but which are the centres of farming districts perhaps a couple of hundred miles across. they contain the station building, the post office, sometimes a hotel, but always a store. if one was looking for a symbol to express south africa, the south africa that was created by-financiers and mine magnates, the south africa which the old missionaries and explorers who charted the dark continent would be horrified to see, one would find it in the store. the store is everywhere…… it is always a low single-storied building divided into segments like a strip of chocolate, with grocery, butchery and bottle-store under one corrugated iron roof. it has a high dark wooden counter, and behind the counter shelves hold anything from distemper mixture to toothbrushes, all mixed together. there are a couple of racks holding cheap cotton dresses in brilliant colours, and perhaps a stack of shoe-boxes, or a glass case for cosmetics or sweets. there is the unmistakable smell, a smell compounded of varnish, dried blood from the killing yards behind, dried hides, dried fruit and strong yellow soap…… for thousands of people up and down southern africa the store is the background to their childhood. so many things centered round it. it brings back, for instance, memories of those nights when the car, after driving endlessly through a chilly, dusty darkness, stopped unexpectedly in front of a square of light where men lounged with glasses in their hands, and one was carried out into the brilliantly lit bar for a sip of searing liquid ‘to keep the fever away’. or it might be the place where one drove twice a week to collect mail, and to see all the farmers from miles around buying their groceries, and reading letters from home with one leg propped on the running-board of the car, momentarily oblivious to the sun, the square of red dust where the dogs lay scattered like flies on meat and the groups of staring natives – momentarily transported back to the country for which they were so bitterly homesick, but where they would not choose to live again: ‘south africa gets into you,’ these self-exiled people would say, ruefully. (lessing, 1950, pp. 27-28) from the description of sights of southern africa, it can be noted that racial discrimination is permissive in lessing’s colonial discourse. the “store” imagery reflects the “colonial” imprint which shows the racial belief that with the arrival of white colonizers, stores sprang up as places where a wide variety of goods showed off the rich material life brought by the colonists to the colonies. opposite to “store” imagery, the symbol of the whites’ prosperity, the sight of southern africa was a “dark continent” with insignificant clusters of ugly buildings and dogs lying scattered like flies on meat. to sum up, regarding colonial discourse in doris lessing’s the grass is singing, the white are the dominators while the black are the oppressed, which shapes the colonizers into a monitor, a superior, a guard, compared with the colonized who represents an instrument of production. racism has penetrated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 149 published by scholink inc. into facets of life in southern africa. through the portrayal of the characters in the novel, lessing highlights the need for empathy, understanding, and mutual respect between different cultures and races. the racism in the grass is singing is indeed central to the novel’s plot and themes. the grass is singing is notable for its novelty and originality in its depiction of race relations in colonial africa. one significant feature of the grass is singing lies in its ability to shed light on the ongoing legacy of racism and colonialism in the contemporary world and prompt readers to reflect on their own attitudes and behaviors towards race, and to engage with broader discussions around racism and colonialism (mutekwa, 2009; wang, 2009). racism and racial inequality continue to be pervasive problems in many parts of the world and continue to see the devastating effects of racism in various forms in around the world, including police brutality against people of color, discrimination in hiring and education, and hate crimes based on race or ethnicity (sdsn, 2020). the grass is singing serves as a reminder that racism is not just a historical issue, but an ongoing problem that requires continued attention and action. it encourages readers to reflect on their own attitudes and behaviors towards people of different races and cultures, and to work towards creating a more just and equitable world. the novel’s emphasis on the power dynamics of race and colonialism speaks to current debates around systemic inequality and institutionalized racism. the novel can help to promote greater awareness and understanding, and to contribute to efforts to address racial inequality and injustice. overall, the grass is singing is a powerful critique of racism and colonialism. it appeals to greater awareness and understanding of the complex issues surrounding race and ethnicity. the novel suggests that it is only through recognizing and addressing our own biases and prejudices that we can begin to build a more just and equitable society. 3. mary’s identity transformation “cultural identity” refers to one’s view of who he/she is, and how one defines himself/herself or common identification with a collectivity or social category (urrieta & noblit 2018). cultural identity transformation emerges as a result of transnational migration (frampton, 2009; franz & silva, 2020). as one of the important issues in the existing literature and cultural research, cultural identity provides post-colonialism with a complicated, dynamic, and controversial concept (williams & chrisman, 2013). it is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual that is influenced by one’s belonging to a group or culture, and the identity is usually related to place, gender, race, history, language, nationality, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and so on (urrieta & noblit, 2018). influenced by the recent world of globalization, cultural identity has changed into a plural, shifting, and dynamic process. thus, one’s identity is changeable, and it’s being molded and shaped into another form due to the interaction between the individual and the outside world (jensen, arnett, & mckenzie, 2011). in a broader sense, identity not only marks the distinction between “us” and “them” but also indicates a cultural subject’s choice of a collective identity between a dominating culture and an oppressive one www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 150 published by scholink inc. (urrieta & noblit, 2018). such a specific state of identity can be called “hybrid identity”. with such a “hybrid identity”, doris lessing herself is one of the migrant writers, and her novel the grass is singing is not only a migrant novel investigating the concern of the postcolonial people and literature, but also a novel with powerful representativeness of flexible consciousness and an independent national identity. mary turner has experienced identity transformation which enables her to be a white stranger on african land with no sense of belonging to whatever side. on the one hand, longing for a well-off life with an independent financial state, mary worked in an office in town and inherited from her mother an arid feminism, leading the comfortable carefree existence of a single woman in south africa (lessing, 1950). although mary still took delight in her single life after 30, she felt a twinge of unease at the thought of people’s gossip that she would turn imperceptibly into one of those women who have become old without ever having been middle-aged: a little withered, a little acid, hard as nails, sentimentally kindhearted, and addicted to religion or small dogs (lessing, 1950). her stun and outrage reached a climax after she accidentally overheard her friends’ conversation which was full of mockery and contempt: “‘she’s not fifteen any longer: it is ridiculous! someone should tell her about her clothes.” “how old is she?” “must be well over thirty. ……” “why doesn’t she marry? she must have had plenty of chances.” there was a dry chuckle. “i don’t think so. my husband was keen on her himself once, but he thinks she will never marry……” “she should marry someone years older than herself. a man of fifty would suit her… you’ll see, she will marry someone old enough to be her father one of these days.” there was another chuckle, good-hearted enough, but it sounded cruelly malicious to mary (lessing 1950, pp. 38-39). that little accidental overhearing, apparently so unimportant, which would have had no effect on a person who had the faintest idea of the kind of world he lived in, had a profound effect on mary, which indicates that mary inevitably would be the prey for patriarchy. and soon mary married dick turner and assisted him with farming from which mary regained so-called superiority of white authority, with her sjambok swinging vicious blows to the natives, and thus she realized her conversion from an old pitiful virgin and a laughingstock into a hostess of white authority. on the other hand, although she had white skin and possessed an education in tune with the social ideology of the whites, for mary, the word “home”, spoken nostalgically, meant england, despite the fact that both her parents were south africans and had never been to england (lessing, 1950). what connected mary to “england” were only overseas letters and magazines. the store was the real center of mary’s early life. it was in the store that she spent her miserable childhood with an alcoholic father and a workaholic mother who worked herself into a passion of resentment since the poor white family in south africa hardly made ends meet. after marrying dick, an unsuccessful white farmer after countless futile attempts to make a profit from his land, raging at dick seemed to mary a failure in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 151 published by scholink inc. pride, since lessing noted: the women who marry men like dick learn sooner or later that there are two things they can do: they can drive themselves mad, tear themselves to pieces in storms of futile anger and rebellion; or they can hold themselves tight and go bitter. mary, with the memory of her own mother recurring more and more frequently, like an older, sardonic double of herself walking beside her, followed the course her upbringing made inevitable (lessing, 1950, p. 98). always facing bad seasons and sitting tight on debts, dick never seemed to make any profits to support the family, leading the other whites to consider the turners the worst among the whites in southern africa. this embarrassing financial dilemma isolated mary from her white neighbors and friends. charlie slatter was a typical representative of the whites’ dominant power—wealthy, powerful, and superior to all others. he and mrs. slatter lived nearest to the turners. mrs. slatter was an amiable soul and very grieved for mary who had married a good-for-nothing like dick. in order to express her sympathy and show her friendliness to mary, she often sent notes to invite mary to evening parties. however, all these proposals were declined by mary who was ill at ease in crowds and who was suffering from agonies of being looked down upon among the white habitants. moreover, tony, a british young man who had been in southern africa for only a couple of months , saw those peculiarly ugly, blue native fabrics around mary’s house, didn’t mind at all. the british young man was even in a good mood of elation to appreciate the seemingly exotic things in the house, because in tony’s opinion, the turners were not qualified white colonizers in view of their poverty-stricken living condition that almost signaled a potential assimilation into the native community, which would have shocked everybody in the white world. in one word, the loneliness and lack of companionship made mary “a strange, silent and dried-out woman” (lessing, 1950, p. 158) who was more and more estranged from the white world despite her swinging sjambok in hand which symbolized white colonizers’ superiority. from a white hostess of superiority to a freak on southern african land, mary wandered around the margins of the white community. still, on the other hand, the native houseboy moses pushed mary into the cold unfathomable abyss by murder, which made mary absolutely repelled by the white side, for she had finally been conquered by a native. it was mary turner’s poor economic basis and her seclusion from the white world that resulted in her solitude which ignited her craving for other people’s company, and moses became mary’s sole partner since dick must go outside early and come back home late. moses once gifted mary a handle-less cup of bush flowers which were in crude yellows, pinks, and reds. they thrust together clumsily, but made a strong burst of color on the old stained cloth. thus, gradually, the original “boss and servant” relationship turned to be an ambiguously romantic one which forced mary to grow a sense of fearful curiosity about moses whom she had to touch in terror (lessing, 1950). moses was powerful and commanding, yet kind, while mary was covert, undermined with fear, not like a mistress watching a servant work. in front of moses, she tried her best to restore the authority and dignity of the whites, but after some time, she was more and more conscious of moses’s power which rendered her a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 152 published by scholink inc. strong and irrational fear, and a deep uneasiness. her act of weeping and resisting moses’s departure indicated the resignation of her authority, and later, she discovered moses’s attitudes towards her were no longer docile, but so challenging that made the white colonizer charlie, the representative of the white community stunned: it was the tone of mary’s voice when she spoke to the native that jarred on him: she was speaking to him with exactly the same flirtatious coyness with which she had spoken to himself. the native replied, with a rough offhand rudeness: “oranges finished.” “i know they are not finished. there were two left. i know they are not.” ...mary was appealing, looking up at the boy, almost confiding in him.’ “oranges finished”, he repeated, in that tone of surly indifference, but with a note of self-satisfaction, of conscious power that took charlie’s breath away (lessing, 1950, p. 203). however, though mary enjoyed moses’s companionship a lot, she still couldn’t get rid of the ideological influence of british white people’s racial discrimination against the black natives. therefore, at the sight of the gift of flowers, what troubled her most was the evidence of moses’s desire to please her and his waiting for a word of approval and pleasure from her. sexual issues always become inseparably bound up with ethnicity, and after tony accidentally discovered the affairs between mary and moses, he harshly commanded moses to leave as soon as possible. mary shouted suddenly “go away” over tony’s shoulder at moses, the native. tony realized that in this way mary was trying to assert herself, and more accurately, she was using his presence there as a shield in a fight to get back the white authority she had lost (lessing, 1950). it was mary’s verbal hostility that brought the intention of murder into moses’s mind. in the end, mary’s life was claimed by moses which symbolizes a native’s victory over a white colonizer. all in all, it’s noteworthy that mary experienced an identity transformation in which she had been an old pitiful virgin and a laughingstock at first, then a hostess of white authority, yet later marginalized by the white community as a freak, and finally yielded to death, which insinuates that mary made a concession to both black and white worlds, a prey for colonialism and patriarchy. she was no longer in a position that was either absolute affirmation or absolute negation towards the two extremes: “… she has forgotten what her own people are like. but then, what is madness, but a refuge, a retreating from the world” (lessing, 1950, p. 215)? consequently, she kept away from the two as a result of her identity transformation. the misplacement from both the white and the native worlds thrust mary into a plight of a white stranger on african land. at the end, she has recognized and rejected her own prejudices and has begun to develop a sense of empathy and understanding towards those who have been marginalized by society. this transformation represents a powerful critique of the system of racial hierarchy and colonialism that defines southern rhodesia. ary’s identity transformation is a crucial aspect of the novel, as she moves from a young woman with hopes and dreams to a woman trapped in an oppressive system that ultimately drives her to madness and murder. through mary’s identity transformation, lessing explores the ways in which racism and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 153 published by scholink inc. discrimination can distort a person’s sense of self and limit their potential for growth and fulfillment. overall, mary’s transformation in the grass is singing highlights the ways in which colonialism and racism shape the identities of both the colonizers and the colonized. it underscores the need for empathy, understanding, and mutual respect between different cultures and races, as well as the importance of acknowledging and challenging the systemic injustices that underlie these dynamics. it calls for a society that values diversity and promotes equality and justice for all. unlike most studies in the existing literature on the grass is singing, this paper analyzes the process of mary’s identity transformation in depth, explores the complex factors that contributed to her transformation, offering a fresh perspective on the grass is singing and contributing to a deeper understanding of the novel’s themes and implications. 4. awakening of the ethnic consciousness according to the biblical account, moses was the leader of the nation of israel when they were delivered by almighty god out of slavery in egypt until the time when they were about to enter the promised land of israel. moses in the biblical record ranks among the mightiest men. his prophetic power, spiritual insight, and leadership qualifications justify this rank. in the grass is singing, it was moses who was the pioneer of giving the first blow towards his white hostess since he courageously justified his legal right of getting some water to relieve his thirst. his use of english when questioning the war and whether “jesus thought it right that people should kill each other” undoubtedly proved that moses must have been literate and enlightened despite the thought of “cheek” and resentment by mary (lessing, 1950). through the murder committed by moses, lessing gave her hints of the final collapse of colonialism by some descriptions of the living beings in nature: she stood in the doorway looking down over sweep of sere, dry vlei. somewhere in the trees he was waiting; somewhere in the vlei was the young man, who would come before the night to rescue her. she stared, hardly blinking, into the aching sunlight. but what was the matter with the big land down there, which was always an expanse of dull red at this time of year! it was covered over with bushes and grass. panic plucked at her; already, before she was even dead, the bush was conquering the farm, sending its outriders to cover the good red soil with plants and grass; the bush knew she was going to die! but the young man… shutting out everything else she thought of him, with his warm comfort, his protecting arm…… (lessing, 1950, p. 228) in the grass is singing, the natives’ counterattack in self-defense against the whites’ injustice unveils the evidence that the natives began to be conscious of their willingness to express their dissatisfaction under the suppression of the colonizers and their rights as human beings. the natives’ resentful revolt is represented through moses’s revenge on mary after he lived in a condition of in-between and unhomeliness as a result of his ethnic consciousness awakening. as this saying which was put forward by bhabha goes, “nation could not return to their settled and independent life again without noticing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 154 published by scholink inc. that they had learned many foreign ideas and ways, which they had unconsciously adopted, and come to feel here and there previously unrecognized spiritual and intellectual needs” (bhabha 1994, p.11). it is by the oppressiveness of the colonizer’s culture and ideology that the natives undergo their identity transformation. the transformation contradicts their usual image, and then they try to end their plight by the declaration of war against the whites. as vague and shadowy character as moses may have been in this novel, he was its most impressive hero, whose shining human nature would be implanted deeply in every reader’s mind. it is his dauntless heroism that interrogates the superiority of the colonizers. while the novel portrays the african characters as victims of colonialism, it also highlights their resistance and resilience in the face of oppression. one of the novel’s most important themes is the awakening of africans to their marginalization and oppression. the awakening of ethnic consciousness and growing awareness among africans in the novel can be seen as a precursor to modern-day social movements and calls for decolonization. this awakening leads to moses’s transformation into a politically assertive figure, the one who challenges the status quo and demands change. as is implied in this novel, overwhelming darkness may endure for a night, but it will never overcome the radiant brightness of the morning. the hegemony imposed on the natives by the colonizers will fade as time flies; simultaneously the natives are struggling for their own liberty and human rights. and moses, the leader of the natives, intended to find a way to reset the african natives’ identity due to his ethnic consciousness after being negated by the white world, leaving the colonial edifice confronted with its unprecedented crisis. overall, the grass is singing depicts the awakening of ethnic consciousness among the black natives of southern rhodesia in the face of oppression and racial discrimination. it highlights the importance of cultural identity and the struggle for self-determination in the face of colonialism and racism. different from most previous studies that have failed to fully explore the complexities of the novel’s portrayal of african consciousness and resistance, the analysis of moses’s awakening and the growing awareness of the other african characters in this paper can provide a more nuanced understanding of the african characters’ struggles, agency, and subjectivity, and help shed light on the psychological and emotional toll of colonialism and racism on african individuals, and provide insights into the ways in which marginalized communities can resist and challenge oppressive structures and assert their agency in the face of adversity. 5. conclusions this study of the grass is singing is novel in its interpretation of the character’s identities: mary turner as a figure of white delusion and moses as a figure of religious symbolism. mingled with african imagery and myth to reflect on the british colonial experience, lessing questions the primacy of british power with the surprising murder at the end. she successfully portrays both white identity anxiety and black identity awakening. the white british immigrants take pride in their imperial superiority, but they could hardly be expected to find any sense of belonging to their new continent www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 155 published by scholink inc. without some form of cultural integration. their chauvinism and racism keep them from fully communing with the local peoples and their cultures. overall, in writing the grass is singing, lessing provided international readers with new perspectives on post-colonialism by exemplifying how the lifestyle and ideology of white colonizers dominated and influenced the natives with prejudicial attitudes towards race and identity. from the wording and tone in the characterization of characters to discriminatory laws and practices imposed upon black natives, from the “store” imagery to the sights of southern africa, lessing managed to confirm the existing racism which holds that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “race” in political, economic and legal institutions and systems. the grass is singing is a powerful novel by doris lessing that delves into the complex themes of racism and oppression in colonial africa. as for identity issues, it can be concluded that her transformation from an old pitiful virgin and a laughingstock, to a hostess of white authority, to a freak marginalized by the white world, to a murder victim by a native, and finally a white stranger vanishing from the african land, mary’s identity transformation ensures the dynamics, resilience, and adaptability of colonial societies by which the natives have been motivated to fight against racial inequalities in wealth, income, education, health care, and civil rights. it is worth noting that the title the grass is singing has a symbolic meaning. on one hand, it implies that the grass-like natives are wailing for their miserable destiny on this colonized land. on the other hand, seen as a whole, the author of this paper prefers the interpretation that the natives are singing a song for victory for the defeat of colonization. it is the growing national consciousness and conflicting cultures of both the colonizers and colonized that arouse the decline of hypocrisy and corruption of the colonial power. in this regard, lessing’s the grass is singing, published in 1950, is a prophecy of southern rhodesia’s eventual transition to majority-ruled zimbabwe in 1980. the grass is singing is groundbreaking in its portrayal of the complexities of racial relations in southern africa. the novel is among the first to explore the issues of racism, colonialism, resistance and awakening of ethnic consciousness in such a nuanced way. lessing’s exploration of these issues remains relevant today that encourages us to reflect on our own beliefs and behaviors and work towards creating a more just and equitable world. since culture is by no means static, the resilience and adaptability of colonial societies shouldn’t be underestimated. therefore, i argue that through learning how colonized peoples responded to the political and cultural dominance of europe, the resilience and transformability of colonized cultures would change the characteristics of imperial culture itself in ways that have been both profound and lasting (ashcroft, 2001). this paper has provided a critical analysis of three themes of doris lessing’s the grass is singing: racial discrimination, identity transformation of the white female protagonist, and the awakening of ethnic consciousness among the colonized native africans. these three themes are the core of the novel. in analyzing these themes, this paper not only explored the social and historical contexts that caused www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 156 published by scholink inc. racism, mary turner’s identity transformation, and the awakening of the african natives, but also made connections with today’s relevancies, yet all of which have been overlooked in the existing literature. as a result, this paper offers a more nuanced interpretation of these issues in global climate which is conducive to global diversified democracy as well as maintenance of political equality. in short, this paper contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the novel’s significance and relevance to contemporary discussions on social justice and resistance by shedding light on the ways in which marginalized communities can challenge oppressive structures and assert their agency. references ahmed, m. k. (2013). doris lessing’s the grass is singing: anatomy of a female psyche in the midst of gender, race and class barrier. international journal of english and literature, 4(1), 11-16. https:/doi.org/10.5897/ijel11.119 ashcroft, b. (2001). post-colonial transformation. london: routledge bhabha, hk. (1994). the location of culture. london: routledge. boruah, a. (2020). psychological ruptures in doris lessing’s the grass is singing. international journal of management, 11(12), 53-56. https://doi.org/10.34218/ijm.11.12.2020.006 frampton, e. (2009). horrors of the breast: cultural boundaries and the abject in the grass in singing. in a. ridout, & s, atkins (ed.), doris lessing: border crossings (pp. 15-25). new york: continuum international publishing group. franz, m., & silva, k. (2020). migration, identity, and belonging: defining borders and boundaries of the homeland. new york: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429469374 henry, f., & tator, c. (2006). the colour of democracy: racism in canadian society (3rd ed.). toronto: nelson publisher. jensen, l. a., arnett, j. j., & mckenzie, j. (2011). globalization and cultural identity. in schwartz, s., luyckx, k., & vignoles, v. (eds.), handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 285-301). new york: springer. keramatfar, h. (2022). moses and power: mimetic desire in doris lessing’s the grass is singing. neophilologus, 106, 729-740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09736-7 lessing, d. (1950). the grass is singing. london: michael joseph ltd. mutekwa, a. (2009). gendered beings, gendered discourses: the gendering of race, colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism in three zimbabwean novels. journal for the study of race, nation and culture, 15(5), 725-740. schwarz, b. (2016). the fact of whiteness: doris lessing’s “the grass is singing”—a historian notebook. journal of southern african studies, 127-136. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2016.1122273 sustainable development solutions network (sdsn). (2020). sdsn statement on racial inequality. retrieved from may 8, 2023 https://www.unsdsn.org/sdsn-statement-on-racial-inequality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 157 published by scholink inc. accessed on united nations. (2015). transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. united nations general assembly a/res/70/1. new york: the united nations. urrieta, l. jr., & noblit, g. w. (2018). cultural constructions of identity: meta-ethnography and theory. oxford university press: oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190676087.001.0001 wang, j. (2009). white postcolonial guilty in doris lessing’s the grass is singing. research in african literatures, 40(3), 37-47. https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2009.40.3.37 williams, p., & chrisman, l. (2013). colonial discourse and post-colonial theory. new york: routledge. zhang, h. (2017). an interpretation of mary in the shadow of colonialism in doris lessing’sthe grass is singing. higher education studies, 7(4), 55-60. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v7n4p55 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 142 original paper research on cultivation mechanism of college managers in the context of "double first-class" construction juan wu1 1xi’an fanyi university, human resources department, shaanxi, xi’an, china fund project xi’an fanyi university2021 school-level research regular subjects: "research on cultivation mechanism of college managers in the context of "double first-class" construction" (project number: 21b60). received: february 09, 2024 accepted: march 23, 2024 online published: april 05, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p142 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p142 abstract the construction of world-class universities and first-class disciplines is a major strategic decision made by the cpc central committee, which is of great significance for enhancing the level of china's educational development, strengthening the core competitiveness of the country and laying the foundation for long-term development. as an important part of the university faculty, university administrators will become specific organizers and implementers of school development and discipline construction in the context of "double first-class". however, at present, the overall ability and quality of university management personnel are not yet compatible with the requirements of "double first-class" university construction. therefore, it is urgent to cultivate and build a team of managers who are both moral and talented, who know their profession, who understand education, who are good at management, and who have a reasonable structure and are relatively stable, so as to make sure that they are compatible with the construction and development of the "double first-class" universities. keywords double first-class,university construction, university management personnel, training mechanism 1. introduction the construction of world-class universities and first-class disciplines is of great significance for upgrading china's education development level, enhancing the core competitiveness of the country, and laying the foundation for long-term development. over the years, through the implementation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 143 "project 211", "project 985", "advantageous discipline innovation platform" and "characteristic key discipline program", a number of key universities and key disciplines have been constructed. through the implementation of "211 project", "985 project", "advantageous discipline innovation platform" and "characteristic key discipline project" and other projects, a number of key colleges and universities and key disciplines have made great progress in the construction of a number of key disciplines, which has led to the enhancement of china's higher education as a whole, and made an important contribution to the sustained and healthy economic and social development. however, at the same time, the key construction also exists identity curing, lack of competition, duplication of cross and other problems, the development of universities and colleges urgently need to strengthen the integration of resources and innovative implementation methods. promote this group of high-level universities and disciplines into the world's first-class ranks or forefront, university managers will play an important role, they will become a "double first-class" school development, discipline construction work of the specific organizers and implementers, is to ensure that colleges and universities to run the direction of the implementation of the idea of running the school to improve the level of running the school to achieve the goal of running the school is an important support, but also to achieve the "double first-class" school development, discipline construction work of the specific organizers and implementers. it is an important support for universities to ensure the direction of school running, implement the ideology of school running, improve the level of school running, and realize the goals of school running, and it is also an important foundation and guarantee for realizing the goal of "double first-class". 2.the necessity of perfecting cultivation mechanism in the context of "double first-class" construction colleges and universities are responsible for cultivating high-level talents and promoting social culture and development. management personnel is an important talent team in the construction of colleges and universities, management is science and productivity, only first-class management can lead to first-class colleges and universities, high-quality management personnel is related to the overall situation of reform and development of colleges and universities, so it is very necessary for colleges and universities to strengthen the training of management personnel. colleges and universities shoulder the task of cultivating high-level talents and promoting social culture and development. management personnel is an important talent team in the construction of colleges and universities, management is science and productivity, only first-class management can lead to first-class colleges and universities, high-quality management personnel team is related to the overall situation of reform and development of colleges and universities, therefore, colleges and universities to strengthen the training of management personnel is very necessary. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 144 2.1 strengthening the training of university management personnel is the demand for the implementation of the strategy of strengthening the country with talents management personnel is to promote the main force of the strategic development goals of universities, the party central committee and state council "on further strengthening the work of the decision of the talent," which pointed out that "vigorously strengthen the party and government personnel, business management personnel and professional and technical personnel as the main body of the construction of the talent team," "double first-class" construction background, the international community, the international community, the international community, the international community, the international community, the international community, the international community and the international community. under the background of "double first-class" construction, the international and domestic education and economic competition is fierce, and talents are the key factors to obtain competitive advantages. facing the new round of competition, universities need to make more efforts to gather excellent management talents and strengthen the construction of management team. the training and construction of management personnel should have the same importance as the construction of professional and technical personnel. 2.2 strengthening the training of college management personnel is the need to deepen the institutional reform of colleges and universities the construction of management personnel in colleges and universities is a necessary measure to stabilize the management team and promote the good development of management career. since the construction of "double first-class", china's colleges and universities have a new round of institutional reform, the reform of a wide range of content, as a manager, must improve their own management knowledge and skills, and to strengthen the construction of college management personnel team provides a good system and policy, tailored for the managers " career track", will be the managers of the "career track", the managers of the "career track", the managers of the "career track", the managers of the "career track". career runway", the career development goals of managers and the strategic objectives of the university together, to create a good environment conducive to the development of university managers, and promote managers to realize their own value. 2.3 cultivation of management personnel is the need to establish a harmonious campus culture in colleges and universities strengthen the construction of management personnel training, enhance the communication between managers and teachers, managers and students, teachers and students, all levels of colleges and universities need to establish a good relationship between the college managers as decision makers and regulators, it is necessary to establish a good working relationship with the staff at all levels, to promote the balanced development of the various teams in the school, and at the same time to promote, establish a harmonious campus culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 145 3. "double first-class" on the new requirements of university managers 3.1 "double first-class" requires managers to have international vision the development concept of world-class universities reveals that the comprehensive strength, innovation ability and development potential of colleges and universities depend on the ability to learn and adopt academic culture, the ability of disciplines to interact with the outside world, etc. the management of colleges and universities should have an open learning attitude and advanced ideas, especially in the "double first-class". university managers should have an open learning attitude and advanced concepts, especially in the context of double first-class, managers should continuously improve the international vision. at the same time, managers should realize that the international competitiveness of a university or discipline is not only for scientific researchers, but also the comprehensive ability of managers is a necessary component of the international competitiveness of universities, and they should constantly improve their innovative ability in management, research ability and practical ability. 3.2 "double first-class" requires managers to have more solid management knowledge level under the background of "double first-class", colleges and universities have put forward higher requirements for the professional and business quality of managers. knowledge is the basis and source of improving management level and management art, and is the driving force of innovation. because management is a comprehensive science, but also because of the modernization of society, the connection, penetration, intermingling of things more and more frequent and complex, which requires college and university management personnel according to the "t" model to improve the quality of business. "t" in a vertical, refers to college managers should master one or several specialized areas of in-depth knowledge, to become a master of the field of work in which they are engaged; a horizontal refers to the managers should strive to learn management knowledge, political, legal and ethical knowledge, knowledge of economics, knowledge of culture and history, psychology, sociology, science and technology, etc., to become a wide range of knowledge. they should learn the knowledge of management, politics, law, ethics, economics, culture, history, psychology, sociology, science and technology, etc., and become modern university managers with broad knowledge, adaptability and flexibility. 3.3 "double first-class" requires managers to have stronger cooperation ability the basic cooperation ability that college managers should have includes the following points: (1) sense of responsibility. sense of responsibility is a comprehensive reflection of people's ideological awareness, moral cultivation, rational ability and career and other subjective consciousness. college managers should be a strong sense of responsibility, the stronger the sense of responsibility, the more self-disciplined action, the more creative. (2) tolerance. tolerance is the necessary moral quality of college managers, it reflects the rationality, self-confidence of the psychological quality. with the amount of tolerance, college managers are able to create environmental conditions for the growth of talent, but also to cultivate and manage talent as their own responsibility, which is conducive to all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 146 kinds of talent to stand out, but also accelerate the growth process of talent, laying a solid foundation of talent for the development of colleges and universities. (3) trust others. effective management activities depend on the joint efforts of all managers, only on the basis of full trust, can play the role of each manager within the university, thus forming a good atmosphere, so that the management work to achieve the best. 3.4 "double first-class" requires managers to have multi-position composite ability post ability refers to the ability to complete the task of professional post through practice. compound management personnel refers to those who have multi-talented post ability, broad basic theory and extensive knowledge, innovative spirit, international practice, multi-position rotation experience, and solid language and cultural communication skills. 3.5 "double first-class" requires managers to have strong beliefs under the background of "double first-class" construction, college and university managers should fully understand the spirit of the 19th cpc national congress and have firm beliefs. any college or university is under the basic environment of a certain national political and economic system to survive, the fate of the college or university and the fate of the country are closely linked together. therefore, college and university administrators must have high political and ideological quality, always grasp the direction of the development of colleges and universities, and ensure that the direction of the development of colleges and universities is consistent with the direction guided and encouraged by the state and the government. political quality generally includes the following aspects: a firm and correct political direction, a correct political position, a high degree of political discernment and a strong political acumen. 4. measures and suggestions for cultivation mechanism construction 4.1 establishment of talent training system 4.1.1 in terms of appointment-improve the selection and appointment system to ensure the quality of management it can not be denied that the existing management personnel recruitment and hiring in colleges and universities is still at a low level, undergraduate fresh graduates still occupy a large proportion, and the source of the school is more from the local colleges and universities were born, for this reason, colleges and universities need to be in the human resources strategic planning, to further clarify and improve the access standards of management personnel, to expand the sources of applicants, and to increase the recruitment of education and management-related professions. the university should strengthen the evaluation before, during and after hiring, and at the same time further strengthen the training of new managers, so that the new employees can deeply understand and implement the university's strategy and development goals. at the same time, the personnel department of universities should strengthen the human resource development planning. to cope with the challenges brought by the era of globalization to human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 147 resource management in colleges and universities, the personnel department is required to base on the long-term planning and development of colleges and universities, improve the function of human resource management, enhance the ability of strategic planning and design, and not only participate in the human resource planning within the overall scope of the school, but also penetrate into the second level of colleges and departments to participate in the grassroots human resource planning. the university should improve the basic and developmental database of current staff and international experts, expand and smooth the channels of talent introduction and recruitment, assist each college and department to improve the ladder, and guide each manager to establish a reasonable career plan. effectively strengthen the system construction in the selection and appointment of section-level cadres, so as to be scientific, reasonable and standardized. gradually shift the center of gravity of management, expand the autonomy of grassroots units, mobilize the enthusiasm of the majority of section-level cadres, and increase the construction of the school's youth management team, with reference to the central government promulgated the "regulations on the selection and appointment of party and government leaders and cadres", to formulate the school's internal section-level cadres selected and appointed to work on the interim measures, from the motion, the initial selection of personnel, discussion and decision, audit and approval, appointments and dismissal of the documents issued, filing and so on. the selection and appointment procedures of section-level cadres are clearly defined in terms of motion, preliminary selection of personnel, discussion and decision, examination and approval, issuance of appointment and removal documents, filing and so on, so as to ensure the quality of the selection and appointment of section-level cadres by strict rules. 4.1.2 in the aspect of cultivation-optimizing the working environment of colleges and universities and improving the employment experience the working environment and atmosphere is one of the key determinants for many outstanding talents to choose a job or not. colleges and universities are an academic community composed of elite groups, and thus the managers not only have to conform to the characteristics and rules of general unit administration, but also have to conform to the characteristics and rules of the academic career, therefore, the soft environment of college work is also an indispensable and key part of the training mechanism. managers should realize the transformation from management-oriented team and service-oriented team to management-service-oriented team. gradually change the habitual administrative thinking, promote communication through the school open forum, encourage managers to create value for the school through the management service process combing optimization and reengineering, etc., enhance the managers' service consciousness, advocate the research-oriented and learning managers, and establish the strategy of getting benefits and efficiency from management. this is exactly in line with the two-factor theory, that is, the satisfaction of health care factors plays a fundamental role in improving the professional identity of college managers. reasonable university policies, scientific management measures, harmonious interpersonal relationships, good physical working conditions, and motivational wages and benefits are common health care factors in universities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 148 by improving the health care factors, providing a good working environment and providing the necessary material basis, colleges and universities are able to ensure the stability of the managerial team, thus improving the professional identity of the managers. 4.1.3 in terms of evaluation-developing an effective appraisal system and highlighting performance management rewarding performance is more popular in recent years in the west with a performance management system linked to the management system, can make the performance evaluation should play a role in guiding behavior. this system highlights the impact of performance on individual appraisal, job promotion and income levels. it can be said that performance management has a core position, it has a close relationship with the work redesign, career management, salary management, training and development, labor relations management, personnel mobility management, etc., which can be used as a benchmarking ruler to directly determine the end of the year and the next year's work of the university management staff, but also the university to carry out the rewards and punishments mechanism is an important basis for the assessment of the results of the assessment through the rational use of the establishment of supporting measures to maximize the incentive function. through the rational use of assessment results, the establishment of supporting measures to maximize the function of various incentives, in order to fully mobilize the work of managers enthusiasm, initiative and creativity. with this strict assessment index, managers will intuitively feel their own shortcomings and growth space, and will stand in the "double first-class" national strategy perspective of planning school development, with entrepreneurial spirit to inspire their own, so that they are more responsible and take responsibility. taking "whether it is conducive to the national education cause, whether it is conducive to the development of the school, whether it is in line with the reality of the school's development" as the starting and ending point of all the work, the managers will fully enhance and give full play to the enthusiasm and creativity, and the managers will also be able to realize the "double first-class" national strategy. 4.2 innovative talent training system (1) compound talent cultivation strengthening job rotation within the university and promoting departmental exchanges. the so-called job rotation, refers to ensure that the normal development of college work, let college managers from one position to another position to improve the human resource management problem activities, job rotation belongs to the human resource development in the form of home ownership development. to refine the classification of managers, such as: ideological and political work, comprehensive coordination, financial management, logistics management, personnel management, science and technology management, etc., to increase the integration and management of the management of grass-roots units, the establishment of short-term, medium-term, long-term job training program, through various ways to strengthen the schools and colleges, colleges and colleges, the exchange of special counterparts between the personnel not only to achieve the grassroots management of the the staff of the basic management departments should not only come up, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 149 but also realize that the internal management personnel of the organization can go down. mention of "on to come, down to go" problem, have to talk about college management personnel selection process of an objective phenomenon is the grass-roots management staff can not come, the internal management personnel can not come down, which certainly have treatment and other objective reasons, but the comprehensive ability of management personnel and the quality of the appropriate post. of course, there are objective reasons such as treatment, but the comprehensive ability and quality of managers is an important factor. therefore, in order to promote the exchange of managers within and outside the scope of the school, the school should consider further strengthening the work of the organization, personnel and other departments to enhance the training of managers. for example, according to the needs of the work, each semester to select and send section-level cadres for attachment training. the basic conditions that the cadres should have are: adherence to the party's line, guidelines and policies, love for the cause of higher education, a strong sense of enterprise and responsibility, a correct ideological style, a certain degree of organizational ability and development potential, and have the appropriate professional knowledge. the time of each job training is at least one semester, and they have the right to choose the department, and the organization department also has the right to coordinate. after a complete round of on-the-job training, it not only makes the managers themselves deeply understand the operation mechanism, management methods and paths of other departments, which provides convenient conditions for future exchanges, but also comprehensively analyzes the development mode of the university, so that the construction of colleges and universities and the development of disciplines become a common vision. as mentioned earlier in the theory of reinforcement, in the management of colleges and universities, in order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of managers, we must satisfy their material needs at the same time, and give more play to the role of positive reinforcement of incentives, leaders should correctly dominate and use the staff, and those who have made achievements in a timely manner to give recognition and praise, and provide them with the opportunity for growth, development and promotion. (2) cultivation of international vision providing opportunities for overseas training and developing international vision. the background of "double first-class" has put forward new requirements and challenges for university managers. first of all, "double first-class" domestic colleges and universities need to be benchmarked against international top universities, so managers need to have an international vision, they must go to learn advanced management concepts and explore new management paths. secondly, "double first-class" requires university managers to have stronger communication ability, or more outstanding ability to obtain information and intelligence. finally, "double first class" requires higher professional background of university managers, and specialized and professional managers will reach a new level of knowledge. therefore, it is particularly important for university managers to "go out". globalization may lead to international cooperation is no longer the exception but the rule, the demarcation line between market www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 150 rules and academic rules begins to blur, students choose schools in the world, the ranking of universities is no longer confined to a country, etc., coupled with the management of information technology and the specialization of education, which put forward the requirements of global vision for the managers. if schools want to go up a stage from the existing level, they must compare the improvement of school management with the world level, mention the cultivation of managers' international vision as a key position, and continuously absorb the advanced experience of internationalization reform in all aspects through international rotational training, domestic and on-campus exchanges, etc., so as to help the development of colleges and universities. further training can be categorized into short-term and long-term. short-term training is mainly targeted at division-level cadres and responsible comrades of directly-affiliated internal organizations, and the training time is generally 2-3 weeks. by participating in overseas training, in expanding the international perspective at the same time, to further enhance the quality of their own capabilities of managers, and better practice "to achieve the real skills"; and long-term training from the potential for development of section-level and above young managers in the way of selection, generally 8-10 people per year, the training time is generally 6 months. the duration of training is usually 6 months. the contents of the training include the philosophy and culture of the university, the development planning and management system and mechanism of the university, the mode and method of first-class academic discipline construction, the mode and method of first-class talent team construction and management, the career planning of the managers, the language ability and humanistic quality, the special business training and other related trainings, etc. in principle, the place of further training should be a place with the potential of development of the young managers. in principle, the training place should be a first-class overseas educational or scientific research institution, and according to the content of the training, a combination of centralized lectures, case studies, scenario simulations, job experience and field trips will be adopted. 4.3 construct quality control and incentive mechanism (1) capacity building set up special talent programs to enhance research capacity. management is also a science, in order to effectively promote the construction of the research team, we should actively encourage managers to carry out research, the school should set up a "double first-class construction special fund", release the "first-class university construction special research projects", etc., integrate the party school, the student work steering committee, the youth league committee, the science and technology development office and other existing research projects to implement and promote, and effectively enhance the quality control and incentive mechanism. the school should set up "double first-class construction special fund", release "first-class university construction special scientific research project", integrate the school party school, student work steering committee, the youth league committee, science and technology development, etc. the implementation and promotion of the existing research projects, effectively enhance the income level of managers who are willing to engage in the development of the school research, the formation of the system incentives to effectively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 151 promote. at the same time, universities should integrate resources to set up a "school management personnel development fund", revise the "management regulations on management personnel's on-the-job study of academic degrees and participation in training", etc., so as to advocate the active participation of management personnel in on-the-job training at various levels or study for higher academic degrees, and to provide the necessary incentives for the successful study of academic degrees. scholarships are also awarded to managers who have successfully obtained academic degrees. in addition, in order to effectively promote the growth of young managers, strengthen the capacity building, broaden the international perspective and enhance the work motivation, the university should grasp the basic law of the growth of managers on the university, select seedlings early, set up the "youth seedling program", and start from the student group, and consider encouraging and selecting outstanding graduates to stay in the university and provide them with better salary and treatment. consider encouraging and selecting outstanding graduates to stay in the university and provide them with better salaries and treatment. in the current managers, the integration of funds within the school to set up a special program for managers, such as: school exchanges, "eagle program", domestic exchanges, "yupu program", international exchanges, "soaring program", etc., to encourage managers to work in the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school, the school. "and so on, to encourage managers to carry out exchanges and learning at home and abroad. in this way, managers have a clear career development path, so that they believe in the development prospects of the school, and can realize their career aspirations and goals in the school. this also confirms the higher needs mentioned by maslow self-actualization, which should be said to be the ultimate goal of college managers for their career. we propose to train managers, in fact, is to prepare them to plan a complete career, in the decades of personal growth, we can choose to simply work, can also choose to perform quickly, but will give them a sense of fulfillment and happiness should be to treat their work as a career, and the career as a lifelong pursuit of the goal. therefore, it is crucial to learn and experience the hierarchy of needs theory well in the construction of the training mechanism of college managers. (2) incentive mechanism-restarting the title promotion channel and realizing job grading. in order to further promote the construction of research-oriented and pioneering managers, under the condition that the staff grade system can not be implemented smoothly and effectively, consider restarting the management title evaluation system, that is to say, college managers have the dual status of professional and technical personnel and managers, and the positions employed are management positions, which can be promoted according to the grade of management positions. at the same time, those who meet the conditions for evaluation of professional and technical level may participate in the evaluation of professional and technical level. through the evaluation of the personnel can be appointed to professional and technical positions, and refer to the "two-shoulder" personnel management. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 152 specifically, the school party, government, labor, youth and women and other departments of the management staff into the university management research series, ideological and political education series and other corresponding series of evaluation, systematic phases and batches to achieve the title of management staff grading. participate in the evaluation of college managers should have good ideological and political quality and professional ethics, as a teacher, dedicated to their work. the ideological and political quality of poor performance, contrary to the professional ethics of the personnel, the implementation of teacher ethics "one vote veto" system. job setup should be primary, intermediate, deputy senior and senior, each level of tenure, academic degrees, work performance, scientific research achievements, annual assessment and other corresponding requirements, in the management of outstanding contributions, may be qualified to participate in the evaluation. the complete evaluation and recruitment methods to smooth the college management personnel and college teachers and other professional and technical positions between the normal job exchange channel, college management personnel exchanges to teachers and other professional and technical positions, in line with the conditions of job appointment can be transferred to teachers and other professional and technical positions, and secondly, colleges and universities have also strengthened the management personnel appointed to professional and technical positions on the assessment, to the job clear responsibilities and tasks and standards of work, highlighting the performance of management and research work. in the second place, universities have also strengthened the appraisal of managers appointed in professional and technical positions, clarifying the duties and tasks and work standards with the positions, highlighting the performance appraisal of management and research work. at the same time, with the corresponding personnel salary and other system adjustments, thus realizing the managers of the title series and job level series "two legs to walk". 5. conclusion with the "double first-class" construction on the agenda, the requirements for university management personnel are getting higher and higher, in order to make the management personnel's ability and quality and the "double first-class" construction requirements match, the author proposes that it is necessary to build a matching training mechanism, and hopes that through this initiative, the ability and quality of university management personnel can be effectively improved. i hope that through this initiative can effectively enhance the ability and quality of university management personnel, to alleviate the predicament of not being able to go up, not being able to rush out. this paper analyzes the status quo, characteristics and problems of university management personnel training through literature research method, comparative research method, case study method, etc., and searches for the deep-seated reasons, and puts forward the countermeasures for the training under the background of "double first-class" in the perspective of new public management theory. the reasons for this series of problems lie in the insufficient concept of strategic human resource management, insufficient flexibility www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 153 in the construction of managerial team, and the lack of institutional mechanism in colleges and universities. therefore, a comprehensive top-level design and supporting policies need to be constructed quickly. under the background of "double first-class", we should explore the construction of a matching mechanism for the cultivation of management personnel in colleges and universities: to gather consensus, innovate the culture, and improve the dedication of management personnel; to enhance the awareness, create the atmosphere, and optimize the experience of management personnel's life and work on campus; to improve the planning, strengthen the function, and strictly control the entrance gate of the management personnel; to improve the system, and strengthen the cultivation, and guide the value of the work of the management personnel. cultivation, guiding the work value orientation of managers. it is hoped that it can influence the cultivation of management personnel in colleges and universities and make optimization and improvement. references baldwin, r. g., & chronister, j. l. (2001). teaching without tenure: policies and practices for a new era. baltimore and london: john hopkins university press. baltimore and london: john hopkins university press. baltimore and london: john hopkins university press. (2001). [65] wayne f cacsio. managing human resource. ny: mcgraw llill, 1995. bevan, n. (n.d.). quality in use: meeting user needs for quality. burton, r. c. (1994). in higher education systems a cross-national study of academic organizations. zhejiang: hangzhou university press. cao, h. (2020). student participation in internal university governance: motivation, path and its realization. journal of national college of education administration, 2020(02), 48-55. liu, x. y. (2019). exploration of enhancing the internal governance capability of local colleges and universities under the background of big data. china higher education, 2019(20), 41-42. maslow. (1954).motivation and personality. new york: harper and row. niu, f. r. (2019). the value implications and improvement paths of modernizing the governance structure of colleges and universities under the perspective of polycentric governance theory. education review, 2019(04), 8-11+134. ny: mcgraw llill. (1995). [66] buckwheat. performance management. beijing: china standard press. sheppeck, m. a., & jack, m. (n.d.). strategic hr configuration and organization performance human resource management. xu, d. q., & wang, w. b. (2020). research on students' participation in college governance from the perspective of subject self-consciousness. modern education management, 2020(01), 37-43. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 78 original paper acitespace-based analysis of international advances of critical discourse analysis study (2014-2023) sixu liu1 1 xi’an international studies university, school of english studies, china received: february 19, 2025 accepted: march 16, 2025 online published: march 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n2p78 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n2p78 abstract critical discourse analysis (cda) has developed into the second decade of the 21st century, there is necessary to visualize their evolution and envision their future development. by utilizing the visualization software citespace, this paper makes a scientometric analysis of ssci journal papers in web of science core database of critical discourse analysis (cda) from 2014-2023. through analyzing the quantity of journal papers, the high productivity authors, the research institutions, published journals and the research focus key words, the study tries to figure out the general trend and characteristics of the international cda researches and depicts a holistic insight of international cda researches in recent 10 years. the paper presents the latest international research advances and tendency as well as provides references for the cda study in the future. keywords critical discourse analysis, citespace, research advances, scientometric analysis 1. introduction the birth of critical discourse analysis (cda) can be tracked back to 1979, in which rodge fowler with his colleagues first proposed a new orientation of linguistics, critical linguistics in their book language and control (tian, 2019). since 1980s, critical discourse analysis has been developed into a brand-new phase under the great contribution made by fairclough and other critical linguists (mu, 2016). “why is the language the way it is?” is the central question of critical discourse analysis. it focuses on the meaning of the discourse, and at the same time it gives a vital emphasis on the production of the discourse. cda aims to find out the latent influence of ideology behind the linguistic forms. there are three basic focuses of cda: discourse and ideology, discourse and control & power, discourse and society (zhang, 2012). in recent years, critical discourse analysis has been applied into various discourse studies, which has made a great achievement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 this paper makes an investigation on the ssci journal papers of critical discourse analysis in web of science core database from 2014-2023. the study is assisted with the visualization software citespace to form a whole skeleton of the latest research advances and tendency of international cda researches in these 10 years. and the study will answer the following question: (1) what are the publishing trends in the field? (2) which are the most productive authors and institutions in cda research? (3) which are the journals that publish the most cda research? what are the categories of journals that are published? (4) what are the hotspots and emerging trends of cda study? 2. research method and data source the analytical tool to be used in this study, citespace 6.3.r1, was developed by chaomei chen, drexel university, usa. it is a tool which can visualize the characteristic and trend as well as the difference within the development of some researches in one field on the basis of a deep analysis of citation and co-citation footprint in the reference (chen, 2006). the citation and co-citation of an article is defined as intellectual bases. by implementing the citespace, the emergent and underlying research issues can be revealed, which refers to research front or research advances. the data source in this paper all comes from web of science core collection and index is from social science citation index (ssci) and science citation index expended. the searching topic is set as “critical discourse analysis” and document type is “article”. language is selected as “english”. the publication data ranges from 2014 to 2023. based on these searching conditions, 5625 articles can be retrieved. after filtering out some irrelevant data, this paper has final data of 2845 cda articles. these sources were downloaded and kept as txt format preparing for the following citespace analysis. then, the data are imported into the citespace 6.3.r1, set the relevant parameters, set the time slicing to “2014-2023”, and years per slice to “1” year. after the software runs, the several visualized co-occurrence knowledge graphs are generated. the next section will give a detailed analysis. 3. results and discussion on the basis of previous preparation, the data has been analyzed through a scientometric analysis and got the quantitative results. this section will make a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of these results, which mainly focuses on volume of publication, highly productive authors, research institutions and journals of publication as well as the co-occurrence of key words, trying to present a general trend and research advances in recent 10 years of international cda studies. 3.1 volume of publication according to the annual number of publications, we can see the recent publication showing an upward trend. based on figure.1, it shows that from 2014-2023, the number of journal publication are on a rise. there are slight fluctuations in some years, however, in recent 10 years, all the annual number of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 80 publications is over 100 and even more. especially, the studies in cda field have exceeded 300 in recent 3 years. these data fully indicate that critical discourse analysis study continues to receive attention from international researchers, and seems to become a rather hot field in recent 3 years. figure 1. number of publications of cdaresearch from 2014-2023 3.2 highly productive authors after a general look of the trend of the publication of cda journal papers, this section will discuss two detailed information, highly productive authors and the research institutions of cda studies. with the analysis of collected data in terms of the authors who has published more than 6 ssci articles in wos, figure 2 can be organized, from which we can see that david machin, goran eriksson, gavin brookes, etc., are the main researchers in the field of international cda studies in recent 10 years. these scholars have published over 10 ssci journal papers in the field of cda studies either independently or collaboratively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 81 figure 2. map of authors table 1. top 10 authors in terms of cdaresearch from 2014 to 2023 rank authors publications 1 machin, david 22 2 brookes, gavin 11 3 eriksson, goran 11 4 hart, christopher 9 5 yu, yating 8 6 wang, guofeng 8 7 bouvier, gwen 7 8 petre breazu 7 9 nartey, mark 7 10 kuper, ayelet 6 david machin who is working in the field of critical discourse analysis and multimodality makes a great contribution to the refinement of multimodal critical discourse analysis theory and many of his works are among the most cited references. in 2013, he gave a detailed introduction to the framework of multimodal critical discourse studies. furthermore, david has explored which concepts, theories and process of multimodal analysis are suitable for the need of critical discourse studies, which has become the most cited reference of him (2016). and in another paper, he emphasized multimodal critical discourse analysis (mcda) can best draw out the ideology as it is realized through different www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 82 semiotics resources (machin, 2006). gavin brookes is a scholar who is interested in corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and health communication. gavin tends to apply a corpus-based approach to critical analysis, and he explored the language of violent jihad, focusing upon lexis encoding concepts from islam (machin, 2020). goran eriksson is a professor of media and communication studies. his research is situated within the field of discourse studies. he has written extensively in the areas of politics and media. he has studied a swedish reality television adopting a mcda approach (goran, 2015). and in 2019, he made research on the making of healthy and moral snacks through performing a mcda of a corporate storytelling (goran, 2019). all the papers mentioned above has been cited over 20 times by other researchers. thus, from these three scholars who have published the most ssci journal papers in recent 10 years, it can be seen that the more cutting-edge research field cda studies mainly focus on multimodal critical discourse analysis, corpus-based critical discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis of social media. 3.3 research institutions in this section, this paper counted the institutions which have published the related papers. based on figure 3, it can be found that the main research institutions of cda are university of london, lancaster university, orebro university, hong kong polytechnic university, university of sydney, and so on. most of this university are known for their linguistic program, such as university of london and lancaster university, which are prestigious institution for foreign languages studies and have the advantage of implementing cda studies. however, the institution like, orebro university, is not famous for their foreign language studies but other programs, such as medicine, computer science, and so on. they also process a high publication of cda paper which attributed to the scholars from those universities are likely to make a mixture of cda and other programs. the scholar mentioned above, gavin brookes, who utilized corpus-based approach to make a critical discourse analysis is the scholar from orebro university and the publication of whom are the best two. it can be seen that the cda studies have a tendency to cross-disciplinary research. figure 3. map of institutions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 table 2. top 15 institutions in terms of cdaresearch from 2014 to 2023 rank institutions publications 1 university of london 68 2 lancaster university 55 3 university of toronto 54 4 orebro university 44 5 hong kong polytechnic university 40 6 university of sydney 39 7 university of queensland 36 8 university system of ohio 32 9 california state university system 31 10 pennsylvania commonwealth system of higher education (pcshe) 31 11 university of texas system 31 12 state university system of florida 30 13 university of nottingham 30 14 monash university 27 15 university of melbourne 27 3.4 journals of publication the journals with the highest number of publications were also counted. figure 4. top 16 journals in terms of cdaresearch from 2014-2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 through the classification statistics of ssci journals, it is found that international critical discourse analysis is mainly published in the following ten categories of journals: communication (745), education educational research (473), linguistics (400), language linguistics (332), sociology (260), women’s studies (153), social sciences interdisciplinary (149), psychology multidisciplinary (139), public environmental occupational health (126), political science (124). in the figure.4, there are the journals whose publication has been over 20. on the basis of the statistics of ssci journals, several characteristics of cda studies can be found: first, critical discourse analysis has gradually become an independent field of research in recent 10 years for that in figure. 4, the journal with the highest publication is critical discourse studies which concentrates on critical research that advances people’s understanding of how discourse figures in social processes, social structures, and social change. the related studies are on a rise. second, critical discourse analysis is mainly in the field of linguistic studies but always a transdisplinary one. in the ten categories of journals, there are two linguistic journals with relatively high publication of the papers. although other journals have published in the educational, psychological or healthy journals instead, which are not within the categories of linguistics, the researches are centered on the discourse studies within different contexts, such as the educational discourse, discourse in social media, and so on, which makes their study always have to do with the linguistics. in this sense, critical discourse analysis is an important discipline of linguistics, also interdisciplinary with other disciplines. third, cda is featured with social and discursive characteristics. the top five journals are critical discourse analysis (156), discourse analysis (99), journal of language and politics (79), discourse communication (74) and feminist media studies (48). these journals focus on the interaction between the discourse and society, and tries to explore the production or reasonable interpretation of various discourse under different contexts, which clarify the social and discursive characteristics of critical discourse analysis. fourth, scholars in cda, nowadays, pay more attention to gender research. in the categories of those journals, women’s studies are ranked in top ten and published papers are up to 153. and the related journals in top 20 are feminist media studies (48) and gender and language (23). 3.5 hotspots and research advances www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 85 figure 5. map of keywords in this study, the data are imported into the citespace 6.3.r1, set the relevant parameters, set the time slicing to “2014-2023”, and years per slice to “1” year. after the software running, the visualized co-occurrence knowledge graph of the research focus key words is generated in figure 5. it can be seen that the most obvious node is “critical discourse analysis”. to gain more detailed information, the statistical data of keywords in terms of frequency is listed in table 3. table 3. top 30 keywords in terms of cdaresearch from 2014 to 2023 rank keywords freq rank keywords freq 1 cda 868 16 climate change 67 2 discourse analysis 285 17 higher education 66 3 discourse 261 18 experiences 65 4 politics 217 19 care 61 5 media 158 20 construction 60 6 policy 134 21 news 60 7 gender 128 22 coverage 58 8 education 122 23 corpus linguistics 57 9 identity 118 24 perceptions 56 10 social media 111 25 management 55 11 health 107 26 mcda 54 12 women 101 27 work 52 13 race 99 28 communication 51 14 language 91 29 culture 51 15 power 77 30 impact 45 based on the visualized knowledge graph and detailed statistical data, the hot spot in researches and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 86 focused fields can be perceived and there are several features of international critical discourse analysis: first, the research focusses on the basic constituent element of critical discourse analysis. cda is a form of critical research which seeks to understand how contemporary capitalism in some respects enables but in other respects prevents or limits human well-beings and flourishing, with a view to overcoming or mitigating these obstacles and limits (fairclough, 2010). it focuses on discourse, power and society. the power can be achieved in a discourse which represents an unfair relationship between people. therefore, the power is a noticeable point in cda studies. and the discourse is a social practice. thus, the discourse producer will be an attention, and the identity, gender, race, and management of which will become a discussable topic. this is why these factors (power, identity, race, gender) are hot spots in recent international cda studies. second, the researches focus on interdisciplinary study. in terms of research fields, international study mainly involves the fields of politics, social media, education and environment, etc. cda is first created in the field of applied linguistics and discourse analysis though, fairclough gives that cda should be transdisciplinary analysis and have a transdisciplinary methodology (2010). the cda of social media usually explore a media discourse, such as a news report or the posts on various social platform, to figure out how the discourse achieve an identity construction of individual or a construction of country image, and it also analyzes the ideology of a society behind through interpreting the feature or the deep meaning of some social media discourse. bouvier and zhao take the posts of influencers using parenting hashtags on chinese weibo as an example to study the tension between confucianism and neoliberalism behind the discourse by exploring a mcda (2022). the cda of education which is an important field in cda studies in the past several years and still a focused topic now, the scholars tend to discuss the way the ideology melt into the textbook or curriculum, effecting students’ self-perception, values and so on. hamid and jahan conduct research to critically examines the role of language as medium of instruction in shaping students’ self-perception, worldviews, and identities in a globalizing world (2015). the cda also gives a great attention on power which is always be related to policy. thus, the political discourse is always a hot spot in cda studies. amer and howarth examines the construction of white british muslims as a threat in six national and two muslim british newspapers by drawing on tools from cda (2018). due to the impact of the pandemic, people’s health has become a big concern in recent years. many scholars have done the research on this field. for example, waugh and some scholars try to explore discourses mobilized in discussion of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and purchasing amongst residents of a middle-upper class neighborhood in winnipeg, canada (2023). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 figure 6. the history of appearance (2014-2023) third, female is a crucial focused group in cda research. with the feminist movement prevailing over the world, the awakening of women’s consciousness reaches its climax. the women and gender issues have got more and more attention by cda scholars. in figure.6, there are the history of appearance of related keywords. it can be seen that gender research has been on the rise from 2014-2023. and a new approach to cda study called feminist critical discourse analysis (fcda) has been utilized since 2020, showing an upward trend. feminist critical discourse analysis was first proposed by michelle m. lazar in her article in 2007. it is a theoretical framework which combines feminist theory with critical discourse analysis and focuses on the ways in which gender and power are constructed and reproduced through language and discourse (lazar, 2007). many scholars apply this approach to study the gender issues and women’s rights through analyzing the different discourse. for example, taher examined how femininity is constructed in the discourse of the kurdistan democratic party of iran (kdpi) by applying feminist critical discourse analysis (2023). fourth, corpus building and multimodal approach have become popular in the field of cda. according to figure. 6, the appearance of corpus linguistics and multimodal critical discourse analysis have an explosion in number in recent three years. multimodal discourse analysis is an approach to discourse which focuses on how meaning is made through the use of multiple modes of communication as opposed to just language (jones, 2021). therefore, the multimodal approach in cda can be the best way to embrace meaning making in multimodal communication. for instance, wang and feng made a study investigating how xi'an, a second-tier developing city in china, constructs its digitalized urban imaginary using the popular social media platform of tiktok (2023). as for the corpus building, it offers studies new approach and tools for evaluating critical discourse (xiao & li, 2021). while cda studies pay attention to examine naturally occurring discourse (wodak & meyer, 2009). thus, a corpus building will allow for the cda study based on naturally occurring linguistics structures and forms rather than on intuitively perceived linguistic phenomenon. for example, brookes adopted a corpus-based approach to cda, examining the discourses that are used by the british press to represent www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 obesity in its coverage of coronavirus disease 2019 (2022). these two approaches provide cda new theories and techniques to conduct research, which could help cda deal with the new social problems and make the analysis completer and more credible. 4. conclusion this paper conducted a review of international cda study utilizing the visualization software citespace to analyze the data gathered from the web of science. the study has yielded the following conclusions with the hope of shedding a light on the way forward for the field. first, in terms of the publication trends, research on cda generally increased from 2014-2023, and it has gained increasing attention from enormous scholars, especially young scholars, and will get more in the future. this is a promising research field which will have more vigorous and diverse development with the efforts of more scholars. second, the analysis of authors and institutions indicates that david machin who make a great contribution in mcda is the most productive author in this period, and lots of his works are the most cited references. in terms of institutions, university of london was the most productive institutions in this regard. meanwhile, lancaster university and toronto university also contributed significantly to the field. third, based on the analysis of journals publication, it can be found that critical discourse studies has the highest publication in this period, which indicates that cda has increasingly become a super-discipline. the journals of publication can be categorized into communication, linguistics, woman’s studies, education educational research, public environmental occupational health, political science, which presents that cda is a transdisciplinary study, which will require a transdisciplinary methodology. fourth, according to the analysis of keywords, the hotspots in the field can be identified, including study of power, identity, social media, politics, education, health care and gender issues and so on. in the 21st century, different social problems call for different concerns which are significantly different from those that were the initial focused of cda. therefore, new theories and approaches need to be applied in the field. therefore, response to the request, new theories and approaches have come into this field, which are the cutting-edge in cda research, i.e. multimodal critical discourse analysis, corpus-based critical discourse analysis and feminist critical discourse analysis. the research methods for conducting cda tend to be diverse and comprehensive. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 2, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 references amer, a., & howarth, c. 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(2021). a bibliometric analysis of critical discourse analysis and its implications. discourse & society, 34(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926521992150 zhang, d. l. (2012). new developments in the theory of discourse analysis and its application. foreign language teaching and research press, 9. zhao, w., & bouvier, g. (2022). where neoliberalism shapes confucian notions of child rearing: influencers, experts and discourses of intensive parenting on chinese weibo. discourse context & media, 45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100561 microsoft word assc-v2n4-p102 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 102 original paper the politics of women’s empowerment in yemen dr. nadia al-sakkaf1* 1 independent researcher, uk * dr. nadia al-sakkaf, independent researcher, uk received: october 20, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 online published: november 11, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p102 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p102 abstract despite the existence of women’s empowerment strategies since the late nineties and qualified women in decision-making positions in charge of implementing them, these strategies failed to significantly improve women’s conditions and the situation of yemeni women in the republic of yemen remains dismal. this article attempts to explain this failure through a mixed-method approach, surveying and interviewing yemeni women leaders who were involved as authority figures or people of influence between 2006 and 2014 in said strategies. findings from this research have strong policy implications on future development and gender equality policies in the country placing the experiences of women as policy makers, activists, advocates at the center of the analysis. keywords yemen, women’s empowerment, policies, development, patriarchy, feminism, political will, gender equality 1. introduction yemeni women remain critically disadvantaged in terms of their health, education, and economic rights compared to men according to several international development indices, such as the wef’s gender gap index, the economist intelligence unit’s women’s economic opportunities index, united nations development programme’s gender inequality index, to state a few. this was not always the case as women enjoyed a range of freedoms and rights in what was known as the people’s democratic republic of yemen (south yemen), especially compared to women in what was known as the yemen arab republic (north yemen) (molyneux, yafai, & mohsen, 1979; kruks, rapp, & young, 1989). the unity of both yemen’s in 1990 resulted in the republic of yemen (roy). the socio-political factors of roy did not help push the women’s movement forward, even more since positions of power in the united country were in the hands of the conservative north. the fact that northern population at the time of unity was three times larger than that of the south, (note 1) did not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 103 published by scholink inc. help either. southern women today complain that they were better off in terms of political rights such as representation in the parliament before unification with the conservative north because the number of female candidates in elections deteriorated rapidly (note 2) compared to the number of voters (shamsheer, 2004). moreover, many southerners were concerned about aspects of traditional yar [north yemen] society such as tribal influence and greater circumscription on the role of women (choueiri et al., 2002). however, since the late nineties, the roy created a number of women-related institutions with the sole purpose of empowering women. it has also appointed women in charge of these institutions and tasked them with promoting and improving the overall situation of yemeni women especially in health, education, and the economy. examples include the women national committee (wnc), a government body created in 1996 to design national strategies for women’s development; the higher council for motherhood and childhood established in 1999; the creation of women’s departments in all ministries and government institutions in 1999; and the introduction of women’s departments in the local governing bodies around the country in 2001. as per the mandate of these departments and institutions, women in leadership positions played the role of gate keepers and acted as intermediaries between the larger female population and yemeni state institutions. in addition to creating organisations concerned with women’s rights and affairs, the yemeni government appointed women as deputy ministers or at least director generals in the health, education, and trade ministries—among other ministries—and tasked them with the responsibility of foreseeing the advancement of women in those fields since the year 2000 onwards, when yemen became party to the millennium development goals. consequently, several policies aiming at women’s empowerment and gender equality on the national level were issued. examples of these are the national strategy for women development designed and implemented by the wnc in 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2015. it has also issued regular reports on the status of women and implementation of the cedaw. other strategies include the national strategy on reproductive health (2006-2010), and many of the national strategies in other sectors included a strong component on women’s empowerment, such as the national agriculture strategy (2012-2016) and the national general secondary education strategy (2007). additionally, one of the main successes of the wnc was integrating a women’s empowerment component in the national plan for socio-economic development and poverty (2006-2010). this component included four main issues: combating violence against women, women’s political participation, economic empowerment for women, and amendments of discriminatory legal texts. similarly, a women’s empowerment component was also included in the 4th 5-year socio-economic development and poverty reduction national plan (2011-2015), also including the same four themes mentioned above. even during the political transition years between 2012 and 2014, which was also a time when the country was going through an economic crisis, gender mainstreaming was proclaimed as a priority, even if only in theory. for example, the transitional program for stability and development (2012-2014) “included a component on women’s empowerment in three main themes: social development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 104 published by scholink inc. (education-health-rights), economic empowerment, and political empowerment.” (women national committee, 2015). despite the existence of qualified women in decision-making positions and the presence of empowerment strategies since the late nineties (al-sakkaf, 2020), these policies failed to significantly improve women’s conditions and the situation of yemeni women in the republic of yemen remains dismal. this article attempts to explain this failure through a mixed-method approach using quantitative and qualitative data collection tools. the research population is women leaders who were involved in women empowerment policies between 2006 and 2014 as implementers and/or persons with influence. since women leaders in positions of authority in government institutions were responsible for designing and implementing women’s empowerment policies and strategies, they presented a reasonable source of information on the dynamics of such policies and their impact on the larger women population. there are many studies on the status of women in yemen, especially quantitative ones producing development indicators. this research differs from such studies in the sense that it focuses on the gender-power dynamics behind the scenes in circles of decision making at the highest levels of government relating to women’s empowerment. it is done from the perspectives of the women leaders’ themselves holds a unique strength in that it grants unprecedented access, and hence inclusion, of a substantial number of yemeni women leaders. the timeframe between 2006 and 2014 was chosen considering the increased attention on women’s empowerment by the government of yemen and international non-governmental organizations funding women related projects in the country. the 2014 limit is due to the armed conflict that engulfed the country until now, such environment is not conducive for the research in hand. findings from this research validate earlier work on women empowerment in yemen attributing the difficulties women face to the constraining socio-cultural traditions. moreover, this research agrees with research that attributes the discrepancy between women’s so-called political empowerment and their lack of access to basic rights in education and healthcare for example, to the practice of “window dressing” (united nations development program, 2005), which the yemeni government practiced similar to other countries especially those of authoritarian regimes, to appeal to international donors (tajali, 2016). however, this research provides new insights into the approach taken by the yemeni government in terms of women’s empowerment policies, indicating that most strategies focused on providing services and improving women’s access to resources, without exerting enough efforts to create behavioral change and social demand for such services. for example, strategies that aim to increase girls’ education by provision of access to schools without addressing the social barriers against girls going and staying in school. similarly, there is a difference between building a road that could improve women’s access to markets and the increase in their agency at home, as the degree of empowerment through increased agency is highly dependent on context and norms that govern the gender relations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 105 published by scholink inc. both in public and private spheres. the findings also show that the desire to achieve gender equality has to be fully owned among decision makers and not just as a reaction to international pressures from donors. additionally, feedback from the women leaders show that they find themselves fighting two battles; one with the patriarchal formal institutions where they work, and the other with the traditional community that requires its women to conform to established societal norms. as a consequence, women leaders found themselves in continuous battles not only with the conservative society they hoped to change, but also with their own institutions where their efforts were directly and indirectly undermined. the findings recommend that to ensure political commitment, there needs to be a strong vibrant women’s movement that is able to hold the politicians accountable as well as create popular support for women pioneers and the feminist agenda at the grassroots level. 2. research methodology, design and analysis understating the complexity of gender and women’s empowerment in yemen requires more than statistical analysis of yemeni women’s empowerment indicators, which is an approach already taken by many international development organisations. therefore, using a mixed-methods approach provided a more comprehensive picture of the issue. the use of multiple methods provided a more holistic and encompassing understanding of the researched issue (jick, 1979). in this research, survey findings were analysed applying quantitative descriptive statistics to show overall trends for a much larger n than the interview population. next, interviews were used to provide a qualitative contextual explanation for the research puzzle. the use of closed ended questions was especially useful in conducting statistical analysis of the data (johnson & reynolds, 2005). moreover, the use of surveys as a technique is argued to facilitate responses more than other methods when it comes to sensitive or personal issues, as some of the reluctant responders could be comforted by the lack of physical contact and feel more at ease typing in their answer than speaking face to face and watching the reaction to their input. considering that the research topic discusses the social power gender relations in a conservative yemeni society and the failure to empower women, this technique became an obvious choice. the multiple choices were designed to provide a range of potential answers within that sub-topic so as to allow the respondents to choose the option that best represents their opinion. several questions had a representation of the likert scale (allen & seaman, 2007), where the respondents chose a degree of their answer ranging from never to always. in some cases, it was a simple dichotomous yes/no choice, however, many of the questions the choices were nominal data with labelled variables as options with no specific order or ranking. this was designed to provide qualitative feedback from the respondents regarding the proposed framework, the results of which guided the interview questions. this was particularly helpful when identifying the potential pathways or sub-mechanisms through which women’s empowerment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 106 published by scholink inc. policies were undermined. the criteria for the research sample selection focused mainly on women who held the position as department head and higher in the relevant institutions. purposive sampling, also called non-probability or judgement sampling, was used since the researched women were identified based on their knowledge and experience and not on an underlying theory. in terms of access to the population, snowball sampling was used iteratively whereby an informant recommends another, and many times multiple snowballs were thrown in different directions to cast a wider net and ensure variety and coverage. iterative sampling was also used since there were aspects of the research topic that unfolded as the research developed. consequently, 186 women leaders took interest and accessed the electronic survey, although only 65 women leaders eventually returned a complete response. these women held public positions ranging from project manager, or head of department, to government minister. also, it included women who worked in the private sector at the top of their businesses, and women who were involved in feminist campaigns and civil rights organisations. the surveys were followed by in-depth elite interviewing with three leading women in politics, education, healthcare, and the economy (dexter, 2006). these were women who were politically influential in gender equality efforts in yemen, as well as those at the highest level of office in health, education, and the economy between 2006 and 2014. they were chosen for their roles in the gender equality agenda, and therefore, elite interviewing was chosen as a technique because it is known for its exploratory nature focusing on the interviewees’ special knowledge and take on the researched issue. through the interviews, the women leaders were prompted to tell their stories from their own perspective on how women’s empowerment was addressed in the political spheres including an analysis of their surrounding dynamics of gender politics. they described how all this reflected on them professionally and personally, and what their contributions as leaders in the women’s empowerment movement were. the interviewees were questioned on aspects relating to their daily lives as women in positions of power and how they pushed on – or not – to achieve their professional and personal goals in their institutions and professional environments. this included an investigation of the obstacles and limitations they faced in their careers because of them being women, and their own interpretation of the reasons behind the failure of women’s empowerment policies, if they agreed with this conclusion. 3. gender politics and women’s empowerment: theoretical framing in terms of yemeni women’s visibility in the political space and in decision-making positions, yemen witnessed a strong trend of high-level appointments of women in positions of authority in various government institutions since the late nineties. the percentage of women in high-level government positions, such as department director and deputy minister, reached 14.46% in 2014 (wnc, 2014), compared to 9.5% in 2008. in 2008, the number of women holding appointed leadership positions were two ministers, two members of the consultative (shoura) council, 27 diplomats serving in missions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 107 published by scholink inc. abroad, 16 deputy ministers, 37 judges, and 72 director generals (wnc, 2009). the highest rank a woman achieved in the judiciary was in 2006, when a female judge was appointed as member of the supreme court. (note 3) in the same year, the supreme national authority for combating corruption was created and headed by a woman. moreover, in 2012, a presidential decree appointed two women in the 9-member supreme committee for elections and referendum, which was the body that monitors elections in the country. these appointments give an indication of the government’s political will to empower women politically. yet when compared to the reality of women in the legal and social domains, it becomes visible that there is much room for improvement. for example, the first reference to women in the constitution is in article (31), which states: “women are the sisters of men. they have rights and duties, which are guaranteed and assigned by shari’ah [islamic jurisprudence] and stipulated by law.” this is an amendment of the 1991 unity constitution, in which article (27) stated: “all citizens are equal before the law. they are equal in public rights and duties. there shall be no discrimination between them based on sex, colour, ethnic origin, language, occupation, social status, or religion.” it could be argued that the change from the 1991 to the current text in the constitution was a deterioration in terms of the state’s attitude towards women. this argument was based on the notion that in the current constitution, women are considered an affiliate (sisters) of men instead of positioned on the same standing. moreover, there is the direct mention of shari’ah as a base of gender rights and duties, which is controversial and ambiguous as it is highly dependent on the interpretation of the religious scholars of the country who are always men. furthermore, this amendment had occurred immediately following the 1994 secession civil war between the traditional north and the liberal south, post their unity in 1990 to form the republic of yemen. consequently, the outcome of the war, in which the conservative north won maintaining the united republic of yemen, largely determined the state’s attitude towards women since. moreover, “the personal status law, the penal code, the citizenship law, the evidence law, and the labour law contain provisions discriminating on the basis of gender” (oecd, 2014). moreover, previous research on gender politics in yemen suggests that aspiring yemeni women feel let down by their political system represented by the political parties whether ruling parties or opposition (yadav, 2009). their grievance was that women were treated as an object of political debate rather than an equal participant. for example, women were welcomed as voters but not as candidates. this observation is not new; the arab human rights development report of 2005 stated that women in power are “often selected from the ranks of the elite or appointed from the ruling party as window dressing for the ruling regimes, especially those that are autocratic, or in response to external pressure.” (undp, 2005, p. 97) in fact, this “window dressing” was clearly described as a tool to appeal to either international players or local voters (tajali, 2016). feminist theorists such as dworkin (1989), moser (1993), malhotra and schuler (2002), and phillips (2003) argued that socially-endorsed inequality, especially in the personal sphere, was an intrinsic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 108 published by scholink inc. cause of women’s lack of empowerment, and that without acknowledging and consequently addressing this inequality, any processes aiming at improving the situation of women would be inadequate. since the very meaning of empowerment is essentially a change in power relations, whereby the less powerful gains more power (kabeer, 1999). it becomes reasonable to conclude that the entry point to women’s empowerment in patriarchal societies, such as yemen, would be to challenge, across all spaces of structural antagonism, existing social values that consider women inferior to men and discriminate against them. therefore, policy makers were expected to design policies to transform the social power balances in the society so as to remove gender disparities as means to achieving women’s empowerment. “unfortunately, the concerns of gender planners have not always centred around women’s empowerment and the transformation of gender relations” (wieringa, 1994). consequently, as a country, yemen finds itself in a conflicting reality between its conservative traditional nature and its attempt to present itself as a modern democracy that empowers women. the institutional and political environment where the women leaders operate represents the structures surrounding women leaders that strengthen—or weaken—their agency and dictate their access to resources and opportunities. political researcher mervet hatem adopted an understanding used in welfare states of scandinavian societies and defined state feminism as “ambitious state programs that introduce important changes in the reproductive and productive roles of women.” this state policy also requires the removal of structural barriers to gender equality and turning the concern and control over women’s welfare from the society through its individuals—mainly the men who hold the dominant social power—to the state as a governing body of all citizens. the bulk of literature on gender and politics considered “women as objects of state policy,” and recognized the role of state policies in constructing gender concepts and relations. consequently, women’s empowerment efforts by policy makers, while visibly publicized as gender equality initiatives in line with the country’s portrayed democratic aspirations, reflect the policymakers’ backgrounds and their predispositions towards social gender-power relations. keeping in mind that they themselves, are part of the gender-power-relations system at the institutional level, and at the personal level in their private lives. this contradiction was reflected in the gender policies in terms of content and sustainability. in her research on the state and gender politics, manea (2012) argued that for authoritarian regimes to survive, they need to strike a balance between their obligations to women as a part of their constituencies and a group of interest internationally, and their need to appease traditional forces that keep the politicians in power. in essence, the yemeni state has been pressured by the international community—mostly western democracies—to promote gender equality as a part of human rights and democratisation initiatives (sreberny, 2000). this included a surge of donor-led development projects by international development organisations (note 4) aiming at improving women-related development indicators, to which the yemeni state was a recipient of funds and an implementer. the yemeni government readily welcomed these interventions, not because of its political position toward gender www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 109 published by scholink inc. equality as such, but rather, it pursued gender politics in an opportunistic manner (manea, 2012). oxaal and baden (1997) argued that in addition to the above, empowerment requires the state to create an environment that strengthens civil society and grassroots-organizations, including marginalized groups, through creating policies that would involve them in the political processes. a connection between empowerment and governance has been established in previous studies indicating that good governance enables empowerment especially of disadvantaged groups such as women, which in turn, when empowered, demand good governance. this notion also suggests the question of whether empowerment is a bottom up or a top town process. since it has been explained earlier that state’s interventions to empower citizens are essential, it can also be argued that empowerment is not only achieved through top-down approaches by the state, as some researchers point out that it is important for the to-be-empowered to have their own social formations in order to collaborate in actions that would eventually bring justice or remove oppression, and hence create empowerment processes from the bottom-up. these researches build the case for the importance of having a strong women-rights’ movements and civil societies to demand empowerment policies and good governance by holding the decision makers accountable to promoting the best interest of the female demographic of their constituencies. okeke-ihejirika and franceschet (2002) indicated that women’s empowerment and the achievement of gender equality were directly proportional to the strength of democracy, which allowed for resilient women’s movements in post pre-democracy political transitions. the argument here is that the stronger the feminist movement is, the more capable it is in demanding women’s rights and pushing gender equality up the agenda of political priorities. simultaneously, the success of the women’s movement as a social phenomenon is heavily dependent on popular support (escobar, 2018), among other elements. therefore, in communities where gender equality is not a popular concept—such as yemen (alsharjabi, 2013), feminist pioneers experience a disconnect not only from the larger population, but more importantly, from women’s groups, who are the primary stakeholders in this issue. simultaneously, while the government and its institutions internally maintained a conservative attitude toward gender equality, yemen’s growing – yet still relatively weak civil society, increasingly created pressure on the state to improve the situation of women. most of these nongovernmental organizations were supported by international donors who were concerned with yemeni women’s conditions. those donors put pressure on the yemeni state directly through its bilateral relations and indirectly by supporting change agents from within the country. consequently, the yemeni state portrayed a positive position toward women’s empowerment and gender equality by granting women political rights, signing international conventions and implementing national policies, and appointing women in positions of power. at the forefront of the women-related international conventions is the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), which was ratified by south yemen in 1984, and endorsed by the united yemen in 1990. yet the various reports on the country’s implementation of any of the international agreements it ratifies, often indicate that there is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 110 published by scholink inc. lack of political support needed to truly implement those agreements and hence improve the situation of women in yemen. moreover, the international donor community took it upon its responsibility to support the yemeni government in achieving its development goals concerning women both technically and financially. for example, in order to improve women’s access to economic opportunity, the government of the netherlands in cooperation with international labor organization created and funded a capacity building project on decent work and gender equality, as part of the decent work country program (2008-2010) worth usd 7.7 mln, for the ministry of social affairs and labor in 2009. another example was the training guide on gender responsive budgeting developed by women national committee with support from oxfam and giz, and which was approved by the ministry of finance and included in the curricula of the finance institute in 2012. additionally, there were several projects aiming at improving the capacity of public servants working in women’s health, and relevant projects were continuously funded by donors, especially the world health organization that spent millions of dollars in the duration between 2006 and 2011 promoting women and reproductive health in joint projects with the ministry of health. it must be clarified that accurate estimations of the total foreign aid spent on women’s health in yemen does not exist since international organizations and embassies are not legally obliged to disclose their expenditure to the yemeni government beyond the signing of intention protocols. moreover, the yemeni government did not keep updated records on its public spending due to political instability, lack of capacity, and lack of transparency, and therefore, much of the statistical data since 2006 are inconsistent and unreliable. 4. the political will to empower women in yemen: research findings the literature on women’s empowerment emphasises the importance of enabling structures for the empowerment process to be successful (ibrahim & alkire, 2007). these include the socio-political environment where women leaders operate. therefore, the socio-political dynamics surrounding women leaders in their workplace significantly affect their success in achieving their goals towards gender equality for the larger women population. positive manifestation of these dynamics include the political leaders’ direct support for women leaders and facilitation of their work, sincere political commitment to the gender equality cause through adoption of policies, and the dedication of resources geared toward changing the social gender power imbalances. despite representing an elite group, yemeni decision makers are in essence part of the larger yemeni community and hence, are influenced by the dominant social values and traditions. their interest in gender equality and women’s empowerment, therefore, would be a result of a combination of their personal beliefs, obligations to their political position as authority figures, and their interaction with influencing forces locally and internationally. this influence becomes problematic when the decision makers’ personal beliefs are in contradiction with their alleged commitment to gender equality. this discordance becomes clearly visible in institutions where women leaders work and try to push forward www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 111 published by scholink inc. the women agenda, withstanding the resistance they face from male colleagues and the political culture in which they operate. an outstanding 95% of the survey participants responded that they experienced a lack of political support for gender equality. within this 95%,, around 51% of respondents said that the state was not sincere in its work on women’s empowerment and it was just a show aimed at appeasing or securing support from donors; 25% agreed that the state could not stand against traditional conservative forces and hence endorsed the social gender power imbalances; and 19% said that the state superficially worked on women’s empowerment and did not truly address the issue of gender discrimination that prevented women’s progress. figure 1. are state policies the reason behind the lack of concrete progress in yemeni women’s empowerment? to this end, four inter-related dynamics within the political system had a strong impact on women’s empowerment policies in yemen. these are: patriarchal culture with institutions, window-dressing as a low cost solution to comply with international pressures to empower women, limited-impact empowerment policies, and inadequate grassroot support for women leaders. 4.1 the informal culture of formal institutions this aspect pertains to the cultural spill-over from the social domain to political institutions. muñoz boudet, petesch, and turk (2013) argue that formal structures and organisational cultures are influenced by dominant social traditions and values. institutional regulations and informal rules are shaped by the belief systems of those in charge as well as the dominant majority in the workplace (appadurai, 2004). around 23% of the surveyed women leaders said that the management in their professional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 112 published by scholink inc. environment was hostile to their success, while 34% explained that their management was indifferent and did not interact much with them. only 15% said they felt that their bosses supported them and 20% said that the entire work environment was positive giving them a feeling of support from both management and colleagues. another relevant question was regarding the respondents’ familiarity and access to top leadership in their institutions. only 15.63% said that they had a good relationship and received support from the highest levels of management. the remaining respondents ranged from ‘i don’t know who they are’, to ‘i know them and have easy access’, as explained in the chart below: figure 2. how do you perceive your relation to top leadership in your institution in terms of access and support? nonetheless, aspects of institutional support to women leaders cover more than direct support through endorsement and recognition, as it also included the facilitation of success through dedication of resources. it is both emotional and material and the women leaders’ experiences indicated that they faced more challenges in accessing resources than in being praised or recognised. for example, dr. nafisa al-jaifi former president of the higher council for motherhood and childhood, explained that political leaders and decision makers portrayed a positive attitude toward projects that would improve women’s health, such as supporting reproductive health projects, family planning, and health facilities targeting women’s health needs. yet, this was not accompanied by sufficient financial resources for the implementation. additionally, she said that the support women leaders got from their institutions was highly dependent on the attitude the top leadership had toward gender equality. interestingly, the finding showed that the support/resistance women leaders experienced was dependent on their level of authority or perceived power, in the sense that the more senior the women’s position www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 113 published by scholink inc. was, the more resistance she faced from her male colleagues and male subordinates. another interesting finding relating to women leaders’ interaction within her working environment was that they found that so long as the efforts to empower women did not pose as a critical threat to the social power gender relations, they and the women behind them were supported even if only superficially. this was because the “yemeni cultural system is inherently biased against women especially in the rural areas, and this is reflected even in the government institutions and at the leadership level because it is influenced by the culture,” according to arwa othman, former minister of culture. dr. bilkisabuosba added that patriarchy was the main reason for hindering women’s empowerment. “i would say that the most formidable challenge to women’s empowerment are the social values that discriminate against women even at the highest decision-making levels,” she said. “the yemeni society presents itself as protector of women but in reality, what it does is enforce constraints preventing women from attaining their rights or achieving their personal agencies.” as mentioned above, this patriarchal attitude towards yemeni women becomes more visible when the woman is perceived as a threat directly because of her position of authority, or because of the potential impact her work on women’s empowerment can create in real life. for example, dr.eshraq al-hakimi explained that during working in the education sector prior to her appointment as deputy minister of education, she assumed that by becoming deputy minister she would be able to better influence policy and improve the status of girls’ education than through her previous less-senior positions. contrary to this assumption, she discovered that for yemeni women it was harder to achieve results as a female senior official than it was for her at lower levels because of the strong resistance and dominance of patriarchy. “i feel alone as i see the male senior officials disrupting my efforts to improve girls’ education”, she said. dr. bilkis abu osba, professor of politics and gender and ceo of awam research foundation, explained that even in terms of space for women to share the decision-making positions in the education or academic sectors there is high resistance against women’s career development to become deans of colleges or heads of departments at the universities. “there would be many qualified women who deserve the promotion but either the senior leadership of the academic institution would not want to give them the space, or the women themselves would not be confident enough to demand and fight for their right to be promoted,” abu osba said. she recalled the outcome of the national dialogue conference (note 5) (ndc) in 2013 for a 30% women’s quota for decision-making positions, and how she and members of the ndc who were also in academia decided to push for an implementation of this quota in higher education. however, they faced resistance from the management as well as from the women candidates who were discouraged from putting themselves out there or present themselves as deserving of this quota. “we discovered that there was no genuine political will to implement the 30% quota, and with the ndc outcomes not being translated into an approved constitution, we lack a legal standing to demand this quota even if we found the women who were willing to nominate themselves,” she explained. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 114 published by scholink inc. amal basha, director of sisters arab forum for human rights (saf), agreed with this conclusion, stating that pervasive negative cultural conceptions of women as less capable than men remains a challenge for women and a barrier to attain senior positions. “unfortunately, only cosmetic-minimal representation is allowed, and even then, it is confined to women affiliating to the ruling political party/ies,” she said. consequently, despite the progress made to increase women’s presence in public and political spheres, the narration of the women leaders in positions of authority explained that authority does not directly translate into power, as many of those women leaders found themselves negotiating their roles with male colleagues and even subordinates who defied their orders. hooriamashour, former minister of human rights, explained that the state’s commitment was not always genuine and decision makers were often influenced by the traditional social power groups. “it was a very hard struggle because we [gender equality advocates] were working against the tide,” she said. “even when we managed to pass laws or strategies in support of women, there would be a problem with implementation either because of lack of political commitment or dedicated budget.” likewise, jamela al-raiby, former deputy minister of health, admitted that on many occasions, the director of the finance department, who is hierarchically below her, often discarded her instructions even though they were in line with her role and authority. “this finance director was a very traditional man who was also a preacher in a mosque. i soon realised that he was not very happy with me being a woman in a senior position or even with the concept of women working in public in general. the word gender to him was synonym with the devil himself,” she said. 4.2 authoritarian regimes and window-dressing despite the state’s policy of appointing women in visible political positions, the women leaders—whose mere existence in authority was a credit to the state—explained that this trend is superficial low-cost response to donor pressure to promote gender equality. in this research, more than half of the surveyed sample said that the state’s gender policies were not genuine in creating a difference in women’s lives but were directed towards the donors to give them a shallow image of yemeni women’s progress. former culture minister arwa othman said that the appointments of women to senior positions were merely decorative, and the women in authority found themselves victims of the very political system that supposedly empowered them. furthermore, this finding resonates with manea’s (2012) explanation of authoritarian regimes, as around 22% of the survey responses said that the state cannot challenge the social forces that discriminate against women because of their ability to remove the politicians from power. according to amal basha, director of sisters arab forum for human rights, in an authoritarian regime, such that which exists in yemen, the gender concept is a suspicious one. it is perceived as a threat to the political structure of the state and moreover as an imported western concept. “traditional and conservative forces who are strong and gaining power over time are declaring jihad against gender equality promoters,” she said. “female activists are in a real and serious battle with conservatives to achieve www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 115 published by scholink inc. gender equality.” former minister of human rights hooria mashour explained that sometimes she was appalled that she had to struggle to gain the support of highly educated male officials for gender equality, some of whom have had their fair share of exposure and were even educated abroad. behind closed doors, some of the friendlier officials explained that it came down to resource scarcity, as the country is going through difficult economic times and there were other priorities. moreover, she was told that promoting the cause of gender equality was against the culture and politicians risked angering the conservative forces who helped keep them in power. dr.nafisa al-jaifi, former president of the higher council for motherhood and childhood explained that politicians are wary of being associated with projects or initiatives that visibly challenge the traditional gender values. consequently, politicians would leave women leaders and activists to fend for themselves in the face of the backlash from conservative forces. “in the early marriage campaign, the female advocates for a law to ban child marriages were opposed and even attacked. they were labelled as infidels and accused of promoting a western agenda against islamic principles,” she said. “if the issue at hand deeply concerns the social traditional values of the yemeni society especially regarding gender roles, it faces extreme resistance. the further the issue is from the gender power relations the more likely it is to pass without resistance.” 4.3 gender policies and the redistribution of social power this finding relates to the requirement that for women’s empowerment policies to work, they should address the gender power imbalances in the society. the findings from the survey and interviews indicated that there is consensus among the respondents—many of whom have played various roles in implementing women’s empowerment projects in education, healthcare, and the economy – that projects aimed at improving the situation of women in specific fields without addressing the socially-embedded causes of the gender gap in the first place do not have an effective or lasting impact on women’s empowerment. feedback from the research sample indicates that women leaders had to camouflage gender equality efforts as development projects or abandon them altogether in favour of short-term development targets. for example, former minister of human rights, hooriamashour said that when she was working in the women national committee (wnc), she realised that her work was cut out for her as there was a huge resistance to the concept of gender equality in yemen. it was considered a western-imposed controversial value that had to be fought by conservative religious groups. she and the wnc team decided to lobby for gender equality without confrontation and replaced the term with women’s empowerment, which was less controversial. however, even using women’s empowerment as an objective faced resistance by both government institutions and the public because of the dominance of patriarchal culture and a social power imbalance in favour of men. in terms of empowerment efforts and social norms, both surveys and interviews indicated that the various women’s empowerment efforts approved by the government between 2006 and 2014, although aimed at improving women’s conditions, did not enjoy full support from the decision makers either in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 116 published by scholink inc. terms of financial resources, or in the form of championship at the national level in a way that would have created a social impact. most of the respondents felt there was much to be improved on in terms of the state’s handling of women’s empowerment, and that policies were superficial and aimed at donors rather than a serious attempt at addressing gender inequality. comments from the survey indicated that “interest in women’s issues is superficial and not substantial,” and that “the state’s policies and laws were not supportive of women and there wasn’t real political will to change the social attitude toward women or to change the many injustices in the local laws.” the results of the interviews agreed with this conclusion. despite the various structural attempts, donor support, and evidence of staggering needs, yemeni women’s empowerment remained a low priority in the political agenda and was especially ignored in recent years with the instability and armed conflict dominating the country today. “the gender policies were shallow and were not accompanied by projects on the ground that aimed at creating behavioural change. moreover, the approach to women’s empowerment was not holistic or sustainable,” said amal basha director of the sisters arab forum for human rights. the effect of this was visible through the design and focus of women’s empowerment governmental efforts. “we often focused on the service delivery and not on the demand side. in many of our strategies we could have focused more on behavioural change,” said jamela al-raiby, former deputy minister of health. “we did do a media campaign on reproductive health, but i recognise that it was not enough to change attitudes. our health policies also have weaknesses in baseline research, monitoring, and evaluation in order to see the impact we made.” similarly, former culture minister arwa othman said that most of the proclaimed changes in women’s conditions were temporary and easily reversible because they did not represent real change in the cultural values or societal norms. “you see it easily when there is any change in the political or economic situation or even when donors stop their projects,” she said. “the so-called transformations or empowerment vanishes immediately.” consequently, the women leaders find themselves pushed to implement projects—funded by donors—that do not create a difference in reality because they were superficial and did not affect the cultural value system. “women’s empowerment has to come from within the government, and the donors can support the process of cultural change, but they are not responsible for it, nor can they do it, it has to be a national policy to which the state has to be genuinely committed,” said former culture minister arwa othman. furthermore, the resistance toward initiatives that would potentially challenge the social power relations was not limited to government institutions but included other stakeholders such as the private sector. dr.amat al-razzak hummed, former minister of social affairs and labour, said that “one of the main obstacles against the working women’s directorate in the ministry was the lack of cooperation from some of the private sector companies, which did not comply with the dignified working conditions policy’s recommendations and did not carry out supportive measures for working women,” she said. “we tried to change the businessmen’s attitudes toward women in the economic sector www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 117 published by scholink inc. through awareness initiatives and lobbying through unions and syndicates. but in general, men usually have the highest salaries and leadership positions in the private sector, which is a reflection of gender discrimination in that sector.” furthermore, research published by the working women directorate showed a prevailing attitude in the yemeni society that a woman’s place was at home, and that there were dominant cultural values that deprived women of equity and access to capital such as land ownership. dr. nafisa al-jaifi, said that from her experience, campaigns combating early marriage faced great opposition and that it was turned into a power struggle between political rivals. dr. al-jaifi’s added that there was insufficient political support for women leaders to prepare legal reforms for a variety of women-related issues, including inheritance, divorce, and early marriage. she said that unfortunately, despite efforts, the religious political opposition was a serious obstacle that prevented the implementation of the reforms. survey responses concurred with this finding showing that the laws did not reflect the commitments the state made to yemeni women or the international community. around 44% of the respondents said that there was no equality between men and women in the laws, and 53% said that the laws were not the problem, rather the problem lied in implementation. the issue of adapting the local laws to international women rights treaties, mainly the cedaw, was a controversial one in the yemeni society precisely because of the dilemma authoritarian regimes face as described in the previous section. the women leaders who attained senior official positions, such as those in the interview sample, said they witnessed this dilemma personally. during her work in the women national committee, hooria mashour explained that there were several efforts to help the yemeni authorities identify the legal barriers against gender equality. however, even though the laws were identified, only a few of them were actually amended, which indicated a strong resistance by the parliament to eliminate discrimination against women in the legal texts. “had there been political will at the highest level to genuinely support women, this would not have been the case since the ruling party had a majority in the parliament and could have easily passed any amendments it desired. this actually happened several times in the past regarding other matters unrelated to women,” mashour said. 4.4 yemeni women leaders between two battles the struggle yemeni women leaders faced as pioneers of the feminist movement in yemen was clearly described through the interviews and survey responses. this was indicated by their comments on the disillusionment they faced in their professional environment, i.e. from the political leadership. the interesting finding was that women leaders expressed an additional let down by their own communities at the grassroots level, including some women’s groups and the women population in general. furthermore, when asked about potential explanations for the failure of women’s empowerment policies in yemen, some of the survey respondents commented that the weakness of a women’s movement has contributed to this failure, as it was not strong enough to hold the politicians accountable to their promises to women. for example, a respondent commented: “the weak women’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 118 published by scholink inc. movement and its fragmentation has added to the failure of women’s empowerment policies. this fragmentation in the civil society is actually a reflection of the disintegration of society as a whole.” to this end, fawzia nasher, of the businesswomen council, said that she realised early on that strength was in numbers, and therefore, creating strong women networks was an early objective in her career. “the more women we have in the business sector, the stronger we are as an entity and so we can demand change and ensure its sustainability,” she said. “the problem was that the culture does not encourage women’s presence in the public sector and so women themselves shy away from opportunities because they are afraid of what they will lose socially, or of the challenges they will have to face by breaking the stereotypes.” she created the first database for yemeni businesswomen and made sure that women among the general public, who had an interest in becoming entrepreneurs or entering the economic sector, knew there was a body to support them. “we need to make the yemeni society ready to accept women as empowered independent individuals equal to men,” she said. “unless this happens, all our efforts will remain incomplete.” similarly, dr. bilkis abu osba, of sana’a university, explained that a part of the woman leader’s power comes from the support she receives from her female colleagues. “it is not only that a woman leader should have sufficient capacity or agency, but more so, to be taken seriously many times she has to have support from other women leaders, who have her back, and as a collective group, demand women’s rights,” she said. dr.abuosba further explained that women’s individual capacity is not enough, the weakness of the yemeni women’s movement greatly limits the impact a woman’s agency has in her workplace. an additional problem as dr. abu osba explained, was that even highly qualified women such as university professors did not always support women’s empowerment or gender equality. “it is sad to see that women’s empowerment was not always a priority even for educated women, such as academics or lecturers who would rather not be involved in any activity demanding social change or empowerment of women even if it was women’s empowerment in the education system, which they were part of,” she said. dr. abu osba emphasised the role of civil society as more significant than any other sector to create change in the yemeni society in favor of women. findings from the interviews emphasised this point by explicitly mentioning the relation between the yemeni women’s movement and decision makers. amal basha, of the sisters arab forum for human rights, explained that the voices of feminists and human rights activists were scattered and did not receive much grassroots support compared to the more traditional and conservative rhetoric. “our collective impact is weak,” she explained. “and we always faced defamation, opposition-campaigns, and protests against us and our demands… the women’s organisations are also not mature enough nor are they sufficient in numbers.” another dimension of this issue was highlighted by lamia al-eryani, who said that the political fragmentation at the top level often trickled down to middle and lower levels of management. this made women’s empowerment a subject to the whims of the decision makers and their genuine interest—or lack thereof—in gender equality. “this was compounded by the lack of women’s presence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 119 published by scholink inc. at the lower levels at the ministry, which were closer to the public, and which resulted in a disconnect between women’s presence at the highest levels and that at the lower, almost grassroots levels,” al-eryani said. from her perspective, women’s visibility across the ministry’s various sections and levels was limited not because there weren’t many qualified women, but rather because of the persistent traditional attitude against women’s abilities that grew stronger the closer one gets to the general community. in fact, findings showed that as the management ladder goes down, attitudes toward gender equality and women’s empowerment tend to become more negative. dr. amat al-razzak hummed said that it was not a problem with the top-level politicians per se, as there was political commitment to women’s empowerment through the creation of the women national committee and its various women departments in all ministries, and the support of nongovernmental organisations such as the yemeni women’s union. as such, when women’s issues were discussed at the senior leadership levels, there would be a positive response and interest in women’s welfare, but the actual hindrance would come from the middle and lower levels at the implementation levels. “for example, when deciding the budgets of all departments of the ministry with the corresponding authority at the ministry of finance, a decision would be agreed on to a certain funding for women’s issues,” she explained. “but when money is to be dispersed and the funding is to be made, the agreed amount reduces significantly.” it could be argued at this point that had the top-level leadership sincerely believed in the cause of women’s empowerment, they would have ensured that their directives were followed through. however, as discussed in the earlier sections, politicians find themselves reluctant to live to their commitments to gender equality efforts in fear of the backlash from conservative forces, as well as for some, their lack of genuine interest in gender equality because of their personal beliefs. yet perhaps a strong women’s movement could have held the politicians accountable rivalling the pressure politicians faced from traditional powers. moreover, findings revealed that the collective support for gender equality even among the women themselves was highly relevant to their direct involvement in the women’s empowerment work especially at the highest levels. this means that in the case of most yemeni women, unless their professional interests were aligned with the gender equality cause, they would not be motivated to support women’s empowerment efforts or the women/people behind them. as the interviews revealed, the concept of gender equality was not a popular one not only with the male dominated political circles but even among the population of yemeni women themselves. amal basha said that “many of the women who were not in decision-making positions did not really support women’s empowerment … and did not adopt women’s causes.” she added that the sheer number of modern thinkers was minimal compared to traditional conservatives and this meant that culturally, the yemeni society may not have been ready to be supportive of feminist pioneers. additionally, dr. bilkis abu osba explained that until there is a strong women’s movement made of relentless women who demanded their rights and had the courage to be at the forefront of the resistance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 120 published by scholink inc. to patriarchy, women’s empowerment will always be incomplete and reversible. she recalled an example in sana’a university when there was a vacancy in the political studies department. the best candidate was a woman, but the department’s management wanted to appoint a man instead. when dr.abuosba and some of her female colleagues stood their ground and demanded that the woman candidate get the job as she was clearly more deserving, the management relented, and the woman was given the position. arwa othman agreed. “change can only occur if there is a strategic vision that builds civil society and creates an environment for development and progress,” she said. othman added that the education system endorses the cultural biases and does not encourage creativity and individuality. “we should not expect much from the masses because they are not given the education that would create a strong civil society or a strong women’s movement,” she said. “unless there is change at the strategic level that builds a country that uplifts the entire society, we should not expect a real improvement in women’s conditions.” 5. conclusion findings from this research conclude that women’s empowerment in yemen is a complex issue that requires more than top-down policies addressing development indicators such as prevalence of reproductive healthcare, enrolment in schools, and access to economic resources. although these development targets are important, they only address women’s empowerment from the supply side, ignoring the need to create popular demand for these services. without adequate efforts to address the gender power imbalances in the society and create popular demand for gender equality, supply-oriented policies will remain incomplete and unsustainable. the findings also showed that the desire to achieve gender equality has to be fully owned among decision makers and not just as a reaction to international pressures from donors. additionally, to ensure political commitment, there needs to be a strong vibrant women’s movement that is able to hold the politicians accountable as well as create popular support for women pioneers and the feminist agenda at the grassroots level. finally, this research emphasised the importance of differentiating between authority and power, and how the spill-over from the cultural to the institutional dominates yemeni official institutions, creating a façade of political support for women’s empowerment without truly supporting the empowerment cause. references allen, i. e., & seaman, c. a. 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(2005). towards the rise of women in the arab world, arab human development report 2005, new york, 2006, http://www.arab-hdr.org/reports/2005/english/ahdr2005e.pdf?download united nations general assembly. (1979). convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. un. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ wieringa, s. (1994). “women’s interests and empowerment: gender planning reconsidered. development and change, 25(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1994.tb00537.x women national committee. (2009). seventh national report on the implementation of convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women cedaw. http://wikigender.org/wp-content/uploads/files/the_7th_report_of_cedaw.pdf women national committee. (2014). almusharakaalsiyasiyalilmar”a: taqreer beijing [women’s political participation: beijing report], supreme council for women. women national committee. (2015). altaqreeralwaṭanilimustawatanfeeth “i’alanwaminhaj ‘amal beijing +20 [the national report for progress in implementing the declaration and platform of action beijing+20]. supreme council for women. world economic forum, (2015). global gender gap report 2015: country profile: yemen. http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/economies/#economy=yem yadav s. p., & clark, a. c. (2010). “disappointments and new directions: women, partisanship, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 124 published by scholink inc. the regime in yemen”. hawwa: journal of women of the middle east and the islamic world, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1163/156920810x504540 yadav, s. p. (2009). does a vote equal a voice? women in yemen. middle east report, oct1(252). notes note 1. in 1990, the population of the north was seven million inhabitants compared to only 2.5 million in the south. post unity, the currency name was maintained of the north as riyal compared to the south’s dinar. the capital was that of the north: sana’a, and even the country call code for the united yemen was that of the north. note 2. in the 1993 parliamentary elections there were 42 female candidates and 18% female voters, in the 1997 parliamentary elections the candidates went down to 19 and female voters went up to 27%, and in the 2003 parliamentary elections the number of female candidates decreased to 11 only whereas the voters increased to 43%. note 3. however, the judicial system continued to be male dominated. women national committee, the seventh national report, op. cit. note 4. also, many of the development organisations and international agencies mere existence depends on development projects especially those concerning women. s. carapico, “foreign aid for promoting democracy in the arab world”, middle east journal, 56(3) (2002). note 5. the national dialogue conference is a significant political event that lasted between march 2013 to january 2014 and resulted in a framework as basis for the new constitution which is still a draft today because of the war. see wikipedia entry on the ndc at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/national_dialogue_conference. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 21 original paper memory and history in israeli post-apocalyptic theatre zahava caspi prof. zahava caspi 1* 1 hebrew literature department, ben-gurion university in the negev, beer-sheva, israel * prof. zahava caspi, hebrew literature department, ben-gurion university in the negev, beer-sheva, israel received: april 18, 2019 accepted: may 4, 2019 online published: may 6, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p21 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p21 abstract past catastrophes function as primary models for apocalyptic dystopias and as catalysts of imagined retrospection. their function as paradigms of memory enables them to shed a sobering light on contemporary dangers as well as to trigger desirable change. the relation between memory, history, and post-apocalyptic theatre should therefore be examined with a view not only to the circumstances that give rise to such theatre, but also to the meanings that emerge from the catastrophic historical episodes which function as paradigms of memory. in the following article i shall discuss two israeli dystopian plays, joshua sobol’s the jerusalem syndrome (1987) and shimon buzaglo’s black rain (2007), and their performances in israeli theatre. i will examine the efficacy of apocalyptic theatre rooted in historical memory, by activating new forms of theatre (sobol: polydrama; buzaglo: theatre as a testimonial medium) relative to other avenues of historical commemoration, in averting future dangers rooted in a deficient present. keywords realm of memory, history, post-apocalyptic theatre, israeli theatre, trauma, nuclear anxiety, theatre as estimonial medium 1. introduction studies on messianic and apocalyptic discourse often try to explain the circumstances in which such discourse thrives, the sources of its great suggestive power, and the conditions under which the public is receptive to its messages. though different explanations—theological, psychological, social, rhetorical, and others—have been offered since the 1970s in response to these questions, most scholars agree that apocalyptic ideas grow primarily against the background of major historical crises (note 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 22 published by scholink inc. while traditional apocalyptic texts had tended to optimism, with visions of temporary destruction followed by narratives of redemption, modern secular literature—in recent decades in israel as well—has gravitated towards thoroughly dystopian texts ending in annihilation. already after the first world war, european theatre witnessed an upsurge in dystopian dramas whose visions of the world’s end were linked with the new weapons of mass destruction first employed during the war. apocalyptic discourse was again on the rise in the wake of the second world war, with the traumas of auschwitz and hiroshima well reflected in the dystopian dramas of the postwar period (note 2). the reflection in theatre of widespread nuclear anxiety has been established conclusively in charles a. carpenter’s study on the impact of the nuclear age on american and british drama. twenty-five dystopian plays, he finds, were written in britain during the first two decades after the second world war (1946-1964), only ten between 1965 and 1980. during the 1980s, a decade of renewed nuclear tensions, no less than thirty dystopian plays were written in as few as eight years (1981-1989), whereas from the end of the cold war to the time carpenter’s book was published in 1991 only a single new dystopian play was authored (and even it, carpenter notes, went unpublished) (note 3). a survey of the dates of dystopian apocalyptic works written in israel shows that here, too, apocalyptic codes in literature and theatre have been the overt symptoms of crisis—in this case, the ontological and epistemological crisis afflicting israeli society after the yom kippur war of 1973. apocalyptic plays ending in dystopia began to trickle out in the mid-1970s, a few years after the war, but became even more abundant in the 1980s in the wake of the first lebanon war (note 4). oscillating between holocaust and redemption, the apocalyptic genre in israeli drama was thus an acute response to the implosion of israeli society’s foci of collective identity and the collapse of zionism’s original ideals after the 1973 war. in addition to prompting apocalyptic anxieties, national and global crises tend to reawaken traumatic catastrophes from the historical past, near or distant. the relation between memory, history, and post-apocalyptic theatre should therefore be examined with a view not only to the circumstances that give rise to such theatre, but also to the meanings that emerge from the catastrophic historical episodes which, in dystopian dramas, function as paradigms of memory. dystopian works often turn to a nation’s repository of historical memory for their material, the incorporation of fateful historical episodes at a time of emergency enabling them to shed a sobering light on contemporary dangers as well as to trigger desirable change. as walter benjamin reminds us, the needs of the present, especially in times of crisis, shape the remembered past, which thereby becomes an extension of the present moment. benjamin thus offers an alternative to the traditional view of redemption—one in which redemption occurs not at the terminus of a linear causal process but via the restoration and rectification of a relevant past moment within the present (note 5). because the time of redemption, according to benjamin, is the present, his is a distinctly political conception of redemption; one that aims not to commemorate the past as a given piece of heritage, but to revive it, to retry now what has failed in the past. in benjamin’s view, the ruins of the present can be redeemed via reflection upon the ruins of the past (note 6). in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 23 published by scholink inc. addition, if reflecting upon the past can help redeem or restore the present, then imagining the ruins of a dystopian future may lead to a similar result. in what follows, i shall discuss two israeli dystopian plays, joshua sobol’s the jerusalem syndrome (1987) and shimon buzaglo’s black rain (2007), and their performances in israeli theatre. i will examine the role played within these plays by the memory of past trauma, as well as the efficacy of apocalyptic theatre rooted in historical memory, relative to other avenues of historical commemoration, in averting future dangers rooted in a deficient present. my claim will be that not only the traumatic past functions as a site of memory, but also an imagined horrific future might act as a memory still unrealized, and can be used as a political instrument in the present, aiming to prevent it from being implemented. 2. history in the service of the present the jerusalem syndrome revisits a particularly traumatic chapter in jewish history, the fall of the second temple in 70 a.d., in order to retrace the destructive suicidal urges that precipitated this catastrophic episode—urges which, in sobol’s view, still fester in israel’s contemporary national identity and against whose renewed outbreak he warns. the city of jerusalem is the common space bridging the play’s two historically disparate temporal settings. one series of events takes place in an unspecified future: jerusalem is ravaged by a brutal war, burning and besieged, beset by famine and by the general collapse of law and order. in the midst of this delirium of torment, a troupe of would-be actors—in reality the inmates of a mental asylum—rehearse for the production of a play written and directed by one of them, a faux history professor. the fragmentary plot recounts the events of the great jewish revolt of the second temple era via the period’s prominent historical figures, portrayed by the “actors” (note 7). this play-within-a-play is based on flavius josephus’ historical account of the revolt, history of the jewish wars, direct quotes from and references to which permeate the proceedings (note 8). at the time, he was writing the jerusalem syndrome, sobol was searching for a new form of socio-political theatre capable of depicting ‘mass psychosis’ onstage. linear narrative theatre, he felt, was not up to the task; only simultaneous theatrical forms, which violated the aristotelian unities, could effectively realize this goal. sobol’s avowed aim was to create a novel genre—the “polydrama”—with its own theatrical language, one in which several events occurred simultaneously in different spaces, allowing each viewer to traverse the various locations and choose on which events to concentrate. any separation between the space of the dramatic action and the space of the audience, sobol claimed, was artificial; the theatrical space must include the audience as an immanent part of the scenery. this conception was only partly realized in the haifa theatre’s production of the jerusalem syndrome. the audience was not required to navigate different spaces; the traditional relationship between stage and auditorium remained largely unchanged. nevertheless, some of the principles indicated by sobol were put to practice. in the written play, conventional acts and scenes were replaced by fifty three www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 24 published by scholink inc. theatrical units—“transformations” in sobol’s terms—associatively linked and based on specific spaces and their typical human behaviors rather than forming a linear narrative continuity. in the haifa production, some transformations were staged simultaneously, allowing each viewer to choose on which to concentrate (note 9). moreover, in keeping with sobol’s spatial-associative concept, each transformation had the actors emerge from and return to hidden entrances, tunnels, and pits, as if from a collective subconscious. sobol’s stage directions for the spatial design of transformation v are instructive in this regard: “those buried alive under the wreckage writhe and wriggle, struggling to raise their heads another millimeter, another centimeter above the rubble for a breath of air. outstretched arms and protruding heads emerge from the pile, like worms from a giant apple.” (note 10) 3. “the mad sage”: the jerusalem syndrome and marat/sade a brief comparison between the jerusalem syndrome and peter weiss’s marat/sade (1963; famously directed by peter brook in 1964) will serve to illustrate the difficulties posed by the distinct temporal structures of two different genres: the historically based apocalyptic drama, of which sobol’s play is an instance, and what freddie rokem calls performing history drama, to which weiss’s play belongs. first to note, however, are several similarities between the two plays. sobol’s focus on the destruction of the second temple is paralleled by weiss’s use of the french revolution as a historical paradigm through which to criticize post-wwii europe (note 11). set in 1808, the main story of marat/sade takes place in the charenton asylum, where a group of inmates stage a play written and directed by their fellow internee, the “marquis de sade”, with the asylum’s director, his wife and daughter as audience. the play-within-a-play focuses on one of the french revolution’s bloodiest and most traumatic events, the 1793 bathtub murder of revolutionary leader jean-paul marat. the dramatic form of a play-within-a-play, with a troupe of fictional actors performing for a fictional on-stage audience, is hardly a new theatrical ploy. what is less common, and what both plays share, is the identity of the fictional actors—in both cases asylum inmates—and of the onstage audience, which in both plays consists of figures of authority: a military sergeant (and probably an asylum staff member) in the jerusalem syndrome, the asylum’s director and his family in marat/sade. delegating the action to those whom “healthy” society deems insane—those at the bottom of the social hierarchy, locked up, excluded from society, consigned to its margins—is a ploy sobol and weiss use ingenuously to interpret the condition in which they find their respective societies (note 12). labeling the fictional playwright-directors and actors as insane allows both sobol and weiss to present their historical narratives from a socially marginal perspective, one whose very marginality only serves to validate the playwrights’ historical interpretations and prophetic forewarnings. conditioned by the prevalent literary and theatrical convention according to which jesters, fools, and lunatics are speakers of truth to power, the plays’ real viewers are made to acknowledge the truthfulness of the inmates’ words, a truth others dare not speak. sobol’s claim in various interviews that the mad professor (the play wright-director of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 25 published by scholink inc. the play-within-a-play) is his own mouthpiece fashions sobol himself as a mad sage, out to pronounce the harsh truth in the tradition of biblical prophecy. meanwhile, as fellow spectators, the on-stage viewers are meant to evoke the real viewers’ identification in order to help them internalize the dramatic action and comprehend its real-life relevance. in both plays, however, the real viewers’ natural identification with their on-stage counterparts is a trap, set by the playwrights to align the real viewers with precisely those figures of authority (the sergeant, the asylum director) who are responsible for excluding and isolating the prophetic speakers of truth. ensnared in this dialectical situation, the real viewers now face the same arrows of criticism they had aimed at the representatives of power, as they are now implicitly required to acknowledge their own ethical responsibility for the similar realities rampant outside the theatre walls. despite these similarities, however, the jerusalem syndrome and marat/sade belong to essentially different genres. weiss’s play is an instance of a dramatic genre in which history is “performed” onstage; its perspective is therefore backward looking, directed at a historical past from which it attempts to derive lessons about the present. though it combines widely disparate time registers—1808, in which the framing narrative takes place; 1793, in which the play-within-a-play occurs; 1964, the year of brook’s production—all these belong to the (historical or fictional) past relative to the time of the performance, requiring the audience to engage in retrospection. the jerusalem syndrome belongs by contrast to the essentially forward-looking apocalyptic genre, its understanding of the present inflected by a vision of the (utopian or dystopian) future. even when the playwright relies on a historical paradigm, as does sobol in the jerusalem syndrome, that paradigm’s chief function is reflective: though the play’s reliance on historical events is inevitably an occasion for retrospection, such retrospection serves an anticipatory role, allowing the audience to reflect on the future consequences of their own present condition. sobol’s focus on the great revolt and the destruction of the second temple stems, he says, from his recognition that what transpires during a nation’s formative years continues to exert its influence surreptitiously throughout its history, that the past endures within the present in the form of suppressed impulses which emerge in critical historical junctures (note 13). supporting this view of history are pierre nora’s reflections on the workings of collective national memory. in nora’s view, prototypical past events perceived to recur perpetually provide the foundations of national memory. national memory is thus not to be found in history books, libraries or archives, but precisely in the symbolic and material traces left by the past. such “realms of memory” serve a special role in constructing the idea of the nation, but also expose transformations in a people’s perceptions of its national past (note 15). artistic representations of historical episodes from a nation’s past thus always reflect the ethos deeply rooted in the group’s national identity. in sobol’s theatre, with its repeated examination of episodes from jewish history based on extant historical documents (the best-known instance being 1984’s ghetto, based on historical records, diaries, and memoirs of life in the vilna ghetto), i see a “realm of memory” of this sort, one that tracks the traumatic traces left by past events in order to give them www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 26 published by scholink inc. material expression onstage. sobol’s choice to engage with the destruction of the second temple, an episode etched in jewish national consciousness as a constitutive traumatic event with crucial long-term consequences for the nation’s subsequent history (two millennia of exile), is thus conscious and deliberate. the memory of destruction, still alive in the national consciousness of independent modern israel, serves sobol to offer a corrective to the narrative of historical devastation, to present the historical facts “as they really were”. yet the jerusalem syndrome’s ultimate aim is not historical knowledge for its own sake. sobol’s analogy between past and future, between the second temple and israel’s future prospects, is rather used to illuminate the dangers posed by present-day religious-messianic fundamentalism. the play’s ominous vision of a futuristic israel thus rests on the lessons of the national past. 4. the angel of history: between the historical past and an apocalyptic future two of sobol’s earlier plays—the never-produced the woman from masada, and the jewish wars, produced by the khan theatre in 1981—share with the jerusalem syndrome the same historical setting. in an interview with yotam reuveni, sobol explained that for him the second temple period was a model case of a devastation-ridden society, one he invoked as a warning to contemporary israeli society (note 14). the jewish wars was meant as a “didactic play”, designed to expose israeli audiences to historical facts concealed or underplayed in israeli school curricula on the second temple period. to this end, the play took the form of an actual, physical excursion taken by the viewers. their first stop was the archeological excavation at the tower of david in jerusalem, where audiences were exposed to the diverse, pluralistic culture that had thrived in jerusalem on the eve of the great revolt. the excursion then continued through a subterranean tunnel, a claustrophobic experience meant to give the viewers a personal taste of the ways in which “self-destructive forces took the form of jewish ultra-orthodoxy, religious puritanism, and xenophobia, until they completely took over the masses and led them to national destruction”. (note 16) though the jewish wars and the jerusalem syndrome share flavius’ historical text as their basis, they differ in significant ways. in the six years separating the two plays, sobol says, his faith in the public’s ability to learn from the past, whether near or distant, was eroded, forcing him to stress more explicitly in the later play the analogy between the circumstances that had led the jews to destruction in the past and the realities of present-day israel. this he did by mixing and juxtaposing scenes from jerusalem circa the destruction of the second temple and during the imaginative “fall of the third”. (note 17) in an interview with dan urian, sobol explained that the main impetus for the writing of the jerusalem syndrome was his anxiety that the fate of the “third temple”—modern-day israel—might one day replicate that of the second. historical consciousness is a necessary condition for understanding and rectifying the present. in walter benjamin, we find an appreciation of the importance of historical consciousness as a site of catastrophe and destruction. in benjamin’s view, each present moment presents us with an opportunity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 27 published by scholink inc. to reexamine this landscape of devastation and extract from it the historical episodes pertinent to our existence. in doing so, we “establish a conception of the present as the ‘time of the now’ which is shot through with chips of messianic time”. (note 18) by relating the present to some definite historical episode, the latter can be “redeemed” within the present; the historical past thus holds a covert key to redemption. at the same time, “to articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’”; rather, “it means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger”. (note 19) the historian is thus always obligated to view the past from the perspective of his own contemporary realities, responding to the demands posed by the political circumstances of his present moment. (note 20) benjamin’s theoretical outlook was put into performative practice in the production of the jerusalem syndrome. by forcing the viewers to reexamine the devastated landscape of the past, both by gazing at the wreckage onstage and by following the historical plot, sobol hoped to enable them to see the destruction of the second temple as a still-relevant bit of the past—a “time of the now”—at this present-day moment of national danger. in his performing history, freddie rokem claims that history is perceivable only when encapsulated in the form of historiographical or artistic discourse. the past is recapitulated in an organized manner when historical events, chaotic by nature, are placed within an aesthetic framework. (note 21) in this respect, the artist and the historian enjoy equal standing as makers of representations of history. this, rokem claims, is especially true in theatre, whose intense energies can bestow special validity on the historical authenticity of the events shown onstage, and whose truthfulness may for this reason surpass even that of the historical text. playing an important role in presenting history onstage are, according to rokem, not only the playwright and the director but also the actors, whom rokem calls “hyper-historians,” and who also serve as witnesses to the events shown onstage. (note 22) in keeping with benjamin’s conception of history, rokem claims that when theatre “performs” history it attempts to overcome our sense of separation from the past, to constitute a community for which past events could regain their meaning. by enacting scenes that connect the present with the past, theatre performs two actions simultaneously: it cites the past in order to enable the viewers to see their own historical past in a new light, while erasing the traces of that same past in order to let the viewers apprehend the full meaning of the present. (note 23) apocalyptic plays, which refer to past events, are marked, i think, by particular temporal complexity, because the history to which they refer engenders a dual analogy in the viewers’ mind: not only between the present and the past, but also between that past and the future that awaits us if the lessons of the past remain unlearned. confronting live audiences with a dual apocalyptic vision, that of the past and that of the anticipated future, is thus a way to raise their consciousness, not only of the failures and the destructive forces of the foregone, unchangeable historical past, but also—and more importantly—of the urgent need to battle similar destructive forces at present, forces which, if not thwarted, may lead to similar future catastrophes. connecting properly the different eras of a nation’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 28 published by scholink inc. history is crucial not only to the “redemption” of its past and the rectification of its present, but also to the very meaning of its collective identity, for national identify is “a blend of past and future: memories and [past] impressions on the one hand, hopes and wishes on the other, all closely interconnected”; every people must both “look back with eyes wide open” and “know whence it is coming, whither it is going”. (note 24) when the apocalyptic playwright makes use of an historical paradigm, as sobol does in the jerusalem syndrome, its primary role is reflective, with retrospection mainly serving as an anticipatory framework, envisaging the future in light of the implications of the present. 5. the menacing return of nuclear apocalypse like sobol’s play, shimon buzaglo’s black rain grounds its dystopian vision in an historical event of apocalyptic dimensions in contemporary collective cultural consciousness. (note 25) but while the jerusalem syndrome, like most comparable israeli plays, turns to the traumatic jewish past, playwright buzaglo and director ophira hoenig prefer to cast their net further, both nationally and geographically, by focusing on a modern trauma not directly related to jewish history—the august 1945 american nuclear bombing of hiroshima which brought the war in the pacific to its abrupt end. as the concluding horror of the second world war, however, hiroshima cannot but evoke in israeli viewers the jewish trauma of the holocaust. though israeli society in particular, and the west in general, have tended to devote much more attention to the jewish holocaust in europe than to the destruction of hiroshima and nagasaki, the likelihood of nuclear war in the foreseeable future is much greater than that of another genocide of the kind perpetrated by the nazis. buzaglo and hoenig’s choice of hiroshima as the setting for their play is thus hardly accidental. as james berger notes, both auschwitz and hiroshima are symbolic phenomena with a “revelatory” dimension, ones that, more than any others, have shaped contemporary discourse. (note 26) in global memory, both these episodes of unfathomable mass killing have come to symbolize humanity’s moral nadir, the lowest point to which human behavior aided by scientific progress could possibly sink, a chilling reminder of humanity’s ability to destroy the world and itself. since the second world war, both episodes have become the primary apocalyptic-dystopian models, which shape our visions of the world’s future end. for richard klein, comparisons between a future apocalypse and the holocaust or even the nuclear bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki are to be rejected. because they were not total in nature, these historical events were not genuinely apocalyptic; many survived them, and archives devoted to the survivors’ testimonies have made it possible to preserve their horrifying experiences and convey them to others. we thus have no prior model to which to refer when trying to envisage the contours of a total nuclear holocaust. nuclear discourse remains therefore, in klein’s view, purely theoretical. (note 27) in james berger’s aforementioned work, we find an alternative position. while agreeing that viewing the holocaust as an apocalyptic event stretches the boundaries of the concept of apocalypse, berger challenges klein’s fundamental perspective: contemporary apocalyptic discourse is justified in his view even if total destruction is unprecedented in human history. historical events like the holocaust, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 29 published by scholink inc. bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, and even the soviet gulags are apocalyptic not in virtue of their being instances of total destruction (which they are not) but due to the complete rupture with the past that they represent. (note 28) it is this rupture that makes them paradigmatic events, studying the symptomatic consequences of which can provide a better understanding of current sensitivities to apocalyptic events and their representations. it is for this reason, berger claims, that the perspective of post-wwii generations can accurately be described as post-apocalyptic. (note 29) because past catastrophes function as primary models for apocalyptic dystopias and as catalysts of imagined retrospection (that is, of retrospection from the vantage point of the imagined future apocalypse), memory’s role as an effective deterrent of future catastrophe is a central theme in black rain. in our time, historical memory is transmitted via three main channels: institutions (libraries, museums, statistical records, etc.), the media (the press, the electronic media, in particular television, and so on), and the arts. let us consider each as they are presented in black rain. 6. time, place, and narrative a fragmentary work, black rain comprises twenty-nine scenes not linked by any linear temporal, spatial, or narrative sequence. the characters, which lack proper names, are a microcosm of humanity: he, she, young japanese woman #1, young japanese woman #2, older japanese woman, young american man, librarian, and government agent. at all times, the stage hosts representations of five temporally and geographically disparate settings: a library in washington, dc; a house in an unspecified western country at some indefinite future time; a speaker’s podium; a hiroshima city square; and a bathhouse in hiroshima. the play moves freely between its different temporal and spatial settings, hopping between past, present, and future and from one geographical site to the next. it also tears down the barriers between audience and actors, with the latter spending their downtime sitting stageside as viewers. (note 30) despite its fragmentary design of time and place, black rain consists of two distinct narrative threads, which unravel both alternately, and in parallel. the first, about the aftermath of the hiroshima bombing, includes the library scenes, with conversations between the librarian and the young american man; the testimony of the older japanese woman, a survivor of the bomb; and the scenes with the two young japanese women (#1 and #2), both of them tour guides at the hiroshima peace memorial museum. the destruction of hiroshima is thus shown indirectly, via acts of commemoration, as each of the characters tries to preserve the memory of the traumatic event and to learn its lessons. in the second thread, two characters (he and she) follow the directives of a government agent in order to prepare for another nuclear war. this second narrative ends with the dropping of the bomb, followed by precisely the consequences described in the testimony of the japanese survivor. the lessons, we are made to understand, have not been learned. the simultaneous presence of both narratives—the settings and the actors, as characters or as viewers, remain visible throughout the play—suggests that catastrophes of this sort, perhaps even more radical, might return outside the theatre as well. the viewers are thus www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 30 published by scholink inc. challenged to use the traumatic memory of the past—a past replicated in the theatrical present—as a catalyst of action in order to prevent similar events from recurring in the future in real life. 7. memory, amnesia, and archive fever two of the settings in black rain, the library and the museum, are what pierre nora calls “realms of memory”. in his view, only modern society, which has lost its capacity for “living memory”, is in need of such sites that provide it with “secondary” or “prosthetic” memory. (note 31) our interest in these sites of congealed memory, nora claims, stems precisely from our acute awareness of a rupture with the past, from our realization that in modernity natural memory has been replaced with a classificatory, reconstructive “history” which acts with the force of a “vanquishing, effacing tide”. (note 32) in the play, as already noted, one such modern “realm of memory” is the library where the librarian and the young american meet. the latter comes to the library in search of a book on the american postwar occupation of japan. he finds it in the iconography section, where it is catalogued by virtue of its photographs, not its historical subject matter. the library’s cataloguing system is perfectly ordered, though subject to its own inner logic which is unrelated to the laws of reality. certain claims made by jacques derrida in his archive fever may shed light on this predicament. according to derrida, the archive is where we return repeatedly in order to affirm and preserve the memory of the past. (note 33) this repeated return, however, is “indissociable from the death drive, [and] thus from destruction. […] the archive always works, a priori, against itself”; it “incite[s] amnesia, thus refuting [its own] economic principle”. (note 34) derrida’s claims are equally applicable to the principles of library cataloguing and preservation, for in his view, the forgetting of content (particularly traumatic content) impedes the archive’s desire to return to the arche, the beginning, the original past event. as a site of accretion where memory is accumulated, the archive does not allow us to place ourselves outside of it, to decide on our own how things really happened or what they truly mean. (note 35) it is precisely this problematic that infects the librarian’s obsessive memorization of second world war statistics, in particular casualty numbers by nationality. for him, they constitute “a memorial, abstract sculpting against forgetfulness”. (note 36) yet it is precisely these images of “memorial, abstract sculpting” that expose memory’s detachment from the concrete event, subverting the librarian’s claims about the need not to forget. though he ostensibly devotes his entire time to the task of memory, the mechanical compulsive act of memorizing casualty numbers turns out to provide a merely prosthetic memory, a poor substitute for living memory, which only contributes to the librarian’s repression and forgetfulness of his own role during the war. it is only towards the end of the play, when he is revealed to be a former scientist who had helped to develop the atomic bomb and confesses his erstwhile secret desire to see the bomb used (“because that’s the dynamics of it: when you’ve got a bomb, you want to use it” (note 37)) that his protective shield cracks and he can no longer remember the casualty numbers he has worked so hard to memorize. the process of amnesia is even more acute in the media, a problem incisively described by jean www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 31 published by scholink inc. baudrillard. in contemporary times, baudrillard writes, much of our collective memory has taken the form of media images, most of them visual, which detach actual events from their concrete socio-historical context, redeploying them in the media as “floating signifiers.” (note 38) the image no longer invokes in our consciousness a reality richer, more detailed, more complex than itself; rather, the real thing is gutted of its content, leaving a poor substitute in the form of a schematic image. instead of creating meaning, the information conveyed by the image devours its own content. (note 39) the media, primarily television, turn the past into a bank of images for repeated and arbitrary use, negating its concrete history. it is in just this manner that watching the devastation of hiroshima on television serves the librarian in black rain as an alibi for his refusal to visit hiroshima itself: american man: you weren’t there! librarian: i watched the news. american man: you saw nothing. librarian: i saw it. like fireworks, red and blue and purple and yellow. (note 40) the television screen replaces real destruction and suffering with the impressive colorful aesthetics of the image of the nuclear mushroom, effacing the traumatic catastrophe precisely as it puts it on display. designed to preserve historical memory, the japanese commemoration industry participates in processes which encourage forgetfulness as well. hiroshima’s perfect reconstruction and restoration has erased all trace of the utter destruction left by the bomb. the rebuilt german cities of the postwar period are similarly, in james berger’s words, “post-apocalyptic simulacra, products of a purposeful historical amnesia”. (note 41) despite its overt aims, the hiroshima peace memorial museum contributes to this same result. black rain’s two japanese tour guides are cheerful young women, identically dressed in red-and-white sailor-collared outfits resembling american cheerleader uniforms. their encounter with the young american is standard tourist fare, the megaphone-equipped guides delivering a steady flow of facts, dates, and statistics, just like their u.s. counterpart, the librarian. having arrived in hiroshima to witness the traces of devastation with in his own eyes, the young american is soon sucked into his current status as a tourist, “seeing” the restored hiroshima through the camera lens. even after four visits to the peace museum, he has not yet really saw hiroshima: young japanese woman #2: you saw nothing in hiroshima. young american man: i saw everything, everything. … and i saw the burnt people too. they reconstructed everything so authentically. just like pompeii. the flowers at the hiroshima museum are black, just like in pompeii. i saw everything. i visited the museum… four times at the hiroshima peace memorial museum… the illusion is so perfect it drives the tourists to tears…” (note 42) the dazzling museum reconstruction, the perfect urban restoration, the library, the archive—all turn out to be mere substitutes, failed attempts at an authentic representation of the original events. their precise reconstruction and the overly perfect illusion it provides, as well as their flawlessly rational organization, serve to conceal the trauma instead of making it tangible. the tourists’ tearful reaction is likewise a sterile cathartic effect, substituting tears over the past for genuine future-oriented action. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 32 published by scholink inc. museum’s “authentic” exhibits, like the librarian’s memorization efforts, like television watching, encourage passive spectatorship, with the resultant emotional reaction confined entirely to the spectator’s inner world. black rain points, then, to the failure of both cultural institutions and the media to preserve the historical memory of past catastrophes and transform it into an active, relevant force in public life. can theatre succeed where these other channels of historical memory have failed? 8. theatre as a testimonial medium holocaust scholars often point to the potential inherent in the transmission of historical memory via oral testimony, stressing the latter’s ability to confront us face to face, in an unmediated manner, with the hellish experience of those who have returned from the grave. lawrence langer, for example, has criticized the written testimonies of witnesses for their use of such mediating devices as genre and literary style, which in his view tend to distort authentic historical truth. oral testimony, he claims, is privileged in virtue of its directness and non-literary spontaneity. in his view, it is precisely the lacunae and occasional incoherence of oral testimonies that represent the “quintessence of the experiences” reported by the witnesses. (note 43) black rain presents us with two types of witnesses, the first in the form of a character, the second in the form of the audience itself. the former is the older japanese woman (portrayed by the excellent salva nakara (note 44)), a hiroshima survivor reliving the traumatic experience onstage and sharing it with the viewers. the highpoint of the play is marked, no doubt, by her chilling testimony, in which she describes the moment hiroshima was bombed. her testimony appears twice in the course of the play, first in written form, when the librarian asks the young american to read it aloud, and only then directly from the survivor’s mouth: older japanese woman: it started to rain. i left the kids under the umbrella. the drops became larger and larger. someone yelled: “the americans are drenching us with gasoline!” – but you could feel it was water drops… (note 45) at one point, however, during the survivor’s oral testimony, the magnitude of the trauma, expressed by the gradually intensifying music, overpowers her. her voice is drowned out by the music until it vanishes completely, with only her lip movements and bodily gestures left to convey her emotional turmoil to the audience. the viewers can still recall, however, the horrifying words of her written testimony, read earlier by the young american: …the wind was blowing harder and giant trees collapsed. up above, shreds of tin roofs were flying in the air... papers… doors… my feet became drenched with blood as the whirlpool was moving towards the river. there were men and women… one women right next to me was constantly mumbling about how cold she was, then stopped shivering and died. one man leaned forward to grab this woman’s hands and support her, but her skin just peeled off in huge chunks, like gloves… some of the men and women were completely naked… their burns were black, then red and swollen, and by the evening… they reeked. and in the morning, the tide… (note 46) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 33 published by scholink inc. only towards the end of her testimony does the music quiet down and her words can be heard once more: …in the morning the tide washed everything and they drowned. i saw some bodies floating in the river. it was raining again. […] that’s all. (note 47) victims tend to experience past traumas as if they are recurring at present. this is why the survivor’s voice is drowned out by the music when she reaches the core of the trauma, that ineffable, non-transmittable “excess” (in dominick lacapra’s terms) which eludes all representation and leaves only a lacuna. (note 48) according to langer, oral testimony offers the witness an opportunity not only to remember the past but also to relive it, transforming the testimony into the very event it describes and allowing its hearers to converge upon that same event (langer is specifically concerned here with the viewers of claude lanzmann’s shoah). a similar view of the audience’s status as witnesses is expressed by berger, according to whom one source of the witness’s authority is the fact he or she was there, at the event itself, experiencing it in the flesh; through his or her testimony, the witness shares this authority with us, causing us to “be there” as well. (note 49) furthermore, by enabling us, the audience, to directly confront the otherness calling us from within “the crying wound”, (note 50) the survivor’s living voice demands that we not only listen but also respond. the viewers watching the japanese survivor as she gives her testimony are thus compelled to replicate in their minds the missing ineffable content, and thus to experience actively (if wordlessly) the untold trauma. for e. ann kaplan, the question to ask is not only when it is that viewers become witnesses, but also what it is that makes a testimony “ethical”. (note 51) in her view, everyday images of trauma (what she calls “vicarious trauma”) elicit in us no more than empty empathy. (note 52) the difference between empty empathy and “ethical” testimonies depends on distance: excessive proximity engenders only empty empathy, leading to vicarious trauma. ethical testimony, by contrast, is necessarily related to artistic activity designed to produce ethical awareness. “to bear witness”, for kaplan, is thus not necessarily to impart information about some heretofore unfamiliar event, but to fundamentally change the viewer’s worldview in a context to which justice is central. (note 53) this view is consistent with my own understanding of the audience’s role in apocalyptic theatre, namely as ethical witnesses. the survivors are witnesses in virtue of their being the ultimate victims of the events in which they had been involved, therefore their perspectives are personal and subjective. theatre audiences, by contrast, keep a certain distance between themselves and the events; they can thus simultaneously be witnesses confronting the suffering other “face to face”, but also external spectators capable of critical reflection. it is this latter feature which generates the ethical action -action taking place outside the theatre, after the show ends. moreover, the very act of representation takes us from a past-oriented ethics, which largely consists of empathic listening to the witness, to a future-oriented one which urges us to act ethically in the realm of politics and transform the real world. the unique circumstances provided by theatre make possible a moral awakening that reaches beyond our usual geographical, ideological, or cultural environments. it is in theatre that we encounter the unfamiliar witness, the one we rarely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 34 published by scholink inc. encounter in reality and whose voice we rarely hear. it is this encounter that makes us more sensitive to life’s fragility and promotes in us a sense of universal fraternity. (note 54) 9. hybridizing the historical/documentary with the fictional/theatrical unlike joshua sobol, who based the jerusalem syndrome exclusively on historical material, shimon buzaglo chose to combine documentary material (letters by manhattan project scientists, testimonies, statistical material, us home front command guidelines) with such fictional-poetic sources as the screenplays of alan resnais’ hiroshima mon amour (1959) and james murakami’s when the wind blows (1986), edita morris’ novel the flowers of hiroshima, and canadian playwright robert lepage’s the seven streams of the river ota. as cathy caruth reminds us in her discussion of the filming of hiroshima mon amour, director alan resnais was first asked to film a documentary on hiroshima but after several weeks of filming declined, claiming that the prospective film would be no different from his previous film on the nazi concentration camps. it is fiction, resnais’ decision suggests, and not documentary material alone, that is capable of representing the historical event in its concrete detail. (note 55) this combination of various poetic media (cinema, literature) and genres (scripts, novels, plays) with the documentary material is responsible for black rain’s uniqueness as well as being reflective of its subject matter. this hybrid model is crucial to the play’s success in disrupting mimetic illusion and opening some distance between the action taking place onstage and the extra-theatrical realities, and thus in privileging and drawing the audience’s attention to the latter, in order to keep the past from replicating itself in the future. indeed, this is how director ophira hoenig describes the play’s aims in the programme: the story of hiroshima was only a pretext for addressing moral and human issues related to the development of weapons of mass destruction. […] we all stopped and listened to the horrifying, shocking past in order to understand the threatening present. i stopped, trying to understand whether anything could be done to prevent it […] i stopped, and a muffled cry emerged from my lungs, echoing against a suicidal humanity. then i understood that this is precisely what this work is about. (note 56) why, however, did an israeli play look so far afield, to the historical catastrophe of a foreign nation and culture? wouldn’t the contemporaneous holocaust have been a more “natural” subject matter, one more readily accessible to israeli audiences? more than any other historical event, the holocaust requires that we attune ourselves to a new ethical orientation, and for many artists and thinkers after the holocaust the question “how did this happen?” has been inextricably tied to the question “what can we do to prevent it from happening again?” but while the poetics of holocaust testimonials tends to engender, first and foremost, a past-oriented “ethics of listening”, the play’s use of hiroshima serves to stress the fact that the development of nuclear weapons has never ceased—on the contrary, nuclear weapons are now in the possession of more nations than ever before—and that its relevance to israel is now greater than ever, especially in light of the recent developments in iran. the use of the metaphor of nuclear holocaust in black rain relies on the memory of the past but derives much of its power from the threats www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 35 published by scholink inc. of the present and from the effort to look to the future. from this point on, only the viewers can assume responsibility and take real action. 10. conclusion the main conclusions of the survey of those two plays is that the post-apocalyptic theatre does not seek to present the historical events as an end in itself. rather, it uses historical past as a bank of events and images rooted deeply in the national or international traumatic memory, as warnings of their possible recurring. the main concern of the authors is to bring a change in the political behavior in the present, in order to prevent this horrifying prophecy from happening. we may say that their study-case is the past; their perspective is the future; but the necessary actions to be activated are rooted in the political present. references ahad, h., & ginsberg, a. z. (1954). past and future. in complete writings. jerusalem and tel aviv: hotza’a ivrit and dvir, 81-83. baudrillard, j. (1983). simulations. new york: semiotext(e). baudrillard, j. (1983). the implosion of meaning in the media. in the shadow of the silent majorities: or, the end of the social and other essays (pp. 97-110). new york: semiotext(e). benjamin, w. (1968). theses on the philosophy of history. in h. arendt (ed.), illuminations (pp. 253-264). new york: schocken. berger, j. (1999). after the end: representations of post-apocalypse. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. buzaglo, s. (2008). black rain. tel aviv: or-am/carpenter. carlson, m. (2001). the haunted stage: the theater as memory machine. ann arbor: university of michigan press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.17168 caruth, c. (1996). unclaimed experience: trauma, narrative, and history. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. collins, j. j. (1984). the apocalyptic imagination. new york: crossroad. derrida, j. (1995). archive fever: a freudian impression. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. https://doi.org/10.2307/465144 foucault, m. (1991). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. london: penguin books. hoenig, o. (2007). black rain, original program. kaplan, a. (2008). global trauma and public feelings: viewing images of catastrophe. consumption, markets & culture, 11(1), 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253860701799918 klein, r. (1990). the future of nuclear criticism. yale french studies, 77, 76-100. https://doi.org/10.2307/2930148 lacapra, d. (2001). writing history, writing trauma. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 36 published by scholink inc. nora, p. (1993). between memory and history: a problem of place. zemanim, 45, 5-19. phelan, p. (2004). marina abramovic: witnessing shadows. theater journal, 56(4), 569-577. https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2004.0178 reuveni, y. (june 12, 1986). yediot aharonot. rokem, f. (2000). performing history. iowa city: university of iowa press. sobol, j. (1987). the jerusalem syndrome. tel aviv: or-am. urian, d. (2008). theater in society. tel aviv: open university press. notes note 1. see e.g., collins, j. j. (1984). the apocalyptic imagination. new york: crossroad; kaufman, y. e-s. (1952-1953). midreshe ge’ulah. tel aviv: mossad bialik.; cook, s. l. (2003). the apocalyptic literature. nashville: abingdon press. note 2. some dystopias from this period, for example friedrich dürrenmatt’s the physicists (1962), focused on scientists and the destructive potential of scientific innovations. others—for example peter weiss’ marat/sade (1964), set against the waning days of the french revolution—looked at future catastrophes through the lens of historical paradigms. still others, for instance becket’s endgame (1956), offered apocalyptic abstractions of time and place. arthur kopit’s later end of the world (1984) is particularly pessimistic, offering humanity no refuge from the bomb. note 3. carpenter, c. a. dramatists and the bomb (1991). westport, ct: greenwood press, 3. note 4. apocalyptic plays from this period include yosef mundi’s the governor of jericho (1975) and messiah (1982), shmuel hasfari’s tashmad (1982), motti lerner’s pangs of the messiah (1987), joshua sobol’s the jerusalem syndrome (1988), and ilan ronen’s war of brothers (1988). note 5. benjamin, w. (1968). theses on the philosophy of history. in hannah arendt, ed. illuminations. new york: schocken, 253-264. note 6. benjamin, 254 note 7. the great revolt, also known as the first jewish-roman war, took place in 60-73 a.d. (roughly six decades before the bar kokhba revolt, or the third jewish-roman war), with hostilities reaching their zenith around 70 a.d., the year jerusalem was taken and the temple destroyed by titus. masada last stronghold of the sicarii led by eleazar ben ya’ir-held out for another three years, until facing imminent defeat the besieged rebels committed collective suicide. note 8. while some historians have challenged the book’s historical veracity, we must remember that ancient historiography diverged significantly from our current understanding of historiographical practice. flavius’ book contains mythical views and beliefs, which in his time were not deemed nonor anti-historical. see simhoni y. n. in his introduction to his translation of flavius: flavius j. (1968). history of the jewish wars against the romans, simhoni y. n (trans.). tel aviv: masada press, 16. of particular importance for our purposes is the fact that flavius’ perception was at root historical. note 9. thus, according to sobol’s stage directions, transformations vi through viii are to be staged www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 37 published by scholink inc. simultaneously. note 10. sobol, j. (1987). the jerusalem syndrome. tel aviv: or-am, 15. note 11. rokem, f. (2000). performing history. iowa city: university of iowa press, 99-111. note 12. see foucault’s instructive interpretation of this type of incarceration: foucault, m. (1991). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. london: penguin books. note 13. sobol in discussion with students at ben-gurion university of the negev, 2009. note 14. nora, p. (1993). between memory and history: a problem of place. zemanim 45, 5-19. note 15. reuveni, y. (june 12, 1986). yediot aharonot. cited in urian, d. (1989). on the jerusalem syndrome: an interview with joshua sobol. hetz 1, 92-94. note 16. urian, d. (2008). theater in society. tel aviv: open university press, 112. note 17. urian, on the jerusalem syndrome. 92-94. note 18. benjami, 263. note 19. benjamin, 255. note 20. for a discussion of the political significance of benjamin’s thought, see moses, s. (1991). walter benjamin’s theological-political model of history. zemanim 38, 4-18. note 21. rokem, xi, 101-102. note 22. rokem, 19. note 23. rokem, xii-xiii. ote 24. ahad ha’am [ginsberg a. z.]. (1954). past and future. in complete writings. jerusalem and tel aviv: hotza’a ivrit and dvir, 81-83. note 25. produced by the herzliya ensemble with the haifa theatre for the 2007 israel festival. black rain should really be co-credited to playwright shimon buzaglo and director ophira hoenig. note 26. berger, j. (1999). after the end: representations of post-apocalypse. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. it is no accident that berger speaks in terms of “revelation” when describing both the holocaust and the japanese catastrophe as models of a future apocalypse, as the latter term’s etymology is rooted in the greek apokalypsis, meaning “unveiling” or “uncovering”. note 27. klein, r. (1990). the future of nuclear criticism. yale french studies 77, 76-100. note 28. berger, xii. note 29. berger, xiii. note 30. for a discussion of this device, see below. note 31. nora, 8-10. note 32. nora, 8-10. note 33. derrida, j. (1995) archive fever: a freudian impression. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. note 34. derrida, 12. note 35. derrida, 12. note 36. buzaglo, s. (2008). black rain. tel aviv: or-am, 23. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 38 published by scholink inc. note 37. buzaglo, 58-59. note 38. baudrillard, j. (1983). simulations. new york: semiotext(e), 5. note 39. baudrillard, j. (1983). the implosion of meaning in the media. in the shadow of the silent majorities: or, the end of the social and other essays. new york: semiotext(e), pp. 97-110. note 40. buzaglo, 33. note 41. berger, 20. note 42. buzaglo, 35-6. all emphases are mine. note 43. langer, l. (1993). holocaust testimonies: the ruins of memory. new haven: yale university press, xi. note 44. that the japanese victim was portrayed in the original israeli production by an arab actress, was surely no coincidence. for audience members, says marvin carlson, the cultural meaning of the individual actor’s performance is not limited to the current performance but is loaded with echoes of past performances as well, a phenomenon carlson calls “ghosting”. see carlson, m. (2001). the haunted stage: the theater as memory machine. ann arbor: university of michigan press. similarly, we may add, a current performance can derive its meaning from the actor’s biographical and social circumstances. note 45. buzaglo 51-52. note 46. buzaglo, 44-45. note 47. buzaglo, 51-52. note 48. lacapra, d. (2001). writing history, writing trauma. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. note 49. berger, 48. note 50. caruth, c. (1996). unclaimed experience: trauma, narrative, and history. baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 8. note 51. kaplan, a. (2008). global trauma and public feelings: viewing images of catastrophe. consumption, markets & culture 11 (1), 3-24, p. 18. note 52. kaplan, 16. note 53. kaplan, 20-21. note 54. phelan, p. (2004). marina abramovic: witnessing shadows. theater journal 56 (4), 569-77. note 55. caruth, 27. note 56. hoenig, o. (2007) black rain, original program. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 57 original paper expanding protection and value promotion of cultural routes to promote rural revitalization—a case study of ya’ an section of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea-horse road tao liu 1* & pengyun song 1&2 1 institute of national productivity development, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china 2 college of electrical engineering, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china * tao liu, institute of national productivity development, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china received: december 12, 2022 accepted: january 24, 2023 online published: february 7, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p57 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p57 abstract cultural route heritage represents the interaction and communication for human civilization. it is also the historical heritage of the linear track that shows the interregional and intercultural continuous dialogues of human diversity and civilization. the ancient tea-horse road is an important cultural, economic and religious exchange link between the various ethnic groups in the han and tibetan two places. as the starting point of the line, ya 'an section plays an extremely important role in history. based on the increasingly perfect theoretical interpretation of cultural routes, the characteristics of cultural routes contained in ya 'an section are deeply analyzed. this paper explores the cultural value of the ya’an section of the sichuan-tibet tea horse ancient road with the idea of cultural integrity along the line, and integrate the cultural elements along the line. it clearly puts forward the strategic measures for the protection of the cultural heritage of the tea-horse ancient road, deeply excavates the multiple values of the cultural industry along the line, promotes the coordinated development of the line, and empowers the rural revitalization along the line. keywords cultural route, the ancient tea-horse road, rural revitalization, cultural industry 1. introduction cultural route is a new theory about the protection and research of world cultural heritage since the establishment of the scientific committee of cultural routes in the late 1990 s, and the formation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. the “2008 charter of cultural routes”, at this time the cultural routes have a relatively complete theoretical system. at present, the research on cultural routes in china is mostly reflected in conceptual analysis and value evaluation of specific routes. the research from different perspectives is relatively isolated and lacks effective links with emerging technologies and theories. the ancient tea-horse road is an ancient commercial road located in the southwest frontier of ancient china with the main content of tea-horse trade. until the middle of the twentieth century, it was still an important way for china to exchange culture and materials with neighboring countries. the ancient tea-horse road is an ancient commercial road located in the southwest frontier of ancient china with the main content of tea-horse trade. until the middle of the twentieth century, it was still an important way for china to exchange culture and materials with neighboring countries. as the starting section of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea horse road, the ya’an section has unique geographical and historical factors and “beifu” culture. it has a decisive position in the entire tea horse road. from the perspective of expanding protection and value promotion of cultural routes to promote rural revitalization, this paper takes ya’an section of sichuan-tibet ancient tea horse road as an example to analyze its cultural route characteristics, and puts forward the overall protection strategy of historical and cultural heritage in ya’an section to expand the practical route of rural revitalization strategy. it provides a reference for the research, protection and development of similar cross-regional linear cultural heritage resources and the further promoting efficient and sustainable development of villages along the line. 2. overview of the ancient tea-horse road 2.1 concept definition of the ancient tea-horse ancient road “the ancient tea-horse road” originated from the ancient “tea-horse trade”. it is produced under the induction of the demand of “fanren like tea, han nationality need horses”. during the tang dynasty, because the eastward spread of tibetan forces became an external hidden danger, the tang dynasty implemented a policy of mollification to tibet. at this time in the trade with tibet is more cautious, the “tea-horse trade” is mainly with the northwest minority areas for exchange, exchange with the southwest tibetan has not yet appeared. in the song dynasty, the central plains region was often harassed by ethnic minority regimes. frequent wars and large demand for war horses drove the development of tea-horse trade. this period “tea-horse trade” unprecedented development, the relevant system at this time to establish and improve. after that, the mongolians went south to establish the yuan dynasty. because mongolia is known for its iron hoofs, there is no excessive demand for horses in tibetan areas, and the willingness to carry out tea-horse trade is not strong. the ming dynasty followed the tea-horse trade system of the song dynasty and added trade places. and set the tea-horse department as the only organ for tea horse exchange. by the qing dynasty, the tea-horse trade declined, this period mainly tea in exchange for local specialties and livestock products. and because indian tea entered the tibetan area, the southwest tea market was impacted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. in different periods, the perfect management organs and systems were established. its function was mainly to block the channels of private tea trafficking to increase the income of the imperial court. at the same time, it also eliminates the hidden dangers of military supplies caused by the shortage of war horses produced in the central plains. however, due to the strict control, the space of tea-horse trade was compressed, which could not meet the folk needs of tibetan and han. in this case, a number of desperate private tea traders and private tea roads different from official roads were born. for example, the qing dynasty in the southwest region to build a “three longitudinal and one widthwise roads” main traffic artery. this includes the three official roads of sichuan, yunnan and guilin, and the yangtze river official waterway. the private tea trade roads that link arteries like a capillary network, they consist of a large number of southwest ancient road and expanding to the surrounding. the historical periods mentioned above have not formed an accurate concept of “the ancient tea-horse road”. but its local ancient roads have become an important economic, cultural, religious and other aspects of communication between the various regions of the link. due to differences in historical dynasties and geographical locations, before the concept of “the ancient tea-horse road” was put forward, there were many local ancient road names such as “xuanniu road, wuchi road, jinsang mileng road, yongchang road, zang yi corridor, tangfan ancient road, longshu road” etc, and the tibetan-yi corridor often used by ethnologists. the term “ancient tea horse road” was coined by scholars such as mu jihong and xu yongtao in 1980. they combined the landscape along the road with tibetan tea-loving customs to consider, and gradually refined the concept of “the ancient tea horse road”. in 1992, mu jihong et al., made a preliminary definition of the connotation of “ancient tea horse road” in their book “explore the culture of the big triangle area of yunnan, tibet and sichuan”. in the tang dynasty, the ancient tea-horse road formed a network with the triangle of yunnan, sichuan and tibet as the core, the west out of india and nepal, east to the western edge of the sichuan basin, and southeast to guilin. since the concept of “ancient tea horse road” was put forward, it gives a unified name to the numerous and complicated line networks among sichuan, yunnan, tibet, south asia, southeast asia and other regions and countries. it triggered a huge response and led to a series of related research and discussion. deeply explore the concept of “the ancient tea-horse road” and clarify the theoretical and practical context behind its evolution. it has important practical significance for further expanding connotation and enhancing value. after more than 30 years of development and extension. the existing research on the ancient tea-horse road focuses on archaeology, history, geography, sociology, cultural heritage and other disciplines. based on their own professional background, scholars have different interpretations of the region, specific lines, trade content and scope of influence involved in the ancient tea-horse road. the academic community has reached a consensus on the sichuan-tibet line and the yunnan-tibet line, but the third line of the “tea-horse ancient road” is still controversial. authors believe that “the ancient tea-horse road” as a vast and expanding transportation network centered on sichuan, yunnan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. and tibet, does not refer to just one or several clear lines. therefore, the understanding of its connotation should start from the broad and narrow sense. in a broad sense, the “tea-horse ancient road” refers to the economic and cultural exchange routes formed by the horse gang as the transportation carrier between the southwest region and its neighboring countries. all transportation by manpower and horses, whether it is engaged in tea or other commodity exchanges, can be called the “ancient tea horse road”. in a narrow sense, the “tea horse ancient road” refers to the ancient road of transportation and commerce connecting yunnan, sichuan and tibet with the horse gang as the main means of transportation. it is a corridor of economic and cultural exchanges between ethnic groups in southwest china. in ya ' an territory specifically refers to the official tea and private tea two ancient roads. 2.2 the main value of ya’ an section ya ' an has a long history and splendid culture. as early as 1995, it has been approved as a provincial-level historical and cultural city in sichuan. the geographical features of the transition from sichuan basin to qinghai-tibet plateau determine the diverse natural ecological environment of ya’ an, the dadu river and the qingyi river catchment nurtured early human civilization. the special geographical location makes ya’ an become the intersection of han, tibetan, yi, qiang and other ethnic minorities. and ya’ an has historically been called “ethnic corridor” and “tibetan gateway”. ya 'an section as a key section of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea-horse road, as well as important transportation, trade, management and cultural hub. ya ' an city is the location of ancient tea-horse trade management agencies, and a large number of tea-horse trade-related caravans distribution center. sturdy and sophisticated transport facilities to be used here, the bustling towns and villages came into being. this section has a special geographical location, a long history and profound cultural deposits. ya’ an section is the starting point of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea horse road. as the starting part of the sichuan-tibet line of the ancient tea horse road, this section is a local passage connect qionglai to chengdu to the east, west to luding and kangding tibetan area. the total length of this section is about 400 kilometers. although its east-west span is not large, the terrain fluctuates significantly in a short distance, and the altitude gap is very large, which rises from several hundred meters to more than five thousand meters. it is the most dangerous, the most mysterious and the most desolate section of the sichuan tibetan tea horse road. ya 'an section can usually be divided into official road, which from ya 'an through yingjing, crossing daxiangling to hanyuan, through luding to dajianlu (kangding). and another private tea road, from ya’ an to tianquan, over erlang mountain, through luding to kangding. because this line is mostly mountain path, so named. there are many resting place and inns along the official road, and it is relatively convenient for business travelers and horse caravan. however, along the private tea road are canyons, deep gullies and cliffs. ya 'an section is an important production base and trading hub of south-road brick tea. this section is an important tea producing area on the tea horse road and the origin area of tea culture. in the western han dynasty, since wu lizhen planted tea in mengding mountain, ya’an has been the earliest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. area of artificial domestication of wild tea trees in the world. from the tang dynasty to the qing dynasty, ya’an mengshan tea has always been used as royal tribute tea. with the implementation of the tea-horse trade policy, ya’an has also become an important base designated by the government to produce tea for tibetan areas. according to research statistics, sichuan produced 15 million kilograms of tea annually in the song dynasty, half of them were transported into the tibetan area via the ancient tea horse road.in the ming dynasty, 30,000 tea trade certification of sichuan tea were traded through liya and diaomen (tianquan) ports (tea trade certification: since the song dynasty, the government issued certificates for tea merchants to sell tea, each certificate represents 50 kilograms), accounting for more than 80 % of the tea trade certification in sichuan. ya 'an section brings together rich and precious natural resources and heritage resources. the forest coverage rate in ya 'an is 50.79 %, with superior natural resources and good ecosystem. the ya 'an section of the ancient tea-horse road passes through eight scenic spots, one natural habitat, one wetland reserve, one national geopark, three forest parks, and a large number of green space systems such as tea gardens and farmland. after thousands of years of accumulation, this section has formed a rich and complex road system, with rich heritage content along the route. it covers many aspects of historical villages and towns, sites, stone tombs, ancient building communities, etc., and single heritage also has high comprehensive value. there are 17 ancient architectural sites, 6 ancient city sites, 6 ancient sites, many grottoes and stone carvings, bridge piers and other heritages. under the characteristics of rich but steep natural environment, a unique group of ' tianlu beifu ' was formed. the rapid changes in altitude within a short distance have caused roads to be mostly rugged mountain roads, making it difficult for livestock to be carried effectively in a vicious road environment. moreover, the strict control of “official road” and the limitation of carrying capacity make the trade between residents along the route not fully satisfied. at this time, the “bei fu” appeared as a group shouldering the heavy responsibility of transportation, relying on human transportation to greatly expand the cargo transportation capacity of the ya 'an section. thousands of tons of goods are transported between tibet and han by manpower. nowadays, the profession of “bei fu” has long disappeared on the ancient road, but it has become a unique cultural symbol. ya ' an section is an important platform for cultural exchanges between han and tibetan. the formation and development process of ya 'an section is a historical process of gradual aggregation of han, tibetan and other ethnic groups in southwest china. it records the economic and cultural exchanges and contacts between ethnic within a specific time and space. it is not only an important channel for the exchange and integration of the two civilizations of han and tibetan in history, but also an important link to promote communication between ethnic groups, and makes them emotionally and psychologically close to each other. it has led to the exchange of cultures, nationalities, ideas and concepts along the road, and highlighted the significant value of the section in cultural and social aspects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. 3. linkage mechanism of cultural routes and rural revitalizatio general secretary xi jinping pointed out in the report of the 19th national congress of the communist party of china that agriculture, rural areas and farmers are fundamental issues related to the national economy and people’s livelihood, solve the “three rural” issue has always been the top priority of the work of the communist party of china. the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is an overall and historical task related to the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country. after the cpc led the people of all ethnic groups to win the battle against poverty in 2020. due to the special geographical environment and historical and cultural factors, although the villages in some ethnic areas of china have been completely out of poverty, but the economic development level is still relatively backward. in the next stage of development, how to choose and develop characteristic industries suitable for the local environment to promote rural revitalization is a major choice for such areas. the full implementation of the rural revitalization strategy has become the central task of “three rural” work and one of the key tasks of economic and social development during the “14th five-year” period. under the theoretical support of rural revitalization strategy and cultural route. relying on non-material elements such as cultural mobility, population migration and ethnic customs along the cultural routes with their own characteristics, as well as material elements such as historical and cultural relics, cultural relics and characteristic products. through the full protection development and value expansion of cultural routes to help the further development of rural areas along the line. 3.1 concept of cultural route first, cultural routes as an emerging type of heritage. the idea was first proposed in a report of the european council in 1964. with the official launch of the “european cultural routes project” in 1987, as a form of heritage, cultural routes come into people’s vision because of its concept of “communication and dialogue”. subsequently, the international council on monuments and sites conducted a systematic study of cultural routes and proposed that cultural routes are the inheritance and development of heritage routes. it emphasizes the phenomenon of “cultural integration” caused by “continuous communication” between different regions and different ethnic groups, which has obvious dynamic characteristics. the idea of cultural route appeared early, but the project was officially launched after more than ten years, and the detailed theory was gradually improved in 2008. for more than a decade, the study of cultural routes in china is still in a relatively primary stage. although the concept was introduced late, but the research on route definition, exploration and site protection in specific cultural routes such as the silk road and shu road has received research attention in the fields of history and archaeology as early as the 1970 s and 1980s. in 2004, li wei et al. first introduced the cultural route in the sense of heritage when discussing the overall protection of the grand canal. in china’s heritage academia, related research mainly focuses on the theoretical review and interpretation of cultural routes, heritage protection planning, value characteristics analysis and tourism development. secondly, through in-depth analysis of the concept, we can have a more profound and comprehensive understanding of the connotation of cultural routes. the connotation of cultural routes is as follows: 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. its essence is the collection of material heritage and non-material heritage. it is the route of human communication and migration related to a certain time and space, including everything that constitutes the route. the material elements such as transportation lines, towns, villages, post stations, docks, ancient sites, and important modern historical sites along the route determine and witness the existence of the communication line itself. culture, customs, traditional skills and other non-material elements give the cultural route the overall cultural significance, reflecting the cultural flow on the line 2. the value composition of the cultural route is pluralistic and multi-level. it not only has the cultural value as a whole, but also has the ecological value of the natural ecosystem that carries the route. the numerous cultural nodes scattered in the linear space show dense series and aggregation. they jointly create a holistic cultural ecological environment and jointly lay the cultural attributes of cultural routes in essence. and the cultural route emphasizes its overall interculturality, and its overall value is greater than the sum of the values of each component. the overall value of cultural routes reflects the exchanges and dialogues between different countries and regions, reflects its multi-level functional extension and expansion, and fully demonstrates the process of human civilization.3. the cultural route emphasizes the communication and mutual influence between cultures brought by the route, which has typical dynamic characteristics. the mutual exchanges and exchanges between the cultural communities along the route are multi-dimensional and dynamic, reflecting the time-space collision and integration of multiculturalism in human history, and witnessing the continuous cultural communication and leap between different regions and different ethnic groups. its dynamic and historical context has generated or continues to generate relevant cultural elements. 3.2 linkage mechanism and significance of cultural routes to promote rural revitalization rural revitalization is a comprehensive strategy involving multiple objectives such as industrial revitalization, cultural revitalization, ecological revitalization and organizational revitalization. at present, in the process of exploring the road of economic development, some small towns and villages have exposed problems such as homogenization, the effect of pro-poor is general, and the inability of characteristic cultural industries to effectively connect with rural revitalization. it also faces the constraints of weak links such as industrial weakness, talent weakness and cultural weakness. under the idea of cultural line as a whole, it is necessary to explore the effective connection mechanism between cultural industry development and rural revitalization. rural revitalization needs the economic assistance of cultural industry. general secretary xi jinping clearly pointed out that rural revitalization is a comprehensive revitalization including industrial revitalization, talent revitalization, cultural revitalization, ecological revitalization and organizational revitalization. from a strategic and overall perspective, he proposed that rural revitalization should be planned as a whole and promoted scientifically. the section along the ya 'an section of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea-horse road is an ecologically fragile area, and there is no comparative advantage in developing industry and agriculture that are highly dependent on resources and environment. at this time, by looking for new industries with comparative advantages for industrial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. transformation, we can effectively avoid falling into the “environment-poverty trap” of economic development. china’s ethnic areas often have rich ethnic cultural resources. through the empowerment of the cultural industry, will promote the transformation of characteristic and advantageous resources into capital and enhance the cultural added value of industries along the route. the effective use of cultural resources can give full play to the comparative advantages of local resource endowments, thereby increasing the self-hematopoietic function of rural industries. cultural industry is the key to rural revitalization. the “rural revitalization strategic plan (2018-2022)” clearly proposes the development of rural characteristic cultural industries, build a number of distinctive features, outstanding advantages of agricultural culture display area, and create a number of characteristic cultural industry towns, cultural industry villages and cultural industry groups. cultural industry has multiple attributes such as cultural attribute, economic attribute and ideological attribute. the government should give full play to the comparative advantages of the characteristic cultural industries along the cultural routes, promote the development of industrial integration, enhance the competitiveness of rural industries, ensure the steady and long-term increase of farmers’ income, and alleviate the blind flow of urban and rural population to a certain extent. the high-quality development of cultural industry is a digital, mixed and intensive development mode. it requires rural areas to fully tap and give full play to the potential of factor endowments and resources, and provide internal momentum for the overall revitalization of rural areas. cultural industry development and construction of ecological livable environment. general secretary xi jinping emphasized that “to build a new socialist countryside, we must plan first, follow the law of rural development, make up for the shortcomings of rural areas, enhance the strengths of rural areas, pay attention to local flavor, retain rural style, and retain pastoral nostalgia”. 'how to correctly handle the relationship between ecological environment and economic and social development is an important part of promoting rural revitalization. china’s socialist rural revitalization is a green and sustainable development path, which requires economic growth while maintaining “green water and green mountains” and realizing rural ecological revitalization. the cultural industry has the characteristics of non-materiality of factor input and non-pollution of product consumption that the material product industry does not have. it is an industry integrating sustainable development, environmental protection and economic development. it greatly eases the contradiction between production and green sustainable development, and belongs to a typical environment-friendly industry, especially suitable for the development of ethnic areas with limited resources and fragile ecology. as a new concept that emphasizes the overall significance of culture, cultural routes pay more attention to the communication and interaction between various cultural communities brought by the routes. under the guidance of the cultural route theory, the cultural elements along the route are integrated with an integrated idea to form an integrated cultural industry cluster along the route, promote the coordinated development of the route, and empower the rural revitalization along the route. the ancient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. tea-horse road is not only a land transportation line promoted by material exchanges between different ethnic groups and regions, but also has the cultural characteristics of ethnic cultural exchange and ethnic integration. the rich historical and cultural elements created and retained by the people of all ethnic groups give the overall value effect of the tea horse road. after winning the battle against poverty in 2020, the full implementation of the rural revitalization strategy has become the central task of china’s “three rural” work and one of the key tasks of economic and social development in the “14th five-year” period. among them, based on the characteristics of local resource endowment, each region develops characteristic industries with comparative advantages according to local conditions, which is regarded as an important work content and new economic growth point to realize rural revitalization in china. rural revitalization is not only the development of economy, its ultimate goal is the comprehensive modernization of agriculture and rural areas, so it is a comprehensive strategy involving multiple goals such as economy, culture, ecology, talents and organization. the no.1 central document of 2022’ opinions of the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council on doing a good job in promoting the key work of rural revitalization in 2022’ is put forward “starting the implementation of the cultural industry to enable rural revitalization plan”. on march 21, 2022, six departments jointly issued “opinions on promoting cultural industry to empower rural revitalization”. it is clearly proposed that the cultural industry should be used to empower rural revitalization, stimulate the vitality of excellent traditional local culture, promote the integration and development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and help realize the overall revitalization of rural areas. as an important part of rural revitalization, cultural revitalization is also the internal driving force of rural revitalization. dig deep into the multi-value of the characteristic culture of the ancient sichuan-tibet tea horse road-ya 'an section, and give full play to the leading role of local characteristic culture in rural revitalization under the background of emphasizing the overall culture along the line. efficient and sustainable transformation of the value of cultural routes to promote the development of cultural industries, and realize the protection and value promotion of cultural routes. guided by the development of cultural industries along the route, it is of great significance to comprehensively promote rural revitalization. from the perspective of cultural routes, the overall cultural industry along the route can promote the rural revitalization along the route in multiple dimensions due to its unique nature in resource endowment, economic value, theoretical value and ecological environment construction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. 4. the practical path of expanding protection and value promotion of cultural routes to help rural revitalization as a new concept and method in the international heritage protection community, the cultural route specifically proposes strategic measures for the overall protection and specific protection of cross-regional and comprehensive linear heritage resources. the ya 'an section of the ancient tea-horse road is not only an ancient business road with a long history, but also a link of commercial exchanges, cultural exchanges, emotional exchanges and spiritual identity among all ethnic groups in the southwest border of china. the cultural route is used as the overall concept to expand and protect the ya 'an section of the sichuan-tibet tea-horse ancient road and enhance its value. it has the very important meaning to realize the all-round, all-field and whole-process high-quality development of rural areas. 1) establish the heritage system of the ancient tea-horse road cultural route, and take the cultural whole as the object of expansion and protection. at present, the slogan of protective development is overwhelming, but the actual situation is increasingly serious. on this background, the quality of cultural protection along the line is generally not high, and the single protection mode has caused serious homogenization problems. it has been unable to meet the requirements of the continuous enrichment of the overall cultural connotation, and the protection benefits are mostly short-term and unsustainable. under the guidance of the overall concept of “sichuan-tibet tea-horse ancient road cultural route”, the government should combine points, lines and surfaces to build an expanded protection network complemented by different cultural resources. in order to realize the comprehensive expansion effect of regional coordinated cultural protection. in the process of cultural industry development, the theory and method of cultural route are used to promote the cross-regional cooperative protection of cultural resources along the ancient road, so as to build and maintain the overall cultural space protection network in the ancient road area. 2) the government establishes a coordinated and coordinated management system and talent training system. through the effective protection of the historical and cultural heritage resources of the cultural routes in the ya 'an section, the ethnic traditional culture and historical memory are inherited. relevant departments should make full use of the various functions of the ancient road, such as trade exchanges, ecological environment protection, historical and cultural education and leisure tourism and carry out cooperation and development in many aspects along the route and give full play to resource advantages. through the establishment of the ancient tea horse road cultural route system as an opportunity, scientific and rational development and utilization to achieve multi-win. in order to achieve the overall protection goal, it is necessary to establish a cultural heritage information database to resources information sharing and dynamic management monitoring. based on the data network platform of dynamic management for data and technology sharing, and establishing a long-term cooperation mechanism for communication and sharing among relevant institutions and departments of management, research and utilization. the relevant departments, enterprises and individuals of heritage protection and utilization should reach a consensus on the definition, connotation and value of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. ancient tea-horse road cultural route. talent guarantee is the core driving force to promote the development of rural cultural industry and an important guarantee to promote the high-quality development of rural revitalization. the government should give full play to the macro-control function, improve the talent support policy and long-term mechanism, enhance the attraction of talents in the region, gather talents in various regions, solve the problem of insufficient talents in the region, and promote the economic development of the region. to enhance the attraction of enterprises to talents, especially in terms of salary, working environment and corporate culture, and should also actively seek to carry out cooperation with the government and universities, promote industry-university-research cooperation, and introduce the required talents. the local government should pay attention to the coordination role of social organizations, which has a wider range of influence and a larger number of participants. it also has the functions of supervising the government, conveying public opinion, providing information and so on. 3) deeply digging into the multiple values of cultural industries along the line. the protection of the ancient tea-horse road is the foundation. how to excavate and utilize the tea-horse culture in a deeper level, and ultimately promote the development of the production and living ecology along the region and the revival of chinese traditional culture, need more attention. the regions along the route should rely on cultural superior resources, tap the multiple values of cultural resources, empower traditional industries with cultural creativity, and cultivate characteristic cultural industry formats. relevant regions should extend the industrial chain, reshape the value chain, and promote the synchronous, integrated and coordinated development of agriculture, handicraft industry, culture, tourism, ecology, education, commerce and health care. vigorously develop cultural creative design, with creativity as the core, through creative development to market value transformation, to provide a new development dimension for traditional industrial production. fully tap the characteristic cultural resources along the line, empower the development of rural characteristic agriculture and characteristic handicraft industry along the line, and inherit and develop intangible cultural heritage. 4) the combination of cultural tourism circle and characteristic industrial chain. the cultural tourism circle refers to a certain geographical scope or an uncertain regional scope that is attractive to tourists. affected by a common cultural atmosphere, the local social life, customs, behavior patterns, architectural styles, etc. are identical or similar. cultural tourism circle is an abstract collection of tourist destinations that provide tourists with the functions of cultural visit, exploration, learning and experience. through the concise value of ya ' an section, it can be concluded that the cultural industry composed of three cultural elements of “tea”, “horse” and “road” is the most distinctive industrial chain along the line. (1) in the overall scope of the cultural tourism circle, with “tea” as the center to establish a “tea” cultural park integrating planting, production, production and sales. (2) with the tea-horse trade market as the core area, a multi-ethnic and multi-regional economic exchange platform along the route should be established. while promoting the trade interaction of a large number of characteristic products, it strengthens the gathering of people along the line and the exchange and integration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. culture. (3) with the traffic function of “road”, it combines with the characteristic folk culture and village culture along the line and deeply excavates the cultural value. establish a number of cultural experience tourism routes and outdoor sports routes such as hiking fitness trails, vigorously build a characteristic cultural tourism circle, and help the rural revitalization along the line. 5. conclusion based on the theory of cultural route, it provides a new perspective for the comprehensive research, expansion protection and value promotion of the ya ' an section of the sichuan-tibet ancient tea-horse road. as a cultural whole, it is not only a witness to the development of ancient civilization in china, but also an important implementation path of modern ethnic unity and good-neighborly friendship in china, which has important historical and practical significance. to cope with the new requirements of all-round, all-field and whole-process high-quality development of rural areas. on the basis of stabilizing the basic agricultural plate, taking into account the ecology, giving full play to the comparative advantages of rural resources, steadily promoting the upgrading of rural industrial structure, realizing the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and promoting the overall revitalization of rural areas are the top priorities of the current “three rural” work. from the perspective of cultural routes, this paper discusses the concept of the ancient tea-horse road, the main value of ya 'an section and the internal relationship between cultural routes and rural revitalization. and put forward the use of the concept of holistic culture to maximize its protection and development, improve and optimize the cultural industry chain along the line, establish and improve the management system and mechanism of regional cooperation, and strengthen the introduction and training of talents. the local government should stimulate the “independent hematopoiesis” function of villages along the line with cultural industries, cultivate characteristic cultural industry formats, and promote the synchronous, integrated and coordinated development of multiple industries, and solid and orderly promote rural development and rural construction, cohere strength, forge a strong spirit, and help revitalize. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. funding this research was funded by southwest minzu university, the fundamental research funds for the central universities (social sciences): study on the historical facts of beifu on the heavenly road, exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups (no. hxz202202). reference dai, x. y., li, w., & liu, j. m. 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(2021). research on the coordinated development of rural revitalization and rural cultural industry. agricultural economy, (11), 77-78. jiang, y. x. (2012). ya’an and tea horse road. sichuan cultural relics, 2012(02), 73-82. leng, y. q., qiu, t., & nie, w. x. (2022). research on the path of traditional culture to help rural revitalization—taking dongbu village in jingdezhen as an example. journal of smart agriculture, 2(23), 132-134. http://dx.doi.org/10.20028/j.zhnydk.2022.23.041 li, w., yu, k. j., & li, d. h. (2004). heritage corridor and a primary theoretic framework on study of integ rated conservation of the great canal. urban problems, (01), 28-31, 54. lin, z. r., zhao, x., & zhou, w. n. (2017). present situation and prospect of cultural routes research in china. study on natural and cultural heritage, 2(07), 18-24. http://dx.doi.org/10.19490/j.cnki.issn2096-0913.2017.07.004 liu, c. f. (2021). review of the ancient tea-horse trail in the last 30 years. agricultural archaeology, (02), 261-270. meng, x. w., bao, h., & ye, m. h. (2019). a study on the strategies for the integral activation of rural areas from the perspective of cultural route: a case study of three villages of pingluo town on the ancient tea-horse road in north of longnan city. development of small cities & towns, 37(08), 79-86. peng, y. j., & yin, w. (2012). tea horse road: a classic case of cultural routes. social sciences in yunnan, (02), 156-160. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. piao, y. h. (2003). the influence of sino-ti betan tea-horse trade on the development of sino-tibetan relations in the ming and qing dynasties. sichuan university. qin, h. d., & fan, j. h. (2022). the internal logic and practical path of cultural industry to promote the overall revitalization of rural areas. theory monthly, (06), 76-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.14180/j.cnki.1004-0544.2022.06.009 wang, f. y., & wei, m. (2020). the formation and spread of the concept of “the horse ancient road”. guangxi ethnic studies, (06), 86-93. wang, l. p. (2010). cultural routes and the overall protection of the cultural heritage of the ancient tea-horse road in yunnan and tibet. journal of southwest minzu university (humanities and social science), 31(07), 26-29. wang, z. j., & yongdrolk, k. t. (2020). relectons on the revitalization of rural culture from the perspective of cultural integration—a case study of seven village in qinghai. journal of northwest a&f university (social science edition), 20(03), 154-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.13968/j.cnki.1009-9107.2020.03.18 xiang, q., kan, a., & huang, h. (2021). the influence of traffic changes on the evolution of ancient villages and towns along the ancient tea-horse road in sichuan. world regional studies, 30(06), 1320-1329. xing, y., & wu, w. (2020). preliminary study on value condensation and protection and utilization of ya’an section of tea-horse ancient road. spatial governance for high-quality development—2020 china urban planning annual conference paper, 1485-1491. http://dx.doi.org/10.26914/c.cnkihy.2021.032315 xu, h. y., & xu, f. (2012). the construction of cultural landscape of heritage corridor in ya’an section of the ancient tea-horse road. journal of chinese culture, 6(06), 100-105. xu, x. (2018). bei fu on the ancient tea-horse road in tibet. people’s judicature, (15), 90-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.19684/j.cnki.1002-4603.2018.15.042 yan, r. z. (2021). the ancient tea-horse road: the witness of the exchange and integration of all ethnic groups. china ethnic news, 07-13(005). http://dx.doi.org/10.28114/n.cnki.ncmzb.2021.000713 yang, y. h., & yang, n. (2022). challenges and solutions of prospering rural culture to facilitate rural revitalization. administration reform, (11), 44-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.14150/j.cnki.1674-7453.2022.11.003 ye, l. (2021). the comparative advantages and multidimensional mechanisms of cultural industries promoting rural revitalization in china’s ethnic areas. theory monthly, (05), 91-97. http://dx.doi.org/10.14180/j.cnki.1004-0544.2021.05.011 zhang, h. q., li, s. x., & chen, q. y. (2021). comparative study on the protection and development of cultural route heritage at home and abroad. co-operative economy & science, (08), 27-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.13665/j.cnki.hzjjykj.2021.08.009 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. zhou, j. h. (2011). research on cultural line protection management. northwest university. microsoft word assc-v1n1-p46 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 46 book review leading internationalization—a handbook for international education leaders (note 1) ismail baniadam1*, nasim meskini heydarlou2 & sıddık bakır3 1 urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran 2 education affairs advisor, urmia, iran 3 kazım karabekir faculty of education, ataturk university, erzurum, turkey * ismail baniadam, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran received: april 18, 2019 accepted: may 8, 2019 online published: may 10, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n1p46 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n1p46 1. scope and context the present book consists office chapters (19 sub-categories as a whole) in which every chapter mainly covers relative phases in leading internationalization affairs. the main goal of the book is to highlight the importance of the factors applied by international education leaders in internationalization and globalization context. considering the classification of the book into five chapters, the editors have organized the book in the following order respectively. the chapter one: understanding the context for internationalization explores the contexts which is categorized in three parts including: 1) phases of internationalization and the senior international officer role by gilbert w. merkx which highlights the specific impact of senior international officer (sio) in higher education platform, 2) foundations in leading internationalization: lessons from mestenhauser—darla k. deardorff, dafina blacksher diabate, and kathryn l. rosenbaum which emphasize the comprehensive commitment and engagement of top institutional leaders for the sake of internationalization in education, and 3) the senior international officer’s world: a change agent faces a reality check—john d. heyl in which all senior individual leaders within an institution of higher education authorized in leading and facilitating all internationalization efforts in educational platform. in chapter two: senior international officer leadership and management, four main parts are covered including 4) strategic planning for senior international officers—riall w. nolan which mentions the main effect of essential strategic planning within the international development at the senior management level to support the effective implementation of internationalization in education by international education leaders, 5) international education administration—harvey charles and judith www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 47 published by scholink inc. penny well in which the critical focus is on the international education administration and leadership in training professional senior leaders or managers in international level for the sake of universal educational leadership development, 6) forming alliances and working with administration—gilbert w. merkx and riall w. nolan which supports the effective roles of applying joint supportive international educational development program to upgrade the well-conceived working alliance context, and 7) financing internationalization—penelope pynes which supports the effect of cross-border financial flows for the sake of internationalization leadership program. in this regard, supportive financing programs in global level help in development of educational internationalization. regarding the chapter three: internationalization expertise the following four categories are discussed respectively including 8) internationalizing the curriculum—betty leask and harvey charles in which the value of the united curriculum in infusing global knowledge in crossnational level is emphasized, 9) outcomes assessment for senior international officers—darla k. deardorff who emphasizes the leaders’ outcomes, at global or universallevel. accordingly, the collected assessment achieved through monitoring the performance of international education officers in global education leadership context is the most privileged item, 10) senior international officers and international student recruitment—pia wood which states the importance of admitting international or foreign students by all universities. in this regard, the idea of placing professional senior officers in charge of universities international students’ admission department is now very clear, and finally 11) the senior international officer: managing risk and liability—meredith mcquaid and sabine klahr who highlight the ultimate goal in reducing loss and risk done by senior international officers which makes them to take the account some comprehensive approaches in this regard. chapter four: internationalization and advocacy includes 12) making the case for internationalization—penelope pynes in which the universities are encouraged to establish a local form of internationalization in small scale, 13) fostering global culture and engaging student leadership on campus—susie bender, which mentions the effect of putting into consideration the availability of multi-national or multi-cultural students at the universities, 14) connecting with the community—thomas bogens child and gil latz in which the consideration of social factors in community, and make a connection with common people is totally considered and 15) establishing and building higher educational international partnerships—pia wood who takes into an account the cross-border connections or cooperation between higher education institutions to conduct mutual educational and research collaboration at international level. finally, chapter five: personal effectiveness for internationalization focuses on 16) the senior international officer as entrepreneur—harvey charles and penelope pynes who takes into an account the financial risks in the hope of profit risks, 17) intercultural knowledge for senior international officers: communicating successfully across differences—darla k. deardorff who highlights using from cultural diversity among the people. in this case, these cross-cultures affect the behavior and values of people. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 48 published by scholink inc. 18) harnessing data to lead internationalization—rajika bhandari and terence miller in which some sorts of data are organized for the sake of using from them in internationalization in the near future, and at the end 19) ethics in leading internationalization—darla k. deardorff, kathryn l. rosenbaum, and hanneke who mention that internationalization should be ethical and for all, and ethical internationalization is a privileged activity which should be take into consideration by international education officers and leaders. 2. concluding remarks this volume, written by leading scholars in the field of leading internationalization for education leaders who are in account of the challenges regarding internationalization of their educational institutes. in the meantime, the present book also opens a global window to all senior managers and leaders at international education platforms along with some strategic supportive approaches associated with internationalization affairs at academic and educational fields all around the world. as a handbook on leading internationalization, it portraits some strategic leadership guidance including educational planning, curriculum designing, international students admission, and international cooperation in international education. as one of the comprehensive resources on international education affairs co-published by association of international education administrators (aiea), it can be a very essential guidebook for international educational leaders, managers, and curriculum designers who would like to upgrade their institutions’ activities in global scale. as an international association, aiea brings together all senior international officers (sio) who serve as senior leaders of higher education institutions that shape and promote international activities or programs at worldwide scale. the book is also useful to those who are directly engaged in international education activities. 3. quotes remarks “this is one of the most comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive collection of essays on international higher education leadership. builds very well on the aiea standards of professional practice of senior international officers”. markus laitinen, president-european association for international education (eaie). “this book shares successful strategies and tactics to advance the global priorities of any campus. it is an essential guide for institutions at every level of internationalization”. brian whalen, president and ceo-the forum on education abroad. “leading internationalization provides a comprehensive overview of the way senior international officers (sios) in the united states of america address leadership issues in the internationalization of their institutions of higher education”. hans de wit, director center for international higher education, consulting editor policy reviews in higher education, lynch school of education-boston college. “leading internationalization is an essential and comprehensive resource for new and current senior international officers (sios)”. dawn michele whitehead, senior director for global learning and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 1, 2019 49 published by scholink inc. curricular change, office of integrative liberal learning and the global commons-aac&u. 4. biographical notes darla k. deardorff darla k. deardorff is executive director of the association of international education administrators and affiliated faculty at duke university, nelson mandela university (south africa), and at shanghai international studies university (china). harvey charles harvey charles is dean for international education and vice provost for global strategy at suny-albany and past-president of the association of international education administrators. note note 1. leading internationalization; a handbook for international education leaders, edited by deardorff, d. k., & charles, h. (eds.), stylus publishing, 2018, p. 263. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 161 original paper research on the digital inheritance and innovative dissemination pathways of sichuan opera art from the perspective of “internet+” yinyin zhang1 &yiting fu2* 1&2 school of foreign languages, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, 610030, china * corresponding author, e-mail: 67901150@qq.com received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 09, 2025 online published: october 28, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p161 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p161 abstract in the current context, sichuan opera is confronted with hurdles from two aspects: inheritance and outreach. this study centers on the classic repertoires of sichuan opera, exploring practical ways to pass down and promote the art form in the internet age. drawing on the traits of the digital communication landscape, it puts forward promotional approaches—such as constructing a social media communication matrix, revamping content forms on digital platforms, and developing immersive online experiences. it also maps out inheritance paths, including building a digital resource preservation system, optimizing online dissemination mechanisms, and nurturing a new generation of practitioners. by driving the deep integration of sichuan opera with the internet ecosystem, this research seeks to support the living inheritance and innovative development of traditional chinese opera, thus offering practical references for the modern transformation of intangible cultural heritage. keywords sichuan opera, digital heritage, internet promotion, cultural innovation 1. introduction as a vital carrier for southwest china’s folk culture, artistic aesthetics, and historical memories, sichuan opera does not only showcase the exquisite craftsmanship of chinese traditional theater, but it also reflects sichuan region’s linguistic features, folk wisdom, and social values, making it highly valuable for cultural preservation and inheritance. yet amid profound shifts in the social and cultural landscape, sichuan opera faces new challenges in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 162 inheritance and development. today, the rapid growth of digital media has changed how the public consumes culture; emerging formats like short videos and streaming services are becoming mainstream, leaving little gap for traditional operas. at the same time, with increasingly frequent global cultural exchanges, younger generations are losing interest and awareness in traditional arts. sichuan opera now grapples with practical issues: an aging audience, a shortage of professional talents, and declining market impact. in this context, exploring how to use internet platform advantages to build sichuan opera dissemination paths that fit modern communication patterns has become a critical research topic. promoting sichuan opera in the digital age calls for innovation in four aspects: communication concepts, content, carriers, and practitioners. specifically, innovating communication carriers can leverage short videos, vr/ar, and online education platforms to shift from “offline theaters” to “multi-platform coverage”—addressing problems like the aging traditional audience and limited reach (zhang, 2025). by analyzing the characteristics of digital channels such as short video platforms, social media, and live streams, this research will put forward practical promotion strategies for sichuan opera. the goal is to expand the reach of its classic works, boost its contemporary influence, and support the living inheritance of sichuan opera art. this research holds value on multiple levels. for cultural preservation, its findings can provide theoretical references and practical cases for the digital protection of intangible cultural heritage like sichuan opera. in terms of social education, the traditional virtues and humanistic spirit in sichuan opera can enrich modern cultural offerings, enhancing public aesthetic taste and cultural identity. from an industrial perspective, it also offers new ideas for traditional opera’s innovative transformation in the contemporary cultural market, helping sichuan opera thrive sustainably in the new era. 2. the multifaceted values of sichuan opera art and its classic repertoires 2.1 research on the digital inheritance and innovative dissemination pathways of sichuan opera art from the perspective of “internet+” as the most iconic opera in southwest china, sichuan opera traces its roots back to the ming and qing dynasties. its growth was driven largely by waves of migration—most notably the large-scale migration of people from huguang (present-day hubei and hunan) to sichuan. during this period, external vocal traditions like kunqu opera, gaoqiang, huqin fiddle, and plucking opera merged with local sichuan folk arts such as lantern opera. after centuries of refinement and evolution, this blend gave rise to a complete, distinct operatic system with its own unique traits. artistically, sichuan opera has forged a one-of-a-kind performance style. its gaoqiang tradition uses a “leading (bang), percussion (da), singing (chang)” combination—with human voices for the bangqiang (leading vocals) to craft unique musical textures and dramatic tension. the bangqiang isn’t just a musical element; it also serves key dramatic roles: narrating the story, ramping up atmosphere, and conveying characters’ emotions. then there’s the world-famous “face-changing” (bian lian) technique: by instantly switching facial makeup, this visual trick has become a signature artistic symbol www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 163 for showing characters’ intense inner turmoil. together, these features shape the unique identity that sets sichuan opera apart from other operatic forms. 2.2 the multifaceted values of classic repertoires 2.2.1 contemporary expression of cultural value the classic repertoires of sichuan operas work like a cultural prism, reflecting the essence of the chinese spirit. take teaching the son: its story thread of “guiding one’s child to grow into a capable person” not only shows the wisdom of traditional chinese family education but also brings confucianism’s core values—“cultivating oneself and governing one’s family”—to life through dramatic clashes. on the other hand, mulian’s rescuing of his mother turns a religious tale into drama, building a moral framework that weaves together filial piety and karmic beliefs. through this artistic immersion, audiences deepen their connection to their cultural roots. when it comes to regional culture, the couple watcheing the lanterns stands out as a vivid snapshot of bashu folklore, thanks to its lively depictions of daily life. the sichuan dialect and slang in the play, paired with its scenes of festival cheer, not just recreate the unique cultural scenery of sichuan, but also free this regional culture from time and space, gaining lasting artistic vitality. these repertoires act like a cultural gene pool, keeping the core essence of local culture alive. 2.2.2 modern interpretation of artistic value honed over hundreds of years, sichuan opera has developed a one-of-a-kind way of expression. taking face-changing: it weaves technical skill and theatrical appeal seamlessly together. gaoqiang’s musical arrangement and the face-changing technique’s visual flair join forces to create a way of conveying emotion that goes beyond words. this performance style—using form to express spirit, and uniting form and spirit as one—not only highlights sichuan opera’s unique charm but also offers a fresh model for traditional performing arts to adapt to the modern age. the scholar of bashan stands as the peak of sichuan opera’s storytelling art. blending the personal fate of its characters with the tide of the times, the play keeps the expressive strengths of traditional opera while adding the critical thinking of modern theater. when it comes to character depiction, the protagonist’s shift from pedantic stubbornness to awakening stays true to operatic traditions yet breaks free from the rigid stereotypes of classic roles—showcasing how sichuan opera stays vibrant by innovating as it carries on its legacy. 2.2.3 pathways for realizing educational value sichuan opera’s classic repertoires hold distinct value in today’s educational landscape. their artistic forms alone make them excellent aesthetic teaching tools—for instance, the special effects in face-changing sharpen the audiences’ sense of formal beauty, while the vocal arrangements in jinzi foster an appreciation for musical beauty. this “learning through enjoyment” approach boosts the aesthetic literacy of people while they immerse themselves in the art. when it comes to cultural passing-down, sichuan opera turns abstract moral ideas into vivid artistic figures. the educational wisdom in teaching the son and the filial piety promoted in lying on ice to catch carp let traditional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 164 cultural values win new recognition today, thanks to their intuitive artistic expressions. this “nurturing through art” model not only carries on the old tradition of teaching morality via opera but also fits with modern educational principles. from technical preservation and literary adaptations to folk custom displays, these works together build sichuan opera’s diverse yet cohesive aesthetic system. they not only showcase top-tier performing skills and deep cultural meanings but also serve as classic examples for studying sichuan opera’s artistic traits and contemporary worth—offering valuable guidance for exploring how traditional opera can be passed down in the new era. 3. practical challenges in the inheritance and promotion of sichuanopera 3.1 challenges facing the inheritance sichuan opera’s inheritance now faces two big challenges: a shortage of talent and the struggle to pass down its technical skills. when it comes to building a talent pool, training for sichuan opera takes years and costs a lot—but with so many modern career options, fewer young people are willing to commit to this traditional art. that’s left gaps in nearly every aspect: from script-writing and directing to performing and music. taking sichuan opera’s gaoqiang style for example, its unique singing techniques need years of specialized practice, making it hard for young performers to grasp their core quickly. as veteran artists retire one by one, many exquisite skills are at risk of being lost forever. for passing down technical skills, one-of-a-kind performances like face-changing (bian lian) and rolling lamp (gun deng) demand not just solid basics from actors, but also a deep feel for character emotions and dramatic rhythm. these skills are mostly taught through masters’ verbal guidance and hands-on demonstrations—standardized teaching systems can’t fully capture them. if there’s a break between master and apprentice generations, these unique artistic expressions might vanish for good. at the same time, playing techniques for some traditional musical instruments are also on the brink of disappearing: they’re tough to learn, and there’s little market demand for them, which only makes the inheritance crisis worse. the launch of both the sichuan province sichuan opera protection and inheritance regulations and the sichuan opera (chongqing city) protection and inheritance regulations in september 2024—focused on issues like grassroots troupes fading away and a lack of practitioners—highlights both the policy support and real-world challenges facing sichuan opera’s survival (sichuan opera web of china, 2025). 3.2 constraints on promotion anddissemination promoting sichuan opera now hits two main snags: a narrow audience base and one-note communication channels. looking at who’s watching, most of sichuan opera’s regular viewers are middle-aged or elderly—younger generations generally don’t know much about it, nor are they willing to embrace it. that’s partly because today’s young people lean toward fast-paced, fresh cultural content, and they often lose patience with traditional opera’s stylized performances and slower storytelling. on top of that, sichuan opera’s strong local flavor and dialect-driven delivery also hold back its spread to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 165 wider regions and more diverse groups. when it comes to getting the word out, sichuan opera still leans heavily on traditional theater shows. this offline way of sharing is tied down by things like venue size, where theaters are located, and performance times—making it hard to reach more people beyond specific times and places. now that digital communication is everywhere, sichuan opera hasn’t built a solid online communication system yet. it can’t keep up with modern audiences’ desire to access cultural content whenever and wherever they want, which directly blocks its ability to grow its influence and win over new viewers. 4. constructing a digital inheritance system for sichuanopera in the “internet+” era facing both chances and hurdles brought by the growth of digital technology, the inheritance of sichuan opera needs systematic digital solutions—covering everything from archival preservation and spread of the art to talent training. 4.1 building a digital resource preservation system digital archiving is the bedrock of preserving sichuan opera. first of all, a systematic high-definition digital capture of the classic repertoires is needed. using multi-camera filming, the full performances of iconic works like face-changing can be recorded, as well as the behind-the-scenes bits, such as rehearsals, makeup and styling, costumes, and props. this builds a complete video archive; these valuable materials aren’t just for preservation, but also serve as visual references for future inheritance and research. second, a digital database for sichuan opera’s documentary materials should be set up. that means gathering and organizing historical stuff systematically—scripts, musical scores, stage photos, artist biographies—and using modern digital tools to sort them, add indexes, and build metadata. the database should have smart search and open access features: it can support professional research while giving enthusiasts easy access to learning resources. when building it, a crowd-sourcing model can be introduced, encouraging researchers and fans alike to help supplement and fact-check materials, creating an open, shared digital resource community. 4.2 innovating online inheritance and exchangemodels digital platforms provide a completely new channel for sichuan opera exchange. virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) technologies can transcend the traditional spatial-temporal limitations. for instance, in the legend of the white snake, vr technology can recreate the west lake scenery and the grand scene of fahai subduing the white snake; audiences wearing vr equipment can immerse themselves in the plot. ar technology can overlay virtual characters and scene special effects, enhancing the visual impact and interactivity of sichuan opera (wang, 2025). by focusing on building a multi-level online exchange system and professional social platforms, sichuan opera art can more deeply connect inheritors and enthusiasts. for example, establishing communication communities led by professional artists, regularly organizing activities such as “online q&a with sichuan opera masters” and “live skill analysis sessions,” can achieve a digital extension of the traditional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 166 master-apprentice relationship. this model breaks geographical restrictions, allowing high-quality teaching resources to be shared more widely. at the same time, the interactive strengthof live streaming should be made the most of to design and conduct online sichuan opera classes. invite veteran artists to break down the core of sichuan opera performance on live platforms—covering everything from vocal techniques and movements to acting—with detailed demos and step-by-step teaching. add real-time interaction during streams, so learners get prompt professional guidance and feel fully immersed in the learning process. this digital way of passing down the art keeps the heart of traditional master-apprentice teaching—verbal guidance and hands-on demos—while giving it a fresh, modern twist. 4.3 cultivating a newgeneration of inheritors training young inheritors is a crucial link in sichuan opera inheritance. within the digital dissemination of sichuan opera, the “content repurchase rate” among young audiences (18-30 years old) is positively correlated with their “interaction frequency.” post-00s sichuan opera enthusiasts sharing content like “sichuan opera behind-the-scenes” and “skill learning in daily life” through short videos can stimulate sustained interest among young audiences, increasing the “repurchase rate” for sichuan opera content from 15% to 58% (zhao, 2024). leveraging the communication advantages of new media platforms to showcase the charm of sichuan opera through methods popular among young people is essential. for example, peng qi from chongqing sichuan theatre, who began learning sichuan opera at age 12, fully utilizes short video platforms to disseminate sichuan opera culture. by planning thematic communication campaigns such as “sichuan opera youth talk” and “intangible cultural heritage for new generation” and using vlogs, short videos, and other formats to document the learning journeys of young practitioners, authentic stories can evoke emotional resonance and stimulate more young people’s interest in sichuan opera. at the university level, an intercollegiate sichuan opera inheritance alliance is suggested to form. this alliance can tear down campus walls through a model of “online joint rehearsals + offline performances.” for example, schools like chengdu university of technology and sichuan university of media and communications have already teamed up on “sichuan opera digital cultural creativity design workshops.” there, students collaborate to develop sichuan opera-themed vr scenes and short video scripts—boosting the art’s innovative edge while nurturing interdisciplinary inheritance talents (wu, 2024). hosting joint rehearsals, academic seminars, and performance exchanges via online platforms can create a training model centered on shared resources and complementary strengths. what’s more, building online course systems tailored to different skill levels—from basic appreciation classes to specialized hands-on courses—lays out a multi-layered path for talent development. in addition, the sichuan provincial sichuan theatre, together with cultural and tourism departments, has launched the “sichuan opera digital inheritor program.” it aims to spot and foster young inheritors with innovative ideas through online recruitment, cloud-based training, and digital work showcases. the program emphasizes blending traditional skills with modern creativity, encouraging participants to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 167 use digital tech for creative projects—infusing new life into sichuan opera’s inheritance. 5. constructing innovative dissemination pathways for sichuanopera in the “internet+” context amidst the sweeping wave of digitalization across all industries, and based on the current dissemination landscape and audience characteristics, the ecological restructuring of the dissemination of sichuan opera must center on the “technology-content-audience” core. by integrating platforms such as short videos, live streaming, online education, and digital museums, a dissemination closed loop of “traffic acquisition—conversion — retention”can be formed, addressing the issues of singular traditional communication channels and audience loss (zhou, 2024). 5.1 building a social media communicationmatrix as social media serves as the primary information channel for younger people, it should become the primary front for sichuan opera dissemination. a communication matrix centered on platforms like wechat official accounts, weibo, and bilibili should be constructed to achieve layered content delivery and precise reach. in terms of content creation, emphasis should be placed on the integrated innovation of traditional art and modern expression. for instance, the analysis of face-changing techniques can be combined with popular culture elements, using the language familiar to youth to reinterpret the contemporary value of classic repertoire. the sichuan opera mv the tide of sichuan: 300 years, created by a team led by chief director zhang abin, jointly launched by sichuan news network and sichuan university of media and communications, incorporates ancient-style painting and rap elements, attracting young audiences with a youth-oriented style, illustrating the direction for content innovation in social media dissemination[7]. simultaneously, enhancing user participation and sense of belonging through interactive activities such as the “sichuan opera knowledge contest” and “online opera buff clubs,” which invite interaction between enthusiasts and professional troupes or research institutes, allows traditional culture to spread naturally through social interaction. furthermore, sichuan opera disseminators can also utilize experiential short videos for promotion. such videos lower the cognitive barrier to sichuan opera through a life-oriented perspective. for example, the blogger “chizao is me” documented the entire process of a sichuan opera dan (female role) performer applying makeup, practicing vocals, and performing on stage. the details of the costume and the charm of the vocal delivery presented in an authentic setting led to a single video exceeding one million views, successfully sparking young people’s interest and attention towards sichuan opera as a profession (liu, 2024). 5.2 innovating the content ecosystem ondigital platforms short-form video and online education platforms open up brand-new possibilities for spreading sichuan opera. two aspects of audiences’ digital experience can be enhanced: interaction and emotion. when people join in ugc activities—like commenting, sharing, or taking part in the “sichuan opera face-changing challenge”—they are not just helping promote the art; they are also deepening their own connection to its culture, fostering emotional resonance and a sense of cultural belonging (li, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 168 2025). in the short-form video space, the focus should be on creating lightweight content that fits the platforms’ vibe—things like series such as “get to know sichuan opera in 60 seconds” or “classic moves showcased by master” by sharing, audiences develop a habit of appreciating the art. at the same time, partnering with platforms like tencent to build structured online courses makes sense: invite artists to break down sichuan opera’s core—from singing techniques to understanding repertoires—in simple, easy-to-follow ways, creating a full learning journey. this “short video + systematic course” model can effectively take audiences from a shallow understanding to a deeper grasp of the art. what’s more, the renewed spread of the sichuan opera the embroidered jacket also leans into interactive design. short video platforms launched the “embroidered jacket line challenge” encouraging users to mimic the play’s character lines and singing. paired with ugc-driven secondary sharing, this not only breathes new life into the classic work but also boosts young audiences’ sense of participation (chen, 2025). 5.3 creating immersive online event experiences planning online events means ditching old-fashioned performance models and leaning hard on digital tech to craft immersive experiences. virtual reality (vr) can recreate the vibe of classic theaters—pair that with multi-camera live streams and professional guided appreciation, and online audiences can get an artistic treat that even tops being there in person. what’s more, hosting innovative events like the “sichuan opera digital cultural creativity contest” or “cloud art festivals” gets people involved in co-creating content. these activities don’t just spread sichuan opera further; when users join in actively, they naturally share the content again and again, building a communication ecosystem that keeps going on its own. the innovative dissemination of sichuan opera in the internet era requires a systematic restructuring across multiple dimensions, including platform characteristics, content forms, and user experience. through the precise reach of social media, the in-depth content cultivation on digital platforms, and the immersive experiences of online events, these three aspects working in concert and synergy can achieve the organic integration of traditional art with the modern communication environment, allowing the ancient art of sichuan opera to radiate new vitality in the digital age. 6. conclusion this study takes a systematic study at sichuan opera’s multifaceted value and how it can be passed down and innovated in the “internet+” era. it shows that classic repertoires like the gold and the couple watching the lanterns aren’t just rich in cultural meaning and unique artistic charm—they also matter a lot for education today. these values are the core of sichuan opera as an intangible cultural heritage, laying solid ground for its survival and growth in modern times. when it comes to building digital inheritance mechanisms, the study sets up a three-part system: digital preservation, online inheritance and exchange, and nurturing a new generation of practitioners. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 169 system focuses on both protecting traditional skills systematically and making inheritance methods fit the times—using digital tools and internet platforms to breathe new life into passing down sichuan opera. for digital dissemination, the research puts forward an internet-based communication system for sichuan opera. by building a social media communication matrix, creating fresh content formats for digital platforms, and designing immersive online events, sichuan opera can break free from the time and space limits of traditional spread and connect effectively with young audiences. especially, innovating short-form video content and using live streaming tech show huge potential for blending traditional art with modern technology. building on this research, future work should dig deeper into how to build a complete inheritance ecosystem for sichuan opera—with a clear focus on higher education. it’s key to promote for interdisciplinary and intercollegiate collaboration around sichuan opera inheritance: weaving traditional opera preservation into innovation and entrepreneurship education to cultivate interdisciplinary inheritors who have both artistic skills and digital communication know-how. only by creating a diverse collaborative mechanism—guided by the government, led by universities, and involving more social participation—can build a sustainable inheritance ecosystem. this is the only way to truly keep sichuan opera alive and developing in the digital age, letting it keep shining in the new era’s cultural landscape. acknowledgments this paper was supported by student innovation and entrepreneurship project of chengdu university of information technology: the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage in the internet age (x202510621259). references chen, y. (2025). intangible cultural heritage vitalization and youthful engagement: the communication practice and paradigm of sichuan opera the embroidered jacket. traditional art innovation, (10), 28-37. china news service · sichuan news. (2024). promoting the high-quality development of sichuan opera with new quality productive forces[eb/ol]. october 16. li, m. (2025). cross-platform digital communication of sichuan opera culture: a multidimensional study on user experience and emotional interaction. journal of cultural communication research, (4), 32-45. liu, f. (2024). a study on the impact of experiential short videos on the communication of sichuan opera: a case study of the blogger “chi zao shi wo” going viral with her sichuan opera dan role experience. sichuan drama, (10), 41-49. sichuan opera web of china. (2025). sichuan opera’s contemporary mass communication: the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 170 dream of sichuan flow, everlasting [eb/ol]. wang, h. (2025). cross-boundary integration: development strategies of sichuan opera in digital immersive spaces. frontiers of digital art, (3), 56-68. wu, d. (2024). university communities and sichuan opera inheritance: a practical exploration of cross-university inheritance alliances. art education research, (12), 51-58. zhang, w. (2025). research on new paths and innovation of sichuan opera culture communication in the digital age. intangible cultural heritage protection and research, (9), 71-83. zhao, y. (2024). a study on the behavior of young audiences in the digital communication of sichuan opera. contemporary theatre, (6), 33-40. zhou, l. (2024). ecological restructuring and path innovation of sichuan opera’s “internet plus” communication. sichuan drama, (8), 25-32. 1. introduction 2.the multifaceted values of sichuan opera art and i 2.1 research on the digital inheritance and innova 2.2 the multifaceted values of classic repertoires 2.2.1 contemporary expression of cultural value 2.2.2 modern interpretation of artistic value 2.2.3 pathways for realizing educational value 3.practical challenges in the inheritance and promot 3.1 challenges facing the inheritance 3.2 constraints on promotion and dissemination 4.constructing a digital inheritance system for sich 4.1 building a digital resource preservation syste 4.2 innovating online inheritance and exchange mod 4.3 cultivating a new generation of inheritors 5.constructing innovative dissemination pathways for amidst the sweeping wave of digitalization across 5.1 building a social media communication matrix 5.2 innovating the content ecosystem on digital pl 5.3 creating immersive online event experiences 6.conclusion acknowledgments references microsoft word assc-v3n3-p12 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 12 original paper a brief review: children online privacy protection in indonesia a. sofian1*, b. pratama1, besar1, f.c.p. pratomo1 & mark p. capaldi2 1 business law department, bina nusantara university, jakarta, indonesia 2 institute of human rights and peace studies, mahidol university * a. sofian, business law department, bina nusantara university, jakarta, indonesia received: june 2, 2021 accepted: june 16, 2021 online published: june 25, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p12 abstract children’s online privacy protection is a form of protection for all information attached to a child such as: a name, address, photo, video, and other related information pointing to the children. in indonesia, the regulation of a child’s personal data does not create adequate protection. in reality, many children’s personal data are spread on social media and other various platforms that children access and as a result, the child’s personal data can be accessed and used for marketing purposes and/or other exploitation. as a legal subject, a child cannot protect themselves not only from various purposes of online business models designed by online platforms, but also from other people that may have bad intentions. in a global context, standardization becomes a necessity as both a measuring instrument and guidance for other countries to follow. the problem is, some of the measurements need to be adjusted with national law to comply with the set of local standards. some of the first countries that have already regulated children’s privacy are found within the european union (eu), uk and u.s. this research describes the scope of child protection standards and match them with indonesian positive law. the research method of this research use doctrinal legal research to collect and to analyze legal material regarding two main concepts, namely: child protection regulation and information regulation. as a result, it is found that there is no legal mechanism that guarantees the protection of children’s personal data in indonesia. it is suggested that indonesian parliament and the president immediately revise the child protection act and /or electronic transaction and information act. keywords children online privacy, children personal data, privacy protection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction when children’s personal data is leaked or can be identified in cyber space, then there is the possibility for violations of children’s rights which can cause hardship to the child. the risks for children when they use technology is wide open because the system of information and technology is fueled by user data. in general terminology, data misuse is a common concept, but the moment the legal subject is an under-aged victim then the additional concept of “children” and the added protection considerations must be applied. based on reports from unicef in 2017, there were five million profiles of children’s accounts in the digital world that had been stolen using internet-based theft (unicef, 2016). furthermore, in 2017, javelin strategy & research also found that more than one million children in the united states have been victims of identity theft which caused a loss of us $ 2.6 billion (javelin, research, & strategy, 2020). data collection of children’s information can though have some positive merit: for example, making it easy for parents to monitor children’s activities, location, and also to facilitate child protection through law enforcement. the losses due to crime of children’s personal data was also experienced by european countries in 2017 which recorded 1.37 billion data that was lost or stolen (it governance, 2017). the high crime rate of children’s personal data in the digital world turns out to have a close relationship with the age and habits of children who are now accustomed to using technological facilities such as mobile phones and tablets that are connected to the internet. another problem related to the child’s personal data protection is that the internet can make children become overly consumptive. for example, overuse of youtube and other social media sites has been shown to affect children and toddlers’ psychological development, namely: impaired motor skills, delayed language development, attention and concentration disorder, screen addiction, and other physicial-social interation. (sulkin, 2017) some researchers claim that the internet also effects to physical development because it can make children have too little time to sleep and eat. (bila, 2018) on the economic side, children can have increased consumerism bevahiour as they become attracted to products that they see online. (nathaniel j. evans, 2019) the effects above can be an additional manifestation from data aggregation and data analysis of an internet user, including children, raising the issue of how broad child protection online should be. perhaps the area of child protection online that has gained most international attention and consensus is surrounding the issue of online child sexual exploitation (ocse). as technology has evolved the various ways in which children can be sexually exploited has increased. aside from the growing volume of child sexual abuse images found online, specifically in relation to children’s online personal data, various risks and harms exist related to grooming (by potential child sex offenders) and ‘sextortion’. offenders can use the personal data of children they find online to lure and entice the children to create and share further personal information or even indecent photos of themselves. if child sex offenders have access to contact details of a child, they can even travel to their locations and sexually exploit them. personal data and children’s privacy are therefore inseparable; personal data is a transformational part www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. of privacy, and the right to privacy is a human right that should be respected and protected (brandeis, 1890). warren and brandeis consider privacy to be respected and protected because: (1) in relationships with others, one has to protect some elements of personal life so that an individual can maintain his/her position at a certain level, (2) a person in his or her life needs time to become aware of the privacy that is most needed by that individual, (3) privacy is a private right and does not depend on any other rights—but such rights will be lost if the person publishes personal matters to the public, and (4) privacy includes a person’s right to have a domestic relationship including for example how one builds a marriage, or builds his or her association within the family. privacy exists in indonesian regulations: the protection of personal data and citizen privacy are mandated in article 28g of paragraph (1) of the constitution of the republic of indonesia of 1945 (undang-undang dasar, 1945) and also in article 2 of 3 of the administration of public administration act no. 23/2006 (dewi, 2009). although the regulation does not specifically specify children’s data, but as legal subjects, children are included in the legal concept. in order to respect and protect the rights of children, the government of indonesia has also enacted law number 35 of 2014 concerning amendment of law number 23 of 2002 regarding child protection as an effort to provide legal certainty and its commitment to safeguarding children’s rights as the nation’s successors. the government of indonesia has also ratified and enacted law number 19 of 2016 concerning amendment of law number 11 of 2008 regarding electronic information and transactions as an effort to protect from all electronic crimes. however, the protection of personal data, especially children’s personal data, has not been specifically regulated in the laws mentioned above, as a result, many arbitrary practices in the use of children’s personal data exist, especially the use and misuse of children’s personal data online. as such, national laws also do not provide adequate guarantees of protection for the use of children’s data. therefore, protecting the personal data of children in the future bill of personal data protection is very important, including criminal penalties for the use of children’s personal data. to answer the problem of protecting children’s personal data in indonesia from misuse, the data controller must undertake the principles of data protection. however, under the current lack of regulation of child data protection in indonesia, there is less obligation for the platform in protecting indonesian children online. furthermore, take for example the u.s which is a country that already has child data protection, resulting in the platforms in the u.s definitely complying with u.s regulations. however, they do not have legal obligations to other countries so the platform is not responsible to protect children’s data in other countries. although, as a legal subject the host country of the platform may already have children’s data protection regulations, it is not mutatis mutandis that the platform will secure other countries data of children. based on the description above we hope that this research can be used as a reference in relation to the concept of protection of children’s personal data in general and more specifically in the context of indonesia. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 privacy as a concept in the literature there is no robust definition of privacy, but many scholars believe claims for privacy are universal and the concrete forms differ according to prevailing social, economic and cultural characteristics. american law professor alan westin sets three levels that influence privacy norms: political, socio-cultural, and personal levels (lukács). privacy is a concept that is "contemporary" (negley, 1966) which is the idea that every individual has the right to enjoy the respect and protection of various aspects of their personal lives. privacy as a normative concept rooted in philosophical, legal, sociological, political and economic traditions. the principle discussion of privacy can be traced to aristotle’s descriptions of the differences between public and private space in life (swanson, 1992). privacy is "the right to be free from unwarranted intrusion and to keep certain things from public view” (wood, 2018). thus, privacy is an important element in individual autonomy. much of what makes us human comes from our interactions with other people in the private space where we assume no one is watching (ifla, 2018). solove, rotenberg, and schwartz highlight privacy within the phenomenon of technology (daniel, 2006). they also quoted gross’s notion on privacy in technology in relation to how a person can control one’s personal affairs and ensure limitation of access from others to someone’s personal space (gavison, 1980). with regards of technology, waldman saw privacy as an issue of trust in relation to sharing personal information in a networked world. he quoted the opinion of the sociologist, bates who defined the concept of privacy as a person’s feeling that others should be excluded from something that concerns himself (waldman, 2015). yuwinanto explained that privacy is an individual right to determine whether and to what extent someone is willing to open himself to others or that privacy is the right not to be disturbed (yuwinanto, 2011). privacy is therefore the level of interaction or openness desired by someone in a certain condition or situation. the desired level of privacy involves openness or closure, a desire to interact with others, or instead when one wants to avoid or try to be difficult to be reached by others. altman added the meaning of privacy as a selective process of controlling access to oneself and access to others (altman, 1976). there are many facets to describe ‘personal’ [privacy], whether as a concept, or as a permission in a legal context. in the development of information technology, another complexity has arisen in defining privacy because technology transforms privacy into a series of information and/or data. in spite of this complexity, the main concept of privacy can still be used to describe the digital privacy phenomenon, namely: privacy is a permit belonging to the person who owns the space, the level of permission is dependent on that individual giving that access, and to a certain degree, the state’s authority to access as by law. 2.2 child terminology under the law according to r.a. kosnan, the definition of children are of “young people at a young age in the soul” and that his or her life’s journey is easily affected to the surrounding circumstances (koesnan, 2005). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. the implication here is that childhood is not necessarily time-bound but implies a varying range of years depending upon human development. childhood is often categorised as a time of innocence, play and learning. adolescence, the time between puberty and legal adulthood is often characterised by more agency and competency. this is perhaps why when referring to the children’s online privacy act (coppa) in force in america, the children referred to in this rule are those who are not yet 13 years old. the 1989 child rights convention defines the “child” as any human being under the age of eighteen, except under the applicable law (the convention on the rights of the child, n.d.) for that child, the majority attained previously and as such, childhood ends and the individual legally becomes an adult. whereas in most countries around the world this is now 18 years of age, this can differ in some from the range of 15-21 years. a further complication is the varying ages used to denote ‘minors’ in statute books when looking at things like age of consent, age of criminal responsibility, marriageable age etc. in line with the convention on rights of the child, in the organization for economic. co-operation and development (oecd) council recommendation on the protection of children online (2012) it states that a child is any human being who has not reached the age of 18 years old. in indonesia, the category of children is not much different from the convention on rights of the child 1989, namely anyone under 18 years of age. however, under the provisions of article 45 of the criminal code it defines children as anyone who is not yet 16 years old. nevertheless, based on article 1 of the law number 35/2014 concerning child protection, a “child is someone who is not yet 18 (eighteen) years old, including children who are still in the womb”. although age limits to determine children are quite different in some countries, the basic concept of the child is similar, namely: a legal person, under-age, part of family that needs family and government protection because of their vulnerability and inability to protect themselves. according to their condition, the law creates dispensation or special treatment to children. whilst they have similarity with an adult as a legal subject, but in some conditions, such as legal responsibility, it is different than with an adult person. 3. protection of child online privacy in the general explanation of the indonesian child protection act, it is explained that children need to be protected spiritually, physically, and socially. also, it recognizes that children do not yet have the ability to stand alone, and because of this, there is a burden of obligation for families, communities and the government to guarantee, preserve and secure the interests of the children. the guarantee and security should be carried out by those who care for them under state supervision and guidance, and if necessary, by the state itself. the concept of child online protection stems from integrating the concepts of child protection and personal data protection. within the grand posture of online privacy protection, child online protection serves as a subset concept from personal information and privacy. woven into the concept of child protection in relation to personal data, then the content of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. information is clearly all about children’s information. in terms of protecting privacy for children the duty-bearers named above need to maintain the psychological development of the child, and to guard their freedom and autonomy as part of the rule of law. beyond internet freedom, according to the law, a nettizen is not only an adult as an internet user, but also a child. recognising that in the era of the internet, data is the fuel to run a business, the data analytics that have been used by a platform must still have special treatment on child data privacy. universaly, children must be treated in a special way comparing to an adult as children as users can be victims of information exposure for example in relation to violence, pornography, radicalism, and also consumerism. (myatt, 2015) 4. discussion 4.1 child data protection in other countries referring to the general data protection regulation (gdpr) in europe, article 6 regulates the processing of child data which must be based on the legitimate interest of the subject data or the owner of personal data. in article 8 of the gdpr, the definition of a child is under the age of 16 years. comparing with the provisions in the united states through a rule called the children’s online privacy protection rule (coppa) of 2013 (last revised at the end of 2019), some of the revised provisions include: definitions, notices and parental permission requirements, and limitations on responsibilities in the doctrine of safe harbor (with the actual knowledge owned by the operator). the revision of the coppa was conducted by the federal trade commission (ftc), which was also marked by the imposition of a fine of 170 million usd to google and youtube because it was considered to violate the privacy of children. based on coppa, a child is defined as under the age of 13 years, the same as the protection of children’s personal data within the uk. one of the unique aspects of the personal data protection model in the united states is the relative detail (even though the u.s still doesn’t have a data protection law like many countries in europe). the scope of provision in protecting children’s personal data includes: email address, first and last name, screen name, location, message details, residential address, telephone number, hobbies, photos, videos, and audio. furthermore, according to the information commissioner’s office in the uk, several things that must be obeyed in protecting children’s personal data include: children’s interests, transparency of data usage, minimum data usage, data sharing, location, and parental control. behavioral engineering techniques are used so that children follow safe behaviour (known as the “nudge technique”), when using tools or toys that are connected online. 4.2 indonesian regulation for child data protection according to current regulations, until 2020 there is still no special law that regulates data protection in indonesia; also there is no specific regulation to regulate child data protection. furthermore, it can be also said there is no regulation on data privacy protection, because data protection is regulated separately under many sectoral laws. (pratama, 2019) unfortunately, child data protection can only be addressed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. through the information and electronic transaction law (ite law) and child protection law. one of important reasons child data protection must be regulated at this particular time is because the government has recently started to discuss a data protection law. as explained above, in terms of the legal position, data protection is a broad concept of data privacy protection that needs to specifically include child data protection. child data protection must be inserted and explicitly written under the data protection law because there are legal consequences for the consent of data usage. some of requirements of child data privacy consent are: parental consent, parental notice, parental permission, and parental identity. (kosta, 2017) the legal requirements mentioned above are needed to adequately put children as an autonomous legal subject as an internet user and to protect them. as mentioned already, child exploitation in the internet age can be varied and have many negative impacts on both the physical and psychological wellbeing of the child. with the discussion of the draft law on the protection of personal data by the government in indonesia ongoing, it is both critical and timely to protect children’s personal data as one of the subsets of personal data protection. even though it is important to realize that the aspect of protecting personal data has many aspects that need to be regulated, the protection of children’s personal data is an urgent imperative and needs to be considered and regulated properly. the protection of children’s personal data online is a vital and important step to protect children from various threats of violence, abuse and extortion that can occur virtually in cyberspace. in addition, the protection of children’s personal data can also guarantee the child’s normal growth and development because their data is not misused by various people to gain financial benefits or to frighten or threaten children. at present there is no legal rule in indonesia that provides protection for personal data of children, both in the child protection act or the electronic transaction information act. as a result, there is no legal mechanism that guarantees the protection of children’s personal data. some countries have followed the european union and the united states by protecting child online privacy. these countries already have special laws that provide protection for children’s personal data, so that when someone takes a child’s personal data or stores it or distributes it, then they can be subject to punishment. therefore, the recommendation offered in this study is that the indonesian parliament and the president need to immediately revise the child protection act and /or electronic transaction and information act and include a special chapter on the protection of children’s personal data protection which prescribes criminal sanctions, fines and compensation for the use of children’s personal data without the right. for the short term, the ministry of information and communication and the ministry of women’s empowerment and child protection should immediately make a joint ministerial regulation to protect personal data of children online as well as legal sanctions for those who violate it. besides that, it is also necessary to educate children and parents to protect themselves from distributing or sharing personal data that can be potentially misused. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement we would like to thank bina nusantara university for supporting this research, as well as those who have helped carry out the research. references unicef. 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(business law, binus university) retrieved june friday, 2020, from https://business-law.binus.ac.id/2019/08/26/urgensi-membangun-kesadaran-perlindungan-data-pri badi/ kosta, m. m. (2017). footsteps?, consent for processing children’s personal data in the eu: following in us. journal information & communications technology law, 26(2), 168. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600834.2017.1321096 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 72 original paper a sociocultural approach to funeral jokes in the moaaga community in burkina faso: analysis of the forms, place and role of amusements in a mourning situation patrice kouraogo1 1 senior researcher in sociology of culture at the institute of society sciences at the national center for scientific and technological research (cnrst), kouraogopat@gmail.com, ouagadougou, burkina faso received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 04, 2024 online published: june 18, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p72 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p72 abstract this study conducted in the moaaga environment in the province of namentenga in burkina faso aims to pinpoint and analyze the forms of jokes taking place during traditional funerals. it is built on research hypotheses which show that during funerals, jokes take many forms, play an important role in relaxing the atmosphere while fulfilling many functions. this study, which is part of the overall framework of the sociology of culture, allows us to identify three types of jokes. on the one hand, there are the jokes involving the retention of corpses, demands for payment of funeral procession pass fees, provocative speeches and songs, as well as physical struggles. on the other hand, we have the jokes developed by the bi-paagba (daughters-in-law), the yagense (grandsons) and the crowd through dances, musical entertainment and comical sacrificial gestures, claims for money, meat, millet beer (dolo) and food from their uncles and aunts (pugdba). finally, we have the jokes played by specific characters such as the kט-togsa (funeral announcer) and her clown, the mask of the yarsés, and the one between the fulani, the yarsés and the masks etc. these jokes have undeniable entertaining, symbolic, social, cultural and educational functions, through the lessons of solidarity and compassion learned. keywords forms, functions, funeral jokes, moose 1. introduction like other african and burkinabe communities, the moose (note 1) have always used subterfuges to play down difficult situations such as mourning. it is a fact that “to laugh is proper to man” (rabelais www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 73 f, 1542). however, laughing in certain circumstances, like mourning, can cause a cultural shock or social discomfort. thomas louis-vincent (1982, p. 43) gives a good description of the atmosphere that prevails in mourning. in his view, social communication seems to be reduced to silence, imposing a heavy atmosphere at gatherings. farewells organized in honor of the deceased, especially if he or she had a high social profile, are often difficult moments. in order to reconcile the occurrence of a dramatic situation with its trivialization, or even the importance of maintaining laughter despite of tears, the moose use various forms of jokes that can be interesting to analyze from a cultural and sociological point of view. it was with this in mind that this study has been initiated, with the aim of identifying and analyzing the forms of jokes used at traditional funerals, and even in some modern cases, with a view to gaining a better understanding of their sociocultural place and role. therefore, the theme issue could well be summed up in this main question: what is the place and role of jokes during traditional funerals among the moose? this leads us to the following secondary questions: what are the forms of jokes that can be observed during mourning in moaaga country? what are the objectives of these practices? what are the sociocultural functions that we can keep from jokes during funerals? the answer to these questions leads us to a number of hypotheses, the main one stating that jokes during times of mourning in moaaga community occupy an important place in this society. as for the secondary hypotheses, they point out that during funerals in a moaaga environment, jokes take several forms, play an important role in relaxing the atmosphere and fulfill multiple functions which ennoble their sociocultural role of choice. to address this issue, the article is built around the following main themes: circumstances of crying and occasion for laughter: forms of jokes in funeral situations (1), the place and role of choice given to jokes in mourning situations (2) and discussion of the results (3). 2. method 2.1 methodological approach and theory in this research, we favored a qualitative approach and the use of functionalist theory as tools for collecting and analyzing material such as funeral jokes. as the subject is eminently anthropological, it could only be dealt with using a qualitative approach, which allows us for in-depth analysis with a small number of respondents. we carried out surveys in the form of informal discussions with our interviewees in a number of circumstances and occasions. we also favored the theory of functionalism because it is the most appropriate, giving a preponderant place to the function of the elements of a system and the way the system works. funerals and jokes are all part of the moaaga community system of representation and have specific functions. finally, as functionalism is a type of explanation based on the breakdown of a system into its component parts and explains the functioning of a system in terms of the capacity of its component parts to integrate with one another, this study aims to reconstruct this type of relationship between funerals, jokes and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 74 overall functioning of this moaaga community. 2.2 study area our study takes place in the province of namentenga, especially in some villages surrounding the town of boulsa (the provincial capital). in particular, many examples are also drawn from national realities. among the important territories of the moogo kingdoms, namentenga founded by naaba namendé features very prominently. moreover, it is written: “the ancestor of the royal family of bulsa is naaba namendé, eldest son of naaba oubri (moogo naaba)” (note 2). the history of boulsa or bulsa, capital of the namentenga province, has rich aspects in the continuation of moogo but gives room to the notion of funerals (kטטre in moore language). our study area was this space, a strong symbol of moaaga culture. even if we focused on a few villages, the realities observed and described can be generalized to the entire settlement area. the funerary practices observed and examined were carried out using the tools of participant observation, interviews and life stories, mainly in the village of zambanga (7 km from boulsa) in this study area. indeed, over the last ten years, we have been working on funerals, the role of undertakers, the issues of disappearance of sacred objects, the richness of certain oral heritage of this village and its surroundings. a number of works have been published and this research adds a link to the body of sociocultural knowledge in this field. 2.3 target population and sample our target population was therefore the people living in the area described above. purposive sampling was used. being aware that not everyone we met could provide satisfactory answers to our questions, we selected our interviewees on the basis of their ability to describe how funerals are conducted, present cases of joking and analyze the reasons for and objectives of these games and jousting. for data collection, we observed five (5) funeral practices (burial, dry funeral, final funeral). as a target audience, we interviewed 42 people including direct actors in these jokes, relatives of the deceased and resource people from the environment under study between march 25, 2022 and march 25, 2024. we also used documentary research to conduct a review on the theme and to share experiences between communities at the national level. 3. result 3.1 circumstances of crying and occasions of laughter: forms of jokes in funeral situations burkina faso or former upper volta is home to several communities or ethnic groups of which the moose account for more than 58% of the population (presidency of faso, 2021). according to vincent sedogo (2008, p. 25), the country of the moose, or even referred to by the first colonial authors as “mossi country”, “mossi kingdom”, or even “kingdom of ouagadougou” was in fact only a polyarchy. in the moaaga environment, apart from the "red death" (accidental death) or the "young death" (death having struck a young person who did not leave any grown-up children or simply death in the prime of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 75 life), the other deaths (from the age of 50) give rise to funeral celebrations. it is precisely at these types of funerals that jokes are authorized on the assumption that those who have passed away have gone back to whence they came and, above all, that they lived well. the term "funeral" is used to refer to all funeral activities, from the announcement of death to the grand or final funeral. this includes burial, the 'third day funeral' (for men) or the 'fourth day funeral' (for women) (nangbing sagbo), the 'fresh funeral' (kט-toagsa) a funeral held a few weeks after death, and the grand or final funeral (kט-sat m). the main question in this section is to find out the different types of jokes that are used during these funerals. we have identified three main types. these are the physical and verbal jousting for fun that takes place between groups in a 'joking kinship' situation, between groups in circumstantial funeral jokes and, finally, individual joke games. 3.1.1 intergroup jokes already in a situation of “joking kinship”: relatives for life, relatives for death we are tempted to conclude that the phenomenon or practice of joking kinship withstands the vagaries of death, because once links are sealed between two communities, groups or individuals, they remain there during the lifetime of the actors. we are therefore relatives from life until death, just as in kinship or in real life, since even in death, no individual in the allied community is spared from ribald words and actions. firstly, with regard to intergroup funeral jokes in situations of joking kinship, we have, during the burial, the retention of the corpse and demands for the payment of taxes. when a member of a given group or community dies, during the burial, scenes of struggle ensue between the grieving community and the one that is allied by joking kinship. the funeral procession may be stopped and prevented from moving forward by the joking relatives. to overcome this obstacle, the community that has lost a member must pay for the passage of the corpse. this is how a voluntary contribution will be established and the money collected will be used as the passage tax costs. this practice is not unique to the moose. in several burkinabe cultural communities, this game is permanent. this was the case of the blockade that was set up on 31 january 2024 at the entrance to the town of bobo by the fulani at the funeral procession of bognésa arsène ye, a former minister and chairman of the national assembly. there is a joking kinship between the bobo (the ethnic group of the deceased ye) and the fulani. as another case, during the funeral mass of mrs. véronique nana (note 3) on march 24, 2024 at the cathedral of the immaculate conception in ouagadougou, father ki, a samo (joking relatives of the moose), seized the coffin in front of the altar and requested that the moose pay. he required a special collection as a crossing fee. and this was done. sometimes, joking parents are ready to "rob" the body of the deceased in order to be paid during wakes or farewells. this was the case during the funeral of cardinal zoungrana (from the moaaga ethnic group) in ouagadougou in june 2000 where it was necessary to guard the deceased to prevent the samos from removing the remains. another form of retention is the occupation of the grave. this occurs when the corpse is to be buried. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 76 joking relatives invade the grave where the coffin is to be placed and demand taxes. at the burial of the late mother of the former head of state roch marc christian kaboré (a mossi), minister bonané maurice diendonné and his samo brothers invaded the grave and demanded for payment. from our observations and questioning, we realize that this first form of joking is not unique to the moose. it exists among other ethnic groups in burkina faso. also, the money that is demanded at the funeral procession or at the grave is not a required amount and will not be used for personal or commercial purposes. for example, the money that was collected at the church, at the priest’s request, went to an orphanage. besides, the requester always say that what has been donated is small. after announcing the amount received, father ki told the congregation: “the moose are worthless. they were only able to contribute the sum of 200,000 to save the coffin of mother véronique. what a shame. so her value is only around the modest sum of 200,000 cfa. she will be disappointed with you because she did not know you would shame her”. finally, the practice is inclusive and cuts across all religions. this shows that practice is a real social phenomenon and a heritage known to all. the second aspect of intergroup funeral jokes in a situation of joking kinship also concerns provocative speeches and singings. as from the announcement of the death until the different funerals, the joking relatives of the deceased person will use socially discourteous speeches and songs tending to express a kind of joy following the departure for afterlife. comments such as: “he/she has run away with my money", "he/she is worthless because how can he/she let himself/herself be fooled by death”, “finally, we are happy to see that the number of family members is decreasing”, “we will be able to quietly eat or drink (the deceased's favorite dish or drink) without being spied on by so-and-so (the deceased's name)” are made to provoke, to joke according to the principles and rules of joking kinship. they teach the principle: “of simulating conflict to avoid actually entering into conflict with the other and that joking relatives insult each other, making fun of each other to indicate the possibility of disagreement, but they end up joking to indicate the obligation to accept each other” (kouraogo, 2013, p. 122). a practical example of a discourteous speech that we witnessed and listened to was that of dr paré emile, on the occasion of the funeral of the father of roch marc christian kaboré, former head of state of burkina faso. speaking on behalf of the samo, the joking relatives of the moose, he explained that roch kaboré had a talent for sacrificing his loved ones in order to gain power. he is said to have killed his mother in 2014 to get his first term in 2015, and he will do it again in 2019 with the death of his father to get the 2nd term in 2020. to a foreign listener, this speech seems offset and surprising. but it brought great bursts of laughter among those who are used to these jokes. for other burkinabe communities, including the samo, the moose love power to the point of being able of any sacrifice to get it. as pierre diarra and jean-marie privat (2019) explain so well: “not only do people maintaining joking relationships with the deceased allow themselves to break an eloquent silence, but they also allow themselves to tell jokes, to throw spades, without sparing the deceased and his family” according to them, what is told is so mocking that it is difficult for the audience, despite their sadness, to settle for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 77 silent, light or muffled laughter. in addition to the comments, joking parents can also sing comical and provocative songs either which repeat the same sarcasms or evoke certain aspects of the life of the person concerned. the songs are often followed by dances and demands for money and are intended to play joy while sadness dominates the atmosphere. to close this subsection of jokes, we would like to mention physical struggles. during the blockages of funeral processions, the invasion of graves and as well as the rite of rag-giligri (tour of the market), real fights can take place between communities and groups of joking relatives. they can take on the appearance of real fights because they can cause injuries. but, it's just a game and no one should cross the lines to start a real fight. to conclude this sub-section on jokes, we would like to mention the physical struggles. both during the blocking of funeral processions, the invading of tombs and during the rag-giligri rite (going round the market), and real struggles can take place between communities and groups of joking relatives. they can take on the appearance of real brawls because they can result in blows and injuries. but this is just a game and no-one should cross the lines to trigger a real fight. 3.1.2 circumstantial intergroup funeral jokes: funerals, cantor of fairs and festivities of specific social strata we have noticed other forms of circumstantial intergroup jokes. here, these are groups who will joke only during the funerals. usually, they do not develop these types of games. we have identified three types. the main actors are the bi-paagba (daughters-in-law), yagense (grandsons) and the funeral crowd. the bi-pagba (daughters-in-law) play an important role in funerals. this social stratum is made up of the wives of all the male members considered to be the sons of the deceased. in other words, the deceased is the father-in-law or mother-in-law of this social category of this large community members called buudu (in moore). in various ways, they will play funeral jokes. firstly, they will take part in the various dances of the entertainment musical troupes, either by dancing comically or by dressing up in atypical and hilarious outfits. they will also use gestures and mimicry. for example, they will use millet stalks to give themselves extra height to match the masks (see picture 1) and will wear belts made from worn-out loincloths tied around their hips to imitate those of the warba dancers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 78 figure 1. daughters-in-law imitating masks figure 2. they imitate masks and drummers source: dr kouraogo. also, with used cans and boxes (figure 2), they will make drums that they will play loudly in the company of actual drummers. secondly, during the sacrificial rites of chickens and cattle, they would present themselves with objects (wood or iron, etc.) to which they would attach ropes to simulate animals and chickens to be sacrificed for the dead. likewise, when the other members take part in the collection by putting a few coins or banknotes in the baskets during funeral wakes, they will put papers or tree leaves or even pebbles in the baskets. as for the yagense or grandsons/granddaughters, they can be considered as all the children of the bi-pagba on the mother's side and those of the children (men and women) of the disappeared member of the whole extended family. according to lallemand (1978), a yagenga is a maternal nephew entrusted to or living with his uncles and who represents a replacement for his mother. in this way, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 79 sister (pugdba) who has been sent to live in her husband's residence unit "sends back" a son to help her patrilineage. as soon as the head of the family dies, the grandsons (who occupy a privileged position with their uncles) henceforth declare themselves owners of their deceased uncle's court and claim to ensure its temporary management. moreover, traditions entrust them with this role of transitory management of the deceased's court. in fact, they are the ones who open the funeral procession with the rite which consists of killing a dog, carrying it around the funeral court three times before the undertakers carry the corpse to do the same tours. this is the start of multiple episodes of jokes. at funerals, grandsons and granddaughters ask their uncles and aunts (pugdba) for money. for them, these events are festive occasions and they tease everyone for pennies. for example, they will sue the ku-bissi (the children of the deceased, now orphaned and assimilated) to claim the money, known as yagen-ligdi (grandson's money). very often, verbal jousting takes place to convince them to hand over the money. they may even search and try to empty their uncles' pockets, leading to chases and dodges. the grandsons/daughters also claim portions of meat, local beer (dolo) and food. there are even specific portion of meat that are rightfully theirs. to gain possession of and benefit from these, they have to be uncompromising in their demands for these portions. this can lead to fights and verbal jousting between them and the holders of these portions. finally, there is the rag-saasgo session which can lead to fun. this is an operation of “looting” or "compulsory collection in the market" which consists of collecting goods (especially treats) from all sellers in a symbolic and reasonable manner because seizure of valuable objects is forbidden. dealers must not refuse this collection and samplers must not exaggerate” (kouraogo, 2022). this act of symbolic looting may encounter small resistance from the stand owners who will not agree that a given good is taken. this often again gives right to verbal and physical jousting. from all the above, the joking character is evident in these acts. it lies in the fact that all these constant and insistent claims are about worthless things that normally are not coveted. apparently, we can make it seem like we are fighting over things we can do without. it is therefore the defense of a right and principles that drive us to strive for this. refusing that to you seems like you were de facto excluded from this category. there would be dramatic social consequences if they were denied the right to pennies, meat, drink, food or treats. so far, we have presented intergroup funeral jokes. let us review those of individuals illustrating jokes either in the case of kinship once again or in the case of circumstantial jokes. 3.1.3 jokes played by specific individuals in this section, we examine jokes embodied by individuals who play specific roles or occupy specific statuses. the forms of jokes they play are either inspired by joking kinship or from circumstantial joke in mourning situation. first, we have the character of kט-togsa (funeral announcer) or the funeral mascot. when an elderly man dies, a woman is chosen from among the daughters-in-laws to play the role of kט-togsa. she is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 80 joke character as she wears the clothes, holds the inseparable objects of the deceased (cane, pick, sabre, pipe, etc.). she must also imitate the favorite mimics, gestures and passions of the deceased. in public places (markets, meetings, parties), she must continue to bring to life the persona of the deceased that she embodies by drinking, eating and living as he would have done if he were still alive. given that she is wearing the deceased's old clothes, there is a disturbing resemblance between her and the deceased at first glance. this creates astonishment but also amusement for many members of the community. this imitation joke can last for a year, as it goes from the first funerals (held just 2-3 months after the death) to the final funerals. also, during final funerals, thanks to joking kinship, the kט-togsa has its clown. if there is a community that plays joking kinship with that of the deceased, one of its women can dress up like the kט-togsa, comes and provokes her. whatever one does, the other will do, and they will tease one another by imitating the gestures, voice and ticks of the deceased. this is the scene we see in the picture below. a moaaga kט-togsa is being imitated by a woman from the yarsé sub-group, in keeping with the joking kinship. figure 3. the funeral mascot (right) and its joking relatives (left?) source: dr kouraogo. then we have the yarse mask which imitates the moaaga one. let us remember that there is a joking relationship between the yarsés and the moose even if they all belong to the same large "moose" group. on the occasion of the burial ceremonies of a moaaga from the village of zambanga in the commune of boulsa, we noted the striking presence of an extraordinary mask and it is made by the yarsés, certainly to provoke the real masks. indeed, by custom, the yarsés do not have a mask culture and moreover, they are chased at each ceremony by these masks. making a mask of another type to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 81 compete with the moose, the yarsés have taken a step into provocation and above all into joking. figure 4. a yarsé mask figure 5. amoaaga mask source: dr kouraogo. these images show the provocation of the yarsés. the patched-up mask is a real buffoon. it is made from old clothes, wears shoes and has certain parts of its body outside. the real mask, however, is called a ghost because it must not show any signs of being human. otherwise, by this act, the yarsés want to demystify the mask to show that it is a human being who hides behind it to give himself certain rights and considerations. besides, when presenting this mask of his community on his facebook page, a yarga (singular of yarsés) writes: so that's it, eureka (we've found it)! the yarsés now have their own mask. the masks of zambanga, bonam, gaouoga, zeguedeguin, lilougou, dargo, yaongo, boulsa, tougouri, dabosmnoore, boala, etc... who thought they were absolute masters, who thought they had a monopoly on violence to bother the yarsés and fulani at funerals. this time is over. habemus masquam (we (yarsés) have our mask). it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 82 was designed and presented at zambanga. whether they agree or not…..long life mask-like joking kinship figure 6. screenshot of an ironic post from a yarga the fulani and the yarsés, the masks' pet peeves: as you can see from this screenshot, the masks hunt down the yarsés when they go out (for festive events or funerals). the fulani community is not spared by this phobia about masks. in this environment, it is said that the mask cannot stay under the same tree with the yarga or the fulani. a number of stories can be used to describe these "hatreds", as these individuals discover certain mask secrets. for example, old wumnoogo, a yarga, tells as follow: one day, a yarga who was walking in the bush saw a mask (note 4) sitting under a tree. the mask beckoned the yarga to come over. he was trapped by a thorn that had sunk into his foot, because the mask never wears shoes. he helped him to advert the danger. once they arrived at the village festivities, fearing that the yarga would reveal the secret of his vulnerability and demystify his supposed ghostly powers, as he had let out shrill cries of distress during the rescue exercise, the mask displayed incredible hostility towards the yarga. the mask spent all his time chasing the yarga to isolate him from the crowd in order to prevent him from reporting his misadventure. it was from that day on that the "dislike" between the mask and the yarga began. the strained relationship between the mask and the fulani also seems to be of the same order. according to dianda (a fulani): a fulani woman laid her calabash of milk on the banks of a backwater to rinse her feet. hungry, the mask who found this delicious meal did not hesitate. it took the calabash and sent several beneficial mouthfuls to his stomach. but before doing so, it had to remove its mask and leave its head. it was surprised by the fulani woman who discovered the secret that the mask was a person and not a ghost. from that day on, the mask chase both the fulani woman and her husband during ceremonies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 83 these two funny stories explain the origins of the joking kinship between these communities, the consequences of which are seen during funerals. it is impossible for the yarsés and fulani to get close like the rest of the crowd to enjoy the masks' dancing. they are obliged to keep away, and despite this precaution, the masks want to fight with them. this is an old tradition of "dislike" that is renewed every time the masks come out. foot-grabbing and a promise of woman: another sequence no less fun and pleasant takes place during the funeral and specifically at the grave smoothing session. at the cemetery, in order to find a layer of clay soil for the grave polishing ritual, a digging session brings together a crowd. to the beats of drums, a yagenga (grandson) will begin digging. he will suddenly stop, pretending to be tired but unexpectedly grab the foot of one of the menopausal women. some people will run to warn the men of the deceased's family who join the crowd. only a promise to give a daughter (who will be born from the menopausal women) in marriage to the kidnapper will free the victim. we clearly see that this is a joke, in so far as, moreover, a grandson does not marry this category of girl requested and this girl will never be born since her mother will no longer be able to give birth. 3.2 place and role of choice given to joke in mourning situation we have identified two channels through which the joke is played out in mourning periods. these are the joking kinship and the circumstantial joke. in order to examine the place and role of funeral jokes, it is appropriate to recall the importance of the joke in the moose’s daily life. but first, a summary review of the literature on the topic is necessary. 3.2.1 literature in jokes: educational and social significance of kinship, alliances and humor noret (2017), in this work, shows on the basis of research carried out in benin the relevance of balandier's intellectual legacy and the place of a sociology of social change through analyses of african funerals today. according to balandier, african funerals have always expressed social and power relations as much as beliefs: a dramatization in which society is presented and experienced in a moment of high intensity. funerals were already very present in social science literature on non-european societies at that time. for example, they held a significant place in the theoretical frameworks of durkheim and van gennep. in the mid-twentieth century, african funerals were also marked by major transformations, linked in particular to urbanization and religious change. and yet, to go in search of evocations of funerals in the work of the africanist balandier is to see a political anthropology of funerals taking shape in small ways. kouassi (2005), examines the extent to which public funerals are held for the dead. it is a way of paying tribute to those who have passed on, and suggests that in the minds of africans, death is always an existential and complex reality. in authentic baoulé society, an ethnic group in the center of ivory coast, death is an event that depends on the organization of life, and it is always experienced as a limit to the individual that all societies seek to push back or circumvent by various means. in the authentic akan-ashanti tradition, an old man who has lived many years, who has succeeded in life and fulfilled his contract will be the occasion for festivities as he returns to the land of his ancestors, called bloôlo. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 84 as for the death of a productive and procreative adult, it is perceived as a serious loss that upsets the balance of the survivors. in modern african societies, attitudes towards death are changing, and some viaticum rites are even disappearing in favor of ostentatious and expensive funerals. but whatever the social evolution and modernity, the baoulé society still preserves the rites of setting the dead on their way to bloôlo, the village of the ancestors. pradelles de latour p, charles-henry (996), by focusing on mourning rather than death, or more precisely on the subjective effects of death rather than its causes and social treatment, the authors have analyzed the funerary rites that are so highly developed in traditional societies. but the various rites of separation described by the authors, which show how the dead person gradually detaches himself from the world of the living to become an impersonal ancestor, the guarantor of the parental and social order, blatantly refute the western conception of mourning that initially oversaw this collective undertaking. it appears that in all the societies studied, death implies a hierarchical classification of the deceased. the head of a lineage with an inheritance receives much longer and more elaborate funeral honors than his wife or wives. according to marcel mauss (1958, p. 16), joking kinship refers to various forms of teasing and verbal indulgence towards an older relative, the aim of which is to achieve "a relaxation and compensation necessary to the life of the group". for radcliffe-brown (1950 and 1952), these "joking kinships" were forms of management of socio-familial relations between people of different social status and age, while marcel griaule (1954, p. 39) speaks of public release and outlet, described as a "cathartic alliance". let us remember that alliances and joking kinships are forms of social communication between relatives having different positions within the family or between different ethnic groups but who have experienced a common historical event in the distant past. (kouraogo, 2013, p. 126). their purpose is to use laughter to regulate possible sources of tension within the society. they enable people from different communities and ethnic groups to socialize and play down situations that would otherwise lead to open conflict. from an anthropological point of view, joking kinship is one of those institutions that help to immerse the community, or certain parts of it, in the joy of living, like games and masks. it is therefore a form of social dramatization. starting from the logic that "relatives" (congenital or by marriage) can quarrel but cannot and must never deny each other and that the moose express this sacred character of kinship through expressions such as: “friendship ends but kinship remains and cannot be washed or exchanged like a shirt”. (kouraogo, p. 120), they are compelled to insult each other, to make fun of each other to indicate the possibility of disagreement, but they end up by joking to notify the obligation to accept oneself. such a turnaround of circumstances may seem shocking to a stranger who would not understand the logic behind it as is the case of having fun while mourning. however, this inversion has the role of softening the atmosphere when it comes to tense situations. it is a form of dramatization which, by pretending to trivialize death and the dead, creates at the same time another climate conducive to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 85 restraint. demanding taxes for the funeral procession, invading the tomb to ask for compensation, making discourteous remarks towards the dead and his or her biological family are part of this trivialization. according to alain sissao (2002, p. 6), joking kinship, or rakiiré, has a social significance: it acts as a "firewall", defusing many tensions by avoiding conflicts between two localities; forming a ″historical library″ for safeguarding social peace and tranquility, and becoming a ″home of civic culture and respect for others″. in a nutshell, kinship and joking alliance have a great educational impact through the culture of acceptance of others and their culture, patience, self-control, the mixing of cultures. their practice preserves and strengthens inter-ethnic mutual assistance, social stability and contributes in building the nation. in addition, the role of regulating tensions in alliances and joking kinships is well known, as this practice holds codes and keys for resolving crises and conflicts, strengthening bonds and bringing protagonists closer together. joking (larousse, 2024) (note 5) is the act of joking, of having fun, of doing one thing in jest, all the words or acts being intended to make people laugh, to amuse. in the sociological sense, joking (google, 2024) shows that humorous events (jokes, tricks, wits) are informal moments of sociability that help to disseminate social representations, consolidate links between the members, and produce the political homogeneity of the community on a daily basis. humor being close to joking, douglas (1991, p. 293) describes it as a form of wit which offers a subversive portrayal of reality or a social situation, and highlights its comic, absurd or unusual aspects. the element of subversion can be convened by a statement, by a silent gesture, by any process which allows a connection between the "total social situation" in which the humorous event takes place and the event itself. humor involves bodies, which laugh, move, or on the contrary, tense up if the humorous event fails. according to louis-vincent (1982, p. 218219), amusing the dead, deriding him is telling him that we are going to live without him – life goes on. his departure is not a big loss for the society and he does not lose much by leaving. it also means encouraging him to leave without regret, in peace, without any desire to return to terrorize anyone. the mockery and laughter triggered in the audience facilitate the work of mourning and the settlement of any resentments against the deceased. returning to the data of our study, their exploitation can well be used to examine the place and role of jokes in funerals. let us acknowledge that the place of joking during times of mourning in the moaaga environment is permanent and important. by describing the forms of joke in the first part, we realize that from the moment the death occurs until the last funeral or the last rite of accompanying the dead on his journey to the afterlife, if this death falls within the framework of acceptable death, the joke is present. as a. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 86 degorce (2010, p. 27) points out, a death has a positive connotation in the moaaga environment, if it concerns people (men or women) who have succumbed to old age or illness, having reached an advanced age and having been able to “fulfill their lives”. badini amadé (1978, p. 124) speaks of “accepted death, more or less expected”. according to him, what we would call a natural death is the one that occurs according to traditional norms of place, time and manner, and a death is good when it leaves the victim time to take his porridge and make his last recommendations to his family. also, at each stage of the funerals the kטr-fânbegre or start of the funeral, the rag-tiigri or market tour, the yaog-paambo or grave smoothing and finally the kטr-yisgu (sikri) or the end of the funeral the various actors engage in jokes. for example, the retention of the corpse and demands to pay taxes take place during the burial phase, provocative and comical speeches and songs, and physical struggles take place during the burial and during the funeral. the bi-pagba (daughters-in-law) and yagense (grandsons) also perform jokes from the time of death to the last act of the funerals, as well as quarrels between the yarsés and moaaga masks and the pursuit of the fulani and yarsés by the masks. as for the foot-grabbing and the promise of a wife, this takes place at the cemetery during the smoothing of the grave, and the rag-saasgo session, which provokes jokes and amusement, and which is held at the market during the funerals. the same goes for the funeral mascot and his joking relative clown. 3.2.2 from distraction to psychotherapy: the rich and various functions of funeral jokes we might ask ourselves: why this almost mechanical omnipresence of jokes during funerals? the answer lies in analyzing the role of jokes. here, we might well confuse the role and functions of this atypical form of communication in times of grief. first, we have the distracting function of these jokes. it appears that they are all intended to provoke laughter instead of tears. all the forms described encourage distraction during periods of anxiety where minds can be overwhelmed by sadness due to the voids and memories left by the deceased. by featuring actors who play comedy, the community combines ambivalent feelings of the crying-laughter duel or the laughter-crying duel. tinga, a surveyed person, hereby expresses his feeling: “even those who wanted to dramatize the disappearance of a loved one are quickly brought back to let the atmosphere relax given the diversity of forms of joke developed”. then, a symbolic function of the victory of life over death. trivialize the advent of death by constantly reigning in laughter. joy becomes a way of defying death and telling it that no one is afraid of it. louis-vincent (1982, pp. 239-240), gives a good illustration of this situation in the following terms: the dead must be amused and flattered by the spectacle of their familiar attitudes, making fun of the attributes of social life. is this not a way of denouncing the futility of individual earthly existence and even the inanity of death? is not the human being invited to continue beyond the event of death? the death of an individual does not end life; it becomes, not a loss, but a “gain of life” and social peace. furthermore, we can mention the psychotherapeutic function. paul-marie, another surveyed person put it: “death is a traumatic experience because no one can know what will happen after one passes away. to soften the blow, good doses of jokes goes are welcome”. this is a testament to the fact that jokes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 87 revive the spirits of loved ones and even all members of the community. “humor and mockery are part of the game in order to lighten the audience. it is necessary to trivialize the dead, to minimize the loss that the death of an individual represents for the group, hence the insults and mockery of the joking relatives”, louis-vincent (1982, p. 247). jokes also have a social function. indeed, developing the forms of these jokes requires the social mobilization of various actors. during funeral events, the whole community stands in solidarity so that each member plays their part in expressing solidarity, compassion and cohesion. as mr. sibiri, son of a deceased person, points out: when we see the general mobilization shown by everyone, not just to carry out all the necessary tasks but also to play jokes, as the first concerned (as sons and brothers) of the deceased, we no longer have the right to feel alone. we see that everyone shares our grief and the deceased seems to be unanimous. these jokes have a cultural function too. they contain important elements of the community's culture. for example, the release of the masks testifies that the community has mask societies, and their release is an exhumation of all the rituals and functions of the mask. the cultural roles of grandsons, daughters-in-law and communities of joking relatives are also highlighted in these games. these jokes are an abundance of expressions of intangible cultural heritage, defined by the convention (unesco, 2003) as all: the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills, and the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith, that communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage... . our objects of study are indeed community practices having meanings for all members. they express meanings, contain knowledge and skills and, above all, use a set of cultural tools and gestures known and accepted by all as best reflecting their belonging to this cultural community. intangible cultural heritage is revealed in the areas of traditions, oral expressions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, skills linked to traditional craftsmanship. by analogy, these jokes embody centuries-old traditions, habits and customs, are used as means of expressing the dynamics of a human community and contain in their forms some dimensions: artistic (dances and songs), ritual (struggles, fights) dimensions.) and festive events (popular festivities), etc. finally, the different forms of jokes studied contain, each, an undeniable educational function. if, by educational, we mean any situation or phenomenon which, in its expression, reveals lessons and experiences for oneself or others to remember for future cases, we conclude that these jokes serve as lessons in morality, life and learning. they illustrate that every human being is mortal and that there is no point in languishing when death comes. they teach each member of the community to always be in solidarity with others so as to benefit in return from this outpouring of compassion. they show that all members, rich or poor, are equal when it comes to death and will all benefit from the respect and consideration of the community if they behave in accordance with the social prescriptions laid down www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 88 and decreed in their education. despite these rich functions, there are a number of drawbacks. 4. discussion at the end of this qualitative research on funeral jokes in the moaaga environment, it is appropriate to emphasize the richness of these sociocultural practices with their multiple functions. in the social representation of the moose, holding funerals without these amusing moments can be experienced as a social psychodrama in the sense that they would be seen as unsuccessful because they were not very cheerful. yet, funerals are considered as a form of homage to loved ones and a final accompaniment of the deceased by the living on their journey to the afterlife. nevertheless, we will identify some discussion points from the results with a view to opening up prospects. -first, it should be noted that with revealed religions and modernity, not only are traditional funerals disappearing but even more so are funeral jokes. the christian and muslim religions are accountable for this situation as they considered these practices as ancestral and outdated. it is true that they themselves often use these jokes but not all forms are practiced. for example, wearing masks, other traditional dances or different rites are prohibited. thus, with the high rates of conversion of members of each village community, the number of funerals eligible for these practices is decreasing. what would become of these practices if we project ourselves into twenty years? -secondly, according to our observations, there are hardly any innovations in these games to make them more attractive. almost all the members of the village community and visiting neighbors are familiar with the formats that are repeated at every funeral celebration. this creates monotony in practice and there is little added value. they become mechanical acts that are carried out without any real appropriation by the upcoming generations. in addition, we observed that there is no pedagogy accompanying these joking practices, which does not allow the participants to understand the meanings and symbolism of the acts in order to ensure their perpetuation. in fact, it would have been instructive if the practical jokes were followed by short explanations of the appropriateness of any given act. in this way, young people, who are generally curious, would know why and how to act in each case. this is the best way to ensure that this heritage is appropriated and passed on. finally, we suggest more actions to promote this aspect of joking kinship or funerals. we are currently witnessing all kinds of events to promote joking kinship in burkina faso. more and more burkinabe are realizing the usefulness of this cultural phenomenon, especially in the current security crisis, where cohesion is compromised. unfortunately, this aspect of joking in the context of mourning is not being promoted. yet it can achieve the same objectives, namely to lighten the atmosphere by trivializing the phenomenon of death and, above all, to cultivate social cohesion. extending this study to several communities will enable us to draw conclusions about the cross-cutting nature of these practices, which could be considered national. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 89 acknowledgement in short, based on the hypothesis that jokes take many forms during funerals in the moaaga environment, play an important place in relaxing the atmosphere, and fulfil multiple functions that ennoble their sociocultural role of choice, this research has achieved conclusive results. in fact, it turns out that funerals, which are occasions for crying, are also occasions for laughter because several forms of joking are played out. on the one hand, we have intergroup jokes already in a situation of “joking kinship”. these include, during the burial, the retention of the corpse and demands to pay taxes to allow the funeral procession to move forward, provocative speeches and songs aimed at expressing a certain joy at the departure of the joking ally, and physical struggles. on the other hand, we have circumstantial intergroup jokes. these are the jokes developed by the bi-paagba (daughters-in-law), the yagense (grandsons) and the funeral crowd. the former take part in the various dances, the musical entertainment and the sacrificial rites of chicken and cattle in an atypical and comic way. the latter, grandsons/granddaughters, will claim from their uncles and aunts (pugdba) money, portions of meat, local beer (dolo) and food, as heirs in the court of the deceased uncle. among the jokes played by specific individuals are the character of kט-togsa (funeral announcer) or the funeral mascot and his clown, the yarsés mask which imitates the moaaga one, the chases of the fulani and yarsés by the masks and the grabbing of a woman’s foot by a yagenga (grandson) followed by a promise of a wife. as for the place and role of choice given to joking in a situation of mourning, let us remember that the answer to the question of why this quasi-mechanical omnipresence of forms of joking during funerals outlines the different functions of this phenomenon. hence, these jokes have a distracting function, as they all aim to provoke laughter instead of tears, a symbolic function of the victory of life over death through the trivialization of the advent of death, a social function in the sense that we can see the social mobilization of various actors. these jokes also have a cultural function, since they contain important elements of the community's culture, and finally an undeniable educational function through the lessons of solidarity and compassion learned. at the end of this qualitative research on funeral jokes in the moaaga environment, it is appropriate to emphasize the richness of these sociocultural practices with their multiple functions. however, it should be noted their relaxation or possible disappearance with revealed religions and modernity, the lack of innovations making them less attractive and the absence of pedagogy allowing the understanding of the meanings and the symbolisms by the participants. we suggest that more action be taken to promote this aspect of kinship and funerals in order to safeguard this rich intangible cultural heritage. references badini a. (1978). representations of life and death among the moose of upper volta. paris, 3rd cycle doctoral thesis, university of lille ill, 637p www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 90 de latour, p., & charles-henry. (1996). les morts et leurs rites en afrique. in: l'homme, 1996, tome 36 (no. 138. pp. 137-142). https://doi.org/10.3406/hom.1996.370080 https://www.persee.fr/doc/hom_0439-4216_1996_num_36_138_370080 degorce, a. (2010), the expression of space in african languages, paris, 79-2, 186p diarra p., & privat, j. p. (2018). funeral jokes and posthumous applause. cahiers de literature oral [online], 83 | 2018, online since 20 june 2019, connection on 17 april 2024. url: http://journals.openedition.org/clo/4882 https://doi.org/10.4000/clo.4882 douglas, m. (1991). jokes, in mukerji (c.), schudson (m.), eds, rethinking popular culture: contemporary perspectives in cultural studies, berkeley (calif.), university of california press, p.293 . faso, p. (2021). center for economic and social policy analysis (capes), 2021, report, secularism in burkina faso: state of play and perspectives, p. 10. griaule, m. (1954). remarks on the uterine uncle in sudan. cahier international de sociologie, 16, 35-49 kouassi, k. (2005). la mort en afrique: entre tradition et modernité, dans études sur la mort 2005/2 (no 128), pages 145 à 149, https://doi.org/10.3917/eslm.128.0145 kouraogo, p. (2012). oral cultural heritage and development in burkina faso: sociocultural analysis of tales and legends, proverbs and moose mottos (doctoral thesis). mohammed v/souissi university of rabat, morocco, 335p. kouraogo, p. 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(2008). historical approach to bulsa, a ku-rit-tenga of moogo (namentenga province, burkina faso) from the origins to 1896 ouagadougou. cnrst, p. 414, p. 2. sissao, a. j. (2002). alliances and joking relationships in burkina faso, sankofa and gurli editions, ouagadougou, p. 6. https://doi.org/10.3917/eslm.128.0145 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 91 unesco. (2003). convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (p. 2). retrieved from https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/plaisanterie/61341 https://www.google.com/search?q=+joke%2c+sens+sociologique notes note 1. with capital m, moose designates the plural of the inhabitants of moogo (a territorial entity) and the singular is a moaaga. in addition, moose (plural) and moaaga (singular) in lowercase denote adjectives. note 2. supreme ruler of the moose note 3. veronique nana is from the moaaga ethnic group. she is also the mother of a priest concelebrant note 4. in the collective imagination among the moose, the mask is a ghost that lives in the note 5. https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/plaisanterie/61341: consulted on april 13, 2024 a sociocultural approach to funeral jokes in the m patrice kouraogo1 1 senior researcher in sociology of culture at the abstract this study conducted in the moaaga environment in keywords 3.1 circumstances of crying and occasions of laugh burkina faso or former upper volta is home to seve in the moaaga environment, apart from the "red dea the main question in this section is to find out t 3.1.1 intergroup jokes already in a situation of “ we are tempted to conclude that the phenomenon or firstly, with regard to intergroup funeral jokes i as another case, during the funeral mass of mrs. v sometimes, joking parents are ready to "rob" the b another form of retention is the occupation of the from our observations and questioning, we realize the second aspect of intergroup funeral jokes in a a practical example of a discourteous speech that as pierre diarra and jean-marie privat (2019) expl in addition to the comments, joking parents can al to close this subsection of jokes, we would like t to conclude this sub-section on jokes, we would li 3.1.2 circumstantial intergroup funeral jokes: fun we have noticed other forms of circumstantial inte the bi-pagba (daughters-in-law) play an important firstly, they will take part in the various dances figure 1. daughters-in-law imitating masks figure 2. they imitate masks and drummers source: dr kouraogo. also, with used cans and boxes (figure 2), they wi secondly, during the sacrificial rites of chickens as for the yagense or grandsons/granddaughters, th as soon as the head of the family dies, the grands at funerals, grandsons and granddaughters ask thei the grandsons/daughters also claim portions of mea finally, there is the rag-saasgo session which can from all the above, the joking character is eviden so far, we have presented intergroup funeral jokes 3.1.3 jokes played by specific individuals in this section, we examine jokes embodied by indi first, we have the character of kט-togsa (funeral also, during final funerals, thanks to joking kins figure 3. the funeral mascot (right) and its jokin source: dr kouraogo. then we have the yarse mask which imitates the moa figure 4. a yarsé mask figure 5. a moaaga mask source: dr kouraogo. these images show the provocation of the yarsés. t besides, when presenting this mask of his communit so that's it, eureka (we've found it)! the yarsés figure 6. screenshot of an ironic post from a yarg the fulani and the yarsés, the masks' pet peeves as you can see from this screenshot, the masks hun one day, a yarga who was walking in the bush saw a the strained relationship between the mask and the a fulani woman laid her calabash of milk on the ba these two funny stories explain the origins of the foot-grabbing and a promise of woman: another se 3.2 place and role of choice given to joke in mour we have identified two channels through which the noret (2017), in this work, shows on the basis of kouassi (2005), examines the extent to which publi according to marcel mauss (1958, p. 16), joking ki let us remember that alliances and joking kinships starting from the logic that "relatives" (congenit such a turnaround of circumstances may seem shocki according to alain sissao (2002, p. 6), joking kin in a nutshell, kinship and joking alliance have a in addition, the role of regulating tensions in al joking (larousse, 2024) (note 5) is the act of jok in the sociological sense, joking (google, 2024) s humor being close to joking, douglas (1991, p. 293 according to louis-vincent (1982, p. 218219), amusing the dead, deriding him is telling him that returning to the data of our study, their exploita let us acknowledge that the place of joking during also, at each stage of the funerals the kטr-fânb 3.2.2 from distraction to psychotherapy: the rich we might ask ourselves: why this almost mechanical first, we have the distracting function of these j then, a symbolic function of the victory of life o louis-vincent (1982, pp. 239-240), gives a good il furthermore, we can mention the psychotherapeutic jokes also have a social function. indeed, develop when we see the general mobilization shown by ever these jokes have a cultural function too. they con the practices, representations, expressions, knowl our objects of study are indeed community practice finally, the different forms of jokes studied cont references microsoft word assc-v4n2-p72 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 72 original paper a theoretical approach to digital marketing and usage channels yakup durmaz1 & cetin celik2 1 hasan kalyoncu university, faculty of economics administrative and social sciences, şahinbey, gaziantep, turkey 2 hasan kalyoncu university, ph. d. student received: march 14, 2022 accepted: april 25, 2022 online published: april 30, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p72 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p72 abstract today, new inventions are constantly emerging. these inventions affect almost all areas of our lives and change our lifestyle, mentality and perspective on events. the internet, and with its digitalization, is one of the important inventions that brought about such changes. thanks to digitalization, companies have had the opportunity to market their products or services more quickly. thanks to digitalization, customers and/or consumers can more easily have detailed information about the products that can meet their needs, taking into account criteria such as the price, quality, features and quality of the products they are looking for. in this study, the most used channels in digital marketing, which are the top roof of online marketing activities: digital platforms, mobile applications, social media sites and search engines are emphasized. keywords digital marketing, digital platforms, mobile applications, social media sites, search engines 1. introduction the information storage capacities of computers were quite large in the 1980s. this size of digital storage was one of the major inventions of its time, allowing businesses to store customer information, create a database of customers, and use this data when needed. this opportunity not only made it possible to process information better and faster but also ensured a relationship between customers and manufacturers. however, the processing of this information is rather slow compared to the speed and technology used as it is today, and it did not provide the desired efficiency. by the 1990s, businesses began to perceive even more than the phenomenon in data processing created customer recognition and new marketing sales opportunities. this brought a new concept, “digital marketing”, to the marketing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 73 published by scholink inc. literature. so much so that in 1994, the first clickable banner ad called “you will do” was prepared, and 44% of those who saw the ad clicked on the ad in the first four months (desai, 2019). since the 2000s, the development of digital marketing has also changed the way companies and brands use technology. thus, it has become common for people to visit digital spaces instead of visiting stores. in 2007, with the concept of marketing automation, multi-channel marketing and personalized products began to be marketed to customers. customers were quick to adapt to this new marketing, but the same was not true of technology. the proliferation of devices in the 2010s led to a sudden growth in access to digital media. firms tried to reach customers using search engines, websites, social media and e-mail channels. instead of visiting stores, people have started to prefer digital platforms that are digital and included in daily life. thus, marketing campaigns have become both widespread and more efficient (khan, 2016). 2. digital marketing along with what age brings, people spend most of their time in digital environments. therefore, businesses have considered making product or service offers in these environments as a great opportunity. digital marketing, which can also be defined as the shopping world where people can buy products or services in the digital environment, called e-commerce, is the process of performing marketing activities for brands, products or individuals in digital environments (çoşkun, 2016). digital marketing is a form of marketing done online (stoll, 2019). digital marketing is the interaction of customers with business partners through electronic devices. digital marketing, which can be defined as the use of digital channels to attract and retain customers, is the activity of conducting marketing activities through online technologies (serohina, petryshchenko, & andrlic, 2019). kotler defined digital marketing as a kind of marketing side of e-commerce, as manufacturers communicate via the internet (kotler et al., 2011). in digital marketing, a brand makes use of marketing activities holistically while giving information about an advertisement or product. digital marketing has undergone a conceptual evolution over time, introducing brands, retaining old customers, acquiring new customers, and all the opportunities that digital channels are used to do so (kannan, 2017). digital marketing, social media, search engines, web, email, video, smartphones, etc. it can be defined as making advertisements and product sales related to products and services using online and offline marketing strategies (puthussery, 2020; dahiya & gayatri, 2018; yalçınkaya, 2018). digital marketing allows companies to reach their customers cheaply. what is more important than this is that it changes marketing strategies (chaffey & smith, 2013). because marketing activities take place in a digital environment. this differentiates digital marketing from traditional marketing and provides more advantages (dholakia & bagozzi, 2001). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 74 published by scholink inc. 3. channels used in digital marketing digital marketing’s most frequently used channels; are mobile applications, websites, social media sites and search engines (chaffey & smith, 2013; dahiya & gayatri, 2018; yalçınkaya, 2018). 1.1 digital platforms (websites) digital marketing, which has been heard frequently in recent years and has a significant impact on people’s lives, has led to innovations in many fields, especially in the communication sector. in parallel with this, marketing has also gained a digital dimension. although social media is the most important field of study, it is not possible to think of digital marketing outside of these channels. there are certain strategies used to increase the visibility of websites and the experience of users (saçan & eren, 2021). it is known that marketing has become digital thanks to the integration of these strategies and technologies (kannan, 2017; smith, 2011). with technological developments, consumer behaviors and habits are also changing. the change in people’s lifestyles thanks to mobile devices has caused companies to allocate budgets for digital platforms. thanks to digital platforms, companies can reach customers. thanks to these channels, businesses can reduce their costs while promoting products or services to their customers and/or consumers. because, thanks to digital platforms, businesses get rid of physical space, warehouse, etc. expenses and provide the transportation of products to the consumer without the storage costs (ryan, 2016). digital marketing has been moved to digital platforms (companies’ websites, youtube, facebook marketplace, etc.) with the use of digital media, digital data and technology (chaffey, 2019). businesses evaluate and use these platforms as a marketplace. thanks to these platforms, the customer base expands and access to the product becomes easier. the websites contain information such as photos, videos (demirci & uğurluoğlu, 2020), order systems and prices. potential customers can access products, information about these products, contact information about the business and information about how to order the product through the websites of the businesses (sanhcez, 2003). digital platforms, especially web sites, fulfill a number of marketing tasks such as reaching potential customers, ensuring their satisfaction and maintaining customer loyalty (hoşgör, gündüz hoşgör, & özsarı, 2016). it can be said that this situation makes digital platforms very important in digital marketing. 1.2 mobile apps the internet has been used by companies for commercial purposes for half a century (kannan, 2017). with the increasing use of mobile applications, smartphones and tablets, companies have started to use them as digital marketing tools. thanks to these devices, individuals can easily access and use the social networks of institutions and organizations via mobile platforms (safko, 2012). thanks to mobile applications, companies can share information about their products or services with messages, pictures, audio and video (yasmin, tasneem, & fatema, 2015). scharl, dickinger and murphy, mobile applications; stated that it is a marketing tool that can be used in the process of promoting products or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 75 published by scholink inc. services via mobile devices (scharl, dickinger, & murphy, 2005). mobile applications are software that runs on tablets, computers and smart devices (https://www.techopedia.com/definition/2953/mobile-application-mobile-app, e.t.: 13.12.2021). especially the widespread use of smartphones has increased the importance and necessity of mobile applications (demirci & uğurluoğlu, 2020). sometimes there are mobile applications of well-known brands (blue, kikili, festive, etc.), and sometimes there are also businesses (closet, let go, trendyol, etc.) that have emerged only thanks to these applications. 1.3 social media sites today, people actively use social media. in addition to information exchange, people who direct people’s lifestyles see social media as an indispensable part of life. businesses have also tried to turn this development into an opportunity and have tended to increase their sales by communicating with large masses (solmaz & görkemli, 2012). social media sites, especially facebook, youtube, twitter and instagram, offer companies the opportunity to communicate with their customers in full and/or real-time. thanks to this opportunity, businesses can establish a closer relationship with their customers. in this way, companies were able to acquire new customers through suggestions and advertisements, while at the same time increasing their relations with their own customers. in this way, companies have the opportunity to improve their product or service, on the other hand, they ensure that customer feedback is read by everyone (heindl, 2015). 1.4 search engines another channel that is frequently used in digital marketing is the search engine channel. a search engine is asoftware that provides access to the product and information about the product in digital environments (kesen, şenol, & yanar 2008). search engines (google, yaani, etc.) classify websites based on keywords and present the information they want to the searchers. consumers generally seek help from search engines when they do not know the websites they want to find or the businesses that sell the product they want to buy (yurdakul & mat, 2011). since businesses know this, they want to be seen in the first place in search engines related to the products they sell (yalçın & köse, 2010). because customers who do not have enough knowledge about businesses or products are often influenced by the sites they see and view for the first time and connect with those businesses. this situation has caused businesses to place their product promotions in search engines in the form of advertisements and has created a new digital marketing channel used to reach customers. 1.4 conclusion digital marketing is a type of marketing done through the internet. this type of marketing means that all standard marketing activities are done on virtual platforms. digital marketing provides cost and time advantages that arise both with the development of technology and as a result of economic crises. thanks to digital marketing, businesses save on many cost items such as warehouses, marketing expenses carried out by employees, etc. this situation provides businesses with better competitive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 76 published by scholink inc. power and more affordable price advantage, as it reduces costs. within the scope of the research in the literature, the most frequently used channels of digital marketing; are websites, social media sites and search engines. thanks to these channels, customers can more easily access the product they want to buy, information about the product and all kinds of information about the company selling the product. the same situation provides benefits for businesses. these benefits include the ability of businesses to promote their products at less cost and to reach a wider customer base. in this case, it can be said that it would be beneficial for businesses to give the necessary importance to digital marketing and the channels used in digital marketing. references chaffey, d. 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(2017). digital marketing: a framework, review and research agenda. international journal of research in marketing, 34(1), 22-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.11.006 kesen, s., şenol, c., & ve yanar, z. (2008). google scholar ve scirus arama motorlarında türkçe anahtar sözcüklerle yapılan aramalar üzerine bir değerlendirme. bilgi dünyası dergisi, 9(1), 140-157. https://doi.org/10.15612/bd.2008.331 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 77 published by scholink inc. khan, m. n. (2016). internship report on “why a brand should do digital marketing-a study on bangladesh market”. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/viewer.html?pdfurl=http%3a%2f%2f dspace.bracu.ac.bd%2fxmlui%2fbitstream%2fhandle%2f10361%2f8305%2f14204113_bba. pdf%3fsequence%3d1%26isallowed%3dy&clen=1252128, erişim tarihi: 11.12.2021 kotler, p., armstrong, g., wong, v., & ve saunders, j. 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(2011). şirketler i̇çin rekabette sanal farkındalık: arama motoru pazarlaması. gümüşhane üniversitesi i̇letişim fakültesi elektronik dergisi, 1(1), 45-60. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 132 original paper "resilience" and "fatigue" in grassroots governance: the practical logic of community workers in conflict mediation work hongye wang1a, yuxuan shen1b, rongzhen zhang2c, min xu3d, & huan zeng4e a college of humanities and social sciences, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan, china b college of humanities and social sciences, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan, china c college of humanities and social sciences, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan, china d college of humanities and social sciences, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan, china e college of humanities and social sciences, yunnan agricultural university, kunming, yunnan, china received: march 24, 2025 accepted: june 11, 2025 online published: june 28, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p132 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p132 abstract in the process of promoting the modernization of grassroots governance, community workers, as the core force in conflict mediation, their "resilience" and "fatigue" states profoundly affect the governance effectiveness. this study adopts a mixed research method. through field investigations, in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys in six typical communities in the east, central and western regions, combined with the theories of resilient governance and stress management, it systematically analyzes the practical logic of community workers in conflict mediation. the research finds that workers have demonstrated strong "resilience" through means such as resource integration, relationship network construction, and policy innovation, effectively resolving various conflicts and disputes. however, at the same time, affected by work stressors, resource shortages and institutional deficiencies, 78% of workers suffer from fatigue to varying degrees, manifested as physical overwork, psychological anxiety and job burnout. "resilience" and "fatigue" present a complex interactive relationship. "resilience" can alleviate fatigue, while fatigue weakens the exertion of resilience, thereby affecting the effectiveness of grassroots governance. based on this, this study proposes optimization paths from the three levels of individuals, communities and institutions, providing theoretical and practical references for improving the efficiency of grassroots governance and perfecting the conflict mediation mechanism. keywords grassroots governance community worker conflict mediation resilience fatigue practical logic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 133 1. introduction 1.1 research background and significance grassroots governance, as the "nerve endings" of the national governance system, is the "last mile" for the party and the government to connect with the people, and it undertakes the key function of transforming policies into the well-being of the people. the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china clearly states that "we should improve the social governance system, perfect the social governance system featuring joint construction, joint governance and shared benefits, and enhance the effectiveness of social governance." this strategic deployment profoundly reveals the cornerstone role of grassroots governance in promoting the modernization of national governance. at present, with the urbanization rate exceeding 65%, communities have become the convergence point of multiple stakeholders. the complexity of the population structure and the diversity of interest demands have led to frequent problems such as neighborhood disputes, property management conflicts, and family conflicts. according to statistics from the ministry of civil affairs, in 2023, community mediation organizations across the country handled over 12 million cases of conflicts and disputes. among them, group incidents caused by untimely or improper mediation accounted for 3.2%, and this figure has been on the rise year by year over the past five years, highlighting the urgency of building an efficient conflict mediation mechanism. introducing the concepts of "resilience" and "fatigue" into the research of grassroots governance is not only the need for theoretical innovation but also an inevitable response to practical predicaments. from a theoretical perspective, traditional research on grassroots governance mostly focuses on static structural analysis, while "resilience" emphasizes the dynamic adaptation and innovation capabilities of the system, and "fatigue" pays attention to the physical and mental wear and tear of the work subjects. the combination of the two provides a new paradigm for understanding the complexity of grassroots governance. from the practical perspective, community workers, as the direct executors of conflict mediation, their working status directly determines the governance effectiveness. according to the "report on the career development of community workers in china", over 70% of the workers suffer from varying degrees of job burnout, and in economically developed regions, this proportion is even as high as 82%. the fatigue of workers not only affects the quality of mediation, but also threatens the sustainability of grassroots governance. for instance, in a certain first-tier city, due to the long-term fatigue work of community mediators, multiple family disputes failed to be mediated, eventually evolving into serious criminal cases, which has drawn widespread social attention. therefore, an in-depth analysis of the practical logic of "resilience" and "fatigue" is of great practical significance for optimizing resource allocation and improving the mediation mechanism. 2. practical manifestations of "resilience" in community conflict mediation work 2.1 resource integration and flexible response community workers have demonstrated outstanding resource mobilization and integration capabilities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 134 in conflict mediation. by mobilizing multiple forces, they have constructed an efficient conflict resolution system (yang, zhu, & wan, 2025). take the dispute over the installation of elevators in an old residential area in hangzhou as an example. faced with problems such as significant differences in residents' opinions, difficulties in raising funds, and complex technical coordination, community workers fully leveraged their advantages in resource integration, collaborated with the housing and urban-rural development department to obtain policy support and technical guidance, connected with design institutes for scheme design, and coordinated with construction units to ensure the quality of the project. at the same time, a "mediation think tank" was formed by organizing party member volunteers, legal workers and resident representatives. through holding 32 consultation meetings, the demands and concerns of each household were deeply understood, and personalized compensation plans were formulated. eventually, 18 units were successfully installed with elevators. in this case, the workers also innovatively introduced financial institutions and launched the "low-interest loan for elevator installation" service to solve the problem of capital shortage, fully demonstrating their ability to integrate resources and innovate. ​ when dealing with different types of conflicts, workers will flexibly adjust the mediation strategies according to the characteristics of the conflicts and the needs of the parties involved (journal of yunnan agricultural university (social sciences), n.d.). when dealing with family disputes, workers often bring in professional forces such as psychological counselors and marriage and family counselors, and adopt the "emotional resonance method". through patient listening and empathetic understanding, they help the parties involved release their emotions and resolve their mental knots. when mediating a divorce dispute between a couple, the worker, in collaboration with a marriage and family counselor, conducted multiple family interviews and found that the root cause of the conflict lay in the lack of effective communication between the couple. subsequently, they organized the couple to participate in communication skills training courses, eventually leading to their reconciliation. when resolving property management conflicts, the workers, in collaboration with market supervision departments, sub-district offices and others, apply the "interest analysis method" to guide both parties to clarify their rights and responsibilities and sign the "property service improvement agreement". for disputes involving economic interests, workers will rely on professionals such as accountants and assessors to provide data support to ensure the fairness and impartiality of the mediation results. when it comes to group disputes, workers usually adopt a "divide and rule" strategy. they first accurately identify key figures, address their core demands, and then gradually promote overall mediation. according to statistics, after adopting differentiated mediation strategies, the success rate of conflict mediation has increased by more than 25% on average (for details, see table 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 135 table 1. comparison of the effectiveness of conflict mediation under different mediation strategies mediation strategy type application scenarios average mediation period increase in success rate typical case effect resource integration strategy elevator installation disputes in old residential communities reduced from 60 days to 32 days 27% in a hangzhou community, through coordinating multiple parties, 18 units successfully installed elevators differentiated mediation strategy (emotional resonance method) family disputes reduced from 15 days to 7 days 30% in a divorce dispute, with the intervention of psychological counseling, the mediation success rate reached 90% differentiated mediation strategy (interest analysis method) property management disputes reduced from 22 days to 10 days 25% in a certain community, by clarifying rights and responsibilities, a property service improvement agreement was signed relationship network construction strategy neighborhood noise disputes reduced from 18 days to 5 days 40% in a wuhan community, by inviting mutual friends to participate, the conflict was resolved quickly policy innovation strategy digital mediation (smart mediation mini program) average online mediation duration: 2 hours efficiency increased by 40% in a shanghai community, online dispute handling accounted for 65% of the total disputes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 136 2.2 construction and repair of relationship networks the community acquaintance social network is an important support for conflict mediation work. community workers are well aware of it and build and maintain relationship networks through various means, laying a solid foundation for mediation work. in the mediation of a neighborhood noise dispute in a certain community in wuhan, the workers invited mutual friends and building leaders from both sides to participate in the mediation. by taking advantage of the trust relationship between them, the communication barriers were effectively reduced, gradually calming down the originally tense two sides and eventually reaching a settlement. workers also proactively build relationship networks through regular visits and organizing activities such as "neighborhood festivals" and "community council halls". for instance, a certain community in chengdu has established a "resident demand list" system, collecting residents' demands every month and classifying them for handling. as a result, 70% of conflicts have been resolved in their infancy, achieving a transformation from "passive mediation" to "active prevention". the community has also established a "neighborhood mutual aid team", encouraging residents to help each other and further enhancing the cohesion of the community. ​ in terms of repairing damaged relationships, workers adopt a variety of innovative approaches. in response to the intense conflicts in a certain community caused by the problem of pets disturbing residents, workers organized pet owners and affected residents to jointly participate in pet training courses. during the process of cooperative learning, they enhanced mutual understanding and repaired the relationship. in addition, community workers are also adept at leveraging the influence of "opinion leaders", such as retired cadres and community celebrities, to assist in the implementation of mediation work. these "opinion leaders", relying on their own prestige and credibility, can play a key role in the mediation of conflicts. when a certain community was mediating a dispute over a shop's occupation of the street, it invited a respected retired cadre from the local area to participate. under his persuasion, the shop operator voluntarily rectified the situation, and the surrounding residents also expressed their understanding. the conflict was thus properly resolved. 2.3 policy application and innovative practice policies and regulations are important bases for mediation work, and community workers need to accurately grasp and flexibly apply them. in a demolition dispute in a certain urban village in xi 'an, workers, based on legal provisions such as the land administration law and the civil code, clearly defined the standards for demolition compensation. at the same time, they formulated a "monetary compensation + property rights exchange" plan in combination with local policies to ensure that the mediation was legal and compliant. during the mediation process, the workers also organized policy briefings to explain the relevant policies in detail to the residents and eliminate their doubts. when handling labor disputes, workers need to be familiar with regulations such as the "labor contract law" and the "law on mediation and arbitration of labor disputes". when mediating disputes over marriage and family, it is necessary to follow the relevant provisions of the marriage and family chapter of the civil code, ensuring that the law is the basis and reason is used to convince people. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 137 grassroots practice, community workers have also been actively exploring policy innovations to enhance the quality and efficiency of mediation work. a community in shanghai has developed a "smart mediation" mini-program, integrating functions such as online consultation, evidence submission, and remote mediation, which has increased the mediation efficiency by 40%. this model has been promoted throughout the city. the mini-program also sets up a "policy and regulation database", making it convenient for workers and parties involved to consult relevant policies at any time. a certain community in zhengzhou has established a "mediation case library", converting typical cases into standardized mediation processes for workers to refer to and learn from. the case library covers multiple fields such as neighborhood disputes, property management conflicts, and family disputes. through the study and analysis of the cases, the mediation ability of the workers has been significantly improved. in addition, some communities have also explored a "mediation point system", linking residents' enthusiasm for participating in mediation with community welfare to stimulate the vitality of self-governance among the masses. each time residents successfully participate in mediation, they can earn corresponding points. these points can be exchanged for daily necessities or community services. after the implementation of this system, the enthusiasm of community residents to participate in mediation has greatly increased, creating a favorable atmosphere of "everyone participating in mediation and jointly building a harmonious community". 3. analysis of the "fatigue" phenomenon in community conflict mediation work 3.1 specific manifestations of "fatigue" physically, research shows that 78% of workers work an average of more than 10 hours a day, 42% suffer from occupational diseases such as cervical spondylosis and lumbar intervertebral disc protrusion, and 35% experience symptoms such as insomnia and anxiety due to long-term staying up late. during periods with a high incidence of conflicts, such as the heating season and holidays, it becomes the norm for workers to work overtime continuously. psychologically, in the face of accusations and abuse from the parties involved, workers generally bear tremendous psychological pressure. a community worker admitted, "when mediating family disputes, i often become the target for both sides to vent their emotions. i even received threatening text messages and couldn't sleep all night." under long-term high-pressure conditions, some workers have experienced problems such as emotional outbursts and memory decline. at the professional level, 42% of the respondents indicated that they "lost enthusiasm for work" and believed that their own value had not been recognized. 28% have a clear intention to resign. the main reasons include high work intensity (65%), low sense of achievement (53%), and limited promotion opportunities (41%). in the past three years, the turnover rate of newly recruited community workers in a certain street has been as high as 35%, and most of those who left are young talents with professional backgrounds, which has seriously affected the stability of the grassroots governance team. (see table 2 for details) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 138 table 2. investigation and statistics on the fatigue status of community workers fatigue dimension specific manifestations proportion illustrative case physical fatigue working over 10 hours per day on average 78% during the peak heating season dispute period, a community worker worked 14 hours a day for 30 consecutive days physical fatigue suffering from occupational diseases such as cervical spondylosis and lumbar disc herniation 42% long term exposure to handling dispute documents at a desk and frequent field visits led to physical strain physical fatigue experiencing insomnia, anxiety, etc. due to long term staying up late 35% inability to return to normal sleep patterns after handling emergency incidents at night psychological fatigue encountering accusations and verbal abuse from parties involved 100% (experienced by all respondents) becoming the target of emotional outbursts during family dispute mediation and receiving threatening text messages psychological fatigue developing issues such as emotional outbursts and memory decline 28% experiencing chaotic communication logic due to excessive stress when handling complex disputes occupational burnout losing enthusiasm for work 42% senior employees with over 5 years of experience stating, “repeated labor without seeing value” occupational burnout having a clear intention to resign 28% young workers choosing to leave due to limited promotion prospects and low salary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 139 3.2 analysis of the causes of "fatigue in terms of the sources of work pressure, the mediation of conflicts is characterized by suddenness, complexity and repetition. research shows that each worker handles 3 to 5 disputes per day on average, and major conflicts need to be followed up continuously for several weeks or even months. for instance, a property dispute involved hundreds of households. the mediator had to communicate and coordinate repeatedly, which took as long as half a year. insufficient resource support has exacerbated the workload. over 60% of the communities have only 1-2 full-time mediators, lacking professional support such as psychological counselors and legal advisors. training resources are scarce, and 63% of the workers have not received systematic mediation skills training. a community mediator said, "when encountering complex legal issues, i can only search for information online by myself and feel unsure." in terms of the institutional environment, the assessment overly focuses on the quantity rather than the quality of mediation, and the filling of formal reports takes up 30% of the working time. a certain community worker needs to fill in more than 20 kinds of reports every month. the contents are repetitive and lack practical significance. the problem of unequal rights and responsibilities is prominent. for instance, a community worker was held accountable for failed mediation but had no right to access law enforcement resources, leading to a predicament of "having responsibilities but no authority". furthermore, social cognitive biases (such as considering mediation "merely to break up a fight") further weaken the professional identity of workers. some residents were uncooperative with the mediation work and even questioned the fairness of the mediators, which intensified the psychological pressure on the workers. 4. the interrelationship and influence between "toughness" and "fatigue 4.1 interaction mechanism "resilience" and "fatigue" present a complex interactive relationship, and the two form a dynamic interaction in the practice of conflict mediation among community workers. from the perspective of the alleviating effect of "resilience" on "fatigue", flexible adjustment strategies are the key factors in reducing the workload. taking the dispute over parking space allocation in an old residential area of a certain second-tier city as an example, community workers used the "demand stratification analysis method" to classify residents based on dimensions such as usage frequency and special needs, and formulated a stepped parking plan. this not only shortened the mediation period from an average of 20 days to 7 days, but also reduced the ineffective work caused by repeated communication, significantly lowering physical consumption. on the psychological level, a good relationship network functions as an "emotional buffer". the "mediation volunteer alliance" established by a certain community is composed of retired teachers, psychological counselors, etc. when the workers encounter the emotional outbursts of the parties involved, the alliance members can promptly provide emotional support and professional advice to help them quickly restore their psychological state. data shows that the incidence of anxiety among workers participating in this alliance is 38% lower than that among www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 140 non-participants. conversely, the weakening effect of "fatigue" on "toughness" should not be ignored either. workers who have been in a state of emotional exhaustion for a long time tend to adopt an "empirical" strategy when facing new types of conflicts (such as disputes among neighbors over the installation of new energy charging piles), and it is difficult for them to innovate mediation methods by combining new policies and technological means. a research on a certain street found that workers who have been working overtime continuously for more than three weeks have a strategy innovation rate of less than 15% when dealing with complex conflicts, which is much lower than the 42% under normal working conditions. job burnout directly leads to a change in work attitude. some workers exhibit the phenomenon of "formal mediation", merely fulfilling procedural requirements without pursuing substantive resolution. in a certain community, due to the passive response of mediators, three family property disputes have transformed into long-term petition incidents. ​ from the perspective of neuroscience, an in-depth analysis shows that the functional impairment of the prefrontal cortex of the brain caused by long-term fatigue will directly affect the executive function of workers. functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) studies have shown that in people who have been working under continuous high pressure for more than six months, the connection strength between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system decreases by 12%-15%, resulting in a significant reduction in logical reasoning, emotion regulation and decision-making abilities. positive resilience strategies have neuroplasticity effects. for instance, regular psychological counseling can promote the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, and teamwork can enhance the connectivity of default mode networks, thereby increasing dopamine secretion levels and improving the stress resistance of workers by 25% to 30%. 4.2 impact on grassroots governance the improvement of "resilience" has a significant positive driving effect on the effectiveness of grassroots governance. a certain eastern coastal community has increased the success rate of conflict mediation from 65% to 92% and reduced the resident complaint rate by 63% by establishing a dual-wheel drive model of "smart mediation + neighborhood mutual assistance". the relevant experience has been included in the provincial "fengqiao-style community" creation standards. in the response to emergencies, resilient communities have demonstrated greater adaptability. for instance, during the epidemic lockdown, a certain community, relying on the three-level response mechanism of "building leader volunteer professional mediation team" established earlier, resolved 27 disputes caused by material distribution within 24 hours, preventing conflicts from escalating into mass incidents. ​ "fatigue" has become a "corrosive agent" to the effectiveness of grassroots governance. the decline in workers' efficiency has directly led to the accumulation of conflicts. in a certain central and western county street, due to a shortage of mediators and their overwork, there were 89 unresolved disputes in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 42%, which eventually triggered two collective petitioning incidents involving over a hundred people. the problem of talent loss has further exacerbated the governance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 141 predicament. statistics from a certain district show that the turnover rate of workers with over five years of mediation experience has risen from 18% in 2020 to 40% in 2023. due to the lack of experience of new employees, the failure rate of mediation has increased by 28%. in addition, the decline in mediation quality caused by fatigue has led to a doubling of governance costs. it is estimated that for cases where conflicts escalate due to failed mediations, the average subsequent handling costs increase by 4.2 times. a large-scale property dispute, which failed multiple mediations, eventually entered the judicial process, consuming over 500,000 yuan of public resources. six. optimization paths for enhancing the "resilience" of community workers in conflict mediation and alleviating "fatigue (1) individual level optimization at the individual level requires the construction of a three-dimensional improvement system of "body and mind ability development". in terms of psychological construction, in addition to traditional mindfulness meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy, stress simulation training based on virtual reality (vr) can be introduced to help workers master emotional management skills through immersive scenarios. after a pilot community carried out vr stress training, the duration of the stress response of workers when facing the abuse of the parties involved was shortened by 40%. in terms of capability improvement, a "mediation skills micro-certification" system has been established, breaking down complex skills into 12 specialized modules such as "communication script design" and "evidence collection techniques". workers can learn and obtain certifications as needed. for instance, after the implementation of this system in a certain district of shenzhen, the success rate of independent mediation by newly recruited employees increased from 35% to 68%. in addition, it is recommended to establish a personal career development plan file, and in combination with the holland occupational interest test, customize differentiated development paths such as "mediation expert" and "community governance researcher" for workers to enhance their sense of professional belonging. (2) community level the optimization at the community level should focus on resource integration and ecological construction. in terms of human resource allocation, a composite team model of "full-time + part-time + volunteers" can be explored. by drawing on the "regional dispute mediation support officer" system in japan, residents with backgrounds in law and psychology can be recruited to serve as part-time mediators. after the implementation of this model in a certain community, the average number of mediated cases per person decreased by 37%. in terms of supporting network construction, the "digital twin" technology is introduced to build a virtual mutual assistance platform. workers can review cases and share experiences through 3d virtual avatars, breaking the limitations of time and space. after a certain street piloted this platform, the efficiency of cross-community mediation collaboration increased by 55%. meanwhile, establish a "mediation risk assessment and intervention mechanism", utilize big data to analyze the complexity of conflicts, and automatically match mediation resources of corresponding levels to prevent workers from getting fatigued due to task overload. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 142 (3) institutional level reform the assessment and evaluation system, incorporate the satisfaction rate of mediation (40%), the recurrence rate of conflicts (30%), and the number of innovative cases (30%) into core indicators, and reduce formal assessment. a certain district has piloted a "digital assessment system", which automatically captures data during the mediation process, achieving objectivity and dynamism in the assessment. clarify the list of rights and responsibilities of workers and grant them the authority to access law enforcement resources, apply for special funds, etc. promote the legislation of the "regulations on the protection of the rights and interests of community workers", incorporate salary and benefits (not less than 1.2 times the average wage of local urban employees), rest and leave (at least 4 days of compensatory leave per month), etc. into the regulations, and enhance the attractiveness of the profession. in addition, a professional honor system should be established to commend and reward outstanding mediators and enhance social recognition. 5. conclusions and prospects this study systematically reveals the complex relationship between "resilience" and "fatigue" of community workers in conflict mediation and its profound impact on grassroots governance. through diachronic tracking investigations, it was found that the two show a nonlinear dynamic correlation: in the early stage of conflict mediation, workers, relying on the stress response mechanism formed by professional training, exhibit strong psychological resilience; however, with the accumulation of cognitive load caused by repeatedly dealing with similar contradictions, fatigue begins to erode the resilience level, forming a vicious cycle of "exhaustion of resilience intensification of fatigue". this kind of interaction is particularly significant in complex disputes involving multiple parties' interest games. it not only leads to a 12%-15% decrease in mediation efficiency, but also may trigger derivative problems such as job burnout and professional identity crises, directly weakening the effectiveness of grassroots governance. the research conclusion indicates that to enhance the effectiveness of grassroots governance, it is necessary to break through the single thinking of "filling the gaps" and shift to a systematic solution that promotes the coordinated advancement of "resilience cultivation fatigue management". in terms of resilience cultivation, a three-dimensional cultivation system of "psychological capital social support institutional guarantee" can be constructed. mindfulness training, case review and discussion, etc. can be integrated into daily training. meanwhile, a risk assessment mechanism for dispute mediation can be established to achieve precise allocation of resources. in terms of fatigue management, it is suggested to implement a dual-track system of "flexible working hours + intelligent assistance systems", and use an ai pre-examination system to filter out simple disputes, leaving a window of opportunity for workers to recover psychologically. for future-oriented research, there are two important expansion directions: first, it is possible to deeply explore the impact of the application of digital technology in conflict mediation on the physical and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 143 mental state of workers. with the development of technologies such as generative ai-assisted document processing and brain-computer interface monitoring of stress levels, it is necessary to be vigilant against the risk of "digital alienation" caused by technology dependence, and at the same time explore the potential for psychological burden reduction brought by technology empowerment. secondly, it is suggested to strengthen cross-cultural comparative studies, systematically analyze the community participation models based on the concept of "preventive mediation" in nordic countries, as well as the grassroots self-governance wisdom of "minor issues not leaving the village and major issues not leaving the town" in china's "fengqiao experience". through the combination of theoretical localization transformation and practical innovation, it can provide richer theoretical and practical references for the modernization of grassroots governance references huang, y. p. (2025). construction of a dispute mediation system from the perspective of the rule of law in grassroots governance: a practical investigation based on yongqiao district, suzhou city, anhui province. july wind, (03), 15-20. li, y. z., & zhang, x. x. (2025). four-dimensional analysis of grassroots governance from the perspective of overall governance. journal of wuhan university of science and technology (social science edition), 27(03), 45-57. wang, y. (2025). the definition and practice of the connotation of "grassroots governance" in the legislative powers of cities divided into districts. chinese and foreign law, 1-19. wu, x. y., & ma, y. y. (2025). the implementation conditions and innovative development of the "fengqiao experience" in the urban grassroots in the new era: a comparative study of two community conflict mediation cases in shanghai. journal of hangzhou normal university (social science edition), 47(01), 115-125. the doi: 10.19925 / j.carol carroll nki. issn 1674-2338.2025.01.012. xie, y. (2024). discussion on the mediation mechanism of conflicts and disputes in grassroots governance in ethnic minority areas [c]// china smart engineering research society. proceedings of the academic exchange conference on cultural inheritance and modern governance the party school of the xining municipal committee, 416-418. doi: 10.26914 / arthur c. nkihy. 2024.056534. xue, l. t. (2024). the transformation mechanism and optimization path of community workers' knowledge forms in grassroots conflict resolution. east china normal university. yang, q. c., zhu, t. l., & wang, j. (2025). the "five-step solution method" successfully resolved over two thousand conflicts. the people's public security newspaper, 2025-01-07(003). doi: 10.28651 / n.c. nki nrmga. 2025.000054.​ journal of yunnan agricultural university (social sciences), 19(01),69-75. zhang, q. (2025). gaodu police station, zeyang county public security bureau, shanxi province: the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 144 "allusion mediation" system facilitates the resolution of conflicts and disputes. police station work, (05), 70. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 60 original paper acomparative study of love metaphors in chinese and english bo feng1 1 college of foreign studies, guangxi normal university, guilin, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 04, 2024 online published: june 18, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p60 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p60 abstract metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a cognitive phenomenon of human beings. this paper attempts to compare the similarities and differences between chinese and english love metaphors, and to explore the factors leading to the similarities and differences. it is found that there are both similarities and differences in chinese and english love metaphors. the similarities are caused by the common physiological and psychological characteristics, physical and social experiences of human beings. the differences result from the fact that chinese people and westerners have different cultural experiences, including differences in cultural origins, geographical environments, historical backgrounds, legends and customs, as well as differences in language itself. keywords love, metaphor, conceptual metaphor, metaphorical expressions 1. introduction modern metaphor theory holds that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a cognitive phenomenon of human beings. people use one concept to express another. lakoff and johnson (1980) believe that metaphors are pervasive in daily life and all languages are metaphorical. when describing the abstract thing “love”, people around the world use rich conceptual metaphors. this paper attempts to make a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between chinese and english love metaphors, and to explore the deep reasons for the similarities and differences. 2. the similarities of chinese and english love metaphors the research of cognitive psychology proves that human cognitive process always develops from the concrete to the abstract and from the known to the unknown. as an abstract concept, love has rich symbolic meanings. there are many conceptual metaphors about love in both english and chinese. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 61 because of the common regularities of the mindsets, people around the world look at love from a similar perspective. therefore, there are many similarities between chinese and english love metaphors. that is, there are many common source domains in the metaphorical expressions of love in the two languages. they are conceptual mapping processes from the same various source domains to the target domain, which is love. in the following part, we will explore the same love metaphors in chinese and english with examples. 1) love is a journey english: a. the marriage is on the rocks. b. this relationship isn’t going anywhere. c. we can’t turn back now. d. we’re at a crossroads. e. our way lies where god knows. chinese: a. 情路艰辛 the journey of love is arduous. b. 分道扬镳 to go our separate ways c. 他们风雨同舟，患难与共，一起走过了 30年的历程。 they share weal and woe and have gone through 30 years of journey together. 2) love is a container english: a. she was overflowing with love. b. they fall in love with each other. c. she is filled with love. chinese: a. 坠入爱河 falling in love b. 她春心荡漾，像有一种力量在体内冲激，不能控制。 her heart is fluttering, as if there is an uncontrollable force surging within her body. 3) love is war english: a. he attacked her, courted her. b. he overpowered her. c. he made an ally of her mother. d. he won her hand in marriage. chinese: a. 他终于征服了她的心。 he finally conquered her heart. b. 他向她进攻，求爱。 he attacked her and begged for love. 4) love is heart english: a. i love you with all my heart. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 62 b. i gave him my heart. c. he breaks my heart. chinese: a. 他俩心心相印。 they are close to each other's heart. b. 他们两心相悦。 their hearts are agreeable to each other. c. 他送我的那颗心，我用爱的缠绵拴紧。 i tied the heart he gave me tightly with my lingering love. 5) love is mental disorder english: a. i'm crazy about her. b. he’s gone mad over her. c. i’m insane about her. chinese: a. 他们爱得疯狂。 they were madly in love. b. 恋爱中的女人都是傻子。 every woman in love is a fool. 6) love is a physical force english: a. they gravitated to each other immediately. b. i was magnetically drawn to her. c. i could feel the electricity between us. chinese: a. 她的美貌与气质深深地吸引了他。 her beauty and temperament attracted him deeply. b. 我们问，为什么星宿万千，能够亘古同行，不相妨碍？吸力，是吸力把它们牵 住——吸力中最强的岂非恋爱？ why, we ask, can the stars orbit together for eternity without hindering each other? the attraction. it is the attraction that holds them together. isn't love the strongest attraction? 7) love is a flame english: a. i am burning with love. b. she is his latest flame. c. i don’t want to get burned again. chinese: a. 你就像那一把火，熊熊火焰照亮了我。 you are like that fire and the blazing flames illuminate me. b. 爱情不是一颗心去敲打另一颗心，而是两颗心共同撞击的火花。 love is not one heart beating another heart, but the spark of two hearts hitting together. 8) love is a disease english: a. i am heart-sick. b. it’s a tired affair. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 63 c. their marriage is on the mend. chinese: a. 他患了单相思的心病。 he suffers from a heart disease of unrequited love. b. 爱情是一种病，而且是一种难以治愈的病毒，让我朝思暮想，无法自拔。 love is a kind of disease, and it is a kind of virus that is difficult to cure, making me yearn for it day and night and unable to extricate myself. 9) love is magic english: a. i was entranced by him. b. he has me in a trance. chinese: 她好像有魔力似的，紧紧地吸引着他。 she seems to have a magical power to attract him. 10) love is unity english: a. we are one. b. we function as a unit. chinese: a. 你是我的另一半，我是你的另一半，我们共同组成一个完整的圆。 you are my other half and i am your other half, so we form a complete circle together. b. 爱情的魅力在于互爱双方把彼此的一切融为一体，和谐、纯洁又永相依存。 the charm of love lies in the fact that the two lovers merge everything into one, harmonious, pure, and forever dependent on each other. 11) love is nourishment english: a. i am starved for love. b. he hungered for love. c. lovers live by love, as larks live by leeks. chinese: a. 爱情，是生活的营养剂，能把原先青黄不接的人生变得生机盎然。 love is a nutrient of life, which can make the previously dull life full of vitality. b. 爱情是女人最好的保养品，它能让她的皮肤发光，让她的眼神闪耀，让她的心灵 变得更加年轻和活力。 love is the best skincare product for a woman, which can make her skin glow, her eyes sparkle, and her soul more youthful and energetic. 12) love is a plant english: a. our love flowered. b. her love keeps growing. chinese: a. 爱情就像是一颗种子，没有人知道会长出什么样的花，但是却给整片森林带来了色 彩。 love is like a seed and no one knows what kind of flowers it will grow, but it will bring colors to the whole forest. b. 甘蔗越吃越甜，爱情越长越深。 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 64 sugarcane becomes sweeter as you eat it, and love grows deeper as it lasts longer. 13) love is a precious thing english: a. you're my treasure. b. i paid a lot for so little love. chinese: a. 他把自己所有的爱都给了她。 he gave her all his love. b. 爱情买不到，全靠忠诚换。 you can't buy love, for it's all about loyalty. 14) love is a bond english: the first time i went to church they threw water on my face, and the second time they tied me to a woman i’ve had to keep ever since. chinese: 爱是一把箭，穿得两人心。 love is an arrow that pierces both hearts. 3. the characteristic metaphorical expressions of love in chinese due to the differences in culture and thinking patterns, conceptual metaphors have special national and cultural characteristics. the following are some love metaphors that are unique in chinese. 3.1 love is spring in chinese, “spring” is used as a metaphor for love, but the metaphor “love is spring” doesn’t exist in english. the following are two examples in chinese: a. 忆昔娇小姿，春心亦自恃。 recalling the time when she was unmarried, she was still a petite girl. although she had a longing for spring, her spring heart could still hold on to itself. b. 满园春色关不住，一枝红杏出墙来。 riotous spring cannot thus be shut in the garden; there, a red apricot is stretching out of the wall. “spring” has the connotative meaning of “love between men and women” or “sexual desire” in chinese. although the word “spring” in both chinese and english has the associative meanings of “being beautiful, happy, sweet, young, and energetic”, the chinese connotative meaning of “spring” in the above examples is missing in the semantic field of “spring” in english (wang, 2001, p. 160). therefore, “love is spring” is a unique metaphorical concept in chinese. 3.2 love is an agriculture product in chinese, there are metaphorical concepts such as “love is an agricultural product” or “love is a part of agricultural life”. however, westerners rarely use agricultural products as metaphors for love. for example, in chinese there are: a. 春蚕到死丝方尽，蜡炬成灰泪始干。 spring silkworm till its death spins from love-sick heart. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 65 a candle but when burned out has no tears to shed. (lu & xu, 2020, p. 122) b. 桑之未落，其叶沃若。于嗟鸠兮，无食桑葚！ how fresh were mulberries. with their fruit on the trees! beware, o turtledove. eat not the fruit of love! (yan & xu, 2020, p. 83) in the two cases, “silkworm” and “mulberry” are used respectively to refer to love, which is closely related to the fact that china has been an agricultural country since ancient times. although there is also agriculture in britain, it is not the same as in china. therefore, english love metaphors related to agricultural production and life are also different from chinese. for example, in english, there is “bread-and-cheese marriage”, which means poor couple. 3.3 love is water or the moon in chinese, there are metaphorical concepts such as “love is the moon” and “love is water”, while in english, people use the metaphorical concepts “love is the sun” and “love is fire”. for example: english: a. the fire of love b. you’re my sunshine. chinese: a. 月亮代表我的心。 the moon represents my heart. b. 爱情是一湖不皱的清水，照得见心头的太阳和月亮。 love is a lake of unwrinkled water, illuminating the sun and moon in one’s heart. although the metaphorical concept “love is fire” also exists in chinese, chinese prefers to use “moon” and “water” as metaphors for love, while english prefers “fire” and “sun”. 3.4 love is fate chinese people regard marriage as a kind of fate, and people often say that “marriage is destined”, so there is a metaphorical concept “love is fate” in chinese. for example, 千里姻缘一线牵 (a fate match across a thousand miles is drawn by a thread). in english, marriage is regarded as a kind of bond, so english has the conceptual metaphor “marriage is a durable bond between two people”, as shown in the following examples: a. their marriage nearly broke up. b. their marriage lasted 60 years. 3.5 love is the unity of two inseparable things “the unity of two things” is one of the common sources of love metaphors in both chinese and english. there exists a metaphorical concept of "love is a whole composed of two parts" in both languages. however, in the process of conceptualization, there are some differences between the two languages. english emphasizes the complementarity of the two parts, that is, “love is a whole of complementary parts”, such as the expressions “she is my better half”, “we are made for each other”. however, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 66 chinese emphasizes the inseparability of the two parts, that is, “love is two inseparable things”, so there are metaphorical expressions in chinese as follows: a. 上有并蒂莲，下有并根藕。 there are twin lotus flowers on one stalk on the top and twin lotus roots at the bottom. b. 他们是一对形影不离的鸳鸯。 they are a pair of inseparable mandarin ducks. 3.6 metaphorical expressions related to historical allusions or conventions in chinese, there are some metaphorical expressions related to historical allusions or chinese traditional conventions, which can make the expressions implicit. the following are some examples: a. 红豆生南国，春来发几枝。愿君多采撷，此物最相思。 the red beans grow in southern land. how many loads in spring the trees? gather them till full is your hand; they would revive fond memories. (lu & xu, 2020, p. 98) b. 柔情似水，佳期如梦，忍顾鹊桥归路！两情若是长久时，又岂在朝朝暮暮！ their tender love flows like a stream. this happy date seems but a dream alliance between the two families by marriage. can they bear a separate homeward way? if love between both sides can last for aye, why need they stay together night and day? (wu & xu, 2020, p. 66) c. 倒陪家门，情愿与英雄结婚，成秦晋。 instead accompanying the family, she was willing to marry the hero and form a lifelong alliance between the two families by marriage. d. 结发为夫妻，恩爱两不疑。 to knot the hair together and become a husband and wife, without doubting their love and affection. the above expressions have special historical and cultural background, which are unique to chinese language and culture. to understand the connotations of them, one must know the related historical allusions or customs. in the first example, “red bean” is also known as “jequirity”, which is a symbol of the love or lovesickness of couples or lovers. according to the chinese legend, once upon the time, a woman cried and died under a red bean tree, for she missed her husband who died in the frontier. in the second example, the chinese poet uses “magpie bridge” as a metaphor, which also originates from an ancient chinese legend. according to the legend, the cowherd and the weaving maid, who were once a happy couple, are now separated by the milky way. they can meet only once in a year on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 67 the night of chinese valentine's day when magpies fly together to form a bridge over the milky way. in the third example, “a lifelong alliance between the two families by marriage” originates from the chinese historical allusion of the alliance and reconciliation between the qin state and the jin state during the spring and autumn period. in the fourth example, “knot hair” comes from an ancient chinese marriage custom. in ancient china, the newlyweds' hair is tied together at the wedding ceremony to bless their lasting marriage. 4. reasons for the similarities and differences between chinese and english love metaphors 4.1 reasons for the similarities modern metaphor theory holds that metaphor is essentially a cognitive phenomenon, which is a result and tool of human cognitive activities. it is a cognitive activity in which human beings use the experience of one field to explain or understand the experience of another field (shu, 2003, p. 28). lakoff (1987) defines metaphor as the conceptualization of another domain by an independent domain. “conceptual metaphors are systematic mappings across conceptual domains: one domain of experience, the source domain, is mapped into another domain of experience, the target domain” (ning, 1998, p. 138). he points out that the structures that make up our conceptual system are derived from our own experiences, and that the core of our conceptual system is directly derived from our experiences of perception, physical movement\and social nature. therefore, our understanding and interpretation of metaphors should be traced back to our personal experiences. 4.1.1 the same physiological and psychological bases it is found that the same metaphorical concepts of love in chinese and english are rooted in the same physiological and psychological bases of human beings. for example, both in chinese and english, love is conceptualized as a container. lakoff and johnson (1980) argue that human conceptual system is largely based on ontological metaphors, and container metaphors are the most typical ontological metaphors. each of us is a container, and people project this concept to things outside the human body. thus, there is the metaphorical concept “love is a container”. similar examples can also be found in english and chinese. for example, zoltan and koveces compare the words for anger in english, hungarian, japanese, and chinese, and find that the words for anger in the four languages all refer to the human body as a “container”, from which anger is a “gas” or “fire” that “erupts” (quoted in shu, 2003, p. 217). the commonness of chinese and english love metaphors stems from the common psychological base of human beings. chinese and westerners have similar feelings about love, so they all compare love to mental disorders, fire, disease and so on. 4.1.2 the same physical and social experience the commonalities of physical and social experience lead to similar metaphorical expressions in english and chinese. people of different nationalities live in the same world and share many of the same physical experiences. when describing abstract things, metaphorical thinking helps people www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 68 transform abstract things into concrete things, understand and experience unknown abstract things through concrete experiences. “love is a journey”, “love is war”, “love is a physical force”, “love is magic” and other common metaphorical concepts in both chinese and english are derived from the same physical and social experience. take the metaphorical concept “love is war” for example. people of different nationalities have the same feelings about wars. in a war, there is losing and winning; there is attack and defense; there is conquest and being conquered, and there may be war alliances. these same experiences have led people of different nationalities to produce the same metaphorical expressions when talking about love. this shows that human beings have the common ways of thinking, perspectives and cognitive models when it comes to love. 4.2 reasons for the differences the differences of cultural experience are the cause of the differences between chinese and english love metaphors, metaphor is a tool of human cognition, which is rooted in language, thinking and culture. allan (quoted in wang, 2004, p. 60) believes that although our physical sensations give us a starting point to experience the society, our perception of the world varies according to various cultures. “the source domains of some metaphors not only reflect the cultural characteristics of the language, but also form part of the culture” (zhang, 2000, p. 31). human perception of the world cannot be independent of specific culture and society, so the metaphorical conceptual systems of different cultures are inevitably different. 4.2.1 differences in cultural origins chinese culture is deeply influenced by buddhism and taoism. in chinese love metaphors, the yin and yang theory in taoist philosophy is particularly prominent. according to yi chuan, an ancient chinese philosophical and ethical work, yin and yang are two contradictory forces and properties that exist in the universe. anything rigid, hot, upward, outward, bright, strong, etc., is yin, while anything soft, cold, downward, inward, dark, weak, etc., is yang. in chinese culture, yang is often used to refer to men and yin is used to refer to women. male and female, like yin and yang in nature, are opposite, interdependent, and inseparable. this idea emphasizes harmony under the unity of opposites. therefore, when describing love, chinese focuses on the harmonious beauty of pairs, using mandarin ducks, phoenixes, double swallows, twin birds (a mythical creature in ancient chinese mythology) and so on. moreover, the philosophical thought of “yin theory” in the philosophy of laozi and zhuangzi in chinese traditional culture is one of the contributing factors of chinese preferring to use “moon” and “water” as metaphors for love. chinese people believe that love is beauty of femininity, so they use the moon and water classified as yin to describe love. in addition, the taoist concept of predestined fate also affects the chinese people's views on love and marriage. marriage is regarded as a kind of fate; therefore, in chinese, there is the metaphorical concept “love is fate”. different from traditional chinese culture, western culture originates from greco-roman culture, judeo-christian culture and modern industrialism. in english, the metaphorical concept “love is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 69 whole of two complementary parts” is heavily influenced by the myth of adam and eve in the bible. in this myth, a woman is seen as a rib of a man. thus, english metaphorically refers to the man and woman in love as two complementary parts. in english, marriage is seen as a contract due to the roman culture's emphasis on human value and individualism. it can be seen that the differences between the eastern and western cultural experience are major factors leading to the differences in metaphorical thinking between chinese and westerners. 4.2.2 differences in geographical environment and historical background language is rooted in the social and natural environment, and various languages have been affected to some extent by the unique natural environment (wen, 2001, p. 127). located in the eastern hemisphere, china’s territory is mainly land, and the chinese people have relied on agriculture for their livelihood since ancient times. therefore, there is the metaphorical concept in chinese “love is an agricultural product”. on the contrary, the uk is in the north temperate zone, which is an island country with an unfavorable climate for crops. its agriculture is different from that of china. its crops are mainly wheat, so the staple food of british people is milk and bread. accordingly, there is a metaphorical expression “bread-and-cheese marriage” in english. from a historical point of view, the differences in metaphorical thinking between chinese and english are also resulted from the historical differences to a certain extent. the chinese nation had experienced the feudal system for more than two thousand years. under the imprisonment of the feudal ethics, the expression of love is implicit and euphemistic. britain has gone through the feudal aristocracy era, the renaissance era and the bourgeois revolution era, so british people are more extrovert when expressing feelings. as a result, the chinese people prefer to use gentle and soft things, such as “moon” and “water” to mean love, while english use “fire”, “sun” and other passionate things to refer to love. 4.2.3 differences in legends, allusions and customs differences in legends, allusions and customs are another contributing factor of the differences between chinese and english love metaphors. legends and allusions are usually unique to a language and culture, with strong national characteristics. this makes some words of the language have the national and cultural connotations related to the culture of the nation. the metaphorical expressions given in section 3.6 are all based on allusions and customs peculiar to chinese language and culture. in chinese, “spring” is used as a metaphor for love, but there is no such metaphorical expression in english, which is precisely because “spring” in chinese has the meaning of “love between men and women” or “sexual desire”, while the english equivalent “spring” has no such connotations. language is a carrier of culture. when people use these historical allusions or customs to describe love, the metaphors used will in turn bear the special national and cultural connotations. 4.2.4 differences in language itself language is a system combining sound and meaning. every language has its own phonetic and semantic features. there are some differences between english and chinese in the phonetic and semantic features of words. in chinese, some love metaphors are based on the relationship between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 70 sounds and the meanings of some words by using homophony. for example, in chinese, “silk" is used as a metaphor for love, because the chinese character 丝 (si) which means silk and 思 (si) which means miss have the same pronunciation. the famous line written by li shangyin, a famous poet in ancient china, “spring silkworm till its death spins from love-sick heart”, expresses the deep longing and endless love for someone. another example is the use of “lotus” as a metaphor for love in chinese, because the pronunciation of the chinese characters 莲 (lian) which means lotus and 恋 (lian) which means love is the same. 5. conclusion chinese and english love metaphors have both similarities and differences. there are several common source domains in the metaphorical expressions about love in the two languages, because the chinese people and westerners have the same physiological and psychological bases, physical and social experiences. therefore, the mindsets of people who speak chinese and english are similar. the differences of love metaphors in the two languages are caused by the different cultural experience, which in turn leads to the different ways of thinking. the comparative study of chinese and english love metaphors can help us discover the commonalities and differences in thinking between chinese people and westerners as well as the different cultural backgrounds behind the differences, which will help us better understand metaphors. references lakoff, g. (1987).women, fire and dangerous things. chicago: university of chicago press. lakoff, g., & johnson m. (1980).metaphors we live by. chicago: university of chicago press. lu, s., & xu, y. c. (2020). the breathtaking beauty of tang poetry.wuhan: changjiang literature and art press. ning, y. (1998). the contemporary theory of metaphor: a perspective from chinese. amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. shu, d. f. (2003). studies in metaphor. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. wang, j. h. (2001). a study of the national cultural connotations in the english translation of chinese poetry. in semantics of national culture (pp. 188-196). shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. wang, q. l. (2004). the relationship between love metaphors and culture in chinese and english from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, journal of language and literature studies, (6), 59-62. wen, k. x. (2001). the regional and national characteristics of english and chinese metaphors. in semantics of national culture (pp. 127-133). shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. wu, y. y., & xu, y. c. (2020). the breathtaking beauty of song poetry. wuhan: changjiang literature www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 71 and art press. yan, h., & xu, y. c. (2020). the breathtaking beauty of the book of songs. wuhan: changjiang literature and art press. zhang, h. (2000). conceptualization and expressions of emotions in chinese and english. journal of foreign languages, (5), 27-32. bo feng1 abstract keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 121 original paper a pragmatic analysis of the manipulative discursive mechanisms in cyber frauds chen meisong1 1 school of liberal arts/centre for singapore studies, nanjing university of information science & technology fund project this study was supported by the project of social science foundation of jiangsu province (grant no. 21yyb001), the project of philosophy and social science research in colleges and universities in jiangsu province (grant no. 2021sja0156), and by the institute of national and regional culture, nanjing university of information science & technology. received: february 24, 2025 accepted: april 15, 2025 online published: june 23, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p121 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p121 abstract cyberspace is pivotal for national security and economic development, yet pervasive cyber fraud poses significant threats to societal progress. through a pragmatic lens, this study reconceptualizes cyber fraud as a strategic discursive manipulation wherein perpetrators systematically violate communicative norms to exploit cognitive biases. drawing on real cases, this study identify and analyze its triadic discursive nature which includes dependency on convenient virtual channels enabling rapid, wide dissemination, contradictory double communicative intentions masking self-serving motives beneath a veneer of altruism or mutual benefit; and exploitation of alluring discourse leveraging cognitive biases through inducements to bypass rational scrutiny. this pragmatically grounded analysis reveals how fraudulent discourse actively corrodes networked communication contexts, inflicts multifaceted harm on netizens, and misappropriates language resources. consequently, we argue that effective countermeasures necessitate discursive governance, implemented through three key dimensions: regulating platform-based communicative behaviors, deploying counter-discourse campaigns and establishing language standardization frameworks. this analysis, grounded in the chinese context, offers a linguistically-informed approach to combating cyber fraud with potential cross-cultural relevance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 122 keywords cyber fraud, discursive nature, pragmatic manipulation, online communication, discourse governance 1. introduction cyber fraud has become a pervasive global challenge, posing significant threats to both individual economic security and the trust foundation of the digital environment. a survey in 2024 showed 3.2 million fraud incidents in the uk, which is yet significantly underreported (note 1). in the usa, fraud reports accounted for 2.6 million, making up 48% of all consumer reports (note 2). in china, the situation is equally alarming. the china internet network information center (cinic) reported in 2022 that 16.4% of chinese netizens had been victims of cyber fraud (note 3). these statistics underscore the severe and urgent nature of the problem. in view of the fact that online fraud is mostly realized with the help of language, a basic tool of human communication, and often adopts fixed speech “routines” (cui et al., 2018, p. 33). from a pragmatic perspective, we conceptualize cyber fraud as strategic communicative manipulation. fraudsters systematically violate conversational norms while dynamically adapting to victims’ cognitive environments, exploiting language’s inherent manipulability to achieve illicit gains. this approach may illuminate the cognitive-pragmatic underpinnings of fraudulent discourse. 2. defining cyber fraud the progress of internet technology has profoundly changed the traditional way of people’s work and life, significantly affecting all aspects of chinese people’s private and public affairs (ren, 2018). while bringing convenience to people, it has also become a fraud tool and protective cover for criminals. cyberfraud is a negative pragmatic phenomenon in which false information is transmitted through language representation with the help of network technology, so as to seek the interests of some individuals or minorities with ill intentions. the implementation and dissemination of cyber fraud cannot be separated from some important components, including convenient communication channels, contradictory double communicative intentions, and alluring discursive contents. to comprehend the discursive nature of cyber fraud, it is essential to first clarify the concept of “fraud” itself. lexicographical definitions, academic literature, and search engine results reveal that terms semantically akin to “欺诈” (fraud, qīzhà) include “诈欺” (zhàqī) and “诈骗” (zhàpiàn). these terms share a common context where one party, driven by malicious intent, employs deceptive means to induce erroneous perceptions in another party (an individual or a group of people), thereby prompting improper financial or material decisions. firstly, “qīzhà” ( 欺 诈 ) vs. “zhàqī” ( 诈 欺 ). dictionary definitions treat these two terms as interchangeable. for instance, the “chinese dictionary” (《汉语大辞典》) defines qīzhà” as deceiving others through cunning and dishonest tactics while “zhàqī” is defined as fraudulent deception (see “chinese dictionary” online edition: note 4). similarly, “shuōwénjiězì” (analytical dictionary of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 123 characters, “说文解字”: note 5) interprets “诈” (“zhà”) as to deceive. in academic discourse, scholars seldom distinguish between “qīzhà” and “zhàqī” when analyzing related phenomena. however, debates on legal terminology precision suggest that “zhàqī” is more appropriate as a formal legal term, whereas “qīzhà” represents its colloquial counterpart (chen & chao, 2005). consequently, for the purpose of examining linguistic practices in societal contexts, this study treats “qīzhà” and “zhàqī” as synonymous, collectively referred to as “fraud”. secondly, “qīzhà” (欺诈) vs. “zhàpiàn” (诈骗). the term “zhàpiàn” (诈骗 ) is predominantly used in legal contexts to denote criminal acts and corresponding criminal penalties. according to article 266 of china’s “criminal law”, the crime of fraud refers to the act of illegally appropriating public or private property through fabricated facts or concealed truths, with penalties ranging from detention to fines depending on the severity of the offense. in broader humanities and social science research, online fraud encompasses any behavior that exploits digital tools or platforms to secure illicit gains, including both severe criminal offenses such as large-scale financial fraud) and pervasive non-criminal deceptions such as false advertising, deceptive marketing. with all these understandings in mind, we deem that the concept of “fraud” (“qīzhà”) in this study carries a more expansive semantic scope than the strictly legal definition of “zhàpiàn”, encompassing both criminal and non-criminal deceptive practices. for consistency, this research employs “fraud” as an umbrella term integrating “qīzhà” and “zhàpiàn”. cyber fraud constitutes a negative pragmatic phenomenon where false information is transmitted through digital language representation to secure illicit benefits. this phenomenon essentially manifests through interrelated mechanisms such as strategic violations of conversational norms, cognitive manipulation via induced biases, and contextual reframing to create false urgency, which enable perpetrators to circumvent victims critical evaluation. 3. discursive features of cyber fraud 3.1 convenient disseminating channels according to cnnic’s 53th report (note 6) issued in december 2023, the scale of chinese internet users for 1.092 billion, the internet penetration rate of 77.5%. internet applications include basic applications, business transactions, network entertainment and public services, which virtually cover all aspects of people’s daily work and life needs. non-netizens who do not go online will face various inconveniences such as the difficulty of reducing services at offline service outlets, the inability to obtain information in time, the inability to pay in cash, and the inability to buy tickets and hang up numbers. it can be imagined that the scale of internet users will continue to expand in the future, and people will be more dependent on the network. the convenience and virtuality of the internet make the network communication platform also become a fast channel for the spread of cyber fraud messages. first of all, the network-based information production mode breaking through the limitations of time, space and cost has diversified information sources, and can realize the rapid network communication of all netizens to all netizens. because of this, the number of audiences involved in online fraud far exceeds the coverage capacity of traditional media. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 124 the multiple communication channels of cyber fraud mainly include in china microblog, wechat, blog, qq and other instant chat tools, as well as network forums, virtual network communities, e-mail and so on. these communication channels have some similarities in the communication mode, such as fast information transmission speed and wide influence range, and there is a close linkage between different communication channels, which provides technical support and practical possibility for the rapid dissemination of cyber fraud information. secondly, the network world is a high-tech virtual space, and network communicators generally do not need to face real communication objects. scholars point out that the internet is a virtual space for constructing identities, which lacks many constraints of realistic communication, so communicators can construct multiple identities according to their own needs to a large extent (he & chen, 2015), and even commit fraud through false identity construction (chen, 2013, pp. 64-78). although most communication platforms require real identity authentication (such as weibo, tencent qq, wechat, etc) with the increasing management of network behaviors, the authentication procedures are not impeccable, and identity theft and account theft occur from time to time. pragmatically, this environment permits breaches of grice’s relation maxim (grice, 1975), as fraudsters deploy contextually irrelevant narratives that would raise suspicion in face-to-face communication but flourish in fragmented computer-mediated exchanges. 3.2 contradictory double communicative intentions interpersonal communication usually revolves around specific communicative goals and is carried out with the help of certain linguistic means and pragmatic strategies. in this process, the communicator tries to make the other person understand him or her and tries not to mislead him or her. however, there may be power oppression, social prejudice, fraud and other behaviors behind language use (chen, 2013). on the surface, fraudsters appeal to the affective factors of the audience, such as emotions, preferences, needs and interests, explicitly give the listener the right to participate, and carry out false relationship management (chen & chen, 2020). in fact, the real motive is to seek personal gains, which reflects the mismatch between the surface and real communicative purposes, and is a deviation from the traditional discourse rules. stealing instant messaging accounts such as wechat, tencent qq to commit fraud is a common form at present. in typical cases, the thief asks the recipient to “help” with the transfer, which is used to help pay for the medical expenses of relatives and friends who have had an accident. on the surface, for the benefit of a third party, the speaker asks the recipient to act with him, which is a friendly act of sincere help to a friend, but in fact it is a money fraud under the cover of a fictitious good deed. fraudsters often also meet the direct interests of the recipient as the surface intention, such as informal recruitment websites published part-time information “teach you a way to earn more than ten thousand yuan per month online, mobile phone at home can do part-time”, with simple operations and monetary interests to attract the recipient. as is substentiated in these cases, it can be seen that fraudsters have dual communicative intentions, a claimed altruistic purpose versus a concealed self-serving agenda. these intentions, while distinct, operate interdependently; fraudsters deliberately www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 125 select linguistic units and pragmatic strategies that foreground purported altruism to mask underlying self-interest. in such cases, the surface discourse promotes collective benefit, e.g., “helping” others gain income, yet the ultimate objective remains unilateral gain through victim persuasion. this fundamental mismatch, even contradiction, between professed and actual aims epitomizes the two-skinned nature of fraudulent communication. pragmatically speaking, fraudsters perform leech’s (1983) sympathy maxim to simulate altruism superficially, while in fact they violate grice’s (grice, 1975) quality maxim through fabricated scenarios. 3.3 alluring discourse language information is one of the sources for communicator impression management and relationship management (zhou et al., 2014; ye & zhao, 2022), and text is the preferred medium in network communication and the main data type (carlson et al., 2004). in the event of fraud, the communicative party usually processes the key information through linguistic means, and the key to transmitting false information and achieving the intention of fraud lies in the leading discourse. as the constituent element of the cyber fraud, the leading discourse is embodied in the fraudulent behavior from two different angles of “benefit” and “harm”. on the one hand, the cyber fraud often takes the benefit as the bait, infects the cognition of the speaker and affects his judgment. fraudsters often take the addressee's ability to obtain benefits, goods or money, as the basis of discourse to achieve their purposes of persuasion and fraud (horvitz & pratkanis, 2002; gragg, 2003). despite the obvious risks, there are still large numbers of seemingly rational people who fall for the scam and lose their savings. the network space is full of various temptations, such as winning well-known enterprises or entertainment programs, exchanging points, lowering prices, rewards, heavy money, high-salary recruitment, etc., network communication will fall into these interest traps if you are careless. it can be seen that fraud based on inducement of profit can be widely successful (harrison et al., 2016). on the other hand, fear appeal has become an effective persuasive discourse strategy for fraudsters in cyber fraud. fraudsters incite fear by fabricating “dangerous” situations or “serious” consequences. in the major fraud case of peddling fake and inferior health care products uncovered by chongqing police in 2022 (note 7), criminal gangs simultaneously promote product efficacy while employing threats regarding personal credit exposure, privacy breaches, account freezes, insurance cancellations, or legal shields to coerce victims into purchasing refused and inferior products.. such cases include reminding the recipient of suspected “money laundering” due to the theft of identity information through wechat and other means, threatening the recipient with edited “pornographic photos”, and having to browse their wanted notices or arrest warrants online. such messages that imply very serious consequences often cause the recipient of the message to experience a negative emotional state (petty et al., 2001), making them cognitively inclined to agree with the message and to take preventive or self-protective risk avoidance measures (fishbein & ajzen, 1975). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 126 4. the negative impact of cyberspace fraud fraudsters rely on network platforms, take language as a tool and sacrifice the rights and interests of others as the premise to seek improper or even illegal interests for themselves, which damages the civil and healthy development of network communication context, endangers the property safety, rational cognition and legitimate rights and interests of the potential or actual victims, and is a serious form of language disorder. 4.1 on the context of network communication context is the environment that interpersonal discursive communication depends on. it determines the characteristics of discourse communication and has an important influence on it. and discursive communication also reacts to the social environment. the internet environment has greatly enriched the content of human life and improved the efficiency of interpersonal interaction. however, advanced network technology and convenient network communication platform provide the communicative context for criminals to commit language fraud, and become the soil for breeding cyber fraud which erodes pragmatic trust, the fundamental expectation of sincerity and ethical intentionality in the computer-mediated communication environment. first, fraudsters seek improper or even illegal interests of a few people through advanced virtual communication platforms, which deviates from the original intention of scientific and technological development and is a disharmonious note of human civilization. scientific and technological progress is to serve the needs of the majority of people and promote the development of civilization and social progress. modern computer technology has set up a new virtual communication environment for interpersonal interaction, especially breaking through regional restrictions, so that network communication has the characteristics of swiftness. this new mode of communication can promote active information transmission and positive emotional interaction. the diversified network communication platforms represented by instant messaging tools effectively meet people’s various needs in collaborative office work, interpersonal relationship maintenance, home-school communication, and government information release. however, the network communication platform is also used by the ill intentioned few, and has become the parasitic place and the core element of the cyber fraud. from the statistical analysis of related fraud events (note 8). qq and wechat are the most commonly used communication methods for fraud implementation at present, and the number of fraud incidents involved accounts for 73.8% and 24% of the total number of fraud incidents, respectively, the vast majority of which are cross-platform fraud implemented by telephone and wechat, qq and other internet applications at the same time. fraudsters who are motivated by profit take advantage of the development of technology to seek personal gains by cheating, and deviate from the normal track of the civilized world. second, cyber fraud involves many topics and fields, disrupting the normal order of network communication, forming trust and moral crisis, which is not conducive to social progress and national development. chinese culture takes “honesty” as its core concept, “honesty” as its foundation, and “no www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 127 deception” as its first principle. as recorded in the doctrine of the mean (《中庸》), sincerity is the way of heaven, and sincerity is the way of man, and the principle of sincerity has universal value. at the same time, ethical pragmatics also points out that the ethical dimension should be attached importance in verbal communication, believing that discourse communication can reflect the moral order and involve moral and ethical issues (chen, 2017). online frauds shows “inclusiveness” in the distribution of topics, involving all aspects of people’s study, work and life. in terms of communication intention and communication strategy, it completely deviates from the cooperative attitude that should be followed in normal communication, subverts the healthy relationship between rights and obligations, abandones the principle of “sincerity” advocated by chinese culture, and ignores or even challenges the moral order. the frauds pretending to be relatives and friends produces “acquaintance” panic among people, and network communicators have to be cautious when involving sensitive property and private information, and interpersonal trust is weakened. the credibility of enterprises, institutions and professionals being affected, the public tend to think twice about the recommendations and certifications from authoritative institutions or experts. taking vulnerable groups such as minors and the elderly as key groups, taking advantage of their cognitive defects or emotional needs, and using the name of “respecting the old and loving the young” to “trap the old and harm the young” is contrary to ethics and morality. it is not difficult to imagine that all kinds of cyber fraud make it difficult to distinguish right from wrong, true and false, and have caused widespread trust crisis and moral crisis, affecting social stability and national development. 4.2 on netizens in the internet age, anyone can be a victim of fraud. cyber fraud misleads the rational cognition and behavior of the internet users, bringing a wide range of property losses, psychological damage and cognitive disorders. first of all, cyber fraud causes property losses, mental damage and even life safety to the direct victims. according to the china network integrity development report released by the china federation of network social organizations (note 9), most of china’s internet users have encountered online fraud to varying degrees. 12.9%, 27.1% and 35.5% of respondents said they had often, sometimes and rarely experienced online fraud, respectively, while only 24.5% said they had never experienced such fraud. cyber fraud cases not only affect the consumption experience, but also may bring great property and security threats, causing extremely bad effects in society. fortunately, the police continue to crack large “network card” fraud gangs, large “network dating” fraud gangs, large network fraud money laundering gangs and other cases. however, the staggering number of suspects, the amount of money involved, and the number of victims across the country reflect the enormous factual harm and potential threat that various cases of cyber fraud have caused to the vast community of online communicators. secondly, cyber fraud sets pragmatic traps and causes cognitive impairment. the internet era has brought about a major change in consumption behavior, whether it is material consumption or information consumption, people’s dependence on the internet is unprecedented. data show that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 128 china's online shopping accounted for more than 80% of users in the internet (note 10). however, online advertising fraud brings great cognitive impairment and difficulty in choice to online consumers. in today’s popular medical beauty, fraudulent propaganda from medical beauty companies and even maternal and child health care hospitals disturbs the order of the medical beauty market, seriously misleads the consumption intention of medical patients, and infringes on their legitimate rights and interests. at a time when the global epidemic was raging, the prevention and control of the epidemic was the responsibility of every citizen, and the whole country needed to work together and fight side by side. however, fraudsters exploit pandemic concerns through various “clever” tactics, such as impersonating epidemic coordinators, vaccination surveyors or health authorities; promoting fraudulent nucleic acid tests, covid-19 treatments/vaccines, or epidemic-material investments; fabricating refund schemes for pandemic-related items. these deceptions actively undermine public adherence to legitimate epidemic prevention norms and behaviors. while the cyber fraud targeting minors has a negative impact on their cognition, it will also twist their world view, values, outlook on life and other aspects. moreover, cyber fraud threatens the security of personal information and brings communication panic. cyber fraud mostly involves the disclosure of identity information. on the one hand, internet users must do everything possible to take protective measures to ensure the security of personal information. a variety of anti-virus software, protection programs, authentication methods came into being. these measures effectively protect the security of personal information to a certain extent, but also reflect the general lack of security and security panic in network communication. on the other hand, whether the identity of the other party is true and whether the source of information is reliable is also a problem that network communicators have to consider often, which becomes a barrier for harmonious interpersonal communication. as mentioned in the anti-fraud propaganda, “you may not have been deceived. it is not because you are smart or lucky. the only reason is that the customized script for you is still on the road”, it can be seen that the cyber fraud threatens everyone, and it is easy to produce people’s self-defeating communication panic. 4.3 on language resources spoken and written language is the most important communication tool and information carrier of mankind, the basic element and distinctive symbol of culture, and an important force for promoting historical development and social progress. the language used in network communication should reflect its public welfare attributes, serve the majority of people, and play a positive role in historical and cultural inheritance, social and economic development, national quality improvement and other aspects. cyber fraud takes language as a fraud tool, which is a serious expression of language anomia, reflecting the negative or improper use of language, touching the pollution-free bottom line of language ecology, and showing a bad impact on language in terms of communicative purposes, use strategies and communicative effects. first of all, cyber fraud reflects a serious deviation from language norms concerning the purpose of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 129 communication. social development in the new century needs to pay attention to the standardization of language at the social level, which is related to “right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness” (liu, 2019). however, in the guise of thinking for others, fraudsters disregard laws, morals and ethics, and use language resources as a means to seek improper or illegal benefits. secondly, cyber fraud shows the serious misuse of language in the language use strategy. cyber fraudsters use exaggeration, repetition, borrowing and other techniques to invoke various resources to form negative language memes such as “story books” and routines of fraud, which can be quickly copied and spread. moreover, cyber fraud has seriously damaged the language function in terms of communication effect. cyber fraud brings material and spiritual damage to individuals, affects social atmosphere and public opinion, endangers national stability and development, and violates the fundamental principle that language should serve human progress. 5. conclusion cyber fraud, as a discursive-performative crime, exploits linguistic strategies to manipulate victims through fabricated altruism, fear appeals, and identity deception. this study establishes cyber fraud as a negative pragmatic phenomenon in which fraudsters operationalize gricean violations and strategic politeness within a deceptive pragmatic framework adapted to victims’ cognitive vulnerabilities. this study delineates its tripartite discursive nature, channel dependency on virtual platforms for rapid dissemination, contradictory intentionality masking self-interest under claims of mutual benefit, and exploitative discourse weaponizing cognitive biases to bypass rational scrutiny. these mechanisms severely corrode three dimensions of sociolinguistic ecology, networked communication contexts for eroding trust in digital public spaces, netizen agency forcausing financial, cognitive, and psychological harm, and language resources for normalizing deceptive pragmatics as “acceptable” memes. consequently, we believe that countermeasures must prioritize discursive governance in behavioral regulation of platform-based speech acts, anti-fraud discourse campaigns deconstructing manipulative linguistic routines, and language standardization frameworks penalizing deceptive pragmatics in public communication. while this study centers on chinese cyberspace, its theoretical lens of bridging ethical pragmatics, criminology, and discourse analysis may offer cross-cultural applicability. future research may quantify linguistic coercion efficacy across demographics and expand corpus-based deception typologies. only through sustained interdisciplinary collaboration can we dismantle fraud’s discursive infrastructure. references carlson, j. r., george, j.f., burgoon j k, et al. 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(2018). interpretation of the discourse pattern of telecom fraud. beijing: xinhua publishing house. department of language application administration of the ministry of education. (2013). outline of the national medium and long term language reform and development plan (2012-2020)[m]. beijing: language press, 2013: 1. fishbein, m., & ajzen, i. (1975). belief, attitude, intention, and behaviour: an introduction to theory and research. reading, ma: addison-wesley. gragg, d. (2003). a multi-level defence against social engineering. bethesda, md: sans institute,. grice, h. p. (1975). logic and conversation. in p. cole, & j. morgan (eds.), syntax and semantics (vol. 3). new york: academic press. harrison, b., svetieva, e., & vishwanath, a. (2016). individual processing of phishing emails: how attention and elaboration protect against phishing. online information review, 40(2), 265-281. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir-04-2015-0106 he, h., & chen, x. r. (2015). a pragmatic account on the construction of online shop owners’ relational identities. modern foreign languages, 38(3), 347-438． horvitz, t., & pratkanis, a. r. (2002). a laboratory demonstration of the fraudulent telemarketers’1‐in‐5 prize tactic. journal of applied social psychology, 32(2), 310-317. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00217.x leech, g. n. (1983). principles of pragmatics. london: longman. liu, c. q. (2019). the view of linguistic specification today: impartial and harmonious, honesty and pursuing elegance. journal of jiangxi normal university(philosophy and social sciences edition), 52(6), 68-75. petty, r. e., desteno, d., & rucker, d. d. (2001). the role of affect in attitude change. in j. p. forgas (ed.), handbook of affect and social cognition (pp. 121-236). mahwah: lawrence erlbaum associates. ren, w. (2018). exploring chinese digital communication. discourse, context & media, 26(11), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2018.07.002 ye, n., & zhan, y. (2022). discursive identity construction of fraudsters in impersonation scam: a sociosemiotic perspective. journal of zhejiang gongshang university, 173(2), 17-27. zhou, l., wu, j., & zhang, d. s. (2014). discourse cues to deception in the case of multiple receivers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 131 information & management, 51(6), 726-737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2014.05.011 notes note 1. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeineng landandwales/yearendingmarch2024 note 2. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/consumer-sentinel-network/reports note 3. https://cnnic.cn/n4/2023/0303/c88-10757.html note4. http://www.hydcd.com/ note 5. https://qxk.bnu.edu.cn/#/danzidetail/49c12ccb-35cc-437b-af4a-3fe126df8fca/%e6%ac%b a/22d3af76-1ffe-46da-8c28-40e7dfe6b8d2/0 note 6. https://cnnic.cn/n4/2024/0321/c208-10962.html note 7. https://m.chinanews.com/wap/detail/chs/zw/9814320.shtml note 8. https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404583516829516058 note 9. https://www.cac.gov.cn/2020-12/07/c_1608908349121859.htm note 10. http://www.cinic.org.cn/hy/tx/1147340.html?ivk_sa=1021577g https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/consumer-sentinel-network/reports https://m.chinanews.com/wap/detail/chs/zw/9814320.shtml https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404583516829516058 https://www.cac.gov.cn/2020-12/07/c_1608908349121859.htm 1.introduction 2.defining cyber fraud 3.discursive features of cyber fraud 3.1 convenient disseminating channels 3.2 contradictory double communicative intentio 3.3 alluring discourse 4.the negative impact of cyberspace fraud 4.1 on the context of network communication 4.2 on netizens 4.3 on language resources 5.conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 80 original paper shaping the wild: a case study of the sierra club’s impact on american national parks zhiyan gao1 1 school of tourism  school of artificial intelligence, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: august 09, 2025 accepted: september 22, 2025 online published: october 08, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p80 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p80 abstract the u.s. national park movement established a global precedent for conservation, driven largely by non-governmental organizations. this study investigates this phenomenon through an in-depth case study of the sierra club, arguing that it was not merely a participant but a key institutional architect of the park system. using historical analysis, the paper traces the club’s evolution through three distinct functions: as a defender of existing parks, a forger of new conservation policy, and a guardian of the movement’s ideals. the findings demonstrate that the club’s strategic advocacy created profound and lasting impacts on legislation, governance, and public culture. by revealing how civil society can shape national heritage, this research repositions the sierra club as a primary force in american environmentalism and a model for non-governmental influence on conservation worldwide. keywords sierra club, environmental conservation, environmental non-governmental organizations (engos), national park movement, environmental history, environmental advocacy 1. introduction 1.1 research background the late 19th century in the united states witnessed the rise of a pivotal national movement aimed at establishing national parks, an endeavor that proved profoundly significant for both american history and environmental studies. driven by the confluence of rapid industrialization and urbanization with a burgeoning public appreciation for wilderness and an increasing awareness of finite natural resources, this movement did more than merely designate iconic protected areas. it fundamentally reshaped american identity by linking national character with vast, pristine landscapes, set precedents for federal land management, and catalyzed enduring debates on conservation ethics, public access, and economic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 81 development that continue to inform environmental policy today. central to this transformative era was the crucial emergence and sustained engagement of nature conservation organizations. these non-state actors were not just supportive entities; they were instrumental in translating nascent environmental concerns into public policy, mobilizing grassroots support, and articulating the philosophical underpinnings of conservation. their work demonstrates the enduring power of civil society in shaping national heritage and governance. among these pioneering forces, the sierra club stands out as a leading social and advocacy organization whose dedicated efforts were vital in driving the movement’s ongoing expansion, securing critical conservation victories, and imbuing environmentalism with a powerful public voice. this paper investigates the multifaceted roles and enduring impact of the sierra club within the american national park movement. through a detailed case study analysis of the sierra club’s evolving strategies, advocacy campaigns, and historical interventions, this research aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how influential non-state actors have profoundly shaped environmental governance, public consciousness, and national heritage management. specifically, it seeks to analyze the precise mechanisms through which the sierra club exerted its influence and to contribute meaningfully to scholarly discussions on the power, efficacy, and historical evolution of organized civil society in achieving significant conservation outcomes. 1.2 literature review the establishment of the u.s. national park system is a landmark in environmental history, but its intellectual and institutional origins preceded and then crystallized during the progressive era. early precedents—yosemite (1864 grant; 1890 national park) and yellowstone (1872)—emerged from scenic advocacy and tourism capital, while the progressive era consolidated scientific management, administrative efficiency, and federal authority as governing logics. building on this trajectory, samuel p. hays’s conservation and the gospel of efficiency (1959) shows that conservation thinking moved beyond aesthetics toward scientific administration and efficient resource use. this perspective, catalyzed by industrial expansion and fears of depletion, supplied a durable policy language for ordered stewardship. runte’s national parks: the american experience (5th ed., 2020) further demonstrates how political decision-making, tourism interests, and civic culture recast parks from scenic showpieces into federally guided instruments of national identity and conservation policy. a central intellectual tension has long pivoted on preservation versus conservation. john muir’s preservationist stance emphasized the intrinsic value of wilderness and the need for protection from commercial exploitation, in contrast to gifford pinchot’s utilitarian “wise use,” which prioritized resource management. subsequent scholarship complicates this dichotomy. farrier (2019) interrogates the cultural politics of early preservation; cronon (1995) critiques the notion of pristine wilderness; and adams (2023) underscores that contemporary practice often entails active management and the “making” of wildness. together these works reveal that preservationist ideals and scientific management frequently intersected and collided within the national park arena. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 82 organized conservation groups were pivotal in translating ideals into policy. fox (1981) documents how associations mobilized public support and converted values into legislative agendas, while hays (1987) details how engagement with policymaking shaped governance and secured conservation outcomes. within this context, the sierra club emerged as a pioneering force. early accounts (hays, 1959) highlight its dual role as watchdog against encroachment and as promoter of parks as national legacy. schrepfer (1983) traces the club’s instrumental role in securing redwood national park, clarifying concrete mechanisms such as coalition-building, media campaigns, and congressional strategy amid tensions between redwood preservation and local employment. at the same time, scholarship probes the club’s internal complexities, including the limits of early elite membership and questions of inclusivity (bullard, 1990). willow (2015) shows that the club’s environmental conceptualization evolved over time, reshaping its objectives and environmental relationships. more recent organizational studies, coley & schachle (2021) and coley & mai (2022), analyze external drivers and internal dynamics of membership, adding clarity to how resource endowments and member composition shift across political contexts. despite this rich literature, a critical gap remains in our understanding of the sierra club’s impact: how did the organization’s internal changes directly lead to concrete policy wins in u.s. national parks? no study has systematically linked the club’s evolving message and membership to its toolkit of lobbying, litigation, and public campaigns, and then traced those efforts to specific outcomes like park creation, new management standards, and funding priorities. this paper seeks to analyze the sierra club’s influence during three pivotal moments in park history: 1892-1916, 1963-1968, and the 1990s–2020s. our case study focuses on two key areas—park creation and resource management—to demonstrate precisely how this organization translated its internal dynamics into a lasting legacy on the american landscape. 1.3 research methods this study employs a qualitative methodology, combining periodized historical analysis with an in-depth organizational case study to examine how the sierra club has influenced policy and management within the u.s. national park system. the research design is structured across three distinct historical periods to trace the evolution of the club's activism and its corresponding policy impacts. the historical analysis systematically situates the sierra club’s advocacy within the broader context of the national park movement, specific legislative landscapes, and prevailing socio-political conditions. this chronological approach serves to identify and establish causal links between the organization's actions and specific outcomes, such as park designations, legislative changes, and shifts in public environmental consciousness. concurrently, the case study of the sierra club allows for a deep, holistic examination of its role as a non-state actor. this method provides rich insights into the organization's internal dynamics, including its strategic decision-making, resource mobilization, and adaptive responses to external challenges. it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 specifically investigates how internal shifts in framing, membership, and knowledge production were translated into external policy instruments like congressional lobbying, media campaigns, coalition-building, and litigation. the study then assesses the observable impacts of these actions, including park boundary adjustments, new resource management provisions, litigation results, and subsequent regulatory and budgetary changes. the research is grounded in a robust analysis of primary and secondary sources. primary sources include congressional records, archival materials from both the sierra club and the national park service, organizational publications, and contemporary media accounts. secondary scholarly literature is used to provide critical context, substantiate interpretations, and evaluate the long-term significance of the club’s influence. while acknowledging potential international parallels, the study’s scope is focused on the national context of american environmental governance. by integrating these methods and sources, this study offers a comprehensive, evidence-based examination of the sierra club’s multi-dimensional activism. the analysis will frame the club’s involvement through three interconnected roles—defender, forger, and guardian of national parks—to rigorously demonstrate how this prominent non-governmental organization has fundamentally shaped the enduring legacy of america’s most iconic landscapes. 2. the rise of the national park movement and the emergence of conservation organizations 2.1 social and ideological origins the rise of the american national park movement was deeply rooted in profound social and intellectual shifts during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. rapid industrialization, urbanization, and westward expansion fueled large-scale resource exploitation and environmental degradation, which in turn sparked a growing public appreciation for wilderness. as untouched landscapes dwindled, romantic and preservationist ideas took hold among intellectuals, transforming wilderness from an obstacle to progress into a source of national pride and spiritual renewal. this changing consciousness provided the social foundation for the movement, which was further amplified during the progressive era through heightened public awareness of conservation. the creation of the national park service in 1916 turned the idea of protecting beautiful places and letting everyone enjoy them into an official government mission. it took the energy and passion of ordinary people who loved nature and turned it into an organized system that could manage the parks properly. subsequent expansion eastward and postwar growth, fueled by rising affluence and tourism, reflected continued public support and the enduring cultural value placed on natural landscapes. in short, the national park movement emerged not only as a response to environmental loss but also as a product of evolving ideals about nature, nationhood, and public well-being. 2.2 the foundational role of early conservationists before the widespread establishment of formal conservation organizations, a cohort of visionary thinkers and writers played an essential role in cultivating the intellectual and emotional ground for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 american national park movement. the profound social and intellectual shifts of the late 19th century spurred deep concern among a diverse group of scientists, artists, and intellectuals, who began to articulate the ecological, aesthetic, and spiritual values of unspoiled nature. they critically examined the impact of unchecked progress and resource extraction, offering alternative paradigms for the human-nature relationship. prominent among these figures was john muir, whose writings powerfully articulated a preservationist ethos. muir famously described wilderness as a profound source of inspiration, spiritual renewal, and moral clarity, urging americans to recognize its intrinsic value beyond economic utility. his vivid narratives and passionate advocacy, particularly through essays and direct appeals, were instrumental in shifting public perception of wild landscapes from mere obstacles to development or exploitable resources into national treasures deserving of strict protection. other influential figures, such as ralph waldo emerson and henry david thoreau, had earlier laid philosophical groundwork by emphasizing nature’s transcendental power and the importance of wildness for human spiritual health and societal balance. in addition, artists like thomas moran and photographers like carleton watkins captured the grandeur of the american west, presenting images that visually underscored the unique and spectacular character of these landscapes, fueling national pride and a desire for their preservation. their work transformed abstract appreciation into a tangible and compelling call for action. 2.3 the proliferation of conservation organizations as a social force the emergence of conservation organizations as a potent social force was a direct response to the large-scale landscape degradation caused by industrialization and westward expansion. it was within this awakened consciousness that the first conservation organizations took form. the sierra club, established by muir in 1892, became the cornerstone of organized preservation efforts. it was soon joined by other influential groups such as the american civic association (1904), the national parks association (1919), and the wilderness society (1935). while their tactics varied, some emphasizing public advocacy, others scientific management or legislative lobbying, these organizations shared a common commitment to preserving natural landscapes and promoting responsible stewardship. groups such as the sierra club not only advocated for specific parks but also pioneered methods of public engagement and policy influence that defined modern environmental advocacy. for example, the sierra club’s successful decade-long campaign to transfer yosemite valley to federal control demonstrated how sustained public pressure could achieve major conservation victories and established a template for future civil society action. beyond the sierra club, organizations like the american civic association led by horace mcfarland, played crucial roles in institutionalizing protection. mcfarland’s early and persistent advocacy for a dedicated federal bureau helped legitimize the idea of centralized park management, which culminated in the landmark organic act in 1916, which established the national park service. the collective influence of these organizations fostered a deeply embedded cultural appreciation for wilderness. these organizations diversified their tactics, ranging from publications and legislative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 85 lobbying to public outings and expert testimony, helping to create not only the national parks themselves, but also instilling in americans the idea that protecting nature was a patriotic duty. through these multifaceted efforts, conservation groups turned the passion of ordinary people into real-world action that changed laws and shaped culture. in doing so, they laid the foundation for the entire national park system, both by helping build its management system and by making nature protection a core part of american identity. 3. roles of the sierra club in the national park movement the sierra club, one of the united states’ largest, oldest, and most influential conservation organizations, traces its origins to a shared vision for wilderness protection. even before the formal establishment of yosemite national park, robert underwood johnson envisioned an organization dedicated to safeguarding yosemite’s natural grandeur. this vision resonated with a group of professors from the university of california, berkeley, and, facilitated by john muir, a consensus was reached to form a conservation association. on june 4, 1892, muir, johnson, and 25 other individuals cofounded the club in san francisco, with john muir elected as its first president. in its early years, the club functioned primarily as a mountaineering society, drawing members with a deep affection for the sierra nevada mountains and a resolute commitment to their preservation. its foundational mission, articulated at its inception, was clear: “to explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the pacific coast; to publish authentic information concerning them; and to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and the government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the sierra nevada” (parsons, 1910). this initial focus laid the groundwork for its enduring legacy. since its establishment, the club has remained steadfastly dedicated to the protection of wilderness. over its more than a century-long history, the organization has played a pivotal role in the preservation of approximately 534,000 square kilometers of national parks and wilderness, representing an extraordinary and sustained contribution to american conservation efforts. 3.1 defender of the park system as a defender of the national park system, the sierra club’s earliest and most significant undertaking was the relentless campaign to protect and expand yosemite national park. the club launched a sustained and strategic effort to advocate for the return of yosemite valley from california state control to federal authority. this critical move was paramount for strengthening the valley’s legal protection and established a key precedent for effective, citizen-led conservation advocacy. central to this pivotal campaign was john muir, then president of the club, who masterfully mobilized public opinion through influential articles published in magazines such as the century. he also submitted formal petitions to congress and tirelessly championed the inclusion of both yosemite valley and the mariposa grove of giant sequoias within the federal park system. a defining moment occurred in 1903 when muir famously accompanied president theodore roosevelt on a camping trip in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 86 yosemite, during which he successfully convinced the president of the indispensable need for federal stewardship over the valley. despite the legislative challenges emerged, including the proposed significant reductions to the park’s area in the recession act (1905), the club adapted its tactics. it mobilized public opposition, engaged in crucial political negotiations, and worked diligently to minimize land loss. their persistent efforts culminated in 1906, when california officially returned yosemite valley and the mariposa grove to federal authority. while the outcome involved compromise, the sierra club proved instrumental in safeguarding the ecological and symbolic heart of the park, firmly establishing its role as a defender of america’s natural heritage. 3.2 forger of park governance as a forger of national park governance, the club’s defeat in the hetch hetchy controversy paradoxically catalyzed the creation of a unified federal management system. when san francisco proposed damming the hetch hetchy valley within yosemite national park after the 1906 earthquake, the club mounted a vigorous nationwide campaign against the project. although the dam was approved in 1908, the highly publicized struggle exposed the inadequacy of decentralized park management and mobilized broad public support for stronger preservation laws. the battle transformed the conservation movement, shifting its strategy from idealism to political engagement. out of this defeat emerged a more sophisticated advocacy effort, led by figures such as stephen mather of the sierra club and horace mcfarland of the american civic association. they turned public outrage into a strategic campaign for a central administrative agency and ultimately led to the passage of the organic act in 1916. this landmark legislation established the national park service and institutionalized the dual mission of protection and public access. though the club lost the valley, it helped forge the governance framework that would protect all national parks thereafter, thereby establishing the belief that effective conservation requires not only passion but also professional institutional power. 3.3 guardian of park integrity the establishment of national parks did not render them immune to external threats. throughout the mid-20th century, various interest groups repeatedly attempted to construct dams and hydroelectric projects on the peripheries of preserved lands, posing severe risks to the wilderness integrity of the park system. in response, the club emerged as a steadfast guardian, engaging in determined struggles against commercial lobbies, federal agencies, and even branches of the government to protect these natural treasures. the club secured its first major victory in this guardian role during the 1950s. it spearheaded a successful campaign that blocked a proposed dam in echo park within dinosaur national monument. when the bureau of reclamation proposed the echo park dam as part of the colorado river storage project, it met with fierce opposition from conservationists. the club, under dynamic new leadership, mobilized a multifaceted response. they commissioned books and films, such as the place no one www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 knew and two yosemite, to visually and emotionally convey the beauty and vulnerability of the threatened landscape. members organized highly publicized river trips to showcase the area’s wild value, drawing national attention and rallying public sentiment. this strategic campaign systematically eroded public trust in the bureau of reclamation while building immense popular pressure on lawmakers. these efforts culminated in the congressional ban on dams within national parks and monuments in 1956. this decisive legislative victory stands as a landmark affirmation of the principle of park integrity. the club’s vigilance was again tested during the 1960s when the bureau of reclamation proposed two massive dams within the grand canyon itself. recognizing the catastrophic impact such projects would have on the canyon’s ecological and aesthetic wholeness, the club launched an even more ambitious defense. the club published influential books like time and the river flowing: grand canyon and took out full-page advertisements in major newspapers, famously declaring, “now only you can save the grand canyon from being flooded.” these bold moves provoked immediate retaliation, including the revocation of the club’s tax-deductible status by the irs. however, the ensuing publicity ultimately galvanized unprecedented public outrage. americans nationwide wrote letters to congress, attended rallies, and joined the call for protection. this widespread public mobilization ultimately tipped the scales, leading congress to pass legislation in 1968 that permanently prohibited dams within the grand canyon, a triumph that marked yet another historic victory for the conservation movement. through these campaigns, the sierra club cemented its role as guardian of park integrity. it demonstrated that effective protection required not only vision and passion but also strategic communication, legal action, and the mobilization of public will. by successfully defending echo park and the grand canyon, the club reaffirmed the primary principle that national parks must be preserved in their entirety, free from industrial intrusion, for all generations to experience and enjoy. their efforts transformed public consciousness around conservation and established a powerful legacy of vigilant and victorious advocacy for the wholeness of america’s natural heritage. through its enduring and multifaceted efforts, the sierra club has played three critical, interconnected roles in shaping the american national parks. it began as a defender of the park system, fighting for the very existence of places like yosemite. it then became a forger of park governance, helping establish the national park service as a permanent institution. finally, it emerged as a guardian of park integrity, protecting the ecological and aesthetic wholeness of parks such as echo park and the grand canyon for future generation. this evolution, from ensuring existence, to building systems, to safeguarding quality, demonstrates the club’ s unparalleled influence in conservation history. 4. impacts of sierra club’s advocacy in the national park movement while the previous section detailed the club’s evolving roles, this section assesses the broader consequences of its activism. it moves beyond the question of “what they did” to examine “what their actions achieved,” analyzing the club’s multifaceted impact across institutional, cultural, political, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 international spheres. 4.1 institutional impact the club’s most enduring legacy lies in its profound role in shaping the legal and administrative foundations of the u.s. national park system. its advocacy went beyond individual conservation battles, aiming instead to establish a robust institutional framework for permanent protection. the club’s efforts were instrumental in the passage of the landmark organic act of 1916. this seminal legislation, which the club lobbied for in coalition with organizations like the american civic association, created the national park service and codified its dual mission of protecting natural and historic resources while providing for public enjoyment. this act served as the system’s foundational “constitution”, moving park management from informal, temporary arrangement to a centralized, professionalized administration (keiter, 2011). furthermore, the club played a critical role in defending and expanding this system. its successful campaigns to establish parks such as king canyon and to protect grand canyon national park from dams not only preserved iconic landscapes but also fortified the legal principle of park inviolability. these victories culminated in explicit congressional prohibitions against destructive projects, most notably with the defeat of the echo park dam in 1956, which set a powerful precedent that ultimately protected the grand canyon from similar threats in 1968. this institutional impact extended to broader wilderness protection. the philosophical and legal foundations championed by the club influenced the passage of the wilderness act in 1964, a groundbreaking law that established the national wilderness preservation system and provided the highest level of legal protection for pristine areas within parks and beyond (gottlieb, 2005). through these actions, the sierra club helped transform a scattered collection of scenic reserves into a legally fortified, systematically managed national treasure, defining the very structure of american conservation governance. 4.2 socio-cultural impact beyond legislation, the club fundamentally reshaped american cultural attitudes toward wilderness, transforming it from an elite philosophical pursuit into a widely held public ideal. this transformation was achieved through a strategic and innovative use of media across its campaigns. whether defending yosemite, protecting dinosaur national monument, or saving the grand canyon, the club masterfully employed a diverse array of tools to capture the public’s imagination. it published best-selling books like eliot porter’s the place no one knew, took out dramatic full-page advertisements in national newspapers such as the new york times, and produced influential films and documentaries that visually showcased the sublime beauty of threatened landscapes. these efforts were designed not only to inform, but to evoke an emotional connection, fostering a profound appreciation for wild places and elevating them to the status of essential pillars of american identity. the club’s decades of public education catalyzed a profound shift in consciousness. post-world war ii, its advocacy contributed significantly to the widespread dissemination of wilderness values, helping to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 fuel an unprecedented national enthusiasm for wild places by the 1960s. this cultivated public sentiment provided the essential grassroots momentum for landmark achievements, most notably the first earth day in 1970, a watershed event that echoed the club’s ethos and marked the emergence of a mass, popular environmental movement. the club’s efforts to make conservation a cultural priority helped usher in the “golden age” of environmentalism in the 1970s, proving that effective conservation requires not just policy change, but a revolution in the public heart and mind. 4.3 political impact the club’s campaigns did more than protect landscapes; they essentially redefined the political influence of non-governmental organizations in american environmental governance. through its leadership in numerous national park battles, the club evolved from a regional wilderness group into a nationally recognized political force, pioneering strategies that became benchmarks for civic engagement. the growing influence of the club is clearly reflected in its rapid growth in membership and organizational reach. from a modest base of fewer than 500 members at its founding in 1892, it expanded to 7,000 members by the 1950s, and by the mid-1960s, its membership had surged to 45,000, with 32 chapters nationwide. this growth accelerated into the 1970s, by which time membership exceeded 110,000, with chapters in all 50 states (gottlieb, 2005). this vast network provided not only financial support but also a powerful grassroots engine for political mobilization. learning from earlier campaigns, the club strategically broadened its focus beyond park protection to include comprehensive environmental legislation. it played an indispensable role in advocating for and helping pass cornerstone laws such as the national environmental policy act and the clean air act in the 1970s, thereby incorporating environmental considerations into federal decision-making processes. furthermore, the club’s innovative tactics, including strategic litigation, professional lobbying, media campaigns, and coalition-building, served as a model for a new generation of environmental organizations. its success inspired and paved the way for the emergence of major groups such as greenpeace, friends of the earth, and the natural resources defense council in the 1960s and 70s. by the 1990s, environmentalism had become a widespread social ethos, supported by over ten thousand organizations across the country. thus, the sierra club not only achieved its own legislative victories but also demonstrated how ngos could exert lasting influence on national policy, enhancing the role of organized civil society as an essential actor in the american political system. 4.4 international impact the strategies and successes of the sierra club provided a model for environmental movements worldwide. its model of combining grassroots mobilization with professional lobbying and media engagement has been studied and adopted by emerging conservation groups across the globe. the very concept of national parks as protected public treasures, defended by an active citizenry, was powerfully validated by the club’s work, inspiring the establishment and defense of similar reserves on every continent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 90 the club’s influence extended far beyond national borders, offering a replicable and powerful model for global conservation advocacy and the establishment of protected areas worldwide. its integrated approach, merging grassroots activism with professional lobbying, strategic litigation, and compelling visual media, provided a blueprint that was adapted and adopted by emerging environmental movements across diverse cultural and political contexts. its strategies and successes lent crucial legitimacy to the very concept of national parks as protected public heritage, stewarded not only by the state but also by an engaged civil society. this model demonstrated that citizen organizations could effectively challenge industrial and governmental projects, thereby inspiring the formation and strategy of prominent international ngos such as greenpeace, friends of the earth, and the worldwide fund for nature. moreover, the club’s advocacy tools, including its use of photographic books, documentary films, mass advertising, and targeted legal campaigns, were studied and emulated by conservationists working to establish parks and resist destructive development from latin america to europe, asia, and africa. the idea that civil society could play a decisive role in safeguarding natural treasures became a foundational principle imitated throughout the world, which significantly accelerated the global spread of national parks and protected areas in the latter half of the 20th century. to some extent, the sierra club did not merely protect american landscapes; it exported a new form of environmental citizenship, empowering people around the world to advocate for the preservation of their own natural heritage through organized, strategic, and publicly engaging action. 5. conclusion this study has demonstrated that the sierra club, together with other conservation organizations, played an indispensable role in the development and preservation of the american national park system. through sustained and strategic engagement, these groups were instrumental not only in establishing individual parks but also in shaping the very institutional and ideological foundations of the national park idea. the club’s evolution from a defender of specific landscapes, to a forger of federal governance structures, and finally to a guardian of ecological integrity, mirrors the broader development of the american conservation movement itself. its involvement represents a seminal chapter in the history of environmental conservation, marked by transformative contributions and complex legacies. its impact can be broadly assessed across four key dimensions: institutional, socio-cultural, political, and international. institutionally, it was instrumental in establishing and defending legal frameworks, most notably the passage of organic act and the wilderness act, which formed the administrative and ethical pillars of federal conservation policy. culturally, through strategic media campaigns and public education, it helped redefine wilderness from a mere economic resource into a core element of american identity, fostering a widespread land ethic among the public. politically, it reshaped the influence of civil society by pioneering an advocacy model that blended grassroots mobilization with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 91 professional lobbying, empowering a new generation of environmental organizations. globally, the club’s strategies and successes provided an adaptable blueprint for conservation movements worldwide, inspiring the creation and protection of nature reserves around the world. yet, the very expansion of the club’s influence also revealed inherent challenges, including organizational management complexities, shortages in technical expertise, and strategic fragmentation within the broader movement. these limitations at times constrained its capacity for coherent and sustained engagement in environmental governance. nevertheless, the club’s journey epitomizes how non-governmental actors can profoundly reshape national policy and cultural values. its narrative is not one of uninterrupted success, but of adaptive negotiation between idealism and pragmatism, protest and policy. beyond protecting landscapes, it forged a new ethos of public stewardship, enhanced ecological awareness, and established a durable framework for both national and global conservation efforts. ultimately, the sierra club’s legacy serves as both an inspiration and a caution: it offers a powerful model of citizen-led advocacy, while also underscoring the complexities that accompany institutional growth and influence. its evolution mirrors the broader story of american conservation organizations within the national park movement, and its distinct roles as defender, forger, and guardian exemplify the collective function and enduring value of civil society in the stewardship of public natural heritage. in this light, nature conservation organizations, represented by the serra club, not only shaped the american landscape but also demonstrated the enduring power and perennial challenges of civic engagement in environmental preservation. references adams, w. m. (2023). the future of the wild: radical conservation for a crowded world. bristol university press. bullard, r. d. (1990). dumping in dixie: race, class, and environmental quality. westview press. coley, j. s., & schachle, j. (2021). growing the green giant: ecological threats, political threats, and u.s. membership in sierra club, 1892-present. social sciences, 10(6), 189. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10060189 coley, j. s., & mai, q. d. (2022). the ecology of environmental association: density, spillover, competition, and membership in sierra club, 1984-2016. sociological focus, 55(4), 405-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2134239 cronon, w. (1995). the trouble with wilderness; or, getting back to the wrong nature. environmental history, 1(1), 7-28. https://doi.org/10.2307/3985059 davies, l. (1979). the sierra club: a history. sierra club books. everhart, w. c. (1983). the national park service. praeger publishers. farrier, d. a. (2019). alligators in the tree house: imperiled wilderness and the cultural politics of preservation. university of virginia press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 92 fox, s. (1981). the american environmental movement: an essay. twayne publishers. gottlieb, r. (2005). forcing the spring: the transformation of the american environmental movement (rev. ed.). island press. hays, s. p. (1959). conservation and the gospel of efficiency: the progressive conservation movement, 1890-1920. harvard university press. hays, s. p. (1987). beauty, health, and permanence: environmental politics in the united states, 1955-1985. cambridge university press. keiter, r. (2011). revisiting the organic act: can it meet the next century’s conservation challenges? the george wright forum, 28(3), 240-256. parsons, m. r. (1910). the sierra club. the annals of the american academy of political and social science, 35(2), 204-209. runte, a. (2020). national parks: the american experience (5th ed.). lanham, md: taylor trade publishing. schrepfer, s. r. (1983). the fight to save the redwoods: conservation, labor, and the fight for the future. university of wisconsin press. segura, g. m. (2024). varieties of environmentalisms and latino views of climate action. ps: political science & politics, 57(1), 25-29. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096523000550 turner, t. (1991). sierra club: 100 years of protecting nature. harry n. abrams. willow, a. j. (2015). the shifting topology of environmentalism: human-environment relationships and conceptual trends in two north american organizational histories. nature and culture, 10(2), 157-177. https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2015.100202 shaping the wild: a case study of the sierra club’ zhiyan gao1 abstract the u.s. national park movement established a glob keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 44 original paper research on legalization of sustainable supply of ecological products ziying fang1 1 school of humanities and law, zhejiang a&f university, hangzhou, zhejiang, china received: january 21, 2024 accepted: march 02, 2024 online published: march 12, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p44 abstract with the widespread attention to global climate change issues, research on sustainable supply of ecological products has become an important area of global concern. this study aims to comprehensively analyze the legal framework for sustainable supply of ecological products, and explore the challenges, opportunities, and good practices for achieving sustainable supply of ecological products. the current problems in the supply of ecological products include unclear property rights, imbalanced supply and demand, and incomplete evaluation mechanism; the sustainable supply of ecological products was analyzed from three aspects: insufficient motivation to supply, inadequate supply capacity, and inadequate supply security mechanism; it is suggested that the property rights system for natural resources should be improved, the mechanism of equilibrium of interests of supplying subjects reshaped, and the rights and interests dispute settlement mechanism constructed. keywords ecological product, sustainable supply, legalization 1. introduction the sustainable supply of ecological products has become an important issue in global efforts to address environmental degradation and climate change, and the legal framework surrounding the ecological product supply chain plays a crucial role in promoting environmentally friendly practices. without a clear legal framework, it may lead to excessive development or degradation of ecological products, making it difficult to achieve sustainable supply of ecological products. therefore, this article focuses on the challenges, opportunities, and good practices for achieving sustainable ecological product supply. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. 2. problems of the legalization of sustainable supply of ecological products 2.1 unclear property rights of ecological products clear property rights are a prerequisite for market-oriented transactions of ecological products. clearly defining the property rights of ecological products is challenging as they contain a wide range of natural resource elements. the unclear property rights of ecological products, such as those related to forest carbon sinks, pose challenges in terms of ownership, acquisition, and benefit sharing. uncertain property rights may hinder or complicate the access to ecological products. stakeholders, including local communities, private entities, and government agencies, may face challenges in using these resources for economic or conservation purposes. meanwhile, when property rights are unclear, the distribution of benefits for ecological products may cause controversy. determining how to share economic or environmental benefits among different stakeholders has become a complex task. in addition, clear property rights are crucial for effectively protecting resources. to address these challenges, it is crucial to establish a transparent and enforceable legal framework that clearly defines property rights related to ecological products, as the clarity of property rights not only promotes sustainable resource management but also encourages responsible investment and development initiatives. 2.2 imbalance between supply and demand of ecological products the supply and demand relationship of ecological products includes a balanced correspondence between both parties. specifically, the supply and demand of ecological products involve a balanced interaction between producers (suppliers) and consumers (demanders) to create a sustainable market for environmentally friendly products. firstly, the supply of ecological products needs to increase in quantity, and input does not necessarily mean equal changes in the ecological environment. in the case of long operating cycles and high initial investment in ecological products, rational investment entities still hold a negative attitude towards participation. therefore, the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development still exists. secondly, supply efficiency is relatively low. the development gap caused by uneven economic development has led to differences in the efficiency of ecological product supply. regardless of the operational model, relying solely on specific types of entities cannot improve the supply capacity and efficiency of ecological products. it cannot be ignored that achieving a balance between supply and demand of ecological products requires a comprehensive approach. thirdly, the awakening of public ecological awareness has to some extent activated market demand. public goods have the characteristics of non-exclusive and non-competitive consumption. however, soil conservation, air purification, forestry carbon sequestration, and other regulating service products have public goods characteristics (lin, 2016). their value realization paths still need to be explored to fully mobilize multiple entities to participate in the demand market, standardize service products, and create a more sustainable and inclusive demand market. 2.3 incomplete evaluation mechanism for sustainable supply of ecological products due to the externalities of ecological products, such as fresh air and clean soil, the benefits of their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. supply are mobile and not easily limited to specific regions. ecological products, especially those that help reduce emissions or pollution, can have a positive impact on air quality. however, the benefits of improving air quality are not limited to the communities that produce or use the products. the positive impact of ecological products on the environment may extend to neighboring areas and ecosystems, indicating the liquidity of these benefits. meanwhile, the non-permanent nature of incentive measures poses a challenge to ensuring the sustainability of ecological product supply. therefore, the measurement standards for ecological products need further exploration. in addition, the setting of ecological product evaluation indicators is crucial for evaluating the ecological products. however, certain limitations in this process may affect the accuracy and reliability of the evaluation results. due to the inherent complexity and interdependence of ecosystems, it is difficult to develop comprehensive indicators to fully reflect environmental impacts. meanwhile, the process of selecting indicators involves making value judgments on which aspects of the environment are most important. different stakeholders may have different views on the priority order of indicators, leading to a certain degree of subjectivity. and the key challenge is to adapt these indicators to constantly changing standards and ensure their sustained relevance. therefore, addressing these limitations requires a dynamic and adaptive ecological product evaluation method. the formulation of planning policies is to promote implementation; so, it is necessary to further achieve sustainable development through benign incentive and constraint mechanisms, in order to enhance the enthusiasm for sustainable supply of ecological products as eco-products boost will develop to consumers’ willingness (rizki & augustine, 2022). 3. analysis of the causes of the sustainable supply dilemma of ecological product 3.1 insufficient motivation for sustainable supply of ecological products although ecological product projects have the potential for long-term investment returns, some investors, especially those who focus on short-term financial performance, may tend to prioritize short-term economic benefits over ecological protection and sustainability. in addition, investors may perceive ecological product projects to have a higher level of risk, especially if the ecological outcomes are uncertain or depend on factors beyond their control. this view may hinder long-term investment in such measures. therefore, some investors may prioritize projects with fast economic returns and low risk over projects involving ecological development and potential uncertainty. meanwhile, consumers have a clear preference for ecological products. under the influence of demand and cost, enterprises tend to choose economic construction projects with short investment return cycles and low financial risks. this requires establishing a sound incentive and constraint mechanism to further increase the driving force for long-term sustainable supply of ecological products. as to the gains side, the personal benefits associated with reducing consumption or channeling to eco-products [3]. addressing these challenges requires the joint efforts of various stakeholders, including businesses, governments, consumers, and advocacy groups. by deepening understanding of ecological products, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. establishing supportive frameworks and incentive measures, market participants can play a more active role in promoting sustainability and promoting ecological products. 3.2 inadequate capacity for sustainable supply of ecological products some countries that have accumulated rich experience in the ecological product market already have rich capabilities to realize the value of ecological products. of course, as the supply of ecological products requires professional knowledge and experience accumulation, developing and cultivating ecological talents is crucial for addressing environmental challenges and promoting sustainable practices. in addition, there is an urgent need to utilize the introduction and training of ecological talents to create opportunities for high-level ecological professionals to fully play their roles. meanwhile, natural disasters are an important component of the supply of ecological products, especially seasonal climate losses. ecological products may be susceptible to climate related risks, such as extreme weather events or changes in growth conditions. ecological product suppliers are also passive bearers of market risks in the ecological product market, and small-scale development models are difficult to resist economic risks because the inherent characteristics of small-scale models make them more susceptible to the impact of economic risks. and it is necessary for companies to aim at green growth by selling eco-products that are both functional and environmentally friendly (leelakulthanit, 2020). addressing these challenges requires a combination of supportive policies, access to financial resources, capacity building initiatives, and market development efforts. government support, industry cooperation, and the development of sustainable business models can help enhance the capabilities of small-scale ecological product suppliers in the ecological product market. 3.3 inadequate security mechanism for sustainable supply of ecological products the lack of a guarantee mechanism for the supply of ecological products may pose significant challenges to producers and consumers. for example, the lack of clear and widely accepted ecological product certification standards may create uncertainty in the supply chain, and manufacturers may face challenges in proving the authenticity of their products and ecological certification. if there are no recognized certification standards, the credibility of ecological products may be questioned, and consumers, retailers, and other stakeholders may hesitate to believe the ecological claims of producers. clear ecological certification makes products stand out in the market, but without standardized certification, environmentally friendly products will be difficult to distinguish from traditional products, which may lead to market chaos. therefore, standardization is crucial for promoting global trade in sustainable goods. in addition, a sound traceability system is crucial for tracking ecological products from production to consumption, as insufficient traceability mechanisms may make it difficult to verify the origin, sustainable practices, and ecological impacts of products. addressing these challenges requires cooperation from government, industry stakeholders, and international organizations. establishing clear standards, strengthening education, and providing fiscal incentives can help establish a reliable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. guarantee mechanism to ensure the supply of ecological products. 4. legalization of sustainable supply of ecological products 4.1 sound property rights system for natural resources we must continuously study the property rights of ecological resources such as forest carbon sinks. at the same time, we should clarify the main body of asset property rights attributed to different natural resources and the main body of exercising rights corresponding to them. we should use the digital platform to unify the management of natural resources titling and registration information. it will contribute to protecting the interests of all parties, reducing the possibility of property rights disputes, and activating the market. the more mature and universally applicable experiences should be refined into institutional regulations to enhance the overall effect. in addition, in the legal relationship between supply and demand of ecological products, the right to obtain ecological products is the entitlement to acquire them, whose essence is understandable as the right to share ecological products and the right to request payment. it is necessary to refine the legislation on ecological products’ public and private rights. in particular, the rules regulate the limitation of rights to public ecological goods. in contrast, acquiring rights to private ecological goods is possible through contractual regulation of obligations. we also need to strengthen international cooperation to develop and promote standardized monitoring techniques and data reporting standards. global initiatives, agreements and partnerships can play a key role in establishing a common framework for monitoring ecological products and promoting more consistent and transparent processes for defining and enforcing property rights. in addition, continued advances in technology and increased cooperation among stakeholders can contribute to the development of more standardized and universally accepted monitoring practices. 4.2 reshape the mechanism for balancing the interests of supplying subjects in the absence of a clear guarantee of return, some stakeholders may remain hesitant and hesitant in the actual operation process. firstly, the suppliers of ecological products should receive more funding from the distribution of benefits. this is because the sustainable supply of ecological products usually requires long-term operation, which largely requires the long-term work of the supply entity. we hope to combine practical needs to motivate enterprises to actively upgrade their industries, and different institutions need legal restrictions on the specific use of ecological products to ensure fair use and compliance with usage regulations. meanwhile, with the development of science and technology, the multi-dimensional evaluation system for scientific refinement should also be optimized. for example, exploring the establishment of various social linkage reward and punishment mechanisms such as ecological credit behavior, financial credit, medical insurance, and social assistance, and actively promote the positive interaction of legal mechanisms, and achieve the sustainable provision of ecological products. in order to effectively avoid risks, the insurance system should also be strengthened. we must expand the beneficiaries of insurance to benefit ecological innovation enterprises. while regularly promoting the risk factors in current ecological product policies, actively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. guiding production and operation entities to purchase insurance. 4.3 construct the rights and interests dispute settlement mechanism a sound dispute-resolution mechanism can effectively boost the growth of eco-industries. in addition, it serves to further the value realization of ecological products elsewhere. regarding institutional arrangement, the legal status of different ecological product supply subjects of social organizations, enterprises, and individuals needs a guarantee. furthermore, it has been shown that large retailing chains are important actors in establishing markets for eco-products (koos, 2011). moreover, when the rights of different participants are violated, they will smoothly enjoy equal remedies. in judicial decisions, the penalties for ecological damage ought to be intensified. and the judicial interpretation should further refine the criteria for destroying ecological products to achieve refined justice. concurrently, the principle of “risk prevention” is applied to ensure that precautionary measures are fully utilized to broaden the way of liability. it is a smart initiative to build a three-dimensional partnership of prevention, operation, and supervision in the supply of ecological products, the role of which is to reduce the legal risks in the subsequent implementation process, promote the specialization of environmental justice, and attain a synergistic and long-lasting effect of judicial application. references koos, s. (2011). varieties of environmental labelling, market structures, and sustainable consumption across europe: a comparative analysis of organizational and market supply determinants of environmental-labelled goods. journal of consumer policy, 34, 127-151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-010-9153-2 leelakulthanit, o. (2020). sustainable consumption as a part of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. journal of advanced research in law and economics (jarle), 11(50), 1253-1261. https://doi.org/10.14505//jarle.v11.4(50).21 lin, x. (2016). regulation of domestic forestry carbon sequestration trading by the chinese civil law. asian bus. law, 17, 55. rizki, a. f., & augustine, y. (2022). green supply chain management practices: direct effects sustainability performance. technium soc. sci. j., 28, 389. https://doi.org/10.47577/tssj.v28i1.5795 tur-sinai, o. (2018). patents and climate change: a skeptic’s view. envtl. l., 8, 211. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 134 original paper reliability and validity of the chinese version of the threat appraisal questionnaire in assessing children and adolescents jiarui pan1* 1 school of psychology，guizhou normal university y, guiyang received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 20, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p134 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p134 abstract this study introduces the threat appraisal questionnaire for children (taq-c) and examines its reliability and validity among chinese children and adolescents. the taq-c was administered to 903 children and adolescents, with pswq-c, iusc-12 and masc used as criterion tools. after two weeks, 38 adolescents completed the taq-c retest. the revised chinese version of the threat appraisal questionnaire presents a three-factor structure, including perceived probability, perceived severity, and coping cost, comprising 36 items. the model fit indices were satisfactory (χ2/df=3.521, rmsea=0.053, cfi=0.914, tli=0.906, srmr=0.048). multigroup confirmatory factor analysis further demonstrated that the revised taq-c meets measurement invariance across genders. the taq-c scores showed significant correlations with the scores of the criterion questionnaires, indicating good criterion validity. the revised questionnaire demonstrated good reliability, with an overall alpha coefficient of 0.93 for the full scale, a retest reliability of 0.76, and alpha coefficients for the subscales ranging from 0.81 to 0.87. the retest reliability of the subscales ranged from 0.60 to 0.79. the revised chinese version of the threat appraisal questionnaire shows a three-factor structure and demonstrates overall good reliability and validity among chinese children and adolescents. keywords threat appraisal, anxiety, reliability, validity 1. introduction according to the "report on the development of chinese youth," over 30 million children and adolescents under the age of 17 in china experience issues such as depression and anxiety. the government places a high priority on the mental health of adolescents, incorporating it into the "healthy china" strategy and issuing a series of policy documents. in july 2021, the ministry of education released a notice on strengthening student mental health management, explicitly proposing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 135 "to improve mental health assessment work" (liu, 2023). anxiety is one of the most common emotional problems among adolescents (sun, ju, jiang et al., 2018), typically arising in threatening environments (eysenck derakshan, santos & calvo, 2007). it refers to the physiological, emotional, and behavioral tension, unease, and worry individuals experience in response to potentially threatening situations (william wk, zung, 1971). anxiety affects adolescents' learning and life, leading to interpersonal communication barriers and negatively impacting their quality of life (knapp, blumenthal, mischel et al., 2016; xing, wang, wei et al., 2016). when facing potentially threatening situations, anxious individuals are more likely to perceive the threat significance of uncertain events, and anxiety is associated with increased attention to threat cues (mathews & macleod, 1994). this involves a cognitive appraisal process of the threat stimuli, known as threat appraisal (mathews & mackintosh, 1998; li, 2022; aaron, 1985). threat appraisal broadly refers to an individual's cognitive judgment of a threat information or event, encompassing perceived probability, perceived severity, and coping cost (francis, hawes, abbott et al., 2017; fan, 2020). perceived probability refers to the individual's assessment of the likelihood of a threat event occurring to themselves. perceived severity refers to the individual's judgment of the seriousness of the consequences of the threat event or the extent of harm to themselves, i.e., the extent of the event's severity. coping cost refers to the difficulty of taking measures when facing a threat (clark & beck, 2011; dugas, letarte, rhéaume et al., 1995; wells, 1995; janis, 1967). in ambiguous situations, individuals with high anxiety traits are more likely to perceive the situation as threatening compared to those with low anxiety traits (mogg & bradley, 1998; eysenck, mogg, may et al., 1991). this cognitive process of threat appraisal influences the development and maintenance of anxiety (craske, rapee, jackel et al., 1989; mathews, richards & eysenck, 1989). therefore, the ability to measure different dimensions of threat appraisal through self-report can help in studying the cognitive processes underlying children's anxiety. there are many studies and various scales developed domestically and internationally for measuring anxiety traits in children and adolescents. however, there is still a lack of self-report tools specifically measuring threat appraisal, a crucial cognitive process closely related to anxiety. to measure the cognitive characteristic of threat appraisal, francis et al. developed the threat appraisal questionnaire for children (taq-c) (aaron, 1985; stapinski, abbott, & rapee, 2010). the taq-c comprises 36 items and measures individuals' cognitive tendencies in assessing threats from three dimensions: (1) probability of the event occurring, (2) the severity or painfulness of the consequences (cost), and (3) the difficulty of coping (coping). the taq-c has demonstrated good reliability and validity among children and adolescents in foreign countries. currently, there is no similar scale for threat appraisal in china, and it is unclear whether the taq-c has cross-cultural structural consistency. therefore, this study aims to introduce the taq-c into china and examine its reliability and validity among chinese children and adolescents, providing a reliable, simple, and practical tool for conducting threat appraisal research domestically. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 136 2. subjects and methods 2.1 subjects sample one: a convenient sampling method was used to survey students from two primary and secondary schools in guizhou province. questionnaires were distributed and collected uniformly during extracurricular time, with a total of 950 paper questionnaires distributed. after excluding questionnaires with patterned responses or excessive missing answers, 903 valid questionnaires were retained, resulting in an effective rate of 95.1%. among the respondents, 483 were male (53.5%) and 420 were female (46.5%), with an average age of 13.22±1.49 years. the sample included 449 primary school students and 454 secondary school students. sample two: a total of 45 retest questionnaires were distributed, and 38 were collected two weeks later, with a recovery rate of 84.4%. among the respondents, 22 were male (57.9%) and 16 were female (42.1%), aged between 13 and 14 years. 2.2 instruments 2.2.1 threat appraisal questionnaire the questionnaire consists of 12 situational items, divided into three subscales: perceived probability, perceived severity, and coping cost. each subscale item is the same, and respondents need to rate each situational item on an 8-point scale from three dimensions: (1) how likely is it that this event will happen to you in the future? (perceived probability); (2) if this event happens to you, how bad will it be? (perceived severity); (3) if this event happens to you, how difficult will it be to deal with? (coping cost). scores for each subscale range from 12 to 96, and the total score for the questionnaire ranges from 36 to 288, with higher scores indicating a higher perception of the likelihood, negative consequences, and difficulty in coping with future threatening events. with the original author's permission, the questionnaire was revised and adapted into chinese. after obtaining authorization, the questionnaire was initially translated by a psychology student. the translation was then discussed and revised within the group to ensure accurate expression of the original content and to conform to chinese language habits. after repeated discussions, the final version was formed and reviewed by a psychology professor. the items and scoring method are consistent with the original questionnaire. 2.2.2 criterion questionnaires the penn state worry questionnaire for children (pswq-c) (chorpita, tracey, brown et al., 1997), developed by chorpita et al., consists of 14 items and uses a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1 ("not at all") to 4 ("always"), with higher scores indicating more pronounced anxiety traits. the intolerance of uncertainty scale for children (iusc-12) (wu, wang, & qi, 2016), the chinese version revised by zhang yajuan et al. (2017), includes 12 items with two dimensions: prospective anxiety and inhibitory anxiety. the prospective anxiety dimension includes 7 items, such as "unpredictable things upset me"; the inhibitory anxiety dimension includes 5 items, such as "when it's time to act, uncertainty stops me". the scale uses a 5-point scoring method, from 1 ("not at all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 137 characteristic") to 5 ("entirely characteristic"), with the total score being the sum of the two dimensions. higher total scores indicate higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty. the multidimensional anxiety scale for children (masc) [24], consists of 39 items rated on a 4-point likert scale from 0 ("not at all true") to 3 ("very true"), assessing anxiety in four aspects over the past week: emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical symptoms. it includes four subscales: (1) physical symptoms with 12 items; (2) social anxiety with 9 items; (3) separation anxiety with 9 items; and (4) harm avoidance with 9 items. the total score ranges from 0 to 117, with higher scores indicating higher levels of anxiety. the chinese version of this scale has good reliability and validity and can be used to assess anxiety levels in chinese children and adolescents. 2.3 data processing and analysis methods statistical analyses were conducted using spss 26.0 and amos 24.0 software. item analysis included independent sample t-tests, critical ratio (cr) analysis, and correlations between item scores and total scores. the structural validity of the questionnaire was evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. reliability was assessed using cronbach's alpha coefficient and test-retest reliability. confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using amos 24.0, while other analyses were performed using spss 26.0. 3. results 3.1 item analysis the pearson correlation method was used to analyze the correlation between each item score and the total score of the taq-c. the results showed that all item scores were significantly correlated with the total score (r=0.34~0.66, p<0.01). each item score was also significantly correlated with the total score of its respective dimension (perceived probability, r=0.34~0.50, p<0.01; perceived severity, r=0.48~0.66, p<0.01; coping cost, r=0.43~0.65, p<0.01). the sample was divided into high and low scoring groups based on the top and bottom 27% of the total score distribution, resulting in a high score group (246 individuals) and a low score group (244 individuals). an independent sample t-test was then used to compare the differences in item scores between the high and low scoring groups. the t-values ranged from 10.39 to 25.37, all with p<0.01, indicating statistically significant differences. 3.2 structural validity confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted using amos, and the fitting results are shown in table 1. first, cfa was performed based on the original model. there was a high residual correlation between dimension two (perceived severity) and dimension three (coping cost), with each item in these dimensions corresponding pairwise (e.g., "perceived severity" item 1 corresponds to "coping cost" item 1). after adding residual correlations between items, cfa was conducted again, as shown in model 1 in table 1. based on the modification indices, residual correlations were also found between item 12 of dimension one (perceived probability) and items 12 of dimensions two and three. after modification, cfa was conducted again, and the results are shown in model 2 in table 1. the fit indices of model 2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 138 were better than those of model 1, so model 2 was adopted as the final model. the factor loadings of each item in model 2 ranged from 0.38 to 0.67, as detailed in table 2. table 1. comparison of fit indices for confirmatory factor analysis models model χ2 /df rmsea cfi tli srmr model 1 3.81 0.056 0.904 0.896 0.051 model 2 3.52 0.053 0.914 0.906 0.048 table 2. factor loadings of each item in the chinese version of the taq-c item dimension 1 dimension 2 dimension 3 possible1 0.42 possible2 0.50 possible3 0.40 possible4 0.38 possible5 0.47 possible6 0.50 possible7 0.59 possible8 0.58 possible9 0.63 possible10 0.48 possible11 0.61 possible12 0.54 terrible1 0.45 terrible2 0.60 terrible3 0.61 terrible4 0.60 terrible5 0.61 terrible6 0.55 terrible7 0.56 terrible8 0.65 terrible9 0.64 terrible10 0.61 terrible11 0.67 terrible12 0.51 copy1 0.41 copy2 0.57 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 139 copy3 0.63 copy4 0.60 copy5 0.59 copy6 0.58 copy7 0.59 copy8 0.68 copy9 0.64 copy10 0.64 copy11 0.64 copy12 0.52 figure 1. fit of the three-factor model of the taq-c in confirmatory factor analysis 3.3 criterion-related validity the penn state worry questionnaire for children (pswq-c), the intolerance of uncertainty scale (short version) (iusc-12), and the multidimensional anxiety scale for children (masc) were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 140 selected as criterion-related validity indicators for the taq-c. pearson correlation analysis showed that the total and factor scores of the taq-c were significantly positively correlated with the total scores of the pswq-c, iusc-12, and masc, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.33 to 0.43 (p<0.01), as detailed in table 3. table 3. criterion-related validity analysis of the taq-c pswq-c iusc-12 masc taq-c 0.41 0.43 0.43 f1 0.33 0.35 0.36 f2 0.38 0.41 0.40 f3 0.37 0.38 0.38 note: p<0.01. 3.4 reliability analysis 3.4.1 internal consistency reliability the reliability of the taq-c scale was analyzed. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total scale was 0.93, and for the three dimensions (perceived probability, perceived severity, and coping cost), the cronbach’s alpha coefficients were 0.81, 0.86, and 0.87, respectively. 3.4.2 test-retest reliability using data from sample two, a two-week test-retest reliability analysis was conducted. the intraclass correlation coefficient (icc) for the total scale was 0.76, and for the three factors, the icc values were 0.60 (perceived probability), 0.78 (perceived severity), and 0.79 (coping cost). 3.5 measurement invariance amos was used to test the measurement invariance of the three-factor model of the taq-c across gender groups. the results showed that the indices of the four models (configural invariance, metric invariance, scalar invariance, and residual invariance) all met the basic psychometric requirements, and the δgfi and δrmsea values for each step of the measurement invariance test were less than 0.01. these results indicate that the revised taq-c has measurement invariance across genders. table 3. measurement invariance test across genders model cmin df srmr gfi rmsea δsrmr δgfi δrmsea configural invariance 3001.71 1158 0.054 0.846 0.042 metric invariance 3036.32 1191 0.056 0.845 0.041 0.002 0.001 0.001 scalar 3059.05 1197 0.057 0.843 0.042 0.001 0.002 0.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 141 invariance residual invariance 3272.46 1245 0.059 0.835 0.043 0.002 0.008 0.001 4. conclusion this study revised and tested the reliability, validity, and measurement invariance of the taq-c in a sample of chinese children and adolescents, aiming to provide a simplified and reliable measurement tool for threat appraisal research in the chinese cultural context. item analysis of the taq-c showed that all items significantly differentiated between high and low scoring groups, indicating good item discrimination. additionally, all items' critical ratios (cr) were significant, and item-total score correlation coefficients ranged from 0.34 to 0.66, indicating good item quality and suitability for further analysis. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) results indicated that the taq-c is a three-factor model, including perceived probability, perceived severity, and coping cost. the model's structure aligned with the original model and supported the cognitive model of anxiety with three cognitive appraisal dimensions. however, the original model's fit was not ideal for the chinese sample, leading to the addition of residual correlations between specific items. cfa supported the revised three-factor model, with all fit indices meeting relevant requirements, demonstrating the structural validity of the chinese version of the taq-c. reliability analysis showed that the cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the total scale and each dimension ranged from 0.81 to 0.93, consistent with the results of the english version, indicating good internal consistency. the two-week test-retest reliability ranged from 0.60 to 0.79, indicating high stability over time.criterion-related validity analysis showed that taq-c scores were positively correlated with the scores of the chinese versions of the pswq-c, iusc-12, and masc, indicating good criterion-related validity. this result suggests that the three cognitive appraisal processes of threat appraisal are positively correlated with individual anxiety levels. individuals with higher anxiety levels are more likely to perceive the threat significance of uncertain events and have increased attention to threat cues. this study confirms the close relationship between cognitive characteristics of threat appraisal and anxiety levels. therefore, the taq-c can be used to further screen individuals with potential anxiety traits among children and adolescents and to compare changes in threat appraisal before and after anxiety treatment.furthermore, this study tested the gender invariance of the taq-c in chinese children and adolescents. the three-factor structure of the taq-c fit well for both male and female samples, meeting basic psychometric requirements. this indicates that the revised taq-c functions equivalently across genders in measuring threat appraisal.the study sample only included children and adolescents from guizhou province, which is relatively homogeneous. future research should include samples from different regions to further verify the reliability and validity of the taq-c in chinese children and adolescents. in this study, the reliability and test-retest reliability of the perceived probability dimension were slightly lower than those of the perceived severity, coping cost www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 142 dimensions, and the total threat appraisal scale. this may be due to the inapplicability of certain traumatic scenarios in the questionnaire to the sample, such as "finding out you need to have a tooth pulled during a routine dental check-up" or "your pet running away because you forgot to close the door". routine dental visits and pet ownership may not be common in the tested population, affecting the reliability of responses to these items. this could be due to differences in regional living habits or economic development levels. however, perceived probability is an essential part of the cognitive process of threat appraisal, and for model symmetry, all items were retained without deletion. overall, this study confirms that the chinese version of the taq-c has good reliability and validity among chinese children and adolescents. it can be directly used for gender comparisons and provides a scientific, reliable, and convenient tool for assessing threat appraisal in chinese children and adolescents. references aaron, t. b. (1985). anxiety disorders and phobias: a cognitive perspective. new york: basic books. chorpita, b. f., tracey, s. a., brown, t. a. et al. (1997). assessment of worry in children and adolescents: an adaptation of the penn state worry questionnaire. behaviour research and therapy, 35(6), 569-581. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(96)00116-7 clark, d. a., & beck, a. t. (2011). cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders: science and practice. new york: guilford press. craske, m. g., rapee, r. m., jackel, l. et al. (1989). qualitative dimensions of worry in dsm-iii-r generalized anxiety disorder subjects and nonanxious controls. behavior research and therapy, 27(4), 397-402. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(89)90010-7 dugas, m. j., letarte, h., rhéaume, j. et al. (1995). worry and problem-solving: evidence of a specific relationship. cognitive therapy and research, 19(1), 109-120. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02229679 eysenck, m. w., derakshan, n., santos, r., & calvo, m. g. (2007) anxiety and cognitive performance: attentional control theory. emotion, 7(2), 336-353. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336 eysenck, m. w., mogg, k., may, j. et al. (1991). bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety. journal of abnormal psychology, 100(2), 144-150. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.100.2.144 fan, c. (2020). review of protection motivation theory research. modern business and industry, 41(16), 79-81. francis, r., hawes, d. j., abbott, m. et al. (2017). development and preliminary validation of the threat appraisal questionnaire for children (taq-c). j psychopathol behav assess, 39, 322-341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-016-9584-4 janis, i. l. (1967). effects of fear arousal on attitude change: recent developments in theory and experimental research1. advances in experimental social psychology, 3, 166-224. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 143 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60344-5 knapp, a. a., blumenthal, h., mischel, e. r. et al. (2016). anxiety sensitivity and its factors in relation to generalized anxiety disorder among adolescents. j abnorm child psychol, 44(2), 233-244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-9991-0 li, w. j. (2022). the impact of dynamic threatening emotional body language on preschoolers' attention bias: the mediating role of threat appraisal. zhejiang normal university. liu, c. (2023). collaboration and disorder: the “over-disease” of adolescent depression. contemporary youth research, (02), 74-84. mathews, a., & mackintosh, b. (1998). a cognitive model of selective processing in anxiety. cognitive therapy and research, 22(6), 539-560. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1018738019346 mathews, a., & macleod, c. (1994). cognitive approaches to emotion and emotional disorders. annu rev psychol, 45, 25-50. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.45.020194.000325 mathews, a., richards, a., & eysenck, m. (1989). interpretation of homophones related to threat in anxiety states. journal of abnormal psychology, 98(1), 31-34. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.98.1.31 mogg, k., & bradley, b. p. (1998). a cognitive-motivational analysis of anxiety. behaviour research and therapy, 36(9), 809-848. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(98)00063-1 stapinski, l., abbott, m. j., & rapee, r. m. (2010). fear and perceived uncontrollability of emotion: evaluating the unique contribution of emotion appraisal variables to prediction of worry and generalized anxiety disorder. behaviour research and therapy, 48(11), 1097-1104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2010.07.012 sun, l. p., ju, j. w., jiang, l. q. et al. (2018). the relationship between parental psychological control and adolescent anxiety: a cross-lagged study. psychological development and education, 34(06). 758-768. tan, f. r. (2011). measurement invariance study of the multidimensional anxiety scale for children in chinese and italian children samples. central south university. wells, a. (1995). meta-cognition and worry: a cognitive model of generalized anxiety disorder. behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 23(3), 301-320. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465800015897 william, w. k., & zung. a. (1971). rating instrument for anxiety disorders. psychosomatics, 12(6), 371-379. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3182(71)71479-0 wu, l. j., wang, j. n., & qi, x. d. (2016). validity and reliability of the short version of the intolerance of uncertainty scale in middle school students. chinese journal of mental health, 30(09), 700-705. xing, y. l., wang, j. p., wei, w. et al. (2016). the impact of social support on adolescent anxiety: the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies. chinese journal of clinical psychology, 24(06), 1079-1082. 1.introduction 2.subjects and methods 2.1 subjects 2.2 instruments 2.2.1 threat appraisal questionnaire 2.2.2 criterion questionnaires 2.3 data processing and analysis methods 3.results 3.1 item analysis 3.2 structural validity 3.3 criterion-related validity 3.4 reliability analysis 3.4.1 internal consistency reliability 3.4.2 test-retest reliability 3.5 measurement invariance 4.conclusion references liu, c. (2023). collaboration and disorder: the “o advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 42 info3333 group assignment group 61 (prac 13 tue 3pm cc) hao chen1, zeyuan ding1, dean li1, harry lockyer1 & louck xu1 1 the university of sydney, sydney, au project charter project title: classroom ar integration project start date: 20 may 2023 project finish date: 20 may 2025 key schedule milestones: ● all hardware purchased by eom may 2024 ● all software developed by eom november 2024 ● hardware installed in classrooms by eom march 2025 ● all testing finalised by eom april 2025 ● project launched 20 may 2025 budget information: total $ 1,000,000. $240,000 for workspace rent (24 months). $100,000 for hardware devices (computers, servers, testing equipment). $5,000 for software (ide, github). $500,000 for salaries. $160,000 for all indirect and intangible costs (employee incentives, company culture, reputation) project manager: harry lockyer, hloc8611@uni.sydney.edu.au project objectives: add ar integration into select classrooms in the abercrombie building of the university of sydney to allow for projections of off-campus students in the classroom via ar headset, allowing for smoother, more involved learning. allow off campus students to experience the classroom via vr. main project success criteria: the software must be developed and tested, the hardware must be purchased and installed and the classrooms must be ready for use in semester 2 2025. the project must come in at budget. approach: ● determine possible systems to utilise for headsets ● develop software to be used on campus and off campus ● install devices in classrooms and brief classes that will use system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. roles and responsibilities name role responsibility harry lockyer ceo project sponsor, monitor project chuanzhi xu cfo responsible for managing the financial operations of this project. dean li director of purchasing assist in purchasing hardware and software zeyuan ding cto responsible for developing and implementing a company’s technology strategy while overseeing its infrastructure, innovation, and cybersecurity hao chen human resources provide staff, issue memo to all employees about the project. comments: scope statement project name: classroom ar integration date submitted: 28/03/2023 project description: the project will utilize existing hardware and in house developed software to provide an ar learning experience for on campus students and vr learning for students off campus participating in classes in the abercrombie build of the university of sydney. the project will be limited to 3 classrooms and will have minimal impact on the capabilities to teach and learn the subjects being studied. project deliverables deliverable no. description 1 new software developed to use ar/vr within the classroom 2 software manual for it admin staff to aid with system use 3 troubleshooting guide for students and teachers to help fix possible issues that may arise acceptance criteria task no. description 1 the project functions without major bugs, glitches, or crashes. 2 the project provides seamless interactions between on and off-campus students. 3 the headset is comfortable enough for students to wear for most of the hour-long classes 4 the software is easy to use and has simple troubleshooting options. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. out of scope this project will not accomplish or include the following: 1. no changes to physical classroom environment 2. no changes to curriculum due to project 3. no hardware will be developed, only software project assumptions no. assumption 1 adequate cooperation and support from faculty, staff, and students 2 availability of necessary resources and funding 3 ar/vr technology remains relevant and continues to advance throughout the project duration 4 all hardware will be available for purchase when necessary project constraints project start date 20 may 2023 launch/go live date project end date 20 may 2025 hard deadlines project completion: 20 may 2025 other deadlines/milestones ● all hardware purchased by eom may 2024 ● all software developed by eom november 2024 ● hardware installed in classrooms by eom march 2025 ● all testing finalised by eom april 2025 ● project launched 20 may 2025 budget constraints $1,000,000 quality or performance constraints network bandwidth and latency: to provide a smooth ar experience, the system will require a stable and high-speed internet connection. latency issues could lead to a less immersive experience for remote students, so it’s crucial to address potential network bottlenecks. software optimization: the ar application must be optimized for performance and responsiveness, ensuring that the digital content is rendered accurately and in real-time. the application should also be compatible with various ar headsets and devices. user experience and ergonomics: ar headsets should be comfortable to wear for extended periods, with a user-friendly interface for both remote and in-person students. the ar content should be presented in a way that minimizes equipment/personnel constraints equipment availability: depending on your budget and the scale of your project, acquiring the necessary ar headsets and other supporting hardware for all students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. and faculty might be challenging. determine the number of devices needed and procurement plan, considering factors like cost, compatibility, and functionality. technical infrastructure: your project may require updates or improvements to the existing network infrastructure to support the high-speed connectivity needed for ar experiences. this might include upgraded routers, switches, or even a dedicated network for ar traffic. training and support staff: implementing ar technology in the classroom requires trained personnel to manage the system, provide technical support, and assist with troubleshooting. this could involve hiring new staff or training existing staff members to meet the project’s needs. regulatory constraints general data protection regulation (gdpr) in the eu, or the australian privacy act, is crucial. you should ensure that the ar system and any associated software adhere to these regulations when handling and storing personal information, such as student names, images, or other data. accessibility: your ar integration project must comply with accessibility regulations, such as the americans with disabilities act (ada) in the united states or the disability discrimination act (dda) in australia. these laws require that educational institutions provide equal access and opportunities for students with disabilities, so your ar system should be designed with these requirements in mind. copyright and intellectual property: the ar system may involve using copyrighted material, such as textbooks, images, or videos. ensure that you have the appropriate permissions and licenses for using such content, and follow copyright and intellectual property laws. updated estimates estimated hours required to complete the project 4900 rs literature review this literature review will analyse, examine, and confirm all the information included in the literature from 2013 to 2021 is recent, relevant, and correct. our project, classroom ar integration, aims to allow remote students to join the class through vr imaging and to project the remote students into the classroom as in-campus students through ar. the main objective is to enable two modes (online and on-campus) of teaching to work generally as conventional, allowing diverse and flexible learning styles. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. 1. identifying things to know augmented reality (ar) is leading a technical sensation. it integrates virtual digital information and images with the elements of the world you can see. in other words, it generates virtual objects in the same space as real-world objects that users can see through special visual equipment. in the 1990s, ar was initially introduced as an airline and air force training device. in recent years, ar has been popularly applied in educational fields. (akçayır & akçayır, 2017) virtual reality (vr) is also one of the most popular and famous technologies in recent years. it works in an immersive style, immersing your senses into a surrounding differently from reality. (intel, 2019) 2. grouping authors with similar conclusions 2.1 supporting ideas 2.1.1 the in-campus students’ positive responses towards augmented reality (ar)-supported since our classroom ar integration project aims to enhance the study experience for on-campus students, the previous research, which explained the ar benefits in the education area, is shown in the following research: an experiment used students from two schools of similar size and teaching quantity as test participants. some classes used ar interactive teaching, while others remained traditional teaching models. the experimental results showed that students with ar interactive learning have better learning effects and study results than students in classical teaching mode. (cai et al., 2021) one research taking 78 students as participants aimed to examine whether the learning motivation will be improved after using the augmented reality mobile application to study. the participants were required to finish questionnaires about their feelings before and after. the results showed that students’ factors of attention, satisfaction, and confidence were increased. (khan et al., 2019) another experiment found that ar can facilitate kinesthetic learning, promote student engagement, enhance interactivity, boost learning outcomes and satisfaction, and encourage collaborative learning. (alzahrani, 2020) furthermore, using ar to provide virtual images/humans is also helpful for interpersonal communication. one experiment provided some first-hand empirical evidence that virtual humans in ar can influence social performance, adding to the literature on the social effects of ar agents. (miller et al., 2019). hence, it can help in-campus students communicate with off-campus students with a more effective social and academic communication experience. “some researchers reported specific ar-related learner outcomes such as ‘decreases cognitive load’ and ‘enhances spatial ability.’ these results require further exploration.” (miller et al., 2019) for example, santos (2014) said, “real world annotation improves perception. it juxtaposes real objects, and virtual text and other symbols. this reduces the cognitive load in the limited working memory so that a bigger fraction of the stm can be used for operating cognitive processes (e.g., storing in the ltm).” (alzahrani, 2020) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. since the coronavirus outbreak in 2019, most professional activities have to work with remote collaboration. moreover, ar has powerful features of visualisation and annotation by providing real-time descriptions in the virtual world. (wang et al., 2022) 2.1.2 the remote reliability of the vr implementation for off-campus students similar vr tools are already applied in the remote laboratory for the remote student end devices. the existing remote lab is in physical control, connected to a central plc(programmable logic controller). (trentsios et al., 2020) the central plc build the connection with a desktop computer throw proprietary labview hardware. the software labview can control and monitor the equipment in the laboratory. (trentsios et al., 2020) it can also distribute the laboratory data to open remote access to an ilab server. users can access the ilab servers online and manage the remote lab in preferred time slots. (trentsios et al., 2020) figure 1. desired architecture of the complete remote lab https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s2351978920306818 2.2 opposing ideas 2.2.1 the in-campus students’ negative responses towards augmented reality (ar)-supported although students can benefit from using ar within the class, specific verification of the effectiveness is still required. measuring its effectiveness can be crucial because the learners have great differences in attentiveness and competence in using ar. (alzahrani, 2020) it is hard for students to use ar-supported learning tools because they might be confused by the complex platform or too much information displayed. (alzahrani, 2020) 2.2.2 the remote reliability issue of the vr (also ar) implementation for off-campus students as we plan to introduce vr into remote study, we will bring remote students to offline classrooms through ar technology. in an e-learning environment, ar needs to combine digital information within physical and real-world https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s2351978920306818 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. settings. the included elements use computer-generated sensory inputs such as video, sound, visualisations, graphics, and gps data to be supplemented or augmented. (khan et al., 2019) this situation will increase the requirements for hardware in teaching venues. in addition, remote students also need certain network requirements to connect to teaching venues. there are three categories of collaborative vr networking issues client-side, application-side, and server-side. client-side indicates the network conditions and hardware capabilities of all clients. application-side includes the protocol and design to synchronise data in the collaborative ar context. the server-side is the corresponding server to handle the synchronisation. it is necessary for collaborative vr to utilise ai techniques for the prediction and optimisation of data synchronisation. (chheang, 2022) it is challenging for our network optimisation in this project. 2.2.3 not suitable for all learners and teaching situations ar simulations are complicated and intensive for resources, which requires plenty of time and specialised knowledge in design, implementation, and evaluation. ar simulations may not adapt to all instructional environments or learners. (dunleavy et al., 2008) 2.3 technical information figure 3. distribution of ar technologies used technology plays a significant role in ar. different technologies, like hmd or tablet pcs, can access ar. ar technologies have different characteristics in cost, usability, and accessibility of educational contexts. the research team found that mobile devices are the most popular delivery technology. (akçayır & akçayır, 2017) 3. comparing, commending, and criticising different views positive negative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. ar-supported on-campus learning 1. producing more fruitful and meaningful results. (cai et al., 2021) 2. increasing attention, confidence, and satisfaction. (khan et al., 2019) 3. virtual humans in ar can improve the social effect. 4. images/icons can help to reduce cognitive load (santos et al., 2014) 1. not suitable for all learners and teaching situations. 2. some learners will lose their attention and not be good at using technology. 3. the complexity of the ar platform 4. requirements for hardware facilities. 5. requirements for internet optimisation. vr-supported off-campus learning 1. remote vr collaboration has a usable example for the activities. 1. requirements for hardware facilities. 2. requirements for internet optimisation. commending and criticising summary: ● positive: the number of test samples is relatively small compared to the market audience, and there is a lack of large-scale examples to support various advantages. ● negative: most of the shortcomings can be alleviated through software optimisation, which is the work we will do next in the project, while hardware issues gradually alleviate over time. 4. market research www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. starting from 2011, the number of academic publications on ar in education has steadily increased. as early as 2006, the horizon reports predicted that ar would be a promising technology in the long run and would gain significant attention and impact in the years to come, as johnson, laurence, and smith stated in their report. (picture from markets and markets analysis report) focused on the picture from the marketsand markets analysis report, ar classroom technology has seen significant growth and adoption in various regional markets. the north american region has emerged as the largest market for ar in education, owing to the high penetration of technology and advanced infrastructure. europe and asia pacific regions follow closely, with a growing interest in ar-based teaching and learning solutions. ar technology in classrooms has been seen as a transformative tool, allowing students to engage with the subject matter in new and exciting ways and providing educators with valuable tools for enhancing learning outcomes. undoubtedly, the development of augmented reality (ar) technology is driving the market forward. more and more schools and companies are adopting ar technology, enabling students to participate in learning actively. for example, ar-enabled textbooks have been used in classrooms to provide students with interactive learning experiences. ar-powered simulations have been used to train employees in various industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and aerospace. this growing trend towards ar integration in education and training is expected to continue in the foreseeable future as the benefits of this technology become increasingly evident. currently, there are numerous technology companies actively participating in the ar education market, including major players such as google expeditions pioneer program. zspace, magic leap, alchemy vr, unimersiv, gamooz, meta company, daqri, ingage, popar, chromville, next/now, vironit, groove jones, hqsoftware, as well as smaller start-ups and niche providers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. 4.1 demonstration of inexistence despite the growing number of ar classroom software available on the market, none have truly integrated ar and vr technology to facilitate online students’ participation in offline classes. for example, ar classroom software such as aurasma, nearpod, and classcraft have their own strengths and weaknesses. aurasma provides a user-friendly platform with excellent ar creation tools but lacks the necessary tools to facilitate live classroom interactions. nearpod offers a comprehensive package of interactive features, but its ar capabilities are limited. classcraft provides an engaging gamification experience but does not focus on ar or vr. on the other hand, our team’s software offers a unique approach to integrating ar and vr into classroom settings, providing online students with a seamless and immersive learning experience. our software bridges the gap between online and offline classrooms by leveraging cutting-edge technology, enabling students to engage with their peers and teachers in real time. 5. criticizing aspects of methodology after reading some articles on the field of ar or vr classrooms, we found that some research may have some possible aspects of the methodology that could be criticised: small sample size: in some articles we read, we found that the sample size of some studies is small. for instance, the article by radu (2014) on “augmented reality (ar) in education: a meta-review and cross-meta-analysis” only included 16 studies in the meta-review and cross-meta-analysis, which could limit the generalizability of the results. a larger sample size would provide a more representative view of the effectiveness of ar in education. also, for the article by hsin-yi chen (2022), “the effectiveness of augmented reality in education: a meta-analysis”, the study only searched two databases, scopus and web of science, which may have limited the number of relevant studies that were included in the meta-analysis. there are other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. databases and sources of information, such as grey literature or conference proceedings, that were not searched. heterogeneity of the studies: the studies included in the article varied in terms of their design, methodology, and quality. some studies had small sample sizes or did not have control groups. this heterogeneity could make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of ar in education. the limited scope of the analysis: the scope of some articles is very limited. for example, for instance, the article by azuma and akçayır (2017) on “augmented reality (ar) in education: a meta-review and cross-meta-analysis’’ mainly focuses on the impact of ar on students’ academic performance and does not examine classroom ar. other important aspects of integration, such as teachers’ attitudes toward ar or the impact of ar on student engagement and motivation. limited focus may lead us to underappreciate the advantages or disadvantages of ar. the short duration of study/experiment: for the article by radu (2014), “augmented reality: a systematic review of its benefits and challenges in e-learning contexts.” the study only lasted for a single session, and the students were tested immediately after the session. this short duration may not be sufficient to determine the long-term impact of the ar system on student learning. 6. identification of knowledge gaps and creations 1) the literature we have found points out that ar technology positively impacts students in the classroom in various aspects, but there is also literature that points out that the ar platform may make teaching more cumbersome. however, it is unclear which ar platforms are being referred to in these studies or how they compare in terms of usability and effectiveness. although some studies have been conducted in some literature indicating that ar can improve attention, confidence, and satisfaction, it is still unclear how researchers measure these benefits and whether they are generalisable across different contexts. 2) the potential technical requirements for using ar in the classroom: as ar becomes increasingly common in educational settings, hardware compatibility of our project may become increasingly important. 3) the potential ethical and privacy implications of using ar in the classroom: it is still unclear whether the public accepts ar technology and how we can ensure the privacy of students’ information during real-time remote interactions. 7. summary in conclusion, this literature review shows the compelling potential of ar and vr in education, but it also highlights the noticeable knowledge gaps and challenges in this project. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. our upcoming project will bring a substantial contribution by applying ar in projecting off-campus students into physical classrooms and applying vr to show the classroom to remote students. this innovative approach will enhance the inclusivity and engagement in remote education. some significant challenges, such as technical requirements, user acceptance, and teaching adjustments, have been identified. this offers us critical areas to focus on and improve in the project. furthermore, this project targets to fill a knowledge gap by exploring ar and vr to create a more immersive and interactive learning experience for students remotely and on campus. this topic is currently under-represented in the existing literature and research. overall, the project has a good development prospect and uses value. after overcoming the knowledge gaps and challenges encountered in this project, it will be very successful. references akçayır, m., & akçayır, g. (2017). advantages and challenges associated with augmented reality for education: a systematic review of the literature. educational research review, 20, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2016.11.002 alzahrani, n. m. (2020). augmented reality: a systematic review of its benefits and challenges in e-learning contexts. applied sciences, 10(16), 5660. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10165660 cai, s., niu, x., wen, y., & li, j. (2021). interaction analysis of teachers and students in inquiry class learning based on augmented reality by ifias and lsa. interactive learning environments, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.2012808 chheang, v. (2022). collaborative virtual reality for laparoscopic liver surgery training and planning. opendata.uni-halle.de. https://doi.org/10.25673/92082 dunleavy, m., dede, c., & mitchell, r. (2008). affordances and limitations of immersive participatory augmented reality simulations for teaching and learning. journal of science education and technology, 18(1), 7-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-008-9119-1 intel. (2019). virtual reality vs. augmented reality vs. mixed reality intel. intel. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality .html khan, t., johnston, k., & ophoff, j. (2019). the impact of an augmented reality application on learning motivation of students. advances in human-computer interaction, 2019, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7208494 miller, m. r., jun, h., herrera, f., yu villa, j., welch, g., & bailenson, j. n. (2019). social interaction in augmented reality. plos one, 14(5), e0216290. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216290 santos, m. e. c., chen, a., taketomi, t., yamamoto, g., miyazaki, j., & kato, h. (2014). augmented reality learning experiences: survey of prototype design and evaluation. ieee transactions on learning technologies, 7(1), 38-56. https://doi.org/10.1109/tlt.2013.37 https://doi.org/10.3390/app10165660 https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.2012808 https://doi.org/10.25673/92082 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-008-9119-1 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality.html https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7208494 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216290 https://doi.org/10.1109/tlt.2013.37 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. trentsios, p., wolf, m., & frerich, s. (2020). remote lab meets virtual reality–enabling immersive access to high tech laboratories from afar. procedia manufacturing, 43, 25-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.02.104 wang, y., wang, p., luo, z., & yan, y. (2022). a novel ar remote collaborative platform for sharing 2.5d gestures and gaze. the international journal of advanced manufacturing technology, 119(9-10), 6413-6421. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-08747-7 work breakdown structure diagram detailed list 1. concept development research and outline the requirements and needs of the classroom ar system. 1.1. evaluate current systems look at current alternatives available on the market. 1.1.1. literature review review literature to understand knowledge gaps. 1.2. define requirements define what the system is required to do and how it will perform. 1.2.1. define user requirements define what the users of the system will expect from the system. 1.2.2. define hardware requirements define the hardware requirements that the system will use. 1.2.3. define system requirements define the requirements for the system, including the success criteria. 1.3. develop project plan outline a plan for the entire project 1.3.1. develop schedule outline how long the project will take, breaking the work into smaller tasks with set timelines. 1.3.2. develop budget work out how much each part of the project will cost and provide an estimate for ongoing costs after completion. 1.3.3. develop scope outline what the project will entail and what will be excluded from the project. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.02.104 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-08747-7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. 1.3.4. define risk management approach research what risks are involved in the project, how likely they are to occur and how they will be prevented, handled and mitigated throughout the project 1.4. brief software development team bring the developed requirements to the development team and facilitate input from the team. 1.4.1. outline scope brief the team on the scope of the project and what they are expected to create. 1.4.2. outline schedule brief the team on how long they will have to complete each part of the project. 1.4.3. outline requirements outline the requirements gathered earlier so the team understands what is expected. 1.4.4. brief headset specifications outline the headset specifications that will be utilised in the project. 2. hardware procurement research and purchase all required hardware 2.1. define headset specifications evaluate what headsets will be used 2.1.1. outline minimum specifications define what the minimum headset requirements are for the system 2.1.2. evaluate available models research available headsets that fall in the defined minimum specifications 2.2. purchase headsets procure the headset hardware for the project 2.2.1. gather quotes get pricing quotes for the decided headset from various sources 2.2.2. purchase required number evaluate quotes and purchase the required amount of headsets 2.3. define computer/server specifications discover the specifications for the computers and servers used in class 2.3.1. outline minimum specifications define what the minimum specifications needed are 2.3.2. evaluate available models research available computers that fall in the defined minimum specifications 2.4. purchase computer hardware procure the computer hardware for the project 2.4.1. gather quotes get pricing quotes for the decided computers from various sources 2.4.2. purchase required number evaluate quotes and purchase the required amount of computers 3. software development create the software needed for the students on and off campus and the teachers/tutors running the class 3.1. develop in class functionalities create and test all software for those on campus 3.1.1. develop student facing functionalities develop the software that on campus students will be using 3.1.2. develop teacher facing functionalities develop the software that the teachers/tutors will be using 3.1.3. develop it admin functionalities develop the software that an it administrators will have access to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. 3.1.4. on campus testing (unit, integration) test the in class software that has been/is being developed 3.2. develop off campus functionalities create and test the software for students in home 3.2.1. develop off campus student functionalities develop the software that students at home will access 3.2.2. off campus testing (unit, integration) test the off campus software that has been/is being developed 3.3. merge with canvas/usyd sso merge the developed software with university systems 3.3.1. allow integration of canvas modules integrate learning modules from usyd canvas 3.3.2. allow for sso integrate usyd single sign on for verification 3.3.3. integration testing ensure functionality by testing the integration of these systems 4. installation install all hardware and software into the classrooms 4.1. hardware installation in classroom install the hardware required for in class use 4.1.1. install hardware charging bays install bays to allow the headsets to charge when not in use 4.1.2. install computers on each table install the computers to run the software on each table and configure headsets to computers 4.1.3. network installation of headsets integrate the computers and headsets into the university network 4.2. software installation in classroom install the developed software on the computers in the classrooms 4.2.1. install software on to computers install the student facing software onto the student’s computers and the teacher facing software onto the teacher’s computers 4.2.2. manage access for specific users allow access for specific users to certain software systems 4.3. brief teachers and students hold sessions to brief the students/teachers/it staff that will be involved with the project once it is launched 4.3.1. hardware tutorials for students hold a session on how to use the headsets and hardware with the students 4.3.2. software tutorial for teachers hold a session on how to use the required parts of the software with the teaching staff 4.3.3. it support tutorial for support staff brief the it administrators of the building on troubleshooting techniques and basics of operating headsets and software 5. testing test all systems to ensure proper functionality 5.1. system testing test the entire system as one entity 5.1.1. test functionality of hardware ensure the hardware is performing properly 5.1.2. test functionality of student software ensure the student facing software is performing properly 5.1.3. test functionality of teacher software ensure the teaching software is performing properly 5.1.4. whole system testing run test classes to test the whole system at once www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. 5.2. user acceptance testing test how well the system is received by the users 5.2.1. gather feedback from students collect feedback post-class from students who participate in the new system 5.2.2. gather feedback from teachers collect feedback post-class from teaching staff who participate in the new system 6. support provide supporting documents and help for those using the system 6.1. on site support create an on site support resource using the current it support staff 6.1.1. docs available for it support staff generate all necessary documentation for the it administrators of the building 6.2. publish troubleshooting guide publish brief troubleshooting guides for smaller common issues that may arise 6.2.1. troubleshooting guide for teachers create a guide for the teachers to use if issues arise during class 6.2.2. troubleshooting guide for students (on/off campus) create a guide that is available to both on and off campus student for common issues that could arise gantt chartcost modelling budget table wbs effort or hours cost/hrs. type of cost contingenc y wbs cost % of total workspace rent 24 months $10,000 direct, tangible $240,000 24% hardware devices $100,000 10% computers 5 set $3,000 direct, tangible $1,000 $16,000 1.60% servers 1 set $50,000 direct, tangible $5,000 $55,000 5.50% ar headsets devices 5 set $4,000 direct, tangible $4,000 $24,000 2.40% software $5,000 0.50% ide 24 months $50 direct, $1,200 0.12% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. tangible github enterprise 24 months $20 direct, tangible $480 0.05% software developme nt direct, intangible $3,320 0.33% salaries direct, tangible $500,000 50% reserves indirect, tangible $160,000 $160,000 16% grand total $1,000,000 cost types tangible costs: ● workspace rent: the cost of renting a workspace to finish our software development and conduct business operations. ● hardware devices: the cost of purchasing the physical devices such as computers, servers, and ar headsets. ● software: the cost of purchasing software licenses for various applications and analyzing tools for the software development and testing, such as integrated development environments (ides) and github enterprise service which is a version control and collaboration platform. ● salaries: the cost of paying salaries and bonus to employees in our project. ● reserves: the cost of setting aside funds for future expenses or unforeseen circumstances. intangible costs: ● software development: the time cost of developing for the software applications, which is an intangible cost as it is not a physical product or payment cost. direct costs: ● workspace rent: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of renting our workspace for our software development and the business operations. ● hardware devices: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing the physical devices such as computers, servers, and ar headsets. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. ○ computers: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing individual computer units for employees that are necessary for software development. ○ servers: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing and maintaining servers for hosting the services for our project. ○ ar headsets devices: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing ar headsets for development and testing within the software development and testing steps. ● software: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing software licenses for various applications and analyzing tools for the software development and testing, such as integrated development environments (ides) and github enterprise service which is a version control and collaboration platform. ○ ide: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of purchasing and maintaining integrated development environments (ides) for software development. ○ github enterprise: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of using github enterprise as a version control and collaboration platform. ○ software development: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the time cost of the software developers building and maintaining software applications that work well in our project. ● salaries: this is a direct cost because it is directly related to the cost of paying salaries to employees for their work. indirect costs: ● reserves: although it will be a direct payment in the future, it should be considered an indirect cost since it is not directly related to any specific payment target. part of it may be used to hold some activities as incentives to our employees. sunk costs: ● na. cost baseline www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. communication plan type of stakeholders level of interest in project description of interest of concerns document name communication medium frequency of communication communication owner ceo high sponsor and monitor the project project budget and status report email/meeting daily project manager marketing and sales high promote and sell products to customers project introduction, market research report, sales report email/meeting weekly marketing team leader cfo high manage and report the revenue and cost project revenue and cost report email/meeting daily project accounting clerk cto high develop the it product project development progress report email/meeting weekly developing team leader manufacturing subcontractor low help to manufacture the product manufacturing order with the specification email/mobile phone weekly developing team leader procurement low buy the software and hardware the project needs purchasing list email/meeting monthly developing team leader human resources high hire and pay the employee recruitment requirements and payroll email/meeting weekly project manager risk management risk no. risk name risk description risk owner category mitigation plan (what to do to avoid the risk occurring) impact level description of impact likelihood of occurrence contingency plan (what to do if the risk occurs) 1 hardware unavailability difficulty in acquiring necessary hardware project manager supply chain establish multiple suppliers early procurement high delay in project increased cost moderate rent or borrow hardware seek alternative suppliers 2 inadequate network infrastructure insufficient network infrastructure to support ar it manager technical assess current infrastructure plan upgrades medium poor ar performance connectivity issues low temporarily use alternative network solutions adjust project scope 3 software development delays delays in developing the required software software developer schedule allocate extra resources monitor progress high delayed implementation increased cost moderate reallocate resources reduce scope or extend deadline www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. 4 user discomfort with ar headsets users find the ar headsets uncomfortable to wear ux designer usability perform extensive user testing gather feedback medium reduced user adoption negative user experience low seek alternative headsets make design improvements 5 non-compliance with regulations failure to comply with relevant legal regulations legal advisor legal perform thorough legal review obtain necessary permissions high legal disputes financial penalties low engage legal counsel address compliance issues 6 staff training and support insufficient training and support for staff project manager human resources develop training materials, conduct training sessions low staff unable to effectively use ar technology low provide additional training and hire additional support staff 7 ar technology obsolescence ar technology becomes outdated during the project technical lead technical keep up-to-date with ar advancements, conduct regular reviews medium increased costs and need for technology upgrades low reevaluate technology options plan for upgrades 8 student privacy concerns ar system infringes on student privacy legal advisor legal implement privacy measures , conduct regular reviews high legal disputes loss of trust low conduct privacy audits address concerns ensure compliance 9 integration with existing systems difficulty integrating ar technology with existing systems it manager technical perform thorough system analysis , collaborate with stakeholders medium delays cause additional costs low adjust integration strategy seek external expertise 10 accessibility compliance ar system does not meet accessibility requirements ux designer usability design with accessibility in mind, consult accessibility guidelines high legal disputes and exclusion of students with disabilities low revise design ensure compliance seek expert advice reflections member a: b. he performed well as a leader to lead group mates to finish all the work and respond for many task c. he demonstrates strong leadership skills by effectively coordinating team efforts and ensuring tasks are completed on time. d. he has made many important decisions and is always the first to help with others’ questions. e. he demonstrates a strong sense of responsibility towards the project and guiding team members as a team leader. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. member b: a. he worked hard to complete the assigned tasks and effectively communicated any issues or advice they had. c. he consistently delivers exceptional results and provides valuable advice to the team. d. he completes his assigned tasks timely and seeks official answers to questions actively. e. he is able to provide suggestions for the results after starting the task. member c: a. he put his hand up to do any parts of the project that needed quick work done and completed it quickly. b. he always keep in touch and give the effective feedback to team mates in the work and finished the task quickly d. he volunteered to do a large part of the work, arriving early, and holding meetings. e. he is able to make plans for team members before starting the task. member d: a. he continuously reviewed much of the work as it was updated and provided feedback on what could be improved to ensure clarity and consistency of work. b. he treats work seriously and always give the positive and helpful feedback in time for the finished work c. he shows great attention to detail and consistently produces high-quality work. e. he actively helps team members solve problems while completing tasks. member e: a. he worked hard to complete all assigned tasks and collaborated well with all team members to do so. b. he provides lots of help when we need him. he never make us upset c. he is a reliable team member who actively collaborates with others and supports the team’s goals. d. he provided a lot of constructive advice and completed the work with high quality. group 61 (prac 13 tue 3pm cc) hao chen1, zeyuan ding1, dean li1, harry lockyer1 & louck xu1 project charter scope statement literature review 1. identifying things to know 2. grouping authors with similar conclusions 2.1 supporting ideas 2.1.1 the in-campus students’ positive responses towards augmented reality (ar)-supported 2.2 opposing ideas 2.2.1 the in-campus students’ negative responses towards augmented reality (ar)-supported 2.2.2 the remote reliability issue of the vr (also ar) implementation for off-campus students 2.2.3 not suitable for all learners and teaching situations 3. comparing, commending, and criticising different views 4. market research 4.1 demonstration of inexistence 5. criticizing aspects of methodology 6. identification of knowledge gaps and creations 7. summary references work breakdown structure diagram gantt chartcost modelling budget table cost types cost baseline communication plan risk management reflections member a: member b: member c: member d: member e: advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 93 original paper research on the design transformation of chinese dragon pattern in contemporary jadeite jewelry yang yu1 & hao qi2* 1 jieyang polytechnic, jieyang, china 2 guangzhou city university of technology, guangzhou, china * corresponding author fund project jieyang polytechnic “innovating and strengthening school project” (2023-2025) warehousing project (no. jypcqky23-0504); china vocational and technical education society 2025 annual branch research project zj2025b064. received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 02, 2025 online published: october 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p93 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p93 abstract this paper takes chinese dragon pattern as the research object, by systematically combing its morphological evolution and cultural connotation from the primitive society to the ming and qing dynasties, combining with modern design concepts and aesthetic trends, based on the innovative practice of contemporary jadeite jewelry design, explores the innovative integration of chinese dragon pattern modeling elements, the modern translation of cultural artistic conception and the breakthrough and innovation of process techniques. this paper expounds how to integrate the traditional dragon pattern into the design of jadeite jewelry in a novel and unique way, which provides a useful reference for the inheritance of traditional culture and the development of modern design. keywords dragon pattern, jadeite jewelry design, modeling elements, cultural artistic conception, craft techniques as the core totem of chinese civilization, chinese dragon pattern has formed a complete system after seven thousand years of evolution. its form has developed from an abstract symbol in the neolithic age to a concrete totem in the ming and qing dynasties, carrying multiple cultural implications such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 94 “power, dignity, auspiciousness and protection” (wang, 2025). as a representative of oriental jade culture, jadeite has been combined with dragon patterns since the qing dynasty to form classical themes such as “prosperity brought by the dragon and the phoenix” and “the azure dragon instructing its offspring”. however, the traditional jadeite jewelry design has long been caught in the homogenization dilemma of “safety buckles” and “ruyi”, which is difficult to meet the needs of young consumers for individualization and cultural identity. this paper explores the transformation path of chinese dragon pattern in contemporary jadeite jewelry design, aiming at realizing the deep integration of traditional cultural symbols with modern aesthetics and technology. 1. innovative integration of modeling elements the evolution of dragon patterns can be divided into four main stages: the kui-dragon period (prehistoric to the spring and autumn period and the warring states period) is represented by the single-legged kui-dragon pattern on shang and zhou bronzes, whose concise lines reflect the characteristics of primitive totem worship; the ying-dragon period (qin-han to sui-tang dynasties) is represented by the ying-dragon pattern with streamlined body and wings in han stone reliefs, which reflects the concept of “harmony between humanity and nature” in the universe; the huanglong period (from the song and yuan dynasties to the ming and qing dynasties) is marked by the five-clawed yellow dragon pattern on the official kiln porcelain of the ming and qing dynasties, with its fine scales and sharp claws, which became the exclusive symbol of imperial power; the xinlong period (from the late qing dynasty to the early republic of china) is characterized by the “grass dragon pattern” appearing in the republic of china, which weakens the majesty of the traditional dragon pattern and strengthens the decorative function by combining the dragon body with the curly grass pattern (liu & li, 2022). the morphological symbols of dragon patterns can be systematically deconstructed into head, body, limbs, claws and tail. the head, as the core visual element of the dragon pattern, integrates antlers, ox ears, camel head and other symbolic components, among which the antlers embody agility and vitality, the ox ears are metaphors for diligence and obedience, and the camel head symbolizes tenacity and endurance (liu, 2025). the organic combination of these features endows the dragon pattern with mysterious and dignified visual tension. the body is often in the shape of a winding snake, covered with scales. the snake body conveys the image of agility and change, while the scales are both decorative and protective, strengthening its sacred attributes. the limbs are strong and powerful, especially the five-claw shape, which has become the symbol of imperial power in history, showing the sense of control and authority; the claw shape is sharp and sharp, which further strengthens the image of dragon power (qian & qian, 2006). the tail shape is rich in variety, or fishtail shape to describe the ability of free diving, or flame shape to enhance the mysterious momentum, and its dynamic structure injects rich artistic expression into the dragon pattern. through the symbolic deconstruction of the elements of dragon pattern, it can be transformed into modular units that can be flexibly combined and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 deformed, laying a methodological foundation for the reconstruction of patterns in the context of contemporary design. the application of innovative fusion of modeling elements in jadeite jewelry design 1.1 collision between traditional and modern modeling the traditional shape of dragon pattern is rich and varied, and has formed a unique artistic style after years of precipitation. in the design of contemporary jadeite jewelry, the modern translation of traditional totem is realized through the three-stage methodology of “deconstruction-reorganization-empowerment”. the first is to simplify the form and purify the symbols, taking “dragon motif jade pendant” in figure 1 as an example, the designer adopts the strategy of “geometric abstraction”, simplifies the structure on the basis of the traditional dragon pattern, breaks through the realistic style of the dragon head, simplifies the winding lines of the dragon body, extracts the representative curve outline, and then innovates the structure. the design combines the dragon body with the safety buckle topologically, combines the shape with the safety buckle, and combines the traditional dragon pattern with modern simplicity, geometry and other modeling elements, which not only retains the core characteristics of the “c” shape of the dragon pattern, but also conforms to the modern minimalist aesthetics, creating the artistic effect of “jade dragon helps take off, purple pearl congeals auspicious”. this fusion not only retains the cultural charm of dragon pattern, but also gives jewelry a modern fashion sense, which meets the aesthetic needs of contemporary consumers for the combination of tradition and modernity. figure 1. dragon motif jade pendant the image is provided by jingding jade studio. 1.2 integration with other cultural elements in the context of globalization, cultural exchanges have become increasingly frequent. the dragon pattern in contemporary jade jewelry design is no longer confined to local culture, but actively blends with other cultural elements.the cultural blending of dragon pattern design presents a two-way path of “local deepening-international dialogue”, and its innovation mechanism can be divided into three dimensions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 96 figure 2. dragon and girl the image is provided by weiyang jade studio. the first is the active translation of minority culture. in the integration with miao culture, the designer adopts the triple dialogue of “material-craft-symbol”: the spiral pattern in miao silver jewelry carved on the surface of jadeite dragon pattern not only simulates the flowing sense of silver jewelry, but also implies miao’s cosmology of “animism of all things”; the dragon claw part is inlaid with indigo sapphire in miao traditional batik, which strengthens the visual impact through color contrast. the second is the symbolic recoding of western cultural elements. figure 2 jadeite pendant “dragon and girl” shows the deep innovation of cross-cultural narrative. the dragon body curve draws lessons from the naturalistic style of the art nouveau movement and forms a morphological echo with the wavy pattern of the girl's skirt. especially in the design of the dragon’s low head, the head tilt angle is accurate to 15 degrees, which not only maintains the majesty of the oriental dragon, but also conveys the contemporary fable of “domestication of divine power” through the posture of the girl’s embrace. the third is the semantic analysis of cultural blending, from a deep point of view, the essence of this cross-cultural design is the “de-authority” treatment of dragon pattern symbols. the “five claws” in the traditional dragon pattern symbolize the imperial power, but in this work, they are transformed into the “guardian claws” to protect young girls; the dragon scales are changed from regular arrangement to organic growth, which is a metaphor for the adaptive evolution of cultural genes. these fusions not only enrich the forms of dragon patterns, but also bring unique cultural charm to jadeite jewelry, making it more attractive in the international market. 1.3 reference and application of natural elements nature is the source of art, and the dragon patterns in contemporary jadeite jewelry design often draw on natural elements for innovation, but the use of natural elements has changed from “similarity in form” to “similarity in spirit”, the core of which is to build an “artificial-natural” ecological aesthetic system. the first is landscape composition and spatial narrative, which can be inspired by natural scenes such as landscapes, flowers and birds, clouds and mists, and skillfully combine dragon patterns with these elements. as shown in figure 3, the jadeite dragon card, with the dragon pattern as the main www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 body, carves a turbulent state around the dragon body, as if a giant dragon shuttles through the sea, and the dragon’s body and the surging waves create an artistic conception of “broken form with unbroken spirit”. secondly, biological simulation and dynamic presentation, the high relief treatment of the head of the dragon and the shallow carving of the tail gradually blurred form a visual guide to simulate the trajectory of organisms in the natural environment. especially in the design of dragon claw, fluid mechanics simulation software is used to optimize the claw curve, so that the light transmittance of jadeite changes with the visual angle to produce the visual effect of “alternating light and shade”, which is a metaphor for the appearance of dragon in the waves. according to the spectral analysis, the design can increase the green wavelength (520-550 nm) reflectivity of jadeite jade by 18% and enhance the color expression. this design, which combines dragon pattern with natural elements, creates an ethereal and distant artistic conception, which makes the wearer feel the harmonious coexistence of nature and dragon culture, and adds to the artistic appeal of jewelry. figure 3. dragon card the image is provided by jingding jade studio. 2. modern translation of cultural artistic conception dragon, as a symbol of the chinese nation, occupies a pivotal position in the long river of chinese culture. its image is not only a fictional creature, but also carries rich cultural connotations and symbolic meanings. after thousands of years of inheritance and evolution, it is deeply imprinted in the spiritual world of the chinese people. in the design of contemporary jadeite jewelry, the modern translation of the artistic conception of dragon culture is the key to the perfect combination of ancient culture and modern aesthetics, and also an important way to give new life and value to jadeite jewelry. the cultural connotation of dragon pattern can be deeply analyzed from three dimensions. first of all, the dragon pattern is the core symbol of power and dignity. since qin shihuang used “zulong” as a metaphor for himself, the dragon has become the exclusive symbol of imperial power, and the imperial objects such as dragon robes and chairs all show its supreme political metaphor. this symbolic system originates from the extraordinary ability of the dragon to control nature and heaven and earth in mythology, making it the visual incarnation of the monarch under the command of heaven. although www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 the imperial power system has withdrawn from the stage of history, the authority image carried by the dragon pattern still continues in contemporary society and transforms into the spiritual pursuit of achievement and status. secondly, the dragon pattern contains a profound meaning of auspiciousness and blessing. in folk beliefs, the dragon is regarded as an auspicious animal, with the spirit of eliminating disasters and blessings. folk activities such as dragon dance and dragon boat racing, as well as dragon patterns in architectural decorations and festival supplies, all express good wishes for good weather and family prosperity. for example, the dragon pattern is carved on the door to guard the house, while the dragon image in the new year painting carries the auspicious expectation of the renewal of the year order, forming a symbolic practice system throughout daily life. finally, the dragon pattern is the condensation of national spirit and cultural identity. as a totem symbol integrating multiple animal shapes, the dragon shape symbolizes the cultural philosophy of “harmony but difference” of the chinese nation, and its characteristics of unity, progress and tolerance constitute the emotional core of the national spirit. in the context of globalization, dragon patterns have become a cultural link linking chinese people at home and abroad, strengthening the cohesion and cultural centripetal force of the chinese nation by arousing common historical memory and identity (yang, 2024). the fusion of modern aesthetic concept and cultural artistic conception presents three main characteristics in the dragon pattern design of jadeite jewelry. one is the expression tendency of simplicity and abstraction. modern design conveys the charm of dragon with concise lines and geometric structure by refining the core morphological characteristics of dragon pattern and abandoning complicated details (yang, 2024). for example, it uses smooth curves to draw the outline of the dragon body, and shapes the dynamic and powerful sense through the density and thickness of the lines; or it deconstructs the dragon body into geometric units and reorganizes them to form a visual pattern with both traditional implication and modern aesthetic feeling. this technique not only retains the cultural core of dragon pattern, but also conforms to the contemporary aesthetic pursuit of simplicity and symbolism, and improves the fashion and artistic expression of jewelry. secondly, it reflects the expression needs of emotion and personality. the design of modern jadeite jewelry focuses on connecting the dragon pattern with the emotional experience and personal identity of consumers, making it go beyond the decorative function and become the carrier of emotional sustenance and personality representation. for example, through the combination design of dragon pattern and phoenix pattern, the marriage implication of “prosperity brought by the dragon and the phoenix” is conveyed; or the pendant with dragon pattern as the theme is customized for entrepreneurs, symbolizing the pioneering spirit of advancing bravely. this kind of personalized translation makes the dragon pattern no longer a rigid traditional symbol, but a medium carrying individual narrative and emotional identity. the third is the response to cultural diversity. in the context of globalization, dragon design actively absorbs heterogeneous cultural elements to achieve cross-cultural visual integration (song & du, 2025). for example, drawing on the composition logic and color system of western modern art to reshape the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 99 visual structure of dragon patterns, or juxtaposing them with western mythological images to create innovative forms with dialogue. this multi-blending not only expands the aesthetic boundary of dragon pattern, but also enhances the cultural communication and competitiveness of jadeite jewelry in the international market, reflecting the adaptability and regeneration ability of traditional symbols in contemporary design. application of cultural artistic conception translation in jadeite jewelry design 2.1 narrative construction of thematic series design the design of thematic series with dragon pattern as the core is essentially a narrative project of constructing “cultural gene bank” and a space-time construction of cultural narrative. thematic series design transforms the cultural connotation of dragon pattern into perceptible narrative experience through systematic creative path. its core is to construct a “time-symbol-emotion” three-dimensional narrative framework. in the time dimension, it deconstructs the evolution law of dragon patterns with the historical context as the axis; in the symbol dimension, it extracts the typical modeling features of each period for symbol translation; in the emotion dimension, it conveys cultural metaphors through material language and process innovation. as shown in figure 4, the dragon’s guardian series pendant is based on the dragon pattern as the core material. the designer extracts the evolution characteristics of the dragon pattern through archaeological research: the “kui dragon pattern” (abstract geometry) in the shang and zhou dynasties, the “ying dragon pattern” (wing figuration) in the han and tang dynasties, and the “five-claw dragon pattern” (symbolization of imperial power) in the ming and qing dynasties, which correspond to different themes. design a series of jade jewelry works with coherence and story, through different design techniques and forms of expression, to show the image and implication of dragon in different historical periods and cultural backgrounds. each pendant uses different kinds of jadeite water (such as black jadeite symbolizing ancient times and violet jadeite symbolizing prosperity) to form a space-time dialogue between material and culture. through this theme series design, the cultural connotation of dragon pattern can be presented more systematically, providing consumers with a complete cultural experience (qiang, zhao, & hu, 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 figure 4. dragon’s guardian series pendant the image is provided by weiyang jade studio. 2.2 ritual sense creation of situational design the functionality of modern jewelry has evolved from decoration to scene adaptation, the core of which is to realize the deep fit between cultural image and use scene through the design logic of symbol coding-scene decoding-emotional resonance (hu & yu, 2023), and its realization path can be divided into the following three ways. symbolic translation of life ritual: the design of dragon and phoenix necklace in the wedding scene breaks through the traditional composition of “dragon and phoenix symmetry”, optimizes the dragon body curve with fluid dynamics simulation software, so that the dragon body made of 18k gold can change 0.5-3 degrees with the light in the movement, which is a metaphor for the dynamic balance of marriage life. the gemstone inlays profits from the palace museum hall of the supreme principle “bu bu brocade” the window crystal lattice structure, the 2.3ct sapphire arranges according to the fibonacci number row, meets the happy implication of “even firmer after a long time”; the main jadeite uses “the gold thread to plant” to symbolize the marriage reason like the gold thread is unbroken long, the inner band of the ring is engraved with the verse “dragon banners flutter bright; harmonious bells ring with solemn might” from the book of songs·greater odes, heightening the sacred solemnity of the ritual. cultural empowerment of workplace scenes: the design of business cufflinks uses the concept of “miniature landscape” to construct three layers of space within a diameter of 15 mm: the bottom layer is a moire base inlaid with lapis lazuli, the middle layer is a high relief dragon pattern, and the top layer is a rotatable gold fire bead. market research shows that 82% of business people believe that the design “enhances the expression of cultural self-confidence”. creation of artistic conception of daily scenes: the design of leisure bracelet draws lessons from the technique of “borrowing scenery” in the garden, and carves the dragon pattern into the form of hollowed-out pane, through which the 18k gold cloud beads moving inside can be seen. when the wrist moves, cloud pearls and dragon motifs create a dynamic visual effect of “clouds and dragons www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 frolicking together”, which transforms static jewelry into a cultural narrative carrier. this scene-specific design makes jewelry a “carrier of cultural rituals”, triggers collective memory through material symbols, and completes the transformation from individual decoration to social and cultural practice. 2.3 participatory creation of interactive design variant design based on modularization theory enables consumers to become co-creators of cultural artistic conception. its innovation lies in the construction of a triple interaction system of “physical interaction, digital interaction and cultural interpretation”. firstly, the mosaic jewelry adopts magnetic tenon and mortise structure, which contains 26 standard parts (such as the c-shaped dragon body of the neolithic age, the words of shang and zhou ministers, the wings of the han dynasty, etc.), and the parts are inserted and combined through topological deformation. the supporting ar application can scan and generate three-dimensional holograms to display the cultural allusions corresponding to different combinations in real time (for example, the combination of “dragon head + fish tail” triggers the animation of “carp leaping over the dragon gate”); user creation data can be uploaded to the cloud to form a global dragon pattern variant database. then the interactive jewelry design embeds thermochromic microcapsules within the jadeite matrix, enabling app-controlled release of madder red (visible at 15°c) and azurite pigments (visible at 35°c). this technology orchestrates the dragon motifs' chromatic evolution from “spring verdancy to autumn crimson”, resonating with the yin-yang philosophy inthe book of changes: “when dragons clash in the wild, their blood merges the hues of heaven and earth” the more advanced solution is to integrate nfc chip, which can play the voice explanation of dragon pattern history by touching the mobile phone. finally, the customized service provides interactive devices for “dragon pattern gene detection”. consumers match the dragon pattern prototype in historical books through fingerprint identification to generate exclusive design drawings. craftsmen demonstrate the traditional hand-made jade carving skills of “one lump, one carving” on the spot to strengthen the authenticity of cultural experience. this dual interaction mode not only breaks through the static attributes of jadeite jewelry, but also constructs an open interface for cultural communication through user-generated content (ugc), achieving a paradigm shift from “designer-led” to “user co-creation”. 3. breakthrough and innovation of technological techniques since ancient times, there have been jade carving designs based on dragon patterns, and the traditional jadeite carving technology, as a brilliant treasure in the treasure house of chinese culture, bears profound historical details and outstanding artistic value. in the field of contemporary jadeite jewelry design, designers inherit traditional carving techniques with awe and give them new vitality with innovative thinking. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 specific application of technological innovation in jadeite jewelry design 3.1 inheritance and innovation of traditional carving technology traditional techniques such as relief carving, full-round carving, and openwork carving, honed through centuries of refinement, remain indispensable in contemporary jadeite jewelry design, continuing to play an irreplaceable role. however, designers are not satisfied with the constraints of traditional ways of expression, but actively explore innovative paths. in the aspect of relief carving technology, by precisely adjusting the depth and level of sculpture, the limitation of traditional relief relative planarization is broken, and the dragon pattern presents a more three-dimensional and vivid visual effect. it seems that the dragon pattern is no longer a static pattern on the surface of jadeite, but is about to break free and jump out of the surface of jadeite, giving the work a strong sense of dynamic and vitality. for instance, the inlaid “yellow dragon” plaque in figure 5 exemplifies a jade pendant design centered on dragon motifs. through masterful relief carving techniques, the dragon's body is rendered with striking dimensionality—each scale undulates, and every whisker flows with lifelike dynamism, evoking both the majesty and vitality of the mythical creature. at the same time, combined with modern polishing technology, the surface of dragon pattern is finely treated to make it more smooth and delicate, and the texture is greatly enhanced. after careful polishing, the dragon pattern emits a warm luster under the light, which further improves the artistic quality of the work. in addition, it can also combine a variety of traditional carving techniques to create more diverse artistic effects. for example, on the basis of the round carving dragon pattern, the details of the scales on the dragon body are carved out by the hollowed-out carving technique. the round carving technique gives the dragon pattern a three-dimensional sense as a whole, while the hollow carving makes the dragon pattern more exquisite and lifelike through the fine carving of details. this combination of techniques not only shows the designer's superb skills, but also highlights the unique artistic charm of dragon patterns, so that viewers can appreciate the beauty of dragon patterns from different angles, and feel the perfect integration of traditional crafts and modern aesthetic concepts. figure 5. inlaid “yellow dragon” plaque the image is provided by jingding jade studio. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 figure 6. inlaid “square dragon” plaque the image is provided by jingding jade studio. 3.2 combination of modern technology and process with the rapid development of science and technology, modern scientific and technological means are widely used in the field of jadeite jewelry design, which has brought revolutionary changes to the design and production of dragon pattern jadeite jewelry. the emergence of 3d printing technology provides designers with a broader creative space. with the help of advanced computer software, we can give full play to our creativity and design complex and exquisite dragon pattern models. these models can not only accurately show the shape, details and proportions of the dragon pattern in the designer's mind, but also preview the effect of the work in different angles and light in advance through the simulation function of the software. subsequently, 3d printing technology is used to quickly produce accurate molds. compared with the traditional way of making moulds by hand, 3d printing technology greatly improves the production efficiency and accuracy, and reduces the errors caused by human factors. in this way, creativity can be more efficiently transformed into actual works, which provides strong support for personalized customization and mass production of dragon pattern jadeite jewelry. laser engraving technology also plays an important role in jadeite jewelry processing. with its high precision and high efficiency, it can carry out extremely fine carving on the surface of jadeite. traditional carving technology is often limited by tools and skills when dealing with some subtle and complex lines and patterns, and it is difficult to achieve the desired effect. laser engraving technology can easily achieve the fineness that traditional engraving technology can’t reach. for example, laser carving technology is used to carve extremely fine dragon lines on jadeite, which are clear, smooth and exquisite, showing the charm of dragon patterns incisively and vividly. whether it is the hair, claws or facial expressions of the dragon, it can be accurately presented through laser engraving technology, making the dragon pattern more vivid and artistic appeal. in addition, modern inlay techniques continue to innovate. the advent of advanced technologies such as invisible setting and micro-pave setting has elevated the integration of gemstones and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 dragon-patterned jadeite to near-perfection. the invisible setting employs ingenious structural designs to conceal gemstones beneath the jadeite surface, creating a seamless fusion with virtually no visible traces of mounting—achieving a minimalist yet sophisticated aesthetic, as exemplified by the inlaid “yellow dragon” plaque in figure 5. meanwhile, micro-pave technology enables the dense arrangement of multiple gemstones within a very small space, resulting in dazzling brilliance, as demonstrated by the inlaid “square dragon” plaque in figure 6. these innovative techniques allow the radiant sparkle of gemstones to harmonize with the serene texture of dragon motifs, not only enhancing the visual appeal of the jewelry but also amplifying its artistic and collectible value. 3.3 multi-material collocation and process innovation in order to meet the increasingly diverse aesthetic needs of consumers and enrich the visual effect and texture of jadeite jewelry, we can also skillfully match a variety of materials with jadeite, and make innovative treatment according to the characteristics of different materials in the process. in addition to traditional gold and silver materials, gemstones, pearls, wood, leather and other materials have been introduced into the field of jadeite jewelry design. when matching with gemstones, we should fully consider the coordination between the color, texture and luster of gemstones and jadeite. when matching with pearls, we need to pay attention to creating an elegant and gentle atmosphere. the mellow luster of pearls and the warm texture of jadeite complement each other. through ingenious connection and collocation, pearls and jadeite are combined into various shapes of jewelry. when matching with leather, it uses the softness and plasticity of leather to produce various shapes of jadeite jewelry accessories, such as leather necklace rope, bracelet belt, etc. by combining jadeite with leather, it not only retains the nobility and elegance of jadeite, but also integrates the fashion and personality of leather. this multi-material collocation and technological innovation bring unprecedented possibilities for dragon pattern jadeite jewelry and meet the personalized needs of different consumers. whether they pursue traditional culture or like fashion personality, they can find their favorite works in these innovative designs of jadeite jewelry. at the same time, the multi-material collocation also enriches the cultural connotation of jadeite jewelry, making it an art treasure that integrates various cultural elements. conclusion this study systematically explores the innovative transformation path of chinese dragon pattern in contemporary jadeite jewelry design. through the deconstruction and reorganization of modeling elements, the modern translation of cultural artistic conception and the multi-dimensional breakthrough of process techniques, the deep integration of traditional symbols with modern aesthetic and technical conditions is realized. the study shows that as a living cultural gene with a history of 7000 years, the contemporary transformation of dragon pattern is not only the continuation of traditional forms, but also the cultural recreation in the context of globalization and digitalization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 at the level of modeling, dragon pattern realizes the transformation from authoritative symbol to multi-expression through the strategies of “geometric abstraction”, “juxtaposition of cross-cultural symbols” and “fusion of natural images”. among them, the topological deformation of “c-shaped coiled structure”, the technological dialogue between dragon pattern and minority pattern, and the dynamic optimization under fluid mechanics simulation significantly enhance the contemporary and scientific visual performance. in the aspect of artistic conception translation, the theme series design constructs a three-dimensional narrative framework of “time-symbol-emotion”, the situational design strengthens the cultural function of jewelry through ritual coding, and the interactive design creates a new mode of cultural communication of “user co-creation”. these practices show that the contemporary value of dragon pattern lies not only in its aesthetic form, but also in its ability to activate collective memory and connect individual emotions as a cultural medium. in terms of process technology, the collaborative innovation of traditional carving techniques and digital technologies such as 3d printing and laser carving has broken through the limitations of materials and forms, while the multi-material matching strategy has expanded the physical attributes and cultural semantics of jewelry through the composite structure of “jadeite + precious metal + intelligent materials”. in particular, the application of new materials such as temperature change microcapsules and nfc chips has transformed the dragon pattern jadeite from a static ornament into a “cultural carrier for dialogue”. the future development of jade jewelry with dragon pattern should focus on three directions: first, deepen the semantic study of cultural symbols and establish the mapping relationship between dragon pattern modeling elements and contemporary values; second, explore the personalized generation system assisted by artificial intelligence to realize the precise customization of cultural images; thirdly, we should build an integrated platform of “design-technology-dissemination” to ensure the integrity of creative copyright and cultural traceability through blockchain and other technologies. in a word, the contemporary transformation of dragon pattern in jadeite jewelry is essentially a process of value reconstruction of traditional cultural resources through design innovation. this not only provides a differentiated development path for the jewelry industry, but also establishes a reference methodology system for the living inheritance of traditional cultural symbols. with the technological iteration and aesthetic evolution, dragon pattern jadeite jewelry is expected to become a cultural messenger to communicate ancient and modern, connect china and the west, and continue to tell the magnificent story of the chinese nation in the new era. references hu, y., & yu, j. l. (2023). the evolution of chinese traditional culture embedded in daily life: a case study of chinese tea art. guizhou social sciences, (10), 35-42. liu, j. n. (2025). modeling features and cultural implications of dragon pattern jade bi in han dynasty. tiangong, 2025(04). liu, x., & li, r. h. (2022). the artistic characteristics and cultural connotations of traditional chinese www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 auspicious patterns. research on art education, 2022(09), 83-85. qian, z. s., & qian, z. k. (2006). a complete collection of chinese decorative auspicious patterns-auspicious animals. shanghai: donghua university press, 51-124. qiang, q., zhao, y. q., & hu, y. x. (2024). research and design of nanjing yunjin dragon patterns from the perspective of intangible cultural heritage vitalization. west leather, 46(19), 126. song, d. f., & du, b. j. (2025). evolution of dragon pattern and its innovative application in fashion design. western leather, 47(11). wang, y. f. (2025). origin and formation of dragon pattern. cultural relics identification and appreciation, 2025(06), 170-173. yang, r. y. (2024). application of dragon pattern in textile design. heilongjiang textile, 2024(04), 10-12. yang, y. t. (2024). research on translation of chinese traditional dragon pattern and design of creative products. shanghai: shanghai normal university. authors information: author: yang yu (female), lecturer, master’s degree. research focus: jade carving design, jewelry design. corresponding author: hao qi (female), associate professor, master’s degree. research focus: jade carving, jewelry design. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 11 original paper anaximander's theory of origin and its enlightenment to marxist political philosophy tian qiu1 1 school of marxism, heilongjiang university, heilongjiang province, china received: april 29, 2025 accepted: july 01, 2025 online published: july 14, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p11 abstract this paper aims to explore the enlightenment of the ancient greek philosopher anaximander's theory of origin to marxist political philosophy. as one of the founders of western philosophy, anaximander's "indeterminate theory" and his theory on the origin and origin of the universe have had a profound impact on later philosophical thoughts. this paper analyzes anaximander's theory of origin and combines it with the core viewpoints of marxist political philosophy to explore the internal connection and enlightenment between the two, in order to provide a new perspective for the development of contemporary political philosophy. keywords anaximander, theory of origin, marxist political philosophy, enlightenment 1. introduction anaximander is an important representative of the milesian school in ancient greece. his thoughts have had a profound impact on western philosophy. his "theory of indeterminacy" challenged the myths and traditional concepts of the time and emphasized the constant changes and evolution of nature. at the same time, marxist political philosophy, as a scientific and revolutionary political theory, is committed to revealing the objective laws of human social development and exploring ways to achieve human liberation. this article will start from anaximander's theory of origin and explore its enlightenment to marxist political philosophy. 2. overview of anaximander’s theory of origin 2.1 the “no determined theory” anaximander was the second representative of the miletus school in ancient greece. based on his teacher thales’ idea of “water” as the origin of all things, he advocated that the origin of all things was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 12 “apeiron” (li, 2020). anaximander believed that there was nothing fixed in the universe, and everything was in constant change and motion. “nothing” and “indeterminate” were the core concepts of their theories of natural origin (deng, 2020). he proposed that the origin of all things is not a substance with fixed properties, but an infinite, amorphous primordial substance, which he called "apeiron". "apeiron" means unlimited, boundless, unregulated, and amorphous, and is an existence that transcends finite and specific properties. anaximander believed that everything in the universe originated from this infinite substance, and was constantly generated, destroyed, and transformed through its movement and conflict. 2.2 cosmology and evolution anaximander’s cosmology emphasizes the autonomy of nature and the spontaneity of matter. according to anaximander’s interpretation, his concept of “indeterminate” already possesses the general philosophical abstract nature of the concept of “existence” (wu, 2015). he believed that the universe is an infinitely moving and changing whole, in which all things are constantly generated and destroyed. in addition, he also made outstanding contributions to the theory of evolution, proposing that the earliest group of creatures in the world lived on the seabed and that humans evolved from a kind of fish. although this view is only a guess and illusion, it is the earliest simple materialistic cosmology that attempts to use matter itself to explain the origin and state of the universe. 2.3 social and political views in addition to his contributions to natural philosophy, anaximander also put forward views on human society and political systems. he believed that human society should follow certain moral and legal norms to ensure fairness and equality. he advocated the establishment of a fair system based on the law to ensure that everyone's rights are protected. this idea has a profound impact on later political philosophy and legal thought. 3. basic viewpoints of marxist political philosophy 3.1 historical materialism marxist political philosophy is based on historical materialism and emphasizes the objective laws of human social development. historical materialism is the cornerstone of marxist political philosophy. this theory holds that the material mode of production is the decisive force driving social development. in different historical periods, the level of development of productivity determines the corresponding production relations, which constitute the economic foundation. the economic foundation includes not only productivity and production relations, but also the economic system and economic structure related to them, which are the material basis of social development. the economic base determines the superstructure, i.e. the political and legal system, ideology and other social ideological structures. the superstructure is a reflection of the economic base. it serves the economic base and maintains its stability and development. the political and legal system is an important part of the superstructure. they regulate the behavior of social members through laws, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 policies and other forms and maintain the operation of the economic base. ideology is the ideas and values commonly accepted by social members. they influence the behavior and decision-making of social members to a certain extent. historical materialism is a doctrine that unifies the scientific dimension and the value dimension (li, 2024). it further points out that with the continuous development of productivity, the old production relations will gradually become unsuitable for the development requirements of productivity, thus generating contradictions and conflicts. these contradictions and conflicts are the root causes of social change, and they drive society to develop towards a higher form. social revolution is an important means to resolve these contradictions and conflicts. it creates conditions for the development of productivity by changing production relations. 3.2 pursuit of political values the political philosophy of marx and engels is not the political philosophy of marx alone, but a political philosophy system jointly created and perfected by marx and engels (jiang, 2024). the core value pursuit of marxist political philosophy is to achieve human freedom, equality and liberation. this pursuit stems from a critical understanding of the profound contradictions in capitalist society. in capitalist society, the private ownership of the means of production has led to the concentration of wealth and power, forming serious class antagonism and exploitation. the working class has been deprived of the right to control the fruits of their labor, their labor has become a commodity, and they themselves have become appendages of capital. in order to break this unequal social structure, marxism advocates that the proletariat must organize and overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie through revolutionary means. this revolution is not only a political change, but also a fundamental change in the social and economic structure. the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a necessary stage in the transition to a communist society. it marks the socialization of the means of production, that is, the means of production belong to the whole society, thus eliminating class differences. in a communist society, people will be free from class oppression and exploitation and achieve true freedom and equality. the freedom here is not abstract and formal freedom, but the freedom for everyone to develop their personality according to their own abilities and needs. equality is no longer a false equality before the law, but substantive equality, that is, everyone enjoys equal status and opportunities in society. liberation is to gain complete freedom from economic oppression and social inequality. 3.3 normativity, explanatory and revolutionary nature marxist political philosophy, with its unique normative, explanatory and revolutionary characteristics, provides a profound theoretical perspective and practical guide for understanding and transforming the world. its normative nature is reflected in the guidance of political behavior. it not only defines the principles and values that political behavior should follow, but also provides a moral and rational basis for political decision-making. this normative nature makes political behavior more in line with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 overall interests of society and promotes the development of society in a more just and reasonable direction. explanatory is reflected in the in-depth analysis of political phenomena. marxist political philosophy reveals the economic basis and social relations behind political phenomena through appearances, and clarifies the source and operation mechanism of political power. this explanatory power helps people understand the internal logic of political phenomena, recognize the nature of political struggle, and thus more clearly realize the necessity and possibility of social change. revolutionary nature is a prominent feature of marxist political philosophy, which emphasizes that theory must be combined with practice to guide the proletariat and working people in their revolutionary struggle. this revolutionary nature is not only reflected in overthrowing the old social system, but also in establishing new social relations and modes of production. through revolutionary practice, marxist political philosophy has promoted the progress of human society, the development of social productivity and the comprehensive liberation of people. 4. the enlightenment of anaximander’s theory of origin to marxist political philosophy 4.1 discussion on the origin of matter the first person in the west to propose “indeterminate” was anaximander. he believed that the origin of the material world is unlimited, and the world we live in is just one of many worlds (yu, 2021). in anaximander’s view, “indeterminate” is still a kind of material “element” origin. the real difference lies in whether the origin is “fixed” or “indeterminate” (wei & lin, 2018). anaximander’s “theory of indeterminacy” emphasizes that the origin of all things in the universe is infinite, amorphous original matter. this view has enlightening significance for the discussion of the origin of matter in marxist political philosophy. marxism believes that the origin of the world is matter, which exists objectively and does not depend on human consciousness. anaximander's "theory of indeterminacy" further emphasizes the infinity and mobility of matter, providing a philosophical basis for marxism's view on the infinity and development of the material world. in marxist political philosophy, this in-depth exploration of the origin of matter helps us better understand the relationship between social existence and social consciousness, as well as the decisive role of the economic base on the superstructure. 4.2 understanding of the relationship between nature and society anaximander’s cosmology emphasizes the autonomy of nature and the spontaneity of matter, which has enlightening significance for the understanding of the relationship between nature and society in marxist political philosophy. marxism believes that nature is the material basis for the existence and development of human society, and the development of human society cannot be separated from the constraints and influence of nature. anaximander's cosmology reveals the laws of movement and development of nature itself, and provides a philosophical basis for the marxist view on the interaction between nature and society. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 marxist political philosophy, this in-depth understanding of the relationship between nature and society helps us better grasp the laws of development of human society and how to promote social progress on the basis of respecting nature. 4.3 thinking about social change and development anaximander’s social and political views emphasize the importance of justice and equality, and advocate the establishment of a fair system based on law. this view has enlightening significance for the thinking about social change and development in marxist political philosophy. marxism believes that the driving force of social change and development comes from the contradictory movement within society. the proletariat must overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie through revolutionary means, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and ultimately realize a communist society. anaximander's ideas on justice and equality provide philosophical support for the goals of social change and development in marxist political philosophy. in marxist political philosophy, this in-depth thinking on social change and development helps us better understand the historical mission of the proletariat and how to promote social progress and development in practice. 5. conclusion anaximander's theory of origin has far-reaching implications for marxist political philosophy. by deeply exploring the origin of matter, the relationship between nature and society, and social change and development, anaximander's thought provides a new perspective and thinking for marxist political philosophy, allowing us to examine and understand the core viewpoints of marxist political philosophy from a broader and deeper philosophical background. anaximander's "theory of indeterminacy" emphasizes the infinity and mobility of matter, and provides a philosophical basis for the marxist view on the infinity and development of the material world. this revelation makes us more deeply aware that the relationship between social existence and social consciousness, as well as the decisive role of the economic base on the superstructure, are all based on the infinity and development of the material world. anaximander's understanding of the relationship between nature and society also provides a philosophical basis for the view on the interaction between nature and society in marxist political philosophy. this makes us realize that in the process of promoting social change and development, we must fully respect and utilize the laws of nature to achieve sustainable development of human society. anaximander's ideas on justice and equality provide philosophical support for the goals of social change and development in marxist political philosophy. this makes us more clearly realize that the historical mission of the proletariat is not only to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie, but also to establish a communist society based on justice and equality. anaximander's original doctrine provides new inspiration and thinking direction for marxist political philosophy, and provides important philosophical resources for us to promote the development and practice of political philosophy in contemporary society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 16 references deng, r. (2020). nothing” and “indeterminate”: a comparative study of laozi and anaximander’s natural origin theory. social science research, (06), 154-162. jiang, c. (2024). the formation, connotation and characteristics of marx and engels' political philosophy. southeast academic, (01), 42-55+246. https://doi.org/10.13658/j.cnki.sar.20240002.009 li, j. (2024). common values of all mankind and a community with a shared future for mankind from the perspective of historical materialism. journal of ideological and theoretical education, (07), 50-59. https://doi.org/10.16580/j.sxlljydk.2024.07.007 li, n. (2020). a brief analysis of the proposal and main characteristics of anaximander’s “apeiron” thought. journal of yulin university, 30(05), 111-114. https://doi.org/10.16752/j.cnki.jylu.2020.05.020 wei, j. l., & lin, k. w. (2018). a few clarifications on anaximander's "indeterminate" theory. academic theory, (10), 106-108. wu, t. q. (2015). some thoughts on anaximander’s concept of “infinity”. journal of northwest university (philosophy and social sciences edition), 45(06), 147-151. https://doi.org/10.16152/j.cnki.xdxbsk.2015-06-022. yu, m. l. (2021). a brief discussion on the development of "infinity" from the perspective of eastern and western philosophy. ancient and modern culture, (29), 62-63. https://doi.org/10.20024/j.cnki.cn42-1911/i.2021.29.028 author information tian qiu 2000.2, female, han, qinhuangdao city, hebei province, school of marxism, heilongjiang university, master's degree, research direction basic principles of marxism. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 9 original paper a study on international communication strategies of chinese culture based on the 5wmodel baocui lou1 & xu chen1 1 henan normal university, xinxiang, henan 453007, china received: december 19, 2024 accepted: january 04, 2025 online published: january 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p9 abstract guided by harold lasswell’s 5w model, this study explores the current status quo and bottlenecks of international communication of chinese culture. a framework is constructed for the international dissemination of chinese culture based on the 5w model and the following strategies are proposed: 1) linkage and collaboration of multiple subjects to promote synergy, and highlighting the folk subjects “weak” communication force; 2) fine-tuning universal values and distinctive cultures, and balancing traditional modernity with local characteristics; 3) media integration to build a diversified communication system, and cross-border cooperation to broaden the communication channels; 4) distinguishing the audiences to meet their different demand, and the establishment of audience feedback mechanism re-adjustment; 5) constructing the evaluation system of communication effects, and launching the quantitative analysis to optimize communication strategies. by investigating these strategies, the study aims to address communication bottlenecks and promote the global dissemination of chinese culture. keywords 5w model, chinese culture, international communication 1. introduction chinese culture has a deep historical heritage and embodies the pursuit of common human values such as harmony, tolerance and win-win situation. the international dissemination of chinese culture can help enrich the world’s cultural diversity, promote intercultural dialogue and understanding, share chinese wisdom and experience, and enhance country’s soft power and international influence. the 14th five-year plan in march 2021 proposed that the country should “innovate and promote international communication, disseminate china’s voice by telling china’s story online and offline, and promote people-to-people communication” (xinhua, 2021), which put forward requirements for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 10 international dissemination of chinese culture in terms of the channels and effects of dissemination. the report to the party’s 20th national congress in october 2022 emphasized the importance of “adhering to the stance of the chinese culture, distilling and displaying the spiritual symbols and cultural essences of the chinese civilization, and accelerating the construction of the chinese discourse and chinese narrative system...... promoting chinese culture to better reach the world” (xinhua, 2022), providing guidance on ideas for better international dissemination of chinese culture based on communication stance, contents and channels. at the 70th anniversary of the publication of the five principles of peaceful coexistence on june 28, the president put forward the suggestion of “carrying forward the spiritual connotation of the five principles of peaceful coexistence, and making unremitting efforts toward the noble goal of building a community with a shared future for mankind” (xinhua, 2024), focusing on communication principles and strategies, and pointing out the goals and directions for the international dissemination of chinese culture. the above documents and speeches emphasize the importance of communication contents, channels and effects in the international dissemination of culture from different perspectives. a synchronic study focuses on analyzing communication practices, while a diachronic study focuses on sorting out communication history. the synchronic study comprehensively examines the strategic choices for chinese culture to go global from different perspectives and levels, and provides guidance on the paths and strategies for realizing the international dissemination of chinese culture. the research on strategic choices mainly explores the strategies of chinese culture going out to the world from the perspectives of cultural soft power construction (zhang, 2019) and cross-cultural communication (zhang, 2016). for example, building a “four-dimensional integrated” system model of chinese culture going out; proposing ways to show cultural charm and clear audience orientation (huang & su, 2020); identifying the basis of communication strategies, constructing micro-strategies and macro-systems and putting forward overall strategies (fu, 2021). the path strategies are explored from different levels (wu & shi, 2008; zhang, 2012; wang & geng, 2013; yao & zhang, 2019), focusing on value concepts, economic cooperation, humanistic exchanges, scientific and technological empowerment, and other levels of practice (mao, 2024). these strategies emphasize that chinese culture going out at the level of the theory of value in epistemology is the real realization of the true meaning of chinese culture, and that the government should strengthen the cultural construction to shape the image of culture, and construct a discourse system with chinese characteristics to enhance the power of cultural communication (wang, 2020). the diachronic study more clearly examines the main line and vein of china’s going out to the world, and provides rich experience and inspiration, mainly including a comprehensive combing through the history of overseas dissemination of chinese culture before the tang dynasty (wu, 1998), and an examination and presentation of the historical traces of china’s going out to the world before the xinhai revolution (peng, 1998). previous studies have broadened our communication ideas and provided us with experience, and there is no lack of studies on chinese cultural communication from the perspective of media studies, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 11 mainly examines a specific part of the communication process (yang, 2023), and rarely examines the international communication strategies of chinese culture from the perspective of the whole chain of the communication process. at the same time, there are still problems such as lack of diversity of communication subjects, homogeneous contents, weak audience awareness, “one-size-fits-all” strategies, and limited communication effect (yang & ma, 2023). the 5w model is mainly used to analyze the structure and function of the communication process and examine the various links of information dissemination, and has gained wide application in mass communication (rong & zhang, 2022). in view of this, this study use the 5w model as the theoretical basis to explore the framework and practical strategies of chinese culture international communication from five dimensions: communicator, contents, channel, audiences and effect, so as to provide reference for improving the effectiveness of chinese culture international communication. 2. the status quo and problems of the international dissemination of chinese culture in the age of globalization, dissemination of chinese culture has made certain achievements in terms of the scope, depth and effect. however, due to the complexity of the international environment and the differences in world cultures, the international dissemination of chinese culture is also facing a series of problems and challenges. 2.1 the status quo of the international dissemination of chinese culture in recent years, the international dissemination of chinese culture has made remarkable progress, showing the extensive coverage and profound influence of chinese culture (ye & wu, 2024). firstly, with the in-depth implementation of the “belt and road” initiative, cultural exchanges and cooperation between chinese and countries along have become more and more frequent. confucius institutes, chinese cultural festivals, art exhibitions and other forms of cultural activities have been successfully organized all over the world, which have effectively expanded the international popularity and influence of chinese culture. secondly, both traditional chinese culture represented by traditional chinese medicine, martial arts, taiji, and opera, and contemporary culture represented by high-speed railways, tiktok, and taobao, have further deepened foreign people’s cognition of chinese cultural symbols. thirdly, the rapid development of artificial intelligence and digital technology has provided new opportunities for the international dissemination of chinese culture. through social media, online video platforms, online games and other channels, chinese cultural products such as film and television works, music and literature have been able to transcend geographical restrictions and achieve global reach, thus achieving more extensive and in-depth dissemination. fourthly, accompanied by the world’s “chinese fever”, the increase in the number of international students, foreign tourists, immigrants, and the share of cultural products in the world market, chinese cultural attraction has thus been significantly strengthened, generating the interest in and demand for learning about chinese culture, and providing potential market demand for the international dissemination of chinese culture. fifthly, the in-depth study of chinese culture by a large number of sinologists as well as the foreigners’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 12 fondness for chinese culture through short videos have provided the foundation of the dissemination of chinese culture in depth and breadth. nonetheless, the international influence of chinese culture still needs to be improved, and such problems as low recognition abroad, limited and uneven influence still exist, which limit its development in a wider scope and a deeper level (wei, 2023). firstly, although the international dissemination of chinese culture has covered many countries and regions, it mainly remains in output and introduction. for example, some cultural dissemination activities still stay at the surface level, failing to deeply dig and show the profound heritage and unique charm of chinese culture. besides, cultural differences, language barriers, cultural discounts and stereotypes also cause chinese culture to be superficial and thus lead to a low recognition. secondly, under the international communication landscape dominated by the west, the international voice of chinese culture still remains weak. the restricted ways to understand chinese culture and feedback channels by foreigners, coupled with the strong dominance of western values and ideological differences, result in the unique values and aesthetic tastes of chinese culture not yet being fully demonstrated and recognized, leading to the limited influence of its values. thirdly, due to the influence of communication strategies and policies, the international influence of chinese culture is unbalanced, with a greater impact on cultural resources and markets than on the cultural environment and media, and a greater impact on countries along the “belt and road” and their young people than on western countries, their adolescents and the elderly. 2.2 problems facing the international dissemination of chinese culture in the process of dissemination, the international dissemination of chinese culture faces a series of problems and challenges, which will be analyzed mainly from the various links of the dissemination process. 2.2.1 poor linkage and collaboration and weak non governmental entities the linkage capacity of the dissemination main body is weak (chen & qin, 2023), the power of non government entities is relatively weak, and the folk participation still needs to be strengthened (ye & wu, 2024). despite the diversification of chinese culture’s international the subjects of media, strong communication dominated by the government is still the mainstay, and the subject consciousness and power of civil organizations and institutions are weak, failing to achieve transnational people-to-people communication; individual spontaneous communication is intermittent and amateurish, and has yet to be guided professionally; chinese enthusiasts or learners have not yet fully mobilized and given play to the effect of interpersonal exchanges, and the localization and professionalization of communication have yet to be developed. 2.2.2 incohesive value consensus and unbalance between the traditional and the contemporary there is insufficient exploration of the universal values, inadequate interpretation of the cultural loaded words with chinese characteristics, contempt for contemporary culture and popular culture while emphasis on traditional culture and refined elite culture. and there is also a poor balance between the localized adaptation of communication contents for the target countries and the highlighting of china’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 distinctive culture. especially, there is insufficient refinement and interpretation of the contemporary connotation of the communication contents, little attention to contemporary culture (ye & wu, 2024), low technological added value, low creativity, resulting in shallow and vulgarized contents. for example, the shallow contents due to cater to the audiences and the vulgarization of the contents for the sake of attracting the audiences (tian, 2020), have given rise to the audiences’ insufficient interactivity and poor experience. 2.2.3 relatively single communication channels and low media integration insufficiently diversified communication channels, low media integration, and poor international media access, result in discrepancies between communication channels and the preferences for media use by foreigners. and communication methods are not flexible enough. due to the complexity of the global communication environment, the diversity of cultures, the preference for transnational media reliance and the iteration of international communication technology, as well as the limitations of cultural communication methods among different countries (shi, 2024), it is difficult to fully differentiate communication according to transnational audiences, which will ultimately lead to a significant reduction in the effectiveness of communication. 2.2.4 ignored audience differentiation and misaligned supply and demand insufficient segmentation of basic audiences and insufficient attention to potential audiences have led to an imbalance in the supply and demand of cultural products, biased positioning and disconnected interests. audiences are divided into basic and potential audiences according to their daily habits and reception of certain media contents. the combination of non-localization of translations and insufficient exploration of universal values has led to cultural discounts, cultural misinterpretation and even cultural exclusion. there is an imbalance between supply and demand in the cultural market, which is still dominated by supply and has not yet entered the stage of actively discovering or creating demand. there is also the problem of biased positioning, which is in the low-level framework of entertainment and imitation (tian, 2020), and is out of touch with the interests of the foreigners, resulting in the loss of the expected and potential audiences. 2.2.5 defective assessment system and inadequate feedback analysis the assessment system has yet to be perfected, and the lack of timely collection of feedback and statistical analysis of data hinder the adjustment of cultural communication strategies and optimization of paths. poor selection of communication contents, inappropriate choice of means and methods, and insufficient research on audience needs, cultural differences, language barriers and acceptance psychology have a direct impact on audience analysis and expected results. studies have shown that there are cultural conflicts and cultural exclusion among different countries, and even ethnic exclusion among different national cultures (shi, 2024), so it is urgent to pay attention to the feed-forward, fine-tune the strategies and optimize the effectiveness. facing the great changes that have not been seen in a century, the international communication of chinese culture is faced with a series of problems, such as communicators, communication contents, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 channels, audiences and communication effects, and there is an urgent need to explore the ways and strategies of the international communication of chinese culture. 3. a framework for the international communication of chinese culture based on the 5w model the 5w model was proposed by harold lasswell in his book of the structure and function of communication in society, that is, who said what to whom through what channels to achieve what effect. this 5-step formula of communication process deduces the control analysis, contents analysis, media analysis, audience analysis and effect analysis of communication. the 5w model includes: 1) who, looking into the control analysis of factors that initiate and guide the act of communication; 2) says what, focusing on the contents analysis; 3) in which channel, examining the media analysis of the broadcasting, newspapers, movies and other communication channels; 4) to whom, focusing on the audience analysis of the target reached by the media; 5) with what effect, examining the effect analysis of the impact on the audiences (lasswell, 2013). the above five elements constitute the key links in the communication process, and examining the whole process of communication can clearly and systematically control the whole picture of communication and ensure the practicability and effectiveness of communication behaviors. in the past, related research on international communication of chinese culture often analyzed specific communication issues from the micro level, such as means of communication, contents selection, audience feedback, and lacked a macroscopic exploration of the relationship between communication issues (ye &wu, 2024). this study follows the basic logic of the 5w model, focuses on the dynamic audience feedback and the optimization cycle of the effect, and constructs a framework for the international communication of chinese culture, as shown in figure 1. the communicators are governments, organizations, individuals; the contents of communication is chinese culture; the channel of communication is media integration; the audiences is the target of communication; and the effect is the breadth and depth of international communication of chinese culture, as well as the evaluation and feedback of the audiences. the study of the five elements of the communication process can help chinese culture continue to optimize its international communication paths along the cyclic pattern of “subject collaboration selected delivery through the media reaching the audiences optimized feedback”, and ultimately allow the audiences to “know, realize, respect, and then understand, empathize, and identify” chinese culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 figure 1. framework for the international dissemination of chinese culture based on the 5w model the following is an exploration of the communication strategies framework in conjunction with the 5w model and communication theory. 3.1 two-level dissemination: elite leadership, universal participation according to the law of two-tier communication, we should take advantage of civil diplomacy to cultivate “spokespersons” for chinese culture (teng, yang, & yuan, 2017), give play to the role of leaders in leading and recommending, and implement guided communication strategies, so as to realize the ambassadors’ pilotage and the people’s relay. first of all, as “cultural ambassadors”, cultural celebrities, artists, scholars and internet celebrities with international vision and influence are selected, cultivated, dispatched. through speeches, writings, interviews, cultural product experiences and other forms of promotion, they can shape the image of a positive, open and modern china, and expand the dissemination and influence of the “china’s story”. secondly, enterprises, ngos and ordinary people are encouraged to use social media and video platforms to share china’s stories, forming a cultural communication boom with the participation of diversified subjects. in addition, the role of localized communication subjects is brought into full play, with the help of foreign celebrities, sinologists, foreign internet celebrities, overseas chinese and international students to realize localized interpersonal communication. 3.2 agenda setting: selective mining, creative presentation it is necessary to dig deep into the essence of traditional chinese culture, explain and renew its contemporary values, take into account cultural uniqueness and innovation, study and develop globally appealing cultural products through technology, and reinterpret ancient arts and realize cultural innovation. on the one hand, the communication contents are enriched and refreshed. it is essential to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 16 “implement the competitive advantage strategies of ‘doing something, not doing something’, make full use of our unique resources, and form relative potential advantages and development advantages” (liu, 2020), select cultural contents with unique chinese characteristics, and dig deep into the spiritual connotation and contemporary value, highlight the characteristic advantages and enrich the connotation of the times. for instance, poems and songs, painting and calligraphy, traditional festivals, combined with the spirits of the times, renew contemporary connotations, so as to make the ancient culture renewed and conveyed new meanings. on the other hand, values can be endowed and transmitted. it is essential to distinguish between chinese themes and world themes, actively publicize china’s unique and excellent culture, and let chinese culture appear more often in the image of world themes to be accepted and recognized by the world (shu & wang, 2013), i.e., chinese culture going out at the level of the value theory described by wang (2020). for example, we can combine modern technology, like artificial intelligence, vr/ar technology, and digital exhibitions, with innovative expressions, such as movies, music, literature, games, and art exhibitions, and create distinctive cultural products with an international outlook and universal value, so as to enhance the attractiveness of cultural contents. 3.3 cross-border media integration: media fusion, three-dimensional communication it is vital to integrate traditional and emerging media, promote the transformation of “traditional media” to “multi-media integration” (li & yin, 2024), promote the cooperation and the operation of communication media across cultures, borders and regions, give full play to the mechanism of “crowdsourcing” and the empowerment of science and technology, as well as innovate communication methods to realize multi-media interaction and global reach. the first is multi-media integration. it is necessary to integrate and fuse traditional media and emerging media resources, build a full media matrix with multi-channel communication networks, and form an all-round, three-dimensional, multi-platform linkage cultural communication system. this system includes the use of traditional media (tv, radio, newspapers) to expand their influence, and relies on new media (internet, social media, video platforms, mobile applications) to achieve rapid dissemination and wide coverage. the second is cross-border cooperation. it is necessary to expand international cooperation and exchange channels, strengthen cooperation with international cultural organizations, cross-border cooperation in the operation of communication media, and promote the global dissemination of chinese culture through strategic planning and elaborate design using international mainstream media platforms. the third is “crowdsourcing” empowering the new. it is reasonable to use the “crowdsourcing” mechanism, with the help of artificial intelligence, mobile communication technology and digital technology, leverage the internet and social media platforms through science and technology, to realize the modernization of dissemination channels. we should empower the media with new ideas, create a cross-platform interactive experience, and enhance the interactivity, accessibility and coverage of cultural information. 3.4 use and fulfillment: precise positioning and multiple coverage combined with the selective process of the audiences and the theory of use and satisfaction, we should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 17 precisely locate the needs of the target audiences, implement differentiated communication strategies, personalized satisfaction, and stimulate cultural empathy to achieve audience segmentation and cultural empathy. the first is audience research. in-depth research on the religious beliefs, values and acceptance habits of target audiences in different countries and regions, classified research should be conducted; the interests and preferences of target audiences in different countries and media dependence should be comprehensively analyzed; differentiated cultural communication strategies should be formulated. the second is matching needs. it is important to customize the communication contents and cultural products according to the audience needs, use big data and artificial intelligence for accurate push, personalized recommendation of cultural contents that meet the target audience preferences, attract the audience selective attention, and realize the accurate docking of cultural contents and audience interests. the last is cultural empathy. it is necessary to focus on cross-cultural exchanges, look for commonalities between different cultures, implement localization strategies for cultural products and services. this can help audiences make selective understanding, attract and cultivate potential audiences around the world, stimulate emotional resonance and cultural empathy among audiences, assist audiences to complete selective memory, and promote cultural identity through emotional resonance. 3.5 cultivation analysis: feedback loop, continuous optimization based on the theory of culmination analysis, it is indispensable to establish a monitoring and evaluation system for the effects of cultural communication, follow up and examine the influence of communication contents on audience cognition, attitudes and reactions in a long-term and subtle way, and then optimize the communication strategies by combining with the feedback information, so as to realize the effect evaluation and cyclic optimization. on the one hand, communication effects should to be evaluated. through surveys, interviews and messages, we strengthen interaction with international audiences, regularly collect and analyze feedback data from overseas audiences, and assess the coverage, acceptance and influence of cultural communication activities. on the other hand, strategies should to be adjusted. according to the evaluation results, it is essential to timely adjust the communication strategies and cultural contents, continuously improve the relevance and effectiveness of cultural communication, reduce cultural discounts, and form a closed-loop optimization mechanism to achieve specific communication goals and effects. 4. 5w strategies for the international communication of chinese culture based on the path of the 5w model, the international communication strategies of chinese culture should to be explored in terms of the five elements of the communication process. 4.1 linkage and collaboration of multiple subjects to promote synergy, and highlighting the folk subjects “weak” communication force the main communication bodies will work together in a multifaceted manner, give full play to the characteristics and advantages of their respective roles to form communication synergy; emphasis will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 be placed on marketization and privatization, downplaying the direct “strong” communication of the governmental communication bodies and highlighting the subtle “weak” role of the nongovernmental communication bodies, so as to facilitate the communication between china and foreign countries. 4.1.1 synergistic linkage of communication subjects with multiple subjects it is necessary to improve the mechanism of linkage and cooperation among communication subjects, promote “the transformation of communication subjects from ‘government subjects’ to ‘multi-subject symbiosis’” (li & yin, 2024), and “enhance the synergy of china’s international cultural dissemination”. it is essential to stabilize government support and provide policy basis for overseas cultural dissemination (duan, 2021), follow the market law of enterprise cultural product supply to realize the reorganization and allocation of resources, give full play to the public welfare pro-people role of ngos to make the people’s hearts closer; we should attach importance to personal cultural experiential sharing, and play the function of interpersonal dissemination of public opinion leaders by leading to the whole society and bringing up the whole world. as the leader of cultural communication, the government, with its authoritative, organizational and strategic characteristics, can efficiently integrate resources and provide policy support and financial guarantee for cultural communication through formulating cultural foreign policies, holding large-scale cultural exchange activities and establishing cultural funds. enterprises, as providers and servicers of cultural products, characterized by flexibility, innovation and marketability, can adjust their communication strategies according to market demand and audience preferences, and achieve a win-win solution for both cultural communication and commercial interests through commercial channels, such as product design and brand marketing. as a third-party force and a bridge, non-governmental organizations (ngos), characterized by public welfare, independence and non-administration, are able to reach out to the grassroots and get close to the audiences, and through organizing public welfare activities and cultural exhibitions, realize the precision and depth of cultural communication. individuals, as ugc creators, characterized by spontaneity, diversity and extensiveness, are able to combine their personal styles with their daily sharing and cultural experiences to form a variety of windows showcasing chinese culture. governments and individuals are the gatekeepers of chinese culture going abroad, and they should follow objectivity, ethics and authenticity, give full play to their roles to jointly promote the diversity of forms, richness of contents and effectiveness of cultural communication. 4.1.2 highlighting on the “weak” communication role of non-governmental subjects under the diversified cooperation of dissemination subjects, the governmental actors have been diluted; the political color of dissemination work has been weakened; social forces have been widely mobilized, and civil and non-governmental subjects have been highlighted, with weak dissemination as the mainstay, and a focus on folk and marketization. combining the characteristics, styles and advantages of different non-governmental communication subjects, and on the basis of balancing the supply and demand of cultural products, it is important to take the initiative to discover or create audience demand, link up with multiple parties, integrate resources and form synergy. this can get close to the audiences www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 in a flexible, diversified, daily, informal and grounded form, and display the unique charm of chinese culture to the world, so as to promote the widespread cognition of culture and its subtle influence. enterprises can spread chinese culture through cultural products and services, brand storytelling, and overseas cooperation and investment. they can develop consumer products, software applications, games that incorporate chinese elements so that audiences can naturally come into contact with and experience chinese culture. they can also tell stories about the history of the brand, traditional craftsmanship, innovative ideas that are related to chinese culture to enhance the brand’s attractiveness and cultural affinity. besides, they can also cooperate with overseas organizations to set up cultural exchange programs, chinese language training and translations and make use of the business network to promote chinese culture. non-governmental organizations can promote chinese culture through cultural exchanges and cultural consulting services. international cultural festivals, art performances, film screenings can be organized to enhance foreign people’s understanding of and interest in chinese culture; cultural workshops, online courses can be provided to cultivate foreigners’ language skills and cultural literacy; and professional academic exchanges, historical interpretations, and etiquette guidance can be also conducted to serve individuals and organizations interested in gaining a deeper understanding of chinese culture. individuals can promote chinese culture through social media interactions, travel and cultural exchanges, and creative artistic expressions. the public can share chinese lifestyles, cultural practices, festivals and celebrations through blogs, videos and live broadcasts, attracting fans worldwide; chinese people living abroad can introduce chinese culture through daily exchanges and participate in local community activities, to promote two-way cultural exchanges; and artists can create works integrating chinese and western elements, and take part in international art festivals, paintings exhibitions, music festivals to showcase the unique charm of chinese culture. multiple dissemination bodies can collaborate with each other to form a diversified cultural export system. the government provides macro-guidance and resource support, enterprises and non-governmental organizations are responsible for concrete implementation and market-oriented operation, and individuals add vivid and authentic colors to cultural output with their unique perspectives and influence. through linkage and collaboration, we can help chinese culture cross geographic and cultural boundaries and truly reach out to the world stage. 4.2 fine-tuning universal values and distinctive cultures, and balancing traditional modernity with local characteristics the quality and attractiveness of communication contents are directly related to message acceptance and influence. the selection, presentation, integration and innovation of contents, as well as their technological empowerment and differentiated balance are the keys to effective international dissemination of chinese culture. 4.2.1 universal values and culture-loaded words to build consensus through the deep exploration of universal values and culture-loaded words, we should enrich the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 cultural connotation and the spirit of the times, enhance the cultural values and attractiveness, promote the formation of value identity and consensus on value recognition, and help audiences know about chinese culture and understand chinese values, so as to realize the consensus on values between china and foreign countries. the global civilization initiative, first proposed by the president in his keynote speech at the high-level dialogue between the cpc and world political parties in march 2023, emphasized that “we should jointly advocate the promotion of the common values of all mankind, and that peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom are the common pursuit of the people of all countries” (xinhua, 2023). universal values reflect the moral and ethical bottom line or the basic common values shared by the citizens of the global village (schwartz, 1992), and it is appropriate to seek the commonalities between chinese values and the common values of all mankind (xiao, 2023). the concepts of “benevolence”, “harmony”, “mediocrity” and “etiquette” deeply rooted in confucianism, taoism, and buddhist wisdom, as well as the modern five principles of peaceful coexistence and the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, not only embody the deep heritage of chinese civilization, but also provide wise solutions to global issues, by helping audiences to find shared values and generate empathy (guan, 2011), and thus realize value recognition. by telling the story of the ancient chinese people’s pursuit of the unity of man and nature, the concept of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature can be conveyed, so as to enhance the audiences’ understanding of and identification with chinese values. culture-loaded words refer to words, phrases and idioms that signify something specific to a certain culture (liao, 2020), such as yin and yang, the five elements, the twenty-four solar terms, oracle bone inscriptions, kung fu and so on, which are the centralized embodiment of the chinese culture and the most central form of external expression (zheng, 2016). these words enable audiences to deeply understand each other’s differences, to avoid misunderstanding in the dialogues (guan, 2011), and to realize that the existence is reasonable, thus acknowledging the value differences. taking “spring festival” as an example, it not only represents a specific festival, but also conveys the importance and respect of chinese people for new year’s prayers, family reunions and traditional customs. 4.2.2 innovation in the integration of traditional elegance and modern popularity “adhering to the combination of ‘promoting tradition’ and ‘based on contemporary times’” (shen & xu, 2019), it is necessary to “use modern fashion elements to disseminate traditional excellent culture” (shu & wang, 2013), to realize the innovative integration of traditional elegant culture and the modern popular culture. on the one hand, traditional arts and wisdom such as myths, operas, chinese paintings and ancient architecture are the treasures of chinese civilization, which can show the profound heritage and unique aesthetics of chinese culture. we should combine with modern technology through unique perspectives, novel expressions and rich forms of expression, such as developing online games combining traditional stories, creating peking opera performances with virtual reality experiences, creating fusion of traditional elements in modern art works, restoring ancient architecture with digital technology, to meet the diversified needs of audiences. on the other hand, china’s modern www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 achievements in scientific and technological innovation, pop culture, sports and athletics reflect the openness and progress of contemporary chinese society, and are more likely to resonate with young audiences around the world. it is appropriate to use forms, carriers, topics and other elements that foreigners enjoy, and make good use of the world’s popular language to tell china’s stories, so as to make chinese culture liveable, vivid and concrete, and help to shape an active, positive and modern image of china. 4.2.3 balance between localization adaptation and uniqueness perseverance taking into account the needs of differentiated audiences, it is necessary to appropriately localize and adjust the contents of communication, and in order to avoid the generation of homogeneous international contents, it is also necessary to differentiate and balance the contents of communication. on the one hand, localization means that while maintaining the core values of chinese culture, it is necessary to adhere to differentiation and diversification, respect and adapt to the cultural background, aesthetic interests, acceptance habits and cultural consumption psychology of the target audiences, and carry out appropriate localization and adaptation, so as to make the communication contents more closely related to the target audiences, reduce the cultural gap, and improve the acceptance and sense of identity of the audiences. on the other hand, when spreading modern international common theme contents such as family, friendship, dream, courage, although they can transcend cultural boundaries, be understood and accepted by audiences in different countries and regions, and easily produce emotional resonance, they are easily annihilated due to the large number of homogenized contents. therefore, they should adhere to and highlight the uniqueness of chinese culture on the basis of appropriate localization, so as to form a distinctive brand recognition. through in-depth exploration of the intrinsic values of chinese culture, innovative fusion of traditional elegance and modern popularity, and differentiated balance between localization and internationalization, the attractiveness and influence of the communication contents can be effectively enhanced to promote the wide dissemination of chinese culture and in-depth exchanges on a global scale. 4.3 media integration to build a diversified communication system, and cross-border cooperation to broaden the communication channels in the era of globalized information explosion, the diversity and extensiveness of communication channels are of paramount importance, and the selection, layout and optimization of communication channels are the key to ensuring that information is effectively delivered and reaches the audiences. 4.3.1 media integration to build a three-dimensional communication system it is essential to integrate traditional media and new media to build a diversified and three-dimensional system of communication channels, give full play to the effect of multimodal communication and broaden the scope of communication. along with the development of science and technology, communication channels have become increasingly rich, and the integration of traditional media and new media has become a trend. on the one hand, traditional media such as newspapers, radio and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 22 television still have wide coverage and authority. for example, the international channel of cctv (china central television) and china daily are important windows for spreading chinese culture overseas. we can give full play to the “1+6+n” model of the flagship media of international communication with chinese characteristics (jiang & zhang, 2019), and effectively enhance the international visibility and influence of chinese culture by opening chinese culture columns in international mainstream media, produce and broadcast tv programs on chinese culture, and issue magazines on chinese culture. on the other hand, new media platforms such as the internet, social media and mobile applications have become an emerging force in cultural communication with their instantaneous, interactive and personalized features. platforms such as tiktok and bilibili attract large numbers of overseas audiences. they can open official accounts, publish chinese culture-related graphics, videos, live broadcasts and other contents, such as traditional handicraft displays and real-time live streaming of festivals, to flexibly present diversified chinese culture, and realize precise delivery and personalized services with the help of big data, artificial intelligence, algorithmic recommendation and other technologies, so as to improve the relevance and effectiveness of communication and effectively attract the attention of the younger generation. 4.3.2 building an international cooperative exchange and dissemination network it is indispensable to strengthen cooperation with international media, enhance exchanges with international cultural institutions, build international communication networks, and jointly promote the dissemination of chinese culture. the first is cooperation with international media. it is necessary to establish cooperative relationships with globally renowned tv stations, radio stations, online media, and co-produce or broadcast programs and contents with chinese cultural themes. through co-production, copyright exchange, program broadcasting and other means, we will leverage the advantages of their global networks to enhance the visibility of chinese culture around the world. the second is exchanges with international cultural institutions. it is essential to carry out cooperation projects with unesco, museums, art centers and other cultural institutions, actively participate in various international cultural exchange activities, hold chinese cultural exhibitions, academic seminars, art festivals, film festivals and other activities, aiming to display the unique charm and diversified styles of chinese culture, enhance mutual understanding and friendship, and promote the international dissemination, exchange and mutual appreciation of chinese culture. the third is establishing an international communication network. it is indispensable to establish a global system of chinese culture dissemination networks, such as setting up chinese cultural centers and confucius institutes overseas to provide local people with platforms and opportunities to learn about chinese culture. at the same time, we should strengthen contact and cooperation with overseas chinese associations and chinese-language media, so as to form communication synergy and jointly promote the international dissemination of chinese culture. through the construction of a diversified system of communication channels and the strengthening of cooperation and exchanges with international media and cultural institutions, it is possible to broaden www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 the channels of communication, expand the scope of communication, learn from the experiences of other countries in cultural communication in interactive exchanges, and promote the optimization and upgrading of its own communication strategies. 4.4 distinguishing the audiences to meet their different demand, and the establishment of audience feedback mechanism re-adjustment through the segmentation of target audiences, we can understand their cultural background, interest preferences and acceptance habits, formulate personalized communication strategies, set up a timely feedback mechanism for audiences, constantly adjust and optimize communication contents, improve their relevance and enhance their attractiveness. 4.4.1 providing personalized services that value potential audiences it is necessary to “establish the concept of localized cultural communication” (yang, 2020) by knowing, understanding and researching the audiences, and cater to the needs of different audiences by means of accurate position and personalized delivery. audiences is an active participant of communication with independent consciousness and self-judgment, not a passive receiver of information, and is in the main position in communication activities, determining the basic direction of communication activities. for the basic audiences who is the main marketing target of information dissemination and advertisement promotion, since different cultural backgrounds, historical traditions, social structures, religious beliefs and values may present different characteristics in terms of interest preferences, acceptance habits and information needs, we should accurately locate the needs of the basic audiences, avoid cultural conflicts, promote cultural empathy, and steadily maintain the adhesion of the basic audiences. for potential audiences who are not actively looking for a certain information or product but coming across the relevant contents by chance for some reasons, the contents and methods of communication should be adjusted in a timely manner in order to attract and retain potential audiences, and efforts should be made to develop them into the basic audiences and expand the coverage of communication. 4.4.2 emphasizing feedback and adjusting communication strategies in a timely manner it is essential to establish an effective audience feedback mechanism to adjust the communication strategies in time to achieve iterative optimization. factors such as audience interests, preferences and acceptance habits directly affect the design and implementation of communication strategies, and it is necessary to establish an effective audience feedback mechanism to quickly match the needs of the audiences. the first is demand research. before the communication activities, we can collect and analyze audience needs and expectations through questionnaires, interviews and other methods, to provide feedback support for the development of communication strategies. the second is contents customization. according to the results of the research, we can customize the communication contents that meets the interests and acceptance habits of the audiences, and flexibly adjust the communication plans to attract and retain the audiences. the third is interactive feedback. during the communication process, we can collect feedback through social media comments, online surveys, offline activities, and other means of positive interaction with the audiences and timely response. the last is adjustments of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 strategies. based on the results of audience feedback, we can adjust the communication strategies with localized adaptation of contents, precise selection of channels, and appropriate timing, so as to gradually optimize and build a communication system adapted to the needs of different audiences. deeply understanding and accurately reaching the target audiences are the key to enhancing the effectiveness of communication. taking into account both universality and specificity, studying the audiences and balancing supply and demand can show not only the unique charm of chinese culture, but also should respect for and integrate local cultural characteristics, so as to realize deeper cultural exchanges and mutual understanding. 4.5 constructing the evaluation system of communication effects, and launching the quantitative analysis to optimize communication strategies evaluation of communication effects is an important basis for testing the success of communication strategies. building a communication effect evaluation system to quantify the effectiveness of communication and continuously improve and optimize communication strategies accordingly is the key to enhancing the effectiveness of chinese culture’s international communication. 4.5.1 timely assessment of dynamics to capture communication effects it is necessary to establish a scientific system for evaluating the effectiveness of communication, “taking the timeline as the main line, taking into account the present and the future, and establishing a set of scientific systems that contain short-, mediumand long-term objectives that are both stable and uniform, and relatively open and flexible”, so as to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of communication in due course. first of all, the objectives of dissemination should be clearly defined. the goals of chinese cultural communication include enhancing international visibility, strengthening cultural identity, and promoting cultural exchanges and cooperation. clear objectives are the prerequisite for the construction of an evaluation system, and it is advisable to set specific and measurable objectives to facilitate the evaluation of subsequent effects. secondly, evaluation indicators should be set. based on the communication objectives, a series of quantifiable evaluation indicators should be set, covering multiple dimensions, such as audience coverage (how many people have been reached), audience participation (interaction rate, retweets, number of likes, frequency of media reports), changes in audience attitudes (whether there is an increase in positive perceptions of china), and consumption of cultural products (overseas sales of chinese movies, books, etc.). this can visually reflect the breadth and depth of communication activities and provide data support for evaluating the effectiveness of communication. meanwhile, long-term indicators, such as the ranking of chinese culture’s international influence and the number of china-related international activities, are also needed to assess the long-term effects of cultural communication. finally, multi-dimensional analysis is necessary. it is necessary to collect data from social media, questionnaires, media report, and use data analysis tools such as spss and python to process and analyze the collected data to objectively reflect the communication effect. at the same time, it is necessary to conduct qualitative analysis through audience feedback, social reaction and cultural identity to understand the audience acceptance of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 contents, preferences and suggestions for improvement, so as to comprehensively assess the communication effects. 4.5.2 quantifying effectiveness for adjusting and optimizing communication strategies it is necessary to continuously improve and optimize communication strategies based on evaluation results to enhance communication effectiveness. firstly, data-driven decision-making should be strengthened. based on the evaluation results, we use data analysis methods to explore the highlights and shortcomings of our communication activities. based on the data feedback, we can analyze which communication strategies is more effective and which needs to be improved, adjust the communication strategies in a timely manner, optimize the contents, channels and methods of communication, and ensure that the communication activities always focus on the needs of the audiences and cultural characteristics. if the effect of communication in a specific region is not satisfactory, the cultural adaptation and localization of the region can be enhanced. secondly, a feedback mechanism should be introduced. as mentioned above, the audience feedback mechanism should be fully utilized to regularly collect the opinions and suggestions of the target audiences and adjust the contents and methods of communication in a timely manner. regular symposiums, online surveys, social media interactions, and feedback from offline activities can be used to understand audience acceptance and satisfaction with the communication contents and provide strong support for the continuous optimization of the communication strategies. thirdly, short-term evaluation should be combined with long-term tracking. by combining short-term and long-term tracking, we can fully grasp the overall picture of the communication effect and ensure that the communication activities are always advancing towards the established goals. the adjustment and optimization of communication strategies are a continuous process, and a tracking mechanism should be set up. in building the evaluation system, attention should be paid not only to short-term immediate effects such as the speed of communication and the amount of exposure, but also to long-term cumulative effects such as the enhancement of cultural identity and the shaping of international image. evaluation and optimization of communication effects is the key to ensuring the success of communication activities. by combining quantitative evaluation and multidimensional analysis to fully grasp the overall picture of communication effects, as well as by strengthening data-driven decision-making, introducing audience feedback mechanisms, and combining short-term evaluation and long-term tracking, we will continue to display the splendor of chinese culture on the international stage. 5. conclusion the international dissemination of chinese culture is a complex and systematic project, which is affected by multiple factors such as dissemination subjects, contents, channels, audiences and effects. this study applies the 5w model to communication practice, and proposes communication strategies that aim to unite the joint efforts of communication subjects, select unique cultural contents, broaden www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 communication channels, meet the needs of audiences, and effectively quantify the effects of communication. due to the diversity of global cultures, the complexity of the international environment, the dynamics of the cultural market and the transformation of communication technologies, specific strategies need to be further refined and adjusted in practice. in the future, empirical research can be conducted on the effects of specific communication strategies to optimize communication strategies in a data-driven way. it is necessary to pay attention to the application of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual reality in cultural communication, and make use of new technologies to innovate the forms of communication and enhance the effects of communication. it is expected that chinese culture will be more open and diversified to coexist and prosper with world cultures and contribute unique cultural values and spiritual wealth to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. references chen, h., & qin, j. 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(2024). bibliometric analysis of research on chinese culture dissemination to foreign countries: current situation, hot spots and trends. journal of xi’an international studies university, 32(02), 87-92. zhang, j. (2019). research on strategies of chinese culture toward the world. beijing: china social science press. zhang, s. k. (2016). research on the strategy of chinese culture going to the world under the perspective of intercultural communication. hebei normal university. zhang, w. j. (2012). the contemporary significance and world direction of chinese culture. beijing: china social science press. zheng, d. h. (2016). chinese culture going out and the translation of culturally loaded words. shanghai translation, (02), 53-56. https://h.xinhuaxmt.com/vh512/share/11420301?d=134b0ab&channel=qq. 1. introduction 2. the status quo and problems of the internationa 2.1 the status quo of the international disseminat 2.2 problems facing the international disseminatio 2.2.1 poor linkage and collaboration and weak non 2.2.2 incohesive value consensus and unbalance bet 2.2.3 relatively single communication channels and 2.2.4 ignored audience differentiation and misalig 2.2.5 defective assessment system and inadequate f 3. a framework for the international communication 3.1 two-level dissemination: elite leadership, uni 3.2 agenda setting: selective mining, creative pre 3.3 cross-border media integration: media fusion, 3.4 use and fulfillment: precise positioning and m 3.5 cultivation analysis: feedback loop, continuou 4.5w strategies for the international communication 4.1 linkage and collaboration of multiple subjects 4.1.1 synergistic linkage of communication subject 4.1.2 highlighting on the “weak” communication rol 4.2 fine-tuning universal values and distinctive c 4.2.1 universal values and culture-loaded words to 4.2.2 innovation in the integration of traditional 4.2.3 balance between localization adaptation and 4.3 media integration to build a diversified commu 4.3.1 media integration to build a three-dimension 4.3.2 building an international cooperative exchan 4.4 distinguishing the audiences to meet their dif 4.4.1 providing personalized services that value p 4.4.2 emphasizing feedback and adjusting communica 4.5 constructing the evaluation system of communic 4.5.1 timely assessment of dynamics to capture com 4.5.2 quantifying effectiveness for adjusting and 5. conclusion advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 117 original paper two-way mechanism driving appearance anxiety: an analysis of xiaohongshu’s beauty discourse among female college students gao shangyu1*, huang mingyu1, li le1, yu xuemei1, & zhang ziyu1 1yunnan university, kunming, china * corresponding author received: october 19, 2025 accepted: november 29, 2025 online published: december 09, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p117 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p117 abstract amid the deep integration of the "she-conomy" and social media, xiaohongshu has become a primary channel for female college students to access beauty and skincare information. however, the underlying mechanism linking the platform's dissemination of "ideal appearance standards" to appearance anxiety among this demographic remains under-explored, with existing research suffering from limitations such as one-dimensional analysis and insufficient contextualization.this study employs a mixed-methods approach—including questionnaires, interviews, discourse analysis, and web scraping—with national female college students as subjects. grounded in emotional labor theory, it constructs an "emotional labor bidirectional cycle" analytical framework. from dual perspectives of media content production and audience feedback, it reveals the internal mechanisms through which xiaohongshu's beauty and skincare discourse shapes female college students' appearance anxiety.findings reveal that xiaohongshu's beauty discourse: reconstructs cognition through "constructing appearance flaws + implanting ideal standards"; generates emotions via "upward comparison + practical effect gap"; reinforces behavior by "anxiety-driven content dependency and consumption"; forming a vicious cycle of "anxiety confirmation-generation-reinforcement." the platform's discourse strategies synergize with algorithmic recommendations to construct an "anxiety-consumption" closed loop, further amplifying anxiety exposure. keywords female college students, appearance anxiety, bidirectional mechanism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 118 1. problem statement appearance anxiety refers to non-pathological concerns arising from perceived failure to meet mainstream aesthetic standards, exhibiting high frequency and younger onset under social media influence.xiaohongshu's beauty and skincare discourse refers to content collections—including makeup tutorials, product reviews, and appearance enhancement techniques—presented through text, images, and videos on the platform. leveraging contextualized, interactive, and personalized dissemination features, this discourse profoundly influences user cognition and behavioral choices through strategies like symbolic construction and emotional resonance. according to xiaohongshu's official 2023 beauty and skincare industry report, the platform generates over 200,000 daily beauty-related posts. female college students aged 18-22 constitute 63.8% of consumers of this content, spending an average of 47 minutes daily browsing such posts. over 72% of respondents reported that their beauty purchasing decisions are influenced by this content ("2023 beauty and skincare industry report,", 2023). preliminary research for this study further reveals that 70% of female college students avoid social activities due to appearance anxiety, while 63.2% have engaged in impulse purchases over appearance concerns. appearance anxiety has become a significant issue affecting female college students' physical and mental health as well as their quality of life. based on this, the core questions of this study focus on three dimensions: how does media content production induce appearance anxiety among female college students through discursive strategies and technical algorithms? how do female college students, as the audience, receive anxiety-inducing beauty and skincare content, and what cognitive and behavioral responses do they form， and what bidirectional interactive relationship exists between media production and audience feedback that collectively drives the generation and intensification of appearance anxiety. the aim is to reveal the logical connection and shaping mechanisms between xiaohongshu's beauty and skincare discourse and female college students' appearance anxiety. this provides empirical support and practical strategies for establishing diverse aesthetic values among female college students, optimizing platform content ecosystems, and enabling targeted guidance from schools and society, thereby helping alleviate appearance anxiety among female college students. 2. literature review and research hypotheses 2.1 media content producers: discourse analysis and algorithm-driven dissemination on vertical social media platforms in studies examining media content producers, international scholars have primarily focused on the impact of algorithmic mechanisms on user cognition. research confirms that algorithmically recommended homogeneous content and idealized images intensify users' appearance comparisons and heighten dissatisfaction with their looks (monika, 2020; chamberlain, 2009); marwick (2016) further notes that algorithmic recommendations amplify "ideal standards" in the beauty sector, leading to significantly heightened dissatisfaction with one's appearance among users exposed to such content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 119 environments over time (gerrard, 2016). domestic research focuses more on the constructive role of discursive strategies. studies by shen shuang and tan huawei (2023) and li siming (2023) both indicate that online discourse reshapes users' body cognition through narrative frameworks and identification mechanisms (shen & tan, 2023). it is pointed out that online women's health science communication reshapes female body concepts through specific narrative frameworks, reflecting the active role of discourse in constructing bodily cognition. jia shiwei and yan hui (2023) approach the issue from the perspective of algorithmic bias, noting that users' perception of algorithmic bias not only involves technical-level data and content deviations but also reflects social structural issues such as uneven information distribution and power struggles (jia & yan, 2023). 2.2 audience feedback perspective—related research on appearance anxiety in studies examining audience feedback, foreign research primarily focuses on individual psychological traits and external experiences. overseas scholars have confirmed a positive correlation between self-objectification and appearance anxiety, with social appearance comparison playing a partial mediating role. self-compassion and active physical exercise can buffer this effect (zhang, li, jiang et al., 2025); xiat et al. further found that cyberbullying triggers social anxiety via appearance anxiety, with gender moderating the relationship between self-esteem and social anxiety (xia, liao, deng et al., 2023); nezire and muhammed's research indicates that anxious-avoidant attachment and instagram addiction positively predict social appearance anxiety, while adolescents' positive developmental levels negatively predict it (nezir & muhammed, 2023). domestic studies focus on female college students, with multiple investigations confirming that xiaohongshu usage intensity positively predicts appearance anxiety. for instance, zhang yuhan (2024) combined qualitative and quantitative methods to find that higher xiaohongshu usage intensity correlates with more pronounced internalization of ideal appearance standards, thereby accelerating negative body image formation. in-depth interviews revealed that female college students' original perceptions of appearance become narrower due to platform content (zhang, 2024); chen xiaotong (2023) further observed that female college students in first-tier cities scored higher on anxiety measures than those in secondand third-tier cities, with lower-year students potentially exhibiting higher anxiety levels than upper-year students. this was speculated to relate to information exposure frequency and self-cognitive maturity (chen, 2024). regarding mitigation strategies, wei yaqiong (2024), jiao qiang (2015), zhang mannan (2024) proposed targeted recommendations from platform, educational, and social environmental perspectives respectively (wei, 2022; jiao, 2015; zhang, 2024). 2.3 bidirectional interaction perspective—research on the relationship between social media and body image research from the bidirectional interaction perspective predominantly focuses on the negative impact of social media on women's body image. vandenbosch (2022) et al. note that the idealized, edited images on platforms establish a singular standard, and frequent exposure among female college students can lead to body dissatisfaction (laura, jasmine, & marika, 2021); jasmine fardouly (2019) et www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 120 al. further suggest that interactive features like likes and comments intensify body image concerns, with anxiety escalating when feedback falls short of expectations (fardouly, diedrichs, vartanian et al., 2015). however, rodgersa et al. (2021) also found that content promoting diverse body images and inner beauty can mitigate anxiety (taylor & armes, 2024). domestic research closely examines local platforms. wen ying (2024) proposes that xiaohongshu leverages four dimensions of availability—production, social interaction, dissemination, and emotion—to respectively generate, connect, and distribute anxiety-inducing content and atmospheres (wen, 2023); kang shuonan (2024) found that medical aesthetics information dissemination on platforms suffers from issues like questionable credibility of sources and lack of content warnings, potentially inducing appearance anxiety (kang, 2023). 2.4 analytical framework and research hypotheses this study centers on emotional labor theory, integrating gaze theory and mediatization theory to construct a bidirectional analytical framework of "media production audience feedback," forming the theoretical model of the "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" (see figure 1). based on this theoretical framework, the study proposes the following research hypotheses: h1: xiaohongshu usage positively influences female college students' appearance anxiety； h2: appearance anxiety positively predicts social rejection behavior among female college students； h3: xiaohongshu usage indirectly influences social rejection behavior through appearance anxiety. figure 1. analytical framework and research hypotheses diagram 3. research methodology this study employs a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative research to explore the bidirectional mechanism through which xiaohongshu's beauty and skincare discourse shapes appearance anxiety among female college students. the interplay and progressive integration of different methodologies ensure the scientific rigor and comprehensiveness of the research conclusions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 121 quantitative research methods primarily include questionnaire surveys and web crawling technology for data collection. the questionnaire survey employed a combination of convenience sampling and stratified sampling. five universities across different regions were selected, covering female college students from various grade levels (see table 1 for descriptive statistics of the survey participants). questionnaires were distributed via the online platform "questionstar" and through on-campus intercept interviews at designated locations. a total of 800 questionnaires were distributed, with 742 valid responses collected, yielding a valid response rate of 92.8%. spss 26.0 was used for reliability and validity testing (cronbach's alpha = 0.962, kmo = 0.969), descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and logistic regression modeling. table 1. descriptive statistics of survey participants variable category frequency percentage (%) grade freshman 178 23.99 sophomore 182 24.53 junior year 173 23.32 senior 89 11.99 graduate 121 16.31 viewing duration < 30 minutes 311 41.91 30 minutes to 1 hour 275 37.06 1–2 hours 123 16.58 > 2 hours 34 4.58 crawler technology data collection utilized search keywords strongly associated with female college students, such as "morning makeup routine," "no-makeup emergency fixes," and "facial flaw correction." it scraped 300 relevant notes published on xiaohongshu from january to june 2025. the scraped content encompassed note text, titles, images/video captions, and comment section messages. concurrently recorded metrics included likes, saves, and posting times. critical discourse analysis (cda) was employed to deconstruct the platform's anxiety-shaping strategies through linguistic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 122 symbols, emotional empathy, and interactive mechanisms. qualitative research primarily employed in-depth interviews. based on questionnaire results, 20 participants with moderate-to-high anxiety levels (anxiety scores ≥68) were selected for semi-structured interviews focusing on "content consumption habits," "anxiety-triggering scenarios," and "cognitive and behavioral adjustment processes" (see table 2 for respondent demographics). each 30-minute interview strictly adhered to academic ethics standards, with all data anonymized.using nvivo 12.0 software and a grounded theory-based "three-level coding" approach (open coding, associative coding, core coding), typical pathways for "anxiety generation," "anxiety reinforcement," and "anxiety relief" were extracted. table 2. basic information of interview participants abbreviation of name grade daily browsing time on xiaohongshu mainly focused beauty and skincare content zj sophomore 1 2 hours skincare knowledge, appearance defect correction (e.g., dark circle coverage, double eyelid application, big eye makeup, etc.), makeup tutorials, recommendations of good makeup products wyj senior 2 3 hours professional makeup tutorials, celebrity makeup imitation, skincare ingredient analysis, medical aesthetics popularization yzk freshman more than 3 hours beginner makeup tutorials, affordable product recommendations, student friendly outfits, campus life sharing xh sophomore 1.5 2 hours seasonal skincare, coping with dry climate in northern china, daily commuting makeup hak second year graduate student 0.5 1 hour quick commuting makeup, basic medical aesthetics knowledge, anti aging skincare for early signs gxy pre senior (will be a senior in about 1 hour (fragmented) quick no makeup look, skincare for postgraduate exam candidates, affordable products for students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 123 september) zlw junior 3 4 hours early morning 8 class fake no makeup look, oily and acne prone skin care, medical aesthetics popularization, outfit transformation cf sophomore 30 minutes 1 hour skincare knowledge, appearance defect correction (e.g., acne scar coverage, pore refinement) zh junior 1 2 hours makeup imitation (film/tv character makeup, celebrity makeup), figure management (e.g., waist slimming, leg slimming tutorials) wmm sophomore 0 30 minutes basic skincare (e.g., moisturizing, sun protection), affordable color cosmetics for students cy junior more than 2 hours medical aesthetics popularization (e.g., intense pulsed light, hydrating injections), high end color cosmetics reviews yx sophomore 30 minutes 1 hour appearance defect correction (e.g., single eyelid to double eyelid transformation, flat nose enhancement), traditional chinese style color cosmetics th sophomore 1 2 hours figure management (e.g., vest line training, arm slimming tutorials), mild medical aesthetics (e.g., hair removal, acne scar treatment) fsq senior 2 3 hours skincare and skin improvement related issues, european and american style makeup cjz sophomore 2 hours weight loss, recommendations of cosmetics (seeding grass) xiao y freshman 1 hour makeup tutorials, recommendations of cosmetics (seeding grass) wst senior 2 3 hours skin problems and skincare tutorials, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 124 european and american style makeup tutorials, recommendations of cosmetics yzy sophomore 3 hours makeup tips, recommendations of cosmetics, plain person transformation makeup tutorials wtt junior 1 hour makeup tutorials, makeup skills, product recommendations, outfit tutorials xx junior 1 2 hours makeup tutorials, skincare tutorials 4. research findings 4.1 media content producers: synergy between discourse strategies and algorithm-driven recommendations critical discourse analysis of 300 xiaohongshu beauty notes revealed that the platform employs a "symbolic production-emotional empathy-systematic interaction" discourse strategy. this strategy, combined with users' unconscious "upward social comparison" habits and the algorithm's precision-targeting capabilities, triggers appearance anxiety and induces users to alleviate anxiety through consumption. at the linguistic level, a binary structure of "negative pain points positive standards" emerges. negative vocabulary is tightly bound to female college student scenarios, framing appearance issues within specific contexts to provoke anxiety. positive vocabulary, meanwhile, is directly linked to consumption, emphasizing the notion that "consumption brings beauty."simultaneously, the overlay of scientific discourse and exaggerated rhetoric creates an "illusion of authority" for the product while compressing the solution timeline, fostering an anxiety for "immediate action." figure 2. correlation heatmap between positive and negative vocabulary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 125 on the emotional empathy level, the platform bridges psychological distance with female college student users through "kinship-based addresses-group resonance." terms like "sisters" and "besties" appear over 200 times per thousand texts, 72.5% of posts employ rhetorical questions like "don't you feel the same?" to evoke shared experiences, transforming individual anxiety into collective consensus. objectifying language is prevalent, reducing skin to a "decorative surface" and reinforcing the notion that "appearance is the core of social value." this directly explains the positive correlation between appearance anxiety and social rejection behaviors observed in the survey. figure 3. emotional address frequency chart at the interaction mechanism level, comment sections function as implicit arenas for "anxiety diffusion-consumption conversion." analysis of 372 valid samples reveals a "mildly dominant, gradiently differentiated" distribution of anxiety across three expression categories: 32.3% of comments are "help-seeking questions," while 37.6% contain "anxiety-related phrases" that validate anxiety through "upward comparison."in the top 60% of high-engagement posts, consumption-driven requests like "link needed" and "where to buy" accounted for over half of interactions. moreover, the "consumption conversion interaction rate" for moderately anxious texts reached 83.7%, significantly higher than that of mildly anxious texts (41.2%). algorithms further amplify this effect by capturing high-engagement content and delivering precise recommendations, creating a vicious cycle where "user likes confirm anxiety → algorithm pushes more similar content," intensifying anxiety among already anxious individuals. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 126 figure 4. comparison of likes vs. saves across different scenarios figure 5. ratio distribution of bookmarks to likes across different scenarios www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 127 figure 6. anxiety level distribution across different expression types in the "budget skincare ruins skin" scenario 4.2 audience feedback: current state of appearance anxiety among female college students based on 742 valid responses from the revised social appearance anxiety scale (saas) and a self-developed questionnaire, female college students exhibit overall "moderately high levels of appearance anxiety with significant group differences." score distribution shows an average anxiety score of 68 (out of 105), with 25% of respondents in the high anxiety range; moderate anxiety levels accounted for 62.3% of the total sample, while only 8.7% of respondents scored below 40 points (low anxiety level). regarding influencing factors, xiaohongshu usage behavior showed a significant positive correlation with anxiety levels. groups using the platform 1-2 hours daily scored 8.693 points higher on anxiety than those using it less than 30 minutes daily (p<0.001). additionally, significant grade-level differences emerged, with seniors and graduate students exhibiting notably lower anxiety scores than underclassmen, likely reflecting increased self-awareness. living expenses showed no significant impact on anxiety levels. behaviorally, appearance anxiety profoundly influenced social interactions and consumption decisions: each 1-point increase in anxiety score raised the probability of social avoidance by 4.3% (or=1.043, p<0.001). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 128 figure 7. distribution of appearance anxiety scores among female college students table 3. model 1 (xiaohongshu usage positively predicts appearance anxiety) validation data table (1) appearance anxiety score less than 30 minutes as reference category 30 minutes–1 hour 4.924* (2.57) 1–2 hours 8.693*** (3.39) >2 hours 7.716* (2.01) xiaohongshu anxiety score 9.840*** (11.34) xiaohongshu exaggeration value 0.741 (0.80) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 129 using living expenses under ¥1,500 as the reference category 1,500–3,000 yuan -1.226 (-0.67) >¥3,000 -1.718 (-0.55) freshman class as reference category freshman -2.300 (-1.02) junior -2.253 (-1.02) senior -7.654** (-2.63) graduate -8.630** (-3.15) constant 37.85*** (8.92) sample size 742 t-statistics in parentheses note: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 table 4. model 2 (appearance anxiety positively predicts social rejection behavior) regression results for rejection behavior (odds ratio) model 2 behavioral rejection ratio www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 130 anxiety score 1.043*** (4.26) less than 30 minutes as reference category 30 minutes–1 hour 2.147* (2.35) 1–2 hours 6.318** (3.12) >2 hours 0.799 (-0.33) xiaohongshu anxiety score 1.676** (2.73) xiaohongshu exaggeration score 0.712* (-2.13) using living expenses under ¥1,500 as the reference category 1,500–3,000 yuan 0.953 (-0.15) >¥3,000 2.450 (1.36) freshman class as reference category freshman 1.185 (0.43) junior 0.840 (-0.42) senior 1.168 (0.30) graduate 1.184 (0.37) sample size 742 pseudo r-squared 0.249 exponentiated coefficients; t-statistics in parentheses note: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001; reported odds ratio (or). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 131 4.3 bidirectional interaction: the pathways of anxiety shaping in xiaohongshu beauty content through discourse analysis, questionnaire surveys, and interview coding analysis, xiaohongshu beauty content shapes appearance anxiety among female college students across three dimensions—cognition, emotion, and behavior—forming a progressive process of "anxiety confirmation → anxiety generation → anxiety reinforcement."cognitively, the platform disrupts female students' self-perception through "defining appearance flaws—implanting ideal standards," establishing a "standard-deficiency" binary framework. survey results reveal 68.9% of respondents stated "xiaohongshu altered their view of their own appearance," with 52.7% expressing dissatisfaction due to frequent exposure to "perfect images."emotionally, dual pressures—"upward comparison" and "performance gap"—fuel anxiety. homogeneous algorithm-driven content prompts female students to compare themselves with influencers, while "failed imitation" intensifies distress, transforming simple appearance dissatisfaction into "self-capability denial."behaviorally, anxiety inversely intensifies content dependency and consumption. surveys reveal that 60% of high-anxiety groups seek solutions by "increasing xiaohongshu browsing time." coded interview data further indicates that impulse buying and altering skincare routines emerge as primary coping mechanisms, while only a minority alleviate anxiety through rational approaches like "cutting off stimuli" or "confiding in peers." 5. analysis of research findings 5.1 empirical validation of the emotional labor cycle: bidirectional interaction between producers and audiences this study confirms through empirical findings that the "emotional output-reception transformation-cycle reinforcement" logic within the "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" model aligns with the vicious cycle of "anxiety generation-practice gap-anxiety reinforcement" observed in the survey.from the media production perspective, xiaohongshu employs standardized strategies of symbolization, emotionalization, and interactivity, combined with algorithmic precision targeting, to establish a symbolic framework linking anxiety to consumption, thereby projecting emotional output toward female college students.from the audience feedback perspective, female college students undergo a process of "emotional expectation → practical gap → anxiety generation." the survey revealed that 52.7% of respondents felt dissatisfied due to xiaohongshu's "perfect image." interview participants also mentioned experiences like "following makeup tutorials but getting poor results, leading to increased anxiety and more content consumption." this further demonstrates how audiences passively engage in emotional labor, trapped in a negative "anxiety-content dependency" cycle. 5.2 theoretical responses to key questions: refining the "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" model 1. why are highly educated women also influenced by xiaohongshu's beauty discourse? — supplementing the "audience variation" dimension traditional assumptions suggest highly educated groups (e.g., graduate students, elite university www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 132 students) possess strong critical thinking skills and are less susceptible to media discourse. however, our data reveals that graduate students scored only 8.630 points lower on anxiety than first-year undergraduates (p<0.01), and 40% of highly educated respondents reported "adjusting skincare habits based on xiaohongshu content."this occurs because content producers prioritize emotional resonance over rational judgment through empathetic, relatable, and contextualized messaging that heightens emotional detection. xiaohongshu's beauty discourse further employs "professional camouflage," packaging emotional labor as "scientific advice" to diminish critical awareness. additionally, the platform's systematic interactions transform individual anxiety into collective pressure, compelling highly educated women to internalize anxiety.this further reveals the applicability boundaries of the "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" model—it is not solely effective for "low-cognition groups" but may also impact highly educated groups, thereby refining the theory's explanation regarding "audience differences." 2. new characteristics of anxiety induction in social media compared to traditional media — exploring technology's impact on emotional labor effects compared to traditional information dissemination methods (such as newspapers and magazines), xiaohongshu, as a modern emerging media platform, intensifies anxiety induction through contextual embedding, algorithmic acceleration, and interactive diffusion. this represents a core discovery at the intersection of mediatization theory and emotional labor theory. within the "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" model, xiaohongshu frequently associates the construction of appearance flaws with common college life scenarios like "graduate school entrance exams" and "early morning classes." this contextual embedding deeply binds anxiety to perceived needs, making anxiety more readily accepted by female college students. second, xiaohongshu's anxiety induction exhibits an "accelerated" characteristic driven by algorithmic technology. through real-time feedback loops of "user behavior-content push," it speeds up the emotional labor cycle. moreover, widespread and systematic interactions in comment sections accelerate anxiety diffusion. individual anxieties resonate collectively through sharing and venting, triggering "secondary transmission" of anxiety and forming an emotional labor process: "output at the production end → diffusion at the audience end → platform-wide anxiety atmosphere."these new characteristics indicate that emotional labor in the social media era has evolved from "unidirectional output" to a composite model characterized by "scenario-based, precision-targeted, and interactive" features. media technology has become a key amplifier of emotional labor effects, enhancing theoretical explanations regarding "differences in emotional labor across diverse media environments." 6. conclusions and discussion this study employs a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative research to demonstrate that xiaohongshu's beauty and skincare discourse, through manipulative rhetorical strategies and algorithmic precision targeting, constructs a vicious cycle of "anxiety www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 133 confirmation-anxiety generation-reinforcement" vicious cycle among female college students. grounded in emotional labor theory and incorporating perspectives such as the theory of the gaze, this study constructs a "bidirectional emotional labor cycle" theoretical model applicable to this research. it reveals the logic of anxiety generation and reinforcement within the "media production-audience feedback" bidirectional interaction, addressing shortcomings in previous studies regarding research perspectives and contextual applicability to the subject. this study has limitations: cross-sectional data precludes establishing temporal causality, high-frequency user samples are insufficient, and proposed countermeasures require practical validation. future research should include longitudinal tracking and cross-platform comparative studies. additionally, proactive efforts should be made to facilitate the practical application of academic findings by linking and coordinating resources to ensure research genuinely serves society and addresses real-world issues. furthermore, biological factors warrant attention. neuroscience methodologies could be employed through experimental design to explore and validate the physiological mechanisms of appearance anxiety, complementing and refining this study from additional dimensions while offering new perspectives for research advancement. based on survey findings and extended discussions, this study proposes the following countermeasures addressing appearance anxiety among female college students and irrational guidance on social media: for female college students themselves: cognitive restructuring: actively engage in "self-narrative" by sharing positive experiences—such as life anecdotes and growth insights—amidst non-ideal appearances through social media, gradually shifting focus from external adornment to inner cultivation. behavioral management: participate in campus media literacy lectures and online content analysis workshops to learn identifying anxiety-inducing elements like filter effects and exaggerated rhetoric, distinguishing genuine needs from anxiety-driven impulse consumption. higher education must transcend traditional "art appreciation"-based aesthetic frameworks by integrating "body image education" into general education curricula. this involves: on the other hand, create "diverse aesthetic scenarios" by hosting "unretouched portrait exhibitions" showcasing the beauty of authentic faces and organizing "bare-faced confidence sharing sessions" where students recount stories of accepting their own appearance. simultaneously, address scenarios like "early-morning bare-faced anxiety" andexam-prep appearance neglect," counselors conduct one-on-one conversations and themed class meetings to reinforce the message that "academic performance is unrelated to appearance," emphasizing the value of intrinsic qualities like competence, character, and collaboration skills. xiaohongshu must optimize its ecosystem across three dimensions: algorithms, content, and community interaction. algorithmically, it should adjust recommendation mechanisms to reduce frequent pushes of "homogeneous perfect images" while increasing exposure weight for "everyday unedited makeup looks" and "authentic skincare routines." simultaneously, implement an "anxiety-content alert feature" to break information silos. content standards must establish authenticity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 134 benchmarks for beauty and skincare content, requiring creators to clearly label filter usage, product trial periods, and effectiveness variations in images or text. a dedicated reporting channel for anxiety-inducing marketing should be established with strict enforcement of penalties. community interactions should feature dedicated spaces for genuine product experience sharing, encouraging users to discuss reasons for product discontinuation or makeup mishaps to counter misleading "miracle effect" narratives. society must actively promote diverse aesthetic values and optimize cultural dissemination mechanisms and institutional arrangements. in cultural outreach, advance aesthetic education into communities through parent-child craft workshops and health-beauty lectures to instill the concept that "health and confidence are beauty" among youth. social organizations can launch initiatives like the "real skin image project" and "body acceptance campaign" to rebuild societal tolerance for "imperfections."institutional safeguards require industry associations to establish "cosmetic content dissemination standards" to provide benchmarks for reducing anxiety-inducing content. market regulators should strengthen routine oversight of cosmetic product promotions, targeting anxiety-inducing marketing tactics like "enlarged pores make you look older" or "uneven skin tone causes foundation to cake." businesses and merchants engaging in false advertising or exaggerated claims must face legal penalties. alleviating and resolving appearance anxiety among female college students, while promoting diverse and healthy aesthetic values and beauty education, is an urgent priority requiring collective guidance and efforts from multiple stakeholders! references "2023 beauty and skincare industry report," xiaohongshu business insights center, december 2023. (2023). retreived from https://business.xiaohongshu.com/research/report/detail?id=10000 00000000002023 monika, a. (2020). the platform society. public values in a connective world. kome-an in ternational journal of pure communication inquiry, 8(1), 97-105. chamberlain, d. (2009). book review: mark andrejevic, ispy: surveillance and power in the i nteractive era. lawrence: university press of kansas, 2007. media, culture & society, 31 (2), 333-334. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437090310021002 gerrard. (2016). status update: celebrity, publicity, and branding in the social media age, by alice e. marwick, new haven, yale university press, 2013, 360 pp., £9.99 (paperback), i sbn 978-0-30-020938-9. celebrity studies, 7(3), 437-439. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2 016.1187866 shen, s., & tan, h. w. (2023). content production and body concept reshaping in online w omen's health science communication: a discourse analysis based on social media platf orms.science communication research, 18(04), 47-55+105+108. doi: 10.19293/j.cnki.1673www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 135 8357.2023.04.006. jia, s. w., & yan, h. (2023). critical discourse analysis of social media users' perception of algorithm bias. modern intelligence, 43(06), 14-23. li, s. m. (2022). women's health in social media: content characteristics and discourse strat egies. central china normal university. doi: 10.27159/d.cnki.ghzsu.2022.003641. zhang, h., li, h., jiang, c. et al. (2025). the relationship between self-objectification and ad olescent appearance anxiety: a mediated model with moderation. actas de la sociedad e spañola de psiquiatría, 53(2), 359-365. https://doi.org/10.62641/aep.v53i2.1742 liu, l., liu, g., & wang, h. (2024). self-objectification and appearance anxiety in university students: physical activity as a moderator. social behavior and personality, 52(8), 1-9. htt ps://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.13340 xia, t., liao, j., deng, y. et al. (2023). cyberbullying victimization and social anxiety: medi ating effects with moderation. sustainability, 15(13). https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139978 nezir, e, & muhammed, a. (2023). the relationship between anxious-ambivalent attachment an d social appearance anxiety in adolescents: the serial mediation of positive youth develop mentand instagram addiction. psychological reports, 126(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294 1231159600 zhang, y. h. (2024). the impact of ideal female appearance on female college students' bo dy image in xiaohongshu. hebei university. chen, x. t. (2024). the impact of social media use on appearance anxiety among college s tudents. guangzhou sport university. wei, y. q. (2022). research on the internet female economy based on the xiaohongshu platf orm. shanghai university of finance and economics. doi: 10.27296/d.cnki.gshcu.2022.002 027. jiao, q. (2015). research on female college students' body image and physical education co untermeasures from a gender perspective. northeast normal university. zhang, m. n. (2024). a study on the body narratives and subjectivity awareness of young w omen in cyberspace. wuhan sport university. laura, v., jasmine, f., & marika t. (2021). social media and body image: recent trends and future directions. current opinion in psychology, 45(prepublish), 101289-101289. https://d oi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.12.002 fardouly, j., diedrichs, c. p., vartanian, r. l. et al. (2015). social comparisons on social medi a: the impact of facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. body ima ge, 13, 38-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.12.002 taylor, j., & armes, g. (2024). social comparison on instagram and its relationship with self-e steem and body esteem. discover psychology, 4(1), 126-126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 136 024-00241-3 wen, y. (2023). the impact of xiaohongshu use on female users' anxiety from the perspective of media affordance (doctoral dissertation, southwest jiaotong university). doi: 10.27414/ d.cnki.gxnju.2023.001927. kang, s. n. (2023). dissemination characteristics and effects of medical aesthetics information on xiaohongshu. dalian university of technology. abstract amid the deep integration of the "she-conomy" and advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 23 original paper reconciling: how chinese village cadre solves land disputes in southeast china wang junzhe1 1 fudan university, shanghai, china received: june 29, 2023 accepted: september 13, 2023 online published: september 28, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p23 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p23 land disputes are a common phenomenon in rural china. this study focuses on how rural cadres resolve land disputes. it is found that the uniqueness of ownership and cultural and historical factors are the main reasons for land disputes. village cadres often use the power of their positions in the village, their relationship with villagers, and private financial compensation to resolve disputes. this solution is related to the type of village cadres and the attitudes of higher-level departments (township cadres). 1. introduction and literature review china’s land ownership system is very different from that of the west. in order to maintain the characteristics of public ownership, although urban land transactions are very frequent, rural land is still publicly owned. there are many restrictions on rural land transactions. at the same time, the definition of rural land property rights is not clear (chen, 2016). many land disputes occur in rural china. the countryside is still in a relatively backward state. there are special groups of village cadres in rural china. chinese rural areas have the basic characteristics of the concept of “community”, and at the same time they are different from western rural communities due to differences in culture and values. in rural china, there are both political elites, as well as economic and social elites (chen, 2020). in fact, the current rural village cadres are such a group of people. in addition to being formal village cadres, they are also economic and political leaders in the village (lu, 2007). a few people may also be religious leaders, and they are a mixture of multiple types of elites. in addition to their role as the nominal agent of the state, they may also be the protector of the village, or even the violent authority in the village. at the same time, there are a large number of informal relationships among rural residents. these social relations affect the way villagers deal with disputes, sometimes more harmonious, sometimes more intense. village cadres are also embedded in these social relationships. in handling an incident, village www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. cadres must take into account the closeness and closeness of the relationship between the parties and themselves, in addition to being objective and fair. therefore, the behavior pattern of village cadres is very complex in specific situations. in recent years, s town has taken action to demolish shanties to improve the appearance of the village and protect farmland. in this process, many land disputes arose. this paper attempts to study the attitude and specific behavior of village cadres in resolving village disputes. 2. ethnographic method and date collection this article uses the method of fieldwork. the author came to some villages under the jurisdiction of s town in southern zhejiang province. in the field survey, 10 village cadres and a small number of villagers were interviewed. the author entered the department in charge of rural land in the government of s town, and participated in the coordination of farmers’ land disputes with the department head as participant observations. 3. the emergence of land disposes the land disputes in the rural areas are largely due to the views of the villagers. traditionally, farmers rely on land to live, and their income is the output of land. at the same time, land comes from the gift of parents, and it is necessary to pass it on to the next generation. it is inherited wealth. so farmers attach great importance to land. therefore, villagers have reasons to fight for the ownership of every inch of land. in addition, the chinese government has not done a good job of dividing rural land, and there is a deviation between the registered land and the actual land. in this case, land disputes are common. land disputes are dominated by homestead disputes, because homestead disputes have stronger economic factors. in addition, the quality of the villagers is not too high, their ideological concepts are backward, and there is another group that can live up to the discipline, that is, the villagers. diao min gets financial rewards by initiating disputes, or just for revenge. 4. the attitude of township government the attitude of the township government is also very unclear. the township government has an obvious superior-subordinate relationship with the village cadres. at the same time, the number of residents’ letters and visits and even lawsuits have obviously increased over the years. however, most of the petitions did not have reasonable appeals, and the residents did not fully understand the litigation. rather, it is based on the bad habit of benefiting people who “make trouble” in the countryside, thinking that as long as they make a fuss and make the other party embarrassed, they will agree to their demands (rao et al., 2011). the township government usually takes a conciliatory attitude. this attitude of the township government comes from the court on the one hand. the courts usually do not hold hearings directly on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. homestead disputes, but send them back to the township government for mediation. on the other hand, it comes from the higher-level (usually the county-level) government. in the case of village x, the town government urgently needs to make a ruling and convene a meeting because of the instructions of the county government. in the case of village q, because the plaintiff dian’s family sued zheng and xin’s family, they had to sue the county governor instead, saying that it was the homestead approved by the county governor and now the county governor is responsible. this is of course unreasonable. but the township government may also have concerns in this regard when dealing with this matter. 5. the weapon of village cadres it is worth pointing out that in our research, we found that the reconciling is the most common measure taken by village cadres. reconciling is not based on the principle of fairness, but hopes that both parties can make concessions as much as possible. there is no doubt that this method will inevitably harm the interests of some villagers. for such villagers, usually the village cadres will compensate privately. this compensation may be material, or it may be a policy preference or political asylum. this part of the content is not the focus of this article. an important concept used to explain our subject is power. village cadres belong to the elites in the countryside and have the power conferred by the electors. they not only have a high status in the village, but also occupy important positions. compared with ordinary villagers, they undoubtedly have power. however, we found that the village cadres do not use the power conferred by the administrative position in the actual process, but instead use their advantages in material and social capital to take pressure to the villagers. for informal relations in china, a common topic is “guanxi”. a large number of scholars who have studied china in the past 30 years have done a lot of work. in the case of village n, what is interesting is that every household in the village will give out high-end cigarettes to everyone present before starting the topic. this method is called “giving face” in china, first handing cigarettes to create a harmonious atmosphere, and then conducting friendly talks. but this approach is not accepted by the stubborn villagers. the village cadre continued to “give face”. although there are various methods mentioned above, it is worth pointing out that the most common method is that the village cadres suffer. in the case of village t, the village cadres settled part of the dispute at their own expense. for example, for relatively small land disputes, some village cadres even paid for the repair of villagers’ huts for the “beautiful countryside” project. 6. conclusion this paper studies the behavior of village cadres in rural areas in southern zhejiang province to settle disputes. we find that the occurrence of land disputes has the influence of traditional cultural concepts in rural areas. the village cadres chose to settle the dispute because of the attitude of the superior departments. in the actual process of handling disputes, village cadres choose to use “guanxi” rather www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. than political power. but more often, village cadres use their own money to compensate victims. finally, village cadres become the bearers of losses caused by disputes. village is a complex field. although we analyzed the village cadres and villagers, in similar incidents, the villagers and village cadres who came out actually had a third-party participant, that is, the township government. government officials may also be involved in the settlement of disputes, which makes our analysis more complicated. it is hoped that the superior government can be taken into consideration in future research. references ——. 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(2014). quanli yu zhiheng:zhejiangsheng jiaxing diqu xiangzhen zizhi yanjiu (1945-1949) (power and balance: research on township autonomy in jiaxing, zhejiang province (1945-1949). beijing: commercial. gao, x. (2006). “mianzheng nongyeshuihou nongcun fazhan mianlin de xinwenti ji duice(new problems and countermeasures for rural development after agricultural tax exemption).” liaoning economy, 9, 12-13. he, x. f. (2011). “lun furen zhicun—yi zhejiang fenghua diaocha wei taolun jichu(on the rich governing villages—based on the survey in fenghua, zhejiang province).” social science research, 2, 111-119. he, x. f., & yue, l. (2010). “jiceng zhili zhong de ‘buchushi luoj’ (‘no accident logic’ in grass-roots governance).” academic research, 6, 32-37. liu, q. (2005). “zhongguo nongye de ‘wushui shidai’ (the ‘tax free era’ of china’s agriculture).” jiangsu rural economy, 2, 12-13. lu, f. y. 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(2015). “nongmin shanglou yu ziben xiaxiang :chengzhenhua de shehuixue yanjiu (peasants going upstairs and capital going to the countryside: sociological research on urbanization).” social sciences of china, 1, 66-83+203. zhou, j. j. (2017). xinshiqi nongcun quanli jiegou yanbian (evolution of rural power structure in the new era). beijing: social science literature press zhou, x. g. (2008). “jiceng zhengfu jian de “gongmou xianxiang”—yige zhengfu xingwei de zhidu luoji (the ‘collusion phenomenon’ among grassroots governments—the institutional logic of a government’s behavior).” sociological research, 6, 1-21+243. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 29 original paper research on the construction of social support system framework of sports service for the aged in the new era faze liang1* 1 emilio aguinaldo college, 1113-1117 san marcelino st., paco, manila 1007, philippines * faze liang, emilio aguinaldo college, 1113-1117 san marcelino st., paco, manila 1007, philippines fund projects fujian provincial young and middle-aged project (social sciences) project number: jas21430; funded by the fujian provincial social science planning office: research on coordination mechanisms and driving principles to promote the comprehensive development of mass sports and competitive sports, approval number: fj2023b017 received: april 16, 2023 accepted: may 15, 2023 online published: february 04, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p29 abstract through the documents, logic analysis and other methods of the study of the sports service social support system for the elderly in our country, the paper thinks that the sports service social support system for the elderly refers to by the government, social organizations or individuals through the formal and informal way, for the elderly sports services to provide social support, according to a certain order and contact formed the whole. relevant responsibility subjects cover the government, communities, sports non-profit organizations, social workers, volunteer service teams. they mainly include formal social support system, informal social support system, professional social support system and community support system. in the future, philosophy reform should be adopted as soon as possible to guide the formulation of relevant policies, and on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government, a social support system for sports services for the elderly with chinese characteristics should be constructed. through multiple cooperation, an effective supply of sports services for the elderly in china should be realized. keywords the elderly, sports service, social support www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 30 as the world’s largest population country, china began to age from the turn of the century on january 1, 2001, and the speed of aging gradually accelerated, and the number of elderly population is becoming larger and larger, rising year by year. according to the data of the national bureau of statistics of china, statistics show that the number of people over 60 years old in china is growing at an average rate of about 6 million per year. in december 2010, the total number of elderly population in china was 178 million, and in december 2014, the number of elderly population increased by 34 million, a total of 212 million. has reached 15.8% of the total population, the number of elderly people aged 65 and above in december 2010 was 119 million, to december 2014 increased to 138 million people, accounting for 10.1% of the total population. by december 2017, there were 240.9 million people over the age of 60, accounting for 17.3% of the national population, and about 158.3 million people over the age of 65, accounting for 11.4% of the total population. the united nations predicted the growth trend of the elderly population in china and pointed out that the elderly population over the age of 60 would maintain a gradual rise. in the middle of this century, it is expected to peak at 440 million people, about one third of the total population of the country. sports services play an important role in promoting the physical and mental development of the aged groups. however, since social support is still in the primary development stage in china, it has not yet played an important role in the supply of sports services for the aged. at present, through the ideological reform, the formulation of relevant policies is guided and on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government. to build a formal social support system, informal social support system, community support system and professional social support system of sports service for the elderly with chinese characteristics. through multiple cooperation, to realize the effective supply of sports service for the elderly in the new era, has important theoretical and practical significance. 1. connotation of social support system of sports service for the elderly to understand what is the social support system of sports service for the elderly, we must first understand what is social support. social support is a foreign term, first used in the field of medicine. in the works of psychiatry, social support is generally associated with social factors that can promote physical health. in western developed countries, the research on the problem of social support was earlier, and the concept of social support began to appear in the 1970s. however, due to the different fields that researchers focus on, there are some debates about what social support is. from abroad, smith. adams believed that social support is an individual or group in need of help, and can get support from other social forces; according to cullen, social support refers to a social group that provides both moral and material help to an individual, titan. according to li, social support is an individual’s external perception of wanting help. china began to discuss the issue of social support in the 1990s, and there are mainly the following definitions of social support: li qiang et al., believe that social support is a broad concept. all the help provided by social organizations and individuals to groups in need of help can be called social support. such support can be non-profit organizations, units and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 31 individuals, and family members. chen chengwen et al., believe that social support can be classified as a selective social behavior, which mainly refers to the material and spiritual support and help provided to socially vulnerable groups through certain ways and channels. according to chinese and foreign research results, although there are different understandings of social support, they all include four elements: support network, support method, service object and service target. therefore, this study believes that social support for the elderly is to provide necessary support and help for the elderly at different ages who are lacking in material and spiritual aspects through social organizations, units, individuals and other forces. the social support system of sports service for the elderly is to provide necessary support for the elderly who have sports service needs through sports non-profit organizations, units, families or individuals and other social forces to enjoy the right to sports service. according to the research results of sociology, the social support of sports service for the elderly includes formal social support and informal social support. formal social support refers to the material support and spiritual support provided by the government and social organizations according to the current laws and regulations; informal support refers to the support provided by acquaintances and relatives who are often contacted by the elderly. the main difference between formal support and informal support is that formal support must be protected by law and policy, while informal support does not need legal and policy support and can be done anytime and anywhere. based on the above analysis, the social support system for sports services for the elderly refers to the whole system formed by the government, social organizations or individuals to provide social support for sports services for the elderly through formal and informal means, in accordance with a certain order and connection. 2. analysis of the main responsibility of the social support system for the elderly sports service supply the supply of sports services for the elderly involves many subjects, including the government, sports administration departments, civil affairs departments, sports non-profit organizations, families, volunteers, etc. different subjects have different responsibilities. clarifying the main responsibilities is the premise of constructing the classification framework of the social support system of sports services for the elderly. 2.1 the government the government is the basic body to provide social support for sports services for the elderly. in sports services for the elderly, the government should have the following functions: first, it should provide necessary sports facilities, equipment and venues for the elderly, which lays a solid foundation for the supply of sports services for the elderly. according to the research group’s field survey, the elderly are very dissatisfied with the current supply of sports facilities, equipment and venues in both developed and underdeveloped areas. this is on the one hand restricted by the level of social and economic development in china; on the other hand, governments at all levels have been paying more attention to the utilization efficiency in the supply of sports facilities for a long time. attaching importance to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 32 universal sports service facilities while ignoring the special needs of the elderly and other groups, which requires the government to focus on the supply of sports facilities, equipment and venues for the elderly in the future sports work and work for the elderly. the second is to formulate sports service policy for the elderly, which makes clear the direction of the development of sports service for the elderly. the government should formulate and revise the policy according to the development of chinese sports and the actual needs of the elderly. in the formulation of the policy, it should not only pay attention to the text content, but also pay attention to the implementability of the policy, so as to ensure that the elderly sports policy can take root and point out the direction for the elderly sports supply. thirdly, a series of rules and regulations should be formulated to ensure the orderly supply of sports services for the elderly. as the government, it is necessary to comprehensively examine and consider the complexity of the supply of sports services for the elderly, and ensure the steady progress of the supply of sports services for the elderly through the formulation and implementation of a series of systems such as input system, supervision system and evaluation system. 2.2 sports non-profit organizations a sports non-profit organization refers to a non-profit social organization whose main goal is to promote the development of sports in social sports activities. sports non-profit organizations play a very important role in sports services for the aged, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, to alleviate the shortage of government professionals. the biggest difference between sports services for the elderly and ordinary sports services is that the service objects have certain particularity, their physical and mental states are different from those of the general population when they participate in sports activities. as the government, there is rarely a reserve of professional talents in this field, which requires sports non-profit organizations to develop their strengths comprehensively and make up for the shortage of the government. the second is to supervise the sports services for the elderly. although china’s current supervision in the supply of sports services proposed to build a multi-regulatory system, it still relies on government supervision in the actual work. due to the complex process of sports services for the elderly, relying on the government alone can not carry out the whole process supervision and management, especially in recent years, the government purchase of sports services for the elderly and other innovative forms have been increased. the government has no energy to comprehensively supervise the supply of sports services for the elderly, which requires sports non-profit organizations to play a regulatory role in the supply of sports services for the elderly, timely investigation and understanding of the elderly’s satisfaction with sports services, in order to provide help for the elderly sports service supply and demand. third, provide diversified sports services for the elderly. as the government provides more general sports services for the elderly, for some personalized services, the government is unable to afford either in terms of funds or human resources, which requires sports non-profit organizations to give full play to their flexible advantages, make use of existing social resources or develop new sports services for the elderly. try their best to provide diversified and personalized services to the elderly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 33 2.3 community from the experience of developed countries, communities are playing an increasingly important role in social and economic development and in the supply of services for the aged. the biggest characteristic of community is that it has a bond function. on the one hand, it connects the residents in the area as a whole, and on the other hand, it connects the residents and the government as a whole. therefore, the importance of community in the supply of sports services for the elderly is obvious. at present, the role of community in sports services for the elderly is mainly to organize sports activities and competitions for the elderly. as a community, we should actively carry out sports activities for the elderly through associations and other organizations, make full use of traditional festivals, combine our traditional culture with the supply of sports for the elderly, and provide the enthusiasm of the elderly to participate. the community should regularly hold sports competitions suitable for the elderly, in the arrangement of competition items, to highlight the fun and safety, through sports competitions to improve the enthusiasm of the elderly to participate in sports activities. third, it should be combined with pension institutions to provide help for some special elderly groups. the community should pay attention to the elderly and the elderly with mobility difficulties in the supply of sports services, and actively promote and improve their quality of life through sports, so as to provide certain help for the equal development of sports services for the elderly. 2.4 family family has a special status in our social structure, influenced by traditional culture, almost all the elderly people have a deep attachment to the family, compared with pension institutions and other ways of supporting the elderly, more elderly people like to spend their old age in the family, so the family plays a very important role in the supply of elderly services. however, due to the implementation of the family planning policy in recent years, there are some problems in the family structure of our country, and there is great pressure for children to provide family pension services for the elderly. in the elderly sports clothes. in the provision of services, the family mainly has the following responsibilities: first, to help the elderly develop a correct way of life. the elderly due to muscle strength degradation, to a certain age stage will appear restless, restless behavior, which is a normal physiological phenomenon, as a family member, must encourage the elderly to continue to carry out physical exercise, as far as possible to delay muscle aging and visceral function degradation. two is to popularize the old age health knowledge for the elderly. as a family member, do not take the popularization of health knowledge as the responsibility of the community and the government, the family is also responsible. the popularization of health knowledge of the elderly is mainly divided into two parts, one is nutrition and health, the other is sports and health, to make the elderly understand what kind of physical exercise they need to do, why to do, how to do it. the third is to improve the convenience of physical exercise for the elderly. from the economic level, as a family to give the elderly necessary sports consumption funds, promote the formation of their healthy sports consumption habits; in the specific exercise www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 34 process, family members should give appropriate accompany and help, all-round promote the development of physical and mental health of the elderly. 2.5 social workers social workers, referred to as social workers, take social work as a specialized profession and play a key role in services for the elderly in many western countries. in recent years, due to the surge of the elderly population in china, social workers also begin to play an important role in services for the elderly. from the theoretical level, social workers can use professional knowledge, through individual cases, administrative and community, adopt professional methods suitable for the elderly population, improve the elderly people’s ability to join society and adapt to society. for the supply of sports services for the aged, social workers can also make use of their professional advantages to improve the supply effect of sports services for the aged. first of all, chinese governments and communities at all levels will give certain subsidies to some poor elderly people or elderly people with diseases. with the promotion of poverty alleviation through sports, the scope of poverty alleviation has also been expanded to the field of sports services for the elderly. in this case, accurate identification of sports poverty for the elderly is very important. in the process of sports poverty alleviation, the elderly should not only be guaranteed the sports rights they should enjoy, but also avoid blind poverty alleviation. this requires social workers to collect and sort out the information of the elderly and determine the scope of sports poverty alleviation for the elderly. secondly, for some elderly people with special needs, social workers can also give play to their own advantages, especially for some elderly people who need to promote their health through sports. since most social workers have certain medical knowledge and fitness knowledge, they can play an important role in the integration of fitness and health for the elderly. however, the current main problem is that the number of social workers in china is small, some professional social workers charge high fees, ordinary elderly people can not afford the relevant costs, as the government and the community should actively intervene, through targeted poverty alleviation, government purchase and other forms to solve this problem, to promote the healthy development of social workers. 2.6 volunteers there are two types of volunteers: permanent volunteers and temporary volunteers. generally speaking, long-term volunteers have a clear service direction, and some volunteers have fixed service objects. while short-term volunteers generally do not have clear service direction and fixed service objects, but according to the needs of schools, units, associations and other organizations to participate in volunteer activities temporarily. for long-term volunteers, in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the emphasis should be placed on the cultivation of the elderly’s sports awareness and specific physical exercise assistance. for temporary volunteers, the emphasis is generally placed on the organization of sports activities for the elderly and the development of sports competitions. because the organization of sports activities and sports competitions for the elderly is different from ordinary sports activities and competitions, it not only needs a referee team and organization personnel, but also needs logistics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 35 services and medical security for the elderly. in the case that the long-term volunteer team cannot meet the needs, communities, schools and units and other organizations can enrich the volunteer service team through temporary recruitment. to ensure the smooth progress of related activities and competitions. 3. construction of social support system framework for the elderly sports service in the new era from the actual situation of the supply of sports services for the elderly in china, in order to achieve a diversified support system of sports services for the elderly, the government should play the leading role, the government should actively absorb other subjects to participate in the supply of sports services for the elderly, and play the role of other subjects to “enhance the ability” to form a “small government, big society” work pattern in the supply of sports services for the elderly. as the government should take the initiative to carry out the function transfer, the elderly sports services can be borne by the social forces to the society, to minimize the financial pressure, improve administrative efficiency. for other subjects in the social support system of sports services for the aged, they should actively undertake government empowerment according to their own advantages, and improve their service capacity through various means. generally speaking, the diverse subjects of sports services for the elderly in our country under the current system can form a formal social support system, informal social support system, professional social support system and community support system, which together play a role in the supply of sports services for the elderly. 3.1 formal social support system the official social support system of sports service for the aged in our country should be dominated by the government, through the formulation and implementation of the system and policies to ensure that the supply of sports service for the aged is scientific and rational, and the distribution and reorganization of sports service resources for the aged. firstly, the formal social support behavior of sports service for the aged should focus on the construction of the security mechanism of sports service supply for the aged, and provide a solid foundation for the supply of sports services for the aged through funds investment, site construction and facility purchase. in terms of fund investment, under the circumstance that the reform of the financial system will not undergo a fundamental change in the short term, we can try to establish a special transfer payment system for sports services for the elderly, so as to meet the fund demand of sports services for the elderly to the greatest extent through transfer payment. in terms of site construction and facility allocation, on the one hand, we should build sites and purchase special facilities for the elderly within the permitted conditions. on the other hand, we should play the coordinating role of the government to promote the integration of social resources, and use the resources of schools, medical institutions, administrative institutions and enterprises to serve the elderly and resolve the contradiction of the shortage of sports service resources for the elderly. secondly, the government should actively manage and guide other social support subjects. on the one www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 36 hand, it should regulate their supporting behaviors, and on the other hand, it should mobilize their enthusiasm to participate in the social support of sports services for the elderly. in addition, in order to promote the cooperation between different subjects, it is necessary to actively construct the cooperation platform of social support for the elderly service, carry out reciprocal cooperation through “internet +” and other forms, and actively promote the market-oriented reform of social support for the elderly sports service, so as to provide continuous power for the development of the formal social support system of sports service for the elderly. 3.2 community support system in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the community becomes the hub between the government and the elderly. in the supply of sports services for the elderly, the community support system mainly uses community resources to provide help for the supply of sports services for the elderly, including skills training support, sports rehabilitation support, sports facilities support, sports consumption support, etc. different communities have different ways and contents of sports service support for the elderly, which should be based on the situation of the community and the needs of the elderly. generally speaking, the community support for the elderly sports service is closely related to the community culture. for example, in baiyiqiao community in fuyang, anhui province, the elderly have always been fond of dancing for the elderly. the community has put the content of support in the aspect of skill training. since 2016, it has hired professional coaches for guidance for the elderly for three consecutive years. in the adjacent qinghe community, the elderly are deeply influenced by the traditional martial arts culture, most of the elderly like tai chi and other traditional health projects, the community will put the content of support on the martial arts, the way of support is mainly to organize activities and related competitions. at present, according to the actual situation in china, due to the rural community in the economy, organizational ability and other aspects of some problems, the current stage of the elderly sports service community support system can focus on the urban community, gradually infiltrate into the countryside. in the concrete construction process, we should not only clarify the functional division of different subjects, but also define the direction of community support, and strive for different communities, different subjects of the community can complement and cooperate with each other, at the same time, we should pay attention to play the role of community neighborhood committees, sports associations and other aspects, promote the all-round development of the elderly sports service community support system. 3.3 informal social support system the informal social support system for sports services for the elderly refers to the action unity formed by informal organizations (mainly including sports non-profit organizations, some for-profit organizations, foundations, volunteer associations, etc.) providing social support for sports services for the elderly in the supply of sports services for the elderly. compared with the formal social support system, the informal social support system has two obvious characteristics: one is that the organization is more closely connected with the elderly, which can effectively solve the problem of government www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 37 failure in the supply of sports services for the elderly. in the specific sports service supply, it is more in line with the needs of the elderly. secondly, in the specific sports service supply, it is more professional and can provide personalized sports services for the special elderly groups. in view of this situation, the current work should be done in three aspects: first, for the senior sports non-profit organizations, appropriately relax access restrictions, and strive to improve the number of senior sports non-profit organizations in the shortest possible time, after all, the current number of sports non-profit organizations is insufficient, and the number of senior sports non-profit organizations is even less, unable to meet the practical needs. the second is to improve the professional level of sports service teams such as members and volunteers of sports non-profit organizations through policy support or financial support, so that they can better provide professional sports services for the elderly; third, we should strengthen publicity to attract more organizations and volunteers to participate in the supply of sports services for the elderly. in particular, we should strengthen the cooperation between communities and local colleges and universities, make full use of high quality human resources of colleges and universities, and solve the problem of insufficient capacity of the current government. in addition, in order to realize the diversification and multidimensional social support of sports services for the elderly, it is necessary to establish a cooperation platform between the formal support system and the informal support system as soon as possible, so as to provide a smooth communication channel between the government, social organizations and volunteers, realize information sharing, and help the elderly to enjoy the best sports service support. 3.4 professional social support system sports services for the elderly can be divided into two types: universal and professional. generally speaking, universal sports services for the elderly refer to fitness sports services that the elderly can participate in independently, while professional sports services are mainly physical rehabilitation and sports promotion services arranged according to the physical status of the elderly. for universal sports services for the elderly, basically all volunteers and sports non-profit organizations can be responsible for providing them, but for professional sports services for the elderly, they need personnel with professional knowledge. in germany, this task is usually completed by the elderly sports instructors and community doctors. at present, the number of community doctors in our country is small, and few have sports background, so they cannot truly realize the professional support for sports services for the elderly. however, there are no sports instructors for the elderly in our country, and the general social sports instructors have been analyzed in the above article. they have little medical knowledge background, and cannot realize professional sports service support for the elderly alone. at present, the integration mechanism of sports medicine combination has not been completely established in china, which causes great obstacles for social sports instructors and community doctors to jointly provide professional sports service support for the elderly. therefore, at present, social workers can provide professional sports services for the elderly. although the main duty of social workers at present is to take care of the elderly’s diet and daily living, as there are no institutional barriers, they are fully www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 38 capable of doing this job as long as they receive proper training. therefore, civil affairs departments should speed up systematic training of social workers and carry out professional reform of social workers in areas where conditions are ripe, so as to facilitate the social needs of providing sports services for the elderly. 4. conclusion in recent years, with the accelerating process of aging society in china, the elderly sports service supply has been paid more attention by governments at all levels and sports management departments, hoping to improve the physical and mental health level of the elderly through sports fitness. but what we can’t deny is that compared with the elderly’s increasing demand for sports services, there are still many deficiencies in the current supply of sports services, both in quality and quantity. the main reasons include economic factors and insufficient social support. therefore, it is particularly important to build a relatively perfect social support system for sports services for the elderly as soon as possible. in the new historical period, we should fully realize that the elderly sports service social support system, is an important guarantee for the elderly sports service supply, the relevant subject covers the government, communities, sports non-profit organizations, social workers, volunteer service team, etc., should guide the formulation of relevant policies through the ideological reform, on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government, to construct formal social support system, informal social support system, community support system and professional social support system for the elderly sports service with chinese characteristics. at present, through system construction and policy support as soon as possible, and constantly promote the diverse cooperation of different social support systems in the supply of sports service for the elderly in china, to realize the effective supply of sports service for the elderly in the new era. references chen, j. 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(2021). study on social support system and optimization strategy of sports service for the elderly. journal of anyang normal university, 130(02), 119-123. fan, c. w., & fan, c. w. (2019). research on social support system of sports service for the elderly in china (pp. 3-7). changsha: hunan normal university. wu, z. x. (2019). a study on sports needs and social support of the elderly in changchun city (pp. 11-15). changchun: jilin university. duan, m. s. (2019). the effect of social support and public sports service on exercise persistence behavior of elderly people (pp. 33-37). shijiazhuang: hebei university. fan, c. w., jin, y. q., zhong, l. p. et al. (2019). social support system of sports service for the elderly in developed countries and its enlightenment to china. sports science, 39(04), 39-50. sui, x. h. 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(2011). investigation and analysis of the status quo of “empty nesters” physical fitness in six cities of guangdong province. journal of physical education, 18(02), 65-68. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 194 original paper the philosophical inspiration of arendt’s view of labor on digital labor yu zhonghe 1* 1 shanghai university of political science and law, school of government administration, shanghai, china * yu zhonghe, master of school of government administration, shanghai university of political science and law, school of government administration, shanghai, china received: april 2, 2023 accepted: may 16, 2023 online published: may 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p194 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p194 abstract while introducing hannah arendt’s attitude towards labor in her works, christian fuchs’ concept of digital labor is introduced, and arendt’s view of labor is summarized for contemporary labor the critique of the state, the hidden words behind arendt’s labor thesis, tell people to reflect on the current materialistic and consumer-oriented policy guidance, and to be alert to the hidden danger of laborers who are hidden behind the digital labor under high-tech. at the same time, it expresses as a political philosopher, i have the relentless pursuit of the sublime human nature and the insufficient thoroughness of marx’s thought of overcoming alienated labor. on the basis of acknowledging marx’s labor ontology and labor alienation, drawing on arendt’s labor research results can guide people to pursue a more liberal and ideal world order. keywords arendt, view of labor, digital labor, marx, political philosophy 1. introduction and literature review as the global economy has made significant progress and people’s living standards have improved significantly, the focus of economic development has shifted from quantitative growth to quality. domestic conflicts are frequent all over the world, and social instability has intensified. the task of governments has changed to solve the happiness and satisfaction of the people. however, this shift has also been accompanied by the challenge of unbalanced and inadequate development, resulting in slower global economic growth. the deceleration of growth has brought about many social problems such as income inequality, death from overwork, and industry monopoly. in addition, the outbreak of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 195 published by scholink inc. the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has cast a shadow over global economic growth. governments around the world are taking a variety of steps to address these challenges and ensure that economic development benefits everyone. an important step is antitrust action aimed at restoring confidence in a world driven primarily by the “logic of capital”. furthermore, the management of big data in the digital age has become a pressing issue as the consumption of knowledge and culture transforms into additional productive activities. unfortunately, these activities often involve the exploitation of workers, leading to the emergence of digital labor within the capitalist sphere. the commodification and exploitation of the labor of internet users has become evident amidst the growing concept of socially free labor. therefore, what kind of labor concept should we use to understand digital labor, so as to alleviate social conflicts and improve people’s living standards and happiness? this study will start from marx’s labor theory, integrate arendt’s research results on labor views, and explore the philosophical significance of arendt’s labor topic itself and the enlightenment of rationality to today’s digital labor. due to the different theoretical constructions of the concept of digital labor, there is still no unified definition in the academic circle. and for arendt’s “labor” topic, especially arendt’s understanding of marx’s labor concept, the academic circles are mostly negatively evaluated and opposed. the literature review of this study is divided into two parts. one is to find a concept applicable to the current research problem by summarizing the research on digital labor in the academic circle; the other is to summarize the comparison between arendt’s labor view and the labor view of many scholars including marx in the academic circle, and find that what makes it unique is that it focuses on the study of arendt’s views on how technological progress means for labor and how it affects human existence. in the era of digital technology, there are many research results on “digital labor” in the field of communication political economy, mainly focusing on the commercialization of media content, labor and audience. (note 1) in this study, the concept of “digital labor” is mainly explained under the theory of marxism. entering the internet age, especially after the financial crisis in 2008, western academic circles used marxist theory to explain and develop the audience commodity theory, and the research perspective shifted from the “audience commodity” of communication to the criticism of marxist theory of “digital labor”. (note 2) trebor scholz published a collection of essays “digital labor: the internet as playground and factory” in 2012, critically studying the role of marxist theory in analyzing the labor market from the physical world to the digital workplace in the internet world. importance, examines new forms of occupation, exploitation and labor in the digital economy. (note 3) in 2014, the monograph “digital labor and karl marx” by christian fuchs, a professor at the university of westminster in the united kingdom, used marx’s labor theory of value and ideology to present a relatively complete presentation of western marxist digital labor, critical theory. (note 4) domestic scholars zhou yanyun and yan xiurong defined the category of digital labor as unpaid labor that blurs production and life, work and play through combing foreign literature on free labor on the internet. (note 5) domestic scholars han wenlong and liu lu pointed out that the narrow definition of digital www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 196 published by scholink inc. labor refers to the free and unpaid digital labor of internet platform users. (note 6) however, defining the concept of digital labor only as free and unpaid labor that exists on internet platforms may seriously ignore important developments and changes in the labor process in the development of the digital economy. in fact, researchers on the digital labor process have never limited their research scope to the non-employment free labor process. for example, fox’s case analysis of the digital labor process not only includes the unpaid digital labor of social media users, but also tells the story of supporting digital labor. multiple labor process representations of african ore mining slave-like labor for economic hardware, labor of digital equipment assemblers in china, software engineers in india and silicon valley. (note 7) various perspectives on arendt’s views on labor and their relevance in different contexts. for example, starting from humanism, studying arendt and george friedman’s description of labor clarifies the scope of labor capacity, social relations, and potentialities realized in labor activities. (note 8) delving into the research of levinas, arendt, and marx’s conception of labor, it raises questions about the reasons behind the alienation of labor and the rupture between the individual and labor. (note 9) european scholars have also studied arendt’s view of labor and workers’ well-being by taking workers in the transportation sector as examples. (note 10) by comparing beauvoir’s and arendt’s typology of human activities, scholars believe that labor cannot be used as a justification or evaluation standard for human life. (note 11) and, placing arendt’s framework of labor, work, and action in the context of the anthropocene, explores the emergence of collective labor processes and their relationship to arendt’s understanding of action and work in the face of the challenges posed by the anthropocene relationship. (note 12) some scholars have compared hegel’s view of labor with arendt’s view of labor. it examines the relationship between labor and spirit, hegel closely linking labor and spirit, while arendt argued that labor assimilates all human activities and loses spirit, and reveals the danger inherent in the idea of labor. (note 13) patchen markell challenges the commonly held view that arendt’s trinity of labor, work, and action represents a pure distinction. it argues that arendt’s framework involves the interdependence between work and action, illuminates the importance of the production of mundane objects, and explores the resonance between matter and form in arendt’s writing. (note 14) for arendt’s view of labor. ding ran, a scholar, believes that based on the rational self-discipline in political ontology, arendt’s analysis method of treating labor as a compulsive and enslaving behavior leaves “politics only pure spiritual life”. (note 15) scholar li dianlai pointed out that arendt was not only unaware of the “breakthrough advancement and revolutionary transformation” of marx’s political philosophy to modern western philosophy, but also a “superficial” understanding of marx’s labor problem. (note 16) scholar long jiajie said: arendt’s misunderstanding of marx is not only a theoretical bias, but also a retrogression of moral universalism. (note 17) the academic circles mostly understand arendt’s labor thesis from arendt’s misunderstanding of marx’s labor concept, but pay less attention to the political phenomenological significance and rationality of arendt’s labor thesis itself. the above studies provide different perspectives on arendt’s views on labor and their relevance in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 197 published by scholink inc. different contexts. they explore the intersections of arendt’s work with marxist theory, the examination of labor in relation to humanism, and the analysis of labor from various theoretical perspectives. these studies provide valuable insights into arendt’s conceptualization of labor and its implications for understanding contemporary social and economic phenomena. in fact, in the above studies, there is a lack of specific exploration of arendt’s view of labor as it relates to digital labor. these studies mainly focus on marxist perspectives and other theoretical frameworks when analyzing digital labor, without directly involving arendt’s ideas. arendt’s view of labor contributes to discussions about the changing nature of work in the digital age and its implications for human dignity and meaning. this study aims to bridge the research gap between arendt’s conceptualization of labor and the emerging field of digital labor, exploring the implications of her ideas for understanding the complexities and challenges of labor in the digital age. this study has five parts besides this section. the second and third sections introduce arendt’s concept of labor and fox’s concept of digital labor respectively; the fourth section uses arendt’s concept of labor to launch modernity criticism; the fifth section explains the impact of arendt’s concept of labor on digital the practical significance of labor, and finally a summary. 2. arendt’s concept of labor arendt transformed the traditional dichotomy of labor and work into a trichotomy of labor, work and action. in her view, the three active activities of labour, work, and action correspond to the life-as-itself, cosmopolitan, multiplicity, and newness aspects of the human condition, while contemplative life corresponds to the mortal aspect of the human condition. (note 18) arendt actually believed that man is born among men, and can only live among men, and is free to pursue his own excellence among men, and only in this way can a man be truly worthy of what man is capable of being taught the dignity of being human. on the contrary, if a person lives in this world and only works for a living, then he has actually been living in the bleakness of the private sphere, and has never really lived as a human being. 2.1 the concept of labor in arendt’s writings arendt’s essay adopts the methodological point of view of observing reality, reflecting on the present, and talking about existence. to be present means to be present in reality, and at the same time it means to reflect on the present moment and the world in which we live. concerns and reflections on labor issues have always revolved around this methodological position. arendt explained her understanding of labor based on her own embarrassment of human rights in the 20th century, rooted in the loss of common reality, the world’s alienation, and reflections on the tragedy of the world after the fading of transcendence, as well as her own rough schooling process and the deep imprint left by the life experience of the ups and downs. in the human condition, arendt concluded that basic human activities include three states of labor, work, and action. in the phenomenological distinction between them, labor corresponds to the necessity of human life, work corresponds to the artificial or made world, action corresponds to the multiplicity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 198 published by scholink inc. of human conditions, and is the precondition of politics. labor and work are utilitarian activities that cannot create a public space for display, only action can create a space for display. (note 19) labor is originally an absolutely private possession, a day-to-day relentless repetition subject to pure necessity of life, labor is forced, painful, expendable, and fleeting. in arendt’s eyes, labor hinders human action and the realization of human reason, and the world presented by labor is precisely worldless, that is, “the only experience with this worldless, or more precisely, in pain the activity that is strictly consistent with the experience of losing the world in life is labor. in labor man is thrown back into himself, in spite of being active, caring for nothing but his own life, completely imprisoned in his relationship with nature. in the metabolism of the human body, it is impossible to even allow itself to transcend or escape the cycle of its own functions” (note 20). in order to better reveal the new violence that the world is about to face—consumer society, arendt further explained that laboring people are enslaved like animals, without thought and worldliness. the worldlessness she is talking about here means that laborers are coerced by their own expanding needs, lose their thinking ability, cannot share and communicate with others, and are passively abandoned by the world. arendt strives to break free from living in a laboring society, hoping to establish a world with a sense of home. in this world, the real world and life belong to humans (rational, articulate, and actionable), and the authenticity of life can be truly demonstrated (note 21). however, arendt did not believe in the logic of labor emancipation. instead, she worried that labor emancipation would put people in danger again. this was another point of opposition between her and marx on labor views. 2.2 discrimination between labor and work arendt pointed out that from the perspective of etymology, the word “labor” itself contains the meaning of “hard work, toil, torture”. in ancient times, labor was always “subject to the needs of life” and was in a despised “slave” status. ancient societies often overlooked a clear distinction between labor and work. take craftsmen or handicraftsmen and slaves (including domestic animals, spoils of war) in ancient societies as an example. their activities have a different focus. the former focuses on working with the hands, while the latter focuses on physical labor. (note 22) in fact, there is a difference between labor and work. labor refers to the necessity of maintaining life, while work refers to the purpose or means. in ancient society, people despised labor, and labor was only to meet the minimum needs of life. in the final analysis, labor is “slavish”, it belongs to the activity of slaves or livestock, so slavery can exist. arendt said frankly: “labor suddenly rose from the lowest and most humble status to the highest and most respected status in all human activities. this change began when locke discovered that labor was the source of all property, and then adam smith the close assertion that labor is the source of all wealth culminates in marx’s ‘system of labor’, where labor becomes the source of all productive forces and the true expression of humanity.” (note 23) arendt accepted the demeaning attitude towards labor in ancient society, especially aristotle’s view of labor, that is, labor is essentially servile, and turned to criticize and deny the praise and high status given to labor in modern society, arguing that the view that “labor creates man” cannot be drawn from the various signs of labor. on the contrary, labor makes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 199 published by scholink inc. people subject to the constraints of life inevitability, and labor cannot confirm the “species existence” characteristic of people’s freedom and self-consciousness. it is also because of this that arendt launched a critique of marx’s view of labor. 3. fox’s concept of digital labor fox’s digital labor is productive labor, including hardware production, content production and software producers’ labor and productive users’ labor. its scope not only refers to digital content production, but also includes all modes of digital production, including agriculture, industry and a global production network jointly formed by information labor and other labor forms, this production system ensures the existence and development of digital media. fox’s digital labor is alienated digital work. by interpreting marx’s concept of labor, he points out that digital labor in capitalist society is digital work based on the quadruple alienation of human beings. fox incorporates digital labor into the global exploitation field of the value chain. the international division of digital labor under the condition of transnational information capitalism requires full-time control and exploitation of labor on a global scale in order to maximize profits. fox’s digital labor is not only manifested in the field of digital media. the realization of capital accumulation in the global ict (information and communication technology) industry is based on the exploitation of labor in a large number of industrial and agricultural production fields, therefore, his division of digital labor forms is understood in a broader sense. fox analyzed various forms of digital labor involved in the global value chain of the ict industry: including the slave labor of miners in africa, the labor of foxconn workers in china, the labor in the software industry in india, the labor of hardware assemblers in silicon valley, and the aristocracy of google engineers. labor in call centers, service labor in call centers, housewife-style service labor, prosumer users in social media, etc., all forms of exploited labor are considered to be interdependent. 3.1 theoretical basis for the concept of digital labor fox uses marx’s labor theory of value and ideology to present a relatively complete western marxist theory of digital labor criticism. as with arendt’s relationship between labor and work in the previous article, clarifying the two concepts of labor and work from the perspective of etymology is the starting point for fox’s interpretation of marx’s concept of labor. engels already pointed out in the footnotes of marx’s “das kapital”: “english has an advantage that it has two different words to express these two different aspects of labor. labor that creates use value and is qualitatively defined is called work, as opposed to labor; labor that creates value and is only counted in quantity is called labour, as opposed to work. (note 24) an etymological examination shows that it is feasible to make a semantic distinction between work and labor. based on this, based on the original german works of marx, fox clarified the two concepts of work and labor in marx’s eyes: work has two cognitive dimensions of anthropology and history. from the perspective of anthropology, work refers to the human production activities that meet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 200 published by scholink inc. the basic needs of nature by consciously transforming and organizing it; historically, the meaning of work has inherent historical characteristics, such as slave labor. housework, paid work, etc., labor is not so much a synonym for work in a class society as it is an inevitable expression of work in a class society—a form of alienation in which workers do not control and own the tools and results of production. in short, work is the universal essence of the generation and development of human society, and labor is a special description of work in a certain historical development stage of human society. (note 25) 3.2 digital work as a specific form of information work from the basic research of digital labor theory, we know that the word labor is used when talking about alienation, and the word work can be directly used when discussing the form of work. engels deeply analyzed the dialectical relationship between work and language in his book the role of labor in the transition from ape to man, and believed that work is the ontological premise of language and communication, and language and communication work in reverse. to work, to promote the further development of the work. (note 26) but the key question of “whether communication is work” was left unanswered. fox’s argument in response to this question is: as long as it is proved that there is an isomorphic relationship between activities (specifically: cognition, communication, and cooperation) and the work of transforming nature, if all these activities can be traced back to transforming nature the basic activities of cognition, communication, and cooperation may also create any form of social surplus, and they are also exploited just like traditional jobs. digital work, as a specific form of information work, refers to people organizing their own and others' experiences through social media and brain tools that use digital technology as a terminal, thereby generating new usage values such as symbolic representations, social relationships, artifacts, and communities. obviously, digital work also includes three elements: cognition, communication, and cooperation. (note 27) take facebook, wechat, tiktok, weibo, or twitter as an example, at the level of cognitive digital work, internet users use their brains, eyes and senses, and work tools such as mobile phones and computers to organize their life experiences, which are processed and transformed into articles or short videos that are output to the network field; at the level of communication and digital work, online social platforms and the human brain facilitate the interaction of symbols, which are transformed into communication between two or more subjects and form social relationships; at the level of collaborative digital work, the personal experiences of netizens are presented in the form of text, video, and audio information, which are disseminated and classified through the internet and then gathered again, ultimately creating a new artificial community or social system. the usage value produced in the three specific forms of digital work meets the needs of humans to establish friendship and maintain a sense of belonging in interpersonal relationships. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 201 published by scholink inc. 3.3 digital labor as an alienated form of digital work digital labor exists in the form of quadruple alienated digital work. according to fox’s explanation, the four-fold alienation of digital work specifically refers to: the alienation of labor force, the alienation of labor tools, the alienation of labor objects, and the alienation of labor products. regarding the alienation of labor force in digital labor, according to classical marxists, there is a driving force for the alienation of labor force, that is, laborers have nothing but labor force, and they are forced to sell their labor force to capitalists in order to maintain their basic survival needs. today’s digital labor does not seem to be coercive, and people’s participation in social media platforms seems to be voluntary and enjoyable. however, human beings not only have natural attributes, but also have social attributes. fox points out that people need not only to eat but also to engage in social relationships, associations and friendships in order to survive. isolation from communicative social networks will eventually lead to individual animal-like existence or destruction. (note 28) in today’s information society, digital media has quietly become an important means of communication, and people tend to use social media to communicate and exchange. there are billions of internet users in the world who participate in online information interaction every day. if they are forced to log out, the lives of almost everyone will be affected. although they can have enough food, they feel lonely and afraid as if they have entered a “social vacuum”. in general, in order to maintain their own sociality, people must exert their own communication power for digital media companies (a new form of labor force under digital labor), although this communicative labor process does not form an employment relationship, that is, it is a non-existent labor relationship. however, they still have to be oppressed and exploited by capitalists, who use their information and data for free to make huge profits. regarding the alienation of labor tools in digital labor, the labor tools mentioned here are mainly the brains of netizens and the network platform. the alienation of these two labor tools has brought double economic and political exploitation and oppression. first of all, the internet platform spreads vulgar entertainment information to attract the attention of the public. in the process, it instills capitalist ideology and makes the internet platform a free, open and free paradise, covering up its profit rules, such as advertising placement and live broadcast. bring goods and so on. in addition, fragmented information makes it easy and fast for the public to accept, but knowledge is one-sided and fragmented, which leads to the stagnation of the brain’s independent judgment and independent thinking functions, which is the alienation of the brain. secondly, in terms of politics, although netizens actively speak and make videos on online media, formally they have their own accounts and platform revenue, but netizens do not actually own and control digital media platforms. they do not possess the ownership of the media platform, nor do they have the decision-making power to affect the rules of social platform behavior (such as terms of use, privacy policy, and use of advertisements, etc.), but the wealth they create is controlled and owned by media shareholders. regarding the alienation of labor objects in digital labor, the information data and records of netizens on the internet are labor objects. the premise for netizens to enter social platforms for free and free use www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 202 published by scholink inc. is that they must agree to the privacy policy and terms of use on the platform, which essentially empowers media capitalists to control and legally use netizens’ information and their personal information for economic purposes. the right to data also prohibits netizens from controlling their information data and records. for example, even if netizens delete all personal information records, the technical background of the network still has the right to obtain relevant usage records. this means that all activities of users are under the monitoring of social media, and they are not consciously used economically by media capitalists. therefore, fox said, the labor objects of internet users are alienated in the so-called “legally binding agreement”. regarding the alienation of labor products in digital labor, the text information, pictures, and audio-visual materials updated by netizens, and even chat information with others are all specific behaviors in the process of digital labor assistance, and these can be called labor products in digital labor. however, considering that labor has both abstract and concrete dimensions, that is, value creation and use value. this means that the products created by netizens are not only used to meet the human needs of themselves and others, but also to meet the interests of network platform owners. internet companies analyze data such as user personal data and user behavior footprints from the massive data of social networks, and transform them into data commodities with users’ personal background characteristics and to meet the interests and needs of specific user groups. company owners control the data commodity with use value, but their interest is limited to its exchange value, so they sell the data commodity to advertisers, and the advertisers obtain another use value of the data commodity through the purchase behavior, that is to say, there is the possibility of presenting targeted advertising information to certain user groups. in this transaction process, media capitalists obtain income by selling the use value of data commodities, and advertisers obtain the use value of data commodities by paying money. for example, on the internet in china today, behind the emergence of “phenomenal internet celebrities” and “delivery experts”, there is the promotion of the network platform owner united capital. internet celebrities have gained huge profits because they produce for themselves and others. in order to achieve the use value, a social relationship between internet celebrities and the visibility of internet users has been created. on the other hand, internet celebrities have also produced value for the capital behind them. although internet users, whether they are netizens or internet celebrities, can use one side of labor products, they also cover up the other side that has actually been alienated from themselves. 4. arendt launches modernity criticism with labor arendt understands labor as a passive behavior to maintain life, which denies the initiative of human reason to pursue freedom. she believes that human beings are not only a species of natural life, but also a worldwide existence. the world represents the world created by human beings relying on rational self-discipline, which is completely different from the natural world directly given to us by the earth. at the same time, she attributed the labor behavior of the continuation of life to the private domain, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 203 published by scholink inc. attributed the political domain created by human beings to the public domain. human beings stepping out of the private sphere, entering the public sphere, and participating in political actions are manifestations of human beings’ rational self-discipline, and it is precisely because of this ability that humans are different from animals. 4.1 labor is only an act of creating material wealth in the private sphere people try to earn more money through labor, think about things under the materialistic thinking, everything will become the object of consumption, people can only face the exploitation of the consumer society alone and alone, and eventually people will be driven by material interests to destroy itself. arendt believes that in the private space, the wealth created by labor is to better participate in political actions in the public sphere. if labor (the condition for creating a superior life) is mistaken for nobility, it will cancel people’s pursuit of freedom. superiority. therefore, she said that “labor has become an act of devouring human superiority in pursuit of freedom.” 4.2 actions can restore human superiority arendt believed that labor pushed society into an irrational state and became an “anti-political” behavior, so the power of action is needed to restore political freedom. action is a concept introduced by arendt as opposed to the concept of labor. action is a kind of behavior of the thinking subject. the subject is in its rational self-discipline. self-discipline means to think twice before acting, and to make the best choice among the given options. good choice. but the premise of making a choice is that people have the ability to “critically think” about political events. (note 29) arendt believed that labor pushed society into an irrational state and became an “anti-political” behavior, so the power of action is needed to restore political freedom. action is a concept introduced by arendt as opposed to the concept of labor. action is a kind of behavior of the thinking subject. the subject is in its rational self-discipline. self-discipline means to think twice before acting, and to make the best choice among the given options. good choice. but the premise of making a choice is that people have the ability to “critically think” about political events. (note 30) and arendt wants to praise the other part of their counterparts, who dares to take responsibility, sure to surpass themselves, resolutely pursue freedom, and possess contemplation, criticism and courage. they deduce another kind of action life, that is, political life. (note 31) 5. the practical significance of arendt’s concept of labor to digital labor different from the common view that the progress of science and technology brings about the development of productive forces and thus social development, and people’s lives will benefit from this, arendt believes that even if technology advances, laborers are forced to work for survival, lose their ability to communicate and think, and thus the tragic situation of losing cosmopolitanity and being abandoned by the world has not been overcome, and the traditional ideal of eliminating private ownership and labor alienation is far away. arendt puts forward her own ideals for an orderly world and ideals through her summary of the nature of labor. the vision of social construction also points to a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 204 published by scholink inc. different way of overcoming the alienation of labor than marx. 5.1 realize the construction of an ideal society in her view, an ideal society is one in which labor, production and action each maintains their own state. the state of human life includes two aspects of active life and contemplative life. labor, making and doing work together to build an active life, and all three are indispensable. here, labor is at the bottom of active life, and it serves only to meet the various necessities of life-sustaining activities. in the process of production, human beings get rid of the domination of animal nature, and provide human beings with a stable home by manufacturing permanent living products. as mortal beings, human beings need such a living space. in the production, although people have self-awareness, the individuals participating in the production are still lonely, and they still have not escaped the domination of objects over people. only in the action of entering the public sphere can the individuality and uniqueness of man be realized. here, people express themselves and have relationships with others through speech, and actions embody the meaning of human beings. (note 32) arendt pointed out in “the human condition” that laborers engaged in active life, workers engaged in production, and citizens participating in action each play their own roles to realize an ideal society, and let laborers hold their own boundaries and get rid of desire directly defines the individual and reveals itself to the maker of a lasting world event. only on the basis that the production activity maintains itself can the actors who enter the public sphere be able to act. this action not only removes the limitations of laborers dominated by desires, but also gets rid of the defects of workers restricted by loneliness. it is a combination that shows the existence of “kind” of human beings through words and deeds. (note 33) in this union, every individual is equal and can communicate and understand each other; at the same time, every individual is unique and irreplaceable. equality makes possible actions that give meaning to the world, and necessitates actions that uniquely enable men to give meaning to the world. digital labor is a typical representative of knowledge as a factor of production. only when the productivity is raised to a sufficient degree can the exploration of the free and comprehensive development of human beings be freed from utopian research. therefore, under the current social production relations, more considerations should be given to the practical significance of digital labor for human development and liberation. digital labor is mostly information interaction. during this process, workers have more opportunities to come into contact with self-realizing industries and ideals, and find out their “production goals” and “direction of action”. but at the same time, the internet is a double-edged sword. it will push people’s desire for material to a limit, making it more difficult for ordinary workers to get rid of the consumption trap and fall into the cage of material pursuit. therefore, what we need to do is to strengthen government supervision to prevent covert ideological invasion. for example, self-media for digital labor can only be more popular if it releases products that are more in line with the needs of the public, and the natural revolutionary function of laborers is disintegrated. the digital labor products of individuality, independence and ontology are gradually declining. internet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 205 published by scholink inc. users have been immersed in the internet culture with neoliberal ideology for a long time, and it is difficult to escape the consequences of assimilation in the end. losing fighting spirit and accepting the fate of being a mediocre laborer, the ideal society of mankind will never come. 5.2 overcoming the alienated state of labor laborers are caught in the quagmire of devouring and destructive consumption desires governed by the inevitability of life. those who enter the public sphere need to have the courage to overcome this unlimited desire to satisfy consumption. labor is therefore a hidden, sheltered activity that should not enter the public domain. once entering the public sphere, entering the public political space that must have the pluralism of people (people lose their thinking ability and thus lose their individuality), the former public space will be in danger of being replaced by society. the society here refers to the economic organization of many families. into a super family model. it is neither public nor private, blurring the original boundary between public and private domains in a collective way. the emerging society turned all modern communities into groups of laborers and wage earners. this kind of collective labor only covers up but does not eliminate the loneliness of laborers, because the process of labor is completely dominated by individual needs, the individual existence of laborers disappears in labor, and he has no chance to communicate with other laborers. a private sexual activity without a world. at the same time, arendt pointed out that blindly pursuing the goal of satisfying desires has led modern society to fall into a black hole of unlimited desire to accumulate wealth. involved in the desire to consume and completely lose freedom, consumption has become the only way for people to express themselves. what people will face is a society of laborers without labor, that is to say, where labor is the only activity left to them. arendt believes that labor should only be limited to activities limited by physical desires. since all activities are attributed to labor, modern people are in a deeper alienation and in a state of non-thinking. therefore, having thoughts and being able to think is the prerequisite for people to overcome alienation. thoughts make people distinguish between the labor of satisfying the needs of individual life and the persistent production of the world and participation in actions in the public sphere. only in this way can we truly overcome alienation, the destructive blow of mediocre evil to human beings, and the destruction of the human living homeland by consumerism. digital labor is often realized with the help of the internet. in this process, people need to communicate with each other, which creates a lot of thinking space, and these thinking spaces need to be occupied by us. however, unlike the ideological high ground, in overcoming labor when alienating, the spread of this kind of thinking is internal, while the offensive and defensive ideology is often external. arouse the key role of the brain in digital labor, rather than just seeing mental labor as an alternative physical labor that uses the brain. with the convenience of the internet, the whole society is called to think, and the whole network is promoted to curb digital capital. as arendt said, thinking is the premise of getting rid of alienation, and it is also a good way to get rid of internet fetishism and save money first and a world full of consumer violence. in this process, the bottom-level laborers who pursue an active life are often www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 206 published by scholink inc. passive and need someone to lead them to open their minds and learn to think. the digital age also makes all this easier to achieve than in the era of marx and arendt. 6. conclusion arendt believes that freedom exists on the basis of being a thoughtful being, allowing labor, work, and action to maintain their own boundaries. therefore, arendt interpreted marx's labor theory and believed that marx's thought of overcoming alienated labor was not thorough enough, which enriched marx's theory of transforming the world. however, the traditional marxist method of overcoming alienation currently appears to be extremely difficult to achieve and requires long-term planning. arendt, on the other hand, provides an effective way of thinking to break free from alienation and denies the analytical path that everything can be “laborized”. he believes that labor should be concentrated in the private sector rather than spreading to the entire society, and that everyone has their own role in the process of creating a world, personal labor, production or action, participation in political life, all of which require thinking, liberation of the mind and communication with people, making the world a “thoughtful” world. by introducing fox’s concept of digital labor into the study, this paper no longer repeatedly discusses the critique of arendt’s view of labor on marx’s view of labor, but combines arendt’s view of labor with fox’s use of marx’s labor theory of value and ideology. in order to get arendt’s enlightenment on how to overcome the alienation of digital labor, we will correlate it with the digital labor summarized in the theory. finally, this study believes that on the basis of the guidance of marx’s labor theory and by referring to arendt’s research results, the ideal social form can be better constructed. notes note 1. audience commodity refers to a point of view aimed at the media audience in the process of media commercialization, which emphasizes an interaction of interests and a bond of coexistence among the media, audiences, and advertisers. in this linear relationship, the audience of the mass media is a unique “commodity” “produced” by the media. this “commodity” has a certain exchange value. the carrier “audience commodity” was handed over to the advertiser。 note 2. kong, l., & huang, z. (2017). research on digital labor at home and abroad—a literature review based on the perspective of marxist labor theory of value. journal of guangdong administration institute, (05), 73-80. note 3. aroles, j. (2014). the internet as playground and factory. in t. scholz (ed.), digital labor (pp. 171). new york, ny: routledge press. note 4. fuchs, c. (2014). in digital labor and karl marx (pp. 244-245). new york: routledge press. note 5. zhou, y., & yan, x. (2016). digital labor and karl marx—a study of foreign marx’s labor theory of value in the digital era (2nd ed.). beijing, china: china social sciences press. note6. han, w., & liu, l. (2020). digital labor process and its four manifestations. finance and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 207 published by scholink inc. economics, (01), 67-79. note7. fuchs, c. (2014). digital labor and karl marx. new york, ny: routledge press, from chapter 7 to chapter 8. note 8. smith, n. h. (2019). arendt’s anti-humanism of labour. european journal of social theory, 22(2), 175-190. note 9. bierhanzl, j. (2017). práce a dílo. levinas, arendtová a marxismus. filozofia, 72(1). note 10. pinto, v. l. x., moreira, c. v. d. s., bezerra, i. w. l., & pequeno, n. p. f. (2014). labor, work, and action: relevant elements regarding arendt’s concepts in autobiographical reports of workers from the transportation sector. saúde e sociedade, 23, 1288-1300. note 11. veltman, a. (2010). simone de beauvoir and hannah arendt on labor. hypatia, 25(1), 55-78. note 12. hyvönen, a. e. (2020). labor as action: the human condition in the anthropocene. research in phenomenology, 50(2), 240-260. note 13. matějčková, t. (2016). hegel and arendt on a key term of modernity: the creativity and destructiveness of labor. idealistic studies, 46(1), 19-40. note 14. markell, p. (2011). arendt’s work: on the architecture of “the human condition”. college literature, 15-44. note 15. ding, r. (2018). a comparison of arendt’s and marx’s views on labor. academic exchange, (11), 59-65. note 16. li, d. (2018). arendt’s four fundamental misunderstandings of marx’s political philosophy. academic monthly, (08), 20-32. note 17. long, j. (2012). two paradigms for thinking about human essential activities: labor and action—comment on arendt’s criticism of marx’s labor theory. journal of hunan university (social science edition), (03), 106-111. note 18. chen, g., & shi, g. (2017). politics, technology and the human condition—on arendt’s understanding of human beings. morality and civilization, (06), 89-95. note 19. arendt, h. (1958). the human condition. chicago, il: university of chicago press, from chapter two. note 20. ibid, from chapter 3, section 15. note 21. chen, g., & shi, g. (2017). politics, technology and the human condition—on arendt’s understanding of human beings. morality and civilization, (06), 89-95. note 22. arendt, h. (1958). the human condition. chicago, il: university of chicago press, p. 221. note 23. chen, g., & shi, g. (2017). politics, technology and the human condition—on arendt’s understanding of human beings. morality and civilization, (06), 89-95. note 24. marx, k. (1867). capital, volume 1. (b. fowkes, trans.). new york, ny: vintage books, p. 6. note 25. yan, l., & xie, f. (2017). analysis of fox’s concept of digital labor. marxism and reality, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 208 published by scholink inc. (02), 113-120. note 26. engels, f. (2009). the role of labor in the transition from ape to man. in k. marx (eds.), f. engels, collected works (vol. 29, pp. 211-263). new york, ny: international publishers. note 27. fuchs, c. (2014). digital labor and karl marx. new york: routledge press, from section 4.4. note 28. ibid, from the conclusion section. note 29. arendt, h. (1958). the human condition. chicago, il: university of chicago press, from the introductory section. note 30. hannah arendt, on violence, london: mariner books press,1970,pp.47-49. note 31. engels, f. (2009). the role of labor in the transition from ape to man. in k. marx & f. engels, collected works (vol. 29, pp. 211-263). new york, ny: international publishers. note 32. jiang, b. (2014). on arendt’s interpretation of marx’s labor theory. journal of south central university for nationalities (humanities and social sciences edition), (03), 79-83. note 33. arendt, h. (1958). the human condition. chicago, il: university of chicago press, from chapter 2, section 9. microsoft word assc-v1n2-p196 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 196 original paper the tourist/researcher nexus: investigating social justice projects in cambodia, myanmar and laos claudia bell1* 1 department of sociology and criminology, university of auckland, new zealand * claudia bell, department of sociology and criminology, university of auckland, new zealand received: october 20, 2019 accepted: november 10, 2019 online published: november 13, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p196 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p196 abstract cambodia, myanmar and laos are destinations growing in popularity. all three countries are poor, with a context of recent or current conflict. tourism is regarded as a potential saviour: a source of foreign money, whilst enhancing global awareness of each nation. whilst tourism is largely government managed, diverse ngos work to ameliorate conditions of the poor. there are also private social entrepreneurs running operations to upskill disadvantaged people. this paper explores a range of grassroots ventures. tourists are the customers for most of these enterprises; so how does the academic researcher considering these spaces as case studies, differ from tourists? fieldwork took place on three visits, 2017-2019. initiatives included artisan and craft projects, food producers, restaurants, and eco-tourism. for social entrepreneurs running these, theire schema is responsible, grassroots development, to a social justice agenda. many tourists consciously seek such sites. in this way, the touristic practice resembles the researcher praxis. this researcher, like any visitor, located such enterprises via websites, travel blogs, and in the field. most functioned as charities or modest businesses. ethically, and out of courtesy as well as desire, the researcher also purchased goods and services from each enterprise, exactly as tourists do. keywords cambodia, myanmar, laos, social justice, social entrepreneur, grassroots 1. introduction 1.1 grassroots initiatives aimed at tourists home-grown grassroots pro-poor projects were investigated in this fieldwork. these are also referred to as social justice projects. this sector obtains slight—or no-practical intervention from government or from international aid organisations (harrison & schipani, 2017). such small grassroots enterprises are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 197 published by scholink inc. readily dismissed as an insignifcant niche. most function as charities or as very modest businesses. certainly, the operators are powerlessness to address the larger structural or political issues of the nation. but each has created a slot where they can provide concrete assistance to local needy people. they generate experiences and skills that are truly life-changing for the participants. local people who are significantly marginalised and disempowered through sex abuse, disability, hiv aids, illiteracy and poverty, can develop skills for meaningful employment. their new skills enable stronger participation in their communities, whilst as individuals they can enjoy the fulfilment of independence. these projects were the primary focus of this research. the researcher, like any other tourist, sought such enterprises via websites and travel blogs, then visited them. the operators were identified and agreed to explain the processes and outcomes of their project. tourists bring money; so does a researcher. like any tourist, the researcher purchased goods and services at these enterprises. it was very clear that the proceeds made a tangible contribution. there was also a consciousness for the researcher/tourist that focusing on such enterprises enabled a welcome direct engagement with local people, for example with the makers of craft products, or with cycle tour guides. the initiatives relied on that satisfaction that tourists feel when they know their dollars are not being leaked to international companies but are going directly to those who have earned them. an exploration of that contrast and overlap of scholarly researcher/tourist is the other agenda of this paper. 1.2 the case studies (a) cambodia: siem reap siem reap is the cambodian town close to the angkor archaeological park, the nation’s top tourist attraction. local authorities running the temple complex predict that the income could reach us$117m by year end (2019), with about 2.6 million foreigners visiting. despite this income, poverty is readily apparent in the town of siem reap (local population about 100,000), and in the surrounding countryside. it is notable that within 10 kms of angkor wat people live without running water, electricity or education. the town also hosts migrants who have arrived because the popular tourism town might yield them an income: tuk tuk drivers, landmine survivors, ladyboys, street kids, prostitutes and beggars. it is these people who constitute the town’s “street life” (bell, 2017). to address local poverty, there are numerous social justice enterprises in the town, as well as training projects. (b) luang prabang, laos in 1995 luang prabang was awarded status as a unesco world heritage site. this invigorated tourism to this small town (local population about 58,000). the laotian government strongly supports tourism, the nartion’s second highest income stream. in 2018 655,000 tourists visited luang prabang, a 205% increase since 2010. laos itself had almost 3,900,000 visitors in 2018, up from 2.5 million in 2010. luang prabang was selected for this project (a) because of it’s popularity with tourists; and (b) because there are many social justice enterprises in and near the town. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 198 published by scholink inc. (c) bagan and yangon, myanmar the other two case studies were bagan and yangon in myanmar. are the other case studies. since 2011 democratision efforts in myanmar have resulted in led a growing tourism industry. the ministry of hotels and tourism (moht) in the primary administrative organisation, plus the myanmar tourism federation. there are various niche-specific agencies (clifton, hampton, & jeycheya, 2018). tourists can easily buy visas online. internal airlines link the favoured destinations, and numerous websites promote accommodation and experiences. in 2010 there were 800,000 tourists to myanmar, this number increasing to 3.44 million in 2017. the government’s goal is 7.5 million arrivals by 2020, indicating optimism about continuing economic growth. global news venues show political instability and the continuing rohingya issue, plus the vested interests of the military. it may be that’s some tourists boycott myanamr for these reasons. but many tourists travel, apolitical, and happily oblivious of local conflict (isaac, cakmak, & butler, 2019). this is the background against which this research took place. 1.3 theory: social good pro-poor tourism from the late 1990s a pro-poor focus favoured tourism as a potential strategy to alleviate poverty. the pro-poor approach came about as a critique of structural reforms in developing nations: especially in “fragile and poorly governed states” (bourguignon & sundberg, 2007). the reforms were not annihilating poverty; in fact, in some places, poverty was increasing. but the global growth of tourism indicated that this could provide a solution. as many poor countries had exotic attractions and unique cultures that appealed to tourists, expanding this sector could be the route to the benefits of globalisation. internationally, the positive fiscal benefits of tourism are measurable. for more than 50 of the globe’s most disadvantaged countries, tourism had proven to be a key contributor to economic progess. but much profit goes to foreign companies, which dominate this sector in developing countries (scheyvens, 2007). how could this be turned around, so that profts could be diverte to the poorest people? tourism is in fact enlarging the gap between the poor and the affluent in the community (zeng, 2018). from the tourists’ point of view, their choice to favour cheap destinations depends on the relative poverty of the host nations. tourists select affordable destinations; local poverty ensures such affordability. academic commentators have analysed the “post colonialist” mindset of tourists who empower themselves through such fiscal disadvantages in the host culture (bell, 2017; benson, 2014). pro poor tourism has been extensively debated (harrison, 2008; harrison & schipani, 2008; suntikui, bauer, & siong, 2009; bakker & messerli, 2017; zeng, 2018). an over-riding critique is that it has been ineffectual at addressing structural change, re-allocation of wealth and resources, and for disregarding international and national power relations. critics have argued that it accepts the status quo of existing fiscal regimes, and that its practitioners are commercially marginal (truong, 2016). further, it can be recast as colonialism disguised as altruism (benson, 2014; botterill, 2016). however, these incongruities do not inevitably “weaken the transformative potential of (social good) projects as a vehicle for economic equality and social justice” (lyon, 2006). the enterprises investigated for this paper are tiny businesses which may seem minor in a national www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 199 published by scholink inc. narrative of profitable tourism (gujadhur & rogers, 2008). at a national level, these projects are a very small component of the total tourist product. but an alternative interpretation was found at the local level (lusby & fow, 2014; ashely, 2018; chutia & sarma, 2016). it was obvious to this researcher’s first-hand experience that local individuals and families were benefiting significantly from the opportunities created by these initiatives. for the actual people involved, these initiatives provided a rare chance at self-empowerment. that such needs persist is indicative that extensive poverty persists. 2. methodology: qualitative research this project is an example of primary research and was wholly qualitative. locating enterprises that were specifically addressing local social problems and aimed at tourists as customers: this was the first task. the iniatives needed to be in reasonable geographically proximity for the researcher to visit during a limited six week fieldtrip. the researcher had had some contact with a few enterprises on prior visits to cambodia and myanmar. these were included, and occasionally provided information about further projects to visit. the pre-visit research included trying to trace the operators of such organisations. this was attempted through websites advertising their projects; or through a search of web feature articles about these (often novel) ventures. this task was attempted for several months before departing for the fieldwork. it sometimes produced additional details about the projects. however, it was difficult to find reliable information about whom to contact. the next approach was a search of tourists’ blogs. there were many that placed an emphasis on social good/ethical travel/social justice agendas for travel. projects. no new projects were located through this process; but it confirmed the suitability of those already noted. the third strategy was to find participants once in the field. this proved to be fruitful: i visited well-promoted organisations, and invited advice about other projects to contact. these were the encounters of a mobile researcher (d’andrea, 2006; vannini, 2010); a practical and manageable strategy. at every site, even when i simply showed up (because efforts to contact via phone or email had failed), project operators or staff agreed to being interviewed. (in some instances the founding operator was either unavailable, or was no longer resident in the vicinity). eventually, i managed to gather 30 in-depth qualitative interviews, one for each enterprise visited. every interview took place on the site of the business /training operation. this meant i was able to benefit from first hand experience of the project. it also meant that had the opportunity to actually see the project in action. this resulted in an assemblage of original primary data. through actually being there, the operator’s passion for their project was evident. the narratives about the establishment and progress of each enterprise was almost always thoughtful and inspiring. the fourth part of the process was reflection on these activities. retrospectively, i wanted to compare my own approach with the activities of tourists. how does a tourism researcher differ from a tourism consumer, when a lot of the time she is both? how can my work be justified, when much of my time as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 200 published by scholink inc. a traveller is similar to that of any other tourist? 2.1 research limitations a familiar limitation when a foreign undertakes research in another culture, and does not speak or understand the local language, is that the opinions and views of the local people cannot be included. for this project, the lack of local language was a disadvantageage. i could interview the entrepreneurs; but most t of the workers did not speak english. the language gap, along with race difference, places the researcher as an outsider, a white female who does not live in the country where she is undertaking research. alongside this, her university funding provides a relatively luxurious physical space as she travels, a severe contrast to the conditions of many local people, who are living in poverty (causey, 2003). this author, carrying out research, each day visiting poor people, then returning to her $50 per night hotel, is well aware of the privileged nature of the researcher role. in this she is similar to other tourists. the key difference was the duration of each stay: up to two weeks in each place, whilst most tourists to the same locations stayed just a night or two. 3. results 3.1 types of enterprise found, explicitly aimed at tourists  weaving and sewing projects, using silk and cotton. handmade artisan pieces were usually labelled with the name of the individual maker, often with a brief biography and photograph included.  some retail outlets had become “destination” shops, for example pomelo and hla-day in myanamr. both shops display and sell quality of artisan goods. stories and photographs of the individual makers adorn the walls. items create exclusively for these outlets: handwoven baskets, local honey, coin jewellery, papier mache replicas of items in the national museum; practical articles cleverly made from recycled bicycle tyres. these shops each have about 50 suppliers, many living in remote villages. both of these large outlets businesses were located upstairs next door to favourite tourist restaurants.  eco tours, for example in siem reap to visit rural areas and villages; in luang prabang day tours to see elephants, or boat tours along the mekong river to local pro-poor enterprises, including a pottery village.  various professional training restaurants, the trainees young people living in extreme poverty.  various enterprises invite visitors to converse with students, so they can practice english conversation.  practical workshops for tourists teach jewellery-making, pottery, textile dying, paper crafts.  in bagan: cycle tours to explore temples, or to visit the countryside.  near luang prabang a buffalo farm runs created pro-poor initiatives, in tandem with a health project promoting buffalo milk as a positive option for laotians people. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 201 published by scholink inc. 3.2 sustainability most tourists are not concerned about the sustainability of the enterprises they visit. i certainly did not hear—or overhear—this being discussed at any time. yet this was a foremost consideration for the researcher. for the projects to function as positive interventions, it was essential that they are continuous and cost-effective. initial evidence of sustainability was tlongevity: some had been operating for more than ten years. most were started by a sole volunteer. this was usually throught being set up as an unoffocial charity, for example, to encourage women artisans to create items for tourists to buy, to ensure them an income. for those running the longest, local staff were employed and paid. what started as modest little projects had moved to becoming businesses, many of them now well-recognised on tourist sites such as trip advisor and lonely planet. at the same time, they vigorously maintained their social goals of prioritising support to poor and needy local people. some of the enterprises had a further stream of cash and expertise by inviting international volunteers to assist in specialised areas. volunteers would generally pay a fee to participate, perhaps us500, regardless of the duration of their stay. one example was volunteers designing garments to appeal to foreign tourists; the local women did the sewing. others worked as tour guides to specialist attractions; as helpers in a range of roles in education enterprises; as hands-on advisors in organic or vegetarian/vegan restaurants; or as mentors for various types of farming. these volunteers are another category of traveller: like the researcher they are also tourists; and, also like the researcher, they have an additional agenda. every enterprise visited had evidence of sustainability. most had been functioning for at least ten years. their sustainability could be assessed in terms of 1) on-going commitment to social good ideology 2) commitment to assist and support disadvantaged people through social development 3) commitment to continuing and further cultivating training programmes 4) maintaining availability of resources, for instance for making textiles (cotton and silk weaving); paper making; restoring and upcycling damaged furniture; restaurant prerequisites. 5) all had strategies to maintain their business viability, e.g., rents for workshops and retail spaces, restaurant facilities. 6) most continued to maintain and update websites to attract tourists. 3. discussion this discussion splits into two distinct sections. discussion part a is about the enterprises. discussion part b addresses the comparison between the researcher and the tourist. part a: the discussion vis a vis the enterprises consists of three parts: social entrepreneurship; the role of these projects in addressing local needs; and the commercial manufacture of authenticity for tourist consumption. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 202 published by scholink inc. 3.1 social entrepreneurship all of the projects investigated depended on the commitment of social entrepreneurs. these facilitators-initiated projects as a practical response to local needs (dejouny & kim, 2011). each of the case studies investigated had been set up by one or a few specific individuals. some were foreigners, living in cambodia, laos or mynamar. most stated that they felt the advantage of their “outsider” status was that they had a good idea about what tourists would want. many people had set up their project alone, others worked with a local partner. the consistent agendas: low capital outlay, and of low environmental impact; the building positive relationships between hosts, workers and tourists; and vehement support for fair and equitable gains from tourism. the enterprises involved efforts to upskill, whilst protecting vulnerable people who have been bypassed in the labour market. notably, many of the trainees in projects visited for this research had physical or mental disabilities. others were survivors of enforced prostitution, violence, the aids epidemic, and other illnesses. some of the trainees were former street kids, now rescued, housed and upskilled. almost all had experienced the vulnerability that is intrinsic to extreme poverty. all operators were hands-on. each one talked about the necessity to remain independent of government or ngo affiliation. the goal was to bypass complexities of bureaucracies, and the potential for corruption. they were determined to maintain their personal contol of projects, which they feared would be lost if they handed it over to any ngo. ngo’s were not perceived as necessarily reliable, trustworthy or effective. nor did the entreperneurs believe that making personal donations from afar was an option. their replies to this proposition outlined details of why, for them, any other approach than directly hands-on carries moral and political concerns and risks. these operators commonly expressed criticism of the failures to deliver in the culture with which they are engaged. all were vigourouly creating solutions where they could, at that grassroots level. empathy, compassion and moral obligation arising from pro-social values are the basis to engagement in social entrepreneurship (borquist & de bruin, 2019). a value-based and value-driven process, social entrepreneurship utilises addresses social problems that markets and governments consistency bypass (saebi, foss, & linder, 2019). for these entrepreneurs, the goal is to achieve transformation through effective practical upskilling. while this, in this study, is taking place on a small scale, it is life changing for those directly enabled. 3.2 addressing needs, now and into the future concerted attempts to empower local people, especially women, their families and communities; and young people (street kids!), were abundantly apparent in this research. encouragement to upskill as craft makers and in hospitality might indicate the reiteration of low skill, gendered jobs. this seems a very slow stepping stone to any more sophisticated job. but crafts can provide significant income for poor households (ashely, 2018). importantly, efforts by these entrepreneurs work towards an holistic generational solution: if adults can house and educate their children, then for the next generation the life chances are significantly greater. for the present employees/trainees/craft makers, ttheir work can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 203 published by scholink inc. provide long term association, for example making papier mache items for tourists and for interior designers (many hotels and restaurants display these colourful items). practical skills acquired, such as using a sewing machine or hands-on restaurant skills, plus the discipline of everyday employment, might lead to stable positions outside the training organisation. many project operators co-ordinated job placement, once their protégés were ready to move on. all organisations visited provided either or both of the following: (a) stable jobs/training situations, often with meals, and occasionally with living accommodation. some projects resulted in sufficient upskilling for individuals to participate in the mainstream labour market. (b) artisan skills which could be executed in the homes/communities of the craftspeople, plus a place to sell their goods. manufacturing authenticity: merchandise and experiences for tourists tourists who visit and patronise social justice enterprises find a direct way to contribute to local people. they are conscious that their purchase will make a positive impact local people and/or environment’ (www.backpackersandsunhats, 2018). scholarly literature on such consumption sees it as motivated by the political choices and conscious reflexivity of northern consumers. “this conscious social decision making is represented as a radical departure from previous consumption patterns... (this form of) consumption reflects the trends of globalization and individualization that prompt citizens to create new arenas for responsibility‐taking while forging political and ethical identities” (lyon, 2006). even in a very small way, a tourist consumer can believe they are making a difference. there may be an element of assuagement of guilt at their own relative no-more-deserve wealth, relative to local people. in each of these locations, large street markets attract tourists. many of the items on sale are not handmade, or local, at all, but manufactured in factories or sweatshops in china. in luang prabang the huge night market has 400 stalls. more than half of these sell machine-made embroidery or woven silk and textiles, many of the sellers stocking the same items. 100% of the cotton and about 50% of the silk on sale is imported (ashley, 2018). ashely explains that if these items were produced within laos, then profits from tourist textiles returning to local producers and suppliers would almost double. most tourists are aware that locally produced goods are sold in fair trade-style shops. numerous websites advise about responsible travel and ethical shopping. there are local operators who guide tourists to artisan workshops in surrounding villages. this ensures that the tourist is buying unique items directly from the maker; plus meeting the maker as well, an enjoyable bonus for many travellers. obejcts for sale, for example in a pottery village across the mekong river from luang prabang, ensure income for that community. visitors can watch as craftspeople make things, a guarantee of authenticity. such processes are not included in the big night market. in the same way, a bicycle tour hosted by a local person may even include a visit to his family’s home. this is an inviting way to engage with a local person, and experience even a few hours of their everyday world. and so the tourist researcher comes away laden with purchases, conscious of the need to not only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 204 published by scholink inc. support these enterprises and the makers, but also to “pay” for the time kindly given by the staff. 3.3 part b. researchers and tourists most social researchers have the luxury of choosing their own topics, just as tourists select their own holiday destinations. for the researcher, the “appeal” derives from all previous research: the skills and experience that have led to this career stage. inherent is the need for clarity about what, for their employing institution, constitutes an appropriate research topic. the requires suitable methodology. in both cases, if the research arena/holiday site has strong appeal, then a successful undertaking is likely. the academic researcher working internationally will have reasons to select a site. in my own case, this was based on having undertaken previous projects in the south east asian region. i knew where that the types of enterprises i wished to research could be found. i was aware of the current political environments in which poverty remained largely unresolved. for tourists, these may not be significant considerations. however they will have their own reasons, however explicit or vague, for being drawn to a particular destination. it is the academic research process that separates the researcher from the tourist. many tourists are sympathetic with pro-poor and social good projects and seek these when they travel. that also involves research, to assist in furthering their own ends. some maintain travel blogs, where they write about enterprises they have visited. those are aimed at a global audience. but it is hard to find any blogs that rigorously contextualise the reasons the enterprises exist, with detail of the struggles within the political economy of that nation. nor have they had time to investigate the actual transformations brought about by the existence of the projects. tourists also tend to make briefer visits to places, and to individual enterprises. their time constraints may mean a “cherry picking” of local attractions. social justice enterprises may not be first on that list. if they are in the presence of a craft maker, and if their overall trip is for long period, they may not wish to accumulate purchases to carry with them. so the inevitable selfie becomes the souvenir. this has no fiscal value to the craftsperson. the travel equation of time/cost means they take a look, then quickly move on. in the destinations noted in this article, most tourists stayed just one, two or three nights. hoteliers were puzzled that my bookings were for a fortnight. yet for the researcher, even this seemed too little time to really do justice to the project. 3.4 researcher: restricted autonomy compare with freedom of tourists the researcher’s selection of site and topic are dictated to a large extent by the goal of bypassing any topic that might be problematic to their employing institution. university-based researchers must first obtain consent and funding for the project, and approval for the absence from the workplace it might entail. the researcher is then obliged to acquire ethical approval before they can begin the new project. it is usual for universities employing social scientists to want to play it very safe: a strategy that may be counterproductive, and which probably underpins the apparent “public indifference to sociology” (beer, 2014, p. 5). the researcher is scrutinised anew with every project. “there is no moment at the start of a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 205 published by scholink inc. research career when one signs—or articulates—an equivalent to, say, the hippocratic oath… solemnly swearing to faithfully execute the role of researcher in a manner which will never place the subjects or the employing institution in a position of disrepute while always behaving in an ethically appropriate manner (bell, 2015). instead, every proposed project is vigorously dissected for any potential ethical hazards. this has to be completed before funding can be uplifted, and fieldwork proceed. meanwhile, the tourist, whatever their attitude to local people, or whatever the possibility of inappropriate behaviour—say misogyny, xenophobia, paedophilia—can pretty much go wherever they wish. they can get drunk, make a lot of noise, and despoil the streets in unruly stag party pub crawls, “blighting residents” live’ (tait, 2019). the fit (free independent tourist) enjoys flexibility and can make decisions on a whim. for the researcher, the safety of the subjects, and the integrity of the researcher and her employing institution, are all at stake. there is no parallel concern for the tourist; there are no compulsory parallel ethical guidelines or demands for them. academic researchers are well versed about this requirement, and understand the principles for its necessity. this means they cannot have full autonomy. they are overseen by a bureaucratic elite, which is largely invisible: university website and email communication conceals any real people presiding over the rules. “formal ethics review, a necessary safeguard in theory, can sometimes function as an ill-informed obstruction” (oakley, 2010, p. 436). the tourist has to pass no such test. some research projects require a high level of flexibility. yet my university’s ethics committee requires the opposite. i am asked to provide a list of people to be interviewed. this is despite those interviews being anonymous, and confidential to the researcher. this is also despite the fact that many of them will be unknown to the researcher, until she finds them in the field. meanwhile the tourist can enjoy casual conversations wherever they wish, needing nobody’s approval. those official guidelines exclude the possibility of simply going somewhere and finding the appropriate persons, in the way that tourists meet “interesting people”. further, the researcher is required to have a firm itinerary. this (if honoured and obeyed by the docile researcher) counters the possibility of valuable serendipitous contacts made in the field. these frustrations demonstate issues regarding the “relevance of method” and how it corresponds with the “here and now” (lury & wakeford, 2012, p. 3). when the overall agenda is to accumulate data, with the goal of examining the topic as intensely as possible, to construct truthful, lively, high-quality outputs; then an experienced researcher has some insight into what will work, and what will not. unlike the tourist, the agenda meant that the researcher’s antennae were always alert to any possible fragments of information to feed into the project. they may even choose to quietly bypass their formal promises to ethics committee, to get the reliable information their project requires (bell, 2015). tourists do not have to deal with the hindrance of invisible gatekeepers dictating their travels. they too are likely to have budget constraints. but they are unlikely to experience interferences in their time/place management, itineraries, and selection of sites of engagement. research field trips can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 206 published by scholink inc. maddeningly compromised, the researcher envious of the tourist’s comparative freedom. the university’s prepaid accommodation requirement is another infuriating hurdle. travel by academics is organised by a web-based agency unconcerned about matching our individual research finances or agendas. their offers of “deluxe luxury suites” at my locations were totally inappropriate to (a) my funding (b) the nature of the research itself, and (c) places where i might find social justice projects , or people to interview. social justice workers do not stay in upmarket accommodation. for an experienced researcher who has often working in developing nations—e.g., namibia (bell, 2012), mongolia (bell, 2012), vietnam (bell & lyall, 2005)—homestays or small guest houses are the preferred accommodation. this is because the money paid (cash) goes directly to the host family; not to a multinational hotel chain, or www a booking agent, or to a credit card company, all of which channel profits offshore. these matters are also of concern to many tourists. some homestays do not have web booking facilities; a sign saying “room available” is sufficient invitation. tourists have the freedom to do this; the researcher does not. a research funding proposal requesting that the researcher go to, e.g., cambodia or myanmar for six weeks and rely on chance discoveries of social good projects, will never succeed. even an offer to carry out “participant observation” would be dismissed as inappropriate, perhaps looking more like a state-financed holiday than serious academia. the resolute researcher must convey their agenda in terms that their institution will accept; in what gullimen and gillam (2004) refer to as “ethics committee gloss”. so for the researcher, this is not supposed to look like a holiday—even though holidays themselves are a significant human practice, with massive implications for every country visited, so therefore an essential topic to research. so lucky tourists! for academics, the auditing of our research impacts are now at the forefront of our individual career monitoring. it is part of the “materialization of neoliberal ideologies within higher education… linking impact to funding, public engagement and relevance” (beer, 2014, p. 14). it enforces our compliance as obedient academics, and is probably irreversible. we are indoctrinated to defer to authority, including—especially? —the “ethics police” (sieber & tolich, 2012, p. 2). but we are desperate to maintain academic autonomy, and to be trusted to behave appropriately. those lucky tourists endure no such pressure or restraint, as they visit the same sites, and even ask some of the same people, the very same questions. 4. conclusions and implications the critics of pro-poor tourism are contradicted by the findings of this research. the suggestion that attempts to alleviate poverty at a local level is best left to government and ngos, has not proven successful. historically “cross-country evidence on aid effectiveness is fragile” (bourguignon & sundberg, 2007). plus, that suggestion of delegation denies the value and power of the immediacy that is central to these projects. the viable enterprises that were first visited, then discussed above, provide www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 207 published by scholink inc. a successful model for an increasing range of other such projects. some initiatives, like the furniture restoration project and the buffalo farming, exemplify altruism conjoined with blue sky thinking. these projects raise the question of whether it is realistic to address the inequitable nature of global economic relations through reliance on tourists as consumers. every one of these projects, in common with every other tourism sector, is dependent on the ongoing flow of foreign visitors with money. the assumption is that this will continue. yet there is potential for mass tourism to crash through global pandemics, terrorism, tougher regulations about carbon miles, and global warming: the warnings are present everyday there is no “plan b” for these workers. meanwhile, in investigating this topic, the researcher could be described as congruent with the (same person; self) tourist: exploring, chatting, consuming, enjoying. this kept the encounters personal, casual and vital. it was imperative to resist anything resembling a formal inspection of each enterprise. the activities recounted here illustrate social research in the real world, and the nexus of tourist/ researcher. acknowledgments i am grateful to the university of auckland, new zealand, frdf committee for funding this project. i also acknowledge john lyall for accompanying me on fieldtrips and for discussing all issues related to this topic. references ashley, c. (2018). working paper 273. participation by the poor in luang prabang tourism economy: current earnings and opportunities for expansion. overseas development institute, london. backpacksandsunhats. (2018). social enterprise in south east asia: responsible travel (vol. 26, no. 4). retrieved from http//backpacksandsunhats.com/2018/04/26/social-enterprise-in-south-east-asia bakker, m., & messerli, h. r. (2017). inclusive growth versus pro-poor growth: implications for tourism development. tourism and hospitality research, 17(4), 284-391. https://doi.org/10.1177/1467358416638919 beer, d. (2014). punk sociology. u.k.; palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137371218 bell, c. (2015). eat, pray, love, ethics: researching expats and tourists in bali chapter 13 in qualitative ethics in practice: developing qualitative inquiry (martin, t. (ed.)). california: left coast press, walnut creek. bell, c. (2017). older tourists, bars, and instant conviviality in pub street, siem reap. cambodia tourism, culture and communication, 17(3), 191-200. https://doi.org/10.3727/109830417x15057457661631 bell, c. (2017). we feel like the king and queen. western retirees as re-colonizers in bali, indonesia. asian journal of social science, 45(3), 271-293. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685314-04503003 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 208 published by scholink inc. benson, m. (2014). negotiating privilege in and though lifestyle migration. understanding lifestyle migration. uk: palgrave mcmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137328670 borquist, b. r., & a. de, b. (2019). values and women-led social entrepreneurship. international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 11(2), 146-165. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijge-08-2018-0093 botterill, k. (2016). discordant lifestyle mobilities in east asia: privilege and precarity of british retirement in thailand. population, space and place. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2011 bourguignon, f., & sundberg, m. (2007). is foreign aid helping? aid effectiveness-opening the black box. american economic review, 97(2), pp. 316-321. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.97.2.316 causey, a. (2003). hard bargaining in sumatra. western travelers and toba bataks in the marketplace of souvenirs. honolulu: university of hawai'i press. chutia, l. j., & sarma, m. k. (2016). commercialization of traditional crafts of south and south east asia: a conceptual model based on review of literature. iim kozhikode society & management review, 5(2), 107-119. https://doi.org/10.1177/2277975215624728 clifton, j., hampton, m. p., & jeycheya, j. 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(2018). statistical report on tourism. retrived from https://www.tourismlaos.org/show.php?cont_id=43 oakley, a. (2010). the social science of biographical life-writing: some methodological and ethical issues. international journal of social research methodology, 13(5), 425-439. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645571003593583 rich, a k., & franck, a. k. (2016). tourism development in bagan, myanmar: perceptions of its influences upon young people’s cultural identity. tourism planning & development, 13(3), 333-350. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2015.1114013 saebi, t., foss, n. j., & linder, s. (2018). social entrepreneurship research: past achievements and future promises. journal of management, 45(1), 70-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318793196 scheyvens, r. (2007). exploring the tourism–poverty nexus. current issues in tourism, 10(2-3), 231-254. https://doi.org/10.2167/cit318.0 southiseng, n., & walsh, j. c. (2011). study of tourism and labour in luang prabang province. journal of lao studies (vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 45-65). published by the center for lao studies. staiff, r., & bushell, r. (2013). mobility and modernity in luang prabang, laos: rethinking heritage and tourism international journal of heritage studies, 19(1), 98-113. suntikul, w. t., bauer, & song, h. (2009). pro-poor tourism development in viengxay, laos.: current state and future prospects. asia pafic journal of tourism research, 14(2), 143-168. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941660902847203 tait, r. (2019). the fall of prague. drunk tourists are acting like they’ve conquered our city. the guardian 25(8), 2019. truong, v. d. (2016). poverty in tourist paradise?: a review of pro-poor tourism in south and southeast asia. cauthe 2016: the changing landscape of tourism and hospitality: the impact of emerging markets and emerging destinations, 23. vannini, p. (2010). mobile cultures: from the sociology of transportation to the study of mobilities. sociology compass, 4(2), 111-121. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00268.x zeng. b. (2018). how can social enterprises contribute to sustainable pro-poor tourism development? chinese journal of population resources and environment, 16(2), 159-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/10042857.2018.1466955 brief biography of the author claudia bell, an academic at the university of auckland, new zealand, has published extensively in the arena of cultural tourism. her work has included investigations of polar bear tourism in canada, cycle trails in new zealand, backpackers traversing eastern african countries, international visitors at world expos in japan and china, artist-travellers in south korea and in bosnia, and tourists seeking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 210 published by scholink inc. comfort zones in mongolia. her main focus since 2012 has been on the nexus of tourism and international retirement migration. fieldwork for that research has taken place in bali, indonesia, cambodia and malaysia. her current funded two year project is about grassroots social justice enterprises aimed at tourists, in myanmar, cambodia and laos. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 167 original paper implications of the communist manifesto for the idea of a community of human destiny wenjia zhang1 1 xi’an fanyi university ,school of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: june 11, 2024 online published: june 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p167 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p167 abstract in the communist manifesto, marx and engels systematically and scientifically put forward the beautiful vision of mankind's pursuit of comprehensive and free development, i.e., the idea of "the union of free men", based on the conditions that emerged in the capitalist society at that time. in the contemporary reality of great social development, peace and development have become the themes of the times, but there are still insecurity factors that threaten the survival of mankind worldwide, such as hegemony and power politics. in order to eliminate these potential threats, it is urgent for all countries to join hands and promote the construction of a new international order with new global governance programmes. based on the theoretical basis of marx's idea of the "association of free men", has responded to the interests and needs of the peoples of the world and put forward the idea of building a "community of human destiny". the analysis of the communist manifesto's ideas on economic, political and cultural globalisation has important implications for the proposal and construction of the community of human destiny. keywords the communist manifesto, community of human destinies, implications in 1848, the communist manifesto, the programme document formulated by marx and engels for the league of communists and proclaiming to the world their party's world view and aims, was published. engels once described it as "the most widely disseminated and international work in all socialist literature, the recognised common programme of millions of workers from siberia to california". general secretary has also focused on the growing complexity of the world economy and global issues, and has proposed the global value of "community of human destiny". this idea is in the same vein as marx's idea of the "association of free men", and is the concrete practice of the idea of the "association of free men" in modern times. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 168 1. doctrinal support: the communist manifesto provides the theoretical foundation for the idea of a community of human destiny 1.1 the law of unity of opposites "seek common ground while reserving minor differences" the law of contradiction analysis is marx's fundamental method of understanding and transforming the world. in the process of contemporary world development, the trend of global multipolarity is irreversible, the number of international problems is increasing, and the countries of the world are in a state of co-operation and struggle, becoming strategic partners and competitors in interests at the same time. in such a complex and severe situation, no theory has emerged that can take into account the interests of all parties. the idea of "community of human destiny" has cleverly resolved the contradiction between the two. general secretary's inspiration for this idea comes from solving china's national problems, and he believes that "if we solve the national problems well, we will have a stronger ability to solve the world problems; if we summarise the chinese practice well, we will have the ability to provide ideas and solutions to solve the world problems." (general secretary, 2017) on the one hand, the idea of "community of human destiny" is a good solution to the problems of china's national problems. (general secretary, 2017) on the one hand, he both sees the homogeneity of contradictions and finds the common needs among various countries, regions, and nationalities as a guiding thought, taking the common needs as the ultimate goal to seek scientific solutions. on the other hand, the idea of "community of human destiny" does not mean that all countries of the world should become a uniform model. different countries, regions and ethnic groups have their own special traditions, cultures and national conditions, and therefore, we should also see the opposites of contradictions. this idea advocates seeking common ground while reserving differences, respecting the differences of different countries and regions, giving the greatest possible tolerance, and seeking scientific solutions to dissolve oppositions and conflicts, and taking the promotion of the common interests of the whole of human civilisation as the greatest "common ground", so that all countries and regions will be able to achieve their common goals. the common interest of promoting the development of human civilisation as a whole is the greatest "commonwealth", thus enabling all countries, regions and peoples to progress along the path of human civilisation. marx and engels have long had relevant discussions. they believed that, due to the continuous progress of the capitalist mode of production, coupled with the development of transport and commerce, which has led to the continuous expansion of the world market and the strengthening of exchanges among countries, as well as the impact of economic globalisation, all countries of the world have been slowly moving forward in the tide of history, and that more than that, countries have begun to rely on each other and interact with each other, and the destinies of mankind have also begun to be closely linked. the destinies of mankind have also become closely linked. this is precisely the theoretical origin of the idea of "community of human destiny". as the world's largest developing country, is pursuing an innovative path to promote the development of human civilisation as its comprehensive national strength grows stronger and stronger, and the idea of "community of human destiny" is precisely the implementation of this path, which is a path of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 169 development that seeks common ground while reserving minor differences, and fully demonstrates china's breadth of mind and chinese wisdom. 1.2 the mass view of history people-centred class analysis and historical analysis are the scientific methods of analysing people, historical phenomena, etc. insisted on in marxist theory. a new era breeds new practices, new practices give birth to and test new ideas, and new ideas lead and guide the development of practices and the era. the emergence of any theory is inseparable from the practice of the era in which it is developed, and at the same time, it is also closely related to the position and interests of the proposer. marxism believes that the people are the creators of history and therefore always takes the interests of the people as its fundamental position. this view provides general secretary with a fundamental position respect for the decisive role of the people in historical development and the word "people" is mentioned more than a hundred times in the report of the 20th national congress, which general secretary also applies to the "community of human destiny". general secretary has also applied this idea to the idea of a "community of human destiny" and made it his political position. this political stance is also highly compatible with china's socialist development path. always represents the fundamental interests of the broadest number of people, and its aim is to serve the people wholeheartedly, and it always adheres to the principle of doing everything for the masses, relying on the masses in everything, and coming from the masses and going to the masses, etc., which is a concrete embodiment of this stance. the idea of "community of human destiny" does not simply start from the position of the chinese people, but focuses on the common interests of the entire human race, and is committed to forming the largest common denominator of the interests of all countries and peoples, so as to avoid, to the greatest extent possible, the emergence of conflicts and contradictions among countries, and thus better promote the global governance and the development of human civilisation to a higher degree. this will better promote global governance and the development of human civilisation to a higher level. marx once pointed out, "instead of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, there will be such a union where the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all." similarly, the goal of building a "community of human destiny" is to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, cleanliness and beauty, which is in common with the "association of free men" proposed by marx. however, the building of a "community of human destiny" should not be equated with the "association of free men"; the former should be a stage in the transition to the latter. 2. implications of the communist manifesto for the building of a "community of human destiny" 2.1 promoting world economic development as the starting point for building a "community of human destiny" in the communist manifesto, marx said, "the productive forces created by the bourgeoisie in less than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 170 a hundred years of class rule are greater and more productive than all the productive forces created in all past generations". looking at the long course of historical development, it is the rapid development of the capitalist mode of production, as well as the great advances in transport and commerce, that have promoted the formation of the world market and accelerated the development of the world economy. however, globalisation led by the bourgeoisie has allowed the winds of egoism and money worship to prevail and influence the direction of globalisation, making most people neglect the role of human beings in social development. today's countries should actively participate in global governance to reverse this morbid development trend, transform egoism into collectivism, and promote the advancement of human society in the direction of common development. in the communist manifesto, this phenomenon has long been predicted that the bourgeoisie, out of its own interests and the profit-seeking nature of capital, has destroyed "all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations," leaving only the naked relationship of money. at a time of rapid economic globalisation, the community we advocate, which is built by the people of all countries, must be conducive to the development of the interests of all parties, and must not be used purely for the personal gain of a particular class or group. in order to promote the economic development of all countries, china has proposed the idea of building a "community of human destiny" by providing the world with chinese wisdom and chinese programmes based on the greatest common denominator of the interests of all countries. the aim is to maximize the interests of all parties, to build a community of common interests for all humankind, and to move world history towards the true community envisioned by marx. 2.2 strengthening cultural exchanges and mutual understanding around the world as a bridge to building a "community of human destiny" according to marx, the economic base determines the superstructure. therefore, the global development of culture is accompanied by the development of the economy, which is the main force driving the development of culture. the rapid development of the bourgeoisie on a global scale has not only broken down the barriers between places, but also tightened the ties between different parts of the world. culture is the bloodline and soul of a country or nation. a nation cannot be without its own culture and cannot forget the roots and soul of its own nation. respecting the cultural diversity of the world and promoting cultural exchanges and mingling are the prerequisites for exchanges and contacts with other nations of the world. in today's world, the development of cultural globalisation has become an unstoppable historical trend. we should correctly treat cultural diversity, respect the cultures of all countries, regions and nationalities, develop local literature into world literature, and tell chinese stories and spread chinese voices on the world stage. 2.3 taking the international political environment of peaceful development as the direction of efforts to build a "community of human destiny" china has put forward the idea of building a "community of human destiny" on the basis of the interests of all countries in the world, and has oriented its efforts towards building an international political environment for peaceful development. china firmly believes in the development philosophy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 171 that "only when the world is good can china be good, and only when china is good can the world be better". peace and development remain the theme of our times, but insecurity factors such as hegemony and power politics still exist, potentially threatening world peace and tranquillity, and how to turn crisis into security and seek development under the current situation has become a common challenge for all countries. since the founding of the people's republic of china, china has always upheld a peaceful approach to diplomacy, adhered to the principle of dialogue and consultation with all countries on an equal footing, and actively provided chinese solutions on the world stage that are conducive to global development. in the context of deepening ties among countries and regions, we take the common interests of mankind as our starting point, build an international environment of peace and development as the direction of our endeavours, insist on the realization of "free and comprehensive development of human beings", insist that "human beings" are the driving force of social and historical development, and adhere to the principles of historical materialism and the principle that "people" are the driving force of social and historical development. we insist on realising the free and comprehensive development of the human person, on the human being as the driving force of social and historical development, and on the rejection of bourgeois-dominated "alienation of the human person" from the perspective of historical materialism, so as to promote the development of the world's political environment in a more peaceful direction. in short, the idea of "community of human destiny" inherits and develops the law of the unity of opposites, the concept of the history of the masses, and the idea of the "association of free men" in marxism, and is a new development of these ideas and an innovative practice, as well as a profound answer to the question of how to promote the progress of human civilisation as a whole and the development of the world under the conditions of the new era. they are profound answers to the question of how to promote the progress of human civilisation as a whole and world development under the conditions of the new era, and they represent a new burst of vitality and vigour for marxism. standing in a new historical position, the cpc will continue to enrich and develop the idea of building a "community of human destiny", join hands with the international community, and work with all countries and regions to build a better world. references the selected works of marx and engels. (n.d.). volume i [m]. beijing: people's publishing house. yang, l. (2017). world system thought in the communist manifesto and contemporary revelation. gansu journal of theory, 2017(6), 77-81. general secretary. (2017). general secretary on the governance of the country (volume 2), beijing: foreign languages press. general secretary (2017). jointly building a community of human destiny". people's daily, 20. yan, x. k. (n.d.). the communist manifesto: a community of human destiny adheres to the worldview and methodology of marxism. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 172 gao, l. j. (n.d.). an analysis of the revelation of the idea of globalisation in the communist manifesto to the building of a community of human destiny. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 10 original paper research on international promotion-oriented translation and communication pathways of shandong’s intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of metaverse liping fan1 1 shandong jiaotong university, jinan, shandong, china fund project 2023 annual higher education scientific research planning project of the china association of higher education: innovative research on the construction of the "new liberal arts" foreign language curriculum system and "understanding contemporary china" multilingual curriculum in science and engineering universities based on demand orientation (project number: 23wyj0204). received: april 09, 2025 accepted: may 05, 2025 online published: may 16, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p10 abstract under the background of the deep integration of digital economy and meta-universe technology, the external communication of intangible cultural heritage（ich)is faced with the need for scenario-based and multi-dimensional transformation. this study takes shandong ich as the object and explores the innovative path of meta-universe technology empowering ich international promotion-oriented translation and communication. firstly, virtual reality (vr) technology is used to realize the deep immersive display of ich skills and the reconstruction of cultural ip virtual space; secondly, artificial intelligence (ai) technology is used to improve the accuracy and multimodal real-time translation of cultural symbols of ich; thirdly, immersive interactive experience is constructed to shift ich dissemination from “watching” to “participating”. these paths aim at realizing the holistic scenario communication and multimodal translation innovation of ichs through the technical characteristics of meta-universe, so as to effectively enhance the cultural soft power of shandong and even the country. keywords meta-universe, shandong intangible cultural heritage, international promotion-oriented translation, external communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 11 1. introduction general secretary emphasized the importance of improving the cultural soft power of the country in realizing the goal of “two hundred years” and the chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, and pointed out that the excellent traditional chinese culture is the most profound cultural soft power of the country. as a representative of excellent traditional culture, the dissemination of intangible cultural heritage helps to promote foreign cultural exchanges and multi-level civilization dialogue. in the opinions on advancing the implementation of the national cultural digitization strategy, it is proposed to create a new type of digital cultural experience and promote the integration of online and offline. in the context of digital economy, metaverse, as a kind of virtual reality network application and society integrating new technologies, can provide empowerment and application for ich international promotion-oriented translation and communication. therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the ich international promotion-oriented translation and communication from the perspective of meta-universe to enhance the cultural soft power of shandong. 2. overview of domestic and international studies research on meta-universe: as an emerging concept, meta-universe mainly involves (1) conceptual characterization research. meta-universe is a comprehensive application aggregate of various new technologies, more like an advanced version of digital society. (shi et al., 2022; ren et al., 2022; bowman et al., 2007). (2) research on the characteristics of meta-universe: in 2022, kpmg published the research report a first look at the meta-universe, which summarized the characteristics of the meta-universe into six features: immersive experience, openness, virtual identity, continuous evolution, virtual-reality interaction, and new authorization mode. (3) research on the application of meta-universe: meta-universe can be applied in the fields of tourism (huawenyu, 2022), publishing (yanhong et al., 2021), education (liu et al., 2022), office (imed, 2020), and urban construction (pu qingping et al., 2022), and so on. it can be seen that the characteristics of meta-universe, such as immersive experience, virtual identity and multi-dimensional interactivity, are compatible with the translation and dissemination scenarios of ich, and can inject new vitality into the inheritance and development of ich. domestic research on ich international promotion-oriented translation and communication : the literature has been sorted out and analyzed mainly from three aspects: research direction, translation categories, and translation research focus. (1) research direction: the research direction of ich international promotion-oriented translation broadly includes “strategy research” (hu, 2016). “theoretical research” (pang, 2020; ji, 2020; wang, 2019) “macro research” (wu, 2022) “talent cultivation” (liun, 2018; bai, 2019) and other four directions. the shortcoming is that there are fewer research results on the translation of ich international promotion-oriented translation under the guidance of interdisciplinary theories. (2) translation categories: gu (2021) analyzed 172 ich international promotion-oriented translation literature and found that the proportion of translations for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 12 each category was uneven, and most of the literature did not refine the ich research objects. this is one of the difficulties in the translation research of ich international promotion-oriented translation. (3) focus of translation research: researchers focus on the translation of ichs as “introductory texts” (li meng, 2020), “ich names” (fang jia, 2020) and “culturally specific items” (ji, 2020). “(ji, 2020). the study of foreign ich communication: the ways are news report communication, mass media communication (gaitan, 2019, md saifuddin khalid & md saiful alam chowdhury, 2018) and digital communication. digital dissemination is becoming the mainstream of research. in addition, the governments of various countries have actively led the practice of ich dissemination. 1994, the united states launched the “american memory” project to digitize documents and materials, and in 2007, the french national library cooperated with google to optimize the “gallica” project to support the digital preservation of ich. in 2021, the japanese government set up the “digital agency” to allocate funds to promote the digitization process of ich. through combing the literature, it can be found that foreign research on ich communication focuses on the study of communication media and communication subjects. the shortcoming is that there is no integration of technology to build a holistic construction of ich communication and create ich communication scenarios. through the systematic combing of the meta-universe as well as the translation and international dissemination of ich, two problems can be found: firstly, at present, there is no dissemination of ich as a whole, and no highlighting that the essence of ich dissemination is that of scenarios. therefore, new digital technologies such as meta-universe are needed to realize the holistic scene communication of ich. secondly, the current translation environment has changed dramatically, and the information text not only contains multi-dimensions such as text, image and sound, but also contains a multi-threaded structure similar to network hypertext. as a result, the previous translation research on information texts with single dimension and single-threaded structure is facing new challenges in the way of thinking and research paradigm, and it is necessary to seek for innovative paths of ich international promotion-oriented translation in the era of meta-universe in order to reshape the new development pattern. 3. the innovative path of international promotion-oriented translation and communication of shandong's ich from the perspective of metaverse 3.1 realize the in-depth display of ich arts through virtual reality (vr) technology 3.1.1 technical empowerment: breaking the time and space limitations of traditional communication virtual reality technology can completely reproduce the details of shandong's non-fraditional skills and cultural scenes into virtual space by building a three-dimensional dynamic environment. taking weifang kite making as an example, the traditional way of outreach is to show its process through documentary or atlas, but it is difficult for the audience to perceive the subtle skills of tying skeletons and drawing patterns. with the help of vr technology, users can wear a headset to enter the virtual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 13 workshop and observe from a first perspective how the non-hereditary inheritors select bamboo, split gimlets, tie and tie, and even simulate the process of “hands-on” participation in the kite's gluing and painting process through the handle. this kind of immersive “hands-on” experience not only allows foreign audiences to understand the essence of the techniques intuitively, but also enhances cultural memory through interactive operation. 3.1.2 scene reconstruction: creating a virtual space for intangible cultural ips metaverse can break through the limitations of physical venues to build thematic virtual exhibition halls for nic. for example, a “virtual nic village” is designed for shandong paper-cutting, where users can enter and discover different styles of paper-cutting works through free exploration the roughness and boldness of gaomi paper-cutting, and the subtlety and elegance of binzhou paper-cutting. each piece of work is accompanied by an ai-translated multilingual explanation, and clicking on it triggers a dynamic demonstration of the entire process of the virtual paper-cutting artist from paper folding, drawing to cutting and carving, supplemented by cultural background interpretation, such as the auspicious symbolisms of paper-cutting patterns like “lian nian you yu” (abundance year after year) and “qilin song zi” (kirin delivering a son). in addition, users can participate in the “virtual paper-cutting challenge”. the system awards digital badges based on the completion level of their creations, which can then be linked to social media platforms for sharing, fostering viral dissemination. 3.1.3 case extension: vr taste simulation of lu cuisine culture as one of the eight major cuisines in china, the publicity of lu cuisine has long been limited by the fact that it can only be seen but not tasted. meta-universe technology can solve this problem through multi-sensory interaction. for example, in the vr environment to simulate the cooking scene of “nine-turned large intestine”: the user can not only watch the chef handle the knife work of ingredients, stir-frying sugar color of the fire control, but also through the wearable equipment to feel the heat of the stove, smell the aroma of onion and ginger popping pot. there are even cutting-edge technology attempts to combine electronic tongue and odor synthesizer, allowing users to “taste” virtual dishes of sweet and sour, salty and fresh. although taste simulation is still in the experimental stage, its potential has opened up a new dimension for ich international promotion-oriented translation and communication. 3.2 utilizing artificial intelligence (ai) to achieve precision and scenario-based translation 3.2.1 intelligent recognition and adaptation of cultural symbols the core difficulty in translating nic for promotion lies in the processing of culturally loaded words. for example, the “cai jiuzhou” ceremony in the “duan gong opera” in southwest shandong, which involves the terminology of taoism, can easily lead to cultural distortion when translated directly. ai translation systems can address this by constructing a specialized terminology database for ich through knowledge graphs and automatically matching context-appropriate equivalents in the target language. for example, “cai jiuzhou” can be translated as “ritual dance mapping the nine regions (a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 14 taoist-inspired performance symbolizing cosmic order)”, which not only retains the cultural meaning, but also makes it more effective. in addition, the ai can dynamically adjust the translation according to the audience's cultural background: when targeting western users, “lu brocade” is compared to “shandong’s version of scottish tartan”; when targeting east asian users, its connection to the textile techniques of the tang and song dynasties is emphasized. when targeting east asian users, it emphasizes its origins in the textile techniques of the tang and song dynasties. 3.2.2 collaborative application of multimodal real-time translation translation in the meta-universe needs to break through the limitation of text and integrate multimodal data such as voice, image, and motion. taking the virtual performance of liuzi opera as an example, when the audience wears ar glasses to watch it, the system can recognize the actor's singing and stance in real time and generate subtitle translation at the edge of the field of view. at the same time, ai speech synthesis technology can imitate the rhythms of opera singing in the target language, solving the dilemma of “translating words without translating tones”. for interactive scenes (e.g. the shandong express script performance in the virtual teahouse), the audience can ask questions by voice, and the ai instantly translates and generates the virtual character's response, and even simulates the dialect accent to enhance the sense of realism. 3.2.3 blockchain-empowered translation quality tracing to ensure the accuracy and cultural respect of translations, blockchain technology can be utilized to establish a “nic translation certification chain”. after each translation (including text, voice, and video subtitles) is uploaded, it will be initially reviewed by ai, reviewed by experts, and the hash value of the approved version will be deposited on the chain. when overseas users visit, they can confirm the authority of the translation through on-chain verification. this not only prevents the arbitrariness of machine translation, but also attracts global sinologists and translators to participate in collaborative optimization through open nodes, forming a decentralized translation community. 3.3 constructing a new paradigm of immersive translation experience and cultural interaction 3.3.1 from “watching” to “participating”: virtual inheritance of nic skills metaverse allows users to enter the nic scene with a digital avatar to realize cross-cultural collaboration. for example, in a virtual ceramics workshop, a foreign user can be in the same room with a chinese nic practitioner, operate a billeting machine through hand gestures, and the ai translates the communication commands between the two parties in real time. the system will also give real-time feedback according to the standardization of the user's movements (e.g. “the thickness of the clay is uneven, it is recommended to adjust the rotational speed”), so that the learning process is both interesting and professional. completed works can be transformed into nft digital collections, which users can collect or give to their friends, forming a social currency for cultural dissemination. 3.3.2 scenario-based reconstruction of intercultural narratives while traditional translation focuses on language conversion, meta-universe can reshape the spatial logic of cultural narratives. taking the legend of penglai fairy tale as an example, a “mirage” scene www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 15 can be constructed in the virtual space: the user sails on a boat and encounters a dynamic illusion generated by ai, with chinese and english bilingual immortal dialogues ringing in his ears and holographic projections of poems floating in the mist. through the combination of environmental narratives and interactive puzzles, users can naturally understand the spirit of qilu marine culture behind the stories of “the eight immortals crossing the sea ” and “xu fu's eastward journey ” during exploration. 3.3.3 emotion calculation enhancing cultural resonance through the implantation of emotion recognition algorithms, the system can analyze the user's expression, tone of voice and behavioral data in the virtual scene, and dynamically adjust the cultural output strategy. for example, when detecting the user's frustration with the lu ban lock disassembly, the ai assistant can switch to encouraging language and simplify the operation of the prompts; if the user is interested in the confucian etiquette display, it will push the link to the relevant confucian culture in-depth interpretation. this “ emotion-content ” adaptation mechanism can significantly enhance the empathy effect of cross-cultural communication. 4. conclusion through the path of vr in-depth display, ai accurate translation, blockchain authentication, etc., meta-universe technology provides an immersive, multimodal, sustainable and innovative program for the international promotion-oriented translation and communication of shandong ich. however, it is necessary to balance technological empowerment and cultural authenticity, and establish an interdisciplinary collaboration mechanism in order to realize the leap from “cultural output” to “value resonance”. in the future, we can further explore the integration mode between the meta-universe and qilu cultural characteristics, such as creating a “confucius institute meta-universe branch”, combining confucian classics with nic skills, and enhancing the localization of international communication. references bowker, l. (2020). translation technology and ethics. in koskinen, k., & pokorn, n., the routledge handbook of translation and ethics (pp. 262-278). london: routledge. kpmg china. (2022). first exploration of the metaverse［ eb/ol］ . (2022-03) [2022-03-19]. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/cn/pdf/zh/2022/03/first-exploration-metaverse.pdf. dong, r., jin, s., & liu, c. (2019). research trends on cross-cultural transmission of china’s intangible cultural heritage. journal of hubei university of economics (humanities and social sciences edition), 16(2), 4. han, m., & zhou, x. (2022). a review and prospect of digital inheritance research on intangible cultural heritage in the past two decades. journal of south-central university for nationalities (humanities and social sciences edition), 42(1), 11. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 16 wang, s., & zhu, y. (2023). when translation meets the metaverse: an analysis of translation practices in the digital society. journal of beijing international studies university, 45(2), 15. liping fan1 1 shandong jiaotong university, jinan, shandong, c keywords advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 160 original paper the application of ethnic culture in strengthening the consciousness of the chinese national community weiting yu1 1 school of foreign languages and literatures, southwest minzu university, chengdu, sichuan, china fund projet southwest minzu university student innovation and entrepreneurship training program project funding (project no: s202310656138) received: october 29, 2023 accepted: february 11, 2024 online published: february 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p160 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p160 abstract the consciousness of the chinese national community is a shared value consensus among various ethnic groups condensed from historical cultural memory and contemporary cultural forms, playing a role in cohesion and unity among members of the chinese national community. taking the ethnic group as an example, by deeply exploring the historical traces of the consciousness of the chinese national community and combining the spiritual values of traditional cultural resources, the key symbols of qiang ethnic culture are reasonably developed and utilized. starting from reality, the close connection between “cultivating the consciousness of the chinese national community” and “daily life” is explored, ultimately achieving the application of qiang culture in strengthening the consciousness of the chinese national community. keywords consciousness of the chinese national community, ethnic culture 1. historical imprints of the consciousness of the chinese national community in qiang ethnic culture 1.1 dayu culture is an important part of qiang ethnic culture and an important direction for tracing the consciousness of the chinese national community dayu culture, as an important part of chinese civilization, carries rich historical connotations and has profound influence on the formation and development of qiang ethnic culture, which is one of the important directions for tracing the consciousness of the chinese national community. (yang & zhang, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 161 published by scholink inc. 2023) the important status and profound influence of dayu culture in the history of the chinese nation are further manifested in the historical memories accumulated and shared by different regions and ethnic groups over the past nearly four thousand years. these regions are the carriers of the evolution of our chinese civilization, and these ethnic groups are also important branches of our chinese nation. in the process of evolution of qiang culture, dayu culture is not only a historical cultural heritage, but also an important part of the inheritance and development of qiang ethnic culture. as the settlement of ancient qiang people and modern qiang people, the northwest of sichuan province is regarded as an important town related to dayu culture, which is the birthplace of the legendary figure dayu according to the “biography of shu kings”: “yu was born in the area of mount wen in guangrou county of wenchuan county, which was called lierpan.” (zheng & wang, 2015) lierpan is now shiniu village, yuli town, beichuan qiang autonomous county, north sichuan. in beichuan, there are still precious historical sites related to dayu such as “yuxue gou”, “xier chi”, and “wangchong mountain”. as an important representative of ancient chinese civilization, the core concepts of dayu culture have profound similarities with qiang ethnic culture. this similarity is not only reflected in values, cultural traditions, and other aspects but also runs through the practical life and social development of the qiang people, inseparable from the religious beliefs of the qiang ethnic group. this cultural commonality not only enriches the diversity of chinese culture but also deepens the cultural identity between the qiang people and the chinese nation, laying a solid cultural foundation for building a harmonious society and common development. firstly, dayu culture emphasizes the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature, emphasizing the protection and utilization of natural resources. this corresponds to the traditional concept of respecting and relying on nature in qiang culture. in the traditional culture of the qiang people, nature is often regarded as a sacred existence, respecting mountains, rivers, and advocating harmonious coexistence with nature. in addition, in the religious beliefs of the qiang people, because the relationship between heaven, earth, mountains, rivers, and trees in the natural world and the production and life of the qiang people is the most closely related, these are the objects of their natural worship. the qiang area is mostly mountainous and hilly, with certain limitations in living environment and production methods. however, the qiang people often use natural resources reasonably through the construction of water conservancy projects, land development, etc., while also paying attention to not destroying the ecological balance, thus ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources. taking beichuan as an example, as one of the main distribution areas of the qiang people, beichuan qiang autonomous county is also known as the “hometown of chinese dayu culture”. it has good air quality, rich ecological resources, and good ecological environmental protection. there are various species in beichuan, with 515 species of wild vertebrates, including 74 national first and second-level protected animals such as giant pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys; 2150 species of wild plants, including 13 national first and second-level protected plants such as gongtong and red bean sprouts, and as many as 795 species of qiang medicine. (qiang, n.d.). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 162 published by scholink inc. these fully prove that beichuan is a rare precious gene bank of plants and animals. this way of respecting and utilizing nature is in line with the concept of dayu culture, reflecting the commonalities between the two in ecological civilization construction. secondly, dayu culture emphasizes diligence, hard work, and the spirit of hard struggle, always inspiring the sons and daughters of china to grasp the present with a fighting attitude and win the future. this is consistent with the values of diligence and struggle emphasized in qiang culture. the qiang people have always attached importance to labor, advocating the traditional virtues of diligence and becoming rich, respecting labor, respecting laborers, and regarding labor as a virtue and honor. faced with harsh natural environments and geographical conditions, the qiang people have still demonstrated diligence and wisdom in many aspects such as agricultural culture, handicraft production, construction engineering, and animal husbandry. for example, one of the representatives of qiang architecture, the watchtower the qiang people ingeniously used the natural defensive advantages of the terrain, used local resources such as stones and wood, designed unique stairs and doors and windows, achieved the construction of complete defensive buildings, and formed a cultural symbol with national characteristics. in addition, in qiang literary works, we can also see the spirit of qiang people’s bravery, hard work, and strong will. for example, the mythological story “aba bumo” tells of people suffering from illness without medicine, suffering from diseases, and aba bumo collected common grass and insects to treat people. the mythological epic poem “muzhu sister and dou anzhu” tells of the three smart and beautiful daughters of the heavenly gods. mu jiezhu secretly descended to the earth and fell in love with the diligent, kind, honest, and brave qiang shepherd dou anzhu. when the heavenly gods found out, they were furious and prepared to kill dou anzhu. with the help of the clever mu jiezhu, the brave dou anzhu finally solved the difficult problems posed by the heavenly gods and obtained the permission of the heavenly gods, marrying mu jiezhu. after they left the heavenly court, they came to the qiang stockade together and used their diligent hands to build houses, cultivate land, and live a happy life together. furthermore, dayu culture emphasizes family harmony, respect for elders, and advocates filial piety and family values. this corresponds to the family values and the traditions of respecting the elderly, loving, and helping each other in qiang culture, and is consistent with the values of emphasizing family and tribal communities in qiang culture. there are popular sayings in qiang areas: “building new houses, everyone helps”, “new wedding celebrations, relatives and friends help”, “important agricultural matters, the whole village helps”. the family values and filial piety traditions of the qiang people are consistent with the concept of family harmony and respect for the elderly in dayu culture, reflecting the similarities in family ethical concepts between the two. in addition, it is worth mentioning that in some areas close to tibetan areas, there are many villages where qiang, tibetan, and han ethnic groups live together, and the unity, friendship, and mutual assistance between qiang, tibetan, han, and other ethnic groups have also formed traditions. in a qiang folk song “xiudiao house”, it sings: “qiang, han, and tibetan brothers gather on qiangshan, intending to build houses for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 163 published by scholink inc. the qiang people. han people move stones, tibetan people mix mud, and qiang people build walls. the sweat flows together, the laughter flies together, and the strength is used together... after the new house is completed, the host of the qiang family entertains guests, and the qiang, han, and tibetan brothers invite them to sit at the main seat... thanks to the help of qiang, han, and tibetan brothers.” (chen, 2008) 1.2 the qiang ethnic group is not an isolated individual but one fifty-dixth, and the qiang people sympathize with various ethnic groups the cultural exchange between the qiang ethnic group and various ethnic groups is multi-level and multi-faceted, covering language, religion, art, economy, marriage, and other aspects. on the one hand, this promotes “diversification” development, making each ethnic culture distinctive and mutually distinctive, injecting rich and colorful spiritual resources into chinese culture; on the other hand, it promotes “integration” development, enabling ethnic cultures to interact, communicate, blend, learn from each other, complement each other, and depend on each other, ultimately forming an integrated, indivisible organic whole. as a carrier of culture, writing is one of the main tools for cultural inheritance and expression, and the inheritance and development of qiang culture cannot be separated from the chinese language. before the 1980s, the qiang people did not have a written language suitable for their own ethnic language. currently, qiang phonetic writing is still in the stage of creation and promotion. according to historical records, there were many exchanges and integration between ancient qiang and han ethnic groups in language and writing. as chen bin’s “commentary on calligraphy” says, “in the chinese zhou dynasty, there is the xia yu ‘‘guilou stele’,” “the ancient qiang script, the shenyu stele, was written by the qiang king xia yu, which is the ancient qiang language. the ancient qiang script records the ‘xia shu’ and ‘xia xiaozheng’, which are the ancestors of modern chinese. therefore, many qiang ethnic songs and poems today are based on ancient sounds, and translation needs to correspond to ancient chinese. there are many ancient qiang vocabulary in ancient chinese.” (yang, 2009) rooted in the past, the qiang and tibetan ethnic groups have deep historical origins. the academic community generally believes that ancient qiang does not specifically refer to a certain ethnic group but is a general term for the “qiang” in the shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions, the “rong” in the western zhou dynasty bronze inscriptions, and the “di qiang” since the eastern zhou dynasty, mainly distributed in northwest and southwest china. (ma & qiang, 1984). ancient qiang is not only an important ethnic source of the han ethnic group, but according to the records of sino-tibetan literature, ancient qiang is also an important ethnic source of the tibetan ethnic group. in addition, there are many cultural exchanges between the qiang and tibetan ethnic groups, forming some common factors in arts and handicrafts. in adjacent areas, the festivals and customs of the two ethnic groups also have some similarities. taking beichuan as an example, taolong tibetan township is located in the northwest of beichuan qiang autonomous county, 110 kilometers away from mianyang. it is the only tibetan township in beichuan, with a tibetan population of 817, accounting for 24.98%. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 164 published by scholink inc. humanities and customs are relatively intact, and there are still relics of the ancient tea-horse road. a significant activity during the local wangguo festival is the “thousand people sharing the baban feast”. thousands of people eat meat, drink wine, chat, sing folk songs together, and the masses of tibetan, qiang, and han nationalities bless each other for the arrival of the new year and look forward to the coming year, creating a warm atmosphere. (li & yang, n.d.) in the early 1980s, mr. fei xiaotong proposed the concept of the “tibetan-yi corridor” as a historical and ethnic regional concept. regardless of the geographical scope or the distribution of ethnic groups, the significant characteristic of this region is cultural diversity. the causes of this diversity are not only reflected in the geographical and ethnic distribution but also have multiple historical reasons. (shi, 2014). based on this, in recent years, the academic community has put forward related concepts such as the “tibetan-qiang-yi corridor”, the “tibetan-qiang-yi cultural corridor”, and the “tibetan-qiang-yi cultural industry corridor”. it is precisely because the “tibetan-qiang-yi corridor” region has many ethnic groups, the ethnic branches are relatively complex, and its original culture is relatively intact. its diversity, richness, and uniqueness are sufficient to be fully displayed in the context of ethnic interaction, communication, and integration. 2. the utilization of qiang ethnic cultural resources in strengthening the awareness of the chinese national community in today’s society of multicultural integration, qiang ethnic culture, as one of the colorful cultures of the chinese nation, carries rich historical and cultural connotations and unique ethnic characteristics. by thoroughly exploring and fully utilizing qiang ethnic cultural resources, the cohesion and sense of identity of the chinese nation can be strengthened, promoting the unity and harmonious development of people of all ethnic groups nationwide. the qiang ethnic group possesses a rich variety of traditional festive activities, such as the qiang new year and the ox king festival. these activities are not only important carriers of qiang culture, reflecting the rich folk culture of the qiang people and their love for life, but also important channels for inheriting the common culture of the chinese nation. taking the grandest festival of the qiang people, the “qiang new year,” as an example, the activities during this festival mainly focus on celebrating the harvest, sending blessings, and praying for peace. during the qiang new year, there are not only distinctive sacrificial activities but also entertaining activities such as feasting and drinking. visitors can not only see the gorgeous traditional costumes of the qiang people but also enjoy cultural performances such as qiang flute and mouth string. additionally, the qiang new year attracts a large number of tourists every year. tourists gather with local qiang people, singing and dancing together, experiencing the festive atmosphere, and enhancing communication and understanding among different ethnic groups. this scene of unity and progress not only reflects the qiang people’s love for and inheritance of traditional culture but also promotes cross-cultural exchanges and integration, highlighting the common cultural emotions and values of the chinese nation. by continuously holding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 165 published by scholink inc. such traditional festive activities, the enhancement and cohesion of the awareness of the chinese national community can be strengthened. qiang traditional arts are an important carrier for promoting the awareness of the chinese national community. qiang traditional arts include painting, carving, embroidery, and other forms, among which qiang embroidery is the most famous. renowned for its exquisite craftsmanship and unique style, qiang embroidery is acclaimed both at home and abroad. as a representative form of ethnic art, it not only showcases the wisdom and creativity of the qiang people but also embodies the common aesthetic taste and cultural essence of the chinese nation. by inheriting and promoting traditional qiang arts, the common artistic values of the chinese nation can be promoted, enhancing the sense of identity and pride of the entire nation in traditional culture. qiang embroidery, as a representative of qiang traditional art, frequently appears in art exhibitions both domestically and internationally. for example, an article titled “national intangible cultural heritage inheritor yang huazhen: stitch by stitch, embroidering a happy picture of tibetan-qiang life” published in the overseas edition of the people’s daily tells the world the story of china’s civilization through intangible cultural heritage. this not only showcases the unique charm of qiang culture but also helps more people understand and identify with the common cultural traditions of the chinese nation. the historical and cultural relics of the qiang ethnic group are historical witnesses to promoting the awareness of the chinese national community. the qiang region boasts numerous historical and cultural relics such as stone carvings, ancient temples, and ancient cities. these relics, as witnesses to qiang history and culture, not only carry traditional values of the chinese nation but also represent the long history and rich cultural heritage of the chinese nation. by protecting and utilizing these historical and cultural relics—transforming them into tourist resources to promote exchanges and integration and establishing learning bases for educating and enlightening future generations—the national identity of the entire nation can be deepened, enhancing national pride and cultural confidence. for example, the ancient qiang city ruins and qiang villages in northwest sichuan not only vividly reflect the living conditions and cultural characteristics of the qiang people but also, as treasures of chinese culture, attract visitors from all over the country, serving as an important source of cohesion and confidence for the chinese nation. qiang ethnic cultural resources play an important role in strengthening the awareness of the chinese national community. cultivating the awareness of the chinese national community is inseparable from daily life. by promoting social and cultural activities, inheriting and promoting traditional culture, embracing and exchanging diverse cultures, and efforts in public education and ideological construction, the cultural identity and cohesion of the entire nation can be enhanced, promoting the construction and development of the awareness of the chinese national community. 3. conclusion the awareness of the chinese national community is the foundation of national unity, the basis of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 166 published by scholink inc. ethnic solidarity, and the soul of spiritual strength. by deeply exploring the historical imprints of qiang culture in the awareness of the chinese national community, investigating the ways in which qiang cultural resources are utilized to strengthen the awareness of the chinese national community, and grasping the connection between “cultivating the awareness of the chinese national community” and “daily life,” we can ultimately achieve the practical application of qiang culture in building the awareness of the chinese national community. references chen, s. s. (2008). in qiang ethnic culture (p. 228). southwest jiaotong university press. li, y., & yang, q. c. (n.d.). taolong tibetan-qiang township in beichuan: thousands enjoy the ba-ba banquet, the whole township celebrates “wangguo festival”. sichuan news network. ma, c. s., & qiang. (1984). shanghai: shanghai people’s publishing house. qiang, b. c. (n.d.). autonomous county people’s government. retrieved from http://www.beichuan.gov.cn/ shi, s. (2014). the historical ethnic mobility in the tibetan-yi corridor. ethnic studies, 2014(1). yang, g. c. (2009). the qiang ethnic group: a great ethnic group in the eastern world, xiqiang culture. journal of ethnic studies, 1. yang, y. j., & zhang, n. (2023). the shaping of dayu culture and the awareness of the chinese national community. chinese cultural forum, 2023(2). zheng, p. s., & wang, b. j. (2015). beijing: beijing convergence culture source culture co., ltd. (p. 7). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 11 original paper an analysis of the creative style of french new wave cinema, illustrated by godard’s film “breathless” anran liu 1* 1 hong kong baptist university, kowloon, hong kong, china * anran liu, e-mail: anranliu832@gmail.com received: june 19, 2023 accepted: september 03, 2023 online published: september 23, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p11 abstract when delving into the annals of film history, the pivotal juncture of the french new wave movement in the 1940s stands as an indispensable focal point, leaving an indelible mark on cinematic evolution and the advancement of the film industry. by introducing a distinctive creative paradigm, the movement notably championed the notion of “auteur cinema”, and encouraged novel production methodologies while endorsing personalized themes, distinctive narrative architectures, unique cinematographic aesthetics, and pioneering editing techniques. as a luminary within the constellation of the french new wave, jean-luc godard orchestrated elaborate and audacious cinematic experiments in the realms of visual and auditory language. godard dismantled entrenched narrative conventions and cinematic mores of the studio apparatus, thereby clearing a path for a more self-revealing and artistically-inflected cinematic discourse. this cinematic idiom exerted a profound influence not only upon contemporaneous directors but also furnished subsequent generations of cineastes with a wellspring of inspiration. from the vantage point of godard, this research attempts to explore and synthesize the historical backdrop of the new wave era, the idiosyncrasies and shared traits of movie auteurs, and analyzed in a meticulous manner of his magnum opus, “breathless”. this analytical research encompasses editing methodologies, cinematographic modalities, narrative architectures, and proclivities toward expression with the overarching goal of unearthing the unique cinematic lexicon emblematic of the new wave. conclusively, this study pivots back to appraise the french new wave, unraveling its cultural import and historical limitations. keywords french new wave, jean-luc godard, experiment, rebellion, realistic aesthetics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 the historical french new wave movement the french new wave movement, originating in the 1950s, unfolded against the backdrop of a politically tumultuous post-world war ii france. with the establishment of the fifth republic, the nation embarked on a new trajectory. at this juncture, france ardently championed autonomy, resisting hegemony, and witnessed the burgeoning of a counter-cultural ethos and the demand for societal change driven by the youth. this era has seen france’s rapid economic ascendancy and a concurrently stable domestic and international political landscape. in stark contrast to the material abundance and stability, however, there existed a dearth of ordered spiritual engagement. in a bid to counterbalance the dominance of american movies, french movies during this epoch predominantly embraced a quest for “quality cinema”, inadvertently resulting in issues like content paucity, stylistic uniformity, and dearth of innovation. compounded by the meteoric rise of television, the movie industry faced formidable challenges, and was subject to a profound crisis. in response to this issue, a cohort of emerging filmmakers clamored for a re-invigoration of stagnant french cinema, setting in motion the resounding wave of the new wave movement. fundamentally underpinned by existentialism, french new wave movies deftly examine the philosophical tenet of “existence preceding essence”, influenced by sartrean existentialism. this cinematic movement undertook an audacious subversion of mainstream movie and middle-class conventions, relentlessly interrogating the bedrock values of contemporary society. instead, it ventured into the realm of heightened philosophical introspection, with characters and narratives serving as mere conduits for the exploration of the human spirit and intricate relationships. within this contextual framework, dogmas and survival wane in concrete significance, evoking an experimental milieu delving into the enigmatic realms of chaos and ultimate nothingness—a thematic resonance that encapsulates the quintessence of french new wave cinema. engaging with french new wave movies predominantly unfurls an opportunity for profound contemplation on existence and prompts an incisive scrutiny of the duality of human nature’s nobility and malevolence under the crucible of extreme circumstances. 1.2 the innovative significance of the “breathless”, the iconic work of french new wave the concept of the new wave style encompasses a documentary-like filming approach and a thematic underpinning of humanitarian ideals interwoven with philosophical reflections, occasionally tinged with a sense of existentialist pessimism. in terms of narrative technique, it adheres to a stream of consciousness, resulting in a fragmented storytelling style often adorned with symbolic metaphors. this style, further, is marked by a distinct auteur perspective, where the director’s signature vision is prevalent. jean-luc godard’s “breathless” serves as the pioneering cornerstone of the new wave cinema, epitomizing the cinematic zeitgeist of its era. the defining traits of french new wave cinema include www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. cost-effective production methods, eschewing the use of professional actors, and a dedicated focus on capturing the authenticity of human lives. in contrast to ornate studio settings, this movement frequently harnessed portable cameras to amplify the sense of realism. long takes and tracking shots were skillfully deployed to evoke a heightened immersive experience. the internal musings of protagonists and the inclusion of voice overs were recurrent tools, effectively channeling the inner thoughts of creators and challenging conventional cinematic structures. during the new wave era, godard’s innovative manipulation of visuals in “breathless” resoundingly severed ties with conventional studio aesthetics and the classical narrative structure pervasive in french cinema. instead, a commitment to naturalism emerged, shaping choices regarding lighting, filming techniques, and editing practices. the overarching aim was to underscore spontaneity and authenticity. for instance, the preference for natural lighting and the deliberate avoidance of artificial illumination were underscored. techniques reminiscent of documentary film-making, such as handheld and candid shots, were artfully integrated, imbuing the visual narrative with a palpable rhythm and dynamic energy. godard’s approach vehemently defied prescriptive norms, privileging the photographic essence of film over formal composition and aesthetic conventions. the strategic utilization of jump cuts throughout the editing process functioned not merely as vehicles for expressing ideas, but as instruments for the segmentation of both temporal and spatial dimensions. 2. audiovisual and linguistic analysis of godard’s “breathless” “breathless”, crafted in 1959, unfolds the tale of michel, a parisian street rogue who commits murder, car theft, and eventually faces betrayal by his paramour patricia, culminating in a fateful street encounter with law enforcement. though from a conventional moral stance, michel is cast as a transgressor, the film orchestrates his demise in a tragic light, rendering him a figure of pity and tragedy. as a seminal opus by jean-luc godard, an iconic figure of the french new wave, “breathless” symbolizes a groundbreaking shift in cinematic aesthetics and creative methodologies. disavowing classical narrative norms and dissociating from hollywood’s continuity editing, the movie harnesses an array of kinetic tracking shots along parisian thoroughfares. these are coupled with expansive employment of wide-angle handheld camera movements, thus transcending classical dramatic paradigms and aesthetic conventions. during this epoch, movies frequently bore the hallmark of pronounced personal stylization in thematic concerns, filming techniques, and narrative strategies. meanwhile, godard, dubbed the patriarch of the french new wave, with his documentary-infused aesthetics and auteurist philosophy, set the stage for a shared canvas of the new wave directors. godard championed a novel aesthetic ideology, termed the “classical combinatory structure”, asserting that “film is the truth at 24 frames per second”. this stance aimed at dismantling the strict bifurcation between “mise-en-scène” realism and the “montage” theory of editing. he adroitly melded ostensibly contrasting aesthetics, positing montage as an integral facet of mise-en-scène, enabling the latter to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. restore surface verisimilitude, while montage, in turn, captures psychological authenticity. within the “breathless”, godard deftly assimilates bertolt brechts’ “fourth wall” theory and the distancing effect. this intentional narrative strategy circumvents the traditional linear arc and climactic crescendo, engendering a restrained narrative framework. this nuanced approach augments the movie’s veracity, and the open-ended trajectory of the plot and narrative entails an “aesthetic distance”, fostering a pivotal breakthrough in godard’s aesthetic lexicon. 2.1 the auteur cinema: the individualization tendency of the theme the emergence of the french new wave film movement was closely intertwined with the prevailing sense of uncertainty and melancholy that followed world war ii. a considerable portion of the movie content was a reflection on the aftermath of the war, as it left many young people grappling with crises of faith and a spirit of societal resistance. at this juncture, the existentialist philosophy epitomized by figures like jean-paul sartre exerted a profound influence on the ethos of the new wave films, effectively encapsulating the prevailing confusion and introspection about the realities of life. new wave movies are distinct in themes. these films often serve as a canvas for filmmakers to channel their own lived experiences and insights, resulting in a discernible personal touch. frequently, these works manifest as a form of “director’s self-narrative”, encapsulating elements that resonate with the filmmaker’s identity. the core tenet of the “auteur theory” places considerable emphasis on illuminating the personalized aspects of a director’s creative input. often, traces of the director’s persona can be discerned within the characters depicted on screen, where the director is no longer a mere executor of cinematic conventions but rather an intellectual steward, shaping and guiding the cinematic narrative. jean-luc godard, for instance, is a proponent of crafting films that are infused with a distinct “personal style”. taking “breathless” as an illustration, the plot weaves through deliberately unordered sequences, the cinematography takes whimsical directions, the male protagonist emanates an air of languor, while the female protagonist exudes spontaneity. the pacing is brisk, editing exhibits an unrestrained quality, and performances are imbued with a lifelike authenticity. notably, in the movie, the male protagonist michel, to some extent, functions as an embodiment of director godard himself. steeped in the influences of existentialist philosophy, godard crafts michel’s life experiences with an overtly pessimistic hue. michel’s disregard for legal confines and his immersion in a realm of self-determined freedom underscores an attempt to escape the absurdities of existence. his perception of the world as bereft of significance and unworthy of trepidation resonates strongly with the themes of existentialist thought. 2.2 narrative structure: breaking the traditional narrative of hollywood the emergence of the french new wave cinema movement owes a significant debt to andré bazin’s doctrine of documentary aesthetics, as evidenced by its frequent adoption of documentary-style narrative structures. bazin’s doctrine posits that cinema should mirror reality closely, embracing its inherent unpredictability instead of conforming to preconceived notions. the french new wave www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. movement placed a pronounced emphasis on documentary techniques and individualistic style, allowing it to liberate itself successfully from the traditional narrative frameworks in conventional cinema, while seamlessly integrating a profound value of “self” imbued with vitality. in the movie “breathless”, the narrative architecture exhibits a keen focus on capturing the subtleties of emotions through characters’ quotidian details. this technique carries an improvisational quality, spotlighting reactions to everyday circumstances and affording actors ample space for creative expression, with the hope of performing organically on actors’ side, adapting freely to changes in camera angles. consequently, the production paradigm of the movie stands out as a clear departure from established norms, accentuating the personalized. furthermore, its narrative structure is conspicuously fragmentary, intentionally deviating from conventional hollywood dramatization. within the narrative framework of french new wave cinema, the construction of a coherent story arc is often eschewed, and explicit temporal and spatial markers are deliberately omitted, fostering a sense of detachment between the audience and the narrative. the movie “breathless” advances its plot through a series of leaps. take, for instance, the scene where patricia franchini returns home and the approximately 25-minute conversation between michel and patricia in the bedroom—both brim with mundane, non-thematic dialogues. this sequence evokes the spontaneity of documentary footage, echoing individual monologues and introspective contemplation. instead, it avoids contrived pursuit of dramatic conflicts, but adopts an observational stance, allowing the narrative to unfold naturally. this distinctive narrative approach further amplifies the film’s sense of realism. on a separate note, while american genre movies tend to emphasize a stark dichotomy between justice and evil, “breathless” deliberately sidesteps moral absolutism and stereotypical character traits. even when patricia betrays and reports michel, her actions might appear morally justified. however, michel emerges as the more pitiable character. the movie deliberately avoids overemphasizing the theme of good prevailing over evil; instead, it serves as a portrayal of the contemporary youth’s state of being. 2.3 editing techniques: jumping cuts and omitting the french new wave cinema disrupted the conventional temporal and spatial coherence adhered to in traditional film editing, opting for a more flexible and unconstrained approach. french new wave films adeptly employed techniques such as jump cuts and rapid editing. jump cuts, a method of splicing shots together, effectively eliminated many intricate narrative elements, and streamlined the expression of visual language so as to notably hasten the movie’s rhythm. the distinct utilization of jump cuts in new wave cinema expanded the cinematic repertoire, representing a deliberate departure from and innovation within the established conventions of traditional film. 2.3.1 jump cuts: breaking through the classical concept of continuous play the emergence of french new wave cinema significantly diverged from the conventional practice of traditional film editing, which upheld d.w. griffith’s classical continuity principle. instead, new wave directors embraced a paradigm shift by introducing the distinct editing style known as “jump cuts”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. this departure aimed to prioritize emotional expression and underscore the depth of characters and thematic elements within the movies. technically, jump cuts involve maintaining similar framing and focal length in sequential shots, yet punctuated by sudden interruptions. this technique produces a jarring effect, creating a deliberate disconnection in time and space. in fact, it made its initial appearance in george méliès’ film. in “breathless”, godard transformed these jump cuts into a recognizable and intentional stylistic choice. in the opening sequence of “breathless”, for instance, the protagonist michel’s drive along a forest road features jump cuts, where the foreground remains almost consistent—predominantly capturing the front of the car—while the scenery beyond the car window undergoes continual transformation. this dynamic use of jump cuts effectively captures the passage of time, contributing to godard’s distinctive aesthetic approach. moreover, in the movie, there are 12 jump cut shots depicting michel’s theft of a car, assisted by an unfamiliar young woman. this sequence has now become a cinematic classic. the ongoing dialogue between the central characters unfolds within the stolen car, with the camera consistently centered on patricia’s position. ingeniously, michel’s voice takes the form of voice over narration, subtly introducing patricia to the audience. although jump cuts are employed, patricia’s position remains the same, and the changing background contributes to a less pronounced spatial rupture. the jump cut here is different from that in the opening scene where michel drives, and hence, the technique eliminates unnecessary temporal gaps, sharpens the focus, intensifies the rhythm, and nurtures a heightened sense of pace. the incorporation of jump cuts in “breathless” disrupts the traditional linear narrative, instead shaping a fresh set of paradigms for the overall movie style. the unconventional alignment of perspectives and intermittent editing, illustrated by the series of jump cuts when patricia turns her head inside the car, marks a symbolically groundbreaking achievement during the french new wave era. 2.3.2 omission: jump cuts of larger spans “omission” denotes a deliberate cinematic technique wherein substantial gaps between successive scenes are employed, simultaneously encompassing a more pronounced form of "jump cut." this practice disrupts the temporal and spatial flow, introducing a distinct narrative leap in the plot’s progression. tedious and intricate narrative elements are deliberately excised, thereby achieving heightened conciseness and dynamism. this process is particularly accentuated in the evocation of emotional resonance and atmospherics. in “breathless”, the segment featuring the male protagonist michel’s fatal shooting of a police officer exemplifies godard’s audacious experimentation with the cinematic lexicon. michel, the central character, becomes a subject of pursuit by law enforcement, prompting his retreat into a rural byway. his refuge, however, is ephemeral as the police promptly converge. it is in this juncture that michel retrieves a handgun from his vehicle. the subsequent cinematic articulation juxtaposes an intimate close-up of the firearm with an off-screen gunshot reverberating in voice over. the ensuing sequence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. reveals the prostrate police officer, seamlessly followed by michel’s successful evasion to a sylvan expanse at the city’s periphery. in the subsequent encounter, michel is situated behind the wheel of an automobile navigating the parisian landscape. this punctuated gunfight episode, lasting a mere ten seconds and comprising a sparse sequence of five shots, deviates markedly from the prevailing continuity editing paradigms prevailing in hollywood. this deviation becomes manifest in the pronounced discord between auditory and visual elements. the established choreography of actions, encompassing the trajectory of the gunshot and the policeman’s subsequent descent, undergoes deliberate disjunction. notably, the filmmaker opts for a profusion of proximate shots, supplanting the anticipated panoramic vista that would otherwise meticulously document every facet. the sum effect coalesces through a mosaic-like concatenation of shots, consciously omitting the expanse of tension and economizing visual information. such approach simplifies the narrative, foregrounding solely pivotal incidents while inducing an affective disarray in the audience. the film, by design, refrains from divulging temporal elapse, the extent of michel’s hitchhiking endeavors, or the police’s discovery of the crime scene. notwithstanding, such interpretational voids find resonance within the audience’s sensibilities. 2.4 photography technique: the follow-up of documentary prolonged takes french new wave cinema draws inspiration from bazin’s principles of documentary aesthetics in its cinematography, often embracing real locations for shooting, extensive utilization of prolonged takes, and dynamic handheld camera movement. these techniques accentuate the authenticity of the films, manifesting a distinct sense of realism. the new wave movement champions the adoption of prolonged takes, regarding them as a “gradual path to reality”, with the aim of presenting unvarnished authenticity and an objective view of the subject. bazin contends that prolonged takes can encapsulate the innate ambiguity of objects, thereby affording audiences an augmented space for perception and interpretation. in the movie “breathless”, the cinematographic approach involves continuous camera motions that deftly frame elements within the visual composition. the arrangement of scenes exhibits elasticity, a strategy elucidated by godard himself: dispensing with a tripod, minimizing artificial illumination, and eschewing the confinement of tracks. this methodology harnesses the spontaneity and randomness inherent to filming. godard’s oeuvre frequently integrates handheld cameras to evoke an unadorned documentary sensibility, enabling the camera to closely trail characters. “breathless” extensively employs real-life locations for filming, sidestepping contrived lighting, and abounds in protracted handheld tracking shots. the movie’s inception features a scene wherein michel, the male lead, engages in conversation with patricia along champs-élysées regarding her potential companionship to rome. this three-minute long tracking shot adeptly captures their unscripted discourse. moreover, within patricia’s domicile, an extended conversational sequence between the protagonists unfolds. godard situates the camera operator in a wheelchair, employing handheld camera maneuvers to shadow the characters’ spatial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. dynamics and fluidly capture the scene’s cadence, which amplifies the camera’s maneuverability. during the film’s culmination, a protracted shot portrays michel stumbling forward in a slow jog subsequent to being shot. upon discovering patricia’s treachery, michel’s psychological disintegration is portrayed as he stumbles forward. the camera unerringly documents his faltering progression, providing audience insight into michel’s internal realm as he aspires to evade societal conventions and constraints. 2.5 breaking the “fourth wall”: direct camera dialogue diverging from the conventional “breaking of the fourth wall” as seen in annie hall, godard takes a different approach in “breathless”, one that exudes an air of nonchalance. such a specific strategy is intended to expose the camera’s presence, acknowledge the process of documentation, and underscore the tangible reality that underlies cinema; furthermore, it can serve as a reminder to the audience of their participatory role in the cinematic encounter. in contrast to characters directly addressing the audience, godard’s intention is to unveil the machinery of film making itself, emphasizing the realism inherent in filmmaking and prompting the audience to acknowledge their status as onlookers. an illustrative episode occurs when the male protagonist, michel, absconds with a car and speeds through the streets of paris; he suddenly swivels towards the camera and engages in a dialogue with the audience. this instant epitomizes godard’s and the new wave era’s inclination towards wit and provocation. in fact, godard’s usage of close-up shots departs from the conventional hollywood approach, which often delves into characters’ inner emotional states. instead, his close-ups frequently evoke a heightened sense of unfamiliarity and futility. for instance, during the film’s conclusion, as patricia bends down to observe michel after he is shot, her expressionless countenance is captured in a close-up shot. she locks eyes directly onto the camera, imitating michel’s thumb-across-lips motion, and queries somewhat bewilderedly, “what does ‘disgusting’ mean?” devoid of sorrow, elation, or trepidation, this scene embodies a sense of aimlessness. concurrently, “feminism” emerges as a pivotal theme in godard’s cinematic oeuvre. 3. comparison of aesthetic characteristics between french new wave movies and classic hollywood counterparts 3.1 the aesthetic characteristics of classic hollywood movies classic hollywood cinema adheres fundamentally to the principles of theatrical film aesthetics, while also retaining vestiges of its origins in drama. this essence is primarily manifested through three dimensions: a dramatized narrative structure, standardized character portrayals, and a seamless visual language. to delve deeper, classic hollywood films accentuate the necessity for vigorous plot conflicts within their narratives, characterizing them through standardized personas, and centralizing their narrative framework on the principles of continuity editing and an organically flowing cinematic discourse. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. 3.2 the aesthetic characteristics of french new wave movies french new wave films often display a highly personalized stylistic approach in terms of thematic exploration, cinematographic techniques, and narrative methods. nevertheless, the foundational undercurrent of these works is interwoven with the realist aesthetics championed by the “father of the french new wave” and the overarching concept of “auteur cinema”. when comparing french new wave films with american classic hollywood counterparts, distinct aesthetic features emerge even when addressing similar subjects. analyzing the origins of movie themes reveals a recurring mode of expression, namely the “director ’s self-narrative”. for instance, françois truffaut’s movie “the 400 blows” directly draws from his personal experiences, reflecting his retrospective contemplation of life’s journey. conversely, the subject matter of the film “rebel without a cause” is rooted in a psychological treatise of the same name, probing the rebellion of american adolescents during the 1950s. at the level of film production, american filmmakers tend to prioritize technological innovation and visual effects within the realm of commercial cinema. in contrast, french new wave counterparts deliberately eschewed conventional films adhering to standardized formulas, showing distaste for both technical prowess and polished production values in favor of accentuating the aesthetic essence of cinema. such emphasis on aesthetics is conspicuously present in “the 400 blows”, showcasing the poetic structure and art-house style emblematic of french new wave movies. regarding narrative structure, classic hollywood cinema is anchored in dramatization, encompassing both the story and the development of the plot. the narratives are imbued with dramatic conflicts, while the structure remains elegantly self-contained, culminating in a “hollywood-styles” resolution. in contrast, a pivotal aesthetic characteristic of new wave cinema is its disruption of the traditional hollywood storytelling approach, with movies often foregoing the conventional structure of classical dramas. in the realm of cinematographic language, hollywood directors prioritize clarity as the paramount vehicle for communication, and the “three-act structure” augments conflict and audience engagement. conversely, new wave cinema heavily employs long takes, exemplifying a distinct hallmark of the movement. furthermore, the new wave movement introduced innovative cinematic techniques, such as the utilization of jump cuts in editing. notably, in numerous instances throughout films, only a rudimentary context is provided, allowing actors to improvise and shape their performances. this approach confers a documentary-like quality to the films. 4. the cultural value and historical limitations of french new wave movies 4.1 the elite tendency of french new wave movies the french new wave cinema gradually transitioned into the realm of niche and art-house movies, moving beyond its previous scope of engagement with society, politics, and everyday reality. the directorial focus shifted from broader societal concerns to becoming a medium for self-expression by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. the directors themselves. the excessive penchant for intellectual discourse has, to a certain extent, compromised its ability for emotional resonance. while distancing itself from the commercial market, it has also distanced itself from the general audience. over time, french auteur cinema, while aiming for distinctiveness and individuality, has somewhat neglected the movie’s role in fostering social cohesion and its potential for societal impact on a spiritual level. this oversight can be viewed as a regrettable aspect of the genre. 4.2 the singular value standard of french new wave documentary aesthetics within the context of french cinema, the documentary aesthetic could be likely to be regarded as emblematic of the core essence of french film spirit. this may, whether intentionally or inadvertently, marginalize non-documentary creative endeavors. as integral components of the cinematic ecosystem, encompassing film festivals, critiques, and education, when these elements, vital to the landscape, monopolize the value framework with a singular perspective instead of nurturing a plurality of ideas, they often become entrenched, impeding the natural flow of the cinematic ecosystem. a thriving cinematic ecosystem should ideally exhibit a profusion of diverse and vibrant expressions, allowing for a chorus of voices. while the documentary aesthetic holds significance, it should not monopolize or dominantly dictate the cinematic ethos. 4.3 the decadence and nihilism inflicted by the free expression of french new wave arts however, should this diversity and vigorous discourse necessitate a hands-off approach to societal governance? the modern film movement, centered around the french new wave cinema, has championed the cause of liberty. during this new wave era, filmmakers unfurled the banner of freedom, aiming to shatter political and ethical taboos and attain unbridled artistic expression. this period brought forth two significant concerns. firstly, auteur directors pursued profound intellectual themes with little concern for their alignment with fundamental ethical and moral values or legal frameworks. secondly, an excessive revelation of human nature in cinema spawned an overabundance of nihilistic sentiments and an atmosphere of decadence. the unbridled pursuit of negative artistic expression, unrestricted and unbounded, ultimately demonstrated that an excessive emphasis on self-liberty fails to confer enduring vitality to films. in such a juncture, it becomes crucial to draw insights and lessons from the experiences of the preceding three stages in the western trajectory. by formulating a more scientific mechanism for managing desires, the public can enable cultural endeavors, including movies, to genuinely fulfill their beneficial role in nourishing the human spirit and harmonizing interpersonal relationships. 4.4 the fade and future of the new wave film movement in just a span of one year, the formidable surge of the “nouvelle vague” encountered a significant setback at the box office. françois truffaut’s second full-length film, shoot the pianist, attracted a meager audience of only 70,000, while jean-luc godard’s a woman is a woman garnered fewer than 65,000 viewers. accompanying this commercial downturn was a collective outcry from major french media outlets. the critical community widely opined that the “nouvelle vague” had brought a transient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. novelty to the french film market, but its aftermath ushered in a countercurrent of commercial interests and an array of adverse consequences. faced with such skepticism, truffaut responded assertively, his third feature film, jules and jim, achieved immense success despite its modest budget. nevertheless, the monetary gains and market acclaim gradually prompted a shift in truffaut’s stance. from then on, the filmmaker who had staunchly resisted hollywood and shunned narrative storytelling, gradually succumbed to the allure of commercial cinema, embracing it wholeheartedly. this transformation profoundly disappointed godard, leading to a public rupture between truffaut and godard, marking the culmination of a momentous cinematic movement—the conclusion of the french new wave. notwithstanding, the cessation of the new wave film movement does not signify the dissipation of the new wave’s legacy. analogous to the metaphorical "wave" in its name, the new wave movement continues to exert a sustained influence on subsequent cinematic developments. for contemporary observers, the early proclamation of the new wave, encapsulated in the “auteur theory”, also imparts illuminating insights: an outright prohibition of literary adaptations, safeguarding directors’ creative autonomy from production companies, and the insistence that films uphold a cohesive stylistic approach. these resounding declarations persistently reverberate, particularly as the current film industry appears to be treading a course diametrically divergent. thus, revisiting the “new wave” encompasses more than sheer retrospection; it encompasses the potential to chart the course for the future. 5. conclusion in summation, whether examined through godard’s “breathless” or within a broader scope encompassing new waves transcending national and regional confines, these movements epitomize experimental and exploratory endeavors in artistic individualism that defied conventional norms within their respective temporal contexts. they emblemize an era both distinct and interconnected, wherein pioneering filmmakers dared to probe, transcend, risk, critique, and interrogate—both societal norms and their own identities. hence, the underlying new wave ethos this research discusses is, in essence, an engagement with the cinematic medium to address contemporary realities and human existence. it harnesses the language of film to serve the purpose of expressing ideas. embedded within realms of artistic innovation and creation, it not only amplifies our own voices but also undertakes the responsibilities of its era through expression and introspection. references qijia, c., & jia, g. (2021). the issue of jean-luc godard in the contemporary art system. journal of contemporary cinema. richard, n. (2014). a history of the french new wave cinema. jilin publishing group. wanlu, s. (2021). status and characteristics of international audiovisual media convergence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. development. journal of radio and tv. wencan, s. (2020). the new wave era: jean-luc godard’s examination, reflection and disillusionment. journal of art education. xiongping, j. (2019). the french new wave in cinema. the commercial press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 65 original paper how epistemological disjunctivismaligns with fine-grained belief mingli he1 1 guangxi university, nanning, guangxi, china received: august 22, 2025 accepted: october 29, 2025 online published: november 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p65 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p65 abstract epistemological disjunctivism (ed), as a well-known anti-skeptical strategy, claims that in good perceptual cases, the subject’s perceptual experience itself constitutes factive reasons that are sufficient to directly support the knower’s knowledge. however, critics such as ranalli (2014) have pointed out that ed’s account of the role of “belief” in knowledge ascription is in fact unclear. this calls for an explanation of how perceptual experience can attain reflective accessibility in good cases; otherwise, the thesis that “experience = reason” lacks persuasiveness. to respond to this challenge, this paper proposes a “layered belief framework” to supplement the shortcomings of the original ed. i will argue that this proposal not only effectively responds to the criticisms from ranalli and others, but also provides ed with new explanatory dimensions that bring it closer to human cognitive psychology. at the same time, i will also demonstrate that its anti-skeptical capacity can only be regarded as a local defense strategy. keywords epistemological disjunctivism, fine-grained belief, anti-skepticism 1. introduction in contemporary epistemology, the question of how to resist the threat of skepticism has always been a central issue. traditional moorean responses, though straightforward, find it difficult to explain the rationality behind “common-sense intuitions,” while externalism, despite its emphasis on the reliability of cognitive processes, is often criticized for neglecting the subject’s reflective defensibility. against this background, pritchard’s proposal of ed has become a highly influential theoretical attempt in recent years. what makes ed distinctive is that it holds that in normal perceptual circumstances, a subject’s perceptual experience is not only a factive reason but also reflectively accessible, thereby logically ruling out the skeptical possibilities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 66 however, ed’s anti-skeptical commitment has not won unanimous recognition in the field. stroud (1984; 2002) argued that even if we do “see” something, we may still doubt whether such perception genuinely constitutes a foundation for knowledge. in other words, even if experience is factive, it may not eliminate the radical possibilities imagined by the skeptic, thus failing to deliver the certainty demanded by skepticism. ranalli (2014) and french (2012) together reveal that ed obscures the support path between “experience—reason—belief,” failing to explain how epistemic reasons are transmitted between logic and psychology. stuchlik (2020) further questions whether experience can genuinely satisfy the dual requirements of factivity and reflective accessibility. collectively, these critiques expose a fundamental difficulty: ed suffers from an explanatory gap between experience, reasons, and beliefs (the problem of vagueness). although ed provides a theoretical vision, it has not yet offered sufficiently fine-grained psychological and normative mechanisms to sustain its claims. to address this theoretical defect, this paper introduces a series of contemporary developments concerning the fine-grained structure of belief, proposing an integrative framework that can explain how perceptual experience supports belief within the ed model. on the one hand, this framework enhances ed’s explanatory flexibility when confronted with skeptical challenges; on the other hand, it also exerts pressure on ed’s scope of application—particularly when ed faces more complex situations such as cognitive dissonance, perceptual penetration, and atypical belief forms. whether ed can still maintain its theoretical extensibility and reflective stability under such conditions has undoubtedly become an unavoidable issue. therefore, in the final part of this paper, i will reflect on ed’s feasibility and limitations within the contemporary representational context, point out its potential theoretical bottlenecks, and evaluate the actual boundaries of its future development and philosophical contribution. it should be noted, however, that the problem of vagueness is not discovered for the first time in this paper. ranalli and others have already exposed it from different angles, and i will unify their views under the term “problem of vagueness.” upon investigation, it turns out that current responses to this problem mainly come from shaw and echeverri. both attempt to defend ed either by offering more refined conceptual distinctions or by adopting a virtue-epistemological perspective. unfortunately, they fail to distinguish the mediating structure between “ability” and “belief”—that is, the specific process by which experience functions in the formation of belief. in practice, beliefs are not automatically generated every time a subject successfully exercises a cognitive ability; they may instead be latent, unstable, and multi-layered complex structures. in this respect, past responses have been unsuccessful. in sum, although existing theoretical proposals have provided significant support for ed in many respects, they still leave a structural gap in the crucial mechanism of how experience can support belief. this paper argues that belief should not be regarded merely as a passive product driven by experience, but rather as a dynamic structure with multiple dimensions of strength, judgment thresholds, and conditions of manifestation. only when this multidimensional structure meets certain conditions can perceptual experience constitute a reason supportive of belief. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 67 2. the anti-skeptical commitment of epistemological disjunctivism unlike traditional mooreanism or pure externalism, the theoretical value of ed lies primarily in its attempt to emphasize that perceptual experience in normal circumstances is simultaneously factive and reflectively accessible, thereby satisfying both external reliability and internal defensibility. this means that, if ed holds, it can not only explain how we acquire knowledge in perceptual contexts, but also effectively respond to skeptical challenges. in this section, i will carry out two tasks: first, to analyze how ed integrates the strengths of internalism and externalism while avoiding their respective limitations; and second, to explain, through pritchard’s argument and the unique advantages of ed, how the thesis that “experience as reason” rules out skeptical challenges. we know that in traditional theories of justification (internalism and externalism), the reliability of knowledge is thought to derive either from the subject’s internal beliefs themselves or from non-cognitive, reliable belief-forming processes. against the backdrop of the gettier problem (where justified belief does not necessarily amount to knowledge), internalism confines the justificatory element of knowledge to the notion of “justification,” holding that justification lies in the subject’s internal psychological safeguards and assigning epistemic responsibility to the subject. that is, only when the subject bears sufficient epistemic responsibility can his belief qualify as knowledge. the problem, however, is that if justification must begin from the individual’s internal mental states, then abnormal subjects (such as children or those with cognitive impairments) will lack “justifiability,” making it difficult to explain how they can nonetheless have knowledge. since internalism cannot solve this problem, philosophers increasingly turned to externalism, which requires that we discard the restrictive idea that justification is necessary for knowledge. because subjects’ cognitive models are not internally transparent, we often cannot know whether our own beliefs are justified. on this view, the reliability of knowledge should be supported from a third-person perspective: in given circumstances, the subject’s inputs and outputs must remain stable, repeatable, and modally robust, independently of the subject’s internal mind. yet the problem is: if a true belief cannot be accessed by the subject’s reflective standpoint, on what grounds can we say it constitutes knowledge? thus, externalism’s lack of a first-person perspective deprives it of resources to respond to skepticism. pritchard argues that neither pure internalism nor pure externalism can resolve the problem. their polarized positions even generate an anti-skeptical dilemma: internalism lacks external connection, and externalism lacks reflective accessibility; neither can provide an intuitive route to resist skepticism (pritchard, 2016, p. 42). more specifically, pritchard holds that we must find a theory that combines the strengths of internalism and externalism while avoiding their defects. inspired by “metaphysical disjunctivism,” he therefore proposed “epistemological disjunctivism”: in good cases, the subject possesses factive reasons r. reason r is reflectively accessible to the subject for understanding and recognition. therefore, the subject’s belief in proposition p constitutes knowledge. pritchard particularly emphasizes that the epistemic reasons endorsed by ed are limited to the domain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 68 of “perceptual knowledge.” in other words, he aims to cloak ed with the legitimacy of everyday knowledge, thereby preserving the authority of ordinary knowledge and ensuring that we maintain a “minimal friction with the world” rather than collapsing into a “frictionless spinning in the void.” thus, as long as the epistemic environment and the subject’s cognitive capacities remain intact, perceptual experience can directly support higher-order beliefs and serve as factive reasons. moreover, the subject not only possesses factive experiences but can also understand why his perceptual experience supports his beliefs. this reflective ability enables the subject to self-verify the rationality of his knowledge claims. in this way, ed’s bidirectional support model integrates the core commitments of both internalism and externalism, bridging their long-standing division. it allows perceptual experience, under appropriate conditions, to serve as a reason for belief without requiring an infinite regress in the belief network in search of epistemic foundations. further, by blending the strengths of internalism and externalism, ed acquires its distinctive anti-skeptical function: first, compared with traditional mooreanism, pritchard’s ed exhibits a “new moorean style.” its novelty lies not only in emphasizing the factivity of perceptual experience but also in requiring that the subject’s perceptual experiences be reflectively accessible. that is, perceptual experience in the subject’s mental structure is not a state of “it seems so” but a fact of “it is so,” and only insofar as this fact is reflectively accessible to the subject can it serve as epistemic reason. at the same time, to prevent ed from further attacks by skeptics, pritchard discusses whether the “entailment thesis” (seeing p entails knowing p) should be retained or discarded. he argues that the entailment thesis only commits to the claim that the subject has an “epistemic advantage” in good cases—i.e., he is in a position to know—but not that he always succeeds in acquiring knowledge. thus, the entailment thesis in ed is best accepted in a “weak form.” all this shows that pritchard’s new mooreanism is not a mere insistence on “common-sense knowledge” but a proposal to construct a knowledge structure capable of resisting skeptical challenges. stuchlik (2020) affirms pritchard’s proposal, interpreting it as a moderate neo-moorean path, one that can accommodate skeptical scenarios (without eliminating every skeptical hypothesis) while building a more reasonable justificatory structure. second, in epistemic angst, pritchard does not deny the validity of the epistemic closure principle. instead, through an in-depth analysis of the proposition “i know i have two hands,” he points out that in good cases the perceptual experiences we rely on are not merely psychological states or representations but factive reasons that are both reflectively accessible and factive, directly supporting the assertion “i am not a biv” (pritchard, 2015, p. 50). in other words, when i say “i see that i have two hands,” i am not relying on an indirect chain of evidence but on a non-mediated factive reason. i do indeed see my hands, and i know that this reason is sufficient to support my belief that “i have two hands,” and thereby, via closure, to support the assertion “i am not a biv.” thus, ed does not abandon the closure principle; rather, it reconstructs the concept of “reason,” altering the inferential structure presupposed by skeptics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 more importantly, through its stance of “experience as reason,” ed formally accommodates the core demands of both internalism and externalism. the factive dimension of experience provides objective epistemic security (the externalist dimension), while the reflective accessibility of experience fulfills the subject’s capacity for self-scrutiny (the internalist dimension). in this sense, ed provides an intermediary theory that bridges the two camps, offering a structurally complete anti-skeptical model of justification. 3. the problem of vagueness as shown in the previous section, ed’s attraction lies in its claim to combine factivity with reflective accessibility, thereby offering a neo-moorean route to resisting skepticism. yet in practice, ed faces a pervasive and intractable challenge: the problem of vagueness. by this i mean that in the transformation chain of “experience → reason → belief,” ed fails to clearly specify the roles and boundaries of each stage, thereby leaving its anti-skeptical commitment without structural foundations. the purpose of this section is to systematically trace the sources and manifestations of this problem, in order to show how it constitutes a fundamental threat to ed. specifically, i will first draw on stroud’s skeptical critique to reveal the insufficiency of experiential reasons in terms of exclusivity and certainty; second, through ranalli’s and french’s analyses, i will show how ed confuses logical support relations with psychological mechanisms; and finally, i will discuss stuchlik’s critique of ed’s reason structure and reflective mechanisms, highlighting ed’s failure to explain how experience is genuinely structured into reasons that support belief. by integrating these three strands of critique, we can better grasp the theoretical root of the “problem of vagueness.” 3.1 the insufficiency of exclusive reasons barry stroud (1984) highlighted the deep structure of skepticism. he argued that the real threat of radical skepticism is not whether we actually know something, but whether we could possibly have absolutely exclusive, indefeasible reasons to conclude that we are not in skeptical scenarios such as the “brain-in-a-vat” (biv) hypothesis (stroud, 1984, p. 24). in other words, the core question is: if experience really can support knowledge, does its strength suffice to rule out all logically possible deceptive scenarios? for example, when facing skepticism, i may appeal to my perceptual experience (a factive reason) to say “i know i have two hands,” thereby concluding that i am not a biv. but stroud’s counterattack is devastating: he can ask, “how do you know that the hands you see are not simulated? can your perceptual fact really support your knowledge that you are not deceived?” that is, even if my experience is veridical, it cannot logically distinguish whether i am in a real world or a simulated one, since from the subject’s internal perspective these experiences are indistinguishable. thus, i cannot know which is real. accordingly, ed faces a serious problem in its reason structure: suppose an experiential state e is true in world w₁ and also true in world w₂ (even if w₂ is deceptive). can e still provide factive support for belief p? stroud’s answer is no. in skeptical scenarios, no perceptual experience can exclude such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 70 “experientially indistinguishable” deceptive worlds. for a reason to be adequate, it must: (1) be related to fact, (2) be reflectively accessible, and (3) exclude all logical skeptical alternatives. the original ed fails to meet the third condition. it assumes that perceptual states themselves are reasons, but fails to explain how such reasons can exclusively locate the real world rather than a deceptive one. furthermore, stroud points out that it is unclear whether ed’s experiential reasons can transfer from p to q (as required by the closure principle) (stroud, 2002). this “opacity of reason transfer” constitutes the vagueness of reasons: ed assumes that experience automatically yields transferable reasons, but ignores the stronger demand of whether reasons can logically extend to their entailments. in short, the distinction between “i know” and “i think i know” collapses, and experiential reasons remain vague at the boundaries. 3.2 the confusion of support paths and psychological mechanisms building on stroud, ranalli (2014) in luck, propositional perception, and the entailment thesis further argues that for ed to hold, it must depend on the entailment thesis: seeing f → knowing that f but this presupposes that perceptual experience, as the subject’s factive reason, not only supports belief in p but also entails q, where q is derived from p. in a typical anti-skeptical argument, this structure often appears as follows: s sees that he has two hands. from this, s forms the belief “i have two hands.” if i know i have two hands, then i am not a biv. therefore, s knows he is not a biv. ranalli challenges this inference by pointing out that ed conflates the “propositional content supported by experience” with the “entailment chain of beliefs.” even if perceptual experience can support the belief p (“i have two hands”), this does not automatically translate into a factive reason for q (“i am not a biv”). first, perceptual experience is typically non-propositional and must undergo cognitive processing before becoming a doxastic judgment. this involves conceptualization, belief-formation, and other complex psychological activities. second, the entailment relations among beliefs are semantic, not necessarily equivalent to support relations. that is, while p → q holds logically, the reasons supporting p may not automatically support q. ranalli terms this the “misreading of the entailment thesis”: mistaking semantic entailment for experiential support. this reveals a vagueness in ed: it cannot clearly separate the logical form of reasons from their psychological construction. ranalli warns that without a structural account of this transition, ed faces two paradoxes: (1) if experiential reasons only support p, then the belief “i am not a biv” would be accorded knowledge status without being directly supported by reasons, violating ed’s core commitment to factive, reflectively accessible reasons. (2) if ed claims that experiential reasons also support q, it must explain the mediating mechanism of this transition—yet ed offers no such mechanism. thus, ed suffers from structural vagueness in its “experience—proposition—belief” support pathway, involving a logical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 leap. french (2012) expresses a similar view: ed idealizes the relation between experience and belief while ignoring the actual cognitive mechanisms of belief-formation. he notes that if ed requires beliefs to be explicit (i.e., the subject is conscious of them and able to articulate them), then it risks collapsing into extreme intellectualism—implying, absurdly, that subjects must constantly rehearse “i am not a biv.” but in reality, we often hold knowledge-level beliefs unconsciously, without making them explicit (e.g., i know beijing is north of shanghai without continuously entertaining this belief). cognitive psychology shows that belief-explicitness involves attention, linguistic processing, and intention, and is not automatic. if ed overlooks this, it cannot explain why some experiences become knowledge-supporting beliefs while others do not. moreover, french highlights the tension between belief vagueness and reflective accessibility. ed requires experience to be reflectively accessible, but vague beliefs undermine this. if a belief is not explicit, the subject may not be able to identify it reflectively, thereby lacking reflective accessibility—contradicting ed’s core demand. for example, when challenged by a skeptic, if i have not explicitly formed the belief “i am not a biv,” then even if my experience supports my judgment, it lacks the structure of reflective accessibility. ed’s commitment thus collapses. in sum, french concludes that ed fails to distinguish between explicit and latent beliefs. worse, ed assumes that once experience occurs, belief automatically follows, thereby short-circuiting the psychological process of knowledge-formation and reason-articulation. this ultimately causes ed to fail precisely on its central condition: reflective accessibility. 3.3 the lack of mechanisms for justification structure and reflective accessibility in his article, stuchlik (2020) points out that when epistemological disjunctivism (ed) responds to skepticism—especially skepticism rooted in the closure principle—it seems to rely on a "pre-constructed knowledge justification structure": experience itself simultaneously embodies factivity and reflective accessibility, thereby enabling it to support knowledge judgments. however, stuchlik argues that these two roles typically demand distinct psychological and semantic conditions. for example, even if i have a genuine factive perceptual experience, this does not mean i have already psychologically formed a reflective, explicit justificatory basis for belief. he contends that this requirement of ed amounts to a "hybrid justification structure"; in other words, pritchard attempts to use a single form of experiential justification to meet the theoretical needs of both internalism and externalism, ultimately rendering the justification structure itself ambiguous. to further expose this ambiguity, stuchlik categorizes ed into two versions: the "neo-wittgensteinian" and the "moderate neo-moorean". the former, drawing on wittgenstein’s later thought, emphasizes linguistic practice and the tracing of rules, seeking to avoid rather than directly refute skeptical attacks. consequently, when confronting skepticism, it often adopts a "silent" stance, dismissing propositions like "i know i am not a biv (brain-in-a-vat)" as meaningless skeptical claims. the latter, by contrast, retains the factive status of experience while acknowledging that cognitive subjects cannot fully defend www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 against all skeptical challenges. thus, it attempts to respond to skepticism through "reflectively accessible justifications in good cases". stuchlik focuses primarily on this second version of ed, noting that even though it promises factive justifications that are reflectively accessible, it fails to clearly explain how cognizers actually access these justifications. stuchlik’s conclusion in the article is unequivocal: for ed to truly fend off skeptical attacks and sustain itself, it must provide a reflective chain connecting experience to belief, and explicitly explain how experience is structured into justifications that support belief. this is intended to fill ed’s gap in accounting for psychological mechanisms—particularly the specific structures involved in the formation, maintenance, and regulation of beliefs. in short, without supplementation from the dimension of belief, ed’s anti-skeptical claims will be structurally incomplete. in summary, while the criticisms by stroud, ranalli/french, and stuchlik each have their own focus, they collectively reveal a significant explanatory gap in ed between experience, belief, and justification. questions such as whether experience possesses factivity, whether it can be transformed into reflectively accessible justifications, and whether belief plays a clearly identifiable functional role in this process remain unanswered in the existing ed framework. therefore, to bridge this gap, we must first clarify the structural characteristics of belief itself. if belief is not a unitary, stable, binary state, but rather a fine-grained structure marked by inconsistency, probability, dynamic activation, and normativity, then we can more plausibly explain how perceptual experience is transformed into justification through different levels of belief processing—thereby meeting ed’s dual requirements of factivity and reflective accessibility. in other words, only when we provide a sufficiently detailed account of belief’s structure can experience no longer "directly serve as justification" in a vacuous way; instead, it can gain the capacity to support knowledge through the mediating link of belief. in this sense, the next section will turn to contemporary research on the fine-grained structure of belief. we will systematically review the representative views of scholars such as schwitzgebel, staffel, moss, buckareff, and williamson to construct a theoretical framework capable of filling ed’s explanatory gap. 4. the fine-grained structure of belief in the previous section, we noted that ed has an ambiguity problem across three levels—"experience-justification-belief"—in its argumentative structure, and it particularly fails to clarify the role of belief within this framework. however, recent studies have shown that belief is not the unitary, stable, and assertible mental state that traditional philosophy assumes. instead, it is a complex, dynamic mental mechanism with a fine-grained structure. therefore, only by clarifying the structural characteristics of belief itself can we further explore how experience can function as a justification for belief. in the following sections, this paper will review academic research on the fine-grained structure of belief over the past two decades. on this basis, it will reconstruct a multi-dimensional belief model, thereby providing a solid theoretical foundation for defending ed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 specifically, this paper will elaborate on three dimensions: (1) the dimension of inconsistency and hierarchy; (2) the dimension of probability and strength; (3) the dimension of agency and normativity. 4.1 the dimension of inconsistency and hierarchy in "a phenomenal, dispositional account of belief" (schwitzgebel, 2002), eric schwitzgebel challenges the mainstream philosophical binary classification of belief as "held or not held", and proposes an inconsistent belief model. this model argues that people’s beliefs often exist in a "disrupted, vague, and fragmented" state—one that is neither a complete possession nor a complete lack of belief, but rather exhibits "locality" and "context-dependence". through two examples—the "light switch" and "a mother’s religious belief"—he points out that even if a person typically behaves in a way that supports a proposition, they may still harbor doubts about it at a deeper level. for instance, someone might assert in an academic discussion that "death is not terrifying", yet struggle to sleep due to fear of death in their private life. this seemingly contradictory phenomenon is difficult to explain under the traditional belief model, but schwitzgebel interprets it as a manifestation of belief’s "heterogeneity". in other words, the texture or structure of belief is not unitary and fixed; instead, it is a comprehensive state dynamically linked to psychological variables such as behavioral tendencies, linguistic expressions, and attentional focus. furthermore, he argues in his article that beliefs have vague boundaries, making it impossible to definitively state whether someone "holds" a particular belief—since their attitude may exhibit different intentionalities in different contexts. thus, belief cannot be regarded as a simple mental state directly derived from experience; rather, it is an aggregate of complex, dynamic behavioral dimensio. 4.2 the dimension of probability and strength unlike schwitzgebel, who focuses on the dimension of inconsistency, julia staffel (2013, 2019) and sarah moss (2018) center their attention on the "graded nature" of belief. they argue that belief is not a binary attitude of "having or not having", but a quantifiable probabilistic system. in her article, staffel explicitly proposes a "probabilistic belief" model (staffel, 2013). rooted in the bayesian tradition but critical of traditional bayesianism’s idealized assumptions about cognizers, she instead focuses on how real-world cognizers form belief structures that are not fully consistent but rationally acceptable under conditions of limited information. she first distinguishes between two types of attitudes: credal beliefs and categorical beliefs. the former refers to a graded psychological stance toward the truth of a proposition, characterized by fine-grained belief states; the latter, by contrast, serves as a strategic tool for coarse-grained, simplified reasoning. through a series of arguments, she explains that categorical beliefs reduce cognitive load, while credal beliefs—being sensitive to experiential support—truly reflect the fine-grained differences within belief. second, she notes that when faced with uncertain information, we often assign a "credence level" to a belief based on criteria such as the information’s reliability, source, and verifiability. she argues that the classical propositional attitude model overlooks this graduality of belief, whereas the probabilistic model better explains why we have varying degrees of trust in different propositions. in short, belief is not an either-or matter, but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 a mental attitude with a gradient of credence—and this precisely constitutes the fine-grained nature of the belief structure. from this perspective, belief can be defined as a "state of incomplete certainty": a probabilistic mental state rather than a logical assertion. in "time-slice epistemology and action under indeterminacy" (2015), moss further develops staffel’s probabilistic belief model. she proposes integrating "probabilistic belief" into the "semantic knowledge state" model. specifically, she argues that beliefs in human cognitive activity are not fixed, comprehensive mental postures, but rather probabilistic values at specific moments. this "time-slice" perspective helps us better understand the dynamic, multi-level nature of belief (moss, 2018: p27). particularly in contexts of uncertainty, moss emphasizes that action-related decision-making does not rely on a fixed set of beliefs, but on the probabilistic assessment and rational deployment of belief states at a given moment. the core of this theory lies in introducing "credence" as the basic unit of belief. in other words, the belief state at each moment is a probability distribution. for example, if a doctor, based on a 70% belief, concludes that a patient is infected with virus x rather than y, their treatment decision will be directly shaped by this probabilistic belief. however, this structural belief cannot be simplified to "i believe it is x" or "i do not believe it is x"; instead, we must acknowledge the fact that "at time t, i believe x with a probability of p". thus, the author aims to demonstrate the fine-grained structure of belief through a multi-dimensional model. moss further points out that traditional epistemology treats belief as a prerequisite for knowledge, but this binary model actually hinders our understanding of how belief supports action and decision-making. therefore, she advocates replacing "propositional knowledge" with "probabilistic knowledge" as the foundation of analysis. the advantage of this shift is clear: it better explains the mechanism of rational choice when subjects are in a state of cognitive anxiety. even if a subject has not yet attained certain knowledge, they can still possess a "sufficient degree of belief" to justify their actions. here, we see that moss—like staffel—argues that belief is neither a simple "have-or-not" state nor a necessarily explicit content. instead, it is a mental state with an intensity gradient within the cognitive structure. moss adds that this state has an inferential function: it can be integrated into the cognizer’s decision-making framework and serve as a basis for supporting other beliefs and knowledge ascriptions. thus, in her "time-slice model", belief is no longer a passive concept waiting to be activated by experience, but exists in a structure marked by the interplay of latent and explicit states, as well as gradual regulation. 4.3 the dimension of agency and normativity buckareff (2011) offers a theory of belief from the perspective of action philosophy. in his article, he argues that belief is not merely a static mental attitude or a simple responsive mechanism, but a structure with "agency"—meaning that subjects can actively activate, adjust, or suppress their beliefs in different contexts. to explain the dynamic operation of belief, buckareff introduces the distinction between "latent beliefs" and "occurrent beliefs". he argues that latent beliefs are usually inactive and do not manifest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 when there is no behavioral demand, but can be quickly transformed into occurrent beliefs upon stimulation in an action context. for example, we may not actively hold the occurrent belief that "the earth revolves around the sun", but this belief is immediately retrieved from latent beliefs during astronomy-related discussions. buckareff further contends that belief is "agentive" because it can be regulated by the subject, rather than being entirely driven by experience. this agency includes not only the mechanisms for generating and maintaining beliefs, but also the integrative function of beliefs within the cognitive structure—such as how they interact with other beliefs, participate in decision-making and reasoning, and are revised in light of experience. therefore, this agency model provides a unique dimension for understanding the fine-grained structure of belief: belief is not merely a continuum of conceptual refinement, but a combination of dynamically activated states, with fine-grained differences in its psychological processing pathways and response thresholds. as a counterpart to the fine-grained structure of belief, the claim of a coarse-grained structure also holds theoretical value, and the two views together create a unique tension in the theory of belief structure. timothy williamson (2002) proposed the widely discussed "knowledge-first thesis", whose core claim is that knowledge is a fundamental mental state—rather than belief plus additional conditions (williamson, 2002: p33). this view reverses the traditional theory of knowledge (the jtb model) and directly grants knowledge ontological priority. regarding the relationship between belief and knowledge, williamson argues that belief should be governed by knowledge: a person should only believe that something is true if and only if they know it is true. this is the well-known "ek principle" (evidence equals knowledge, e=k). through this principle, williamson sets a normative threshold for belief: if a subject’s belief is not supported by knowledge, it is theoretically defective. for example, when the police investigate a murder case, they often initially form one or more hypotheses (beliefs), then use existing evidence and knowledge to verify these hypotheses. if the evidence and knowledge form a reasonable logical chain and support a belief, that belief is true; otherwise, it is false. williamson rejects the idea of graded differences in belief. as he puts it: belief is essentially an attitude of "having or not having"—one either believes or does not believe (williamson, 2002: p99). this stance rules out probabilistic modeling of belief states or attempts to refine them into hierarchical structures. he is particularly critical of the bayesian tradition, which takes "degree of belief" as the basic unit, arguing that it blurs the distinction between belief, prediction, and behavioral tendencies. thus, williamson’s model largely represents the strongest defense of the coarse-grained structure of belief. his knowledge-first thesis implies that the value of belief depends on the knowledge that constitutes it; any belief not supported by knowledge has cognitive flaws. belief is not a hierarchical or gradually changing mental state, but a binary attitude. however, proponents of the fine-grained model of belief—such as staffel and moss—would counter that this strictly normative view overlooks the complexity and asymmetry of actual human reasoning. nevertheless, from the perspective of constructive dialogue, williamson’s theory can serve as a counterpoint to the fine-grained model of belief. precisely because williamson dismisses the cognitive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 significance of belief’s graduality, the argument for the fine-grained structure becomes more compelling: it not only explains changes in belief states in real cognitive contexts but also accommodates rational action under uncertainty—thereby revising the excessive rationalism of the e=k principle. indirectly, within the ed framework, if we want to argue that "experience can serve as factive justification", we must explain how experience supports the formation of belief and enables it to constitute knowledge. if williamson claims that "a belief is rational only if supported by knowledge", then the structure of belief must be sound. however, ed emphasizes "experience as justification" rather than "knowledge as justification", which may create tension with williamson’s theory. the fine-grained model of belief, however, can resolve this tension: experience provides sufficient probabilistic support to make a belief "approach" a state of knowledge in a specific context. this approximation may not yet constitute knowledge, but it can serve as a reasonable justification for action. here, since belief often fails to meet the requirement of eliminating all skeptical possibilities, it has a "weak normative" structure. precisely because it lacks factual closure, its normative requirements must be adjusted according to different contexts—this further refines ed’s core claim that "experience is factive justification". in summary, through a review of literature on the fine-grained structure of belief over the past two decades, we can identify three key dimensions required by the fine-grained model: an inconsistent and multi-level structure, probabilistic strength, and agentive regulation with normative requirements. each of these dimensions has a specific interactive mechanism with experience, which undoubtedly lays a solid theoretical foundation for subsequent integration work. 5. integrating the fine-grained structure of belief into epistemological disjunctivism in the preceding sections, this paper has argued that for epistemological disjunctivism (ed) to effectively fend off skeptical attacks, it must further explain how perceptual experience supports the dual requirements of belief’s factivity and reflective accessibility. to this end, we have systematically reviewed the views of relevant experts and, on this basis, extracted three key dimensions that the fine-grained model of belief must encompass: an inconsistent structure, probabilistic strength, as well as agentive regulation and normative requirements. therefore, the primary task of this section is to integrate the aforementioned theoretical resources and reconstruct a new model that enables the fine-grained structure of belief to function within the ed framework. this aims to address doubts regarding the ambiguity problem and further advance the research on ed. before formally elaborating on the argument, we should first clarify what kind of belief the fine-grained model of belief entails. this paper holds that such a belief must satisfy at least three specific conditions: beliefs can be triggered by experience and possess a dynamic response mechanism; beliefs have a differential response mechanism; and the belief structure must be reflectively accessible to the subject. these three conditions correspond exactly to the three dimensions of the fine-grained structure of belief. in the following, we will draw on recent theoretical resources—including lorini’s (2019) belief base model, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 77 de bruijn’s (2024) luminosity argument, and wang’s (2025) research on belief strength and risk thresholds—to elaborate on and construct the model. 5.1 inconsistency and the latent-manifest structure in rethinking epistemic logic with belief bases, lorini systematically proposes a multi-level belief model with "belief bases" as the basic unit. in his article, he advocates defining a subject’s cognitive state in terms of sets of belief sentences rather than possible worlds. within his theoretical construction, the belief system is divided into two fundamental levels: occurrent beliefs and latent beliefs. the former refers to propositions or justifications that can be directly cognized and accepted by the subject, forming the intuitive content of the belief base. this means the subject can directly activate them and engage in a series of reasoning activities based on them. the latter, by contrast, consists of propositions logically implied by occurrent beliefs, of which the subject is not explicitly aware. thus, the subject needs to activate latent beliefs through deduction, reasoning, or specific contexts. lorini argues that occurrent beliefs are the psychologically prominent units of the belief base, while latent beliefs exist as background resources. although both belong to the belief base, the subject’s reflective access to latent beliefs depends on cognitive resources and specific cognitive contexts. we can draw extensively on lorini’s theoretical work to further divide the belief base model into three levels: 1. the core occurrent level: this includes beliefs that are currently in the subject’s consciousness, can be expressed immediately, participate in the subject’s cognitive reasoning, and are open to reflective evaluation. 2. the intermediate responsive level: this refers to beliefs that are not occurrent but can be quickly retrieved when situations change or attention is directed. for example, when asked "how many windows are there in your office?", the visual and memory-based beliefs evoked in response belong to this level. 3. the deep latent level: these are beliefs that are usually unconscious and can only be activated under specific backgrounds or emotional states. by adopting lorini’s belief base model, we obtain an effective cognitive mechanism bridge for ed. first, the reflective justifications required by ed typically originate from the belief states at the core occurrent level. the reason why a subject can "know that they know" is that their beliefs have been activated from the intermediate or latent level to the core occurrent level, making them available for reflection and statement. second, the existence of the intermediate responsive level explains how beliefs can be aroused by perceptual experiences and cognitive contexts. for instance, we do not always hold the occurrent belief that "i am not a brain-in-a-vat (biv)"; yet, when faced with skeptical challenges, this belief is activated to the occurrent level under the stimulation of stable experiences and functions as a justification. finally, beliefs at the latent level, as part of the long-term cognitive framework, provide background conditions for the activation of beliefs. this explains why cognizers can make intuitive judgments even when they lack explicit justifications. therefore, the subject’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 78 accessibility to factive justifications is not an unconditional, constant presence, but depends on cognitive levels and situational activation mechanisms. in other words, as long as beliefs are activable and meet the conditions for becoming occurrent at the appropriate time, they satisfy ed’s requirement for justification accessibility. 5.2 probability and threshold can we further refine the concept of belief itself? the answer is yes. as staffel and moss have demonstrated earlier, belief should be regarded as a probabilistic system rather than a purely logical assertion. however, in many cases, the original version of ed seems to treat the relationship between "belief" and "factive justification" as a deterministic assertive structure. nevertheless, in real-world situations filled with uncertainty, whether a belief is sufficient to recognize a certain perceptual experience as a factive justification often depends on its probabilistic strength. this view aligns with wang’s (2025) recent research. in his article, through extensive technical work, wang points out that belief is a measurable psychological structure sensitive to risk. when facing cognitive risks, cognitive subjects do not hold their beliefs in a binary manner; instead, they adjust the strength and acceptability of their beliefs based on regression variables derived from a "risk-value" function. among other findings, wang argues that in cognitive activities, we mainly rely on two variables to dynamically adjust the acceptability of a belief: the strength of subjective belief and the contextual risk threshold. the former can be expressed as a probability value within the interval [0, 1], representing the degree of certainty with which the cognizer holds that proposition p is true. the latter refers to the minimum belief strength required for a proposition to be sufficiently supported by knowledge, and its specific value depends on the context and the consequences of the subject’s actions. for example, suppose my subjective probability of believing "i am not a biv" is 0.87. in a context where this proposition only needs to reach a probability of 0.85 to counter skepticism, this belief can be regarded as a qualified belief supported by knowledge. conversely, if the context is a high-risk one—such as medical diagnosis—where the required belief strength must reach 0.99 to constitute a qualified belief, then my belief with a probability strength of only 0.87 is unqualified and cannot be supported by knowledge. at this point, we can attempt to integrate wang’s belief model into the theoretical framework of ed: first, ed must clearly distinguish between the strength of a belief and the factive status of a justification. ed is often criticized for equating "i see that i have two hands" with "i know that i am not a biv". in reality, however, the subject’s degree of certainty in their perceptual experience varies in strength. wang’s probabilistic model can serve as a specific bridge for this transformation mechanism—only when the strength of the subject’s belief exceeds a reasonable threshold can the belief effectively "receive" the factive justification conferred by experience; otherwise, this process fails. second, ed’s core requirements are valid in a specific context if and only if the proposition in question is situated in a low-risk context. for example, wang argues that the perceptual proposition "i see that i have two hands" is safe in general contexts, and the required belief strength is easily achievable. hence, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 we have no need to question it in daily situations. finally, if ed chooses to confront skeptical contexts—especially high-risk ones—it can emphasize that as long as the subject’s subjective belief strength remains stable within a reasonable probability range and sufficiently exceeds the high-risk threshold in the skeptical context, we can reasonably reject skeptical hypotheses. by reconstructing ed’s probabilistic framework, we further clarify its criteria for reflective accessibility: the subject not only holds a proposition occurrently but also holds it with a sufficient probability strength in the current context, thereby forming a reflective justification. furthermore, wang’s research findings also echo lorini’s theoretical claim regarding the "inconsistent structure". specifically, the activation of a belief from a latent state to an occurrent state is still insufficient to ensure that it can be supported by knowledge—unless the belief meets the probabilistic strength required by the reasonable risk threshold of the context. this, in turn, provides a cognitive and context-sensitive explanatory framework for ed’s continuous transformation mechanism regarding "experience-justification-belief". 5.3 agentive regulation we know that one of ed’s core appeals lies in its preservation of the epistemological status of the subject’s "reflective ability", avoiding the "blindness" trap of externalism. however, this requirement for reflectivity implicitly harbors a problematic assumption: when a subject is in an experiential state, they should also possess the ability to access, identify, and regulate that state. in other words, ed requires the subject to have the active control ability to make beliefs occurrent and structurally adjust them. the problem, however, is that this assumption easily leads to a dilemma commonly faced by empiricist epistemologies—are experiential states always knowable to the subject? if not, how can the subject’s knowledge judgments be valid? as a result, ed seems to struggle to answer the following question: when experience fails to be explicitly transformed into a structured belief, can it still constitute a justification for knowledge? the core of this question lies in the explanatory gap within the dimension of agentive regulation. bruijn (2024) draws on williamson’s luminosity argument to question ed’s mechanism of "justification occurrentization". the so-called luminosity argument states: if you are in a certain mental state, then you must know that you are in that state (williamson, 2002: p95). later, however, williamson refuted the luminosity argument using the gradual case of "being cold to not being cold". this case shows that if a certain mental state is luminous (transparent), then the subject would know that the state is still accessible at every moment before it ceases to exist. yet, because the change at each moment is so minimal that the subject cannot perceive it, the subject cannot detect when the state will no longer be accessible—and thus, the mental state is not luminous (williamson, 2002: pp99-101). bruijn extends this view to ed and puts forward the following reasoning: if ed requires the subject to always be able to "reflectively access the mental state" whenever "the experiential state exists", this is equivalent to claiming that the experiential state is "luminous". in reality, however, many perceptual experiences are in a "borderline state". www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 80 subjects often struggle to determine whether an experience meets the threshold for constituting knowledge, leading to delays, ambiguities, or interruptions in the formation of beliefs. therefore, under its presupposition that "experience = justification", ed overlooks the issue of cognitive agency in belief formation and regulation, making it unable to explain why subjects sometimes have experiences but cannot claim "to know". bruijn reveals that a cognizer’s control over their mental states is not an automatic process, but rather a "competence-based" process dependent on attention, recognition ability, and contextual deployment. this is precisely why we should introduce "agentive regulation" when reconstructing ed’s theoretical model. to address ed’s difficulties in its reflective mechanism, we need to integrate bruijn’s insights and propose a specific agentive regulation mechanism, thereby more clearly explaining the explanatory gap between experience and justification. specifically, agentive regulation can be regarded as consisting of three core mechanisms: 1. attention deployment: whether an individual focuses their attention on a specific experiential content determines whether the experiential state can enter the structure of reflective accessibility. 2. recognition judgment: this refers to whether an individual can identify a perceptual experience as a reliable and applicable cognitive justification, which constitutes the "validity" prerequisite for a justification. 3. threshold adjustment: this aims to explain whether an individual has a mechanism for setting the threshold of "whether something is worth believing", which can address the dilemma of identifying "borderline experiences" raised by bruijn. these three mechanisms collectively constitute the active control process required for transforming experience into justification. in other words, within the agentive regulation mechanism, the cognitive subject is not a passive recipient of experiences, but an active constructor who can integrate experiences into beliefs through active psychological processing. we can now formulate the agentive regulation mechanism as the following reasoning structure: if a perceptual experience is to constitute a justification for knowledge, this mental state must be reflectively accessible to the cognitive subject. whether a perceptual experience is reflectively accessible depends on whether the subject can deploy their attention, complete the recognition process, and proactively set the threshold. therefore, a perceptual experience can only constitute the knowledge justification required by ed after the subject completes the agentive regulation mechanism. it follows that ed should not rely solely on the static identity assumption of "experience = justification", but instead incorporate a dynamic, agentive control explanatory model. this further strengthens ed’s anti-skeptical claims: cognizers can verify whether their experiential states are reasonably acceptable through practical competence operations, rather than blindly falling into the skeptical chain of "whether i know that i know", thereby effectively blocking the infinite skepticism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 81 directed at ed’s foundational basis for counterarguments. 5.4 dual norms of knowledge and action regarding reflective accessibility, we can identify yet another question: what exactly constitutes "being reflectively accessible"? if a subject merely becomes aware of the existence of a certain perceptual experience at the psychological level, does that directly mean they can use it as a justification for their belief? or, to put it another way, does the subject bear a certain normative obligation for the formation, maintenance, and revision of their beliefs? additionally, does the "good case" referred to by ed implicitly contain a certain deontic structure rather than being a purely factual structure? these questions clearly go beyond the explanatory framework of the original ed. if they cannot be addressed directly, ed will fall into a double blind spot: lacking both external factivity and internal justification. to resolve this issue, the fine-grained model of belief must fully incorporate the "normative dimension". we can first explore this issue from the perspective of recent "responsibilist epistemology". the core view of responsibilist epistemology is that cognitive responsibility is a comprehensive manifestation of an individual’s ability and obligation to form and maintain beliefs in accordance with certain normative requirements while pursuing cognitive goals (gerken, 2020). from this perspective, "knowing" is not only the subject’s correct ascription of facts but also the legitimate attribution of responsibility for their own cognitive actions. this corresponds logically to the "reflective accessibility" in ed, as shown in the following table: table 1. the defence structure and responsibility attribution of ed dimension requirements of ed interpretation from responsibilist epistemology justificatory structure of belief experience serves as a factive and reflectively accessible justification. the subject bears the normative responsibility for the acceptablity of their experiential justifications. ascription of belief the subject must “be able to know that they know”. the subject bears the normative responsibility for the rationality of their beliefs in a given context. countering skepticism the justification of a belief needs to resist the skeptical dilemma of “we might be misled”. the normative structure of belief ensures the subject’s belief that “we ought to believe in this way”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 82 from the above table, we can draw a conclusion: if ed cannot regard the occurrentization of justifications as a normative attribution mechanism, it will be unable to maintain the theoretical tension of its anti-skeptical claims. we must now consider the question: what is the standard for the attribution of belief? if we hold that a belief can only realize its functions or attributes when expressed, then we can regard belief as a public commitment to providing justifications to others, rather than a purely private mental state. this point is extremely crucial, for although ed emphasizes reflective accessibility, it fails to clarify whether this accessibility holds in "social interactive practices". if a subject cannot cognitively explain why their experience is trustworthy, then the judgment "i know p" lacks social verifiability, thereby consigning ed to a predicament of subjective isolation. this clearly undermines the argumentative power of ed in resisting skepticism. in summary, we can regard normative requirements as one of the necessary conditions for the fine-grained structure of belief. its specific operational mechanism can be divided into three levels: 1. internal individual responsibility: this requires the subject to reasonably control the formation of their beliefs, which determines whether ed can transform experience into a justification that ought to be believed. 2. social accountability: this refers to whether the subject can defend their beliefs as public justifications, which determines the verifiability of justifications and the social nature of knowledge. 3. embedding of cognitive norms: this refers to whether the subject abides by the internal norms for forming beliefs and the obligations of justification, which determines whether a belief possesses the "rationality and durability" required for recognition. based on this, we can conclude that if the fine-grained nature of a belief cannot be attributed through normative mechanisms, its "refinement", even if it exists, will not qualify as a "justification supporting knowledge". in other words, normative constraints serve as the ultimate criterion for determining whether the fine-grained structure of a belief ultimately attains "epistemic status". 6. rethinking the scope of application and anti-skeptical capacity of epistemological disjunctivism in the sections above, this paper has proposed a specific multi-level model of belief. this model can be regarded as the core framework for the expanded optimization of epistemological disjunctivism (ed). on this basis, the optimized ed no longer conceives of the subject’s belief state as a 点状 structure of "factive justifications with reflective accessibility", but rather as a dynamic system underpinned by the subject’s active regulatory and hierarchical support mechanisms. for example, when dealing with cases involving others’ testimony, we only need to retrieve a hierarchical structure of belief support (such as background assumptions, the source of the testimony, and memory confirmation), and conduct reasonable regulation and examination of it, to meet the requirements of reflective justification. this theoretical reconstruction significantly expands the scope of application of ed. in the original www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 version of ed, the legitimacy of knowledge judgments was confined to scenarios of direct experience; in the revised ed, by introducing the latent-manifest structure, memorial knowledge and testimonial knowledge gain potential forms of reflective support. furthermore, the integration of the probabilistic strength dimension of belief allows ed to more easily handle belief scenarios involving vague intermediate states—scenarios that were difficult to incorporate into the "knowledge" framework in the original ed, but for which the revised ed can provide a corresponding explanatory pathway. in addition, the agentive regulation mechanism particularly strengthens ed’s explanatory power in skeptical contexts: the subject is not merely a passive recipient of belief states, but an active regulator and maintainer of their belief network. for instance, when faced with skeptics’ challenges to hypothetical scenarios, the subject can enhance their grasp of the justification for their beliefs by adjusting the probabilistic strength of their beliefs, comparing evidence, or reconstructing structures. this kind of "dynamic self-correction" mechanism is clearly beyond the reach of the original ed. in terms of anti-skeptical significance, the revised ed demonstrates greater resilience and adaptability than the original version: first, with the introduction of the probabilistic strength of belief, it overcomes the "all-or-nothing" logic of the original ed. it allows the subject to hold a proposition with "high credibility" in uncertain situations, thereby resisting skeptical attacks. second, the multi-level nature of the fine-grained belief model endows ed with a kind of "flexible reflectivity"—the subject does not need to grasp all supporting elements at the same time; as long as they can identify and activate the key nodes in their belief structure, and transform the required beliefs from a latent state to an occurrent state, they can form reflective justification sufficient to resist skepticism. finally, in the context of higher-order skepticism, the revised ed no longer relies on direct confirmation of the belief state itself, but constructs a defensive mechanism based on the "cognitively responsible access structure". for example, if the subject can reasonably fulfill cognitive responsibilities such as evidence examination and background consistency checking, then even if they cannot confirm that they "know that they know", their belief state can still be considered to have a certain anti-skeptical foundation. this undoubtedly significantly enhances ed’s ability to resist skepticism. however, although the revised ed expands the scope of application of the original ed, it also exposes new theoretical limitations: first, extremely indirect knowledge will still constitute a bottleneck—for example, highly abstract theoretical knowledge or end propositions in multi-step reasoning chains. in such scenarios, the support structure for the beliefs held by the subject often goes far beyond the scope of reflective accessibility. even if the probabilistic strength of belief and the agentive regulation mechanism are introduced into the fine-grained belief model, it is still difficult to truly reconstruct reflective accessibility. second, when the subject is in a cognitive context with a highly opaque social structure (such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 algorithmic recommendations, deepfake information, and anonymous testimony), the regulatory requirements that ed imposes on the support structure may not be satisfied. this is not only due to the inaccessibility of evidential information, but also because the social nature of the support structure itself imposes restrictions on reflective control. in addition, in situations where the subject’s cognitive abilities are limited (such as cognitive impairment or hallucinatory states) or the belief itself is non-propositional (such as procedural knowledge), ed also struggles to provide a consistent explanation. in conclusion, after the structural optimization of the fine-grained belief model, ed has indeed significantly improved its theoretical breadth and anti-skeptical capacity. from a theoretical structure originally applicable only to direct perceptual knowledge, it has been expanded to cover indirect cognitive forms such as memory, testimony, and reasoning. the revised ed thus demonstrates a more open, agentive, and responsibility-inclusive epistemological stance. however, in reality, it cannot become an all-encompassing knowledge explanation system; its theoretical boundaries are still constrained by the structural accessibility of the belief system and the feasibility of the subject’s regulatory capabilities. conclusion to sum up, by introducing the fine-grained structure of belief, this paper has systematically reconstructed and theoretically expanded epistemological disjunctivism. while preserving its core anti-skeptical commitments, we have proposed an optimized version with greater explanatory power and a broader scope of application. this version enables ed not only to counter radical skeptical challenges, but also to encompass more complex multi-dimensional belief states. this reconstruction not only reveals the theoretical limitations of the original epistemological disjunctivism, but also shows that epistemological disjunctivism still possesses sustained theoretical vitality and innovative potential when confronting contemporary representational issues and practical 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(2002). knowledge and its limits. oxford university press. funding declaration this research received no external funding. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 201 original paper research on the application of aigc technology in three-dimensional animation creation wang yingyi1* 1 school of fine arts and design, lingnan normal university, zhanjiang, guangdong, china * wang_yingyi@qq.com received: october 19, 2025 accepted: december 05, 2025 online published: december 19, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p201 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p201 abstract in recent years, aigc technology has seen widespread application within the field of animated content production. this paper focuses on exploring the application of aigc technology in three-dimensional animation creation. it first elucidates the concept and core characteristics of aigc technology, subsequently introduces the traditional workflow of three-dimensional animation creation and the challenges it faces, and then examines the specific pathways through which aigc technology empowers three-dimensional animation creation.while demonstrating how aigc technology has permeated and empowered every stage of 3d animation production, ushering in unprecedented transformation, this paper also addresses existing limitations of aigc technology. keywords aigc technology, 3d animation production, production workflow, automatic generation 1. introduction in recent years, artificial intelligence generated content (aigc) technology, centred on deep learning and generative models, has advanced remarkably. it has demonstrated exceptional content creation capabilities across domains such as article writing, image generation, and video editing.as the underlying technologies mature, aigc has gradually entered the realm of three-dimensional content production, introducing novel possibilities to animation workflows. applying aigc to 3d animation enables varying degrees of intelligence and automation in character design, scene construction, and animation sequence production. this not only enhances efficiency but also significantly transforms creative methodologies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 202 2. the concept and core characteristics of aigc technology aigc technology, as the name suggests, refers to the automated generation of diverse content through artificial intelligence. leveraging deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision, it can autonomously produce articles, images, audio, video, and other content types. the advent of aigc has revolutionised content creation by moving beyond traditional manual-dependent methods, ushering in a new era. the most fundamental characteristic of aigc technology is its exceptional production efficiency. previously, whether composing an article, creating a painting, or filming a video, creators had to invest substantial time and effort. aigc technology, however, possesses formidable computational power and sophisticated algorithms, enabling the generation of vast quantities of content within remarkably short timeframes.furthermore, multimodal fusion represents another significant aspect of aigc technology. it supports cross-media content generation, comprehending and processing diverse data types such as images, text, and audio, whilst enabling seamless conversion and integration between different modalities. 3. the process and challenges of 3danimation creation 3.1 traditional workflow of 3d animation production the 3d animation creation process is systematic and complex, broadly divided into three stages: pre-production planning, mid-production, and post-production. the pre-production phase serves as the foundational groundwork for animation creation, directly determining the work's stylistic direction, narrative logic, and production feasibility. it also constitutes the initial conceptualisation and planning of the story, characters, and settings, encompassing the following key stages: creative ideation and thematic positioning, scriptwriting and world-building, concept design, character/scene/prop design, and storyboard development.during pre-production, the first step involves defining the animation's core theme and target audience in the creative conception and thematic positioning phase, establishing the overall tone—whether comedic, poignant, or science fiction. subsequently, in the scriptwriting and world-building phase, the script is drafted while constructing the entire narrative's world-building framework, including the story's era, location, and any unique rules or conventions.the concept design phase involves creating core visual references, such as overall style guides, atmospheric setting sketches, and preliminary character designs. building upon these concepts, the designs for characters, settings, props, and storyboards are then refined. storyboard design specifically entails translating the script into visual storyboard sketches, enabling a clear visualisation of each shot's content. the mid-production phase of 3d animation creation is the pivotal stage where all conceptual ideas from the pre-production planning phase are brought to fruition. this involves transforming design drafts into tangible 3d models and animated sequences, encompassing the following key processes: 3d modelling, material and texture creation, lighting and camera setup, and animation production. first, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 203 creators must build three-dimensional models of characters, environments, and props within 3d software based on the design drafts. subsequently, these models are 'dressed and skinned' – that is, materials and textures are applied to impart tactile qualities such as metallic sheen or the drape of fabric. realistic lighting effects are then simulated, and camera angles and trajectories are replicated from the storyboard to establish the desired visual atmosphere.finally, animators must rig the characters with skeletal structures and employ keyframe animation techniques to execute movements, facial expressions, and environmental dynamics as specified by the storyboard and script. this encompasses actions like walking, running, or camera movements such as pans, tilts, and dolly shots. the post-production phase of 3d animation creation is pivotal in determining the final visual outcome, comprising the following key stages: rendering output, sound effects and soundtrack production, and final compositing. creators employ specialised rendering software to perform high-precision rendering, adjusting parameters such as lighting, colour, and materials to enhance realism and detail before exporting the animation.following output, creators incorporate auditory elements—such as character dialogue, ambient sound effects, and musical scores—to heighten viewer immersion and effectively convey emotional resonance through the animation. finally, video and audio are meticulously synchronised to ensure flawless alignment, eliminating any audio-visual desynchronisation. 3.2 challenges in 3d animation production traditional 3d animation production is complex and time-consuming, with each stage interdependent. this process presents challenges including prolonged creative refinement, extended production timelines, and high labour costs. in traditional 3d animation production, the foremost challenge creators face is the protracted refinement of creative concepts. whether in the initial conceptualisation phase or subsequent character, environment, and storyboard design, achieving a finalised version in one go is exceedingly rare. during the conceptual stage, creators must meticulously refine details from establishing the narrative framework and defining core character traits to planning the overall environment. each element requires repeated discussion and scrutiny to ensure the concept is both novel and logically coherent.in practice, constant adjustments and revisions are often required, with initially conceived plans potentially being scrapped and restarted. this process frequently consumes weeks or even months. take character design as an example: starting from initial sketches, creators may produce dozens or even hundreds of versions before gradually finalising a character's appearance, personality traits, and costume details.achieving both charm and distinctiveness may necessitate repeated tweaks to eye size, hairstyles, and colour schemes, with each modification requiring redrawing – substantially increasing the time and effort invested in design. secondly, extended production timelines remain an unavoidable challenge in traditional 3d animation. creating 3d models is notoriously time-consuming, requiring creators to build numerous models—including characters, architecture, terrain, and props—using 3d modelling software. each model must then be meticulously assigned texture maps and lighting settings, a process demanding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 204 considerable time and effort.the animation production phase is equally demanding. creators must meticulously set keyframes for characters, objects, and cameras frame by frame to ensure fluid, natural movement. for longer animations, this entails managing vast quantities of keyframes, each requiring careful, precise adjustments with zero margin for error.the post-production rendering stage is particularly time-consuming and labour-intensive. creators must render each frame with high precision, repeatedly tweaking various parameters to achieve optimal visual results. this process demands substantial computational resources; rendering a single frame can sometimes take several hours or even days. overall, producing a high-quality 3d animation from initial concept to final completion represents a significant investment of time for creators. moreover, high labour costs represent a significant challenge for traditional 3d animation production. the complexity and specialisation of 3d animation necessitate collaboration among numerous skilled professionals.a complete 3d animation production team typically comprises multiple roles, including concept artists, animation designers, modellers, renderers, editors, and sound designers. professionals in these positions must not only master relevant software tools and techniques but also possess strong artistic sensibilities and creative abilities. this inevitably drives up the overall labour costs of animation production. for instance, animation designers require a solid grasp of animation principles to create imaginative and expressive characters and settings; modellers must be adept at 3d modelling software to construct intricate models with precision; renderers need mastery of rendering techniques to achieve desired effects through parameter adjustments; and sound designers must meticulously match audio and music to the animation's scenes and narrative. 4. pathways foraigc technology to empower 3danimation creation in response to the aforementioned challenges in 3d animation production, aigc technology presents new opportunities for industry advancement through its formidable generative capabilities, high processing efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. this technology can be integrated into every stage of 3d animation creation, optimising workflows through automation and intelligent processes. it not only provides creators with innovative approaches and methodologies but also significantly enhances production efficiency while reducing creative costs. 4.1 pre-production planning phase: stimulating creativity and enhancing efficiency during the pre-production planning phase, aigc technology primarily supports creative conceptualisation, scriptwriting, character design, scene design, and storyboard development. it enables creators to rapidly generate numerous creative proposals, thereby shortening the initial planning timeline. 4.1.1 creative conceptualisation and scriptwriting aigc technology can rapidly generate numerous creative ideas based on user-input keywords, thematic directions, or reference cases. for instance, a creator might input "fantasy-style 3d animation featuring a young swordsman protagonist with the core theme of defending one's homeland." aigc tools can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 205 then produce several distinct story outlines, core conflict settings, and audience analysis reports.while these generated proposals still require human screening and refinement, they provide creators with abundant creative inspiration, preventing creative block or exhaustion. simultaneously, aigc analyses elements from popular market works and audience preferences, offering data-driven support for creative proposals. this ensures works better align with market demands and resonate more readily with audiences. 4.2.2 character and scene design regarding character design, aigc tools can rapidly generate multiple draft designs based on the creator's provided character traits, physical descriptions, or stylistic references. for instance, inputting "a charming cartoon girl character, lively and energetic, wearing traditional hanfu in bright, vibrant colours" enables aigc to produce dozens of distinct character sketches within moments, encompassing varied hairstyles, clothing details, and poses.creators can then refine and optimise these sketches rather than starting from scratch, significantly reducing time investment. for instance, the production team behind reunion order used the giant pandas tuantuan and yuanyuan as inspiration. inputting keywords like "good-natured panda, ink-wash texture" prompted the ai platform to swiftly generate 20 design proposals.in scene design, aigc proves equally potent. inputting descriptions like "a bustling metropolis at night, illuminated by lanterns, with a river flowing through its heart" enables aigc to generate multiple conceptual renderings showcasing varied compositions, lighting effects, and architectural styles. these provide clear references for subsequent scene modelling, allowing modellers to more accurately capture the overall aesthetic.for instance, the team behind the animated film the beast employed midjourney to rapidly generate multiple scene concept artworks, providing compositional and lighting references that significantly accelerated modelling efficiency and substantially shortened the production cycle. 4.3 storyboard design traditional storyboard design requires animators to draw frame by frame, a time-consuming and laborious process.aigc technology can directly convert script content into visual storyboard sketches. based on scene descriptions, character actions, and dialogue within the script, it automatically generates corresponding storyboard frames, complete with annotations for camera angles, movement patterns, and duration. for instance, inputting a script segment like "the protagonist pushes open the door, enters a dimly lit room, and discovers a glowing box in the corner" into an aigc tool can generate several sets of storyboard sketches in different styles.creators can then select suitable storyboard proposals based on their requirements, before refining and adjusting them. certain aigc tools can swiftly transform static storyboards into basic animated storyboard videos, simulating camera movements and scene transitions to help creators better grasp the pacing of their animated narratives in advance. 4.2 mid-production phase: automated generation to reduce costs the mid-production phase represents the most time-consuming and labour-intensive stage in 3d www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 206 animation creation. aigc technology finds extensive application in areas such as modelling and material/texture creation. through automated generation and production assistance, it can significantly enhance production efficiency. 4.2.1 model creation 3d modelling forms the foundation of mid-production. traditional modelling methods require artists to spend considerable time crafting intricate details, making the process highly time-consuming.aigc technology assists modelling in two ways: firstly, generating 3d models from 2d design drafts. by importing 2d character or scene designs into aigc modelling tools, the software automatically recognises contours and structures within the image to produce a foundational 3d model. modellers then refine details and adjust structures upon this base.the second method involves generating 3d models from textual descriptions. for instance, inputting "a circular wooden dining table with natural wood grain on the tabletop and four square legs" enables the aigc tool to rapidly produce a table model meeting these specifications. 4.2.2. material and texture creation aigc technology enables intelligent matching and rapid generation in material and texture creation. firstly, it automatically recommends suitable material parameters based on a model's type and style. for instance, it assigns high-reflectivity, high-hardness properties to metallic models to achieve a metallic finish, or soft, low-reflectivity attributes to fabric models to convey a cloth-like suppleness.concurrently, aigc generates high-quality texture patterns from textual descriptions or reference images. inputting prompts like "weathered brick wall texture with moss and cracks" or "leather texture featuring natural creases and sheen" yields corresponding texture maps.these texture maps not only boast rich detail but also automatically adapt to the model's shape, eliminating the need for manual painting and adjustment by texture artists and significantly reducing workload. 4.3 post-production compositing stage: intelligent optimisation for enhanced quality the post-production compositing stage is crucial for integrating all creative elements and refining the final outcome. aigc technology provides robust support in post-production compositing, sound effects, and soundtrack creation, enhancing both the visual and auditory quality of the work. 4.3.1 post-production compositing during post-production compositing, aigc enables intelligent colour grading and image restoration. intelligent colour grading automatically adjusts parameters such as colour, contrast, and brightness according to the animation's style and scene requirements, ensuring consistent tonal harmony throughout the production. for instance, in traditional chinese-style animations, aigc automatically applies elegant, rich colour palettes; for sci-fi animations, it employs cool tones and high saturation to unify the visual aesthetic.additionally, aigc supports colour grading based on reference imagery. creators need only import desired tonal reference images, and the tool automatically adjusts the footage to match the specified stylistic palette, eliminating the need for manual, pixel-by-pixel adjustments. for instance, the sci-fi animation the metis employed ai tools like ic-light for stylised www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 207 visual production, significantly boosting workflow efficiency. regarding image restoration, aigc can automatically detect and rectify minor imperfections such as model clipping, abnormal lighting effects, or image noise, eliminating the need for manual, time-consuming corrections by compositors and reducing workload.furthermore, aigc enables intelligent image segmentation and rapid integration of elements from disparate scenes, boosting compositing efficiency. take the original footage of the animated series the legend of the eight immortals, which was riddled with noise and blurred details. manual restoration would have been immensely challenging, whereas aigc technology swiftly resolved these issues. 4.3.2 sound effects and music production aigc demonstrates formidable capabilities in sound effects and soundtrack production. for sound effects, creators need only describe actions and scenes in text for aigc to automatically generate corresponding audio—such as footsteps, clanging collisions, or ambient noise.for soundtrack creation, aigc generates original background music tailored to an animation's theme, emotional tone, and scene rhythm.creators need only input specifications such as "warm, cheerful light music suitable for children's animation scenes" for aigc to generate multiple tracks meeting the requirements, allowing creators to select and modify them. for instance, shanghai bestv's first purely ai-assisted animated production, forest fairy tales, relied entirely on aigc technology from character design to scene rendering, with its soundtrack and sound effects also intelligently generated. 5. conclusion the rapid advancement of aigc technology has ushered in unprecedented transformation within the 3d animation industry. with its ability to produce content both swiftly and effectively, it has permeated every stage of 3d animation creation. this technology offers solutions to persistent challenges in 3d animation production, such as protracted creative refinement, extended production timelines, and high labour costs.during the initial planning phase, aigc technology assists creators in rapidly generating concepts, offering diverse design proposals and storyboard ideas, thereby streamlining the planning process.during the mid-production phase, aigc technology can automatically generate foundational 3d models and material textures, eliminating repetitive groundwork and making production readily achievable. in the post-production compositing stage, aigc technology further enhances efficiency by intelligently adjusting colours, repairing minor visual imperfections, and integrating sound effects and music. this not only elevates the final output's quality but also significantly boosts creative productivity. however, while aigc technology offers convenience for 3d animation creation, it currently presents certain limitations. firstly, the creative outputs generated by aigc rely entirely on pre-trained data; it lacks genuine creative capacity and cannot convey deeper emotional layers. for animations requiring profound emotional depth or unique artistic styles, human creators remain indispensable for directional control, with aigc serving only as an auxiliary tool.secondly, outputs from aigc technology may www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 208 exhibit minor flaws, such as structural inconsistencies in models or insufficiently refined repairs. these require subsequent adjustment and optimisation by creators to achieve the desired effect. references he, j. h., & jiang, w. (2024). animation creation driven by aigc: technological transformation, integration pathways, and risk challenges. journal of beijing institute of graphic communication, 32(05), 68-72. https://doi.org/10.19461/j.cnki.1004-8626.2024.05.005 li, j. (2025). research on the application of generative ai in animation creation. new art domain, (10), 105-107. sun, l., & shen, c. y. (2023). empowerment and reconstruction: new pathways for animation creation amidst the generative ai wave. film review, (20), 6-11. https://doi.org/10.16583/j.cnki.52-1014/j.2023.20.004 kang, k. (2008). analysis of the development and current status of 3d animation in china. film literature, (17), 27-28. original paper research on the application of aigc technology in 1. introduction 2. the concept and core characteristics of aigc te 3. the process and challenges of 3d animation crea 3.1 traditional workflow of 3d animation productio 3.2 challenges in 3d animation production 4. pathways for aigc technology to empower 3d anim 4.1 pre-production planning phase: stimulating cre 4.2 mid-production phase: automated generation to 4.3 post-production compositing stage: intelligent 5. conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 145 original paper a study on the construction of beijing city image in the mainstream media of english-speaking countries wenxinxin qin1 1 school of foreign languages, renmin university of china, beijing, china received: june 18, 2025 accepted: august 09, 2025 online published: august 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p145 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p145 abstract rooted in china's strategic needs to enhance its international communication capacity and cultural soft power, this study focuses on the construction logic of beijing's city image in mainstream media of english-speaking countries. adopting a combined research method of content analysis and discourse analysis, it constructs a corpus using beijing-related reports (2020-2024) from five mainstream newspapers—the new york times (u.s.), the guardian (u.k.), the globe and mail (canada), the australian (australia), and the new zealand herald (new zealand), to systematically explore the characteristics of how beijing's city image is constructed in these media outlets. the three features are: (1) media exposure demonstrates the characteristics of "generally low coverage, heterogeneity across countries, and event-driven dynamics"; (2) there is a structural imbalance in the mapping of beijing's city image; (3) significant national differences exist in theme selection. essentially, such differences are the media reflection of the five countries' identity perceptions of china. based on these findings, an optimization path featuring "differentiated and targeted communication+ multi-dimensional narrative upgrading + dynamic adjustment mechanism" should be adopted, so as to provide strategic support for beijing to break free from the "othering" narrative of western media and construct a three-dimensional and comprehensive international image. keywords beijing city image, mainstream media of english-speaking countries, three features, an optimization path 1. introduction with the enhancement of china's comprehensive national strength and the deepening of globalization, the international communication of national image has become a core issue for china to participate in global governance and boost its cultural soft power. as china’s political center, cultural center, center www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 146 for international exchanges, and center for scientific and technological innovation, beijing carries the symbolic significance of a "national window" in the external communication of its city image. nevertheless, the "west-strong, east-weak" pattern in the international public opinion arena has not been fundamentally reversed. in the process of shaping beijing’s image, foreign media are plagued by multiple problems, such as a one-dimensional perspective, a tendency toward negative reporting, cultural misunderstandings, a single source of information, and interference from political factors. leveraging their advantage in global discourse power, mainstream media in english-speaking countries exert a profound impact on how the international public perceives china through their construction of beijing’s image. against this backdrop, accurately grasping the international public opinion’s perception of beijing—especially how mainstream english-speaking media construct beijing’s city image—is of great significance for enhancing china’s international communication capacity and national cultural soft power. furthermore, the report to the 20th national congress of the communist party of china explicitly states the need to "strengthen the development of international communication capacity and comprehensively improve the effectiveness of international communication," while the 14th five-year plan for cultural development also emphasizes "telling china’s stories well and presenting a credible, lovable, and respectable image of china." therefore, conducting a systematic study on beijing’s city image in mainstream english-speaking media is not only an urgent task to respond to national strategic needs, but also a key entry point for breaking through the game of international public opinion. 2. literature review as cities develop and communication environments evolve, research on mainstream media’s construction of beijing’s city image has become a critical topic. among existing studies, a subset focuses on communication theory and practice. drawing on the theoretical frameworks of embodied communication and empathic communication, kong and qu (2022) conducted an in-depth analysis of the "china-foreign media beijing tour"—a typical case—to identify the embodied turn in practical city image communication. against the 2022 winter olympics backdrop, zhao (2019) explored beijing-zhangjiakou’s city image communication strategies, offering new insights for leveraging media events to advance city image dissemination.​ social media’s role in shaping beijing’s image also constitutes a research hotspot. shao (2020) examined the official facebook account of the beijing municipal government to explore how social media can enhance the city’s international image. chen & hu (2024) investigated the construction and dissemination of beijing’s cultural image on tiktok, detailing its communication characteristics, extant issues, and corresponding countermeasures. zhang et al. (2022) scraped 130,000 beijing-related tweets from twitter over four years, summarizing the traits of beijing’s international image. ma & zheng (2021) analyzed beijing’s portrayal across three major overseas social media platforms—twitter, facebook, and instagram—revealing imbalances in the city’s image across different dimensions.​ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 147 another key research direction focuses on how diverse media present beijing’s image. song (2020) employed big data and social network analysis to explore the representation of beijing’s cultural image in chinese media reports. other scholars have studied mainstream media’s framing of beijing in specific countries during distinct periods, including the uk (wang, zhang & cao, 2017), germany (xu, dong & yuan, 2018), and france (cao, du & wang, 2018). gao & wang (2017) analyzed beijing-related coverage from 50 foreign mainstream media outlets, proposing strategies to shape beijing’s identity as a global city.​ overall, existing research advances theoretical construction and paradigm innovation across three distinct dimensions. in terms of subjectivity, a dialectical framework of "self-construction" and "other-construction" has been established to guide analyses of city image formation. from a methodological perspective, the integration of qualitative and quantitative research paradigms has been achieved; this integration encompasses both in-depth case studies that focus on media events and cross-border media corpus analyses that are supported by big data, allowing for more comprehensive and rigorous research outcomes. regarding the research path, a closed loop of "problem diagnosis-strategy provision" has been developed: scholars not only identify structural issues present in mainstream media’s portrayal of cities but also propose targeted solutions such as algorithmic governance and narrative innovation to address these challenges. notwithstanding these contributions, current research still has two critical gaps to address. first, it lacks a systematic examination of mainstream media in english-speaking countries treated as an integrated group. second, there is a shortage of cross-national comparative studies that explore how mainstream media outlets in different english-speaking countries report on and construct beijing’s city image. against this backdrop, this study primarily adopts content analysis and discourse analysis methods. it constructs a corpus using beijing-related reports from mainstream media outlets in five english-speaking countries: the united states, the united kingdom, canada, australia, and new zealand. from the dual perspectives of quantitative statistics and qualitative interpretation, the study systematically deconstructs the mechanism through which mainstream english-speaking media construct beijing’s city image, with a specific focus on similarities and differences in media exposure and thematic characteristics across these five countries.​ three specific research questions are as follows: rq1: what characteristics did media exposure of beijing-related reports exhibit in the mainstream media of the five countries from 2020 to 2024?​ rq2: through which key themes have the five countries’ mainstream media constructed beijing’s city image over the past five years?​ rq3: are there national differences in media exposure and theme selection among these countries, and if so, what are the underlying reasons for such differences? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 148 3. method 3.1 sample selection this study selects beijing-related discourses from five mainstream english-speaking media outlets: the new york times (u.s.), the guardian (u.k.), the australian (australia), the globe and mail (canada), and the new zealand herald (new zealand), covering the period from january 1, 2020, to december 31, 2024. data collection is conducted using the lexisnexis and factiva news databases, which are widely recognized in academic research for their comprehensive coverage of global mainstream media content. given the large potential sample size, this study adopts the constructed-week sampling method (zhou, 2014). this choice is informed by riffe et al.’s (1993) research, which demonstrates that constructed-week sampling outperforms consecutive-date sampling and simple random sampling in terms of timeliness and representativeness when processing newspaper data. the annual sampling framework is set as two weeks, with one constructed week developed every six months. ultimately, 1,190 news reports containing the keywords "beijing" or "peking" are extracted from 70 calendar days. table 1. the chosen dates year monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday 2020 13 jan. 28 jan. 12 feb. 16 apr. 24 apr. 9 may 31 may 6 jul. 14 jul. 29 jul. 22 oct. 30 oct. 19 dec. 27 dec. 2021 4 jan. 16 feb. 24 feb. 6 may 21 may 29 may 20 jun. 19 jul. 3 aug. 8 sep. 14 oct. 12 nov. 20 nov. 26 dec. 2022 2022 3 jan. 8 feb. 2 mar. 10 mar. 29 apr. 7 may 27 jun. 2 aug. 14 sep. 13 oct. 11 nov. 3 dec. 25 dec. 2023 2023 16 jan. 24 jan. 1 feb. 9 feb. 24 feb. 6 may 3 jul. 25 jul. 27 sep. 5 oct. 18 nov. 9 dec. 17 dec. 2024 2024 8 jan. 16 jan. 31 jan. 8 feb. 19 apr. 11 may 1 jul. 23 jul. 25 sep. 7 nov. 13 dec. 21 dec. 29 dec. 3.2 coding and analysis first, all sentences containing "beijing" or "peking" are extracted from the selected news reports of the five mainstream media outlets within the specified timeframe, totaling 3,019 sentences, which are then subjected to coding analysis. two postgraduate students from the english department of the school of foreign languages, renmin university of china, are recruited as english coders and receive one month of training prior to coding. to ensure coding validity, approximately 10% of the total sample (301 sentences) is selected for double coding. the results show a consistency coefficient of 0.774, indicating a high level of inter-coder reliability. the remaining 2,718 sentences are then assigned to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 149 two coders for independent coding. analysis reveals that only 941 sentences (31.2%) are truly related to beijing’s urban attributes, while nearly 70% of the sentences use "beijing" to refer to china or the chinese government. 3.3 corpus analysis only sentences related to beijing's urban attributes were retained to establish six corpora (see table 2). the antconc software was used to conduct keyword and cluster analysis on the total corpus and the five sub-corpora, so as to identify the common focus perspectives, themes and national differences of news about beijing in mainstream media of english-speaking countries. table 2. information of self-built corpora country number of sentences percent (%) token count number of texts united states 470 38.44 13019 37 united kingdom 205 36.80 5775 9 canada 145 24.45 4127 7 australia 78 13.45 2286 3 new zealand 43 62.32 1253 0 total 941 31.17 26460 56 4. results and analysis 4.1 beijing's urban exposure: generally low, with national differences and influences from global issues table 3. information of beijing-related samples in mainstream media of english-speaking countries mainstream media total number of sentences number of sentences referring to the city percent (%) number of texts number of texts referring to the city percent (%) the new york times 1,220 467 38.3 456 37 8.1 the guardian 557 205 36.8 266 9 3.4 the globe and mail 593 145 24.5 217 7 3.2 the australian 580 79 13.6 209 3 1.4 the new zealand herald 69 43 62.3 42 0 0 total 3,019 939 31.1 1190 56 4.7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 150 figure 1. number of sentences referring to beijing (annual change) as indicated in table 3, among the 3,019 beijing-related sentences, only 939 (31.1%) use "beijing" to refer to the city itself; the rest employ "beijing" as a metonym for china or the chinese government. for instance, in the sentence "apple and its chinese rival, huawei, are on the front lines of a battle over technology between beijing and washington that has seen both countries restrict access to foreign technology," "beijing" and "washington" respectively stand for china and the united states, with their meanings extending beyond the scope of mere city names. among the 1,190 news reports containing the keywords "beijing" or "peking," only 56 have a keyword frequency exceeding 3 times. moreover, most discourses mention beijing in just a few sentences and fail to conduct in-depth exploration of beijing’s urban attributes. this reveals that the mainstream media of english countries focus heavily on beijing’s role as a national capital while neglecting its intrinsic urban attributes. overall, the number of sentences and discourses referring to beijing as a city follows the order of the new york times, the guardian, the globe and mail, the australian, and the new zealand herald (see table 3). statistical analysis shows that there are significant differences in the exposure rate of beijing’s urban attributes among the mainstream media of the five countries (p<0.05), with the new york times having significantly higher figures than the media of the other four countries. notably, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 151 although the new zealand herald has a relatively small total number of sentences containing the keywords "beijing" or "peking," the proportion of sentences using these keywords to refer to beijing’s urban attributes reaches 62.32%, ranking first among the five countries. this forms a stark contrast to the tendency of the other four countries to overshadow beijing’s urban image with the national image. a further analysis of the annual changes in the number of sentences related to beijing’s urban attributes reveals that over the five-year period, the relevant data from new zealand remained stable, while the data from the other four countries generally show a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, with all reaching their peaks in 2022. this phenomenon strongly indicates that the 2022 beijing winter olympics significantly increased the exposure of beijing as a city in international media. in addition, "beijing" appeared relatively frequently in the 2020 news reports of the united states and the united kingdom, which may be related to the high attention paid by the mainstream media of these two countries to the covid-19 pandemic during that period. this situation demonstrates that specific international events and global issues largely influence the frequency and focus of media coverage on beijing-related content. 4.2 unbalanced presentation of beijing’s urban image map: prominent image as an international sports center, dominant image as a national political center, and underdeveloped image as a cultural center the study found that mainstream media in the five english-speaking countries all regard politics (32.1%) and sports (29.0%) as core reporting themes. this data indicates that the international public opinion arena is highly sensitive to and inherently focused on beijing’s political role. meanwhile, sports events such as the winter olympics have become important windows for shaping beijing’s image as an international sports center, fully reflecting beijing city image as a political center and an international exchange center. however, the proportions of reports on culture (3.5%) and technology (1.4%) are relatively small, which means beijing’s cultural soft power and scientific and technological innovation capabilities have not been fully demonstrated. to further understand the thematic focus of beijing-related news reports in the mainstream media of the five english-speaking countries, this study used the keyword cloud map and cluster functions of antconc to generate figure 2 and table 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 152 figure 2. keyword cloud map of beijing-related reports from the five countries table 4. clusters of beijing-related reports from the five countries no. clusters frequency clusters frequency 1 winter olympics 65 peking duck 8 2 united states/us 55 secretary of state 7 3 beijing olympics 51 antony j. blinken 7 4 clusters related to china’s president 33 renmin university 7 5 beijing winter olympics 31 san francisco 7 6 beijing games 30 bronze medal 7 7 hong kong 22 state media 7 8 new zealand 17 cultural revolution 7 9 gold medal 17 beijing shuangxiong 7 10 communist party 16 mr. pelosi 7 11 new york 14 new year 6 12 tiananmen square 14 olympic team 6 13 winter games 14 olympic games 6 14 tsinghua university 13 coronavirus outbreak 6 15 opening ceremony 11 hockey team 6 16 chinese foreign ministry 10 world cup 6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 153 17 president vladimir v. putin/mr. putin 10 chinese authorities 5 18 xu zhangrun/professor xu 10 eileen gu 5 19 olympic committee 10 kamila valieva 5 20 chinese government 9 max parrot 5 21 human rights 9 news conference 5 22 social media 9 beijing office 5 23 team event 9 24 chinese officials 8 25 zhao lijian 8 (1) international sports center: a prominent image beijing not only undertakes political and cultural functions but also has become one of the world’s renowned international exchange centers. in relevant reports from mainstream media of english-speaking countries, frequently appearing keywords such as "olympics", "olympic", "games", "winter", "medal", "athletes", and "won", as well as the use of clusters related to the 2022 beijing winter olympics, 2008 beijing olympic games (e.g., beijing games), and 2022 beijing paralympic winter games (e.g., beijing 2022 paralympic winter games, the paralympic winter games, the 2022 paralympic games), indicate that foreign media have objectively recognized beijing’s important status on the international sports stage. by focusing on the olympic games and sports events, these reports have effectively constructed beijing’s image as an international sports center, thereby contributing to the brand building of its title as the "dual-olympic city". furthermore, foreign media generally pay attention to the performance of their own athletes in competitions and highly praise the outstanding achievements of elite athletes, including russian figure skater kamila valieva, canadian snowboarder max parrot, and chinese freestyle skier eileen gu. however, despite eileen gu’s remarkable performance at the winter olympics, which cannot be ignored, foreign media often obscure her nationality by using expressions such as "san francisco-born" or "us-born". this reflects a deliberate avoidance of her national identity. at the same time, mainstream media of the five countries tend to link olympic events to human rights issues and international relations. this reporting strategy aims to trigger unfavorable public opinion against china before the launch of major international sports events. it not only attempts to exert pressure on china from the international community but also to a certain extent “discredit” and "politicizes" beijing’s image as the host city of the olympic games, thereby undermining the positive shaping of its image as an international sports center. (2) national political center: a uniquely highlighted image in research on how major english-language media construct beijing’s city image, the "political center" dimension is of critical importance. in relevant reports, beijing is frequently portrayed as the host city for head-of-state summits, a destination for foreign dignitaries, the seat of government agencies, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 154 the venue for major national events—all of which underscore its pivotal role as china’s national political center. however, a notable trend is that these media often closely conflate beijing’s city image with china’s national image, even "overshadowing" the former with the latter. this, to some degree, distorts the public’s accurate understanding of beijing itself and its political status. political and diplomatic coverage primarily focuses on two areas: international relations and the global political order, and domestic governance and administration. regarding international relations and the global political order, major english-language media closely track developments in china-u.s. relations, china-russia relations, the taiwan strait situation, and the russia-ukraine conflict. key events—such as u.s. secretary of state antony blinken’s visit to china, u.s. house speaker nancy pelosi’s provocative trip to china’s taiwan region, and meetings between chinese president and russian president vladimir putin in beijing—have all been focal points of their coverage. additionally, responses from china’s ministry of foreign affairs and its spokespersons to international issues are regularly featured in these reports. on domestic governance and administration, major english-language media display intense interest in the governance approaches of the chinese government and the communist party of china (cpc), as well as the work of national leaders. this is particularly evident in their coverage of covid-19 prevention and control, economic stimulus policies, and—notably—their hype around so-called "dissident" events. for instance, in reporting on the case of xu zhangrun, a former professor at tsinghua university’s law school, foreign media exploited the incident to claim "restrictions on freedom of speech" in china. moreover, their repeated, groundless references to "persecution" during china’s cultural revolution not only reflect their genuine "concern" for human rights in china, but reveal their malicious intent: to manipulate international public opinion through fabricated human rights issues, smear china’s image, and undermine beijing’s standing as a political center. (3) cultural center: an underdeveloped image in the mainstream media of english-speaking countries, the construction of beijing image as a city appears remarkably underdeveloped, particularly in the portrayal of its identity as a cultural center. when covering cultural topics, the high-frequency use of keywords such as "tiananmen square," "peking duck," and "new year" reveals a lack of lexical diversity, which initially reflects the limitations of the content covered. negative framing of tiananmen square. as a crucial symbol of the chinese nation’s history, culture, and national spirit, tiananmen square occupies an irreplaceable position in shaping beijing’s cultural image. however, mainstream media in english-speaking countries often describe tiananmen square using negative terms like "bloody," "crackdown," "massacre," "killing," and "protest," or associate the square with such vocabulary. this practice deliberately narrows the square’s significance to negative political events, smears its image through public opinion manipulation, and severely undermines its positive standing in international discourse. as a result, tiananmen square has been reduced to an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 155 object of politicized interpretation, completely deviating from the cultural values it embodies. peking duck as a social symbol. peking duck frequently appears in diverse social settings, including dinners with political figures, high-end business banquets, and casual dates. this undoubtedly demonstrates its strong function as a cultural symbol serving as a social medium, indicating that it has gained widespread international recognition and become a typical representative of beijing’s culinary culture. nevertheless, foreign media reports only focus on the social scenarios where peking duck is served, while ignoring the profound culinary and cultural connotations behind it. this reflects that foreign media’s understanding of beijing’s food culture remains superficial and one-dimensional, failing to fully showcase the breadth and depth of this cultural domain. limited coverage of the spring festival. in relevant reports, "new year" refers to china’s spring festival. the attention paid to this traditional festival by mainstream media in english-speaking countries could have provided an opportunity for the international community to understand chinese culture. however, among numerous reports, only a few mention specific traditional customs of the spring festival, such as setting off firecrackers, eating dumplings, and watching the spring festival gala. while these contents allow international audiences to gain a basic intuitive understanding of beijing’s cultural and recreational activities during the spring festival, most other reports focus on describing the work status of diplomatic institutions and economic activities during the holiday. this reporting tendency leads to a lack of in-depth exploration of the cultural values inherent in the spring festival—such as traditional concepts of family reunion and praying for blessings—and the core content related to the inheritance of folk culture associated with the festival. in conclusion, mainstream media in english-speaking countries exhibit one-sidedness and over-simplification in shaping beijing’s image as a cultural center, with a lack of in-depth coverage. this greatly limits international audiences’ understanding of beijing’s cultural identity, making it difficult for the city’s rich and diverse culture to be fully represented in the international public opinion arena. beijing thus finds itself in a state of partial "discourse inadequacy," unable to establish a three-dimensional and vivid image as a cultural center. 4.3 differences among countries in the thematic selection for shaping beijing city image table 5. thematic distribution of beijing-related reports across five countries (%) country theme united states united kingdom canada australia new zealand politics 32.3 29.3 26.2 50.6 27.9 economy 6.2 3.4 6.9 6.3 7.0 society 22.1 33.7 5.5 10.1 0 culture 4.3 2.4 0 7.6 4.7 sports 21.4 25.4 59.3 20.3 41.9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 156 technology 1.5 1.0 0 1.3 7.0 education 5.6 1.5 0 0.0 9.3 others 6.6 3.4 2.1 3.8 2.3 research on the thematic distribution of beijing-related reports by mainstream media in five countries reveals notable disparities. in australia, political topics account for over 50% of coverage—far more than in the other four nations. this highlights australia’s role as a frontline in geopolitical competition with china; amid geopolitical pressures, its media tend to center political narratives in their reporting. in canada and new zealand, sports dominate, making up 59.3% and 41.9% of reports respectively—a trend closely tied to their involvement in winter olympics cooperation and the growth of their ice and snow sports industries. the uk leads the five countries in social issue coverage at 33.7%, focusing on areas like the covid-19 pandemic, social governance, and minority rights, reflecting british media’s traditional penchant for acting as a "human rights watchdog." mainstream us media present a more diverse landscape: politics (32.3%), social issues (22.1%), and sports (21.4%) form a "three-way split" as key themes. new zealand, meanwhile, stands out for covering education and technology, whereas canada and australia show almost no attention to these fields. economic topics remain marginal across all five countries, ranging from 3.4% to 7.0% of reports—signaling fading interest in china’s economic narratives among western media. as elite outlets, us mainstream media use a multi-faceted narrative strategy while clinging to a core stance of political criticism. on one hand, they analyze traditional political topics: international relations, the global political order, national governance, and internal controls. on the other, they twist beijing’s covid-19 policies as "threats to democracy and human rights" through granular public health coverage and frame the winter olympics as an "authoritarian aesthetic spectacle" to push politicized readings. this approach lets them retain their status as "authoritative voices on china" while avoiding audience fatigue from over-reliance on a single theme. unlike australia’s obsessive politicization or canada’s deliberate avoidance of politics, the diversified themes of outlets like the new york times neatly mirror the contradictions in how us intellectual elites view china—preserving limited engagement space amid a narrative of strategic competition. uk mainstream media’s focus on social issues stems from a colonial history-fueled sense of moral superiority. using the "global human rights defender" framework, they fixate on beijing’s covid-19 measures and their impacts on society and the public. this coverage not only caters to domestic audiences’ nostalgia for "post-imperial responsibility" but also aligns with the uk’s post-brexit goal of reshaping its "global britain" identity and boosting international influence. the dominance of political topics in australia’s china-related reports comes down to its geopolitical choices. as a core pillar of the us-led "indo-pacific strategy," the australian government has stepped up efforts to counter china in recent years—including via policies like the foreign influence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 157 transparency scheme. its media have echoed this by hyping the "china infiltration myth" and arbitrarily politicizing events like the 2022 beijing winter olympics and confucius institutes. compounded by direct disputes over the south china sea and human rights, australian media now routinely portray beijing as a "systemic rival." canada’s heavy focus on sports stems from both event-driven factors and diplomatic strategy. the meng wanzhou incident froze china-canada relations, leading canadian media to shift to "safe" topics like sports to avoid political risks. during the beijing winter olympics, they heavily covered canadian athletes’ performances and china-canada ice hockey cooperation—catering to public enthusiasm for winter sports while aligning with prime minister trudeau’s "separate politics from economy" approach to china. notably, the globe and mail went further, using winter olympics legacy coverage to build an image of sports as a "diplomatic buffer." new zealand, leveraging its flexibility as a small nation and longstanding pragmatic approach to china, has created a reporting space in education and technology with "high political and security tolerance." through "de-ideologized" storytelling—such as breaking down technical parameters and sharing industry-academia-research cases—it has maintained the uniqueness of china-new zealand relations amid broader western tech containment of china. at its core, this thematic choice reflects the survival smarts of a "middle power" in the global order, as seen in media, and underscores new zealand’s balancing act in complex international public opinion. ultimately, the thematic differences in these five countries’ beijing-related reports mirror their respective perceptions of china. australia, driven by geopolitics, sees china as a "threat" and uses political topics to hype confrontation. the uk, clinging to colonial-era moral superiority, casts china as an "other" and focuses on social issues to pass judgment. the us, amid global strategic goals, frames china as a "competitor," with diverse themes masking underlying rivalry. canada and new zealand, guided by diplomacy and self-interest, aim to position china as a "limited partner"—one using sports to ease tensions, the other pursuing practical cooperation in education and technology. these perceptions, filtered through media theme choices, shape how discourse about china is reproduced in global public opinion. 5. suggestions against the backdrop of the global communication landscape, the international dissemination of beijing’s urban image faces the challenge of breaking free from the "othering" narrative framework dominated by western media. the key to enhancing beijing’s international image lies in shifting from passive response-based communication to active constructive dialogue—a goal achievable through the core strategies of "differentiated and targeted communication + multidimensional narrative upgrading + dynamic adjustment mechanism." (1) targeted agenda-setting based on differences across countries for the united states, efforts should focus on using "state-city cooperation" to counter political www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 158 confrontation, such as promoting the joint release of green technology cooperation reports between beijing and its sister cities, analyzing social innovation solutions on elite platforms, and infusing cultural and technological elements into sports-related initiatives. for the united kingdom, the focus is on dialogue around social governance, including conducting joint research, compiling case handbooks, and funding scholars to study distinctive mechanisms. for australia, non-politicized cooperation is leveraged to counter stigmatization, through climate technology collaboration, agricultural short videos, and fact-checking reports. for canada, the value of ice hockey diplomacy is further explored, involving the establishment of cultural exhibition areas and the development of a "winter sports technology-ecological protection" narrative chain. for new zealand, "rugby diplomacy 2.0" is used to promote cultural exchanges, while the "educational partner city" program facilitates dialogue and cooperation in education and technology. these differentiated measures are tailored to the characteristics of each country to achieve targeted communication. (2) innovation in narrative frameworks for cultural and technological image in terms of cultural communication, a shift from "display of cultural symbols" to "civilization interaction experiments" is required. the "metaverse central axis" global co-creation initiative can be launched, inviting digital artists worldwide to reconstruct beijing’s historical buildings using blockchain technology, with the resulting works traded in christie’s virtual auction hall. simultaneously, the #beijingalgorithmchallenge campaign can be initiated on tiktok, encouraging users to generate short videos that integrate peking opera facial makeup with local pop music elements through ai technology. in the field of technological communication, efforts should be made to promote the "de-securitization" and "solution-oriented framing" of technological topics. tsinghua university and renmin university of china can be invited to collaborate with the university of cambridge and stanford university to release the global ai ethics benchmark city index, highlighting beijing’s institutional innovation achievements in areas such as autonomous driving legislation and ai medical ethics review. (3) establishing a dynamic adjustment mechanism first, a dual-cycle system of "public opinion early warning and effect evaluation" needs to be built. on one hand, an emotional analysis model for beijing-related reports should be developed to monitor the topic popularity in the media of the five countries in real time; when the proportion of political topics exceeds a preset threshold, the release of "cultural and technological topic packages" will be automatically triggered. on the other hand, blockchain technology should be introduced to conduct traceability audits of overseas communication effects, so as to accurately identify high-influence media nodes. second, efforts should be made to cultivate a "gen z international communication task force". on one hand, overseas students and cross-border youtubers (content creators) can be recruited to form a "beijing experience officer" team, and participatory empowerment such as the right to design citywalk routes and a direct channel for proposing municipal facility renovation suggestions should be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 159 provided to them. on the other hand, the "beijing future city" game can be built on the roblox platform; players can accumulate "governance points" by completing simulated tasks such as solving traffic congestion and protecting cultural heritage, and these points can be exchanged for rewards such as offline visa facilitation. 6. conclusion in the global communication landscape, mainstream media of english-speaking countries exert a significant influence on shaping beijing’s urban image. this study focuses on 2020–2024, conducting an in-depth analysis of beijing-related reports from mainstream media across five english-speaking nations: the united states, the united kingdom, canada, australia, and new zealand. overall, the five countries’ mainstream media maintain relatively low exposure of beijing, with marked national disparities. among them, the new york times provides relatively higher coverage of beijing; while the new zealand herald has a smaller total number of articles, it features a higher proportion of sentences that explicitly reference beijing’s urban attributes. notably, the beijing winter olympics—a major international sports event—significantly boosted beijing’s visibility in international media. this indicates that specific international events and global issues play a key role in influencing the frequency and focus of media coverage. politics and sports dominate beijing-related reports, whereas coverage of culture and technology remains relatively scarce. furthermore, the five countries show striking differences in thematic selection. mainstream u.s. media present a "three-pillar" pattern, with politics, sports, and social issues as core themes, resulting in diverse coverage. australia devotes the highest proportion of reports to political topics; canada and new zealand prioritize sports; and british media focus more on social issues. these disparities in thematic distribution profoundly reflect the five countries’ differing perceptions of china’s identity. based on the above findings, the following strategies are proposed to effectively improve the communication of beijing’s image in international media. (1) differentiated and targeted communication: develop tailored communication plans that address the reporting tendencies and perceptual differences of each country, enabling precise messaging. (2) multidimensional narrative upgrade: innovate narrative frameworks for showcasing beijing’s cultural and technological image to enrich its multidimensional portrayal in international media, thereby enhancing its global communication impact. (3) dynamic adjustment mechanism: utilize a dual-cycle system of "public opinion early warning and effect evaluation" to timely adjust communication strategies in response to shifts in public opinion, ensuring maximum communication effectiveness. however, this study has certain limitations. on one hand, the research sample only includes mainstream media from five countries, with a relatively narrow scope that cannot fully represent media landscapes across all english-speaking nations. on the other hand, the analysis of report content focuses primarily on two dimensions, exposure and thematic characteristics, resulting in insufficient www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 160 analytical depth. future research could expand the sample scope to include media from more english-speaking countries and diverse media types. additionally, it could incorporate more analytical dimensions, such as the emotional tone of reports and discourse structure, to achieve a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of how mainstream english-speaking media construct beijing’s urban image. references cao, y. r., du, j. q., & wang, s. y. (2018). beijing image in french media: based on frame analysis of le figaro from 2000 to 2015. journal of xi’an foreign languages university, 26(2), 61-65. chen, s. h., & hu, x. e. (2024). construction and communication of beijing’s cultural image on tiktok. media, (16), 69-71. gao, j. p., & wang, j. p. (2017). the evolution of beijing under the olympic aura: an analysis report on beijing-related reports in foreign mainstream media from 2009 to 2016. modern communication (journal of communication university of china), 39(6), 39-43. kong, l., & qu, r. (2022). embodied practice and empathetic communication: the practical turn of urban image communication—an investigation based on the “chinese and foreign media beijing tour” activity at the 2022 beijing news center. journalism lover, (7), 48-50. ma, s. y., & zheng, c. j. (2021). a study on beijing’s image in overseas social media under the new information environment. modern communication (journal of communication university of china), 43(7), 150-157. riffe, d., aust, c. f., & lacy, s. r. (1993). the effectiveness of random, consecutive day and constructed week sampling in newspaper content analysis. journalism quarterly, 70(1), 133-139. shao, y. (2020). a study on the communication effect of urban image in international social media—an empirical analysis based on the official facebook account of the beijing municipal government. news & writing, (11), 89-96. song, k. (2020). media representation of beijing’s cultural image: based on big data and social network analysis methods. modern communication (journal of communication university of china), 42(10), 18-24. wang, n., zhang, l., & cao, f. (2017). beijing’s image in british media: a framing analysis of the times from 2000 to 2015. journal of xi’an foreign languages university, 25(4), 1-6. xu, j., dong, x. w., & yuan, w. y. (2018). beijing’s image in german media: a critical discourse analysis of beijing-related reports in der spiegel from 2000 to 2015. journal of xi’an foreign languages university, 26(2), 57-61. zhang, z. s., luo, m. t., luo, z. y., & niu, h. y. (2022). the international city image of beijing: a quantitative analysis based on twitter texts from 2017-2021. sustainability, 14(17), 10675. zhao, j. m. (2019). communication strategies for the beijing-zhangjiakou urban image during the 2022 winter olympics. youth journalist, (11), 75-76. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 161 zhou, x. (2014). content analysis research and application in communication studies. chongqing: chongqing university press. a study on the construction of beijing city image wenxinxin qin1 1 school of foreign languages, renmin university o abstract keywords table 1. the chosen dates table 2. information of self-built corpora table 3. information of beijing-related samples in figure 1. number of sentences referring to beijing figure 2. keyword cloud map of beijing-related rep table 4. clusters of beijing-related reports from table 5. thematic distribution of beijing-related references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 111 original paper exploration and practice of the selection, training and management of college psychological friends—take the school of transportation, hunan university of technology as an example xiao zhou1 & qiurong qian1* 1 hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china * qiurong qian, hunan university of technology, zhuzhou, china fund project project of hunan university of technology (2021a03) received: january 11, 2024 accepted: march 04, 2024 online published: march 23, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p111 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p111 abstract college students crisis occurs frequently year by year, the reason, college students themselves, weak frustration ability, lack of mental health knowledge, weak crisis identification ability, weak self-help awareness, etc. in college level, mental health, insufficient number of psychological consultants, mental health committee, peer team selection system, inadequate training, inadequate management; the above is leading to college psychological crisis prediction. at present, our school in the basis of peer members, established the peer team, the combination of two teams greatly improved the coverage of mental health work in colleges and universities, for now the construction of the team to solve the psychological problems of college students universal results, this paper in hunan university of technology institute of transportation, for example, analysis of peer members and peer team selection, training, optimization of management ideas. keywords peer committee member peer team selection and training management assessment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 112 published by scholink inc. 1. the significance of peer committee members and peer counseling in colleges and universities today, the mental health work in most colleges and universities is still in the primary stage of exploration, which leads to the lack of understanding of the psychological counseling room in the school, or the lack of awareness of the importance of psychological counseling, resulting in crisis events caused by psychological problems. as far as students are concerned, they are more willing to confide their confusion and questions to their peers who have a good relationship, rather than asking for help from xinjian teachers, peer committee members, and peer teams. therefore, the work of peer committee members and peer psychological counseling has the following significance. 1.1 it enriches the level of mental health work teams in colleges and universities the construction of peer committee members and peer teams in colleges and universities has greatly enriched the mental health work team in colleges and universities in terms of the number of personnel. to deliver. for example, there are 1,591 students enrolled in our college, 1 teacher in the school-level psychological counseling center, 1 college mental health specialist (concurrently serving as dormitory manager and trade union work), and 41 peer committee members (1 person per class). the psychological counseling center and the four-level mental health work system make the mental health education work chain more perfect. 1.2 enhance students’ awareness of self-management and self-education as far as the mental health education work of the school of communications is concerned, the peer committee members are born from students who are interested in psychological knowledge or have a strong sense of responsibility, and our college holds “happy military training”, “psychological knowledge competition”, “excellent peer counselor selection”, “525 mental health month”, group counseling and other activities with different topics every academic year. in the process of carrying out the activity, these students are willing to explore the knowledge and skills related to mental health, so as to gain their own growth, and also help themselves to be self-aware and self-promoted, and their own psychological development has been improved. 1.3 the accuracy and effectiveness of intervention in psychological crisis events have been strengthened peer committee members and peer counselors come from among the students, and this team has a natural affinity, and the scope of work is wide and deep. in the case of psychological crisis in the school of communications in the past three years, most of the ways to find the situation came from the problem reporting of peer committee members and peer counselors, and in the process of handling the incident, peer committee members and peer counselors also fully played a role in comforting and accompaniment. in the process of paying attention to some general cases, it is also the peer committee members and peer counselors who play a role, dynamically report the situation of the parties, and work with the heart and health professionals to keep the safety red line of the college more accurately and effectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 113 published by scholink inc. 2. the connotation of peer committee members and peer psychological counseling in the 60s of the 20th centuries, the united states took the lead in proposing peer counseling, which greatly promoted the growth and development of american college students. later, universities in taiwan and hong kong introduced this peer psychological counseling, and later mainland universities also gradually introduced it, and peer psychological counseling has developed to this day, which has undoubtedly become an indispensable force in the field of mental health education in colleges and universities. the so-called peer psychological counseling refers to the process of people giving psychological comfort, persuasion, support and encouragement to each other in the process of interpersonal communication. in 1986, the psychological advisory committee of colleges and universities in china’s mainland was established, and in 2001, the ministry of education issued the “opinions on strengthening the guidance of mental health education for college students in ordinary colleges and universities”. peer committee members are members of the class committee who are specifically responsible for mental health education related responsibilities in the school’s class design, and provide mental health help to classmates, dormitory classmates and friends around them. 3. analysis of the current situation of the selection, training, and management assessment of peer members and peer teams 3.1 the selection mechanism needs to be standardized (1) the original intention of the establishment of the peer committee is to supplement the strength of mental health staff when the mental health work team is small, so as to grasp the mental health work into the class and do the work in a three-dimensional and meticulous manner. the work content of the peer committee involves strong professionalism, but the selection method is the same as that of other class committees in the class, the appointment of personnel is arbitrary, and there is a lack of consideration of issues such as psychological quality, sense of responsibility, and learning ability. as a result, the members of the mental health committee have a poor sense of identity and a weak sense of work, and some members of the mental health committee themselves have serious psychological problems. (2) the peer team is more inclined to public welfare in terms of the nature of work, and what this team should do more is to spread positive energy, drive a sunny and active atmosphere, and become a trustworthy object for the majority of students to seek help and confide in. however, as far as the current situation is concerned, the development of peer psychological counseling in colleges and universities, generally in the primary stage, there is often a situation of “wearing multiple positions” in the selection of personnel, in order to supplement the personnel and supplement, the selection process is not rigorous, non-standardized, and even “chasing ducks to the shelves”. the emergence of various selection problems has led to problems such as low enthusiasm and lack of professionalism in the peer team, and the effect of work development is not obvious. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 114 published by scholink inc. 3.2 the training method needs to be improved urgently (1) after the selection of peer committee members in colleges and universities, there is a general lag in training. the main manifestations are: 1) the training content carried out at this stage is too monotonous, lacking the analysis of specific cases and the analysis and explanation of professional psychological counseling skills. relying only on the imperfect “peer committee work specification”, the lack of corresponding professional ethics training and professional skills training, the professionalization of peer committee members, and the lack of corresponding professional skills in daily work, resulting in the inaccurate role positioning of peer committee members and the lack of sense of identity; (2) after the recruitment of the peer team, a series of professional assessments should be carried out, and only after passing can they take up the post, but there are problems in the training in the early stage of the assessment: (1) the professional training teachers of the peer counselors are insufficient, and the training of the peer team is generally organized by the colleges themselves, but the training force of the college itself has weak professional ability, and even the teachers engaged in the work of the college do not have the corresponding work qualifications; the systematization is insufficient, and there is no corresponding guide for the setting of peer team training courses, so there is a situation where each college is “full of flowers”, and the work level of the peer team after training is also very different, and it cannot be effective in carrying out its work. 3.3 the management and assessment system needs to be improved peer committee members and peer counselors are all from the student body, and the loopholes in management and assessment will lead to a series of problems such as the inability to identify crisis events in advance and the improper handling of unexpected problems due to negative attitudes and lack of responsibility. as far as management is concerned, it is often the heart health department that directly manages the heart health committee, because they are also students, there is no strong binding force on the management department; heart health professionals directly manage the peer team, due to the large workload of teachers and miscellaneous tasks, there will also be management omissions or lack of close contact. at present, the more common forms of assessment are mostly offline meeting sign-ins and online group speeches, which do not play a good role in team building and strength cohesion, and are not the management and assessment forms that students are willing to accept. 4. suggestions for optimizing the ideas of selection, training, and management assessment of peer committee members and peer teams the establishment of the peer committee and the peer team in china is the result of the localization of the western model, which means that these two teams have important practical significance. according to the current situation of college students in china, it is the key to the continuous improvement of the mental health education system in colleges and universities to find and optimize the work ideas of the two teams in the selection, training, management and assessment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 115 published by scholink inc. 4.1 distinguish job categories and standardize the selection mechanism the purpose of the standardized peer committee selection mechanism is to select a group of students who are willing to engage in mental health-related work, so as to truly realize the purpose of peer committee members to carry out primary crisis prediction and popularize basic psychological knowledge in the class. due to the particularity of the work function, the peer committee members should be distinguished from the general class committee members in the selection. taking the school of communications as an example, the selection of the mental health committee of our college is implemented: students voluntarily declare, reserve 2-3 places, and the competitors take turns to perform the work of the peer committee, each of them for two weeks (because the mental health weekly report system of our hospital stipulates that it is reported every two weeks), according to the situation of each person reporting the “weekly report”, observe the meticulousness, observation and sense of responsibility of the candidates, and finally confirm the candidates for the peer committee according to the candidates’ own psychological quality and work conditions after completing the mental health census. in short, the process of free declaration rotation application final competition formal employment. at present, the advantages of this selection mechanism are: (1) strong sense of identity, (2) improvement of work effectiveness, (3) great potential for team quality improvement, and (4) high stability of team personnel. the selection of the peer team aims to build a team with a sunny heart and a psychological and professional level that is higher than that of ordinary students. in view of the special nature of the work of this team and the wider characteristics of the group than the peer members, the current selection mechanism of the school of communications is to set up an additional interview speech link in combination with the selection process of the peer committee: (1) the setting of the speech link can more intuitively observe the mental outlook, demeanor, affinity and language expression ability of the candidates; (2) in the interview session, there will be corresponding scene performances, so as to judge the candidates’ crisis management awareness, psychological quality and other necessary professional qualities. 4.2 clarify the training objectives and enrich the training content according to china’s overall deployment of mental health education, the training goals of the student psychological work team can be divided into overall developmental goals, knowledge popularization and awareness education, safeguard goals, prevention of serious mental illness, and prevention of psychogenic extreme events. at the same time, under the guidance of the goal, the training of peer committee members should be hierarchical and graded, the primary goal is to popularize mental health knowledge, understand and recognize the importance of mental health, understand the relationship between mental health and personal growth and development, and maintain and promote the harmonious development of personal physical and mental health; the intermediate goal is to have a preliminary understanding of psychological counseling skills, effectively prevent mental illness and psychological crisis, and know how to ask for help and help others; and the senior goal is to master www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 116 published by scholink inc. psychological counseling skills and apply them to time work. under the combination of the three goals, it is necessary to gradually improve the professional ability of peer committee members in colleges and universities in china, and effectively promote the development of mental health education in colleges and universities. enriching the training content is the top priority in the construction of the psychological work team. in view of the different training goals, the school of communications currently sets the goal of this training work by grade: (1) popularize basic knowledge in the lower grades. (1) firmly grasp the “mental health education for college students” in the freshman year (2) carry out group counseling with different subjects twice per semester for peer committee groups, replace the traditional stereotyped regular meetings in the form of more joyful and relaxed group counseling, so that peer committee members can enhance team cohesion in group counseling, and also transplant the work form of group counseling, so that peer committee members can work in the class in a more relaxed and pleasant form。 (2) senior peer committee members further strengthened crisis discrimination training. (1) the senior peer committee leads the junior peer committee, and the more typical practice of the school of communications is that after the freshman enters the school, the senior peer committee member should follow the class and guide the work of the freshman class peer committee, especially the problem of freshman adjustment disorder that is common in the freshman class. due to the high training goals of the peer team, more work is carried out in the form of case discussion and scenario simulation in the training process. in the case of the school of transportation, (1) case discussion. peer team case discussions will be held twice every semester to directly improve the team’s professional ability and crisis discrimination ability through vivid case discussions. the corresponding scenario theme is determined by the heart health specialist, and 1-2 scenario simulation performances are carried out in the semester, which is vivid and vivid, which is easier to be accepted by students, and the training effect is also very significant. 4.3 establish the purpose of assessment and build an evaluation system formulating an evaluation system that conforms to the youth outlook in the new era and giving full play to the requirements of the autonomy and all-round development of college students is the top priority of the improvement of the peer committee system in colleges and universities at this stage. taking the school of communications as an example, according to the particularity of the work object and the complexity of the work content, the assessment of the peer committee members should include professional knowledge reserves, professional skills, intervention effects, etc., and the comprehensive evaluation should be carried out in combination with the final results, and the corresponding moral education points should be given, so as to stimulate the work enthusiasm of the peer committee members with this moral education point system. the peer team comes from the student body, and the management and assessment system should be correspondingly flexible. clarify responsibilities for the management of the peer team, improve professional ability, and reduce work loopholes. the assessment is carried out in the form of peer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 117 published by scholink inc. counselors’ interview record sheets, work plan completion, student satisfaction surveys, etc. referring to the reward and punishment mechanism of peer members, a point system for moral education achievements is formed, so as to form a long-term driving force for work promotion. 5. summary the construction of peer committee members and peer teams in colleges and universities is extremely necessary for the current situation of the prevalence of psychological problems among college students. however, judging from the current situation, the construction of peer committee members and peer teams in colleges and universities across the country is still imperfect, and there are also problems that need to be considered and optimized in the work ideas of team selection, training, management and assessment. taking the school of communications as an example, this paper discusses the optimization of the team selection system, training content, and management assessment methods from the aspects of job category, training objectives, and assessment purposes, hoping to help mental health workers in colleges and universities. references c, x. j. (2006). practice and discussion of peer psychological counseling for college students. journal of guangdong institute of education, 26(4),63-67. l, y. h. (2018). research on self-help and mutual help psychological education of peers in colleges and universities under the guidance of xi jinping’s youth outlook. china adult education, (13), 69-73. s, j. m. (2010). investigation and research on medical students’ cognition and willingness to seek help in peer psychological counseling. health professions education, 28(24), 84-86. w, q. z. (2017). peer team training system. education modernization, 4(47), 26-27. x, j. p. (2017). decisive victory to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects and win the great victory of socialism with chinese characteristics in the new era. beijing: people’s publishing house. z, h. (2018). practical dilemmas and countermeasures of mental health education for college students. continuing education research, (11), 124-128. z, l. (2016). the american peer counseling model and its enlightenment to china: a case study of stanford university. educational theory & practice, (15), 51-53. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 136 original paper how does misperception of others affect one's own waste sorting behavior?—a study from chinese sample tao jiang school of economics and management, zhejiang university of technology & science, hangzhou, zhejiang, china email: joyjiang1993@163.com, tel: 15957149859 received: september 17, 2024 accepted: october 20, 2024 online published: november 01, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p136 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p136 abstract people often misestimate (overestimate or underestimate) the attitudes and behaviors of others in the group, that is, normative misperception (including behavioral misperception and attitudinal misperception) ,which can affect one's own decision-making behavior in turn. this study based on a sample of 1,460 chinese individuals confirmed that: (1) overestimated normative misperception positively promoted individuals' own waste sorting behavior, and underestimated normative misperception had no effect on waste sorting. (2) overestimated behavioral misperception increased individuals' waste sorting behavior, and this effect was mediated by the “impression management motivation-personal norm” chain path. (3) overestimated attitudinal misperception also increased individual waste sorting behavior, and this effect was mediated by the “impression management motivation-personal norms” and “consequence awareness-personal norms” chain paths. keywords normative misperception, waste sorting, personal norms, impression management motivation, consequence awareness 1. introduction waste sorting is an important way to solve environmental problems of china. in 2019, general secretary made an important instruction, calling on the whole society to cultivate the good habit of waste sorting and work together to improve the living environment. since then, china has officially started urban waste sorting and has piloted waste sorting in eight cities, including beijiang, guangzhou, shenzhen, hangzhou, etc. however, the reality dilemma is that successive waste sorting has been carried out with little effect, and it is difficult for people to take waste sorting into their own actions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 137 (fan & xue, 2019; lin et al., 2023). thus, how to promote people's waste sorting behavior has become a concern for many research scholars. whether individuals will implement waste sorting is influenced by many factors, including external factors: such as social interaction (zuo et al., 2022), publicity and education (li wei et al., 2021), situational factors (qu & zhu, 2010) and so on; as well as internal factors: such as cognitive level (liu et al., 2021), attitudes (ren & zhang , 2022), environmental emotions (li et al.， 2021) and so on. there are also some scholars examined the influence of social norms on waste sorting from the perspective of norm activation theory (e.g., zhang & wan, 2021; han et al. 2016; xu, 2023). however, it is worth noting that social norms exist at both the individual level and collective level (rimal & lapinski, 2015), and there is often an inconsistency between the individual's norms perception and the actual social norm existing in the collective level, that is, normative misperception (chen et al., 2021), which is often manifested in the misestimation of other’s attitudes and behaviors. normative misperception is easy to occur and can influence a range of behaviors (prentice & miller, 1993), such as alcohol use behavior (kenney et al., 2019), unethical behavior (halbesleben et al., 2004), cooperative behavior (yang & chen, 2022), and so on. few studies have examined people's waste sorting behavior from the perspective of normative misperception, this paper will analyze waste sorting from the sight of normative misperception to help deeply understand the psychological mechanisms behind waste sorting inaction, and provide a useful supplement to existing theoretical studies. after understanding how normative misperception affect individual's own waste sorting behavior, we can improve residents' waste sorting behaviors by misperception interventions, which in turn contribute to the establishment of a long-term mechanism for urban waste sorting and the construction of sustainable development . 1.1 normative misperception and waste sorting normative misperception is an incorrect and biased perception of norms (prentice & miller, 1993; blanton et al., 2008; soroa-koury & yang, 2010), which means that people often systematically misestimate the prevalence of a behavior or attitude. normative misperception include behavioral misperception and attitudinal misperception: the former refers to people's misestimation of the degree of prevalence of a given behavior, and the latter refers to people's misestimation of the degree of acceptance or approval of a given behavior by the group (chen et al., 2021). based on this, this paper focuses on how misestimation of others' behaviors/attitudes towards waste sorting affects people's own waste sorting behavior. the question that needs to be answered before exploring the effect of normative misperception on waste sorting is: did normative misperception appear in waste sorting behavior? if it did, how will people misestimate the attitudes and behaviors of others towards waste sorting? overestimate or underestimate? prior research suggests that it is possible for people to overestimate the norms that actually exist in groups, for example, testa et al. (2020) found that college students generally overestimated other people's sexual behavior and approval of sexual behavior, and amialchuk et al. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 138 (2019) found that people overestimated other people's substance-use behaviors (including alcohol, tobacco, and drug use), which in turn increased the likelihood of engaging in such behaviors. it is also possible for people to underestimate the norms that actually exist in the group, for example, bursztyn (2020) found that married men in saudi arabia underestimated the support of other men for women's labor force participation, miyajima and yamaguchi (2017) found that japanese men underestimated the willingness of the other men in their group to take maternity leave, and this misperception in turn leads to their inability to actively request maternity leave, thus creating a vicious cycle of normative misperception (van grootel et al., 2018). so this paper proposes the following two different hypotheses: h1: people generally underestimate others' waste sorting. (underestimated normative misperception) h1a: people generally underestimate others' waste sorting behavior. (behavioral misperception) h1b: people generally underestimate others' degree of approval for waste sorting. (attitudinal misperception) h2: people generally overestimate others' waste sorting. (overestimated normative misperception) h2a: people generally overestimate others' waste sorting behavior. (behavioral misperception) h2b: people generally overestimate others' degree of approval for waste sorting. (attitudinal misperception) the next issue for further consideration is how normative misperception will influence one's own waste sorting behavior. grimm et al. (2017) noted that perceptions of others' behavior/attitude can influence one's own behavior, because people could justify their moral justification by claiming that their behavior conformed to norms (schlag et al., 2015). for example, an underestimation of others' pro-social behavior reduced one's own corresponding behaviors (ganz et al., 2020), whereas overestimation of others' substance use behaviors (including alcohol, tobacco, and drug use) increased the likelihood of engaging in such behaviors (amialchuk et al., 2019). so this study hypothesizes that normative misperception will have a similar effect on waste sorting behavior. based on the above reasoning, this paper proposes the following two different hypotheses: h3: underestimated normative misperception (both behavioral misperception and attitudinal misperception) will reduce one's waste sorting behavior. h4: overestimated normative misperception (both behavioral misperception and attitudinal misperception) will increase one's waste sorting behavior. 1.2 personal norms personal norms are the individual's conduct standard about the self, which can motivate individuals to develop a moral disposition and a sense of obligation to do what is right (zhang, 2016). personal norms can facilitate behavioral implementation not due to social rewards (e.g., praise from others, image enhancement), but the expected post hoc negative experiences (e.g., regret, self-criticism, and guilt) caused by non-compliance with personal norms (ge & sheng, 2020). individual's imagined or actual violations of personal norms leads to guilt, self-denial, and loss of self-esteem, while individual's imagined or actual compliance with personal norms produces pride, increased self-esteem, and a sense www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 139 of security. thus, personal norms can drive waste sorting behavior not for the utilitarian purpose of obtaining extrinsic rewards, but purely due to an intrinsic sense of moral obligation. social norms are usually the source of personal norms. individuals are influenced by shared social rules and norms which shape their expectations of themselves, further form personal norms. when people misjudge the waste sorting behavior of others, their perceived social norms are biased, which leads to a change in personal norms, in turn, changing the implementation of waste sorting behavior. therefore this paper hypothesizes: h5: personal norms mediate the relationship between normative misperception and waste sorting. 1.3 impression management motivation impression management theory suggests that people have the desire to maintain a positive image and avoid creating a negative image (finkelstein & penner, 2004). everyone has impression management motives to a greater or lesser extent, the strength of which varies from person to person.in different social scenarios, people portray different images based on the different types of roles they want to play. the stronger the impression management motivation is, the more individuals want to maintain a good image of themselves and are more likely to engage in pro-social behaviors (grant & mayer, 2009). as a typical pro-social behavior, waste sorting behavior, can easily be driven by impression management motivation. scholars have tried to explain normative misperception from the perspective of impression management (geiger & swim, 2016; chen et al., 2021). the strength of impression management motivation has a close relationship with the strength of social norms perceived by individuals. when individuals misestimate the waste sorting behaviors in a group, the perceived social norms appear in bias, and the impression management motivation will be affected accordingly. when the impression management motivation is strengthened or weakened, the driving force of waste sorting behavior will also change, which in turn affects the waste sorting behavior. therefore, this paper hypothesizes that impression management motivation also mediates the relationship between normative misperception and waste sorting. although impression management motivation seeks social rewards (praise from others, image enhancement) as a reward for performing the behavior, it can still strengthen the individual's internal personal norms, and it sublimates external “utilitarian”motivation into internal “responsibility”. in other words, impression management motivation can influence personal norms, further changing one's own waste sorting behavior. based on the above analysis, this study proposes: h6: impression management motivation and personal norms play the chain mediation roles in the relationship between the normative misperception and waste sorting. 1.4 consequence awareness consequence awareness generally refers to an individual's awareness of the negative consequences of not performing a certain behavior (schwartz, 1997). specifically, the consequence awareness of waste sorting mainly refers to people's perception of the serious negative consequences of failing to waste https://xueshu.baidu.com/s?wd=author:(shalom%20h.%20schwartz)%20the%20hebrew%20university%20of%20jerusalem&tn=se_baiduxueshu_c1gjeupa&ie=utf-8&sc_f_para=sc_hilight=person www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 140 sorting, such as land encroachment, destruction of the urban living environment, and the waste of a large amount of resources. when people's perception of the serious consequences of not implementing waste sorting is strong, their likelihood of participating in waste sorting will be the great . the strength of the consequence awareness is also closely related to the degree of the social pressure faced, when others agree with the implementation of waste sorting, then the negative consequences of non-implementation of the behavior felt by the individuals will be more serious. that is to say, the stronger the perceived social norm is, the stronger the consequence awareness is. when the norm perception is biased, the consequence awareness will also be biased. according to norm activation theory (schwartz, 1997), personal norms are also influenced by individual consequence awareness. when individuals are aware of the consequences of not waste sorting, their sense of moral obligation is more likely to be activated, and individuals will experience a strong sense of personal norms and consciously implement waste sorting behaviors. therefore, this study proposes: h7: consequence awareness and personal norms play the chain mediation roles in the relationship between the normative misperception and waste sorting. the theoretical framework is shown in figure 1. in order to test the above hypotheses, this paper conducted a survey of 1,460 chinese residents across the country to explore whether people have normative misperception on waste sorting, and further test whether the existence of normative misperception will affect their own waste sorting behaviors. and the mediation analysis was used to clarify the effect of normative misperception on waste sorting, to help deepen the understanding of the psychological mechanisms behind waste sorting inaction, providing a useful supplement to existing theoretical studies. figure 1. theoretical framework 2. data and methods 2.1 subjects this study distributed questionnaires through the credamo platform, and 1500 chinese residents participated in the survey. answers with too long or too short response time were deleted, and 1,460 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 141 valid questionnaires were retained, with an effective recovery rate of 97.33%. there were 703 males and 757 females; the age range was 17-59 years old (m=31.95, sd=7.86). as is shown in table 1. table 1. structure of the sample demographic variables frequency percentage (%) gender male 703 48.15 51.85female 757 age < 25 317 806 237 102 0 21.7 55.2 16.2 7 0 26-35 36-45 46-60 > 60 education high school and below 92 194 840 333 6.3 13.3 57.5 22.8 college undergraduate graduate students and above annual family income < 100,000 171 256 311 285 367 66 4 11.7 17.5 21.3 19.5 25.1 4.5 100,000 150,000 150,000 200,000 200,000 300,000 300,000 500,000 500,000 1,000,000 > 1,000,000 marriage single 778 682 53.3 46.7married children yes 961 499 65.8 34.2no occupation student 187 1018 150 48 25 15 17 12.8 69.7 10.3 3.3 1.7 1.0 1.2 enterprise personnel employee civil servants self-employed freelancers others www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 142 2.2 variables and measurement normative misperception we adopted the same measurement and calculation method as chen et al. (2021) and lapinski et al. (2007). 10 items (7-point scale, 1 means completely disagree, 7 means completely agree) measured subjects' behavioral misperception, five of the items measured one's own daily waste sorting behavior (self-behavioral items, bm), e.g.,“i usually sort my waste”, and five of the items measured the waste sorting behavior of the majority of people in the eyes of the participant (other-behavioral items, bo), e.g., “most people sort their waste”. the mean of the five bm (cronbach's α = 0.864) represents the bm score, and the mean of the five bo (cronbach's α = 0.868) represents the bo score. the other 10 items (7-point scale, 1 means completely disagree, 7 means completely agree) measured subjects' and attitudinal misperception, five of the items measured their own attitudes toward waste sorting behavior (self-attitude items, am), e.g., “i support waste sorting ”, and five of the items measured the attitudes of the majority toward waste sorting as perceived by the subjects (other-attitude items, ao), e.g., “most people support waste sorting”. the mean score of the 5 am (cronbach's α = 0.833) represents the am score, and the mean score of the 5 ao (cronbach's α = 0.815) represents the ao score. according to duong and parker (2018) and chen et al. (2021), the mean of bm and am scores of all subjects ( mbm and mam ) can be regarded as the social norms actually present in the group, while the bo and ao scores of each subject represent the subject's perception of the social norms at the individual level, and the difference between them represents the normative misperception. that is, behavioral misperception = bo mbm, attitudinal misperception = ao -mam. waste sorting a self-reported frequency scale was used to measure subject’s waste sorting behavior. subjects were asked to answer the question “how often have you sorted your waste in the last six months?”the frequency of waste sorting range from 1 to 7, higher value indicated the higher frequency of waste sorting. personal norms referring to stern's (1999) study, personal norms were expressed in 3 items, such as “i think it is my responsibility to sort waste,” scored on a 7-point scale, with 1 indicating total disagreement and 7 indicating total agreement, and cronbach's α = 0.903. impression management motivation adapted from the workplace impression management motivation scale developed by duan et al. (2019), 3 items (cronbach's α = 0.871) were used to measure impression management motivation, such as “if i carry out waste sorting, other people will have a better impression of me”, scored on a 7-point scale, with 1 representing total disagreement, 7 representing total agreement. consequence awareness referring to stern's (1999), 3 items (cronbach's 's α = 0.884) were used to measure consequence awareness, such as “failure to waste sorting will curb ecological sustainability”, scored on a 7-point scale, with 1 representing complete disagreement, 7 representing complete agreement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 143 table 2. variable measurement items variables measurement items behavioral misperception i/most people sort their waste. i/most people put out their waste according to the signs on the garbage cans. i/most people sort recyclables such as empty plastic bottles. i/most people sort hazardous waste such as batteries. i/most people sort food waste. attitudinal misperception i/most people support sorting waste. i/most people support putting out waste according to the symbols in the garbage cans. i/most people support sorting recyclables such as empty plastic bottles. i/most people support sorting hazardous waste such as batteries. i/most people support sorting food waste. personal norms i think i should sort waste. i think i have a responsibility to sort waste. i feel guilty if i don't sort my waste. consequence awareness failure to sort waste will lead to waste of resources. failure to sort waste will lead to environmental degradation. failure to sort waste will curb ecologically sustainable development. impression management motivation people will have a better impression of me if i implement waste sorting. if i implement waste sorting, others will have a more positive and favorable opinion of me. if i sort waste, people will feel good about me. label variable waste sorting is a green behavior. waste sorting can damage the environment. waste sorting can pollute the air. waste sorting how often did you sort waste in the last six months? label variable according to chen et al. (2021) and visschers et al. (2016), we set the variable “knowledge of waste sorting” as the label variable, which is not correlated with the above variables. this label variable was measured with three items (cronbach's α = 0.855), such as “waste sorting is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 144 green behavior,” all of which were scored on a 7-point scale. in order to ensure the sensitivity of the test for common method bias, the label variable was presented and scored in the same way as the other variables. all the items, including the label variable, were placed out of order during the measurement. control variables control variables included demographic variables such as age, occupation, education, gender, income, marriage status, and whether or not had children. 2.3 results 2.3.1 common method bias test the latent variables involved in this study include: normative misperception (attitudinal misperception and behavioral misperception), personal norms, impression management motivation, and consequence awareness. firstly, the common method bias test was conducted, and the results of harman's one-way test showed that there were 8 factors with unrotated eigenroots greater than 1, and the variance of the first unrotated factor was 20.08%, which was much lower than the critical criterion of 40%. due to the problem of insensitivity of harman's one-factor method to the variation of cmv and cmb (tang &wen, 2020), this study also used the labeled variable method (cfa marker technique) to conduct the test, and there was no significant difference between the baseline model and models c and u (ps > 0.05), which can be regarded as the no or little common method bias. the overall kmo (kaiser-meyer-olkin) value of the questionnaire was 0.902 and the barett's test of sphericity chi-square value was 16104.47, p < 0.001, which is statistically significant. confirmed factor analysis was conducted using amos 24, and the model fit index was good [ x2/df =1.781, rmsea= 0.027, cfi =0.993, nnfi=0.961], the standardized loadings of the factors for all the items were higher than 0.5, the cronbach's α of the questionnaire's subscales were greater than 0.8, indicating the questionnaire had a higher reliability. the combined reliability (cr) were all greater than 0.8, the average variance extracted (ave) were all greater than 0.6, and the questionnaire had good convergent validity. see table 3 for details. 2.3.2 analysis of results overestimation or underestimation? according to the formula of normative misperception: behavioral misperception = bo -mbm, attitudinal misperception = ao -mam. when behavioral/attitudinal misperception > 0, it means that the normative perception of an individual is higher than the actual norm, i.e., there is an overestimated normative misperception; when behavioral/attitudinal misperception < 0, it means that the normative perception of an individual is lower than the actual norm, i.e., there is an underestimated normative misperception. the calculation results of normative misperception are shown in table 4 below. in terms of waste sorting behavior, 675 (46.23%) overestimated others' waste sorting behavior and 785 (53.77%) underestimated others' waste sorting behavior, and the behavioral misperception in the overestimation group (moverestimation = 0.32, sd = 0.25) was significantly higher than those in the underestimation group (munderestimation = -1.36, sd = 1.16), t = -22.125, p < 0.001, 95% ci = [-1.83, -1.53]. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 145 table 3. results of the reliability test latent variable observed variables standardized loading cronbach’s α cr ave self-behavioral items （bm） bm_1 0.818 0.864 0.910 0.671 bm_2 0.791 bm_3 0.833 bm_4 0.862 bm_5 0.788 other-behavioral items （bo） bo_1 0.823 0.868 0.913 0.677 bo_2 0.801 bo_3 0.842 bo_4 0.855 bo_5 0.791 self-attitudinal items（am） am_1 0.746 0.833 0.893 0.625 am_2 0.811 am_3 0.783 am_4 0.835 am_5 0.775 other-attitudinal items （ao） ao_1 0.774 0.815 0.899 0.640 ao_2 0.817 ao_3 0.802 ao_4 0.826 ao_5 0.780 personal norms （sn） sn_1 0.915 0.903 0.921 0.795sn_2 0.872 sn_3 0.887 impression management motivation （im） im_1 0.834 0.871 0.869 0.689im_2 0.789 im_3 0.866 consequence awareness （cc） cc_1 0.844 0.884 0.905 0.761cc_2 0.879 cc_3 0.893 label variable （sg） sg_1 0.815 0.855 0.868 0.687sg_2 0.827 sg_3 0.844 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 146 in terms of attitudes toward waste sorting, 718 (49.18%) overestimated others' approval attitudes toward waste sorting and 742 (50.82%) underestimated others' approval attitudes toward waste sorting, and the attitude misperception was significantly higher in the overestimation group ( moverestimation = 0.31, sd = 0.23) than in the underestimation group (munderestimation = -1.26, sd = 1.26), t = -21.144, p < 0.001, 95% ci = [-1.72, -1.42]. table 4. calculated results of normative misperception behavioral misperception attitudinal misperception overestimation （ > 0 ） underestimation （ < 0 ） overestimation （ > 0 ） underestimation （ < 0 ） frequency 675 785 718 742 mean value 0.32 -1.36 0.31 -1.26 the above analysis indicates that there are both overestimated and underestimated normative misperception in the population. now we need to further clarify how the overestimated misperception and underestimated misperception will affect one's own waste sorting behavior. the effect of normative misperception on waste sorting this paper will explore how overestimated misperception (attitudinal/behavioral) and underestimated misperception (attitudinal/behavioral) affect waste sorting behavior respectively. behavioral overestimation group the main effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting was tested by hierarchical regression with waste sorting as the dependent variable, behavioral misperception as the independent variable, and demographic variables as the control variables. the results showed that none of the seven control variables had a significant effect on waste sorting ( ps > 0.05), and there was a significant main effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting , β = 0.29, p < 0.05, t = 4.49, 95% ci = [0.42, 1.08], suggesting that the more one overestimated the waste sorting behavior of others, the more one's own waste sorting frequency showed. to further reveal the mechanism of the influence of behavioral misperception on waste sorting, we used model 80 in preacher and hayes' (2004) process 3.2 (bootstrap n = 5000) to test the chain mediating roles of impression management motivation, consequences awareness, and personal norms, with all demographic variables as control variables. the results showed a significant main effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting, effect = 0.74, p < 0.001, t = 4.58, 95% ci = [0.00, 0.42], suggesting that overestimated behavioral misperception do influence one's own waste sorting behavior. the results of the chain mediation effect analysis were shown in table 5: among the five indirect paths, the paths of “behavioral misperception→personal norms→waste sorting” and “behavioral misperception→impression management motivation→personal norms→waste sorting” were both significant (confidence intervals did not include 0), indicating that the mediating role of personal norms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 147 was valid, and the chain mediation role of “impression management motivation→personal norms” was also valid. however, the path of “behavioral misperception→consequence awareness→personal norms→waste sorting” was not significant (the confidence interval contains 0). in other words, the main mechanism by which behavioral misperception increase waste sorting was through activating impression management motivation, then strengthening personal norms, and finally achieving the result of enhancing one's own waste sorting. the direct effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting was still significant, which indicated that impression management and personal norms partially mediate the effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting , as shown in figure 2. table 5. bootstrap analysis of the chain mediation effect in the behavioral overestimation group indirect path effect se llci ulci behavioral misperception→impression management motivation→waste sorting 0.001 0.06 -0.12 0.12 behavioral misperception→consequence awareness →waste sorting 0.01 0.03 -0.05 0.09 behavioral misperception→personal norms →waste sorting 0.20 0.09 0.04 0.40 behavioral misperception→impression management motivation→personal norms→waste sorting 0.03 0.02 0.004 0.08 behavioral misperception→consequence awareness →personal norms→waste sorting 0.01 0.01 -0.002 0.03 direct path behavioral misperception→waste sorting 0.48 0.17 0.01 0.14 figure 2. chain mediation model for the behavioral overestimation group (n=675) note. *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 148 attitudinal overestimation group the main effect of attitude misperception on waste sorting was tested by hierarchical regression with waste sorting as the dependent variable, attitudinal misperception as the independent variable, and demographic variables as the control variables. the results showed that none of the seven control variables had a significant effect on garbage classification ( ps > 0.05), and that there was a significant main effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting, β = 0.16, p < 0.05, t = 2.41, 95% ci = [0.09, 0.91], suggesting that the more one overestimates others' attitudes toward waste sorting, the more one's waste sorting frequency showed. table 6. bootstrap analysis of the chain mediation effect in the attitudinal overestimation group indirect path effect se llci ulci attitudinal misperception→impression management motivation→waste sorting 0.03 0.05 -0.06 0.15 attitudinal misperception→consequence awareness →waste sorting 0.02 0.04 -0.05 0.10 attitudinal misperception→personal norms →waste sorting 0.20 0.08 0.06 0.37 attitudinal misperception→impression management motivation→personal norms→waste sorting 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.14 attitudinal misperception→consequence awareness →personal norms→waste sorting 0.03 0.02 0.003 0.07 direct path attitudinal misperception→waste sorting 0.09 0.19 -0.65 0.29 figure 3. chain mediation model for the attitudinal overestimation group (n=718) note. *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 149 to further reveal the mechanism by which attitudinal misperception influence waste sorting, we also used model 80 in preacher and hayes' (2004) process 3.2 (bootstrap n = 5000) to test the chain mediation roles of impression management, consequence awareness, and personal norms, with all demographic variables as control variables. the results showed a significant main effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting, effect = 0.44, p < 0.05, t = 2.32, 95% ci = [0.07, 0.81], suggesting that overestimated attitudinal misperception do influence one's own waste sorting behavior. the results of the chain mediation effects analysis were shown in table 6: among the five indirect paths, “attitudinal misperception → personal norms → waste sorting ” and “attitudinal misperception → impression management → personal norms → waste sorting ” “attitudinal misperception → consequence awareness→personal norms→waste sorting” were all significant (confidence intervals do not include 0), indicating that the mediating role of personal norms was established, and the chain mediation roles of “impression management motivation→personal norms” and “consequence awareness→personal norms” were also significant. the direct effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting was not significant, indicating that “impression management motivation→personal norms” and “consequence awareness→personal norms” played a fully mediating role in the effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting . the variable relationship diagram was shown in figure 3. behavioral underestimation group the main effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting was tested by hierarchical regression with waste sorting as the dependent variable, behavioral misperception as the independent variable, and demographic variables as the control variables, and the results showed that none of the seven control variables had a significant effect on garbage classification ( ps > 0.05), the main effect of behavioral misperception on waste sorting was not significant, β = -0.04, p = 0.49 , t = -0.70, 95% ci = [-0.11, 0.05], suggesting that underestimated behavioral misperception did not have a significant effect on one's own waste sorting behavior. attitudinal underestimation group the main effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting was tested by hierarchical regression with waste sorting as the dependent variable, attitudinal misperception as the independent variable, and demographic variables as the control variables, and the results showed that none of the seven control variables had a significant effect on waste sorting ( ps > 0.05), and that the main effect of attitudinal misperception on waste sorting was not significant , β = -0.13, p = 0.10 , t = -1.63, 95% ci = [-0.03, 0.003], suggesting that underestimated attitudinal misperception did not have a significant effect on one's own waste sorting behavior. 2.3.3 conclusion the above results showed that overestimated normative misperception positively promoted individuals' own waste sorting behavior, and underestimated normative misperception had no effect on waste sorting. in particular, overestimation of behavioral misperception increased individuals' waste sorting behavior, the effect of which was mediated by the chain path “impression management motivation-personal norms”. and overestimation of attitudinal misperception also increased www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 150 individuals' waste sorting behavior, the effect of which was mediated by the chain paths “impression management motivation-personal norms” and “consequence awareness-personal norms”. 3. discussion 3.1 attitudinal misperception vs behavioral misperception in the overestimated situation, the attitudinal misperception could activate both the individual's impression management motivation and the consequences awareness, which in turn strengthened the personal norms and achieved the result of enhancing waste sorting behavior. while the behavioral misperception strengthened the personal norms by only activating the impression management motivation, which in turn facilitated the waste sorting. this can be explained by norm-focused theory (cialdini et al, 1991): behavioral and attitudinal misperception respectively corresponded to people's overestimation of descriptive and imperative norms , which pointed to different motives. the former one associated with internal individual motivation and the latter one involving both interpersonal/external and internal individual motivation. impression management motivation was more about self-interest, so it was more inclined to be an internal motivation. consequence awareness was more concerned about the impact on the outside world, so it was more inclined to be an external motive. therefore, attitudinal misperception can activate both impression management motivation (internal) and consequence awareness (external), while behavioral misperception can only activate impression management motivation (internal). 3.2 significance of the study solving the problem of waste sorting inaction is of great significance in accelerating the establishment of sustainable development society. based on the perspective of normative misperception, this paper investigated the data of 1460 residents across china and revealed the behavioral mechanism of residents' waste sorting. the study showed that misestimation of social norms in the group significantly affected their own waste sorting behavior. by comparing the waste sorting behaviors of the overestimated and underestimated groups, we found that waste sorting was significantly stronger in the behavioral overestimation group than in the behavioral underestimation group (moverestimation = 6.33, munderestimation = 5.72, p < 0.001, t = -9.25, 95% ci = [-0.74, -0.48]), and that waste sorting in the attitudinal overestimation group was significantly stronger in the attitudinal underestimation group (moverestimation = 6.22, m underestimation = 5.71, p < 0.001, t = -7.81, 95% ci = [-0.65, -0.39]), implying that increasing residents' normative perceptions had a significant contributing effect on waste sorting behavior. this provided some implications for enhancing residents' waste sorting in practice. normative cues can be used to increase residents' waste sorting behaviors by improving normative perceptions and changing normative misperception. theoretically, this study compared the different influence mechanisms of two different normative misperception on waste sorting in the overestimated and underestimated situations, which provides new perspectives for waste sorting research and useful complementary to existing theories. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 151 3.3 limitation and future perspectives this study focuses on how normative misperception in different directions (overestimation vs. underestimation) affect residents' waste sorting behavior, and some meaningful results were obtained, but it is worthwhile to explore whether there are other more convincing explanatory variables for the process mechanism of normative misperception on waste sorting . although this study confirmed the chain mediation role of “impression management motivation-personal norms” and “consequences awareness-personal norms”, it is only through the test of the mediation model in the process, and the mediating effect can be further confirmed by manipulating the mediators, which will be more convincing. it can be improved in the subsequent research. in addition, although the findings of this study are inspirational and informative for practice, how to improve residents' normative perceptions to enhance waste sorting behaviors in the real world needs to continue to be demonstrated. even though previous studies have shown that normative information cues have a better effect on misperception intervention, how to apply them 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(2022). the impact of social interaction and internet use on rural residents’willingness to sort domestic waste. resources science, 44(1), 47-58. https://doi.org/10.18402/resci.2022.01.04 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 17 original paper pest-swotanalysis of standardization for community-home medical-care integration services: based on regional characteristics of dongguan tao he1, lei he1, wendi fang2, chaofeng tang1, xin zhao1, & yuan xiao1* 1 college of humanities and management, guangdong medical university, dongguan, guangdong, china 2 the second clinical medical college of guangdong medical university, dongguan, guangdong, china *yuan xiao, corresponding author fund project 2025 guangdong college students' innovation and entrepreneurship training program: "implementation status and countermeasures of home-based elderly care services in medical-nursing integration pilot cities: a case study of dongguan" (project no. s202510571077) abstract facing the structural tension of hidden aging in youth-oriented cities, this study employs the pest-swot model to systematically analyze the internal and external environment for standardizing community-home medical-care integration services in dongguan. it identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats across political, economic, social, and technological dimensions, proposing four strategic typologies: growth, turnaround, diversification, and defense. keywords community-home medical-care integration, service standardization, pest-swot analysis, dongguan 1. introduction accelerating demographic transitions have exposed china's community-home medical-care integration services to the systemic challenge of "aging before preparedness." dongguan—a manufacturing powerhouse ("world factory") adjacent to hong kong and shenzhen, and a typical young immigrant city—harbors mounting pressures from its rapidly growing elderly migrant population beneath its youthful facade. this constitutes a highly representative sample for studying the "aging before preparedness" paradox. although central and local policy documents on medical-care integration have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 established a framework, standardization efforts remain constrained by multidimensional dynamics such as industrial restructuring and cross-border collaboration. grounded in dongguan's regional characteristics, this study employs the integrated pest-swot analytical framework to deconstruct the internal and external drivers of standardizing community-home medical-care integration services. it aims to provide theoretical insights for similar cities exploring context-adapted development pathways. 2. materials and methods 2.1 data sources data were collected through multiple channels: systematic retrieval of academic literature (2015– 2025) from chinese and international databases (cnki, wanfang, nssd, pubmed, proquest, springer) on medical-care integration standardization; review of policy documents and proposal responses issued by national, guangdong provincial, and dongguan municipal governments; collection of demographic aging data and community health service operation statistics from dongguan bureau of statistics and civil affairs; supplementary materials from platforms including dongguan news, qianzhan, and cir industry research institute. 2.2 research methodology the integrated pest-swot framework was applied. first, the pest model dissected the macro-environment across four dimensions: political (p): policy support and regulatory systems; economic (e): fiscal investment and industrial foundations; social (s): demographic structures and cultural needs; technological (t): smart eldercare technology applications. subsequently, the swot model systematically identified: internal strengths (s) and weaknesses (w) of the service system; external opportunities (o) and threats (t). a pest-swot matrix cross-matched macro-environmental factors with regional development features, generating differentiated strategic combinations. this approach preserves the systematicity of swot analysis while refining external environmental dimensions through pest, making it suitable for regional public service research under complex policy contexts. 3. regional characteristics of dongguan 3.1 hidden aging pressure beneath a youthful facade dongguan is a young immigrant city with an average age of only 33.4 years. however, as early migrants gradually enter old age—coupled with industrial restructuring and talent attraction policies—the elderly migrant population continues to expand. it is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 8.5% from 2025 to 2035, creating a structural challenge of "aging before preparedness" (dongguan municipal bureau of civil affairs, 2023). this demographic paradox positions dongguan as an ideal case for studying proactive aging responses. 3.2 manufacturing-driven economic resilience as the "world factory," dongguan's 2024 gdp reached 1.23 trillion yuan, with industrial value-added www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 accounting for 55% (dongguan municipal bureau of statistics, 2025). its electronics industry cluster dominates nationally, with huawei, oppo, and vivo collectively holding nearly 50% of china's smartphone market share and driving emerging industries like ai and biopharmaceuticals. according to the several measures to accelerate the empowerment of artificial intelligence for high-quality manufacturing development, dongguan plans to invest more than 3 billion yuan over three years to advance ai-enabled manufacturing, laying an industrial foundation for "ai+eldercare" technologies. 3.3 policy-led institutional innovation since becoming one of china's first national pilot cities for medical-care integration in 2016, dongguan has pioneered "grid-based medical-eldercare integration" community services. this initiative deploys family doctors across 48 grassroots grids, delivers over 100,000 instances of continuing care, and trials an "ai+eldercare" smart platform for 24/7 monitoring. as a nationally accredited model institution, dongkeng hospital nursing home has led the development of industry standards and trained over 3,000 nursing professionals, advancing service standardization (zeng et al., 2022). concurrently, dongguan attracts hong kong and macao seniors through "cross-border elderly care" programs. projects like donghua sunshine city explore collaborative service models within the greater bay area (gba), fostering a diversified and standardized medical-eldercare ecosystem. 3.4 flat spatial governance structure as one of china's only four municipalities directly administering towns (without county-level divisions), dongguan implements a two-tier governance system (city-town). its 32 towns/subdistricts report directly to the municipal government, granting them high autonomy— including 80% fiscal independence— to allocate land and planning resources, accelerating local policy implementation. however, severe land fragmentation constrains contiguous medical-eldercare facility development, with industrial plots scattered across over 20,000 parcels and development intensity nearing 50% (dou et al., 2021). 4. pest-swot analysis of standardization for community-home medical-care integration services in dongguan the pest-swot framework demonstrates high applicability in analyzing the standardization of community-home medical-care integration services in dongguan, given its regional characteristics. by deconstructing macro-environmental drivers through the pest model and identifying interactions between internal/external conditions via the swot model, this approach addresses the structural contradiction of "youthful appearance versus hidden aging" in immigrant cities. external environment (pest dimensions): political (p): synergy between national pilot policies and local governance innovations; economic (e): technology spillover and fiscal support from manufacturing transformation; social (s): service demand heterogeneity driven by intergenerational migration; technological (t): potential of ai and iot to restructure service processes. internal conditions (swot dimensions): strengths (s): first-mover policy advantages of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 "grid-based medical-eldercare integration" model and industrial cluster capabilities; weaknesses (w): land fragmentation constraining contiguous facility deployment; opportunities (o): standard mutual recognition under greater bay area (gba) collaboration; threats (t): fiscal sustainability risks from low-end industrial relocation. by constructing a pest-swot matrix, this study dynamically aligns external environmental factors with regional endowments, revealing a standardization pathway driven by policy incentives, technological adaptation, and demand responsiveness. this provides a theoretical framework and practical paradigm for resolving the "aging before preparedness" dilemma in youth-dominant cities. 5. political factors 5.1 strength analysis 5.1.1 pilot policy conversion advantage as one of china's first national pilot cities for medical-care integration, dongguan has enacted a series of policies to construct and refine its integrated eldercare system. the implementation opinions on promoting the integration of medical and elderly care services clarifies the "medical-care integration" approach, while the revised management measures for home-based elderly care services in dongguan details standards for utilizing community health institutions and eldercare facilities to provide comprehensive services—including daily care, medical support, and rehabilitation. 5.1.2 multi-department coordination mechanism dongguan established a joint conference system involving 22 departments (e.g., civil affairs and health authorities) to coordinate eldercare services. this mechanism enhances systemic precision in "policy formulation-resource allocation-service implementation," significantly improving service delivery efficiency. 5.1.3 targeted fiscal subsidy system differentiated subsidies optimize fiscal resource allocation: medical-care integration facilities: receive construction subsidies of ¥18,000 per bed (vs. ¥12,000 for standard beds) and operational subsidies of ¥200/bed/month for accommodating disabled elders; home-based care: monthly subsidies of ¥360– 720 based on disability level; home care beds: one-time grants of ¥2,000–3,000 per bed. a dynamic adjustment mechanism and segregated fund accounting further improve fiscal efficacy. 5.2 weakness analysis 5.2.1 fragmented implementation of grassroots policies dongguan's city-administering-town flat governance model has led to significant disparities in the implementation of medical-care integration policies at the grassroots level. due to variations in resource endowments and enforcement capacity across towns/subdistricts, a fragmented pattern characterized by discrepancies in service standards and regulatory enforcement has emerged. the absence of a rigid city-level coordination mechanism has resulted in inadequate execution of key indicators—such as family doctor contracting services and smart device deployment—in some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 towns/subdistricts. this impedes the synergistic advancement of citywide standardization efforts(jiao et al., 2021). 5.2.2 insufficient policy coordination despite establishing a multi-department joint conference system, the lack of detailed implementation rules undermines the effectiveness of cross-departmental collaboration. for instance, the revised management measures for home-based elderly care services in dongguan fails to clarify the specific responsibilities of civil affairs, health, and medical insurance departments in service quality oversight. consequently, some towns/subdistricts face issues such as multi-channel approval processes and ambiguous accountability. 5.2.3 inadequate incentives for social capital current subsidy policies primarily target registered elderly residents, leaving non-dongguan residents without equivalent coverage. private institutions report protracted disbursement cycles for subsidies. moreover, the absence of a long-term care insurance system further constrains market-driven operations and sustainable investment(zhuang et al., 2025). 5.3 opportunity analysis 5.3.1 deepened policy synergy in the greater bay area the outline of the development plan for the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area supports cross-border elderly care collaboration. dongguan has piloted the guangdong residential care service scheme for hong kong and macao seniors. projects like donghua sunshine city attract hong kong elders, promoting mutual recognition of service standards and cross-border referrals within the bay area. this injects transnational resources into standardization development. 5.3.2 policy leverage accelerates local implementation china's national health commission and four other ministries jointly issued the guidelines on promoting high-quality development of medical-care integration services, explicitly increasing investment in community-based medical-eldercare services. this policy impetus enables dongguan to expedite the establishment of a graded home care bed subsidy system, thereby advancing service standardization. 5.3.3 quality control standards drive service enhancement aligned with china's guidelines for the construction and management of geriatric medicine departments, dongguan's geriatric medicine quality control center is formulating local quality control standards. these cover comprehensive geriatric assessments and multimorbidity co-management protocols. concurrently, efforts to strengthen medical-care integration include building medical-eldercare consortia and extending healthcare services to communities and households, ensuring essential medical and health services for the elderly. 5.4 threat analysis 5.4.1 policy iteration transition risks china's medical-care integration policies are undergoing dynamic adjustments. inadequate articulation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 22 between new and existing policies may create implementation gaps at the local level. despite high fiscal autonomy in dongguan's towns/subdistricts, some grassroots departments exhibit insufficient adaptability to policy changes, resulting in risks of lagging standardization efforts. 5.4.2 limitations in medical insurance coverage medical insurance payments provide inadequate support for home-based medical-eldercare services, with low reimbursement rates for telemedicine and home nursing. additionally, cross-regional medical settlement procedures remain suboptimal. some non-dongguan elderly residents report cumbersome registration processes that hinder efficient medical expense reimbursements, thereby constraining service accessibility and sustainability. 5.4.3 incomplete regulatory accountability mechanisms existing policies lack comprehensive regulatory details for medical-care integration service quality, while third-party evaluation systems are still under development. a 2024 inspection by dongguan's health bureau revealed that some institutions had inadequate fire safety facilities and defective medical safety management systems. such inconsistent service quality increases health risks for the elderly. 6. economic factors 6.1 strength analysis 6.1.1 industrial chain empowerment for cost reduction and efficiency dongguan's prominent electronics industry cluster enables leading enterprises to continuously deliver smart eldercare technologies. locally developed intelligent monitoring devices are widely deployed in community-home settings, significantly reducing manual inspection costs. through manufacturing technology transfer, these innovations achieve full-cycle cost optimization of monitoring equipment. 6.1.2 targeted subsidies guide resource optimization dongguan has established a stratified subsidy system that offers higher construction subsidies for medical-care integration institutions than standard eldercare facilities. it implements graded home care bed subsidies for both registered and non-local elderly residents. this precision allocation model effectively channels resources toward critical areas such as disability care and smart facility retrofitting. 6.1.3 incremental cross-border elderly care market leveraging its strategic position in the greater bay area, dongguan attracts premium clients through the cross-border elderly care scheme for hong kong and macao seniors (li et al., 2024). projects like donghua sunshine city gain competitiveness by offering service fees significantly lower than those in hong kong and macao, simultaneously driving exports of locally produced smart eldercare devices and creating new revenue growth channels. 6.2 weakness analysis 6.2.1 inefficient fiscal resource allocation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 the fragmented management system for community-based medical-eldercare services in dongguan leads to dispersed funding distribution. uncoordinated grassroots procurement results in duplicate investments and idle resources in certain areas, while universal access services suffer from chronic underfunding. this constrains the overall efficiency of fiscal resource utilization. 6.2.2 inadequate fiscal subsidy coverage current subsidy policies prioritize registered residents, leaving a substantial non-registered elderly population insufficiently covered. key initiatives like home care bed subsidies apply significantly reduced standards to non-local seniors, creating a mismatch between fiscal input and actual service demand. this undermines the equity of essential public services. 6.2.3 resource displacement by high-end projects preferential policies for premium initiatives (e.g., cross-border elderly care projects)— including land concessions and dedicated subsidies — divert fiscal resources otherwise available for community medical-eldercare services. persistent shortages of smart monitoring devices and professional caregivers at the community level reflect contradictions between resource prioritization and universal needs (gu, 2023). 6.3 opportunity analysis 6.3.1 development of inclusive elderly care finance under the implementation plan for promoting high-quality development of the silver economy to enhance elderly well-being in guangdong province, dongguan is advancing elderly care financial policies. by issuing inclusive elderly care re-lending facilities, it supports manufacturing of senior products and r&d of smart eldercare devices. this alleviates financing pressures for medical-care integration institutions and provides funding guarantees for service standardization upgrades. 6.3.2 green finance optimizes costs financial institutions in dongguan support energy-saving renovations of community medical-eldercare facilities through green project loans. innovatively applying instruments like pledging of green revenue rights and carbon emission rights, they effectively reduce energy consumption and equipment maintenance costs, thereby releasing more resources for standardization initiatives. 6.3.3 home service engineering enhances talent supply leveraging grassroots "nanyue home services" stations, dongguan has built an integrated "training-employment-service" platform. it offers free courses in elderly care nursing and rehabilitation skills, implementing targeted training programs for professionals. this addresses human resource shortages in community medical-eldercare services and provides manpower support for standardized implementation. 6.4 threat analysis 6.4.1 industrial relocation undermines elderly care investment the ongoing shift of low-end manufacturing to southeast asia has strained local finances in traditional industrial towns like chang'an and humen (fang yang, 2023). with stagnant growth in eldercare www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 budgets, long-term investments in smart device upgrades and standardized training face reduction risks. 6.4.2 payment system deficits intensify burdens the absence of a long-term care insurance system forces families to bear out-of-pocket expenses for disabled elders' medical care (zhuang et al., 2025). complex cross-regional insurance reimbursement procedures further restrict coverage for non-dongguan residents, compelling some households to forgo standardized services due to financial stress. this suppresses effective demand realization. 6.4.3 policy disparities trigger resource outflow shenzhen's qianhai cooperation zone creates policy arbitrage opportunities through corporate tax reductions and subsidized land pricing. to lower operational costs, some dongguan-based smart eldercare equipment manufacturers have relocated to qianhai. this erodes local supply chain integrity and indirectly escalates implementation costs for community medical-care service standardization. 7. social factors 7.1 strength analysis 7.1.1 youthful population supports elderly care capacity data from china's seventh national population census reveals that over 70% of dongguan's population are migrants, creating a unique "young workforce supporting aging care" demographic dividend. younger demographics exhibit high acceptance of smart eldercare technologies, accelerating the adoption of home health monitoring devices like the ping an bell system. this provides both a talent foundation and innovation momentum for standardized services. 7.1.2 community culture enhances service adaptability lingnan cultural traditions of familial mutual aid and community cohesion drive the "neighborhood mutual assistance + professional support" service model. for instance, zhongtang town's pilot time banking initiative engages younger seniors in caring for older disabled elders. this not only reduces labor costs but also strengthens emotional connections, enhancing the adaptability of standardized services. 7.1.3 multi-stakeholder collaborative network under government leadership, social work organizations, volunteers, and enterprises form a coordinated network. the dongguan medical-elderly health association integrates resources from 85 institutions, establishing a technology-sharing platform connecting "medical institutions-eldercare facilities-equipment suppliers." this promotes cross-institutional standardization of home hospital beds and telemedicine, addressing service fragmentation (dongguan municipal bureau of civil affairs, 2023). 7.2 weakness analysis 7.2.1 cultural integration barriers for non-local elderly non-registered seniors account for over 30% of dongguan's elderly population. dialect differences and lifestyle disparities hinder service acceptance. some elders refuse to sign family doctor contracts due to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 language barriers, impeding unified implementation of health management standards. this exposes deficiencies in localized service adaptation (wang et al., 2024). 7.2.2 shortage of family caregiving time manufacturing workers in dongguan typically follow three-shift work schedules, making daytime care provision difficult for dual-income families. delayed emergency response for disabled elders living alone contradicts the "15-minute response" standardization requirement, undermining effective service delivery. 7.2.3 traditional values diminish demand most elders reject home-based care services due to the "raising children for old-age support" mentality, viewing external care as undermining family dignity. consequently, social capital investment shrinks due to insufficient market demand, obstructing large-scale adoption of standardized services (fang et al., 2019). 7.3 opportunity analysis 7.3.1 standardization upgrade for mutual aid elderly care china's national 14th five-year plan for the development of aging causes and elderly care service systems explicitly supports mutual-aid eldercare. dongguan's time banking pilot has been promoted by the ministry of civil affairs. the government plans to establish a citywide unified volunteer service credit exchange standard to institutionalize mutual aid services, providing innovative solutions to workforce shortages. 7.3.2 youth-driven service innovation with over 170,000 university students and 12% annual growth in social work organizations, dongguan leverages the communist youth league's youth-elderly companionship project. this initiative pairs young volunteers with isolated seniors, simultaneously alleviating care burdens and standardizing smart device operation training to cultivate an emerging service workforce (ying et al., 2024). 7.3.3 bay area integration accelerates standard mutual recognition deepening lifestyle integration through cross-border elderly care in the greater bay area compels dongguan to enhance assessment and nursing protocols. hong kong seniors' demand for professional services drives standardization, while projects like donghua sunshine city explore a bay area-wide service certification system, injecting external impetus into standardization efforts. 7.4 threat analysis 7.4.1 regional resource imbalance high-end medical-eldercare resources concentrate in dongguan's urban core, while industrial towns and peripheral areas suffer from inadequate service provision. this spatial disparity causes divergent policy implementation outcomes across regions, potentially triggering public skepticism about standardization equity. 7.4.2 filial piety ethical conflicts elders often perceive children's use of smart services as substituting for companionship—an evasion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 filial duties. this reflects a clash between materialized filial piety and modern service concepts (wu, 2024). such ethical conflicts undermine emotional acceptance of standardized services, exacerbating supply-demand tensions. 7.4.3 career challenges in elderly care nursing low wages and social status drive severe talent attrition among caregivers (vyda, 2023). frequent staff turnover hinders standardized execution of specialized techniques like decubitus ulcer prevention. chronic issues— including delayed position rotation and missing skin assessment records— cause inconsistent service quality, threatening sustainable standardization. 8. technological factors 8.1 strength analysis 8.1.1 enhanced efficiency via ai elderly care platform dongguan's city-level ai + eldercare platform integrates vital signs monitoring, service dispatch, and health databases in demonstration projects. it achieves cross-institutional data linkage in pilot zones. dongkeng hospital utilizes this platform for 24/7 monitoring and real-time home services for town-wide home-based elderly residents, significantly improving chronic disease management efficiency. this provides granular support for standardized processes. 8.1.2 smart technologies lower service barriers dongguan's 5g-based traditional chinese medicine (tcm) telemedicine platform connects home hospital beds with tertiary hospital resources. equipped with intelligent devices for tongue diagnosis and pulse analysis, it enables cloud ward rounds and tele-consultations. the tcm health management rate for seniors aged 65+ rose from 59.49% to 74.73% post-implementation, effectively reducing access barriers to tcm services (traditional chinese medicine service network construction, 2025). 8.1.3 non-intrusive monitoring strengthens protection non-intrusive health monitoring technologies have become critical for community-home medical-eldercare safety. dongguan's ping an bell system integrates fall detection, one-touch emergency calls, and lbs positioning through multi-form terminals. this enables real-time risk awareness and closed-loop emergency management, providing technical safeguards for standardized response protocols. 8.2 weakness analysis 8.2.1 high learning costs for technological adoption insufficient age-friendly design in smart devices creates widespread operational barriers for the elderly. communities must continuously invest human resources in targeted training programs, substantially increasing the costs of service standardization. 8.2.2 data silos hinder regional coordination although the city-level "ai+eldercare" platform achieves data linkage in pilot institutions, unified data standards are lacking across health, civil affairs, and medical insurance systems. non-pilot areas still www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 27 face information barriers— including duplicate health data entry and response delays— resulting in significant regional disparities in standardized service delivery. 8.2.3 physical environment constraints on device efficacy weak signal coverage in dongguan's aging residential areas and industrial zones impedes the responsive performance of smart devices. resolving physical constraints to ensure timely emergency responses remains an urgent challenge. 8.3 opportunity analysis 8.3.1 cross-border technology enhances adaptability the global cross-border technology trade center in dongguan's binhai bay new area focuses on "technological innovation + advanced manufacturing." its healthcare technology transfer sector is poised to accelerate age-friendly iterations of smart hardware—upgrading devices like millimeter-wave radars toward lightweight and low-power designs— creating new pathways to reduce elderly users' technological barriers. 8.3.2 data middle-platform integration opportunity as a national pilot for china's basic elderly service platform, dongguan can leverage policy advantages to establish a multi-source data sharing mechanism. this facilitates the construction of an integrated regional data middle-platform, enabling standardized mapping of medical-health and eldercare service fields to provide technical infrastructure for service standardization. 8.3.3 emergency potential of low-altitude technologies with the advancement of low-altitude economy strategies, drone technology offers new solutions for community medical-eldercare services. dongguan's 100-scenario plan" proposes exploring emergency medicine delivery via drones. "establishing community-level takeoff/landing networks could overcome traffic constraints in aging urban areas, achieving a "30-minute emergency response zone" — a breakthrough opportunity for standardization. 8.4 threat analysis 8.4.1 cost pressure from rapid technological iteration the accelerated update cycles of smart eldercare devices impose sustained hardware upgrade costs. however, manufacturing relocation hinders industrial towns' capacity to bear these expenses, potentially impeding the long-term development of technical standardization systems. 8.4.2 technological overreliance and humanistic deficits while smart devices enhance service efficiency, excessive dependence erodes humanistic care. some non-local elders develop resistance to smart terminals due to language barriers and human-computer interaction barriers, resulting in incomplete health data collection that compromises standardized service implementation. furthermore, technologies misaligned with elderly operational habits may degrade service quality. 8.4.3 data security and privacy risks as the municipal platform integrates multi-source health data, cybersecurity protections remain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 28 inadequate at town/subdistrict levels. disparate resources create uneven data security infrastructure, risking sensitive information leaks—particularly in cross-border scenarios where hong kong/macao seniors' data transfers must comply with dual privacy standards under greater bay area regulations. current governance mechanisms exhibit persistent compliance gaps. 9. strategic development for standardizing community-home medical-care integration services in dongguan based on the deconstruction of dongguan's regional characteristics through the pest-swot model, this study cross-matches internal and external conditions to formulate a swot strategic matrix. four standardization strategies are proposed: growth (so), turnaround (wo), diversification (st), and defensive (wt). 9.1 so strategy: growth-oriented strategy leveraging synergies between internal strengths and external opportunities, dongguan must capitalize on its first-mover policy advantages and industrial foundations: (1) utilize national medical-care integration pilot policies and the donghua sunshine city cross-border project to establish a greater bay area mutual recognition mechanism for medical-eldercare standards. promote the export of the "grid-based medical-eldercare integration" model to enhance regional leadership in standardization. (2) exploit the electronics industry cluster to collaborate with manufacturers in establishing age-friendly device r&d centers. through the municipal "ai + eldercare" platform, achieve cost efficiency in monitoring technologies and accelerate technology transfer to medical-eldercare services. (3) integrate policy, technological, and cross-border resources to apply for a national pilot for community medical-care integration standardization, forging the "dongguan standard" service brand. 9.2 wo strategy: turnaround-oriented strategy to transform internal weaknesses through external opportunities, dongguan must urgently address land fragmentation and non-registered elderly coverage gaps: (1) establish a graded security system for non-registered seniors, issuing home-based care subsidy vouchers based on disability levels. this breaks through the household registration restrictions to cover over 30% of non-local elderly, remedying service equity deficits. (2) leverage towns/subdistricts' land autonomy to retrofit idle factories into mobile smart nursing stations, covering 10 highly fragmented industrial towns including hongmei, resolving contiguous facility deployment challenges. (3) respond to china's mutual-aid eldercare policy by formulating a municipal volunteer service point redemption mechanism. enable cross-town/subdistrict exchange of time banking credits for community-home medical-eldercare services, alleviating workforce shortages. (4) pilot instant medical insurance settlements for hong kong/macao seniors through the donghua sunshine city project, streamlining cross-border service processes. 9.3 st strategy: diversification-oriented strategy to counterbalance internal strengths against external threats, dongguan must leverage its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 29 manufacturing and technological foundations to mitigate industrial relocation and payment risks: (1) establish a manufacturing return guidance fund to attract relocated enterprises' investment in smart eldercare r&d, offsetting fiscal risks from industrial relocation in towns like chang'an. (2) create a low-altitude emergency network deploying drone delivery nodes in aging communities, overcoming traffic constraints to achieve the "30-minute emergency response" target. (3) implement an inclusive long-term care insurance system using an individual-enterprise-government cost-sharing model to cover all permanent elderly residents, securing payment safety. (4) adopt a dynamic adjustment mechanism for community-home care subsidies, indexed to both cpi and regional economic indicators, enabling precise and sustainable support (qian, 2022). 9.4 wt strategy: defense-oriented strategy confronting dual pressures from internal weaknesses and external threats, dongguan must fortify service equity and safety foundations: (1) implement a town/subdistrict service compliance accountability system, incorporating indicators like family doctor signing rates and smart device coverage into mayoral evaluations to reduce inter-town disparities and alleviate regional resource imbalances. (2) strengthen a tiered data security protection framework to prevent health data leakage risks. (3) enhance technical inclusivity through age-friendly interactions (e.g., voice commands, physical buttons), while intensifying social workers' in-home emotional support to mitigate human-machine alienation (al rakib et al., 2021). (4) establish a municipal standardization supervision unit conducting quarterly field inspections to bridge gaps between city-level protocols and grassroots implementation. 10. conclusion the standardization of community-home medical-care integration services is shaped by macro-environmental factors, necessitating dynamic adaptation of strategic pathways aligned with regional characteristics. this pest-swot analysis demonstrates that dongguan— confronting the tension of "hidden aging within youth-oriented cities"—should leverage its manufacturing foundations and cross-border collaboration advantages to continuously refine policy coordination, resource allocation, and technology application. future efforts must closely track the interplay between demographic shifts and industrial upgrading, advancing standardization from "localized exploration" toward a "quality-efficiency paradigm". this provides a reference for resolving the "aging before preparedness" dilemma in comparable cities. references al rakib, m. a., uddin, s., rahman, m. m., chakraborty, s., & abbas, f. i. 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(2022). optimization paths of the operation mode of medical-nursing integration in china: a case study of the transformation practice of secondary hospitals. journal of shaanxi university of technology (social sciences edition), 40(6), 33-41, 54. zhuang, f. s., xu, h. y., huang, z. s., wu, l., & qi, l. l. (2025). an analysis of the construction of dongguan's long-term care insurance system: key issues in the preparation stage. china economic and trade herald, (4), 19-21. pest-swot analysis of standardization for communit tao he1, lei he1, wendi fang2, chaofeng tang1, xin 1 college of humanities and management, guangdong advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 78 original paper the problem and countermeasure of party branch leading cooperative—acase on a rural tourism cooperative led by party branch in b village of shandong province yuxin wei1 1 school of politics and international studies, central china normal university, wuhan, china received: october 5, 2022 accepted: november 9, 2022 online published: february 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p78 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p78 abstract taking the typical rural tourism cooperative led by the party branch in b village of shandong province as an example, this paper discusses the causes, concrete practices, practical effects and existing problems of the party branch led rural tourism cooperative through case analysis with exploratory empirical research method. research shows that: first, the motivation of the establishment of the cooperative led by the party branch lies in the weakening and marginalization of the party branch, the decline of the industry and the collective poverty, and the weak collective consciousness of the villagers. second, the party branch to lead the cooperative needs the village party branch to raise energy and empower, integrate resources in the form of internal source and external transmission, and combine “internet +”intelligent management. third, the party branch leads the cooperative to enhance the power of the party branch, industrial development file upgrade, community consciousness return. research suggests that: in the new era, the party branch leads the cooperatives to promote the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, reorganize farmers and self-organize them, reconstruct the rural governance pattern and build a harmonious rural society. its rise has realistic necessity and rationality. keywords farmer cooperative, led by party branch, rural tourism 1. introduction in the process of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategy implementation, the successful practice of party branch led cooperatives has attracted extensive attention from the academic community. since 2017, the phenomenon of party branch led cooperatives has rapidly emerged in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 yantai, shandong province, bijie, guizhou province, tongliao, inner mongolia and other places. the practice of party branch leading cooperatives started earlier in shandong province and is now basically extended to all counties of the province. the party represents the fundamental interests of the vast majority of the people, which not only eliminates monopoly interest groups and party interests, but also is not limited to local and short-term interests. the party is the highest political leading force and the dominant leader of social governance at the grassroots level in our country. it not only corrects market failure and makes up for government failure, and has a leadership position that is beyond other multiple governance subjects. this natural beneficial poor organization is the ideal carrier of collective economic development that is used from modern to modern times in the rural areas of our country. the position and function of cooperatives are highly affirmed and supported. as the primary party organization in rural areas, the village party branch led cooperatives are the organizational embedding of the primary economy. they play the political leadership role of the party, publicize the collectivist nature of cooperatives, grasp the development direction of cooperatives, and ensure that cooperatives are public rather than private. what is worth paying attention to is, why need party branch lead to establish cooperative? how effective is the implementation of party branch-led cooperative? in order to answer the above questions, systematic research should be carried out at both theoretical and practical levels. based on this, the author went to b village in shandong province to conduct field investigation, and combined with the data obtained, conducted an in-depth analysis. 2. literature review 2.1 shandong province takes the lead in carrying out the pilot project domestic scholars have conducted empirical studies on the issue of “party branch led cooperatives” based on specific cases, and shandong province is the first choice of research site. the existing party branch led cooperatives in shandong province have two operation modes, namely, “branch + cooperative + farmer” mode and “branch + cooperative + farmer + enterprise” mode. the latter needs to introduce supporting enterprises and send capital to the countryside, and there is also a special mode of “branch + family farm + enterprise + people”. has five kinds of common types, namely the grain cultivation professional cooperatives, fruit and vegetable planting professional cooperatives, rural tourism professional cooperatives, aquaculture professional cooperatives, seedling tree planting professional cooperatives, and three kinds of special type, namely the beef cattle cultivation professional cooperatives, medicinal herbs cultivation of professional cooperatives, agricultural products sales professional cooperatives (specialty food). on top of cooperatives, associations are formed in many places. several neighboring villages in the same city are optimized and adjusted into the same party branch through village party branches, and professional cooperatives and associations are established, such as agricultural machinery and grain cultivation professional cooperatives and associations, which implement the traditional agricultural combination of agriculture, husbandry and fishery. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 80 2.2 collective industry upgrading and asset appreciation the original rural collective economy development degree is not high, mostly rely on resources to eat, simple contract leasing, single channels to increase income, lack of development momentum, has been used to rely on. party regulations clearly stipulate that the village party branch is assuming the responsibility of developing collective economy. in order to fulfill this economic responsibility, some villages set up a special fund pool and applied for support funds from it. in order to maintain the continuous operation of the cooperative, 20% of the funds in the pool became the feedback funds[3]. at present, “x” can take various forms, such as farmers, enterprises, industrial parks and cooperatives, which organize farmers who work alone to make use of idle resources and concentrate scattered resources. “party branch + cooperative +x” is to create a new model of collective economic development. agricultural industry upgrading, resource integration, unified operation, village and enterprise cooperation to introduce technology, expand market[4]. the improvement of supervision and evaluation system is also a new mechanism for collective economic development[5]. scholars generally agree that the party branch led cooperatives have realized the development of a group and embarked on the road of strengthening the village and enriching the people. 2.3 the power of grass-roots party organizations is enhanced the party branch leader needs the demonstration of the branch group and the leader of the party member cadres. according to the general theory of organizational force, the organizational force of rural party branches is mainly reflected in five aspects, namely, structural force, guiding force, economic force, cohesive force and cultural force. the successful publicity and promotion of farmers to participate in the cooperative, clear the core leading position of the party branch in the cooperative, embodies the structural strength; the successful establishment and continuous development of cooperatives reflect the guiding power; the cooperative realized the win-win situation of peasants and collective income increase, which reflected the economic power; the status of the party branch in the minds of the people is improved, the credibility is improved, reflecting the cohesion; it has strengthened the consciousness of serving the people, improved the party spirit, greatly improved the party building, and reflected the cultural power[6]. in the process of forming cooperatives, party members were reorganized and mobilized. mobilizing party members to do volunteer work rebuilds the sense of political honor. meeting and discussion allow party members to participate in the village important decision-making and other grass-roots party building activities are the integration and mobilization of party members. cooperatives drive the construction of village collective economy and provide two preconditions for grassroots party building, namely, the business premise—political participation of party members and ideological premise—reshaping of collective consciousness, and a backing -strengthening of material backing[7]. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 81 3. cause of establishment and main practices in 2010, the founding meeting of the cooperative in b village, shandong province, led by the party branch, was unanimously approved by all the founders. the operation practice of cooperatives in b village for more than ten years reflects the logical thinking of village-level governance, which has changed significantly before and after. the author divides it into the stage of big household leader and party branch leader. the stage of leading by large households began in the 1990s. in this stage, there was an irregular cooperative, which was led by individual large households and managed by themselves. the threshold for entering the cooperative was set. as the cooperative is a relatively independent economic cooperation organization, the party branch of village b does not have the actual right to operate within the original cooperative and cannot play the role of coordination and guidance, which leads to the tension between multiple subjects and conflicts. setting the threshold of access, collective participation cannot be achieved, the villagers lack of community consciousness, collective economic development is powerless. the leading stage of the party branch is from 2010 to now. since 2009, b village has carried out the reconstruction work of the old village, supported by the government and the return of talents, which has actively changed the original rural governance pattern and formed a situation of multi-subject cooperative governance. at this stage, the party branch will return to its original position and focus its economy on the collective specialized farmer cooperatives. at the same time, it will collect talent resources, explore natural resources and cultural resources, and revitalize the collective industry. in recent years, b village party branch led cooperative has become a provincial model. 3.1 case of establishment 3.1.1 “hollow” power of party branch the “hollow” power of the party branch refers to that the party branch is marginalized, the power is weakened, the party branch has a name but no reality, has no appearance, lacks the actual power play, has low influence on the public affairs in the village, and the energy is limited. the party branch at the village level is the core of the leadership of various affairs in the village, leading, commanding, coordinating and decision-making public matters in the village. however, such a situation existed in village b at the beginning, that is, the party branch did not get along with the masses, and villagers did not realize the role of the party branch in their own life, so they could not carry out the mass work smoothly, and could not display their leadership and organizational ability in the village affairs. this damaged the power and authority of the party branch in b village, and formed the phenomenon of “hollow” power. the party organization is rooted in the masses and has a firm mass foundation and perfect organizational structure system. however, b village could not bring this political and organizational advantage into play in the original cooperative construction. at present, the new countryside has gradually separated from the homogeneity structure and has the characteristics of heterogeneity. most people in traditional rural areas have the same surname, forming families with the same surname and living together. as an organization in the traditional sense, a clan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 82 or family has a patriarch with management responsibilities in the organizational structure. the patriarch leads a clan, the clan is united, the tradition is taken as the criterion, the society is organized by ethics[8], and the decision and will of the patriarch are put first. in the new rural society, party organizations, government, social organizations, market subjects and individual villagers all participate in the governance of rural society. these subjects come from different regions, belong to different units, represent different interests, and gradually show heterogeneity. there was no patriarch in the new rural society, and some villagers were estranged from each other. at that time, the actual power of the party organization in b village was “hollow”, which did not play a unified and leading role in time. cooperative society is the carrier of village collective economy development. in terms of rules, the work regulations of the party’s rural grass-roots organizations stipulate that the rural grass-roots party organizations should promote the development and growth of the collective economy and lead and support the collective economic organizations according to the local conditions. it can be seen that the party branch leading cooperatives have the significance of rules; in fact, the operation of agricultural modernization cooperatives needs standardized and specialized unified management. party branches put the interests of the masses first, pursue common prosperity, have advanced theories keeping pace with the times, seek truth from facts, and adhere to the truth-seeking and pragmatic work style, which is of practical significance to lead the operation of agricultural modernization cooperatives. 3.1.2 “empty shell” of collective economy the “empty shell” of collective economy is manifested in industrial decline and collective poverty, which are mutually causation. the collective economy of village b declined and its development declined. the single agricultural income was not enough to support the family life, and villagers went out to work, leading to a large outflow of population, serious aging and lack of sufficient labor force. due to the villagers’ participation in public affairs is low, lose faith in collective economy development, unable to public funds raised from the villagers, village collective exist large debt, failed again, b collective with poor village industry formed a vicious circle, goods of the collective economy also can become a “shell” and purse economy. jump out of the vicious circle of circles need to retain the rural labor force, the development of various resources, to booming and profitable agricultural modernization, promoting collective income, this requires leaders to develop mass work and give play to the role of political economic role play a party branch in rural collective economy with new leadership in the development of agricultural professional cooperatives fusion, both go hand in hand, this is the village party branch has two basic, legal, unique job responsibilities and belong to the power. the cooperative originally established in village b was led by large households and jointly operated by enterprises, namely the form of “villagers + enterprises”, without collective participation. both have the essential characteristics of “economic man”, seeking the realization of their own interests, rather than seeking a strong sense of belonging and identity from the village collective. large households with control rights in cooperatives set a higher entry threshold, absorb only professional farmers and technical experts with large-scale resources, exclude small farmers, widen the income gap, and fail to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 increase the income of villagers and increase the value of collective assets. therefore, the phenomenon of collective poverty still cannot be changed, nor can it jump out of the vicious circle of “collective poverty industrial decline”. the operation mode of the party branch led cooperative in b village is “party branch + villagers + enterprise”. the three components respectively represent the leadership of the party branch, collective participation, and enterprise investment and development. party branch play a leading role to join the cooperatives has been clear about the development direction, made by the first party branch leadership results show the villagers, attract village to the villagers to join new cooperatives, but is not limited to the original a few professional farmers, enterprises has changed from original dominance to auxiliary and self-developed technology and capital resources status, under the leadership of the party branch of village b, the villagers and enterprises jointly discuss the operation of the cooperative. the new cooperative has the same value concept, unified management concept and clear development goal, which is gradually changing the “empty shell” phenomenon of collective economy. 3.1.3 weak collective consciousness the weak collective consciousness is reflected in the villagers fighting alone, only care about their own “three acres of land”, only care about their own income, and indifference to collective affairs, which has become a psychological factor hindering village governance. the rural land system adopts the household contract responsibility system, and the fields are divided into households. the farmers have the autonomy of land management, and the income lies in the harvest of their own land, and the economic foundation belongs to themselves, which undoubtedly weakens the villagers’ dependence on the collective. the rejection of small farmers by the former large household led cooperatives also leads to polarization among villagers. the collective consciousness and community consciousness of villagers in village b are gradually losing. the communication among villagers is limited to relatives and neighbors, and they will not negotiate over public affairs and collective economy. the self-governance issues become superficial and gradually formalized. therefore, only established on the basis of the interests distribution between the villagers benefit correlation mechanism, professional investors and technical experts to spread knowledge, technology, market channels to development small, produce benefit to close, collective consciousness returned, the villagers would get to really step in village public affairs, and to be organized again. the cooperative led by the party branch is the re-organization of the masses by the party organization, and plays the role of self-organization after the villagers join the cooperative. reorganization has always been an important function of the party to mobilize the masses and connect the masses, which is to organize the decentralized and fragmented individuals. villagers’ initiative to join, provide resources, actively negotiate and accept management of cooperatives is the embodiment of villagers’ self-organization under the guidance of the party[9]. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 3.2 main practices 3.2.1 the party branch is empowered to enhance energy and empower means to improve the governance ability of party organizations and expand the scope of party organizations’ power radiation, which requires the dual strategy of “carrot and stick” combining authority shaping and rule application. the promotion of village party branch mainly depends on structural empowerment. through the organization embedding of shoulder to shoulder of party branch secretary and chairman of the board of directors, and cross-serving of the branch team, the actual operation of the cooperative is controlled. since the board of directors and the board of supervisors are set up in accordance with institutional rules, leading the operation of the cooperative, the members of the party branch group acting as directors and supervisors have reasonable and legal corresponding ability and authority. b village with the director a new cooperative, by the township, is the legal representative of the cooperatives, has presided over and is responsible for all the conference, signed membership investment certificate, signed managers, financial personnel and technical personnel, employment letter, organize the implementation of the resolution and supervise the implementation of the functions and powers, measures for the administration of specified coop director is responsible for cooperative work comprehensively. members of the party branch group are fully interspersed into the various positions of the cooperative, in addition to the chairman, but also involved in accounting, cashier, supervisor and members of the supervisor. there is formal power operation in the exercise of authority, and the informal effect of shaping authority is achieved. b village party branch led cooperatives to implement “six unified” management rules. under the leadership of the party branch, association and cooperative management include unified marketing, unified reception, unified settlement, unified service, unified management and unified construction. always adhere to the party branch team to take the lead in raising funds, mobilize the masses into the club, responsible for the management of sales. adhering to the unified design of the party is conducive to the implementation of the party’s resolution into the cooperative. party branches are empowered in the establishment, planning, coordination, distribution and supervision of cooperatives, strengthening the all-factor leading role of party branches in multi-subject, public affairs and various resources. while endowing the party branch with power, it stimulates its internal driving force, enhances the power ability and energy of grassroots party organizations, and strengthens the party’s effective participation in rural society. 3.2.2 integrate internal and external resources the existing industry is the economic foundation for the establishment of cooperatives, and the existing industry needs to be built on the basis of the existing local resources. the existing resources that can be developed and utilized are the development direction of cooperatives. revitalize the existing resources, the first need internal review, that is, internal source. b village is located in the mountainous area in the southeast of shandong province, which has the innate mountain resources and the mountainous landscape formed over time. therefore, the first choice is to develop rural tourism. the village www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 85 collective under the management of the party branch contracts the villagers’ land, pays the villagers the contract fee of the corresponding area every year, and uses the idle land resources as collective shares for the unified planning of scenic spots and the construction of supporting facilities; by the villagers in the form of monetary or non-monetary valuation of personal equity; villagers build small farmhouses or large villas based on their own homes to receive tourists. human resources include the input of labor force and the support of talents. different from external entities such as government and enterprises, organizations established in rural areas emphasize the main role of economic talents and good people in the village[10]. economic experts and technical experts can often play a powerful role in the collective economic development, demonstration and guidance. now b village party branch secretary is the village has a high prestige of economic talent. the establishment of the cooperative first relies on the secretary to give up his own business and establish a professional rural tourism cooperative, invest money with his family to make achievements, and then attract other economic talents and good people in the village to participate, and appeal to the whole village villagers to join continuously by virtue of their prestige and the achievements of the cooperative. for the shortage of resources, village b chooses to export resources and seek external help, which mainly involves insufficient development funds. under the guidance of the party branch, the cooperative actively carries out investment attraction and has attracted investment of 120 million yuan to build a three-star hotel. few and scattered resources are insufficient to support the sustainable and efficient development of cooperatives, and resource integration is particularly important. b village effectively integrates the scattered land resources in the hands of villagers, develops scale economy and intensive economy, builds supporting facilities and plans scenic spots, and creates a scenic spot with coordinated scenery. 3.2.3 introduction of “internet +” smart management “internet +” rural new formats to fusion, docking modern agricultural science and technology, to capture market information, the popularization of mobile payment, an investment of 50000 yuan, to establish rural information management system, open wechat number and a public website, summary of scenic spot with tourist information management as a whole, the user can query one button. tourists can directly access information, such as geographical location information and routes, contact information, opening hours, tourism projects, but also can exchange experience, reservation and purchase tickets, to achieve the consultation center, farmhouse, tourists three interconnected communication. with the help of the intermediary role of the internet, the scenic spot features are simultaneously publicized in the form of text, pictures and videos, so that tourists can get an advance understanding before arriving at b village. the reception situation of the farmhouse is updated in real time, and the cooperative understands the operation situation of each farmhouse through the information management system, so as to balance the diversion of tourists. the creative mode of “internet + rural tourism” has the advantages of fast transmission speed, wide range, low cost, strong www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 86 timeliness, rich and comprehensive content bearing. through highly efficient internet communication, it has expanded the audience of rural tourism, not only limited to the surrounding urban areas. the “internet +” mode not only enhances the internal overall management, but also realizes the connectivity between the village and tourists. “internet + cooperative” has achieved the compatible development of intelligent management and online marketing. 4. effectiveness of implementation 4.1 reconstruction of party branch authority the reconstruction of authority comes from the social benefit obtained by the reconstruction of public credibility through the coordination of the party and the people, the political benefit obtained by the improvement of organizational power and the improvement of governance efficiency, and the economic benefit obtained by the restoration of economic leadership and the good efficiency of the cooperative are the results of three functions. as the nerve endings of the party, the grass-roots party organization of b village takes root among the masses and regards serving villagers as its main task and basic responsibility. the party branch insists that the core of cooperative operation lies in serving members, and the functional orientation of cross-appointment is shifted from control and command to service and management, and from one-way notification to two-way interactive consultation. the party and the people respect and trust each other, and credibility will be rebuilt accordingly. in the face of the rising social subjects in rural areas, rural grass-roots party organizations should not only maintain cooperation with them, but also adhere to the party’s advanced nature and take independent action strategies. by empowering the grassroots party organizations of village b, the political leadership, self-innovation, organizational coverage, mass cohesion and development impetus of the leadership team are enhanced[11], and the function, resource and value integration of village b is integrated, realizing the systematic construction of governance elements in rural society. the party branch leads the cooperative, which stimulates the primary party organization’s subjectivity in the rural work. in the face of the continuous maturity of various social forces, the primary party organization is bound to have the organizational power and leadership of the rural society gradually strengthened. 4.2 activate collective industry the cooperative led by the party branch of village b activated the collective industry, upgraded the rural tourism industry, increased the value of collective assets and increased the income of villagers. at first, the party secretary of village b called on the villagers to control the mountain and water, improve the ecological environment, build tourism facilities, seize the trend of returning to the wild culture, and develop the leisure rural tourism based on the farmhouse music platform. by 2020, the village has built 38 farmhouse, each household annual income of more than 200,000 yuan, rural tourism radiation role has driven more than 150 farmhouse in the surrounding areas. in recent years, the cooperative has developed a variety of scenic spots with characteristics of picking gardens, art galleries and village history hall, as well as various activities such as picking festival, beer festival, art festival and cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 exhibition. in 2019, the visitor flow of village b reached 150,000, and the per capita income reached 34,000 yuan. in 2020, the per capita income increased to 36,000 yuan. it should be emphasized that 80% of the villagers in village b have achieved home-based employment, which greatly reduced the outflow of population and kept the vitality of rural manpower. the party branch of village b, as the leader of poverty alleviation and the development of rural tourism industry, worked hard in the process of running the cooperative. the secretary sought policy support for many times, took the lead in solving problems, expanded the thinking of the branch team, integrated resources, unified management, and activated the upgrading of agricultural industry. 4.3 return of community consciousness the return path of community consciousness of village b is divided into three parts. through the cross-appointment of the branch team, the organization is embedded in the cooperative, coordinating and supervising the operation of the cooperative according to the six unified management principles; collective income and industrial prosperity, collective economic spring; villagers join cooperatives one after another, forming interest links. as the organization and operation mode of cooperatives is to share property rights with the villagers (members) of beneficiaries as investors of cooperatives, the income of each member is closely related to the performance of other members, so they have the power to supervise each other. with the gradual increase of contact opportunities, members are more familiar with each other, the relationship is closer, the sense of identity and belonging is enhanced, and the sense of community gradually returns. with the return of the sense of community, villagers realize their ownership of the cooperative and take the initiative to share resources. with mutual trust between the party and the people, villagers perceive the increasingly important status and role of party branches in their lives, and the party’s resolutions are closely related to them. they gradually increase the frequency of political participation and participate in consultation on self-governance issues, forming a governance pattern of party and the people co-governance. village b presents a path for grassroots party organizations to gradually improve the social governance ecology of rural villages by starting with lead cooperatives. (see figure 1) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 figure 1. the development path of synergy and co-governance 5. conclusion the party branch leading cooperatives are the construction road of modern farmer specialized cooperatives with chinese characteristics. the realization and consolidation of the leadership of the party in rural society, in the economic field to lead the construction of farmers specialized cooperatives for the specific starting point. the party branch is the superstructure of the farmer specialized cooperative, forming a solid organizational guarantee. therefore, primary-level party organizations hold the leadership of the economic work of rural society, implement rural revitalization, achieve common prosperity, leading cooperatives has become a due meaning in the title. the so-called party branch leadership means that the party branch should not only “steer” but also “paddle” during the establishment, growth, development and transformation of the cooperative. “steering” means that party members operate first and provide practical experience; “paddling” requires branch cross-office, specific participation in management and operation. in the emerging specialized farmer cooperatives led by the party branch, the village party organizations that had been marginalized and weakened have returned to the center of the rural governance network. face b village cooperatives original “villagers + enterprise” the failure of governance mode, governance leaders the key roles that the village party branch and adjust the governance network of multivariate main body role and strength of relationship between structure, implement open, independent and compatible with the principle of democratic management, formed under the leadership of the party organization, supported by the villagers as the center, enterprise collaborative work pattern. the party branch will focus on the development of the collective economy on the construction of the economic cooperation organization that the collective joins. in order to realize cooperation, have sustainable development power and abandon free-riding behavior, it is necessary to make all parties in the cooperation form practical interest connection, and the benefit of the cooperative is related to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 actual income of all parties. the secretary of the party branch first takes the lead in investing funds to achieve results, followed by party members, and pulls the villagers collectively to become shareholders. with its unique political resources, the party branch obtains preferential policies and financial support to expand market channels and attract investment. oneness with traditional farming income decreases, the party branch organization guarantee in place and the villagers’ participation enthusiasm, cooperative members led the villagers to modern agricultural industry production, large-scale construction of spillover effects, the initial income, to use all the remaining membership bonuses to the village construction, improve the rural environment landscape, to meet canton culture, moreover, the villagers can find employment at home, alleviate the problem of population loss, break the original vicious circle, and then turn it into a virtuous circle. need to stress is that in the future in the process of farmers’ professional co-operatives, leaders must hold in time of peace prepare for war mentality, in the case of cooperatives have sprung up, independent brands need to be creative and innovative development, stop and even within the same geographic peripheral region between the same problem, remove the internal competition, attaches importance to human resources, in order to promote its sustainable and efficient development. references bu, c. l. 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(2019). autonomy and embedding: the action strategy of grassroots party organizations in rural vitalization strategy. changbai journal, 2019(01), 1. https://doi.org/10.35534/rvr.0102006 author profile yuxin wei (2000-), female, born in dezhou, shandong province. master, school of politics and international studies, central china normal university. research direction: grassroots social governance. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 61 original paper the impact mechanism of pro-environmental behaviours liu siyi a , qian zhang b , julie jie wen c* , & clem tisdell d a faculty of hospitality and tourism management, macau university of science and technology, macau,999078. b school of social development and management，hunan women’s university, 160 zhongyi 1st road, changsha, hunan, china c school of social sciences, western sydney university, locked bag 1797, penrith south dc nsw 1797, australia d department of economics, university of queensland, st lucia, brisbane, australia * school of social sciences, western sydney university, locked bag 1797, penrith south dc nsw 1797, australia received: july 13, 2022 accepted: august 8, 2022 online published: august 15, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n3p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n3p61 abstract based on the theory of relationship quality, the research constructed the impact mechanism model of pro-environmental behaviours by applying tourist’s perceived value as the antecedent variable, while relationship quality (satisfaction and loyalty) was treated as the mediators, and place attachment as a moderator. surveys were conducted at the daweishan national forest park in hunan province, china, with 674 valid questionnaires collected. the empirical results provided evidence that the direct effect of perceived value of tourists on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviours is significantly positive, and the indirect effect of relationship quality (satisfaction and loyalty) between perceived value of tourists. recommendations and strategies for further research and implementing tourist stratification management are suggested. keywords affective loyalty, perceived value, pro-environmental behaviour, satisfaction 1. introduction national parks are becoming increasingly important with the rapid development of ecotourism. parks not only meet the desires of visitors for leisure and recreation, but also undertake the functions of conservation, biodiversity, and education (bjork, 2000; sirakaya, sasidharan, & sonmez, 1999). pro-environmental behaviour, also known as environmentally responsible behaviour, ecological www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. behaviour or environmentally friendly behaviour, refers to the behaviour of tourists who spontaneously reduce the damage to the natural resources and ecological environment, or take actions to promote the sustainable use of the environment in tourism destinations (ballantyne & packer, 2011; nepal, al irsyad & nepal, 2019; ramkissoon & mavondo, 2015). scholars have started the analysis of pro-environmental behaviours’ formation mechanism from place attachment (anton, & lawrence, 2016; buonincontri, marasco, & ramkissoon, 2017; cheng et al., 2014; eusébio et al., 2018; halpenny, 2010; song, kim, & yim, 2017). halpenny (2010) confirmed that place dependence indirectly affects pro-environmental behaviours through place identity, from a study at point pelee national park in canada. based on the survey of 372 tourists in ningaloo marine park in australia. there is some literature documenting that perceived value, satisfaction, affective loyalty and place attachment are associated with pro-environmental behaviour, but little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this association (chiu, lee, & chen, 2014; chung, petrick, & absher, 2011). the study takes the satisfaction and affective loyalty of tourists as the mediators to explore the impact mechanism of tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour. the study establishes a new theoretical framework for the formation mechanism of tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour, and provides a new perspective for the sustainable development of tourist destinations. 2. theoretical foundation and hypotheses 2.1 perceived value perceived value is characterized as a core element in relationship marketing and for predicting consumer behaviour (bolton & drew, 1991). value is the income from exchange from the perspective of supply side, and the benefit of products and services purchased from the perspective of demand side (sheth, newman, & gross, 1991). perceived value is the value perception of products or services that consumers have paid for and are based on the rational evaluation of perceived gains and losses. perceived value is generally regarded as a key element to the success of enterprises. identifying and creating customer perceived value is a prerequisite for the long-term survival and progress of an enterprise (kotler & keller, 2006). from the perspective of tourist experience, scholars further suggested that customer perceived value itself is part of the entire tourist experience (chen & tasi, 2007; fernando et al., 2018; lee, yoon, & lee, 2007). the value in this study is based on the perspective of consumers and refers to the benefits obtained in products or services. 2.2 the indirect effect of satisfaction oliver (1997) viewed satisfaction as consumers’ judgements about service or products fulfilment. visitor satisfaction is widely viewed as the overall evaluation of visitors’ experiences of the destination after meeting their expectations and desires (kozak & rimmington, 2000; okello & yerian, 2009). perceived value is viewed as a key antecedent to visitors’ satisfaction (lee, yoon, & lee, 2007; orams, 1995). tourism literature suggested that providing a satisfying ecotourism experience can enhance the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. pro-environmental behaviour of tourists (davis, le, & coy, 2011; higham & carr, 2002; lee & moscarbo, 2005). chiu, lee, and chen (2014) concluded that satisfaction not only directly affected pro-environmental behaviours, but also played a moderating effect between perceived value and pro-environmental behaviour. 2.3 the indirect effect of affective loyalty loyalty refers to the commitment to repurchase a service or a product in the future (moore & graefe, 1994; oliver, 1999; shoemaker & lewis, 1999). the concept of tourist loyalty originated from customer loyalty in marketing. loyalty is measured as a multi-dimensional construct, consisting of cognitive loyalty, affective loyalty, and conative loyalty (oliver, 1999; yuksel, 2010), or attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty (lee & shen, 2013). affective loyalty refers to the loyalty to an individual’s own preference. the consumer may be satisfied with the product and hence, they may be more likely to become affectively loyal in the same category (yuksel et al., 2010). kwenye and phiri (2016) took the world heritage site of victoria falls, zambia, as the research base and confirmed that loyalty positively influenced pro-environmental intentions. based upon the literature, the paper proposes its hypothesis. h1: perceived value directly affect the satisfaction. h2: satisfaction directly affect the pro-environment behavior of tourists. h3: perceived value directly affect theaffective loyalty. h4: affective loyalty directly affect the pro-environment behavior of tourists. h5: perceived value (pv) directly affect the pro-environment behavior of tourists (pb). h6: the indirect effect of satisfaction between perceived value and pro-environmental behaviour is significant. h7: the indirect effect of affective loyalty between perceived value and pro-environmental behaviour is significant. 3. research methods and data collection 3.1 research area this study was based at daweishan national forest park (referred to dnfp in this paper), which is located at daweishan town, liuyang city, hunan province, southern china. it has become a famous green summer resort due to its rich negative oxygen ions and convenient location, attracting visitors for short weekend escapes and long holidays from not only hunan province but also from guangdong, zhejiang, and other parts of china. it was rated as national 4a scenic spot in 2007, a national forest park in 2012, and the national eco-tourism demonstration area in 2014. dnfp charges a user fee (boom season: 100rmb/person-time; off season: 70rmb/person-time) and collects tickets at entry points, resulting in relatively reliable access to visitors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. 3.2 design of scales and questionnaire the design of the scale was adapted from previous measurements in the literature, in combination with the context of dnfp. six constructs were examined in this research with a multi-item, five-point likert-type scale, from “strongly disagree” to “5-strongly agree”. perceived value was measured by adapting five items proposed by sweeney and soutar (2001), chen and tsai (2007), and lee et al. (2007). five items that measure satisfaction were adapted from okello and yerian (2009). affective loyalty was measured by three items drawn from yuksel et al. (2010) and one item from lee et al. (2013). based on work by williams and roggenbuck (1989), the research categorised place attachment as place dependence or place identity, reflected by nine items in total. pro-environmental attitude was measured by five items proposed by smith-sebasto et al. (1995). in order to minimise semantic differences on the quality of the questionnaire, the scale was translated from chinese to english by the research team. researchers adjusted some items that might have produced ambiguity, unclear meaning or confusion. 3.3 sampling and data collection a pilot survey was conducted in dnfp during 16-17 august 2019 to test the questionnaire design. the pilot survey secured 32 visitors and provided valuable ideas about improving the sentences and structure of some questions in the questionnaire. the formal survey was performed from august to november 2019. altogether, 750 questionnaires were distributed and 712 were returned. after eliminating invalid questionnaires with missing sample options or identical scores for consecutive items, 674 valid questionnaires were collected. the valid return rate was 89.86%. 3.4 data analysis spss 24.0 was used to test reliability of scales and carry out descriptive statistics. amos 22.0 was used to test the validity of scales, and process3.0 plug-in spss 24.0 was selected for the moderated model analysis. 4. results and analysis 4.1 demographic features of the respondents there were slightly more female than male respondents (53.7% females). the majority of the respondents were young, with 36.4% aged between 21~35 years old, and 30.7% between 36~50 years old. education level was relatively high, with 56.2% of the respondents having a diploma or a bachelor’s degree. about 41.4% of respondents earned a monthly income over 5000 rmb. in general, ecotourists tend to be better educated and have higher incomes than other types of tourists (wen & tisdell, 2001). repeat visitation was high, with 40.7% of the respondents visiting dnfd three times or more. the majority came from nearby areas, and 60.8% of the respondents came from hunan province. this probably reflects the cost of travel. the demand for visiting national parks rises (other things being held constant) with a reduction in the cost of travel to these sites. studies using the travel cost method support this hypothesis. it is also likely that a majority of repeat visitors are from hunan. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. relative frequency of repeat visits is liable to taper off the further away the visitor’s residence is from the national park (wen & sinha, 2009). 4.2 reliability and validity test for examining the measurement scales, this research assessed the reliability, confirmation factor analysis, convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs. the cronbach’s α of six constructs varied from 0.918 to 0.957, and the overall cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.980. the figures were higher than 0.70 criterion, as proposed by nunnally and bernstein (1994), revealing satisfactory internal consistency of the measurement scale (see table 1). the was less than 3 at 2.513, the value of rmr was less than 0.05 at 0.031 and rmsea was less than 0.08 at 0.069. the values of gfi, agfi, nfi, tli, and cfi all exceeded the 0.90 criterion set by hu et al. (1999), which was an acceptable fit. in current study, the ave for the six constructs exceeded the squared inter-construct correlations, as proposed by formal and larcker (1981), and discriminant validity was satisfactory. 4.3 model analysis according to jose (2013), a bootstrap method was adapted to examine the significance of the direct and indirect effect of the research model. the specific process of calculation was conducted through process 3.0 in spss 24.0. the bootstrap samples in this study were set at 5000. perceived vvalue (pv )directly affect the satisfaction (sa). the direct effect is 0.730(p<0.001). satisfaction (sa) directly affects the pro-environment behaviour of tourists(pb). the direct effect is 0.289 (p< 0.001). perceived value (pv) directly affect the affective loyalty (sl). the direct effect is 0.708(p<0.001). affective loyalty (sl) directly affect the pro-environment behaviour of tourists (pb). the direct effect is 0.211 (p< 0.001). perceived value (pv) directly affect the pro-environment behaviour of tourists (pb). the direct effect is 0.164 (p< 0.001). therefore, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 are valid (see figure 1). satisfaction (sa) plays a significantly positive indirect effect between perceived value (pv) and pro-environmental behaviour (pb). the indirect effect is 0.211 (p< 0.001). affective loyalty (lo) plays a significantly positive indirect effect between perceived value and pro-environmental behaviour. the indirect effect is 0.150 (p< 0.001). therefore, h6 and h7 are valid (see figure 1). figure 1. structural model results www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 3, 2022 66 published by scholink inc. table 1. hypotheses and the indirect effects of the structural model path indirect effects direct effects total effects result h6:pv→sa→pb 0.211 *** 0.164 *** 0.375*** supported h7:pv→lo→pb 0.150 *** 0.164 *** 0.314*** supported 5. discussion the current article presents a conditional mediation model derived from cognitive psychology theory to clarify the formation of pro-environmental behaviour via visitors’ perceived value, satisfaction, affective loyalty, and place attachment, with reference to the eco-travel experience from dnfp. this study finds that perceived value is the key precedent of satisfaction, affective loyalty, and pro-environmental behaviour. extending on the previous researches indicating that perceived value can directly and positively affect pro-environmental behaviours (chiu, lee, & chen, 2014; davis, le, & coy, 2011). the empirical results are evident that satisfaction and affective loyalty significantly positively affect pro-environmental behaviour. this accords with findings in the literature (davis, le, & coy, 2011; kweny & phiri, 2016). higher satisfaction and affective loyalty of the eco-travel experience enhance tourists’ pro-environment behaviour. this finding proposes that visitors with higher satisfaction and affective loyalty to the national forest park are more willing to maintain long-term relationships with the destination and subsequently are more willing to display pro-environmental behaviour. 6. conclusion this study constructed a model on pro-environmental behaviour and the underlying mechanisms. the research is valuable in its contribution in the following findings: (1) perceived value both directly or indirectly via satisfaction and affective loyalty indicated is strongly associated with pro-environmental behaviour. 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(2010). destination attachment: effects on customer satisfaction and cognitive, affective and conative loyalty. tourism management, 31, 274-284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.03.007 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 115 original paper corporate tax planning and accounting information disclosure optimization strategies yue xu1 1 school of economics, hubei business college, wuhan, hubei, china received: june 29, 2024 accepted: august 09, 2024 online published: august 23, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p115 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p115 abstract this paper explores the relationship between corporate tax planning and the optimization strategies of accounting information disclosure, as well as their significance. the article first analyzes the basic concepts of tax planning and accounting information disclosure and their critical roles in corporate financial management. it then discusses common issues and challenges faced by companies in the practical implementation of tax planning and accounting information disclosure, particularly the conflicts and contradictions between the two. three optimization strategies are proposed: strengthening compliance management in tax planning, enhancing the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure, and balancing the relationship between tax planning and information disclosure. by adopting these strategies, companies can improve financial efficiency and market competitiveness within the bounds of legality and compliance, ensuring long-term sustainable development. keywords tax planning, accounting information disclosure, compliance management, financial transparency 1. introduction in today's increasingly competitive market environment, companies must optimize financial management through effective tax planning and accurate accounting information disclosure to achieve cost control and maximize efficiency. as a critical component of corporate financial management, tax planning not only directly affects corporate tax costs but also plays a key role in overall financial performance. the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure are also essential for maintaining market trust and legitimacy. the conflicts and contradictions between tax planning and accounting information disclosure often pose challenges in financial management. balancing tax planning with accounting information disclosure within the framework of legality and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 116 compliance has become a significant issue in corporate financial management. 2. characteristics of corporate tax planning and accounting information disclosure 2.1 the basic concept and importance of corporate tax planning corporate tax planning refers to the process by which enterprises minimize their tax burden within the legal framework through lawful and reasonable means and methods, aiming to reduce tax costs and optimize resource allocation. the core of tax planning lies in how to minimize tax liabilities without violating tax laws, thereby enhancing the economic benefits of the enterprise. as an essential component of corporate financial management, tax planning is directly related to cost control and financial performance. effective tax planning not only provides a cost advantage in a competitive market but also increases the company’s cash flow through rational tax arrangements, thereby providing strong support for the company’s sustainable development (jia, 2023). the importance of tax planning is reflected in several aspects. through tax planning, companies can legally reduce their tax burden, directly increasing profit levels. this is particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises, as reducing the tax burden can alleviate financial pressure and improve capital utilization efficiency. tax planning can assist companies in making more optimized choices in different business decisions. for example, in investment, financing, and distribution decisions, tax planning can provide critical references, helping companies select options with lower tax burdens, thereby enhancing overall financial efficiency (zhou, 2023). 2.2 principles and current practices of accounting information disclosure accounting information disclosure refers to the process by which enterprises provide relevant information on their financial status, operating results, and cash flows to external stakeholders such as investors, creditors, and government regulatory agencies through financial statements and other public channels. the core principles of accounting information disclosure include authenticity, completeness, timeliness, and consistency. these principles aim to ensure that the disclosed information accurately reflects the company’s actual operating conditions, assisting stakeholders in making informed decisions. in practice, the state of accounting information disclosure varies significantly among enterprises. large companies generally have well-developed financial management systems and are better able to adhere to the relevant principles of accounting information disclosure, providing high-quality financial information in a timely manner (ding, 2023). however, due to resource and capability constraints, small and medium-sized enterprises often struggle to fully comply with accounting information disclosure principles, resulting in untimely, incomplete, or even distorted information disclosure. with the development of global economic integration and information technology, the requirements for corporate accounting information disclosure have become increasingly stringent, especially in countries and regions with advanced capital markets. regulatory agencies have set higher standards for the normativity and transparency of information disclosure. these external pressures compel companies to continuously improve the content and methods of their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 117 information disclosure to meet the increasingly strict legal and regulatory requirements (zhang, 2023). there are also some noteworthy issues in the information disclosure process, such as selective disclosure by some companies, where adverse information is deliberately avoided or hidden, misleading investors and other stakeholders. 2.3 analysis of the impact of tax planning on accounting information disclosure tax planning is closely related to accounting information disclosure, and the effectiveness of tax planning largely depends on the accuracy and transparency of accounting information. as part of corporate strategic management, tax planning not only affects the company’s tax burden but also has a significant impact on accounting information disclosure, particularly in areas such as selective information disclosure, the authenticity of information disclosure, and the shaping of corporate image (zhang, 2022). tax planning often involves choices in the accounting treatment within financial reports. for example, to achieve tax reduction, companies may choose different accounting policies and estimation methods, such as the choice of depreciation methods for assets or inventory valuation methods. while these choices are within the bounds of the law, they may lead to accounting information disclosure that is biased in favor of the company, affecting external stakeholders’ judgments of the company’s financial status. such selective disclosure may increase the proactivity of companies in tax planning, but it also raises the risk of incomplete or misleading information disclosure. tax planning poses challenges to the authenticity of accounting information disclosure. to achieve optimal tax planning results, companies may lawfully adjust revenue recognition, cost allocation, and other methods to reduce taxable income or delay tax payments. although these actions do not violate legal provisions, they may result in less than fully truthful accounting information disclosure, particularly in the presentation of profits, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. tax planning also has a potential impact on corporate image. effective tax planning can enhance financial performance, but if the planning is too aggressive or lacks transparency, it may raise concerns among external stakeholders, damaging the company’s reputation. in today’s increasingly transparent information disclosure environment, companies need to balance tax planning with information disclosure, ensuring that tax liabilities are optimized through reasonable planning while maintaining the truthfulness and transparency of information disclosure to safeguard long-term interests and market image. 3. issues in corporate tax planning and accounting information disclosure 3.1 common issues and challenges in corporate tax planning in practice, corporate tax planning faces numerous issues and challenges. companies often encounter complexities and uncertainties in legal regulations during the tax planning process. the tax systems of various countries are complex and diverse, with frequently changing tax policies, requiring companies to continuously update and adjust their strategies, which places significant management pressure and execution difficulty on them. corporate tax planning can also fall into the gray area between “legal tax www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 118 avoidance” and “illegal tax evasion.” although companies can engage in tax planning through legal means, the lack of clear boundaries may lead some to adopt overly aggressive strategies, increasing legal risks. companies often face resource and capability constraints in tax planning, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. due to a lack of specialized tax teams and advanced financial management systems, these companies struggle to effectively conduct complex tax planning. they often rely on external tax consultants, but because these consultants may have limited understanding of the company's internal situation, the planning schemes may not fully align with the company’s actual needs. the main issues and challenges faced by companies in tax planning include legal risks, resource limitations, and deficiencies in internal management. 3.2 irregularities in accounting information disclosure during tax planning irregularities in accounting information disclosure frequently occur during corporate tax planning. these irregularities not only affect the transparency of information but can also negatively impact the company’s legitimacy and reputation. firstly, selective disclosure is a common irregularity. to achieve tax planning goals, companies may selectively disclose information favorable to themselves while concealing unfavorable information, preventing external stakeholders from fully understanding the company’s actual financial condition. for instance, a company may choose a more conservative method for recognizing revenue or delay the recognition of expenses in its financial statements, thereby affecting the calculation of the tax base and the payment of taxes. delayed disclosure is another significant issue in accounting information disclosure. because tax planning often involves complex financial treatments, companies may delay the disclosure of certain information, especially regarding major tax planning matters. this delay in disclosure may result in external stakeholders being unable to access the latest financial information when making decisions, affecting their judgments. irregularities in information disclosure also manifest in the form and content of the disclosure. some companies oversimplify financial information or fail to provide detailed explanations, or they use technical jargon and complex financial techniques that are difficult for ordinary investors to understand, thereby weakening the effectiveness of the disclosure. such irregularities not only affect the company’s credibility but may also attract regulatory scrutiny and penalties. 3.3 conflicts and tensions between tax planning and optimized information disclosure there are inherent conflicts and tensions between tax planning and accounting information disclosure, mainly in balancing the pursuit of maximizing tax planning benefits with adhering to transparency requirements. the primary goal of tax planning is to legally reduce the company’s tax burden, a process that may involve flexibility in accounting treatments and strategic choices. excessive pursuit of tax planning benefits can lead to selective and incomplete information disclosure, conflicting with the principles of transparency. for instance, to minimize tax liability, a company might adopt more aggressive financial strategies that, while reducing the tax burden in the short term, could result in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 119 inaccurate and non-transparent information disclosure, affecting the judgments and decisions of external stakeholders. conflicts between tax planning and optimized information disclosure also arise from the tensions between internal corporate management and external regulatory requirements. internal management typically seeks to optimize financial performance and enhance market competitiveness through tax planning. in contrast, external regulatory agencies emphasize transparency and compliance in corporate information disclosure, requiring companies to fully and truthfully disclose financial information. conflicts between tax planning and information disclosure may also lead to legal and ethical risks. although companies may legally exploit tax loopholes to reduce their tax burden through tax planning, insufficient transparency or misleading disclosures may result in legal disputes and reputational crises . 4. optimization strategies for corporate tax planning and accounting information disclosure 4.1 strengthening compliance management in tax planning the core of tax planning lies in how to legally minimize a company’s tax burden through reasonable means and methods to maximize corporate benefits. to ensure compliance in tax planning, companies must establish a robust tax compliance management system, clearly define the legal boundaries of planning activities, and avoid the gray area between “legal tax avoidance” and “illegal tax evasion.” companies can achieve this by engaging professional tax advisors and financial experts to stay updated on the latest tax policies and regulatory changes, ensuring that planning strategies are aligned with current policies and minimizing legal risks due to policy lags or misinterpretations. additionally, companies should strengthen internal review and control mechanisms to rigorously assess and monitor tax planning schemes, ensuring their feasibility and compliance while avoiding crossing legal boundaries with overly aggressive planning actions. 4.2 optimizing the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure are directly related to external stakeholders’ understanding and judgment of a company’s financial condition. to improve the quality of accounting information disclosure, companies should first adopt advanced financial management systems and disclosure tools to ensure automation and standardization in the disclosure process, thereby enhancing the timeliness and accuracy of the information. additionally, companies must strictly adhere to accounting standards and disclosure regulations to ensure the authenticity, completeness, and consistency of disclosed information, avoiding selective disclosure, delayed disclosure, or distortion of information that could damage the company’s credibility and market reputation. companies should also strengthen the review and management of disclosed information to ensure that it accurately reflects the company’s actual operating conditions, assisting external stakeholders in making informed decisions. during the disclosure process, companies should pay particular attention to the needs of small and medium-sized investors, avoiding the use of overly technical jargon and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 120 complex financial techniques, thus ensuring the readability and comprehensibility of the information disclosed. by optimizing the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure, companies can not only enhance market trust but also effectively reduce regulatory risks and improve their long-term sustainability. 4.3 balancing the relationship between tax planning and information disclosure balancing tax planning with information disclosure is a major challenge in corporate financial management. while pursuing the benefits of tax planning, companies must also ensure that information disclosure is standardized and transparent to avoid conflicts between the two. to achieve this goal, companies should adopt scientific management strategies that integrate tax planning with accounting information disclosure, ensuring that financial policies and disclosure methods are arranged rationally. this approach allows companies to legally and reasonably reduce their tax burden while ensuring that the information disclosed is truthful, comprehensive, and transparent. companies should pay particular attention to potential information disclosure issues arising from tax planning, such as selective financial treatment and delayed information disclosure, and take preventive and management measures accordingly. companies should also strengthen communication with external regulatory agencies to ensure compliance with disclosure norms during tax planning, thereby avoiding legal risks and market scrutiny due to non-transparent disclosures. by balancing tax planning with information disclosure, companies can maximize financial benefits while establishing a positive corporate image in the competitive market, ensuring long-term healthy development . 5. conclusion this paper analyzes the current state of corporate tax planning and accounting information disclosure, revealing the close relationship between the two and the conflicts and challenges they face. in response to these issues, three optimization strategies are proposed: strengthening compliance management in tax planning, optimizing the transparency and completeness of accounting information disclosure, and balancing the relationship between tax planning and information disclosure. by implementing these strategies, companies can effectively reduce tax risks, improve the quality of information disclosure, enhance market trust, and ultimately achieve financial benefits and sustainable development. these optimization strategies not only help companies gain a competitive edge in a complex market environment but also provide valuable insights and guidance for future financial management practices. references ding, p. (2023). optimizing corporate tax planning strategies in financial management practices. chinese businessman. jia, j. (2023). exploration of optimization strategies for tax planning in small and medium-sized enterprises in the internet+ era”.western finance and accounting, 2023(5), 17-19. zhang, c. g. (2023). exploration of optimization strategies for tax planning in small and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 121 medium-sized enterprises in the internet+ era. finance world, 2023(35). zhang, d. w. (2022). optimization strategies for tax planning in corporate financial management. china market, 2022(33), 160-162. zhou, k. (2023). research on the optimization strategies of tax planning for zs technology company. chongqing technology and business university. original paper corporate tax planning and accounting information yue xu1 1 school of economics, hubei business college, wuh abstract keywords 1.introduction 2.characteristics of corporate tax planning and acco 2.1 the basic concept and importance of corporate 2.2 principles and current practices of accounting 2.3 analysis of the impact of tax planning on acco 3.issues in corporate tax planning and accounting in 3.1 common issues and challenges in corporate tax 3.2 irregularities in accounting information discl 3.3 conflicts and tensions between tax planning an 4.optimization strategies for corporate tax planning 4.1 strengthening compliance management in tax pla 4.2 optimizing the transparency and completeness o 4.3 balancing the relationship between tax plannin 5.conclusion references jia, j. (2023). exploration of optimization strate advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 87 original paper study on the restrictive factors of wushu sanda movement in weinan middle school of shan xi province wang zhen1(note 1) & zhuang qin1*(note 2) 1 shaanxi railway institute, weinan 714000, china received: june 17, 2023 accepted: august 09, 2023 online published: october 14, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p87 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p87 abstract this paper analyzes the development of wushu sanda movement in middle schools in weinan city, shan xi province through the research methods of literature, questionnaire, logic analysis and expert interview, clears out the constraints of wushu sanda movement in middle schools, and puts forward corresponding solutions. the results show that: the effective time can not be well mastered; the site is inadequate or unsuitable; may cause fighting or disorder; lack of martial arts education; lack of teachers; prone to sports injury; the lack of interest is the restricting factor that restricts the development of wushu sanda movement among young people. the author suggests that we should classify teaching according to the purpose of learning; optimize the allocation and use of space; changing the perception of parents and students; strengthen military morality education; recruit excellent sanda teachers; improve teaching quality and optimize service; injury prevention and rehabilitation treatment are the effective countermeasures to solve the problem of wushu sanda movement among young people. keywords weinan middle school, youth group, sanda 1. introduction 1.1 research background in recent years, with the popularization and promotion of wushu sanda, the teaching level and content of social wushu sanda clubs and training courses are mixed. the rapid development of social wushu sanda clubs has played a role in promoting the promotion of wushu sanda to some extent, but some non-compliant wushu sanda clubs and training courses have also caused damage to the reputation of wushu sanda. the key group of wushu sanda promotion and popularization lies in the young people, and primary and secondary schools are the main gathering places of the young people. strengthening www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 88 the wushu sanda movement in primary and secondary schools can greatly promote the spread and development of wushu sanda movement. through the literature survey and research, it is found that there are few researches in this field in the academic circle. this paper takes the situation of wushu sanda in weinan middle school as the research object, aims to understand the restrictive factors of wushu sanda in this school, and puts forward some relevant suggestions. it is hoped to provide some theoretical basis for the general middle schools to carry out wushu sanda movement and promote the further promotion and popularization of wushu sanda movement. 1.2 research objectives in the schools of different historical periods in our country, martial arts have received different attention. wushu sanda, as an important part of chinese wushu, has not been popularized and developed well among the general public, especially among young people. at present, the situation of wushu in schools is worrying, and it has reached a situation of “difficult step by step, surviving in name only”. it is a long way to go for wushu sanda to enter the school physical education classroom. this study investigates the situation of wushu sanda among the young students in weinan middle school, finds out the restrictive factors of wushu sanda among the young students in this school, and puts forward corresponding countermeasures to provide certain ideas for wushu sanda to enter the physical education class of ordinary middle schools as soon as possible. 1.3 research significance wushu sanda has many social value functions, can meet the needs of many aspects of society, and can adapt to the physical and mental development characteristics of young students. young people are the builders and successors of socialism. they have a flexible mind, strong ability to accept new things, rich aesthetic taste, and various ways to understand wushu sanda. on the one hand, it is beneficial to the promotion and popularization of wushu sanda among young people, on the other hand, it is beneficial to the healthy growth of young people. therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the restrictive factors and countermeasures of wushu sanda movement in weinan middle school. 1.4 research status wushu sanda, as a traditional sport of the middle family, has been continuously improved and perfected with the development of the society and the progress of the times. in recent years, there are more and more studies on wushu sanda, but there are not many studies on the promotion of wushu sanda. most of the existing studies on wushu sanda promotion are only comparative studies with taekwondo and judo, and there are few studies that really solve the pain point of young people. in his research on the development status and countermeasures of sanda, shen fengming pointed out that the current martial arts sanda performance of young people is remarkable, but the award situation is not as good as that of foreign countries and the physical function of young people is not high, and put forward suggestions to improve the core quality of coaches, improve the skills training methods and optimize the training content. fang lizhong, wang xiaowen and zhang yong pointed out in a brief analysis of the positive impact and promotion effect of wushu sanda on teenagers in school that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 89 wushu sanda can prevent campus violence and promote the improvement of teenagers’ physical fitness. lu chuanwu pointed out in his research on the promotion mode of wushu sanda among young people that the factors restricting the promotion of wushu sanda among young people are: the lack of sufficient teachers; moral education in wushu sanda teaching needs to be standardized and perfected. the inappropriateness of wushu sanda clothing; the damage of wushu sanda technology; the lag of the development of wushu sanda duan system; the lack of “sanda routine” exercise; the youth wushu sanda competition is relatively narrow. hu changling showed in research on the ways and methods of wushu sanda promotion among young people that the promotion and popularization of wushu sanda among young people is a long-term and systematic work involving many disciplines and aspects. young people are the future and hope of the motherland, wushu sanda must be popularized among young people. make an in-depth investigation into what kind of martial arts sanda is needed by the contemporary youth, and make a comprehensive analysis from the needs of the contemporary youth, the needs of the development law of martial arts sanda itself, and the historical mission given to martial arts sanda by the contemporary society. this paper tries to reform the current competitive martial art sanda and find out the methods and paths to popularize it in the majority of young people. this is of great theoretical and practical significance for the development of traditional national sports and the all-round development of youth’s morality, intelligence and body, as well as the promotion and cultivation of national spirit. 2. research object and research method 2.1 research object the present situation of wushu sanda movement in weinan middle school is taken as the research object, and 120 students in weinan middle school are taken as the investigation object. 2.2 research methods 2.2.1 literature method through cnki, wanfang, weipu and other network databases, with “martial arts sanda” and “youth” as the main topics, more than 30 effective literature articles were obtained, and through reading the literature, the research frontier and research direction in this field were mastered and understood. at the same time, referring to the chinese martial arts course (volume 2), the history of chinese martial arts, introduction to chinese martial arts and the guidance and practice of youth sports, and collecting a large number of materials through the internet, the restriction factors of wushu sanda movement in young people are understood from more aspects, which provides certain ideas for carrying out this research. 2.2.2 questionnaire survey method a questionnaire on the specific situation of wushu sanda movement among teenagers in middle schools in weinan city was designed, including satisfaction, movement mode, existing problems, sanda teaching materials, number statistics, main goals, martial arts education and etiquette norms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 90 questionnaire was made by the app of juanxing and distributed online to 120 teenagers in weinan middle school. a total of 120 online questionnaires were recovered. the background of juanxing automatically generated a data processing report, and i analyzed and summarized the data report. 2.2.3 interview method this paper intends to interview 8 teachers and experts who are engaged in the teaching of martial arts sanda in middle schools. the interview questions are as follows: 1. what do you think about the current development of wushu sanda among young people? 2. what problems do you think exist in the development of wushu sanda among ordinary middle school students? 3. how do you think it is appropriate to carry out wushu sanda among ordinary middle school students? 2.2.4 logical analysis method through comparative analysis and summary of the collected literature and investigation results, this paper finds out the restricting factors of wushu sanda movement among middle school teenagers in weinan city, and puts forward reasonable countermeasures. 3. results and analysis 3.1 investigation on the restrictive factors of wushu sanda movement in weinan middle school 3.1.1 investigation on students’ basic cognition of wushu sanda through the survey found that there are 3 people very understand, accounting for 25%; 35 people understood, accounting for 29.17%; 68 people did not know, accounting for 56.67%; 14 people do not know much about wushu, accounting for 11.67% (see table 1), indicating that most junior middle school students in weinan city have poor basic cognition of wushu sanda. table 1. a survey of the cognition degree of wushu sanda among young middle school students in weinan city level of understanding the number of participation percentage（%） very well 3 2.5% know 35 29.17% don’t know 68 56.67% quite ignorant 14 11.67% 3.1.2 survey of students’ satisfaction with wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools through the survey, 16 people are very satisfied, accounting for 13.33%; 81 people were satisfied, accounting for 67.5%; 21 people were dissatisfied, accounting for17.5%; 2 people were very dissatisfied, accounting for 17.5%; (see table 2) indicates that many young students of weinan middle school hope to carry out wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 91 table 2. questionnaire of satisfaction degree of young students in weinan middle school to wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools level of satisfaction the number of participation percentage (%) very satisfied 16 13.33% satisfied 81 67.5% unsatisfied 21 17.5% very unsatisfied 2 1.67% 3.1.3 students investigate the way to carry out wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools through the survey, 46 people filled in the formation of the school wushu sanda team, accounting for 38.33%, ranking first; 29 people filled in to form a social sanda club, accounting for 24.17, ranking second; 21 people participated in extracurricular sports activities, accounting for 17.5%, ranking third; 13 people filled in the compulsory courses in the school, accounting for 10.83%, ranking fourth. 10 people filled in the proper development of sanda competition in ordinary middle schools, accounting for 8.33%, ranking fifth; one person filled in the method, accounting for 0.83%, ranking sixth (see table 3). table 3. the questionnaire of weinan youth students on the way to carry out wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools implementation the number of participation percentage（%） rank set up wushu sanda team at school 46 38.33% 1 set up social sanda club 29 24.17% 2 after-class activities 21 17.5% 3 set up compulsory courses at school 13 10.83% 4 held sanda competitions in ordinary middle school 10 8.33% 5 others 1 0.83% 6 3.1.4 students’ investigation on whether there are wushu sanda teaching materials suitable for ordinary middle school students according to the survey, 30 people think that there are wushu sanda teaching materials suitable for ordinary middle schools, accounting for 25%; 90 people think that there are no wushu sanda teaching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 92 materials suitable for ordinary middle schools, accounting for 75% (see figure 1). considering the physical and mental characteristics of middle school students, wushu sanda teaching materials suitable for middle school students should be chosen. figure 1. the survey of the teenagers of weinan middle school on whether there arewushu sanda teaching materials suitable for ordinary middle school students 3.1.5 investigate whether it is necessary to further strengthen martial arts education and martial arts etiquette norms according to the survey, 5 people think that they are not sure, accounting for 42.17%; 36 people think it is not necessary, accounting for 30%; 49 people think it is necessary, accounting for 40.83%; 30 people think it is very necessary, accounting for 25%; (see table 4) indicates that most of the junior middle school students in weinan city have realized the importance of further strengthening martial arts education and martial arts etiquette norms in ordinary middle schools. table 4. whether it is necessary to further strengthen martial arts education and martial arts etiquette standards level of necessity the number of participation percentage（%） uncertain 5 4.17% unnecessary 36 30% necessary 49 40.83 very necessary 30 25% 3.1.6 survey on the number of atudents engaged in wushu sanda or other sports through the survey, 33 people chose football, accounting for 27.5%, ranking first; 32 people chose www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 93 badminton, accounting for 26.67%, ranking second; 27 people chose basketball, accounting for 22.5%, ranking third; 24 people chose dance, accounting for 20%, ranking fourth; 23 people chose track and field, accounting for 19.17%, ranking fifth; 21 people chose table tennis, accounting for 17.5%, ranking sixth; 14 people chose wushu sanda, accounting for 11.67%, ranking seventh; 14 people chose wushu routine, accounting for 11.67%, tied for seventh place; 6 people chose no, accounting for 5%, ranking eighth, and 5 people chose other, accounting for 4.17%, ranking ninth. (see figure 2) figure 2. survey on the number of middle schools in weinan city who carried out wushu or other sports 3.1.7 students investigate the main objectives of the sanda movement in ordinary middle schools according to the survey, 77 people filled in the ideological and moral education of students through martial arts education, accounting for 64.1%, ranking first; 76 people filled in to improve physical fitness and promote health, accounting for 63.33%, ranking second; 75 people filled in the training of students’ tenacious will quality, accounting for 62.5%, ranking third; 71 people filled in to improve their sports skills for competition and further study, accounting for 59.17%, ranking fourth; 52 people filled in to enhance students’ social ability, accounting for 43.3%, ranking fifth; 47 people filled in to cultivate interest and form lifelong sports awareness, accounting for 39.1%, ranking sixth; 10 people filled in other goals, accounting for 8.33%, ranking seventh. (see table 5) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 94 table 5. investigation on main objectives of wushu sanda movement carried out in ordinary middle schools by young students in weinan the main objective the number of participations percentage（%） rank through martial morality education, students are educated in ideology and morality 77 64.1% 1 improve physical fitness and promote health 76 63.33% 2 cultivate students’ tenacious will quality 75 62.5% 3 improve motor skills for competition and further study 71 59.17% 4 enhance students’ social skills 52 43.33% 5 cultivate interest and form lifelong sports consciousness 47 39.17& 6 other goals 10 8.33% 7 3.1.8 students have investigated the main problems of wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools according to the survey, 89 people had a long filling cycle and could not master it well within a limited time, accounting for 74.17%, ranking first; 83 people filled in the venue was not suitable or there was no venue at all, accounting for 69.17%, ranking second; 79 students may fight and disturb the social and school environment, accounting for 65.83%, ranking third; 64 students’ parents worried about the lack of martial arts education in teaching, accounting for 53.33%, ranking fourth; 57 people filled in the lack of teachers, accounting for 47.5%, ranking sixth; 54 people fill out the study free combat is too dangerous, afraid of injury accidents, accounting for 45%, ranking seventh; 38 students were not interested, accounting for 31.67%, ranking eighth; 7 people filled in other questions, accounting for 5.83%, ranking 9th. (see table 6) table 6. survey of the main problems of wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools by young students in weinan middle school the main problems the number of participation percentage (%) rank long cycle, limited time can not be better mastered 89 74.17% 1 the venue is not suitable or there is no venue at all 83 69.17% 2 students learning sanda may fight and disrupt the social and school environment 79 65.83% 3 parents worry about the lack of martial arts education 64 53.33% 4 inadequate or lack of teachers 57 47.5% 5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 95 the cost of learning sanda is too high for students to bear 57 47.5% 6 learning free combat is too dangerous, afraid of sports injury 54 45% 7 students have no interest 38 31.67% 8 other problems 7 5.83% 9 3.2 analysis of the main problems of martial arts sanda carried out by junior middle school students in weinan city 3.2.1 limited time cannot be better mastered the technical movements of wushu sanda are relatively difficult compared with track and field and ball games, but relatively simple compared with wushu routines. wushu sanda is a combination of boxing, leg and wrestling in one sport, advocating the far kick and close hit close fall; the common technical movements are “three fists and three legs”, that is, straight fists, swinging fists, hooking, whipping legs, kicking legs, kicking legs. there is a certain span between wushu sanda’s technical movements and the actual combat. if we master the technical movements, it is not difficult for teenagers in ordinary middle schools. if you want to improve the actual combat ability, you need further systematic training. 3.2.2 inappropriate venues or no class venues common middle school sports arenas are mainly track and field, which is difficult to bear the class venues of wushu sanda. the wushu sanda movement requires students to train barefoot on spongy cushions, which makes it easier to protect students’ safety during training. the training ground and the competition ring occupy a certain space, and need to invest a certain amount of money. if the number of ordinary secondary schools studying sanda has not broken through a certain scale, it is difficult for schools to provide students with matching training venues. 3.2.3 possible fighting or disturbing order some parents and students may have such a misunderstanding that students will fight and even disturb social order after learning free combat. as wushu sanda belongs to the heavy competition competition, its main form is fighting. such concerns arise if parents and students do not have a deep understanding of the wushu sanda program. 3.2.4 parents worry about the lack of martial arts education the reason for this may be that students deviate from martial arts morality after learning martial arts sanda. but if you dig carefully, this is not the reason for wushu sanda, but for many reasons. students are faced with the pressure of school homework, extracurricular tutoring and family, and children with poor psychological tolerance will inevitably be upset and do some behaviors that contradict their parents. secondly, the quality of social martial arts training institutions is uneven, and there are some coaches who neglect martial arts education in teaching. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 96 3.2.5 lack of teachers wushu sanda has not been popularized in the middle school, and the middle school is lack of teachers. however, the physical education departments of physical education colleges and comprehensive universities cultivate a large number of martial arts professionals every year, which can supplement the post of martial arts sanda teachers in secondary schools. 3.2.6 learning wushu sanda is expensive off-campus martial arts sanda training fees are not high compared with other non-disciplinary training, which is in line with the level of commitment of most parents. social wushu sanda training clubs are numerous, there is no uniform standard. parents are concerned about the price not only the wushu sanda project, but also the size of the venue, the level of coaches and other factors, often based on a specific training class to examine the price level, can not be reflected in the entire wushu sanda industry. 3.2.7 fear of sports injury in the learning process in wushu sanda movement, or other sports, sports injury is normal. parents and students should face up to this phenomenon and should not not participate in sports for fear of sports injury. 3.2.8 students have no interest students’ interest in a particular sport is influenced by many factors, including external factors and internal factors. external factors such as teacher’s personality, site condition, class mode, etc.; internal factors are students’ understanding of the project; comprehensive consideration should be given. 3.2.9 other issues the development of wushu sanda in weinan middle school and even the whole ordinary middle school is also affected by the proportion of students’ time in each subject, whether there are martial arts textbooks suitable for middle school students, and the relationship with off-campus training institutions. 3.3 countermeasures for young students of weinan middle school to carry out martial arts sanda 3.3.1 classified teaching according to the purpose of learning elementary classes and intensive classes shall be set up according to the purpose of students to learn martial arts sanda. the elementary class aims to improve young students’ cognition of sanda and master the complete air strike movements of sanda in a limited time. the intensive class aims to cultivate the actual combat ability of the young students in wushu sanda, and serve for the future competition and further study. 3.3.2 optimizing the allocation and use of venues due to the limited campus area of ordinary middle schools, some schools do not have a separate training venue for wushu sanda. this is to take into account the optimal allocation and use of the site, and the existing site can be transformed to meet the requirements of training venues that can undertake various projects. at the same time, the number and time of students using the site should be reasonably allocated, so that they can enjoy better services within limited resources. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 97 3.3.3 change the perception of parents and students sanda is a chinese martial art, and its practitioners are bound by the chinese martial arts. many martial arts practitioners are often people of high moral character; individual people with bad moral character are deeply rooted in malignancy, and martial virtues have not been able to fundamentally educate them. in order to actively change the cognition of parents and students, we should not have a paranoid cognition of wushu sanda because it belongs to the heavy competitive competition. 3.3.4 strengthen martial arts education in teaching martial arts learning is the first to learn morality, martial arts education in the teaching of sanda always put the first place. no matter the teaching of wushu sanda in schools or the teaching of wushu sanda training institutions outside schools, we should strengthen the education of wushu morality to students. we do not require students to master relevant skills first, first ask students to be a noble person. under the influence of good martial arts education, students can become a person of value to the society. 3.3.5 recruitment of excellent teachers in related fields because there is no uniform standard for off-campus training institutions, the level of wushu sanda training teachers on the market is different, leaving a bad impression on many students and parents, which has become an obstacle to the promotion and popularization of sanda. if we want to carry out wushu sanda movement in ordinary middle schools, we must recruit outstanding talents in related majors as a reserve force of teachers. 3.3.6 improve teaching quality and optimize service the cost of learning martial arts sanda is not much different from the cost of other non-disciplinary training, so it cannot be called the cost of learning sanda is high. parents examine the price level not only to look at the project indicators, but also the size of the venue, the level of coaches and follow-up services. improving the teaching quality of martial arts sanda in ordinary middle schools and optimizing follow-up services (such as a sound rehabilitation treatment system, match channels and admission services) are the top priorities. 3.3.7 injury prevention and rehabilitation treatment it is normal for students to have sports injuries when they participate in sports, and we should face up to this situation, especially the sports injuries in the confrontation events such as wushu sanda. before the start of the exercise, actively prepare for the warm-up activities, after the exercise, do a good job of finishing and relaxing activities; it can effectively prevent injuries during sports. after a sports injury, it is necessary to treat it in time, and do not let it go. 3.3.8 improve cognition and tap students’ interest students’ interest is influenced by many factors. firstly, it is necessary to improve students’ cognition of wushu sanda. students should not give up this project because they do not have a comprehensive understanding of sanda. secondly, we should strive to improve the fun of the classroom, through sports games, formation changes, auxiliary equipment to attract students’ interest. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 98 3.3.9 other countermeasures in addition to the above countermeasures, the reasonable arrangement of the proportion of school culture courses and wushu sanda courses, the writing of special wushu sanda textbooks suitable for middle school students, and the cooperation mode with off-campus clubs also need to be implemented. 4. conclusions and suggestions 4.1 conclusion (1) young students in weinan middle school have low basic cognition of wushu sanda; (2) students are more satisfied with wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools; the top three ways to carry out martial arts sanda sports in ordinary middle schools are the formation of school martial arts sanda teams, the formation of social sanda clubs, and school extracurricular sports activities; (3) at present, there are no special teaching materials for wushu sanda in ordinary middle schools; (4) there are many kinds of sports that students participate in, among which the number of students learning wushu sanda is relatively small, and the ranking is relatively low; (5) the main goal of students learning martial arts sanda is to carry out ideological and moral education, improve physical quality, and cultivate strong will quality. (6) the problems of wushu sanda in middle schools of weinan city are as follows: unable to master martial arts in limited time, inappropriate venue or no class venue, possible fights or disturbance of order, parents’ concerns about the lack of martial arts education, inadequate teacher level or lack of teachers, high cost of wushu sanda learning, fear of sports injury in the learning process, and students’ lack of interest. 4.2 suggestions (1) it is necessary to further strengthen martial arts education and martial arts etiquette norms; (2) train more wushu sanda teachers to improve the development level of wushu sanda in primary and secondary schools. (3) the introduction of external teachers from martial arts sanda social clubs with good development status and strong teachers to alleviate the shortage of martial arts sanda teachers in primary and secondary schools. references fang, l., wang, x., & zhang, y. (2019). analysis on the positive influence and promoting effect of wushu free combat movement entering the school for teenagers. wushu research, 5(8), 41-43. hu, c. (2008). in research on the ways and methods of wushu sanda promotion among teenagers (pp. 36-37). master’s thesis of beijing sport university. liu, d. (2006). in research on wushu sanda entering physical education teaching in primary and secondary schools (pp. 16-19). master thesis of wuhan institute of physical education. liu, h. (2014). discussion on the effective promotion of wushu sanda in universities. ethnic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 99 traditional sports, 4(26), 135. lu, c. (2013). in research on the promotion model of wushu sanda among teenagers (pp. 30-32). master thesis of beijing sport university. meng, l. (2019). on the influence of martial arts training on the development of students’ personality and body and mind. sports world (academic edition), 2019(12), 84-85. shen, f. (2019). research on the development status and countermeasures of youth wushu sanda. youth sports, 12(80), 78. tian, m. (2017). sports training (2nd ed., pp. 50-53). beijing: higher education press. wang, j. b. (2012). in research on the construction of evaluation index system of 1-6 sports skill level of juvenile wushu sanda (pp. 11-13). master’s thesis, shanghai university of sport. xu, w., & liu, h. (2019). research on the status quo of wushu sanda in beijing youth sports clubs. wushu research, 6(4), 52-54. yang, x., & cui, h. (2020). research on the development strategy of wushu sanda in primary and secondary schools. education forum, (46), 152. zeng, y., cai, r., & zhu, r. (2003). in chinese material arts tutorial book ii (pp. 1-5). beijing: people’s sports press. zh, h. (2020). research on development strategies of wushu education in primary and secondary schools. wushu research, 2020(01), 18-21. zhou, h., & long, x. (2014). on the promotion of wushu sanda in small and medium-sized cities. wushu sanda research, 4(11), 59. zhu, q. (2018). feasibility study on wushu sanda duan rank system entering primary and secondary schools. journal of wushu research, 3(9), 20-22. notes note 1. the first author: wang zhen (1993-), male, born in zhoukou, henan province, teaching assistant, master candidate, research direction: martial arts and ethnic traditional sports. note 2 corresponding author: zhuang qin (1992-), male, born in jingzhou, hubei province, teaching assistant, master candidate, research direction: sports training. 123767 76..84 announcement of retraction the editorial board announced this article has been retracted on august 02, 2024. if you have any further question, please contact us at: wjer@scholink.org article title: lgbtq and consumption trap: sexual minority and rainbow products—why do you not want to buy rainbow products anymore? author/s: wenrong cui journal title: advances in social science and culture issn: 2640-9682 e-issn: 2640-9674 volume and number: vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 pages: 164-177 doi: https://doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p164 announcement of retraction issn: 2640-9682 e-issn: 2640-9674 pages: 164-177 microsoft word assc-v3n2-p48 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 48 original paper a seat at the table or a power seat: the impact of simple representation versus power representation of women in government on funding for primary education pearl e. sullivan1 & cassandra e. dirienzo2* 1 elon university, elon, united states 2 department of economics, elon university, elon, united states * cassandra e. dirienzo, department of economics, elon university, elon, united states received: march 16, 2021 accepted: march 22, 2021 online published: march 25, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p48 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p48 abstract scholars have repeatedly shown that female politicians focus more on common good issues such as health care and education than their male counterparts. when men hold the majority of positions of political power these issues may not be raised for debate within government even if women are present. using a cross-country dataset, this research examines the impact of women in government on public spending on primary education. specifically, it explores whether it is enough for women to be represented in government, or if they must have a position of power to effect policy outcomes. the analysis results indicate that both women’s simple representation and power representation are significantly positively correlated with increases in federal spending on primary education; however, when women hold positions of political power there is a greater impact on funding than when they simply hold a seat in the legislature. keywords women representation, government, simple representation, power representation, primary education, cross country 1. introduction for years research has shown that the representation of women shifts the policy priorities of local and federal governments (schwindt-bayer, 2018). multiple scholars have found that a higher percentage of women in government is positively correlated to increased spending on healthcare, childcare, and the prevention of gender-based violence and is negatively correlated to spending on the military www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. (schwindt-bayer, 2018; miner, 2017; rivas, 2013). however, previous research on how the number of women in government impacts federal spending on public primary education has been inconclusive, even as it shows that women place a higher priority on education than men. nonetheless, previous scholars have largely ignored the difference in impact between the simple representation of women in government, or the percentage of government seats held by women, and the power representation of women in government, or the percentage of seats held by women who hold veto power or the power to set the agenda. overlooking the potential difference between the two types of political representation can undermine analyses of the impact of women in government and perhaps even lead to inconclusive results. the primary thrust of this research is to analyze if this difference, simple representation versus power representation, has a significant impact on the amount of funding allocated for primary education. this study employs data from more than 60 countries to empirically test if the type of representation significantly affects the funding for primary education. the effects of women in government, especially women in positions of political power, is central not only to a multitude of economic and socio-economic policy outcomes but is especially relevant today as the world has observed how many women political leaders have addressed the covid-19 pandemic differently than their male counterparts. understanding the role of women in government; particularly the potentially different effects of women in government based on the type of representation is vital to the growing body of literature on women in government. the findings of this analysis will assist scholars and policy makers in understanding whether women’s prioritization of primary education translates into policy changes that emphasize the importance of education through increased funding. more importantly, the findings will analyze whether women are able to enact their policy priorities when they are simply represented or if they must hold power, and effectively outrank their male colleagues, in order to have a significant impact on the issues they pursue. in other words, is a seat at the table sufficient, or must women hold a power seat to enact policy change? 2. literature research exploring the significance of women in government continues to grow along with the increasing number of female government representatives across the globe. the focus of the field is split into two broad categories: the impact of the simple representation of women in government and the differences in policy priorities between men and women. this body of research is supported by extensive literature in economics and finance examining the effects of women holding positions of power in a business setting. nonetheless, the research on the importance of women in power has not considered the political realm, leading to a significant gap in the literature regarding the potential difference in policy outcomes based on the legislative representation of women and the political leadership of women. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. 2.1 women in government currently, women make up only 24% of representative governments worldwide even though they make up about 49% of the global population (un women, 2018). while the low numbers of women in government make it difficult to fully observe the importance of women’s political representation, many scholars have found that having women in government not only benefits female constituents, but the country as a whole (barnes & jones, 2018; schwindt-bayer, 2018; rivas, 2013; bratton & ray, 2002). barnes and jones (2018) found that female representatives are more likely to respond to issues that directly affect women than their male colleagues, and that constituents, both men and women, show higher levels of trust and interaction with their governments when women are in leadership positions. moreover, the representation of women in government increases the institution’s efficiency and responsiveness to constituents (barnes & janes 2018; schwindt-bayer, 2018). women have also been shown to prioritize different policy issues than men and, therefore, their representation leads to substantive changes in common good policies relating to healthcare, childcare, violence against women, and education (schwindt-bayer, 2018; miner, 2017; rivas, 2013). many scholars have shown that an increase in the number of women in government significantly decreases levels of corruption and, therefore, increases public trust in and engagement with political representatives (dollar et al., 1999; barnes & jones, 2018). dollar and his colleagues (1999) extended behavioral research on women’s integrity to the political realm and found that an increase in the political representation of women is significantly correlated to a decrease in a country’s level of corruption. this reality, and the public’s perception of it, also leads to increased trust in government (barnes & jones, 2018; cowell-meyers, 2001). as constituents’ trust in their government increases so does their engagement with their elected representatives (barnes & jones 2018; schwindt-bayer, 2018; cowell-meyers, 2001). when represented by a woman, both men and women are more likely to directly engage with their representative by voting, voicing their opinion on issues, and attending events such as town halls (barnes & jones, 2018; schwindt-bayer, 2018; cowell-meyers, 2001). further, women have been shown to be more receptive to their constituents’ concerns than their male counterparts as the bills they sponsor and pass often directly affect the people they represent (barnes & jones 2018; schwindt-bayer, 2018). women have been shown to both improve the effectiveness and efficiency of governments by promptly responding to constituent concerns and working across party lines to pass comprehensive legislation (barnes & jones, 2018). additionally, scholars found that female deputies in argentina sponsor an average of seven more bills per session of congress than their male colleagues, a finding that is reflected globally (barnes & jones, 2018; schwindt-bayer 2018; bratton & ray, 2002). these bills address issues that directly affect both male and female constituents such as the gender pay gap, paid family leave, violence against women, and access to affordable healthcare (miner, 2017; schwindt-bayer, 2018; porter, 2003; celis, 2006). rivas (2013) concluded that female politicians are more focused on common good issues than their male counterparts. more specifically, miner (2017) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. found that female representatives generally introduce legislation that supports women and families, such as education policies, to a greater extent than their male colleagues do. according to elisabeth porter, “women call attention to specific issues related to family needs of food, water, shelter, education, and health” (2003, p. 250). additionally, karen celis’ 2006 study of women members of parliament in the belgian parliament demonstrates that women invest more time and energy in representing women’s interests and that a greater number of women in government leads male representatives to prioritize women’s issues as well. as the representation of women increases, so does the likelihood that issues prioritized by women will be enacted into policy (bratton & ray, 2002; barnes & jones, 2018; htun et al., 2013). 2.2 women’s social priorities historically scholars have attributed “women’s interests” to three main gender-based experiences. first, women’s interests are defined by their traditional role in society: their ability to reproduce and their traditional responsibilities as caregivers (celis et al., 2014; wangnerüd, 2009). second, women’s interests are based on their experiences in the labor market, specifically in the opportunities they receive and challenges they face (celis et al., 2014; wangnerüd, 2009). finally, women’s political priorities are shaped by how their roles are redefined as gender equality becomes more attainable (celis et al., 2014; wangerud, 2009). these categories are based on the gendered social roles theory which states that the social roles of adult men and women such as employee, homemaker, and parent-shape women’s social priorities (mccright & xiao, 2014; celis et al., 2014). another prominent theory in the field is the gendered socialization theory. this theory argues that young girls are socialized to care about different issues than young boys (mccright & xiao, 2014). in her research, wangnerüd (2000) found that women prioritized social welfare policies as well as measures for gender equity at a higher level than men. wangnerüd’s findings fit into the three aforementioned categories as social welfare priorities (also known as common good issues) are thought to be linked to women’s traditional responsibilities. additionally, the focus on gender equity is connected both to women’s employment experiences and the struggle for gender equity which is often based on women’s treatment in the labor market (wangnerüd, 2000; celis et al., 2014; wangnerüd, 2009). wangnerüd (2000) also found that the general public’s political priorities varied based on gender. while both men and women ranked jobs and the environment as highly important, other issues were focused on by one gender and almost ignored by the other (wangnerüd, 2000). women overwhelmingly prioritized family policy, healthcare, and social policy, all of which were barely mentioned by male voters (wangnerüd, 2000). on the other hand, men prioritized taxes and the economy, issues that women generally did not mention (wangnerüd, 2000). as women’s political and social equality has increased, family issues have often been brought to the forefront as women’s advocacy on their behalf has led to substantial social and political changes (saint-germain, 1989; schwindt-bayer, 2018; celis et al., 2014). healthcare is a prime example of women’s advocacy and success. tolbert and steuernagel (2001) found that women brought attention to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. healthcare issues on the social level, often leading to political change. koven and michel (1990) demonstrated that the rise of public health and welfare policies in the united states and europe coincided with the rise of women’s social movements in the same areas. as women advocated for themselves, they campaigned for child and maternity health, which fits within the gendered social roles theory’s categories of women’s traditional role in society and the redefinition of that role through progress towards equity (koven & michel, 1990; celis et al., 2014; wangnerüd, 2009). their advocacy led to the beginnings of the modern welfare system to protect mothers and their children (koven & michel, 1990). additionally, the women did not stop with maternity and child-care: they expanded their efforts to labor rights, economic reforms, and social safety nets (koven & michel, 1990). the impact of women’s advocacy and action can still be seen in the prioritization of family policy globally as women continue to focus on these issues politically, socially, and economically. another priority within the family policy category is education. in the 1880s, women began to advocate for better education, specifically kindergarten and primary education, for their children (koven & michel, 1990). the focus on education both enabled women to push their children and families to progress socially and freed women from the total responsibility of their children’s education and care (koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007). in this way, education fits into all three of the gendered social role theory’s categories of women’s interests. first, women’s promotion of education fits within the maternal role of women as they are advocating on behalf of their children (celis et al., 2014; koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007; cooper, 2007). second, the accessibility of education means that women are no longer solely responsible for their children’s care and education which fundamentally changes women’s responsibilities as it frees them to pursue personal interests outside of their maternal role (celis et al., 2014; koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007). additionally, as quality education becomes more accessible for women, they are able to advance socially and financially as they learn marketable skills and become more independent which in turn leads to greater gender equity (schwindt-bayer, 2018). finally, as the availability of quality education increases, women have the ability to enter the workforce and advance professionally (celis et al., 2014; koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007). for these reasons, feminist movements as well as other women’s movements globally promote education as a path towards gender equity (koven & michel, 1990; schwindt-bayer, 2018). education is one of the most highly prioritized issues by women globally and is the issue that women publicly support most often, making it a topic of interest for governments and their representatives (wangnerüd, 2000; wangnerüd, 2009; celis, 2006). 2.3 women in positions of power while the number of women in government globally continues to grow, the number of women in positions of political power remains relatively stagnant. this raises questions for scholars who focus on the impact of women’s representation in government (wängerud, 2009; schwindt-bayer, 2018; o’brien & piscopo, 2019; weldon, 2002). in his seminal research on political decision-making, tsebelis (1995) defined political power as individuals or groups whose agreement is necessary for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. policy change, specifically for a change in the status quo. for example, a representative in the united states house of representatives has very little power when compared to the speaker of the house, a position that holds the power to decide the agenda, therefore directing which bills and policies are discussed and prioritized. globally, positions of political power are usually occupied by men (schwindt-bayer, 2018). the power that accompanies these positions determines which issues are prioritized, meaning that when women are excluded, their priorities can be devalued based on their inability to direct policy (tsebelis, 1995). as scholars examine how women’s representation impacts the policy creation surrounding women’s priorities, the scholarship must include the influence of men continuing to dominate positions of political power. one of the commonly cited reasons for the lack of women in positions of power, in the political realm as well as in the private sector, is the conflation of leadership traits with traditionally masculine characteristics (carlin & kelly, 2009; bierema, 2016). as bierema (2016) explains, women in leadership roles are caught in a double bind as they are expected to maintain their traditional feminine traits while fulfilling a masculine image of leadership. ideal leaders are generally seen as strong, decisive, and assertive, but when women lean into these traits, they are seen as cold and unlikeable (bierema, 2016; kanter, 2008). this means that women leaders cannot succeed regardless of whether they fulfill the feminine traits, which are seen as too soft, or the masculine traits, leading to demands that they be softer and warmer (bierema, 2016; carlin & kelly, 2009; catalyst, 2018; kanter, 2008). this double standard is based in a history of male leadership as institutional structures prevented women from holding leadership positions or obtaining power (kanter, 2008). as women were historically not present as leaders, more feminine traits are seen as contradictory to leadership traits, increasing the standards for women in power to often unreachable levels (bierema, 2016; catalyst, 2018; oakley, 2000). however, while there are comparatively few women in leadership positions, research has repeatedly shown the importance of having women in power (thomas, 2003; schwindt-bayer, 2018; erdhart et al., 2003; cambell & vera, 2009; hoobler et al., 2018). in the business realm, the presence of women in senior management positions is strongly positively correlated with the firm’s performance and valuation (erdhart et al., 2003; cambell & vera, 2009; hoobler et al., 2018). moreover, scholars have found that women, in many instances, are more effective as leaders as they are generally problem-oriented instead of status-oriented like many male leaders (kanter, 2008; schwindt-bayer, 2018; barnes & jones, 2018). in the political arena, weldon (2002) states that when women have formal positions of power, their influence is stronger than when women are simply represented in the institution. weldon’s (2002) findings echo tsebelis’ (1995) definition of leadership as when women are excluded from political leadership, it is more difficult for them to influence both debated issues and policy priorities. few scholars have addressed the lack of women in positions of political power or the differences between the simple and power representation of women in government. many articles point to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 54 published by scholink inc. exploring the importance of formal leadership positions as an avenue for future research, but few have attempted to fill the gap (o’brien & piscopo, 2019; weldon, 2002). the lack of scholarship in this area means that researchers and policy makers do not have a complete understanding of how the different types of female representation in government (simple versus power) affect women’s policy priorities like education. this analysis compares the difference between simple female representation and female power representation on the amount of federal spending for public primary education as a percentage of country gdp. the following section provides the methods and data used to analyze this research question. 3. method a series of regression analyses using cross-country data are used to explore the potentially different effects on primary education funding based on the different types of female representation in government. the simple female representation regression addresses the basic question of whether the simple representation of women in government generally makes a difference in funding for primary education. previous research has found that as the percentage of women in government increases funding for issues prioritized by women such as healthcare and childcare increase as well; however, past findings have been inconclusive in regard to whether women significantly impact funding for education as some scholars argue that they do while others argue that they do not based on different data sets and methods (celis et al., 2014; koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007; cooper, 2007). the simple female representation model is defined as: pef = β0 + β1(srw) + βix + ε where pef is primary education funding as a percentage of gdp, srw is the simple representation of women in government and x is a matrix of control variables. the female power representation regression model is defined as: pef = β0 + β1(prw) + βix + ε where pef is primary education funding as a percentage of gdp, prw is the power representation of women in government and x is a matrix of control variables. the female power representation model addresses the specific gap in the literature that has overlooked the potential difference in the type of female representation in government. it is hypothesized that the coefficient on prw will be significant, positive and larger than the coefficient on srw. this hypothesis is based on all three sections of the literature. first, women in government work on policy connected to social issues prioritized by women (celis et al., 2014; koven & michel, 1990; ailwood, 2007; cooper, 2007). one of the most highly prioritized issues for women globally is education leading to the conclusion that if women are in government, education policy will be prioritized. however, as the third section of the literature demonstrates, political power is necessary to enact policy change, but positions of power are predominately held by men (tsbelis, 1995; schwindt-bayer, 2018). the combination of these research streams suggests that women in positions of power will have a more significant impact on education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 55 published by scholink inc. funding relative to women who simply have a seat at the table. thus, the primary hypothesis to be tested in this analysis is stated: h1: the power representation of women will have a significant, positive impact on funding for education that is greater than the simple representation of women. 3.1 data the dependent variable in both regression models is the federal expenditures on primary education as a percent of gdp (pef) in 2015, which is available through the world bank. the srw and prw variables are provided by the world bank and the world economic forum, respectively. srw measures the percentage of seats in parliament held by women. the prw is the world economic forum’s political empowerment sub-index which compiles the proportion of women in political leadership roles based on the number in ministerial positions and the number of female heads of state. this index measures the proportion of political leadership positions held by women, or positions where women have power over their male counterparts; be that the power to set the agenda or veto power. the control variables used in both regression models are the same and were chosen as they are indicators of a country’s wealth as well as its public’s education level, both of which are directly correlated to spending on education (mcgrath, 2010). first, gdp per capita provided by the world bank is included as a control variable as wealthier countries tend to spend more on education than developing nations (mcgrath, 2010). second, the percentage of the youth population aged zero to fourteen years is controlled for to account for the size of the youth population, which is available through the world bank. next, a country’s educational attainment measured by the percentage of the adult population who completed primary education is controlled for, which is available from the world bank. educational attainment is controlled for as more educated societies tend to prioritize education (mcgrath, 2010). finally, the gini coefficient is controlled for as countries with a more equal distribution of income tend to prioritize education, especially primary education (mcgrath, 2010). this data is available from the world bank. the independent variables are all measured in the year 2013 while the data for the dependent variable comes from 2015 in order to allow for the time it takes for policy to be written, passed, and enacted. the natural log gdp per capita is used as it provides a better fit to the data and minimizes the likelihood of heteroskedasticity. although the simple representation data and population data is available for over 180 countries and territories, power representation data is only available for 106. in total, 69 countries each have the data observations required to estimate the simple representation model and 66 countries each have the data observations required to estimate the power representation model. a list of all of the countries included in this analysis is provided in table 1. the measures and sources for each variable are shown in table 2 and the summary statistics are in table 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 56 published by scholink inc. table 1. list of countries included in analysis albania haiti* nicaragua argentina** honduras niger* australia hungary norway austria iceland pakistan armenia* indonesia peru belgium ireland poland benin israel portugal brazil italy romania burundi jamaica russian federation cameroon kazakhstan rwanda chile kenya senegal colombia latvia serbia costa rica lithuania slovenia cyprus luxembourg south africa czech republic malawi spain ecuador malaysia sri lanka el salvador maldives sweden estonia mali switzerland finland mauritius tajikistan france mexico togo* germany mongolia turkey ghana new zealand tunisia guatemala nepal uganda united kingdom *included in simple representation only. **included in power representation only. table 2. summary of data sources variable data measure primary education funding (pef) the percentage of gdp dedicated to primary education, world bank (2015) simple representation (srw) the percentage of seats in parliament held by women, world bank (2013) power representation (prw) the proportion of positions of political power held by women, world economic forum (2013) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 57 published by scholink inc. gdppc gdp per capita (in constant us dollars), world bank (2013) population (pop) the percentage of the population aged 0-14 years old, world bank (2013) education attainment (edu) percentage of adult population who have completed primary education, provided world bank (2013) gini gini coefficient, 0-100, provided by world bank (2013) table 3. summary statistics variable number of observations mean standard deviation minimum maximum primary education funding (pef) 70 4.87050761 1.303687 2.22875 7.71106 simple representation (srw) 69 23.7348485 11.9742736 4.2 63.8 power representation (prw) 66 0.2475873 0.15296201 0.035 0.75 lngdppc 70 8.88892606 1.51124868 1.51124868 11.54947 population (pop) 70 25.954291 10.660214 13.2435 50.2157 education attainment (edu) 70 14.8013433 10.1906627 0.24 37.95 gini 70 38.3927866 9.33723363 23.7 63.2 4. results table 4 provides the regression results for the three regression models; a baseline model of just the control variables, the simple representation model, and the power representation model. in reference to the simple representation model, the coefficient on simple representation (srw) is significant and positive at 95 percent confidence with a coefficient value of 0.0362. the analysis results indicate that with each one percent increase in the number of legislative seats held by women, the percentage of a state’s gdp dedicated to primary education increases by 0.0326. table 4. estimated regressions: primary education funding (pef) as dependent variable baseline model simple representation model power representation model intercept t-value 1.840 0.933 1.317 0.679 1.869 0.954 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 58 published by scholink inc. vif 0 0 srw t-value vif 1/vif 0.0326** 2.381 1.15 0.87 prw t-value vif 1/vif 2.763** 2.582 1.10 0.91 lngdppc t-value vif 1/vif 0.283* 1.918 2.08 0.49 0.245* 1.692 2.11 0.47 0.194 1.322 2.03 0.49 pop t-value vif 1/vif 0.00542 0.263 1.97 0.51 0.00470 0.234 1.97 0.51 -0.005 -0.242 1.96 0.51 edu t-value vif 1/vif 0.0234 1.396 1.17 0.85 0.00903 0.516 1.30 0.77 0.01 0.595 1.27 0.79 gini t-value vif 1/vif 0.00114 0.0571 1.44 0.69 0.00913 0.461 1.47 0.68 0.016 0.786 1.50 0.67 adj. r2 f n mean vif 0.0416 1.75 70 1.66 0.101 2.53 69 1.60 0.109 2.58 66 1.57 *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. while the estimated simple representation regression suggests that the simple representation of women in government is significant for public spending on primary education, the impact is relatively small which can explain the lack of consensus in previous research on the significance of women’s simple representation for spending on education. however, the analysis does lend support to previous research which has found that when women are represented in government, policies they prioritize are promoted. overall, the results of the simple representation model indicate that while women being present in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 59 published by scholink inc. government does have a significant impact on public funding for primary education, the impact is relatively small and there is little shift in priorities, and therefore distribution of funding, by the government even as the percentage of seats in parliament held by women increases. as shown in table 4, in the estimated power representation model, which considers female power representation in government rather than simple representation, the coefficient on power representation (prw) is positive and significant at 95 percent confidence with a coefficient value of 2.763. these results support h1, which states that the power representation of women will have a more significant, positive impact on funding for education than the simple representation does. while both coefficients on srw and prw are significant and positive in their respective regressions, the coefficient for women in positions of political power (prw) is notably higher. the estimated coefficient indicates that for each one-point increase in the proportion of positions of political power held by women in a state, the percentage of the gdp dedicated to primary education increases by 2.763, an impact that is almost 82 times the impact of the simple representation of women. therefore, when women hold positions of power, their impact on funding for education is greater than when they simply hold seats in the legislature, a finding which supports h1. 4.1 robustness tests both models were tested for heteroskedasticity and multicollinearity. in reference to heteroskedasticity, tests were completed using the breusch-pagan method, which found no signs of heteroskedasticity as the p-value was greater than 0.05 in both cases. the lack of heteroskedasticity means that the data does not have low or high outliers that could skew the results. as no signs of heteroskedasticity were detected in the models, the test reinforces the validity of the predicted model and eliminates the need to control the weights of the observations. in reference to multicollinearity, both the correlation matrix of the data and the variance inflation factors (vifs) were considered.as shown in table 5, the correlation matrix does not indicate any potential signs of multicollinearity. the vif values are provided with the regression results in table 4. given that the mean vif is less than 10, regression problems related to multicollinearity are mitigated. the robustness tests offer evidence reinforcing the validity of the models and regression results. table 5. correlation matrix pef srw prw lngdppc population education gini pef 1.00 srw 0.3164 1.00 prw 0.3710 0.7390 1.00 lngdppc 0.2440 0.0686 0.2217 1.00 population -0.1830 -0.0098 -0.1924 -0.6856 1.00 education 0.0654 0.2183 0.1017 -0.2689 0.2746 1.00 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 60 published by scholink inc. gini -0.0442 0.0994 -0.1824 -0.4655 0.4323 0.4004 1.00 5. discussion comparing the two models highlights that while both the simple representation of women and the power representation of women are significant at the 95 percent confidence interval, the coefficient on power representation is substantially larger. this suggests that that women in positions of political power have a significantly greater influence on policy outcomes relative to women who simply have a seat at the table. specifically, the impact of each one-point increase in the proportion of women in positions of political power has an effect that is almost 82 times larger than each one-point increase in the percentage of seats in parliament held by women. the findings suggest that in order for women to enact policy in the areas they prioritize, such as education, it is not enough for them to just hold seats in the government. instead, women tend have a much greater impact when they hold positions of power, specifically when they have the power to set the agenda or have veto power. previous research has shown that female politicians often further policy priorities that have traditionally been linked to societal issues, such as education. the analysis results presented here suggest that female politicians’ voices are not being heard as loudly when women have a seat at the table, or simple representation, compared to when they hold a power seat, or have power representation. these findings support the idea that in order to ensure that female priorities are addressed by the legislature, women must effectively outrank their male counterparts; a reality that has substantial implications for analyses of women’s influence in government and the functioning capabilities of government overall. 6. conclusion 6.1 implications the results of this research demonstrate that it is not enough for women to simply be represented in government for their voices to be heard and their policy priorities reflected by their officials. instead, women must hold positions of political power where they either have the ability to set the agenda or veto power in order to enact change in policy areas that they prioritize. the implications of these findings are twofold. first, they influence our understanding of the impacts of women’s political representation. having a seat at the table is valuable, but a power seat is exceedingly more valuable in reference to enacting policy change. second, it has serious implications for which issues are being addressed by governments and whose priorities are being addressed. thus, if countries and the majority of their constituents desire policy designed to better society outcomes such as healthcare, education, childcare, and even government responses to covid-19, it is critical to consider the type of seats that are held by women in their governments. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 61 published by scholink inc. 6.2 limitations and paths for future research although the analysis results presented meet various robustness checks, the analysis is not without limitations. first, many countries were not included in this analysis due to the lack of data availability. further, several of the control variables are not significant in the simple and power representation models while previous research suggests that these variables should statistically affect primary education funding. these limitations raise questions as to whether the results will hold when other variables or more countries are included in the model. moreover, a future model could include different measures for prioritization of education in addition to the percentage of gdp dedicated to funding primary education. these additions to the models would provide a more in-depth understanding of how the simple representation and power representation of women in government affects funding for education. another path for future research is to explore if the results found here at the national level are also observed at the local level. the implications of these differences would be interesting to better understand how women in government implement policies about their priorities, such as education, in government generally, not just at the national level. finally, there is still a large gap in the literature about the impact of women’s leadership in government. this research takes a first step at closing this gap and continuing the conversation, but there are still many questions to be answered about the significance of the power representation of women in government, which, thus far, has predominately been ignored in literature examining women’s political priorities and the impacts of women’s simple representation in government. the lack of research is in part explained by the lack of women in leadership positions globally, but, as this study demonstrates, when women hold political power, government policies, agendas, and priorities can shift to reflect issues of concern for women constituents. we owe it to women in government and their constituents, male and female, to better understand the impacts of the power representation of women in government. references ailwood, j. 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(2002). protest, policy, and the problem of violence against women: a cross national comparison. university of pittsburgh press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zw85q microsoft word assc-v4n1-p49 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 49 original paper journalist’s relationship with political authority in egypt case study from 1960-2011 dr. heba gouda ahmed awad, ph.d1 & prof. laila abd almaged ibrahim2 1 lecturer, faculty of media and mass communication, arab open university, egypt branch 2 former dean of faculty of media and mass communication, cairo university, egypt received: january 6, 2022 accepted: february 24, 2022 online published: february 27, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p49 abstract the study of the journalist’s relation with political authority in egypt from 1960 to 2011 seeks to reveal, describe, analyze and interpret the journalist’s relation with political authority in egypt during this period and to reach a model that explains the factors affecting the journalist’s relation with political authority. this is by exposing the political, legislative, social and cultural factors affecting the journalist’s relationship with political authority during the period of study. and to reveal the personal characteristics of successive political leaders during the period of study, and their role in shaping the relationship between the journalist and the political authority in egypt. in addition to revealing the social development, personal characteristics and professional gradations of a sample of prominent journalists during the course of the study, and the role these factors played in shaping the relationship between the journalist and the political authority in egypt. the study found that the media in general, and the press in particular, play a role in political life, whether by expressing interest groups and opinion leaders, or by relying political systems on them to reach out to the public and promote their policies at home and abroad alike. media has also proved to be the link between the public on the one hand and political decision makers on the other. the results also confirmed that the media helps the political systems to create public opinion in favor of their policies or to mobilize public opinion against those opposing their policies, which in both cases is a dangerous and vital role. the study also revealed that the mass media can influence the minds and emotions of the public and change their attitudes and behavior in a way that serves their policies and achieves the interests and goals of the political authority. the results of the study also confirmed that the legislation and laws prevailing in each country determine the form of the relationship between the press and the political authority. the results of the study also showed that the forms of relations between journalists and politicians vary, sometimes they are confused, and sometimes stable. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. keywords political power, journalist, political authority, relation, presidential era, personal characteristics 1. introduction there is a changing relationship between the press and the political authority, as the system of government in each country sets the boundaries of the relationship between the press and the political authority, so that the nature of this relationship varies from country to country, and from one political system to another within the same country. that is why many theories have emerged that explain the contentious relationship between the press and political power, which will be discussed and analysed. 1.1 the importance of the media to political systems media is the input of a country’s political system, presenting demands for public opinion and political parties, reflecting the voice of interest groups and opinion leaders for the political system to respond and producing the outputs of the overall set of decisions and policies on the distribution of resources (bahauddin makawi 2017). the media also play a major role in serving political systems, both internally and externally, as political systems use the media to reach out to the public in all its forms and directions, promote their political, economic and social projects, and the foreign policy of countries depends on the media to communicate their messages abroad very effectively. the media also influence the individual’s awareness of the policies of the regime (ahmad al-zahrani, 2016). the media are one of the soft power tools used to support and strengthen the political work of the countries to achieve the goals that the decision-maker aspires to achieve by creating the intellectual and psychological climate for the external environment, and creating preconceptions that change existing convictions to accept a policy. the state seeks through the mass media to influence the ideas and orientations of others on a specific issue in order to serve the country’s internal or external political goals, and the political authority can benefit from the media in achieving two aspects of benefit, the first is to create a public opinion in favour of its positions, and the second is to mobilize public opinion against all those who oppose its policies. the united states deals with the media as an important tool for implementing its foreign policy and the tool responsible for disseminating american concepts and values, as well as a tool used to promote information and cover events, by influencing the minds and emotions of the public and changing their attitudes and behaviour in a way that serves their policies and achieves their interests and goals. us use of soft power tools, including the media, was more effective in achieving its strategic objectives in the arab region than the hard-power iyad khalaf ammar al-kawad (2016).the political systems depend on the mass media to achieve several goals, the most prominent of which are keeping order, achieving social and political integration, and breaking the imaginary barriers among the people to create a general consensus toward the issues and subjects that the political system seeks to spread through mobilizing citizens. the media are also addressing issues in a way that is consistent with the vision of the political system that seeks to convince the public of its views on internal or external issues to create a public opinion on the issues raised. political life in the modern state is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. complete only with heavy media and constant dialog between citizens and various governing bodies ayat salah nur-din (2016). the media played a role in political decision-making that took place from january 25, 2011 to june 30, 2013, but the influence of the media on political decision differs according to the political systems under which the media operate. it also noted that the media influence decision-making on two sides, affecting political decision makers on the one hand, and influencing public opinion on the other hand ala’a omar mohamed (2014). countries resort to the mass media to create channels of communication with parties that cannot communicate directly with them, and governments use the mass media to reinforce their positions before the governments of other countries to control the climate of negotiations. the statesmen can send signals through the media if they are unsure of the way the other country will respond to natural negotiation (hyunjin seo, 2011). a study on press authority and values of transition to political development revealed the importance of media based on the volume of media information flows that affect the pattern of cultural and political values, which in turn lead to the desired political development of a powerful unit bohaneah qawa (2009). in the same context, a study by ali bin shobel al qarni (2006) reached a model describing the relationship of the press with the political authority, and the model assumes that the media in general and the press in particular may fall under the umbrella of the media authority by two ways, the first implies that the media are a tool in the hands of the authorities as they want to achieve their policies and programs, while the second implies that the media have an effective authority in society to be a voice for citizens that reflects their needs and requirements. aida al-sokhawi study (1997) considered that the importance of the media stems from being the link between public opinion and political decision makers. and the study adds that there is a link between the political leadership of the mass media and the role these means play in the political decision-making, as long as the political power of the mass media is increased. the influence of the media in political decision-making has increased, and vice versa, thus having a correlation between how political leadership deals with the media and the role that it plays in political decision-making. the press can play a number of roles, the first of which is the watch dog, a function that is consistent with fourth authority term, which means that the task of the press is to monitor all the institutions of the society, protecting it from any information or misleading data that may be directed to it, while the term of the guard dog assumes that the media reflects the interests of the dominant groups and the regime without tilting at one’s side or even holding the powers to challenge the other, so this entry does not assume that the media possesses all the powers. either the lap dog term means that the media, including the press, always belong to the political authority, without being an independent tool, and without regard for other views and trends in society, which are incompatible with the interests of authority. (george a. donohue, 1995). in the same context, steven livingston (1997) reachedan input that refers to the contribution of the media to accelerating the process of political decision-making by pushing statesmen to hasty responses on internal and external issues in response to pressing questions of journalists. livingstone’s entrance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. also assumes that the media coverage of events related to international conflicts is dominated by emotionally oriented interpretations, which hinder the desired political endeavours, and the political systems suffer from the media handling of pressing issues of national security, leading to political losses. the portal also assumes that the media set governments’ foreign-policy agenda. some of the output of the communications system is the input of the political system, on the grounds that the media output passes through the gate guards, their task of filtering the subjects, and turning them into inputs to the political system of the legislative or executive authority. thus, not all output of the communication system can be considered as inputs to the political system, according to the study basyoni hamada (1992). 1.2 the inconsistency of the relationship between the press and the media as a whole and the political system the form of the press’s relationship with political power is governed by the power and influence of authority on the one hand and the independence and strength of the press on the other. the prevailing political situations in each country are involved in drawing the form of the press’s relationship with the political authority, so there are different roles of the media according to the existing political systems. in liberal regimes, the media express opposition opinions, allows the individual freedom of opinion and freedom of support or opposition, and the media in liberal societies are also characterized by the flow of information, and the mass media are monitoring power. in totalitarian systems, the state monopolizes and controls the media either by ownership of them or by censoring their content and programs, and totalitarian states use the media, including the press, to legitimize their political system, while developing countries use the media to achieve community unity and strengthen state influence ahmed zahrani (2016). there are several factors that influence the content of the media, including the government or the prevailing political system, and the political system’s trends contribute to shaping the media agenda, along with the public, media organization and communication trends. the political system is also a major variable that plays an important role in shaping the agenda of private and government media in egypt and arab countries. the political system creates a climate and provides opportunities for an appropriate media system. ayat noureddine (2016). the influence of the media on the political decision differs according to the political systems under which the media practice their work. the development of means of communication, the emergence of the internet, the ease with which different people have access, and their relative lack of government control have turned them into a weapon that the masses have known against the ruling authority alaa omar mohamed (2014). while ali bin shobel al qarni (2006) stressed the inconsistency of the relationship between the mass media and the political authority, referring in his study to the link between the nature of the political system and the nature of the media system, the political system creates the climate and provides opportunities for the emergence of an appropriate media system. it is therefore the political and social system that defines the media and defines its form and content. the different form of the relationship between media and political power is due to the different www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. state-specific press and media legislation, although the principle of freedom of opinion and expression is recognized in all the constitutions of arab countries derived from the universal declaration of human rights adopted on 10 december 1948, the international covenant on civil and political rights, adopted by the general assembly of the united nations on 19 december 1966, has been based on a difference in the concept of the right to communication between the arab countries on the grounds that the political system prevailing in each state has the right to enact its legislation. the process of issuing laws governing the affairs of states is subject to a group of political, economic and social factors that vary according to the different ruling regimes ahmad al-daraji (1997). there is often a contradiction between constitutions and national legislation because the ruling regimes violate constitutional provisions, and there is a defect in arab legislation on rights and freedoms because of exceptional legislation that runs counter to constitutions; the declaration of a state of emergency or martial law comes at the forefront of exceptional legislation, and this contradiction has led to a satisfactory situation in which the arab press suffers from duality, and in the face of constitutions recognizing the principles of freedom of opinion, expression and the press, laws aimed at restricting this principles. hammad ibrahim (1997). the media plays a role in formulating the theoretical ideas and principles of the political decision, which depends on the nature and philosophy of the political system, emphasizing that in the case of the authoritarian regime, the role of the press system is limited to mobilizing and publicizing the political decisions of the leadership, aida al-sokhawi (1997). the impact of the media on political decision-making is changing from stage to stage, as the media increasingly influence political decision-making in the case of marginal issues, decreases in the case of important issues, and increases in its impact if it wishes to prevent the political system from taking a decision that it intended to take. also the influence of the media in cases of political instability is increased, and its impact is reduced in cases of political stability. there is also a difference between the (private) opposition media style and that of the (governmental) national media in dealing with the output of the decision-making process. while the former weakens the legitimacy of decisions, the latter legitimizes them. (ibid) 1.3 the role of the press editor in the political decision-making process the group of political, economic, cultural and social changes play a key role in forming egyptian intellectuals, indicating that each of the three eras (gamal abdel nasser mohamed anwar sadat mohamed hosni mubarak) represented a transition and a start inside the egyptian society, the study concluded that president gamal abd al-nasser’s rule witnessed political, social, economic and cultural changes, and there were also feelings of hatred for the royal ruling period, which is expected to get out of the british occupation. these general lines made the viewpoints between politicians and intellectuals close, and the disagreement was not deep at that time. the study also concluded that the most important thing that distinguishes the egyptian president al-sadat’s rule regarding the political decision-making process is that it was an individual decision whether it is related to the internal policy or foreign policy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. according to the study, president sadat viewed himself as everything hiba sayed yamani mohamed (2016). journalists’ perception of the limits of their roles is reflected in how they cover events (hyunjin seo, 2011). their perceptions play an important role in drafting the news release decision as well as the selection of sources, and that journalists’ choices are later an indicator of countries’ foreign policy. 1.4 the nature of the relationship between journalists and sources bayan al rajhi (2014) discussed the relation between the mass media and the parliament representing the legislative authority, which is a complex and exciting relationship, sometimes honest and intimate, sometimes very complicated and explosive, and rarely reaches a break, and the study adds that the relation between journalists and politicians is a confused relation, there is a partnership and perhaps attraction. journalists need stories from politicians, politicians need some publicity to achieve their own goals. a strong relationship between the two parties is based primarily on mutual respect, recognition by both sides of their respective importance for the exercise of democratic action, and the study emphasizes that society does not benefit from their hostile relationship; it makes parliamentarians less willing to disclose information, and journalists’ reports on parliament will be objective, reflecting on the free flow of information. on the other hand, the study indicates that the relationship between the journalist and the politician should not be intimate relationship, and if this happens, journalists will be less willing to criticize the government. the reliance of journalists on experts and researchers as sources is complex, owing to their desire to present news stories that include explanation, reader understanding, subject dimensionsand details (erik albaik, 2011), 90% of the journalists in the sample sought to reach out to experts and researchers as sources of information. while 1% of the sample indicated that researchers and experts seek to communicate with journalists, the study described the nature of the relationship between the two parties as limited. in the same context, a study (marria, shauhua, & brooke, 1999) confirmed that the basis of the news industry is its sources, and the study indicates that since 1970 the american press has seen its role as a watchdog. journalists are now dealing with information coming from its sources as raw materials that are taken and formulated properly, rather than being displayed for its sources. the study also suggests that advances in computer technology enable journalists to easily access the database to validate information rather than rely on official sources. according to the study, official sources are no longer the only source of truth. in his study, basyouny hamada (1992) was able to put several positions for journalists, which in turn determine the nature of the relationship between them and politicians, the first of these functions is the function of objectively gathering and presenting news without bias, the second function for journalists is to interpret news so that the reader, viewer or listener can understand the government’s actions. the third function that the study observed is the function of representing the public opinion viewpoint in the face of the government, which makes the means of communication a guard for the government’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. actions and aims at not allowing the government to exploit its powers, while the fourth function serves the two parties, the government and the public opinion. journalists form public opinion by presenting issues of concern to him, informing the government about public opinion trends, and finally, according to bassiouni hamada, the fifth function of journalists is to participate in the political process by focusing attention on specific issues. communication has a major impact on decision-making through the way the facts are presented and by the supporters and opponents chosen by means of communication to cite them. 1.5 the role of the dominant political system in drafting of the journalist’s boundaries in shaping the rditorial policy of newspapers khaled zaki abu al-khair’s study (2017) found a theoretical model to explain the relationship between the determinants of editorial decision-making in newspapers and professional performance, and the model ensures that political factors influence the selection of topics and the choice of professional values on which they will depend. the communicator has the capacity to influence in one way or another the ideas and opinions of the audience, and the situation of journalists varies according to the policies followed in each country. under liberal political systems, any citizen can work in the profession of journalism, and freedom of expression extends to freedom of publication and work in the media without restrictions or obstacles. in socialist political systems, those who are allowed to work in the media are required to enjoy political confidence, whereas some countries allow work in the media only for those who have membership in the professional associations or syndicates of the media laila abdel majid (1986). the journalist should enjoy a range of guarantees concerning the practice of the profession. in addition to protecting the journalist from physical abuse such as imprisonment, detention, torture, kidnapping and murder. also providing the capabilities that help journalists access and obtain information, access documents and data, and consult both official and unofficial sources of news, the study also emphasized the high status of journalists and the media, giving them the proper immunity to the nature of their work and their need to protect against all internal and external pressures that may be exposed to force them to work that does not agree with their conscience or force them to present an incorrect or distorted story.(ibid) 1.6 the role of journalists’ social characteristics in influencing their work a study (randal a. beam, 2008) sought to test the hypothesis that journalists’ social characteristics influenced news content. they were asked to provide a recent example of their best news work and the stories of journalists were arranged according to some social characteristics of journalists, suggesting that individual factors were more relevant to the news production process. while a study (scott hugh, 2002) aimed to uncover the institutional effects on the situation of journalists, the study examined the extent to which the independence of journalists in their media institutions has changed, and whether there is a relationship between journalists’ awareness of the nature of their institutions (subordinate or independent) and the journalistic roles they believe that they are vital. the study found that media www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. organizations became more aware of what concerns society, and the study showed no relation between the nature of the organization’s work and the roles of journalists. 2. theoretical framework 2.1 theory of “cultural criteria” the theory of cultural norms is one of the most explained theories of the impact of personal characteristics and reference groups of the journalists on his or her work, thus shaping his or her relationship with other elements of the communication process. this theory emphasizes the role of the journalists in the process of information control, consistent with the prevailing social values, traditions and norms that provide a framework for the cultural norms prevailing in society. using this theory, the paper seeks to reveal the personal characteristics and social background of the sample of journalists, and their impact on shaping the shape and nature of their relationship with egypt’s political power. 2.2 dominance model the journalist sees himself as dominating the media process, having a strong sense of its own, clear direction, and seeing the target audience as the media message consumer, and the content is a persuasive message specifically aimed at influencing the consumer (the public), as the audience in this model is a term of persuasive communication. this makes the journalist in this form eager to see the echo quickly, so that it can be sure that its goals in the communication process it leads are met. journalist deals with his audience as being in the position of the guardian or the controlling father and knowing with all the facts. 2.3 autism model in the autism model, the journalist adopts the professional standards of the media organization and takes priority in its media practices, standardize, adopt and guide its activities and limited outreach to the public, without considering the real needs of the public. in this model, media institutions dominate the communicative community to such an extent that they are more recent than they are in their audience, and this model appears in totalitarian societies and authoritarian regimes. 2.4 model of hostility this model assumes that there is a kind of persistent antagonism between the journalist on the one hand and the politician who represents the source of information on the other, as conflict of interest is the characteristic of the relationship between the journalist and the source. 2.5 accreditation and adaptation model this model assumes that the relationship between the journalist and the source depends on mutual cooperation between the parties, despite the complexity and the differences of their objectives, and considers that cooperation between the parties is the way to reach the target audience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. 2.6 model of relationship between the communication system and the political decision-making process this model deals with the role of the media in the political decision-making process, and divides the communication system into official and private media, so that the official media output differs from the private media output, the official media output is determined in the legalization and social control process, and it broadcasts non-doctrinal and very important messages on international issues. private media output is partisan thinking, seeking to weaken legitimacy and impartiality. 2.7 theoretical hypotheses of study first, there is a correlation between the journalist’s approach to political power and the comprehensiveness of the prevailing political system. second, there is a correlation between the journalist’s approach to political power and his failure to take into account the needs of the public. third, there is a correlation between the journalist’s belonging to the private media and his bias in dealing with cases. fourth, there is a correlation between the journalist’s affiliation with the official media and his commitment to social responsibility. 2.8 methodological framework the study belongs to the how-to studies field. the qualitative studies are a broader framework than an alternative to using numbers, statistics or control, as they seek to generate a holistic impression of the movement of the phenomenon by collecting, analysing, and recording results. the study is based on the methodology of the media survey, as well as the comparative approach, to monitor the similarities and differences in the nature of the journalist’s relationship with political authority in egypt between the three political eras (president gamal abdel nasser’s era president mohamed anwar sadat’s era president mohamed hosni mubarak’s era). this is by comparing the political, legislative, and press situations, comparing the general characteristics of the political leadership in each era, and comparing the personal and professional characteristics of the journalists in the case study’s sample. 2.9 case study method a case study is a type of research curriculum used in meta-studies. while others considered it to be a method of qualitative research. from the qualitative entrance, the researcher used the in-depth interview tool, the researcher to answer the research questions and test his/herhypotheses, and the interview is the only tool that gives the researcher the chance to stand face-to-face in front of the source of information. this gives them the opportunity to get the most information in precise and clear detail. the in-depth interview is based on form, known as ‘interview guide’, which includes a set of points and subjects that the researcher must cover in the research paper, it allows a high degree of flexibility in the formulation, and order of the questions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. the researcher analysed the qualitative content of the speeches of the presidents (jamal abdul nasser, mohammad anwar sadat, and mohamed hosni mubarak), as well as the qualitative content of the book articles by the journalists who were studied by the researcher. 2.10 case study sample the researcher addressed a group of egyptian journalists to case study in order to reveal the form and nature of the relationship between the journalist and the political authority in egypt, and the factors affecting it, and the case study sample was a ‘purposive sample’. 2.11 the sample case study included  journalists who were contemporary in the first presidential period from 1960 to 1970: mr. mohamed hassanein heikal: chairman of the board of directors and editor-in-chief of al-ahram foundation (1957-1974), egyptian minister of national guidance in 1970. professor ihsan abdul qadous: the editor-in-chief of the magazine rosalyosov in 1945. the chairman of the board of directors of rosalyosov magazine in 1958. the editor-in-chief of al-akhbar al-youm newspaper for two periods, the first (1966-1968) and the second (1969-1974). chairman of the board of directors of akhbar al-youm, 1971-1974. chairman of the board of directors of al-ahram foundation, 1975-1976. full-time writer in al-ahram newspaper in 1976. – mr. mustafa amin: he was the founder of the akhbar al-youm in 1944 and the editor-in-chief in 1944-1960, and returned to the editor-in-chief again in 1962. he is the editor of the last hour magazine in 1938. the editor-in-chief of the magazine “monday” published by dar hilal in 1941.  journalists who were contemporary in the second presidential era, 1970-1981: mr. moussa sabri: chairman of the board of directors of akhbar al-youm and editor-in-chief of al-akhbar al-akhbar from 1975 to 1984. mr. anis mansour: chairman of the board of directors of the house of knowledge (1976-1984), has served as editor-in-chief for several issues: the editor of several press releases, including al-gil magazine in 1960, hay magazine in 1962, last hour magazine in 1971, october magazine in 1976, wadi al-nil magazine in 1979, al-erwa al-oqouki magazine in 1980, may newspaper in 1985, caricature magazine in 1993, the arab women’s encyclopedia in 2004. mr. ahmad bahaa al-din: editor-in-chief of the magazine “good morning” in 1956. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. editor-in-chief of al-shaab newspaper in 1958. one of the editors-in-chief of al-akhbar newspaper in 1959. one of the editor-in-chief of akhbar al-youm in 1961 and 1962. the editor-in-chief of the last hour magazine in 1962. he also served as chairman of the board of directors of dar al hilal and rosalisov. chairman of the board of directors of al-ahram and editor-in-chief of al-ahram (1974-1975). editor-in-chief of the kuwaiti al-arabi magazine (1976-1982).  journalists who were contemporary in the third presidential period 1981-2011: professor ibrahim nafaa: chairman and chairman of the board of directors of al-ahram (1979-2005). professor ibrahim sa’da: chairman and chairman of the board of directors of akhbar al-youm (1979-2005). professor ibrahim issa: editor-in-chief of cyprus (1995-1998). editor-in-chief of the egyptian newspaper al-dconstitution (2005-2010). to do this, the researcher conducted two studies (field and analytical). 2.12 sample the researcher conducted a series of in-depth interviews with a selection of 20 experts in journalism and politics the researcher carried out an analytical study using the tool of ‘qualitative content analysis’ on the speeches of president gamal abdel nasser (30 speeches), president mohamed anwar sadat (65 speeches) and president mohamed hosni mubarak (176 speeches). also, the researcher conducted an analytical study based on ‘qualitative content analysis’ tool on 90 articles of the writers, who represented the sample of the case study. the researcher has selected the essays sample according to the purposive sample method, and has identified articles on policy, economic, or social issues that reflect their attitudes toward political power. 3. results and discussion 3.1 the journalist’s relationship with the political authority in egypt (1960-1970) the results of the study have shown that there is a link between the prevailing political system during the period of time (1960-1970) and the nature of the relationship between the journalist and the political authority, which was reflected in the predominance of the one voice, and thus the forms of relations between the journalist and the political authority did not vary in that period. the form of subsidiarity or partnership has been taken as a whole. it was also revealed that president gamal abdel nasser was not meeting frequently with journalists. the president gamal abdel nasser had only met with journalists once after the announcement of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. press nationalization lawin 1960. the results of the in-depth interviews also showed that the relationship between the journalist and the political authority was not secure during the era of president gamal abdel nasser, especially with the control of the only political organization, ‘the socialist union’. the results showed that president gamal abdel nasser’s personal characteristics reflected the nature of the relationship between the journalist and the political authority, gamal abdel nasser was doubting all around him, which had created a state of care and fear that dominated the journalists’ relation with the political authority. regarding the journalist’s relation with the political authority in egypt during that period, the researcher according to the case study sample concluded that mohammad hassanein heikal’s relation with president gamal abd al-nasser was ‘partnership relation’, which means that each party played a role for the benefit of the other party. the political leadership relied on the journalist to pass on their ideas and implement their policies, a role that hassanein had excellently performed, hassanein hikal’s articles based on persuasion and refuting arguments and proofs to present the political leadership’s point of view. it is also keen to disprove its dissenting views and prove its invalidity so that the public does not coordinate behind them. with regard to ihsan abd al-qados, it was found that he has presented many writings that carry cash for the beginning of the ‘nasiriya period’, but the general orientation of his articles has changed during the 1960s, and that he is inclined to support and defend the political leadership. this is what was monitored from a sample of the content analysis from 1953 to 1962. the same thing the researcher observed in mostafa amin’s articles, his writings in the early years of the revolution 23 july 1952 opposed the ‘gamal abdel nasser era’, but this trend disappeared during the few years before he was imprisoned because ofaccusing of intelligence with the enemy. the political power in this era spat silenced any opposition voices and turned them into supportive voices. 3.2 the journalist’s relationship with the political authority in egypt (1970-1981) the era of president muhammad anwar al-sadat witnessed a political breakthrough that reflected the political situations in that period, as multiparty parties appeared in the form of platforms inside the socialist union, followed by the emergence of parties, party newspapers appeared after a disappearance that lasted more than 10 years, newspapers enjoyed many trends and different pens. the patterns and forms of the relationship between journalists and authority varied from dependency to balance to conflict. the analysis of the speeches of president mohamed anwar alsadat showed that there was much talk about the conditions of the press and journalists, perhaps because he practiced the press before, and even he considered himself a true journalist, which he said in many meetings. although president anwar sadat was given a margin of freedom to the press in comparison with his predecessor, president gamal abdel nasser, his relationship with journalists witnesses a form of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. conflict. the state of “restricted freedom” in the era of president mohamed anwar alsadat was reflected in the journalism law no. 148 enacted in 1980, which stipulates that private legal persons may have the right to issue and own newspapers, but this right was not actually exercised except by the journalism law no. 96 enacted in 1996. in addition to that president al-sadat called himself the family’s chief, and any criticism of his policies bothered him and took it personally. in this regard, the researcher has been able to monitor the relationship between musa sabri, anis mansour, and ahmed bahaauddin with the political authority in egypt, represented in its political leadership. musa sabri’s relationship with anwar sadat was absolute subordination, with the writer not having to disagree with the president on any policy or issue, but having mocked his pen to defend president sadat’s person, often oblivious to discussing and analysing issues. as for anis mansour, his personality was reflected in his writings, for being a philosopher and thinker, he tended to analyse the personality of president anwar alsadat, go further in refuting his policies by monitoring their motives and implications, and described the writer’s relationship with political power as a balancing relationship. anis mansouralso reflected the humour and the frequent jokes as part of his character in the form and nature of his relationship with president anwar alsadat, anis mansour’s specialization in philosophy played a role in creating an intellectual richness in his discussions with the president and his writings. this has often led sadat to rely on him. as for ahmad bahaauddin, the style of shout and revealing appeared in writings, whether in the egyptian newspapers or in the arab newspapers, in addition to the wealth of knowledge that his writings enjoyed in all the local, regional and international issues. ahmed bahaauddin’s culture and desire for historical analysis and historical details of events and his adherence to principlesplayed an extremely important role in the president’s reliance on him. but although the relationship has sometimes been strained by the writer’s criticism, he enjoyed the confidence of president anwar al-sadat, which was reflected in al-sadat concern to listen to his views and take them into account even after he moved to kuwait as editor-in-chief of the kuwaiti magazine ‘al arabi’ in 1976-1982. 3.3 the journalist’s relationship with the political authority in egypt during the period 1981-2011 president hosni mubarak’s era enjoyed a high margin for democracy, reflected in press freedom in a remarkable way, with private newspapers appearing, multiplexed partisan newspapers, and the relationship between the journalist and political authority varied between dependence, balance, and sharp conflict over the regime’s downfall. the results of an analysis of the contents of president hosni mubarak’s speeches showed his interest in the press and journalists from the beginning of his term in office, but this interest did not last until the end of his term, as the researcher noticed that the talk about press and journalists’ conditions decreased www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. in the last five years of president mohamed hosni mubarak’s rule. this era was witnessed the enacting of journalism law no. 96 in1996 which guarantee a high margin of freedom for the journalist. a number of experts agreed that the political freedom witnessed by president mohamed hosni mubarak’s era played a leading role in preparing for the 25th of january revolution in 2011, as the freedom margin allowed some newspapers to harm the president himself. some experts have emphasized that the vast amount of press freedom observed in the era of president hosni mubarak has led to the spread of a false consciousness, which has contributed to the mobilization of public opinion against the regime and political leadership, that led to the25th january revolution. president mohamed hosni mubarak’s personality has been reflected in the form and nature of his relation with journalists, the president’s calm and patience, and his non-rush in taking decisions that made him suffer many violations and sharp in opposition, as well as his pardoning of those who had prison sentences. as for the journalist’s relation with the political authority in egypt during the era of president mohamed hosni mubarak, a case study of a number of journalists in that era showed the balance between ibrahim nafeh and the political leadership in that period, and ibrahim nafeh’s personality reflected on his relation with the political authority. his professionalism and his priority in the interest of journalists led him to completely align himself with the political authority and to stand in the ranks of the journalists as a leader of the press and head of the arab journalists union, which led to the balance of the relation between the two parties. as for ibrahim sada, he also had with president mohamed hosni mubarak a balanced relationship, he played a role in presenting the country’s policies to readers, but at the same time he did not shy away from violating the president at times, which was revealed in the article “pardon the president”. as for ibrahim eissa, he was able to use the maximum margin of freedom that was made available in the period of president hosni mubarak’s rule, and he presented a bitter criticism to president hosni mubarak, his policies, government, party and family, and even the matter reached the point of inciting the people to get out of power as his articles showed. this expressed a conflict relationship between the journalist and the political leadership during that period. ibrahim issa’s rebellious personality has also been shown in hissharp critique of political power. model of journalist’s relationship with the authority: after reviewing the results of the analytical and field studies, the researcher found a model that illustrates the factors influencing the shape and nature of the relationship between the journalist and the political authority, as shown in figure 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. firgue 1. the personal characteristics according to the above, the researcher saw that the best form of the relationship between the journalist and the political authority is “balance”, so that the journalist does not foment in the political leadership, the personality political conditio ns legislative conditions press conditio ns relationship between the journalist and the political the personal characteristics of the wide culture wealth knowled ge loyalty clarity-ob jectivity-a ppreciatio n of profession al duty being close to the top of power – in the interests of himself rebellio n love of differenc e boldness partnershi p relationsh balance relations hip dependen cy relationsh conflict relations hip www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. unite with it, disappear from his personality and become a mere echo of the ruler. he also shouldn’t use his energy and space and engages in hostility toward the ruler in such a way that he does not pay attention to any bright points, and in such a way that the journalist fails to fulfil his role of revealing facts, highlighting the positive aspects of society in terms of a degree of social responsibility imposed by the nature of his profession. references ahmed, al-d. (1997). legal organization of the press in arab countries. arab journal of human rights, arab institute for human rights, 52; 58, 54. retrieved from :http://search.mandumah.com/record/838277 ahmed, q. al z. (2016). political authority and media in the arab world, faculty of communication and information, king bin abdul aziz university, jeddah, arab future magazine. center for arab unity studies, beirut, march 2016, 445, 46. ahmed, q. al-z. (n.d.). political authority and media in the arab world. former reference, 50-51. aida, i. al-s. (1997). the relationship between the philosophy of political decision and the media: a critical study of the press in egypt from 1970 to 1981 (unpublished doctor’s letter). faculty of arts, department of information, university of alexandria. alaa, o. m. (2011). communication and political decision-making, case study of egypt after 2011. alaa, o. m. (2014). communication and political decision-making, case study of egypt after 2011 (unpublished masters). faculty of political science, university of nahrin, 2014. ali, b. s. al q. (2006). “saudi press’s handling of local issues: a content analysis of the press relationship with the authority”. research center of the faculty of arts, king saud university, riyadh, 2, 13, 14, 15. ali, b. showel al-q. (n.d.). the saudi press’s handling of domestic issues: a content analysis of the press’s relationship with the authority, p. 14, 15 ayat, s. n. (2016). the influence of modern media on shaping the traditional media agenda, an applied study on the most important issues of public opinion after the 25th january 2011 revolution (an unpublished master’s message) faculty of information, cairo university. ayat, s. n. al-d. (n.d.). the influence of modern media on shaping the traditional media agenda, an applied study on the most important issues of public opinion after the january 25 revolution. bahauddin, m. (2017). the political decision, what it is, his industry, his taking, his challenges, a series of parliamentary booklets. bahrain, bahrain institute for political development, 13-14. bassyouni, i. h. (2012). press and political decision-making in the arab world (cairo: world of books, 2012), p. 15, 16. 97, 98, p. 105-p. 108. bohaneah, q. (2009). the media authority and the values of transformation in political development. the journal of politics and law books, 1, 2009. retrieved from https://search.mandumah.com/record/455781 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. george, a. d., phillip, j. t., & clarice, n. o. (1995). a guard dog perspective on the role of media. journal of communication, 45(2), 116. hamad, i. (1994). press and political authority of the arab world, case study of the problem of the relationship between the press and political power and its implications for editorial policy (published doctorate air) faculty of information, cairo university, 1994, p. 124; 125. iyad, k. a. al-k. (2016). the strategy of soft power and its role in implementing the objectives of american foreign policy in the arab region (unpublished masters) faculty of arts and sciences, middle east university. seo, h. (2011). media and foreign policy: a comparative study of journalists’ perceptions of press-government relations during the six-party talks, journalism, 12(2), 473-475. steven, l. (1997). clarifying the cnn effect: an examination of media effects according to type of military intervention. harvard research paper, the joan shorenstein center on the press, 1997. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 68 original paper the impact of entrepreneurial competence on the success of small and medium sized businesses with emphasis on the mediating role of information technology competencies mohammad taleghani (ph.d)1 & ataollah taleghani2 1 associate professor, department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university, rasht, iran 2 research assistant, ted rogers school of management, toronto metropolitan university, toronto, canada received: may 22, 2025 accepted: july 11, 2025 online published: july 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p68 abstract in recent years, entrepreneurship has undergone significant changes, as both entrepreneurial competencies (enc) and information technology competencies (itc) have become increasingly crucial for achieving small and medium sized businesses. this study seeks to explore the relationship between enc and small and medium sized businesses, emphasising itc's mediating function. the study used a qualitative approach, collecting data from small and medium sized businesses in guilan province located in northern iran through a questionnaire. convenience sampling was used, and 209 valid replies were obtained between march 15 and may 25, 2024. data analysis was done through spss and smart pl. the study's results showed that enc has a positive relationship with both small and medium sized businesses and itc. additionally, itc played a mediating role between small and medium sized businesses and enc. these findings highlighted how important it is to integrate itc and enc to meet small and medium sized businesses goals. this study, undertaken on small and medium sized businesses in the guilan province, located in northern iran might be less relevant to more significant geographic regions. findings might help in formulating plans to boost small and medium sized businesses performance and economic growth. keywords entrepreneurial competency, information technology competency, small and medium sized businesses success, smart pls www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 1. introduction in today's rapidly changing business landscape, the fusion of entrepreneurial competencies (enc) and information technology (itc) competencies has become pivotal for small and medium sized businesses success. small and medium sized businesses are significant contributors to economic growth and job creation and are crucial in driving local economies. however, achieving sustainable growth in fragile business environments necessitates more than just entrepreneurial insight; it demands a strategic integration of it solutions to enhance efficiency and business competitiveness. while entrepreneurial skills empower microenterprise owners to identify opportunities and mobilize resources, it competence enables them to streamline operations, reach wider markets, and foster innovation (awamleh & ertugan, 2021). research highlights that microenterprises with strong it capabilities are better positioned to adapt to market changes and sustain long-term growth (erävala et al., 2019). the swift progress in information technology is driving the global economy, presenting businesses with unseen prospects as well as difficulties. in this environment, promoting sustainable growth and competitiveness in microenterprise ventures requires an awareness of the complex interactions between entrepreneurial competencies and it capabilities. microenterprises, frequently distinguished by their small size and resource limitations, are essential to economic development because they act as catalysts for regional innovation and creating jobs. to improve efficiency, productivity, and market response, managing the complexity of today's corporate environment calls for more than simply entrepreneurial zeal—it necessitates the strategic integration of it solutions. the significance of entrepreneurs depends on the unique combination of vision, risk-taking tendencies, resourcefulness, and adaptability that they offer to the company. these traits are essential for spotting market opportunities, gathering capital, and directing corporate endeavours towards long-term success (pulka et al., 2021). however, in a world that is becoming more digitally connected and where technological advances are transforming industries, success as an entrepreneur depends not only on conventional commercial acumen but also on one's capacity to use the transformative power of information technology. despite the acknowledged importance of both entrepreneurial competencies and it competence, the precise nature of their relationship and the mechanisms through which they influence microenterprise success still need to be explored, particularly in the context of the guilan province, located in northern iran. hence, this study investigates how entrepreneurial competency and microenterprise business success are interconnected with the mediating role of it competency in order to fill this knowledge gap (hadi & abdullah, 2018; marei et al., 2023). 2. literature review and hypothesis development entrepreneurial competence involves skills, knowledge, attitudes, and traits necessary for launching, managing, and growing a successful business. entrepreneurial competency, encompassing skills like opportunity recognition, strategic planning, and innovation, is crucial for navigating the competitive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 70 landscape and ensuring business sustainability(sakib et al., 2022). entrepreneurs with high competency levels are better equipped to manage resources, respond to market demands, and implement effective business strategies, leading to improved performance and growth. previous studies indicate that microenterprises benefit significantly from solid entrepreneurial competencies, which enhance their ability to adapt and thrive in dynamic environments (rahoo et al., 2023). moreover, research shows that these competencies are vital for building and maintaining a competitive edge, essential for business success in microenterprises (abdullah et al., 2018). by fostering innovation and improving operational efficiencies, entrepreneurial competency plays a pivotal role in driving the success of microenterprises. hence, the following hypothesis is made: h1: entrepreneurial competency has a positive effect on small and medium sized businesses success entrepreneurs with high levels of competency—encompassing skills such as strategic vision, innovation, and opportunity recognition—are more adept at integrating it solutions into their business models (umar & ngah, 2016). these competencies enable entrepreneurs to perceive the strategic advantages of it, such as enhanced operational efficiency, better customer engagement, and improved data management. several studies show that competent entrepreneurs are more likely to invest in and adopt advanced it systems, viewing them as critical tools for maintaining a competitive edge in the market. their ability to innovate and willingness to embrace new technologies drive this proactive it adoption. furthermore, entrepreneurial competency often involves a mindset oriented towards continuous improvement and agility, which aligns well with the dynamic nature of it advancements (abdul, 2019). thus, entrepreneurial competency significantly facilitates effective it adaptation, enhancing overall business performance and sustainability. as a result, it suggests the following proposition: h2: entrepreneurial competency has a positive effect on information technology adaptation it competency, which includes the ability to effectively utilize digital tools, manage information systems, and leverage online platforms, is crucial for enhancing microenterprises' operational efficiency and competitiveness (abubakre et al., 2022). small and medium sized businesses with high it competency can streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve customer engagement through better data management and communication technologies. research indicates that it competency enables small and medium sized businesses to innovate and adapt quickly to market changes, thereby gaining a competitive edge. furthermore, it competency facilitates access to broader markets and resources, which is vital for the growth and sustainability of small businesses. by integrating it solutions into their operations, microenterprises can enhance productivity, improve service delivery, and achieve better business outcomes, thus validating the positive impact of it competency on small and medium sized businesses success (marei et al., 2023). as a result, it suggests the following proposition: h3: information technology competency has a positive effect on small and medium sized businesses success. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 entrepreneurial competency, which encompasses innovation, strategic planning, and opportunity recognition, provides a strong foundation for effective business management (huang, 2011). however, the ability to leverage it competency can significantly amplify these competencies by enabling entrepreneurs to implement and utilize digital tools and technologies effectively. previous research suggests that it competency acts as a critical intermediary, enhancing the impact of entrepreneurial skills on business outcomes. entrepreneurs adept at identifying opportunities and innovating are better positioned to adopt and integrate it solutions, improving operational efficiency and market reach (zahoor et al., 2021). this integration allows businesses to streamline processes, optimize resource allocation, and respond swiftly to market dynamics. furthermore, it competency enhances the capability of microenterprises to manage information systems, utilize digital marketing, and engage with customers through online platforms, thereby reinforcing the positive effects of entrepreneurial competency on business success. thus, it competency is a vital link that strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial competency and small and medium sized businesses performance, highlighting its mediating role in driving business success (rahoo et al., 2023). hence, the following hypothesis is proposed: h4: information technology competency mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial competency and small and medium sized businesses success. figure 1. conceptual model of the study research methodology this research utilised a quantitative approach. the study's participants were small and medium sized businesses who had established their companies in the guilan province located in northern iran. the data collection was done with an adopted survey questionnaire from the available previous literature. convenience sampling was used to collect the data from march 15, 2024, to may 25, 2024. the responders were given a total of 150 questionnaires. after eliminating the 41 incomplete questionnaires, 209 correct responses were received and included in this study. all the item questionnaires were preferential competency small and medium sized businesses success information technology competency www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 measured with a five-point likert scale, which ranged from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. data analysis was done through spss and smart pls to examine the measurement model and structural model in the study. 4. data analysis and results 4.1 demographic characteristics of the respondents table 1. demographic information demographic items frequency percentage (%) gender female 60 28.7 male 149 71.3 age group 21 to 30 yrs 95 45.5 31 to 40 yrs 46 22 41 to 50 yrs 35 16.7 51 to 60 yrs 27 12.9 more than 60 yrs 6 2.9 educational qualification intermediate 7 3.3 graduate 131 62.7 post graduate 61 29.2 others 10 4.8 business types agro-based 58 27.8 handicraftbased 31 14.8 handicraft -based 17 8.1 service-based 44 21.1 textile-base 32 15.3 trade-based 27 12.9 job experience less than 5 yrs 72 34.4 5 to 10 yrs 75 35.9 11 to 15 yrs 46 22..0 11 to 15 yrs 44 21.1 table 1 above shows the demographic data of a sample group. there are 60 females (28.7%) and 149 males (71.3%). the majority of the group falls within the 21-30 years age range (45.5%), followed by the 31-40 years age range (22%). most participants hold graduate degrees (62.7%). the predominant business type is agro-based (27.8%). job experience is primarily less than ten years, with 34.4% having under five years and 35.9% having 5 to 10 years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 4.2. descriptive statistics of the constructs table 2: descriptive statistics of the constructs. variable(n=209) mean sd α skewness kurtosis enc etc mbs (1) entrepreneurial competency (enc) 4.234 0.829 0.905 -1.470 0.584 1 (2) information technology competency (itc) 4.345 0.737 0.823 -1.468 1.538 .266** 1 (3) small and medium sized businesses success 4.244 0.790 0.864 -1.740 1.812 .309** .316** 1 note: α: cronbach alpha; sd: standard deviation; ** correlation is significant at 0.01. table 2 outlines statistics and associations among three variables: entrepreneurial competency (enc) exhibits moderate variability, with a mean of 4.234 and a high reliability of 0.905. information technology competency (itc) shows slightly less variability (mean 4.345), with a good reliability of 0.823. small and medium sized businesses success correlates positively with enc (.309) and itc (.316), suggesting moderate relationships. overall, higher entrepreneurial and it competencies correspond to increased business success, with statistically significant correlations. 4.3. assessment of measurement model the measurement model in structural equation modelling is critical in establishing if the outer model—composed of factor loads, composite reliability (cr), and average variance extracted (ave)—is being measured correctly. furthermore, to evaluate discriminant validity in the measurement (outer) models, the heterotrait-monotrait (htmt) ratio (henseler et al., 2015) and the fornell and larcker (1981) criterion are applied. table 3: validity and reliability of the constructs. constructs items factor loadings α cr (rho_a) ave entrepreneurial competency (enc) enc1 0.863 0.907 0.911 0.727 enc2 0.838 enc3 0.835 enc4 0.867 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 enc5 0.861 information technology competency (itc) itc1 0.839 0.827 0.835 0.743 itc2 0.898 itc3 0.848 small and medium sized businesses success mbs1 0.853 0.864 0.87 0.71 mbs2 0.853 mbs3 0.856 mbs4 0.808 note: α: cronbach alpha; ave: average variance extracted table 3 provides statistical implications for assessing the measurement (outer) models used in the current study. for these evaluations, hair et al.(2020) state that factor loading should be at least 0.70 or higher and that cr and ave should be at least 0.70 and 0.50, respectively. the constructs enc, itc, and small and medium sized businesses success demonstrate strong internal consistency, with cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.827 to 0.907. composite reliability values, ranging from 0.835 to 0.911, also confirm the constructs' reliability. average variance extracted values, between 0.71 and 0.743, indicate the proportion of variance captured by the items in each construct. these results bolster the study's credibility by affirming construct validity and validating the measurement instruments. table 4: discriminant validity using fornell and larcker criterion. constructs enc itc mbs entrepreneurial competency (enc) 0.853 information technology competency (itc) 0.28 0.862 small and medium sized businesses success 0.315 0.32 0.842 note: the square root of average variance extracted (ave) is shown on a diagonal in bold. table 4 above depicts construct correlations and diagonal values representing the square roots of average variance extracted (ave). diagonal values (in bold) should exceed off-diagonal ones. here, diagonal values exceed off-diagonal ones, confirming satisfactory discriminant validity, as stated by fornell and larcker (2017). each construct's diagonal value (enc, itc, mbs) exceeds correlations with other constructs, validating their distinctiveness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 table 5: discriminant validity using htmt 0.8 criterion. constructs enc itc mbs entrepreneurial competency (enc) information technology competency (itc) 0.32 small and medium sized businesses success 0.352 0.373 in table 5 above, henseler et al.(2015) state that the htmt ratio for latent constructs should be smaller than 0.80 to have appropriate discriminant validity. in this case, all correlations fall below 0.8, ensuring satisfactory discriminant validity, as each construct demonstrates adequate differentiation from the others. 4.4. assessment of structural model the assessment of the structural equation model begins with the calculation of the coefficient of determination (r2) for each endogenous latent variable. table 6 below depicts the coefficient of determination(r2) of 0.157, indicating that enc and itc explained 15.7 per cent of the overall variance of small and medium sized businesses success. meanwhile, r2 of 0.079 shows that enc explained 7.9 percent of the overall performance of itc. the assessment model of predictive relevance (q2) values of small and medium sized businesses success and itc were 0.834 and 0.708, respectively. hence, the values of the endogenous variables in the model indicate the predictive relevance. additionally, the study found the effect size (f2) of the independent variables of enc has a weak impact on small and medium sized businesses success (0.065) and itc (0.085), respectively, in the model. similarly, mbs has also been impacted by itc (0.069). table 6: coefficient of determination (r2), predictive relevance (q2) and effect size (f2) constructs r-square qsquare fsquare decision mbs 0.157 0.834 itc 0.079 0.708 0.069 weak enc 0.065a; 0.085b weak; weak note: ambs; bitc www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 figure 2. pls algorithm results for the assessment of the structural model table 7. hypothesis testing result of direct effect: structural model hypothesis relationship β t -statistics p -values decision h1 enc-> mbs 0.245 3.251 0.001 accepted h2 enc -> itc 0.280 3.554 0.000 accepted h3 itc -> mbs 0.251 3.130 0.001 accepted note. enc: entrepreneurial competency, itc: information technology competency, small and medium sized businesses success. in the current study, the bootstrapping method was used with 5000 re-samples for the hypothesis testing. the statistical measures of tstatistics and p-values were employed to ascertain the acceptance of a hypothesis. in the above table 7 and figure ii, the results demonstrated that enc has a direct and positive effect on mbs (β = 0245, t-stat. =3.215, p< 0.001) and itc (β=0.280, t-stat.=3.552, p< 0.000). furthermore, the result showed that itc has a positive effect on mbs (β=0.251, t-stat.=3.130, p< 0.001). the results confirm the three direct hypotheses (h1, h2, h3), as evidenced by the high path coefficient, t-statistics> 1.96, and pvalue < 0.05 with bootstrapping of 95% confidence interval. as a result, this study substantially affects all direct effects. the results show that information technology competency plays a mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial competency and micro-business enterprise success, and this relationship is positively and significantly correlated. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 77 table 8. mediating hypothesis testing of indirect effect: structural model hypothesis relationship β t-statistics p -values decision h4 enc -> itc-> mbs 0.070 1.962 0.027 accepted note. enc: entrepreneurial competency, itc: information technology competency: small and medium sized businesses success. in table 8, the result shows that the indirect effects hypothesis refers to the mediator. in assessing the result of one mediating hypothesis, the result revealed that itc mediates between enc and small and medium sized businesses success (β= 0.070, t-stat.= 1.962, p-value =0.027). hence, the mediating hypothesis (h4) was supported. it was found that itc increased mbs, but enc directly impacted small and medium sized businesses success and itc. it was also revealed that itc acted as a mediator between enc and small and medium sized businesses success, confirming its role in the research model. 5. discussion to gain a better understanding, this study investigated crucial variables that underpin entrepreneurial competencies (enc) and small and medium sized businesses success, as well as the mediating role of information technology competency (itc) in this relationship. this study's findings confirmed the hypothesis (h1) that entrepreneurial competency (enc) impacts small and medium sized businesses success. the confirmation of the hypothesis that entrepreneurial competency impacts small and medium sized businesses success reinforces established theories and empirical evidence in the field of entrepreneurship (lovely et al., 2021). it affirms the notion that individual entrepreneurs' capabilities and characteristics significantly influence their ventures' performance and outcomes (umar & ngah, 2016). next, the finding of hypothesis (h2) of the study, which established a positive relationship between entrepreneurial competency (enc) and the adoption of information technology (itc) in microenterprise businesses, aligns with previous research in the field of entrepreneurship (huang, 2011). this positive effect emphasizes the pivotal role of enc in shaping entrepreneurial behaviours and decisions regarding technology adoption in microbusiness enterprises (lovely et al., 2021). as a result, they are better equipped to understand the benefits of integrating information technology into their operations and navigate their business. moreover, the study highlights the impact of itc adeptness as a channel for exchanging technological knowledge and best practices among their peers (ahmadi & letter, 2021). by leveraging their itc skills, they facilitate collaborative learning environments where information technology adoption is encouraged and supported. this integration of itc and knowledge-sharing accelerates the diffusion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 78 technological innovations within the microenterprise sector, contributing to overall digital readiness and competitiveness. furthermore, the study investigated the proposition outlined in hypothesis (h3), which suggests a positive relationship between information technology competency (itc) and small and medium sized businesses success. this finding underscores the crucial role of technology proficiency in driving the success of small and medium sized businesses in today's digital landscape (abdul, 2019). information technology competency encompasses a spectrum of skills, ranging from basic digital literacy to more advanced abilities in utilizing software, online platforms, and data analytics tools. small and medium sized businesses success that possess a higher level of itc are better equipped to adapt to technological advancements, capitalize on digital opportunities, and address challenges in an increasingly competitive market environment (ferreira et al., 2022). the research findings provide convincing evidence to support the hypothesis (h4), which posits that information technology competency (itc) serves as a mediator in the relationship between entrepreneurial competency (enc) and small and medium sized businesses success (yustian et al., 2021). this implies that the extent to which entrepreneurs are influenced by their ability to leverage information technology effectively impacts their business outcomes. entrepreneurs who are well-connected with itc may have greater access to information, resources, and opportunities related to technology adoption and innovation (agbenyegah & mahohoma, 2020). this access enables them to develop and enhance their information technology competency, which, in turn, translates into improved business performance and success. recognizing the mediating role of itc emphasizes the importance of incorporating digital literacy and technology training into entrepreneurship programs. entrepreneurs with strong information technology competency are better positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the digital economy and remain competitive in an increasingly interconnected world. 6. implications of study the implications of these findings extend to entrepreneurs, policymakers, and stakeholders involved in fostering microenterprise development. entrepreneurs should prioritize investing in technology training and skill development to enhance their digital capabilities and remain competitive in the business. policymakers and support organizations should prioritize initiatives that promote technology training, facilitate knowledge-sharing platforms, and foster a culture of digital innovation within the microenterprise sector. by investing in technology education and support, stakeholders can empower micro-entrepreneurs to harness their full potential and drive sustainable business success in the digital era. 7. conclusion this study has examined the impact of entrepreneurial competency (enc) and information technology competency (itc) on small and medium sized businesses success in the guilan province located in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 northern iran. the findings of the study showed that enc directly and positively affect the itc and small and medium sized businesses success. additionally, the finding revealed that itc positively impacts small and medium sized businesses success. therefore, the impacts of this study are significant for all direct relationships. further, the results of one mediating relationship revealed that itc mediates the relationship between enc and small and medium sized businesses success, which is in support of the mediating relationship. hence, this study shows that microbusiness enterprises need to prioritise enc and adapt itc competency to improve and sustain the small and medium sized businesses success. the study examined the impact of entrepreneurial competency on business success, adding to the body of knowledge while integrating itc competency. the path analysis's results verified that information technology and entrepreneurial competency were the cornerstones of small and medium sized businesses success and directly and indirectly influenced their ability to succeed as business enterprises. all business enterprises, especially those in the microenterprises sector, must integrate it competency. this study's findings emphasize the critical importance of entrepreneurial and information technology competencies in driving microenterprise business success. further, the study highlights the pivotal role of both entrepreneurial competency and information technology competency in steering the success trajectory of small and medium sized businesses success. with the rapid advancements in technology and the increasingly interconnected global economy, leveraging information technology has become advantageous and necessary for small and medium sized businesses success to remain competitive and sustainable. moreover, the synergy between entrepreneurial competency and information technology competency creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and growth. entrepreneurs who embrace technology not only enhance their operational efficiency but also unlock new opportunities for value creation and differentiation in the market. by fostering a culture of continuous learning and adaptation, microenterprises can leverage information technology as a strategic asset to fuel their growth aspirations and achieve long-term success. 8. limitations of the study and scope for future research this study was carried out in the guilan province located in northern iran. small and medium sized businesses success sector may limit the applicability of findings to more significant geographic regions. future research should be undertaken on how entrepreneurial and it competencies impact micro-enterprise success over time and across diverse sectors and regions for the generalisability of findings. investigating demographic influences, emerging technologies, policy support, education, and training effectiveness can reveal tailored strategies to enhance micro-enterprise performance, providing valuable insights for practitioners and policymakers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 80 references ab hamid, m. r., sami, w., & sidek, m. m. 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(2021). entrepreneurial competencies and alliance success: the role of external knowledge absorption and mutual trust. journal of business research, 136, 440-450. abstract 1.introduction 2.literature review and hypothesis development research methodology 4.2. descriptive statistics of the constructs 4.3. assessment of measurement model table 4: discriminant validity using fornell and l 4.4. assessment of structural model table 7. hypothesis testing result of direct effec 5. discussion 7. conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper ananalysis of the mechanism and optimization strategies of the impact of college students’ social media experience on subjective well-being yan chengying1* 1* yan chengying (1987-), digital business college sichuan university of science and technology, chengdu, sichuan 611745, china, 1551451690@qq.com received: august 19, 2025 accepted: october 22, 2025 online published: november 06, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p1 abstract the current academic research on the correlation between social media and subjective well-being exhibits two notable features: on one hand, a large number of empirical studies focus on the impact of usage frequency and problematic usage behaviors on users’ psychology; on the other hand, there is still a significant lack of research on the association mechanism between different usage patterns of social media (such as active sharing and passive browsing) and subjective well-being, and the existing conclusions are highly divergent. based on this research gap, our research team has constructed a multi-dimensional analysis framework to systematically examine the differentiated impacts of different social media usage behavior patterns on users’ subjective well-being and their internal mechanisms. keywords social media, subjective well-being, mechanism of influence, optimization strategies 1. introduction in the contemporary digital society, social media has become a significant factor influencing public mental health, and its association with subjective well-being exhibits multi-dimensional complexity. a large number of empirical studies have shown that the use of social platforms can both build social capital by enhancing emotional connections through instant communication and expanding the boundaries of interpersonal networks, providing users with real-time emotional resonance and information support; it may also induce psychological depletion effects, manifested as anxiety states caused by excessive consumption of attention resources, self-cognitive biases resulting from continuous social comparisons, and decision fatigue caused by information overload. with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 2 widespread use of social media, more and more studies have shown that the use of social media may have an impact on individuals’ subjective well-being. some research indicates that the use of social media can enhance people’s social support and communication, thereby improving their subjective well-being. for example, online self-disclosure can increase people’s information support and emotional support, while social media also provides people with a broader social circle and increases opportunities for social interaction. however, some studies have shown that the use of social media may bring negative effects to subjective well-being. for instance, excessive use of social media may lead to time waste, anxiety, depression, and other problems; excessive information on social media may cause people to feel pressure and unease because processing this information requires more time and energy. the time and frequency of social media use may also have an impact on subjective well-being. moreover, different types of social media usage may have different effects on subjective well-being. for example, the subjective well-being resulting from active use of social media (such as: actively posting information and interacting with others), usually leads to greater improvement compared to passive use of social media (such as: browsing others’ updates and watching advertisements). in summary, the impact of social media use on subjective well-being is a complex issue, and it may vary depending on individuals and usage methods. how to better utilize social media to enhance individuals' subjective well-being and better understand this impact requires further research on the usage methods of different types of social media and the influence of different individual characteristics on subjective well-being. therefore, this article aims to study the impact of different social network usage methods and different individual characteristics on subjective well-being, and explore the specific mechanisms involved. 2. the concept definition 2.1 the active and passive use of social media the study of social media interaction behaviors has become an important topic in the digital age. it specifically refers to the entire process in which users utilize modern internet platforms and tools to establish interpersonal connections, share content, and maintain social relationships. current academic research has gone through three progressive stages: initially focusing on basic usage indicators (such as frequency of visits, duration, and intensity); mid-term shifting to the binary classification of usage patterns (active participation type and passive reception type); and recently deepening to the micro-analysis of specific interaction behaviors (including core dimensions such as self-disclosure and immediate feedback). active usage emphasizes the role of users as content creators and initiators of interactions, while passive usage is manifested as information consumption and observing behavior. this classification system provides a key analytical framework for understanding the complexity of digital social interactions. the act of actively participating in social media interactions is defined as an active usage pattern of social platforms. this behavioral characteristic is mainly manifested in aspects such as users’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 3 spontaneous establishment of social connections, creation and sharing of multimedia content (including text and image status updates and short video releases), participation in topic discussions, and real-time communication exchanges. this two-way interaction process actually constitutes a closed-loop system for content production and consumption: while users create original content, they must also continuously receive and process the information feedback from other users. this cognitive interaction is the fundamental requirement for achieving effective social communication. passive social media behavior specifically refers to the behavior pattern where users obtain information in a digital social environment in a one-way manner without participating in interaction. this usage method essentially represents a “spectator state” users acquire information by browsing dynamic updates, consuming visual content, or tracking news feeds, while remaining in a state of zero interaction. this behavior pattern has three core characteristics: firstly, it manifests as a purely information input process, where users exist solely as content recipients without generating any output; secondly, it has a covert feature, as users’ browsing trajectories and behavior data such as duration of stay often cannot be detected by other users; thirdly, it exhibits a non-linear browsing characteristic, where users typically receive aggregated content pushed by platform algorithms in a fragmented manner, rather than targeted information acquisition for specific objects. this one-way information consumption pattern, although reducing social pressure, may lead to negative effects such as social isolation and information overload for users. in contemporary research on digital social media, scholars commonly employ the binary analysis method to deconstruct user behavior patterns, systematically dividing them into two dimensions: active participation and passive consumption. empirical studies on the facebook platform (gerson et al., 2017) indicate that active usage can be further subdivided into social-oriented interactive behaviors (such as instant messaging and comment interaction) and non-social-oriented content creation behaviors (such as publishing original content); while passive usage mainly manifests as information browsing behavior, including following social circle updates and consuming media content. with the development of the chinese social media ecosystem, chen et al. (2019) based on the uniqueness of wechat, a super application, modified the original scale and constructed a more targeted measurement framework. this model decomposes wechat usage behavior into four sub-dimensions: the active social dimension (such as initiating private chats, interaction in the wechat moments), the active non-social dimension (such as submitting to public accounts, creating video accounts), the passive social dimension (browsing contact dynamic information), and the passive non-social dimension (reading news push, consulting enterprise account information). this classification not only reflects the diversity of social media functions but also reveals the psychological motivations and behavioral characteristics of users in different usage scenarios, providing a reliable theoretical framework and measurement tool for subsequent media effect research. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 4 2.2 the subjective well-being subjective well-being (swb) serves as a core indicator for measuring an individual’s mental health status. essentially, it reflects the deep-level cognition and evaluation system of human beings regarding the value of their own existence. from the perspective of psychological measurement dimensions, this complex construct comprises two core elements: the first is a cognitive assessment system based on rational judgment, manifested as an individual’s overall judgment of life quality; the second is an emotionally reactive system with significant volatility, represented by the alternation between positive and negative emotions. the emotional dimension, due to its high sensitivity to immediate environmental stimuli, often exhibits significant temporal variation characteristics. this dynamic nature makes this indicator exhibit complex measurement characteristics in cross-cultural research. 3. the social media and subjective well-being 3.1 the active social media usage and subjective well-being from the perspective of social psychology, the compensatory function of social media has constructed a unique self-realization domain for individuals with social anxiety. empirical studies based on the social compensation theory framework show that when individuals strategically disclose themselves in the digital space, this mediated interaction not only effectively compensates for the deficiencies of offline social interactions, but also generates significant psychological benefits by establishing deep emotional connections. according to the social compensation hypothesis of network usage, social networks create a platform that enables individuals lacking social confidence to pursue goals and desires that may be difficult to achieve in real life. on this platform, people present themselves through self-representation, not only without weakening interpersonal relationships in reality, but also helping to deepen friendships with others, enhancing individual happiness, and helping them reduce negative emotions such as loneliness, depression, and anxiety. when people actively use social media, they reduce concern about others’ opinions of themselves and strive to continuously increase positive self-representation and have intimate and pleasant communication with others, thereby helping to enhance the happiness of users. a meta-analysis indicates that interactions, self-expressions, and entertainment on social networks are associated with better happiness. the results of a longitudinal study of four waves over two years show that higher levels of active social media use lead to a reduction in depressive symptoms among female adolescents. experimental research has found that posting status updates on facebook helps participants feel closer to friends every day, thereby reducing loneliness. therefore, active social media use positively predicts happiness. 3.2 the passive social media use and subjective well-being according to social psychology research, when individuals lack objective evaluation criteria, they will use the social comparison mechanism to assess their own viewpoints and abilities. such comparisons occur not only at the parallel level but also include upward (compared with more outstanding individuals) and downward (compared with poorer individuals) dimensions. the characteristics of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 5 modern social media particularly tend to trigger upward social comparisons because users usually meticulously shape their online image and selectively showcase the highlights of their lives. according to the social comparison theory, whether it is opinions or abilities, as long as there is no objective physical basis for evaluation, the subjective judgment of the correctness of opinions and the subjective accurate evaluation of one’s own abilities depend on how a person compares with others, that is, in the absence of objective, non-social means, people make evaluations of their viewpoints and abilities by comparing their abilities with others, that is, through social comparison, people evaluate themselves. the direction of social comparison is not limited to parallel social comparison but also includes downward social comparison and upward social comparison. among them, upward social comparison refers to when an individual compares themselves with better people in certain aspects. because others on social media spend a lot of time optimizing their online self-presentation, disclosing positive emotional experiences, and presenting a better impression of emotional health, when people use social media passively, they constantly pay attention to others’ states and tend to compare themselves with others, and most of it is upward social comparison. the cross-lagged structural equation model indicates that passive facebook use can significantly predict an increase in social comparison levels after 6 months, and is inclined to upward social comparison. experimental studies have shown that participants who watched others’ exciting and thrilling experiences (experimental condition) reported more upward social comparison than those who watched natural landscape documentaries (control condition). thus, passive social media use is positively correlated with upward social comparison. and upward social comparison also has a negative impact on happiness. research shows that when one is in an upward social comparison with others, one will experience an unpleasant feeling of being inferior to others. according to the self-enhancement envy spiral model (when users face others’ positive self-presentations, they will feel envy, which may lead users to imitate others’ more positive self-presentation on social media, creating an additional basis for others to feel envy, forming a vicious cycle, strengthening the positive and false atmosphere on social media, and causing greater risks to the user’s happiness over time. when users use social media passively, people do not contact others but only consume the content posted by others, reading status updates, watching pictures, and browsing news sources. content consumption on social networks is the main way of passive social media use. analysis shows that consuming social network content is related to poorer well-being; compared with downward comparison and control, upward social comparison has a general negative impact on the self-evaluation, emotions, and subjective well-being of social media users. a longitudinal study found that facebook use predicts upward social comparison, and over time, it will damage personal self-efficacy and happiness after 4 months. experimental research found that over time, passive use of facebook leads to a decrease in emotional well-being; upward social comparison and envy emotions are the causes of loneliness, having a negative impact on subjective well-being. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 6 4. the research design 4.1 the research method as a leading online research service platform in china, questionnaire star holds a significant market position in the field of data collection. academic research indicates that questionnaire surveys based on the internet possess notable methodological advantages. they not only can overcome geographical limitations to obtain large sample data, but also can ensure the reliability and validity indicators of the research through standardized questionnaire design processes. according to the discussion in the classic management literature “methodology of management research”, the convenient sampling method (convenience sampling) is a typical non-probability sampling technique. its core feature lies in that researchers select individuals who are accessible as the research subjects. although this method has limitations in statistical inference, it has significant characteristics of being operationally convenient and cost-effective, especially suitable for exploratory research and the initial data collection stage. a total of 504 valid questionnaires were collected this time. among them, 259 were from females (51.4%) and 245 were from males (48.9%). in terms of age, the largest number was among those aged 20-23 (41.5%). regarding educational background, the largest number was among those with a bachelor’s degree (55.8%) (see table 1). table 1. the demographic characteristics variable option percentage age 16 to19 years old 31.0% 20 to 23 years old 41.5% 24 to 27 years old 18.8% above 27 years old 8.7% gender male 48.9% female 51.4% education junior college 20.4% bachelor 55.8% master 22.0% doctor 1.8% 4.2 the research tool 4.2.1 the wechat usage intention scale the measurement of active social media usage adopts the wechat active usage scale developed by gerson et al. (2017) and revised by chen and zhi (2019). it consists of a total of 6 items and 6 dimensions. the dimensions include: active social usage (social interaction) and active non-social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 7 usage (content creation). active social usage includes 3 measurement items: “chatting with wechat friends”, ""participating in group chat on wechat”, “giving likes or comments on friends’ status photos or videos”, etc.; the latter includes 3 measurement items: “posting status on the wechat moments”, “posting photos on the wechat moments”, “posting videos on the wechat moments”. the scale uses a likert-5-point scoring system, where 1 = never (0% of the time), 2 = rarely (25% of the time), 3 = sometimes (50% of the time), 4 = somewhat frequently (75% of the time), 5 = very frequently (100% of the time). the higher the score, the greater the degree of active social media usage. this scale does not have reverse-scored items. the cronbach’s α value of the active social media usage measurement in this study is 0.860. 4.2.2 the overall subjective well-being scale the measurement of subjective well-being adopts the overall subjective well-being scale developed by diener (2000) and revised by yan shibin (2006). the overall subjective well-being consists of 5 items such as “please evaluate the degree of happiness/unhappiness you experienced yesterday”. it is scored on a 9-point scale, with the options ranging from ""1 = extremely unhappy” to “9 = extremely happy”. the second question is a reverse-scored question, with higher scores indicating higher levels of well-being. the cronbach’s α value of this measurement is 0.84. 4.2.3 the wechat passive usage scale the measurement of passive social media usage adopts the wechat passive usage scale developed by gerson et al. (2017) and revised by chen and zhi (2019), consisting of 5 items, divided into two dimensions: passive social usage and passive non-social usage. passive non-social usage includes two measurement items: “simply viewing the articles of public accounts (excluding likes, comments, and sharing)” and “logging into wechat to view the updates of public account content”; passive social usage includes three measurement items: “viewing the status of friends’ posts”, “photos or videos (excluding likes, comments)” “logging into wechat to observe what friends are doing”, and “viewing the friends’ posts (the homepage page of friends)”. this article retains the likert-5 point scoring system, with 1 = never (0% of the time), 2 = rarely (25% of the time), 3 = sometimes (50% of the time), 4 = somewhat frequently (75% of the time), 5 = very frequently (100% of the time). there are no reverse scoring questions. the cronbach’s α is 0.89, and the reliability and validity are good. 4.2 the research results this article uses spss software to analyze the relationship between social media and subjective well-being. 4.3.1 the active social media usage and subjective well-being the research on the relationship between active social media usage and subjective well-being is presented in table 2. as can be seen from table 2, the coefficient of active social media usage and subjective well-being is 0.54, and it is significant at the 1% level, indicating that active social media usage can positively predict subjective well-being. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 8 table 2. the relationship between active social media usage and subjective well-being variable the subjective well-being b se t active social media usage 0.54 0.04 14.46*** age 0.04 0.05 1.17 gender 0.05 0.06 1.56 education -0.03 0.05 -0.48 r2 0.30 f 47.17*** the college student group can significantly enhance their subjective sense of happiness by actively using social media platforms. this conclusion not only validates the social compensation theory assumption in digital media usage, but also reveals the positive correlation mechanism between online interaction and psychological well-being through empirical data. in-depth analysis shows that when individuals actively participate in social media interactions, they can effectively build a better social relationship network and obtain social recognition through positive self-display strategies, thus forming a positive psychological benefit process. based on this research, it is suggested that the education authorities should collaborate with family and school forces to carry out systematic measures such as digital literacy education and optimizing campus network culture construction, guiding students to establish a healthy social media usage pattern, and ultimately achieving the educational goal of promoting the mental health development of young people. the government can introduce relevant policies and regulations, on the basis of protecting users’ privacy rights, which can encourage social media platforms to provide more ways and opportunities for users to promote self-expression and social interaction; impose more restrictions and regulations on users, while also giving users more space for free expression. to effectively strengthen the education management of college students, educational institutions should adopt diversified management strategies, focusing on improving students’ digital literacy. they can conduct regular security lectures on network safety, offer elective courses on media literacy, etc., to systematically cultivate students’ ability to use social media correctly, enabling them to master key skills such as privacy protection and information discrimination while fully leveraging the positive role of social media in knowledge acquisition and academic communication. educators should also encourage students to actively share their learning achievements and disseminate positive content in appropriate scenarios, such as professional communities and academic platforms. this guidance can not only enhance students’ expression ability but also promote the internalization and practical application of knowledge. through building a positive interaction mechanism, students can gradually www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 9 improve their information processing ability, critical thinking level, and digital collaboration awareness, ultimately achieving a comprehensive improvement in their overall quality. it is beneficial for families to provide corresponding guidance to their children on using social media. parents can strengthen communication and interaction with their children, guide them to use social media correctly, understand what they think, do, and say on social media, encourage them to share their thoughts. and they should focus on teaching children how to correctly use the internet for purposeful communication and interaction. 4.3.2 the passive social media use and subjective well-being the relationship between passive social media usage and subjective well-being is shown in table 3. from table 3, it can be seen that the coefficient of passive social media usage and subjective well-being is -0.46, and it is significant at the 1% level, indicating that passive social media usage can negatively predict subjective well-being. table 3. the relationship between passive social media usage and subjective well-being variable the subjective well-being b se t passive social media usage -0.46 0.07 -11.89*** age 0.04 0.07 1.15 gender 0.08 0.03 1.49 education -0.02 0.07 -0.19 r2 0.32 f 37.68*** in the contemporary higher education environment, social media has become an integral part of students’ daily lives. research shows that when students passively browse social media content, they are prone to fall into the cognitive trap of “upward social comparison”, that is, they tend to compare themselves with those who seem more successful among their peers. such comparisons are often based on unrealistic reference standards because the personal displays on social platforms are usually carefully curated and deliberately beautified. long-term negative social comparisons not only undermine an individual’s self-identity but also significantly reduce their subjective happiness index, and even trigger mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. to alleviate this phenomenon, it suggests a two-pronged intervention strategy: at the individual level, it should cultivate students’ active participation in social media usage habits, and establish more meaningful social connections through real online interactions; at the social level, educators and psychological counseling institutions need to carry out targeted media literacy education to help students develop critical thinking and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 10 rationally view the idealized content display on social media, thereby building a healthier online social ecosystem. to ensure the orderly operation of the market economy and the healthy development of social psychology, government departments should start from the two dimensions of system construction and cultural guidance: on the one hand, they should improve the market competition supervision system and introduce forward-looking anti-unfair competition regulations, focusing on regulating new scenarios of social comparison such as social media algorithm recommendations, and by setting negative lists for comparison behaviors, improving data compliance audits, etc., to curb vicious social comparisons at the source; on the other hand, they need to build a multi-level social cognition education project, collaborate with academic institutions to develop social comparison psychological assessment tools, embed comparison cognitive courses in the basic education stage, and continuously output the value concept of "differentiated growth" through mainstream media, guiding the public to establish a scientific self-evaluation coordinate system. this comprehensive governance requires the establishment of a social mentality monitoring and early warning mechanism. when a specific group shows abnormal anxiety index for comparison, it should timely start psychological intervention and employment counseling and other precise services. schools should also expand the educational management approaches for students, by conducting ideological education and psychological counseling activities, helping students establish healthy self-awareness and self-values, and avoiding blind pursuit of certain aspects of comparison; for students’ different characteristics and needs, it should implement personalized education plans, provide diversified courses and activities, reduce single-standard comparison and competition, and at the same time encourage students to develop their own strengths and interests, and enhance self-confidence and self-worth. family members should establish close relationships and a trusting family atmosphere, reduce excessive comparison with other individuals for children; parents should pay more attention to their children’s inner qualities and abilities, guide children to use comparison goals as a driving force for progress, enhance the assimilation effect of upward social comparison, and weaken the contrast effect. 5. the conclusion this study is based on theories such as transpersonal communication theory, self-determination theory, social capital theory, interpersonal interaction model, social comparison theory, and optimistic explanatory style theory. it combines cross-sectional research to explore the mechanism of the effect of social media usage on subjective well-being. the main conclusions are as follows: active social media usage positively predicts subjective well-being. the higher the frequency of users’ active social media usage, the higher the corresponding level of subjective well-being. passive usage negatively predicts well-being. the higher the frequency of users’ passive usage, the lower the corresponding level of well-being www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 11 references ban, y. f., lu, l. x., chen, y. q. et al. 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(2022). the relationship between interpersonal forgiveness and mental health in adolescents: the multiple mediating roles of anger and subjective well-being. chinese journal of clinical psychology, 26(5), 987-991. liang, x., & wei, l. (2008). a preliminary study on the measurement of college students’ online social support. psychological science, 31(3), 689-691. wang, l., & hu, i. (2023). research on ethnic education, 2023(4), 1-8. wang, y. g., dai, x. g., & yao, s. (2010). the preliminary development of the chinese big five personality questionnaire i: theoretical framework and reliability analysis. chinese journal of clinical psychology, 18(5), 545-548. yang, z., & hao, c. i. (2022). research on loneliness in wechat use: a perspective based on the multiple mediation comparison model. journal of communication and broadcasting, 75(5), 37-51. zhang, s., & liu, z. (2022). the impact of upward social comparison on college students’ sleep quality in social networks: the roles of online social anxiety and optimistic personality. chinese journal of health psychology, 30(11), 6. zheng, w., huang, t., zhang, y. et al. (2023). the big five personality and subjective well-being of chinese people: a meta-analysis of local research in the past 20 years. chinese journal of clinical psychology, 31(3), 71-722. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 70 original paper parents financial distress and time allocation with youths responsible for increasing trends of risky behaviours among youths in mumbai metropolitan region dr. sanjay rode1 1associate professor and head of department, somaiya vidyavihar university, maharashtra, india received: may 27, 2024 accepted: july 11, 2024 online published: august 06, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p70 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p70 abstract youths are powerful economic agent for any nation. an educated, healthy, hardworking youths are human asset for nation, society, and family in long term. youths must have trained with quality education. it is job of government, families, and society to ensure that they will acquire maximum skills, knowledge, healthy behaviour, nutritional status. but male youths are driving four wheelers and female drive two wheelers without proper license and trend is increasing since 2013 to 2023. the smoking, alcohol consumption has increased among males. youths are more depressed in region. they fight physically more and do not eat healthy diet. the incidence of risky behaviours became double in a decade. few youths involved in multiple sex with opposite sex relationship with lack of understanding and use of contraceptives. logistic regression model 2013 survey shows that multiple risky behaviours are co-related to youths walk to college, spend more time in college, travel by train and car. but 2023 survey, shows that multiple risky behaviours are co-related to age of youths, loans taken by parents. the role of parents is important in controlling risky behaviours such as risky driving, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, depression, and opposite sex relationship. parents must teach youths nutritious food habits, traffic rules, no smoking and alcohol, physical fight. long term policies for youths and parents required to reduce risky behaviours on urgent basis in mumbai metropolitan region. keywords behaviour, sanitation, health introduction there is an increasing trend of risk-taking behaviour among adolescents in india, but little empirical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 71 evidence exists on its determinants (agrawal & praveen, 2012). the risky behaviour, including illegal drug use, gambling, tobacco and alcohol use, delinquency, inappropriate aggressiveness and violence, school failure, and unsafe sexual activity; however, many studies focus on only one type of risky behaviour. many adolescents, however, participate in more than one type of risk behaviour, and the combined effect of participation in multiple behaviours is concerning (youngblade et al., 2006). the multiple risk behaviour and condition often exist together in the same individual, adding cumulative risk for poor health outcomes in later stages (maurya & priya, 2023). the risky behaviours among youths affect wellbeing of their life prospects. youths do not have capacity of thinking through different problems. factors associated with risk behaviours in adolescence health since they are significantly associated with several risk behaviours in adolescence. (bozzini et al., 2021). every day they come across different problems. but they do not have knowledge of alternative options available. attitude of the youths towards risky behaviour is own decision-making process. most of the time, they fail to solve different problems because they underestimate the situation. maximum youths have problems with emotional control. youths may overreact by allowing emotional states to resolve various uncertainties. the volatility in mood is a characteristic of youths with positive and negative swings in moods. it is an adolescent period where emotional, physical, psychological development takes place of youths. maximum youths discount their future too much. youth preferences are time inconsistent and not based on facts. one activity is engaged into some extent, the marginal risk from additional engagement is lower. the risky activities are highly enjoyed by youths in region. they find out that if the risk in any activity is higher than they thought, they engage more because they have already borne the cost. that is why youths involved in driving, smoking, alcohol drinking, physical fighting, and undernutrition. youths have high preferences for few activities than adults that create negative externalities. the sex relationship among young female is related to teenage pregnancy or aids. it may be because they are crazy for it or to impress peer group. youths have day to day fluctuations in taste and preferences. peer pressure temporarily influence their preferences for food, smoking drinking wine, physical fighting etc. the negative life events and some of personal and social competencies – cooperation and communication, empathy, self-awareness, and self-efficacy are associated to risk behaviours. adolescents that present higher levels of negative life events or lower levels of these competences’ present higher levels of disruptive behaviour (celeste et al., 2012). trade-off is existing as short-term benefit and long-term cost of possibilities. for example, theft results into jail for youth. smoking and drinking are related to future, health, and job prospects among youths. there are two types of youths in society. the sophisticated youths are fully aware of their future self-control problem, and they correctly predict how themselves will behave. the navie youths are fully unaware of their future self-control problem. driving of two and four-wheeler is an inherently risky activity. in modern times, the youths are more dependent on automobiles. for small distance, they required two and four wheelers. maximum teens are aggressive drivers of two and four wheelers in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 72 region. they are less likely to use safety equipment’s such as seat belt for four-wheeler and helmet for two-wheeler. in accidents, youths’ error is a single vehicle crash issue. youth do not wear seatbelts or drive after drinking wine. they are those youths who take others health at risks through smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and physical fighting. youths do not have financial resources that they can use to influence other people. youths’ consumption always exceeds their income. risky behaviours among youths in mumbai metropolitan region: mumbai is a financial capital of country. families are earning high income based on education and experience. both parents are earning high income and enjoying high standard of living in region. youths are going to colleges, and they are out of house from morning till evening due to college, tuition, gym, sports etc. they meet different types of friends every day. youths drive vehicles of parents, friends, relatives etc. few do not have learning licence. those have two and four wheelers licence often drive fast on street. few youths are regularly using vehicles to go to college, visit friends and relatives’ house. during driving to different places, they supposed to wear helmet for two-wheeler and wear seatbelt for four wheelers. but they do not wear seatbelt or helmet. it may lead to accident and youth may stop learning in colleges. they need to spend time in hospital. it is very expensive affair for the family. youths often smoke cigarettes at streets. they smoke while driving four wheelers. it may lead to health issues among youths. youths drink alcohol and drive four wheelers. it may lead to accident and loss of life. they should not race of vehicle of highway. it may lead to accident and loss to vehicle and injury to youth. youths have reported major accidents on highways and injury to them. the rich parents smoke in front of youths. cigarettes are lying on the table in bedroom or hall of flat. youths take such cigarettes and smoke. they feel that parents support their smoking. the peer influence clearly plays a very significant role in adolescent smoking (sen & basu, 2000). their friends also provide them cigarettes and they smoke. smoking every day may affect their lung. youths have depression due to stress of study, health issue, home level issue but it does not mean that they must smoke cigarettes. youths often say that they have depression and anxiety. it may be due to study, travel, etc. youths those fail to concentrate in study involved in number of other activities. they consume drugs which they try to get it from friends at lower price. if they do not get from friends at lower price. they borrow money from friends and order drugs. if some delay is getting drugs, they fight physically with them. it becomes the matter of police. they may put them in jail and study of youths may get affect. they go to doctor and get medicines but that is not enough. they may attempt suicide. it is big hardship for family to take care of such youths. youths have friendship with different personalities, school/college level friends, tuition, jym and other types of friends. most of the time friendship is related to practical things. they often fight on different issues such as betting, money lending, night parties, picnics, tourism etc. physical fight is so severe that it may end up in police station. the youths need immediate medical help. girls are assaulted by young people. they often carry chili powder or paper spray to fight with stranger. police case is registered by youths in such cases. youths do not prefer homemade food. they often have inertia to eat nutritious food. may be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 73 due to less knowledge, peer group pressure, they prefer hotel food. families provide cash as pocket money. they buy burger, pizza, street food which is less nutritious. they often feel weak and fall sick. doctors’ medicines and less quality food, stress of study effects on youth. they feel weak and do not study regularly. it reduces their total scores obtained and grades. youths fail in their study. they visit doctor for weakness and other issues. doctors provide medicines but youths do not take medicines on time. youths often involved in opposite sex attraction. they spend more time outside of house. youths get involved with multiple sex partners. they do not have knowledge of condoms/pills. it may lead to pregnancy among young girls. due to access of mobile and internet, youths watch porn movies. few youths are forced to watch such movies. once they watch such movies, they become habitual to watch it and act accordingly. such youths do not concentrate on study often drop out and fail to complete study. major objective of the study is to understand risk behaviours among youths. the risky behaviours have increased over the period. the study also aims to examine the smoking cigarettes, driving vehicles and eating behaviours among youths. youths often feel depressed and do not eat properly. it is adversely effect on their health. data and methodology: for this study, we collected primary data of youth’s risky behaviours and their family background in mumbai metropolitan region. the primary data was collected from 1002 youths in 18-25 age group from mumbai, thane city, thane district in february to march 2013. again, after ten years, the primary data was collected from june to december 2023. total 776 youths’ data is collected randomly from 18-25 age group from metropolitan region. we covered mumbai, mumbai suburbs and thane district. figure 1. mumbai metropolitan region for data analysis, we have classified the youths from central, western and eastern suburbs, thane city and thane district based on responses of schedule. youths’ family background is used for analysis of data in region. in both surveys, the youths asked different questions related to driving vehicles, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 74 smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, physical fight, depression, malnutrition, and sexual relationship. we analysed both survey data in excel and spss@24 of different risky behaviours according to suburbs of region such as central, western and eastern suburbs, thane, and thane district. we have used r software for logistic regression analysis to find different corelation with risky behaviour among youths. a logistic regression model is used to find the socio-economic and demographic reasons behind the risky behaviours among youths. logistic model is also used to pool whole sample together with multiple risks among youths in region. multiple risks among youths are further regressed on socio-economic and demographic variables. economic model: we have developed economic model for various risky behaviours among youths in region. (1) youths are willing to add utility by consuming various items. wellbeing of youths depends on utility, and it is related to consumption of goods and services. (2) utility depends on the discount factor between two period as d1 and d2. youth learn to take risk and reduce the cost after practice of it. (3) cost of utility depends up on the discount factor for youths. youths think and take maximum risk. (4) profit earning by youth is difference between cost and return to youth. as they take more risk, cost declines and benefit increase but it increases of risk to their health. cost -risk ratio youth have to accept. but few youths have self-control to accept only particular risk where self control <0. risky behaviours are modelled as follows. (5) where driving licence (dl), injured while driving (iwd), wear seatbelt and helmet (wsh), drive on highway (dh), racing on highway (rh), major accident (ma), receive call while driving (rcd), smoke while driving (swd), alcohol and drive (ad), drink and drive (dd). ) (6) smoking is supported by parents (psp), smoke every day (sed), other tobacco products (otp), smoke due to depression (sdd). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 75 (7) depression is related to medical help (mh), attempted suicide (as), consume drug (cd) (8) physical injury is related to treatment due to physical fight (tpf), police case (pc), molestation (m), assaulted (a), carry paper spray (cps) (9) malnutrition is related to malnutrition issue (mi), weakness in study (ws), visit doctor (vd), home-made food (hmf), junk food (jf) (10) sexual behaviour is related to multiple sex partners (msp), used contraceptives (uc), unwanted pregnancy (up), rti/sti knowledge (rsk), sex education (se), forced sex relation (fs), watched porn movies (wpm), forced to watch porn movies (fwm) risky behaviours among youths every youth in region must live healthy life and study well. they must eat nutritious food, travel safely, and learn good skills to live happy life. they must focus on academic achievements and develop their carrier. they must get employment and live happy life. but youths in mumbai metropolitan region are not focused well on their study but they are involved in number of risky activities. we have studied the youth’s behaviour for a decade and carried two surveys. we compared the two surveys statistics of risky behaviours and analysed the few risky behaviours among youths in region. they are explained in more detail as follows. table 1. riskey behaviours among youths in 2023 and 2013 (percent) type of risky behaviours 2023 2013 male female total male female total drive two wheelers 14.24 54.55 37.26 36.3 43.73 39.21 drive four wheelers 38.58 13.08 32.57 21.78 20.97 21.46 smoke cigarettes 24.70 11.75 17.26 13.86 8.95 11.93 alcohol consumption 37.31 22.45 28.87 12.54 10.99 11.93 depression and anxiety 64.56 63.49 63.96 23.1 48.59 33.09 physical fight 51.51 26.05 37.14 23.26 33.5 27.28 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 76 sexual involvement 17.82 13.52 15.39 10.23 5.88 8.52 malnourished 26.69 24.40 26.01 9.57 22.5 14.64 source: primary survey. we can observe that the youths driving two wheelers is almost similar in 2013 (39.21 per cent) and 2023 (37.26 percent). the boys are driving two wheelers less (36.30 per cent) in 2013 and 2023 (13.08 percent). two wheelers are easy to make balance and drive slowly. the girls drive it immediately and slowly on any road. total youths driving four wheelers was 21.46 per cent in 2013. but in 2023, it is observed as 32.57 percent. the number of four wheelers have increased after covid 19. male youths learn to drive four wheelers very easily and practice it. youths those were smoking in 2013 was 11.93 percent but in 2023, it is observed as 17.26 percent. the smoking among boys increased from 13.86 percent to 24.70 percent. due to stress and tension, the incidence could be increasing in region. the alcohol consumption among youths was 11.93 percent in 2013. but in 2023, it is observed as 28.87 percent. it became more than double over the ten years among youths. alcohol consumption among youths have increased very fast in region. alcohol consumption increased among boys from 12.54 percent to 37.31 percent. it means it has increased three times among males. there are number of reasons for it. for girls, it has increased from 10.99 percent to 22.45 percent from 2013 to 2023. after covid 19, most of the youths have observed that the parents take alcohol in front of them depression level among youths increased from 23.1 percent to 64.56 percent. it is due to fees payment, transport cost and food habits and stress of study, future job. for girls, it has increased 48.59 percent from 2013 to 63.49 percent in 2023. girls are equally stressed as compared to boys in region. overall depression level among youths have increased from 33.09 percent to 63.96 percent over the period. it became almost double within ten years. physical fights among youths were 27.28 per cent in 2013. but in 2023, it is observed as 37.14 percent. the physical fight among boys doubled from 2013 to 2023. youths involved in sexual relationship was 8.52 percent in 2013. but in 2023, it is 15.39 percent. the involvement of boys increased from 10.23 percent to 17.82 percent. the girl’s involvement increased from 5.88 percent to 13.52 per cent. girls’ involvement has increased more than double over the period of study. incidence of malnourishment was 16.64 per cent in 2013 but in 2023, it is observed as 26.01 per cent. malnourishment incidence among boys increased from 9.57 per cent to 26.69 per cent from 2013 to 2023. for, girls, the incidence has not changed much. the incidence of alcohol consumption, depression and anxiety, physical fight, sexual involvement, and malnourishment has increased among youths in region. therefore it required detail study of such risky behaviours among youths in region. drive of vehicles by youths in region: risky driving behaviours are common among young people, particularly among young males prone to externalising behaviours (substance abuse, crime, and affiliations with deviant peers). risky driving is strongly linked to traffic accident risk (fergusson, 2003). youths drive two and four wheelers in region. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 77 they do not wear hell mate during drive of two wheelers and wear seatbelt to drive four wheelers which is dangerous to their life. accidents can take place due to heavy traffic on road. table 2. driving behaviour among youths in region of 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f two wheelers 25.7 1 56.1 2 10.1 7 52.87 17.02 62.2 2.78 40.74 11.57 52.0 3 four wheelers 38.5 7 21.9 5 40.6 8 12.98 36.17 11.32 30.5 6 22.22 40.5 11.49 both type 10.0 0 6.16 6.78 6.11 8.51 3.77 11.11 0.00 6.61 3.38 driving licence 52.8 6 24.3 9 55.9 3 28.79 68.09 24.5 3 80.5 6 29.63 59.8 4 22.3 0 injured while driving 31.4 3 20.7 3 33.9 9.85 48.94 24.5 3 41.6 7 11.11 46.7 2 24.3 2 wear seatbelt and helmet 74.2 9 55.5 6 69.4 9 46.97 74.47 45.2 8 72.2 2 51.86 75.4 1 45.2 7 drive on highway 61.4 3 39.0 2 67.8 34.85 74.47 24.5 3 80.5 6 44.44 80.3 3 26.3 5 racing on highway 27.1 4 14.6 3 27.1 2 5.30 21.28 0.00 25.0 0 3.70 28.6 9 5.41 major accident 8.57 8.54 1.69 1.52 2.13 1.89 2.78 7.41 9.02 3.38 receive call while driving 28.5 7 10.9 8 40.6 8 22.73 36.17 15.0 9 52.7 8 3.72 55.7 4 16.8 9 smoke while driving 2.86 2.44 5.08 0.00 8.51 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.74 0.00 alcohol and drive 2.86 1.23 8.47 1.52 6.38 3.77 0.00 0.00 0.82 1.35 drink and drive 4.29 1.23 1.69 0.76 2.13 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.64 2.03 source: as per table one. in western suburbs, 25.71 per cent male drive two wheelers but in eastern suburbs 62.2 per cent female drive two wheelers. female drive two wheelers because it is very easy to make balance. comparatively less traffic observed at eastern side of region. in central suburbs, 40.68 per cent male drive 4 wheelers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 78 nearly 22.22 percent female drive four wheelers in thane city. boys easily drive four wheelers in region. they quickly learn the driving of four wheelers and parents easily give access to four wheelers to them. nearly 11.11 per cent boys drive both type of vehicles whereas 6.11 per cent female drive two types of vehicles. in thane city, 80.56 per cent and 29.63 per cent female had driving licence. in eastern suburbs, 48.94 per cent male and 24.35 per cent female injured while driving vehicle. due to traffic and new learner could be the cause of accidents. total 55.56 per cent female from western suburbs and 75.41 per cent male from thane district wear seatbelt and helmet while driving 4 and 2 wheelers. from thane city, 80.56 per cent male and 44.44 per cent female drive on highways. the 28.69 per cent female and 14.63 per cent male are racing the car on highways. total 9.02 per cent male from thane district and 8.54 per cent female from western suburbs said that they had major accident in past. they could have not drove vehicle properly. around 8.51 per cent male from eastern suburbs and 2.44 percent female from western suburbs said that they smoke while driving. it is a very bad habit, but they are doing it while driving vehicles. from central suburbs, 8.47 per cent male and 3.77 per cent female from eastern suburbs took alcohol and drove vehicle. around 4.29 per cent male from western suburbs and 2.03 per cent female said that they drink and drive vehicles regularly. the numbers of female are very less those drink and drive vehicles but still it is concern for parents and police in region. the 2013 survey shows that from western suburbs, 36.84 per cent female and 58.12 per cent male from thane city drive two wheelers. nearly, 44.44 per cent male from western suburbs and 19.54 per cent female drive four wheelers from thane city. total 49.25 per cent male and 28.74 per cent female had licence of two wheelers. the 38.89 per cent male from western suburbs and 14.94 per cent female from thane city had licence of four wheelers. it is very low percentage of youths those have driving licence. there could be two reasons for it. one is that they would have not applied and got it, or they are not serious to get it. but it is a serious offence to drive vehicle without proper driving licence. nearly 61.11 per cent male from western suburbs and 28.19 per cent female from thane city drove vehicle of friend. table 3. driving of youths in mmr for 2013 (percent) drive western central eastern thane city thane district m f m f m f m f m f drive two wheelers 50.20 36.84 47.55 31.33 50.10 21.67 58.21 33.33 54.32 29.69 drive four wheelers 44.44 15.79 32.84 15.5 29.03 16.67 26.87 19.54 25.93 7.81 license of two-wheeler 33.87 10.53 35.78 14.39 33.87 11.67 49.25 28.74 30.86 15.63 license of four-wheeler 38.89 10.53 27.45 10.33 30.65 6.67 26.87 14.94 19.75 3.91 vehicle of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 79 friend 61.11 21.05 52.45 25.83 48.39 13.33 58.21 27.59 58.02 28.91 parent 44.44 26.32 39.71 26.94 35.48 20.22 41.79 40.23 32.1 23.44 relatives 38.89 15.79 40.2 19.19 30.65 11.67 29.85 20.69 44.44 18.75 injured while driving 5.56 15.79 21.57 15.5 22.58 8.33 23.88 12.64 22.22 16.41 wear seatbelt/helmet 50.20 36.84 50.49 32.1 40.32 25.50 58.21 39.08 48.15 19.53 drive on highway 27.78 15.79 37.75 16.24 38.71 15.32 46.27 22.99 39.51 14.06 racing on highway 27.78 10.53 13.73 3.32 11.29 0.00 14.93 4.62 9.88 3.13 major accident 16.67 5.26 9.8 5.54 6.45 0.00 4.48 2.35 7.41 4.69 smoke and drive 0.00 5.26 5.39 1.11 8.06 0.00 1.49 0.00 4.94 1.56 alcohol and drive 0.00 5.26 3.92 1.85 6.45 1.67 1.49 2.38 3.78 0.78 drink drive accident 5.56 10.53 3.92 2.21 4.84 1.67 2.99 2.32 3.74 0.78 source: as per table one. in 2013 survey, we found that total 44.44 per cent male from western suburbs and 40.23 per cent female from thane city drove vehicles of parents. youths have very easy access to vehicle of parents. total 44.44 per cent male from thane district and 20.69 per cent female from thane city drive vehicles of relatives. most of the times, relatives come home with vehicles and youths get chance to drive vehicles. nearly 23.88 per cent male from thane and 16.41 percent female injured while driving vehicles. without proper training and practices, such accidents are expected among youths. total 39.08 percent female and 58.12 per cent male from thane city wear seatbelt helmet while driving vehicles. total 46.27 per cent male and 22.99 per cent female from thane city drove vehicle on highway. the 27.78 per cent male and 10.53 per cent female from western suburbs had racing on highway. it is dangerous to life of youth, but they are doing it. total 16.67 per cent male from western suburbs and 5.54 per cent female from central suburbs had major accident while driving vehicles. lack of practice and not followed proper rules and regulation of traffic could be the reasons behind accidents among youths. around 5.26 per cent male and 8.06 per cent female from eastern suburbs had smoke and drive the vehicles. nearly 6.45 per cent male from eastern suburbs and 5.26 per cent female from western suburbs had alcohol and drove vehicle. it is dangerous activity of youth and could affect on others life too. around 5.56 per cent male and 10.53 per cent female from western suburbs drink and drive and had accident. it could be an error of youths. smoking cigarettes by youths in region youths smoke cigarettes due to peer pressure, depression. they do not know the health effect due to smoking but due to peer pressure they smoke cigarettes. it effects on their lungs and respiratory system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 80 in long term (aslam z et.al 2023). the incidence of smoking cigarettes by youths is presented in following table. table 4. smoke related issues among youths, 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f ever smoke cigarettes 17.14 13.58 13.56 9.09 27.66 20.75 36.11 14.81 29.51 8.11 parents support smoking 11.43 6.17 5.08 6.82 8.51 3.77 5.56 3.76 9.02 5.41 smoke every day 5.71 6.17 5.08 0.00 8.51 1.89 5.56 0.00 6.56 2.72 other tobacco products 0.00 1.23 3.39 0.76 10.64 1.89 2.78 0.00 7.38 1.35 smoke due to depression 0.00 2.46 5.71 1.52 6.78 11.32 8.51 7.41 8.33 4.73 source: as per table one. there is a true connection between anxiety, depression, and smoking cigarettes. smoking exists in most people suffering from stress, anxiety, and depression. people suffering from anxiety and depression have many possibilities of smoking initiation after suffering some stressful events. moreover, smokers with depression and anxiety can easily become addicted to smoking (grapatsas et al., 2017). nearly 36.11 per cent male from thane city and 20.75 per cent female from eastern suburbs were ever smoker of cigarettes. boys from thane city, smoke more cigarettes as compared to girls. total 11.43 per cent male and 6.82 per cent female had parents support smoking. youths either take money or cigarettes from parents and smoke. they could be rich parents and not recognising the health impact of smoking among youths. from western suburbs, 6.17 per cent female and 8.51 per cent male from eastern suburbs were smoking every day. the 10.46 per cent male and 1.89 per cent female from eastern suburbs were consuming other tobacco products. around 8.51 per cent male from thane city and 11.32 per cent female from eastern suburbs were smoking due to depression. table 5. smoking among youth in mmr in 2013 (percent) smoke western central eastern thane thane city m f m f m f m f m f smoking 11.11 10.53 18.63 6.64 27.42 3.33 13.43 4.66 22.22 7.03 because of friend 11.11 5.26 17.16 5.54 20.97 1.67 17.91 4.68 16.05 6.25 parents 0.00 0.00 0.98 0.37 4.84 1.67 1.49 1.15 2.47 1.56 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 81 relatives 0.00 0.00 1.47 0.00 4.84 0.00 1.49 0.00 2.47 1.56 accompany 11.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 12.9 0.00 11.94 3.45 3.75 0.78 parent support 11.11 0.00 1.47 0.00 4.84 1.67 0.00 1.15 1.23 1.56 family share 5.56 0.00 6.86 0.37 8.06 0.00 4.48 0.00 1.23 1.56 friends gives cigarettes 11.11 5.26 0.00 0.00 14.52 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 depression 5.56 0.00 6.86 1.11 9.68 1.67 4.48 1.15 7.41 2.34 chew tobacco 5.56 5.26 1.47 0.00 3.23 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 the 2013 survey shows that 10.53 per cent female from western suburb and 27.42 per cent male from eastern suburbs smoke regularly. males are smoking more cigars as compare females. the 20.97 per cent male from eastern suburbs and 6.25 per cent female from thane city were smoking because of friends. their friends provide cigarettes, so it is a peer pressure responsible for smoking. around 4.84 per cent male and 1.67 per cent female from eastern suburbs were smoking due to parent’s support smoke. nearly 5.26 per cent female from western suburbs and 14.52 per cent male from eastern suburbs smoke cigarettes because friends give cigarettes. the 2.34 per cent female from thane smoke cigarettes due to depression. now a days, youths often say they have depression due to number of reasons. but youths should not smoke cigarettes whatever could be reason. alcohol consumption by youths youths should not be allowed to drink alcohol. it effects on their academic performance, and they may score very low marks. but youths do not listen to their parents, teachers, and relatives. they visit to weekend night parties where they come across the drinking of alcohol and smoking cigarettes. table 6. an alcohol consumption by youths in region in 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f never 70.65 81.48 79.66 83.33 68.09 73.58 63.89 66.67 67.21 82.43 rarely 18.57 12.35 15.25 9.09 17.02 16.98 13.89 18.52 12.3 9.46 occasionally 11.43 6.17 5.08 7.58 14.89 9.43 22.22 14.81 19.67 7.43 regularly 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.82 0.68 source: as per table one. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 82 the 2023 survey shows that 79.66 per cent male and 83.3 per cent female from central suburbs said that they never had alcohol. but 18.57 per cent male from western suburbs and 18.52 per cent female from thane city had rarely had alcohol consumption. the 22.22 per cent male and 14.81 per cent female from thane city said that they had occasionally had alcohol. during birthday and weekend parties, few youths plan alcohol parties. from thane district, 0.82 per cent male and 0.68 per cent female had regular consumption of alcohol. they must stop alcohol consumption because it affect on their academic performance. table 7. alcohol consumption in mmr in 2013 (percent) drink alcohol western central eastern thane city thane district m f m f m f m f m f alcohol consumption 22.22 15.79 16.67 4.06 16.13 3.33 14.93 14.94 22.22 10.94 health problem 5.56 0.00 4.41 0.00 1.61 0.00 4.48 0.00 2.47 0.78 sex after drink alcohol 5.56 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.49 1.15 4.94 0.78 contraceptive use 0.00 0.00 1.96 0.00 4.84 1.67 0.00 1.15 6.17 0.78 drink drive accident 0.00 0.00 0.49 0.74 1.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.72 0.00 the 2013 survey shows that from western suburbs, 15.79 per cent female from western suburbs and 22.22 per cent male from thane district had alcohol consumption. it is a concern of youth’s consumption of alcohol consumption. the 5.56 per cent male from western suburbs and 0.78 per cent female from thane district had health problem due to alcohol consumption. the 5.56 per cent male from western suburbs and 1.15 per cent female from thane city had sex after drinking alcohol. nearly 1.67 per cent female from eastern suburbs and 6.17 per cent male from thane district had contraceptive use after drinking alcohol. nearly 3.70 per cent male from thane district and 0.74 percent male from central suburbs had drink, drive, and accident issue. it is a serious issue among youths in region. mental health and subsistence use by youths: youths must be healthy and positive for their future carrier. but youths in region are always in pressure to study, find internship, jobs, help parents etc. few youths do not compete with their peer group and find low interest in study. parents have youths’ expectation of their study and future assignments. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 83 table 8. mental health and issues with students in 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f hopeless or sad sometimes 58.57 85.19 67.8 77.27 80.85 81.13 72.22 81.48 84.43 83.78 medical help 18.57 28.42 17.24 15.63 23.91 21.15 13.89 11.54 21.31 27.78 an attempt to suicide 5.71 16.05 5.17 10.16 6.52 13.46 2.78 15.38 8.26 17.36 consume drugs 14.29 0.00 5.26 0.00 4.35 1.96 0.00 0.00 7.38 4.17 mental health and tobacco consumption 18.57 1.23 8.47 4.55 21.28 9.43 5.56 7.41 20.49 6.08 health problem due to alcohol 10.56 3.72 8.47 0.76 10.64 5.66 5.56 0.00 14.75 4.05 source: as per table one. total 84.43 per cent male from thane district and 85.19 per cent female from western suburbs said that they feel hopeless sometimes. from eastern suburbs, 23.91 per cent male and 28.4 per cent female from western suburbs had medical help for mental health issue. nearly 8.2 per cent boys and 17.36 per cent female from thane district said that they made attempt to suicide due to mental health problem. there could be number of issues related to mental health problem among youths. from western suburbs, 14.29 per cent male and 4.17 per cent female from thane district consuming drugs to reduce the mental health issue. in eastern suburbs, 10.64 per cent male and 5.66 per cent female had health problem due to tobacco. it is not good decision to consume tobacco or tobacco related products by youths. in thane district, 14.74 per cent male and 4.05 percent female had health problem due to alcohol consumption. in the thane district, 20.49 per cent male and 6.08 per cent female had mental health and tobacco consumption. youths body is not suitable for alcohol consumption. they may find more health issues after consuming alcohol. it is also affecting on their academic performance. table 9. mental health issue among youths in 2013 (percent) depression western central eastern thane thane district m f m f m f m f m f www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 84 sad/hopeless 55.56 42.11 29.9 26.57 29.03 40.66 31.34 44.83 37.04 36.72 occasional depressed 33.33 15.79 18.63 19.93 19.35 33.33 20.9 36.78 32.1 26.56 medical treatment 0.00 0.00 6.37 4.43 3.23 3.33 2.99 4.68 7.41 6.25 suicide tried 0.00 0.00 5.39 4.06 6.45 3.33 0.00 5.75 6.17 7.03 drugs to relive depression 0.00 0.00 1.96 1.48 6.45 0.00 0.00 1.15 2.47 0.78 source: as per table one. from western suburbs, 55.56 per cent male and from thane city and 44.83 per cent female had sad/hopelessness issue which is seen in 2013 survey. nearly 33.33 per cent male from western suburbs and 33.33 percent female from eastern suburbs had issue of occasional depression. it is also affecting their thinking and work, study, and performance. from thane district, 7.41 per cent male and 6.25 per cent female from thane took medical treatment for mental health. eastern suburbs 6.45 per cent male and 7 percent female said that they tried suicide due to depression from central suburbs. it is a step they took due to different reasons of depression but finally saved themselves. nearly 6.45 per cent male and 1.48 per cent female from eastern suburbs took drugs to relive depression. physical fight among youths in region: youths fight physically with other youths on different issues. they meet different friends and people in the region. the reasons could be financial, personnel and others. table 11. physical fight and related factors in 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f physical fight 45.71 28.4 49.12 28.13 52.17 29.41 47.22 26.92 57.38 21.53 physical injury 30 14.81 31.58 12.5 32.61 7.84 19.44 7.69 34.43 10.42 treatment due to physical fight 22.86 6.17 12.28 3.13 32.61 1.96 5.56 7.69 27.87 5.56 police case 1.43 2.47 3.51 0.78 2.17 0.00 2.78 0.00 2.46 0.00 molestation 7.14 33.33 3.51 17.19 4.35 27.45 5.56 26.92 8.20 29.17 assaulted 8.57 9.88 5.26 12.5 2.17 13.73 8.33 3.85 6.56 12.5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 85 carry paper spray 12.86 28.4 10.53 19.53 6.52 37.25 13.89 19.23 5.74 34.03 source: as per table one. as per 2023 survey, nearly 29.41 per cent female from eastern suburbs and 57.38 per cent male from thane district had physical fight in past. total 34.43 per cent male from thane district and 14.81 per cent female from western suburbs had physical fight. the 3.51 per cent male from central suburbs and 2.47 per cent female from western suburbs had police case due to physical fight. nealy 33.33 per cent female from westen suburbs said that they had molestation cases. total 13.73 per cent female from eastern suburbs and 8.57 per cent male from western suburbs said that they had assault in past life. around 34.03 per cent female and 13.89 per cent male said that they carry paper spray due to molestation and assaults. most of the time, strangers in the region identify youths and touch them and argue with them. it happens with female in city during travel in local trains and buses. table 12. physical fight among youths in 2013 (percent) physical fight western central eastern thane thane city m f m f m f m f m f with friends 33.33 26.32 34.80 20.3 30.65 18.33 29.85 28.74 30.86 27.34 injured 11.11 15.79 23.04 7.01 16.13 8.33 11.94 8.05 20.99 12.52 police case 5.56 5.26 5.88 2.21 0.00 1.67 1.49 2.38 3.76 1.56 medical treat 0.00 0.00 5.39 3.69 4.84 5.00 7.46 2.36 7.41 3.13 the 2013 survey shows that around 34.08 per cent male from central suburbs and 28.74 per cent female from thane city said that they had physical fight with friends. around 23.04 per cent male from central suburbs and 15.79 per cent female from western suburbs said that they injured in physical fight. total 5.88 percent male from central suburbs and 5.26 per cent female from western suburbs said that they had police case due to physical fight. around 7.41 per cent male from thane city and 5 percent female from eastern suburbs said that they had medical treatment due to physical fight. the physical fight was very severe that they had no choice but to visit hospital and take medical care. malnutrition among youths in region: youths in region do not eat balanced diet. they wake up early in morning and take breakfast in canteen or at street. they eat local items which does not guarantee of minimum calories and protein. at the same time cost, hygiene and cleanliness is another issue. at afternoon, they eat at canteen. they do not carry homemade food. outside food is not nutritious and it deteriorate their health. such youths have stress of study and less time to focus on health. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 86 table 13. malnutrition and its effects among youths in 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f malnourished 16.67 24.71 37.93 27.87 27.27 23.53 25.90 22.22 28.21 23.45 malnutrition related issue 30.33 35.80 35.09 42.19 39.13 47.06 30.56 57.69 36.89 45.83 weakness in study 50.50 76.25 56.14 67.19 67.39 72.55 62.86 69.23 68.85 70.83 visit doctor 27.14 36.25 21.05 31.25 17.39 25.49 11.43 26.92 22.13 34.72 eat home-made food 80.25 81.18 77.97 84.09 70.21 75.47 83.33 74.07 79.51 80.41 eat junk food 20.60 14.12 18.64 12.88 27.66 20.75 16.67 22.22 20.49 16.89 source: as per table one. from 2023 survey, we can observe that in central suburbs, 37.93 per cent male and 27.87 per cent female were malnourished. but 39.13 per cent male from eastern suburb and 57.69 percent female from thane city had malnourishment related issue. around 68.85 per cent male from thane district and 76.25 per cent female from western suburbs visited doctor due to malnourishment issue. 27.66 per cent male from eastern suburbs and 22.22 per cent female from thane city said that they eat junk food regularly. outside food is mainly responsible for the poor health outcome among youths in region. table 14 malnutrition issue in mmr with youths in 2013 (percent) nutritional status western central eastern thane city thane district m f m f m f m f m f malnourished 44.44 36.84 19.12 23.99 3.23 6.67 10.45 8.05 2.47 3.91 any physical problem 5.56 0.00 10.29 8.49 3.23 18.33 5.97 12.64 7.41 10.94 weakness 22.22 21.05 23.53 22.14 12.94 40.20 20.9 21.84 40.74 25.78 health care facility 11.11 0.00 14.71 16.24 4.84 23.33 8.96 14.94 11.11 14.06 treatment taken 5.56 0.00 5.88 7.01 0.00 15.50 5.97 9.28 9.88 6.25 ihome made 88.89 84.21 96.57 96.31 93.55 91.67 91.04 93.15 95.06 91.41 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 87 food outside food 27.78 10.53 39.71 38.38 33.87 36.67 44.78 39.08 41.98 44.53 in 2013 survey, it is found that 44.44 per cent male and 36.64 per cent female had malnutrition issue from western suburbs. from central suburbs around 10.29 per cent male and 18.33 per cent female from eastern suburbs had physical problem due to malnutrition. they might be feeling physically weak due to malnutrition. youths had high malnutrition issue in thane district. total 40.74 per cent male and 25.78 per cent female had weakness due to malnutrition. around 14.71 per cent male from central suburb and 23.33 per cent male from eastern suburbs had health care visit due to malnutrition. they have no choice but to visit health care facilities due to weakness. only 9.88 per cent male and 15 per cent female took treatment from doctor due to malnutrition issue. only 9.88 per cent male and 15 per cent female took treatment due to malnutrition issue. most of the youth avoid going to the doctor and take medicines for weakness and malnutrition. from central suburbs, 96.57 per cent male and 96.31 per cent female took home made food. relationship status of youths in region youths have different types of friends. few are from college, residential colony and past school and college etc. we have asked friendship and sexual behaviour of youths in past life. the youths expressed their relationship with opposite sex. table 15. relationship status among youths in 2023 (percent) suburbs western central eastern thane city thane district sex m f m f m f m f m f single 64.29 71.25 63.16 64.84 45.65 58.82 60 61.54 54.92 70.14 engaged with opposite sex 25.71 22.5 31.58 25.78 41.3 41.18 28.57 30.77 40.98 24.31 married 4.29 5.30 1.75 3.13 4.35 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.08 involved in sexual relations 14.29 10.50 15.79 12.5 21.74 21.57 14.29 11.54 20.49 13.89 multiple sex partners 10.30 2.51 12.28 2.34 10.87 11.76 5.71 0.00 7.38 6.94 used contraceptives 12.86 7.55 12.28 7.81 10.87 13.73 11.43 7.69 14.75 10.42 unwanted pregnancy 0.00 1.25 0.00 1.56 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.39 rti/sti 47.14 67.56 29.82 49.22 41.33 54.92 40.50 57.69 55.74 61.11 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 88 knowledge sex education 70.20 62.50 64.91 82.81 76.09 80.39 74.29 69.23 73.77 70.14 forced sex 5.71 1.25 1.75 6.25 2.17 3.92 2.86 3.85 1.64 6.25 watched porn movies 34.29 18.75 31.58 20.31 54.35 31.37 37.14 19.23 55.74 29.86 forced to watch porn movies 4.90 4.29 2.75 1.75 8.25 13.04 4.92 5.71 12.41 17.21 source: as per table one. the 2023 survey shows that from western suburbs, 64.29 per cent male and 71.25 per cent female were single. but 41.3 per cent male and 41.18 per cent female said that they are engaged with opposite sex. only 5 per cent female from western suburbs and 4.35 per cent male from eastern suburb were married. youth do not get married early because they are taking education. nearly, 21.74 per cent male and 21.57 per cent female were involved in sexual relationship from eastern suburbs. around 12.28 per cent male from central suburbs and 11.76 per cent female from eastern suburb had multiple sex partners. around 10.87 per cent male and 13.73 per cent female from eastern suburbs said that they had contraceptives during intercourse. 1.56 per cent female from central suburbs said that they had unwanted pregnancy. total 55.74 per cent male from thane district and 67.5 per cent female from western suburbs had rti/sti knowledge. we found that 73.77 per cent male from thane district and 82.81 per cent female from central suburbs had sex education. total 6.25 per cent female from central suburbs and 5.71 per cent male from western suburbs said that they forced for sex. it is a serious concern for female. total 55.74 per cent male and 29.86 per cent female from thane district said that they watch porn movies. at the same time, 12.41 percent male and 17.24 per cent female from thane district had forced to watch to porn movies. they should not watch such movies and must report to parents against it. table 16. relationship status of youths in mmr during 2013 (percent) sexual behavior western central eastern thane thane city m f m f m f m f m f boyfriend/girlfriend 33.33 26.32 29.41 19.93 24.19 18.33 37.31 37.93 29.63 26.56 broken affair 5.56 5.26 14.71 8.49 14.52 5.00 16.42 25.29 18.52 14.06 sex in past 5.56 5.26 14.22 3.69 14.52 6.67 13.43 2.32 17.28 4.69 now sex activity 16.67 0.00 9.31 2.21 11.29 3.33 7.46 4.60 6.17 2.34 single/multiple 5.56 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 contraceptive use 5.56 0.00 4.41 0.00 4.84 1.67 5.97 0.00 2.47 0.78 know rti/sti 77.78 47.37 60.78 54.61 62.9 61.67 56.72 56.32 66.67 52.34 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 89 know hivaids 88.89 52.63 57.84 49.08 53.23 58.33 50.75 60.92 67.9 51.56 health problem 5.56 0.00 3.92 2.58 1.61 0.00 4.48 4.66 4.94 3.13 forced sex 5.56 0.00 5.39 2.58 4.84 3.33 5.97 1.15 8.64 0.78 porn watched 61.11 21.05 33.82 13.28 46.77 15.25 43.28 18.39 46.91 14.84 forced to watch 5.56 0.00 8.82 4.43 8.06 5.00 10.45 5.75 16.05 7.81 the 2013 survey shown that from thane city, 37.31 per cent male and 37.93 per cent female had girlfriend/boyfriend. nearly 18.52 per cent male from thane district and 25.29 per cent female from thane city had broken affair. due to social media the number of affairs among male and female youths are increasing and they are breaking it also. total 17.28 per cent male from thane district and 6.67 percent female from easten suburbs had sex in past life. they do not have knowledge of contraceptives, and rti/sti issue. around 6.67 per cent male from western suburbs and 4.6 per cent female from thane city had never sex in past life. from eastern suburbs, 1.67 per cent female and 5.97 per cent male from thane city had sed the contraceptives in the past. only 77.78 per cent male from western suburbs and 61.67 per cent female from eastern suburbs had known rti/sti. total 88.89 per cent male from western suburbs and 60.92 per cent female from thane city known about hiv/aids. around 61.11 per cent male and 21.05 per cent female from western suburbs declared that they are watching porn movies. but 16.05 per cent male and 7.81 per cent female from thane district said that they forced to watch porn movies. logistic regression model: a logistic regression model (greene w. 2018) is defined as follows. (11) where zi is a linear sum of α and β1 plus β2 times x2 and so on up to βk times xk. in above equation, α and β are intercept and slope. the z is an index that combines of x’s. (12) we can substitute z in the right-hand side for z to get z equal 1 over 1 plus e minus the quantity α plus the sum of β1x1 for i ranges from 1 to k. therefore, the logistic model is written as (13) such model is used for different type of risk and multiple risky behaviours. the independent variables are socio-economic and demographic variables. the logistic regression results are presented in following table. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 90 table 17. driving behaviours of youths in metropolitan region 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test age -0.14**(0.06) 4.53 sex 0.42* (0.06) -6.04 sex -0.92**(0.33) 7.40 hours in college 1.12*(0.06) 2.23 work after college -0.86**(0.36) 5.69 help in hh 0.58*(0.13) -2.23 help parents -1.52**(0.50) 9.02 per capita income 1.00*(0.00) 2.70 total members in family 0.14**(0.72) 5.05 slums 0.74*(0.08) -2.44 per capita income 0.00**(0.00) 3.91 computer 1.61*(0.35) 2.23 age did you learn driving 0.22*(0.02) 89.37 car 2.34*(0.37) 5.28 driving licence 3.60*(0.49) 52.45 bike 1.27*(0.15) 2.06 wear seatbelt helmet 0.82**(0.31) 7.14 log likelihood = -593.58961 pseudo r2 = 0.1046 lr chi2 = 138.63 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 drive on highway 1.89*(0.36) 26.67 racing on highway -1.85**(0.64) 8.39 receive call while driving. 0.86**(0.43) 3.93 alcohol and drive -1.86**(0.88) 4.43 constant 2.25***(1.59) 2.00 -2 log likelihood= 337.31 cox & snell r2= 0.58 nagelkerke r2 =0.79  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses.  from 2023 survey, driving among youths is negatively corelated with age of youths in region. older youths are 86 per cent less likely to participate in driving vehicles. the female drives less as compare male. females are 8 per cent less likely to participate in risky driving. therefore, sex is negatively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 91 co-related with driving of vehicles by youth. youths those driving vehicles do not work after college hours. nearly 14 per cent youth participated in risky behaviours less likely to work after college hours. therefore, it is negatively corelated with the work after college hours. those youths drive vehicles do not help parents in households’ tasks. nearly 52 per cent youth involved in driving less likely help parents. they are from rich background therefore do not help parents in household tasks. total members in family are positively co-related youths those driving vehicles. those youths are driving then 3.6 times more likely to have licence of driving. the members in family teach them how to drive vehicles. therefore, more members in family are positively corelated with youth driving in city. per capital income is positively corelated with youths driving behaviour in city. the youths are from rich family therefore family own two and four wheelers. they allow the youths to drive vehicles. age of youths is positively co-related to youths driving behaviour. as the age of youth increases, they learn drive vehicles. they go along with family for vacation. they go along with friends where they drive the vehicle driving. youths those drive the vehicles have driving licence. driving licence is provided to youths at 18 ages. they join class of driving and learn driving of two and four wheelers. they learn drive quickly and drive different vehicles. youths drive vehicles in city. they wear helmet while driving two wheelers. they also wear seatbelt while driving four wheelers. in city, traffic rules are very strict. it is compulsory to wear helmet and wear seatbelt whole driving two and four wheelers. they do not wear helmet then police put the fine on two wheels and four wheelers. youths drive on highways. those are driving vehicles, the, 89 per cent more likely to drive on highways. they get fun to drive vehicles fast. four wheelers are used for racing on highways. youths those are driving vehicles, are 85 per cent less likely to race on highways. but city youths do not take part in racing of four wheelers. it is negatively correlated and statistically significant with driving behaviours of youths. youths receive calls while driving vehicles in city. attaining calls while driving vehicles is dangerous and it may lead to accident. therefore, youths should not talk on phone while driving vehicles. receiving calls while driving is positively co-related to driving of youths in region. youths do not drink alcohol and driving vehicles in region. youths those drive vehicles, are 86 per cent less likely to take alcohol and drive vehicles. it is negatively co-related and statistically significant. perhaps family members allow them to drive vehicles if they drink wine. they are immature drivers and accidents can take place while driving. in 2013 survey, driving among students is positively corelated to hours in college. it means youths spend 12 per cent more time in college who drive vehicle. they have vehicles so they spend enough time in college. the youth drive vehicles are positively corelated to per capita income of the households. they are from rich background, so the households have two and four wheelers. they easily learn and drive vehicles. youths have computer at home, and they easily learn it. computer at home is positively co-related and statistically significant. they drive car and bike because parents hold of car and bike at home. but diving by students is negatively co-related to sex of youths. girls drive less compared to boys. it is 58 percent less likely that the girls drive four and two wheelers. those students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 92 drive two and four wheelers do not help in household tasks. they are 42 percent less likely to help households. those youths drive vehicles do not stay in slums. the slums stay 26 per cent less likely in slums. table 18. cigarettes smoking behaviour among youths in region (2023 and 2013) 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test travel time -0.87(0.31) 7.86 sex 0.28*(0.06) -5.68 financial difficulty 0.50(0.31) 3.51 travel by rickshaw 1.02(0.01) 1.73 type of family -0.75(0.31) 5.83 hours in college 1.16*(0.06) 2.67 help parents -1.65(0.33) 24.01 spending time 0.56(0.19) -1.68 loan taken by parents 1.05(0.37) 7.90 hh size 0.82*(0.07) -2.01 age at start of smoking 0.34(0.05) 39.99 fathers’ education 1.08(0.04) 1.89 parents support smoking 1.16(0.64) 3.30 rental house 1.74*(0.48) 1.99 smoke every day 3.02(0.95) 10.17 car 1.64*(0.36) 2.27 consume other tobacco product -2.51(1.15) 4.74 log likelihood = -325.12 pseudo r2 = 0.09 lr chi2 = 69.31 prob > chi2 = 0.00 smoke due to depression 4.16(0.93) 19.89 constant -0.73(0.62) 1.38 -2 log likelihood cox & snell r2 nagelkerke r2 312.42 0.40 0.66  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses. youths should not smoke cigarettes. they may have number of reasons for it, but it effects on their lungs and life span declines due to smoking. smoking among youths is negatively co-related to travel time of youths to college. those youths smoke then 13 per cent less likely to travel and spend time www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 93 for travel. those youths stay near educational institute do not smoke cigarettes. it is negatively co-related and statistically significant. nearly half of the youth face financial difficulty but they are smoking. youths often feel stress and smoke cigarettes. type of family is negatively co-related and statistically significant with smoking among youths. total 25 per cent youth those smoke cigarettes are not from joint families. mostly the youths from nuclear family smoke more as compared to joint family. it is because grandmother and grandfather take care of children and talk to them if parents work in labour market. those youths smoke cigarettes do not help their parents and it is statistically significant and positively co-related with help to parents in households’ tasks. nearly, 65 per cent youths do not help parents but they smoke. those youths smoke cigarettes, the parents have taken loan from different financial institutions. age of the start smoking is positively co-related to smoking behaviours among youths. youths have 34 per cent more likely to start smoking with growing age. as the age of youths increases, the smoking habit also increases among youths. smoking among youths is supported by the parents and it is positively co-related and statistically significant. most of the time, parents smoke therefore youths also smoke cigarettes. only 16 per cent youths said that parents support smoking cigarettes nearly 3 times those who smoke cigarettes, smoke very day and it is statistically significant and positively co-related with smoking behaviours. the youths smoke cigarettes every day if they are already smoke cigarettes. those youths smoke do not consume other tobacco products. it is negatively co-related and statistically significant. youths those smoke, do not consume other tobacco products and it is 2.5 times. youths smoke due to depression. it is statistically significant and positively co-related with smoking cigarettes among youths. youths are under pressure for study as well as financial issues of family. it results in to smoking among youths. smoking among youths is positively co-related to travel by auto rickshaw. youths spend 16 percent more time in college, but they smoke. those youths smoke have father 8 per cent more educated than those do not smoke cigarettes. the youths those stay in rental house are 74 per cent more likely to smoke cigarettes. those youths have car at home then they 64 per cent more likely to smoke cigarettes. smoking is negatively co-related to sex of youths. the girls are 28 per cent less likely to smoke than boys. the spending time at college is 56 per cent less than those do not smoke cigarettes. those youths do smoke cigarettes have household size 82 per cent nuclear. youths from joint family do not smoke cigarettes. we have regressed the alcohol consumption with different socio-economic factors of youths. table 19. alcohol consumption among youths in 2023 and 2013 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test actual age 0.10(**0.04) 5.30 age 1.22*(0.10) 2.36 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 94 financial difficulty1 1.06**(0.40) 6.94 sex 0.41*(0.09) -4.03 nature of family 1 -0.64**(0.33) 3.72 travel by train 1.00*(0.00) 3.34 help parents -2.91*(0.40) 51.58 work 3.56*(0.91) 4.95 total members in family -0.25**(0.13) 3.66 mothers’ education 1.08*(0.04) 2.27 age at alcohol consumption 0.33*(0.04) 49.05 per capita income 1.00*(0.00) 3.30 consume alcohol regularly 4.20(*0.52) 65.49 car 3.04*(0.67) 5.06 constant -1.60(1.26) 1.60 log likelihood = -313.76 pseudo r2 = 0.133 lr chi2 = 96.80 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 -2 log likelihood =217.47 cox & snell r2 =0.60 nagelker ke r2 =0.86  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses.  alcohol consumption among youths increases the number of diseases and their efficiency of study declines. it may result into poor academic performance. alcohol consumption among youths is positively co-related with age of the youths. financial difficulty is positively co-related with alcohol consumption among youths in region. youths those consume alcohol are 6 per cent more likely to have financial difficulty. the type of family is negatively corelated to alcohol consumption among youths. those youths take alcohol, 36 per cent less likely from joint family. those youths consume alcohol do not help their parents in various household tasks and it is statistically significant and positively co-related. those youths consume alcohol are 3 times less likely help to their parents. total members in family are less if the youths are drinking alcohol. nuclear family have more chance that youths will drink alcohol. youths consume alcohol are 75 percent less likely from joint families. age of youths for alcohol consumption is positively co-related. if at the lower age, they consume alcohol then youth will increase its consumption with increasing age. youths with higher age are 33 per cent more likely to consume alcohol. those youths drink alcohol, they consume alcohol regularly. youths those already consume alcohol are 4 times more likely to consume alcohol regularly. it is positively co-related and statistically significant. alcohol consumption is positively co-related to age. the older youths are 22 per cent more likely to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 95 drink alcohol than smaller youths. those youths travel by train are more likely to drink alcohol. those youths take alcohol, the mothers are 8 per cent more educated than those do not take drink. those youths work after college hours, they are 3.5 times more likely to drink alcohol. those youths have high per capita income of family they drink more alcohol, those youths have car at home, drink more alcohol than other youths those do not drink alcohol. alcohol consumption is negatively co-related to sex of the youth. it means girls are 41 per cent less likely to drink alcohol than male. table 20. depression among youths in region during 2023 and 2013 2023 2013 variables co-efficient wald test variables odd ratio z stat actual age 0.06**(0.02) 5.62 age 1.16*(0.06) 2.70 financial difficulty 0.70*(0.16) 17.66 walk 1.00*(0.00) 2.19 parents spend time -.51**(0.27) 3.46 travel by train 1.00*(0.00) 2.29 help parents -0.51**(0.29) 3.09 work 1.69*(0.34) 2.62 total members in family -0.07**(0.03) 4.27 spend time 0.58*(0.14) -2.11 per capital income 0.00*(0.00) 4.56 loan 1.63*(0.24) 3.26 loan taken by parents 0.36**(0.17) 4.71 toilet 2.86*(0.86) 3.49 medical help 1.97*(0.33) 34.83 log likelihood = -604.64 pseudo r2 = 0.04 lr chi2 = 54.25 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 attempted suicide 1.36**(0.40) 11.57 constant -0.37(0.73) 0.25 -2 log likelihood 850.61 cox & snell r2 =0.18 nagelkerke r2 =0.25 *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %.  standard error figures are in parentheses. depression is positively co-related with increase in age of youths. it is positively co-related and statistically significant. depression among youths is positively co-related to financial difficulty of youths and it is statistically significant. those youths are in depression are 70 per cent more likely to face financial difficulty. the parents do not spend enough time with youths that is why they are depressed which is statistically significant and negatively co-related with depression. those youths are in depression, the parents spend 49 per cent less time with them. the youths do not help parents in households work which is statistically significant and negatively co-related with depression among www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 96 youths. total members in family are less and that is why youths are depressed which is negatively corelated and statistically significant. per capita income of the household is higher, but youths are in depression. such result is statically significant and positively corelated to depression among youths in region. the parents have taken loan from financial institutions which is statistically significant and positively corelated to depression among youths. youths those in depression, the 36 per cent parents have taken loan from different sources. students are depressed but they took the medical help which is statistically significant but positively co-related. the youths also tried to do suicide due to depression. attempt to suicide is positively co-related and it is statistically significant. almost 97 per cent youths have taken medical help during those depression is tired of suicide. from 2013 survey, the depression among youths is positively co-related to age of youth. as the youths age increases, they are 16 percent more depressed than younger youths. those youths walk to college are more likely to depressed. maybe they poor and walk to attend college. those youths travel by train are more likely to depressed. it might be because of crowded local trains in mumbai. those youths work after college hours are 69 per cent more likely to depressed. the youths’ parents those took loans from financial institutions are 63 percent more likely to be depressed. those parents have toilet at home the youths are 2.86 per cent more likely to be depressed. it is difficult to explain this point at this level. the depression among youths is negatively co-related to spend time by youth. youths do not spend time in educational institute because they are depressed. table 21. physical fight among youths in region 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test sex -0.77*(0.20) 13.97 sex 0.64*(0.09) -3.06 physical injuries 3.71*(0.44) 71.07 car 1.66*(0.26) 3.22 treatment due to physical fight 1.91**(0.59) 10.33 bike 1.11(0.07) 1.70 molestation 0.53**(0.26) 4.21 log likelihood = -569.62 pseudo r2 = 0.02 lr chi2 = 25.45 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 constant -0.92*(0.15) 39.33 -2 log likelihood= 685.22 cox & snell r2 =0.355 nagelkerke r2 =0.48  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 97 the physical fight is negatively co-related to sex of the youths. females are less likely to fight. the female is 33 per cent less likely to fight physically as compared to male. the physical injuries are positively co-related and statistically significant and positively co-related. during physical fight, 3 times more chance that the youths is physically injured. the treatment due to physical fight is positively co-related with physical fight and statistically significant. nearly 91 per cent youths who had physically fight took treatment due to physical fight. molestation is positively co-related physical fight among youths in region. during physical fight nearly 53 per cent youths had molestation issue. the 2013 survey explains that the physical fight among youths is positively co-related to car and bike at home. those youths have car at home are 66 percent more likely to fight physically. the physical fight among youths is negatively co-related to sex of the youths. the girls are 64 per cent less likely to fight than boys. table 22. malnutrition among youths in region 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test an issue of malnutrition 2.00*(0.16) 143.63 travel by train 0.98*(0.00) -3.12 parents spend time -0.51(0.24) 4.52 per capita income 0.99**(0.00) -1.83 constant -0.47(0.24) 4.02 loan 1.43**(0.27) 1.89 -2 log likelihood =901.22 cox & snell r2 =0.20 nagelkerke r2 =0.27 log likelihood = -405.73 pseudo r2 = 0.02 lr chi2 = 18.37 prob > chi2 = 0.0000  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses.  malnutrition is positively corelated to an issue of malnutrition. it is positively co-related and statistically significant. those youths had malnutrition issue, they are twice suffering from issues related to malnutrition such as blood pressure, tension, anxiety, tiredness. the parents do not spend time with malnourished youths. they have number of assignments and travel to job, meetings. it is negative and statistically significant. those suffer from malnutrition, the 49 per cent parents less likely to spend time with youths. they think that their time sharing will not improve the health of youths. the survey of 2013 shows that malnutrition among youths is positively corelated with loan taken by parents. the youths are 43 per cent more likely to be malnourished. those youths travel by train are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 98 98 per cent less likely to be malnourished. the youths malnourished are 99 per cent have less per capita income than those are healthy. therefore per capita income is negatively co-related to malnutrition among youths. table 23. sexual behaviours of youth in mmrda from 2023 to 2013 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test multiple sex partner 3.47*(0.72) 23.06 sex 0.28* (0.07) -4.83 used contraceptives 4.39*(0.46) 88.01 walk 1.01* (0.00) 2.08 forced sex 1.50**(0.58) 6.74 college time 0.90* (0.04) -2.07 forced to watch porn movies 1.05**(0.55) 3.63 work 2.68* (0.74) 3.57 actual age 0.15*(0.03) 17.87 electricity 0.26* (0.15) -2.27 type of family 1-nuclear 2-joint 3 -self -0.53***(0.29) 3.32 toilet 2.49*** (1.33) 1.71 help parents -0.92**(0.44) 4.31 car 1.62** (0.41) 1.90 per capita income 0.00**(0.00) 4.12 log likelihood = -259.16 pseudo r2 = 0.10 lr chi2 = 62.40 prob > chi2 = 0.0000 constant -5.08*(0.94) 29.20 -2 log likelihood cox & snell r2 nagelker ke r2 292.92 0.38 0.65  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses. sexual health is positively co-related to multiple sex partner. it is statistically significant and positively corelated. those youths involved in sexual relationship have 3.5 times more likely to have multiple sex partners. the used contraceptives are positively corelated and statistically significant with sexual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 99 behaviour of youths. youths involved in sexual relationship are 4 times more likely to use contraceptives. many females said that they had forced sex in past life. few friends and relative show them porn. it is forceful activity therefore it is positively corelated and statistically significant. nearly 1.5 youths involved in sexual relationship said that they forced for such relationship. youths have sexual relationship at higher age. it is risky behaviour to have sexual relationship even at early age. those youths involved in sexual behaviour are from nuclear families. the youths involved in sexual relationship are 47 per cent but they are not from joint family. the family size is negatively co-related with sexual behaviour of youths. those involved in sexual behaviour do not help parents. help to parents by youths is negatively co-related and statistically significant. youths involved in sexual relationship, 92 per cent are less likely to help to parents. the youths involved in sexual behaviour are from rich households. per capital income of youth’s household is positively co-related and statistically significant to his sexual behaviour. the 2013 survey shows that the sexual involvement of youths is positively co-related to walking of youths to college. the youth’s sexual involvement is 2.5 percent more likely to work. those youths have toilet facility at home are 2.5 times more likely to involved in sexual relationships. those parents have car owned; the youths are 62 per cent more likely to involved in sexual relationship. the sexual involvement of youths is negatively co-related to sex of the youths. the girls are 28 percent less likely to be involved in sex than boys. those youths do not have electricity at home, they are 26 percent less likely to involve in sexual relationship. multiple risky behaviours: the onset of multiple risk behaviours, such as smoking, anti-social behaviour, hazardous alcohol consumption and unprotected sexual intercourse, cluster in adolescence and are associated with increased risk of poor educational attainment, future morbidity, and premature mortality. these behaviours go beyond pure ‘risk-taking’ behaviours and embrace behaviours which are ubiquitous in society, such as low levels of physical activity. these behaviours shape adult behaviour and the consequences are costly to society and young people. further, people who engage in any one risk behaviour are likely to engage in others (kipping r.r. et.al. 2004) table 24. multiple risky behaviours among youths 2023 2013 variables odd ratio z test variables odd ratio z test age 0.07**(0.04) 3.70 sex 0.52* (0.07) -4.76 help parents. -1.53**(0.73) 4.42 walk 1.13*** (0.07) 1.89 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 100 loan taken by parents. 0.42***(0.26) 2.75 travel by train 1.08**(0.04) 1.90 constant 1.98***(1.22) 2.67 college time 1.16*(0.08) 2.19 -2 log likelihood= cox & snell r2 nagelkerke r2 per capita income 1.00**(0.00) 1.95 432.47 0.18 0.4 car 1.94* (0.29) 4.42 log likelihood = -653.41 pseudo r2 = 0.046 lr chi2 = 63.37 prob > chi2 = 0.000  *significant at 1 %, **significant at 5 % *** significant at 10 %  standard error figures are in parentheses. age of the youths is positively co-related to multiple sex behaviours. as age of the youth increases, they involved in either driving, depression, malnutrition, sexual behaviour, physical fight etc. they must protect themselves from risky behaviours. but age of youths is positively co-related and statistically significant. youths involved in risky behaviours do not help parents at home. youths those involved in multiple sex are 53 per cent do not help parents at home. it is statistically significant and positively co-related. the parents taken loan from different financial institutions. the parents, those took loans, the 43 per cent youths are involved in multiple risky behaviours. therefore, it is statistically significant and positively corelated with multiple risky behaviours among youths. the multiple risky behaviours are positively co-related to walking. they have 13 percent more likely to involved in multiple risk. those youths travel by train are 8 per cent more likely to involved in multiple risk. those youth involved in multiple risk have per capita income higher and positively significant. those have car at home are 94 per cent more likely to involved in multiple risk behaviours. multiple risky behaviours are negatively co-related to sex of the youths. the females are 52 per cent less likely to involved in multiple risky behaviours. policy implication and conclusion: adolescence is a critical transitional period that includes the biological changes of puberty, the need to increase independence, preoccupation with the self, and normative experimentation. a number of health risk behaviours begin in adolescence that affect health both at the time and in later years. some of these behaviours contribute to the leading causes of mortality and morbidity among adolescents, such as suicide attempts, injuries and the various risks associated with unprotected sexual behaviour, conditions related to tobacco or alcohol use and overweight or obesity (k.preethi 2019). youths are involved driving two and four wheelers. they are drinking alcohol due to number of reasons. youths are depressed and they fight physically. the youths are involved in sexual relationship without www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 101 knowledge of contraceptives. those have driving licence drive vehicles 3 times more. youths those are smoke cigarettes smoke four times more due to depression and three times more if they are smoking cigarettes very day. those youths consume alcohol, do not help parents twice. those consume alcohol drink it four times every day. those are depressed took medical help twice. those youths physically fight had injury four times more and took treatments twice in hospital. those youths malnourished, then twice they have issue of malnutrition. those youths involved in sexual relationship have three times more of multiple sex partners and four times they have used the contraceptives during intercourse. youths in regions required number of alternative policies to deal with risky behaviours. few youths are from rich families where families have car, bikes etc. they need guidance to drive four wheelers in city. they are not skilled driver. phone call should be strictly avoided while driving vehicles. they must avoid driving at highway where trucks and tempos are carrying the goods. chances of accidents is very high. youths smoke cigarettes at younger age. somewhere parents’ behaviour of smoking is responsible for smoking among youths. youths drink alcohol at lower age. they do not help parents in household tasks. they consume alcohol due to peer pressure. the regular consumption of alcohol must be stopped of the youths. parents must take help of counsellor in this direction. if parents are consuming alcohol, then they must stop it immediately. in nuclear family parent must pay attention on development of youths. youths are in depression due to number of reasons. most of them tell that due to financial difficulty, they are in depression. if the youth is in depression, then parent must spend more time with them. identify their issues and provide them solutions. youths are very serious in their thinking and acting differently. behavioural modification is urgent need to stop suicide attempt among youths. councillors will provide the best solutions for it. adolescents displaying risk behaviour commonly did not use the social counsellor, psychiatric outpatient care and study counselling services, even if they would have needed them. there should be a focus on the comprehensive identification of various forms of high-risk behaviour among adolescents to gain insight into how adolescents’ healthy development can be supported and how high-risk behaviour can be effectively mitigated (petäjä et.al 2022). parents must check phone calls of youths. they must monitor what’s app chats. they must observe the friend circle of youths. they must visit college and ask youths daily attendance record in college. they must attend parent and teachers meetings in school and college. any risky behaviour is found then they must ask the precautionary measures to teacher. they must see what time college get over and youth return to home. if any youth spends time with friend circle, then they must ask teacher about class hours. they must discuss the overall student’s performance in college. parents should check youths access to vehicle of their own and friend circle. they must provide permission with valid driving licence. they must teach youth about safe driving. parents must force youths to follow rules of traffic in city. they must sit with them in vehicle and guide them for safe driving. they must ask about driving of friend’s vehicle and issues happened. parents must know about smoking of youths if any. parents must have information of friends those have daily smoking habits. they must ask money spent on cigarettes. the youths have smoke and health related issues, then they must discuss with doctor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 102 parents must observe behaviour of youth’s friend circle regularly. they often go to night parties. parents must ask the nature of parties organised and who organised it. youths should not drink wine and drive vehicle which would lead to violation of traffic rules. police can catch them immediately therefore parents must be alert. parents must discuss and follow the gandhian philosophy in life. they should discourage the youths to not fight with other youths. they must ask youths to bring any issue to their notice. they must suggest that the youth should discuss issue with friends. regular what’s app chats and talk are important to keep watch on youths’ behaviour with their friend circle. if any fight takes place, then parents must discuss immediately the nature of fight and tell them not to fight again on such issues. parents must understand cause of concern and detail of fight and try to improve youth at every point of time. parents must provide balanced diet to youth. parents should not provide money but suggest youths to eat homemade food. if any issue exists, they must take youths to doctor. most of the time, youths accompany only girls in the group. parents must check study and friend circle. they should know who is chatting with youths. they must keep watch on outdoor activities of youth from time to time. if youths are meeting at point with opposite sex, then they must know such points. they must suggest youths to avoid the opposite sex relationship. they must help youths to set up future goals and help their dreams. if required parents must take help of counsellors but focus on long term goals as education, health, and carrier. parents must check the cell phone of youths about contact numbers of friends and porn clips. most of the youths from rich community and it does not guarantee that they will develop contacts and will indulge in sexual activities. they must focus on study and learn skills. parents have taken loan, and they are busy with maximum workload. they must reduce few assignments immediately and spend some time with youths. if required, then youths must be taken counsellors immediately. sharing and caring by parents will solve the multiple risky behaviours among youths in region. educational materials about the negative effects of the risky behaviours should be included in the curriculum of universities to improve students’ perception of risky behaviours and their consequences. there should be awareness campaigns on risky behaviours for students and the public. media and social network applications should be used actively to enhance the knowledge of the public and students about risky behaviours (ansari t. et.al 2016). youths is the future of country and family. therefore, such policies are required on priority basis. references agrawal, s., & praveen, a. (2012). adolescent risk-taking behaviour in india: the influence of socio-economic characteristics and living arrangement. journal of community nutrition & health, 1(2), 26-31. ansari, t., alghamdi, t., alzahrani, m., alfhaid, f., sami, w., aldahash, b. a., aldukhayel, d. s., alshanbah, f. s., & almutairi, n. m. (2016). risky health behaviors among students in majmaah university, kingdom of saudi arabia. j family community med, 23(3), 133-139. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 103 aslam, z., asim, m., javaid, i., rasheed, f., & akhter, m. n. (2023). analysing risky behaviours among different minority and majority race in teenagers in the usa using latent classes. front. behav. neurosci, 17(1), 1. bozzini, a., andreas, b., jessica, m., ricardo, s., & alicia, m. (2021). factors associated with risk behaviors in adolescence: asystematic review. braz j. psychiatry, 43(2), 210-221. celeste, s., margarida, m., & equipa, do p. a. s. (2012). risk behaviors in adolescents with special needs: are social and emotional competences important?’ procedia social and behavioral sciences, 69, 2219-2227. fergusson, d., nicola, s. c., & john, h. (2003). risky driving behaviour in young people: prevalence, personal characteristics and traffic accident. australian and new zealand journal of public health, 27(3), 337-342. grapatsas, k., zoi, t., vasileios, l., emmanouil, d., paul, z., ilias, k., theodora, t., nikolaos, b., dimitrios, p., fotios, c., georgia, t., & vasileios, s. (2017). smoking habit of children and adolescents: an overview konstantinos. ann res hosp, 1(26), 1-9. greene, w. h. (2018). in econometric analysis (8th ed.). pearson publication private limited, indian branch, delhi, india. kipping, r. r., r. m. campbell, g. j. macarthur, d. j. gunnell, & m. hickman. (2004). multiple risk behaviour in adolescence’ journal of public health, 34(s1), 1-2. maurya, c., & priya, m. (2023). adverse childhood experiences and health risk behaviours among adolescents and young adults: evidence from india. bmc public health, 23(5), 1-12. petäjä, u. k., anja, t. m., suyen, k., & arja, h. l. (2022). the prevalence of high-risk behaviour among adolescents in aftercare services and transitioning from out-of-home care: a systematic review’adolescent research review, 8, 323-337. preethi, k. (2019). multiple health risk behaviours among adolescent males in india. epra international journal of research and development (ijrd), 4(11), 136-143. sen, u., & basu, a. (2000). factors influencing smoking behaviour among adolescents’asian pacific. journal of cancer prevention, 1, 305-309. young blade, l. m., laura, a. c., maureen, n., bruce, v., & elizabeth, a. s. (2006). the impact of community risks and resources on adolescent risky behaviour and health care expenditures. journal of adolescent health, 38(2006), 486-494. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 82 original paper design example of a provincial industrial park sewage treatment plant in the haiyan section of the yangtze river economic belt, china yahuan tan1, peiren feng2 & zhuang qian3 1&3 central and southern china municipal engineering design and research institute,wuhan china, 430000 2 haiyan county water investment group co., ltd. jiaxing china, 314300 received: may 27, 2025 accepted: july 12, 2025 online published: july 31, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p82 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p82 abstract a new 17,000 tons/day printing and dyeing wastewater treatment facility and related supporting facilities were constructed in the haiyan section of the yangtze river economic belt. equipment installation was based on the initial scale of 13,000 tons/day for the enterprises entering the park. this paper introduces the designed influent and effluent water quality indicators, the process selection for major structures, and the parameter design of the wastewater treatment plant. the plant features a dedicated acid precipitation pretreatment line for a small amount of high-concentration wastewater. the main treatment process handles the integrated wastewater, which is a mixture of low-concentration wastewater and the filtrate from the high-concentration pretreatment. under extremely constrained land conditions, stacked arrangement of wastewater treatment facilities was designed, providing a reference for similar plant designs. keywords printing and dyeing wastewater treatment, integrated sewage treatment process, stacked arrangement, design parameters, application example 1. introduction to meet the production demands of haiyan county's new printing and dyeing industrial park, a new wastewater treatment facility, reclaimed water treatment facility, and other related supporting facilities were constructed, with a design capacity of 17,000 tons/day. this includes a small amount of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 83 high-concentration desizing and weight reduction (including in-tank reduction) wastewater. equipment installation was based on the initial scale of 13,000 m³/d for the enterprises entering the park. 2. design parameters 2.1 design influent quality based on surveys, there are 3 printing and dyeing enterprises entering the park, 2 of which currently have production facilities. sampling tests were conducted on the wastewater from these 2 enterprises' existing production lines in december 2024, combined with data analysis (since no desizing or weight reduction high-concentration wastewater was present, high-concentration quality was estimated based on empirical values). results are summarized below: table 2.1-1 influent water quality data analysis (unit: mg/l) no . dischargin g enterprise high-concentratio n (t/d) cod(mg/l ) low-concen tration (t/d) cod (mg/l) low-concentrationtn(mg/l ) 1 yucheng 1000 20000 7400 1062 50 2 yuanyang 200 20000 4200 1325.3 105.5 3 minyang 0 20000 3900 1325.3 50.0 4 average / 20000 / 1199.6 65.0 based on data provided by the park, sampling survey results, and similar project data, the design influent quality is as follows: table 2.1-2 low-concentration integrated wastewater influent quality no. item design influent quality 1 q(t/d ) 15,800 (long-term) / 13,000 (initial) 2 codcr(mg/l ) 1500 3 ph 6-10 4 ss(mg/l ) ≤300 5 nh(mg/l ) ≤40 6 tn(mg/l ) ≤70 7 sb(mg/l ) ≤1 8 color(dilution multiple) ≤400 9 conductivity (μs/cm) ≤5000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 84 10 temperature (°c) ≤60 table 2.1-3 high-concentration integrated wastewater influent quality no. item design influent quality 1 q(t/d ) 1200 (long-term) 2 codcr(mg/l ) ≤20000 3 ph 12-14 4 ss(mg/l ) ≤600 5 nh(mg/l ) ≤20 6 tn(mg/l ) ≤40 7 sb(mg/l ) ≤2 8 color(dilution multiple) ≤400 2.2 design effluent quality effluent quality (for discharge into sewer) complies with the "discharge standard of water pollutants for dyeing and finishing of textile industry (gb 4287-2012)" indirect discharge standard. according to the "specification conditions for printing and dyeing industry (2023 edition)", comprehensive energy consumption per unit product and fresh water intake of printing and dyeing enterprises must meet specified requirements, and water reuse rate should reach above 45%. therefore, this project also involves primary reclaimed water and high-quality reclaimed water. reuse water quality targets were determined considering the water quality requirements of surveyed enterprises and standards for textile dyeing and finishing reclaimed water for dyeing purposes. table 2.2-1 design effluent quality for sewer discharge no. pollutant treated water quality 1 q(t/d ) 7500 2 cod(mg/l ) 200 3 bod5(mg/l ) 50 4 ph 6～9 5 ss(mg/l ) 100 6 nh(mg/l ) 20 7 color(dilution multiple) 80 8 tp(mg/l ) 1.5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 85 no. pollutant treated water quality 9 tn(mg/l ) 30 10 antimony (sb) 0.1 11 aniline (mg/l) 1.0 gb4287-2012 table 2 & 14 indicators in amendment sheet 3. main structures and parameter design this project involves the construction of a new 17,000 m³/d wastewater treatment plant. analysis of the influent quality indicates it is printing and dyeing wastewater, characterized by large fluctuations in quality and quantity, high temperature, oil content, high color, and poor biodegradability (tian & zhou, 2024). additionally, the influent contains a small amount of high-concentration desizing and weight reduction wastewater with cod as high as 20,000 mg/l. the effluent quality (for sewer discharge) strictly complies with the "discharge standard of water pollutants for dyeing and finishing of textile industry (gb 4287-2012)" indirect discharge standard. the project also involves primary reclaimed water (cod < 150 mg/l) and high-quality reclaimed water (cod < 30 mg/l, with high requirements for conductivity and hardness). based on the above, the project features a dedicated acid precipitation pretreatment line for the small amount of high-concentration wastewater. the main treatment process handles the integrated wastewater, which is a mixture of low-concentration wastewater and the filtrate from the high-concentration pretreatment. the effluent has three destinations: 1) secondary sedimentation tank effluent goes to the primary reuse treatment unit for physico-chemical treatment and direct reuse; 2) secondary sedimentation tank effluent undergoes ultrafiltration (uf) + reverse osmosis (ro) membrane treatment for high-quality reuse; 3) ro concentrate undergoes advanced oxidation treatment, mixes with uf concentrate, and is treated in a magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank before meeting standards for sewer discharge. 3.1 spatial layout 3.1.1 spatial layout principles due to site constraints, the spatial layout had to be stacked within structures (tanks). the overall plant layout followed these principles: functional zoning as much as possible, compact arrangement of structures to reduce footprint. full consideration of relationships with existing structures/buildings and compliance with land planning setback requirements. organic integration and connection of wastewater treatment structures within the tanks for ease of operation and management. short, smooth flow paths avoiding repetition and backtracking. power distribution center located near structures with high power consumption to save energy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 86 buildings arranged on the same side as much as possible; control rooms concentrated on the first floor. green area meets planning requirements; overall layout meets fire safety standards. smooth traffic flow for construction and management. emergency discharge pipes and bypass pipes provided; all structures can be gravity-drained. layout considers prevailing wind direction, influent direction, receiving water body location, process characteristics, site topography, and geological conditions, balancing process rationality, management convenience, economy, architectural form, greening, and harmony with surroundings. 3.1.2 spatial relationship with existing conditions the project site is located within a town, bordered by an existing factory building to the east, zhenxing road to the south, and the printing and dyeing park's factory under construction to the west (see figure below). according to the "planning conditions for the yangtze river economic belt haiyan section provincial industrial park wastewater treatment plant project", the land use attribute is public utility land (limited to drainage use), with an area of 9,154 m². upon completion, it will share the perimeter wall, roads, and entrances/exits with the under-construction haiyan county new printing and dyeing industrial park. the designed total capacity of the plant is 17,000 m³/d, with equipment installed for the initial scale of 13,000 m³/d. after treatment to indirect discharge standards, the effluent is discharged into the existing municipal sewer pipe under zhenxing road to the south. 3.1.3 overall layout the new wastewater treatment plant is located in yucheng town, haiyan county, zhejiang province. the site is bordered by an existing factory building to the east and the under-construction haiyan county new printing and dyeing industrial park to the west. the land area is 9,154 m², which is relatively tight, necessitating an intensive layout for the plant. figure 3.1 plant rendering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 87 the tops of the tank structures are partially covered with roofs and odor control covers. arranged from north to south are: flotation tank, primary sedimentation tank, hydrolysis tank, and two-stage ao tank. odor control equipment and closed-circuit cooling towers are placed on the top of #1 combined tank. 3.2 wastewater treatment structure design 3.2.1 high-concentration equalization tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 24m (l) × 12.5m (w) × 4m (h), effective depth: 3.5m. civil scale: 1,200 m³/d. function: collects high-concentration wastewater from enterprises, mainly weight reduction and desizing wastewater. 3.2.2 acid precipitation reaction tank quantity: 1 structure (2 compartments). single compartment dimensions: 4.55m (l) × 4m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. civil scale: 1,200 m³/d. function: acid is added to precipitate terephthalic acid from high-concentration wastewater, reducing pollutant concentration. 3.2.3 acid precipitation filter press white sludge press room: 1 building. dimensions: 18.8m (l) × 9.5m (w) × 7m (h). civil scale: 1,200 m³/d. white sludge discharge room: 1 building. dimensions: 18.8m (l) × 9.25m (w) × 3.9m (h). civil scale: 1,500 m³/d. function: the sludge-water mixture from the acid precipitation reaction tank undergoes solid-liquid separation via plate frame filter press. white sludge falls into ton bags. filtrate enters the filtrate collection tank. 3.2.4 filtrate collection tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 24m (l) × 2m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil scale: 1,200 m³/d. function: collects filtrate from the white sludge filter press and feeds it steadily into the integrated equalization tank. 3.2.5 integrated equalization tank + cooling tower quantity: 1 structure. irregular shape. dimensions: area 2,562 m² × height 4.1m, effective depth: 3.6m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). function: collects low-concentration wastewater from enterprises. influent is metered separately for each of the 3 enterprises. low-concentration wastewater passes through a mechanical screen to remove large debris and short fibers before entering the tank. acid precipitation filtrate also enters this tank. after equalization and homogenization, the wastewater is cooled in the cooling tower. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 88 3.2.6 reaction flotation tank package equipment. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). quantity: 2 sets. single set capacity: 300 m³/h. function: ph is adjusted under instrument control. polyaluminum ferric chloride (pafc) coagulant is added to destabilize colloids and form flocs. polyacrylamide (pam) flocculant aid is added to enlarge the flocs, which are then separated from the water in the flotation zone. 3.2.7 primary sedimentation tank primary sedimentation reaction tank: 3 structures. single dimensions: 4.4m (l) × 4.7m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). primary sedimentation tank: 3 structures. single dimensions: 16m (l) × 16m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). function: ph is readjusted in the reaction tank, and pam is added to enlarge flocs, which are then separated in the sedimentation tank. 3.2.8 hydrolysis tank quantity: 3 structures. single dimensions: 24.4m (l) × 18.1m (w) × 11m (h), effective depth: 10.0m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). function: pretreated wastewater flows into the hydrolysis tank through a distribution system, ensuring even spread across the tank bottom. wastewater mixes thoroughly with sludge under agitation. with the combined action of specific composite bacteria and enzymes, the reaction rates of hydrolytic and acidogenic bacteria are enhanced; macromolecular organics are converted into smaller molecules; insoluble organics become soluble and are removed, simultaneously improving the b/c ratio (wu & luo, 2020). 3.2.9 two-stage ao tank (anoxic/oxic) quantity: 3 structures. single dimensions: 46.8m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 9.5m (h), effective depth: 9.0m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). function: utilizes the different functions of the anoxic and oxic zones for biological nitrogen removal (nitrification and denitrification), while simultaneously removing cod and bod<sub>5</sub>. 3.2.10 secondary sedimentation tank quantity: 6 structures. single dimensions: 27.4m (l) × 5.7m (w) × 5m (h), effective depth: 4.5m. civil scale: 17,000 m³/d. equipment scale: 13,000 m³/d (initial). function: performs solid-liquid separation on the mixed liquor from the two-stage ao tank. provides sludge return to the hydrolysis tank or ao tank. 3.2.11 ro concentrate tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 5.1m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. civil & equipment scale: 4,900 m³/d. function: stores ro concentrate and lifts it steadily to the fenton tank. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 89 3.2.12 fenton + magnetic coagulation sedimentation fenton tank: 1 structure for ro concentrate treatment. dimensions: 6.2m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 4.0m (h), effective depth: 3.5m. civil & equipment scale: 4,900 m³/d. magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 6.6m (l) × 13.9m (w) × 4.0m (h), effective depth: 3.5m, divided into 2 groups. civil & equipment scale: 17,000 m³/d. function: in the fenton tank, sulfuric acid, ferrous sulfate, and hydrogen peroxide are added to generate ·oh radicals, which react with the wastewater to oxidize refractory organics and reduce pollutant concentration. alkali is added to adjust ph, forming flocs. pam is added to enhance flocculation. effluent enters the magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank where magnetic powder is added to accelerate particle settling and achieve solid-liquid separation (xu; shao, zhang, & guan, 2020). 3.2.13 final effluent tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 7.1m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 4.0m (h), effective depth: 3.5m. civil & equipment scale: 17,000 m³/d. 3.2.14 emergency/initial rainwater tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 47.35m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil & equipment scale: 17,000 m³/d. 3.2.15 sludge treatment system sludge storage tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 9.1m (l) × 18.8m (w) × 5.0m (h), effective depth: 4.5m. divided into acidic sludge tank and neutral sludge tank. civil & equipment scale: 17,000 m³/d. sludge conditioning tank: 2 structures. single dimensions: 4.7m (l) × 7.65m (w) × 3.9m (h), effective depth: 3.4m. sludge press room: 1 building. dimensions: 26m (l) × 18.8m (w) × 9.0m (h). sludge silo room: 1 building. dimensions: 26m (l) × 18.8m (w) × 6.9m (h). function: wet sludge storage and thickening. 3.2.16 intermediate tank quantity: 1 structure. irregular shape. dimensions: 21.7m (l) × 3.1m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil & equipment scale: 17,000 m³/d. function: distributes water to the submerged ultrafiltration tank, primary coagulation sedimentation tank, and magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank. 3.2.17 primary coagulation sedimentation quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 6.2m (l) × 13.7m (w) × 6.6m (h), effective depth: 6.1m. civil & equipment scale: 2,400 m³/d. function: adds pac and pam to remove ss and a small amount of cod from the secondary sedimentation tank effluent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 90 3.2.18 secondary decolorization sedimentation quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 6.1m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 6.1m (h), effective depth: 5.6m. civil & equipment scale: 2,400 m³/d. function: adds powdered activated carbon (pac), pac, and pam to further remove color and a small amount of cod. 3.2.19 primary reclaimed water tank quantity: 1 structure. dimensions: 14m (l) × 14.8m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil & equipment scale: 2,400 m³/d. function: stores primary reclaimed water and supplies it to enterprises. 3.2.20 submerged ultrafiltration (uf) tank uf membrane tank: 3 structures. single dimensions: 20.4m (l) × 3.2m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil scale: 12,000 m³/d, equipment scale: 8,000 m³/d. uf product water tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 14m (l) × 14.35m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil scale: 12,000 m³/d, equipment scale: 8,000 m³/d (initial). function: uses ultrafiltration membranes to filter secondary sedimentation tank effluent, removing ss to protect downstream ro units. 3.2.21 membrane workshop membrane workshop: 1 building. dimensions: 30m (l) × 18.7m (w) × 8.9m (h). civil scale: product water 7,100 m³/d (arranged for 3 trains), equipment scale: product water 4,733 m³/d (2 trains installed). reclaimed water tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 31.75m (l) × 14m (w) × 4.1m (h), effective depth: 3.6m. civil scale: product water 7,100 m³/d, equipment scale: matches membrane workshop. function: uses reverse osmosis membranes to desalinate uf product water, producing high-quality reclaimed water. 3.2.22 chemical dosing house pafc storage tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 9.6m (l) × 4.4m (w) × 5m (h), effective depth: 4.5m. effective volume: 190 m³. storage days: 6~9d. liquid caustic soda storage tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 9.6m (l) × 3.55m (w) × 5m (h), effective depth: 4.5m. effective volume: 153 m³. storage days: 8~10d. waste acid storage tank: 1 structure. dimensions: 9.6m (l) × 3.55m (w) × 5m (h), effective depth: 4.5m. effective volume: 153 m³. storage days: ~5d. pac dissolution tank: 2 structures. single dimensions: 3.1m (l) × 2.2m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. ferrous sulfate dissolution tank: 2 structures. single dimensions: 3.1m (l) × 2.2m (w) × 4.5m (h), effective depth: 4.0m. 3.2.23 odor control process design all structural units are covered for collection, with seamless connections between covers and tank walls. collected odorous gases are treated sequentially in a sodium hypochlorite oxidation tower and a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 91 caustic scrubbing tower. the design uses a two-stage scrubbing system: "naclo scrubber + alkali spray tower". 4. process design features 4.1 design influent quality analysis the design influent quality for this project was primarily determined based on measured wastewater quality data from the entering enterprises and influent quality data from similar printing and dyeing industrial wastewater treatment centers. printing and dyeing wastewater is characterized by large volume, high organic pollutant content, deep color, high alkalinity, and significant fluctuations in quality, making it difficult to treat. the production lines of the entering enterprises involve fabrics approximately 35% cotton and 65% synthetic fibers, including both woven and knitted types, such as warp-knitted fabrics, yarn dyeing, cotton knitting, digital printing, and others (chenille, polyester elastic fabric); pretreatment processes include desizing, bleaching, and scouring. based on industry experience, the main characteristics of textile printing and dyeing wastewater are: 1) significant fluctuations in water quality and quantity: affected by market, season, holidays, and raw material changes. 2) complex and high-concentration organic components: pollutants are mostly organic, varying with fiber type and processing technology. wastewater comes from eight main processes: desizing, scouring, bleaching, mercerizing, dyeing, printing, finishing, and alkali weight reduction. *desizing wastewater:* organic, pale yellow, contains sizing decomposition products, fiber scraps, enzymes, alkaline (high ph), high organic content, bod accounts for ~45% of total. use of pva or cmc sizing reduces bod but increases codcr, making treatment harder. pva is a major factor in treatment difficulty. *scouring wastewater:* large volume, high temperature, dark brown. contains cellulose, pectin, waxes, oils, alkali, surfactants, nitrogen compounds. high bod and codcr (thousands mg/l). *bleaching wastewater:* large volume, low pollution level, low bod and codcr. relatively clean, can be discharged directly or reused after treatment. *dyeing wastewater:* generally strongly alkaline, large volume. contains sizes, dyes, auxiliaries, surfactants. high color (400-600 times), high codcr, low bod, poor biodegradability. *printing wastewater:* contains large amounts of paste besides dyes and auxiliaries. high bod5 and codcr. large volume, high color, high ammonia nitrogen, high pollution level. 3)lowbod5/codcr: generally around 0.25, indicating wastewater is biodegradable but difficult to biodegrade bod5/codcr > 0.45 = good; > 0.3 = biodegradable; < 0.3 = difficult; < 0.25 = hard). 4)high color: due to residual dyes and colorants from natural and synthetic organics. use of new auxiliaries and sizes reduces biodegradability. 5)large ph variations: different processes require different ph conditions. cotton processing often www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 92 uses alkali, resulting in high ph wastewater. 6)high temperature: many processes run at high temperatures. high temperature is unfavorable for biological treatment. temperature and flow vary with fabric type and process. 4.2 water treatment process adapted to water quality characteristics 4.2.1 wastewater treatment process selection principles the construction and operation of wwtps involve significant investment and are constrained by many factors. process selection is crucial for investment and o&m costs. therefore, considering maturity, stability, safety, economy, local conditions, wastewater nature, and effluent requirements, the optimal process must be selected. principles: consider project phasing for reasonable connection and unified management. mature, reliable technology meeting effluent requirements. easy o&m, flexible operation, resistant to influent fluctuations. economically reasonable, minimizing capital and o&m costs. advanced, reliable, widely available supporting equipment. high automation level to reduce labor intensity. 4.2.2 advanced treatment process selection principles based on influent quality/quantity and effluent requirements, prioritize processes with low investment, small footprint, low energy consumption, low o&m cost, and easy management after technical-economic comparison. adopt proven new technologies, processes, materials, and equipment cautiously. layout should be compact and consider future phases. 4.2.3 sludge treatment process selection principles sludge treatment focuses on reduction. sludge is dewatered and then incinerated for disposal. 4.2.4 odor control process selection principles select mature, effective, low-investment, low-o&m cost technology ensuring (standard-compliant emission), minimizing secondary pollution. integrate with overall plant layout, greening, and aesthetics. minimize investment and footprint where possible. design for energy efficiency, high automation, easy maintenance and operation. use low-pressure drop packing for energy saving. based on the above and treatment data for similar wastewater, the following processes were selected: ☑ high-concentration wastewater treatment process: "screen + high-concentration eq tank + acid precipitation + white sludge filter press". ☑ integrated wastewater treatment process: "screen + integrated eq tank + cooling tower + reaction flotation tank + primary sedimentation tank + hydrolysis tank + two-stage a/o tank + secondary sedimentation tank + magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank + final effluent tank". ☑ ro concentrate treatment process: "fenton" as the main process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 93 5. conclusion implementing enterprise relocation and renovation into the park aligns with national, provincial, and municipal industrial policies and socio-economic development plans, driving the circular economy industrial park, fostering rapid development and industrial agglomeration, and enhancing development strength. for printing and dyeing enterprises, centralized pretreatment within the park concentrates resources, achieves economies of scale, reduces individual pretreatment costs, and facilitates regulatory supervision. this project selected advanced, economically sound, stable, and proven mature processes. through the treatment train "screen + integrated eq tank + cooling tower + reaction flotation tank + primary sedimentation tank + hydrolysis tank + two-stage a/o tank + secondary sedimentation tank + magnetic coagulation sedimentation tank", effluent meets the "discharge standard of water pollutants for dyeing and finishing of textile industry (gb 4287-2012)" indirect discharge standard for discharge to the downstream municipal wwtp. by selecting suitable processes, optimizing tank structures, and controlling equipment costs, the project achieved optimization of investment, cost, and benefits (zheng, wang, & zou, 2023). references tian, l., & zhou, j. (2024). discussion on energy-saving and emission reduction measures of printing and dyeing enterprises under the double carbon target. international journal of textile, 2024(04). wu, y., & luo, z. j. (2020). a project example of printing and dyeing wastewater treatment by air flotation-hydrolysis acidification-aerobic combined process. industrial water & wastewater, 2020(04). xu, f. g. (2025). analysis of alkali reduction printing and dyeing wastewater treatment technology. leather manufacture and environmental technology, 2025(05). xu, f., shao, j. l., zhang, c. j., & guan, g. q. (2020). dyeing wastewater advanced treatment project by fenton fluidized bed process.water & wastewater engineering, 2020(03). zheng, c. y., wang, y. h., & zou, l. (2023). analysis on the investment and cost of large-scale printing and dyeing wastewater treatment project. engineering and technological research, 2023(10). original paper design example of a provincial industrial park sew abstract a new 17,000 tons/day printing and dyeing wastewat advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 125 original paper share beijing stories in the context of media convergence shi jianuo1 & gao yunfan2 1 beijing international studies university, beijing, china 2 beijing international studies university, beijing, china received: august 21, 2023 accepted: october 29, 2023 online published: november 15, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p125 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p125 the project supported by 2023 beijing international studies university student research fund. title: study on beijing-dublin sister city humanities exchange in the perspective of public diplomacy abstract international exchange center is one of the “four centers” of beijing’s strategic positioning. accompanied by the continuous progress and development of media, beijing’s city image is subject to increasingly frequent exchanges among cities of different countries, and the requirements for external communication are also increasing. how to effectively promote beijing’s external communication in the cross-cultural context and share a good “beijing city story” of the new era? one of the most important ways is to effectively shape beijing’s city image through the media, to improve beijing’s influence through the media, to adjust the way of beijing’s international communication in a timely manner, and to create communication contents that are closer to the audience’s psychology, so as to achieve a better effect of the external communication of beijing’s city image. keywords media convergence, beijing city image, cross-cultural communication 1. city image dissemination in the context of media convergence m. mcluhan (1964), a master of media studies, wrote in his book understanding media: the extensions of man, “media are extensions of human body”, “the medium can be everything and everything is a medium. a medium, in the broadest sense, is a substance that enables a relationship to be created between people, people and things, or things and thing.” (mcluhan & gordon, 2003) the new media will replace the old media. the emergence and popularization of the internet has enabled people to communicate over long distances. people can easily get all kinds of information through cell phones, which improves human cognitive ability. in the process of using the media, people will unconsciously form attachments and it has become almost impossible for people to stay away from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 126 published by scholink inc. the internet and mobile phones. thus the new media technology has become a part of the extension of the human body. “the medium is the message”. (mcluhan & gordon, 2003) that is, the different content presented by the media will gradually change people’s perception of the world, form their own values, and ultimately affect all aspects of society. in contemporary daily life, most of us are “media experts”, and we are constantly exposed to different forms of mass media, such as television, movies, social software, video games, etc. the high stickiness between media and users highlights its important role in promoting beijing’s city image to the world. the concept of “media convergence” was first proposed by prof. poole of the massachusetts institute of technology in the united states, which refers to the integration of the same type of media, and the tendency of multifunctional integration of various media. at the macro level, media convergence is the multi-dimensional integration of major media, various contents, and major platforms. (tan & pan, 2023) media convergence has broken the limitations of platforms, and it enables traditional media and modern media to learn from each other and develop together, forming a new media form. sociologist lewis mumford believes that “the image of a city is people’s subjective impression of the city, which is formed through the combined effect of factors such as mass media, personal experience, interpersonal communication, memory and environment, so the image of a city cannot be separated from the construction of media.” (lewis, song, j. l., & song, y. r., 2019) economic globalization and urbanization have made different cities diversified and similar. the emergence of new media has changed the traditional way of communication and shaped a unique communication environment, but it also intensified the fierce competition among cities. how to enhance the effective communication of city image and build a unique city image has become the focus of all major cities. since the 1990s, the study of mass media has begun to combine with the cultural field, and each city has its own unique culture. beijing, as the capital city, has unique advantages. it not only has rich historical and cultural heritage, but also serves as the political center, cultural center, international exchange center, and technological innovation center of the country. the spiritual connotation of the city mainly depends on the interpretation of the media. (li & zhang, 2022) media integration has brought a new way to spread the unique culture of each city. it is an effective way to enhance the value and influence of the city by constructing beijing’s city image externally through the media. in order to build a better beijing’s urban image and do a good job of external communication, it is necessary to grasp several new changes in the communication of urban image in this context: decentralization of the main body of communication. there are five main bodies of urban communication in the new media, namely, the government, non-governmental organizations, enterprises, citizens, and traditional media. (zhang, 2018) the gradual decentralization of the main body of communication has formed a new cross-cultural communication mode, giving the right to choose information to everyone in the society. the identity of the audience has changed from a passive receiver to a direct participant, and everyone is the medium of information dissemination, the constructor and narrator of beijing’s urban image. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 127 published by scholink inc. diversification of communication channels. the type of media, that is, the channel of obtaining information, ranges from television, magazines, and newspapers to cell phones to get external information. the public no longer receives information from a single channel, and people can choose different media platforms to get the information they want. in addition, short videos, as one of the mainstream communication channels nowadays, have obvious advantages in terms of communication subject, communication content, clip-type editing communication, and the speed of communication. therefore, the image of beijing needs to be disseminated through multi-dimensional media platforms, and the content should be adjusted according to the characteristics of different audience groups on different platforms. high timeliness of dissemination. media convergence has led to the resolution of one of the major problems that cross-cultural communication once faced, but it has also brought new challenges. due to the rapid dissemination of information, the public receives a large amount of push messages every day. those messages that take longer to get through are less likely to be clicked on as well as viewed in their entirety. this is one of the reasons why short video platforms can become the main communication platforms, with more information available to the audience in a short period of time, however, the prolonged dissemination of fragmented and one-sided information can cause the co-public to lose sight of the event as a whole, thus creating a localized center of public opinion. 2. cross-cultural communication strategies for beijing’s city image 2.1 understanding the culture of the audience and focus on the way of publicity hall (1976) proposed that cultures can be identified based on the messages the members in a given culture prefer to use, and he defined these as hc or lc communication. cultures cannot be categorized as exclusively hc or lc, but some cultures tend to be at the higher end while others are at the lower end of the continuum (hall, 1976). due to different cultural and historical backgrounds, growing environments, and levels of education, etc., the understanding of the same thing differs between eastern and western countries. this theory of hall can well facilitate the exchange of eastern and western cultures. the contextual differences between the different cultures and the differences in cultural value dimensions, ways of thinking and behavioral characteristics between the east and the west lead to communication barriers that are difficult to avoid. china belongs to high-context and expresses itself in a subtle, indirect, and implicit way. when promoting to the outside world, it is necessary to take into account the cultural type of the country, actively study the user preferences of foreign audiences, and choose the preferred expression method to achieve more effective topic planning, increase user stickiness, and enhance communication effectiveness. in the process of propaganda, we should first base ourselves on the local cultural environment of our country, and then report based on the cultural characteristics of other countries, neither “abandoning ourselves” nor “self-centered”, but striking a balance between the two. for example, ottawa belongs to low-context and prefers to express itself in a frank and straightforward way. therefore, when beijing and ottawa www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 128 published by scholink inc. engage in sister city cooperation, we should pay more attention to understanding ottawa’s cultural type. for ottawa, which pursues freedom, openness and democracy, in terms of communication, we should focus on showing the free, open and enterprising spirit of beijingers. the process of telling beijing stories to the public should be in line with foreign thinking expressions, and the message should be expressed in a context familiar to the audience. only in this way can we better avoid misinterpretation and ensure that the other party can correctly understand the meaning of the message. although there are cultural differences between countries, people’s interests can cross borders, and people pay more attention to information related to themselves, such as outdoor sports, games, beauty and so on. by spreading the message from these daily life activities, people are more likely to resonate with each other. to connect people around the world who are interested in a certain field and establish a “circle of interest”, for those who love outdoor hiking, beijing’s cultural and tourism department can post photos of the great wall of beijing, the thirteen ling reservoir, the shihua cave, and the ancient road to the west of beijing on platforms such as instagram, tiktok, and facebook, and share people’s “hiking diary”. 2.2 combining multiple narrative perspectives to innovate communication content the american scholar lynch firstly proposed the concept of “city image”, and in his book urban image, he mentioned that the city can be regarded as a story, and the process of building a city image is the process of people interacting with the city. (lynch, 1960) therefore, how to tell a story is an important way to build a city’s image. the dissemination of a city’s image requires both internal and external dissemination. internal dissemination can enhance the internal cohesion of citizens. with the development of globalization, enhancing the city’s image and promoting it to the outside world is also an important strategy for the development of each city. media convergence has brought many advantages to urban communication, but only through “content is king” can we capture the audience’s attention and increase beijing’s unique urban memory. according to the characteristics of different platforms, it is important to publish content that matches their communication style. the international communication of beijing city is mostly grand narrative, focusing on international major events. the main contents of its release are mainly two types, one is pure images with exciting background music, and the other is similar to traditional documentaries with long narration and changing images. the “zero-focus” or “out-of-focus” perspective is able to present a broad, and comprehensive urban landscape of beijing, but it is inevitably too official and can easily lead to a separation between the city and its audience. in terms of external publicity, it is more necessary to combine the “first person” internal focus perspective to carry out “micro narratives”, and the content should be based on the daily life of ordinary people, highlighting the sense of reality and scene, so that the audience can empathize with it. through multi-perspective storytelling, it combines the modern prosperity and development of beijing with its history and culture, showcases the coexistence of ancient and modern characteristics of beijing, and conveys the charm and attractiveness of beijing as an international metropolis. many foreigners have never been to beijing, and as they receive different information from various media, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 129 published by scholink inc. they will inevitably be influenced by biased information and be skeptical of beijing’s self-representation. the self-narration and his narration complement each other, using the words of others to promote beijing is more authentic. city image is the public perception and evaluation of a region’s internal strength, external vitality, and prospects. (luo, 1997) the evaluation of foreigners living in beijing is the most authentic embodiment of the city, and more and more foreigners in beijing are also uploading their life vlogs on various platforms to record the most real state of life in beijing, so that more foreign netizens can know beijing, understand beijing, and perceive beijing. for example, gu ailing’s videos of visiting sanlitun, eating beijing specialty snacks, and daily life during the winter olympics vividly show the hustle and bustle of beijing life to foreign people. in addition to shooting videos, live broadcast can also be added to foreign media platforms. live broadcast is more authentic and interactive. it can be seen that live broadcast is also an effective way to publicize through the results achieved by beijing wild animal park on the domestic short video platform douyin. previously, due to the impact of the epidemic, the zoo added live broadcast form in the publicity process, and the beijing wildlife park became the third most popular zoo on douyin in 2022. then in february this year, the beijing wildlife park released the video of “bear big, bear small” taking small gliding steps to ask for food had a high number of likes of 101.4w, and many tourists came to visit. 2.3 focusing on interactive feedback to improve communication effect the external communication of the city’s image focuses on two-way interaction, as a center of international exchanges, beijing often hosts different large-scale international events, and in addition to the events themselves, we should not ignore the audience acceptance. each person is both a communicator and an audience, especially in the age of the internet, where everyone has the opportunity to publish information. we should take advantage of the internet to receive timely feedback from our audience. at the same time, media workers could strengthen their ties and cultivate relationships with their audiences while delivering messages. in addition to establishing beijing-related official accounts on major social platforms of foreign media, focusing on interaction with the audience and allowing them to participate in discussions, we can also analyze the intention and actual effect of the reports based on the frequency and content of the mainstream media’s reports on beijing’s city image. (li, 2016) understanding the needs of the audience through timely feedback with the audience. adjusting and improving the communication content or methods in a timely manner according to the feedback from the audience. this is more targeted and more conducive to improving the effectiveness of communication. the dissemination of urban image requires long-term maintenance, and correction is equally important for beijing’s urban image. in the context of media integration, information dissemination has enormous advantages in speed and space. once any information is released, it will be spread rapidly, which also puts forward higher requirements for the transparency and authenticity of the communication information. the external image dissemination of beijing needs to convey true, accurate and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 130 published by scholink inc. comprehensive information to the audience, so as to avoid being kidnapped by the public opinion of other countries’ media and falling into a passive state. when negative information about a city’s image appears, if not intervened and stopped in a timely manner, it will present a “viral” dissemination characteristic, detached from the control of the media and the government. when communicating with the outside world, it is also important to note that western countries, as long-term cultural hegemons, have strong discourse power. in addition to timely official responses, it is also necessary to cooperate with mainstream media and major social media outside the country, so as to turn passivity into initiative, do a good job in the aftermath, and eliminate the negative impacts. enhance the sense of crisis, strengthen the daily monitoring of public opinion, and enhance and consolidate the image of beijing. 3. conclusion the image of the city depends on the creation, perception and evaluation of people, and the occurrence and telling of urban stories are composed of vivid and specific people’s practices. (yan, 2023) the dissemination of a country's overall external image cannot be separated from cities. to tell the story of china well is to tell the story of each city well. therefore, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of beijing as the capital city, be a good builder and leader, pay attention to the advantages and characteristics of interactive exchanges in the context of media integration and to follow the trend. to tell the story of beijing from multiple perspectives, it is necessary to not only understand the audience’s culture and innovate communication content from multiple narrative perspectives, but also pay attention to the subsequent consolidation of the city’s image, improve public opinion monitoring and public relations capabilities, promote cultural exchange and dialogue, and build a diverse and inclusive international image of beijing. references lewis, m., song, j. l., & song, y. r. (2019). a history of urban development origins, evolution and prospects. book town (02). li, s., & zhang, y. (2022). conceptual upgrading and mode innovation of urban international communication from a cross-cultural perspective. youth journalist, (24). li, x. l. (2016). the new normal of external communication of hefei city image under the background of media integration. news world, (02). luo, z. y. (1997). the “booster rocket” of the construction of two civilizations in the region: regional image design and construction, marxism & reality, (02). lynch, k. (1960). in the image of the city (pp. 20-22). mit press. mcluhan, m., & gordon, t. (2003). understanding media: the extensions of man. corte madera: gingko press. mcluhan, m., & gordon, t. (2003). understanding media: the extensions of man. corte www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 131 published by scholink inc. madera: gingko press, 2003. tan, x. g., & pang, m. (2023). analysis of the effect and strategy of convergent news dissemination in the context of media convergence. news communication, (10), 45-47. yan, j. j. (2023). the construction of urban image from the perspective of brand storytelling. journal of news research, (02). zhang, y. m. (2018). research on urban image communication strategy in the era of social media. public communication of science & technology, (02). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 89 original paper analysis of the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts on contemporary college students li kexin 1* 1 the liberal arts (boya) college of chongqing university, shapingba district, chongqing, 400044, china * li kexin, corresponding author received: march 12, 2023 accepted: april 18, 2023 online published: april 21, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p89 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p89 abstract modern western philosophical thoughts mainly include: western scientism, western pragmatism, western humanism and so on. these modern western philosophical thoughts have exerted a wide influence on contemporary college students, both positive and negative aspects. this paper analyzes the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts on contemporary college students. keywords modern western philosophical thoughts; contemporary college students; thought; influence preface analyzing the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts on our society, especially on contemporary college students is of great significance for contemporary college students to have a comprehensive view of western philosophical thoughts and strive to cultivate correct values on life. 1. analysis of the influence of western scientism on contemporary college students 1.1 in science education, the rational and scientific nature of science education are weakened scientism holds that science is the only way to know truth, and science does not need and should not be limited by any moral, ethical, ideological and social life style. scientific method is just a tool for understanding the world, scientific research itself has no moral value, and scientists are just seekers of truth. they maintain that truth is something objective and unquestionable, and the rest is secondary. therefore, in science education, students only need “technical education”, that is, to impart knowledge and skills. under such a guiding ideology, there have been tendencies of “knowledge-based” and “technology-based” in science education in china’s schools. knowledge education mainly emphasizes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. imparting knowledge and skills from books. in terms of teaching content, it only pays attention to the imparting and memorizing of knowledge, but neglects the cultivation of students’ comprehensive quality and ability. in addition, teachers mainly impart knowledge and skills learned from books, but do not pay attention to the education of ideological and political education, moral education, outlook on life, world outlook, values, etc., and do not let students understand and master a variety of abilities and qualities needed for social development. as a result, students only learn knowledge from books at school, lack the ability and method of independent thinking, analyzing and solving problems, but also do not know how to behave and do things. in ideological and political education, the wrong views such as “scientism”, “the theory of futility of science”, “the theory of omnipotence of science and technology”, and “technological determinism” are created in college students. by the early 1970s, our country had initially established a relatively complete education system and science and technology system. however, due to the needs of social development, the characteristics of science and technology itself, and the influence of western scientism on our education of science and technology, contemporary college students also have the idea of “scientism”. the main reason is that in the process of reform and opening up, the western social ideological trends have been introduced into china through various channels. facing the impact of various trends of thought in the world, some new trends of thought have emerged in western society, such as democratic socialism, neo-liberalism, neo conservatism, ecologism and so on. these trends of thought have had a certain influence on the college students’ thought, and “scientism” is one of its main manifestations. the so-called “scientism” is to judge the value of things and evaluate people’s behavior with scientific knowledge as the only standard. it emphasizes that scientific knowledge is the sole criterion of all social value judgments. therefore, in its view, the achievements of natural science only represent the level of human ability to understand and transform the natural world during a certain historical period. it requires that all people must accept scientific education, scientific research and scientific application, and thinks that only in this way can they succeed in social life. the so-called “new liberalism” is the social ideological trend that pursues the maximization of individual interests as the goal of all activities. this trend of thought believes that science and technology is the highest achievement of human development, technology itself represents the increase of economy and wealth, science and technology is the basic motive force of all social progress and civilization progress, technological progress can promote the all-round development of human and society, etc. 1.2 college students have misconceptions of advocating science and superstition in their daily life in their daily life, college students mainly learn about the world through the internet, mobile phones and other media. the spread of information on the internet makes it more convenient for college students to contact various ideas and concepts, and absorb various nutrients from them. influenced by the trend of thought of western scientism, some college students think that science is omnipotent and technology is supreme, they oppose all superstition, worship science, and use science to solve various problems in life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 91 published by scholink inc. some college students do not solve the problem through their own efforts, but believe in the power of science and technology. for example, when they encounter difficulties, they always want to solve them through science. other college students also believe in the power of gods or superstition when they encounter problems. for example, some college students believe that “god” or “panacea” can cure or cure all problems. what’s more, some students think that fortune-telling is superstitious and oppose all feudal superstitious activities such as fortune-telling and divination. they doubt and deny some views in the trend of thought of western scientism on the omnipotence of science and the supremacy of technology. of course, this understanding is one-sided. we cannot deny all their efforts just because some people were influenced by the trend of thought of western scientism. we should encourage college students to learn scientific knowledge and scientific spirit, establish scientific consciousness, humanistic consciousness and critical consciousness, and use scientific theories and methods to analyze and solve problems. 2. the influence of western pragmatism on the thought of contemporary college students 2.1 enhances college students’ social responsibility and sense of historical mission pragmatism philosophy believes that the value of life is to meet individual needs, so the goal of life is to realize one’s own value in life. college students are the main force of social construction, they shoulder the historical mission of realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. however, due to the lack of social and life experience in the process of growth, college students are easily affected by pragmatism philosophy. contemporary college students often pay too much attention to practical interests, but ignore the social development trend, the law of human progress, the law of human history development. they only see the immediate interests, but do not consider the long-term interests and overall interests, thus ignoring their own social responsibility. to a certain extent, the trend of thought of pragmatism has educated and guided college students to pursue the immediate interests, but there are some phenomena among college students, such as selfishness, disregard justice at the sight of profit, and seek personal gain at the expense of others, which has seriously affected the formation of college students’ correct values. but with the implementation of the reform and opening -up policy and the improvement of the socialist market economic system, profound changes have taken place in our society, and college students feel the changes of the times. they pay more attention to the needs of national and social development, national security, national future and personal fate. they also have new plans and prospects for their own future development, and hope to contribute to the development of society with their own knowledge. therefore, college students have a strong sense of the importance of their own responsibilities, and have enhanced their sense of social responsibility and historical mission. 2.2 diversify college students’ life value orientation value orientation is people’s subjective views and attitudes on life and work goals, which determines people’s behavior, and thus determines a person’s life goals and purposes, that is, value ideals. in modern society, people’s value orientations are more diversified, choosing different life value orientations will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 92 published by scholink inc. affect their own development, so it is an inevitable trend for contemporary college students to pursue diversified life value orientations. the trend of thought of pragmatism in the west is practicaloriented, with the color of utilitarianism, which has a certain impact on the formation of college students’ correct outlook on life, value and world. this kind of impact is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, under the influence of the trend of thought of pragmatism, college students pay more attention to the harmony and unification of personal interests and social interests, partial interests and overall interests, and the harmony and unification of personal ideals and social ideals. they no longer think that the pursuit of personal ideals is a selfish behavior, but that it is an indispensable prerequisite to realize the value of life. this change of concept is conducive to college students to combine the realization of personal values with the realization of social values, making college students’ life value orientation more in line with the needs of social development. second, college students pay more attention to their own quality and ability training. the trend of thought of pragmatism focuses on the cultivation and improvement of personal ability, and conducts self-evaluation and planning in accordance with the needs of society. this kind of life value orientation can make college students pay more attention to the cultivation of their own quality and ability, and help them realize their own value better in the era of knowledge economy. third, college students’ life value orientation pursues freedom and individual liberation. the trend of thought of pragmatism advocates individual freedom and individual liberation, opposes hierarchy and traditional bondage, and advocates individual liberation. 2.3 strengthening college students’ spiritual pursuit with the development of globalization, the trend of thought of pragmatism has been introduced into our country as a kind of value, ideological system and ideology, which makes college students pay more attention to the reality of society. college students’ spiritual world presents a pluralistic state, showing a strong desire for knowledge, for exploration and for novelty and difference. this kind of spiritual pursuit is strengthened under the influence of the trend of thought of western pragmatism, and college students actively explore the meaning of life, and take the pursuit of truth and happiness as the ultimate goal of life value. 3. the influence of western humanism on college students’ thought 3.1 human nature: hedonistic tendency in college students’ value realization as an important social trend of thought in the west, the trend of thought of western humanism focuses on human beings in the understanding of human society, and pays full attention to the realization of human values. in the view of the trend of thought of western humanism, human beings, as part of the nature, are social beings in essence, and human nature is the essential characteristic of human society, so the trend of thought of thought of human beings’ own value is highlighted in its value pursuit. fundamentally speaking, this kind of value pursuit is based on “human nature”, and takes human beings as the means to realize the ultimate ends and values of human beings. in this process, “people-centered” has become the most distinct characteristic of the trend of thought of western humanism. however, as a kind of value and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 93 published by scholink inc. practice way, the trend of thought of western humanism has some deviations and misunderstandings in the process of practice for human nature itself and the realization of human nature. as the main force and the backbone of the future construction and development of socialism, college students’ ideological value orientation and behavior way are to some extent influenced by the trend of thought of western humanism. 3.2 individual and collective: the contradiction between instrumentalism and individualism in college students’ value orientation the mainstream of college students’ thought is positive, but with the development of market economy, some bad thoughts begin to penetrate into the group of college students. from the angle of human value, the trend of thought of western humanism puts forward a series of problems, such as “individual and collective”, “human freedom and dignity”, “individual freedom and social responsibility”. there are two kinds of value orientations in college students: one is instrumentalism, which equates individual value with collective value and takes the maximization of individual interests as the core goal; the other is individualism, which equates individual value with social value and takes the maximization of individual interests as the only value pursuit of society. from the survey of college students’ thought, it is found that college students think it is advisable to give consideration to both collective interests and social interests while realizing the maximization of individual interests. but when there is a conflict between the two, they are more inclined to choose the latter. there are certain contradictions between college students’ individual and collective, individual interests and social interests. this contradiction has some negative influence on college students’ thought: they think that collective interests and social interests are external factors, not internal factors, and collective activities will interfere with their thinking and understanding of themselves, thus affecting their self-realization. 3.3 individual and society: the tendency of egocentrism and the lack of social responsibility in college students’ value orientation the trend of thought of western humanism pursues human freedom, individuality and rights, which ultimately point to the self-realization of individual, that is, the realization of human value. man is a social existence. when a person obtains self-realization in society, he also needs to undertake certain social responsibility. as the main force in the construction and development of socialism with chinese characteristics, college students shoulder the historical mission of building a modern powerful socialist country with chinese characteristics and realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. however, there is a certain degree of egocentrism in college students’ value orientation, which mainly shows as the lack of due sense of responsibility and mission to themselves, to others and to society. college students should make a correct choice between individual interests and national interests, collective interests and others’ interests. however, under the influence of western thoughts, contemporary college students generally lack the awareness and identification of social responsibility and collectivism. when facing the conflict of national interests, collective interests and individual interests, some college students tend to focus on their own interests and ignore the collective interests. some college students are more willing to pursue personal satisfaction as a goal to pursue the realization of life value, rather than to undertake more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 94 published by scholink inc. social responsibility to realize self-worth. 3.4 ideal and reality: the contradiction between the ideal pursuit and the social reality in college students’ value ideal the trend of thought of western humanism is a kind of solipsism in essence, which emphasizes the subjective value of individual. therefore, in their view, human itself is a kind of value, and only when the subjectivity of human is developed and respected can individual self-realization be realized. under the guidance of this kind of value idea, they advocate individual freedom, individual liberation, and the unity of individual value and social value. college students are the main force in the construction and development of our country, and their ideological situation is directly related to the process and future of our socialist modernization construction. therefore, it is particularly important to strengthen the ideological and political education of college students. however, under the influence of western humanism, there are serious individualism, hedonism and extreme individualism in college students. 4. summary for contemporary college students, while accepting the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts, they need to examine and criticize it, actively absorb its advantages, avoid its disadvantages, so as to better use philosophical thinking to solve problems, and gradually mold themselves into new talents with social responsibility, innovative thinking and the ability to solve complex problems. references xu, w. y. (2018). the influence of western cultural thoughts on college students’ thoughts and ideological and political teaching research. yangtze river journal, 2018(01), 252-253. zhang, f. f. (1995). the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts on contemporary college students. journal of inner mongolia institute of education, 1995(z1), 81-82. zhang, z. h. (2013). the influence of modern western philosophical thoughts on contemporary college students’ values. journal of hunan university of science and technology, 34(09), 76-77, 91. zhong, q. h. (2004). the influence of modern western philosophy on the thought of college students. journal of guiyang normal college (social science edition), 2004(04), 48-51. zhou, q. f. (2019). the influence of current social thoughts on college students’ thoughts and countermeasures. journal of hubei open vocational college, 32(19), 80-81, 86. author: li kexin (2002-), female, han nationality, from yueyang city, hunan province, professional title: none, undergraduate degree, research field: philosophy. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p39 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper social impact: social good, social neutrality, social bad, and social disaster: when is doing what you have a “right” to do the “right” thing to do? john tropman1* 1 university of michigan, ann arbor, michigan, usa * john tropman, university of michigan, ann arbor, michigan, usa i want to extend special appreciation and thanks to dr. emily niklett for her substantial assistance in this received: september 20, 2020 accepted: october 4, 2020 online published: october 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p39 abstract social good has been defined as “services or products that promote human well-being on a large scale.” while there seems to be agreement about the definitional “space” of social good, concepts of social action, social justice, and social impact require further attention. producing social good does not require injustice: improvements can be made even when there is no injustice. social good might be considered the first step in a triad containing social better (ment) and social best (good, better, best), with impactful results produced by social actors. there may be large cultural “umbrellas,” widely held value bundles, which define whole societies at points in time and over time. we discuss two: “the lonely crowd,” and “party id.” we use a portfolio analysis to look at the elements of social good and social bad: social very good, social good, social neutrality, social bad, and social disaster, and then consider three examples of positive social impacts, and five examples of negative social impacts. we suggest a guide to social action to help us make better decisions aimed toward the a or b outcomes (social very good and social good), using three steps: awareness of hidden bias, regular decision refurbishment, and using decision rules. the goal of this paper is to share ideas to help avoid social bad, and to help achieve social good. ideally, social good considerations will become a regular part of the decision-making process. 1. what is “social good”? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. mor barak defines social good as “services or products that promote human well-being on a large scale.” she adds: “these services or products include health care, education, clean water, and causes such as equality and women’s rights. the quest to promote social good around the world can bring together physical and virtual communities that unite around a cause or an idea, discoursing globally and instantaneously, and translating into coordinated actions such as protests or petition drives (prime examples are black lives matter and #oscar so white). social good is a term that coalesces many movements around the world, is featured in corporate websites, and unites different sectors of society—government, nonprofit, grassroots, and business.” she expands this definition in her paper “the practice and science of social good: emerging paths to positive social impact.”1in interviews with nine social good experts, she develops the following definition: “individual, community and social well-being are related to a) domains such as environmental justice and sustainability, b) engaging unconventional systems of change such as grass roots and business collaborations, national and international ngos, social entrepreneurs, and c) using innovative technologies and approaches such as design thinking, big data driven models and harnessing social media for social change, all aiming to promote social justice.” (mor, 2018, emphasis added) she additionally distinguishes social good(s) from public good(s), citing scott (2014): “public goods are products and services typically provided by the state or government, funded by taxation, and include national defense, public safety, education, health services, emergency services, infrastructure, public transportation, and water and telecommunication services.” many other definitions and explanations are also available. this one supports an international component, a technology component, and a social impact component: “social good is typically defined as an action that provides some sort of benefit to the general public. in this case, fresh water, education and healthcare are all good examples of social goods. however, new media innovations and the explosion of online communities have added new meaning to the term. social good is now about global citizens uniting to unlock the potential of individuals, technology and collaboration to create positive societal impact.” while there seems to be agreement about the definitional “space” of social good, concepts of social action, social justice, and social impact require further attention. 2. social justice implies injustice; social good may be bigger than justice the concept of “justice” requires a concept of “injustice,” in a yin/yang way. when we think of injustice we think of unfairness, deprivation, and oppression. we can see injustice on the individual level (cinderella’s treatment by her step-sisters), on the organizational level (unequal pay for equal work), and on the societal level (“ethnic cleansing”). changing injustice to justice implies rectification, if not accountability. on individual, organizational, and societal levels, if situations are bad, rectification is better. if www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. situations are not unjust, improvement is still better. producing social good does not require injustice: improvements can be made even when there is no injustice. in fact, achieving social justice may impede efforts to create further social good. social good might be considered the first step in a triad containing social better(ment) and social best (good, better, best) 3. social actions as verbal and behavioral social action can be verbal, both hurtful in itself and hurtful in the actions the words trigger. one example: when a candidate for the 2016 u.s. presidency “suggests” that one way to dispose of his opponent is for someone to assassinate her. frank bruni recalls the utterance, writing about an interview with the journalist dan rather: “i asked dan rather what he was most struck by in the 2016 campaign, and he instantly mentioned trump’s horrific implication in public remarks that august , that gun enthusiasts could rid themselves of a (hillary)clinton by assassinating her.” one is reminded of the words attributed to henry ii: “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? (sometimes expressed as troublesome or meddlesome priest) is an utterance attributed to henry ii of england, which led to the death of thomas becket, the archbishop of canterbury, in 1170. while it was not expressed as an order, it caused four knights to travel from normandy to canterbury, where they killed becket. the phrase is now used to express the idea that a ruler's wish can be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates.” words have power. while they are not “actions” in the usual sense of that word, they can inspire action in others. and they can be hurtful on their own, as well. when i was a kid i rewrote the old saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” as “sticks and stones break only bones; it’s words that really hurt me.” we know that newton’s first law “an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force” applies to physical events. but we can expand it include “reactions” to utterances as well. a problematic example of these dual tracks is contained in an article by trip gabriel in the new york times about congressman steve king’s incendiary remarks and divisive actions. gabriel provides a banquet of “offensiveness” during the 2002 through 2019 period, an excellent example of the intermingling of words and actions. 3.1 the differential results of social actions: good, neutral, bad/awful, and disastrous social good is one kind of impactful result produced by social actors. other kinds of impactful results include social neutrality, social bad, and social disaster. each may be defined differently by different social actors: environmental protection may be defined as “good,” but the coal industry may find it “bad.” regulation may generally be seen as good for the large majority, but it can be disastrous for those whom it drives out of business. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. 3.2 two categories of social impact: direct and indirect direct social impact occurs when “good” is the first-order result of the action. some businesses donate some (or all) of their profits to charity. social benefit organizations are seen to do “good” acts (although they can also do things that are socially neutral, socially bad, or even socially disastrous). indirect social impact can be considered external to the primary social action. in economics, “externality” is defined as “a side effect or consequence of an industrial or commercial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved, such as the pollination of surrounding crops by bees kept for honey.” 3.3 social action as a multiplayer/multilayer game social actors engaged in social action can be family groups, acquaintance/affinity groups, organizations, states, or nations. typically each is acting/enacting all the time, with impacts beyond the actor. while we could consider individuals as social actors, for purposes of a social good analysis we will start with families, then communities, states, nations, regions, and the world itself. 3.4 various/diverse results/impacts it’s almost impossible to do just one thing, and then for that one thing to not have repercussions. so even if “one thing” is undeniably a “social good,” some of the repercussions may be less good. and, of course, with diversity of actors at every level, there will be different understandings of good and bad at each level. hose results can occur at the same point in time (as in a zero-sum game) but may occur over a period of time, as when something that “seemed like a good idea” now becomes, later, an idea with bad results. even on the individual level, something i do now that does social good may later end up being not so good after all. 3.5 contested claims values may be offered as a basis for an action, but values often conflict. consider these examples: the american values of achievement and equality,” a rising tide lifts all boats” versus “each tub on its own bottom,” ownership versus trusteeship, “mountain” versus “wagon train,” “public regarding” versus “private regarding,” approaches to permission vs. control. each of these values is more juxtaposed than opposed. “opposed” means that an actor (person, organization, etc.) tends to favor one side or the other. “juxtaposed” means that an actor holds some of each orientation and is constantly balancing them. policies, programs, and social actions at any level can be used as a justification for actions seen as socially good by some and as socially awful for others, depending on value orientation. 3.6 the umbrellas of culture there may be large cultural “umbrellas” that define whole societies at points in time and over time. these are widely held value bundles. values are ideas to which commitment is attached. it is the difference between “words” and “fighting words.” we’ll discuss two of them here, because they have importantly different impacts on what is considered social good and social bad. here are a couple www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. examples. 1) the lonely crowd. in 1950, david reisman, and nathan and reuel denny published the lonely crowd, a blockbuster about american cultural norms, which they argued characterized american society. the three norms they described were tradition direction (guidance from the past, as in “what did grandpa think?”), inner direction (guidance from your own thoughts, as in “what do i think?”), and other direction (guidance by the larger social group, as in “let’s run it up the flagpole and see what which way the kind is blowing”). they argued that mid-20th century america was into other direction, but had passed through the previous two stages. one need not think of them as temporally progressive, but as extant sub-cultures with some dominant and others sub-dominant in different regions of the u.s., as well as in other countries in the world. “traditional wisdom,” “internal thought,” and “going with the crowd” are well-understood bases on which to both take social action and to define social good and bad. it seems true that these bases exist and have committed followers. each competes for dominance in policy and action. each ethos substantiates what is “the right thing to do,” what is social good, and what is social bad. 2)party identification (party id). party identification (party id) is one of the most powerful attitudinal variables in social science research. it measures the conservative (republication) and liberal (democratic) orientation of registered voters. many social scientists have used it. i tracked party id and a number of other independent variables (including race) between 1952 and 1978, using the national election study conducted every two years (consistent with congressional years). this study explored the variables that seemed to predict a supportive orientation to a class of positive, social good activities by the government. with over 14 independent variables, party id was a significant predictor 69% of the time. clearly this was a powerful tool to use to determine what respondents think is social good or social bad. it was also powerful over time: later respondents (offspring) must have learned it from their parents and extended family. as a line in south pacific puts it, “you’ve got to be carefully taught.” “you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year, it’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear. you’ve got to be carefully taught you’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made, and people whose skin is a different shade, you’ve got to be carefully taught.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. party id is an important shaper of what is considered social good and social bad in american society. people’s opinions form and their decisions are made using cultural “heuristics,” a mental shortcut, as daniel kahneman called them in thinking fast and thinking slow. 3.7 the pressure of structure our ideas/values help shape our concepts of social good and social bad. that is what max weber argued in the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism and what i argued in the catholic ethic and the spirit of community.(freud essentially argued this as well.) but lived experiences shape them, too. karl marx was a proponent of the behavioral approach: social conditions and lived experiences shape perception and perspective just as culture does. (and, on the individual side, b.f. skinner was the “”marxian” parallel to freud). referring again to the matrix reported earlier in public policy opinion and the elderly, “race” weighed in one point higher than “party id,” at a beta of .70. clearly, being in a group that has been historically victimized shapes one’s perceptions and judgment of social good and social bad. 3.8 could we grade social good and social bad? given so many pressures on the definitions of “social good” and “social bad,” is there a scheme that could give us a workable way of looking at these elements? a start might be a portfolio analysis . . . . 1) social very good: the “a” result. all benefit. socially positive consequences for a wide spectrum of relevant groups. for example, “obamacare,” despite its significant opposition. 2) social good: the “b” group. gains and losses, but overall all groups under analysis are better off. for example, various governmental regulations that protect the environment but are costly for specific groups. 3) social neutrality: the “c” group. there are gains and losses with some relevant groups, but the overall effect is a wash. 4) social bad: the “d” group. some elements of the community move ahead, or more fall behind, leading to an overall situation where the social unit is worse off. two examples: opening federal lands to drilling and logging, strip-mining for coal. 5) social disaster: the “f” group. all lose, or the “nuclear result” where almost everyone is worse off. for example, the lessening of bank regulations. three examples of positive social impacts 3.9 random acts of kindness the phrase “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty?” was written by anne herbert in 1982. “random acts of kindness,” which might be defined as non-premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world,” has developed into a phenomenon.20 the concept even has a foundation devoted to it, which offers encouragement through calendars, planners, etc.21 3.10 do a good turn daily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. the boy scouts slogan encourages doing “good turns,” both big and small. “leave the campsite better than you found it?” is an example. 4. water works sometimes something already extant can have an expanded purpose more than just “re-purposing.” ivan penn’s article in the august 4, 2018 new york times discusses a proposal to turn the hoover dam into a giant battery.22 or consider the discussion in “it’s all connected: private water work can influence downstream angling opportunities” as discussed by chris wood in the trout unlimited magazine.23 a wealthy landowner (upstream) improved his section of a river. this benefited him personally, but also greatly improved downstream fishing opportunities. 4.1 eight examples of negative social impacts 1) the pierce veto, 1854—a presidential social bad dorothea dix persuaded congress to use 10 million acres of federal land to support mental health care for the indigent insane. “franklin pierce (14th president of the united states) had to make…an important decision in 1854. he was grieving the recent death of his son in a railroad accident, an event that left the mourning first lady so depressed that she rarely left her bedroom. ironically, the new decision had to do with care for people with psychiatric disabilities. pierce had to decide whether to sign the newly enacted bill that would provide for the care of the “indigent insane.” the arguments pierce made in the veto of dix’s bill are familiar ones to historians of social policy. pierce feared that if the federal government assumed responsibility for the care of the indigent insane, the care of all impoverished americans would then become its responsibility, a development in which the founders would never have acquiesced. pierce declared he sympathized with the aims of the bill but could not agree with its means. federal lands eventually would be used to help to build a transcontinental railroad, would be given to homesteaders, but would not be provided to finance care for people with psychiatric disabilities (emphasis added). responsibility would remain with the states.” 4.2 feeding the poor: the nicholos plan–individual social bad during the 1930s, the problem of homelessness and providing food for the poor bedeviled the american conscience, leading to at least one very odd proposal, in which the proposer felt obviously good about the “social good” he was suggesting. it was the nicholos plan: “thus john b. nicholos of the oklahoma gas utilities company wrote to his friend patrick j. hurley, the secretary of war, about an idea he was trying out in chickasha, oklahoma. by the nicholos plan, restaurants were asked to dump food left on plates into five gallon containers; the unemployed could www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. qualify for these scraps by chopping wood donated by farmers. ‘we expect a little trouble now and then from those who are not worthy of the support of the citizens,” nicholos wrote philosophically, “but we must contend with such cases in order to take care of those who are worthy.” hurley was so impressed by the plan of feeding garbage to the homeless that he personally urged it on colonel woods’” (schlesinger, 1957, p. 179). the orientation does not seem to have changed that much since 1935. 4.3 feeding the poor in kansas city, 2018—civic social bad “they unfurled colorful blankets on a grassy slope, and unloaded steaming trays of corn dogs, baked beans and vegetable beef soup. every week for the past three years, the volunteers have gone to a park just outside downtown kansas city with home-cooked meals for the homeless. they call it a picnic with friends. but on a cloudy afternoon earlier this month, an inspector from the kansas city health department showed up and called it something else: an illegal food establishment. she ordered most of the food put into black garbage bags, bundled them on the grass and, in a move that stunned the gathered group, doused the pile with bleach. allen andrews, who has been living on the streets for the past year, said he watched silently as the bleach was poured, thinking back to when he had a home. “they treat us like animals,” mr. andrews, 46, said. as the nation prepared for one of its biggest holiday feasts in a season of giving, a bitter fight has emerged in this city over who is permitted to help the hungry and how they may do it. on one side are city officials, who say they’re merely concerned about the safety of donated food; on the other, the volunteers, who consider the city’s food-sharing regulations heartless technicalities whose real purpose is to discourage homeless people from congregating. similar battles have erupted in places like fort lauderdale, tampa and el cajon, calif., where volunteers have been arrested after feeding the homeless. kansas city officials have said their crackdown is about protecting the needy. they said city ordinances require groups like free hot soup, the one that organizes gatherings every sunday at four parks, to get a “food establishment” permit, and that the “homeless folks are more at risk of food-borne illness because of the challenges they are living under,” said rex archer, director of the health department. “feeding them an unsafe meal, they actually will be lucky if they’re able to get an ambulance and get to the hospital.” but free hot soup volunteers and their supporters have said the city’s cleanliness concerns are just a cover. in reality, they said, the city wanted to break up large gatherings of homeless people, bowing to the demands of some residents. the volunteers said their model for feeding hungry people is incompatible with permitting requirements, in large part because the approximately 100 volunteers who now prepare meals in their homes would be required to cook in commercial kitchens instead. the group considers its gatherings more akin to church www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. barbecues or family reunions than to public events that require permits. “this is about anti-homeless-people, anti-poor-people policy,” said quinton lucas, a city councilman who is running for mayor of kansas city.” 4.4 do americans hate the poor?—civic social bad in my book do americans hate the poor (tropman, 1998) i suggested that while we americans might be collectively generous, we have strong worries about those in need, who are differently abled, and so on. historical poverty relief has been long in coming and often mean and punitive in spirit. certainly the pierce veto and the nicholos plan give evidence of this orientation. moving from 1854 through the 1930s to kansas in 2018 we come to leelanau county, michigan, in 2019. the following two excerpts are from the leelanau enterprise, on the same date: 4.5 “teaching hotel” now doubtful by eric carlson of the enterprise staff plans to build a 100-room “teaching hotel” just off m-22 and cherry bend road in elmwood township appear far less certain following action last week by the township planning commission. at their regular monthly meeting last week, elmwood planners recommended that a rezoning request from “foundations workforce solutions (fws)” be denied. the church-based nonprofit had applied to rezone several parcels in the neighborhood from residential (r-1) to neighborhood commercial (nc) to accommodate construction of a 45,000 square-foot hotel. fws would use the hotel to provide jobs and skill training for “underemployed, unemployed, and under-educated persons.” fws was formed by members of pine grove church in traverse city as a public service. many of the neighbors of the proposed “teaching hotel” would just as soon not see it there, however, according to elmwood township zoning administrator sara kopriva. about 40 of them packed the elmwood township hall during last week’s meeting, and about an hour of public comment was heard, mostly from those opposed to the project, kopriva said. following public comment and a review of the application for a rezoning request the elmwood township planning commission decided to recommend that the rezoning request be denied, kopriva reported. 4.6 board nixes boat launch ok by eric carlson of the enterprise staff having sent officials of the discovery center back to the drawing board once already regarding the location of a small boat launch for disabled people on discovery pier, members of the elmwood township board now want to see whoever did the drawings. at its regular monthly meeting last week, the township board once again declined to approve a request from discovery center project manager john noonan to use state-owned bottomland controlled by the township through a lease with the state. use of the bottomland would be required for installation of an elevator-type small boat launch that would help disabled people into the water aboard canoes and kayaks in west grand traverse bay waters just www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. offshore of the township’s greilickville harbor park. township trustees james o’rourke and dave darga have been especially outspoken in their concern that waters are sometimes too rough for launching small paddle-craft along the discovery pier breakwall immediately south of the township marina. noonan has presented plans for the special boat launch and other improvements at discovery pier that have been approved by state officials and prepared by a professional marine engineering firm whose chief designer has visited the site numerous times in all conditions and has declared the proposed installation safe. after the discovery center’s plans for the small boat launch were shot down by the township board for at least the second time, noonan last week suggested that members of the township board might be unnecessarily “micromanaging” the nonprofit’s project. the only reason the discovery center is seeking the township’s approval is because the state bottomland on that side of discovery pier is covered in a lease the township has with the state. the discovery center has been planning improvements to the pier ever since it acquired the old coal dock from traverse city light & power more than two years ago. those plans were put into high gear last month when officials learned that some $2 million in state grant funding would be provided for the project. although consideration of approval of the discovery center project was on the agenda of last week’s elmwood township board meeting, no approval was given. township supervisor jeff shaw said it was clear that board members would first like to hear from the “expert” the discovery center hired who located the launch on that portion of the pier before making a final decision. the issue is expected to be on the board’s agenda next month. interesting in these examples is the self-satisfaction they each illustrate, claiming to offer social good in the case of actually offering social bad. sometimes social bad comes as the result of bureaucratic conflation and confusion. consider the following example: 4.7 foiling and soiling your staff organizational social bad in a profile of elizabeth anderson, currently chair of the department of philosophy, the university of michigan (new yorker, january 7, 2019), nathan heller describes two “social bad” observations of her summer employment at a bank while a college sophomore. it is a harbinger of the “banks gone bad” scenario. the first observation involves the bank’s staff, and its attempt to delay and obfuscate employee complaint when there was not enough money to pay staff. the bank sent “rubber” checks. it appeared to happen with some regularity. the second observation was of a capricious and authoritarian office reorganization that soured the office culture and interrupted the flow of collective work. (emphasis added.) “american stories trace the sweep of history, but their details are definingly particular. in the summer of 1979, elizabeth anderson, then a rising junior at swarthmore college, got a job as a bookkeeper at a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. bank in harvard square. every morning, she and the other bookkeepers would process a large stack of bounced checks. businesses usually had two accounts, one for payroll and the other for costs and supplies. when companies were short of funds, anderson noticed, they would always bounce their payroll checks. it made a cynical kind of sense: a worker who was owed money wouldn’t go anywhere, or could be replaced, while an unpaid supplier would stop supplying. still, anderson found it disturbing that businesses would write employees phony checks, burdening them with bounce fees. it appeared to happen all the time. midway through summer, the bank changed its office plan. when anderson had started, the bookkeepers worked in rows of desks. coordination was easy a check that fell under someone else’s purview could be handed down the line—and there was conversation throughout the day. then cubicles were added. that transformation interrupted the workflow, the conversational flow, and most other things about the bookkeeper’s days. their capacities as workers were affected, yet the change had come down from on high.“ 4.8 caught in bureaucratic crossfire—interorganizational social bad as lizzie johnson wrote in the san francisco chronicle (july 18, 2018): “the flames killed two residents of journey’s end, incinerated 121 homes and melted the new gas and electric system. the 40 surviving units—the ones morgan helped save—were contaminated by smoke and asbestos and red-tagged. ten months later, the residents of those units are stuck. those who had insurance can’t collect a settlement because the units are standing, and they can’t go home because the land is condemned. a nonprofit housing organization plans to build a mix of affordable and market-rate condos on the wrecked lot. “insurance companies don’t cover that,” said ronit rubinoff, executive director of legal aid of sonoma county, a nonprofit group that helps low-income households. “because the park was closed by government action, they said the condemnation applies, and we don’t have to cover it. but the reason the park closed was because a wildfire destroyed it first.” a cluster of residents lives in the sandman hotel, just across highway 101. sometimes, they leave voice mails on morgan’s phone. they talk about suicide. most don’t blame morgan, but they wish their homes had burned down.” 4.9 a stroll along the great lakes—national social bad the supreme court plans to consider a case that will determine where personal property ends, when one lives along a body of water. a couple from indiana who own land along lake michigan argue that their ownership goes right the water’s edge, meaning that no one can stroll along the beach along their property without their permission.30 the couple lost unanimously in the indiana and michigan supreme courts. in the michigan case, the court ruled that their land ended at the high water mark, so there would always be a strip along which folks could walk. this was unsatisfactory .... it would be my guess that about 90 percent of americans would prefer being able to stroll freely (“stakeholders not in the room,” see below), and restricting strolling would be a socially bad decision www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. (since it could affect most of the american shoreline of the great lakes!). it is a perfect case of not doing the right thing, even though the owners (and others, presumably) feel it is their “right,” and are willing to deny simple pleasures to others for their own wishes.31 4.10 international social bad, or social bad repeating itself writing in the new york times (sunday, january 20th, 2019) pankaj mishra describes an intertemporal social bad producing culture that had disastrous results in india 70 years ago and is reproduced today in the form of brexit. with brexit, the “chumocrats” (public school elites with no particular expertise at their tasks) who drew borders from india to ireland are getting a taste of their own medicine. “describing britain’s calamitous exit from its indian empire in 1947, the novelist paul scott wrote that in india the british “came to the end of themselves as they were”—that is, to the end of their exalted idea about themselves. scott was among those shocked by how hastily and ruthlessly the british, who had ruled india for more than a century, condemned it to fragmentation and anarchy; how louis mountbatten, accurately described by the right-wing historian andrew roberts as a “mendacious, intellectually limited hustler,” came to preside, as the last british viceroy of india, over the destiny of some 400 million people. britain’s rupture with the european union is proving to be another act of moral dereliction by the country’s rulers. the brexiteers, pursuing a fantasy of imperial-era strength and self-sufficiency, have repeatedly revealed their hubris, mulishness and ineptitude over the past two years. though originally a ‘remainer,’ prime minister theresa may has matched their arrogant obduracy, imposing a patently unworkable timetable of two years on brexit and laying down red lines that undermined negotiations with brussels and doomed her deal to resoundingly bipartisan rejection this week in parliament. such a pattern of egotistic and destructive behavior by the british elite flabbergasts many people today. but it was already manifest seven decades ago during britain’s rash exit from india.” 5. producing social good is there a way that we could develop a guide to social action or have an assessment tool that would help us make better decisions aimed toward the a or b outcomes (social very good and social good)? after all, we choose paths that lead us to this range of outcomes (a through f, as discussed earlier), and probably in most cases our intentions were “good” even if the outcome was “bad”. perhaps the road to hell is indeed paved with (and self-satisfied) intentions. how can we make high quality decisions? is there a way to make our decisions better? there is. and three steps are necessary, plus some practice. 5.1 step 1: awareness of hidden bias recognize the impact of kahneman’s heuristics on decision making. it might be called “awareness of awareness.” when we ask, “what were/are they thinking?” the answer is always that they weren’t/aren’t . . . at least not in any sensible use of that term. instead, they were using a shortcut (like meaningless nostrums, like “make america great again”), or stereotypes. stereotypes crop up in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. usual places, but also unexpected ones. for example, fbi trainers tend to punish women for their trainee mistakes but overlook mistakes by men. “female trainees are singled out in group tactical exercises because they are perceived as being weak and prone to failure,” they wrote in the complaint. “male trainees are provided multiple avenues for success, in spite of their errors. male trainees are often permitted to retake tactical exams when female trainees are denied the opportunity to do so.” when decisions are based on feelings rather than facts, they are difficult to challenge. it is difficult to tell people they can’t or shouldn’t feel the way they do. awareness is vital. 5.2 step 2: regular decision refurbishment once decisions are made, they tend to remain unchanged until there’s a crisis. in the ensuing flurry of review, problematic actions are often taken, followed by systemic collapse and avoidance of further changes until the next crisis. making changes from a position of strength and calm rather than pressure or panic obviously yields better results. it’s always better to see the fuller picture and to have the time to take the implications of that picture into account. the agenda bell (below), originally developed as a guide to decision structure in meetings, provides a useful guide for decision refurbishment (tropman, team impact, 2018 congella). figure 1. agenda bell here this bell-shaped array suggests that easy decisions are made (or refurbished) early. difficult decisions fall in the middle, and discussion and review come at the end of the decision framework, setting one up for the next decision cycle. a clock face can be used as another way to think about decisions: make decisions between 10 and 2—not too early, but not too late (10-to-2 corresponds to the grey hard-decision items in the agenda www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. bell above). figure 2. clock face here 5.3 step 3: use the decision rules decision rules are norms that improve the quality of decisions. the more of the following seven decision rules that are incorporated, the better the decision. that said, decisions makers from people top nations have “rule preferences. that is, there is a subset of the seven that are preferred and given greater weight than others. but often some accommodation needs to be addressed to the majority of these rules. 1. breadth of preference. the majority rule. what do most people want? 2. depth of preference.who cares deeply? how can we accommodate the wishes of those who care most deeply? 3. involvement. who has to carry out the decision? what does he or she or they think about it? 4. information. what do the experts think? 5. power. what does the boss want? what do the powerful people want? don’t ignore important influences! 6. stakeholders not in the room. there are important, pertinent people not in the room. what do they want? 7. the complexity of the idea and its requisites (too many moving parts, too expensive, too many assumptions.) 8. the optics how does the decision appear or might appear? 9. potential for “social bad externalities the better the decision, the less likely it will be short-sighted or selfish, and the more likely it can produce a more positive social impact. the decision rules are discussed more completely in tropman, (2018). avoiding social bad, achieving social good (note 1) what we call “social bad” may be your “right” (at the “me” level) and may be good for you personally, but bad for society (“us” and “them”). we need to understand that our personal “rights” need to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. balanced by the rights of others. the “right” to do for society is almost always a balance among competing rights and outcomes. given american individualism, social good tends to be seen as subordinate to individual good. in other words, first i take care of myself, then i’ll try to take care of others, if it doesn’t create conflicts. our challenge is to always seek to insure there is at least a component of social good in all our actions: individual, communal, organizational, societal, and global. the goal here would be to make social good considerations a regular part of our decision-making process. princeton professor peter singer, in his ted talks and his book doing the most good focuses on the altruistic element in our actions, and proposes a kind of “cost/benefit analysis” decision tree to assess where you can get the most social impact for your charitable contribution. he calls this approach “effective altruism.” this distinction seems to conflate “the (ethically) right thing to do” with “the most “effective (efficient/impactful) thing to do.” and he makes a compelling argument for it. we all might not agree with his argument or his conclusion; however, his premise is an excellent one—that we should have a “social good/impact” element in our decision making. i would go beyond his application to the elementary sector, and argue that it should be applied as a matter of routine (kahneman’s heuristic) as we go about our daily life. the production of social good begins with thinking about social good. references agenda, b. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2meof02 banfield, e., & james, q. w. (1963). city politics. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. bruni, f. (2013). will the media fail again? new york times. carlson, e. (2019). “teaching hotel” now doubtful. leelanau enterprise. carlson, e. (2019). board nixes boat launch ok. leelanau enterprise. retrieved from https://bit.ly/2i8xhnt clockface. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2fv0t46 eligon, j. (2018). you want to feed the hungry? lovely. let’s see your permit. new york times. retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2groeso gabriel, t. (2019). a timeline of steve king’s racist remarks and divisive actions. new york times. retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2t1fzco goldman, a. (2019). f.b.i. training instructors punish women, not men, for mistakes, complaint says. new york times. retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2tztko5 google search for “externality.” (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2dvzl4l google search of “social good.” (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2suk2pl google search of “social impact”. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2ufb8d2 heuristic definition: “a heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. judgments quickly and efficiently. these rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. heuristics are helpful in many situations, but they can also lead to cognitive biases.” (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2rsn3io ibid. johnson, l. (2018). regret haunts wine country fire hero: ‘i’ve never cried this much.” san francisco chronicle. retrieved from https://bit.ly/2jkoikh kahneman, d. (1911). thinking fast and thinking slow. new york, new york: farrar, strauss giroux. lake walking case. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2dfdbl8 lipset, s. m. (1967). the first new nation. new york, new york: doubleday anchor. mishra, p. (2019). the malign incompetence of the british ruling class. new york times. mor barak, m. (2018). the practice and science of social good: emerging paths to positive social impact. research on social work practice, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731517745600 penn, i. (2018). it harnesses a river. why stop there? new york times. retrieved from https://bit.ly/2dxgbqg peter singer on effective altruism. (n.d.). retrieved from https://to.pbs.org/2hwvx0t random acts of kindness, the organization. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/1t6dq5y riesman, d., nathan, g., & reul, d. (2001). the lonely crowd. new haven, connecticut: yale university press. schlesinger, arthur, jr. (1957). the crisis of the old order. boston, massachusetts: houghton mifflin. scott, j. (2014). a dictionary of sociology. new york, new york: oxford university press. south pacific lyrics. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/1uhbg0i this paper uses examples and quotes from public media (the new yorker, the new your times, the scout manual, and trout magazine) in the section that illustrates social bad and social good. tropman, j. (1986). conflict in culture. lanham, maryland: university press of america. tropman, j. (2002). the catholic ethic and the spirit of community. washington, d.c.: georgetown university press. tropman, j. (2018).team impact. san diego, california: congella. warder, g. (2014). franklin pierce’s 1854 veto.” disability history museum, virginia commonwealth university. retrieved from https://bit.ly/2dwpyee weber, m. (1938). the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. new york, new york: scribner’s sons. new york. translated by talcott parsons. wikipedia search for “practice random kindness.” (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2ddeqq5 wikipedia search for “sticks and stones.” (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2ozk8jb wikipedia search for quote. (n.d.). retrieved from https://bit.ly/2mwbxp6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 55 published by scholink inc. wood, c. (2019). it’s all connected: private water work can improve downstream angling opportunities. trout, 10-11. note note 1. an interesting set of criteria is offered by the philosopher called “the baloney detection kit” https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/ retrived 9/23/2020 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 80 original paper research on nobel literature prize winner yan mo’s transformations of writing styles from the perspective of magical realism xueyuan miao1 1 school of chinese and literature , henan normal university, xinxiang, china received: october 29, 2024 accepted: december 14, 2024 online published: january 01, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p80 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p80 abstract yan mo, china’s first nobel prize winner for literature, has largely experienced two transformations of writing styles. however, magical realism has always been the main characteristics of his writing creation. during the first period ( between the year 1981 to the time he studied in pla academy of arts) , he concentrated chiefly on his daily life in the army and his writing style was soft and fresh. then using bold brushstrokes and unique perspectives, he turned to depict the colorful stories of numerous characters in his hometown with magical realism and rich imagination, leading him all the way to his winning of the nobel prize for literature in 2012. after experiencing about five years of creative silence, yan mo experienced another creative transformation from novels to dramas with the publication of the drama crocodile as a representative. dramas are significant components of yan mo’s literary works, but most people only attach great importance to yan mo’s researches on magical realism in his novels. fewer people do researches about his dramas, with even fewer researchers making comparison between yan mo’s transformation of writing styles. so this article is to use the textual analysis to explore the factors that account for his use of magical realism in the two transformations and analyze the inheritances and developments in his writing characteristics of magical realism in the two stages. in a word, there are four purposes for this paper : (1) to explore the development of magical realism in yan mo’s literary creation and the contributing factors. (2) to explore the transformations of magical realism before yan mo won the nobel prize for literature and its unique characteristics. (3) to explore the differences of the use of magical realism after he won the noble prize for literature in 2012. (4) to explore the reasons for yan mo’s transformation and conclude the research gap. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 81 keywords yan mo, magical realism, transformation, writing style 1. introduction yan mo is one of the best contemporary chinese writers who began to make his figure in chinese literary world in the 1980s with works such as transparent carrot (1985) and red sorghum family (1987). by entering the keyword yan mo on chinese cnki, you can find about 5502 research papers on yan mo’s novels. however, yan mo not only created many novels, but also produced essays, poems and dramas which are not so influential as his novels. up to now, “he has published a total of 18 novels, 20 novellas, 138 short stories, 103 essays, and more than 10 poems and other works, and won the mao dun literature prize, shi naian literature prize, zhu ziqing prose award and many other awards (feng & wang, 2024, p. 50)”. many chinese researchers have studied yan mo’s works from different perspectives. cuiying gao studied yan mo’s style transformation by dividing his works into three different stages and claimed that “ yan mo’s works have been showing more and more ‘chinese elements’, ‘chinese style’ and ‘national background color’ (gao, 2010, p. 42)”. aisong duan analyzed yan mo’s long-running novel life and death are wearing me out from the aspects of the compassionate circulation of life consciousness, the multiple structure of perspective and the wonderful irony of narrative language, claiming that this novel is “ both an innovative creation in the sense of text, a huge impact and an exploration of the theme and the fate of characters (duan, 2023, p. 181).” yan mo also becomes recognized throughout the world with his works translated into many kinds of languages and circulated in many countries for three decades. the famous american translator howard goldblatt deserves a lot of credit in the translation and dissemination of yan mo’s novels in the english-speaking countries. in 1993, the red sorghum family was translated by the famous american translator howard goldblatt and published in both the united states and the united kingdom by viking penguin usa, marking the beginning of yan mo’s works to enter the field of view of the english-speaking world. then a series of works with local themes were translated and introduced around the world. in october 2012, yan mo won the nobel prize for literature, completing his transformation from a local writer to a world-class writer—completing the process of consecration (casanova, 2004, p. 126). so researches about yan mo and his works are on the rise. centering on the overseas translation, publication, acceptance and research status of yan mo’s works, jiangkai liu aims to “reveal and discuss some possible problems in the process of overseas dissemination of chinese contemporary literature (liu, 2011, p. 20)”. zhengbin and xuebing studied the english translation of contemporary chinese native literature based on yan mo and pingwa jia’s translated works and compared the influences of their works in foreign countries, concluding that “the future translation of chinese local literature in the english world communication still has a long way to go (feng & wang, 2024, p. 57).” yan mo himself realized that it is very important for the successful translation and spread of a piece of writing to choose the proper translators and publishing house. wang pointed out www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 82 that “yan mo is a wild and unrestrained novelist, but his essays are relatively standardized” (wang, 2009, p. 88). on the chinese cnki, we can get about 30 researches about yan mo’s dramas. so based on the theory of magical realism, this paper is to investigate into the use of magical realism in yan mo’s works before and after he won the nobel prize. this paper is to achieve four purposes : (1) to explore the development of magical realism in yan mo’s literary creation and the contributing factors. (2) to explore the transformations of magical realism before yan mo won the nobel prize for literature and its unique characteristics. (3) to explore the differences of the use of magical realism after he won the noble prize for literature in 2012. (4) to explore the reasons for yan mo’s transformation and conclude the research gap. 2. core concept and research methods 2.1 magical realism magical realism, or magic realism, is an approach to literature that weaves fantasy and myth into everyday life. in the world of magical realism, the ordinary becomes extraordinary and the magical becomes commonplace (craven, 2019). the term magischer realismus (magic realism) was coined by the critic franz roh (1890-1965) in 1925 to designate an artistic style that merged realism with elements of the fantastical, mythological, and dream-like. through his theorizing, roh sought to name the defamiliarizing experience whereby even the most mundane objects can appear strange and magical if you look long enough at them. the term only gave name to a movement in the 1940s in response to work produced in latin america and the caribbean (dent, 2023). the value of magical realism lies not in the “illusion”, but in the real life under the “illusion”, which is different from other imaginary writings such as horror stories, ghost stories, science fiction, dystopian fiction. one hundred years of solitude, written by colombian writer garcia marquez, is regarded as the main peak of magical realism literature in the world literary circle, and has been translated into more than 30 languages and published, selling more than 10 million copies (yao, 2013, p. 151). in novels of magic realism, the writers skillfully combines reality with magic, fantasy and other elements to create a world full of mystery, fantasy and surreal atmosphere, making reality ambiguous and uncertain, allowing the reader to walk between reality and fantasy and experience a unique reading experience. the fables in contemporary novels of magic realism have a wide audience of readers, which not only attract the love of readers, but also attract the attention of many scholars. in contemporary magical realism novels, fables are usually presented in various ways. some fables use animal images to symbolize certain traits or social groups of human beings, such as the buendia family in one hundred years of solitude. each character is named after an animal, which means the primitive, instinct and madness they possess. other fables describe such relationships as man and god, man and nature, only to show human’s desire for power and human’s blind obedience to faith as well as other themes. the content expressed in these fables often involves political, cultural, moral and other issues in social reality. for example, the novel www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 83 “nightmare in dreams” is set in a dream, describing a variety of strange events experienced by a person in a dream, suggesting the real life insecurity, fear and the desire to pursue freedom. today, magical realism is an international tendency with its expression in many countries and cultures. in contemporary magical realist novels, fables are common contents, through which some plots in the novel are better expressed, improving the overall quality of the novel. chinese writers are also inspired and use fables to express the problems and issues in real society. in the 1980s, the novel one hundred years of solitude was introduced in china and shocked the entire chinese literary world, and it has been called the greatest work of spanish literature since don quixote, for it combines exaggeration, illusion, absurdity, irony, symbolism and other descriptive techniques, and integrates a large number of european myths, fables and folklore, which also makes its author marquez become the winner of the nobel prize in literature. 2.2 textual analysis in recent years, text analysis is a powerful research method for researchers to explore the nature of message content, and it is also one of the commonly used methods of cultural studies scholars. text mainly refers to the information structure composed of certain symbols or codes, which can be expressed in different forms, such as language, text, image and so on. the text is made by a specific person, and its semantics will inevitably reflect the ideological content of the specific position, viewpoint, value and interest of the person. 2.3 historical and cultural research method historical and cultural research is to explore the characteristics of the era and cultural connotation reflected in the works by studying the social, political, cultural and other aspects reflected in the works. the literary works are compared and analyed to come up with the similarities and differences between them. this method is helpful to reveal the inner relation and mutual influence between literary works and promote the understanding of the law of literary development.this method helps to understand the historical background and creative context of the work, so as to grasp the meaning and value of the work more comprehensively. 3. research results 3.1 three stages of yan mo’s literary creation yan mo is an extremely prolific writer. his works coexist beauty and ugliness, pain and joy, life and death cycle, creating strange artistic wonders in chaotic scenes. by reading through yan mo’s works and related literature, yan mo’s development of literary creation can be clearly appreciated and different researches have divided yan mo’s literary creation into different stages. cuiying gao divided yan mo’s creation of literary works (cuiying, 2010, p. 42) as follows in table one. guan (2015) also thought mo yan’s literary creation can also be divided into three stages, but with a different method as in table two. the two tables show that though cuiying gao and xiaoxiao guan both divided yan mo’s literary creation into three stages, but neither of them has paid any attention to his literary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 84 transformation after yan mo won the nobel prize in 2012 for his novel frog,even less importance has been attached to the differences of magical realism which used in his works produced after he won the nobel prize for literature. so my attention is paid to investigating into the different characteristics of magical realism in these three stages and the main characteristics of magical realism in the drama crocodile which was published in 2023. table 1. three stages of yan mo’s literary works three stages of yan mo’s literary works early stage (1981-1984) middle stage (1985-2000) third stage (2000-) copying stage golden period (1985-1986) shock period (1987) mature period (1988-2000) development period table 2. three stages of guan xiaoxiao’s literary works three stages of guan xiaoxiao’s literary works early stage (1981-1989) middle stage (1990-1999) third stage (2000-) breakthroughs and multiple explorations of literary creation driven by youthful passion the consciousness and maturity of novel style rich carnival & transformation the above two tables show that though cuiying gao and xiaoxiao guanboth devided yan mo’s literary creation into three stages, but neither of them has paid any attention to his literary transformation after yan mo won the nobel prize in 2012 for his novel frog. my attention is to summarize the different characteristics of magicals in these three stages and the main characteristics of magical realism in the drama crocodile which was pulished in 2023. 3.1.1 magical realism in the first stage as is showed in table one, the creation of yan mo’s novels consists roughly of three stages. the first period is from 1981 to the autumn of 1984 when he was admitted to the department of literature, pla academy of arts. his debut work is a rainy night in spring which is a short story published in 1981. in the year 1984 only, he created altogether 8 novels, but his his early works such as a rainy night in spring and wind on the island mostly focused on military themes and did not touch on his life in his hometown gaomi which yan mo later used magical realism to describe in his many novels such as the red sorghum family. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 85 table 3. transformations of yan mo’s magical realism tansformations of yan mo’s magical realism stages early stage (1983) golden and mature stage (1985-2012) third stage (2012-) major characteristics appearance of magical realism unrestrained momentum, fierce anti-tradition, magnificent and bizarre imagination, latin magical realism, the pursuit of creative style changes the magical realism is a crocodile that can understand and speak human language. respresentative work folk music thirteen steps; life and death are wearing me out; red sorghum; frog crocodile the road of selling cotton (1983) and folk music (1983) are considered to be yan mo’s masterpieces in his early stage, which also shows his first attempts at magical realism because it was an imitation of the american female writer carson mccullers’ the ballad of sad coffee. the imitation skills and rote copying in folk music was exposed as immature, which is especially true in the writing techniques. in other aspects, there is also considerable room for improvement. yitian zhang said “that is the reasons why he studied the inheritance of folk music from the ballad of sad coffee (yitian, 2016, p. 140).” yan mo’s works in the first stage tend to use third person narration and adhere to traditional literary concepts, which inevitably bring traces of formulaic and patterning and show his utilitarian attitude and incomplete knowledge structure at that time. but these works show yan mo’s writing talent and uniqueness. 3.1.2 magical realism in the middle stage in the middle stage (1985-2000), yan mo published 7 important novels, nearly 30 novellas,about 100 short stories and essays. in 1985, yan mo published a total of 12 novellas and short stories, which was the year when mo yan stood out and grew into an influential young writer. yan mo’s two years (1984-1985) at the pla art academy are a “golden age” of his creation. yan mo’s novella transparent carrot (1985) caused a stir in the entire chinese literary world. in his “autumn water”, the literary geographical name “northeast gaomi township” appeared for the first time. in 1996, mo yan co-wrote the drama farewell my concubine at the invitation of the screenwriter wang shuzeng, marking his turning to drama. during this stage, yan mo’s novels are both typical of magic realism and full of mysterious oriental flavo. yan mo combines magic realism with chinese folk culture and makes full use of “complex tonality” to create a unique style of magic realism, showing the unique artistic charm and realizing his www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 86 creation of a world through “nationality”. many of yan mo’s novels reflect such a strong magical style in shaping its character image, story plot , language style, transformation of time and space (tang, 2013). for example, the image of carrot in transparent carrot seems to be real and unreal. the character fang fugui in yan mo’s thirteen steps rose from the dead after being stuffed into a freezer and the plastic surgeon yuchan li transformed fugui fang into her husband chiqiu zhang. in humor and fun, the character san wang , a university professor, turns into a monkey under the pressure of life and work. the leprechaun in wine country is a 14-year-old who sheds the layers of fish scales and returns to the body of a 2-year-old; the urine in red sorghum makes sorghum liquor more mellow. these series of grotesque images and plots make yan mo’s novels appear strange, bizarre and weird, getting people trance and blurred into the magical realm of integration of oriental national culture (gao, 2010, p.43). what’s more important, this technique touches the soul of the nation more deeply, expanding the aesthetic vision that the novels bring to the readers and conveying the reality of the legacy of society at that time vividly, completely and fully. as for the unique characteristics of yan mo’s magical realism, there are three factors to account for it. 3.1.3 magical realism in the third stage ten years after winning the nobel prize for literature, mo yan promoted the blockbuster drama crocodile through zhejiang literature and art publishing house in june 2023, which is a great response to his seven years of silence in literary creation after winning the nobel prize. mo yan himself had said, “i will concentrate more on quality instead of pursuing the quantity of work as much as i did when i was younger. (sun, 2019).” yan mo’s full-length drama crocodile is a tragic fable full of modern connotations and psychological activities showing their true feelings about what they had done such as regret and selfishness. this transformation is not only a testament to the oath yan mo had made in front of the statue of shakespeare’s former residence in 2019 , but also his attempt to break the boundaries of the use of texts in various media. however, though this is a drama, there is much inheritance and differences from his novels and his former dramas in many respects, especially in the use of magical realism. 4. discussion 4.1 factors contributing to yan mo’s magical realism mo yan himself admits that his magic realism is influenced by faulkner and marquez, so even though mo yan is an oriental magic realist writer, his works are more or less the shadow of western magic realism (yuanyuan, 2007). as for the unique characteristics of yan mo’s magical realism in the first two stages, there are three factors to account for it. 4.1.1 the influence of latin american magic in the 1980s, the door of china had opened to other countries and all kinds of foreign literary and artistic thoughts poured in. chinese literature experienced from 1966 to 1976, which caused a cultural fault. and “root-seeking literature” was enthusiastically pursued in the background at that time. at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 87 same time those chinese writers who have been hungry in spirit for a long time began to widely absorb western literary and philosophical trends, especially those of modernism such as black humor, stream of consciousness and latin american magical realism, which have undoubtedly exerted a great influence on yan mo’s creation of novels. on the other hand, yan mo was eager to obtain the recognition of others and was anxious to pursue the change of his writing style, which makes up the inner driving force for the change of yan mo’s writing style in this period. after entering the department of literature, pla academy of arts in 1984, yan mo’s classmates such as cunbao li and xuewu song were already a little famous in china at that time, which brought yan mo great pressure. “some students were contemptuous to me and often mocked me. i’m not convinced. i think i can write something pretty good, but i don’t know what to write and how to write them (mo, 2003).” this makes yan mo think about his own creative outlet while reading. it is these internal and external factors that greatly changed his writing style at this stage. and then he found his “blood land” (gaomi northeast township) and implanted the spirit of western modernism in the shell of local themes, finally forming his free, bizarre and magnificent novel world. yan mo himself admitted, in the early 1980s, yan mo came into contact with western literature and read faulkner’s the sound and the fury, marquez’s one hundred years of solitude, kafka’s metamorph, kawabata yasunari’s snow country and many other works. he felt like waking up from a dream and began to understand that a novel could do that(mo, 2007). so yan mo’s magic realism style creation is greatly influeced by latin american magic realism. so even though yan mo is an oriental magic realist writer, his works are more or less the the shadow of western magic realism . in particular, marquez’s one hundred years of solitude made yan mo realize the unique charm of realism. the northeast gaomi township, yan mo’s fictional space with mythological color, is isomorphic with marquez’s magical south american plateau (wang, 2022). 4.1.2 the influence of oriental folk culture as an important branch of postmodernism, “magic realism” in fact has existed in the chinese literary world for thousands of years, whether as a creative method, literary school, narrative mode, or as a kind of literary work (liu, 2023, p. 41). classical chinese literature works such as journey to the west, liaozhai tales and other literary works are all full of mysterious magic romantic color, in addition to the description and criticism of the real society. these classical works of traditional chinese literature predate one hundred years of solitude, which is known as the representative work of magical realism. yanbing zeng has pointed out,“from the chinese point of view, postmodernism may be seen as the most recent trend of thought having come to china from the west. from the western point of view, china is often seen as the source of postmodernist (zeng, 2013, p. 202).” two reasons can account for why these works have not been included in the list of magical realism novels by critics. on the one hand, at that time china was short of accomplished and influential literary critics in the academic circle and a promoter of chinese literary theory to the world. on the other hand, most scholars only paid more attention to the reality, but ignore its magical color. it is argued that all memories are embodied and emotional (vickhoff, 2023). while learning from western creative techniques, yan mo has been www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 88 exploring his fusion with chinese traditional culture and national spirit, recreating his own classical chinese magical novels. yan mo had made more incisive use of folk resources in his writing of magical realism. in many of his novels, we can find folk sayings, slang, local dialects, children’s songs and ballads, local operas, vulgar insults, funny sayings and so on. especially after 2000, yan mo’s novels have been showing more and more “chinese elements”, “chinese style” and “national background”. the traditional chinese superstition such as “king of hell, ox head and horse face, mengpo tang, the cycle of life and death and the ghost of injustice” was reflected effectively in the novel life and death are wearing me out. pu songling’s love story of human and ghost in his tales of liaozhai also permeates yan mo’s works. at the same time, yan mo’s writing technique of magical realism was greatly influenced by the “lectures of famous chinese scholars (wang, 2022, p. 37)” which yan mo had attended when he studied in department of literature, pla academy. many of yan mo’s works, including life and death are wearing me out and big breasts and wide hips, are parodies of fangping xi in tales of liaozhai and the bible respectively. however, the ideological connotation and theme expressed by them are completely different from the text of parody. forty-one guns tells the story of the strange growing process of xiaotong luo, a rural teenager. in the creative technique, latin american magic realism and the strange tone of chinese classical novel liaozhai were blended together with xiaotong luo’s hallucinatory world and the real world, making it difficult for people to distinguish the true from the false. the plot of the whole book is paradoxical, giving people an extraordinary shock. so ruiyun lai claimed that “the influence of yan mo’s great trans-boundary synaesthesia creation, including “magic”, is more domestic, and the theory influenced by it is mainly local literature theory (wang, 2022, p. 35).” 4.1.3 experiences of childhood as the beginning of life experience, childhood experience has a very important impact on people’s life. childhood experience consists of the psychological and emotional experiences that a writer has experienced and possessed in his childhood, which becomes the psychological background of the writer’s creation, directly or indirectly affecting the writer’s subject matter, language and creation style in his literary creation. ernest hemingway once said that an unhappy childhood is the cradle of a writer. the formation of a person’s character is related to various experiences in childhood, and many writers’ debut novels are often written from the perspective of childhood. “faulkner’s constant writing of his hometown which is as small as a postage on a stamp opened mo yan’s surging passion for constructing the magnificent picture of the northeast gaomi township literary kingdom (ruiyun, 2022, p. 37). in his childhood, yan mo listened to the strange stories told by the old people in the village and he wrote solemn and mysterious folk beliefs in his novels, which laid the tone of magic and imagination in his literary works. so yan mo dipicted many legendary stories which were based on the cultural elements in his hometown gaomi-northeast township-in shandong province, china. the clay sculptures, paper-cuts, new year pictures, melodies, folk art and folk culture that yan mo grew up with all entered yan mo’s novels and plays, influencing and even determining the artistic style of his novels. “ in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 89 process of creating my literary territory, northeast gaomi township, william faulkner of the united states and garcia marquez of colombia gave me important inspiration. i did not read them seriously, but their pioneering spirit inspired me to understand that a writer must have a place of his own” (zhan, 2021). most of the avant-garde writers and critics in the 1980s were born in the 1950s and 1960s. in their personal growth, they experienced the and ushered in the reform. from the closed environment of personality suppression to the social atmosphere of ideological liberation, the anguish brought by the upheaval of the times and the gap between them and the outside world are the real survival experience of young people. in such an environment, the search for the individual spirit of the subject became a social appeal, the changes of living environment and living experience gave birth to the thinking of individual existence in literary and artistic activities, and experimental avant-garde art broke ground.the specific historical background brings mo yan the memory of his childhood and the survival experience, which also promotes his writing of novels. we can find that the magical meaning of mo yan’s narrative language and the strong sense of tension caused by it are both closely related to his childhood traumatic memory. on the one hand, the large historical background makes mo yan’s childhood and youth memories filled with fear and incomprehension; on the other hand, in mo yan’s childhood, there was no dilemma of individual survival. 4.2 narrative characteristics in yan mo’s works of magical realism yan mo’s novels often create a strange and magical tone through the creation of some abnormal characters. these characters not only have incomprehensible behavior, but their psychological changes are also very strange. 4.2.1 situations and events that defy logic the character jia zhao in sandalwood death is a good example. jia zhao’s parents died when he was very young, having no way to make a living though living in the capital. at the beginning, jia zhao was very afraid to see the murder, but later he actually became the world famous chief executioner of the criminal department lobby. in the novel, the author gives a detailed description of each execution scene, especially the abnormal psychological changes of jia zhao in every step of his execution. jia zhao regards killing as a sacred profession, and he will make detailed arrangements and plans in advance during the execution. ironically, only when concentrating on killing people as an executioner, was jia zhao given preferential treatments by the supreme rulers of the time. for example, the empress dowager cixi gave him buddhist beads and the emperor made him sit on the dragon throne and so on. however, these phenomena would have been completely impossible. so yan yan uses both real and fake techniques to well show the animal nature hidden in jia zhao, thus mocking the extreme cruelty of the ruling class at that time. mo yan also constructs strange plots by describing some characters who do not exist in real life and enriches the characters in the process of continuous development of the plot. the combination of mysterious characters and strange plots makes readers in a magical scene of yin and yang symbiosis and the coexistence of gods and ghosts. in the novel adventure, on his way home www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 90 the protagonist met his uncle san zhao and exchanged pleasantries. however, the protagonist was told by his father that uncle san zhao died three days ago. the most vivid use of the description of people and ghosts is in the novel our uncle seven. when the the protagonist hears the news of uncle seven’s death, he rushes home to mourn his uncle seven, only to see uncle seven at the entrance to the village. later the protagonist came to uncle seven’s home and found the dead man lying on the mat was indeed uncle seven. however, he also found that uncle seven is still next to seven aunts, repairing a bike and chatting. so in yan mo’s novels, this kind of life scene mixed with people and ghosts is very common, which is deeply influenced by the ghost narrative technique in chinese traditional culture. “this strange scene of coexistence of people and ghosts not only creates a strong magical atmosphere, but also reasonably explains the ugly performance of some human beings, and also makes a severe criticism of some bad phenomena existing in the real society (ye, 2023, p. 87）.” 4.2.2 myths and legends myth, one of the sources of folk literature, is a highly fantastical story created by people in ancient times to reflect the nature, the relationship between man and nature and the social form (jingwen, 1980). the relationship between literature and folklore is of long standing and complementary. the fantastic imagination and conception in the early myths, legends and fables are much literary and are usually the base and source of much of the strangeness in magic realism. legends and myths from divergent areas and times are often juxtaposed to create startling anachronisms and dense, complex stories. the writer’s imitation, transformation and application of myth in his novels also contain his own worship of ancestors and thoughts on the society of the time. northeast gaomi township has always been yan mo’s literary world. jingjing cao has pointed out “ juxtaposition of the secular and the mythical is an important feature of yan mo’s family narration. this feature of family narrative realizes the full blend of folk myth and legend with ethics, enriches the range and dimension of expression of contemporary far and makes family narrative not only possess the spirit of critical realism, but of transcendent romanticism (cao, 2023). in red sorghum family, the maternal ancestors in the family are often mythical and legendary. the divine fantasy and exaggeration of ancestors make them endowed with divine characteristics on top of human nature. and these divine characteristics are often connected with natural things and have supernatural power, becoming a symbol of mythology. yan mo adopts the way of isomorphism between family history and human history, and then transforms the age-old goddess worship of human beings into the pursuit of the mother goddess of the family. “my grandma”, as the embodiment of red sorghum, is told as a fairy tale after her death and the “second grandma” is possessed by a fox fairy.“when grandma was unearthed, her appearance was as beautiful as a flower, and the tomb was dazzling and fragrant, just like in a fairy tale... as soon as grandma’s body was taken out of the grave, her splendour, sweetness and fragrance vanished into smoke, leaving only a snow-white skeleton (yan, 2017, p. 28).” in yan mo’s another novel roses smell like roses, the grandmother is the symbol of the rose in nature. on the basis of preserving the authenticity of the family characters, the maternal ancestors in the family are fully mythologized, with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 91 more than a little transcendental meaning, and they can be regarded as family myths. at the beginning of yan mo’s novel “autumn water”, he told the story of his grandfather and grandmother eloping to the daouwa valley in gaomi township in the northeast of the country. then came torrential rains and floods.the raging flood turned the northeast gaomi township into a chaotic world. in this novel, the skyrocketing flood scene has the shadow of the flood myth, and the writer highlights the wild northeast township of gaomi through the imitation and deformation of the flood myth.the harsh primitive living environment of the generation paved the way for the feud between the man in black and the woman in purple below, showing the writer’s worship psychology of the ancestors’ courage to break new ground and expand the territory of heroes and bandits. 4.2.4 distorted time and sequence characters in magical realism may move backward, leap forward, or zigzag between the past and the future. bizarre events are described in an offhand manner. characters do not question the surreal situations they find themselves in. in the novel life and death are wearing me out, yan mo creatively applied the buddhist thought with chinese national characteristics to the creation of magical realism. he also borrowed the “six paths of reincarnation” in chinese buddhism to attach respectively the soul of landlord ximennao to some animals such as a donkey, a cow, a pig, a dog and a monkey, endowing them with some “super powers”, so that the whole novel is infused with a mysterious magic color. the fate of the characters in the novel life and death are wearing me out finally coincides with the buddhist parables of “life is bitter” and “less desire and no action”, which also gives the whole work a mysterious religious color. such buddhist language of “six paths of reincarnation” has also become an organic part of the chinese magical realism resources of the work which is similar to gabriel garcía márquez’s treating of time and events in his 1967 novel one hundred years of solitude. sudden shifts in narrative and the omnipresence of ghosts and premonitions provided the reader with the sense that events cycle through an endless loop. contemporary novels of magic realism with such uses of language not only show the contradictions and problems in real life, but also guide the readers to think and solve these problems. such novels remind readers that in the face of various problems in real life, readers need to be more alert and reflective, to pay attention to and solve these problems. at the same time, these fables also encourage readers not to give up hope and courage in the face of difficulties and challenges, and to believe in the power of themselves and others to create a better future. so it can be seen that the most characteristic feature of magical realism is the dispassionate narrative voice. bizarre events are always described in an offhand manner. characters do not question the surreal situations they find themselves in. 4.3 discussion of magical realism in yan mo’s drama crocodile ten years after winning the nobel prize for literature, mo yan promoted the blockbuster drama crocodile through zhejiang literature and art publishing house in june 2023, which is a great response to his seven years of silence in literary creation after winning the nobel prize. yan mo himself had said, “i will concentrate more on quality instead of pursuing the quantity of work as much www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 92 as i did when i was younger. (sun, 2019).” yan mo’s full-length drama crocodile is a tragic fable full of modern connotations and psychological activities showing their true feelings about what they had done such as regret and selfishness. this transformation is not only a testament to the oath yan mo had made in front of the statue of shakespeare’s former residence in 2019 , but also his attempt to break the boundaries of the use of texts in various media. however, though this is a drama, there is much inheritance and differences from his novels in many respects. 4.3.1 different magical realism the magical characters in yan mo’s novels are mainly depicted to fully reveal the living status and fates of those small and weak people living at the bottom of the society and display the author’s lofty thinking about life (wang. 2019, p. 74). in the drama crocodile, however, magic realism is no longer a striking style symbol, but is reduced to the stage background of dramatic stories together with the social environment. the magic component turns from people to a crocodile, including the vague hint of the crocodile’s being able to understand people’s speech and the plot of crocodile’s dialogue with the protagonist wudan shan at the end. wudan: “are you crying? there are cloudy tears in your eyes which you usually shed when chewing food. now you are not chewing food, why are you shedding tears? the crocodile: it is a pity! it is a pity! you are me and i am you. we are both the slaves of our desire. wudan shan: my god! you crocodile can write limericks. the crocodile: if i eat you, i eat myself. wudan shan: if you eat me, we become one. the crocodile: please hear my solemn sentence: wudan shan, 65 years old, an fugitive corrupt official. he has done many evil deeds,but his conscience remains intact. a fugitive who loves his country. i like women, but i am abandoned by women. full of ambition but accomplishing nothing. indulging desires leads to the destruction of families. you end up with a crocodile in your life. (mo, 2023, p. 183) so that kind of wild fantasy in novels is no longer a significant style of constructing the text. starting from the isomorphism of the protagonist wudan shan and the crocodile, mo yan writes about the common desire for life of human nature, deconstructs the schema of daily life and constructs the allegorical meaning of the text with the characteristics of the post-perspective that has lost the power center, the humorous language with the color of debate, and the dramatic tension of tragedy and comedy. the drama crocodile is focused on the life, mentality and choices of a corrupt official who fled to the united states, opening with the desolation of a corrupt official who has lost his position at the center of power: “when i’m not dreaming, everything is a dream; only when i dream, is everything real (mo, 2023, p. 11).” this shift may have something to do with yan mo’s anxiety about the medium of novels. “although mo yan admits that being dramatic is one of the original driving forces of fiction, he has to face the fact that the archetypes of stories are exhausted and can only be packaged through language and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 93 structure (yin, 2017, p. 101).” when yan mo’s archetypal experience of his hometown and folklore was exhausted, he turned his eyes to contemporary life and created the modern drama crocodile by combining his 10-year life experiences at pro-curatorial daily. from the narrative of novel to drama, yan mo’s dramatic creation characteristics have undergone some changes, which are well embodied in the new drama crocodile and are pretty worth our thinking and learning. 4.3.2 different regional space most of yan mo’s novels take gaomi northeast township as the background, forming the series of novels of “gaomi northeast township”. his early novels construct the rural space with primitive and wild atmosphere and full of vitality. in the novel red sorghum family, the geographic space of northeast gaomi township is described more clearly for the first time. the drama crocodile focuses on the development and personnel changes in the new era, concentrating on people’s changes in the new era from various aspects and reflecting on the problems existing in the great changes in hometown under the background of modern civilization, the alienation of human nature and the shrinking of vitality. obviously, gaomi northeast township in the drama is already a “new space” filled with desire, money and fame. in the ten years from the protagonist wudan shan’s 55th birthday to his 65th birthday in a luxurious villa in a wealthy area of a city on the west coast of the united states, the situation at home and abroad has undergone great changes, accompanied by various people around him. the drama starts with the opening ceremony of qingyun bridge, turning to wudan shan’s plan to return home and surrender himself as a break, and then turning to the collapse of the bridge as the last straw to overwhelm the protagonist wudan shan; from the beginning of the protagonist wudan shan’s interest in the “young crocodile” and gradual appreciation of the “young crocodiles”, to the constant communication and in-depth dialogue with the “young crocodiles”, until his son xiaotao committed suicide due to drug addiction, and finally chose to die in the belly of the “giant crocodile”. obviously, the bridge collapse and his son’s suicide mirror each other, which completely negates his courage and reason for living. the creation of crocodile not only presents the proposition that “structure is politics” that yan mo has always insisted on, but also shows the three-dimensional form of human nature of “desire” and its implicit subject relationship that yan mo has always discussed. at the same time, the ending of the drama that the protagonist wudan shan was eaten by his own crocodile implies that human beings are often destroyed by their own greed and that the infinite desire of human nature with the characteristics of crocodile growth, which is worth the deep thinking of all of us. starting from the new era background and historical environment, yan mo chooses the current hot topic of desire and corruption in his new drama and shows the dark side of human nature such as moral depravity and excessive desire of people in the new era, and reconstructed a new literary geographical space on the old site of the hometown. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 94 4.3.3 life consciousness of compassion flow the writing of the drama crocodile is not only an innovation in the text sense and geographical space, but also a huge impact and exploration of the theme and the fate of the characters. yan mo’s new drama crocodile is the inheritance and development of his novels of magical realism. among them, the pursuit of desire and catharsis, the intoxication of power are familiar and similar. yan mo’s depictions of anti-corruption and human greed never stop. in addition to hometown and hunger, desire is another theme of yan mo’s works. from yue er ding in the country of wine to the protagonist wudan shan in crocodile, this change of perspective has watered down the conflicts of drama and focused on the reflection of human nature. the protagonist wudan shan’s desire is based on one of his birthday present from laohei: a juvenile orinoco crocodile. then, the network of lovers, politicians, businessmen and relatives around the protagonist wudan shan radiates lust, sustaining a final compliment to the protagonist wudan. it is for this reason that the protangonist wudan can no longer command and restrict others as before when he was a mayor. facing the kinds of contradictions, he can only do as the crocodile flipping around in the cabinet , having no other better methods. however, the perception of the happiness and life formed after he escaped to america is enlightening and thought-provoking. and this buddha-nature is mainly reflected in his suffering, reincarnation and disillusionment. 5. conclusion yan mo is influenced by foreign literature, magic realism, symbolism and so on, which he perfectly used to create characters full of unique personal characteristics and local chinese feelings.” (shengli, 2021, p. 1) ” studying yan mo’s works helps to deepen our understanding of his personal creative process, the influence of his literary creation from the different stages and the way of his works becomes a mirror of the era, thus enriching the study of contemporary chinese literature. the drama crocodile shows yan mo’s in-depth thinking about corruption, power and his reflection on human desire. the tragedy of the protagonist wudan shan’s being swallowed by his own desires is not just a story in a play, but a warning to the live people in daily life. how to control their inner material desire is also worth pondering over. only when the noble desire overpowers the instinctive material desire and avoids the occurrence of irreversibility, can we have a harmonious society or world. references cao, j. j. 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(2011). local and national world writing: mo yan’s overseas dissemination and acceptance. j. review of contemporary writers, (04), 20-33. liu, j. k. (2020). the uncompletion and uncertainty of contemporary literature: a case study of mo yan’s newly-published novels. j. literary review, (05), 189-197. liu, x. (2023). analysis on the characteristics of magical realism in a dream of red mansions. j. journal of ningxia normal university, 44(08), 40-44. mo, y. (2007). fear and hope: a collection of speech creations (vol 07, pp. 162-163). shenzhen: haitian publishing house. mo, y. (2023). crocodile (p. 183). hangzhou: zhejiang literature and art publishing house. mo, y. a. (2003). outstanding achievement award: mo yan. the beijing news 2004-04-18(c13) sun, s. (2019). interview with mo yan: seven years after winning the nobel prize, what has he done? baidu.com. tang, j. (2013). on the influence of magical realism on mo yan's novels. j. henan agriculture, (12), 58+62. vickhoff. b. (2023). why art? the role of arts in arts and health. j. front. psychol, 14, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.765019. wang, x. q. (2009). crocodile’s “blood land” warmth and wild humorhometown complex and unrestrained irony in mo yan’s prose. social science journal of jilin university, 49(04), 87-93+160. wang, y. e. (2019). folklore in mo yan’s magical realism novels. j. western journal, (22), 74-76. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 6, 2024 published by scholink inc. 96 wang, y. q. (2022). collision and dialogue: the occurrence of the pioneer novels in the 1980s. jilin university. yan, m. (2017). the frog (p. 51). zhejiang literature and art publishing house. yan. y. y. (2007). on the continuity of mo yan’s novel writing style-take mo yan’s new work life and death fatigue as an example. modern and contemporary chinese literature. yao, f. (2013). in the birds that cry the world (vol 10, p. 151), yunnan people’s publishing house. yin, l. (2017). on the passive “dramatization” of mo yan’s novels j. circle of contemporary literature, (01), 101-105. zeng, y. b. (2013). a dream of red building and post-modernism writing. j. journal of a dream of red mansions, (2), 202. zhan, w. (2021). https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/356528070 zhang, y. t. (2016). a comparison between folk music and song of sad cafe. j. literary debate, 02, 140-143. zhong, j. w. (1980). introduction to folk literature. shanghai: shanghai literature and art publishing house. 166. author information xueyuan miao is a postgraduate specialiing in drama and film studies in henan normal university. telephone number: 18236126512. maibox: miaoxueyuan1999@163.com xueyuan miao1 yan mo is one of the best contemporary chinese wri 2.core concept and research methods 2.1 magical realism magical realism, or magic realism, is an approach today, magical realism is an international tendenc 2.2 textual analysis in recent years, text analysis is a powerful resea 3.research results 3.1 three stages of yan mo’s literary creation yan mo is an extremely prolific writer. his works as is showed in table one, the creation of yan mo’ the road of selling cotton (1983) and folk music ( 3.1.2 magical realism in the middle stage in the middle stage (1985-2000), yan mo published during this stage, yan mo’s novels are both typica 3.1.3 magical realism in the third stage ten years after winning the nobel prize for litera 4. discussion 4.1 factors contributing to yan mo’s magical reali mo yan himself admits that his magic realism is in 4.1.1 the influence of latin american magic in the 1980s, the door of china had opened to othe 4.1.2 the influence of oriental folk culture as an important branch of postmodernism, “magic re 4.1.3 experiences of childhood as the beginning of life experience, childhood exp most of the avant-garde writers and critics in the 4.2 narrative characteristics in yan mo’s works of yan mo’s novels often create a strange and magical 4.2.1 situations and events that defy logic the character jia zhao in sandalwood death is a go 4.2.2 myths and legends myth, one of the sources of folk literature, is a 4.2.4 distorted time and sequence characters in magical realism may move backward, l 4.3 discussion of magical realism in yan mo’s dram ten years after winning the nobel prize for litera 4.3.1 different magical realism the magical characters in yan mo’s novels are main wudan: “are you crying? there are cloudy tears in the crocodile: it is a pity! it is a pity! you are wudan shan: my god! you crocodile can write limeri the crocodile: if i eat you, i eat myself. wudan shan: if you eat me, we become one. the crocodile: please hear my solemn sentence: wud so that kind of wild fantasy in novels is no longe this shift may have something to do with yan mo’s 4.3.2 different regional space most of yan mo’s novels take gaomi northeast towns the drama crocodile focuses on the development and in the ten years from the protagonist wudan shan’s 4.3.3 life consciousness of compassion flow the writing of the drama crocodile is not only an 5. conclusion yan mo is influenced by foreign literature, magic advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 118 original paper world yearbook of education: comparative methodology in the era of big data and global networks ismail baniadam1* 1 international students affairs department, urmia university, urmia, iran received: january 15, 2024 accepted: march 11, 2024 online published: march 25, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p118 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p118 abstract global network platform as the most considerable context integrated by variety of modern and upgraded methodologies including digital and online methodologies along with all benefits and challenges paving the way for all scholars and educational experts to consider their studies regarding data visualization implementation for the sake of learning and teaching purposes in various ways. examining the multiple perspectives of the present volume, it evaluates some critical technological developments that shed light on the novel assumptions and values in the era of global networks demanded at international education context. keywords education, global network, big data 1. introduction globally, the effect of big data on education is a deep analytical and evaluative item in every educational system all around the world. it is composed of the measurement, data collection, analysis, and presentation of structured and unstructured data on students and their systemic educational context (bian & wang, 2023). the use of big data term in education context is a general and umbrella form which includes several topics and networks with high consideration of adaptive learning and teaching context (tröhler et al., 2021) the data which is the most critical item is used to evaluate the context, materials, motivational factors and needs analysis of students and learners in order to create a pleasant and fruitful platform or atmosphere regarding students’ needs (bocanegra, 2016). emerging as a new phenomenon, the application of some new comparing platforms introduces particular information, knowledge, and theories in higher education which are emphasized considered as the highly required items in education and new global era network. as the era of ‘big data’, the creation of a new kind of organizational form emphasizing education policy and comparative education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 119 published by scholink inc. is in the high priority which are discussed respectively (killick, 2014). considering the effect of mobilizing in education and research context, the limitation and challenges of some non-dynamic and nonmobilized contexts in educational researches are fully discussed by authors and scholars (piattoeva, 2018). as the solution to mentioned issue, actor-network theory approach paves the way to present some rational mobilized contexts to researchers and context-makers to improve practical contextualization in correlational and relative resource platform (alcadipani & hassard, 2010). 2. book review the discovery of updated challenges or affairs in big data and global networks time from scientific perspectives is highly considered regarding educational policy and methodology. it examines wide range of contemporary methods classified at twelve chapters with the collection of four main sections in relative phases such as contexts, effectiveness, patterns, and correlations. the organization of the book consists of globally upgraded scientific exploration along with some new concepts and theories in line with recent leading researchers on international education to highlight the significance of global education in global big data networks (gorur et al., 2018). regarding big data network and its effectiveness on global education, the book emphasizes and supports the necessity for critical assessment and consideration of comparative methodologies in achieving both national and international goals (williamson, 2017). the book also addresses the impact of globalization on education, as one of the principal questions or targets considered at comparative research methodologies all around the world. a large-scale international statistical comparison in education regarding social, cultural, and financial contexts among nations is highly emphasized in this book (gorur et al., 2018). regarding the evaluation of the volume, it mainly and effectively highlights and supports the role of network analysis as a multilateral conceptual methodology in current global education and international study programs is highly emphasized (menashy & verger, 2018). examining global education researches, the primary aim of the present chapter is extending global education networking using social network analysis at international community. in addition, the second significant section of the book, chapter 9, mainly considers the principal role of big data and new online social platforms on higher education systems in constructing new global networks and relations among scholars and researchers in higher education platform (pratsri & nilsook, 2020). big data, e-learning, new version of digital data, and networks are considered as the main items of critical overview in this volume which are not available in any other books. examining different subjects, the book covers a wide range of perspectives from leading educational thinkers and writers’ sides, which provides a complete global platform for comparative education, mapping, policy, networking, critical assessment, and big data affairs thematically. the present book is very different from other books on the topic as it significantly covers complex www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 120 published by scholink inc. effect of globalization, network, and technology on education in big data context. critically, the book mainly highlights and argues the importance of latest predictive analytics and psycho-informatics in test-based data collection measurement in comparative education in “intimate data infrastructure”. as a new challenge and development in comparative methodology, it focuses on every single individual’s data by applying comparative “big data” methods in “real time” as an “intimate” analytic implication (gorur et al., 2018). 4. discussion and conclusion as the significant book at big data and global networking, it provides fascinating information for researchers in the education policy and comparative education that is comprehensively convincing for the large groups of people. considering all comparative methodologies in the era of big data and global networks, the present book opens a new vision for all scholars along with documenting the significant concepts, challenges, opportunities, and benefits in educational research context and comparative methodology which would be of interesting and a new topic for all students in discovering innovative or creative methodologies, especially in the study of education system and education policy. furthermore, this volume opens a gate for a global and international education in all segments of society even in low-income nations often schooling in english and with ‘international’ or ‘global’ perspectives at multiple scales. regarding the path for doing further researches in global networking affairs in education, it is a comprehensive resource for all scholars and academicians all around the world. references alcadipani, r., & hassard, j. (2010). actor-network theory, organizations and critique: towards a politics of organizing. organization, 17(4), 419-435. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508410364441 bian, f., & wang, x. (2023). retracted: the effect of big-data on the management of higher education in china and its countermeasures. international journal of electrical engineering & education, 60(1_suppl), 2986-2994. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207209211002076 bocanegra-valle, a. (2016). needs analysis for curriculum design. in the routledge handbook of english for academic purposes (pp. 560-576). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315147338 gorur, r., sellar, s., & steiner-khamsi, g. (eds.). (2018). world yearbook of education 2019: comparative methodology in the era of big data and global networks. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315764801 killick, d. (2014). developing the global student: higher education in an era of globalization. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315147338-10 menashy, f., & verger, a. (2018). the value of network analysis for the study of global education policy: key concepts and methods. in world yearbook of education 2019 (pp. 117-131). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315147338-16 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 121 published by scholink inc. piattoeva, n., klutas, a., & suominen, o. (2018). making and mobilizing contexts in policy and research. world yearbook of education, 2019(pp. 202-218). routledge. pratsri, s., & nilsook, p. (2020). design on big data platform-based in higher education institute. higher education studies, 10(4), 36-43. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v10n4p36 tröhler, d., piattoeva, n., & pinar, w. f. (2021). world yearbook of education 2022. education, schooling and the global universalization of nationalism, 306. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003137801 williamson, b. (2017). big data in education: the digital future of learning, policy and practice. big data in education, 1-256. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529714920 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 175 original paper transmission of non-legacy classics and renewal of culture: a survey and analysis of woodblock prints in zhuxian town hang ren1, jiahe wang2, baolin zhu3 & zhao wen4 1234 xi’an fanyi university, faculty of information engineering, shaanxi, xi'an, china * corresponding author: hang ren, 1732386936@qq.com fund project 2023 xi’an fanyi university students' innovation and entrepreneurship training program project： (project no.s202312714062). received: february 21, 2024 accepted: apri 11, 2024 online published: april 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n2p175 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n2p175 abstract henan zhuxianzhen woodblock prints is the originator of chinese woodblock prints and a treasure of chinese classic traditional culture, which not only carries the reverence and praise of generations of kaifeng craftsmen for woodblock prints, but also carries the deep historical memory and rich cultural connotation of the chinese nation. however, the protection and inheritance of non-heritage work is not an overnight thing, through the publicity and promotion of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints, can enhance public awareness and understanding of non-heritage culture, and improve the cultural consciousness and cultural self-confidence of the whole society. this paper will mainly focus on the inheritance and protection of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints and the current situation of the cultural development of the market situation of the two aspects of the analysis and research, and at the same time for the problems existing at this stage of the proposal has a strong focus on the resolution of the measures. keywords zhuxian town woodblock prints, heritage protection, cultural innovation the woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen with rich artistic characteristics have a long history, which is not only an important item for families to decorate and pray for blessings during the new year, but also a precious material for the study of traditional chinese folklore and classic culture as well as religious beliefs. with the constant change of the times and the national emphasis on the protection of cultural relics and cultural heritage, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints were successfully listed in the first batch of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 176 national intangible cultural heritage in 2006 with the approval of the state council. this means that there is a new progress in the protection and inheritance of woodblock prints, but at the same time, it also means that it is facing difficulties such as the inheritance faults of traditional skills and changes in market demand, which are gradually surfacing. therefore, in-depth analysis and research on the historical background, artistic characteristics, inheritance value, market development and other issues of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen is of great significance to promote the protection and development of traditional culture. 1. research background with the increasing attention of the state to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, the woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen, henan province, as an intangible heritage project has also received more attention and protection. at the same time, the old craftsmen of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen have made unremitting efforts to keep them intact until now, and at the same time, they also provide new ideas for the cultural development of woodblock prints in the market. but although the woodblock print is a treasure but dying, how to realize the inheritance and development on the basis of protection, let this classic culture new life, is still an urgent problem. therefore, this article mainly focuses on the analysis of woodblock prints in zhuxian town, henan province, to investigate and study its historical development as well as the protection and inheritance, and to make specific measures to solve the problems and difficulties faced in these two aspects. 2. the research value and significance as a treasure of chinese traditional culture, woodblock prints of zhuxian town not only carry rich historical information, but also reflect the aesthetic concepts of the chinese nation and the consciousness of god. it not only has profound cultural value, but also has great practical significance to the cultural development and non-heritage protection of contemporary society. from the historical point of view, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints originated in the northern song dynasty when the country was unified, the society was stable and the economy was prosperous, and this social background created good development conditions for the rise of the art of zhuxianzhen new year prints in kaifeng city, henan province. in particular, the widespread use of engraving and printing at that time laid a solid foundation for the wide dissemination of the art of new year's paintings. under such a historical background, woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen came into being, and in the hands of a group of craftsmen, they gradually developed into an art form with distinctive local characteristics, which is the crystallization of the wisdom and creativity of the chinese nation. from a cultural point of view, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints draw on traditional painting techniques and colorful and rich decorative techniques to form an artistic style with bold lines and strong and thick colors. it reflects the peasants' yearning and hope for a better life, their ideological feelings of helping the right and repelling the evil, and their love and hatred, and is an important carrier of folk culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 177 however, with the rapid development of modern society and the continuous innovation and progress of science and technology, the traditional culture, including woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen, is facing an unprecedented impact and challenges. from a practical point of view, with the advancement of globalization and the acceleration of modernization, many traditional cultures are facing the danger of disappearing. as one of the classic non-heritage items, the survival of zhuxian town woodblock prints is not optimistic. by investigating and analyzing the current situation of its inheritance and protection, we can find out the problems and challenges it is facing, and at the same time put forward effective protection measures to ensure the continuation of this classic culture. therefore, based on the investigation and analysis of woodblock prints of zhuxian town, it is of great practical significance and theoretical value to study the current situation of its protection, inheritance mechanism and innovative development path. this research not only reflects the respect and inheritance of traditional culture, but also reflects the needs and expectations of modern society for cultural innovation. 3. the historical background and artistic characteristics of woodblock prints of zhuxian town 3.1 historical background of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen 3.1.1 origin and development originating from zhuxian town, kaifeng city, henan province, china, the long history of zhuxian town woodblock prints can be traced back to the northern song dynasty. initially, these were mainly used for festive decorations during the spring festival, mainly to drive away evil spirits and pray for good luck. their creation and development is closely related to china's ancient engraving and printing technology, which allowed the images to be reproduced in large quantities to meet a wide range of market demands. during the ming and qing dynasties, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints entered their heyday, becoming a nationally famous production base for the carving and printing techniques and the variety of prints. at the end of the qing dynasty and the beginning of the civil war, with the social unrest and war, the production of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen was seriously affected, and many workshops were closed while few craftsmen were left. 3.1.2 social function and cultural significance zhuxianzhen new year paintings are not only characteristic decorations, but also carry rich social functions and cultural significance. they reflect the people's living customs as well as moral and aesthetic concepts. auspicious motifs such as "fortune", "longevity" and the god of door, etc., which are common in the new year paintings, reflect people's desire for a better life and the expulsion of evil forces. in addition, it records historical events, legends and folk heroes, and is an important window for the study of chinese history and culture. 3.1.3 preservation of existing woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen despite the important cultural value of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen, many precious works and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 178 engravings of new year's paintings have disappeared or been damaged due to a variety of reasons, including natural erosion, man-made destruction, and the impact of modern lifestyles. currently, national and local governments have begun to take measures to protect this intangible cultural heritage, including the establishment of museums, the development of digital archives and the organization of training courses in traditional techniques. however, the traditional production process of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen is still facing the problem of a lack of successors, which means that the protection and inheritance of the paintings are threatened, and the support and close attention of all sectors of the community are urgently needed. 3.1.4 subjects and contents of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen the subject matter of zhuxian town's woodblock prints is wide and rich in content, including traditional mythological stories, historical figures and folk legends, as well as works reflecting the social life and customs of the time. among them, images of the god of door, the god of wealth and the god of fortune are the most common, and there are also a large number of works depicting farming scenes, city life and festivals, which vividly show the daily life of ordinary people and the atmosphere of festivals. 3.1.5 comparison between woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen and representative new year paintings of other regions compared with other regional new year paintings, zhuxianzhen new year paintings have obvious regional characteristics and artistic styles. compared with the exquisite and delicate tianjin yangliuqing new year paintings and the strong ethnic flavor of sichuan mianzhu new year paintings, zhuxianzhen new year paintings pay more attention to the strength of lines and the fullness of colors. in addition, zhuxianzhen new year paintings are also different in the choice of themes, reflecting more cultural characteristics and folk beliefs of the central plains. through comparative analysis, it can be found that zhuxianzhen woodblock prints occupy an irreplaceable and important position in the art of chinese new year paintings. 3.2 inheritance value of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen 3.2.1 status in folk beliefs zhuxianzhen woodblock prints are not only works of art, but also material carriers of folk beliefs. in chinese traditional culture, new year paintings carry people's respect for gods and their prayers for the future. the most typical example is the door god new year painting, which is believed to be able to guard the door of the house and drive away evil spirits. in addition, images of various gods and historical heroes were also widely printed in the new year paintings, which conveyed people's wishes for peace, health, wealth and longevity. therefore, woodblock prints of zhuxian town occupy an important position in folk beliefs. 3.2.2 educational value and dissemination channels as an educational tool, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints can help the younger generation understand and learn about traditional chinese culture and art. knowledge of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 179 effectively disseminated by incorporating them into school art education curricula, organizing exhibitions and seminars, and publishing related books and materials. at the same time, the use of digital media and internet platforms can bring more people into contact with this traditional art form and enhance public awareness of its value and protection. 3.2.3 protection and inheritance strategy facing the challenge of the gradual loss of traditional skills, the protection and inheritance of woodblock prints in zhuxian town is particularly important. government agencies should formulate relevant policies and provide financial support to encourage the research and innovation of traditional crafts. at the same time, a master-apprentice system should be established to allow experienced veteran artists to pass on their skills to the younger generation. in addition, by combining with cultural tourism and creative industries, new market demand can be created for zhuxianzhen woodblock prints so that they can be revitalized in modern society. zhuxianzhen woodblock prints are a valuable cultural heritage of china, which not only reflect the customs and beliefs of ancient chinese society, but also show the unique charm of folk art. in modern society, the inheritance value of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints is not only reflected in the cultural and artistic level, but also lies in its revelation of modern design and its contribution to education. in order to protect and pass on this intangible cultural heritage, the joint efforts of the government, society and individuals are needed. through effective protection measures and innovative inheritance strategies, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints will continue to shine in china's cultural treasury. 4. zhuxian town woodblock prints inheritance and protection status and future development 4.1 inheritance and protection status 4.1.1 recognition of intangible cultural heritage zhuxianzhen woodblock prints were included in the first national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006, which provides official recognition and support for its protection and inheritance. 4.1.2 establishment of educational bases and training courses in order to better inherit this intangible cultural heritage, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints came into the campus and set up an education base to cultivate a new generation of inheritors through education and training. at the same time, the kaifeng city nongenetic inheritors study and research training program class has been formally established and successfully opened, which shows that the local government and organizations are actively taking measures to improve the skill level and innovation ability of the inheritors through professional training. 4.1.3 display of cultural heritage zhuxianzhen woodblock prints have been exhibited at various cultural events and fairs, and its spectacular appearance at the 12th china (shenzhen) international cultural industries fair helped to increase its public visibility and cultural influence. 4.2 the future development direction may show the following trends www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 180 4.2.1 innovative development and digital preservation facing changes in the market and diversification of consumer demands, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints may need to innovate on the basis of retaining traditional features, such as developing more new subjects and styles to attract the attention of more young consumers. at the same time, utilizing digital technology to record and display the production process and finished products of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints can spread this art form more widely, while facilitating long-term preservation and research. 4.2.3 international cooperation and policy support cooperation with cultural institutions and art groups at home and abroad and the organization of exchange exhibitions can promote zhuxianzhen woodblock prints to the world and enhance its international influence. the government can continue to provide policy and financial support to encourage the older generation of craftsmen in good health to help the inheritors with their creations and researches, and at the same time provide more innovative opportunities and development platforms for the marketization of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints. in short, the future development of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints needs to maintain a balance between traditional culture and technological innovation, not only to maintain its unique cultural connotations, but also to adapt to the needs of the market-oriented development of the modern society, so as to achieve the sustainable development of the paintings through the efforts of the local community, the government and the groups of craftspeople in various aspects. 5. market development of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen 5.1 current situation of cultural and creative development market at present, with the rise of cultural and creative industries, the influence of woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen in the cultural and creative development market is gradually expanding. on the one hand, as a national intangible cultural heritage, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints have received more and more people's attention and love. people have begun to pay attention to the inheritance and protection of traditional culture, and have developed a strong interest in zhuxianzhen woodblock prints with unique artistic style. this has contributed to the increasing demand for zhuxianzhen woodblock prints in the cultural and creative market, which has promoted the development of related industries. on the other hand, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints have shown great potential and value in the design and development of cultural and creative products. by integrating the elements and patterns of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints into various kinds of apparel, household products and jewelry, not only do they enrich the cultural connotation and artistry of the products, but also enhance their added value and market competitiveness. these cultural and creative products are continuously injecting new vitality into the inheritance and development of woodblock prints in zhuxian town. with the continuous development and growth of the year-painting cultural and creative industry, the related www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 181 industrial chain has been gradually improved, attracting more and more investors and entrepreneurs to join. this not only creates more local employment opportunities, but also promotes the prosperity and development of the local economy. all in all, zhuxianzhen woodblock prints have a broad prospect and great potential in the cultural and creative development market. as people's awareness of and attention to traditional culture continue to increase, it is believed that zhuxianzhen woodblock prints will play a more important role in the future cultural and creative market, and make a greater contribution to the inheritance and development of traditional culture. 5.2 further expanding market influence 5.2.1 strengthen brand image and positioning establish the unique brand image of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints, emphasizing its long history, rich cultural connotation and high artistic value. define the brand positioning and carry out precise marketing for the target audience groups, such as cultural enthusiasts, collectors or consumers of tourist souvenirs. 5.2.2 strengthen media publicity and promotion utilize traditional media such as tv, radio and newspapers, as well as new media platforms such as the internet and social media, to carry out extensive publicity. produce multimedia content such as promotional videos and microfilms to show the production process and artistic charm of woodblock prints in zhuxian town. 5.2.3 organize cultural exhibitions and activities organize exhibitions of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints in museums, art galleries and other cultural venues to attract audience attention. organize yearbook production experience activities to let the public experience the charm of woodblock prints and increase interaction and participation. 5.2.4 integrate into the tourism industry chain promote zhuxianzhen woodblock print yearbook painting as a local specialty tourism product, and combine it with tourism to increase its popularity. set up sales points of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints in tourist attractions to provide tourists with opportunities to buy and experience, realizing the win-win situation of cultural value and economic value. to sum up, to improve the market visibility of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints is not a one-step solution, and it is necessary to comprehensively use a variety of means and methods, starting from the brand image, product design, media publicity, cultural exhibitions, cooperation between industries, universities and research institutes, the tourism industry chain as well as international exchanges and other aspects, to jointly promote the expansion of its market influence. traditional culture is not static, but needs to be constantly innovated on the basis of protection to meet the needs of modern society. through investigation and analysis, we can explore the combination point of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints with modern design and modern life, and promote its integration with modern culture to renew its vitality and vigor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 182 finally, the study also has a wide range of social significance. through publicizing and promoting zhuxianzhen woodblock prints, it can enhance the public's knowledge and understanding of non-heritage culture, and improve the cultural consciousness and cultural confidence of the whole society. at the same time, it can also provide reference for the protection and inheritance of other non-heritage projects, and promote the in-depth development of the whole non-heritage protection work. 6. problems and solutions 6.1 problems 6.1.1 difficulty of traditional skills inheritance with the passing away of the old generation of artists, the new generation of young people have little interest in this skill, resulting in a fault in the inheritance of the skill. in addition, the cost of making zhuxianzhen woodblock prints is high and the profit is thin, and the learning cycle of the traditional skills is long, which requires a lot of time and energy, which is undoubtedly a great challenge for the young generation pursuing a fast-paced life in the modern society. 6.1.2 rapidly changing market demand with the rapid development of society and the impact of foreign cultures, the aesthetics and needs of consumers are constantly changing. zhuxianzhen woodblock prints with traditional colors present the image of chinese new year characters in modern aesthetic concepts no longer a large number of consumer attention, while the machine offset printing a wide range of new year's paintings are more in line with the public's aesthetic needs. this has led to a decline in the competitiveness of zhuxianzhen woodblock print new year's paintings in the market, and the sales situation is not so satisfactory. 6.1.3 high cost of raw materials the production of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints requires the use of high-quality wood and paper and other raw materials, the prices of which are greatly affected by market fluctuations. in recent years, with the implementation of environmental protection policies and the reduction of raw material resources, the cost of raw materials has been rising, which has brought great pressure to the production of new year paintings. 6.1.4 insufficient technological innovation in today's rapidly changing technology, the production technology of woodblock prints in zhuxian town is relatively lagging behind. although the traditional production process is exquisite, it is difficult to meet the demands of the modern market in terms of efficiency and quality. the lack of technological innovation has limited the development space of the new year's paintings industry. in modern society, consumers have higher and higher demands for product diversity and personalization, while zhu xianzhen woodblock prints are obviously unable to meet the market demand in this regard. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 183 6.2 specific solutions to the problems 6.2.1 reinforcement of skill training in order to solve the problem of difficult inheritance of skills, the training of skills can be strengthened. through the opening of skills training courses, experienced veteran artists can be invited as lecturers to teach traditional skills to the younger generation. at the same time, it can cooperate with educational institutions to incorporate zhuxianzhen woodblock print technique into the vocational education system and cultivate more professionals. 6.2.2 expand market channels in view of the fast-changing market demand, we can actively expand market channels. through the combination of online publicity and offline physical sales, the new year painting products can be promoted to a wider group of consumers. at the same time, it can develop cultural and creative derivatives of new year's paintings, as well as cooperate and co-brand with famous brands to meet the needs of different consumers. 6.2.3 optimizing raw material procurement while introducing modern technology in order to reduce the cost of raw materials, raw material procurement can be optimized. establish long-term cooperative relationships with suppliers to ensure stable supply and quality of raw materials. at the same time, the use of environmentally friendly and renewable alternative materials can be explored, which not only meets the requirements of environmental protection policies, but also reduces costs. in order to enhance technological innovation, modern technology can be actively introduced. for example, digital technology can be used to record and preserve traditional skills to facilitate inheritance and learning. at the same time, the use of modern printing technology, digital design software and other tools can be explored to improve production efficiency and product quality. in conclusion, in the face of the difficulties and challenges faced by zhuxianzhen woodblock prints, we need to start from many aspects, strengthening the inheritance of skills, expanding market channels, optimizing the procurement of raw materials as well as the introduction of modern technology and other aspects of the proposed solutions. through the implementation of these measures, we believe that zhuxianzhen woodblock prints this traditional art treasure will be able to renew new vitality and vigor. conclusion as a bright pearl of chinese traditional culture, zhuxianzhen woodblock print carries thousands of years of artistic and cultural heritage. it is not only the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people over the generations, but also an important representative of chinese intangible cultural heritage. in the future, the protection and development of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints will require the joint efforts of many parties. first of all, we need to deepen the understanding of its artistic value and strengthen the inheritance and protection of non-heritage culture. by organizing various exhibitions, seminars and other activities, more people can understand the historical origin, production process and artistic characteristics of woodblock prints of zhuxianzhen, so as to stimulate the public's interest in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 184 and love for non-heritage culture. in short, the protection of non-heritage classics and the revitalization of culture is a long-term and arduous task. we need the joint efforts of the whole society, through the combination of inheritance and innovation, so that zhuxianzhen woodblock prints in the new era glows with a more brilliant luster. references feng, x. x. (2020). research on the dissemination of folk culture of woodblock prints in kaifeng zhuxian town under the background of "cultural dual creation". zhengzhou university. yu, q. q. (2018). inheritance research of woodblock prints inheritors in zhuxianzhen under the perspective of intangible cultural heritage. northwest university for nationalities. lei, j. f. (2023). guardianship of zhuxianzhen woodblock prints. fangyuan, (23), 64-65. https://doi.org/10.5392/jkca.2023.23.09.065 shen, l., & tian, w. (2023). research on the utilization of zhu xian town woodblock print elements in tourism product design. western tourism, (20), 81-83. zhang, p. h. (2023). research on cultural and creative product design of zhu xian town woodblock printing under the perspective of "non-heritage+science popularization". footwear craft and design, 3(19), 63-66. zhao, d. (2023). research on inheritance and innovation of woodblock printing in zhuxian town. new american domain, (10), 98-100. zuo, x. c. (2009). artistic characteristics and folk culture function of new year's paintings in zhuxian town. xi'an academy of fine arts. dai, q. (2009). inheritance, development and protection of folk woodblock prints. xi'an academy of fine arts. guo, h. y. (2005). traditional inheritance mode of woodblock prints in zhuxian town and its contemporary reflection. henan university. wang, l. n., & li, s. g. (2023). research on the development and protection of woodblock prints in zhuxianzhen. journal of zhengzhou institute of aviation industry and management (social science edition), 42(06), 104-110. zhang, x. l. (2010). history of chinese woodblock prints. art research, (3), 45-50. liu, j. (2012). exploration of the artistic characteristics of zhuxian town new year paintings. art observation, (7), 56-59. zhao, h. (2014). traditional craft and modern value of woodblock printing in zhuxian town. arts and crafts, (10), 78-81. ma, l. j. (2016). research on the protection and inheritance countermeasures of woodblock printing in zhuxianzhen. zhengzhou university. sun, x. z. (2018). research on the application of zhu xianzhen woodblock prints in modern design. packaging engineering, 39(23), 135-139. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 2, 2024 published by scholink inc. 185 chen, g. (2017). the current situation and countermeasures for the protection of china's intangible cultural heritage--taking zhuxianzhen woodblock prints as an example. cultural heritage, (4), 112-117. state administration of cultural heritage. (2014). list of national intangible cultural heritage [eb/ol]. retrieved from http://www.ncha.gov.cn/ unesco intangible cultural heritage section. (2010). representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. retrieved from https://ich.unesco.org/en/rl/ advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 129 original paper the promoting role of cultural industry in “the belt and road” initiative hengran bian 1* & yi liu 1&2 1 institute of strategy research for the guangdong-hong kong-macao greater bay area, guangdong academy of sciences, guangzhou 510070, china 2 institute of geographic sciences and natural resources research, chinese academy of sciences, beijing 100101, china * hengran bian, e-mail: b18092100321@cityu.mo received: april 12, 2023 accepted: may 8, 2023 online published: may 13, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p129 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p129 abstract the “soft power” function of the cultural industry in “the belt and road” is reflected in its connection with the “humanistic connotation”, “economic connotation” and “safety connotation” of “the belt and road”, and the construction of these three connotations can form the value and utility of the cultural industry in “the belt and road”. the three aspects of cultural value, commercial property and safety construction of “the belt and road” can really help the cultural industry play a role in “the belt and road” industrial chain. the way to promote the cultural industry can be summarized into three parts: the idea of cultivating the cultural industry, the construction of cultural product system and the construction of modern cultural park. keywords “the belt and road”, cultural industry, promoting 1. introduction it has been ten years since “the belt and road initiative” was put forward. during this period, with the help of the historical heritage and cultural symbols of the ancient silk road, and in line with the principle of “extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits”, china and countries along the belt and road have gradually achieved industrial capacity cooperation and regional economic shared development along the belt and road through the establishment of the “five links” goal of “policy communication, facilities connectivity, trade unimpeded, financial integration and people-to-people communication”(chen, 2018). among them, it mainly involves energy, resources, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 130 published by scholink inc. transportation and other fields, forming the “hardware” force of “ the belt and road” construction. the existing theoretical level also focuses more on “the belt and road” production capacity, investment, trade, resource supply and other fields, which played a driving role in the early stage of “the belt and road” construction. however, these fields often have long investment cycles and high risks. in the long run, it is difficult to form a common interest claim point for the further promotion of “the belt and road”, thus resulting in investment confusion and antagonism. in addition, the “five links” goal of “the belt and road” initiative is to make “the belt and road” policy and economic achievements benefit the well-being of the people along the road, trying to form a broader social foundation and social capital, and then drive a new round of industrial cycle replacement and investment and financing. through the cooperation of the software and hardware of “the belt and road” economy, we can build a “community of destiny” between china and the countries along the belt and road. therefore, at this stage, “the belt and road” needs to be further deepened in the connotation, operation mode and cross-cutting areas of the “software” power. cultural industry is an important embodiment and booster of the “soft power” of “the belt and road”. it is an effective way to organically combine the economic, political and cultural connotations of “the belt and road”. in the process of reconstructing china’s industrial value chain, any single theme can hardly meet the construction of the world’s global pluralistic value system and “people’s ardent expectations for a better life”. in the report of the 19th national congress of the communist party of china (cpc), it is emphasized that the concepts of “promoting chinese culture together” and “promoting international cooperation” along the belt and road are the top-level design and theoretical basis for the connection between cultural industry and “the belt and road” (liu, 2019). in view of this, it is proposed to use the concept of cultural industry to consolidate the construction of the cultural field along the belt and road, to strengthen the construction of the economic field along the belt and road with the differential development of cultural products, and to use the construction of cultural parks to strengthen construction of the regional security along the belt and road. therefore, the construction of “culture + industry + silk road” is an important issue and development path to implement “the belt and road” initiative, and gradually incorporate the cultural industry into the theoretical research system and practical exploration of “the belt and road”, and use the idea of industrial integration to deepen the concept and action of cultural industry into “the belt and road” cooperation, which can effectively make up for the shortcomings of “the belt and road” investment. through the development of cultural industry, we can achieve all-round production, economic and trade cooperation and ultimately realize the “the belt and road” initiative (liu, 2019). 2. connotation of cultural industry in the early period, there were two opposite views on the definition of cultural industry. one held a negative attitude towards cultural industry, which originated from the concept of industrialization of cultural industry in 1947. it was first mentioned by teaoduoer adorno and max horkheimer, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 131 published by scholink inc. famous scholars of frankfurt school, in their book dialectic of enlightenment. they believed that the industrialization attribute of cultural industry made it have the characteristics of batch, mechanization and repetition (zhao, 2019). therefore, cultural industry is equivalent to “cultural engineering”, while the other is walter benjamin, a representative of frankfurt school who supports cultural industry, who regards film art as the starting point of research and believes that cultural industry is a unity with artistry and value. cultural industry, with its unique new format, involves a wide range of connotations. therefore, its translation and understanding are different due to different regions, so there are different standards in different regions (liu, 2010). some focus on economic attributes, and some focus on its cultural considerations, starting with the dual value of cultural industry, that is, the commodity value and social value of cultural industry. zhang zengfang and others analyze the dual attribute and operation law of cultural industry. the essence of the influence of cultural industry in the new era is to deeply understand the value difference between cultural industry and other industries in the “the belt and road”, and we should further explore the operation and performance of “the belt and road” initiative from the perspective of cultural manufacturers, cultural market and cultural industry operation. combining with the annotations of many authoritative institutions and researchers on the cultural industry, the cultural industry of “the belt and road” refers to the cultural products and services with standardized characteristics in order to pursue economic and social benefits and meet the material and spiritual cultural needs of the people along “the belt and road”. therefore, the meaning of cultural industry in “the belt and road” can be further interpreted to form its triple connotation: the concept construction of cultural industry in the cultural field of “the belt and road”, the development of cultural products in the economic field of “the belt and road” and the construction of cultural park in the security field of “the belt and road” (shen, 2016). only by integrating the cultural value of “the belt and road”, the commercial attribute of “the belt and road” and the triple connotation of “the belt and road” security construction, can the cultural industry really play a role in the “the belt and road” industrial chain. 3. the role of cultural industry in promoting “the belt and road” cultural industry has an interdisciplinary nature, and “the belt and road” initiative is also a multi-field and all-round construction proposal. as a result, the cultural industry’s role in “the belt and road” mechanism includes the following aspects: the role of cultural concepts and demand concepts in the cultural industry concept in the “the belt and road” humanities construction mechanism; the impact of cultural product development on industrial upgrading, regional cooperation, opening up and poverty alleviation and development in “the belt and road”; the role of cultural park construction in ensuring and maintaining regional security and stability, creating an investment environment and thus reducing investment risks. in short, the “soft” power role of cultural industry in “the belt and road” is reflected in its relationship with the “humanistic connotation”, “economic connotation” and “security www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 132 published by scholink inc. connotation” of “the belt and road”, and the construction of these three connotations forms the value and utility of the cultural industry in the “the belt and road” from all aspects (hu & zhang, 2017). cultural concepts contribute to the “belt and road” initiative. first is the concept of talent cultivation. “the belt and road” initiative, which rises to the level of values and purposes, requires not only political mutual trust, but also cultural and cultural exchanges and intellectual support. the fundamental reason for the world war and the clash of civilizations lies in the differences between culture, history and concepts. the core of cultural conflict lies in the “human” factor (marjorie & lyles, 2008). schultz’s human capital theory holds that the significance and value of individual investment lies in the appreciation of human capital and the acquisition of surplus labor force, therefore, the input and output of talents have become the main body and core of the integration of world economy and culture. every year, the chinese government provides ten thousands scholarships to countries along the silk road. kazakhstan alone has about three thousands young people studying in china. it has also provided nearly ten thousands training opportunities and five thousands teacher training places in south asia. through the replacement and training of talents, the understanding and recognition between china and the countries along the silk road have been deepened, and each region along the silk road has become a training base for each other’s human capital and a reserve force for industrial development, thus driving the long-term “humanistic” interaction. in ancient times, buddhism and zoroastrianism were introduced into china through the silk road, among which buddhism reached its peak in the prosperous tang dynasty and became the most appealing and influential religion in china, and the concepts of “compassion” and “kindness to others” in its doctrines played a positive role in uniting the people, maintaining harmony and economic development. at that time, japan sent tang envoys to china to learn buddhist culture, from which buddhism quickly entered japan, south korea and other asian countries, and gradually spread under the inheritance of “the belt and road”, and now it has become one of the three major religions in the world. in the development of “the belt and road” initiative, such dissemination of national culture will effectively reduce mutual misgivings and suspicions, and form “people-to-people” exchanges based on national characteristics. the concept of demand will help promote “the belt and road” initiative. first, the inheritance of science and technology. in “the belt and road” initiative, countries can promote each other’s commercial transactions, industrial integration and technological exchanges through the inheritance and cooperation of science, technology and culture. specific to the country, the use of demand concept between enterprises engaged in technological upgrading, market regulation can be more conducive to intellectual support and technology heritage protection. since ancient times, many regions of “the belt and road” have unique resource endowment and advanced science and technology culture, but due to institutional constraints and other reasons, they have not been able to tap their market demand, so that the rich cultural heritage of science and technology has been preserved for a long time (zhao, 2019). for example, central asia is rich in nuclear resources. when the former soviet union developed nuclear industrial raw material mining technology and established processing facilities in central asia, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 133 published by scholink inc. it left a key scientific and technological heritage for central asia, making it an important initial capital to gain a foothold in today’s international nuclear energy market, but confined by the planned economic system of the soviet union at that time, it failed to expand the supply of high-quality scientific and technological resources to the international market (li, deng, & liu, 2017). as far as demand is concerned, only half of china’s uranium mineral resources depend on international imports before 2030, and the world market actually has a large market gap. after that, in order to adapt to the call of “going out” and “the belt and road”, central asia gradually breaks the market restrictions based on market demand, actively infiltrates the awareness of scientific and technological and cultural heritage protection while profiting from the development of energy industry, thus effectively protecting and inheriting its rich scientific and technological culture. secondly, in terms of experience dissemination, the fruitful results of “the belt and road” initiative need a platform with experience in cultural dissemination and promotion. in the implementation stage of “the belt and road” initiative five years later, many advanced cultural achievements have been made public. therefore, the transformation of cultural achievements into actual productivity and policy programs requires the promotion concept of “good wine but also afraid of deep lanes”, and at the same time, the corresponding promotion agencies need to be able to carry out continuous intellectual excavation. and “the belt and road” think tank construction and research institutions play a role in disseminating and tapping the needs of “the belt and road”. since “the belt and road” initiative was put forward, more than eight hundreds research institutions in china have participated in and conducted extensive academic discussions. in the past four years, there have been more than thirty new think tanks with the theme of “the belt and road”. the think tanks of “the belt and road” are mostly concentrated in beijing, guangzhou, shanghai, shaanxi and fujian. “the belt and road big data report” released by the national information center and the shanghai academy of social sciences think tank research center and the “china think tank report-influence ranking and policy recommendations” can divide “the belt and road” think tank into national think tank, media think tank, university think tank, social think tank, party and government think tank, local government think tank and so on. these think tanks have built intellectual platforms from various aspects of “the belt and road” construction experience, and disseminated the experience and achievements of the silk road construction (mei & cheng, 2018). the concept of innovation helps the humanistic belt and road. the cultural industry is a creative industry, a contemporary industry integrating intellectual innovation and technological innovation. therefore, intellectual innovation and technological innovation are important ideas to help the humanistic belt and road. on the one hand, in the layer of intellectual innovation, the humanistic construction of “the belt and road” needs perfect “knowledge group” and “subject group”. the cluster income of knowledge elements requires its expansion of scale effect to achieve intellectual spillover, so it is urgent to excavate creative knowledge groups and protect their intellectual property rights in “the belt and road”. at the same time, the systematic “the belt and road” cultural industry discipline system can establish innovative ideas of action program to make up for “the belt and road” humanistic field of the lack of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 134 published by scholink inc. rules to follow; on the other hand, in the technological innovation level, “the belt and road” humanistic construction needs innovative “title technology” and “network.” modern technology and cultural industry blend “title technology” is a revolutionary way to promote “the belt and road” cultural industry. making full use of modern information technology and internet technology can quickly obtain first-hand information and understand the demand direction of “the belt and road” cultural industry. for example, latin american barometer, a latin american public opinion survey organization, will publish the attention of countries in latin america every year to form reference data. china’s telecommunications and internet enterprises have also opened up the wireless network market in indonesia, and extended the “wechat” platform to southeast asian countries, these innovative achievements constitute the “circle of friends” of “the belt and road” cultural exchanges. cultural products development helps the economy of “the belt and road”. first, the cultural product system helps regional economy. the concept of cultural product system can be formed by the generalization of the connotation of cultural products. cultural product system usually includes not only the positioning and competition of cultural products at the strategic level, but also the design and development of cultural products and services, price setting, channel arrangement and promotional packaging at the strategic level. the construction of cultural product system along “the belt and road” has its specific role in promoting regional economy. this is because nine of the fourteen provinces in china are located in the central and western regions, which means that the central cities and policy focus of “the belt and road” are mainly in the central and western regions of china. in addition, central asia and west asia, which are adjacent to china, have been facing long-term conflicts and wars, ethnic and religious problems, regional closure and industrial structure, and the general level of regional development is relatively low, so it is difficult to rapidly improve their traditional agricultural foundation and weak industrial structure along “the belt and road” route (quan, 2018). therefore, the injection of cultural products can effectively make up for the potential pressure and shortcomings of “the belt and road” agriculture and industry. from the perspective of the commercial strategy of cultural products, “the belt and road” initiative will focus on the developing areas in western china and neighboring countries, which can help to adjust the regional industrial structure with the help of national and regional cultural products, narrow the differences between the central and western regions, thus reducing the world’s poor population and developing regional economy. for example, cultural tourism products formed by natural resources with local characteristics are one of the typical cultural products, many historical sites of the ancient silk road have been successfully selected into the world heritage list and formed famous commercial and trade towns and cultural tourism products of the land and sea silk road. five years ago, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan and china jointly declared the “silk road: changan-tianshan corridor road network” successfully selected into the world heritage list, of which thirty-three representative sites formed cultural centers, business centers and tourist destinations, greatly promoting the local industrial growth and regional prosperity. from the perspective of business strategy of cultural products, the profitability, dissemination and packaging promotion of cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 135 published by scholink inc. products can rapidly and effectively promote regional economic development and form a new growth pole. the silk road has developed rapidly in the wave of marketization in central asia. in almaty, kazakhstan, cultural products with the registered trademark of “silk road” have become “decent” “business cards” and enjoy a high reputation. before the collapse of the soviet union, “silk road” hotels first hung up the “silk road” brand, and gradually commercialized, “silk road gas station”, “silk road travel agency” and “silk road hotel” immediately appeared, and also formed “silk road commercial street” and “silk trade city”, which have become an important driving force for regional development today. secondly, the expansion of cultural brands helps to expand the market. the ancient silk road was originally a road of economic and cultural exchanges, a chinese “brand” that spread to europe through central asia. among them, the degree of industrial cooperation projects depends on the degree of difference in product brands in the industrial market. therefore, in the process of “the belt and road” construction, we need to use the concept of cultural brand construction to subdivide the market, and further establish the subdividing variables of the cultural brand development audience along “the belt and road”, such as subdividing regional environment variables, demographic variables, behavioral variables, purchasing mode variables, etc. indexing the subdividing variables can form product differentiation and brand differentiation strategy, thus bringing new economic growth points in the industrial chain. in addition, the market structure theory of industrial organization theory also thinks that the degree of product differentiation can be regarded as the differentiated products and differentiated brands manufactured by enterprises to arouse buyers’ special preferences for the products, so as to occupy a favorable competitive and monopolistic position in the fierce market competition, which has become the market requirements of the theoretical basis for the branding of cultural industry. cultural brand is the formal product of cultural products, and the measurement of cultural brand differentiation is based on the cross-elasticity of demand and advertising density of cultural products, so the diversification of brands is conducive to the development of commercial cooperation. in the ancient maritime silk road transactions, landmark cultural products with regional characteristics, such as grapes and alfalfa in the western regions, sculptures and glass in europe, and rare treasures in south asia, have been labeled as regional brands in commercial exchanges to promote the development of related industries. china has established some cooperative brands in the field of industrial industry, such as china’s petro. china has joint venture with kazakhstan to operate aktobin company, pk company and so on, through pipeline compression technology to stabilize the central asian market and produce brand effect, and successfully establish market leap through mutual benefit demand. such as the establishment of ecological agriculture brand in central asia, building a “silk road” brand of chinese catering culture, and so on, from the perspective of cultural form product development to promote industrial cooperation. third, cultural service construction helps cost control (zhao, 2019). in the construction of “the belt and road” cultural industry, intangible service products can effectively integrate heterogeneous industrial resources and enhance industrial relevancy. “the belt and road” is a historic process of resource integration, and its development organically links human, financial and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 136 published by scholink inc. material and forms a more perfect industrial chain, while cultural services are a direct and effective way to combine human resources, equipment and technology resources and information resources. taking advantage of the advantages of local labor force in the less developed areas of “the belt and road” can increase employment, improve the quality of after-sales service and vigorously develop the service trade and management consulting industry, reduce the construction cost of “the belt and road” and reduce world poverty. in addition, the construction of cultural services can indirectly enhance the relevance of “the belt and road” cultural industry through cost control. because “the belt and road” cultural industry is formed through the joint development of upstream and downstream links in the industrial chain, and the investment in cultural services is to increase the added value of industrial links to promote the improvement of its relevance (quan, 2018) . cultural park construction promotes the safety of “the belt and road”. cultural industry clusters maintain social stability. although the core of “the belt and road” initiative lies in its economic and cultural connotations, it does not involve political and military issues. however, social stability and industrial security will also affect “the belt and road” economic construction. the construction of cultural parks is a powerful industrial layout and platform in the investment process of countries along “the belt and road” route. the establishment of industrial clusters in “the belt and road” point urban areas can absorb the introduction of foreign capital, form industrial demonstration zones and industrial scale effect, promote the development of surrounding economy, create employment opportunities and maintain social stability (zang & wu, 2019). first, the construction of china’s cultural center is the result of regional policy. since “the belt and road” initiative was put forward, china has successively established various types of cultural industry clusters, which is a rapid development stage formed after the vertical integration of cultural parks. moreover, china’s science and technology and cultural industry parks are mostly developed with the national overall planning and government policy loans as the main source of financing, so the construction of cultural industry parks also actively adapt to and combine with china’s regional development strategy. the construction of folk tourism areas, ecological science and education industrial parks and high and new technology industrial development zones, which are formed when the western development strategy is put forward, is the prelude to the combination of “the belt and road” strategy with the regional development strategy, and is the process of using the competitiveness of industrial clusters to maintain social stability. on the one hand, “the belt and road” cultural industry cluster can establish professional parks of logistics, science and education, tourism, leisure, agriculture and other related cultural industries through specialized division of labor, attract foreign capital and supporting facilities to invest in the park twice, and give full play to the effect of division of labor and cooperation; on the other hand, “the belt and road” national cultural industry park can open up and integrate a variety of industrial forces, often in the form of comprehensive parks at this stage, forming a gathering effect. taking the representative national cultural industrial park of “the belt and road” as an example, the indonesian government has successfully expropriated 6000 hectares of land in the county seat of solon in west papua province as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 137 published by scholink inc. an industrial park, attracting enterprises in several industrial fields to enter the park for development. cultural industrial zones, including the russian island development zone, which are mainly engaged in cultural industries, have promoted in-depth communication among ethnic groups in border areas, thus condensing the positive energy of ethnic groups and increasing tolerance and understanding, eliminating the influence of the “three forces” and national misunderstandings from the ideological source, and jointly safeguarding regional security and economic prosperity (wen & zhong, 2018). industrial security mainly refers to “the belt and road” construction process, specific industries along the competition to maintain a relatively independent industrial status, competitive advantage and production safety. therefore, “the belt and road” construction of industrial security mainly includes industrial control, industrial competitiveness and national industrial rights and interests of three aspects. with the development of information technology and network, cultural characteristic parks have gradually shifted from labor-intensive to technology-intensive, forming new control, competitiveness and benefits. first, the cultural characteristic park forms the new industrial control power. the core of the industrial control power lies in the industrial control process of domestic capital. therefore, the characteristic cultural town and cultural corridor construction in the city periphery control can stabilize the original industrial chain link and connect it, form a more stable industrial control power, in order to reduce the impact due to the international crisis. in the process of establishing the silk road, agricultural technology with chinese characteristics, such as sericulture, went to central asia, formed a characteristic agricultural breeding leisure tourism base near its industrial park, helped central asia make full use of its human capital and land resources development, which was of positive significance for developing good-neighborly and friendly relations and stabilizing the border areas. secondly, the cultural characteristic park forms the new industrial competitiveness. on the one hand, increasing the industrial competitiveness depends on the characteristic brand. on the other hand, it needs to extend the added value of the industrial chain. therefore, the cultural characteristic park is the necessary way to combine the cultural brand with the industrial chain organically. china is a big country with traditional culture, but not a strong cultural country. the reason is that the competitiveness of cultural resources has not been excavated (quan, 2018). after “the belt and road” initiative was put forward, the cultural industry training concept and base with the development of chinese traditional culture as an opportunity gradually developed. in recent years, finland has sent students to learn chinese “year” culture and food culture every year. and the “confucius institute” promoted by china in the world is the embodiment of cultural exchange and “soft power” in the form of chinese traditional cultural park. thus, the formation of a “contact area” with culture as a link can promote the exchange of multilateral cultural industries and thus form a new competitiveness. thirdly, the cultural characteristic park forms a national industrial income. the establishment of cultural characteristic park combines the experience of “the belt and road” and “going out”, and the industrial parks established along the silk road at home and abroad can get favorable industrial policy support (wen & zhong, 2018). the “national gourmet street” and the “gourmet restaurant” are the cultural characteristic parks that integrate the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 138 published by scholink inc. rich agricultural and sideline products from central asia and tropical fruits exported from southeast asia into china through the preferential policy of “the belt and road”, with the combination of traditional chinese cuisine and cooking technology. these parks not only meet the diversified needs, but also promote the development of the tertiary industry, promote national income, and provide guarantee for the safety of industrial transportation on land and sea. 4. realization path of cultural industry promoting “the belt and road” the soft power of the cultural industry in “the belt and road” initiative is an organic combination of a series of influencing factors. of course, with the development of “the belt and road” initiative, the scope of the “cultural industry” continues to expand in depth, so the influence of the cultural industry is also expanding. 4.1 it is urgent to create a new theory of international division of labor to promote and guide the win-win cooperation of cultural industries along “the belt and road” the chinese government has put forward “the belt and road” initiative in the face of sluggish global economic growth. the initiative has provided chinese wisdom for revitalizing the world economy. strengthening “the belt and road” initiative will, on the one hand, promotes china’s industrial upgrading and optimization, and, on the other hand, promotes win-win cooperation among countries along the belt and road. how to promote the smooth progress of “the belt and road” initiative through the exchange of cultural industries is a major issue that needs to be solved urgently, and new theories are urgently needed to provide guidance (fang, li, & sun, 2017). at present, most of the relevant research is based on the traditional theory of international division of labor, which is dominated and controlled by developed countries, the division of labor and benefit distribution mechanism has been completely distorted, and the interests of most developing countries have been seriously infringed. it is urgent to create a set of international division of labor theory of mutual benefit and coordinated development to promote and guide the cultural industry cooperation along “the belt and road”, and to put forward china’s plan for promoting human well-being and creating a better future. 4.2 formulate and implement “the belt and road” cultural industry docking strategy and give full play to the synergy effect “belt and road” countries are in different stages of economic development, resource endowment structure and the level of economic development is quite different, local governments should seize the opportunity of industrial upgrading, jump out of the traditional inertia thinking of regional economic growth, change the investment without industrial choice, analyze the local factor endowment structure, identify the dominant industries and select key industries and formulate policies and measures. as for the central government, it needs to make top-level design and address the issue of how to integrate economic policies with cultural industry policies. it needs to make use of market instruments to make overall planning for industrial layout and capacity control, and encourage all regions to adjust measures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 139 published by scholink inc. to local conditions and strengthen coordination with neighboring regions (liu, 2017). the economic development level and cultural industry development level of the countries along “the belt and road” are multi-level, and the development level of cultural industry is unbalanced in mainland china (eastern, central and western regions). what appropriate mode, path and supporting policy should be adopted to achieve win-win cooperation? at present, there is a lack of specific research on stratification and grading. moreover, most of the papers and books written by domestic scholars are based on chinese information, so that we still know little about how the governments and people of the countries along the route respond to china’s “the belt and road” initiative. how to formulate and implement “the belt and road” cultural industry docking strategy on the basis of understanding the actual situation of other countries or regions, play a synergistic effect, and truly play a harmonious development, mutual benefit and win-win role, is one of the strategic issues that need to be considered in the future. 4.3 relying on the implementation of the “the belt and road” initiative to promote the development of the “internet +” cultural industry cluster the internet + cultural format is highly anticipated, but it has yet to develop on a truly large scale. the pervasive and cross-border penetration of the internet has laid an important foundation for industrial clusters to establish distributed organizational networks, optimize resource allocation, cross-border cooperation and collaborative innovation on a global scale. china has fully entered the internet era, with more than seven hundred and fifty million people using the internet. according to the data of tencent research institute, our online game sector surpassed the united states in 2016 and maintained a high growth rate. it is a relatively large comparative advantage industry in the world. the structural optimization and upgrading of china’s cultural and creative industry cluster, the use of “internet +”, the promotion of “the belt and road” strategy, relying on the historical opportunities of the country, vigorously developing virtual network services and network space, we should promote the combination of real space and virtual space, promote the combination of online and offline services, promote the combination of cultural industry and related real economy, and promote cultural industry, upgrade china’s position in the value chain of global cultural industry, the supply chain of cultural resources and the service chain of cultural brands (ulam, 2016). 4.4 expanding diversified business models and new formats of cultural industries, from attracting investment to educating and manufacturing businesses according to a report released by the “belt and road” big data center (2018) of the national information center, among the major areas of cooperation between media and netizens in asean countries, tourism is the first one. at present, china is doing very well and has a certain original significance. the business model should belong to the “performing arts + tourism” model. at present, china’s cultural industry has become an important part of the national economy. the growth of cultural industry can have a direct impact on economic growth, at the same time, cultural creativity has penetrated into all sectors of the national economy, and is promoting the development of related www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 140 published by scholink inc. industries through integration and innovation. under the background of economic globalization and “internet +”, the business model of cultural and creative industries is constantly innovating: from content to channel to platform to ecological chain, from single business to integrated product production system to cross-domain comprehensive diversification, and then to high-end industry chain mode. 4.5 strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights and personnel training cultural industry is a knowledge-based industry with intellectual property rights as its core content. the basis for the rapid and healthy development of cultural industry is to obtain high added value from continuous innovation and creation of cultural intellectual property rights. the most important thing for the creation and innovation of cultural intellectual property rights is talents. especially in the current global economic downturn, “with the country’s economic underdevelopment, part of the belt and road cognitive bias, policy restrictions, cultural differences, piracy, social instability, china’s cultural industry and cultural underdevelopment in some regions, cultural industry talent scale is small, the quality is not good” (tihanyi, griffith, & russell, 2005). from the perspective of the global value chain system, china’s cultural industry is still at the low end of the industry value chain, lacking national brands, independent intellectual property rights and core competitiveness. it can be predicted that the continuous development of block chain technology will make breakthroughs in the field of cultural and creative industries. 4.6 integration of cultural industry with traditional industries and science and technology with the emergence of vr, ar and other technologies, the integration of cultural industry and science and technology has aroused widespread concern. now the popular “silk road economic belt” digital museum is the use of virtual reality technology, the collection of historical and cultural elements, the most advanced high-tech and intangible cultural heritage, protection and recovery from aesthetic awareness, so that people can feel the “silk road” cultural charm in the country’s journey. improving the technological level and international competitiveness of the industry is not only an important task of current and future economic work, but also plays a supporting role in the cultural industry. under the current situation, how to actively use the cultural and creative industries along “the belt and road”, promote the technological transformation of traditional industries, and enhance the level of china’s “intelligent manufacturing”, so as to comprehensively enhance the industrial technology level and international competitiveness, is one of the focus of attention in the future (xing, 2016). on the one hand, china should deal with the relationship between the emerging cultural industry and the traditional cultural industry; on the other hand, we must increase the proportion of high-tech capital and research-intensive cultural products in the development of cultural industry. in terms of management methods, we should improve the awareness of service awareness of foreign-related cultural enterprises, pay attention to policy guidance, change the direct management mode of government services, and turn to the indirect management mode focusing on services. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 141 published by scholink inc. funding this work was supported by special fund project of national natural science foundation of china (42130712); gdas special project of science and technology development (2020gdasyl– 20200102002). references chen, l. (2018). research on the way of chinese traditional culture’s external communication under the background of “one belt and one road”. journal of changchun normal university, 11, 189-190. fang, y., li, h., & sun, l. (2017). an analysis of the structure and competitiveness of china’s cultural trade. business research, 1, 23-28. hu, y., & zhang, k. (2017). the path of continuous improvement of the core cultural products trade between china and the “one belt and one road” country. jiangsu social sciences, 05, 72-80. li, s., deng, m., & liu, d. (2017). trade attraction, social embeddedness and export of cultural products—an empirical analysis from china and the “along the way” countries along the way. journal of guangdong university of finance and economics, 04, 67-80. liu, g. (2017). research on the path of training the strategic talents in the “one belt and one way” strategy. national circulation economy, 12, 45-47. liu, l. (2019). construction of china’s cultural network communication mechanism under the “belt and road initiative”. zhongzhou journal, 3, 169-172. liu, y. (2010). deepen cooperation in higher education and create a new bureau of people to people and cultural exchanges in asia. world education information, 12, 10-12. marjorie, a., & lyles. (2008). a win-win relationship：an interview with zhou wenzhong, ambassador to the united states from the people’s republic of china. business horizons, 7, 89-99. mei, y., & cheng, s. (2018). the path choice of jiangnan traditional crafts integrated into tourism commodity development—take the copper furnace of jiangsu industry as an example. jiangnan forum, 6, 47-48. quan, k. (2018). on the ways to improve the cultural identity of asean students in china. journal of guangxi youth cadre college, 2, 12-14. shen, y. (2016). cultural exchange: the important driving force of “one belt and one road”. national information security, 02, 41-43. tihanyi, l., griffith, d., & russell, c. (2005). the effect of cultural distance on entry mode choice, international diversification and mne performance: a meta-analysis. journal of international business studies, 270-283. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400136 ulam, t. y. (2016). the cultural exchange mechanism between china and its surrounding areas under the background of “one belt and one road”. journal of northeast asia, 05, 18-19. wen, r., & zhong, s. (2018). measures to strengthen cultural integration in the great bay area of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 142 published by scholink inc. guangdong, hong kong and macao. reform and opening-up, 20, 140-152. xing, l. (2016). promoting the “one belt and one way” cultural exchange: difficulties and response. international studies, 06, 5-17. zang, z., & wu, q. (2019). comparison of the evolution of cultural and creative industrial structure in the four bays of the world—based on the empirical study of global cultural and creative listed companies in 2001-2016. journal of shandong university, 1, 38-42. zhao, y. (2019). the drift of symbols: the evolution and contemporary value of xuan zang symbols in the “one belt and one way” vision. art criticism, 3, 51-59. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 28 original paper an analysis of men and women’s exist plight from a feminist perspective: taking mrs. dalloway as an example siyu xiong 1* 1 undergraduate student of school of business english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china * siyu xiong, corresponding author received: february 10, 2023 accepted: march 14, 2023 online published: march 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p28 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p28 abstract virginia woolf ’s mrs. dalloway is the pinnacle of stream-of-consciousness fiction. scholars have mostly focused their studies on aspects such as the novel’s stream-of-consciousness techniques and the theme of death. from a feminist perspective, this paper analyzes oppression and its reason caused by the patriarchal society through the physical and spiritual survival plight of men and women in the novel, as well as the resistance and self-redemption of the two main characters when facing exist plight. it shows that woolf cares for both women and men, and ultimately focuses on the eternal proposition of “man” with a humanistic mindset. key words feminism, self-consciousness, mental crisis, gender harmony 1. introduction 1.1 introduction of virginia woolf virginia woolf was an english author, a representative of stream-of-consciousness literature, and is regarded as a pioneer of feminism. she was talented and joined the bloomsbury group. the experience of being sexually abused by her two brothers in her youth greatly affected her mental health and planted fear and revulsion of sex in her subconscious, yearning for same-sex emotions. after being suffered from chronic mental illness, she eventually jumped into the river to commit suicide. 1.2 the context of the novel mrs. dalloway is one of woolf’s most famous and popular stream-of-consciousness novels, and one of the best works of british modernist literature in 20th century. it mainly depicts the various people, mrs. dalloway, an upper-class housewife, and septimus, a psychiatric patient, have experienced in one day www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. and tells the story of their life experiences through their mental activities. after suffering a mental crisis, mrs. dalloway suddenly comprehends the meaning of life and death through the death of septimus, then she finds her true self. 2. feminist theory 2.1 the definition of feminist theory feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality and focuses on sexual politics, power relations, and sexuality. 2.2 the development of feminist theory there are many schools of feminism, in the final analysis, hold one common viewpoint that women are an oppressed and discriminated group throughout the world, and that inequality between men and women should be eliminated throughout humanity. engels put forward that the emancipation of women is the measure of human emancipation and regarded the emancipation of women as a requirement for the development of social justice. western feminist theory has undergone many developments, and has spawned many schools such as liberal feminism, existential feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, and socialist feminism. 2.3 virginia woolf ’s feminist thoughts as a pioneer of feminism, woolf participated in several feminist movements, publishing many feminists literature, and was regarded as the “mother of feminist literary theory. however, woolf was reluctant to call herself a feminist because she did not share the feminist view at that time that the replacement of masculinity by feminism is necessary to establish women’s status. instead, she believed that both men and women are victims and should help each other so that both sexes could escape the persecution of patriarchy. men should not be the oppressors, nor the objectors of women. woolf’s sympathy for men’s being oppression of patriarchy can be noticed in her works to the lighthouse and mrs. dalloway. she creatively proposed the idea of “androgyny” (woolf, a room of one’s own) and the psychologist jung also pointed out that it is necessary to allow both femininity and masculinity to manifest themselves in the consciousness and behavior of the individual for a harmonious and balanced personality. woolf’s idea of “androgyny” largely deconstructs the contradiction of dichotomy, and her feminist ideas are so profound and creative. 3. exist plight of women 3.1 physical plight: angels in the house the strong oppression of patriarchy confines women to the house, and women are expected to be “the angel in the house” (patmore, 1854). in patriarchal society, marriage is the ultimate destiny of women, childbearing is the only mission of women, and the family is the garden of eden for women. in the poem the angel in the house coventry patmore uses all the beautiful words possible to praise his wife’s virtues such as obedience, grace, devotion, and tenderness. woolf used the term “the angel in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. house” as a metaphor for women who were selfless and devoted. in a room of one’s own, she says, “the angels in the house are often willing to compromise and even sacrifice everything for the sake of women’s husbands and families, and they are the people with no self.” mrs. dalloway in the novel is a typical representative of the upper-class housewife under the patriarchy. she puts her family and husband at the center of her life and believes that she should give something back in her daily life, especially her husband richard, who is the foundation of it all. politically, they don’t have the right to vote or make a voice. mrs. bruton, as a female representative who participates in politics, has to rely on men to help her write letters and express her political opinions. financially, they must marry a rich man because they have difficulty finding a job. sally seaton eventually married a man, even though she was rebellious and independent and doesn’t like other traditional women, unable to escape the fate of female subordination to men, clarissa thought the last person in the world that people would expect to marry a rich man and live in a large public house near manchester is the reckless, daring, romantic sally. in terms of education, mrs. dalloway relied on miss daniels to acquire little knowledge, for they are not allowed to get education. the only way for women who in disadvantaged positions to survive is to attach to men, being confined to the home and deprived of the economic conditions to live independently, otherwise they would be isolated, marginalized or even expelled just like miss kilman. 3.2 emotional plight: desire of love the emotional dilemma faced by clarissa dalloway is manifested firstly in her relationship with her husband richard and ex-boyfriend peter. she had no freedom with peter; while richard had given her freedom but abandoned her. in the second sex, french feminist thinker simone beauvoir points out that “she is the subordinate person, the secondary. he is the subject, the absolute, and she is the other”. the woman is the “other” (beauvoir, 2010, p. 9) who is dependent and subordinate to the man. in the presence of a man, gender defines clarissa’s status as an “other”. peter can give clarissa romantic love, but he has a strong desire to control and be jealous, which leads clarissa to a humble “other” in control. richard allows clarissa to have freedom, but their love story was not smooth. richard couldn’t say love to clarissa, and clarissa felt lonely while richard is having dinner with mrs. bruton, “he has left me, and i shall be alone forever” (woolf, 1925). and richard is the basis of everything in her life, she is not even clarissa, but mrs. dalloway. clarissa is dependent on richard as the “other”. in the love relationship with the two men, clarissa is in a passive, objectified and gradually marginalized position of the disembodied “other”, both in terms of authority and emotion. after her reunion with peter, clarissa expected peter to take her away secretly. however, she soon resists the urge and returns to her identity as mrs. dalloway, which accords with peter’s words, clarissa is always cowardly, even as a girl, and in middle age cowardice turns into conformity. whereas in the relationship with sally, clarissa felt joyful and fulfilled physically and mentally. that clarissa is willing to take their feelings as love, she asked herself twice for the relationship between sally and her, “isn’t this love?” she adored sally seaton’s beauty, felt great pleasure when sally kissed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. her on the lip, and envied sally’s free soul, a kind of free will which says and does whatever she wants. clarissa’s husband richard blames her for the imperfections of her soul, peter always criticizes her, while sally believes clarissa is an extraordinary genius and she begs peter to take clarissa away to protect her from hugh and other perfect gentlemen who would suffocate her soul, turn her into a mere mistress, and encourage her worldly desires. sally loves clarissa, understands her, and wishes clarissa to live her own life. nevertheless, there is no doubt that traditional heterosexual marriage is the destination for women in people’s cognition and the practice of women being forced to converge to socially accepted sanity and norms. therefore, the love between clarissa and sally definitely ends in tragedy. 3.3 psychological plight: self alienation clarissa’s exist plight is not only the material dependency, but also spiritual crisis and emptiness. “she suddenly finds the core of life a void, like an empty little attic. according to the logic of the patriarchal society, the difference in temperament and natural attributes determines the different social roles to be undertaken. as a result, women are only suited to be “angels in the house” in the family, while men are active in other areas, which was questioned and opposed by numerous feminists. simone beauvoir criticizes this with existentialism theory in the second sex, the so-called femininity is culturally derived and learned, rather than instinctive or natural. kate miller further reveals the operation strategy of patriarchy, “instilling and entrenching female inferiority through a series of morphological, economic, psychological, educational, and other domains until women internalize it, women believe that this gender order is not only universal but immutable.” as mrs. bruton says in the novel, she often feels her own impotence as a woman and respects a mysterious consensus: it is men, not women, who masters the laws of the universe. clarissa is a rebel under the surface of docility. she dislikes peter’s control, used to be a political radical, worships lady bexbora who stands out in the field of male domination, adores sally’s free will, and is jealous of kilman’s spontaneity. but most of the time, mrs. dalloway constrains her ego, follows the social roles of women as defined by patriarchal society, and tries her best to be a perfect hostess as her husband asks. as the “other”, women have no independent economic condition but to be dependent on men. the subordination further weakens the independent spirit of women as individuals and makes women the “appendages” without self-consciousness and thinking skill. although she is more gifted than richard, she has to understand society through richard. though with independent mind, she had to quote richard. her spirits are died is timid and formal now while she was lively and enthusiastic in the past, and it is the responsibilities imposed on her by the real world forced her to give in because richard asks her to be a perfect hostess. in the real world, women are often associated with domesticity, softness and sensuality, which is “femininity” (connell, 2008). while consolidating the male-centered gender culture, gender temperament puts women on the edge of the weak labor division of gender culture. the gender temperament of masculinity and femininity corresponds to the roles as outer-man and inner-women, turning women into “the angel in the house” like mrs. dalloway, and this is the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. purpose of inventing gender temperament, to make women serve and submit to men. this influence is subtle but even more horrifying because it alienates women’s sense of self. the image of women is demonized, discourse is denied, and the idea of being oppressed in women’s mind is diluted, whereas women are numb, and they take it for granted. because as soon as the slogan appears, the thinking stops. 4. exist plight of men 4.1 the reason of war patriarchy is not only oppressing women, but also backfiring and oppressing men themselves. sexual distinction, both sex and gender, is in a binary opposition system. in this binary gender system, the temperament of gender acts on the subject in the form of specific rules and regulations. women are labeled as “sensual,” “gentle,” and “delicate,” while men are also defined as “rational,” “strong,” and “masculine”. the existence of gender temperament sets an invisible framework that gives men and women a more specific reference from their appearances to their behaviors, and within the effect of this reference, people keep changing their original state to meet the requirements of gender temperament under patriarchal authority. it took many struggles and revolutions for women in history to gain the right to wear trousers and jeans in the last century, while men who are wearing women’s clothing today are still called “transvestites”. the achievements of many anonymous female scientists throughout history were deliberately concealed or attributed to men, “matilda effect” (rossiter, 1993), which circumvented feminine masculinity in order to consolidate male dominance in the workplace, while the patriarchy also required that men not be associated with femininity, and to this day we refer to those men who are not “masculine” enough as “sissies” or “girly men”. the novel’s character, peter walsh, is romantic and passionate, whose female-like quality is the opposite of the rationality required by masculinity, and he hates the rigid social system as well has been abandoned by the upper class that demands masculinity. peter has a paper knife that he carries around for thirty years and plays with it when he needs to show his masculinity and seek self-confidence in front of women. the knife, a symbol of masculinity, is his self-defense weapon, which reflects peter’s irresistible potential compliance with masculinity in a patriarchal society. speaking of masculinity, in war and the changing nature of masculinity, leo braudy argues that war is the best arena to prove masculinity. war measures masculinity in terms of heroic sacrifice and survival, bravery and cowardice, thus the defense of the homeland seems to be the most painful and dangerous manifestation. 4.2 the trauma after war many men suffered mental breakdowns after the two world wars, and britain became known as “mad britain”. septimus, the another main character in the novel, suffers from shell shock which is called ptsd now. he is anxious, fearful, weak and paralyzed, which are the opposite of the bravery, strength and calmness needed for normal person, and completely contrary to the image of a hero and a man. his www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. doctor holmes said, “a man threatening suicide is a sign of weakness”, and even his wife lycia, after seeing septimus in tears, screaming that for her the most terrible thing of all is to see a man like septimus who had fought in the war, who had behaved so bravely weeping and crying. feminist critic elaine schowalter analyzed that the “shell shock” is very much related to the masculinity that society expects from men, which forces them to be strong and reckless, and that war also disrupts the existing social order and reverses the former values. people’s sense of morality deteriorated, while loneliness and alienation have been increased, their humanity was severely suppressed and distorted, and they were on the verge of total derangement. while creating mrs. dalloway, woolf indicated in her diary, “in this book i will describe life and death, sanity and madness; i will criticize the social system and reveal its dynamics, most essential ones at that.” when peter encounters a group of lads on the march, he saw them marching steadily, “as if a unified voice had been directing their legs and arms to move in unison, while colorful, unwillingly silent beings were put under streets full of monuments and anesthetized by discipline into a stiff but still staring corpse.” it seems that this sound like the “equilibrium” of which the psychiatrist sir bradshaw spoke. equilibrium is like congruence of which the physical gender must be aligned with the social gender, and if someone behaves differently and disrupts the equilibrium, they are marked as deviant and excluded from mainstream society. he also said “equilibrium has a sister who is even more frightening. her name is converted, she defeats the will of the weak and imposes on others. she hides under certain disguise, such as love, duty, and self-sacrifice.” bradshaw’s method of treatment is to isolate the patients, forbidding them to proclaim their opinions even declaring despair, and to give them the “equilibrium” that society demands by repressing their egos through “convert”. beauvoir wrote on the first page of the second sex that “women are not born but are formed later in life”. we are born as biological sex, but in the process of growing up, we become social gender, which is a code of behavior for different genders constructed according to gender differences. our gender culture is not innate and natural, but social and constructed. professor judith butler of harvard university calls this process of becoming gender as gender performativity, and she claims that the self or ego is in a constant state of change, and it is always being defined and reconstructed by power culture and tradition. this is also similar to beauvoir’s view that women are not born as a woman but become a woman in the process of constantly repeating the role of a woman. the principle of this role is, as sir bradshaw calls it, “equilibrium”, the most severe constraint on women in patriarchal societies, which at the same time also oppresses and is turned to men themselves. 5. the fight and self salvation 5.1 septimus smith: being towards death septimus, as the doppelganger of mrs. dalloway, is another spiritual ego of clarissa. they love life, but they are both victims of patriarchy, deviating from the established roles of society. they are both struggling on the verge of mental breakdown, both plagued by loneliness and fear, both have lost the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. integrity of life and the independence of their souls, both have the sense of “death instinct” (freud, 1920). the two of them were reminded of the eulogy to imogene in shakespeare’s cymbeline, “if i die now, now is the happiest of all”. woolf wrote in her diary that “septimus’s madness is a public manifestation of the fierce battle going on in clarissa’s mind”. faced with reality, they made different choices. mrs. dalloway chose to succumb to reality, but she was spiritually dead, for she felt invisible, unseen and unknowable. septimus chose to die physically, but the spirit was finally freed. this state of madness is not so much spiritual freedom achieved by the protagonist, but rather a defeat of his resistance, because it is too solemn and stirring to use madness and death as the victory of resistance. 5.2 clarissa dalloway: returning to self mrs. dalloway had come to a transcendental conclusion that “the invisible part of us remains after death and will somehow attach itself to this or that person”. the news of septimus’ death reverberated strongly in mrs. dalloway’s heart, making clarissa re-examine her life and realize her spiritual death. that the meaning of life, lies in spiritual enrichment and independence, which is the “existential moments” (woolf, moments of being). the death of septimus also brings clarissa the hope of rebirth, allowing her to see the fullness of life in the past, the emptiness of life in the present and the prosperity of new life. the sound of the bell implies clarissa her everlasting life, and the “cycle of the bell” (woolf, 1925) suggests that septimus’ soul and will are reborn in clarissa. with her whole self, clarissa returns to the banquet. the different names given to her at the beginning and at the end of the novel reveal clarissa’s self-redemption and self-return, “mrs. dalloway said she had gone out to buy flowers by herself”, “that’s clarissa, she was back”. she is no longer the objectified and marginalized mrs. dalloway, but clarissa with full self and free will. 5.3 building gender harmony woolf proposed “androgyny,” and in psychology, androgyny is generally considered as the perfect personality. jung called it allowing for the feminine aspect of the male personality and the feminine aspect of the female personality. gender harmony advocates the right of men and women to develop harmoniously and equally as human beings, and to achieve the free development of the human being. its purpose is to break the established gender hierarchy and single gender roles of both sexes. as woolf said, “life is not an arrangement, but a pursuit” (woolf, waves). 6. conclusion woolf’s feminist ideas remain one of the guiding philosophies of the international women’s liberation movement today. feminism advocates equality rather than power, aiming to allow men and women to retain their individual differences so that gender is no longer a factor that is considered first in everything, rather some other essential element of a person, enabling both men and women to be free from the shackles of gender and realize full potential. mrs. dalloway inspires people to examine and think about the ills of patriarchal society and to re-explore and reconstruct the definition of female identity, reflecting not only the bondage and shackles faced by women and men in a patriarchal society, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. but also the desire for freedom and equality. therefore, feminism is the liberation of women from oppression, and secondly, the deeper meaning is to drive the liberation of all human beings, including the liberation of men, which elevates to a high level with universal significance for all human beings, that is, to establish a harmonious survival status and social relations, and to realize the spiritual pursuit of human integrity. life should be a choice of free will and complete self, not a dependence on another gender and individual. references albalawi, m. (2022). the manifestations of woolf’s life experiences in mrs. dalloway. advances in language and literary studies. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.13n.1.p.16 nimer, a. j. a. (2021). women individuality: a critique of patriarchal society in virginia woolf’s mrs. dalloway. studies in literature and language. millett, k. (1970), sexual politics. social science literature press. beauvoir, s. d. (2010). the second sex. uk: vintage publishing. woolf, v. (1925). mrs. dalloway. uk: penguin group. woolf, v. (1996), a room of one’s own. uk: vintage classics. woolf, v. (2016). the common reader. yilin translation publishing house. woolf, v. (2009, june). the diary of virginia woolf. baihua literature and art publishing house. jung, c. g. (2021, october). the black books. w. w. norton & company. showalter, e. (1998) women, madness, and english culture. lanzhou university press. microsoft word assc-v3n1-p9 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 9 original paper exploring equity, diversity, and inclusion in domestic violence service provision katrina milaney phd1*, meena sangha, mph2,3, phyllis k.f. luk, msw, rsw2,4, priyadarshini kharat, phd, rsw2 & lisa zaretsky, msc.1 1 community health sciences, university of calgary, canada 2 ethno-culturally diverse communities, calgary domestic violence collective, canada 3 calgary fetal alcohol network, canada 4 chinese community response to family violence, calgary, canada * katrina milaney phd, community health sciences, university of calgary, canada received: november 8, 2020 accepted: november 20, 2020 online published: december 15, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n1p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n1p9 abstract background: the experiences of domestic violence survivors are unique, varied, and complex, and services for those seeking support must be responsive to these diverse needs. methods: to understand equity, diversity, and inclusivity within domestic violence service provision, surveys were completed by 70 professionals belonging to a local domestic violence collective. results: using an intersectional lens, thematic analysis of survey data revealed a gap in the literature specific to equity in service delivery and limited understanding and provision of equitable, diverse, and inclusive services. barriers to inclusive service delivery included a lack of cultural considerations and cultural competency while proposed solutions to barriers identified the need for ongoing cultural competence education and training, expanded partnerships, and refined agency policies and procedures. conclusion: future studies should explore the impact of implementing sector and system level changes on those who provide and receive dv services while examining the role of cultural humility, safety, and ethical space within the dv environment. keywords domestic violence, equity, diversity, inclusion, cultural competency, cultural awareness, barriers 1. introduction the experiences of domestic violence (dv) survivors are unique, varied, and complex, and services for those seeking support must be responsive to these diverse needs. while dv services exist to provide www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. support to all individuals experiencing dv, the current landscape has created an unwelcoming environment for some including people from minority groups, resulting in barriers to equitable, diverse, and inclusive service provision (lightfoot & williams, 2009; barrett, george, & george, 2005). these barriers may prevent individuals who are experiencing dv from reaching out for support and therefore, there is an urgent need to address this lack of diverse and inclusive support by understanding how dv services can be more engaged in delivery that is inclusive. dv impacts individuals of all genders, ethnicities, abilities, sexual orientations, and economic status and can be defined as “the attempt, act or intent of someone within a relationship—where the relationship is characterized by intimacy, dependency or trust—to intimidate either by threat or by the use of physical force on another person or property” (cdvc, 2019). in addition to physical force, abusive behaviors can include verbal, sexual, emotional, spiritual, economic, psychological, and the violation of rights, with the ultimate goal of controlling, exploiting, and having power over another through fear, intimidation, and neglect (government of newfoundland and labrador, 2018). violence is often a reflection of the power imbalance between abusers and their victims, closely mirroring the inequities or differences within individuals’ experiences of violence and vulnerability (government of newfoundland and labrador, 2018; mackenzie, rogers, & dodds, 2014; stanhope & lancaster, 2014). vulnerability can be understood as unequal power, dependency, capacity and need that can result in a person being exposed to harm, exploitation, and the reduced capacity to protect their own interests and safety and those of their dependents (stanhope & lancaster, 2014). vulnerability is often associated with the susceptibility of a person to experience harms or threats from external factors that they cannot control (magnussen et al., 2011). for those individuals from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, exclusionary practices perpetuate inequitable, discriminatory practices; cultural consideration is a prerequisite when trying to provide services that are inclusive. support services for dv survivors are rooted in western-based knowledge systems and practices and often ignore the cultural needs and considerations of a diverse population, resulting in experiences of racism, discrimination, and stigmatization for ethnic minoritiy groups (magnussen et al., 2011; klingspohn, 2018; kasturirangan, krishnan, & riger, 2004; martinson, 2001; nnawulezi & sullivan, 2014; anderson & aviles, 2006). cultural values and norms around patriarchy, gender identity, relational worldviews, family structure, collectivistic obligations and specific cultural scripts are often not acknowledged in dv service provision (kasturirangan, krishnan, & riger, 2004). for example, researchers suggests indigenous women are more likely to experience violence than non-indigenous women, yet services often fail to consider the impacts of colonization, intergenerational trauma, cultural values, and traditional family units when supporting indigenous peoples (klingspohn, 2018). another example may be a woman who struggles with dv disclosure who comes from a culture which stresses collectivistic obligation. these women may choose to sacrifice individual needs in order to meet collectivistic expectation that view dv as a personal or family issue not a legal or social issue. breaking the silence of violence could bring disgrace to the core family but also to the extended family www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. members. a lack of cultural competence within dv service provision perpetuates inequitable, discriminatory practices and must be considered. cultural competency can be defined as “individuals and organizations having the values, skills, knowledge, attitudes, and attributes to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (whitaker et al., 2007, p. 192). culturally competent services are responsive to individuals’ cultures (bell & mattis, 2000) and both an individual’s and organization’s cultural competence are interrelated as context influences competency (pyles & kim, 2006). a lack of general outrage for culturally competent care and treatment for dv survivors (bent-goodley, 2007) highlights the urgent need for diverse and culturally competent service provision. cultural competency is a process that involves collaboration and relationship-building with communities including those with lived experience, and agencies must examine existing policies and practices to ensure competencies are built at all levels and hold individuals at all levels accountable (aboriginal and torres strait islander social justice commissioner, 2011; perilla, serrata, weinberg, & lippy, 2012; bhuyan & senturia, 2005; senturia, sullivan, ciske, & shiu-thornton, 2000; warrier, 2005). furthermore, research suggests cultural competency training must be mandated, systematic, and ongoing (klingspohn, 2018; latta & goodman, 2005; lockhart & danis, 2010; bent-goodley, 2005) ensuring diverse cultural understanding and experiences of dv are informing policy and shaping best practices that are diverse (anderson & aviles, 2006). engaging in cultural competence allows those who work within the dv sector to understand the complexity of dv survivors’ experiences and adapt the provision of services accordingly. 1.2 theoretical framework it is important to note that binary terms or discrete categories of race and ethnicity such as black or white often influence how social experiences and identities are understood and shape the response to the issues that people with particular identities are living with (munro, 2005). experiences of dv are not universal and must be understood through an intersectional lens that addresses the historical and political contexts for a specific cultural group while acknowledging the complexities of power and privilege (warrier, 2005). to fully understand diversity, it is important to recognize that binary or discrete notions of identity and experience are inadequate; therefore, an intersectional lens is required to recognize there are multiple ways people experience diversity and thus, the supports necessary to be diverse, inclusive and equitable should be understood as a spectrum that can be responsive to multiple ways of being. 1.3 the current study utilizing an intersectional lens, the purpose of this study is to explore how equity, diversity, and inclusion are understood within the dv sector while highlighting the barriers and potential solutions to providing services that are more equitable, diverse, and inclusive. the research questions are as follows: 1) how are equity, diversity, and inclusion understood within the dv service provision sector? 2) what are the barriers to inclusive service delivery within the dv service provision sector? 3) how can dv services be more inclusive within the dv service provision sector? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. 2. methods participants for this study were recruited from a local dv collective in may 2019. surveys were completed by a total of 70 professionals within the dv sector who were recruited through a snowball sampling method (organizations included addictions, children, disability, ethnocultural, funders, government, health, immigrant, justice, mental health, research, sexual abuse, treatment, and women’s shelters). the survey asked participants about their own experiences with various forms of violence to better understand the extent to which barriers in the dv field can be assessed. additionally, participants were asked to define their understandings of diversity, equity, and inclusion, identify barriers in providing dv services, and identify how dv service provision could be more inclusive. this study received ethics approval from the university of calgary (reb19-1009). 3. results data analysis was completed using spss. 3.1 equity participants were asked to choose a definition of equity that made the most sense to them. the results are shown in table 1. the most frequent understanding of equity (74.6%) was: “equity is fairness achieved through (1) systematically assessing disparities in opportunities and outcomes caused by structures and systems and (2) by addressing these disparities through meaningful inclusion and representation of affected communities and individuals, targeted actions, and changes in institutional structures and systems to remove barriers and increase pathways to equal access to participation/being included.” table 1. defining equity definition of equity percentage of respondents1 equity is the quality of being fair and impartial. 7.1% equity is fairness and impartiality towards all concerned, based on the principles of even-handed dealing. 5.7% equity is just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. 20% equity is fairness achieved through (1) systematically assessing disparities in opportunities and outcomes caused by structures and systems and (2) by addressing these disparities through meaningful inclusion and representation of affected communities and individuals, targeted actions, and changes in institutional structures and systems to remove barriers and increase pathways to equal access to 74.3% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. participation/being included. 1 some respondents chose more than one definition, resulting in a cumulative total greater than 100%. following the definition of equity, participants were asked if they believed dv survivors were receiving equitable services based on their chosen definition. results are shown in figure 1. over 50% of participants disagreed that dv survivors were receiving equitable services based on their understanding and definition of equity. figure 1. percentage of respondents who believe dv survivors are receiving equitable services 3.2 diversity participants were asked to choose a definition of diversity that made the most sense to them. the results are shown in table 2. the most frequent understanding of diversity (51.4%) was: “diversity is the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, language, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious or cultural. beliefs/practices, national origin, immigration status, and political beliefs.” table 2. defining diversity definition of diversity percentage of respondents1 diversity is a numerical representation of different types of people. 1.4% diversity is a trending buzz word that divides us rather than bringing us together. 1.4% diversity means to practice without discrimination, with respect, and with knowledge and skills related to age, class, color, culture, disability, occupation, education, ethnicity, family structure, gender, 8.6% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. diversity means understanding that each individual is unique and recognizing our individual differences. these can be along the dimensions of race, language, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. 42.9% diversity is the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, language, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious or cultural. beliefs/practices, national origin, immigration status, and political beliefs. 51.4% 1 some respondents chose more than one definition, resulting in a cumulative total greater than 100%. following the definition of diversity, participants were asked if they believed dv survivors were receiving services that met diverse needs based on their chosen definition. results are shown in figure 2. over 50% of participants disagreed that dv survivors were receiving services that met diverse needs based on their understanding and definition of diversity. figure 2. percentage of respondents who believe dv survivors are receiving diverse services 3.3 inclusion participants were asked to choose a definition of inclusion that made the most sense to them. the results are shown in table 3. the most frequent understanding of inclusion (52.9%) was: “inclusion promotes and sustains a sense of belonging; it values and practices respect for the talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of living of its members.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. table 3. defining inclusion definition of inclusion percentage of respondents1 inclusion is the idea that everyone should be able to use the same facilities, take part in the same activities, and enjoy the same experiences. 7.1% inclusion is the action or state of including or being included within a group or structure … inclusion involves an authentic and empowered participation and a true sense of belonging. 18.6% inclusion is involvement and empowerment, where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized. inclusion promotes and sustains a sense of belonging; it values and practices respect for the talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of living of its members. 28.6% 52.9% 1 some respondents chose more than one definition, resulting in a cumulative total greater than 100%. following the definition of inclusion, participants were asked if they believed dv survivors were receiving services that were inclusive based on their chosen definition. results are shown in figure 3. over 50% of participants disagreed that dv survivors were receiving services that were inclusive based on their understanding and definition of inclusion. figure 3. percentage of respondents who believe dv survivors are receiving inclusive services 3.4 barriers to inclusive services participants were asked to indicate the barriers they face when providing dv services that are fully www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. inclusive. results are shown in figure 4. the most frequent barrier to providing inclusive services was a lack of cultural considerations (73%), followed by a lack of cultural competency training (71%) and financial barriers (71%). figure 4. barriers to inclusive service delivery identified by participants 3.5 solutions for barriers to inclusive delivery participants were asked to indicate what they think is needed for service delivery to be more inclusive. results are shown in figure 5. figure 5. solutions to barriers to inclusive service delivery identified by participants www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. 87% of respondents identified understanding that one size fits all services do not work for everyone as a solution to providing inclusive service delivery. “i think we need to [be] mindful of whose experiences are chronically marginalized by one-size-fits-all and more passive (the people who show up are the people who care) approaches. i think for inclusion to be meaningful the process needs to be active, reflexive, ongoing, and likely uncomfortable as biases and assumptions always need to be checked.” 80% of respondents identified diversity and inclusion training (including oppression, racism, social justice, and discrimination) as essential for inclusive service delivery, while 65% identified the need for self-awareness training and training for funders. responses to survey questions around building inclusive service delivery for dv survivors included ongoing education and training for staff around cultural competency and anti-racism. suggestions included lunch and learns, increasing training opportunities, acknowledging other cultural groups, and having community members speak about their experience. “inclusion programs/lunch and learns to increase diversity and inclusion training.” “having members of the specific cultural community speak about the issues helps to break down stigma. having members of the community who have an understanding of cultural norms work in health care program settings adds a level of understanding and comfort for the victim that is difficult for a worker to attain through short-term training/education.” “anti-racist training, learning about colonial violence in canada.” “racial bias needs to be mandatory policy.” 73% of respondents identified expanded partnerships and stakeholder diversity as necessary for service delivery to be more inclusive. responses to survey questions included systems/sector partners, specific subgroups, funders, and community to help build awareness, reduce silos, and build capacity through cross-training. the most common answer for expanded partnerships included ethno-cultural communities and service providers within the immigrant sector to ensure dv organizations have access to people with expertise in immigration/settlement, translation, and cultural sensitivity and awareness. expanded partnerships with funders was suggested as another way to help build capacity, suggesting cost-free capacity building training opportunities for the organizations they fund. finally, community partners were described as people with lived experience, in terms of formal and authentic engagement with those that have survived violence to inform decision making. a suggestion was also made to enhance public awareness and reduce stigma by engaging the community at large in discussions and debates about violence. “partnerships with accountability and shared vision that remains agile and adapts to the demand. united leadership around these partnerships that is involved and responsible. more inter-agency communication and information sharing in the best interest of the client/family. building relationships with service providers and organizations so there is the trust and ability to work together for a client/family.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. “expanding partnerships to support 'by and for' services recognizing that communities know themselves best and cultural competency means supporting the voices of communities rather than speaking for them.” “having members of the specific cultural community speak about the issues helps to break down stigma. having members of the community who have an understanding of cultural norms work in health care program settings adds a level of understanding and comfort for the victim that is difficult for a worker to attain through short-term training/education.” 63% of respondents identified the need for policy changes while 55% identified the need for more research on best practices. it was suggested that organizational policies should be in place to address procedures such as hiring, trauma-informed care, and cultural competency training while putting more accountability on the perpetrators. “the theoretical frameworks in place to develop programs for issues such as domestic abuse are also based on principles that were not developed considering cultural/value differences. it is often difficult to develop tailored programs when the basis/literature supporting these programs itself is not culturally competitive or exhaustive. it may be necessary to take several steps back to work towards culturally competent and effective programs addressing domestic violence.” “values based interviewing so that staff members that do not value diversity and inclusion are not hired.” “trauma informed service delivery. understanding trauma impacts all individuals in dv sector in various ways.” “policy change needs to include a recognition of the impacts of inequity on communities, the length of time and the amount of resources required to deal with those inequities and the way those inequities intersect with the issue of domestic violence.” “policies need to focus on holding the perpetrator accountable for family violence, and not the victim. we need to grow collaborations between mainstream and ethnocultural communities, to ensure our practices are inclusive.” 4. discussion there was limited consensus over how equity, diversity, and inclusion are defined; however, regardless of the definition, participants overwhelmingly agreed that service provision was not equitable, diverse, or inclusive. furthermore, workers identified a lack of cultural considerations and cultural competence as the most significant barriers to providing inclusive services. these results suggest there is a disconnect between how equity, diversity, and inclusion are defined and understood versus putting these concepts into meaningful and concrete action. this finding is timely as there has recently been an influx of organizational statements and responses to systemic racism and discrimination, and yet time will tell if organizations remain committed to their response by taking concrete actions to embed equitable practices into organizational policies. future research could evaluate if and how organizations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. can be held accountable to their responses on equity, diversity, and inclusion, and explore if those who experience racism and discrimination experience fundamental changes in the care they receive. 4.1 education and training when respondents were asked to expand on practices they believed should be adopted for inclusive service delivery, they overwhelmingly responded with the need for ongoing education, training, and action on cultural competency. although agencies may already have cultural competency training in place, many tools lack the substance or analysis needed for individual’s to truly understand the complex interconnectedness of power systems and structures and the impact these systems have on people of different ethnicities, races and cultures (bent-goodley, 2007; warrier, 2005). without cultural competence, the experiences of different groups are ignored, dismissed, and invalidated, resulting in care that is incomplete, unethical, and ineffective (warrier, 2005). cultural competence must not simply be a one-time mandatory training session. instead, cultural competency must be acknowledged as an active, ongoing learning process that really challenges and shifts one’s thoughts, assumptions, and prejudices around power and culture when survivors are seeking dv support services (warrier, 2005). in fact, without an analysis of one’s thoughts and assumptions, there is a danger that cultural competency training will further instill a sense of the “other”, position “culture” as only for ethnic minorities, achieving complete competence of a different culture, and ignore the need to address humanity and actively transform inequalities (fisher-borne, cain, & martin, 2014). some researchers argue for cultural humility rather than cultural competence as cultural humility critiques and mitigates power imbalances, requires critical reflection and lifelong learning, and demands accountability from both individuals and organizations to address social inequity (fisher-borne, cain, & martin, 2014). future studies could examine if focusing on cultural humility rather than cultural competency significantly shifts the way dv services are understood and put into practice. furthermore, future studies could explore how organizations can embrace the principles of cultural competency as a foundation and framework for all their policies and practices while determining how both practitioners and organizations can be held accountable to these principles. accountability is key in providing ongoing services that are fully and authentically inclusive and must be built into organizational procedures and practices. 4.2 expanded partnerships and diverse stakeholders for dv services to be fully inclusive, expanded partnerships and collaboration with diverse stakeholders must be prioritized. responses included formalizing partnerships with ethno-cultural communities and agencies to help reduce stigma, build cultural awareness, reduce silos, bridge service gaps and ensure access to those who have expertise in cultural sensitivity and protocols. other suggestions included more interagency communication and building formal and authentic relationships with community members who have lived experience. additionally, organizations within the dv sector must develop strategies to formalize partnerships outside of the dv sector such as mental health agencies to allow for seamless referral and shared service delivery between providers. these findings www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. support the research that suggests dv service providers must engage and collaborate with partners to ensure the interdisciplinary complexities of dv survivors are acknowledged and addressed (bent-goodley, 2007). furthermore, collaboration with the community ensures diverse voices and perspectives are heard while ensuring individuals with lived experiences of dv are informing program response and delivery provision (perilla, serrata, weinberg, & lippy, 2012). as warrier (2005) says, “it is essential to reach out to, work with, and collaborate with different communities and encourage contradictory and diverse perspectives from a variety of people and resource. one voice cannot speak or represent any particular group of people” (p. 541). approaching dv service provision as a collective, rather than individual agencies, ensures multiple experiences, voices, and perspectives are informing policy and procedures that are appropriate, while ensuring that when dv survivors are seeking out support, they are able to receive care and resources that are highly respectful of their own unique journey and support them in the best way possible. future research could explore if expanded agency partnerships result in care to dv survivors that is more equitable while mitigating the barriers they face when trying to receive supports are fully inclusive. 4.3 policy and best practices agency policies, processes, and best practices must be tailored to better account for the complexity of dv survivors’ experiences. reponses to the questions specific to policy changes included mandating cultural competence and refining hiring guidelines. as mentioned previously, cultural competence training is crucial to ensure all staff are engaging in the process of deepening their understanding around the complexities of dv survivors’ experiences and reasons for seeking or not seeking support. thus, policies must ensure cultural competence be integrated at all levels of dv service provision including re-examining the appropriateness of service access, screening, assessment, evaluation, and intervention tools (bent-goodley, 2005). some tools and measurement scales may not be culturally appropriate for all dv survivors and adapting these practices to support all individuals will help break down the barriers some feel. not only does cultural competence need to be integrated, it is important to find ways to evaluate the efficacy of cultural competence integration (bent-goodley, 2005). authentic cultural competence fosters a critical exploration of one’s thoughts and actions and encourages the willingness to be open to others’ experiences and perspectives. cultural competence is not a fast, quick solution to address gaps in equity, diversity, and inclusion; therefore, ongoing evaluative efforts of policy to practice need to be in place to help highlight what is working and what is not. this evaluative component may help individuals and organizations shift towards a place of cultural humility that is deeply ingrained in both policy and practice. future research should explore how cultural competence can be measured and evaluated while establishing ways in which individuals and agencies can be held accountable. furthermore, more research is required to understand how cultural competency and cultural humility vary and if there are significant differences in service provisions when providing one over the other. with regards to hiring practices, agencies must ensure their hiring policies are reflective of the equitable, diverse, and inclusive services they aim to provide. hiring staff from diverse www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures ensures that diverse voices are represented (kasturirangan, krishnan & riger, 2004). for example, language can be a barrier for those seeking support, interpretation and translation are essential services to support survivors to articulate their needs and experience. having staff members who speak the language can help a survivor feel understood and emotionally supported. not only does hiring diverse staff members help ensure dv survivors are receiving inclusive care, research suggests those with lived experience must be included within the development of organizational policy and practices (klingspohn, 2018). as experts with lived experience, hiring staff members from diverse backgrounds with personal experience helps ensure their expertise is informing and guiding the provision of equitable services. 4.4 limitations this study was limited by the use of surveys which can be open to interpretation and/or subject to bias while limiting the range of responses from participants (simon & goes, 2013). although respondents were invited to expand on their thoughts about barriers and solutions to equitable, diverse, and inclusive service delivery, focus groups or interviews may have garnered a deeper engagement and understanding with these ideas. similarly, much of the literature is not reflective of the full spectrum of services that are needed to respond to the intersections of culture and race, limiting the knowledge around providing services that are equitable and inclusive. furthermore, the literature is largely centered around cultural competency and awareness, with little focus on ethical spaces, safety, and cultural humility. 5. conclusions responding to the intricate experiences of dv survivors requires the provision of services that acknowledge and address the intersecting barriers of diverse identities. barriers to equitable dv services include service gaps, a lack of consensus on what diversity, inclusion, and equity are, and a lack of awareness around cultural considerations and cultural competence within all levels of organizations. these barriers can be addressed by ongoing education and training on cultural competence and cultural humility, engaging with community members and agencies to foster deeper relationships and expanded partnerships, engaging in meaningful discussions to explore how current dv service provision works or does not work for their community. future research should explore how accountability for true cultural competence and cultural humility can be implemented as the foundational framework for diversity, equity and inclusion within the dv sector. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the calgary domestic violence collective for their support for recruitment and oversight on this project. the ethno-culturally diverse communities subgroup provided the vision and objectives for this project and led the research design. we would also like to thank the staff members from social service agencies who participated for sharing their time and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. experiences with us. references aboriginal and torres strait 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(2011). social justice report. retrieved from https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/social_justice/sj_report/sjreport11/pdf/ sjr2011.pdf anderson, t. r., & aviles, a. m. (2006). diverse faces of domestic violence. abnf journal, 5. barrett, k., george, w. h., & george, w. (2005). race, culture, psychology, and law. sage. bell, c. c., & mattis, j. (2000). the importance of cultural competence in ministering to african american victims of domestic violence. violence against women, 6(5), 515-532. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778010022182001 bent-goodley, t. b. (2005). culture and domestic violence. journal of interpersonal violence, 20(2), 195-203. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260504269050 bent-goodley, t. b. (2007). health disparities and violence against women: why and how cultural and societal influences matter. trauma, violence, & abuse, 8(2), 90-104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838007301160 bhuyan, r., & senturia, k. (2005). understanding domestic violence resource utilization and survivor solutions among immigrant and refugee women: introduction to the special issue. journal of interpersonal violence, 20(8), 895-901. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260505277676 cdvc (calgary domestic violence collective). (2019). about domestic violence. retrieved from http://cdvc.ca/about-domestic-violence fisher-borne, m., cain, j. m., & martin, s. l. (2014). from mastery to accountability: cultural humility as an alternative to cultural competence. social work education, 34(2), 165-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2014.977244 government of newfoundland and labrador. (2018, may). defining violence and abuse. retrieved from https://www.gov.nl.ca/vpi/types kasturirangan, a., krishnan, s., & riger, s. (2004). the impact of culture and minority status on women’s experience of domestic violence. trauma, violence, & abuse, 5(4), 318-332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838004269487 klingspohn, d. m. (2018). the importance of culture in addressing domestic violence for first nation’s women. frontiers in psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00872 latta, r. e., & goodman, l. a. (2005). considering the interplay of cultural context and service provision in intimate partner violence: the case of haitian immigrant women. violence against women, 11(11), 1441-1464. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801205280273 lightfoot, e., & williams, o. (2009). the intersection of disability, diversity, and domestic violence: results of national focus groups. journal of aggression, maltreatment & trauma, 18(2), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. 133-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770802675551 lockhart, l., & danis, f. (2010). domestic violence: intersectionality and culturally competent practice (foundations of social work knowledge). new york: columbia university press. mackenzie, c., rogers, w., & dodds, s. (2014). vulnerability: new essays on feminist philosophy. oxford university press; oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199316649.001.0001 magnussen, l., shoultz, j., richardson, k., oneha, m. f., campbell, j. c., matsunaga, d. s., … arias, c. (2011). responding to the needs of culturally diverse women who experience intimate partner violence who experience intimate partner violence. hawaii medical journal, 70(1), 9-15. martinson, l. m. (2001). an analysis of racism and resources for african-american female victims of domestic violence in wisconsin. wisconsin women’s law journal, 16, 259-286. munro, s. 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(2000). cultural issues affecting domestic violence service utilization in ethnic and hard to reach populations. retrieved from https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/data/~/media/depts/health/data/documents/cultural-issu es-domestic-violence-november-2000.ashx simon, m. k., & goes, j. (2013). scope, limitations and delimitation. dissertation and scholarly research: recipes for success. seattle, wa: dissertation success llc. warrier, s. (2005). culture handbook. retrieved from http://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/userfiles/file/immigrantwomen/culture%20handbook.p https://doi.org/10.1037/e601642012-001 whitaker, d. j., baker, c. k., pratt, c., reed, e., suri, s., pavlos, c., … silverman, j. (2007). a network model for providing culturally competent services for intimate partner violence and sexual violence. violence against women, 13(2), 190-209. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801206296984 microsoft word assc-v2n3-p47 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 47 original paper revisiting brown versus board of education: differences in school context and the influence of racial attitudes on academic attainment and civic engagement among black americans across the lifespan kristen bell1*, mikerobert joseph1, rune simeonson, ph. d2, jonathan n livingston1, maia crumbie1, & amani wise3 1 north carolina central university, durham, united states of america 2 unc chapel hill, chapel hill, united states of america 3 illinois state university, normal, united states of america * kristen bell, north carolina central university, durham, united states of america received: july 2, 2020 accepted: july 20, 2020 online published: july 24, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p47 abstract since brown versus the board of education 60 years ago, educators and social and behavioral scientists have tried to identify factors related to better achievement for black americans. since the desegregation of schools in the u.s., black american students have reported lower grade point averages, standardized test scores, and graduation rates (allen, 1992). previous research has investigated school context and climate as well as the influence of racial attitudes on academic achievement. findings suggest that positive student perceptions of school climate and context (e.g., pride, social support, relationships with a teacher, access to resources) were related to better academic outcomes (hurley & lustbader, 1997). however, the research on the influence of racial attitudes have been inconclusive (chavous et al., 2003; fordham & ogbu 1986). thus, the purpose of this study is two-fold. first, to explore whether racial attitudes were related to academic attainment and civic engagement, and second, to examine whether there are differences in perceptions in school pride and school climate for students in historically black high schools and historically white high schools. to assess the aforementioned research questions, thirty-three black american high school graduates from a historically white high school and eighty-two black americans from historically black high schools were sampled. spearman rho correlations and independent sample t-tests were run to assess the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. relationship between the following. 1) racial attitudes, educational attainment, and civic engagement. 2) differences in perceptions of school climate for blacks at historically white and black high schools. findings reveal statistically significant associations between racial attitudes and educational attainment as well as civic engagement. moreover, differences were also found in perceptions of climate across school types. given these results, further research is needed to explore the influence of students’ perception of their school experience and racial attitudes upon educational and life outcomes. keywords black american, academic achievement, school context, and racial attitudes 1. introduction for many americans, particularly minority americans, education is perceived as a means for improving their economic and social status (tillman, 2009). in today’s highly competitive work environment, high school is sometimes the last opportunity to reach, influence, and prepare youth with the skills necessary to be productive citizens and competitive workers. therefore, it is imperative to understand how one’s high school experience impacts later outcomes as an adult. it is also important for educators and social-behavioral scientists to understand what factors are related to individuals’ achievement and community engagement or activism over the lifespan. in the u.s., students with high academic achievement and high school diplomas have more access to college scholarships, jobs, and educational opportunities (hoynes et al., 2012; orfield et al., 2005; saunders, davis, williams, & williams, 2003; wimberly, 2002). much of the literature on closing the achievement gap between whites and blacks, indicates that inequality exists in the american education system today (fletcher & tienda, 2010). although the “brown vs. board of education” decision forced americans to take a serious look at education, black children, particularly in urban areas, still lag academically (clark, 2003; fratoe, 1980; journal of blacks in higher education, 2003). the introduction of the no child left behind act of 2001 sought to address issues of inequality in america’s education system; but since then, dropout rates, expulsion rates, and underperformance on standardized tests continue to plague america’s school systems (bonneau, 2008; childs trend data bank, 2008; journal of blacks in higher education, 2003). despite gains being made for blacks, there are still gaps in the academic and economic achievement rates between black americans and whites that can ultimately impact their quality of life and self-sufficiency. for example, results from the national educational longitudinal study indicate that the majority of blacks, graduating with a high school diploma, are still more likely to be unemployed when compared to whites and earn lower wages (wimberly, 2002). education level may account for the discrepancy in wage earnings with a smaller number of blacks holding postsecondary degrees compared to their white counterparts (wimberly, 2002). support for this theory can be found in the results of a study by the u.s. department of education (2001b). findings showed when the wages of black and white college graduates were compared there was little difference in their employment rates, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. (as cited in wimberly, 2002) suggesting that increasing educational attainment levels of blacks may help to close the gap in employment rates between blacks and whites. however, to increase educational attainment rates educators need to know what factors contribute to blacks’ enrollment in postsecondary education. using the national educational longitudinal data, wimberly (2002) studied the achievement of blacks and long-term outcomes over time, only looked at student socioeconomic levels, the racial make-up of the student populations, and staff and faculty training levels. they did not look at the schools’ racial context to determine if there were significant differences in postsecondary educational outcomes for blacks that graduated from historically black high schools. although follow-up research from the coleman report by the national center for education statistics (2000) has shown that black americans have made gains, educators and social-behavioral scientists need to investigate the impact of the high school on black students’ educational outcomes over the life span. 1.1 purpose of the study factors impacting black children’s academic achievement, such as low economic status, poverty, family structure, and student motivation have all been cited throughout the literature (jencks & phillips, 1998; national center for education statistics, 2000a). some studies argue that environments that require blacks to interact with white students will result in more positive educational experiences (fordham, 1988) and that predominantly white institutions (pwis) provide superior academic resources (wenglinsky, 1995). other research (fleming, 1981, 1984; fordham, 1988; hughes, 1987) on pwis found that black american students who were socially and academically successful at pwis tended to have less connection to black american culture (chavous, 2000). additional research on racial identity (baldwin et al., 1990; taub & mcewen, 1992) has suggested that accepting mainstream views or lack of connectedness to black culture is harmful to black students’ academic and social development (chavous, 2000). on the other hand, others have argued that only a racially homogeneous institution can fulfill the social and academic needs of black american students (tillman, 2009; baldwin et al., 1987; coleman, 1990) such as that of a historically black institution (hbis) (chavous et al., 2004). this study aims to clarify the findings of previous research on black academic achievement in the high school context and identify which high school environments produce graduates that are leaders within the black community. this study is designed to assess differences in black high school graduates’ from hbis and pwis perceptions of their racial attitudes, the perception of high school climates, which includes school pride, academic attainment, and civic engagement over their lifespan. in reviewing research evaluating the impact of school environments on academic achievement and long-term outcomes, previous studies have rarely made a distinction between high school environments that are predominantly black due to “middle-class or white flight” and historically black high schools (hbhss) that were initially established for black americans and continue to educate primarily black american populations. furthermore, there is a lack of studies investigating the differences in civic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. engagement in a high school setting. thus, the following questions will be examined: 1) are racial attitudes among black students related to educational attainment? 2) are racial attitudes among black students related to civic engagement over the life span? 3) are there differences in perceptions of school climate for blacks at historically white and black high schools? 1.2 racial identity and academic attainment racial identity is a “multidimensional construct made up of components that incorporate ethnic awareness, sociopolitical attitudes, and cultural or in-group versus out-group preferences” and is defined as a person’s belief about the significance of race in his or her life (chavous et al., 2003, p 1078). in conducting their research, chavous and colleagues (2003) used the multidimensional model of racial identity (mmri) to address the two perspectives of race and achievement beliefs in black americans. this model looked at racial centrality, private regard, and public regard on the academic achievement of blacks. based on significantly different ratings by blacks on the three variables, chavous and colleagues (2003) identified four groups of racial identity, including “buffering/defensive,” “idealized,” alienated,” and “low connectedness/high affinity.” two of the groups, “buffering/defensive” and “idealized” had higher academic attainment when compared to the two groups of “low connectedness/high affinity” and “alienated.” overall, “having high centrality, strong group pride (private regard), and positive beliefs about society’s views of blacks (public regard) were related to more positive academic beliefs” (chavous et al., 2003, p. 1086). in contrast, black students in the alienated group that were low on all three dimensions of private regard, public regard, and centrality, also “felt the most negative about their group”, “had the most negative academic attitudes”, the highest number of dropouts by 12th grade, and lowest college attainment when compared to other black american racial identity groups (chavous et al., 2003, p. 1086). additionally, “youth’s own personal group attitudes and feelings about their group influenced their educational behavior more strongly, regardless of their societal views” (chavous, 2003, p. 1086). similarly, in a study conducted by eccles and colleagues (2006), racial identity was related to student achievement. eccles and colleagues (2006) found that in contrast to fordham and ogbu’s research (1986), black youth, when compared to white youth, attached “greater personal importance to school achievement” and “perceived general utility of education” (p. 415). increased anticipation of future discrimination was positively related to students being more committed to their educational success (eccles et al., 2006). in both studies, racial identity worked as both promotive and protective factors by compensating and shielding against perceptions of racial discrimination (eccles et al., 2006; chavous et al., 2003). both of these studies demonstrate how black students’ racial identity beliefs impact their academic behaviors, and these behaviors affect their academic achievement (chavous et al., 2003; eccles et al., 2006). given the gap in research that looks at how high school environments foster racial identity and impact the long-term quality of life outcomes of blacks, including postsecondary academic attainment and civic engagement, there is a need to explore these associations further to understand what school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. climate factors positively impact black outcomes. 1.3 school climate as previous research has shown (moller & sterns, 2012; wimberly, 2002), another important factor that has been linked to adult outcomes over time is the high school experience, as influenced by the climate of the school: “the physical and psychological aspects of the school that are most susceptible to change and that provide the preconditions necessary for teaching and learning to take place” (tableman & herron, 2004, p. 2). a school climate can be measured by peoples’ feelings about their school environment. in freiberg’s analysis (1999), school climate is defined as “the heart and soul of a school” (p. 11). freiberg further states that “school climate is about the quality of a school that helps each individual feel personal worth, dignity, and importance, while simultaneously helping create a sense of belonging to something beyond ourselves” (p. 11). in a healthy school climate, students feel nurtured, teachers feel excited about working, and all members of the school feel empowered (freiberg, 1999). previous research on integrated schools has found that black children in urban and suburban public schools often feel alienated and that no one cares (hurley & lustbader, 1997; rury & hill, 2012) due to perceived poor school climate in which they feel disconnected from their environment. research suggests that students perform better and are more likely to graduate when they have a school support (hurley & lustbader, 1997;wimberly, 2002). a support system not only maintains a level of expectant behavior from the student but also supports the student emotionally to maintain this expectant behavior. the school climate helps to shape the students’ behavior (bryk et al., 2010; tillman, 2009; wimberly, 2002). in a school that fosters a healthy school climate, this support and guidance do not only come from the teachers and administration but fellow peers. a lack of financial and community resources makes it difficult for schools that serve students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to adequately address student population needs. lack of financial resources and support systems impact the school climate (farkas, 2003). as a disproportionate percentage of blacks live in low-socioeconomic communities (orfield & lee, 2005), blacks are highly concentrated in the schools labeled as low-performing (bankston et al., 1996; orfield et al., 2005). high poverty schools tend to have higher teacher turnover rates and a higher concentration of less qualified teachers (orfield et al., 2005); both factors impact the quality of school life. for black youth, positive school climates are important in supporting successful academic achievement and feelings of belongingness (hurley, 1997; tillman, 2009; wimberly, 2002). research has also shown that supportive school climates can off-set the potentially negative factors of students’ home lives (gottfredson, 2006; orfield et al., 2005). a review of school climate research typically cites the school’s racial composition as a significant variable in student academic outcomes. however, a lack of research on high school environments and black long-term outcomes makes it difficult to determine whether a distinction needs to be made between the hbhss, hwhss, and pbhss high schools when looking at black long-term outcomes across generations. furthermore, american schooling’s racial history makes it difficult to discuss the relationship between school climate and racial concentration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. schools without acknowledging the history of oppression within american schools for ethnic minorities. therefore, research evaluating the effects of blacks’ perceptions of oppression within the school climate and racial concentration of the school on black american outcomes needs to be explored. 1.4 racial concentration and school climate historically, schools exist for two primary purposes in a democratic society: 1) to facilitate the redistribution and access of resources (bankston & caldas, 2002) and 2) to promote national civic responsibility (balsano, 2005). the goal of promoting social equality of opportunity can conflict with that of the family and individual. this sometimes dichotomous relationship between school goals and individual goals of the family impacts the racial concentration and climate of a school. people who avoid or discredit predominantly black schools may perceive blacks as lacking educational, social, and economic resources necessary to promote a healthy academic environment, particularly blacks from low socio-economic backgrounds (orfield et al., 2005). some whites and blacks may view blacks’ presence as a negative regardless of their socio-economic status and do not perceive predominantly minority school environments as having a school climate conducive to promoting positive outcomes for their children (bankston et al., 1996). when examining the second historical goal, schools have been traditionally responsible for providing students with skills necessary to become productive citizens that give back and foster the well-being of their communities (tillman, 2009; flanagan et al., 2007; balsano, 2005). regardless of ethnicity, civic engagement is an essential tool that promotes positive development among students and “represents an avenue for youth to get involved in the preservation of their own and their communities’ positive development over time” (balsano, 2005, p. 189). t school climate will determine how students learn about and carry out their civic responsibility (flanagan et al., 2007). civic responsibility could come in implicit forms of stating the pledge or explicit forms of learning about the city, state, or national history and governmental expectations that a student lives. developing civic responsibility in the school setting may be even more important for blacks, as minority populations tend to be more skeptical of government, more aware of discrimination, and less likely to believe that the “american dream” will happen for them (flanagan et al., 2007, p. 424). in the long-term, a lack of civic engagement may impact an individual’s sense of self-advocacy within their community on local and global levels (flanagan et al., 2007; balsano, 2005). “civically engaged youth tend to have an increased sense of their own competencies, be more internally driven to get involved in prosocial activities and have higher self-esteem” (balsano, 2005, p. 188). the difference in how schools frame and make relevant historical references to student experiences for their civic duty and the effectiveness of schools in producing civic leaders may be related to the historical foundation and resources of the school, which impact the school’s ability to meet the needs of the student population that it was designed to serve (balsano, 2005). when the needs of the total student population are not taken into account, particularly for minority students, feelings of marginalization leave some minorities viewing the academic setting as just one of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. several aspects of the social system created to privilege certain groups of people and oppress other groups (hillard, 1988). therefore, a respectful and fair school climate is important in fostering civic responsibility for black americans. research by ogbu (1990; ogbu & simons, 1998) on “involuntary minorities” has demonstrated that the historically oppressive context of the academic setting can complicate the academic achievement for blacks (nasir et al., 2006, p. 456). black students often come from circumstances in which the home culture does not match that of the mainstream school culture; a culture that values independence, working on tasks that do not interest students, restraint in one’s actions, and rational thinking over emotional expression (hollins et al., 1994). boykin’s research focuses on changing the school climate to view the culture that black children bring to school as a benefit and not a deficit (boykin, 1978, 2000). studies that focus on teaching black students in ways that allow them expression, align with their interests, offer flexibility, and are supportive; blacks have succeeded academically (allen, 1992; boykin, 2000; davis, 1994). in an oppressive or non-nurturing environment, when students encounter hardships academically or socially, they typically have no support. black students’ perceptions of deliberate and unintentional racial stereotype threats may “depress academic performance, through their anxiety-inducing effects on thought and problem-solving” (nasir et al., 2006, p. 457). most students want to succeed and know the importance of academic success; however, some may not see this goal being within their grasp because they feel marginalized within the school environment and do not perceive their school climate to be positive or supportive. at the secondary level, research (mickleson, 2003) that specifically investigated the relationship between the racial composition of a school and academic outcomes, found predominantly black environments to be disadvantageous for black students’ academic success. mickleson (2003) reaffirmed that desegregation is significantly beneficial for blacks and looked at the history of the school system and discussed the consequences of desegregation. when investigating the short-term effects, mickleson reported that predominantly black schools and classrooms had significantly adverse effects on black and white student academic outcomes. however, mickleson did acknowledge that tracking in schools limited blacks’ access to better teachers and resources in desegregated schools, a finding consistent with other research (moller & steams, 2012). regarding long-term effects, mickleson (2003) found that black americans attending desegregated environments tended to obtain higher educational and occupational levels than those who did not. an earlier study by allen (1992) indicated hbis are beneficial for black american college students. allen found that black students who attended pwis reported lower academic achievement, lower levels of social involvement, lower college grades, higher grades in high school, and less favorable relations with their professors than those who attended hbis (1992). allen attributed the academic success of black american students that attended hbis to their characteristics and quality of social and academic life on the campus (1992). a review of black american outcomes based on the racial history of the schools suggested that black american students at hbis reported better academic performance, greater www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. social involvement, and higher occupational aspirations than students at pwis. furthermore, black american students at hbis reported feelings of engagement, connection, acceptance, and extensive support and encouragement. the presumed positive correlation between high social integration and high academic performance is not necessarily true for black americans at pwis. black american students that attend pwis may express high levels of social alienation and disconnection, but they are often able to maintain high academic performance levels despite these feelings (allen, 1992). the history of american schools makes it difficult to analyze the relationship between the racial concentration of a school and black outcomes without addressing potentially oppressive school practices and climates. the emphasis of civic responsibility within the school climates can help to reinforce black students’ sense of belonging, increase feelings of competency, and levels of self-esteem (balsano, 2005). moreover, school climates that do not emphasize civic responsibility or teachers who do not take a culturally sensitive approach to relaying information can create academic environments that further isolate and oppress black youth and impact their academic performance (balsano, 2005). an investigation of outcomes for black students based on racial history and racial concentration of the schools produced mixed findings. some researchers (mickleson, 2003; bankston et al., 1996) have identified minority concentrated school climates as negatively impacting black students’ academics at the secondary level. however, other researchers (bankston & caldas, 2002) have found that the students’ family structure was more predictive of school achievement. at the college or university level, racially concentrated environments have proven to be academically and socially nurturing for black students (chavous et al., 2004). some studies (rury & hill, 2012; shircliffe, 2006) have researched the history of integration for historically black high schools using the experiences of black leaders, teachers, students, and activists that were born before and after integration. this information is important in describing how and why some black americans perceive historically black high schools to be important school climates for the black community (rury & hill, 2012; shircliffe, 2006). the differences in studies finding predominantly black environments as negatively or positively impacting the academic achievement of students may be in the students’ perceptions of their school. therefore, a critical dimension to study would be school pride. 1.5 school pride and school climate a critical dimension of school climate is its contribution to the sense of school pride. clark defined school pride as “the amount of personal pleasure or satisfaction that a person feels in the achievements, accomplishments, or successes of their school environment” (2003). in a healthy school climate, everyone takes pride in working together to accomplish school goals (2003). a school climate that allows for positive social interactions in which friendships can develop between students, faculty, and staff, can lead increased school pride (garrido et al., 2004). research by mcpartland and colleagues (1998) of a talent development program found that as perceptions of school climate improved in addition to students’ feelings of pride in telling others about their school. when the academic and social aspects of student life merge to create a school climate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 55 published by scholink inc. emphasizing learning, high academic achievement can occur (cook et al., 2000). the research has shown that positive school pride is related to positive perceptions of school climate and increased graduation rates (mcpartland et al., 1998). however, there is limited research investigating differences in school pride amongst blacks based on the schools’ racial concentration and history. during times of segregation, blacks may have had a different level of school pride for a school climate that was established for blacks by blacks. during segregation, hbhss were the only options for black students (rury & hill, 2012; tillman, 2009; hillard, 1988), with more school choice coming by way of public, private, and charter schools after integration. overall, there is a gap in research exploring the generational changes in black students’ levels of school pride and school climate perceptions based on the high school environment. 1.6 role of school climate on black outcomes during the time in which the united states is becoming more of a global community, some researchers may question the relevance of studying historically black high schools. however, some of the greatest black leaders and professionals have a foundation in the black community and have graduated from a historically black high school. although there are a limited number of historically black high schools in existence, historically black high school graduates may contribute more to the black community on average compared to black graduates of other high school environments. this review of the literature has identified various factors impacting black american high school graduates’ long-term outcomes. racism, financial strain, social support, cognitive engagement, and psychological well-being are factors related to blacks’ quality of life outcomes (lincoln & chae, 2010; yap et al., 2011; lewis et al., 2011; utsey et al., 2002). the contributions of ogbu (1990), flanagan et al. (2007), and boykin (2000) demonstrate that the historically and potentially oppressive context of the academic setting can complicate the academic achievement of blacks. supportive school climates can increase a person’s school pride by cultivating a nurturing, fair, and supportive environment that protects students from potentially negative factors in the school environment, home life, and community. additionally, civic responsibility fostered within the high school can lead to civic engagement and self-efficacy within the community after graduation. environmental factors strongly influence individuals (kao, 2000); therefore, the history of oppression within american schools makes it very important to surround blacks by examples of relatable success. research on black students in predominantly and historically black colleges has shown that these school climates are beneficial for black students (allen, 1992; davis, 1994), but there is a need to replicate findings on the impact of historical black schools on high school outcomes. furthermore, there is minimal research exploring the dynamics in relationships between black graduates’ long-term outcomes, perceptions of racial identity, school pride, and school climate based on the historical background of the high school environment. therefore, this research will specifically look at the relationship between the perception factors (racial identity, school pride and school climate) and black students’ long-term outcomes (academic attainment, and community investment) based on graduation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. status (hbhs graduate or non-hbhs graduate) across three time periods (1990-1999, 1980-1989, 1970-1979). conducting this research is essential in determining whether current methods of using standardized test scores to measure school performance translates to positive life outcomes for black graduates. the results of this research can help understand any potential relationships between racial concentration and school history to those black graduates that demonstrate civic responsibility and promote the black community’s betterment. lastly, by looking at the school’s historical context and black graduates’ views of the schools, this research is designed to identify significant differences between school climates that were historically founded for blacks and those that changed to predominantly black schools due to middle-class and white-flight. 2. methods 2.1 research design to understand the influence of race-related attitudes upon black american students’ educational attainment and civic engagement across the lifespan and differences in students’ perceptions of school climate, both a correlational and mean difference design were employed. 2.2 participants a sample of high school graduates who self-identified as black were recruited from two high schools located in a central urban city within north carolina. the hbhs was selected in that it had always been a predominantly black american school. the hbhs identified as “historically black” because it was established to educate black students in 1887 and has continued to educate primarily black students. the hwhs-pw, defined as “historically white,” was selected due to the establishment in 1963 as an all-white high school. after integration, the population of the school has continued to remain predominantly white. participants in this study were post-segregation (1970-1999) graduates from the selected schools in the district. by controlling for the period of graduation, the study was designed to capture persons who had time to finish any postsecondary training and establish themselves within their community. the study was also designed to eliminate any environmental factors of school climate that may impact the self-reports of individuals who graduated from a school when the selected schools were still legally segregated. participants from the selected schools were invited to participate in the study through various solicitation methods (i.e., facebook, email, alumni events). the recruitment procedures resulted in data that included a sample of 35 graduates from the hwhs-pw (9 male and 26 female) and 83 graduates from the hbhs (31 male and 52 female). from the hwhs-pw, 17.1% graduated between 1970-1979, 51.4% graduated between 1980-1989, and 31.4% graduated between 1990-1999. from the hbhs, 56% graduated between 1970-1979, 14.3% graduated from 1980-1989, and 29.8% graduated from 1980-1989. demographics for each school environment are visually represented in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. table 1. black american graduate sample demographic characteristics high school environment/type hwhs-pw hbhs total variable n percentage n percentage n percentage total sample 35 29.4% 84 70.6% 119 100% gender male female 9 26 25.7% 74.3% 31 52 36.9% 61.9% 40 78 33.6% 65.5% graduate year 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 6 18 11 17.1% 51.4% 31.4% 47 12 25 56% 14.3% 29.8% 53 30 36 44.5% 25.2% 30.3% hs family ses lower-class, not working lower-class, working middle-class, not working middle-class, working upper-class, not working upper-class, working 2 4 - 27 - 2 5.7% 11.4% - 77.1% - 5.7% 1 26 1 53 1 2 1.2% 31% 1.2% 63.1% 1.2% 2.4% 3 30 1 80 1 4 2.5% 25.2% 0.8% 67.2% 0.8% 3.4% hs gov assistance yes no not sure unanswered 3 31 - - 8.6% 88.6% - 1 2 76 4 - 2.4% 90.5% 2 2 5 107 4 3 4.2% 89.9% 3.4% 2.5% hs gpa mostly a’s mostly a’s & b’s mostly b’s mostly b’s & c’s mostly c’s mostly d’s 4 12 6 9 4 - 11.4% 34.3% 17.1% 25.7% 11.4% - 10 31 15 20 5 3 11.9% 36.9% 17.9% 23.8% 6% 3.6% 14 43 21 29 9 3 11.8% 36.1% 17.6% 24.4% 7.6% 2.5% current academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. attainment post hs high school graduate some community college community college grad./assoc. degree or certificate some college college graduate some post-graduate hours master’s degree/physician assistant professional degree (ph.d., md, jd) more than one professional degree 1 2 1 5 9 1 12 3 1 2.9% 5.7% 2.9% 14.3% 25.7% 2.9% 34.3% 8.6% 2.9% 4 2 2 10 24 12 19 10 1 4.8% 2.4% 2.4% 11.9% 28.6% 14.3% 22.6% 11.9% 1.2% 5 4 3 15 33 13 31 13 2 4.2% 3.4% 2.5% 12.6% 27.7% 10.9% 26.1% 10.9% 1.7% n = 119. 2.3 measures the data collection process involved five different instruments to assess the dependent variables of academic attainment, school climate, school pride, racial identity, and civic engagement. a self-report survey was developed to secure information on high school grades, academic achievement level after high school graduation, household pre-tax income (during high school), and whether or not the graduate received free-or-reduced lunch while in school. 2.4 civic engagement to assess the relationship between civic engagement and research variables, the center for information and research on civic learning and engagement (circle) civic engagement quiz was administered. items were modified into a likert scale ranging from 1 to 4, allowing participants to indicate the extent to which they participated in each civic activity within the past five years. the cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient for the measure was r = .90. 2.5 school climate to assess the relationship between school environment and research variables, 4 items from two subscales on the quality of school life scale (epstein & mcpartland, 1976) were used: satisfaction with school and reaction to teachers. the reliability of the original satisfaction with school scale is .79 for secondary and .81 for elementary. the reactions to teacher original subscale has a reliability of .73 for secondary and .64 for elementary. for this study, original questions were phrased for students currently enrolled in school and modified to fit the context of this study population (high school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. graduates). also, the scale was modified to a five-point likert scale to allow for more specificity in participant responses and to increase the chances of finding differences between groups. the cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient for the measure was r = .55. 2.6 school pride to assess the relationship between school pride and school climate, selected items from the school pride scale (bell hughes & livingston, 2008) were used. the school pride scale is a 10-item scale that assesses graduates’ feelings of school pride expressed by their willingness to donate their time and money to the school, attend school functions, and stay involved with their school upon graduation. responses to these questions were scored on a five-point likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. scores for all questions were summed with high scores on these questions reflecting a strong sense of school pride for the high school. the cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient for the measure was r = .88. 2.7 racial identity to assess the relationship between racial identity and research variables, two selected scales from the multidimensional model of racial identity (mmri) were administered to participants: centrality scale and regard scale. there were 20 selected items total on the two scales with a seven-point likert scale. the cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient for the 8-item centrality scale measure was r = .73. the regard scale is divided into two subscales: private regard subscale and public regard subscale. the cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient for the 6-item private regard subscale measure was r = .68 and r = .80 for the public regard subscale. 3. results 3.1 preliminary analysis to investigate associations between race-related attitudes, educational attainment, civic engagement, and differences in perceptions of school climate among black americans across the lifespan, spearman’s rho correlations and independent samples t-test were run. the correlational analysis revealed significant relationships between race-related attitudes (centrality) and educational attainment (r = .18, p < .05), and civic engagement (r = .39, p < .001), centrality was also positively associated with school pride ( r = .16, p < .05); however, there was no significant association between centrality and school climate (r = .11, p = ns) (see table 2). table 2. correlation matrix for primary variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 centrality 1 edu-attn. .18* 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. civic eng. .39*** .38*** 1 school pride .16* -.03 .10 1 school climate .11 -.03 .05 .30** 1 *p<.05, ** p<.01, ***p<.00. 3.1.1 research question 1: racial attitudes and educational attainment to examine the influence of racial attitudes (centrality) on educational attainment standard multiple regressions were run. the model explained 3% of the variance f (1,117) = 3.52; p = .06, thus indicating that the relationship between racial attitudes and educational attainment were approaching significance (b = .17; p = .06) (see table 3). table 3. racial attitudes and educational attainment outcome and predictor β b t r2 f racial attitudes educational attainment .04 .17 1.8 .03 3.52 *p < .05, **p < .01. 3.1.2 research question 2: racial attitudes and civic engagement to examine the influence of racial attitudes (centrality) on civic engagement standard multiple regressions were run. the model explained 14% of the variance f (1,117) = 18.81; p < .001, thus indicating that racial attitudes were positively associated with educational attainment among black americans (b = .38; p < .001). table 4. racial attitudes and civic engagement outcome and predictor β b t r2 f racial attitudes educational attainment .04 .17 1.8 .03 3.52 *p < .05,**p < .01, *** < .001. 3.1.3 research question 3: differences in perceptions of school climate across high school setting are there differences in perceptions of school climate among black american students who attend historical black high schools and historical white schools? independent sample t-test revealed that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. there were significant differences in perceptions of school climate between black american students who attended a black high school (m = 15.89, sd = 2.79) and black american students who attend predominantly white schools (m = 14.80, sd = 2.53); t (117) = 2.0, p < .05. table 5. independent sample t-test differences between hbhs and hwhs variables hsbs hsws t m sd m sd centrality 40.24 7.86 38.53 8.79 -1.03 civic eng. 28.96 9.28 27.56 7.65 -.781 school pride 38.29 5.73 34.15 4.98 -3.69*** school climate 15.89 2.79 14.8 2.53 -2.00* *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001. 4. discussion the present study investigated the role of high school environments and long-term outcomes for black american adults and differences school pride and perceptions of school climate among predominantly white and black high schools. the first two research questions indicated that racial attitudes among black students were related to educational attainment and civic engagement. the current study found that racial centrality was related to higher educational attainment and black americans who reported that race was central to their self-concept attained higher levels of education. this study’s findings are consistent with earlier racial identity research demonstrating that levels of centrality were positively related to academic attainment (chavous et al., 2003). racial identity variables have been reported as significant indicators of life outcome variables for black americans (chavous et al., 2003; chavous, 2004; eccles, 2006; neville & lilly, 2000; yap et al., 2011) with higher racial identity perceptions being related to academic performance and psychological well-being. additional research on racial identity has indicated that individuals who believe that race is more central to their self-concept are more active within the black american community and tend to think critically about race and its impact on everyday activities (neville & lilly, 2000). further, in a study by livingston et al. (2017) of activist behaviors, researchers found that black americans who reported that race was central to their self-concept also reported high activism levels. the third research question assessed differences in perceptions of school climate for black american students at historically white and black high schools. results indicated that black american hbhs graduates reported significantly higher perceptions of school climate compared to black american hwhs-pw graduates. additionally, black american hbhs graduates reported significantly higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. levels of school pride than black american hwhs-pw graduates. 4.1 limitations there are several limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results of the current study. the first is the method of sample selection. the results of this study are based on a self-selected sample, with participants being those who were willing to describe their high school experience. therefore, the generalizability of their responses and experiences may be limited with respect to the total population of black american hwhs and hbhs graduates. with a randomized sample, the demographics may have been more representative of the two school environments in terms of hs ses and hs gpa. the sample selection method is related to the second major limitation of unequal and small sample sizes across groups. low response rates from the hwhs graduates may have limited the ability to find statistically significant differences in study variables within groups and between groups. the lower response rate of black american graduates from hwhs graduates was a limiting factor in analyzing the data. the low response rates of hwhs graduates may be seen as indirect support for the research hypothesis that black american graduates of hwhss feel less connected to their high school experience than hbhs graduates. with a larger sample size for the hwhs-pw, finding statistical differences may increase, increasing the generalizability of study findings. the third limitation of this study is the measurement tool. overall, the survey took most individuals between 20-40 minutes to complete, but sometimes longer for some respondents. the survey’s length appeared to result in high attrition rates and may have discouraged some individuals from participating, particularly if they had less connection to their high school experience or less interest in the research topic. lastly, the format of the survey required respondents to report retrospectively on their high school experience. this method may have resulted in inaccurate information being reported limiting the generalizability and validity of study findings. 4.2 implications and future directions the study provides evidence for the critical role of hbhss as significant in the education of black american students. future directions to extend this research should include exploring methods to recruit participants prior to entering high school in a randomized manner. randomization and increased sample sizes should increase the possibility of finding statistically significant differences between the two school types: hbhs, hwhs. additionally, sampling participants in a longitudinal manner may help address the issues of retrospective responding, attrition rates, and control for extraneous variables. developing school climates that foster positive group and racial identity may help school communities develop civically-minded graduates, particularly amongst their high achieving students. this may be particularly important in hbhs’s in which students may expect to learn about the accomplishments of other black americans being educated in a predominantly black american environment. in conclusion, the study results support the significant role that teachers, counselors, and administrators play in cultivating school climates conducive to learning and encouraging civic action. this may imply that what occurs at the school and even at one-on-one levels with student-teacher interactions is much www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. more important in determining graduates’ academic and civic outcomes than academic and institutional policies. references allen, w. 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(2011). mediators of the relationship between racial identity and life satisfaction in a community sample of african american women and men. cultural diversity and ethnic minority psychology, 17, 89-97. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022535 microsoft word assc-v3n4-p14 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 14 original paper the apothecary of poetry: the healing power of verse nikola nikša eterović1* 1 department of philosophy, university of zadar, zadar, croatia * nikola nikšaeterović, e-mail: niksaeterovic@web.de received: september 10, 2021 accepted: september 25, 2021 online published: october 12, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n4p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n4p14 author’s note nikola nikša eterović, born in split croatia, lives in berlin (brd) and zadar (cro). he graduated in theatre directing and radiophony, philosophy and comparative literature. his work is interdisciplinary and intercultural. eterović’s activities expand to the areas of directing, theatrical creations, prevention, resocialization, therapy, innovation in creative entrepreneurship, upbringing, and education. he is the author of new methods of work that encourage creativity and the development of a complete personality, for example, h.t.– organically creative method, ap—apothecary of poetry, nacq: necklace of answers created with questions?, der rote rahmen/the red frame. his innovative methods were united in 2015, under one common name: yellow fish method. abstract the apothecary of poetry is an interdisciplinary project by author nikola nikša eteorvić that came to life in 2013. the first apothecary of poetry that treats patients with verse. in this text, the reader will get acquainted with some possibilities and aspects of the apothecary of poetry and its working process. how to use poetry, both already existing poetry and poetry created with the users of ap, is an important aspect of this text. the philosophy of verse, substance—selfhood and action, are reflected in the work of the apothecary of poetry in various ways. poetry is medicinal, poetry is a medicine that you come to get at the apothecary of poetry. poetry is the closest reflection of our existence. keywords poetry, apothecary, the healing power of verse, detail, the constant of unrest, in the whole a fissure what is a whole that we can encompass? is it not just a small part of the thought entirety of the whole? our microcosmos. this microcosmos is at the same time assigned to us and created by us. these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. assigned elements include everything we did not choose that directed us from childhood. parents—the part of the planet where we are born in a certain climate and social conditions, common givens, the belief systems of our parents, relatives, and tribes, language, the appearance of our skin that protects the mechanism of our being... from us, in that world and for that world, we create undiscovered and unexplored possibilities. our body. our bodies differently the same. limitedly capable of unlimited creation. our bodies—our minds—our self. the personal in the collective. all of this, and other things given to us, are boundaries that have cracked in their whole. we are born in a world that isn’t ours, but which we change with our actions, in an attempt to make it our own. white paper, empty space, a black box... are surfaces that mark the beginning, they are our “blank blackboard”. on it, and by living on it, which is already impactful, we write out our personal history, a part of the whole nation, which is a contribution to a part of the whole genus, which becomes a part of the whole planet, the planet a part of the planetary system—which is a part of the whole universe, which is a part of the whole... which to us is still, and forever (?!), incomprehensible. still, it is possible to hear us all the way until the end of the universe—all the way to the never reached end—all the way to the borders that do not really even exist—this is what the philosophy of verse of the apothecary of poetry practices. step by step, flicker by flicker: o listen to yourself, place your hand above your navel and listen to your breathing o articulate your breathing for yourself, close to yourself, saying the vowels out loud, clearly, close to yourself: a, e, i, o, u o arrange them, saying them out loud for yourself, close to yourself, the verse: aeiou, varying the duration of each vowel o go to the mirror and at a distance of approximately one hundred centimeters calm the image of yourself in the look-alike in the mirror o aeiou—direct it to your look-alike; if the image in the mirror fogs up it means you succeeded in reaching yourself in your look-alike with the aeiou verse o stand against a wall in the space of your apartment and say aeiou verses to the wall on the other side; reach that wall—tell it this verse personally and directly o go out onto the balcony and direct this secretive and substantial verse—aeiou— into your city o aeiou—project it to all the corners of the country in which you live o with your verse—aeiou—skip over all the labyrinths and borders (the entrance is also the exit of the labyrinth) and spread your verse all over europe o your aeiou all over the planet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. o find the voice that carries you to the edge of the universe, to its non-existent borders—aeiou o aeiou is enough to express what you are carrying within you in a given moment o aeiou are vocals and all our worlds in them; aeiou is our interior house. say them loudly and articulate them precisely, giving them their natural duration. all lined up in that way, say them in one exhale. o aeiou in one exhale evenly distributed o aeiou in (dis)harmony with (dis)harmony o aeiou in perfect imperfection o aeiou—my self in the wholeness of the whole o aeiou—my drop which falls in the waterfall o aeiousent from oneself into the distance, with the mentioned graduality, aimed as precisely as possible so that it arrives where it was directed o a e i o u—then articulate each of the sounds for the duration of one exhale o after this, direct the whole aeiou verse to the edge of the universe o direct an aeiou from your heart, a deep, honest, hard, dark, difficult, painful, happy, but clearly existing a e i o u. vowels have volume, depth, width, even color, sound, smell—and they break up, each pronounced differently in the space of articulation, communication. i say articulations, communications because in the process of being shaped, articulated they first play with us, they unlock our internal spaces. when they cross the threshold of these spaces, they go out into the world of communication. to whom they are directed, having been born within us, is subject to our decision. it happens that even when we decisively want to direct them towards someone, they escape our control and do not reach the target. it is for us to train the direct orientation and arrival to the desired recipient. the fact that we form verse, or a sentence with the sequence of vowels in the alphabet, i.e.,aeiou, helps us arrange a possibility from chaos to which we dedicate time. we have opted for a possibility to which we dedicate time, and it will reciprocate with everything that bothers it so that it can be fully realized. we, therefore, experience obstacles that we need to jump over with precision and patience. with aeiou we learn to cope in challenging times that occupy us. by sending an impulse into the distance, we at the same time send it upward. this is a horizontal vertical. the dimensions of our voice and its orientation are never one-dimensional. the breakable architecture of selfhood is opened within us with voice—one must be careful with this selfhood. it is our responsibility to find the correct, honest tone within ourselves. a voice placed in the articulation of vocals and sent out by us into the world, to the edges of the universe, offers an idea of wholeness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. when we do the described, we feel ourselves and we somatically feel the breaks and obstacles within us. realizing one’s personal obstacles is the first step towards removing them. it is not easy to remove them, one by one. the ones that are removed suddenly pull down many others and open new spaces. the first step is often the hardest. starting. beginning. deciding. falling in love—for the first time—truly, with yourself. the horizontal vertical, which for some people can start from a vertical horizontal, is an important challenge the apothecary of poetry is faced with and for which it seeks out modes of action, exercises, and training. the horizontal vertical is created with people who perceive themselves as culprits and perceive themselves as the only ones responsible for their own successes and failures. starting from the vertical horizontal proved useful to me with religious people, who place their lives in the hands of others, including, in the highest instance, god’s hands. they are inclined to feel despair over evil fate and are humble in prayer so that ‘that someone’ delivers them, has mercy on them. a significant number of people with whom i started working from the vertical horizontal, came closer to their personal spirituality after they felt themselves, their orientation to the supernatural, abandoning in the process the usual supernatural forces familiar to them. however, it cannot be ignored that fears appear in this transfer from the vertical to the horizontal, fears which can interrupt the process of taking responsibility. the idea itself of taking responsibility remains as a tested possibility. this realization is encouraging. few listen and even fewer hear when i am saying something. few see and even fewer acknowledge what i am striving for. i cannot encourage myself in any way, cannot say what i think or what i want. i feel disoriented in the demands of everyday life. when i start one thing, another pulls me away. my life like this makes no sense. i am scared of what others will say. i cannot do without xy, and so on—these are reasons that should bring you to the apothecary of poetry. hurry. here, without chemicals that are harmful to your organism, you will grapple with the reason that brought you, you will be aware of it and see the problem—yourself—in written verse. from verse, you will set off in a direction useful to you. that is why verse is also a signpost. cracks are accepted here and are treated quite personally in the establishment of a life balance. that which is hidden in you in the moment is clear to verse! search for your verse. write it out. shape your poem. write a new poem. poeticize your everyday life. ap space in an architectural space and as the interior space of an architectural space. the spiritual space—of an architectural space and in the space of the body of each one of us. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. the real space in a human being sometimes gets sick, the space of a human being gets ill. instead of being large and limitless, it becomes small and curled up, it oppresses and weighs on us. it hides the windows and doors, the entrances of exits and exits of entrances. then we must search for a cure. ap offers a cure with verse. verse is what you come to get in this apothecary. this is what it offers, and it is its purpose. ap finds an effective verse of a poet and prescribes it against the cause of the hardship or ailment with which someone came to get a cure. ap new verses are mixed, creating a poetic potion. ap syrups are made for ailments and hardships. ap is not in an endless race against time. ap has all the time in the world. ap the healing power of verse. ap verse is created here as well. it is found in the interior images of a person and perceptions from the world around them. completely slowly. naturally. with the rhythm and curiosity of each individual. ap is also a walking apothecary. it came to life in 2013 as one of my ways of working with patients bound to beds in berlin. we played word games. we exercised the brain’s gears with puns about the words spoken. we laughed, were in awe, shouted, whispered—poetry? we grew together in the process of creating something new. we emboldened these poem-forming acrobatics with the experiences of dadaists, symbolists, and other acrobats of poetry. ap awakened laughter in the beginning through word games. ap words and laughter; words in laughter; laughter in words. a funny word. can a word be funny? fluent laughter. can laughter be fluent? ap a hospital bed and lying in it a person who is unknown to me—the first space(s) in which i activated the healing properties of poetry in my therapeutic process. i remember it was raining, thick rain like a curtain. ap less than thirtyish square meters of green walls is enough; the quality of it, i.e., thickness of the green color—the type of material of the walls—is decided by the creator. ap green space is formed by mixing blue and yellow colors. in the active additive rgb model of colors (red—green—blue), green leads to white through the process of adding essential colors. that is my ap. in the space of spaces and in the spaces of thoughts. ap the entrance, and if possible, the whole surface of the wall in which the entrance is, are made of glass through which you cannot see inside, but from the space inside you can see outside. the matter of who is inside and who is outside is considered from the point of view of the beholder. individuality is respected here—the individual certainly moves in various directions—the philosophy of verse raises awareness of movement individually. ap thin handles that glow in the dark are arranged on the walls. handles—at the will of our www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. imagination. light. fireflies. ap such a lighting solution of the space hides a surprise. the wall can always be opened and from it, you can pull out a drawer of medicine—verses that are stored in the wall, behind the luminous fireflies or stars, depending on how someone perceives those lights. ap in one part of the space, there is an hourglass on which a person can lean and place a book, paper, and (or) other things needed for work. ap the space needs to be clean, tidy, without anything superfluous. for this to be possible, in addition to sanitary facilities, it would be desirable to have a small pantry. ap the room is a comfortable room temperature throughout the whole year. the temperature in the space is not affected by external weather changes. ap is a workspace for working with individuals and with groups. ap is a space in which poetry and verse creation await you. ap is not a literary section for those who are interested and talented. but it can be this too. ap is not oriented towards those who like to read and write poetry. but it can be this too. ap is not focused on a poetic result. but it can be this too. ap is not generationally determined. but it can be this too. ap is not just for those who are literate. but it can be this too. ap—poeticizing is done with the language of the soul. language and speech. ap—poeticizing the details. ap—from the poeticized detail to the conscious fissure of the whole, and beyond. ap techniques are used by me to awaken and nurture curiosity in artistic, pedagogical, and therapeutic work. ap encourages the cognitive process and enables coping in a whole range of demanding life situations. ap pays special attention to detail and poeticizes it. ap the written details are arranged in diverse puzzles, picture shows, and signposts, thus encouraging and supporting the beneficial actions of each person. ap is a world of innovation that is hidden in everyone. ap with innovative solutions in various situations, we make personal progress and keep a balance of personality. this brings us peace and makes us happy. ap verse—quiet within us—is awakened and effective. ap verses are scattered around us—one needs to learn to gather them and arrange them into poems. ap poems do not have a final form. they always elude the strictness and limitations of their authors. they stimulate movement and are movement itself. ap the calling and workplace of a poetry apothecary. ap the powder of verse, the voice of a poem, and its written record. the constant of unrest in the cosmos—i found this in a line of poetry that was created during a workshop. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. unrest in the cosmos prompts unrest in us. unrest is not something negative. unrest is not something positive. unrest doesn’t need such grades. unrest is unrest. it keeps us awake. with unrest, we are awake even when we are dreaming. unrest manifests in us in ways familiar to us. we are in a certain state of excitement as we are carrying the weight of something we want to solve. there is as much unrest as there are fears. this means that it is hard to know their amount. unrest is also in the crackling of the fire. in these cracklings, ivana brlićmažuranić recognized the domaći (note 1). many describe their unrest in their diaries. some examples of unrest have become read literature. i like the unrest written by ivo andrić. and the one by fernando pessoa. camus’ “stranger” mersault is not a stranger only to his unrest. the unrest of the flicker of something completely of its own. unrest is not disorder. it is not an expression of dissatisfaction. unrest is excitement. and in it, with it, wonder. it is always a matter of the dictionary with which we note unrest. in poetry it is always a question of the choice and order of words: we can form our dictionary in different ways. an efficient exercise is to write down, in one minute, as many words as possible without thinking too much—the words that appear to us spontaneously, on their own. when we have written them down, then we read them out loud to hear their sound. in each phase of working on a poem, we read it aloud. and not in a restrained and scared manner, but loudly and clearly. aeiou in all its occurrence in the verse of the poem. the word needs to pass through our body, through our resonance chamber. only then will we experience its scope and communication capabilities. as we string words together on paper, we always check the sequence of words by reading them out loud. and thus, treating what is written, we change and combine the words, the content, and the sequence—until we get to a poem that shows itself to us as ours. this challenging process has many obstacles that need to be overcome. many do not like to read out loud—“so as not to bother others”, they say. it is possible to go to a space where reading out loud is possible. some feel they are slower when they read out loud. this can be checked by measuring time. i have not done this with a sufficient number of participants to be able to negate the statement. i think, however, that it is a feeling of the passing of time and not a matter of objective, measurable time. when we read out loud, we hear ourselves in what we are reading. hearing oneself—that is what causes discomfort in a great number of people. one needs to get used to oneself, so that one can accept the content by reading out loud, removing “unwelcome thoughts”. only when we are able to do this can we begin to understand what we read. understand the read writing with the resonant space of our body. the read becomes—ours. the read becomes—i. a part of my being. before verse, i stand as if before a mirror. bare—by my true self. the read is brought to life the same way music is brought to life when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. we play an instrument. playing the instrument from inside the instrument itself. what we create ourselves with, in music, is our voice. our voice communicates with us, in us, and shapes what we wish to understand and convey to others. our voice is “our domaći”, our crackling of the fire, our unrest. i would most closely describe the difference between fears and unrest with the image of a lid covering boiling (liquid in the pot)—fears. an uncovered pot in which the boiling liquid content turns into vapor—unrest. the vapor is made up of droplets of the soul that stick to the shaft of the ‘pot’ there where they are. in the limit(less)space of our habitation—earth and the universe. behind the shaft are some other people, something else is boiling. the possibility of meeting exists. a covered, boiling pot collapses, above all, on itself—fears. the created vapor of unrest is in a dialogue of its possibilities. it is in search of its own rhythm. a meeting with poetry is a meeting with oneself. in itself, it is a meeting with others as well. ap demands that poetry be read out loud. the apothecary of poetry is an ongoing project with workshops held in croatian and german, as well as with ongoing ap certifications for the vocation of poetry apothecary. references -----. (1987). psychoanalysis of fire. boston: beacon press bachelard, g. (1994). poetics of space (la poétique de l’espace). boston: beacon press bergson, h. (1998).creative evolution (l’évolutioncréatrice). new york: dover publications. eterović, n. n. (n.d.). from disharmony to harmony through the healing power of poetry, lectures. eterović, n. n. (n.d.). poetics of the wound. lectures. krmpotić, v. (n.d.). collected works and opus. pessoa, f. (2020). the complete works of alberto caeiro. cambridge: new directions riemann, f. (2009). grundformen der angst. münchen: reinhardt. https://doi.org/10.2378/9783497007493 rilke, r. m. (1989). the selected poetry of rainer maria rilke. new york: vintage books saint-exupéry, a. d. (2000). the little prince. boston: mariner books skuban, r. (2016). du bistunsterblich, sagt de tod (der schlüsseltext der upanishadenzurvergänglichkeit). leipzig: goldmann verlag. sloterdijk, p. (1988). zur welt kommen—zur sprachekommen. berlin: suhrkamp verlag sloterdijk, p. (2004). sphären i-iii. berlin: suhrkamp verlag stein, g. (2018). how to write. new york: dover publications steiner, r. (1981).truth and knowledge. new york: steiner books ujević, a. t. (1963). collected works. zagreb: znanje www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. wittgenstein, l. (1963). tractatus logico-philosophicus. berlin: suhrkamp verlag (1965). the upanishads. london: penguin classics. s acknowledgments this excerpt from the book the philosophy of verse of the apothecary of poetry was translated from the original croatian by sofija ana zovko, who works as a writer, editor, and translator from croatia. note note 1. domaći are characters from the story “stribor’s forest”, from the book croatian tales from long ago by ivana brlić mažuranić. domaći are the sparks of a fire, small helpful and good-natured house spirits. they find their origins in slavic mythology where domovoy (domovoj) are worshiped as house spirits. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 95 original paper the realistic dilemma of suburban life: upon john cheever’s work bullet park as an example for american middle-class families xue zhiqing 1* 1 jiaxing nanyang polytechnic institute, jiaxing, zhejiang province, china * xue zhiqing, e-mail: xueyang1990@qq.com received: march 12, 2023 accepted: april 19, 2023 online published: april 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p95 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p95 abstract bullet park is a novel written by american novelist john cheever in the mid-late 20th century that echos the suburban life of american middle-class families after world war ii. as a fictional suburban town, the distinctive existence of bullet park is like a utopia attempting to hinder the invasion of real society. the men and women in the town live a glamorous life whilst conceding numerous unknown secrets. cheever constructs the story into three chapters through the strategy of fragmented writing: nails, hammer, and the intersection of nails and hammer. the novel fully embodies the hypocritical persona of american middle-class families in social communication, the long-standing disorder & dilemma within the families and the generalized spiritual crisis that exists among the stratum who are lingering in agony. the author combines the personal growth experience of cheever amid some relevant stories occurs to the protagonists inside to analyze the perplexity and floundering of american middle-class society, families, and individuals during that sensitive period, i.e., the period of “counter-culture movement”. keywords john cheever, american middle-class families, fragmented writing, spiritual crisis, counter-culture movement 1. introduction john cheever (1912-1982), known as the “chronicler of the customs and sentiments of the american middle class”, has published over 100 short stories and 5 novels throughout his half-century writing career and won a variety of literary awards for his remarkable literary achievements. unfortunately, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 96 published by scholink inc. “john cheever’s achievements in literature were severely underestimated.” according to struthers burt (1943), “whether it is a novel or a short story, cheever is one of the most prominent writers” (p. 9). cheever’s career as a writer can be divided into four phases: the first phase began with his debut work “expelled (1929)” published in the new republic. the second phase was the heyday of cheever’s creation and a turning point in his creative ideas, from the mid-late 1950s to the late 1960s. the third stage is the depressed period of cheever’s creation from 1969 to 1977. suffering from depression prompted him to contemplate that his career as a writer was coming to an end, and he had a stab at ruining himself through alcohol and drug abuse. the fourth phase of writing career proceeded from 1977 to 1982. with the aid of his family, cheever ultimately regained the long-lost spiritual liberation and freedom via refraining from alcohol and drug addiction, as well as resolving his mid-life crisis. the author chose bullet park as his research object for two reasons: firstly, “bullet park” stems from the darkest third phase of cheever’s writing career, bewilderment and anguish in mind provoked the author into firing on all cylinders to present the writing style with decadence and absurdity through the work itself. in the vision of john cheever, hartman lorie s. (1992) reports the following: cheever’s works reveal the chaos and alienation of contemporary american suburban life, and his novels adopts a realistic narrative style to make grotesque and supernatural factors concrete and perceptible, thus integrating a humorous and terrifying atmosphere. cheever altered his writing style in the past in bullet park, and successfully swung the linear narrative of his previous novels to spatial narrative by virtue of the bold and innovative fragmented writing strategy, which gave impetus to the simultaneous development of multiple characters and story-lines in the novel, making the readers seem to be in one real scene after another for a long time. likewise, the author has comprehensively reviewed the research directions of scholars at home and abroad on cheever’s works, and these research reports mainly revolve around the theme interpretation, discourse, and exploration of his writing style in his short stories. notwithstanding these theses can delve deeply into a certain aspect of a theme, they lack in-depth and systematic analysis & argumentation of cheever’s works, notably the study of novels. rather than being a transformation of the author’s writing style, bullet park is more like a “soundless outcry” made by cheever, the life of whom was haggard and struggling in the context under the turbulent times. the author intentionally selects bullet park, the most sarcastic and gloomy work in cheever’s writing career for research text, aiming to dissect on the three leading characters (nailles, hammer and tony) in the novel so as to render researchers with a more tangible and profound reflecting in regard to what a real american middle-class society it was. in the fictional utopia of suburban areas, dwellers strains with all their might to whitewash the crisis in exchange for temporary and superficial peace, yet what kind of real american middle-class society is actually nurtured will surely activate the spontaneous contemplation through this article. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 97 published by scholink inc. 2. the false persona under excessive whitewash of american middle class american middle class belongs to a relatively contradictory and awkward colony in the development of the entire american community: firstly, their lives have no boundary with urban underclass, which is not difficult to perceive from the circumstance that when wife nellie went to a slum for the sake of seeking a so-called master to help son tony alleviate the suffering, along with a sense of physiological discomfort caused by the visual impact of the surrounding environment ; secondly, despite dressing up in various social occasions, employing nannies & gardeners from house to house, having decent jobs for husbands, receiving high-quality education for children, vividly presenting a life scene that should be in the upper-class circle; nonetheless, they are deeply conscious of a cruel reality: the middle class is no matter how they follow suit to restore the lifestyle of privileged class, they will never be subordinate to this “rarefied circle”. in the suburban utopia created by cheever, religious teachings are originally a paramount criterion for residents to judge good, evil, and virtue. but along with the advancement of the times, faith begins to crumble away at the edges; worldly enjoyments become the main theme of suburban residents’ lives. the bunch who lose their spiritual guidance eventually fall into the void of life. taking the wickwires, for instance, their admirable work posture in social settings makes it far-fetched to associate spiritual emptiness and desperate cries they exhibit upon returning to the usual rhythm of life. 2.1 communication disorders of american middle class under the influence of vanity and smugness the middle-class male group in the united states seems that they always aspire to project a distinctive image in the eyes of the outside world, while dreading others presumably penetrate the flaws attached on their souls. the social behavior of nailles in chapter 8 vividly illustrates the psychological disorders of this group: “if you met nailles on a train or a plane or a bus or a boat and asked him what he did he would describe himself as a chemist. if you questioned him further he would say that he worked for the saffron chemical corporation but that was all you would get out of him” (cheever, 2020, p. 94). another case sources from hammer, he detests the name his grandmother casually opts for him and attempts to change it to “robert levy” with the aim of washing away the stain of his entire life labeled as “illegitimate child”; new identity will help himself rid of the long-standing middle-class quagmire, as well as back him further advance towards high-society circle. even with the inexplicable hostility towards jews among the grass-root class and middle class in american society with their general consensus that it is jewish exploitation and manipulation that fiercely divide the society into terrifying gap between rich and poor, some of the citizens from middle classes are still desperate to blend into jewish communities and integrate with their lives. the affectation of the middle class is ubiquitous in their lives, male inhabitants in bullet park commute to and from the station in suits everyday. their suits, just like armors, lulling them into a sense of security, proving their decency in life whilst restraining their impending madness as sedatives. in chapter 17 of the novel, the writer graphically portrays the oppressive and creepy mental activities in nailles’s mind when he looks at the suits that have been paved on the bed through third person www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 98 published by scholink inc. perspective. it reads: he did not cherish his nakedness but he detested his suit. spread out on the bed it seemed to claim a rectitude and a uniformity that was repulsively unlike his nature. did he want to go to the party in a fig leaf, a tiger skin, nothing at all? something like that (cheever, 2020, p. 218). 2.2 image of middle-class elders under constraints of rigid and conservative ideologies multitudinous middle-class families in the united states are merely enamored by floating on the surface, they consciously construct a belief system that is applicable to door-to-door situations. residents restrain themselves and their families as if they are being held against the backs by a mysterious organization with sharp knives. in chapter 2, the scene in which father nailles searched for a dictionary on tony’s bookcase utterly demonstrates a image of regimented middle class with stereotyped and pathological dogma rooted in mind as follow: ① sometime earlier, looking for a dictionary, he had taken one from his son’s bookcase and as he opened the dictionary fifty or more printed photographs of naked women slipped and cataracted to the floor. he had been provoked, it had been his principal reaction (cheever, 2020, p. 34). ② he was not least dismayed that his beloved son had chosen to collect these pictures instead of stamps, indian arrowheads, geological specimens or numismatic rarities (cheever, 2020, p. 34). likewise, charlie stringer, a person who makes a living by mailing pornography through the mails. he also has family full of happiness and harmony with a beautiful wife, three children, and two poodles. although he sells obscenity for a living and is indeed a jerk, as nailles assumes the following: why should a man who deals in filth have to live in cesspool? he’s a bastard for sure but why shouldn’t a bastard want to water his grass and play softball with the kids? (cheever, 2020, p. 60). if no one pierces through that window, none will that know the murkiness of every household under the illumination. 3. distortion and chaos in middle-class families from the characters depicted in the novel, it is easy to find that middle-class group in the united states remain almost pathologically obsessed with the superficial happiness of family. the notion of happiness, in author’s angle, just like a person’s life dancing on the thin ice; if you are lucky enough, the thin ice may not break for a lifetime, but what a great contingency this kind of luck prolongs. nailles’ family, with happiness and virtuousness, just likes an impeccable scene of family life on the paper; hammer, with great wealth and higher education, has revitalized his bewilderment in life with married life. if readers were to experience the middle-class family life of these two enviable characters from an outsider’s perspective, it would be like the scene presented under the green cover of the novel: two men baths in the lazy summer days, one leisurely strolls his beloved dog, the other habitually repairs the lawn for his backyard. what an enchanting life it is! obviously, the middle-class family crisis that cheever intends to interpret in the writing is a happy illusion shrouded in mist; this extreme misfortune hidden in privacy may derive from personal growth, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 99 published by scholink inc. marital life or work situation of this stratum. 3.1 precarious relationship between men and women nailles and nelly are distinctly the most typical model couple representatives of middle-class families in the united states. their stable relationship, mutual respect, and love for families genuinely envy everyone. as a spouse, nailles upholds the martial belief of monogamy, loves his wife nelly and firmly maintains the sanctity of marriage. many other women tries every means to teasing him, but “his male member would take a painful attitude of disinterest. it would seem to summon him home” (cheever, 2020, p. 22). obviously, wife nelly is seemingly not strongly bounded by the religious etiquette in the heart; she has several opportunities to cheat, but it was the immaturity of the timing that prevents her from betraying her husband. in chapter 8, the scene of wife nelly and the “libertine” jack meeting at a party cannot refrain from making people lament the real image behind this flawless wife. it reads: at parties he often took nellie aside and spoke about what he would do if they were ever left alone. she was not offended and was sometimes provoked (cheever, 2020, p. 102). the description of setting here truly reflects that wife nelly is tired of following the routine life, albeit an innocent woman with no room for any filth in her eyes. she is hunger for changing life, banking on someone to activate her dead heart and save her lost soul. the marital life of the hammer can even be described as magical. after dating his wife marietta for 6 weeks, he stepped into the marriage hall in a flash. imprudent marriage often accompanies a little bit of hidden misfortunes, lonely hammer also perceive it. he discovers that marietta has a capricious personality as weather. if clear weather, her deepest dissatisfaction will be utterly riled up ; but if thunder rolls, she will rest upon her husband as a clinging bird. it is such a spouse who seems to suffer from “bipolar disorder” that accompanies the pathological hammer, thereupon, he can’t help but imagine some dreamy girls to address his physiological needs. despite his deep love for wife marietta, hammer’s feelings still contain the yearning for radical licentiousness and staggering freedom: he likes women, men, children or even dogs. these incredible scenes draws out the character of hammer to a climax in chapter 15 as follow: ① on friday i went out to connecticut and she met me at the station. there was a lot of kissing in the car. i said that i loved her. she said she loved me (cheever, 2020, p. 190). ② i kept my distance in the shower and when we went to the bar i definitely got the feeling that something was going on. he kept bumping into me and touching me (cheever, 2020, p. 191). ③ i drove back on sunday afternoon and i’ve never seen or heard of him but i definitely felt something like love for him during the few hours we spent together (cheever, 2020, p. 192). ④i was flattered, of course, but flattery is some part of susceptibility and all the way home i though tenderly of the old dog as if i had left a love (cheever, 2020, p.193). the male-female relationships of the two characters in cheever’s work explicitly shows cracks, which cannot be easily detected by bystanders. ultimately, cheever still wants to convey some of his personal disdain for middle-class genders in the united states through his work: corruption of public decency, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. mentality of pretentiousness, and commonly chaotic relationships. their lives are not as worthwhile and meaningful as they perform, and the well-dressed men and women under the bright lights are nothing more than “walking dead” wandering around corners of society. 3.2 warped ideology under the traditional views of family affection the depiction of the two characters nailles and hammer in bullet park involves a large amount of family elements, which almost projects the tone and theme of the entire work. this work was completed in the late 1960s, during which ideological trends were surging and crises were rampant; throughout the 1960s, the rapidly developing post-war economy in the united states was encountering a spiritual revolution ignited by young generation who no longer cared about realizing the “american dream” by virtue of earning money to change their destinies. substantial numbers of young people hailed from middle-class families lived a life of resistance to mainstream ideology, firmly believing that only by constantly fighting against existing systems and voicing their own perspectives can drive the society towards a more democratic path. the character tony, son of nailles, manifestly portrays the character of the young people in counter-culture times who attempts to break through the social cage by resisting the shackles of conservative values from middle-class family. tony is out of spirits because he is expelled from the baseball team due to school-weariness but seeks to scatter his grief by reading poetry; it is the opportunity to go to the bookstore that leads tony to get acquainted with the character mrs. hubbard, the one who completely breaks the backward traditional system of nailles’s family for many years. in chapter 7, there is a paragraph describing nailles’ psychological activity towards the incident regarding tony and mrs. hubbard. it reads: after breakfast nailles asked tony if he wanted to cut wood but the boy said he thought he’d do his homework. the word “homework” touched naillesit seemed to mean innocence, youth, purity, simple things-all lost in the bed of a sluttish war widow. he felt sad. (cheever, p. 85) the description of this segment is truly marvelous and profound to readers as it deeply reflects the inner thoughts that cheever wanted to convey: within the middle-class families of that era, the old-fashioned and conservative ideology are always deeply rooted in every household, and inhabitants defined a person’s dignity based on rigid dimensions such as work, education, marriage, and family. the deficiency of any elements will be regarded as a manifestation of “rebellion”. just like nailles believed that as a post-war widow, mrs. hubbard should remarry as soon as possible; and son tony has an affair with a woman who has a history of marriage is synonymous with a soul stained, which is overwhelmingly revolting. turning to the circumstance that happens to hammer, it is commonplace to view a scene that a person sits on the beach amid reading a book individually on the beach from both reader’s and view’s perspectives. who needs to relax alone in this noisy society? but for conservatives who have long been influenced by feudal distorted family views, this behavior is undoubtedly abrupt and bizarre. but compared to conservatives who have long been influenced by feudal distorted family values, this kind www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 101 published by scholink inc. of behavior is indisputably abrupt and bizarre. the scene in chapter 11 graphically reflects the stereotyped and distorted ideology which is penetrated into middle-class family as follows: i was alone and it was at a time when the regard for domesticity had gotten so intense that the natural condition or the singleness had become a sore point of suspicion. one appeared on the beach perforce with one’s wife, one’s children, sometimes one’s parents or a brace of house guest. one seldom saw a lonely man. (cheever, 2020, p. 133) regardless of what kind of scale, formal or casual external activities they participate in, old-fashioned middle-class families are anxious to appear in the public eye on a family basis; for them, the lack of family members is equivalent to expose their long-hidden inherent contradictions to the public, whereupon they have always been active in assorted social occasions with family as unit so as to guard against this terrifying consequence. hammer’s upbringing experience is assuredly unfortunate. his parents, who are secret lovers without emotional accumulation, irresponsibly brought him into the world. his grandma, who is rooted from a prosperous family, raises the poor juvenile. despite the fact that grandmother provides little hammer with tangible needs doesn’t fill the emotional gap of the young man. middle-class families of that era, a better background means more rigorous family rules and regulations. before the age of eleven or twelve, hammer has every meals in the tea room; although he is later allowed to sit at the table, he is still overwhelmed by the phenomenon that every member of the family is disciplined and consistently to report the worthy things that happens around them during the day, which just like a routine general meeting secretly is held every night in the form of a family gathering. hammer’s inconceivable childhood experiences have been quite astonishing for overseas readers. in the eyes of the world, america is ultimately the most open, democratic, and child-oriented country in the world, so why does this feudal and conservative parenting model breed in families in middle stratum in this nation? it is certain that some of the understandable reasons merely like he is indeed too young to capture the interesting anecdotes that happen during the day as keenly as adults; or it is that he really resists such formalism in his heart, which finally impels him to seal his mouth at the dinner table. 4. the spiritual crisis of middle-class families is rampant chekhov (1904) once proposed a theory: “if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. otherwise don’t put it there” (p. 521). cheever clearly follows this writing strategy in naming the two main characters; he uses homophonic naming to evoke infinite imagination and anticipation in readers about the stories of the two characters, nailles (i.e., nails) and hammer. what kind of passionate collision will happen between them? bullet park is divided into three storylines: the first part narrates the family story between father nailles and son tony; the second part portrays hammer’s personal growth experience; the third part is about the story of the final encounter between “nailles” and “hammer”. such kind of layouts proves that cheever finally points to the common mental disease of the suburban residents through the connection of the three story lines, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. namely, nailles, tony and hammer; while the layout of fragmented writing is merely a writing strategy to demonstrate the generalization of this phenomenon. the fragmentation of cheever’s suburban writing actually reflects his pursuit of “spatial narrative”. he successfully breaks the limit of linear narrative and attempts to “deal with the problem of ‘simultaneous’ events in life and ‘successive events’ in narrative”. his fragmented writing strategy presents the family life of assorted characters in the work toward readers in an orderly manner. meanwhile, the juxtaposition of each segment is no matter of disarray. all of the fragments focus on the life crisis of suburban residents and exhibit the generalized crisis of suburban life. 4.1 the contradiction between ideal and reality is growing with the passage of time “what’s wrong with tony”? this is a question worth of reflection by readers in this work. tony’s school-weariness unquestionably reflects cheever’s own educational experience. the former is expelled from the baseball team for resisting french lesson, while the latter is directly expelled from the school for his deep hatred of greek literature. the similar educational experiences of the two people here directly cast the plight of american youth from middle-class family are subjected to highly restrictive professional courses under that complicated era. the teaching model which stifles nature definitely pushes their budding outlook on life and values towards distortion and reality, which is precisely reflected in tony’s father nailles. tony, who has lost all his faith, initiates a month-long bedridden illness. his parents hires three different doctors, but no one, whether it’s a general practitioner, psychiatrist, or specialist for treating sleepwalking, is able to save tony except for a $500 per visit fee and a diagnosis of the disease named “mononucleosis”. finally, mother nelly finds a folk master “rutaholah” who lives on the upper floor of the funeral home in the slum to treat him. the so-called witchcraft therapy of the master is nothing more than a psychological hint. he guides tony to repeat his prayers, creating the illusion of happy life for him. tony receives the spiritual comfort brought by this psychological suggestion, and eventually gets out of bed and returns to a normal life. tony’s strange malady may seem puzzling at first glance, but given the suburbs in cheever’s work undergoes a transformation from romantic countryside to mechanized reality, while the middle class in his work cannot match the beautiful countryside in memory with the real suburban world, resulting in a spiritual crisis (rachel, 2001). tony’s symptom mirrors the american middle class desperately to break through the cage and return to freedom during those times. however, the advancement of society and cruelty of reality cannot tolerate anyone to stay out of it, and it is inevitable that some people may feel overwhelmed and trigger deep panic and uneasiness in their hearts. cheever here conveys his life creed through the words of the alleged master here: in the middleclass society we reside in, the majority of cohorts are propensity to replace moral and spiritual discipline with material things; but human should have a clear view of good and evil, albeit inappropriate, it is better than nothing. cheever’s faith is apparently unfortunate, and yet it is also indispensable. because he is keenly aware that the advancement of society will inevitably shift towards the mechanization of reality; so since the momentum poses everyone impossibly to stay aloof, it is vital to create some personal beliefs: even if it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 103 published by scholink inc. is religion, ideal, or witchcraft, which can at least convert the soul once plunging into chaos. 4.2 the rootless generalization of middle-class cohort cheever always believes that “modern life is fragmented and nomadic”. it is precisely under the influence of this concept that a consistent theme in cheever’s suburban writing is concern, i.e., floating and rootless state of the american suburban people after the war. in his work, cheever projects a scene of suburbanites losing their roots from microcosmic to macroscopic angles, creating a sentimental atmosphere in the work. as mentioned in hammer’s main storyline in the work, the gap in family ties caused the illegitimate son to have an insatiable desire for his parents after grandmother passes away. regardless of remarriage with new family from his father and migration in austria from his mother, the deep-rooted traditional family values with the contempt and indifference incurred by his identity of illegitimate child make him recklessly seek his parents. but reality always backfires. what catches the eye in the door of ritz is not the kind and warm image of a father, but a drunken old man naked with a shapeless figure whilst a string of champagne stoppers hanging around his neck; as he heads off to austria to visit his mother, he finds that what catches the eye is not an elegant and dignified image of a mother, but a insane old woman who has salted her hair through miserable life. with the last glimmer of hope for his family shattered, he starts to wander around the corners of the city like a dead-alive person. while drifting off on the street, a room with yellow walls utterly strikes hammer’s heart. he is firmly convinced that “whoever lived there lived a useful and illustrious life” (cheever, 2020, p. 164). since then, hammer has been of no fixed abode and roving from one hotels to another in search of the room lined with yellow walls. in this section, cheever spends a lot of time picturing the process of hammer’s search; and the room lined with yellow walls is precisely the sense of belonging and security embedded in the depth of his heart. the process of seeking is always accompanied by void and helplessness, and losing-the-roots even renders the character despair in the abyss with silent wailing at that time. the death of grandmother, the disdain of bystanders, the inadequacy of parents, and the failure of investment ultimately causes depression in this poor man. he indulges in alcoholism and fantasies regardless of time and place, reflecting the fact that dwellers on the outskirts of the city scramble to maintain the normal order of surface life in spite of the deep-seated rootlessness that has torn to shreds. the storyline of hammer in the work is full of intrigue and satire, but it is not incomprehensible from the reader’s angle of view to view his absurd act. because hammer’s conduct acutely allude to the author cheever, who is incompetent to extricate himself from the swamp of alcoholism and depression at the age of 56, but sending a distress signal to the external world by outlining the character of hammer as his own projection. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 104 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion after world war ii, the united states underwent a golden period of economic prosperity. the strong momentum of economic growth in the 1950s continued until the 1960s, and over 50% of americans successfully squeezed into the middle class during this wave. the improvement of living conditions has led increasingly number urban dwellers to relocate to the suburbs with the aim of enjoying the advantages of both urban and rural life. during that time, the process of suburbanization has officially become the mainstream trend of urban development in the united states in the 20th century. nonetheless, the advancement and transformation of society inescapably tug at cheever’s heart to grope for new creative inspiration, as praised by scott donald (1988) that “having keen insight to observe the world, and analyzing social reality like a born anatomist” (p. 156). cheever ponders over the social reality in the united states through spatial changes driven by the pace of suburbanization after world war ii, and ultimately created bullet park, a novel with a strong sense of absurdity and satire. the work breaks the traditional idyllic image of the suburb and adopts literary device to strongly respond to the real-life problems exposed by the rapid development of american suburbs: frequent relocation, alienated family relationships, and technological development of the times. the sense of insecurity and deprivation emanated from the surging undercurrents entangle the suburban middle class, who are trapped in the storm of social development and reform with a state of communal rootlessness, demonstrating a disconnect between traditional ideas and modern society. and of course, cheever’s suburban writing is not completely dark. his exploration regarding the path of redemption infuses a touch of warmth to the work, as well as insinuate his fervent yearning for a better life. some critics view cheever as a comedian, an optimistic and nostalgic person who meticulously observes this devastated world and firmly believes its beauty inside. frederick (1982) narrates it that “cheever’s novel is a rural scenery full of comedy: although the world is chaotic, life is still beautiful” (p. 218). just as naille’s pill, hammer’s room lined with yellow wall, and master rutaholah’s prayer for therapy, either of which is the haven for the exhausted and bleak american middle class during that period. cheever warns every reader through the deep suffering of the inhabitants in bullet park that facing the vortex of reality, we must bravely cross it. only by enduring the provocation of fate and the hardship of life can we forge a mighty and steadfast life. references blake, b. (2009). in cheever: a life (p. 147). new york: alfred a. knopf. burt, s. (1943). john cheever’s sense of drama. saturday review, 26(9). dagistein, e. (2014). in yunshui, z., & wangwang, l. (eds.), sex and religion (p. 82). beijing: china social sciences press. diyong, l. (2015). a study of spatial narrative (p. 143). beijing: sdx joint publishing company. frederick, k. (1982). john cheever and the promise of pastoral. in critical essays on john cheever (p. 218). ed. r. g. collins. boston: c. k. hall. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 105 published by scholink inc. hartman, l. s. (1992). suburban grotesque: the vision of john cheever. new york: the city university of new york. ilia, g. (1904). reminiscences of a. p. chekhov. teatr i iskusstvo, 28(521). michael, d. b. (1985). john cheever’s artistic evolution. philadelphia: temple university. rachel, p. (2001). depictions of suburbia in american fiction. new york: columbia university. richard, l. (2009). the city in literature. an intellectual and culture hist (p. 3). zifeng, w. shanghai: shanghai people’s publishing house. scott, d. (1988). john cheever: a biography. new york: random house. timothy, r. a. (2003). literature as self-help: postwar u.s. fiction and the middle-class hunger for trouble. princeton: princeton university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 37 original paper study on the relationship between “modern social development” and “human development” in marxist perspective xinru shi1 1 school of marxism, north china electric power university, beijing, china received: may 12, 2024 accepted: july 05, 2024 online published: july 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p37 abstract modern social development and human development are intrinsically linked. it is widely recognized, especially by marxists, that the progress of modern society and the development of human beings are mutually influential, mutually reinforcing and internally unified. based on the marxist perspective, this paper studies the relationship between modern social development and human development on the theoretical basis of the concept of human development, especially elaborates on a series of major theoretical and practical issues in the process of modernization and development, with a view to grasping the philosophical laws of modern social development and putting forward constructive opinions in accordance with the laws, thus promoting the free and comprehensive development of human beings. keywords marxism modern, social development, human development the relationship between modern society and human development is an important and long-standing concern of philosophers. human development includes both individual development and human development, each of which is closely linked to modern society. in marxist theory, the promotion of comprehensive human development is the ultimate goal of social development. in the exposition of the theoretical system of socialism with chinese characteristics, the promotion of human development is also embedded as an important element. for example, five aspects of china’s modernized social development were indicated in general terms at the conference, “a modernization that harmonizes material and spiritual civilization”, “common prosperity for all people”, and “taking the road of peaceful development it is a modernization that “harmonizes material civilization and spiritual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 38 38 civilization”, “brings common prosperity to all people”, and “follows the path of peaceful development”; in essence, it requires “the unity of the comprehensive enrichment of things and the comprehensive development of human beings”, and “the synergy of high-quality development and the enrichment of the people’s spiritual world”. this series of important assertions closely links modernization and human development, puts the modernization theory of respecting people, relying on people, and for people into development practice, profoundly reveals the relationship between human beings and natural beings and social creatures in the process of modernization, as well as the relationship between human beings and the material world and the spiritual world, which is of great significance for enriching and developing the study of marxist anthropology, and deepening the theory of marxism. promoting the comprehensive development of human beings has become the realistic goal of modern society in contemporary times. 2. the ultimate purpose of modern social development is human development according to the marxist viewpoint, social development in the perspective of the materialist concept of history is not a simple extension of the development of nature in the social sphere, but a dynamic creative process, a mode of existence and a result of activity specific to human beings. (feng, 2017, p. 401) in this respect, human development is dynamic and a means of promoting social development. the history of social development is in fact the history of human development, and human development is the ultimate goal of social development. however, society is a pluralistic system, and social development is a multi-indicator concept. in the past, when we spoke of comprehensive human development, we departed to a large extent from the principles of marxism and did not regard it as the ultimate goal of social development, but merely as a part of the pluralistic system of society and as a means of promoting development. on the contrary, the realization of social politics, economy, culture and modernization is pursued as an end in itself, which in fact reverses the relationship between ends and means and ignores the inherent unity of social progress and human development. for example, after the end of the second world war in the 1960s and the rapid rise of the third world, many colonial and semi-colonial countries gained national independence and established sovereign states, and the issue of human development received great attention from society and the academic community. after national independence, countries accelerated their own development, transformed their socio-politics and culture, and continued to push forward the process of modernization. however, in the process of development, imperialist infiltration, unequal international cooperation and an irrational international order still existed, and the majority of developing countries suffered from slow economic development, stagnation of traditional social life among members of their societies, and stagnation of social development. more typical are some of the middle eastern countries that people often talk about. as we all know, around the persian gulf, there is a cluster of high-income oil-producing countries. as early as 1984, the per capita gnp of developed countries in the west had already reached $11,000, whereas the per capita gnp of these oil-producing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 39 39 countries far exceeded that of developed countries in the west, for example, the gnp of the united arab emirates was $22,000 and that of qatar was $20,000. (feng, 2017, p. 407) despite this, these countries still cannot be called modern. the economy is dependent on imports and their own industries are very weak; the political life is clearly feudal, with military and tribal politics dominating. the main reason for all this is that the traditional way of thinking and acting has become a serious obstacle to people’s comprehensive development and stride towards modernization, and once the resources are exhausted, the phantom of economic prosperity will disappear. of course, we are not denying that there has been no change in the state of the people of these countries, but only that there has been no fundamental change and that the pace of their development has been slow. in contrast, in china, also a developing country, the party has always adhered to the principles of marxism, firmly grasped the people’s most concerned, most direct and most realistic interests, and has strived to realize the comprehensive development of human beings and the overall progress of society by ensuring people’s livelihoods in the spirit of “nailing down”. 2012 to 2021, china’s gdp accounted for more than 18% of the world economy. of the world economy exceeds 18%, the per capita disposable income of national residents has increased from 16,510 yuan to 35,128 yuan, with the average annual growth rate outperforming the economic growth rate, and the economic strength has realized a historic leap. especially in 2020, we have formed the world’s largest middle-income group of more than 400 million people on the chinese land, joining hands with people of all ethnic groups across the country to embark on the road of comprehensive well-being, and writing a colorful chapter in the history of poverty reduction of mankind. entering the new era, the people’s aspirations for a better life have become stronger, with the public’s needs gradually changing in the direction of diversification, multi-level, and high quality, and while focusing on “whether there is any”, they are more concerned about “whether it is good”. china has continued to promote early childhood education, education, employment, medical care, elderly care, housing and support for the weak, and has built the world’s largest social security system, including pension, medical care and social assistance; new progress has been made in the construction of a healthy china, and the equalization of basic public health services has continued to be promoted; and china’s per capita life expectancy has increased from 76.7 years in 2017 to 78.58 years in 2021, and is expected to rise from 76.7 years by 2021 to 78.58 years by 2021. china’s per capita life expectancy has increased from 76.7 years in 2017 to 78.58 years in 2021; socialist cultural undertakings have flourished, and a public cultural system covering both urban and rural areas has been gradually established. according to the human development report issued by the united nations development programme (undp), china is the only country to have crossed over from the low human development group to the high human development group since 1990, when the undp first measured the human development index globally. the different development paths of these countries have once again shown that the prerequisite for a country’s modernization lies in its ability to modernize its people. when traditional ways of thinking, behaving and values constrain people’s development, the social development of the country will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 40 40 certainly be slow and distorted. therefore, modernization is far from being as simple as generally imagined, people are the “cells” of the society, the comprehensive development of the society is consistent with the comprehensive development of people, a country to be among the ranks of modernization, in addition to a strong material foundation, but also to improve the basic quality of the members of the society, the development of human beings can not talk about the existence and development of the society, the ultimate goal of social development. the ultimate goal of social development is human development. 2. the new strategy and layout of modern society have enriched the idea of comprehensive human development chinese-style modernization is an original modernization with chinese characteristics, characteristics of the times and global influence, based on the actual development of china and adapting to the development changes of the times, closely connected with socialism with chinese characteristics, always implementing the marxist theory of comprehensive human development and adhering to the marxist principle of comprehensive social progress. the understanding of the relationship between social development and comprehensive human development has been deepened with the development of the theory and practice of chinese-style modernization, which is prominently manifested in the formation of new strategies, new layouts and other important assertions in the process of the development of chinese-style modernization. 2.1 people-centered thinking is the value of promoting the comprehensive development of human beings since the essence and purpose of social development is the development of human beings, it is inevitable that people-centeredness is required. to advocate people-centeredness means that we should aim at realizing the comprehensive development of human beings, start from the fundamental interests of the people, think what the people think, continuously improve people’s well-being and quality of life, so that the fruits of development can benefit all the people, and make the people’s sense of gain and happiness more fulfilling, more secure, and more sustainable. since the 18th national congress, a series of new concepts, ideas and strategies of governance have been formed around the “people-centered” development ideology. this requires us to adhere to the principle of doing our best, living within our means, and aiming to enhance people’s well-being and promote comprehensive human development. the recommendations adopted at the fifth plenary session of the 18th central committee even emphasized that “we must insist on being people-centered”, truly putting into action the concept of development for the sake of the people and relying on the people. in the new journey, we should rely closely on the people to create history, insist on serving the people wholeheartedly, stand firm on the people’s position, respect the people’s initiative, and put the people-centered development ideology into practice without any compromise. ruling the country is always for the benefit of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 41 41 people, and we must always maintain the flesh and blood ties between the party and the people, constantly strengthen the deep roots of national development, encourage common struggle to create a better life, and enable the people to lead a happier and better life. the important assertion of “people-centered” profoundly expresses the firm position on the people, closely links modernization and human development, and is highly suitable for the fundamental requirements of comprehensive social progress to ensure that the concept of promoting comprehensive human development takes root. 2.2 high-quality development is the key to promoting comprehensive human development the human being, as a subject of consumption and at the same time a subject of production and innovation, is the basic supporting force of the economic system. the fundamental purpose of socialist production is to meet the needs of the people, which is also the fundamental impetus to promote high-quality development. for this reason, high-quality development should take the people-centered development ideology as the title, and grasp the worldview and methodology of this important idea. this means that adhering to the people-centered approach to high-quality development, we must always maintain flesh and blood ties with the people and strengthen the foundation of the people’s supremacy. in the decade of the new era, china has been implementing a problem-oriented spirit, focusing on serving the people, facilitating the people, and providing peace of mind for the people, and transforming the fruits of development into the quality of life with practical actions for the benefit of the people. with regard to the “urgent, difficult, worrying and hopeful” issues of the masses, it has been working with all its heart and strength to do a good job in such practical matters relating to people’s livelihoods as employment, education, social security, medical care, old-age pension, child care and housing, and to effectively improve the accessibility and equalization of public services; and with regard to the safeguarding of social justice, it has made efforts to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas in terms of regional development, and in terms of the standard of living and income of the population. reaching out to the masses and the grassroots, we have continued to bring visible and tangible benefits to the masses, to meet their individualized, diversified and escalating needs, and to let them experience a genuine sense of happiness and security in their lives. 2.3 the new development concept is an internal driving force for the promotion of comprehensive human development the new development concept is a concentrated embodiment of the epistemology and methodology of comprehensive human development. based on the new stage of development, the complete, accurate and comprehensive implementation of the new development concept is of great significance to the realization of socialist modernization and the cultivation of a new form of human civilization. first, it is conducive to promoting common development among diverse civilizations and injecting new connotations into the development of human civilization. human civilization has developed in a pluralistic and diversified manner, with no distinction between superiority and inferiority, and all civilizations have their unique values. (nurturing the new form of human civilization with the new development concept, 2021) “the diversity of human civilization is a fundamental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 42 42 feature of the world and a source of human progress.” in other words, to realize the comprehensive development of human beings, it is necessary to meet diversified needs, and diversified needs in turn. this will inevitably lead to the diversification of civilizations. therefore, human civilization should be committed to common development and prosperity, and any form of “clash of civilizations” or “superiority of civilizations” should be rejected. the new development concept advocates a new path of open and inclusive civilization development, which not only rejects arrogance and prejudice but also breaks down dogmatic understandings, greatly opens up new horizons for chinese-style modernization and civilization, and injects new connotations into the development of human civilization, which will help to further promote the advancement of human civilization, safeguard world peace, and increase stability and positive energy for the promotion of the common values of all humankind. secondly, it is conducive to broadening the path of developing countries towards modernization and opening up a new path for the development of human civilization. the new development concept not only has distinctive chinese characteristics, but also reflects the laws of history and the general trend of development, and has certain universality and global significance. it provides scientific theoretical references and advanced ideas for those countries and nations that want to accelerate their development and at the same time independently choose their own social systems and development paths, and offers brand-new choices for other countries in the world to solve their own problems, contributing chinese wisdom. adhering to the new development concept is conducive to breaking the mindset that modernization is equivalent to westernization, refuting the myth that western modernization is the only way out, providing a pioneering contribution to the realization of the transcendence of the western modernization model, and distinctly presenting new inspirations, new ideas and new ways of modernization for developing countries, opening up a new path for the development of human civilization. thirdly, it is conducive to the development and progress of human society and promotes human civilization into a new realm. different cultures do not develop in isolation and without contact with each other; rather, they move forward hand in hand through mutual exchanges, dialogues, learning and collisions. it is the right path to promote the development and progress of human society for different civilizations to learn from each other, exchange ideas, live in harmony and develop together. the new form of human civilization nurtured by the new development concept includes such connotations as realizing common prosperity, promoting comprehensive human development and building a community of human destiny, which highlights the concern for and grasp of the future destiny of mankind, and further enriches the theoretical spectrum of modernization in terms of value orientation, development mode and development path, which will have a far-reaching impact on the promotion of the development and progress of human society. it will have a far-reaching impact on promoting the development and progress of human society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 43 43 3. achieving human development in the process of modernization the report outlines and elaborates in depth the basic features and essential requirements of chinese-style modernization, in which the economic, political, cultural, social and ecological conditions are the basis for the realization of comprehensive human development. based on the people-centered development ideology, starting from the essential requirements of chinese-style modernization, the character and adaptability of modern human beings will be cultivated in the process of promoting material, spiritual, ecological and social civilization, so as a new realm of comprehensive human development will be opened up. 3.1 realizing the comprehensive development of human beings in the modernization of common wealth of all people common wealth is the essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of chinese-style modernization. common wealth not only shows the improvement of people’s living standard, but also centrally reflects the strong desire of all people for a better life under socialist conditions. since the 18th national congress, the party has strengthened its understanding of the common prosperity of all the people from various aspects such as politics, economy, education, etc., firmly established the important position of realizing the common prosperity of all the people, maintained its determination, worked for a long period of time, and taken strong measures to ensure and improve the life of the people from multiple angles and by multiple means. at the same time, standing at a higher historical starting point of development, adhere to the precise poverty alleviation, as sharp as possible, to win the fight against poverty and build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects. efforts have been made to solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development, and to vigorously improve the quality and effectiveness of development, providing a strong material guarantee for meeting the people’s aspirations for a better life and promoting comprehensive human development. 3.2 achieving comprehensive human development in a modernization that harmonizes material civilization with spiritual civilization satisfying the people’s spiritual and cultural needs and promoting the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilizations are the proper meaning of chinese-style modernization. high-quality development provides the material prerequisites for realizing comprehensive human development, while enriching the people’s spiritual world is the cultural force for promoting chinese-style modernization. therefore, the promotion of modern social development on the new journey must be down-to-earth and long-lasting. it must adhere to the economic construction as the center of the construction of material civilization, while at the same time persevering in the construction of spiritual civilization. it should promote the widespread dissemination of core socialist values, guide the cultivation of sound personalities, take into account the differentiated and diversified cultural needs of the people, constantly stimulate the vitality of cultural creativity, enhance the degree of civilization and the richness of the spiritual life of society as a whole, and work actively for the promotion of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 44 44 all-round development of human beings, so as to infuse spiritual nourishment and strengthen the power of spirituality to satisfy the people’s need for a better life. 3.3 realizing comprehensive human development in the modernization of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature human beings are part of nature, and nature also provides a beautiful ecological environment for human beings. in the chinese-style modernization of today, human activities have been approaching the limit of the carrying capacity of resources and the environment, the disharmony between human beings and nature has become increasingly prominent, and the construction of modernization of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature is an inevitable choice to meet the challenges of the times. this requires human beings to respect, adapt to and protect nature, and to make new strategic plans for development from the historical height of the evolution of human civilization and from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature. 3.4 achieving comprehensive human development in the context of modernization along the path of peaceful development in the era of globalization, all countries are interdependent and in solidarity with one another, and the building of a community of human destiny on a global scale with a view to consolidating the greatest common denominator of the international community in the search for peace, the pursuit of development and the promotion of cooperation has become china’s positive initiative to the world to build a community of harmony and coexistence and has won the positive response and support of the majority of the world’s countries. human beings are living in the same global village, in the same space and time, and are increasingly becoming a community of destiny in which you have me and i have you. at present, the world is in the midst of historic changes, the international order as well as the global governance system are undergoing profound and complex changes, protectionism and unilateralism are on the rise, the world economy is in the doldrums, the growth of international investment and trade is sluggish, the global industrial chain supply chain has suffered a huge impact due to the new crown pneumonia outbreak, the russian-ukrainian conflict, etc., and the world is facing great challenges to its peace and development, so only by mobilizing and uniting the strengths of the people of various countries around the world can we form an effective response to the global crisis. only by mobilizing and rallying the strength of people from all over the world can we form a synergy to effectively deal with global challenges. standing in a new historical position, china has actively advocated the building of a community of human destiny, put forward a chinese proposal to promote changes in the international order and system, and joined hands to work together to build a better world in which “each country has its own beauty, the beauty of the people is the beauty of the people, the beauty of the people is the beauty of the people, the beauty of the people is the beauty of the people, and the world is the commonwealth of the world”. from this perspective, the concept of a community of human destiny is a transcendence and innovation of the traditional theory of international relations, fully reflecting that building a community of human destiny is a state of indivisibility and linked destinies gradually formed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 45 45 by all countries in the world, which is a historical process and a long-term goal, and is bound to have a far-reaching impact on the development of international relations in the future, and has an important significance in promoting world peace and prosperity, and in fostering the progress of the whole human society. it is of great significance. “the green hills are together with the clouds and the rain, and the bright moon has never been two homes.” humankind has only one earth, and it also has only one common future. (gong, 2022) whether it is to deal with the crisis at hand or to create a better future together, humankind needs to focus on the progress of all humankind, comprehensively understand and accurately grasp the theoretical characteristics of the community of destiny, work together in the same boat, unite and cooperate, and stand on the right side of history as we move forward in building a community of destiny for humankind, promoting the sustainable development of human society, and jointly building a better world. 4. conclusion modern social progress and comprehensive human development are dialectically unified, with the realization of comprehensive human development being the ultimate goal of modern society, and social progress providing economic, political, cultural, social and ecological conditions for comprehensive human development. the inherent unity of modernization and comprehensive human development is embodied in the strategic layout of chinese-style modernization in the new era. the coordinated development of both theory and practice implies the common values of all mankind, brings a new way for mankind all over the world to realize modernization, freedom, and comprehensive development, and elaborates china’s propositions and conveys chinese experience and wisdom in order to solve the common problems confronted by mankind, and then realize the harmonious development of the whole world. it has elaborated china’s propositions and conveyed china’s experience and wisdom in solving the common problems faced by mankind and thus realizing harmonious development throughout the world. references feng, z. y. (2017). in theoretical foundations of modernization (p. 401). beijing normal university press. feng, z. y. (2017). in theoretical foundations of modernization (p. 407). beijing normal university press. gong, y. (2022). carrying forward the common values of all mankind and promoting the building of a community of human destiny. liberation daily. nurturing the new form of human civilization with the new development concept. (2011). economic daily news, 2021-11-08. original paper study on the relationship between “modern social d advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 147 original paper current situation and construction path of integration of shandong cultural resources into university campus culture shi qun1 1 taishan university, tai’an, shandong, china received: october 30, 2023 accepted: february 12, 2024 online published: february 27, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p147 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p147 abstract shandong cultural resources are abundant, which are an indispensable and important cultural form in the construction of university campus culture. however, there are still deficiencies in the integration of content, methods, channels, and mechanisms between the two. this article explores paths of integration of shandong red cultural resources into university construction of campus culture from various perspectives, including establishing and improving shandong’s cultural resource database to enrich the connotation of campus culture construction, enhancing the practicality and participation of shandong red cultural resources to activate the main body of campus cultural construction, enriching the dissemination carriers of shandong red cultural resources to expand the channels of campus cultural construction and establishing a comprehensive integration mechanism to stimulate the endogenous driving force of campus cultural construction. keywords resources, campus culture, integration, construction 1. investigation of the current situation of integration of shandong red cultural resources into university campus culture to better understand the current situation of the exploitation and utilization of shandong red cultural resources in the construction of university campus culture, the author of this article designed a questionnaire titled “survey on the current situation of the application of red cultural resources in universities.” the questionnaire consisted of 20 questions. firstly, it investigated university students’ understanding of shandong red cultural resources. secondly, it was used to understand university students’ access to red cultural knowledge. thirdly, it examined the cognitive status of shandong’s red cultural resources among university students and the current educational status in campus culture. this survey targeted young teachers and students of different grades and majors, with 500 questionnaires www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 148 published by scholink inc. distributed and 486 valid questionnaires recovered, resulting in a recovery rate of 97.2%. after the completion of the questionnaire survey, relevant personnel were organized to collate and analyze the survey results, obtaining first-hand data related to the research content. 1.1 data collection and collation the survey showed that university students’ understanding of shandong red cultural resources is not yet deep enough. approximately 5% of the students indicated a high level of understanding, 29% indicated a relatively high level of understanding, 58% indicated a general level of understanding, and 8% indicated no understanding. the survey revealed a diversified trend in the ways university students learn about shandong red cultural resources. visiting red sites, learning through the internet, school education, explanations from family and friends, tv media reports, newspapers and books all accounted for a relatively balanced proportion. among them, understanding red culture through internet multimedia accounted for 36%, through school education, newspapers, and books accounted for 34%, and visiting red sites and explanations from friends and relatives accounted for 28%. these data results are relatively consistent with the ways and methods that university students obtain information, indicating that modern media such as the internet is the main path for contemporary university students to understand red cultural resources. the survey showed that 73% of university students believed that red culture had important substantive significance, and that it was of great help in cultivating a hardworking style and the fine tradition of thriftiness. it can inspire and motivate individuals, promoting personal growth. however, 12% of university students believed that red cultural resources was unrelated or had little relevance to them, and some even believed that understanding china’s red cultural resources had no substantive significance for their future development. the survey also showed insufficient utilization of red cultural resources in campus culture. as is well known, shandong is rich in red cultural resources and has many red scenic areas, however, according to survey data, only 7.5% of university students regularly visit these areas. about 56% of students have occasionally visited red scenic spots, while over 30% hardly ever do. among those who have visited, many reported that the content of red scenic areas was boring, indicating inadequate exploitation of red cultural resources in the construction of school campus culture and a lack of diversity in dissemination methods. 1.2 data analysis and summary from the survey data, it can be seen that the educational function and positive role of shandong red cultural resources in the construction of university campus culture are becoming increasingly prominent in the new era, and the trend of integration between the two is constantly strengthening and the degree of integration is constantly deepening. however, there are still some weaknesses that affect the further exertion of the educational value of local red culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 149 published by scholink inc. 2. dilemmas in the integration of shandong red cultural resources into university campus culture construction 2.1 insufficient content integration the integration of shandong red culture into university campus culture construction mostly remains superficial, ignoring theoretical accumulation. firstly, the teaching content of shandong red culture is often superficial and hollow. teachers tend to treat red culture solely as subject knowledge to impart, and the content they present to students is relatively vacuous, neglecting students’ understanding and perception of red cultural content, which makes it difficult to evoke emotional resonance. secondly, the theme activities related to shandong red culture often prioritize form over content, failing to capture the excitement of student participation, ultimately, it results in these red themed activities floating on the surface and becoming superficial. 2.2 monotonous integration methods the integration of shandong’s red culture into university campus culture construction lacks diversity. firstly, the utilization of red cultural arts is monotonous. students are mainly exposed to theoretical red cultural resources, and have limited access to practical ones such as revolutionary sites and historical relics and so on. secondly, the red cultural thematic activities conducted by universities, such as speech contests, singing red songs, and poetry speeches, etc., are repetitive and have not been innovated according to the development of the times. 2.3 limited integration channels the integration of shandong’s red cultural resources into university campus culture construction faces limited channels, manifesting in two aspects. firstly, the integration is not systematic enough, resulting in a weak cultural atmosphere. there are few campus cultural activities centered on local red culture, and there is no relatively fixed or systematic educational and teaching activities, leading to a weak cultural atmosphere. secondly, the neglect of promotional platforms like wechat and douyin, along with inadequate publicity, results in insufficient student awareness. most universities’ presentations and publicity of shandong’s red cultural resources remain superficial with outdated content and a lack of novelty. publicity methods are monotonous and modern network information technology cannot be fully utilized. 2.4 impeded integration mechanisms due to inadequate policy and financial support, universities have a weak emphasis on red culture,, leading to impeded integration mechanisms between red culture and campus culture. both the government and universities lack sufficient support for the overall planning of integrating red culture, especially local red culture, into university campus culture construction. this has not formed an effective mechanism of mutual cooperation, resource sharing, and collaborative development. (xu, 2022) 3. the construction path of integrating shandong’s red cultural resources into university campus culture www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 150 published by scholink inc. 3.1 establishing and improving shandong’s red cultural resource database to enrich the connotation of campus culture construction campus culture construction cannot be a mere formality; it must have a soul and rich connotations. shandong’s red cultural resources undoubtedly inject vitality and dynamism into the rich connotations of university campus culture. (shi, 2016) elements such as the “yimeng spirit” of unity between the party and the people, the deep bond between the military and the civilians, blending of water and milk and living and dying together, the “taishan porter spirit” of hard work, being brave to take on heavy responsibilities, never slacking off and going ahead boldly, and the spirit of sacrifice and hard struggle during the shandong anti-japanese war are all essential components of the construction system of university campus culture. to establish and improve shandong’s red cultural resource database, firstly, we must first deeply explore the material carriers of shandong’s red cultural resources. this involves integrating red sites, red memorial halls, and museums into the construction system of university campus culture. we should develop red school-based textbooks that utilize these material carriers, allowing students to experience the hard-earned revolutionary power and strengthening their patriotism. secondly, we should vividly interpret the spiritual elements of shandong’s red cultural resources. these resources inherit the excellent traditions and national spirit of the chinese nation, embodying the lofty ideals, firm beliefs, rich revolutionary spirit, and profound historical and cultural connotations of the chinese communist party. we should promote the integration of shandong’s red culture into campuses and practical activities, innovating its expression forms in university campus culture. this can be achieved through popular short video platforms that students enjoy. 3.2 enhancing the practicality and participation of shandong’s red cultural resources to activate the main body of campus culture construction the main body of university campus culture construction is the students themselves, especially those in shandong universities, who constantly encounter “red scenery” and feel the richness of red cultural resources. therefore, to build a distinctive campus culture, universities must focus on the practicality and participation of shandong’s red cultural resources, enhancing young students’ sense of identity towards them. to achieve this, firstly, we should innovate teaching methods and activate learning content, making red culture come alive in the classroom. for example, adopting flipped classroom teaching mode, vr scenario reproduction teaching mode, and experiential field teaching mode (xu, 2022) can enhance students’ sense of identity towards shandong’s red culture and realize its practical utility. secondly, we should carry out practical activities related to red culture. for instance, relying on red patriotic education bases to conduct on-site teaching allows students to personally experience the spiritual connotations embedded in red cultural resources. conducting red-themed educational activities to commemorate special days can deepen students’ red memories and achieve spiritual elevation. thirdly, we should create humanistic landscapes that embody the red spirit. for instance, unique statues or stone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 151 published by scholink inc. carvings can be placed in campus squares, artificial lakes, and other places, incorporating information about red culture. young students should be encouraged to participate and innovate to integrate artistic forms such as painting, sculpture, and stone carving with modern creativity. 3.3 enriching the dissemination carriers of shandong’s red cultural resources to expand the channels of campus culture construction there are generally two channels for the construction of university campus culture: one is the main channel of classroom teaching dissemination, and the other is the second-class activities organized by school clubs. (hu, 2007) currently, these two channels cannot meet the modern society’s requirements for universities to cultivate “talented individuals with patriotism, global vision, and professional skills” as their primary goal. therefore, it is necessary to expand the dissemination carriers and means of shandong’s red cultural resources in universities, broadening the channels for campus culture construction. enriching the communication carriers of shandong’s red cultural resources involves several key steps. firstly, we need to leverage and optimize the leading position and role of traditional media. traditional media, represented by university newspapers and journals, still play an irreplaceable role in terms of authority, information, credibility, and deep digging and screening of content. universities should open columns and special topics with shandong’s red cultural characteristics through their school journals, newspapers, radio stations, and promotional windows to increase the publicity. (shi, 2016) secondly, we should leverage new media to disseminate shandong’s red culture. contemporary college students have become accustomed to a lifestyle where everything is accessible online. universities can use various emerging media to accelerate the construction of red websites, red public accounts, red micro-blogs, red short videos, etc., thereby enhancing the influence of red cultural resources on the internet. thirdly, we should vigorously expand multiple media channels to achieve organic integration of various media resources from paper, electronic to physical formats. (bi, 2016) this will break through the original spatial and temporal limitations of the dissemination of red culture and provide maximum convenience for young students to access red cultural resources and information. 3.4 establishing a comprehensive integration mechanism to stimulate the endogenous driving force of campus cultural construction for a school, internal culture is the most vital and long-term force. campus culture plays an important role in cohesion internally and radiation externally. therefore, we should focus on injecting endogenous cultural momentum into the campus, presenting a new look full of warmth and vitality, and promoting the comprehensive and healthy development of the school. to address the current poor integration of mechanisms for shandong’s red cultural resources in the construction of university campus culture, the following countermeasures are proposed. firstly, we should attach importance to organizational guarantees, strengthen the top-level design of integrating shandong’s red culture into the construction of university campus culture, formulate development plans, improve basic systems, and provide organizational guarantees for effectively promoting the integration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 152 published by scholink inc. of red culture into university campus culture construction. secondly, we should increase material guarantees. universities should cooperate with local governments to increase material guarantees, strengthen the protection and utilization of red sites, and effectively address the concerns of integrating red culture into the construction of university campus culture. thirdly, we should improve institutional guarantees. it is necessary to refine the task objectives, main outlines, methods, and approaches of theoretical learning, and strengthen the institutional guarantees for social practice. (xu, 2022) fourthly, we should form spiritual guarantees. we should promote the internalization of red genes in the heart and externalization in behavior, forming a “comprehensive” and sustainable development integration guarantee mechanism for the construction of campus culture in shandong universities. references bi, g., & tan, s. j. (2016). media strategies for the dissemination of red culture in the era of full media [eb/ol]. xinhua net, march 2016. hu, x. l. (2007). a preliminary exploration of university campus culture. journal of mu danjiang education institute shi, q. (2016). paths for the construction of university campus culture-illustrated with the integration of the spirit of mount tai into universities in tai’an. humanities of the world, 22, 2016. xu, w. y. (2022). research on the integration of red culture into the construction of university campus culture (master’s thesis). jilin jianzhu university. author biography: shi qun (1979-): female, native of laiwu, shandong province, holder of a master’s degree in law. associate professor at taishan university, specializing in the education of ideological and political theory for university students. this article is a phased outcome of the 2023 shandong provincial key art and science project, “research on the exploration and utilization of shandong’s red cultural resources in the construction of university campus culture (project number: l2023z04190426)”. original paper current situation and construction path of integra shi qun1 1 taishan university, tai’an, shandong, china abstract keywords references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 5, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 140 original paper areview of spatio-temporal action detection models in computer vision based on deep learning mingzhu zhang1,a* 1 college of information engineering, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an 710105, shaanxi, china a email: 33046404@qq.com * corresponding author received: august 29, 2025 accepted: october 08, 2025 online published: october 28, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n5p140 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n5p140 abstract spatio-temporal action detection (stad) is a cutting-edge task in computer vision, aiming to recognize and localize action categories, temporal intervals, and spatial positions from videos. with the development of deep learning, methods based on 3d cnns, two-stream networks, and transformers have emerged continuously, greatly advancing this field. this paper systematically reviews the mainstream spatiotemporal action detection models in recent years, analyzes their key modules, advantages, disadvantages, and development trends, and summarizes commonly used datasets and evaluation metrics. keywords spatiotemporal action detection, deep learning, 3d cnn, transformer, feature fusion, interaction modeling 1. introduction with the rapid development of computer vision technology and deep learning algorithms, video understanding has become one of the core research directions in the field of artificial intelligence. as a key task in video understanding, spatiotemporal action detection aims to simultaneously recognize action categories, localize spatial positions, and detect temporal intervals from continuous video sequences, integrating the technical capabilities of object detection, action recognition, and temporal analysis. in intelligent surveillance scenarios, spatiotemporal action detection can real-time detect abnormal behaviors such as fighting and falling and trigger early warnings; in sports analysis, it can accurately locate the spatiotemporal range of athletes’ technical movements to assist in training optimization; in human-computer interaction, it can realize natural device control by recognizing users' www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 141 gestures and body movements; in medical and health fields, it can analyze the standardization of patients' movements in rehabilitation training to assist in rehabilitation evaluation. traditional spatiotemporal action detection methods rely on handcrafted features (such as hog and optical flow). limited by the expressive power of these features, they exhibit poor robustness in complex scenarios involving dynamic backgrounds, occlusions, and multi-object interactions. with the breakthroughs in deep learning, methods based on architectures like convolutional neural networks (cnns) and transformers have enabled automatic learning of action features, significantly improving detection accuracy and generalization ability. however, three core challenges remain: first, the lack of global contextual information—most models focus on local features while ignoring interactive information between actors, scenes, and objects, leading to high misjudgment rates for actions with similar postures; second, insufficient modeling of multi-dimensional interaction relationships in complex scenarios, making it difficult to handle spatial interactions between “people and people” or “people and objects” as well as temporal interactions between “frames and frames,” which limits detection accuracy in complex environments; third, the dilemma of balancing accuracy and real-time performance—models such as 3d cnns can effectively capture spatiotemporal features but have high computational complexity, while lightweight models tend to lose key information, making them difficult to deploy on edge devices. based on existing research results, this paper systematically sorts out the technical evolution of deep learning-based spatiotemporal action detection models in computer vision, categorically analyzes mainstream model architectures (cnn-based, transformer-based, and multi-interaction relationship modeling-based), summarizes key technical innovations (feature enhancement, multi-scale fusion, and interaction relationship modeling), and verifies model performance through comparative analysis of experimental data. 2. classification of technical architectures for spatiotemporal action detection models based on differences in core architectures and feature modeling methods, current deep learning-based spatiotemporal action detection approaches can be categorized into three types: convolutional neural network (cnn)-based methods, transformer-based methods, and multi-interaction relationship modeling-based methods. each type exhibits significant differences in feature extraction capability, interaction modeling ability, and applicable scenarios. 2.1 methods based on convolutional neural networks (cnns) benefiting from the advantages of local feature extraction and parameter sharing, cnn has become the fundamental architecture for spatiotemporal action detection, which can be further subdivided into 2d cnn-based methods, 3d cnn-based methods, and two-stream network-based methods. (1) methods based on 2d cnns the 2d convolutional neural network takes static images as input and gradually extracts spatial features from low-level to high-level through multiple layers of convolution operations. the core idea is to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 142 significantly reduce the number of network parameters through the local connection of convolution kernels and the sharing of weights, while retaining the hierarchical information of the spatial structure. kalogetion et al. proposed the act model, which uses a shared-weight 2d cnn backbone to extract features from consecutive k-frame image sequences, addressing the issue of temporal discontinuity in a single frame and reducing the ambiguity in action prediction. on the ucf101-24 dataset, the frame-map reached 67.1% and the fps was 25 (kalogeiton, weinzaepfel, ferrari, & schmid, 2017). li et al. proposed the moc (no anchor box action detector) based on act, modeling action instances as “temporal motion trajectories of frame-level action centers”, abandoning the traditional anchor box design. on the ucf101-24 dataset, the frame-map was improved to 78.0% and the fps reached 53 (li, wang, wang, & wu, 2020). (2) method based on 3d cnn the 3d cnn directly models the “space-time” combined features through three-dimensional convolution kernels, naturally capturing the motion information between frames, and is suitable for complex action detection.in 2013, ji et al. were the first to introduce 3d cnn into the task of temporal-spatial feature extraction. by extending the traditional 2d cnn operations, they enabled it to perform convolution directly on video sequences, capturing the temporal-spatial correlations of actions (ji, xu, yang et al., 2012). subsequently, tran et al. proposed the c3d model, which employed 3×3×3 convolutional and pooling kernels. the effectiveness of 3d cnn was verified on datasets such as ucf101 and hmdb-51 (carreira & zisserman, 2017). carreira et al. proposed the i3d model, which expands the 2d cnn convolution kernels into 3d. while retaining the spatial feature extraction capability of 2d cnn, it enhances the temporal feature capture. on the kinetics dataset, the accuracy of action recognition reached 78.4% (qiu, yao, & mei, 2017). to address the high computational cost issue of 3d cnn, researchers have proposed an optimization solution: qiu et al. proposed the p3d model, which decomposes the 3d convolution into 1×3×3 spatial convolution and 3×1×1 temporal convolution, reducing the parameter quantity by 40% (qiu, yao, & mei, 2017). tran et al. proposed the r (2+1) d model, which further decomposed the 3d convolution into 2d spatial convolution and 1d temporal convolution, while maintaining accuracy and reducing computational complexity (tran, wang, torresani et al., 2018). (3) two-stream network-based approaches the two-stream network integrates the temporal modeling capability of 3d cnns and the spatial feature extraction advantages of 2d cnns. its two branches process “spatiotemporal features” and “spatial features” respectively, balancing computational cost and model performance. in 2019, köpüklü et al. proposed the yowo model (köpüklü, wei, & rigoll, 2019), which for the first time combined 3d cnn (3d-resnext-101) with a 2d object detection network (darknet-19): the 3d cnn branch extracts spatiotemporal features from video sequences, while the 2d cnn branch extracts spatial features from the current frame. feature integration is achieved through channel fusion and an attention mechanism (cfam), pioneering the one-stage spatiotemporal action detection paradigm. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 143 jiang, yang, jiang et al. (2024) proposed yowov2 based on yowo, constructing a feature pyramid network and a decoupled head to separate classification and localization features: the feature pyramid enhances small target detection capability through multi-scale feature fusion, while the decoupled head optimizes classification loss and localization loss respectively. its lightweight version (with 3d-shufflenetv2 as the backbone) achieves only 2.9 gflops and a frame-map of 15.6%. zhu, wang, yang et al. (2024) proposed yowov3, which adopts two label assignment mechanisms to match predicted and ground-truth labels, further improving bounding box regression accuracy, with a frame-map of 81.44% on the ucf101-24 dataset. such methods make up for the shortcomings of 2d cnns and 3d cnns through a dual-branch structure, striking a balance between accuracy and speed, and have become the mainstream solution for real-time spatiotemporal action detection. 2.2 methods based on transformers benefiting from the global dependency modeling capability of the self-attention mechanism, transformers break through the limitation of cnns’ local receptive fields and have become a research hotspot in spatiotemporal action detection in recent years, especially performing prominently in long-temporal action and multimodal interaction scenarios. gritsenko et al. proposed the star model with an all-transformer architecture, which incorporates temporal inductive bias into the encoder and captures long-range temporal dependencies through the self-attention mechanism. it can accurately predict the spatiotemporal range of actions even in weakly supervised scenarios, achieving a frame-map of 24.93% on the ava dataset (gritsenko, xiong, djolonga et al., 2024). faure et al. proposed the hit model (holistic interaction transformer network), which fuses rgb stream and pose stream data and designs an intra-modal aggregation (ima) module and an attentive fusion module (afm): the ima module selectively merges “human-object-hand” interaction features within a single modality, while the afm module adaptively fuses multi-modal features. it achieves a frame-map of 83.8% and a video-map of 9.7% on the jhmdb-21 dataset. wang, huang, zhao, tong et al. (2023) proposed the videomae model, which performs pre-training through a “dual masking strategy”: the encoder processes a subset of video tokens, while the decoder reconstructs another subset. this enables efficient spatiotemporal feature learning at the billion-parameter scale, with action detection accuracy improved by over 15% after fine-tuning. lu et al. proposed the ftp framework, which combines vision transformer (vit) with vision-language models (such as llava). it retains the global modeling capability of vit and enhances the semantic expression of visual encoding by aligning with vlm outputs, achieving a frame-map of 32.6% on the ava dataset (lu, jian, poppe & salah, 2024). in addition, zhao et al. proposed the tuber model, which combines 3d cnns with transformers. it predicts the spatiotemporal boundaries of action tubes through a transformer decoder, addressing the limitation of 3d cnns with fixed clip lengths, and achieves a video-map of 58.4% on the ucf101-24 dataset. the advantages of such methods lie in their strong global temporal modeling capability, making them suitable for long video action detection. however, they have high computational costs, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 144 strong dependence on large-scale annotated data, and face significant challenges in deployment on edge devices. 2.3 methods based on multi-interaction relationship modeling in complex scenarios, the semantic understanding of actions highly depends on spatial interactions between “people and people” or “people and objects”, as well as temporal interactions between “frames and frames.” most existing methods focus on a single type of interaction, which limits detection accuracy. methods based on multi-interaction relationship modeling explicitly capture multi-dimensional correlations, significantly enhancing adaptability to complex scenarios. tang, xia, mu, pang, and lu (2020) proposed the aia network (asynchronous interaction aggregation network), which serially stacks interaction modules for “person-person”, “person-object”, and “person-temporal memory” interactions, integrating interaction relationships into a hierarchical structure for collaborative work: the “person-person interaction” module models multi-target limb correlations; the “person-object interaction” module parses the spatial dependencies between actors and scene objects; the “person-temporal memory” module captures long-term action dynamics, resulting in an 8.7% improvement in video-map on the thumos’14 dataset. pan, chen, shou, liu, shao, and li (2021) proposed acar-net, which not only models direct interactions between person-object pairs but also designs a high-order relation reasoning operator (hr2o) to capture indirect correlations among multiple objects. by storing full-video high-order relationship information through an actor-context feature bank (acfb), it achieves a frame-map of 33.3% on the ava dataset. wu et al. proposed the long-term feature bank (lfb), which provides the model with long-temporal context support by integrating roi features over fixed time steps: the lfb module records action features of the entire video, and the feature bank operator calculates the interaction relationship between short-term roi features and long-term features through an attention mechanism, achieving a frame-map of 61.6% on the thumos’14 dataset (wu, feichtenhofer, fan, he, krahenbuhl, & girshick, 2019). 3. key technologies focusing on the three goals of “accuracy improvement”, “efficiency optimization”, and “complex scenario adaptation”, researchers have proposed a number of technological innovations, forming practical optimization paths. the details are as follows. 3.1 feature enhancement technology feature enhancement improves the discriminability and robustness of action information by optimizing the feature extraction process, such as the enhancement of key features based on attention mechanisms. the attention mechanism focuses on key action regions and suppresses background interference by dynamically adjusting feature weights. hou, zhou, and feng (2021) proposed the coordinate attention (ca) module, which converts feature maps into coordinate representations along the spatial dimension, focusing on horizontal and vertical spatial dependencies respectively to enhance the model's sensitivity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 145 to target positions. hu, shen, and sun (2018) proposed the squeeze-and-excitation (se) module, which obtains channel-level statistical features through global average pooling and then learns channel weights via fully connected layers to enhance key channel features. woo, park, lee et al. (2018) proposed the cbam module, which combines channel attention and spatial attention: channel attention optimizes channel weights, while spatial attention locates key spatial regions. after introducing cbam into the yowo model, the frame-map on the ucf101-24 dataset increased by 1.2% (wang, ga, zhang, and sang, 2021). 3.2 multi-scale feature fusion technology multi-scale feature fusion enhances the model’s adaptability to multi-scale actions by integrating features from different levels and modalities, with common methods based on feature pyramid fusion. the feature pyramid network (fpn) fuses multi-level features through top-down and bottom-up paths, improving the detection capability for small targets. wang, gao, zhang and sang (2020) proposed the multi-layer temporal pyramid network (mltpn), which designs a temporal h-module (thm) to generate multi-scale temporal features. a pyramid structure composed of cascaded multiple thms and convs is constructed to enhance the model’s ability to capture actions of different durations, achieving a video-map of 59.9% on the thumos’14 dataset. weng, pan, han, chang, and zhuang (2022) proposed the spatiotemporal pyramid transforme(stpt). its first two stages use local spatiotemporal attention blocks (lsta) to capture local patterns, while the last two stages use global spatiotemporal attention blocks (gsta) to handle long-range dependencies. finally, a temporal feature pyramid network is used to reduce spatiotemporal dimensions and obtain multi-scale temporal features, achieving a frame-map of 30.1% on the ava dataset. by complementing multi-scale features, such methods effectively improve action detection accuracy in complex scenarios. 3.3 interaction relationship modeling technology interaction relationship modeling enhances the ability to understand actions in complex scenarios by explicitly capturing associations between “people and people”, “people and objects”, and “frames and frames”. for example, spatial interaction modeling focuses on the spatial correlations between actors, the environment, and objects. sun c, shrivastava, vondrick, murphy, sukthankar and schmid (2018) proposed the actor-centered relation network (acrn), which uses 1×1 convolution to calculate the relationship feature maps between actors and surrounding objects, and then accumulates correlation information of adjacent positions through 3×3 convolution to strengthen the modeling of “person-object” interactions, achieving a frame-map of 82.4% on the ucf101-24 dataset. 3.4 loss function optimization technology loss function optimization improves the model’s prediction accuracy by refining bounding box regression loss and classification loss. zheng, wang, liu et al. (2020) proposed the ciou loss, which comprehensively considers the iou between the predicted box and the ground-truth box, the distance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 146 between center points, and the aspect ratio, thereby addressing the problem of bounding box regression bias. gevorgyan et al. (2022) proposed the siou loss, which adds angle loss (direction difference between the ground-truth box and the predicted box), distance loss (distance between center points), and shape loss (aspect ratio difference) to further optimize bounding box regression. after the ead model adopted the siou loss, the frame-map on the ucf101-24 dataset increased by 0.8%. 4. experimental verification and performance comparison 4.1 core datasets and evaluation metrics (1) core datasets  ucf101-24: it contains 24 action categories and 3207 untrimmed videos, with numerous dynamic backgrounds. it features frame-level annotations of spatiotemporal boundaries, making it suitable for evaluating the model’s adaptability to complex scenarios.  jhmdb-21: it contains 21 action categories and 31,838 annotated images, with significant differences in action durations, making it suitable for evaluating the model's temporal modeling capability.  ava2.2: it contains 80 categories of atomic actions and 430 videos, with dense annotations at 1 frame per second. it supports multi-label action detection and serves as an authoritative benchmark for spatiotemporal action detection.  thumos’14: it contains 20 action categories and 2584 test instances. the test set provides only partial annotations, posing challenges to the model's open-world detection capability. (2)evaluation metrics  frame-map: the area under the precision-recall curve of per-frame detection results is calculated to measure the accuracy of frame-level action classification and localization.  video-map: it is calculated based on the overall video prediction results. a prediction is considered correct if the average iou between the action tube and the ground-truth annotation exceeds the threshold and the category is accurate, which is used to measure the temporal modeling capability.  fps: the number of video frames processed per second, used to evaluate the real-time performance of the model.  gflops/params: it measures the computational complexity and parameter quantity of the model, and is used to evaluate the model’s computational complexity and scale. 4.2 performance comparison of representative models www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 147 table 1. performance of cnn-based models models datasets fra memap （ % ） videomap （%） f ps gflop s params （m） c3d ucf101-24 68.1 45.3 18 35.2b 87.6 i3d ucf101-24 76.3 59.9 22 42.5b 94.3 slowfast ava2.2 24.2 15 308b 304.0 yowo ucf101-24 80.4 48.8 34 43.7b 121.4 yowov 2-t ucf101-24 80.5 51.3 50 2.9b 10.9 ead ucf101-24 80.93 50.41 53 2.77b 10.92 as can be seen from the table, the yowo series models based on two-stream networks strike a balance between accuracy and speed: compared with yowo, yowov2-t reduces the number of parameters by 90.9%, increases fps by 47.1%, and simultaneously improves frame-map by 0.1%; after introducing lsdam and msffu, the ead model achieves a 0.43% improvement in frame-map and a 0.13b reduction in gflops compared with yowov2-t. table 2. performance of transformer-based models models datasets frame-ma p（%） video-ma p（%） fps gflop s param s（m） star ava2.2 24.93 8 128b 156.0 tuber ucf101-2 4 83.2 58.4 12 132b 142.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 148 models datasets frame-ma p（%） video-ma p（%） fps gflop s param s（m） hit jhmdb-21 83.8 89.7 12.3 7 165b 187.0 video mae ava2.2 32.6 10 256b 210.0 transformer-based models exhibit strong global modeling capabilities but incur high computational costs: the hit model achieves a frame-map of 83.8% on the jhmdb-21 dataset, yet its fps is only 12.37, making real-time deployment challenging; videomae improves accuracy through pre-training, but its parameter count reaches 210m, resulting in high hardware requirements. table 3. performance of models based on multi-interaction relationship modeling model s datasets frame-ma p（%） video-ma p（%） fp s gflop s param s（m） aia thumos’1 4 78.8 54.4 20 85.6b 112.0 acar ava2.2 33.3 18 252b 208.0 lfb thumos’1 4 61.6 64.8 25 92.4b 135.0 irea d ava2.2 19.34 50 16.04b 23.44 models based on multi-interaction relationship modeling perform excellently in complex scenarios: the iread model, equipped with the irmm module, achieves a 3.42% higher frame-map than the ead model on the ava2.2 dataset while maintaining real-time performance of 50 fps; although the acar model delivers the highest accuracy, its gflops reach 252b, making edge deployment difficult. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 5, 2025 published by scholink inc. 149 5. conclusion this paper systematically reviews the technological evolution of deep learning-based spatiotemporal action detection models in computer vision. it categorically elaborates on three mainstream architectures: cnn-based, transformer-based, and multi-interaction relationship modeling-based models. it summarizes key technological innovations such as feature enhancement, multi-scale fusion, and interaction relationship modeling, and verifies model performance with experimental data. the research shows that two-stream network-based models (e.g., yowov2, ead) strike a balance between accuracy and speed, making them suitable for real-time deployment; transformer-based models (e.g., hit, videomae) possess strong global modeling capabilities, making them suitable for complex scenarios; and multi-interaction relationship modeling-based models (e.g., iread, acar) perform excellently in multi-object interaction scenarios. future efforts need to further break through technologies such as multi-modal fusion and lightweight inference to promote the application of spatiotemporal action detection in more practical scenarios. references carreira, j., & zisserman, a. 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(2019). long-term feature banksfor detailed video understanding. proceedings of the ieee/cvf conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, 284-293. zhao, j., zhang, y., li, x., chen, h., shuai, b. et al. (2022). tuber: tubelet transformer for video actiondetection. proceedings of the ieee/cvf conference on computer vision and patternrecognition, 13598-13607. zheng, z., wang, p., liu, w. et al. (2020). distance-iou loss: faster and better learning forbounding box regression. proceedings of the aaai conference on artificialintelligence, 34(07), 12993-13000. zhu, a., wang, y., yang, j. et al. (2024). yowov3: a lightweight spatio-temporal jointnetwork for video action detection. ieee transactions on circuits and systems forvideo technology, 34(9), 8148-8160. funding: this work was supported by the the shaanxi provincial sports bureau project under grant no. 20250153 author information mingzhu zhang was born in taian,shandong,china, in 1981.she is a associate in xi’an fanyi university. she received the master’s degree from xi’an technological university. her research interest include computer image processing and pattern recognition. microsoft word assc-v2n4-p83 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 83 original paper the relation between english language cultural exposure and el teachers’ competencies dr. saba qadhi1* & dr. reem khalid abu-shawish2 1 core curriculum program, deanship of general studies, qatar university, doha, qatar 2 college of education, qatar university, doha, qatar * dr. saba qadhi, core curriculum program, deanship of general studies, qatar university, doha, qatar received: october 20, 2020 accepted: october 27, 2020 online published: november 3, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n4p83 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n4p83 abstract english language learning is more than acquiring language skills, as the universality of the english language gives it an array of socio-cultural facets that need to be encompassed in english language teaching to non-native speakers. this research explores the impact of personal exposure to western cultures on the professional abilities of novice female english language teachers in qatar. using a mixed approach of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, findings from this research show that there is a statistically significant correlation using pearson’s test between the teacher’s exposure to english language cultures and her competency as an el teacher. furthermore, results show that when teachers are more confident with their grasp of the language especially because of familiarity, they are more able to focus on improving their teaching methods and educational strategies. feedback also emphasized the importance of such exposure on improving accents and comprehension, which directly aided in the teachers’ abilities to impart knowledge to their students. the impact of these results is significant with high implications on higher education policies and curriculum design. the findings of this research provide valuable insight into the training of elt in non-native contexts and recommends to policy makers to consider cultural emersion and exposure of student teachers to el cultures in order to improve their competencies. keywords teacher competencies, english language teaching, novice teachers, elt, efl, student-teachers, culture www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 84 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the teaching of any language is considered an intercultural experience because of the nature of language itself (mcalinden, 2018). english language teaching is more so an intercultural experience as it is integrated in many overwhelming socio-economic global phenomena such as eating habits including fast food and fizzy drinks, clothing fashion such as jeans, seasonal celebrations for example, christmas, and most importantly, the entertainment industry both music and films. even non-english speaking qataris use several english language words in their daily communication such as “love”, “bye” and “welcome”. research shows that “intercultural competence is essential in english language teaching” (mcalinden, 2018). there is ample evidence in the literature on english language education of the impact of exposure on english language learning from the student’s perspective. for example, the academic discipline of learners’ anatomy has been present in the english language education literature for the last 30 years (borg, 2012). however, the impact of exposure to english-based culture on the abilities of english language teachers especially in the arab context requires further exploration. this research adds value to the literature on english teaching as a second or foreign language because it provides insights on how exposure to such cultures aids in better preparing the teachers of english to do their jobs. the english language has taken an unprecedented importance in today’s world not only as means of international communication but also of education and advancing research and technology (crystal, 2003). in order to equip its citizens with english language skills, qatar’s ministry of higher education has taken specific interest in training and qualifying english language teachers (yamani, 2006; zellman, 2009). however, the student teachers’ educational programs are relatively weak and focus on the professional and linguistic capacity building of the teachers and very little on the cultural aspects (nasser, 2017). this is not unique to qatar. there is in fact little research on the cultural preparation of elts whereby they are capable of not only providing their students with language tools but also with the experiences of english language cultures. similarly, there is a gap in the literature regarding the cultural backgrounds of the elt and their familiarity or exposure to english speaking cultures and how this familiarity—or lack thereof—impacts their ability or competence as elt or non-native speakers especially in an arab country. the underlying hypothesis in this research is that a positive correlation exists between the teacher’s exposure to english language cultures and their competencies as elts. in the sense that the more the english language teacher is exposed to the english language culture on a personal level, the better she is as a teacher of english language. this research draws on what borg (2006) argues as the study of what teachers think, know and believe, which is commonly known as the field of language teacher cognition (phipps & borg, 2009), and how these personal attributes impact their abilities as teachers. findings from this research suggest that teachers who were immersed in the western culture during their youth and everyday lives are more capable as english language teachers not only because of increased fluency and confidence in the language, but more so because they are able to convey the experience of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 85 published by scholink inc. english as a culture and not only as a language devoid of socio-cultural contexts. the qualitative data collected shows that when teachers are more confident with their grasp of the language especially because of familiarity, they are more able to focus on improving their teaching methods and educational strategies. feedback also emphasized the importance of such exposure on improving accents and comprehension which directly aided in the teachers’ abilities to impart knowledge to their students. this research recommends the inclusion of cultural exposure experiences in the education of student-teachers of english language. examples of this exposure are such as spending a term in an english-speaking country, taking part in foreign exchange activities, and engaging in cultural experiences of english-speaking western cultures. according to findings from this research, such measures boost the english language teacher’s confidence in teaching the language and their ability to become better teachers of this language. the linguistic scenario in qatar is characterized by multilingualism and diglossia as in many cases in arabian nations. in qatar, multilingualism is the main characteristic of the language. multilingualism clearly manifest itself in the languages’ diversity spoken by expatriate communities and qatari citizens living the country. it is worth noting that the massive majority of learners in qatari school systems come from households where arabic is their first language. however, more recently, a growing number of financially stable qatari households have begun enrolling their children in international learning institutions that might offer them with what has been viewed as higher proficiency of english language and better education. furthermore, the qatari educational system does not outline policies concerned with the roles of foreign and national languages in learning. also, it lacks adequate frameworks for the transitions between english and arabic in schools. the two matters have raised concerns among concerned nationals, teachers, and linguists especially since there is an increasing gap between what qatari children learn in english and their native islamic and arab cultural tradition. it must be clarified that the notion of english-speaking culture implies western countries, in essence. this was done, despite the diversity of english-speaking cultures available in the world, for two reasons; the first reason is that the choice was based on english language being the single dominant language in that culture, and the other reason is based on the inter-cultural connections between qatari/arab populations and those countries. in the sense that in terms of the english speaking world, for the most part, qataris have affiliations with either uk, usa, canada, australia and new zealand. 2. method 2.1 research scope this research explores the influence of exposure to english-speaking cultures potentially has on the competency of newly graduated or novice female primary education teachers of english as a second language in qatar. exposure to english-language/speaking cultures is understood in the context of this research as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 86 published by scholink inc. immersion and awareness of the english-speaking culture in terms of habits, entertainment, social norms, cultural practices and celebrations. exposure to english-speaking culture is identified through a combination of factors from two categories: familiarity and interest. in order to measure familiarity, several questions were stipulated including time spent in a el countries, personal connections with people from these countries, and inclusion of el cultural practices in personal lifestyle including music, movies, celebrations. the competency of the teachers is understood as the level of their ability as teachers of english language to non-english speaking students. this was measured by the systematic evaluation conducted by the higher education authorities in qatar to assess the competency of the student-teachers during their practical training sessions throughout their academic training with the final score documented in their graduation records. using a mixed method approach including quantitative surveys and qualitative semi-structured interviews. the surveys included four sections: the first section of the survey deals with four demographic variables which are name, education year, nationality, and overall usage of the internet in a week (measured by hours), language and purpose of use. the use of internet is considered an indicator of global exposure. the questions in the second and third sections relate to cultural exposure through familiarity and interest. both cultural aspects of familiarity and interest are identified through several questions where the answers used a five-point likert scale recoded in the statistical analysis to represent values from 0 to 4 showing a range for support of the statement in question. the four familiarity questions were combined to provide an indication of familiarity and the three interest questions were combined to provide an indication of overall interest. then each of these two indicators were correlated independently with competency as well as collectively through their means to arrive at the answer to this research. 2.2 data collection the research population was all elt who are graduates of the academic years between 2017 to 2020, the size of this population is around 300 student-teachers. the quantitative data is collected through an electronic online survey disseminated to all the research population through alumni networks. novice teachers were deliberately selected as the population for this research to control for other factors beyond the formal educational system that could affect the teachers’ performance such as years of experience, continuous professional development, and on-the-job training. in general, the population of el teachers in qatar is mostly female due to demographics of the primary education sector, in which as of 2017, less than 19% of the teachers were male and those were mostly posted in schools in rural communities, while the majority of the primary education teachers were female. furthermore, of the qatari nationals the percentage of females exceeded 98%. therefore, in order to remove variance based on gender, the research sample was deliberately selected as completely female. another defining criteria was that the research explores the personal cultures of elt who studied www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. university in qatar regardless of their nationality. it is worth pointing that of the total number of graduates of the english language department at the education college of qatar university in the last three academic years 100% are female. purposive sampling was identified as the best method because the research population was clearly identified and limited. a response percentage of 22% was achieved as 68 teachers responded. using the data collected from the questionnaires, the cultural exposure of these participants was correlated against their competencies as teachers measured by their formal evaluation scores. a likert scale, which is comprised of a combination of four or more likert-type questions, was best suited to measure personality and character traits. when these questions are combined, they provide a quantitative measurement of the trait (boone & boone, 2012). the final section in the survey required the respondents to provide their final performance evaluation score in terms of grade: a+ to f, and mark: of 100. in addition to them being cost effective, and catering to respondents’ convenience, online surveys were used in this research because they allowed access to research populations which are difficult to access (dörnyei & taguchi, 2009). this was especially useful since during the time of carrying out this research it was difficult to access the sample through direct questionnaires due to covid 19 pandemic constraints. statistical correlation data was analyzed through spss bivariate computational method identifying the pearson test for significance of these relations and their strength and direction. in order to provide more understanding of the findings, descriptive-statistical analyses were additionally used to identify frequencies and percentages. additionally, triangulation of findings and provision of context to the quantitative results of the survey, was achieved through semi-structured interviews with five teachers. the teachers were selected to represent the various degrees of exposure to culture as concluded from the survey. the qualitative interviews were used to give more depth to the findings, to explore how the personal exposure to english-language based cultures was perceived to have an influence over their abilities as teachers and whether this exposure—or lack thereof—was visible in their teaching styles. the results from the surveys were shared with them and they were asked to explain the findings according to their experiences and from their points of view as the main target groups of this research, recommending by that future interventions in higher education policies of english language teachers’ education. through the interviews, this research explored the teachers’ commitment to the cultural aspects of english language teaching in the classroom. this includes the use of the social references and adaptation of the cultural aspects of english language and not just the language in the abstract sense. it was interesting to see the spectrum of responses to the findings from the interviewees. even those who argued against the hypothesis of exposure’s influence on competency, admitted that a degree of cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. exposure could be useful for the el teachers. 3. literature review 3.1 exposure, creativity and identity of el teachers english language teaching is intercultural in nature, and like all human activity, involves emotion and emotional understanding (mcalinden, 2018). to this end, there is empirical evidence attesting to the effect of multicultural experience on creative performance. for example, leung and chiu (2010) found that exposure to uncommon and unconventional ideas enhances receptiveness to ideas that perceived as foreign. other studies revealed that there is a positive association between creativity and exposure to other cultures through time spent living abroad (maddux & galinsky, 2009). these empirical studies show that experiences of living in foreign cultures, which required adapting and keeping an open mind boosted creativity. furthermore, there are also theoretical studies that researched influence of cultural values, cultural activities and norms, products on creativity in general (shen & yuan, 2015; huang et al., 2018). consequently, education as a profession entails a lot of creativity especially at the primary education levels. teachers’ creativity is influenced by their own identity. a teacher’s identity is conventionally understood in terms of their professional qualifications, skills and characteristics (sachs, 2001). yet both practitioners and field experts emphasize that it takes more than acquiring qualifications to make a good teacher. becoming an english language teacher is particularly complex due to the multicultural nature of language learning. consequently, a teacher’s professional identity, which changes over time (chong & low, 2009), is constructed by both their professional and personal experiences. there are many takes on defining teachers’ identity (see gee, 2000; clark, 2008). a more generic definition of identity could be based on danielewicz (2001, p. 10) who defines it as “our understanding of who we are and who we think other people are.” in his research on english language teachers’ identity’s influence on their continued professional development, trent (2012) describes the teachers’ identity as both “identity-in-discourse” and “identity-in-practice”. in other words, identity constructed through language and discourse and identity demonstrated through action and in social settings. while it could be argued that language is a manifestation of identity or one’s sense of self and a way to give meaning to social reality (weedon, 1997), how teacher’s personal identity influences their use of language in education is yet to be fully understood. what we do know is that the structural elements surrounding teachers during their teaching practice mediate their actions and dictate their performance (lasky, 2005, p. 901). this indicates that the extent at which educational policies and structures encourage english language teachers to utilize their personal knowledge and creative multi-cultural experiences during their training as student-teachers and in professional practice afterwards, strongly influences their performance. furthermore, since teachers draw on their personal biases as per their identities in their professional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. practice (alsup, 2006), they are likely to interest their pupils in what they are interested in. therefore, teachers who are more interested in the english language culture, are more likely to interest their students in the cultural aspects of the language and keep them engaged. hargreaves (1998) explains that emotions hold center stage in the teaching experience, whether positive emotions or negative. this is specifically true in language teaching in today’s global and multicultural world as emotions are intimately linked with the teacher’s identity and values system (douglas fir group, 2016). majority of researchers outlined the important perceptions of teachers, students, and other stakeholders of the interconnections of culture, language, and identity. these scholars viewed languages as the principle means that people carry out their social lives. language is bound up with culture in complex and multiple ways when it is utilized in communication contexts. some practitioners and researchers believe that english language cultural exposure and el teachers’ competencies would harm arabic image as national culture and identity symbol. ellili-cherif and romanowski (2013) claimed that accompanied by a comparatively american pop culture, emphasis on and rampant spread of english and imported education are starting to sideline arabic culture leading to the cultural and linguist loss of people who identify with it. 3.2 the lack of socio-cultural preparation of teachers most educational programs aimed at producing english language teachers are based on narrow understandings of what teachers should know and be able to do (freeman, 2016). according to karakas (2012), english as foreign language programs for teachers’ education include three main elements: pedagogic competence, linguistic competence and general teachers’ training practices. cultural awareness and aspects of english as a socio-cultural context is often missing. due to the scarcity in empirical research on effectiveness of second language teacher’s training, one is forced to draw on the larger field of teacher’s education. evidently, existing research indicates that in fact, the training teachers receive during their preparation years is proven to be distant from their needs as practitioners (grossman, 2018). in a sense, one of the main weaknesses in teacher education is the disconnect between theory and practice (agudo & de dios, 2017). english language cultural exposure and el teachers’ competencies are of course interrelated. in order to engage their students in the subjects being taught, teachers are required to use innovative teaching and learning techniques and approaches and new teaching styles. consequently, educators are required to be creative and convey information to their students beyond the pedagogic and linguistic knowledge. this requires ease with the english language and a high level of familiarity with the language and its socio-cultural contexts. additionally, classroom training studies underline the efficiency of certain instructional practices related to english language cultural exposure and el teachers’ competencies. these approaches favor learner-based learning that entail assessments of content needs and linguistic needs of students and the provisions of class activities that assist to meet these needs. these methods also support applications of cooperative learning that enable learners with diverse levels to accomplish specific tasks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. manifestations of the inclusive learner-based learning approach include adjusting the teachers speech patterns, their teaching styles, production or selection of instructional techniques and materials, specification of contents and language goals. 3.3 exposure and internet use in addition to exploring the personal exposure to english language cultures, this research investigates the use of internet as part and parcel of the overall personal cultural experience of the elt. internet use has already been explored in the english language teachers’ literature, including that of arab countries (alhabahba & mahfoodh, 2016). however, this research in hand differs from previously researched aspects of using ict in the classrooms as an educational tool. rather, it focuses on the personal use of internet by the teachers themselves as part of their awareness and familiarity of the english language cultures. by january 2020, internet penetration in qatar has reached 99% and all of those users were also users of social media platforms (kemp, 2020). tsui and tollefson (2017) coined english and technology as “two inseparable meditational tools.” consequently, this study examines the of use of internet by the elt and whether or not the language of use and communication channels have an impact on their familiarity and interest in english-speaking cultures. 4. results and discussion a total of 68 novice female teachers who graduated between 2017 and 2020 responded to the survey. in addition to simple statistical analysis such as percentages and frequencies, the data was analyzed using spss software for statistical regression analysis. in terms of internet use, 63% of the respondents stated that they use the internet for more than 20 hours per week. furthermore, 63% also said that the dominant language used online is english as more than 80% of their browsing and communication online is in english. only one respondent said she hardly used english in her online activity. the graph below shows the various reasons for using english online, indicating strong immersion of the language in most of the respondents’ everyday lives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 91 published by scholink inc. figure 1. language used in internet activity statistical correlation shows a strong positive association between using english online and the competency of the elts in their formal evaluation using pearson correlation test with statistical significance r= 0.435 with correlation coefficient very highly significantly different from zero (p < 0.001): table 2. english online usage correlated with teacher’s evaluation 5. what is the estimated percentage of your use of english online? 15. what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) 5. what is the estimated percentage of your use of english online? pearson correlation 1 .435** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 15. what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) pearson correlation .435** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). in terms of the familiarity of the english language culture, the survey included four questions: time lived abroad in english speaking countries, family connections in such countries, familiarity with english language music, and familiarity with english language movies/entertainment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 92 published by scholink inc. it was interesting to find that although most of the respondents did not have direct exposure by either living or having personal connections in english speaking cultures, they compensated for this by immersing themselves in the english language based entertainment industry both music and films. specifically speaking, only 26% lived for three or more years abroad and only 39% of the respondents have immediate family member living or from in english speaking countries. consequently, 61% have strong familiarity with music and 65% with movies based on english speaking context. therefore, the familiarity of these respondents was mostly second hand. furthermore, the participants who have high familiarity with the english language culture either directly or indirectly had in general higher marks than those who did not. for example, those who lived abroad for three or more years had an average of 90% in their evaluation. on this note, an interviewee who was born and brought up in a western english language speaking country stated that having both parents fluent in english made the language part of her personality and personal life especially since she spent the first seven years of her life there. “therefore, i don’t have a problem in english language itself at all unlike my friends who are also english language teachers and who have some pronunciation, reading, and writing difficulties,” she said. having this ease with the language and its culture covered, she said that all she has to focus on now is the teaching strategies not the language itself unlike others. this agrees with the literature, which indicates a strong relation between multicultural experience on creative performance, which teaching as a process is undoubtedly has to be if it were to be successful. on the other extreme, an interviewee who argued against this importance of exposure said that although some aspects of english teaching could have been easier with more exposure, however, she believes that it’s not a major effect. she explained this as she said: “i view foreign languages as a subject purely (subjects that need to be taught to enhance the students’ quality education and future opportunities).” she also explained that her choice to become an english language teacher was not because of her interest in english but more in wanting to become a teacher in general. this attitude towards the english language was not expected from an english teacher herself, however, it is not uncommon. according to ellili-cherif and alkhateeb (2015), english language cultural exposure constituted threats to qatar’s arab identity because english assisted widespread western values and cultures that are contradict the local cultures and appeared to diminish the arabic in its speakers’ eyes. many scholars, school administrators, and parents in qatar view decisions to utilize english to design new curriculum as westernization in the arab and islamic world pushing in the directions of less islam and more english and as an indicator of western interferences. statistical analysis confirmed as there was a strong correlation between familiarity as a combination of the four mentioned above indicators and teacher’s capacity. pearson correlation test with statistical significance was r= 0.513 with correlation coefficient very highly significantly different from zero (p < 0.001): www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 93 published by scholink inc. table 2. correlation between familiarity and teachers’ evaluation 15. what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) familiarity 15.what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) pearson correlation 1 .513** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 familiarity pearson correlation .513** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). this relation was confirmed by most of the interviewees who said that teaching english is different from teacher other subjects and therefore a degree of familiarity of the english language culture can be very useful for the teachers. one interviewee said: “teaching english is not like others because it is a foreign language. students only hear and speak english in class. we are lucky as english language teachers because we have new, creative and plenty of resources that we can just print and use straight away. not like other subjects in arabic, resources are not that much.” familiarity with the culture was also said by the interviewees to aid in explaining the contexts of what they are teaching to their students such as topics on food, styles and behaviors. when it came to interest, the survey included three questions to measure the participants’ interest in the english language culture through interest in making english speaking friends, their interest in social practices and habits of english speaking cultures, and their belief towards the relevance of exposure to el culture would make them better teachers. statistical regression analysis using pearson correlation test with statistical significance was r= 0.460 with correlation coefficient very highly significantly different from zero (p < 0.001) indicating a strong association between interest in english language culture and the teachers’ capacity. the interviews also showcased the relation between interest in the culture and the teachers’ ability. for example, one interviewee said that her interest was derived from her exposure at a young age to the language and its culture. and this exposure helped her overcome the language barriers and focus on improving the teaching skills rather than focusing on learning and improving the language. “additionally, if i am teaching for example the weather, i know what is really look like; snow, fall… ,etc. if i want to teach songs, i understand the vocabulary more easily than some teachers who haven’t been to other western countries,” she said. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 94 published by scholink inc. this finding also agrees with the literature especially that concerning personal bias of the teachers and their identities in their professional practice (alsup, 2006). as teachers are likely to better engage the students if they themselves were engaged in the subject matter. descriptive statistics shed more light on this relation. the findings showed that majority of the respondents do not in fact have close friends based in english speaking cultures. the diagram below shows the distribution of their answers: figure 2. relations with people in english language countries furthermore, interviews showed that connecting online with native speakers of english is an often go-to method for english language teachers to improve their skills, but it does not come easily considering the distance. for example, an interviewee who has never lived abroad neither has close relatives there, resorts to social media to find and connect with friends. “i decided to enhance my english language by talking to english people. this is how i made friends,” she said. the teachers who did not have the opportunity to firsthand experience the english language western culture work hard at compensating through reading about that culture, watching some of their programs, news and learning about their lives. using the internet to find native english speakers was emphasized on by most of the interviewees. in addition to social media as mentioned above, some interviewees attended online courses related to teaching english such as tesol conferences to make new friends. this also agrees with the notion that internet use is closely linked to exposure of other cultures, as explained in the literature review section. similarly, the level of awareness of the social practices of western english speaking cultures also varied as described in the table below: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 95 published by scholink inc. figure 3. familiarity with western english speaking countries social practices however, very strikingly, a majority of 73% strongly agreed that having direct exposure will have a positive impact on the el teachers’ abilities with 54% stating that “having firsthand familiarity to the english-speaking culture should be a perquisite for teachers of english to non-native speakers. there should be provision for an immersion experience in the preparation of teachers of english before they teach.” of the aspects thought to improve with such exposure as identified in the qualitative interviews is the accent. according to one interview, she hoped that such exposure will have a great impact on her accent. the issue of accent was repeated by all interviewees. not only for the teacher herself, but also using english language entertainment to help the students improve their conversational skills and accents. “watching movies provides students with real life situations where they can hear the language and improve their accents.” this outcome falls in line with the literature on content needs of english language education whereby teachers are required to be familiar with the accents, speech patterns and cultural contexts of english not only as a language but as a cultural phenomenon. even the interviewees who were not very enthusiastic regarding the impact of exposure on teachers’ competency said confirmed this. one interviewee who argued that teaching english is just like teaching any other subject answered the question on whether having the chance to experience the english culture first hand, like living for a few months/years in the usa or uk would reflect on her teaching of english as a foreign language, saying: “it’d effect my fluency for sure and thus it’d have a direct impact on my teaching. it’d also give me a closer look on the small important pieces of culture we need to understand as english teachers (to avoid bringing something that is culture related but having no idea about it.” another interviewee who was more enthusiastic regarding the impact of exposure said that there are aspects of the english language teaching that could have been easier if she had more exposure to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 96 published by scholink inc. western english culture such as explaining the songs, reading texts and some of the culture aspects that can’t be explained to arab students. one interviewee said that in order to prepare better english language teachers for their job, focus should be made on speaking english and conversational skills before working on teaching skills. “i myself have a problem with writing and sometime with reading and comprehension, why the university doesn’t teach us english first and then how to teach it to others second?” she questioned. figure 4. does exposure influence competency of elts findings from the qualitative data agreed with this recommendation indicating that the english language as a culture needs to be taught to the potential teachers of english and not just the language devoid of context. “how can a teacher give her students what she doesn’t have?” exclaimed one interviewee. paradoxically, an interview with a teacher who did not agree with the significance of this relation commented that “teaching is teaching.” she explained that a good teacher has to have the knowledge of teaching strategies and assessment even if they are not expose to western culture. this teacher explained that what is important is to be exposed to the teaching concepts and know how to deal with students. in terms of the need for direct exposure she said that this is not a necessity. “i improve my language through watching movies, reading and listening to songs. i don’t have to go there to learn. i can learn while i am in my country any language, it is easier now with the internet connection,” she said. nevertheless, she too said that if she had the chance to get exposure it might reflect on her teaching in a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 97 published by scholink inc. positive way. “their culture [western] is not like us at all. the teachers there are different when they teach. we focus more on memorization while there they focus more on how the students think. i would be different teacher if i can see for myself the real situation.” as to how long is an ideal time for such exposure to be effective, she said it depends on the person, but she suggests one year. another interviewee said no less than four! finally, when combining all these factors of familiarity and interest into one variable described as exposure, statistical regression analysis showed using pearson correlation test with statistical significance was r= 0.530 with correlation coefficient very highly significantly different from zero (p < 0.001): table 3. correlation between exposure to the english language culture and teachers’ evaluation 15. what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) exposure 15. what was your final grade in percentage? (for example 82) pearson correlation 1 .530** sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 exposure pearson correlation .530** 1 sig. (2-tailed) .000 n 68 68 . correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). this finding agrees with the literature on english language teaching as intercultural process by nature, involving emotion and requiring interest and familiarity (mcalinden, 2018). the findings of this research agree with the existing empirical evidence on the effect of multicultural experience on creative performance. 5. conclusion and recommendations quantitative and qualitative findings from this research both indicate that without a doubt there is a strong influence of the personal exposure to the english language cultures and the competency of a teacher of english as a second or foreign language, at least in the case of qatar. the impact of these results is significant with high implications on higher education policies and curriculum design. the results confirm theoretical indications in the elt literature that english language teachers do not only provide their students with linguistic and pedagogic skills, but there is a large part of the experience that is purely cultural. this means that providing teachers with immersion experiences and exposure to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 98 published by scholink inc. english language cultures enables them to become better teachers. the interviewees stated that having exchange programs is a good way to start. educational emersion programs could range from a semester to several years. the interviewees agreed that an english language teacher has a double task: mastering the language itself and mastering the skills of teaching. all interviewees said that it would be easier if there was a way to help the student teachers become more comfortable with the language before they are required to teach it. recommendations from this research, through the voices of the respondents themselves, calls for an inclusion of direct exposure elements in the qualification of student teachers through a semester abroad in an english speaking country or at least to make it optional and students are willing to bear some of the costs incurred in the process. further research could be made into the best educational policies in order to better prepare the english language teachers for their careers and therefore improve the quality of english language teaching in the country as a whole. this research focuses on the influence of english language culture of western countries such as usa and uk. while acknowledging that there are other countries where english is considered a main language alongside other native languages, the nuances between the influence of such cultures on the english language student-teachers is not considered in this study and could perhaps present scope for future academic work based on findings of this research in hand. another potential follow-up to this research would be to identify the differences in the personal exposure to western english-speaking cultures among male and female elts in qatar of secondary education. also, to revisit this research question while expanding the research population to those who have been teaching for several years and identify correlations of personal culture with experience. references agudo, m., & de dios, j. 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(2016). solving arithmetic problems in first and second language: does the language context matter?. learning and instruction, 42(2016), 72-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.01.003 weedon, c. (1997). feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd ed.). cambridge: blackwell. yamani, s. (2006). toward a national education development paradigm in the arab world: a comparative study of saudi arabia and qatar. the fletcher school œ al nakhlah œ tufts university. zellman, g. l., ryan, g. w., karam, r., constant, l., salem, h., gonzalez, g. c., ..., al-obaidli, k. (2009). qatar’s k-12 education reform has achieved success in its early years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 4, 2020 101 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.7249/rb9455 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 70 original paper research on unmanned delivery issues and optimization in the context of low-altitude economy ping li1* & huanming zhao2 1* ping li (1986-), digital business school, sichuan university of science and technology, chengdu, sichuan 610000, china, lidaiping0303@163.com 2 huanming zhao (1980-), digital business school, sichuan university of science and technology, chengdu, sichuan 610000, china, sandzhao_yep@hotmail.com received: april 21, 2025 accepted: may 28, 2025 online published: june 09, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p70 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p70 abstract since the 21st century, with the continuous advancement of intelligent technology and the rapid development of aviation technology, the low-altitude economy has gradually attracted global attention and importance, becoming a new growth point for high-quality economic development in various countries. as a new economic form with an activity range of below 1,000 meters, the unmanned delivery system, with its unique advantages of breaking through ground traffic restrictions and improving logistics efficiency, has become one of the most commercially promising application scenarios in the low-altitude economy. the unmanned delivery system is reconfiguring the traditional logistics and delivery system. technological iterations and policy breakthroughs are driving the unmanned delivery system into a period of rapid development. the integrated application of 5g networks, artificial intelligence, and high-precision navigation has significantly enhanced the autonomous decision-making capabilities of unmanned systems. however, it is worth noting that the current unmanned delivery still faces technical bottlenecks such as short battery life and poor adaptability to adverse weather, as well as systemic challenges like incomplete airspace management rules and high operating costs, which restrict the industry from expanding on a larger scale. keywords low-altitude economy, unmanned delivery, optimization strategy 1. introduction in recent years, the low-altitude economy, as an emerging economic form, has developed rapidly. its core lies in utilizing low-altitude airspace resources to carry out various economic activities. against www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 this backdrop, unmanned delivery, as an important application scenario of the low-altitude economy, is experiencing unprecedented development opportunities. unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) through intelligent and automated logistics solutions, effectively address the pain point of the "last mile" in traditional delivery, demonstrating unique advantages in medical emergency, mountainous area transportation, and urban express delivery. currently, unmanned delivery has entered the stage of large-scale application. in the field of uav delivery, many domestic and foreign enterprises have achieved commercial operation. amazon prime air has completed hundreds of thousands of test flights in the united states, and jd logistics has built the world's first intelligent uav delivery network in china, covering remote mountainous areas and offshore islands. however, the development of unmanned delivery still faces multiple challenges. technically, the insufficient energy density of existing lithium batteries leads to a general flight duration of less than one hour for uavs, the reliability of autonomous driving systems in rainy and snowy weather is insufficient, and the dynamic obstacle avoidance capability in complex urban environments needs to be improved. in terms of safety, the long certification cycle and inconsistent standards for airworthiness restrict the speed of product launch, and the low-altitude traffic management system has not yet formed a unified standard. measures to prevent theft and damage during transportation need to be improved. in terms of cost, high-performance sensors and computing units increase equipment costs, and professional operation and maintenance teams and insurance fees keep operating costs high. all these factors restrict the large-scale popularization of unmanned delivery. 2. the concept 2.1 the low-altitude economy low-altitude (below 1 km of the horizontal line) economy refers to the economic activities related to the civil aviation flight industry that take place within the non-high-altitude airspace, mainly including flying cars, model aircraft, unmanned aircraft, hot air balloons, as well as the application of related industries, and the hardware setup providing basic aviation services for these industries, such as the training industry for helicopter pilots. china has successively promulgated relevant policies and legal documents to vigorously support the vitality of the low-altitude economy and expand gdp growth points by increasing the scope of opening up to low-altitude airspace (sun, 2024). in 2017, the national development and reform commission issued the "development plan for general aviation in the '13th five-year plan'" and the "implementation opinions on building general aviation industry comprehensive demonstration zones". in 2021, the "outline for the national comprehensive transportation network planning" pointed out that "it should strengthen cross-industry cooperation in transportation with modern agriculture, production manufacturing, commerce and finance, develop transportation platform economy, hub economy, channel economy, and low-altitude economy". www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 2.2 the drone delivery 2.2.1 the drones delivery network the unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) delivery network refers to the transportation and distribution of goods using uavs, forming an aerial logistics network covering a certain area. the core of the uav delivery network lies in replacing traditional ground transportation tools with uavs to achieve point-to-point rapid cargo delivery. currently, the composition of the uav delivery network mainly includes the following types: figure 2.1 drone delivery network model as can be seen from figure 2.1, fixed-path unmanned aircraft delivery is when the known package information is provided, and the unmanned aircraft loads the goods at the distribution center and delivers to the designated customer point, with lower flexibility. open-loop path unmanned aircraft delivery is when each unmanned aircraft departs from its current position, visits some nodes in sequence, and finally stops at the last visited node to wait, ensuring that all nodes are visited once. 2.2.2 the analysis of mode characteristics using drones as the main mode of transportation is different from other transportation methods (such as truck transportation, public transportation, etc.). it has the following characteristics: (1) convenient and efficient: drones are not affected by ground traffic conditions and can quickly traverse congested urban streets or remote mountainous areas, directly delivering goods to the destination. in addition, the flight speed of drones can be adjusted according to needs, thereby shortening the delivery time. (2) resource conservation: drones do not consume fuel and only use electricity for propulsion, so they have significant advantages in terms of environmental protection. at the same time, the operation and maintenance costs of drones are relatively low, which can effectively reduce logistics costs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 (3) flexible scheduling: drone delivery is not restricted by fixed routes and can adjust flight routes and delivery tasks according to actual needs, with high flexibility. this helps to deal with emergencies and meet special transportation needs. (4) real-time monitoring: drone delivery can be monitored and tracked in real time, making it easy to fully control and manage the delivery process. in addition, drones can be equipped with high-definition cameras and sensors for tasks such as goods inspection and quality assurance. (5) high safety: drone delivery can reduce the involvement of human intervention and lower the risk of human safety. at the same time, drones can perform precise positioning and intelligent control, improving the safety and accuracy of delivery. (6) extensive: the continuous advancement of technology and changes in market demand have led to the significant expansion potential of drone delivery. for example, drones can carry more goods and fly over longer distances. 3. the analysis of drones' delivery issues in low-altitude economic distribution 3.1 the network issues with the acceleration of urbanization, the service radius of cities continues to expand, and the logistics distribution network also extends to a wider area. this expansion brings convenience to residents while also placing higher demands on the logistics distribution system. among them, the unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) delivery technology faces two core challenges: the balance between endurance and payload capacity, and the stable and reliable communication network guarantee. from a technical perspective, the traditional radio remote control method is no longer able to meet the operational needs of modern urban logistics uavs. on one hand, the transmission quality of wireless signals in the complex urban environment is easily affected by factors such as high-rise buildings and electromagnetic interference; on the other hand, as the delivery distance increases, the delay and stability of the remote control signal become increasingly prominent. these problems not only affect the delivery efficiency but also may pose a threat to flight safety (zhou et al., 2021). communication network quality, as the key support of the uav logistics system, whose stability directly determines the reliability of the delivery service and the user experience. currently, it is urgently necessary to build a comprehensive, rapid response, and highly resistant to interference dedicated communication network to ensure the precise navigation and real-time control of uavs in complex urban environments. this requires integrating advanced technologies such as 5g communication and edge computing to establish a multi-level network guarantee system. 3.2 the diverse customer demands increase the difficulty of delivery the urban logistics distribution sector is currently undergoing unprecedented changes and challenges. with the vigorous development of e-commerce, the unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) delivery system has become an important component of the modern logistics system. the current market presents three notable characteristics: firstly, the service targets cover the entire spectrum of demands from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 enterprise-level customers to individual consumers; secondly, due to the periodic bursts of e-commerce promotional activities and the continuous growth of consumers' personalized demands, the delivery demands exhibit a distinct fluctuating feature; finally, the delivery scope is extending from the core urban areas to the broader surrounding areas of the city. this structural change in the demand side poses higher requirements for the uav delivery system. on one hand, a highly flexible intelligent scheduling system needs to be constructed to cope with the drastic fluctuations in order quantities; on the other hand, standardized service processes must be established to ensure that customers of different scales and regions can all receive consistent high-quality service experiences. it is particularly noteworthy that the surge in personalized delivery demands has made the traditional batch delivery model unable to meet market demands, which requires logistics enterprises to invest more in uav resources and optimize the distribution network layout. from the perspective of operational efficiency, this one-to-one precise delivery mode not only improves service quality but also brings significant pressure on resource investment. how to balance service quality and operational costs has become a key issue that drone logistics enterprises urgently need to solve. this requires systematic innovation from multiple dimensions such as technological upgrading, process optimization, and resource allocation. 3.3 the range issue the single flight range of a drone refers to the maximum distance it can travel when fully charged. as an important component of the modern air logistics system, the power performance of drones directly determines their operational radius and transportation efficiency. currently, the mainstream commercial drones generally use lithium polymer batteries as their energy source. although this high energy density power source has the advantage of lightweight, its inherent energy storage limit is always a key factor restricting flight performance. when carrying out cargo delivery tasks, the actual flight range of the drone is affected by multiple variables: including but not limited to battery degradation, environmental temperature fluctuations, load changes, and flight route planning. especially when performing high-frequency tasks such as urban end-point deliveries, the issue of energy management becomes particularly prominent. engineering practice has shown that there is a clear positive correlation between battery capacity and flight range, but this relationship is often constrained by the non-linear discharge efficiency curve. 3.4 the charging problems in the context of the rapid development of drone delivery technology, the charging issue has become a key bottleneck restricting the industry's growth. the reliability of charging facilities and the rationality of charging strategies directly determine the operational efficiency and service quality of the drone delivery system. currently, the planning and construction of drone charging infrastructure worldwide are still in the exploratory stage and have not yet formed mature solutions. from a technical perspective, the drone charging system needs to address three core issues: the network layout of charging stations, the intelligent scheduling of charging times, and the standardized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 construction of charging equipment. if these problems cannot be effectively resolved, it will significantly reduce the reliability and economy of the drone delivery system, especially in small and medium-sized cities with relatively weak infrastructure, where this impact is more prominent. 3.5 the cost issues currently, although the application of drone technology in the logistics distribution sector shows the potential to replace human labor, the issue of its overall operational costs urgently needs to be addressed. from an industrial perspective, the cost composition of the drone delivery system is far more complex than it appears. firstly, hardware investment is a fundamental expenditure. the procurement cost of high-performance logistics drones remains high, and the cost of their precision components and specialized payload systems far exceeds that of traditional delivery tools. more crucially, such equipment requires the establishment of a professional maintenance system, including regular maintenance, component replacement, and system upgrades. these subsequent expenditures are often underestimated by enterprises. secondly, the construction of the talent team forms a continuous expenditure. even with the adoption of intelligent operating systems, a team with aviation knowledge and proficiency in drone operation technology is still needed. the training and retention costs of such talents are significantly higher than those of ordinary logistics personnel, especially in the context of increasingly strict safety supervision, where the salary levels of professional qualification personnel continue to rise. intelligent transformation is also a double-edged sword. although automated systems can reduce reliance on human resources, the initial research and development investment is huge. logistics enterprises need to bear high costs such as algorithm development, system integration, and scenario testing. the investment during the technology accumulation period may lead to an increase in short-term costs instead of a decrease. 4. the optimization strategies for unmanned delivery in the low-flying economy under the wave of digital transformation, intelligent security systems and automated logistics equipment have gradually achieved industrialized applications. however, most products on the market still have significant drawbacks such as single functionality and insufficient scene adaptability. according to the research data of lu ning et al. (2021), the independent operation mode of traditional intelligent access control and unmanned stations not only leads to low system resource utilization but also causes an additional 15%-20% operating cost. the study adopts a systematic design, with the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform as the core of the design, and through the delivery module, to address different scenarios to achieve different functions and improve the environmental adaptability of the equipment. this paper addresses the above issues and proposes a solution for the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform. based on the powerful power system and attitude control system of the unmanned aerial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 vehicle, the unmanned aerial vehicle can operate without the limitations of climate and roads, greatly reducing the transportation time and thus improving work efficiency. the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform has high flexibility, so the application of unmanned aerial vehicles has broad market prospects. 4.1 the further optimize the design of the unmanned aircraft during the design process, the equipment adopts a quad-rotor design, which gives the equipment a powerful power system, an advanced attitude adjustment system, no road traffic restrictions, the ability to quickly reach the destination, high flexibility, and stable operation in complex environments. by carrying high-precision map data and gps, beidou and other satellite positioning systems, the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform can accurately perform path planning, and use the rtk module to correct the user's measurement data to improve gps positioning accuracy. through precise modeling, estimation and elimination of various error values of the observed values, it can ultimately achieve real-time centimeter-level positioning accuracy. the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform also has cmos image sensors, dsp digital processing chips, and rtk modules. it uses data collection from the surrounding environment to communicate with the external environment, and then processes the collected information to identify road conditions and obstacles (han et al., 2021), thereby achieving precise path planning for the unmanned aerial vehicle. with the development of 5g, the unmanned aerial vehicle platform has high-definition video transmission functions, enabling ultra-long-distance real-time monitoring, and improving the operational efficiency of the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform. the key focus is on the use of 5g technology, effectively solving the communication and network problems of unmanned aerial vehicles, and ensuring that each unmanned aerial vehicle is controllable.the relevant staff can understand the specific situation of each unmanned aerial vehicle, avoiding abnormal situations caused by communication or network issues, and preventing unnecessary losses. 4.2 the optimization of the drone delivery module the unmanned aerial delivery platform represents a significant technological breakthrough in the field of modern logistics transportation. by integrating advanced material delivery modules, this platform enables high-speed aerial transportation of materials, completely breaking through the road limitations faced by traditional ground transportation. this innovative delivery method not only significantly shortens the delivery time but also effectively reduces the risk of interpersonal contact during special periods, providing a strong guarantee for public health safety. in terms of functional design, this delivery platform demonstrates outstanding adaptability. according to different types of cargo requirements, the platform is equipped with specialized transportation modules: medical supplies transportation module, catering transportation module, and daily necessities transportation module. the platform adopts an innovative layered structure design, with a maximum capacity of accommodating 8 independent materials. each transportation compartment is equipped with a uv disinfection system, through 254nm wavelength uv irradiation, which can effectively kill 99.9% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 77 of common pathogenic microorganisms, providing comprehensive hygiene protection for the transported items. the intelligent temperature control system can precisely regulate the cabin temperature to meet different requirements from -18℃ freezing to 60℃ insulation. in terms of user interaction, the platform achieves full-process digital management. by scanning the exclusive qr code on the mobile terminal, users can complete the entire process from ordering to picking up. the system uses blockchain technology to ensure transaction security and updates logistics information in real time, significantly improving delivery efficiency and user experience. according to actual measurement data, this platform can shorten traditional delivery time by 60%-80%, demonstrating significant advantages in emergency material transportation scenarios. 4.3 the creating of an exclusive flight path for drones the core of establishing an urban drone logistics delivery system lies in scientifically planning the low-altitude delivery routes. by establishing a specialized drone logistics network, it is possible to achieve a breakthrough in the timeliness of medium and short-distance end-point deliveries, significantly reducing the single transportation duration, and optimizing the overall operational cost structure. this innovative delivery model is particularly suitable for the high-frequency and highly flexible immediate delivery demands in cities, injecting new technological impetus into the modern logistics system. as an innovative logistics delivery solution, the unmanned aerial vehicle mobile platform equipped with intelligent delivery modules demonstrates significant technical advantages. compared with the traditional ground transportation mode, this system breaks through geographical space limitations and realizes a three-dimensional transportation network for materials. in terms of transportation efficiency, the drone delivery system, through the planning of straight-line paths in the air, completely avoids constraints such as ground traffic congestion and road regulations. its advanced hovering positioning technology enables precise aerial material handover without the need for landing to complete the delivery task, which is particularly suitable for the delivery needs of users in high-rise buildings. this vertical delivery capability significantly improves the efficiency of the last mile service. from the perspective of resource allocation, the drone logistics system has obvious advantages in concentration. on the one hand, this system significantly reduces the reliance on ground transportation infrastructure, saving valuable urban land resources; on the other hand, the intelligent delivery module can be dynamically configured according to the characteristics of the goods, achieving the optimal utilization of transportation resources. this not only solves the problem of low traditional logistics efficiency but also significantly reduces the overall operational costs. in scenarios with high timeliness requirements such as emergency material transportation and medical emergency response, the drone delivery system demonstrates an irreplaceable value. its rapid response capability and all-day-round delivery characteristics provide reliable technical support for material security during special periods. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 78 4.4 the optimization the battery life of unmanned aircraft from a technical perspective, the endurance bottleneck faced by the drone logistics sector has achieved a substantial breakthrough. the effective operational radius of the current mainstream commercial drones has been increased to 20 kilometers, and the single-distribution duration is controlled within the range of 20-25 minutes. this performance indicator has fully covered the timeliness requirements for short-distance local delivery within the same city. to expand the application boundaries of urban long-distance delivery scenarios, the industry is currently focusing on advancing three key technological upgrades: firstly, in the optimization of the power system, a combination of high-energy-density battery packs and efficient motors, along with an intelligent power consumption management system, can increase the current endurance capacity by 30%-40%. secondly, in the construction of the safety protection system, by integrating millimeter-wave radars, visual recognition systems, and flight control computers, a triple obstacle avoidance mechanism significantly reduces the flight accident rate to below 0.01%. finally, in the energy management dimension, the introduction of a dynamic power monitoring algorithm enables the system to automatically trigger a three-level warning when the remaining power drops to a preset threshold (suggested to be set at 35%). this will send a real-time alert to the control center, activate the backup power module, and plan the optimal return route to ensure seamless connection of the delivery task. some leading enterprises have begun testing the "air charging station" network layout, by deploying wireless charging devices at high points in the city, to achieve power replenishment for drones during their missions. this innovative model has the potential to expand the single-operation radius to over 50 kilometers, providing key technical support for the construction of a 24/7 urban air logistics network. 4.5 the enhancing of the safety delivery capabilities of unmanned aircraft the issue of the safe operation of unmanned aircraft has always been of the greatest concern. therefore, it is necessary to fully consider the attributes of each unit involved in the transportation network, and conduct operation scheduling through intelligent algorithms to form the overall architecture of the transportation network. to ensure the safe delivery of unmanned aircraft, it is still necessary to optimize various issues related to unmanned aircraft, such as institutional setup, personnel training, system configuration, emergency operations, simulation training, auxiliary facilities, control links, and safety protection. safe delivery involves multiple aspects. in the subsequent process of promoting urban logistics unmanned aircraft delivery, it is necessary to actively absorb relevant experience and continuously optimize, especially paying attention to safety issues brought about by weather changes, while striving to improve the quality and efficiency of unmanned aircraft delivery, which helps to ensure the safety of unmanned aircraft and avoid accidental damage to them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 79 4.6 the reducing of the cost of drone delivery the drone delivery cost system is composed of multiple interrelated elements, mainly including equipment purchase costs, energy consumption, maintenance expenses, personnel expenditures, and system operation costs, which are the core components. model selection and task matching are the first steps in technical optimization. choosing the most suitable drone type for different delivery scenarios (urban short-distance, suburban medium-distance, rural long-distance) can significantly improve efficiency and reduce costs. for example, urban "last mile" delivery is suitable for using small multi-rotor drones, while cross-regional transportation may require fixed-wing models. the advancement of battery technology brings new opportunities for cost reduction, as using high-energy-density batteries can extend the flight distance per charge and reduce the number of charging station constructions. the introduction of intelligent scheduling systems can maximize the utilization of drone resources. through algorithm optimization of delivery routes, considering factors such as weather, airspace restrictions, and delivery priorities, multi-robot collaborative operations can be achieved, avoiding empty return flights. the application of predictive maintenance technology can detect potential equipment problems in advance, avoiding high repair costs and delivery delays caused by sudden failures. in addition, the integration of computer vision and ai technologies can enhance autonomous flight capabilities, reduce reliance on human-machine interaction, and thereby lower labor costs. 5. suggestions for optimizing cost management with the vigorous development of the low-altitude economy, unmanned delivery, as its core application scenario, has demonstrated great potential. this study systematically analyzed the existing problems of unmanned delivery and proposed targeted optimization strategies, and reached the following conclusions: at the technical level, key breakthroughs are needed to address the bottlenecks of battery endurance and autonomous driving algorithms; at the safety level, a standardized airworthiness certification system needs to be established urgently; and at the cost control level, the marginal benefits brought by large-scale application are relied upon. future research should focus on the coordinated development of three aspects: firstly, it should promote the cooperation among industry, academia, and research in high-energy-density batteries and fast-charging technologies; secondly, it should build a simulation testing platform based on digital twins to accelerate algorithm iterations; finally, it is suggested that the government lead in formulating classified airworthiness standards, and at the same time, explore the feasibility of business models through the construction of demonstration parks. only when the technical breakthroughs, safety guarantees, and cost optimization form a closed loop can the market value of unmanned delivery be truly unleashed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 80 references chen, d., tang, c., xie, y. et al. (n.d.). real-time trajectory dual-layer planning for urban low-altitude logistics delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles. acta aeronautica et astronautica sinica, 1-20. li, h., zhang, h. h., zhang, l. d. et al. (n.d.). collaborative task allocation for multi-logistics unmanned aerial vehicles in urban areas. systems engineering and electronics, 1-15. hu, d. w., chen, h. m., liang, y. w. et al. (2021). model construction for path optimization of hybrid formation of vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles. journal of chang'an university (natural science edition), 41(01), 78-89. han, p., & zhang, b. y. (2021). research on safe route planning for unmanned aerial vehicles based on improved ant colony algorithm. chinese journal of safety science, 31(01), 24-29. lü, n. (2021). application of unmanned aerial vehicles in logistics. science and technology bulletin, 37(02), 106-108. sun, j. n. (2024). research on optimization of m company's unmanned aerial vehicle delivery business model. nanjing university of technology. yang, y. g. (2024). research on privacy rights protection in the context of low-altitude economy. guangzhou university. yan, r. x. (2024). research on multi-uav delivery path optimization considering variable demand. chang'an university. zhou, s. s. (2021). problems and countermeasures of urban logistics unmanned aerial vehicle delivery. china shipping weekly, (33), 112-113. zhou, j. j., & wan, r. (2021). analysis of problems and countermeasures of urban logistics unmanned aerial vehicle delivery. information system engineering, (09), 142-144. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 105 original paper the position and role of artistic literacy in undergraduate elementary education major rulin. tao 1* 1 affiliation the college of art, dali university, dali, china * rulin. tao, affiliation the college of art, dali university, dali, china received: june 17, 2023 accepted: august 12, 2023 online published: august 21, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p105 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p105 abstract artistic literacy is one of the key components of implementing quality education in schools, and art education serves as the primary pathway to improve the artistic literacy of undergraduate elementary school teachers. the core objective of art education is to cultivate aesthetic creativity. currently, the state of art education in rural primary schools in the western regions of china varies. as a specialized undergraduate major in elementary education aimed at nurturing new teaching professionals, it is important to determine the goals of artistic literacy and emphasize the position and role of art education in fostering students’ comprehensive abilities and qualities. this study focuses on the positioning of artistic literacy in undergraduate elementary education majors and explores the desired artistic literacy for students. keywords artistic literacy, undergraduate level, elementary education, positioning and role 1. introduction creativity is an intellectual quality, primarily a thinking quality, with imaginative thinking playing a predominant role and often manifested in the form of intuitive thinking. as we know, art education plays an irreplaceable role in cultivating imaginative and intuitive thinking abilities. therefore, it is easy to understand its significant importance in nurturing creative individuals. art education is one of the main components of implementing quality education in schools and serves as an important pathway to improve the artistic literacy of undergraduate elementary teachers. therefore, it is essential to consider how to implement art education in the undergraduate elementary education major, how to integrate aesthetic education throughout art instruction, and how to cultivate the artistic literacy and aesthetic abilities of undergraduate students majoring in elementary education. this will contribute to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 106 published by scholink inc. their comprehensive development in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, and artistic pursuits, enabling them to possess good cultural cultivation, high comprehensive qualities, and abilities. hence, it is crucial to give attention and conduct research on these aspects when offering art courses in the undergraduate elementary education major. 2. method 2.1 survey method. investigation of the current status of art education in rural primary schools in western china currently, the state of art education in primary schools in china shows disparities between the eastern and western regions, as well as between urban and rural areas. the current status of art education in rural western primary schools is a source of concern, with varying levels of quality. the key issues can be summarized as follows: 2.1.1 lack of teacher development in art education in rural primary schools, there is a severe shortage of art teachers, with low educational backgrounds and poor teaching capabilities. although some township primary schools offer art classes, they lack specialized teachers, resulting in the assignment of teachers who have only minimal understanding or no prior exposure to art education. these teachers lack knowledge of art theory and are unable to demonstrate proper drawing techniques. taking yunnan’s art education teacher resources as an example, “in 2001, there were 217,658 full-time teachers in primary schools in the province, with only 15.13% having a higher education degree or above. the qualification rate of full-time primary school teachers was 4.4 percentage points lower than the national average, ranking 28th nationwide. the qualification rates for specialized teachers in physical education, music, art, and labor skills were even lower. in the same year, a total of 38,731 substitute teachers were hired in primary and secondary schools across the province, a decrease of 3,520 compared to 2000, accounting for 11.58% of the total number of full-time teachers. substitute teachers were mainly distributed in rural schools, particularly in mountainous areas and areas with ethnic minority populations, where substitute teachers mostly lacked the necessary qualifications.” currently, a significant proportion of substitute teachers in rural areas still exist, and teachers with limited knowledge of art instruct students to copy textbook drawings, resulting in unorganized and laughable artworks. these phenomena have had a negative impact on consolidating the achievements of the new curriculum reform. 2.1.2 teaching methods and teaching philosophies are outdated due to insufficient awareness and an incomplete evaluation system, education authorities and teachers at all levels have retained traditional teaching methods and philosophies. these conservative teaching concepts and methods seriously hinder the development of art education. this is mainly manifested in the following aspects. the educational notion of distinguishing between “primary” and “secondary” subjects: due to the traditional education system’s emphasis on exam-oriented education and the pursuit of high enrollment rates, most people, from government and education authorities to school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 107 published by scholink inc. leaders, parents, and teachers, have a biased perception of subjects. courses such as music, physical education, and art are often undervalued due to their “secondary” status. in schools where these subjects are offered, they are often sacrificed for the so-called “primary” subjects during critical periods, making it impossible to implement art education systematically and with proper planning. the educational notion of distinguishing between “primary” and “secondary” subjects, combined with a lack of emphasis on art courses from school leadership and lenient evaluations, directly contribute to an “get it over with” and “casual play with students” attitude among art teachers. 2.1.3 limited and outdated teaching methods traditional classroom teaching methods, along with “rote learning” and “passive receptivity” teaching approaches, are widely present. in actual teaching, there are very few or almost no teaching methods that can genuinely improve teachers’ teaching skills and practical management abilities while being lively, interactive, and practical. even with the increasing popularity of modern teaching methods like computer multimedia instruction, television teaching, audio recordings, and slides, many teachers still rely on traditional methods like textbooks, chalk, and blackboards. these outdated and backward teaching methods greatly reduce the effectiveness of the teaching process. some art teachers may genuinely want to teach art well, but due to a lack of fundamental knowledge, they can only have students copy existing works. this monotonous teaching approach turns students into mere “photocopiers,” unable to cultivate their creativity. additionally, this type of teaching significantly disconnects from the realities of rural students’ lives and deviates from the principle that “art originates from life.” in such teaching environments, students can only passively accept knowledge. 2.1.4 the lack of art teaching facilities many rural primary schools lack and have outdated educational facilities, especially when it comes to dedicated art teaching aids. the majority of rural schools do not have dedicated art classrooms or student art exhibition halls. furthermore, there is a severe shortage of comprehensive teaching equipment, such as handicraft studios and multimedia devices. regardless of the subject, students are confined to one classroom, and art teaching tools are limited to a single art textbook, a piece of paper, and a pen. the art teaching process often simplifies to mere copying, and activities involving hands-on crafts, art appreciation, and comprehensive exploration are rarely conducted. this lack of facilities hinders normal teaching activities. many subjects face challenges in meeting teaching objectives due to the inadequate teaching facilities, let alone achieving educational modernization and informatization. limited access to information further hampers educational research activities and leaves remote rural schools with minimal scientific research engagement. these factors contribute to a stagnant teaching approach among rural teachers, who often adhere rigidly to traditional practices, remain content with the status quo, and lack innovation in their work. 2.1.5 the negative influence of parental beliefs on art education family education has a significant influence on the development of school education. the economic and cultural backwardness in rural areas leads to a narrow understanding of art education among www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. parents. this is manifested in several ways: firstly, there is a lack of comprehension regarding art teaching and creative activities, with such activities often considered as distractions from serious academic pursuits. secondly, there is a backwardness in aesthetic concepts of art. many parents of rural students have lower levels of education, and they tend to evaluate artistic creations based on their realism rather than artistic expression. this hinders the development of students’ creative abilities. thirdly, parents do not provide adequate financial support for learning materials. the awareness of educational investment among rural farmers is relatively weak, and students have limited funds to purchase necessary learning materials, including basic art supplies. 2.1.6 the one-sidedness of teachers and students’ understanding of curriculum resources the textbook has always been the main curriculum resource in china’s school education. the prolonged and exclusive use of textbooks often leads to a closed-off perspective, where many rural areas perceive textbooks as the sole curriculum resource. when it comes to developing and utilizing curriculum resources, the only consideration is ordering and using textbooks. backward teaching ideologies and a lack of art teaching facilities have limited schools in terms of curriculum resources, including their main sources, foundations, contents, and conditions, preventing the formation of an organic whole. for example, many schools organize activities such as spring outings and tree planting. however, these activities are often limited and lack variety, failing to effectively utilize these opportunities to develop art education resources and enrich art teaching activities. 2.2 analytical method. analyzing and studying the position and role of art education in the cultivation of students’ comprehensive abilities and qualities the unique stage of primary school students’ growth demands a focus on art education. human understanding originates from observation, and within human perception, the visual sense plays a crucial role. over 80% of information is obtained through visual means. the nature of art education as a subject is precisely essential in training visual perception. the special stage of primary students’ psychological and intellectual growth requires art education. in primary education, the knowledge and skills of art enrich our teaching language and improve our educational capabilities. additionally, when using multimedia courseware in teaching, the usage of images, graphics, and videos requires a foundation in art knowledge to achieve optimal teaching effectiveness. the use of teaching aids and simplified drawings can enrich our teaching methods, resolve teaching difficulties, and better stimulate students’ inquiry, thereby improving the quality of teaching. 2.2.1 artistic literacy is an essential quality for students majoring in elementary education in june 1999, the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council held the third national education work conference since the start of reform and opening up. they issued the “decision of the central committee of the communist party of china and the state council on deepening education reform and comprehensively promoting quality education” (referred to as the “decision” below), which provided guidance for constructing a socialist educational system with chinese characteristics in the 21st century. the “decision” stated that implementing quality education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. means comprehensively implementing the party’s educational policies, with the fundamental aim of improving the overall quality of the population. it emphasizes focusing on cultivating students’ innovative spirit and practical abilities, nurturing “socialist builders and successors with ideals, morals, culture, discipline, and comprehensive development in ethics, intelligence, physicality, and aesthetics.” the party central committee and the state council placed a high importance on arts education, making it an important aspect of implementing quality education comprehensively. the “decision” also set specific goals and directions for our undergraduate elementary education program, raising new and higher requirements for elementary school teachers with undergraduate qualifications in the 21st century. firstly, they should possess noble sentiments, lofty character, and broad-mindedness. secondly, they must have solid professional knowledge and a reasonable knowledge structure. thirdly, they should have excellent cultural and artistic literacy, as well as comprehensive abilities, including strong practical, creative, and aesthetic capabilities. fourthly, they should be proficient in using modern educational technology for teaching and scientific research, guided by advanced educational concepts and ideas. 2.2.2 from the comprehensive promotion of quality education and the need to cultivate talents adapted to the modernization of the 21st century, art education also plays a positive role the advent of the information age and consumerism emphasizes the importance of art education. film, internet, advertising, and photography, various images saturate our lives, indicating that visual information is the primary means of communication. people’s lives are influenced by fashion trends and consumerism, but they also face the fact that the virtual world seems more realistic than real life. only by immersing oneself in the global cultural environment and possessing a higher aesthetic discernment can individuals find healthier ways of life. the era requires art education, the era requires the deepening of art education. within our education system, art education has been effective in training visual perception because art itself is a form of art that directly appeals to our visual senses. in art education, students benefit significantly in perceiving the form and value of beauty, directly promoting intellectual development, fully reflecting the value of implementing aesthetic education. to meet the needs of primary education reforms and developments in the 21st century, art education is necessary in the undergraduate elementary education major. the comprehensive, interconnected, and interdisciplinary nature of the undergraduate elementary education major requires the inclusion of art education. in recent years, as educational reforms have deepened, primary education nationwide has gradually implemented small-class teaching. this places higher demands on teachers responsible for specialized instruction: they must not only handle language, mathematics, and foreign language teaching but also music, art, physical education, science, and computer instruction. this places new and higher standards on the teaching in our undergraduate elementary education major: the students we cultivate must possess richer comprehensive qualities to meet the challenges of significant developments in education and deepen reforms in primary education in the 21st century. in this regard, art education assumes the task of cultivating students’ artistic literacy and skills that cannot be replaced www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. by other subjects. clearly, our art courses are indispensable and must be strengthened as a foundational and compulsory subject in the undergraduate elementary education major. 3. result the objectives and positioning of artistic literacy 3.1 possessing a high level of art appreciation ability in the undergraduate elementary education major, students should have a higher level of art appreciation ability compared to primary school teachers who did not major in art and other non-art majors in general universities. they should have a deeper and broader understanding of the rules of art appreciation, basic art knowledge, methods and rules of art creation and form, and basic knowledge of artistic creation. they should also have a more acute appreciation of artworks and a broader understanding of the cultural aspects related to art. this highlights the characteristics of “university students” and the comprehensiveness of elementary education. therefore, while learning and mastering artistic skills is necessary, a greater emphasis should be placed on the comprehensive artistic cultivation, including the ability to perceive, experience, and appreciate art. the training in artistic skills and techniques should be conducted on the basis of developing good artistic perception. the fundamental goal of our art education is to foster an appreciation of art. regardless of how advanced artistic skills and techniques may be, if a student has a narrow perspective, low interest, and a dull perception, their artistic literacy will not be up to par. to cultivate students’ good artistic cultivation and healthy aesthetic perspectives, it is important for them to have a strong artistic perception and understanding. a good artistic aesthetic ability can only be achieved on the basis of a solid artistic perception ability. it is difficult to imagine that someone who lacks even a basic perception of form, space, structure, and color can truly appreciate an artwork, even with knowledge of certain appreciation methods and techniques. appreciation methods and techniques are predominantly rational, while perception is more intuitive and subjective. a good artistic aesthetic literacy requires an organic integration of both. therefore, cultivating a strong artistic perception is key to enabling students to achieve a good artistic aesthetic education. a higher level of art appreciation ability is required. with a certain level of artistic perception, students must also have a broad artistic perspective and a good grasp of the methods and rules of appreciating artistic knowledge. this will enable them to enhance their cognitive understanding from a perceptive level to a level of thoughts, concepts, and cultural refinement, and genuinely possess a high level of aesthetic appreciation. to achieve this, we include courses such as art appreciation, exploring the principles of art, and an introduction to art artistry. furthermore, in courses that focus on practical skills such as sketching and color, we also emphasize the organic integration of appreciation knowledge to achieve these objectives. although we are not training specialized art teachers and most students can only reach a basic level in terms of artistic performance skills, this does not mean they can only achieve “basic” levels in terms of artistic aesthetic abilities and perception. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. first-rate art critics are not necessarily individuals with exceptional artistic skills. they may even possess only a basic level of skills. this indicates that in terms of aesthetic perception and understanding, we should strive for excellence. this will allow us to reach a higher standard in the undergraduate level and emphasize the characteristics of being “university students”. while we may not achieve the same level of professionalism in art, as undergraduate students majoring in elementary education, we should aim for greater depth and breadth. this is due to the “comprehensiveness” and “general knowledge” required in elementary education. the requirements of this profession demand teachers to possess extensive knowledge in order to truly excel. otherwise, we will be unable to address the various issues encountered in primary education. art appreciation is fundamentally a humanities course. to achieve a higher level of appreciation ability, it is necessary to not only understand the necessary methods, principles, and knowledge of appreciation but also possess a broad understanding of humanistic literacy. the process of learning art appreciation itself enhances humanistic literacy. it is a process of using humanistic literacy to improve one’s character, soul, and moral cultivation while also participating in the “inheritance of civilization”. therefore, we mainly achieve these objectives through the following courses. these courses enhance students’ art appreciation abilities and improve their overall artistic literacy. through these courses, our aim is to systematically master the basic methods and principles of art appreciation, with a clear understanding of its objectives and significance. students should be able to demonstrate a higher level of appreciation ability for classical artworks from different cultures and be able to consciously apply the learned methods and principles to analyze and appreciate artworks. 3.2 possessing good artistic expression abilities 3.2.1 ability in sketching and color sketching sketching and color sketching are the foundations of all artistic creation. they are important tools to enhance our observational skills, sensitivity, and expressive abilities towards objects. the observation methods in sketching include observing from a holistic perspective, which involves observing the object as a whole from multiple angles. this allows for comprehensive comparisons and correct understanding. this method is the fundamental observation technique throughout the process of painting. comparative observation helps establish the correct relationship between various factors of the object. three-dimensional observation involves examining the object from multiple angles to determine the spatial position and distance between various objects, thus ensuring the accurate representation of the object’s three-dimensional spatial relationships from any angle. understanding observation involves simplifying the object to its simplest geometric forms, providing the initial motivation for understanding the object. artistic observation, as painting is not simply imitation, allows for individual unique experiences and perceptions when observing the same object. sometimes these experiences and perceptions are difficult to express through language, and can only be conveyed through the unique visual language of painting. learning to perceive things with an artistic perspective is essential. in general, the observation method starts from the whole, then moves to the details, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. finally returns to the whole. in the teaching of form and color, the purpose is not only to acquire necessary skills but to train students’ perceptual abilities, thus enhancing their overall artistic appreciation. 3.2.2 primary drawing skills focused on simple sketches mainly used for various drawings in subject teaching (such as hanging charts in language classes, geometric shapes in mathematics and science), as well as drawing and modeling in various promotional materials. the main methods to achieve these objectives include sketching, en plein air drawing, color theory, simple sketching, chinese painting, etc. the basic requirement is for students to be able to accurately and proficiently draw various commonly used drawings in primary education, especially a large number of simple sketches and cartoon styles, and possess basic creative abilities. 3.2.3 handcraft skills focused on paper art and clay modeling manual dexterity is extremely important in primary education because it often requires the creation of visual aids (such as paper-based models, masks, and clay sculptures) to optimize teaching. among these skills, paper art is undoubtedly the most widely used, convenient, and effective modeling skill, followed by clay modeling. regular use of modeling clay allows for the creation of various forms. therefore, we have established mandatory and elective courses for paper art and clay modeling to enhance students’ learning and mastery of the basic methods and principles of handmade creations. in addition, courses with a strong hands-on nature such as collage, recycling and design, and traditional handicrafts are included. these courses are also popular among primary students, enriching their creativity and imagination, further enhancing their manual dexterity training, and equipping them with more diverse and lively artistic skills for future art and other teaching activities. this enhances both the interest and effectiveness of teaching. 3.2.4 practical artistic skills focused on patterns primarily used for various forms of promotion (posters, collages, bulletin boards, etc.) and for decorating stages, classrooms, school campuses, and living spaces. these artistic creations accomplish the goals of both “beauty” and “art education”. these objectives are achieved through teaching courses such as pattern design, blackboard design, artistic lettering design, graphic composition, and blown plastic and paper block printing (more focused on decoration). 3.2.5 other abilities the aforementioned artistic skills are targeted at all students, with the overall goal of being able to apply these skills effectively in assisting the teaching of other subjects. a small number of students with special talents (participating in art activities) should be able to reach the level of basic competence in teaching primary school art. 3.3 acquiring the ability to teach art in primary school, especially in lower grade levels in the undergraduate elementary education major, students not only need to possess a high level of aesthetic literacy and essential art skills, but many also need to have the teaching knowledge and abilities required for teaching art in lower grade levels of primary school. a small number of students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. with artistic talents should possess the teaching knowledge and abilities needed to deliver complete art lessons in primary schools. they should also have preliminary research skills in art education. 4. discussion art education is one of the main components of implementing quality education in schools and a key pathway to improving the artistic literacy of undergraduate primary school teachers. the core objective of art education is to cultivate aesthetic creativity. currently, the status of art education in rural western primary schools varies widely. for students in the undergraduate elementary education major, who are being trained to become primary school teachers, they should have a good artistic cultivation, healthy aesthetic outlook, and a certain level of artistic expression abilities. on this foundation, they need to acquire the essential artistic skills and the ability to organize artistic activities in primary education. they should have preliminary knowledge and abilities to guide art education in primary schools. students with exceptional artistic talents should have higher abilities to guide art education in primary schools and possess a certain level of reflective inquiry skills in art teaching. references zhu, m. r. (2002). walking into the new curriculum. beijing normal university press. beijing. chinese ministry of education. (2001). art curriculum standards. beijing normal university press. beijing. yunnan provincial department of education. (2014, february 19). statistical analysis report on the development of education in yunnan province in 2001. yunnan provincial department of education. retrieved november 21, 2000, from https://jyt.yn.gov.cn/article/a130907483 zhang, g. b. (2003). teacher’s handbook for art education curriculum standards. huazhong normal university press. wuhan. he, w. l. (2003). forever avant-garde: reflection and critique of chinese contemporary art. zhengzhou university press. zhengzhou. luo, y. p. (2003). introduction to art (techniques and theoretical). chief editor of higher education fine arts series textbooks. lingnan art publishing house. guangzhou. yu, g. l. (1996). psychology of creativity/contemporary psychology of intelligence. zhejiang people’s publishing house. hangzhou. rudolf, a. (1993). thoughts on art teaching (chinese translation). hunan fine arts publishing house. changsha. wei, c. y. (2001). art education. world union art publishing house. beijing. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 71 original paper educational diplomacy of islamic republic of iran as the soft power strategy in the middle east ismail baniadam1*, malek zolghadr 2 & seyed farshid jafar paybandi3 1 phd candidate, international relations faculty, zanjan islamic azad university, zanjan, iran 2assistant professor, international relations faculty, zanjan islamic azad university, zanjan, iran 3assistant professor, international relations faculty, zanjan islamic azad university, zanjan, iran * phd candidate in international relations, zanjan islamic azad university, zanjan, iran received: august 19, 2024 accepted: september 27, 2024 online published: october 10, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p71 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p71 abstract nowadays, many countries are trying to increase their soft power authority using the university communication facilities. educational exchanges and the creation of university branches in different parts of the world, especially in countries where there are common cultural fields, give these countries the opportunity to interact with elites and students expand their influence. the university sector, as the most important and effective branch in creating the future of a country, will have a great impact on understanding and cultural alignment between nations. in this regard, one of the important regions that have a lot of common cultural identity with the islamic republic of iran is the middle east region. this article aims to answer the question of how the islamic republic of iran can use its academic capabilities as the educational diplomacy in order to promote its position as soft power in the middle east. accordingly, iran can use the cultural capacities, the persian language, the common background of civilization and the capability of its higher education, especially in the field of university exchanges to empower its soft power authority in the region. keywords education diplomacy, iran, soft power, middle east 1. introduction the culture factor is the most stable and effective element among the foreign policy elements of countries including political, military, economic and cultural elements, which helps to achieve other goals. in this framework, cultural diplomacy forms an important aspect of the country's foreign policy (schneider, 2010). cultural diplomacy allows countries to directly establish a stable spiritual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 72 relationship with the people of foreign lands, both ordinary people, and elites, for its political, economic, military, and security purposes. this diplomacy is especially applicable between nations that have a common culture and civilization (tenkorang, 2019). in the meantime, middle east is very important in the cultural diplomacy of the islamic republic of iran due to its presence in the geo-culture and civilization field of iran (dehshiri & taheri, 2016). the diplomacy that was used in the region, cultural diplomacy has a significant position. from the point of view of the islamic republic of iran, common iranian-islamic identity, historical explanation establishing close cultural relations with middle east countries. iran believes that the common culture has helped to develop friendly relations with these countries; it will create mutual understanding and regional cooperation (wastnidge, 2015). the fact that cultural borders are wider than political borders allows the islamic republic of iran to use these capacities to increase its soft power by using scientific and educational tools (azadi et al., 2015). however, it must be mentioned that despite the existence of common and deep connection between iranians and the people of this region, and despite the signing of multiple cultural agreements between the parties, the level of cultural interaction of the islamic republic iran's relations with countries require more attention (ganbarloo, 2021). ignoring cultural factors will cause iran to lose golden opportunities in the region and reduce iran's success rate with the presence of regional and trans-regional powers in the middle east (yazdani, 2020). different countries of the world have invested a lot on cultural and educational exchange programs, based on their cultural strength. one of the most important programs of cultural diplomacy in the field of education is to pay attention to the issue of attracting and exchanging foreign students in order to increase its soft power in other target countries while transferring its values to foreign academics and students (lassegard, 2016). on this basis, paying attention to the capacity of universities and the capacity of higher education in diplomacy is a very important factor in order to increase the soft power of countries. this is the same important theory for countries like iran, which has considerable capacity in the university and scientific sectors to empower its soft power in the region (dehshiri et al., 2016). as a critical regional player, the islamic republic of iran has many scientific and cultural capacities for developing its soft power, and accordingly this factor pave the way for iran to empower its authority conducting educational diplomacy. 2. soft power and educational diplomacy according to the theory of constructivism, each country appears in the scene of the international community with a "certain identity" which is the product of their beliefs, values, norms, ideology, territory, etc. (fosnot, 2013). the people of each country, by identifying themselves within certain territorial borders, carry the same values, norms, beliefs and ideologies that separate them from the people of the neighboring land who lack those values and beliefs (shannon & kowert, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 73 in fact, constructivism theory extends the change of identities at the structural level and creation of new beneficial identities in common areas respectively. it mostly refers to the explanation of what is created in the international space due to the emergence of these new identities (yoders, 2014). however, joseph nye's soft power approach has an explicit reference to build or change new identities using new tools such as cultural and educational diplomacy in the international system (nye, 1990). the concept of soft power aims to gain the consent of other actors through the use of various factors rather than economic and military pressure. in other words, soft power is the ability of a country to present its interests and power to other nations to impose their goals to them indirectly (gill & huang, 2023). the interaction of constructivism theory and soft power is to find the authority and objectivity of "humans, their beliefs and opinions" to undergo identity redefinition and changes in peoples’ behavioral priorities (guzzini, 2013). the constructivism, which tries to explain international events by using identity factors and domestic culture resources of countries, is the best and most suitable approach to understand the relationship between the two concepts of "identity" and "soft power" (feklyunina, 2016). therefore, the most important and effective way to get to know the culture and customs of a country and remove misconceptions is to attract people from other countries to be among the people of your country and socialize with them. from this point of view, cultural exchanges as a part of intercultural communication can play an important role in exporting culture and soft power (tella, 2021). education and university can play a key role in building identities or changing constructed identities and enable the country to fulfill national interests and produce and reconstruct such an attractive and representative culture that even affects transnational audiences (baxter, 200; gordon & whitchurch, 2010). regarding the relationship between education and politics, it should be noted that the educational system, in addition to acting as a precondition for the formation of the political system, is also considered a determining element in its implementation and continuation (persson, 2015; saltman, 2018). the educational system with the functions of education for the progress and continuity of the society and the transfer of culture as the hidden goal of the educational system seeks to transfer its national identity to its audience (youdell, 2010). in this regard, accepting a student is considered as important cultural exchange that can have an important impact on the transfer of the culture, norms and values of the destination country due to the longer duration of stay, association and deeper communication as the hidden tool of soft power strategy (bohman & borglin, 2014). nowadays, prestigious american universities are one of the tools and examples of the soft power of this country, which play a significant role in transferring american values to foreign students, some of whom become political and government officials of their country after graduation. in fact, american universities indirectly export the value, cultural and political www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 74 preferences of the united states to other countries ( luqiu & mccarthy 2019 and ostashova, 2020). accordingly, the influence of the soft power of education itself in identity formation is so significant that after the end of world war ii and defeating japan, the united states of america changed the japanese education system tried to weaken the power of japan's coherent identity during educational reforms (yasushi & mcconnell, 2015). nowadays, it has become one of the main priorities of the policy makers, so that universities have moved towards this diplomacy in order to gain international prestige and image, to raise the quality of education, reputation, and transfer social-cultural values in the form of soft power (adam & lerg, 2015). 3. soft power and educational diplomacy of iran iran's islamic revolution is based on islamic ideology and culture in the era of ideologies aims to propose a new approach in the field of foreign policy and international relations. to do so, iran uses culture as the best tool in its foreign policy along with military power and economy, and applies new tools and policies to influence other nations and countries without war and violence (soltani & amiri, 2010). one of the most important of these tools is "educational diplomacy" and the most important element of it is scientific and educational exchanges, including "attracting and accepting foreign students" (i̇nan, 2022). in education diplomacy, accepting of a large number of international students and researchers in the countries is considered as a social indicator of the soft power of the governments, leading to mutual understanding and recognition between the countries (arslan & sezgin, 2023). educational and student exchanges have helped to create an attractive and positive image of a country and improve the hope and prospects of the country to achieve desirable results (wei & hu, 2018). among the four elements of the national goals of islamic republic of iran including power, security, development, and promotion of islamic iranian culture and the revolution values in other countries, the last one is the most prominent one respectively. educational policy of iran aims to train international students who have a culture similar to iran’s culture (in the sense of knowledge, beliefs, values, insights, norms, customs) and act as individuals after returning to their countries to support the interests of iran in destination countries, mainly in middle (akbar, 2023). in general, the phenomenon of international students is considered as one of the important and effective variables in the higher education policy, and it is the source of various scientific, social and cultural activities which considered as the soft power policy in the form of educational diplomacy (ryan, 2012). 4. discussion and conclusion the presence of foreign students in the country provides a suitable opportunity to present a decent and appropriate picture of iran and provides the necessary conditions to reach an agreement on common www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 75 global values which considered a brilliant opportunity to transfer islamic revolution values (azadi et al., 2015). in is regard, it is believed that the policy of accepting foreign students in iran is considered as one of the most important strategies of cultural exchanges in the republic of iran and is considered one of the most important tools of cultural diplomacy in the form of educational policy (dehshiri & faghihi, 2019). iran has followed a cultural pattern in attracting international students since 1980. this means that promoting the goals of the islamic revolution in the target countries, which are mainly islamic and arab countries, has been a priority. the purpose of accepting foreign students is to support talented young people from islamic countries, and provide a suitable platform for more and better recognition of the islamic republic, to introduce, publish and develop iranian islamic culture and values (majidi & shojaei, 2021). by taking advantage of its soft power sources including ideology, scientific materials, iranian culture, and general iranian thoughts, along with giving various scholarships and suitable advertisements, iran provides the foundation for the presence of foreign students in the country. during their studies, foreign students take iranian cultural and ideology and perspectives and they play as the role of cultural ambassadors and sources of enlightenment in their own countries (dahshiri & taheri, 2015). the internationalization of higher education and, as a result, the acceptance of international students from destination countries, mainly from the middle east can create the promotion of national identity and empower legitimacy and global image and international dignity by taking advantage of the country's educational potential by accepting foreign students (rezaie mehr et al., 2020). the strategy of attracting international students in iran is considered as a symbolic cultural strategy whose purpose is to present a peaceful atmosphere in iran; in a way that even students from other countries can study in a really calm and secured country. in fact, the purpose of this approach is to reveal the positive image and diplomatic position of iran (molaei, 2018). references adam, t., & lerg, c. a. 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(2010). school trouble: identity, power and politics in education. routledge. educational diplomacy of islamic republic of iran ismail baniadam1*, malek zolghadr 2 & seyed farshi 1 phd candidate, international relations faculty, nowadays, many countries are trying to increase th in this regard, one of the important regions that keywords the internationalization of higher education and, the strategy of attracting international students references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 54 original paper the architectural path of collaborative management in performing arts organizations ruiwen zhang 1 1 art management, china conservatory of music, beijing, china received: june 03, 2023 accepted: july 25, 2023 online published: july 31, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p54 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p54 abstract under the background of the new era, performing arts organizations have become a cornerstone force in promoting the high-quality development of china’s culture. “how to explore the development models and general rules that promote internal and external collaborative management within organizations?” and “how to achieve dynamic balance within organizations with diverse collaborative models?” these are all crucial questions that managers of performing arts organizations should consider in this era. based on positioning theory and the logical perspective of organizational structuring functional types, this article proposes a “three-step” development strategy for the internal and external collaborative management of performing arts organizations from the value logic of arts management and the research perspective of history. the article also establishes an evaluation system for the internal and external collaborative management of performing arts organizations using the dea method and explores the full-process management architecture of integrated collaboration within and outside performing arts organizations. the aim is to provide theoretical support for the collaborative innovation and high-quality development of performing arts organization management. keywords performing arts organization, collaborative management, data envelopment analysis (dea) 1. introduction in the context of the new era, performing arts organizations have become a key force driving the high-quality development of culture in our country. research on performing arts organizations should be rooted in meeting the demands of the general public and aim to create high-quality artistic products with profound ideas, artistic excellence, and excellent production. questions such as “how to explore the development models and general principles that promote collaborative management in organizations?” and “how to achieve dynamic balance in diverse collaborative modes?” have become www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. timely issues that performing arts organization managers should consider. as the main force in the creation and production of chinese cultural and artistic products, performing arts organizations are an important carrier of promoting cultural self-confidence. whether their development and construction are scientifically sound and whether they achieve internal and external collaborative management are key factors directly related to the success or failure of national cultural and artistic development. literature research has found that scholarly research has expanded the research perspectives on performing arts organizations both vertically and horizontally, yielding fruitful results and laying a solid foundation for further research. this has made “research on internal and external collaborative management of performing arts organizations” possible across multiple dimensions such as comprehensive cultural systems, artistic organizations, artistic creation, and artistic talent cultivation. however, according to parallel reasoning from both horizontal and vertical dimensions, the current research mostly focuses on qualitative studies, with limited quantitative and empirical research from the perspective of internal and external collaborative management. moreover, most studies concentrate on the internal management of specific performing arts organizations, which limits the research validity, reliability, and comprehensiveness. therefore, conducting research on internal and external collaborative management of performing arts organizations using mixed research methods can play an important role in optimizing management, improving artistic production efficiency, ensuring artistic production quality, and providing beneficial precedents for government cultural policy development. there is still considerable and expandable research space in the field of internal and external collaborative management research in performing arts organizations. from a practical perspective, although a complete theoretical framework for collaborative management of performing arts organizations has not yet been established, a few performing arts organizations have already explored it in practice. for example, the china national traditional orchestra has taken a unique position in the artistic market by adhering to its social positioning as a representative of the national image and promoting the culture of traditional chinese music. the orchestra’s team organization has a tight and well-organized internal structure, consisting of departments such as the office, ethnic orchestras, ethnic choirs, performance centers, finance departments, and personnel departments, each with clear responsibilities and functions. the orchestra’s personnel management mechanism includes personnel establishment, talent mobility, assessment, and appointment systems to ensure that top talents enter the orchestra’s work and enhance the quality of the team. in its relatively well-developed internal management, functional types, artistic transferability, hierarchical structure, institutional structure, and cultural structure, the china national traditional orchestra is constantly embracing external voices and keeping pace with the times. through a structured logic of internal and external collaborative management, it continuously promotes its spiral-like upward development. for instance, the orchestra collaborated with director wang chaoge to create a large-scale musical drama called “rediscovering chinese music”, which is an ethnic innovation based on feedback from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. external perception that “the repertoire being played mostly consists of the ‘three old pieces’”. amid the continuous changes in the artistic and institutional environment and audience aesthetics, the musical drama, with the audience’s social relational network as its core and demand-driven innovative internal creative methods and internal management models, has appeared in an extraordinary form that integrates music with scenery, blending different scenes, and has become a music concert combining western opera, drama, symphony, and musicals in a unique way. in the continuous “macro-micro-macro-micro” cycles of innovative management models and modern management concepts, scientific and standardized management approaches have been provided for the innovative development of the large-scale ethnic musical drama. specific measures include leveraging external efforts to open markets and showcase the charm of ancient chinese culture when the variable of “artistic transferability” is reduced, promoting win-win situations for productions and enterprises through innovative marketing models when the variable of “artistic environment” changes, portraying music stories in accordance with the audience’s perspective, and advancing promotion and sales to increase market acceptance, thus paving the way for the inheritance of ethnic music. the exploration of internal and external collaborative management by the china national traditional orchestra underlines the importance of reevaluating traditional chinese music not with outdated perspectives, but by appreciating it through the ingenious fusion of tradition and modernity. this has allowed traditional chinese music to be showcased on the western stage with innovative and classical art forms, promoting the progress and development of ethnic music. as the main body of performing arts organizations and through their artistic works, performing arts organizations have demonstrated the profound charm of chinese traditional culture to the world. in conclusion, collaborative management in performing arts organizations has been the subject of numerous attempts and explorations in practice, but it still requires further research on the theoretical level. therefore, the introduction of mixed research methods is highly valuable in studying the collaborative management of performing arts organizations. it can play a significant role in optimizing management, improving artistic production efficiency, ensuring artistic production quality, and serving as a beneficial precedent for government cultural policymaking. as a result, this paper adopts a research approach that starts with the logical perspectives of positioning theory and structured functional types of organizations, combined with empirical studies using historical research perspectives and case investigations. the research follows a path of problem identification, problem deconstruction, in-depth exploration, examination of the current status, and problem resolution. 2. method the logical framework matrix facilitates a systematic and structured analysis of the internal and external collaborative management models of performing arts organizations. due to the temporal characteristics of performing arts organizations, they must adapt to survive in the external environment. the external environment is considered a significant factor influencing the structural development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. performing arts organizations and has been a key focus of theoretical research since the 1960s and 1970s. the contingency theory (perrow (note 1), 1986) proposed in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by scholars suggesting the combined effect of external factors such as technological changes and institutional environments with internal factors such as life cycle, scale and scope, strategy, technology, knowledge level, and functional types, on the evolution of performing arts organizations (massini (note 2), 2002). all of this supports the conclusion that the internal and external collaborative management of performing arts organizations is the correct management approach for promoting their high-quality development. based on coleman’s (note 3) (1990) three explanatory stages of social phenomena and the fundamental essence of organizational structuration, the author elaborates on the logical framework of internal and external collaborative management from the perspective of the structuralization of performing arts organizations (figure 1). figure 1. illustration of the logical framework for collaborative management in performing arts organizations external environmental factors of performing arts organizations, by providing resources to the organizations, bring about changes in the artistic functional types, management models, and artistic transferability within the organizations. these changes in functional types, management models, and artistic transferability within performing arts organizations lead to adaptive changes in organizational hierarchical structures, institutional structures, and cultural structures. over a longer period in the social scope, the transformation of the structure of performing arts organizations will in turn have a counter-effect on the external environment. in this way, the continuous cycle of “macro-micro-macro-micro” not only realizes the structuring of performing arts organizations but also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. promotes a spiral upward development of internal and external environments as artistic resources and knowledge systems interact in a continuous cycle. this formation creates a structured logical closed loop of coordinated management between internal and external environments. 3. result under the logic framework of coordinated management within and outside performing arts organizations, from the theoretical perspective of art management and with the value logic of art management as a profession, a comprehensive development strategy is proposed in a three-step process of focusing, consolidating, and improving the positioning for the promotion of coordinated management of internal and external aspects of performing arts organizations. 3.1 focused position focusing on positioning, constructing a model of factors influencing the transformation of performing arts organizations. from the perspective of management, an organization is an open social-technical system, and its operation entails a dynamic process of mutual interaction with various environments. each organization has a multi-level, multi-factor, complex, and ever-changing background. in order to develop, organizations must continuously adjust and improve their structure and functions to enhance flexibility and adaptability in the changing context, which necessitates constant organizational transformation. based on the changes in the internal and external environments of performing arts organizations, it is important to timely adjust, improve, and innovate elements within the organization, such as management philosophy, work methods, organizational structure, staff allocation, organizational culture, and technology. studying the factors influencing the transformation of performing arts organizations contributes to the effective positioning of these organizations, quantifying the absolute values of each influencing factor in the form of influential factor calculations and exploring the key positioning content that can truly implant into the audience’s mindset. clarifying the various factors that influence organizational transformation is the foundation for constructing a model of factors influencing the transformation of performing arts organizations. in recent years, researchers have categorized factors influencing organizational transformation based on types. the first is open system factors, with the main influencing factors being external environment and technological indicators. the second is internal factors, with primary influencing factors including organizational strategic goals, organizational culture, size, and lifecycle. these two major factors determine the success or failure of organizational transformation. based on this, an influential factor model of performing arts organizational transformation can be established to facilitate the focused positioning of performing arts organizations (figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. figure 2. model of factors influencing the transformation of performing arts organizations based on the model depicted in figure 2, an analysis of the influencing factors of performing arts organizations can be conducted by examining different dimensions of external and internal factors. considering the characteristics of performing arts organizations, the external influencing factors can be identified as follows: national policies and cultural initiatives (social environment), utilization and mastery of modern technological means (science and technology), market competition among similar performing arts organizations. the internal influencing factors can be identified as follows: strategic top-level design of the performing arts organization (organizational strategy), organizational structure of the performing arts organization, formulation of developmental goals in different stages of the performing arts organization (organizational scale and developmental stage), organizational history and culture of the performing arts organization, cohesion and talent recruitment policies of the performing arts organization (organizational talent management), leadership of the management team of the performing arts organization (organizational management level), and core competitiveness of the performing arts organization. based on these factors, each influencing factor of the performing arts organization can be further analyzed and positioned to promote sustainable development of performing arts organizations. 3.2 solidifying position solidifying positioning contributes to the coordinated management of internal and external aspects of performing arts organizations, enabling sustainable development. in the specific implementation process, it is necessary to base it on the model of factors influencing the transformation of performing arts organizations. after calculating the data obtained from research, the theory of management coordination effects should be applied, integrating internal and external management to form an integrated and standardized management approach where “1 + 1 >2”. this approach considers the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. social environment, scientific technology, and market competition together. by drawing lessons from history, adopting a proactive mindset, observing the trends of the times, and seizing favorable opportunities, we can understand the mission of technological empowerment in the historical process of world cultural and technological development. technological empowerment serves as an important catalyst for promoting innovative development in performing arts organizations. through the establishment of information platforms and the integration of new technologies into new performance formats, cultural exchange can be broadened. it is essential to strike a balance between new media and traditional development, and strive for a win-win situation in terms of social and economic benefits. at the same time, during the “14th five-year plan” period, we should take the major strategic task of china’s economic development as our guide and coordinate supply-side macro-control with demand-side management. this will lead to a higher level of dynamic balance between demand-driven supply and supply-driven demand. the author has organized the dynamic coordination between the supply side and demand side of performing arts organizations into figure 3. figure 3. dynamic coordination figure of supply side and demand side in performing arts organization the management and operation of performing arts organizations should fully leverage the synergistic effect. the supply side (performing arts organizations) should integrate tradition and innovation under the guidance of national macro policies, creating high-quality artistic content that aligns with national macro plans and policy directions. they should also engage in top-level design for the implementation of projects within the organization. at the same time, performing arts organizations should constantly pay attention to the consumption trends, audience evaluations, and feedback from the demand side (audience). based on external feedback from the demand side, utilizing the framework of the closed-loop logic of coordinated management in performing arts organizations, continuous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. improvement and adjustments should be made to the top-level design projects within the organization to achieve a balance between supply and demand. this will help maximize the effectiveness of performing arts organization management. 3.3 refining position to achieve the coordinated management and sustainable development of performing arts organizations, it is necessary to focus on the full-process management. therefore, in the later stages of management, an effect feedback mechanism can be established in a quantitative form to create a scientific, standardized, and empirical performance evaluation system for performing arts organizations. data envelope analysis (dea) is a relative efficiency evaluation method developed based on the concept of relative efficiency, first proposed by renowned american operations researchers a. charnes, w.w. coo, and others. a decision-making unit (dmu) is used to represent a decision unit, and the guiding principle for determining dmu is that, in terms of “resource consumption” and “productivity,” each dmu can be considered as the same entity, meaning that, from a certain perspective, all dmus have the same inputs and outputs. through the comprehensive analysis of input and output data, dea can determine the quantity index of the overall efficiency for each dmu. this allows for the ranking of dmus, identifying effective (i.e., relatively efficient) dmus, and indicating the reasons and degrees of inefficiency for other dmus, providing management information to the supervisory department. based on this, it can be determined whether the input scale of each dmu is appropriate, and the correct direction and degree of adjustment to the input scale can be provided, such as whether to expand or reduce and by how much. among them, the ccr model and bcc model are the most basic and important dea models. suppose there are n performing arts organizations. for the pth performing arts organization (dmup, where p is the currently evaluated performing arts organization number and 0 ≤ p ≤ n), there are m input indicators and s output indicators. the input indicator set for the performing arts organization is denoted as xp, xp = (x1p, x2p,…, xmp), and the output indicator set for the performing arts organization is denoted as yp, yp = (y1p, y2p,…, xsp). at this point, the ccr model can be represented in linear programming form (multiplier model)—(1): here, i denotes the number of input indicators, r denotes the number of output indicators, and j denotes the number of performing arts organizations (j can take the value of p); zp represents the weighted sum of outputs for dmup, i.e., the efficiency value of dmup; urp represents the weight, indicating the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. relative importance of yrp; yrp represents the rth output indicator of the pth performing arts organization; vip represents the weight, indicating the relative importance of xip; xip represents the ith input indicator of the pth performing arts organization. let the optimal value of equation (1) be denoted as zp. the second term in equation (1) represents the constraint that the sum of weights for the pth organization over j organizations must satisfy. based on equation (1), the dual form of the ccr model, which has significant economic and social benefits, can be obtained (envelopment model)—(2): by applying the dea method, all the sub-projects encompassed within performing arts organizations can be regarded as decision-making units in the dea method. the model can be used for hierarchical positioning evaluation, providing insights into further improving the performing arts organization’s internal management levels under the conditions of its own resource allocation. this facilitates optimizing the allocation of internal resources to enhance the core competitiveness and strategic development positioning of the performing arts organization. based on this, a dea evaluation framework for performing arts organizations (figure 4) is constructed, establishing an evaluation system for internal and external management of performing arts organizations. subsequent performing arts managers and researchers can use this as a guiding principle, conduct in-depth research on various evaluation factors of performing arts organizations, incorporate empirical research data, and perform calculations to achieve a full-process management within the logical framework of coordinated internal and external management in performing arts organizations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. figure 4. dea evaluation framework for performing arts organizations 4. discussion the introduction of empirical research in the field of performing arts management holds significant implications and is critical for advancing our understanding in this domain. this study serves as a catalyst for future investigations, cultivating a pathway for further scholarly exploration. scholars are encouraged to enhance their research endeavors by embracing a combined approach that integrates both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. the significance of this study lies in its empirical nature, which contributes substantially to the existing body of knowledge in performing arts management. through the application of positioning theory and analysis of organizational functional types, it offers a distinct perspective on collaborative management within the realm of performing arts organizations. these findings contribute to both theoretical and practical aspects by shedding light on the intricate dynamics of collaboration specific to this context. it is paramount for future research endeavors to incorporate a synergistic approach that combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. while this study provides valuable insights into collaborative management, a comprehensive understanding can be achieved by integrating diverse research approaches. quantitative methods, including statistical analysis, can provide objective measures of performance and effectiveness. in contrast, qualitative methods, such as interviews and case studies, capture the subjective experiences of stakeholders, offering in-depth contextual comprehension. adopting a mixed-methods research design will enable scholars to gain a nuanced understanding of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. complex dynamics of collaborative management in performing arts organizations. this approach allows researchers to triangulate their findings by validating and enriching the results through complementary data sources. furthermore, future studies should explore the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed three-step development strategy across varied cultural and artistic contexts. considering the unique characteristics of different performing arts organizations, such research would shed light on the implementation and outcomes of collaborative management practices. comparative studies encompassing diverse regions and artistic disciplines would provide insightful contributions and foster the generalizability of the findings. in conclusion, this study underscores the importance of introducing empirical research in the field of performing arts management. its contribution lays the foundation for future investigations and emphasizes the need for scholars to enrich their research endeavors by adopting a combined approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative methodologies. this approach would facilitate a comprehensive understanding of collaborative management and its impact within performing arts organizations. references brown, w. a. (2005). exploring the association between board and organizational performance in nonprofit organizations. nonprofit management and leadership, 15(3), 317-339. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.71 barker, e., barker, w., burr, w., polk, w., & smid, m. (2014). recommendation for key management part 2: best practices for key management organization. create space independent publishing platform. balnaves, m., & caputi, p. (2001). introduction to quantitative research methods: an investigative approach. sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209380 conte, d., & langle, s. (2007). theatrere management: producing and managing the performing arts. california: luite specific media group, ltd. kershaw, b. (ed). (2011). research methods in theatre and per formanc lce. edinburgh university press. kushner, r. j., & poole, p. p. (2010). exploring structure-effectiveness relationships in nonprofit arts organizations. nonprofit management & leadership. leidner, d. (2000). knowledge management and knowledge management systems. lifelong learning in europe, 9(2-3), 101-105. lawrence, n. (2005). social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. social research methods qualitative & quantitative approaches, 39(3), 447-448. mugenda, o. m., & mugenda, a. g. (1999). research methods: quantitative and qualitative approaches. african centre for technology studies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. milgrom, p., & milgrom, p. (1992). economics, organization and management. prentice-hall. saidel, j. r. (1991). resource interdependence: the relationship between state agencies and nonprofit organizations. public administration review. https://doi.org/10.2307/976605 teece, d. j., pisano, g., & shuen, a. (2009). dynamic capabilities and strategic management. strategic management journal, 509-533. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-0266(199708)18:7<509::aid-smj882>3.0.co;2-z randall, m., andrei, s. et al. (1988). management ownership and market valuation: an empirical analysis. journal of financial economics. rentschler, r., radbourne, j., carr, r., & rickard, j. (2002). relationship marketing, audience retention and performing arts organisation viability. international journal of nonprofit and voluntary sector marketing. https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.173 vries, m. f. r. k. d. (1999). what’s playing in the organizational theater? collusive relationships in management. human relations, 52(6). https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679905200604 notes note 1. di maggio, p., & powell, w. w. (1983). the iron cage revisited: collective rationality and institutional isomorphism in organiza-tional fields. american sociological review, 1983, 48(2), 147-160. note 2. massini, s., lewin, a. y., numagami, t., & pettigrew, a. m. (2002). the evolution of organizational routines among large western and japanese firms. research policy, 31(8), 1333-1348. note 3. coleman, j. s. (1990). foundations of social theory. cambridge: belknap press of harvard university press, 1990. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 28 original paper research and application of traffic flow prediction in chengdu city based on neural network algorithms menglu yu1* 1 urban and rural construction department, southwest jiaotong university hope college, chengdu, sichuan 610400, china *yu menglu, urban and rural construction department, southwest jiaotong university hope college, chengdu, sichuan 610400, china received: july 29, 2024 accepted: september 02, 2024 online published: september 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p28 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p28 abstract as urban traffic systems increase in complexity, accurately predicting traffic flow has become a critical task in traffic management and planning. this paper employs neural network technologies, specifically graph convolutional networks (gcn) and long short-term memory networks (lstm), to develop a traffic flow prediction model for chengdu that incorporates spatio-temporal characteristics. through empirical analysis, the model demonstrates high accuracy and good generalization capability, effectively predicting and analyzing traffic flow at different times and regions. additionally, this study explores the application of the prediction model in traffic law regulation and policy formulation, providing data support and scientific basis for advancing smarter traffic systems. keywords neural networks, traffic flow prediction, graph convolutional networks, long short-term memory networks, chengdu 1. introduction the rapid urbanization and development of cities worldwide have led to increasingly complex traffic systems. this complexity not only challenges current traffic management strategies but also stresses the need for more advanced predictive mechanisms. chengdu, as a major city in china, experiences significant challenges in managing its urban traffic. efficient traffic flow management can reduce congestion, minimize emissions, and improve city livability. predictive models that can accurately forecast traffic volumes and patterns are essential tools for urban planners and traffic management authorities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 29 1.1 background and significance the integration of information technology with traffic management, termed as intelligent transportation systems (its), has been pivotal in enhancing traffic operations and safety. among the technologies, neural networks have emerged as a powerful tool for understanding and predicting complex systems, including traffic flows. these models can process vast amounts of data and capture the nonlinear relationships within traffic systems. specifically, graph convolutional networks (gcn) and long short-term memory (lstm) networks have shown promising results in capturing spatial and temporal dependencies of traffic flow, respectively. the application of these models in a city like chengdu, which features a diverse and dynamic traffic network, could provide insights that are significantly beneficial for real-time traffic management and long-term urban planning. 1.2 objectives of the study the primary objectives of this study are to: (1) develop a predictive model using a combination of gcn and lstm to forecast traffic flow in chengdu city accurately. (2) evaluate the performance of this model against existing baseline models in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency. (3) explore the application of the predictive outcomes in supporting traffic management and policy-making, aiming to enhance the responsiveness and effectiveness of traffic regulation measures. (4) assess the potential integration of the model's predictions into the legal framework guiding traffic management and urban planning in chengdu. these objectives aim to leverage the capabilities of advanced neural networks to provide a robust tool for traffic administrators, helping mitigate congestion problems and improve the overall traffic flow within urban environments. 2. literature review this section reviews existing literature related to traffic flow prediction, focusing on the evolution of traditional models to modern neural network-based models, and highlighting the integration of specific architectures like graph convolutional networks (gcn) and long short-term memory (lstm) networks. 2.1 previous work on traffic flow prediction traffic flow prediction has historically utilized a variety of statistical and machine learning methods to address the dynamic and complex nature of urban traffic. early approaches included time-series analysis, such as the autoregressive integrated moving average (arima) models, which were widely used for their simplicity and effectiveness in short-term predictions. however, these models often failed to capture the spatial dependencies inherent in traffic systems across different regions of a city. the advent of more sophisticated models like k-nearest neighbors (k-nn) and support vector machines (svm) brought improvements by considering non-linear patterns in traffic data, yet these too were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 30 limited in handling large-scale data or real-time processing needs. 2.2 neural network models in traffic prediction with the increase in computational power and availability of large datasets, neural networks have become the cornerstone of traffic prediction. deep learning models, particularly those employing neural networks, have demonstrated superior ability to model complex interactions both temporally and spatially. convolutional neural networks (cnns) have been applied to capture spatial features from grid-like data structures, such as traffic images or occupancy matrices, while recurrent neural networks (rnns) and their variants like lstm have been effective in modeling temporal dependencies. the lstm networks, in particular, have addressed the vanishing gradient problem typical of standard rnns, making them more effective for longer sequence predictions which are common in traffic data. 2.3 integration of gcn and lstm in traffic systems the integration of gcn with lstm represents a significant advancement in traffic prediction research. gcns are particularly suited for traffic prediction because they can model the non-euclidean structure of road networks. these networks treat the road network as a graph where intersections and roads are nodes and edges, respectively. gcns apply convolutional operations on these graphs to capture spatial dependencies among the nodes. when combined with lstm, which effectively captures temporal dependencies, the integrated model can predict traffic flow by learning from both the spatial layouts and temporal patterns of traffic data. recent studies have shown that such integrated models not only enhance prediction accuracy but also improve the model’s ability to generalize across different urban settings, making them highly suitable for cities like chengdu with complex and evolving traffic networks. the review of literature thus underscores the potential of neural network models, especially the synergy between gcn and lstm, to revolutionize traffic flow prediction in urban environments, providing a robust framework for real-time and accurate traffic management solutions. 3. methodology this section outlines the methodology employed in this study to develop and validate a neural network-based traffic flow prediction model for chengdu city. it encompasses the data collection, preprocessing techniques, neural network architecture, and the training and validation processes. 3.1 data collection and preprocessing the dataset utilized in this study comprises traffic flow data collected from various sources in chengdu, including loop detectors, cctv cameras, and gps data from public transportation vehicles. the data spans a period of two years, capturing diverse traffic patterns on weekdays, weekends, and public holidays. key attributes include traffic volume, speed, and density at different times of the day across various road segments. preprocessing steps involved: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 31 (1) cleaning: removal of outliers and erroneous data points that could skew the model's learning process. (2) normalization: scaling the traffic attributes to a standard range to aid in the neural network’s convergence. (3) feature engineering: extracting time-related features like time of day, day of the week, and holiday flags, alongside spatial features like road type and connectivity. (4) temporal segmentation: structuring data into sequences to feed into the lstm network, where each sequence represents traffic conditions over successive time intervals. 3.2 neural network architecture the neural network architecture designed for this study combines the capabilities of gcn and lstm to model the spatial and temporal dynamics of traffic flow respectively. 3.2.1 graph convolutional networks (gcn) gcn layers are utilized to process the spatial structure of the road network. the road network is represented as a graph where intersections are nodes, and roads are edges. the gcn processes this graph to learn the spatial relationships between different nodes (intersections/roads). it uses convolutional operations that are specifically tailored to work with graphs. these operations help in capturing the dependencies among interconnected roads, which is critical for understanding traffic flow patterns in a networked urban area. 3.2.2 long short-term memory networks (lstm) lstm layers are employed to capture temporal dependencies in the traffic data. the lstm's ability to maintain a memory of past data makes it well-suited for time series predictions like traffic flow, which depend heavily on previous states. the lstm layers process the output from the gcn, integrating the spatial features with temporal trends to predict future traffic conditions. this integration allows the model to make predictions based on both immediate past conditions and the typical traffic flow patterns observed over time. 3.3 model training and validation model training involves feeding the preprocessed data through the combined gcn and lstm architecture. the model is trained using a backpropagation algorithm optimized by adam, a stochastic gradient descent method known for its efficiency in handling sparse gradients on noisy problems. validation of the model is performed using a separate set of data, which was not included in the training phase. this helps in assessing the model's generalization capability. the primary metrics for evaluating model performance include mean absolute error (mae), root mean squared error (rmse), and the coefficient of determination (r²). these metrics provide insights into the accuracy and predictive power of the model. the methodology ensures a robust framework for developing a predictive model that is not only accurate in forecasting traffic conditions but also practical for implementation in real-world traffic management systems in chengdu. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 32 4. results the results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of the combined gcn and lstm model in predicting traffic flow in chengdu. this section delves into the detailed performance analysis of the model based on the collected and preprocessed dataset. 4.1 model performance analysis the traffic flow prediction model developed in this study was trained and tested on a comprehensive dataset comprising various traffic indicators from chengdu. the performance of the model was evaluated using several statistical metrics which provide insights into the accuracy and reliability of the predictions. 4.1.1 accuracy metrics used (1) mean absolute error (mae): measures the average magnitude of the errors in a set of predictions, without considering their direction. it’s the average over the test sample of the absolute differences between prediction and actual observation where all individual differences have equal weight. (2) root mean squared error (rmse): measures the square root of the average of squared differences between prediction and actual observation. rmse is a good measure of accuracy that gives a relatively high weight to large errors, emphasizing the need to avoid large errors in predictive modeling. (3) coefficient of determination (r²): provides an indication of goodness of fit and therefore a measure of how well unseen samples are likely to be predicted by the model, through the proportion of total variation of outcomes explained by the model. 4.1.2 performance outcomes (1) the model achieved an mae of 2.45 vehicles per minute, indicating minor deviations from the actual traffic volumes, which suggests high accuracy in the traffic predictions for typical daily conditions. (2) the rmse was calculated to be 3.15 vehicles per minute, which reaffirms the model's ability to predict traffic flows with minimal large-scale errors, crucial for reliable traffic management and planning. (3) an r² value of 0.92 was observed, demonstrating that the model could explain 92% of the variance in the traffic flow data, a strong indicator that the model performs well across various traffic conditions and times. the high r² value along with low mae and rmse signifies not only the model's accuracy but also its robustness in handling the complexities of urban traffic flow dynamics. this performance underscores the capability of integrating spatial graph data with temporal dynamics effectively through the use of gcn and lstm networks. the analysis also involved assessing model performance across different times of the day and under varying traffic conditions (e.g., peak hours vs. non-peak hours, weekdays vs. weekends). this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 33 granularity in performance evaluation helped in identifying specific conditions where the model could be further optimized, such as during sudden traffic surges due to special events or accidents, which are not part of the regular traffic pattern. this comprehensive performance analysis confirms that the proposed neural network architecture effectively captures both the spatial and temporal dependencies in urban traffic, demonstrating its potential as a reliable tool for traffic management and planning in cities like chengdu. 4.2 comparative study with baseline models in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed gcn-lstm model, a comparative analysis was conducted against several widely-used baseline models: support vector machine (svm), autoregressive integrated moving average (arima), and convolutional neural network (cnn). these models were chosen based on their prevalence in traffic prediction literature and their differing approaches to handling time-series data. the performance metrics compared include mean absolute error (mae), root mean squared error (rmse), the coefficient of determination (r²), precision, recall, f1-score, and training time. table 1. expanded comparison of model performances model mae (vehicles/min) rmse (vehicles/min) r2 precision recall f1-score training time (minutes) gcn-lstm 2.45 3.15 0.92 0.95 0.93 0.94 45 baseline model 1 (svm) 3.5 4.5 0.85 0.88 0.86 0.87 30 baseline model 2 (arima) 4 5 0.8 0.82 0.81 0.81 25 baseline model 3 (cnn) 3 4 0.88 0.9 0.89 0.89 35 the table 1 above provides a clear view of the advantages held by the gcn-lstm model over traditional and other neural network-based models. the gcn-lstm model not only exhibits superior performance in terms of accuracy (mae, rmse, r²) but also demonstrates high effectiveness in identifying relevant traffic patterns, as evidenced by its high scores in precision, recall, and f1-score. additionally, while the training time is higher for the gcn-lstm model, the gains in predictive accuracy and reliability justify the additional computational expense. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 34 4.3 discussion of findings the findings from the comparative analysis clearly support the hypothesis that integrating gcn with lstm enhances the model's ability to capture complex spatial and temporal traffic patterns in an urban environment. the superior performance of the gcn-lstm model can be attributed to its dual ability to process non-euclidean data inherent in road network graphs (via gcn) and to remember long-term dependencies (via lstm). this integration allows for a more nuanced understanding of how traffic flows evolve over time and across different parts of the city, which is critical for applications in real-time traffic management and urban planning. moreover, the higher precision, recall, and f1-score of the gcn-lstm model suggest that it is not only accurate but also reliable in its predictions, minimizing false positives and negatives, which are crucial for making informed traffic management decisions. these attributes make the gcn-lstm model a compelling choice for deployment in its where decision-making speed and accuracy are paramount. overall, the results affirm that the gcn-lstm model holds significant promise for enhancing the capabilities of traffic prediction systems, contributing effectively to the development of smarter, more responsive urban transportation networks. 5. application 5.1 traffic management the integration of the gcn-lstm model into traffic management systems represents a significant advancement in the ability to monitor, predict, and control traffic flows in urban environments. the application of this model facilitates a range of traffic management activities including real-time traffic control, congestion mitigation, and traffic incident management, enhancing the overall efficiency and safety of the transportation network. 5.1.1 real-time traffic control the gcn-lstm model provides accurate, real-time predictions of traffic conditions, enabling traffic control centers to implement dynamic traffic signal adjustments. by predicting traffic volumes and flow patterns minutes or hours in advance, traffic signals can be optimized to reduce waiting times, improve traffic throughput, and decrease congestion. this proactive approach to traffic management helps in maintaining a smooth flow of traffic, especially during peak hours and on major thoroughfares. 5.1.2 congestion mitigation congestion often results from a lack of synchronization between demand and traffic control measures. the predictive power of the gcn-lstm model allows for anticipating areas of high congestion and implementing preemptive measures such as variable speed limits and strategic diversions. by adjusting speed limits based on predicted traffic volumes, cities can effectively manage the pace of traffic to prevent bottlenecks before they occur. additionally, informing drivers about predicted congested routes through real-time updates to navigation apps can encourage the use of alternative paths, thus dispersing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 35 traffic more evenly across the network. 5.1.3 traffic incident management traffic incidents such as accidents or breakdowns can cause significant disruptions. the gcn-lstm model can enhance incident response strategies by predicting the impact of incidents on traffic flow. with advance knowledge of how traffic patterns are likely to change following an incident, traffic managers can quickly implement strategies to mitigate these effects, such as rerouting traffic or dispatching emergency services more efficiently. this capability not only reduces the impact of incidents on overall traffic flow but also improves response times, potentially saving lives and reducing the risk of secondary incidents. the application of the gcn-lstm model in traffic management systems not only improves the responsiveness of these systems but also enhances their capacity to handle complex scenarios in a dynamic urban environment. by leveraging the predictive insights generated by this model, traffic management authorities can make more informed decisions that optimize the flow of traffic and enhance the safety and convenience of urban transportation. this represents a paradigm shift in how traffic is managed, moving from reactive to proactive management based on predictive analytics. 5.2 policy formulation and legal regulations the implementation of the gcn-lstm model goes beyond technical traffic management; it also significantly impacts policy formulation and the establishment of legal regulations. by providing detailed and accurate predictions about traffic patterns, this model aids policymakers in creating more informed, data-driven traffic laws and policies. policy decisions can be better tailored to address real-time and predictive traffic conditions, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of traffic laws. with the comprehensive analysis enabled by the gcn-lstm model, policymakers can identify trends and potential problem areas that require legislative attention. this might include areas frequently experiencing congestion, accident hotspots, or regions with insufficient traffic infrastructure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 36 figure 1. flowchart of model application in traffic management utilizing the insights provided by the model, traffic regulations can be dynamically adjusted. for example, traffic signal timings and speed limits can be modified in real-time to reflect current traffic conditions, reducing congestion and enhancing road safety. moreover, long-term policies such as road widening, the introduction of congestion charges, or the development of alternative routes can be planned with a clear understanding of future traffic trends. 5.3 limitations and practical implications while the gcn-lstm model offers substantial benefits, it is not without limitations. understanding these limitations is crucial for effective implementation and continuous improvement. 5.3.1 model dependency the accuracy of predictions heavily relies on the quality and quantity of input data. incomplete or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 37 inaccurate data collection can lead to misleading outputs, which in turn can affect traffic management and policy decisions adversely. 5.3.2 computational requirements the complexity of the gcn-lstm model demands significant computational resources for training and real-time analysis. this requirement may be a barrier for implementation in regions with limited technological infrastructure. 5.3.3 adaptability challenges the model needs to be continuously trained and updated to adapt to new patterns as urban layouts and traffic behaviors evolve. this ongoing requirement for data and model management entails a constant investment of resources. 5.3.4 data privacy concerns the extensive data collection necessary for this model raises concerns about user privacy, particularly regarding location and movement tracking. ensuring that data handling complies with privacy laws and regulations is essential. 5.3.5 practical implementation deploying the model effectively involves integration with existing traffic management systems, which may require significant adjustments and compatibility checks. moreover, the personnel involved in traffic management must receive appropriate training to interpret model outputs and make informed decisions. overall, while the gcn-lstm model presents a forward-thinking approach to traffic management and policy making, addressing these limitations is essential for its successful implementation and maximization of its benefits in urban planning and management. 6. future work 6.1 enhancements in model architecture while the current gcn-lstm model has demonstrated robust performance in predicting traffic flows and aiding in traffic management, future enhancements can further improve its efficacy and efficiency. key areas for architectural enhancements include: (1) incorporation of additional data sources: integrating more diverse data types, such as pedestrian flow data, environmental conditions, and social media sentiment analysis, can enhance the model's understanding of variables affecting traffic patterns. (2) model complexity optimization: by refining the architecture through techniques like pruning or the introduction of dropout layers, the model can be made more efficient without sacrificing accuracy. this optimization will reduce computational demands and enhance real-time processing capabilities. (3) advanced learning algorithms: implementing newer deep learning algorithms that focus on temporal-spatial relationships more effectively or exploring the use of federated learning to enhance privacy-preserving data analysis could yield significant benefits. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 38 (4) cross-modal data fusion techniques: enhancing the model’s ability to fuse data from different modalities (video, scalar sensors, text) in real-time could provide a more holistic view of traffic scenarios, leading to better predictions. 6.2 broader application scopes the potential applications of the gcn-lstm model extend beyond traditional traffic management systems. its predictive capabilities can be leveraged in various sectors where flow dynamics are critical. expanding the application scope of the gcn-lstm model can address complex challenges in urban planning, environmental monitoring, and public safety. for instance, predicting areas of high pollution concentration based on traffic flow predictions can help in timely decision-making to mitigate environmental impacts. figure 2. proposed framework for advanced traffic prediction system in urban planning, the model can help in simulating the impact of proposed infrastructures on traffic dynamics, aiding planners and decision-makers in evaluating the efficacy of different development projects. in public safety, the model’s predictive insights can be crucial in emergency response management, planning evacuation routes, and resource allocation during large-scale public events or emergencies. moreover, the adaptation of this model in non-urban contexts such as logistics and supply chain management demonstrates its versatility. here, it can predict the flow of goods and optimize routes not only based on traffic conditions but also considering factors like weather impacts and delivery schedules. future research will focus on customizing the model for these diverse applications, ensuring that the architecture can be easily adapted to different scenarios and requirements. this broadening of scope will not only enhance the utility of the gcn-lstm model but also push the boundaries of what predictive analytics can achieve in complex real-world environments. 7. conclusion 7.1 summary of key findings the research conducted on the gcn-lstm model has yielded significant insights into traffic flow www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 39 prediction and management, demonstrating substantial improvements over traditional methods. key findings from this study include: (1) enhanced prediction accuracy: the gcn-lstm model has shown superior performance in terms of mae, rmse, and r² compared to baseline models such as svm, arima, and cnn. this indicates a more accurate prediction of traffic conditions, which is crucial for effective traffic management. (2) effective integration of spatial and temporal data: the use of gcn to process spatial data and lstm to handle temporal dynamics has proven effective in capturing the complex interdependencies within urban traffic patterns. this integration allows for a comprehensive understanding of both the current traffic state and its evolution over time. (3) practical traffic management applications: the model’s predictive outputs have been successfully applied to real-world traffic management scenarios, including real-time traffic control, congestion mitigation, and incident management. these applications have demonstrated the potential to significantly improve traffic flow and reduce congestion. (4) informative for policy making: the insights provided by the model have also been instrumental in shaping traffic-related policies and regulations, ensuring that they are based on accurate and timely data. 7.2 contributions to the field and future directions the development and implementation of the gcn-lstm model represent a significant contribution to the field of intelligent transportation systems. this research contributes to the field by: (1) advancing predictive analytics in traffic management: the model sets a new standard for accuracy and reliability in traffic flow predictions, contributing to more sophisticated traffic management systems that can dynamically respond to changing conditions. (2) fostering data-driven decision making: by providing a reliable basis for traffic predictions, the model supports more informed decision-making in traffic management and urban planning, encouraging a shift towards more data-driven approaches in these fields. (3) encouraging multidisciplinary approaches: the integration of techniques from graph theory, neural networks, and time series analysis exemplifies the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach in tackling complex urban challenges. looking forward, the research will continue to explore enhancements in model architecture and broaden the application scope of the gcn-lstm model. future directions include: (1) exploration of additional data sources and fusion techniques: to further improve the model’s accuracy and adaptability, additional types of data and advanced data fusion techniques will be explored. (2) expansion into non-urban applications: investigating the model’s utility in non-urban settings such as logistics and supply chain management to optimize the flow of goods and services. (3) continual model optimization and adaptation: ongoing efforts will be made to optimize the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 40 model for real-time processing capabilities and to ensure it remains adaptable to new traffic patterns and urban developments. in conclusion, the gcn-lstm model not only enhances our ability to manage and predict urban traffic but also opens new avenues for research and application in broader areas, potentially transforming how we understand and interact with urban environments. acknowledgement thanks to the chengdu key research base of philosophy and social sciences-chengdu transportation + tourism big data application technology research base for its support for the 2023 project (project no.: 20231006; project category: general project; project name: research on chengdu traffic flow prediction based on neural network algorithm) references ahmed, m. k., & kim, j. h. (2021). graph convolutional networks for traffic prediction based on dynamic spatial-temporal dependency. journal of intelligent transportation systems, 35(3), 233-245. bai, c., & wang, d. (2022). real-time traffic flow prediction with integrated cnn and lstm networks. transportation research part c: emerging technologies, 129, 103150. chen, l., & liu, y. (2020). traffic prediction using deep learning methods with spatial-temporal correlations. transportation research procedia, 48, 2999-3010. gupta, a., & doshi, r. (2023). a survey on traffic data prediction using machine learning and deep learning techniques. expert systems with applications, 184, 115584. lee, j. k., & park, s. y. (2019). deep learning-based traffic flow prediction considering spatial-temporal correlations. journal of computational design and engineering, 6(4), 516-524. lin, t., & zhou, p. (2021). improving urban traffic flow predictions with transfer learning techniques. ieee transactions on intelligent transportation systems, 22(10), 6397-6406. singh, k. p., & gupta, i. (2020). utilization of lstm and gru neural network methods for traffic flow forecasting: a comparative study. neural computing and applications, 32(15), 10847-10859. wang, y., zhang, d., liu, q., shen, f., & lee, l. h. (2023). federated learning for urban traffic prediction with graph neural networks. transportation research part c: emerging technologies, 138, 103442. xu, b., & guo, x. (2022). advanced traffic management systems: integration of deep learning models for predictive analytics. ieee transactions on vehicular technology, 71(2), 1429-1441. zhao, j., & cao, y. (2019). forecasting urban traffic flow using deep convolutional neural networks. transportation letters, 11(8), 409-416. original paper research and application of traffic flow predictio menglu yu1* 1 urban and rural construction department, southwe * yu menglu, urban and rural construction departme abstract advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 132 original paper the integration and strategies of cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective jiakun luo1 1 college of art and design, xi’an fanyi university, xi’an, shaanxi, china received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 11, 2025 online published: march 01, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p132 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p132 abstract this paper discusses the integration and strategies of cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective. by analyzing the shortcomings of the current practical english courses in cultural teaching, a series of integration strategies aiming at enhancing students' intercultural communicative competence, cultural awareness and language application ability are proposed. these strategies include clarifying cultural teaching objectives, enriching cultural teaching content, adopting diversified teaching methods and improving teachers' professionalism, etc, aiming to provide useful references and lessons for cultural teaching in practical english courses. keywords intercultural perspective, practical english course, cultural teaching content introduction with the acceleration of globalization, cross-cultural communication has become an indispensable part of people's daily life and workplace work. as an international common language, english plays a crucial role in cross-cultural communication. as an important way to cultivate english application ability in the workplace, the teaching content of practical english courses should not only cover the enhancement of language skills, but also focus on the teaching of cultural knowledge and the cultivation of cross-cultural communication ability. however, the integration of cultural teaching content in the current practical english courses is still insufficient, and it is difficult to meet the requirements of cross-cultural communicative competence in the workplace under the background of globalization. therefore, it is of great practical significance to explore the integration and strategies of cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 133 1. the necessity of integrating cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective 1.1 enhancing workplace competitiveness: a key factor in the globalized workplace in the globalized workplace environment, intercultural communication skills have become an important yardstick to measure the comprehensive quality and competitiveness of people in the workplace. as a basic platform for cultivating international communication skills, the teaching content of practical english courses should not be limited to the teaching of language skills, but should also integrate rich cultural elements. through the systematic study of business etiquette, communication strategies and values in different cultures, learners are able to demonstrate excellent adaptability and flexibility in the broad arena of cross-cultural communication. this deep understanding and keen perception of multiculturalism can not only significantly enhance the international vision and cross-cultural sensitivity of people in the workplace, but also enable them to stand out in the fierce international competition, win the trust and respect of international partners, and thus effectively promote the smooth development and successful implementation of international cooperation projects. specifically, the integration of cultural teaching content helps learners to master business communication skills in different cultural contexts, such as how to flexibly use non-verbal behavior in cross-cultural negotiations, how to accurately interpret body language and facial expressions in different cultural contexts. the enhancement of these skills will enable learners to be more comfortable in the globalized workplace, effectively avoid misunderstandings and conflicts caused by cultural differences, and thus enhance the breadth and depth of personal career development. 1.2 enhancing cross-cultural awareness: the cornerstone of international understanding and respect the integration of cultural teaching content is of inestimable value to the cultivation of learners' cross-cultural awareness. intercultural awareness is an individual's deep understanding of and respect for different cultural phenomena, values and social customs in the context of globalization. through learning the social customs, religious beliefs, values and other deep-rooted contents of different cultures, learners can gradually break the limitations of their own cultural background and understand and accept cultural diversity with a more open and tolerant mind. this kind of cross-cultural understanding and respect not only helps to improve learners' personal qualities and charisma, but also plays the role of a bridge and a link in international exchanges, and promotes mutual understanding and friendly cooperation among different cultures. in today's globalization, people with cross-cultural awareness are more able to think at a global level, have a broader vision and more open-mindedness, and lay a solid foundation for international exchanges and cooperation. at the same time, the enhancement of intercultural awareness also helps to cultivate learners' sense of global citizenship, so that they can participate more actively in global affairs and contribute to the building of a community of human destiny. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 134 1.3 improving language application skills: an intrinsic motivation to deepen language comprehension and expression language is a carrier of culture, and the ability to apply language is often closely related to cultural understanding. incorporating cultural teaching content in practical english courses can not only help learners master basic language skills, but also guide them to deeply understand the cultural connotations and values behind the language. this in-depth integration of language and culture will make learners more comfortable in using english to communicate, more accurately express their thoughts and feelings, and more appropriately deal with various communicative situations. specifically, the integration of cultural teaching content helps learners to master the language expression habits and communication norms in different cultural backgrounds. for example, after understanding the modesty and subtlety of british culture, learners can more appropriately use euphemisms and ambiguities in english; after familiarizing themselves with the directness and openness of american culture, learners can more confidently express their own views and positions. this kind of language application not only helps to improve the learners' english communication ability, but also promotes the smooth intercultural communication, and builds a bridge for international cooperation and communication. at the same time, through a deeper understanding of the cultural connotations behind the language, learners are also able to more keenly capture the subtle differences and connections between different cultures, so as to more comprehensively grasp the complexity and diversity of international communication. 2. the current situation of the integration of cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective 2.1 imbalance in the proportion of cultural teaching content: the lack of dual-track parallelism between language skills and cultural understanding in the current teaching practice of practical english courses, a significant problem is that the proportion of cultural teaching content is obviously insufficient, forming the phenomenon of the dual-track parallel deficiency of language skills cultivation and cultural understanding enhancement. many courses still focus too much on the training of basic language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, which are of course indispensable for cross-cultural communication, but it is difficult to cope with the complex and changing cross-cultural situations in the context of globalization only by mastering language skills. the lack of cultural teaching content makes learners face the dilemma of incomplete information and superficial understanding when they come into contact with and understand business etiquette, communication strategies and values in different cultures. the limitations of this teaching mode not only restrict the comprehensive development of learners' cross-cultural communication skills, but also sow the hidden dangers of misunderstanding and conflict due to cultural differences in the globalized workplace, which seriously affects the efficiency of communication and the establishment of a solid cooperative relationship. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 135 further, the lack of cultural teaching content may also lead to the lack of necessary cultural sensitivity and adaptability of learners in cross-cultural communication. under the background of globalization, the increasingly diversified workplace environment requires practitioners not only to possess solid language skills, but also to have a deep understanding of and respect for different cultures. however, the current practical english courses do not have enough cultural teaching content, which makes it difficult for learners to accurately capture and interpret the cultural signals of clients and partners with different cultural backgrounds, thus affecting the development of effective communication and cooperation. 2.2 lack of systematization of cultural teaching content: the break between fragmented knowledge and complete frameworks although some practical english courses have realized the importance of cultural teaching content and have incorporated certain cultural elements into the courses, these contents tend to be scattered and fragmented, lacking systematicity and coherence. cultural knowledge is mostly taught in a point-by-point manner, failing to form a complete knowledge system and framework, leading to learners' confusion and disorientation in understanding and applying cultural knowledge. the lack of systematic cultural teaching content makes it difficult for learners to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of business etiquette, communication styles and values in different cultural contexts. such a fragmented approach to teaching cultural knowledge not only fails to help learners build up a complete knowledge system for intercultural communication, but also makes it difficult to cultivate their intercultural thinking and adaptability. in cross-cultural communication, learners may not be able to accurately judge and understand each other's cultural behaviors and cultural habits due to the lack of systematic cultural knowledge reserves, which may lead to misunderstanding and conflicts. in addition, the lack of systematic cultural teaching content may also affect learners' understanding of the complexity of intercultural communication. cross-cultural communication involves the interweaving and collision of multiple cultural factors, which requires learners to have comprehensive cultural knowledge and keen cross-cultural insight. however, the cultural teaching content of the current practical english courses is often too single and one-sided to meet this requirement, making it difficult for learners to cope with the complex and changing situations in cross-cultural communication. 2.3 disconnection between cultural teaching content and practical needs: the deviation between a single cultural perspective and multicultural needs another issue of concern is the obvious disconnect between the cultural teaching content and practical needs of practical english courses. some courses focus too much on the introduction and teaching of western culture, while neglecting business etiquette, communication styles and values in other cultures. this teaching mode with a single cultural perspective not only limits learners' knowledge and understanding of multiculturalism, but also affects their adaptability and competitiveness in the globalized workplace. in the context of globalization, the increasingly diversified environment of the workplace requires www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 136 practitioners to possess a broad understanding and deep knowledge of different cultures. however, the cultural teaching content of current practical english courses tends to be too biased towards western culture, ignoring the importance and influence of other cultural contexts. this single-culture perspective teaching mode makes it difficult for learners to adapt to customers and partners in different cultural contexts in cross-cultural communication, and they cannot accurately understand and respect their cultural practices and communication styles. in addition, the disconnection between cultural teaching content and actual needs may also lead to learners' cultural prejudice and misunderstanding in intercultural communication. due to the lack of comprehensive understanding and awareness of multiculturalism, learners may develop prejudice and misunderstanding due to a one-sided understanding of a certain culture, which in turn affects the development of effective communication and cooperation. such cultural prejudices and misunderstandings will not only affect learners' intercultural communicative competence, but may also have a negative impact on their personal image and career development. therefore, practical english courses should pay more attention to the diversity and inclusiveness of cultural teaching content in order to meet the requirements of the globalized workplace for intercultural communicative competence. 3. strategies for incorporating cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective 3.1 defining cultural teaching objectives when integrating cultural teaching content in practical english courses, the first task is to establish clear and definite cultural teaching objectives. these objectives should cover the cultivation of intercultural communication skills, the enhancement of cultural awareness and the strengthening of language application skills. by accurately setting the cultural teaching objectives, we can provide a powerful direction and practical basis for the selection of cultural teaching contents and the design of teaching methods. 3.2 enriching cultural teaching content 3.2.1 increase the introduction of multiculturalism practical english courses should vigorously increase the detailed introduction to multiculturalism, including but not limited to the norms of business etiquette, the uniqueness of communication styles and the diversity of values in different cultural backgrounds. by exploring business etiquette and communication styles in different cultures, learners will be able to adapt to the diversified needs of cross-cultural communication with greater ease; and by understanding the values of different cultures, learners will be able to broaden their horizons, recognize the world from a more comprehensive perspective, and thus cultivate a valuable global perspective and cross-cultural thinking. 3.2.2 combining practical cases in the workplace in order to further enhance the practicality and relevance of the cultural teaching content, practical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 137 english courses should be closely related to the reality of the workplace, and vivid workplace cases should be selected for in-depth analysis and lively discussion. by analyzing real cases of cross-cultural communication in the workplace, learners can experience business etiquette, communication styles and values in different cultures, thus showing stronger adaptability and flexibility in cross-cultural communication. 3.3 adopt diversified teaching methods 3.3.1 simulation and role play simulation exercises and role-playing are tried-and-true teaching methods in practical english courses. by carefully simulating real business scenarios and organizing learners to participate in role-playing activities, we can provide learners with a valuable platform for practicing intercultural communication skills. for example, we can simulate the tense atmosphere of international business negotiation, the meticulous reception of customers and other scenarios, so that learners can experience the business etiquette and communication methods in different cultures in the role-playing, and thus sharpen and improve their intercultural communication skills in practice. 3.3.2 group discussion and cooperative learning group discussion and cooperative learning are also indispensable teaching methods in practical english courses. by organizing group discussions and cooperative learning activities, learners can brainstorm and discuss the problems and challenges of intercultural communication and share their experiences and insights. this interactive learning method can not only stimulate the learners' interest and enthusiasm, but also promote their mutual learning and communication, so as to improve their intercultural communication skills together. 3.3.3 multimedia-assisted teaching multimedia-assisted teaching plays a pivotal role in practical english courses. by making full use of multimedia technology and rich network resources, we can provide learners with more vivid and intuitive cultural teaching content. for example, multimedia materials such as videos and audios of business etiquette in different cultures can be played, so that learners can feel the business etiquette and communication styles in different cultures while watching and listening, and then understand and master the related knowledge in a deeper way. 3.4 improve teachers' professionalism teachers play a pivotal role in practical english courses, and their professionalism and teaching ability directly affect the integration of cultural teaching content. therefore, we must strengthen the training and learning for teachers and continuously improve their professionalism and teaching ability. specifically, the following measures can be taken. 3.4.1 strengthen intercultural training teachers should actively participate in cross-cultural training activities to gain an in-depth understanding of business etiquette, communication styles and values in different cultural contexts. through cross-cultural training activities, teachers can broaden their horizons, get to know the world www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 138 more comprehensively, and develop a valuable global perspective and cross-cultural thinking. this will provide strong support and guarantee for them to integrate cultural teaching content in their practical english courses. 3.4.2 updating teaching concepts teachers should keep abreast of the times and update their teaching philosophy. they should pay attention to cultivating students' intercultural communication ability and cultural awareness, and take the cultivation of students' comprehensive quality as the core goal of teaching. in the teaching process, teachers should actively use modern teaching concepts such as inspirational teaching and inquiry-based learning to stimulate students' interest and enthusiasm in learning, guide them to actively explore and learn the relevant knowledge of intercultural communication, so as to improve their intercultural communicative competence. 3.4.3 improvement of teaching skills teachers should continuously improve their level of teaching skills, including teaching design, classroom management, assessment and feedback. through continuous learning and practice, teachers can master various teaching methods and techniques more skillfully and organize the design and implementation of cultural teaching content and teaching methods more effectively. at the same time, they should also pay attention to the interaction and communication with students, understand students' learning needs and feedback in time, and constantly adjust and optimize their teaching strategies and methods in order to improve the teaching effect of intercultural communicative competence. 4. conclusion and prospect 4.1 conclusion in today's deepening globalization, intercultural communicative competence has become an important part of workplace competitiveness. practical english courses, as the main way to cultivate english application ability in the workplace, the integration and strategy of its cultural teaching content is especially crucial. after an in-depth analysis of the necessity, status quo, integration strategy and evaluation of the implementation effect of the integration of cultural teaching content in practical english courses from an intercultural perspective. the integration of cultural teaching content is an important way to improve competitiveness in the workplace. through the systematic integration of cultural teaching content, the practical english course not only enriches the learners' linguistic knowledge system, but also significantly improves their intercultural communicative competence in the globalized workplace. the enhancement of this ability enables learners to better adapt to the multicultural environment, thus standing out in the workplace and enhancing their competitiveness. current practical english courses still inadequate in the integration of cultural teaching content despite the growing importance of cultural teaching, many current practical english courses still have significant deficiencies in the integration of cultural teaching content. courses often focus too much on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 139 the training of language skills and neglect the systematic and coherent nature of cultural teaching. this imbalance results in learners facing many challenges in intercultural communication, making it difficult for them to effectively adapt to the communication needs of different cultures, which in turn affects the smooth progress of business cooperation. adopting diversified teaching methods is the key to improving the effectiveness of cultural teaching, and in order to improve the integration of cultural teaching content, diversified teaching methods and tools must be adopted. interactive teaching methods such as simulation exercises, role-playing, group discussion, cooperative learning and so on can stimulate the learners' interest and enthusiasm in learning, so that they can learn and experience the differences of different cultures in practice, thus effectively enhancing the cross-cultural communication ability. 4.2 prospect looking ahead, with the acceleration of the globalization process and the increasing demand for cross-cultural communicative competence in the workplace, the incorporation of cultural teaching content and strategies in practical english courses will receive more and more attention. in the future research, we can further explore how to better integrate the cultural teaching content with the actual needs of the workplace, so as to improve the teaching effect of practical english courses and the learners' competitiveness in the workplace. at the same time, the training and improvement of teachers' professionalism can also be strengthened to provide strong support for the integration of cultural teaching content. references tang, l. n., & gu, s. (2024). teaching content and methods of civics and competence cultivation in university english courses—taking “teaching english with chinese characteristics” as an example. education and teaching forum, (52), 126-131. wang, l. l. (2024). research on university english teaching strategies based on intercultural competence cultivation. modern english, (01), 77-80. wang, y. (2024). research on english teaching strategies in colleges and universities based on intercultural communication theory. english square, (15), 56-59. wang, y. p. (2025). research on intercultural communication teaching strategies of university english courses under the background of globalization. modern business industry, (06), 69-71. wu, h. p., & wu, y. q. (2023). knowing, feeling, speaking and acting—a framework for content analysis and teaching strategies of cultural teaching. english learning, (08), 25-31. zhang, j. h. (2025). new exploration on the integration strategy of traditional culture and english program teaching. the road to success, (05), 89-92. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 190 original paper how does social media affect traditional culture ruizhe wang 1 1 christchurch girls’ high school, christchurch 8011, new zealand received: april 2, 2023 accepted: may 16, 2023 online published: may 22, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p190 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p190 abstract in the 21st century, with the changes in mass media, new forms of social media have emerged. social media has become an indispensable part of human society, thoroughly integrated into various aspects of people’s lives. social media plays an important role in the dissemination and promotion of traditional culture. however, in recent years, many new forms of social media have inappropriately used or showcased traditional culture and cultural heritage for the sake of entertainment, neglecting the respect for traditional culture and the understanding of its cultural essence, or directly engaging in cultural appropriation. this paper explores how to better use social media to promote and disseminate traditional culture through collecting and comparing the impact of social media on the dissemination of traditional culture, how to use social media in a correct manner. keywords social media, traditional culture, cultural appropriation, medium 1. introduction this research is based on the idea from learning our class text, everyday use and discussing heritage. this then led to a discussion of the appropriate use of cultural heritage. i then researched this idea further, and focused on the study of how social media and short-formed videos have positively and negatively influenced the traditional culture of the consciousness of the general public. i became further interested in finding out how social media will impact this further in the future and how we can instead use social media positively. the most useful and valid sources i found were the book “amusing ourselves to death” by neil postman. neil was a well-respected author and media theorist. other useful and valid sources i found were articles from on-line respected new sites, such as the new zealand herald. newspapers are bound by rules of journalism such as providing a balanced argument and providing information from verifiable and trustworthy sources only through their editing processes. another useful source was youtube and a video from chinese youtuber li ziqi. li is a valid and trustworthy source as she is a youtuber with millions of followers and has made many famous videos. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 191 published by scholink inc. the author who wrote her story into news is from new zealand herald, a well-known and authoritative news website in new zealand. the author not only introduces li ziqi’s subjects and methods in detail, but also provides us with points of view worthy of reference. so it is very trustworthy. 2. what are the negative ways social media and short-form videos are used to show uicultural heritage? to help me gain a multi-dimensional understanding of the influence of social media, i searched various materials and references. one source i used to help me answer this question was “amusing ourselves to death” by neil postman. this book is about the future human lifestyle and how we are being influenced by social media. i think we are today in the midst of the author’s prediction that “television turns everything into banal entertainment – including education and news” (sowin, 2005). i found this book to be very informative as it helped me to explore the changes in people’s way of life that the emergence of television media in the last century has had and the profound impact of the changes in mainstream media on the general public and society. this links to my theory that social media often shows cultural traditional heritage inappropriately, for simple entertainment only forgetting the respect and importance of many cultural traditions for those whose tradition it is. for example, after a tiktok video went viral, a headline from an article in the nz herald reads, “america’s cup partygoers slammed for cultural appropriation in mock haka video”. this article explains that traditional culture will be misunderstood by some short-formed videos posted by influencers. the haka videos point out the cultural error caused by tik tok and introduced the views of many relevant experts, māori party co-leader debbie ngarewa-packer said it “people expect a better degree of behaviour than appropriating a culture in a derogatory way. they could have used a better way to present the haka culture,instead of making haka videos just for fun”. clearly social media and short form videos for entertainment can be damaging and disrespectful for cultural traditions where these are misappropriated. 3. what are the positive ways social media and short-form videos are used to show cultural hheritage? chinese youtuber li ziqi presents us with information on how social media and short videos have attracted many foreign tourists to visit china and experience traditional culture, with many scenic spots posed online to sell and encourage tourists to visit and partake in traditional chinese culture. this made me understand that short videos can not only promote traditional culture, but also bring economic benefits to many impoverished areas and increase the income of local farmers. however, this positive side can also be negative. an example is that while these culturally traditional things exist, are they real, do they exist for the right traditional reason or are they just a way to make money and therefore nothing more than cultural misappropriation, like those misusing the haka for their own entertainment? for example, due to popularity created by tiktok videos, local people may have gained money and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 192 published by scholink inc. popularity, however, are social media and short videos really showing real traditional culture? is this kind of traditional cultural video purely for increasing tourist traffic worthy of praise? by considering the information i gathered here, it’s clear that social media and short-formed videos positively publicise traditional culture and effectively drive the economy. these findings somewhat support my hypothesis because social media and short videos have attracted many foreign tourists to visit china and experience traditional culture due to the contribution offered by li ziqi and others for example. videos of li ziqi introduce many different viewers to different forms of traditional chinese culture such as the local foods, culture and environment. social media is the main economic driver for strange potemkin villages on the east china sea. it’s a landscape and particular genre of tourism that has been shaped by the pressures of social media. whether that be instagram or twitter, the short video which is needed to document a perfect ,sensational experience has become a central part of xiapu country (bywater, 2022). however, is this real and improving the understanding of traditional cultures, or actually losing and turning traditional cultural events and experiences into nothing more than fake tourist traps? therefore, how can traditional culture be spread on social media and short video platforms in a better way in the future is a question worthy of us to deep consideration. 4. how can traditional culture be spread on social media and short-form videos in a better way in the future? according to the tedx speech how culture and technology create one another, by ramesh srinivasan social media and short videos connect people together regardless of different races, cultures and beliefs, he says of people creating continent that “by creating these videos they were able to collectively rally around the content produced by that technology to actually try to generate some forms of what we call in social sciences collective action from below”. ramesh srinivasan goes on to tell us “it is not just technology creating and shaping culture, it is also culture creating and shaping technology”. the truth of really empowering cultural voices around technology is allowing those different voices to exist in parallel, speaking to and informing one another. it is really important to think about how to use social media and short video platforms to achieve cultural diversity in this world where digital technology is rapidly developing. in my opinion, in order to be able to spread the culture in a better way on short form videos and social media. the users of short video and social media must independently and critically think about what information they have gathered from social-media and short-formed videos. the internet will provide individuals with complicated and different situations and expose them to many different cultures. in most cases, users should be equipped with abilities to clarify the reality of the information. for example, once people want to have one piece of information, individuals should firstly search different comments about what they need, and users should use critical thinking ability to distinguish the available or accessible and unavailable information, all of these can enable users to have a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 193 published by scholink inc. multi-dimensional understanding about the information offered by social media to ensure the positive spreading of traditional cultures. also, makers and monitors of social media should also ensure the content to be correct and pay less attention to their profits behind all these videos, instead focusing on the influence that videos can give. the key reason may be the fact that once one information is posted on the internet, no matter if the knowledge is correct or not, it will have a great number of supporters or audience. serving as publishers, they are responsible for making sure that viewers with not enough abilities to have information are on the right track. for example, had those who posted the haka videos on tiktok instead been exposed to culturally appropriate information, they would have known haka are performed to welcome distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions, or funerals，not to make a video of the haka just for fun. references alves, v. (2021, march, 18). america’s cup partygoers slammed for “cultural appropriation” in mock haka video.nzherald.co.nz. bywater, t. (2021, october 11). farm stays in china’s photogenic potemkin villages: xiapu county. retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz chinese youtuber li ziqi: what happened to the famous star. (2022). retrieved 22 september, 2022, from http://www.nzherald.co.nz postman, n. (2007). amusing ourselves to death. london: methue. srinivasan, r. (2012, december, 14). how culture and technology create one another: ramesh srinivasan at tedxucla. turkle, s. (2011). alone together. basic books. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 49 original paper images of body shaming in ezeigbo’s magic breast bags joy o. odewumi 1 & adenle adepeju 1 1 department of english, college of language and communication arts education (colcaed), lagos state university of education otto/awori lagos, nigeria received: december 12, 2022 accepted: january 24, 2023 online published: january 28, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p49 abstract body shaming is an old sociological phenomenon that leaves a mark in the life of its recipients and could drive them to take drastic actions in other to fit into societal perceived and accepted looks. several literary works expose the open criticism and mockery of a person’s physical appearances which could demoralize or impede the mindset of the individuals and yet nothing is done about it in most situations. the act of body shaming is an act of bullying which the effect oftentimes is trivialized in certain situations and communities. body shaming might not even be regarded as an act of bullying or wrong-doing to a person’s mental state and general perceptions of their being. the objective of this study is to expose the resultant effect of body shaming, proffer ways in which it can be curbs and examine the role of literature as a corrective medium. from a sociological stand point, using the symbolic interactionist perspective theory, this study draws its strength from akachi adimora ezeigbo magic breast bag a collection of short stories with a focus “magic breast bags”, “the runaway prophet” and “i go drive myself”. the selected choices aim at exploring the causes of body shaming, the psychological effect of body shaming and the perceived gender labeling of body shaming. keywords akachi adimora ezeigbo, body shaming, labelling, self-worth 1. introduction body perceptions and acceptance is both important for a sustainable mindset and the posterity of the human society. very often however, individuals have been subjected to and have subjected themselves to body shaming based on perceived societal definitions of what the ideal is in terms of body forms. the “ideas about the female body vary from culture to culture. what is considered perfect in one culture could be seen as abnormal and unacceptable in another” ezegbo (8). using ezeigbo’s comment as a backdrop, it therefore becomes pertinent to further examine the other many ways that constitute the idea of wrong criteria for judging women. this idea of wrong criteria leads to issues of body shaming www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. as a result of what is the perceived body structure of the woman and the idea of suitable roles women can aspire to operate in. in examining the images of body shaming in the works of ezeigbo’s short stories collection magic breast bags; it tells the story of a young lady somtochi who while entertaining her friends felt uncomfortable by the sudden appearance of her grandmother in terms of her looks and later her grandmother interruption of her conversation with her friends when she succinctly reminded her that she, somtochi, had forgot to bring in her breast bag drying outside in the sun. the mention of “akpa-ara” makes somtochi and her female friend uncomfortable in the presence of their male friends who they assumed would snicker at how her grandmother had preferred to call “bra” “breast bags”. upon seeing how somtochi felt, her boyfriend ifeka tries to break the ice by asking her why her grandmother prefers calling a bra “akpa-ara” which translating means “breast-bags” and not by the english term bra. ifeka through his effort was able to convince both somtochi and olachi that there was nothing wrong with the way her grandmother had chosen to call a bra. they need not feel self-conscious, and embarrassed rather be proud of the word akpa-ara which is even a better fit than the word bra. i go drive myself’ tells a quick story of how women as drivers are perceived and treated in most part of nigeria. nneka had just gotten herself a car and had instructed her driver to take the day off so she could explore her driving skills. after several temptations on the way to her destination, she finally arrives at her destination and was about to drive through the gate when a red car who had wanted to drive in through the wrong gate was asked to reverse and go in through the right gate. the driver of the red car was not too concerned about the car honking behind him. he ignored nneka warning and bashed her car. to complicate matters he came out of his car to meet a rather surprised nneka still in shock as to what had just happened to her car after all her effort at driving carefully earlier on. the man came out and insinuated that the accident had been nneka’s fault because she had decided to drive herself instead of employing the services of a driver. he labelled her with the ‘i go drive myself’ and proceeded to slap her in the face. angrily, nneka bashes the mans’ head with the heel of her stiletto shoe. “the runaway prophet”, revolves around the story of mayen through the eyes of ozioma. mayen a beautiful lady by all standard had always felt insecure in her own skin. likewise, ozioma had always been ridiculed for her robust frame. she is constantly defending her ‘robustness’. mayen and ozioma worked as maid to chief and mrs ndulue. chief ndulue was sick and mayen attended to him while ozioma attended to the grandchild of the couple. mayen insecurities about herself leads to her shallow sense of worth and she thinks everyone actually is envious of her beauty. she eventually fell scam to a false prophet who took away all her saving and her uncredible attitude also led to her losing her job with the ndulues. mayen and ozioma both felt body shamed and this affected their self-perception and influenced their attitude towards life. each of these stories examine body shaming from different perspectives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. 2. methodology the methodology selected will be to consider a descriptive qualitative approach of the stories to have a better understanding of the novels by using the symbolic interactionist perspective tenets to understand better the way societal perception can also play a vital role in the understanding of the body shaming as experienced by characters in the three stories. 3. body shaming as a concept body shaming happens constantly in all societies; however, it is not considered as a serious issue. victims of body shaming according to brewis and bruening (9) attest that the aftermath of body shaming can lead to anxiety and depression. body shaming is defined as “the act of insulting a person’s body type by expressing or insulting judgments about their body form and size” (“body shaming”) it is also the act or practice of subjecting someone to criticism or mockery for supposed bodily faults or imperfections (“body shaming”). body shaming has its roots in the idea of feelings of insecurities as a result of expectations from internal and outward expectations of what is acceptable. the sense of shame that accompanies an objection to something related to a person can cause shame whether directly or indirectly. hence, kaufman suggested that shame is regarded as having its foundations in the complexities of interpersonal relationships (14). relationships forms the bedrock of body shaming. relationships with the society one finds herself. the society which constitutes the agreed perception of the norms of the people creates room for how and what the ideal body should be both for male and female. when there is a shift in the perceived recognized acceptable standard, shame occurs. where there is a standard body perception there is body shaming. bringing in its wake the capacity of been broken. teo et al. stated that body shaming is a form of verbal bullying. the neurologist and psychologist had done some research, and their findings explained that body shaming could lead to a psychological problem. evans argues that body shaming takes the form of comments and judgment both to self and to others (526). appearances that are criticized can be due to face shape, skin color, body size, or body changes. dolezal nevertheless posit that to “body shame is a process which can provide phenomenological insights into the manner through which the body is shaped by social forces, addressing a question not yet adequately answered by phenomenological accounts of embodiment...” (9) arumugan et al. discovered that, people are criticized due to their physical appearance in terms of their shape, size and colour and that body-shaming affects 94% of female and 84% of male. 4. shaming in ezeigbo’s stories body shaming as established is traumatic for the victim. in the context of the three stories selected, body shaming will be examined in each of the stories to emphasise the portrayal of body shaming as depicted through the characters by the writer. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. 4.1 the magic breast bag in this story, ezeigbo depicts body shaming from different perspectives: dressing shaming: from this story, it is exposed that people can be shamed based on the way they choose to dress. this sort of shaming is often expressed to ridicule, express wonder or dissatisfaction with the way someone has chosen to dress at that particular time. somtochi, the host of the get-together expresses her dissatisfaction with the way her friend olachi is dressed. she considers it overdressing especially as the whether is hot. somtochi sat next to namo. “you have not helped matters, my friend. look at the way you ae dressed. high neck blouse with long sleeves and a long skirt to wit, in hot weather like this! what do you expect? how can air circulate around your body, covered as it is? she shook her head and her long braids swirled around her neck and shoulders. olachi looked at ifeka and turned to her friend, addressing her with measured calmness. “ah, you always find fault with the way i dress. you’d better get used to it. i make no apology for the way i wear my clothes or what i wear. you know my philosophy and that is standard. a woman should cover herself properly.” (mbb 2) through this conversation, it is observed that both ladies are governed by each perception of what is right in terms of dressing. for somtochi, who could not understand olachi point of view in terms of dressing and considers going by “dressing to fit the occasion” can be said to be as wrong as olachi who considers dressing to be a function of propriety, that is, “cover herself properly”. both ladies react to each other based on different societal dictate on what dressing should be or not. however, olachi response to somtochi shows that she has a good sense of self-worth as she calmly explained to her friend that she is fully aware of her choices in terms of what to wear. olachi sense of self-worth as depicted in the story helped her get over her friend’s dress shaming. if olachi had lacked a good perception of herself, she would have been made uncomfortable, wishing that she could excuse herself from the gathering and constantly feeling inadequate. “why then do you complain about the heat? olachi, no one is asking you to go naked, somtochi demurred politely. she thought olachi was too fastidious about clothes and sometimes found this disconcerting, irritating even. “i think one should dress comfortably in accordance to the weather.” (mbb: 2) items of the body is another way in which body shaming is examined in the story. in this stance, the bra becomes an object of body shaming as a result of the words used in describing the item “bra”. “the old woman shook her head and said, somtochi, you are sitting here and it is raining so heavily. are you not going to bring in your akpa-ara before they are soaked?” somotochi wilted like banana leaves touched by a flame. she could barely look at namo and ifeka. it was to olachi that she directed her agonized gaze and saw that she too was embarrassed. somtochi got up and hurried out of the room. she was thinking: oh, nne, did you have to embarrass and ridicule me before these guys? akpa-ara indeed! couldn’t you have used another word, a better word like cloth if www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. you didn’t want to use the right word bra? what are namo and ifeka thinking now? akpa-ara indeed! na waa. (mbb: 7) 5. shaming by labelling here, the character nwanyi-mgbaragada-ara is given this queer name because of the size of her breast. due to the village ridicule and name-calling, she constantly stays back at home and refused to go out for fear of people using her breast to abuse her. it was not until nwecheonye, somtochi grandmother, made her an akpa-ara that fit her breast was she able to confidently walk the street of her village. 5.1 i go drive myself in this story, body shaming takes a gender approach in terms of skills perceived that are and should be masculine. women are not perceived to be good drivers and this stems from a partrichial point of view. in some part of nigeria, women are not considered good drivers and when they do, they are quick to label them “i go drive myself”. “i go drive myself” shames the victim, making them doubt their skill as a competent driver and in the case of the story, it made nneka so angry that she smashed the head of her abuser. the driver of the white car leaps out, fuming. his wife rushes out from the other side. nneka struggles out of her wrecked car, terribly upset. “look at what you’ve done to my car!” the man shouted, examining his damaged headlamps. “you won’t employ a driver – i go drive myself. nonsense!” “how can you possibly blame me?” she asks bewildered. “it wasn’t my fault and you know it. didn’t you see what happened?” she turns to hos wife, appealingly, willing her to speak up, for she must have seen clearly what happened, from her vantage position at the passenger seat in front. the man slaps her face. “you’re a very stupid woman,” he shouts. “idiot!” (mbb: 21) the perception that women are bad drivers is an offshoot of societal perceived gender roles. these gender roles are believed to be the norm by all in the society. this could explain the accusatory remarks of nneka’s abuser wife, who supported her husband by blaming nneka to be at fault for the accident. the abuser’s wife in this context is acting out the script that society had written out for her as the ideal way of life. the wife becomes a body shaming enabler. 5.2 the runaway prophet in this story, mayen and ozioma experience body shaming from a more personal perspective. 6. criticism they experienced criticism about their looks. ozioma description of mayen brought to the fore how beauty is judged by onlookers: mayen had the type of body that only beauty queens possess except that her nose was too long and pointed like a shrew’s and her lips a little too wide and thin. anyone who met her noticed her flaw www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. immediately. she was conscious of it, tried to push out her lips and ended with a permanent pout. (mbb: 39) mayen consciousness of her flaw (as onlookers viewed it) led to her conscious effort to fix it hence leading to a permanent pout. this also explains the need for body alterations by people who feel inadequate about a particular part of their body, who are made to feel ashamed and hence they result to artificial means to rectify the perceived flaw. 6.1 over-valuing over-valuing is another way people body shame others they perceived not to be as beautiful as they are. mayen is described as a beautiful lady. she is aware of her beauty and to make others around her feel less comfortable she rubs her beauty in their faces by singing spiteful songs if you argued with her about anything, she would sing a crazy song to you: some people jealous me i say, some people jealous me some people jealous me because of my beauty 6.2 comparison ozioma, in describing mayen’s beauty, compares herself with mayen and is dissatisfied in her conclusion. ozioma feels insulted by her critics (teacher) for blaming her for the way she looks. one of my teachers in secondary school once said that i ate much of the wrong foods and that was why i was putting on weight like a middle-aged woman. i hated her for saying so. was it my fault that in uncle donatus’ house, where i spent my holidays, we ate akpu, cassava meal, twice a day. and the akpu my uncle’s wife pounded was the worst kind called eketeke. it made you grow a potbelly. (mbb: 39) 6.3 effects of body shaming walker-king in her introductory comment suggests that “…the constant bombardment of fictionalized female body images, externally conceived personas, and rules of body play (such as “black women do this” or “older women don’t do that”) alienate women from each other, it also fragments minds, (7-9) this guides the construction of the effects of body shaming on individuals. body shaming affects the mind of its victims and it also causes division amongst individuals which are under a perceived acceptable notion on the ideal construction of bodies. this is even made harsher within the onus of literature where bodies are imagined and constructed according to the writer’s perception. shame cannot have an effect if there is no comparison. comparison is enabled by language, culture, values and situations in which “…certain behaviours, actions or modes of being are prohibited and seen as deviant and others are socially sanctioned and considered “normal” or “acceptable”. dolezal maria cuba posits that the body is crucial to self-construction and identity. (78) the physical appearance of an individual is the major reason for people to body shame. therefore, people who do not have an ideal body always feel insecure with themselves and have anxiety or depression as they continuously suffer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. from negative comments about their body. valentina (98) people engage in body shaming others because of a person’s physical appearance, especially their weight. arumugam et al. also reveals that body shaming makes a person feel distressed, embarrassed, and treated differently by other people (18). through magic breast bag, adimora-ezeigbo intentionally sets out to highlight the emotions that occur after an episode of body shaming between characters. some of the effects of body shaming as depicted in the short stories are self-consciousness, self-criticism, gender labelling, being on the edge, defensive responses, tension between the characters, envy and anger. it therefore shows that writers /write about “body perception” and use it as a tool for character description, however few of them actually seek to use their writing as agencies for communal acceptance of individuals and promoting self-love. 6.4 curbing body shaming all writers share an equal responsibility for rewriting the stories about. literature has always been saddled with the responsibility to entertain and teach. teach in this stance should not be limited to highlighting the flaws in human nature, it should be more compassionate in the rehabilitation of the minds of the readers to foster self-acceptance and selflove through the use of language that champions body positivism. now more than ever, writers should be burdened with telling stories about bodies that reflect the dangers of body shaming. 7. conclusion body shaming is a way of life as seen depicted in the selected short stories. from the images given, it can be deduced that when body shaming occurs, although the reaction it triggers often leaves the recipient feeling unworthy, however, nothing is done most of the time. body shaming as portrayed in the short stories assumes the role of character-to-character description. the character describing the other, might not even consider their actions as one that could cause harm to the other since it is a norm. adimora-ezeigbo sets the pace for the discussion of body, bodies and images of bodies in nigeria literature especially in body shaming. references “body shaming.” (2022). merriam-webster online dictionary. merriamwebster online, 2022. adimora-ezeigbo, a. (1996). gender issues in nigeria: a feminine perspective. university of lagos press. lagos. adimora-ezeigbo, a. (2019). magic breast bag. university press. ibadan. arumugam, m. et al. (2022). body shaming: ramifications on an individual. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences 2022. web. 26 august 2022 “body shaming.” oxford learner online dictionary. oxford learner dictionary. retrieved 13 september 2022, from http//www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v12-i4/13180 damai, e. et al. (2022). body image the crime of instruction according to the perspective of indonesian criminal law 2022. web. 5 september 2022. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4033460 dolezal, l. (2015). the body and shame: phenomenology, feminism, and the socially shaped body. lexington books. london. gerlock, j. (2022). judging people by their appearance is not ok. huffpost canada 2018. web. 27 retrieved august 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com gunnars, k. (2022). the harmful effects of fat shaming. healthline 2019. web. 25 september 2022 katrak, k. (2006). politics of the female body: postcolonial women writers of the third world. london: rutgers university press. london. https://doi.org/10.1017/s2753906700001352 kaufman, g. (1989). the psychology of shame: theory and treatment of shame-based syndromes. springer publishing co. new york. post, t. (2022). “body shaming is more dangerous than you think.” the jakarta post. 2020 web 24 september 2022. retrieved 13 september 2022, from http://www.merriam-webster.com story, s. et al. (2022). weight loss attempts and attitudes toward body size, eating, and physical activity in american indian children: relationship to weight status and gender. obesity research 2001. web. 17 august 2022. walker, k., & debra (eds.). (2000). body politics and the fictional double. indianapolis university press. indiana. microsoft word assc-v4n1-p10 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 10 original paper research on landscape protection of urban railway industrial heritage based on zhengzhou railway industrial park project cong-yi jin1* & wang zhao2 1 zhengzhou university of light industry, school of art & design, zheng’zhou, henan province, china 2 zhengzhou university of economics and business, school of art & design, zheng’zhou, henan province, china * cong-yi jin, e-mail: 652246350@qq.com henan province philosophy and social science planning project (project number: 2020cys045）; phd research fund project of zhengzhou university of light industry (project number: 2020bsjj020); henan province humanities and social science research project (project number: 2021-zzjh-447). received: december 6, 2021 accepted: january 12, 2022 online published: january 17, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n1p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n1p10 abstract with the development of urbanization and urban industrial relocation, the remaining special railway lines are increasingly deserted and block the organic integration of urban space. as a material element of urban industrial culture, the abandoned railway line carries a profound industrial history and diverse cultural features. as a materialized industrial heritage, it also provides more feasible ways for the expansion of urban public space, ecological environment governance, and the renewal of industrial abandoned land. through the analysis of domestic and foreign urban abandoned railway industrial landscape protection and redevelopment related cases, summarizes the landscape protection strategy: protect the original site form, reduce the later artificial intervention traces, reflect the beauty of existing industry, reshape the cultural landscape, reengineering industrial period historical scene, with dynamic railway line and its urban vitality, promote the industrial abandoned site function self innovation. finally, according to the zhengzhou railway industrial park project as an example, through the analysis of its site transformation, style protection and functional renewal design strategies, to explore the reasonable application of the above key points, which is of guiding significance for the industrial cultural protection of the abandoned urban railways and the construction of landscape parks in china. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. keywords urban abandoned railway, industrial heritage, landscape protection and integration, zhengzhou railway industrial park 1. preface since the birth of the first railway in britain in 1825, railway transportation has become a popular travel choice, and has played an important role in urbanization expansion, industrial construction and industrial transformation. with the large-scale urban industrial construction, a large number of dedicated railways are laid with its passenger and cargo transportation, while providing convenient transportation for the factory also becomes the urban separation line, and is included in the urban areas in the promotion of urbanization, causing problems to the organic integration of urban areas and environmental governance. today, with the sound development of three-dimensional logistics and urban bus, the passenger and cargo transportation function of the special railway is gradually weakened, and gradually abandoned with the factory relocation and transportation optimization. the barren railway and surrounding sites have brought many problems to the urban development. in china, many special railways started with the socialist industrialization construction in the last century, and formed a strong industrial atmosphere in the railway and its surrounding areas. it is not only the component element of urban industrial heritage, but also the material witness of urban historical changes, with precious characteristics of the times and cultural values. in the expansion of urbanization and modern style today, reasonable retention and scientific development of abandoned industrial railway, make abandoned railway and site through design transformation and urban development, organic life, inheriting its connotation of the time characteristics, industrial culture, design aesthetics, is not only for the planning department, designers professional problems, is also inclusive protection of urban landscape, diversified new way to create an urban environment. 2. railway industrial heritage and its landscape protection and utilization 2.1 the concept of railway industrial heritage special railway is a transportation facility serving industrial production. through the cross-regional and multi-node series factory and the main railway network, a long-distance and large-scale traffic space is formed. combined with its transportation coordination of the natural and cultural environment along the line, it constitutes a special landscape integrating industry, transportation and nature (figure 1). different from the rapid innovation of the railway main railway network, dedicated railway is given priority to meet the basic transportation, its own technology upgrading and environmental innovation is less, retained the long industrial community and its historical features, from society, literature, history, landscape, architecture, transportation and other perspectives to explore urban industry, cultural history, art aesthetics is of great significance. railway industrial heritage covers a wide range of contents, involving site landscape, site construction, transportation facilities, tools and equipment, corporate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. culture, spirit of the times, historical allusions and other material and intangible content, it is an industrial historical wealth covering a wide range of, space-time linkage and far-reaching connotation for the city. figure 1. special railway system composed of multiple elements resource: author photo and drawing. 2.2 landscape protection and utilization of railway industrial heritage the increasingly severe urbanization problem has provided more opportunities for the transformation and utilization of railway industrial heritage. at present, domestic and foreign cities have carried out a number of abandoned railway landscape corridor transformation projects, which have achieved good social response. the industrial revolution and railway transportation were carried out earlier in european and american countries, and the rich research on the protection and development of railway industrial heritage has formed the guiding ideology and design method of the integration of “retention, governance and creation”, and successful experience was accumulated through transnational linkage.for example, the green shade walk (promenade plantee) in paris, france, is the world’s first landscape project to use abandoned railway bridges, and its design experience has had many effects on the design of new york high line park (high line park). while learning from foreign experience, domestic railway industrial heritage also actively carries out the design practice of combining landscape protection and utilization, such as beijing beijing-zhangjiakou railway site park and jingkou railway park, trying to integrate railway industrial heritage into urban functions and people’s life through design transformation. at present, the landscape transformation and utilization of railway industrial heritage at home and abroad reflect the following characteristics: 2.2.1 native element retention and environmental creation the exhibition of artifacts is the main way to protect the collection of railway industrial heritage cultural relics. by removing the cultural relics from the original sites and transferring them to the designated venues for display, the realization of comprehensive protection of cultural relics is achieved. for example, in the locomotive exhibition hall of beijing railway museum and the history exhibition area of zhengzhou erqi memorial tower, this way makes the cultural relics “disconnect” with the original environment and historical background, breaking the cultural integrity of objects, venues and atmosphere. therefore, through the local or overall restoration of the original site, and the reshaping of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. the vitality of the site by means of functional replacement and environmental renewal, to achieve the organic integration of modern life, it has become the main choice of the current railway industrial heritage landscape protection and reconstruction. for example, sudgelande railway cultural park in germany was built on the original site of tempelh of dispatching site. the project retains and uses the original elements such as railway, platform, maintenance room, office building and water tower to become the park scenic spots, and the abandoned steel frame, beams and columns are rebuilt in artistic sculpture to enrich the cultural vitality of the park (figure 2); domestic such as beijing 798 cultural creative park (train block) project also focus on the original environment protection of railway industrial heritage, square planning cultural activity area and traffic channels, retained the huge gantry crane, steam locomotive and carriages, warehouse, and other markers, and fence isolated the north boiler room, smelting area, form real (touchable) virtual (untouchable) combined environment, strengthen the real experience of the original industrial landscape (figure 3). figure 2. sudgelande railway cultural park, germany https://huaban.com/boards/27450252/ figure 3. train block of beijing 798 park resource: author photo and drawing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. 2.2.2 site functional transformation and comprehensive development emotional resonance is an important way to improve people’s awareness of industrial heritage protection. industrial heritage is not only the material retention of industrial construction, but also a spiritual record of social changes and eventful years. therefore, it also seeks the protection demand of material and nonmaterial combination for railway industrial heritage. while retaining the original site intact, new theme activity areas will be created through functional transformation and comprehensive development to improve the comprehensive experience of the public and the site environment, interact organically from audio-visual perspectives, guide their active understanding of railway culture and industrial heritage, and enhance their influence and publicity on the public. for example, while retaining the railway space, paris, france set up commercial, cultural and catering functional areas through life and artistic transformation, which effectively uses the site space and enriches the interest and entertainment of tourist activities, and provides opportunities for the optimization of the old city environment and social re-employment (figure 4); for example, shenzhen qingshuihe industrial station, as a railway cultural park in the bustling city, retains the main facilities of the station in the design, and the railway tracks, platforms, locomotives and freight carriages are transformed to shape a new node of the urban landscape to protect the original industrial style, and become the “web celebrity punching place” for the public (figure 5). figure 4. green shade trail in paris, france resource: the author arranges and draws. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. figure 5. shenzhen qingshuihe industrial station railway cultural park http://www.360doc.com/content/19/0819/23/45737231_855936800.shtml 2.2.3 passenger transport function repair and tourism passenger and freight transportation is the core function of industrial railway, for abandoned industrial railway landscape protection and commercial intervention, help to restore its original traffic function, in the form of sightseeing train will be abandoned railway from static to dynamic, become the railway industrial culture mobile display platform, this way can effectively use the existing railway facilities to meet the market demand, in the development of emerging tourism resources while reduce railway industrial heritage waste, damage, in order to improve the old city vitality and employment rate. for example, in japan, due to its developed railway transportation, the development of industrial railway heritage is mainly tourism, and sl steam tourism trains running on jingchuan line are mainly played by “showa culture”. tourists enjoy the beautiful natural scenery along the way while experiencing the history (figure 6); by its enlightenment, domestic such as heilongjiang birch south forest railway is given priority to with the northeast forest scenery, the project contains 628 tons of steam locomotive and complete railway line, equipment plant, forest railway transport a complete set of architecture and forest railway facilities, equipment and other core items, visitors enjoy the natural beauty at the same time can also experience the original industrial history (figure 7). with the urban ecological environmental protection, tourism transportation requirements, the use of abandoned old tram development tourism train for urban railway industrial heritage development provides a new choice, this is the flexible use of the original railway resources, is also the active exploration of local industrial heritage tourism development, for abandoned railway itself is also a kind of vitality. for example, the re-use of electric railway trains in fushun, as one of the characteristics of industrial tourism projects, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. not only uses the original railway facilities and human resources, but also injects new vitality into the development of urban tourism. tourists can have a panoramic view of the brilliant industrial history and urban scenery of fushun when taking the bus. figure 6. sightseeing train of jingchuan line and the scenery along the way http://quan-riben.cn/zh-tw/amp/article/7127/ figure 7. huannan forest railway and the scenery along the way http://tour.dbw.cn/system/2019/12/20/058306363.shtml 3. key planning and design points of railway industrial heritage 3.1 protect the original features and reflect the beauty of the existing industry as a transportation facility, the special railway is an important component of cooperating with the production and operation of the factory, and its site style, architectural style and environmental characteristics are highly consistent with the factory. the protection and development of railway industrial heritage should be an important part of the overall planning of industrial heritage, properly retain the original features of the site to continue its historical context, reduce or cancel the non-unnecessary artificial intervention traces, and protect the original and rough industrial characteristics of the site. at the same time, as a popular, open urban public places, appropriate site repair and design update is also necessary, in the track, vehicles, crane, platform, building, signal, turnout, crossings, publicity column on the original facilities at the same time, also to damage to damaged and characteristic buildings, facilities, improve cultural ornamental, and through humanized design to introduce new service function, ensure the safety of the people and increase the interest of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. play. in addition, some of the seriously damaged buildings and equipment without protective value can be removed and implanted with new site functions, and cooperate with the urban reconstruction of the industrial zone of the old city by creating a new environment. 3.2 remodel the cultural style and recreate the industrial historical scenes the characteristic theme is the design focus of the cultural and creative park. the landscape protection design of the railway industrial heritage should not only maintain the original industrial style, but also strengthen the theme in the scene shaping. the railway elements can fully inject the historical scene of the special railway for the factory, and reproduce the memory of the past place with the artistic landscape. in the design, primary and secondary logic can be arranged to arrange play routes, “main line”, “main line and 2 branch” and “main line” according to the site scale, and all kinds of exhibits can be arranged on the line, not only to improve the appreciation of the scene, but also conform to the narrative structure, and improve the overall industrial style and cultural atmosphere of the place. at the same time, can use the original construction facilities to develop new play projects, in the factory staff canteen, reading room, stadium introduced leisure catering, city book, intelligent fitness functions, break through the original viewing experience, make people deeply, enjoy life, for the railway industrial heritage into modern vitality, into the urban function. 3.3 combination of static and static interpretation to promote the innovation of the site and facilities while protecting the railway industrial heritage from the outside world, the railway system with intact structure and complete facilities can be tried to restart its traffic function, and deduce the vivid railway industrial heritage in the combination of dynamic and static way. through the development of special industrial tour trains, it not only uses the idle railway system and reproduces the industrial historical landscape, but also helps to repair the environment along the line, integrate into the urban transportation infrastructure, and drive the reemployment of enterprise employees. at the same time, the old railway traffic passenger transport is not a simple restart railway system, vehicle facilities, for seriously damaged sections, signal facilities and railway vehicles, need to plan wiring, new equipment, introduce new energy train, this is the government, enterprises, social common problems, but also the planning department, tourism department, producers, academia through site facilities innovation guide railway industrial heritage revival and involved in the new opportunities of urban renewal. 4. design and analysis of zhengzhou railway industrial park project 4.1 project overview as the capital of henan province, zhengzhou is an important transportation hub and industrial center in central china. the beijing-guangzhou railway and longhai railway meet here and extend a number of special railways distributed in the urban areas. with the reconstruction of zhengzhou’s old urban area and the relocation of factories, the remaining abandoned railway blocks the urban integration and construction, bringing about problems such as transportation, environment and people’s livelihood. based on the important contribution and historical significance of railway transportation in the modern www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. and modern development of zhengzhou, the appropriate retention of abandoned railway land and transformation into urban park has become a reasonable choice to balance urban development and cultural protection, and the design project of zhengzhou railway industrial park planned by zhengzhou university of economics and trade is a positive response to it. the project is a park transformation of an abandoned material factory in erqi district, zhengzhou. the project has a superior geographical location, convenient transportation, surrounding communities, schools, enterprises, and a relatively dense population but a lack of outdoor activity places. the project is planned to use about 6 hectares, including the train parts production workshop and abandoned railway tracks, with a construction area of about 0.38 hectares. the target population is the surrounding residents, enterprise groups, tourists to zheng, etc., which can accommodate 1,500 people to enter the park at the same time. in order to meet the needs of people at different levels, the project mainly builds an ideal industrial park integrating railway culture, creative exhibition and waterfront leisure (figure 8). figure 8. analysis of the site status resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. 4.2 park planning the theme of railway industry is the main characteristics of the park. in this regard, the design scheme is mainly composed of three sections of building, square and waterfront. using landscape design techniques, the space is mainly divided into railway industrial landscape square and urban waterfront leisure space. in the overall planning and design, on the basis of fully respecting the natural ecological wetlands and land, more attention is paid to people’s personal experience and visual feelings after entering the space. at the same time, the railway facilities and waterfront space are the main design objects, and the two present the main secondary order, static separation and orderly space art (figure 9). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. figure 9. overall design of the park resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. 4.3 landscape construction the entrance of the park is a simple and simple industrial style, with the overall color of gray. the entrance square adopts concrete and square brick, which is more harmonious with the red corridor frame, and loses the industrial style. in this space, the qiao irrigation grass collocation is reasonable and orderly to complement each other, bringing landscape vitality to the industrial theme of the park (figure 10). the industrial wind art corridor area is at the connection between the entrance and the garden, allowing people to feel the railway culture while entering the park to enjoy the scenery (figure 11). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. figure 10. design of the park resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. figure 11. design of the art gallery frame resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business.  the train exhibition area makes tourists intuitively feel the railway theme culture. the designer will reuse the abandoned rails, and maximize the use of existing resources and intensive design costs while reflecting the design theme and beautifying the park, so as to realize the sustainable use of the site resources. and in the use of waste steel design for the sports running villain sculpture, so that the space is full of dynamic and vitality. in the cut facade design, steam locomotive mainly to show the railway memory, the train black painting more age, beautiful and clear theme, matching mechanical gear for obvious sign of industrial style, in gear design, the middle dial instead of gear plate, more reflected as a blend of industrial wind and modern style www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. (figure 12). figure 12. design of the train display area resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. the design theme of the landscape gear square is “industrial hot land, urban memory”, so that tourists can review the railway memory after walking, and have flower beds, seats, lamp posts and other landscape sketches. the square joe irrigation grass adopts the collocation technique of high and low scattered to make the space more harmonious and orderly, and the design technique of near real and far real is virtual to open the hierarchical relationship and have a stronger sense of substitution (figure 13). figure 13. design of landscape gear square resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. the wind and rain corridor waterfront footpath pays attention to the hydrophilic function in the design. the red iron gallery frame can not only block off the wind and rain, but also highlight the space height and enhance people’s visual feeling. the footpath is mainly for visitors to enjoy water. while enjoying the waterscape, feel the railway culture, the riverbank has slope protection, and plant vegetation for landscape construction and wind protection. the light post on the footpath and the wind and rain corridor are more industrial color, highlighting the design theme (figure 14). figure 14. waterfront trail design resource: zhengzhou university of economics and business. 4.4 design and analysis zhengzhou railway industrial park project to “retain the history, heritage context, functional innovation” as the design theme, through artificial landscape of the industrial site, natural landscape, retain the abandoned railway elements, the original industrial features at the same time to create a new natural landscape and artificial sketch, the train, rail, sculpture, square, waterscape landscape fully communion and intertwined with urban space. at the same time, the development of artificial water system introduces the urban river channel into the park, forming a self-circulating water feature system, which effectively deals with the urban environmental problems. zhengzhou railway industrial park project pays attention to the integration of railway industrial culture and natural ecology, but also considers the future development needs of the city, and obtains social recognition with the time and space construction of the combination of movement and movement. in addition, the designer adheres to the principle of sustainability, retains the original landform to the greatest extent, and designs the landscape sketch locally, while reasonably controlling the development cost, and creates an open city garden with rich artistic conception and natural simplicity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. 5. summary railway is the lifeline of urban operation and development. in today’s development of three-dimensional intelligent transportation, industrial transportation has shifted to diversified modes of transportation, and the traditional special railway has been gradually abandoned, which brings transportation, environment, people’s livelihood and other problems to the urbanization construction. as a part of urban industrial heritage, abandoned railway and site also contains rich cultural characteristics and unique industrial atmosphere, for the protection of industrial heritage development should not ignore the research of abandoned railway, develop railway industrial heritage helps from history, culture, aesthetics, environment, people’s livelihood and other aspects to reshape the urban style, continue the urban context, and expand the direction of diversified urban design. to develop the railway industrial heritage from the perspective of landscape protection, we should pay attention to protecting its original features, reshape the industrial historical scene, innovate the original facilities by combining static and static methods, integrate the urban functions and people’s life through design and transformation, and inject new vitality into the railway industrial heritage. references dong, y. p., & hou, b. c. (2012). value cognition expansion of industrial heritage: review of railway heritage protection. new building, 2012(2), 22-27. fu, q. c., & zheng, x. d. (2019). international architecture exhibition of the ruhr, germany regional brown fields regeneration strategies. chinese garden, 2019(02), 21-26. he, h. x. (2020). city present situation and countermeasures of the protection of the industrial building heritage research. journal of building materials and decoration, 2020(01), 94-95. kang, z. m. (2010). discussion on the space construction of railway traffic architecture in the new era. shanxi architecture, 2010(17), 43-45. liu, b. y., & feng, z. p. (2009). update urban industrial land and industrial heritage protection. beijing: china construction industry press. liu, g. w., zhao, z., & zong, j. x. (2018). urban renewal under the perspective of industrial heritage value realization study. journal of building economy, 2018(12), 93-97. wang, j. (2012). see japanese food culture characteristics of. 2012 from. journal of dai zong, 2012(1), 31-32. wang, l., xue, m. h., & mo, c. y. (2017). the development trend of industrial heritage protection and system construction. journal of shanghai urban planning, 2017(6), 15-22. wang, y., & zhang, h. (2015). renewal of urban abandoned industrial elevated railway bridge: take new york high line park. journal of xi’an university of architecture science and technology (natural science), 47(6), 894-898. zeng, r., & li, z. (2019). city industrial heritage transformation regeneration mechanism analysis, in shanghai, for example. urban development research, 2019(05), 33-39. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. zeng. z., & zhang, b. (2015). creating a living heritage: the discussion of the concept of railway heritage and its new ideas of protection and reuse. huazhong architecture, 33(5), 170-173. zhang, q., su, m. t., li, c., & gao, w. w. (2020). after industrial landscape transformation in in germany ruhr. urban and rural construction, 2020(08), 68-73. zhang, t. (2004). analysis of railway culture traceability and its management function. journal of china railway, 2004(6), 58-59. zhang, y. (2016). german industrial strategic development of cultural tourism industry integration path “the road of industrial culture” in germany, for example. journal of shenyang university (social science edition), 2016(6), 764-768. zhao, y. b., zang, p., & zhu, x. m. (2019). the latest progress in the study of domestic and foreign urban renewal. urban development research, 2019(10), 42-48. zuo, f. q. (2012). japan’s shinkansen high-speed railway development and cultural features of the. journal of forum of hundreds of academic thoughts, 2012(11), 37-39. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 68 original paper green eurobonds as catalysts for sustainable finance in uzbekistan promoting financial innovation for environmental and economic resilience alphonsa s john1 & dr. aajaz ahmad hajam2 1 research scholar, department of commerce, annamalai university, tamil nadu, uzbekistan gmail: alphonsasherlyjohn@gmail.com, orcid id: 0000-0002-5811-4698 2 professor, samarkand branch of tashkent state university of economics, uzbekistan gmail: aajaznazir@gmail.com, orcid id: 0009-0008-9102-9672 received: december 29, 2024 accepted: january 12, 2025 online published: february 011, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p68 abstract the escalating imperatives of climate change and sustainable development have accentuated the need for innovative financial instruments that harmonize environmental objectives with economic resilience. green eurobonds have emerged as pivotal within the sustainable finance landscape, providing an avenue for nations to fund projects with profound ecological impact while attracting investment from environmental, social, and governance (esg)-oriented stakeholders. this study examines uzbekistan’s inaugural issuance of green eurobonds, a strategic advancement toward financing green infrastructure, fostering renewable energy, and addressing critical environmental challenges such as water scarcity and desertification. by aligning green eurobond initiatives with the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) and commitments under the paris agreement, uzbekistan demonstrates its dedication to a green economy transition, enhancing its appeal to global environmentally conscious investors. this research evaluates the transformative potential of green eurobonds to bolster sustainable economic resilience, identifies the challenges intrinsic to their implementation in emerging markets, and offers strategic recommendations to optimize their impact on uzbekistan’s sustainable development trajectory. the findings contribute to the discourse on sovereign green finance, emphasizing the essential role of green eurobonds in shaping economic policies and supporting environmental sustainability in emerging economies. keywords green eurobonds, sustainable finance esg investment, climate-aligned finance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 69 1. introduction the global drive toward sustainability has heightened the need for innovative financial mechanisms that enable nations to address climate change while supporting economic resilience. green finance, a field that involves financing initiatives directly aimed at environmental and climate action, has emerged as a crucial component of sustainable development (park, 2018). among the instruments within green finance, green sovereign bonds—specifically green eurobonds—have gained prominence as effective tools for financing public sector projects with environmental benefits. these instruments enable nations to attract international investment by linking financial performance with climate targets, aligning national policies with the commitments under the paris agreement and sustainable development goals (sdgs) (international capital market association [icma], 2017; hache, 2021). uzbekistan, an emerging economy with significant environmental challenges, issued its first green sovereign eurobond in 2023. this issuance represents a pivotal step toward financing green infrastructure, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and addressing regional environmental concerns such as water scarcity and desertification (united nations development programme [undp], 2023; organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd], 2023). green sovereign eurobonds issued by uzbekistan are expected to contribute toward a 35% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per unit of gdp by 2030, as outlined in the country’s national climate goals (undp, 2023). by committing the bond proceeds to sustainable infrastructure, renewable energy, and water management projects, uzbekistan signals its dedication to green economy transformation and attracts esg (environmental, social, and governance)-oriented investors, enhancing its position in global sustainable finance (oecd, 2023). 2. the role of green sovereign eurobonds in sustainable finance green sovereign eurobonds are government-issued debt instruments dedicated to funding environmental projects, offering transparency in fund allocation and reporting on environmental impact (cbi, 2021; flammer, 2021). as a financial innovation, green eurobonds have evolved to address specific challenges in financing green projects, especially in emerging economies like uzbekistan, where access to capital markets is crucial for meeting extensive climate goals (karpf & mandel, 2018). unlike traditional bonds, these instruments focus exclusively on financing initiatives with measurable environmental outcomes, aligning investment with environmental sustainability (icma, 2017). in uzbekistan, green eurobonds support projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable water management, and sustainable transport, all of which are integral to the country’s environmental and economic resilience goals (cbi, 2022). research underscores the benefits of green bonds in enhancing transparency and fostering investor confidence in green projects. according to park (2018), green bonds, including green eurobonds, offer “credible signals” that bond proceeds are used exclusively for environmental projects, which helps attract a specific class of esg-focused investors. this is particularly significant in uzbekistan, where www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 70 green eurobonds align with international esg criteria and expand uzbekistan’s access to international markets, reducing the cost of financing critical environmental projects (park, 2018; oecd, 2023). at the cop26 and cop27 climate conferences, green bonds were highlighted as essential tools for achieving net-zero emissions, with particular emphasis on their role in emerging economies facing large-scale financing gaps for sustainable projects (unfccc, 2021). the climate bonds initiative’s (cbi) “five steps to 5 trillion” emphasizes the need to expand green bond markets in emerging regions to meet global financing demands for climate adaptation (cbi, 2022). in the case of uzbekistan, green eurobonds have facilitated investments in renewable energy infrastructure, contributing to energy diversification and reducing reliance on fossil fuels—both of which are key to achieving energy security and mitigating climate-related risks (oecd, 2023; iea, 2017). 3. financial innovation and economic resilience through green eurobonds financial innovation through green eurobonds is transforming how governments finance green projects, making it possible for uzbekistan to leverage capital markets to fund eco-friendly infrastructure without burdening national resources (zerbib, 2019). green eurobonds enable the uzbek government to attract a diversified base of international investors committed to sustainability, aligning national finance policies with global esg standards and strengthening uzbekistan’s market appeal among green-conscious investors (oecd, 2023). this integration of sustainable finance is essential for uzbekistan’s economy, where climate-related risks such as desertification and water scarcity present severe threats to economic stability (iea, 2017; hache, 2021). the economic benefits of green eurobonds in uzbekistan extend beyond immediate capital inflows. by financing renewable energy projects, water-saving technologies, and efficient agricultural practices, these bonds reduce uzbekistan’s vulnerability to climate shocks and enhance long-term economic resilience (undp, 2023). for instance, projects in renewable energy reduce dependency on fossil fuels, which improves energy security and mitigates greenhouse gas emissions—a crucial factor for sustainable development in regions prone to climate variability (iea, 2017). similarly, green bond-funded water management initiatives address critical issues of water scarcity and agricultural sustainability, securing resources essential for economic stability (undp, 2023). zerbib (2019) found that green bonds generally offer slightly lower yields compared to traditional bonds, a phenomenon known as the “greenium,” which can reduce borrowing costs for issuers. in the case of uzbekistan, this “greenium” potentially enhances financial stability by enabling cost-effective financing of green infrastructure projects. moreover, green bonds can improve investor confidence and increase demand for sovereign bonds from a diverse pool of international stakeholders, reducing uzbekistan’s reliance on traditional financing mechanisms (zerbib, 2019; flammer, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 71 4. objectives of the study this study aims to analyze the role of green sovereign eurobonds in promoting sustainable finance and advancing economic resilience in uzbekistan. the specific objectives include: 1) assessing the current state and growth potential of uzbekistan’s green eurobond market. 2) identifying opportunities and challenges associated with the deployment of green eurobonds for sustainable finance in uzbekistan. 3) proposing strategies for optimizing the impact of green eurobonds on uzbekistan’s green economy and economic resilience goals. 5. background of the green bond market the rapid global emergence of green bonds reflects an evolving emphasis on sustainable finance as a tool for addressing climate change, supporting energy transition, and advancing conservation efforts. green bonds are specialized debt instruments designed to raise funds specifically for environmentally beneficial projects, aligning financial returns with social and ecological impact (flammer, 2021). the international capital market association (icma) defines green bonds as bonds issued to exclusively fund “eligible green projects” that have verifiable environmental benefits, including renewable energy, clean transportation, and sustainable waste management (icma, 2017). this alignment with environmental, social, and governance (esg) criteria has fostered a shift toward sustainability in investment, with investors increasingly prioritizing esg factors alongside financial returns. the issuance of the first green bond by the european investment bank in 2007, dubbed the “climate awareness bond,” marked the inception of green finance in global capital markets. the world bank followed in 2008, underscoring institutional interest in funding projects that contribute to climate action and sustainability. these early developments laid the groundwork for exponential growth in the green bond market. by 2022, cumulative green bond issuance globally had reached nearly $2 trillion, showcasing the growing commitment among public and private sectors to address climate risks and foster sustainable development (tu et al., 2020; climate bonds initiative [cbi], 2022). green bonds are now diversified to cater to various project financing needs. major types include: use-of-proceeds bonds: the most common type of green bond, where bond proceeds are specifically allocated to pre-identified green projects, with general recourse to the issuer’s balance sheet for repayment (icma, 2017). green revenue bonds: non-recourse bonds, where repayments are directly tied to revenue streams generated by the green projects funded by the bond. this minimizes risk to the issuer's broader financial position (icma, 2017). green project bonds: in this structure, investors directly take on the specific project risks, making this type of bond suitable for investors interested in project-specific environmental impact (icma, 2017). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 72 green securitized bonds: bonds collateralized by green assets, with cash flows backed by project revenues, offering investors additional security and aligning investments directly with sustainable outcomes (icma, 2017). these structures have allowed green bonds to support a diverse array of environmentally beneficial projects. for example, governments and corporations have issued green bonds to finance solar power facilities, energy-efficient buildings, sustainable transport systems, and water management projects. the diversity of green bond structures has been pivotal in accommodating the financial needs of different green initiatives, thereby expanding green bond applications worldwide (maltais & nykvist, 2020). 6. standards of the green bond market in uzbekistan to maintain integrity and investor confidence in green bonds, adherence to strict standards and certification protocols is essential. standards such as the icma’s green bond principles (gbp) emphasize transparency, accountability, and consistency in reporting, ensuring that green bond proceeds are allocated only to projects with measurable environmental benefits (icma, 2018). certified green bonds are often subject to third-party verification to confirm that funds are used as intended, enhancing the bond's credibility and attracting esg-conscious investors (cbi, 2016). some of the most widely recognized green bond standards include: 1) climate bonds initiative’s climate bonds standard and taxonomy: this global benchmark certifies projects that make significant contributions to climate resilience and mitigation, promoting transparency and comparability across green bond issuances worldwide. 2) eu green bond standards: developed by the european union, these standards establish uniform criteria for green bond issuance across eu member states, facilitating alignment with the eu’s climate and energy objectives. 3) asean green bond standards: created to advance green finance in southeast asia, these standards reflect region-specific environmental priorities while fostering transparency in green financing. 4) china’s green bond assessment and verification guidelines: these guidelines strengthen transparency and assurance in china’s green bond market, ensuring that funds support authentic environmental projects within the nation’s rapidly growing green finance sector. in emerging markets, regulatory developments are also underway. for example, india’s securities and exchange board (sebi) introduced esg disclosure requirements for the top 500 listed companies in 2012, followed by the establishment of the inx india international exchange in 2017, which offers a platform for green bond listings and facilitates global investor access to india’s green finance market (shishlov et al., 2016). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 73 for uzbekistan to establish a robust green bond market, adopting or adapting these internationally recognized standards can serve as a framework for developing local regulatory protocols. aligning with these standards can help uzbekistan’s green bonds gain credibility and appeal to international investors. 7. literature review green bonds are increasingly recognized as a transformative tool for mobilizing capital toward sustainable projects, particularly in emerging economies. the environmental kuznets curve (ekc) hypothesis offers a theoretical framework for understanding this impact, positing that environmental degradation initially worsens with economic growth before stabilizing and subsequently improving as income levels rise and economies invest in sustainable practices (bekun et al., 2021). empirical studies show that key factors, such as gdp per capita, energy consumption, and tourism, contribute to carbon emissions, while green bonds provide a viable means of financing projects that mitigate these impacts (caglar et al., 2022). a concept of interest in green bond literature is the “greenium” effect, which denotes the lower yields on green bonds relative to conventional bonds due to high demand from esg-focused investors. this yield differential indicates an increasing investor willingness to accept slightly lower financial returns in exchange for the positive environmental impact of their investments (guerra, 2021). during the covid-19 pandemic, green bonds demonstrated remarkable resilience, maintaining stability despite overall market volatility and underscoring their appeal as a secure investment class even in uncertain times (flammer, 2021). research also emphasizes the diversification benefits of green bonds, as they contribute to stable, risk-adjusted portfolio returns, making them an attractive option for long-term, sustainability-focused investment strategies (laborda & sánchez-guerra, 2021). theoretical perspectives such as stakeholder theory and signaling theory provide further insight into the appeal of green bonds. stakeholder theory suggests that companies should prioritize the interests of all stakeholders—including employees, communities, and the environment—supporting investments that deliver both financial and social value (freeman, 1984). signaling theory posits that green bond issuance signals a company’s commitment to sustainability, potentially enhancing its reputation and appeal to socially responsible investors (spence, 1973). 8. methodology this study utilizes a systematic literature review (slr) approach, which involves comprehensively synthesizing past literature to address specific research questions while maintaining high transparency and quality at each step. the slr methodology minimizes bias and ensures that findings are based on a thorough analysis of existing research (blanco-mesa et al., 2022). this review follows the scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature reviews (spar-4-slr) framework, selected for its methodological rigor and enhanced quality in synthesizing literature over the prisma guidelines, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 74 following three primary stages: "assembling," "arranging," and "assessing" (tranfield, denyer, & smart, 2003). assembling the initial search for relevant literature on green bonds, sustainable finance, and green eurobonds was conducted in october 2022 using keywords such as “green bond,” “climate bond,” and “sustainable bond” (argandona et al., 2022; mathews, 2011). searches used scopus as the primary database for its extensive scholarly coverage (comerio & strozzi, 2019), and web of science served as a secondary source, although it yielded fewer results. initial searches returned 18, 19, and 54 documents, respectively. after screening for relevance and eliminating duplicates, the most pertinent studies were included. arranging in this phase, the selected literature was systematically organized by publication year, subject area, document type, source type, and language, focusing on research published between 2010 and 2022 within disciplines like economics, finance, business management, and environmental science (ellegaard & wallin, 2015). this stage yielded 39 relevant articles. two researchers independently reviewed the abstracts, findings, and conclusions to refine this selection to 21 articles that directly addressed green bonds in the context of emerging markets, focusing on uzbekistan's potential. assessing the assessment phase used slr methodology to ensure that the selected literature provided a transparent and comprehensive understanding of green bonds. following the spar-4-slr framework (blanco-mesa et al., 2022), articles were evaluated to identify emerging trends, existing gaps, and areas for further research relevant to uzbekistan’s green eurobond market. the systematic review served as the primary analytical method, aligning with the study’s objectives and facilitating knowledge gap identification (siddaway, wood, & hedges, 2019). results status of the green bond market in uzbekistan uzbekistan’s entry into the green eurobond market in 2023 represents a major development in central asia’s sustainable finance landscape. these bonds aim to finance projects aligned with uzbekistan’s commitment to the paris agreement and its environmental goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 35% per unit of gdp by 2030 (organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd], 2023; united nations development programme [undp], 2023). the funds from these bonds support renewable energy, water conservation, and sustainable urban infrastructure, addressing key climate vulnerabilities and strengthening uzbekistan’s resilience. challenges in the green bond market uzbekistan faces common challenges in developing its green bond market, such as limited transparency, greenwashing risks, and insufficient regulatory frameworks. like other emerging economies, uzbekistan lacks a well-established framework for sustainable finance, which may discourage foreign www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 75 investment (bhatnagar & sharma, 2022). furthermore, low credit ratings among local issuers reduce the attractiveness of uzbek green bonds, making it difficult to attract international investors (uddin, rahman, & islam, 2022). addressing these issues will be essential to creating a credible and resilient green bond market in uzbekistan. future directions for the green bond market uzbekistan’s commitment to a low-carbon economy and alignment with the sustainable development goals (sdgs) positions green eurobonds as a valuable tool for financing this transition. expanding green bond issuance beyond renewable energy to include projects in sectors like agriculture, waste management, and sustainable water management could diversify uzbekistan’s green finance portfolio (sarkar & sheth, 2022). additionally, creating a robust regulatory framework with policy incentives such as tax benefits, subsidies, or carbon tax provisions could attract more esg-focused investors and encourage further growth in the green bond market. 9. discussion this study highlights uzbekistan's initial steps in establishing a green bond market while identifying key obstacles that may impede its development. the analysis indicates that enhanced regulatory frameworks, improved esg transparency, and increased awareness among stakeholders are essential for expanding uzbekistan's green bond market. public-private partnerships and international collaboration could further strengthen uzbekistan's position as a leader in sustainable finance within central asia. conclusion and implications green eurobonds offer uzbekistan a transformative opportunity to address climate change, foster economic resilience, and attract international investors. establishing a strong regulatory framework, increasing transparency, and providing investor incentives can position uzbekistan’s green bond market as a model for other emerging economies. this study underscores the importance of policy support, stakeholder engagement, and international partnerships in unlocking the potential of green eurobonds to drive sustainable finance. limitations this study is limited by its reliance on english-language sources and the use of scopus and web of science databases, which may exclude relevant research in other languages. future research could incorporate qualitative approaches, such as interviews or case studies, to gain deeper insights into the green bond market dynamics in uzbekistan. expanding research to include other central asian countries could provide a broader understanding of sustainable finance in the region. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 76 references argandona, a., valls, j. f., & ramis-pujol, j. (2022). literature review on the influence of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. journal of business ethics, 120(4), 543-557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04705-8 bekun, f. v., emir, f., & sarkodie, s. a. (2021). another look at the relationship between energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and economic growth in south africa. science of the total environment, 655, 759-765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.305 bhatnagar, m., & sharma, a. (2022). green finance: an analysis of india’s emerging green bond market. economic and political weekly, 57(10), 42-49. retrieved from https://www.epw.in blanco-mesa, f., munoz-leiva, f., & sánchez-fernández, j. (2022). systematic literature review on the use of csr and sustainability in finance. journal of cleaner production, 299, 126933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126933 caglar, a. e., bilgili, f., & dogan, e. (2022). the environmental kuznets curve and renewable energy: evidence from cointegration tests with multiple structural breaks. environmental science and pollution research, 29, 4778-4788. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14895-w climate bonds initiative. (2016). climate bonds standard version 2.1. climate bonds initiative. retrieved from https://www.climatebonds.net climate bonds initiative. (2021). green bonds and net zero emission goals. climate bonds initiative. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01095-w climate bonds initiative. (2022). five steps to 5 trillion: expanding the green bond market in emerging economies. climate bonds initiative. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107501 comerio, n., & strozzi, f. (2019). green bonds: a systematic literature review and research agenda. journal of cleaner production, 241, 118077. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118077 ellegaard, c., & wallin, a. (2015). the method of systematic literature review in international business research. journal of international business studies, 46(6), 654-655. https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2015.8 flammer, c. (2021). corporate green bonds. journal of financial economics, 142(2), 499-516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.03.009 freeman, r. e. (1984). strategic management: a stakeholder approach. boston: pitman. guerra, f. (2021). green bonds and conventional bonds: yield differentials and investor preferences. journal of environmental economics and management, 110, 102019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102019 hache, e. (2021). sustainable finance and energy transition: towards a new paradigm. springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51630-8 international capital market association (icma). 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(2019). the effect of pro-environmental preferences on bond prices: evidence from green bonds. journal of banking & finance, 98, 39-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2018.10.012 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 20 original paper transformation of yi women's discourse from yi literature jifang qiu1* 1 school of chinese language and literature, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china *school of chinese language and literature, southwest minzu university, chengdu, china fund projet southwest minzu university student innovation and entrepreneurship training program project funding (project no: x202310656436) received: january 19, 2024 accepted: april 24, 2024 online published: may 11, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p20 abstract the subject matter of literary creation often comes from life, and literary works reflect a certain social outlook. yi literature is a reflection of yi society and culture, which contains the voices and expressions about yi women in different historical periods and social environments. there are many works depicting yi women in yi literature, and there are also many works in which yi women express their own life experiences. we can see the status of yi women in different societies and times from the situation of yi women in yi literature. keywords yi women, female discourse, yi literature, feminism 1. introduction from matrilineal clan society, to patrilineal clan society, to slave society, and finally to socialist society, the influence of yi women's discourse has been influenced by social patterns, from the peak of discourse, to the collective absence of discourse, to the present gradual equality of discourse between the sexes. the social revolution overthrew the imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism that pressed down on the people, and for women it even opened up a new way out to find self-liberation. in the mid-twentieth century, the democratic reforms in liangshan led to great improvements in the yi society, and with that, the political, economic and educational environments were slowly improving, and the development of liangshan entered a new era. the experiences and voices of yi women, who have become "absent" and "silent" due to cultural divisions and gender limitations, are slowly changing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 21 yi women have slowly begun to appear in public view. from the perspective of yi literature as a whole: firstly, the depiction of yi women's image has gradually become richer and richer, and the authors have started to focus on the yi women's own selves, meticulously depicting the image of yi women and expressing their emotions, and the archetypes of women's roles have become richer and richer, no longer relying on the single archetypes of the yi women's image such as "maker of human history", "spokesperson of wisdom", "aspirant and seeker of love", "rebel against marriage system and challenger to destiny" etc., and the yi women's image no longer possesses a single personality or character, and no longer serves the yi male protagonist as a secondary character in the literary works.secondly, more yi women have joined in the writing of the subject of yi women. yi women have begun to speak and express themselves freely and consciously, and are no longer the objects of narration, no longer the secondary characters constructed by men. in the process of yi society moving from matrilineal clan society to patrilineal clan society, the social status of yi women gradually declined, but with the founding of new china, democratic reforms, and reform and opening up, the social status of yi women has been restored, and the image of yi women in literary works has also been changing. by analysing the works from epic poems to modern literature, we will then explore the changes in the discourse of yi women that are implied behind the texts. 2. the peak of yi women's discourse the yi forefathers believed that a matrilineal clan society existed before the patriarchal society, and that the matrilineal clan society was not only the original model of the family, but also the organisational model of the political society, i.e. it used to be a systematic organisational form, which has left a deep imprint in the classical yi literature. in the book tian di zu xian ge, it is written:"all is great for the mother, and the mother is the root of all things. all things are governed by the woman. the woman is the head of the king, the woman is the minister. make a bow and arrows and divide them to fight wild beasts. the woman divides the prey, and the woman divides it well; she is the ruler and chief, and all are equal. everything is subject to her, and when she says so, it is done." in matrilineal clan society, the yi women had absolute power of discourse, were the rulers of the clan society, and were regarded as the source of life and the continuators of material life. during the matrilineal clan society, human beings had not yet invented tools, material productivity was low, the biological differences between men and women were not fully reflected, and because the society was afraid of women's fertility and could not understand why women were able to give birth to life, the yi males at that time were in a subordinate position. in the book tian di zu xian ge, there is also this record: "very ancient times, chaotic, will not plant crops, crops can not grow, and women ah, led to lead everyone, led to burn slopes, burned a few trips slopes, led to go to sow seeds, sow many seeds, women have the knowledge, women have a way. since then, only buckwheat to eat." these sentences show that matrilineal clan society recognises the wisdom and hard work of yi women, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 22 who are the masters of knowledge in the clan. in the traditional yi society, only the superior could have the opportunity to receive education. in the matrilineal clan society, women could receive education, acquire knowledge, and call for leading the tribe to cultivate and produce, which had strong influence and calling power, indicating that the yi women at this time had a very high power of speech. in meige, the yi women mainly represent the role of the gods, who create the earth for mankind, sow plants and teach marriage. the beautiful earth in the epic is created by yi women, who teach human beings to survive, reproduce and develop, and praise the wisdom and hard work of yi women. 3. loss of voice in yi women's discourse in the later stages of matrilineal society, the tools of labour were greatly improved, productivity increased, the rich and the poor were divided within the clan, and private ownership emerged. biological differences between men and women became more pronounced, and the economic benefits produced by women were not as good as those produced by men, and the status of women gradually declined. in ashima, this story is recorded: ashima, a yi sani girl living in a zhuodi, yunnan, is hardworking, beautiful and intelligent. when she was robbed by her headman's family, she was not afraid of power and was not moved by power and money, and finally fled but was washed away by a flash flood by the headman's sheltering god. gods against mankind, meaning that when yi women rebel against male power, the gods are on the side of male power, helping to protect it, and ashima is in a weak position, and ashima's struggles and endeavours do not cause any waves. in zizi niza, it is recorded that the heroic yi man, hayi diegu, shot a roe deer during a hunting trip, and the roe deer was transformed into a beautiful woman, and eventually was turned into a grey goat, and finally into a ghost. the conversion between yi women and animals, ghosts and monsters shows that the yi society does not put yi men and yi women on an equal status, and that yi women are inferior to yi men, which is an ideological attack launched by the male-dominated society in order to consolidate its own power and status, and to intentionally vilify and regulate the yi women. in ayi azhi, ayi azhi marries into her husband's family, where she lives without any freedom, suffering from abuse and cold eyes. she wants to use the outcome of her hard work to get her father-in-law and mother-in-lawto allow her to go and visit her family, but she is refused mercilessly, so she chooses to run away. on the way to escape, she meets a tiger and is torn into pieces by the tiger, which is extremely tragic.father-in-law, mother-in-law and tigers all represent the interests of male power, and yi women have no way of escaping from their suffering, and no challenge to their male power has ever been successful. yi women are not only under the feudal patriarchal rule, they are also oppressed by the patriarchal power and husband's power within the family, and they are subordinate to the patriarchal power and husband's power. when they are at home, they are their mother's helpers, responsible for taking care of the family with her, and they are the helpers in the family who can be economically productive; when they are married into their husband's family, they are the reproductive tools for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 23 continuation of the husband's family, and they are his family's tools of labour. women are objectified, disregarded and disciplined, and the yi women have lost their collective voice. 4. restoration of yi women's voice with social reforms such as the social revolution, the founding of new china, and the reform and opening up of the country, more yi women have been able to participate in the life of society, and women's legitimate rights and interests are gradually being restored, with the discourse between the sexes gradually moving towards equality, and yi women being able to make their voices heard in society. ye wuqiao, a female character in li na's novel the embroiderer's flower, suffers from discrimination and abuse in du's family, and finally has to put all her love on her daughter, vowing to let her daughter receive an education and cultivate her into an autonomous woman in the new era; after the outbreak of the war of resistance, her daughter becomes a revolutionary, and she follows her daughter into the world of revolution. she realised that she was an independent individual, no different from men, and that female consciousness broke through the repression of the patriarchal and revolutionary era. a lei puts all the yi women in her writing in extremely miserable situations, and shows the tragic women in yi society in people's view one by one. with the characters of grandma lama, mute erma, erximo, erguo and other characters, one by one, the tragic characters questioned the feudal ritual tradition, the male power, and the souls of the tragic women. using the pen as a weapon, lujuan writes about an area that is considered taboo for women, and in her poem, sonnet for the unravelling of the spell" (i), she expresses her own understanding of the divine power of the gods, which she hopes will recall the good qualities, health, and faith of her people. since written records, most of the history proves that the highest divine power is in the hands of men, and she challenges the traditional male power by writing in such a way to express her opinion in such a field. in the death of the black dress, jige quzhen strongly accuses the traditional yi society of ignoring and objectifying yi women; accuses the traditional yi social concept that "men are the root of the family"; and strongly praises the unparalleled resilience of the yi women's character and their great dedication to their children. alimo riniu's i am a yi woman, i can't cook is a challenge to the male domination of yi women. in the yi tradition, the kitchen is the domain of women, and she questions why the yi society puts all the responsibilities of household chores and bringing up children on the women, without any help from men; why mothers have become the accomplices of the patriarchal society, disciplining the yi women on behalf of the patriarchal power; why the yi women have been so tolerant; and why the yi society has no regard for the yi women. 5. reasons for the absence and recovery of yi women's discourse rights 5.1 changes in social patterns www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 24 changes in social patterns have provided a favourable external environment for the enhancement of the voice of yi women. in the traditional yi social structure, women were often in a weak position, and their voices were often ignored. however, with the progress of society and the development of civilisation, traditional social concepts have gradually changed, and the idea of equality between men and women has gradually taken root in people's hearts. from matrilineal clan society to slave society, then to feudal society, and finally to socialist society, the change in social form is the fundamental reason for the increase in the voice of yi women. with the development of productive forces, men gradually took a dominant role in the process of transforming nature because of their own strength and other reasons. with the emergence of the private economy, the female-dominated matrilineal society ceased to exist and was replaced by a male-centred patrilineal society. also because of the emergence of the private economy, women gradually lost their equal status and became the object of male oppression." in the second sex, beauvoir writes, "the ideology of socialism insists on the equality of all men; it does not and will not allow any category of man to be an object or an idol in marx's truly democratic society, which leaves no place for the other ". in a socialist society, women are guaranteed political, economic, and social security, and their social status is improved. 5.2 efficient development of the economy economic development has played an important role in promoting the voice of yi women. with the continuous development of the yi economy, women have been able to participate in more economic activities, such as agricultural production and handicraft production. participation in economic activities, on the one hand, is to liberate women from the family, yi women are no longer trapped in household chores, no longer engaged in family self-sufficient production activities, no longer confined to this "unpaid" family labour, began to engage in paid economic labour production, women's living space to expand the economic income is also increasing, contributing more and more to the family. women's living space has expanded, their economic income has risen, their contribution to the family has increased, and their voice has grown. this has not only improved the economic status of women, but has also given them more opportunities to communicate with all sectors of society, thus strengthening their voice. at the same time, economic development has led to progress in education, culture and other fields, providing more opportunities for yi women to develop. 5.3 the awakening of women's self-awareness with the changes in social patterns, the spread of modern ideas, and the increase in the level of education of yi women, the self-consciousness that is the intrinsic motivation for the discourse of yi women has awakened dramatically, and women have begun to search for their self-worth and the significance of their self-existence. beauvoir said in the second sex: "women are not born, but rather gradually formed. there is no destiny, physical, psychological or economic, that determines the image of the human woman as she is represented in society. it is civilisation as a whole [6] that determines www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 25 this so-called person with femininity between the male and the eunuch." the yi women began to reject this "femininity" that served the male power, began to reject the social and moral constraints, and began to challenge their femininity. they began to pay more attention to their own needs and rights. women gradually realised their important position in society and began to pursue equal rights and opportunities. this awakening of self-consciousness has made yi women more courageous in expressing their views and demands. 5.4 universalisation of compulsory education and development of advanced education finally, education has played a crucial role in the promotion of yi women's voice. the popularisation of compulsory education has liberated many yi girls from domestic work and enabled them to acquire knowledge, improve their qualities, and cultivate critical thinking and independent thinking skills among yi women, who then go on to higher education. compulsory education and advanced education have contributed to the awakening of a large group of yi women. this has enabled them to express their views more rationally when facing their own development, their own rights and interests, and social problems, and strengthened their right to speak out. at the same time, education has been able to break down traditional gender stereotypes and make more people aware of the important role of women in social development. 6. conclusion to sum up, the reasons for the lack of discourse among yi women are manifold, including the social situation in which they live, the level of economic development, women's self-consciousness, and the promotion of education. the combined effect of these factors has led to the gradual improvement of the status of yi women in society. references luo, x. y. (2019). on the female writing of yi female writer li na. journal of xichang coll ege (social science edition), 31(02), 10-13+32. mose, mujia. (2022). from chaos to clarity: the idea of common body in the yi creation e pic "song of the ancestors of heaven and earth". journal of ethnicity, 13(10), 65-72+13 7. simone, de beauvoir. (n.d.). in the second sex (tao, t. z. (transl.)). beijing: china book tian, d., zu, x. g., & wang, z. y. (1983). translation. guizhou ethnic studies, 1983(03), 20 8-221. wu, t. (2017). interpretation of female images in yi folklore works. journal of southwest uni versity for nationalities (humanities and social sciences edition), 38(04), 76-80. xu, y. (2020). beauvoir's feminist thought and its implications for women's emancipation in china. west china normal university. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 30 original paper on chinese traditional culture and its creative transformation and innovative development yu sun1 1 xi’an fanyi university, college of marxism, shaanxi, xi’an, china received: may 19, 2024 accepted: july 03, 2024 online published: july 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p30 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p30 abstract traditional chinese culture originated in the ancient cultural period before the age of shennong, which was created by the children of the chinese nation who lived in the territory of china for generations, and this culture has been continuously inherited by the chinese nation, which not only embodies the distinctive national characteristics, but also has a very long history. for the value of traditional culture to be realized in contemporary times, its creativity and innovation should be further developed. in this regard, the first thing we need to do is to find out the standard of excellent traditional chinese culture, make creative changes to it, and make organic integration of the development of contemporary culture industry, so as to promote the socialist culture to embark on a more prosperous and flourishing road. keywords chinese traditional culture, chinese marxism, innovative development, cultural industry there are many ways to say when traditional chinese culture was officially formed, but from the perspective of ideological and cultural genesis, confucius' deletion and finalization of the six classics should be taken as the starting point. because of this, china has always regarded confucianism as the main vein of traditional chinese culture. it is like the bright moon in the sky, and the other sons are the stars that live around it. however, with more than two thousand years of constant change, traditional culture has undergone many changes, showing great transcendence compared to the previous confucian base, and confucius himself has been given various forms. for example, after the death of confucius, confucianism was divided into eight factions, all of which had their own perceptions of the image of confucius. after much debate, the series of "si-meng" became authentic, and the other versions slowly faded away. after the swept away the six harmonies, he paid more attention to "legalism" than to confucianism, and confucianism suffered a very serious blow during this period. however, the strategy implemented by emperor wu of the han, "respecting only confucianism", was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 31 in fact a fusion of confucianism, legalism and taoism, which can be regarded as the first transformation of confucianism, and at the same time the first highly influential transformation of traditional chinese culture. after this, there were also different forms of transformation in the mainstream chinese culture until the modern period, when confucianism began to fade into the doldrums due to the violent impact of western culture. for traditional chinese culture, this was undoubtedly a great challenge. chairman mao once said that modern chinese society needed to take where china was going as the theme of the times, and this theme was closely related to where chinese culture was going. with the continuous development of the new era and new ideas, we should think positively about how the mainstream ideology and culture of chinese society should follow the trend of the times. in this process, we should find out how to transform traditional chinese culture in an innovative direction, and on this basis, find a path that suits china's national conditions and cultural traditions. 1. attributes and core of traditional chinese culture traditional chinese culture developed from an agrarian civilization, and the reason why culture has been able to flourish is inextricably linked to the natural environment. based on the relationship between man and nature, objects and mankind itself, marx divided social development into the following three forms: the first is human dependence, which simply means man's dependence on nature; the second is the dependence of objects; and the third is the free development of man. taking this as a basis, ancient chinese culture existed at the very beginning with the initial social form of human beings as its embryonic form. the culture created by such a conception was bound to attach great importance to nature, that is to say, a relationship in which the human being himself and the natural environment were integrated with each other (han, 2020). based on this, there must be consistency between material production and human development, which is the "unity of heaven and mankind" emphasized by confucianism. this is also the "unity of heaven and man" emphasized by confucianism. through this, it can be seen that human beings have a natural reverence for nature. the greatness of the spirit of the chinese nation can be reflected in traditional chinese culture. the chinese nation is a multi-ethnic group with rich cultural connotations, not only the han chinese nation has a long history, but also the cultures of china's ethnic minorities are still an inseparable part of it. the excellent traditional chinese culture can reflect the value of the whole nation, which is not only the essence of culture, but also a high degree of spirit and vigor. whether in the process of the development of the chinese nation, or in the process of the development of china's ideology and culture, it has played a very key role, and still has great value today. for the modern inheritance and innovation of chinese culture, it can bring great help, not only to promote the further development of society and the whole nation, but also to effectively promote the transformation of thought and culture. to be called the excellent traditional chinese culture, it must be refined by history, tested by time and practiced continuously (xiao, 2020). the excellent cultural achievements handed down from generation to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 32 generation can play a good guiding role for the concepts of today's human beings, and can effectively promote the further development of social material civilization as well as spiritual civilization. from a macroscopic point of view, china's excellent traditional culture has the following three characteristics: the first is ethnicity; the second is inheritance; and the third is innovation, great impetus for the development of society as a whole (zhang, 2019). confucianism has been the dominant culture in china for thousands of years, which is why our traditional culture has always regarded "putting people first" as the core concept. however, we cannot overlook the historical significance of other schools of thought. take the doctrine of taoism as an example, there has been a close relationship between taoism and confucianism in terms of mutual promotion and co-development, and it is precisely for this reason that the main vein of our ideology and culture has been formed. zhang once said, china's culture is extremely rich in excellent traditional content, the two most central ideas are the harmonious coexistence between man and man, and between man and nature to harmonize each other. confucianism for the “interpersonal harmony” concept made a focus on the elaboration of taoism on the "harmony between heaven and man" this key has been particularly emphasized. "heaven" refers to the natural sky. ancient people believed that human beings were a very important part of the universe, and they highly affirmed the independence and subjectivity of human beings, who were the only beings capable of recognizing the universe, nature and the self (yu, 2018). compared with industrial civilization, farming civilization is already slightly backward, but industrial civilization cannot be supported without farming civilization, and the former is a further inheritance and transformation of the latter. general secretary has pointed out that many of the difficult problems facing mankind today can be solved through the excellent traditional chinese culture, which naturally includes confucianism. in the process of mankind's understanding of the world and its transformation, both the rationale and the humanistic spirit of the excellent traditional chinese culture can bring about correct enlightenment, and play an indispensable role in the governance of the country, as well as provide good ideas for moral construction. in this regard, we need to take the characteristics of the times as the basis, and actively look for the content of traditional culture related to the adjustment of social relations and the enhancement of human morality, and carry on a better inheritance. in this process, we need to make a precise grasp of the core of national culture, to pass on the characteristics of national culture, and to take a reasonable and appropriate approach to the exchange of eastern and western cultures, to ensure that it is synchronized with the spirit of the times, so as to build a cultural system that meets the needs of the new era of development. 2. current status of the innovative development of traditional chinese culture since the reform and opening up of china, great attention has been paid to the education of "national education", which, as one of the key parts of china's classical traditional culture, has attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. many famous tv programs have introduced lectures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 33 related to it and have been well received. in foreign countries, there is also a program related to the knowledge of "national education" called "chinese new year". nowadays, confucius schools have spread all over the world, and the culture of chinese studies has been further promoted. in terms of basic education, schools in china have responded to the concept of traditional cultural development by offering a large number of related activities, and some regions have also incorporated the "national culture" into their curricula. the globalization of economy has also led to the globalization of culture. as international exchanges continue to increase, chinese cultural programs are appearing more and more frequently in other countries, and every year, many cultural workers take great pains to bring china's excellent traditional culture into foreign campuses, so that students with other cultural backgrounds can feel this unique charm (li, 2020). with the deepening of the "belt and road", the cooperation between china and its neighboring countries has become closer and closer, and in order to comprehensively promote the effective inheritance of china's outstanding traditional culture, further deepening the spirit of the silk road can effectively promote the construction of various civilizations and interactions. it should be noted that no matter in what way the excellent traditional chinese culture is passed on, the masses are always at the core, so in order to further promote the tradition and carry forward this work, it is necessary to provide good protection for the inheritors of traditional culture. attaching importance to them, on the one hand, is to prevent the interruption of cultural inheritance, on the other hand, is to retain the unique conditions in them, which is very important for cultural inheritance and development. first of all, high priority is given to the older inheritors. at the same time, in this process, we need to continuously expand and improve the team of cultural inheritors, so that more young people can join them, so that the excellent traditional culture can continue to flourish in the new era and new ideas. however, there are both dregs and gems in traditional chinese culture, so we should look at the dissemination and innovative development of culture dialectically, and look at the problem from a developmental perspective, rather than rejecting or accepting it in its entirety. 3. impact of the chineseization of marxism on the innovative development of traditional culture for the innovative development of china's traditional culture, contemporary chinese marxism is a major achievement. the so-called chinese marxism is actually the chineseized marxism. based on the actual situation in china, the basic principles of marxism have been effectively screened, thus forming a product of the mutual integration of the two ideas. chinese culture is the spiritual identity of the entire chinese nation, and it has played an immeasurable role in the long-term development as well as the gradual growth of the nation. therefore, it has also brought positive effects on the development of chinese marxism. first of all, there are many similarities between china's excellent traditional culture and marxism: first, in the shaping of worldview, both reject the concept of the afterlife, although chinese culture and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 34 buddhism have been integrated later, but in the mainstream worldview and values, the concept of the afterlife is denied, insisting on human-centeredness, and believing that people will overcome the theory of heaven; second, practice is a distinctive feature of marxism, and traditional chinese culture also emphasizes the "unity of knowledge and action", refusing to indulge in fantasy; third, the dialectical reasoning of taoism's yin and yang theory is considered to be the earlier dialectical theory and method of chinese philosophy, which is similar to that of chinese philosophy. secondly, practice is a distinctive feature of marxism, while traditional chinese culture emphasizes the unity of knowledge and action and refuses to indulge in fantasy; thirdly, the dialectical reasoning of taoism's yin and yang theories is an early dialectical theory and method in chinese philosophy, which is similar to the law of the unity of opposites mentioned in marxism's philosophy; fourthly, marx once said that the nature of human beings is not unique to individuals, and that from the point of view of reality, it is the essence of all human beings. fourth, marx had said that the nature of man is not unique to the individual, but from the point of view of reality, it is the sum of all social relations. from this point of view, it can be seen that wherever there is a certain kind of relationship, it is inevitably centered around the "i" (liu & li, 2020). marx affirms the significance of human existence, while similar ideas and theories are found in traditional chinese culture; fifthly, both share a common social philosophy, but there are some subtle differences among them. marxism believes that human beings will take communism as the direction of their own development, while chinese confucianism suggests that the goal of human development is idealistic socialism. it is on the basis of their commonalities that marxism was able to gain rapid acceptance in china after its introduction into the country. secondly, marxism has been well developed in china, thanks in part to our excellent culture. in essence, chinese marxism itself embodies the essence of our traditional culture. for example, thought, a household name, can be regarded as the first ideological achievement of the chineseization of marxism. chairman mao's later work, the theory of contradictions, etc., greatly embodies the positive fusion of chinese tradition and marxist philosophy. since the reform and opening up, the party has made a comprehensive study of china's national conditions, effectively combining them with marxism so that the two can achieve balance and consistency. the chineseization of marxism can remove the constraints of dogmatism to a large extent because it has been imbued with the excellent traditional chinese culture, which is evident in the fact that the chinese style and style are loved by everyone and the further development of china's socialist revolution has been effectively guided. in addition, the creative development of traditional chinese culture is inextricably linked to itself. with the active integration of marxism, chinese marxism has a deeper cultural heritage and a more advanced theoretical form. for our country, thought is the first ideological theory with the form of chinese marxism, and the second one is the social theory system of chinese characteristics that we are familiar with. until today, the excellent traditional chinese culture is still of very crucial significance to the overall development of our country. while we emphasize the excellent traditional chinese culture, we also actively accept and recognize the role of other excellent cultures, especially the driving force it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 35 presents to the chinese marxist culture. fundamentally, marxism was born precisely from human thought as well as human development. all things rich in value can play a positive role in the development of marxism. it is not exclusive; on the contrary, it is extremely inclusive and receptive. what we need to pay attention to is that, in developing and further promoting china's outstanding traditional culture, we need to stand on a macroscopic point of view, and in addition to emphasizing its role in nourishing chinese marxism, we also need to effectively deal with the issue of diversification between it and chinese marxism, or even all schools of thought, from an objective point of view. the collision of ideas is inevitable, but how to prioritize the "hundred schools of thought" is the primary issue in the innovative development of culture. general secretary said that to open up a better future, we need to keep history in mind, and to get better innovation, we first need to learn to inherit correctly. for a country or nation, it is the excellent traditional culture that is the root of inheritance and development. once this root is lost, the spirit and lifeblood will be lacking. we should always take marxism as the basic guiding ideology, stand in an objective point of view, dialectically inherit our excellent traditional culture, based on which effective innovation can be carried out, so that china's traditional culture can keep abreast of the times, and in all aspects of the expansion and improvement, so that it can play the greatest value and role in the new era. strive to build a complete development system of chinese excellent traditional culture by 2025 (general secretary, 204). therefore, the creative transformation of excellent traditional culture is particularly important in this process, and it is also necessary to utilize the development of contemporary cultural industries to carry out innovative development, so that china's excellent traditional culture can be revitalized, and cultural self-confidence and cultural competitiveness can be strengthened, so as to promote the prosperity of socialist culture. reference general secretary. (2014). speech at the opening meeting of the international symposium on commemorating the 2565th anniversary of the birth of confucius and the fifth general assembly of the international confederation of confucianism. people's daily, 2014-09-25(12). han, m. r. (2020). on chinese traditional culture and its creative transformation and innovative development. house of drama, 2020(4), 217-217. li, l. g. (2020). the significance, current situation and strategy of the development of china's excellent traditional culture under the leadership of innovation and creation. industrial innovation research, 2020(20), 9-10. liu, y. l., & li, w. (2020). the relationship between marxism and traditional chinese culture from the theory of practice and the theory of contradiction]. journal of hunan university of science and technology (social science edition), 23(6), 11-18. xiao, z. (2020). historical positioning, value orientation and practical path of chinese excellent traditional culture in the new era. journal of changji college, 2020(4), 29-33. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 36 yu, w. g. (2018). revisiting the creative transformation and innovative development of chinese traditional culture. journal of funashan, 2018(4), 92-96. zhang, y. j. (2019). research on creative transformation as well as innovative development of chinese traditional culture. modern communication, 2019(7), 81-82. abstract traditional chinese culture originated in the anci microsoft word assc-v1n2-p101 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 101 original paper out-side-text knowledge: a critical discussion of its importance in the analysis and comprehension of political discourse taher ben khalifa1* 1 department of english, faculty of letters and humanities, university of sfax, sfax, tunisia * taher ben khalifa, department of english, faculty of letters and humanities, university of sfax, sfax, tunisia received: april 28, 2019 accepted: june 4, 2019 online published: june 7, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p101 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p101 abstract the relation between knowledge and discourse is a problematic one. while speaking, we may activate one part of our knowledge and leave anther one silent to serve the coherence of what we seek to convey. having this in mind, this paper seeks to discuss the importance of out-side-text knowledge in the analysis and comprehension of political discourse. to study this issue, concern is devoted to two axes of discussion. first, focus is given to the analysis and discussion of some key concepts to form a workable frame for the study. it also seeks to high-light the boundaries between interpretation and over-interpretation. second, focus shifts to the analysis of some examples to put into practice the tools of the established approach. also, the extent to which the knowledge we activated served to produce worthwhile interpretations is questioned. the selected examples are taken from presidential speeches delivered by bush, obama, and trump. the method we used consists of two phases: one simple and the other complex. in phase one, the meaning the speaker sought to convey is decoded based on the types of knowledge he activated. in phase two, we activated the knowledge we have about the context of each speech to communicate the un-said. while doing this, we used the logic of critique to avoid over-interpreting the examples. the results showed that our activation of the required knowledge served to demystify what the speakers hide and to work out deception by highlighting the gap between discursive reality and social reality. it is also proved that the issue of boundaries between interpretation and over-interpretation remains a matter of critique. though bringing valuable contributions to the critical study of language in use, the paper left the doors open for further research on how to use out-side-text knowledge to communicate the un-said. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 102 published by scholink inc. keywords knowledge, out-side-text knowledge, linguistic structure, political discourse, and misinterpretation 1. introduction while doing discourse analysis, we need to have a great knowledge of the rules of language grammar (fairclough, 1995a; martin, 2000; chilton, 2005). it is the knowledge of how fragments of this language are being gathered to form a given linguistic structure. this awareness of how structures of this language are constructed is crucial while seeking to decode what is conveyed by a given piece of discourse (ariel, 2009). though it is important in decoding meaning, our knowledge of language grammar is not sufficient to reach a critical understanding of the conveyed meaning (van dijk, 2014). in other words, we need to introduce another dimension of knowledge that can help us reach an in-depth critique of the piece of discourse under focus. this dimension includes all sorts of knowledge we have about the context of discourse production (kintesh & van dijk, 1983). this knowledge is not absolute. however, it is bounded by such given parameters that are required for the framing of its scope. these parameters include examples like the circumstances of language production, the biographies of language producers, the historical embedding of discourse, the cultural background of language in use, the ideological orientations of language producers, etc. in brief, it is our knowledge of what is outside the realm of grammar, but it can affect the way grammar is being manipulated. part of this knowledge is activated by such textual expressions (van dijk, 1999; 2008). however, another part of it remains outside the realm of the linguistic expression of ideas and information by the means of the discursive structure of text and talk. we refer to this part of knowledge as an out-side-textual knowledge. it is said to be out-side-textual in that it forms a main part of the background of the produced discourse without being activated by it. the remaining of this part of knowledge away from being activated does not mean that it is away from the reach of discourse analysts or that it is not crucial for the analysis and interpretation of language. instead, it is in the reach of discourse analysts and plays an important role in the analysis, interpretation, and critique of the meaning conveyed through the linguistics of the text under focus. though this non-activated part of the knowledge is important for the comprehension of what is expressed by words, phrases, and expressions, it might be central for critical debates. these debates turn mainly around the axe of whether or not the use of this outside-textual-knowledge leads to the over-interpretation of the text under focus. to recapitulate, the importance of the use of this out-side-textual knowledge and the fear to fall in the realm of over-interpretation by involving it in the study of discourse represents the main problematics leading to the writing of this paper. while producing discourse, language users active various kinds of knowledge. all these kinds are cognitively activated to shape the linguistics of what the speaker or writer seeks to convey in the produced message. the cognitive activation of such knowledge works mainly through the creation of contextual models (van dijk, 1999; 2005). these models represent the starting point of the process of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 103 published by scholink inc. coding meaning as well as that of decoding meaning. in other words, discourse analysts should have in mind the models that the producers of discourse created while speaking or writing. during the phase of discourse comprehension, the set of knowledge constituting these models becomes necessary to enable the receivers to decode what have been coded during the phase of language production. these contextual models could be created in the receivers’ minds, as readers or discourse analysts, through many ways of acquiring knowledge such as readings, watching the news, stories, everyday conversations, experience, participation in such events, etc. the fact of framing the obtained knowledge in the form of such models might involve the interference of personal judgment or evaluation. here, the interference of personal evaluation might lead to the production of a personal opinion towards what is discussed in the text under focus. this personal opinion towards what is said raises the fear to say what might not be said at the level of the text selected for analysis. in brief, the intervention of personal judgments makes the boundary between knowledge and opinion a fuzzy one. this fuzziness of borders between what constitutes one’s knowledge about something and his personal position towards it reflects the fuzziness of boundaries between both objective and subjective interpretation. while the fact of being objective correlates to the state of carrying a straight forward interpretation, being subjective denotes the case of falling in the realm of over-interpretation. during the phase of discourse production, speakers might resort to the manipulation of the limits between knowledge and opinions while seeking to convince their public that what they are delivering as information represents a shared knowledge. to make these boundaries obvious, discourse analysts should be able to make clear the distinction between what constitutes the speaker’s knowledge and what constitutes his personal opinions about a given issue. however, during the phase of discourse comprehension, analysts might fall in the mistake of involving their own opinions in the analysis of the linguistics of a given piece of language instead of using what they know about the context of discourse production. the biased interpretations the analysts might produce by involving their opinions will affect the quality of the produced research as well as its reliability. thus, to overcome the possibility of over-interpreting the results of the linguistic analysis of a given discourse, we need to high-light the line separating both knowledge and personal opinions. 2. conceptual analysis before analyzing some examples, we are going to embark in the review and analysis of some key concepts and theoretical bases. these are related to the discussion of what is knowledge, what constitute a theory of knowledge, and the re-thinking about what constitute the line of separation between interpretation and over-interpretation. 2.1 knowledge being the opposite of ignorance, knowledge refers to people’s awareness or familiarity with a particular issue. the fact of being familiar with one issue or another implies having a set of ideas or information about it. these are the ideas and information we acquire, classify, and store in the form of episodes at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 104 published by scholink inc. the level of both long-term and short-time memories (tulving, 1972; van dijk, 2003). their existence in our minds allows us to interact with others as well as to communicate meaning through the activation of the required sequence either in the production or comprehension of discourse. the knowledge we have does not flow naturally during the production of both text and talk. however, it is manipulated based on many parameters such as the needs of the communicative situation, the goals of the speaker, etc. the manipulation of what to activate and what to keep non-active does not mean that the knowledge the speakers/writers hide have no affect on their linguistic procession of meaning. however, what is kept non-active can be implied. here, the implication of knowledge might be used to serve such goals like the skip of facing confrontations, face saving. also, it can have a strong impact on how the linguistics of the produced discourse is being processed and how meaning is coded. in other words, while a part of the knowledge that we have is explicitly expressed, another part of it is implicitly conveyed. thus, our awareness about how things work in a particular context determines how we code meaning in text and talk and how to decode it as well. knowledge is the key in any communicative practice. it is the means through which we can create a cooperative atmosphere of interaction. here, we are talking about the role of shared knowledge in the creation of intelligibility between the sender and the receiver. but, the processing of any kind of knowledge needs reasoning about what to activate while producing language to communicate with our audiences or readers. also, it entails reasoning about what to activate from our acquired knowledge while seeking to understand what is new in such a given communicative context. in other words, there is a strong connection between what to activate from our stock of knowledge and what we are reasoning for. this connection should be understood in the sense that reasoning is given the priority and that knowledge should be activated to help reasoning about the unknown. here, priority is given to reasoning because our use of knowledge out-side the realm of reasoning will not help us solve new problems. it will not help in that the knowledge we have represent only the known part of the problem and that the comprehension of the new part entails the use of a logical process of thinking to infer what should be done. having this in mind, the knowledge we have represents the starting point towards the mental collection of ideas and strategies to find the adequate answer to the problematics facing man in such a given context. hence, this relation between reasoning and knowledge should be dealt with as the mental configuration of knowledge while seeking to solve complex matters. doing discourse analysis is a way of problem solving. it represents personal attempts by such scholars and researchers to communicate the un-said. in cda, for instance, researchers were interested in the revelation and critique of social inequality, injustice, and power abuses that are not explicitly said in text and talk, yet these are implicitly conveyed (fairclough, 1995b; van dijk, 1993; lazar, 2005). as far, as problem solving is concerned, our out-side-text knowledge represents the known in the comprehension of a given piece of language. however, the analysis of the linguistics of a text represents the main problematic we are seeking to solve while dealing with the critical investigation of a given topic that is communicated through discourse strata. the results that we are aiming to bring to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 105 published by scholink inc. light are the new knowledge we are looking for to answer the exiting questions. it represents the contributions to be introduced to the existing body of knowledge. to succeed to reach such convincing contributions, we need to offer a well-framed model of contextual analysis. it is a theory that will enables us to explore out-side-text knowledge in the critical analysis of political discourse away from falling in the realm of over-interpretation. the discussion of the conceptual bases of this theory will be our focus in the coming section. 2.2 theory of knowledge the theory of knowledge we need in the case of our study is the one that is adequate to offer us a well-detailed understanding of how contextual knowledge can be manipulated and activated during both phases: discourse production and analysis. manner is the most important among other parameters in that the discussion of the importance of out-side-text knowledge in the analysis of discourse puts into concern two opposite kinds of discourse analysis: straight forward interpretation and biased interpretation. the need to be objective and to avoid being subjective entails determining what kind of knowledge we can activate to understand a given piece of language and what to keep non-active since it will not enrich our interpretation. the selection of what kind of knowledge to activate and how to apply it for the interpretation of the results of linguistic analysis requires being aware about how that knowledge could have affected language production. as far as discourse production and analysis are concerned, we need to set clear the different parameters that could frame how contextual knowledge could be processed in the processes of coding and decoding of meaning. the determination of these parameters entails highlighting the nature of knowledge. its nature is depicted in terms of the features that can qualify any sort of information constituting one’s awareness about a given issue. knowledge is social (killer, 2005). it is said to be social in that it is shared by a number of people who belong to the same epistemic community (van dijk, 2014). having this in mind the kind of knowledge we might resort to in the critical study of a given piece of discourse should be shared and not personal. emphasizing the quality of being shared should be understood in the sense that the use of any kind of knowledge in the study of discourse should take in to account the examination of social structures, relations, actions, interests, etc. these are required to understand how the social affects the construction of discursive reality. also, knowledge is cognitive (van dijk, 2006; 2008). it is cognitive in the sense that it is acquired and processed cognitively. what we acquire as knowledge will be classified and stored in the form of such epistemic models at the level of our minds. these models will be activated when we feel need to a particular kind of knowledge while producing or analysing discourse. as far as discourse is concerned, knowledge is discursive too (hassen, 2015). it is discursive in that it is acquired and circulated by means of discourse. knowledge affects discourse production and it could be affected by discourse procession as well. hence, our analysis of discourse structure should take into account the three dimensions constituting the structure of knowledge: the social, the discursive, and the cognitive. having in mind these three dimensions, the study of the role of knowledge in the analysis of discourse www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 106 published by scholink inc. requires taking into account knowledge’s connection to such concepts. these are concepts like power, ideology, and goals. first, having knowledge represents a great source of power that language users can manipulate to control their audiences. also, having power enables language users to control knowledge processing and to make it flows and being re-structured in the way that serves people’s personal plans. second, knowledge is not free from the impact of such social ideologies. however, the acquiring and the processing of knowledge are affected by the intervention of the ideological orientations of both senders and receivers. the sources we get knowledge from are ideologically monitored and the texts we will analyze are not ideology free too. in other words, ideology is there and it should be taken into account during discourse production and comprehension. third, knowledge is not activated at random. however, it is based on the determination of what kind of objectives we seek to achieve. in discourse production, goals determine what kind of knowledge to activate to convey the meaning that will help us re-shape the receivers’ attitudes towards a given matter. in discourse analysis too, the goals of the analysis will serve to determine the sort of knowledge we need to activate. the answers we seek to find while deciding to carry on the study of such given problematics determine the sort of knowledge we should activate. therefore, the activation of any kind of knowledge depends mainly on one’s reading of his context of both producing and studying discourse. the dependence of knowledge activation on these dynamic concepts makes its utility in the production and comprehension of discourse highly problematic. to deal successfully with the dynamic nature of this relation of dependence, it has become crucial to think about the typology of the activated knowledge (pritchard, 2014; van dijk, 2005). here, typology is concerned in that it will help visualize how the activated knowledge serves in the structuring of the linguistics of the political speeches under study. language producers might activate different types of knowledge to code the meaning they seek to convey to their receivers. these types include examples like historical, political, behavioral, religious, ethnic, ethical, ideological, etc. while decoding the meaning of the conveyed messages, we need to activate the required type of knowledge that we think can serve for the comprehension of the piece of language under question. once the activated types are determined, we might find ourselves concerned to answer another significant question that is concerned with the truth value of the knowledge we are dealing with in our examination of a given text or talk (armstrong, 1973; preyer & peter, 2005). in the case of our study, for instance, the evaluation of the activated knowledge in terms of truth should be used for the sake of highlighting political deception and misleading. hence, the determination of both the truth criteria and the typology of knowledge is a way to shed light on how language users resort to the manipulation of knowledge to serve such ends. to sum up, a theory of knowledge we need here should be a multi-disciplinary one. we need a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the role of out-side-text knowledge in the comprehension of discourse due to the complex nature of the concept of knowledge. it is complex in the sense that it is a multi-dimensional one. this theory will help us reach a well-detailed critique of how language users activate the required knowledge to decode the massage they want to deliver to affect a given social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 107 published by scholink inc. reality. it is also a theory that will provide us with the critical ability to activate the knowledge we need for the comprehension of a given discourse. here, our ability as discourse analysts is said to be critical in that the activation of any acquired knowledge in the study of discourse should be based on the critique of the knowledge activated in the text under focus. in other words, it is the knowledge communicated in the produced discourse which can determine what kind of knowledge the receivers should activate to understand that discourse. so, this theory of knowledge makes clear the bases that monitor the management of knowledge in both discourse production and analysis. however, the fear to fall in the realm of over-interpretation is still there. the line between straight and biased interpretations will be our focus in the coming section. 2.3 over-interpretation meaning to say more than what is said by the text, over-interpretation is a crucial concept that we should take into account while doing discourse analysis. being engaged in the practice of studying discourse, one should take into account the existence of three kinds of intension: the intension of the author, the intension of the interpreter, and the intension of the text (eco, 1990). the discussion of over-interpretation within the scope of the frame constituted by these three intensions highlights that: working in the realm of interpretation refers to the highest possible match between the intension of the interpreter and the intension of the author as well as that of the text. however, falling in the realm of over-interpretation denotes the state of mis-match between the intension of the interpreter and the intensions of both the author and the text. here, mis-match should be understood in the sense that the interpreter might derive more meaning than what is intended by the author and his text. in the field of psychoanalysis, the concept of over-interpretation refers to the fact of working out an additional interpretation of a dream (freud, 1989). freud highlighted that the addition of an interpretation could be sometimes worthwhile and sometimes not. by being not worthwhile, the interpretation we added denotes the fact of falling in the realm of over-interpreting a dream. in the case of my study, for instance, the addition of an interpretation consists mainly in the resort to out-side-text knowledge while seeking to understand what is coded at the level of discourse strata. in brief, the question—when might the use of out-side-text knowledge lead to the production of an over-interpretation?—is what matters in this section. the answer to this question manifests itself in two logical explanations. first, the discussion and the highlight of the boundaries between what constitute the interpreter’s knowledge about something and what constitute his positions towards that thing is of great concern. it is essential in that the activation of such beliefs instead of knowledge in the study of discourse leads to the production of some interpretations that are not worthwhile. in other words, to overcome the problem of falling in the realm of over-interpretation, the interpreter should activate only what he knows about the context of discourse production. in contrast, he should leave his opinions about the issue under question away from being involved in order not to affect the objectivity of the produced interpretation. second, the selection of what to activate from the knowledge we have about the context of the produced discourse represents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 108 published by scholink inc. another variable that we need to monitor to avoid producing over-interpretations of discourse. as far as selection is concerned, there should be well-defined rules to control this game of choosing and to make it serves the objective interpretation of what is said by discourse. one of these rules is that our activation of out-side-text knowledge, as interpreters, should depend on the nature of the knowledge that is activated by the text under study. another rule says that the activation of any sort of knowledge should be the result of a logical critique of what to active from our information to decode the complex message we are dealing with. moreover, a third rule says that reasoning should be prior to knowledge in the analysis of discourse. reasoning is first in that the use of knowledge by itself will not help producing new solutions. thus, setting the limits between interpretation and over-interpretation is a matter of critique. having the logic of critique as the only toolkit we can use to set clear the line separating over-interpretation from interpretation, we need to offer a brief understanding of the logic of reasoning. reasoning refers to the rational processing of ideas following some given steps to infer such conclusions. the conclusions that we are seeking to infer, here, are of two opposite types: interpretation vs. over-interpretation. in other words, to infer the right conclusion, we need to think carefully about the knowledge we have before activating it during the analysis of text and talk. this process of reasoning should start from the critical examination of the knowledge that is activated in the produced discourse. then, we should question whether or not the activation of the knowledge we have in mind could serve for the addition of such a worthwhile interpretation. the answer to this question will determine our decision about what to activate and what to leave, to avoid producing interpretations that are not worthwhile. the activation of the appropriate set of knowledge and the construction of a critical understanding of discourse away from biases highlight the success of the reasoning strategy we used. however, the failure to find convincing answers to the problematics that a given discourse might rise reflects the limitation of our approaching of the logic monitoring the knowledge activated by the author and the text and the one activated by the interpreter. hence, escaping the fear to add such subjective interpretations depends on the interpreter’s capacity to critical-ly evaluate his context of study. to recapitulate, the use of out-side-text knowledge in the comprehension of discourse remains a matter of critique. the logic of reasoning that monitors the activation of any typology of knowledge from the stock of information we have in the analysis of a given discourse should be context-dependent. its dependence to the context of study should be understood in the sense that the structure of the problem determines the structure of the answer. in other words, to avoid bringing such interpretations that are not worthwhile, we have to give priority to reasoning. however, knowledge should be considered as the known part of the answer. this means that knowledge will be inserted whenever we feel need to while seeking to make our thinking about a problem progress to reach the solution. so, discourse analysis should be understood as the analysis of the linguistics of a text where the involvement of contextual knowledge is meant to help progress our thinking about the decoding of that text’s meaning. having this in mind, a theoretical recommendation on how to avoid over-interpreting a text is given. but, how www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 109 published by scholink inc. this happens at the level of practice should be explained. the explanation of how to put what is theoretically said in practice is our focus in the analysis section. 3. methodology to put into practice the concepts and the theoretical bases discussed before, we will cite and analyse some examples. these are taken from speeches that are delivered by the three us presidents: bush, obama, and trump. they are delivered in different political contexts. the variation we stressed at the level of context is meant to show at each time how the knowledge we have about the context of discourse production serves for the decoding of what is being mystified. the use of out-side-text knowledge in the analysis of the produced discourse will be carried within the framework that is built mainly upon the bases of the logic of critique. the theoretical paradigm that offers a critical study of language in context is that of cda. this critical framework consists of a variety of theoretical approaches that are interested in the decoding of textual meaning. however, the most appropriate one for the case of my study is the socio-cognitive approach that is developed by van dijk, especially his conceptions that context should be dealt with as a set of mental models (van dijk, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007). the theoretical bases of these frames will be applied to explain how to process the knowledge we have in mind to understand what is coded at the level of discourse strata. working within this cognitive approach to the study of the role of contextual knowledge in discourse analysis and comprehension, the method i will use consists of two phases: one is simple and the other is complex. in the first phase, the selected examples will be linguistically explored. in this linguistic examination, i will be interested mainly in the decoding of what is explicitly conveyed. the analysis of the conveyed message will be undertaken through the determination of what the speaker activated as knowledge. in the second phase, i will focus on the determination of what the speakers kept un-active as knowledge to hide what they did not want to express to their hearers. to unveil the un-said is the difficult task to undertake in this phase. it is difficult in that the demystification of what is mystified requires being critical about what to activate from the knowledge we have in mind. my use of the logic of critique is meant to avoid falling in the realm of over-interpretation. the fact of keep being in the sphere of worthwhile interpretation, it is necessary to ask a critical question: are we still in the realm of a positive interpretation? this question will be asked each time we activate a given type of our knowledge of the world. finally, the results of the analysis we undertook in both phases will be discussed to recapitulate how the use of out-side-text knowledge could serve to communicate the un-said and to help reasoning about the un-known. 4. analysis and discussion now, it is time to put into practice the theoretical conceptions we have analysed and discussed before. their use to analyse the selected examples will follow the method depicted in the methodology section. hence, our task here will be to make what haven theorized to in the above sections closer to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 110 published by scholink inc. reader’s mind. it also seeks to make it at the reach of researchers’ use to help them explore their knowledge of the world in the study of such problematics that are related to the analysis and comprehension of discourse. 4.1 example analysis the first example is taken from bush’s address on the start of the war. it was delivered in march 19th, 2003. (1) my fellow citizens. at this hour, american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. what bush sought to convey to his follow citizens through the linguistics of this couple of sentences is that the us and its allies are at the beginning of their military action against iraq. in other words, the war against iraq has become an inevitable action. after, emphasizing the inevitability of the action he claimed, he highlighted the goals that this action is meant to achieve. these goals are of two kinds: one is local and two others are international. while the local one is about freeing the iraqi people from the regime they lived under its rule for decades, the international ones are related to the disarmament of iraq and the defense of the world against the threat caused by this regime. to make his message sound logical and persuasive to the public that he is addressing, bush resorted to the activation of different types of knowledge. these types can be discussed under three headlines: military, political, and security knowledge. first, the military knowledge is activated through the use of the to-infinitive construction “to disarm”. the use of this verb implies that iraq is an armed country that represents a great threat to its neighbors and the world. by implying this meaning, bush sought to activate the knowledge that his public already have in mind. it is their awareness about iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. the mental models that his public have about iraq’s weapons come as a result of the long argumentation process he embarked on since two years before while seeking to convince the americans and the world that the us should go into war against iraq. here, bush makes connection between what he had already given as information to his public and the world and what he seeks to achieve as goals. the cognitive connection he made was meant to prove that the war the us is going to start soon against iraq is not declared from the absurd. however, it was well-thought about. also, it aimed to highlight that the us army is not meant to attack the iraqi people. instead, it aims to achieve a specific goal manifested mainly in the total disarmament of the iraqi regime from its weapons of mass murder. thus, the military knowledge bush activated was meant to highlight the rationality of the action he ordered the coalition forces to start in iraq. second, the political knowledge that bush activated by using the verb “to free” seeks mainly to highlight that the mission of the us’s military action against iraq is to replace tyranny by democracy. by activating the mental models that the iraqi people have about the freedom that the americans live under the rule of the us democracy, bush sought to tickle the feelings of the oppressed people in iraq. his playing on the feelings of this group of iraqis was meant to convince them not to defend the regime www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 111 published by scholink inc. that oppressed them during the past years. he also sought to polish the image of the agents of the coalition forces by making them freedom defenders while seeking to limit the targeted group’s desire to resist the us invasion. here, bush’s cognitive connection between the socio-political context in the us and that in iraq aims to make a comparison between how people live in both contexts. this comparison is a direct call to push the iraqis to think about a post war iraq that is free and more prosperous. the visualization of this new socio-political context in iraq is enacted through imagination. it is the strategy that bush used to monitor the dynamics of what people have as knowledge about the american democracy to make them dream of having that kind of political model. in brief, bush activated the iraqi people’s knowledge about the american democracy to control their resistance to his military. third, bush activated the security knowledge through the use of the verb “to defend”. by activating this kind of knowledge, he sought to convince the world that he and his allies are in a humanitarian mission, to save the humanity from iraq’s danger. his insistence on shared security is a wise strategy to re-activate his audiences’ knowledge about the tragedy that innocent people lived while no security measures were taken to prevent danger from taking place. here, the activated security knowledge represents the top of bush’s rhetoric on the demonization of the iraqi regime. therefore, bush implies that if the iraqi regime will not be removed from power, there will be a great danger to face. to recapitulate, the types of knowledge that bush activated in this example are part of his justification of the war against iraq. they enabled him to draw a negative representation of this regime. in contrast, he succeeded to draw a positive representation of the self to prove that his war against iraq will serve to defend shared humanitarian values like democracy, peace, security, etc. however, he kept non-active the knowledge that might not serve for the well-structuring of his argument and the achievement of his political ends. the knowledge he left is there in people’s minds and can be activated to detect and to criticize the fallacy he used to destroy an independent country. the types of knowledge that can serve to reveal the truth lying behind bush’s invasion of iraq will be activated and analyzed as an out-side-text knowledge. first, our knowledge about iraq’s relation with israel represents a pivotal axe to understand bush’s demonization of saddam and his regime. america is one of the strongest allies of israel and a great defender of the zionist project in the middle east. being against the israeli occupation of the arab territories in palestine and having threatened to attack its ally raised the us’s anger as well as its fear about the future of the peace of israel. so, for israel to live in peace and for the zionist plan to be implemented with success, the iraqi regime should be removed from power and iraq’s ability to face the zionist plan should be destroyed. hence, the iraqi regime’s declared enmity against israel is the first reason standing behind bush’s instance on the need to go into war against iraq. second, iraq represents one of the strongest powers in the middle east in terms of military forces. it is also a reach country in terms of oils sources. this reality raises america’s fear of having a strong power that can affect its interests in the region. this feeling of fear becomes stronger and alarming when the iraqi regime declares being anti-american and pro-russian. in other words, it has become www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 112 published by scholink inc. unacceptable for the americans to let an ally of one of their greatest enemies—russia—control the prices of oil in the region. to limit this power from affecting its imperialist interests in a region of wealth, america needs to sanction and destroy iraq. this represents america’s first step towards the maintenance of a full control on the wealth of iraq and the region. in brief, america’s imperialist interests in the region represent another logical reason that justifies bush’s willingness to destroy an independent state. third, the materialization of what the americans planned for under the title of the new middle east entails the destroying of the big countries in the region. the activation of this knowledge finds its logical justification in the invasion of iraq and the destruction of its power as well as the attempt to destroy syria and to divide its territories into such federal states. by stimulating sectarianism and creating conflicting groups in the powerful states of the region, the us paves the way for its political plans to be implemented easily. in other words, the creation of on-going internal conflicts serves to weaken the states of the region and make them unable to resist america’s imperialist plans there. moreover, the american policy makers find in the dismantling of some of the ruling powers in the middle east the right technique to replace the existing anti-american powers by such new pro-american ones. this kind of replacement aims to serve the us’s political ends and not to bring democracy and prosperity to people of iraq as bush declared in this example (1). so, the us’s attempt to re-shape the political map of the middle east represents another logical reason that can explain bush’s struggle to go into war against iraq. to sum up, the activation of out-side-text knowledge enabled us to determine the logical reasons of the war that bush hided in his speech. these reasons are the main factors pushing for bush’s declaration of war. however, he left the knowledge related to them non-activated in that they did not serve his political argument the tool through which he seeks to get the legitimacy to go into war against iraq. though leaving this knowledge non-active on the part of the speaker, our knowledge of the politics of the world served to make the unclear becomes clear. however, what remains here is to question whether or not we fell in the realm of over-interpretation by activating the above three types of knowledge. different are the logical reasoning that can prove that what we are doing is away from over-interpreting this example. first, the us’s defense of israel and its interests is obvious and represents a shared knowledge for the world community. second, the us’ struggle to dominate the middle east and to increase its imperial interests there is something obvious too and cannot be denied. third, the us’s struggle to remove anti-american governments and to replace them by pro-american ones is something that they cannot deny too. instead, it is something recognized by the world community. also, it happened and is still happening across the globe and not only in the middle east. for instance, the removal gaddafi from power in 2011 is another example that can justify that our activation of this type of knowledge is away from being biased. so, the activation of our knowledge about the us politics offered us the opportunity to infer what bush hided. the second, third, and fourth examples are extracted from obama’s speech on the libyan crisis. it was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 113 published by scholink inc. delivered in march 28th, 2011. (2) qaddafi declared he would show “no mercy” to his own people. […] it was not in our national interest to let that happen. i refused to let that happen. and so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of congress, i authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce u.n. security council resolution 1973. (3) tomorrow, secretary clinton will go to london, where she will meet with the libyan opposition and consult with more than 30 nations. these discussions will focus on what kind of political effort is necessary to pressure qaddafi, while also supporting a transition to the future that the libyan people deserve—because while our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives, we continue to pursue the broader goal of a libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people. (4) the task that i assigned our forces—to protect the libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a no-fly zone—carries with it a u.n. mandate and international support. the linguistic analysis of these examples shows that obama sought to explain to his follow citizens two main things: the reason why the us intervened militarily in libya and what the us forces are supposed to do there. he explained the nature of the military task the us will undertake in libya. also, he highlighted the on-going political debate about how to keep on pressure on gaddafi to set down from power as well as how to support the libyan transition towards the future they deserve. by signaling the need to think about a better future for the libyan people, obama aimed to shed light on the role that the us plays to remove atrocity and to build democracy in libya. after highlighting that the us’s intervention in libya comes as a response to its duties towards the humanity, obama stressed the two goals to be achieved by this intervention: to stop killing and to enforce the un security resolution 1973. thus, by stating these goals, obama gave a clear idea about the mission of his forces in libya. to make of what he delivered to his public sound more logical and persuasive, obama resorted to the activation of different types of knowledge. these types can be discussed under three main titles: political, social, and military knowledge. politically speaking, obama focused on the visualization of gaddafi’s atrocity and his act of aggression against his own people. by drawing this gloomy picture of the political scene in libya, obama sought to prove to his nation that gaddafi is a dangerous man and that he should be stopped from killing his own nation. the representation of gaddafi as a dictator who shows no mercy to his own people was meant to find the legitimacy for the action that he claimed before 10 days to intervene militarily in libya. the fact of looking for legitimacy finds its traces also in his resort to the us local political context, the world political context and the libyan political context too. on the one hand, obama stressed that before intervening militarily in libya, he got the green light to act from the bipartisan leadership of the congress. on the other hand, he shed light on the legitimacy the us got from the members of the libyan opposition who called for the rescue of their nations from the world community. then, he expressed the world community’s agreement on the need to intervene in libya and to help rescue its people from killing. therefore, by activating political knowledge, obama sought to make of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 114 published by scholink inc. his claim to act in libya a legitimate political decision. socially speaking, obama highlighted that the libyan people are living in such an immediate danger. they were living under the rule of a dictator for four decades and when they protested peacefully against his dictatorship, he declared to face them with no mercy. here, obama’s emphasis on the mercilessness behavior of the gaddafi regime was meant to draw a picture of the darkness of the social reality in libya. by highlighting the atmosphere of dictatorship and killing, obama implies that change in libya should take place to save lives and to bring more freedom to its people. the move from one social context (old) towards another context (new) is meant to stimulate a kind of comparison in the public’s minds between the democracy the us people live and the dictatorship the libyan live in the same era of the world history. this comparison seeks mainly to convince the public to welcome easily what their president claimed to do in libya. hence, obama activated knowledge about the libyan social context to prove the need for political change in libya. militarily speaking, the knowledge obama activated is related to three military contexts: the libyan, the american, and the international. at the libya local level, obama highlighted the military aggression that gaddafi declared against his own nation. he expressed his refusal to what is going on in libya and he claimed that gaddafi’s aggression should be stopped insisting that this will happen by driving him out from power. at the international level, he claimed that there are international supports from many nations to help the us protect the libyans from killing and danger. by insisting on the existence of support from many nations, obama sought to stress that what the us is doing there is legitimate and acceptable for the world community. at the american level, obama re-assured his citizens that what the us is doing in libya is limited to saving lives via the establishment of a no-fly-zone. his re-assurance can be read in various ways. by saying this, he might seek to convey to his people that the us’s intervention in libya will not cost much on tax payers. also, he might seek to highlight to them that there will be no loss of lives among the individual of the us troops. these interpretations are cited among possible ones in that the americans become against the participation of the us troops in any war after the long fights they have in afghanistan and iraq. in brief, obama activated military knowledge from three contexts to convince his people that the us is there to settle peace. to sum up, the different typologies of knowledge that obama activated are selected based on the political logic that serves the well-functioning of his argument on the need to act in libya. he activated the political, the social, and the military knowledge to highlight that change should take place in libya. he insisted that change should start from the removal of a dictator and the building of a new democratic state. these typologies of knowledge constitute part of people’s shared knowledge in the us and the world, which means that their activation will serve to make obama’s decision sound legitimate. however, he left another important part of his knowledge non active. though silenced, this knowledge is there in the mind of people across the globe and especially the one who read and hear about the us-libyan relations during gaddafi’s ruling. the activation of this part of knowledge will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 115 published by scholink inc. help us, as readers and discourse analysis, understand the us’s quick response to intervene militarily in libya. in other words, it will serve us to determine the agenda motivating the us’s military action in libya while the same happened in other states and the us did not react to save lives. the history of the us-libyan relations during the gaddafi rule witnessed many tensions. the two states confronted each other in different times. this confrontation came as a result of the difference of views. gaddafi was known by his anti-american position. he always criticizes the us for its imperialist policies across the globe, and especially in the arab countries. this political position makes of him a bad guy in the views of the us administration. he was accused by managing such terrorist attacks against the us interests like the bombing of a discotheque in the german capital, berlin, in april 5th, 1986. after designating the responsible agent, the us reacted by bombing libya in april 15th, 1986. this history of tension started with gaddafi’s nationalization of the oil industry and his removal of the american oil companies after his raise to power in 1969. later on, in 1979, the us considered libya as a sponsor of terrorism after the withdrawal and the firing of its embassy in tripoli. these facts and other represented a legal proof for the us to impose economic sanctions on libya. also, they were important political justifications for america to control libya’s export on military and civil crafts. thus, the activation of our knowledge about the reality of the us-libyan relations served to re-activate old contextual models on the readers’ minds and enable them to demystify what obama mystified along his speech. gaddafi’s support of the palestinians and his anti-israel political position makes of him a man who is considered among the list of the enemies of the us’s greatest ally in the arab region. being an enemy of the us and the zionist state it defends puts gaddafi at the top of the list of the leaders that should be removed from power. his removal represents a great opportunity for the us to restore its political and economic interests in libya as a sate rich in oil. also, it is an opportunity to get rid of a man who supports the palestinians to resist the israeli colonist plans in their homeland. in other words, his removal among others is required to reduce arab resistance to the zionist ideology in the middle east. moreover, gaddafi’s claim to coin the african dinar and to sell oil using gold instead of the us dollar represents a threat to the value of the us currency across the globe. this fact makes of gaddafi a devil incarnation on the views of the american capitalists and ruling elites. this means that he becomes a real threat to us interests and he should be removed from power. gaddafi’s image become more gloomy on the views of the american leaders after his speech in the un in 2009. his accusation of the us and his harsh critique of the unjust policies of the un and its security council, the tool through which the us give legitimacy to its policies, hastened the end of his regime. as a result, the americans and their allies found in the outbreak of the arab spring the right socio-political political context to remove gaddafi from power and to change him by a pro-american leader, khalifa haftar. to recapitulate, the activation of what we have as knowledge about gaddafi’s relations with the us and its allies served to unveil what obama hid along his speech. the interpretations formulated by activating the knowledge that obama left non-activated made clear the main reasons standing behind www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 116 published by scholink inc. the us’s intervention in libya. in other words, what obama stated explicitly represents mere rhetorical justification for the legitimacy of his claim to act. in contrast, what he left implicit is the real proof that can explain the acceleration of his decision to act and to remove gaddafi from power. hence, the activation of this knowledge served to communicate the un-said. however, what remains problematic is the fear to fall in the realm of over-interpretation. the denial to fall in this realm finds its justification in several logical reasons. first, gaddafi’s opposition of the us imperialism and his rejection of israeli use of power is known for the world community. second, the us’s repetitive attempts to remove gaddafi from power is there and recorded in the archives of the modern history of the world. third, the us’s military intervention to remove anti-american leaders and to change them by pro-american ones is something known for all. fourth, the us’s support of haftar to lead the rebellion and then to lead libya later on can summarize all about its policy to end gaddafi regime and to set up a pro-american regime there. finally, the activation of the knowledge we have about the us-libyan relation served to bring worthwhile interpretations away from over-interpretation. the fifth example is taken from trump’s proclamation 9683 of december 2017. in this presidential document, he proclaimed the recognition of jerusalem as the capital of the state of israel and the relocation of the us embassy to israel to israel to jerusalem. (5) now, therefore, i, donald j. trump, president of the united states of america, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the constitution and the laws of the united states, do hereby proclaim that the united states recognizes jerusalem as the capital of the state of israel and that the united states embassy to israel will be relocated to jerusalem as soon as practicable. the linguistic analysis of this example proves that trump used his power as a president to proclaim two different claims for action. the first claim is related to the recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel. this claim comes after he reminded his public that the us first recognized the state of israel before 70 years under the rule of president trauma. the second claim is concerned with the relocation of the us embassy in jerusalem. to prove the legitimacy of his claim to relocate the us embassy there to his public, he highlighted the will of the congress to have the us embassy in jerusalem expressed in the act of 1995. also, the analysis of the linguistics of this example shows that the time of these two claims for action is not specified. however, they are said to be materialized “as soon practicable”. here, trump sought to stress his personal endeavor to put into practice what the previous presidents of the us left as mere campaigning promises. in other words, he was seeking to show to his voters that he will never hesitate to put into action the claims he gave during his electoral campaign. therefore, trump was endeavoring to show to his public that he has the power to materialize his promises under the us laws. to legitimize his use of power to act, trump activated different sorts of knowledge. these sorts can be discussed under three headlines: personal knowledge, political knowledge, and legislative knowledge. these three kinds of knowledge are re-activated here in trump’s conclusion to recognize jerusalem as the state of israel and to relocate the us embassy in jerusalem, after being introduced along his www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 117 published by scholink inc. argument for action. first, trump activated his personal knowledge. he presented his name and family name followed by his determination of his personal position in the american society. by saying that he is the president of the us, he sought to attract the attention of his people and the world that he is the representative of the american people and that he can take important decisions under the cover of the us laws. second, he activated his political knowledge. he argued that he has the adequate political power to claim the recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel and to move the us embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. his emphasis on his political power was meant to show to his public that his decisions are inevitable and that they will be put into practice. third, trump activated legislative knowledge. his activation of this sort of knowledge was meant to high-light the legitimacy of the two decisions he claimed. he is a man of power who works based on the authority he is given by the constitution and laws of the us. finally, trump’s argument for the need to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel and to move the us embassy to jerusalem ended with a conclusion stressing the inevitability of these two actions. to justify the conclusion that he reached, he sought legitimacy in the activation of three sorts of knowledge: the personal, the political, and the legislative. the types of knowledge trump activated served to code the message he sought to convey to his people and the world. they served for the progress of his argumentation process as well as for the persuasiveness of the argument through which he seeks to defend the recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel and the removal of the us embassy to jerusalem. moreover, the use of the knowledge he activated enabled us to decode the explicit meaning of his message. however, our activation of the knowledge we have concerning the political context of trump’s proclamation will help us infer what trump sought to mystify along his argument for action. trump left an important part of his knowledge about the context of his declaration non-activated to hide the truth standing behind the selection of the time of his claimed actions. he sought to hide why this declaration should take place now and not at any time before or after this moment of the world’s history. here, those who are interested in the issue of the palestine-israel conflict have the required typologies of knowledge that can help explain this. therefore, the activation of the required typologies of the knowledge we have in mind will be of crucial significance to find the logical explanation for trump’s selection of time. what we have as shared knowledge about the arab-israeli conflict represents a variety of mental models that we can re-activate to communicate the un-said. these are diverse types of knowledge that we re-activate to offer a well-detailed critique of trump’s proclamation. we cite and use the knowledge that we activated under three main titles: historical knowledge, political knowledge, and military knowledge. on the one hand, our historical knowledge about the us’s support of israel to build its state on the middle east is something shared by all world community. the us is the main defender of israel’s colonialist expansion in the region and the holder of the zionist plan there. having this in mind, we can say that trump found the right time to make everything explicit and proclaim the need to materialize what have been recognized before but not yet practiced. in reality, trump activated his knowledge www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 118 published by scholink inc. about the us’s recognition of the state of israel and its congress’s urgent request to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel and to relocate the us embassy in jerusalem. also, he claimed that the right time has come to put these claims into action. however, he kept un-explained why this is the right time. historically speaking, the arab community, as the main defender of the palestinians’ right for independence, lives in a period of weakness. most of the arab countries are living in either revolution, civil war, or political instability. being in this critical state, the arab nations will not have the power to resist such political decisions. they do not have the required power to support the palestinians to defend their rights for peace. in other words, the us political decision-makers waited for a long period to find the right time to put into practice the plans they elaborated in their political labs. thus, the activation of our historical knowledge proved that the deterioration of the arab power to resist represents the main type of knowledge that trump and his administration built upon to claim that this is the right time to act. on the other hand, our political knowledge about the representation of the arab community in the un represents another important type of context model that we can activate here to explain trump’s proclamation. formed by a respectful number of countries, the majority of which are members in the un, the arab community has no permanent member in the un security council (sc). this implies that the arab community does not have the right political power that enables them to defend a legal resolution to the palestine-israel conflict. in other words, the resolution will be planned for and evaluated from one single perspective. it is the perspective of the us and its allies. in his argumentation to prove the need to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel and to relocate the us embassy in jerusalem, trump activated his knowledge about the us’s support of peace between the two states. however, what remains un-said is that this peace plan is a pro-israeli one and not a plan that the palestinians and their defenders agree upon. this reality is left un-expressed in that the arab nations do not have the power to act and to influence the un decisions concerning the palestine-israel conflict. the arab nations do not even have the power to resist what the us president claimed because they fear the us sanctions. the us’s imposition of sanctions against the anti-american policy states is something known and cannot be denied. therefore, our activation of our political knowledge highlighted that who owns power in the un owns power on the ground. the arab nations have no power to affect the un decisions, which means they have no power to resist the world powers’ decisions. this political reality offered trump the right context to put his electoral promises into action. then, the activation of our military knowledge about the disbalance of power between the arab community and the us is important too. it is important in that the logic of fighting says that, as a counterpart to a conflict, you should look for the moment of weakness to triumph and to impose your instructions on the other. in the case of our context of study, israel and its allies and supporters have the military power to control and to dominate palestine and its supporters. the power they have came as a result of the weakness of the arab community due to some internal political divisions. this disbalance of power makes the us leaders, and especially trump have the power to humiliate arab leaders, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 119 published by scholink inc. proclaim israel’s right to control some arab territories, and depict those who defend a legal right as extremists and terrorists. trump did all these in public and in such direct and live broadcasted speeches without facing any kind of resistance from the arab officials, except the expression of such personal and institutional condemnations. having this in mind, trump knew that if he claims the recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel and the relocation of the us embassy to jerusalem, he will not face such considerable resistance. in other words, his claim that the right time has come to put these two decisions into action finds its explanation in his reading of what the counterpart can do when these actions are claimed. so, in a historical context in which the counterpart lacks the adequate military power to resist, trump thought of himself as a strong leader who can produce change for the best of a great ally, israel. to conclude, our revisit of the contextual models we have about the palestine-israel conflict offered us the knowledge that can help us demystify what trump mystified. our activation of the three types of knowledge—the historical, the political, and the military—proved that trump benefited from the weakness of the arab community to make of himself the leader who can do what his predecessors did not. here, we can say that the us leaders were working for many years to reach the day in which they can put into practice what they have planned for before. hence, the knowledge we have served us to reach a detailed conclusion about how the us benefits from the weakness of its counterpart to materialize its policies on the ground. however, what remains problematic is the fear of falling in the realm of over-interpretation. it is clear that being in the realm of over-interpretation is excluded. the fact of excluding this reality can be justified by several logical reasons. first, our historical knowledge concerning the us’s support to israel and its defense of the zionist state represents a shared knowledge for the world community. second, our political knowledge that the arab community does not have a permanent member in the sc and its weakness to play a leading role in world politics and to affect the un decision-making process is something known too. third, the disbalance of power between the defenders of the palestinian right and the defenders of zionist state in the region is an undeniable reality either. finally, we can say that the knowledge we activated served in the formulation of worthwhile interpretations away from falling in the realm of over-interpretation. this conclusion highlights that the interpretations we made explain the real agendas standing behind trump’s articulation of his proclamation 9683, noting that what he delivered was a mere rhetorical justification of his abuse of power. 4.2 discussion the analysis of the above examples showed that the activation of out-side-text knowledge serves for the comprehension of what the speakers left un-clear. when they were speaking, the speakers resorted to the activation of some types of knowledge while leaving other types non active. we noted here that the speakers activated only what can serve for the progress and the well-functioning of their argumentation. what they activated as knowledge is useful to decode the meaning they have coded at the level of the linguistics of their speeches. this knowledge is used to shape the rhetorical reality they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 120 published by scholink inc. sought to create. in other words, its use during the analysis process enabled us to work out the fallacies that the speakers used to convince their public about the need to act in a given context. however, what they left non-active leads mainly to the mystification of the real causes standing behind their production of such a claim. this means that the knowledge they mystify shapes the reality of a given socio-political context in which they are acting. having this in mind, makes our activation of what the speakers left non active as knowledge required to demystify what they mystified along their speeches. in brief, the activation of the knowledge we have about the issues under focus revealed the legal proofs pushing each of the speakers to act. also, it makes clear the gap between social reality and the reality that the speakers sought to shape via rhetoric. the gap we detected between the discursive reality and the social reality that people live in the addressed contexts makes the activation of our knowledge of the world crucial for the critique of discourse. it is crucial in that the process of involving out-side-text knowledge offered us a worthwhile interpretation that can clarify what we could not understand if we do not get back to what we have as knowledge concerning the issue we are targeting in our analysis. however, what appeared to be problematic is what type of knowledge we need to activate from the stock of information we have in mind. based on our analysis of the selected examples, the activation of the required types of knowledge should be based on our need for what type of information to understand what is left unclear. in other words, to communicate the un-said, we need to start from what is said, determine what the speaker might hide, and decide what knowledge we can activate. following these three steps, we succeeded to work out the deceptive nature of the speakers’ justification to act and to make clear the logical reasons that could be the real explanation for their insistence on the need to act. also, this logical reasoning enabled us to make clear how the us leaders manipulate universal values to serve their political interests. hence, the examination of how knowledge’s manipulated in the production of discourse is crucial for the comprehension of discourse. however, the activation of the required knowledge to unveil the hidden remains central for over-interpretation. the issue of over-interpretation is something we paid attention to while activating any sort of the knowledge we have to communicate the un-said. the fear we have about the possibility to fall in the realm of over-interpretation is the main result of the fuzziness of borders between both interpretation and over-interpretation. to make clear that we are away from the over-interpretation of each of the above examples, each time we question whether what we activate as knowledge leads to the production of worthwhile interpretations or not. our questioning of this fact led to the citing and explanation of the logical reasons which can justify that our activation of a given contextual model will not lead to the production of over-interpretations. the examination of the cited reasons showed that what makes the activation of a given type of knowledge away from over-interpretation is the fact of being shared by the world community. in other words, any information that we might activate to understand a given discourse should be widely recognized as a shared knowledge. by highlighting the need of being shared, we offered a good advice on how to use the knowledge we have to communicate what is left www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 121 published by scholink inc. silent by the users of language. to recapitulate, apart from affecting discourse production and analysis, the use of knowledge is proved to be affected by such factors at the level of both processes. these factors include examples like context, persuasion, goals, etc. thus, to have the knowledge we activate serve to demystify what the speakers mystified, we should be aware about how these factors affect the speakers’ argument for action. having this in mind, it was easier for us to select the appropriate knowledge to activate while seeking to work out the speakers’ hidden ideologies. the discussion of how to make of the activated knowledge serves the positive interpretation of the above examples revealed that the wider the community who share that knowledge is, the more valid the interpretation will be. so, the activation of a given knowledge should have the (+ logic) value to be fruitful for escaping the possibility to be in the realm of biases. 5. concluding remarks this paper offered a multi-disciplinary discussion to the importance of the use of out-side-text knowledge in the analysis and comprehension of discourse. this discussion has led to the formulation of some important conclusions: some are theoretical and others are practical. at the theoretical level, we noticed that the activation of the knowledge we have in the analysis of a given piece of discourse should be monitored by several rules. first, priority should be given to reasoning. our activation of any type of the knowledge we have should be based on what we need as information to allow our reasoning to progress while seeking for the resolution of a given problem. second, the activation of any type of knowledge from the models we have in mind depends on the nature of the knowledge activated by language users. here, we need to work out the meaning expressed by the linguistics of the text, to determine what the speaker hides as meaning, and to decide what type of knowledge to activate to communicate the un-said. third, the fact of activating any type of knowledge should adhere to the logic of critique. we need to question whether what we activated as knowledge can serve for the production of a worthwhile interpretation or not. fourth, the knowledge to be activated to demystify what the users of language mystified should be shared by the world community and not a personal one. we need to activate only shared knowledge to avoid falling in the realm of biases. fifth, we need to make clear distinction between what we have as knowledge and our personal attitudes towards a given issue. this distinction is required in that our activation of attitudes instead of knowledge will led to the production of subjective instead of objective interpretations. finally, discourse should be viewed as a kind of problem solving where the knowledge we have should be considered as the known part of the problem that we can use to reason while seeking to bring to light the un-known. at the practical level, we noticed that the speakers activated only the knowledge that can serve for the progress of their arguments. however, they left non-active what cannot help them justify their plans to act in a given context. our activation of the knowledge we have about their context of speaking revealed that there exist two kinds of realities: the rhetorical and the social. while the rhetorical reality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 122 published by scholink inc. is the one that the speakers created to prove the legitimacy of their claims, the social reality is the one that shapes the logical reasons that push the speakers to act. the speakers hid the social reality in order to hide the political goals standing behind their claims for action and to highlight the humanitarian values they defend. the activation of the knowledge we have served also to reveal that the speakers manipulate the knowledge they have in mind depending on the goals they seek to achieve. in other, words the activation of any type of knowledge in discourse production and analysis is monitored by the logic of serving such goals instead of others. our critique of how to avoid over-interpreting a text highlighted that the separation between interpretation and over-interpretation remains a matter of critique. in other words, we need to question each time whether the activated knowledge could lead to the production of over-interpretation or not. our practice, of the logic of this critique revealed that to be away from over-interpreting a text we need to active only what is shared by the large world community. in brief, the activation of out-side-text knowledge is crucial to communicate the un-said. however, the practice of this discipline should be grounded in the logic of critique to avoid being subjective. having these two sorts of conclusions in mind, this paper brought valuable contributions to the disciplines interested in the study of language in use. it offered its readers a good idea about how to explore their knowledge of the world to understand what they hear and read in their everyday life. also, it offered researchers a well-established theoretical approach that they can use to explore the knowledge they have in mind while seeking to communicate the un-said. though important these contributions are, this paper left the doors open for more research on how to explore out-side-text knowledge to reveal deception and to communicate what the users of language left silent. references ariel, m. (2009). discourse, grammar, discourse. discourse studies, 11(5), 5-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445608098496 armstrong, d. m. (1973). belief, truth and knowledge. london: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511570827 chilton, p. (2005). missing links in mainstream cda: modules, blends and the critical instinct. in r. wodak, & p. chilton (eds.), a new research agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: theory, methodology and interdisciplinary (pp. 19-52). amsterdam: john benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.13.05chi eco, u. (1990). interpretation and over interpretation: world, history, texts. the tanner lectures on human values. clare hall, cambridge university. retrieved from https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/e/eco_91.pdf fairclough, n. (1995a). critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language. london: longman. fairclough, n. 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(1999). context models in discourse processing. in h. van, oostendorp, & s. r. goldman (eds.), the construction of mental representations during reading (pp. 123-148). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. van dijk, t. a. (2003). the discourse-knowledge interface. in g. weiss, & r. wodak (eds.), critical discourse analysis. theory and interdisciplinarity (pp. 85-109). houndsmills: palgrave-macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288423_5 van dijk, t. a. (2005). contextual knowledge management in discourse production: a cda perspective. in r. wodak, & p. chilton (eds.), a new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis (pp. 71-100). amsterdam and philadelphia: john ben jamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.13.07dij van dijk, t. a. (2006). discourse, context and cognition. discourse studies, 8(1), 159-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445606059565 van dijk, t. a. (2007). comments on context and conversation. in n. fairclough, g. cortese, & p. ardizzone (eds.), discourse and contemporary social change (pp. 281-316). bern: peter lang. van dijk, t. a. (2008). text, context and knowledge (unpublished paper). retrieved from http://www.discourses.org/unpublishedarticles/text,%20context% 20and%20knowledge.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 124 published by scholink inc. van dijk, t. a. (2014). discourse and knowledge. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107775404 microsoft word assc-v2n3-p67 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 67 original paper thinking on the planning and construction of battalion area in military academies (note) jia man sun1*, shan yu shang1 & hai jun ji1 1 armed police logistics academy, tian jin, china * jia man sun, armed police logistics academy, tian jin, china received: july 18, 2020 accepted: august 2, 2020 online published: august 6, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n3p67 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n3p67 abstract the reform of the new institutional structure has brought new opportunities and challenges to the construction and development of the pla’s academies. how to seize the opportunities, better adapt to the new situation, fulfill the new mission, complete the new tasks and realize the new leap has become an important issue facing the pla’s barracks planning and construction. combining with the experience of the main camp planning and construction in colleges and universities, this paper will timely reflect on the key issues such as the mode of camp planning and construction in colleges and universities, which may be beneficial to our work. 1. first, to accurately grasp the camp planning and construction mode to fulfill the pla’s new historical mission in the new stage in the new century, we must make good preparations for the military struggle against “taiwan independence” and push forward the military reform with chinese characteristics. at the same time, with the deepening of the institutional restructuring and the use of modern teaching means, the reconstruction and expansion of the barracks are imperative. how to solve the contradiction between the actual construction and development of the camp as soon as possible requires us to study and demonstrate seriously, and take different planning and construction modes according to different situations. under the urban density, there are roughly three modes for the planning and construction of college barracks: overall relocation, construction of new parks and in-situ reconstruction and expansion. 1) overall relocation: due to the large enrollment scale of the school, the expansion and development of the original barracks area are seriously restricted, or due to the high decentralization of the original several barracks areas after the merger of colleges and universities, many contradictions are brought to the teaching and management. only the overall relocation can solve the contradictions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. 2) construction of new park: in order to meet the needs of training tasks and realize the goals of large-scale education, modern teaching, standardized management and social security, the school requisitioned land for the construction of the new campus through land replacement. the construction of the new campus not only guarantees the need of new training tasks, but also creates a large space for the future development of the school and promotes the development and construction of new urban areas. adopting the above two construction modes requires expropriation of a large area of land and raising a large amount of funds. it is very difficult to obtain approval after repeated demonstration. moreover, the construction period from repeated demonstration, approval and approval to phased completion is very long. 3) in-situ reconstruction and expansion: for most colleges and universities, the original land can meet their construction and development needs through functions adjustment and socialization reform of logistics support, or there are urban land for colleges and universities in the surrounding areas, so the in-situ reconstruction and expansion mode should be preferred. this mode is more in line with the viewpoint of sustainable development, because it can force people to economize on land and explore various ways to develop effective land, so as to increase valuable school space and build environmentally conscious buildings. at the same time, this mode is conducive to exerting resource benefits and realizing resource sharing. 2. second, we should deal scientifically with the three relations, that is, the relations between the new construction project and the original barracks, development and environmental supporting facilities the planning and construction of colleges and universities should carry out the scientific outlook on development, adhere to the task demand as traction, on the basis of camp planning, highlight the construction of teaching and scientific research guarantee conditions, pay attention to the construction of living guarantee conditions, strengthen the construction of infrastructure. we should pay attention to absorbing advanced experience and knowledge for our use. efforts should be made to keep pace with the construction and renovation, lay equal emphasis on scale and efficiency, and further improve the school’s ability to guarantee education, so as to provide a solid foundation for personnel training and scientific research in schools. in the process of planning and construction, the following three aspects should be dealt with scientifically: 1) properly handle the relationship between the new construction and the original barracks. colleges and universities resources of existing building is formed after decades of construction and development, for the new development and construction laid a certain foundation, in the preparation of a new planning, attention should be paid to give full play to the role of the resources of existing building, inherit the historical features of the campus, following campus architectural context, and transform and new synchronization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. 2) properly handle the relationship between new projects and development. the most direct and important influencing factors are the education mode and the development of architecture. new construction projects should adhere to the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable point of view, scientific layout and design, increase the flexibility and practicality of space use, pay attention to improve the public service space, create a space for communication, so as to facilitate interdisciplinary, resource sharing. 3) properly handle the relationship between new projects and supporting environmental construction. the basic requirement of first-class university is to have first-class hardware environment, and “environment education” is the core goal of humanistic concept in the creation of campus environment. the whole process of project construction must start from the environment, pay attention to landscape, ecology, landscaping and other environmental construction and road, pipe network, sewage treatment and other supporting infrastructure construction, so as to ensure the synchronous construction of environmental supporting and new construction; the inherent characteristics of the base should be emphasized, not only the original green space, water surface and ecology should be kept as far as possible, but also the harmony and unity of humanistic environment and natural environment should be achieved to provide a harmonious and human development space for teachers and students. 3. third, to ensure the quality of planning, design and construction to speed up the construction of colleges and universities, to achieve leapfrog development, and create conditions of high standards, high level and campus environment, urgently need to be based on a high starting point planning, high level design, high-quality construction, outstanding educational condition and environment construction, vigorously promote the school overall strength and image, to build a training, scientific, and cultural atmosphere. 1) ensure the quality of planning. planning is the strategy of development, the program of construction and the basis of management. in the construction and management of camp areas, we should pay attention to and strengthen the scientificity and sustainability of the planning. first, make full investigation and research. the investigation includes the current situation, history, culture and other aspects of the camp. the focus of the investigation of the control planning is the status quo investigation, including the layout of barracks, road traffic, construction structures, quality of barracks, teaching equipment, environmental quality, auxiliary facilities and so on.only when sufficient investigation is carried out can effective analysis and research be carried out so as to find out solutions and put them into the planning. second, we must grasp the key issues. the establishment of the plan should have a clear guiding ideology and grasp the following key issues on the basis of the functional orientation of the camp: first, the training scale of the school; second, the large functional division; third, the road traffic network; fourth, the environment and ecology of the camp; fifth, the landscape and the setting of diversified open space. the scale of training mainly refers to the scale of camp land and the scale of trainees, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. which should meet the target of planned land use. meanwhile, the particularity of the land used by military academies should also be taken into account. functional partition is mainly the function of the teaching, life, activities such as band division to the scientific, reasonable and feasible, is advantageous to the macro control, its form should have a certain ability to adapt. the road traffic network is mainly the classification and network structure of campus roads, and its vehicle traffic system and walking system should be convenient and unobstructed, and directly connected with various campus resources, that is, “accessible”. third, consult employees for extensive participation. the compilation of camp planning depends on the majority of staff, through the campus network and other channels to widely listen to the opinions of the masses, and pay attention to their feedback, seeking truth from facts, in order to facilitate the smooth implementation of camp planning. at the same time, through soliciting opinions and introducing the situation, so that the majority of staff to understand the planning, so that they can proceed from the overall situation of the school development and construction, do partial obedience to the whole, support the school camp construction. 2) ensure design quality. engineering design is a construction project to conduct a comprehensive planning and detailed account of the process of the implementation of intention, is the soul of engineering construction, is the science and technology into productive force and fighting capacity of the link, is the key link, the processing technology and the economic relationship is the basic construction of the most complicated and tedious work, it needs long cycle, the face of the involved, directly affect the effect of engineering construction. colleges and universities are teaching and scientific research units. while paying attention to the construction of aesthetics, they should pay more attention to the rationality and practicability of functions, strengthen the design principle of “applicability, economy and aesthetics”, and pay more attention to the comparison of advantages and disadvantages of schemes and economic benefit analysis, so as to ensure the design quality and improve the investment benefit. first, we must ensure that the functions of construction projects are scientific and reasonable. reasonable function is the basic requirement of engineering design, modern university architecture and environmental design must first meet the functional requirements, from the construction project design specification preparation to the construction drawing design must always pay attention to the flexibility and applicability of space use. practice has proved that the adoption of universal, modular and standardized architectural design and flexible and changeable open space design will create a learning, living space and communication environment full of humanistic order. want to strengthen next with use unit, design unit is coordinated, communication. teaching and scientific research buildings, especially the scientific research and experimental buildings with high technological requirements, need frequent communication and coordination due to the complexity of technology and strong professional, so as to effectively transform professional requirements into the vocabulary of engineering design, avoid unreasonable design, and enhance the applicability of engineering design. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. second, we must ensure the investment benefits of construction projects. the engineering design should make scientific, reasonable and effective use of various resources, so as to be applicable, safe, economical, low consumption and conform to the ecology. in the construction of barracks buildings, we should pay attention to the comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the schemes and the analysis of economic benefits, and establish an effective cost control system. in the process of engineering design, the rationality of technology and economy should be explained by calculation and data if the design content can be quantitatively analyzed. third, it is necessary to ensure that the construction project is novel and characteristic and harmonious with the campus environment. the building itself is a trinity of planning, monomer and environment.as a type of architecture at a higher cultural level, college architecture, due to its own particularity, should strive to combine science, art and environment to fully reflect its cultural connotation and create a certain atmosphere. in the design, we should strive to express the authenticity of the building, use modern architectural design techniques, pay attention to the complex and individual buildings themselves, harmony and unity with the surrounding environment, make it naturally. 3) ensure construction quality. construction management is a systematic project and dynamic management. in the process of management, to grasp the “three levels” to ensure the quality of the project. first, we must do a good job in bidding for construction projects. we must resolutely implement the relevant regulations on bidding and tendering for construction projects for the state and the armed forces, follow a fair, open and fair tendering approach, and adhere to a scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts and a clean work style of performing official duties. first, it is necessary to strictly organize the pre-qualification of bidding and the investigation of the bidding units, implement the one-vote veto system for the bidding units with bad records, and select the construction units and project managers with strong strength, excellent work style and good reputation.2 it is to invite disciplinary inspection department, auditing, accounting or related business department to participate in the whole process of project bidding, conditional unit, should find a way of social tender place with appropriate qualifications entrusted by the procuratorial agency in public bidding, in order to increase the transparency of the bidding work and the evaluation work of scientific and authoritative. the third is to adopt the method of bidding without pre-tender estimate and the lowest bid price. second, we must supervise and manage the quality of construction projects. first, it is necessary to actively promote the supervision engineer system, optimize the project supervision units with strong technical force and high quality personnel, and strengthen the whole-process control of project quality. second, to further establish the key management system, give full play to the management functions. the construction side should not only give full play to the functions of management, regulation and supervision in terms of project quality management, but also fully help the construction units to improve their own management and supervision institutions in the process of construction, so that the two can infiltrate each other in business, restrict each other in relation and promote each other in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 3, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. technology. third, flexible management means should be adopted. construction workers are the builders of project quality, mobilize their enthusiasm, improve their ideological quality, will be greatly conducive to our project quality. third, we must do a good job in the acceptance of construction projects. to strict basis, according to the design requirements and relevant acceptance standards, regulations and rules, so that there is no fear of problems, not afraid to ask questions, to solve the problems before the completion of the project delivery and use; to standardize procedures, to adhere to the construction, supervision, construction and quality supervision of the “3+1” mode of grading acceptance, on-site inspection and testing; to pay close attention to two in place, namely quality in place, material in place. note by117b091 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper a comparison of religiosity and life satisfaction among seven different religious groups richard james jenks1* 1 department of sociology, indiana university southeast, new albany, in. 47150, u.s. * richard james jenks, department of sociology, indiana university southeast, new albany, in. 47150, u.s. received: may 5, 2020 accepted: may 25, 2020 online published: may 31, 2020 doi:10.22158/assc.v2n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v2n2p1 abstract the purpose of this study is to see if six widely used indicators of religiosity (self-reporting as being religious; importance of their religion to them; church membership, attendance and belonging to church groups; and praying) are related to happiness and life satisfaction. using an on-line survey (n = 1399) i found that all except the frequency of prayer indicator were positively associated with life satisfaction and happiness. the sample was then broken into seven groups: protestant, catholic, jewish, buddhist, unitarian, unity and no religion. significant anovas were found among the groups on each of my four questions: life satisfaction, happiness, not feeling lonely, and group satisfaction. overall, unity members scored high on these questions while the non-religious, buddhists, and unitarians scored low. the results for unity, unitarianism and buddhism were discussed in terms of their doctrines accounting for these scores. finally, recommendations were made for future research. keywords religiosity, spirituality, happiness, life satisfaction 1. introduction in recent years the role of religiosity and its relationship with happiness and life satisfaction has been a topic of much discussion and research. the research has been fairly unequivocal: there is a positive correlation between religion and happiness/life satisfaction (e.g., ellison, 1991; ferriss, 2002). various religious variables which have been studied in relation to happiness include: (a) self-reported level of religiosity, (b) church attendance, and (c) prayer. in terms of the research relating self-reported levels of religion numerous studies support the conclusion that those who report being religious have higher levels of satisfaction. green and elliott (2010) found that individuals who identified themselves www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. as religious were happier. the general social survey (2004) found that 43 percent of those saying they were religious were “very happy” with their lives; only 23 percent of those without a religion gave this response. and, in a survey of over 676,000 americans conducted by the gallup organization for their gallup-health ways well-being index, it was found that the “very religious” respondents had a well-being score of 69.2 while the non-religious figure was 65.3 (newport, witters, & agrawal, 2016). in another gallup survey of over 550,000 americans, they found that the very religious were also less likely than either the moderately or non-religious to have been diagnosed over the course of their lifetime with depression (newport, agrawal, & witters, 2010). church attendance has also been found to be positively associated with happiness. stark and maier (2008) combined 24 general social science surveys and found a strong positive correlation between attendance and happiness. barkan and greenwood (2003) also analyzed data from the general social surveys. they merged samples of the american population age 65 and over from the 1988-1994 (with the exception of 1992) surveys and found significant positive correlations between church attendance and well-being. levin and taylor (1998), in a study of african americans, found significant positive correlations between both happiness and life satisfaction and church attendance. one might speculate that attending services brings one in contact with others and, having contact with others, allows us to get to know those people and form friendships. as a result, these connections can provide much needed support when one is depressed, alone, in need of a ride to the doctor’s office, etc. this idea is reinforced by the research finding that the correlation between religion and happiness is stronger for those individuals who are single, elderly, and in poor health (nielson, 2016). although prayer is not as widely used as other indicators of religion, research finds that it is important in the u.s. three-fourths of americans report praying on a daily or weekly basis (pew forum on religion and public life, 2008). of the studies conducted using this as an independent variable, we find a positive relationship between prayer and happiness. brooks (2008), looking at 2004 gss findings, reports that 36 percent of those who said they prayed daily (irrespective of church attendance) indicated that they were “very happy,” whereas only 21 percent who never prayed gave the “very happy” response. the aforementioned study of african americans by levin and taylor found a significant positive correlation of +.16 between prayer and happiness and a +.13 correlation between life satisfaction and prayer. 1.1 cross-cultural studies the majority of evidence, then, indicates that there is a positive correlation between happiness and well-being and various measures of religiosity. one might then ask: are these findings the same across different cultures? the answer seems to be: yes. inglehart (1990) reports that, in a study of over 160 europeans, 85 percent of those who attended church services weekly said they were “very satisfied” with life. among those who never attended services, the number was 72 percent. in great britain, the office for national statistics (ons) ascertains the levels of happiness for their citizens. respondents were asked to indicate, on a 0 to 10 scale, how happy they were in the previous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. day. the higher the score the happier people were. respondents were also asked to indicate whether they experienced a sense of life being worthwhile. their most recent findings indicated that, while the average score for the population on happiness was 7.38; the score for the non-religious population was lower: 7.22. they also found a lower sense of life being worthwhile among the non-religious (bingham, 2016). however, we should note that there is evidence that a positive correlation between happiness ratings and religiosity does not exist everywhere. okubiez-kozaryn (2010) found a greater relationship between religion and happiness/life satisfaction in those countries where most of its population is religious. they concluded that, in those relatively non-religious societies, religion has little or no relationship with life satisfaction variables. diener (2008) concluded the same: “whatever the reason, religion does not seem to equal happiness everywhere”. and, in a large-scale cross-national study involving over 317,000 individuals representing 88 different countries, hayward and elliott (2014) stated: results supported the hypothesis that self-reported health religion is most strongly related to greater happiness and better self-reported health in societies where it is freely and widely practiced. in contrast, religiousness may be harmful when it is relatively deviant, and restrictions of freedom may serve to further exacerbate this effect. these results suggest that this positive association between religion and well-being is not universal… (p. 23). 1.2 different religious traditions and happiness in addition to the question of its cross-cultural generality, we could ask if all religions show a positive correlation with happiness and life-satisfaction. the aforementioned surveys conducted by britain’s ons indicates that differences do, in fact, exist among various religious groups. they analyzed the responses of six specific groups: buddhist, christian, hindu, jewish, muslim and sikh, along with those who had no religious identification. of their religious groups, they found that their jewish sample had the highest mean score (7.90) for life being worthwhile. they were followed closely by christians (7.86). among those stating a religious affiliation preference, buddhists had the lowest score: 7.61. however, the lowest score came from their non-religious sample: 7.58. hindus had the highest happiness score. their score was 7.57 while the non-religious had the lowest score: 7.22 (ringhorn, 2016). in a study of different religious groupings in the u.s., lim (2016) analyzed five specific religious traditions: catholic, jewish, mormon, muslim and protestant. the sample also included those stating they have no religion. one of the major findings, similar to previous research, was that subjective well-being was highly related to church attendance. and, for those who attended church services at least once a week, no matter the religion, the life satisfaction score was higher than for the non-attendees. however, there were differences among groups. specifically, the correlation between life satisfaction and church attendance was highest for the mormons and “other christians” and weakest for the jews and non-religious. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. we may conclude from the previous studies that the bulk of research supports the idea that a positive correlation exists between happiness/life satisfaction and religion, at least in religious societies. also, differences do exist among various religions. 1.3 happiness and social relations: rise of positive psychology in the past few years a whole discipline has arisen looking at what the key factors are important as relating to happiness and well-being. this burgeoning field is known as the positive psychology movement and the results show that, although religion is important, what seems to be of greater significance is the extent of our relations with others. in an early study conducted at the university of illinois, students were contacted at various times of the day and asked to indicate their mood state. respondents were happiest when they were with their friends and least happy when alone (diener, 2002). seligman (2002), in his book authentic happiness, concluded that very happy people have a much more rich and fulfilling social life. these happy people spent a great deal of time socializing and little time alone. time magazine conducted a national survey in 2004 in which they asked people various questions relating to happiness. one of their major findings was that happiness was found in people’s relationships with others. in fact, when they asked: “what are your major sources of happiness?”, the top response was their relationship with their children (77% gave this response). a close second (76%) was their relations with their friends (wallis, 2005). 1.4 religion and happiness putnam and campbell (2010), in their major study of religion in america (american grace) found, like others, that church-goers reported a higher level of happiness than non-church-goers. however, their research led them to conclude that the relationship was not a matter of faith or specific theological doctrine but, rather, that community involvement (in this case, through a church) was the critical variable. this finding is also reminiscent of putnam’s (2000) findings in his work, entitled bowling alone. putnam states: “…praying together seems to be better than either bowling alone or praying alone” (p. 492). putnam and campbell (2010) found that, if a person attended church on a regular basis, but had no close ties with fellow churchgoers, then s/he was actually less happy then someone with the same characteristics but who did not attend church. again, it seems to be the sense of community, not the faith. okulicz-kozaryn (2009), also concludes that social support is key: “…it is not only religiosity per se that makes people happy, but rather a social setting it offers.” (p. 155) 1.5 conclusions from the literature conclusions which may be reached from the literature review indicate the following: (1) the relationship between religiosity and happiness occurs primarily in societies where religion is important. (2) religiosity is positively associated with happiness and life satisfaction. (3) some religions have higher rates of happiness than others. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. (4) while the relationship between religion and life satisfaction is positive, the crucial variable may be the social support that religion provides. social ties may, in fact, be the key variable and not the religiosity. 1.6 present study the present study will act as a replication of three of the four results from previous studies. finding number 1 (see above), stating that the relationship between happiness and religiosity occurs in religious societies, will be assumed. religion, using various measures such as belief in a god, church attendance, and prayer, indicate that the u.s. is a religious society (putnam & campbell, 2010). therefore, i predict that religiosity and measures of happiness and life satisfaction will be positively related. this hypothesis stems from the finding relevant to number 2 above. the present study analyzed six different religious groups along with a self-identified group of the non-religious. this was done to test finding 3 above that religions differ in their levels of happiness and life satisfaction. the religious groups i studied were: buddhism, catholicism, judaism, protestantism, unitarianism and the unity movement. protestants, catholics and jews were included given the fact that these three have been included in almost all comparisons of religious groups in the united states. a fourth group consists of the non-religious. this group is now typically included in religious comparisons and research indicates it is growing. in 2007, those claiming no kind of religious affiliation were approximately 37 million; by 2014, that number had grown to almost 56 million (america’s changing religious landscape, 2015). buddhists, unitarians, and unity church members were specifically chosen because each represents a different religious tradition. buddhism represents an eastern tradition and is often interpreted less as a religious organization than a philosophical perspective. although making up less than one percent of the u.s. population, it is probably the most widely recognized of the eastern traditions (america’s changing religious landscape, 2015). i also included unitarianism-universalism. the group is part of christianity but stresses a rational, humanistic philosophy. my sixth group is the unity movement. this group is probably the largest, and best known, representative of the so-called new thought movement. my final hypothesis, stemming from number 4 above is: when we control for membership in church-related groups, the relationship between religion and happiness will disappear. to test for this i will control for the number of groups to which one belongs for both religious and non-religious identifiers. if the hypothesis is correct then those who attend church and identify as religious but do not belong to any groups within the church will be no happier than non-religious identifiers. 2. method 2.1 sample respondents were recruited from three different sources. one source was from students who were in both introductory and advanced sociology and social psychology classes during the fall and spring www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. semester of 2008-2009. students also had the option of recruiting up to five respondents from outside the university. two extra credit points for each completed questionnaire was awarded to the student. secondly, various local churches were asked if they would place the questionnaire on their websites. a presbyterian, unity and a united church of christ did so. a third, and largest, source was from beliefnet.com. beliefnet.com is a website that focuses primarily upon religious and spiritual issues. all religious faiths are covered and individuals have the opportunity to go to sites and discuss anything from traditional judeo-christianity to paganism and atheism. in total, 1399 individuals completed the survey. 2.2 procedure the present study was conducted over the period from 2008 to 2009 and was approved by the university institutional board of review in accordance with the ethical standards for human subjects. a questionnaire was placed on a popular information gathering website: survey monkey. 2.3 measure while the total number of questions were 72, only ten were of interest to the current study. these questions (independent variables) dealt with the following: 1) respondents’ personal beliefs relating to religion/spirituality. 2) importance of their religion/spirituality. 3) membership in a church-related group. 4) frequency of prayer. 5) church attendance in a typical month. 6) number of church affiliated groups to which they belong. questions/statements making up the dependent variable were: 1) a self-rating from 1 (low) to 10 (high) on how happy they perceived themselves to be. 2) a self-rating on a five point scale (higher the score the higher the satisfaction) on the respondent’s overall satisfaction with his/her life. 3) the respondent’s level of satisfaction with the groups to which s/he belong. this was measured using a five-point scale with 1 being the least satisfaction and 5 the highest level. 4) the extent to which the respondent perceives him/herself as being lonely. this was measured on a five-point scale with 1 being very lonely and 5 being the least lonely. 3. result 3.1 religiosity and happiness i looked at a number of indicators previously found to be important in terms of religiosity and happiness/life satisfaction. respondents were asked if they were religious, spiritual, or both. this religious/spiritual group had a mean score of 7.4 on the happiness scale (item 7 above) while those indicating no degree of religiosity or spirituality had a mean score of 7.0. the difference between the two groups was significant: t (1237), p <.01. respondents were also asked to indicate their level of life www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. satisfaction. the religious group averaged 3.3 (on a 5-point scale) while the non-religious averaged 2.9: t (1238) = 2.5, p < .02. a second variable was how important their religion/spirituality was to them. for those who indicated it was either “very important” or “important”, the mean happiness score was 7.4 while those who said it was either “not very important”, or “not at all important”, the happiness score was 7.1. this difference was significant at the p < .01 level. similarly, there was a significant difference between the two groups on the life satisfaction scale. the religious group averaged 3.3 while those saying it was not important scored lower (2.9) in satisfaction: t (1188) = 2.7, p < .01. respondents were asked if they belonged to any kind of church or synagogue/mosque. those who answered in the affirmative had a mean happiness score of 7.5 while those who said they did not belong had a significantly lower score of 7.1: t (1322) = 4.1, p < 001. on the life satisfaction question, those who indicated belonging to a church averaged 3.1 while those who did not belong to any church averaged 2.9. this difference was significant at the p < .05 level. a fourth dependent variable was church attendance. a pearson correlation between monthly church attendance and happiness was: r = + .08 (p < 01). the correlation with life satisfaction was also significant: r (1335) = +06, p < .05. i also asked the respondents if they belonged to any church groups or not (my fifth indicator). those who said they did belong to a group had a happiness score of 7.5, while the score for those who did not belong to any groups was 7.1. this difference was statistically significant: t (1321) = 4.1, p < .001. the two groups also differed significantly when asked their level of life satisfaction. the church members had an average score of 3.1 while those who had no church identification averaged 2.9: t (1321) = 1.9, p < .05. my sixth indicator was time spent in prayer. a pearson r of .00 between this variable and happiness resulted while a correlation of +.02 was found between time spent praying each week and life satisfaction. neither of these correlations was significant. 3.2 differences among the different religions next, i broke the sample into seven groupings in terms of which religion they identified. the groupings were: catholics, jews, protestants, unity, buddhism, unitarian, and those with no religious identification. using catholics, jews and protestants in religious surveys is typical given these traditions have been the largest segment of the u.s. population. currently, protestants make up 46.5 percent of the u.s. population; almost 21 percent of u.s. citizens are catholic, while judaism makes up 1.9 percent of the population. however, it should be noted that a fast-growing segment of the population is the non-identifier (22.8%) (pew research center, 2004). this group was also included. in addition, i included three other groups: unity, unitarianism and buddhism. results on two variables, (happiness and life satisfaction) are presented in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. table 1. levels of happiness and life satisfaction by religious group variables: happiness* life satisfaction* group: n m m catholic 201 7.5 3.4 jewish 21 7.6 3.3 protestant 460 7.4 3.0 unity 30 8.1 4.1 buddhist 20 7.3 2.9 unitarianism 43 7.1 2.6 no religious identification 378 7.1 2.9  * happiness as measured on a 1 (low) to 10 (high) scale: f (6) = 3.7, p < .01.  ** life satisfaction as measured by a 1 (low) to 5 (high) scale: f (6) = 3.7, p < .001. on the happiness question the groups ranged from a low of 7.1 for both the unitarians and the non-religious to a high of 8.1 for the unity identifiers. significant differences existed among the groups: f (6) = 3.7, p < .01. respondents were also asked their level of life satisfaction. unity members had the highest level (m = 4.1) of life satisfaction while the lowest level came from the unitarians (m = 2.6). significant differences existed among these different groups: f (6) = 3.7, p < .001. i also asked: (1) their levels of loneliness, and (2) the level of satisfaction which they get from the groups to which they belong. table 2. levels of loneliness and group satisfaction by religious group variables: feel lonely* group satisfaction** group: n m m catholic 201 2.3 4.3 jewish 21 1.5 4.7 protestant 460 2.2 4.4 unity 30 1.4 4.6 buddhist 20 2.4 4.2 unitarianism 43 2.1 4.6 no religious identification 378 2.4 4.2 *measured on a 1 (low levels of loneliness) to 5 (high) scale: f (6) = 2.8, p < .01. **measured on a 1 (low) to 5 (high) scale: f (6) = 2.6, p < .02. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. all the groups scored low on feelings of being lonely. those who identified as either buddhist or non-religious had, compared to the other groups, the greatest amount of loneliness (ms =2.4) while the unity group experienced the lowest level (m = 1.4). an analysis of variance revealed a significant difference among the groups: f (6) = 2.8, p < .01. a fourth question asked dealt with how satisfied they were with the groups to which they belong. while all the groups had high scores on this question, differences among the groups did exist. specifically, the buddhist and non-religious respondents had the lowest scores while the jewish sample had the highest level of group satisfaction: f (6) = 2.6, p < .02. 3.3 religion and happiness controlling for church group membership finally, i controlled for the number of church groups to which each respondent belonged. for those who regularly attended church (defined here as attending church 4 or more times a month) but belonged to no church groups, the mean happiness score was 7.1. for those who attended church services either once a month or less, and did not belong to a group, the score was identical to the former group: 7.1. 4. discussion when i analyzed six different indicators of religiosity as related to both happiness and life satisfaction i found significant differences on five of the six variables. this supports hypothesis 1. the only exception was the lack of a significant relation between prayer and either happiness or life satisfaction. this finding is puzzling. there seem to be fewer studies using prayer as a measure but, when it is used, a positive relationship is found. one possibility for the discrepancy could be that the relationship only exists among certain groups. the levin and taylor study used only african americans. the majority of respondents in this study were white. it is also possible that the response categories were different than in this study. in the gss study cited by brooks only those respondents who said they never prayed versus those who said they prayed daily made up their categories. in my study the number of minutes spent in prayer was asked. responses to the happiness variable in the brooks study were given in discrete categories (“very happy”, etc.) as opposed to the 1-10 continuum used here. intrigued by this contradictory finding from previous research, i looked more closely at the category of prayer. what i found was that there is a point where happiness and life satisfaction appear to be affected by how many hours a respondent reports being in prayer. the correlation between happiness and prayer for those respondents reporting eight or less hours per week was +.07 and was significant beyond the .01 level. the pearson r between life satisfaction and prayer for these individuals was +.06 which was also significant: p < .05. using nine hours as the cutoff point i found a significant (at the .05 level) pearson r for happiness but the life satisfaction and prayer correlation was not significant. after nine hours there is no significant relationship between prayer and either happiness or life satisfaction. thus, including those individuals over nine hours was responsible for the overall non-significant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. correlation with happiness and life satisfaction. the reason for this is not immediately apparent. why would spending a long time (i.e., more than 9 hours) each week in prayer be deleterious? this author has no perspective on why this should be the case. however, questions one could ask include: does praying, somehow, lose its meaning as one continues to pray? does one feel that it is somehow forced upon them? does one pray more when that person experiences some kind of life setback (a health issue, losing one’s job, family problems, etc.) and those prayers have not been answered (at least, as yet)? does one feel badly because their time spent in prayer is taking away from other aspects of their lives? certainly, this demands further study. another important finding dealt with group membership. i found that there was no relationship between either happiness or life satisfaction and church attendance when i controlled for membership in a church-affiliated group. these findings were as hypothesized and support putnam and others who argue that the relationship between religion and happiness is less due to the religious factor and more to the social factor. that is, belonging to a group seems to be a critical factor at play. a major focus of this study was to determine if some religions have a higher level of happiness and life satisfaction than others. and, indeed, this was the case. although a general positive relationship existed on the various religious indicators (except prayer) when i broke the sample down into various religious groupings i did not find this finding to be true of all the religions. of the groupings, four (catholic, protestant, unity, and unitarian) had a positive correlation between church attendance and happiness. on the other hand, two groups (jews and buddhists) actually had a negative correlation. the jews had a significant negative correlation of -.56 (p < .05) while the buddhists had a non-significant negative correlation of -10. the jews, buddhists and the unitarians also had negative correlations between church group membership and happiness. as with church attendance, the correlation was significant for the jews: r = -.39, p < .05. only the protestants had a significant positive correlation: r = .18, p < .05. this finding is important. while studies have generally found an overall positive correlation between happiness and religious indicators (such as church attendance and church group membership), it may be due to the disproportionately large number of protestants and catholics and this is masking the diversity when we look at different groupings. this is certainly a factor which should be further examined. my findings also demonstrated that certain religious groups seem to be worthy of attention. these are: unity, buddhism, unitarianism, and judaism. 4.1 discussion of four religions 4.1.1 unity unity members had the highest averages on happiness and life satisfaction and the lowest average score on feelings of loneliness. they also tied for second in feelings of satisfaction which they get from their group memberships. unity is a christian-based religion but is generally classified as a new thought religion. founded by myrtle and charles fillmore in 1889, principles like meditation, the power of positive affirmations, prosperity and gratitude are at the heart of their movement (mosley, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. unity’s stress upon gratitude can help explain their high level of happiness obtained in this study. gratitude is also emphasized by positive psychology writers in terms of increasing levels of happiness. for example, emmons (2008) has conducted research in this area and concludes that those who practice gratitude tend to be happier. for this reason, many positive psychology writers advocate keeping a “gratitude journal”. seligman (2002) suggests a number of ways of increasing one’s level of happiness. one of the ways is to keep a journal, writing down once a week between three and five things for which a person is currently thankful. 4.1.2 buddhism an important aspect of buddhism is also gratitude (along with meditation and spiritual reflection) as leading to happiness. when we listen to the dali lama we almost always hear about being happy. however, unlike the unity respondents, the buddhists had a lower score (7.3) on happiness compared to 8.1 for the unity sample. the buddhists also scored lower on life satisfaction (2.9), as compared to 4.1 for the unity respondents, and had more feelings of loneliness than the unity group. while the two happiness scores were not statistically significant, the life satisfaction and loneliness were significant. and, ringhorn found that the buddhists had the lowest score on life being worthwhile. so why the difference between unity members and buddhists? could it be that such an emphasis upon happiness creates a pressure to feel happy? bastian (2017) found that a felt pressure to be happy can actually exacerbate symptoms of depression. in addition, the buddhist tradition, with its four noble truths, may increase feelings of unhappiness. the first truth is dukkha or suffering. this truth centers around the great “shocks” of life: birth, sickness, old age and death. suffering is also evident in the second truth: the arising of suffering (tanha) along with the third (escape from suffering-nibbana) and the fourth or the finding of truth which ceases the suffering. many other buddhist works focus on loneliness (e.g., sarvananda, 2012). given these “truths” one might see where a person may become “bogged down” dealing with these principles which can, in turn, lead to lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction (cousins, 1997) 4.1.3 unitarianism to this author’s knowledge, unitarianism has been rarely studied or compared with other religious traditions. unitarianism is sometimes seen as a kind of secular humanism which emphasizes the individual over dogma. this tradition has no real shared creed and consists of people who can identify all the way from atheist to wiccan to christian. one of the hallmarks of this religion is its liberal, progressive stance which manifests itself in social action causes (unitarianism explained, 2014). unitarianism represents an interesting group. this group, which includes many atheists and agnostics, should, therefore, reflect some of the characteristics associated with the non-religious. two of my major dependent variables were happiness and life satisfaction. and, results showed that the unitarians and the non-religious, scored the same (7.1) on the happiness question. the unitarians also had the second lowest score on life satisfaction, higher only than the non-religious. however, the unitarians differed from the non-religious on the social relations variables, variables www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. associated with higher levels of happiness. the unitarians felt less lonely (4.0 vs 3.6 for the non-religious) and scored significantly higher on the group satisfaction question (unitarians: 4.6) than the non-religious (4.2). in fact, the difference between these two groups was significant beyond the .01 level. results also revealed that the unitarians’ average score for church group membership (another social variable) was 1.4 (the highest of any of my groups) compared to .1 for the non-religious: t (395) = 10.3, p < .001. so why should the unitarians have a low happiness and life satisfaction score given their high scores on the social variables, variables highly related to happiness? and, again, putnam and others have argued that group membership is the crucial variable related to happiness. it is the argument here that political ideology is crucial to understanding the low life satisfaction scores. unitarians are more politically liberal in their views than other religions. in this study 28.6% labeled themselves as “liberal”; 45.2% said “very liberal”. green and elliott (2010) found that those who had politically liberal beliefs were less happy than those individuals having more fundamentalist views. napier and jost (2008), too, found that conservatives are generally happier than liberals. they argue, using a self-justification approach, that conservatives are more likely to endorse a set of beliefs that justify the status quo. failings, if they occur, are due to the individual. on the other hand, liberals, utilizing a more cognitive approach, see the society with all its social and economic flaws, and are more likely to explain these differences in terms of systemic flaws, not a failing of the individual. this can explain the current findings that unitarians, although they may have high rates of group satisfaction, have lower rates of happiness and life satisfaction. they are joining and socializing with friends who are similar (and belonging is good) but the values they share go toward the systemic explanation. 4.1.4 judaism i found that members of the jewish faith, although having a high level of group satisfaction, had a significant negative correlation between church attendance and happiness. a significant negative correlation was also found between church group membership and happiness for the jews. a cursory examination of the topic led to no writings or findings allowing for a hypothesis to be made. so why these findings should be the case is not clearly evident to this author. one thing that might be of value would be to see if this relationship exists among all the major jewish sects. the current study did not provide an opportunity for the jewish sample to state whether they identified as orthodox, conservative or reform (or one of the smaller sects like reconstructionist). 4.2 final recommendation one recommendation, following from the above, would be to include a large enough jewish sample in order to include their specific identification. along these same lines, i would recommend breaking religion into the various traditions. the current study lumped all protestant traditions together. it would certainly be beneficial to separate this major grouping into various specific protestant groups (methodist, baptist, episcopalian, etc., on the more “liberal” side and the evangelical and pentecostal churches on the more “conservative” side). and, an analysis of the “less traditional” groups like the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. latter day saints, jehovah’s witnesses, muslim, etc. seems in order. although i had these kinds of groups in this study their numbers were less than 20 respondents so i did not include them for analysis here but they do demand our attention. finally, besides the very small jewish sample (n = 20) i had a small number of buddhists (n = 20) along with a limited number of unity identifiers (n = 30) and unitarians (n = 43). certainly, a larger size sample for these groups would be extremely beneficial. references america’s changing religious landscape. (may 13, 2015). retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05//12/america’s-changing-religious-landscape/ barkan, s., & greenwood, s. f. (2003). religious attendance and subjective well-being among older americans: evidence from the general social sciences survey. review of religious research, 45(22), 116-129. https://doi.org/10.2307/3512578 bastian, b. (2017). so many in the west are depressed because they’re not expected to be. the conversation. bingham, j. (2006). religion can make your life happier, official figures suggest. retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk./news/religion/12136531/religion-can-make-your-life-happier-official -figures-suggest.html biswess-diener, r., diener, e., & timir, m. (2004). the psychology of subjective well-being. daedalus, 133(2), 18-25. https://doi.org/10.1162/001152604323049352 brooks, a. c. (2008). gross happiness: why happiness matters for america-and how we can get more of it. new york: basic books. cousins, l. s. (1997). in j. r. hinnells (ed.), the new penguin handbook of living religions (pp. 369-444). https://doi.org/10.1111/b.9780631182757.1996.00010.x deiner, e., & seligman, m. (2002). very happy people. psychological science, 13(1), 81-84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00415 diener, e., & biswas-diener, r. (2008). happiness: unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth. malden, ma.: blackwell press. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305159 ellison, c. g. (1991). religious involvement and subjective well-being. journal of health and social behavior, 32, 80-99. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136801 emmons, r. a. (2008). thanks! how practicing gratitude can make you happier. boston: houghton mifflen company ferriss, a. l. (2002). religion and quality of life. journal of happiness studies, (3), 199-215. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1020684404438 green, m., & elliott, m. (2010). religion, health, and psychological well-being. journal of religion and health, 49(2), 149-163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-009-9242-1 hayward, r. d., & elliott, m. (2014). cross-national analysis of the influence of cultural norms and http://www.telegraph.co.uk./news/religion/12136531/religion-can-make-your-life-happier-official-figures-suggest.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk./news/religion/12136531/religion-can-make-your-life-happier-official-figures-suggest.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 2, no. 2, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. government restrictions on the relationship between religion and well-being. review of religious research, 56, 23-43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-013-0135-0 inglehart, r. (1990). culture shift in advanced industrial society. princeton: princeton university press. larson, r., mannell, r., & zuzanck, j. (1986). daily well-being of older adults with friends and family. psychology and aging, 1(2), 117-126. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691186740 levin, j. s., & taylor, r. j. (1998). panel analysis of religious involvement and well-being in african americans. journal of the scientific study of religion, 37(4). https://doi.org/10.2307/1388151 lim, c. (2015). religion and subjective well-being across religious traditions: evidence from 1.3 million americans. journal of the scientific study of religion, 54(4), 684-701. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12232 mosley, g. r. (2006). new thought, ancient wisdom. philadelphia: templeton foundation press. napier, j. l., & jost, j. t. (2008). why are conservatives happier than liberals? psychological science, 19(6), 565-572. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02124.x newport, f., agrawal, s., & witters, d. (2010). very religious americans report less depression. retrieved from http://www.news.gallup.com/poll/144980/religious-americans-report-less-depression-worry.aspx. nielson, m. e. (2016). religion and happiness. retrieved from http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/happy.htm okulicz-kozaryn, a. (2009). religiosity and life satisfaction across nations. mental health, religion and culture, 13(2), 155-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674670903273801 putnam, r. d. (2000). bowling alone: the collapse and revival of american community. new york: simon & schuster. https://doi.org/10.1145/358916.361990 putnam, r. d., & campbell, d. e. (2010). american grace: how religion divides and unites us. new york: simon & schuster. roemer, m. k. (2010). religion and subjective well-being in japan. review of religious research, 51, 411-427. sarvananda. (2012). solitude and loneliness. cambridge, u.k.: windhorse publications. seligman, m. (2002). authentic happiness. new york: atria press. stark, r., & maier, j. (2008). faith and happiness. review of religious research, 50(1), 120-125. unitarianism explained. (2014). retrieved from http://www.unitarianism.org.uk/pages/ wallis, c. (2005, jan. 17). the new science of happiness. time magazine, a3-a9. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 135 original paper smart governance for mega-city challenges: a coordinated approach to beijing’s “big city disease” under the beijing-tianjin-hebei strategy huan zhao1* & xi chen2 1 school of artificial intelligence and language science, beijing international studies of university, beijing, china 2 informaiton center, capital university of economics and business, beijing, china * huan zhao, school of artificial intelligence and language science, beijing international studies of university, beijing, china received: june 18, 2025 accepted: august 09, 2025 online published: august 23, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p135 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p135 abstract as one of china’s national mega-cities, beijing faces intensifying “big city diseases” characterized by overpopulation, traffic congestion, environmental degradation, and regional development imbalance. this paper adopts a “problem identification–cause analysis–dynamic linkage–strategy proposal” framework to systematically diagnose the root causes of beijing’s urban governance challenges and proposes intelligent, regionally coordinated governance pathways. key innovations include shifting the governance focus from traditional urban planning to population and mobility management, promoting cross-regional functional dispersal through “urban cluster unit” thinking, and integrating policy and market mechanisms to enhance the attractiveness of sub-centers. through empirical data, comparative international cases (tokyo, paris, shanghai), and dynamic interaction modeling, the paper reveals that the crux of beijing’s “big city disease” lies in the vicious feedback loops formed among population pressure, infrastructural constraints, and environmental limitations. the study concludes by recommending a smart governance framework centered on big data-driven population regulation, rail-transit-oriented spatial coordination, and industrial synergy under the beijing-tianjin-hebei collaborative development strategy. these findings offer theoretical contributions and practical insights for other mega-cities facing similar systemic challenges. keywords big city disease, beijing-tianjin-hebei integration, smart governance, population mobility, regional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 136 coordination 1. introduction as china's capital, a national mega-city, and the core of the beijing-tianjin-hebei urban cluster, beijing had a permanent population of 21.832 million by the end of 2024, its economy consistently ranks high nationally, with a 2024 gdp of 4984.31 billion yuan. the tertiary sector accounts for 85.3% of gdp (beijing municipal bureau of statistics, 2025). its information technology sector provides a solid foundation for smart city development. however, the dense concentration of population and economic activity has caused "big city problems". core urban population density exceeds 23,000 people per square kilometer(beijing municipal bureau of statistics,2014). average road network speed during peak hours is below 25 km/h(beijing municipal commission of transport,2024). the annual average pm2.5 concentration, while reduced to 32 μg/m³ (beijing municipal ecology and environment bureau,2025), is still over six times the who guideline value. the housing cost-to-income ratio remains chronically high at over 14:1 (e-house research institute, 2016). the conflict between resource use, environmental capacity, and urban function is becoming increasingly evident. since the launch of "smart beijing" in 2011 (beijing municipal people's government, 2012), the city's development has entered the third phase of "integrating innovative solutions to urban development problems". the beijing-tianjin-hebei coordinated development strategy has pushed the regional coordination index up to 139.7 (national bureau of statistics, 2025), and the "one-hour transportation circle" is largely in place. against this backdrop, addressing "urban diseases" through smart city initiatives and integrating them deeply with the beijing-tianjin-hebei coordinated development strategy have become key to improving the capital's efficiency and quality. this paper focuses on these central issues, proposing a collaborative governance solution based on the "problem identification-cause analysis-dynamic linkage-strategy proposal" framework, using literature analysis, statistical data, and causal relationship diagrams.the research innovates by: (1) prioritizing population and mobility management over traditional planning limits; (2) establishing an "urban cluster unit" perspective for coordinated governance to promote cross-regional functional dispersal; (3) integrating policy and market mechanisms to boost the attractiveness of sub-centers. the study addresses beijing's local governance needs and provides a replicable governance model for other large chinese cities. 2. identification and analysis of the “big city disease” beijing's "big city disease" is not a single problem, but a systematic dilemma intertwined with multiple urban characteristics and development contradictions. its root lies in the imbalance between the super-large population, the superposition of high-intensity functions and the carrying capacity of limited resources and environment, and the lack of regional development coordination. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 137 from the perspective of population, super-large scale and spatial distribution imbalance constitute the core pressure. by the end of 2024, beijing's resident population far exceeding the standard of mega-cities, which is lower than the historical peak, but still far exceeding the international livable level. this centralization stems from the superposition of beijing's core functions of politics, culture, international exchanges and scientific and technological innovation as the capital, leading to a continuous influx of population, while the lack of spatial matching of public service resources (such as education and medical care) further aggravates the pressure on the central urban area. the proportion of migrant population is 37.7 per cent (beijing municipal bureau of statistics, 2024), and the separation of jobs and housing is prominent, which not only increases the traffic load, but also increases the difficulty of equalization of public services. it is another prominent contradiction that the carrying capacity of resources and environment approaches the limit. beijing's per capita water resources are only 150 cubic meters, which is less than 1/10 of the national average, and far below the "extreme water shortage" standard (500 cubic meters). although the water consumption per 10,000 yuan of gdp has reached the lowest in the country (beijing water authority, 2025), population and economic activities the high intensity still makes water resources a rigid constraint. industrial emissions, motor vehicle exhaust and insufficient regional joint prevention and control together constitute the causes of pollution. the imbalance between supply and demand in the housing market is manifested in the fact that the housing income ratio is higher than 14:1 for a long time. the high housing prices in the core area contrast with the insufficient supporting facilities in the peripheral areas, which intensifies the pressure of social governance. the over-concentration of functions and the imbalance of regional development further amplify the difficulty of governance. the non-capital functions and core functions carried by beijing overlap, resulting in scattered resource allocation and limited promotion of core functions. although the coordinated development strategy of beijing, tianjin and hebei promotes the decongestion of non capital functions, beijing's "siphon effect" is still stronger than its radiation capacity. in 2024, the total economic volume of beijing, tianjin and hebei will reach 11.5 trillion yuan, and beijing's gdp will account for more than 43% (beijing municipal bureau of statistics, 2025). however, the industrial structure dominated by hebei's secondary industry and beijing's service economy are not connected enough. the attraction of sub-centers (such as shijiazhuang, etc.) to population and industry is limited, and effective diversion has not been formed. this lack of regional coordination makes it difficult for beijing to cure the "big city disease" by adjusting within the administrative boundary alone, highlighting the necessity of cross-regional coordinated governance. to sum up, beijing's "big city disease" is a concentrated embodiment of multi-dimensional contradictions such as population size, functional density, resource constraints and regional collaboration, and its governance needs to break through the single city framework and shift to a systematic solution of "smart city + regional collaboration". www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 138 3. beijing's "big city disease": dynamic interconnections and key driving factors the emergence and spread of beijing's "urban diseases" result from the dynamic interplay of factors like population, traffic, and the environment, creating a mutually reinforcing negative feedback loop between them. to understand the core driving mechanisms, it is essential to examine the roots of population congestion, the impacts of regional development imbalance, the formation logic of traffic congestion, and the systemic causes of environmental pollution, all of which contribute to the complex causes of "big city disease". 3.1 causes and core drivers of population congestion the fundamental cause of beijing's excessive population concentration stems from its functional superposition and resource agglomeration effect as the capital. as a national political, cultural, international exchange and scientific and technological innovation center, beijing has gathered the best public service resources in the country. top universities such as tsinghua university and peking university, and well-known medical institutions such as union hospital have formed a strong "magnetic field" and continue to attract population inflows. although the resident population at the end of 2024 was 21.832 million, a decrease of 26000 from the previous year, achieving negative growth for six consecutive years, and the "14th five-year plan" of beijing clearly controlled the resident population within 23 million, but the super-large population base and the problem of spatial distribution imbalance is still prominent. another driving force behind population concentration is the industry's "siphon effect." with the service sector accounting for 85.3% of its economy, beijing has fostered the clustered development of high-end industries like information transmission, software, and it services, creating numerous high-value-added jobs that further enhance its population attraction. this positive cycle of "resources industries population" not only drives urban development but also increases the pressure on the central districts, making it a core driver of "big city disease". 3.2 regional development imbalance and population dispersal challenges the imbalance in the development of the beijing-tianjin-hebei region is a deep structural cause of the excessive population concentration in beijing. from an economic development perspective, in 2024, beijing's per capita gdp is expected to reach 228,000 rmb, while hebei's per capita gdp is only about 72,000 rmb (hebei provincial bureau of statistics, 2024). this vast economic gap creates a one-way population flow pattern from the periphery to the center, leading to a continuous population inflow into beijing. although the beijing-tianjin-hebei coordinated development strategy has been underway for years, beijing's "siphon effect" remains stronger than its regional influence. the insufficient coordination of regional functions further limits the effectiveness of population dispersal. beijing's efforts to relocate non-capital functions and hebei's capacity to absorb them are mismatched. cities in hebei, like shijiazhuang, as potential sub-centers, lag behind beijing in terms of public services and industrial support capabilities, making it difficult to attract population effectively. this regional development imbalance means that beijing cannot rely solely on administrative measures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 139 to control its population size. to fundamentally alleviate population pressure, it must improve the comprehensive carrying capacity of surrounding regions and create a "multi-polar support" urban agglomeration structure. 3.3 traffic congestion formation mechanism and systemic connections traffic congestion is a concentrated manifestation of the imbalance between population size, urban planning, and infrastructure supply. beijing now has over 6 million vehicles, while its subway system will have only about 879 kilometers of operational track by early 2025. although the total length of the rail transit system is planned to reach 1,600 kilometers by 2025, the supply-demand conflict remains highly evident in the short term. in the first half of 2025, the average road traffic index during peak hours in the central urban areas will be 5.64. although this represents a 6.47% decrease year-on-year and a reduction of 17 days of moderate congestion, and the tidal flow characteristics of traffic are significant (beijing municipal commission of transport, 2025). the deep logic of traffic congestion lies in the mismatch between job and housing locations. high-end industries and public services are concentrated in the central urban areas, while the population has spread to the suburbs, creating a spatial pattern of "working in the core area, living in the outskirts." the commuter traffic during peak hours exacerbates road congestion. meanwhile, although the intercity transportation network in the beijing-tianjin-hebei region has been formed, the efficiency and connectivity of cross-regional commuting are insufficient, failing to effectively reduce traffic pressure on the central areas. as a result, traffic congestion shows a pattern of "local improvement, overall pressure." 3.4 multidimensional causes and feedback loops of environmental pollution beijing's environmental issues exhibit a dual characteristic of "air pollution and water scarcity", and the two are systematically linked. from january to may 2025, the average pm2.5 concentration dropped to 29.6μg/m³ (beijing municipal ecology and environment bureau, 2025), showing continuous air quality improvement. this progress is attributed to industrial structure adjustments and regional joint prevention and control efforts. however, the regional transmission of air pollution still makes it vulnerable to emissions from surrounding areas, causing fluctuations in the effectiveness of pollution control. water scarcity is a more severe and rigid constraint. in 2025, beijing's per capita water resources will still be below 150 cubic meters, only 5% of the national average and far below the internationally recognized severe water scarcity line of 500 cubic meters (beijing water authority. (2025, february). this extreme shortage results from a combination of insufficient natural resources and an excessively large population—over 20 million people with water demand clashing with limited local water resources and external water supplies. water scarcity not only limits industrial development but also forces excessive groundwater extraction, worsening ecological degradation and creating a vicious cycle of "water shortage-restricted development-rising governance costs" alongside population and industry. the systematic characteristics of beijing's "big city disease" can be presented intuitively through the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 140 dynamic correlation model, which takes the excessive concentration of population as the core driving force and forms a mutually reinforcing feedback loop through three key paths, which aggravates the dilemma of urban governance, as shown in figure 1. path a: housing chain reaction and social problems caused by population overcrowding path b: congestion leads to the coordinated deterioration of traffic and environment path c: population crowding increases resource consumption and ecological overload. figure 1. dynamic linkage model of beijing's "big city diseases" 4. intelligent governance pathways 4.1 typical models from international smart city construction the practice of addressing "urban diseases" through intelligent means in international metropolises offers multiple references for the coordinated development of the beijing-tianjin-hebei region. the core experience focuses on the coordination between spatial layout optimization and transportation support systems. the tokyo metropolitan area adopts a multi-center model driven by rail transit as its core strategy. through the construction of a high-density rail network totaling 2,710 kilometers (including subways, private railways, and jr lines), tokyo connects sub-centers such as shinjuku and shibuya into a system of complementary urban nodes (ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism of japan, 2024). by relying on the transit-oriented development (tod) model to balance work and residential distribution, tokyo keeps the average commuting time at approximately 40 minutes, effectively alleviating pressure on the central city. this provides valuable insights for the beijing-tianjin-hebei region: strengthening the density of the rail transit network especially around sub-centers and border www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 141 areas of hebei is essential to improve the efficiency of cross-regional public transportation. the paris region addresses the issue of functional over-concentration by relocating industries and equalizing public services. it has planned the la défense business district to absorb financial and corporate headquarters, and, through the "paris region master plan",has relocated administrative and industrial functions. simultaneously, high-quality education and healthcare resources have been developed in new cities such as marne-la-vallée, thereby reducing dependence on the central city. this offers an important lesson for the beijing-tianjin-hebei region in relieving non-capital functions: it is essential to improve public service levels in hebei's undertaking areas and enhance their attractiveness for population settlement. shanghai's "one core and multiple sub-centers" spatial structure is also instructive for developing an integrated transportation model. sub-centers such as the hongqiao business district and zhangjiang science city have clearly defined functions and are connected via city and intercity railways to surrounding cities such as suzhou and jiaxing, thus facilitating the flow of resources in the yangtze river delta. this suggests that, beijing should clarify the functional division of these areas and strengthen cross-regional transportation connectivity. 4.2 the intelligent governance path of the coordinated development of beijing-tianjin-hebei base on both domestic and international experience, the beijing-tianjin-hebei region needs to build an intelligent collaborative system across three dimensions: population, transportation, and industry. smart population management needs to establish a regional unified population big data platform, integrate household registration, social security, employment and other data in the three places, realize dynamic monitoring of population mobility and job-residence matching analysis, promote mutual recognition of residence permits and cross-regional sharing of public services, and guide the population to distribute reasonably with functional relief. the core of intelligent transportation development lies in building a "beijing-tianjin-hebei on the track" system. this includes accelerating the operation of intercity railways such as the jingxiong and jingtang lines, developing a cross-regional traffic perception network, enabling traffic forecasting and intelligent scheduling through big data. smart industrial collaboration should follow development framework to support the intelligent upgrading of industrial parks. this includes building an industrial internet platform to promote integration across the three industrial chains, breaking down administrative barriers through data sharing, and enabling the precise alignment of beijing's technological innovation resources with the manufacturing capacities of tianjin and hebei, as shown in figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 142 figure 2. integrated policy instruments and market mechanisms framework in summary, intelligent governance in the beijing-tianjin-hebei region should be driven by the dual engines of spatial coordination and technological empowerment. by integrating international experience with local practices, the region can build a cross-regional collaborative innovation system to support the development of a world-class urban agglomeration. 5. conclusion this study investigates the underlying mechanisms of beijing’s “big city disease” and proposes a smart, cross-regional governance framework under the beijing-tianjin-hebei integration strategy. utilizing a “problem identification–cause analysis–dynamic linkage–strategy proposal” approach, the research reveals a reinforcing feedback loop among population pressure, traffic congestion, and environmental degradation. its core contribution lies in constructing an intelligent governance model focused on population regulation, transit-oriented spatial coordination, and regional industrial synergy. compared with international cases such as tokyo’s multi-core rail-driven structure and paris’s functionally dispersed development, this study identifies distinct constraints in beijing’s context. these include insufficient public service capacity in surrounding regions, industrial mismatches, and weak integration between policy and market mechanisms, all of which limit the effectiveness of sub-center development and regional dispersal. while the overall governance direction aligns with global practices, this study uniquely adapts smart city principles to china’s institutional and spatial realities, offering a localized and operable model. by grounding international concepts in domestic governance conditions, the study provides practical strategies for managing mega-city challenges and serves as a reference for other large urban regions in china undergoing similar transformations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 143 acknowledgement the paper was financially supported by the beijing international studies university (project id: kyzx24a007) and beijing association of higher education (project id:ms2024422) research project. references beijing municipal bureau of statistics, & national bureau of statistics survey office in beijing. (2025, march). beijing 2024 national economic and social development statistical bulletin. available on beijing municipal bureau of statistics website. tream_biz=doubao beijing municipal people's government. (2012). smart beijing action outline. available on beijing municipal people's government portal website. beijing municipal bureau of statistics & survey office of the national bureau of statistics in beijing. (2024). beijing 2023 statistical bulletin on national economic and social development. beijing municipal people's government portal. https://www.beijing.gov.cn/gongkai/tjxx/tjgb/202403/t20240321_3589001.html hebei provincial bureau of statistics. (2025). hebei province 2024 national economic and social development statistical bulletin. hebei provincial people's government portal. ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism of japan. (2024). tokyo metropolitan area transportation white paper. japan railway construction planning. national bureau of statistics. (2025). deepening coordinated development, 2023 beijing-tianjin-hebei regional coordination index continues to rise. retrieved from national bureau of statistics website. beijing municipal bureau of statistics. (2014, june). 2013 beijing resident population main data interpretation. available on beijing municipal bureau of statistics website. e-house research institute. (2016, may). national house price-to-income ratio research report. china finance online. beijing municipal commission of transport. (2024, october). october 2024 beijing transportation operation monthly report. retrieved from http://m.toutiao.com/group/7434539761609474575/?ups beijing water authority. (2025, february). water consumption per 10,000 yuan gdp drops to 8.45 cubic meters, beijing's water efficiency ranks first in the country in 2024. capital window. beijing municipal bureau of statistics. (2025, february). 11 years of integration and joint progress yield fruitful results, regional gdp of beijing-tianjin-hebei reaches 11.5 trillion yuan. capital window. beijing municipal commission of transport. (2025, march). beijing-tianjin-hebei transportation integration "report card" released, highway total mileage reaches 11,000 kilometers. china highway net. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 144 beijing municipal ecology and environment bureau. (2025, may). 2024 beijing municipal ecological and environmental status bulletin. available on beijing municipal ecology and environment bureau website. beijing municipal ecology and environment bureau. (2025, may). january-may 2025 beijing air quality report. retrieved from https://www.beijing.gov.cn/ywdt/gzdt/202506/t20250529_4118564.html smart governance for mega-city challenges: a coord huan zhao1* & xi chen2 abstract as one of china’s national mega-cities, beijing fa keywords figure 1. dynamic linkage model of beijing's "big figure 2. integrated policy instruments and market advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 15 original paper research on construction of female image in the media and entertainment industry women—the past, the present and the future qiuyu. deng 1 , shuying. yi 2 , wanlu. she 3 (alphabetically in ascending order) 1 department of foreign languages, university of electronic science and technology of china, chengdu, china 2 department of foreign languages, university of electronic science and technology of china, chengdu, china 3 department of management and economics, university of electronic science and technology of china, chengdu, china received: august 18, 2022 accepted: september 9, 202 online published: september 15, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n4p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n4p15 abstract the development of the internet does not necessarily promote the harmonious development of gender in society. the focus and gaze of the internet media on women’s bodies constructs the image of “being seen” on the internet, which is a derogatory and distorted image of women. in the unequal relationship of “seeing and being seen”, the female body is an important carrier. the silence chosen by online audiences has further led to the online media’s eagerness to portray “being seen” women. news media and film and literature have not done enough to reflect and represent women in a fair, balanced, and consistent manner, and the number, perspective, and content of their works are not commensurate with the actual role women play in social production. this paper focuses on several images of women constructed by the news media and film and literature, analyzes their underlying causes and their impact on women, and tries to suggest possibilities for changing this phenomenon. keywords female image, news media, film and literature, gender discrimination, gender equality 1. introduction feminists once had high hopes that the internet’s popularity would provide new opportunities and platforms for the development of women. however, the combination of high technology and gender www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. cannot be overly idealized, and there is both consistency and mutual tension between the mass media and the spread of gender equality values. while the internet has given women a voice to express themselves, it has also reproduced and even reinforced real-life gender discrimination. commercial interests and traditional gender concepts have contributed to the creation and development of this phenomenon on the internet. the focus on the image of “being seen” women in online media and film and literature is a blatant challenge to gender equality and advanced gender culture. this paper explores the image of women in the media from three aspects: real-life events, film and television works, and tanbi fiction literature, and analyzes the underlying causes and feasible measures to change this phenomenon, to make reasonable suggestions for the creation of an objective and fair image of women in social networks. 2. the portrayal of women “women are deformed males”, so said aristotle. “women have long tongues, the order of the vril. chaotic bandits descend from the sky and are born from women”, as the poem says. for thousands of years, men in a dominant position have defined women in an othering way, disciplining and suppressing women in a marginalized and dwarfing way, building a patriarchal society, and making people in it suffer from “misogyny”. misogyny refers to the contempt and disgust for women, mainly manifested in sexism, sexual objectification, and gender-based violence against women. it is important to note that misogyny is not only a form of male “female contempt” but also a form of female “self-loathing”. the american gender studies scholar sedgwick refers to “the bond between men without sexual relations” as “male homosexual social desire”. in the book “misogyny”, japanese sociologist chizuko ueno further pointed out that men’s homosexual social desires are based on misogyny and are sustained by homophobia. men in bonding relationships do not consider women to be their equals, confirming their own subjectivity by objectifying women, and then forming groups by identifying with each other as subjects. at the same time, men in bonding relationships view homosexuality as “men who look like women” out of the fear of becoming objects, and classify them as outside of men in order to ensure the subjectivity and homogeneity of the male group. in this process, “misogyny” is created. 2.1 real-life events china is a country with thousands of years of patriarchal concepts, and the voyeurism of women’s bodies was once the sy imposed on women by the patriarchy. the interactive, virtual and hidden nature of the online media is a perfect match for the voyeuristic desires of some audiences who dare not think or act in the real world. the tensions and anxieties brought about by social transformation are also released in a distorted way through the “consumption of female images” on the internet. the various forms of sexual advances, pornography and obscenity against women, and the resulting series of crimes are to a large extent closely related to the images of women presented on the internet. in the june 10 tangshan barbecue incident in china, for example, a group of gangster men sexually www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. harassed several women who were eating late at night, and when they were rejected, they became angry and beat these women up with their accomplices, causing serious physical and psychological harm to these innocent women. after the fermentation of the incident, many people tried to set up the “victim blaming theory” again. some of them started malicious rumors: the women who were beaten were karaoke bar girls and they knew the assailants before so they deserved to be beaten. in addition to the stigma, many people were committed to finding some imperfections in these almost “perfect” victims. some accused “they are not good girls when they go out to eat late at night.” many men were not only indifferent and unsympathetic but also rebuked the women who were concerned. they even irrelevantly published their flirtation, that the responsibility of this matter is to be divided between men and women because these women were not tolerant and instead of fighting back, they should have been considerate of those drunk men. there are always some voices when women are in the face of domestic violence, sexual harassment, and other gender violence issues in the workplace, in marriage, and in family, “why are you exposed to violence?” “why are you sexually harassed?” “because you’re at fault.” on the one hand, these voices are excuses for the perpetrators of violence, and on the other hand, there is a real perception in public opinion. while “victim blaming” is often defined by unequal social norms and even male standards, there is an even more absurd perception in today’s society—that only a perfect victim deserves sympathy, and this standard is even harsher when it comes to women as victims. in her seminal work of modern feminism, the second sex, french existentialist philosopher simone beauvoir pointed out that patriarchy semi-openly recognizes male sexual freedom but requires women’s sexuality to be bound by marriage, and if a woman’s sexuality does not occur within marriage, it is considered a fault and a defect. if a woman fails to protect her chastity and reputation, she is disgraced, while accusations against her conqueror are mixed with envy. in reports about battered women, prostitutes, or “the other woman,” the authors often use terms that are more morally judgmental of the victims, such as “noble” and “pure.” these terms cause another spiritual damage to the victims. at the same time, these words and tone are not out of genuine concern and sympathy for the women victims, but also ignore the violations they have suffered and focus more on the vulgar issue of whether their chastity is gone. the reason why these reports are appearing is people’s subconscious feudal view of chastity. obviously, after receiving modern education, some people still have the traditional notion that women are no longer pure if they lose their chastity, just like the women in the tangshan incident who were rumored to be “ktv girls”. it was absurd that the trend of public opinion turned to blame these women for not deserving sympathy. it should be clear that women are forced to do things they don’t want to do by others using violence or other illegal means, which should be a disgrace to the perpetrators, but also society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. 2.2 film and television productions as a reflection of the real world, film and television productions are always closely linked with the real world, reflecting the state of mind of human beings in the real world. additionally, they are also used as a medium to convey and amplify the message that the creators want to convey, to bring about changes to society, which eventually become part of the acceptable social culture. in a world where the mainstream environment is filled with misogyny type of thinking, the creation and dissemination of film and television works witness how people express their strong tendency to objectify women, either intentionally or unintentionally, under the underlying logic of the male-oriented society, which is manifested in the malice of society toward women. since the male-oriented culture has penetrated nearly every aspect of life which has largely reformed people’s mindset, it is way too natural that people will produce many films and tv works that mostly attach importance to the male perspective and take women as the object of gaze in a social-cultural atmosphere with a misogynist theme, in which tendencies to objectify women can be noticed everywhere. the difficult status quo of women cannot be simply summarized by the oppression of the “first sex (for the current situation on a social level)” on the “second sex”, which is, instead, a combined result of the misogynistic tendencies of society as a whole, the oppression and violence of the male group, and the forced obedience and domestication that the female group itself is accustomed to in a patriarchal society with noteworthy misogyny tendencies. this is demonstrated in works of art that transcend reality but also derive from it, and many films and television productions reflect the surprisingly unified misogynistic tendencies of different social groups on this basis. 1998 saw the release of the controversial incest-themed film lolita, which was adapted from a novel by russian-american author vladimir vladimirovich nabokov. the basic storyline is about a middle-aged man’s “love affair” with his underage stepdaughter whose aim is to expose the filth of human desire. the film begins with a foreshadowing of morbid human desire: as a film adapted from literature, its music, lighting, and the details in many scenes all imply sexual metaphors of repression and suffocation, to be in line with the original work’s thorough atmosphere. there is no shortage of close-ups of lolita’s body parts in numerous sexually suggestive scenes (the legs all wet by the fountain, her mouth chewing gum at all times, and sometimes the food in her mouth is a banana which indicates male genitalia), suggesting the audience that lolita, as a teenage girl, initiates the action of seducing her stepfather, it is her sexual precocity and seduction that leads to the series of violations made by her stepfather humbert afterward—she is by no means a perfect victim in a male-oriented world. in the tone of the film’s excessive male gaze, she exists as a lascivious sexual object from the male perspective. this is a hard reflection of the male-oriented ideology that exists in the film industry and its underlying infinite tolerance for men and infinite malice toward women, even when the main characters are a teenage girl and a middle-aged man who is also the underage girl’s stepfather. at the same time, the film goes to great lengths to explain where humbert’s pedophilia comes from—his first teenage girlfriend died of an accidental illness in her teens and has been his issue ever since—leaving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. humbert’s teenage experience and his mental illness reasonable excuses for him to choose underage girls as the object of his desire. the film unfolds the narrative from the first-person perspective of humbert, the protagonist, allowing the audience to explore his mindset from the perspective of a pedophile man. under this subjective narrative mode, the subject of the narrative takes use of the facade of love to hide his desire which hugely violates human nature and ethics. in the process of developing his narrative, humbert draws analogies between his “love affair” with lolita and the love stories of edgar allan poe and annabel lee, thus categorizing himself as one of these literary giants such as dante and petrarch, making it possible to cover up the crimes he had committed against his stepdaughter using the word “love”. moreover, humbert tries to explain his personality with artistic distortion and surreality to convince the reader that his love story is indeed possible in the real world. as a result, humbert’s love for his underage stepdaughter becomes a rationalization for adult men to commit sexual assault on underage women, therefore, the audience turns out to be extremely vulnerable to being misguided by the narrative subject and will possibly sympathize with the male subject who conducts sexual assault. however, this story should be classified in the category of sexual assault no matter how much the film’s narrative glorifies and rationalizes the male protagonist’s sexual relationship with his underage stepdaughter from a surreal art perspective, i.e., in a non-equivalent and deformed relationship, the adult male, as a social member, has an inherent power inequality when facing an underage girl, who has not officially stepped into society yet. needless to say, when a relationship falls out of the realm of equality, the act imposed by the superior on the inferior becomes a unilateral infringement. whether it is through lolita’s precocious performance on camera to induce the audience to be prejudiced against her based on gender stereotypes, or through a monotonous first-person narrative perspective that permits the audience to sympathize with humbert’s past, understand his abnormal behavior, and lament his shakespearean “love tragedy” after comprehending humbert’s story from his perspective, is treating the entire story with a thorough male-oriented state of mind. in the following years since the film’s release, countless viewers and readers have talked about the artistic glorification of humbert’s image presentation from a male-oriented perspective, using love—which is a great deception inflicted by patriarchal culture, and at the core of which is still the filthy desire of human beings—as an entry point for the beauty of the film, but cooperatively stay silent on the harm caused by such sexual assaults in the real sense. it is hard to deny that as the first sex(socially in a patriarchal society), men enjoy relatively higher attention and a more authoritative voice than women because the social resources are greatly tilted in his favor, and the social environment is, therefore, more inclined to be tolerant and understanding of men. contrary to this, women always exist as objects to be gazed at by the whole patriarchal society, whose morally eligible social resources are taken away from them to men, so women without enough social resources, social attention, and social respect are always surrounded by great malice from society. this is a disease that exists at the subconscious level of the social structure rather than a natural inheritance, and people need to be aware of this and consciously www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. overcome the underlying logic of misogyny in male-oriented thinking mode. 2.3 tanbi fiction literature the word “tanbi” originated in japan and means indulging in beautiful things. initially, it was a generic term for japanese literary works in the late 19th century that were mainly aimed at the pursuit of aesthetic beauty, and later specifically referred to works depicting pure love between beautiful men, whose audience was mainly young women. in the 1990s, japanese tanbi comics were introduced to china through the internet, attracting a group of young female readers who mocked themselves as “fujoshi”. they established a tanbi subculture group that loved the male-male romance and produced comic derivative works of homoerotic novels so that tanbi culture took root in china and began to grow and develop. in 2003, jinjiang literary city was founded, and since then, tanbi fiction has been rapidly localized and proliferated. during this period, the style of tanbi fiction also changed dramatically, from which we can also glimpse the psychological changes of creators and audiences. early tanbi novels are characterized by the depiction of sadistic and torturous emotions. the story often starts with the top physically tormenting the bottom because of emotional conflict and ends with the top losing his soul when the situation is reversed. such a plot direction fits women’s vulnerable position in society and provides them with a way to vent their grievances and anger about being oppressed. after the internet clean-up campaign in 2014, the emotional character gradually turns warm, light-hearted, and sweet, as the creators leave out all the real problems faced by the gay community and only depict idealized love. such love requires both parties to have equal status, while women are always at an unfair disadvantage in reality. therefore, women project their expectations in tanbi literature to satisfy their imagination of love. the projection of female equality consciousness is also reflected in the characterization of the protagonist. the protagonists of tanbi fiction novels have developed from the initial “strong top and weak bottom” in line with traditional gender norms to a diversified scenario of “weak top and strong bottom” and “strong top and strong bottom” and “weak top and weak bottom”. the top as the “penetrator” in the process of sex can also be cute or feminine, and the bottom as the “penetrated” in the process of sex can also be strong or mature, which to a certain extent breaks the traditional heterosexual image of lovers, and also reflects the resistance and resistance of women to gender stereotypes. in addition, tanbi fiction has also developed two settings that do not correspond to male physiology: childbearing and intersexuality. both of them set up the tanbi novel in which the bottom has both male and female reproductive organs and can reproduce. on the one hand, such a setting carries a female’s catharsis for the oppression of fertility in reality, and on the other hand, it also reflects the demand of “the pain i feel is the only way to understand my pain”. contrary to this is the image of female supporting characters in tanbi fiction. some studies point out that in the majority of tanbi novels, the image of women can be divided into vilified third parties, simplified female friends, and masculinized heroines. the third party often appears as the ex or fiancée www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. of the top, who usually comes from a wealthy family and tries to break up the protagonist by all means. the creator tends to portray them as deep-rooted and ruthless so that they cannot gain the reader’s sympathy and forgiveness. the female friends act as the promoters of the protagonist’s relationship and witnesses of their love, and they are only depicted in terms of interactions with the protagonist, while their own lives and complete personalities are simplified or omitted. the less frequent heroines tend to have the traditional concept of masculinity, such as perseverance, boldness, and thundering, which can be seen as “more like a man’s woman”. to maintain the perfection of male love in creators’ hearts, they intentionally or unintentionally vilify, simplify or masculinize the women in the world of pure love, and the specific way of portrayal also fully indicates that the “misogyny” rooted in a patriarchal society is also affecting women. in recent years, more and more tanbi novels have been adapted into tv series and movies as hit ips, breaking through the circle culture to reach the public. in this process, the censor’s ambiguity and castration of homosexuality and the market capital’s modification of characters and plots to cater to the mainstream aesthetic today also weakened the original female energy to a large extent. the expansion of the influence of tanbi fiction after it came out of the circle has gone hand in hand with the compromise of its content, and its impact on gender consciousness is still unknown today and in the future. on the whole, tanbi fiction can be seen as a tool for women to give themselves the right to gaze at men. it breaks the traditional concept of men as the main body to gaze at women, and to a certain extent liberates women from the shackles of being oppressed and disciplined to achieve equality and even subversion of power. however, because the creators themselves bear the mark of “misogyny”, tanbi novels also carry certain side effects in the shaping of female images. in addition, it should be clear that the rise and growth of tanbi fiction are not enough to establish the awareness of gender equality, let alone the advancement of women and sexual minorities in reality. instead, it is more like a paradise for women to enter a beautiful fantasy world and escape from the oppression and inequality in reality. 3. countermeasures 3.1 improve network legislation and strengthen legal regulation the development of internet technology not only makes the cost of using the internet much lower and enhances the popularity and usage rate of the internet but also drives the development of online self-media. interaction on the internet creates a certain social opinion, which has a wide coverage and great influence but lacks positive guidance and supervision. some of the social opinions triggered by online news have positive impacts on society, but due to the invisibility of online comments, various negative comments will be magnified, and various bad and false information will be flooded, corrupting the online environment and affecting social morale, so they need to be regulated. in a patriarchal society with misogyny as the keynote, the image of women in the media is not always positive, and under the deliberate guidance of the stakeholders of the new online media, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. unwarranted malice inflicted on women by netizens is always mind-boggling, and the orgy of gender violence is projected from reality to the internet, and the widespread misogynistic thinking is infinitely magnified due to the concealment and anonymity of the internet, which will eventually affect women’s this will eventually affect women’s legitimate interests, or in more serious cases, even squeeze women’s original living space in a multidimensional way. therefore, like the real world, the internet also needs to be purified, and this purification relies first and foremost on the regulation of the law. at present, china’s network legislation is lagging behind the rapid development of the network, and it is this unbalanced development that has led to repeated cases of network fraud. network legislation has been in place for more than two decades since its inception, and this has only been a breakthrough in recent years with the dramatic increase in the number of internet users in china, but the current laws and regulations are not enough to solve a series of network problems derived from the increase in the number of internet users. isis, the rapid development of the network, and the lag of network legislation that n makes a series of problems derived from the network. therefore, the relevant legislative departments should accelerate the process of network legislation to adapt to the rapid development of the mobile internet industry. 3.2 take advantage of the public opinion guiding role of social media as the internet continues to assume the role of information dissemination, social media is gradually gaining more and more attention from the public, so the discourse is also greatly tilted toward social media, that is, social media growing up under the internet has become the main position of information dissemination. a statistic published by meta (formerly facebook) in 2020 shows that in terms of access to information, more than two-thirds of people in america use the core sites facebook, instagram and whatsapp, with one-third using instagram and one-fifth using whatsapp. this shows that the use of social media has become the main way for people of all ages to access information and has become one of the most important ways for people to connect with the world. on this basis, it has also been shown that social media has played a significant role in the fourth wave of feminist movements and has provided the main platform for this feminist movement. thanks to the massive involvement of the internet and social media, this feminist movement has reached a wider scope than the previous three, and the efficiency of its dissemination has increased geometrically at a visible rate, including the delhi (delhi) gang rape case in 2012, the isla vista murder case in 2014, the jian ghomeshi trial in 2016, the harvey weinstein (2017) allegations and the subsequent weinstein effect, and the westminster (2017) sex scandal, among others. according to kira cochrane, fourth-wave feminism is “defined by technology” and is characterized by the use of blogs such as facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube, tumblr, and feministing to challenge patriarchal culture’s misogyny and achieve gender equality. however, from what we have seen so far, there has been some resistance to the popularization of feminism in social media, and this resistance requires social media organizations to reflect on themselves and overcome their current shortcomings to provide a more objective and fair platform for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. women to speak out. social media is somehow behind the phenomenon of stigmatizing women, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects: firstly, in terms of issue setting, some media tend to focus on negative issues to attract the attention of audiences; secondly, in terms of report content, the media emphasize timeliness, but do not report enough on the voices of the people responsible for the news, and often deliberately exaggerate some words to attract the audience’s attention. therefore, online media needs to be regulated, and such regulation requires both supervisions from outside the industry and improvement of the quality of media practitioners. in today’s market-oriented development of network media, some network media practitioners have become impatient under the enticement of interests, more to cater to the public, which makes it difficult to be objective and impartial in news reporting while the vitality of the news relies on objective and impartial, true and reliable reporting. the first thing that network media should do is uphold an objective and impartial attitude when reporting news, not exaggerating deliberately. 3.3 strengthen women’s awareness of rights protection women’s rights are an important public issue that covers most of the countries in the world, especially the third world countries, and is one of the directions of social progress highlighted in the un declaration of human rights. the concept of women’s rights needs to be widely disseminated throughout society, especially in isolated rural areas. in the fact that social resources are tilted toward men, women’s rights are violated in several dimensions. to make more women aware that their legal rights are being violated by the patriarchal society, this article lists the following five directions for women’s rights protection to help open up the way for women to defend their rights. 3.3.1 right to live as the default second sex in a patriarchal society, women’s right to live is constantly violated due to the deliberate guidance of the misogynistic cultural climate. china is the country with the most serious, longest-lasting, and most affected gender imbalance at birth in the world, as people used to use ultrasound to distinguish the sex of a fetus and choose whether to terminate the pregnancy accordingly, due to a patriarchal belief in the importance of sons over daughters. for this reason, chinese law prohibits any non-medically necessary fetal sex diagnosis, which is one of the arguments for the socio-cultural threat to women’s right to live from the embryonic stage. 3.3.2 implicit discrimination in the workplace while nature has endowed women with a sacred womb to produce life, women’s fertility is seen as a liability in the workplace, because possible maternity leave for future births of unmarried women who haven’t had a child might cause loss to the company. in addition, there is biased discrimination against women in the types of work they are skilled in, such as the fact that many companies have men in top management, and women are excluded from this power structure unless there is a “glass cliff effect”. kristin j. anderson, a professor of psychology at the university of houston, said companies may offer women “glass cliff” positions because they believe women are “more expendable and better suited to be scapegoats. she said organizations that offer “glass cliff” jobs to women believe they will win no www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. matter what: if the woman succeeds, the company will be better off. if she fails, the company will be no worse off, she will be blamed, but the company will be praised for equality and progress, and the former practice of appointing men as top management staff can be restored. 3.3.3 the right to education the level of education is positively correlated with a person’s future economic level and the potential for survival and development. in china, the inequality between men’s and women’s right to education is mainly shown in the non-developed areas. many rural families, who are lacking sufficient funds for education, give preference to boys for higher education and even require girls to become migrant workers to pay for the boys’ tuition. 3.3.4 sexual rights women have independent ownership and dominion over their bodies, and obviously, it has become common sense in modern society that women’s sexual intercourse is not dominated by men. the concept of chastity imposed on women is a manifestation of the violation of women’s human rights in a patriarchal society. there is a deviation between the sexual morality standard for men and that for women. men’s sexual needs are socially justified, while women are expected to be sexually ignorant and proud to know nothing about sex, and when faced with a woman who knows everything about sex, society labels her as a “prostitute”. this is the deprivation of women’s sexual rights in a patriarchal society. 3.3.5 domestic violence due to the faultiness of china’s legal system, the rights and interests of chinese women who suffer from domestic violence are always being violated, and the lack of public attention to victims of domestic violence makes it very difficult for victims of domestic violence to defend their rights. according to the third survey on the social status of chinese women conducted by the all-china women’s federation and national bureau of statistics in 2011, 24.7% of women had suffered different forms of domestic violence throughout the marriage, such as insulting, abusing, beating, restricting personal freedom, economic control and forced sex by their spouses, among which 5.5% explicitly said they had been beaten by their spouses, 7.8% in rural areas and 3.1% in urban areas respectively. the number of women whose personal rights have been violated by domestic violence is extremely large, but the road to defending the rights of domestic violence victims is also full of thorns due to the shackles of social opinion. with the development of internet technology, the way people communicate and exchange with the outside world has gradually become public. the appearance of public social platforms such as weibo and douban and the rise of self-media allow every ordinary person to be the object of being told and listened to and provide the best place for the dissemination of symbolic signs. the identity and image of women currently active in the public eye are generally associated with abstract and generalized conceptual descriptions, such as housewives who depend on men, older leftover women and single women, and so on. the root of this phenomenon is that we tend to classify women when we point the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. camera at them, and then label them into words that can be easily referred to and disseminated. in this process, individual differences are ignored. a woman who is also a victim of domestic violence may choose to divorce if she is in the middle class and has a stable job, while she may have to put up with it if she is at the bottom and cannot support herself. when the camera only wants to talk about the group of women who are victims of domestic violence, we cannot see the impact of other realistic factors on different individuals. we should focus the camera on each case and each woman, listen to their stories, and give practical help or form empirical summaries in the context of their individual experiences and situations. defending one’s legal rights is not only a basic human right but also a necessary foundation for world peace, prosperity, and sustainable development. the first step is to defend women’s rights through legal means. women should arm themselves with legal knowledge and dare to defend their rights through legal intervention, and women should unite to defend their rights according to the law; secondly, they should use the mass media platform to speak out for themselves, use the effect of public opinion to attract public attention to their rights defense process, and not just keep silent when facing the news of stigmatizing women. they should be brave enough to stand up for themselves and speak out, and they should be brave enough to fight and defend their rights against media that publish stories that smear women’s images. however, women’s groups should pay attention to the ways and means of communication with the media, and should not just confront the media blindly, but should also strengthen the cooperation between them, and make more use of the media to promote the good qualities of women, to create a win-win situation. 3.4 break the moral shackles of patriarchal culture in the unspoken fixed framework of patriarchal culture, women’s every move is monitored by patriarchal rules, so women’s value is severely dichotomized under the influence of mainstream misogyny, either as “saints” or “sluts”, and all intermediate values are ignored. therefore, countless women are domesticated by male-oriented thinking into women who conform to patriarchal norms. why have high heels, short skirts, and lipstick become the fixed labels for women today? the male-oriented ideology that alienates and objectifies women pervasively penetrates social life and is solidified into a stereotypical mindset at the subconscious level of this social mechanism. the norm of a “good woman” is defined not only by men but also by women who have been domesticated by a patriarchal society. the spread of social media around the world has made it easier for people to use the internet to discriminate against and shame women who do not conform to patriarchal norms of behavior, or who try to resist them. people try to use this pejorative concept to control the functioning of a patriarchal society within its established trajectory. to break out of this trap, modern women need to break out of the traditional logic of male dominance. for example, the word “slut” is a threat that can limit a woman’s behavior within the norms, but it is the brainwashing and mental manipulation of women by a patriarchal society. when women stop classifying “slut” as a term full of pejorative tendencies, women will take the first step to break free from the mental manipulation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. of patriarchal society and escape from the weird circle of misogynistic thinking. discourse is power. in this internet era, where the concept of the metaverse is gradually emerging and information resources are well developed, women can make use of the abundant feminist resources on the internet and social media to tap into women’s discourse, build a discourse system independent of patriarchal culture and unique to women’s groups together with like-minded women. women can break away from the logical flaws and ideological manipulation of patriarchal culture, escape from the fate of being a second gender parasite in a patriarchal society, and redefine their connotation and wisdom with female power. in the face of the dominant patriarchal culture’s powerful intimidation of women, it’s rare and commendable for many women who insist on resisting patriarchal oppression to be able to persist in the path of emancipating women despite the opposition and abuse of numerous vested interests and overcome the ubiquitous misogynistic culture to build a women’s cultural circle independent of patriarchal culture. 4. conclusion the media should focus on the other half of the population living under the same sky, rather than fueling feudal patriarchal ideology. the media always seems to place women in a specific position in the imaging system as objects of the gaze, images that men appreciate and want men to appreciate from a gender perspective. as a result, women as viewers are absent and expelled. there is no necessary distance between the female spectators and the image to “look back”. the image is the carrier of culture, and the sexist message carried by the female image is not expressed in modern media in the form of destruction and repression, but in the construction of a new standard that oppresses women in search of diversity. images of women are often the product of economic interests rather than the pursuit of female ideals, and certain parts of the female body are used as selling points, exaggerating female sexuality and generics to the detriment of women. gender is a dynamic process that accompanies social change, and the audience is a mirror of the media. the media is expected to look at the “looking-glass self” and seek change. acknowledgement prof. drummond and teaching assistant zhe wu have offered us valuable help in our thesis writing, we would like to give our sincere gratitude to prof. drummond and teaching assistant zhe wu, with extraordinary patience and consistent encouragement, gave us great help by providing us with necessary materials, advice of great value and inspiration of new ideas on class. without their strong support, this thesis could not been the present form. our heartfelt thanks go to prof. drummond and teaching assistant zhe wu. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 4, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. references brinkman, b. g. et al. (2015). college women’s reflections on media representations of empowerment. psychology of popular media culture, 4(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000043 collins, r. l. (2011). content analysis of gender roles in media: where are we now and where should we go? sex roles, 64(3), 290-298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5 de beauvoir, s. (2010). the second sex. knopf. deng, n. n., & han, m. (2021). the tanbi beauty of “out of the circle”: an overview of the development of domestic tanbi culture. journal of chongqing institute of science and technology (social science edition), (01), 94-98, 120. heidi, a. m. (2008). ethical and legal issues for writing researchers in an age of media convergence. computers and composition, 28(2), 104-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2007.09.007 hong, y. (2020). the shaping and construction of female image by little red book app in new media environment. 2020 international conference on educational innovation and philosophical inquiries. dong, k. y. (2021). analysis of sex conflict and patriarchy ideology critical critical discourse on “trending” topics on weibo. journal of fujian normal university (philosophy and social sciences edition), (4), 97-110. li, x., he, j. w., & wan, r. b. (2022). the development of chinese tanbi fiction and its aesthetic characteristics in the past thirty years. journal of hebei national teacher’s college, 42(02), 58-63. luo, j. (2015). research on construction of female image and female consciousness by television media. in 2015 international conference on economics, social science, arts, education and management engineering (pp. 221-224). atlantis press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2991/essaeme-15.2015.49 sumita, s. (2014). media and women image: a feminist discourse. journal of media and communication studies, 6(3), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.5897/jmcs2014.0384 tonia, w. (2015). “greening” gender equity: microfinance and the sustainable development agenda. journal of economic issues, 24(2), 53-62. yan, w. f. (2015). misogyny in tanbi fiction. journal of luoyang institute of technology (social science edition), 30(05), 30-35. zhu, q. h., & zhang, x. m. (2017). media empowerment and value dispelling of tanbi culture. modern communication (journal of communication university of china), 39(04), 12-17. microsoft word assc-v3n2-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper under state protection aeschylus’ the suppliants and the shift from clan to state johan lundberg 1* 1 associate professor in comparative literature, department of culture and aesthetics, stockholm university, stockholm, sweden * johan lundberg, associate professor in comparative literature, department of culture and aesthetics, stockholm university, stockholm, sweden received: november 11, 2020 accepted: november 28, 2020 online published: february 27, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n2p1 abstract aeschylos’ tragedy the suppliantsis in this article related to an opposition between clan and state—and more specifically with the development in ancient greece from barbarism to civilization, from a lawless, uncultivated and disorganised world, to a clan-based social order and from there to a state-based organisation, which in many ways would set the pattern for the development in europe for centuries to come.in the play, fifty sisters are fleeing from egypt to argos, persecuted by their fifty male cousins. the women seek protection and therefore refer to their shared origins with the population of argos. the fact that danaus has fifty daughters but no son, implies that if the daughters marry their cousins the legacy will stay within the clan. what the daughters’ uncle aegyptus and his sons demand is that danaus and his daughters should act in accordance with the regulatory framework of the clan system. this stipulates that in cases where fathers in patrilineal systems only have daughters, these daughters must marry endogamically (that is inwards) instead of exogamic ally (outwardly, and in the corresponding way for sons in matrilineal systems). the article shows how argos, governed by king pelasgus, is depicted in the play in contrast to the claustrophobic catatonia of incestuous relations, the latter illustrated by an imagery that stems from archaic greek mythology. the claustrophobic feeling that links the family and kin in the suppliants, through events such as incestuous marriages and family-related cannibalism, gives a picture of the individual’s room for manoeuvre being strictly regulated—in fact almost non-existent—in the extended family. it is such a claustrophobic world that the women in the suppliants (like orestes in oresteia) are fleeing from. instead they seek out a city state based on fundamentally different ideas than the family, kinship and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. clan-related organisation principles of the egyptians. the greek city state thereby appears to aim to liberate the archaic human from a claustrophobic captivity. keywords clan, aeschylos, suppliants, orestia, democracy 1. introduction in archaic and ancient greece the conflict between barbarian and non-barbarian, the civilised and uncivilised, was highly relevant—as it always is in cultural circles that know how to appreciate the always arduous struggle against traditions that shackle the individual. then it is another story that the conflict is to some extent relative. in the odyssey, when odysseus and his men reach the land of the cyclops, it is described as uncultivated and disorganised. might makes right always applies there. the land is not farmed. people do not collaborate. the eating of human flesh appears to be a consequence of the country lacking an overriding structure that binds people to each other: “neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, / but they dwell on the peaks of mountains in hollow caves, / and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives, / and they have no regard for one another.” (ix, pp. 112-115, p. 325) (note 1) this is, in short, how it can be imagined that homo sapiens lived before the cognitive revolution 70 000 years ago. symptomatically, it is through cognitive faculties that odysseus succeeds in outwitting the cyclops polyphemus. how far is it not then from the cyclopes that “lived apart, obedient to no law (ix, p. 189, p. 329), and “knew nothing of rights or laws” (ix, p. 213, p. 331) to the administration of justice represented on achilles shield in the iliad? there a picture is given of two men in dispute over blood money (man price)—over the compensation to be paid or that has been paid for committing a murder. the two men present their respective arguments to a gathering of elders, who are to arbitrate in the case. the proceedings take place in a square, before relatives and friends gathered to express their support for one or the other party (xviii, pp. 496-508, pp. 323-326) (note 2). it is hard not to see the scene—with its ritual setting (between the men there are “two talents of gold”)—as typical for the compensatory administration of justice of the clan society. the man price (or blood money) should be seen as payment to create a balance between two different tribes, extended families or clans. the process is still today similar in clan-based societies: the murderer’s clan (or a subdivision of it) collects an agreed amount for the clan to which the murdered man belonged. the alternative to blood money is avoided at any cost: a blood feud. that threatens to rip asunder social communities for several generations to come. a story considered to originate from the hittite empire, assumed to have disappeared in the 1200s bc, concerns the queen of kanesh, who gives birth to thirty sons in one year. the sons are put in baskets on the river and ultimately end up in the country of zalpuwa. (note 3) some years later the queen gives www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. birth to thirty daughters. she looks after them herself. many years later the sons arrive, as muleteers, at the town of tamarmara. there they learn that the queen of kanesh is living with her thirty daughters, but that she had previously given birth to thirty sons. the men then go to the queen—to meet the mother they had sought. when they arrive the gods have prevented the queen from recognising her sons. she offers her daughters to the thirty men. in turn, they do not understand that the women are their sisters. however, the youngest son realises the situation and objects to the arrangement. unfortunately that is where the text fragment comes to an end. the hittites’ story about the importance of keeping the thirty sons separated from the thirty daughters leads one’s thoughts to the “alliance theory” of the anthropologist claude lévi-strauss, which in turn is linked to the incest taboo that was a central component of his structuralist analysis. (note 4) the goose girl, published by the brothers grimm, could be cited as an example. it is about a princess sent from home by her mother with a handkerchief with three drops of the mother’s blood. eventually the princess arrives in another kingdom. but before that, she loses the handkerchief, she is dethroned and usurped by her maid. in the new kingdom the real princess has to work as a goose girl and is courted by the goose boy conrad. however, order is restored in the resolution of the fairy tale. an alliance of the kind described by lévi-strauss is set up between two kingdoms, an alliance that is worth considerably more to the families of the princess and the king than an alliance would have been between the families of the princess and conrad—or between the families of the king and the maid. what the hittites’ story seems to illustrate is the transition implicit in homer: the development from the uncivilised world of polyphemus to the ritualised administration of justice illustrated on achilles’ shield. lévi-strauss’ alliance theory shows how a structuring of society based on clan is emerging, in that the daughters are used as currency in the hunt for mutual alliances in networks that with time become increasingly large and complex. in order to avoid incest, by consistently removing either daughters or sons from their father’s house, an organic, amoeba-like system arises, held together by the same mechanisms at both micro and macro level. when the scottish clan system was attacked—at macro level—in the mid-1700s, the highland clans joined together in force on the side of the pretender to the throne, charles edward stuart, against the british army. nonetheless, they lost the battle of culloden in 1746.this meant that the highland clans lost their positions of power and all of scotland was finally incorporated into the united kingdom. in that way a new penal system could be introduced in the highlands instead of the clan-based system. the introduction to the epic of gilgamesh, which like the hittites’ myths originates from the second millennium before the birth of christ, describes how king gilgamesh is deprived of the privilege of having sex with all newly-wed women before their husbands. (note 5) like the hittites’ story, the opening of the epic of gilgamesh communicates aspects of the fundamental conditions for the emergence of the very oldest civilisations; namely the importance of regulating sexuality to avoid incest. according to the 19th century american anthropologist lewis henry morgan, it was exactly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. through the procedure described several decades later by lévi-strauss in his alliance theory that the clan structures were created: by separating daughters and sons from each other. (note 6) one family’s daughters were transferred to another family’s sons, and the latter family’s daughters to the first family’s sons. what distinguishes societies organised round clans is that humans are defined on the basis of collective belonging instead of as individuals. in a modern state governed by the rule of law, a person who commits a crime against another person is individually liable. if i am run over by a person driving a car when i am on a bicycle, the person driving the car is held liable. if the person concerned cannot atone for their crime or replace my damaged bicycle, i (or my relatives) do not seek out the driver’s relatives to find a solution. they are not considered as having anything to do with the matter. (note 7) but in a clan culture they are. development in ancient greece, away from a clan-based social order to a state-based organisation, continued for several hundred years and in many ways determined the pattern of development in europe for centuries to come. (note 8) in the seventh century a type of rudimentary monetary economy grew increasingly strong, which had two important consequences. in the short term it meant widening differences between land-owning magnates and small farmers. aristotle (or rather one of his students) speaks in the athenian constitution (around 332 bc, revised 10 years later) about how small farmers were forced to borrow money from the magnates at high interest rates (one sixth of what they produced) for day-to-day expenditures. the small farmers thus got into debt and in practice became serfs. not infrequently they had pledged themselves for their loans and so when they became insolvent were therefore sold as slaves by the creditors (ii, pp. 13-15). (note 9) but the monetary economy also meant that new social groups grew stronger in the seventh century. merchants, craftsmen and sailors could profit from the landowning families’ need to sell agricultural products. as time went on, the increasingly rich tradesmen and craftsmen demanded to have a say and mobilised disaffected small farmers to their cause. to resolve the conflicts that were the consequence of this antagonism a legislator was finally called in to create order with unrestricted powers. in 594solon was tasked with reforming the state and creating harmony between the warring groups (v, pp. 21-23). the system of debt and pledges was forbidden and the farmers that had been enslaved in this way were freed from slavery. solon thereby started a process that gave the individual greater room for manoeuvre. solon’s actions were the first step towards rejection of birth as a means to reach official positions and categorise inhabitants. it is true that only a minority of athens’ inhabitants were classed as citizens, but having achieved citizenship, high and low had the right to elect representatives. the core of solon’s constitution was the right of every citizen to vote and speak. aristotle describes it as “the people, having the power of the vote, becomes sovereign in the government.” (vii, p. 33). what was really revolutionary about solon’s reforms was the principle of equality before the law—or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. as he himself, according to aristotle, expressed it: “rules of law alike for base andnoble, [...] i drafted.”(vii, p. 39). demosthene in turn quoted a poem by solon in which he writes about his laws that their purpose was to make “all things among men [...] fitting and rational”. (note 10) after the uneasy years around 510, that is, fifty years after the death of solon, athenian society was further reformed in a democratic direction—now by cleisthenes. in 508 he supplemented and updated solon’s reforms. cleisthenes created a new point of departure for people’s solidarity: citizenship in the city state. (note 11) he broke up the birth-based division of athens, which solon had preserved. aristotle describes how cleisthenes “divided the whole body into ten tribes [phylai] instead of the existing four, wishing to mix them up, in order that more might take part in the government”(xxi, p. 63). (note 12) members of the same class could now belong to different tribes. cleisthenes then founded a council of 500 people, fifty from each tribe. attica was then divided into three parts [trittues]. city, coast and inland. each of these three parts were in turn divided into ten parts. each tribe was given a geographical area, a dēmos, in each part. people in each dēmos were exhorted to name themselves after their dēmosand not their father’s name. thus the geographical are a was a person’s primary identity, not the family. however, according to aristotle, within the dēmos people were allowed to organise themselves on the basis of clan origin [genos] and kinship [phratria]. the ten tribes were each allocated a new tribal father, chosen by the delphic oracle (xxi, pp. 65-67). it is said that the original hundred names of heroes were voted on by the athenians. the level of truth within aristotle’s historical account could of course be questioned, but it is obvious that the picture given of cleisthenes is largely based on the idea that collectively based clan loyalties were replaced by a system where the people were defined primarily as individuals and citizens of a state. the smallest component of the system that cleisthenes finally broke up was the household [oikos], which was subordinate to the clan [genos], which in turn was part of the tribe, phylē. whether phratria (kinship) was an intermediate group between genos and phylēis a matter of discussion. in the introduction to the iliad agamemnon is encouraged by nestor to “separate the men by tribes [phyla], by clans [phrētras], [.. .] so that clan may aid clan and tribe tribe.” (ii, pp. 362-365). (note 13) at least partly and from some perspectives the autonomous individual is absent in the iliad. many researchers have pointed out that for homer’s heroes honour [timē] must be upheld at any price. (note 14) in line with the collectivist nature of the concept of honour it is striking to how small a degree individuals are responsible for their actions. in that respect the picture of king agamemnon, for example, changes from the iliad to aeschylus tragedy oresteia written a few hundred years later. the basic conflict in the iliad derives from agamemnon’s taking achilles’ war trophy, the beautiful brisēís. this is done after agamemnon has been forced to give up his mistress, chryseis. however, agamemnon recognises no guilt over the way he acts towards achilles. to be sure, the consequence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. this was that the greeks’ best fighter, achilles, decided to go on strike. but as agamemnon explains, the ultimate responsibility lay with the gods. it is they, in particular atē, the misguider, who are to blame (xix, pp. 86-92, p. 341). atēis a kind of god-sent blindness that makes people act in a way they would not otherwise have done if guided by reason. cynthia farrar’s study, the origins of democratic thinking (1988) shows how agamemnon’s guilt in oresteia—as regards sacrificing his daughter iphigenia—marks a development towards the kind of individual responsibility that herodotus perceived in his writing of history as a consequence of the political reforms in which the individual was regarded as a free, autonomous actor. (note 15) on courage herodotus states: “while they were oppressed [by authorities] they willed to be cravens, as men working for a master, but when they were freed each one was zealous to achieve for himself.” (note 16) in his tragedies aeschylus returns to problems associated with the transition from clan to state. in oresteia, performed for the first time in 458, it emerges that while king agamemnon was fighting in troy, his wife clytemnestra started a love affair with her husband’s cousin aegisthus. when the king returns home he is murdered by his wife. there are several reasons for agamemnon meeting such a cruel fate. in part he is being punished for sacrificing his daughter iphigenia in order to reach troy. in part he is being punished for arrogance, hybris, on his return. in part—and mainly—his murder stems from the curse on his family, the atreus family. the family curse goes back to his great grandfather tantalus, who murdered his son pelops—and then served him for dinner to his father zeus. the curse that zeus then hurled at his son resulted in pelops’ son atreus murdering the sons of his twin brother thyestes, after atreus’ wife was unfaithful with thyestes. but thyestes’ sons were not just murdered, they were cooked. they were then served to thyestes by atreus. after thyestes realised that he had eaten his heirs, he raped his own daughter, who then bore him a son, aegisthus—the one who later got together with agamemnon’s wife. but before that aegisthus, after some complications, murdered his uncle, atreus, who was the father of king agamemnon. after a period of exile in sparta agamemnon returned to mycenae and seized power from his uncle thyestes. when orestes later, in the second part of the trilogy, the libation bearers, in revenge for the murder of his father, kills aegisthus and clytemnestra, this is an act of revenge that was preceded by a chain of blood feuds over several generations. but this chain ends when athena, in the third part of the trilogy, the eumenides, sets up a court in athens. orestes is then acquitted after athena’s casting vote. in a way this trilogy covers a period of 7–800 years. from the time of agamemnon’s return (in mythology) from troy, to the (real) athens where in the time of aeschylus an embryo of the western state had been created. the purpose of creating this prototype of a modern state, was precisely to tackle clan rule and the chains of blood feuds over many generations that serve as the background to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. events in oresteia. the clan as a form of organisation generally strives towards balance and harmony. but in so far as the clans cannot agree on conciliation, blood feuds tend to take over. this upsets the balance and a spiral of violent vendettas are likely to escalate for decades. then the opposite of balance and harmony prevails: chaos. in oresteia the spiral of violence is broken by athena. she keeps the goddesses of revenge away from orestes and finally brings about justice that is not based on either compensation or hammurabi’s principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…instead she organises an impartial examination of the case. what can resolve the family curse is no less than the athenian people’s sworn judicial assembly. here emerges also the reason for creating such a judicial system. the latter is the magic formula that can liberate society from the justice of the clan culture, which is likely to have the consequence of an increasingly bloody chaos of vendettas, with innocent lives at stake. in that way oresteia can thus be said to paint the picture of a development from clan to a state with a judicial system that is independent of the rich magnates and clan leaders. in this kind of judicial system, judgments are based on an idea that all individuals are equal before the law; not based on the accused being a member of a particular family. this is the very foundation of the development that starts with the greek city states—in which the state increasingly stands as the guarantor of the individual’s autonomy and freedom and the positive side effects of which emerged already in the time of ancient greece in the form of the autonomy of art and science.in both cases a free thinking was encouraged that would lead to exceptional cultural, aesthetic and scientific progress—for the continued development of civilisation; for the continued movement further away from the semi-blindness of the cyclops. these side-effects presented themselves already in ancient greece. aeschylus’ drama the suppliants cannot only be read as a description of developments from barbarism to civilisation. the tragedy also exemplifies the searching, self-critical approach of greek civilisation in the fifth century. if oresteia could be said to take place over a period of more than a half a millennium, the time frame of the suppliants is even greater. the drama’s events go back to the mythical period when various peoples of greece are thought to have been created. thus we find ourselves just before the time according to myth when the danaids emerged as a people. “danaids” later became a generic name both for people living in argos and for greeks in general. in the drama the danaids’ ancestress hypermnestra and her forty-nine sisters of argos, come fleeing from egypt. they are being persecuted by their fifty male cousins. the women seek protection and therefore refer to their shared origins with the population of argos. danaus’ fifty daughters in fact originate from io, who originally was a priestess at a temple in argos, devoted to hera. in the present we thus find ourselves close to a type of archaic prehistoric state, just five or six generations further in time from the argive patriarch, the river god inachus and the fleeing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. io. at the same time the argos to which danaus’ fifty daughters flee has a court of a relatively modern type, seemingly coming into existence at the time of aeschylus, in the 5th century bc. on the one hand then, there is the kind of court advocated by solon and cleisthenes. on the other hand the mental presence of the ancestress io, who in a tragedy attributed to aeschylus, prometheus bound, meets the titan prometheus. (note 17) (the latter is chained to his mythical rock as punishment for having stolen fire from the gods.) in prometheus’ version of the myth, io has been driven from her home by her father, after he consulted the delphic oracle to find out how to interpret his daughter’s dreams. in them a voice pleaded with her to satisfy zeus desire by doing his will. her father condemns her to be driven from family and home. but also from humanity: “i grew horns, as you now see” (p. 674, p. 517). (note 18) in the suppliants, however, it is hera who is said to have changed io into a heifer, “half-human beast that their minds could not handle, with some features of a cowand some of a woman” (v, pp. 568-570, p. 365). the reason is zeus’ desire for io. when argos, who is set to guard io, is killed, hera sends a supernatural gadfly to chase io on a “long flight from this land” (p. 309, p. 329). in prometheus bound prometheus tries to alleviate io’s suffering by telling her what is to come. during her flight io is to cross the sound that “will be named after it—bosporus” (bous, ox/bovine animal/cow + poros, passage: passage of the cow, 733, p. 523). she eventually arrives in egypt and there gives birth to the black son epaphus, begotten through zeus ”touching”, by his “laying his hand on you” (849, p. 537). in that zeus touched and breathed on io she not only got pregnant but regained her human form. her son epaphus then became king of egypt. and his grandson belus fathered danaus and aegyptus. they appear in the suppliants as fathers of the fifty sisters and fifty brothers. five generations forward in time, predicts prometheus, danaus’ daughters will flee to argos from egypt, “in flight from a kindred marriage to their cousins”. after them, they will have aegyptus’ sons, with “their minds excited by lust”—like “hawks following close behind the doves” on a hunt for marriage “that they should not have been hunting” (pp. 854-860, p. 537). there is—as is often in archaic myths—a layer of the story that concerns sexual maturity and that thus links io with danaus’ daughters. the young woman matures sexually, which relates her to wildness—to animals and barbarian customs. the myth describes in this case a circular movement in which danaus daughters are returned to the place just outside argos where io had grazed as a heifer. it all then ends with the sisters—probably in the next, lost, part of the trilogy—murdering the men they are fleeing from. when relating the myth prometheus states that one of the sisters, hypermnestra, “in her desire for children” abstains ”from killing her bedfellow”. faced with the choice, “she will choose the alternative of being called a coward rather than a polluted murderer”. in that role she will establish “a royal house in argos” (pp. 864-869, p. 539), that is the danaids. (note 19) both in the case of io and the fifty sisters protection is given from persecution in a town in which a royal dynasty is then established. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. and thus the main features of the action, in the background to as well as in the events after the suppliants, are retold. the town to which the fifty sisters flee is presented as being founded on entirely different principles than the world they have escaped from. the egyptian world order is illustrated with a series of mythological oriented pictures that relate to the archaic descriptions discussed above, based in part on the hittites’ myth about the thirty brothers and their sisters, in part on homer’s description of the cyclops, in part on the atreus family curse—the curse that cannot be broken until a non-clan-based court has been established. initially reference is made in the suppliants to the myth of tereus, philomela and procne. the sisters from egypt describe their lament in “a voice like that of tereus’ wife”: “shut off from her green river-banks, [she] utters a grieving lament for her familiar haunts and sings the story of her son’s death, how he perished by her own kindred hand, experiencing her unmotherly anger.” (pp. 60-70, pp. 297-300). the passage refers to king tereus, described far later by ovid and t s eliot (in the waste land), who rapes his wife procne’s sister philomela. to prevent her telling her sister of the assault, tereus cuts off philomela’s tongue. philomela later relates the events, but in a tapestry. procne takes revenge on her husband by killing their son and then boiling him and serving the meat to tereus as a meal. there is a remarkable parallel here—in the issue of cannibalism and transforming the main characters of the myth to birds—both to prometheus bound, and danaus’ speech in the introduction to the suppliants. in the latter case danaus compares the sort of endogamy marriage that his daughters are fleeing from with cannibalism that involves close relatives: “how could a bird eat of another bird, and not be polluted? how could a man marry the unwilling daughter of an unwilling father, and not become unclean? (pp. 225-228, p. 317.) this can be related to the description of the fifty brothers in prometheus bound: with “their minds excited by lust”—like “hawks following close behind the doves”—on a hunt for marriage “that they should not have been hunting” (pp. 854-860, p. 537). after tereus has understood that he has eaten up his son, the sisters flee, transformed into birds: a swallow and a nightingale. tereus chases them, he too transformed into a bird—in aeschylus’ version a hawk. in the suppliants the myth of philomela thus offers another example of women being hunted, here too in a situation initiated by male, inappropriate, sexual desire—and female innocence. we can also note how both the primordial myths of io and of philomela link the sexual desire they arouse with transformations from human to animal. at the same time the myths emphasise, through the parallels established between incest, endogamy and eating one’s own children—that the egyptian persecutors’ customs are uncivilised. we remember the cyclops in homer, where cannibalism is linked to a type of homo sapiens original state, before any form of civilisation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. to eat representatives of one’s own kind is equated in the drama with incest—with behaviour that indicates a non-human, barbaric state, but also a state of claustrophobic confinement of the individual. in contrast to a theme that is related to the incestuous relation’s claustrophobic catatonia there is argos governed by king pelasgus. he says the form of government goes back to king apis, a son of apollo who symptomatically is said to have “cleansed this land of the man-destroying creatures which the angry earth, stained by the pollution of old bloodshed, had sent up from below, a hostile horde of serpents sharing our home. from these apis effected, beyond all cavil, a decisive, liberating cure for the argive land, and in return won as his reward the right to be remembered in prayers” (pp. 263-271, p. 321). the drama as a whole contrasts what can be regarded as a modern form of government with archaic ideas of human communities of the type personified by the hunting brothers—likening them, as we have seen, to birds eating birds. kung pelasgus faces a dilemma. if he allows danaus’ daughters to stay, he and his people risk vengeance from the cousins’ family, aegyptus—that is thus linked to the type of “old bloodshed” (see above) that is the mark of the clan culture and from which argos has been liberated. if, on the other hand, the king rejects the sisters, there will loom “a pollution terrible beyond compare” (pp. 472-473, p. 353). (note 20) this will be the consequence of the women carrying out the threat of in desperation hanging themselves at the shrine. considering the delicate nature of the matter, the king believes that popular endorsement is required for the decision that is to be made: “i cannot make a binding promise beforehand, but only after making this matter known to the whole citizen body.” (pp. 365-367, p. 339). when he then returns after consulting with “the, people, which rules the city” (pp. 698-699, p. 379), he states: “that is the unanimous vote that has been passed and enacted by the people of the city, never to surrender this band of women by force. this decision has been nailed down with a nail that has pierced right through, so that it stays fixed.” (pp. 942-945, pp. 411-414). after that announcement king pelasgus welcomes the women—implying that the democratic process itself guarantees them a good reception: “i am your patron, as are all the citizens who have made and enacted this decree.” (pp. 962-963, p. 415.) the political system of argos is on a collision course with the values governing the egyptian culture from which the women are escaping. when the egyptian men’s herald, learning of how the citizen body has voted, relates how the fifty brothers are to act, he announces that now the level has been exceeded for the clan system’s compensatory arbitration system, which aims to maintain harmony. the consequence is a blood feud: “[the god of war] ares will be the judge of this matter, and not on the basis of witnesses’ evidence; he does not settle quarrels by a payment of silver—no, before that many men must fall to the ground and end their lives in convulsions (pp. 935-938, p. 411). how far is it not between these echoes of the justice illustrated on the shield of achilles and pelasgus’ words concerning the decision of the citizen body: “this decision has been nailed down with a nail that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. has pierced right through, so that it stays fixed.” these words are not written on tablets, nor sealed up in a folded sheet of papyrus: you hear them plainly from the lips and tongue of a free man.” (pp. 943-948, p. 413). it is difficult not to interpret these words as a consequence of the development the country is said to have undergone at the beginning of the drama: “apis[.. .] cleansed this land of the man-destroying creatures which the angry earth, stained by the pollution of old bloodshed [.. .].” (pp. 262-265, p. 321). what then is the reason for the fifty brothers wishing to marry the fifty sisters? perhaps it becomes comprehensible in the light of the state-clan relationship? in the introductory exchange between pelasgus and the chorus, in which the sisters try to persuade the king to allow them to stay in the country, the king wonders why the women have left their home city. the leader of the chorus replies that she had the luck to reach argos where she can reject “with disgust a marriage-tie with my close kindred through loathing of the marital bed” (pp. 329-332, p. 333). pelasgus, however, is not satisfied with the reply and wants to know the reason for this disgust. is it due to personal hatred or because the men are considered to be requiring something they are not legally entitled to? ”who would love someone whom she was buying as an owner?”, replies the chorus (p. 337, p. 333). as george thomson pointed out, the latter translation clarifies that the sisters insist that the arrangement is unethical due to the incestuous element. (note 21) paradoxically, this reason (why the marriage should be regarded as unlawful), is the same as the reason aegyptus’ sons put forward for why they should marry danaus’ daughters: they are cousins. the latter argument for the wedding is made clear by pelasgus’ line, in which he states that such a marriage increases power and well-being: “that is how people increase their strength. “the chorus leader points out, however, in her reply that the person with the opportunity for liberation is the prospective husband. the logic is as follows: pelasgus’ line, “that is how people increase their strength”, gives a picture of the intention of the marriage. the fact that danaus has fifty daughters but no son, means that his legacy is at risk of disappearing from the extended family, the clan—when his daughters marry. if we recall the alliance theory of claude lévi-strauss, we realise that in cases such as these there is a risk of building alliances that do not strengthen but weaken the family. however, if the daughters marry their cousins the legacy will stay within the clan. what the uncle aegyptus and his sons demand is that danaus and his daughters should act in accordance with the regulatory framework of the clan system. this stipulates that in cases where fathers in patrilineal systems only have daughters, these daughters must marry end ogamically (that is inwards) instead of exogamically (outwardly—and in the corresponding way for sons in matrilineal systems, such as the hittite system). (note 22) in this light the chorus leader’s reply becomes understandable, when she replies to pelasgus’ statement that such a marriage increases power and well-being—her reply can be interpreted approximately www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. as: ”for who, ultimately?” for, as she says, the woman’s husband has the right to leave her when he has enjoyed her fortune. based on this scenario few benefits exist for the individual in marrying in a way that benefits the family. such subordination tends to only strengthen the clan, while the individual, the woman, if she subjugates herself to the clan’s rules, sees two probable future scenarios: living with a man she does not love or being deprived of her fortune and abandoned by the same man. what is problematical in this context is that in the greek legal systems—despite their innovative power and endeavours on several levels to move away from clan rule—there nevertheless remain archaic remnants. such a persistent remnant from long ago was the law that stipulated that where there were only female heirs, they must be married endogamically, that is with as close a relative as possible. (note 23) this has caused controversies among those researching aeschylus over the primary message of the tragedy as such and of—mainly—the trilogy of which the tragedy was originally a part, the rest of which have been lost: the egyptians and the daughters of danaus (as well as the satyr-play amymone). the dispute concerns the extent to which it would be probable that aeschylus’ stage production would go against its own society’s legal system. george thomson, in his major study aeschylos and athens (1946) disagrees with donald struan robertson, who believed that the drama leads to the view that the woman should have the right “to refuse to be forced into marriage. [. . .]the crime of the sons of aegyptus is their determination to force themselves on unwilling brides.” (note 24) according to thomson, robertson thus disregards the fact that the subordinate status of women was generally accepted in the attic world of the time. (note 25) an interesting way to solve this controversy is offered by richard seaford in an ingenious study, cosmology and the polis (2012). he focuses on the danaians’ reply to pelasgus’ point about the advantages of the marriage of cousins, “that is how people increase their strength”. divorce is easy, they reply, but in this particular case entirely negative for the woman. the point is that if a woman marries exogamically within the framework of a clan structure, there is a balance of power that is lacking in the endogamic marriage. in the first case the woman can obtain help from her family of origin, if she is rejected by her husband. in an endogamic marriage, on the other hand, for natural reasons there is no division of power between the woman’s clan of origin and her husband’s clan. this is the underlying implication in the drama’s exchange between pelasgus and the chorus about the extent to which the endogamic marriage can increase the family’s well-being. (note 26) seaford points out that in the athens of aeschylus, epiklēroi, women with no father or brothers, had the protection of the state when married. due to the vulnerable position of these women citizens generally had the right—without risk of reprisal –to bring legal action in cases where epiklēroi were treated badly. perhaps, reasons seaford, the third part of the trilogy ended in the creation of a similar law. in that case www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. aeschylus would land up in taking the part of the state instead of the clan as the ultimate authority for organising the human community. as i showed above, this ideological stance is in line with the tragedy’s image in general of the clan culture the egyptians are bound by. the claustrophobic feeling that links the family and kin in aeschylus, through events such as incestuous marriages and family-related cannibalism, gives a picture of the individual’s room for manoeuvre being strictly regulated—in fact almost non-existent—in the extended family. it is such a claustrophobic world that the women in the suppliants (like orestes in oresteia) are fleeing from. instead they seek out a city state based on fundamentally different ideas than the family, kinship and clan-related organisation principles of the egyptians. the fifty brothers thus clarify the idea of city states such as argos in the suppliants and athens in oresteia. seen in relation to the culture from which danaus’ daughters flee, the greek city state appears to aim to liberate the archaic human from a claustrophobic captivity. in the process of liberation the individual emerges from the darkness of history. tradition and history may have been affirmed in that development, though not as a normative foundation for administering justice. references aeschylus. (2009). persians. seven against thebes. suppliants. prometheus bound (transl. by alan h sommerstein, vol. 145). loeb classical library. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. https://doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.aeschylus-seven_thebes.2009 aristotle. (1935). the athenian constitution. the eudemian ethics. on virtues and vice (transl. by h rackham, vol. 285). loeb classical library. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. https://doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.aristotle-eudemian_ethics.1935 bourriot, f. (1976). recherches sur la nature du genos. lille: université de lille iii. cox, c. a. (1988). household interests. property, marriage strategies, and family dynamics in ancient athens. princeton, nj: princetonuniversity press. farrar,c. (1988). the origins of democratic thinking. the invention of politics in classical athens. cambridge: cambridge university press. glassman, r. m. (2017). the origins of democracy in tribes, city-states and nation-states. new york: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51695-0 herodotus. (1922). the persian wars (vol. 3, vol. 119, a d godley (transl.)). loeb classical library. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. hoffner, h. a jr. (1990). a tale of two cities. in kanesh, z. h. myths, & g. m. beckman (eds.), sbl writings from the ancient world (vol. 2). atlanta, gascholars press. homer. (1919) .odyssey (vol. 1, vol. 104, book 1-12, a. t. murray & rev g. e. dimock (transl.)). loeb classical library, cambridge, ma: harvard university press. homer. (1924). iliad (vol. 1, vol. 170, book 1-12, a. t. murray & rev w. f wyatt (transl,)). loeb classical library, cambridge, ma: harvard university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.homer-odyssey.1919 homer. (1925). iliad (vol. 2, vol. 171 book 13-24). loeb classical library cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lévi-strauss, c. (1947). les structures élémentaires de la parenté. paris. morgan, l. h. (1878). ancient society. researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization. new york. parker, r. (1983). miasma. pollution and purification in early greek religion. oxford. robertson, d. s. (1924). the end of the supplices trilogy of aeschylus. the classical review (vol. 38, no. 3-4). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0009840x00028857 rose, h. j. (1957). a commentary on the surviving plays of aeschylus (vol. 1). amsterdam. seaford, r. (2012). cosmology and the polis. the social construction of space and time in the tragedies of aeschylus. cambridge & new york. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511920790 starr,c. g. (2014). individual and community. the rise of the polis, 800-500 b c. new york & oxford. the epic of gilgamesh. (2001). b. r. foster (transl.). new york: w w norton & company. thompson, w. e. (1967). the marriage of first cousins in athenian society. phoenix (vol. 21, no. 4). https://doi.org/10.2307/1086216 thomson, g. (1946). aeschylus and athens. a study in the social origins of drama. london. tyrtaeus et al. (1999). greek elegiac poetry. from the seventh to the fifth centuries bc. loeb classical library. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. https://doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.theognis-elegiac_poems.1999 varto, e. (2014). from kinship to state. the family and the ancient city in nineteenth‐century ethnology. urban dreams and realities. leiden. weiner, m. s. (2013). the rule of the clan. what an ancient form of social organization reveals about the future of individual freedom. new york. notes note 1. the parenthetical citation refers to homer, odyssey, book ix. references to books 1–12 in odyssey are henceforth made parenthetically in my text and refers to book, verse and page in homer (1919). note 2. the parenthetical citation refers to homer, iliad, book xviii. references to book 13–24 in iliad are henceforth made parenthetically in my text and refers to book, verse and page in homer (1925). note 3. hoffner (1990), pp. 81-82. note 4. see lévi-strauss (1947). note 5. se tablet 1, the epic of gilgamesh (2001). note 6. see morgan (1878), pp. 227-236. note 7. cf weiner (2013), pp. 39-41. note 8. regarding the following historical exposition: cf starr (2014), chapter ii–vi. the existence of clans during the period before the 6th century bc is a contro-versial question. 19th century ancient historians as niebuhr, grote och momm-sen interpreted the ancient greek and roman culture as dominated by genos, often translated to clans. cfvarto (2014), pp. 500-523. one of those who denies the existence of clans are felix bourriot. cfbourriot(1976). note 9. the parenthetical citation refers to aristotle, the athenian constitution, ii. references to the athenian constitution, are henceforth made parenthetically in my text and refers to book and page in aristotle (1935), pp. 13-15. note 10. demosthene, 19, 254-256 [fragment 4:39i], tyrtaeus, solon, theognis, mimnermus (1999), p. 117. note 11. see glassman (2017), p. 992. note 12. cr starr (2014), p. 91. note 13. homer (1924), p. 89. note 14. starr (2014), p. 4. note 15. farrar (1988), pp. 16-19. note 16. herodotus (1922), p. 87. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 2, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. note 17. since the 1960s philologists have questioned aeschylos as author of prometheus bound. some of them have attributed the tragedy to his son euphorion. note 18. the parenthetical citation refers to aeschylus prometheus bound. references to prometheus bound and suppliants, are henceforth made parenthetically in my text and refers to line and page in aeschylus (2009). note 19. there is an ambiguity in the wordspaidonandhimeros. on the one hand the words could be interpreted as “desire (himeros) made one of the girls (paidon)…”, and on the other hand: ”longing (himeros) [for] children (paidon) made …” i have chosen the latter with reference to the arguments presented in rose (1957). note 20. cfparker (1983), pp. 32-42 and pp. 183-185. note 21. thomson (1946), p. 304. note 22. on endogamy in ancient athen as a way of retaining wealth and power in the family: see cox(1988), pp. 32-34. note 23. thompson (1967), p. 275. the law is discussed by plato in the state, book 5, section 460e, and by aristotle in politics, book 7, section 1335a. note 24. robertson (1924), p. 53. note 25. thomson (1946), pp. 306-307. note 26. seaford (2012), pp. 319-320. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 51 original paper research on algorithm literacy and media behavior of “lurkers” yunjun zhang1 1 college of literature and media, jingchu university of technology, jingmen, hubei 448000, china received: april 27, 2024 accepted: may 29, 2024 online published: june 17, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n3p51 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n3p51 abstract in the intricate process of information dissemination, a chain-like relationship of interdependence and dynamic flow has been established among channels, sources, and receivers. at the terminal end of this chain, specifically the receiver side, a non-explicit behavioral pattern merits particular attention. this thesis explores the behavioral characteristics and underlying psychological motivations of “lurkers” in the context of algorithm recommendations and media content consumption. it is argued that “lurkers” typically possess a certain level of algorithm literacy, enabling them to scrutinize algorithm-recommended content with a rational attitude and maintain a cautious and observational stance when using media.notably, “lurking” behavior can be both a conscious and unconscious act. this study provides a new perspective and reference for enhancing the efficiency of information chain dissemination. keywords “lurkers”, algorithm literacy, media behavior 1. introduction initially designed to solve problems and enhance efficiency, algorithms have evolved beyond their practical roots of problem-solving and optimization. in the era of intelligent media, algorithms have come to dominate crucial aspects of media content production and media development itself. in this era, algorithms and data have become integral parts of content production and distribution mechanisms (wang, 2024). with their expanding application in social media, a series of issues have surfaced: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 52 breaches of user data privacy, the emergence of “filter bubble” phenomena, value deficits, and information overload, all contributing to user unease. in such an algorithmic environment, users have developed diverse attitudes and behavioral responses towards algorithmic “black boxes,” with “lurkers” being one of the unique reaction patterns. 2. tracing the origins of algorithm literacy and media literacy the concept of algorithm literacy has been frequently mentioned in previous research. over the decades, communication studies have explored users’ skills in acquiring, processing, and evaluating information through new technologies under various terminologies (anne, 2023). “media literacy” is often interpreted as a matter of subjectivity within the scope of audience-media interaction (gu, 2024), emphasizing an individual’s ability to think, judge, and act independently when engaging with media. people are increasingly aware of the power of media in shaping images and building understanding of the surrounding world. the practice of media literacy is often viewed as an extension of this awareness and a response to the dominance of media culture (potter, 2010). in discussing “digital literacy,” researchers have described it as an individual’s ability to organize and execute action plans (art, albarracin, eagly, beecham, lindberg & merrill, 2009) in response to potential future scenarios. algorithm literacy, derived from media literacy, aims to cultivate coexistence with algorithms (xu & wang, 2022). however, in most cases, algorithm literacy can be interpreted as the dimension of algorithm awareness, while media literacy covers a broader scope with certain differences. in comprehending the connotation and extension of these concepts, media literacy focuses on cultivating individuals' abilities in selective reception, critical interpretation, and creative dissemination of information in a diverse media environment. in contrast, algorithm literacy emphasizes individuals’ understanding of algorithm principles, application capabilities, and professional skills in terms of algorithm design, analysis, and optimization. the differences in application fields and professional requirements are reflected in the fact that media literacy emphasizes individuals’ information dissemination and critical thinking skills to adapt to constantly changing media environments, while algorithm literacy attaches more importance to cultivating individuals’ computational thinking, data analysis, and software development skills to adapt to the rapid development and application needs of algorithmic technology. in the media landscape, algorithm literacy primarily derives from concepts such as information literacy, digital literacy, and media literacy (song, zhao, & zhu, 2023). media literacy and algorithm literacy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 53 collaboratively mould individuals’ information behavior patterns. media literacy emphasizes the cultivation of individuals’ judgment and comprehension of information, including effective screening, accurate interpretation, and critical evaluation of information, thereby influencing individuals’ navigation ability in the vast ocean of information.in contrast, algorithm literacy necessitates a profound understanding of the fundamental concepts and operational logic of algorithms, as well as a clear grasp of algorithm recommendation mechanisms. for “lurkers”, possessing algorithm literacy facilitates a more rational approach to understanding and responding to information streams, comprehending how information is filtered and delivered. these two literacies complement each other, collectively molding individuals’ media attitudes within the media environment. our study of “lurkers” reveals that their media behavior is influenced, to some extent, by algorithms. as recipients of information, their algorithm literacy enables them to gain insight into the working mechanisms of algorithms, thereby optimizing information reception strategies and effectively reducing the distress of information overload. through the cultivation of algorithm literacy, they learn to tame algorithms, harness technology, and identify and escape the “black box (zhu, 2024)”. simultaneously, they remain vigilant in identifying algorithmic biases and maintaining independent judgment. furthermore, algorithm literacy enhances their efficiency and accuracy in information acquisition, enabling them to precisely locate valuable information sources and avoid getting lost in vast amounts of information. media literacy and algorithm literacy are pivotal in the media attitudes of “lurkers.” media literacy provides them with a framework for judging and understanding information, while algorithm literacy endows them with the ability to deeply analyze information flows. these two literacies are interdependent, influencing users’ media attitudes in a complementary manner. 3. the relationship between media attitude and media behavior individuals with a high degree of algorithm literacy often have a clearer understanding of the role of algorithms in information dissemination, including their potential biases, limitations, and customized push of personal information. this cognition affects individuals’ acceptance and trust in media content, thereby shaping their unique media attitude. for example, when individuals realize that algorithms may push relevant content based on their browsing history, they are likely to adopt a more cautious stance towards the information presented by the media. media attitude refers to an individual’s evaluation and tendency towards media and its disseminated content, which directly affects the individual’s media behavior. under the influence of algorithm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 54 literacy, individuals’ media attitudes may become more rational and critical, further guiding changes in their media behavior. media attitude, as an individual’s comprehensive evaluation and predisposition towards media and its disseminated content, constitutes an important psychological basis for media use behavior. it reflects not only an individual’s preferences and aversions towards media but also deeply embodies an individual’s interpretation, trust, and dependence on media information. this attitude, to a large extent, directly shapes and influences an individual’s media behavior patterns. under the influence of algorithm literacy, individuals’ media attitudes are likely to undergo significant changes, tending to become more rational and critical. algorithm literacy equips people with the ability to deeply understand the mechanism of media information dissemination, enabling them to maintain a cautious and independent mindset when engaging with media content. the change in individuals’ media attitudes does not happen overnight but gradually forms through continuous interaction between individuals and the media environment. specifically, individuals with a high degree of algorithm literacy may prioritize the diversity and objectivity of information when using media. they are likely to actively seek information from different sources to avoid being limited by the content pushed by a single algorithm (zhang, 2023). additionally, they may focus more on the authenticity and accuracy of information, engaging in thorough verification and reflection on the content disseminated by the media. furthermore, a high degree of emphasis on information authenticity and accuracy is also a hallmark of this type of individual’s media behavior. they are well aware that in the digital era, the speed and reach of dissemination of false and misleading information are unprecedented. therefore, when encountering any media content, they engage in thorough verification and reflection to avoid being misled by inaccuracies.. this rigorous information processing approach not only enhances their own information literacy but also injects more rationality and criticality into the entire society’s information dissemination environment. notably, with the continuous advancement and widespread application of algorithmic technology, the influence of algorithm literacy on the media ecosystem is becoming increasingly significant. on the one hand, a high degree of algorithm literacy motivates individuals to participate more actively in the process of information dissemination. they are no longer merely passive recipients of information but have transformed into active selectors and disseminators of information (zhang, 2011). this role transformation both improves the efficiency and quality of information dissemination and empowers individuals with more autonomy and discourse power. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 55 4. examination of algorithm literacy among “lurkers” “lurkers” are a relatively silent group in online communities, often maintaining anonymity to protect their privacy and remain cautious of potential risks in the digital environment. these participants primarily emerge as information receivers, preferring to silently observe, browse, and internalize various types of information rather than actively engaging in discussions or publicly voicing opinions. their behavioral patterns reflect a deliberate approach to information processing rather than impromptu expression. despite their low-profile presence, their media behavior plays a significant role in the dynamic development of online communities. meanwhile, we should recognize that the motivations for audience participation are highly implicit, and conclusions drawn solely from analyzing the various manifestations left by information recipients reflecting their specific emotional psychology within a given context are bound to be distorted and inapplicable (song, huang, & jun, 2018). the anti-algorithm recommendation consciousness of “lurkers” may indicate a high level of algorithm awareness. recognizing and resisting algorithmic recommendations requires an understanding of algorithms. if “lurkers” can identify the existence of recommendation algorithms and remain alert to their impacts, it indicates that they possess a certain level of cognitive understanding of the basic working principles of algorithms and their potential implications. this cognitive understanding stems from in-depth learning and comprehension of algorithms, thus reflecting a high degree of algorithm awareness. this behavioral pattern may also make “lurkers” more attuned to changes induced by algorithm recommendations. as they are often in a state of observation and learning, they are more likely to notice the influence of algorithmic recommendations on information flows, thereby remaining vigilant against potential biases or limitations of algorithms. “lurkers” with anti-algorithm recommendation consciousness may be more inclined to actively seek diversified information sources rather than relying solely on algorithm recommendations. this proactive information-seeking behavior reflects their critical thinking towards algorithms, which is a crucial component of algorithm literacy. 5. subjective and objective decision-making analysis of “lurkers” 5.1 impact of personality traits introverted and observant personality: “lurkers” typically exhibit introverted, preferring observation over active engagement.. they generally avoid drawing attention to themselve, opting instead to think and analyze from the sidelines. this trait predisposes them to be quiet observers in the community rather than active participants, deriving satisfaction from absorbing information and knowledge through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 56 observation rather than direct interaction. strong desire for security: such individuals may avoid becoming the center of attention in real life. they fear that public speaking may attract unnecessary attention, criticism, or attacks, so they choose to lurk to protect their inner sense of security. 5.2 algorithm literacy and careful attitude towards information processing high algorithm literacy: “lurkers” often possess a certain understanding of the algorithmic logic behind online platforms. they know how information is pushed and are aware of potential biases in these algorithms. therefore, they are more cautious when receiving information and are less susceptible to algorithmic influence. deliberate information processing: when faced with various information and opinions on the internet, they do not accept them readily but conduct in-depth thinking and analysis. they only selectively absorb information after confirming its authenticity and value. this cautious attitude makes them appear more mature and rational in information processing. 5.3 deep consideration of privacy and security strong privacy protection awareness: in the digital era, the risk of personal information leakage is ubiquitous. for “lurkers,” safeguarding personal privacy is paramount. they choose to lurk, partly to reduce the exposure of personal information and thus lower the risk of privacy breaches. high alertness to network security: they are acutely aware of the complexity of the online environment and maintain a high level of vigilance regarding network security issues. they do not readily disclose personal information or click on unknown links. this security awareness makes them more cautious in their online behavior. 5.4 specific role positioning in the community unique observer perspective: “lurkers” often assume the role of observers within the community. by lurking, they aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of community dynamics and member interactions. this unique vantage point allows them to view issues and phenomena within the community more objectively. 5.5 social anxiety and choice under pressure driven by social anxiety: in public social settings, some individuals may feel pressure and anxiety. for “lurkers,” lurking serves as a way to alleviate such pressure and anxiety. they may fear public speaking, worrying that their opinions will not be accepted or criticized. strategy to avoid direct conflict: public discussions often lead to conflicts and disputes over differing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 57 opinions. “lurkers” choose to lurk to avoid direct involvement in such conflicts, maintaining a neutral observational attitude. this allows them to understand various viewpoints without personally participating, thus reducing potential conflicts and disputes. 6. conscious and unconscious “lurking” in the study of media behavior among “lurkers,” conscious and unconscious “lurking” represent two distinct states, reflecting participants’ diverse mindsets and purposes within online communities. conscious “lurking”: this form of lurking involves participants who are aware of their silence or low profile and intentionally choose not to engage publicly or deeply in community discussions. this behavior is often motivated by specific goals, such as observing community dynamics, gathering information, or avoiding unnecessary disputes. participants may wish to remain inconspicuous to avoid being the center of attention or may be in an observational and learning phase, not yet ready to publicly express their opinions. some may also opt for conscious lurking due to considerations of personal privacy and security. unconscious “lurking,” on the other hand, occurs when participants are not explicitly aware of their silence. they may habitually browse without contributing to discussions, driven by inertia, habits, or unfamiliarity with the community environment. participants may lack motivation or interest in participating in discussions or may feel that their opinions will not be valued. the design of the community interface, user experience, and community atmosphere can also influence participants’ lurking behavior. both conscious and unconscious “lurking” behaviors are prevalent in online communities, reflecting participants’ varying psychological motivations and levels of engagement. when delving into the underlying reasons for conscious and unconscious “lurking,” distinct psychological motivations emerge. conscious “lurkers” often base their behavior on a self-protection mechanism. they fear that public speaking may expose their weaknesses or invite unnecessary criticism, thus choosing to remain silent to avoid potential risks. additionally, introverted personality traits lead them to observe rather than actively express themselves in social settings, making “lurking” a comfortable participation method. when processing information and making decisions, they tend to be more cautious, taking time to observe and reflect to ensure that their statements or actions are wise. in contrast, unconscious “lurkers” behavior often arises from habits and inertia. they may not have a clear motivation to participate in community discussions, preferring to browse information passively. additionally, some may lack confidence in their opinions or sufficient motivation to speak publicly, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 58 inadvertently choosing to “lurk.” when faced with unfamiliar community scenarios or topics, they may opt for silence out of fear of making mistakes or being ridiculed. these psychological factors collectively constitute the behavior pattern of unconscious “lurkers.” from a sociological perspective, certain cultures and social groups revere maintaining a low profile and humility as virtues, which may predispose individuals to “lurking” rather than public speaking. the anonymity and complexity of the online environment can exacerbate feelings of uncertainty and unease, prompting individuals to “lurk” as a risk-aversion strategy. in sociological terms, if the media community atmosphere is unwelcoming or lacks inclusiveness, individuals may unintentionally choose to “lurk” to avoid conflict or negative feedback. in some instances, individuals may be influenced by social conformity and unconsciously follow the majority’s choice of remaining silent rather than speaking out. similar to traditional media, social media can also lead to the spiral of silence, where individuals with differing opinions may choose to suppress their views and remain silent out of fear of isolation, even if they do speak up, their voices are often ignored or rejected by the masses (yang, 2023). the vast amount of information available online can also contribute to this behavior, as individuals may become “lurkers” due to information overload or difficulty in making choices, finding it easier to browse than participate in discussions. 7. conclusion analyzing the algorithm literacy and media behavior of “lurkers” reveals that this group often possesses a high level of algorithm awareness and media literacy, enabling them to maintain a rational and critical attitude in complex information environments. their behavior reflects a cautious response to algorithm recommendations and a deep consideration of personal privacy and security. the diverse and complex behavior patterns of “lurkers” illustrates varying mindsets and levels of engagement among individuals in online communities. understanding these two types of “lurking” behaviors provides a comprehensive view of “lurkers” media attitudes and behavioral characteristics, offering new insights for social media platforms to optimize user experience and enhance community activity. this study also underscores the importance of algorithm literacy and media literacy in individual information behavior. as algorithmic technology continues to advance and become more pervasive, enhancing individuals’ algorithm literacy and media literacy is crucial for helping them adapt to the digital information environment and improving the efficiency of information dissemination. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 3, 2024 published by scholink inc. 59 references anne, o. h., & german, n. 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(2023). research on the popularization creation path of food documentaries. shandong normal university. zhu, z. y. (2024). media literacy education in the era of data and algorithms. china radio and television journal, (04), 35-39. 2. tracing the origins of algorithm literacy and m microsoft word assc-v3n4-p1 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper invitational rhetoric and humor: making audience laugh, inviting them to think david r. nelson1* & george pacheco jr.2 1 associate professor of communication, valdosta state university, valdosta, ga united states 2 associate professor of communication, west texas a&m university, canyon, tx united states * david r. nelson, e-mail: drnelson@valdosta.edu * george pacheco jr., e-mail: gpacheco@wtamu.edu received: may 16, 2021 accepted: may 25, 2021 online published: october 2, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n4p1 abstract humor is a resource for discourse dealing with the taboo. through the use of humor, comedians can practice uninhibited use of free public speech because audiences expect to laugh in these situations. this inherent expectation creates an environment where expression, objective opinions, and otherwise offensive ideas can be shared in a public space without fear of persecution or repercussion. as such, humor message creators are free to push social boundaries to create a discourse necessary to address what would be offensive. this freedom is important to this work because of how comedians approach the use of stereotypical ethnic humor. the culmination of audience expectation and openness creates an environment readily available for analysis of ethnic humor messages by researchers. using the lens of invitational rhetoric, we uncover rhetorical messages embedded in the humor that work to challenge negative stereotypes about identity. keywords satire, rhetorical humor, incongruent humor, invitational rhetoric 1. introduction stand-up comedy is the act of a comedian performing previously written jokes in front of an audience who attend the event expecting to laugh. this use of comedy functions as a vehicle for a message without fear of offending because audiences chose to attend these events expecting to laugh. it is within this consenting relationship that we base our claim, by choosing to attend these events, audiences are inviting incongruent messages embedded in humor, leaving the comedian free to approach a variety of subjects that might be considered off-limits, taboo or inappropriate in other parts of our lives. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. invitation allows comedians and other joke writers to develop messages with a specific intent. from this intent, comedians can use humor to help establish an equilibrium within social groups to create rhetorical meaning by pointing out differences within those groups (radcliffe-brown, 1949). these differences often deal with race, stereotype, identity, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, socio-economic status, and the intent of the comedian is often to challenge the social norms associated with these differences. in 1962, mark twain furthered the notion of humor’s power by explaining that, “for your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. against the assault of laughter nothing stands” (p. 258). humor, as a communicated message, has the ability to invade ones’ cognitive thoughts without making them feel attacked. for the comedian, it is important to determine what type of comedy they will perform. there are several types of stand-up comedians such as prop, political, storytelling, observational, or absurdest. this role becomes known as their “style” and from this style, we can uncover many of the hidden messages intended. these messages are embedded in the jokes not only to make audiences laugh but also to make them think. in this essay, we examine this process using foss and griffin’s notion of invitational rhetoric, in doing so, we examine several comedians whose styles of humor also function as a form of social critique. humor, comedy, and comedians are no stranger to popular culture. these avenues of entertainment have captivated audiences before the days of the minstrel shows. “we know some human beings have been trying to make others humans laugh for thousands of years before there was a phyllis diller. it has always been a part of human culture” (federman, 2021, p. 1). comedy has a way of helping people look beyond their current situations to experience pleasure in the “now”. this process of “comedy begins with personal reflections on the oddities and anomalies of life in which any individual indulges, but it takes on a broader, and even universal, significance when a writer, performer or visual artist constructs that reflection into a comic form” (sturges, 2010. p. 280). the comic form means that a message is structured, then communicated to audiences within a joke. we argue that this process is intended. “humor, as a communicated message, has the power to persuade. message creators use humor in a variety of different situations and specific ways. advertisers, public relations firms, politicians, educators, and salespersons all use humor as a method of establishing a rapport with their audience followed by systematic persuasion via their messages” (pacheco & meyer, 2012, p. 312). many comedians, although looking to elicit the reaction of laughter, embed messages in their humor that lead audiences to think about the subject in a very specific way. “humor’s ability to enhance a message encourages message creators to employ it, particularly when attempting to influence their captive audience” (pacheco & nelson, 2015, p. 143). freud (2002) argues, the process of creating a joke involves a combination of technique and thought. most comedians do not tell a joke once, it is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. process of honing the message, trying it out on audiences, and developing the best delivery for the desired response. for a joke to be effective it is best performed by an experienced comedian who presents a strong comedic voice (sturges, 2010). having a comedic identity comes with experience and time, and the developed persona helps in establishing a relationship with the audience. this relationship between the audience and stand-up comedians has customarily pointed out pretentiousness within the status quo (henkle, 1980). it is this relationship that brings audiences back to see their favorite comedians over and over. it is also from this relationship that later, we begin to see how humor and invitational rhetoric functions as a rhetorical device. 2. method stand-up comics provide unique perspectives about daily occurrences to audiences. the goal of making an audience laugh is to make the joke universal and invite the audience to join in on the experience so that the audience can relate to the joke. stand-up is one of the few forms of entertainment that provides a symbiotic experience between a performer and the audience. “humor is often a tool for dealing with taboo topics, issues of social inequity, and subjects that in any other circumstance would be perceived as offensive” (pacheco & nelson, 2015, p. 145). a comedian is unlikely to change the opinion on an issue, but humor can present an alternative perspective on the issue without making the audience member feel attacked, and “by making sense of these humor uses, the audience begins to understand the messages and develops a deeper, more nuanced view of “what is being said” versus “what is seen or heard” (pacheco & meyer, 2012, p. 312). in order to see this process more clearly, we will employ samples from the works of four commercially successful comedians whose style functions as that of a social critic. to see how rhetorical effects function within audiences, we employ jokes by comedians greg giraldo, hannibal buress, w. kamau bell, and wanda sykes and examine them through the lens of foss and griffin’s notion of invitational rhetoric. these are four comedians who have strong opinions about social issues and use their styles to present jokes that do not alienate the audience but asks them to consider alternative perspectives. samples from bell, buress, giraldo, and sykes are analyzed as they examine various social differences that are often perceived as offensive, and present them to audiences in a funny, yet thoughtful joke. it is in these rhetorical jokes that the audience is invited to rethink their own opinions on social differences. invitational rhetoric language can create moments, control and describe situations, and persuade others. foss and griffin (1995) posit that individuals exert a large amount of time and energy to influence others and their actions. examples of this kind of persuasive situation include trying to influence a group of friends on where to eat, what movie to see, or getting a group of people to support a new policy at the workplace. traditional definitions and views of rhetoric are “characterized by efforts to change others and thus to gain control over the self-worth derived from and measured by the power extorted over others, and a deviation of the lifeworlds of others” (foss & griffin, 1995, p. 4). traditional rhetoric has been limited www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. to the use of domination over others and is limiting to an audience. with invitational rhetoric, foss and griffin present an alternative rhetorical strategy based upon three principles. first, they wanted a rhetoric that was based upon creating relationships of equality and reject ideas of dominance. second, they created a rhetoric that understands and values all living beings, and finally, respect for others’ right to make their own decisions and allow for self-determination. invitational rhetoric is about asking the audience to examine a viewpoint, idea, or thought through the lens of the rhetor. for a rhetor to be invitational they need to understand what roadblocks could occur between them and the audience and minimize them to generate understanding between the two (1995). when dealing with the taboo a primary roadblock is often the acceptable social norms. people are not “supposed” to talk about these things. by doing so in jest, these taboo topics become digestible. the result creates a reciprocal understanding of an issue or idea. invitational rhetoric opens the door to marginalized groups, ideas, and shares them with an audience. it allows the rhetor to recognize speaking situations where they will “seek not to persuade others but simply create an environment that facilitates understanding, accords value and respect to others’ perspectives, and contributes to the development of relationships of equality” (p. 17). in the case of the comedian/audience relationship, the understanding of the environment can be assumed because the person in the audience chose to attend the performance. does this mean an audience member cannot be offended? no, however, for an audience member to willfully attend a comedy performance, they are acknowledging their expectation of being entertained, and of finding humor. this expectation functions as the audience member’s invitation. as a rhetorical approach, invitational rhetoric provides multiple viewpoints in a civil fashion to an audience and invites them to be a part of the process. invitational rhetoric has real-world agency and can create understanding with the audience through dialogue, not through “change, competition, and domination” (foss & griffin, 1995, p. 4). invitational rhetoric’s flexibility allows it to work in a variety of settings (bone, griffin, & scholz, 2008). it is not limited to any particular issue, it can be used to examine rhetoric that is used by teachers, speakers, or entertainers. invitational rhetoric is “valuable because they broaden our perspective on what kinds of communicative actions can be considered rhetorical and tum our attention to process rather than end product” (delaure, 2008, p. 6). foss and griffin propose that rhetoric can be used as a starting point for audiences to discuss an issue or issues within a public sphere. invitational rhetoric is not focused on immediate results. inviting audiences to participate in the rhetorical process of understanding the nuances of an issue and identify with it (foss & griffin, 1995). the rhetor and the audience have then created a relationship of understanding. the relationship between the rhetor and the audience is created through presenting different personal perspectives. rhetors are not advocating for support or pursuing acceptance; the goal of invitational rhetoric is to share stories with the audience. this helps the audience relate to the rhetor by constructing an atmosphere of understanding, safety, value, and freedom (foss & griffin, 1995). this understanding provides a viewpoint that is inviting and is not about hierarchal values but understanding that multiple perspectives should be considered. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. 3. result 3.1 hannibal buress comedian chris rock described hannibal burres as “if steven wright, mos def, and dave chappelle had a baby” (brownstein, 2013, para. 1). he has been featured on numerous talk shows including late show with david letterman, late night with jimmy fallon, jimmy kimmel live!, and the late late show with craig ferguson (bio, 2013). he was also a staff writer for 30 rock and saturday night live and had a comedy central special in 2012 (burgess, 2013). he is incessantly on tour doing his observational comedy pointing out everyday absurdity happening in his life. 3.2 greg giraldo greg giraldo started performing stand-up in the early 1990s in new york city. even though had he had several appearances on late-night talk shows, television pilots, and a short-lived situational comedy. he garnered the public’s attention with his appearances on comedy central’s roasts where he became a regular fixture (o’conner, 2010). his humor can be described as clever and full of furious rants (2010). 3.3 w. kamau bell laughspin.com pronounced that w. kamau bell is “one of our country’s most adept racial commentators with a blistering wit and a willingness to say what you quickly realize you’ve always thought” (keller, 2010, para. 2). he is a self-described socio-political comedian, community activist, and tv host of totally biased (about kamau, 2013). in 2007 he developed a one-man show the w. kamau bell curve: ending racism in about an hour which was well-received by audiences and critics (2013). bell’s act covers topical issues of race, sex, political policy, class, and culture. 3.4 wanda sykes wanda sykes started her comedy career in the late 1980s in washington dc area before moving to new york city to further her stand-up career (katz, 2010). she was a regular on the chris rock show, curb your enthusiasm, and has had stand-up comedy specials on hbo and comedy central. her comedy has been described as energetic and honest. analysis hannibal buress-apple juice in this particular joke buress narrates a story about his love for apple juice. i realize recently my judgment gets messed up more by food and juice than it does by drugs and alcohol. like i love apple juice, i think it’s delicious. i want to start my own apple juice company. i don’t know how you go about doing it. i tried emailing mott’s for advice, they’re not really accessible so i have to keep being a consumer. me and my girl go to the grocery store. mott’s fresh-pressed natural apple juice $1.79 for a half gallon, that’s a great sale so we get 8 bottles. eight bottles is all we have on the belt. in front of us is an old man looking back shaking his head like “nah, nope”. “i’m like what’s wrong old man you mad cause we got all this apple juice cause you could go get some too it’s over there in aisle 4 but if not, stop judging us cause hell yeah we’re hoarding this juice taking advantage of this sale before this store www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. realize what a horrible mistake they made and you know we’re back here, happy with our apple juice and you’re up there lonely with your hormel chili, you lonely hormel chili eating old man.” it took me a minute to realize he wasn’t shaking his head cause of the apple juice; he was shaking his head cause my girlfriend was white and he didn’t agree with that. i was so caught up in the euphoria of having all that apple juice that for like a minute i lived in a world where racism didn’t exist. i was like, it’s obvious this old man is just an apple juice hater. he’s just really mad cause he can’t acquire all the apple juice.” (buress, 2010) in narrating this joke buress describes how passion for something can cloud a person’s judgment. he compares it to the ways drugs or alcohol can alter ones’ perception or decision-making. when making the comparison it helps create an understanding of his problem, because drugs and alcohol can impair ones’ judgment and lead to poor choices. buress goes on to talk about going to the grocery store a common activity that we can safely assume each member of the audience has done before. while making a particular trip to the store, he found his brand of apple juice is on sale and decided to stock up on it. in making these assumptions, he is relating the story to the audience. he is inviting the audience to “be him” in this situation, an experience that will elicit a specific thoughtful experience later during the joke. when in the check-out line with his apple juice, an old man is glaring and shaking his head while staring at buress and his girlfriend. he feels that he is being judged on the amount of apple juice he is purchasing and asserts there is nothing wrong with finding a good bargain. buress then takes the audience on a journey of his internal thoughts of him justifying to the old man who is judging him for buying a lot of apple juice. during this stream of consciousness rant, he realizes that it is not about apple juice. the old man is staring because he is a black man and his girlfriend is a white woman. this introduces the rhetorical plot of this particular narrative. it was the fact that his girlfriend is white and buress is black and the old man did not find that acceptable. with the rhetorical plot introduced and the audience inviting the messages, buress’ delivers the punch line; “i was so caught up in the euphoria of having all that apple juice there for like a minute i lived in his world where racism didn’t exist. i was like it’s obvious that this old man is just an apple juice hater” (buress, 2010). the incongruity of this message shocks audiences into a different train of thought, and way of thinking about the subject at hand. the shift of the joke’s focus invites the audience to think of a world that is not free of judgment or racism. rather, a world where these issues are so commonplace that the audience would immediately get the joke. this incongruent shift is the rhetorical message. he does not ask the audience to agree with him but presents the audience a story to entertain them with a perspective to help them understand what it is like to be in an interracial relationship. once he has the audience drawn into the story, the incongruity of the punchline forces audience members to see his perspective. this is the necessary kernel for rhetoric. the premise of the joke creates a setting for the audience to relate to and the punch line presents the twist and perspective on the joke. the joke is not going to cancel racism, but the joke lets the audience visualize, for a very short time and on a very small scale, what racism does to a person. it is from this embedded joke that audiences can continue thinking about this issue presented to them, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. beyond their time at the show. buress’s approach to racism is couched in wit and absurdity and is accented by his measured dry delivery (zinoman, 2011). this style emphasizes the “everyday experience” factor for the audience. having a non-confrontational approach is not off-putting to the audience, nor does it put the audience in a defensive mindset. he works against cultural expectations and stereotypes of what a black comic is supposed to be (maron, 2011, 2013). his laid-back approach presents the audience with a different perspective and encourages them to consider sometimes it is bigger than the “apple juice”. greg giraldo happy birfday we see a similar pattern emerge from greg giraldo’s “happy birfday” joke where he rants about one of his pet peeves; adults who go out to eat to celebrate a birthday and then request that the employees of the restaurant sing some version of “happy birthday” to the special guest. when did we become such a nation of such self-important narcissistic douchebags? that you know when it’s your birthday now you can go to any restaurant and make the waiter sing happy birthday to you? when did that trend start? that’s the most irritating, that used to be for children at chucky cheese and now you can go to any restaurant, “oh is my birthday dance around or something, give us a little song would you, give us a little song. go get me a piece of cake it’s my birthday”. you go to restaurants now they got to break out in song every 5 minutes. i was in a restaurant the other day the waiters had to go four separate times to different tables and sing happy birthday and holy shit even the owner comes out, even the dishwasher is out there saying (in a stereotypical latino accent) “happy birfday to ju, happy birfday to ju. (as a conscious thought: is my birfday too but no one is singing happy birfday to me cause i am in the back washing dishes for 50 cents an hour but somehow, i am the bad guy for taking away american jobs. what fucking job am i taking away? who wants to wash a fucking dish for 50 cents an hour? ok, yes arguably all of us coming over like this collectively lowers the labor rates in the country, we could debate it on those merits, but no you’re taking my job you’re taking my job you’re taking my job, what kind of fucking ignorant bullshit is that? you have to ask yourself, are you willing to pay the increased cost of paying a more valuable wage for a fucking slob to stand back there washing dishes? if it’s such a fucking problem, why don’t you just penalize the employers who hire us? ohhh because that would be politically unpopular!) how old are ju know?” giraldo expresses his frustration that this singing has become an “expectation” amongst adults on their birthdays. he pushes this further when he compares these behaviors to what children expect at chuck e. cheese, (a popular children’s entertainment restaurant) but finds it irritating that adults have this same expectation in all restaurants. his description is accented by the change in his voice as his delivery punctuates his frustration with this happy birthday situation. even if the audience cannot relate, they can hear his position through the delivery. this intense delivery is a tool for engaging audiences in his frustration as he sets up the joke. his conviction to this one instance pulls the audience into the situation as he helps understand the problem, then the joke takes a turn towards its rhetorical plot, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. illegal immigrants in the workplace. in setting up the joke, claiming that “all” employees are expected to come out and sing, the audience is now faced with “the dishwasher” and a stereotypical voice that exaggerates the pronunciation of words with a heavy accent. with this, giraldo has now shifted his focus from having other adults sing to the real issue in this rhetorical plot, illegal immigrant workers. by signing happy birthday from the dishwasher’s perspective, the lyrics shift to the dishwasher’s job and how much he makes an hour. the implication being that the dishwasher is an illegal immigrant who has “taken an american job” washing dishes for $.50 an hour. in this incongruent punchline, he argues the point that people complain about illegal immigrants taking jobs from americans, but ask if it is a job that americans would do for the same pay. as “the dishwasher” he offers a critical perspective by highlighting the number and kinds of jobs illegal workers do. another theme that emerges in this joke centers around american employer’s willingness to pay a living wage to american employees, thus resulting in more immigrants. this brings into focus the heart of the intended rhetorical plot, illegal immigrant workers only exist because employers exploit them as cheap labor. the joke never asks the audience to consider and understand the illegal worker’s point of view. it works to draw in the audience and then suddenly the incongruent shift forces them to see the joke’s rhetorical plot for what it is, a critique of an accepted social norm, illegal immigrants are exploited by employers who choose to hire illegal immigrants, rather than paying a decent living wage. “ethnic humor works to help defuse the tension in the stereotypes, allowing the audience the opportunity to hear and accept the message, think about and process the message, and in that reflection find the critically rhetorical intent hidden in the message” (pacheco & nelson, 2015, p. 144). the joke does not ask the audience to choose a side on the issue, rather it forces the audience to see the issue in a new light and encourages them to think about alternative perspectives. w. kamau bell has america become post-racial? w. kamau bell scrutinizes how words are created when it comes to race and it does not change the reality of racism or how it is viewed by the media and particularly the made-up term “post-racial”. bell builds up what is post-racial through examples to relate his point to the audience. his delivery is cheery and upbeat, which is incongruent to the premise of the joke, racism in america. the term post-racial was used in relation to barack obama being elected as president of the united states and was used to insinuate that the united states has now entered a new era without racial divisions. he is confused by the term “post-racial” and argues that made-up words like “post-racial” have no real meaning. to exemplify this, he asks the audience to consider the term ‘soccer mom’ and argues that it too has no real meaning because what a soccer mom does is the same as what any mom can do. it is not just the media that creates non-words according to bell, pointing how black people use the word “conversate” and how skillful the black community is at reinventing language. bell takes pride in providing the audience with a black perspective on black culture while poking fun at the ridiculousness of crafting non-words. using cultural tropes explains this phenomenon within our culture of inventing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. words that have no meaning. the term “post-racial” assumes that there is no longer racism, prejudice, or discrimination. the premise of the joke asks the audience to consider if america is post-racial just because barack obama was elected president. bell sets up the punchlines that america is not “post-racial” with, “i can disprove the idea of post-racial america in two words”, he then pauses for a few seconds and then utters, “atlanta braves”, “washington redskins”, and “cleveland indians” (bell, 2012). bell asks the audience if america can consider itself post-racial while still having sports teams named after offensive native american stereotypes. to demonstrate this idea he shows the logo of the cleveland indians which is a stereotypical caricature of a native american. this use of sports culture asks the audience to consider if america is in a word post-racial, thus pointing out the hypocrisy and asks the audience consider just because words are created and used to describe a situation as it does not mean is reality. he asks the audience to think about the language used to describe an event and consider if it is accurately defining the moment. language can create a false reality whether it is trying to sound smart by using the word “conversate” or suggest that racism has been eradicated through the use of ‘post-racial’. his use of sports as a metaphor questions the intrinsic value of the term post-racial and in doing so, the joke asks the audience to consider if america is truly post-racial. he invites the audience to contemplate if the election of barak obama as president can mean that the united states has reached a state of racial equality? wanda sykes dignified black people sykes’ “dignified black people” explores expectations and stereotypes of being black and how the election of barak obama was perceived to have eased some of those social pressures. first black president. i am so happy cause now i can relax a little bit. you know i can loosen up. don’t have to be so black all the time. don’t have to be so dignified. cause you know we did it, black folks we always got to be dignified because we know if we fuck up we just sent everybody else back a couple of years. we should’ve killed flavor flav like 10 years ago. he has been holding us back, but we didn’t. i can relax a little bit. i can do some shit. i can dance on camera. i couldn’t dance on camera before. when i was growing up my mother, she wouldn’t even let us dance in the car. you know, we sitting in the car, good song come on the radio, my mother was like she would stop the car. “ahh, do you want to dance or do you want to ride? cause you ain’t dancing in my car. white people are looking at you.” i was like “huh”? “white people are looking at you” i’m like (turns head to side) “oh damn”. she was right. i hit that shit in my head couldn’t do it, couldn’t dance, couldn’t dance on camera but now shit i could dance. we got a black president. now i can dance! i can tap dance. know what dignified black people hate, tap dances. hate that shit. look at damn bojangles just sitting us back. how are we going get ahead if she up there looking like bojangles. hey i can dance; i can do some other shit. i can buy a whole watermelon now. i no longer have to grow them in my closet under my weed plant. before i was going to the grocery store and i would look at a whole watermelon, and i say “damn they look good. you know i would like to get a whole watermelon, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. but look at all these white people looking at me. fuck you, whitey. i ain’t buying a whole watermelon for your enjoyment. i am going to the salad bar. take my dignified ass to the salad bar. get this sliced watermelon. let me camouflage this shit with some cantaloupe. good day sir.” now i got a black president. you should see me, i am walking out the grocery store with the watermelon on my shoulder, “yeah! obama bitch”. shit, i hope he gets a second term then i am going to popeye’s. you’ll see me in the popeye’s drive-thru dancing and eating watermelon. first black president man, there’s some changes. even when i did the white house correspondents association dinner, when i did that, they had to make some changes. they had to adjust. yeah, it was before my performance and my publicist comes to me, she goes “wanda, they want me to give you this note”. i am like alright what is it? she says, “well, they said please don’t use the f-word or the n-word”. well, i said, “hmmm, i got a feeling they didn’t give this note out last year. i didn’t see it last year, but did rich little go out there and say fuck you n**** to george bush?” (sykes, 2010) she opens by expressing joy with the united states electing its first black president, barack obama. “i can relax a little bit, you know loosen up, don’t have to be so black all the time” (wanda sykes, dignified black people). the setup to the joke helps the audience understand her perspective that there is pressure to act “dignified” in front of non-blacks because her actions and behavior are viewed as a representation of all black persons. she then talks about how and uses rapper flavor fav as an example of a negative persona often associated with black people. this is the lead-up into the rhetorical plot in this joke and inviting the audience to understand where this idea of acting “dignified” comes from. sykes makes the audience aware of social pressures from within her family to be aware that white people will judge her actions and see it as a representation of how all black people act. her mother’s words stuck with her for years, but the election of a black president, it seems to have eased social pressure to act “dignified” and now she “feels free to dance in public or on camera”. sykes sets up the joke to invite the audience to consider how freeing it is as a person of color, to see another person of color elected to the highest position in the country. that moment of his election allowed to her be free and not self-conscious, or question whether she was accidentally enforcing racial stereotypes. this is different from the bell argument because his “post-racial” joke looked at a term developed by the dominant culture and sykes is using the image from within the black culture. the joke explores more than just the social pressures and racial stereotypes of people of color. her rhetorical plot asks the audience to consider the stereotype and stigma attached to being black and doing simple tasks like buying a watermelon in public. before obama being elected she states: “i would go into the grocery store and i would look at the whole watermelon, and i would say damn they look good. boy, i would like to get a whole watermelon. look at all these white people looking at me. fuck you whitey. i ain’t buying a whole watermelon for your enjoyment” (sykes, 2010). she presents a point of view for the audience to consider how empowering and freeing it was for her that obama was elected. she punctuates this feeling with the tag line to the joke, “now i got a black president, you should see me. i’m walking out the grocery store with a watermelon on my shoulder. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 4, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. yeah! obama bitch” (sykes). the election of obama allows her to publicly reclaim something she enjoys but had to hide due to negative stereotypes. to help the audience understand her point of view she explains it, using an embellished lens that is relatable to others. she closes the joke by sharing with the audience that even though she feels this new freedom, the status quo needed to make some changes. to exemplify this, she talks about getting ready to perform at the white house correspondents association dinner and receiving a note asking her to not use the “f word” or the “n word”. upon receiving the request, she shares with the audience how she reflected upon the request wondering if someone at last year’s dinner used those words to george bush. the closing punch line of the joke asks the audience to reflect that even though she feels that she has more freedom due to a shift in attitudes and stereotypes are changing, there are still false assumptions based upon stereotypes that people of color must overcome. 4. discussion focusing on the acts of four popular comedians, this essay discussed the rhetorical messages embedded in joke-telling that help make comedians more than just “comedians”, but social critics. these comedians use their performance on stage as an opportunity to challenge social norms and force audiences to see and think about the issues differently. by embedding specific humor embedded within jokes and revealing the rhetorical plot through incongruent humor, comedians express their real message and because audiences invite the messages by attending these shows, rhetorical possibilities exist. because stand-up comedy is one of “the purest public comic communication, performing essentially the same social and cultural roles in practically every known society, past and present” (mintz, 1985, p. 71), they present an opportunity for comedians to challenge the power structures in place. the jokes become more than “jokes”, they become critical critiques of the social norms that exist. giraldo, buress, bell, and sykes offer four very different commentaries on contemporary social issues in the u.s. this practice of pointing out social and political issues goes back to shakespeare where the fool was used to talk about taboo topics (mintz, 1985). the jokes developed by these comedians offer an experience to one of the many views which are possible for the audience to uncover. can a comedian bring about change on social issues? probably not universally, but at the audience level they can by presenting the audience with jokes that help them to consider other points of view. this task is complicated by the audience’s expectations of being entertained but enhanced by the incongruity of the messages forcing them to think. these skilled comedians have unintentionally used the precepts of invitational rhetoric to help foster change. references about, k. 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(n.d.). has america become post-racial? retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piq5pvre100 microsoft word assc-v4n2-p49 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 49 original paper countermeasures for “east turkistan” terrorism shengkun sun1* 1 department of public security management, people’s public security university of china, beijing, china * shengkun sun, department of public security management, people’s public security university of china, beijing, china received: april 11, 2022 accepted: april 24, 2022 online published: april 26, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p49 abstract under china’s high-pressure counter-terrorism situation, the characteristics of “east turkistan” terrorist organizations’ looseness, risk liquidity and behavioral uncertainty are becoming more and more obvious, challenging the established counter-terrorism model. to adapt to the new situation and new risks, we must not only rely on military means to suppress east turkistan terrorism, but also strengthen the social governance of east turkistan terrorism and dismantle its social base and extremist ideology, so as to break away from the “more counter-terrorism” approach. the more we fight against terrorism, the more we can cut off the root of the development of east turkistan terrorism. keywords east turkistan, anti-terrorism, social governance 1. introduction terrorism is a violent anti-social phenomenon with its roots in society and is associated with hegemony, poverty issues, ethnic issues, religious issues, etc. terrorism has become one of the most important factors hindering social development in the era of globalization and it is a cancer lurking in the society. the “east turkestan” terrorism has become the most direct terrorist threat to china at present. 2. overview of “east turkestan” terrorism “east turkestan” is a general term for the ethnic separatist terrorists who aimed to divide the motherland and establish a secular “east turkestan state”, which was first introduced as a political rather than a geographical concept. in the mid-nineteenth century, tsarist russia set up the “turkistan governorate” in the central asian region, so some westerners began to call the central asian region “west turkistan” and xinjiang as “east turkestan”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. as early as the end of the nineteenth century, some ethnic separatists, using the term “east turkestan” as an interface, attempted to split the xinjiang region from china and establish the “east turkestan state. in the 1930s, the national revolutionary committee, a secret organization of armed insurgents led by muhammad imin and grand mullah shabiti, took advantage of the confusion caused by the uprising of miners in southern xinjiang and seized the leadership of the uprising, turning it into a separatist movement. the “islamic republic of east turkestan” was eventually established with the support and assistance of the british government. in the 1940s, during the development of the “three regions revolution”, alykhan tulli shahirhankhoga joined the revolutionary ranks, confused many people with separatist ideas, gradually cheated the leadership of the revolution, and established the “east turkestan republic” in inin. provisional government. the two separatist regimes, the “islamic republic of east turkestan” and the “republic of east turkestan”, seriously harmed the interests of their people and were therefore rejected by them. eventually, the separatist regimes, which had lost the hearts of their people, disappeared into history, but the idea and actions of the “east turkistan” terrorist organization’s attempt to establish a “turkistan state” have never been interrupted. the activities of the “east turkestan” terrorist organizations can be divided into two stages. in the first stage, although the violent activities of the “east turkestan” terrorist organizations have never been interrupted, they have mostly been hidden behind the scenes and have used certain “fuses” to trigger riots. however, most of the “east turkestan” terrorist organizations are hiding behind the scenes and using certain “triggers” to cause various riots by luring the masses and deceiving students. the “barren township incident” was the most serious armed riot since the liberation of xinjiang, and marked the beginning of violent terrorist activities by the “east turkistan” group. since then, terrorist activities of varying degrees have occurred in xinjiang and across the country. some figures alone show that between 1990 and 2001, more than 200 violent terrorist incidents were perpetrated by domestic and foreign “east turkistan” forces in xinjiang, killing more than 160 people and injuring more than 440 others. 3. the necessity and importance of social governance social governance refers to a series of activities and processes in which the government, social organizations and the public are the main bodies, integrating and adjusting various resources and using various means to achieve and protect the legitimate interests of the public and maintain social harmony. terrorism has a deep social foundation and a strong social force, and it is impossible to effectively combat “east turkistan” terrorism without considering it as a social problem but only as a violent phenomenon. the subjects of social governance are diversified, including not only the government, military, and police, but also social organizations and individual citizens; the means of social governance are diverse, including not only military and administrative means, but also political, economic, social, and cultural means; social governance can achieve effects that are beyond the reach of simple military strikes, and can achieve a bottom-up type of governance, ensuring the long-term www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. peace and security of the people in xinjiang. long-lasting peace and security and the people’s well-being. china’s overall anti-terrorism strategy is to use force to combat terrorism, promote social justice and fairness, and ultimately eradicate the root causes of terrorism on the basis of genuine “joint construction, joint governance, and sharing”. 3.1 social background of the activities of the “east turkistan” terrorist organization backward economic and livelihood development is the real reason. before the reform and opening up, xinjiang was economically backward, people were living in hardship, and social conflicts were deepening; after the reform and opening up, although xinjiang has made a series of achievements in economic development, accelerated the process of infrastructure construction, and improved people’s living conditions, there is still a large gap compared with the national average. this gap has become a pretext for the “east turkistan” terrorist organizations to confuse the masses and expand their membership with various rumors and fallacies. to curb the spread of “east turkistan” terrorist forces, it is necessary to provide a favorable social and security environment for economic development through stable social governance, and gradually improve people’s livelihood so that people in xinjiang can enjoy the benefits of economic development and consciously join the “common construction, common governance, and common sharing” social governance pattern. in the pattern of social governance. religious extremism is the root of the ideology. under the guise of islam and taking advantage of the simple religious beliefs of the xinjiang people, the “east turkistan” forces are essentially terrorist forces in the guise of religion, engaging in various terrorist activities that affect social stability and national security. in order to establish a “secular” caliphate, the “east turkestan” forces have been trying to promote the idea that “islam is the only religion in xinjiang” and “oppose all ethnic groups other than turkic peoples. the “east turkestan” forces have been infiltrating the masses in xinjiang by opening religious schools, publishing newspapers and books, and disseminating audio and video. this propaganda has not only strengthened the influence and discourse of the “east turkestan” forces in xinjiang, but has also eroded the minds of the masses and polluted the social atmosphere, and laid the social foundation for their expansion of membership and energy for action. to combat religious extremist forces, it is necessary not only for the government to strengthen propaganda and guidance, popularize and develop education, but also for the public to improve their ability to recognize abnormal situations in their daily lives, and to strengthen their contact with relevant government departments to provide advance warning and timely disposal, so as to create a high-pressure situation against religious extremist ideology in the whole society. 3.2 important geographical location of xinjiang xinjiang is located in the northwest of china, in the hinterland of the eurasian continent, and is an important passage of the new asia-europe continental bridge. xinjiang’s rich natural resources and energy sources make it an important base for national strategic resource development and reserve; it is the core area of the “belt and road” construction, and its stability or otherwise reflects china’s international image and international influence. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. “the extremely important geographical location of xinjiang determines the necessity and importance of tackling the “east turkistan” terrorism. the “east turkestan” terrorism has attempted to split xinjiang from the motherland by violent means, such as the violent terrorist attacks in shaibak district park in urumqi and the terrorist attacks in moyu county. this poses a serious threat to the safety of people’s lives and property in the xinjiang region, and is detrimental to the development and progress of the xinjiang region, china’s national security and general social stability 4. implementation of social governance measures combating and solving the problem of “east turkestan” terrorism requires the healthy functioning of the social organism as a whole. according to mr. zheng, a society is in a healthy state of operation when its economy, politics, ideology and culture, and social life are mutually reinforcing. this is also the effect that social governance needs to achieve. 4.1 seize opportunities to promote economic prosperity and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor “the belt and road initiative is a key way for china to break the deadlock in economic development and implement the new development concept. as the core area of the belt and road initiative, the regional government and enterprises should seize the opportunity to promote the economic development of the region and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor to prevent this is also an important strategy in the fight against terrorism in xinjiang. first, seize the investment opportunities: “the state will put more projects and funds into the construction of xinjiang, guaranteeing its infrastructure construction; at the same time, the construction of the china-pakistan economic corridor will also bring more opportunities for the introduction of foreign investment into the economic development of the xinjiang region, ensuring the pulling effect of investment on xinjiang’s economic development. second, seize policy opportunities: under the macro policy of “one belt, one road” initiative, the country has introduced a series of targeted stimulus policies and supporting measures, such as various projects to benefit people’s livelihoods, which were put forward one after another at the second central symposium on xinjiang work, and the continuation of the second round of western development strategy, the regional government should make full use of the policy the regional government should make full use of the policy dividend to promote industrial restructuring and upgrading in xinjiang and turn development potential into economic strength. the government of the autonomous region is taking advantage of the dividends brought by the “belt and road” to ensure that the fruits of development are shared by the people; the rich first will lead the rich later, narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor in the region, and ensuring that the masses are not tempted by terrorism for economic reasons, so as to achieve the goal of social governance to stop the continued spread of the “east turkistan” terrorist forces. the goal of social governance is to stop the continued spread of the “east turkistan” terrorist forces. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. 4.2 strengthen guidance and publicity, occupy the ideological high ground through the internet, books, newspapers and sermons, the “east turkestan” terrorist forces brainwash young people and simple believers, making them suffer from terrorist ideology. to eliminate extremist, separatist and jihadist ideologies, on the one hand, government guidance is needed to strengthen national unity and establish national and ethnic consciousness among the masses of all ethnic groups, and on the other hand, social media and organizations are needed to promote and cultivate a lasting anti-terrorist consciousness among the people and develop daily conscious anti-terrorist behavior, making the social ideological front of all ethnic groups working together to maintain the unity and stability of the motherland more solid. in carrying out specific publicity and education work, the government should pay attention to the monitoring and use of the internet, establish a sound review system and access mechanism for internet information, take down terrorist-related apps, shut down websites with religious extremist overtones, monitor and ban terrorist-related online community discussion groups, and carry out the “net purification action” to the end. at the same time, the government should also appropriately publicize the evidence of terrorist organizations’ terrorist activities through the internet, television, and other efficient information media, so that the public can realize the evil nature of terrorism and mobilize the public to oppose terrorism, thus increasing the social participation in anti-terrorism, and making terrorism fall into the state of “missing the way to help. this will lead to a situation in which terrorism will be “defeated”. we will carry out educational activities on ethnic unity, promote mutual respect and understanding among all ethnic groups, and give full play to the active role of patriotic religious figures and believers among all ethnic groups, so that they can become an important link in maintaining national unity and ethnic unity. 4.3 embedding the masses, the formation of a national counter-terrorism model the participation of the public in counter-terrorism can functionally complement the government’s counter-terrorism efforts. the government, due to financial and human resources constraints, can only carry out a wide range of prevention, focusing more on the “surface” and the crackdown after the terrorist activity has occurred. (note 1) terrorists are very concealed, but they must survive in the society, and the people are spread all over the society, so it is difficult to escape the eyes of the masses from any abnormal behavior and become a powerful force to monitor the terrorists, focusing most on the “point” and the warning and prevention work before the occurrence of terrorist activities. counter-terrorism awareness is raised so that the masses will oppose terrorism and extremism from the bottom of their hearts. raising awareness of counter-terrorism requires the government to make use of various forms, including the media and the internet, to create an atmosphere of “universal counter-terrorism,” to strengthen counter-terrorism propaganda and education, to carry out extensive study, discussion and propaganda in various industries, and to arm the public with scientific and cultural knowledge and core socialist values. at the same time, we also ask religions and religious people to correct the source of religious beliefs and guide the public to establish correct religious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. beliefs. second, to build a long-term counter-terrorism exercise mechanism. anti-terrorism awareness can only be effectively transformed into anti-terrorism capability through anti-terrorism practice, and only through continuous rehearsal and training can effectively improve the public’s anti-terrorism capability. (note 2) regular training and drills for the public should include: identification of suspicious and dangerous people; identification of suspicious and dangerous objects; identification and handling of several common types of terrorist incidents such as explosions, arson, plane hijackings, hostage-taking and shootings; identification and initial handling of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorist attacks; identification and response to cyber terrorist attacks, etc. finally, attention should be paid to sorting out and guiding mass emotions. when people’s emotions are inflamed by terrorist activities, they need to be guided to choose the right counter-terrorism measures and methods, rather than letting them intensify and avoiding being exploited by terrorists or other unruly elements—letting people’s emotions go is letting terrorism have room to operate; when people’s emotions are frightened by active terrorist forces, they should show the country’s “hard power” to strengthen people’s confidence in counter-terrorism and maintain their motivation. when the masses are frightened by terrorist activities, they should demonstrate the country’s “hard power” to strengthen their confidence and maintain their motivation to fight terrorism. when the masses are generally conscious of the anti-terrorist struggle and maintain a strong anti-terrorist awareness in all aspects of their lives and work, they will become the tentacles and eyes of professional departments, which will greatly compress the space for terrorist activities and enhance the targeting of the fight against terrorism, so that terrorists will have nowhere to hide. 4.4 carry out education and training to get rid of mental control urging terrorist organizations and elements to renounce terrorist violence, recognize social order and participate in the process of social and political development in a legitimate manner is a more cost-efficient way of fighting against terrorism that has been proven by historical experience. (note 3) in the case of the “east turkistan” terrorist organizations, it is necessary to effectively combat and control the recalcitrant elements on the one hand, and to give the members of the terrorist organizations channels and hopes for transformation on the other. the xinjiang vocational skills education and training center has taken up the latter responsibility. the education and training center is a school in nature, and through its help and education work, it will unite, educate, and save to the maximum extent possible the majority of people who have committed minor offenses, and avoid them becoming objects that terrorism and extremism can control and exploit. according to the actual needs of counter-terrorism in xinjiang, and in response to the realities of the trainees’ language barrier, poor literacy, lack of basic legal knowledge, low level of work skills, and difficulties in employment, it has set up courses focusing on the national common language and script, legal knowledge, vocational skills, and de-extremism to help trainees get rid of the brainwashing of terrorist and extremist forces and give them the opportunity to reintegrate into society www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. for re-employment and redevelopment. the white paper “vocational skills education and training work in xinjiang” states that xinjiang’s education and training work is aimed at eliminating terrorism and religious extremism at the source, and is entirely a move to respect and safeguard human rights. (note 4) the education and training centers have rehabilitated one group of terrorists and religious extremists after another, causing terrorism and religious extremism to continuously lose their membership base, which not only helps xinjiang region achieve social stability, but also alleviates resistance to the implementation of other social governance measures and promotes the construction and development of a harmonious socialist society. references li, j. (2015). an analysis of the factors influencing the cause of anti-terrorism in xinjiang based on the perspective of social governance. modern economic information, 2015(11), 36+38. li, z. j. (2006). terrorism and international governance (pp. 160-187). beijing: china economic press. wang, h. w. (2019). internal and external integration of national security governance: the example of combating “east turkistan” terrorism. international security studies, 37(03), 70-95+158-159. yu, x. y. (2013). study on the risk assessment and management of the terrorist threat of “east turkistan”. university of defense science and technology. notes note 1. guo yongliang. on the transformation of china’s counter-terrorism model-from the elite model to the participatory model. jurist, 2016(02), 146-161+180. note 2. liu yuyan. the evolutionary path of public counter-terrorism capability enhancement based on 4r theory. journal of the chinese people’s public security university (social science edition), 33(05), 28-33. note 3. sun lulu. study on the organization of terrorist activities in china’s criminal law. zhengzhou university, 2016. note 4. aishaiti krimubai. powerful measures for social stability and long-term peace in xinjiang. xinjiang daily (han), 2018-11-24(001). microsoft word assc-v4n2-p56 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 56 original paper consciousness, analytic idealism and buddhist foundations: exploring non-materialist ways of connecting eastern and western spiritual perspectives prof terry hyland1* 1 free university of ireland, dublin 7, ireland * prof terry hyland, free university of ireland, dublin 7, ireland received: april 14, 2022 accepted: april 25, 2022 online published: april 27, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v4n2p56 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v4n2p56 abstract contemporary approaches to explaining the connections and reconciling perceived differences between spiritual and scientific interpretations of reality have tended to accept mainstream interpretations of physics, cosmology and biology. the resultant putative combinations of ideas-seeking to equate materialist with non-materialist worldviews-display anomalous, artificial and deeply problematic features. instead of accepting the validity of scientific materialism-expressed in accounts offered, for instance, by thich nhat hanh, the dalai lama, and, in a more secular context, deepak chopra and fritjof capra-the central thesis of this paper is that it is more plausible to question the foundations of materialism and argue for an idealist interpretation of both science, reality and spirituality as suggested in recent work by bernardo kastrup, steve taylor and donald hoffman. after exploring the central claims of these new interpretations of idealism-and their principal critiques of scientific materialism-arguments that such perspectives offer a richer, more cogent and more parsimonious method of linking eastern and western worldviews than the flawed materialist perspectives will be explained and justified. keywords materialism, consciousness, analytic idealism, panpsychism, buddhism, spirituality, science 1. introduction it is important to emphasise at the outset that the attempts of thich nhat hanh, the dalai lama, and, in a more secular framework, chopra and capra to bridge the gap between the scientific and spiritual worldviews are admirable and valuable. moreover, such reconciliation projects are crucially necessary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. at a time when, on the one hand, triumphalist scientism threatens to colonise every aspect of public culture and discourse (sheldrake, 2017; taylor, 2018) and, on the other, the commodification of spirituality through “mcmindfulness” continues to capture widespread public attention (hyland, 2017; purser, 2019). acknowledging the value and importance of the reconciliation process, i would want to suggest an enhancement of this project by displacing the materialist connotations of the debate with, as will be argued, more appropriate idealist perspectives. having outlined the key materialist components of the discourse being criticised, i will outline the neo-idealist ideas prior to examining the advantages and principal implications of such foundations for the core issues at the heart of the debate. 2. materialist connotations of the science/spirituality discourse an important caveat which needs to be entered at the outset is the acknowledgement that all of the accounts discussed here do clearly make a distinction between scientific materialist worldviews and the contrasting spiritual perspectives. for example, the dalai lama’s attempt to build bridges between modern science and buddhism (2005) incorporates such observations as: buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent being as the origin of all things. this is hardly surprising given that these investigative traditions are essentially non-theistic in their philosophical orientations (pp. 89-90). on the surface, this observation is, of course, perfectly correct. however, a clear implication here is that the two “traditions” are equally valid and, moreover, even though they are different, it is possible to reconcile them. on the one hand, this represents a dualism which is contrary to buddhist foundations and, on the other, there is a suggestion that the overriding materialism of the scientific method is justified on its own terms in its own domain and can be accommodated by an alternative spiritual perspective on reality. some of these connotations are brought out the dalai lama’s explorations in observations such as the following: in cosmology, astronomical observations taken together with the theory of general relativity, which reformulated gravity as the curvature of both space and time, have shown that our universe is neither eternal nor static in its current form...this finding accords with the basic intuition of the ancient buddhist cosmologists, who conceived that any particular universe system goes through stages of formation, expansion and ultimately destruction (ibid., pp. 78-79). in a similar vein, there is the assertion that “if a hypothesis is tested and found to be true, we must accept it...likewise buddhism must accept the facts-whether found by science or found by contemplative insights” (ibid., p. 25). such assimilation strategies inform the well-publicised collaboration between the dalai lama and richard davidson at his university of wisconsin laboratory which involved using fmri and eeg technology to detect electrical activity in the brains of meditators (ibid., p. 151 ff.). such quantitative measurement of mindfulness has gone hand in hand with its exponential growth in recent years (baer, 2013) and has been the subject of trenchant criticism by practitioners and academics committed to foundation list buddhist ethics which are claimed to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. radically at odds with such populist and commodified versions of contemplative practice (grossman, 2011; hyland, 2017, purser, 2019). moreover, as will be discussed in more detail below, such neuroscientific evidence is used to support the materialist worldview which mistakenly asserts that the mind is generated solely by the brain (kastrup, 2014, 2021; taylor, 2018). thich nhat hanh (1999) holds an especially esteemed place in the world sangha community as a lifelong buddhist campaigner for global peace and justice and also one of the most famous public advocates of the power of buddhist mindfulness for western audiences. like the approach of the dalai lama, the introduction of buddhist principles to western audiences has been accompanied by attempts to demonstrate the links between the dharma and certain modern scientific concepts and perspectives. for example, hanh (2012) in explaining his ideas about no birth and no death makes reference to the first law of thermodynamics. as he explains: with the law of conservation of energy, scientists have discovered that energy has the nature of no-birth and no-death: energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed; it can only be transferred. matter also has the nature of no-birth and no-death, since matter is in fact a form of energy. when lavoisier said “nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed”, he made a statement which is very close to the heart sutra: “all dharma are marked with emptiness, they are neither produced nor destroyed (2012, p. 68). such an analogy is certainly powerfully persuasive and serves the useful purpose of justifying forms of spirituality in ways which which might appeal to the minds of people educated in systems dominated by scientific paradigms. however, the use of such metaphors unwittingly lends credence to materialist perspectives which claim that the objective world of matter is ultimately all there is, and that subjective experience is an illusion or an epiphenomenon (as philosophers such as dennett and graziano do; see critique of such ideas by kastrup, 2021, p. 51ff.). in a passage comparing scientific and spiritual endeavour, we find the following observation: each of us needs a spiritual dimension to our daily life. if we lack a spiritual dimension, it may be very difficult for us to overcome the challenges and difficulties we encounter. as scientists we also need a spiritual life. this spiritual life should be based on evidence, which can be verified, not on esoteric beliefs which cannot be tested ibid., p. 82). again, this serves as a valuable means of indicating that there can be evidence for spiritual as well as scientific claims to belief and knowledge but relies on the highly contested concept of “evidence” which most readers would interpret as that gained by scientific and objective tests. such tests are not appropriate in domains in which beliefs and principles are supported by transcendental and subjective experience. thus, notwithstanding the value of such parallels in the debate about science and spirituality, these strategies are too uncritical of mainstream physicalist science and give materialism far too much credibility. in much the same vein, deepak chopra’s debate with leonard mlodinow (2011) displays similar less than helpful tendencies. in a debate with the (in my view) strange title of is god an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. illusion?, the physicist, mlodinow, and the spiritual teacher, chopra, outline their respective worldviews on questions such as: “how did the universe emerge?”; “is the universe conscious?”; “what is life?”; “what makes us human?; and “is there a fundamental reality?”. mlodinow predictably offers a robust defence of mainstream scientific materialism on all these questions and chopra answers with a spiritual perspective which includes such notions as the following. in response to the central philosophical/ontological question of why is there something rather than nothing-which martin heidegger claimed was the “fundamental question of metaphysics” (1959 ed., p. 7)-chopra explains that: the universe, including the void that precedes creation, is one system. the ground of existence is not inert emptiness but a dynamic field connecting all creation in a single totality, smaller processes in the quantum field hang together even when they are light years apart (chopra & mlodinow, 2011, p. 34). on evolution we learn that “spirituality holds that evolution is dominant in nature” and that “quantum leaps dominate in creation everywhere we look, but especially in the startling, beautiful novelty of life-forms on earth. the cosmos is ruled by creativity” (ibid., p. 35). in relation to time and objectivity, chopra appeals to the same neuroscientific research used by hanh in explaining and justifying the impact of meditation. he comments that: in recent experiments, buddhist monks were shown to have brain waves that were twice as fast as the norm: 80 cycles per second instead of 40 cycles. gamma waves are thought to be the brain’s way of holding the world together as a conscious experience. so buddhist monks, by receiving twice the number of signals per second, are twice as awake or conscious (ibid., p. 73). this is an overt endorsement of the materialist claim that consciousness is generated by brains, a position which, as will be explained later, is demonstrated to be unjustified and untenable by kastrup, hoffman and other philosophers and scientists who offer idealist interpretations of reality. chopra covers similar ground in the book of readings he co-edited under the umbrella concept of how consciousness became the universe (chopra et al., 2015). two examples give the flavour of the general approach. in a discussion of perceived reality and quantum mechanics, chopra and kafatos, claim that: our sense of reality is different from its mathematical basis as given by physical theories. although nature at its deepest level is quantum mechanical and nonlocal, it appears to our minds in everyday experience as local and classical...furthermore, if consciousness as an entity leave a physical trace, then laboratory searches for such a trace should be sought for in nonlocality, where probabilities do not conform to local expectations (2015, kindle edn., pp. 349-350). this is, once again, a tacit endorsement of brain-state materialism accompanied, moreover, by a recommendation that we should search for consciousness in brain imaging. such physicalist perspectives are anathema to idealist conceptions of reality which-in ways much more in line with the spiritual perspectives chopra wishes to promote-view brains, and indeed all material objects, as mere outward representations of an underlying and all-encompassing mental universe. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. capra (1983) follows broadly similar lines in suggesting parallels between quantum mechanics, relativity and buddhist and taoist ideas. the thesis is informed by the conception that the: [b]asic elements of the eastern world view are also those of the world view emerging from modern physics. [this] tends to suggest that eastern thought and, more generally, mystical thought provide a consistent and relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science...a conception of the world in which scientific discoveries can be in perfect harmony with spiritual aims and religious beliefs (p. 30). as with hanh’s approach, connections are made between eastern concepts of the impermanence of the constantly changing world and the vibrating energy of the quantum fluctuations out of which sub-atomic particles and waves emerge to form the material world. much is made of the way in which modern theories of space and time-combined in einstein’s model of spacetime-resonate with ideas about the unity and temporality of all experience found in taoist, hindu and buddhist perspectives. certainly, such parallels may be useful but need to be located within the dynamically changing trends and perspectives in contemporary science, taking into account its many shortcomings (sheldrake, 2012; baggott, 2013) and failure to deal with certain persistent problems with the hard problem of consciousness having pride of place here (strawson, 2016; kastrup, 2014, 2017). ironically, stenger (2014) points out that capra’s analogies are based on scientific notions which are now outdated, and the key arguments do not take account of recent developments in physics (though, to be fair, capra has attempted to update the science in recent editions of his work). what stenger might have added to his critique—if he had been prepared to consider alternative perspectives to materialism-is that contemporary physics now questions the notion that spacetime is fundamental (hoffman, 2019), and that quantum mechanics in particular seems to cast doubt on the idea of an observer-independent world (taylor, 2019; kastrup, 2014, 2021). the overriding problem with all these east/west reconciliation models, however, is that they tend to support materialist worldviews which-as the critical commentators discussed below point out-are fundamentally flawed and offer distorted and mistaken views of reality. 3. critiques of materialism as a useful preface to the principal critiques of materialism developed by neo-idealist thinkers, it is worth looking at the many problems of contemporary science in general. of course, as the critics such as sheldrake (2012), kastrup (2019), and taylor (2018) are careful to stress, the achievements of science over the last few centuries or so are mightily impressive. the world we live in today would be unimaginable without the spectacular scientific advances in medicine, physics, biology and general technology over the last few decades. as sheldrake puts it, science has “touched everyone’s lives...its intellectual prestige is almost unchallenged. its influence is greater than that of any other system of thought in all of human history” (2012, p. 13). along with such achievements, however, comes the hubris and intransigence which sheldrake’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. critique is intended to challenge and redress. a recent example of extremely pompous scientific triumphalism was demonstrated in hawking and mlodinow’s the grand design (2010) in which the physicists set out to answer such questions as “how does the universe behave?”, “what is the nature of reality?” and “did the universe need a creator?”. they assert that: traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge (p. 5). ambitious claims but-in spite of the recent remarkable discoveries at cern in relation to the higgs’ boson and the detection of gravitational waves from the outer reaches of the universe-we need to maintain a sense of proportion and recognise scientistic rhetoric for what it is. philosophy is quite a long way from being dead and-as nagel (2012) forcefully demonstrates in his recent critique of scientific materialism-science is not even close to solving all our problems or providing satisfactory answers to all the questions we might like to pose about humans and the nature of the cosmos we inhabit. similar arguments about the shortcomings of scientism within the framework of an expansive, humanistic conception of philosophy have been advanced recently by mary midgley (2018). moreover, according to the recent survey of contemporary physics by baggott (2013), the current obsession with purely theoretical constructs such as superstring theory, parallel universes and cosmological explanations involving up to 11 dimensions-none of which is supported by a shred of observational or experimental proof-has led to a dominant methodology which may be described as “post-empirical science” (p. xii). this state of affairs has resulted in a “fairy-tale physics” which serves to divert attention from the range of serious unsolved problems in the field and, more importantly, has effectively transformed science into pure metaphysics which “until and unless it can predict something that can be tested by reference to empirical facts, concerning quantity or number, is nothing but sophistry and illusion” (p. 287). further dents in scientific triumphalism have been revealed in recent discoveries linked to the accelerating rate of the expansion of the universe. this unexpected finding has led to scientists to posit (or, rather, invent) the notion of an antigravity force operating in empty space which has been labelled “dark energy”. as panek (2011) puts it: this is not “dark” as in black holes or deep space. this is “dark” as in unknown for now, and possibly forever: 23% something mysterious they call dark matter, 73% something even more mysterious they call dark energy. which leaves only 4% the stuff of us (p. xv). what needs to be added to this picture are the unacknowledged shortcomings of the scientific materialist view of the world. goff (2019) explains, in terms of an ontological conception of the cosmos, unvarnished materialism leaves much to be said. as he puts it, “physics tells us not what matter is but only what it does” (p. 125). similarly, kastrup (2021) reminds us that bertrand russell observed that “science says nothing about the intrinsic nature of the physical world, but only about its structure and behaviour” (p. 86). more significantly a contemporary of russell, the physicist sir arthur eddington, argued that “the only physical entity we have intrinsic access to is our own nervous system, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. whose nature is clearly experiential” (ibid.). given all this, kastrup asks: might this not be the case for the rest of the physical world as well? under this pansychist hypothesis, the explanatory gap disappears: consciousness isn’t generated by physical arrangements but, instead, is the intrinsic nature of the physical world. the latter, in turn, is merely the extrinsic appearance of conscious inner life (ibid., p. 87). this view that the universe is fundamentally mental or experiential in nature-labelled analytic idealism by kastrup, panspiritism by taylor, objective idealism or cosmopsychism by chalmers, and conscious realism by hoffman-not only satisfies the parsimony demands of occam’s razor whilst avoiding the dualism of materialism and physicalism-but also neatly solves the hard problem of consciousness and provides a more satisfactory account of the nature of reality than scientific materialism. the full implications of this idealist version of panpsychism are discussed in the next section but at this stage it is worth outlining the key features of the idealists” thoroughgoing criticisms of the nature and implications of materialism. as already noted, science tells us nothing about the intrinsic nature of material objects since it is concerned only quantities-mass, spin, charge momentum, and so on which can be measured and labelled with concepts and numbers-whilst saying nothing about the qualities which we experience in the world such as colour, taste, smell and, at the root of the mind/body problem, subjective phenomenal experiences such as listening to music or appreciating a beautiful sunset. moreover, kastrup (2014) points out the crucial difference “between materialism as a metaphysics and scientific theories as models” (p. 10). scientific materialism observes patterns and regularities in nature and constructs models which explain objects and forces-such as subatomic particles and negative electric charge-in terms of their relationship to other cognate constructions. explaining and predicting how aspects of the material world operate relative to other aspects reveals nothing about the fundamental nature of everything in nature. the upshot of this, as kastrup argues, may be expressed in the following way: capturing the observable patterns and regularities of the elements of reality, relative to each other, is an empirical and scientific question. but pondering about the fundamental nature of these elements is not; it is a philosophical question (ibid., p. 12, original italics). consequently, there is no bridge which can join and support the move from scientific materialism to metaphysical materialism. the scientific method is a foundation for knowledge about the cosmos-at both classical and quantum levels-but it does not justify metaphysical conceptions of reality and provides no evidence for beliefs in metaphysical materialism and so-called common-sense realism. we need to look elsewhere for this. in addition to these shortcomings scientific materialism displays many flaws and shortcomings which are fully described by neo-idealist critics. taylor (2018) outlines what he calls the “ten tenets of materialism” (pp. 12-14, in italics below) and shows how their inconsistencies and weaknesses may be remedied by idealist conceptions (pp. 227-229, in bold) 1. life came into being by accident, through the interaction of certain chemicals. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. life came about, not through accident, but as a result of the innate tendency of the universe-propelled by consciousness-to move towards greater complexity. 2. human beings are purely physical creatures with no “soul”, “spirit” or “life-force” evolution is not accidental since, once life forms had evolved, there was an inbuilt tendency in natural selection whereby consciousness naturally brought about greater complexity (hoffman, 2019). 3. humans are essentially vehicles for the propagation of our genetic material, and this is the primary motivation for our behaviour. rather than being purely biological, human beings are, both mentally and physically, expressions of spirit or consciousness. it could be said that our physical bodies are the external expression and representation of universal consciousness, while our minds are an inner expression (kastrup, 2014, 2019). 4. all mental phenomena can be explained in terms of neurological activity. our personal consciousness-our subjective inner life-is not generated by the brain but is a fundamental universal quality which our brains receive and canalize into our individual being (sheldrake, 2012; kastrup, 2015). 5. consciousness is produced by the brain so that when my brain and body cease to function my consciousness and identity will disappear. because consciousness is not produced by the brain, it is plausible to assume that it will not come to an end following bodily death. kastrup (2014) argues that “each one of us is a split-off complex of one medium of mind underlying all existence” (p.192), and that, with the death of the physical body, the “dissociated alter” which is our reified sense of individualized self, returns to the universal, transpersonal membrane of universal mind/consciousness. 6. human behaviour can be explained in genetic terms by reference to natural selection. evolution needs to include the mental as well as the physical. the mind exerts a powerful influence on the body (e.g., with the powerful placebo and nocebo effects) and can bring about structural change. as hoffman (2019) puts it “the laws of physics...do not describe an unconscious reality; they describe the dynamics of conscious agents, finite and infinite, projected into the language and data structure of the spacetime interface of homo sapiens” (p. 200). 7. living beings are isolated individuals, moving through space separated from each other. although we are, as hoffman argues, individual conscious agents, we are in touch with others in a dynamic web of interconnectedness. kastrup suggests that, like split of psychic complexes of dissociated personality, “each conscious being is a segment of a broader membrane of mind” (2014, p.192), and it is this which allows for a level of intersubjective agreement about the world. for taylor, we “share the same essence, and are therefore deeply interconnected. we express (and become aware of) this connection through empathy, compassion and altruism” (2018, pp. 229-230). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. 8. the world exists out there, separate and independently of humans. whatever is “out there” can only be accessed through our senses, perceptions and consciousness. as in quantum physics, there is nothing definite until observed, and we need consciousness for this. even scientific materialism does not posit any definite state of the outside world but suggests as a foundation energy, force fields or even, according to some physicists such as tegmark, ethereal information or a platonic world of mathematics (see kastrup, 2021). all this comes very close to the notion of a mental universe proposed by hoffman and kastrup. 9. our normal state of awareness is objective and reliable enough to show us the world as it is. we can arrive at intersubjective agreement about the world but, as mentioned earlier, even science does not propose an objectively real and unchanging state of nature. hoffman argues that we construct reality in the light of evolutionary survival strategies and that we should not mistake this reified illusion for an objective world. kastrup reports rovelli’s “relational quantum mechanics” thesis which results in the notion that there is “no absolute, observer-independent physical quantitites...the whole physical universe must be relative to the observer. the notion that we all share the same physical environment, must, therefore be an illusion” (2021, p. 148). 10. the fundamental laws of nature preclude any paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and related non-standard experiences. dogmatic scientific materialism and triumphalism can close our minds to alternative possibilities of making sense of reality, particularly in areas such as transcendent understanding, “paranormal” phenomena and precognition. sheldrake (2012) outlines the many illuminating avenues of research which are closed off by such dogmatism, and kastrup (2015) similarly argues for extra-sensory human possibilities which are too often dismissed by mainstream science. taken together, all these elements provide a general picture of the new idealism, but it would be useful to look more deeply at the fundamental theses proposed by leading proponents before returning to potential east/west parallels. 4. idealist foundations many of the shortcomings of materialism outlined above are fully illustrated in the long-standing “hard problem of consciousness” (chalmers, 1995, 1996), and it is in the search for a solution to this problem that the neo-idealist thinkers have constructed their most innovative and cogent arguments. many of these arguments make use of the idea of “panpsychism” (hyland, 2021) though-as noted in the preceding sections-idealists tend to prefer their own terminology and ontology in relation to this phenomenon. shan gao (2014) offers a succinct identification of the contemporary background to accounts of panpsychism in noting that: consciousness is the most familiar phenomenon. yet it is the hardest one to explain. there are two distinct processes relating to the phenomenon: one is objective physical processes such as neural processing in the brain, and the other is the concomitant subjective conscious experience (kindle edn., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. loc. 47). forms of panpsychism are thus introduced to make the connection between the objective and subjective aspects of reality. philip goff (2018) expresses the basic problem by noting that: nothing is more certain than consciousness, and yet nothing is harder to incorporate into our scientific picture of the world. we know a great deal about the brain, much of it discovered in the last eighty years...but none of this has shed any light on how the brain produces consciousness (p. 5). galen strawson (2006)-one of the leading exponents of a physicalist form of panpsychism-prefers to characterise the contemporary debate by declaring that: consciousness... [by which] i mean what most people mean in this debate: experience of any kind whatever...is the most familiar thing there is, whether it’s experience of emotion, pain, understanding what someone is saying, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or feeling. it is in fact the only thing in the universe whose ultimate intrinsic nature we can claim to know. it is utterly unmysterious (p. 1) strawson then goes on to assert that the so-called objective and unmysterious nature of the physical world is, in fact, far from the truth. as he comments: the nature of physical stuff, by contrast, is deeply mysterious, and physics grows stranger by the hour. (richard feynman’s remark about quantum theory?—“i think i can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”—seems as true as ever.) or rather, more carefully: the nature of physical stuff is mysterious except insofar as consciousness is itself a form of physical stuff (ibid., original italics). although strawson’s account does offer some sort of solution to the hard problem, kastrup (2019, 2021) shows that it is open to all the problems of the cartesian mental/physical dualism that bedevils scientific materialism and, moreover, is extremely unparsimonious in its implications. in addition to the glaring inadequacies of the dualism which physicalist panpsychism merely perpetuates, there is the absurdity of positing a theory which involves consciousness somehow emerging from non-conscious material. moreover, as kastrup (2021) argues, from a philosophical perspective, “materialism is...unparsimonious-that is, uneconomical, unnecessarily extravagant-and arguably incoherent” (p. 9). he elaborates this notion: as we have seen, matter is a theoretical abstraction of mind. so when materialists try to reduce mind to matter, they are effectively trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s conceptual creations. this is akin to a dog chasing its own tail. better yet, it is like a painter who having painted a self-portrait, points at it and proclaims himself to be the portrait (p. 10). kastrup’s concludes with the observation that “materialism is a relic from an older naiver, and less sophisticated age...but it has no place in this day and age” (ibid., p. 11). however, the full idealist project needs to explain how the notion of a mental universe can accommodate our everyday assumptions that world really does seem to be outside of us and that our individual selves are separated from those of other minds. kastrup (2019) proposes the much simpler and more parsimonious strategy which argues for an “idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations”, and which obviates the so-called mind-body problem of explaining consciousness. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 66 published by scholink inc. position is summarised as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. we, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. the universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding-but dissociated from-our alter. the living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters (p. 57). on this account, our subjective experience as dissociated alters-that is, individually segmented parts of an all-encompassing mental cosmos-is founded upon and supported by a robust metaphysical idealism which may be used to circumvent the false picture presented by physical science and the illusions of mind-body dualism. kastrup goes on to elaborate his thesis that the cosmos is mental and everything is mind by means of a serious of ingenious metaphors and analogies which seek to explain the world revealed to us through experience in ways which are both cogent, precise, and more epistemologically and metaphysically satisfying than the mainstream materialist theories. we are asked to picture the ultimate primitive mind or cosmic consciousness as a “thin, mirror-like membrane with some rigidity, but also some elasticity” such that the “qualities of experience now correspond to the specific patterns of vibration of the membrane” (2014, p. 138). there is, thus, “nothing to reality but the medium of mind itself” (ibid.) and all our experiences of the world may be explained in terms of the vibrations and oscillations of the membrane of mind. subjective individualised experiences of the world may be correlated with the ripples and loops of this membrane which brings about segmented islands of consciousness. the metaphor is thus intended to explain both why we seem to have limited control over the unfolding of events in the world and also why we seem to be separated from each other in terms of our individualised states of consciousness. in other work, however, kastrup (2015, 2016, 2019) is concerned to emphasise that both of these characteristics of subjective consciousness-lack of control and individual ego states-are actually largely illusory and, as such, present us with a confused and partial perspective on reality. in order to escape such confuse it is necessary to wield occam’s razor forcefully and accept that everything is a modification of consciousness. as he explains: i claim that we do not need more than consciousness to explain reality: all things and phenomena can be made sense of as excitations of consciousness itself. according to this more parsimonious view, the ground of all reality is a transpersonal flow of subjective experiences that i metaphorically describe as a stream. our personal awareness is simply a localization of this flow: a whirlpool in the stream (2015, p. 13, original italics). following on from eddington’s assertion that the “stuff of the world is mind-stuff” and julian huxley’s idea that “mind or something of the nature of mind must exist throughout the entire universe” (in gao, 2014, loc.827), mathews (2011) argues that “a holistic or cosmological version of panpsychism, according to which the universe as a whole is the ultimate locus of mind, or of mind-like properties, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 67 published by scholink inc. can function as a rival to materialism” (p. 2). like kastrup’s radical idealist perspectives, this position is taken to its logical conclusion by hoffman (2017, 2019) in this theory of conscious realism. hoffman’s startlingly radical thesis incorporates ideas and data from evolutionary theory, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, quantum physics and philosophy to establish a position which suggests that our assumptions about our knowledge of the objective world are mistaken and, moreover, that forms of consciousness are fundamental to everything that we may claim to know, think and experience. there are two principal aspects of hoffman’s approach: one drawn from evolutionary game theory which purports to explain why our perceptions of reality are mistaken, and another strand which attempts to move beyond the hard problem of consciousness by offering a conception of interacting conscious agents supported by a mathematical model of consciousness. in dealing with the counter-intuitive notion that our senses deceive us as to the nature of reality-why would evolution, after all, not favour true perceptions of an objective world-hoffman uses the metaphor of a computer interface (p.xii). the purpose of a desktop interface, he argues, is not to reveal the “truth” of the computer in terms of its various circuits, voltages and layers of software but to hide this truth to enable the pragmatic task of writing emails and completing internet research. this metaphor is then applied to evolution and our experience of the world in the following way: this is what evolution has done. it has endowed us with senses that hide the truth and display the simple icons we need to survive long enough to raise offspring...you may want truth, but you don’t need truth. perceiving truth would drive our species extinct (ibid., pp. xii-xiii). this argument from evolution is reinforced by data from the field of evolutionary game theory to construct an operationally pragmatic theorem which hoffman labels “fitness-beats-truth (fbt)” which is itself based on universal darwinism by which survival, adaptation and reproduction trumps all other considerations. applying game theory models to this construction (prakash et al., 2020), we arrive at the astonishing conclusion that “fitness drives truth to extinction” (hoffman, 2019, p. 61). this is expressed in the observation that: what the fbt theorem reveals is that natural selection, however major or minor a force it may be, does not shape our perceptions to be veridical. hoffman then goes on to demonstrate how this perspective influences-indeed, dramatically changes-just about every feature of human experience across all disciplines. given that “evolution shaped our perceptions to hide the truth and to guide adaptive behaviour” the key question is how are we to escape from the “lifesaving fiction” (ibid., pp. 178-179) of both the everyday and scientific view of reality to arrive at a more accurate picture of the world. to answer this challenge it is necessary to return to foundations and to investigate conscious experience itself. after examining various speculations-most notably those proposed by nick bostrom and others-that consciousness may arise out of a computer simulation (see hyland, 2019), hoffman employs the occam’s razor mentioned in earlier sections to conclude (as kastrup does also) that “all attempts at a physicalist theory of consciousness have failed” (2019, p. 183). he reasons that: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 68 published by scholink inc. occam’s razor, applied to the science of consciousness, counsels a monism over an amphibious dualism, a theory based on one kind rather than two...if we grant that there are conscious experiences, and that there are conscious agents that enjoy and act on experiences, then we can try to construct a scientific theory of consciousness that posits that conscious agents-not objects in space time-are fundamental, and that the world consists entirely of conscious agents (ibid., pp. 182-183). hoffman accepts that this theory of conscious realism may be mistaken and, in the light of the need for verifiability/falsifiability, he offers a mathematical model of how conscious agents interact within networks (ibid., 203ff.), and comments that: conscious realism makes a bold claim: consciousness, not spacetime and its objects, is fundamental reality and is properly described as a network of conscious agents. to earn its keep, conscious realism must do serious work ahead. it must ground a theory of quantum gravity, explain the emergence of our space time interface and its objects, explain the appearance of darwinian evolution within that interface, and explain the evolutionary emergence of human psychology (ibid., p. 198). given the enormity of this task, hoffman insists that his theory goes beyond panpsychism to avoid any hint of a dualism which may, even remotely, allow for materialist conceptions of the world. all such materialist notions fail to acknowledge the limits of our interface and mistakenly take these as a picture of reality. as he expresses it, “we have finite capacities of perception and memory. but we are embedded in an infinite network of conscious agents whose complexity exceeds our finite capacities” (ibid., pp. 186-187). in the conclusion, he remarks (using the analogy of the simulated world created in the movie the matrix): what is spacetime? this book has offered you the red pill. spacetime is your virtual reality, a headset of your own making. the objects you see are your own invention. you create them with a glance and destroy them with a blink. you have worn this headset all your life. what happens if you take it off? (ibid., p. 202). 6. idealist spirituality and buddhist principles in removing what hoffman calls the “headset” of materialism we gain access to a radically transformed conception of reality, values and spirituality, a conception which is, arguably, much more sympathetic to buddhist and taoist perspectives than those of metaphysical and scientific materialism. once we are able to entertain the notion of consciousness as fundamental, the sole ontological primitive, this may, as taylor (2018) suggests, lead to a transformation which “deepens our connection to others through empathy and altruism” and helps to “expand and intensify our awareness” (p. 230) of the world and our place within it. the key idea here is that-if our minds are essentially localized “segments of the broad, universal canvas of mind” (kastrup, 2014, p. 57)—this offers a powerful justification and validation for collective values and inter-subjective experiences of the world. this idealist vision allows for a radical re-interpretation of the east/west reconciliation strategies referred to above. the “interdependent co-arising” which hahn (1999) describes as the “foundation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 69 published by scholink inc. all buddhist study and practice” (p. 221) makes much more sense when viewed through the idealist lens of overarching cosmic consciousness than the attempt to connect it with the laws of thermodynamics, evolutionary biology or cosmology. if we come to see ourselves as “whirlpools in the broader stream of mind-at-large”, as kastrup (2015, p. 51) puts it, this has powerful implications for moral and spiritual beliefs. the universal dukkha of the first noble truth-and the fostering of loving-kindness and compassion in the face of this suffering-is far easier to understand and explain within the framework of an interconnected “network of conscious agents” (hoffman, 2019, p. 188) than it would be by seeking to locate such values in a materialist world of separate selves isolated from each other and from a cosmos which is pitilessly indifferent to human purposes. in a similar way, the secular spirituality of chopra and capra, rather than being established on tortuous attempts to interpret eastern conceptions of non-dualism and universal consciousness in terms of astrophysics and neuroscience would be much better placed if it was located within the framework of neo-idealist critical perspectives. kastrup (2014, pp. 207-208) suggests that his conception of the cosmic “membrane of mind” is on all fours with lao-tzu’s description of the dao as: something formless, yet complete that existed before heaven and earth, how still, how empty! dependent on nothing, unchanging, all pervading, unfailing. taoism, buddhism and other eastern spiritual traditions are, after all, amongst the original sources of non-dualist conceptions of the world. it surely makes far more sense to connect these insights with the idealist tradition of western philosophical thought-as hoffman connects his theory of conscious realism with strands of thought from pythagoras and plato through to modern thinkers such as leibniz, berkeley and kant (2019, p. 195)—rather than attempting to align such spirituality with a materialism which posits sharp divisions between body and mind, between humans as isolated centres of consciousness and a shadowy outside world from which we are alienated. notwithstanding the many references to the achievements of modern science in the dalai lama’s recommendation that buddhists and scientists should “engage in collaborative research in the understanding of consciousness” (2005, p. 146), there is an important caveat in the conclusion to his book. his holiness makes the observation that “one can take science seriously and accept the validity of its empirical findings without subscribing to scientific materialism” (ibid., p. 219). this is exactly the crucial point made by the neo-idealists discussed above but the case needs to be fully worked out and justified by non-materialist or, ideally, anti-materialist conceptions and arguments. what needs to be emphasised is that, as discussed earlier, in spite of the impressive achievements of science and technology, science does not provide us with a veridical picture of reality and offers no basis for an ontological metaphysics about the nature of things. moreover, it is well to note the many shortcomings and unsolved problems of science and-as the neo-idealist philosophers point out-the fact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 70 published by scholink inc. that quantum physics undermines materialism through its revelations that there is no observer-independent world and that all elements of the cosmos are interconnected and interdependent (gao, 2014). everything in the universe, as carlo rovelli (1996, 2021) asserts, must be considered as “relational”. materialism posits a cosmos of isolated individuals alienated from an outside world of objects, and this perspective has helped to produce a culture of rampant individualism, aimless consumerism and the destruction of the planet (hyland, 2017). as taylor (2018) concludes, “moving beyond materialism means becoming able to perceive the vividness and sacredness of the world around us...transcending our sense of separateness so that we can experience our connectedness with nature and other living beings” (p. 231). references baer, r. 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(2005). the universe in a single atom. london: little, brown. gao, s. (2014). consciousness encounters quantum physics. amazon kindle direct publishing. goff, p. (2019). galileo’s error: foundations for a new science of consciousness. london: rider. grossman, p. (2011). defining mindfulness by how poorly i think i pay attention during everyday awareness and other intractable problems for psychology’s (re)invention of mindfulness: comment on brown et al.” psychological assessment, 23, 1034-1040. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022713 hanh, t. n. (1999). the heart of the buddha’s teaching. new york: broadway books. hanh, t. n. (2012). science and the buddha: 21-day retreat, june 1-21, 2012. thenac, france: plum village practice centre. hawking, s., & mlodinow, l. (2010). the grand design. london: bantam press. heidegger, m. (1959). introduction to metaphysics. new haven: yale university press. hoffman, d. (2017). the case against reality: interview for the institute of art and ideas. retrieved www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 4, no. 2, 2022 71 published by scholink inc. from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hffr0-ybg0 hoffman, d. (2019). the case against reality: how evolution hid the truth from our eyes. london: penguin. hyland, t. (2017). mcdonaldizing spirituality: mindfulness, education and consumerism. journal of transformative education, 15(4), 334-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344617696972 hyland, t. (2019). adventures in the matrix. mauritius: scholars’ press. hyland, t. (2021). perspectives on panpsychism. mauritius: omniscriptum publishing group. kastrup, b. (2014). why materialism is baloney. hampshire: iff books. kastrup, b. (2015). brief peeks from beyond: critical essays on metaphysics, neuroscience, free will, skepticism and culture. hampshire: iff books. kastrup, b. (2016). more than allegory. hampshire: iff books. kastrup, b. (2017). on the plausibility of idealism: refuting criticisms. disputatio, ix(44), 13-34. https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2017-0025 kastrup, b. (2019). the idea of the world. hampshire: iff books. kastrup, b. (2020). decoding schopenhauer’s metaphysics. winchester: iff books. kastrup, b. (2021). science ideated. hampshire: john hunt publishing. mathews, f. (2011). panpsychism as paradigm. in b. max (ed.), the mental as fundamental. frankfurt: ontos verlag. retrieved from http://www.freyamathews.net/downloads/ panpsychismparadigm.pdf https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110319859.141 midgley, m. (2018). what is philosophy for? london: bloomsbury. panek, r. (2011). the 4% universe. oxford: oneworld publications. prakash, c., stephens, k., hoffman, d., & singh, m. (2020). fitness beats truth in the evolution of perception. acta biotheoretica, 69(3), 319-341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0 purser, r. (2019). mcmindfulness: how mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. london: repeater books. rovelli, c. (1996). “relational quantum mechanics”. international journal of theoretical physics, 35(8), 1637-1678. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02302261 rovelli, c. (2021). helgoland. london: allen lane. sheldrake, r. (2012). the science delusion. london: coronet. sheldrake, r. (2017). science and spiritual practices. london: coronet. stenger, v. (2014). the revolution that didn’t happen”. huffpost. retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-revolution-that-didnt_b_5600647 strawson, g. (2006). realistic monism: why physicalism entails panpsychism. journal of consciousness studies, 13(10/11), 3-31. strawson, g. (2016). consciousness isn’t a mystery. it’s matter. new york times, 16/5/16. taylor, s. (2018). spiritual science: why science needs spirituality to make sense of the world. london: watkins media. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 original paper the impact and development trends of cross-border interaction between the jing ethnic group across yu wang1 1 hebei north university, zhangjiakou, hebei, china received: april 19, 2024 accepted: may 24, 2024 online published: july 06, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p1 abstract this paper explores the impact and development trends of cross-border interactions of the jing ethnic group in the guangxi zhuang autonomous region of northern vietnam. by outlining the geographical, historical backgrounds, and cultural overview of the jing ethnic group, it analyzes their roles and influences in cross-border interactions. the study finds that the jing ethnic people in the region not only act as bridges in economic trade but also promote cultural dissemination and social interactions. furthermore, the article discusses the stimulating effect of such interactions on local socio-economic development and outlines future trends in cross-border interactions of the jing ethnic group. keywords jing ethnic group, cross-border interactions, economic impact, cultural dissemination 1. introduction jing ethnic group situated between the guangxi zhuang autonomous region and northern vietnam, holds significant geographical importance. it features diverse terrain including mountains, hills, rivers, and plains, endowed with rich natural resources and diverse ecosystems. historically, the region has served as a crucial node on the ancient silk road and maritime silk road, facilitating cultural, trade, and religious exchanges in southeast asia. it has also been a pivotal frontier for various dynasties, witnessing numerous historical events and cultural exchanges. the jing ethnic group, as one of the region's major ethnic groups, has long settled in this area, embedding their culture and local characteristics deeply into the society. renowned for their diligence, kindness, and intellect, the jing people play a crucial role in the local economy through agriculture, handicraft production, and trade activities. moreover, they have a history of close cultural exchanges and mutual development with neighboring ethnic groups such as the zhuang and dong, forming a diverse cultural landscape of coexistence. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. 2. overview of the vietnam jing ethnic group border region 2.1 overview of the jing ethnic group the china-vietnam border region is located at the junction of southern china's guangxi zhuang autonomous region and northern vietnam, making its geographic location highly significant. this area features diverse terrain including mountains, hills, rivers, and plains, contributing to rich natural resources and a diverse ecosystem. historically, the china-vietnam border region has been a crucial nexus for the ancient silk road and maritime silk road, facilitating cultural, trade, and religious exchanges across southeast asia. in ancient times, it served as a vital frontier for multiple dynasties, witnessing numerous historical events and cultural interactions. the jing people, as one of the major ethnic groups in this region, have settled here since ancient times, deeply integrating their culture and local characteristics into the community (yin, 2018). within the china-vietnam border region, the jing people are renowned for their diligence, kindness, and intelligence, playing significant roles in the economy through agriculture, handicraft production, and trade activities. additionally, the jing people have a long history of cultural exchanges and shared development with neighboring ethnic groups such as the zhuang and dong, forming a socio-cultural landscape of coexistence and diversity.as times change and economies develop, the jing community in the china-vietnam border region has gradually integrated into the broader economic integration between china and vietnam. their culture and traditions have been preserved and developed amidst modernization. this region not only serves as a bridge for economic exchanges but also exemplifies cultural diversity and social harmony, contributing significantly to the economic and social development of both china, vietnam, and the surrounding regions. 2.2 economic features and socio-cultural aspects the china-vietnam border region exhibits diverse economic characteristics, encompassing both traditional agriculture and handicraft industries, as well as emerging trends in modern trade and services. agriculture remains a cornerstone of the local economy, focusing on staple crops such as rice, fruits, and tea, where the jing people are particularly renowned for their expertise in agricultural techniques. additionally, traditional crafts like embroidery and bamboo weaving are integral to jing culture, serving not only local needs but also fostering trade with vietnam and other regions.in terms of socio-cultural aspects, the china-vietnam border region is celebrated for its rich diversity of ethnic cultures. the jing people, as primary residents, uphold unique customs and religious beliefs, continuing practices such as family reunions and traditional holiday celebrations. culturally, the jing people interact closely with neighboring ethnic groups like the zhuang and dong, contributing jointly to the prosperity and continuity of regional cultures.with the deepening of economic globalization, the china-vietnam border region is increasingly becoming a vital link in economic connections between mainland southeast asia and east asia. while preserving their traditional culture, the jing people actively participate in and promote the local economic transformation, thereby fostering regional stability and development. the economic features and socio-cultural dynamics of this region not only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. reflect historical accumulations and cultural diversity but also provide extensive opportunities and space for future cross-cultural exchanges and cooperation (yu et al., 2020). 2.3 distribution and characteristics of the jing people the jing people are one of the significant ethnic groups in the china-vietnam border region, primarily concentrated in guangxi zhuang autonomous region in southern china and northern regions of vietnam. in china, the jing people are mainly found in border counties such as fangchenggang and qinzhou, where they live and work alongside other ethnic groups like the zhuang and dong. in vietnam, the jing people predominantly reside in mountainous areas and border regions in the north, maintaining language and cultural traditions similar to their counterparts in china.renowned for their diligence, kindness, and intelligence, the jing people play vital roles in agriculture, handicraft production, and trade activities. their language belongs to the han-tibetan language family of the zhuang-dong group, preserving unique linguistic characteristics and accents influenced by neighboring ethnic languages (ma, 2023). culturally, the jing people possess rich folk traditions including dance, music, festival celebrations, and familial and clan activities, which not only strengthen community cohesion but also serve as significant mediums for cultural inheritance and exchange.the social organization of the jing people revolves around family and clan structures, emphasizing ancestral traditions and family honor, while also respecting neighborhood relationships and community cooperation. in the process of modernization, the jing community has progressively integrated into the broader economic integration between china and vietnam, maintaining and passing down traditional cultures while actively contributing to local economic development and societal progress.the distribution and characteristics of the jing people illustrate their historical and current realities of coexistence and mutual development with neighboring ethnic groups, providing important references and insights for studying cultural diversity and social interactions in the china-vietnam border region. 3. cultural and historical background of the jing ethnic group 3.1 origin and historical evolution the jing ethnic group, as an important ethnic group in southern china, traces its origins and historical evolution back to ancient times. according to historians, the jing people originated from the fusion and evolution of ancient han chinese and indigenous populations in northern vietnam. over the course of history, they gradually developed their unique language, culture, and customs.in ancient times, the jing people were mainly distributed in southern china, including guangxi and guangdong, as well as mountainous and border areas in northern vietnam. through long-term historical development, they engaged in continuous cultural exchange and integration with neighboring ethnic groups such as the zhuang and dong, forming a diverse cultural landscape. known for their diligence, wisdom, and kindness, the jing people played significant roles in agriculture, handicraft production, and trade, while maintaining a profound reverence and respect for the natural environment.the cultural characteristics of the jing people are evident in their language, traditional festivals, performing arts, and clan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. organizations. their language belongs to the zhuang-dong language family, influenced by neighboring ethnic languages yet retaining distinctive linguistic features and accents. regarding clan organizations, the jing people emphasize the inheritance and unity of family and clan, with family activities and clan gatherings being crucial social events in their community life.with the passage of time and social development, jing culture has been preserved and developed within the framework of modernization. while upholding their traditional culture, they actively absorb and integrate elements from external cultures, enriching their own cultural content and forms of expression. the historical evolution and cultural development of the jing people not only reflect the historical landscape of multi-ethnic coexistence and prosperity in southern china, but also provide important historical and cultural perspectives for studying and understanding cultural exchanges and social development in the border areas between china and vietnam (bekkevold, 2020). 3.2 cultural traditions and values the jing people play a significant role in the cultural and social life of the china-vietnam border region with their rich cultural traditions and deep-seated values. their cultural traditions manifest in various aspects, including festival celebrations, family heritage, artistic expression, and social organization.the jing people place great emphasis on the inheritance of family and clan, with the family being the core unit of their social life. family activities such as clan gatherings, ancestor worship, weddings, and funerals not only strengthen family cohesion but also preserve and promote jing cultural traditions. additionally, the jing people maintain a rich and colorful festival culture, such as the spring festival and qingming festival, which symbolize not only the celebration of harvest and traditional customs but also the harmony within the community.artistically, the jing people excel in singing, dancing, and the production of handicrafts such as embroidery and bamboo weaving. these art forms not only enrich their daily lives but also demonstrate their understanding and expression of the natural environment and cultural traditions.in terms of values, the jing people emphasize traditional virtues such as diligence, honesty, and filial piety. they value education and talent development, and emphasize the harmonious development of family and community. the work ethic and traditional moral values of the jing people not only influence their way of life but also positively impact local economic and social development.overall, the cultural traditions and values of the jing people reflect their pride in and inheritance of their own culture, as well as demonstrate how they collaborate and prosper with other ethnic groups in modern society. the cultural traditions and values of the jing people in the china-vietnam border region inject vitality into the region's social and cultural diversity, and provide abundant resources and opportunities for international cultural exchange and cooperation (zhang & jaume, 2022). 3.3 social status of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border region as an integral part of the china-vietnam border region, the jing ethnic group holds significant social status and cultural influence. they play crucial roles in local economy, politics, and cultural life, which is evident in several aspects:firstly, the jing people are highly involved in economic activities. they are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. primarily engaged in agriculture, handicraft production, and trade, contributing vitality to the local economy through stable production and commercial activities. the diligence and business acumen of the jing people make them important driving forces for regional economic development.secondly, the jing people hold important positions in the organization and management of local communities. they maintain community cohesion and stability through family and clan units, utilizing forms such as clan gatherings and family meetings. through their social organization and actions, the jing people promote the harmonious development and cultural inheritance of local society.the cultural traditions and social status of the jing people are not only reflected in daily life and social organization but also in political participation and cultural exchange (qian, yang & tang, 2023). they hold significant positions in local governments and civil organizations, participating in decision-making and community building to contribute to the preservation of local interests and cultural traditions.in conclusion, the social status of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border region is reflected not only in economic activities and social organization but also in their cultural confidence and social responsibility as an important ethnic group in the region. by preserving and developing their cultural traditions, and promoting the harmonious development of communities, the jing people have made positive contributions to the coexistence and prosperity of multiple ethnic groups in the china-vietnam border region. 4. forms and characteristics of cross-border interaction in the china-vietnam border area 4.1 trade and economic exchange cross-border trade and economic exchanges in the china-vietnam border area represent a unique aspect that showcases the region's economic vitality and cultural fusion. here are the forms and characteristics of trade and economic exchange:trade activities in the china-vietnam border area primarily concentrate at international border checkpoints and surrounding markets. the jing people, as a significant local commercial group, facilitate the circulation of goods and economic cooperation between china and vietnam through their unique business networks and language advantages. they often engage in small-scale wholesale and retail transactions in markets, covering various sectors such as agricultural products, handicrafts, and daily necessities.economic exchanges extend beyond trade to include cooperative projects and investment activities. the china-vietnam border area attracts investments from both countries and others, encompassing infrastructure construction, tourism development, environmental protection, and more. the active participation and investment activities of the jing people in local economies promote diversification and modernization of the regional economy.cross-border economic exchanges also promote cultural exchange and integration in the china-vietnam border area. jing merchants and residents not only influence and learn from each other in economic activities but also enhance mutual understanding and friendship through cultural festivals, language exchanges, and other forms. this cultural exchange enriches the cultural life of the region and lays a foundation for friendly cooperation internationally.overall, trade and economic exchanges in the china-vietnam border area demonstrate the economic vigor and cultural influence of the jing people as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. an important social group in the region. through their efforts and cooperation, the china-vietnam border area continues to move towards economic integration and cultural harmony, making positive contributions to local and international development (barabantseva & caroline, 2019). 4.2 cultural exchange and education the china-vietnam border area serves not only as a crucial node for economic exchanges but also as an important platform for cultural exchange and educational cooperation. here are the forms and characteristics of cultural exchange and education:cultural exchange in the china-vietnam border area takes place through various forms, including artistic performances, traditional festivals, and language exchanges. as major residents in the area, the jing people showcase the unique cultural charm of southern china through traditional arts like singing, dancing, handicraft production, and clan cultural activities to vietnam and other regions. these cultural expressions not only enrich the cultural life of the region but also enhance understanding and friendship among different ethnic groups.educational cooperation plays a significant role in the china-vietnam border area, providing opportunities for local residents to learn and develop. the jing people promote the sharing and exchange of educational resources by participating in local schools, cultural centers, and educational projects. this cooperation includes language teaching, cultural courses, technical training, and career development, thereby improving the quality of life and cultural literacy of regional residents.the development of cultural exchange and educational cooperation not only promotes cultural diversity and social progress in the china-vietnam border area but also lays a solid foundation for sustainable development of the local economy. the active participation of the jing people in cultural and educational fields enriches the cultural content of the region and facilitates friendly cooperation and exchanges internationally (zhang, 2018). 4.3 social interaction and collaboration social interaction and collaboration in the china-vietnam border area are crucial pillars of regional stability and development, with the jing people playing a key role as an important social group. here are the forms and characteristics of social interaction and collaboration:firstly, the jing people maintain close social connections and interactions in local communities through clan organizations and family networks. they strengthen cohesion and mutual assistance among families through activities such as clan gatherings and family meetings, contributing to the stability and prosperity of local communities.secondly, social interaction in the china-vietnam border area extends beyond the grassroots level to include cooperation and coordination between local governments and civil organizations. the jing people contribute wisdom and strength to local community development and decision-making by participating in local government decisions and community affairs. they actively engage in community building, environmental protection, and cultural heritage preservation, promoting overall progress and improvement in regional society.lastly, the jing people play an important role in cross-border regional cooperation, facilitating friendly exchanges and cooperation between china and vietnam. through trade, cultural exchanges, and educational cooperation, they expand the scope of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. cooperation in the china-vietnam border area, bridging local economic development and international exchange.in conclusion, social interaction and collaboration among the jing people in the china-vietnam border area reflect their active responsibility and spirit of participation as an important social group. through their efforts and collaboration, the china-vietnam border area continues to strengthen cultural exchange, economic cooperation, and social stability, making significant contributions to sustainable regional development and international friendship. 5. impact of jing ethnic interaction in the china-vietnam border area 5.1 impact on local economy the interaction of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area has had profound impacts on the local economy, reflected in several aspects:as a significant commercial group in the china-vietnam border area, the jing people have promoted the development and diversification of the local economy through cross-border trade and economic activities. they play a crucial intermediary and driving role in the market economy, strengthening economic ties and cooperation between china and vietnam through activities such as import-export trade, small-scale commodity transactions, and logistics.jing merchants, with their business acumen and extensive experience, have not only stimulated the development of traditional industries such as local agricultural products and handicrafts but also propelled the growth of emerging industries such as tourism and services. through innovative business models and market strategies, they have expanded the market space of the local economy, providing more employment opportunities and economic growth points for local residents.in addition to trade activities, jing people's investments and capital flows in the local economy have also played a positive role. they participate in projects such as infrastructure construction, real estate development, and tourism facilities, injecting vitality and capital into the local economy, and promoting regional economic modernization and sustainable development.overall, jing people's economic activities in the china-vietnam border area not only promote economic growth and structural optimization but also provide local residents with more opportunities for economic advancement and improved quality of life. their business wisdom and economic contributions not only reflect the vitality and potential of the local economy but also open up new spaces and possibilities for cooperation and exchange between regions. 5.2 cultural dissemination and exchange the interaction of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area has not only had significant economic impacts but also played a constructive role in cultural dissemination and exchange, manifested in several aspects:through their rich cultural traditions and artistic expressions, the jing people have spread the unique cultural charm of southern china to vietnam and other surrounding regions. they showcase chinese aesthetics and values through forms such as traditional arts like singing, dancing, handicraft production, and festival celebrations, promoting cultural diversity and prosperity in the region.cultural exchange extends beyond traditional artistic performances to include language exchanges and cultural festivals. in the china-vietnam border area, the jing people facilitate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. han-vietnamese language exchange and learning, promoting linguistic understanding and cultural exchange between the two countries' populations. this language exchange not only enhances the language abilities of local residents but also deepens mutual cultural awareness and friendship.furthermore, the cultural festivals and traditional customs of the jing people spread and shared in the china-vietnam border area serve as important bonds for harmonious coexistence in local communities. through traditional festivals such as the spring festival and qingming festival, they not only promote chinese traditional culture but also integrate with local vietnamese cultural characteristics, fostering cultural understanding and sharing between the two countries' populations.in conclusion, the cultural dissemination and exchange of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area enrich the cultural content and lifestyles of the region, promoting cultural exchange and understanding among ethnic groups. through their efforts and participation, the china-vietnam border area not only exemplifies cultural diversity and vitality but also provides a beneficial model and practice for international cultural exchange and cooperation. 6. conclusion this paper has provided an in-depth analysis and discussion on the impact and development trends of the cross-border interaction of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area. the following conclusions can be drawn:firstly, as an important ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area, the cross-border interaction of the jing people not only significantly promotes economic development but also has profound impacts in cultural, educational, and social interaction fields. through promoting economic integration and expanding cultural dissemination, the jing people have actively contributed to the development of regional economy and maintenance of cultural diversity.secondly, with the development of information technology and the popularity of social media, the cross-border interaction of the jing people exhibits new trends in diversity and digitization. through digital platforms and virtual communities, the jing people can more widely disseminate and showcase their cultural characteristics, enhancing cultural exchange and interaction within and outside the region.furthermore, education and talent development are crucial for the future development of the jing people. by improving education quality and expanding educational resources, the jing people can better cultivate a new generation of talents, injecting new impetus into regional economic transformation and social development.lastly, environmental protection and sustainable development are critical issues for the cross-border interaction of the jing people. the jing people should actively participate in and promote practices of ecological environment protection, adopt environmentally friendly production and lifestyles, promote the restoration and sustainable development of regional ecosystems.in summary, the cross-border interaction of the jing ethnic group in the china-vietnam border area not only enriches cultural content and economic vitality but also carries the important mission of regional sustainable development. in the future, the jing people will continue to play a positive role in multiple fields, contributing to the peace, stability, and prosperity of the china-vietnam border area. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 4, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. references barabantseva, e., & caroline, g. 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"thinking through the everywhereness of borders: mobile borders, everyday practices, and state logics in southwest china." eurasian geography and economic, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2023.2211594 yi, q. f. (2018). the mountain is high, and the emperor is far away: states and smuggling networks at the sino-vietnamese border. asian perspective, 42(4), 551-573. https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.2018.0025 yu, j. et al. (2020). vietnamese female sex workers in rural cross-border areas of guangxi, china: migration and hiv/sti risk behaviors. aids care, 32(12), 1515-1523. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2020.1719968 zhang, j. (2018). permissive politics and entrepreneurial transgression in a chinese border town. sojourn: journal of social issues in southeast asia, 33(3), 576-601. https://doi.org/10.1355/sj33-3c zhang, m. l., & jaume, g. (2022). cultural boundaries and ethnic representation in cross-border tourism destinations. routledge handbook of borders and tourism. routledge, 161-173. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003038993-15 2.1 overview of the jing ethnic group 2.2 economic features and socio-cultural aspects 2.3 distribution and characteristics of the jing p 3.1 origin and historical evolution 3.2 cultural traditions and values 3.3 social status of the jing ethnic group in the 4.1 trade and economic exchange 4.2 cultural exchange and education 4.3 social interaction and collaboration 5.1 impact on local economy 5.2 cultural dissemination and exchange advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 140 original paper research on the impact of artificial intelligence, enterprise production efficiency and enterprise innovation performance zhiyuan qiao1 1 business school, shandong university of technology, zibo, 255000, china received: january 12, 2025 accepted: february 12, 2025 online published: march 02, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n1p140 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n1p140 abstract artificial intelligence technology has developed rapidly in recent years and has become an important driving force for promoting the leapfrog development of science and technology, the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, and the overall leap of productivity. this paper selects shenzhen and shanghai a-share listed companies from 2003 to 2023 as sample data to study the impact of artificial intelligence on corporate innovation performance. the study found that artificial intelligence and corporate innovation performance show a significant positive correlation, that is, artificial intelligence can significantly promote the improvement of corporate innovation performance, and the results are still valid after stability tests; corporate production efficiency plays a mediating role in the process of artificial intelligence promoting the improvement of corporate innovation performance. keywords artificial intelligence, innovation performance, enterprise production efficiency 1. introduction artificial intelligence (ai) technology has developed rapidly in recent years and has become an important driving force for promoting leapfrog development of science and technology, optimizing and upgrading industrial structure, and overall leapfrogging of productivity. the report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china pointed out that "we should promote the integrated cluster development of strategic emerging industries and build a number of new growth engines such as new generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, and green environmental protection". my country has made breakthroughs in the core areas of artificial intelligence and has also achieved success in related technologies and industries, including electronic engineering, the internet of things, and intelligent manufacturing. these innovations have not only had a profound impact on the transformation of related industries, but also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 141 promoted in-depth reforms in areas such as processing and manufacturing. artificial intelligence has injected new vitality and nutrients into corporate innovation. more and more companies frequently use artificial intelligence to cope with innovation challenges in complex environments, which can greatly improve corporate production efficiency. however, existing research either focuses on artificial intelligence or on corporate innovation. there are few cross-studies on artificial intelligence and corporate innovation, which makes it difficult for traditional technology adoption research and corporate innovation research to fully explain the latest practical phenomena. in particular, there is no clear answer to the question of the impact mechanism of artificial intelligence on corporate innovation performance in corporate innovation activities. it is urgent to build, innovate and expand the theoretical research on artificial intelligence in corporate innovation to guide corporate innovation practices under the new development pattern. therefore, this study will study and explore the impact mechanism between artificial intelligence, corporate production efficiency and corporate innovation performance. it provides a certain reference value for improving corporate innovation performance and a reference plan for the growth of corporate performance. the impact mechanism of artificial intelligence on corporate innovation performance is of great practical value and practical significance. the significance of this study is as follows: first, it combs the relevant literature on artificial intelligence, enterprise production efficiency and enterprise innovation performance, and conducts empirical research on the effect of artificial intelligence on enterprise innovation performance under the mechanism of enterprise production efficiency from a micro perspective, explores the impact mechanism, and enriches the research content of artificial intelligence, enterprise production efficiency and enterprise innovation performance. second, by studying the relationship between artificial intelligence, enterprise production efficiency and enterprise innovation performance, it provides a basis for the government to formulate strategies to promote enterprise development in urban development planning, and at the same time encourages enterprises to improve internal management and formulate production plans. third, at present, there are few domestic studies on the relationship between artificial intelligence, enterprise production efficiency and enterprise innovation performance. the main measures on how artificial intelligence can improve enterprise innovation performance are not specific enough, and domestic related research is also constantly improving. this paper verifies the correlation between the two by conducting empirical research on the impact of artificial intelligence on enterprise innovation performance through various relevant data, and also highlights the importance of enterprise production efficiency in improving enterprise innovation performance, guiding enterprises to seek survival means in the new competitive environment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 142 2. literature review 2.1 current status of ai research as an important driving force for the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence has great potential in improving enterprise productivity and promoting economic growth. existing literature mainly explores the impact of artificial intelligence from a macro perspective, using a dynamic general equilibrium model in theory, and conducts quantitative analysis based on the chinese scenario through numerical simulation. lin chen et al. (2020) constructed a dynamic general equilibrium model containing artificial intelligence and heterogeneous capital. the study found that artificial intelligence can improve the intelligence level of economic system production, thereby enhancing the attractiveness of the real economy, increasing the proportion of capital in the real economy, and helping to optimize china's capital structure (lin, chen, x. l., chen, w. z. et al., 2020). wang and dong (2020) collected industry-level robot data provided by the international federation of robotics, used the ratio of the proportion of employees in the production department of a single enterprise in the manufacturing industry to the median proportion of employees in the production department of all manufacturing enterprises as weights, decomposed the industry robot indicators to the enterprise level, and empirically tested the impact of industrial robot applications on labor demand and wages of listed manufacturing companies in china (wang & dong, 2020). yu et al. (2021) empirically tested the impact of the use of robots on the relative wages of workers in non-routine tasks based on the "enterprise-worker" matching survey data of the manufacturing industry in guangdong province (yu, wei, sun et al., 2021). li et al. (2021) studied the employment effect of robots on enterprises by collecting the import quantity and amount of robots from the chinese customs trade database from 2000 to 2013. the use of robot indicators helps to understand the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market (li, wang, & bao, 2021). the most obvious feature of artificial intelligence is that it can give machines and equipment intelligence and replace humans to complete specific work tasks (wang, 2021). at present, more and more intelligent equipment or software has replaced labor, thereby reducing the labor demand of enterprises (chen, lin, & chen, 2019). especially for high-frequency, repetitive and clear-rule production activities, the use of intelligent equipment can replace part of manual labor, avoid enterprises from training related labor, reduce costs, and reduce accidental human errors. artificial intelligence technology can promote the technical level of non-routine and innovative work. based on machine learning and deep learning algorithms, artificial intelligence helps enterprises to avoid cognitive and ability limitations through more complex logical thinking processes, and ultimately make more scientific and reasonable decisions. existing literature points out that artificial intelligence has the three conditions of general purpose technology (gpt), namely, it can be widely used, can bring about continuous technological innovation, and can trigger corresponding innovation activities in the application field (goldfarb, taska, & teodoridis, 2023). therefore, the application of artificial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 143 intelligence at the enterprise level may promote the technical level of non-repetitive, non-routine and innovative work and stimulate the innovation ability of the workforce. 2.2 enterprise production efficiency enterprise production efficiency refers to the ability of enterprises to obtain maximum output by utilizing production factors (labor, capital, technology, etc.) during the production process. improving production efficiency means obtaining the maximum output at the lowest cost, which is usually achieved through technological progress, employee training, and process optimization. at present, domestic literature on enterprise production efficiency is rich in content and novel in perspective. enterprise production efficiency is affected by internal factors on the one hand and by the economic environment on the other. internal factors include internal management, internal ethics, technical level, and personnel quality, while external factors include the overall economic environment, economic cycle, urban planning, government policies, and various financial institutions. digital transformation is an internal factor of the enterprise. pan, zhang et al. (2023) found from the perspective of digital transformation that it drives internal technological innovation in enterprises and thus improves enterprise production efficiency. they further pointed out that the impact of digital transformation on different industries is different (pan, zhang & huang, 2023). zhang (2021) found that digital transformation has a significant effect on improving economic benefits, promoting enterprises to reduce costs and improve efficiency (zhang, shi, shi et al., 2022). liu (2022) found that capital allocation rate and labor allocation efficiency have a suppressive effect on enterprise production efficiency, and enterprise production efficiency also shows heterogeneity with the financial category and financial industry in which financialization is located (liu, liu & yang, 2023). wu (2021) found that the impact of social mobility on enterprise production efficiency is only reflected in factors such as high degree of household registration openness, competitive industries, non-state-owned enterprises and high quality of human capital, thereby improving enterprise performance to drive enterprise production efficiency (wu, zhang &yu, 2021). 2.3 factors affecting enterprise innovation performance enterprise innovation performance has always been the focus of researchers at home and abroad. a wealth of research has been conducted on the antecedents of enterprise innovation performance. these influencing factors can be summarized into five aspects: environment, organization, cross-organization and individual. environmental factors affecting enterprise innovation performance include variables such as government innovation policies, institutional environment, and industrial-financial integration. for example, luo et al. (2022) found that both the intensity and number of regional innovation policies can help promote enterprise innovation performance, and enterprise r&d investment plays a partial mediating role in this (luo, yang, & liang, 2022); xu (2020) found that industrial-financial integration can help improve the innovation performance of real enterprises, and optimizing the institutional environment can strengthen this effect (xu & zhou, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 144 scholars often discuss the factors that affect corporate innovation performance from the strategic perspective of internal resources and capabilities, involving variables such as enterprise scale, r&d investment, knowledge search, strategic orientation, intelligent manufacturing, and digital technology. for example, chi et al. (2020) explored the impact of enterprise scale on innovation performance and the mediating effect of r&d investment from the perspective of credit environment and knowledge stock (chi, yu, & ruan, 2020); chen et al. (2021) proposed and verified the positive impact of intelligent manufacturing on corporate innovation performance (chen, zhao, & lin, 2021); ye et al. (2020) proposed in the literature summary that many scholars believe that different types of knowledge search have an inverted u-shaped curve relationship with corporate innovation performance (ye, chen, & hao, 2020); han et al. (2020) found that the interaction between entrepreneurial orientation and employee orientation positively affects corporate innovation performance by promoting exploratory innovation (han, xie, & gao, 2020). the various technological trajectories of different digital technologies and applications may develop, conflict, and evolve at different speeds in different industries (ciarli, kenney, massini et al., 2021). cross-organizational factors that affect corporate innovation performance include open innovation, alliance competition, and platform digital capabilities. for example, yang and zhao (2020) found that the breadth and depth of open innovation have an inverted u-shaped impact on innovation performance, and competition and cooperation relationships are prone to form path dependence and damage innovation performance (yang & zhao, 2020); peng et al. (2020) revealed the impact of horizontal competition, vertical competition, contract governance, and relationship governance in alliance combinations on innovation performance from a dynamic competition perspective, and examined the secondary moderating effect of technological fluctuations and competition intensity (peng, gu, & zhang, 2020); benitez et al. (2022) found that digital leadership affects corporate innovation performance through corporate platform digital capabilities (benitez, arenas, castillo et al., 2022). finally, individual factors that affect corporate innovation performance involve different subjects such as entrepreneurs, senior managers, and employees. wu (2020) found that the direct impact of executive incentives on corporate innovation performance can be explained by maslow's hierarchy of needs, principal-agent theory, and tournament theory, and that different incentive methods have great differences in their effects on innovation performance (wu & fu, 2020); wu (2021) found that companies that treat employees well have higher innovation performance based on an instrumental stakeholder perspective (wu & zhang, 2021). 2.4 literature review existing research lacks a full explanation of the relationship between artificial intelligence and corporate innovation performance. according to the literature review, scholars' research on artificial intelligence mainly focuses on the study of artificial intelligence in the labor force. however, there has been no special research to construct a research model of artificial intelligence and corporate innovation performance and discuss the mechanism of action between the two, especially the lack of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 145 empirical research. at present, the impact on corporate production efficiency is mainly focused on the factors affecting corporate production efficiency, and few studies have explored its impact relationship with corporate goals. therefore, this article will explore the research on the impact mechanism of artificial intelligence, corporate production efficiency and corporate innovation performance. 3. empirical analyses 3.1 sample data selection and source this paper selects shenzhen and shanghai a-share listed companies from 2003 to 2023 as sample data, among which the explanatory variable artificial intelligence comes from the annual report of listed companies, the enterprise innovation performance data comes from the state intellectual property office , and the rest of the data comes from the guotai an ( csmar ) database. in order to ensure the reliability of the data analysis results, the sample data is processed as follows: exclude samples of listed companies in the financial industry; exclude samples of listed companies such as st and *st; exclude missing values of variables; and perform 1% and 99% quantile shrinkage on the sample data. through the selection and processing of the above data sample data, 36,590 valid sample data are finally obtained. table 1. variable definition table variable types variable name variable symbols variable description explanatory variables ai ai word frequency statistics of the parent company's annual report explained variable innovation performance inp patented natural logarithm mediating variables enterprise production efficiency tfp_op total factor productivity control variables company age size the natural logarithm of the total assets of the enterprise enterprise scale age the natural logarithm of the time since the company went public plus 1 debt-to-asset ratio lev asset liability ratio board size board natural logarithm of the number of board members equity balance shares the degree of checks and balances on shareholder equity return on assets roa enterprise roa value www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 146 proportion of independent directors indep number of independent directors/number of board members two jobs in one dual are the two positions combined? 3.2 descriptive analysis table 2 shows the descriptive statistical results of the research sample data, among which the mean value of enterprise innovation performance is 1.532, the maximum value is 6.321, the standard deviation is 1.635, and the minimum value is 0. through the descriptive result data statistics, it can be seen that the sample data is generally low in terms of innovation performance. the mean value of artificial intelligence is 0.778, the maximum value is 4.913, the standard deviation is 1.177, and the minimum value is 0. through the descriptive result data statistics, it can be seen that the sample data is generally low in terms of artificial intelligence. table 2. descriptive statistics variable n mean max sd min inp 36590 1.532 6.321 1.635 0 ai 36590 0.778 4.913 1.177 0 dual 36590 0.277 1 0.447 0 shares 36590 0.730 2.912 0.602 0.00510 indep 36590 37.28 60 5.411 13.33 size 36590 8.396 12.88 1.316 5.305 age 36590 2.898 3.705 0.376 1.322 board 36590 1.495 2.303 0.200 1.099 lev 36590 0.445 1.143 0.202 0.0395 roa 36590 0.0320 0.230 0.0717 -0.680 3.3 regression analysis table 3 shows the regression analysis results of the sample data, where columns (1) and (2) are without adding industry and year fixed effects, and columns (3) and (4) perform fixed effect analysis on industry and year; columns (1) and (3) add control variables, and columns (2) and (4) add control variables for regression analysis. as can be seen from table 3, the regression results of the four methods all have a positive effect at the 1% level, and it is concluded that the level of artificial intelligence is positively correlated with the level of corporate innovation performance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 147 table 3. regression analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) inp inp inp inp ai 0.3064 *** 0.2816 *** 0.2038 *** 0.1714 *** (43.2651) (38.2117) (23.7645) (20.4361) dual 0.2118 *** 0.0582 *** (11.2259) (3.5205) shares 0.0712 *** 0.0231 * (5.1419) (1.9053) indep 0.0012 -0.0038 *** (0.7824) (-2.7956) size 0.1925 *** 0.2226 *** (26.0172) (30.8871) age -0.3325 *** -0.4601 *** (-14.430) (-18.171) board -0.1995 *** 0.2569 *** (-4.6137) (6.5905) lev -0.5971 *** -0.2218 *** (-12.05 6 ) (-4.7908) roa 2.3887 *** 2.0849 *** (18.9569) (18.7296) _cons 1.2941 *** 0.9926 *** -0.3785 *** -1.2215 *** (129.5354) (8.7693) (-3.2218) (-8.0731) n 36590 36590 36590 36590 adj. r 2 0.049 0.092 0.285 0.326 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.4 robustness analysis in order to further verify the reliability of the conclusion, a robustness analysis was conducted on the sample data. table 4 shows the results of the robustness analysis of the sample data. column (1) in table 4 is the replacement variable method. its result is 0.1702 at the 1% level. column (2) is the one-period lagged explanatory variable, which can also be used as an endogeneity test. its result is significant at the 1% level, and the regression coefficient is 0.1709. column (3) is the result of deleting special years. due to the large fluctuations in the financial market in 2015, this special year was deleted for testing. the result is significant at the 1% level, and the regression coefficient is 0.1707. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 148 robustness analysis conducted by the above three methods is significant at the 1% level, indicating that the sample data has good robustness and the conclusion has good reliability. table 4. robustness analysis (1) (2) (3) inp1 inp inp ai 0.1702 *** 0.1707 *** (21.5599) (19.8634) l.ai 0.1709 *** (18.2899) dual 0.0564 *** 0.0379 ** 0.0676 *** (3.6212) (2.0994) (3.9811) shares 0.0171 0.0152 0.0275 ** (1.4967) (1.1523) (2.2129) indep -0.0014 -0.0039 *** -0.0039 *** (-1.0808) (-2.6718) (-2.7708) size 0.2273 *** 0.2285 *** 0.2232 *** (33.4859) (29.0537) (30.1737) age -0.4101 *** -0.4738 *** -0.4581 *** (-17.1986) (-16.4229) (-17.6648) board 0.2131 *** 0.2695 *** 0.2439 *** (5.8063) (6.3890) (6.1002) lev -0.2413 *** -0.2021 *** -0.2091 *** (-5.5338) (-3.9779) (-4.4007) roa 1.3708 *** 2.1207 *** 2.0952 *** (13.0759) (17.6648) (18.4905) _cons -1.4452 *** -1.2048 *** -1.1981 *** (-10.1428) (-7.2113) (-7.7398) n 36590 31768 34659 adj. r 2 0.347 0.321 0.326 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. 3.5 mediation analysis in order to further analyze the mechanism of artificial intelligence on enterprise innovation performance, the total factor productivity of enterprises is used as a measurement variable of enterprise efficiency for analysis. table 5 shows the results of artificial intelligence on enterprise innovation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 149 performance under the mediating effect of enterprise efficiency. the results are all at the 1% level, and the regression coefficient is positive. therefore, it is concluded that enterprise efficiency plays a mediating role in the effect of artificial intelligence on enterprise innovation performance. table 5. mediation analysis (1) (2) (3) inp tfp_op inp ai 0.1714 *** 0.0287 *** 0.1652 *** (20.4361) (7.9422) (19.6484) tfp_lp 0.1084 *** (8.8122) dual 0.0582 *** -0.0316 *** 0.0612 *** (3.5205) (-4.4237) (3.7038) shares 0.0231 * -0.0231 *** 0.0267 ** (1.9053) (-4.4148) (2.2099) indep -0.0038 *** -0.0007 -0.0036 *** (-2.7956) (-1.2196) (-2.6633) size 0.2226 *** 0.4246 *** 0.1579 *** (30.8871) (136.5669) (15.3443) age -0.4601 *** -0.0077 -0.4577 *** (-18.1713) (-0.7014) (-18.0951) board 0.2569 *** -0.0500 *** 0.2574 *** (6.5905) (-2.9753) (6.6115) lev -0.2218 *** 0.6749 *** -0.3127 *** (-4.7908) (33.7931) (-6.5988) roa 2.0849 *** 2.2032 *** 1.8024 *** (18.7296) (45.8884) (15.5749) _cons -1.2215 *** 2.2199 *** -1.4901 *** (-8.0731) (34.0166) (-9.6645) n 36590 36590 36590 adj. r 2 0.326 0.628 0.327 t statistics in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 150 5. conclusions and suggestions 5.1 research conclusions based on empirical data analysis, this study found that there is a significant positive correlation between the level of artificial intelligence and corporate innovation performance, confirming the core value of ai technology as a driving force for corporate innovation. specifically, artificial intelligence has significantly improved corporate innovation efficiency and achievement conversion rate through three major technical paths: algorithm optimization, data insight, and automated execution. this impact mechanism can be attributed to the breakthrough of ai technology in complex information processing capabilities: on the one hand, machine learning and natural language processing technologies can accelerate the explicitness of implicit knowledge and reduce information asymmetry in the innovation process; on the other hand, intelligent decision-making systems effectively shorten the cycle from idea generation to commercial application through dynamic simulation and predictive analysis. further mediation effect tests show that corporate efficiency has a partial mediation effect between ai and innovation performance (the indirect effect accounts for 32.7%), revealing the transmission chain of "technology empowerment-efficiency transition-innovation breakthrough". ai technology enables enterprises to break through the pareto efficiency frontier by reconstructing production functions (such as intelligent scheduling systems to reduce marginal costs) and optimizing resource allocation (such as digital twin technology to improve asset utilization), thereby strategically investing redundant resources in high-risk, high-return innovation fields. this finding expands the explanatory framework of technology adoption research from the perspective of dynamic capability theory and emphasizes the pivotal role of organizational efficiency change in the transformation of technological innovation value. 5.2 research recommendations in order to maximize the innovation effect of artificial intelligence, enterprises need to build a strategic system of "technology-efficiency-innovation". first, a gradient penetration strategy for ai deployment should be implemented, and technical pilots should be carried out in links with clear efficiency improvement potential such as supply chain management and customer demand analysis, and an internal technology trust mechanism should be established through quantifiable efficiency improvements. secondly, a multi-dimensional evaluation model for ai effectiveness should be established, and efficiency indicators such as process standardization rate and resource mismatch index should be included in the technology investment decision-making framework to avoid falling into the trap of technology worship of "ai for ai's sake". at the policy level, it is recommended to build an industry-specific ai efficiency benchmark database, and guide enterprises to identify the value depression of technology application by publishing tools such as the manufacturing industry intelligent transformation maturity index and the service industry human-machine collaboration efficiency white paper. at the same time, a special fund for ai efficiency optimization of small and medium-sized enterprises should be established to provide financing interest subsidies to enterprises that deploy efficiency-enhancing ai systems such as predictive maintenance and intelligent energy consumption www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 1, 2025 published by scholink inc. 151 management. in the field of academic research, in the future, we can further explore the mechanism by which the generational evolution of ai technology (such as the transformation from discriminative ai to generative ai) reshapes the efficiency structure of enterprises, as well as the regulatory effect of organizational routine rigidity on the ai 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(2022). enterprise digital transformation and production efficiency: mechanism analysis and empirical research. economic research, 35(1), 2781-2792. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2021.1980731 microsoft word assc-v3n3-p21 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 21 original paper curriculum experience and learning outcomes for creativity competence: empirical survey of undergraduates in the engineering domain professor amy shumin chen1* 1 center for general education, tatung university, taipei, taiwan received: june 6, 2021 accepted: june 16, 2021 online published: july 16, 2021 doi:10.22158/assc.v3n3p21 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v3n3p21 abstract in the last decades, creativity has been advocated as a key learning process in the engineering domain to advance college students’ abilities in technology and science. creative education becomes a mantra which is enhanced by educators, politicians, employees, teachers, professors, and students. creativity competency is viewed as a crucial solution to face the challenges of industrial promotion, human capital investments, and future societal strategies and overcome the social, economic, and educational problems. college students’ competency on creativity represent a series of attributes, behaviors, knowledge, and abilities required for successful learning performance in the engineering domain. this paper discusses on the results of an empirical study on college students’ competences in the engineering domain and their self-evaluation on their perception of creativity and creativity performance. universities are strongly expected to provide learning opportunities that foster and nurture creativity for students, hence creative education in engineering is an ongoing critical mission for both educational institutes and learners. the research was conducted through a testing questionnaire by theoretical literature review and focus group interviews with experts in engineering and education fields. the samples are tested by the instrument and there were 307 valid samples for analysis. the statistical method includes means, , and the structural equation model. the curriculum experience is the strongest correlation value (r=.55) to affect creativity achievements. the learning styles have an obvious influence on school environments (r=.44), and school environments are shown the same value (r=.45) to curriculum experience. the self-evaluation by students demonstrates that school environmental improvement remains a key agenda for universities to be aware of in developing creative plans and managements for students. the engineering domain is specialized though its professions in the logics of learning along side of maker spirits, and this study www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. leads us to have a clear observation among the various factors which influenced the educational plan or projects for college students. the conclusion provides suggestions for future empirical study and educational plans. keywords engineering education, creativity, undergraduate, competence 1. introduction universities are increasingly expected to provide more opportunities that foster and nurture creativity for students; hence creativity education in engineering is an ongoing critical mission for universities. however, the importance of implementing creativity education in the learning experiences has not been fully recognized (zhou, 2012). studying on developing undergraduates with original and critical thinking, creativeness, and innovativeness, a fundamental theory is needed to meet the learning outcomes of engineering professions. in the last decades, creativity has been advocated as a key learning process in the engineering domain to advance college students’ abilities in technology and science. creative education becomes a mantra which is enhanced by educators, politicians, employees, teachers, professors, and students. creativity competency is viewed a crucial solution to face the challenges of industrial promotion, human capital investments, and future societal strategies and overcome the social, economic, and educational problems. however, the traditional learning and teaching models are centered on the teacher and facilitate learning environments and achievements limited to the classroom. traditional teaching and learning assignments to some extent hinders the cultivation of creativity for the youth in their professional attainments and technological implements. college students’ competency on creativity represent a series of attributes, behaviors, knowledge, and abilities required for successful learning performance in the engineering domain. given that barriers exist in the engineer education for students, the case study of a university in this article mainly includes the colleges of engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, and design. the examined university has launched a pilot educational project “creative learning for engineering domains” that was funded by the ministry of technology and science in taiwan from 2015 to 2017. the “creative learning for engineering domains” project emphasizes the college students’ competences of creativity learning and improvements in the engineering domain to fit into the uncertain and evolving circumstances in the high-tech society. comprehensive universities provide diverse learning opportunities to cultivate the creativity of engineering students, which is a critical educational goal in the era of knowledge and technological innovation. the learning process that promotes creativity education is affected by different factors. among all, the path through curriculum experience can be regarded as a direct way of cultivation on creativity. in addition, the individual’s internal learning style and the external school environments are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. worthy to investigate. according to the profound experiences on teaching and learning in the engineering-related domains, the empirical evidence-based data and results are worthy of further exploring. therefore, the researchers conduct survey to explore the self-evaluation of the learning experience and creativity performance of engineering students. 2. purposes this research was conducted through a quantitative approach via a questionnaire and investigates students’ self-evaluations of their awareness and opinions regarding the learning experiences of creativity attainments in the engineering and technology courses. the study applies a structural equation modeling approach to examine the students’ creativity learning. the research aims to exploring the following issues: a. developing and implementing a survey instrument that corresponded to the theories of creativity competences. b. analyzing college students’ creativity competences based on the dimensions of learning styles, school environments, curricula experiences, and achievements in the learning outcomes c. assessing the relationships of the impact factors and influential values among latent variables through structural equation modeling (sem) d. providing conclusions and suggestions to academic and practical prospects for engineering education in colleges and universities 3. theoretical reviews development of new ideas and original product is a particularly human characteristic. the associated theories and perspectives about creativity stem far back into history, and a systematic study of it began in the middle of the last century. when guildford (1950) theorized “the structure of intellectual model” to examine the creativity of talent students, he inquired into how we can discover creative potential in our children and our youth and how we can promote the development of creative personalities. these issues should be observed in a long-term viewpoint to enforce the young generations’ achievements in their professional performance. the argument pointed towards a new way of thinking about personality to influence learning outcomes on creativity and creative productivity through education approaches. afterwards, williams (1972) expanded the testing of creativity scopes from the cognitive dimension to affection dimension and produced the four core factors: curiosity, imagination, risk-taking, and challenge-solving. while referring to the aspects of personality, torrance (1988) indicated that there are six psychological characteristics that affected individual achievements in creativity: courage, independence of thought and judgment, honesty, perseverance, curiosity and willingness to take risks. other than the above referred elements, csikszentmihalyi (1999) showed that a learner’s mutuality in professions, recognition toward domains, and personal performance are all influential factors when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. advancing an individual’s ability of creativity. going far beyond the previous stances, amabile (1996) proposed an approach to illustrate the factors of creativity for individuals by providing a comprehensive picture of how the motivation for creative behavior and creativity itself can be influenced by the social environment. more recently, amabile (2013) contributed the “componential theory of creativity” which is a model of integrating social and psychological dimensions for an individual to produce creative work. in these research findings, she indicated that the social context can influence motivation. on the contrary, motivation, in conjunction with personal skills and thinking styles, can lead to the expression of creative behavior within that context. besides the aspects of college students’ learning factors and influences, school environments are the most crucial sites for learners to gain creativity competences because it is a key agency to provide a learning environment that supports students and teachers to cultivate their abilities. the school environment establishes a site from formal to non-formal learning for students to be dedicated perception and perceive the value of creativity (white & lorenz, 2016). in other words, course experiences are crucial to students’ performance in enhancing of creativity attainments. mcdonough and mcdonough (1987) surveyed how the colleges and universities in the united states implement formal courses for creativity. they found that the response from 961 of the 1,188 schools indicated that they did not offer any courses in creativity and some schools conducted creativity courses but were omitted from the survey. it appeared that only a small number of colleges and universities in the united states prospected courses of creativity about 2 decades ago. curriculum experience is an exceptionally important part of college students’ development in the professional program (kliege & sherman, 2015). curriculum and pedagogy of engineer domains can convey by quality project work to train the students’ competences and further evaluates the students’ course learning outcomes (deepamala & shobha, 2018). yao (2020) evaluate students’ competence on engineer course of equipping the profession on the temperature control theory and assess student’s performance to attain goals of ‘the design process was clearly and logically described. the use of equations, figures, and other visual aids was effective’ and “the designed system provided steady-state error and overshoot temperature that are both within the safe egg hatching range. the system performance was thoroughly analyzed against the egg hatching requirements identified earlier.” the achievements by profound learning experience are critical to in sure students’ attainment on their professions. situating teaching goals as embedded in curricular frameworks, teacher practice and student experience which is illustrated in reflections on the cultivation of engineering education. students need to enact their role as professional engineers and teachers bring the tacit of creativity to the teaching and learning space which are necessary to overcome the lack of creativity in the engineering education (sipson, inglis, & sandrock, 2020). in these decades, the learning issues of creativity have become prevalent in higher education, but it is unclear how to best develop them to provide systematic skills and knowledge for learners. in essence, the course experience should entail teaching and pedagogical structures with a more concentrated and student-centered www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. approach to learn new patterns and prospects of creativity in the engineering domain. most researchers indicate the importance and influence of personal characteristics on creativity performance; on the contrary, csikszentmihalyi (1999) showed that a learner’s mutuality in professions, recognition toward domains, and personal performance are all influential factors when advancing an individual’s ability of creativity. since students take on different tasks while dealing with real engineer problems, it is necessary to develop multiple skills and to have mastery experiences for increasing students' self-confidence or self-efficacy. students’ engagement in classroom to achieve their learning outcomes also depend on the students’ gender or class participation, which are composed as students’ learning style (hirshfield & chachra, 2019). sternberg (2012) with his colleagues comprehended the invest theory of creativity as a leaping-off point for designing the assessments of creativity. this assessment tool provided a basic structure on the grounds that the elements of cultivating students’ creativity bear both verbal and nonverbal levels. it was limited in the domains chosen for analysis and the samples included ages ranging from elementary school through adulthood which didn’t focus on the undergraduates in the engineering fields. this research focuses on higher education and applies factor analysis and structural equation modeling as its empirical and data-based exploratory approach. to sum up, the students’ learning of creativity competences are influenced by the students’ personality of learning, school environment and designed curricula for students’ improvements. moreover, compared to previous analysis and theories, this study will focus on higher education and apply factor analysis and structural equation modeling. some articles that explore related topics use college students as survey samples, but the results lacked students’ worldviews or experiences (kukushkin & churlyaeva, 2012; sawyer, 2015). in order to extend our understanding to the empirical facts of the learners in their cultivation of creativity competences, this article will highlight the engineering college students’ standpoints. with respect to this, the study collected data of about college students’ self-evaluation on their perspectives and opinions towards undergraduates’ competency of interdisciplinary creativity in the asian context. 4. research method the above literature reviews provide a timely overview of the factors in creativity education and advance the components and structures of students learning on this subject. the researcher constructed a survey instrument according to the primary literature reviews and conducted focus group interviews to examine the questionnaire with experts who majored in the related fields. deepamala and shobha (2018) define score criteria for course of “computer science and engineering” as listed of: engineering knowledge, problem analysis, design and development of solutions, conduct investigations of complex problems, modern tool usage, the engineer and society, environment and sustainability, ethics, individual and team work, communication, project management and finance, and life-long learning. these components are basic reference for the development on research questionnaire. the research dimensions covered four aspects and each aspect is composed in question format. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. numbers of testing items are shown in table 1. the aspects include learning styles (6 items), school environments (4 items), curriculum experiences (7 items) and creativity achievements (5 items).the parentheses are shown as the number of testing items. table 1. the latent and observed variables for the survey instrument observed variables latent variables a1=developing day by day; a2=exploring new knowledge; a3=overcoming obstacles; a4=pursuing cooperation and opportunity; a5=inquiring complicated problems; a6=realizing things thoroughly learning styles (6 items) b1=the institutes emphasize creativity; b2=teachers advocate creativity; b3=events or competitions for students; b4=freedom and openness of school environment school environments (4 items) c1=cross-disciplinary; c2=creative thinking; c3=creative knowledge; c4=multiple perspectives; c5= exploring more possibility; c6=concretization ideas; c7=breaking limitations curriculum experiences (7 items) d1=sensitivity; d2=fluency; d3=flexibility; d4=originality; d5=elaboration creativity achievements (5 items) owning to the research design of time, budget, and sample size, the survey was conducted in a department of mechanical engineering in the university which is famous on its engineering education in taiwan. the quantitative research method of testing and survey are used to testify students’ achievements, opinions, skills, and learning-outcomes on students’ creativity achievements. the researcher established a questionnaire based on the literature review and launched a focus group interview with experts in the related fields for this study. the major and background of the experts are shown as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. table 2. experts for focus group interview expert major field expert major field a micro acoustic wave sensor, rf signal processing device, micro-generation、 acoustic touch panel d emotional design, human factor, product design, usability engineering, website design b human-computer interaction, context-aware computing, ubiquitous computing e electronic ceamics and glasses, sol-gel process, c material characteristics, communication technology, social computing, speech recognition multicast, recognition based learning, switching f semantic web, web2.0, engineering electronization of business, natural language processing, artificial intelligence the respondents of this survey were student taking courses related to the engineering domain. the survey was conducted on the students who took the courses that aimed to improve the learners’ creativity in the engineering domain. the control of measures was implemented by several principles as: being conscious of multiple roles, notifying participants of the goals of this survey, following informed-consent rules and respecting confidentiality and privacy. the students were allowed to stopatany stage when they intended to quit participating the survey. the subjects of each course are shown in table 3. table 3. testing sample of the courses courses n ％ evaluation on the ageing wisdom and creation 7 2.3 electronic ceramics 37 12.1 mechanic production 65 21.2 maker thinking 47 18.6 creative practice of the software service and design 53 17.3 advanced mechatronics systems engineering 7 2.3 design on electromechanics 41 13.4 digital maker 21 6.8 total 307 100.0 the samples’ backgrounds of sex and school years are shown as table 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. table 4. samples’ backgrounds n% variable % n variable school years sex 25.7 79 1st 80.5 247 male 3.9 12 2nd 16.9 52 female 36.2 111 3rd 2.6 8 unanswered 28.7 88 4th 2.6 8 above 5th 2.9 9 unanswered 100.0 307 total 100.0% 307 total in total, there are 307 completed samples that filled out the questionnaire. in order to describe the characteristics of the students’ background variables, the descriptive statistics of the samples are shown in table 4.the cronbach’s value for the reliability of the instrument is .946 and validity value of the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) is .943. both the reliability and validity of the questionnaire are good for analyzing. the results of the students’ opinions and perceptions on each item will be shown through the descriptive statistics. moreover, the relationship among all latent variables on influential and effect vales will testify by the structural equation modeling (sem). 5. descriptive and inferential statistical results the results on the survey of the descriptive statistics and the influential statistical methods of the structural equation model finds of college students’ competences in creativity of engineering domains areas follows. 5.1 means of each observed variable there are four aspects which present as latent variables in the questionnaire and the aspects are learning style, school environment, curriculum experience, and creativity achievement. the means of each observed variables are shown in table 5. the aspects of learning style are all higher than 3.18.among the aspects of school environments, the item of “open school environment” shows the lowest grades of 3.05. in general, the means of curricula experiences all shows higher than 3.39, and among the creativity outcomes criteria, the students evaluate that producing creative and unique ideas and solutions are the highest grades as 3.38. in substance, the students’ self-evaluation and performance demonstrate that the students learned and attained creativity knowledge, ability, and affection in their learning processes for professional development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. table 5. descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) of each variable sd m observed variables latent variables .628 3.18 a1=developing day by day; learning style .583 3.31 a2=exploring new knowledge; .558 3.36 a3=overcoming obstacles; .605 3.38 a4=pursuing cooperation and opportunity; .635 3.26 a5=inquiring complicated problems; .665 3.19 a6=realizing things thoroughly .733 3.30 b1=the institutes emphasize creativity; school environment .773 3.20 b2=teachers advocate creativity; .733 3.21 b3=events or competitions for students; .858 3.05 b4=freedom and openness of school environment .628 3.40 c1=cross-disciplinary; curriculum experience .602 3.51 c2=creative thinking; .601 3.47 c3=creative knowledge; .582 3.45 c4=multiple perspectives; .615 3.39 c5= exploring more possibility; .624 3.46 c6=concretization ideas; .552 3.45 c7=breaking limitations .550 3.32 d1=sensitivity; creativity achievement .624 3.33 d2=fluency; .600 3.34 d3=flexibility; .566 3.38 d4=originality; .624 3.33 d5=elaboration 5.2 estimation and goodness-of-fit test of structural equation model 5.2.1 test of the skew and kurtosis and the estimation method the lisrel identifies the pre-assumption parameter estimation method by maximum likelihood estimation. if the hypothesis violated the normality allocation, the generally weighted least square should be adopted (yu, 2006). kline (1998) mentioned that when the absolute vale of skew is less than 3.0 and the absolute value of kurtosis less than 10.0, the model can be viewed as univariate normal allocation. this study will examine the normality allocation before testing goodness-of-fit by statistical software of spss 12.0. in table 6, the analysis of the skew and the kurtosis are all with normal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. allocation and it is good for further testifying. it shows that all of the related coefficient reach to a significant level (p<.01) by exemplifying the 22observed variables in table 6, and the table further illustrates the relationship among all variables. the analytical model suits the parameter coefficient estimation and goodness-of-fit test. table 6. means, standard errors and the co-relationship values of the observed variables a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 b1 b2 b3 b4 c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6 c7 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 a1 1.00 a2 0.601.00 a3 0.600.62 1.0 0 a4 0.570.58 0.5 0 1.0 0 a5 0.580.59 0.5 4 0.6 6 1.0 0 a6 0.540.54 0.5 2 0.5 5 0.6 5 1.0 0 b1 0.310.28 0.2 1 0.2 2 0.2 7 0.2 5 1.0 0 b2 0.320.29 0.2 5 0.2 6 0.2 9 0.3 3 0.7 5 1.0 0 b3 0.310.25 0.2 6 0.2 1 0.2 5 0.2 7 0.5 5 0.5 9 1.0 0 b4 0.250.24 0.2 1 0.1 9 0.2 4 0.2 7 0.5 0 0.5 3 0.5 1 1.0 0 c1 0.410.32 0.3 0 0.3 4 0.3 0 0.3 6 0.4 0 0.4 1 0.3 4 0.2 9 1.0 0 c2 0.380.34 0.3 0 0.3 9 0.4 0 0.3 5 0.4 7 0.4 8 0.4 4 0.3 6 0.6 4 1.0 0 c3 0.410.35 0.2 6 0.3 4 0.2 9 0.3 4 0.4 5 0.4 4 0.4 2 0.3 3 0.6 0 0.6 9 1.0 0 c4 0.410.42 0.3 4 0.4 6 0.4 0 0.3 6 0.4 1 0.3 9 0.3 5 0.2 8 0.6 5 0.7 1 0.6 8 1.0 0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. c5 0.380.31 0.3 4 0.3 9 0.3 6 0.4 0 0.3 7 0.3 7 0.4 3 0.2 8 0.5 8 0.5 9 0.5 3 0.5 7 1.0 0 c6 0.360.33 0.3 7 0.3 5 0.3 6 0.3 7 0.4 1 0.4 2 0.4 0 0.3 2 0.6 5 0.6 9 0.6 5 0.6 7 0.5 8 1.0 0 c7 0.350.32 0.3 2 0.3 5 0.2 8 0.3 3 0.3 8 0.3 8 0.3 6 0.3 7 0.6 3 0.6 9 0.6 5 0.6 5 0.6 0 0.7 1 1.0 0 d1 0.480.40 0.3 9 0.4 5 0.3 7 0.4 2 0.4 7 0.5 1 0.4 7 0.3 9 0.4 8 0.5 6 0.5 3 0.5 5 0.4 5 0.5 2 0.5 4 1.0 0 d2 0.400.37 0.3 4 0.3 7 0.3 7 0.3 9 0.3 9 0.4 2 0.3 8 0.2 8 0.4 6 0.5 5 0.4 5 0.5 3 0.5 0 0.4 9 0.5 3 0.6 1 1.0 0 d3 0.420.37 0.3 7 0.3 7 0.4 2 0.4 0 0.2 8 0.2 9 0.3 5 0.2 9 0.4 0 0.4 1 0.3 6 0.4 8 0.4 6 0.4 9 0.4 3 0.5 7 0.5 1 1.0 0 d4 0.360.35 0.3 2 0.3 3 0.3 6 0.3 6 0.3 9 0.3 8 0.3 5 0.3 3 0.4 1 0.5 9 0.5 3 0.5 2 0.4 0 0.5 3 0.5 5 0.5 5 0.6 9 0.5 2 1.0 0 d5 0.450.37 0.4 0 0.3 6 0.4 1 0.4 2 0.3 8 0.3 7 0.2 9 0.2 9 0.4 7 0.5 2 0.4 6 0.5 1 0.4 3 0.4 9 0.5 1 0.5 5 0.5 0 0.6 0 0.5 8 1.0 0 m 3.183.31 3.3 6 3.3 8 3.2 6 3.1 9 3.3 0 3.2 0 3.2 1 3.0 5 3.4 0 3.5 1 3.4 7 3.4 5 3.3 9 3.4 6 3.4 5 3.3 2 3.3 3 3.3 4 3.3 8 3.3 3 sd .63 .58 .56 .61 .64 .67 .73 .77 .73 .86 .63 .60 .60 .58 .62 .62 .55 .55 .62 .60 .57 .62 skew -.31 -.38 -.36 -.49 -.36 -.37 -.80 -.63 -.62 -.66 -.64 -.90 -.84 -.50 -.57 -.89 -.30 -.01 -.37 -.41 -.22 -.46 kurtosi s .14 .52 .65 -.14 -.29 -.21 .20 -.25 -.02 -.17 -.12 .33 .75 -.68 -.11 .62 -.96 -.67 -.66 -.10 -.78 -.19 note. the definition of each variables: a1 developing day by day, a2 exploring new knowledge, a3 overcoming obstacles, a4 pursuing cooperation and opportunity, a5 inquiring complicated problems, a6 realizing things thoroughly, b1 the institutes emphasize creativity, b2 teachers advocate creativity, b3 events or competitions for students, b4 freedom and openness of school environment, c1 cross-disciplinary, c2 creative thinking, c3 creative knowledge, c4 multiple perspectives, c5exploring more possibility, c6 concretization ideas, c7 breaking limitations, d1 sensitivity, d2 fluency, d3 flexibility, d4 originality, d5 elaboration. 5.2.2 estimation on goodness-of-fit for the structural equation model the estimation on the goodness-of-fit for the structural equation model can be evaluated by the tests of offending estimates, overall goodness-of-fit, and internal goodness-of-fit. the test results areas follows: offending estimation test it shows the findings of the parameter estimation of model without negative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. error variations and no overlarge standardize errors. the results corresponded to the principles of “no negative error variations of the theoretical model” and “the standardized errors small.” moreover the absolute value is not close to 1 for fitting the testing standard. overall goodness-of-fit test it includes the measures of absolute fit, the parsimonious fit measures, and the incremental fit measures. the test value is shown in table 7. table 7. significant test and of all the estimated parameter and the overall standardized estimated value parameter loading ss t value λx11 .80 ss 14.58 λx21 .81 .76 14.59 λx31 .78 .76 13.48 λx41 .81 .72 14.48 λx51 .83 .76 15.56 λx61 .79 .80 14.01 λx12 .86 .74 λx22 .88 .84 16.18 λx32 .80 .87 12.46 λx42 .75 .70 10.89 λx13 .67 .63 λx23 .75 .77 15.53 λx33 .68 .85 14.31 λx43 .72 .80 14.98 λx53 .58 .83 12.48 λx63 .73 .71 14.99 λx73 .72 .83 14.78 λy11 .65 .82 λy21 .68 .78 13.58 λy31 .62 .77 12.03 λy41 .69 .70 18.60 λy51 .64 .78 12.75 5.2.3 overall goodness-of-fit test overall goodness-of-fit test overall goodness-of-fit test includes the measures of absolute fit the parsimonious fit measures and the incremental fit measures. the test value of overall goodness-of-fit test shows as table 8. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 33 published by scholink inc. over all goodness-of-fit test includes evaluations of the measures of absolute fit, the parsimonious fit measures and the incremental fit measures. the values of each estimated value are shown in table 8. the measure of absolute test shows that the analysis model of the gfi value is .90. the srmr value is .039 less than .08, and the rmsea is .047 less than .05. all the values show that the variation among various samples is stable with goodness-of-fit. the established model and the observed data are with goodness-of-fit. the measure of parsimonious test of cn value is influenced by the sample size and its value is 205. the pgfi of .72 and rmsea of .80 are all with goodness-of-fit. the incremental measure of the nfi, nnfi, and cfi values are .91, .96, and .96. the results show that the theoretical model and observed data is with goodness-of-fit to explain the empirical data. table 8. overall abstracts of the goodness-of–fit in the model measured values p values values of the test goodness-of-fit absolute measure χ2 ≧.05 0.00 fit srmr value ≦.08 0.039 fit rmsea value ≦.05 0.047 fit gfi value ≧.90 0.90 fit parsimonious measure pgfi value ≧.50 0.72 fit pnfi value ≧.50 0.80 fit cn value ≧200 205.46 fit incremental measure nfi value ≧.90 0.91 fit nnfi(tli) value ≧.90 0.96 fit cfi value ≧.95 0.96 fit 5.2.4 goodness-of-fit for the testified model the test of the testified model shows that the factor loading values are all higher than .05and correspond to the evaluation standards of significance in all factor loading values. the average variance extracted (ave) of the latent variables are in the following order: .64, .68, .69, and .66. moreover, all the 22 observed variables of the component reliability are .89, .84, .93, and .87.they are all reached the evaluated standards with good reliability in the model. table 9. abstract of the testified model www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. latent variables observed variables standardize d coefficient factor loading average variance extracted component reliability learning styles a1developing day by day 0.80 0.65 0.64 0.89 a2exploring new knowledge 0.81 0.66 a3overcoming obstacles 0.78 0.60 a4pursuing cooperation and 0.81 0.65 a5inquiring complicated problems 0.83 0.69 a6realizing things thoroughly 0.79 0.62 school environments b1the institutes emphasize 0.86 0.74 0.68 0.84 b2teachers advocate creativity 0.88 0.78 b3events or competitions for 0.80 0.64 b4freedom and openness of school environment 0.75 0.57 curriculum experience c1cross-disciplinary 0.82 0.67 0.69 0.93 c2creative thinking 0.87 0.75 c3creative knowledge 0.83 0.68 c4multiple perspectives 0.85 0.72 c5exploring more possibility 0.76 0.58 c6concretization ideas 0.86 0.73 c7breaking limitations 0.85 0.72 creativity achievements d1sensitivity 0.81 0.65 0.66 0.87 d2fluency 0.82 0.68 d3flexibility 0.79 0.62 d4originality 0.83 0.69 d5elaboration 0.80 0.64 5.3 inferential statistical results of structural equation model the structural equation modeling (figure 1) illustrated that engineering students’ performance and attainments in creativity are influenced by the personal learning style, school environments, and curriculum experiences in their creativity achievements. it shows that in this model each aspect impacts the results of creativity achievements. among all of them, the curriculum experience is the strongest correlation value (r=.55) to affect creativity achievements. the learning styles have an obvious influence on school environments (r=.44), and school environments are shown the same value (r=.45) to curriculum experience. on the other hand, the school environments can directly impact on creativity achievements as the correlation value of r=.16, which is less strong in the model. other results demonstrate that the correlation values of learning styles to curriculum experience arer.38 and that towards creativity achievements are r=.28. this model. from the development of the interdisciplinary creativity questionnaire as well as the empirical survey, this article contributes to discourses and reflections related to the educational research and its practical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. progress. the research found the structural relationship among various dimensions and factors based on the data from an empirical survey, pointing out factor values and an influential route concerning the cultivating model of college students’ competences on creativity for higher education in the engineering domain. this structural equation model shows that college students in engineering domains learn and perform the creativity competence influenced by different factors. overall, two strongest factors show influences on the students' creativity learning outcomes. the highest influential variable is students’ learning style and the second one is students' experience within curriculum. the engineering domain students' accumulations and achievements of creative performance are obviously rooted in the solid curriculum plan and practices. the experimental results also enact and reveal the functions and missions for universities on cultivating creativity capacity for young generation. χ2=329.78, df=203, p<.000, rmsea=0.047 figure 1. the structural equation model of the creativity achievements in the engineering domain note. each factor in the model was indicated by four to seven indicators described as follows: (1) a1=developing day by day; a2=exploring new knowledge; a3=overcoming obstacles;a4=pursuing cooperation and opportunity;a5=inquiring complicated problems;a6=realizing things thoroughly. (2) b1=the institutes emphasize creativity; b2=teachers advocate creativity; b3=events or competitions for students;b4=freedom and openness of school environment. (3) c1=cross-disciplinary; c2=creative thinking; c3=creative knowledge;c4=multiple perspectives;c5= a. learning styles (6) 0.45 b. school environments (4) 0.28 c. curriculum experiences (7) 0.44 0.16 0.38 0.55 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 0.39 0.40 0.46 0.40 0.51 d. creativity achievements (5) b4 b3 b2 b1 0.30 0.51 0.24 0.61 a1 a5 a3 a4 a6 a2 0.42 0.42 0.36 0.42 0.48 0.45 c2 c3 c5 c1 c4 c6 c7 0.40 0.28 0.37 0.32 0.32 0.50 0.33 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 36 published by scholink inc. exploring more possibility; c6=concretization ideas; c7=breaking limitations. (4) d1=sensitivity; d2=fluency; d3=flexibility;d4=originality;d5=elaboration. 6. conclusions and implications 6.1 conclusions this study explores engineering students’ self-evaluation of their competences on creativity achievement which is influenced by personal learning styles, school environment, and curriculum experiences. foremost, the author establishes a survey questionnaire to examine the performance and opinions of college students, and its reliability and validity illustrates that the instrument are good for testing the empirical circumstance. the self-evaluation by students demonstrates that school environmental improvement remains a key agenda for universities to be aware of in developing creative plans and managements for students. there exists a significant influence in the relationship between the dimensions of personal learning styles, school environments, curriculum experiences, and learning outcomes on creativity competences. the conclusion of this model provides a positive stance for higher education to establish a whole-set structure on educating the youth with the ability of creativity. the engineering domain is specialized though its professions in the logics of learning along side of maker spirits, and this study leads us to have a clear observation among the various factors which influenced the educational plan or projects for college students. these conclusions will further contribute to the philosophy and theory in advancing creativity competences of the learners. the research established the survey instrumental questionnaire and the coefficient of cronbach’s α and kmo (kaiser-meyer-olkin) showed results in a good measure level. all the coefficient of cronbach’s α of the latent variables are higher than .850 and the performance of each kmo value is above .835 with good value. this means that the questionnaire established by the researcher is with good reliability and validity for scientific implement in surveys. research findings shows that students are willing to learn from and cooperate with the other people or teams which enhance the capacity of creativity. to reach this goal, teachers have to lead students with more patience to understand new knowledge and motivate students to study and learn. the students agree with the schools’ efforts on cultivating their creativity, but indicate that the learning environments should be more free and open. this implies that a more adequate learning environment is necessary for creative development. teachers present good performance on advancing students’ application of skills and methods in creativity, but are lacking in providing students’ cross-disciplinary and cross-boundary thinking to progress in the future. as for the students’ achievement in their learning outcomes on creativity, it is observed that most of the students can gain particular ideas and skills through the curriculum, but students still need helps on “constantly improvement on attitudes or methods” and “deliberately to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. discover or realize the things differences.” overall speaking, students have good performance in some aspects and require promoting attitude and ability in specific competences. 6.2 implications for research and practices this study was conducted in a taiwanese context with its own special cultural and educational tendencies, and it needs future testing in different fields and countries for a comparative study. the results of this paper derive from students’ self-evaluation in questionnaires, and it is also critical to collect information through in-depth interviews and focus group meetings to understand the individuals’ viewpoints and affections. the practical movements in the higher education prevail to improve teaching and learning processes on creativity in the engineering domain and promote youth competence and competition in future industrials and countries. tatung university has been promoting the creativity cultivation for students, and the “creative learning for engineering domains” project will be implemented for three years in total. in this study, the author suggests that the curriculum strongly impacts students’ performance in their creativity achievements. therefore, the emphasis on creativity should correspond to the curriculum reform in the long term and the teachers’ ability to convey competences to students. references amabile, t. m. (1996). creativity in context. boulder, co: westview press. amabile, t. m. (2013). componential theory of creativity. in e. kessler (ed.), encyclopedia of management theory (pp. 135-140). thousand oaks, ca: sage. csikszentmihalyi, m. (1999). in r. j. sternberg (ed.), implications of a systems perspective for the study of creativity. cambridge university press, cambridge. ttps://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511807916.018 deepamala, n., & shobha, g. (2018). effective approach in making capstone project a holistic learning experience to students of undergraduate computer science engineering program. jotse: journal of technology and science education, 8(4), 420-438. https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.427 guilford, j. p. (1950). creativity, american psychologist, 5, 444-454. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0063487 hirshfield, l. j., & chachra, d. (2019). comparing the impact of project experiences across the engineering curriculum. international journal of research in education and science, 5(2), 468-487. jahnke, i., haertel, t., & wildt, j. (2017). teachers’ conceptions of student creativity in higher education. innovations in education and teaching international, 54(1), 87-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2015.1088396 klieger, a., & sherman, g. (2015). physics textbooks: do they promote or inhibit students’ creative thinking. physics education, 50(3), 305-309. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9120/50/3/305 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. kukushkin, s., & churlyaeva, n. (2012). the problem of engineering creativity in russia: a critical review. european journal of engineering education, 37(5), 500-507. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2012.718999 mcdonough, p., & mcdonough, b. (1987). a survey of american colleges and universities on the conducting of formal courses in creativity. journal of creative behavior, 21(4), 271-282. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1987.tb00485.x sawyer, k. (2015). a call to action: the challenges of creative teaching and learning. teachers college record, 117(10). simpson, z., inglis, h., & sandrock, c. (2020). reframing resources in engineering teaching and learning. africa education review, 17(3), 175-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2019.1693899 sternberg, r. j. (2003). wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511509612 sternberg, r. j. (2012). the assessment of creativity: an investment-based approach. creativity research journal, 24(1), 3-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2012.652925 torrance, e. p. (1981). empirical validation of criterion-referenced indicators of creative ability through a longitudinal study. creative child and adult quarterly, 6, 136-140. white, i., & lorenzi, f. (2016). the development of a model of creative space and its potential for transfer from non-formal to formal education. international review of education, 62(6), 771-790. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9603-4 williams, f. e. (1972). encouraging creative potential. new jersey, nj: educational technology publications. yao, j. (2020). temperature control project that facilitates learning of difficult concepts in control theory. aee journal, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.18260/3-1-1115-36020 zhou, c. (2012). fostering creative engineers: a key to face the complexity of engineering practice. european journal of engineering education, 37(4), 343-353. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2012.691872 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 5, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 125 original paper school district housing buyers and educational investment returns: a case study of x district in shanghai lei zhang1 1 fudan university, shanghai, china received: september 17, 2024 accepted: october 20, 2024 online published: november 01, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n5p125 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n5p125 abstract as a dual carrier of educational resources and economic assets, school district housing has become an important tool for family educational investment and social class reproduction. this paper takes shanghai's x district as an example to explore, from a sociological perspective, the purchasing behaviors of different groups regarding school district housing and their educational investment returns. it reveals the key role of school district housing in the accumulation of cultural and social capital. the study finds that high-income families, the middle class, and the working class in x district exhibit different demand tendencies when purchasing school district housing, reflecting goals of obtaining high-quality educational resources, expanding social capital, and achieving upward social mobility, respectively. the phenomenon of school district housing exacerbates the imbalance in the distribution of educational resources and limits social mobility. keywords school district housing, housing buyers, educational returns, investment returns 1. introduction 1.1 research background and problem statement in contemporary china, housing is not only a basic need for living but is also closely related to the distribution of social resources and the maintenance of family social status. especially school district housing, as a unique type of real estate, represents a family's investment in children's educational resources and carries the expectation of achieving social class reproduction through education. with the increasing scarcity of high-quality educational resources, the price of school district housing continues to rise, making the purchase of school district housing one of the main ways for many families to obtain high-quality education. among urban high-income and working-class families, school district housing has become a symbol of social mobility, with families seeking competitive advantages for their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 126 children in education and future society through its purchase. as china's economic and cultural center, shanghai exhibits uneven and hard-to-regulate distribution of high-quality educational resources, making school district housing a target for various groups. shanghai's x district possesses abundant educational resources, attracting numerous families to purchase school district housing. such housing not only increases the investment returns of real estate but also plays a key role in the accumulation of family cultural and social capital. however, this phenomenon exacerbates inequality in the distribution of educational resources, further solidifying social classes and limiting social mobility. therefore, studying the purchasing behaviors of different groups regarding school district housing and the educational investment returns behind them holds significant sociological importance. 1.2 research significance the phenomenon of school district housing reflects not only economic issues in the real estate market but also deep-seated social concerns regarding resource distribution, class reproduction, and social inequality. by studying the purchasing behaviors of school district housing in shanghai's x district, we can reveal the strategic choices of different social classes in acquiring educational resources and how school district housing, as a means of accumulating cultural and social capital, affects a family's social status and future development. additionally, this paper will explore the impact of school district housing on social mobility and educational equity, further analyzing its long-term effects on the entire social structure. 1.3 research objectives and questions the main objective of this paper is to explore, through the study of shanghai's x district, the behavioral patterns exhibited by different social classes during the purchase of school district housing and the educational investment returns behind them. the specific research questions are: what are the motivations and behavioral differences of families from different social classes when purchasing school district housing? how does school district housing, as a tool for accumulating cultural and social capital, affect a family's educational investment returns? what impact does the phenomenon of school district housing have on social mobility and educational equity? by answering these questions, this paper hopes to reveal the underlying mechanisms behind the phenomenon of school district housing and provide new perspectives for improving the distribution of educational resources and promoting social equity. 2. literature review 2.1 relevant research at home and abroad the phenomenon of school district housing is not uncommon globally, especially in areas with uneven distribution of educational resources. as carriers of educational resources, school district houses have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 127 become the primary choice for family educational investment (black, 1999). in foreign research, developed countries like the united states and the united kingdom have long attracted researchers' attention to the school district housing market, particularly concerning educational equity and social class reproduction (gibbons & machin, 2003; reardon & bischoff, 2011). american scholars have studied the correlation between school district housing prices and school rankings, finding that high-quality educational resources significantly drive up housing prices. purchasing school district housing has become an inevitable choice for middle-class families to obtain quality education (figlio & lucas, 2004). simultaneously, school district housing is closely related to the solidification of social classes; low-income families, unable to afford the high prices of school district housing, are excluded from high-quality educational resources, leading to inequality in educational opportunities (owens, 2016). in china, attention to the phenomenon of school district housing has been increasing. although policies like "key schools" and "nearby enrollment" were introduced as early as the last century, the concept of school district housing didn't truly emerge until around 2005 and rapidly gained traction around 2010. researchers point out that the formation of school district housing is not merely the result of combining "key school" and "nearby enrollment" policies but is also influenced by housing market reforms and real estate development (chen, shi, & ji 2017). with accelerated urbanization and uneven distribution of educational resources, school district housing has become the focal point of family educational investment. researchers have revealed the premium mechanisms of school district housing prices and their profound impact on the distribution of educational resources by comparing the prices of school district housing and educational resources in different cities. mao et al. (2014) used data from hangzhou's main urban area to study the impact of high-quality educational resources on school district housing prices, finding significant premiums for houses with access to such resources. additionally, chen et al. (2017) point out that the formation of school district housing is inseparable from cultural traditions and social structural changes. chinese families have always valued investment in their children's education, and the implementation of the one-child policy has further strengthened this educational expectation. families concentrate their limited resources on their children's education, making the purchase of school district housing an important way to access high-quality educational resources and achieve social class reproduction. 2.2 school district housing and social class reproduction pierre bourdieu's theory of cultural capital provides an important theoretical foundation for studying the phenomenon of school district housing (bourdieu, 1986). bourdieu posits that cultural capital includes education, language, knowledge, taste, etc., and becomes a key factor in maintaining and reproducing family social status through intergenerational transmission (bourdieu & passeron, 1990). in the context of school district housing, high-quality educational resources are manifestations of cultural capital. families acquire these resources by purchasing school district housing, not only preparing their children for future competitiveness but also reinforcing the family's social status www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 128 (lareau, 2003). thus, school district housing becomes an important tool for transmitting cultural capital, especially in the context of social class solidification, providing middle-class families with a way to maintain their class advantages (nash, 1990). moreover, james coleman's social capital theory offers another perspective for understanding school district housing (coleman, 1988). coleman believes that social capital comprises the resources and support obtained through interpersonal networks (coleman, 1994). in purchasing school district housing, families not only gain access to high-quality educational resources but also form beneficial social networks for their children's development by interacting with other families possessing high cultural and social capital (horvat et al., 2003). this accumulation of social capital enables families to enhance their children's cultural capital through educational resources and lay a foundation for their future social competitiveness through interpersonal networks (putnam, 2000). researchers also point out that local governments and real estate developers play crucial roles in the formation of school district housing. local governments use high-quality school resources to drive real estate development and gain fiscal revenue (jiang, 2010). real estate developers enhance property values by collaborating with prestigious schools, further driving up housing prices (li & yu, 2015). chen et al. (2017) also pointed out that school district housing has evolved into another means for governments, schools, developers, and related stakeholders to extract wealth from families. 2.3 multi-dimensional analysis of school district housing purchase behavior from an economic perspective, as a scarce resource, the price of school district housing is mainly influenced by supply and demand (rosen, 1974). due to the scarcity of high-quality educational resources, school district housing prices are often higher than ordinary residences, and purchasing such housing is considered a form of educational investment by families (glaeser & mare, 2001). economists have found that these prices reflect families' emphasis on education and are closely related to future economic returns (brunner et al., 2012). purchasing school district housing not only brings direct cultural capital accumulation as children receive high-quality education but also contributes to family economic capital through property appreciation (hilber & mayer, 2009). chen et al. (2016) pointed out that the high premium of school district housing reflects the additional costs homeowners are willing to pay for their children to enjoy superior educational resources. the purchasing behavior of school district housing is closely related to social stratification and social mobility (savage et al., 2005). such behavior is not only a manifestation of a family's economic capability but also part of accumulating social and cultural capital (ball, 2003). middle-class and high-income families ensure their children's advantages in educational competition by purchasing school district housing, thereby achieving class reproduction (reay et al., 2011). in contrast, the working class views school district housing more as an opportunity for upward mobility, attempting to help their children break existing social class limitations by accessing high-quality educational resources (brooks, 2008). however, some studies indicate that the popularity of school district housing leads to further imbalance in educational resources, exacerbating social class solidification (chen, shi, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 129 & ji, 2017). additionally, this phenomenon has triggered widespread societal anxiety. chen et al. (2017) believe that the craze for school district housing reflects major social concerns such as educational inequality, residential stratification, and the solidification of social classes. 2.4 innovation of this study although domestic and international studies have revealed the multiple functions of school district housing as a tool for educational resources and social capital accumulation, most research focuses on either economic or singular sociological perspectives. the innovation of this paper lies in combining cultural capital and social capital theories to comprehensively explore school district housing as a dual carrier of family educational investment and social class reproduction, analyzing its impact on families of different social classes. additionally, using shanghai's x district as an example, this paper adopts both quantitative and qualitative research methods to conduct empirical analysis of school district housing purchasing behavior, further revealing its profound impact on educational equity and social mobility. 3. research methodology to deeply explore school district housing as a dual carrier of family educational investment and social class reproduction, this paper takes shanghai's x district as an example, adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to systematically study the purchasing behaviors of school district housing from 2020 to 2022. by analyzing families from different social classes, we aim to reveal the motivations behind purchasing school district housing and its impact on educational investment returns. first, we selected shanghai's x district as the research object. this district, rich in educational resources and with a mature school district housing market, can typically reflect the differences and commonalities among various social classes regarding such purchases. the research subjects include high-income families, the middle class, and the working class, representing different economic capabilities and social statuses. high-income families possess strong economic strength and tend to purchase premium school district housing to obtain better educational resources and social capital; the middle class mainly aims to maintain their existing class status by purchasing school district housing to ensure their children enjoy quality education; the working class aspires to achieve upward social mobility by purchasing school district housing, hoping education can change their children's social standing. for data collection, this paper adopts a combination of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. to understand the motivations and educational investment returns of different families purchasing school district housing between 2020 and 2022, we designed a standardized questionnaire. the questionnaire includes core parts such as family income, purchasing motivations, expected educational investment returns, and criteria for selecting school district housing. a total of 200 questionnaires were distributed, and 180 valid responses were collected, covering families with various income levels and occupational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 130 backgrounds to ensure data representativeness and reliability. additionally, to delve deeper into the real motivations of families when purchasing school district housing and their evaluations of educational returns, we conducted in-depth interviews with 10 representative families. these families came from high-income, middle-class, and working-class backgrounds, selecting 3 to 4 typical representatives from each class. the interviews mainly focused on the purchasing decision process, expectations versus actual experiences regarding educational returns, and the impact of school district housing on family economics and social life. through face-to-face, in-depth communication, we obtained rich qualitative data, providing important background support for quantitative analysis. in data analysis, quantitative data were mainly processed using r programming language. first, we conducted descriptive statistical analysis to depict the basic characteristics of families from different social classes, purchasing motivations, and educational investment expectations, identifying the overall characteristics of school district housing purchasing behavior. second, we used multiple regression models to analyze the impact of purchasing motivations, family income levels, cultural capital, and social capital accumulation on educational returns, revealing the relationship between purchasing behavior and educational returns. finally, we conducted significance tests on the differences in purchasing motivations and educational investment returns among high-income families, the middle class, and the working class, clarifying the differences in purchasing behaviors among different classes. for qualitative data, we adopted thematic analysis. by repeatedly reading and coding the interview records, we extracted key themes such as purchasing motivations, decision-making processes, and educational expectations. similar codes were grouped to form core themes regarding the purchasing behaviors of families from different social classes. combining the specific contexts of the interviewees, we deeply explained the differences in strategies for accumulating cultural and social capital among various social classes. 4. empirical analysis based on surveys and interviews with school district housing buyers in shanghai's x district from 2020 to 2022, this paper deeply explores the characteristics, motivations, and educational investment returns of families from different social classes during the purchase of such housing. by combining quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, we found that the phenomenon of school district housing presents significant differences among social classes, profoundly impacting educational equity and social class reproduction. first, the characteristics of school district housing buyers vary significantly across social classes. high-income families with a monthly household income exceeding 50,000 yuan have significant economic strength. when purchasing school district housing, they focus on acquiring top-tier educational resources and view such housing as a crucial means of accumulating cultural and social capital. these families actively participate in school and extracurricular activities, establishing close www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 131 connections with other families possessing high cultural and social capital, thereby expanding their children's social networks. for them, school district housing is not only a means to access quality educational resources but also a strategic investment to ensure their children's future competitiveness. the income of middle-class families ranges between 20,000 and 50,000 yuan, and these families have relatively stable economic conditions. their main purpose in purchasing school district housing is to ensure their children receive quality education to maintain the family's existing social status. in the purchasing process, these families pay more attention to the property's value retention and appreciation potential, viewing school district housing as a long-term investment that offers both educational and economic returns. however, compared to high-income families, middle-class families have relatively limited accumulation of cultural and social capital. they rely more on the educational resources of the school district itself and are less proactive in expanding social networks. working-class families generally have a monthly income below 20,000 yuan and face greater economic pressures. despite limited financial capacity, they strive to purchase school district housing, hoping to achieve upward social mobility through quality education. their purchasing behavior often entails significant economic burdens, with the cost of school district housing consuming a large portion of household income, potentially affecting their quality of life. however, they hold high expectations for educational investment returns, hoping their children can change the family's social status by entering high-quality schools. second, purchasing motivations for school district housing differ across social classes. while access to quality educational resources is a common primary motivation, there are evident class-specific characteristics concerning cultural and social capital accumulation, as well as the preservation and appreciation of economic capital. high-income families emphasize accumulating cultural and social capital through school district housing, actively engaging in social activities to build advantageous networks for their children. middle-class families balance educational needs with economic affordability, focusing on the cost-effectiveness and long-term value of the housing. working-class families concentrate mainly on acquiring cultural capital, aiming to help their children overcome social class limitations through quality education, but economic pressure limits their investment in social capital accumulation. third, there are noticeable differences in educational investment returns among social classes. high-income families often achieve significant educational returns, with children attending key schools, excelling academically, and gaining more opportunities for further education and employment through extensive social networks. middle-class families' children benefit from good educational environments and perform well academically but have relatively limited access to social capital. the educational returns for working-class families are uncertain; some children gain entry into quality schools, but the high housing prices and living costs impose heavy burdens on the family, potentially affecting educational investment and overall life quality. finally, the phenomenon of school district housing has profound implications for social class www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 132 reproduction. high-income families consolidate their social status through such housing, with their children maintaining advantages in education and career development, achieving stable class reproduction. middle-class families strive to maintain their existing social status, but opportunities for upward mobility are limited. working-class families attempt to achieve upward mobility through school district housing, but economic and resource constraints make this goal difficult to attain, potentially exacerbating economic pressures. in summary, as an educational investment tool, school district housing plays different roles across social classes. to some extent, it exacerbates inequality in educational resources, reinforces social class solidification, and limits equitable social mobility. addressing this phenomenon requires in-depth policy considerations to promote balanced distribution of educational resources, alleviate social inequities arising from school district housing, and foster positive societal development. 5. conclusion and discussion 5.1 conclusion through empirical research on school district housing buyers in shanghai's x district, this paper reveals the significance of such housing as a tool for accumulating cultural and social capital and its profound impact on social stratification and class reproduction. the main conclusions are: 5.1.1 school district housing as a dual carrier of cultural and social capital school district housing is not only the primary means for families to access high-quality educational resources but also an essential tool for accumulating cultural and social capital. by purchasing such housing, high-income families not only provide their children with superior educational resources but also transform these resources into measurable educational achievements, such as admission to prestigious schools and better career prospects. additionally, the communities and school environments associated with these houses offer rich social capital. through parent meetings, school activities, and social networks, they enhance connections with other high social capital groups, providing strong support for their children's social mobility and future career development. 5.1.2 the phenomenon of school district housing exacerbates social stratification and class solidification the high prices of school district housing result in significant disparities among social classes in accessing high-quality educational resources. high-income families can easily afford these costs, ensuring their children enter key schools and consolidate their social status. while middle-class families can purchase such housing, their actions mainly aim to maintain their current status, making upward mobility difficult to achieve. the working class faces greater economic pressures; their original intention in purchasing school district housing is to achieve upward mobility through education, but in reality, this goal is often unattainable, and the purchase may even reduce the overall quality of family life. this situation further exacerbates class solidification, making inequalities in educational resource competition among different social classes more apparent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 5, 2024 published by scholink inc. 133 5.1.3 uneven distribution of educational resources limits social mobility the linkage between school district housing and high-quality educational resources makes access heavily dependent on a family's economic capability. this phenomenon makes it challenging for middleand low-income families to obtain quality educational opportunities through such housing, limiting their children's social mobility. although middle-class and working-class families have invested significant economic resources in school district housing, the divergence in educational returns further reinforces social inequalities. particularly for the working class, their disadvantaged position in educational resource distribution limits social mobility, leading to a more rigid social structure and pronounced issues of educational equity. 5.1.4 discrepancies between expected and actual educational investment returns although school district housing is widely regarded as an important investment to obtain high-quality educational resources and enhance children's social status, there are discrepancies between the expected and actual returns across social classes. high-income families typically realize their anticipated educational returns, with children excelling in high-quality educational environments and smoothly progressing into higher education. for middle-class and especially working-class families, despite paying high costs for school district housing, they may not receive corresponding educational returns. this gap between expectations and reality further reflects inequalities in resource distribution within the context of school district housing. 5.2 discussion the underlying mechanisms of the school district housing phenomenon are not merely economic but also involve the operation of social and cultural capital. this study's empirical analysis demonstrates the central role of school district housing in educational resource competition. different social classes attempt to secure or enhance their social status through its purchase, but the high costs create inequitable competition. future research could extend to other regions to compare differences in this phenomenon and utilize longitudinal data to analyze its long-term effects on family educational returns and social mobility. additionally, examining the impact of policy changes on the 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(2005). capitals, assets, and resources: some critical issues. british journal of sociology, 56(1), 31-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2005.00045.x advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper research on the commercialization of shu brocade jing zou 1 & metta sirisuk 2* 1 faculty of fine-applied arts and cultural science, mahasarakham university, thailand 2 mahasarakham university, thailand * metta sirisuk, e-mail: malimbs2019@gmail.com received: december 18, 2022 accepted: january 24, 2023 online published: january 26, 2022 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p39 abstract shu brocade is an important part of chinese traditional culture, and it is also the first of the “four famous brocades” in my country. shu brocade has long been not only a handicraft, but also a symbol of cultural commodities, which has been integrated into literary works throughout the ages, into our daily consumption, and even into the 5,000-year-old chinese traditional culture. many handicrafts were eventually abandoned by history because of the complexity of inheritance techniques or because they could not keep up with the trend of the times. however, shu brocade has been passed down from generation to generation for more than two thousand years, from ancient times to modern times. this is in line with the huge cultural characteristics and commodity value is inseparable. keywords shu brocade, commoditization, cultural characteristics, value 1. introduction shu brocade, a specialty of chengdu, sichuan province, is a product of china’s national geographical indication. from the han dynasty to the three kingdoms period, the general name of the special brocade produced in shu county (now chengdu, sichuan). the artistic features of shu brocade, shu brocade is mostly woven with dyed cooked silk threads, with warp threads for flowering, color strips for coloring or color strips for adding flowers, geometric patterns and patterns for matching. the patterns of shu brocade draw a wide range of materials, such as myths and legends, historical stories, zhanxiang inscriptions, landscape figures, flowers, birds and animals, etc., which have been continuously developed and refined for thousands of years, and have a high level of generalization and artistic level. traditional patterns such as dragon and phoenix patterns, group patterns, flower and bird patterns, curly grass patterns, geometric patterns, pairs of birds and animals, squares, halo pleats, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. brocade groups are still popular among the people. shu brocade weaving technology. shu brocade uses mulberry silk raw material as warp and weft threads. according to the production process and specifications of shu brocade, through the combination of several processes, the structure of mulberry silk is changed, so that twisted raw silk becomes exquisite, delicate and colorful shu brocade, this process is generally known as the traditional weaving process of shu brocade. the main process of shu brocade consists of four parts: the preparation process of silk weaving, the weaving process of silk weaving, the dyeing process of skeined silk and the patterning process. figure 1. shu brocade replica (collection of suzhou museum) the development of shu brocade has gone through many dynasties. it rose in qin and han dynasties, flourished in tang and song dynasties, and declined in the late ming dynasty. it was restored in the middle and late qing dynasty, but it fell into crisis again in modern times. while in chinese after the founding of the republic of china, due to the guidance and related policies given by the state, shu brocade has also been once brilliant. however, with the development of my country’s industrialization process, handlooms have been gradually replaced by modern loom replacement, in today’s rapid development of global information technology, people’s consumption concept has changed, various cultural products are becoming more and more abundant, and consumers have more and more choices. shu brocade has lost the original strong competitiveness has had an impact on the shu brocade consumer market, which has led to an important factor for the decline and development difficulties of shu brocade. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. 2. the cultural characteristics and value of shu brocade the patterns and patterns of shu brocade are an important part of the history and culture of ancient shu. shu is the birthplace of taoism and has been deeply influenced by taoist culture. “auspicious meaning” is the traditional thinking of the people of shu. the implicit meaning reflects the pattern of shu brocade that “the picture must be intentional, and the meaning must be auspicious”. the common themes of its patterns include lions, tigers, deer, elephants, peacocks, bats, mandarin ducks, butterflies, fish, bees, longevity turtles, cloud geese, cranes, peony, lotus, hibiscus, comprehensively deformed treasure-like flowers and symbols of smoothness. the characters of longevity and blessing. the color of shu brocade is influenced by the taoist “five elements” theory, with red, yellow, blue, white and black as the five square colors of shu brocade, orange, yellow and purple as secondary colors, red-gray, blue-gray and yellow-gray as complex colors, and the rest are complementary colors. . ancient shu people worshiped. the red color of the sun, so people in shu liked beautiful and bright colors. through color reconciliation, stains, etc., weaving shu with folk themes characteristics and value of brocade in the development process of shu brocade, popular culture will have an impact on shu brocade. the development of brocade has a huge impact, moreover, shu brocade also takes inspiration from traditional colors by absorbing color skills and textile skills innovate the new style of shu brocade. for example: “pair tang dynasty lianzhu” chicken pattern brocade” the pattern of this brocade is for chickens, and the color is mainly rice. in warm colors like white, the whole brocade is well done in terms of layering and other aspects. gives an elegant and generous, harmonious and simple visual effect. pattern of “lantern brocade” the pattern is mainly made of lanterns of different shapes, and orange is the main color of “lantern brocade” there will be other tones locally, and these colors can be combined flexibly to create a harmonious whole. the meaning of the image shows people’s beautiful vision of national security and prosperity, and a good harvest. shown in the book. “yuehua brocade” is the most representative shu brocade of the late qing dynasty. “yuehua brocade” shows the smudge effect vividly, through the color transition, it gives the weaving surface a strong sense of rhythm and layering, “crescent moon” and “rain silk” the warp silk color selection subtly shows a very vivid sense of the image, giving people a clear enjoy able visual experience. 2.1 the origin of the commercialization of shu brocade sichuan was called “the state of shu” in ancient times, and it is also the “country of silkworms”. it is the earliest origin of the mulberry silk industry and one of the birthplaces of chinese silk culture. among all regions in china, brocade first appeared in sichuan, which is actually inseparable from its hot and humid climate. sichuan has a low latitude and is located in a basin, with more precipitation and a hot and humid climate. it belongs to the subtropical monsoon climate zone and has a pleasant climate. it is rich in water resources and the environmental conditions are suitable for the growth of silkworms. the humid climate, fertile soil and sufficient sunshine are very conducive to the growth of silkworm leaves, the food supply of silkworms is sufficient, and the excellent geographical environment makes chengdu’s silk production high. because, at the same time, dye plants such as safflower and madder www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. are produced here for the dyeing of silk fabrics, and sichuan has a splendid culture and rich historical connotation, and its handicrafts and agriculture are more prominent, providing a variety of silk fabrics. sufficient conditions, so the earliest silk fabrics were bred here. benefiting from the favorable geographical environment, chengdu’s silk production is relatively high, and the supply resources of shu brocade are sufficient and high-quality. the beauty of shu brocade lies not only in the pattern, but also in the brocade itself. professor appadurai from the steinhardt school of culture, education and human development at new york university professor appadurai pointed out that “commodification” refers to a process in which the value of things and activities is measured by their exchange value in a trade environment. (appadurai-1986-p3-63) during the spring and autumn period and the warring states period, or even earlier, with chengdu as the center, the shu brocade industry has already begun to flourish. it is also sold overseas through the silk road. chengdu is the starting point of the “southern silk road”. silk fabrics start from chengdu and pass through yunnan to southeast asia and south asia. the road”. on this road, merchants sold shu brocade, linen, qiong bamboo sticks and other goods to burma, india, and central asia, north africa and europe. with the opening of the “northwest silk road” since the qin and han dynasties, shu brocade was transported to chang’an, the starting point of the “silk road” in the northwest through shu road, or directly connected to the “northwest silk road” through wenguan road, diepan road, etc. then transfer to the western regions, north africa and european countries. the commercialization path of shu brocade for export has been constructed. shu brocade was not only a commodity in foreign trade at that time, but also a source of military expenditures for troops. the value of shu brocade established its attribute of becoming a commodity. 2.2 the prosperous period of commercialization of shu brocade in the tang dynasty, the country was unified, the economy was prosperous, the form was more open, and the costumes became more and more gorgeous. datang culture absorbs and accommodates many exotic styles and foreign cultures with an open attitude, absorbs, melts and reconciles, and tends to be integrated. artists at that time also liked to express foreign themes, including foreign gods and saints; and absorbed those creative styles and techniques that were different from their own. the pattern art of the tang dynasty has reached an unprecedented glorious period, because of its high level, it has the same historical status as the contemporary tang poetry, calligraphy and painting. tang poetry, calligraphy and painting. the tang dynasty was the most brilliant period of shu brocade art. this is because the brocade craftsmanship at that time continued to develop on the basis of exchanges between china and the west, and new varieties such as twill warp brocade, plain weave brocade, twill weft brocade and double-sided plain weave brocade were created. 2.3 the decline period of shu brocade commercialization when the two dynasties, the southern song dynasty and the northern song dynasty, alternated, zhao gou, the then king of kang, fled to the south of the yangtze river in order to avoid the pursuit of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. jin dynasty army in the north at that time. then hangzhou in the south quickly became the political, cultural and economic center. the weaving industry developed rapidly. the mongol empire launched a war to destroy the southern song dynasty. during the 45 years from the demise of the southern song dynasty in 1279, the mongols launched an unprecedented and fierce aggression in sichuan. this mighty empire, famous for its massacres and frightening europe, has captured chengdu three times. frequent wars have led to the decline of shu brocade, and the silk weaving industry in the jiangnan region has gradually surpassed the silk weaving industry in sichuan. until the ming and qing dynasties, the sichuan area was stricken by war again, and the silk weaving industry was completely destroyed. the silk weaving industry in sichuan area gradually declined. figure 2. shu brocade with lianzhu pattern restored (now in horyu temple, japan) the arab empire also experienced regional divisions, scuffles and annexations between the 9th and 13th centuries. in the turbulent situation in eurasia, the silk road was mostly blocked by the huns, which made the security of the north and south silk roads unable to be guaranteed. instead, the maritime silk road was used. after the southern song dynasty, shipbuilding skills improved at this time, the maritime silk road emerged and gradually replaced the land silk road, the cultural integration hotspots moved from the inland to the coastal areas, the maritime silk road became more and more prosperous, and the jiangnan area and the southeast coast became china in economically developed areas, foreign trade has grown rapidly. during this period, although the structure of china’s overseas trade export commodities changed from silk to porcelain, the demand for silk fabrics continued to increase. with more income, the local silk industry flourished. in addition to its geographical, social and economic advantages, the silk weaving industry in the jiangnan region has also achieved significant growth at the technical level, replacing the traditional warp weaving technology represented by shu brocade, which has a thousand-year-old tradition, and the status of shu brocade in the country has gone into decline. 2.4 opportunities and challenges for the development of modern shu brocade with the reform and opening up, the combination of state investment and self-raised funds, and technological transformation, the silk weaving industry has developed rapidly. people’s demand for brocade is no longer based on clothing and fabrics that are warm, but can reflect the because of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. historical and cultural heritage of silk art, collections, etc., shu brocade is deeply loved by people and has developed rapidly. in 2006, shu brocade weaving skills were approved by the state council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. due to the variety of entertainment and consumption patterns made possible by emerging technologies in modern society, shu brocade has little appeal among young people. in souvenir selling points in various scenic spots, fake shu brocade products are rampant, full of mixed products of shu brocade and fake shu brocade products. the shu brocade products they sell are usually cheaper than authentic shu brocade products, and they can attract the attention and choice of ordinary tourists. therefore, the sales of high-cost authentic fabrics of shu brocade products are impacted, and consumers lack purchases. thoughts on the commercialization of shu brocade traditional hand weaving techniques shu brocade handicrafts have profound connotations and meanings. to develop shu brocade fabrics, they must first be commercialized. brand building plays an important role in the inheritance of handicrafts. in the process of inheritance and development of shu brocade, mining its cultural connotation, enhancing its brand value, and establishing a perfect brand awareness are important measures to effectively expand the market and promote the economic benefits of shu brocade. the traditional hand-woven products of shu brocade cannot be limited to decoration, but need to be used in more practical products. 3. method the research method is qualitative and the writing method is descriptive analysis. during this research process, researchers gather information through field trips and literature reviews. first, in the fieldwork, the researchers interviewed some shu brocade artists, shu brocade practitioners, and government officials. the content of the interview mainly includes the development of shu brocade from ancient times to modern times, the impact of social development on shu brocade, the public’s recognition of shu brocade, on the other hand, based on the collected literature, a comprehensive summary and analysis of the commercial development of shu brocade is carried out. 3.1 research population 3.1.1 the non-genetic inheritor of shu brocade hu guangjun, the provincial representative inheritor of shu brocade weaving skills in sichuan province, the director of the shu brocade special committee of the chengdu arts and crafts industry association, and the vice chairman of the chengdu ancient shu brocade research institute. hu guangjun, 71 years old this year, has been engaged in shu brocade weaving and pattern weaving for 50 years. those engaged in shu brocade art work ye xiaoqian, from chengdu shu brocade weaving and embroidery co., ltd. (shujiang brocade institute), as a shu brocade worker, is mainly engaged in the weaving work of shu brocade. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. 3.1.2 social groups who appreciate shu brocade shu brocade paper, journal publisher (yuanyuan from sichuan normal university, zhuo yueru from chengdu university, jin ren from chengdu university, li kunyang from guizhou normal university, etc.) 3.1.3 shu brocade trading business group huang ping, the general manager of sichuan jindi clothing co., ltd., the founder of the original shu brocade weaving, is mainly engaged in the production of shu brocade ready-to-wear clothing and shu brocade accessories. committed to the pursuit of the beauty of shu brocade, let shu brocade go to the whole country and the world. 3.2 instrumentation/too 3.2.1 record book for fieldwork, drawing, measurement, etc... 3.2.2 interview questionnaire the interview question form is one of the important information gathering tools. according to the research questions formulated in advance, they will be submitted to the interviewees in advance in written form. respondents will have a clearer understanding of the survey content. if there is something that they don’t understand, the surveyor is obliged to provide a targeted explanation so that the respondent can understand the survey question clearly and correctly. researchers can also ask new questions about the respondent’s answers, or consider more in-depth interviews. at the same time, the question-and-answer format allows the participants in the question-and-answer session to maintain communication and flexibility, giving the interviewee enough time to consider the problem. after the interview, you can consider whether you need to organize a more in-depth interview based on the interview process and results. the interview can be conducted with different people or with the same person multiple times. interviews can be obtained mainly through informal channels (including key person interviews, random interviews with shu brocade practitioners) and literature search. tools for recording audio and video, namely cameras and camcorders. 3.3 data collection 3.3.1 document collection: collect the literature and data of shu brocade library, refer to textbooks, library books, electronic libraries, personal research and papers and journals on shu brocade library 3.3.2 field work data collection is mainly concentrated in the museum of shu brocade and shu embroidery, other museums, archives and other places that collect shu brocade. the collection and creation related exhibitions and collection exhibition records are used as the original data for the development of shu brocade, and information is collected on-site from the perspective of shu brocade-related participants. intuitively understand the daily behavior of participants, better understand the subjective thoughts of participants, and understand some objective factors related to the social activities of shu brocade, and have an in-depth understanding of its connotation and operation mode of shu brocade. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. 3.3.3 fieldwork notebook the work record can be used as one of the personal data of the researcher. the main content is research goals, research plans, time arrangements, etc. you can also set big goals for different time periods. at the same time, it should also include list, address, contact information, matters needing attention, time arrangement, research researchers for funding and other content. researchers need to view work records determine the time of the work phase and the consideration of different work phases. finally, work records can be stored in research data as auxiliary data. 3.4 data analysis 3.4.1 chinese government support with the support of the state, on may 20, 2006, shu brocade weaving skills were approved by the state council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. item no. viii-16. and provide special funds to inherit and develop shu brocade art. 3.4.2 commercial production and operation of shu brocade under the condition of the management of modern shu brocade and the survival and income of craftsmen, shu brocade is produced and operated by continuously expanding the consumer group. 3.4.3 china has opened its doors to many countries, and the shu brocade handicraft market has further expanded, attracting foreign tourists to buy local products with distinctive culture. constantly innovating, meeting the market demand of the source country, leading consumption, and deeply loved by foreign tourists. 4. result as a well-known intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship in sichuan, shu brocade is developed and researched as a commodity, and its value existence is discussed from the aspects of history, culture and weaving skills of shu brocade, and the attractiveness and core competitiveness of shu brocade as a commodity are analyzed. the unique cultural characteristics and preciousness of shu brocade fully demonstrate the high value of shu brocade. with its unique cultural charm, shu brocade has strong artistic and cultural value and commodity value in modern society. under the relatively backward conditions of ancient technology, people rarely have the flexibility to reconcile and integrate such richly colored textiles. with the development of the times, these folk-themed silk fabrics with harmonious colors and interweaving provide materials for our archaeological research on the social, economic and cultural environment of the past dynasties. shu brocade is the most representative work of the chinese nation and the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient chinese people. in contemporary times, the cultural value, economic value .and archaeological value of shu brocade have been perfectly presented. there are still many deficiencies in the research on the commercialization of shu brocade in this paper. first, the research on the weaving skills of shu brocade remains at the theoretical stage, lacking practical experience in production practice. therefore, the techniques www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. discussed are more inclined to the theoretical level; the second is the theoretical research. due to the limitations of my own knowledge and thinking, the in-depth and comprehensive aspects of analyzing problems and proposing countermeasures need to be further improved; finally, the writing ideas and expressions of the article are not rigorous enough, and it will be difficult for future academic research. needs to be further improved. 5. discussion the subject of this research, “research on the commercialization of shu brocade, involves the development history of shu brocade in the past three thousand years. this research analyzes the commercialization process of shu brocade from the perspective of research text and research ideas. first, in the existing research on shu brocade, the researchers’ research results most of them focus on the development process of shu brocade and the changes of shu brocade art. they focus on the development of shu brocade as a work of art, but ignore the research on the connection and commercialization of shu brocade with chinese people and chinese society. but in fact, shu brocade the development of shu brocade does not exist independently. the development of shu brocade is related to the change of social background, the progress of economic foundation and the strength of science and technology to varying degrees. the neglect of the relationship between shu brocade and chinese people and chinese society has led to the existence of related research on shu brocade. certain academic limitations. acknowledgement looking back on the two years of master’s study and research work, i have received enthusiastic help and strong support from many teachers, classmates and friends in my studies, research and life. here, i would like to express my sincere thanks to them! first of all, for the completion of today’s paper, thanks to the careful guidance of my supervisor, dr. mateta sirisuk, who gave me a lot of extremely useful suggestions and specific guidance in scientific research, and devoted a lot of effort to the writing and review of the paper. in addition, dr. mateta sirisuk cared and cared for me in life and thought. here, i would like to express my great thanks again! secondly, i am very grateful to dr. supachai singyabuth for his help, he gave me a lot of help and support for my study and scientific research, and gave me many valuable opinions and suggestions. once again, i would like to thank my classmates and friends in thailand. during the wonderful time of living, working and studying together, the sincere encouragement and selfless help you gave me are unforgettable. references yang, c. y. (2007). on the inheritance and protection of shu brocade. sichuan silk, 2007(04). hu, g. j., & tan, d. (2013). on shu embroidery and its traditional weaving skills. modern silk www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. science and technology, 2013(02). deng, x. (2003). a preliminary study on the culture of shu brocade. sichuan silk, 2003(03). appadurai, a. (1986). introduction: commodities and the politics of value[a] //appadurai a. the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective (pp. 3-63). london: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819582.003 china textile science and technology history editorial committee. (1980). the first episode of the history of chinese textile science and technology (pp. 50-51). beijing: beijing textile research institute. yang, c. y. (2007). on the inheritance and protection of shu brocade. sichuan silk, 2007(04), 47-49. li, k. y. (2018). the value and significance of the inheritance and development of shu brocade cultural and creative products. tourism overview (second half month), 2018(02), 229. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 74 original paper cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china under the background of the “b&r” hai q. tian 1 & yi j. wei 2 1 school of liberal arts, metharath university, pathumthani, thailand 2 school of conservation, shanghai institute of visual arts, shanghai, china received: march 12, 2023 accepted: april 16, 2023 online published: april 21, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n2p74 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n2p74 abstract there is an increasing demand for interdisciplinary foreign language talents who master multiple foreign languages and cultures, innovation ability, and management ability, especially under the “belt and road” background. however, cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china is facing many dilemmas. in order to meet the interdisciplinary foreign language talents demand of the international economic development along the “belt and road”, the author puts forward some strategies based on symbiosis theory adopting a comparative method. this article aims to explore methods of cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china and supply high-quality interdisciplinary foreign language talents for the “belt and road”. keywords interdisciplinary foreign language talent, foreign language education, higher education, western china, the “belt and road” initiative 1. introduction in september 2013, president xi jinping proposed the “belt and road” initiative (bri), also known as the “silk road economic belt” and the “21st-century maritime silk road” (ingrid, 2021). the promotion of this project needs active participation of many factors, but interdisciplinary foreign language talents are the most critical and active factors for building the “belt and road” (b&r). cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents should reflect the deep integration of the tool and the humanism of foreign language education, and integration of foreign language, politics, finance, trade, management, law, and other related professional knowledge. wen and si (2018) summarized the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. development process of interdisciplinary foreign language talents training in china and divided the reform and practice process into four stages: the initial stage from the 1940s to reform and opening; the experimental formation stage from the early stage of reform and opening to 1999; the mature stage from 2000 to 2010; the critical reflection stage from 2010 to now. many documents include cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents, for example, “some advice on the reform of undergraduate education in foreign language majors facing the 21st century,” (1998), “the outline of college english teaching for english majors” (2000), “the national standards for the class teaching of the undergraduate course of common colleges and universities (foreign language literature)” (2018), and “foreign language literature professional undergraduate course of common colleges and universities teaching guide” (2020). so far, the relative administrators have not adjusted the higher education majors and disciplines in western china in time according to the b&r strategy. therefore, the talents’ supply of foreign language and other majors cannot meet the demand of the b&r. furthermore, many problems in higher education in western china exist in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents, such as single-subject training mode, incomplete coverage of the non-common language, large scale of common language, and low integration with related majors, which lead to the fragmentation and simplification of the knowledge structure of college graduates in western china. however, constructing the b&r needs interdisciplinary foreign language talents, who should have not only excellent professional knowledge and skills, but also good foreign language expression ability. in other words, it is to achieve the “inter-discipline of knowledge, skills, and thinking” (chen, 2018). in order to solve above problems, this paper tries to explore the dilemmas and find the strategies in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents, and aims to explore methods of cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china and supply high-quality interdisciplinary foreign language talents for the b&r. the innovation of the present paper is based on symbiosis theory and supplies the macro symbiosis of “giurp” (government, industry, university, research, and practice). research questions of this paper focus on: (1) what are the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china? (2) which strategies should be adopted in prompting foreign language talents’ development in higher education western china? the current paper is based on symbiosis theory. german biologist anton de barry proposed the term “symbiosis” in 1879. the symbiosis in biological theory refers to the relationship of common survival and co-evolution between different organisms according to certain substances. the symbiosis is the relationship formed by symbiotic units in a symbiotic environment according to a symbiotic mode. this “relationship” is the result of the joint action of symbiotic units, symbiotic mode and symbiotic environment (feng et al., 2012). symbiotic unit refers to the basic energy exchange unit that can constitute a symbiotic system or symbiotic relationship. the interaction between symbiotic units exists in a certain environment, in other words, the symbiotic environment, which can be understood as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. sum of all factors outside the symbiotic unit (majumdar, 1997). how symbiotic units interact and co-exist in a symbiotic environment is a symbiotic model. mutualism is one of the symbiotic modes, that is a bidirectional resource output mode in which new resources generated by symbiotic units under the action of symbiotic interface are distributed among symbiotic units. since the mid-20th century, symbiosis theory has been applied in social science. until the 21st century, ehrenfeld j. applied symbiosis theory to industrial economy, which further enriched the content of symbiosis theory, such as learning mechanism (ehrenfeld, 2004). in symbiosis theory, there is a dynamic relationship between symbiotic unit and symbiotic environment. while the symbiotic unit is optimized, the external symbiotic environment correspondingly gets the evolution of reciprocity (yang, 2010). in other words, higher education in western china as a symbiotic unit, with the development of the society in the b&r environment such as policy, technology, economic form a dynamic symbiotic relationship, and in this relationship contains the corresponding symbiotic unit. higher education in western china promotes the evolution and development of other symbiotic units in the symbiotic system for mutual benefit. at the micro level, the symbiosis of the training of interdisciplinary talents in higher education is synergistic symbiosis in the environment of colleges and universities in western china, so at the micro level, it reflects the integration between disciplines. at the macro level, colleges and universities need to cooperate with the government, industry, research institute, enterprise. in the symbiotic system of training interdisciplinary talents in higher education, the interaction between symbiotic units is not a closed and independent development, but in symbiotic environment which is the b&r environment in this paper. mutualism among symbiotic unites is the ideal mode of symbiosis and the most stable state of symbiosis. the cultivation of interdisciplinary foreign language talents will change from the mode of professional education, general education to interdisciplinary talents education, but they will dynamically coexist in a long time. the formation of symbiosis is not the simple superposition of three symbiotic elements but dynamic interaction. the cultivation of interdisciplinary foreign language talents in essence is integration of knowledge and subject in higher education and integration of “giurp”, and form symbiotic mode in the b&r environment, so the symbiosis theory could be the basis of analyzing cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china under the background of the b&r. 2. method the participants of the present paper are foreign language talents in higher education in western china. the reason for choosing foreign language talents in higher education in western china is that they cannot meet the demands of the b&r. the paper adopts a comparative method based on symbiosis theory. according to a comparative method, the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china are divided into the limitations of higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. education as symbiotic unit in micro symbiosis and the international “giurp” (government, industry, university, research, and practice) disjointed in macro symbiosis. accordingly, the strategies includes micro and macro for interdisciplinary foreign language talents’ development in western china. the micro strategy is to break through the limitations of higher education, while the macro strategy has two aspects as follow. (1) play the role of think tanks and rationally construct the mode of integration of the “giurp” as symbiotic system in international education. (2) universities and enterprises should connect and form a collaborative education community like symbiosis system. the process of design is illustrated in figure 1. figure 1. the process of design 3. result according to two research questions above, based on the symbiosis theory, the result is as follows. 3.1 the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china there are two aspects of the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china. it includes the limitation of higher education lacking area studies and imperfect curriculum setting in micro, and “giurp” disconnection in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in macro. (1) area studies talents lack in interdisciplinary foreign language. first of all, area studies teams for interdisciplinary foreign languages are weak. on the one hand, area study level is not ideal. the depth and breadth of research lack in higher education in western china, as well as a lack of connection with the actual demand in area study for interdisciplinary foreign language talents along the b&r. on the other hand, higher education in western china lacks area study scholars with great academic influence, and their research results are scattered. second, higher education in western china has insufficient cooperation awareness of area study. on the one hand, researchers in higher education in western china have insufficient awareness of academic contact with each other in area study, cross-campus, and cross-regional cooperation. on the other hand, constructing higher education resource-sharing platforms for area study in western china is insufficient. in addition, there is little coherence between the undergraduate and postgraduate level of area studies in the interdisciplinary foreign language curriculum in western china. last, there are some problems between foreign languages and area studies integrating. foreign language teaching and area studies teaching are not integrating in higher education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. in western china. imperfect curriculum setting exists in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents. the curriculum is the key to cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents. a survey on the quality of postgraduate education in china in 2017 showed that international postgraduate students’ satisfaction with the curriculum, teaching methods, and evaluation methods of postgraduate training in western china was low (liu, 2017). most higher education in western china cannot meet the requirements on curriculum setting, mainly reflected in four aspects: (1) the number of interdisciplinary foreign language faculty is insufficient. (2) compared with the proportion of english classes, the proportion of other languages is too small. (3) the curriculum lacks the culture along the b&r. (4) the primary evaluation mechanism for a subject is the institution assessment, which exists many problems. (2) the confusing situation of the international “giurp” is severe in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china. constructing the b&r service by higher education and enterprises is a single operation with localization and fragmentation. it is difficult to establish a complete service system covering countries along the b&r. in implementing the bri, the integration level of international “giurp” in western china is relatively superficial, with low quality and poor effect, and it is still in the exploratory stage. in a word, under the bri, interdisciplinary foreign language talents in higher education in western china are faced with significant dilemmas such as the limitations of high education itself including the lack of area studies talents and imperfect curriculum, and the disconnection among “giurp”. in order to cultivate excellent interdisciplinary foreign language talents, it is urgent to propose effective solutions. 3.2 the strategies for interdisciplinary foreign language talents’ development in western china the strategies include micro and macro. the micro strategy is to open higher education to the world, and it has become an essential way of the country’s diplomatic strategy (tang et al., 2017). higher education should break through the limitations of itself as symbiotic unit, cooperate with other institutions, and form a collaborative education community. according to the limitations of higher education in western china, there are two aspects to break through the limitations of higher education in western china including setting interdisciplinary foreign language area studies and optimizing the curriculum setting. interdisciplinary foreign language area study is complex, which includes area studies as subject, area researchers, language and cooperation at least. area researchers are first in area study in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents, but before that, area study is a subject. in addition, language and cooperation are necessary parts. the curriculum setting plays a vital role in constructing the interdisciplinary foreign language talents training model. the curriculum setting as a concrete embodiment of the talent training model, it is the important way to achieve interdisciplinary foreign language talent training objectives. the curriculum setting of most colleges and universities in western china cannot meet the social demand for interdisciplinary foreign language talents. the following four aspects could optimize the curriculum www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. setting: improving faculty construction, setting english and other languages services, attaching importance to the cross-cultural education curriculum, and attach importance to the cross-cultural education curriculum. according to the international “giurp” disconnection, there are two development paths for the macro “giurp” symbiosis. (1) play the role of think tanks and rationally construct the mode of integration of the “giurp” as symbiotic system in international education. (2) universities and enterprises should connect and form a collaborative education community like symbiosis system. it is dynamic symbiosis between symbiotic unit and environment. “giurp” as five symbiotic unites have feedback on the b&r as symbiotic environment, so “giurp” can optimize the b&r. on the contrary, the b&r effects the “giurp”. figure 2 illustrates the symbiosis of interdisciplinary foreign language talents cultivation. figure 2. the symbiosis of interdisciplinary foreign language talents cultivation 4. discussion in this part, the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china were analyzed, then the strategies were proposed. 4.1 the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china 4.1.1 the characteristics of interdisciplinary foreign language talents the main characteristics of interdisciplinary foreign language talents under the b&r are good at language, familiarity with area cultures, international policies, and management. in addition, innovative thinking plays an essential part as well. firstly, interdisciplinary foreign language talents have good language skills and are familiar with area cultures. according to modern linguistic theory, “language is human’s most important communication tool; language is a system of signs; language is the tool of human thinking and the carrier of culture” (shu, 1999, p. 22). language is the basis of the communication, cooperation, and even competition of different countries involved in the b&r. constructing the b&r the communication mission of language is becoming more and more prominent. if one does not master or understand other countries’ language in the intercultural communication of the b&r, they may misunderstand each other. the countries along the b&r have many languages, so the cross-cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. communication between the countries along the b&r requires multi-lingual talents, including interdisciplinary common languages and non-common languages talents. cross-culture competence, as one of the core competence indicators of foreign language majors, is included in the training specification of the national standards for undergraduate teaching quality of foreign language majors in colleges and universities (sun, 2016) and the objective of a guide to college english teaching (cai, 2017). cross-culture competence training has become a hot topic in the new foreign language education reform (perry & southwell, 2011). the interdisciplinary foreign language talents need to be sensitive, tolerant, and flexible in dealing with cultural differences to meet the demand of extensive international communication. secondly, the bottleneck of the bri is talent, especially international management talents familiar with policies. the spirit of equality, cooperation, and win-win formulating regional cooperation plans will help the western china and countries along the b&r establish cooperative relations and enhance mutual trust and friendship. specialized high-level management talents are beneficial to give full play to the advantages of characteristic resources, and cooperating with countries along the b&r in the economy, infrastructure construction, and cultural exchanges. therefore, there is a demand for specialized high-level management talents. thirdly, innovative talents are significant in the bri. according to the “belt and road” talent white paper overseas talents of state-owned enterprises are facing the dilemma of a shortage of innovative senior talents (wu, 2017). however, the b&r needs the innovative foreign language talents with a complete knowledge structure and solid theoretical foundation, reasonable academic frontier knowledge, a strong sense of criticism, and familiarity with international policy. the b&r has involved many characteristics, such as many countries and regions, wide fields, and many beliefs (xie, 2017). it is necessary to break the restrictions of traditional concepts in the process of the b&r construction and use innovative thinking concepts and methods to accelerate the pace of construction. it means that interdisciplinary foreign language talents can participate in the b&r construction better only if they have strong innovation consciousness and ability. in all, proficient language is fundamental to cultivate interdisciplinary foreign language talents under the b&r. in addition, it is necessary to be familiar with area cultures, international policies, and management. last, interdisciplinary foreign language talents possessing innovative thinking could serve the b&r better. 4.1.2 the limitations of higher education as symbiotic unit in micro symbiosis cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents confront lacking area studies talents and imperfect curriculum setting in higher education in western china. area study is a multidisciplinary field, and it is a comprehensive study on the humanities, geography, politics, economy, and society of a specific country or region (guo, 2016). recently, under the bri, many colleges and universities in western china have set the enrollment direction of master’s and doctor’s degrees with the area studies along the b&r as the research object. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. some world-class colleges and universities in developed countries have set up disciplines related to area studies from undergraduate education to postgraduate education. for example, harvard university has set up area studies majors in undergraduate programs, such as east asian studies, south asian studies, and african studies. furthermore, area studies have problems such as uneven distribution of research objects and significant differences in the degree of attention. area studies of colleges and universities in western china mainly focus on a few big countries, but the research on other small countries is little. most of the countries along the b&r are small and medium-sized countries, leading to academic circles ignore, such as the philippines, indonesia, bangladesh, and egypt. not only that, those countries have not received great attention yet (wang, 2016). in addition, foreign language teaching does not involve the content of area studies, and the courses of area studies are mainly related to area studies and there is little penetration of foreign language knowledge and skills, and most of teaching languages are chinese. such course arrangement and teaching mode make foreign languages and area studies work separately, which is not conducive to integrating foreign languages and area studies knowledge. imperfect curriculum setting is another limitation of higher education in micro symbiosis. most higher education in western china cannot meet the requirements on curriculum setting, mainly reflected in four aspects: (1) the number of interdisciplinary foreign language faculty is insufficient. because of lacking adequate interdisciplinary foreign language faculty of non-common language, there are little related non-common language courses. in addition, because most foreign language teachers are not good at other professional knowledge, their teaching methods only fit language training, which splits the connection between major knowledge and language. (2) compared with the proportion of english classes, the proportion of other languages is too small. foreign language majors in colleges and universities pay too much attention to the common interdisciplinary languages, and ignore the interdisciplinary non-common languages. therefore, it is not beneficial to the b&r. most colleges and universities still attach great importance to language training and ignore professional courses. it leads to college students’ lack of systematic professional knowledge, which is not suitable for their competitiveness after graduation. (3) the curriculum lacks the culture along the b&r. most colleges and universities do not offer courses that analyze the culture of the countries along the b&r. lacking a comprehensive understanding of other cultures along the b&r, cultivating disciplinary foreign language talents cannot meet the demands of internationalization. at present, college english teaching in local colleges and universities is generally based on the language knowledge, ignoring cultural penetration, lacking cross-cultural knowledge and ability of countries along the b&r. in addition, cross-cultural experience has not received enough attention. (4) the primary evaluation mechanism for a subject is the institution assessment, which exists many problems. for examples, china’s evaluation of colleges and universities paid attention to the evaluation results, in which quantified data are too much. the written examination is still the primary evaluation tool, while ignores students’ ability to solve practical problems. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. 4.1.3 the international “giurp” disjointed in macro symbiosis the integration of international “giurp” in higher education in western china started late and developed slowly due to the double restrictions of educational resources and concepts such as human, financial and material resources. some understandings of the education “going global” are still limited to “the enterprises providing overseas internship bases for higher education and forming “order relationships” with enterprises to create conditions for college students entering enterprises after graduation (zhang & yang, 2021). on the supply side of the structure, the effective implementation of international “giurp” not only needs colleges and universities, and enterprises, but also needs government, and intermediary organizations, such as creating a loose environment for education, providing an open platform, and supplying high quality resources. however, in the present situation, except for the strong support of government policies, other conditions are still under construction, which cannot fully meet the practical needs of large-scale international education integration of “giurp” in western china. universities and enterprises have not established a collaborative service platform for integrating international “giurp” in the b&r. on the one hand, it will lead to a passive situation such as the disconnection between talent training and enterprise needs. on the other hand, it is impossible to coordinate with the whole industry, which efficiently reduces the popularity and effectiveness of universities and enterprises in promoting the international integration of “giurp”. it is difficult to form a long-term mechanism to serve the b&r and successful experience for reference, replication, and promotion (zhang and yang, 2021). 4.2 the strategies for interdisciplinary foreign language talents’ development in western china according to the dilemmas in cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china, the author proposed some strategies. 4.2.1 break through the limitations of higher education as symbiotic unit in micro symbiosis 4.2.1.1 set interdisciplinary foreign language area studies (1) area studies include three stages which are the initial stage, the development stage, and the mature stage. the initial stage is characterized by starting from scientific research and setting up area research institutions to engage in relevant research. the development stage is the rapid development of area research institutions and the beginning of setting relevant disciplines. interdisciplinary foreign language talents cultivation in colleges and universities have started to set up disciplines related to area studies. the characteristic of the mature stage is that the area study has become one of the advantages and development strategies of the colleges and universities. the mature stage, area research institutions have solid scientific research strength and the prominent role of think tanks with significant academic influence and have covered significant countries and regions worldwide. colleges and universities in western china should determine their stage according to their characteristics and gradually develop area studies of interdisciplinary foreign languages. (2) area researchers play an essential role in area studies. area researchers are interdisciplinary talents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. who combine foreign languages with area knowledge and ability, which is in line with the bri and the needs of chinese enterprises to “go global” (wang, 2017). some scholars believe that young teachers who have not yet obtained doctoral degrees should study for degrees related to area studies and transform to area studies in teaching and research using educational reform projects at all levels and application guidelines for scientific research projects (wang & yao, 2019). in scientific research cooperation, the symbiotic unit is the researchers participating in the cooperation. the researchers participating in the cooperation should devote themselves to the cooperation, contribute their own knowledge resources, achieve benefit and risk sharing, and jointly realize the goal of scientific research cooperation based on the requirements of mutual benefit. scientific research cooperation should continue to innovate and diversify among colleges and universities in western china and attract high-level researchers at home and abroad. at the same time, consider expanding the enrollment scale, carrying out more teaching exchanges, cooperation and guidance in scientific research projects, and exchange teaching experience and research methods in relevant scientific research fields. researchers in cooperation are dynamic and will change dynamically with the change of symbiotic mode and symbiotic environment. therefore, the instability brought by the researchers in the cooperation cannot be ignored. area researchers has certain risks, so it is imperative to establish a sound knowledge protection mechanism and knowledge loss and compensation mechanism, and to implement the task division among the participants of scientific research cooperation for preventing the risks caused by negative behaviors such as knowledge leakage, free-rider and opportunism. area research needs to establish a reasonable supervision and prevention mechanism, improve the internal management system, so as to reduce moral hazard in the process of scientific research cooperation, and promote the cooperation among researchers. (3) the basis of area studies is language. according to the educational concept of the integration of content and language, mastering the language along the b&r is the premise and foundation of area research. colleges and universities centering on language in western china should give full play to the function of think tanks in area research focusing on hot issues, producing high-quality research results, and providing major strategic decisions. area knowledge is used as teaching materials for language skills courses, such as extensive reading, listening, conversation and translation. on the one hand, such courses are not only language courses but also area studies courses. on the other hand, the integration of speech training and professional content not only improves the language practice ability but also gains area knowledge. (4) cooperation in area studies can not be absent. higher education in western china should cooperate with higher education in some areas along the b&r. on the one hand, some higher education in western china can fully use geographical advantages and professional advantages to cooperate with central asia. higher education in western china should strengthen cooperation with higher education in area along the b&r to jointly train students at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s levels through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. various forms. higher education in western china should carry out in-depth cooperation and exchanges with higher education in area along the b&r in scientific cooperation, cultural communication, and policy research. higher education in western china can also select students to practice in international organizations or enterprises in batches to help students understand international rules and master the most cutting-edge international technical standards in practical activities (gao, 2022). for example, higher education in western china and western asia establish the joint laboratory, which is a practical action to area studies. on the other hand, higher education cooperates among colleges and universities in western china to establish the b&r area studies. therefore, the government and education administrative department should give proper policy, urge higher education in western china to open educational resources, share the project of talent cultivation and the standard, and share the teaching content to serve area studies. 4.2.1.2 optimizing the curriculum setting (1) improving faculty construction could optimize the curriculum setting. an interdisciplinary foreign language teacher team with high quality is an essential guarantee for cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents. interdisciplinary foreign language teachers should have a rich knowledge of both language and inter-subjectivity to meet the “dual-qualified” criteria set by the ministry of education (wang, 2007). (2) both english and other languages services should be set for the b&r. the development of the b&r is dynamic, so the language plans should be adjusted. the basis of principle of a language plan is “minimum cost and maximum benefit”. therefore, scientific research is basis of a language plan. english is hypercentral language (common language); the non-common language includes super-central language, central language, and periphery language (zhang, 2022). super-central language is a high influence in the world, such as russian. central language is used in one country or some countries, such as malay. peripheral language is little used, like kyrgyz. both common language and non-common language are important in curriculum setting. in addition, the curriculum setting of language should consider geography, influence, political environment, and etc. (3) attach importance to the cross-cultural education curriculum. two points should be emphasized in cultivating students’ intercultural competence in interdisciplinary foreign language education. on the one hand, cultivating “cross-cultural” consciousness. on the other hand, cultivating a “cross-cultural” curriculum model. the cross-cultural awareness and ideas are reflected in teachers’ curriculum teaching design. pre-class leading, in-class activities and after-class reinforcement should reflect the concept of cross-cultural cultivation. for example, “ethnic boundary markers” in unit 1 of the new era interactive english reading, writing and translating, the concept of “cross-culture” is applied to all aspects of teaching in the design, such as the introduction of religious knowledge, distribution, and living customs. from the perspective of countries along the b&r, christianity appears in some european and american countries, islam mainly in some countries of central asia and west asia, and buddhism in some countries of southeast asia. three religions cover many countries along the b&r, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. and religious culture is an essential perspective and content of cultural studies. in addition, it is an critical measure for local higher education to promote the development of students’ cross-cultural competence and cultivate international talents to serve the b&r. it can guide students to understand and master cultural differences and diversity through simulated teaching situations or cross-cultural teaching cases (gao, 2006). the overseas study, internship, and short-term training programs can promote students’ understanding of foreign cultures and cross-cultural adaptation and reduce misunderstanding and enhance the sensitivity to cross-cultural interaction and cultural differences (deardorff, 2006). most of the languages and cultures are non-english in the process of the b&r construction. therefore, the curriculum content should be changed from english related culture content to other languages and cultures. (4) standardizing the curriculum evaluation system. the written examination should not be the most evaluation tool. students’ classroom performance and their reports in the practical courses are as essential parts of the final assessment. under the background of sino-foreign cooperation, it is necessary to build a scientific evaluation system jointly by the government, universities, think tanks, and enterprises. the evaluation of interdisciplinary foreign language talents should take ability as the core, application ability as the center, and innovation ability as the driving force. in the evaluation practice, we should adhere to two principles. the first principle, the evaluation must be composed of experts who understand interdisciplinary foreign language, interdisciplinary foreign language teaching practice, and interdisciplinary foreign language evaluation theory. the second principle, the evaluation should be conducted under the state of scientific evaluation methods, process, and strict evaluation organizational discipline. 4.2.2 building macro symbiosis mode of “giurp” firstly, play the role of think tanks and rationally construct the mode of integration of the “giurp” as symbiotic system in international education. after a long period of running schools, many colleges and universities in western china have a teaching staff with rich teaching experience and high scientific research levels and have built many solid disciplines and majors with a good reputation. however, in order to play a significant role in promoting the b&r education action, higher education in western china needs to strengthen the depth of cooperation with local governments, social organizations, multinational enterprises, to form a new cooperation mode of the “giurp”. the first is to build a think tank for integrating the “giurp” in international education to strengthen systematic research on countries along the b&r. the second is to form the “giurp” mode. encourage enterprise experts to participate in the higher education personnel training work, who are familiar with the area of national policy and law and international economic operation rules. enhance the practicability and pertinence of higher education in western china, and meet the social and market demands of the b&r countries. the third is to strengthen the government’s overall planning function. the provincial government in western china should make full use of china’s multilateral cooperation mechanisms, set bilateral, multilateral and global education platforms, explore mutual recognition of credits, and mutual granted degree, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 2, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. gradually eliminate the barriers to international education policy. secondly, universities and enterprises should connect and form a collaborative education community like symbiosis system. for improving the quality of service the b&r, many enterprises integrate with multinational companies along the b&r and try to achieve the “double subject” of enterprises and universities, complementary advantages, and win-win (zhang, 2021). in the process of student internships and employment of short board, to meet the needs of the bri, further perfect the talent training scheme. strengthen contacts with international organizations and large enterprises to increase opportunities for internships and cooperation. through various internship programs, students can understand the operation mode of international organizations and overseas enterprises as well as the culture, to improve students’ adaptability to a diverse international environment, and future overseas employment. practical teaching can broaden students’ professional knowledge, create a suitable environment for vocational posts, cultivate students’ entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ability, and improve their professional quality and comprehensive ability. set the laboratory center in higher education, where teachers and students simulate different roles in activities, carry out simulation teaching, and handle various businesses through computer simulation to get familiar with business processes. in addition, internship bases can be established jointly with various sectors and enterprises in the society, where college students can conduct course practice and graduation practice. in sum, the bri as symbiotic environment is not only a path for shared economic development but also a path for mutual learning among cultures. although cultivating interdisciplinary foreign language talents in western china is facing many dilemmas under the background of the b&r, according to the actual situation, higher education in western china cultivates different types of interdisciplinary foreign language talents to meet the market demands of the bri and promote china’s economic development based on symbiosis. there are some theoretical researches on the cultivation of interdisciplinary foreign language talents along the b&r but few empirical studies, leaving some research space for more empirical studies in the future. acknowledgement this work was conducted under the supervision of professor saengchan hemchua at metharath university in thailand. in addition, professor yongxiang wang at nanjing normal university also supplied me much help for this work. we are grateful to the insightful comments suggested by the editor and the anonymous reviewers. references cheng, x. y. 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(2016, july 26). the belt and road initiative calls for deepening country studies. retrieved october 10, 2022, from http:∥theory.gmw.cn/2016-07/26/content-21138022.htm wang, x. m. (2017). thinking on the foreign language and literature discipline development planning from the perspective of state initiatives. foreign languages in china, 14(05), 29-37. wu, x. (2017, june 2). talent bottleneck and countermeasures of the “belt and road” initiative. financial times. wen, x., & si, w. g. (2018). from compound talents to holistic education: rethinking the cultivation of foreign language talents. shandong foreign language teaching, 39(03), 50-60. wang, g., & yao, j. m. (2019). research on the topic selection of master’s dissertations in russian specialty country and region-based on the statistical analysis of 201 master’s dissertations from 2002 to 2017. russian teaching in china, 38(1), 82-90. xie, s. (2017). cultivating the college foreign language talents under the “belt and road” strategy. education review, (10), 30-33. yang, b. w., & huang, h. z. (2010). symbiosis theory: the new basis for organizational evolution. journal of university of electronic science and technology of china: social sciences edition, 12(2), 29-32. zhao, y., & chen, j. b. (2020). structural contradictions and countermeasures of talent training in western higher education under the background of the belt and road initiative. qinghai social sciences, (5), 77. zhang, m. x., & yang, y. c. (2021). integration of industry and education in cross-border education in the ethnic frontier regions of southwest china in the perspective of the belt and road initiative: the case of yunnan of china and asean. journal of yunnan normal university, 53(3), 111-119. zhang, z. g. (2022). planning the choice of foreign languages in china under the scenario of global governance. foreign language education, 43(40), 1-7. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 39 original paper challenges of establishing trade unions in chinese private enterprises xiaoyi ma1 1 china university of labor relations, beijing, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: december 05, 2023 online published: december 20, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p39 abstract trade unions serve as a bridge and bond between the communist party of china and the working masses, and the construction of grassroots trade unions is crucial for the welfare of workers and social stability. in a survey conducted in beijing, it was found that an increase in the number of private enterprises does not necessarily lead to a corresponding increase in the number of trade unions within these enterprises. similarly, an increase in the total number of employees in private enterprises does not guarantee an increase in the total membership of trade unions in these enterprises. the difficulty in establishing trade union organizations is influenced by multiple factors: enterprises need to control costs under the “uncertainty” of risks, employees lack understanding of trade unions, and the trade unions themselves lack professionalism and effective measures to participate in social governance. in the future, the issue of the difficulty in establishing trade unions should be addressed by developing social work in trade unions, effectively utilizing media platforms of trade unions, and further improving laws and regulations. keywords trade union formation, challenges in establishing trade unions, social work in trade unions, social governance 1. raise of problem in china’s economic growth, private enterprises play an indispensable role. marxist theory points out the inherent contradictions in labor-capital relations and potential conflicts within private enterprises. in fact, labor-capital conflicts within private enterprises are widely occurring across the country. establishing a robust mechanism for adjusting labor-capital relations is a necessary measure for building harmonious labor relations. the current status of labor-capital relations adjustment mechanisms, represented by the formation of trade unions, deserves attention. the trade union law www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. requires all trade unions within china to be established and operate under the framework of the all-china federation of trade unions (acftu). according to the 2022 report of the acftu, the trade union currently has a vast organizational system, including 2.8 million grassroots organizations and over 300 million members. compared to western trade unions, the most distinctive feature of chinese trade unions seems to be their integration into the system of party and government agencies, yet they are not directly under the control of these agencies. with the development of china’s market economy and the rapid expansion of the workforce, how chinese trade unions face the new changes in labor relations also attracts considerable attention. in the reports and external activities of the acftu, the extensive coverage of grassroots organizations has always been a flag demonstrating the systemic advantages of chinese trade unions, and the smooth establishment of grassroots trade union organizations seems to be an undisputed fact. this study will present our findings on the difficulties of establishing grassroots trade unions in private enterprises through empirical research evidence. we have chosen beijing as the subject of our research. as china’s political center and a favored office area for commercial companies, and also the location of the acftu, enterprises in beijing tend to more cautiously comply with laws and regulations, and the statistical data of beijing are more comprehensive and accurate. in addition, the researchers personally participated in and observed the actual work of different levels of chinese trade unions from march to june 2023, and interviewed a large number of trade union officials, obtaining their attitudes and comments on union issues. in accordance with the principles and requirements of academic ethics, the names of the source regions and content that could reveal their real information have been omitted. why is unionization so difficult? we hope to contribute an explanation to this phenomenon and attempt to propose solutions to the challenges of establishing grassroots trade unions in china. 2. the challenges of establishing trade unions in private enterprises: findings based on data and surveys in ideal conditions, the number of grassroots trade unions should correlate with the number of enterprises eligible to establish trade unions. additionally, the number of members in trade union organizations should correlate with the number of employees in units covered by trade unions. this means that the more enterprises there are, the more trade unions there should be; and the more employees in an enterprise, the more members there should be in the trade union. based on this hypothesis, the research extracted data from the “beijing statistical yearbook” (2013 to 2019) published by the beijing municipal bureau of statistics, concerning the number of grassroots trade union organizations in private enterprises (un), the number of private enterprises above a designated size (cn), the number of employees in private enterprises (cpn), and the number of members in grassroots trade union organizations established in private enterprises (upn). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. table 1. research data year un cn upn cpn 2013 6275 15788 372443 5279000 2014 6617 15937 385921 7255900 2015 6798 13358 380496 8486000 2016 7113 13499 460614 9513200 2017 6260 14033 429151 10547200 2018 5076 13816 368948 11236700 2019 5528 20180 394760 11158600 correlation analysis is used to study the relationship between quantitative data, including the existence and degree of closeness of relationships. when data do not exhibit a normal distribution, calculating the spearman correlation coefficient can be used to compare the correlation between variables and draw conclusions about their relationship. in this study, spss 22.0 was used to calculate the spearman correlation coefficient. after importing the original values into the software, the results are shown in table 2. generally, it is considered that when p<0.05, the variables meet the statistical significance criteria for proving correlation. since all p-values do not meet the range required to prove correlation by the spearman coefficient, there is no observed correlation between the groups of variables in the study subject in terms of statistical significance. table 2. spearman correlation coefficient calculation results cn correlation index -0.464 0.036 p 0.294 0.939 sample capacity 7 7 cpn correlation index -0.643 0.071 p 0.119 0.879 sample capacity 7 7 * p<0.05 ** p<0.01. through analysis, we have arrived at a set of conclusions. according to the historical data provided by the “beijing statistical yearbook” (2013 to 2019) published by the beijing municipal bureau of statistics: there is no observed correlation, in statistical terms, between the number of grassroots trade www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. union organizations in private enterprises and the number of private enterprises above a designated size; similarly, there is no observed correlation between the number of members in grassroots trade union organizations established in private enterprises and the number of employees in private enterprises. additionally, from the researcher’s personal participation in trade union work practices and additional surveys, it was found that most negotiations for establishing trade unions in private enterprises ended in failure. from march to june 2023, in two street districts in beijing covered by our survey, 12 negotiations involving the establishment of trade unions were conducted with 10 private enterprises that should have established but had not. by the end of the survey, only 2 enterprises expressed their intention to form a trade union, while the others refused with vague reasons such as “conditions not mature” or “not forming for the time being”. the preference and intensive use of the title “breaking the difficulties in establishing trade unions’ in the propaganda of trade unions across the country in their media in recent years also reveals the reality and difficulty of this issue. in conclusion, there are real difficulties in establishing trade unions in private enterprises. the increase in the number of private enterprises does not necessarily lead to an increase in the number of trade unions; similarly, an increase in the total number of employees in private enterprises does not necessarily result in an increase in the total number of trade union members. the formation of trade unions and joining them appears to be passive. the number of enterprises used in the study is the number of enterprises above a designated size. according to the “enterprise recognition and management methods”, enterprises with more than 300 employees can be recognized as above a designated size, which is far beyond the requirement of the trade union law that enterprises with more than 25 employees should establish trade unions. this means that the actual number of enterprises will far exceed the number used in our study, making the situation even more severe. what causes this paradox? if, as many international researchers perceive, chinese trade unions lack power and pose little threat to corporate interests, why do enterprises defy the trade union law and refuse to actively establish trade unions? theoretically, this is neither beneficial for their reputation nor for future cooperation with the government. 3. the reasons why private enterprises are difficult to build forming a trade union is not complicated. in an ideal scenario, employees within a company can voluntarily unite and submit an application to the local superior trade union to establish a grassroots union. the superior trade union then guides them through the legal procedures such as registration and election. however, in practice, very few employees spontaneously apply to establish a trade union. during our research period, all the trade unions in the area were established through negotiations between regional trade union officials and the enterprises required to form unions. why are enterprises reluctant to form trade unions? why are employees not proactive in joining unions? what is the perspective of the trade unions at this time? we conducted surveys with enterprises, employees, and trade unions, listening to the opinions and concerns of enterprises in the actual negotiations for forming www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. unions, and also directly interviewing employees and trade union workers. table 3. survey respondent codes code identity survey method a1 hr department head of a private enterprise with established union participatory observation of daily work a2 regional manager of a private enterprise without established union participatory observation of union establishment negotiation a3 regional manager of a private enterprise without established union participatory observation of union establishment negotiation a4 legal representative of a private enterprise without established union participatory observation of union establishment negotiation b1 union chairperson of a private enterprise with established union telephone interview b2 ordinary employee of a private enterprise without established union participatory observation of employee communication meeting b3 ordinary employee of a private enterprise without established union participatory observation of employee communication meeting c1 head of street-level trade union face-to-face interview c2 worker of street-level trade union face-to-face interview c3 worker of street-level trade union face-to-face interview 3.1 private enterprise: avoid risk “(regarding consultation on welfare standards) are there any document restrictions on the per capita standard? can we buy cake coupons? there seem to be quite a few restrictions.” (a1) “which unit does the trade union belong to? ... we are planning to go public soon, so we are not considering any major organizational changes at the moment.” (a2) “can we hold this representative congress by ourselves? ... oh, you’re going to send someone over (hesitates).” (a3) from an institutional perspective, enterprise trade unions are guided and managed in their day-to-day www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. operations by the all-china federation of trade unions and local federations of trade unions. for enterprises, the ambiguous relationship between the government and trade unions may raise concerns that the government might intervene in corporate affairs through trade unions, impacting the enterprise’s independence and business decisions. private enterprises, in particular, prefer autonomy in decision-making, including matters related to employee welfare. “because it involves this additional expenditure, the trade union’s expenses need to be requested from our headquarters... it has already been brought up for discussion, and we will provide feedback when there are results.” (a3) “as you are aware, we have laid off many employees in the past few years. if we increase the expenses for the trade union, it would further burden our finances. we hope you can understand.” (a4) from the perspective of economic costs, besides the nominal membership fees, the trade union law requires enterprises that establish trade unions to allocate 2% of the total monthly wages of all employees to the trade union as funds. although this expense is deductible from pre-tax profits, it still represents an additional expenditure for the enterprise. for enterprises, the pursuit of greater freedom and profit maximization are common operational inclinations. our research found that enterprises often view trade unions and the government as the same entity, perceiving trade unions as a department of the government. the “official” nature of trade unions threatens the autonomy of enterprises. in practice, this manifests as the “uncertainty” of trade unions. due to the scarcity of laws and cases concerning trade union participation in enterprises nationwide, employers are unclear about the consequences of establishing a trade union within their enterprise. in contrast to western trade unions, which use definite actions like strikes and wage negotiations to threaten enterprise operations, allowing enterprises to prepare labor relations contingencies, the “uncertainty” of chinese trade unions becomes a “sword of damocles”. this “official” nature also implies that the chinese government could use this “uncertain sword” at any time. taking trade union funds as an example, although superior trade unions do not have effective supervision measures for the use of funds by enterprise trade unions, enterprises frequently consult superior trade unions about the legality and compliance of fund usage. even though superior trade unions have never effectively supervised or penalized misuse of trade union funds and there are no explicit regulations on the consequences of violations, enterprise trade unions proactively avoid regulatory issues. “selective enforcement” is a common phenomenon in social policies, and when the consequences are acceptable to the subject, they might not comply with policy requirements. the “uncertainty” of trade unions, along with additional management and economic costs, make enterprises resistant to establishing trade unions. 3.2 employee: lack of motivation “what is a trade union? ... what’s the use of joining a trade union?” (b2) “why do i have to fill out so much? will my information be leaked? are you from the government or a company? ... what can i get after completing this?” (b3) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. despite the fact that the penetration rate of trade unions in china is even higher than in the west on paper, employees’ attitudes towards trade unions have always been relatively indifferent. what can trade unions offer to employees? as rational individuals, employees must weigh the pros and cons of joining a trade union. is filling out cumbersome forms and exposing personal information worth the potential benefits? in daily life, both workers and employers still rely on “pragmatic personal relationships” and “non-institutionalized ways of living” for interest appeals and risk avoidance. organized, institutionalized, and conventional expressions of interest demands still depend on the state, and trade unions themselves struggle to play a reliable role. “trade union (laughs), this is the first time i’ve heard that there are trade unions in china.” (b3) “(when asked about rights protection work) we do less in terms of protecting rights; usually, if there’s an issue, hr will handle it directly. our main role is to organize activities and distribute holiday gifts to make the employees feel more united.” (b1) trade union official media lack the habit of reporting close to the masses. they still resort to grand narratives and administrative reporting in their news writing, leaving the public unaware of what benefits trade unions can provide for them. from a perspective of instrumental rationality, trade unions struggle to offer sufficiently attractive benefits, thereby lacking direct motivation for joining. the research observed that almost all trade unions are established through direct negotiations between trade union officials and enterprises, rather than by employee application. although there is guidance promised by superior units for employees who take the initiative to establish a trade union, in reality, there is often a lack of active union members to receive this guidance. in china, the government plays a significant role in many social and economic aspects, often described as the “big government” model. under this model, the government has a considerable intervention in social, economic, and cultural affairs, which may influence the formation and development of civil society. big government often plays a guiding and intervening role in social affairs, which might lead to a reduction in citizen autonomy. in such a scenario, citizens may prefer to rely on government-provided services and resources rather than solving problems through independent organizations and cooperation. this could weaken the development of civil society, resulting in relatively low autonomy for citizens. furthermore, china’s political system and authority relationships might also impact the formation of civil society concepts. 3.3 labor union: powerless “(when asked about rights protection work) which department can cooperate with us? we don’t have enforcement power. as for going to court to sue (companies that don’t establish unions), i’ve never heard of that.” (c1) “when i first joined, my mentor taught me this way, and actually, over the years, there hasn’t been much change in the overall content of the work.” (c2) chinese trade unions have long been criticized for their “official nature” and “detachment from the masses.” their dual nature as both a tool of the state and a social organization has been summarized by some scholars as having “inherent contradictions.” trade union organizations are not sensitive to public www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. dissatisfaction towards them. as their existence is not threatened by dissolution or competition, trade union officials often adhere rigidly to established procedures in their daily work, lacking innovation tailored to specific situations. certain preset activities, such as irregular gift-giving or events, are perceived as unit benefits and the role of the trade union in them is overlooked by employees. “conscience is very important in our work; there are indeed some things we can choose not to do. but for instance, when we deliver subsidies to the employees in need, it actually gives us a sense of value.” (c1) “if he insists on not establishing a union, there’s nothing we can do about it. (helplessly)” (c2) “as for the ‘labor law supervision reminder letter’ you mentioned, i have never heard of it or known of other street committees using it since i started working here.” (c3) the “protective” function and labor protection supervision rights granted to trade unions by law are hardly visible in grassroots unions. as social organizations, trade unions bear no responsibility in cases of labor law violations or accidents. this means that the routine labor protection supervision work relies entirely on the “conscience” of trade union officials. lai ruoyu, former chairman of the all-china federation of trade unions, once said, “protection is the basis of all trade union work and is the most fundamental task of trade unions.” however, in practice, trade unions lack direct internal motivation to connect with workers and effective supervision and investigation methods. even if trade unions want to supervise, they are hamstrung by the absence of clear directive documents and operational norms, making it challenging to exercise their “protective” function promptly and effectively. this has gradually led trade unions to be labeled as “ornamental.” these factors result in trade unions lacking the confidence and motivation to negotiate, ultimately failing to effectively promote the establishment of trade unions. 4. suggestions to solve the problem the difficulty in establishing trade unions is a long-standing challenge in the field of labor relations in china, requiring strategies from multiple perspectives to promote the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade union formation. these strategies include further clarifying the responsibilities and obligations of trade unions and enterprises, actively leveraging public opinion and propaganda to expand the influence of trade unions, and empowering trade union workers in terms of professionalism and sense of value through party building and social work within trade unions. 4.1 party building leadership and development of union social work despite criticisms of trade unions for their strong “official nature,” it does not mean that trade unions outside the party-government system would be more effective. in reality, the party’s unwavering leadership over trade unions should be embraced and leveraged by the unions. stronger party organization networks, guided by party building, could become an advantageous perspective for trade unions in labor-capital negotiations. currently, the involvement of deputy party leaders, often serving as part-time chairpersons of trade unions, is limited in day-to-day operations. on the other hand, the lack of professionalism and a sense of value among union workers makes their work lack vitality and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. innovation. the transition from “officially run” to “value-strong” is a pressing need for trade unions. introducing social work into trade unions, whether by directly employing social workers or procuring employee service projects from social work agencies, can make the union’s function, reliant on “conscience,” more effective through the participation and value transmission of professional social workers. professional and effective services can increase workers’ trust in and membership in trade unions. 4.2 effective propaganda, telling the union’s story trade unions possess a vast media matrix, yet lack content that resonates with and speaks for the worker community, turning these media into solemn “governmental” mouthpieces and missing the opportunity to connect with the masses. increasing the spread of basic trade union knowledge and life guides of interest to the masses on union media, and promoting interaction and participation with members through online q&as, polls, and surveys, can enhance members’ sense of belonging and identification. timely attention, exposure, and maintenance of members’ rights on owned media, voicing opinions on labor issues, and advocating for fair treatment for members, can make the media a powerful tool for rights protection. seizing new media captures the next generation; media is the frontline of union-worker engagement and should be revitalized to meet the diverse needs of workers, enhancing the union’s influence in public opinion. 4.3 improve regulations, clarify responsibilities regulations should further clarify cross-departmental cooperation mechanisms, work consultation mechanisms between trade unions and labor inspection departments, and methods for trade union participation in labor supervision, providing effective policy tools for non-confrontational actions. enhance workers’ legal awareness, establish more accessible labor legal aid institutions, and provide legal consultation and assistance services for workers. establish relevant regulations and legal responsibilities to ensure employer cooperation and create an environment conducive to trade union formation. laws should clearly define the responsibilities of employers in labor relations, prohibiting any actions that hinder the formation of trade unions, with legal responsibilities and corresponding penalties for non-compliance. trade union laws should be a continuously revised and updated system to adapt to the development of society, economy, and labor relations. timely revision of laws, addressing emerging issues, ensures the timeliness and applicability of regulations. 5. conclusions this paper has discovered through research that there are real difficulties in establishing trade unions in private enterprises. the increase in the number of private enterprises does not necessarily lead to a corresponding increase in the number of trade unions; similarly, an increase in the total number of employees in private enterprises does not guarantee an increase in the total number of trade union members. this conclusion implies that the establishment of trade unions in chinese private enterprises is not smooth, facing difficulties and challenges. to explain this phenomenon, this paper further www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. provides interpretations from the perspectives of enterprises, employees, and trade unions. it is argued that the uncertainty leading to increased business costs, employees’ lack of understanding and motivation to join trade unions, and the unclear responsibilities and powers of trade unions contribute to the difficulty in forming unions. to facilitate the smooth establishment of trade unions, cooperation among the government, enterprises, and trade unions, forming a common concept and effort, is necessary. the government can provide a better legal environment through perfecting laws; enterprises should realize that cooperation with trade unions is beneficial for improving labor relations and sustainable development; trade unions themselves need to continuously improve their organizational effectiveness, enhance their status in labor relations through party building leadership and media matrix development, and strengthen their professionalism by introducing social work into trade unions. the research in this paper has limitations: first, the empirical research data may lack accuracy, due to inconsistent statistical standards among departments involved in trade union statistics and different recognition criteria. this paper chose the relatively authoritative “beijing statistical yearbook,” but its data still differs from other related statistical results, which requires further clarification. second, the reasons revealed are not complete. the researcher’s participatory observation in the trade union system for only three months might have resulted in missing and omitted content in the investigation. third, the policy suggestions are not comprehensive. the establishment of trade unions involves multiple social entities and government departments, and this paper only points out countermeasures for the trade union system, with other related participation mechanisms still to be explored. despite the current social situation posing challenges to the establishment of grassroots trade unions, we can expect to see more positive changes in the future through further research and targeted countermeasure development. in the journey of chinese-style modernization, trade union organizations play an important role in protecting workers’ rights, improving labor relations, and promoting social harmony. therefore, solving the difficulties in forming unions has far-reaching significance for the protection of workers’ rights. research on the construction of trade union organizations is also crucial for the stability of chinese society and the vision of chinese-style modernization. acknowledgement college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training program project of culr “research on the practical dilemmas and breakthrough strategies of trade union social work in the new era a case study of grassroots trade unions in beijing” (project number: x202312453039); student research project of culr “research on the ‘difficulty in establishing unions’ in grassroots trade union organizations in the new era” (project number: 23xjx065); references feng, g. 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(2007). corporate social work: an urgent field for professional involvement. journal of foshan university of science and technology (social science edition), (02), 81-85. wu, j. p. (2012). understanding corporatism: also on its applicability in research on state and social relations in china. sociological studies, 27(01), 174-198, 245-246. you, z. l. (2010). the three major reforms of chinese trade unions in the past 60 years_you zhenglin. sociological studies, 25(04), 76-105, 244. zhou, p., & qu, s. x. (2012). on the concept, objectives, and principles of corporate social work. social work, (02), 4-7, 12. microsoft word assc-v3n1-p24 advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 24 original paper volunteering and the destinations: socialisation and interaction julie jie wen1* 1 school of social sciences, western sydney university, australia * julie jie wen, school of social sciences, western sydney university, australia abstract volunteering has been part of the growing social and economic phenomenon because of the belief that it delivers positive effects for the stakeholders involved. this paper undertakes analysis of the impacts of the sunflower (xiangrikuei) volunteering program. the research attempts to understand the views of the volunteers, organisers, and destination representatives from interviews, focus groups and observation. the research confirms that while volunteers and organisers do benefit from the experience, the impacts of volunteering on the destinations present a complex mixture of results. while destinations do express their benefits from working with volunteers who bring different skills and influences, they are concerned that volunteers working for a short period of time do not bring enough positive changes but rather disturb the normal local arrangement. communication may be challenging, and conflicts may arise between volunteers and some local people. the research provides insights for improving the benefits for destinations related to volunteering. keywords china, conflict, destination, impact, positive, poverty, rural, volunteer 1. introduction and theoretical background asa global phenomenon that became popular in 1970s and early 1980s, volunteering plays an important role in youth development and destination benefits (pearce, 1992; lin & wen, 2020). volunteers work not only within their own nation but also across borders from highly developed regions to relatively poorer nations (alexander, 2012). tourism and travel industry has incorporated this activity and promotes volunteer tourism, which is defined as “those tourists who, for various reasons, volunteer in an organised way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments, or research into aspects of society or environment” (wearing, 2001, p. 1). this definition clearly states that the principal goal of volunteering is to improve the situation of destinations and to provide positive benefit to the hosting community. researchers have made an effort to understand the complex relationship between poverty and tourism. tourism may provide financial resources for alleviating poverty in job creation and more income for the host (freire-medeiros, 2011; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. hall, 2007). volunteering makes contributions to the destination by taking external social capital and practical skills to help the local community (mcgehee & santos, 2005). the interaction with poverty may help the youth to believe being happy is more important than making more money because they ‘do not mind’ being poor in material supply (crossley, 2012). when volunteers encounter poverty at the destination, they may have three channels to negotiate anxiety when facing problems related to poverty: to treat poverty as a course for moral redemption; to transform poverty into an exotic attractiveness, and to appreciate the place as ‘poor but happy’ (crossley, 2012). volunteers are motivated to supply assistance to the disadvantaged areas for development not only in the local economy but also in culture and conservation (crossley, 2012). zahra and mcgehee (2013) confirm the function of volunteering on increasing social capital and poverty alleviation at destinations. volunteering promotes sustainable development and reciprocity. it promotes the attitude of not objectifying other people and places (lyons & wearing, 2008). the high involvement and close interaction and with the host community offers the opportunity of fostering responsible social participation and altruism (mcgehee & santos, 2005; wearing & wearing, 2006). volunteering helps to recreate a new space wherereasa volunteer program creates a channel for the visitors to closely connect with the poorer region, emphasising on sustainability and reciprocity (mcgehee & santos, 2005). the relationship and interactions between guest and host have become an increasing area for research attention since smith (1989).researchers argue for the intrinsic growth and satisfaction that generate between and among guests and hosts in volunteering (uriely, reichel, & ron, 2003). compared with other tourists, volunteers pursue a closer inter-personal interaction with the host community, while enabling the experiences to incorporate with their own social values (singh, 2002; 2004).volunteering allows the youth to experience more interactions with the host across different time spans, often longer than a sightseeing tourist (mcgehee & santos, 2005). the volunteering opportunity may cause value changes and shifted consciousness, influencing both the volunteer and the local people in the process of interaction (stoddart & rogerson, 2004). major channels of interactions include stages of cooperation, competition, conflict, hint, imitation and adaptation (li, 2012). positive changes may occur as the result of the interactions, including conservation, cultural renewal, cultural hybridity, and community development (uriely, reichel, & ron, 2003).research also suggests that volunteer tourism has positive influences on its participants (wearing, 2001; gray & campbell, 2007). socialisation and interaction improve the sense of wellbeing and personal development amongst volunteers (lin & wen, 2020). however, scholars are also concerned about the potential negative impacts of tourism on the destinations (smith, 1989; freire-medeiros, 2011). although tourism has the function of alleviating poverty, it is controversial in what degree tourism can improve the economy and in what circumstances it will do (zhao & ritchie, 2007; ball, 2009). when the youth encounter poverty, they may experience shocks and disbelief at the situation of some community (zahra & mcgehee, 2013). volunteers may www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. find it difficult to engage in the community-centred approach when dealing with conflicts or mis-communication (mcintosh & zahra, 2008). scholars identify similar interactions and expectations among foreign volunteers in chinese villages (chen & chen, 2011), but the traits of chinese volunteers within china remains to be explored. there is growing volunteer activity in china. it is popular for the chinese youth to participate in volunteering programs to make contributions for the public benefit (lin & wen, 2020). volunteering in china is often organised by government agencies or tertiary institutions. chinese youth have worked in international volunteering programs, including going to southeast asia or europe to help special events with language translation, and teaching mandarin and chinese culture in foreign schools. most chinese youth volunteers are involved with working to support rural regions in china (wen, lin, & peng, 2018). the gap between the east coastal china and west inland region is increasing and the disparities across regions and different professions continue to expand (wen & tisdell, 2001). volunteers tend to travel from more affluent regions to less developed communities to engage in teaching, training, and other programs to help with alleviating poverty (lo & lee, 2011). some college students have established their own volunteer organization to start programs helping people in rural china. sunflower is an organization taking students in zhenjiang, one of the well-developed cities in china with a high income per capita, to rural villages in jiangsu province to teach and to introduce advanced technology to rural schools. it started in 2007 at jiangsu university. the program aims to provide educational support for regions that are damaged by natural disasters, as well as rural regions in jiangsu province. sunflower aims to provide education courses to rural students who do not have sufficient access to resources. with the vision to be the leader in volunteering for college students, the program provides activities to promote self-development and dedication to the disadvantaged population. volunteering teachers focus more on improving the thinking modes of rural children. volunteers also raise awareness of the alarming situation in some disadvantaged areas by riding and hiking. volunteers are encouraged to ride bicycles from zhenjiang to rural villages in zhangjiagang, taizhou and yancheng during july to september. normally, around 70 students are recruited every year. sunflower also collects donations to help rural jiangsu. although sunflower receives positive evaluation from the destinations regarding the impacts of this program, there appears to be mixed opinions on the potential negative effects on the host community. this research attempts to analyse how volunteering impacts on the destinations, both positively and negatively. the research question arises after careful analysis of the literature: how much does volunteering contribute to the destinations? what are the major impacts on the host community? the author makes effort in addressing these questions in the paper. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. 2. research method the author followed the progress of the sunflower program and did literature review to establish the theoretical framework. people who had volunteered in sunflower were contacted for their willingness to participate in the research. the author joined the volunteering team in october 2019 and stayed in taizhou for three days to undertake the research on site. most of these research was qualitative due to the characteristics of the research objects. the research collected data from in-depth interviews and personal observation. interviews were conducted with four respondents who volunteered in sunflower in 2018. in addition, eight interviews were conducted in taizhou with volunteers who were working there. the researcher conducted interviews with eight local residents in order to elicit the opinions of the destination on sunflower program. there were eleven males and nine females in total to keep the gender balance. sampling was random and voluntary. each respondent was interviewed individually to explore the deep, personal and experiential aspects of their feelings and opinion. all the interviews were tape recorded and later transcribed to ensure the accuracy of data. 3. findings and discussions with interaction at the destinations, volunteers exchange ideas with the hosts and influence the mindsets of the local people. socialisation occurs between and among stakeholders involved with volunteering. destinations may experience a mixture and benefits and issues from volunteering. 3.1 multi-channel interaction interaction between participants stages complicated features during volunteering. while researchers have explored the complexity in volunteers interacting with their peers, team managers, and students, interaction with volunteers presents a different set of challenge from the perspectives of the local eyes. volunteers work with the local teachers, who may have different ideas on teaching. some local people lack the mandarin skills because they speak the local dialect. while the local students enjoy new ideas from volunteering teachers, they may feel difficult to adapt to the new class rapport initially. the school principal has to keep the balance between adding new contents in class delivery by volunteers, and keeping the consistency of syllabus. there may be argument between the volunteer and permanent teacher regarding teaching method or content presented in the class. the local principal makes this comment: interacting with people you do not know well is not easy. i spend a lot of time insolving problems between volunteers and the local teachers when they have conflict on how to teach. local teachers tend to become agitated when the young volunteer insists on a different way of teaching. over reaction on difference may lead to unnecessary disputes. volunteers complain about the difficulty in interacting with the local teachers. while the volunteers understand that they are inexperienced, they feel that they are treated as the juniors or subordinates in case of any argument, as one volunteer reflects: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. i wish to be respected as the equal partner, especially before the students. if i play the role of accepting orders from the permanent teacher, my students will not respect me or listen to me. i appreciate discussion in interactions rather than having to follow ideas that i do not agree with. 3.2 socialisation when young volunteers encounter real life in remote china and negotiate with poverty related attitudes, they experience acceleration in socialisation and mature quickly in their worldviews. one volunteer appreciates her luck: i used to be a “spoiled princess” by complaining about noisy accommodation, tasteless canteen food, and even my look. i came to realise that i have been very lucky in having the opportunity to learn, travel, and study at well-equipped schools after volunteering. china is a big country with many rural people living in poor conditions. i have so much more than the local kids. i need to work harder as a return for my family and the country. volunteers’ parents are normally supportive and provide extra family resources to assist the volunteers in their study and financial needs. children in rural china often live with the grandparents because their parents are migrant workers in shanghai, nanjing, suzhou, and other big cities. their parents may come back home once a month or even once a year, requiring the children to helping with farming occasionally. some local families may experience difficulty in finding labour to help with the farming activity, and children have to work for the family for a few days instead of going to school. while the local teachers make allowance for the temporary absence of students, volunteers find it unfair for the local family to force students missing classes. tensions may rise between the volunteers and parents when volunteers visit students’ home trying to persuade the students to attend class. one grandfather complains: the volunteer makes me feel very guilty when my grandson misses three days of school working in the rice paddocks. i need him to work with me because i cannot do the work myself, and we cannot afford to lose the crop. the volunteer just thinks for the class but not for the local family. 3.3 impacts on the local community volunteering initiates long term impacts on the volunteers in terms of socialisation and personal growth. in addition, volunteers bring new ideas and attitudes into the destinations interacting closely with the local hosts, and causing significant changes on the destination. they make use of the local consumption goods injecting cash into the community during their stay. they establish close relationship with the local students and colleagues, and introduce external resources, especially investment and business opportunities, to work together with the locals. one volunteer is very proud of her contribution: this is my third trip here. after i completed my first trip i told my father about my experience. he was very interested and came here during my second trip. he runs a computer business, and donates computer related equipment to the local school. my dad keeps in contact with more local people than i do. volunteers appreciate the local heritage and folklore, and even bring friends back for holidays to enjoy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. the local festivals and cuisine. the locals realise that they are the owners of valuable cultural and natural attributes. what they take for granted may be a rare type of attraction for external people. exposure to volunteers helps the locals establish more confidence, along withan enhanced sense of pride in their hometown. one local lady is content with her business: volunteers helped me to start a farm stay business to cater for holiday makers to enjoy the quiet country life with fresh produce. volunteers are now my business partners because they can market online and bring constant visitors. i employ three local ladies during the spring festival season to help with my operation. life is really great now. learning from college students presents an exciting experience for the local students, and they appreciate the stories and dreams volunteers introduce not only in the classes but also during extra curriculum activities. volunteers share sports and game time with the local students, extending the education from classrooms to playgrounds. life-long friendship develops as a result of interactions and trust. one local student is very proud of his stay at the volunteer’s home: ming was my teacher and became a friend with my family last year when she was volunteering. she invited me to stay at her parent’s place and i had a fantastic week with her family. she just opens up my eyes and i speak with her on wechat regularly. complex impacts are challenging nevertheless. families report to the principal that with the influence of the volunteers, children express more dissatisfaction with their village or family income, and demand the opportunity to travel to big cities. while it is a positive sign that the local students learned from the volunteers about the exciting outside world, the contrast between the affluent city and deprived rural area may lead to frustration, or even anger, among the local students. peaceful rural life is new to many volunteers, and they enjoy visiting the local families for chats and meals. while the locals welcome the volunteers, they sometimes feel they are being examined like gold fish in a bowl. the discomfort of being under constant observation of the volunteers, who stay longer than a random tourist, may produce stress in the local community. due to the disparity between rural and urban china in income and access to services, the lifestyle between the volunteers and local people can be very different. while cooking with dry tree branches may be fun to the tourists for a while, the lack of convenient supply of basic utensils is challenging to work with. electricity supply is inconsistent and people use buckets to fetch fresh water from a public water station that is half a kilometer away from the school. when volunteers make jokes about not being able to use washing machine or a clothes dryer, the local host feels guilty in not supplying what volunteers need. the school headmaster expressed his concern: i know the volunteers are joking with they talk about wearing damp clothes because there is no clothes dryer. but the contrast of different life styles may dwarf the locals and they feel guilty of not treating the volunteers well enough. 3.4 long term solutions? volunteering programs are often organised between the university and local governments, with very www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 3, no. 1, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. little input from the local school. in case of any change of the key people in the organisations, volunteering program may be modified or terminated. consistency of the program is not guaranteed. one local teacher made these remarks: i make plans to make sure my teaching can continue without volunteers. last year volunteers were expected to arrive in middle july but they did not arrive until early august because the organisers changed plans without notifying us. volunteers feel powerless at times when they realise that they are temporary players, who do not know whether they will have a chance to come back later. they may start some program although they may not guarantee the continuity of the assistance. one volunteer expressed her concern: i help a student by walking her to and from school because she needs assistance due to her problem with the legs. however, after i return, she will not be able to attend school on rainy days because her grandpa is sick in bed. i hope there is a long term solution to help the student but it’s beyond my capacity. 4. conclusions volunteering provides positive benefits for all stakeholders involved if it is well planned and managed. however, from the perspectives of the destination, the impacts of volunteering are complex. while it is true that volunteers provide a wide range of assistance for the host community, including economic input, cultural awareness, heritage revitalisation, and expansion of local vision, they may indeed become part of the conflict generated from mis-communication, organisational deficiency, short term views, and so on. while volunteers are appreciated and respected in the local community, they have become scapegoats or targets of blame when things go wrong. further research would provide observation over time and how attitudes shift across time. research is also needed to compare a few similar volunteering programs in order to decipher the complexity in designing and managing a volunteer program that maximises the benefits for not only volunteers but also the local hosts. acknowledgement this work was supported by national natural science foundation of china (no: 41801127， no:71874164，no:41901170) and major program of national social science foundation of china (18zda161). references alexander, z. 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(2007). pro-poor tourism: who benefits? perspectives on tourism and poverty reduction. clevedon: channel view. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781845410766 li, q. (2012). introduction of sociology. jinan: shandong people’s press. lin, q. q., & wen, j. (2020). the socialisation and interaction in the volunteer experience. international journal of social science studies, 8(6), 98-102. https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v8i6.5052 lo, a., & lee, c. (2011). motivations and perceived value of volunteer tourists from hong kong. tourism management, 32(2), 326-334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.03.002 lyons, k. d., & wearing, s. (2008). volunteer tourism as alternative tourism: journeys beyond otherness. in k. d. lyons, & s. wearing (eds.), journeys of discovery in volunteer tourism: international case study perspectives (pp. 3-11). wallingford, uk: cabi. https://doi.org/10.1079/9781845933807.0003 mcgehee, n., & santos, c. (2005). social change, discourse, and volunteer tourism. annals of tourism research, 32(3), 760-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2004.12.002 mcintosh, a. j., & zahra, a. (2007). a cultural encounter through volunteer tourism: towards the ideals of sustainable tourism. journal of sustainable tourism, 15(5), 541-556. https://doi.org/10.2167/jost701.0 pearce, d. g. (1992). alternative tourism: concepts, classifications, and questions. in v. l. smith, & w. r. eadington (eds.), tourism alternatives: potentials and problems in the development of tourism (pp. 15-30). philadelphia: university of pennsylvannia press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512807462-005 singh, t. v. (2002). altruistic tourism: another shade of sustainable tourism: the case of kanda community. tourism (zagreb), 50(4), 361-370. singh, t. v. (2004). new horizons in tourism: strange experiences and stranger practices. wallingford: cabi publishing. https://doi.org/10.1079/9780851998633.0000 smith, v. l. 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(2007). tourism and poverty alleviation: an integrative research framework. current issues in tourism, 10(2-3), 119-143. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 98 original paper the economic behavior (function) of chinese militia during the second world war (anti-japanese war) zhang yuanhang 1* 1 political subject teacher in the humanities department of zibo teachers college, zibo, shandong province, china * zhang yuanhang, corresponding author received: january 22, 2023 accepted: february 22, 2023 online published: february 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n1p98 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n1p98 abstract a militia is an organization that operates like an army but whose members are not professional soldiers. the functions of a militia vary in different periods, particularly during a war, when the militia not only plays a special role in national defense but also plays a unique role in economic production, which has a vital impact on a war scenario. this paper is about the militia in the shandong province of china during the second world war. it explores archival materials to examine the unique economic functions of the militia during this period, and it shows how the militia’s economic role affected the pacific war. keywords militia, economic behavior, world war ii in the traditional cognition, a militia is an organization that operates like an army but whose members are not professional soldiers, it seems that the function of the militia is only to participate in wars or battles. however, during the anti-japanese war, in addition to participating in the war, it also has the functions of logistic support and economic production. this economic function of the militia played a vital role in the victory of china’s anti-japanese war. this article takes shandong anti-japanese base area as an example to demonstrate the economic functions of the chinese militia during the anti-japanese war. 1. reasons for militia participation in economic construction during the anti-japanese war, the fundamental reason why the government departments in shandong anti-japanese base area required the militia to participate in economic production was to solve the basic living materials and weapons and ammunition needed for the war. from a military point of view, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 99 published by scholink inc. the core issue of a long-term war is logistics supplies. the strength of the army’s combat effectiveness and the advancedness of weapons and equipment can only play a key role in quick-fix and short-time battles. once a protracted war is entered, food resources and the production capacity behind it are the ultimate decision for win or lose. during the anti-japanese war, after japan captured shandong province, it plundered the wealth of the shandong people by using force. at the same time, in order to block the source of income of the cpc, the japanese invading troops took methods such as looting farm cattle, destroying farmland and destroying the means of production in the base area, restricting food, strategic resources such as coal and medicine entered the rural areas where the cpc is located. these methods have greatly reduced the productivity of the base areas. in order to ensure the security of their own food supply, the japanese aggressors led the chinese puppet government troops to raid the rural areas of shandong when the summer foods was about to be harvested. the purpose was to snatch the foods produced in the chinese countryside. if this strategic objective cannot be achieved, the japanese army and the troops of chinese puppet regime will choose to destroy the grain. these actions not only caused the living difficulties for rural people, but also cut off the economic source of the cpc and achieved the goal of winning without fighting. especially as the anti-japanese war entered a stage of strategic stalemate, the japanese army intensified the damage to the economy of the base areas, and the issue of food production became a strategic issue. the communist party of china believes that it was the japanese and puppet’s consistent policy which made a big fuss about the food issue and reduced the food supply in the base areas by looting, burning or buying food at high prices. this policy is not only to realize the conspiracy of “supporting war with war”, but its more sinister purpose is to push the soldiers and civilians in the base area to starvation by means of the food problem. (note 1) with the increasing number of military personnel and the increasing food burden, the senior leaders of the communist party of china in shandong province once again recognized the importance of using armed forces to defend food production, and put forward a basic strategy of: “combining force with labor, defending production with force, and supporting war with production is the way for us to support the long-term war of resistance behind enemy lines.” (note 2) and this also shows that mobilizing militias in base areas to carry out agricultural production is an important way for the ccp to solve its own food problem. giving the militia economic functions is also to protect the combat capability of the militia. the sources of weapons and ammunition for militiamen and professional soldiers are different. it is impossible to arm a large militia team only by relying on combat capture. one of the economic functions of the militiamen is to exchange labor for ammunition, or directly participate in the production of weapons and ammunition, in order to realize self-sufficiency of the real militia in terms of weapons and ammunition. in the later period of anti-japanese war, , the militia in some areas participated extensively in the production of weapons and ammunition, and basically achieved partial or even full self-sufficiency in the required ammunition and wartime supplies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. 2. the specific way in which the militia participate in economic production the basic way for the chinese militia to perform its economic functions is to combine labor and armed forces. under the leadership of the cpc, the chinese militia participated in the commercial activities such as farming, and harvesting of grain and production of agricultural products. militia participation in agricultural production activities has a high degree of discipline and division of labor. the most basic command organization of the militia is the village headquarters. the headquarters divided the militia into several groups according to the harvest time of grain and these groups were mainly engaged in agricultural activities near the japanese occupation areas. this is because the militia is composed of young and strong personnel with certain combat experience and combat effectiveness. some of them are responsible for using the night as a cover to quickly cultivate and harvest foods, some people are responsible for remote surveillance,, and some are responsible for military realm., which ensures that in the process of farming and harvesting, they can receive information in advance and quickly transfer to the battle. with such division of labor, the militia can always complete the task of farming or harvesting food quickly. for example, the archives record that shouguang (note 3) sixth district used this method to spend half a day with the militia as the main force to organize the strong men to harvest grain, and after farming, they came back together and distributed the money according to labor. of course, it is unfair to hand over the most dangerous areas to the militia for farming. in order to make up for the militia, the corresponding leading organizations will give the militia some compensation. for example, providing free food to the militiamen during the period of protecting cultivation, or giving the militiamen higher pay “work points” which can be exchanged for more commodities. (note 2) the ratio of ordinary farmers to militiamen in the distribution of crops is 4:5. in addition, in order to ensure both the participation of the militia and agricultural production, the cpc also established a production committee in the village as a unit. this organization is responsible for the cultivation of farmland when the militiamen fight, so as to ensure that the militiamen will not worry about their farmland not be cultivated when they participate in the war. this practice was also recorded in the 1945 archives. although such an approach increased the work of ordinary farmers, it greatly guaranteed the safety of farmers’ property, so it was widely supported by farmers at that time. the militia participates in the production of agricultural and sideline products in a commercial mode. the main form is to participate in the production activities of agricultural and sideline industries by means of helping labors and funding. since the militia is responsible for more functions, more food is distributed to the militia. the militia joins the cooperative as capital, which is a production organization similar to a company, and the militia obtains corresponding dividends. the archives record that in 1944, a village established a tofu-producing cooperative. the 29 militiamen in the village each contributed four buckets of grain as capital shares, while the poorer ordinary farmers took labor and technology as capital shares, and the production tools were provided by the government. they worked together and earn 3335 yuan in two months, which was a lot of profit at that time. as for the distribution of profits, they stipulated that 50% of the profits should go to the village government, 30% should be distributed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 101 published by scholink inc. to the militia and workers, and 20% should be invested in the company’s reproduction activities. the village government also distributes this part of the income publicly, 30% of the funds are used to manufacture ammunition, which can be sold at a low price or given to the militia as a gift, 10% of the funds are invested in public welfare undertakings, and the remaining 10% is used to treat military families preferentially. (note 4) in fact, the militia’s ability to carry out sidelines businesses is essentially due to its own advantages. the militia itself is composed of rural elites, coupled with the militia’s dominant position in production, it has considerable economic resources for sideline production. the results of sideline production can not only benefit the poor and the families of the resistance in the base areas, but also increase the income of the militia, and solve the government’s funding problem to a certain extent, which can be said to kill three birds with one stone. we can draw such a conclusion through the above two specific ways of militia participation in economic production. the cpc organized rural peasants to establish militia organizations to participate in local economic production. the militiamen are physically strong, so they have more food and higher labor efficiency as capital to promote local economic production. and this way also provides basic food resources and logistical support for the eighth route army’s war of resistance behind the enemy, it broke japan’s economic blockade strategy against the cpc, and provided economic assistance, weapons and ammunition assistance for the eighth route army in shandong province to launch guerrilla warfare. 3. chinese militia from the perspective of world history from the perspective of world history, the economic function of the militia has been greatly underestimated. the fact that the cpc gave the militia with economic functions not only affected the course of japan’s war of aggression against china, but also affected the historical course of world anti-fascism. the militiamen carried out economic production in the rural areas of japanese-occupied areas which strengthened the power of chinese farmers to protect food, and to a certain extent impacted japan’s basic strategy of supporting war with war. on the other hand, it is precisely because the militias participated in economic production that the already impoverished rural areas of china were guaranteed a labor force this meant that the guerrilla forces led by the communist party alone active in the rear of japan had basic material security. in this sense, the cpc were able to carry out guerrilla warfare on the japanese rear battlefield and the continuously develop and expand its troops thanks to the militia’s promotion of rural economic production. with the continuous expansion of the scale of guerrilla warfare in the japanese-occupied areas, japan had to station a large number of troops in the occupied areas to deal with the threat from the communist army. this has also greatly affected japan’s military strength in southeast asia and the pacific battlefield. with the deepening of the world anti-fascist war, the cpc began to functionally divide the militias into the junior and the senior, with a ratio of about 3:1. the junior militia’s function is more to protect the security of the rural regime and participate in the economic construction, while the senior militia’s function is to undertake more active www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 1, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. raids on japan’s military strongholds. the division of militia functions has led to a collective increase in the size of the militia. according to the archives, in shandong province alone, the number of militias led by the cpc has reached 2 million, of which the number of high-level militias has reached 500000. which shows that china’s guerrilla warfare has achieved long-term and large-scale. therefore, japan cannot deploy more troops to reinforce the pacific battlefield and southeast asia battlefield under the premise of absolute victory in the frontal battlefield. notes note 1. co-editor of shandong provincial institute of financial sciences and shandong provincial archives: selected financial historical data of shandong revolutionary base volume i. printed by jinan no. 8 printing factory, 1985, 24. note 2. “summary and future tasks of militia work in the bohai region” (july 20, 1945). this file is kept in shandong provincial archives. case number: g026-01-0167-003. note 3. the name of a county in shandong province. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 4, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 94 original paper research on image of beijing based on calculation of semantic prosody strength—take reports on the work of the government (2021-2025) of beijing as examples bingren long1, hui shao2*, lan wang3, & xiaoli wang4 1 college of foreign languages, beijing university of technology, beijing, china 2 college of foreign languages, beijing university of technology, beijing, china 3 college of foreign languages, beijing university of technology, beijing, china 4 college of foreign languages, beijing university of technology, beijing, china * corresponding author received: may 27, 2025 accepted: july 22, 2025 online published: august 10, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n4p94 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n4p94 abstract a city’s projected image, particularly as articulated in official discourse, is a critical component of its public communication. this study examines the self-shaped image of beijing by analyzing the official english reports on the work of the government from 2021 to 2025 (59,916 tokens; 655 concordance lines of “beijing”). using a corpus-based approach, we applied the syuzhet sentiment analysis algorithm to measure semantic prosody strength and conducted analysis of variance (anova) to test for significant differences across six thematic categories. the findings reveal that while topics such as macro-level development and positioning appear most frequently, they tend to be described with a more neutral or moderate sentiment. in contrast, discussions related to citizen welfare, social services, and cultural development, though less frequent, are characterized by distinctly positive sentiment. these results indicate that the official reports construct an image of beijing as a capable leader, an innovative center, and a caring and livable city. this research possesses significant theoretical and practical value. it demonstrates the utility of quantitative semantic prosody analysis for uncovering the city image in official policy discourse, providing a useful reference for future studies in city image construction. keywords beijing image, semantic prosody strength, corpus linguistics, report on the work of the government www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 95 1. introduction in an increasingly interconnected global environment, cities function as significant actors on the world stage, competing for investment, talent, and influence. in this context, a city’s image—the collective representation and perception of a place—has become a vital asset. anholt (2007) argues that a powerful and positive identity is fundamental for city competitiveness. this idea connects closely with the concept of “soft power,” which nye (2004) defines as the ability to attract and persuade through cultural and political values rather than coercion. key cities often act as the primary expressions of a nation’s soft power, serving as windows through which the world views its development and aspirations. against this global background, china has placed a clear emphasis on communicating its national story to the world. as the nation’s capital, beijing occupies a unique and central position in this effort. it serves not only as the political and cultural heart of china but also as the center for international exchanges, and the center for scientific discovery and technological innovation. consequently, the image that beijing presents to the world is deeply intertwined with the broader narrative of china itself. to understand how this image is constructed, it is necessary to examine the official discourse produced by its government. the reports on the work of the government of beijing stand out as a highly official genre of political communication. these reports serve as more than summaries of past work and future objectives; they communicate a coherent narrative of the government’s performance and the city’s identity. the language within the reports therefore provides an ideal and direct source for investigating the municipality’s official “self-shaped” image. a considerable amount of scholarship has been dedicated to the image of beijing. much of this research has centered on how the city is represented in various forms of media, literary works, or in connection with major historical events like the 2008 and 2022 olympic games (e.g., zhang & munjal, 2017). these studies, often employing qualitative analytical methods, provide valuable insights into how beijing’s image is constructed from specific perspectives. however, there is less research that systematically examines beijing’s image through its own official discourse. the perspective offered by the reports on the work of the government of beijing remains an under-explored area. furthermore, a methodological gap is apparent. most existing studies on beijing’s image rely on qualitative interpretation. corpus linguistics provides a powerful framework for a large-scale, data-driven investigation of language, yet its quantitative potential has not been fully applied to this topic. moreover, few studies attempted to analyze the image of beijing by adopting the calculation of semantic prosody strength to statistically measure a large body of official texts. this study, therefore, addresses the challenge of precisely measuring and interpreting the discursive strategies used in beijing’s official self-representation. by employing a corpus-based quantitative method, it seeks to move beyond qualitative description and provide a systematic analysis of the attitudinal meanings embedded in the official discourse about the image of beijing. to fulfill the aims of this study, the following research questions are proposed: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 96 rq1: what is the overall semantic prosody strength of “beijing” in on the reports on the work of the government of beijing from 2021-2025, and what are the specific semantic prosody strengths of different semantic preferences? rq2: based on the analysis of the semantic prosody strength, what image of beijing is constructed in the reports? this study is expected to be significant in both theoretical and practical terms. theoretically, it contributes to corpus linguistics by applying a sentiment-analysis-based method to calculate semantic prosody strength, further strengthening its findings with statistical testing (anova). it also extends the application of the extended unit of meaning model to city image research, showing its value in the analysis of strategic discourse. from a practical point, this research offers empirical, data-driven insights into the analysis of official city image construction. the findings serve as a useful reference for policymakers and communication professionals in beijing and other cities, helping them to better understand and refine their communication practices. the detailed methodological framework can also be a guide for future academic work in similar areas. 2. literature review the concept of the city image, representing the collective beliefs and impressions held of an urban place, has a rich theoretical history. it originated in the foundational work of lynch (1960), who defined it through a cognitive concept as a “mental map” shaped by tangible urban elements. this perspective later broadened to include principles from marketing and communication. a critical contribution from this stage was the distinction between the projected image communicated by city managers and the perceived image held by various audiences (ashworth & voogd, 1990). contemporary theories now embrace a more holistic framework. it acknowledges that a city’s image is a complex outcome of the city’s physical “hardware” and its intangible “software,” which includes governance, culture, and citizen experiences (kavaratzis, 2004, wang & tian, 2008). this evolution in theory suggests that a city’s image is shaped by multiple forces. crucially, as ashworth and voogd’s work implies, the projected image communicated through official channels forms a foundational narrative against which other perceptions are often measured. therefore, a critical analysis of this primary, official discourse is a necessary starting point for understanding the entire image. the theoretical frameworks above provide a valuable insight for analyzing the extensive scholarship on beijing’s image. a prominent theme in this research is the role of mega-events and media representation. studies focusing on the city’s “dual olympics” consistently demonstrate a difference between the officially projected global image and the one perceived by international visitors (lai, 2018; zhang & zhao, 2009). similarly, media-focused analyses show that western news outlets have often framed beijing through a political perspective (xu et al., 2019), while user-generated content from digital platforms like youtube (deng & qu, 2022) and instagram (zhan et al., 2025) presents a more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 97 diverse and fragmented public perception. moving from mediated to direct perception, another stream of research investigates the image as held by key stakeholders. these studies, which gather data from tourists, residents, or business operators, reveal crucial differences in how aspects like urban authenticity and quality of life are evaluated across these groups (su et al., 2021). parallel to these social scientific approaches, research in the humanities explores the city’s symbolic identity by tracing its representation in literature and art over time (niu & zhang, 2022). together, these studies help to understand beijing’s image constructed and perceived through different aspects. while this body of work is comprehensive, a review reveals two clear gaps. first, in terms of data sources, the predominant focus on media reports, social media posts, or stakeholder surveys means that the official, self-constructed image articulated at its source—in official government texts—remains comparatively under-explored. second, regarding methodology, the reliance on qualitative interpretation or conventional content analysis, while valuable for identifying themes, is not designed to systematically measure the subtle evaluative tones embedded within language. these methods can effectively tell us what is being discussed, but they often struggle to reliably quantify how it is being evaluated. this underlying layer of attitudinal meaning is what linguists refer to as semantic prosody—the aura of positive or negative meaning a word acquires from its patterns of co-occurrence (louw, 1993). this study is designed to directly address the identified gaps by building upon the theoretical foundation of the extended unit of meaning (eum) model, first proposed by sinclair. the eum model provides a framework for analyzing language not as isolated words but as meaningful patterns, which include a node word (the word under investigation), its collocations (words that frequently co-occur), its semantic preference (the tendency to co-occur with words from a particular meaning group), and its semantic prosody. central to this study is the concept of semantic prosody. its measurement has evolved from qualitative description to quantitative calculation. while early quantitative approaches often relied on a simple polarity ratio (e.g., counting positive versus negative collocates), recent scholarship has proposed more sophisticated methods. following the direction of recent works by li et al. (2022) and tang et al. (2024), this study employs the established sentiment-analysis-based algorithm. this method calculates the semantic prosody strength (sps), providing a more fine-grained measurement of the attitudinal coloring of discourse. by applying this advanced analytical framework to the data source—reports on the work of the government of beijing—this study aims to make a distinct contribution. it provides a more precise, evidence-based analysis of the attitudinal strategies present in beijing’s official self-portrayal, thereby filling the identified gaps in the existing literature. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 98 3. methodology the preceding chapter reviewed the existing literature on beijing’s city image, identifying two primary gaps: a lack of focus on official, self-representing discourse and a reliance on qualitative methods that are not designed to systematically measure attitudinal meaning. to address these gaps, this study develops a specific research methodology that combines a novel data source with a quantitative analytical framework. this chapter details the complete methodological procedure of the study. it begins by outlining the mixed-methods research design, then describes the processes of data collection and corpus construction, and finally explains the step-by-step analytical procedures, including concordance generation, semantic preference classification, and the calculation and statistical testing of semantic prosody strength. 3.1 research design this study employs a mixed-methods research design, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches in an explanatory sequential manner. the initial qualitative phase involved a content analysis of the corpus to develop a valid semantic preference framework. this framework then guided the subsequent quantitative phase, which used corpus-based tools, the calculation of semantic prosody strength (li et al., 2022) and statistical analysis to measure semantic prosody strength and test the findings for significance. this design allows the qualitative insights to provide contextual depth for the quantitative results, while the quantitative data offers empirical objectivity to the overall analysis. figure 1. calculation of semantic prosody strength (li et al., 2022) 3.2 data collection and corpus construction the research corpus was compiled from the official english versions of the work of the government of beijing for the years 2021 to 2025. these five reports were downloaded as text files from the official website of the beijing municipal government. this period was selected because it represents the most complete and currently available sequence of official discourse reflecting the city’s development during china’s 14th five-year plan. after compilation, the corpus was pre-processed using r software to convert all text to lowercase, remove punctuation and numbers, and normalize whitespace. the final www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 99 clean corpus consists of 59,916 tokens. 3.3 analytical procedures the analysis of the corpus followed a three-step procedure, moving from concordance generation to qualitative coding and finally to quantitative calculation and testing. 3.3.1 concordance lines generation the clean corpus was first imported into the software antconc v4.2.4. a search for the node word “beijing” was conducted using a window span of five words to the left and five to the right (l5/r5). this span was chosen based on both established research in collocation analysis and a preliminary review of the data, which confirmed its sufficiency for capturing the immediate evaluative context. the study finally generated 655 concordance lines. 3.3.2 semantic preference classification the 655 concordance lines were then qualitatively analyzed to classify them into distinct semantic preference categories. an iterative process of reading and discussion led to the development of a six-category framework. to ensure the objectivity of this manual coding, inter-coder reliability was established. the process involved two independent coders who, after training, separately coded a random sample of 197 lines (30% of the dataset). the agreement between the two sets of codes was measured using cohen’s kappa coefficient. the resulting value of κ=0.85 indicates “almost perfect” agreement according to the benchmarks of landis and koch (1977), confirming the reliability and clarity of the classification scheme. following this verification, the full dataset was coded. 3.3.3 semantic prosody strength calculation and statistical analysis the final stage of the analysis was quantitative. the semantic prosody strength (sps) for “beijing” was calculated using the r environment. this study adopted the sentiment-analysis-based calculation for calculating sps, following the research of li, hu, and tang. the study used the syuzhet package to compute the calculation for each of the 655 concordance lines and for each of the six semantic preference categories. syuzhet is an open-source sentiment analysis toolkit in r that assigns emotional scores to text based on a well-established english sentiment lexicon, making it widely used for detecting sentiment trends in narrative and policy discourse. its use in this study is justified by its proven effectiveness in quantifying attitudinal meaning in english-language texts, which aligns with our goal of systematically measuring the evaluative tone in the official english reports of the beijing government (jockers, 2015). despite its general-purpose design, its robustness in policy and narrative text has been demonstrated in recent linguistic studies (li et al., 2022). to provide statistical rigor, a one-way analysis of variance (anova) was conducted. this test was used to determine if the observed differences in the mean sps values across the six semantic categories were statistically significant. in the model, semantic_preference was the independent variable, and semantic prosody strength was the dependent variable, with a significance level set at p<.05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 100 4. results and findings this chapter presents the main findings derived from the analysis of the 655 concordance lines of the node word “beijing”. the chapter is organized into three sections. it begins by defining the six semantic preference categories developed for this study and reporting the frequency distribution of the data across them. the second section details the results of the semantic prosody strength (sps) calculations. the final section presents the results of the statistical test used to verify the significance of these findings. 4.1 semantic preference categories and distribution before presenting the quantitative results, it is necessary to define the six semantic preference categories that were established through the qualitative coding process. these categories emerged from an inductive analysis of the data and represent the primary thematic domains in which “beijing” is discussed within the corpus. the definition for each category and a representative example are provided below. table 1. definition for each category and a representative example semantic preference definition example strategic positioning and capital functions this category includes content related to beijing’s role as the national capital and its core functions. … to the strategic positioning of beijing as the national capital … regional and open development this category pertains to discourse about beijing’s role in regional integration (especially the beijing-tianjin-hebei region), its connections to xiong’an new area, and its function as a center for international exchange and opening-up. … capital and pushed for beijing tianjin hebei coordinated development … sci-tech innovation and economy this category covers topics of scientific and technological advancement, the digital economy, the financial sector, and general high-quality economic growth. … have been made in building beijing into a national innovation … urban governance and this category involves themes … with big cities and turned www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 101 livability of city management, infrastructure development (e.g., airports, railways), environmental protection (air and water quality), and efforts to make the city more livable and greener. beijing into a more livable … cultural development and heritage this category includes references to beijing’s role as a national cultural center, the preservation of historical heritage (such as the central axis), the development of cultural venues (museums, theaters), and the hosting of cultural events. … as the national cultural center beijing has gained more strength … livelihood and social services this category focuses on aspects directly related to citizen welfare, such as healthcare (the “healthy beijing” initiative), education, employment, income, and social security. … life expectancy rose to 82.43 years beijing is among the first … the analysis revealed a notably uneven distribution of discursive focus across these six categories. as detailed in table 2, the discourse predominantly centered on macro-level strategy, while themes directly concerning citizen welfare appeared less frequently. table 2. frequency and percentage of concordance lines by semantic preference (n = 655) semantic preference category frequency (n) percentage (%) strategic positioning and capital functions 190 29.0 regional and open development 145 22.1 sci-tech innovation and economy 106 16.2 urban governance and livability 83 12.7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 102 cultural development and heritage 69 10.5 livelihood and social services 62 9.5 total 655 100.0 strategic positioning and capital functions was the most frequent category, accounting for nearly one-third of all instances (29.0%), followed by regional and open development at 22.1%. in contrast, livelihood and social services was the least frequent category, comprising only 9.5% of the data. figure 1 visually represents this distribution. figure 1. pie chart of distribution of semantic preference mentions for “beijing” 4.2 semantic prosody strength of “beijing” the central quantitative finding of this study is the semantic prosody strength of the node word “beijing”. as detailed in chapter 3, the sps was calculated based on the sentiment-analysis algorithm proposed by li et al. (2022). the overall sps for “beijing” across all 655 concordance lines was 0.540, indicating a moderately positive prosody for the node word in the corpus as a whole. the analysis of sps within each semantic preference, however, uncovered considerable variation. table 3 presents a comprehensive summary of these results, including the calculated sps and the standard deviation (sd), which measures the consistency of sentiment within each category. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 103 table 3. statistics for semantic prosody strength (sps) by semantic preference semantic preference n sps std. deviation (sd) livelihood and social services 62 0.743 0.762 urban governance and livability 83 0.683 0.622 cultural development and heritage 69 0.657 0.555 sci-tech innovation and economy 106 0.567 0.519 regional and open development 145 0.506 0.530 strategic positioning and capital functions 190 0.378 0.582 note: n=frequency count, sps=semantic prosody strength, sd=standard deviation. as shown in the table, the sps values varied substantially across the categories. the discourse on livelihood and social services exhibited the highest sps (0.743), indicating the most strongly positive prosody. conversely, the most frequent category, strategic positioning and capital functions, possessed the lowest sps (0.378). regarding the stability of sentiment, sci-tech innovation and economy was the most consistent (sd = 0.519), while livelihood and social services showed the greatest variation (sd = 0.762). figure 4.2 provides a visual representation of these findings. figure 2. bar chart of mean sps with error bars www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 104 4.3 statistical significance of differences to confirm whether the observed variations in sps across the six categories were statistically meaningful, a one-way analysis of variance (anova) was conducted. the results of the anova test were statistically significant, f (5,649) =6.12, p<.001. the obtained p-value is well below the conventional significance level of .05. this result indicates that a statistically significant difference exists in the semantic prosody strength of “beijing” across the six semantic preference categories. the variations reported in section 4.2 are therefore unlikely to be a result of random chance and can be considered a solid basis for interpretation in the following chapter. 5. discussion this chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of the research findings presented in chapter 4. it interprets what the quantitative results reveal about the multi-dimensional image of beijing as constructed in its official government discourse. the discussion begins by elaborating on the core finding: the multi-faceted city image. it then connects these findings to the previous research on beijing’s image, before reflecting on the study’s broader implications and acknowledging its limitations. 5.1 the constructed beijing image: a multi-faceted and strategic portrait the findings of this study reveal that the official image of beijing composed of several distinct dimensions, each expressed with varying degrees of emotional intensity. crucially, the one-way anova test confirmed that these differences in semantic prosody strength across the thematic categories are statistically significant (p<.001). this provides a solid statistical foundation for the core argument of this chapter: the multi-faceted portrayal of the city is reflected in the differing levels of positive sentiment across topics. by examining these significant variations, we can deconstruct the key dimensions of the city’s officially projected identity. first and foremost, the discourse establishes beijing as an official leader. this foundational dimension of the city’s image is most clearly articulated through the calculated semantic prosody strength (sps). the category strategic positioning and capital functions, which deals with beijing’s core role as the national capital, exhibited the lowest sps of all categories (sps=0.378). this intentionally measured and less emotional tone is a hallmark of institutional discourse. it conveys seriousness and objectivity, projecting an image of a government that is confident in its authority and strategic direction. the power of this narrative does not rely on affective language for persuasion; its weight comes from the authority it represents. this cool and declarative prosody is further reinforced by its high frequency in the corpus (29.0%), making it the most prominent and foundational element of beijing’s self-portrayal. in direct contrast to this official image, the discourse simultaneously constructs beijing as a caring and livable home. this dimension is built upon the strongest positive prosody found in the study. the category livelihood and social services yielded the highest sps (0.743), followed closely by urban governance and livability (sps=0.683). the intensely positive language used when discussing topics of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 105 citizen welfare—such as healthcare, income, and environmental improvements—reflects the government’s emphasis on public affinity. it creates an emotional connection with residents by framing the government as a people-oriented and responsive provider of a better life. this warmth is accompanied by complexity. the high standard deviation in the livelihood category (sd = 0.762) suggests that the discourse is not one-dimensional praise, but rather reflects the complicated realities of social governance. this variation can be interpreted as a sign of sincerity, constructing an image of a government that is not just successful, but also realistic and engaged with the challenges of improving its citizens’ lives. finally, bridging the authority and affinity, the discourse projects the image of beijing as a confident innovator and a vibrant cultural center. these dimensions are articulated with robustly positive, but more moderate, semantic prosody strength. the sci-tech innovation and economy category (sps=0.567) is notable for having the most stable and consistent prosody (sd = 0.519), which creates an impression of steady confidence and progress. meanwhile, the strong positive prosody strength of cultural development and heritage (sps=0.657) conveys a sense of pride and cultural strength. together, these elements complete the portrait of a capital that is not only a powerful political center and a caring home, but also a dynamic and forward-looking hub of progress and culture. in summary, the analysis shows that the reports on the work of the government of beijing present a multi-faceted and strategically balanced identity for beijing. this identity is carefully shaped through the modulation of semantic prosody across different topics. at its foundation, the city is portrayed as an official leader, grounded in the objective and measured language used for its core strategic functions. building upon this base, the discourse employs a markedly warmer and more positive prosody to shape the other key dimensions of the city’s identity. it is presented as a caring home, articulated with the empathetic language of public welfare; a vibrant cultural center, expressed with a clear tone of pride in its rich heritage; and a confident innovator, conveyed with the steady and assured language of economic and technological progress. this approach results in an image combining authority, public affinity, cultural richness, and confidence. 5.2 implications the findings of this study both complement and extend the existing body of scholarship on beijing’s image. previous research has provided valuable insights into how the city’s image is constructed in media or perceived by the public. this study complements that work by offering a detailed, quantitative analysis of the “self-shaped” image at its official source. for instance, studies of western media portrayals have sometimes highlighted a focus on political narratives when discussing beijing (e.g., xu et al., 2019). our findings provide a point of contrast, showing that in its self-portrayal, the government dedicates the most positive and emotionally resonant language not to political functions, but to citizen welfare (livelihood and social services). this discrepancy between the self-shaped image and the media-constructed image points to a potentially significant gap between official communication goals and their reception or representation in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 4, 2025 published by scholink inc. 106 international media, a topic worthy of future investigation. furthermore, our data provides empirical support for some qualitative observations from prior work. the strong positive prosody found in the cultural development and heritage category quantitatively confirms the view that projecting cultural confidence is a key component of beijing’s image. however, by showing that the prosody of citizen-focused themes is even stronger, our study suggests a hierarchy of discursive priorities that was not previously evident. this research also advances the methodology of city image studies by demonstrating how the calculation of semantic prosody strength, supported by statistical testing, can offer a more precise way to analyze the attitudinal dimension of strategic discourse. the results of this research carry both theoretical and practical implications. theoretically, this study validates the utility of a statistically informed approach to semantic prosody analysis, revealing the discursive strategies that would otherwise remain hidden. practically, the study offers valuable insights for government communication professionals. the beijing image identified here reflects how different aspects of beijing’s image are associated with varying emotional tones in official discourse, showing leadership in development and warmth in citizen-oriented themes. 5.3 limitations and future work however, this study is not without its limitations. first, the corpus is limited to a single genre of official discourse, and therefore represents only the “projected image.” future research could compare these findings with analyses of media coverage or public opinion on social media to create a more holistic picture. second, the analysis is based on the official english translations of the reports. while official, the translation process might alter or lose some of the subtle meanings present in the original chinese text. finally, the syuzhet sentiment lexicon is a general-purpose tool. while effective, a domain-specific lexicon could potentially offer an even more fine-tuned analysis in future work. acknowledging these limitations helps to frame the contribution of this study and paves the way for continued research in this area. acknowledgments this paper is funded by beijing municipal education commission (project number: sm202110005001). references anholt s. 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(2015). syuzhet: extract sentiment and plot arcs from text. r package version 1.0.6. https://doi.org/10.32614/cran.package.syuzhet advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 180 original paper methodological approach for the analysis of artistic creativity through first-person analysis pierre d’argyll1* 1 www.pierredargyll.com, @pierredargyll, madrid, spain * pierre d’argyll, www.pierredargyll.com, @pierredargyll, madrid, spain received: december 20, 2019 accepted: october 15, 2019 online published: october 17, 2019 doi:10.22158/assc.v1n2p180 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v1n2p180 abstract can the study of a single subject by means of a first-person analysis be considered from a scientific methodological approach? the response from neurophenomenology is yes. the recent science of consciousness led by francisco varela claims the need to use first-person data, subjective-experiential reports to link them with neurobiological correlates of classically scientific third-person data. i address here a systematic disciplined methodology to translate first-person analysis to the field of art creativity to be performed by the own artist/subject. the goal is to formulate a methodology to be further validated and standardized by other artists willing to perform an introspective analysis, in what can be considered open to “intersubjective validation” in terms of varela. first-person analysis by the artist herself might reciprocally offer the basis for scientific understanding of the neural processes involved in the synthesis of a creative artwork. finally, better understanding in the mechanisms involved in inspiration, synthesis and execution of art-work may also help an artist to enhance his/her creative abilities. keywords autobiographical memory, artistic creation, first-person analysis, neurophenomenology 1. introduction can the study of a single subject by means of a first-person analysis be considered from a scientific methodological approach? the response from neurophenomenology is yes. several neuroscientists led by francisco varela have developed the science of consciousness or neurophenomenology after the progress of cognitive science as well as the development of psychoanalysis and scientific psychology (varela, 1996; varela & shear, 1999; vargas, canales-johnson et al., 2013, froese, 2015). these authors claim the need to use first-person data, subjective-experiential reports, to link them with neural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 181 published by scholink inc. biological correlates of classically scientific third-person data. first-person or introspective analysis is thus a necessary path towards the development of a “science of experience” (varela, 1996; tononi & edelman, 1998; varela & shear, 1999; varela & shear, 1999; northoff & heinzel, 2006). this is so because mental states are lived experiences in the first person perspective and hence unique to the subject, being the most accurate source to yield insight into the “point of view from within the brain” (tononi & edelman, 1998), which is inaccesible to the third-person perspective. the results of introspection further require of neuroscientific tools to be objectively validated in a second analysis (jo, wittmann et al., 2014). in this essay, i shall develop a pragmatic translation to the field of plastic arts of the original idea of varela. for this purpose, i shall follow what varela postulated as key steps and valid way (disciplined meditation by mindfulness method) for methodological approximation to conscious brain processes, the case here is artistic creation, inherently subjective, from the own subject/artist (d’argyll & fernándezmartínez, 2015). on the other hand, the last two decades has been exponentially fertile on neuroscientific findings of the brain-mind processes. a recent movement of neuroenthusiasts from very different disciplines has oriented the debate on how the last neurobiological discoveries about the functioning of our mind can influence the comprehension and promotion to the rest of fields of knowledge. among these disciplines, the neuroesthetics is a young scientific field for the study of art (mainly developed in music) through the biological bases of perception of beauty and creativity (kawabata & zeki, 2004). the alignment between art and neuroscience might bring new elements of comprehension of the artistic creation process. we previously hypothesized that the neuroscientific study of these neurological correlates on the basis of the first-person (artist) perspective might help to add understanding to the artistic creative activity (d’argyll & fernández-martínez, 2015). in this article, i sought to illustrate this first-person methodological study with selected results of my own introspective analysis as artist. this method is intended to be further reproduced by other artists to confirm its scientific truth. 2. method 2.1 introspective first-person analysis of the artwork we proposed a new approach of first-person analysis to the artwork through a systematic step-wise methodology by means of meditation or introspection, which should be reported in writings, recording or by other means (d’argyll, p., & dolores, f., 2014). we designed seven steps to cover different aspects of the intimate memory that offer an integrated view of the artist’s perception of his/her lived experience, both in content (for instance, the artist’s statement), how he/she has evolved to this content (process), and of how he/she represents this content (execution), as follows: 1) autobiographic memory, analysis of specific childhood memories that are considered essential to the work or the artist’s life; 2) memories of dreams, analysis of certain dreams that are related to the work or that the artist recognizes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 182 published by scholink inc. as key in the process of creation; 3) relationship with the arts, analysis of the influence of the work of other artists, writers, musicians, architects, etc., throughout the evolution of his/her work; 4) collective memory, analysis of the influence of the socio-cultural environment and socio-political events, scientific and technological advances, etc, throughout the life of the artist; 5) statement of the artist, main message; 6) memory of knowledge and experience, analysis of the evolution of the work in his/her personal search; 7) methods or procedures, analysis of the technical aspects of the execution of the work and external factors (geographical, physical), triggering elements of creation. 3. results 3.1 the autobiographical memory: memories within the grid the brain encodes every item of our visual and positional perception that arrives to the sensory cortex areas in form of very precise topographic maps of our reality, mainly by two different types of cells in a deep brain region called hippocampus. there are at least two kinds of cells in the hippocampus, space cells and grid cells, which are able to locate what we see and our position with respect to the object. the 2014 norwegian nobel prizes edvard and may-britt moser, have been working on this relevant brain classifiers that allows us to memorize space and time. according to their studies, space cells are individually activated specifically in space points in our environment and in the actual time (moser, moser et al., 2014). the grid cells nearby are able to construct from influx of the space cells, maps of coordenates of our movement and position, giving a personal referential perspective of space and time. in this context, and according to several authors, oldest and most accesible memories are those from the age of 5 years (maturity of the hippocampus with capability to crystalize memories) to 25 years (conway & fthenaki, 2000; piolino, desgranges et al., 2009). space and scale perception are indeed essential to painting. through the whole ensemble of my work, one can observe the will of always expressing the space, accentuated by an invented shadow as metaphore of time (figure 1). also, there is a persistent will of defining the limits of space. i have selected three vivid memories to illustrate this issue: 1) i have a recurrent souvenir of one of my first memories of infanthood (around 5 years of age) that highlights the personal perspective of spatial perception and memory. i am located in an enormous enlighted room at my parents place trying to walk among adults’ legs at a special family celebration, the space perception dominates all other senses in this vivid memory. later in life, i have realised the much more diminished dimension of that room with respect to my memory. i keep a sensation of immensity in the memory that does not correspond to the actual size. the personal perspective of space conditions the representation by the artist. the readjustment of the space perception is thus relative to the time-subject, and the artist has always a possibility to reinterpret it. 2) a memory that has impacted my life corresponds to my grandfather’s death, the impossible word. i can remember every single detail of the day at his burial. this terrible event represents for me the awareness of absence. we enclose the death in a box due to this inmense void, so we build structures to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 183 published by scholink inc. fill it. we somehow put limits to the limitless. the philosopher peter sloterdjik has worked the idea of the void and the ancestral fear of man, which could be compensated by the creation of an inner space conceptualized as spheres (sloterdijk, 2003). many of the perceptions in this souvenir make reference to this idea of inside/outside referencial space, recurrent in my work, as for instance in the series “silvia’s cube” (figure 1). 3) another memory in this context inside/outside the box are my solex motorkyke trips around paris, along the bank of the seine in a circular tour, feeling myself disintegrated to become fully embodied within the city. figure 1. detail of “silvia’s cube”, pierre d’argyll, 2013 other artists have explored the issue of autobiographic memories in their artwork: stendhal in his autobiography created maps to better explain different scenes of his life and the main characters of his novels (stendhal, 1973). a phase of gerard richter’s work is based in his childhood memories during the world war ii (ww2) and the posterior sovietic control that changed his life. he uses the photograpy like a pretext to reconstruct images of his childhood that were forever lost after leaving his country. as louise bourgeois said, “the past is guillotined by the present”. bourgeois creates from her childhood souvenirs through her subjectivity and an autobiographical symbolic code, reviving or fixing the past. in her artwork “cell choisy” (1990-1993), she reconstructs her past through her memories and with the support of the pictures of her friend makhi xenakis to verify the fidelity of her souvenirs with the present (xenakis, 1998; bernadac & storsve, 2008). 3.2 memories of dreams from a semantic perspective, french is very rich in the vocabulary concerning the dream, such as “le rêve”, the dream; “le songe”: the dream; “le sommeil”: to sleep, “la rêverie”: daydream and “dormir” to sleep, as well as many other terms: “rêvasser, sommeiller, somnoler, s’assoupir, reposer, penser, planer, méditer, songer, s’endormir, se coucher”, which refer to different phases of the active or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 184 published by scholink inc. passive attitude of dreaming. nevertheless, the dream here alludes to an active action, in contrast to the passive status of being asleep. the reinassance conferred extraordinary relevance to dreams, understood as a unique time to relate with the unknown. the exhibition at the luxembourg museum in paris “la renaissance and le rêve (2013)”; highlighted this meaning in the selected paintings showing people at rest sleeping with their bodies in abandoned gestures within the visible no-action remarking the mental action of dreaming. at the end of the xvii and early xix centuries, the french etimology “le rêve” proposes to understand the dream in its full creative potential and source of inspiration. the dream becomes the subject. in 1832, during his trip to marocco, eugène delacroix almost arrived to tánger, describes in his correspondence his “émerveillement” for the orient. he uses the transference to the dream and daydream to memorize what he sees and do not want to forget. he says: “je suis dans ce momento comme un homme qui rêve et qui voit des choses qu’il craint de voir lui échapper” (i am in this moment as a man that dreams and that sees things he fears to loose) (de font-réaulx, 2014). the surrealists will claim again the importance of the dream in creation. indeed, the dream abolishes the boundaries of space and time and releases the plastic creation from reason and moral constraints. the representation of the dream in joan miró’s work becomes colour “ceci est la couleur de mes rêves”, 1925 (this is the colour of my dreams). in this painting of miró, a blue-pigmented stain focuses our attention and caligraphic texts with the title and a picture. salvador dalí is also a clear example of recreation from his dreams and interiorized images of familiar places like his native village of figueras in his paintings. his game of words, “during the daylight, we search unconsciously the lost images of our dreams. and for this reason, when we find an image that resembles an image from a dream, we believe to know it and just to see it makes us dreaming”, as reflected in “the invisible woman” (la femme invisible, 1930). one cannot talk of the meaning of dreams without mentioning sigmund freud, for whom the dream is the main route to access our unconscious ideas or desires. he distinguishes two kinds of dream contents, latent and manifest. in his psycoanalytic method, he takes the interpretation of manifest dreams by free association as a starting point to reach the latent dream. latent dreams have been transformed through diverse mechanisms of secondary elaboration: condensation, censure, displacement and care of responsibility (freud, 2004). freud gives a relevant role also to the plastic expression in the process of displacement of psychic material within dreams (freud, 2004). moreover, the plastic dimension is essential to oniric representation, as defends the neuresthetical movement (barcaro & paoli, 2015). in my personal experience about the dreams on my paintings, i would like to emphasize also their intense plastic dimension, and more particularly, about the action of dreaming in specific situations related to my creative work. the dreams are the most direct source of our pure intuition and fears, and also rich in absurdity. it has happened to me dreaming of a project of painting, in gestation or during its achievement. this means that dreams makes part of the creative process operating as a stimulus, censure, assimilation or aceptation mechanisms. the development of the painting follows a similar path, which may suggest that the dream is at the genesis of the artwork. for instance, during a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 185 published by scholink inc. productive period or at quiet times in the search of new topics, my dreams are transformed in reality or push me to translate and i see myself travelling through my dreamt work, as in my solex trips i feel disintegrated within the painting. i am the painter painting and the painter painted through the images of myself at painting with the gesture of my hand and i have to retain these dreams’ memories to get them outside. 3.3 memory related to arts: neural plasticity and plastic arts, a two-way road an artist is greatly influenced by other artists and their artworks, by visual advertising and art images. these influences can act as creative stimulus or inspirational ideas, sometimes unconscious, which the artist resolves and, assimilates inside his/her own work. the neuroscientist and philosopher jean-pierre changeux (changeux, 1996) has reflected on the process of painting from the neurobiology’s perspective. changeux postulates three characteristic steps in a dialogue between the painter and its artwork: first, the mental scheme, in which the artist creates through a selection of the memories (personal experience, other artists’ work, etc.) and subsequent composition based on “mnemonic” representations; secondly, the progressive evolution by the mastery of gesture with the raw material; and finally, the completion in an organized and coherent artwork passing the test of logic. in the first step, the selected memories could be conscious or unconscious, but are not arbitrarily selected (changeux, 1996). the artist would use these memories as material to reflect on, to decompose, to compose and to create (in terms of louise bourgeois “i do, i undo i redo”). however, the third step is a conscious reflection and synthesis by the artist in a dominated result. the work of eric kandel, neuroscientist awarded with the nobel prize in medicine and physiology has shed light into the mechanisms of memorization and recall. kandel has found that the nature of the memories is built by proteins named by acronym cpeb (protein-binding-of-the-element-ofpolyadenylation), in the synapses or junction points between two neurons. these proteins are able to self replicate like modular construction parts (polyadenilation), to change over time and to persist, main property of memory. besides, the great paradigm in neurobiology is plasticity, term coined by santiago ramón y cajal (the croonian lecture) (ramón y cajal, 1894), and an explicit metaphore of what art is. ramón y cajal says that “todo hombre puede ser, si se lo propone, escultor de su propio cerebro“ (any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain) (ramón y cajal, 1991). artistic creation emerges from previous perceptual experience of the artist, in a dynamic process in which memories and direct sensorial experience can be the source of inspiration and creation, which in turn evolves over time. this implies that not only the brain directs the artist’s hand, but the hand and the painting itself re-directs to the artist’s brain in a bidirectional way and thus shapes his/her brain. according to the psychiatrist joaquín fuster, the freedom to create results from an inmense plasticity of evolutionarily gained human brain capability. this plasticity enables the brain to keep in memory a almost limitless source of information and the access to it, information that the brain can freely use to adopt an huge number of alternative actions (fuster, 2014). by means of the introspective analysis, i can recognize the influence of various artists that i present https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/cerebro https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/cerebro www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 186 published by scholink inc. below as illustrative examples: 1) the frescoes of an ancient romanic church that i visited regularly during my childhood with the predominant presence of the blue always fascinated me. later on, in several trips to italy, i discovered giotto in arena chapel in padova and his isochromatic blue and his genious. in the ultramarine of the skies and mountains of titian in venice, i felt the same attraction. several years afterwards, at an exhibition of ettore spaletti, the treatment of blue colour depth has deeply influenced me (figure 2). 2) my first encounter with henri matisse work was the nude blues and the fall of icarus series. these works opened my mind in a new vision of the collage as a different object of painting, its manufacture as a game and its greatly attractive and expressive result. the confrontation of blue of different pieces of paper that, given their diverse nuances, gave a whole new volume dimension. i have recurrently used this superposition of tones in what seem a flat color, as could be observed in marine series and “brain tags” (figure 3), although with my own technique. figure 2. “marine vii”, pierre d’argyll, 2011 figure 3. “brain tag”, pierre d’argyll 2015 3) the work of gerhard richter is confronted by the trauma of the ww2 and what is left, which i myself have confronted with my family souvenirs and the constant presence of memorial monuments in the places where i have lived in france. richter’s urban landscapes with architectural representations evoking devastated buildings; and a later phase in which he represents aerial views with those same reconstructed cities. this kind of allegory of the ruin, the destruction, by the fulfillment of history that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 187 published by scholink inc. is transformed in something new during its reconstruction, is a way of deleting the past. the idea of the ruin has always intrigued me, from piranesi to hubert robert, as exaltation of the temporality of human existence, and it is also a persistent concern in my work. other phase of richter’s work that interests me is the use of the cloud, i rethink on giotto’s clouds transporting angels, as introduction to abstraction. richter will start a series of random paintings of spontaneous gestures with red-blueyellow colours with overlying details to give a new dimension. i can recognise certain influences of these reflections in my series “marine” in the treatment of spontaneous and detail mixture (figure 4). figure 4. pierre d’argyll, detalle de “marine vii”, 2011 4) from peter zimmermann, i outline his series of layers of pseudotransparent and fluid forms inspired from photographic fragments capted through internet, resulting in an intangible visual 3d dimension. he transposes his paintings towards a new discovery of color through this technique. i interpret the inspirations through images that are external to his own memory but come from a new collective memory accesible to all, to stimulate the creation of his own work. in this regard, i have used material support from advertising sign-boards where collective memory lays and mixes it with my painting, linking global and intimate universe, like in my painting of “liberty” (figure 5). figure 5. “liberty”, pierre d’argyll 2016 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 188 published by scholink inc. 5) the monumentality of sol lewit’s mural paintings inspires me the reinassance freschoes, representing simple geometric formes like the cubes in grey nuances that give them all their volume within a finite or closed space. i feel a special attraction for the representation of cubes. in my opinion, the cube is a conceptual metaphore of the world as for both continent and content of space (figure 6). it is also a figure that can close the infinite, which we cannot comprehend or perceive. figure 6. pierre d’argyll, detail of “silvia’s cube”, 2013 3.4 collective memory numerous facts that have profoundly marked my life ever since i can remember or that pushed me to taking a position or awareness, are the following: 1968, may revolution in france; 1970, death of général de gaulle; demolition of the market at the pavillons baltard; 1973, inauguration of the mainemontparnasse tour; 1975, volontary abortion law called veil law; 1976, first commercial flight of the supersonic concorde presentation at le bourget airport; 1977, inauguration of georges pompidou museum; 1979, margaret thatcher becomes first british minister; 1980, “e.t.” by steven spielberg; 1981, presidential election of françois miterrand; 1982, terrorist attack at the goldberg restaurant; 1983, instalation richard serra at the tuilleries’ gardens; 1985, the pont neuf packed by christo; 1989, celebration of the bicentenaire of french révolution with jean-paul goude, the marseillese interpreted by jessy norman at the foot of the obelisk/the inauguration of the pyramid of the louvre/the fall of the berlin wall; 1996, andré malraux buried at the panthéon; 2001, terrorist attack the 11th septembre at nyc; 2004, terrorist massacre in madrid the 11th march; 2008, last french veteran of ww1 lazare ponticelli is dead. 3.5 statement of the artist my constant and even obsessive concern in my work is representing space and our referential situation within the space-interior/exterior-, the idea of infinite and its dimension in the space-open/closed-, confronted to our lived time. i need to identify myself within my time and history, to leave the mark of an ephemeral gesture in my work as an indelible mark on our memory. my work is a reflection on whether space is real or mental, what our intuition tells us beyond physics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 189 published by scholink inc. 3.6 memory through personal experience since i started my research in art on how memory influences the genesis of creativity from the perspective of the artist\subject through introspection (first-person analysis); and reciprocally, on how this analysis shapes my own creativity, i developed simultaneously a series of paintings and writings. during the time of my introspective analysis and while i read about neuroscience, i have painted a series of brains from all perspectives, directly related to the topic of study, as source of inspiration. this led me to better letting myself in the brain anatomy. in another phase, i make works that intermingle elements of collective memory out of the advertising sign-boards with fragments of my memory (memories of my childhood, characters and key dates in the context of my analysis in the first-person and depending on each work). in this stage, i wanted to give a priority to the development of a message related to the freedom to choose with the potential that each of us have. i use strictly personal concepts with global elements (advertising, communication, cultural myths), personal and global memory. 3.7 introspection of methods and execution of the artwork i have selected my last series on brain to illustrate this point. my exploration on my own memory led me to choose, as support of my paintings, advertising sign-boards gathered in public spaces, which have been seen and thus remain in the memories of a huge number of people, worlds interconnected with other worlds. in addition, the advertising posters show a rough texture and many layers evoking the brain convolutions and architecture. they may be covered by other posters or torn and mixed-up on the underlying posters, generating new complexity by successive glued layers. sometimes, there are little notes with text messages and a repeated and precut phone number, or testimonial graffity as fossilized inside the glue, vision of destruction, cuts in replacements, vision of the ephemeral, the weather and time effects, the ruins of memories. all converge into a big picture in perpetual transformation, in constant recomposition, as an evolution of its meaning. the resulting painting has direct and indirect read-outs and the observer receives these images as brief, accidental, voluntary or involuntary, with an interpretation or reinterpretation of the message. thus, the poster stands as a collective work that happens to be information or discussion, and as a reappropriation of the object. now i take this material as my own, while each element of it triggers my imagination and creation to be from this point the one responsible of its evolution. 4. discussion this work is an essay that addresses the important challenge of translating neuroscience into the arts, towards an innovative vision that is more aligned with the science of our time. the 21st century is “the century of the brain”, the great unknown, which augurs novel research about its functioning and the rise of artificial intelligence. in this setting, the knowledge of how the artist's brain works acquires an unprecedented interest importance so far, which opens up new possibilities for the knowledge of artistic creation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 190 published by scholink inc. the challenge in the last decades, from neurophenomenology and neurosesthetics, is the essential contribution of the subjective experience to better understanding of brain’s functioning. as francisco varela explains (varela, 2001), we cannot stand in the analysis of neurological tests of isolated responses of the subject (such as pushing a button in response to a stimulus) while losing most of what happens in our mind during the interval between the cognitive stimulus and the motor response, namely the conscious experience as such, which until now was inaccessible to the laboratory. a possible model to test the truth of the proposed methodology for the first-person analysis, which is experiential and hence subjective (by the artist, first step analysis), into the classical objective third person analysis of scientific method (by a neuroscientist, second step analysis) was proposed by varela (varela, 1996). for this second-step, the intervention of a neuroscientist is necessary, in order to design experimental approaches to verify the results of introspection. a potential way for this could be to take the content of a particular experiential report from the artist and explore its validity by means of neuroimaging functional tests. for instance, when i explain that the main axis of my artwork is “space”, it could be testable that brain areas related with space are the most developed areas in my brain and additionally that these areas are the most activated during visual exploration with respect to other areas, such as color, form, meaning (abstract thought), etc. in order to test the activation of brain areas related to space, the subject might be stimulated with different images (comparing selected images of familiar objects or paintings, known and unknown paintings for the artist), by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging or by magnetoencephalography. thus, even by these proposed simple tests, the results of introspection may represent useful tools for traslational scientific research of consciousness applied to the artistic brain. an anti-naturalist and purely philosophical perspective of the mind is represented by the recent philosophical new realism or philosophy of the spirit, with the work of markus gabriel as maximum exponent, who denounces the interference of science and the neurocentrism in the philosophy. he claims the role of the philosopher in the theory of mind (gabriel, 2016). to the basic idea of neurocentrism “i am my brain”, that is, everything that the “i” implies (consciousness, mind, will, freedom, spirit) can be explained from neurobiology and evolutionary biology in a neuroconstructivism view, gabriel argues that we are not energetic material reality. the spirit cannot be reduced to consciousness and this in turn to neural storms. according to this philosopher, we are “spiritual and free beings in the realm of purposes”. neurophenomenology emerges by overcoming pure neurocentrism and bridging the humanities, in an integrative vision between biology and philosophy, which transcends the dualistic or partial tradition of both disciplines opening to interdisciplinarity (bagdasaryan, 2013; desbordes, 2013). this new neurophenomenological view is rooted in the concept of a mind imbricated in a body (embodied) (varela, 1991; damasio, 1999; lakoff, 1999), so that the dual approach from philosophy and science are two different and complementary ways to seeing the same object, surpassing the mind-brain dualism or in the neurobiologist gerald edelman’s terms the mind-brain-culture triad (tononi, 1998). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 191 published by scholink inc. in this framework, the results of introspection or first-person analysis can become an original and tremendously attractive tool for scientific research and an exceptional and very relevant source through which to discover the beauty of our aesthetic brain. through this introspection and in phenomenological terms, artistic creativity as an object reveals its essence returning to its mental and corporeal roots (franzini, 2015). several authors claim the need to invest resources for the systematic study of phenomenological analyzes, in order to construct a detailed map of the level of phenomenological description that can drive the science of consciousness in the search for potential explanatory mechanisms within the brain (berkovich-ohana, 2014; revonsuo, 2011). in the last decades, different proposals have tried to define new scientific methodologies for the analysis of conscious experience, and that advocate the first-person approach. this essay has developed a method of first-person or introspective analysis of artistic creation in the context of neurosesthetics from the fine arts, in the open door that leaves neurophenomenology to multidisciplinarity. this perspective of first-person analysis had not been approached until today in a methodological way applied to the analysis of artistic creation. this gives the artist a dual role in the interpretation of his own work, as a creative subject and as a source of study of the keys in the genesis and reading of his work. in turn, this methodology requires a rigorous and honest commitment and procedure by the artist to obtain a legitimate, true and complete result. the application of the methodological approach through the first-person analysis to my own personal artwork is shown through a few illustrative examples not to be exhaustive. the core element common to the introspective analysis is to distinguish between a particular content in a painting (for instance, the cube and its symbolic concept); the process through which such content emerges (how i come to paint cubes) (varela, 1996; varela & shear, 1999; varela & shear, 1999), as well as the treatment to represent the object (the material, texture, colour and volume to representation the cube). following all the previous steps of our proposed systematic methology, the artist configures and reflects on the foundation, the raison d’être of its research as artist, its recurrent reflection on a statement that gives coherence and consistence to the long path of its work. i intended to formulate a methodology to be further validated by other artists willing to perform an introspective analysis, in what can be considered open to “intersubjective validation” of varela (varela, 1996). the goal of the first-person analysis of artistic creativity should not be understood as the anlysis of a work of art. i do not intend to propose a magistral formula that can explain the creative act from a scientific or philosophical way, but instead to explore by a disciplined, integrated and practical method the conscient ingredients that convey in the genesis of own artistic creativity, like a research on the reconstruction of events and the will of the artist. in the novel of marcel proust “a la recherche du temps perdu” (remembrance of things past) (proust, 1987), he distinguishes two kinds of memories in what is considered by some authors a real theory of art: voluntary memories recalled at will, as instantiate worked-over interpretations of the past; and involuntary memories, in which a sensory cue triggers the re-experiencing the event (in words of proust “a fragment of time in the pure state”) (epstein, 2004; lehrer, 2007). are these voluntary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 192 published by scholink inc. memories that enter mainly in the field of first-person analysis, while the recall action by means of trained meditation trigger involuntary vivid memories of special events. what is this firs-person analysis proposed for? by the artist’s side, this approach would provide a better understanding of his/her work and to build-up a language to communicate his/her work as creative subject and source for the study of the genesis of the artwork, which could be key in a new reading of it. it favours also a long-term work program, better built and more mature. indeed, the introspective analysis makes the artist become more aware of his/her conscious experience. by the public viewer side, the introspective analysis could provide new elements of comprehension of the artist work and cultural and biographical bagagge. art is intimately personal. every artist contructs from a dialogue with what other artists have done before him and has to find its own voice among all these resonances. in words of the philosopher fernando savater, art joins together the intemporality and historical validity (savater, 1989). the introspective analysis would afford the autobiographical validity to other approaches in second-and third-person analyses, which are objective and empirically based. this link between first-person and external approaches lies in the basis of the science of consciousness (varela 1996; varela & shear, 1999; north). the neuroscience of artistic creativivity would need these rich first-person data to unravel the physiological processes crucial for consciousness, and is central to neurophenomenology (lutz, lachaux et al., 2002; lutz & thompson, 2003; thompson, lutz et al., 2005; garrison, santoyo et al., 2013; petitmengin & lachaux, 2013). art does more than just evoke a raw emotion in the observer/reader. it conveys a network of significances by which a particular person (the artist) assigns meanings to individual elements of the world. in other words, artworks are of translations of something that already exists: the organization of the artist’s mind, expression of the artis’ts memory networks (epstein, 2004). according to proust, the function of the artwork is to permit the observer to share the consciousness of the artist, test of its truth (intersubjective validation). what could be the limitations of this approach? from neurophenomenology, there is a debate between first-person and second-person methods to access subjective experience, this later as a good means to guide subjectivity by trained interviewers (petitmengin & bitbol, 2011; froese, 2013; olivares, vargas et al., 2015). there is no neutral methodological approach to the mental, and every method inevitably introduces a subjective interpretation within its referencial framework (varela & shear, 1999). secondperson methods present also several difficulties turn as possible bias by the interviewer or the limitations imposed by it. the possibility of an intermediary to introspect not seem strictly necessary, if the artist confronts itself without tampering than those derived from unconscious processes of reconstruction of his memories. the autobiography continues to be a personal reconstruction. in contrast to the cognitive psychology second-person method, the second-person analyses raised the art history perspective, rely on the bonnefoi idea of the necessary biographic source from the artist to draw an accurate study (reviewed extensively in (sánchez-ramón, 2005), which could be considered more a scientific approach from at history by a trained historian. a better knowledge of how memory works and how creativity takes place can change and should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 1, no. 2, 2019 193 published by scholink inc. change the way we understand our choices in life and could even enhance our abilities in the creative process. for instance, through reiteration of the same topic in a series of paintings until overdose, it does happen to emerge an original idea that scapes towards the next work, as if reiteration enhances memory and favours creativity. the first-person analysis can illuminate cognitive and neuroscientific theories of artistic creation, which remain inaccesible in third-person perspective. for this purpose, firsperson analysis can be linked to objective third-person perspective by means of neuronal states, overcoming the dualism between the two perspectives (northoff & heinzel, 2006). in conclusion, the contribution of this new proposal for structuring artist introspection and to lay the foundation for a methodology of memory in the work of art can serve as a starting point to an attitude of meditation on aspects of personal memory that you can to turn raise new ideas and directions for exploration of the artist. finally, understanding what mechanisms are involved in inspiration, synthesis and implementation of a work may also help an artist to enhance their creative abilities. introspection by the artist himself can reciprocally offer the basis for scientific understanding of the neural processes involved in the synthesis of a creative work of art. the relevance of this model could only be validated by other artists and the scientific study of neural correlates of art creation based in such first-person analyses. as markus gabriel says, we are here and now, that's all (gabriel, 2016). our memory brings together past and present. and yet, the artwork is a metaphor for our longing for eternity. acknowledgement the author is most grateful to the valuable aid and comments of dr. silvia sánchez-ramón. references barcaro, u., & paoli, m. 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(1998). louise bourgeois: l'aveugle guidant l'aveugle. g. lelong. paris, actes sud, 105. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 68 original paper the impact of sino-soviet relations on the evolution of china’s foreign policy (1945-1956) li yang1* 1 the doctoral researcher in the department of oriental cultures and languages, ghent university, ghent, belgium * li yang, corresponding author received: july 29, 2023 accepted: october 13, 2023 online published: october 20, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n4p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n4p68 abbreviations ccp communist party of china cpsu communist party of the soviet union cpv chinese people’s volunteers pla chinese people’s liberation army prc people’s republic of china ussr union of soviet socialist republics kmt kuo min tang roc republic of china un the united nations usa the united states of america abstract “sino-soviet relations were pivotal in the diplomatic history of the prc after its establishment. on one hand, the ccp received significant economic assistance and political support. however, like any alliance, it revealed conflicts between collective ideology and national interests. these tensions even drew the prc into korean wars that might have otherwise been avoided. concurrently, the prc developed a self-reliant and peaceful diplomatic policy soon after forming the sino-soviet alliance. the mutual relations between the ccp and cpsu closely influenced the emerging prc’s foreign policy. this study aims to research how these ties between the ccp and cpsu impacted the evolution of the prc’s foreign policy from 1945 to 1956. such research is essential for understanding the formation of the prc’s foreign policy through the lens of inter-party diplomacy, explaining the enduring principle of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. an independent foreign policy focused on peace. this study employs historical research methods and archive analysis, drawing from declassified historical archives and primary and secondary sources, while critically analysing international relations theories based on historical facts. the findings reveal that the ussr’s primary concern was its national interest, while the cpc idealized it as a revolutionary party. as a result, the ccp developed an independent and self-reliant diplomatic approach based on different foundations. keywords chinese communist party, sino-soviet alliance, diplomatic policies, korean war, five principles of peaceful coexistence 1. introduction “we must bear in mind that the ccp government is a marxist-leninist regime. i have faith because the ccp is repeating some of the same mistakes that the soviet union made” (pompeo, 2020, p. 1). on 23rd july 2020, the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, delivered a speech titled “communist china and the free world’s future”. he reckoned that because china has the same ideology as the ussr, it will make the same mistakes. history shows that the prc imitated the soviet model indiscriminately and paid a heavy price for fully entering the ussr-led socialist camp (shen, 2011). following the establishment of the prc, the ussr had an innate comradely and brotherly relationship with them (li, 2011). given the shared marxist-leninist ideology, mao ze dong, at the second plenary session of the seventh central committee of the ccp in march 1949, concluded that “sino-soviet relations are closely fraternal and that we and the ussr should stand on the same front and be allies” (mao, 1949, p. 262). therefore, the nascent prc decided to “lean towards the side” and firmly participate in the ussr-led socialist camp (wan, 2012, p. 23). consequently, the new-born prc signed the sino-soviet treaty of friendship with the ussr in 1950 (liu, 1996). however, the prc upheld self-reliant and independent diplomatic thinking throughout this period, even proposing their five principles of peaceful co-existence in 1953 (mandinyenya, 2017). although a considerable body of literature has researched the prc’s foreign policy and the sino-soviet alliance, the perspective of bilateral relations between the ccp and the ussr influencing china’s diplomatic policies appears somewhat overlooked. moreover, extant literature has not explained the contradiction between the sino-soviet alliance and china’s clear self-reliance and independent foreign policy. therefore, this study aims to analyse how china’s foreign policy was influenced by sino-soviet relations from 1945 to 1956. this period is considered due to the eruption of the kmt-cpc civil war in 1945 (kissinger, 2012) and the honeymoon period of the sino-soviet alliance, mostly ending in early 1958 (shen, 2011). this period covers the prc’s foreign policy from its initial establishment. it encapsulates the stages of early sino-soviet relations, from early suspicion of eventual alliance to a honeymoon. this research depended on the primary archives and a review of secondary pertinent literature, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. conducting archive analysis and historical methods based on international theory. in the literature review, this paper critically analyses the extant literature. it seeks to build an analytical framework in the international relations theory, subsequently introducing the historical method and the central archives in the second section. the following three chapters chronologically illuminate how the mutual ties between the ccp and the cpsu influence prc foreign policy based on the archives and international relations theory. finally, a conclusion based on previous discussions is given. the significance of the historical study lies in the discovery of truth. seventy years after establishing diplomatic relations between the prc and the ussr, china re-established the china-russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era with russia in 2019 (shi, 2019). exploring the influence of mutual relations between the ccp and the cpsu regarding prc foreign policy could identify a root cause for china’s independent peace policy and its forming process. it may offer a rationale behind the sino-soviet split, whereby the prc pursued a policy of non-alignment. 2. literature review 2.1 brief introduction this literature review examines the international configuration of the sino-soviet alliance, the inherent factors sought by the ccp in favour of joining the established socialism camp, and the transformation of the prc’s foreign policy and its dominant factors. the goals of this literature review are identified in three key objectives as identified below. succinctly, under the context of the sino-soviet alliance, what was the influence of the first two factors on the prc’s foreign policy? further, the third objective addresses the dualistic analytical structures of sino-soviet relations about ideology and national interest. 1) identify the international contextual background and china’s domestic environment towards sino-soviet relations. 2) explain the prc’s foreign policy and evaluate critically decisive factors towards that policy and its transformation after the korean war. 3) define the theoretical perspective of national interest and the ideology of international relations. after this crucial segment, this review critically uses the ideological standpoint and perspective of state interest to explain the prc’s foreign policy against the background of the sino-soviet alliance. thereby seeking to understand the theoretical framework of international relations and politics. 2.2 the bilateral ties between the ccp and the cpsu the formation of a cold war pattern between the ussr and the usa following world war ii was an external condition which fostered early chinese-soviet relations. the yalta agreement was secretly signed by powerful nations in february 1945, when plotting national interests after world war ii (harbutt, 2010). this agreement delineated the sphere of influence in the world based on distinctive ideology, comprising the socialist camp led by the ussr and the capitalist camp led by the usa (liu, 2000). the american chargé d’affaires to the ussr, kennan, proposed, in his long telegram. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. containment policy was eventually adopted by the u.s. government in 1946 (brinck-j & clarke, 1995). this policy highlighted that the usa would use “resistance forces” to “contain” soviet expansionist tendencies and its communist ideology until the end of the cold war as an ideological basis of american strategy towards the ussr (heer, 2018). the usa took steps to besiege the ussr’s influence through this policy. british prime minister churchill’s “iron curtain” speech in europe was regarded as the outset of the cold war (muller et al., 1999). the truman doctrine impelled the usa to intervene in the greek and turkish civil war when facing the threat of a guerrilla force led by the communist party (jones & proquest, 1997). additionally, the marshall plan proposed funding western european countries in the post-war reconstruction in 1947 (dulles & wala, 1993). meanwhile, china was gradually thrust into the limelight in the struggle for hegemony between the usa and the ussr in asia. both sides together were, to some extent, trapped in china’s civil war, enabling it to become a proxy war. since the founding of the ccp, it has become a branch of the communist international and led by it (zeng & xiaolin, 2015). the communist international, created by lenin, was an internationalist organisation of communists and communist parties that existed from 1919 to 1943, aiming to overthrow the rule of capitalism and establish a worldwide proletariat dictatorship (rees & thorpe, 1999). stalin’s strategic arrangement in bringing china into the soviet-led socialist camp was to control and influence asia against the united states (shen, 2011). based on ideological proximity, the ussr naturally wished to establish a nascent regime driven by the ccp. therefore, the form of the cold war structure was conducive to establishing close relations between the ussr and the ccp. the ccp urgently needed help from the ussr to consolidate its power and the new regime in the face of impending victory in the civil war; this was the internal condition of the sino-soviet alliance. kmt retained absolute military power and controlled most of china’s territory immediately after the sino-japanese war (dimitrakis, 2014). the ussr assisted the ccp during china’s civil war, explicitly transferring funds and technology to the northeast ccp authority and even delivering kwantung army equipment to the ccp (shen, 2011). manchuria soon became a ccp stronghold (radchenko, 2015). this assistance effectively reversed the ccp’s disadvantageous situation in north-eastern china (chen, 2008). the ccp lacked any ruling experience, funds or technical experts while confronting upcoming victory in the civil war (zhu, 2013). in january 1949, mikoyan, who was stalin’s special envoy, secretly visited xi bai po, the temporary residence of the ccp central committee (kim, 2010). it was the first time the ussr’s national leader set foot on chinese territory (chen, 1998). at this meeting, facing demands from the ccp leadership, mikoyan promised that the ussr could provide $300 million in aid and send experts to work in china (yu, 2019). subsequently, liu shaoqi, vice-chairman of the ccp, visited the ussr in june 1949. stalin highly praised china’s revolution led by the ccp, bringing mikoyan’s promise into practice (shi, 1993). he guaranteed that the ussr would assist china in building a modernised navy and air force and give diplomatic recognition to the newly born prc (ibid.). therefore, the ccp might imminently need the ussr’s help in anticipation of winning the civil war with kmt and consolidating the new regime. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. 2.3 china’s foreign policy the objective historical background at that time determined the prc’s three significant diplomatic policies. in his series of articles, mao concretely articulated these significant foreign policies. the expression “lean to one side” employed a binary view of international relations in the context of the cold war. this old chinese saying meant that the new-born prc would firmly stand with the soviet-led socialist camp in the international struggle (liu, 2000). mao accentuated the importance of “lean to one side” in his article on the people’s democratic dictatorship 1949. modern chinese history taught that china is either on the imperialist side or the socialist side. he said that china would unshakingly stand on the side of the soviet-led socialist camp (li & pan, 2000). this extreme dichotomous thinking, which classified the world into an imperialist camp and a socialist camp, could be traced to china’s humiliating century following the opium war. since 1840, westerners deployed a gun-boat policy and opium to crack open the door to the qing dynasty. after signing unequal treaties, china devolved into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society (maréchal, 2009). the prc’s first premier, zhou enlai (1949), described the founding of the new china concerning old china, which had been oppressed for a hundred years and was now standing up (chen, 1990). this nationalist and anti-imperialist sentiment was critical in “leaning to one side”. similarly, based on this historical background, china enacted a “starting all over again” policy where the new regime would no longer recognise any old diplomatic relations established between the kmt government and other countries (chen, 1998). until china eliminated the remaining imperialist forces and revoked all their privileges, new foreign ties were built with those countries that conformed to peace, democracy, and equality (ibid.). this policy was the third prc diplomatic policy entitled “cleaning the house before you treat” (da sao gan jing wu zi zai qing ke)—aiming to change china’s semi-colonial status and inaugurate independent diplomatic relations. these three foreign policy goals appeared to be a creature of the age. they were unavoidably influenced by strong chinese nationalist sentiment, considering china’s humiliating contemporary history. furthermore, realistic consideration markedly affected establishment of the prc’s foreign policy when it was founded. the ccp leadership, whose revolutionary mentality judged that americans and other western countries were likely to interfere in and undermine the process of china’s revolution, blindly regarded the us-led capitalist camp as a hostile force. because the usa aided and countenanced the kmt regime that had antagonised the ccp in china’s civil war (liu, 2000), mao and other ccp leaders jointly conjectured that imperialist countries must intervene in revolutionary countries (niu, 1999). mao repeatedly claimed that china should prevent direct american military intervention and expose and crush american plots to divide the revolutionary camp of china (niu, 1996). this was an effort to protect revolutionary political power from external intervention following the ccp’s collectivist victory. china was selective in leaning on the side of the soviet-led socialist camp, completely purging forces of powerful nations, and did not admit to the previous unequal treaties in china (wang, 2009). therefore, china badly needed to participate in an international alliance based on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. a similar ideology to consolidate its neonatal regime at the international level. however, the prc increasingly prioritised the independent foreign policy of peace after the korean war. compared to china’s three ideologically driven significant foreign policies, this independent foreign policy of peace may be characterised by non-ideological factors. furthermore, this policy was epitomised by the five principles of peaceful coexistence presentation. these encompassed countries who agreed to the following: to respect each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, not to invade each other’s soil, not to interfere with each other’s domestic politics, and that these ties should be equally based and mutually advantageous in peaceful coexistence between the two countries (mandinyenya, 2017). on 31 december 1953, premier zhou systematically proposed these principles for the first time when he received the indian negotiating delegation in beijing, planning to assist china in maintaining a benign circumjacent environment (fifield, 1958). furthermore, the prc leaders wished to publish the five principles of peaceful coexistence as a standard for addressing international relations generally. most accepted these principles at the 1955 bandung conference (zhou, 2017). besides these newly independent nations, many conventional capitalist nations with different ideologies also appeared to accept these principles as diplomatic rules. for instance, former british labour prime minister attlee, indian prime minister jawaharlal nehru, and myanmar prime minister u nu visited china successively (pei, 2014). the chinese government stated that the relationship between socialist countries should be premised on the five principles of peaceful coexistence (zhu, 2014). accordingly, these principles may appear to transcend different institutions and ideologies, gradually being universally held by the international community. 2.4 analytical framework to the variation of prc’s foreign policy ideology was an essential theoretical perspective that analysed international relations in the cold war period. ideology was defined as a logically consistent set of symbols that connect the cognitive and evaluative understanding of one’s social situation within a problematic conception of history, mainly if it entails a collective action plan for the preservation, modification or change of society (mullins, 1972). firstly, ideology has an instrumental nature. the marxist view on ideology is an analytical and critical tool for social reconstruction (stuart, 1992). this feature manifests in the alliance rationalising its actions based on the same ideology (liska, 1968). for instance, to augment its ideological appeal and cohesion, marxism attempted to build a non-exploitative and just proletarian world (marx & engels, 1848); furthermore, ideology is a holistic belief system. some scholars suggest that ideology is a set of ideas which defines how society should function and organise itself (sartori, 1969). many idealists claimed the cold war was a struggle between two antagonistic ideologies: communism and capitalism (herrmann, 2004). morgenthau (2005) interpreted the essence of the power struggle in international politics as being camouflaged by ideological justification and rationalisation. marxism regarded the relationship between capitalist countries and socialist countries as a hostile tie based on the class struggle theory (flipo, 2014). for example, lenin (1939) claimed that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and that the proletarian must replace it considering this antagonistic relationship. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. ussr and the us formed a situation in the context of the cold war that contended for hegemony. therefore, the ideological perspective appears to be the right angle to observe international relations between the camps. ideological factors certainly once influenced the ccp’s foreign policy when it was founded with the assistance and guidance of the cpsu, which subsidised it (lv & gao, 2011). as a marxist party, since its formation, the ccp has, de facto, been a branch organisation of communist international, maintaining a leader-member relationship with the cpsu. (wang, 2013). the communist ideology is characterised by absoluteness and hierarchy. absoluteness was indicated in lenin’s proletarian government theory of the party. lenin asserted the successful reason for a socialist revolution that established a marxist political party with high consciousness, close organisation, and a sense of discipline (rustam, 1989). in this highly hierarchical political order, the ccp appears to maintain correspondence with the cpsu’s communist ideology. for instance, establishing the sino-soviet alliance was a predictable manifestation, given their marxist ideologies. these examples reflect the ccp’s ideological exclusiveness, which titled them towards the side of the socialist camp as marxist ideology keenly influenced china’s foreign policy decisions. the perspective of national interest may help to explain the prc’s independent foreign policy. in international relations, the theorist morgenthau (2005) identified national interest as territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and cultural integrity. keohane (2005), as representative of neoliberal institutionalism, interpreted national interest as the power and wealth of a nation. moreover, the constructivist schools argue that national interests have four fundamental objectives: security, autonomy, economic well-being, and self-esteem (wendt, 1999). in any discussion on foreign policies, national interest was perceived as a fundamental starting point. for instance, keohane suggested that national interests are self-interests, determining the inevitable conflicts between countries (keohane, 2005). wendt (1999) had a similar viewpoint whereby an actor’s diplomatic behaviour should be contingent on his national interest. arguably, the five principles for peaceful coexistence presented by the ccp are no other than considering the prc’s national interest. after the korean war, china was committed to defusing international tensions and promoting peaceful coexistence among surrounding countries while facing conciliatory tendencies at the international level (li, 2010). premier zhou (1956) judged the world situation in most countries that their people wished for peaceful coexistence. the starting point of the new foreign policy was to safeguard china’s national security and national interest, seeking to build a secure buffer zone in china’s circumjacent area (niu, 1999). therefore, china’s independent foreign policy of peace appears to be explained through a national interest perspective. 2.5 summary and emerging issues a large and growing body of literature has investigated china’s foreign policy and the sino-soviet alliance. from the viewpoint of international relations, sino-soviet relations were the most pivotal and complex of bilateral ties, including relationships between two socialist countries and two parties and their leaders. this relationship was conflated with multiple elements of international relations, for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. instance, ideology, national interest, and nationalism. the sino-soviet alliance was a reciprocal need in which each took what they needed. as the marshall plan ushered in the cold war period and to countervail capitalist ideology, the ussr hoped to incorporate the ccp into its socialist camp on account of ideological uniformity. the ccp also wished to consolidate and construct its regime with the help of the ussr, given the ideological proximity, thereby constructing three significant foreign policies that completely turned them towards the soviet-led socialist camp. after a short period, the prc was committed to the independent foreign policy of peace, proposing the five principles of peaceful coexistence after establishing the sino-soviet alliance. the influence of national interest appears to have transcended joint ideology and began to impact the prc’s foreign policy. however, current literature often solely researches china’s foreign policy and the sino-soviet alliance rather than insightfully analysing the rationale behind the chinese enacted diplomatic policies and what role the ussr played in the process. little relevant literature is available in this regard; therefore, the analysis questions of this study can be summarised as follows: 1) from 1945 to 1949, why did stalin support the ccp in china during the civil war? did this choice influence the ccp’s foreign policy? 2) after the establishment of the prc, was china’s “lean on one side” foreign policy conducive to the signing of the sino-soviet alliance treaty? 3) as a meaningful bilateral relationship and as allies, why did the prc propose the five principles of peaceful coexistence during the honeymoon period of sino-soviet relations? were the two foreign policies contradictory? 4) in this process, how did bilateral ties between the ccp and the cpsu influence china’s foreign policy? to reach a profound understanding of this issue, the following section of this study will explain the research methods to be used to analyse the archival sources. these archives include first-hand declassified archives of the ussr, chinese literature, archives supplied by china’s ministry of foreign affairs, the central archives, the archives of the party school of the ccp central committee, and us archives preserved in the american universities. 3. methodology this study employs an archival analysis methodology to elucidate how bipartisanship between the ccp and the cpsu influenced the prc’s foreign policy from 1945 to 1956. archival research analyses historical records (mohr & ventresca, 2002). archives are historical records and other sources related to individuals, entities, or the activities of both. the research also includes claims to conserve reliable historical information and make it available for future use (lexisnexis, 2020). this research utilises selections from declassified russian archives and sino-soviet relations (1945-1991) as an essential archival resource concerning the ussr. these archives include 2,625 declassified documents released over the 20 years following the collapse of the ussr (shen, 2015). they include cables, letters and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. notes exchanged between the two parties’ leaders and governments of the prc and the cpsu. meanwhile, coupled with chinese archives, this research uses documents on relations between china and the ussr from china’s perspective from 1949 to 1955. this compilation includes declassified documents supplied with archives of the prc’s ministry of foreign affairs and even encompasses ccp leaders’ speeches on foreign affairs of sino-soviet relations, and their letters and many witness diaries; for instance, memoirs of shi zhe, who was mao’s russian translator (shi & li, 2015). therefore, primary archival works provide a relatively authentic and accurate basis for this historical study. except for these primary archives, secondary sources have not been neglected. illinois university (2019) defined secondary sources as academic books and documents used in historical research projects and general sources of information such as encyclopaedias. recently, many scholars conducted assiduous research into sino-soviet relations to delve into the different stages of sino-soviet relations multi-dimensionally. this study quotes recent academic research and discussion regarding sino-soviet relations. for instance, yang kuisong’s book, feelings of gratitude and resentment between mao zedong and moscow, gives a fascinating account of events involving mao’s relations with moscow and his character and disposition (yang, 1999). moreover, alexander v. pantsov’s entitled mao: the real story describes the achievements and setbacks of sino-soviet relations from 1949 to 1976 from the russian perspective (pancov & levine, 2013). hence, using secondary sources is instrumental in historical research as it supplements and reinforces the breadth of perspective. to analyse how bipartisan relations affected the transformation of prc’s diplomatic policy from 1949 to 1956, this study consists of three chronological sections. the first chapter demonstrates how stalin defended the privilege of the ussr in northeast china after world war ii and even pressured the ccp and mao regardless of their shared ideology. the second chapter portrays the conflicts between mao and stalin in negotiating the new sino-soviet treaty of friendship after the establishment of the prc. stalin’s compromise directly gave rise to the eruption of the korean war. finally, the third chapter examines how the korean war consolidated the sino-soviet alliance and why the prc proposed the five principles of peaceful coexistence on the honeymoon of sino-soviet relations. 4. chapter one: historical grudge between ccp and cpsu (1945-1949) “comrade stalin made a grievous mistake at its most critical juncture, he denied us the revolution, opposed our revolution” (mao, 1958, p. 388). 1958, when mao met with eugene, the soviet ambassador to china, he still felt aggrieved about stalin’s mistake. he compelled mao to negotiate with chiang kai-shek in chongqing in 1945. mao mentioned stalin’s mistake and indicated that stalin did not allow mao to take power from chiang kai-shek by force (yang, 1999). the broader context of these contradictions reverts to establishing the yalta system. on the eve of world war ii victory in february 1945, the united states, britain, and the soviet union held a summit in yalta on the crimean peninsula (harbutt, 2010). stalin insisted that american president roosevelt and british prime minister churchill recognise the russian privilege in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. manchuria as a condition for sending troops to fight the japanese. the yalta secret agreement on the far east provided that: “(1) outer mongolia maintains independent status quo (people’s republic of mongolia). (2) to restore the privileges and interests of the ussr that had been seized because of japanese treachery. lushun was deemed to be a soviet naval base leasing status to maintain free trade at dalian port status to safeguard the soviet union’s preferential rights and interests in the port. the middle east railway and the manchuria railway to dalian to be made by both sides of a group of the joint venture company, superior rights should be a guarantee to the soviet union. in the meantime, china maintains sovereignty in manchuria. (3) the sakhalin islands and the kuril islands were transferred to the soviet union” (qin, 1981, p. 541). figure 1. the distribution diagram of middle east railway and the manchuria railway to dalian and the seaport of dalian and lvshun (zhu, h. x., & lv, f. 2017, 251) in return, the ussr should have participated in the war against japan within two to three months of the end of the european fight (kissinger, 2012). american president roosevelt promised that the usa would take measures to coerce the roc government to accept the yalta secret agreement (qin, 1981). after several months, hurley, an american ambassador to china, semi-formally detailed the actual contents of the yalta secret agreement to chiang kai-shek (shen, 2011). the ussr ambassador, petrov, pressurised chiang that “accepting the yalta treatment was regarded as the prerequisite of it being signed by the roc, ussr treaty of friendship and alliance” (qin, 1981, p. 559). under the tremendous stress of two established powers, premier song of the roc arrived in moscow and negotiated with stalin and the ussr foreign minister, molotov, about the conditions proposed in the yalta agreement. following the signature of the roc, the ussr treaty of friendship and alliance, the ussr captured www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. substantial prerogatives that regulated the yalta agreement in china. in this negotiation process, the ussr publicly promised that “the ussr only supplied economic and military with the roc, that is, the republic of china led by kmt” (qin, 1981, p. 652). this attitude means that stalin even directly assisted the kmt that opposed the ccp. accordingly, the toehold of the ussr’s foreign policy towards china was to protect its national interest and perquisite in china. figure 2. wang shijie (centre), the representative of the kmt government, signed the treaty of friendship and alliance between roc and the ussr. stalin (second right, back row) witnessed the signing of the treaty (1945, wang, 140) however, it is worth mentioning that stalin highlighted the “ccp, we do not support them, nor assist them” when meeting with premier song of the roc (shen, 2015, p. 67). stalin also described the ccp as “a type of margarine communist” when interviewing hurley, an american ambassador to china (shen, 2015, p. 27). the foreign minister of the ussr, molotov, repeatedly claimed that the ccp could not be trusted (xiang et al., 1994). meanwhile, the archives indicate that mao appeared not to have been aware of the remarks of ussr leaders when having an idealised concept of the ussr based on ideology. in a political report delivered by mao to the seventh national congress of the ccp, he said, “the victory of the ussr is the chinese victory” (mao, 1945, p. 1030). mao even unquestioningly felt sanguine about “the ussr must assist us in our revolutionary career; if the ccp cannot acquire international assistance, you can behand me”. therefore, the ccp was seen as a bargaining chip when negotiating with kmt or the usa. contrastingly, the ccp and mao still had ideological proximity to the ussr. therefore, this cognitive gap may have unavoidably brought conflicts between these two parties. following the broad context of the roc, the ussr treaty of friendship and alliance, stalin told mao decisively that the ccp should seek a compromise with the kmt. in august 1945, japan’s mikado declared an unconditional surrender to the allied forces after the soviet red army destroyed the japanese army in northeast china (jowett, 2016) to monopolise the right to accept japan’s surrender and seize the fruits of victory of the sino-japanese war. from one perspective, chiang kai-shek www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. urgently ordered the kmt troops to “actively advance and not to relax a bit”. however, at the same time, he ordered the eighth route army “in situ garrison standby” (mao, 1945, p. 1141). from another perspective, in preparation for the civil war, chiang kai-shek sanctimoniously invited mao to chongqing to discuss jointly “important national plans” and to resolve “various important issues at home and abroad” (zhuo, 1982, p. 6). in reply to chiang kai-shek’s invitation, mao publicly proclaimed that “chiang kai-shek’s invitation was a complete deception in yan’an” (mao, 1945, p. 3). he immediately advanced that “ccp troops must take over beijing, tianjin, and shanghai from surrendered japanese troops” (yang, 1999, p. 185). nevertheless, the ccp central committee and mao received stalin’s telegram. the content of this telegram ordered mao to receive chiang’s invitation in harsh rhetoric, warning that “if civil war breaks out, half of the chinese nation will be destroyed” (institute of party history of the ccp central committee, 1981, p. 78). according to mao’s translator, stalin also promised that “the ussr could guarantee mao’s security within the period of chongqing” (shi & li, 1995, p. 308). mao felt particularly disgruntled at stalin’s pressure (ibid.). however, finally, mao was to modify ccp’s radical military strategy and left for chongqing (shen, 2011). this resentment appeared to have influenced mao for some time. after ten years, mao still felt dissatisfied with stalin’s telegram. he repeatedly said that stalin would not permit our revolution in 1945 (yang, 1999). these words mean that stalin pressurised mao as he aimed to protect the vested privilege of the ussr in northeast china and did not wish the ccp to clash with the kmt. some scholars claimed that stalin wanted the ccp to follow the path of the french communist party, join parliamentary elections, and peacefully compete with the kmt (li, 2000). however, stalin’s springboard of foreign policy was aimed at strengthening the prerogative in northeast china rather than truthfully assisting the ccp during this period. however, american forces began encroaching on northeast china, whereas stalin squared his foreign policy to the ccp. moreover, the ccp and kmt promoted the chongqing negotiations under the pressure of the ussr and usa, and both parties resonated with each other regarding ceasefire issues. however, the truce agreement does not include northeast china (liu, 1998). therefore, many ccp troops were dispatched to northeast china and occupied many places, using the soviet red army’s sympathy based on their shared ideology and belief (chen, 2014). moreover, the kmt took corresponding measures in that many kmt troops were consigned to northeast china by american planes and warships (zhou, 2015). in this background, chiang ching-kuo, who was chiang kai-shek’s son, visited the ussr as a special envoy of the roc at the end of 1945 (xiao, 2012). stalin underscored that northeast china was under the ussr’s sphere of influence. at this meeting, stalin laid the ussr’s cards on the table: “the ussr disallowed any third party to enter northeast china; this bottom line will be the precondition that the ussr respects roc’s sovereignty in northeast china and xin jiang” (shen, 2015, p. 107). chiang ching-kuo took the “tit-for-tat” strategy at the meeting when facing stalin’s stress. he asserted www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. that: “[the] americans would assist kmt in building modernised forces, while the roc and kmt devised the open-door policy that gave economic dominance only to the ussr in northeast china” (shen, 2015, p. 105). this declaration demonstrated that the kmt planned to import american forces and funds into northeast china. stalin would never accept american power penetrating northeast china, which the ussr regarded as its sphere of influence. however, on 11 february 1946, the usa and britain unveiled the contents of the yalta secret agreement, which exposed the privilege of the ussr in northeast china. this series of unequal treaties triggered anti-soviet demonstrations around china (zhu, 2008). facing the possibility of confrontation with the usa, stalin evacuated soviet red armies from northeast china and transferred this area to ccp troops. at stalin’s behest, the representative of the soviet army informed the northeast bureau of the ccp that “the soviet red armies will withdraw from northeast china; they hoped ccp troops would occupy these areas as soon as possible (yang, 1999, p. 210)”. according to ussr statistics, the soviet armies offered a plentiful supply of arms to the ccp troops, including 700,000 rifles, 14,000 machine guns, 4,000 guns of all kinds, 600 tanks, 2,000 cars, 679 ammunition depots, and over 800 aircraft and gunboats (ageenko et al., 1975). undeniably, this assistance vigorously aided the ccp’s armaments expansion and building base areas within the comprehensive industrial system in northeast china. stalin appeared to fear the threat of an alliance between kmt and the usa, prioritising the ussr’s interest in northeast china. therefore, the ussr fostered ccp forces in this area against kmt being bolstered by the americans. a shared interest in opposing american and kmt control of the northeast resulted in a strategic relationship between the ccp and the cpsu. as a result of the military conflict between the ccp and kmt in northeast china, the civil war began on a full scale. this signal marked the collapse of moscow’s coalition government policy in china. stalin had hoped that the ccp would execute a policy of parliamentary struggle (shen, 2007). his original intention was to support the kmt and use the ccp to secure the ussr’s national security and interests in northeast china by facilitating a unified coalition government. nevertheless, kmt opted to rely on american assistance (wei, 2006). to protect its privilege in northeast china, stalin chose to help the ccp build a buffer zone there rather than confront the americans. in europe, stalin was prompted to establish the communist information bureau as a response to the marshall plan led by the usa. this incident signalled the onset of the cold war (zubok & proquest, 2007). the establishment of the us-soviet confrontation objectively and continuously intensified the support of the ussr for the ccp. the pla continued to be successful in the civil war, and mao generated the idea of independent and peaceful diplomacy. the apparent manifestation was the intermediate zone theory proposed by mao in 1946. when an american journalist, louise strong, interviewed mao, he said: “in the intermediate zone were many capitalist countries, colonies and semi-colonial countries separated by the usa and the ussr, such as europe, asia and africa. the americans would not attack www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. the soviet union before controlling these countries” (mao, 1946, p. 1184) mao emphasised the ccp’s long-held policy of independence and autonomy. he supplemented the intermediate theory in 1947, saying: “all anti-imperialist countries and people in the world are our friends. but with our emphasis on self-reliance, we can defeat our enemies with our strength” (mao, 1947, p. 1243). the attitude of the ussr towards the chinese communist party was an essential reason for mao’s “intermediate zone” theory. after world war ii, stalin did not positively assist the ccp but compelled mao to negotiate with chiang kai-shek, which disappointed mao (luo, 2000). therefore, mao initiated an independent and self-reliant approach while attempting to win ussr aid for the chinese revolution in northeast china. when the pla achieved victory, stalin still took precedence over protecting the prerogative of the ussr in china. based on this consideration, from one perspective, stalin greatly assisted the ccp in the chinese civil war, frequently deferring the date of mao’s visit to the ussr (wu, 2007). from another perspective, stalin sought to maintain relatively congenial relations with the kmt, repeatedly demonstrating that the ussr was willing to mediate in the civil war (chen, 2008). for instance, at the beginning of 1949, when the pla occupied the area north of the yangtze river entirely and almost exterminated the main kmt forces, mao told the chinese people, “we would carry out the revolution till its victory” (mao, 1948, p. 1243). stalin surprisingly sent a telegram urging mao to agree to negotiate with the kmt. in this telegram, he claimed: “past and present, the ussr always countenanced to achieve truce peace in china; we do not know whether the ccp was willing to accept the ussr as an accommodator in the chinese civil war.” (shen, 2015a, p, 346). mao directly refuted stalin’s initiative about the negotiation of truce peace in. mao replied to stalin’s telegram: “now we had a just excuse to refuse kmt’s peace negotiations, which was kmt’s fraud; accepting peace talks did more harm than good.” (shen, 2015a, p. 350). however, when mikoyan visited china, the ccp worked out the “lean to one side” foreign policy and wholly entered the ussr-led socialist camp. stalin’s foothold remained consistent in protecting the exclusive rights of the ussr in china, even intervening in the chinese civil war. generally, this chapter reflected that, from the end of world war ii to the establishment of the prc, for both stalin and mao, pragmatic interests were the primary consideration in allying the ussr and the ccp; ideology was a secondary factor. from 1944 to 1945, stalin coerced mao to negotiate with chiang kai-shek in chongqing after signing the roc and the ussr treaty of friendship and alliance, aiming to protect the privilege of the ussr exploited by the yalta secret agreement. from 1946 to 1948, stalin gradually chose to help the ccp in northeast china, still considering the prerogative of the ussr in china rather than the ideological proximity with the ccp while facing the alliance between the kmt and the usa. until 1949, stalin publicly bolstered the ccp in the chinese civil war, trying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. to mediate the war for the sake of the ussr’s national interest in china. although mao once had an impractical imagination about the assistance of the ussr, stalin continued to give priority to consolidating the national interest of the ussr in the far east. these situations enabled mao and the ccp to produce a budding independent foreign policy; for instance, the theory of intermediate zones emphasised self-reliance. because the ccp could acquire the recognition of moscow and its vassal countries (westad, 2018), further obtaining economic and political assistance. as bagdasaryan (2016) claimed, ideology is an instrument of foreign policy. based on their practical interest, mao needed ideology as a tool to enter the socialist camp, thereby learning that the soviet socialist model of development appeared to be accepted and emulated. internally, the ccp selected “lean to one side” due to possessing a relatively safe external environment for its domestic construction. however, the yalta secret agreement was de facto to the detriment of china’s national interest, and this unequal treaty led to the formation of barriers between the ccp and the cpsu after the establishment of the prc. 5. chapter two: the founding of prc and the sino-soviet alliance treaty (1949-1950) “mao shouted at kovalev, who was mao’s russian translator, ‘stalin invited me to moscow but had nothing to do, why am i coming? why am i staying here to spend the whole day just eating, sleeping, and shitting?” (pancov & levine, 2013, p. 370). these words reflected mao’s mentality after his proposal regarding the signing of a new sino-soviet treaty alliance was refused by stalin. since the inception of the prc, the ccp crafted a policy of “lean to one side” that completely turned towards the socialist camp led by the ussr. therefore, mao decided to visit the ussr, superficially offering birthday greetings to stalin but signing a sino-soviet alliance that could replace the old kmt agreement (cohen, 2002). although the ussr quickly recognised the prc after its establishment, china’s bud of independence and self-reliance may have collided with the ussr. the new prc had three foreign policy linchpins, two of which were “start all over again” and “clean the house before you treat”. “start all over again” meant the prc would not recognise any roc’s diplomatic relationships established with other countries but would establish new and equal diplomatic relations with other states on a new basis (yao, 2011). “cleaning the house before you treat” referred to how the ccp would remove the remnants and privileges of imperialism in china and all unequal treaties before establishing diplomatic relations with western countries (zhang, 2013). these two essential foreign policies illustrated a stronger tendency for independence and self-reliance than the “theory of intermediate zone” proposed by mao in 1946 did, as he explained in the founding ceremony of the state. “our government is ready to establish diplomatic relations with any foreign government willing to abide by the principles of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territorial sovereignty” (mao, 1949, p. 3). against this background, the content of the roc and ussr treaty of friendship and alliance, derived www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. from the yalta secret agreement, appeared incompatible with the prc’s self-reliant and independent foreign policy. furthermore, for an ancient nation that experienced aggression and bullying from imperialist powers yet has had a splendid culture for thousands of years, its revival would inevitably be integrated with a revolution of nationalism (yang, 1999). the chinese people and the ccp wished to remove that disgrace in history by signing a new treaty. accordingly, mao intended to sign a new agreement of the sino-soviet alliance when visiting the ussr, which was likely to collide with stalin’s thoughts that sought to protect the national interest of the ussr in northeast china. figure 3. mao zedong and stalin at a conference celebrating stalin’s 70th birthday in moscow on 21st december, 1949. (yang, 1999, 251) at the first meeting between mao and stalin in december 1949, stalin was reluctant to touch the yalta system, which defended the ussr’s prerogative and disappointed mao. when mao mentioned the sign of the new sino-soviet treaty of friendship, stalin politely refused by saying: “as we all know, the roc and ussr treaty of friendship and alliance were based on the yalta agreement. it does mean that america and britain permitted the signing of this old treaty. in light of this situation, we decide that we provisionally do not revise any terms of this treaty, because even if we amend any terms, it would be likely to supply juristically excuses with the usa and britain pertaining to the sakhalin islands and kuril islands” (shen, 2015b, p. 175). stalin euphemised a solution, in proposing: “considering the desire of chinese comrades, we may keep a pro forma treaty but slightly revise some pertinent contents.” (ibid.). this declaration appears to reject mao’s desire to re-sign a new treaty. however, mao still wished tentatively to ask stalin to re-sign the new sino-soviet treaty of friendship. mao inquired: “whether is it necessary to invite premier zhou enlai to moscow to discuss the new sino-soviet treaty of friendship?” (shen, 2015b, p. 176) stalin also politely rejected mao’s inquiry, saying: “this question should be determined by yourself, and you may need zhou to solve other problems” (ibid.). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. these words meant that even if zhou enlai came to moscow, he intended to solve other questions rather than sign a new treaty. mao was disappointed with stalin’s words. over the next few days, according to kovalev, mao’s mood was morose (shen, 2001). at the second meeting between stalin and mao a few days later, stalin deliberately did not mention the signing of a new treaty but discussed the international communism of vietnam, india, and japan (pei, 1994). after the second meeting, mao appeared angry about stalin’s attitude. he shouted at his russian translator and uttered the opening sentences of this chapter. thus, mao “decided to do nothing but fall asleep in dacha” (pancov & levine, 2013, p. 371). this attitude clearly expressed dissatisfaction with stalin’s delay in discussing the new treaty. the standoff between mao and stalin lasted more than one week. there was no news of mao in the ussr media for a long time, which aroused much suspicion. for example, reuters took this opportunity to spread the news that mao was under house arrest by stalin, which made the ussr nervous (zhou & qin, 2010). mao tactically disclosed to roshen, the ussr ambassador to the prc, that “china set out to establish diplomatic relations with britain and the british commonwealth of nations” (shen, 2015, p. 207). to dispel these rumours, stalin had to propose a compromise towards mao considering these situations. on the one hand, stalin dispatched molotov, who was minister of foreign affairs, and mikoyan, who was the first deputy chairman of the council of ministers, to visit mao, demonstrating that the “ussr agreed to sign a new agreement with the prc” (mao, 1950, p. 211). on the other hand, stalin wished mao to publicly claim that his primary purpose of visiting moscow was to sign a new sino-soviet treaty of friendship in response to the ita-tass reporter’s question (shen, 2004). mao “immediately arranged for zhou to visit moscow to negotiate the new treaty” (shen, 2015, p. 213). it appears that mao successfully enabled stalin to compromise on the issue of a new treaty after a lengthy stalemate. however, stalin’s compromise was calculated as being intended to maintain vested interests and privileges in the far east. versions of the new treaty drafted by the ussr marked that “both sides altogether acknowledged that the old treaty signed in 1945 was still in place” (shen, 2015, p. 215). this clause meant that the ussr still regarded the old treaty signed with kmt as the basis of negotiation. the sixth and seventh drafts of the treaty, drafted by the ussr, continued reiterating the old treaty signed in 1945 as the foundation of the negotiation between the ussr and the ccp (shen, 2000). on 22 february 1950, mao had to take it upon himself to negotiate with stalin. at this meeting, mao triumphantly persuaded stalin to concede to the signing of a new treaty. however, the archives of this meeting still complain about stalin. stalin’s previous pretence was that changing the yalta agreement might provoke interference from the contracting parties, britain and the us. mao implied: “revising a new treaty between the prc and the ussr might be involved with the terms of the yalta agreement” (shen, 2015b, p. 266). stalin could only say: “yes, it may implicate the yalta agreement, but let it go to hell! now that we decide to modify the treaty, we no longer care about it” (ibid.). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. based on the consensus between mao and stalin, zhou and the other chinese representatives redrafted china’s draft agreement on lushun port, dalian and the middle east railway and the manchuria railway to dalian. the new chinese draft almost overturned the ussr position, stunning the ussr side. this new draft explicitly proposed: “the ussr stated that it abandoned the right to rent lv shun port as a naval base and gave up all the rights and interests in the dalian and middle east railway and manchuria railway to dalian. china will receive all assets that the ussr temporarily owned or rented in dalian and lv shun. three years after the entry into force of this agreement, the ussr would immediately transfer all assets to china in the middle east railway and manchuria railway to dalian gratis.” (shen, 2015b, p. 279). the declassified archives infer that stalin was enraged by the new agreement drafted by the chinese side as he crossed out and made many remarks on the agreement text. figure 4. on january 26, 1950, stalin personally made many deletions and corrections on the russian draft translation. the picture shows a copy of the russian archives. (2011, shen, p. 160) however, the revision supplied by the ussr retained the content as proposed by the chinese side. the compromise of the ussr did not appear to reduce contention with the chinese side. concerning the possibility that the ussr could dispatch its troops through the chinese railway, both sides again had an intense discussion. premier zhou discussed the possibility that china also hoped to transport troops by rail through the soviet union (zhou & qin, 2010). zhou’s attitude again astonished mikoyan, the soviet negotiator who said: “as an ally, the ussr transferred huge assets to china without compensation, giving china all rights in the dalian, lv shun, middle east railway and the manchuria railway. china even disagrees with the ussr to dispatch its troops through a chinese railway. if china cannot even make such a concession, what kind of ally are we?” (shen, 2015b, p. 298). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. after the long-term seesawing battle, the ussr reluctantly consented to china’s opinion. this negotiation about the sino-soviet alliance da qui cos ended; the ussr made practical concessions. stalin’s concession had profound consequences. because the ussr de-facto placed china’s pledge into the socialist camp led by the ussr, the confrontation between the socialist and capitalist camps forged an antagonistic relationship (fan, 2009). in september 1947, the communist intelligence agencies were founded. they declared that the world had formed a democratic anti-imperialist camp led by the ussr and an imperialist camp led by the us (niu, 1999). under the bipolar shape of these two camps, the ussr naturally wanted to subsume china into its camp rather than solely protecting its prerogative in northeast china. stalin’s strategic consideration needed the prc as an ally because it controlled asia against the us. this calculation was stalin’s starting point in agreeing to establish an alliance with the prc. indeed, stalin did not wish to have a neighbour with a quarter of the world’s population as a geopolitical enemy. therefore, compared to the ussr’s privilege in china, national interest and security assumed a leading role in stalin’s strategic decision. through this, china further strengthened its independent and peaceful diplomacy. in this sino-soviet alliance treaty, mao revoked the ussr privilege bestowed in the yalta secret agreement (shen & goncharov, 1998) and ensured an independent and peaceful diplomacy effort enshrined in this treaty as a guiding principle. for instance, in the final draft of the sino-soviet treaty of friendship, the fifth article demonstrated: “based on the principle of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, contracting states undertake to do in a spirit of friendly cooperation, consolidating and developing the economic and cultural connection of sino-soviet, giving each other all possible economic assistance and engaging in necessary economic cooperation” (shen, 2015b, p. 285). furthermore, the individual conflicts between mao and stalin intensified mao’s sense of independence. mao, ex post facto, compared this negotiation to snatching food from the jaws of a tiger (shen, 2010). the same ideology did not automatically bring a “warm feeling” of friendship, but behind the toasting of “cheers to friendship” was the struggle and cold contentions of national interest calculations (mastny, 1998, p. 12). on the eve of mao’s visit in december 1949, stalin called mao the “cave marxist” in private (pancov & levine, 2013, p. 367). khrushchev recalled that stalin never had a good word to say about mao during his visit to the ussr (taubman, 2003). although stalin compromised in negotiating the sino-soviet treaty of friendship many years later, mao was still angry at khrushchev’s reference to stalin’s attempt to create a semi-colony in china by forcing china to make concessions in the negotiation (kissinger, 2012). therefore, china’s thought of independent and peaceful diplomacy was further strengthened by the contents of the sino-soviet treaty, and mutual distrust between mao and stalin also exacerbated mao’s independent consciousness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. figure 5. in february 1950a, mao zedong and stalin attended the signing ceremony of the treaty of friendship and alliance between china and the soviet union. the picture shows zhou enlai and vishinski signing the treaty on behalf of their respective governments’. (2009a, editorial committee, 18) this chapter describes how, from the establishment of the prc to the signing of the treaty of friendship between china and the soviet union, under the appearance of national interest and ideological conflict, sino-soviet bilateral relations had profound structural contradictions. from one perspective, all socialist countries are led by communist parties, installing one-party rules in their countries. international communism was regarded as the goal of their foreign policies (rees & thorpe, 1999). in these one-party states, the communist party is the endpoint of all the principles and policies, substituting for the government. under the broader context of the antagonistic relationship between the two camps, the foreign policy of communist states with a totalitarian system may have a degree of revolutionary spirit (chen & zhou, 2012). this feature means that communist countries seek to output marxism and leninism and build more socialist countries (burton & carlen, 1979). therefore, in these socialist countries, inter-party relationships guided international relations, and ideology overrode national interests to a certain extent. sovereignty and equality were unavoidably subject to “communist internationalism”. these features appear to conflict within new communist countries which have just achieved national independence and liberation because these newly emerging independent nations need to consolidate their national independence and safeguard state sovereignty (chen, 1998). the ideological expansion may encounter difficulties with the claim of emerging states that were eager to protect their national interests. for example, mao and stalin, respectively, were the leaders of the ccp and the cpsu, and they could decide their countries’ foreign policy individually as communist party leaders. although both the ccp and the cpsu were marxist-leninist political parties, mao’s pursuit of independence and self-reliance as a leader of a newly independent state may have been incompatible with the ussr’s dominance of ideology. therefore, this relationship highlighted the fragility and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. instability of the socialist alliance under the context of the cold war. from another perspective, strongly hierarchical relations between the countries in the socialist camp triggered mao’s escalating independent and egalitarian consciousness. according to the liberalism of international relations, countries tend to “externalise” or transplant domestic political, economic, social, and other institutional arrangements for cognitive consistency (alker, 2005). wendt (1999) described this externalised behaviour as projective identification whereby some countries unfurl their domestic political systems and sentiments towards other countries and seek recognition and control. in these authoritarian communist countries, lenin established democratic centralism. the organisational principle emphasises that the lower level is subordinate to the higher level and that the entire party is subordinate to the central committee (mayer, 2010). this hierarchical system was externalised to the entire socialist camp, strengthening the hierarchical nature of the soviet-led socialist camp and endowing society with a hierarchy within the socialist camp based on legitimacy. stalin attempted to influence the ccp’s foreign policy through this hierarchical order to protect the ussr’s privilege in northeast china. this stalinist approach was unlikely receptive to mao, who claimed to establish a new china with an independent foreign policy of peace. coupled with stalin’s numerous interventions in the chinese civil war, mao and other ccp leaders naturally generated independent thinking when encountering the chauvinism of the ussr. accordingly, mao still stubbornly added independence and peaceful diplomacy provisions to the sino-soviet alliance treaty. in this treaty, stalin made significant concessions, naturally unwilling to lose the privilege of ice-free ports and marine outfall in northeast china. based on this hierarchical system of the socialist camps, stalin appeared sure to maintain authority and strategic objectives and interests in the far east. the core of this project was to compensate for lost privileges in the sino-soviet treaty, transforming policy on the korean peninsula. consequently, the strategic adventures on the korean peninsula directly resulted in the eruption of the korean war, as discussed in the next chapter. 6. chapter three: the korean war and the five principles of peaceful coexistence (1950-1956) “it is in china’s interest, north korea’s interest, east’s interest and world’s interest that we send troops to korea. nevertheless, if we do not send in troops and let the american imperialists oppress us along the amrok river, the domestic and international reactionary arrogance bluster will increase and be to all parties' disadvantage” (mao, 1950, p. 556). these words, spoken by mao, decided that the prc would send the cpv to fight the american armies face-to-face on the korean battlefield in october 1950, withstanding the tremendous internal and external strains. furthermore, the korean war consolidated and developed the political foundation of the sino-soviet alliance (hua & meng, 2014). however, the eruption of the korean war was attributed to the signing of the sino-soviet treaty of friendship. the new sino-soviet agreement resulted in the ussr losing its privileges in the northeast. stalin made concessions in negotiating the sino-soviet agreement that the lv shun seaport and the da lian seaport www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 89 published by scholink inc. would be handed over to china. this treaty would have led to the soviet union losing its only outlet to the pacific ocean and an ice-free port, which would undoubtedly have been a significant strategic loss. this damage would have led to the soviet union losing its strategic position in asia (shen, 2012). since the era of tsarist russia, russians have invariably regarded a marine outfall and an ice-free port as a desideratum, expanding access to the southern coast and building a hegemony that spanned eurasia (wang, 2012). after world war ii, the ussr once controlled the da lian and lv shun seaport through the old sino-soviet treaty with kmt. however, under mao’s pressure and realistic calculations, stalin was compelled to transfer the lv shun and da lian seaports to china in the sino-soviet agreement. stalin’s disgruntled sentiment toward the sino-soviet agreement contributed to the outbreak of the korean war. on the eve of the ccp’s victory in the chinese civil war, kim il-sung, the leader of the workers’ party of korea, repeatedly asked stalin to help reunify north korea and south korea (shen, 2004). in his telegram to kim il-sung, stalin always highlighted that “the comrades of north korea have not prepared to unify south korea yet both politically and militarily” (shen, 2015b, p. 139). stalin promised to “prioritise chinese comrade’s help in liberating taiwan” when negotiating with mao for the first time (shen, 2015b, p. 176). however, stalin’s attitude towards unifying korea shifted in the negotiation of the sino-soviet alliance when he was forced to compromise with mao. stalin urgently needed to keep his strategic interests in the far east in a supplementary manner when losing privileges in northeast china—for example, obtaining a marine outfall and ice-free port in the korean peninsula. as the leader of the socialist camp led by the ussr, stalin never made such a massive concession as in the sino-soviet treaty of alliance (li & wen, 2015). however, simultaneously signing the sino-soviet alliance, stalin secretly sent a telegram to kim il-sung indicating that he was ready to help comrade kim il sung solve the south korean problem (shen, 2015). since china, as the ussr’s new ally, did not know of this, stalin reneged on his promise to help china unify taiwan and countenanced kim il-sung’s military adventure in the korean peninsula. therefore, stalin modified his foreign policy regarding the korean peninsula to offset the loss of national interest in the sino-soviet alliance treaty. the newly born prc made considerable sacrifices for the unbeaten result on the korean battlefield. although kim il-sung’s military operation achieved an early series of victories, in the wake of the us armies’ inchon landing, the korean people’s army suffered a crushing defeat (leckie, 1963). stalin had no option but to ask the prc for help and suggested that “china dispatched troops to assist in north korea” (shen, 2015c, p. 72), promising that the ussr would satisfy china’s demand for advanced weapons (shen, 2015c, p. 91). regarding the international and domestic situation, mao prevailed over all dissenting views and resolutely decided to send troops into korea (goncharov et al., 1993). therefore, mao uttered the opening words of this chapter at a politburo meeting of the ccp committee. it can be inferred from these words that when mao finally sent troops to north korea, his focus shifted from fulfilling his internationalist obligations to safeguarding china’s security interests, including the sino-soviet alliance, for future considerations. about the great sacrifice of the chinese army, by 1953, the battle line was a tug of war along the 38th parallel of north latitude, approximately maintaining www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. the territory of the two koreas before the korean war (qi, 2010). statistics show that approximately 180,000 cpv soldiers died in the war in resisting the united states and assisting north korea (xu, 2010). nevertheless, the military assistance of the ussr not only buttressed the cpv and achieved a series of victories but also played a pivotal role in the prc’s economic rehabilitation (shen, 2011). for instance, such assistance included the provision of military loans, selling of weapons and equipment, providing technical assistance, military training, and personnel and so forth (xue, 2007). stalin reneged on the commitments of the ussr to aid china in their goal to unify taiwan, thereby resulting in china failing to realise national reunification. during the korean war, the us dispatched the seventh fleet into the taiwan strait, consequently postponing china’s pace of unification with taiwan (liu, 1996). mao (1956, cited in yang, 1999) ex post facto asserted that the decision to begin the korean war was a great mistake. however, he had total support when meeting with the central delegation of the cpsu. consequently, being forced into involvement in the korean war resulted in china suffering massive casualties and the loss of an opportunity for complete unification. figure 6. ‘on october 1950, the chinese people’s volunteers crossed the amrok river and entered korea’. (shen & yang, 2009, 69) mao dispatched troops to korea in consideration of the sino-soviet alliance. at a meeting of the politburo, he stressed that the main reason why china sent troops was not to resolve a military problem; however, even if the chinese troops had been defeated and the americans returned, china would still send troops (shen, 1999). superficially, the prc and the ussr were aligned after the signing of the sino-soviet agreement in 1960. this agreement was due to historical reasons and stalin’s compromise in negotiating the sino-soviet alliance. however, stalin always appeared suspicious of and showed disgruntled sentiments towards the prc. therefore, mao was insistent on sending troops to korea to win stalin’s trust, thereby eliminating, to a certain extent, his doubt regarding the sino-soviet alliance. as expected, stalin rejoiced at mao’s decision. he told kim il-sung in his telegram: “i was glad that the chinese comrades have finally decided to send troops to korea because this decision was in the interests of korea and the socialist camp.” (shen, 2015c, p. 99). accordingly, mao’s bold decision to send cpv to korea may have consolidated the political base of the sino-soviet alliance and won www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 91 published by scholink inc. stalin’s trust. therefore, the sino-soviet alliance was established after mao sent troops to korea. domestically, the prc being propelled into an unnecessary war became an opportunity for the ccp to re-examine foreign relations and ultimately to decide to readjust themselves to the outside world. the korean war was particularly economically burdensome to china. considering the development of the domestic situation, the chinese leaders implemented the first five-year plan in 1953, gradually transitioning to the country’s large-scale economic construction (meng & zhou, 2012) because the korean war compromised china’s economy. the archives of premier zhou’s meeting with stalin on 3 september 1952 report that zhou claimed that the military budget for the korean war accounted for 44 per cent (1.2 billion roubles) of china’s fiscal budget in 1950, 52 per cent (8 billion roubles) of china’s budget in 1951, and 27.9 per cent (6.6 billion roubles) in 1952 (shen, 2015d, p. 278). this wartime economic model adversely affected the economic reconstruction of china. china needed a benign external environment to bolster its economic development to change the unfavourable situation of national internal construction. driven by the domestic situation, foreign policy adjustments were imperative. the signing of the korean armistice agreement in july 1953 encouraged the chinese leaders. they believed the current situation was particularly favourable to china and that they should increase national and economic construction (literature research office of the ccp central committee, 1998). therefore, the korean war enabled china to revise its foreign policy towards implementing economic construction. internationally, the ccp adjusted its foreign policy to “lean to one side” to improve the surrounding environment and maintain national security. the korean war resulted in a hostile relationship between china and the usa, deteriorating china’s surroundings because the usa began to see china as its main adversary in the far east and applied a containment policy (lin, 2000). for example, among the 28 countries that established diplomatic relations with china after the korean war, few developed capitalist countries with different ideologies (ministry of foreign affairs of china, 2000). therefore, the chinese leaders’ recognition of diplomacy began to shift. zhou (1952) stressed at the conference on diplomatic work that china’s diplomacy was aimed at state-to-state relationships and should be conducted in this format. this statement showed that china’s diplomacy began as an act of state with faded ideological colour. at this stage, the new prc regime was further entrenched with the unbeaten result of the korean war. thus, maintaining a secure external environment and constructing the regime were the paramount questions the ccp needed to address. as an ally, the series of great-nation chauvinism by stalin and his successors grossly violated mao and the other chinese leaders’ national emotions after they had signed the sino-soviet alliance treaty. apart from enabling china to be implicated in the korean war, stalin proposed some unreasonable requirements that annoyed mao. according to khrushchev’s memoirs, stalin wanted to build a pineapple cannery in china. a few days later, stalin received a rejective telegram from the chinese (khrushchev & crankshaw, 1970). numerous examples can be given, and in the accessory to the sino-soviet treaty of friendship, china and the soviet union signed three joint-stock companies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 92 published by scholink inc. involved in xinjiang petroleum and non-ferrous metals (zhuang, 1995). superficially, mao accepted these terms; however, cancelling these joint ventures soon became an inevitable agenda item. on 22 july 1958, when he talked with the soviet ambassador to china, eugene, mao admitted: “under stalin’s pressure, we established several joint ventures in two spheres of influence, northeast china and xinjiang” (mao, 1958, p. 323). mao used his sphere of influence to describe joint ventures, mirroring his aversion, as he compared the ussr to imperialism. khrushchev also recalled that when he led a soviet government delegation to beijing in 1954, he proposed using china’s surplus labour to help develop soviet siberia (zhang, 2007). mao immediately refuted this proposal and stated: “this proposal was insulting to the chinese people because the western powers for many years saw china as a backward country, overpopulated, unemployed, and a source of cheap labour. if we take your advice, chinese people will get the wrong idea about sino-soviet relations, and they would think that the soviet union sees china in the same way as the capitalist west did” (khrushchev, 1956, p. 387). because of china’s humiliating contemporary history, ccp leaders and mao had a compassionate attitude towards the issue of national sovereignty and national sentiment. therefore, such chauvinistic behaviour appeared to stimulate the chinese leaders’ nationalist sentiment eager to pursue equalitarianism in sino-soviet relations. as such, china adjusted its foreign policy and proposed the five principles of peaceful coexistence. the idea of china’s independent and self-reliant diplomacy was formally established when the five principles of peaceful coexistence were proposed. waltz, the representative of neo-realism (2010), claimed that systematic structures constrained the behaviour of state actors in the international political system. this international political system encourages specific actions of the state and punishes those who do not respond to encouragement. some international relations theorists define this process as state socialisation, referring to a positive mechanism to make new norms in the international system. states would accept such norms through physical punishment and partner pressure, like international systems (katzenstein et al., 1999). the state socialisation concept implies that the prc, as a new regime with the characteristics of marxism-leninism from inception, was little socialised in the international political system; being excluded from the international system determined china’s strategic preferences and the definition and cognition of national interests. the prc’s early foreign policy was still inevitably impacted and restricted by the revolutionary ideology of the world. therefore, mao needed to select the “lean to one side” approach that positioned itself in the socialist camp led by the ussr. however, the ussr had a relatively higher degree of state socialisation when managing the ccp and prc. it was always prioritising national interest as a linchpin. in negotiating the sino-soviet treaty of friendship, mao’s ideological closeness towards the soviet union seemed to conflict with the ussr, which preferred their national interest because of the different extent of state socialisation. following the transformation of the home and abroad situation after the korean war, china’s more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 93 published by scholink inc. significant degree of state socialisation emphasised greater national interest and incrementally focused on state-building. maintaining good relationships with neighbours and seeking to project an air of rational diplomacy complied with china’s national interest. thereupon, the five principles of peaceful coexistence was proposed by zhou when meeting with indian prime minister nehru and his burmese counterpart u nu (clymer & richardson, 2011). at the april 1955 bandung conference, premier zhou enlai further promoted the five principles of peaceful coexistence as the basis of how countries with different ideologies and social systems should cooperate. the five principles of peaceful coexistence and friendly cooperation established by the conference later incorporated the five principles of peaceful coexistence (shimazu, 2014). following the polish and hungarian incidents in 1956, china extended this principle to socialist countries, believing that mutual relations between socialist countries should be built according to the five principles of peaceful coexistence (huang, 1996). therefore, the proposal of these principles was the concrete manifestation of china’s degree of state socialisation increases. figure 7: ‘on 1st november 1954, mao zedong and khrushchev celebrated the fifth anniversary of the prc at national day’. (2009b, editorial committee, 16) in this chapter, the synchronisation of the proposal of the five principles of peaceful coexistence and the greater closeness of sino-soviet relations appeared to be decipherable. an intimate sino-soviet alliance was in the national interest of the prc immediately following the korean war. the ussr was still the sole socialist superpower willing to assist the prc. china urgently needed this assistance to create the post-war recovery and economic construction. during the construction period of the first five-year plan for socialist industrialisation, particularly after the shift of the work centre to the economic construction that was proposed by the eighth national congress of the communist party of china in 1956, the economic and cultural construction of prc was in urgent need of the assistance of the ussr (chen, 1998). from the ussr’s perspective, stalin died in 1953 at the end of the negotiation of the korean war (wang, 2013). following an internal power struggle, khrushchev became the last winner in this communist authoritarian regime (mccauley, 1995). to strengthen his political power and status, khrushchev needed the recognition and support of the ccp because this was the most www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 94 published by scholink inc. significant ruling party among all the communist countries (yang, 1999). therefore, khrushchev vigorously advanced aid to china and strived to expand the scale of construction aid projects regardless of the contrary opinions of the cpsu. in october 1954, khrushchev led a delegation to visit china, signing binding agreements and directly promoting an aid programme with 156 projects. he even cancelled many unequal treaties which stalin had burdened on mao (wang & chen, 2013). according to the archives of the ussr, the total export value of soviet construction projects to china was 9.4 billion roubles, among which the export value of the equipment was 8.4 billion roubles. the export value of technology was one billion roubles, accounting for approximately 7 per cent of the soviet national income in 1959 (westad, 1998). the ussr even supplied cutting-edge nuclear weapons and missile technology to china, helping the country to build a modernised and comprehensive industrial system based on almost one thousand aid projects (shen, 2011). based on this mutual need, bilateral relations between the ccp and the cpsu strengthened and reached a zenith in 1956 when mao again visited moscow. 7. conclusion this study analysed the influence of bilateral relations between the two parties on the prc’s foreign policy variation from 1945 to 1956. this article chronologically separated the analysis into three timeframes by analysing primary archives and secondary academic articles. during the chinese civil war, in the period between 1945 and 1949, contrary to popular belief, stalin did not begin by choosing to support the ccp but signed a roc-ussr treaty of friendship and alliance with kmt to protect the prerogatives of the ussr as detailed and agreed under the yalta system. with the gradual formation of the cold war, stalin needed to work with the ccp when encountering and confronting the usa. in this process, stalin invariably deployed the ideology and goals of world revolution as tools, even ordering the ccp’s concession in the civil war, thereby intending to maintain its national interest in northeast china. consequently, such behaviour triggered mao’s thoughts towards independence and self-reliance. based on the realistic consideration of the international situation and the assistance of the cpsu in the chinese civil war, the ccp decided to enact a foreign policy to “lean to one side” and firmly joined the socialist camp led by the ussr. during this phase, the ccp, still transitioning from a revolutionary group to the ruling party, appeared to place revolutionary ideology above national interest. from the establishment of the prc in 1949 to early 1950, structural contradictions between the ccp and the cpsu resulted in the conflicts observed during the negotiation of the sino-soviet treaty of friendship, further strengthening the prc’s independent foreign policy of peace. from one perspective, the initial contradiction was in the socialist camp, where interparty relations led to national policy becoming incompatible with the newly independent countries, which demanded national independence and equity. from another perspective, the hierarchical order of the socialist camp ran counter to mao’s growing foreign policy of peace and democracy. these structural conflicts determined the fragile characteristics of the social alliance. although stalin eventually compromised in the sino-soviet treaty, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 4, 2023 95 published by scholink inc. considering the national interest of the ussr, this concession directly embroiled the prc in the korean war. following the outbreak of the korean war in late 1950 to the moscow conference in 1956, the prc began to implement a dual-track foreign policy. on the one hand, stalin aimed to offset the loss in the sino-soviet treaty by instigating north korea to attack south korea. mao determinedly dispatched troops to korea, which genuinely cemented the sino-soviet alliance. however, when khrushchev came to power, he was anxious to solidify his political power; consequently, he expanded the scale of assistance to the prc. the prc gradually achieved state socialisation, highlighting the national interest from the regime’s consolidation to the construction of the country, needing the assistance of the ussr to build the nation. therefore, the two parties struck the correct balance at this point, and the sino-soviet alliance entered a honeymoon period. on the other hand, to improve the surrounding environment and national security, the prc proposed the five principles of peaceful coexistence and promoted peaceful foreign policy, considering the massive losses incurred during the korean war. these policies served the prc’s national interest after improving the socialisation of state politics. however, these two tracks could not change the structural conflicts in the socialist camps. after khrushchev consolidated power, the sino-soviet split began in the 1960s, vying for leadership of the socialist camp, even resulting in a border war. to conclude, machiavellian stalin always had an eye on the ussr’s national interests and privileges rather than ideology when dealing with foreign relations with china. from this process, mao and ccp’s self-reliant and independent thinking were strengthened through sino-soviet relations and finally formed a distinct, peaceful, and independent diplomatic thinking inch by inch. references qin, x, y. 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(1952). our foreign policy and mission (april 30, 1952) (wo men de wai jiao fang zhen he ren wu). retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/chinese/zhouenlai/110.htm zhou, e. l. (1956). premier and foreign minister zhou enlai on the current international situation, statement on china’s foreign policy and the liberation of taiwan (zhou en lai zong li jian wai jiao bu chang guan yu mu qian guo ji xing shi, wo guo wai jiao zheng ce he jie fang tai wan wen ti de fa yan). retrieved from http://www.people.com.cn/item/lianghui/zlhb/rd/1jie/newfiles/c1060.html abbreviations 1. introduction 2. literature review 2.1 brief introduction 2.3 china’s foreign policy 2.4 analytical framework to the variation of prc’s foreign policy ideology was an essential theoretical perspective that analysed international relations in the cold war period. ideology was defined as a logically consistent set of symbols that connect the cognitive and evaluative understanding of one’s social situa... 2.5 summary and emerging issues 3. methodology 4. chapter one: historical grudge between ccp and cpsu (1945-1949) 5. chapter two: the founding of prc and the sino-soviet alliance treaty (1949-1950) 6. chapter three: the korean war and the five principles of peaceful coexistence (1950-1956) 7. conclusion references advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 14 original paper a study on the application of chinese cultural elements in digital media art design luo wenyi 1 1 swan college, central south university of forestry and technology, wangcheng district, changsha, hunan province 410000, china received: april 19, 2023 accepted: june 13, 2023 online published: june 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/assc.v5n3p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v5n3p14 abstract in the past few years, china’s digital media art has been moving forward rapidly, and this field has been developed rapidly. for digital media, it contains many aspects, just like the rise of the animation industry cannot be separated from the union of modern science and technology and animation elements, and of course the addition of chinese elements, so it is important to conduct an in-depth study of these aspects. adding chinese elements to digital media art design is a good way because it allows the outside world to understand the teaching word media, and more importantly, china, giving the audience a better visual experience. keywords digital media; chinese culture; design applications; design explorations in daily life, many aspects of art design about digital media add chinese elements. better linking digital media and chinese elements together can strengthen the overall feeling brought by digital media art design, enhance the sense of picture, further satisfy the spiritual needs of the audience, bring a better visual experience to the audience, and let the audience better understand digital media and better understand china. this will not only increase the audience’s high evaluation of china’s digital media field, but also promote the rapid development of china’s digital media business in real life and bring better development to the development of china’s digital media business (see figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. figure 1. from the network 1. a brief overview for digital media first, a brief discussion about digital media. digital media contains many, like graphic design, animation design, interface design, etc. let’s take graphic design as an example. while the internet has entered millions of households, people are no longer limited to receiving information only through traditional media such as tv, radio and radio. as visual animals, human beings tend to receive information more visually, so graphic design work was born. the most fundamental difference between graphic design and other two-dimensional designs is accuracy and uniqueness. the meaning of the existence of sub-facet design is to correctly convey the design information to the audience, through the limited space and design sense, to convey more information content that the graphic advertising designer wants to express. accuracy is the basic concept and work content that every sub-facing designer upholds. a designer who cannot even correctly convey the graphic theme and information content to the audience is definitely not a qualified and excellent graphic designer. every designer should observe the professional ethics of correctly conveying information in the process of practice, which is also the most basic and important professional quality of this job. in addition, the uniqueness of graphic design is that it has more obvious advantages with other textual pictograms. the sub-facial design engineer can understand and elaborate the product connotation and customer’s business philosophy from more perspectives and angles, help the audience change their previous impressions of the company as well as the product, give the intuitive feeling of surprising pictures unexpectedly and uniquely, and add chinese elements effectively, so that the audience can receive the maximum product information in the process of enjoying the pictures, and also understand to a great extent china, achieve the expected presentation effect and level, and successfully complete the work objectives set by the client. graphic designers in the work process, should focus on personalized development and training, so that they are always in a humble and good working condition, proactively meet the requirements of the customer, so that the final early graphic creative play a better effect, in the implementation process, to ensure the implementation of the creative concept of graphic design and rationality, so that more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. people in the viewing process to feel the quality of the product and the concept to ensure the success of graphic design creativity. among them, hand-drawn illustration in the sub-facing poster design has a pivotal position, it is the art workers in the process of graphic design, through a novel and chic way, to the outside world to convey the message of information expression process, the core content of graphic poster design highlight, in the design of the unique graphics about chinese elements, help to give the audience a more profound impression, in the hearts of the audience to form a relevant impact. in other words, it clearly presents the theme and mood of this design and gives a beautiful visual feeling. based on such a scenario, the application and exploration of chinese elements in graphic poster design is necessary to be studied in depth, and the most reasonable and optimal practical suggestions and application strategies are given as much as possible. this is a very important day for the development of digital media art design (see figure 2). 2. problems faced in digital media art design the continuous development of the new media era has a certain impact on digital media, which can be analyzed here by the following aspects. first, with the rapid development of this era, the forms of digital media can be said to be increasing, and people can access the relevant design content through a variety of methods, so in this way, the variety of information is very complicated, and the quality of art and design is not very effective guarantee. the current reform of digital media does not take into account this aspect, teaching them to apply better design elements and improve their overall literacy; second, in this society is constantly driven by these industries in order to be able to meet the needs of the public, they need to constantly innovate design, improve design, add new elements, such as chinese elements, which has a very positive impact on promoting the development of this industry. figure 2. from the network www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. to better incorporate chinese elements into digital media art design the first thing to do is to do a good job of penetrating chinese cultural concepts in this field of digital media, highlighting chinese culture and even cultural concepts of various countries can broaden the appreciation horizon of the designer. the designer must have a good guide, who is the inheritor of the entire digital media multiculturalism. as long as the designer is able to accept the concept of diversified culture when conducting digital media art design, in order to repair the design in the speaking line, the penetration of this diversified thought culture into the design, these contents mainly contain the national regional culture, as the chinese first to do is to apply the chinese elements into the digital media design. as we all know, culture and science have no national boundaries. we should always maintain a receptive attitude towards diverse cultures, so that we can better appreciate the spiritual culture of other countries, so that we can broaden our cultural horizons and improve our ability and level of appreciation of digital media. in the process of integrating chinese elements into digital media design, designers are only exposed to a basic chinese culture, but not to the deeper cultures of other countries, nor are they able to know the richness of foreign cultures in digital media of other countries. therefore, designers should understand the culture of other countries in depth when integrating chinese elements into digital media design so that the creators will have inspiration in digital media design and can make the digital media develop better, and then bring chinese business cards out to others to understand and remember. 3. the use of chinese elements in digital media art design for digital media design, we then move on to the study of graphic design in animation as an example. when planning and constructing animations, using flat graphics is a good way to go. the planar shapes look very simple. for example, rectangles and squares are closed shapes with straight lines, which gives a very intuitive feeling; circles are closed shapes drawn with curves, which makes people feel very comfortable. if the circle is used in the design of animation, it can be used on those fat anime characters and steaming characters and add chinese elements; if it is a curve it gives a more casual feeling, so it can be used in animation design many times. if you are drawing anime characters, you can use the curve to draw those open and free abstract paintings, using this idea as a base, and then effectively add something that belongs to china. if a figure is presented, it is much better to show it through a sub-surface image than some old-fashioned flat images, and the chinese elements are more recognizable than other graphics. whether it is an animated masterpiece in literature or a mathematical problem in science, the use of graphic design is very extensive. for example: when we create an animation video with a long history or representing the evolution of history, we can use a bar graph or a line graph in a chart, adding a small logo belonging to china, both of which can make us understand more clearly the information contained in it. in today’s society, the use of graphic design is becoming more and more widespread. graphic design also plays a big role in animation, giving people a better visual effect. the composition of graphic design is indispensable in all our surroundings. for example, when some characters in animation are exaggerated, graphic design drawings can make use of chinese www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. elements. when this character comes out, the character can be designed in a very exaggerated way or with a shocking music. if the animation is to show a beautiful scenery, then the graphic design should show a comfortable picture to people. of course, in the process of designing the animation, small details should not be neglected to bring the audience a more realistic emotional experience. every place should be done carefully so that the audience can enjoy the fun in animation and the beauty in design. when we watch the animation, we will find that it is not made up of a picture with chinese elements, but of a video that is edited and stitched together. because every part of the animation is different and every plot is different, a lot of time is spent on the animation design. although it will take a lot of effort to splice the animation together, the splicing of the video together will better express the author’s emotional attitude, and the addition of chinese elements will also trigger the patriotic feelings in the audience to a certain extent: and it will save a lot of time in the later playback, the continuity of the video will be better, the video effect brought to the audience is more perfect, and the emotional communication between the audience and the characters in the animation will be more perfect. in this way, it also promotes china to a certain extent, and the digital media design also injects new inspiration, which can be said to be a double harvest (see figure 3). figure 3. from the network 4. concluding remarks in a word, in the era of “internet+”, digital media art design is the key to support enterprises in creating and promoting design, and by analyzing the development of digital media art in the era of “internet+” from the perspective of the development of chinese cultural elements, we can by analyzing the development of digital media art in the “internet+” era from the perspective of chinese cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 5, no. 3, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. elements, the future development direction of design can be further clarified. we believe that as more people realize the value of digital media art and design, the development of chinese culture will become better. in terms of digital media art and design, in order to make the industry develop better, it is necessary for the people involved to think more and look for things that can easily resonate with the audience’s emotions, such as chinese elements. this will definitely allow digital media to develop to a higher level. references huang, j. j. (2019). exploring the application of chinese elements in digital media art design. chinese elements, 2019(07), 53-54. jin, j. b. (2019). research on the application of chinese elements in digital media art design. tsinghua university press, 2019(12), 40. li, s. r. (2015). research on sustainable design of innovative branding in ecological agriculture id1. zhuzhou: hunan university of technology, 2015. shan, s. y. (2022). research on the development of brand visual design in the era of “internet+”. art education research, 272(13), 69-71. xie, t. t., & he, z. (2015). research on the heritage development of hangzhou old brand visual image design one by one with the example of hu qing yu tang guo yao no. official mall. design, 2015(3), 136-137. xu, p. f. (2020). study on the visual design of the real estate brand of poly-jingyue hefu project id1. xi’an: shaanxi normal university, 2020. zhang, x. a study on the application of chinese elements in digital media art design. central digital media, 2019(05), 136-137. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 3, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 17 original paper research on the dissemination of intangible cultural heritage nuo dance in the new era from the perspective of cultural memory wenrui lai1 1 national research center for cultural industries, central china normal university, wuhan, hubei 430079, china received: april 19, 2025 accepted: may 05, 2025 online published: may 20, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n3p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n3p17 abstract as an important cultural memory carrier of chinese civilisation, nuo dance of non-heritage in the new era is facing the double challenge of memory fracture and identity reconstruction. in the perspective of cultural memory theory, clarify the cultural memory of nuo dance generation basis, analysis of nuo dance in the new era of nuo dance communication practice in the content of the popularization, form of experiential, functional division of memory reproduction trend, combined with the nuo dance cultural memory value implication for the non-heritage nuo dance of living heritage memory storage, memory dissemination, memory identity of the three aspects of the practice of the way, in order to promote the nuo dance in the new era of the effective inheritance of development and dissemination to provide some theoretical reference and practical path. keywords cultural memory, nuo dance, intangible cultural heritage dissemination, propagation studies, memory activation non-heritage arts are all-encompassing, involving traditional music, traditional dance and other categories, and multiple sensory perceptions such as visual, auditory and tactile, so that the public can directly feel the qualities of the national culture, activate the memory of the national culture, and subconsciously form the cognition of the national culture and set up the identity of the national culture. however, the environment, carrier and source of creation on which the non-heritage art relies for survival are disappearing in the wave of the times, which makes the dissemination of the non-heritage art face the predicament of memory breakage such as weak acceptance base of the audience, imbalance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 18 of inheritance between generations, and lack of sustained attraction of the form of dissemination (yao, 2023). therefore, how to regain the vitality of non-heritage arts with the help of the cultural soil and technical means in the new era has become an important issue in the process of non-heritage art dissemination. with the popularisation and development of digital technology, the protection of non-heritage arts has gradually achieved a paradigm shift from salvage-type recording to memory reproduction, and the links involved in the protection action have also been extended from non-heritage arts themselves to non-heritage arts inheritance groups, and the scope of active protection has also been extended from the initiative of official, expert and scholarly professional groups to that of all groups in the whole society. on this basis, the dissemination mode of non-heritage art has changed from single traditional to diversified emerging, which is no longer confined to traditional methods such as oral records, written records and intergenerational inheritance, but more often uses pictures and images, 3d interactive displays, stage and theatre productions, as well as vr and ar. theatre and vr, ar, mr and other more immersive, emerging media for the public. nuo dance as both visual and auditory non-heritage art, with the times the aesthetics of the clothing road, mysterious hunting cultural atmosphere, life and emotion of the immersive experience is that it has in the dissemination process of other non-heritage art can not be compared to the advantages. in addition to nuo dance is one of the important carriers of nuo cultural dissemination, is also one of the important carriers of nuo cultural memory. cultural memory theory is the german scholars jan aseman and aleida aseman in maurice habwah and paul connaughton two scholars on the basis of the collective memory research on the theoretical results. the asmans mainly regard cultural memory as an extension and improvement of habwach's theory of memory, and put forward two forms of cultural memory, namely, storage memory and functional memory, and believe that cultural memory is not only an object of cultural scientific research and involves the issue of cultural identity and identity, but also presents itself as a mechanism, which, on the one hand, manifests itself in the fact that cultural memory is provided by society. on the one hand, this mechanism is manifested in the formation, dissemination and continuation of cultural memory through various forms and media provided by the society, and on the other hand, it is manifested in the fact that the content of cultural memory is rich and colourful and difficult to manage, and that it is difficult to restrict its development by national boundaries and languages (jan, 2016). it can be seen that the various categories of non-heritage arts (e.g., folklore, traditional dance, folklore, etc.) are highly compatible with the main memory carriers (e.g., texts, pictures, rituals, etc.) in the theory of cultural memory, and they are both forms of cultural memory, storage memory and functional memory. at the same time, the protection of non-heritage arts also needs to take into account the static storage of cultural symbols and the dynamic transformation of cultural practices, which reflects the dual application of cultural memory theory in the field of non-heritage arts protection. cultural memory theory introduced into the study of non-heritage, such as the object of this paper, non-heritage nuo dance, through the non-heritage nuo dance in the new era of communication research, in the system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 19 reproduced on the basis of cultural memory, clarifying the non-heritage nuo dance in the new era of communication practices in the performance of the memory reproduction tendency and the value of meaning, and put forward the related to it. practice approach. 1. non-heritage nuo dance cultural memory generation basis non-heritage arts nuo dance produced in the witch nuo rituals, is a traditional society with the epidemic pray for blessings and other rituals of the original dance, but also an important part of nuo culture, in the form of performance with a heavy sense of history, in the performance of the performance of the contents of a unique regional and cultural, in the performance of the tools with distinctive artistry. non-heritage nuo dance has the form, content, carrier and audience is to maintain its own ephemeral identity is an important factor, this ephemeral identity to help non-heritage nuo dance and it represents a part of nuo culture in the passing of the times to play a stabilising role and reproduction function, that is, so that the non-heritage nuo dance to be able to go through the alternation of generations and historical change is still to maintain the consistency of one of the functions of cultural memory is to help the non-heritage nuo dance formation of ephemeral identity (jan, 2016). the cultural memory of non-heritage nuo dance, it is through these memory mechanisms to protect and activate the cultural heritage of nuo, so that non-heritage nuo dance in the new era of communication practices creative and vitality. 1.1 wide memory audience as an important part of nuo culture, nuo dance was born in the dance part of the nuo ceremony. with the expansion of settlements, population migration and widely spread in the yangtze river basin (yunnan, guizhou, sichuan, hunan, jiangxi, anhui) and the yellow river basin (hebei, shaanxi, gansu, shaanxi), etc., with nuo, jump nuo, ghost dance, play lucky and other local aliases. because of the different regions of circulation, nuo dance performance style is divided into complex changes in the scene, the performance of meticulous and rigorous, strong sense of life, beautiful and moving dance wen nuo school and momentum, emotional exuberance, warm rhythm, strong action wu nuo school (gao, 2009). nuo dance about the written records in the official history are recorded, after the han book volume 10 on the empress on the 10th, zhi 5th etiquette contained: “three years in autumn, the queen mother body is not safe, around the worry and fear, prayers please wishing, wish to get on behalf of the life. ...... the old things, the end of the year when the feast severance guards, nuo nuo epidemic." "the first day of wax, large exorcism, known as the epidemic.” (fan & yin, 2022), new tang book ritual and music zhi ritual and music 6th: “the chamberlain at the emperor's royal palace before playing '俥子备，请 逐疫'.” (song & xiu, 2015). from different historical materials on the description of nuo dance can be seen, the main purpose of nuo dance performance is to meet the people to drive away the plague and pray for peace of vision, the scope of the performance covers all strata of society, up to the princes and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 20 nobles of the official nuo down to the folk of the townspeople nuo, has a wide range of audience base and cultural identity basis. 1.2 specific memory symbols nuo dance by the simple dance movements, simple body, colourful costumes, masks and props, with the plot of the music and other elements of the combination. with the gradual emergence of the tang and song dynasties citizen culture, nuo dance began in their own development in the extensive absorption of buddhist rituals and storytelling narrative, through the continuous absorption of the sui and tang changwen, song and jin miscellaneous drama and yuan dynasty qu ling and other forms of performance and the essence of the rhetoric, the formation of both rituals and entertainment function of the independent theatre opera nuo opera (cha & tao, 2023, p. 125) table 1. functional similarities and differences between nuo dance and nuo opera latitude nuo dance nuo opera core functionality religious rituals for the epidemic of accepting auspicious artistic performances for the entertainment of the gods and the people performance space mostly sacred spaces such as shrines and temples mostly public spaces such as temple fairs and bazaars performing entity nuo ban (mechanism for clan transmission) vocational theatre group (as a result of marketisation) social role maintaining the order of the village community meeting the public's cultural consumption needs nuo dance and nuo opera as nuo culture lineage of different memory carriers, the same root and origin of cultural memory is the two in the process of nuo cultural history and development of co-creative symbiosis of the foundation, such as the performance of anhui guichi nuo opera is divided into three sections of the body, that is, nuo rituals, nuo dance nuo opera nuo dance, auspicious words, can be seen before and after the main play, you must be able to nuo dance through the nuo dance this psychic dance to complete the qǐng shen (invitation to god) and sòng shen (send god) ritual links (chizhou government website, 2025). it can be seen that nuo dance and nuo opera although there are different parts, but due to the relationship between the two co-creative symbiosis, they also share a certain degree of similar memory symbols. in this paper, we mainly focus on nuo dance to start the discussion. nuo dance movements, body is one of the most core mnemonic of the dance category of non-heritage. nuo dance with the sound of traditional instruments such as gongs and drums, accompanied by rough and ferocious action shouting and rushing, in both body, sound, shape, table nuo dance audio-visual expression conveys as a ceremonial rite of passage of the seriousness of the primitive beliefs of the mysterious. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 21 mask as the most important performance instruments in nuo dance, mask production materials, production process, colour patterns and cultural symbols of connotation is nuo dance is different from other dance class non-heritage unique memory symbols. the twelve beasts as the theme of the masks and beast clothes, the red and black tones of the ceremonial costumes, not only in the visual effect for the exorcism of the dance to create a sense of primitive and mysterious, but also through the different exorcism of the genealogy (such as exorcism of the epidemic deities, folkloric and popular deities, legendary heroes, elixir of the animals, secular characters and so on) to reflect the memory of a specific group of people and the memory of the legacy. with the changes in the social environment, the public's cultural consumption presents a diversified and complex demand trend. as one of the non-heritage art of nuo dance gradually in the performance process and in turn absorbed the relevant elements of nuo opera, in the auditory aspect of adding part of the lyrics and readings so that the audience get a richer sense of hearing. although the content of the lyrics with the development of social and historical changes and changes, but from the new tang dynasty book ritual and music 6th contained in the “a for food, the stomach of the tiger, xiong bo food phantom, tengjian food ominous, rangzhu food blame, biaoqi food dreams” and other typical primitive beliefs, such as the content of the lyrics, to the “one side of the gong is as white as silver, and the ghosts and gods are frightened when it is gently struck. there is nothing else to do when the gong is struck three times, and the immortal officials will come down for the return journey. money to money, kui to kui, god's money and incense rise one after another. the gods come down to the earth in the void", which is a song with the belief in daily gods occupying the main content, and then "don't learn how to plant floating onions on the well-water beach, and there is no trace of the floating onions once they are gone. ...you should learn from the bees to pick flowers, and go home in three months and two months". (sichuan provincial academy of arts, 2014) these lyrics, which contain folk proverbs and folk legends, all carry the social and historical memories and cultural and artistic values of their time. 1.3 highly participatory memory rituals nuo dance connects ghosts and gods and people, with the help of specific dance movements, different costumes, and music and lyrics and other simulations to start the communication dialogue between the two. dance language instead of written language, tell the past events (wei, 2012, p. 125), the original faith in the intergenerational transmission. in this regard, the existence of nuo dance as pierre nora (pierre nora) field of memory field, sacrifices to the gods also (xu & duan, 1992, p. 693), the place where the dance takes place is the place where people expect to start communication and dialogue with ghosts and gods, the place where people's spiritual world is actualised, and moreover the place where people integrate their own intentions into social practices, and transmit and share collective memories. by manifesting the primitive wild body language, singing the value of the music message of faith, as well as used to convert the sacred and secular material carriers (such as nuo masks), nuo dance in the process of survival to create a primitive beliefs rely on the survival of the cultural context, but also in the process of the show to guide the people in which to pass and share the collective memory, and in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 22 this way to attract people to participate in the nuo dance, or primitive beliefs in the survival and show, and to continue the vitality of primitive beliefs, and to continue the life force of the spirit. and then continue the vitality of primitive beliefs. nuo dance with the changes in history has gone through a number of development stages, from the beginning in primitive society as a dance ritual with the help of the gods to expel the plague and natural disasters; yin and shang period to become a national nuo of the imperial patents; spring and autumn period out of the court into the folk; the zhou dynasty was included in the rituals the scope of the pure prayers on the basis of sacrificial rituals added political attributes, praying for the purpose of expanding to the wind and rain, grains and cereals, the country's wealth and livelihood, etc.; sui and tang dynasties nuo dance in the content and lineup changes, the court nuo, government nuo, temple nuo, folk nuo and military nuo have gained the development of nuo, folkloristic trend is obvious; song dynasty is the nuo dance produced from the god of joy to the entertaining god to please themselves an important period of change, “in addition to the day, as masks, or as ghosts and gods, or as children and women form, or applied to the lintel, drive nuo to cover their faces, or children to play (chen, 2018).” material production and social life of secularism, urbanisation and commercialisation, so that nuo dance and its integration, gradually evolved into a form of public entertainment, which has been reflected in the tokyo dream record volume of ten december: “since the month (12th), that is, there are poor people three or more people for a fire, pretend to be a woman god and ghosts, knocking on the gongs and drums, patrolling the door begging for money, commonly known as the 'playing night hu', also drive away the way also (meng 2021).”; to the yuan, ming and qing, the court gradually disappeared, but with the clan community village ancestor worship activities integrated with the countryside nuo has been active in the folk (su, 2012, pp. 124-125). few ritual constraints, more relaxed social environment, nuo dance ritual content of life and performance purposes of secularisation, so that nuo dance entertainment greatly increased. at the same time, nuo dance ceremony is usually as part of the major festivals, which further makes the nuo dance has the ability to attract a large number of followers and onlookers, has a high degree of popular participation. 1.4 highly recognisable memory carriers nuo dance through dance movements, visual and auditory performance content full of imagination and creativity, as well as the people to meet the secular life of different wishes and prayers with obvious utilitarian characteristics of the performance purpose, which not only presents the person's own perception of the external world, but also people play the subjective initiative, the performance of self-consciousness of the subjectivity and self-awareness. at the same time, nuo dance also makes people in the interaction with nature between the inter-subjectivity, from nature to a certain degree of objective shackles on the individual, the transformation of the individual with the subjective control of nature, but the natural world placed in the subjective position of consistency with the self, and then with the natural world in the experience of perception of the consciousness level of communication, mutual interpretation and connection. in this process, between the subject of experience and perception www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 23 of consciousness can be associated through language and symbols, so nuo dance performance content of body language, masks, symbols and other organic links between the existence of the subject of the overall consciousness of life, so that nature and people in each other's interaction to create a life experience of the field, produce survival or the meaning of life. nuo dance masks, for example, masks as a symbol, is communicating between man and god's medium, nuo dance masks so that the performers have both humanity and divinity (su, 2012). mask on is god, mask off is human, nuo dance masks wear off is not only from the sacred return to the secular process, but also nuo dance folklore to achieve born in the people, acting in the people, to the common behavioural characteristics. 2. the trend of memory reproduction in the new era of nuo dance communication practice to explore the non-heritage nuo dance in the new era of communication practices in the memory of reproduction trends, first of all, to clarify the non-heritage nuo dance in the new era of the core cultural memory. nuo dance of non-heritage core cultural memory is the anchor point of identity identification, through the red face kai shan, black face zhong kui and other characteristics of the deity mask genealogy, unique action programmes such as yubu, twelve phase as well as fixed performance venues of a sacred nature, the festival helps the audience anchor their own ethnic identities during the process of changing times and form a cultural identity on the basis of cognition of their own identities. secondly, it is the living link to the farming civilization ties, as a ritual nature of the original dance, nuo dance performance purposes in addition to the common epidemic of accepting auspicious, but also includes praying for a good harvest, wind and rain, etc., nuo dance through the body language to express the chinese people's view of the farming civilization, linking up the chinese people in ancient and modern time and space of individual cultural memory; three is the implicit inquiry of the consciousness of life, intangible cultural heritage dance the most important and the core of the part is to expel the epidemic and exorcise the ghosts from the nuo dance was born to the performances of all aspects of the performers and watchers of life consciousness, showing the importance of the individual to life and life of the importance of individuals, through the view and performances of the individual life consciousness. in the above on the non-legacy nuo dance core cultural memory induction, it can be found that it is due to the non-legacy nuo dance carried by the cultural memory, so that non-legacy nuo dance naturally formed the identity of the ephemeral, and then realised in the society and the times of change still presents a more stable state, so as to play the function of memory reproduction. 2.1 towards popularisation of content at present, remodelling nuo dance cultural survival environment is difficult, and nuo dance has a specific time to complete a complete performance of the specificity and performance of the subject matter and content of the seriousness. and special time and serious content, so that nuo dance in the invisible highlights its own sacred ritual attributes, weakened folk culture attributes, which leads to the contemporary audience in the acceptance of nuo dance dissemination of content, give the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 24 dissemination of feedback are not very satisfactory. therefore, in order to avoid the nuo dance in the contemporary was gradually marginalised, weakening the sacred ritual attributes of nuo dance, strengthen the folk cultural attributes is nuo dance in the generation of communication content, build a new era of nuo dance memory of the contemporary turn. through the nuo dance as a secular life can be interpreted as a form of art, constantly digging from contemporary daily life and draw nuo dance at the moment can be interpreted in the new subject matter, that is, combined with contemporary daily life on the performance of nuo dance content to be adapted to join the new plot linked with real life, such as social phenomena, hot spots, the plight of the family life and other topics, so that the audience in the process of watching performances can feel that what they feel and think by nuo dance "all insight", the daily life of the unspeakable hidden by nuo dance "to declare in the mouth", thus reproducing the art of nuo dance and the emotional resonance of people. by simplifying the storyline, make full use of the body language of infectious and inspirational, in the original dance figure on the basis of creating and emphasizing a better fit with the contemporary aesthetic dance action, the use of the original role of the interpretation of the emotional experience of the current generation, and thus strengthen the nuo dance to entertain the gods and pleasure of their own folklore and cultural attributes at the same time, to achieve the nuo dance to disseminate the contents of the popularity of nuo dance, so that the audience can not only from the traditional ancient and simple nuo dance to touch the pulse of daily life and through the popularisation of the communication content to accept nuo dance in the original ecological cultural connotations. 2.2 towards experiential forms as the contemporary people have been detached from the traditional cultural context, or detached from the nuo dance to produce and develop the nuo cultural context, resulting in the audience into the community can not feel the nuo dance to create a cultural atmosphere, but also unable to participate in the performers with the interaction. therefore, we need a rich variety of experiential forms of communication, so that nuo dance is not only perceptible folk art, but also can touch folk memory. on the one hand, for the local protection of the original ecological nuo dance to avoid taking the form of community stage performance. although this form of communication to ensure the survival of the original nuo dance, but due to the use of dialect lyrics lead to the content is difficult to understand, there is no subtitle to assist in the interpretation of nuo dance of the various stages of the performance, percussion and community stage environment adaptive low, etc., invariably pulled away from the nuo dance and the distance between the audience. therefore, to the original nuo dance dynamic tour as one of the main forms of communication. by bringing the audience into the all the way to sing and dance all the way in the dynamic atmosphere, no longer fixed in the audience to watch the show, so that the audience to follow the nuo dance performer's performance path, along with the intense nuo dance action and emotional high, along with the atmosphere of the atmosphere of the formation of the emotional experience, shorten the nuo dance and the audience's psychological distance between them. on the other hand, nuo dance can be light and heavy rotation, kicking, splitting and other walking, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 25 jumping action display and teaching as another major form of communication. by returning to the purest action of nuo dance itself, unveiling the mystery of nuo dance, and so that because of interest and curiosity to participate in the audience to entertain the body and mind, to achieve the double experience of emotional and physical. in addition, the song dynasty for children will nuo mask toy form of communication is also worth referring to, song nuo masks away from the hideousness of the original witch nuo masks, and almost ordinary face which appeared in the market as a children's toys commodities, children imitating watched the countryside nuo, learning adults drive nuo rituals, have worn nuo face frolicking, playing, indicating that on to the crone to the children, are no longer regarded as nuo masks for the mysterious thing (wu, 2018). 2.3 towards functional differentiation as one of the representatives of the non-heritage art, nuo dance comes with the characteristics of popular culture so that nuo dance naturally different from other elegant art. in the face of the new era of both the creative production of nuo dance, but also to preserve the nuo dance folklore memory generation based on the new face of the dissemination of nuo dance dissemination of the function of the gradual division of wildlife. on the one hand, the dissemination of the new era of nuo dance to nuo dance as a unit of survival, blurring the boundaries between the view and performance, from the masses to the masses to form the original preservation of folklore. wearing a mask of the performers and the audience to interact, retaining the nuo dance in the amusement of god and pleasure cultural connotations; take off the mask of the performers and the audience to talk to, play nuo dance as folk art of fireworks and entertainment. jiangxi pingxiang shangli county because of the many local nuo temple is known as ten miles a nuo temple, shangli is also known as china nuo cultural hometown, which was built in the ming yingzong zhengtong seven years (1442), is located in the village of shangli county dongyuanxiao nuo small san nuo temple is the pingxiang now preserved the largest and most complete nuo temple, until the spring festival in 2025, pingxiang's grandest jump nuo spring customs are still in the small nuo temple of the old stage performances, small san village nuo dancers move differently, as you wish, but the dance follows the drums and singing changes, the audience's laughter and applause and the formation of a joyful atmosphere (lu, 2025). in the continuation of nuo dance pray for peace, harvest and other primitive functions, based on contemporary emerging social and cultural habits of nuo dance of the original rituals for creative transformation and innovative development, highlighting the nuo dance entertainment function and leisure function. in other words, the original preservation of folklore through the use of major traditional festivals and ceremonies, nuo dance to a lively atmosphere and atmosphere of entertainment into the rural tourism project for the show, will be full of primitive flavour and regional characteristics of the dance movements, dance costumes and music as a unique aesthetic experience to the audience. on the other hand, the nuo dance elements into the theatre, as an opportunity to stimulate the public to consciously understand and disseminate nuo dance, the formation of the theatre of innovative folklore. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 26 this innovative folk theatre, not the original pattern of nuo dance moved to the theatre, the key is to nuo dance elements organically integrated into other national art, such as the "pingtan impression" in the role of impressive multi-faceted. multi-faceted man role in costume to nuo masks for design inspiration, in the first half of the play to assume the role of narrator to tell the plot, promote the plot of the play, that is, a god's perspective; and in the second half of the play to pingtan blue death as a twist. in the second half of the play, with the death of pingtan lan as a twist, the multi-faceted man suddenly turns from a god to a man, and the dense red cotton threads are torn outwards with the mask, artistically presenting the flesh and blood to the audience giving them a strong visual impact, and at the same time, showing the king of junshan's sadness at this time under the trick of fate, triggering the audience's emotional resonance with the character at this moment. 3. the cultural memory value of non-heritage nuo dance dissemination implication 3.1 significance of identity perception nuo dance in the history of development, from the early totem worship, nature god worship, to the late performance content and role in human image, this by downplaying the sacred rituals to emphasise the power of their own conceptual change, in fact, is the awakening of people to recognise their own subjectivity consciousness. the most typical is the nuo dance mask on behalf of the role, the use of functional transmutation, such as from the twelve beasts with a strong sense of sacrifice to monks, taoist priests, land gods and other symbols of the people's hearts constructed out of the image of god, from the medium as a communication between man and god into a cultural apparatus to accentuate the atmosphere of the festival. nuo dance through the process of dissemination, can be found in the nuo dance in the divinity in the constant deconstruction, in which the human subject consciousness and self-awareness is further highlighted, which reflects the human in the continuous development and mastery of production and life tools, found that the process of production and life laws, gradually aware of the subjective initiative of the significance of their own survival and development. when people begin to affirm themselves, this is the first step to awakening their subjectivity, the first step to understanding themselves, and the first step to finding the roots of their own lives. 3.2 cultural identity as society was in a stage of rapid development in the early years, the focus of social development and people's lives was mostly on economic production, and the public's demand for spiritual and cultural life had not yet risen significantly at this time, and the phenomenon of spiritual hollowing out had not yet appeared. at the same time, the degree of integration with the world is far less in-depth than the current human community, belonging to the old and new social and cultural transition stage. in the current overall situation in the world led to a series of cultural changes in the environment, to nuo dance as a representative of this kind of folk cultural phenomenon is therefore covered with a mysterious veil. as a digital age aboriginal young groups, in the information explosion, cross-cultural communication content and professional disciplines under the influence of framework theory, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 27 inevitably lead to long-term neglect of traditional folk culture, resulting in the majority of young people on the status quo of its half-understanding. the current phenomenon of non-heritage fever and folklore fever is partly due to the curiosity of young people about this kind of folk culture and the shift of their attention when they touch on related keywords. in fact, on behalf of our identity sources to prove that “we are us, where we come from” philosophical question is this folk cultural phenomena from the vernacular, back to the folk cultural memory of the community, and nuo dance as a representative of the folk cultural events and folk cultural memory, can play a role in assisting communities to distinguish other communities, with the role of self-identification, and as a community within the intergenerational corroboration of “we are us” as one of the symbols. it can be argued that the dissemination of nuo dance is to assist the public in the current search for the roots of their own ethnic identity and cultural roots on the basis of the exact cultural memory to obtain identity to fill the public mind hollowing out, to meet the public for the current demand for spiritual and cultural life. 3.3 meaning of life experience nuo dance existence itself is to meet the human idea, with a utilitarian purpose to carry out the performance of the ceremony, and enable people to obtain a certain psychological comfort. under the influence of the overall pressure of survival in the current society, especially the young groups for nuo dance such niche folk culture and art of curiosity and enthusiasm, that is, through the dance movements and changes in the rhythm of the music, happiness, sadness, anger or calm, nuo dance with their own qualities to express different people in different stages of life and the pursuit of life, and the audience is in this flow of expression of nuo dance dance language and transfer of cultural flavour attracted, in the gradual understanding of the past and the present people in the prayers for a better life vision, send personal feelings on the existence of some similarity, commonality, and from this to find the resonance of the spiritual and cultural dimensions of the attention to the personal experience of life. from watching nuo dance performances to participate in nuo dance performances, people in the continuous reception of nuo dance dissemination of information, not only intangible enrichment of their own cultural life, to release their own spiritual pressure to regulate psychological and emotional health, physical and mental health (wei, 2012, p. 126), and in the process of identity identity in a very rich way, expressing their own expectations and aspirations for the future of life and to achieve the nuo dance dissemination in the the special value of life experience level. 4. cultural memory perspective of non-heritage nuo dance dissemination practice approach 4.1 dimensional expansion of memory storage in the nuo dance dissemination of popularisation, experience, functional differentiation trend, digital technology for nuo dance memory storage has opened up a new path, so that the nuo dance is no longer confined to the oral transmission of the heart, in a particular region and groups to carry out interactions. in the process of digital communication of contemporary nuosu, video has become the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 28 main medium because of its more intuitive narrative (guo & zhang, 2024) , with the help of video technology, nuo dance performance of the whole process and all the details can be recorded. these stored nuo dance memory of non-heritage images in retaining nuo dance style at the same time, but also for folklore enthusiasts to provide intuitive and rich material, breaking the time and geographical limitations, in order to retrace and study anytime, anywhere. in addition, digital technology for the construction of nuo dance database to provide solid data support. 4.2 gradient design for memory transmission in view of the nuo dance has a wide range of memory audience, about the nuo dance folk culture memory dissemination is inevitably affected by a variety of audience groups and the complexity of the dissemination of the scene, so the design of scientific and reasonable memory dissemination gradient, the development of multi-level dissemination strategy with the necessity. on the one hand, for the general public, focusing on easy to understand, lively and interesting form of immersive communication is the most easily accepted. creative production of self-media video has become a clever communication channel, through the editing of nuo dance performance moments, with video shifting and other editing techniques can quickly attract the public line of sight, inspire the public interest in nuo dance. on the other hand, for folk culture enthusiasts and non-heritage professional researchers, more in-depth, reflective and professional communication content has become the focus of attention. regularly hold relevant academic lectures, seminars and video culture zhi way to promote exchanges between scholars, in-depth analysis of nuo dance in the new era of cultural connotations and values of meaning, nuo dance in the new era of protection and inheritance of constructive theoretical support. 4.3 mechanisms for fostering memory identity cultivate public memory of nuo dance identity, is to achieve nuo dance in the current key to sustainable heritage and development. to achieve this goal, the construction of multi-dimensional memory identity cultivation mechanism is the key to maximise the effectiveness of the cultural value of non-heritage nuo dance connotation. as part of the traditional village community culture is an important component of non-heritage nuo dance will mostly be in the major festivals, community-specific folklore season for performance. through the use of specific time nodes to make the public nuo dance memory with the specific festivals associated with the time to let the public in the time level of the nuo dance to produce a natural memory identity. at the same time, non-heritage nuo dance is also an ancient folk cultural form, in a specific sacred field exhibition. when the crowd is concentrated in a fixed space, the collective interaction of emotions and the flow of the collective consciousness will ignore the time and the limitations of the language, not only to make the public at this time to feel the feeling of the situation to be they are in the space level of nuo dance memory identity, but also to promote the public nuo dance to produce a sense of cultural identity and sense of belonging. in addition, the nuo dance into modern life scenes, cultural and tourism scenes and other scenes of social life, combined with cultural product development is also an important way to cultivate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 29 the public's memory of nuo dance identity. through these ways, so that nuo dance in modern life to rejuvenate and vitality, so that people in their daily lives continue to strengthen the memory of nuo dance identity. conclusion in the new era, the effective dissemination of non-heritage nuo dance is conducive to the protection and inheritance of folk culture, enhance national cultural identity. through the use of advanced digital means to expand the memory storage dimension, so that the cultural memory of nuo dance across the limitations of time and space, permanent preservation and vivid form in front of the public. scientific and reasonable design of the gradient of memory dissemination, to fully meet the cognitive needs of different audiences to nuo dance, so that nuo dance successfully reached different audience groups, in their respective levels of cultural resonance with nuo dance. the construction of memory identity cultivation mechanism, from the cultural and psychological level, by mining the deep cultural value of nuo dance into daily life, fundamentally build the roots of nuo dance inheritance, so that nuo dance really become an important part of cultural identity. however, with the rapid development of society and the cultural environment continues to change, nuo dance the future of this non-heritage art also needs the government, social organisations, academics and the general public and other sectors continue to pay close attention and strong support. on the one hand, we must continue to increase the nuo dance research and protection of financial investment, training professionals; on the other hand, we must actively explore and innovate ways and means of communication, combined with emerging scientific and technological means and cultural trends, to explore the globalisation of the memory of the symbiosis of the symbiotic path of communication, and continue to enrich and pass on the cultural memory of the chinese nation's treasure trove. references yao, g. z. (2023). the dilemma of digital communication of non-legacy in china and the way to cope with it. journal of xihua university (philosophy and social science edition), 42(04). jan, a. (2016). the formation and construction of the theory of "cultural memory". guangming daily, 2016-03-26(11). gao, b. (2009). the historical evolution and cultural connotation of nuo dance. lantai world, (19). fan, y., & yin, x. l. (2002). the book of later han. beijing: dalu culture communication ltd. song, q., & xiu, o. y. (n.d.). the new book of tang. beijing:convergence wenyuan culture development co,ltd,. cha, y., & tao, x. f. (2023). on the transmutation and contemporary inheritance of nuo danc e. journal of chizhou college, 37(05). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 3, 2025 published by scholink inc. 30 chizhou government website. nuo opera [eb/ol]. (2015-12-09)[2025-03-19]. https://www.chizho u.gov.cn/news/show/62626.html. sichuan provincial academy of arts, edited by yu yi. selected scripts of sichuan nuo opera [m]. sichuan: sichuan science and technology press, 2014. wei, h. y. (2013). review of nuo dance research in the past ten years. journal of hechi c ollege, 32(01). xu, s., & duan, y. c. (1992). shuowen jiezi zhi [m]. shanghai: shanghai bookstore press. chen, y. l. (2018). the years and seasons [m] // wu hook. new people's sayings-feng ya s ong. guangxi: guangxi normal university press. meng, y. l. (2021). translated and annotated by hou yinguo. tokyo menghua lu [m]. shaanxi: sanqin publishing house. su, k. (2012). introduction to the art of nuo theatre and the influence of symbolism on the e volution of its inheritance. academic exploration, (07). wu, g. (2018). new people's sayings fengya song. guangxi: guangxi normal university pr ess, 2018. lu, c. x. (2025). nuo and fireworks. guangming daily, 2025-02-21(15). guo, p., & zhang, j. (2024). china's intangible cultural heritage research 2023 annual report. folk culture forum, (02). advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 116 original paper defining and challenging ethical responsibilities of news communication entities in the intelligent era lu pan1* 1 tsinghua university, beijing, china * postdoctoral fellow, school of social sciences, tsinghua university, beijing, china received: october 29, 2023 accepted: january 09, 2024 online published: february 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n1p116 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n1p116 funding this work was supported by the china postdoctoral science foundation (2023m731973). 1. introduction in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the proliferation of internet-based news platforms has significantly altered the dynamics of news dissemination, raising complex ethical questions regarding the responsibilities of news communication entities. the introduction of the “intelligent era,” characterized by advanced technologies and widespread internet use, has brought forth unprecedented challenges in defining and enforcing ethical standards within the realm of news communication. this paper, titled “defining and challenging ethical responsibilities of news communication entities in the intelligent era,” aims to explore the multifaceted ethical responsibilities that news platforms, individual content creators, and media organizations face in today’s digital age. it delves into the intricacies of responsibility evasion, copyright issues, and the implications of disclaimers in an environment where traditional gatekeeping roles have diminished, and everyone has the potential to be a broadcaster of information. as the boundaries between professional journalists and amateur content creators blur, the paper scrutinizes the “platform + x” model, where “x” represents the varied actors contributing to news production and dissemination. this model has facilitated a surge in news content but has simultaneously introduced challenges in accountability and ethical responsibility. the absence of traditional gatekeeping mechanisms in internet media has led to a proliferation of misinformation, highlighting the urgent need for clear responsibility demarcation within communication entities to uphold ethical standards. furthermore, the paper explores the legal and ethical frameworks existing in different jurisdictions, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 117 published by scholink inc. such as the uk, usa, and china, which aim to mitigate internet ethical issues through laws and regulations. however, these measures often fall short of addressing the root causes of ethical misconduct due to the lack of explicit responsibility demarcation among news communication entities. through a detailed analysis of the principles for determining responsibility within these entities, the paper proposes a nuanced approach to ethical responsibility that encompasses behavioral, causal, shared, and high-ranking responsibility principles. by examining the survival of communication individuals amid professional ethics and the coordinated management by high-level entities, this paper seeks to offer insights into creating a more ethically responsible news ecosystem in the intelligent era. the goal is to foster a dialogue on establishing a set of reasonable, feasible, and binding ethical norms that address the unique challenges posed by the digital transformation of news communication, ensuring the integrity and credibility of news in the face of rapidly advancing technologies. the unclear determination of responsibility is a primary cause of ethical issues among communication entities. whether it’s social responsibility or core qualities, when it comes to their specific implementation within communication entities, it heavily depends on the demarcation of responsibilities. if responsibilities are not clearly demarcated, ethical issues can easily occur in the behavior of communication entities and even in news activities in the intelligent era. 2. responsibility evasion caused by the “platform + x” model in the news production methods of the intelligent era, the “platform + x” model is one of the most important modes. here, the platform refers to the internet news platform, and x refers to individual producers and news media. individual authors publish news messages on the platform, which then distributes them to recipients, or the platform redistributes news from professional news media. news platforms have created a good development environment for increasing news volume, gaining discourse power, and expressing freedom. however, in this open environment, where everyone can be a reporter, the platform is responsible for a large amount of news content. the platform’s employees are not specifically trained professionals working in specialized media, and the role of a “gatekeeper” in traditional media is relatively “absent” in the platform environment. there are plenty of irrational discourses in the news field, not to mention false information. the main reasons for these phenomena include a lack of sense of responsibility, low moral judgment skills, credibility crisis, and self-centeredness. the appearance of this kind of harmful information undoubtedly has a severe adverse impact on the stable development of society. the discussion of the infringement responsibility of news platforms has always been one of the hotspots in legal research, but legal problems are, after all, a minority. more issues involve ethical misconduct. the absence of internet media “gatekeepers” is still a problem, as evidenced by the information being disseminated. in the “platform + x” model, everyone is a gatekeeper, but due to unclear ethical accountability and the fact that most information on the platform is digitalized (existing mainly as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 118 published by scholink inc. animations, texts, sounds, images, etc.), it’s too difficult for an individual to take on the responsibility of a gatekeeper. faced with ethical risks, most countries mitigate various internet ethical issues by utilizing existing laws and regulations. for example, the uk has released five information ethics rules; the usa has proposed ten computer commandments. domestically, china has launched various laws and regulations related to the internet, including the “cybersecurity law of the people’s republic of china” and the “regulations on the protection of computer software.” however, these laws and regulations can only standardize management but do not demarcate the responsibility of entities. this leads to a situation where, despite the norms, ethical misconduct is still rampant. the main manifestation of ethical responsibility evasion in the “platform + x” model is the transfer and sharing of copyright. although copyright is a legal concept, when it comes to ethical accountability outside of self-regulation, because news works belong to copyrighted works, the power and responsibility are shared. therefore, in the “platform + x” communication entity model, it is essential to judge ethical responsibility and determine copyright attribution. generally, the copyright belongs to the creator. still, often, the copyright does not accompany the creator from start to end. instead, it changes due to the change of management rights, resulting in the transfer and sharing of copyright. 3. disclaimers leading to responsibility evasion due to the vast number of individual authors, the large amount of data scraped by programs, and the current ability of programs only to perform simple screening of news content without ethical value judgment, it is unrealistic for internet news platforms to implement comprehensive supervision and gatekeeping for ethical values in news content. therefore, to avoid bearing a massive amount of ethical responsibility that may arise from news, internet news platforms will establish “disclaimers.” disclaimers can be a guarantee for the platform’s normal operation, but should not become a means for the platform to evade moral responsibility. first, a disclaimer is not a protective talisman. as a specific manifestation of high-ranking entities and operators of intelligent news, internet news platforms should have obligations to safeguard the rights associated with all entities related to the platform, including communication entities and recipients. this obligation cannot be waived by signing a disclaimer agreement. second, disclaimers cannot absolve ethical responsibility. as a crucial aggregation platform for various technologies and entities in the news of the intelligent era, the ethical responsibility of internet news platform management is naturally existing and does not disappear due to any signed agreement. lastly, providing an external reporting entrance does not equate to transferring the platform’s responsibility. in many disclaimer clauses, it is explicitly stated that platforms provide external reporting entrances, welcoming reports of harmful content. reporting harmful content to relevant management departments is a reasonable and effective measure of ethical management, but it should not confuse external management and internal responsibility. it does not mean that by reporting a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 119 published by scholink inc. problem to a related department, the platform’s ethical responsibility is simultaneously transferred. 4. implementation of clear responsibility demarcation within communication entities the ultimate goal of analyzing the responsibility within news communication entities is to achieve a clear demarcation of responsibility within them. however, this issue cannot be resolved by merely elucidating from the perspectives of responsibility quality or problem manifestation. it is also necessary to clarify the principles for determining responsibility within the communication entities. this includes thoroughly considering how to handle conflicts between the survival of individual communicators and professional ethics, and how high-ranking entities can effectively manage these situations. 4.1 principles for determining responsibility “the goodness of the system surpasses, precedes, and is more important than the goodness of the individual.” the development of news in the intelligent era comes with many ethical issues. efforts are continually being made to solve these issues, but significant progress is yet to be achieved. the root cause of these issues lies in the lure of interests, which often exceeds the force of punishment. furthermore, ethical standards are not as strictly enforced as laws, and ethical responsibilities often remain ambiguously assigned, leading to a loophole mentality. over time, the development of news in the intelligent era will always be troubled by ethical misconduct. discussions on this issue have always focused on specific problems, such as information cocoons, the right to be forgotten, and infringement of privacy rights. the proposed solutions often revolve around self-regulation and the formulation of standards. admittedly, self-regulation is critical in addressing ethical issues and is the fundamental solution. however, ethical misconduct is often a byproduct of rapid industry development and quickly expanding interests. therefore, at this stage, the importance of establishing ethical norms far exceeds the significance of self-regulation for news development in the intelligent era. to develop a set of reasonable, feasible, and binding ethical norms, we must first ensure these norms have a binding force. the key to this force lies in determining responsibility. generally, responsibility determination is usually applied in the legal field, but ethics sets the baseline for behavior above the law, so we cannot directly apply legal principles for responsibility determination. moreover, due to the expansion of responsible entities and the application of technology, the principles for determining ethical responsibility have specific peculiarities. i believe that the internal determination of ethical responsibility among news communication entities in the intelligent era should abide by the principles of behavioral responsibility, causal responsibility, shared responsibility, and high-ranking responsibility. firstly, the principle of behavioral responsibility. this refers to, in determining ethical responsibility, considering not only the results but also whether the ethical entity could foresee the ethical misconduct outcomes before acting but still decided to proceed with news production for the sake of interest. according to the principle of behavioral responsibility, in determining the ethical responsibility of communication entities, only if the entity actively chooses to cause ethical issues for the sake of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 120 published by scholink inc. interest should they bear ethical responsibility. in the specific implementation of the principle of behavioral responsibility, there can be two situations: partial action with partial responsibility and partial action with full responsibility. the concept of partial action and partial responsibility is relatively easy to understand it refers to determining how much responsibility an individual or organization should bear based on the part they played in causing an ethical misconduct issue in news activities, the proportion their part played in the total activities, and how much responsibility their part holds for the resulting ethical issues. however, in the intelligent era, due to the involvement of computers, interactions between various entities and computers are often relatively independent. the independent interactions can cause ethical misconduct issues, but when these independent interactions are linked together to form a complete news production activity, they can cause ethical issues. in this case, although each entity’s activities are only part of the reason for the result of ethical misconduct, the ethical responsibility should still be borne by the entity who combines the independent activities of each entity into a news production activity. second, the principle of causal responsibility. as the most common judgment principle in responsibility attribution, it is generally believed that as long as the results of a entity’s behavior cause adverse effects, the responsibility should be borne by the actor. this is true in law and in traditional journalism. however, in the era of intelligence, due to the changing background of the news industry, whether it is news platforms or news media, a large amount of news production is the result of the joint work of many individuals. for the assumption of ethical responsibility, i believe that the cause and effect here is different from the general understanding. in terms of causality, it is usually the direct actor who bears all or most of the ethical responsibility. but in the era of intelligence, the principle of causal responsibility refers to: in the news co-produced by multiple entities, the ethical responsibility should be borne by the main beneficiary, or the main beneficiary and the direct communication entity who can judge and decide the behavior. for those communication entities who do not have the ability to judge values or cannot decide whether to act, they should not bear ethical responsibility. when discussing the issue of news ethics deviation in the era of intelligence, we often overemphasize the responsibility of individual editors, platform operators, and engineers, and the most common treatment for similar problems is individual treatment, using individual treatment to calm the situation. for issues involving core interests, such as algorithm recommendations, it has been unable to push for resolution, making it a common problem. it is undeniable that there is a connection between the individual producers in the news production and the ethical deviation issues, but in the delineation of ethical responsibility, individual producers should not be directly connected with the results of the deviation issue as “cause and effect”. the core of ethics is “good”, and the practice of “good” should not be based on the sacrifice of individual practitioners. every individual practitioner is also a social unit. in the “involution” market, the survival of the social unit is based on reality. the news communication entities in the era of intelligence, from a real dimension, is also a job that social individuals rely on for survival. ethics believes that “if there is a certain cause, there must be a result, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 121 published by scholink inc. and if there is no certain cause, there will be no result.” the fundamental reason for the ethical deviation of news in the era of intelligence is the temptation of interests, and the main body of decision-making behavior is also the main beneficiary of interests. the ethical deviation of news in the era of intelligence should fundamentally link cause and effect, divide responsibilities, and should not require individual producers to sacrifice personal interests to refuse the decisions of superiors. moreover, the sacrifice of personal interests cannot fundamentally solve the “cause” of ethical deviation, and the “effect” will continue to exist. third, the principle of high responsibility. within the communication entity, the high-position entity has the power to determine the behavior of the communication entity, and is also responsible for the behavior of the communication entity. the basis of the principle of high responsibility is also dependent on this management model. whether it is the media or the company-run internet news platform, when ethical deviation issues occur, regardless of whether the high-position entity is the beneficiary, they should bear the responsibility. if they are the beneficiaries, they should bear all the responsibilities, otherwise they should bear part of the responsibility. unlike the principle of causal responsibility, the high-position entity only assumes all responsibilities when enjoying benefits and deciding on the behavior of the communication entity. the principle of high responsibility emphasizes that regardless of whether the high-position entity is the beneficiary, because they bear management responsibilities, the high-position entity always bears certain responsibilities in the ethical deviation of news in the era of intelligence. in the traditional news era, the management of the communication entity to: ai assistant<|im_sep|>second, the principle of causation responsibility. as the most common principle in the assignment of responsibility, it is generally believed that as long as the results of the entity’s behavior have caused adverse effects, the responsibility should be borne by the entity of the action. this is the case in law and in the traditional news industry. however, in the intelligent era, due to the changing background of the development of the news industry, both news platforms and news media produce a large amount of news as a result of the collective work of numerous individuals. in terms of ethical responsibility, the author believes that the causal relationship here is different from the general understanding. normally, the causal relationship means that the direct actor bears all or most of the ethical responsibility. but in the intelligent era, the principle of causation responsibility refers to: in the news produced by multiple entities, the ethical responsibility should be borne by the main beneficiary, or the main beneficiary and the direct disseminator who can judge and decide actions. for disseminators who do not have the ability to judge value or cannot decide whether to act, they should not bear ethical responsibility. when discussing the ethical misconduct in the news of the intelligent era, the individual responsibilities of editors, platform operators, and engineers are often overemphasized. the most common approach in handling such issues is to deal with individuals to appease the problem. moreover, issues like algorithmic recommendations that involve core interests have always been unable to be resolved, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 122 published by scholink inc. making them recurrent topics. while there is a connection between individual producers in the news production entity and ethical misconduct, in the assignment of ethical responsibility, individual producers should not be directly linked to the results of misconduct as “cause and effect”. the core of ethics is “goodness”, and the practice of “goodness” should not be based on the sacrifice of individual practitioners. every individual practitioner is also a social unit. in the “involution” market, the survival of social units is based on reality. the news disseminator in the intelligent era is also a job that social individuals rely on for survival from a realistic perspective. ethics believes that “if there is a certain cause, there will be a result, and vice versa, if there is no certain cause, there will be no result.” the root cause of ethical misconduct in news in the intelligent era is the temptation of interests, and the decision-making entity is also the main beneficiary. the issue of ethical misconduct in the news of the intelligent era should be fundamentally linked to cause and effect, divided responsibilities, and individual producers should not be asked to sacrifice personal interests to reject the decisions of superiors. furthermore, the sacrifice of personal interests cannot fundamentally solve the “cause” of ethical misconduct, and the “effect” will continue to exist. third, the principle of high-level responsibility. within the communication entity, high-level entities have the decisive power over the behavior of the communication entity and are also responsible for the behavior of the communication entity. the basis of the principle of high-level responsibility also depends on this management model. whether it is media or a corporate internet news platform, when ethical misconduct occurs, no matter whether the high-level entity is a beneficiary, they should bear the responsibility. if they are beneficiaries, they bear all the responsibility, otherwise they bear part of the responsibility. unlike the principle of causation responsibility, the high-level entity only bears all responsibility when enjoying benefits and deciding on the behavior of the communication entity. the principle of high-level responsibility emphasizes that regardless of whether the high-level entity is a beneficiary, they always bear certain responsibilities in the ethical misconduct of news in the intelligent era due to their management responsibilities. in the traditional news era, the management of high-level entities for communication entities was basically limited to editors and reporters. most of the managers of high-level entities were also professional practitioners trained through relevant systems, so their control over the behavior of communication entities was relatively comprehensive and unified. however, in the intelligent era, high-level entities need to manage not only editors and reporters, but also platform operators and engineers. the expansion and diversification of production entities significantly increase the difficulty of management for high-level entities, making it challenging to fully understand the correctness of all production entities’ behaviors professionally. yet, if ethical misconduct issues arise due to certain entities violating ethical rules, even if the high-level entity is unaware, it should be determined in ethical responsibility judgment that the communication entity bears the primary ethical responsibility, while the high-level entity bears the secondary responsibility. fourth, the principle of shared responsibility. besides the principle of high-level responsibility, news www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 123 published by scholink inc. ethical responsibility in the intelligent era should also adhere to the principle of shared responsibility. this principle implies that in news activities, if various entities are interconnected in their participation, regardless of where the main responsibility for ethical misconduct lies, all entities involved in news production should bear a portion of the ethical responsibility. while the principle of high-level responsibility emphasizes management, the principle of shared responsibility underscores that each communication entity should uphold their professional ethics during joint news production activities, oversee the entire news activity, supervise other parts in their own section, and avoid a situation where knowing that other entities’ behavior may lead to ethical misconduct, they don’t supervise because they don’t need to bear the responsibility. 4.2 the survival of communication individuals and professional ethics as independent individuals in the communication entity, they simultaneously belong to three relationships in news activities: the social survival relationship, employment relationship, and professional relationship. each of these relationships demands differently from the individual. in the social survival relationship, the requirement for the individual is to be responsible for their social roles, which includes citizen and family roles. this responsibility manifests as civic morality, where everyone belongs to a state and their family, and they need to fulfill their civic duties. in the employment relationship, the standard for the individual is the employment contract and contract ethics, where the individual needs to abide by the contract stipulations and obey the employer’s arrangement during employment. in the professional relationship, professional ethics regulate the individual’s behavior, requiring practitioners to adhere to professional norms when working. from a single perspective, regardless of what role the individual plays, its standards are normative. but in reality, when several roles are imposed on a specific individual simultaneously, conflicts may arise among various ethical standards. when an individual is employed by a platform operation company in the capacity of a communication entity, when the business they handle has ethical risks, we often require practitioners to regulate their behavior and avoid ethical misconduct issues but fail to propose an effective solution. as an employee, the practitioner works according to the employer’s request. when the work content involves ethical risks, we should not ask the practitioner to sacrifice their personal interest to try to prevent the problem from occurring. if the practitioner is aware of the problem but cannot prevent its occurrence due to their family responsibilities and employment relationship, we should not require the practitioner, as an employee, to bear all the responsibility. however, the current handling of such problems often involves dealing with frontline practitioners. as mentioned earlier, high-level entities, as managers, decision-makers, and beneficiaries, should always bear the primary responsibility. otherwise, ethical constraints will only remain on paper and can’t fundamentally constrain. however, this does not mean that individual practitioners bear no responsibility. whether they are professional journalists, professional operators, or computer engineers, they should comply with their professional ethics. here, compliance manifests as an obligation and responsibility to use their professional knowledge to judge whether the work they handle carries ethical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 124 published by scholink inc. risks. if there are risks, they have the responsibility to alert the managers. 4.3 coordinated management by high-level entities within communication entities, whether it’s the platform’s evasion of responsibility or the evasion of liability through disclaimers, the core issue is that high-level entities have not assumed the primary responsibility. as managers within the communication entities, it’s crucial for high-level entities to coordinate the management of responsibilities, bear the main responsibilities, clarify the platform’s obligation to warn, and adopt various modes of co-management. first, platforms have an obligation to warn. internet news platforms have always touted themselves as merely intermediaries for news, not producers of news, which often leads to individual producers being blamed for any ethical responsibility. although platforms are regulated by relevant departments, penalties often occur when legal issues arise or in cases of serious ethical issues. for less severe ethical problems, platforms usually do not assume responsibility but only deal with individual authors. plus, under the “platform + individual author publishing” model, a large part of the news ethical responsibility is shouldered by individual authors. this has given internet news platforms the illusion that they have “no ethical responsibility.” however, this is not the case. as crucial intermediaries in news activities, internet news platforms shoulder important responsibilities in collecting and distributing news. whether the news displayed on the internet news platform is actively published by individual authors, or the platform automatically scrapes it through a system, the platform has an inalienable management responsibility. this management responsibility isn’t just about dealing with individual authors or news content in a simplistic sense, but the platform has the duty to warn individual authors and news media to avoid ethical misconduct before news publication and during news media scraping, and clearly inform them of potential punishment methods. secondly, establish the coexistence of multiple management models. regardless of how the platform acquires news, it cannot evade its management responsibilities. even when ethical responsibility is borne by individual authors or news media, internet news platforms still need to manage news producers. internally, internet news platforms are responsible for managing individual authors who publish news on their platforms, contract-signed authors, and the news content published on their platforms. externally, internet news platforms themselves do not establish norms; instead, they rely on industry norms established by the state to regulate communication entities and news content. in the external management model, although the platform does not establish norms, it still bears the responsibility for management. it needs to declare that communication entities must comply with industry norms established by the relevant state departments, call on communication entities to voluntarily comply, and provide links for reporting to the relevant departments. it’s worth noting that while some platforms independently use internal or external management, currently, for most large-scale internet news platforms, a combination of internal and external management is safer. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 125 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion the rapid evolution of digital news platforms in the intelligent era has significantly reshaped the landscape of news dissemination, challenging traditional notions of ethical responsibility among news communication entities. this exploration has delved into the complexities of the “platform + x” model, the use of disclaimers, and the critical need for clearly demarcated responsibilities to address ethical concerns effectively. as the boundaries between professional journalists and amateur content creators become increasingly blurred, the responsibility to uphold the integrity and credibility of news content has never been more paramount. the democratization of news production, facilitated by internet platforms, while enriching the media landscape with diverse voices, also introduces a fertile ground for misinformation and ethical lapses. the absence of traditional gatekeeping roles has underscored the urgent necessity for a robust framework that clearly defines the ethical obligations of all actors within the news ecosystem. our analysis suggests that establishing such a framework requires a nuanced approach that transcends legal compliance to embrace higher ethical standards. moreover, the discussion around disclaimers has highlighted a prevalent trend towards responsibility evasion, underscoring the need for news platforms to foster a culture of accountability. it is evident that disclaimers should not serve as a loophole for ethical responsibility but rather as a component of a comprehensive strategy to ensure the ethical dissemination of news. in this context, the principles of behavioral, causal, shared, and high-ranking responsibility offer a foundational guide for delineating ethical obligations in a manner that aligns with the dynamic and interconnected nature of modern news production and distribution. the challenges posed by the intelligent era call for a collective effort to redefine ethical standards in the news industry. this entails not only a commitment from individual content creators and platforms to uphold these standards but also a coordinated approach to manage ethical responsibilities effectively. as technology continues to advance, the ethical frameworks governing news communication must also evolve, ensuring that they remain relevant and effective in promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity. in light of these considerations, the path forward for news communication entities is marked by the imperative to navigate the ethical complexities of the digital age with foresight and responsibility. by fostering an environment where ethical norms are clearly defined and actively upheld, the news industry can continue to serve its critical role in society as a reliable source of information and a pillar of democratic engagement. achieving this balance between technological innovation and ethical integrity will be crucial in maintaining the trust and credibility of news in the face of rapidly advancing technologies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 6 no. 1, 2024 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(2010). on news ethics. beijing: people’s university of china press. advances in social science and culture issn 2640-9682 (print) issn 2640-9674 (online) vol. 7, no. 6, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 108 original paper gis-based spatial overlay analysis of jewelry resource distribution, trade routes, and cultural dissemination along the silk road yun wang1 1 center for the study civilization of goodness at zhejiang university, hangzhou, zhejiang, china received: august 29, 2025 accepted: november 09, 2025 online published: november 25, 2025 doi:10.22158/assc.v7n6p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v7n6p108 abstract the silk road was not just a road for carrying silk, but also a complex network which carried precious minerals from west asia, complex artifacts and diverse cultural expressions from various regions. the author uses advanced gis in this research to conduct comprehensive spatial overlay analysis on all the different jewelry resources, trading logistics, and cultural dissemination patterns across the eurasian landscape, ranging from han’s geopolitics in 2nd bc through to the mongol synthesis in 14th ad. this paper formed a powerful layered geodatabase with more than 300 archaeological places, digitized historical text documents, and current geological survey information. the paper proceeds to reconstruct the particular supply chains of important materials such as khotan nephrite jade, afghan lapis lazuli, and balti amber as well. we adopted intensive spatial analyses such as kde, viewpoint analysis and the lcp method are used to visualize and analyse the associations among constraints of terrain, source of oases water and the spatial aggregation area with high value of jewelry. the findings imply a clear relationship between some trade nodes and the mixing of jewelry designs, which seems to indicate that it was the “value” (i.e., gold and silver) of the jewelry, which could get through to far and rugged spots better than other goods. overlaying on this, the concept of a non-linear, non-constant form of cultural exchange—more like “radiation” from a central point, not the physical movement of ideas or people, but a nodal effect, where certain “hub” cities became centres for creating a hellenistic-persian-chinese blend before being sent off to outer areas. this work has produced an abstract set of numbers in space allowing us to think about material in the silky road of a story, closing the gap between the distribution of those materials to the geography of people. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 109 keywords silk road, gis spatial analysis, jewelry trade, cultural diffusion, historical geography, spatial overlay, least cost path 1. introduction studies of the silk road have long been dominated by the textual approach to the chronological texts and the typological approach to archaeological finds, which tend to regard the geographical space as a passive background but rarely an active determining factor of history. but it is in respect to the distribution of luxury goods, and especially jewelry, that we find a particularly unique and powerful perspective into the economic and cultural dynamics of pre-modern eurasia. jewelry was a near-perfect long distance exchange medium and carrier of intercultural messages due to its extremely high value to weight ratio, strength and extreme portability. the mining of raw materials such as nephrite jade, gold and rare gemstones had fixed geographic spaces due to real geological circumstances but the finished, crafted goods complex gold tiaras, carnelian pearls and lapis lazuli insertions were widespread, the cultural and technological languages of their creators embedded with them. to understand this entirely, it’s absolutely required to look past old school maps and use the power of geographic information systems (gis), which helps us study how the land from where different stuff comes from is connected with how hard it was to bring things from place to place, and why different groups of people like some stuff more than others. this paper seeks to integrate all these separate data sets into a single spatial framework that will allow a “deepmap” showing exactly how the geography dictated the passage of prestige objects and in turn how those objects themselves mapped the cultural geography of an earlier world (mu, zhang, & ren, 2021). gis applications in historical geography are a change in methods; making it possible for researchers to use space overlying analysis, where the patterns that the traditional linear historiography can’t see can be discovered (liu, 2017). using gps co-ordinates of the exact locations of known lodes of gold, silver, jade etc., working out the caloric costs and time taken to cross obstacles like the pamirs, the taklamakan desert and super-imposing the location-find spots of the different jewellery styles, we could reconstruct for the first time a “metabolic rate” for the silk road (yao, 2018). it is proposed here that the distribution of the jewelry was not arbitrary and that it was governed by the function “distance-decay” which had been largely modified by factors of political stability, religious pilgrimage, and cultural affinity. we'll look at how the physical routes were very strict about the location of water sources and where it was possible to get across mountains by boat, directing the flow of artistic ideas in very particular places and making areas where east asia, central asia, and western designs mixed together in brand new ways. it studies from the time the han dynasty conquered and began to expand its territory to the western regions until the peak period of the mongol empire-these were the most prosperous and active periods of transcontinental exchange. via such multi-scalar consideration, the paper attempts to prove that trade of jewelry was of a principal cause which led to a united eurasian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 110 visual culture, with the physical geography of the silk road acting as both support and shaper of this unity. 2. theoretical framework and geodatabase construction when it comes to method, the foundation of this research is very much grounded within the idea of spatial history as well as archaeological predictive modeling, which is why the creation of a solid rdbms tied into the likes of arcgis pro was critical. the foundation of this research consists of a self-developed multi-layered geodatabase. the database categorizes the spatial data into three main vectors: resource layer, route layer, and culture layer. resource layer takes the synthesis of modern geological survey and historical mining records as its foundation and determines the exact location of long-ago mining grounds on earth for nephrite jade, lapis lazuli (enisi, 2024), turquoise, gold, and silver. this layer also makes a distinction between primary deposits (mines) and secondary deposits (riverbeds). because this distinction was so important for technological and seasonal extraction methods in antiquity, it is useful here to differentiate. route layer takes high resolution digital elevation models (dem) and the hydrologic information to simulate caravan’s available travel routing, taking the physiological limits of pack animals such as the bactrian camel and the inevitability of water access daily into account (zhang, 2019). and finally the culture layer—it’s the catalog that contains all of the excavated jewelry items from more than 300 sites along the silk road. each item is coded in terms of materials used, making technique like filigree or granulation or cloisonné, and what the imagery on them looks like. such strict data categorization can enable the use of complex spatial questions which would single out such a particular greek gold working process and study its movements in relation to the physical trade route (yang, 2021). the main problem of the spatial analysis is the inherent heterogeneous nature and fragmentation of the archaeologist data, which need to be standardized for use as statistical tools in gis. to do so, we use a “certainty weighting” system—archaeological excavations that have been verified and have stratigraphy are given more spatial precision value than an approximate location based on vague historical text or museum objects that are unprovenanced. the analysis employs kde to find spots where artifacts gather a lot, and it uses buffer analysis to find how much of an area is around big trading places like samarkand, khotan, and dunhuang. additionally we can also make deductions about the probable paths traders of high value low weight goods like gems might have taken using our viewmark analysis and our cost surface modelling so these might well have been very different routes from those followed when hauling bulk goods like grain or ceramic products. this digital reconstruction makes the silk road from a line to a real volumetric space of interaction. and the resulting overlay gives a visualization of the cultural friction of the terrain showing how mountains and deserts did not simply act as passive barriers but as an active filter which selected the transport of high value culture like jewelry and filtered out low value goods. so the geog database becomes a kind of tool for testing historical ideas against the physical land. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 111 table 1. geolocation and attribute classification of major jewelry raw material sources source id material type modern location geological origin primary historical era of extraction spatial confidence (1-10) res-01 nephrite jade kunlun mountains (khotan) riverbed / primary deposit han to tang dynasties 9 res-02 lapis lazuli badakhshan (afghanistan) metamorphic contact zone bronze age to medieval 10 res-03 turquoise nishapur (iran) / hami (china) hydrothermal veins sassanid to yuan dynasties 8 res-04 amber baltic region (via steppe) sedimentary deposits roman to byzantine periods 7 res-05 gold altai mountains / tianshan placer / quartz veins scythian to mongol periods 8 res-06 ruby/spinels badakhshan / pamir region marble matrix tang to timurid dynasties 7 3. spatial characteristics of resource endowments the distribution of raw material of jewelry shows a rigid center-periphery model that affects trade flows. unlike other types of manufactured goods, high end jewelry had a raw material that was determined and geographic (zhang & pan, 2020). gis analysis shows that the essential stuffs tended to be inside the harsher outer area around the key agrarian empire. for instance, nephrite jade was confined to the kunlun mountains and khotan, creating a unidirectional eastward flow that drove the han dynasty’s expansion into the tarim basin. the main source of the old days lapis lazuli is also limited to the sar-i sang mines in badakhshan. therefore, a finding of lapis lazuli in chang’an or egypt implies a link to this one point of geology, standing in as a way of linking together over great distance. overlaid on top of historical political boundaries, this makes the strategic importance of the silk road’s “middle corridor” immediately apparent (xu, yue, & li, 2025). control of the tarim basin was vital to ensure control of these status-defining resources. metallo-resources like gold were much more widely spread along this “steppe-gold-line” than the supply-line of those rare gem stones. the last one was incredibly fragile and often exceeded 3 000km! this meant there was an elaborate logistical chain where the further something was from its source the more it was worth. the data tells us raw materials weren’t often senten masse all the way to their final place in a long line but rather passed over into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 112 stations for some added value before moving on, forming a kind of money-debt network throughout the entire land. 4. reconstruction of trade routes and logistical cost analysis reconstruction of the trade route needs a “least cost path” (lcp) analysis based on topography. we used dem and water resource data to create a cost-surface model which calculated the calorific and temporal costs of a caravan journey. it also shows that the “southern” and “northern” routes, were mathematical necessities based on how far a camel caravan could travel between water source. high value jewelry trade required these routes for both security and infrastructure (qian, 2025). historical fortresses overlay with our lcp model have a 90% correlation, meaning that routes for precious goods were extremely militarize, a cost included in the end price. there were few deviations from the lcp, they came about due to conflict. topographical analysis emphasizes the “bottleneck” such as the wakhan corridor and jade gate, trade flows compress, so do the material cultures. in table 2 it is apparent that the logistical costs show that steppe and oasis routes had comparable distances but had differing terrain and security costs. the transporting of precious and fragile jewelry required routes with caravanserais. thus finished jewelry traded mainly within safe oasis networks, while raw material use may have included riskier steppe passages. it seems there is a dual-logistics system: one for raw luxury goods and another for refined artistic products. table 2. logistical cost and terrain analysis of major jewelry trade segments route segment primary terrain type approx. distance (km) estimated travel time (caravan) water availability index (1-5) terrain friction value (base 1.0) chang'an to dunhuang loess plateau / corridor 1,700 55-65 days 4 (high) 1.2 dunhuang to khotan (south) desert margin / gravel 1,500 45-55 days 2 (low) 1.8 dunhuang to turpan (north) desert / oasis 1,200 35-45 days 3 (moderate) 1.5 kashgar to samarkand (pamir) high mountain pass 900 30-40 days 3 (moderate) 3.5 samarkand to merv semi-arid steppe 750 25-30 days 4 (high) 1.1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 113 merv to baghdad alluvial plain / desert 1,400 40-50 days 3 (moderate) 1.3 5. cultural dissemination and stylistic evolution jewelry traveling the silk road also carried along its symbols and techniques as a sort of “cultural diffusion wave”; once typological data were overlaid on trade routes, there was “zonal hybridisation” where styles were morphed through cultural zones. take hellenistic granulation techniques for instance, modified hellenistic granulation technology from central eurasian oasis region was transmitted through the tarim basin into chinese dynasties. spacial analysis indicated that the highest amount of stylistic adoption occurred at the “nodes” (oasis cities), and decreased the further away from those nodes (hinterlands). thus corroborating a nodal transmission model. oasis cities worked like cultural airlocks, rethinking foreign things for local markets. hybridization can be seen in iconography. the gis “culture layer” shows a superimposition of buddhist motifs over sassanian persian ones. sogdiana also has an important cluster of jewelry mixing such traditions as these rings, greek geometric with chinese jade set. table 3 shows this gradient; while the materials flow east-west, the stylistic influence is usually both directions. tang dynasty’s desire for lapis lazuli, at the same time when there was central asian belt ornamentation being brought in; this links the importation of materials to cultural identity. jewelry was like “mobile geography”, which enables elites to display their relationship with faraway places and take part in a cosmopolitan eurasian culture (mo, qiu, zhang et al., 2014). table 3. typological distribution and stylistic hybridization of jewelry artifacts region / node dominant material primary manufacturing technique key iconographic motifs cultural influence vector central plains (chang'an/luoyang) jade, gold, silver casting, chasing, jade carving dragons, phoenixes, clouds indigenous chinese with steppe influence hexi corridor (dunhuang/wuwei) gold, turquoise filigree, inlay buddhist deities, floral scrolls chinese-buddhist hybrid tarim basin (khotan/kucha) jade, garnet, gold granulation, cloisonné hellenistic figures, gandharan art greco-buddhist / central asian transoxiana (samarkand/bukhara) silver, lapis, repoussé, engraving winged lions, pearl roundels sassanian persian / sogdian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 114 carnelian iranian plateau (nishapur/rayy) turquoise, silver niello, hammering fire altars, royal hunts sassanian / islamic transition eastern mediterranean (antioch) glass, amber, pearls cameo, chain-work mythological scenes, crosses roman / byzantine 6. integrated spatial overlay and correlation analysis the conclusion of the study is an integrated overlay analysis performed by the mathematic superposition of resource distribution, trade route cost, and cultural artefact density layer, quantifying the interrelationship between them. inside the gis package, we applied a multi-criteria evaluation method for calculating the spatial correlation indices of its nearness to main trade routes and its variation in jewelry. the outcomes are depicted in table 4. a highly positive correlation ($r^2>0,8$) can be observed between “nodality index” of a city (which is a measure for the connectivity) and “stylistic entropy” of the jewellery found there. which makes it clear that the most linked cities weren’t just places to go through, but active melting pots for creation wherein innovation sprouted from the clash of many different customs. and there are distinct areas of influence that can be seen in the analysis, like the sassanian gold working style which reaches about 500km east of the main trading sites and then merges into the distinct style area of the tarim basin. this gives us a way to measure the “reach” of the cultural empires. this “cultural fade” happens more sharply in the mountains but more slowly on the open steppes: this is to say that terrain played a part in retaining cultural distinctive traits, as it limited how often people had to encounter. perhaps the biggest piece of insight that came out of our kernel density estimation was this “anomaly cluster”—sites where there’s a lot of high value jewelry present but in places that are very far from each other, very expensive (in terms of cost), low-accessible (in terms of travel) landmasses. these groups almost always line up with significant religious places like the mogao caves or the buddhist stupa’s of the gandhara regions. this kind of spatial superposition shows that religious pilgrimage roads were just another set of routes to go along with commerce trading, these paths drove the motion of particular “holy” supplies needed by rituals and pictures in the churches. the overlay analysis then corrects the pure economic determinism of the least cost path model with a “culture attraction” variable. when we add the religious layer on top of commercial layer, our jewelry distribution model becomes more accurate by 25% or more, showing that spiritual value has equal impact on logistics than commercial profit. final integrated map shows the silk road not as a line, but a series of pulsating intensity fields showing the flow of jewelry lighting up the complex vascular system of eurasian exchange. this shows that the silk road was a “complex adaptive system” which constantly readjusted the spatially distributed value due to economic, geographical, and cultural conditions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 115 table 4. spatial correlation indices of jewelry distribution and trade variables spatial variable a spatial variable b correlation coefficient ($r$) statistical significance ($p$-value) interpretation of overlay distance to trade route (main axis) artifact density (jewelry) -0.82 < 0.01 strong inverse relationship: density drops sharply as distance from route increases. city connectivity (nodality) stylistic diversity index +0.88 < 0.01 high connectivity hubs result in greater hybridization of styles. terrain roughness (slope) transport of raw material -0.65 < 0.05 raw materials prefer flatter routes; finished goods tolerate rougher terrain. proximity to religious sites presence of “seven treasures” +0.79 < 0.01 religious centers act as magnets for specific ritual materials (lapis, coral). distance from resource source artifact size / weight -0.91 < 0.01 very strong “distance-decay”: artifacts become smaller/finer further from source. 7. conclusion this research shows the transformation power of putting geographic information system together with history and archaeology inquiry to recreate the complicated dynamics of silk road jewelry trade. through the use of spatial overlay analysis moving from the qualitative to the quantitative we begin to see that the distribution pattern is one that is influenced primarily be geological endowments, logistical difficulties and cultural filtering. the building of the multi-layered geodatabase shows us that just having a fixed location for things like the khotan jade and afghani lapis lazuli sets the basic east-west direction for trade, but what really controls when and where trade happens is the particular shapes of the areas, the oases and passes, along those paths. and “least cost path” analysis gave a physical reality to the trade routes which helped explain as to why it was so expensive and time-consuming to trade these luxury items; thus, explaining the high status of these goods and how they maintained their worth over thousands of kilometers. i have shown that the geography of the silk road was not a blank page, as it was a rigid framework which forced trade down certain channels. it was a high tension zone where culture, commerce and geology met also, cultural overlay analysis has updated our view of how artistic styles spread. we discovered that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc advances in social science and culture vol. 7 no. 6, 2025 published by scholink inc. 116 the silk road was a sort of nodal network of hybridization, wherein specific cities would act like cultural transformers, taking in some styles and then passing them on. when it comes to links between religious places and anomalous concentrations of high-value materials, we find that the “valuability” of a piece of jewelry was frequently of religious or spiritual importance as much as it was economic, which creates an alternative logic of distribution driven by belief rather than profit. in conclusion, it can be said that jewelry should not be regarded as mere passive commodities on the silk road but as active agents for the organization of cultural spaces in eurasia. the gis-based process described here could serve as a template for subsequent digital humanities research; it implies that the history of how people have interacted with each other may have been carved into the very physical geography of the earth, recoverable when we reconstruct those old digital maps and spatialities. future work will need to include more temporal dynamism and move past period maps to time-lapse simulations of trade flows as trade routes change through the geopolitical landscape of the silk road and also grow the database to include isotopic analysis of gemstones to refine the provenance of the resource layer. reference mu, n. x., zhang, l. x., & ren, h. n. 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